Chuck Mindenhall

1 day ago | themith.com | Chuck Mindenhall

By Chuck Mindenhall June 4, 2025 I can remember back in 2013 I was invited to speak at the MIT Sloan Analytics conference in Boston, as part of a panel comprised of MMA minds. It was to be me, Luke Thomas, Reed Kuhn (who’d authored the book “Fightnomics”), and Jordan Breen, a collection of names that felt entirely eclectic for the purpose of analytics…yet somehow perfect for a sport formed by so many disenfranchised players.

6 days ago | sports.yahoo.com | Chuck Mindenhall

Now that we’re some five-and-a-half years removed from Zabit Magomedsharipov’s last fight, I’m starting to believe he’s serious about not coming back. Dude was 29 years old when he walked away, undefeated in the UFC (6-0), flagged as a future champion. The fact that he was an uprush of a human being at 6-foot-1, 145 pounds — and unusually drawn, a fellow who looked like he’d seen some s*** in Laos back in the day — only added to the mystery that now follows him wherever he goes. What if?

1 week ago | sports.yahoo.com | Chuck Mindenhall

The first time Erin Blanchfield appeared in a main event was a little over two years ago, when she headlined a UFC Fight Night card against Jessica Andrade at the Apex. You might remember how that one went down. Andrade came out headhunting until Blanchfield shot for her first takedown early in the second round, immediately took side control, then sunk a rear-naked choke before the commentators could really get into the meat of their notes. That’s when Blanchfield first arrived.

2 weeks ago | sports.yahoo.com | Chuck Mindenhall

Not to get all nostalgic, but Tom Aspinall won the interim heavyweight title on November 11, 2023. That’s 558 days ago, as of Thursday. The newborns that came into the world that day are now waddling around and speaking in full sentences, saying things like “more milk” and “s*** or get off the pot, Jon Jones.”In less than 17 years, they will be eligible to vote. You wonder if Jones will still be the UFC’s heavyweight champion by then. AdvertisementIt's not that Jones is on the lam.

2 weeks ago | sports.yahoo.com | Chuck Mindenhall

It has been fun to debate the many motivations and meanings to Islam Makhachev moving up to welterweight, but one thing is certain. The place he’s headed? It’s one of the toughest blocks we’ve ever seen. The 170-pound division is teeming with monsters. Experienced bad-asses. Trigger-happy young guns. Dudes whose noses hang on their faces like war-torn apostrophes. Surely fighting Ilia Topuria couldn’t be all that daunting. You don’t duck a bike-rack fistfight to charge a battlefield.