The popular conspiracy theory is that the UFC knew about this a few days ago, quickly decided they had to cancel but they didn't want a public spat with a sovereign nation. So they asked BJ Penn if he could play along by giving them an injury they can point to as the official reason (maybe use a really minor training injury that he was going to fight through).

100% speculation, but it makes sense, because its awfully convenient that BJ Penn was "injured" at about the same time they had to figure out a reason to pull the plug.

USADA has decided to just give Nate Diaz a public warning for vaping CBD after his fight. Diaz mistakenly thought the in-competition period ended after his post-fight test (it ends 6 hours after the fight), so he technically violated the drug policy but since his post-fight test came back clean showing he wasn't fighting while altered, they decided not to do anything more.

I hadn't seriously looked at this weekend's full card until now. For some reason I assumed it was going to be weak since the UFC had to give Bisping his Euro card right before UFC 205, but now that I'm looking at it, this PPV is actually really sweet. Even if you dismiss the main event as Bisping's vanity victory lap (but Hendo can still knock him out so who knows), the rest of the card is really good. Its not UFC 205 (please stay healthy everyone), and if you are a super casual 2-3 times a year fan this card is maybe not interesting, but if you are a fight fan, then compared to the average PPV, the card this weekend is probably worth paying for.

Schedule (all times central):

Friday

EFN 53 (Day 1) (Fightpass) 11 AM - A 2 day event? Whatever, this is eurorussian fighting, its probably not going to be good, watch only if you have nothing better to do.

Also, WSOF and LFC both have fights, I don't have their channels on my cable, so my caring stopped there. If you do though, then its probably better than this EFN shit.

Saturday

EFN 53 (Day 2) (Fightpass) 11AM - See above, watch or don't watch. Might be amusing, probably not good.

UFC 204 (Fightpass/FS1/PPV) 5:30 pm, 7pm on FS1, PPV begins at 9pm

Sunday

There's a Shooto event in Japan, but its some kind of amateur competition and probably not streamed or televised, so lol. Nothing today, go watch football. The Chiefs are on a bye, so relax and watch other football teams for a change.

The WSOF event is here in KC. I'm going and it should be good. Couple of hometown boys getting down. Jason High is under rated, David Branch is really good and Justin Gaethje should be in the UFC soon.

That Bisping Hendo fight was ****ing incredible. I had it 2-2-?, total tossup depending on how you score round 5 (and also how you score round 2).

That was a great way for Henderson to end his career even if he did fall short.

Hendo punched himself out that first round.

He looked dead tired after that.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I was told by someone close to SBG, McGregor was allegedly knocked out cold in sparring today; possible broken nose, shaky to his feet.</p>&mdash; #Dizz © (@TalkMMA) <a href="https://twitter.com/TalkMMA/status/785507445967822848">October 10, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

McGregor's hearing with the NSAC for the bottle-throwing incident was today (Diaz's hearing was delayed for a future meeting.

$150k fine (5% of his purse), and 50 hours of community service. No suspension, so he can fight at UFC 205.

MMA media is reporting that Rousey vs Nunes is close to being final for UFC 207 on December 30

edit: Dana White will be on the Herd at 1:30pm CT for "a huge announcement". I assume this is it.

Dana White also said that Conor McGregor never wants to fight in Nevada again because of that "insane" fine.

Greg Hardy wants to pursue a career in MMA

Lovely. Hopefully he goes to a B-level MMA promotion, gets beat up, and quits.

Ha...remember when Johnny Morton tried MMA?

That shit was funny as hell. Came out like the Tasmanian devil from Looney Tunes, then BOOM, goodnight Johnny Morton.

Haha I remember that. I watched that thinking 'man, Johnny looks jacked as ****, he might kill this guy' then he proceeds to get ko'd in 15 seconds.

Not sure when his hearing is going to take place, but this is Nate Diaz's written defense to the NAC

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cun86zsVYAI_9e5.jpg