UFC 235 is looking to be the biggest card of the first half of 2019 and on Thursday we got the card’s first press conference.
In attendance was the light heavyweight and welterweight champions Jon “Bones” Jones and Tyron Woodley. Of course, so were their opponents in Anthony “Lionheart” Smith and “The Nigerian Nightmare” Kamaru Usman.
Also at the presser was the UFC debuting “Funky” former Bellator and ONE Championship champion Ben Askren and former UFC welterweight champion “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler.
As one can imagine, the combination of all these personalities made for some fun exchanges.
And last but not least on the panel were the bantamweights Pedro Munhoz and former champion Cody Garbrandt who were rather cordial with one another. Especially compared to the welterweights.
At the beginning of the UFC 235 presser, Askren shared that Usman “threatened” him backstage which lead to some banter. On top of that, the two men in the title fight shared a lengthy back and forth at one point thus showing how much they want the win come March 2.
Unfortunately, we also had the news broken from UFC President Dana White that the bantamweight bout between Holly Holm and Aspen Ladd is now off.
The full card along with the fighters’ first staredowns can be seen below.
- Light Heavyweight – 205lbs: (C)Jon Jones vs. Anthony Smith
- Welterweight – 170lbs: (C)Tyron Woodley vs. Kamaru Usman
- Welterweight: Robbie Lawler vs. Ben Askren
- Bantamweight – 135lbs: Cody Garbrandt vs. Pedro Munhoz
- Featherweight – 145lbs: Jeremy Stephens vs. Zabit Magomedsharipov
- Light Heavyweight: Ovince Saint Preux vs. Misha Cirkunov
- Bantamweight: Alejandro Pérez vs. Yadong Song
- Strawweight – 115lbs: Tecia Torres vs. Weili Zhang
- Bantamweight: Thomas Almeida vs. Marlon Vera
- Welterweight: Diego Sanchez vs. Mickey Gall
- Middleweight – 185lbs: Edmen Shahbazyan vs. Charles Byrd
- Bantamweight: Gina Mazany vs. Macy Chiasson
- Strawweight: Polyana Viana vs. Hannah Cifers
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 1/31/2019