Welcome to Midnight Mania!
Let’s start the night off by taking a look back over the three biggest stories of Thursday, April 2, 2026.
- Former UFC champion TJ Dillashaw reveals embarrassingly low purse for first title win: As I said last night, those TUF contracts are truly awful.
- It’s on! Here’s UFC’s counter-programming answer to Netflix MMA’s ‘Rousey vs. Carano’ card on May 16: Arnold Allen vs. Melquizael Costa is an awesome fight, but otherwise you have to give it to the Rousey vs. Carano card.
- Dethroned! Heavyweight champ Tom Aspinall loses long-standing UFC record to unranked lightweight: Terrance McKinney is simultaneously a special talent and not particularly good fighter. We haven’t seen that in a while!
Insomnia
Bruna Brasil didn’t receive her pink slip in the mail but in a fan’s Instagram comment. The UFC really isn’t big on traditional communications channels!
I almost got April Fool’d a day later, as the below
post is fake. Still, if anybody in the history of humanity is well-suited for Power Slap … It’s Roy “Big Country” Nelson.
Honestly, Ethyn Ewing’s return is the most exciting part of UFC Vegas 115.
Arman Tsarukyan is hanging out with Clavicular, the looks-maxxing influencer who I find to be both insane and fascinating (read more here).
Chris Duncan’s range work really looked great against Mateusz Rebecki in his career-best showing (in my opinion).
Maybe I’m biased because I have to write columns about fight predictions, but I don’t see how Melquizael Costa did anything wrong by respectfully predicting Jon Jones to defeat Alex Pereira. “Poatan” should chill!
Turki Alalshikh claps back at the haters:
Who’s buying?!?
Slips, rips, and KO clips
Listen to the sound of the punches at the end of the clip.
Lead hand uppercut KO is such a slick shot.
Not quite Jorge Masvidal vs. Ben Askren … but not far off either!
Random Land
The indirect path of the Artemis II rocket.
Midnight Music: Jangle pop, 1988
Check out the Maniacs Unmask 2026 post in The Feed!
Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.
