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UFC 309 was not the most event pay-per-view of the year, but it saw Jon Jones dominate the octagon once again. The pay-per-view card made history and saw two veterans of the sport retire on the same night. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Conor McGregor admitted under oath that he did partake in using cocaine.
Here are today's top combat sports updates, presented by Sportskeeda MMA's News Roundup.
Stipe Miocic and Damon Jackson retire at UFC 309
After a decorated professional fighting career spanning over a decade and a half, Stipe Miocic hung up his gloves after losing to Jon Jones at UFC 309. He announced his retirement while speaking with Joe Rogan minutes after suffering a spinning backkick TKO in the main event fight.
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Take a look at Stipe Miocic's retirement announcement below:
Miocic wasn't the only fighter to call it quits at the event. A fellow veteran Damon Jackson, who debuted in the UFC in 2014, also retired from MMA. Jackson has fought the likes of Ilia Topuria, Dan Ige, and Alexander Hernandez in the promotion. He took off his gloves and left them at the center of the octagon after tapping out to Jim Miller's guillotine choke in the first round.
UFC 309 turned out to be a rather profitable event for the company. According to the numbers revealed by Dana White in the post-fight press conference, the pay-per-view card raked in a live gate of over $16.6 million with a 20,200-strong New York crowd at Madison Square Garden. It is the second-biggest gate in MSG history after Conor McGregor-led UFC 205 and the fourth-biggest in the history of the promotion.
Read more UFC 309-related stats and records here.
Conor McGregor confesses to cocaine use in ongoing court case
Conor McGregor admitted to taking drugs on the second day of being cross-examined in the High Court civil trial stemming from the lawsuit filed by Nikita Hand. McGregor and another man, James Lawrence, are being sued by Hand for alleged rape at the penthouse suite of the Beacon Hotel in Dublin on Dec. 9, 2018.
McGregor denied the rape charges but confessed that he had been physically involved with Hand that night. He claimed that it was consensual on both sides. According to the Irish Mirror, he also admitted he took cocaine with Hand and her friend Danielle Kealy in the car on the way to the hotel. He added that the drugs did not belong to him:
"There was a small bag of cocaine present around the Krystle nightclub. Not much. There was cocaine present in the vehicle prior to that."
Lawrence also supported McGregor's claim by stating that the drug did not come from the fighter's house.
Read the full report here.
Jon Jones enters an elite club featuring Daniel Cormier and two others
Jon Jones and his arch-rival Daniel Cormier do not have much in common, but they both now are in an elite group of four fighters to have accomplished a major feat.
Jones and Cormier, along with Henry Cejudo and Amanda Nunes, are the only two-division champions to successfully defend their titles in both weight classes. Jones is currently on a 20-fight unbeaten streak, the longest in UFC history, and just won his 16th career title fight in the promotion.
While fans do like to make fun of Dana White's relentless pound-for-pound claims about Jones, it is hard to deny his status as one of the sport's all-time greats.
