Ige (19-9 MMA, 11-8 UFC) meets former two-division Bellator champion Patricio Freire (36-8 MMA, 0-1 UFC) on Saturday's UFC 318 (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) main card at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. Ige explains that he's been wanting to fight "Pitbull" for a while.

If we’re lucky here in the combat domain, there are a couple of times a year the fight world explodes with options. This weekend is one of those.

UFC 318 continues with a fight between Kevin Holland and Daniel Rodriguez. Check out our UFC odds series for our Holland-Rodriguez prediction.

Michael Johnson doesn't appreciate the way Daniel Zellhuber called him out. Zellhuber (15-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC) posted a video on Instagram of Johnson (23-19 MMA, 15-15 UFC) getting knocked out by Josh Emmett and Diego Ferreira,

Yes — it’s legal to place bets on UFC 318 in California using internationally licensed sportsbooks. These sites are based offshore, operate under global gaming licenses, and accept U.S. players without restriction.

New Orleans rapper Alfred Banks celebrates his birthday on Saturday, July 19, with a show at Gasa Gasa. He’ll be joined by La Reezy, who recently has been catching some national attention, and gifted lyricist Kaye the Beast. Music starts at 9 p.m., and tickets are $19.29 via gasagasanola.com.

NEW ORLEANS – Paulo Costa has seen better days, but Roman Kopylov still considers him to be at elite level.