UFC will make donation to aid Australian bushfire recovery

UFC president Dana White said Friday that the organization would make a $250,000 donation toward relief efforts for the wildfires in Australia.

The UFC has hosted 15 events in Australia, including UFC 193 in Melbourne in 2015, when a crowd of 56,214 watched as Holly Holm handed Ronda Rousey her first loss.

Featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski is from New South Wales.

Donations can be made at redcross.org.au/ufc.

“The people of Australia are facing a long battle to overcome these fires and to rebuild their lives, and they need our help,” White said on a video.

McGregor goes prime time

Perhaps the only thing more anticipated than Conor McGregor’s return to the cage Jan. 18 against Donald Cerrone at T-Mobile Arena is the prefight news conference for the welterweight showdown.

The UFC 246 news conference will be Wednesday at the Palms and open to the public. Cerrone and the notoriously late-running McGregor are scheduled to hit the stage at 5 p.m.

It will be McGregor’s only public appearance, as Thursday’s media day will be closed.

O’Malley to return in March

Rising bantamweight star Sean O’Malley is expected to return to action for the first time in almost two years after accepting a six-month suspension from the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

O’Malley has tested positive for ostarine several times since August 2019, but USADA announced Thursday that those instances won’t be treated as separate failures.

USADA found no evidence of intentional ingestion, and the testing is consistent with residual amounts still being present in his system.

“His two positives, as well as additional positives collected after Aug. 12, 2019, were treated as a single violation because the estimated concentration of ostarine in the urine samples was consistent with ingestion prior to Aug. 29, 2019, the date O’Malley received notification of his second violation,” USADA announced in a statement.

“In addition, the pattern of low urinary ostarine concentrations observed in multiple samples provided by O’Malley was consistent with exposure to ostarine as a contaminant.”

O’Malley has worked with USADA to document his food and supplement consumption in an effort to show that it wasn’t intentional.

The undefeated 25-year-old was first pulled from his UFC 229 fight in October 2018 for a potential violation of the anti-doping policy and subsequently had hip surgery. He eventually served a six-month suspension from the Nevada Athletic Commission.

O’Malley was to return in July, but failed another test for ostarine ahead of the issues in August. His suspension is retroactive to Aug. 6.

He will fight Jose Alberto Quinonez at UFC 248 on March 7 at T-Mobile Arena.

Friendly foe

Las Vegan Roxanne Modafferi might have solidified her reputation as one of the UFC’s best sports.

Modafferi, who will fight rising flyweight star Maycee Barber at UFC 246, found out that the fighters’ hotel rooms in Las Vegas only have showers and not bathtubs.

Modafferi remembered a conversation with Barber in which Barber mentioned that she preferred to cut weight in the bathtub as opposed to the sauna or some other method.

So Modafferi reached out to Barber so she could make other arrangements. Barber posted the message on Instagram.

“She’s so sweet,” Barber wrote. “But the past is never ready for THE FUTURE.”

More MMA: Follow at CoveringTheCage.com

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.