mixed

Former two-time champion loses his fourth straight bout after being stopped by Pyfer in the second round.

Joe Pyfer sent former Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight champion ‌Israel Adesanya back to the drawing board in Saturday’s UFC Fight Night headliner in ⁠Seattle, stopping Adesanya ⁠at 4:18 of the second round to cap the night.

Before the technical knockout (TKO) finish, both fighters exchanged their best punches in a stand-up battle until a Pyfer (16-3 MMA) takedown signalled the beginning ⁠of the end.

“I just have this mentality where I don’t care; I’m going to search and destroy,” Pyfer said, following the stoppage, securing the finish in top control.

Adesanya (24-6 MMA), fighting out of New Zealand, has not won a ⁠bout since regaining middleweight gold in April 2023 at UFC 287, and confirmed he has no plans to retire.

“I’m just going to keep going and going and going,” Adesanya said.

Grasso dominates Barber in rematch

A rematch five years in the making commenced at flyweight as former champion Alexa Grasso made short work of Maycee Barber with a TKO stoppage at 2:42 of the ‌opening round. The Mexican used a left hook to down Barber before jumping on top of her immediately as the referee stepped in.

The two first met in February 2021, with Grasso earning a decision. Grasso (17-5-1 MMA) snapped a two-fight losing skid, whereas Barber (15-3 MMA) had not lost since the first meeting with Grasso, having won her previous seven fights.

In his final MMA fight, welterweight Michael Chiesa (20-7 MMA) had a hometown send-off as he submitted Niko Price (16-11 MMA) with a first-round rear-naked choke. Chiesa needed just 63 seconds ⁠to put a bow on his UFC career, one that spanned a decade-plus ⁠and included winning the 15th season of The Ultimate Fighter in June 2012.

Chiesa ended his UFC career at 15-7, while Price, who has been in the promotion for over a decade himself, now sits at 8-11, with two no contests in the Octagon and has ⁠dropped four straight fights.

The finishes were a theme on the night, as featherweight Lerryan Douglas (14-5 MMA) of Brazil needed 3:33 of the opening round to deliver ⁠a devastating TKO against Julian Erosa (31-13 MMA). Douglas has now won his ⁠last six in a row while Erosa continues to struggle at 9-9 in the UFC.

At middleweight, Yousri Belgaroui of the Netherlands scored a third-round TKO stoppage against Mansur Abdul-Malik by landing a perfectly timed knee to end the fight in a back-and-forth battle. Belgaroui (10-3 MMA) has ‌won five straight and remains undefeated in the UFC. Conversely, it was Abdul-Malik’s (9-1-1 MMA) first professional loss, as he had won seven of his 11 outings by KO/TKO.

The main card got under way in emphatic fashion in the ‌opener, ‌with lightweight Terrance McKinney needing just 24 seconds to dispatch Canadian Kyle Nelson with a series of punches following a head kick. McKinney (18-8 MMA) has won three of his last four, while Nelson (17-7-1 MMA) has lost two of his last three.

Movsar Evloev rallies after a point deduction against the unbeaten Lerone Murphy to win the contest in London.

Russia’s Movsar Evloev ‌overcame a point deduction for a foul to edge a majority ⁠decision win over ⁠Lerone Murphy at Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 270 at the O2 Arena, likely punching his ticket to a title fight against featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski ⁠in his next bout.

With the two fighters putting their undefeated records on the line to decide who will face the 37-year-old Australian Volkanovski for the belt, ⁠the bout turned into an intriguing clash of styles.

Evloev, who is known for his wrestling, tried to showcase his striking, while Murphy displayed some superb defensive work on the ground.

Murphy evaded the fearsome grappling attack of his Russian opponent for the ‌first two rounds of the five-round bout, using a selection of stiff right hands to keep him at bay. Evloev took the chance to exhibit some of the dangerous spinning strikes he has added to his repertoire since his last fight in December 2024.

Evloev finally managed to take the fight to the mat early in the third round, but Murphy was quickly ⁠back to his feet, uncorking a spinning back kick of ⁠his own shortly afterwards.

However, it was his opponent who finished the frame strongest with a big overhand right, followed up by a flurry of strikes.

His momentum was derailed somewhat when he landed ⁠a second kick to Murphy’s groin early in the fourth round, and referee Marc Goddard deducted a point from ⁠Evloev for the foul.

Knowing that the deduction could be ⁠decisive if the fight went to the judges’ scorecards, Evloev turned up his energy-sapping grappling attack in the fifth and final frame as he chased a finish, but again Murphy was able to ‌get back to his feet with relative ease.

Despite not really threatening to submit his opponent on the ground, it proved to be enough for the 32-year-old Evloev, ‌with ‌two of the judges scoring the fight 48-46 in his favour and the third scoring it a draw 47-47 after the point deduction was taken into account.

President Trump frequently contradicts himself, sometimes in the same speech, social media post or even sentence. On Friday, he sent a torrent of mixed signals about the Iran war that raise more questions about the direction of the conflict and his administration’s strategy.

Within a few hours, Trump said he was considering winding down the war, his administration confirmed it was sending more troops to the Middle East and, in an effort to lessen the economic influence on global energy markets, the United States lifted sanctions on some Iranian oil for the first time in decades — relieving some of the pressure that Washington traditionally has used as leverage.

The confusing combination of actions deepens a sense among Trump’s critics that there is no clear, long-term strategy for the war the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran. Now in its fourth week, the war remains on an unpredictable path and a credible endgame is unclear as the global economy is being roiled.

‘Winding down’ the war

After another rough day in the financial markets, Trump said Friday afternoon on his social media network: “We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East.”

Trump contended that the U.S. has adequately degraded Iranian naval, missile and industrial capacity and prevented Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

The president then suggested the U.S. could pull out of the conflict without stabilizing the Strait of Hormuz, the channel through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply travels. The strait has been ravaged by Iranian missile, drone and mine attacks during the war.

“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not!” Trump wrote. But, in another contradiction, he said the U.S. would help if asked, “but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated.”

While oil that traverses the strait is usually bound for Asia and other places rather than North America, the chaos still affects the United States. Oil is bought and sold globally, so a shortage in oil for Asian countries leads to bidding up prices on oil sold to companies in America too.

That fact, coupled with an Israeli strike on Iran’s gas fields and an Iranian retaliation that crippled a major terminal to ship liquefied natural gas from Qatar, helped tank U.S. equity markets Friday, with the S&P dropping 1.5%. There also was a sharp increase in U.S. fuel prices.

More troops to the war zone

Even as Trump said the U.S. was close to winding down the war, his administration announced it was sending three more warships to the Middle East with about 2,500 additional Marines. It was the second time in a week that the administration said it was deploying more forces to the war zone. The military says some 50,000 are supporting the war effort.

Trump has often said he has ruled out sending in ground troops, but not always, and his administration has hinted at a possible deployment of special forces or similar units.

The Marines being sent to the region are an expeditionary unit designed for quick amphibious landings, but their deployment does not mean a ground invasion is certain. Analysts have suggested the presence of U.S. forces on the ground may be needed to ultimately secure the strait.

The surge in troops came just a day after news emerged that the Pentagon was seeking an additional $200 billion from Congress to fund the war. That extraordinarily high figure does not suggest that the war was winding down.

Lifting some sanctions on Iran

The administration said it would lift sanctions on the sale of Iranian oil, provided it was already at sea as of Friday. The move was an attempt to help lower skyrocketing energy prices by allowing freer sale of oil that Iran has let pass through the strait. It also extends a financial lifeline to the Iranian government that Trump is targeting.

His administration has tried other methods to lower oil prices. It has tapped the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve and lifted sanctions on some Russian oil. Yet Brent crude remained at $112 per barrel Friday, and analysts say oil prices are likely to remain high for months regardless of the next steps in the war.

The Iranian oil eventually would have reached another country, but now the United States and its allies can bid on it as well, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote on X.

“At present, sanctioned Iranian oil is being hoarded by China on the cheap,” Bessent wrote. “By temporarily unlocking this existing supply for the world, the United States will quickly bring approximately 140 million barrels of oil to global markets, expanding the amount of worldwide energy and helping to relieve the temporary pressures on supply caused by Iran.”

While 140 million barrels may seem like a lot, that is only a couple of days’ worth of oil on the global market.

Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, a U.S. fuel-tracking service, said he does not expect the temporary suspension to have a major influence on gas prices. The de facto closure of the strait has a much greater effect, he said. “Prices will likely still continue to rise so long as the Strait remains silent,” De Haan said.

And the contradictions in the position were obvious in Bessent’s post announcing the move, which labeled Iran “the head of the snake for global terrorism.” He said the administration would take steps to prevent Tehran from cashing in on the sales, but it was unclear how that would be done.

Even among some Republicans, the contradictions triggered rare public skepticism.

“Bombing Iran with one hand and buying Iran oil with the other,” South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace posted on X on Saturday.

Riccardi writes for the Associated Press. AP business writer Dee-Ann Durbin in Ann Arbor, Mich., contributed to this report.

A picture of a U.S. Navy EA-18G Growler taking part in the current operations against Iran shows the plane carrying an interesting split load of two different electronic warfare pods. Typically, Growlers carry a pair of new AN/ALQ-249 Next Generation Jammer-Mid Band (NGJ-MB) pods or older AN/ALQ-99 pods under their wings, not one of each. The NGJ-MB pods offer a major leap in capability, but have continued to face reliability and other challenges. In general, the capabilities Growlers provide are essential to help support the launching of standoff strikes in the opening phases of a conflict, as well as missions penetrating deeper into defended areas as time goes on.

U.S. Central Command released the image of the EA-18G, seen at the top of this story, and taken as the aircraft was launching from the Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, last week. The Growler in question is assigned to the Electronic Attack Squadron 133 (VAQ-133). The Lincoln’s air wing, which has been very active in support of Operation Epic Fury since it began, also includes F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and F-35C fighters, E-2D Hawkeye airborne early warning and control planes, CMV-22B Osprey tilt-rotor carrier onboard delivery aircraft, and MH-60R/S Seahawk helicopters.

At first glance, the EA-18G picture is unremarkable, but a closer inspection shows the jet has one ALQ-99 Tactical Jamming System (TJS) pod and one AN/ALQ-249 Next Generation Jammer-Mid Band (NGJ-MB) pod under its left and right wings, respectively. The aircraft also has a drop tank under each wing, as well as what looks to be a third one on the centerline station under its fuselage. The Navy is in the process of replacing the ALQ-99s in part with the ALQ-249, something we will come back to later on.

The Navy is still in the process of transitioning away from the ALQ-99, and those pods remain in active service alongside ALQ-249s. However, TWZ was told in a past interview with two top officers involved in the NGJ-MB effort that the standard mixed loadout for jets carrying ALQ-249s is one of those pods under each wing, along with an ALQ-99 on the centerline. Growlers continue to fly operational missions carrying just ALQ-99s, as well.

Why the VAQ-133 Growler flew this particular sortie with this split loadout of one ALQ-249 and one ALQ-99 is unknown. It is possible that ALQ-99 was substituted for an ALQ-249 on that particular mission due to a lack of availability of the new pods due to maintenance or other factors.

The NGJ-MB pod has suffered from reliability and other technical issues in the past. At least as of the end of Fiscal Year 2025, the pods have continued to face challenges, according to a newly released report from the Pentagon’s Office of the Director of Test and Evaluation (DOT&E).

“The NGJ-MB with the OFP 5.3 software series is not currently suitable for supporting operational missions, due to additional progress required to improve reliability and availability,” the DOT&E report said. “The NGJ-MB system met its maintainability requirements, and
aircrew and maintainers found training to be adequate. Insufficient data are currently available to draw any significant conclusions
on pilot and maintainer workload and usability, given the sample size of the data.”

What steps the Navy may have taken to mitigate these issues since the end of the 2025 Fiscal Year is unknown. Whether this particular software configuration is found in deployed pods that are being used operationally is also not known.

“The Navy has deployed the NGJ-MB to five different Electronic Attack Squadrons,” the report also notes.

In a separate report released in 2020, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a Congressional watchdog, highlighted negative impacts to EA-18G’s combat range when carrying an ALQ-249 under each wing and one ALQ-99 on the centerline. What the Navy may have done to address this since then is unknown.

A desire to ensure a certain mix of capabilities, together with a need for three drop tanks’ worth of additional fuel, may have also factored in the decision.

ALQ-249s do offer a major boost in capability, broadly speaking, compared to the older ALQ-99s. The NGJ-MB’s use of active electronically scanned array (AESA) antennas, which the AN/ALQ-99s do not have, as well as its modular open architecture design, also opens the door to more rapid integration of new and improved functionality down the line. This could include so-called next-generation cognitive electronic warfare capabilities, which you can learn more about here.

However, as its name makes clear, the ALQ-249 was originally designed primarily to provide mid-band coverage. ALQ-99s come in two separate versions, offering high and low-band coverage, respectively. Air defense radars and other targets for electronic warfare attacks do not all operate in the same frequency ranges, and some are capable of widely modulating their signal outputs specifically to help reduce vulnerability to jamming. Broader frequency ranges could also help when dealing with known threat systems that are being operated in unfamiliar ways.

“The NGJ-MB is assessed to be at least as operationally effective as the legacy AN/ALQ-99 system, against the threats tested on the open-air test ranges during IOT&E,” according to DOT&E’s report. However, the office’s “full assessment of operational effectiveness is provided in the classified IOT&E report published in July 2025.”

A separate Next Generation Jammer-Low Band (NGJ-LB) pod, now designated the AN/ALQ-266, is in development to complement as part of plans to completely replace the ALQ-99 family. However, as of 2024, the NGJ-LB pod was not expected to reach even an early operational capability until 2029. A years-long contract dispute contributed to the delays in work on this pod.

The Navy has also made a decision to expand the capabilities of the NGJ-MB pod to “extend the upper frequency coverage limit to counter modern and adaptive threats” and to “increase frequency range of the NGJ-MB system and enhance the survivability of the platform and protected entities against emerging threats,” according to official budget documents. When these improved NGJ-MB Extended (NGJ-MBX) pods are expected to enter operational service is unclear.

The Navy has also talked in the past about acquiring a dedicated NGJ-High Band (NGJ-HB) pod to address that end of the frequency spectrum, but the current status of that plan is not clear. “I’ll say high band is still on the to do list, but it’s prioritized appropriately, and we’ll get to it eventually,” Capt. David Rueter, then program manager for airborne electronic attack systems at Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), told TWZ last year.

It’s also worth noting here that external pods are just one part of the complete electronic warfare suite on the EA-18G, which also includes elements integrated inside the fuselage and in fixed pods on the tips of the wings. Just last Friday, Prime contractor Boeing received a new modification to the existing contract, with a value not-to-exceed $489,306,966, for upgrades to Growler’s built-in electronic warfare capabilities with the integration of a new system called the AN/ALQ-264 Beowulf. This is part of a larger ongoing upgrade effort for the Navy’s EA-18G fleet.

All of this underscores the overall importance of the Navy’s EA-18Gs to U.S. joint operations, which has been on display as part of the current campaign against Iran. As TWZ has explored in detail, American and Israeli strikes have substantially degraded Iranian air defenses and other military capabilities, but this should not be confused with total air dominance, especially over the northeastern end of the country. When it comes to standoff strikes, the support Growlers provide can help ensure munitions get to their targets, as well as help reduce risks to launch platforms. More recently, there has been a notable shift to direct attacks across other parts of Iran, where air supremacy has largely been achieved. Still, electronic warfare support would help in those areas to mitigate any residual air defense risks.

Earlier in the year, TWZ had already highlighted the importance of EA-18Gs in the opening act of any major air campaign, as well as follow-on phases, in the lead-up to Operation Absolute Resolve. Growlers were a key component of that operation, which occurred in Venezuela in January, resulting in the capture of dictator Nicolas Maduro.

With the Operation Epic Fury air campaign still in full swing, Growler will continue to provide essential electronic warfare support, whatever mixture of pods they carry.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com