Good morning and welcome to another issue of “Laying Down Leather.” In this series I offer my weekly thoughts on the many topics I write about online and follow. This series is usually done on Monday, but due to complications, it’s coming out on Wednesday this week. It’ll be back on it’s usual schedule next week.

MMA

Last weekend was UFC 238, with Henry Cejudo defeating Marlon Moraes in the main event. Cejudo became a double champ, now holding the bantamweight and flyweight championships. It was a short but entertaining fight, with Cejudo clearly changing his gameplan after not having a successful first round of the fight.

The show, in general, was very entertaining. Aljamain Sterling and Pedro Munhoz stole the show on the prelims, putting on an absolute war. The co-co-main between Tony Ferguson and Donald Cerrone wasn’t all we wanted it to be, but still was good. Valentina Shevchenko’s KO victory to retain her Flyweight Championship against Jessica Eye was equally horrifying and amazing.

This weekend’s Bellator show is amazingly stacked. In the final of the Welterweight tournament, Rory MacDonald and Neiman Gracie battle for five scheduled rounds. Veterans in Chael Sonnen and Lyoto Machida square off. Bellator’s favourite heel Dillon Danis sees his second challenge in the octagon. Darrion Caldwell gets his rematch against RIZIN’s Kyoji Horiguchi.

The talent on the show spills onto the prelims, with Aaron Pico returning to face Adam Borics. Also, RIZIN and Shoot Boxing talent RENA (being billed as “Rena Kubota” for this show) will face Lindsey VanZandt in her debut outside of the United States. It should be a fun evening, just like the DAZN X Bellator shows in the past have been.

Wrestling

Earlier this year I was very closely following New Japan Pro Wrestling. I would review every event right here on this site. I’ve stopped doing that, but I plan to come back to doing it during the summer. When you look at what’s been happening in the promotion as of late, it looks like an amazing time to jump back in. The G1 Climax is happening soon, with the lineup looking pretty good. Jon Moxley has put his name in the hat for the G1, which alone sets up many great matchups. I want to watch the Dominion show, but I don’t know if I’ll have time. If I do watch it, I’ll write something in the next issue of this.

Boxing

I can’t say I watched much boxing this week, although I saw a great documentary. Sky Sports put together a 25-minute long doc called “When Naz Hit New York,” a film detailing when featherweight boxer “Prince” Naseem Hamed made his American debut against Kevin Kelley. The fight itself is absolutely great, with both fighters putting on an absolute war. The film made me want to watch full fights that included Prince Naseem as he seemed like quite the entertaining fighter. I highly recommend watching the documentary. Even if you don’t care too much about Hamed, the soundtrack itself makes the video worth watching.

The documentary was made ahead of Anthony Joshua’s American debut against Andy Ruiz Jr., which obviously didn’t go as well as Naseem’s.

Tyson Fury’s fight against Tom Schwartz should be a fun one to watch this weekend. Since people have already touted that there is a rematch in the works between Fury and Deontay Wilder, I’ll be interested to see if that will be addressed during the show.