John Lineker News

Drake Riggs - May 29, 2019

The man known as ‘Hands of Stone’ would like to get more active as John Lineker made some demands via Twitter on Wednesday. In a tweet directed towards the UFC, Lineker mentioned the fact that his most recent opponent, Cory Sandhagen fought four times in the space of a year while he’s only fought that many times in the last three years. Which prompted the disgruntled bantamweight to ask for a fight or his release.

Tom Taylor - May 29, 2019

John Lineker is easily one of the most consistently exciting fighters in mixed martial arts. Yet for some reason, he seems to have a hard time staying active. That’s no fault of his, the UFC matchmakers just don’t schedule him for action as often as he’d like them too. He seems to be getting fed up.

Drake Riggs - March 22, 2019

As news generally does, especially in the MMA world, it can come with some serious shock value. This week was no different. On Wednesday, UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw revealed that he had been flagged by USADA for a violation regarding one of his drug tests prior to his last fight. That last fight having come in January when he suffered defeat to the flyweight champion, Henry Cejudo.

Chris Taylor - January 12, 2019

UFC bantamweight standout John Lineker has issued a statement after an injury forced him out of his slated bout with Cory Sandhagen at next weekend’s UFC on ESPN+1 event. The injury, which still remains unknown to media at this time, forced “Hands of Stone” to pull out on just nine days notice. Thankfully for Cody Sandhagen, undefeated promotional newcomer Mario Bautista has agreed to fill in for Lineker at Saturday’s event in Brooklyn.

Tom Taylor - December 17, 2018

Former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz was briefly expected to make his return to the cage opposite John Lineker at the now-cancelled UFC 233 on January 26. Unfortunately, Cruz was sidelined with yet another unfortunate injury. Speaking on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show this week, the former champion opened up on the severity of this injury and how he sustained it.

Drake Riggs - December 11, 2018

It seems that disaster has struck once again for the former bantamweight king Dominick Cruz. Having his comeback set for UFC 233 on January 26 opposite John Lineker, that appears to longer be the case as MMA Brasil’s Tarso Doria reports that Cruz has sustained yet another fight canceling injury. Thus prompting the promotion to pursue Cruz’ last opponent, Cody Garbrandt to replace him against the Brazilian.

Cole Shelton - December 5, 2018

Former UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz will finally make his long-awaited return to the Octagon at UFC 233. The promotion made the bout official on Twitter on Wednesday. Cruz is back!@DominickCruz returns to face 'Hands of Stone' @JohnLineker at #UFC233 in Anaheim on Jan. 26! pic.twitter.com/SunaIvoev9

Drake Riggs - November 7, 2018

Just when you thought that UFC 233 couldn’t be getting a better building start, we get one hell of a bantamweight matchup thrown into the mix. It will have been two years once the end of December rolls around that we’ll have seen the former bantamweight king Dominick Cruz (22-2) compete inside the Octagon.

Tom Taylor - August 24, 2018

Yesterday afternoon, the MMA community was rocked by the unfortunate news that Yair Rodriguez had been forced out of his anticipated UFC 228 featherweight showdown with rising Russian star Zabit Magomedsharipov. From there, the UFC began a frantic search to find a replacement opponent for Magomedsharipov on short notice. As always, several fighters spoke up and offered to step in. None, however, could rival the cojones of Brazil’s John Lineker.

Chris Taylor - May 12, 2018

UFC bantamweight knockout artist John Lineker lived up to his “hands of stone” reputation at tonight’s UFC 224 event in Brazil scoring a savage third-round knockout victory over a very game Brian Kelleher. John was able to catch Kelleher with some big shots throughout the course of the fight but Brian was able to survive each Lineker surge. That is until round three, when Lineker landed a left hook from hell which spawned an end to Kelleher’s night.

Drake Riggs - March 13, 2018

The UFC’s next event in Brazil is really shaping up to be quite the banger. Already stacked with Brazilian legends, the card is now getting a fight that will be guaranteed fireworks between bantamweight title hopefuls. Fresh off his huge win over former champion, Renan Barao is Brian “Boom” Kelleher who called out John Lineker after his win at UFC on Fox 28 in Orlando, Florida. And as reported by Combate and confirmed by several other sources as well as the fighters themselves, that it shall be.

Justin Golightly - December 26, 2017

Leading up to the suspenseful weigh-ins approaching quickly on Friday, we already had a roller coaster of emotions kicking into UFC 219 fight week just after Christmas. Jimmie Rivera has been going back-and-forth with Marlon Moraes about being his replacement this Saturday, but despite multiple attempts to agree on increasingly higher catchweights, it never worked out. It all started when his former opponent John Lineker had to pull out of their fight with a serious tooth infection. Speaking recently to Guilherme Cruz of MMA Fighting, Lineker opened up about the situation. “I noticed this when I came to Las Vegas earlier. I didn’t know how bad it was a week ago. I started to feel the pain, but I thought it was something related to the root canal treatment I did three weeks ago. When I talked to a second doctor — the first one didn’t have an answer for the pain — they found this infection. I kept training hard despite the pain, but the pain kept getting worse a week before fight week. I decided to go to Vegas early so the UFC doctor could see how I was because I wanted to fight no matter what, but he saw that I wasn’t fit to fight and would have to do something about it.”

Justin Golightly - December 8, 2017

Georges St-Pierre just left the middleweight division in just a month after becoming champion. TJ Dillashaw is training right now to change weight classes and challenge Demetrious Johnson. Meanwhile, John Lineker is about to fight Jimmie Rivera and he’s not happy. He recently expressed his dislike over fighters jumping around and thinks they should stay where they are at. …Especially guys he wants to fight against. “This business of challenging people in other divisions, I don’t like this. Every fighter has to stay quietly in his division and stay in his corner. But the UFC is now giving these opportunities to fight in other weight categories. Stagnation will not happen, because [TJ Dillashaw] still has the bantamweight belt. Either way, he’ll have to defend the title. But in my opinion, everyone should stay in their division instead of challenging people elsewhere to fight.”

Justin Golightly - November 21, 2017

The UFC’s year-end mega card has taking more hits than most of it’s roster has had, but it is slowly being built back up. One of the bouts that ended up having to get split up is Dominick Cruz’s return to the Octagon against Jimmie Rivera, which was called off because of a broken arm Cruz suffered in training. Lots of fighters offered to step up including Marlon Moraes, Aljamain Sterling and John Lineker. Just earlier today, it was reported that a bout could be finalized soon, but now UFC officials have confirmed to Adam Hill of the Las Vegas Review-Journal today that the replacement bout is officially moving on with Lineker. UFC is working towards booking Jimmie Rivera vs. John Lineker for UFC 219 on 12/30, according to sources. Not finalized yet but moving in the right direction. Hoping to finalize very soon.

Justin Golightly - November 16, 2017

Jimmie Rivera has done everything to earn himself the biggest fights at bantamweight and UFC clearly agreed. He was matched up against former champion Dominick Cruz, but Cruz had to end up pulling out due to a broken arm. Just like that, Rivera loses out on the biggest fight in his career. He’s since called out TJ Dillashaw to replace Cruz to stay on the UFC 219 card, but John Lineker has a different plan. “I would fight with Jimmie Rivera. I’m at the UFC’s disposal to fight him. I’m ready. I want to fight again, and it’ll definitely be a different fight from my last performance against Marlon Vera. I’ll be more in the rhythm and John Lineker will fight as he always has: aggressively. All the time, I am ready. […] I think I’m not far from a title fight and a rematch with [TJ Dillashaw]. I think that my victory over Marlon Vera has put me back into the mix, and I believe that another one or two wins and I’m in talks again to fight the champion.”

Tom Taylor - September 19, 2017

John Lineker, one of the UFC bantamweight division’s most exciting contenders, is now scheduled for a return to the cage. According to a report from Combate, which was subsequently confirmed by MMAFighting.com, Lineker will make his return at UFC Fight Night 119 this October 28 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. His opponent will be Ecuador’s Marlon “Chito” Vera. This will be Lineker’s first fight in nearly a year, as his last steps into the cage occurred in December of 2016, when he came up short in a bantamweight scrap with former champion  TJ Dillashaw. This loss to Dillashaw was preceded by four-straight wins in the bantamweight division, as he submitted Francisco Rivera, defeated Rob Font by decision, knocked out Michael MacDonald, and defeated John Dodson by decision. The Brazilian bantamweight knockout artist is 29-8 overall.

Tom Taylor - December 30, 2016

Former UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw is the owner of one of the most unique fighting styles in MMA. As such, he is an extremely difficult opponent to prepare for. Tailoring a game plan for his specialized blend of footwork, head movement, and takedowns is an undeniably stark challenge. Dillashaw’s UFC 207 opponent John Lineker, however, is not particularly panicked about this challenge. In a recent interview with MMAJunkie.com, he shed some light on his very simple strategy for Dillashaw. In his last fight, which saw him narrowly defeat John Dodson, Lineker said he spent too much time chasing his opponent. Against Dillashaw, he plans to avoid doing this, thereby forcing Dillashaw to come to him. From there, he can get to work with his absurd punching power.

Tom Taylor - December 27, 2016

This Friday, the UFC will return to beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada with UFC 207. In the co-main event of the evening, we’ll see reining bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz attempt to defend his title against dangerous challenger Cody Garbrandt. Earlier on the main card, we’ll witness another high-stakes bantamweight scrap, as former champion TJ Dillashaw takes on stone-fisted former flyweight John Lineker. The winner of this fight, it would seem, is the obvious next opponent for the winner of the card’s Cruz vs. Garbrandt co-main event battle. As it turns out, however, this is not necessarily certain. In UFC 207’s episode of The Watch List, UFC matchmaker Sean Shelby explained that while the winner of Dillashaw vs. Lineker is certainly a frontrunner for the next bantamweight title shot, the presence of other contenders like Jimmie Rivera, Bryan Caraway and John Dodson in the division means nothing is certain.