-
Brett Okamoto
-
Andreas Hale
Close
Andreas Hale
ESPN
- Andreas Hale is a combat sports reporter at ESPN. Andreas covers MMA, boxing and pro wrestling. In Andreas’ free time, he plays video games, obsesses over music and is a White Sox and 49ers fan. He is also a host for Sirius XM’s Fight Nation. Before joining ESPN, Andreas was a senior writer at DAZN and Sporting News. He started his career as a music journalist for outlets including HipHopDX, The Grammys and Jay-Z’s Life+Times. He is also an NAACP Image Award-nominated filmmaker as a producer for the animated short film “Bridges” in 2024.
UFC 316 set the foundation for some of the next title fights we’ll see in the future, as Merab Dvalishvili beat Sean O’Malley to retain the men’s bantamweight title and Kayla Harrison knocked off Julianna Peña to claim the women’s bantamweight championship on Saturday in Newark, New Jersey. Dvalishvili and Harrison won via submission.
Dvalishvili and Harrison’s next opponents appear to be all but set. It’s expected that Cory Sandhagen will challenge Dvalishvili, while the new women’s bantamweight title-holder is expected to face the women’s MMA GOAT, Amanda Nunes, in her next fight. Nunes announced that she will return to face the winner of Harrison-Peña earlier this week.
Brett Okamoto and Andreas Hale offer their takeaways from the biggest moments at UFC 316.
