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Editor’s note: This story was originally published in Sept. 2019. Cannonier fights Kelvin Gastelum in the main event of UFC Fight Night on August 21, 2021.

Jared Cannonier was living in Anchorage, Alaska, and doing maintenance on air traffic control equipment for the Federal Aviation Administration. It was 2009, he was almost a year removed from serving in the U.S. Army and his wife, Cat, was pregnant with their first child.

Cannonier weighed more than 300 pounds.

“When we were in Alaska, we were cold and kind of eating for comfort,” Cat recalled, “so that’s when we really got heavy.”

Fast-forward 10 years, and Cannonier is celebrating his second-round TKO of Jack Hermansson, who was ESPN’s No. 6-ranked middleweight. A win should elevate Cannonier into the top tier of the division — and this opportunity to headline a UFC card is the culmination of years of hard work and transforming his body.

Few could have guessed a 300-pound air traffic control mechanic would one day have a chance to prove himself as one of the best 185-pound MMA fighters on the planet.


“When me and Jared first got together, he wasn’t really that big,” said Cat, who has been married to Cannonier for 12 years. “We were young, didn’t have kids, he was swole — in shape. He was around 225 pounds and had these massive, in-shape arms.”

Cannonier’s first foray into the world of mixed martial arts was through the Army’s combatives training course. He was discharged from the Army three years into his service due to a positive drug test for marijuana.

Even as he searched for his next step and began working for the FAA to support his family, Cannonier knew he wanted to break into the world of MMA. He found a Brazilian jiu-jitsu gym in Anchorage and took his first professional fight in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 2011.

Cannonier’s career started with six stoppages, including five first-round finishes with regional promotions in Alaska.

Then the UFC came calling.

Cannonier made his UFC debut as a heavyweight in 2015. His fighting weight peaked at 241 pounds at UFC Fight Night in Croatia in 2016, and despite earning a knockout and his first win in the UFC, Cannonier knew that his long-term prospects would be much better at a lower weight.

“I already knew when I was at heavyweight that I wasn’t a natural heavyweight compared to the other guys I’d be competing against,” Cannonier said. “I’m a realist. I’m not living in a fantasy. I know what’s what. It was only a matter of time. I knew I had to make that happen.”

“That” was a bigger commitment to training and a strict diet. In 2016, Cannonier was still living in Anchorage and working 10-hour days with the FAA when he made the decision to move down from heavyweight to light heavyweight. In order to reach his goal, Cannonier would get up at 3:30 a.m. and run or go to the gym and ride an AirDyne bike for an hour. Then he’d go to work before finishing the night by heading to his Gracie Barra gym to train in MMA.

After a year of that grind, Jared and Cat had saved enough money to move the family to Arizona. Cannonier started doing parts of his training at The MMA Lab in Phoenix, and he knew that’s where he needed to be full time in order to take that next step as a fighter.

He moved down to light heavyweight (205 pounds) by the end of that year, but Cannonier’s performances in that division were mixed as he went 2-3. As he concentrated on training full time, Cannonier continued to shed pounds.

Middleweight would be his next destination.

He debuted at 185 pounds in late 2018, and the move has already paid huge dividends. Cannonier has won two straight fights by TKO finish, and in May he earned a first-round TKO via leg-kick stoppage against UFC legend Anderson Silva at UFC 237.

At 5-foot-11, Cannonier no longer has to worry about a significant reach disadvantage against bigger heavyweights and light heavyweights.


While the volume of training was doing wonders for Cannonier’s weight, he was also showing serious willpower in the kitchen. Cannonier doesn’t have a nutritionist, and so Cat played a key role as his chef.

“A lot of these fighters, they have so many people working for them,” Cat said. “We didn’t get to have that luxury. We had kids by the time Jared started in on the MMA journey. … Lucky for us, the adjustment came as an entire family. We were all kind of into it.”

While fighting at heavyweight, Cannonier said he ate a lot of steak, potatoes, rice, chicken wings and Mexican food. During his training camps for middleweight, Cannonier eats some combination of fruit, avocado and oatmeal for breakfast; soups, salads, pasta or a light sandwich for lunch; and salmon or tuna fillets with broccoli, squash or spinach for dinner.

“I want to be completely vegan one day, but I’ve just gotta break the habits,” Cannonier said.

When Cannonier’s not in fight camp, Cat will still fry up some chicken for the family, but the more time Cannonier spends eating clean, the more he notices how much his diet impacts his performance in the gym

“Especially if I eat dairy, I feel more congested,” Cannonier said. “I feel more fatigued after I’ve eaten steak. I feel heavy, a little bit more sluggish. … After eating something for so long, your body becomes used to the side effects of them, and you really don’t notice them.”

Cat, who trains in MMA as well, said she actually enjoys when her husband is in training camp, because that means the entire family — they now have three kids — eats better. Before Cannonier’s weight-division change, they ordered takeout more often.

Cannonier (12-4) said he weighs between 210 and 215 pounds during training camp and could get up to 230 outside of it. When he gets to the Tuesday before a Saturday bout, Cannonier said he weighs in the low 200s or high 190s, and the rest comes off via a typical water cut.

Despite how heavy he used to be, Cannonier still can’t be considered a big middleweight. For instance, top middleweight Paulo Costa weighed 213.8 pounds on fight day at UFC 241 last month.

Still, any size difference pales in comparison to what Cannonier used to face — and he seems to have found a home at middleweight. Saturday’s fight against Hermansson proved how Cannonier stacks up against top-tier competition, and after the long road he traveled to get to this point, Cannonier is confident that he has the skill and power to move forward.

“They’re definitely not as big, they’re definitely not as tall,” Cannonier said of middleweights. “It’s a more level playing ground for me now. I still have the same power I had at heavyweight. People want to call it heavyweight power — naw, that’s Cannonier power.”

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Volpe toss hits Judge as sloppy Yanks fall again

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Volpe toss hits Judge as sloppy Yanks fall again

NEW YORK — A blunder that typifies the current state of the New York Yankees, who find themselves in the midst of their second six-game losing streak in three weeks, happened in front of 41,401 fans at Citi Field on Saturday, and almost nobody noticed.

The Yankees were jogging off the field after securing the third out of the fourth inning of their 12-6 loss to the Mets when shortstop Anthony Volpe, as is standard for teams across baseball at the end of innings, threw the ball to right fielder Aaron Judge as he crossed into the infield from right field.

Only Judge wasn’t looking, and the ball nailed him in the head, knocking his sunglasses off and leaving a small cut near his right eye. The wound required a bandage to stop the bleeding, but Judge stayed in the game.

“Confusion,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I didn’t know what happened initially. [It just] felt like something happened. Of course I was a little concerned.”

Avoiding an injury to the best player in baseball was on the Yankees’ very short list of positives in another sloppy, draining defeat to their crosstown rivals. With the loss, the Yankees, who held a three-game lead over the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East standings entering June 30, find themselves tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for second place three games behind the Blue Jays heading into Sunday’s Subway Series finale.

The nosedive has been fueled by messy defense and a depleted pitching staff that has encountered a wall.

“It’s been a terrible week,” said Boone, who before the game announced starter Clarke Schmidt will likely undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery.

For the second straight day, the Mets capitalized on mistakes and cracked timely home runs. After slugging three homers in Friday’s series opener, the Mets hit three more Saturday — a grand slam in the first inning from Brandon Nimmo to take a 4-0 lead and two home runs from Pete Alonso to widen the gap.

Nimmo’s blast — his second grand slam in four days — came after Yankees left fielder Jasson Dominguez misplayed a ball hit by the Mets’ leadoff hitter in the first inning. On Friday, he misread Nimmo’s line drive and watched it sail over his head for a double. On Saturday, he was slow to react to Starling Marte’s flyball in the left-center field gap and braked without catching or stopping it, allowing Marte to advance to second for a double. Yankees starter Carlos Rodon then walked two batters to load the bases for Nimmo, who yanked a mistake, a 1-2 slider over the wall.

“That slider probably needs to be down,” said Rodon, who allowed seven runs (six earned) over five innings. “A lot of misses today and they punished them.”

Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s throwing woes at third base — a position the Yankees have asked him to play to accommodate DJ LeMahieu at second base — continued in the second inning when he fielded Tyrone Taylor’s groundball and sailed a toss over first baseman Cody Bellinger’s head. Taylor was given second base and scored moments later on Marte’s RBI single.

The Yankees were charged with their second error in the Mets’ four-run seventh inning when center fielder Trent Grisham charged Francisco Lindor’s single up the middle and had it bounce off the heel of his glove.

The mistake allowed a run to score from second base without a throw, extending the Mets lead back to three runs after the Yankees had chipped their deficit, and allowed a heads-up Lindor to advance to second base. Lindor later scored on Alonso’s second home run, a three-run blast off left-hander Jayvien Sandridge in the pitcher’s major league debut.

“Just got to play better,” Judge said. “That’s what it comes down to. It’s fundamentals. Making a routine play, routine. It’s just the little things. That’s what it kind of comes down to. But every good team goes through a couple bumps in the road.”

This six-game losing skid has looked very different from the Yankees’ first. That rough patch, consisting of losses to the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels, was propelled by offensive troubles. The Yankees scored six runs in the six games and gave up just 16. This time, run prevention is the issue; the Yankees have scored 34 runs and surrendered 54 in four games against the Blue Jays in Toronto and two in Queens.

“The offense is starting to swing the bat, put some runs on the board,” Boone said. “The pitching, which has kind of carried us a lot this season, has really, really struggled this week. We haven’t caught the ball as well as I think we should.

“So, look, when you live it and you’re going through it, it sucks, it hurts. But you got to be able to handle it. You got to be able to deal with it. You got to be able to weather it and come out of this and grow.”

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Former White Sox pitcher, world champ Jenks dies

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Former White Sox pitcher, world champ Jenks dies

Bobby Jenks, a two-time All-Star pitcher for the Chicago White Sox who was on the roster when the franchise won the 2005 World Series, died Friday in Sintra, Portugal, the team announced.

Jenks, 44, who had been diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, a form of stomach cancer, this year, spent six seasons with the White Sox from 2005 to 2010 and also played for the Boston Red Sox in 2011. The reliever finished his major league career with a 16-20 record, 3.53 ERA and 173 saves.

“We have lost an iconic member of the White Sox family today,” White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement. “None of us will ever forget that ninth inning of Game 4 in Houston, all that Bobby did for the 2005 World Series champions and for the entire Sox organization during his time in Chicago. He and his family knew cancer would be his toughest battle, and he will be missed as a husband, father, friend and teammate. He will forever hold a special place in all our hearts.”

After Jenks moved to Portugal last year, he was diagnosed with a deep vein thrombosis in his right calf. That eventually spread into blood clots in his lungs, prompting further testing. He was later diagnosed with adenocarcinoma and began undergoing radiation.

In February, as Jenks was being treated for the illness, the White Sox posted “We stand with you, Bobby” on Instagram, adding in the post that the club was “thinking of Bobby as he is being treated.”

In 2005, as the White Sox ended an 88-year drought en route to the World Series title, Jenks appeared in six postseason games. Chicago went 11-1 in the playoffs, and he earned saves in series-clinching wins in Game 3 of the ALDS at Boston, and Game 4 of the World Series against the Houston Astros.

In 2006, Jenks saved 41 games, and the following year, he posted 40 saves. He also retired 41 consecutive batters in 2007, matching a record for a reliever.

“You play for the love of the game, the joy of it,” Jenks said in his last interview with SoxTV last year. “It’s what I love to do. I [was] playing to be a world champion, and that’s what I wanted to do from the time I picked up a baseball.”

A native of Mission Hills, California, Jenks appeared in 19 games for the Red Sox and was originally drafted by the then-Anaheim Angels in the fifth round of the 2000 draft.

Jenks is survived by his wife, Eleni Tzitzivacos, their two children, Zeno and Kate, and his four children from a prior marriage, Cuma, Nolan, Rylan and Jackson.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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In search of infield options, Yanks add Candelario

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In search of infield options, Yanks add Candelario

NEW YORK — The New York Yankees, digging for options to bolster their infield, have signed third baseman Jeimer Candelario to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the affiliate announced Saturday.

Candelario, 31, was released by the Cincinnati Reds on June 23, halfway through a three-year, $45 million contract he signed before the start of last season. The decision was made after Candelario posted a .707 OPS in 2024 and batted .113 with a .410 OPS in 22 games for the Reds before going on the injured list in April with a back injury.

The performance was poor enough for Cincinnati to cut him in a move that Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall described as a sunk cost.

For the Yankees, signing Candelario is a low-cost flier on a player who recorded an .807 OPS just two seasons ago as they seek to find a third baseman to move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base, his natural position.

Candelario is the second veteran infielder the Yankees have signed to a minor league contract in the past three days; they agreed to terms with Nicky Lopez on Thursday.

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