Every month, MMA Empire will bring you a comprehensive list of any and all Canadian fighters who will be competing in MMA events outside Canada. Check back every week to keep up to date with all the results.
At the moment, there are no Canadians fighting in the UFC Octagon in August, but there are some huge matchups in the PFL Playoffs and elsewhere in the world, so we’ll still have lots to pay attention to this month.
The absence of UFC bookings is a quirk of the calendar rather than a drought — August happened to land between the promotion's Canadian-heavy cards, and the slack was more than picked up by a PFL playoff card stacked with Canadian interest and a busy regional schedule. It's the kind of month where the depth of the country's talent pool shows itself most clearly.
XFC 45/XFC Young Guns 3 – Michigan – Aug. 6
TV: XFCtv.com
155 lbs – Jett Grande vs. Damon Morosko ends in Majority Draw (29-28, 28-28, 28-28).
A majority draw is the cruelest result in MMA bookkeeping — no winner, no clean narrative, and for Grande a month's work that ends in a statistical shrug. On small-regionals like XFC's Michigan cards, draws are also a reminder of how thin the margin is between the judges' tables and the outcomes fighters build careers on.
247 FC: Brawl in the Burgh 8 – Michigan – Aug. 7
TV:
Amateur 145 lbs – Nayimi Ferdaws defeats Clinton Ewing by Unanimous Decision.
Ferdaws's decision win on the amateur side is the kind of quiet result that fills out the pipeline — 247 FC's Brawl in the Burgh series has been a reliable home for Canadian amateurs looking to stack experience on U.S. regional cards when domestic options were thin.
PFL 7: Playoffs 2021 – Florida – Aug. 13
TV: TSN
170 lbs – Ray Cooper III defeats Rory MacDonald by Unanimous Decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27).
***Welterweight tournament semi-final
155 lbs – Loik Radzhabiv defeats Alex Martinez by Unanimous Decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28).
***Lightweight tournament semi-final
155 lbs – Olivier Aubin-Mercier defeats Darrell Horcher by Unanimous Decision (30-26, 29-27, 29-28).
Martinez's semi-final exit against Radzhabov was the card's other Canadian playoff heartbreaker — a tight scorecard against a decorated opponent that shows how close the run actually was. On the same card, Aubin-Mercier's shutout decision continued his methodical march through the lightweight bracket, the one Canadian playoff result that went to script.
The night's headline for Canada was MacDonald falling short in his playoff bid — a decisive scorecard shutout from Cooper that ended the former UFC title challenger's deepest PFL run. Playoff losses like this one are rarely the end of the story for veterans at MacDonald's level, but they do reset the championship timeline another year.
CFFC 99 – Mississippi – Aug. 14
TV: UFC Fight Pass
135 lbs – Da’Mon Blackshear defeats Mateo Vogel by Unanimous Decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Vogel's loss to Blackshear was one of the month's more notable regional results — a razor-thin sweep of the cards from a prospect CFFC has leaned on as a headliner. 29-28 on all three judges' cards means the fight was competitive to the wire; for Vogel, the result still reads as a credible performance against high-end opposition.
Bayfront Brawl 10 – Pennsylvania – Aug. 14
TV:
Amateur 125 lbs – Willow Morton defeats Tasha Grapes by TKO in the second round.
Morton's second-round TKO was another entry in a month where Canadian amateurs kept delivering finishes on U.S. regional cards — the women's amateur ranks in particular were producing strong results through this stretch.
Brave CF 53 – Kazakhstan – Aug. 21
TV:
135 lbs – Brad Katona defeats Bair Shtepin by Unanimous Decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28).
Katona's decision over Shtepin was the month's most-watched regional result for Canadian fans — a tight, competitive win on a Brave CF card in Kazakhstan that kept the bantamweight's momentum going on the international circuit. Three 29-28 cards tell you it wasn't easy, but Katona's game is built to win exactly those kinds of rounds.
247 FC – Pennsylvania – Aug. 21
TV:
Amateur 173 lbs – Gabrielle Giordano defeats Melissa Sheppey by TKO in the first round.
Giordano's first-round stoppage gave Canada another amateur finish on the 247 FC platform — a promotion that had effectively become a second home for Canadian fighters working their way up through the U.S. regional ranks.
Invicta FC 44 – Kansas City – Aug. 27
TV:
105 lbs – Marisa Messer-Belenchia defeats Katie Saull by Split Decision (29-28, 27-30, 29-28)
Saull's split-decision loss was the month's closest Canadian result — the kind of fight where one judge's read on a single round flips the whole outcome. Invicta remains the sport's premier proving ground for women's MMA, and a competitive loss there against a winning opponent does little to hurt a prospect's trajectory.
CFX 49 – Minnesota – Aug. 28
TV:
185 lbs – Mariusz Ksiazkiewicz (8-1) vs. Joel Bauman (4-1) *Cancelled*
The Ksiazkiewicz-Bauman cancellation was the month's one that got away — a late scratch that left the Canadian middleweight without the cage time the card was meant to provide.
