Photo by Jeff Bottari\/Zuffa LLC<\/small><\/p>\n
Bringing you the weird and wild from the world of MMA each and every weeknight!<\/p>\n
Welcome to Midnight Mania!<\/p>\n
Many quality fighters and prospects have now made their way to the Octagon via Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series (DWTNCS). While none have been able to capture a title yet — it’s still early in that regard — there are a few fast-rising standouts worth keeping an eye on. Sean O’Malley may have grown his name the most, but Geoff Neal is perhaps the most likely to make such a run.<\/p>\n
Neal is 5-0 inside the Octagon, with four of those wins coming via stoppage.<\/p>\n
Of course, climbing the ladder requires finding opponents willing to fight him, which has proven an issue for “Handz Of Steel.” Despite earning a position at No.10 in the Welterweight rankings, Neal continues to struggle finding willing opponents.<\/p>\n
In particular, Neal is quite irked at Michael Chiesa for ignoring his callouts. “I feel disrespected which makes it kind personal because I know he sees my posts and he made some comment that he doesn’t want to fight me because I said something about him not wanting any smoke, which is kind of a weak-ass excuse not to fight me,” Neal told MMAJunkie’s Mike Bohn<\/a>. “I’m No. 10 now. I was No. 11 before, like we’re not that far off in the rankings. It’s not like I’m some unranked dude trying to call you out.<\/p>\n “The fight makes perfect sense. He wants to chase after Colby Covington – you only have three fights in the welterweight division and you’ve fought two dudes that are (expletive) ’55ers. You can’t really say that you were above me. He has this air of entitlement and I (expletive) hate that (expletive).”<\/p>\n Aside from “Maverick,” Neal expressed an interest in fighting most of the division’s proven names, like the recently humbled Tyron Woodley<\/a>. “Of course I want to move up in the rankings but it’s getting to that point where I’m just going to take whatever opportunity that’s going to come my way,” Neal said. “I want Chiesa, Ponzinibbio, I wanted ‘Wonderboy’ but I doubt he’ll take that fight; Lawler, Woodley. But it’s getting to that point where I might have to fight backwards.”<\/p>\n