Aotearoa's 2022 UFC journey starts with a Israel Adesanya vs Robert Whittaker rematch headlining UFC 271, Carlos Ulberg making his second UFC appearance and Mike 'Blood Diamond' Mathetha making his UFC debut this weekend.
Lydia Ko's win at the Gainsbridge LPGA event was her 17th win on tour and any LPGA win for Ko comes with steady flow of records, stats and notes of her greatness. The story of Ko is a story of Aotearoa mana though, the tale of cruising through adversity while embracing a smile and positive outlook.
Back to back weekends of Kiwi-UFC action didn't start too great with Brad Riddell losing in the third round of his bout vs Rafael Fiziev, now Kai Kara-France comes up against Cody Garbrandt in a flyweight contender match up.
It's Team City Kickboxing season and the summer vibes will be boosted by a Sunday afternoon featuring Brad Riddell vs Rafael Fiziev.
Lydia Ko enjoyed a glorious win at the Ladies International in Saudi Arabia last weekend and while there is a hefty gap between wins for Ko, her consistency is key.
Sundays in Aotearoa with a Dan Hooker UFC scrap on the telly can be extremely fun and kinda stink at the same time.
Fresh off all sorts of Aotearoa bullkaka and not to mention two losses, Dan Hooker bounced back in tremendous fashion to defeat Nasrat Haqparast.
Dan Hooker fights on Sunday. He's probably in the process of leaving Aotearoa and arriving in Las Vegas as I write this on Friday morning.
City Kickboxing haven't had any UFC fights during Aotearoa's winter months, beneath the radar though there are two major Kiwi-MMA angles out of Team CKB with Mike 'Blood Diamond' Mathetha grabbing a UFC contract and wahine toa Genah Fabian storming through the PFL Lightweight Women's Tournament.
Fresh off of becoming the only human to win two Olympic golf medals, Lydia Ko stormed home with a final round of 63 to finish tied-2nd at the Women's Scottish Open.
As Lydia Ko won a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympic games and became the only human with two Olympic golf medals, the young kiwi-Korean wrapped up a fun Olympic campaign for Aotearoa's wahine.
That Lisa Carrington knows her way to a medal, doesn’t she? Truly one of the dominant Olympic athletes of the twenty-first century in her chosen sport. That was the third straight time she’s won the K-1 200m gold and she wasn’t done there either.
Aotearoa's Black Sticks Women went down 0-3 to Netherlands in their Olympic quarter-final last night, finishing their campaign with four consecutive defeats.
The official NZ Olympic Committee target was 16 total medals. At The Niche Cache we’re more ambitious so we set a mark of 8 golds and 20 total medals and wouldn’t you know it we’re halfway there.
Another major tournament for Black Sticks Men and another rather disappointing campaign.
A couple of potential medallists there that weren’t able to get it done. That’s the way of the Olympics. Not every medal hope is going to actually bring one home... in fact most of them are probably gonna miss out. But this is New Zealand’s biggest ever contingent of athletes sent to a Games so there’s plenty more where they came from.
Everything about New Zealand Warriors is pretty depressing right now, so news of Roger Tuivasa-Sheck's return to Aotearoa to prepare for his rugby union shift forced me to tap into excitement.
The latest Tokyo Olympics blog features a fun weekend for Black Sticks Hockey, a tough Football night against Honduras and a couple more notes from around Team Aotearoa.
Mid-way through 2021 and after following City Kickboxing in the UFC for a year or two now, CKB's UFC activity tends to be clumped together leading to down periods and periods of frenzy.
Different sports come in waves, different teams/athletes emerge as genuine world-class talents and command such attention. Olympics time puts different sports in the spotlight - it's time to ride the Olympics wave.