Former IMMAF Champions Abdul Hussein and Magomed Tuchalov set for UFC debuts in Abu Dhabi
Paul Abraham
IMMAF will once again be represented inside the Octagon this weekend. At UFC Abu Dhabi: Ankalaev vs. Guskov, Abdul Hussein and Magomed Tuchalov will both make their UFC debuts. The two fighters have very different careers, but they share one thing: both won gold on the amateur circuit before turning professional.
Abdul Hussein was one of IMMAF’s top bantamweights during the mid-2010s. Representing Finland, he won the European Championships in 2015 after four victories. In the final, he defeated Marco Zannetti to claim the gold medal.
One year later, Hussein did even better. At the 2016 World Championships, he once again won four fights and became world champion. He defeated Alexander Pereira, Lath Stevens, Hughie O’Rourke before beating David Evans in the final.
Those two titles made him one of the top amateur bantamweights of his generation. But unlike many prospects, Hussein did not reach the UFC quickly. He spent several years fighting in different organizations and building his record.
The Finnish fighter now enters the UFC with a 15-2 record. One of his defeats came against fellow alumni Muhammad Mokaev in 2021. Since then, Hussein has put together a long winning streak and has finished several opponents. For his UFC debut, he will face Cody Gibson. The American has more than 30 professional fights and has already spent many years in the UFC. It is a difficult first matchup, but Hussein has more experience than most debutants.
Magomed Tuchalov arrives with a different profile. The Russian won the 2019 IMMAF Junior World Championships in the 185-pound division. He defeated Mehdi Taki, Lukas Kaplan and Matej Hrkal to claim the gold medal. Since turning professional, Tuchalov has not lost a fight. He enters the UFC with a 6-0 record and has finished five of his six opponents. His style is aggressive, and most of his fights do not reach the final bell. Tuchalov has won by submission, elbows, ground and pound and even a flying knee. In his most recent fight, he stopped former UFC fighter Caio Machado in the first round. That win showed he was ready for a bigger opportunity.
He will now face Brendson Ribeiro in his UFC debut. The Brazilian has already fought several times in the organisation and is known for his power. Tuchalov will have to be careful, but a win would immediately make him an interesting name in the middleweight division.
Hussein and Tuchalov did not take the same road to the UFC. Hussein spent years gaining experience before finally earning his chance, while Tuchalov reached the organisation after only six professional fights. Still, both first made their names in the IMMAF. This weekend, they will try to show that their amateur success can also translate to the UFC.
A qué hora y dónde ver el partido Atlante vs. América de la Liga MX Apertura 2026 | TUDN Liga MX
Atlante vs. América es un partido atractivo por tratarse del regreso de un equipo histórico del futbol mexicano como lo son los Potros de Hierro no sólo a la Primera División sino también al Estadio Banorte, donde construyeron historia.
A QUÉ HORA Y DÓNDE VER EL ATLANTE VS. AMÉRICA DEL APERTURA 2026
El último partido que estos equipos se enfrentaron entre sí fue en el Clausura 2014 con victoria americanista de 1-0, anotación de Miguel Layún, hoy en el retiro como futbolista profesional.
Trader who successfully shorted Tesla into earnings now sets sights on this high flyer
The bearish Tesla set-up we flagged ahead of Wednesday’s report has delivered most of what it can. Two ways forward: bank the entire gain, or press the same playbook against another priced-for-perfection name reporting in two weeks.
Heading into Tesla‘s second-quarter report, I argued the risks were skewed to the downside. Greeting a delivery beat with selling was a classic tell of expectations “priced for perfection.” While revenue of $28.2 billion beat handily, up 26% year over year, adjusted earnings of 34 cents per share missed the consensus (50 cents) by a wide margin. Operating margin compressed to 1.4%, and a 142% surge in capital spending swung free cash flow negative. Combining disappointing EPS, a call for patience (this is the pattern with Tesla) on robotaxi, and the stock slid roughly 14.5% Thursday, through our short put strike, and closed near the move targeted by the trade. Investors are apparently more interested in the “show” rather than the “tell” in Tesla earnings.
Which brings us to the less glamorous but more important part of trading: what to do when a position works. Our bearish structure has captured the bulk of its maximum potential value. When most of the possible profit is already in hand, the math flips against you — what’s left to earn is small relative to what you’d give back if the stock snaps back (a possibility I consider quite unlikely). So that leaves us with a couple reasonable paths:
Path one: take the money and run. Close the position, book the gain, and wait for another fat pitch. There is never anything wrong with this. There’s an old saw in investing: “One never loses money taking profits.” Platitudinous admittedly, but we’ll reserve a more nuanced approach for another day.
Path two: bank most of it, and press. Make a similar play with “house money”. Somewhat emboldened, redeploy a portion of the profits toward another high-multiple pioneering company whose valuation and price action make it vulnerable to disappointment: Palantir, which reports August 3rd.
The counterpoints on Palantir
Palantir is a remarkable company, one of my favorites actually. But several counterpoints deserve weight heading into the print. The stated ambition to grow revenues tenfold without scaling the sales force is, to put it charitably, ambitious. Competition among LLM providers is likely to intensify, and enterprise customers increasingly look to deploy large language models directly rather than through an intermediary platform. The total addressable market, while large, is finite — and international sales are likely to be constrained by the understandable preference for local vendors wherever national security is concerned.
The numbers, while good, were less good last quarter. Commercial backlog growth slowed to 12% in the first quarter, per Bloomberg, down from 21% in the fourth quarter of 2025. And even net of its recent declines, Palantir trades at a material premium to its software peer group — and well above its own historical EV/sales average.
For context, the average move in Palantir from one week before earnings (about where we are now) through two weeks after (consistent with August regular way expiration) is approximately 26%!
Palantir, YTD
The options market is pricing a one-day earnings move of 9.5% — larger than the past four quarters delivered, but substantially below the long-term average of more than 14%. That suggests August options, expensive as they appear at 65% implied volatility, may be reasonably priced, particularly if you use spreads, selling one expensive option against another to neutralize the volatility premium.
So, what to do.
Step 1: Close the TSLA position — sell the August 360/330 put spread, banking at ~$23, well more than a double from the price at which we put it on.
Step 2 (for those pressing): Buy the PLTR August 21st $120/$95 put spread for ~$6.50, funded with a portion of the TSLA proceeds.
Risk is defined to the debit paid.
Max profit: the $25 spread width less the debit, if PLTR closes at or below $95 at expiration — a decline of roughly 23% from current levels, in line with the historical three-week earnings window.
The short $95 put materially offsets the 65% vol premium embedded in the long strike.
Like the Tesla trade, the Palantir put spread offers defined risk, and for those using the proceeds from the winner in Tesla, less than the “house money” (profits) collected on the first trade.
Singer Chris Brown pleads guilty to affray over altercation at London nightclub
AP —
Grammy-winning US singer Chris Brown pleaded guilty Friday to affray over an altercation in a London nightclub in a fight that injured a music producer.
Brown, 37, made the change of plea during a hearing at London’s Southwark Crown Court. He had previously denied more serious charges over the 2023 altercation.
In return for the guilty plea, prosecutors dropped charges of assault, attempting to cause grievous bodily harm and having an offensive weapon.
Brown had denied attacking Abraham Diaw with a bottle at the Tape nightclub in the swanky Mayfair neighborhood in February 2023.
The fight was caught on surveillance camera in front of a club full of people, prosecutors said.
Brown had been free on bail of £5 million ($6.75 million), which allowed him to tour last summer in Europe and North America.
He was freed on bail again Friday and will be sentenced October 26 for the affray charge.
Brown, who rose to stardom as a teen in 2005, won his first Grammy for best R&B album in 2011 for “F.A.M.E..” He earned his second in the same category for “11:11 (Deluxe)” earlier this year.
