Year: 2024

Discus du Plessis (21-2) defeated Sean Strickland (28-6) via split decision to earn the UFC Middleweight title from Scotiabank Arena in Toronto at UFC 297.

Strickland was the aggressor to open the fight, with du Plessis sitting back and looking for counter opportunities. Just like he did with Israel Adesanya, Strickland did well jabbing and checking kicks. Toward the end of the round, du Plessis shot Strickland against the cage, took him down and Strickland quickly moved back to his feet. Strickland continued to chip away with jabs and landed a big right hand to end the round.

Strickland continued to jab du Plessis and the challenger had trouble finding his range. Late in the second, he began to find his openings, getting his own shots in before taking the champ to the ground for another takedown.

The third saw du Plessis continue to move forward, sticking to his gameplan despite Strickland’s success jabbing and checking his shots. Du Plessis continued to toss one-two shots, as Strickland moved more firmly into a defensive position.

The championship rounds opened with both corners urging their fighters to attack. Du Plessis opened up a cut on Strickland with a big elbow and it seemed to wake Strickland up, who followed with a few right hands of his own. Another right from du Plessis really opened up the cut on Strickland. Strickland attempted to clinch, which led to another takedown for the challenger. Du Plessis shot again, taking Strickland down with ease. Back on their feet, du Plessis went right back to work with lefts and rights before the end of the round.

In the fifth and final round, Strickland tried to get back to his pinpoint striking. Du Plessis changed levels over and again, kicking at Strickland’s legs, then going up top. Du Plessis shot for a takedown, but Strickland stuffed it. The last minute of the round came with both fighters throwing everything they had, doing what they could to gather the last few points before a decision.

Du Plessis turned down the UFC’s first offer for a title fight against Adesanya last September. Du Plessis is unbeaten in his UFC career, with two knockout victories over former title contenders last year in Derek Brunson and Robert Whittaker.

Strickland headed into Saturday night’s fight with his first title defense after shocking Adesanya in a decision victory at UFC 293. Strickland stepped in after du Plessis skipped out on the UFC’s offer for a title shot. Strickland came into Saturday night’s main event with consecutive wins in 2023 after losing both fights in 2022 at the hands of Alex Pereira and Jared Cannoneir.

In his debut Saturday Night Live appearance, Australian actor Jacob Elordi laid it all out on the table, beginning with his opening monologue. He addressed one of the many shocking scenes in his latest film, Saltburn, and displayed a clip of Barry Keoghan’s character Oliver inserting himself into Elordi’s character, Felix’s grave.

The clip, for the sake of a TV-14 audience, was censored, however, Elordi clarified “I was the one in the grave.”

He continued, saying “If you saw the movie, thank you. If you saw the movie with your parents, I’m sorry. And if you saw the movie with your girlfriend, you’re welcome.”

After this, Elordi takes a few questions from the audience. One fan tells him “Loved you in Priscilla” then asked “What’s your favorite version of Elvis? Young Elvis or Old Elvis?”

Elordi then offered a cheeky response, saying “Probably Lilo And Stitch Elvis.”

This clarification comes after an October 2023 interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, during which he revealed that he wasn’t super familiar with Elvis Presley’s catalog ahead of Priscilla.

“The most I knew of Elvis was in ‘Lilo & Stitch,’” Elordi said. “Which is a lot, by the way.”

In Lilo And Stitch, Lilo (Daveigh Chase) is a super fan of Elvis, and plays songs like “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Hound Dog,” and “Burnin’ Love” throughout the movie.

You can watch Elordi’s full opening SNL monologue above.

Reneé Rapp is kicking off the year with a bang. The movie-musical adaptation of Mean Girls, in which she plays queen bee Regina George, has garnered a lot of buzz, and for many reasons. Of course, Rapp wowed audiences with her comedic timing, strong acting, and powerful vocals, but equally as entertaining have been her interviews during the Mean Girls press tour.

In one notable video interview, she recalls a tour bus manager being rude to her and her friends. In another, she comments on her “Not My Fault” collaborator Megan Thee Stallion’s assets. While many fans have revered Rapp’s unfiltered and honest nature, some viewers have accused her of lacking media training.

She remedies this in a new Saturday Night Live sketch, in which she plays the “lesbian intern” of lip-readers played by Bowen Yang, and the episode’s host, Jacob Elordi.

Throughout the sketch, Yang and Elordi appear on Entertainment Tonight to lip-read clips from the most recent Golden Globes awards, and TMZ footage of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. However, they just can’t seem to get the words right. They call upon Rapp, who is actually fulfilling an obligation.

“I’ve been going absolutely off in every single interview lately,” says Rapp, “so now I have to do 40 hours of court-ordered media training.”

Rapp then attempts to lip-read court footage featuring an infamous conversation between Gwyneth Paltrow and attorney Kristin VanOrman.

You can watch the sketch above.

Reneé Rapp is kicking off the year with a bang. The movie-musical adaptation of Mean Girls, in which she plays queen bee Regina George, has garnered a lot of buzz, and for many reasons. Of course, Rapp wowed audiences with her comedic timing, strong acting, and powerful vocals, but equally as entertaining have been her interviews during the Mean Girls press tour.

In one notable video interview, she recalls a tour bus manager being rude to her and her friends. In another, she comments on her “Not My Fault” collaborator Megan Thee Stallion’s assets. While many fans have revered Rapp’s unfiltered and honest nature, some viewers have accused her of lacking media training.

She remedies this in a new Saturday Night Live sketch, in which she plays the “lesbian intern” of lip-readers played by Bowen Yang, and the episode’s host, Jacob Elordi.

Throughout the sketch, Yang and Elordi appear on Entertainment Tonight to lip-read clips from the most recent Golden Globes awards, and TMZ footage of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. However, they just can’t seem to get the words right. They call upon Rapp, who is actually fulfilling an obligation.

“I’ve been going absolutely off in every single interview lately,” says Rapp, “so now I have to do 40 hours of court-ordered media training.”

Rapp then attempts to lip-read court footage featuring an infamous conversation between Gwyneth Paltrow and attorney Kristin VanOrman.

You can watch the sketch above.

In her second performance of the night, Reneé Rapp turned up the heat on the Saturday Night Live stage with a performance of “Not My Fault” from the Mean Girls soundtrack.

In the 2024 movie-musical adaptation of Mean Girls, Rapp plays queen bee Regina George, reprising her role from the Broadway adaptation. Ahead of the “Not My Fault” performance, Rachel McAdams, who played Regina in the original 2004 movie, introduced Rapp, who was then seen rocking a flowing black coat and pants, with a matching top.

Surrounded by background dancers, all dressed in pink, Rapp maintained the fun, flashy spirit of Mean Girls, switching up the energy from her previous performance of “Snow Angel.” Behind Rapp, at the center of the stage, was a large pink cake, which rotated midway through the song.

As the cake made a 180-degree rotation, Megan Thee Stallion was revealed, then joined Rapp to perform her verse of the song. As Meg delivered her fire bars, the two matched each other’s vibes, as they twerked it out to the beat.

You can see the performance of “Not My Fault” above.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Tonight (January 20) marked a very special night for Reneé Rapp. Hot of the premiere of the movie-musical adaptation of Mean Girls, in which, she reprised her role of Regina George from the Broadway adaptation, Rapp made her debut on Saturday Night Live as the first musical guest of 2024.

In her first performance of the night, Rapp delivered a raw, emotional performance of “Snow Angel,” the title track from her debut album.

During the performance, Rapp laid flat on the floor, letting her vocals take charge. Dressed in a white corset and a matching leather coat, she rises up maintaining an ethereal presence throughout. White fog adds to the the icy, cold feeling of the emotional, gut-wrenching ballad.

Last September, Rapp opened up about the songwriting and production process on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast and revealed that it was written after a traumatic experience. It was one of the final songs she recorded with producer Alexander 23.

“We started writing it, and it was just the two of us. And the entire time I was writing it, I felt nothing,” Rapp said. “Until we recorded the song and the whole thing was done and I played it for my friends and my manager and everybody was like, ‘This is insane.’ But for me, that whole year of my life was inherent resilience.”

You can see a clip of the performance of “Snow Angel” above.

The Green Bay Packers will spend the next eight months haunted by squandered opportunities from Saturday night’s Divisional Round game against the 49ers, as they were the better, more consistent team for most of the night but also made the most costly errors.

The Packers trailed 7-6 at the half after scoring just six points on three red zone drives in the first half before trading touchdowns with the Niners early in the third quarter. However, they seemed to finally take control of the game when Keisean Nixon returned a kickoff deep into Niners territory, with Eric Wilson saving the day with a diving fumble recovery to set up a go-ahead TD and two-point conversion from Jordan Love.

The defense would continue to do yeoman’s work against Brock Purdy and a 49ers offense that looked flustered, but then Love suddenly started to look like a young quarterback as it came time to finish the game. First came an interception at midfield after he rifled a ball high and behind his tight end on third down, bouncing into the hands of Dre Greenlaw.

That set up a Niners field goal to close the gap to four, and after back-to-back drives ending in punts, the Packers would find some life thanks to Aaron Jones and drive down into San Francisco territory. However, they would come up empty for the third time on the night after a Anders Carlson 41-yard field goal pulled just wide left of the uprights, and that was all the invitation the Niners needed to walk through the door.

After a dreadful night for the first three-plus quarters, Brock Purdy finally found a rhythm to move San Francisco down the field, where Christian McCaffrey punched in his second TD of the game to give the Niners a 27-24 lead.

The Packers would get a first down on their final minute drive trying to tie or win the game, but with just under 50 seconds left, Love made a terrible decision to just huck the ball up into the middle of the field, where Greenlaw came away with his second pick of the night to seal a Niners win.

It’s about as bad a throw as you’ll see in that situation, as the Packers had timeouts and it wasn’t fourth down, so they would’ve been perfectly fine with a throwaway. Instead, he forced it into triple coverage, throwing across his body in the rain with no juice on the ball, and it fluttered into Greenlaw’s arms to put the game on ice.

Love was great for much of the game, including a pair of touchdown passes in the third quarter, but red zone stallouts and his two miscues in the middle of the field will haunt him for months to come. He and the Packers will hope they become learning experiences for the future, but given how well the Packers played and how poorly Purdy and the Niners offense looked for much of the game, it will be a long time before Green Bay comes to terms with losing this game.

San Francisco meanwhile will feel like they escaped one, and after their injury luck a year ago, they might feel they were owed this kind of win. Deebo Samuel’s injury status will be a big story going into next week as he left with a shoulder injury early on, but San Francisco played about as poorly as they have all year and managed to come out with a win, allowing them to now try to settle in for the NFC title game back at home.

The Green Bay Packers looked like the better team in the first half on Saturday night in their Divisional round matchup with top-seeded San Francisco, but the 49ers managed to take a 7-6 lead into the half.

The Packers scored just six points on three red zone trips in the first half, while the Niners got a big play touchdown to George Kittle as they never even had a red zone possession but still managed to be on top. In the third quarter, the offenses on both sides started to heat up, as the Packers finally got in the end zone but were immediately answered by a long Christian McCaffrey TD run to keep San Francisco up by one.

That lead would only last a few minutes as the ensuing kickoff saw a wild sequence where Keisean Nixon broke free to the left side of the field and ran deep into San Francisco territory, before fumbling at the end and almost giving it away if not for an incredible effort by Eric Wilson to dive on the ball.

It’s an incredible play by Wilson to get on the bouncing ball while running full speed and control it before the Niners special teams unit could jump on the pile and try to rip it away. There are so many ways for this to go wrong with a bouncing oblong ball, as it’s just Wilson and four 49ers around him, but he was able to grab it and control it and save the Packers possession.

That return by Nixon and recovery by Wilson became a go-ahead touchdown for Green Bay, as Jordan Love hit Romeo Doubs over the middle to move the ball to the 5 and then hit Tucker Kraft for a TD (and Aaron Jones for the two point conversion) on pick plays on the goal line.

The touchdown was a legal pick play, as the contact was made at the line of scrimmage, and Love threaded the needle to get the ball to Kraft in traffic for six. After dominating much of the game, Green Bay finally found themselves in control, but if not for the heroic effort of Wilson on the kick return unit to get on the ball, they would’ve been left kicking themselves for another squandered opportunity.

Life’s too short to be tied into unnecessary rap beef. If “Heaven’s Galaxy” musician Kid Cudi could repair his previously rocky relationship with Kanye West, mending things with Lupe Fiasco was a piece of cake. Shortly after Fiasco’s abrasive comments on X (formerly Twitter), the pair seems to have ironed out their issue. Unfortunately, that moment of peace didn’t last long.

However, on January 20, Cudi revealed that after a tense conversation, their beef had officially come to an end. “Just talked to Lupe,” he wrote on X. “[We] had a great talk. I know I was wrong and told him I shouldn’t have done that fuck sh*t I did. I called myself looking out for the fans in the moment, but in reality, I was just hating. I apologized, and he accepted it. Which I appreciated for real. I understand the anger and vitriol he had for me all these years, and I wasn’t mature enough to step up and just have a conversation and admit I was wrong.”

“We, as black men, need to be united.,” he added. “He always had love for me. Always supported me. I shouldn’t have done him like that. I wanna thank my guy Ibn for setting the call up, and u, the fans, for being real with me and urging us to speak. We are good now. Brand new journey.”

During Cudi’s interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, he revealed the origins of their friction, which triggered Fiasco’s online remarks. The beef between the two music had been brewing for a long while.

When everyday folk are knocked off their feet by a new cinematic work, they rave about it amongst their friends and family. Typically, it doesn’t travel much further than that. However, nothing is standard about “Water Under The Bridge” singer Adele. Instead of hiding behind an anonymous Rotten Tomatoes account, the global superstar used her latest Weekends With Adele residency show to give attendees a new movie recommendation.

On January 19, Adele took a moment out of her set to profess her love for Zac Efron and his latest role in The Iron Claw. The film, directed by Sean Durkin, follows the tragic life of the famed pro-wrestling family, the Von Erichs. Like most critics and viewers alike, Adele is obsessed with the picture and wants everyone to dive into it.

“Obviously, there were a lot of good movies this year,” she said. “But if you haven’t seen it yet, ‘The Iron Claw’ was my favorite of the year. I loved Zac Efron in that movie. It’s the best movie I’ve seen this year. You have to see it.”

The sold-out The Colosseum at Caesars Palace crowd erupted in agreement with Adele’s public declaration. Efron hasn’t responded to Adele’s compliments. But on January 14, he took to his official Instagram to show love to the world of wrestling.

“I have so much admiration and respect for the world of Professional Wrestling,” he wrote. “And to the sacrifice and dedication of the athletes. These guys tour for months, putting their bodies on the line every day to perform. [It] was an honor to step into the ring and learn from one of the best Chavo Guerrero Jr.”

The Iron Claw is showing in theaters now.