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It’s been quite a rollercoaster for Ed Sheeran over the last few days. First, there’s the fact that the UK superstar released his fourth studio album, =, anchored by singles like “Bad Habits” and “Shivers,” just a week ago. But right in the middle of the PR blitz for a massive release like this one in the middle of a pandemic, he happened to catch Covid-19, and necessarily had to put some of his promo cycle on pause. As he was scheduled to be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live tonight, rumors began to swirl that the show was looking for a new artist to take his place, but luckily Ed got better and made the slot happened.

He explained in an interview earlier this week that he was never planning to not show up, he also knew the show would go on. And show up is exactly what he did, bringing a pitch-perfect rendition of his slightly-spooky new single “Shivers” to the SNL stage. It was a traditional Sheeran performance — except there was no loop pedal action — with him singing and playing guitar while backed by an immaculate band. Hey, everyone outgrows the loop pedal one day. Check out the performance above. And while we’re here, let’s all be thankful for his speedy recovery.

Two years after becoming the UFC’s first Chinese champion, Zhang Weili (21-3) had carved out a path of superstardom, earning gold one year after entering the promotion and taking fight of the year honors against Joanna Jedrzejczyk. At UFC 261 earlier this year, everything changed, when Rose Namajunas (12-4) dropped Weili with a stunning left head kick to claim the strawweight title.

Saturday night at UFC 268 from Madison Square Garden in New York, Weili and Namajunas pushed each other to the limit, with the champion retaining her belt via split decision.

Both fighters were active in the opening minutes, as they traded attempts while circling the Octagon. Weili landed several strong leg kicks, while Namajunas was swift with counter combinations up top. Weili was successful in her first takedown attempt, earning top position. Weili dropped a few big shots from on top before the champ scrambled her way back to her feet. With 10 seconds left in the first, Namajunas dropped Weili with a front kick to the chin, but Weili hopped back to her feet to exchange at the buzzer.

To open the second, Namajunas continued to put together seamless combinations, landing up top before chopping away at Weili’s lead leg. Weili jumped right back in with a huge right hand that didn’t faze Namajunas. The champ continued to land big leg kicks, but Weili stunned her with a left hook that left Namajunas in retreat. Weili caught a leg kick and earned another takedown midway through the round. Namajunas worked her way back to her feet yet again, where it was the champ using a trip for a takedown before sliding up into mount position to end the round.

Both fighters settled in for the third round, with more stationary strikes and less bouncing around the Octagon. Weili and Namajunas exchanged big strikes in the middle of the cage, sending the challenger stumbling backward before a quick recovery. Weili hurt Namajunas with a low leg kick, then a nice left hook that left the champ throwing at the wind. Weili then shot in for a takedown and took the champ’s back with less than 10 seconds left in the third. Weili transitioned into full mount to close the round.

Full of confidence to open the championship rounds, Weili came out with big shots, but the champion was determined to get a round back. Namajunas dropped a handful of big shots and stuffed a takedown attempt. Weili jumped into another takedown attempt, earning the champ’s back. Namajunas transitioned into guard by fighting off Weili’s rear-naked choke attempt. Namajunas attempted to transition into side control, but Weili kept her at bay in guard through the end of the fourth.

Weili and Namajunas came out firing, exchanging shots in the middle of the cage in the final round. Namajunas slipped a big right hand shot by Weili and earned another critical takedown, where she kept the challenger for the entirety of the round.

Namajunas returned to glory at UFC 261 after an up-and-down last few years. She lost the strawweight crown when she was knocked out by Jessica Andrade, earned a decision victory in a return bout with Andrade and claimed the belt again with her win over Weili. With no clear contender in the division, it will be interesting to see what UFC president Dana White has planned.

For the first time in history, boxing has a undisputed super middleweight champion. Canelo Alvarez (57-1-2) and Caleb Plant (21-1) battled at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in a unification bout for the five recognized titles, and while it took 11 rounds, Alvarez managed to hand Plant the first loss of his career and pick up the win via TKO.

By the 11th round, it seemed obvious that Plant would need to get a finish or Alvarez was going to unify the titles. Despite taking several rounds off of the pound-for-pound best boxer in the world, Plant did not do enough to win if it went to the cards. But Alvarez decided to just end the show, himself. Thirty-one seconds into the round, Alvarez threw a vicious left hand, and when Plant started to bend over, he caught him with a right.

Plant got up but was obviously hurt, and Alvarez pounced. He threw a left hook that sent Plant stumbling into the ropes and running across the ring, then pummeled him with a collection of right hands until he hit the deck. There was no need for a 10-count as Alvarez became the first Mexico-born fighter to hold every major title at the same time since 1972.

Alvarez entered Saturday’s bout as the WBA (Super), WBC, WBO and The Ring champion. With the win, he took the IBF championship off of Plant.

It turns out that Luka Doncic fella is pretty good at basketball. The Dallas Mavericks took on the Boston Celtics on Saturday night in Dallas, with Doncic doing what he does best and stuffing the stat sheet to the tune of 33 points, nine rebounds, and five assists in 33 minutes of work. The Mavs would go on to win the game, 107-104.

While it looked like Dallas would win comfortably, the Celtics battled back from a 17-point halftime deficit, scratching and clawing throughout the game’s final 24 minutes until they finally took the lead with just over two minutes left on a Marcus Smart three to go up 104-102.

Unfortunately for Boston, they were not able to hold that lead, and they did not score again. A Kristaps Porzingis dunk with 99 seconds left in the game tied things up, and after trading some misses, Dallas put the ball in Doncic’s hands with just under 10 seconds left. He dribbled up the court and made his way to the left wing, where he attempted one of his trademark stepback threes. The clock hit zero right as the ball made its way through the cylinder.

Josh Richardson played this about as well as he could, while both Robert Williams and Smart were in the area to try and make Doncic’s life a little more difficult. Their problem was that sometimes, there’s no answer for Luka magic, and as a result, the Mavs picked up the win.

Justin Gaethje (23-3) wasted no time getting after it in the opening fight of the main card Saturday night at UFC 268 from Madison Square Garden in New York with a decision victory over Michael Chandler (22-7).

The duo came out swinging, throwing a whole lot of power behind their shots, teeing away with blows to the head and sweltering leg kicks. Late in the first, Chandler hurt Gaethje with a flying knee and a flurry of punches before Gaethje answered with a leg rattling counter.

Both fighters were clearly compromised after a full five minutes of nasty lead leg kicks, but Chandler didn’t slow to open the second. Gaethje answered, walking Chandler backward with a big uppercut and a hook that sent Chandler on his back. Gaethje tried to finish the fight on the ground, but Chandler was able to scramble out of danger.

In the third, Gaethje went back to the leg, but Chandler kept moving forward. Chandler swept in for a takedown, tossed Gaethje on his head, but Gaethje scrambled and found his way to Chandler’s back. Gaethje rocked Chandler with shot after shot, but Chandler dropped his hands and kept moving forward.

Coming off a decision loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov, Gaethje appears to have moved back into the No. 1 contender spot for the lightweight belt with his victory. Chandler will go back to the drawing board with two consecutive defeats now following his knockout loss to the current champion, Charles Oliveira, in May.

Lonzo Ball might be in the luckiest man in the NBA right now, and it has nothing to do with what he can do on the basketball court. During Saturday night’s game between the Chicago Bulls and the Philadelphia 76ers, Joel Embiid found himself pretty upset about either a no-call against Nikola Vucevic or the fact that his handle got a little loose and the ball went out of bounds.

A frustrated Embiid let out a scream and threw a punch. It was not meant to do anything other than be a way to express his disappointment, but unbeknownst to him, Ball showed up and was directly in front of him. What happened next was Embiid accidentally throwing a punch that, if it landed, would have put Ball to sleep.

This was not meant to be Embiid’s best Tyson Fury impression, but it came about an inch away from being exactly that. Fortunately for Ball, that was not the case, and he was able to continue playing in a basketball game instead of getting knocked out. Embiid got hit with a technical foul, and he obviously was not happy about that, but at the very least, he can take some solace in knowing something extremely bad did not happen to someone on the other team.

It’s very rare that things are pretty with LSU and Alabama meet up on the football field, as the two SEC West programs always seem to play tough, hard-nosed football games against one another. But on Saturday night, we got a moment of beauty on a trick play involving a punter.

On their first possession of the game, the Tigers found themselves facing a fourth-and-4 from near midfield. They sent out the punt team, but instead of asking Avery Atkins to try and pin the Crimson Tide deep, the punter took the snap and started to barrel towards the line of scrimmage.

Now, asking a punter to run into a whole bunch of players on Alabama’s defense is an absolutely horrendous idea and a really great way to get your punter hurt. So instead of asking him to lower his shoulders and fight for yardage, Atkins pulled off a jump pass that no one on the Crimson Tide saw coming. Jack Mashburn snuck behind everyone and reeled in the pass, going 26 yards and setting LSU up in Bama territory.

The Tigers would go on to score a little bit later on the drive. Let this be a lesson to every college football coach: If your punter throws the ball, good things will happen.

Purdue football has done it again. Just weeks after they knocked off Iowa to end the Hawkeyes’ hopes of an undefeated season, the Boilermakers played hosts to Michigan State and dealt a major blow to the Spartans’ aspirations of making it to the College Football Playoff. By the time the dust settled in West Lafayette, Purdue picked up a decisive 40-29 win to move to 6-3 on the season.

While star wide receiver David Bell exploded — he caught 11 balls for 217 yards and a touchdown as he continues to make the case that he is among the best pass catchers in the sport — fellow receiver Jackson Anthrop housed one of the best trick plays that we’ve seen. Purdue took two plays, a double-reverse pass and a wide receiver screen, and mashed them together in a way that will make you raise your eyebrows.

Anthrop took a handoff from Aidan O’Connell and flipped it to another receiver, T.J. Sheffield. From there, Sheffield flipped it back to O’Connell, while Anthrop leaked out behind a whole lotta big fellas. He caught the ball and ran behind his offensive line, managed to make a few dudes miss, and had a 39-yard touchdown grab where he probably ran twice as far. It is certainly not a bad way to pick up your second score of the season,

It’s been years since Ye and producer Hit-Boy have worked together, and it’s all because the two had a falling out some years back. Hit-Boy previously spoke about the separation, saying it occurred after Ye found out he was working with Beyonce. During a recent interview on the Rory & Mal podcast, Hit-Boy further discussed the incident and how it almost affected his career. “I thugged through a lot of f*cked up sh*t, falling out with Kanye f*cked me up for a minute bro,” Hit-Boy said. “I was damn n****, am I still gonna be able to do this sh*t?”

He continued, “Just being a thousand, it’s n****s that done came to me that was like Ye said to this n****, ‘Don’t use Hit-Boy on your album.’ Like I really lived through that, n****. How many motherf*ckers could get through Kanye tryna derail their sh*t bro? So now you see why I’m at the Nas party like, “N**** I did a harder album than for Nas than you did, that’s just real.”

The Nas party that Hit-Boy is referring to is the album release celebration the two artists had for King’s Disease II, the Nas album that Hit-Boy executive produced. It was there that Hit-Boy said to the audience, “It’s not a hundred n****s producing the beat. It’s not a hundred n****s writing the rhymes, n****. It’s two n****s in the studio. I hear this shit right now, homie. It’s going down. King’s Disease II. Stream that sh*t, buy that sh*t.”

He added, “There don’t be n****s in the studio. It’s just me and bro. Do y’all hear this sh*t? It’s just me and this n**** in the studio. He’s barred up, I’m making beats. No hoopla. We not on f*ckin’ Twitter botherin’ y’all. We not on IG Live putting a weird-ass stream up, n****. We doin’ this sh*t for real though, n****! Stop playin’!”

Last month, Dave Chappelle stirred up some controversy with his Netflix special The Closer. Comments he made about the transgender community led to outrage, including from the streamer’s employees. Chappelle did get some support from the likes of 50 Cent and Caitlyn Jenner. 50 agreed with Chappelle about DaBaby’s homophobic comments, which Chappelle semi-defended, while Caitlyn Jenner said Chappelle’s words were “100% right.” Jay-Z also showed Chappelle some love during a recent conversation about the special on Twitter Spaces.

Jay spoke said “true art has to cause conversation.” He admitted that The Closer made him uncomfortable at multiple points but said, “Sometimes it’s going to be abrasive, sometimes it’s going to be off-putting to folks. But it opens up an opportunity to have a dialogue.” Jay later called Chappelle “super brave and super genius. If you spend time with him, he’s brilliant,” adding, “I think he pushed a lot of buttons.”

He continued. “These algorithms allow you to talk to people who agree with you,” he said, adding, “We have to speak to one another when we disagree… Anything that doesn’t have that tension, it’s not going to be real. We had fake conversations all this time before Trump was in office, then we got to see people for who they really were. And then we got to have real conversations.”

Jay also said, “I think great art is divisive. Some people like it, some people hate it. When you’re making great art, you have to be fearless and create something that you believe in. That’s what it’s about.”

Jay’s comments come after Chappelle, along with Barack Obama, inducted him into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.