Quick Hitters
UFC says McGregor will fight Oct. 6 in Vegas
LOS ANGELES — Conor McGregor will return to mixed martial arts on Oct. 6 in Las Vegas with a bout against UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov.
The UFC dramatically announced the matchup Friday to close a news conference promoting the slate of fight cards for the rest of 2018.
McGregor won the featherweight and lightweight championships during his meteoric MMA career, but he hasn’t fought in the UFC since taking the lightweight belt from Eddie Alvarez in November 2016.
Johnny Manziel throws 4 interceptions in CFL debut
MONTREAL — Johnny Manziel threw an interception — and made a tackle — on his second play in the Canadian Football League. It didn’t get much better after that, with four of his six firsthalf series ending in interceptions.
Seeing regular-season action for the first time since December 2015 with the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, Manziel fizzled in a hurry in the Montreal Alouettes’ 50-11 loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Friday night.
After completing a pass for a 5-yard loss on his first play, Manziel threw an interception on the second — with the 2012 Heisman Trophy winner bringing down linebacker Larry Dean.
On Manziel’s second series, with Montreal down 14-0 to his former Hamilton teammates, he handed off twice before the TigerCats blocked a punt and returned it for a touchdown.
The former Texas A&M star had another pass intercepted on his third series, with the blame going to running back Tyrell Sutton for mishandling and deflecting the ball to defender Jumal Rolle.
Manziel led Montreal to a field goal on his fourth drive, then threw his third interception early in the second quarter — Rolle’s second of the night.
The fourth interception came with 2:22 left in the half at end with the Tiger-Cats up 38-3.
Manziel played three series in the third quarter — all ending in punts — before giving way to back up Vernon Adams in the fourth.
Suns re-sign point guard Isaiah Canaan
PHOENIX — The Phoenix Suns have re-signed point guard Isaiah Canaan.
Canaan, entering his sixth NBA season, signed with Phoenix last Dec. 13 and appeared in 19 games before breaking his left ankle Jan. 31 against Dallas, requiring season-ending surgery.
He averaged nine points and four assists in his brief time with the team, including a 17-point game in a victory at Dallas on Dec. 18. Canaan has appeared in 209 NBA games for Houston, Philadelphia, Chicago and Phoenix, averaging 8.4 points and 1.8 assists.
He was a second-round draft pick — the 34th selection overall — by Houston in 2013 after a standout career at Murray State.
What one person calls a hobby, another may consider a lifestyle.
That’s true for Yuma’s Claudia Diaz, whose career as a professional body builder is just that. A lifestyle.
Diaz, who is a 39-year-old mother of two, isn’t just the first female professional body builder from Yuma, but she looks to rise to an elite level in the sport.
She has recently turned professional by getting her card with the International Federation of Body Building or IFBB, which is the only way to have a chance to qualify for Olympia. There are other federations across the country, but this is the top one.
Eventually she wants to go to Olympia, which is widely considered to be the Super Bowl of Body Building. The competition was made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1970s. He won the competition seven times.
“How can I not compete against women that I admire?” Diaz said. “I used to look up to them and say wow. Now I can walk right up to them on the same stage. How can I give that up?”
Diaz began body building about 12 years ago and has been competing since 2015. Prior to this she ran marathons before shifting her focus. Whatever she would put her mind to, she would focus 100 percent on the task at hand.
“I used to just workout, then I thought what can I do now? I started running marathons. I was a runner for a while, but then I thought what else? I kept pushing myself,” she said.
“A lot of my personality is that I want to do things that not everybody can do.”
The lifestyle is quite literally just that, and it doesn’t allow her to deviate much. She has to follow a strict workout regiment and diet in order to keep her body in top-notch condition.