Ep 296: UFC 314-Alexander Volkanovski Reclaims The Featherweight Title. Promoters Biting Off More Than They Can Chew. Latest News.

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
What's up everybody?

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome back to MMA after Hours. It's Michael Carlisle and
Micah Frankomiicah. How you doing man, man, I'm doing great.
That was an amazing weekend of fights. We got a
little different weekend.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Of fights coming up ahead of us, and some greatness
to really reflect him this.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Week, some greatness. I see what you did there.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Of course, UFC three fourteen in Miami, new featherweight champion crowned.
He's a former featherweight champion. Alexander Volkanowski defeats Diego Lopez
by unanimous decision.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
And I guess, at least for.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
The time being, we can stop all the old Volks
shot his chin. This that he's passed his prime, he's old.
All those things may still be true, but he certainly
turned back the hands of time on Saturday.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Not just turned back the hounds of time, but created history,
the first mail over the age of thirty five to
win a UFC title. I believe at fifty five or below. Yeah,
so those four weight classes, you could kind of have
that demarcation line. The performance is going to start to

(01:15):
drop at thirty five. Not to mention the three losses
in the row two of them were bad knockouts. There
was a lot of question well, not three losses in
the row, three out of four the bad knockout. There
was a lot of questions to be answered about Vulk
and he answered all of them by not looking tentative,
totally looking normal out of the gate, willing to exchange

(01:37):
in the pocket with a big puncher. It can't be
under highlighted. It cann't be under emphasized anymore. That fourteen
months away really gave Volkanovski the time to digest, understand,
maybe not really evolve, but maybe kind of take himself

(01:59):
away from the process and not be so consumed. Even
he was talking about at postfight. Pre fight, normally his
mantra is you're not gonna take this from my family.
I'm taking the belt back to my family. And this
time around, he said, the focus is more on overcoming
what had happened to him, getting back on the windstreak,

(02:20):
proving that he could be himself again. So I think
kind of taking himself away from a lot of the
hype and the pressures of the fight game. Not to
mention allowing his fucking rain to heal, because that was
my biggest reason to thinking Tiporio was gonna murder him.
Is you can't turn around from being concussed in the
fight game that quickly. I don't care when they say, hey,

(02:41):
you can get clear from a concussion two weeks later
in the NFL. I think this spoke a lot more
about the man that Volkanowski is being able to overcome
so much on the night.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Certainly, I think you're right on that and the other thing,
and maybe the most important thing, giving the brain time
to heal up and take some time. Look, there's nothing
wrong with being ambitious. There's nothing wrong, especially when you're younger,
being a little ambitious. But if we're being honest, Volk
might have bitten off a little more than he could chew.
And to kind of make up for that, it seemed

(03:14):
like it was, all right, I gotta get back in there.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
I gotta get back in there.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
This time takes off what fourteen months, almost fifteen months
after the Taporia fight, lets his body heel up, lets
his brain heal up, and he looked a whole lot
like the Volkanovsky of old.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Pulled him right off the shelf, and it was some good,
old but twenty twenty two vintage Volkanovsky. It tasted like,
you know, you had some old Vulk foot steak right there.
It was a nice showing from you know, chef Vulk.
I think that this spoke volumes about who he was
being able to overcome, and that's that's the true essence

(03:54):
of the story and the narrative here is it's not
so much that age that periver that proverbial thirty five.
It's somebody that I think is that rare. Is what
we have to magnify that his game is that different
that will. We've seen him as a rugby player, we've
seen him as an athlete. I don't know if Vulk

(04:15):
is really that much faster, that much more explosive than
the next featherweight. I think that you have to look
at the fight. IQ is something different, and you could
really easily break this fight down to saying Vulk lambasted
Lopez with the jab, but you would be underestimating the

(04:38):
lateral movement. Yes, there were a couple knockdowns because Vulk
does have this tendency and it cost him in other
fights where he likes to pull on this center line
just straight back. But his movement, his circling, his head movement,
his ability to put together patterns. I'm trying to call
it as a watching from home thinking in my head,
what is he about the job? And it is so
damn hard to get on his patterns and to beat

(05:01):
him in the chess game. Mentally, what's coming next? As
he's hitting Lopez with bodykicks inside leg kicks, mixing in
takedowns and then popping that job. I think it's we're
looking at a special athlete mentally, how he makes infight adjustments,
you know.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
The flip side to that, I felt like Diego Lopez
was tentative and never really got going. I don't know though,
if that was poor game planning, if that was nerves,
or if that was just Volkanovsky doing his thing and
keeping Lopez off balance most of the night. There were
a few moments here and there where Lopez got some

(05:38):
shots in and things like that, but by and large,
again whether it was poor game planning, nerves, just Vulcan
imposing his will, Lopez never really got going in this fight.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
I think the first round, Vult came shot out of
a canon, not pace wise, not looking to murder wise,
but energy wise, bravado wise. He saw right away. I
think we saw a hesitant Vult against Aporian, not knowing
if he could with if he could withstand a big punch.
I think this Vault came in and said, if I can't,
while I'm going out on my shield and was ready

(06:10):
to do it. And somewhere in the clinch in the
first round where Vult gets the trip, I think Diego
is saying, what the hell, because I believe you looked
over at me and said, Vulk looks to be the
faster and stronger guy right now. And as the fight warrn,
we saw that punching power was on Lopez's side, but
many of the times he didn't look like the stronger guy,

(06:30):
and I think that was just a ferocity in which
Vulk attacked the fight early and that's when he mentally
threw Lopez out of his game plan. And then we
saw it to the success that Diego had a lot of.
It was winging that big overhand and the fourth round
where he had the most success. I don't want to
call it luck, but the left hand that skims across

(06:53):
the eye, I mean, that's that's the pretty debilitating strike
to land on anybody at that distance, because you just
feel like your eye got ripped out.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Right, right, right, right, all right, let's go ahead and
do this so we can put it behind us.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Is Volkanowski the greatest featherweight of all time?

Speaker 3 (07:12):
It is stupid hard to battle that resume because of
the narrative, because of their resurgence, because of having the
whole career in rugby and then coming over here, and
to be one behind Jose Aldo in UFC title fight wins,
four behind him in featherweight title fight wins. Let's not

(07:34):
forget the WEC. It matters the best featherweights in the world.
We're in that weight class, We're in that corporation. As
they moved right over to the UFC. I still have
all though at one, but I feel like it gets
harder and harder to make that argument as we see
all those still competing being in a lower weight class.

(07:54):
Volkanovsky beat all though, and now he's defying time and age.
It's hard not to say that this is the greatest
featherweight performer that we've ever seen.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
I would still go Aldough, I would not put up
much of a fight if anybody else wanted to tell
me that it was Volkanovsky.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
I get it.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
I think you're right, though, I think the more Auto
continues to fight, Let's be honest, past his prime. It
does in the minds of a lot of people diminish
what he.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Did in his prime.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
It shouldn't, but he does.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
There are also two products and prime examples of different generations,
even though they're similar ages. If you guys don't understand
that you're new to mma, Jose Aldo came up in
a gym in a day where when he showed up
to the gym and threw on the sparring pads, he
went and fought motherfuckers probably three times that day. They

(08:53):
were ruthless in those gyms back in those days, and
you put so much extra mileage on your body to
where vault coming in a decade later, there's been a
much more scientific approach and you've seen really specifically even
in New Zealand and Australia, they really do emphasize a
safer structure where Jim wars or heralded in Brazil and

(09:14):
Jim's like Shuto Box and Novo Unyo that Jose Aldo
was around. So it's it's hard to comprehend even though
we're still seeing all though the dude came in and
he was a sharpened killer in his prime from the
get go in the WEC, and that's why he was
so effective. But it's a marble to even see him
still competing with top fifteen competition at this point when

(09:37):
we feel like, dude, this is not all though, this
is this is not what he was when he came
into the UFC, and that was the best featherweight we
thought we had ever seen at that time.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Yeah, who do you think is up first for Volkanovski?

Speaker 3 (09:53):
You know what I want? You know what I want?

Speaker 2 (09:56):
What do you want?

Speaker 3 (09:57):
I want Iliop for you to shut up make and
let's go redo this fight now that Folk's healthy and
isn't concussed a couple months ago, and let's see who
the best featherweight in the world was, because there's a
whole logjam of shit happening at lightweight, and I think
every contender below Volkanovski stature wise, probably a bigger dude

(10:17):
than to Pooria. I understand making weight sucks, you nearly
die ash Jalen Turner about that now he's retired, but
ask him about every weight cut he ever had. I
think the most desirable fight, the biggest fight, the most
marketable fight, the fight that everyone should want to see
is Volkanowski versus Taporia now that we have vintage of
bulk back, it's to Poria because my other two ideas,

(10:41):
even though you're making a weird face, they feel just
as weird. Hey, guys, Mosar Evylav is on an unbeing
win streak in the UFC and is actually just beat
out your mean sterling. He has a litany of world
class victories, including beating Diego Lopez on short notice. Why
is it not Mosar evylaw Well he's boring his shit yet.
Well we've already kind of and he has no personality,

(11:03):
no fine fan base. You have even sent me articles
though where we talk about that doesn't matter anymore. There's
a globalization of mixed martial arts and different markets with
different stars. There's Abu Dhabi cards, there's cards around the world.
Most are evylov Is a possibility, but we're probably not
getting that fight in Vegas.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, it doesn't have to be Vegas. I don't hate
the idea of Taporia. I just don't think it's happened happening.
I think that that ship has sailed, at least for now.
So at that point you got Yaya Rodriguez, who also
won on Saturday Night. We can talk about him in
a minute. You got Evulov that he's what nineteen and

(11:47):
oh got that huge UFC win streak. Those are the
ones that you need to get that.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
It's just Waldgreen, Sorry do you.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
I don't even want to know, So at that point
it almost has to be one of those two. Maybe
it is Yair. I have a feeling they're going to
hold him back for something else. So at that point,
if you love makes the most sense. I don't disagree
with your assessment of him, but he's probably next in line.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
I hope. I mean, it makes a lot of sense.
But well, let's get to the future. Fight real quick,
jump down, Yeah you're Rodriguez, thirty twenty seven across the board,
beats Patricio, Pitbull Frady, He gets to knock down the
third round. His straits look great, his kicks look great,
The speed, the length, all that that we expected. Bothered Patricio.

(12:44):
After the fight, we get Yayear pointing to Hunter Campbell
and saying, hey, we talked about it, you said it.
I get a title shot off this win. It makes
a lot of sense to a lot of us. With
the UFC preemptive announcement of where the next UFC Notechick
card is going to be in Guadalajara. You need a
Mexican headliner that's six months for five months down the

(13:05):
road to September. Everything makes a whole shit ton of sense.
It would be Yair Rodriz. You read Yahyer Rodriguez, except
for the fact that Vulk owned him when we saw
it at UFC two ninety. There's no heat between the
two to really resell a pay per view, and you
blew it against Brian Ortega when you were dominating him,
got submitted. You're only coming off of this one win.

(13:28):
It makes a lot of sense, but it doesn't make
sense for Yahyear watch.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
This, Yayar, I know what we told you, but we
all assume that Vulk was shot and Diego was gonna win,
and this match was gonna make itself.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Things change. We want you at NOCEA.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
We want you in the main event or the comin event,
probably comin event, because there ain't gonna be a title involved.
But we ain't asking Volkanovski to go down there and
fight you for the same reasons you just laid out Mica.
So we're gonna have to come up with the plan
B for you, sir. Sorry, bigger in the main event?

Speaker 3 (14:02):
Yeah hear Rodriguez or als Chandre Pantosia. Pantosia now is
stuck on the sideline till notch till he fights Moreno
in that main event, because you just told me we
don't have yeah year in the main event. I only
got two Mexican stars, and if we're doing Lopez Rodriguez
just having that grudge match in the co main event,

(14:22):
it can't be the main event on pay per view.
I love him, it just can't be. So Moreno pantosa
Is are our headliner and Pantosa' is just sidelined for
no reason.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
I don't I don't know that i'd call Pantosia a
loser there. It probably ensures him a main event at NOCE.
I think you're right on that. Probably not his preference
to have this much time off, But he doesn't mean
it's not necessarily a good thing for him. So I
would say to answer your quession, I would say, yeah,

(14:56):
here's the bigger loser there, because that cost him a
title shot.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Let's be really honest.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
If Lopez wins, they probably signed the goddamn contract right
there in the octagon before Joe Rogan gets to talk
to Lopez. Didn't play out that way. So yeah, I'm
gonna say, yeah, he's the bigger loser.

Speaker 3 (15:16):
Here, So diego Lopez coming off the lost, Yeah, you're
coming off the wind. Do we think that's the fight
that they're gonna make? Is there so much heat, so
much magnetism around there? You tell ya?

Speaker 4 (15:27):
Hear?

Speaker 3 (15:27):
Hey, dude, you think you're the number one contender, Let's
be honest, you're not. The story was always this fight.
Do this fight?

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Probably? Probably?

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense
to to go go ahead with Lopez and Rodriguez. There's
just no title on the line, and it ain't gonna
be your main event.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
We haven't got to the co main event yet. Do
we need to before we talk about what's next for
Patricio Pitt Bulfrede.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, let's yeah, let's go ahead. You know what, No,
fuck it, We're right here.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
Pit Bull.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
Dude just wants to fight.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
I think it was obvious and most of us probably
knew it coming in. Patrichio's better days are behind him,
doesn't mean he's not still a good fighter. Doesn't mean
he can't go out.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
And win fights.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
But if you thought he was going to come in,
make a statement and earn a title shot or get
a title shot without having to win four or five fights,
I think we know the answer to that now, and
it's probably not gonna happen. My guess is, and I
know he puts something out, something to the effect of

(16:38):
I'm good, I'm healthy. Whenever you want to book me,
I'm ready, let's do this. Something to that effect.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
Something also to the effective. I heard there's this thing
called International Fight Week that sounds like fun. I'm like, yeah,
that's two months away. Pit Bull's like, let's get it in.
This is the one time I'd say it's appropriate to
invoke the name Brian or Tea at featherweight. These they've
been no, no, no, no no.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
I will not do that to Patrichio.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
Pitbull put him through all that cutweight just to have
Ortega pull out fight week morning of the fight. No fuck. Look,
say what you want about Patrichio Pitbull. He deserves better
than that. I would not saddle him with Brian or Tega.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
Okay, so where are we going with pipoll? Is there
a name? I mean I'm looking at the top fifteen,
which he's not ranked in No, So I don't know
if we're giving him this kind of a lord because
he did just fight number four in the world, or
is there a name off the top of our head
that sits outside of here that you're like, yeah, that
would be an interesting matchup.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
There is and it gets us back to the comain event.
You got nothing else to do with Michael Chandler. Catchwait,
Patrichio can go up.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
You're probably asking too much for Chandler to go down.
But that's a fun fight.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
It probably suits both guys at this spot in their career,
So why not figure out a way to make that happen,
Maybe not International Fight Week, but figure out a way
to just to do Chandler and Pitbull because that's a
fun fight.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Patty Pemblet looked physically imposing, landed the harder shots, was
composed on his back, went after the finish, and kept
putting Michael Chandler into this almost desperate retreat mode, nailing
him with that need of the face, overwhelming him on

(18:33):
the ground. The way that Chandler got out of the cage,
that almost felt like a Swan song. That almost felt
like the end, almost felt like I wasted two years
waiting for Connor McGregor for a massive a day and
instead some kid from Liverpool that hangs his chin way
too far out that I couldn't touch just beats me

(18:56):
the shit up. I am athletically declined at this point.
I don't know if you need to come back, if
the UFC is gonna make it. Is this a you
think a Bravado thing? I don't want to go with
an l thing. Chandler was very dismissive of the pit
bull fight pre losing this one, and it just felt
like his performance was so bad that I don't know,

(19:16):
you risk another worse performance.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
I think that's all the more reason to revisit the
idea of the pit bull fight. You gotta do something
and again it's a fun fight. No, I think Chandler
needs to fight again. Well, that might be strong.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
I assume he's okay money wise, but he spent a
long time waiting for Connor McGregor in that big payday
and it didn't pan out. You still got a little
something left in the tank, at least from name recognition,
and you know, look, we can get into as much
Michael Chandler as you want. He's not Tony Ferguson. Now,
he is two and five in UFC, but they've all

(19:56):
been to bankers. But he's not like getting his ass
beat like Ferguson did on his way out, so he's
in a little bit different situation. But at the end
of the day, he's still two and five in the UFC.
So you're just looking for name fights, fights that are
going to peak people's interest and can get you something
of a payday. At this point, right now, who are

(20:17):
you looking at for Michael Chandler that achieves that Unless
McGregor saw something that, oh fuck, I could definitely beat Chandler.
Now I'm ready to come back, Dana. Let's work this out.
And look, I think that ship is totally sailed, so
that's probably not going to be an option. I mean,
we talk about the crowded lightweight division. I mean, I

(20:38):
guess you could feed Chandler to someone else, but he's
dropped all the way down to twelfth in the UFC
rankings now, he dropped five spots after this loss. If
Chandler's going to fight again, just have some fun fights,
go out and try to do something crazy and see
what happens. That's why I like the idea of the
pitbull fight.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
That's why I would just lean on I hope this
is the last time we saw him compete. We saw
the pit bullfight. Supposedly he has no animosity about it.
I don't know what else I could ask of him.
And like you said, he's falling down the rankings. Not
to beat up Patty Pimblet here, but Patty only jumped
up to eight. It was before, Oh, you're losing to

(21:19):
the guys in the top five. Now you're losing to
the guys in the top ten. As we're getting the
diminishing returns from Michael Chandler, I don't know if he
still needs to be here doing this. And I would
lean on the side of self preservation rather than the
pit bull fight being the end all, be all retirement

(21:40):
fight blow off, because once we go to that fight,
win or lose, I'm not really sure where you gain
or what you do to get that next name. Because
the veterans that are left hanging around is the group
that you just left behind.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yeah, no, you're right on that. To be clear, Chandler
dropped five spots. Pimblet moved up four. He's a no
shame for Pathlet Patty, I understand the point you were making.
Though Chandler was losing to number two, number four, now
he's losing to the guy who moved up four spots
to eight. I agree with you on that. Let me

(22:17):
ask you this because I think Chandler's interesting and maybe
you can't answer this mat me asking it cold. Is
Chandler has been is he never was? Was the USC
stage too big for him? Again? He's two and five
and seven UFC fights. We can talk all day about
the quality of those opponents. Is it just bad luck?

(22:39):
Because all those fights have been bankers, right? I mean
it's not like Chandler. I'd have to go back and
look at each one individually. But it's not like he
just got his ass beat. You went into those fights.
All those fights were exciting, right, So is it just
bad luck coming up on the short end of the stick?
Was the stage too big for him? Or or something
in between?

Speaker 3 (22:58):
A highly entertained, dynamically explosive, largely flawed stylistic fighter. Because
the thing, even from day one he was a wrestler
and gassing in the third round to now he's become
this explosive striker still gassing in the third round. There's
always been an energy management issue from Michael Chandler. There's

(23:22):
always been a fight IQ issue with Michael Chandler. You'll
see Henry Hoof and him. It looks like a very
intellectual back and forth in the corners. They're literally having
a conversation. All that shit goes. It seems like out
of his damn head though the minute the bell rings.
This is a guy that looks very instinctive and very explosive.

(23:42):
He hasn't worked on some of the defensive flaws. So
I think he's a guy that found stuff that worked Frohm,
but wasn't able to find the formula to close some
of the holes. So I think his raw athleticism made
him an upper echelon fighter. And I don't know if
that's a roundabout way of escaping your question or not.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
No, Look, I actually agree with you.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
I don't think the stage was too big for him.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
I think he absolutely earned that.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
So and again I brought up Ferguson earlier just because
I've seen that comparison Night and day Tony. Ferguson was
getting outworked outstruck out, grappled in his last nine.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Ten UFC fights.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Michael Chandler's been in every single fight and had opportunities
to get to win. It just didn't work out.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
I think I have ferguson PTSDs, but it might be
a little bit. I don't want to see it happened
to Chandler. That's where I and that's fair spoke the
name where I think, Okay, you said two and five. Man,
we're two or three fights away from fuck are we there?
And I think we'd like to pull up before we
get there. And the thought processes if we're saying this

(24:47):
is a race, I think this was the furthest behind
that Chandler was. And again it was against number wise
the lowest competition, not saying Patty is the lowest. But
when we're reducing now down guys that are coming up
rather than guys that are there, you start to worry
about where the bottom falls out. And if we're talking
about Chandler wasted so much time waiting for McGregor, none

(25:11):
of these fights that we're proposing are ever gonna recoup
any sort of that kind of money. He's losing those opportunities.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
No, look, I agree with you on that. But you
get what you can while you still can't before you
are a Ferguson and you go try to sign with
some offshoot promotion that cancels their first two events and
it's probably done before it ever started, and things like that.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
Hey, we'll talk about them in a moment. But sure,
exactly that's why you stay with the UFC as long
as possible, I guess. And we're saying if Chandler's done,
he should really make sure he's done. But you make
a very good argument. If you ain't done, dude, you
don't leave this spot exactly.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Patty meanwhile, very impressive. He gets a performance of the
night like we talked about. He's up to eight in
the rankings now and we're at this spot where you
started got you started got having the conversation now. I
think he needs at least one more fight.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Maybe two.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
But he's getting in a position where I don't think
some people anyway thought he was going to get to.
If you thought he was all hype and would never
live up, he's living up to it. What do you
if you're UFC, what are you doing next?

Speaker 3 (26:16):
With Patty Pimblet Bless Patty Pimblet in the way he
has navigated this division, because there are some stylistic matchups
that I would love to have seen him have to
go against. I mean, Grant Dawson, Benoi, Saint Denis. You
have navigated around fellows like that hanatomy Kano. There are
some stylistic matchups that I do believe would have gave

(26:39):
Pimblet trouble because of his tendency to hang his chin
up in the air. And he overwhelmed Chandler in a
way now where it seems that he's taking his strength
and conditioning seriously where he wasn't before, and I think
that makes him more imposing in the grappling. But I
still don't know how he matches up with some of
these guys. It's an interesting formula to look at what's

(26:59):
the head, because I automatically feel like depends on how
long Dan Hooker's hand is gonna heal up. We can
make the Dan Hooker fight. You can make the arm
in sarayuki and fight. Out of all the guys he mentioned,
he only called one of them a helmet. Daniel Cormier
didn't even understand what the insult meant. It was literally
just talking about the hair that sar Yuki and dons.

(27:20):
I would say, let's make that title eliminator. You don't
like Saruki and you want to make him earn it.
You like Pimblet, go have him do it. Because if
you like Pimblet, I don't think we're having him take
on Justin Gaigie.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Uh, you're not having any take on Gaichie.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
But how about Poier in Poye's retirement fight.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
You like Poier, I don't like that fight. No, no,
I don't have any desire. I don't know what that
does for Poier to retire by beating Pimblet. I understand
what it does for Pimblet, but if this is Poier's
retirement fight, it doesn't do anything for me. For that fight,
I don't know what does do something that he's got
to be follow up. Yet they were gonna do something

(28:02):
special for him. We're talking about fight night in Louisiana,
possibly main event. I'd rather see Poyer go up till
one seventy and fight Colby Covington or Gilbert Burns or
something well along the line of a fun fight. If
we're putting Patricio Pitbull against Michael Chandler, I'm not putting
Patty Pemblet against ust In Ployer. I'm not doing that

(28:25):
to dust Employer on his swamp swung. I'm not even
building that narrative that is disrespectful. I am giving Patty
Pemblet one of those other names. Heck, give him anyone
else besides Poyer that's above him. I'm talking Hooker, Palloway,
Gai chee Ola veris are Uki in any of them? Heck,
Halloway is there at number four. I would love that fight.

(28:48):
Halloway is universally beloved. Imagine that in the O two.
You take that for a fight night in England. Patty
versus Holloway. That's esp ABC Finnite, that's big business.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
All right, all right, I'm with you on that.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
All right.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
We talked about Jarira Rodriguez and Patrichio Pipple. You had
Bryce Mitchell, Jean Silva. Silva went out and did exactly
what he said he was gonna do. He put Bryce
to sleep. He overwhelmed Bryce Mitchell. Before we get into
the fund that I'm sure we will with Bryce Mitchell,
Let's be really serious. It sure seems like he is

(29:25):
a guy who is in over his head and maybe
part of that gets back to some of his outside
the octagon stuff and a lack of focus.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
I don't know what we could get into that if.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
You wanted to, but I see a lot of and
we saw it again on Saturday night. I see a
lot of Bryce Mitchell fights, even in winds where he
just looks like he's almost fighting defensively. Is Bryce Mitchell
in over his head right now?

Speaker 3 (29:56):
I don't know what is going on between the ears
of Bryce Mitchell. And that's an understatement obviously, but he
doesn't look like the confident guy that was overwhelming Edson Barbosa.
As we got closer and closer to the fight, people
started saying, well, don't you remember Edson Barbosa was a

(30:17):
fear striker and look at what Mitchell did to him
and how Mitchell was able to out wrestle and Mitchell
was on his back foot from the very moment this
fight started. Silva was landing the bigger shots and look composed,
knowing all he had to do was defend the takedowns,
again navigating the division very wisely. We saw last week

(30:40):
you Anderson Brito get exposed for being able to be
put on his back with the all or nothing explosed
to jiu jitsu style. Going for the guillotines, we saw
with John Silva a way to make it very effective.
He was hot on that neck and then I don't
know if I actually screamed it out in the living room,
but the adjustment to the ninja choke seemed like it

(31:01):
was necessary because of how deep Bryce was getting in
and knowing he could fight through the regular guillotine that
nearly got him. This spoke volumes about the jiu jitsu.
I think you still have to worry about the wrestling
and the gas tank of John Silva, but the ability
to dictate pace of the fight. He never looks like
he's using maximum energy, so he's able to still maintain

(31:25):
his power throughout the fight because even though it feels
like there's this sphoretic pressure that he's putting on, he's
not doing a lot. Actually he's just walking his opponents down.
There's an aura around John Silva for Bryce Mitchell. People
have pointed it out. Is he does he not take
training seriously enough? Is he in too small of a circle?

(31:47):
Being in Arkansas, We've seen a step Amochich thrive in
a small circle that doesn't work for everybody. Bryce Mitchell
did go to Vegas, and it's not like I heard
anything because I know people that he was around. They
didn't say anything about his work ethic, They didn't say
anything about him on the mats. So I don't know
where it is the disconnect and his game evolving, but

(32:08):
it does look like there may even be a regression
and where his striking is at.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
I if he's serious about continuing to fight, and I
have no reason to believe he's not, I would look
for somewhere where I could be a focus. But like
you said, not like in Arkansas where you're the big
fish in the small pond. Hell, you may be the
only fish in that pond. You need to go somewhere
where they can get the most out of you.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
Michael Bisming said it two weeks ago. Oh, I'm able
to defend the head on the outside single from everybody
at my gym. Well, then go to another gym and
find somebody that you can't defend it from right. And
I think that's what you speak to, is that maybe
that's hampering Bryce Mitchell, and I wonder to the theory
and maybe you could speak more on this. Would you
hypotonize that maybe there's just too much going on, and

(32:58):
mister Mitchell's young mom and he's just overwhelmed with everything
that he's consuming himself with all of his outside studies
and constantly engaging on social media. From his viewpoints, I
think Bryce Mitchell would do well to shut the fuck up. Now.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
Let me be really clear.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
He can think whatever the hell he wants to think,
no matter how asinin and I think it is, or
how spot on somebody else thinks it is.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
Like Stuf put it out in public.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
Right, maybe some things.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Just keep to yourself the best and try to focus
on actual fighting. Let's be honest. And we were there
for the press conference they did in Vegas for this
leading up to the last Vegas pay per view. Ryce
Mitchell lost this fight. This fight had already been lost then.
I don't know if that's when he lost it or
if he had lost it when he put pen to paper.

(33:52):
But Silva came out and just humiliated.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
Him, parking at him with a globe in his hand,
with a.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Fucking globe in his hand, is see dumbasses, not flat?
It's round the fishing partner jokes and things like that.
This fight was already over I think Bryce Mitchell has talent.
I think he needs to find someone to harness it
and bring it out. And part of that is on him.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
He needs to focus as well.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
And again, think whatever you want, Believe whatever you want.
That's your god given right. But maybe don't tell everybody
every damn thing you think, because people are gonna stop
taking you.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Seriously, here's what more for you, real quick, just backtracking
on Bryce's career. Yeah, he's on a hot streak. We
see him, we've seen him as sending right, we're somewhere
around twenty twenty now. He beats Andre Feely and then
after that is the Barbosa fight. If we look back
on it and I squint my eyes and we know
who hits some Barbosa and Andre Peely are and they

(34:52):
are so different guys, But it's twenty two and ten
and twenty one and seven a lot closer than we
think they are. And maybe we over estimate who Bryce
Mitchell was because after that it's losing to Teporia. You
look great because you beat Egay. Maybe that gave us
too much hope again, because Emmett bounced your head around.
We knew you were gonna beat Kron, but then it

(35:12):
felt just as inevitable that we knew you were gonna
leave to Silva.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
I I don't know. I don't think we over so
your question, did we overestimate Bryce Mitchell?

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Yeah? Did we at some point?

Speaker 2 (35:27):
I don't think so. Now you saw the natural progression,
and maybe we just hit a point where he plateaued
and things didn't work out after that. But I mean,
the talent was there. I don't think there's shame in
the Taporia fight. He does come back and beat Ega.
The em fight was ugly. I don't and sorry to

(35:52):
cong Gracie, I don't even count that fight because.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
To me, that was just UFC saying Bryce, you need
to win.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Here you go, brother, and maybe you can talk fishing
partners afterwards. I don't know, but that just seemed like
we got to get Bryce a in here. Let's give
him con Gracie, I think I would say no to
your question, but I would say at this point where
like something has to change and change drastically, or he's

(36:22):
either going to be out of the sport or out
of UFC inside of two years.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
As I look at the updated rankings. We had this
discussion on fight Night. Yeah, Bryce Mitchell is not ranked,
so I don't even know where we go next. But
my boy Steve Garcia is not ranked either, and Steve
Garcia will hurt Mitchell at this stage in their evolutions,
I think, and.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Look, maybe that's what you got to do. If you're
Bryce Mitchell, you got to fight someone who's in the
same boat as you from the standpoint of outside the rankings,
trying to get in or in Bryce's case, get back
in take a step back to try and take two
steps forward. I'm not saying that that's a good matchup

(37:07):
for him, the Garcia fight, because I tend to agree
with you.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
But someone like.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
That who's outside the top fifteen and would like to
get into it and can see Bryce Mitchell is maybe
a stepping stone to do that, that.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
Might be what's best for Bryce.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
But again, to be quite honest, if I'm Bryce Mitchell,
I'm sitting down and I'm.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Trying to figure shit out.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
I'm going to take meetings with coaches and gyms. But
if I'm serious about my fight career, something's gonna have
to change.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
We'll see what Bryce Mitchell does next, but this is
a pretty big fall for thug nasty. Now in the
opposite of a fall, there's almost a rise again, or
a Reyes again, like a phoenix.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
Heras is from the ashes. Yes, yes, Dominic Reyes kicking
off the main card, defeats Nikita Krailov by TKO and.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
Cry love ran at him like please punch me. That
was such a Oh my god, that was such a
bad blitz. He was just just go and tell the
defense what play you're gonna run?

Speaker 2 (38:14):
Man?

Speaker 3 (38:14):
Here, I'm gonna throw the ball just right at you
down the middle, and oh that was a home run.
Congratulations three in the row for Dominic Reyes. This is
a listless two hundred and five pound division. What do
you think about Dominic Reyes now that well, fuck, there's
the biggest question.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
Is dominant?

Speaker 3 (38:35):
Dominic Rayes back like he was a dude? We we
thought this was gonna be a guy that could continue
the glory of the light heavyweight division. At one point,
head back on his shoulders straight, any of that of
lure feel like his back around Dominic Reyes.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
Honestly, I'm gonna say.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
No, I was about to say this is gonna hurt.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, he's years old.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Look all the credit to him in the world, but
no now, having said that, once you've clear up ank
Elijah and Alex Bahera, depending on how that plays out,
if that division is wide open, let's just say Alex
regains the belt and says, all right, I'm ready for heavyweight.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
I'm giving up the belt.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
Reys is as good as anybody else as we sit
here right now. Now, He's probably gonna have to fight
again between now and then, and maybe all this gets derailed.
But so he's up to eight in the rankings, I'd
still give him a title fight over Blahovich, who's ahead
of him in the rankings. I'd give him a title
fight over Jamal Hill, who's ahead of him in the rankings, Roundtree,

(39:49):
who's right above him in the rankings, and round Tree
has a fight coming up.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
I don't hate Dominic.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Reyis's spot in the rankings, And depending on how things
play out, when Elijah and Alex.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
Run it back but.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Back better than ever, I don't know that I'd go
that far.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
Okay, I don't know what to make of it. That
looked a lot more like the guy that we wanted
to see coming up, but with how bad that setup
was and that rush was from Krylov, I almost just
feel like it's again just another expose on how bad
the light heavyweight division is at a point. Where did

(40:31):
Krylov fall out of the ringings with that loss? Or
is he just fifteen now? No? I think he oh no,
he's ten. Excuse me, but Reyes, if you're his management,
do you have a preference. If the UFC says okay,
you're fighting either Blahovich or Rakach, that's probably what's next
for you, because I don't think that Olberg or Yuri,

(40:55):
who just beat each one of them, or really looking
to fight down At worse, they're looking to fight each
other to try to get the aftermath of Alex versus
Maga med two and you still got. As we said,
we'll talk about what's next for a hill and Roundtree
in a moment.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
Yeah, I would take either one of those fights, Blehovich
or Rackage.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
I'd lean towards Belhovich.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
Give me the old.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
Guy, Yeah, exactly, he looks slow. I don't see the
power I once saw there. You want to offer me Belhovich,
let's sign that for next weekend.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
We'll just go out and do it now and get
it out of the way. I want the former World
champion on my resume. I want to make that case
towards the title fight. I think that's the most likely
trajectory for Dominic rays Don Blahovich, wild card, maybe rackets
depending on injury or timelines not matching up.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yeah, yep, yep. All in all, I enjoyed the heck
out of this pay per view. That the only other
thing and I'll just say this and we'll leave it.
You have the big pop, pomp and circumstance the President
of the United States there as was about half the
Cabinet and Congress and the Senate.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
It was very political.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
I am surprised that as this episode drops on a Tuesday,
that we haven't had tariffs announced on UFC fighters.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
That main card.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
When President Trump came out, you had one American win
and that was Reyes. It was a big night for Brazil, Mexico, England, Australia.
Not a good night for the good old US of
A on the main card. So so I'm actually surprised,
but we don't have tariffs on fighters now.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
Last thing for me on the main card on the
main card, didn't mention this. Should have mentioned this easily
already mentioned the man Patti pamblet Iliots Aporia would make
a lot of sense right now. I don't think we
brought that one up for pity for Patty, but the
connective tissue, the story they've already had animosity and a
public altercation in a hotel. These two are almost at

(42:55):
the apex of their star power. There's a little bit
that we could still milk out of both of them
to get even bigger megastars. But right now would be
an opportune time to make that main event overseas.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
As far as the prelims, a couple things we need
to hit on real quick. Egay probably the beneficiary of
an early stoppage. Janjeroba just dominated John. I did not
see that coming at all, and Chase Hooper continues his
rebirth at such a young tender age, getting the best

(43:30):
of Jim Miller.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
Okay, I'm gonna go a little bit different order than
you did, Janjeroba. Enjoy the next year off you get
a strawweight title fight. One we decide to have another
one because Waylee is obviously waiting to see what happens
with man Or Fjord Valentina Chefchenko Valentino wins. Most likely
you're getting the way Lee Valentina fight, and then when
Waylee wants to come back to one fifteen vera, you

(43:53):
probably do get a world title shot at that point
unless wind up with a vacant one, and heck, you
will be in that fight anyway. So congratulations Dan Egay.
Did you know he was up on the scorecards?

Speaker 2 (44:07):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (44:08):
I didn't know that. Watch in the Holy Open scoring
people that had me thrown for one. Ega looked like
he lost his dog. He looked a bit disgraced, he
looked a bit bewildered, he looked a bit befuddled, and
then he was able to land a big shot benefit
of an early stoppage. But no way did I think

(44:30):
that he didn't need it all or nothing moment in
that third round like he did. And that's the urgency
he fought with, not like somebody that felt like they
were ahead. Not sure what the judges were watching there.
This should probably be the last time that we see
Darren Elkins. He is the damage. This is a guy
that used to weaponize his toughness, and I think the

(44:50):
time has come where that toughness is just finally run out.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
You're probably right on that.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
I don't disagree sad.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
To see that, and then from the early prelimbs, let's
shout it out to the middle weights because I'd like
to see these two guys fight each other. He's now
an honorary fighting neard. Michael omi Alanchuk came out with
more confidence, put it together. The left of the ground
strikes maybe a bit of an early stop is bit
Sadri Kris Dumas was just totally covering up, not even
trying to get up. So I don't have a big

(45:18):
of a problem with that stoppage.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
It will never happen if for nothing else based on
this last fight, but it would still never happen. But
if somehow John Silva and Bryce Mitchell could find peace,
Bryce Mitchell with those cute little glasses on might wind
up saving his career. That won't happen, but something like that.

(45:40):
He needs a high level, big time gym. You know.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
Bryce Mitchell doesn't sleep because he has nightmares that he
wakes up and he's still in the bathroom in high
school and he's wearing those glasses and they're about to
give him a story.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
I don't know. I think it's the less and temptation
that keeps him from sleeping, Mica.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
Do you know how in sensitive the referee is. Brice
Mitchell's having trouble sleeping. Jean self gives him a nice
little nap and the Rep's.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Like, wake come up right away. Best sleep.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
The guy's hat since he got away from those sinful
lights in Las Vegas. He kept telling us he couldn't sleep,
and Jan Selva gave him a nap.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
If he's a kid, and as a new father, trust me,
I can speak to this.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
You're looking at.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Him and saying, you know what, We're gonna let him
sleep for a little while and wake up on his own.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
He needs this.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
He needs the rest, and God knows I need the
rest because I'm tired of hearing him cry and scream
and yell. Did you talk about flat Earth and who
he wants to go fishing with?

Speaker 1 (46:38):
So yeah, I'm with you. Let's let the boy sleep
a little while.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
Did you look at the real I sent you on Instagram?
It's Bryce Mitchell astro projecting after getting put to sleep,
flying around, yes, realizing that Earth's round. Oh, Jean Silva
did us all a favorite? Gave Brice Mitchell a nap
and a scions.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
I guess and will more shout out as I said
the middleweights to Marco Tulio, absolute awesome performance against Trish Ungar,
hurt him with the kick, scores a knockout with the
straight right, and did you hear everything that.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
Tulio had to go through throughout the week? The man
is almost robbed in Brazil, car accident in Miami, gets
the knockout and then jumps in a pool fully closed afterwards.
It's a heck of a life.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
I guess it's the heck of a life.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
So Tulio only a line check. You think that just
from watching them fight on Saturday, I think that'd be
a nice little early prelim again on something. I want
to see them brawl it out.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
Sure, yeah, don't hate that. Good Night it Fights in Miami.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
UFC three fourteen.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
The UFC takes this weekend off. They seed the weekend
to their their partners over in WWE and their big
WrestleMania weekend. UFC back at it next weekend.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
It's a fight night, but it is on the road.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
It's that Kansas City card Ian Gary that protests your
your newly minted main event for.

Speaker 3 (48:03):
That so we're not done here. But when we are
that means you guys should go check out Pro Wrestling
after hours Later this week, we're gonna have a whole
WrestleMania preview extravaganza. Yes, and Michael Carlisle is shaking with
fear excitement. I can't tell which one.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
I just got a pee really bad, that's all. Yeah,
a lot of coffee this story, but yes, yes, yes,
we'll get all that all right. UFC three fourteen obviously
dominated the headlines this past weekend, but it wasn't the
only game in town, right.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
Not the only game in town. So we did have
the second week of quarterfinal World Tournament action from the
PFL in Orlando, Florida, and upsets and chaos rule the night.
You love a good underdog story. I know that you're
a huge NCAA tournament college basketball fan, absolutely, so you
love the underdog, right, yeah, all right, now enter Mark.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
I'm a Duke fan, by the way, so yes, I
love the underdog Micah, No, No, yes, of course you
love the stories.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
Yeah, fall in love with the story this well, he
did take down Duke technically, yes, bracket Oh real quick?
All right? Marcelli Alves shows up to Orlando. Opportunity alternate
you're on the other side, Leandro Higo. This man has
won from twice thinking he was fighting patching mixed for
the bell to a world title to now you're taking
on Baga Metamago Medoff in the number one seed. I

(49:21):
don't know why they put what felt like the final
as the first matchup in the main event. But you
have this huge pivotal fight coming up, and then Maga
med Maga Medov is forest out. You get Josh running
House redding House is forest out. Total stylistic new matchup
on twenty four hours. Notice Marcelli Alvis the alternate, the underdog,

(49:42):
the split decision victory earned, tough fight, pulls it out,
moves on now to the semifinals. Five hundred thousand dollars
would be life changing for Alvez. Improbable circumstances. This is
possibly the worst case scenario though, for a fight promotion
where your number one overall seed just goes down to

(50:04):
a tournament alternate. Is this the kind of thing that
you think is detrimental or could start to build something?
Because we have to if you want to at all
indulge PFL, you have to look at it as a
brand new entity starting with these new tournaments this year.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
I think PFL will tell you, no, that's not how.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
You look at it.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
I don't. I don't disagree with you, but yeah I don't.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
I don't think it's good.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
I love the story, but I feel like it is
detrimental from trying to build up that name recognition, because
that's what the fight game is about. A story, A cinderellave.
That's great in college sports and team sports, but we
love names in the fight game.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
Here's the and there are many issues. Here's the issue
with the season format that PFL is doing.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
All these injuries.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
Well, yes, there are lots of issues. The idea of
it isn't bad. The reality of it, the practicality of
it is because there are not a lot of things
you can control in the fight game. But if you're
just making matches and things like that, there are things
you can control. You can massage the rankings and things

(51:15):
like that. When you're doing tournaments, you're kind of barring
injury or something like that. You're locked into the results.
Whatever happens happens, and whatever's next is next.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Sometimes that works out great.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
Sometimes because of upsets, lackluster performances, what have you, you
wind up with duds later on and things like another
one of the reasons PFL might really want to reconsider
this whole season format and things like that. I get it,
you're trying to be different, and there's nothing wrong with that.
But again, it sounds bad when I say things like

(51:51):
manipulate and massage, but then you can kind of work
the matchups to your favorite and that's not bad. Just
the whole PFL model I think really limits them in
what they can do.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
We also saw another huge upset is Justin Wetzel out
wrestles Norma gum Medov protege a costum cost them off.
You know it's going bad for Team Eagle when they're
getting out wrestled. Jake Hadley pulls off the rarely seen
Scottish Twister. There's not many PFL highlights you need to
go seek out, but that's one of them. A incredibly

(52:28):
inventive and nasty submission and a shout out to Liz
krmouge for a TKO from Body Shots. Go over to
the website. We got full layout of what the semifinals
will now look like at one thirty five and one
twenty five.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Here Gotcha, Gotcha, which drama. Would you like to talk
about first, Micah.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
Well, real quick, one more thing from this past weekend.
There was LFA two O six twelve fights, twelve finishes,
six fight main card. If you're a fight Pass subscriber
and you got like an hour kill and you want
to watch some chaos, you can really easily skip through
it and knock this out fast. Only one fight got
to the third round. A shout out to Jean Paul
Lebognani in the main event, a triangle choke after dropping

(53:12):
and hurting Keegan Genrich two times. He could be in
the Contender Series this coming summer, so that one was
a doozy again. Results on the website. Heck of a
fun regional card right.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
There there you go go check that out over on
a fight Pass. Uh, let's do GFL first. You already
brought them up, probably never gone before they were ever here.
GFL cancels their first two events.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
They It's really.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
Interesting because on the one side, any fighter who wants
side of their contract will unmode of their contract. On
the other side, we think this is going to happen.
We're really close to figuring it out. We had an investor,
our main investor who missed the payment. But we're trying
to figure out a work away we work around. We
think it's close to happening, and hopefully shortly after what

(54:05):
our original two dates were, we can move those dates
to there. It sure seems like they're done. Before they
even got started. We had talked about all the hype,
but no word on how to watch it. Apparently a
big part of their model was their TV rights deal
that they thought they were going to get.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
They probably overbuilt on the name recognition of a lot
of the veterans. They were hoping that would a Laura
Network into at least one season of all these stars
to see what the ratings did.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Yeah, here's the problem, and I think we all know it.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
We just don't acknowledge it. So it can be easy
to forget.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
While we revere and respect the veterans, the older guys
and gals that the names, we don't really want to
see them fight anymore.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
Bellot's kind of tried this already.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
And it quite honestly didn't. Well, look, it didn't work.
Tour's not around anymore. The numbers were so bad.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
Did Cable company own the promotion and they wanted to
get out of the business that literally had this model.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
Right, Yeah, that they owned the product it was. It
was content for their network and their streaming platform, and
they're like, eh, we don't need this anymore.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
Not to mention, this team model was so convoluted they
couldn't even drop up the brain power to just go
just to go follow the old IFL scoring system when
they didn't have a scoring system. I mean, it wouldn't
have been hard to go relegate the old team league.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
I Well, here's the other thing. Everybody wants to be different.
I don't think different works in the MMA world, PFL.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
Pfl's is where they're at by.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
Default doing their season thing. I don't think the team
format what was all that exciting to fans either. I
can only imagine the money promised to these fighters.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
It was a boat ton.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
You had a lot of money theoretically going out and
you hadn't figured out how the money was coming in.
That's a huge issue in any business, certainly in the
fight game. And apparently didn't have the money to put
up for these fights, which is why I get California,

(56:28):
I guess refused to license it, which is why those
two events got canceled.

Speaker 3 (56:32):
Correct, I believe that you are correct. They needed the
money up front. A similar story we'll get into in
a moment, But that is a good thing from the
athletic commissions that they are put in these provisions. And
because because my thing to this sounds funny, that used
to not be a thing. You used to be able
to throw the event and yeah, just promised that you

(56:53):
had the money to pay the fighters. So at least
now the events aren't happening rather than happening injuries, no insurance,
fighters not getting paid, so it could have been worse. Actually,
do you see GFL ever holding an event?

Speaker 2 (57:08):
Do you think they get this season? I guess for
lack of do you think they're able to get it underway?

Speaker 3 (57:14):
There's a really weird feeling that I have that like,
one event gets put on somewhere in Saint Paulo, Brazil,
like the most random of the six cities that they had,
and it will incur absolutely zero of the big name
stars that we had, but it'll have like quite a
few of the foreign fighters that we had never heard of,
and just to throw one show. I have a bad

(57:36):
feeling that they're going to do something like that and
then say it didn't work out, and basically they didn't
have the money to pay anybody with name recognition in
the first place.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
Let me say this just to be really clear.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
I feel bad for every single fighter, every person who
would signed up because they were looking for a payday
that they thought.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
They were getting it.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
You know, we focus on the old fighters, not everybody
was forty plus who was going to fight here. But yes,
obviously our driving force for this was the name recognition
from all these talented veterans. I feel bad for everybody here.
But while I wanted them to be successful, I'm also
not the least bit surprised.

Speaker 3 (58:19):
There's not a lot of surprise, but there is a
lot of feel bad. I feel bad for Owen, the
general manager commission for this league, because, as far as
I understand from a lot of people I've talked to,
he had had multiple other business endeavors in MMA, and
all of them had been legit. He had always had
this team kind of concept. It seemed like there was

(58:39):
a pure goal of business and that he had never
really been accused of any shady doings. So there's a
lot of mystery behind the scenes in my mind to
wonder that this guy duped the fighters. Was this guy
duped by his financial investor. Either way, this probably shoots
him in the foot from working in the industry. Again,

(59:00):
that's awful. It's awful for the MMA industry and a
whole I think because it looks like a bad industry
because if you're not the UFC, does anybody really survive
in the industry, Like, how can you make money in
the industry if you're not the UFC. Because GFL can't
get going. We talk about how befungled PFL is, how

(59:21):
bad everything down toward for Bellator, it just looks like
from a concept of if you're a young fighter and
you go and the UFC, we've talked about how they
consistently are turning out bodies through the Contender series. You
get on the Contender Series, after you are six and two,
you have your three fights in the UFC, you're relegated

(59:44):
back to the regional scene. You should probably just retire
at that point, right, because there's nowhere else to make money.
The industry is that bad. It's not like boxing where
there's other hopes.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
Okay, let me ask you this, are we looking at
this the wrong way?

Speaker 1 (59:58):
Because it seems like and you just said it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
At the end, we're comparing this to boxing, where you
can have forty eleven hundred different organizations, all with their
ABC titles and all this.

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
Well, we compare it to boxing because boxing is also
compared to jiu jitsu. I understand, no, no, no, I know
why we're doing every other combat right in the world, right, I.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Think, But I think we're doing it wrong miikah, and
I think history has shown this. We should be comparing
the MMA world to Major League Baseball, the National Football League,
the NBA, where you have MLB, NBA, NFL, and that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Uh, we'll start with football.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
You have these startup leagues and they come along with
big time investors.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
And this and that, and they always fall flat.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Yes, you have minor league Baseball, but there's a reason
you have one Major League Baseball. You've had other basketball
leagues try to come in and compete with the MBA.
It doesn't happen. The UFC is such a fucking high
powered machine that you got to have stupid I don't

(01:01:06):
give a fuck money to right off the bat to
have any chance of competing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Then you got to find TV. Then you got to
go out and find fighters.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
I understand why we compare it to boxing, And you're
one hundred percent right on that, but I think we're
doing it wrong. The reality is, and this may upset
some people and you may disagree, and that's cool if
you do. I don't think there's room for another big
time MMA organization. I think UFC is the National Football
League of MMA, the Major League Baseball, whatever you want

(01:01:40):
to call it, and that's it now. Doesn't mean there
aren't rooms for a room for regional promotions and things
like that that basically serve as your feeder system, your
minor leagues. But I think it's time to stop looking
at it from the boxing standpoint. Well, I'm a promoter
with money. I'll just start my own organization. I think
you're doomed to fail.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
No, you're correctly right, and that's what makes me cry
at night.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
That's what makes you go all this school out in
the world. That's what makes you not vote for the
fighters that I know.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
That's what makes me. Wait, you are exactly right, and
we're saying, well, what is the difference between the UFC,
you know, being a major sports league and major sports leagues.
The health insurance, the medical care, the lack of those
athletes having to pay out of pocket to their coaches,
the fact that all of those athletes are employees and
not contracted workers. So that's why we related to sports

(01:02:32):
where all those other narratives exactly fit up.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
If you have stupid, I don't give a fuck money
and you want to contribute to the MMA world, use
that money for good and help the fighters start a union.
The one thing you just said is missing in UFC
that the other sports leagues have correct that that can
be your legacy to the world of MMA, and then

(01:02:57):
the fighters do get more equal footing and can better negotiate,
whether it's salary, benefits, care after you retire, and things
like that. Because and look from the UFC standpoint, and
I understand why they aren't jumping up and down to
do all that on their own, But that might be
the one thing that keeps everybody else from looking at

(01:03:21):
UFC the way I just described as the NFL of MMA,
and why some people think that there's room for another
organization because we'll take care of the fighters, will do this,
we'll do that, figure it out, make it happen, and
just slam the door on anybody else ever trying to
come in and make a run at you.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
We're not saying the UFC is bad at business, No,
But I'm also not saying that Adam Silver, rob Manforder,
Roger Goodell has ever sat in front of all of
their athletes and said this is not your career, this
is just an opportunity. I'm pretty sure that they would
say this is your career, and everything outside of this
room is your opportunity. That's also the contradiction in the

(01:04:03):
two models.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Yes, for sure, Yeah, I would definitely, Well, look for
years though, I don't care you got concussions. I don't
care that you p at six thirty every morning and
then get up at seven, you know, point being, And
because I think for some people when you said that, well,

(01:04:28):
that's never gonna happen. That's never gonna happen. And maybe
it doesn't, but it's only been in the last fifteen
years or so the NFL fucking acknowledged concussions and the
fact that there was a direct result in head to
head hits and things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
Helmet to helmet hits and the rough and tumble style.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
Of the NFL and guys dropping dead and CTE and
all this after their playing career so it can happen.
The other thing that's different from UFC and all those
other sports, they've all been around for over one hundred years.
UFC we're what thirty five six, We just had thirty
fifth anniversary a couple of years ago, is that right,
thirtieth whatever it was, right, We're not fifty years in

(01:05:09):
the UFC's existence yet, so there's still a lot of
room for growth as far as things like that go.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
But yeah, the UFC is really good at what they
do best, and it feels like there's a bleak outlook
for American MMA industry because again I'll say this, you
can look at KSW and poland you can look again
at Octagon. I believe they have a show coming up
this week. They're doing seventy eighty thousand. I don't know

(01:05:38):
their promoter's names, I don't know what kind of cars
any these people are driving. But they are at least
consistently able to turn out products and products that are
financially worth it enough that a lot of their fighters
have not felt it necessary to take the Contender Series opportunities,
Like if you just saw the Art and Vahitov story

(01:06:00):
one on the Contender Series, the UFC said, here's your
ten and ten contract. He's like, hey, I've got like
a seven figure deal from Glory over here to go
fight for their heavyweight title, and the UFC is like, well,
here's your Contender Series contract. So there are people making money.
I just don't think that they're reaching our market. So

(01:06:20):
is n men MA a good industry or not?

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
If you're good at it, it certainly is. If you're
pretty good at it or okay at it, if we're
being honest, it might not be.

Speaker 3 (01:06:35):
Again, And the sad part again to me is that
the shortcomings of the promoters get to be the what
the fighters have to bear. You guys can't forget how
to make money. You can't forget to promote us. So
even to them, they're like, hey, this is our skill set.
So then they have to become a promoter to redo
the wheel, to try to figure this out, to solve

(01:06:57):
the gap and the problem that it's UFC or no
money in the industry.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
And this actually brings up the issue with comparing UFC
to NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA, all those leagues
team sports. So prices get driven by free agency, right, Well,
if the pirates ain't gonna pay you. The Dodgers will
damn sure pay you if you're good, or the Yankees
will pay you. If the Mariners won't pay you, the

(01:07:22):
Cubs will back the truck up for you. If you
look at other individual sports. And I was hesitant to
bring this up because I think you start losing people
when you say compare it to tennis.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
Or to golf, both those sports.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
If you're really good, the money's good. If you're pretty good,
If you're okay, money ain't so good. So from that standpoint,
UFC isn't that unique in that situation. From that standpoint,
and that that might be the better comparison, because again,

(01:07:58):
when you compare it to NFLA whatever, you're talking team sports,
and then you get into free agency and things like
that that drive up salaries and things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
If you're a tennis.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
Player and you're pretty good and you don't feel like
there's enough person at the tournaments you're playing when you're
coming in twentieth, I mean, you can go try to
find some other tournaments to play in, but your options
are pretty limited. It's kind of the same thing with UFC.
For the majority of people, you don't like the money
you're making.

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
There, Yeah, good luck. Go somewhere else.

Speaker 2 (01:08:28):
And tell me how that works out, and maybe you
can find a payday that'll pay you a little more
than they offering. But the overall, for the five ten
fight career you have, the UFC is still gonna be
your best bet.

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
And for a lot of people in the conversation, you're
why are we not able to just compare the fight
game to the fight game? But you are MMA to boxing?

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Okay, Because honestly, at that point, you're comparing Major League
Baseball to Major League so or Major League Baseball to
the NBA.

Speaker 1 (01:09:02):
You're comparing two different sports.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
I get it, it's combat sports, but I could lump
in ball in bat sports and compare baseball to fucking cricket.

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
You know, it's still like a fair comparison.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
UFC or MMA and boxing are different, much like well
we tie tournaments and karate tournaments are different. They're similarities,
but they're different.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
I think the best of this theory is, Guys, if
you end up coming across six billion dollars, get involved
with one of these big sports leagues, don't try to
be a combat sports promoter.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
Yeah, and final thing on this I would tell you
boxing is the same damn way now. If you're main eventing,
if you're headlining a pay per view, if you're fighting
a Paul.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
Brother, you're getting paid like a king. If you're not,
all bets are off.

Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
We whoa whoa real quick to bring up those dudes.
I think they might have been lying the whole time
about how much they were making.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Oh, I don't doubt that either.

Speaker 3 (01:09:50):
MVP Promotions, all of a sudden recently has been on
a campaign trying to network. It's been a good thing
for boxing that TKO comes up because all of a sudden,
now Matchroom and PBC and Top Rank are talking about
we might have to work together, actually, as they should
have been all along to make the fights the fans
want to see. But in those conversations it also said
that MVP is now trying to round up funding so

(01:10:13):
they can become a real player in the boxing game.
Excuse me, I thought Jake Paul was pumping oil from
boxing money and giving the only life to the industry.
I thought him and Canelo had all the damn money
that Turkish ain't giving away. So how does MVP need
to now fund raise?

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
Well, again, a flawed model.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
Go back to the GFL. You'll get curiosity seekers watching
Jake Paul beat up retired MMA fighters, beat up old
decrepit badass at one time, but old indecrepit former boxers.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
But that shit goes away really really quick.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
Look, here's why you need to know about that. If
there was that much money to be made the boxing
game by MVP and all that logan, Paul wouldn't be
in WWE, he wouldn't be getting ready for WrestleMania. He'd
be fighting twice three times a year, boxing and sitting
at home with his feet up. So I agree with you.
I was speaking more of your although I did bring

(01:11:17):
up the Paul Brothers one hundred percent, but I was
thinking more of your canelos and fuck Floyd Mayweather at
this stage in his career, going overseas and having goofy
ass exhibitions and things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
Yes, at the very top there's money to be made.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
The further down the card you go, the less and
less money there is, though, And yeah, to your point,
maybe even less than we think.

Speaker 3 (01:11:41):
I saw Flight Mayweather's name get brought up somewhere the
other day, and it was on someone's bottom third is
and this guy fought Floyd Mayweather to a decision and
an exhibition in Japan, and I was like, I'm like
this guy, this guy, I can't even remember who it
was to tell you the name was so obscure, but wait,
man Wether doing some interesting things out there. To talk

(01:12:03):
about cancelations, I knew. You never thought it was gonna happen.
It officially did get canceled last week. ICs Mania did
not happen.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
This was the Rampage Rashad Evans boxing and then you
had influencers and old retired UFC fighters and you look,
you also had actual boxers on the card as well.

Speaker 3 (01:12:23):
They a ton of boxing prospects. There was DJ Squerrenger
NFL that Rampage Jackson was the first to fall off
the card. Basically, contract in place, payments not met on time.
Rampage was out. A lot of speculation about Rashad's placement
or whether he was gonna stay on because Rashad made
videos and never said if he was pulling out or not.

(01:12:43):
You saw them in all they didn't have the money
and the venue was not selling. This event ends up
getting canceled and people were calling them out for not
having the funds to pay the fighters beforehand, which did
become a problem, much like with the GFL getting the
money to the Athletic Commission.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
Does anything I say cause a problem for you?

Speaker 3 (01:13:04):
I don't think so, okay, first of all, and.

Speaker 1 (01:13:08):
I'm gonna try to be really fair.

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
Look again, I hate these guys misstarting a pay day
in goals. You booked a fucking fifteen thousand seed arena
and sold under a thousand tickets. You grotesquely overestimated the
appeal of this event.

Speaker 3 (01:13:24):
Have bought a billboard at any point or a radio
freaking ad?

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
Well, you couldn't because you're paying out the wazoo for
a fifteen thousand seed arena that you have no chance
of ever filling. So you shot your wad right there.
It goes back to what we were saying about GFL earlier.
We all like to talk about rampage shot the Diego
Sanchez is on this card at one point, young up.
And the fact of the matter is we don't actually
want to see those guys fight anymore. And that kind

(01:13:51):
of showed I would tell you everything about this event
was fucked up from the start. Again, to think you
had any chance of halfway filling a fifteen thousand seed
arena is absolutely fucking ludicrous.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
And look, history bore.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
That out so right off the bat. And I don't
know what they were paying for the building, but I
can guarantee you what and cheap. No matter how great
of a deal they got on it, you got to
pay all these people. You're not selling tickets, there's no
chance to make money. I believe this was another situation
like we talked about with GFL, exactly, you got to
go to the commission, here's our money, you put it

(01:14:29):
in an escrow whatever, whatever, Uh do I have that money.

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
You had a local promoter.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
Who's had issues in the fast Pass with fighters getting
paid based more I guess on who she was working
with than her per se. But she finds this money
person who's gonna come in, Oh, we're gonna rent the pit,
we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that, and it
all fucking fell flat again. I feel absolutely horrible for
everyone who was on this card. But nobody should be

(01:14:59):
surprised that this happened. Nobody do that means you can't
be disappointed, especially if.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
You were a fighter.

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
I don't think they have many fans that were disappointed
just based on the number of tickets, say, it's sold.
But if you're a fighter who thought they were gonna
get paid and have a fight and pack crowd in
the I understand your disappointment and I feel you. But
she still shouldn't be surprised.

Speaker 3 (01:15:20):
As many people were disappointed about this event getting canceled,
as fans ever are in New Mexico. Let's not make
nine hundred sound like it's nothing, because about fifteen hundred
is all people move around here anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
But that highlights the problem, Mikah. That's why you should
have never even brought up the conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):
Oh, let's book a fifteen thousand seedars.

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):
No, I agree with you if you're having this at
where they have most of the boxing here locally, over
at the fairgrounds or one of these bigger event spaces. Yes,
nothing wrong with nine hundred thou twelve hundred, fifteen hundred people,
nothing at all.

Speaker 3 (01:15:56):
Who the fuck.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
Thought they were gonna come anywhere close by making a
fifteen thousand seed arena look respectable in terms of attendance
unless you were just handing out tickets like they were candy,
Which does you know good because you're not making any
money off ticket.

Speaker 3 (01:16:09):
Your hand out, and not to mention, I got sources
that said they weren't cutting the fighters in on percentage
of the ticket sales because they had given the fighters
pretty generous contracts. So if no one's incentivized to sell tickets,
who's selling tickets? There was a lot of flaws in this,
But my biggest question is we had this problem Rashad

(01:16:32):
Rampage right right. Bad idea. You move this to Texas,
you've changed the name Rashad or Rampage, you leave one
of those the same, and you put a Jake Paul.
Is this all of a sudden filling up an arena,
a stadium and everyone's going home happy? I mean, we say,

(01:16:54):
no one wants to see these guys. I just watched
Mike Tyson fight. If it's Jake Paul, saw Evans still selling,
If it's Jake Paul, is Rampage Jackson still stelling? Is
Diego Sanchez still selling?

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):
Well? First of all, if any of those days you
just mentioned, and I love them all, yeah, only one
of them is a draw, Rampage or.

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):
Diego pick one, but only one of them's a draw. Yeah,
here's your other point.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
I don't know how many tickets Jake Paul and Mike
Tyson actually sold. I know what the attendance was, I
don't know what they sold. And yes, they crashed Netflix
all these record viewership. Nobody paid to watch that because
everybody already has a Netflix. I'm not shitting on that,
but I mean it's not like people were dropping sixty
bucks for a pay per view to watch it. Everybody

(01:17:49):
has a goddamn Netflix account, Micah, so you watch it,
and again not shitting on that at all, that that
might be the way.

Speaker 1 (01:17:56):
Look, pay per view might be going away anyway, that'd
be nice.

Speaker 2 (01:17:59):
Let's wait and see what happens with UFC and their
next TV right steel and.

Speaker 3 (01:18:03):
I think that exclusive negotiation window is going up as
we record.

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
Exactly they are.

Speaker 2 (01:18:09):
They are probably taking meetings as we speak, But yeah,
there is people don't want to see it, but for
the right names. Yes, and you brought it. If it's
Jake Paul versus Rampage.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
You can probably sell that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:29):
I all here. I would have ever held this event
in New Mexico either.

Speaker 1 (01:18:33):
You could have.

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):
The theater at the Virgin Hotel. You could have packed
that for Rampage and Rashad Evans.

Speaker 3 (01:18:41):
They did a press conference at the Palms.

Speaker 2 (01:18:44):
You could have done it there.

Speaker 1 (01:18:48):
But who.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
I'm just fucking saying, whoever thought it was a good
idea to book a fucking fifteen thousand seat venue for
this shit deserves everything they got coming to him, plain
and simple. And that's I don't want to make life
more difficult to use so for you, So I'll just
stop there. But this was a horrible idea, Micah. When

(01:19:10):
before it was ever announce say, there were rumors that
I told Micah, this is never going to happen, and I, look,
I don't bring that up to gloat. I told you so.
I wish I was wrong. I would love to be
sitting here right now and telling you what a great
event it was this past weekend, and all that it
was never going to happen. They were never going to
sell tickets. They could have sold four times the amount

(01:19:31):
of tickets they actually sold. This event still getting canceled.
And that's the problem. You swing for the fences when
all you needed was a single, and so you swing
for the fences and you strike the fuck out.

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
I also just want to keep beating down shitty promotions
because I've been to a lot of events here that
don't have a lot of people, And I also just
know that from going around town there's not a lot
of expenditure put into promoting the event. So you can't
be mad at what you haven't tried to build when
it doesn't come out well. Transitioning load of things that

(01:20:07):
have came out well and how this felt a little awkward.
Amanda Nunia's impending return will detour to the UFC Hall
of Fame.

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
On Thursday. At the press conference, Dana's asked if Amanda
would come back and fight the winner of Panya and
Kayla Harrison, and Dana said, well, she's right over there.

Speaker 1 (01:20:30):
The camera pants to her. She shakes her head.

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
Yes, Oh my god. It manage has confirmed it. She's
going to come back. Hey, I got a great idea.
On Saturday, let's announce we're putting her on the damn
Hall of Favorite International Fight Week.

Speaker 3 (01:20:43):
Now you do have, but I'm making all that more
epic when she fights like the night or two nights later.

Speaker 2 (01:20:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just a little odd, but yeah,
that's I don't care. Look, nobody's disputing Amanda Nuna's whether
or not she's a Hall of Famer, right, I mean,
we can all agree one she belongs in the Hall
of Fame. Again, I I and I know, we just
spent a long time doing it. I hate comparing different

(01:21:10):
sports like that. Baseball makes you wait five years before
you get to the Baseball Hall of Fame before you
can be voted on.

Speaker 3 (01:21:17):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
NFL has a window as well. I don't care that
if they want to put Amanda End now, I don't care.
It doesn't. But when you compare it to other sports
and you look at other Hall of Fames, you're like, well,
this is fucking weird.

Speaker 3 (01:21:29):
That's the can escape.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
Yeah, I don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:21:31):
It's fine. She deserves it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:35):
Now you want to talk about fucked up hall of fames? Uh,
tune into PROG Wrestling after Hours right here on the
after advices that were, and I'll tell you how fucking
the Undertaker gets you in the goddamn Hall of Fame.

Speaker 3 (01:21:46):
But that's cool.

Speaker 2 (01:21:48):
Well, I mean, I guess it depends on how.

Speaker 1 (01:21:52):
Much you like the Undertaker.

Speaker 3 (01:21:54):
But you still like them a lot, but not that much.

Speaker 2 (01:21:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:21:57):
Well I don't know if.

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
Well I don't, but so others may one did.

Speaker 2 (01:22:03):
But no in and of itself. I don't care that
I made a New Years to go to Hall of Fame.

Speaker 1 (01:22:07):
I think it's incredibly deserved, but it is a little weird.

Speaker 2 (01:22:12):
Hold on, she just said she was gonna fight Tho.

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
She's up for fighting the winner.

Speaker 2 (01:22:15):
Of Pania and Harrison.

Speaker 3 (01:22:16):
Nothing will get weirder than the Aldo one. That man
poured his fucking soul onto that stage and fought like
three months later. I'm like, what the hell is this shit.

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):
Here's the more weird thing to me, Michael than that.
And you live this with me. They make a big
third female to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 1 (01:22:35):
I couldn't remember one of the other.

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
Two, and it was the good and it was Rowsy
that I couldn't remember. I remember, and I was fucking there.
I just didn't remember it happening. I'm not saying Ronda
didn't deserve it or anything like that, because it makes
all the sense in the world that, hell, there is
no Women's UFC without Ronda Rowsey.

Speaker 1 (01:22:55):
I just didn't remember it actually happening.

Speaker 3 (01:22:58):
We need the physical Hall of Fame built in Vegas
so that we can go and ingest this like like
you do with the Baseball Hall of Fame, like you
can do and can't.

Speaker 1 (01:23:07):
We need to be.

Speaker 3 (01:23:08):
Able to ingest it. You know who's gonna get to
ingest the UFC experience now, Aaron Pico. That shit's finally official.
So we get Aaron Pico coming to the UFC. People
have already thrown out the terms will get exposed. What
are your expectations.

Speaker 2 (01:23:25):
Who get exposed?

Speaker 3 (01:23:28):
I think that we can see pushing towards the top fifteen.
I don't know if he breaks in there. It's also
I thinking a lot to do with do you right
away Mossar Evylov top five guy? If he starts with
somebody that's a notable name outside of the rankings, I
give him a better runway. I don't think you can

(01:23:48):
underestimate UFC jitters.

Speaker 2 (01:23:51):
I agree, but I think you look at recent Bellator
former Bellator signees MVP Bowl this past weekend, completely unfair comparisons.

Speaker 3 (01:24:04):
Both those guys young, right, Both those.

Speaker 2 (01:24:06):
Guys, while still very good fighters, their best days are
behind them.

Speaker 1 (01:24:11):
Aaron p Go's twenty eight years old and.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
Ninety of his career has been done the right way,
not too maybe right in the beginning, they tried a
little too much and had to pull back a little.
But he's been brought on very well. I'm very curious
to see how this plays out. This may not get
the headlines of the MVP signing, the pit Bull signing.
This is a bigger, better signing by UFC.

Speaker 3 (01:24:39):
This could end up being at the best, a Justin
Gaetchee signing. At worst, Tector Lombard signing. Yeah, let's get
to the fight announcements, guys. May seventeenth, UFC Fight Night
is now going to be headlined by Gilbert Burns versus
Michael Morales at welterweight. That card also gets women's strawweights
Denise Combs versus Elise Read. Talking about welterweight. May thirty first,

(01:25:01):
Ramez Brahima is going to take on Welsh sensation Elliott
oh Obannon, Elliot, excuse men, that one in a little backwards.
June seventeenth, the UFC is in Atlanta. We're getting those
on the road fight nights. Mansor Abdul Malik, the unbeaten middleweight,
is going to take on Cody Brundage on that card.
We have June twenty first, UFC Baku, Azerbaijan, Yes, the

(01:25:27):
home country of Raphael Disease and Nazin Setikov will be
getting their first UFC event. The main event is the
rebooking we've been alluding to earlier in the show. Khalil
Rowntree Junior Jamal Hill huge light heavyweight match up on
that one, plus the return of Koiji Haragucci versus tejir
Ulambekov will take place on that card. June twenty eighth

(01:25:49):
AFC fight night, Jonatan Guineas versus Justin Tafa has been announced.
We go over to July twelfth, where the UFC will
be in Nashville. Edward Mourra versus Lauren Murphy Women's flyweight,
Fatima Clein versus Melissa Martinez Women's strawweight, and Austin Lane
Victor Petrino at heavyweight are the first couple fights announced

(01:26:13):
for that card as we head into a unfortunately uf
cless weekend of action. But that doesn't mean that there's
not fights galore. If you'll indulge me for a minute, everybody,
this week it's the third PFL event. We have middleweights
and lightweights on tap for the quarter finals. Ippa Kasong

(01:26:34):
and I versus Fabian Edwards is your main event Kasong
and I big power puncher willing to trade in the
pocket edwards like his brother, a slower pace fighter, he
needs to feel the urgency in this one. Also to
point out, at middleweight, you have former welterweight champion, talented
striker Sidabu c taking on talented att wrestler Dalton Rossa.

(01:26:56):
And the one lightweight matchup I wanted to highlight is
Guzi Raji Bobov ten fight win streak, the twenty twenty
four PFL champion, a full Arsenal, another Normaga meta disciple.
He's gonna be taking on Mark decasey englishman who came
over to the PFL after parting ways with the UFC.

(01:27:17):
Clay Collard and DIZ protege Nick Maximov are also going
to be on that card. That's Friday Night from Florida.
Friday Night from California, you have LFA two o seven
lightweight main event, outstanding collegiate wrestler Richie Lewis defense against
Richie Miranda, Miranda A, Josh Barnett and Cub Swanson decightful.

(01:27:42):
That one's gonna get gritty, unbeaten bannonweight prospect Mitch McKee
versus Greg Fisher, Minnesota wrestler versus talented jiu jitsu practitioner,
and a feature fight two unbeaten flyweights winner could be
on the way to Contender series Hawaiian steiker Christian Navidad
versus Colorado wrestler Micah Hyes. Friday Night BKFC is also

(01:28:05):
in action his BKFC Fight Night from Omaha April on
All April eighteenth. On this Friday Night, your main event,
Dakota Cochran, the number one contender in the middleweight division,
takes on big time brawler Marcus Edwards three and zero.
Cochrane experience composed accurate, four knockdowns in his last fight.

(01:28:26):
He looks to prove why he should get the next
crack at Dave Mandel. Derek Finley, big power puncher who
has over sixty professional boxing fights, takes on Bryce Henry, unbeaten,
lengthy jab machine. In the co main event, you also
have a rank matchup at middleweight as zav Vincent takes
on Disario Ramirez Ramirez big powerful left uk huge upset

(01:28:51):
victory in his debut, much like Vincent in his last
win over Doug Culture, a really technical brawler. So there's
a whole shit ton of fun stuff on that card,
including a doctor in action. Yes, Sarah's now a primary
care physician gets in the bare knuckle ring. That's Friday

(01:29:11):
night and Saturday morning.

Speaker 2 (01:29:13):
No damn heart surgeon, primary care. I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

Speaker 3 (01:29:19):
Come on, so putting in that word being surgical out there,
surgical and precise, and then Saturday morning. For us here
in America, it's BKB forty Cardiff Brawl three. Liam Reeves
four and zero defends the super welterweight title against Martin
Reffel six and two. Three fight win streak. Reeves good

(01:29:41):
pull and rip, pulls you in and then is able
to make you pay. He switches, stance, has creative angles.
Reffel is a forward moving traditional brawler. Co main event
bridger weight. We're talking about some big boys here. Title fight.
Dan Pattamore gonna be taking on miliel marek pad Moore
ripping Birmingham, England coming off of a first round knockout

(01:30:04):
to win the vacant title. Emial two and oho so
far and Bary Knuckle third round knockout, first round knockout.
Couple more interesting names on that card include former champion
Daniel Lerwall and Dorian Dash plus Tyler Goodjohn who has
been seen all over BKFC. And last thing for you,
BKFC breaking news Lorenzo Hunt Chris Comosi rematch expected headline

(01:30:29):
BKFC Italy. That one gonna be postponed. We expect a
replacement to be announced for Lorenzo Hunt. Hunt a massive
laceration on his forehead somewhere suffered in training, I believe,
actually during a strength and conditioning session. So best recovery
on to Lorenzo Hunt, as that looks like it was
gonna need a little shit ton of stitches.

Speaker 2 (01:30:51):
How do you bust your head open strength and conditioning?

Speaker 3 (01:30:53):
Falling? Falling on your face? Unfortunately, because had to send
a message, are you guys really bare knockle sparring? No, man, no,
it was an accident whole thing and the man felt
and best luck to Lorenzo Hunt. And be on the
lookout at cageminds dot com for when we get that
news from BKFC about who will be fighting Chris co
Mosey next for that cruiserweight title. Cageminds dot com, Cage

(01:31:15):
Mindscombat Sports news on Facebook and YouTube. It's cage Minds
underscore CSN on your Instagram, your TikTok, and your ex.

Speaker 2 (01:31:25):
Get the show on x at MMA After Hours. You
can find me at real Mike Carlisle. We will talk
to you next week for another episode of M M
A After Hours. You're on the After Hours podcast network.

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
Love Combat Sports.

Speaker 5 (01:31:44):
I have a website for you, cageminds dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:31:47):
That's c A g E.

Speaker 5 (01:31:49):
D M I n DS dot com. Fight news from
around the world, in depth interviews, live event coverage covering
combat sports for over a decade. Established in April two
thousand eleven. That's cagemids dot com.

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