MMA Fighting - Between the Links’ 2024 Promotional Festivus: Grading the Best and Worst From UFC, PFL, More

Episode Date: December 26, 2024

On an all-new edition of Between the Links, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Jed Meshew bring you the third annual BTL Promotional Festivus — where they grade the UFC for their 2024 performance, both in and out of the octagon, along with their airing of grievances for things that happened negatively throughout the course of the year. Additionally, the duo do the same for PFL, ONE Championship, BKFC, and give their thoughts on things they did better from the year prior, other ideas to bring into 2025, and what could be the breakout promotion in the space for the upcoming year. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Free beer, wine, and snacks. Sweet! Fast-free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land. And with live TV, I'm not missing the game. It's kind of like I'm already on vacation. Nice. Air Canada.

Nice travels. Wi-Fi available to aeropline members on equipped flights. Sponsored by Bell. Conditions apply. See Air Canada.com. Podcast Network. The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of Between the Links. Happy Thursday to us all.

Happy day after Christmas to us all. At least as you're hearing this. But this is not your typical edition of BTL. Oh, no. We are back for, I believe this is our third annual promotional festivist edition of Between the Links, where Jed Mishu and I, who I'll introduce officially in a moment, we're going to talk about the year that was the good, the bad, the great, the ugly, from all of your favorite promotions in the world of mixed martial arts,

from the UFC, PFL, maybe. talk a little one championship because they did some things not many of you know that they did some things but they did do some things maybe we'll touch on bkfc's 2024 since they had a lot going on but we'll talk about that and much more i am mike heck as you heard estherlind say and joining me is the aforementioned the hot take kid the baron of boop himself mr do gray area jed beshue jed welcome back to the annual promotional festivist one of my favorite episodes every year. I got a lot of problems with you, people.

You're going to hear about them. All we need is a, uh, the festivist poll and the feats of strength. And we will really be rounding out the holiday season appropriately. I always know that our show delivers the right kind of message when I hear from either a high up official or a public relations person from one of the organizations person from one of the organization. that we've talked about on the show. And then I have long conversations with them because that has happened over the last two years.

And maybe we can make it a perfect three for three. But in order to do that, we have to talk about these promotions. So before we get into the individual promotions, Jed, let's just talk about this. Let's take the journalism hat off. Let's put the fan hat on. I don't ever have a journalism hat on. I am always a fan. Fair enough.

How would you. grade 2024 as an MMA fan. And obviously the UFC is at the top of the food chain and they kind of dictate where all of this goes. But you're a man who likes to have a good time, whether it's with the UFC or with the fight circus who likes to do some fun things. BKFC does some fun things. PFL has done some things.

The capososos of the world show us that there's more to life other than the UFC. Eddie Hall's fighting two dudes at once. how would you grade 24 as an MMA fan overall? You know, I think if you had asked me this a week ago, I would have had a lower score than I'm going to give you now

because it is very weird, right? Mike, like in my head, this was a good but not great year of MMA, right? Some clear highlights, some obvious highlights, certainly from the UFC end of things. Noce at the sphere, that is such a unique experience

we've never had. UFC 300, the biggest event, probably in the history of the sport. Maybe not biggest, but, you know, the most significant fight card, I would say ever, the best fight card ever assembled. You know, some real high water marks. And at the same time, you know, I just can look back on our shows and think, not every weekend, certainly, but a lot of the weekends of the year where one of the talking points is, well, this isn't the best card on paper.

and well, you know, and certainly the front half of the year, the UFC stuff, we're talking, well, they're really saving energy to put towards 300. So they're rob and Peter to pay Paul. That's why his cards aren't good. And so this kind of broad malaise maybe is what I would have said a week ago. And then, you know, I started, I put some notes together. I did a little preparation. I did some looking back on the various organizations.

And better year than I thought. really a better year than I thought. Yes, the high water marks are still there and they are a huge tent pole uplifting. And certainly not every weekend was a banger. Nobody's here to tell you that. And some other promotions, I would say that 2024 was a worse year for PFL than 2020. 3 was. But still, pretty good fights all around. Some real good stuff happened. And even the poor stuff, the stuff that's at the bottom of the barrel, Maybe that's just the, you know, when I look back on it, I've got a little bit more rose-colored glasses on it. But I'm given 2024 in totality. If you were an MMA fan, let's, uh, let's give it an A. But just maybe an A minus. Maybe we'll be a little less generous A minus because I think if you'd asked me a week ago,

I would have said B. Um, but I, I do think that the, the high points were so high and that the lows were not as low. And this was not a year where we had. nearly as many bad things happen, right? Or like unfortunate things. We didn't kick the year off with Dana White beating his wife, you know? We didn't have any of those jump out like, oh, a bunch of people have gone away for murder or stuff like that. You know, there's always going to be some negative in this sport.

But I'm pretty comfortable saying a minus is how I feel on this year in total. much like the landscapers and the three gentlemen who just walked by this window here three leaf blowers by the way not one guy with the leap lower three guys with each with a very powerful leap blower i'm a little blown away by by your answer there a man is pretty high marks pretty high marks there but we'll go through we had some other fun stuff too mike because that's other you get the you mentioned it edie hawn a two on one fight uh dog fight wild tournament two, which nobody remembers except for me that happened in February, but was truly one of the most insane fight like combat sports events I've ever seen.

We had some nutty stuff take place and that'll always appeal to me as well. Yes, we had the weird, the fun and then just the stuff we normally get. So how should we start this, Jed? Should we end with the UFC or should we begin with the UFC? What do you think? I don't know. Your call. I have not thought about it all.

I'm now trying to figure out how many new UFC champions they were because that is to me also maybe part of why I'm a little higher on this because Marab Iliad Bilal Drichis, Alex won it last year, but that's four new men's champions. And that's, you know, that kind of change over free fun. Two new women's bandamway champions. and a new women's flyweight champion.

And a new women's flyweight champion. So we're looking at six new champions, technically seven as we doubled up on the bantam weight. So like you get out of 11 weight classes in the UFC, you're getting six new champions. Like that isn't exciting and a fun and an interesting year when you're getting that sort of turnover as opposed to. It's like I was just thinking back every year we do a site wide pick who are going to be the champions thing. you know, feature. And a lot of years you do that and maybe one or two new champions happen. And you're just like, you're just going chalk the whole way down the line.

Over half the belt's changed over. That's, you know, pretty fun. So like I said, A minus man, I think is a good year. All right. Well, you know, let's start with PFL because I feel like there's a chance we spend the most time with the professional fighters league. And we talked about them a lot on last year's show. I don't remember the exact grade we gave them,

but they ended the year with a ton of momentum because no, the World Championship card was not good. It was one of the most evil watches that a promotion has given us to take part in because almost every single fight that they gave us were all five rounders and they all went to a decision and it was just a card that took absolutely forever to come to its conclusion.

But just before that happened, PFL acquires Bellator and the most important thing about this deal was acquiring the roster. And we talked about some of the things that Don Davis said on the MMA hour when the our are still with us. And he said that, hey, everybody who has a contract, everybody who has a job with Bellator will have the opportunity to come and work for us, all the fighters on the roster, all the people behind the scenes. We will honor the current deals that were made by Bellator before they came over. We're going to create some incredible

matchups. We're going to load up the roster a little bit more so that the patchy mixes and the Johnny Eblins will have people to fight. It's going to be a great 2024. We're going to do a PFL versus Bellator. Lots of big promises were made by Don Davis and the Professional Fighters League.

February rolls around and we get PFL versus Bellator. Do we get all the fights we wanted? No, we did not. But it was a cool concept. The card was fun as hell. and they were off to a great start. And then the season begins and it's just more of the season stuff.

It was the Dakota Dichiva show. They clearly handpicked her road to the playoffs with the two easiest fighters in the division. We knew what they were trying to do. They pretty much admitted as such that they were trying to do that, but they were able to at least establish a star.

Francis Ngano went in boxed Anthony Joshua, got absolutely obliterated, and then he, dealt with a very personal and heartbreaking tragedy that led him back to the PFL smart cage. We got Francis and Ghanu competing in the smart cage. We got the fight in the women's divisions that we wanted to see. We wanted to see Chris Seaborg versus Larissa Pacheco. We got that at Battle of the Giants.

That was a huge pay-per-view, sort of a huge moment for the Professional Fighters League. They had their world championship card. A lot of fights, a lot of five-rounders. Main card delivers. Ditchieva steals the show, knocks out Tila Santos, brutally finishes her in round two, wins the million dollars. Now we're talking about her as being one of the best 125-pound women's fighters in the world, on top of being one of the best women's fighters in the world.

So you take those things into consideration. Pretty good year for the PFL. But then we talk about the bad, Jed. And there was a lot of it. There is, we still are hearing the Bellator fighters, having a hard time, just getting fights or even having any sort of communication with the PFL. We had Don Davis do the town hall and he couldn't even name a favorite fight or anything of that nature and he got a bunch of crap for that. Led Dana White to literally showing up at a Power Slap press conference ready to unload

and boy did he on Don Davis and other things that happened along the way, some medical issues with fighters that they were not confirming, the reasons why did not really add up in a lot of people's eyes. It was a roller coaster ride to say the least for the PFLJ. And those are just some of the examples that we can throw out there. So what are we grading PFL? And I guess it's PFL, because they did have the Bellator events. Nobody cared. Nobody watched them. No one really even gave it a shot despite the Max deal, which was kind of a cool thing because it wasn't a time buy or anything like that. This is Max paying them to distribute

their platform, which is always a good thing from a business perspective. But what are we giving PFL for a grade for 2024 with just those things out there, but probably a lot more that need to be considered. I thought a lot about this because obviously we know that the airing of grievances, it's less about the UFC part of things for us because we have a lot of the same grievances for the UFC year over year. And a lot of this becomes more about what we would love to see from the other promoters in the space. So I spent a lot of time thinking about this one. And I've, I settled on a C maybe a C minus, but it's the holiday season. I'm feeling generous.

We can just give them a C with the major caveat that they were well on their way to failing. This is, they answered the last six questions on the test right to pull a C out of their ass because this was about to be an F. We were about to have to send them, send this paper home. get it signed by the parents, maybe set up a parent teacher conference, because guys, you're,

you're just not working hard enough in class. I don't know. I don't know if you're, you're not paying attention in class. I don't know if the curriculum's too hard. They pulled it out at the end, just a run on the Scantron. Just B, B, B, B, B, B, B, and all of those hit.

Because for nine months, this was failure. Like, they were just not doing things right. there was limited interest in the season. I know the season format is controversial. We can talk a little bit more about that. I still think that the season format is a good thing for them to have.

I think it needs a total revamp, but I think that it is ultimately a good piece to their, you know, puzzle. But there was just no interest in the season this year, really top to bottom, in part because they were trying to draw so much interest in the two supervite events that they did to some success. the Bellator's part of this was horrible, but down the stretch,

they did two things that were really, really significant and two real big wins for them. And the first is Francis Ngano fought. They got him into the smart cage, took him two and a half years, basically, but they finally got him in against an opponent that people legitimately had some interest in because of what had happened to Ngano

against Anthony Joshua in boxing, the personal trauma he suffered. This was a compelling matchup, and Francis came back. And on my card and in a couple of other people's cards, not unanimous certainly, because he's been out of the in the game for so long. Francis reestablished his claim to being the baddest man on the planet, the best heavyweight on Earth. And maybe you don't agree with that,

but there's still absolutely an argument that PFL has on roster the baddest man on the planet, which is huge for them to accomplish that. And the second thing, as you mentioned, they gambled with Dakota Dichiva, and they, you know, they loaded the dice a little bit. They gave her an easy pet. They tried to make this happen. But ultimately, she still had to get in the cage and do the thing. And she did it and she did it with a plumb. She ran through her opposition.

She was set up for success and she knocked those pins down. So, you know, it doesn't really matter that she got a little help along the way because that's how stars are built. And they pulled it off. And so because of those two things, they get back to a C. They get back to a passing grade. But I mean, they're, you know, that's on this exam. The test, the school year is not over. You know, we need to see something from the next year.

This may be a, we're putting you back to remedial promotion, you know? I, man, the way you laid out the grades is almost spot on to what I was thinking. And I think I'm being even more, based on how you're thinking compared to how I was thinking, I think I'm being more generous here by giving them a C minus because if this was flag day week, they'd get a D without question. Like this is a solid D for them. And the things you mentioned, Francis fighting, getting Cyborg and Pacheco in there. Because if you go back at Watch Battle of the Giants, up until Larissa Pacheco and Chris Cyborg

started throwing hands at each other, this was a rotten card to watch. Like Paul Hughes had the moment, beat AJ McKee, and that was like a decent fight, but it just sort of added to the slogginess in a way of what that card was through all those hours of watching.

And then Cyborg and Pacheco go into that cage and beat the hell out of each other because we got the Johnny Eblen, Fabian Edwards rematch that not a soul had asked for. Yet we got it, and it was a very, very bad fight until the last maybe 45 seconds of it or maybe the fifth round in general but the first four rounds are terrible chris iborg loriceko are they're a half grade by themselves for saving this company

because if that fight doesn't go the way that it does that paper view is a disaster all in all we would talk about francis but we would talk about that card like ufc 302 one of the worst cards you've ever seen but the main event was cool and it gave us something to talk about really wouldn't have gone very well for them. And then we got the World Championship thing, which is always super duper risky when you're doing all those five rounders. But it was the coded ditch of a show.

And then the main event was a classic PFL thing because you're at the highest of highs. You can't get any higher. And then the main event goes the full five, I believe. And that's how we ended up the card. So, but now we get all the Bellator fighters coming out and Patchy Mix is pissed and Patricio Pitbull is pissed. And Don Davis has come on.

said essentially we're not sorry we're not apologizing we did the best we could with all of this and the fighters are like no you didn't because you promised us this this and this you canceled three events we're preparing to defend our titles on this card against this fighter and then you canceled the cards and now we know why because they have struck a deal with dubai and now they're doing the champion series cards without the bellator branding over in dubai and business wise this is a very big deal for them. And hopefully they can actually deliver on the promises of what these cards are going to be. But man, they just, I don't, I don't know how they can fix this, Jed. Like, to me, the first thing they need to do is they need to get rid of the season altogether. Like,

and I'm not saying get rid of it, but we got to, if there's one thing they can take from Belator, is they got to turn this into a Grand Prix and they get to do it immediately. That's the way I see it. It's, this needs to become a Grand Prix. It needs to become a tournament. you can have some fun with it but doing the regular season and the points and all the bullshit like it's just so confusing to the viewer and you're just

it's so risky when you have names like Shane Burgos didn't fight at all in 2024 what the hell man you spent all that money on this guy and then you promised that he would be a commentator when he didn't fight we didn't see him on a PFL broadcast all year it was wild

yeah I don't mind them going to a grand pre if they're going to do it. I don't mind the season. I think the season is fundamentally flawed because of the way that they operate it. Because they are, because they don't believe in the season enough, basically, it is why.

It is a half measure. The way the season has to work, seasons aren't two fights. No sport has a season of two games. The way you are going to do it, and a way that I think you can do it, that I honestly think could work, is you have to get the buy-in from the fighters and be like,

hey, here's what a season is going to be. You're going to fight once a month for the first four months. And you're going to do a true round robin. And so you can't be cutting weight a bunch. You've got to fight close to walking weight because you are going to be fighting every three and a half weeks. You will be stepping in the cage, making weight, and competing. And then you can treat this as a season.

Not everybody is going to want to do that. That's fine. You don't, because of now, your structure. You've got supervites versus whatever. But you can find enough people that will say, yeah, I would like to compete in this manner. It will be different and I will do it. I think that if they just choose to go to a Grand Prix, that's obviously very easy. That's very digestible for combat sports fans and fans in general understand tournament structures. And they basically do a Grand Prix as well because that is what the playoffs are is a Grand Prix style. So they chose to do that as well.

That could be the case. To me, whichever path they do, what they should do is alternate them. You don't need to do six a year. You can do three a year. Or if you, and honestly, this should be more than anything, the thing I think they need to do is add a bantam weight and middleweight categories. And so you've got four weight classes that you are doing a tournament, season, whatever you're doing with, alternate them.

Four and four. Every two years, the Ryder Cup doesn't come. around every year and nobody's sad about it. You get some time to let other people do stuff and you're like, you know, even years are the lightweight, middle weight, heavyweight women's phantom weight or whatever years that you're doing things. And then the odd years of that. And so you can allow some space the fighters who would normally be competing, you know,

in the Grand Prix, the seasons. Now they have more room to fill out cards in the super fight, et cetera, and just every everything can kind of work a lot better. So there are, I think there are plenty of ways to make their rough idea of we want to separate ourselves from the UFC. I think that you can do that, but you really got to buy into that in a way that they have yet to do.

And you got to find a way to get it over. And we, we talked to, you talked to Don Davis about some stuff. We've talked ad nauseum. The biggest issue with the season for me is not even the season part of it. It's just that it is not getting. over. People aren't that interested in the stuff happening and you've got to find a way to promote

whatever it is that draws interest outside of the historically the way to draw promotion to promote combat has been we got the two best fighters in the world or we got two of the five or whatever. That's the UFC's business model. You can't do that because you don't have enough of them. You have good fighters. You don't have great fighters and you have very few stars. So you got to find another way to get the promotion you can make over and thus far they have relied on well people know seasons but that's not connecting so you got to find a way to make it connect in a bigger way than you are doing right now i don't know how you do it i truly don't know it's it's it's definitely going to be a challenge for them and then on top of that just the way that people view

them right now is don by the way is don davis the guy for them like i know he says some weird stuff, but I, you don't think it's, okay. One of my notes, uh, is, uh, I have a lot of respect for Don Davis's willingness to come and do town halls. And I've said that many time and do that with you was, uh, I got a lot of respect for that. And I don't think Don Davis should be fired. I think Don Davis is very good at what he does. I think this year, he did a lot of stuff that he does not do. And it, it, it never looked good for them. Don Davis, by basically his own admission, though these exact words, does not come out of his mouth, but functionally, his own admission is not a fan of the

sport. He does, this is not how he chooses to spend his time. He does not watch fights for pleasure. He is a businessman, and he believes that this is a business opportunity. And there's nothing wrong with that. Like, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But if that's the case, you got to stay in your lane. and your lane is the business end of things. You know, straight up, the Fertitos were more MMA fans than Don Davis is, but the Furtadoes never said shit.

They never talked to anybody in the public-facing side of things because that wasn't their job in Zufa. They didn't want that job. They probably understood that they wouldn't be that good at that job, and they handled the others. By all accounts, Lorenzo Fertito was like made a lot of the things go day-to-day. day with the business end of stuff.

And Lorenzo and Frank did all of the business negotiations. That's what Don is doing. And that is his job and a good role for him to set up things like the Dubai deal and their television rights deal and stuff. Dana White, to some extent, I honestly do not know at this point really the delegation of responsibilities in the UFC certainly is doing that and is being the public face of the company a lot of times. You don't have to be Dana White.

You can just be the guy who does, who pitches the PFL as an investment opportunity for, you know, Bain Capital or whoever it is like that they are trying angel investors to get funding to continue to do stuff, to make the sales. He is not the guy who you want tweeting stuff to promote to a broad audience. He is a targeted promoter to people with money to get them to give him money. every time he does stuff public facing, via Twitter, via interviews, it always looks bad because he is not speaking the language of fandom.

And so no, Ray Cepho should be in that role. Truth be told, I don't know if Rayce F was good in that role. I've spoken to Ray several times, interviewed him a couple times, like really nice guy, does not have that sort of natural charisma that Dana White does that made him an obvious choice for this. So whoever it's going to be, Jake Paul, like, is an invested, like, whoever they need a guy to do the fan facing stuff. And God love Don Davis because he is certainly willing, but somebody needs to set them aside. Don, if you're listening, again, I have a ton of respect for you. I led with that and I still, you know, all of that.

There, people have different strengths. You don't see me interviewing fighters because that is not my strength. This is not your strength and you should genuinely consider stepping out from that part of things. I'm going to find somebody to take that role. It ain't Dan Hardy. I'm sorry. It's just right here. Right here. Sign me up. I'll take a very reasonable salary and I will communicate to the fans at all points in time. Oh, now we're talking. Now we're talking. Don, hit up Mike. You can get my contact info or your team has my stuff you can give me a call we can talk i would be happy uh we can negotiate very reasonable i you can just bring me on as a consultant before you do interviews if you'd like but if instead you do want someone to just take the mic and run with it i'm here that's interesting yeah there's

yeah by the way another thing they have to do big mo needs to be their ring announcer for every card till the end of time good old big moe from the Jake Paul Mike Tyson card. That guy friggin rocks. And he needs to be the dude. He needs to be the dude. I'm sorry. Michael C. Williams just does it.

He hasn't done it for me in like the last seven years. He should not be the face of this. He's fine, but he's fine. He makes it up. Mix it up. I so. We're trying to forget Bellator existed. That's the goal of all this.

Bellator, the last decade of Bellator, for the most part, It needs to be forgotten. We need to move on with the brand. And that's another thing I wanted to add to this before I go back to you. I understand that you're taking the Bellator name off of the Champion Series cards. And I think that's a great start because the Bellator name is dead and has been for years. But you're still defending Bellator titles. I don't, this I don't get.

Now you're really fucking people up because this is presented as a PFL champion series. But it's for the Bellator title. we need to rebrand all of it. Like, Bellator needs to be wiped off the face of the earth. You keep the roster. The Bellator titles become the PFL titles. You have different titles. You have the Super Fight Championships and stuff.

And then we can eventually unify those belts with the actual champions. And then we could do title fights based on how the season or Grand Prix plays out. Totally fine with that. But this whole, hey, watch PFL Champions series and watch the Bellator lightweight title be defended by Usman or Magamato. against Paul Hughes, like, you're already making people's brains spin around. Just saying it like that. So the Bellator titles need to become the PFL titles and they need to do it yesterday. I mean, yes.

I think that that the whole Bellator just let Bellator die. It's dead. Because it is too confusing. We knew this from the jump. We said this, you know, you can have some fun with it, but it probably ultimately is just not going to play out in an effective way. you ran six Bellator events this year. It's not really a thing, so let it die. Don, if you're still listening,

if I didn't turn you off with my criticism of you, if you're not going to take me on as a consultant, which you should, very reasonable fee structure for mind. The single biggest issue that you have, the question that I need you to answer in 2025, and that you need you to answer, frankly. And some people would say can't be answered, right? Like I know Luke Thomas would come here and say, they can't.

You cannot succeed. You are playing in a rigged game. And maybe that's true. But if you are going to succeed, if there is any way that you are a viable long-term entity, you have to answer this question. And it is this. What is your identity?

And what is, more importantly, what is your personality? what is the culture of PFL because the UFC has a culture that they very clearly have a culture they have an identity outside of the nuts and bolts of with best fighters in the world like there is a vibe to them

PFL does not have that BKFC has a vibe BKFC absolute and they are clearly the most successful non-UFC promoter in combat sports right now like very by just about any metric I would argue

everybody understands what they are and their vibe isn't for everybody and they are okay with that if you are not going to be a fan they're never going to try and win you over but they have a personality and to some extent that personality is defined by their stars but it is also a culture that they have set up and this year in particular you have lost any culture that you had because you're you're just middling about you're trying to find a way to make make Bellator and PFL work. You're making a season-long thing work that most people seem not to be supportive of. I know I kind of am.

Most people seem to be out of it. You need a culture. You need to hire a creative director to just revamp everything, stylistically, present something that is unique and interesting. Give people a reason to enjoy your vibe because the quality of content is not it. And that's not to disrespect the fighters on your roster or you, but you are morphing into the great sin that Bellator had, which I said,

and I think every one of these that we've done, I repeated a refrain that Bellator had a fatal flaw, and that flaw is that they are UFC light. They are not Diet Coke, because Diet Coke and Coke are different. They are Big K-Cola. and the only people who really buy Big K Cola or whatever are, yeah, I just need something and I don't want to,

I want to pay less. That's not how MMA fandom works because the price point is the same basically of watch on ESPN Plus. So you have to create an identity. Whoever it is that gets it done. But that is the single biggest question I have for you in 2025. Do they go to pay-per-view next year? Is that smart?

it's definitely not smart but do you see a world where they they stay i think it's okay to go to pay per view twice i i i think broadly that they probably shouldn't i think that it's okay to hold yourself out as this is an this is the product if you're going to you would like to deliver and you understand that we probably won't actually make our money back on these sales but you know you present your price of hey this is special and that and so then you have you have have to sell that and you hope over time you can. But communicating to your fandom, hey, what we're doing here is significant and different is better than, I think that there is an argument that I understand there. So if you do it twice, you do a spring and then a fall one,

that's okay. I don't really have an issue with that. I think your price point should be 20 bucks. I think 50 is dumb. 20 bucks. Like this shouldn't be hard. 20 bucks. People will pay 20 bucks. People will pay 20 bucks no one's going to have to pay 50 last thing i'll say something that needs to happen francin gano's next mhm a fight needs to be announced before the end of january and i don't even need the opponent don't even need the opponent i just need hey october 18th saudi arabia pfl battle of the giants to francis and gano is going to be in the main event he has signed sealed and delivered. This needs to be a year build, a 10-month build to Francis. This whole year needs to be about Francis. Who is going to fight this man? Who is going to earn the right?

Is it going to be a free agent? Is it going to be someone off the street? Is it going to be Parker Porter? Is it going to be the guy who won the season championship? Is it going to be the PFL men a heavyweight champion? Who is it going to be? This whole season needs to be built upon who Francis is going to fight because he is the one that is going to draw all the interest. And Dakota Dichiva obviously needs to be on that same card, but they need to present Dakota as well as is a very big deal. And if she wants to do the season, fine, but I think her doing the season is a terrible idea. I think she needs to be on pay.

If we're doing two pay-per-views, she needs to be on both of them and she needs to be in the co-main event of both of them without question. You're going to think that I'm making a joke when I say this. and I'm actually being dead serious. One of the biggest issues I had, and this speaks to what I was just saying about identity and personality, PFL isn't fun.

There is no humor. There is no levity. There's, it is, it's not like morose and somber, but it is just a, like there is no joy to it outside of fighting, right?

I honestly think that it would be a good idea. to get weird with Francis. Have fun with Francis. I pitched this two years ago that Kayla should do a Queen of the Hill because that would be fun. Truly, the biggest headlines you could get at PFL,

and in a way that I honestly do not think would undermine your integrity, as long as you were very clear about what this is, as you announce, we're doing Francis Ngano is going to fight two people. Not like he's going to do a two-on-one

Francis and Gano fight. against two featherweights or bantam weights. Because it would just be fun. Like, there was no joy in PFL all year long. And that would be a fun thing to be like, hey, we're going to Saudi.

We're putting it on ESPN for 20 bucks. You can buy it on pay-per-view or whatever. Francis Inganu, the baddest man on the planet, we're going to see if the baddest man on the planet can beat up two dudes at one time. If Francis loses, he loses the two dudes. It's fine. If Francis wins. Francis beats two dudes. That's pretty cool. Like have, I mean this so seriously. There are no bad ideas for y'all except for to keep doing the same stuff.

You don't need to go full fight circus and do a bunch of insane shit because that is a separate thing. But doing some kooky fun stuff would go miles to helping you have an identity to be somebody who is meaningful and that people would be like, let's see what kind of silliness is going on because it would be it would be fun and you just did not put out a fun product in 2024 Francis Ngano versus Eddie Hall Francis and Gano versus Puginooski no no Eddie Hall Puginowski is the fight that must exist I don't care who puts it on it makes sense for TSW to put it on but if if you can make that happen do it like you got to have fun this year like more than anything, I just want Don and company to go into the offices on January 5th or whatever

and be like, hey, no bad ideas. Throw it out as long as it's fun, as long as we can have a good time with it. As long as it, maybe it's a little silly, but we can make it silly. We can't do when we shouldn't do a UFC 306. We should not do a noche, but we could do something similarly fun. It doesn't have to be that big, but we can just have a good time and make sure. sure people know that we don't take we don't take ourselves too seriously because that is what this year was we're coming we're the co-leader

we have 20 people in the top 15 or whatever like no because nobody gives the shit about that that is maybe what you sell to the business into things it's not what you sell to the fans you sell the fans is you can have a good time watching us you are not going to regret your

Saturday night spent with us on ESPN you know you're not going to regret spending 40 bucks to come to our show You got to have more fun than you're having. 100% agree. This is a big year for them. It's a big year coming up. Let's see if they can come through with the changes.

Last thing I want to ask you about this. We have our predictions extravaganza show coming up on, on to the next one that's going to go live first Sunday of 2025. But someone sent this one and I'm going to present it to you right now. Buy or sell this time next year. We're talking about either PFL being sold to somebody else or aggressively on the market to be sold to somebody else. The current ownership is going to sell the product or will be in talks where the rumor and innuendo is, yeah, they're, they're, they gone. It's just a matter of who it's going to be.

I'm selling the idea. I don't get me wrong. I've said from the very beginning to me, PFL has always, I worked. for a tech startup for seven years. And PFL always very much felt like that world of we are selling an idea that's not real. The idea is that we can take market share from the UFC industry that is a billion dollar a year industry. And if we can even take 10% of the market share from the UFC, hundreds of millions of dollars a year that we can think. That's really a fake idea in the way that many tech startups have fake ideas.

I don't want to get too personal into various projects I've worked on, but like if you were just in there, you'd be like, yeah, it's probably never going to happen, but it doesn't have to. We have to build something close enough to reel and then convince somebody to take a gamble on it, pay money for it,

and then we can leave with all this cash in hand. PFL has always felt like that to me that this is, they are not trying to be long-term viable. They are trying to be short-term, uh, successful enough to sell, this idea to somebody who can then see if they can turn them long-term viable. I don't think that that happens this year.

I think that that probably happens soon-ish, but frankly, I just don't think that they're, if they are selling at the end of 2025, it's because they have decided to get out of the game because they do not believe that they can find somebody to pay them money, that they just want to get out and burn the boats. I don't think that they will give up on their product at the end of this next. year because I think that they still believe and maybe they are true that they can sell this product for a payoff like a legitimate payoff to somebody else in the not too distant future. So selling the idea that they are selling the company by next year.

We're rooting for your PFL do the thing for the love of God. We need you just have fun man. Have fun. It's all just have fun get and and here's the thing. Don you don't have fun. because you don't care about MMA. Hire somebody who just loves MMA thinks it's silly and fun, me, and have fun with it.

And just take some swings, that you are, just take some swings and have a good time. Got nothing to lose. Take some swings. You already got the business deals in place. You got the TV deals in place. You're making money.

Go for it. Have some fun. That's annoying. What? You're a muffler. You don't hear it? Oh, I don't even notice it. I usually drown it out with the,

radio how's this oh yeah way better save on insurance by switching to bellair direct and use the money to fix your car bellair direct insurance simplified conditions apply speaking of a company that once had fun and then just forgot who they were all together let's go to one championship jed i don't think we're going to spend nearly as much time on one championship as you did on the pfl because quite frankly i don't think there is much of a future for one championship because they have just seemed to lost their entire identity. They have just forgotten about MMA altogether. Really? I would, I would disagree. They have not lost their identity. They have correctly established that their identity is not MMA. And so they don't have much of a future for us, but I think that this year very clearly, to me, was the year where it's

kind of been leaning that way anyway, but they had eight MMA title fights this year, which was honestly more than I thought they had no I didn't know they had eight MMA title fights this year which as I said frankly more than I thought that they had um and that's you know they they aren't they have moved into I mean they had kickboxing moitized submission grappling like they're doing that thing I think there's submission grappling is probably going to fall by the wayside as other more profitable submission grappling things like CGI have started to really gain some steam. But they are they're kickboxing a moitai. That is what they have become.

You know, they, I don't know if they actually have done it yet, but at least the theory or thought is they are relocating to Bangkok because it is cheaper to put on shows in Lumpini and just be a a Muay organization. And they seem to be good at that is the thing. Like they have drawn interest. They create good kickboxing, good moitai fights.

They seem profitable when doing that for them. You know, broadly speaking, I still think one probably isn't profitable. But, you know, certainly Chhatri would argue that point, whatever, whatever. Their identity is that they are a boytie and kickboxing organization. And I think that they figured that out this year. I think that that will only even be exasperate. by Demetrius Johnson retiring and really the crown jewel of their MMA catalog has left them now. So you're left with what?

Like, I know that they like the Lee family. And so I guess Christian Lee, I believe is still one of their champions. I think he is still their lightweight champion that I could actually be wrong on that. You know, do they care about Jared Brooks? I don't think so.

Do they really care about Rug Rug Rug? No, Rugger probably will leave them soonish anyway. So like, just move all in. Be done with M.A. You can put on the occasional Mammah fight if you want to for funsies, but let your talent leave. If you can find a way to let the talent you have, like Rug Rug Under Contract and create another trade situation

where you can pull some kickboxing focused, Muay-focused UFC fighters. Terrific. Do that. Like, I think that this year was a clarifying year. I, at the beginning of the year, I think on several programs, I said one would be done, that they would be closing up shop because the reporting was very clearly that they are in a deep, deep well of debt.

But they got a new round of funding. And like I said, I think they found an identity this year. So they may not really be an org we talk about when we do our promotional draft. We're really running out of organizations to freaking use in that next April. But I think they've found something that works for them. and I'm happy for them to do that. They have a broadcast deal. Friday nights,

I occasionally just like, oh, I didn't know there was one on because there's no MMA fight on, but like, hell yeah. I'll tune in to watch, you know, whatever,

John Haggerty fight somebody on a Friday night, nothing else going on. Cool. So for me, my grade for them, Mike, was legitimately a B plus,

like a B, plus, because I think that they found where they needed to be and that space is not MMA, and that's okay. not everybody is well get rid of it then just dump it

dump malikin dump rug rug dump christian lee dump tankai dump jared brooks dump pachio all of them get rid of it get rid of all those fighters and let them sign somewhere else because that is my big issue with one

is that they're not they are not as public as the pfl slash bellator fighters are but some of them are and the stories that we have heard already are bad, are really, really bad about the communication, the lying, the dishonesty from one.

And just, if you need just a little bit of a taste, because we're not even getting nearly the whole story, just listen to Renier de Ritter's post-fight interview after he cheated to beat Gerald Mearshard. hilarious. Just ripping one. Just ripping him.

He's begging, he's begging fighters to not fight for that. them. Like, that's a problem. That's why I, there's no chance I can give them a B plus or anything high like that. C minus, because I do somewhat agree with you, like they've eventually landed on what their identity is going to be, but you are still so frigging confusing because people are expecting MMA. And I liked, I actually liked what they did in 2023, where they were just, they were a complete alternative to the UFC. They would do MMA fights. And they'd give, and they'd give you some names and they'd give you some title fights but then they'd give you the fun goofy

shit too they'd give you high level grappling matches they'd give you kade ritolo they'd give you daniel kelly they would give you a good moitai fight they'd give you sanchai and things of that nature like on the same card like i loved that i was enjoying when they were doing that like they were completely opposite of what the ufc was but yet still considered an m m m m organization and got the fan base somewhat behind them because they were that. And then they abandoned MMA altogether. And all the M.A fighters like, okay, well, what are we doing here? I would like to fight and have the opportunity to make money, but we are not doing MMA anymore.

So I'm glad they appear to have found their identity, but it was at the expense of their mixed martial arts talents, which helped build them to the place that they're at right now. And there's a lot of unhappy people there. So for me, I cannot give them a grade in the B's. I'm glad they've discovered something about themselves, but now you have to completely get rid of MMA. Like if this is what you're going to be, cool. But let all of these other MMA fighters go, unless they want to stay and be submission grapplers

or be Maitai kickboxers, that's their prerogative. But if they don't, let them go, let them go sign with the UFC, let them go sign with PFL, then your grade gets a little higher next year. But until I see that, they're going to be sniffing around the D plus C, minus pool for quite some time. I get it.

I do have one grievance that I would like to share with them. I was absolutely infuriated that you canceled the Atlanta card. You guys started promoting that that card was supposed to happen in November. They started promoting that thing in February. Like there was a billboard in like February.

The PFL's coming to Atlanta. I was like, hell yeah. I was hyped. I was going to go. We were going to like have a dude doing actual journalistic coverage of that event I was gonna and then it was like and guess what

Ruggerr versus Malikin is happening at this I was like I cannot believe this everything's coming up in a shoe right now I get to watch my boy fight freaking Rugrug this is the silliest thing ever and then they've friggin moved it to Thailand and it's like eat all the bags of terrible stuff I was infuriated by

by that cost saving shift. So, uh, that's my one that, that is the big problem I had with you in 2024 one championship. You got my hopes up and then you dashed them to pieces. And I don't care for that too much. Love it. Hopefully one can can figure out their shit because, uh, yeah, tough scenes and, hey, but sometimes once you discover that identity, it, it becomes the slow burn that you need to, to get where you need to go, Jed. where they need to go is Atlanta, Georgia. Maybe they bring a car

next year to make up for it. Just like the UFC is miraculously come back to Tachi Palace after all this time. Oh, wait a minute. They have not come back to Tachi Palace. I should ask Dane about that in Tampi. You really should have. I forgot all about it. I'm like, hey, you said you owed them one.

Are you ever going to pay off your debt? You went back to Kansas City. You went to all the places you had cards scheduled and you didn't go to Tachi Palace. Hold on. Let me let me Google something right now that is not what I needed trying to think about when they could go

so this is going to be 2025 is that right that's the year we're coming up do Bryn Royval Mnell Coppa Tachi Palace come on like do that card there a fun little fight night small venue fly weights like that is a perfect

card to bring there the the 15 year anniversary of let me make sure I'm not totally butchering this but pretty sure it's right December 16th is the 15 year anniversary of WEC's final event the Hindo Pettis one fight with the cage kick the showtime kick as you call as it is called 15 year anniversary you go to tachi you do that or you know you could go to tachi I'm trying to figure out when the last time WEC went to Tachi. The last WEC event held in Tachi was held in 2006.

So I think any of that is fine. The first WC event was in Tachi 2001. So yeah, man, do a go to Tachi this year. Bring back some WEC people, whoever it is. Jose Aldo can fight in frigging Tachi. whoever the few remaining WC people you can get and some flyweight and you make it happen Jose Aldo versus Dominic Cruz

boom that's the best Tachi fight ever do it I dare you UFC I dare you to do it and then bring old school WEC branding bring back the cage back make it a WEC show in honor of you O and them one And you know what? Having fun. Yeah.

Love to have fun. I love that so much. They should do that, but the UFC will not do that because they don't need to be fun right now. And that brings us to the ultimate fighting championship. There is a party going on next door. It's unbelievable. Actually, in the kitchen right now, the wife and the sun are just having great old Christmas times over there. But let's talk about the UFC, Jed.

It's the most wonderful time of the year, Mike. It sure is. The UFC began the year with a, whimper, I would say. They started off pretty slow. UFC 297 was the one, it may have been the worst pay-per-view in the last five years. It was awful. And yes, we did have a main event that was kind of fun between Drick's Duplice and Sean Strickland. But in the end, we realized what that card was and we realized that that fight only got the shine that it got because it was on that card, because it did not get a single vote for fight of the year in our awards stuff. Not one

vote for Sean Strickland versus Drickus 2 Plus E1. 297 was bad. But then we started to move a little bit. We got 298. We got the, as you said on the award show, the changing of the guard. Ilya to Poria becomes a featherweight champion, brutally knocks out Alexander Bolkanowski. Then we get UFC 299, which is I just jacked up card.

Credible lineup, credible moments. It was unreal. And then we got UFC 300, which was the greatest event in UFC history in my opinion. We're still talking about it. We miss it to this day. And then sure, we get 301, which actually, if you go back and look at like the best pay-per-views of the year, I would put UFC 301 probably in the top half. It didn't have the star power.

No one really watched it. But if you did, it was a fun card. It was a fun card. We got the Josie Alder return. The main event between Pantosia and Ersig was great. The rest of the main car is full of finishes. Like, it was a fun. unwatched. Then 302, bad, real bad. But we got a great main event, Islamachchev and Dustin

Porier. Then we get to International Fight Week. Not really the UFC's fault, but they saved the day by getting us Alex Pereira versus Yuri Perashka, too. We got Diego Lopez stepping in. We got the Danny Gay craziness of that card. Like, very crazy stuff they were able to accomplish. And then we do UFC 304 and Blal Mohammed becomes the champion. Then we get Drickus Duplice versus Israel out of Sonia finally and he finishes Izzy and that was a fun card and then we get the sphere Jed we get sphere we're building

up sphere forever card was not good but watching it the visuals of it the production was unbelievable and when Dana White says we better get all the Emmys I actually agree with him on that because they did such a great job with that and then

we move on to 307 again Pereira saves the day against Cleo roundtree pretty decent event although Jose Alda got screwed on that card but I'm not here to talk about fantasy season then we get the return of John Jones and we also get UFC 310 which kind of fell apart

and we get Nobleahmohamed versus Shafcott UFC again somehow keeps it together we get Pantosha versus Kaya Sakura we get Shafcott versus Ian Machado Gary and then the fight nights and the apex cards and all this stuff there's a lot that goes into this Jed but they were on effing fire all year long.

They had Donald Trump come to like half the events. He got his own entrance. It was a big deal. It wasn't just MMA news. It wasn't just national news. It was like global news that the UFC found themselves in on a regular basis. They just continue to do a whole bunch of shit. And it's absolutely unbelievable.

So how do we grade the UFC's 2024? I'm giving them an announcement. hey, it is perhaps, again, holiday season, a little generous. If I were being true, probably an A-minus. But I'm going to give them a little bump because the high watermarks were so high that they just wash away the rest of it. Sure, were there, I did, I took a lot of notes. I did not look how many apex cards we had this year.

But there were, you know, there were 42 UFC events this year, and I would guess that 20 of them took place. and the apex. It's known guess, but it feels like that's probably about right. That's never exciting and we know the quality of fights

and fight cards we get for APEC shows. There are grievances you can have and I have a few and I'll air those momentarily as we get into it. But the big picture is that the UFC this year

delivered two extremely iconic moments that we will talk about for years to come. in UFC 300 and Noce UFC presented by Riyadh season, whatever the hell. UFC 306 and UFC 300

are moments that we will talk about for a very long time because they were special. Because with 300 or with 306 the UFC finally did the thing we've asked them to do so many times. They had fun. They did something different. They took a swing. They risked

something. They risked looking like idiots to have a good time and do something cool. And then on top of that, we had Alex Pereira be the hero. The narrative of Alex Pereira as one of the greatest of all time emerged this year because of his willingness to step up. You know, we had a bunch of new champions come through. We had Ilya who, by all accounts, appears to be.

He is, I don't remember when our awards will be given out. So spoiler alert, perhaps. He is the fighter of the year this year because, of the insane two-for he accomplished. And he's still 27 years old. Ilya looks to be the next in the incredible line of featherweight champions that has been Jose Haldow and Max Holloway and Alexander Volcanovsky. And Ilya Tuporio looks poised to be the next dude to do that.

If not the next breakout crossover star to the broader world. So we had that. We had longtime guys who, beloved is maybe not the correct word, but respected dudes who hardcore fans felt deserved their shot, but had been passed over for one reason or another, Bala Muhammad and Marabh Váh Váhavalev. Come through and win titles this year. Alejandro Pantoja finally starts getting respected

as one of the best fighters on planet Earth. my favorite middle-sized idiot Drickus Duplice not only wins the belt but then defends the belt and puts to bed this sort of rivalry that's been simmering for over a year. The highs of the year were so very high. John Jones returned. I have had a lot to say about John. John Jones returning is good for business,

even if it is only the once. And the sort of odd year-long love affair Dana had with John, to keep things in the headlines, to keep them. All of this is good. And when we look back on the year for them, we could quibble and say, okay, 20 shows in the apex or whatever.

Like, that's not freaking cool. But no, who cares, you know, they are business-wise they're doing, this is the best year they've ever had. Everywhere they go breaks,

they break their new attendance record, their money. And what they delivered, the highs are, high enough and big enough and grand enough, I think this isn't a, a year for them. If UFC 300 was the only event they had this year,

like if it was all Apex stars and then UFC 300, this would have been a B plus just on its own. Because UFC 300 just absolutely ruled. Everything about it was incredible. When they had fun, boy, do they have fun. Then you had 299 and 28 and you had the sphere experience and all the fun they had. And even just going back to Emish,

even though that card was not very good. 308 was great. Yep. I mean, just lots of Apex 100. Apex 100 with Carlos Pratches smoking Sigs and smoking welterweight contenders out of the building. It was just unbelievable.

I am giving them, I wish there was something between A and A plus because that's what I would give them. Because you could say whatever you want about the quality of card and all of that. But none of that matters. They broke attendance records.

They broke gate records with some of the following fights as the main event. Derek Lewis versus Rodrigo Nassimento. That broke a North American fight night gate record. That is until Jed, the following month, they go to Louisville, Kentucky, with Jared Kenanier versus Naserdine Imovov. And they broke that record. with that fight a month later, a rotten card pretty much. Then they break it again.

They go to Edmonton. Edmonton, Canada, without a Canadian. They went with Brandon Moreno and Amir al-Bazi, and they broke it again. And then they end the year with just a baffling fight between Joaquin Buckley and Colby Covington, and they sold that place out in Tampa. They cannot miss.

they do not have Connor McGregor they do not have a giant star right now the three letters are the biggest thing they have Dana White is the star of the UFC it is established it is a given

they don't need anybody for all the people like they have to the UFC has to make John Jones versus Tom Aspinall yeah we would love to see it they don't have to do shit and they will still make money hand over fist they cannot

miss with anything they do right now. So with that said, a, which is in between the A and the A plus. It's so incredible. 98. They get a 98, even though we complained about the shit

that they flung against the wall most of the times, but it didn't matter because it was successful. And we have accepted this as a fan base and they have brought in so many new casual fans that they have almost outweighed the hardcore fans to the point where the UFC

just cares about them. They promote for us once a year. They did it for UFC 300. That was our card. Everything else is about those people, those new fans, who five years from now will not be watching the sport anymore. That is who they are dealing with. That is who they are building towards.

And you know what? It is a terrific strategy because they can do it and they're doing it beautifully. And in fact, the UFC strategy of using certain media conglomerates, using certain influencers and personalities, they use that same strategy to help get Donald Trump elected to the presidency. They took almost the formula to a T to help you do that.

And it worked. It worked. It wasn't the only reason that Trump got elected, but it worked. It helped tremendously. They can do no wrong right now. The APLA is what I'm giving it. And it does not matter what they, what quality of card does not matter any of it. promotion.

None of it. None of it matters. They're a hit. They're absolute smash, Jed. Sure. Sure, sure, sure. And I agree. I give them an A.

I do not want this to be a, hey, we bashed these others and there's a love affair with the UFC because there's obviously not. And so I got some problems with them too, Mike. And I would like to now lay out. Here are the problems that keep me from an A plus. Certainly from an A plus. Everything else is too much to deny it as an A.

But the ever-present ones, which I feel like maybe we've been doing this long enough that we might be at risk of just forgetting to say it because it is we all, everyone knows it. So we don't have to harp on it, but I will repeat 17, I looked at up 17 events in the apex. It's too many of those. We should do fewer of those. Hopefully they will. They say that. Whether they do or not, I don't know, but hopefully that. your mileage will vary on this one,

depending, frankly, on the political spectrum you lead on. I prefer, you know, to keep politics out of sports in general, like broadly speaking. The UFC went the exact opposite way this year in a way that I would have been a lot cooler, had they not, in my opinion. But obviously, they don't care and it worked for them. The big one, the biggest one, the one that I think manifested, all the time in ways that fans don't really recognize.

The UFC's refusal to pay fighters fairly absolutely hurts their product in just about every end of the line and be it in like a broad view of, well, and if you say, you pay fighter fair market. Okay, so in most other major sports, the athletes make 50-ish percent of the revenue. in UFC, that number is 20, and 20 is generous. Sometimes it's 17, sometimes a little higher. We go with a 20% mark.

Broadly speaking, the refusal to pay fighters more has led to a lot of the other problems I have with this and just big structural issues in the sport. We don't get the best athletes in MMA because the best athletes, especially in the higher weight classes, they go to play sports where you're going to pay more money to do it than you will in fighting.

That manifests itself in small ways of, in a very particular way, John Jones may or may not fight Tom Aspernel and it's almost entirely a fighter pay issue if he was making an equitable sum which he is, all he's probably asking for when he says they need to make it worth my while. It's probably asking for not even an equitable sum.

It's probably just asking for closer to what most people would consider equitable. And I know that maybe people don't care. My least favorite thing in the entire world watching fights is that every fighter who gets a finish begs for a bonus. They just get on the mic and beg for it. And outside of it being cringy and annoying, it's also just like sad to watch professional athletes

literally begging for money because you don't see that in any other sport. They're going to like, hey, maybe now I can get a Nike deal or it's like, no, it's like,

please pay me. They're not, they're asking for 50 grand. It is, that would go away, which would make my viewing experience better. If you paid fighters more and equitably and got rid of the ridiculous show win bonus structure,

fights would be less boring because fighters would feel less concerned about fighting to win two paychecks as opposed to one. The entire fighter pay thing, it trickles down into every aspect of your enjoyment as a fan and the UFC's refusal to pay fighters more absolutely has poisoned the well in a number of regards that nobody thinks about because that issue will never get solved. So I do want to throw that out as an always every year, that will be a grievance I have with them because the sport and their product would be better if they paid fighters more.

Yep. And more. Please go, Mike, if you have something to say. Because I have more. I've got more on my list. Oh, yeah. There's, and I'll piggyback on that. The reason people say, the UFC is so good at being able to paint a certain narrative that

their fans who are, I mean, basically druids for Dana White at this point, especially the casual audience, they paint this picture where they truly believe that the reason that the reason that John Jones versus Francis and Gano didn't happen was because either John was scared or Francis was scared. It's not true. The reason 1,000% is the UFC did not want to pay them, especially John, what they were worth. So it's on them. The reason we didn't get John Jones versus Franc and Gano is because of the UFC.

The reason we haven't gotten John Jones versus Tom Aspenall, at least as of yet, is because of the UFC. John Jones is in prize fighter mode and he should be. And we'll talk about the ducking and all that stuff. And Alex Pereira is not safe from that conversation either unless they announced that he's fighting Magamadankolaev. But right now, these fighters are, as Jed said, are in a position where they would like to make the most amount of money possible with the least amount of risk. And if there is risk, they want to be, they want to make sure that it is worth it. The juice is worth the squeeze, which is why I believe. and by the time this comes out,

maybe they've announced this. I believe Alex Pere is either going to fight Tom Aspinall or John Jones next. I don't think he's fighting Anka-Live because the juice is worth the squeeze. He has a chance to win a third belt in a third different weight class. Like, that is worth it. And if he loses, he can go fight Anke-Live after that. But again, the reason these fights aren't happening

is because of the UFC and them not paying them. On top of that, the fighters deserve blame as well because if they just came together and did the association or whatever, then they could come to the table with something. They have a voice, but they just won't do it. And that is, again, a brilliant business strategy from the UFC doing the contender series, signing everybody that wins a fight

because all you're doing is you're bringing in all this other talent, 50 fighters every year for $10,000 each. But these are all fighters that don't give a shit. They're just happy to be there. and those are all fighters because of who manages them a lot of the times that are not going to go against the grain. The teams, the UFC, because they don't want to lose their spot they just got. So it stacks the deck against the fighters who do want to associate. So yes, the UFC in the fighter pay situation, 100% is a problem why we have not gotten the fights that we've wanted,

especially when it comes to John Jones. And it's why we get Marab and Ilya being like, hey, I want to move up and fight for another belt. Like, yeah, or I don't want to fight Mara being like, I don't want to fight Umar. I would like to fight these others because this is his one chance to get paid a lot of money because he hasn't made a lot of money in the rest of his career. And so it's like, hey, I would like to get the most money I can right now because I probably can't even retire.

Like when I'm done with my athletic career, I'm a champion and I probably won't be able to retire on the money I made in it. And so always in front. forever. They don't pay enough. The structure and how they pay is silly and draconian and very dumb. And it hurts the product. It hurts your enjoyment as a fan. I guarantee you. The apex hurts your enjoyment as a fan. And the reason they compete in the apex as often they do is it makes the company more money without having to spend as much. So all of those, always and forever. But Mike, I got another couple of specific ones as well.

outside of the forever one. I will go with the one that I think is sneaky, the biggest one, because the other ones are a little more tongue and cheek. What the fuck are you doing with your women's weight classes? Because 2024 was bad for all of the women's weight classes. Mike, I crunch some numbers. Would you care to guess how many women's ban on weight fights happened in the UFC? And we're including ban on weight fights where one or both competitors missed weight because they were at least planned even if they ultimately became things.

Do you know how many women's bantam weight fights occurred this year? I'm going to say 17. No, it was a little more actually. It was 21. However, six of those did have weight misses. So there you go. 29 women's flyweight fights occurred this year and 41 strawweight fights occurred this year. A number, there were 42 U.S.C events and a number of them just didn't have women's fights on them at all.

There were four of the 42 events. Four were headlined by women's bouts this year. So there is just a broad, not a lot of it happening. and even more broadly, how many women's title fights were this year? There were the two bannam weights, there was the one flyweight and the one straw weight. Four, does it?

Those were the women's title fights this year. Like, none of these weight classes can survive under this limited of exercise. Like the women's bannam weight I'm willing to maybe make some concessions to because there just simply aren't that many people on roster who compete at this weight class. It is a dying weight class. I would think that you would be a little bit more invested

in building up a dying weight class than they seem to be. But I could at least accept like, okay, this is just a harder weight class for us to succeed with. Despite it at one point in time being the marquee women's weight class. But flyweight, you had one flyweight title fight because you waited all year to do the, trilogy fight at Noce. Like, I know that you wanted to do that.

You didn't have to, and it wasn't even the main event, so it really didn't matter. You could have run that trilogy in Mexico when they did the Mexico City card. But like, instead you waited for it to be the co-main event to Sean O'Malley at the sphere. Like, why? Why was that necessary? Why are we not getting movement in the flyweight division, which has a backlog of contenders that there's less of a backlog now because they just fought the contenders against each other

because they couldn't fight for the belt because it was on ice for a year. They have spent two full years dealing with the Grasso-Shipchenko trilogy and they let the best weight class in the women's sport stagnate as a result of it. For God knows what reason, why Li Zhang fought at 300 and didn't fight again.

She clearly could have fought Virush Jiroba, not happening. Now we know that she is scheduled to compete in February, I think it is, at 312. But like, why are we getting one strawweight title fight with one of your biggest female stars? Like, why did you ice the, all of these weight classes so hard this year? It is baffling, not to mention the bigger issue. There is, there are no, no cavalry is coming. Nobody is coming down the line.

Who are the developmental women's prospects that have come to, through contender series. None, because they were like, there were like four women's contender series fights this year. They are not bringing in new people. They brought in Kayla Harrison is the only thing to happen in Bantamweight. Basically, it's like, hope she gets there and hopes she can make things people care.

They have just let the women's weight classes this year flounder so terribly. That legitimately, this year, if we did a female fighter of the year, which is probably an award we should do, but we do not, it would be Dakota Ditchieville, there wouldn't be a close second to her. The PFL would have this one over on them

because they did better than the O.C. did this year in promoting female MMA. Yeah, the only person is Kayla. And she beat Holly Holm, who was way past it. And she beat Kelton Vieira, which is a very good win. Like, I think it's a terrific win, especially seeing what that matchup actually looked like on paper and how it played out.

it played up pretty much the way I thought it would. It's, that's the race because everybody else fought once. I mean, it's just, it's tough. I mean, the only other one was,

would have been Raquel Pennington if she got the split nod going in her direction, winning the belt and defending it. I mean, she probably beats Dakota at the end. But yeah, no one really stood out. Like, they just didn't.

So yeah, I completely agree with you there. You need Zhang in there defending her belt. She is, in my opinion, the best fighter in the world that is a female. mail and we got to do something. Like I know she wants, but again, like a lot of it was they even said it like the sphere

card, oh, Jean-Waley's talking about moving up to 125. Like, okay. Then what are we doing here? If that's what she wants to do, like let her do it. But strip her in the belt and let's do John Jaroba versus freaking Tatiana Suarez for the new belt. Like, why are we waiting? Why are we waiting?

Why are we letting the fighters dictate what they're going to do? If I'm going to move up to lightweight and fight Charles Olvera, be like, bet, you're now lightweight. you're not the champion anymore. We're going to do Volk versus Diego Lopez. Like they're letting these fighters kind of push them around, at least to some extent, without them actually making them believe they actually have power in the situation. And they really don't.

Like, just put your foot down. Cut the bullshit. Let's just get them where they need to go. So I completely agree with you with the women's divisions. They were ice freaking cold. And if there was no Kayla Harrison this year, boy, oh boy, would this been a tough year for the UFC when it comes to women's MMA?

I mean, it is just, it's just hard. Like, I just did some quick math. 17% of their fights this year were women's fights. Three, you know, three out of 11 weight classes, like, probably 20% of your roster. I don't have the exact numbers. Like, you just, you got to get them in more and you got to bolster the numbers. If this is going to be, and it should be a part of your product. I think that that's one of the smartest things they've ever done.

was having Rhonda Rousey demand functionally that they get into the women's MMA business. And they, this year, really let the top of it just sort of flounder. They put on a fair number of strawweight fights. Great. Why did the champ fight once? Why? That's insane for the champ. Probably the biggest star you have in female MMA that's not Kayla Harrison.

You let her fight once. That's nuts. There's absolutely. nuts. To an extent, it kind of just felt like they gave up when Rose probably isn't, you know, feels like she's not good anymore and you want to retire. And they're just like,

yeah, screw it, whatever, we just don't care enough. They're not focused on it. So, uh, my single biggest real issue with them outside of the pay thing,

of course, is what they did with the women's of A divisions this year. Um, the fact that they haven't opened an atom weight division, like on the one hand, it's so obviously they should do it on the other. I don't want them to do it. if they're just going to disregard it

like they've treated women divisions in flyweight functionally like don't do it but obviously you should there's no real reason not to the other issues I have Mike one slightly tongue and cheek the whole glove thing was a real fiasco

just the stupid stupid like I don't want to knock them for trying something new because I support like that they should be doing things like that especially if it is has a chance to solve an existing issue. My issues are, one, I think we know the answer. Everyone says it almost comically at this point.

Just use the old school pride gloves. They didn't have this issue nearly as bad. And I don't know why we can't just do that with the U.S. logo put over it. But two, like, you can't just give up on it because John Jones says he doesn't want them, which is functioning what they did. It's like, no. John don't want to do it and they're not working, well, you gave them two months.

And the data did suggest that they were not working. Pretty much anyone who is not dumber than a bag of hammers will tell you that two months is not a long enough trial period. There was like 60 fights or something. You got to give them at least six months a year to really have a concrete data set that you can use to be like, okay, these don't work. Now we should try something different. And the answer, frankly, should not have been, these don't work.

We're going back to the old ones. It should have been, if these don't work, which again, you didn't prove, we're making a new one. We're trying something new. It's just like, no, we tried to be new. It didn't work. Like, that's some year old, like that activity is legitimately like your grandpa on Christmas, who finally gets talked into doing something he doesn't want to do. And he is staunchly against like, no, grandpa, I know you really like to read books,

but here's a nook. Like here's a Kindle. You're going to really love this. It's not as big. You can keep a bunch of books on it. And he looks and he turns it on. He tries. And he can't turn.

I was like, nope, done work. Don't it out going back to my old way of things. Like you got to try if you're going to do this. And so it was totally insane. And the optics were really horrible when they were like, yeah, we're not doing it on this weekend that notorious eye poker John Jones is fighting

because he specifically doesn't want them. Like super bad optics. Dude. and then they went back to him for the rest of the fucking cards. All the fight night cards got to keep the new gloves, but the paper views had the old gloves. Like that to me was absolutely insane. Absolutely ridiculous.

Just say it. Like how many times have we said this year? Just come on and say what it is. Like John Jones finally sort of admitting like, yeah, man, like I'd rather fight Alex. It's he's laid it out without actually saying the words. it's an easier fight and I'll make more I'll make a ton of money to fight an easier guy who's a much bigger star than the guy everybody wants me to fight just say that we'd have respect for you if they just came out and said because it was obvious we all knew it just come on and say look John Jones is kind of the face of our company right now with Connor McGregor not fighting John doesn't like the new gloves so we said fuck it we're just not going to do them and then just stick with it like it's fine but this whole thing was like well we only did this because we're still going to continue to test them, but we'll put them on fight night cards, but we're only,

but we're not doing it on the pay-per-views. Like to try to twist it around and make it seem like it's something that it wasn't, drives me friggin' insane. And the UFC just always does this shit. So that's a great point. But just, like, if you're just going back to the old gloves, just fucking staying with the old gloves. Jesus Christ.

Two, yeah, is all just very silly. And the last thing I have, Mike, which I don't think, I think I may am going to end up being the only human being who is going to say something about this. And I want to be clear, this isn't even derogatory because I agree. I agree with where we have gotten. But I do want to point out because of the moral panic that ensued for so very, very long. Y'all remember when this year the UFC took over drug testing? Because the independent USADA was like trying to actually hold freaking McGregn,

Gregor and Campbell or whatever and they were like, F you. Well, McGregor didn't actually return, so they got nothing out of that part of it. And now like they haven't, who's been popped? Who has been popped this year of any meaning whatsoever? Khalil Roundtree? Oh, that's right. They got him to shortchange their thing and he still fought inside of five months on his suspension.

It's the only like, for a title. Yeah. Well, the title, this is the only notable drug suspension this year was Cleo Roundtree. And they even were like, actually, we're going, instead of it being six months, we want you to fight for a title. So we're going to get it dropped to two because you're going to make this thing. The UFC taking over drug testing is the most like transparent. This is not real.

This is totally fake shit I've ever seen in my life. And good. We shouldn't care about drugs. I've been on this corner for years, but we should not care about this. But you, I was told forever, there was a moral panic about the imperative of getting drugs out of the sport,

and we've got to have a clean sport. If you think seven fighters, the only seven fighters were taking drugs this year, I got a bridge to sell you, buddy. It is absolutely ludicrous to believe that the drug testing, as the UFC has taken over, is like on the ball and only like a handful of people have been popped for anything.

It is just not something they give a shit about and we shouldn't give a shit about. And none of y'all should have given a shit about it when you were doing it and yelling at me that I am a sadist or whatever. It's like, no, man, nobody actually cares about this. And here's how I know. Nobody has mentioned it this year. There has not been one person who's been like, yeah, thank goodness. this is the UFC's like, nope, you saw the left and nobody gives a shit.

And it's ridiculous that this is just like totally fine. It's not because it should be fine, but it's ridiculous. All the people who five years ago were like, no, this is evil are now like, whatever, fights are happening. And that's cool. Yeah. I mean, there's the other gripes I guess I will have. And it's not even like a true gripe because I'm just so used to it at this point.

They got a, I'm totally with you where they need to swap. some of the color commentators. DC has had a horrible year. Michael Bisbing had a horrible year. Paul Feldor is terrific. And I think Paul Feldor should be automatic when it comes to the color commentary because not only is he so good working with Annick

and or Fitzgerald, he makes the color guys that are bad way better. Like Dominic Cruz, you either love him or you hate him. There's no gray area when it comes to Dominic Cruz. when he is with Paul Felder and they're just talking about fighting and not trying to be alpha males, it is, like, it is

night and day a Dominic Cruz broadcast when he's with Felder as opposed to D.C. where the two are just fighting with each other the whole time or BISBing because you have two guys who don't know the rules

and two guys who don't know the scoring criteria and all the other stuff. And then D.C. kind of gets lazy with some of this stuff and it's just drives me wild. And I understand Rogan, I think you have to keep

Brogan there. He's just such a familiar voice with all of this. He hasn't been terrific either, but it doesn't matter at this point because his voice is so synonymous with the company and the programming that losing him is probably more of a detriment to the fan base than having him there and at least

not doing research on the fighters or the scoring criteria, anything like that, but sometimes him and D.C. just fall into this volcano of bullshit. I just feel for John Anick a lot of these times, because he just carries these dudes like through these broadcast

sometimes. But yeah, I would like to see Paul Felder get more reps. I would like to see Laura Sanko get some more reps on a UFC broadcast in 2024 or in 2025, excuse me. And yeah, mix in some other voices. Like, it's okay. BISBings on the desk

once in a while. It's cool of cruises on the desk. Let's throw Anthony Smith in there doing some color. Let's throw Michael Kiesa in there doing some color. Like, let's mix up the vibes a little bit because the one thing that really hurt bellator is everything just got so stagnant and the same every time and the UFC would do a decent job of like mixing people around but now it's the point where it's just like it's the same voices it's the same people and we're not getting enough of that mix so

yeah they got to they got to up that up a little bit let's give some of these other guys and gals a shot let's get them some more reps let's get them in there to get better and let's you know give dc a couple weeks off to to coach's wrestling team like that's fine he doesn't need to be there every week at the apex cruise can have a week off it's fine mix in some mix in something else that's that's a great time off cruise can unless he's with felder when he's with feldor he's freaking great he's great when he's with felder i i think the greatest take i've ever had is commentary life uh outside of play by play if you're the annette guy uh if you're a commentator

You got three years, five years max, and then you get swapped out for new blood because you're just that. Michael looked it up. Seven. There were seven fighters cited by the combat sports anti-doping, aka the UFC's anti-doping measurement. Seven. There were 517 fights. Seven fighters got pop fight by C. And one guy fully, and one guy got pops because he went on Instagram and fully admitted that he took Sarah.

rides. You want to hear the big names that got popped by Csad this year. It's a host of the who's who of MMA. Hamdi Abdulahad, who is fighting next year. That was announced for the, I believe the Saudi card. Hamdi's coming back. Against Chimal Pogues. If you want a fight of the early fight of the year,

contender, boy, do you have one in the heavyweight division? Walt Harris, the big ticket, got popped by CED, Kusin Ashkov, who I, could not pick out of a lineup of two because he was fired from the UFC right after he got popped. So, okay, who's saying Ashgabab who doesn't even have a wiki?

The aforementioned Kliu Rountry, who again got it dropped so he could fight for the freaking belt. Who else we got? Oh, I'm sorry. I counted seven. They have Walt Harris here twice. So actually it's six.

Six citations by C, said one every two months. If you think that nobody's taking drugs in the UFC, I believe you are a very, very naive and gullible child. Yeah, Waltz, Waltz is on all the gas. He's suspended like for the next several years out. He's four years out for four years.

He was on all the stuff. And he's also lost and been finished like six fights, six straight fights. So yeah. Jelton Luterbach. Bruno Silva. Jailton, who? Luderbach, is that his name?

I have no idea. Oh, my God. I got to find this story because it's the absolute best. But yeah, Bruno Silva and Arena Alaskiva, like just six. Like, great, this is the world I want to live in. Nobody's talking about how CSAT is just like, CSA is as significant as the one hydration testing. Yes.

you are missing Joyleton Luterbach that is the other one he was scheduled because I don't know if he actually was he got a two year ban and didn't even fight

he was signed on short notice to fight on the Saudi Arabia card I think against Sharra bullet and then he was just on like literally everything you could point your finger at and even it even admitted his son

that he was on like all the steroids before he took the fight. He's like, yeah, he took a shot. Yeah, we're up to seven. We are up to seven with Lugarbach who, yes. Way to go.

So great. I hope we never talk about it again. I hope everyone agrees that this is the correct way to administrate this. But this was such a big deal. You saw it was such a big deal. They had like multiple press conferences about this. Mm-hmm.

Wait to you see what we do. We're changing the game forever. what kind of stringent this is we're using the same guys the same formulas the same everything that all the major sports use you think we were tough before with usada oh we're about to ramp this thing up to a hondo we brought the guy who tortured hussein or whatever that that's not actually what it was there was something like that yeah it was like some basically his job was he was like the the great the great interviewer to get people to to admit their faults and go to jail, like for the FBI or some, some federal agency.

What are we talking about? You just wait till we get these fighters in a room with this guy. And the optics were so bad because it was, oh, they're not going to let Connor fight. We don't need them. Don't need them. And then Connor didn't fight. It's like, so the UFC just didn't care about optics at all, which I guess no one's punishing them for it. But it is baffling to me that you can comport yourself like this.

God, that's so good. Oh, seven fighters. God, thank I honestly, I wish I could make as much money as freaking drug testing people do. We'll pay you a floppyty trillion dollars to make,

to find seven drug cheats. Dude, what, because the USADA thing, because I made this argument back as you saw it. I was like, they're paying, like $17 million a year or something for Usada to catch like 12 dudes and none of them are

meaningful fighters like they're all undercard apex fighters. There's never a ranked dude who ever gets popped. And it's just like what? It can't be worth the squeeze. Like the investment pay me you you UFC right now. You can pay me half of what you make and I will deliver the same results by purely picking seven dudes. at random. I will put names in a hat. I will draw seven at random and be like

this guy looks like he's on roids. Give him six months. That's all you're doing. That's all you're doing. Like four of them like didn't even fight. They just signed on for short notice and got popped and didn't fight. Yeah. The people who've never done the testing protocol get caught.

How odd is that? Oh, so weird. It's just the best. What an incredible fake job to be a, a, drug enforcement officer for the USC. The other things obviously are just stuff that we talk about all the time. Too many events.

I'd love them for them to knock, knock at least one card a month off for the most part. I like, I'd like the way you kind of laid it out. One pay-per-view, one apex, one fight night on the road. That's, that's perfect. Who knows if this do TV deal will bring. Maybe somebody will want less.

Mike, here's where they've wore me down. I'm open to 40. Just cut two events off. As I said, as I've said for years now, three events, one apex, one fight night, one pay-per-view per month. But then you have the summer run where you do four, you know, or the four weeks of like peak summer in July when you do an international fight week and stuff.

Those three months or four months, I guess, you can fill them all up. You can do a 16 straight weeks of summer with events, everything there. That brings you to a total of four. 40 events. The summer is your busy season, as it were, and we're cooking with gas there. But it'll never happen. True.

And I also would love to live in a world where the week after a pay-per-view, there is no card. That would be the exact correct timing. Yep. Let's just give it a week. You let us digest the pay-per-view. We get to feel good about it. We get to keep talking about the story lines. UFC 300 was perfect.

We had a week off. it took us like all that time to digest what it just happened between Pereira and Max Holloway and everything else that happened to that event like more of that we can't miss you if you don't leave even if you leave for a week because wait till look the next card coming up the january 11th apex card is not good like by the time like we're going to be so ramped up and excited for rose dabbiaz versus Amanda hebas too not at McKenzie Dern versus Amanda Eibos, too, because we actually had a little bit of a breather.

Like, we're going to be so excited for that, mostly because we know that by that time that fight card happens, we'll be a week away from UFC 311, which bangs. That is a terrific card. And our new fantasy season will have started and I'm pretty pumped about it, you know. I suspect some people will be drafting people on that first January 11th, apex card, trying to get the double dip. It's very possible.

And then the other thing I'll say, if PowerSlapp is so popular, get it off the fucking UFC pages. Like I'm just, we don't need it. Just be your own thing. We understand that it's a UFC entity. It's part of the TCA group. I get it. But if you are as successful as you say it is, if it is a multi-billion dollar company as you have laid out, then do we just keep it on your own shit? Like, it's a big pay-per-view fight week.

We know this power slap event probably happened the day before. put on the power slap pages, let them talk about it, let them promote it. We do not need the UFC pages anymore to promote power slap. But all in all, the UFC could have done all the bad things and they did a lot of it,

but it does not matter because they are just on fire. They cannot be stopped right now. And there's just nothing that they could do wrong. And that's a pretty powerful place to be. And the UFC has gotten there. And that is why they have been so successful. bkfc i just wanted a shout out real quick great year for them uh i give them a solid a minus for what they were able to accomplish getting connor mcgregor over is awful of a person as he

has seemed to be over the past couple of years just having his presence there he has seemed more into what bkfc has done than his own fighting career he is putting them over like never before and i think that was a great move they need to get mike perry a little more active I think he only fought once in 2024 for them, and that's really not a good thing. But the thing that BKFC has done so well is that they understand who they are. The big events are big events.

And the other events are just like, hey, if you guys got nothing to do on a Saturday night or a Friday night, put this on. You're not going to have a bad time. And damn it, they are right. There's never a bad BKFC card. And they have just put themselves in a great position. and I'm curious to see who enters this $25 million tournament that they're doing.

Mike, I love the Mike Perry Robbie Lawler idea. It's interesting to see what kind of names they can come up with. So yeah, great year for BKFC and I think 2025 they're going to be an absolute player, Jed. Yeah, I mean, BKFC is just doing, they are. They're the number two promotion. Yeah, they're pretty clearly the number two combat sport promotion.

They have fun. They have an identity. they have built 10 pole events that they structure that you don't have to tune in to every BKFC and I certainly don't. But knucklemania, you're going to be tuning in for knucklemania. You know you are. They've got stars. They're developing stars.

I mean, they know what they are doing. They're running a different race than the UFC. And for a lot of that reason, they are having a ton of success as a result of it. I think anybody who follows combat sports would say if you had to bet your money on which promotion will be around in 10 years from now, the UFC is obviously the safest bet possible. BKFC would be the number two option of like,

who is still going to be doing this. Yeah, it's going to be Dave Feldman and the boys because they are doing great stuff. Last thing before we got out of here. Biggest question mark. that you have about another promotion what other promotion are you looking forward to seeing how they pull there's an obvious answer that's just right there because it's a new one that is about to kick off in 2025 who have big goals and big dreams obviously we're talking about the

the gfl not the pfl the gfl team m ms uh they've apparently spent a floppity jillion dollars on getting washed retired fighters i mean i I say this respectfully, but that's just kind of where we're at right now with a lot of the names we've seen on this list. I don't, all I can say is I'm hoping for the best. I hope it works, but I will have my eye on everything that they're doing. And it seems like if anybody needs to have a, a just gigantic, impactful year, it is them. Like this cannot be a, well, this is a growing pains type year for us. Oh, no.

You need to come out the gates and you need to go, you need to, deliver the goods literally within seconds. From the first fight you guys put on, people have to be hooked. Or if the amount of money that is being teased that they're spending, I'm putting this all together this year, and they come out flatter than a bowl full of piss, that's not good. That is a, I've never heard that analogy.

A plate full of piss is actually the correct thing. Never heard that. Flattered than a plateful of piss. That's what I was looking for. But still, like you got to go out and nail it. I mean, yeah, we'll see. I don't even know if they will come out. I hope so because aren't they supposed to debut in April?

So if they can even debut or be on the books, they will probably make our promotional draft, just as the results of we need. I think they have to. I think they have to make organizations. And I like what they've put together on paper. So we'll see. My questions.

And so we can end on these because they are deeply on brand for me. The first one, and I actually kind of know the answer to this one, but I got a big grievance with my favorite boys. I'm talking, of course, about the fight circus folk who did a lot of cool stuff this year, and you couldn't see any of it. None of it, they put on several events. Matt Brown was involved. Mark Coleman was there. They did a bunch of weird fight circusy shit, and you could watch literally none of it. And so I couldn't promote them. I couldn't enjoy them. They finally put Fight Circus, I think it's 10 or whatever, up on YouTube the other week. And they are working on getting this together.

So you should be able to watch them sooner rather than later and kind of keep up with their new stuff. But hard to love a promotion when you physically cannot watch it. So fight circus, get it together. And then just the slightest shout out. I mentioned them earlier. Mike, dog fight wild to whatever. same shit that I stumbled on on a fateful February 9th or whatever it was this year was absolutely electric it happens in Spain it's some like big Spanish YouTuber doing weird stuff

there was a three on one fight there was a no rules fight there was two on two MMA there was a five on one king of the hill MMA fight it just uh it was in sane. It was the most fun, like, random ass Friday that I ever had in my entire life. And I want them to do it again. I would like to see more of this promotion because they were having some fun. And as a result, I, who speak very little Spanish and certainly not good enough to keep up with the pace at which things are being said had a blast watching this thing. So dogfight wild tournament two or whatever you're called, I desperately, desperately hope you bring something to the table in 2025. There's just no more fun sport when done right than the wonderful world of mixed martial arts and combat sports in general.

Insane MMA is the most fun thing in the world. Truly, it is the most fun thing in the world. Like you get some weird ass like promotion in the caucuses who does whatever and puts an outdoor show on. and it's raining and they don't stop the fight. It's the most fun you'll ever have. Well, we had a lot of fun. This year was great. Oh, yeah.

Well, we had a lot of fun in 2024, while a lot more fun in 2025. This might, I believe this is actually like the last show we're doing. No, I'm incorrect. I'm incorrect. I'm actually incorrect on the pod network Sunday, part one of the predictions extravaganza, which is AK and I looking back on our predictions,

from January of 24. How do we do? How are our predictions? Were we right? Were we wrong? Were we awful? Were we great?

We'll find out. That's right. And that'll be lovely. And we're, you know, on to the holidays. I guess Christmas will have come already by the time this is out. So I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas

and New Year's right around the corner. I hope you close out 2024 strongly. And 2020, 25 is where all the great things will happen for all of us. It's where all your dreams will come true. So enjoy the rest of the holiday season. Enjoy watching Notre Dame, put the absolute boots to Georgia. It'll be a new year's.

Just a great start to the 2025. What a start to 2025. Go dogs. Go Irish. Thank you all very much. Back next year for a brand new edition of Between the Links, back with the panel, back with the good times. We love you guys. See you later.

Love me all! You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. It was the night before the gathering and all through the house. The host rapid cozy cashmere throw from Home Sense for their spouse, kids' toys for $699 under the tree, and crystal glasses for just $1.49 for their brother Lee, a baking dish made in Portugal for Tom and Sue, and a nice $599 candle, perfectly priced just for you.

Happy holidays to all, and to all a good price. Home Sense, endless presents perfectly priced.