MMA Fighting - Between the Links: Episode 12 | UFC 252 Fallout, DC's Legacy, Next Move For Marlon Vera & Sean O'Malley

Episode Date: August 18, 2020

This week on Between the Links, Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew and Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp as they give their takes on Stipe Miocic's victory over Daniel Cormier at UFC 252 and what's next, Cormier's legacy after--what seems to be--his final fight, the fallout of the co-main event between Marlon Vera and Sean O'Malley, and which main event this weekend is more intriguing between UFC on ESPN 15 and Bellator 244. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Sean Ross Sapp: @SeanRossSapp Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Welcome to Between the Links, and your host, Mike Heck. Thank you, Esther, Lynn, and welcome to a brand new edition of Between the Links on M-AFutting.com. UFC 252 went down on Saturday night in Las Vegas, and I think it's fair to say it was met with some mixed emotions, if we're being honest. And from what I've been hearing from fans of our great sports,

they left a little bit upset after Saturday night, but it is what it is. And for me, and for a show like this, it left us with a lot to talk about, a lot of topics up for debate. So that's what we are going to do on the show today. I'm absolutely stoked for this matchup, although it's not the matchup you may have been preparing for because Jose Young's, our interim champion, is traveling today. So we brought in someone from the outside of our organization to challenge for the most coveted title in MMA media. So let's introduce these guys. First, the Challenger. I am a big fan of this guy.

I'll admit, I don't watch a lot of pro wrestling these days. I was a huge, huge fan from probably the late 80s through like 2002, watched occasionally for another decade or so. But now I'm basically at best an annual WrestleMania watcher. But if I need to get caught up and what's going on to the world professional wrestling, I go to this guy. He is the managing editor of Fightful. He covers pro wrestling, MMA, a plethora of combat sports,

making his between the link's debut, Mr. Sean Ross Sapp. Sean, how are you? Welcome to the program, sir. I'm doing well. I wish I watched significantly less pro wrestling these days as well. But, you know, I know where my bread is buttered. And yeah, hopefully I can hang today. Hopefully I can, I mean, there's all this trash talk going on before the show.

And I don't know. I'm not a competitive guy. I'm just happy to be here. I don't believe you. But I know you would be right in that assessment. I know this man is up for the challenge against the reigning defending BTL champion. Welcoming back the self-reclaimed king of hot takes. He returns after a one-week hiatus due to the weather gods wreaking havoc in his area last week from MMAFighting.com.

The champ. Mr. Jedmishu. How are you, sir? Well, Mike, let's not mince words here. You want to talk about fans being unhappy or unsatisfied after 252? What about today? What about today when they look at this? and they see Jose Young, who was talking all that trash about me ducking him,

and he's not even going to show up. He doesn't have the minerals to step to me on my ground. He won't bring me to his show, and he won't come to me here. Now, Sean's going to, you know, all shucks, I'm just happy to be here. I know he's bringing the heat, but Jose, this one's for you. Watch what happens and never cross me again. This is why I'm excited, ladies and gentlemen. So let's just get right into this thing.

UFC 252 went down on Saturday night. There is a lot to talk about from that event, including Jen Michoud's favorite fighter, Steep A Meachich, defending the heavyweight title against Daniel Cormier in what was billed as DC's final fight. And we'll get into all of that stuff in a moment. But, Sean, I want to start with you. You won the blind draw this week.

Kind of a slight curve ball to get the ball rolling before we start getting hot and heavy into some of the storylines. As we mentioned, this event left some people satisfied, others, not so much. A lot of fans that I heard from were actually, I could throw out the word angry with this card once it was all said and done. It carried over into Sunday,

and I just kept hearing about it. So let me ask you this. How would you grade UFC 252 as a whole? As a whole, do you mean the main card, the pay-per-view card, or just the show in general? The show. Like, when the show is over,

what did you grade it? How did you feel when it was done? I definitely won't look back at it and say, such a fantastic show. I mean, it had a couple good finishes. I like watching Devalovich Vili fight. I think he's great. I'm not going to remember this fondly because of some of the things that went into the main event and how the co-main event ended. And I'll just look at that and it'll it'll kind of taint this show for me in that regard. But it was hit or miss at best.

And as I pointed out time and time again, there are so many people on shows like this that probably shouldn't even be in the UFC. But we've been saying that so long. It's like, well, by this point, they probably should because that's just what the UFC is. Jed, how did you feel coming out of this event? What would you give it?

If you could give it a grade, what would you have given the event as a whole? That's a solid C. I mean, I get what fans are saying here. Let's be honest. You can't give it an F, you can't give it a D just because of the main event and what that means historically.

So obviously you get a little bump up. But at the end of the year, is anyone remembering this card? I mean, on paper, it didn't even look like it was a great card. Not to mention the co-main event still don't understand why that fight was the co-main event beyond shameless push for Sean O'Malley when right before it, Junio Santos, who has not been not in a main event in like a decade was just randomly fighting a three-rounder. It just wasn't a memorable card.

And that's, you know, sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss. They were building this on the strength of the trilogy at the top. And that fight left a lot of people with, I guess, a bad taste in their mouth. So kind of the whole card suffers. Yeah, I mean, definitely most of the anger that people showed had to do with that main event. Part of it had to do with people wanting that storybook ending for Daniel Cormier. And others were upset about the eye poke in general. But that happened in all three fights.

Cormier even got a poke in before he took one of the more gnarly ones that we've seen. And it definitely played into how the. fight played out, no doubt about that. But these things happen. It is what it is. Sean, Stepe wins the fight, wins via unanimous decision. He had Daniel badly heard at one point, probably would have finished the fight, had there been, you know, another 30 seconds left in that second round. The fight was billed as the battle to be known as the greatest heavyweight of all time. Dana White said, no, no, no, no, this is not just for greatest UFC heavyweight of all time, but this is for the greatest heavyweight in MMA history. Now that Steepa has

won the trilogy, he's put Daniel Cormier behind him. Is he the greatest MMA heavyweight of all time? It's like one A and one B, but it's not really a high bar there. Like, who else is there? Kane Velazquez, who fought like three times in the last 40 years. Like a guy didn't fight. And not only did Cain Velazquez not fight, but him just hanging around actively prevented Daniel Cormier from actually becoming the greatest heavy.

weight of all time because Daniel Cormier went and he hauled around at light heavyweight when he could have been wrecking everybody at heavyweight waiting on his buddy to go join WWE and screw up their booking for about a year and a half. There's Fador when they would wheel out new Japan wrestlers and Zoolazinu and people like that. I feel like I think he's beaten as many IWGP heavyweight pro wrestling champions as UFC champions at this point, except for like Kevin Randleman who was well past his prime. He fought Mark Hunt, who was well ahead of his prime. Tim Sylvia.

What are we doing here? It's like I would compare Fedor's run a lot to like when amateur or local promoters bring in the UFC veteran to lose to their local guy. It's like, okay, he beats somebody with a name over there. but it was a shell of that name. Are we looking at some of these wins that Fadour had and saying like, oh, okay, yeah, that's top of the game. Nogara, Crow Cop, sure. A couple others, sure.

But I look at Stepe and I'm like, all right, Verdume, hell of a win. Dos Santos, great win, finish. And Ghanu, we saw what he's done since he decided to put his hand in people's faces and knocked them out again. Like, he still got that. He hasn't, like, really, really fell off from that point. I would have to say, yeah, probably I could see the argument for Fador. It's just not a very good one. Jen Mishu, is Steepi at the top of the mountain here?

100% no. Everything Sean says wrong. I guess I can't be more clear than this. Like, greatness and goodness are very different things. And I think that that's how people mistake this. Like, if you put a prime steepa versus a prime fade. I think Stipea beats him. I'm not saying that Stipe is not a better fighter than Fador.

Given time, his athletic advantages, I think he beats Fador. I also think that fights a lot closer than it probably should be, given the gap between their prime years. But that's not how you measure greatness. I think we fundamentally misunderstand how we approach this or how people do, because in part, it is largely just so subjective that greatness can meet a great many different things. but the way I like to view it is, you know, you're comparing different eras and you can't compare on a one-to-one basis. It's apples and oranges. And so the question isn't whether this apple is better than this orange. It's whether it's how much better is this apple than all other apples versus how much better is this orange and all other oranges.

And I think Fador was by far the best heavyweight on the planet for seven and a half years. and Stepe, like it or not, he is probably put together a better resume of wins given overall talent level, but he's been the best heavyweight for like four, except for a year of that also had Daniel Cormier holding the heavyweight title over him. Now, he's twice won that rematch. Okay. Still, I do think that you have to consider time as well in these factors, not just, hey, the number of wins they had, even if their wins are over cans. Again, not here, say Fador didn't be cans. He obviously did. Like, time just matters.

Look at Joseo Aldo. Joseo was the king of his division for like seven years, and it gave Max Holloway time to develop a style that is just anathema to Aldo. And that's like, that's true championship greatness right there. When for multiple years on end, you're the guy everyone's coming after. And so people develop their whole games around beating you. Steppe has just not hit that point. I think it's in play.

He's got more fights, but he's not there. And kind of the last thing to button it up, like the pretty obvious answer here is if Stipe was the goat, he'd be the goat. Like perception is reality here. And Stipe's peers, all of that, nobody really views him in that light. They're starting to now, but no one ever speaks with them in the hallowed tones that they did of Fador during his peak. And I think in part, that's because John Jones exists and everybody sort of thinks

John Jones would kick his ass. Yeah, I think you make a really interesting point, Jed, because it's almost, it is almost like unfair to compare Steep A and Fador because, and if we're talking about the last eight to 10 years, Steepay wins this battle hands down. It's not even close. I mean, his resume is just better than Fador. It just is. I mean, if we're talking like prime Fador or like pride Fadour compared to Steepa, I mean,

it's just different times. The sport has changed drastically, different rulesets. It's like the Jordan versus LeBron argument. in the NBA because two different time periods. The sport is completely different. It was a little more manly when Michael Jordan was playing basketball because, you know, if LeBron drives to the basket and you wave at him friendly the wrong way without smiling, it's a freaking foul.

But when Jordan used to drive to the basket back of the day against the Detroit Pistons, he would get punched in the face by Bill Lambere and it wasn't even a flagrant foul. It's just two different time periods and two different things. Do you agree with that, Sean? Do you think it's almost unfair to compare these two guys? Sort of because Michael Jordan also wasn't competing against people who couldn't make a college team. Like Zulusino. What are we doing here?

Also, put some respect to- You trying to fight Zulizio? Go fight Zulizio. Put some respect on Gan McGee's name, saying Fador was the best heavyweight objectively for seven years. Put some respect on Gammagy's name because he was about the only freak show they didn't fly over to Japan to take a December 31st, law. They were bringing in fringe middleweight contenders to Bodog. They were like, Matt Lindland, can you come over here? Yeah, sure do it.

Hey, guy. To be fair, isn't Matt Lindland better than most heavyweights nowadays? Fair. Fair. That is fair. But they're like, hey, you beat Fador via a cut, a fluke cut once like eight years ago. Come on. Get on over here.

I can see that. Now, if they want to, who, maybe they could put Miocch against Yoel. That would be comparable to the middle, the Matt Lindlin fight now. But Yoel would win. Yoel would absolutely win. Come on. Yoel's the best fighter on the planet. Obviously, you're new here, Sean, and don't know my love for Yol Romero, but it's extensive.

Well, I'm not new to MFA and I'm not putting it completely out of the realm of possibility that Dana White pops up and says, Yoel Romero is the next UFC heavyweight title challenger, because that's just what happens. Every year we get a Yoel title fight. That'd be justified. But I think that you can compare apples to oranges, too. They're both fruit.

You can eat them. They're both delicious. Oranges are better than apples. Now you're stuck crazy. Orange juice is probably superior to apple juice, but apples are quite obviously better than oranges. Do you ever get how often? often you get apple candy.

Like maybe, maybe like an apple sucker or something. They don't make Apple Starburst. Maybe like some crappy novelty sour apple starburst. They don't say sour apples like the most common candy. Oh, oh. I mean, oranges.

Cherry feels like a much better candy choice you're going with here. But like apples, you just have an infinite number of choices. Orange is you just have Florida. I can't wait for UFC to book Stepe Amiochich against Hiroshi Tanahashi. and the fact that you don't know that he's a former IWGP heavyweight champion, but you know that Fador beat UG Nagata.

Hey, Pro wrestling is the strongest base for MMA. I won't argue that either. Yeah, so all of your points are moot then because it's the strongest base. Yeah. All right, well, I mean, talking about, like, booking and what Steepa could do next, because I am excited to get your thoughts on this. Dana White stated that Francis Inganu will be next, which he certainly deserves to be next.

There's no doubt about it. Sean, let me go back to you. It's a two-horse race here. Do you believe Dana White when he says that Francis and Ghana is next? Or now that a belt could be at stake to justify the bump and pay and the jump up and weight class, could we see the UFC pulled the trigger on John Jones jumping the line and getting that shot? Well, I don't believe that anything that Dana White. White says. But yeah, I do, it is a two-horse race. And selfishly, I'm like, man, Angano is great.

Like I said, we see how great he is when he's like, oh, yeah, this is what happens when I throw my fist at people's faces and don't try to become super cardio machine. But I selfishly would like to see Stepe Miyocch fight somebody different because he just fought Cormier three times in a row. and John Jones versus Stepe is a massive fight, and I like massive fights. I think John Jones beats him, to be quite honest. I think John Jones would win that one. I don't want to say fairly easy or anything, but I think Jones wins it. And I think that if you're the UFC, that's the fight you should probably make.

Jed, knowing you, my bet is you're taking the bigger fight here, the champion versus champions, swinging them, quote-unquote bolos that you like to see thrown in these fights. And not to mention moments ago, as we're recording, Brad Okamoto from ESPN's reported that Dominic Reyes and Jan Belhovitz is going to, they're going to fight each other in September 26. Fights nearly done. Stakes are being worked out. Could be an interim title fight, depending on what happens here. But what happens? Like, there's a difference between what should happen and what will happen. What will happen?

First, let me just ask what is going to sound like a dirtbag hot take question, but I'm actually dead serious about. Do we know that Francis and Ghanu is good? We know that he punches really hard. I actually have no concept for if he is good at fighting beyond the fact that he is cartoonishly powerful, apparently. Like we just haven't, like, even his run now, it's all first round knockouts. Like, how much did we learn in the Iyerzino Rosenstruck fight? Like, we just learned that Francis and Gano hits really hard, which we all knew and have known for years. I honestly don't have any idea if that fight goes any different because we've just seen nothing from Ngandu to tell us that he's gotten better.

We just kind of assume he has. So I just kind of wanted to touch on that point because given all that, 100% you make the John Jones fight and you book it as soon as possible. I wrote about this today for the site. You can go check it out and read it. I mentioned this earlier. I think one of the big impediments to Stipe's case is being the baddest man in history. is just that John Jones has existed, his entire title reign, and there is the kind of unspoken thought that,

well, if Jones wanted, he takes Depe's belt. And I think if he fights him and beats him, aside from massive super fight, big payday, he gets to be the guy who takes John Jones's actual O from him instead of Matt Hamill. Like, all of those aside, I think he wins that. He probably either cements himself his goat or gets maybe one more title defense away from it. and he now puts himself into like the overall goat conversation with the win over John Jones. I think a hundred times out of a hundred you try and make that fight if you're Stepe, but Dana White is a man who I don't agree with on a lot of things and frequently fight booking is one of them.

I firmly believe he means it when he says that Francis Ngano is next in line. And I think unless Steepa comes to him and says, hey, come on man, I just fought this guy. This doesn't do anything for me. Let me fight John Jones. I think they probably will go ahead and get that because they kind of just want, you know, Inganu to have a belt and then do Inganu Jones because that feels like a bigger fight because it probably is, especially if Inganu has the belt. So I think it actually does end up being in Ganu, but it shouldn't be 100%. John Jones, go get your second strap, man. I kind of wish Depe just took the opportunity when he was asked to kind of make a choice.

Like when you throw both these guys out there at a press conference and everybody's watching you and John Jones is thrown in your direction, and just to come out and say that friendly answer that like sportsmen really like to hear, wherever the UFC wants to give me, just gonna take my time, whatever they want to do, I'll do. Like, you're the heavyweight champion of the world. You just beat Daniel Cormier

for the second consecutive time. You won the trilogy. It's your time. Like, your time is running out too here. Like, you need to go for these big opportunities. Also legitimately like, be offended because straight up John Jones just called you a punk. He didn't say those words,

but his words were, I'm coming to win the title that Steepay obviously holds. These guys don't look that big. Steepay is too slow for me. Like, that's nice John Jones speak for, bruh, you suck and I'm about to tool you. Like, get offended. Come on, man.

Like, I just want to see something from him because he should be. And this could be a great fight if he would try or care or do anything other than what he does. UFC should outright ban the phrase, whoever the UFC wants from from their broadcast also he's never fought anybody like me i if the next time i don't hear that will be oh just wonderful because i mean how many interviews have i seen and heard he's never fought anybody like me yeah okay cool man what's that mean nothing it means it means that this interview garnered zero buys uh but yeah here the thing about engunu like we know that he's cartoonishly strong, but we also know that after Miyoch and Lewis, he was like,

you know what? I don't feel like hanging around for two or three. I'm just going to hit people because that's worked traditionally. And for, I mean, Curtis Blades, when he did that the first time and beat him up for two rounds, I was like, okay, that's impressive because I liked Blades then. What he was able to do to him last time, I was like, Jesus, man, because I think that Curtis Blades, if Ngano wasn't standing around could quite honestly be a UFC heavyweight champion.

Curtis Blades would beat the shit out of Stefei straight out. Like he would just frigging work, Steve-A. I agree. And the fact that Ngano is the only roadblock there and that roadblock has existed solely in Francis Inganu's fist. I think that gives him a pretty good chance. It's just I'm ready to see Stipe fight somebody new. I am so happy with how that first round played out.

That was probably the longest round or longest round in the history of the show. And there was so much to unpack there. I wish you could give a point to each of these guys. Maybe I'll take the cheap way out and give them each a half a point, but I'm not going to do that. But the point for round one is going to go to our champion, Jedmishu. But what a close battle. I just can't wait to see where this goes. We still have three regulation and questions to go.

Maybe a final question. This is exciting. Very exciting stuff. That's why I'm happy to be the host of this program. Eugene Nagata. I know. That was that almost brought. you over the top. If we want to stay on steepe, I have an unlimited number of steepe takes,

and I feel like this is my wheelhouse. I want to talk more about Francis and Ghanu's blitz strategy because I think it's hilarious. And if you watch the Giorzino Jadis fight, that first round was them being like cautious. And then in round two, Giorzino was just like, oh, I'm going to do that thing that Francis did to me and just go hit him real hard. Oh, that worked. Cool. Give me one more Stepe take. I think that Stepe is not only not the greatest fighter of all time. I think he is not the best heavyweight ever. I think a Prime Kane or a Prime DC beat the hell out of him.

I think Curtis Blades beats him. I think Francis Nganyu's going to beat him in the rematch. I think John Jones definitely beats him. So not unlike Michael Bisping's title reign, I think there's a pretty decent chance that Steepa is actually like the fourth or fifth best heavy weight in the world right now. We just haven't found that out yet. Wow, that was a blazing hot take. Let's head to the other half of Saturday night's title fight. Daniel Cormier heads into the fight saying, this is it, this is my last fight. Ariel asked him 500 times,

are you sure, is this really going to be the last one? He goes, no, I'm definitely not coming back. Exits the fight with the messed up by. And it wasn't like the career ending sendoff that we expected to see all things considered after losing the steep. More on that in a moment. But Jed, let's start with you here. If this is the end for Daniel Cormier, we talked about where Stipe sits on your list. Where is Daniel Cormier on that all-time list?

Like, we'll look at it from overall perspective since he's had success and won titles in multiple divisions. Where would you put D.C. like on the all-time great list? Is he top 10, top five? Where would you put him? The thing is you have to consider him in the all-time kind of all-over list, because his body of work in neither division, light heavyweight, more heavyweight, is really good enough to qualify him as like that top, top tier guy.

I know we wanted to talk like he was for heavyweight, but that was really more of the, well, if he beat Stepe again, we're just going to Ersats give him all the Stepe's wins, and let's just pretend like that's cool because we want to call him the goat. I mean, it's hard. This was a rough loss for him. If he had retired after he knocked out Steepay, maybe he fights Derek Lewis. and then just walks away at 40 like he had intended. I think he's a top 10 borderline top five all-time guy

because I just think that that's kind of how it shakes out there. You get to imagine how good he is without the, oh, you lost your last two. But with losing the last two, the thing no one considers when they want to do like top 25 fighters of all time, there are so many divisions in mixed martial arts. It's like if you take the goat from every division, your top 10's full and you've got some overflow there as well. And so I don't think Cormier's full resume is better than Jose Aldo or any of that. So it's tough to know where to put him. I think he's probably a top 15 guy, just kind of that first tier of guys after the greatest, greatest of all times in their respective divisions.

But, you know, again, that list is super subjective. And, you know, there are only a couple of constants in it, Anderson Silva, John Jones. I think Habib's getting up there. But Jose Aldo probably isn't anybody's top five. And I think he's the best fighter of all time. So it's sort of super up in the air. But I think you've got to put Cormier outside of the top 10 at this point, strictly because of the two C-Pay losses.

John, Jed's putting him in the top 15. Fair? Or is this disrespectful in your eyes? No, I think it's completely fair. I think like six to 15 is harder to determine than one to five. like way harder because in my mind there's in no particular order there's like jones gsp although anderson sylva and i think mighty mouse johnson because of what he did to that division that's my five good choice john i like it then like outside of that you're you're talking

kutur henderson pin if you're you're an old head that didn't mind him losing all the time uh nogg holloway habib like what what's habib gonna do but right now he's got to be in that conversation too. There are so many names that can be wedged anywhere from six to 15, really six to 20, because of just people who had that steep decline, especially right after they were champions. Daniel, what he was able to do in two divisions, not just two divisions, but he started at heavyweight, went to light heavyweight, came back to heavyweight, won the title, defended it. That was impressive, too, because it wasn't just, okay, so he had had steep A's number. Derek Lewis has,

has beaten some good heavyweights, and he beat him. And that run at light heavyweight outside of Jones was just impressive. I mean, not only that, Daniel Cormié has victories over two former middleweight champions in Dan Henderson and Anderson Silva, which I think, not to kind of poke the bear here, but I think an Anderson Silva went at UFC 200, even after all that he went through, means a little bit more than some Fador's wins.

But I look at this body of work and I was like, okay, a lot of these people weren't as far removed from their primes as some of the other guys that I would put around there, but I don't have him top five. I've got him, quite frankly, anywhere between like seven, eight to 15. Like, you could really shuffle the deck there and lay a top 15 in front of me. And I probably wouldn't be mad at any way that that, that, that, that, that, hashed out. And now that the million dollar question, Sean, because DC did an interview in the

back after the fight, seemed to close the door on his career, but he didn't slam it shut. And he certainly didn't stick the key in the dead bolt, lock it, get in the car and ride off into the sunset. He said, essentially, if I can't fight for titles and it doesn't look like I'm going to be fighting for titles anytime soon, then I can walk away. He released a statement on Monday, again, thanking everybody, saying it's been a hell of a ride. But again, he didn't say the words, I'm done. I'm officially retired. Did we see the last of Daniel Cormey on Saturday night as a fighter? I think we did, but I think he'll do some pro wrestling stuff because he's always had an interest in that. I'm most bummed. We didn't get a Ryan Bader fight, quite frankly.

That's the one that I wanted to see. I think he has done. And plus, he's so awesome as a broadcaster, like from that, from that Jones OSP fight where he was able to objectively call a guy that he load in John Jones, I was like, man, this is one of the best, best analysts, best personalities in the game and the way that he's able to present that and be entertaining. I think there's so much money to be made for him outside of MMA. So, yeah, I think I think he's done. Chad, what do you think? Because we've, we've heard this tale.

We've told this story so many times. we feel like a guy's done, they come back. Like, we didn't think we'd see GSP again. And then all these years later, something got him back in there. And that was a chance to fight Michael Bisbing for the Middle-A title, which in hindsight, physically speaking to his overall, like, physical fitness and body, probably wasn't the best decision in the world. I think the UFC would probably take that one back,

considering he signed a fight Robert Whitaker had he won, and then he went away into the sunset again. And now the Habib fights out there, which could get him off the couch again. with Daniel Cormier, is it similar? Like, do you feel 100% confident that we're not going to see him fight again? So historically, saying a fighter is going to retire and picking that is just a really bad bet. That's just not a thing that happens in MMA. But I'm pretty confident that this one's true.

I think this is the exception that proves the rule here. And it's partly because of what Cormier said. He wants to fight for titles. How is he getting a title fight at this point? I mean, if Ngano beat Steepay, maybe they would come to him and say, okay, well, we can't run back Curtis Blades for a third time. Who do we give this shot to? Like, okay, let's try and lure Daniel out one more go. But that would feel really cheap, and so I don't even know that that would happen.

The only way, the only way I see him getting a title fight at this point is John Jones moves up. He beats Stepe, and then he calls out Kormier instead of Inganu. He says, you know what? This guy just retired. but everyone was talking all this trash. They said that at heavyweight, the fight would be different. Come prove it right now.

I think that's the only way you get him out. And I don't think John Jones is going to do that because I think he's going to beat Steepi and then say, all right, bring on and Ghanu. This is the fight I wanted. That's a very winnable fight for Jones. Also a loseable fight. But how else does he get a title fight?

He's not getting one at 205. He's not getting one at heavyweight. And what Sean said about the rest of Kormier is absolutely right, man. This guy's got talent for days at anything he wants to do. He is a massive personality and a great analyst. He could do any number of things. He could you know, sit next to Kelly Rip on a morning show one day. Like he could do anything. And so I think that he should have retired at 40 like he set out to do. That hubris brought him back and then it brought him back one more time to try and avenge the loss. And now he's he's going to sit at home,

realize, man, I should have done what I said I was going to do. And he's not coming back. He's going to go move on with his life. Because also, we just haven't talked about it much. He, like, ripped his corneo when Steve A poked him in the eye, so maybe he doesn't have an eyeball anymore. Maybe he's Michael Bisping out here and no one can say. And so then he's really not going to fight again. So, yeah, I think he could keep fighting.

I think he showed some stuff on Saturday. But I think he's done and good on him. Would have been better to go out with the win. But it's a really Daniel Cormier way to retire. Like, losing to somebody who is ultimately going to be. viewed as better than you and having it happen in a really absurdist sort of way. That's like right up the alley of Daniel Cormier's life. So it's a fitting end, even if it's somewhat tragic. So a little cheap plug here, I host a matchmaking podcast on the site with A.K. Lee, and we were talking

about what's next for Steepay. And he feels that there's zero chance John Jones gets the heavyweight title shot. I'm actually 50-50 on it because I feel like Jones has a good chance of getting that fight because of the DC factor. Like Dana White even doesn't believe that Daniel Cormier has done. And like you said, Jed, if John Jones beats Stepe and becomes the heavyweight champion, that's a fight that'll get DC back. Like, we don't know how the eye is, so that's one thing we have to keep in mind. But there's a title fight. That's what he wants. And that's a fight everyone's been talking about for years now. What happens when John Jones fights Daniel Cormier at heavyweight? Is it the same fight? I do agree with both of you guys. I think DC is so much ahead of him.

I don't think we have seen his professional greatness peak or even close to it yet, considering everything he could do outside of the octagon. So while I do think he could be done unless all these pieces fall into place, I'm not quite ready to 100% say that Saturday night was it right now. But with that said, the point is going to go to Mr. Sean Ross. He has evened things up. It's good. It's one of those things where he got ahead of the game. And Jed actually said he agreed with Sean, which doesn't happen too often on this program

that Jed actually agrees with people in such a kind, respectful way. You rarely bring opponents who have the correct takes, which are mine. So it's very difficult when someone does know the objectively right answer. Well, with that being said, let's move ahead to one of Jed's favorite things that happened on Saturday night, the co-made event. he was so excited that Sean O'Malley versus Marlon Verro is booked in that spot over J.D.S. and Georgia Rose and Strick. But we all know what happened in that fight by then. Sean had an injury. He deserves a lot of credit for toughing it out. But Cheeto did what he needed

to do. He finished the fight and he got a huge win. First off, Sean Ross Sappell start with you. We saw it all over social media. You know, Marlon Vera was lucky. If Sean didn't get hurt, O'Malley would have won, he would have knocked him out, blah, blah, blah. And the more we go back and we take a closer look at this fight without the gaga of freaking Joe Rogan's shock about the leg length comparisons between the two fighters or whatever they were talking about at the desk at the time. Don't act like that isn't a fun fact. Like that was legitimately interesting and everyone is trashing it.

And I don't get like, how do you not think that's a weird and cool fact? It's a weird and cool fact to talk about for like three seconds, not for like 55 seconds when there's a fight going on. Y'all just don't know how to have fun. All right, fair enough. If Rogan wants to talk about that on the Joe Rogan podcast or they do like their live watch logs, I'm cool at that. It is an interesting fact, but it kind of took away what happened in the fight because

nobody saw that Marlon Vera is the one who seemingly inflicted the damage that led to the injury and it goes down, at least in my books, as looking at it with the magnifying glass, so to speak, as a clean win from Marlon Vera. Is there any debate here, Sean? Can we move on with this Marlon Vera got lucky because Sean hurt himself talk? Yeah, I hope so. I mean, dude lost. That was that was it.

Guy lost. Guy lost. He can, what's what's Kyler Phillips doing right now? Book him against him or something. Andre Ewell, I'm ready to move on. I know UFC wanted to push him as the co-main eventer on this card and stuff, but it was very transparent from the presentation to the placement on the card. to the way that the commentary played this up, that they were, one, they had high hopes for him.

Obviously, it's okay to have high hopes for somebody, but they were also trying to save face for him. Guy fought three times in like five months. Maybe it was too much for him. Maybe he wasn't ready. I don't know, but I didn't see any controversy there. I thought it was good on Marlon Vera. Cool. Why not?

I mean, Marlon Vera looks great now. Jed, your thoughts on this aspect before we move to the next piece of business as it relates to this fight. Look, I mean, we can all be adults here. It's not a clean win. All wins are clean. That is a W in the book. Marlon Vera threw the attack that injured him. That's it. He gets the win and I am not taking that away. But in the same way that Vitor versus Randy 2, Vitor throws a punch that cuts open Randi. Andy on the eyelid and the fight is stopped 20 seconds in. Clean win. We're really going to act like that's what we wanted out of the fight. That's the measure of who is better amongst these two. He threw an attack. It hurt his opponent in like a serious way, but it wasn't like, oh, I threw a right hand and colded him. Through a leg kick that pinched a nerve and made his foot useless. And Cheeto can say whatever he wants. I don't know if he said this. I strongly doubt.

that that was like a pinpoint plan to jack up his foot. Like it's a thing that happens in fight. So you got to take it. It's a clean one in that regard. But, you know, if Sean O'Malley heals up again and they run it back, I don't know that that fight goes the same way at all. But I think the bigger issue isn't that. I think it's, those are just tragically bad booking from the UFC.

Leaving aside the co-made event horse hockey, like just, Martin Vera is a really tough out. That's really dumb. And when we get to my next question, not to be clear, Marlon Vera isn't dumb. It's really dumb booking. He's a really difficult out that doesn't have a ton of name value for Sean O'Malley to uplift off of. When you get to ask me who he should fight next, he's who he should have fought this past weekend. I have the perfect opponent for Sean O'Malley.

Those elbows had a little something to do with it, too. It's the pro wrestling mentality. You work over the leg and then you knock them out with the DDT. come on like you isolate the body part then let him know you don't put him out but he wouldn't have fallen over and just collapsed like a

destructive building if his feet were underneath him like Malin Bear is not going to get that chance I think that to say that that's a all the way clean win is objectively true but pretty obviously not not in the spirit of what we think wins and losses are oh maybe you like I said they can throw banana peels in front of you, and if you slip

and can't finish this show, I'm taking the win, and I'm more than happy. Would the viewer be satisfied? No, but I would be completely satisfied. And that's what separates champions from challengers right there. Hey, is Vitor Belfort or is he not

a champion? Well, he was. He currently is not a champion. Was he or was he not a UFC? C light heavyweight champion. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. On paper, the scoreboard is the scoreboard. You can't take it away. Matt Hamill has beaten John Jones.

That is just a fact of life. But they're different quality and levels of win, and this is definitely lower on the spectrum. But that was definitely a little bit different. How? Scoreboard is scoreboard. No, someone getting beaten up so badly that their opponent got decued versus is someone who threw an attack that ended the fight.

If he didn't want to be a, I mean, John Jones threw an attack that ended the fight. He was just a dirty rotten cheater. And so if you don't want to be DQ, don't be a dirty rotten cheater. You know what? Vitor Feltfor gets, Vitor gets to hang that replica UFC belt up above his mantle all the same. He does, but does he feel it in his soul? Does he think? Oh, for sure.

For sure. Did you ever do a media conference with him? He talked about Jesus for 25 minutes. It's true. Jesus is true. That's fair point on Vitor believing it, but if everyone else believes it, I'm not so sure. Boy, I didn't think we'd go six minutes on this topic, but, you know, obviously this is a setback for O'Malley in multiple ways. One, the injury, we have no idea how long he's going to be out for. Ariel Hawati reported on Monday that the initial test came back okay. There was no fractures. There's going to be an MRI once the swelling goes down. And obviously, the loss sets him back as well. But ultimately, this can be spun into a good thing because that stigma being undefeated, having all that pressure goes away for the time being. And he can focus on getting back without all those attachments. So Sean sort of gave his take on, you know, what could be next for Sean O'Malley mentioned.

Kyler Phillips. I don't think that'll happen because they're both M.MA lab guys. And Andrew Ewell is. I know what you're saying. You're thinking of level here. Yeah. But Jed, what is your take? I am excited. You set this up beautifully. You put it on a tee. What is next for shot O'Malley when he's ready to return?

Look, first, just to point out, he gets the stigma of that like zero gone with an asterisk. So it's actually a super big win for O'Malley in that regard. But who he's good, who he should fight next is who he should have fought this time. And I hate to do this because I hate matching up losers on the same card. It just feels like it's too much of a softball. He should have fought John Dodson this weekend. It's a bigger name. than Cheater. That's a guy who was in two title fights, albeit at a way class below. Also, Dodson's style matches up super well with O'Malley. He's a counterstriker who's not really going to wrestle. And he also doesn't throw a lot of volume, whereas O'Malley just is nothing but volume with some power behind it. But it's still dangerous because Dodson hits really hard. And so it creates an opportunity for, like, O'Malley has to be on his game, but he gets to get ring time in, gets to work over a guy who's incredibly durable. He's probably not going to get a finished. So he's going to have to go 15 minutes with one of the fastest guys in the division.

And if he's getting beat on the feet, then O'Malley is really in trouble because he's going to take Dodson down? No. So I think that was the obvious setup fight for him. And I guess they just wanted to push Mara Abd al-Dalishvili as well. But I think that fight goes exactly how the UFC wants it and helps develop him while still keeping him in the top of the rankings, you know, top 15. Dodson may fall off the rankings after that last performance. So I think that's it. It's a no-brainer for me. I'd book it as soon as they're both ready to go again.

What's interesting is that, and I don't know if like the UFC sort of put them up to it, but O'Malley's the one who called for Vera. He wanted the fight. He thought this would be the stepping zone. The UFC is like, sure, we'll give you exactly what you want. But, you know, sarcasm aside, Sean, you mentioned two names. I don't know if you clearly don't mean both of those names, but if you're the UFC here, if you're the matchmakers, whenever Sean's ready to come back,

What kind of caliber, a fighter, where in the division? Is there a name that sticks out that he should share the octagon with next? I can't pretend to get inside the head of UFC matchmakers half the time. But a lot of it is what they want people to perceive versus do they want him to get better versus do they want a main event? I could fully see UFC being like, ah, you know what? Well, we're booking Uriah Faber versus Sean O'Malley as the main event of like some card. and I don't know that he's winning that fight. I don't know that he's winning that fight.

Would it be a hell of a main event? Yeah. And would they love to give your eye a favor another main event? Would they love to have Sean O'Malley lose a co-main event and then say, all right, well, here's your main event now. Yeah, they do that all the time. They love doing that type of stuff. And as we'll probably talk about here in a bit,

they don't mind matching up people who have just lost in TV main events either. I think that would be a good one. and if he could pull off a win there, that could kind of give some fuel to the, to the hype machine of him. And you never know if he could, if Faber's at that level where he's just going to fall off that cliff. I do think that's a pretty tall task for him.

I don't hate the Dodson idea. I'm looking at a guy like maybe Ricky Simone as somebody that they could, they could have him fight, somebody in that like where he's not quite top 10. but they feel like because of that asterisk, they can give him a step up or maybe not really a step up in competition, but still a name comparable to Marlon Vera. Mike, I've got an idea.

Call me crazy here. What if instead of matching him up against a bottom 15 guy? What if we just, what if we just pretended he didn't lose? And let's just keep moving off the world. Let's Jose Aldoan. Okay. I know he lost officially.

but no one likes that loss, so we'll forget it, and we'll just move him up the ranks. Cody Garbrandt's busy right now, so I guess we can't do that. What about Jimmy Rivera? Let's just say in for a penny, in for 17 pounds, and give him Jimmy Rivera. I would say give him Davalus Vili, because if he beats Valisville... No, he'll beat him. Exactly.

If Devalishvili beats him, people are like, damn, he beat, he beat Sean O'Malley. He didn't have to use, like, laser eyes or some whoopee cushion or whatever. gimmick to beat him. He'd hug him for 15 minutes, and then everyone would hate Valishvili and still think O'Malley's great, but Cam Russell. Just break his little ankle, then we're all right. I actually think no matter when O'Malley comes back, I would say O'Malley's probably

not going to fight until 2021 at this point, maybe like March, April, 2021. That's just, and I might be being friendly with those numbers. But I think unless this guy gets mauled in his next. three fights. I think you just do the O'Malley Brian Callagher fight. Just a good little step. Callahers got a little bit of buzz to him. You can put that anywhere on any card. That happens, you know, and we'll see what happens. But what about Marlon Vera, Jed? Because I feel that he deserves to be mentioned in this discussion as well. Where does he go after arguably the biggest win of his career on Saturday night? I think this is the biggest one of his career. If for nothing else,

it's a co-main event on a marquee pay-per-view. So he got the spotlight. It was trashly, got it. Shouldn't have been there. That should have been JDS, but again, we'll leave that be. From here, give that guy a top 10 opponent. He's on, what is it, five, six fight win streak in the division. I know he had that kind of setback moving up a little bit. But I think you just treat him like he's a top 10 guy because I think he was pretty obviously

a top 15 guy coming into this fight, just didn't have the number. And he's been on a heck of a run. let's give him somebody good. I think you still need to build him. And it's a little tricky to go winners versus losers. I said this guy jokingly for O'Malley, but I actually think Jimmy Rivera makes a lot of sense as an opponent for him in that regard, just because Rivera had three losses in a row,

but rebounded with a good win. And so Rivera is in that situation where he can't really pick and choose opponents. He's kind of just got to get some ranked wins to stack them up, to kind of get back in the conversation, and Vera is now going to be a ranked guy. And so I think I actually really like that fight. If you want to go ahead and do Valishvili versus Vera. Again, I don't love matching up guys from the same card. It just feels easy.

And I don't know that that gains either man a ton. I feel like you can just kind of bifurcate them, move them in different directions, but up the ladder at the same time. So give me Jimmy Rivera. I think that's the fight that I think makes the most sense. Sean Marlon Vera versus Blank and why? I actually don't hate the idea of him facing somebody like Dominic Cruz who has a bigger name, even though he hasn't won.

You kind of use that name value to build this guy up who very clearly has a chip on his shoulder. He's 27 years old. He's on a very hot streak, even though he's got that one loss, which, you know, Dana White went to bat for him. I mean, that was part of the buildup for this was that. that so many people went to bat for him not really losing that fight. That's a good one because in the top ten, I look at some of the names there and I'm like, man, is a Cody Stamen going to do anything for Marlon Vera

considering who he just beat in the spot that he just beat them on in that co-main event underneath the goat heavyweight fight? I think that this is a situation where, and I just think that name value and a win coming off of that would be more important than him actually getting a win against somebody with recent wins. Jed, what do you think? A.K. suggested Marlon Vera versus Jimmy Rivera, but he said if it doesn't get Jimmy Rivera. Yeah. That's awesome.

But he said if it's not Jimmy Rivera, he said he likes the idea of Marlon Rivera versus Joseo. I mean, I love Joseo Alto like my unborn child. I have a great, great love for him. I would watch that fight and think it's fair and interesting, but I think I'm the only person who does. That's the issue of Dominic Cruz here, too. Sure, I love Chito Vera. I think he's a really fun, really good fighter.

Is Joseo and Dominic Cruz, are they going to take fights with Marlon Vera? like he's a guy who just got ranked and is a tough fight like that is such a low value fight for them instead aldo and cruise probably should fight each other then you can do the backstory build of like former bantamweight champion versus featherweight champion like you do that um you know Cruz Frankie Edgar who we're going to talk about in a second I think that makes sense like it it's a tough needle to thread for vera because he's just breaking into the rankings and so honestly it would make more sense for him to be like a top. 15 guy, then top five, top seven. But finding the guy who wants to take that fight with him is going to be difficult. I could say a Sunsau is, I think he's in a similar position to Rivera where, you know, he's going to take kind of any ranked fighter they give him because he needs to get wins. But that's another fight that's like, that's the inverse for Marlon Vera actually.

A really difficult opponent who doesn't give him a ton of stock at large. it gives him like fighter stock. Like, yeah, Havila Sunsau, that boy can scrap. You beat him. That's a win. That's a tough public sell. I think Jimmy Rivera threads that needle really well. That's why I think he's a fight to make.

And it's hard to look good against Haffiela Sunsau, too. No one has done it other than Cody Garbrant. It's the only person who's ever looked good against him. Well, it was a big win for Cheeto Vera. He's actually going to be back on what the heck this week. I'm looking forward to that conversation. Obviously, wish of speedy recovery to Sean O'Malley. But as far as this particular,

their matchup goes. The point goes to the champ. Jedmishu. We head to the final question of regulation. For the second time in three weeks, gentlemen, I know you guys are so excited to talk about this. Bellator in the UFC are going to have a weekend head-to-head. Bellator 244 goes down Friday night at Mohegan Sun

in beautiful Uncassville, Connecticut, inside the fight spear. and they have some pretty good momentum going after their last event. They got a big boost from Valerie Lareda. Michael Chandler has become one of the most talked about fighters in the sport after his knock-o win. I mean, it's more of a Chandler story than a Bellator story, but he is tied to the organization. So that event was a big success, in my opinion. But Bellator 244 is going to be headlined by Ryan Bader defending his light heavyweight title

against Vadim Nemcoff. And the UFC is back on Saturday night at the apex, which will be headlined by a band. animal fight between Pedro Munoz and the former lightweight champion, Frankie Edgar, who makes the drop finally to 135 pounds. I feel like this fight's been booked 18 times already. But Jed, we're going to begin with you here. Who has the better headliner?

Or maybe I'll add the more intriguing headliner this weekend, the UFC or Bellator. Oh, so we're only talking headliners? Oh, good. I went like deep into these cards to... We're going to go deeper into the cards too, but just at the top of the marquee right now. Top of the marquee. I'm coming with the hotness. Give me Bellator. I look, Frankie Edgar, all-time great fighter. You want to go talk about all-time fighters? Franky Edgar's above Daniel Cormier in my list. Wherever he lands, he's at least one spot above DC. You know, dropping Bannamweight, going to be fun and interesting.

I am most interested not in that fight per se than in Edgar at Bannamweight because that's probably been his true division this whole time, despite winning a time. title two weight classes up. But give me Bellator. Maybe it's a homo pick, but I, like Sean said earlier, I'm sad that we never got Ryan Bader versus Daniel Cormier. We should have had that.

But I think Ryan Bader is one of the top five light heavyweights in the world at this point. And then his opponent is awesome, potentially. Like, Lidim Kov, one, you've got a great backstory. Bader knocked out Fador. The goat Fador, don't be mistaken, Sean.

the goat Fador. And Nimcov is a disciple of Fador. Like he's this undefeated or not undefeated because he definitely has a loss there. Maybe two. But in Risen, he lost in Risen. But other than that, I mean, he's really coming to his own. He's undefeated in Bellator. He's got the Combat Sambo background, which at this point should just make everybody's ears kind of perk up.

If you're a Combat Sambo World Champion, the list of Combat Sambor World Champions in MMA is pretty great for what they've done. So you get kind of the new breed of who this guy can be against maybe getting older. Ryan Bader is still top of the food chain in Bellator and one of the best in the world. And you get that great backstory. Like I know it's Bellator, so almost by default it matters less than whatever the UFC is doing. But pound for pound, I am more interested in that headliner than I am the UFC fight night this weekend. What do you think, Sean?

Which main event sticks out to you more? Oh, by far, Bader Nimcov. The whole card stands out more to me. Bader, again, not just one of the best in the world, one of the best in the world at two divisions, beat your boy, Fador, you boy, and taking on Nimcov, who... Your boy is Eric Anders, sorry, don't be mistaken. And like, the run Nimcob immediately went on, like,

just reeling off wins and wins. McGeeery Davis Carvalho. It's like there was no way he wasn't getting a title shot after that. I'll take that over Edgar and Munoz any day at this stage. I should say at this stage. Not any day. If this were like 2015, 2016, maybe 2017 I wouldn't have. But Pedro Munoz just lost.

I know it was a high level loss. Actually, he didn't just lose. He's been out for a year. Edgar is on the wrong side of his career. I think he's lost like, what, three in a row? No offense. I don't ever want to see somebody who's lost three in a row fight unless it's like they're coming in a main event, unless they're like coming out of retirement. There's some big pomp and circumstance.

I look at this and Nimcov is four and oh in Bellator. He left Risen on a nice run. And Bader is just somebody that I look forward to watching fight. And that is not a sentence that I ever expected myself to say a few years ago. Man, I'm really looking forward to this Ryan Bader fight is not. things that we used to say. And he's incredible. And he's taking on everybody that comes his way.

Anybody that Bellator can throw at him. Big name, not so big name, heavyweight, light heavyweight, whatever, because he was that guy that got passed over so many times. He was that guy, oh, well, his name's not big enough. Oh, well, he had some losses early on. He doesn't care. He fights them and he beats them. Or, you know, they poke each other in the eye.

Of course he's taking on whoever they throw at him. They have like seven people to throw at him. So he just is forced to fight anyone who weighs more than 200 pounds. Also, just to be super clear, going all the way back to question one, Ryan Bader beats Steep A, too. Just going to throw that in there for you mind. I'm not opposed to that notion. I don't doubt that Ryan Bader could beat Stepe.

I would love to see that fight. All right. Well, let's dive into something that Sean just said a little bit more. John, it seems to me that if you had the choice to watch either of these two events and you can only watch one, that you're picking Bellator. Why? Yeah, I mean, Julia Budd was very important to Bellator, probably still is to some degree. I mean, she was, for what they had as a featherweight division, she was a good champion. But I look up and down that card, even on the prelims, I'm more interested in a lot of the prelims than some of the stuff on UFC's main card. Like Amosov, that is a curious book.

there after he beat Rickles Silva and Gerald Harris back to back to back and Ed Ruth, love God, I forgot Ed Ruth. Like those were the first four fights that they had for him and they were like, ah, well, we're going to throw you up against this guy. Well, okay. That didn't make a lot of sense to me. You don't know Mark Leninger? I'm afraid I don't.

But Shane Crutchton is a great story. That guy, if he could reel off a couple of wins, would just be a great story for them to have one there. but Eric Perez, of course, I'm familiar with him, interested to see what he does. Roy Nelson, I don't ever want to watch him fight again. Like, I don't. That almost single-handedly makes me more interested in the UFC card.

Just the fact that Roy Nelson is booked. But John Salter is on a hell of a run. Like, there's some good fights or at least good fighters on this show. Yeah, I'm way more interested in Bellator. Jed, what are you more interested in as a whole here? UFC or Bellator? Mike, by now you should know what I like. But even outside of my particular, you know, proclivities here,

the UFC card is just trash, man. Like, I don't want to disrespect. I don't care, actually, if I disrespect fighters at all. Like, there are more, there are equally as many people without Wikipedia pages in the UFC card, has have them. Like that's some real Bellator booking right there. And this card is two fights. Like it is the main event and the co-main event. And then

there's like one half a couple of other spots that are good. Belator is not bringing the thunder here, but to go completely against what Sean said, because he's ridiculously wrong. Roy Nelson versus Valentin Moldovsky, come on. Who doesn't

want to watch that barnyard explosion? Like sure, Moldovsky is like actually a good heavy weight, but incredibly boring. It goes to decisions a lot. But he's fighting Roy Nelson, who's really fat and very durable. So this is going to be 15 minutes, and they're going to be gassed really quick. It's going to be awful and great.

And so, of course, we want to watch that. Julia Budd, fighting a person, I guess is fine. Again, Sean just absolutely stealing my shine on the Yarslav Asimov tip there. But, like, that kid is actually probably really good at fighting. So we should watch that. Eric Perez, Adam Picolotti, like just even though they're both pretty similar and that one side of each card, of each fight on the card is maybe less interesting. The Bellator ones have more fighters that I'm interested in. And just because you don't know who Mark Liminger is, he's 11 and 1.

So maybe he doesn't suck. Let's find out. The only barnyard explosion Roy Nelson has been a part of is when he takes a dump in a barn with plumbing, his fights suck. They're terrible. I hate watching him fight. Look, just because he's lost four in a row in like seven out of his last 10 doesn't mean

Roy Nelson's bad. He's so bad. He's going to throw the right hand. Bolo's, Mike. He's throwing bolos. It's all right. He's fighting out of Unkisville, or are they there? They're there. They're there. He's going to lose. I forgot. That's where they're doing the show is at.

The home of Bellator. Yeah. Yes. It's the fight sphere capital of the world. And he's lost every fight there. He's lost every fight he's had there, all four of them. It's just so fun. By the way, Sean, I hate to break your heart, but I have been told, and I've been able to completely confirm this, that Shane Crutchett is not going to be fighting on Friday

night. Oh, what a bummer. Hurt. And then I heard that they were going to find a replacement for his opponent, and then the opponent got hurt, so now nobody's fighting in that particular matchup. I have an important bellator question. Would you guys rather go to Uncissville to cover a fight, or would you rather go to Thackerville? Thackerville, for sure.

Oh, you think so? Is that just because it's like right next to the Tiger King Zoo or whatever? Yes. Do you have other reasons for going to Thackerville? Well, I mean, but also it's right next to Texas, right? It's right next to Texas so you can just get the hell out of Oklahoma. that'd be nice. But, man, Unkisville?

What's that near? It's who can say? Who can say any of these things? You don't know. It's near like Hartford. And I mean, I've been there many times. Is it? It's an easy drive for me.

I've ever been to Thackerville? I've never been to Thackerville. We've got to get you to Thackerville then. I need the breakdown. Set up the fight sphere in Thackerville. And then maybe we'll be, maybe we can talk. Where do people fly into for Uncisville? Is there an uncasville airport?

Probably Bradley. Oh, man. Which is right outside of Hartford. So probably... Sounds like a hopping spot. Yeah, it's like right in between Hartford, Connecticut and Springfield, Massachusetts. It's just the heart of the U.S. Everyone grabs a bite at the Waffle House.

The one Waffle House in town. Sean, I mean this very seriously. I have no idea where you are. But if you ever talk bad about Waffle House, I will come fight you. Waffle House is amazing. We don't even have a Waffle House. We have Huddl House. Of course you don't have a Waffle House.

You're obviously a lowbrow Cretan. Wow. This is Huddleston. Don't disrespect Waho. Waffle House is like great drunk food. And I love the fact that you can make those delicious hash browns and just put anything you want on them. Dig that. Waffle House is America is what we're doing.

Yeah, I love that piece of not crack. of American cheese that they toss over my hash browns and lightly melt. Oh, I didn't know you wanted to do gourmet cheese on your hash browns at three in the one. Sorry, fancy. Wow, we have gone down many roads here on this episode.

If you want to advocate Dollar General Cheese, that's okay. I expect it after you just advocated Roy Nelson fighting. That, yeah. Roy Nelson is the dollar. general cheese of MMA. It's a really good point. It's more plastic than it is cheese.

It's not good for you, but it's tasty and you enjoy it. I love how this conversation has continued on. We went to all this. We weren't going a lot of places today. Because of that, the point is going to go to Sean Ross Sapp because I want to hear more. And I think you won the round anyway, if you're being honest. but that means my favorite part of this program, we head to the knockout round.

One question decides it all. Neither of these fine gentlemen have any idea what the question is, but each of them will have 60 seconds to give their answer. After they both give their thoughts, we will then head to the truck to E. Casey Leiden, who will decide who leaves the virtual cage with the coveted between the links heavyweight championship of the world.

And Jed, since you are the championship, The choice is yours. Would you like to answer this question first? Or are you kicking off to Sean Ross-Sapp? I'll be a gentleman and I'm going to let Sean go first. All right. Sean, we have not discussed this. I don't think we've discussed this at all

throughout any of the episodes on the program, but we're going to do it now because tonight is this drops for all you find people watching. We are going to see week three of Dana White's contender series, series 2020. And I understand the Contender Series is not everybody's cup of tea, but I love the Contender Series. It's something I look forward to every year.

But with any concept, Sean, there is always room to improve said concept. So my question is, what can Dana White, the UFC, those involved with the Contender Series do to make this concept even better, even more successful than it is right now because we've seen the ultimate fight over the years. First few seasons, we're like, yeah, this is great. but as it kept going on, started to lose some cachet, so to speak. It's kind of like Roy Nelson of reality television programs and fighting. But 60 seconds on the clock, what can we do to make the contender series better?

Your time starts now. Sean Rossap, go. I would like to see the UFC do some more of those like retribution seasons of Ultimate Fighter. Quite frankly, I liked seasons like that a little bit more than ones where they brought on unknowns. Bring some guys back that are familiar. bring some guys back in that manner. Gerald Harris has been begging for a fight. He can't win outside the UFC these days.

Put him on Contender Series. Maybe he gets a big win. Maybe he pile drives somebody through the mat or hits a rolling centon power bomb or something because that's what he does. That's the way I would spice it up a little bit, not just use names that are virtual unknowns. They've done it here and there,

but use some names that are familiar to UFC fans that can then prop up some of these unknowns. unknowns, get some eyes on some of these guys that have outstanding performances and knockouts. That way, whenever they tune into a UFC show and see a Dana White Contender Series product, they can be like, oh, yeah, I remember him from when I watched. Gerald Harris hit a corkscrew 720 body slam on somebody. That's what I'd like to see. All right.

Jed, same question for you. I don't know if you're a contender series guy or not, but if so and if not, here's your opportunity to make it better, Jed. Chance to make the MMA world a better place in 60 seconds. Your time starts now. So I'm sad I didn't choose to go first because usually you want to take that time to develop your answer, but I knew as soon as you asked what to say,

and Sean, thankfully, just chose not to take the obvious choice. It's a one-night tournament. You make it a one-night tournament. That's it. It's a throwback to the old days. You add two more fights, so it's seven fights total. but it's a four, then a two, then a one. Whoever wins the tournament, UFC contract, cut drive, we're done here.

It's awesome. It actually builds the fighters better because you get a whole narrative, not just their win and some backstory. And it circumvents the issue of fighters getting injured and pulling out because they're fighting for a contract. Part of that just comes part and parcel with it. So four fights, the loser of those four fights, get ranked in an order of who will come in as the fallback guy if someone gets injured and you just kind of keep moving off the

chain right there easy does it one night tournament bring it back baby all right v tour co-tour situation happens then you're crying saying it doesn't count what a show this is ben and it's unfortunate we're going to have to call an end to this bad boy but before we do we got to go to the truck to the judge is honorable E. Casey Liden to render the final decision. The man like Bill Alfonso calls it right down the middle, baby. Bad. Oh, man.

Well, first of all, this was the longest show we've ever had. Sorry, Casey. Man. I got to say I got up a couple times to get some coffee. It came back. You were still talking about Waffle House. I admire that, I guess. I don't regret it.

No regrets. No regrets. Oh boy, this is a tough one. This is a tough one. Oh, wow, man. Got my scorecard. Battlegrounds M.A. turnout. You're a winner.

And new. John Ross staff. It was tough. It was tough. I think when you brought, when you brought, I got to go back to the wall. It was really the Waffle House discussion, and I love Woff House, but you brought the... What's the... But you brought you...

You know what? You can't... I can't deny the past. I can't deny the past. I'm not, I'm just saying, like things carry over. I'm just saying.

You can't score around four. I've been cheated. This is nonsense. Obviously a one-night tournament is superior. I thought, when you gave your answer with the one-night tournament, I thought that was going to pull and tug on all of Casey Lyon's hard straight.

I know, but I hate one-night tournaments in the United States because they do the whole two, round thing because you can only fight five rounds in one night. If you want to said overseas, just no commission, maybe that kind of a row, but I hate the two round type of fights. And that's what they always do of one night tournaments in the in the States. So, uh, and I'm just tired of seeing people. I don't, I don't know. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, can everyone win? Well battled. Well battled. All right, John.

You don't get a championship belt. Just saying, it's a real moral and barrel of win. It is not a clean win. I chopped away at your ankle. I chopped away at your ankle. And then in the last round, I elbowed you mercilessly in the face. As you picked, as you picked Mortal Kombat Light as your option.

You elbowed me in the fourth round and Casey just still scored it in the fifth. It was that significant. I'm sorry. All right, John. You don't get a belt or the loser's money, but you get 30 seconds to talk about whatever it is. You want to talk about good, bad, and different in the sport of mixed martial arts.

The floor is yours. Stop giving championship fights to people off of losses. I want winners to fight. When I fall out of love with MMA, it's because I want to watch winners fight. And far too often, I got to watch somebody fighting somebody else coming off of a loss. I'm over it. I'm over it. I want to watch winners fight, man.

Well said. Jed, you've been a long-time champion. I'm sure this will not be the last time we see you on this show. We might have to do an immediate rematch once we hear back from the people here. But your thoughts on your title reign coming to a close? And what happened here today? You know, no champions ever ready to walk away at the top of their game. I won't lie, I didn't come in here prepared to face Sean. So I think that may have adversely affected me. I was not informed of the cowardice of Jose youngs until moments before air. And, you know, you just spend your whole week training for one guy, and then that last minute switch can be difficult.

So no credit, taking no credit away from Sean. He's the rifle champion. Just saying, I'm taking all the credit away from him. This is bogus. And I was run up the river, and you'll be hearing about it in the slack. Banana peel wins. I'll take them every day. What an episode.

You're not giving me a champion. chip belt, but I am physically having one made for this. Well, there's not much more to say. We've literally covered everything we could possibly cover here today, including the difference between Waffle House and, was it, Huddle House? Yes, yes, yes, we also have some good apples and oranges talk, too. Don't forget that. Yes.

Oranges are more delicious than apples. Yes. Let us know what you think in the comments. These are the types of things we debate here on between the links right here at M.AFutting.com. Thanks for watching. We'll be back next week to do it again. Big shout to Casey Liden in the truck, making the decisions. Big shout out to Esther Lund on the graphics in the introduction as my 7-year-old, who turned Colby Covington baby-face decides to walk by the shot. And then a big thank you to Sean Ross Sapp and Jen Mishu for joining us. And we'll see you back here once again, right here on Between the Links on MAPFunding.com.

Next week, I am Mike Heck. See you later. This has been Between the Links with your host. Mike Heck, brought to you by MMA Fighting, a production of Vox Media. To the Vox Media Podcast Network.