MMA Fighting - Between the Links: Episode 14 | Aleksandar Rakic's Stock, Next Moves For Anthony Smith & Robbie Lawler

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

Check out episode 14 of Between the Links as Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew and Jose Youngs as they react to Aleksandar Rakic's win over Anthony Smith in the UFC Vegas 8 main event, and what is next for both headliners. In addition, the panel discusses Robbie Lawler's future following his unanimous decision loss to Neil Magny in the co-main event, and look ahead to UFC Vegas 9 this Saturday headlined by Alistair Overeem and Augusto Sakai, and more.  Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs 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

With Instacart, you get groceries that over-deliver, like when you get groceries that are the same prices in-store. With no markups that select retailers, you get in-store products for in-store prices, and the only thing that isn't in-store is you. That means you could order in-store products at in-store prices while you're in sweatpants, in spin class, in stuffy work meeting, in anywhere but in store. So download the app today and get $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Service fees exclusions in terms apply. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Welcome to Between the Links with your host, Mike Heck. Hello there, everybody.

Welcome to a brand new edition of Between the Links right here on MMAfighting.com. Before we get it to everything, this week, as you can probably tell by now, it's going to be an audio-only version of the show. Our producer Casey Leiden is on vacation. The man deserves a vacation. as does Esther Lynn, so no video this week, but it will return next week. Just in time for a brand new episode of the show. We apologize for that, but don't you worry, friends. We have the matchup you have all wanted to see, and I guess here for a while now.

It's finally going down here on BTL. Let us introduce the combatants. First, I was going to call him the challenger, but he's kind of not the challenger. He is the interim BTL title holder. I know what happened a few weeks ago, so you may have forgotten about that when he defeated Alex Keeley. Now he attempts to become the first three-time champion in this iteration of the program. From MMAFighting.com, Mr. Jose Youngs. How are you, sir? I am fantastic. I'm not an interim champion. I am the reigning defending champion. I am a three-time between the links champion.

So me and Muhammad Ali, two former three-time champ. So, you know, we'll just call it, we'll just say what it is. I'm real curious who you have for my challenger. I keep hearing about this guy. I've never heard of him. I think I'd see him on Twitter now and then, trolling or doing whatever. God knows what, saying things that he would never say to people in person. But yeah, I'm real interested who this Judd fellow is. You keep talking about him. So bring him forth. Yes, 45 seconds into the show.

And we already have somebody comparing himself to Muhammad Ali. So this is an excellent start to the program. As we introduce the man who is once again the Between the Links champion after he avenged his prior loss to Sean Ross Sapp. And now he's back to take on his bitter rival in his next title defense from MMAFighting.com. The King of Hot takes himself and the soon to be Cam Soda Fight Circus Underground brand ambassador, Jed Mishu. How are you, champ? I'm doing very well here, you know, just really great. I finally have a challenger that I'm just going to put in the dirt.

He wants to compare himself to Ali. But really, I think I'm much more the Ali guy because I'm just so pretty that I think this is a little a dog dog crap here. I wanted to use a different word there. Go and no cameras when obviously just giving me the full front face view is just going to dominate

Jose Young. So I feel again you stack the cards against me, but it doesn't matter. Just like last time, I overcome every time. Well, there you go. Let's just get right into this thing because otherwise you guys would be talking trash for the next five minutes, but...

No, I talk trash. He just talks nonsense. Oh, boy. Well, let's discuss some MMA. Let's discuss this past Saturday nights event in Las Vegas. And the main event, Alexander Rockich defeats Anthony Smith via unanimous decision. He battered Lionheart early with leg kicks, sort of set the tone for how the fight played out. Now, if you told me that Rackage would win the fight mostly because he stayed on top and dominated the ground control, probably wouldn't have believed you, but that's what happened on Saturday and he gets a big win.

Now, the win is always the most important thing in these fights. division that has opened up a little bit with John Jones vacating the title. This is a time where contenders have an opportunity like never before to emerge into title contendership. So people are kind of questioning whether or not Rackage did that on Saturday night. So Jedmishu, we're going to start with you, sir. When it comes to Alexander Rackich, how much did his stock improve after Saturday night? His stock stayed the same.

Look, Alexander Rackage, I guess he got to win. Anthony Smith, we're still going to. pretend that Anthony Smith is really good as a light heavyweight because he won three good fights and then hasn't really done much since. I know he beat Alexander Gustafson, but we all think Gustafsson shot at this point, right? I think that's just logic. So I don't know, man, I thought coming into this fight, Rocket should have been undefeated. You know, that split decision lost to Uzdimir was trash. So he should have been able to build on this. And frankly, he should just look better. Like not not going to quibble here.

had Smith hurt early and then just laid on him a bunch like get the win i guess good for you my guy but he could have stopped that he could have put an emphatic victory down to stake his claim in what you are right you said this is this is the next title fight you know like things are open anything could happen and now he's going to sit behind i would assume the uh the winner of the upcoming uh tiago santo's uh glow to share a fight's probably going to get the next crack of the belt so rocich is going to have to get in there again. I think he missed a huge opportunity to make a statement. And so now he's just another guy in a division that is suddenly desperate for someone to stand out. Jose, do you agree with that? Because, you know, no matter how the win is, typically your stock

will improve at least a little bit. Do you agree that he has not moved at all here? Maybe move backwards? What do you think? He's the same. His performance was as I, it was fine. It was like the Bill Miller or Sam Cassell of performances. It's just he's fine above average. He's. I guess. It doesn't really move up. Sam and the big balls dance at least, man. Come on, there's nothing here. It was fine.

It just existed. Like, it was three rounds, and I watched it on TV. I would describe it as, I don't know, a Honda Civic of a performance. It's fine, serviceable.

Moves up, I guess maybe one spot in front of Vulcanozum there, but me, just like Azzan Narachic are undefeated. We've never lost outside of a couple odd judges.

I think he's got to fight Jerry Pahaska next. I think that's the fight to make Jerry Prahaska. obviously sent Vulcan O'sdemeer to the Shadow Realm on Fight Island. If they need a fight, Island fight, a main event, I think that's an awesome fight for the next shot at the title after Globe to share at Tiago Santos, of course. I think they both deserve, the winner of that deserves it, and maybe the loser

fights faces as in a Ratchezer, but who cares? I just want to see Joe Pahaska Ratchik. That's violence, written all over it. If Pohaska fights like he did against Vulcan Ozdemar and puts his hands down a lot and beckling him to fight, I think he might eat a base. baseball bat of his shin across the temple and then it would be a bad night for Joe Perhaska. But Al-Azana Ratchik stayed exactly where he is. And that's kind of what you need in the light heavyweight division right now until these next few fights play out.

Jose, I have to bring this up because people have been commenting about it. Ratchick? Ratchik? I don't know. If he wants to come tell me, that's fine. But until I hear from the man's mouth, I'm not going to correct myself. All right. Fair enough.

Fair enough. Jed, do you agree with him? Yuri's the fight to make here and do it for five rounds? because I feel like Zabit's kind of in the same boat. Like you can't give you a title shot until you have a five-round fight. Is Yeri versus Alexander Rockich? Is this main event worthy, in your opinion? It's 205.

Of course it's not main event worthy. Title fights aren't main event worthy at 205. If it's John Jones, that's a different story. Come on, man. The entire reason I would say no is because I don't want to have to watch five rounds of that in case that fight doesn't turn into the violent spectacle that it's probably likely to. I mean, hell, coming into this,

we would have thought that this fight would be a violent spectacle, and then he just laid on Anthony Smith for 15 minutes. So if he does that for 25, like, that's not anything we want. You know, if you want to make it a main event because you should get a main event fight before you fight for a title, who am I to quibble with that, I suppose? But that feels more like a co-main event fight to a fight night than me, because I know we know who Yuri is, Yuri Petrosco,

does anyone else really know that like it's you got to build that brand you can't just run them out of the top and i think think the same sort of applies here with rackage so sure i mean it's fine you're kind of stuck with what you got with the top contenders at light at 205 but that division's garbage that division should just be folded up in general so i'm not really trying to get more main events out of that division fold fold up the 205 everything north of 185 is heavyweight just just do that that's it they should do the same same thing with women's 145. Anything north of 125 is bantam weight or women's heavy weight. Everybody's in the same pool. Go run wild. We don't need to separate out when they're just aren't the bodies for it. Two o five. Look at the 205 division right now. Half of it's blown up middle

weights. Like it's just, it's a bad division. It's been a bad division since like 2004. It's just, it's trash. It's trash, man. Your response to that, Jose. Well, looking at the top five off the top of my head, think I would probably categorize Tiago Santos and Anthony Smith. That's the only true blown up middleweight because Alexander Arachic is not making 185. Jerra Perhaskas is not making 185. Glove to share, Jan Blahovitch, Dominic, Grasas, they are not making 185. So those are all natural 205ers.

It is incredibly shallow as Dean Thomas said on the A side. Like, let's call up for what it is. It kind of sucks. I actually do agree with Jedman Shue there. But there's at least some interest now without. John Jones. We can see who wins a title. And I agree until you beat John Jones, you can't really be

considered the 205 pound champion. But it is what it is. I don't really care if they fold it or not. If they want to move it up to heavyweight or just basically add a 195 cruiserweight division, if that's what you want to call it. I don't really care either. But for now, just keep it for where it is. But I would completely disagree on the blown-up middle

weights thinking off the top. Like, Nikita Krylov is not making $185 either. I think he's somehow still in the top 10. Misha Sarkinov's not making 125. He's probably somewhere in the top 10. Johnny Walker might be somewhere up there. He's like 6 to 6. So not blown up middle weights. There's been a lot of middleweights moving up like Rockhold, Jacaree and this and that, Wyman. They all went back down. So

there's a lot less blown up middle weights than my young challenger is saying. Did you have anything else to add to that, Jed? I mean, I love that he at least knows my name now. Like he didn't know it the whole time. And he agreed with everything I said. and then just tried to piggyback off my brilliant. So sounds like a challenger to me. Jose, if we weren't in 2020,

is Alexander Rackage versus Yuri Perashka main event? If we're not in 2020, that's a, I mean, the UFC loves to put these weird random 25-pound fights as the main events. Like we saw Anthony Smith and Alexander Augustine headline a card in Sweden when they were both coming off losses to John Jones.

So, yeah, like 100% would be a main event. Does it deserve it? it that's another conversation but the u.c loves these real random odd main events especially for fight island now uh i can't imagine jerry perhas is getting into the u.s alex obviously from that part of the world too so if it's a fight island fight so be it but i think this is going to be a main event regardless at any point of the ufc's iteration just because of the history the ufc is done i would love to be in the room when alexander rackage gets a contract and he finds out i got a fight coming up and he called for a title shot and then he gets jerry prehash

he's not going to be too thrilled with that, but it is what it is. That's just where this division is. That's 2020 in a nutshell right there. But I thought Yeri was going to get the winner of that fight regardless of what happened, unless Rackett should just destroyed Anthony Smith in the first minute and a half. But here we are. He should have destroyed it. I think if it was five rounds, maybe he would have had two more rounds to work.

It might not have been so grind him out. But God, I would not want to wish five rounds of that fight on anyone. Well, we're going to get more rounds of this fight. The first round and the point goes to Jedmishu. He is on the board as we head to our next question. Sticking with the other side of that fight, let's take a look at Anthony Smith. This is a man who has had his ups and downs in the sport. He's turned things around in his career.

He got to a title shot with John Jones. Not a good showing for him, as he'll attest to in that fight, but not a great showing for him on Saturday night either. This is a guy who lost to Jones bounced back with a great win over Alexander Gustafson, but he's lost his last two since then. Jose will start with you. Anthony Smith is on a losing streak

for the first time in seven years. His last six rounds have not been good. Before we, you know, before we get into what this may lead to, kind of a broad question, to be fair, but what's going on with Anthony Smith, in your opinion?

I think he's just fighting people that figured him out. I mean, how many fights does he have? A thousand? He's like, I mean, he got cut from strike force. It's been cut from Bellator. He's lost on the regional scene. Anthony Smith losing is not something we've never seen before.

It's not like someone off of a sudden, oh, Alexander Augustus is not a two-fight losing. He's like, no, Anthony Smith has lost two in a row, and it is what it is. He's fighting better competition. He's just maybe, he's not a top five light heavy way. Yeah, he's a good fighter. He has good skill set. Yeah, he's gritty. But grittiness only gets you so far when you get to get you, when you fight someone that's

six four and looks like a linebacker. as an iratch who can just control you like a big brother or as i would say as like i can would control jed in a street fight then that's another story but anthony smith is just facing people who know how to beat him we've seen it it's happened a million times and it is what it is it's not like john jones is losing two fights in a row is it that simple jenn he's facing people who know to beat him because he's not good at fighting like i'm sorry man like i like anthony smith smith as a person i think his last couple of years has actually raised his profile in a tremendous way to like now he's getting commentary gigs that he would have never gotten four years ago like he's just look at his

record who is he beat that's good like the only ones are very recently and shot fighters like he was an also ran journeyman at middleweight his entire career i know that's a word that people hate to use but it's just true he won is almost as many or he won a loss almost as many as he then he moves up to 205 and his run at 205 that got him a title shot let's be very clear Rashad Evans washed Shogun Huo washed Volcanoosdemir probably was never that good and kind of just fell his way into a title shot so it's a name then he got to fight John Jones and lasted five rounds getting dominated by John Jones good on you for that I suppose his one really good win is Gustafson and Gustafson now looks like he's just a washed fighter in general and he was getting

tuned up in that fight before he came with the comeback. I think he's just not that good of a fighter. He's a great dude and an okay fighter. But I mean, yeah, what do you expect? You put him against good people. He's going to lose. Just like you put Jose against me, he's going to lose the first round. He's going to lose the second round. He's going to lose the third round to be the first guy ever blanked on this show and hang his head and embarrass man, walk away. Okay. Well, let's add to this a little bit because after the fight, I'm sorry, I woke up. I fell asleep when he was talking. Oh, God. Do not interrupt me, Jose. That's not good on your score. But listen, Jet, after the fight, Anthony Smith says

something to the effect of he has some big decisions to make, essentially saying that he's a tweener, like too big for 85 because it would mean his whole lifestyle is going to have to change to get there. It's a year-long thing. It's not something he could just cut down to. But he admits, as Jose sort of alluded to, he doesn't have the strength and size against some of these bigger, stronger 205ers. It would seem the ideal scenario is one that you hate

would be to add one of those extra weight classes. You know, Dana White doesn't want it. Jed doesn't want it. But 195 would be perfect for him. It's just not going to happen. So where does Anthony Smith go from here? Jedd, do you see his future still at 205? Just hit the weights hard and get stronger?

Or maybe we'd go the other way and try to get back to 85? No, you just stay at 205. Like, Fighter, I don't, I just generally don't understand this tweener argument. And that goes all the way down, you know, to 165. Like, is it really that big a difference? Like, if you had a 195, is that 10 pounds? That's the make or break. Like, no, you didn't lose to Rockich because he was too big and too strong.

And that made me played a role. But you just got beat up, man, and like, like, take it. Like, take your out. It's okay to have limitations be other people are better than you. and God no, don't give me a 195. That is going in the opposite direction of correct here. So you just say at 205, get faster, develop your skills a little better. Frankie Edgar, who fought two weekends ago, he just fought at Banimweight, won a title at 155.

Like, it wasn't, the division wasn't too big for him. Like, I just always think that's an excuse for you not being good enough to get it done. And, you know, fighters have that internally. They want to believe they're the best. They have to believe. okay but I think it's dead wrong here like just take your L take your medicine move on Jose do you think Anthony Smith's future is at 205 or it's he just overhaul everything and drop back down I think it's 205 and I think it's a little I sort of agree with what Douglas

said but like the gap between 185 and 20 goddamn pounds that is a lot of way it's not like one it's not like going from 145 to 155 like Frankie didn't drop back down at 135 like yeah that's a 20 pound gap. But who did he beat? Beat BJ Penn. And my challengers talk about washed fighters. BJ Penn's been washed about 10 years. Beats up Gray-Maine at a few times. Who's now, who then dropped to 1.45 to cuts to 145. Wins a whole bunch. Fights a massive 1-45 or Max Holloway loses. Fights a big 145 of Brian Ortega loses. So the comparison is there on paper, but it just doesn't have. 20 pounds is huge for an athlete, especially one that has to cut weight.

So I don't care if they had a 195. I don't really care if they had a 165 or they 195 sucks a lot of life away from an already shallow 205 pounds and probably takes a few fighters from 185 too. I don't care if they add it or not. But if I'm Anthony Smith, I just stay at 205 because the path of the title, if that's what he wants, is a lot shorter than going through murder's row at 185. Was that extra weight helping him when he was losing to Diego, Cesar for Herrera? Like, no.

And was that extra weight a problem when he was knocking out Shogun? No. Like, that extra weight became a problem because it's a good answer for losing, not man I just got beat like that's it he just got beat it's he did get beat but I would also say shogun is is not the biggest 205 or neither is Rashad Evans so if he's going to fight a real light heavyweight like john jones and ratchit he's going to lose every time you fight someone like rachad evans who's fought a 185 and looked real bad lost the freaking dan kelly and then he fights shogun who i think should have been a 185 or his whole career it's a little different than fighting

a six four two and five-pound ratchet i agree with my my my chance challenger every time Anthony Smith fights John Jones, he will lose. That is astutely pointed out and has nothing to do with the size difference. Jed, you seem to be against adding these weight classes. A lot of people want it. Why are you against it? Because it's unnecessary. Like, I think all of those answers are always just an excuse.

Like, smaller people can succeed. This is fine. I don't want us to have 500 weight classes. I don't want us to have a light heavyweight already. So, of course, I'm against the cruiser weight. It's just unnecessary. I mean, if you do it and you do it at the lighter weight classes, I guess it's fine because at least at, you know, 145 and 155 have such a large pool of talent that you added a 150. It would devalue some of those belts, but at least the fights would still be interesting.

But the higher up, you do it. It's just you're giving titles to people who are, the Anthony Smiths of the world are getting titles. And again, really great dude, not a really great fighter. want my belts to mean something, which I know is childish because it's the UFC. belts haven't meant anything for years, if ever. Jose, it's interesting because Jed just laid out perfectly. Anthony has a bright future out of the octagon. You know, he does a great job breaking fights down.

He's very well spoken. You could definitely see him doing some color commentary in the future. Great guy, family man, et cetera. And it's hard to ask questions like this because he is such a good guy, but it's part of the job to talk about this stuff. Anthony Smith has gone down some dark roads and come back and got to a title shot. Are his best days officially behind him? Can he catch lightning in a bottle again?

Yeah, 100. His best days have been behind him. He just fought a couple wash fighters and won, and now he's fighting guys who are in their prime, and he's losing it is what it is. But to say Anthony Smith is in the prime of his career would be a folly. I mean, he hasn't been in the prime in a very, very, very long time. So if he wants to keep fighting, he's an adult. he's a grown man he can make his own choices i'm never going to tell a fighter to retire not i would

suggest he probably retires but if he wants one more to see where he's at again he is an adult grown man i'm not going to tell an adult grown man what to do with his career my name is not jed mishu and i do not say things like that um but it is what it is given one more fight then he can ride off into the sunset and be a color commentator any chance he can rekindle this jet or is is it all behind him no chance no he can't rekindle it you lightning doesn't strike twice and that's all this was. I think he doesn't need to retire. I mean, I begrudgingly will agree with Jose.

I'm not one to tell fighters when they need to do something. You're a grown-ass man. You can make your own choice. And he can make a lot of money fighting. And I think that he's at least shown enough not to be like, oh, crap, Anthony Smith's going to fight. He's going to get knocked out in a blue of fashion. So if he wants to keep going, sure.

I suggest all fighters retire because there are like three fighters in history that it's actually been a good career decision to do this. this. So I always suggest fighters should retire. So yeah, Anthony Smith should retire on those grounds, but, you know, not from a physiological standpoint. He's not totally shot. His chin's still holding up.

He's okay if he wants to keep going and keep getting them checks, man. Given the way it is, he'll probably get another main event on Fight Island. Well, we all love a comeback story, gentlemen. I mean, he's done it before. Maybe you can do it again, but I think there's only one fight that makes sense. That's Luke Rockhold.

Let's just book it. 205, 180, it doesn't matter. Do it at 205. But just don't do it. And he can win that fight. He knows how to throw a left hook

so he can win that fight. Well, since we love a comeback story, point for round two goes to Jose Young's. He has even things up as we go from one tough conversation to another. As we saw the return of the former UFC welterweight champion Robbie Lawler on Saturday night.

Jed, you and Sean, were both in agreement that, yeah, it was cool to see Robbie's name on the card, but the matchup wasn't ideal, and that's exactly how it turned out. It was a complete one-sided win for Neil Magny in the co-made event of UFC Vegas 8. Robbie just couldn't pull the trigger at all. He shot for a take down early, and it was just a weird thing to watch. And the narrative surrounding Robbie Lawler is that the wars that he's had with Roy McDonald and Carlos Cond, the knockout lost to Tyron Woodley, this was the beginning of the

downfall and eventually the beginning of the end. He's lost four in a row. he's lost five out of six. Jed, after seeing what happened on Saturday night, and we know what you want to see, it's a fight with Anderson Silva. Although by all indications, that is probably unlikely at this point.

Where does Robbie Lawler realistically go from here? He goes to Anderson Silva. I don't give a crap about realism. Like, that's the fight. That is the fight. I have one other ones, just because I know you'd make me do it anyway. That's the only fight.

Like, I learned nothing on Saturday. I knew going into that event, the Neil Magny would win in exactly the fashion he did. It happened. We learned nothing. Robbie Lawler is not the same fighter he once was, and Magny's just a really bad style matchup for the fighter he now has become. He throws a lot of volume.

Robbie doesn't. He's not really there to get hit a lot. It's just not a great opportunity for him. But against a washed Anderson Silva, they can both just go out there and have a very slow-paced, fun, legend fight. That would be awesome. It's the fight that makes sense.

Just book it. Like, does anybody actually care about Anderson Silla versus Uriah Hall? Does anyone at all other than Yerai Hall's immediate family? No, no one gives two craps about that. So just book the Robbie Lawler fight. That fight's amazing. That fight would be good. It's way better than Anderson trying to fight Anthony Pettis or Connor or some

nonsense like that. Book that one. But if they're not going to book that one, you mentioned the guy I should fight next. God knows why Carlos Connett still insists on fighting. and that's really heartbreaking in a lot of fashion. But run that back. That's, for my money, the greatest fight that's ever been other than Kimbo Dada. So, you know, and that's a tough one to beat.

So other than that, it's the best fight of all time. It's the best UFC fight in history. They're both washed, so you're not going to get the same version of it. But we have seen time and again when the UFC does run out those kind of garbage, old man fights from, you know, yesterday that were good, thinking specifically, Shogun Little Nog. Like, their third run was, that was a fun fight. It wasn't the best fight of the year or anything, and it was a little sad to watch

how far they'd fallen. But that fight was really good still and do the same thing. Carlos Cond and Robbie Waller are going to have a fun fight if you put them. Make that a main event. I would way rather have five rounds of that fight over five rounds of rackets versus whoever that nonsense kid on the other end of this camera is. Well, you're not excited for Carlos Condon versus Court McGee? No, no, I'm not.

Why would you match Carlos Conn against anyone who wrestles frequently? Like, that's just the dumbest idea you could possibly have. Callers Conner's just going to lay there, try and throw up triangles, not succeed, and lose a decision to court friggin McGee. Like, book him against Robbie Lawler. Know your audience, Sean Shelby. Come on. Where does Robbie Lala go from Saturday night, Jose? Mike Perry.

That's literally the only fight I want to watch. It's in the same way class. they're definitely not going to wrestle. It is the polar opposite in terms of personalities. Mike Perry is basically a human rooster who just walks around, like squawking at everything, doing weird movements with his head and body, and Robbie Lawler doesn't go outside or talk to humans. He, I love, love, love fights where it's just one man staring and one man just acting a fool. And that is the definition of Mike Perry versus Robbie Lawler.

I know Mike Perry put out his weird, like, make-a-wish foundation list of fighters who have called him out. Robbie Lala is not going to call anyone out. He's not going to fight for the title ever again. I actually think he lost to Carl's Condit. You can make an argument. He lost Johnny Hendricks that second fight. And then obviously, what would that be? So he lost to Johnny Hendricks, was losing to Rory McDonnell before he broke his face.

I think he lost to Carl's Connett. It gets crushed by Tyne Willie and then beat Soroni. And then now he's on that four-fight losing streak. So this all of a sudden, quote, drastic decline of Robbie Lawler has been in a long time coming. I don't necessarily agree with my competitor that Condit Lawler is the best fight of all time, but I put a top five, but I also think Robbie Lawler lost. And because he lost Johnny Hendricks, I don't, I'm not as surprised as everyone else that this drastic decline in ruthless Robbie Lawler's tapping.

He's still a terrifying man. If they want to book him against Anderson Silva, whatever. It's 2020. Crazier things have happened. But for my money, I want to see Mike Perry versus Robbie Lawler because someone is going to bed in that fight. Yeah, that's someone's Robbie Lawler. My opponent wants the old man to get hurt, and I'd rather at least him have a fighting chance against.

I agree, a guy he got a bogus decision over for the title anyway. Carlos Condit, the welterweight champion of the world at one point in time, he was robbed, and I'd like to see them run that back instead of watching Mike Perry of all people get to be the one to put Robbie Lawler out, like, in a way. No, I don't want it. That's a shameless fanboy, and I don't care. You think Mike Perry deserves that opportunity, Jose? After everything he's gone through?

What deserves what? What deserves what? Fighting a guy in a four-finding a losing streak? But there's a name attached to him, though. There's the cachet of fighting Robbie Lawler. It doesn't matter when the losing streak. It's Robbie freaking Roller. And now there's a name attached to Mike Perry for acting a fool outside of the Octagon. I guarantee you I would completely favor Mike Perry in that fight.

But the people who want to tune in and watch Mike Perry get beat down, the guy who screams the N-word at people, the guy who's just the most ridiculous human being in the UFC right now, I don't care. I want to watch that fight. Well, Wabi Lolle lose? Probably. But I think Mike Perry has a name too. So a guy with the name versus guy with the name, two people that are can fight for the title anytime soon

that are probably going to try to put each other in the ground. I'm fine with it. All right. So sort of building on that, you know, Robbie's reputation precedes him. No matter who he fights, there's still a part of us. It's like, yay, Robbie Loller's. fight and like, I can't wait to tune in, and then we all seem to sort of let down with what happened. And, you know, nobody likes to look at Robbie Lawler in the light that we're looking at him right now.

And we hate throwing out the R word. But Jed, let me present this question this way, because we're not the ones to tell people that they should retire or not. But if Dana White was at the post-fight press conference on Saturday, there is no doubt he would have been asked about Robbie Lawler in his future. So, Jed, you get to be Dana White here. What do you think Dana would have said had he been in attendance on Saturday night and was asked that question? Man, see, this is where you're killing me with the no camera because I would have just started getting real mad and getting my face really blotchy and red. So I could Dana up here.

But I think it would go something like this yada yada yada, yada. You goof. He can fight as long as he wants to. He's a former champion. And, you know, it's hard to argue with that point. Like, he is. He's a grown man and can make his own decision. and Robbie Lawler has earned the right to dictate when he wants to exit this sport because he's not getting sparked.

Like he got sparked by Tyron Woodley. Okay, everyone in the world has the ability to get sparked by Tyron Woodley. You know, he's been in there. Like he's competitive. He's lost some fights. The Askeran loss was a little bit trash. But that, you know, he didn't get knocked out. He's still there.

He went with Colby Covington for 15 minutes. And that's a tough fight for him to kind of hold up to that deluge of offense. So, you know, he wants to keep fighting. I'm not opposed to it. I think you just need to level set with him a lot better. And you're not, stop giving him top 10 opponents. Neil Maggi was going to beat him the whole time. I know he's still ranked based on, you know, his name value.

But no, he needs to be on the Legends Tour. He needs to fight Carlos Condit. He needs to fight Anderson Silva. My opponent, again, making my argument for me, yeah, he needs to fight a guy with a name, a guy who's going to try and knock him out. But he just forgot to add. needs to fight a guy who he has the ability to beat. It's not an interesting fight to

watch him fight Mike Perry. Mike Perry's just going to knock him out. Carlos Condit, either man can win that fight. Same with Anderson Silva. Legends Tour. That's the move. What do you think, Jose? Because I feel like Dana would have said something to the effect of, you know, I eff and love that guy. He's a warrior,

but yeah, I think we need to have a discussion. What do you think he would have said? Well, first of all, he lost Robbie Laososos-Colvo, Covington, in 25 minutes. That was a main event on the newer card. not 15 minutes, but I'll give it to him. He's never watched MMA until probably about a year ago, so it is what it is. But I'm not even going to pretend to be Dana White because I'm not a gross human being, and I don't want to feel that vibe.

But Dana White would probably something say, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you start to have to have that conversation. As soon as you have one foot out the door, it's best to hang them up. Maybe I'll have a conversation of Robbie Lala, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. But Robbie Lala is not going to have that conversation with Dana White, because Robbie Lollah doesn't have a conversation with anyone outside of his coaches. It's hard to get two words out of his, out of a conversation with Robbie Lollah, let alone a full on. Should you retire?

Should you hang them up conversation? So, no, I don't. Dana White's not going to have that conversation with Robbie Lollie because Robby Lauer's not having that conversation with anyone outside of his family and his team. I'm not a gross guy. Says the dude trying to get Robbie Loller lit up by Mike friggin Perry. Come on. That's some real Dana White matchmaking right there. Don't comment me with that nonsense.

Uh-huh. One thing that is almost unfair with this whole thing is that this conversation, and it has been since Saturday night, it's been more about Robbie Loller losing than Neil Magny winning. Like, this is a big win for Neil Magny. Having Robbie Loller on your resume, losing streak or not, that does mean something, and he deserves a lot of credit for taking Robbie out of his game and dictating the entire fight, probably after Robbie shot for that first takedown. He's two wins away from tying for the most wins in UFC welterweight history. he deserves a big fight after that win. What should that fight be, Jedmishu? I disagree.

This is not a big win. Sure, Robbie Luller has a name that people know. Again, he's lost four in a row and just he's not there anymore. This is a timing win. I don't think this moves him up in any fashion. Maybe it gives him slightly more cachet. But really, it doesn't because he didn't even knock him out. Like he didn't finish Robbie Lovler.

He just won a clear decision. over the balance of the fight. So, I mean, given, I don't know, there are a lot of kind of like middling, middle or welter weights to choose from here. Stephen Thompson, I guess, maybe makes a little bit of sense. You could always just do Leon Edwards because God knows everyone hates Leon Edwards, and he's not going to fight Jorge Mosfidal, because why would Jorge Mosvado do that to himself?

He has far better opportunities in facing Leon Edwards. So I pick anybody in the top ten, throw a dart at the back half of that, you could do Tyrone Woodley when Tyron Woodley inevitably loses to Colby Covington. And so then Neal Magny just goes on, I'm going to beat old guys who are washed to tour. That'd be kind of fun, I guess. You know, anything is fine. Neal Magni is just not a guy you're going to get excited about. He's a meat and potatoes dude.

Who is actually a really good fighter. Jose, what do you think? I'd want to see the Neon-Neil fight or the Vicente-Luke fight. I don't want to give him fighters coming off a loss. Stephen Thompson is a really fun fight, but I don't think, and Stephen Thompson would take that fight. But Neil Magne is what, ranked 14, 15 or something like that? I know RDA is going back to Lightway,

so everyone automatically moves up one slot by default. It is what it is. They want to make the Michael Cesa fight. They've been talking about that fight forever, but Michael Cesa is very adamant that he's not going to fight anyone beneath him. So Magny, I mean, Neil on Neal or Vicente Lucke, I like both of those fights. If Jeff Neal isn't recovered in time,

it is what it is. Vicente Lucay seems down to fight anyone. I mean, he fought freaking Randy Brown, who's not even ranked at the time. So if you wants to fight another guy, a volume fighter that'll bring the action, fine. Insente Luque, Neil Magne, sounds like a fun fight to me. Jed, where do we put Neil Magne?

Because when you start putting these win lists together and you see him having 17 Walter Way wins, two away from the great George St. Pierre, you start having these discussions. Where do we put Neil Magny on the list of, all-time welterweights. Is he like a top 20 of all-time welterweights, top 10? Like, he's

clearly one of the most underrated fighters that we've seen, but where would he put him on that list now that he's starting to sniff that territory with some of these bigger names? You and I run in very different circles if you're starting to have that. How great is Neil Magny from an all-time perspective?

That I can honestly say that has never once come into my head as a discussion point. So everything you're getting right here is off the cuff and it's going to be, are you insane? Neo Magnet is an underrated fighter and if you want to have the all-time underrated fighters discussion, maybe he's in the top 10 of that. Like, I guess by virtue of just his success, maybe he's at top 20 welterweight all time,

but that's, I mean, any top 20 ranking is just hogwash right out the gate. Like nobody's actually doing doing the work to grind it out and slum. select between 17 and 18. Like, you're just picking names that you want at that point. Your top five, maybe your top 10 are tight. Everything after that is just throw him in a barrel, see what happens. I mean, he has some okay wins, but the problem with Magnet's career is all of his wins are against, like, the best names on his resume are all washed people, which is why I said

he should fight Aaron Woodley. Like, Robbie Lawler, when he beat him, washed. Carlos Condit, when he beat him, washed. Johnny Hendricks when he beat him, washed. Those are the best names on his career, and they're all just old guys who need to be put out to pasture. So I don't think you can talk about him seriously in the greatest of all time discussion. Like, he's just one of those guys. Like, Jim Miller is a great fighter.

And Jim Miller is much closer into the greatest, like, top 15 lightweights of all time discussion. But you're talking similar career trajectories where they were never the guy, they never are going to get to a title shot. they were always kind of outside of that lower-in top-10 guy for a really long time, and because of their longevity, they picked up a lot of wins. But you can't have a serious conversation and say, oh, yeah, Neil Magnet, top-10 fighter top-10 welterweight of all time. That's just ridiculous. Jose, what do you think?

I want to put him top 10. It's obviously you can't argue with numbers. If he breaks George St. Pierre's record, it is what it is. That's awesome for him. George put something out like Hank Aaron did with Barry Brown. Vaughans. Cool. It's a good little social clip, but he's not top 10. He's not even fought for the title yet. I think he's what? Headlined

one card. If that, I believe the Santiago-Ponsenivia, which he lost. For once, I actually do agree with my challenger. He's beating a lot of guys that were on the wrong side of their careers and lost a lot of guys in the prime of their careers. Didn't take Lorenz Larkin seriously. It got absolutely pieced up,

choked out by RDA and then cried in the back, and then got crushed by Santiago Ponsonibio. So, not top 10. If you want to make top 15, top 20, cool. But let's have that conversation if and when he beats George St. Pierre's number. But again, I hold a lot more away with GSP's title wins over current Hall of Famers and former champions than I do with Neil Magny beating like Craig White and Lee Gianling and Anthony Rocco Martin. So even if he passes GSP, I would still hold GSP's wealth away wins record in a lot higher regard. Oh, I would definitely agree with that. Obviously.

human being would it? Yeah, dude. Some of us think clearly. Some of, some of us can formulate thoughts in our brain and put them out for humans to understand. You should give it a shot sometime. If Neil Magdy got 50 Welterway wins, I still don't. If he got, yeah, if he got like 30 wins under his ball, let's have that conversation, but that's not happening for a while. Is it still not jump at GSP? If his 30 wins don't include any title fights, yeah. It's like, is he going to become like the Michael Bisbing of the Welterweight division until Bisbynian? just had to take an 11-day fight against Rockhold to get his title shot.

Then we can have that conversation. And Mike, they need to be real, real title wins, too, not like fake interim title wins that don't mean crap. When you fight some guy randomly for an interim belt that's just garbage from top to bottom, those don't mean anything. He's got to get a real title, a championship belt on him, or else just completely disregard him as irrelevant. Well, 170 is still great.

will be for a long time. We're Neil and Magdy fits into that mix. Time will tell. But the point goes to Jedmishu. He's up two to one, but you put him away here. We'll see.

So we head into our final question because this is the topic I've been looking forward to since we were chatting before we hit record. The UFC is back on Saturday night in Las Vegas with another star-studded event.

This one, headlined by you remember. This one headlined by Alistair Overeem, taking on the surging Augusto Sakai. Jose, let's start with you. Last week's panel, which includes your opponent, Jedbushu, they poo-poohed last weekend's card in a big way, said it was really bad. They also said that leading up to UFC 253,

the cards get better with each weekend that comes by on the road to September 26th. Now, most eyes surely are on September 19th with Covington and Woodley. But comparing UFC Vegas 8 last Saturday with this weekend's splendid offering, is this one any better than last weekends? This is a real bad card. This might be the worst card we've seen in an apex where Overeem is Overeem. He's obviously a big name, but he's never going to be a UFC champion. And then Augusta Sakai is coming off a split decision at heavyweight.

Like if a heavyweight fights to split decision, that's basically an L. You can't put your opponent away in 15 minutes. Not only that. What, did he fight Andre Arlowski to a split decision? Yeah. Yeah, he fought Arlowski to a split decision. You know who else far Arlowski to a split decision? Brendan Schaub.

Like that's who's in, like, yes, Brandon Schaubb, quote, unquote, lost. But split decision win at the heavyweight division is basically an L in my mind. So it is what it is. I guess they want to make a Gus of Sakaya thing. They need some sort of young names at heavyweight. It didn't work out with Walt Harris when Overeem beat him. This is a bad car. I can't say it any other way.

This is probably the worst card in the apex. Who, the co-main event is what? OSP Minifield. Wasn't that the co-main event of the Frankie Edgar, Pedro Munoz fight? And we were saying that was the worst card of the apex and the knack out, bump to this. OSP should have stayed at heavyweight. Like Jed said, everything above 205 is heavyweight.

Fine. Just make them fuck. Just don't have these guys cut weight. They're not going to fight for the title anytime soon. Just show up two musly black dudes and just throw haymakers at each other. Fine. And other than that, there's some names I recognize to Jarkey. UBanks is the name that I recognize.

Michelle Pineda is don't even put him in media day. Just throw them in there and have him do quadruple backflips. Don't even fight someone. And I'll be more interested in that. And then what? Montana della Rose I think is on this car, Vivian Arugel. Those are names that he recognized too. So not a good card, not a real good card at all.

I would probably, on A.K. Lee's weird gymnastic rating that he always gives where everything starts off with the rating. On a scale of 1 to 10, this is like a 2. and that's just because I recognize Overroom's name in the main event. Jed, what are your thoughts on this card? I'm sure you're going to be the positive one here and find all the great that nobody's seeing here. There's not a lot of great to money here. I'd also like to add on to the future losers' comments there.

Not only as a consistent guy won two split decisions, he lost a split decision to check Congo and has a majority draw on his record. like this guy is not the next big thing at heavy weight so we can just we can just put those thoughts to bed look last week when we were talking about this i did say that cards got progressively better in the build-up to 253 and i stand by that statement because last week this card was very different uh ricky simone brian keller was going to be a banger of a fight uh kevin the tiby dodd stepping in is okay uh it's an lFA guy who's actually pretty fun and interesting uh to watch but that's not nearly as final fight as the Ricky Simone fight was going to be uh macy chey asan to jara ubanks that was also a good

fight and now it's not like this fight this fight card got hit a lot lately but it's still better for one specific reason and that reason is named mishapahe like that that's it that's all i need to watch this card he should be the main event he doesn't need it because the man just is incapable of going five rounds i'm confident in that he can barely go one and a half so like unnecessary to give him five rounds, but this is the people's main event. It doesn't matter who you match him up against. Any warm body is going to be good. I mean, you could put him in there against Jose.

It would still be a really entertaining fight to watch. Zalim Amadeev is not a guy who's good, so this would be fine. Like, Michelle Paya can actually do something ridiculous and get like a backflip K.O. win or something dumb. Or who get DQed by also doing something dumb. Either way, the price of admission is worth Michelle Paheyer. And that's just vastly better than anything else on this card and certainly anything on the card last weekend. Well, it's that it's that time on the show that we asked Jed Mishu for his Ed Herman versus Gerald Mearsart type booking for this card.

Because there's got to be something that sticks out to you that you just think is all sorts of wild and crazy that, you know, could tear things up. I mean, we got you picked Zach Cummings versus Dichor Rico and Cummings almost got a walk off K.O. at the end of the third round. So anything stick out to you? Yeah, I mean, when you're picking underrated weird fights, you either need to go middleweight, which is a hilarious division, or you just go heavyweight because there's a really bad division and bad fights can often end funny. And so for my money, you got to go Marcos Higero, Lima versus Alexander Romanov. Alexander Romanoff is coming off a slam-k-o, so that's always just a good time. And then Marcos de Lema is, I mean, his average fight time is like 90 seconds or something in the UFC, it feels like he's, every time he's been in there, it's been really fun and dumb to watch. This is a guy who got Von Fluchoked by OSP.

Like, he's win or lose. It's probably going to be throwing some things. and that's just fun. So at least that's a more entertaining fight than the main event as far as heavyweights go, I think. I mean, couch that. There's always the possibility that it turns into a disaster. But that's the fun with heavyweight.

You never know if you're going to get something good or some just absolute drivel. It's a toss-up. Is there a weird, wild one in your eyes, Jose? They're just like, I'm not necessarily like completely interested in this, but this could be chaos. maybe Tiago Moises and Jalen Turner I mean it's lightweight lightweight deep

those are names that I recognize I think Jalen Turner all of his losses are bought by knockout or something like that and all of Tiago Moises wins are by knockout or submission so chances are if Moise's wins it'll probably be by a stoppage they're neither guy is anywhere near the top 15 maybe even top 20 it's the first fight on the main card it is what what it was Taggo Moises coming off

what a crazy what was it Achilles lock or Achilles choke, something like that, whatever it was against Michael Johnson. Yeah, it was something bizarre like that. So we're going to see a weird submission because I freaking love weird submissions. It's probably going to be that one. So sure, I'll circle that one. I recognize those names. Weird submission.

What are you talking about? My man Alexander Romanov has a forearm choke win in his record. And he's going against a guy who is it? Isn't Alexander Romanov from like the 1700s too? And wasn't he like a professional hockey player? There's too many eyes and Romanoff through the history of time. time. Hey, this one's called King Kong and he's a fat white guy from Belarus or something like that. Sick dog.

He's from Moldova. He's from Moldova. Sick dog. I wanted to ask this last week, but we just were running out of time. But, you know, listen, it's a pandemic. We're playing catch up a little bit. There's TV deals and play and all that. Business in MMA, one million percent is not my strong soon. But, Jed, we have a UFC event. If my memory is accurate here. every weekend through December 12th on the book. So we're not going to get any breaks anytime soon. And we've glanced over this topic a time or two when it comes to these cards getting put together. This is a perfect example of what we have in a pandemic. We're still going to watch. It's our jobs or fanatics. That's just the way it is.

But I think we're all in agreement. And you mentioned this last week, Jed, that there's just too many events. Like we have no time to even miss MMA or miss the UFC. Not to mention on top of that we get contender series, which I love. adding in Bellator, LFA, you know, all these other regional events, so forth and so on. It's a lot to keep up with. Don't forget to add in. Fight circus, Sam, Zoda.

Very important. Jed, how would you do it? Like, if you became the UFC commissioner in charge of scheduling events, how would you do it? Like, how would you make this better for everybody? I mean, from a business standpoint, this is exactly how they do it. Their contract requires them to get X amount of events delivered each year so they can get a ton of money from ESPN. So they're going to rifle them out. because they missed six weeks on events.

They're just going to fire them off. That's fine. Like, I, it, my, for fan entertainment and my viewing pleasure, I think, you know, having two events a month was a really nice cadence. It let you have personal time. You got to have Saturdays to do things. That was nice. Oh, those days, I remember them well. But you still got big fights and you could have a fight night that was interesting or fun.

or and then you could have the one big pay-per-view or big-time event each month. I think that's a better cadence. Honestly, I actually, I think that you can do this. You can do weekly fights. They just need to not do it on Saturdays. Like, that's the problem. I know Saturday is fight night,

but do this on like a Thursday, a Wednesday. Everyone's stuck home anyway. You can watch it. Then it's just like, watch it. Football, like, that'd be way more fun as a viewer like, oh, okay, I got nothing to do on Wednesday night. What am I going to do? Watch a rerun of Law & Order SVU?

Nah, I'll watch. I'll watch Augusta Sakai for God knows what reason fight Alastair Overeem and about that actually matters in the year of our Lord 2020. What would you do, Jose? I would just make it real bizarre and just stack like

every single card would just be one-way class. So you get 12 heavyweight fights or 12 lightweight fights or just something bonkers like that. So everyone weighs the same. If a fight falls out, you got a guy right there. Say two guys, both of their opponents test positive for COVID. Boom, make that fight right there.

or toss a bunch of names in a hat and pull them out. Just do something weird like that. And then they're all on the same timeline. And if we're going to live in a world where the white, where rankings matter and titles matter in the UFC, they're all of a sudden all in the same time frame. So just give me 12 heavyweight fights inside a small cage and then 12 straw white fights in a massive cage

and just make it super bizarre and super weird. Let's do that. Then give me 12 women's featherweight. fight so we can actually have a weatherway division 100% that'd be good or just have like rose namuna stand on the shoulders of jessica and have her fight Amanda nunes or just something weird like that those who've listened to the show from the very beginning know that chaos always pays off always pays off so hose has earned the final point of regulation we're going to the knocker around big surprise to our viewers who love to comment on it but uh it's a title unification about and it's my show and i want to

hear more. We're going to do it. I will say, to be perfectly honest here, I had another question lined up, but things have changed over the last, I don't know, 20 minutes or so in my viewing. So we have a new question that I'm going pretty much off the cuff with. But Jed, you're the champion. You hold the cards. Do you want to go first? Do you want to go last? Oh, I will allow the challenger to get the first word in because it will be his last. I will have you know that the original question was going to be about Oscar Delahoya coming back. Oh, I have takes on that. No one wants to talk about that.

I do want to hear Jed's takes and maybe we'll do so at the end. But we found out around an hour ago as you record that former WWE and UFC champion, Brock Lesner is currently a free agent as his deal with WWE has come to an end. the two sides are not able to come together on a new deal. So that means Brock Lesnar's floating around doing God knows what. So, I mean, you could obviously go to ADW. I don't think they're going to be able to afford him. But that opens things up a little bit, does it not, when it comes to the world of M.A. Brock Lesnar, A, Jose, is there a chance he comes back?

And if so, if Dana White can pull a rabbit out of his hat and get Brock Lesnar back, what's the fight? Well, it's Brock Lesnar is going to go where. ever Brock Leser wants to go. For all of this, oh, he's loyal to the UFC. Brock Lesnar is loyal to who pays the most. He is every definition of the word, a mercenary for whoever shells out the most green. Don't care who he fights. I just want to see a giant white King Kong fight inside of some sort of ring or octagon. I would absolutely freaking love it. If all of a sudden he was inside of a ring and just throwing human beings over ropes into crowds, do 12 on one and he can do it. Just give them weapons and I'll watch that fight.

want to, everyone's going to say, Francis and Gano, don't want to see that. If they want to run it back with Kane Velasquez, fine. I guess that's a thing. If they want to toss him over in Bellator and have him fight Fadour, I mean, everyone wants that fight. Daniel Cormer is a fun fight, but I personally want to see him fight John Jones

because at heavyweight, because that's every definition of the word, a weird fight. That is a man who is physically gifted in every sense of the word, Brock Lesnar, against probably the fight with the highest fight IQ inside the octagon, not outside the octagon and John Jones.

I just love those odd, goofy fights and clashing personalities and fighting style. But don't really care. If Brock Lesnar never fights ever again, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. All right, Jed. How do we do this right? How do we do this? Brock Lesnar, if we're up to you, if you're the MMA genius here, where does he go? Who does he fight? Well, first, just to address Jose really quick, if what you want to watch is some giant white King Kong fight, you're in luck because Alexander Romanov's fight nickname is King Kong. So tune in on Saturday. You're getting your wish.

This is never happening. Brock Lesnar is really good at a couple of things. The thing he is the best at is leveraging the UFC to get more money out of Vince McMahon. He's done it successfully for several years now, and that's all this one is. If by some strange happenstance, it happens, this is the fight. This is the fight that gets Daniel Corriolme back one more time. I know a couple of weeks ago when I was defending my title because I'm the champion, and we had addressed how do we get Daniel Cormiere back,

and it was maybe a John Jones fight at heavyweight. Nope, Brock Lesnar. If Brock Lesnar comes back, that fight makes sense. DC will get one more chance to go out on top. Big fight, big fight for both of them, two old guys. No one wants to watch John Jones, you know, point Brock Lesnar to death. That's a dumb idea, Jose. Give me DC, Brock Lesner, book it.

Interesting. Can I get your take on Oscar Elahoyo, Jed, before I make my found decision? So it's nothing to do with the points, but go ahead. I've been lied to before that this has nothing to do with the points, but I will say if De La Jollaoy is going to come back, and I know Ali Abdel-A-Ziz actually tweeted about this yesterday or over the weekend, let him box Henry Sehudo. Who cares, man? Henry Sehudo really wants to do something weird and dumb other than fight at the Bandemweight Division. So he wants to box. He's never going to actually get to fight like a real top boxer, but De La Halee Hose still beats him.

So why not? That's kind of a fun, interesting crossover fight that at least has some appeal insofar as Oscar De La Jolla at 50, boxing has any appeal whatsoever. All right, it's a good take. The King of Hot takes coming through here with his thoughts on Oscar at La Jolla.

It sucks not having to throw this to Casey to make the decision because now I have to weigh it all. Like, I already get enough shit for, you know, the round by round decisions, but I have to make this final decision to you. That's half the reason why I wanted to do the show this way is I'm not to deal with the finals.

the winner of this week's between the links and still BTL champion Jedmishu gets it done. I'm not sure if and still met me. Well, you're the one that cried that wasn't looking fondly on interim titles. I mean, I agree, but I can't speak for you and maybe you were just going to say and still interim title, which means nothing, Jose Young's. It could have been what you were going to say. No, I was going to say Neil Maggi is a top five

welterweight of all time, but I'm scared. It's just not true. But a great battle. This is everything I hope for and more. It's like buying a Toyota in the 90s. Jed, 30 seconds, talk about whatever it is you want to talk about, good, bad, indifferent. Jose had that look on his face.

He's too young to understand that reference. But go ahead, Jed. What do you want to say? Well, I actually wasn't going to talk about Oscar De Lafoya. And now that's, that wind has been taken from my sales. So I guess the thing on the thing, talk about is UFC 253 because I know that we bagged on this card up coming this weekend and even the one next weekend is not as great. After that, you do get Covington Woodley, which is at least a big fight,

but all of this is building to UFC 253. And I got to say, I love the promotional push they're putting behind this. I know Adisinez, you know, their future golden goose. And I think that they've been building him well. He's a great dude. He's got a really great story and a tremendous fighter. And I we talked about before, I think Paula Costa is the most interesting test form in the division. So I love that they're giving this kind of the full court press for a month. And it's just going to keep building. It's just going to get better. This is the kind of, you know, $252.

I didn't get that pumped for. I'm going to be really excited when this fight finally rolls around. Jose, any final thoughts? Anything you'd like to get up your chest? Well, I definitely didn't lose to say, Sugar, Sean. To quote Sugar Sean, I may have the L on paper, but I'm still undefeated. up here. Full blown conspiracy. This is all against the movement that I am champion. Of course, I will be a four-time champion. Actually, no, I never lost. I am still and still undefeated and

undisputed. Jedmishu, I think that's his name, can carry around whatever he wants to carry around, but we all know I am the victim. He can go back to portraying a squid from Rocket Power. You can rent him somewhere down south if you have a Rocket Power themed birthday, and he can do whatever he wants with whatever belt he carries around, but I am still undefeated and undisputed. I would go to a Rocket Power theme birthday. Well, you would have to because you would be cosplaying a squid.

I accept these terms. Call my management. I accept that. I'm in. Wow. You come to an agreement at the end. Rocket Power brings us all together. We can all agree that Rocket Power is pound for pound one of the best cartoons

Nickelodeon's ever put out. Done. I think we can all agree with that. One of or the best? No, I still put Hay Arnold above there because Hay Arnold rules. Rock probably put two. Doug's really good too. Doug is good.

Yeah, okay. I'm in with all of those decisions. I accept that. I mean, you short trip to Rugrats, just real veteran in the game there. Yeah, Rugrats is like the hoist Gracie. It's like really good and everything caught up with it and it just ended up. That's the best point he's made all night when we started talking cartoons. My kids on a Phineas and Ferb trip.

I don't know if you guys ever watch that. I think I've heard of those two. Yeah. Yes. It looks like they took a shark fin and put eyes on it, right? Is that that guy? Yep, I think you're right, but he loves that thing. And I love doing this show.

But we'll be back to normal next week. Casey and Esther can enjoy their vacation, but then we're going to put them, put their asses to work to put this back on YouTube, get the video going. But a great episode. I'm glad we're able to do this. Make sure you subscribe wherever you're listening. For Jed Mishu, Jose Young's.

I am Mike Heck. We'll see you back once again next week, Between the Links. Love you guys. Apology accepted. This has been Between the Links with your host, Mike Heck, brought to you by MMA Fighting, a production of Vox Media. Listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.