MMA Fighting - Between the Links: Episode 15 | Is Nick Diaz Really Back? Alistair Overeem Wins Again, Bellator's Doubleheader vs. UFC Vegas 10

Episode Date: September 8, 2020

Check out episode 15 of Between the Links as Mike Heck moderates the trilogy matchup between MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew and Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp as they give their takes on Nick Diaz’s reported comeback in early 2021, and what would be the right fight to make should things fall into place perfectly. In addition, the panel discusses Alistair Overeem’s fifth-round TKO win over Augusto Sakai in the main event of UFC Vegas 9 and where he goes from here, how the UFC handled the dominos falling on Saturday ahead of the event during the COVID-19 pandemic, comparing Bellator’s weekend doubleheader to UFC Vegas 10, and more. 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

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 and your host, Mike Heck. Thank you, Esther Lin, as we welcome you to a brand new edition of Between the Links on MMAfighting.com.

And ladies and gentlemen, it is officially trilogy time on the show. You thought Steppe Mietchitz versus Daniel Cormier 3 was a big deal? We have a matchup even bigger than that. right here on the program this week. And with so much to discuss, let's just get right into this as we introduced the man who got the first win in this series. The former BTL champion back is the challenger this time around from Fifell.com, Mr. Sean Ross Sapp, one of the busiest men in media these days.

Just so many announcements that concern Sean Ross Sat these days. Welcome back, sir. How are you? What an apt comparison as I, by all intensive purposes, retired from MMA coverage like a month ago. hired a new editor at the site. And then you all just keep dragging me in. You keep pulling me out. I didn't even watch this show until I was booked for this podcast.

And I'm still going to win. That's the way it's going to be. If I don't, I might pull LeCormier and retire. I might retire. Oh, man. So there's even more on the line here. We haven't even got to the first question yet. I got goosebumps.

As we introduced the reigning once again, defense. between the link and he defeated Jose last week and what has become. Maybe the most controversial decision in the history of this program, at least amongst the fans and the listeners, but regardless of what you may think watching and listening right now, it is in the books as a championship defense for this man from MMAfighting.com, Mr. Jed Michoud. How are you, Jed? I am fantastic. Controversy is nonsense.

All of my other contests were closer than that one last week. That bummed I never need to step in the cage with me again. And, you know, you brought up Steepa, D.C for the trilogy, I think that's an apt comparison because, you know, the first time I got caught. I got caught slipping. I lost, came back, reclaimed what's mine. And this third one, I'm going to put a stamp on it. And I'm going to retire this bum.

You're all done. Nobody can touch me. I love it. I love it. But we're just going to kick things off with the big news over the last 48 hours or so. So I'm sitting there yesterday. I'm like, wow, Labor Day is tomorrow. What am I going to do?

Let me just go through Twitter before I fall asleep. And Aria Hawani tweets out a video is around 15, 20 seconds or so of Nick Diaz looking like he's in fighting shape. He's looking really good. He's ripped up, sweaty. Looks like he just cut a bunch of weight. And the tweet said that Nick Diaz weighs in around the 165, 175 pound range per his manager, Kevin Mubenga. And that Nick Diaz, of all people, is planning on a return to Meshiret, in 2021.

And also he's going to have his eyes on some of the big welterweight fights coming up or the ones that are in the works. I guess Covington versus Woodley, Usman versus Burns, and then the rematch between Mazadol and Nate Diaz targeted for January. So Jed, you win the draw this week. We're going to start with you. Everything that I've seen, it's been kind of a mixed bag here.

A lot of people are excited. Some people think it's another, you know, here I am. It's Nick Diaz coming back, kind of a move, but nothing's going to happen. And then there's the camp that's just like, who gives a rat's pituit here? So, Jed, what side of the fence are you on? Are you into this? Are you a who cares or are you right in the middle?

I'm a who cares because it's not going to happen. Look, it's one of the great ironies in our sport is that Nick Diaz is the guy who invented or brought the wolf tickets term into the MMA lexicon because nobody has sold more wolf tickets than Nick Diaz. Not even Brock Lesner has brought this much will he, won't he, the Nick Diaz over the last few years. This man hasn't fought in six years. wasn't won in a decade. Like, even if this was the one time he decided he was going to come back, why do we care? He has not won in a decade. Do you know who he beat last? B.J. Penn, that's the last win on Nick Diaz's record.

I mean, if he comes back, okay, but it's just not going to happen. There's just not too much to talk about here because why would he be eyeing the top contenders anyway? Like, that's just not. Like, it's just ridiculous. I know Tyrone Woodley was always kind of interested in that fight when he was. as a champion, but it would have made no sense then. And that was three years ago.

Like right now, if Kamar Usman fought Nick Diaz, we should all be ashamed to cover this sport because that would be an absolutely ridiculous title fight to make if he ever came back. But he's not going to. It's a moot point. This is all just spinning all wheels here. Sean, your thoughts? What side of the fence are you on?

Are you into this thing? Do you not care at all? Are you like, wait and see? Not only do I not care. I'm an OG of not. caring about Nick Diaz. Way back to the strike force days, I didn't care that much about Nick Diaz because he was spoon-fed a lot of people that fit the style in which he competed in.

He didn't get a lot of wrestlers, I mean, here and there, but it was primarily fights that he was going to win. You knew he was going to win. You knew he's going to back somebody up against the cage and pepper them. And I'm completely with Jed. Hasn't won in nine years and we're supposed to care that he's got his eyes on the big welterweight fights. I don't care what division he's got eyes on fights on. He shouldn't be fighting in them unless they're side show freak show fights or just, hey, here's Nick Diaz on

the card. I mean, they already had him booked at one point against like Mazvedal or something like that. It fell through. The guy just never fights. He never does it. The wolf tickets term is completely fitting of this. Every, it's, man, it just seems like it happens once every about 16, 17 months, then you hear, no, I'm not going to fight. They didn't offer me enough money. And hey, can I sympathize with that? I sure can. But I can't sympathize with anybody who doesn't get the refund on the wolf tickets they buy every single time he does this. No, he ain't coming back. I don't care. On a scale one to 10, John, you're giving it above a zero at all? Yeah, I'll give it a one or two because people do need money. But,

Will I watch it? Yeah, sure. But I would also, I watched Chuck Liddell fight Tito Ortiz recently, so, or fairly recently. I watched Tito Ortiz beat up Alberto del Rio. So, yeah, I'll watch it, but it ain't happened. Jed, Sean's saying one or two just because of the people need money sometimes kind of a thing. Are you around that? Are you lower?

Are you higher? Where are you at here on a scale one to 10? It's a negative seven. It's just not happening. Like he's not coming back. The man's 37 years old and hasn't fought in 10 years. Honestly, that video, I was the most, like the only thing that I thought was good or I took away as a positive from that is that maybe Nick is kind of getting his life into a good spot because there were some times that were potentially worrying some of his behavior. So I think, you know, if he has found, you know, refound training and stuff like that, great.

That's a positive influence on his life. And I'm very happy if, you know, he can continue to make positive progressive. steps. But he's not coming back to fighting. He's just going to be like, oh, yeah, I'm interested in fighting Kamar Ustman, which would be an insane fight. Kamar Ustman would pistol whip him. And then when he doesn't get that, he wants to fight Jorge Mastodal for $37 million and he doesn't get that. Well, the UFC couldn't make it happen. I'm going to go promote MMA again or do more triathlons. Like, he's not coming back. So this is all nonsense. Jed, you've been on this show long enough to know that we're not ending there, all right?

because I'm a positive thinker. We have our proverbial glasses. They're half full right now. So let's just say that Nick Diaz is serious, that this is real, that he wants to come back. And I think that the most important thing here is, and you both touch on this, that he's at least realistic about things. Like, if he's going out there and ask it for $10 million to fight anybody, that's just insanity and we're never going to see him.

But let's just say he's realistic across the board with everything that is going on in the current landscape of the sport, Jedmishu. what is the fight to make? Nick Diaz versus Blank. I mean, if he does come back, big if, but I'll play your game here, Mike. It's Robbie Lawler. I know Stephen Thompson is kind of thrown his name into the ring, but we don't need to see that fight.

I think we're pretty clear how that'll go. Robbie Lawler is definitely faded. He's coming off that loss. They have the history, you know, with Nick knocking Lawler out with the jab two decades ago. That's how long ago the fight was. it feels like, I think that's the only fight that even makes a modicum of sense here, unless, if you want to go really outside the box, really wildcard here, Ben Ascran just got hip surgery. And he has been saying that now that he's got hip surgery, when that comes, you know,

when he's back to being mobile, back to feeling okay, he could be interested in one or two off returns to fighting, you know, just on a onesy-to-sie basis, depending on if the match-ups right and the money's right. I think the matchup makes a ton of sense for Ben Ascran, certainly, whether D.E. Diaz would be interested in that is another question entirely, but the money would definitely be there. So I think Lawler all day, but if you really want to throw a curveball, something outside the box and funky, funky, just in case you miss that. Want to be clear.

Funky, Ben Asgren is a great call there. Interesting. Sean, what do you think? I got a guy in mind that has history with Nick Diaz, has multiple three wins since Nick Diaz has last one. It's the only answer. It's KJ Noons. It's time to run it back. KJ.

Noons. Nick Diaz, he's got a better resume over the last decade than Nick Diaz. No, actually, I ever want to see that fight. I think that the good one, I would say, oh, they could, maybe they're Anderson Silva again. Now that they're both even more washed than they were before. Like maybe, maybe there's that one, because let's be real. Anderson Silva, they're not going to, if he wants to fight again,

they'll let him fight again. fight again. Yeah, I wouldn't hate the idea of them like throwing pettus at him too just because they can say a former champion against Nick Diaz or something. That sounds like what they do. Long live KJ. Noons. That is hilarious. I guess I'm going to put myself as cautiously optimistic when it comes to Nick's return. I don't think, I don't, I'm not all in, but I feel like it may happen more this time around that it has on the past. But if it, I meant the point now that if it doesn't happen now, I never want to hear his name again unless he's cornering Nate.

And we don't even know if Nate's going to freaking fight anymore. But at that point, like three years ago. I know. I wouldn't mind. He's going to have to reenter USADA. And so that means we have at minimum six months for him to be back, which, which means it can never happen. It will never happen.

I also wouldn't mind Donald Soroni if he moved up to 170. That seems like the kind of fight that the UFC would like to make. make and it's the kind of fight I would like to watch too before well I would like the idea of watching it because it wouldn't make it into the cage did Nick actually like flat out retire though like did he say like I retire no so he's still like I know he got suspended from usada like a couple of years back because the whereabouts tests and stuff is he like not in the pool at all I just assume that he hasn't like why would you intentionally be in the usada pool for six years without fighting.

That would be actual like so. Travis Brown's still in it, isn't he? I can't possibly believe that's true. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. He was when Ronda was in WWE at the very least. That would be mind bottling. Yeah, and I think. Well, Rhonda was for a while.

And then all of a sudden you started to see no tests. So, and UFC won't comment on it. But no, I don't think Diaz owed, didn't he owe a big fine and never ended up paying? it either. Yeah, he was given like a lifetime ban and like $10 million fine because Usada is insane. It's just one going to last six months with a program that he actively despises and has treated him poorly. This is all, he's never coming back. Yeah, Travis Brown is absolutely still in the Usada pool.

He has been tested twice this year. Wow. Is Nick in there? You're pulling it up? I'm pulling on the work. I'll call Travis Brown and ask him why. Okay. Nick Diaz has been tested twice this year. Three times last year.

Three times in 2018. Are you sure that's Nick and not Nate? It says Nick. And Nate's been tested twice this year as well. Why would anyone give up their privacy to not come back to fight? They climbed up Elias Theodorus fire escape to tap on his window and be like, hey, hey. And he had a free Nick Diaz shirt. on when they did it too, which is kind of funny.

That is hilarious. Wow. I am stunned by that revelation. This is unbelievable. We're 16 minutes in the show. We have our first revelation. This is beautiful. I retired from coverage.

And I'm giving you guys the USADA scoops. What's going on here? I don't pay attention to USADA because I think it's a broken, useless waste of money and I hate it. So as far as I'm concerned, USADA doesn't exist. Sure. I'm going to give the points to. the Challenger here, just because he did so much work. And that was an enjoyable round.

Could have got either way, but I think Sean just had to put in the extra effort. And it paid off for him. So he's on the board. As we move ahead, we go from Nick Diaz to a look at this past Saturday night. Alistair Overeem puts a stamp on a shortened and condensed UFC Vegas nine lineup with the fifth round Ticchio finish of Augusto Sakai. He won again. he's finished four out of his last five victories.

He was four seconds away from having five wins in a row before the Jarzino fight ended the way it ended. And this guy just continues to do his thing at 40 years old. So Sean Rass up. We're going to begin with you. Where does Alistarovareem go from here? Because with his experience and his resume, it's not a lot of fresh options here at the moment, right?

A motivational speaking tour among every late 30s, MMA heavyweight that exists. He can say, you can do it. It doesn't matter if you get knocked out repeatedly in progressively embarrassing fashion. You can come back. You can be relevant. You can succeed because not only has he done it, he's done it after multiple bouts

of this, like Bigfoot, Travis Brown, Rothwell, he came back and he did really well. Then he did it again with Ngano Blades, even Rosenstruck. But I mean, like the fact that he was able to hang in there even after overcoming that early adversity. And dudes won, like, quietly won four out of five. That crept up on me. When I realized that, I was like, man, and he beat Walt Harris. That's a pretty good win.

Beating a Linux, a good win. But it's, he's fought everybody. What? He's not going to fight steep. There's way too many options in front of him for that. God, if, I mean, Brock's a free agent, and he ain't coming back. That ain't happening. I'm sure they would love to have him.

liver kick Brock Lesner and make it right in the diverticulitis again. So I don't know what's left for him. Rosenstruck already happened. Blades already happened. So I'm looking there and I'm like, maybe Derek Lewis. Maybe that would be a good one. I think that over him would probably bring a fight to him. And when usually when people bring a fight to Derek Lewis, it brings the best out of

Derek Lewis. So that's probably the direction I'd go. Jed, what do you think? Can we have him fight Nick Diaz? Is that on the table? Like, I mean, just a touch on what Sean said. How sad is it when we consider wins over Alexio Lennox and Walt Harris is like good wins. The heavyweight division is only better than the light heavyweight division.

That's where we're at right now. And also, Sean, Alistair can't be the motivational speaker. That title firmly belongs to Andrei Alasky, who had twice overcome forefight, knockout, losing streaks to rebound and reinsert himself into contention. But on to Overeem, I think you just kind of hold your time with him. I think they've started building this story of one final title run. That's a good promotional tool. You should try and get the most you can out of it.

You need to match him up carefully. One more win, and you can't throw him in at whoever the champion is, be it Stepe or Inganu or John Jones. However, all of that shakes out in the future here. But one more loss, and that's probably going to derail that title run. So I think you need to be really careful. I think that you really have two options. Girozini Rosenstark has been a name floated out as a rematch, just given that Overeign was 30 seconds away from winning four or five in a row.

So I'm not that interested in that just because that did happen very recently, even given the contours of that bout. I think Derek Lewis, maybe there's some heat there just because of the tweets over the weekend. But no, for me, run it back with Junior Dosanto. JDS is in that weird state of his career where he's also just going to keep fighting. He keeps looking okay until he gets knocked out, very Chris Wyden-esque, if you will. And I think, you know, they had a good fight back, however many years ago that was at this point. I think you run that back.

It's a winnable fight for Overeign. Two legends, you can headline a main event or you can main event a fight night card with it or co-made a pay-per-view or something like that. I think that makes a lot of sense. Basically, you just want to keep Alistair on. as much as possible. And then sometime middle of next year, just run him into a title shot over whoever has the belt, give him that last hurrah, that final sendoff, and give your champion a potential, you know, to make a big statement win over, over, you know, a legend in the sport, a future Hall of Famer

because that's where Alistrovere him is, even never winning a UFC belt. That guy's a first ballot hall of fame or my book, certainly. And I think in the UFC's book as well. So I think that's where you go with them. Pretty simple, straightforward stuff, really. Jed, let me follow up with you because, I mean, obviously, we've seen the comparisons on Twitter. We look at the physique of Uberine back in the day to where he's at now, and people love throwing those split shots out there. But, you know, he's obviously a different guy, he's a different fighter.

And his game plans are much different than we would have seen maybe a decade ago. But however it is, like, he keeps getting dubs in the UFC. Like, he keeps winning fights. Like, what do you equate that to? Like, when most guys his age are, you know, are fighting, they're on the decline. line, he's on a run right now. Why is that? It's just because the division is, as you said, just only better than the light heavyweight division or is there more to it than that? Well, first, his physique, he's 40 years old. The man looks phenomenal for 40 years old.

So if you're coming at him over that, like, yeah, everybody looks better when they're 30 than they're 40. That's just how life works. Sorry. But I mean, I think some of it certainly is just that heavyweight is a bad division. But I think heavyweight is interesting. in that capacity because it is kind of a bad division, but it's maybe the most unique division because experience matters more than in any other division because everybody can turn the lights out, you know, flick of a switch. It's hard to sustain success. And if you have the tools and the traits and the experience to do that, that's not going to go away. Neither is your power. So you can, you know, when you see Legends fight, when you saw Anderson Silva fight, I guess later in his career,

he was still getting wins with craftiness and guile, even as his physicality maybe declines some. That's more evident in heavyweight. And I think that's what you're seeing with Obring. This was one of the best physical specimens that's ever competed in the sport. But he was also low-key, incredibly skilled all around. This is a K-1 champion and an incredible, unbelievable grappler. He actually hasn't used his grappling as much as he probably should have. He only resorted to it when it became necessary. So I think the fact that he is really smart and kind of knows how to pick his spots and maximize the tools he still has at his disposal really helps him, especially as he's taking on, you know, guys like Augusta Sakai who don't have that wealth

of knowledge or, you know, all credit to him. Sikai looked good certainly early on in that fight, but really he got out experience because, you know, after toughness, which I think is actually the most important trait to have as heavyweight, I think experience is the next best one. And that's why you get so many, you know, long and the tooth veterans who can hang around for 10, 20 years in this division. Sean, what do you make of Oberim's recent success here? Well, I mean, I like it because it's good for the relevance of fight cards. And as Jed said, oh, he could headline a UFC show with that. It doesn't matter who he fights.

We've seen the UFC. They'd headline Overeem versus Parker Porter if they could get away with it. And they could because they booked the shows. They would put him against anybody they could. I love that he's being, that he's successful because he is a relatively big name within that division. And as Jed pointed out, Paul Harris, Alexi Olinic, we consider those good wins these days. And And Andrei Arlowski is, he hangs around. The UFC pays the man $300,000 because he used to hold a championship.

15 years ago. That's the state of the heavyweight division. That's how desperate they are for anybody with a familiar name to be thrown on some of these cards. So I think it's very good for the UFC. And the fact that these fights usually end in pretty spectacular manner with Alistair Overeem, that's about all I can ask for out of a guy at his age, his experience level, and what he's got left. True or fall, Sean Rossap, Alistair Overeem will fight for the heavyweight title once again before he calls it a career. Oh, man. I don't think he'll retire. I think he'll hang on until he's like 45. I think somehow he does end up by hook or by crook. I don't know if it'll be like a deserved thing. It might be like, oh, this guy walked into a chainsaw and now he can't

fight type of thing. But yeah, I think I think he will. Jed? Yeah, I think I actually definitely think he does. Again, it may not, it's not going to be a Francis and Ghani title shot where there's no way to deny him, but he'll get one on the back of what he's done in the sport and maybe good timing. Maybe John Jones gets the heavyweight belt, and that's an interesting fight in that capacity. But I mean, this guy's done everything in the sport, literally everything you can do except for win the UFC title. And I think they're going to repay him for that. He has five former UFC heavyweight champions on his resume as victories. Like, that's more than anybody else except for, as far as I can tell after I looked into this.

Fador has six. It's Fador beat six former UFC heavyweight champions and Overeem has beaten five and JDS also has five with him there. So I mean, that's an incredible resume and he's given so much to his sport. I think they just sort of give him that Dan Henderson style, oh, you've got a win? Sure, title shot. Let's do it.

Yeah, to be fair, we don't know how many former UFC champions are included in John Hess's 200-no record before he got to the UFC. like he could have beaten a lot of these people on the come up. They just didn't keep records that well back then. It's a great point right there. There was no tapology in SAFTA. Look at Sean trying to sneak in there and try to win this round the last five seconds. My career's on the line, okay?

You're like Rick Flair right now. I love it. But, you know, honestly, it's been amazing to just watch Overim continue to do his thing. He just goes in there and he fights and he's winning a hell of a lot more than he's losing. So you got to take your hat off to him, just like I will take my hat off to Jed Michou for winning round number two. Even though he had a great reference, Sean Ross Sapp at the end, well played. But Jed just had a great round there. He was on fire.

I'm going to have to bench both KJ Noons and John Hess. They're not up there on my depth chart anymore. I think that's a good decision. I'm just going to go ahead and say probably a smart plan. The KJ. Noons was tremendous. That kind of put you over the top, if we're being honest here. But let's head to our third topic of discussion. And let's talk about Saturday as a whole.

Okay. So the entire week was bananas, as most of you know by now. So Thursday, we have the virtual media day for UFC Vegas 9. And by the time it was over, maybe an hour later, I confirmed that the UFC already had new plans for Shajara Eubanks, who was scheduled to fight Carol Rosa on Saturday. that now she's going to fight Julia Obila on the next card this coming Saturday. So Julia was supposed to fight Nika Montanio like three different times.

October 3rd at Abu Dhabi was the latest date. Montanio, after having COVID, was having issues trying to get a passport. So they make the switch. Carol was at a bad weight cut. So UBanks fights Obila this Saturday. So this is a kind of a typical thing. Like it's not really by definition outright pandemic related. But later on that night, Brian Kelleher takes to social media and says that he's got another fight.

Kevin Natividad was out. So I reach out to Kevin's team. I'm told, no, he's fine. It's a false positive. He took another test. He came back negative. We're good to go. Kevin's going to fight.

So Kevin weighs in. Looks like we're a go. They did have Ray Rodriguez as a backup, ready to go. He makes wait just in case. And Saturday afternoon, we find out Rodriguez is in and Natividad is out. And then it was just like a domino effect. Tiago Moises versus Jalen Turner off the card. Marcos Ruggiero Delima versus Alexander Romanov.

That is off the card. So we're down to seven fights. Jed, I just spoke more. in those last minute that I probably spoken on this entire show combined, but a lot to unpack there. But let me ask you this. We understand that the UFC and ESPN, they have an obligation to put on X number of cards

during this deal every year. The pandemic slowed them down, just like it slowed everybody else down. They played some catch-up on Fight Island. And before that, now we're booking events every weekend through the middle of December at this point. Should they just have bagged this one out of precautionary reasons since everybody was testing positive for COVID,

or do you think they made the right call to move forward Saturday night? Of course they should have bagged it. Let's hit you with numbers. You just threw out the ESPN thing. Let's just talk about it. They are obligated to give 42 live events this year. So far, including this past weekend, they've done 26. And like you said, they've got weekends booked to mid-December.

Do you know how many weeks there are left in the year? There's 16 weeks left in the year. 16 weekends left. If you add that up, that hits exactly their 42 live events. There's a reason they are running back to back to back events filled with people who don't have Wikipedia pages. There's a reason they're signing all these contender series people. They need to put bodies in the cage to fulfill their quota because they want to get $750 million.

And who doesn't? Who doesn't get $750 million? I get it from a business standpoint. But absolutely, you know, in a reasonable world where that obligation isn't happening. If the ESPN deal isn't kind of forcing their hand in this regard, they definitely were just said, hey, let's scrap it. All this stuff fell back. We can push some of these fights to next week or a couple weeks after. We can rebuild, maybe just rebuild this whole card in a future date, but they've got to get stuff in.

And so come hell or high water, cards are happening every weekend so long as they can say, we fulfilled our obligations. The bonus is this past weekend was delightful. The card itself, eh, but seven fights was like. Lovely. John Anick mentioned it on the broadcast, and, you know, I personally loved it. It's nice to watch an event in the same way I would watch other sports in the U.S. A football game, a baseball game. It's three and a half to four hours instead of seven to eight hours in my entire day gone. So, you know, silver linings there, but by no means, should they have put on this card last weekend. Sean, since they do, they own their own friggin building. That's where 90% of these cards are happening. And they could probably, you know, pull it off. And I know it would be a pain in ass, pain in the ass from like a production standpoint. You know, they could have postponed this. Maybe a few weeks.

Maybe just added a Wednesday card. And it sucks how we got to seven fights. But like Jed said, it was quite refreshing just having a seven fight card. They could have bagged Saturday night and rebooked it. They chose not to. But there's business and play. Is there a right answer here, Sean? Like, is there a right answer?

Yeah, first off, hope everybody's healthy because that's a bummer. But, I mean, I have never seen ESPN and UFC's contract. I don't know if there are a certain one, certain number of physical in-cage fights mandated, hours of content, hours of live content. That was a big concern with WWE earlier this year when they were doing tape shows. A lot of people wondered, well, are they obligated to provide live content? Because as you mentioned, this takes place in a building they own. If they can't control leaks in that manner, well, I mean, there's a lot of,

there's a lot of creative ways that you can get around stuff like this happening. Like, I'm surprised the UFC actually hasn't done a show with like more produced, more in the can, so to speak, than what we've seen in the past, because one, they can control the pace of it a lot better.

And there are no fans. You're not appeasing any fans in that regard. But the number of hours they're obligated to put on might be an issue as well. As I mentioned, before we went on the air, I was watching an AEW wrestling pay-per-view that night. It was longer than this show. And that doesn't happen much.

I also told you guys off the air, we hired an MMA editor. In wrestling, so many people complain about the seven-hour WrestleMania that happens once a year. That is every Saturday for the UFC. If you're lucky, that's every Saturday for the UFC. And if you watch the post-fight press conference, God forbid, it ends before three in the morning, Eastern time. Like, you're talking about a weekend commitment at that point instead of something that you should just be able to sit down and enjoy.

And that's what this show was. I watched it today and I got through the whole thing in a very reasonable amount of time. And it was refreshing. I didn't feel like I didn't feel like it was a chore. like I was sitting around and waiting. Now also, I didn't have the downtime between fights, but I'm glad that they did it. And I hope that them doing this showed them that they don't need to do things the way they have,

even though they will continue to do so. What can be done, Sean, from like a logistical standpoint moving forward? Like, the idea of, like, having fights in the can is a pretty damn good idea. But this is MMA media. And the results of that stuff will get out just as quickly as the pro wrestling ones do, if not faster. So this is. I mean, what happened this past Saturday is probably going to happen more and more over the next several months.

Like, is there anything that can be done? Like, I mean, you can have more backups ready, I mean? But like, what can you do to like improve this or at least have some sort of plan here? Also, I mean, you got to report the results, the athletic commission. The athletic commissions generally report those results as well. So some issues there. But I mean, like, earlier in the day, even to where they wouldn't necessarily get out as much. But yeah, media would be an issue there.

To me, you want the product that draws the most people in. And I think the way that the UFC views it is, well, if people don't want to watch those prelims, they just won't watch them and they won't care about them. And I think most people are like that. Like, we that have covered this stuff, we have to sit through everything and we view things in a much different manner than the casual fan who might not even know,

that prelim fights exist for the love of God. They tune in when they see it up on ESPN. They're like, yeah, cool. What can they do? Pacing is as good an answer as I can provide. But really, it's putting on fights that matter. Putting on fights that matter are ultimately what draws me to a card and make me decide if I'm going to watch them or not.

What do you think, Jed, during this crazy time? Because, I mean, if they just kept doing rolling out 70 fight cards, I'm fine. I'm good. Let's party with that. Even if they did like multiple times a week, they sprinkled in a Wednesday card or a Thursday card. I'm cool with that too. But like,

what do you think they should do during this crazy time so we don't go from 12 fights to seven fights in a matter of a 48-hour span? I mean, I don't actually think there's really a way to get around it. I would love if they just moved to eight-fight cards. But the nature of the time is that if they, if they just led with an eight-fight card,

then you have a five-fight card because you're going to lose three. And that seems to be where they're drawing. on the line. Like if they only had four or five fights, they're probably not going to put that on as an event. And there's probably some contractual obligations there as well for why that wouldn't constitute one. So I think that we kind of actually settled in an okay spot where it's unfortunate for the fighters, certainly the ones, you know, booking fights, dropping off, playing chaos and havoc with their schedules. But it sort of is the best scenario for us, the viewers, to, hey, we've got 12 fights. Some of these will fall off, given the nature of the

beast where we are now. and you're going to end up with eight, which is a pretty good number for a fight card. Moving forward, once we're past, knock on wood, you know, this pandemic and all, then maybe they can take this internalize and go, hey, we don't actually need to have 13 fight cards. That's actually a relatively new addition for us. Eight, ten fight cards is much more reasonable, and then we don't need to be signing all these super raw prospects who aren't good, and we're just throwing darts at a board hoping one sticks. So I think that, honestly, there's not a way they can fix it.

If you're trying to host continuous live events and you don't have a bubble because they don't. They've got people all over the world that they're flying in. You know, they're isolating them for a set period of time. But there's just no way to do that unless you're going to bring your entire workforce into one pod and lock it down. And that's not going to happen. So I think we're just sort of stuck in the world where for the next few months, hopefully that's it. Any fight can fall off for any reason, you know, at any time, even up to a couple hours. hours before the event. So, you know, knock on wood, we don't lose too many of the good

fights because so many of these cards are one or two good fights and then a lot of filler. But sort of the hand we've been dealt here. And we got two more cards coming up before they head back to Fight Island, including the September 19th card, which I believe has like 16 fights on it right now. I think there's 16 fights, 15 or 16 for September 19th with the addition of Mickey Gall and Miguel Baezza. And then we just added Hamzat Shamaa versus Gerald Mirchart to that card as well. So Savannah and IT is just wild heading into Fight Island. But the point for this round goes to the challenger, Sean Ross Sapp.

As we go to two to one, we head to the final question of regulation. The first of these two cards for the UFC goes down this Saturday. Of course, the main event, we've been very excited about the main event. for this card. We thought this is going to be like the turning point for some of these A-OK cards. Go over to share a test positive for COVID. So the fight with Tiago Santos, that has been postponed until October. The new main event for Saturday is Michelle Watterson versus Angela Hill. And if you look at the card as a whole, it's actually pretty good. There's a lot of solid matchups, has the makings to be a fun one. Belator is also back this weekend

with not one but two events on Friday and Saturday from the Fight Sphere at Mohegan's on Friday night is headlined by the rematch. Everybody's been clamoring for for a long time. Phil Davis and Leo to Machita. Saturday is headlined by just a really good fight for the vacant bandamweight title between patchy mix and watcher later. Sean Rossap, I know Bellator has two events here, so it's almost like it's not even fair, but because the UFC only has one.

But let's just say like you took the top seven or eight Bellator fights and matched it up with the UFC's best seven or eight fights. Who has the better slate this weekend? Name value Bellator in Cage, probably UFC. Phil Davis and Leota Machita, all right, sure. I am interested to see what Kat Zingano can do, if anything. I always like watching Ed Ruth fight. You got Raphael Carvalho and Tyrol Fortune on that show.

Even Leslie Smith on there against Amanda Bell, who a lot of people might remember used to beat horsewomen all the time in her spare time. Used to do that. Juan Archeletta, I like watching his. him. John Fitch once gave us the quote that he found out wrestling was fake and cut the weaners off of wrestling figures because they were not men. They were not real men. So I'm very excited to see him fight Neiman Gracie just because also I want to see Neiman Gracie tested in that regard. Love watching Liz Karmouche too. However, over in the UFC card, I look up and down and I was like, all right, you have more people that are near real MMA relevance. at least, and some that aren't. They're just kind of hanging on. I mean, we're not talking like anybody's going to get a title shot off of this card or anything.

But for name value, I'd go with Bellator. For in Cage, I think the better fights are going to be on the UFC show. Chad, what do you think? I think this is UFC all day. Like, the Bellator, Belator has that problem that Belator faces a lot, whereas they have half of a good fight. So they've got a lot of names that people may recognize, either from, you know, past accomplishments or potential future stars like Tower of Fortune.

But the other end of the B sides of all those fights are maybe two good fights collectively across the event that are something interesting. Like realistically, everything else is, hey, this guy's, you know this guy, tune in for this guy, he's going to beat some dude you never heard of. It's not that compelling to watch. It's sort of part and parcel of what Bellator does. they sometimes give us great legends fights and stuff like that that are make us feel bad but excited and interested but the other end of it is is when that's your your body of labor you're just going to have some nights like this and that's you got two of them for for the bell to event the this UFC card you know we were talking about this a couple of weeks ago because again I've been defending my title forever because I'm a great and wonderful champion you as you said this was the card we were excited to look forward to and it only got better when we added Ed Herman

Gerald Mearshart. Unfortunately, that fight has not fallen through as well, so the card is substantially worse without it. But this card has a lot of really good fights on it, a lot of really interesting people. This is going to be one of those exact cards that makes Dana White not a liar, and I hate it when that

happens, but when he always says, you know, if you don't like it, don't watch it. Even if there aren't the people that you recognize, these are going to be great fights because they can always can be. That's kind of what's going to happen here. I mean, look up and down this UFC event. Outside of my weird Ed Harmon obsession,

look at the other fights. Matt Schnell, Tyson, Nam, that's going to be a banger. Flyweight usually is fun anyway, but that fight is, that fight's going to be awesome and exciting. I love Frank Camacho, Brock Weaver's.

That's kind of a weird and interesting one. Brian Barberina doesn't know how to be in a boring fight. Roosevelt Roberts, Matt Favola, great. The co-made event, Camerworthy, Otman Ailitar is actually like a good fight as well as a fun one. So, I mean, I think up and down, they're just a lot of good, exciting fighters on the UFC card in competitive matchups. So if I only got to watch one, I'm watching the UFC event all day, even without what would have been the uncrowned light heavyweight champion.

That's the fight we lost. You didn't mention that, that it was for the title of the best light heavyweight in the world. And we've lost that fight now. We're going to get it back in the future. But for a couple of months day, there was going to be a true light heavyweight. champion before Dominic Reyes ends up taking that belt from Jan Blahovic. So we go to one of my favorite parts of the show, especially when you're both on at the same time. Jed, let me start with you. You mentioned that Camacho versus Weaver is fun, but kind

of weird at the same time. But what's sort of the under the radar slobber knocker that you have circled this weekend? I, like I said, man, this card has a lot of really good ones. If you're just tuning in for one fight, you can always pick a Brian Barbarian a fight just because he, like I said, he doesn't know how to be boring. But I think for me, it's matched Matt Snell, Tyson, Namp. Like, I love fly weights. I know not it. It's not everyone's cup of tea. But Matt Snell also doesn't really know how to not be entertaining and have weird stuff happen, win or lose. He's great at losing in spectacular fashion as well. And that's really what you want when you're looking for a sleeper fight is someone who can win in impressive fashion, but also knows how to lose. He's great. He's great. He's

lose in really devastating fashion. It's a talent to lose spectacularly, and Matt Favola absolutely, or Matt Favola, absolutely has that. So I think that's the fight I'd go with. If I only got to pick one, I think it's that. But again, if only Gerald Mershart was still on this card, it would be at Herman Gerald Mershart all day. Mike Rodriguez is just not quite as fun as Gerald Mershart would have been. probably still going to be worth tuning in for them. I would agree with that. Sean, what do you think? What's your crazy fight?

I actually think that Katzangano's fight will end up being good, and it will actually probably end up being relevant because you know she is one fight snooze or knockout away from being put in that cage with Chris Seibord. That's what's going to happen. Doesn't matter. She is there. She's competing at 145.

if she beats Gabby Holloway, they will immediately put her in there with Chris Cyborg. So there are some stakes there as well. Now, do I think she's championship quality? No. Do I think she's seen better days? Yeah, like six years ago, she's seen better days. But I think this fight will actually end up being really, really great.

Because, one, I don't think Katzingano is nearly as good as people think that she is or was or any of that. And Gabby Holloway will probably give her a better fight than most. people expect her to give. And Gabby Halloween ain't that good either. Do you think she's not as good as people think she is because she's lost four of her last five or just in general, do you think Katz-in-I? I just always didn't think that she was as good as what people thought. I mean, I will say that I forever get to use her post-fight interview after the Rousey fight

as like a meme of how I act every time my wife beats me at literally. anything. So there is that. I had it in, but I didn't have it in. And she did good. She did good, guys. Do you also charge you your wife and get armbard in 14 seconds? Yeah, that's usually how it works. Amazing to me that that woman beat Amanda Nunes. Oh, man. I want to hear more. So Jed Bishu gets the point. We go to the knockout round. He did good, guys. He did good. He did good. He did good. He added in, but he did. But it's time of the knockaround.

The final, could be the final knockout round of Sean Ross Sapp's career here. Will be. Will be. You're done. This is an emotional knockout round question. But for those who are new to this game, one question will decide it all. Neither competitor knows what this question is. They're each going to have 60 seconds to answer.

And then our judge back from a well-deserved vacation, Casey Lyle We'll render the final decision. Jed, you are the champ. You want to go first? You want to go second? I will enjoy the champion's prerogative. I will let Sean speak his final words ever on this program before he is laid to rest and can go to the world of pro wrestling,

never to darken my doorstep again. All right. All right, Sean, here's the question. We have, for a while now, we have been wondering what the next move would be for one, Hamzat Shemaya. after Fight Island. It's been pretty quiet for the last few months, but all of a sudden,

Dana White comes out and speaks to the media after Wayans on Friday and says that the UFC is looking to book a fight between Hamzat Shemayev and Damien Maya in October, which is interesting, right? But it turns out that Shemayev has already agreed to another fight

on September 19th against Gerald Mirchart in Las Vegas at 185 pounds. So he's going to do that, fight Gerald. he's going to turn around and go to Abu Dhabi and fight Damian Maya. So my question is, what do you make of the UFC booking Hamzad Jamiyev in two fights in two different weight classes and two different parts of the world within three to four weeks time before one has even happened?

Plus, did they get this right in terms of opponents? I know there's a lot to unpack here, 60 seconds, on the clock, and go. This is way too ambitious. Gerald Mearschart is the right opponent. Damien Maya, even though he's a lot of. older. I like to compare him to a knuckleballer in baseball. He's still got that knuckleball. It might not be as effective as it used to be, and he can still throw it in his mid-40s. Like, he's still got it. It still works, and you just never know with him. Gerald Mearschart was the right one to face.

If he were to beat Gerald Mearschart, blow right through him, I'd feel a lot better about the idea of chucking him in there with Damien Maya, and especially, like you said, different places in the world, different weight classes, short periods, this rarely works out in the way that you want it to work, either on the amateur, professional low levels or the professional high levels. I think maybe it worked when they thought that John Jones would beat Shogun and, or I think he beat Bader and fought Shogun. But they even waited until after the fight to announce that. Just wait until after the fight.

All right, Jed. same question for you, 60 seconds on the clock. We're talking about a guy who may have been your fighter of the year after Fight Island. He was mentioned in your discussion, but now he's back with not one but two fights on the books. Your thoughts, go. I love it. I love ambition. And the UFC so rarely goes out on limbs or does anything ambitious or fun because they can play it safe.

I think, yeah, like you run a flag up a pole. You know this guy is someone you want to build behind. Go ahead and say, we're booking him. three fight do another one after damien maya you know shone's idea that if uh well if if he gets through meershard then announce it he's gonna get through meershart mehsurek was gonna go hammer and tong led herman he's gonna get whooped up on by shemya that's that's a done deal so it's totally okay to just stake your claim hey this is our guy and we're gonna pair him you know one two three the maya fight if they were to invert this maya's a real dangerous one so i'd be a little more concerned about

that but no, I think this is perfect. I love that they are taking a stand saying, hey, this guy, this guy's our guy. He wants to fight every weekend. We're going to let him. We're going to push him. And, you know, if he does this, if he beats both of those, maybe he is the fighter of the year because four wins, come on. That's really impressive. All right. I- Mier-Shart beat Duran win on Amphetamines for the love of God. Come on. Ron wins five feet tall and not from Russia. Put some respect on his name. Beat a man on Amphetamine. Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, we have a minute timer for a reason.

The judge is getting a little heated here. Real quick, before you go to Casey, Casey, I want you to listen to my words very closely, okay? What these gentlemen are about to say has nothing to do with the scoring, all right? You heard their 60 seconds. I'm just curious to get their thoughts on this. Jen, as of now, they're saying that this is Damien Maia's final fight of his career, that he is done. after this fight. Is this the right fight to make for Damia Maya?

Do you feel like this is kind of a lose-lose for him? Because if he beat Shemaya, he beat a can that was overrated. You know how MMA is. And if he loses, then he goes out on a bad loss to a guy that has only had two, three fights in the UFC. That's a terrible final fight for his career. I'm not sure it will be. But, I mean, every legend needs to go out fighting other guys of his same caliber,

his same duration, his same status in the sport. Niaz to run it all the way back to the first would be a better final fight for Damian Maya's career than this. But, you know, maybe they just want Damiena to go out on his back and bolster the new town, I guess. I think it's bad for Maya. Maybe if he can beat him, good for Chameh in the UFC. No, because listen, pro wrestling, the guy who's going out,

you put the new guy over. That's just the rule. It's an unrued rule. It is what it is. MMA is different. You kind of want that happy ending. We're hoping for that for D.C. we didn't get it.

Is this cool? Because, I mean, there's a lot of options you could have done for Hamza at Shamiya here without having it be Damian Maya. Sure. There's a lot. And, I mean, the upside is you beat a guy that's challenged for a title multiple times. If I'm Damien Maya, one, I don't want to retire during this era, too, to bring a pro wrestling reference.

He can be the Saudi Arabia undertaker. Just compete in Brazil once a year until he's 47, 48 years old. Throw him out there against a half D. guy that if they beat Damien Maya, good. They beat Damien Maya. Otherwise, the old man gets a win. I think this is bad. I mean, he was fighting Gilbert Burns a few months ago.

And they're throwing them out there against another slaughterhouse. Man, that's rough. It's rough, man. You don't know if he can beat Gerald Nershart. Well, I don't know. Is it going to be on amphetamines or not? I can't speak for Gerald Nershaw. Okay.

I can't make that. I'm not ruling anything out then. Gerald Me or Schauer would never do such a thing. John Hess was for sure on amphetamines. I'm just throwing that out there. Member case is nothing to do with anything. No names after the 60 seconds, it goes away. But now, Casey, we haven't heard your voice.

You are back for vacation. It's time to crown a champion for the match of this trilogy. Two out of three falls, like the Heart Foundation versus Demolition at SummerSlam, 1990. Who will win? Time to turn over to the audible judge, E. Casey Liding. Casey, you've heard the closing arguments. How do you rule?

First of all, great, great match, gentlemen, great match. I don't know about the, a lot of the, there's a lot of after the bell punches and barbs in there. But it's hard to ignore all the amphetamine talk. That was, that was, I got to be professional about this. And still! Yeah, I miss you. Wow. He pushed me to the edge, but champions,

hey, sometimes you got an eye poke just like Steepa, but you keep the belt and that's what matters. Wow. Casey, why? Uh, I actually, as much as I like this shit on Dana and the UFC, I actually like exactly,

I love what they're doing with Shameda right now. I think, I just think this is the way to go. This is, this is actually promoters, promoting fighters. And I can't hate on that. I hate Gerald Mirshaw. And I, and Jerry Mershaw is not pushing his whole saxophone thing enough. That's his problem. I'm happy with being the Eric Prendel to your Tiago Santos.

I am completely fine. Now, that's a reference right there. Repeatedly kicking you in the wiener every time we meet. If you throw that out, tables might have been turned. Why are you leaving your air? You're going into John Hess and not bringing out Eric Prendel dick kicks? Come on, man. I feel like John Hess has kicked a few wieners in his day.

That's a cornerstone of staff. Yeah. I'm sure a good 30 of his wins and have to be about wiener kicks. Yeah. And Jed, after that crazy battle, you get 30 seconds to talk about whatever you want to talk about, good, bad, and different in the sport of MMA. Uh, I honestly, really tough contest, Sean, I'm sad that, uh, you couldn't face some, some of the weaker opposition I've had to put down.

You could have maybe been a long-ranging champion, but you run up against the best and that's what happens. Uh, with the remainder of my time, I would like to say, this weekend's card, not great. I'm actually starting to get really, really excited about the next pay-per-view. Costa and Asana is a banger of a fight, and they're doing a good job of just kind of keeping it to the forefront. which maybe is pushing down some of these other fight cards to not seem as important. But that's going to feel like a big event to me.

And so I'm stoked to talk about that in like three or four weeks after, you know, when I'm still champion, still here, still defending. I'm pretty pumped about all that. Sean, very important question that everybody wants to know. You said some things at the beginning of the program. Are you standing by them? Is this it? Is your MMA career over right here on this program?

I will stay in the Usada pool. It got really dark here all of a sudden, as you guys did see. This has nothing to do with the deep pressure. A light's gone down in your career, my man. Yeah, that's what it is. I will take off my windshield and just leave it right here in the middle of the cage. I don't know, maybe, maybe. All right.

Listen, McFlare came back countless times. He sure did. Terry Funk came back until he was like 65 years old. He's probably still wrestling. Jerry Lawler still wrestling. So maybe you will come back 30 years down the road. Maybe we'll still see you on here. I'm going to keep bugging you about it.

We'll see him back when I'm no longer holding it. When I've retired because you can't find any worthy challengers. Because not only do I win, Mike, I end careers. I ended this man's whole career. So you're going to have a hard time getting people to step in with me at this point and then you can bring him back when I have to quit to give everybody else a chance.

To be fair, I gave up on MMA cover, just as like them Yanking Ken or Frank Shamrock out of retirement and be like, here, here, please fight this guy. Fight Hamzaa Tcha-Maiev. Yes. Yes. I'll accept being the Hamzat Shemayev.

I figured you'd like that. But that is it. What a fantastic episode this was. The trilogy has been amazing. Maybe we'll get another one. I hope we do for sure. Sean, thank you for coming on so many times.

Jen, congratulations. Still the champion. We'll have to find another opponent for next week. But until then, enjoy your week. Enjoy all of the MMA action that is out there between Bellator and the UFC. And we'll talk all about it right here next week on Between the Links. Good night, everybody.

love you guys this has been between the links with your host mike heck brought to you by mhm a production of vox media you're listening to the vox media podcast network