MMA Fighting - Between the Links: Episode 8 | Future of UFC 125ers, Bellator's Return, Is Aljamain Sterling Next?

Episode Date: July 21, 2020

Check out episode 8 of Between the Links as Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting's Alex K. Lee and Steven Marrocco as they discuss Deiveson Figueiredo's impressive flyweight title victory at UFC Fight Island 2 and what it means for the flyweight division.  In addition, the panel discusses the Fight Island experience thus far, Dana White's hesitation to name Aljamain Sterling the no. 1 contender for Petr Yan's bantamweight title, and the return of Bellator MMA this Friday at Mohegan Sun. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Steven Marrocco: @MMAFightingSM Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Welcome to Between the Links, your host, Mike Heck. Hey, hey, thank you, Esther Lynn, for that terrific introduction. And thank you to all of you for checking out a brand new edition of Between the Links presented here on MMAfighting.com. I am Mike Hack, the host and moderator of the program. And, man, do we have an intriguing matter for you this week?

we've had two events since we last spoke. UFC on ESPN 13 and UFC Fight Island 2. Bellator is back this week. And there's a great event coming up for the UFC on Saturday night, headline by Robert Whitaker versus Darren Till, a 15 fight card, by the way. But let's talk some MMA, shall we, as always. Tough to narrow down the topics,

but let us introduce the combatants first. The Challenger making his Between the Link's debut. He is the deputy editor for MMAFighting.com. Mr. Stephen Morocco, welcome to the show, Stephen. How are you? Thank you for having me. Happy to be here and ready to do battle. There we go.

And you will do battle against the reigning, defending VTL champion, able to the throne the great James Lynch last week. Can he defeat one of his superiors today? And what happens if he does? Lots of layers here for Alex K. Lee. How are you, sir? I'm happy to be back, Mike. A lot of controversy after last week.

James, of course, a fan favorite, beloved member of the anime community. And I did not feel a lot of love after defeating him. I felt a little bit like my boyfriend, Edgar, after he dethroned BJ Penn. You know, a lot of question marks, despite an unquestionably solid performance on my part. I don't do the judging. All right, I just go in there and I take care of business. So people don't hate on me because I beat James. Look at you, just being a champion and taking all the pressure and just throwing it right upon myself

and Judge E. Casey Leiden at the end. But let's get into this one. The rules are in the archives. You probably get the show by now. But I will mention that if after four questions there is a tie, we will go to the knock. One question we'll decide at all. But let's begin with the brand new UFC flyway champion, Davis of Figurato. He dominates, finishes Joseph Benavitas in the first round on Saturday night at UFC Fight Island two in the main event.

It was a terrific performance, especially when you consider everything he had to overcome just to get to the fight. But Stephen, let's start with you. You won the draw this week. Figurato was so, so dominant on Saturday night. You don't see rounds and performances that devastating very often in the flyweight. division. So let me ask you, in the overall spectrum of how people view the 125 pound division right now, was Figueros win and the way he did it? Did it boost the stock of the division as a whole at all? Would you say it did it a little bit, a lot or not at all?

I would say it's pretty neutral. I would say that it's obviously not a bad thing. It's a good thing when you have highlight, real knockout wins from your champions, your new champions, as it were. But as to whether it's a good thing in the long run, I'm not sure. Because if Davidson, you know, continues to go on and knock out a bunch of people becomes like this tiny, basically a tiny Mike Tyson, that's something they could obviously do a lot of good for the flyweight division, which has sort of traditionally been a division that's been kind of a loss leader for the UFC

since its inception. So I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it's a very good start for Davidson's reign, obviously. But I think he needs a little bit more time to sort of be built up. If he continues to do what he does, I think it's going to make it a big division. But as to whether it's good long term, we'll see. AK, what do you think? When you first asked a question, my thought was not at all, but I am going to lean towards a little.

I do think a little. One, just by bringing stability to this division that has needed it with the whole Henry Suhudo situation, which really seemed to drag on for a while. You know, two division champions always seems like a cool thing on paper, but then we face this problem of how often they can defend the belt. And I believe he only defended it once the T.J. Dillishaw fight, right? So you have that situation. Now we have a champion who, yes, he's kind of mentioned wanting to fight in two divisions,

but hopefully he knows he can stick around in 125 and is able to make that weight. The other thing is, and he has a lot of fresh challengers now, too. The other thing is he's a finisher, which I think Stephen kind of touched upon. And this is a good thing because Demetius Johnson never got credit for that. He had quite a few finishes during his championship reign, but for some reason, people were stuck on this idea that he was just so dominant, but also boring, which was completely unfair. Figurato had the reputation of a finisher before this. And then if anyone was watching for the first time, they said, oh, wow, this guy lived up to that hype that I saw. This guy's a finisher of the Premier Order.

So he might be, and Sehudo also was not a finisher before taking out T. J. Dillishaw. So the Flywood Division might finally have a guy at the top who can finish fights and bring in some casual interest. So I'll lean towards a little because we are still talking about the flyways. People watch a lot of MMA like ourselves. And I don't think I speak for every single media member, but I'm going to speak for myself here. I love the division. Much like the Women's Strawweight Division, when you see a flyweight fight on a card, you don't see very many boring fights with these guys in this division. There's some good contenders right now.

there's probably three guys at the moment who have an argument to fight for the belt next. You get Alex Perez, you get Brandon Moreno, and you got Ascar-Ascaroff. And as someone who enjoys this division, I'm excited for either of these fights, honestly. But A.K., back to you, we sort of touched on this with both of your answers. How do we make the fans care about this division? Like even when, like you said, when Demetrius Johnson was widely considered the best fighter on the planet and was breaking all these records, for some reason, nobody seemed to really care outside of our little bubble here. What can be done to fix this, I guess, image of the flyweight division?

I mean, the fastest way is to find a star, which is just not something, it's not something you can manufacture. You know, all the credit in the world to Sehudo, who, you know, whatever you think of his personality, he did try to create a persona that would be, have broad appeal. I personally don't think he succeeded, and I don't think the numbers back up that he had great success in that regard. But he did try. And the UFC pushed him accordingly, you know, with all of his interviews and quotes. They tried to make him up to be a big deal. And it didn't quite land, but that's what you need.

First of all, what the UEC can control is, just keep doing what they're doing and showcasing these guys. I mean, this week we had, what, a co-main event, Tim Elliott and Benoit. We had a main event, the vacant title, and we had Pantosia and Ascarov leading up the main card. So that was three big flyweight fights getting a lot of high-profile attention. And just keep doing that. And suddenly, you people, that this division is just as good as any other division, better than some divisions, we should say, and to give them credibility. Stephen, to sort of add to that, you made a great point about Figuero and maybe coming like a mini Mike Tyson and just running off all these highlight real finishes. And that will obviously boost the division because you're going to wonder if somebody can actually stop this man.

But on top of that, I feel like we don't know enough about these guys. And I'm stealing a little bit of shine off of our producer, Casey Lydon. We were talking about this a little bit earlier off air that Davis and Figurato is such a fascinating guy. He does more than just fight. And nobody knew it until like this past. weekend. So what can the UFC do better to make people, one, care about the division and two, take it to the next level? Well, they can have him make him sushi. They can do a video of him making sushi, taming bulls or whatever he does on his farm, and then styling hair, you know,

all the things that make him a human and a unique human in the world of fighting. But it's going to take time. It's not, I mean, Anderson Silva wasn't an out-of-the-box star. It took time to build him up as well. You can definitely say that the U.S. being the primary market, it probably helps if he speaks English. So maybe he will learn to speak English, and that will actually help his appeal among casual fans. But what casual fans love are knockouts. Knockouts and a personality on top of that, then you've got a star. And that's just something that AK said, you know, it doesn't come naturally. Not everybody's going to be a star. And if you're not a star, you're going to have to do the other thing, which is to have really exciting performances.

So the UFC's job and ESPN's job is to highlight the personality behind him. And then he's just got to go in there and deliver in the Octagon. AK, back to you, would you consider Demetri Johnson a star? Like even when he was running rampant in the division and defending the title so many times, was he a star? My bar for star is very high. I think in the last like 20 years, there have only been like seven or eight true stars. So that's not to say he wasn't successful and he wasn't a guy high.

popular fighter within the MMA community. But for me, to be a star, you need either to be in the upper, upper, upper echelon of MMA popularity or, of course, like a Rousie, McGregor, the people like that, a Kimbo-Slicse, that broke into the mainstream. So there's definitely, Mosvital might be up there. But Demetrius Johnson, it's sadly such a huge part of his narrative that is run with the OEC, for whatever reason, could not just draw that extra level of interest that a dominant champion should. Why do you think that is, Stephen?

Why do you think he was never really a star? Was it just because every time he fought, you just expected him to roll through his opponent? It just got to the point where, like, Demetrius is just going to beat this guy? Like, why did he never get to that next level? Especially being considered, I mean, even high, people considered him a better fighter,

pound for pound than John Jones for a while. Yeah, and you could definitely make that argument at one point in time. He tried, I think he had in his mind sort of a vision of what he wanted to be and then the longer he was successful, the longer he was a champion, the more he realized what was successful. He saw what made a successful UFC star, you know,

among his peers. And I think that it was kind of a personal choice of his not to go that route initially being this sort of trash-talking guy. In the cage, you know, he was obviously an amazing technician and a lot of his early title defenses weren't like these crazy finishes. He started putting the crazy finishes together later in his title reign and that's when he got a little more critical mass. He also tried to talk out a lot more and to be more, to have more personality,

he started cursing a lot more. I remember that very clearly in terms of like his personality kind of changing a little bit, getting a little bit more outgoing, getting a little bit more outspoken and opinionated, took a lot of opportunities with his media platforms to make that happen. But, you know, it's hard to break this trend. You know, the sad fact is that a certain amount of the population are just not going to be interested in the smaller guys. They want to see big, big guys knocking each other out, slugging the way. Demetrius was never that.

He was a really classy guy, a technician and a master at his craft, who was a pretty humble guy who, for a long time, wanted to work at Costco after he retired. This division to be, A.K., you'd probably get this reference. The Flyweight division is like the Intercontinental Championship Division and the old school WWE. Like, never, it was never really like the headliner. Like, it could have been on like specific cards, like on the B show. It's a headliner.

But the best technical fighters, you get the best actual like wrestling matches for the Intercontinental title. And I feel like you get that here with the Flyweight Division. You're not going to get knockouts every single time. But in terms of like good, solid fights, you're going to get that 90, of the time in the flyweight division. Is that a kind of an accurate comparison, would you say? It's the workhorse division, brother.

Yeah. You got to get a couple of good hands in there. You know, that might not be where the crowd is there, but that's why the crowd's going to go home happy. Sorry, I snapped into a weird mode there. No, I somewhat agree, though I will say the intercontinent title, if we're talking about it, had a little more prestige. And if you had the right person at the top of that division,

you could, like you said, have it, have it main event, certain shows and things like that. We're talking really, really old school. People watching wrestling today definitely don't hold those secondary pro wrestling titles in the same regard. But again, it's kind of like what we've been saying this whole time. That could happen for the Flyweight Division as well, Bantamweight Division. Whatever division you want to name, women's straw weight, I don't know, whatever division you want to name that people say, oh, this division doesn't draw, like inherently. There's no such thing as a division that doesn't draw inherently.

You get the right people at the top. You get the right fuse. And you can have a two to three years stretch where that's the hottest. It's happened with featherweight after McGregor, and some of that's still carried over. It's still highly regarded as a very strong division, but it does take that first sort of burst of star power to get people there, and sometimes it never comes. It seems like they're investing in the division a little bit more. You bring in guys like Minnell Cape and Steining some different guys, so there's going to be a lot of fun

fights coming up in this division over the next several months. The point goes to Alex Kaley, our defending champions. We move to our next question. Sticking with Abu Dhabi and Fight Islands. So far, there's been three events, fourth coming up on Saturday. AK, we're going to start with you. What would you grade the Fight Island experience at this point following UFC 251, UFC on ESPN 13, and UFC Fight Island, too?

You know, I have, can you, sorry, guys, can you hear me? Yes. Should we try this again? Steve. Looks like AK's having some tactical issues. Steven, would you like to take that question? Yeah. So, I mean, first of all, let's be clear, we haven't gotten the full fight-outed

experience because we're not in a camera cruise, sitting in a lovely air-conditioned suite, probably eating grapes, taking Formula One cars around the track with UFC ring car girls. So we don't have the full experience. But so far, you know, I love the early starts. I'll say that. The early starts and the relatively early finishes in terms of timing. I also feel like to sort of look at the whole in terms of success, you have to look at what it was originally created for, which is sort of like respite against COVID. And I definitely had a lot of me and a lot of my colleagues had a lot of criticism about how they were running the shows in Jacksonville.

They did as good as they could, but there were a lot of shortfalls to their protocols and the way they enforced them. And in Clyde Island, they seem to have created this closed system, which is from what all the experts are saying, what you need to really conduct a safe show. So my answer is kind of skewed towards the public health aspect of everything, which I feel they're doing a relatively good job. We haven't seen exactly, we don't have the kind of access where we can check everything that they're doing, every measure that they're taking. but they seem to be taking every measure possible to make sure these athletes are health help make sure these athletes health and safety is protected in and out of the arena around the flight area and the hotel so that's a good thing in that way I'd have to rate it probably an a minus B plus in terms of when you consider what they're doing

health and safety wise with the fights themselves which have been You know, they've been some slow cards. And we had a couple of slow preliminary cards, you know, a couple of slow main cards. But we've also had some great fights as well. So I'd say B plus a minus. All right, A.K. Are you as generous? B plus A minus?

Higher, lower, where are you at? He was so enthralled by Steve Morocco's answer that he's speechless. He's got nothing to say. Okay, you with us? I am, I believe so. Yeah, I believe I'm here. Okay. I'm getting definitely getting some hiccups.

I think you're kind of moving now. So, yeah, as long as you can hear me. Stephen went for you. He went first. Do I win this by default since he technically failed to answer the 10 counts? You might. You might. Like we can count them out like we did 10 counts and he's out of the knockout technically.

I'm Yuel Romero. They're still wiping some of the grease and stuff off me or the water. So they spilled the water. They spilled the ice bucket. Sorry, they got to kill clean. You know how it is. I'm trying to come out as fast as I can. I swear, I swear.

I'm trying to come out of the corner. All right. I think you're good now. So we'll see. Do you need the question again? No, no, no. Mike, I'll have to go a begrudging, a begrudging A grade. And I say that because all jokes aside with the whole, okay, oh, MMA media,

trying to shut down these advanced mob lights, you know, whatever. We've made all the jokes about it. Look, we were always concerned, and I'm speaking broadly about the media, of course, people have different opinions. What we were concerned. about, as Stephen mentioned, was the health stuff. That's all we wanted to know. We wanted questions answered about health protocol, questions that were repeatedly dodged. You know, you can look back on the history of Dana White's interviews regarding this topic. Let's not

forget our colleague Mark Romandie. It's a legitimate question, of course, and he was both dismissed by Dana White and booed by the crowd when that question was first asked. And fast-forced now, look how appreciate that was. So we just wanted to know that there were protocol and that there were things being done. Now, is it perfect? Again, we don't know. We're not We're not on the ground like Gierme is and so the media members in Abu Dhabi. But the fact that they've at least made public what they've been trying to do in Las Vegas, what they've been trying to do in Abu Dhabi, that's a good thing. That's a step forward.

It allows, I think, us who people, fans and us in the media who want to watch these events and enjoy them to do so with somewhat less guilt, I guess for lack of a better word. So, yeah, I give a strong A, if only because I think the events have been entertaining. I think the storylines coming out and have been good. I think they've been putting the showcase on fighters that need it. So, yeah, with a few caveats, an A to the UFC, especially the staff and all the people putting in all the hard work and the fighters and coaches to make these things happen. Stephen, AK dropped the P word, perfect, which nothing is perfect. Nothing will ever be perfect.

But let's just look at the slate that we've seen so far. We've seen four world title fights. We've got two brand new champions, seen some great matchups, some big. performances and might I add, which may be the most important thing, some potential stars are being groomed during these cards. But there is always room for improvement. So what could they do better with the structure, how things are in place the next time they go back to Abu Dhabi, which looks like it will very likely happen from a viewership perspective,

because obviously we're not there right now, so we can't get the X's and O's of everything on the island. But just from a viewer perspective, what can they do better? That's a good question. I mean, they're pretty much running the same playbook that they've always run just without an audience. They have a very well-oiled machine, and they have the new format in terms of how they introduce the fighters, the fighter promos, how they roll everything out. you know, I guess if I could say something that I've always felt that something that I feel like has never really changed is they keep playing the same ads over and over again, you know, and it's like I want to kill myself after listening to the same ad for three hours straight. But in terms of the presentation, I think they're kind of, you know, running the same play card.

There's a whole lot more they can do. I think they're maximizing what they have. which is obviously an extreme circumstance. They can't have the fans as sort of the third person, you know, sort of hanging over the cage and the third personality that gives so much character to a live fight. So I don't know. I'm not sure there's so much they can do other than to help us, you know,

people actually who have to sit down and watch this for eight hours at a clip. What do you think, Kay? Just watch me now. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I'm like, because, Stephen, you're not, that's weekend. I now get your strategy, which is basically to, to, like, sing or do something silly to a serious answer. Stephen, people are watching. Sorry, yeah.

Go on. Do your dance. Camera. That's, yeah. How can you not love that commercial after seeing it, like, 50 million times? Yeah, it's hard to say, like Stephen said, it's hard to say what you could improve besides stuff that's general improvements. But specifically for these fight island events, less is more. And I kind of would like to see them be less inclined to try and fill in some of these fights

when they follow. I think they only did it a couple of times. But I was surprised when some of the fights kind of fell out and they're like, oh, well, we got this guy on six days notice to come in. Look, I'm all for, of course, I know fighters want opportunities. Fighters want to stay in the cards. But I think there's other ways to rebook people when they have an opponent fallout as opposed to creating this mad scramble.

Dana White, again, said in a previous interview, how hard it would be. be to find replacements. So I thought, you know, if any fights fell out and Fight Island, that's why they booked 13, 14 fights for most of the cards. But no, they've got out of their way to keep these fights intact, which is, again, great for the fighters. I don't know how great it is for the viewing experience and also for the quality of some of the fights unless people just want to see someone get finished, but that's not always

the best thing. So I would say a little less is more, be willing to let some of these things go, and we don't need 15 fight cards like we're having in a few days. I want to expand on one thing that AK said, which is that this is something that you actually called a while ago, which is that we may not be getting the best fights. I mean, considering what these guys have been up against, we are probably not getting the best version of a lot of them because of the circumstances that they've had to face while they're training for these events. It's far from ideal. I think people are making the best of it.

And considering what they're facing, it seems like they're putting on good performances. but this whole enterprise, this whole series of events, you know, putting on getting back to business in this really an ideal environment. That's not a word. But it is now. It is now. We're getting the best of a kind of a less than ideal situation. That is more accurate.

I would agree. It's funny. I was talking to Kamowworthy a few weeks ago. Like the small cage. And he said, listen, I'm telling you right now it's nothing to do with the small cage. just because everyone's coming in on a few weeks notice. Most people are pretty out of shape right now, so they're just going in and exploding,

and that's where we're getting the performances that we have. But in the end, AK, you can sing all the songs you want, Grammy Award winning songs, you can dance. You could do a somersault right now if you want, or cartwheel, that's what I was looking for. But the point is going to go to, and there's no real surprise here, Steve Morocco. I just kid, your internet just was so bad.

That didn't really matter. Do you want another bar of, just watch me now? That was good. Oh, oh, oh, oh. You went from a 10-7 round to a 10-8 round, so how about that? I suppose you can go the other way. I suppose you didn't make it a 10-6 after that. Yeah, but now the ur-in-it-it is clear.

I don't want to jinx it too much. Let's move ahead to our third topic of discussion. And this has become a big story following Piotrion's title win over Jose Al-O-Di-Wu-C 21. And a little hot take care. This has been a bigger story than Jan winning the title, in my opinion. Because I would say that 98% of people believe that Al Jermaine Sterling is the next contender to fight for the title.

His resume speaks for itself. And in his last fight, he submits Corey Sanhagen in the first round at UFC 250. So most people believe he's the guy. Like if you talk to 10 MMA fans, probably all 10 of them are going to say Al Jemaine's the next guy. But there's one guy who doesn't. He's a man who holds a lot of clout in this sport and in the UFC. And that man is Dana White.

He's still not ready to say that Al Jermaine Sterling is the number one contender for this title. Alex K. Lee, why? Why can he not pull the trigger on this? Firstly, this is purely speculation. I have to imagine that there's some behind the scene stuff, whether it's previous negotiations, something that Al Jermaine did that rubbed Dana the wrong way. But that's really just gossip. That's insubstantial.

If we're looking at something more substantial, I think it's also clear. I think what is clear is that he's keeping that door open for either Henry Suhudo overturn or Cody Garbrand. After Cody Garbrand won that UFC title the first time, he was a maid man in Daniel White's eyes. The UFC and the match figures, they love them some Cody Garbrand. And I understand why. Young guy, marketable, exciting fighter. So, you know, when he got that huge comeback victory, they were immediate like, boom, we can throw them back in the world title picture any time we want. And they're definitely considering that.

And again, kind of going back to negotiations thing, having as many challenges as you can lined up is good for the OEC and the matchmakers and whoever handles all the purses and all that. Because now they can have these guys negotiate against each other and whoever's the lowest bidder essentially can get the shot. So no, he does not want to put all his eggs in the sterling basket, which is silly. But from a business standpoint, I think we can kind of see why. Stephen, we know Dana White and flip-flops aren't just something he wears on his feet. It's something that happens at every single press conference. There's all these cliches. Yeah, right?

There's all these like cliches in MMA that we say on the show all the time. Like you can't make sense, MMA, strike the word deserves from your vocabulary, et cetera. But this is a little bit ridiculous right now. Like what else does Al Jermaine Sterling need to do? And why can't Dana White just say the words? He said him before. He said it right after UFC 250. Sterling's the guy.

And now all of a sudden he's not. What's going on here? Well, I'll drop another MMA cliche. He's in the mix. And how long he's going to be in the mix? Who knows? When does that mix incorporate into the full dish? It's undetermined.

But the thing that I was thinking about this, yes, I think it's easy to say, well, he's more outspoken. Dana doesn't like him. He doesn't have the juice behind the scenes that seems to make such a big difference these days and who gets the opportunities and who doesn't. But the more simple answer is maybe he doesn't have to make the decision right now. You know, maybe he can hang back, let the rest of the year play out. They've got four more pay-per-views left. Champions tend to fight less frequently, even though Pirion says that he wants to get back in. I'm sure he wants to get back in as soon as possible.

He doesn't have to say what he needs to do right now or what he wants to do or what he's going to do. He can sort of, you know, be in the mix for a little while. And this isn't the, like you said, I mean, this isn't the first time he's done. this. There could be other factors at play, whether it's somebody coming back, whether it is Cody Garbrand, whether there's going to be another title eliminator. You know, I would tend to say that, you know, Sterling's style probably has him cast. It's hard to break those moles with UFC matchmakers and UFC brass after you've sort of established them. I think of John Fitch, you know, when it comes to like the amount of proving that you need to do to actually get over that hump and get

the title shot. And it wouldn't surprise me if there was another title eliminator at play. But it also wouldn't surprise me if this all went for not. He came back, gets a schedule ready for next year. And we find Al Joe in a title shot. Right now, I think they're trying to get through this year. And that's probably the number one priority. And it just might be that he is going to get the title shot and we are bitching about nothing. Totally uncharacteristic. All right, AK, let me ask you this question. And let me preface this by saying that the answer, you could answer both guys and it doesn't really matter. Both guys deserve title shots. Who deserves a title shot next more? Gilbert Burns or Al Jemaine Sterling?

Al Jermaine. I'll say Al Jermaine. I think I just want to be consistent with some of the things I've said on our other programming. As I think I said, Leon Edwards has much of a claim as Gilbert Burns does to a welterweight title shot. I do kind of want to stand by that. Like I would put Burns a bit above him. But I think Aljo is far in a way, is far in away the top contender in his division. Even taking into account the Marx fight, I know people want to bring that up.

But again, that was quite a few fights ago. I think Sterling is on a five-fifference. win streak since then, something to that effect. And again, has just done all the right things as far as winning all the fights he's supposed to do. The UFC already kind of spoiled the Marais's pool with him winning a frigging fight against Jose Aldo and then not getting the title shot. So clearly he's even farther than we think he is somehow.

So yeah, I would go Sterling over Burns. What do you think, Stephen? Because, again, both guys deserve title shots of their respective division, the top guys, in my opinion, either way. But Dana White jumped right out and said Gilbert Burns is next. Gilbert Burns is next. He deserves him more. I think from a sporting perspective, Sterling deserves it, no question.

I think that Burns has had a great year, but I think that Sterling's strength of what he's, what he's been able to put together, how he rebounded from Marais and how he just railroaded Corey Sanhagen. I tend to value that a little bit more. Sanhagen was a guy. There was supposed to be this tournament, this four-man tournament. and he took care of his bracket. He should graduate to the finals.

A.K. true or false? And explain yourself. Piotr Yan's first title defense in the UFC will be against Al Jermaine Sterling. Oh, do I think? True. True. True. True, true, true, true.

Justice will prevail. I think after, again, I think at some point after Dana White has brought Al Jemaine Sterling's value down enough, so that he can get that a telefight sign for a reasonable amount, then yes, he will bite the bullet and acknowledge that Al Jermaine is the guy to go with. And then, of course, in the lead-up to that, you know, wait, once the contractors are signed,

oh, Al-German is the greatest, it was never in doubt. I just, like I said, he was in the mix. He was in the mix the whole time. I never said he wasn't. You guys said he wasn't, just for headlines. I never said he wasn't.

So let's be optimistic here and say Aljo gets it. And I'm going to say false because Uriah Fabor and Cody Garbrant are going to fight a number one contender fight. Oh, God. Jesus. That's upsetting. That's MMA.

That's 2020 right there. I'll bring it back to you. I'm shaking. I don't know if I'm going to win this round, but if I do, I'm definitely rocked going to the last one. I'm just going to say it out right now. I'm dazed. He caught me with one at the end. He caught me with one at the end there, Mike.

Yeah, you're like Andreas Mikhailitis right now who just got dropped, like 12 elbows dropped upon him and the cage door just open. That's where you're at right now. So no surprise here. Round of the point goes to Stephen Morocco. And this is a big one. Final question of regulation. That was a dirty play. That was a dirty play, Morocco.

Call me Durandami versus home. You do the sand in my eyes. Yeah. Well, we got an exciting thing to talk about here. This is something we haven't talked about at all on this show since we launched it. At least not like in topic alone, but Bellator is back on Friday night. Bellator 242, the main event is Sergio Pettus versus Ricky Bondihas. Now, this is going to be the first of at least four events scheduled at Mohican Sun.

Looks like it's going to be some more. It's not the sexiest card on earth, but it's still pretty darn good. Aaron Pico on it, Taiwan Claxton's on it. Jordan Mian versus Jason Jackson is a banger in the co-main event. But Bellator is returning, Stephen Morocco. We'll start with you. You can talk about the card if you want. You can just talk about the return in general.

What excites you the most about Bellator finally coming back and putting on some fights? Well, you know, it's like an old familiar friend. You know, Bellator is back and you get to see all the people that you know and love and see some fun fights. And a lot of up-and-comers, actually, which is kind of, I like the fact that Peders and Dejas are getting this shine and getting the headliner. It struck me a little bit weird that Bellator put out this press. release saying that it was a title eliminator when the belt is vacant. That was a little weird. But I've been told that there's a reason for that.

And that apparently the title fight or the title will not be vacant for long. So I guess they're queuing it up. They're going with who they've got. It could be a scheduling thing. It could be a pandemic thing. who knows. But, you know, Belator has a lot of fun fights. They do, and, you know, when I look at the card, Jordan Mian, Taiwan Claxton,

rebounded very nicely. Aaron Pico, everybody's favorite prospect. You know, it's going to be one of those fun cards. Rudy Schaffroff, who is a bouncer at the world-famous Acropolis in Portland, Oregon. if you're from Portland, Oregon, you know what the Acropolis is. But yeah, I mean, it's, I don't know what else to say. It's going to be, it should be fun. It's Sergio Pettis's coming out party, basically, new promotion.

He's probably the guy to beat. Bend de Hesse has looked great at times, but he's definitely beatable. So I think we'd favor Pettis a little bit if he's on, game to take this one and set himself up for a title shot. A.K., what do you think? Because, again, you look at this card from top to bottom, and as you saw in reports, the original plan was to do Patrick Mix versus Juan Archeleda for this card to headline it for the bacon title. And that's obviously not happening because Archelaida got hurt. I did speak with Scott Coker last week. He plans on rebooking that fight sometime in September.

So like Stephen said, we are going to have a new champion eventually. But Bellator is back. We've been talking about this for a while, when are they going to come back? Now it's here. How do you feel about it? I mean, I'm most excited about the commercials, much, much like we said with some of the UFC broadcast. Look, I miss those sweet, sweet clips of Bar Rescue, Inc. Wars, some guy versus some other guy I've never heard of because I'm never going to watch that show. You know, a cop. Oh, no, there's no more cop shows. No more question. That's out of the question. But I do miss seeing those commercials over and over again for programming on their own network, which I don't even know. Okay, whatever. But more seriously, the people that are, the fighters that are hurt most by these long breaks that we had because of this pandemic are kind of these guys who are lesser known who need to get as many fights as possible every year to build their name up.

And again, it happens to varying degrees of success. But they need every opportunity to pick up wins, pick up highlights, you know, familiarized with themselves with the fans. And like we said, guys like Rudy Schaffrod, Steve Maurer, Cass Bell, he's 5 and O, all in Bell Tor. That's a guy, you know, that they want to get behind. And Pico, of course, Taiwan Claxton, Jason Jackson, Van Dejas, these are homegrown, essentially, Belator guys. And, you know, without the opportunity to keep, just get in there, get reps, get fighting, and get better, it's been very enforcer for them. So I'm really excited, like we said, forget about, okay, it's not the biggest card in terms of star power. But I'm really excited to see these guys get the chance to get back in the cage and show what they can.

It's obvious. And Stephen, I want to go back to you here. Belator, beyond their control, has lost a lot of. a momentum during this pandemic. The UFC is not stopped. Some other promotions are moving on. TitanFCs put together a few cards. LFA's back. Belator finally comes back. And they've, the reason for this, as Scott Coker explained to me, is they've taken the time to create this infrastructure. They're building what they're calling a fight sphere, which I can't wait to see what that's all about. They've been researching testing protocols. And they feel like that their system

is actually better than the UFC's, according to Scott Coker. So they need to come out here. guns blazing and make a big move over these next several months. That's what most people are thinking. That's kind of how I feel as well. So what do they need to do to get back to being the Bellator that left us, that clear cut number two promotion in the world, the Bellator that we've all seen before this pandemic began. What do they need to do? Well, one thing Scott is really good at doing is like A.K. was talking about he's good at sort of developing homegrown talent. he's good at building talent and making these guys into stars. There's a reason why a lot of the Strike Force guys that he built up

went on to be huge stars in the UFC. They became big stars. They cemented their stardom when they were working through Strike Force. So he's good at those slow builds making guys into fighters that people want to see. and what they basically need to do, like any other promoter who's trying to get their product out there, is just get the product out, get more of the product out. I think that the ultimate goal here is to get back on CBS eventually and work more towards, work more with Showtime, eventually in the future, sort of build back to where they were in 2010

before the infamous brawl in Nashville took them off their game. So, yeah, I mean, they have, they went on a talent acquisition spree over the past couple of years, paying for some names that would get people in the door. And I think that's going to continue. They're going to have more guys that become free agents and they're going to be competitive. They're going to be able to say, hey, we can give you fights now and get these guys in so that, you know, other people. people want to watch. It's like you get in the door for the guys that are the stars, the well-known names, and you watch the up-and-coming guys, and that's how everybody gets more popular. So, I mean, I just think it's as simple as getting back in business.

I think they were just more cautious overall than the UFC. They wanted to make sure they had the right protocols in place. They wanted to wait for the officials. They wanted to wait for the experts. That was the most important thing for them. They're ultimately part of a publicly traded company. They're in a different umbrella. They make different decisions than the UFC does. Obviously, the UFC is owned by, partially owned by Endeavor. But it's a different set of considerations, I think. So it's a pretty simple answer. Just get back to business and keep having great fights. A.K., what do you think?

I mean, as far as like, I wish, look, if Fight Island was supposed to be the Kumetei, Immortal Combat, I wish we could get something special out of Fight Sphere. Fight Sphere, fight Sphere should have been, should be like Thunderdome, Mike. It should be like, you know what I mean? I want the stunt riders. I want the, you know, the guys going up the sphere, right now with the flame shooting up. I want master. I want all those guys involved.

I want just a little, I wish they could embrace. This doesn't just go for Belator. I wish any promotion could just embrace a little bit more that freak show atmosphere that we all fell in love with so many years ago. So I don't know if there's any plans to do that. I think, look, they're already in Majestic Uncissville. So there's not a lot of, like, you know, there's not a lot they need to do to gussy this show up. Obviously, I think the broadcasts, it's going to look like every other Belator broadcast we've seen before, which is fine, which is great, obviously, and without a crowd. But not just Belator, but speaking with them specifically right now because of the question, yeah, just gussy things up.

Just take more chances. And just one quick example, when they did the drawing for the featherweight tournament, that was like the coolest thing I'd seen in so long. I love more fresh ideas like that. I don't know how much that landed with sort of the more casual fan. But for me, I thought it was amazing. And I hope it caught the eye of a few people. And they saw that and said, man, this is a little different. I'm going to tune into, you know, tune into more Bellator shows.

I'm excited for it. You know, a little more MMA to cover. This is great. So final point goes to the champion. Alex. To the knockout round. Surprise, surprise, to our viewers. So we have one question.

Each panelist will have 60 seconds to answer said question. And the beauty of this, they have no idea what this question is. They will be hearing it for the very first time. And then we will go to the truck to our judge, E. Casey Leiden. He will render the final decision. So Alex, since you are the champion, you don't get a belt or prize money, but you do get some spoils. of which you get to choose if you'd like this mystery question first, or if you'd like to pass it on to Mr. Morocco to go first.

I will take the kickoff. I will take the ball first. And let me just remind the truck how much I love Joseph Benavides. Joseph Benavides is great. I just feel it's worth mentioning. But please, Michael, go ahead. All right. The first time in the history of the show that the champion has chosen to go first, so I'm digging

this. Oh, that's not a good sign. And we have a very interesting question to ask you. you because, AK, you got a little taste of this interesting question on Saturday night on the Post Show, but I wanted to take that question and broaden things up a little bit. So the question that was posed during the post show was who would you trade from the UFC roster to one to get to Beatrice Johnson back to the UFC to challenge Davidson Figurato? And it was a tough one.

We were thinking about different scenarios and it was actually a really good conversation. So we're going to ask it this way. If you were the UFC commissioner, AK, and we could do a talent swap with another promotion, which fighter would you bring in? And how would you orchestrate this trade fighter of somewhat equal value to send over to them? I really regret saying that I was going to answer this first. Can I answer the Mighty Mouse thing? If you want.

Yeah, I mean, some people who might not have seen it. And again, I think we didn't quite come to a consensus. But I like the idea. I was very much starting with a base of a. Page Van Zant sign and trade. Let me finish, for people at home who are shutting this off, let me finish. A page van Zant sign and trade with Henry Sehudo's contract, which the UFC would still control, and then perhaps another fighter to be named later.

And then, yes, we would send them over for Demetius Johnson. I know people say it sounds crazy, but, you know, the Ben Ascran, Demetius Johnson trade on paper looked a little weirder first, too, given their different degrees of sort of success and recognition. But that worked out quite well. I do think Paige Van Zan is a fighter that one would value and would love to market as much as they love DJ as well. They've very much been behind him. But then you've got the sage and page show again just over a few thousand, 100,000 miles away. And you get some people a fresh shot.

And Sehudo, would he want to take a fight for one? I think he might entertain the idea if the money was right. All right. Steven, same question. Luckily, I think you have the advantage here. You've had a little extra time to ponder this. So we have 60 seconds on the clock. Ready, set.

Let's fight. Oh, boy, I'm just going to say Nikita Krilov. And why am I saying that? Because who doesn't want Al Capone? I mean, like, if you have Al Capone in one championship, you bring back the pageantry, you know, that's been missing in one championship. And, you know, that guy just every time he comes to fight, he, you know, he's just such a damn gangster. You just want to watch him.

It's totally a fair trade. And I've really just improvising the last 30 seconds because I have no idea what I'm talking about. And don't believe a word I'm saying. Okay. So A.K. is sticking with the sign and trade. I mean, in fairness, like you said. I like it. In fairness, it's like you said, we actually have a little bit of.

advantage because we did previously discuss this. I actually feel worse for being under-repaired because I said the question was so good and I was going to take more time to think about it. So I've actually had two days to think about it and I still clearly could not. It is a really good question. I wish you could remember the name of the person who brought that up to us in our postgame chat because it was such a good question. And I do feel like maybe an article or something.

It's almost worth an article in the future. So hopefully it's even that I did that question justice. But that's a hard one. It's really good. No, did not do it justice at all. you did it justice. Okay. Kind of.

But yeah, I expected, I expected a little, I expected a little more broad. But, but, and then Stephen went with, uh, getting Demetri's Johnson back with a straight up trade for Nikita Kraloff to, for pageantry purposes for one. So, sure. We're just trying to be fair to one as well. And I think, uh, both trades might be considered who the hell knows. But Casey, I don't know if you have a tough decision here or not. We go to the judge.

What do you think? You know. Normally, I'm super, this is very high, intense, you know, high anxiety picking this winter. But to be honest, both these competitors gassed out in the fifth round. It was bad. It was, yeah, it was Kimbo-Huson-Alexander. You know, it was like, what's around in there? Underneath, staring at each other going, oh, geez.

Yeah. There was a big slam early on, but after, way, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. And the medics are on the way. Yeah. I'm on the auction tank right now. They've got an action tank for me right now.

My kidneys are failing. So I'm collecting the scorecards and the winner by a 9-8 round. Because of the bribe at the beginning. And still, the Canadian, the bad boy, Alexander Kay Lee. I'm not I'm not I'm only raising my arms up a little bit to get the belt back around my waist I'm not you know I'm not super proud of that performance Jose Young is somewhere out there licking his chops when he sees this he'll be looking his chops waiting to be waiting to pick up the bones of one of us but you know

Steven at least we made it out of that round with most of our dignity I think yeah that was a tough one wow it's hard to even answer that in 60 seconds but I was just like we have to build upon this but A.K., you know, you know the rules. You are the winner with that. You get 30 seconds to talk about whatever it is you want to talk about, good, bad, and different in the sport of mixed martial arts. I don't remember if I got a chance to talk about this on the show.

I feel like I mentioned before, but people, if you see, this is my rant against parody accounts. Guys, I know parodies, people find parody accounts are funny, and some of them are funny. But this parody accounts are for journalists. There's many for Aero Hawani. And now we've seen some for one of our colleagues of bloody elbow, Trent and Ryan Smith, which is tweet.

some truly heinous stuff. Brett Okamoto has parody accounts, and the fighters, of course, have them. So I just want to tell people, if you see a funny message, sorry, and the big one this weekend was Davidson Figurato. Someone made Davidson's Figurado account

and things some hilarious fake Davidson Figurato tweets. And most people couldn't tell the difference because Davidson's actual Twitter account is, goes by his nickname, Daiko, I believe. So people didn't know. People don't know was fake. So people, if you see stuff like that,

please don't retweet it. Don't like propagate it. I know it seems like it's funny to do. And please double check. Double check if these are real or not. I know everything moves so fast in today's media, but I have to rally against fake accounts, especially the ones that are not clearly labeled as parodies.

It's just ridiculous. I think it's hurtful for the fans. I think it's hurtful for the media. It can be very, very hurtful for the fighters. So, yeah, just a little more social media scrutiny people. And otherwise, of course, have good, you know, fun out there. I'm not the ultimate buzz killer. I'm just a little bit of a buzz killer.

All right. Stephen, what would you like to say? We'll give you a little shine as well. Yeah, I guess I would second what AK is saying. I mean, try to be nice to each other out there. This is a really tough time. We're getting real serious right now. It's a really tough time in our nation's sister right now.

And now's more of a time than ever that people are not giving each other the benefit of the doubt. And the online format makes that problem even worse, the way that people communicate. I would just, you know, urge people to think before they tweet sometimes, not assume the worst, try to give people the benefit of the doubt. And maybe we can all get along, you know, given that we have the same sickness. Stephen and I had to get super real there to distract from what happened in that fifth round. This is the post-fight press conference.

We're hoping to generate some positive sound bites for the headlines and not the inevitable hammering that's going to come. This is Garbrandt and Cruz after that fight. This is exactly what the postby I was like. Oh, boy. But that being said, another... This is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah. This is Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weather's like, you know.

Got to chum it up. Yeah. What a moment. But another great episode in the books, and it looks like, A.K., we already have our next challenger lined up for you. And I was told that he has guaranteed some, quote, fiery takes. So stay tuned for that, everybody. I don't know what I think it is. Who do you think it is?

Might as well just reveal it right now. Not Jedworth Michoud. Jedworth Michoud versus A.K. Lee next week on Between the Lakes. Nothing more needs to be said. I've, truck, I didn't agree to this. It's happening. There you go. We're done.

Alex K. Lee. Thank you, Steve Morocco. Thank you for Casey Lydon, the truck Estrell and on the graphics and the opening vocals. I am Mike. Have a great week. Keep it locked on to M.A. Fighting. And join us every Tuesday morning right here on Between the Lings. This has been Between the Links with your host, Mike Heck, brought to you by MMA Fighting, a production of Vox Media.

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