MMA Fighting - Between the Links: Vitor Belfort's Stock With Holyfield KO, Silva KOs Ortiz, Romero's Return, More

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

Host Mike Heck is joined by MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew and Jose Youngs this week as they discuss the biggest stories in combat sports. This week, the panel discusses Vitor Belfort's TKO win over Evander Holyfield in the main event of Triller Fight Club's Legends 2 event this past Saturday, Belfort's celebrations and post-fight callouts, Anderson's Silva's knockout victory over Tito Ortiz in the the co-main event and the reactions from fans questioning the validity of the bout itself, Yoel Romero's return to competition and his Bellator MMA debut this Saturday in the main event of Bellator 266 against Phil Davis, the UFC returning after a week off with UFC Vegas 37 headlined by Anthony Smith vs. Ryan Spann, along with 14 other fights, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew 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

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. From M.M.A. Fighting Studios, this is Between the Links. now, your host, Mike. The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of Between the Links as we record and drop this on Tuesday. Not much to discuss in terms of the major MMA landscape from this past weekend,

but a lot of storylines coming out of combat sports for sure after Saturday night in beautiful scenic Hollywood, Florida. And then this weekend, the UFC and Bellator both have events on 7. Saturday, and we have ourselves a good old fashion in fighting here on the show this week as we introduce the Challenger, one of the winningest players in the history of the program, and that's over multiple iterations of the show. One half of the combat sports social media tag team champions of the world from MMA fighting, Mr. Jose Young's. Jose, welcome back, my friend. It has been a minute. I can't remember the last time I was out in the show.

I was trying to remember before I signed on. I feel like nothing's changed except for Jed's hair. That's about it. Was it the tag team? Tag team matchup? Maybe. That might be it. The one where we pretended that Kamar Usman was the breakthrough fighter of the year.

And then the second, I'm going to do a little break in K-Fabe. The second we went off air, everyone on the other team was like, yeah, Brandon Raynor was the right answer. I was like, I know. You guys are just having a silly goose time. I was right, per usual. Well, we appreciate you coming back on, Jose, despite the bad judging from E. Casey Latin, where have we heard that before?

But back on the show himself, looking to make it another successful title defense, a man who was victorious in that aforementioned tag team matchup. This man has been on a tear as of late, fiery takes, and this man is truly Mr. No Gray area. Also from M.M.A.Fiding.com. Mr. Jed Mishu. Jed, how are you, my friend? Mike, I'm already mad at you, and then you're going to pretend like Jose is the one who's been ripped off by Casey. Casey's job is basically to rob me.

And coincidentally, as we said last week, I've been winning a lot since he's not judging anymore. Funny how that works. So now I'm doubly mad at you because you lied to me, Mike. When you were you to talk about the lie you told me because it hurt my feelings a lot? Which lie is this? That Evander Holyfield and Vitor Belfer was just going to be. glorified sparring match. What happened there, Mike?

What happened there? I'm glad you segueed right away because I have a lot of thoughts about this and I haven't had the chance to really express them the way I've liked to. But you know what? Let's just get right into this thing because for those listening right now,

I am less than 48 hours removed from my return home from South Florida from covering the latest offering from Triller Fight Club. We saw boxing. I'm putting air quotes up. saw music, we saw UFC legends, former world champions, and in the end, we felt a tremendous bit of sadness for those of us who watched it because 58-year-old Avander Holyfield,

let's just say, he was flat out destroyed by Vitor Belford. And in the first 15 seconds of the fight, I was like, all right, these dudes are going to move around. They're going to have a sparring match. Holyfield lands a shot. Then he throws a heavy punch and he almost falls out of the ring through the ropes. And then Belfort just torn apart and the referee mercifully stopped it at the right time. Come to find out, as I said on last week's show, as Judge just brought up, this had exhibition fight written all over it, and that was correct because it turned out it was an exhibition fight, but nobody apparently told Vitor Belfort about that because he did not approach it in the same way as others had before him. He

wanted to knock out of Vanderholyfield, and he did just that. So Jose, before we look at other parts of this, what is your reaction to that main event and seeing Vitor Belfort just put the wood to pour Evander Holyfield the way that he did? Weird, I guess I would say. When Evander Holyfield announced that he was going to be the replacement, I was like, well, that's a thing, I guess. I didn't really put much thought into it. Then I watched your interview with him, and I was like, oh, this is not going to be fun.

Like, I feel like he said a lot of words and didn't say anything. He also threw a lot of ums and us and the and it around. Like he didn't answer your question. And I don't know. It just, it weirded me out. And then I was like trying to, because I remember vividly watching Evander Holyfield, like growing up like on television when he was a legitimate steroided out monster, knocking fools out in the heavyweight division, probably like easily top 10 heavyweight of all time. And then I realized that his fight against Riddick Bow was 30 years ago. And that fight, I lose brainslows watching that fight just of how violent it was.

and now he's fighting 30 years later against someone who a lot of people consider to have one of the faster hands in MMA and kind of the original like lightning quick boxer in the UFC who's also probably not getting drug tested either left a bad taste in my mouth and the fight hadn't even happened

though everyone was like oh if Vander touches him once he'll go to sleep I didn't think that at all I thought of Vitor Belfort was just going to blitz right through him and he did exactly that and I felt sad watching it so all and all weird sad depressing shouldn't have happened, didn't enjoy it.

There was weird commentary that we'll probably have to talk about, but all in all, I would grade this a one out of ten. Jed, I'm not sure if you actually watch this fight. I don't think you really needed to, because you could watch all the clips and see all the reactions on social media. Of course, you told everybody to

follow along on M.A.fighting.com, but just from what you read, what you saw, I mean, especially when the reports are coming out that it was an exhibition fight on Friday, like, I was feeling pretty good about things. I was like, all right, this is these dudes are going to move around. Like Vitor is not going to try to hurt this man.

He already said he's not going to try to hurt this man. And no one would have been sad if they went out there and just moved around for eight rounds. And then we get this and Vitor just tears through him. So what was your reaction to all of this? You know my reaction because in real time I messaged you and was like you lied to me, Mike. Because I, we had this discussion last week, man.

I was super down. I knew that this was going to happen. I'd hope because the only reason I had hope was because you instilled it in me. You're like, you know, I get that this is horrible and nothing about this is good. This is all awful. But maybe Vitor has enough self-awareness to recognize that he doesn't need to go bolt a 60-year-old former boxing legend. Like he can just do the right thing. And Vitor sure shit couldn't.

I haven't seen the fight. I haven't watched a replay. I haven't watched any of the clips on that fight. because there was no need to watch a very sad thing happen. I can go see sad things any day of the week, just looking at my Twitter timeline and being part of the MMA community. So certainly didn't need to willingly seek that out.

So I have no thoughts on this other than you lied to me, and I'm really upset with you, Mike. Yes, I feel bad too. Perhaps I was a little too naive. And I actually, for the first time my combat sports career, I've always, I'm not the prince of positive. like AK, but I always try to find... You were last week, though, man.

Yes, I know. I try to find the silver lining and everything, and I've never felt like I was too naive for this sport, but for a moment on Saturday, I actually was like, man, maybe I am. Maybe I have to look at things in a new way. Maybe it's just not as rosy. It's definitely not, but I try to, like, find it

in every single sort of fight or storyline or whatever. And then, like, 15 seconds into this fight, I'm like, all right, I feel good about this. like Holyfield's moving around, he's just throwing out little jabs and Belfort's just kind of like wapping his head back a little bit. And I'm like, okay, like this is going to be what we're looking around. And then nope, Vitor wasn't playing around in there. And let me tell you what got me more than anything. And I know Ariel sort of talked about this yesterday.

And I thought the exact same thing as it was happening. The celebration was super nauseating if we're being honest. Like he's celebrating like he knocked out like this is 1994 knocking out of Van der Holy Field and what was worse and to kind of build on what area is like because this is literally the thing I thought about. Vitor Belfort on Wednesday when I interviewed him, he was like, he looked at me like he wanted to stab me with nails into my eyeballs bringing up the Jake Paul Tyron Woodley fight to the point where he wouldn't even let me finish the question I was asking him.

And he said like, don't put me in the same sentence as Jake Paul. Holyfield and I are the Ferrari, the Disney kid and the wrestler or the Honda. And what does he do after he knocks up? of Vanderholyfield, 58, going to be 59 in like three weeks. He calls out Jake Paul. He calls out Jake Paul. And Ryan Kavanaugh proposes this be a $30 million winner take-all fight. I was literally laughing in my media seat, laughing at this entire thing.

Jed, I could not believe it. And I wanted to ask questions at the press conference so bad. I wanted a microphone in my hand to ask Vitor Bellford about him saying that to me and then calling out Jake Paul the way that he did. No one from the media got to ask any questions. And then on top of that, on top of that, he says Canello Alvarez has no balls to fight him at 185 pounds. So this guy goes from De La Jolla, to Holyfield, to Jake Paul's a Honda, to I'll be Jake Paul's daddy. Canello has no balls and then sure, maybe I'll fight Delahoya if they offer it to me.

What world are we living in Jedmishu? Where are we? Because I have no idea. Jose, can we just agree to give Mike the point this round? because he's going off right now. I was so mad on Saturday. I was so mad. But where are we living, Jed?

Like, what is Vitor thinking? What is with this? See, this is the part that I'm upset at you about because this is totally about I thought I was going to happen. Because Vitor is not the most self-war human beings that's ever lived. Like, he's not a stupid man by any means, but he sometimes just doesn't get the picture. And he clearly just whiffed hard here.

and so now now he's calling out for a bunch of fights that he's not going to get he looks awful in every respect and contrast that with everything that Anderson Silva has done over the last year and it's just so stark it's such a stark bad image for Vitor the only people who came out of this weekend looking worse than Vitor is the Florida Athletic Commission for allowing this to happen in the first place other than that if he everything was bad for him as far as i'm concerned Jose what do you think like when you were watching all this and i didn't get to i tried to jump into the post show i don't remember which iteration i know he had to do it a couple of times because we didn't know when the press conference is going to start but just hearing vitor react the way

that he did and the callouts and all this what were your thoughts on the aftermath of the fight it was silly it was stupid it was pointless it was desperation i hated everything about it like And you said that Ryan Kavanaugh came in with a $25 million contract. I mean, $30 million like offer. It was a $25 million offer. And then some psychopath came out of nowhere and goes, hey, I have $5 million. I did a bunch of drugs. I'm just going to scream.

I'm going to add $5 million to this ridiculous bet. It was stupid. It was idiotic. I mean, outside of your interview with him where he basically kind of shunned Vitor Belfort, and then he's texting Aaron Hawani on the MMA hour saying like, tell my son. And this is, I'm like, first of all, I don't think you know how YouTube works, my guy, because he said, if you turn the fight down, all of your friends,

all of your little Disney fans are going to become my fans. I am really confident when I say that no one that follows Jake Paul's career religiously knows to Vitor Belfort is. And that's like, that's not a knock on Vitor because he's clearly like one of the, he is the every definition of the word pioneer of mixed martial arts. He is one of the greatest middleweights of all time. That Jake Paul's audience just doesn't know that. They have absolutely no idea who Vitor Belford is.

They only watch that. I know Triller is probably banking on like, oh, Jake Paul fought Ben Ascran. Now all of Jake Paul's fans are Triller fans. That's not how fandom works in 2021. They follow their person around. They don't follow the programming around. It just reeked of idiocy.

I don't. understand. And then there's also a problem where Vitor's like, oh, he, like, Canel Alvarez doesn't have the balls to find me. Canel Alvarez fights at 168 pounds. Vitor Belfort fights at 185 pounds. And I am so confident when I say that Connell Alvarez could take a month off and Vitor Belfort could just train and take all of the Mexican, uh, party favors he wants. And Canel Alvers would go out there and just eat Vitor Belf. He would, Canelo Alvers would make Vitor eat himself. That's how dominant it would be.

He wouldn't eat Vitor. He'd be like, Vitor, I'm going to destroy you, and then you're going to ingest yourself. That's how one-sided that fight will be. So I agree with Jed. The biggest loser of the week was the Florida State Athletic Commission, filed very closely by Vitor Belafar, who celebrated like he had just won an actual boxing match against an actual boxing. Jose, do you have any interest in seeing Vitor fight Jake Paul? Like, does anything stick out to you?

Or, I mean, on top of what you just said about Vitor stock, because I had an argument with somebody on Saturday, a fellow media member, I said, Vitor, I was like, in my opinion, Vitor Belfort's stock dropped so much, like immensely dropped. And he completely disagreed with me. And I couldn't understand why. Like, I felt his stock dropped so much on Saturday. I mean, we're talking about him.

we're talking about his call-out and how weird it is. And I mean, even Jake Paul had to respond. And so if that fight happens, which I don't particularly care if it does or not, I don't want this whole $30 million winner take all. Like, honestly, the only reason I don't want that fight is I don't want another week of Vitor Belfort just yelling into the microphone. Like, that's the only reason I don't want. If that fight does happen, people will be super interested in it.

It's because it's prize fighting. Like Jake, after Connor and Canelo, I put Jake Paul number three right now in like people, and like the fighter that drums up the most interest in what in fist fighting. Vitor Belfort said all of this tomfoolery at him. The fact Jake Paul responded and just called out all of the MMA and said he's going to fight Tommy Fury instead, they're going to call him a coward. And then if that fight ever happens, people will be interested in it. And at the end of the day, whatever makes you the most money, I'm all in favor of. I just personally as like a I'd rather see Anderson fight Jake Paul just because Anderson looks awesome and he seems like still like the nicest human being in the world after he just

eats another human being alive in a boxing ring and then just walks away so I'd I'd much rather prefer Anderson Jake Paul but if heitor wants to his fans are going to be interested and it's going to be 2021 just remains just a bizarre bizarre nightmare's hellacious landscape What do you think, Jed? Do you have any interest in this fight, Vitor versus Jake Paul? Could Vitor actually turn Jake Paul baby, like full-on baby face here? I think there's a chance this happens. I think he could.

If anybody could right now, I think maybe Vitor could do it with things that come out of his mouth, Jed. Let's be clear. Jake Paul's the baby face anyway because Jake Paul is the one putting a spotlight on UFC fighter pay when nobody else is doing it. So pro- Jake Paul forever, as long as this keeps going, even though every other aspect. lot of things that are coming out that so i would not every other aspect of his life i don't support but in the context of specifically fist fighting he's the baby face at this point uh but beyond that i mean i have no real interest in it the thing is i think vitor probably did himself a favor this

weekend which is awful and speaks to how terrible this sport is because like i agree it'd be way more fun to watch Anderson fight Jake Paul because Anderson's going to tool them up. But Jake Paul is not going to seek out that fight with Anderson for exactly that reason. And Anderson, great knockout, but relatively quiet of, you know, he knocked out a bad UFC champion. I said it, Tito, I don't regret it at all. Whereas Vitor, hey, he knocked out former heavyweight champion of Vanderholyfield. I'm with Jose saying that Jake Paul's fans don't have any idea who Vitor is, but they probably heard the name of Vanderholyfield,

even if they have no concept on what that really means. And so that is a better touch point. Say, hey, this is the dude who just knocked out Evander Holyfield. He's a former UFC light heavyweight champion. It checks a lot of the boxes for what Jake Paul has been doing for his fight promotion thus far. And he, for all of the things that were awful, when we have discussed it. Vitor was certainly the loudest person this weekend.

And it sort of feels like that might just be enough to get him the fight with Jake Paul next. Like, again, I just don't think Jake Paul should fight Tommy Fury. That feels like a fight he could very easily lose and maybe lose to Vitor as well, especially if Vitor is on as Jose so eloquently put it, Mexican treats or candy. I don't know. Party favors, I think you said. Party favors. Yeah, if Vitor's gassed up like a brand new sports car, then maybe Jake Paul really doesn't beat him.

But it feels like he actually is probably the frontrunner at this point to really get that fight outside of the whole trailer thing. Because I know Jake Paul is a little bit cooled on the trailer experience in general. But, yeah, it's awful and it shouldn't be this way. No one should want Vitor to get a high-profile fight after how badly he reacted to not. out a six-year-old Evander Holyfield, but he probably is in the driver's seat right now. The whole thing, this main event was very bad. I thought the fight was awful. The reaction.

The post-fight was awful. Hopefully, Evander Holyfield made just so much money that he never even has to think about boxing again. Just so many terrible things came from that two minutes and change. There were some good, kind of, and we alluded to it earlier, and we'll discuss that more in round two. but the first point of the matchup goes to me. No, I'm kidding. Jose Young's. Jose Young's on the board.

The threat of Canelo Alvarez making Vitor Belfort eat himself. I don't know if I can get that out of my brain, so I have to give him the point. My only beef with that statement is that Jose said Canello could take a month off. Canello could take like two years off until absolutely hand Vitor's own ass. That's very true. So the main event was just horrendous, everything about it. But to us, M.A. fans, the star of the show, one half of our main event was Anderson Silva, who took on Tito Ortiz. And he knocks out the Huntington Beach bad boy with one punch essentially.

And he's the darling of the weekend, the man that sort of even things out with the walkout, his demeanor all week, the respect, the martial arts mantra, the performance, the post-fighter. everything, all of it. He stole the show in my eyes from everybody else, Jedmishu. What did you think? Like, did you enjoy the latest chapter in the Silva feel-good story of 2021 outside of just seeing Tito fall face first to the mat? Dude, hell yeah. Like, I'm one of those people who I didn't respect Anderson enough when he was in his prime because I was a little shithead and was like he just can't beat a wrestler, but there are no wrestlers. I still that may or may not be true, but I just didn't appreciate all the absolutely dope things he did inside the cage. And then he hit his doubt like decline. And then I really was like, man, I honestly became way more impressed with Anderson

when he went on that big losing skid because he clearly had lost his fastball and his change up, but he was still competitive with some of the best fighters in the world, which is hell impressive. And getting this kind of last stage, career renaissance like if you had told me a year ago that anderson silver is about to be the feel good story of 2021 i've been like that's not true you're just lying and instead it's awesome well i i still don't entirely understand how it's happening but i'm not here to question how it's happening i'm i as soon as this fight was announced i told you i think on this program that i

couldn't have been more excited to watch the greatest striker in ms history just karum shots off the giant knockin of Tito Ortiz and that that was the true main event even when it was supposed to be Oscar de la Hoya Vitor and that was prescient true because it was it was easily the best thing that's happened this month probably and I did not buy the pay-per-view because as I told everyone last week you can just get all the info on mmafiting.com see all the important things and I think that was absolutely the right decision because on mhmatfighting.com you can go watch the 81-second fight highlight and I've watched it many times because it's the best. How about you, Jose?

Did Anderson's triumph put a smile on your face Saturday night? I mean, not the result, not really, just because I'm pretty confident that that same result would have happened even if they fought in an MMA fight in their prime. I just, Anderson Silva always just seemed to a league above Tito Ortiz in every aspect. Anderson Silva at Light Heavyway at one point was like a mythical figure. like he would just kind of step in those through that archway and just do insane things inside the octagon and then of course as jett said he kind of went on that skid but i don't know like i'm happy in the sense that i think our our colleague shan al shoddy has said it a few times

i'm happy that anderson is getting the proper send-off that he didn't get in the u.c because as jed said his kind of his last five what five six fights like his let's also be like like clear. I've scored that fight for Derek Brunson when they fought. I thought Derek Brunson beat Anderson Silva in Brooklyn. So if you would have told me that after that he just took Stefan Bonner's soul in Rio de Janeiro, that he would not get another stoppage win until 2021 in a boxing match against Tito Ortiz, I wouldn't have believed you. And then as slowly is kind of Anderson Silva declined and declined and declined. And then he kind of got that very lackluster sendoff on Halloween night, 2020.

in front of no fans, and then to beat Julio Seizor Chavez Jr., and then Tito Ortiz, to have the entire MMA community just kind of rally behinds the guy that was there. A lot. Jed said himself that he was kind of a little shithead and didn't really give Anderson Silver of the respect

he deserved when he was doing his thing, which is commendable that he finally accepted that. But a lot of fight fans, I am sure Anderson Silva is the reason that they got into MMA. We've had Garamee Cruz on the A side a few times, and he said that that front kick with Vitor Belfort was the genesis of the MMA boom for an entire country.

So I know for a fact that a lot of fight fans are just happy in general to see Anderson get some sort of success in a proper center. So I'm happy for the man. The result itself, I kind of went like, yeah, duh, that was going to happen regardless of when this fight took place. So I'm happy for the man, the outcome. Saw that coming. I'll say that. Okay. let's dive deeper into the outcome Jose

the minus 1,200 betting favorite I think everyone saw that coming I don't think I didn't look at a single betting line I'm like this is minus 1,200 because I was like I'd like to bet on this guaranteed That gap should have been much bigger Well it should have been but it's not a lot of meat on a minus 12th Minus 10,000 Anderson Silva

Now just to kind of dive into the result more, Jose. We, you've been on the show enough and Jed has as well. We very rarely mention the F word on the show. And I won't mention it here because I don't think we should. But I will go with the S word, maybe sprinkle in the T word, shenanigans and tomfoolery. Those are the words we're going with. The F word is fixed. We're not going to use that word here. Because that's, the S and the T there, that's what a lot of people are screaming coming out of this fight with the way Tito is throwing punches in the corner. I mean, maybe he's just the most terrible boxer of all time, but there are a lot of people, that's probably the answer. But there are a lot of people in this

industry who I respect, who think that there might be a little bit of shenanigans in Tomfoolery, mostly from the Ortiz side, not from the Silva side, mostly from the Ortiz side. Did you see anything, Jose that would warrant those reactions? Did you have any of those reactions at Yeah, I don't think it was fixing the sense that Triller went up and told both of them that this was, it wasn't like Mark Coleman and Pride or anything like that. It was, it was very much, I think all of the interviews Tito Ortiz said leading up to this fight where he's like, I'm going to try really hard to make weight. Like, I'm going to try. I'm willing to die and I'm going to try. I might not make it, but I'm going to try. I'm like, he's not going to make it. He's just already, he just admitted it. He's not going to make weight. And we're like a month. out. So he's probably getting a stupid amount of money. I'm sure like to, once they announced this fight, something weird was going to happen

because Anderson went from Julio Seiz Jr. Like beating a, like, I've said this a million times. I am so far away from being a fan of Chavez Jr. I think he's, I've used the phrase, bum, many times when discussing him. But he is a legitimate

boxer. Tito Ortiz is such a massive step down in competition for Anderson. So I'm like, these two just got an insane amount of money. Why would he not take this fight to just, as Jedd has said a few times, lamp a big-headed fool. And he did that exactly. So T. Ortiz probably got a lot of money.

Knew he wasn't going to make weight. Knew he probably wasn't going to win and just goes, you know what? As they do in the professional wrestling business, let's just go home in the middle of the ring. And that is exactly what happened. First punch that landed. I'm sure hurt. I'm sure just detached him from his sentence for maybe a half second and fell down.

So not saying that's what happened, but if you're watching that and that is what you believe, I'm not going to argue with it. I don't think Anderson Silva had anything to do with it. I don't think Triller had anything to do with it. I just think Tito Ortiz got a giant paycheck, struggled to make weight, and said, I want to go home right now. And he did. Yeah, so it's interesting when you cover the sport for those listening right now. And I thought this with like watching WWE and stuff over the years that the guys look like a certain size on television. But when you stand next to them, you realize just,

what they really look like. And Tito, I always thought was like, yeah, he's just a jacked up dude. Like, he's not that big. And then you stand next to him and you realize you're like, oh my God. I'm like, this guy is massive. And the first thing I thought when I stood next to him was like there's no chance this guy's making $195.

Zero chance. In the world, he's making 195 pounds. But in terms of the shenanigans and Tom Fulery, Jed, I know you watch the 81 seconds in highlight form, but were you watching that just thinking, maybe Tito just kind of phoned it in as quickly as he could. No. But I never understand, like, one, we've talked about five-fixing and how it, like, doesn't

really happen. But, like, how, how do you even come to that conclusion? He's a minus 1,200 favorite. This should be the outcome that is expected. And frankly, anybody saying that this was fixed or that Tito phoned it in, you have have never seen Tito Ortiz do anything, because you're giving him so much credit as an actor that he does not deserve.

This dude can't put together three sentences without stumbling over himself, and somehow you think he is going to fake getting dropped and be done, and he's not going to botch that too? Like, no, he got got, and rewatch it. You can hear the sound of those punches. They land very cleanly,

and Tito's damn near 50. Like, that's, this. This is the outcome that was expected. It's the outcome we got. And if you think it was fixed or shenanigans or chicanery or whatever happened, you are giving Tito Ortiz a lot of credit. Did you ever watch Tito do anything? Have you ever?

Boryssinia, M.M.A. I forget his actual Twitter handle. Great MMA Twitter dude who's made of his life mission to catalog Tito Ortiz being awful on the microphone, watch any of the, uh, whatever those things that you pay people to say stuff for you. I don't remember what that. Camios, right? Camios. Yeah, watch any Tito Ortiz cameo because they're all on that Twitter profile. And he can't get out like a happy birthday message without screwing up. You think he's going to fake getting knocked out in a fight? Like he really can do that? No chance, man. No chance. Jose, did you, did, I know you had to work the broadcast on Saturday and, and, and, and, and, and,

watch it, but did you watch the Trump commentary at all? Nope. Not one second of it. Okay. Did not. Absolutely not. I saw enough of that man in your highlight videos you sent. And he was, you know, on the regular broadcast, but I didn't watch.

I didn't listen to one second of him commentated fight. And Jed, you didn't watch. So we'll, we'll listen. I would not have watched that. There are, I would not have, I would have cut off a finger before we're watching that's just not an outcome when I was interested in what does Anderson do now Jed what would you like to see him do next I mean we talked about I'd be happy to watch him box a Paul brother I don't think that's going to happen my guess is I've I feel like Anderson probably ends up getting

De La Jolla next I know de la Jolla is obviously supposed to fight Vitor maybe they run that back but I think Vitor wants to make a real hard push for the Paul brothers. And Anderson seems like he's just kind of down for whatever. And I know De La Jollaoy is still going to want to box again. And honestly, coming off of that, I feel like De La Jollaoya should be more interested in Anderson and how all that shook out than in facing Vitor. So if I'm putting money on it, I would guess that he's going to fight De La Jolla next. But honestly, it may just be, no, you talk to him afterwards, you interviewed him for the site.

And he's really interested in competing with his son on the undercard, which I think was originally supposed to happen this past weekend. And things got in the way. So it may just be as simple as whatever the first opportunity is to do that. That's what he ends up taking next because he just wants to stay active and kind of fulfilled that check that box on his wish list. What do you think, Jose? It seems like he wants to stick around the boxing world.

Like Jed said he wants to fight on the same card as his son. Feels like that's the next move. but Anderson Silver versus Blank is the fight to make. How do you fill that blank in? I think Oscar will end up fighting Vitor because I think they said at the press conference, Anderson said that when that name was presented, he said, well, I think Vitor has unfinished business with him, so Vitor can fight Oscar. So I think that fight will probably happen.

I don't know, maybe Anderson versus Logan Paul solely because our own Damon Martin interviewed, the Showtime executive Stephen Espinoza, he was presented that fight. like Damon asked him about that fight possibly happening. This was before the Anderson Tito fight was announced. So and Stephen S. Mnosa seems semi-interested is like that is a fight that is clearly on their radar that that we will explore. The Paul brothers, I'm sure, would be more than fine having Anderson's son be on

the undercard. Like they seem like to fill these cards and have a lot of stories in every single fight from top to bottom. Like I think Jake Paul even said himself that he had his fingers in every single fight that was announced for his undercard. So there was a reason everything was on there. So I think if Jake Paul is going to fight Tommy Fury, I don't think I would have any issue because Logan is much more closer to Anderson's size than Jake.

And then if they both win, then maybe that could be like if Jake Paul and Anderson win, then maybe that fight could happen down the road. But I wouldn't hate that fight at all, especially if it was in Los Angeles. I know Anderson and his son live in L.A. Jake Paul and Logan clearly have houses in L.A. they've lived in a life for a long time the fight at the Staples Center was kind of taken away from the fight fans there

I know it would probably a showtime fight not a trailer fight but if it's if I'm Anderson's team I'm at least exploring his him possibly fighting Logan Paul I think my favorite part of the entire week was during the press conference when Trump said he would beat Joe Biden easily

and then Anderson's face I had to look I had to turn the camera and like zoom in on Anderson's face it was the best thing of the whole week it was amazing I don't think Anderson wants to fight on Triller anymore either. I think he'd be much happier fighting on Showtime. Yeah, I would agree with that.

So we spent 30 or so minutes on this card. And I covered it. I thought Triller was very accommodating, very opportunistic for us. But I think that's a little too much time. So we're going to move ahead to this weekend's festivities. The point for round two goes to Jed Mishu and him trying to find silver linings. and him trying to be positive and saying no shenan against no tomfoolery this is just the linings i just know who tito ortees is been around m and a long time all right so triller is behind

us at least for the time being this weekend the ufc is back bellator is back and they're both putting shows on this saturday but the biggest storyline honestly ahead of both cards goes to the Bellator side because one half of the main event is the long away to return the Bellator debut of Yol Romero facing Phil Davis in the main event at Bellator 266 and it's the promotions return to San Jose, California, their home base for the first time since the pandemic went out. So Jed, I mean, this is your guy. Where would you gauge your excitement levels for this fight? The return of Yol Romero, a man who is moving up to 205, a man you consider and you

said many times on the show, he's the greatest middleweight in the world right now. Look, results don't lie, and Yol Romero hasn't lost since Hafeo Calvo Conte knocked him out in Strike Force 20 years ago, how long that was. Look, I am torn because I love Y'O. Romero. I have been staining Yol Romero forever until this past iteration when he was officially knocked out of the M.A. fighting rankings for inactivity, I had him like number two or something absurd until Sean Al-Shoddy was like, you can't vote for him anymore. You have to let this die. So I am as big of your old Romero fan as there is. But if you could find a fight to make me

not want to watch your old Mara fight, it's Phil Davis, like Bellator nail on the head. You'll remember fighting Anthony Rumble Johnson? Awesome. That fight is gangbusters by anybody's definition. It will be spectacular. I could not wait for that fight. And then you bait and switch us into this. This is shenanigans. This is the definition of shenanigans. Nobody likes Phil Davis, have said it many times, like he's a perfectly nice individual, but nobody wants to watch him fight. His own family members don't want to watch him fight because he's had like two good fights his entire career. Everything else is awful, especially most of his Belator run, has been heinous to watch. This fight is going to look terrible, and the only hope it has of being good

is if your old Romero does your old Romero things. And by that, I mean, he loses the first two rounds because Phil Davis just leg kicks him a bunch and refuses to get within a zip code of your old Romero's punches. And then suddenly Romero's like, ah, screw it. I'm just going to knock him out. It's the third round. That's Romero time. And then he comes out and knocks Phil Davis out. Because anything else, this is going to be Phil Davis pointing his way to the most sad. tepid victory of all time, and it's just going to suck. And there's not even other redeeming fights on this card, or frankly, the UFC card, which we're going to get into.

This is just, Belator has had an awful 2021, and they are keeping that momentum going by just doing everything they can to make me not interested. Jose, are you in the same boat as Jed? Is there a little more excitement on your end with this U.S. Romero-Phil Davis fight? the fight itself it is not as jed said it is not the fight that i probably would have booked i wanted you know i wanted yoller merrill in the grand prix this let's let's not forget this is not a grand pre fight both of these men are out of this this big light heavyweight tournament they have going on right correct like phil davis lost to nemkov and yoll and maryl was balanced when he pulled out of the

rumble fight correct yeah like this is not a gron yeah so like what is this fight what is this fight lead to? Neither one is going to get a title shot immediately. Neither one is, this is just a fight to introduce Yola Romero to Bellator, and Phil Davis is the name that fight fans know. And like, as Jed said, he's not the most pleasant man to watch fights,

but I think being a very boring fighter in making fights super boring and winning is a underrated skill in MBA. I know Jed shakes his head, but I'm not here to argue that. I agree. Dude's super skilled at that. He's like Big Worry McDonald. Yeah, exactly. So like two, one of those judges gives Phil Davis one of those rounds against Ryan Bader.

And then he, didn't he fight NEMCOV to a split decision too? Like those are three of his last four loss. Three of his last four losses are super close split decisions. One of those judges gives Phil Davis those dots. Phil Davis has what? He hasn't lost. It's like 2014 after that. His Rumble Johnson loss.

And I like, so Phil Davis is an anomaly to me because I looked at his resume before we went on. I'm like, wow, Phil Davis has won a ton of fights, and I can't remember a single one since 2014. Outside of like those, he won like two diner, like that Bellator Dynamite card that he won like two fights in one night. I think one of them was against Francis Carmont. And I really, really wanted Francis Carmont to win that fight because like the winner of that might fight for a title or something crazy like that. And there was this one percent chance that Tito Ortiz is going to fight Francis Carmont for a Bellator light heavyweight championship of the one. world and I was like, I need to live in a world where that fight happens because that is absurd. So, yeah, I mean, Phil Davis wins a lot.

I've also said a million times on various shows that I subscribe to the notion that wins and losses matter in a sport. I know a lot of people on this site don't consider mixed martial arts a sport. I still do. So good on you, Phil Davis. You want a lot of fights. And he also is in charge of the only book club in the MMA landscape. He made a couple other professional fighters all read the same book and then talk about it together.

So I am very pro-Fil Davis. I am very pro-reading. I like Yo Romero doing crazy things inside the Octagon. So I'll watch this fight. And Jed, I mean, listen, Jed, Phil Davis is coming off a pretty exciting fight. That Nemcoff fight was entertaining. So that still doesn't bode well at all for you. As I said last week, broken clock's right twice a day, man.

Like, Phil Davis can't have the fight. Do you remember the fight before that? Do you recall the fight before that? It was Phil Davis eking out a decision win over Leota Machita in the year of our Lord 2020. He has two questionable decision wins over Leota Machita and two questionable decision losses to Ryan Bader. Everything balances out. Well, I got to make it. Having questionable wins over Leoto, when Leoto's 45 or whatever the hell he is,

Like, that is just, that's not a good look, man. Jed, you know I'm going to make you dig a little deeper here. You mentioned it. There's no redeeming. Come on, baby. Give me something. There's got to be something. This card is awful.

Bellator at least usually is better. They don't usually put 14 fights in a fight card. They've really drunk the... We're going to talk about the UFC in a minute. Oh, yeah. But both of them are 14 fight cards because nobody in M.M.A. wants to have a family life. Like, does nobody in the Bellator executive office, like, want to go home?

Is Scott Coker just not want to be near his family? So he puts 14 fights on this freaking card? Come on, man. Half of them are, like, zero, zero people. It's just awful. If you're going to make me, I don't know. I mean, I can't good conscience ever support Georgia Caricanian just at all. So I guess Deanna Bennett, Alejandra Lara is probably the best other fight that's going on here.

But like, I can't say confidently because I'm not even kidding. One, two, three, four, five, like five fights on this or fighters who don't have wins in their career. Like you can't scout and see if that's a low-key banger because they've never fought before or whatever. So, yeah, this is a bad card, man. I say a lot on this program, but I thoroughly mean it. do not watch this tune into in to enamelayfiting.com we're going to have a recap

at best the main event might might be kind of fun for like a literally a 10 second stretch is the most that fight will be fun so yeah don't watch this one be with your families it's okay for you to have other hobbies and enjoy those

and just come to mmafiting.com we'll take care of you for anything you might suddenly need to know about this there's one two three four, five, six, seven. Seven fighters making their pro debuts on this card. Seven fighters in 14 cents making their pro debuts. This is not, this isn't some ramshackle smoker out in the Midwest.

This is Belator in California. I don't know what the hell's going on this weekend. What do you think, Jose? Is there a second, is there a low-key banger here that sticks out of your mind? I mean, it's always going to be like specific fighters. I want to see, not like the actual fight itself. And let's not forget, Scott Cochre is close to his family because he lives in San Jose, and this fight is in San Jose.

So he probably just took a bunch of AKA guys and go, we're going to put you on this Bellator card. So that's why this card is so massive because there's a massive gym to just pull from. I guess Saul Rogers is an interesting name. He was supposed to fight on the ultimate fighter, and then he got like a grand theft auto. that he lied about. So that meant is infinitely more interesting

than anyone else on this card because he lied about a crime, thought no one would notice it, went and did really well on the ultimate fighter, and then he was like, hey man, you lied about stealing a bunch of cars. He goes, oops, sorry.

So Saul Rogers is always a fun guy to watch Neiman Gracie. I remember interviewing a bunch of fighters like not in the Grand Prix, but like during that Welterweight Grand Prix, and every single one said Neiman Gracie was the dark horse to win. in that entire tournament to the point where I started to believe it and then it just didn't happen

and then all of a sudden Jason Jackson is an incredibly talented fighter so which caught me off guard so I guess demon grace and solver arches are two names I want to see but not any specific fight oh Mike I got you now as I'm looking at this I mean I don't again don't watch this at all I know I'm saying it's a holland gracy because I did not realize that uh the worst of the graces is also on this card, which is great. He's 0 and 2, and his first loss is to Dustin Hazlitt back in 06, and he hasn't fought like 6. He lost a young Dustin Haslett, and was like, you know what I'm good? Well, Bellator came calling, so sure, I'll strap him up one more time. What gong show this card is? This is awesome. This might be the toughest point I've

ever given on the show, man. All right, we're going to move to the UFC side and see if there's a little more sunshine on a very cloudy day, apparently, in San Jose this Saturday. But the point for round, the point for route number three goes to, I'll go with Jose Young's. Jose Young's, two to one. Great battle. Let's talk UFC, because, Jed, you were wrong about one thing. While Bellator is putting on a 14 fight card, the UFC said, you know what?

you do 14 fights bellator we're going to do 15 fights we're going to do 15 fights and that's what they're doing and the last one also in the light heavyweight division anthony smith versus ryan spans the ufc takes a week off coming back with 15 fights oh two weeks after having a nine fight card we're a week away from the pay-per-view ufc 266 anthony smith is always a strong test for anybody at 205 ryan span is nine and one in his last test an exciting prospect of 205, even though he's been around for a while. Jed thoughts on this main event.

What do you think? Ryan Span taking on to Anthony Smith. It's a main event, I guess. I, light heavyweight is just, it's the worst division. I think it's worse than heavyweight, which is honestly saying something. Like, Ryan Span is,

he's a prospect by virtue of the fact that he is a warm body at 205. Like, is he ranked? I don't know. He might be ranked. Maybe I even ranked him. He's that forgettable.

Like, he barely beat Sam Alvey last year. Sam Alvey. Like, that's not why. 205 is just the longer this, the world goes on, the less good John Jones's career looks in retrospect. To be like, you are probably the best fight we've ever seen. And holy shit, you're really good at fighting. But man, we thought 205 was good because we had this idea that, like, all these old people that we loved were good. And now in retrospect, man, that is just a chasm of talent and fun.

Like, 205 sucks. So this is a fight. It might even be a fun one, actually, because Anthony Smith is a fun fighter. And Ryan Span can be fun. He usually wins or loses spectacularly. unless he's going to a decision with Sam freaking Alvi. So this might be fun. It just hurts my soul

that this like matters in in MMA, like that this fight means something. But that's also why we get to have a champion like Jan Blanovich who would never be a champion in any other division. And that story is very heartwarming and awesome. So

hell yeah, I guess. Let's go 205. It's better than most of the rest of this card. At least it's got that going for. I love how the more you talk, the more the higher the score of the main event got, Jed. So that's a very compelling argument. There were 14 other bad fights before it. So in concept, it's, it's, maybe that's plan. Maybe the UFC is like, if we just fill them with awful for five hours when it gets to the main event and they see something that's resembling competent, they're like, hell yeah,

that's a great fight. I leave here happy and fulfilled. Jose, your thoughts on Smith v. Spam on Saturday? I mean, I got a lot more interested in. And after watching Anthony Smith's interview on the MMA hour, Ryan Span, as we all noted, noted during the promo for, which was it, which during the Darren Till fight, was it the Darren Till card? Yeah, that was the last one. He seemed really angry for whatever reason. And Anthony Smith was like, why are you so mad, bro? And then he called him a nerd and a dork.

And was just like, I don't know, really large black scary men, don't scare me. That was like half my family growing up. So I'm like, wow, I can't wait to see this steer down because Ryan's Span just seems perpetually agitated by something. I was also at that Ryan Span, Sam Alley fight. That was the first car. That was the first fight in the pandemic era. That was when Ryan Span and Sam Alley fought in front of a 30,000 seat empty arena in Jacksonville. So that fight was absolutely bizarre.

I give everyone on that card a little bit of a pass because of how weird that those circumstances were leading into that fight. Anthony Smith is one of those fighters that really no matter where the fight is, he can hold his own in at least some aspects. I know he got absolutely pieced up by Glover de Cheshire and Asander Ratchit, if I remember correctly. But Anthony Smith is a very, very, very high-level blackwell on the ground. And he has endless cardio, and he can punch really well and kick really well. So I expect him to win. I'm very excited for this fight. And I think there are some low-key bangers on this fight card.

I would, from top to bottom, this card is very easily the obvious answer for which card is best, considering half of the Bellator card is O&O. But yeah, there's some fun fights. I don't hate the main event. I think it's a really good pay-per-view opener, if that makes sense. This is like Anthony Smith versus Jimmy Krupe, like a really fun fight that should kick off a pay-per-view. What is the – I know when we say Loki Bangor, you like to look at specific fighters, but it's got to be a fight. out here, man. It's got to be one fight.

Mr. Aramishu Khrushchev rules. That's a great fight. We all talk about how Islam Makachev is the uncrowned champion in Lightway. And Armistaruky had made his debut against Islam Mahachev, who has already had like several fights in the UFC and looked really

good to the point where Habib pulled him aside after the fight and was like you're a really good fighter. And then he yeah, I know he missed weight on Fight Island and he wanted to fight Dan Hooker and then that fight didn't happen. Now he's fighting Christophagos It was coming off for, what was his last fight? He's submitted Providence's his own, Sean Soriano in Houston, but it was like some weird choke, right?

It was like a Bravo choke, whatever it was. So that fight is awesome, and I am so much more interested in that fight than any other fight on this card outside of that. They're like, like, Joaquin Buckeye and Impecacusanganae are on the same card, and all of a sudden they're in different weight classes. Montel Jackson is fun, like Panicansett. All of a sudden is on like a really long win streak, and Raquel Pennington is a name. that is popular and she fought for the title. So there are fun names on this card, but Saruki and Jago's, I love that fight.

That is the definition of a very high level mixed martial arts contest against two fighters that probably won't be champion, but we'll always put on at least exciting fights. What you got, Jed? What you got? I can't knock what Jose said. That's a really good fight. But if I'm going bangers and it's going to be low-key, give me Impagasconei, Carlston Harris.

Carlston Harris is, dude, he's just really freaking fun. He's been his, he made his UFC debut this year. Might have been earlier this year. I can't remember if it was earlier this year, late last year. Got a Darstoke. He came from the UAE Warriors thing. He was on Miss Fist like once or twice. Dude's just really exciting fighter, really fun.

And Ipigastogne is, will forever be the dude that got ninja kicked by Yulking Buckley. And if you have the ability to get highlight real knockouted, like we talked earlier, my colleague over there said, you know, being boring is a skill. Returning fights boring is a skill. A more underrated skill is the ability to get knocked out spectacularly because that is a marketable kill. I've said for years, if anybody would ever let me run an MMA promotion,

I would try and get really exciting fighters first. And the second thing I would look for is I would try to get fighters who know how to get knocked out well because that puts the highlight reels up there. And Ibrqsagne, he knows how to get knocked out in spectacular fashion. So I'm all for watching Carlson Harris cook on him. And maybe not. Because Cassagney is actually not a bad fighter. Maybe he just had a bad night against Joking Buckley or he's in a different weight class.

But I'm super interested in this one and let him run. Let's go. Yeah, there's some interesting fights. Mandy Boehm's going to make her debut. Tafan Chukwee versus Mike Rodriguez. Someone's going to sleep in that fight. There would be interesting fights if there weren't 15 of them. And that's, like, there's just a, there's too many.

Let's play my favorite game, Mike. Guess how many fighters don't have Wikipedia pages on this card? So there's 30 fighters. I'm going to say 17 of them. No, there, well, Wikipedia only has 14 fights on this. So I don't know who's missing. Let's assume neither of those, whoever the fight is is missing. Let's say they don't.

What have I got here? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Looks like 10, 10 to 12 fighters. So, yeah, let's just cut half those fights, half the fights off this card. Trim this down to a manageable 10. It'd be a solid if unspectacular fight night card. Instead, it's 12 hours long on Saturday. I would have to say that's probably a few.

fighters that won't be in the UFC after losing on Saturday. Well, yeah, unfortunately. Because Dane is going to give 11 more contracts out tonight on the contender series because there's six fights. Because there's six fights. Like Emily Whitmire is the opener and what is her record? Like three and three,

four and four? Yep. What is Hannah Goldie's record? Five and two. It's on the same. Yeah. What else? Yeah. Aaron Blanchfield's making her debut. I like that.

That's a fun time. Mikey Rodriguez has a lot of. The bunch of losses too, right? Yeah, Nate Manus and Tony Grail is a good fight. And then Montel Jackson's about to just put the work to J.P. Bayes. Eish. Not good. It's going to be a rough day for the 125.

Oh, isn't Sarah Alpar is fighting Aaron Blanchfield, right? Yeah. Alpar's first fight at 125 in a long time. But she got that Jake Paul money. I just remember Jesse Jess just dismantling her nose with elbows, and then she was getting married like a week later. It's just a wild story. I love the confidence in planning a wedding just a week after you're about to have a cage fight.

Amen. Like, that is a high level of confidence. You got to respect. So many new skills that need to be put out into the world. Just on this day's show, we have the top three. We have being able to get knocked out, being able to make a boring fight. You can ask you, Kay, I've literally been saying for years that the second most markable skill in MMA is being knocked out, spectacular. If you can market that, you can build a promotion on a dude.

Put Connor McGregor against 10 dudes who really know how to get knocked out. Man, you're going to be viral four times out of those 10. Well, with that new skill you've taught us, Jed, you have gotten the point for round number four, which means we will go to the knockout round. And I'm not happy about this question, but I couldn't really think of one before we got started. So I'm just going to go with this one because it was such a big story over the weekend. one minute for each of these gentlemen to answer this question. They have no idea what it is.

Once that is done, I will award the final point. And I don't want to hear anything from anybody because I'm just going to give it. You'll give you 30 seconds once you win. And then we'll move on. And we'll forget this triller card ever happened because hopefully we don't get to mention it again. But Jed, I think I know where you're going with this. But maybe you'll surprise us. You're going first.

You're passing it on. I'm going to pass because I do think I know what you're about to ask. and I was really hoping you wouldn't ask about this. So I need to formulate thoughts that won't get me fired. Ah, touchet. Okay, well, maybe. I mean, it could be a number of things that would have Jed formulate thoughts. That would get fired.

Well, Jose, we just got through Triller on Saturday and Sunday. We're watching football and we're enjoying ourselves. Some teams are winning. Some teams are losing. I think both of our teams lost on Sunday. And then right before we're about to call tonight, Connor McGregor shows up at the Video Music Awards and he gets into an altercation of sorts with Machine Gun Kelly

just an ugly scene. Connor does what he does like at every single faceoff after every press conference. It was just an awful, awful thing to watch. But I guess the one thing that I really thought of coming out of this, and this is where we're going to spend 60 seconds each on, is when does the UFC just say, you know what? listen, this guy is a big star. He's a money generator. This man's in a lot

for us. He's a two-division champion. Biggest star we've ever had. But he's just an asshole. He's just dragging our name through the mud right now. Can this ever get to a point where the UFC just says you know what? Sometimes you got to

cut bait. It's a nice fish. Probably tastes delicious, but it's getting hard to reel in, man. We've got to cut bait real quick. Has this gotten the UFC any closer to making that decision? No, absolutely not. They, I'm sure Dana doesn't love it, but they used Connor McGregor attacking a bus in a

promo. There's no way they cut ties. Like Connor McGregor, for as much money as he makes from the UFC, is so severely underpaid with how much money he generates compared to the percentage he gets. machine gun Kelly is I'm confident when I say this too is so much more popular in just the grand scheme of the pop culture world than Connor McGregor. So the fact that we are talking about machine gun Kelly pop icon who again had a beef with Eminem the highest selling artist of the 2000s and is now all of a sudden having beef with Connor McGregor. The UFC is probably like don't do that. But at the same time they're like, wow, this is going to be a lot of money because machine gun Kelly is going to get asked about it.

And then it's back in the headlines. Conner's Granite going to get asked about it. And the machine guy, Kelly's going to be asked about it. Hey, Megan Fox is involved, so you know I'm going to be paying attention. So, no, the UFC is not cutting ties unless Conn McGregor fights this contract out and leaves. All right. We go over to Jen Michoud. I'm sure you, maybe you got the fishing reference.

I don't know if you fish out there in Atlanta GA. But, I mean, when do we get to this point? Like, when do it? They're making a ton of money from this ESPN deal. So, like, getting Connor is. great and it's cherry on top of the Sunday and you sell a million pay-reviews and that's always a great thing when that happens but you don't

I mean it's nice to have them but you don't really need them right now in a business sense so has this gotten the UFC any closer to the point we're just like why are we doing this? Like what is the point? Like I understand he's a big start and sells a lot of pay-per-views but like come on now like this is such a headache.

We'll put a minute on the clock. You can't see it but I'm going to time it for you. Ready? Go. No, it hasn't moved the to look at that direction at all. The only way that this, the only way that happens is if Connor asked for more money. That's what's going to get the UFC to be pissed off. It's like,

hey, I'm demanding more money. And we've seen it happen before. That's why he retired because he, he asked for more money. They said no, so he retired. Like,

this isn't going to move it. It's either he asked for more money or he literally kills a human being. I hope that doesn't happen, obviously. But like that's, unless he O.J. Simpson somebody, like they're not going to separate.

ties from him because why the hell would they? Like he they don't care. One, there's probably perverse world where it's better that Connor's drawing all the heat as opposed to Dana White, the figurehead of the organization, who is known to say very stupid things on camera all the time. So there's some level to that. And then it's just like they don't give a shit because Connor makes them loads of money. Ten seconds. They're going to squeeze that golden goose for all the eggs they can get before he's done. This will be the last fight, Conner. track of his career and they're going to milk it for all its worth man all right so there we go it's both gentlemen are in agreement that this does nothing for the ufc cutting bait with uh cutting ties with

connor and just moving on i'm sure it's such a big PR headache for them but luckily Connor has a team that handles a lot of PR and has to answer all these questions so maybe in a way this takes a little weight off the shoulders of the UFC but man it's kind of rough when your biggest star just continuously gets in trouble and he can't even fight. Like, he can't even fight right now. At least when John Jones is getting in trouble, he could fight. Connor can't fight right now. So he's just getting himself in more trouble.

It just sucks. And we are where we are. But now I get to make a decision. I hate this part. I really do. Because someone's going to scream robbery. I hate it. But the winner for this week's show

on Between the Links is still the champion, Jed Mishu. He gets it done. He moves on. The Dana-Way comparison is kind of the thing that got me. And Jed gets it done. That's five title defenses in a row. Six straight victories since his little hiatus from the BTL virtual arena.

And 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. And go. It's six victories since E. Casey Leiden stopped being the judge. Like, that's what it is right there. I've only ever lost the one man, and it's Casey. My callouts have not been met with much success. So I'm going to call out Casey because maybe he will finally step to the plate

and at least face me man-to-man one-on-one, as opposed to hiding behind the production board. We can get Jose can do the production on it, and Jose can judge it. That's fine. I'm okay with that because I plan on beating Casey so bad it won't matter. Well, luckily, I mean, since the MA hour came back, there's not a lot of production that needs to be done.

I'll do that. Jose can judge Casey can just come in and chill out and debate you. That's a great idea. Let's make it happen. Helani won't

fight me and that's fair. I totally get why he doesn't want to. That's totally acceptable. Colby is afraid to face me here and who I'm not, I can't, I just physically can't beat Phoenix Carnivali,

so I'm not trying to get that smoke. So who am I left with? Mike, I got no one. Maybe next week. Jed Mishuver. versus E. Casey Ladin. Jose, thank you for coming on, my friend. It was a good battle.

But I want to remind you of a question that AK and I got once before. And I'm not trying to discredit Jen Mishu over here. But the question was, does anybody actually win BTL? And I mean, yeah, I guess sometimes. But really, it's just a debate show worth, like, phantom points, you know? It's around the horn, really, is it not?

Yeah, and I'm very bad at debate shows because I don't particularly care what other people have to think about a myriad of topics. So when you're like, you have to argue against it, I go, but I just, like, Jed could say three plus three is nine. I'll be like, yeah, that makes sense. Have a good day. That's 2021 for you, ladies of gentlemen, because there is some serious heat between these guys and past episodes of the program. But here we are, just kind of getting along and just going hard against the promotions and their 15 fight cards. Life wears you down, Mike, and 29 fights coming down to tight that out of sex. Again, seven of them with fighters who haven't fought before.

In a major mixed martial martial promotion. I'm not Coposa. I'm not supposed to watch shit like that. God bless Caposa. Just a true gem of the MMA space. It really is. Kabaka Hitman. Way to go, buddy.

Absolutely. Don't know how you do it. Yes. Shout out to Garbaga Hitman. But that is it. We are done. Lots to discuss next week, I'm sure, because we'll have 29 fights to look at. Plus, UFC 266, International Fight Week. Some interesting battles are around the corner as well. So we'll have a lot to discuss next week. Thank you all for watching, but you didn't watch. So you listen right now. Damn Skype threw me off. And I'm not heading in this out. So thank you for listening.

We'll see you next week. We'll see you next week. Good night, everybody. network.