MMA Fighting - BTL | Alex Pereira Crowned, UFC 281 Fallout, Bellator 288 vs. UFC Vegas 65

Episode Date: November 17, 2022

Alex Pereira added to the list of 2022 UFC title challengers who were down on the scorecards heading into the fifth and final round only to come through with a shocking finish to become a world champion. On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel will recap Pereira's stunning fifth-round comeback TKO win over Israel Adesanya in the main event of UFC 281, what the middleweight division now looks like with Pereira on top, and if the promotion should do the immediate rematch with Adesanya. Additionally, topics include Zhang Weili's finish of Carla Esparza to regain the strawweight title, Dustin Poirier's incredible win over Michael Chandler and other storylines from this past Saturday's event, this weekend's Bellator 288 event with two title fights, Derrick Lewis' return to action at UFC Vegas 65, and more. Host Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew and José Youngs. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the Downloaded 2, 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 reprise 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. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian 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 two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now only from Audible. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is Between the Links. Our host, my...

The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of Between the Links. And ladies and gentlemen, UFC 281 has come and gone. And what a freaking show it was. Drama, talking points, new champions, incredible fights, stocks rising, stocks falling, happy moments, sad moments. It had it all. And we are here to recap some of those moments, look at some of those storylines, and also take a look at a very busy weekend ahead with the UFC back at the apex on Saturday, Bellator putting out a big show tomorrow in Chicago with two title fights.

It's fun to be a fan right now. But let's get into things. Let us introduce the panel first. The undefeated exhibition player, the co-host of No Betts Bard, a man and voice featured on many a program here on the M.A. fighting podcast and show networks. Mr. No Gray area. Mr. All-in, Mr. Jedmishu.

How are you, buddy? I'm doing great, Mike. We're going to have a lot of new champions. We've got the two in the UFC. We're about to get to in Bellator. Some one shenanigans going down. Just a whole host of new champions in the month of November, apparently. And back on the show, our boots on the ground in New York.

And what an insane week it was for him. Now we get to hear from him following UFC 281 from Mn MAAfighting.com. Mr. Jose Youngs. Welcome back, sir. Hey, I had dinner with our good friend, Phoenix, Fiennus Carnival. And she told me how to beat Jed. Well, first I said, how do you beat Jet? And she said, you don't know?

And I said, no, I go, everyone just kind of simultaneously agreed to do one big collective make a wish kind of thing to let him win over and over and over. And I was like, well, I just assumed that. Now that you say it out loud, it makes much more sense of here we are. Some fire right off the bat. Jed, your response? That's solid. Fire.

Good word, buddy. Yeah. Can't even know. Good effort. It was a good effort. but before we get into UFC 281 and this weekend and the actual game itself, I would be remiss if we didn't begin the show by remembering the late Anthony Rumble Johnson, two-time UFC title challenger who passed away on Sunday at the age of 38.

And for me, I'm sitting at the airport on Sunday, jumped on Twitter, having something E watching some football. And I started seeing some of the posts about it and then ended up conferred. And I got to say, it was like a punch straight to the stomach. And it was very public. He was going through some health issues, some very tough ones. But to see it lead to that, it was a shocker to say the least. So Jed, I wanted to begin with you.

What was your reaction to finding out the news? And what will you remember most about the man known as rumble? It was very surprising. You knew there was something going on just because of how the whole Bellator situation had played out. but he didn't know what, and it never really occurred to me that it was this serious. So the fact that he passed is just

came out of nowhere. As far as what I'll remember, the first thing I always think of when you mention Anthony Johnson is Tommy Spear, and that's how I'll always remember him. RIP Tommy Spear, who's also left in the center of that cage somewhere in the Midwest or wherever that fight night

was. Jose, to find out this news after an emotional UFC 281 fight night and fight week, you were there for all of it to hear about this on Sunday, man, just tough to digest. What was your reaction and what will you remember? Man, I'm really glad this, well, not glad it happens, but I'm the timing of the news. I thought, I wish it didn't happen. How do I phrase this? that we didn't get the news during fight week.

It would have kind of cast a big dark shadow over everything. And I feel like I've interviewed Anthony Johnson a lot. And I feel like he wouldn't want that, if that makes sense. Like he wouldn't want the story to just be about him and to take away from all the fighters. So in that sense, I'm sad Anthony Johnson is gone. It caught me off guard. But then we all kind of like Jed said, we all knew what, like there was something going on behind the scenes. So the timing of it was jarring.

I was also in the airport, but I know Anthony wouldn't have wanted everyone to be talking about him during a really big fight week. And what I would remember from him is Ivan, like I was at his first fight back into the UFC after his World Series of fighting his regional circuit run when he jumps back up to heavyweight to fight Phil Davis. And that whole fight week, that whole media day and everything, Phil Davis kept talking about how he was just going to beat Anthony Johnson and go fight John Jones. He even tried to face off with John Jones

and Anthony Johnson was just like, okay, neat. I'm going to go beat this dude up. And then he did, and he won. And then from there, he just hit the ground running and, you know, melted. Lil Nog melted Alexander Augustusin. He kind of had, like, everyone talks about France and Gano having this freakish power, but Anthony Johnson had that. Deonté Wilder power for a long time. Yeah, it's

also now, like I was watching a lot of his replays back when I was on the plane, like, waiting to catch my plane, and it's crazy that at one point in time, Frankie Edgar and Anthony Johnson were one way class apart. That's just baffling to me. So, yeah, Anthony Johnson will be missed. Yeah, just a ferocious competitor, so scary and powerful in the cage.

Very positive presence. Yeah, holy cow. Frankie versus Anthony Johnson. Hell of a fight. Yeah. Just, you know, like I said, just a positive presence outside of the cage. And I didn't get to talk to him a ton, but he was always great to me, only a chance to speak with him maybe a few times. I was in scenic Uncassville, Connecticut for what ended up being the final fight of his MMA career against Jose Augusto for Bellator. Tough start after his long layoff, ended up putting Jose Augusto away.

and he spent the entire post-fight interview apologizing to the fans and said it was the worst performance of his career, said he never felt more disgusted with any performance win or loss, and he just spent that whole scrum just apologizing and promising that he would come back better. And he was about to go fight for the title in his next fight against Vadim Nemcoff as part of that Grand Prix. And I just remember hearing him talk like that, even after the long layoff didn't use that as an excuse at all.

and then we just never got the chance to see him compete again. And man, it's just tough. And you look back on the Daniel Cormier fights. And at one point, him and John Jones had that memorable face off fooling Dana White. And you just think if he fought anybody else but D.C. in that spot, maybe we wouldn't be talking about him as a two-time title challenge. We'd be talking about him as a former champion. And kind of building on to the point that Jose said,

the fact that he ever made 170 pounds, alone as many times as he did. Just unbelievable. But very sad news. Rest and peace, rumble. Our condolences go out to his family, close friends, training partners, and everybody else. There was a point. Casey, remember when we had to,

I know Casey's behind the scenes right now, but we went and covered the dominance MMA media day in L.A. once at Tyson's Ranch. And that was when Anthony was getting ready to come back. And he's like, who's the scariest heavyweight in the UFC? And everyone was like, Francis is gone. He's like, all right, I'll fight him. And I was like, Jesus Christ.

Like, this man is a psycho. What a freaking fight that would have been. But pretty hard to... Before we move on, I just want to drop my Anthony Johnson story. Sure. I was working for a war series of fighting. I actually was sent out to Florida to do a piece on Anthony Johnson who was fighting Andre...

I was it Andreelowski? I think Andreeloski at the time. And I just want to say, like, honestly, I kind of had mixed emotions by Anthony Johnson because I just, he was a complicated human, you know. It was more than just a fighter, you know. But I'm not here to talk about that. But when I met him, he was super professional. He let us shoot whatever.

And then, most importantly, with the funnest part, he took us to this little, I don't know, this motorcycle garage. And he just showed us all these cool motorcycles. And he had all these dogs there. And he's just his love for dogs and everything. So I was like, oh, Anthony Johnson loves his dog. So, yeah, it was really nice meeting him and kind of hanging out. out for him for a few hours, no, not doing the, you know, how you can win this fight type. Just, you know, just shooting the shit with him. So, yeah, he was a cool dude and super nice.

And it was just nice. I got to meet a lot of his friends and people outside of the fight world. So it's, it was a great opportunity, great honor to kind of be out there and kind of just see the real Anthony Johnson beyond just the punching people part. So that's all. Well, sir, Casey. He would be John Jones, too. Oh, yeah, yeah. I would have totally picked him over John Jones, yeah, matchup wise. But, yeah. Every time the man got poked in the eyes, he did something incredibly violent afterwards.

John's just boned. Like, he screwed his best weapon, no longer an option. Just powers rumble up. It's just one of those fights we never got to see. There's probably a list of those. But RIP Rumble, just really sad news. And it's very difficult to transition from starting the show like that. but we have a show to do.

Let's get into the aftermath of UFC 281 because Alex Pereira does it again. He defeats Israel Adasania. He becomes the middleweight champion of the world. He's now 3-0 against Adasania in the combat sports world. He was down on the cards heading into the fifth. I feel like that's a story and a narrative.

We've talked about a lot this year. Needed a finish and he goes out there and gets it done. So Jose, you're in the building for the whole thing. Your reaction to Pereira's comeback win, now adding another fascinating chapter to this already compelling story between these two fighters and your thoughts on the stoppage itself.

I didn't have a problem with the stoppage. I know a lot of people complain are complaining about it. I get what you're saying as like, you know, people want to go out on their shield. I've been knocked out in an amateur fight to the point where I have no recollection of the fight. It's not great. It is not great losing an entire day of your life.

that you will never, ever get back. So all of this go out on your shield talk from fans or media members. That's very silly. Getting knocked out on conscience is never a good thing. And one aspect of the knockout that I don't think a lot of people are talking about. Like, I haven't seen anyone talk about is if you watch that uppercut, everyone's talking about the uppercut to the jaw. Look at where Israel Adasanya's head went.

He was right up against the fence. out on the bar that runs vertical or horizontal, and his head literally clangs off the bar, the back of his head. His head was dribbled against basically a metal pole with like a couple inches of padding. That'll rock you any time. And that's been the big argument. I've seen like the best argument for soccer kicks being disallowed in the USC, because if your head is against the cage and you get soccer kicked

and your head has nowhere to go, you're probably dying. So Israel-A-Assani's head got dribbled off a metal pole after getting punched in the jaw. And I get what he's saying because it's him saying it. He was fine. But he also says, I don't blame him. Eugene Berman seems to have, he said Eugene talked to him backstage and he kind of calmed him down. Eugene Berman has literally seen fighters die in the cage. So he doesn't want his fighters to go out like that.

So I'm going to let him. If Eugene Barerman, the head coach, doesn't have any massive complaints about it. I don't think anyone should. Israel-A-Sahani might be a little disappointed because of how the Kelvin Gasselin fight went. I get that too. Me personally, Jose Young's, I had no problem with the stoppage. Israel-A-Sahna has seemed to move on already. After today, I would have, I'm probably, I'm over it.

I've moved on after that day because it's in the past. Not the case with most media members and fans and so on and so forth. know Matt Brown did just an interview with her own, David Martin saying, fighters want to go out on their shields. I get it. I don't want to see it. I have no problem with the stoppage. Yeah.

To me, the body language told everything. That just was enough for me. And Adasania might have been kind of playing, using as a defensive mechanism. At least that's what he says. He's waiting for prayer to sort of gas himself up. But I didn't have a real issue with the stoppage. But Jed, how do you feel about it all five days later?

Just the win, the finish, the story, and your thoughts, the stoppage. No issue with the stoppage. I actually think that stoppage is better than I first gave it credit for. I think it's pretty close to exactly spot on. Yeah, I know fighters want to go out on their shield. I don't really care what fighters want because that's not, that's the point of not allowing

fighters to dictate things like this because fighters will die in the cage because they're crazy people and the entire point is to not let them do that. That's why corners should stop fights when a fighter can't win and is taking too much damage. That's why Mark Goddard should have stepped in here. The Gaslim fight, which is he brought up after rewatching it, that's an awful stop, awful non-stoppage by Goddard, actually. I know as he wants to came back and was like, well, you know, you let that go on. Two wrongs don't make a right.

That fight 1,000% should have been stopped. If you go re-watch it, the fact that Gastlum makes it to the end does not mean that he should not have been finished. Goddard shouldn't have jumped in and saved him like three or four different times during that final barrage. I don't want to call he a liar because I don't think that that's necessarily the right term. I think he is maybe painting this picture and a more favorable light to himself because everybody does this. Everybody doesn't, it's tough to be entirely open and self-aware about things and you can handle something well by but still feel like, oh, well, I had something here. I don't, if you go back and watch that finish, it is generous to say that Izzy is trying to gas him out.

You can say that Izzy is trying to not die. Like he is trying to survive, but his hands are close to his waist. He is not, for all he says about looking up, he's staring at the ground. Watch from any angle. At the end of that combination, he is no longer looking up to see the arms. His heads down, he's weaving. Like, it's, that's not intelligent defense. And if that is your defense, the most generous interpretation of saying, sure, well, you did a dumb thing and you got a dumb prize.

Play stupid games, get stupid prizes. Do real defense. Don't do whatever that was. So I think that's why he can't really be that upset by it. Because deep down he knows that that's maybe he could have survived if the fight goes on. I'm not saying that he was about to get iced, but there's no, no issue with that stoppage whatsoever if you just watch it. a bunch it's it's fine um as far as the fight goes it was it was a great fight uh and it's weird because i didn't have the balls to pick pehara beforehand and yet that fight played out

sort of exactly like i thought it could because is he just like refuses to acknowledge that sometime accepting more short-term risk is in fact less dangerous than spending 25 minutes fighting that man. And he said it when he went on an aerial show this week. He was like, you know, I had him hurt at the end of the first round. If I had, you know, five more seconds, I'd have finished him. Absolutely true. Don't disagree with that at all. But I didn't come out and charge him in the second round. And, you know, Eugene told me he won the second round because I'm not going to press and open myself up to damage. I'm going to let the knockout present itself. Well, it didn't. The knockout didn't present itself. In fact, you got knocked out because you

didn't press the advantage when you had it. He is the second greatest middleweight of all time, one of the 15 to 10 best fighters of all time. But he really, it seems that he really cannot accept that sometimes you just got to throw yourself into the fire and trust that you can pull yourself out of it. And this feels really dumb for me,

Jed Mishu, not professional fighter, to be lecturing Israel, one of 15 best fighters of all time. But his words, like, I'm just going to let the knockout present itself. Well, it did. It presented itself for Alex Beheada. who just came forward and said, F it, I'm going to get in your grill

and we're going to see what happens this final five. Sometimes that's how you have to fight, and that is less risky than saying, I'm going to try and be perfect for 25. It's so, so tough. And despite the fact that he's now fought this man three times, is he can't seem to get past that. He believes that he can fight perfectly and do it.

And he can, but when they inevitably fight a four time, I'm going to pick Bejaheta, because I know, that when the chips are down, he is going to throttle up and try and do something about it. And I don't know that Izzy is going to be able to stop it again because he just seems impossible to do that. Now, Jed, you are a man who on many a show on the podcast network, you have shared that you

are not a fan of immediate rematches. You accept them, but you're not a huge fan of them. And we've had a year where, like I said earlier, these title fights have come down to the challenger needing a finish in the fifth round and then they go out and get it. And we saw that Glover Yeri was rebooked, at least the rematch coming up in a couple of weeks. We're going to get Kamar Usman trying to get it back against Leon Edwards. Where are you at with this one? Is this a matchup you feel needs to be run back right away?

Or is this a fun back pocket fight that you can go back to whenever the UFC needs it? I don't like it. I'm fine with Leon Oosteman because if it's the third fight of a trilogy where you've split, sure, run it back immediately. That's fine. Even though overwhelmingly the way those fights play out is the person who won the second one, wins the third. I get that. In this instance, Izzy is now over and three against him.

And granted, M.M. kickboxing, not the same sports. But still, I just have never liked it because it feels slightly unjust to make a somebody beat a champion twice when they did the thing you should just kind of allow them to do that. We're going to get that and that's fine. The fight was quite good.

The fight was the best Izzy fight in since pre-Yon that initial run. This is best fight. This is the most entertaining the dynamics at play and certainly it'll be a million dollar pay-per-view when they run that back again. So I get why we're going to do it.

I would like slightly prefer to just watch a head of fight, you know, Robert Whitaker or Paula Costa, somebody else just to just to do it. But I'm not going to hold. I'm not going to die on this particular hill. Jose, what do you think? I mean, look, if you're the UFC and Izzy's ready to go by like July international flight week, 2023, there's, it's a no-brainer to throw this one on the card, maybe

in the main event spot. It's going to do bonkers numbers. The story writes itself. but what do you think? Is this one that you immediately need to see run back? Yeah, I tweeted, like, within seconds of the fight ending that run it back. Also, Izzy will probably be ready to go before international fight. He said that on the MMA hour when he'll present him like, well, what about July international

fight? And he's like, oh, that's way too far away. Like, I'll be ready before then. So maybe June, maybe May, depending on where they go. If this fight happened in like September or August, then I would imagine they would want to do the rematch as the main event. of the Rio car, but obviously they didn't. The UFC fumbled the bag with Josealdo fighting in Salt Lake City,

Charles Oliver fighting in Abu Dhabi, and then they probably should have booked this fight further away, so then maybe they do if Pareda won, then they would do the second fight in Rio. But I digress, that's not happening. I don't have a problem with them running it back right away solely because all the other matchups that would make sense for like the next contender are booked. Like you got Canaanare, you got Strickland are going to fight.

You got Paolo Costa versus Robert Whitaker happening. If Paulo wins, that's the last finest contract. Who knows if he even resigns? So it seems like all the rest of the top middleweights are busy at the moment. So I have no problem if they run it back with Israel-A-Assain. Israel-A-Sahna took this fight. He didn't have to take this fight. Alex Pareda has what the least amount of experience at MMA for a UFC champion.

right? Maybe Lesnar? Brock is the only other one? Brock's the only one that's better. Yeah. So, if I'm like, how many other champions

are going to take a fight against a guy who has less than 10 fights who's like 30 pounds heavier than him in Madison Square Garden? Izzy, I think, earned the right to, you know,

get this rematch. Plus he's not one of these champions that I was angling for these super fights for so long. He's just down to fight whoever, whenever. And I think the UFC's seen that. So I have no issue

with them running it back. Plus, I just think and I would favor Izzy. Izzy was like, what, three minutes away from winning? I would honestly favor Israel Adasania in the main event when they rematch if he doesn't get punched in the face really hard again, which is very hard to do against Alis Perrana.

Jed, last thing on this, the interesting thing about Pereira being champion, and you even said that you would pick him against Adasani in the rematch. Let's just say rematch comes along, beats Izzy again, how confident are you that we could have another long reigning champion at Y85 with Pereira at the helm?

Like there's still a million questions about this guy. I've seen some media members even go as far as to say that Pereira is the worst UFC middleweight champion of all time. And I'm not ready to... That's objectively not true. That is objectively not true. I've seen. Someone tweeted that.

So it's just there. I bet I can guess he, I appreciate that. Do you feel confident with the questions that you have that if he beats Izzy a second time, he could be the champion for a long time? No, he can't be the champion for a long time. He can be the champion for a while. He's 35.

And he's got a lot of miles on him from kickboxing, surely not MMA, but, you know, there's, no. He cannot be the champion for very long. He can be the champion for a few defenses because I, I will pick him to beat Izzy. We were talking about this. Maybe it was all fair. Maybe it was on the ranking show. I don't remember.

It might have been ranking show. Like, I think he's got a pretty good shot against Robert Whitaker if they fought. I think he has, I think he would in fact defeat Jared Cannon-Neer. I'm just looking at the UFC's top five. Derek Brunson won't ever happen, but like reasonable chance to defeat Derek Brunson, who excels it at pulling defeat from the jaws of victory. I think we talked about it. I think Marvin Vittori is the, in my opinion, the toughest fight for him in the weight class.

So at the time, he's in pretty good shape as far as who he might have to fight. Again, he's 35, though, and you give it two years. He can get to maybe three title defenses, but I just don't think that this is a long-term thing for him. That's age is just too big of a difficulty to overcome. Jose, do you agree with that? Or do you think he can match what is he just did? potentially with the title defenses. We're talking about brown belt level Alex Pareda, right?

He does technically have a brown belt. I can go buy a brown belt right now. He also has a black belt in kickboxing, just saying. According to his Wikipedia page. Right. So I think Robert Whitaker matches up better. like Robert Whitaker himself said it at the Perth at the on sale press conference that he thinks he matches out better with Alex than Israel but look at the size of the fella I think was his exact phrasing so Robert Whitaker is a very good wrestler for the middleweight division I think he would have a if Israel out of Sonia can take you down and hold you down for a long time then I would imagine Robert Whitaker could

Canaaner probably could too but that's but those two are not the tallest middle weights I don't think he's going to go on a run that Israel did, but I think he's going to find, could he knock out Robert Whitaker? Could he knock out Jared Cannon in there? 1,000 percent. That man's fist, like, when I was there, when he was like a media day and holding it, like, look at the size of his hand holding the microphone. It's comical. So if he touches you, you could die, for sure.

If he punched me in the stomach, I'm probably, I could die. He could kill me by punching me in the stomach or kicking me in the stomach. Against a high-level fighter that can mix it up, I would favor Robert. Whitaker Robert Whitaker, Paulo maybe. Paulo would be really interesting because Powell fights like an absolute idiot in there. But he has he has good graphing. He has, Paulo has very underrated grappling.

So if Paulo actually like, you know, listens to a game plan, which is a lot, if anything, can get inside that brain of his. But if he listens to the game plan, Paulo could win. Robert Whitaker could win.

Canineer would be weird. I think I would favor Israel and Rob against him. Everyone else I would favor Alex Barretta. Well, that is the main event. A lot still to get to. Here's the truth. Honestly, I don't really care about the Izzy rematch. Like, it's fine.

We do it, whatever. I kind of just want to see this dude to light heavyweight because he's enormous. And frankly, the fights of light heavyweight are substantially more fun. Like, if Whitaker beats him, he's just going to tackle him and tap him. Like, it's not going to be that interesting or fun. But I want to watch this dude just Chuck Mitz with Yon Blah. It's like that would be fun as hell. Him and Yeri would be awesome.

Let's do that. We'd do light heavyweight Alex Prera is way more fun. Yeah, vacate the title and then do that. Just immediately, you all in. Immediately come to middleweight belt. Just as a real thumb in the eye to Izzy. Like, I don't need this. That would be hilarious.

But let us move on. The point for round one goes to good comeback. but Jose Young's gets the point. That's one to nothing. That's true. True. Marshall's buyers travel far and wide, hustling for great deals on amazing gifts.

So you don't have to. They've bagged this season's Italian leather handbags. Designer. Handpicked the finest sweaters from the rest. Ooh, cashmere. Landed makeup pallets from the brands you love. Rush is too. And hustled all those wishless topping toys.

So plush. Our buyers have got you covered. Marshalls. We get the deals. You gift for good stuff. It's the matcha or the three ensemble Cicephora of the FACC that I just niche

that I'm energize all over. It's all right. The form of standard and mini, regrouped, and the aband. And the embellage,

too be pretty to give to them. And I know that I should be these Summer Fridays and Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez. I'm

The most ensemble, the Cadeo of the Feds Cidoo Ciddle is Rare Beauty, Way, SIFara Collection, and other part of vite. Procurre you see form of standard and mini, regrouped for a better quality

price. On link on CIFRafon, or in magazine. So let's put a bow on UFC 281. Let's go to Zhang Wei Lee's title win against Carlos Sparza. She's now a two-time Straway champion. The results, not all that surprising, mostly due to the stylistic matchup. But to Carla's credit, she fought her ass off. She had a competitive first round,

and she just got out-muscled and finished in the second. So Jed, you went all in on this fight. Your thoughts on the bouts, the performances from both women, and your excitement of the second reign of Zhang Wei Li because she seems like she's clicking on all cylinders right now. Carla outperform my expectations, which isn't saying a lot. I had low expectations, certainly, and she did lose pretty dominantly in the second round, but she still looked, she competed in the first round, which was more than I kind of thought she was going to do. So good for her.

Wiley won the fight that she's supposed to win. Maybe not in the manner in which she was supposed to win it, but she got the dubs. Who cares? I don't know what to make up the strawweight division. It is the weirdest division in all of M.A. And that includes the middleweight division, which is now currently captained by a dude with seven fights or whatever.

Like it is because she has lost twice to Rose, who has lost twice to Carly. who has lost once to her and would certainly lose again if they fought. You've got Jessica and Drogh hanging around who like is one in one with Rose but really probably should be two and O against Rose but is so super dominantly 0 and one against Wiley that it's tough for me to eat.

I'm about as big of Jessica and Drogh person as there is. It's tough for me to be like she will avenge the Wiley loss because of the manner in which she was absolutely rinsed in that fight. So it's, I just don't, I don't know who the best fighter in this weight class is. Maybe it's all of them.

Maybe it's none of them. Who can say, and then you, Amanda Limos is now like involved, even though she also got dominated by Androge. It's the weirdest most, there's the most parody in this weight class of any other class.

And honestly, arguably of any weight class in like the history of the modern UFC, belts haven't ever changed hands. this frequently. I mean, there was that run at light heavyweight where it was changing hands every stretch until John Jones came and just dominated. And it wouldn't totally shock me if maybe Wiley is just now she's here. She has clicked. Everything has fallen into line. And she can win a rose three match and go on to defend the belts for a while. But I just have, I don't know what to make of this way class, man. What do we do? Who's the best fighter in it? It's, I know who the best

five people are. And then after that, it's a crap shoot. And inside of that five, roll the dice. Any given day, somebody is going to be the best fighter in the world, which is kind of fun, but it's also very different to our normal way of consumption of the sport. So it's also a little frustrating in some ways. It's very weird. Jose, your thoughts on John's performance. And now with her taking over the helm, so to speak, as the champ, the state of the strawweight division. Well, I picked Whaley to win. I didn't pick her to win it that way. I thought it would be more of like she just hurts Carla and then just like melts her.

But Carla's her credit had was performing how she should have been, like lots of scrambles shooting for the takedowns. Just getting Whaley kind of work like. Whaley, I think, is a very underrated wrestler, defensive wrestler specifically for this division, specifically because she's just such a freak athlete in there. So Carla was, Carl's game plan was smart. way lee was just very prepared too and just you know snatched up a neck in a very bizarre naked choke i don't think like that was a weird weird naked choke to me um so yeah everyone kind of thought this was a formality that she would win i felt really bad for carla all fight week everyone

was just like you're gonna die in there and we're gonna boo the hell out of you at madison square garden even though you're quote unquote fighting for america as she said felt very bad for i thought a lot of it was unjust she was unjustly hated uh all fight week. But in terms of the future of this division, I think the fight that I want to see is Whaley versus Jessica Androd too, because Jessica Androd went in as the champion to Whaley's backyard, got clipped very early and finished. And we always talk about how, oh, like, a lot of champions that get sparked early, long-reigning champions that get sparked early, they probably deserve a rematch. It's like we never got the Josealdo, Connor McGregor rematch, which I think sucks.

I know Jessica Andrage wasn't the long remaining champion at the time, but she's since built her way back up in that division. Unfortunately, she has a flyweight fight with Lauren Murphy on the real card. So if she wins in flyweight and wants to drop back down to straw weight, I'm not going to say no, Jessica Androdd, she's kind of like the BMF of the women's, of any of the women's divisions right now. She wanted to fight at featherweight at one point,

just because she wanted to be the first woman to fight or first fire to fight four weight classes in the UFC or something like that. So that's the one I want to see what will happen. Depends on how the Lauren Murphy plays out. I want fresh matchups. Lemos is there. I think that's next woman up. Why not?

I think Waley wants to stay active as well. So one of those two. I don't particularly want to see Rose thrown into a title fight again. I selfishly want to see Rose versus Marina because Marina has been calling for that fight for a very long time. definitely do not want to see I want to see Rose versus Carla 3 just as badly as I want to see Ryan

Bader versus Phil Davis 3 it just does it's just not going to work out so yeah one of those fights I don't really care though Jose Dusted Porre versus Michael Chandler the gnarliest fight of 22 it may not be the best fight of 2022

it'll be on the list but it was it was pretty damn gnarly and Porier gets the submission in the third round and this guy is just about this life Jose. Dostaporia is about this fight life. And sure, Chandler has been a great investment for the UFC,

but the future of Dastaporia is interesting after this fight in particular because I think he's kind of in the Max Holloway place where he's just a big star, he's over big. He doesn't need a title or to fight for a title

to keep that same stature, but as people who cover the sport and who have followed Porier all these years, we know what an incredible moment it would be for him if he did win the title before his career ends. So I guess my question after this fight is, what do we

do with Dustin Porre now? And your reaction to such a gnarly and crazy fight? Dustin Porre is the greatest mixed martial arts fighter to never hold an undisputed UFC championship. That's just where I put Dustin Porreier and the annals of time. That dude, like, look

at his resume. Like, he called it the violence triangle, like the violence triangle of Justin Gaichie, Chandler, Eddie Alvers, those are three. Like, if you put a list of, like, the five to seven greatest lightweights ever, Dustin Porre has probably fought all of them. And the only ones he's lost to are Habib, who is Habib, who many people consider the greatest lightweight of all time,

Charles Olivera by submission, who has the most submission wins in the history of mixed martial arts in the UFC. So I put, if you want to argue that Dustin Porre is the second greatest lightweight ever, I'm not going to argue. if you want to call him the greatest fighter to never hold undisputed UFC gold, I will agree with you. That man

like I don't know what else you could say about Dustin Porre. He is just so impressive at everything he does. Everyone was talking about that huge flurry that Chandler had and like rocking Pori and everything in the first round. Go watch that in slow motion. Michael Chandler did

not connect with a lot of punches. Dusen-Pory was rolling with those and Michael Chandler was connecting with a lot of air and he was and Poyo was really rocked by that headbut. So Dana White said it best, you might as well have just cut the fight of the night check right on the week before, or the second Duf and Paul and Michael Chandler sign that contract,

just fill out the fight of the night check right there. I don't hate Michael Chandler. Like Jed hates Michael Chandler. His personality don't really care for, as our former colleague Alex Avis wants described it as toxic positivity. I think that's a good way to put it. But in terms of fighting, I mean, I'm never going to miss a Michael Chandler fight. That dude has never not been in a single boring fight since signing to the UFC.

Even Bellatory, he had a lot of exciting fights as well. So whoever they fight, don't really care, I'm going to tune in. Dustin Poir should probably fight. I don't know. Charles Oliver again, if we're not going to get the Benile Dary Ush fight, which makes the most sense. But I get why Dustin Porry doesn't want to do it and who Michael Chandler fights. I mean, I want to watch the Eddie Alvers trilogy. Probably not going to happen.

Gamrock called him out. I obviously want to see that. But if you want to run it back with any of the people he lost to in the UFC, so be it. I just hope Michael Chandler is in a five-round fight next because I want to see that man do crazy things for five rounds. Jed, what do we do with Porier?

It's a really good question. I will say that Fador is the greatest fighters to never hold a UFC title. we can just stop that there. But Porre is not a bad guy in that top conversation. Unbelievable career, like, especially his late run, has just been outlandish. He called it the Violence Triangle. It's just, like, that's not doing a credit to all the other dudes he's fought because

Max Holloway and Connor McGregor are two of the most violent dudes who have ever competed in the sport as well. And that's the violence pentagon. we could get up and a little bit more if we want to add in Chuckie Olives like that's he didn't beat Charles

but still unbelievable run I don't know where you go the only fight that makes sense because he doesn't want to do Benny Dary Eush and I get why not

and I'm fine with it I think you just do Justin Geachie you just run that one back a fight of the year that's what he said Poye eight fight of the nights by the way

tied for company record now all he's looking for are the marquey names the marque fights that can be fight of the night fight of the year contenders there is nobody better to fight for a fight of the year contender than dust and porier they fought once a long time ago i think gaichi is a lot better frankly uh than than they were at that point and as much as i hate and i frequently say on various shows i hate that the lightweight like the top of the lightweight division is squatting on their rankings by just round robbing each other you

can't make me hate Dustin Poyer versus Justin Gagchi too. That fight is just too damn good. So if I had my druthers, that's where I'm going with him. Last thing, and I think this is an easy one. And Jed, you got to draw the long straw for this one. But you could still make cases for some other people if you like. But Jed, who is the unofficial sixth player award winner of UFC 281? Who is the low key MVP of that event? So we're not including the top three fights, I'm assuming, in this? No, because that's not low-key. That's okay.

So we're looking low-key. Let's take a gander here. I mean, I'm going to say Aaron Blanchfield, though I don't think it's the correct answer, because I know people really like Harnato-Merano in his post-fight speech, but Aaron Blanchfield's going to hold a belt. So Hennato-Mirano is never going to fight for a belt. Aaron Lynchfield is going to be a champion. And she absolutely rinsed Molly McCann.

That fight was not close. That fight was not even in the realm of competitive. And sure, I expected it, but she even exceeded my high expectations for her. This woman either in a few years, if Shevchenko has kind of lost her fastball and still hanging around, or in less than that, and Shevchenko has just abandoned the division, this is the next champion of the flyweight division. Aaron Blanchfield know the name because she is going to be in your lives for a decade plus.

Jose, what say you? Do you agree with that or does somebody else stand out? Probably Nato and Moikano because he's yelling for money and what do we always say is the most important thing in prize fighting money. Your health.

So everyone always talks about title fights and this and that. Neat. Go make bread, son. So Hanato and Moikano, who refers to himself as Hanato now. I'm all about it. That dude was hilarious, both at the press conference, both in the post-fight interview and all that.

Let's see. Called for a bunch, had one of the most exciting post-fight interviews we've had in a very long time. Most of the world didn't hear it. Love everything about that because he swore a lot. Didn't let Joe Rogan ask a question. Love it even more.

Came up with a real good catchphrase to the point where people are now trying to give him a new nickname. and he had a name in mind for his next fight and a location. Checks all the boxes. Anato Moikano, love everything about it. I love this new money Moikano gimmick talking about himself and the third person. It's just fantastic.

And he probably won't fight for a belt, but stocks rising. His stock rose tremendously. Get that paper, son. Get that money. All right. We will move on. The point for round two goes to Jedbyshu.

It's one to one to one to one. Let's go ahead and turn the page this weekend. We have, as Jed alluded to earlier, some one craziness. They're back with a prime video event tomorrow, some chaos on the scales. But we'll focus on the other two events right now. Bellator 288, headlined by Vadim Nemcoff versus Corey Anderson 2 for the light heavyweight title. We know how the first one ended. We have Patriki Pitbull defending the lightweight title against Busbun Namaga-Madoff.

The UFC is back at the apex, headlined by Derek Lerner. versus Sergei Spivak. We'll focus more on Bellator in this round. But Jose, if you could only watch one of these cards, which one are you picking? The Bellator one, obviously. There's two title fights and two interesting fights. The Cory Anderson, Vadim Nemcoff,

like Corey Anderson keeps saying he's the best light, heavyweight in the world. At one point, I would listen to that argument, especially because he had wins over Glover and Jan. Yeri obviously has seen him to take in that mantle. The best light heavyweight and most exciting light heavyweight in the world, but Padim Kempkov, I thought for a long time, looked pretty unstoppable in the Bellator cage.

And then Corey Anderson was on his way to winning before some skullduggery in that fight, ended the fight. Was it no contest or was it a DQ? I don't remember the exact ruling. Yeah, so no contest. So I'm glad they're running it back. Corey Anderson should have a million dollars at this point

and the Bellator Light Heavyweight championship around his belt. He doesn't seem to particularly care about the Bellator Light Heavyweight Championship because he's all about making that money. now. Good on you, Cori Annas, especially now that you have kids and everything. And the Patrici Pitbull has obviously been in the Bellator for a very long time. He's the brother of Patricio Pitbull and Usman Nirmagamanov.

Mike, you've interviewed that team, that Dog Stand team. Enough times you've interacted with that crew enough times. They all kind of say that Usman and Umar might be the two best after Islam. So it seems like a formality that Usman Nirmagamanov is going to get the Bellator championship, and which means that Habib will have coached both lightweight champions of the world and two different promotions. Also, Habib is now the team captain of team Bellator of Belator versus Rise. And so how Belator pulled that off is just baffling to me.

Strange choice, but the answer is very obviously the Bellator card. That just has much more fascinating fights to me, top to bottom. Jed, what say you? I disagree with the top to bottom aspect of it because a bellator undercard is not strong. Let's just, it's a Belator undercard. I don't think I need to say much more behind exactly what it is. If you're just looking at main card, absolutely Belator.

Because all the reasons Jose said, we're going to get two new champions because Corey Anderson is probably going to beat Vinnie Numcom. super gonna beat for tricky pit bull and that's dope because Habib is a genius this is I don't he retired undefeated and now his two disciples are the lightweight champions of the two biggest orgs in the world and is this is like if Rocky Marciano just decided I'm gonna quit and then I'm gonna coach Floyd Patterson or whatever just like unbelievable that what the hell is going on with with his legacy and just stacking on top of it despite not fighting anymore.

And then Usman's going to be the new figurehead of Bellator because he's like 25. And he's super young. He's really good. He's going to beat the hell of to Petriki. And the lightweight division is not their strongest weight class. So and outside of that, I mean, Tyrol Fortune, you want to see if that dude keeps developing. The rest of that card is a tough hang.

just really mid all the way through is the problem. The best fight on the UFC if you could merge these two together you get one pretty good fight card like pretty solid effort here with the two Bellator championship fights maybe mixing a couple of their others

give me Andre Fiajo versus Muslim Salakov like that fight's gonna rule but yeah you gotta go Belator just for the top end but if you're gonna make me watch the whole thing for both of them I'm gonna be pretty sad if I have to sit and watch

14 Bellator fights. So sticking with the Bellator card real quick, we have the two title fights. Jed, both challengers, heavy favorites, Corey Anderson, Usman, Ramamadav. And Usman is the fourth biggest favorite on the card, which on a UFC card doesn't meet a whole lot. On a

Bellator card, it just speaks volumes and how the betting community sees him because typical Bellator undercards are a lot of minus 1100 favorites and things of that nature. You're confident both challengers will emerge victorious with titles, but which one of these two title fights actually interests you more? Oh, the main event, Nimkov Anderson, certainly, because the only reason I'm confident

is because I watched those two guys fight previously. And I went into that fight thinking that Nimcov had a pretty clear advantage. And then a fight was competitive in spots. And then in the third round, Corey really took it. to him. And maybe Vadim, you know, escaped with his belt intact from that and went back to the lab and he is better. It wouldn't stun me if he came and won this fight. And either way, it's going to be more competitive and more interesting for however long it goes on. Usman Pippel is one-way traffic. Like, that's, unless we get a major upset, this fight is going one way. And so that's not as compelling to watch as the main event.

Is there, I haven't listened to a Betzbarred yet. Is there a big bet coming on Usen or Magamatov? We considered an all-in bet on him again, but then I was like, I don't want to keep redoing that gimmick because I'm going to be making another all-in bet in the not too distant future as well. So, you know, I'm firing a sizable wager down on him

because he's going to win. But again, that's, it's like the Wileve fight. Like, I didn't care. The Wiley, I had no nerves. I had minimal interest in it. Like, I'm interested because it matters. But I know what's happening. I am aware of the outcome.

We just have to get to that point in time. Jose, you with Jed, that the main event is the more intriguing fight for you? Or are you looking more at the co-main event to see is Usman Nirmaga made off the dude at 155? I have literally zero preference on which one I have to watch. but for the sake of your show, Mike, I will say the co-man event is more interesting solely because if the greatest of anything does anything, I want to watch it.

Habib Nirmagamatov, a lot of people, included myself, consider him to be the greatest lightweight of all time. He told us how many years ago that Islam was going to be the champion in the world at some point, and that worked out real well. So if he bebe tells me that Uzman and Margamatov

is going to just tear through Petriky Pitbull, I'm going to want to watch it. Also, let's not forget Chris Gonzalez is the last guy he fought. I interviewed Chris Gonzalez once. I think it was before his Bellator debut, and he said, Chris Gonzalez's phrase is like, the second I enter the cage, the argument for best wrestler in MMA ends.

And I was like, well, I don't quite know about that, but I love your confidence. Then Usman and Magamato made light work out of him. So I am very curious to see how Usman and Magamato fairs against Petriky Pippel. How many fights of Patrici Pippel have, like 40? 30 something. It's a lot of experience in there. Do I pick him to win?

No. But I want to see how Mademaga made of fares against someone of his experience level. Because who did Benson beat in his last fight? Someone else from that team. Mike, do you remember?

Yeah. I know who it is because he ended up fighting on the Eagle FC card next. is Peter Quili or Islamadov? Mamadov. Islam Mamadov.

That's the guy I'm thinking of. Amadav. Islam Mamadov was also part of that team and everyone was like, oh, after the Brent Primus fight where Brent Primus just out grappled, Benson and Henderson, it's only a matter of time before someone from Habib's team does it too. Didn't work out for him. So I'm curious to see if Petruchipu'll uses any of that fight to kind of bring into this fight to combat this dog and standing wrestling.

I am very, I am very in. I'll say I am very intrigued by both, but for the sake of this game, I'll pick the co-main event to debate jet. All right. Well, let's debate something else. The point for round three goes to sick transition, Mike. It goes to Jose Young's. Let's debate something else.

I just looked at the clock. I was like, we got to the tagline. Let's debate something else. No disrespect. It's just for the sake of time. So let's... With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining

means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats.

Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes, because those are groceries, and we deliver those too, along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Let's head to Las Vegas. Let's head to UFC Vegas 65. Derek Lewis versus Sergei Spivak, the main event coming out of UFC 281. We're heading into a stretch

coming out of 281. We get a week off for the Thanksgiving break and then it's on to UFC Orlando, which is a really good card. UFC 282, which is a pretty deep card. It's kind of a tough spot for this card to fall into, but the good news is

we got some early day MMA, 1 p.m. Eastern prelims, 4 p.m. Eastern Main card. We'll be wrapped in packed by this bad with this bad boy around 7. Love that. Jed, we'll start with you. What do you think of this card as a whole for the follow-up to arguably the UFC's best events of the year?

It's a fight card. They, this is, they are filling their contractual obligations to ESPN to provide 42 events or 46 events, whatever it is per year so they can get that sweet, sweet Disney money. Like, I, I said this pre on another show. I hate fight cards the week after pay-per-views because they are always awful and you usually have so many storylines coming out of that event that like it would be okay to not have anything this week to just take a little more time to digest what happened and not move right on to this that's where it is this card gets a huge bump by being at 1 p.m. Eastern just I the west coast people have to love this you get to wake up fights are on you're done before dinner

ideal fight card placement as far as I'm concerned. The main event is, you're never going to find me bitching too hard about Derek Lewis fighting. So maybe something, someone's getting finished one way or another in the main event. And I'd lean towards Derek Lewis getting to do the damn thing. So that's kind of neat. Jack Della Madelena,

really cool guy. Love watching him fight. So that's cool. Kennedy, I can't ever say this man's name. And Jukwu. Jukwu. Yes. That, let's go with that.

I like him a lot as a, I guess maybe not even a prospect to this point, just as a player, a guy who can continue developing, maybe make some noise in the light heavyweight division. But Mike, you're getting two heavyweight fights on a, on a UFC main card. Like, there's only so high that this thing can be rated in anyone's estimation. So, yeah, it's, if you had nothing else to do on Saturday. certainly worse ways to spend your time. Jose, what do you think of this car? I mean, listen, not a ton of stakes involved here, but if you look at each individual matchup in a vacuum,

we're going to have some fun fights. So your thoughts on this as the follow-up. Oh, and I roll. Uh-oh. Is what the only stake in this is Derek Lewis still a top 10 heavyweight? Like, that's the only stake. Like Jack Debt, Jack Del and Madelaena is without, question the most interesting fighter on this card in terms of his fighting.

And he's the opening fight of the main card. Like, come on, man. Like, Jennifer, like, Marina Moro's. I was to say, Marina Moro's Jennifer Meyer, are ranked fighters, sir. Yes, Marina Moroz is an interesting fighter, but she doesn't fight a ton. She has very good boxing. Jennifer May has fought for the belt, and a lot of people kind of use her like, oh, you get a prospect on the up and up.

who's the Neil Magni of this division? Jennifer Ma'i, you're going to go fight so and so. That seems to be her role at this point. So like Vanessa Demopoulos is very popular nowadays. Vince Morales, Miles John will be a very fun fight. But in terms of stakes, not a ton. How many fights is Derek Lewis lost in a row? Three, two?

No, it's only one. He beat Chris Dawkins. So wasn't that? Well, no, he's lost two in a row. Two in a row. He lost two to four. and three of four then, correct? Sergei Spivak has lost.

Sergei Spivak just beat who, Greg Hardy, was that his last win? Like, what do we, did he win one after that? Augusto Sakai, maybe? I don't know. He, in fact, did Augustus and Kai. Right, and Kenny and Jeku is, what, lost, what? Two of three, Ian Kulaba or Iwan Kulabas, what?

Two of three. These are losses. And when I say two of three, I'm saying two of three losses. Andre Fiala was really cool when he fought every other day. and then he just got... He still is. This is his fifth fight in 2022. Yeah, and it didn't work out for him in his last fight.

That's what I'm saying. Stakes, there's not a lot of stakes on this car. Are there fun fighters? Yes, no stakes on this card. So if we're doing the AK Lee Gymnastic score, 110, one being nothing, 10 being UFC 281, two, maybe three.

Wow, I don't know one Negan fight cards. I can't believe. believe this. Fialho Salakoff is a fight for like top 20, let's say top 20 welterweight. Does that feel right, Mike? Two welterweight's coming off a TK. Top 25. Sick.

Love it. Top 25 welterweight's coming off TKO losses. Love everything about it. Like, uh, doesn't really do much for me. What's Chase Sherman's last win? Jared Vandera. Am I remembering correctly? How many losses Jared Vandera had in a?

So we're clear, Waldo Cortez Acosta's last win is also Jared Vandera. Cool. Cool. And one finish Jared Vandera, one didn't. Also, not for nothing. For who beat Jared Vandera better. Not for nothing. I like Vanessa Demopoulos.

She's a very nice woman, very bubbly personality. She lives here in Arizona. Fun, fun grappling. She definitely lost to Jane U. Fry. Like, I watched that fight. I scored her. for Gini Fry. And if you're losing to Giniu Fry in 2020, like, come on. I love you too,

Giniu Fry, but like you might not be in the UFC after your last performance. So on a scale of one to 10, I'm saying two to three somewhere in there. Not the best. Derek Lewis versus Sergei Spivak is a really good pay-per-view opener. Everything else under this is a really good prelim card. So that's all. That's all I'd phrase this. Well, let's touch on the main event before we move on. Derek Lewis, Sergey Spebac. On paper from a rankings perspective, I guess, Jose, this makes sense. But when you actually see the poster and

headlines, it's kind of a head scratcher in some ways. Like, this is where we've ended up. For whatever reason, someone made them Siamese twins. It's classic. UFC posterizing right there. Derek Lewis. Yeah, so would I.

Derek Lewis is a pretty sizable underdog in this fight. This would obviously be a big name for Sergey Speedback to have on his resume. But like you said, Lewis coming in, finished in two straight, three of his last four. Is this do or die for the Black Beast? Is this for me? Sorry, you guys cut out for a second. Oh, sorry, you guys cut out for a second.

Is this do or die for the Black Beast? I think winner lose, whatever, whatever Derek Lewis does is going to be up to him because the UFC's really like, and specifically Dana White and more importantly, the fans, really like Derek Lewis. Also, the UFC really likes to headline cards with like heavyweights ranked 15 to 7. So I'm going to assume that Derek Lewis

sticks around win or lose, but if he loses and he doesn't want to fight anymore, that's going to be on him. I don't think the UFC is going to want to cut ties with Derek Lewis. He's fun. He's exciting. He's a good headliner. You can always throw him on a Texas card. Will he fight in Texas ever again? Probably not.

But no, I don't think this is do or die for Derek Lewis. unless he wants to call out a career. Jed, agree with that? Or is he just kind of beyond wins and losses at this point? It doesn't really matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. The UFC is never going to fire this dude.

One, he's a heavyweight. And the aforementioned Jared Vanderrae hung around. I'm not even sure he's fired yet. And he hasn't won in like a decade. So you can hang around at heavyweight forever. And Derek Lewis is beloved. So he really can fight. here as long as he ever wants to fight.

And you do just match him up against like Andrei Orlovsky. That's a that's a pay-per-view main event. Not a paper-view main event, but a fight-night main event or a pay-per-view main card fight, you know, like it's you do a ton of things with him. We still never got him versus the Iersenia Rosenstrike, which boggles my mind. I also think it doesn't matter. Things can beat Sergey Spivak. So it's all kind of moot.

But yeah, even if he somehow loses to Spivak, I, it's not. not going to matter at all for him. All right. Well, enjoy the card on Saturday, some early day MMA. The point for round four goes to, it goes to Jedmishu. It's two to two. So now we head to the knocker round. A surprising thing has just happened.

We've gone through regulation at a tie. This has never happened in the history of the show. Shocking, shocking moments here. So we're going to go to the knocker round. One question we'll decide at all. Both are going to get the same question. they'll each have one minute to answer. Once that is done, we'll turn it over to you watching the show right now.

You can vote in the poll on who you think wins this exhibition matchup between Jed Mishu and Jose Youngs. Now, this is, I had an idea of where this question was going to go, probably on Saturday, because we got the announcement of Volkadovsky versus Makachchev or Makachov versus Volkanovsky for the lightweight title. And then we got the news that Josh Emmett is fighting Yahya-Rodriguez. as for the interim featherweight title in the same card. But then something else happened this week and this was the no brain or knock out round question.

So Jed, Jed, we will go to you. Do you want to go first or do you want to pass it on to Jose? I'll go first. I'm just trying to think what else happened this week. Well, listen, we have touched on, very briefly, we touched on one, we talked to UFC, we talked to Bellator, but this is another player who has made the news.

me. And that is the professional fighters league because next Friday they will be putting on their world championship event their seven fight main card which includes six title fights

six potential five round fights will be on ESPN plus pay per view and for weeks we were wondering what the price point would be people are throwing up maybe it's $999 maybe it's $1999 no more than $2499 right

PFL says, raise $49.99 will be the price tag for their World Championship pay-per-view next Friday. One minute on the clock, your reaction to this decision-making, this price point for this particular card. Your time starts now. What in God's name are you doing? This is, I think it is questionable to have a pay-per-view event at all because give your, you're not popular enough. Just give your product out for free. That's how you do it. You get people hooked with the free sample and then you start charging them when they actually care.

People don't care about PFL. You could fire this thing onto ESPN that Friday or whatever when nothing else is going on to actual mainline ESPN and try and rope people in. Instead, no one is going to buy this thing. Like, if this clears 20,000 pay-per-view buys, I will be personally shocked because I wouldn't buy this as a fan of MMA, because I'm not going to pay money to watch Auntie Delaja fight Mateo Sheffel for a million dollars, because that's insane. I will also add, it's a little weird that Kayla Harrison is headlining this, not because it's weird that she's headlining it, but because once she sells 10,000 pay-per-view buys, all of her leverage for Chris Cyborg, cross-promotional pay-per-view goes out the friggin' window. This is terrible.

all right jed very positive about this paper view and the price point uh let's go to jose maybe he will mimic the positivity who knows jose is uh he's been up and down today throwing out two to three on a ufc rating for a fight night card so he's the wild card here same question for you 49 99 Jose are you getting your wallet out your time starts now i mean it's a little baffling that it's 49.99. I would have just pulled out something like, just make it $69. Because then everyone will just make memes about it. And then word of mouth spreads on social media that PFL is selling a pay per view for $69. Or you can pay $4.20 to watch one fight. I'll pay $4.20 to watch just Kayla Harrison fight. And then that's also funny because our humor

is that of a 14 year old because we're MMA fans. And we haven't mentally matured past 13 years old. We all think fart jokes are funny, too. I'm doing things for you, PFL. That's what it should have been. So anyway, will I do $49,99? Probably not. Will it sell more than the Fadour, Matt Mitch Rione, Chale, Sondon, Van der Leigh-Silva, Silver, Paperview? I think that did somewhere between all 90 and 110,000 pay-per-view buys, which, according to Jed, Fed, Fedor is the greatest fighter to never hold U.

Undisputed UFD UFT Gold. He's in the co-main event. He couldn't even do like 200,000 buys. So, make it $69 or $4.20 cents. for one fight. That's, I mean, that's an interesting option. Just you could do partial payments for, for just singular fights.

Interesting. An interesting take. That would be truly incredible. Zero people, zero people would buy the Ante DeLascia Mateo Schaeffel fight. Zero people. It's a good way to test who the draws are in this company. Amari Akmeta of Rob Wilkinson. Get GtFO, baby.

not spending 4.20 on that. If you had to spend $4.20.20 on one of these fights, one championship fight, I'll say. Which one are you buying? It's got to be Stevie Ray, OAM, I guess. I mean, Brenner-Loggle and Bubba Jenkins

is going to be a scrap. Yeah, that's probably, yeah, I'd probably go with that one. Or do you just want to pay $4.0020 to watch? You want to pay $4.20 cents to watch Kala Harris and eat a human being? Or go to a disqual of a disqualmie. with her again.

True. I'm a huge fan of that particular fight, so I'd probably watch it, mainly because Kayla is not nearly the favorite she should be, given the fact that she's already beaten this woman twice, soundily. I just want to hear what she's going to say after the fact if she does win. So that might be worth the 420 right there. So, all right, vote, vote, as it says right there.

Is it Jedmishu, is it Jose Youngs? It's an exhibition match, so it doesn't truly matter. DeLano Tio, Madabu, Si. That's going to be fun. That'll be a fun fight, though. Sure. That'll be fun. Are they in the top 50 welterweights in the world?

I don't know. $4.20 and you'll find out. So cast your votes tomorrow 10 a.m. Eastern. We'll do another heck of a morning. We'll have a preview show tomorrow for UFC Vegas 65, probably around 3 p.m. Eastern. We'll have your Bellator 288 coverage. People's pre-fight show for Vegas.

65 Saturday, 12.30 p.m. Eastern time. Love that post-fight show. I think AK and I are actually going to record onto the next one on Saturday night as well because we'll have all this extra time on our hands. And then we get ready for, yes. I'm now deep in the well here. This is a 12-fight card. Seven of them are championship bouts,

which means they could go five rounds. Why are there other fights on this card? What in the name of God? Like, I know Kayla's going to hopefully get to finish. But if all of these go five-fives, like, I guess at least you're getting time for money for your 50 bucks. Because shit, man. Would you pay $59,49.99 to watch a PFL card if they took all the stats off the screen? No, the stats are the best part because it's incredibly stupid and funny.

Oh, okay. I would pay $49.99. The smart cage is my favorite thing about the BFL. I would pay $49.99. The smartest cage. If at the end of it, they went up to every champion and they're like, we'll triple, we'll give you $3 million, but you have to enter a battle royale against all the other champions.

That would be awesome. And the loser gets $3 million, including Kail Harrison. Dude. And then there is an amateur MMA fight opening this card up. there's somebody named Dakota DeCheva fighting Catherine Corp. Why are those fights there? What is going on? There's an amateur fight on this card?

There is. I could have been on this PFL card. You could have. Why didn't it? Oh, man. I genuinely hope all six of these things go the full 25 and PFL ends at like five in the morning. Absolutely lewdacy. Oh, man.

Well, hey, who knows? Maybe this card will be UFC 281-esque, and it'll just be chaos and gnarly and all sorts of craziness will happen. So we'll try to maintain some positivity. If a tree falls down on the forest and no one's around here, it doesn't make a noise. I still predict that PFL is going to come out and say, you know what, you're the best fans in the world. We're going to give this to you for five bucks or something. I think that's a great idea. But if you're going to do that, at least set the price point at 100.

So everybody's talking about how insane the 100 thing is. And then you're giving it $100 for free. It's like, hey, look how great we are. Here's a hundred dollars. It's so strange. It's saying it's $1 million to buy the pay-per-view. And then go, you know what? We love the fans.

It's called $49.99. What a deal? You just saved like $900,000. You're making money by spending $50 on this pay-per-view. I wrote, so I did the graphic for this. What do you, like, when I made the graphics- We're so mean right now. announcing the price point

the only other the only thing that had more comments was Israel's response to Mark Goddard I mean that after that like that's a price point for PFL pay review was like was astronomically higher was it was it a lot of people commenting

can't wait to buy this one was that were those the comments you were getting people go wow less than $50 I don't have to spend 6999 for the they say they were all They were all, honey, sorry I can't get you a Christmas present. I'm buying the PFL pay-per-view.

Well, we'll see how it goes. I don't think I've ever been more intrigued about the possible. I love you, NFL. You know what? We're not talking about the timing either because I bet more people would have bought this, but then Taylor Swift put her tickets on sale. Yeah, that's tough. And everybody decided to go to Taylor Swift instead.

There's a bad time. Because, like, I could buy the PFL pay-per-view, or I could go watch Taylor Swift. Swift Live crap. I guess I'm going to go to yours. Yeah, but maybe they gained an advantage since T-master like collapsed and you couldn't buy T-Swift.

Maybe they were all like, well, since this is broken, let me just shuffle on over to ESPN Plus. Lock in my pay-per-view by right now. That's a good point. That's a good point. There you go.

Sandwiched in between two UFC cards and then we get fight circus with their big announcement. Hell yeah. Coming up with another event of December and it's free, I believe. It's free. So they're doing it right.

So Casey's doing it. Do we have that? What's the tagline for the new fight circus? Was it? Oh, give me, Hanukkah gone wrongica. Yeah. A tribute to Scrooge. Oh, my gosh.

Best promotion in the game, baby. Oh, you know what? God. Do we have a winner, Casey? Do we have a winner? Sure. It's the PFL. The PFL is the winner.

Sure. All this free promo work. Your winner today with 56% of the votes is Jed Mishu. Man, exhibition Jed is a whole different animals. I don't even care. I'm just looking at this white circuit poster. It's awesome. There you go.

So, congratulations, Jed, or guess, fake congratulations, since this wasn't a real thing, but what would you like to say? I'd like to say that if you haven't been watching Fight Circus, despite the fact that I've been telling you for literal years at this point, they've got another one. They just finished four, send lawyers guns and money, which was a train wreck,

but still delightful because it always is. Fight Circus 5 announced today, as we mentioned, Hanukkah gone wrongica in homage to Scrooge. December 17th, it'll be on Fight TV. Since it just got announced, I don't know what's going to be on there. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of wacky stuff.

Since it's an homage to Scrooge, we're probably going to get like a ghost of future past, present, et cetera. Fights going on. Yeah. Who can say, could be anything. It's fight circus. So tune in. It's going to be the best. I'm very, very excited about it.

That's all I got. Ronica. Oh, what are the 12? Oh, I'm sorry. There's more. There are 12 fights of Christmas. we've got of course an MMA symmetrical fight. If they don't do a fight involving everything in the 12 nights of Christmas song,

then what are we doing? We've got a Christmas karaoke battle. I need six drummers drumming around the cage, for sure. Why not? Sounds like a great idea. Five golden rings at the top that they have to collect in order to win. Sign you up. Man.

So much. The possibility is a really good fight idea. You have to go around. Man, that should have been the knock around question. How do we do these 12 fights at Christmas? But stay tuned.

Next week. Actually, no show next week. I don't think because it'll be Thanksgiving. I was going to say, it seems bold for us to be doing this on Thursday next week, but okay.

We'll not be doing it on Thursday next week. But we'll figure something out. Maybe we'll just do like a Jed talks kind of thing and no game. But Casey, you can hit the exit music. We are done. Thank you for joining us.

We appreciate it very much. Enjoy all the fights this weekend. Maybe we'll be back next week. Who the hell knows? We'll definitely be back in two weeks ahead of UFC Orlando for Jedbysh, for Jose Young's, Casey on the once and twos, the iconic voice of Esther Lynn takes you home. I am Mike Heck. We'll see you next time on Between the Links.

Good night, again. This has been Between the Links and then my fighting production on the Vox Media Network. I love you guys. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.