MMA Fighting - BTL | Blachowicz vs. Ankalaev, UFC 282, James Krause, Bellator 289, UFC Orlando

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

The UFC is heading into their final pay-per-view event of 2022, and a new light heavyweight champion will be crowned in the main event. On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel will discuss Saturday's main event between Jan Blachowicz and Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 282 along with what could be next for the winner. Additionally, they'll talk Paddy Pimblett facing Jared Gordon in the co-main event, how the rest of the card shapes up, the fallout of # UFC Orlando and Stephen Thompson's main event win against Kevin Holland, the UFC betting scandal and the promotion's response to James Krause and his fighters, Bellator 289 this Friday headlined by the interim bantamweight title rivalry fight between Raufeon Stots and Danny Sabatello, and more. This week, host Mike Heck will be joined by MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew for a talking heads discussion about the biggest stories in MMA. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR 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 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 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.

And now, your host, my... The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition. of Between the Links. Yes, I'm wearing my Red Sox shirt in support of the team that just lost Xander Bogarts to the San Diego Padres for reportedly hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars

more than the Red Sox are willing to spend. But I ain't jumping off the train. And thank you for joining us on the program, ladies gentlemen. A lot happening in the world of MMA. And this week, doing something a little bit different. No matchup. No contest. Just some live talking heads, chatting the biggest stories in the sport.

since there's so much happening. So joining me once again this week, Mr. No Gray area, the exhibition king, the co-host of No Bet's Bard, Mr. Jed Michoud. Hello, Jed Mishu. Hello, Jed. Love talking heads. Who doesn't love the talking heads?

You know, it's just the best kind of entertainment. So I'm happy to be here, buddy. Well, I'm happy to have you here. Let's just start with the fallout of UFC Orlando. Let's put a pin in this all together because it went down this past Saturday. main event we saw Stephen Wonderboy Thompson pick up a fourth round TKO win over Kevin Holland it was a great fight one of the seven to ten best fights of the year definitely not the best fight of the year I saw a lot of that

you guys are all insane if you feel that way but it was a damn good fight I didn't take it anything away from it but wonder boy got it done we'll start here jet and we'll get into the stars did you learn more about Stephen Thompson in this fight or Kevin Holland probably Kevin Holland I guess I didn't learn anything about Stephen Thompson I definitely learned some things about Kevin Holland they're probably not good things if we're being honest I do want to address the thing you just said because I did not watch this fight live I had a big day SEC championship or wasn't working in the event maybe tossed a few back maybe this fight I happened at like three in the morning or someone godly hour because I tried to hang on man I made it I barely made it to watch Sergei Pavlovich Taitouivas alive. Like I barely made that one before I just kind of like fell out and decided I'm just going to go to bed. And so then I woke up and okay, Wonder Boy won cool. And then I started hearing all this like maybe this might be the best fight ever.

And I still didn't watch it on Sunday because other stuff got in the way. And then Wonderboy goes on on the MMA hour, great program. And it's like, you know, I hear people are saying it might be the fight. of the year and I'm like well maybe I miss something here this is really really great fight fight of the year and so I finally went and watched it and that isn't even close to the fight it Pete what are we talking about that was a good fight that is a fine fight to win fight of the night honors that is not in the top five that is not going to be an honorable mention for my fight of the year list it was just a good fight. It was a fun fight, but I don't know, that just seems insane to me that sort of the,

that narrative popping up. It feels real recency bias. And because they didn't do any of the grappling, maybe people just loved it. Like, I don't know. That one fight of the year, my man. I agree. So what did you learn about Kevin Holland in the fight? Oh, I forgot. That was the point of the question. I learned that he is, uh, he is really good at fighting. And I mean this is a very specific way. As we talk about it all the time, this is nominally a sport, but it is mostly an entertainment product. And Kevin Holland is probably never going to be a champion.

I feel pretty confident saying that he is never going, he has a ceiling that is not UFC champion level. He maybe could string together the appropriate amount of wins if there's, if some things break right, to get a title shot. that's probably not super likely, but I think that's in the realm of possible for him. And so, looking at that, and maybe this is not the calculus he made,

maybe it's just who he is internally. He's like, I'm just going to be fun. And there's a whole world of opportunity for guys who have some personality and who are just willing to be fun and fun in the traditional fan-centric view of it. And so, absolutely. Michael Bisming, I know that you tried to come at us about some nonsense, and I had to check

you real fast, but you said what you said, and what you said was correct, that he did not fight the smartest fight, that he let his ego get in the way. And that is valid and fair criticism of the man. Also, probably in the long term, it's better, because, yes, he could have won that fight and he'd get the two paychecks, et cetera. But Kevin Holland, everybody is going to tune in to keep watching. in this fight, this man fight, because that's what he does. He comes in and he is just trying to mix it up in the ways that fans want to see.

And so his fight IQ is probably not the highest in the world because maybe his ego does outweigh it. But his long term, you know, promoter-centric version of how to proceed with an MMA career, man is spot on. And he delivered a moment. Nobody left that card unhappy with what. happened and a lot of that goes to Wonder Boy as well, but certainly that's it, it takes two to tango and Kevin Holland was exceedingly willing to tango in the most entertaining way possible on on Saturday night. I agree with you.

I feel like Kevin Holland has entered that sort of Derek Lewis territory. Maybe it's not like a complete fair comparison, but we're like titles don't matter, rankings don't matter. Nobody cares. They just want to watch them fight. They don't care who he fights. and get down. They're happy to see Kevin fight.

Exactly. So it's not a bad spot to be in. There's a lot of fighters in that boat, and that's good. You can make quite the career doing that, even if you don't get a champion. It's better than like 95% of professional fighters in the world. Getting into that boat makes you in a very small list of people

where it's just like people know you. And when they fight you like, hell yeah, let's do it. Let's watch that man boogie. Now on the flip side, and I know you said you didn't learn. learned a ton about Wonderboy Thompson this fight. He said the main goal for him against Kevin Hall was to prove to the fans, he ain't just like an old dude,

he still got it, he could still compete. So did this performance from Wonderboy make you think in any way? You know what? If he's booked properly, maybe he does have another title run left in him. Do you think that's possible here? Or do you think he's just going to run into, he's going to have to run into Shafcott at some point and it's not going to be good?

No, no, no. I learned that Stephen Thompson is not washed. I did not believe that he was, but it was very possible just because we hadn't seen him look. He looked fine in spots against Burns and Muhammad, but mostly they just totally nullified his ability to do the things he wants to do. And so it's tough to gauge. And he's pushing 40. He's going to be 40th, I think, in February. There was a real question about, because I do think his style is not suited to aging gracefully, just because it really,

relies on a lot of reflexes and quick triggers and those things go away as you get older. I learned that he still has those. So at least at this very moment in time, he is not washed. And if you book him properly, he can get wins. He cannot make another title run because the weight class is what it is. Like there's just I just pulled up to UFC's ranking since I know that they don't matter. But in this context, he's not going to be facing, you know, Logan. Storley or the Bellator guys.

Kamar Usman, Colby Covington, Hamzaa Chimae of Belal Mohamed and Gilbert Burns are the top five not holding belts in the UFCs. There is, I mean, we've seen two of them just ragged all the man. And there is a strong, if not factually accurate statement to just say

that Belal Muhammad and Gilbert Burns are the worst of the wrestlers from that group of five. like there there is no path for him at some point and because again that's also not including chavcott who isn't in their top five but he's close he just has to get the wins to be there there is no there is no way for him to to weave into a title shot that doesn't involve fighting a wrestler who will just dunk on him the way he did his last two so no title fights for him but he can just do fun stuff like you just have him fight he can fight he can fight

Santiago Ponsinibio after the Morono fight or he can fight Robbie Loll when Robbie's back to healthy you just do those things with him and let him do that and that's a reasonable and good use of Stephen Wonderboy Thompson at this point yeah fight Mazadol fight Michelle Paheda yeah oh I don't care about the we saw the Mosswall thing and that fight just has very little traction to me it seems weird but the Beheader one's great I do that that's a great fight and then even like because Beheader head is on the outside of the rankings like that even has relevance to the division it's not just

a total just fun fight or whatever there's some meaning behind it that's a great fight you can do that a lot of people brought the connor fight like would you be interested in connor versus wonder boy i will watch i talk a lot of shit about connor for reasons that i think are pretty obvious and well warranted uh i'll watch connor fight every time because all all of the many bad things you can say about Connor and the many critiques you can have about his game and his growth and etc. He is one of unquestionably the five most exciting fistfighters who have ever graced the cage, not including the circus that surrounds him, just his N-Kage product. Like the reason I have been so high on wanting Connor McGregor versus Justin Gaichie

is I think empirically it is the most exciting fight that could ever happen. Like they, those do every time they turn up, the one boring fight the one fight that was not compelling or interesting for Connor the one was him fighting Max Holloway when he blew out his knee and if you rebooked that fight

one Max gonna put the wood to that man and two that fight is gonna rule like it that's just one of those weird anomalies where you put Max and Connor two of the most exciting guys ever and somehow you don't get an interesting fight because MMA is weird sometimes but I'll watch that dude fight anybody

because his in-caged product has never not been fun. So I actually do think that Stephen Wonderboy Thompson might make his in cage product not as fun as other. Like, I don't think stylistically they're going to clash in the most compelling way. But if you want to do it, that's fine. I don't think it ever happens, though. So it is a bit of a moot point. All right.

So outside of the main event and there's motorcycles everywhere, you could go whatever way you want with this. but outside of Thompson or Holland, who were your three stars of UFC Orlando and then we'll move on? So I didn't watch the co-main event or the flywates because I fell asleep and haven't caught back up on them. But I suspect that I can piece together

how the co-main event looked. My guess is nothing shocking. My guess is nothing shocking happened in that fight. And similarly to the flyweight fight, we got good, Matthias Nicolao instead of bad Mateus. I'm going to suspect that that's how that one looked. If I'm giving you three stars,

I really just want to give you one because the rest of it does not matter. I can throw out some other names. Nicolao probably gets it just because he's pretty close to a flyway title fight. But the guy, well, you know who we're going to talk about. It's Ivan Drago, Sergey Pavlovich. Like, I didn't see that coming at all.

I don't, I still don't even understand it. Like just straight up, I don't know how to, I guess he's the best heavy way in the world? He might just be the best heavyweight in the world. Like I think that that's, that's not an unreasonable thought at this point in time because I got, I don't remember if it was, maybe it was BTL, it was somewhere. I came on and said, I know that Tai Tewvasa can take punches from him because I did. I felt very confident. Maybe he can't take like a hundred, but I've seen Ty, I saw Derek Lewis, who's one of the hardest

hitting dudes in the world, punched that man in the face, and Ty was cool with it. Like, he wasn't stoked about it, but he worked on through it, and he was good. And everything that, everything in Miami knowledge knew that Ty Tuivasa is, can take a shot, and that this is going to be, they're going to have to get down. And if Pavlovich can win, but it's going to take more than one. and that's not really how that fight worked out really just kind of Pavlovich just hit him once

and tied it and like fall over and die but he was that was the start of it like the one landed and then then it was just T and all it was hunting season and I don't understand how he's this like this man lost Alistair

Overeem not that long ago I mean it was a while back but it was not that long ago and Overeign was already pretty washed but he hits really hard he's got super like go-go-gadgett arms that make no sense that he has like a 90-inch reach and his 6-4 or whatever and he has pretty fast hands

and he just did the damn thing I don't know if he's the best heavyweight in the world my guess is he's not even going to get the chance to prove that he might be it for some time because of how backlog that division is and their insistence on doing John Jones all the favors in the world for some reason but I am stoked to see him fight against whoever it is next.

Like whoever, if he can sneak in and get either Cyril Ghan or Derek Lewis, if he can maybe coax Steppe Mietich out of, I won't call it retirement, but whatever the hell Steepa is doing with his life, I just want to watch this guy boogie and see, see where he can go, because that was the most, by far the most impressive performance on Saturday was Sergei just rolling right on over Tai Tuivasa. Yeah, I think you meant Curtis Blades,

not Derek Lewis, but... Yeah, yeah, Curtis Blades. Yeah, I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. He's definitely number one. Roman Delizze is number two. These two guys are probably... Delizze is the other guy

who gets the shout out of the three for sure. Yeah, those two guys, if we're doing like breakout fighter of the year, those are two of the top five guys, for sure. Pavlovich broke out like crazy, three fights, three knockouts. Delizzee was an afterthought. Like, if I told you in January, hey, Jed, my bold prediction is that Roman Deleadze is going to be a top eight heavyweight in the world or middleweight in the world in the UFC rankings by December.

You'd have been like, hey, love. I'm like, man, apparently Loryano's Strapoli is way better than I thought he was. Yeah. So, and then look at this. The calf slacer into the TKO haven't seen much like that. That was so sick. It was so sick. Like, there's nothing he could do.

There's literally nothing he could do. It's on him. He's just like, oh, he's done. There's nothing he can do. There's other ways you go, Nicolae betting on himself, business perspective. I thought that was great.

He cashed out big time. RDA did RDA things. There was no real surprise there. I thought Phil Roe looked great. The weight mis hinders it. I'm actually going to go with the first fight of the night, Yasmin, you're a guy, because golly,

what a solid prospect she is in this division. We got to see her overcome a little bit of hardship in this one. And she came back, got to finish, and people are just super excited to see her moving forward. So, I mean, those other names are, names that I mentioned are in there for sure, but all in all, it was a long day. It was a long card, but it was, it was good. It's so long. It's so weird because, like, this fight, it was a mix of

old people and young people, but not like in head-to-head matchups. They're, like, prospects taking on other, like, Francis Marshall, Yasmin, Uruguay, Pavlovich, Nicolow, like, those are people on the come-up. But then you also have, like, Angela Hill fighting Emily to Cody. It's just like, Someone who's been around for a lifetime. And it looked great, but isn't like, Angela Hill's not going to make a run. She's just going to be a good, competent person who fights. It was a weird card.

Clay Guida, Scott Holtzman. Like, it was just a very weird card composition. Also, that fight was awful. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo. Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games

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But Jed, in the days leading up to UFC Orlando, this UFC betting scandal has continued to boil over into just a massive story because we saw two major provinces in Canada, Ontario and Alberta just halt UFC betting altogether and this happened last week like not MMA betting, just the

UFC in wake of these investigations going on into the Derek Minter, Shailenner and Becca fight and that's just what we know from what the UFC is telling us which on Friday the UFC sends out memos to all the fighters, coaches and managers and then to everybody

in the public saying, hey, James Krauss was suspended by Nevada. That's essentially why he didn't corner Miles Johns. He's not allowed to take part in any UFC events. And on top of that, they drop a bit of an ultimatum on the entire Glory MMA UFC team by saying, hey, if you continue to train with this guy or at his gym, you will not be welcome in the UFC. You will not fight for us. Now, at first, Jed, and we talked about this afterwards, when Miles Johns got on the microphone, after his win over Vince Morales.

And he said, the UFC suspended my coach. He couldn't be in my corner. We found it at that time. It was a commission thing. It wasn't a UFC decision, but it kind of was on top of it because the commission suspended him. And it was sort of presented to reporters. And we mentioned Kevin Ioli's report as something I had heard similar as a,

look, this is something we're investigating, probably not a good look that you're out there cornering guys. And boy, were we kind of wrong? here, at least as it appears, because as the weeks and days have gone by, this does not seem like the case at all. This is a crazy story, a still developing story, one that we have been digging into. And from where I sit currently, this is only going to get worse. And the story is only going to continue to get weirder and weirder and crazier. So we actually haven't heard from you on any of the programs about this, Jed. So your reaction to the latest on this UFC betting slash James

Kraus Saga. Starting to look like I was pretty wrong. Can't say it conclusively and I don't want to make accusations, but my baseline stance has been, you know, this from basically the moment this happened, I think we went on and had a reaction and my stance has been pretty stalwart. There's just no world in which he is stupid enough to have done this because it, while it may not be directly fight-fixing. It's super close and he's literally the first

guy you look at prominently out there with his discord betting stuff, coach of the guy. It just, I could not fathom that he might be this dumb. And I'm still not willing to say

both for legal and because I think I'm still not there all the way yet that James Kraus has clearly, there's some run in Denmark, but if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's not a zebra, certainly. So there is still more reporting to be done, more things to come out. And maybe I can envision a world where all of this is a potentially slight overreaction or maybe not even an overreaction, but just a reaction to a very ugly bit of business that

certainly looks bad and everyone's everyone's in CYA mode. Cover your ass, baby. Like, that's what we're doing. It seems that that's probably not the case based on some other things that are out there. I'm hearing. And it's going to get, it's going to get woolly, man. Things are going to get incredibly fun and interesting.

And like, what could be some seriously long term, like, highly relevant. and important things can come from this. Like, I don't even know. Like, I truly don't know where this is going to go. And that's kind of the most fascinating part to me. Because even if we take, I'm not willing, like I said, I still don't think I have the harshest view of this, right? I am now a lot more willing to say that somebody directly involved in this probably did something

that at the minimum can be described as shady and probably more accurately can be described as unethical. I'm not willing to say that that is Kraus per se. But I think that we can kind of narrow this down from the much wider leeway I was trying to give it. But I can say for certain that some things are going to happen and I don't know how that's going to play. Like I don't know how this is going to break

because the UFC hasn't ever faced like legitimate external scrutiny in this way. And you can make pretty reasonable arguments that some of that's our fault, right? That like the MMA media largely doesn't hold the UFC to task as much as it should. There's a big argument there about whether that's true and to what extent can be done. But when the feds are involved, they are for sure going to make sure things are all the way up and up insofar as they legally have the ability to do so. I think that's why you're seeing a lot of reactions from Canadian provinces. The UFC hit came so strictly as they know that this isn't,

this isn't a story that Dana White can yell about us being pansies. And, well, this is the fight business. Things happen, blah, blah, blah. And just kind of sweep under the rug and blow past. And so they are treating it like the seriousness with which it deserves. So I still don't know what's going to happen though. Like, I don't, I could see this just blowing over in like six months. I could see James Krauss being communicated entirely from the AA community.

And people going to jail. So like, I don't know, man. But this is the most fascinating thing that's happened this year by a lot, I think. Yeah. And as far as the fighters involved go who trained there, Marcelo Rojo, he was allowed to compete at. UFC Orlando due to the timing of this all. T.J. Brown is fighting on Saturday, but I've seen different interviews. I've seen his Instagram.

He's split time from Glory and another gym. So it looks like as far as I know, he's good to go to fight on Saturday against Eric Silva. Julian Marquez is supposed to fight, I believe, next week in the final event of the air against to Ron Wynn. No word on him just yet. We just saw and reported that Jeff Molina is not fighting Jimmy Flick. Jimmy Flick's not fighting Charles John. Johnson, January 14th, no word officially on whether or not this is related to that,

because I've asked a lot of people and no one is saying anything. And oh, yeah, Jed, the interim flyweight champion of the world, Brandon Moreno is scheduled to fight Davis and Figurato for the fourth time on January 21st at UFC 283, this time to unify the titles. And we know where he's been training for his last couple of fights at Gloria MMA. and there's no word whether Moreno will still be good to go for that card. There's just so many unanswered questions with this whole thing. And I feel like even as these stories continue to come out,

we're going to have much more. But what's like the biggest unanswered question you have right now, Jed? Like, what do you want to know the most? I mean, what I want to know the most is if somebody's fixing fights. And not like, again, not even fixing fights in the traditional sense of of fixing fights, but of using what essentially insider information to make bets, potentially against the interests of their own fighters. Because that's the part where it gets really ethically questionable to me, right?

Like, if you're just, if you happen to have more information because of, because this is, well, one, this isn't the stock market. Like, it's not regulated like the stock market, et cetera. But if you happen to know more things because you train with a guy, then you just have happen to know more things and that's you you can use that but if you happen to know uh here i want to be extremely clear this is not an accusation i am not saying this is what happened or or even may have happened because i have truly no idea but in the hypothetical world where der let's say in a hypothetical world derrick minner injured himself two weeks ago before two weeks before the fight or a month before the

fight and he he comes in and says i can't go my knee is shot i have blown out my whole knee can't do anything etc and that is when things get questionable because if if you just know that you're that a fighter you are training with or whatever he's coming in not a hundred percent or he's got like a bad case of the flu or something but that fighter is independently going to compete because they need the money, X, Y, Z, whatever reason, and you use that information, that's still like a really gray area that we probably shouldn't play around with in general,

but I am willing to give some room there. But of you as the head coach, or even as another coach or another figure of authority in that fighter's camp, look at that fighter and say, nah, you can still fight through this. I think that you can get this done. If you're T.J. Dillishaw's camp and say,

I know you tore your shoulder and you're useless, but let's get out there and you could still do it because he's a bad striker and you just got to not grapple with him or whatever. And then you go and bet a substantial sum of money or tell people to bet a substantial sum of money against that. Using your position of authority and power to convince a fighter who otherwise would not have competed, that's probably not legal. Though I'm not like superversed in the laws in that regard. like I'd have to look into it. And it's certainly like a real scumback thing. And so like that's the rest of this, a lot of this is probably necessary, like realistically. That's kind of my stance is this should be more.

And this isn't just germane to UFC, by the way. This is sort of to all sports. Sports betting is being not widely legalized in this country. And they're going to be some growing pains. And that probably needs to have a more stringent regulation process that goes with it for these various sorts of things. for integrity reasons and moral reasons. I'm willing to just say, yeah, sometimes there's a little bit of break, got to break some eggs omelet, we'll get there in the end.

But where I draw the hard and fast line is if you are using a position of authority to effectuate a negative outcome for your fighter to your own monetary gain or to really jive the system in that way, that's super dirtbaggy. And that's the only thing I want to know, because the rest of it, you know, if this is just sort of how the cookie crumbles while we're in this little weird room, okay. Like it's not great and be cool if it didn't happen, but that's not going to be like, I'm not going to think about that and be like, damn, that that was shitty. But if this, I just want to know if there was like intentional foul play because then that that as the only part of this that truly matters to me in a long term stance. well obviously keep you posted on the latest here there's i mean we're digging in it's an insane story

and i'm confident when i say that we're probably just scratching the surface of something even crazier so yeah it's freaking wild man uh you mentioned tj j j illishaw real quick he retired are you surprised by this your reaction uh true my true and honest reaction the first thing i thought was man, F that dude. Just, I know that this business and largely the world in general is a me first, got to look out for number one.

I will go to my grave being so mad that this injured D-bag who never could have won the fight took this fight instead of stepping aside to get his shit together and costing Jose Aldo

one final title shot. And that's the fan in me. Like, because I recognize that he doesn't owe Josaldo anything and he's got to look out for himself, but the fan of me will never forgive him for that. I never gave a shit about his steroid stuff and I still don't. You're never going to make me care. This made me actively dislike him into a way that is hard to understate. And as far as the rest of it, because obviously I see the narrative, I don't care, man. Like, do drugs.

It is fine. Royed up, get back to AOK, get off the gear and join the party again if that's what you want to do. I have absolutely no issue if that becomes like the new standard. I know a lot of people will and that may end up leading to, you know, if enough people do it, maybe the UFC is like, okay, we need to push that six month window back to a year. So you have to be tested for a year before you get in. at that point, then there's a whole other set of issues

that people are going to hate because drug testing in sports is very dumb. It's largely incredibly arbitrary and I will just never care about it. I'm just never going to do it. So if that's how he has to get around the rules to get back and he can come back to a semblance of the A-plus fighter that he was and I get to watch him compete one or two more times,

I'm for it because I just, just want to see people do cool stuff and if that's how it has to be done go for it man let's move on to this saturday we're kind of bouncing around but that's why i like doing these shows because we just gotta have a little bit of a game plan but then we just like mike i'm gonna just talk right over you and we don't have to dive into it but if yri per hashka can fight sooner than a year from now because he gets out of usada and shoots all the roids directly like the liver king cocktail into his shoulder and he can come back in eight months instead of 12 we should all want that it is like literally better for every single one of us. And if you say no, then I, you are a pearl clutching,

sky is falling, 90 year old integrity of baseball. Dude, ass, and I'll need you in my life. Like, get me Yeri quicker. Don't make me wait a year and a half if I can get him for eight months because he gets geared up. It seems so obvious. Well, speaking of Yerre. Yeah, speaking of Yerie, he is not fighting on Saturday at UFC 282. We'll have a new light heavyweight champion crowned at the end of it. Hopefully, hopefully it's not a draw any shenanigans, but Janboovich. Oh, you just put it into the world, Mike. I know, I know.

Janbovich will look to become a two-time champ and Magamette and Galaif will take what he said at Media Day feels belongs to him already. Now, I have not listened to No Betz Bard. I plan on listening later this evening because I have a couple of drives ahead of me. But I'm not sure how you feel. about this, but I have looked at this fight a little bit more this week just to kind of get a grasp

on things, and I've gone back and watched like the last few flights of both guys, and even for the sake of this exercise, I went back and I watched the entire Magamette Ancolaev Tiago Santos fight. A fight that I said I would never fight again, never watch again. I actually went back

and watched it. Boy, it's worse the second time, but I've been very confident from the original non-title booking that Ankleyev was going to win this fight convincingly. And he couldn't do just that on Saturday. It's very possible. But I'm going to say, the more I've watched from both guys,

I feel stylistically, this is actually a much more compelling than I thought it was originally. I'm not saying that the gaps have closed like entirely here, but this fight's closer than I thought it was originally the more I dove into it. Where are you at with this one? I've gone on a bit of journey with this one. To a large extent I agree with that assessment of it.

So when I first thought about this fight, I was like, well, Encliffe's going to win pretty handily. And then I watched some tape. And then I was like, actually, this is a lot closer. And then I watched a bunch more tape for the past to victory column. I write for every pay-per-view. And I'm pretty confident, on Clive wins in good fashion. That's not to say that he will dominate the fight.

So here's my thoughts on it, right? There is a world where I think Jan Behoves can win this fight. He probably isn't going to, but there are some, like, he has some real stylistic advantages or edges that he can lean on. He's a great kicker, and that has been a weakness of Ancolaev's. Like, we saw Volcan Ozedemir chop his legs out. And that was a fight that Anklaev won pretty handily, but Ozdemer had a ton of success chopping the legs out.

I had the stat. I don't... Something like Anclyev has like 86% of leg kicks thrown at him land. He doesn't really check them. We did see him do a little bit more of it in the Anthony Smith fight, but that fight was a little too short for us to take any real big thoughts from it. So I think Jan, just by being a really good kicker, and Anklayev most kicks a little bit,

but he's mostly prefers to box. and Jan could set a long range and just sort of use the body kicks he has low kicks to just sort of chip at Ankalive over time. Because Anka Live is largely not going to force issues. That's not who he is. He mostly wants to look at the counter. He'll lead occasionally, but not very often. So I think early on this fight is going to look like that.

But my suspicion, Jan has like one really, really big weakness. And it's come to Biden in the ass a couple of times. And it's he, he has this tendency and I'm not, like I have thoughts on why, but I'm not 100% sure where he just like runs forward really recklessly. Like with a combination of punches, when he starts throwing in combination, there's minimal defense involved. He, he sort of forgets his hand positioning and just kind of fires him out there and come what may. And he does this lot like on a blitzing char.

charge forward like Carlos Condit sort of used to do, only he didn't have Carlos Condit's chin to just be doing that. And the Tiago Santos knockout was a direct, like directly. He, he did, he just ran at Santos. Santos backed up and threw one, like through a couple, and a left hand just spun, spun Jan around. Glover heard him in the exchange prior to the fight ending take down submission, heard him with the left hand because Jan just kind of threw his hands a bunch. He does it in just about every fight and I think that he does it when he feels that he's behind to like I've got to try and get some respect back or I've got to win these points back and so then he does it and every time he does it without defense and it costs him several times in his career if he does it against

uncle live he is going to get dropped and I think that at some point it's going to happen like I think yon can make this really competitive a distance but I think it's he is not as fast as on kalaev and that's he has to navigate around that, which is going to be a problem. And I think eventually he is going to feel that he's behind and try and make something happen. And when he does, he's going to get countered and put down.

And like there's also a world their Uncle I have just out wrestles him, but that probably isn't going to happen. I do think that we're talking like third or fourth round TKO for Uncle I've at this point. Yeah, I think the one that I've kind of gone back and watched a few times, and was like, hmm, maybe like there's something here.

It's the Adasanya fight with Behovic because he didn't really charge in that much. Like there are moments where he got. He's really disciplined that whole fight. Yeah. It's his best fight he's ever had by a lot. Yeah. And I feel like if he could do something, if he could find a middle ground between the two, because I think if he does that for 25 minutes, now I know he was able to get the takedowns

in the second round. There's this narrative that, well, Jan just sat on him the whole fight. It's literally not true. Go back and watch it. because he was landing on Izzy, and he was, and Izzy and Ankylaffordot similar strikers,

like there's obviously differences between the two, but they're both very patient guys, they both look to counter, they both want you to come to them. And I don't think that strategy will work for Bolhovic the same way it worked against Adasania.

However, he just can't be reckless either. So if he can find some sort of middle ground between those two sort of styles, I think he's got a shot here, But again, I think the longer this one goes, the more it probably favors in a galap just because he's got more tools in the shed, if you will. So that's the interesting part of this fight to me. I think in general I agree with that.

But how does a short notice play here? Because, like, Jan seems to think that the extra rounds help him. And I can see the argument for it of he's been in those waters more. He may even have been training, you know, four or five in case. something happened. I have no idea what Uncle I was doing if that extra 10 minutes is like in my head it shouldn't matter because he it's not like he fights at a super high pace, right? But I just have no idea what the extra 10 minutes is going to do this fight. It creates a whole world of opportunity for both guys that I have no idea how it plays out. Yeah, this fight's better

than I thought it was. I'll say that. One last thing and then we'll move on to some of the other story. It's really good and high level. There is a, there is a reasonable possibility that this fight will suck to watch. You're going to say that. There is a possibility of that. But it is, it would not shock me at all if we're talking on Saturday night at 5 in the morning. Well, we said that this was one of the worst pay-per-views of the year, and it didn't really deliver anything above expectations.

So I hope that's not the case. Knock on wood. we'll move on to the co-main event in a second but yon was asked about this at media day yesterday and he basically responded by saying by turning into a whole different thing like year he didn't want to fight me anyway so it doesn't really matter but you know we've seen this before we've seen this a lot in this division specifically mostly involving john jones being stripped of the title and from shenanigans and a new champion crown but will you view the winner of this fight jet as like the actual champion or more of an interim role?

role while Perhashka hails up because this is not at least what we're being told here. This is not the UFC being like, we're stripping you with the title. This is, you know what? Yeri step it away out of respect for the division. So do you view the winner of this fight as the actual champion? It's a really good question. Because I've been thinking about it a lot this week in advance of knowing we're going to have to do rankings on Saturday night or Sunday morning. I think no.

I think I will view the winner of this fight as the number two guy in the division. Now, if one of, if, well, look, if Yon goes out and does the greatest thing I've ever seen in a fist fight, he will still never be the number one heavyweight in the world because I watched Glover Tosherr dismantle him in vicious fashion. So he will have to end up as number three. But if Anka-Lyav goes out and does something incredibly impressive or looks, because again, I thought he looked good in the Anthony Smith fight, frankly. Like I thought we saw some actual tangible and important improvements to his game in the short period of time that that fight was contested in a realistic fashion. And so if he comes and he looks even better and he just walks yon like a dog like out of the cage, then I will feel very comfortable putting him at number one. Because I've sort of wanted to for a while.

He just hasn't. I have thought that he's probably the best light heavyweight in the world for a year and a half. He just hasn't his performances have been wins But they haven't been the exact performance you want The Tiago Santos fight was just horrifically bad to watch And I couldn't move him into top position after that Like I wanted to I think we talked about it privately before I was like if he just goes and blows Tiago Santos out

I'm just going to move number one Because I wanted to have him there because I think he probably is And then the Anthony Smith fight happens And again I want to move him up But it's just the the week weirdness of that fight kind of takes away from my ability to just shove all in on him like I did with his on forever ago. So if he comes and he has a career defining performance and looks amazing, and I'm probably, I'll feel okay about putting him there. But if he comes and eeks out of

Tiago Santos' decision, I'm still sticking Erie at the top. So let's move on to the co-main event, Chad, because one half of the fight got a lot of attention from a podcast he did with Dana White this week. It is Patty the batty Pimblit. He's making his fourth UFC appearance. He's looking to stay unbeaten inside the octagon. He's taking on Jared Gordon. Big one for Patty. This will answer some questions for me

in regards to whether or not he could be like a top 20-ish lightweight. It won't answer the many more that I have about him because, golly, I certainly have him. But it will make me say, you know what, this guy's better than I gave him credit for. But Jared's tough as hell. He's a dog. He's a wily

vet, him getting in a fist fight with Patty Pimbled on Saturday is like the 5,000th most difficult thing he has done and had to deal with in his life. And he's been in there with far better competition undoubtedly. But this is by far the biggest spotlight Jared Gordon has ever had in a UFC fight. So thoughts on the matchup just two days away from it because it's gotten a ton of attention for reasons outside of the fight mostly. But it's getting some more buzz the closer we get to Saturday. This should still probably be the main event to this card. Like just realistically, once the light heavyweight fight dropped off, Patty's, Patty's the draw. And I have thoughts on Patty.

I kind of don't want to dive too deep into him just because it's just exhausting. And he got ethered so aggressively hard by Ariel that like, what else can I do? Like I can't body, but I can't put that man in a bag any worse than Ariel did. And so it's just not even worth it. from like a nuts and bolts in the merit this is really a fight like that this is I won't say it's a really good fight it's a good fight and it's a fight that makes sense

I have been even prior to Patty showing his whole ass this week I have not been a huge Patty Pimbleau supporter not because of his personality which I'm not like all the way in on but he's done some good stuff the openness about mental health with his friend who passed like that's really good stuff uh his personality I get

it. Like, I understand why people gravitate towards him. I'm totally, and the, the O'Patty, the batty song is legit. It's a banger. You can't take nothing away from that man in that regard. But I just never thought he's a very good fighter. He's a fine fighter, but he's not, he is one of the few guys in the sport that his, his stardom far outstripped his ability. I've said that for years. I was willing to maybe start walking that back and this fight will maybe make me feel even a little different. I still do not feel that he will be a champion or even really be a title contender, but I used to not think that he was a top 20 dude. And his last, his last fight against Levitt, who's like not a great fighter, but a very solid dude and Patty just sort of pillar to

post at that one. It's like, okay, he's still young. He's still developing. He's showing some improvement. Maybe he does have a higher ceiling than I gave him credit for. Jared Gordon is the next logical step in that path of, okay, maybe he can make it. Maybe he can, tracker ranking. You know, maybe he can get there. And we'll see. I think he probably wins, but I also, this is the hardest opponent he's going to have faced. And Jared Gordon, big moment. I don't think this moment is going to affect him come this fight. I don't think he cares. And so from a purely engaged standpoint, I'm interested because this fight, more than any other, is a really good litmus test. I will know how to feel about Patty Pimbley after this fight.

One way or the other. I will know, okay, he has a higher ceiling that I gave him credit for. Let's figure out where that is. It's probably 15, probably not 10. Or, cool, he was who I thought he was. Sweet, I can go back to just not being that invested in him as a fighter. And yeah, so that's it. So I'm curious where Patty goes from here

because there have been some disagreements between like myself. I know Ariel was against us, but I loved. Hopefully he goes to a PR front. and learns how not to come at dudes unless you got the receipts, my man. Yeah. And Ariel and I disagreed. I thought the matchmaking of Aaron Blanchfield

versus Molly McCann was brilliant. Because you can't lose. You couldn't really lose in the situation almost for the same reasons you're talking about, right? Because Molly has become this really big star. People just love her. They all love her. I'm not saying everybody loves Patty,

but they all at least respond to Patty whether good or bad. But Molly, I just, I kind of felt the same way. Like she's fun. People like her. She's a quality competitor. She ain't fighting for a title.

But, you know, maybe she will. So let's throw in there with this Blanchefield girl. And worst case scenario, she loses. Aaron gets the rub. And Molly will just go back to the UK and squash somebody and look like a massive star again. So if Patty wins on Saturday, how do you book him? Because if he loses, same thing. It's easy.

Just throw him back in London. give him a top 50 guy, let him run him over, gets the big reaction. Star power doesn't get killed. Emotional reaction, power doesn't get killed with the loss here. A win, it's a bit different because this is the Cadillac division of the UFC. This is the lightweight division of there's so many heavy hitters here that I feel are just much better than Patty that deserve big opportunities probably before him.

But because of the following he has the type of energy he brings, everything about him, a lot of these guys are probably going to be skipped. There are no easy fights for him in the top 15. And if he beat Jared Gordon, at least in my mind, they're going to have to probably throw him to somebody in the top 15 at the very least. So if Patty wins, who would you throw him in there against? Pulling up right now to give it a look.

Oh, let me see the UFC's rankings. I agree you probably needs a ranked opponent. I don't know if you can do Tony Ferguson at this point. Tony's lost like six in a row or something. He's still number 15 in their rankings, BT-dubs. You probably just can't even sell it. But that fight had Tony not just gotten beat up by Nate Diaz, still would have made the most sense to me.

I thought it made sense a while back, frankly. Looking at their rankings, you could do Connor. It wouldn't be bad, but they probably won't do it. I don't think that you give him a ranked opponent. If you're going to, it's Dan Hooker. And I think Dan just works him. But Dan's like the guy who can maybe sell,

who has a number that there's at least maybe a path forward because it's not like Dan is a flawed fighter. He's fun as he is. He's a flawed fighter. So that and big personality, there's that they could sell ticket second headline, any event you want to headline. and there's no issues at that.

So I think, Dan, if they are insistent on making him fight a ranked guy, if not, if they're still okay, we can give him maybe one guy who's not, you could do like, Drocker Close, Drew Dober? Is Drew Dober ranked in the UFC? No, Drew Dober might. He's not ranked, but he's set to fight Bobby Green next weekend. The winner of that fight. The winner of Dober Bobby Green.

if they're not insistent on giving him a ranked opponent. Or maybe the winner of that fight sneaks into number 15 and they finally let Tony Ferguson fade into the ether. So that wouldn't be bad, though I think that that, that fight probably is less, not probably, a fight is less interesting or compelling than Dan Hooker would be. But that's probably a much, well, Bobby Green walks out of the cage too, Drew Dober probably.

It's the thing. I think unless he shows me something against Jared Gordon, anybody we're talking about save Tony Ferguson who's like ranked in the top 15 to 18 I think he's just going to work him like just going to rinse the dude so I don't know how you try and cultivate him I think Dan Hooker probably makes the most sense as I'm talking through this because if Dan wins

it's it that gives he's a guy that people already like and it gives Dan a bump as opposed to God love Bobby Green I don't think he's getting a huge bump here at this stage of his career. So yeah, Dan Hooker, I think that's the answer. So up until about three hours ago, I was thinking it's Jalen Turner. That's the walk. God, no. Because, no, I understand why Galen just kills him. Right, but Jalen gets a huge bump from that because he's not the most, he's an interesting cat, but he ain't the most entertaining guy on the stick. That's the thing. He is a,

he is fascinating. He is not compelling. And those are two very different things. Grant Dawson, somebody like that. And I think Patty threw a little shade in Grant's direction at the media day yesterday when talking about Jared Gordon. But then somebody brought up a name I thought was really interesting. And I was like, this might actually be the right one on heck of a morning this morning. How about Patty Pimbo versus Money Moikano?

That would be reasonable. Yeah, I love that. That's also like theoretically winnable. Moikano probably beats him. But that is, that's at least winnable. I always just forget because I didn't care about the Moikano thing. So like he just kind of evaporates out of my head. That's reasonable.

Or you could if you're feeling real froggy, just do the winner of the Surukian and Ismoglover fighting next week, aren't there? Yep. Do the winner of that one if you really feel frisky. If you're really just trying to build the star off the desiccated carcass of Patty Pimble, feed him to the winner of Armand Sarukian. Demir Shagalov. Golly. It's just a murderer's row, 155.

155 is so good. It's so ridiculous. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ, built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence, while Peloton IQ counts reps,

corrects form and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross-Training Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. 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. Hand-picked the finest sweaters from the rest. Ooh, cashmere. Landed makeup pallets from the brands you love. of rushes too and hustled all those wishless topping toys so plush our buyers have got you covered marshals we get the deals you gift for good stuff uh rest of the main card pretty solid i love the tipporia mitchell fight i think it's the best fight on the entire card a lot of solid prelim fights yeah a lot of solid prelim fights i we're going to see the ufc debut of raoul rosa's junior the 18 year old

but let's talk about a fighter before we move on to our last topic that is on your Mount Rushboard, Jed. Darren Till, you have been on many a show, jumping up, climbing up mountains as fast you could to scream to anyone who will listen, how much you admire this man's talent, you admire this man's resume, more than anything,

and he's fighting, drink his duplice, first time we've seen him in 15 months since the Derek Brunson loss, dealing with a lot of injuries, And I know how excited you are to watch Darren Till get back in there because you think so highly of him. So I'll let you wax politically about Darren in this fight. But the question I want to present is, does Darren Till have more pressure on him than anybody else in this entire card to win on Saturday? God, no.

Not even close. Because Darren Till is the king. He is the captain of the fail upwards all stars. It is him and Kelvin Gaston leading the way for how to lose and lose and lose. lose and get bigger opportunities every time out. If he loses to DDP, he probably fights Alex Pahara next. Or honestly, if he loses this fight, somehow like Pereira gets hurt and Izzy is like, I still want to fight at Perth or whatever.

Give me Darren Till. I've wanted to fight him for years. Screw it. We're both coming off losses. Let's finally do it. Like that is the most likely outcome, frankly, of this. this entire scenario, because that's all he does. There until doesn't win fights, and then he gets a bigger opportunity afterwards.

It is, he is the most frustrating fighter, I think, in the entire sport. I talked about this on No Bet's Bard this week, and I've said it forever, and maybe this is the week, because I love DDP. He is a flawed fighter. He has some obvious limitations, and he does really like to leave it. chin out there and Darren Till punches sort of hard and so maybe that's just maybe this is the time

where Darren Till finally gets a relevant win but I'm not betting on it because spot the lie here's the thing one of our colleagues came in me this morning and he heard listen to No Betts Bar and was like wow the slander on

Daritil outrageous and my response was it's not slander if it's true and the only thing I said was and it's the fact and if I'm wrong Tell me how I'm wrong. Darren Till has not had a convincing, non-controversial win since knocking out Donald Soroni in 2017. Cowboy Soroni career lightweight. I know he did the whole middle, the Walterway thing as well, but for most of his career was a lightweight.

Even in 2017 was pretty, was on the well-done side of cooked. and that is to this day Darren Till's best win he got a BS decision over Stephen Thompson he and then got a probably okay but still questionable sputty

over Kelvin Gastelam and he's lost every other one and I don't care that he looked okay against Robert Whitaker you know what he also did against Robert Whitaker he lost he didn't win the fight he hasn't won a relevant fight like a clear no if sands or butts about it

won a relevant fight since Donald Seroni. And calling Donald Serroney in 2017 relevant is probably a stark condemnation of where the welterweight division was at that point in time. Because let's look at his other wins, Mike. Before that, I was about as big as a Baham-Vilitchkovich guy as there was, but I'm not here to tell you that that's a good win. We all remember the Barnburner against Jessin Ayari fight of the year that he also missed wait for, BT Dubbs.

And then a draw with Nicholas Dolby. Like, where are his good wins? Somebody point to me, his good wins. He doesn't have them. And that doesn't mean that he is total shit. He is probably not that. But he has never, his talk outside of the cage has so dramatically exceeded

even the most rose-colored glasses view of his actual in-cage product. and it drives me crazy that he is still like in the mix because I you got to do something you got to beat somebody that matters and really beat them not get a decision that you may or may not have earned it is and this is chance there is frankly dDP is probably about as good of a style matchup as he could hope for in this middleweight division at this point in time this is a winnable fight for him I am picking drink as two plus C but If he can land the big shot and do it and maybe training with Hamzot has reinvigorated him, I don't know. But the love and the adoration and the support that he gets, having done nothing in the cage to back that up, and having not fought in 15 months, so we really have no clue what he's going to look like. I don't get it, man. I've never understood it.

And maybe this is just one of my blind spots and I'll never be there. but who I hope strongly that DDP runs over him and we can be done with Dary and Till as a contender and you can do fun things with Darren Till because if he could fight consistently, which has been a huge issue as well, he could still be a fun guy to have scrap up with people but just not this I'm going to be a three division champion.

No, you are not. Wow. See Mount Rushmore. Jed is a huge Darren Till fan as you could hear. He lost. He lost. He didn't win that fight.

He, you can't, we have this argument internally and on like the ranking show. I don't give two shits that Colby Covington, Falkamar, Usman, really hard forever. He hasn't, he doesn't have a relevant welterweight win in like a decade. You have got to, at some point, you have got to actually convincingly beat your contemporaries and not just live in this land of, well, they were good wins five years ago. I have the same issue with Steppe Mietich. Stepe does not have a win over a ranked heavyweight beyond Francis and Ghanu, who, by the way, put him in a pine box the last time they fought.

You have got to stay active and stay winning for me to give you the respect of a top 15 guy. It is not to say that he doesn't have the skills or ability. all of them are clearly, all of the people I just mentioned are clearly highly competent fighters. But to walk around and act as if they get to rest on their laurels for 10 years is nonsense to me. And it has been and it always will be beat somebody real and convincingly this decade. And we can then talk about where Darren Till is in the middleweight title picture. Love the passion. I do agree with you that this is a, this is probably the best.

matchup he's going to get because Drickus is, Drickus is just pure chaos and he's just going to go right at him and try to knock Darren out. Driggis does not care at all. Yeah, he's going to bring it. Yeah, there will be no takedowns. There will be no wrestling. Maybe he might just faint something, but for the most part, these two are scrapping and Darren has, this is his best chance.

But good match he gives if Drickus wins, he gets to build off of this name of Darren Till and there you go. Before we get out of here, because we are right. running out of time. Let's give us some shine to Bellator 289. That is coming up tomorrow. Pretty solid main card, at least the top three fights like Dalton Ross is fighting Anthony Adams that we kind of already know what's going to happen in that fight, more than likely. But two title fights, we got Magamad, Magamadoff versus Patchy Mix. That's a compelling ass matchup right there from a stylistic perspective. We get the rematching Liz Karmouche, Julianna,

of Alaska for the flyway title. And then we have the other semi-final ground. pre-match up for the interim Bellator Bannamway title between Rafi Ann Stott's and Danny Sabatello. So, real quick, thoughts on the card, and then the final question I will ask you here, what are the

chances that Stott's Sabatelo as a fight lives up to the build? I think it's a good fight card. I know Bellator is doing the Rise and Co-promotion, but as far as their final individual card of the year,

good effort this is more what I would hope frankly from Belator in that it's only 11 fights like they're not doing the here 17 amy fights on the undercard or whatever keeping it to a tight 11 they have three fights that really

matter and a couple of sprinklings of other fights that are relevant or like quality as far as their card goes and that's good composition like that's good card composition for them like I will be watching on Friday I think I off Friday, I don't have to cover this event, I will tune in to Showtime. I got to figure out how to

buy Showtime or whatever, because it's not a network that people have because I don't, they're opposed to doing that, but I'll figure it out and I'll watch because the main event, credibly compelling, the Co-Men event, their first fight was a solid fight, and that is, that's a ranked, that is a fight between ranked women. I believe both Carmush and Velasquez are ranked in both our women's pound for pounds and are flyweight rankings, as they should be. and their first fight was solid and I think Blasquez can get this done and then you get

you also have the other semi-final the Mitch double magamette fight and that's a really good fight like those three fights are good and they're a couple other ones so good card overall as for the main event being compelling or interesting

I'm not sure how did you word that will the fight live up to the build oh yeah no almost a 0% chance I mean maybe not zero but like 10% It's pretty low probability because the build, oh, I guess that's also, the build this week is way less good. I know that they tried to get a little bit of the juice back, but like the build three months ago, the juice was all there. Everybody had it, and then we had to wait and it cooled off. They probably could have done a little more of letting it build at the right times, but whatever.

But I think this fight looks, I think we were about to see all the limitations of Danny Sab, Attello put on a platform for the whole world. because the man cannot strike. The man can only grapple. It's the only thing you do is really good at. That's great. Pretty sure Ralphian Stotz is a better wrestler and certainly a capable enough defensive wrestler to limit Sabatel's ability to get his game going,

which means he's going to be forced to strike, and Ralphian Stats is actually pretty decent there, and certainly much better. And so we were talking about it off air beforehand. There are some questions about Stats' gas tank and how he'll look if Sabatelo is, continuing to bring the pressure and, you know, the championship rounds. But I kind of think it won't matter because I think Stats is just going to be ahead of him the whole time.

And so it is not in fights like this, my default is always one guy can win by control and one guy can can win by control or knocking you out. Two is better than one. Give me Stats. I still think that that is by far the most likely outcome. And so this fight won't be this. back and force battle or scrap, it will probably be not, clearly not as, as drastic as the RDR versus Malkinen fight was, but the same dynamic of, I can't take this dude down. I am, I am a sitting duck on my feet. And that's just how this will play out, I think. It's going to be interesting.

Sabes is so good at getting you down and kill and hold you in there. The first three rounds are going to tell us everything if it even gets that far. If we're talking, if Sabs can win one of the first two rounds, this fight gets real interesting. I would say, if Salatel can win, I mean, if he wins any of the first three rounds, then it's really interesting. Because if, you know, if he wins the first round, then loses two, that's probably not as interesting. He's probably like, yeah, Stats is probably just going to keep doing this. but if he wins the third round because Stats is slowing down and he can get

take downs then that's okay there's still there's still two more of them to go and it's if he can take any of the first three this fight is very very compelling very quickly but it's whether he can do it or not I don't think he can but we're going to find out

we are going to find out and that's it I think we are out of time here I had fun we could have done this for another half an hour but the day moves on. So thank you very much. Casey, you can hit the music. This is a lot of fun. We'll be back with another fresh matchup next week.

This is not a matchable, but we will have a matchup next week. It'll be the final BTL heading into a UFC card for 2022. We'll recap 282, Bellator, all sorts of fun stuff. So thank you very much for Jed, for Casey on the ones and twos. Appreciate you. The iconic voice of Estherlin takes you home. We'll see you back here once again.

Between the links. Next week, I am Mike Heck. Good night, everybody. Love you guys. It's just in between the links. A M.A Fighting Production. Subscribe and you're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.