MMA Fighting - BTL | Charles Oliveira's Wild Weekend, Next For Chandler & Ferguson, UFC vs. Bellator, More

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

Charles Oliveira may have won the UFC 274 main event with a first-round submission of Justin Gaethje, but he’s still no longer the UFC lightweight champion.  This week on Between the Links, the panel will react to that being the case after Oliveira’s historic weight miss this past weekend, and who top lightweight in the promotion should face next. In addition, the panelists will discuss where Michael Chandler and Tony Ferguson go from their memorable matchup in Phoenix, if Bellator 281 is a better overall card than the UFC’s offering this weekend, the upcoming UFC 276 lineup and if it moves the needle for an International Fight Week event, and more.  Host Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew and Conner Burks.  Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Conner Burks: @connerburks 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

To succeed in the future of work, forward thinkers use AI to deliver measurable results. Workday is the AI platform for HR and finance that frees you from the mundane so you can focus on more meaningful work. Workday, moving business forever forward. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. From M.A. Fighting Studios, this is Between the Links. And now, your host, my... All right, everybody. you're not going to hear it here on YouTube, but if you are listening to the podcast feed,

the iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of Between the Links. Hope everyone's having a great week. There's no grandiose entrance to the program. There's no Casey. There's no bells and whistles. We're just going to basically hit record and have a program. And I am not alone here because, as Sean Alshaddy just said in our little slack room, apparently I'm trying to break up the no-bets barred boys before week three of their actual program.

So let us welcome in the co-hosts of MMA Fighting's new gambling podcast. We have Jedmishu in the middle square here. You're like, it's like Hollywood Square, Center Square. That's the good square. That's the A number one square. So that's fantastic and deserved. No disrespect to Connor. But, you know, he's new on these streets.

I run these streets. So how's it going, my man? It was good. You know, we dropped the new edition of the pod yesterday. I'm at a neighbor's house. Their dogs are getting very involved in my life. So it's good. Good solid day.

That's great. And let us introduce the other half of the No Bet's Bar team. You also may know him from the MMA hour, the producer extraordinaire, another Georgia native. Let us say hello to Connor Burke's G. G.C. Making his second appearance on BTL. What's up, buddy?

Yeah, man, I'm happy to be here. It's unfortunate that I'm going against Jed. I was fully expecting Jose Young's, but last minute pullout for the money fight that he's been calling for for who knows how long. And now he puts me against my own teammate in Jed. I mean, this is a classless, classless move by Jose. Apparently he is traveling to Las Vegas right now. He will be on the scene for UFC Vegas 54,

which we're going to talk about in a little while from now. So at this point, I literally have no idea what we're going to do. I don't know if we're going to. I'll leave it up to the peeps. Do we want to do some sort of contest? Do we want to do, do we want to turn this into an actual matchup? Or do we want to just roundtable this thing

and just run our mouths and talk about the topic? So we'll let the people decide. You know what? It's a friendly rivalry. There's no titles on the line. Let's just have a contest, gentlemen. Let's just see who the better man is. GC versus Jedmishu.

Let me do the production thing here. Here we go. Opening question. There's a lot going on coming out of UFC 274 this past Saturday. There are so many storylines. Most of them take place at the top of this card because Charles Oliva, what a while weekend it was. Friday, steps on the scale. He's 155.5. Has an hour to cut an extra half a pound. Steps on the scale an hour later, still 155. And because of that, he is stripped of his UFC lightweight title. And then he goes in, fights Justin, gauge you on Saturday, puts it to him, drops him, chokes him, submits him, wins the fight, but does not leave Phoenix, Arizona with the lightweight title. This has just been a, this is just a crazy 24 to 48 hours for one Dubronk-Salivar. So Jed, let's start with you. I know you were on the People's Pre-Fight show. You were on the post-fight show, so we heard your thoughts on this, but since then, we've had five days past. So just the vacation of the, the title, the stripping, the half a pound, all of this because there's no gray area here.

People who think this is just the dumbest thing ever, or this is, hey, the rule state, if you miss wait for a championship fight, even by 0.5 pounds, you're no longer the champion. You get stripped to the title. So what's your thoughts on it five days later? Is this dumb or is this the right thing to do? Well, it's hard to tell how you feel about it with that scathing impersonation. You've been listening to Ariel, I see. Well, look, I'm in that camp.

Like, Mike, I didn't get to the place I am in my life by changing my opinion. Like, I'm, I had an opinion that I'm going to stick to it. Rules is rules, and it may be stupid. But you know what else is stupid? Not doing your damn job. You just, your job is to make weight. He was given an extra hour and couldn't do it. And just do it, you know?

Like, Ronnie Locke cut off a finger. so he could go play in the NFL. Chuckie Hollis doesn't feel like doing that. He's not committed to the title. That's all I'm hearing from this. A half pound. You say, well, it's only a half pound. I say, well, it's only a half pound.

Suck it up and spit it out. Do your damn job. Get your full paycheck, keep your belt, and we're not in this situation. But it would be ridiculous for the UFC to just be like, this doesn't matter. Because then that's setting a terrible precedent moving forward. for anybody ever to just be like the weight doesn't matter i'm the champion i'm going to win

and what are they going to do i'm not going to fight for the belt next no so this is it i'm sorry that people don't like the rules but the rules are very clear so let me ask you jad in your in your mind right now is charles olivara the lightweight champion no not at all not even like ostensibly you don't consider in the best lightweight in the world the king without a crown at all Sure, he's the best lightweight in the world, but, well, one, and I in general think that that's Islamakov, but I'm freely willing to say that if you're basing it on Merit, it's Charles Altvera, but no, he is not the, he is the best lightweight in the world by Merit, but he is not the champion because that's how things work. This is just very easy. This is an extremely not difficult question, and the people who want it to, to be some other way, mostly just want to feel better about, you know, Charles Oliver blowing weight, which really should take you down a much better rabbit hole

of why the hell do we care about weight classes in general? Because that's a much, much better conversation. But since we decided we do, a half pound is the same as five pounds for these purposes. Which is interesting, G.C., because we had other lightweights on the card. Most of them weighed in over 155. All of them were able to compete on Saturday. of them lost a dime unless we're talking about like show and win money and that's a whole another conversation for another podcast but charles olivera misses weight by a half pound but

ostensibly if you look at it in context but charles oliver this is three fights ago he didn't miss weight miss his weight here stripped of the title goes out beats justing gaecie tremendous performance and he's no longer the champion your reaction to this five days later is this dumb or is everybody correct here in the way this worked out yeah As much as I hate to say it, I actually, I agree with Jed in the point that this is how it works. I mean, these are the rules. Like, he did miss weight. I won't go as far to say, you know, like do your damn job because he did miss it by a half point, you know, focus more on the weight process.

He obviously was doing that. He came up a half pound short, though, and that's the rules. Whether you want to change the rules moving forward to give the half pound, the pound of grace in championship fights as well, that's an entirely different conversation. but as far as it goes for him losing the title, I think the rules are the rules and you have to follow those. But I do disagree with Jed. In my eyes, Charles Olivera is the lightweight champion. I mean, he went in.

A half pound on the scales does not give him a huge advantage. It doesn't even give him any different sort of advantage over Justin Gitch. He goes out. He finishes him in the first round. And now the next time that he will fight, if he wins, the bell will be around his waist. If he loses, obviously it will not be. So in my eyes, as much as it sucks for him, the money, everything like that, I still see him as the lightweight champion.

That's how I'll call him moving forward until someone beats him. If it doesn't give him an advantage, then why do we give a shit about it? I don't know, actually. Like, that's a great point. I think that's fair. If that's your line, that's fair. Do you think if he weighed 155, he's not choking Justin Gaichie out? No, I also don't think if he played 170, it matters.

I have been on the record for years that I don't give two tugs of a dollar. dog's tail about weight. Like that it just does not matter to me because that's not how the real world works. You're not like, I can't get in a street fight with that dude. He weighs six pounds more than me. That's unfair. It's not how gyms work. If you go in, it's not like, I can't roll with that dude.

He's a 170 year. I weigh 165. I don't care about weight. But I just want everyone to have the same energy because a lot of people who, if this weren't this scenario, you know, would be like, well, Norman, do you know, Vermont got a wildly unfair advantage by missing weight or whatever dumb garbage that is. So if you're all, if you're a uniform in it, that's fine. Totally, totally respect your opinion.

But don't come at me with, well, it's a half pound. It doesn't matter. But if it was two pounds, stop the presses. This cannot exist. This is damaging to the health of the sport. It's all ridiculous. That's a fair point. I guess at the end of the day, though, Mike asked me if I thought it was dumb.

and I guess I do think it's dumb that he lost the belt over a half pound and then went out and be just engaged you in the first round. I also think it's dumb. Because again, he should have sucked it up and spit out half a pound away. Dude, I can't shave his head. I can. I can't shave your head.

Do your job. You contracted to do it. You had an extra hour and you weighed the same. The blonde looks so good. You can't shave the hair. Come on. I guess the gold looks better around your belt though. I mean, you're right.

You don't have to do it, but you also just kind of got to live with not being the champion if you don't want to do that. Jed, what's the bigger mystery? What did Charles Oliver do in that one hour? Or where was Dana White during the main event of UFC 270? I think it is really what did Charles Oliver do? Because I just have no idea what he did for an hour that was not to cut more weight. I just I can't even imagine I feel like he must have just gone and like sat on the couch and like yeah fuck it they're not going to do anything to me but obviously he was wrong

so I I think that one but there are a lot of great unsolved mysteries in MMA what Dana White does during main events is certainly one of them especially like that particular made of why he didn't wrap the belt around Francis got his waist you know You know, was there a reason? Do you feel like he wasn't a fan of Francis at that moment in time? Or just totally just happened to not. He had an important business call. Urgent business.

Popped up. Urgent business, more urgent than the heavyweight title in your own promotion. It is. It's like that scene in Game of Thrones when Jophrie's called away by his mother during Blackwater. Does she have urgent business for me? Well, I'll go see you to that. So, I mean, apparently there's a poll in here. I assume A.A.

I'm saying A.K. Because I do not create this poll. In your mind is Charles Oliver, currently the UFC lightweight shape. By the way, whoever is creating these polls, make sure we create a poll on who's winning this matchup between Jed and G.C. That would be lovely. Whoever's running the polls, please do that. So now, G.C., as strange as this is, is kind of dumb as this is, and I understand the rules

behind it, light weight just actually becomes a little more interesting because now we have a conversation. Charles Olivera, not the champion, but he is going to fight for the vacant title that he lost right as his fight with Justin Gachi started. And the question is, because a lot of names have been thrown around here, who is this man going to fight? Do we split up the match between Islam Makachev and Bidiel Daryush, is one of those two guys? Do we try to make sure those two guys still fight potentially in October, even though the fight is not done? Do we bring in somebody else? Do we do Chandler? Will Connor sneak in here? Will they, will they go outside of the box. So what do you think happens? Not what should happen. What is going to

happen in your mind? Charles Olivera versus question mark. Who's the question mark? Yeah, I mean, this is the biggest no-brainer for me. I'm glad I'm getting to go first on this. I mean, it's Islam Makashev. Without a doubt, a shadow of a doubt in my mind, 10-fight win streak in the UFC. That's the 13th longest in UFC history. Fourth longest active. Everyone ahead of him is a UFC champion. He fought four times over the span of 12 months, March 21 to February 22, won all four times by finish. He's just dominating everyone. The guy's 22 and one. No one has ever landed more than 13 strikes on him in his UFC career. I mean, he's the third ranked lightweight. I guess fourth now because Charles lost the belt. Pori, Gaichy, and Chandler, two, three, and five

have all tried at Charles. They all lost by finish. So I just don't know who else it would be. I mean, it's got to be Islam. You know, a lot of people, Yeah, no Islam needs to be a top-five opponent. Everyone's saying now beating Bobby Green and Dan Hooker gets you a title shot. No, but winning 10 straight fights in the UFC does. And I guess if you want to make the argument, beating Dan Hooker does get you a title shot. You'll talk to Michael Chandler. So, yeah.

In my opinion, this one is a no-brainer. You give it to Islam Makashv. Jed, I think, listen, you have been saying for a long time that you believe Islam-Bakshap's the best lightweight in the world. Does he get his chance to prove it? maybe he should but will he jed because you've been singing a whole different tune for a while are you sticking with it sure am uh islam is the best lightweight in the world i feel extremely confident in that and when he does finally get his shot he is going to convert and be the champion uh he's not going to get it next because either islam or someone who theoretically manages many fighters

and would thus manage their social media accounts started talking out their rear about wanting that spoke on short notice against RDA. And then when they actually talked to Islam was like, no, I just fought. I can't make the wait in three days, you losers. And talked himself out of getting a title fight. So the UFC are bitter, bitter people. And they are not going to give him one, even though they absolutely should. And especially not going to give him one because Conner's pretty close to back.

And as much as Connor has been talking all that nonsense about moving up to Welterway, I think the reality is that's that's really tough to sell in any world where there's a semblance of meritocracy and I think the UFC kind of wants Connor Nate Diaz but at some point they have to give up on the pipe dream that will not work for them and give Nate Diaz a fight

against Michael Chandler and move on from that and then you can just have Connor come in and fight Oliver Oliver called him out after the after the win The translator basically misquoted him, but, you know, Connor's still the name that's going to draw. Oliver is going to want it. Connor will want it. It's theoretically a winnable fight for him, though very likely not actually.

And that's just the fight that's going to happen. Follow the money, and that's the most money right now. I do want to bring this up before we move on because we are not dedicating an entire round to Carlos Sparza, defeating Rose Namahunis, but I think there's been a lot of talk about GSI you obviously were there. Jed, you probably heard it. And I think a lot of people watching right now are all familiar with this. Rose Namibunis and Pat Barry were on the MMA hour.

And it was a very interesting interview. It was a very interesting look at the fight and a very interesting look at the reaction after the fact. So G.C., just you being there, hearing this interview, hearing the thoughts from both of these individuals with Ariel. What was your reaction to this, to Rose, to Pat Barry, to all of it? I mean, it was strange. Like, it was a very strange interview.

Pat Barry is incredibly long-winded. He talked in circles pretty much the entire time, repeating the same thing over and over. And I mean, obviously, everything he was saying just comes from a hugely biased point of view. Like, he is the significant other to the losing fighter in that matchup. So, of course, he's going to leave everything that he's. saying. I mean, in my opinion, that fight was a drawl. I don't think you can make an incredibly strong argument either way for either fighter winning. I thought his corner work was atrocious, the fact that he was saying she was up 4-0 when on one judge's scorecard, she was actually

down 4-0. So I didn't learn much from the interview at all. I, you know, was a little bit taken aback by it, just how strange. Not only Pat, but I mean, Rose came off as well. And and I'm having a hard time like separating Rose from Pat Berry in this circumstance. And Rose is one of my favorite fighters. So, uh, yeah, it was, it was a strange hour to say the least. Jed, your thoughts on this interview that seems to have the M.A. community talking right now. It, I will be honest. I mostly tried not to listen to it. I don't have a great deal of support in my heart for Pat Barry. Um, and, but from,

kind of reading the story on mhmapfiting.com the world's greatest website you should go check it out uh great website it's a great website it it seemed uh very rambly um extremely long-winded there were like two points that he made in all of the speaking that he did and they were awful bad like they were just bad points so it's like if you take him at face value and great rose Rose did exactly we wanted. We executed the perfect game plan. Cool, you should never coach anyone ever again if that's what happened because your game plan was atrocious.

And like, again, I am not a professional fighter nor coach, but I can say confidently that it was a really bad game plan. And so could anyone with a basic understanding of combat. And so if I, the big dumb idiot that I am, can look at that. and say that was dumb, you probably shouldn't be saying how brilliant you are for that. It's just not a good look, my guy. Honestly, the person I would be the most interested to hear from is Trevor Whitman about this because we talked about in the post show.

I felt like Whitman knew bad things were happening, but because of his position in the corner and his relationship with Rose and sort of who Rose is as a fighter, he couldn't yell at her and be like, hey, you have to go fight now. So he was trying to kind of coax her into doing more while Pat was saying, you do it great. You're winning every round. Great job. So I would be really fascinated to see whichever Whitman has to say if you would speak on the topic.

But for me, this is just like, yeah, I would have a, the thing about a fight like that is you don't have that fight. And like, you have that fight because you're trying to have that fight. You can accidentally fist fight people harder than Rose and Carla did. So they, it was clearly intentional. And if you're doing that intentionally, you think you're the smartest person in the room. And usually when you think you're the smartest person in the room, it's really hard to tell when you're actually just doing something objectively stupid. And that's what I feel happened.

And I don't feel that they have honestly accurately processed that loss. I think that, you know, maybe with more times they'll say, well, maybe we should have done a little bit more to make it more clear. But I haven't heard a lot of things post-fight from either Rose or Pat Barry that have been like, man, losing the title should have been a wake-up call that we fundamentally screwed up here. Instead, I'm hearing a lot of equivocating. And so that's not great, but it also might not matter because Rose is incredibly talented and I would be honestly a little bit shocked if she didn't get the belt back at some point in the future i also just a quick point i also thought it was really strange how he kept referencing back to uh they told rose to ditch the game plan and she was like oh no no no like you're not going to fool me like i'm like it's so ingrained in

my brain to not ditch this game plan like i just feel like that is a that's a bad coaching strategy if your athlete isn't adhering to your advice when you're telling them to ditch the game plan i i don't know i just felt that point was also very strange from Pat Berry. I think the entire fight, everything about it was very weird, but we also have to give credit where it's due to Carlos Sparser because... We do not. I mean, she won't fight.

She did, but you don't give... Look, very clearly, you cannot give her credit for this. She won, and that's great, but it's the same thing as going all in pre-flop with seven deuce, and you hit. Cool, it worked out for you, but the result in the process were not related. in any capacity. She won the belt off of going two for 11 on takedowns

and landing 30 strikes over 25 minutes. That was probably the only chance she was going to win the fight though, if we're being honest. That was probably her best chance to win. And she basically, she fought the, she fought to win. Honestly, that was her best path to victory.

As boring as it might have been, it was one of, it was one of her paths to victory. But it was just so unsuccessful. I think that's why it bothers me. I refuse to give her credit for also not fighting. woman engaged she engaged slightly more and that is why she won and so you can give her the

the barest amount of credit you can give a human being because she tried a little whereas rose actively did not try but again I am not because at the end of the day if she had lost that fight we I would be I can't speak for anyone else I would be excoriating her that this is her last opportunity for the belt and that's how she fights the last chance she will get in her entire career to fight for the title which i think we all would have agreed on and if the judges had given it to rose you couldn't have been mad nobody could have been like that is a robbery i scored for rose that's the thing like you can't you could not be mad and so i refuse to give car the credit because the outcome worked for her because with two different judges in there she could have easily lost

the title or not won the title in her last fight and put up the world's biggest dud. Like that is, both women deserve zero points and zero credit for what happened Saturday. And that may be harsh, but I honestly think it's like it totally justified. The master of polls is a new one up there who should challenge Charles. Charles Oliver next. Islam, Derrush, Connor, Chandler. Islam, 60%. Derrush, 16%.

Connor, 19%. Michael Chandler, it's 6%. But Michael Chandler might have been the star of the night. might have been the star of the week and that's where we're going next or at least one half of the conversation but the point for i forgot jett hates mike chanler no oh wait a minute wait a minute you miss the breaking news you miss the breaking i do hate that six percent of people think he should fight for the belt that's really stupid but okay there's a difference between should and who will so maybe they're reading it as will i don't know i think chanler has a pretty good shot of getting that fight

just because of the steam he has right now which is i know i get it jett i know i know you're i know you're coming from. But the point for out one goes to Pallel-a-l-l-l-h. G.C. He's on the board. It is one-to-nothing. Cue the music, which you'll hear on the podcast network. You get nothing here. That was a good drum roll. Yeah, I don't even know what that was.

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And while Al Kakuey's on his back, he's throwing elbows, he's slicing and dicing. Both guys are bloody. Then we head to the second round. And boy, oh boy, did Michael Chandler come through with one of the all-time great knockouts, front kid up the middle more like a Tommy Tupa punt that went 75 yards down the field. It was absolutely wild. Ferguson seems to be okay.

Michael Chandler gets a massive win. What an investment this man has been, Jedmishu. For those who missed it, a lot of people have watched this program, have listened to this program over the last couple of years. They have heard your opinions on Michael Chandler. And maybe some people were not up at 5 a.m. on Sunday morning watching your takeoff.

Michael Chandler. So what would you like to say for those who missed it? He doesn't suck. And it hurts me to say because I have said loudly and repeatedly and for the better part of a year that Michael Chandler sucks because he did and he does but he doesn't. And so it's weird because he sucks, but he doesn't suck. It's just it's hard to deny him at this point because here's the thing about Michael Chandler. He came to the UFC. And for as much as he had this hype about being a three-time Bellator champion, nobody actually cared to watch him fight.

It's not like he was blowing the doors off of the ratings people come, you know, and Bellator. One, it is Bellator, so it's tough. But he just had some snoozers. He lost to a lot of people who, I would say, are, you know, elite fighters, but not A1 Apex Predators. And so then he came to the UFC and great, he knocked out Dan Hooker, which I have a lot of respect for Dan Hooker, but that win has not aged all that well. And then I was like, yeah, so he still sucks.

That's cool. This is dude who got knocked out by Bannamweight. So he blows. And then he got a title shot, which rubbed me very wrong because it was, I maintained firmly that it was incredibly stupid that the UFC booked Charles Oliverer versus Michael Chandler for the vacant title because booking the number. three and number four at the time ranked lightweights for your vacant belt is by definition means it's not the two best guys in the division so the champion can't be but different thing he lost that fight it's just it's hard to deny him because he has decided that self-preservation does not matter to him anymore and that was a thing that like when when the chips would be down

with Chandler he would just tackle you and sit on you because he knew that winning mattered more than being exciting. He sort of has gotten away from that here. I mean, to an extent when Tony Ferguson was kind of teeing off on him, he power-doubled Tony and started elbow on him. But it's just to continue saying he sucked would make me the most like transparent hater in the world. And so I just can't, like this dude has delivered four absolute bangers since joining

the UFC. He is one of the top 10 lightweights in the world, arguably top. five though i'm not sure that's true uh and he just he doesn't suck so you know mea culpa i was wrong it happens occasionally what a moment and now if we can get you to turn around on stepe and we cannot brian ortega that we have done something here uh in in the year of our lord 22 but that's got to take there's a there's a better chance on brian ortega but i don't even think that's what is it with steepe stepe sucks right he he's he He's not very good is what it is.

He's like one of the best heavyweights, but heavyweight is bad. And he sucks. It's just, it just is what it is. G.C., let us go over to you because this knocko is incredible. It is the knockout of the year. No disrespect to Molly McCann, but I'm sorry, you, you have been uprooted. You are now in second place. And that's really good right now, five months into the calendar year.

It's been a crazy year. But you're the silver medalist for knockout of the year. That's pretty damn impressive. Where does Michael Chandler go now, GC? Because he was on the MA hour yesterday as well. He's got a lot of options. Maybe he slides into the title fight. I don't think he does, but maybe because of the buzz and everything that's going on right now.

Maybe they slide him in and try to just put on an exciting fight. There's Connor. You could do Dustin Porier, although he doesn't see him all that inch in Dustyporee. There's maybe Derrius or Islam or one of these guys. The options are plenty. He's in a really good spot. for a guy who's two and two in the UFC. What do you think is next for Michael Chandler after this incredible knockout?

Yeah, I mean, I think he's in an incredible spot. You said it. This is going to be incredibly hard to top this knockout for knockout of the year. He's coming off the fight of the year last year with Gachy. I think he has a ton of options, and I think all of those options will pay dividends for him. But personally, I don't think that Connor McGregor should get the title shot. He's been on the sidelines for too long.

He's lost his last two fights. his last win was against Donald Cowboy Soroni. I think Connor McGregor should return to face Michael Chandler. I think that could do giant numbers for the promotion. I think it would be an exciting fight. If it goes five rounds, I don't think it's going to see the scorecards. I think everybody would be hyped up for it. The dynamic of the trash talking of McGregor versus like the motivational speech of

Chandler would just be such a hilarious dynamic between the two. I just don't know who would complain if they created that fight. I think a win for either of them would boost. them right back into the title picture. So I think McGregor would be the perfect fight, but if McGregor's time frame doesn't work out, you mentioned poor, yeah. I know Chandler said he's not that interested, but I think that would be just as exciting of a matchup if they wanted to make that one happen if McGregor's timeline doesn't match up.

We also got Nate Diaz into this mix as well, but apparently Nate's out there in Vegas right now, urinating at the UFCPI, Jedmishu. So I don't know what do we do now with Michael Chandler? Again, he's in a tremendous spot, even if he doesn't get a title fight here. What do you think's next for Iron Mike? So here's the problem, right? Mike, because I stand by what I said because I can't be a hater anymore. But I turned the corner.

You know, you heard me on Saturday night or Sunday morning, I guess? I said Michael Chandler doesn't suck. And he comes out and he really tries hard to make me walk that back to sucking because Dustin Poy, it would be a great fight. And he no-sells it for the dumbest reason. imaginable and counterproductive ones as well. Well, I want to get back to a title fight. Cool.

I feel like fighting the number two ranked dude or three, I don't remember what the UFC has him ranked. Fighting and beating him, that's going to get you back to a title fight. Well, I don't have any. Disregard Dustin Poirier. Don't need Dustin Poirier. He was mean to me one time,

and I am a sad little snowflake with hurt feelings. And so I will not, because when I came to the UFC, he didn't want to fight me. Wasn't he just chugging his hot sauce like six months ago? I don't know. It was a super weird no cell from him to be like, I have no interest in fighting Porier. And sure, I wouldn't have interest in a dude who's probably going to beat my ass too.

That seems like a bad choice. I would rather fight Nate Diaz. That makes a ton more sense for me. But, you know, it's that really rubbed me the wrong way. And it really made me think, man, I might should still just be on the micro-referral Chandler sucks corner. But I think that fight would make a ton of sense. I think the fight that is going to happen,

I think it's going to be Nate Diaz, though. Because Nate is saying he'll take that fight. I think that fight makes a ton of sense for Chandler. I think that's a big enough fight that the UFC can finally pull their heads out of their asses and stop holding on to Nate Diaz, like a feudal surf, and let him be free. So I think that that's the fight that will happen. And also because I hate Chandler McGregor. I think that that fight makes a lot of sense for a number of reasons.

But I think that's a bad fight for McGregor. He should not take that fight. And I think the UFC shouldn't want it because that's, that's, I don't feel like you're getting enough value from kind of McGregor getting tackled and sat on for however long, which is the most likely outcome there. So I think McGregor either gets a title fight or depending on how high and low you want to go, you can do the Gaichi fight, which is a winnable fight and a banger of all bangers,

or you can just, you know, to answer the other half of this question, you can just end Tony Ferguson's career with one clean McGregor left hand. And then, because if you do that, if you're not putting McGregor back in a title fight and he fights Tony Ferguson and he knocks out Tony Ferguson, then, and you have Charles fight Islam, then you can very easily say, well, McGregor's back, put him in a title fight. He knocked out Tony Ferguson. That's good enough for us.

Get him to the belt against Islam Makachev, and we'll try and relive the Habib Khanar Magic that is the biggest pay-per-view in the history of the sport. All right, G.C., your thoughts on what's next for Tony Ferguson? Because obviously, tough loss, finished again. He's been on the wrong side of it for a little while. Finally won around. Finally won around. Let's go on all three judges' scorecards on Saturday against Michael Chandler.

He's looking very good. And then we all know what happened. So what's next for Tony Ferguson? An extended period away. I feel like after a knockout like that, you definitely need to take some time to recuperate a little bit. But when he does come back, I think he needs to step away from the top of the division.

I mean, it has not been working out for him. He hasn't won since he fought Cowboy three years ago. I think with him coming back to lightweight, Dan Hooker would be a solid match for Tony Ferguson, two fan favorites that have a lot of support behind them that have been struggling lately, that have both been finished pretty badly of late. And I think it would be an exciting matchup. You know, whoever wins gets to continue in the UFC. Whoever loses might be looking at retirement.

But I think Tony Ferguson, Dan Hooker would be a solid matchup. I like that fight. I like that fight. I like Bobby Green. a potential option. They want to do Jim Miller. That's a fine option. Those are the types of fights. Like if we're going to keep Tony Ferguson in the top of Dean, Dan Hooker, I think, is a fine fight, but the other ones I'm good with too. Just throw them in there, some wily vets. We'll just have some fun fights, some scrambles, because I think we can all agree that as much as we love Tony Ferguson,

as much as the fans respected and by everything Tony Ferguson has done, I think we could all agree that his chances to become a UFC champion probably behind us at this point. But still, Jed shaking his head. He wants to throw Tony Ferguson to the wolves here. Go ahead, Jed. I mean, well, one, I do because I think that that's the best outcome. But also, like, you both are just not going to be right. And that's like, I agree.

If we're trying to maintain Tony Ferguson as an ongoing entity in the UFC and the top of the division, and we're seeing a bright future for him that we want to build towards, yeah, you take a step back, you rebuild him up, you get him winnable fights, Tony Ferguson came out talking a whole lot of greasiness about the UFC the week before he got stone bolted by the foot of Michael Chandler. So this dude who's lost four in a row, hasn't won a fight in whatever it is three years and is on the wrong side of 35.

Like this is, the UFC is not going to be in the rehab Tony Ferguson at the fighter business. They're going to be squeezed the last amount of juice you can get from this dude business, and that is sacrificing him. him to Connor McGregor or Armand Sarukian or somebody else who is just going to run buck wild on him. And they're not going to do a Dan Hooker fight, which would be fun.

Also, Hooker probably kills him at this point too. There's just, you guys are speaking as if we can save Tony and we can't. He's done. No one's saying that. No one's saying, Tony, I think he wants him to fight Bobby Green and take steps back. No, but that's where he is now. That's who he is. that's that's where serone is that's where lozahn is these are the types of fights no see but tony

tony is two years behind the serroney schedule same schedule but serroney is more washed and more defeated tony's got at least one more big win that his skull will provide to the fans and it's going to be connor or armin surruchian or somebody like that who's just going to kill him and they're they're just they're going to send him to the glue factory in the most violent of ways because that's what they do. That's how this company works. It's how the sport works. Do not put him in there with Armand Syruquian.

Don't do it. Don't do it. Please don't. Why? You're trying to build Sarucan up? I mean, it's bad for his help. He's building himself up right now. Serucan's already got another fight, doesn't he?

He's got Batush Gamrod. If he beats Batush Gamrod, I mean, listen, he needs the rub. I get it. The winner of that just killing Tony is, it's a good bump. It's a good bump. All I'm saying, I think Connor makes the most. sense if they're not going to put Connor in a title fight and if not then you just give him to a young killer and we sent him on his way and go out on your back that is what this sport is built on

hey listen if they give him a Gregor I don't think he's going to be too upset about that one oh that's what I think he would take it instantly and again I think it's a really winnable fight for Connor now I thought it's a winnable fight for Connor for years it's a really winnable fight now and he beats Tony Tony's still going to be hanging in the top 10. He beats Tony. They can easily justify a title shot off that. Tony Ferguson versus future champion Armand Sirukian.

Boy, a boy. That one kind of hurts my feeling. What's happening to Islam in this world, or Armin wins the boat? Is Islam, does he retire too? I don't know. I don't know. You have to do that rematch.

It'll be massive. Makachov, Surukion, too, full camp, not a UFC debut. Or just remember the fits that Surukian was giving that man in his debut fight. Come on now. It will be massive. It'll be a stretch. A billion pay-per-view buys.

It won't be massive, but we'll see. It'd be a very interesting way. All right. We move on to round three. We'll move on to this weekend. The point for round two goes to... Dan, da-da-da-da-da-da. Chad Mishu gets it done.

It's one-to-one. Nicely done. Distracted. the drum roll unbelievable so there we go okay i miss casey i miss the sound effect so i don't have to provide them myself again i have no idea who's putting these polls in the youtube channel but uh god bless who whoever it is and if we can put up if we can put up one that says who is winning bt ls get a one for jed gc put that in there i can come for no contest i command you yeah we don't need any no contest otherwise you're gonna make me do it i'm gonna click the bad guy so

Two events coming up this weekend. We got Bellator 281 Jedmishu, aka Showtime MMA 2-281, which will be headlined by an interim title fight between Michael Venom Page and Logan Storley. We got Paul Daly's retirement fight on this card as well. And then on Saturday, we got UFC Vegas 54, which will be headlined by the former champion, Jan Blyhovic,

taking on Alexander Rackage. We got Ryan Spann v. Iwan Kutalaba in the second-to-last fight. and we get some other interesting fights that are kind of splooshed around the card as well. So Jed, if you can only watch one of these events, which one are you watching? Is this a joke? Come on. It's going to be. Well, actually, I'm going to, I change my mind.

I was going to, you were dead. Like, I was correct, except for I forgot that the UFC did this stupid thing where they start the event at like midnight or so dumb hour. So it'll be on. Yeah, so it'll be on forever and ever. even though it's only 11 fights and Bellator's on Friday and will be you know it's in Europe so it'll be at least done quickly so if I can only watch one I'll pick that one because the rest of my life will prefer that my sleep schedule etc but if we're talking about the quality of the cards I mean the Bellator card's not the worst card they've ever put together it's it's better than a lot of their frequent events but you know I don't have have a lot of interest or care about Lyoto Machita fighting in the year of our Lord 2022.

That's just not something that I, I'm standing up and saying, hell yeah, I've got to tune in. Also, watching Logan Storley sit on a grown man for 25 minutes is not the most entertaining thing in the world. I mean, the rest of that card, Daniel Whitechall, Robert Whiteford's a pretty good fight, but other than that, it's whatever. but the UFC card is pretty good. It's not the best, and I'm sure A.K. would say that this is not a co-main event. This is a penultimate fight, but, you know, top to bottom,

I'm actually pretty interested in most of these matchups on the UFC card. Even some of these prospects, Jake Hadley, you know, this is a guy with a lot of hype. Let's see what he's about. Returning light heavyweight champion, fighting a guy who should be undefeated and a much bigger deal in the division. You know, just pretty well-made fight card. So if it was, if this was fight-car was happening at a reasonable hour, this would be one of the better offerings the UFC's given us of late.

Connor, what do you think? You can only watch one. You get the rest of the weekend to do whatever Connor Brooks does on the weekend outside of watching MMA. Which card are you watching and why? I don't know, man. This is actually a tougher choice than Jed at first said. I mean, the biggest draw to me for 280.

is the fact that it's going to be in London and it's going to be in front of fans in London. And they have an Englishman fighting for an interim title. Unfortunately, Amasov is not on the card who I think he would have walked through Michael Venom page. But I'm kind of with Jed. The rest of the card does not really interest me that much. The Paul Daily retirement fight, sure I'll tune in. But it's not must watch television for me. UFC Vegas 54, we're at least getting essentially a title eliminator for the light heavyweight division between Blahovic and Rocket.

And there are other fights that I'm interested in seeing, Davy Grant. I want to watch him fight against Louis Smokub, Chukagy and Hebas. I'm going to go with UFC Vegas 54 despite the time, starting at 730 Eastern. Jed, we mentioned some of the bigger fights. What's the under the radar banger here, Jed? What's the one? What's the one that could steal the weekend in your eyes? Oh, steal the weekend is tough.

Because I do think Lewis Smoker, David Grant's probably like getting the most hype on that, the UFC card. Maybe, yeah, I think we've got to go to Tatsuwitaira, you know, making his UFC debut against Carlos Candelario. Flywates, there's going to be a lot of quick, quick fast action, some grapples, some punches. It's probably going to be one of the better fights of the whole weekend and not a single person. is talking about it. So there's that. G. Z, what yours? Under the radar, potential show stealer that just could surprise some folks. Nick Maximov, Andre Petrosky, no, I'm only kidding. Let's go to Bellator 281, actually. My guy, Luke Traynor, the gent, is going at it. Huge knockout power also has submission specialties.

He's actually someone I'm looking forward to watching too. In Bellator, if you want to talk flying under the radar, that fight is flying under the radar. So I will go with Loop Trainer. I think it's by Young as the guy is fighting in Bellator 281. I actually like this Bellator card. Like I know it's not screaming Star Power, but I actually think it's with the atmosphere and some of the matchups,

I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Page Storley is kind of interesting. Can Page keep this on the feet? He cannot take it down. It's going to be tough. But again, he was preparing for a much different, probably much more difficult stylistic wrestler in Yaroslav, Amosov. I thought Michael Page's approach to this fight is kind of interesting by saying that if he wins,

he feels he's the champion and he will give Amosov basically the first title shot when Amosov's ready to come back, which don't necessarily agree with that take. But Paul Daly's final fight, but that'll be a cool moment, especially goes out and wins. He's got a tough one ahead of him. And then the UFC fight, I mean the UFC card, I love the Aroosio, Andrea Lee fight. that is a super interesting matchup. I feel like Andrea Lee is still being kind of slept on here. I understand.

It's an interesting stylistic matchup. Viviani Arrujo, when she gets in these, outside of Roxanne Montefari, of course, when she gets in these spots to try to take that next step, just doesn't really go well for her. So we'll see what happens. Both cards are interesting in their own ways. But yes, I wish the UFC card was one of those typical fight night ones that started for Eastern.

I gotten used to that. We got spoiled with that. It's so nice. I know. Yeah. Someone's wondering if that's sweat. It's not sweat. It's just, it's just shine. Is it cooking oil? A little, little Pam on top of the dome. I mean, that'd be a good call. Give it a nice shot. Yeah, a little sweet, sweet, sweet cooking oil. So, all right, that's round three. Belichert 2.81 tomorrow. U.S. Vegas 54 on Saturday.

Point four, round three goes to... D-Dadmishu. Wow. We've got to play a comeback game here. That's now an engine revving. That wasn't a drum roll. That's right. It's a WD40 coming out on top of the head and getting me all revved up.

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without any sounds or music or anything like that. So on Saturday, we saw this incredible Israel Adasanya promo to announce that he will be fighting Jared Kadenir in the main event of UFC 276, which is going down July 2nd in Las Vegas. That will be the capper of International Fight Week. This could be a very big deal for the company.

And I was actually kind of surprised at the way they rolled this out. And I'm surprised they actually listened to Israel-Odusania because the last time they announced an Israel-Odusania fight, it was the Robert Whitaker rematch. And he had not even signed yet. In fact, he went on Twitter and said, cap, said it was a bunch of BS. But Adasania, when asked about that heading into the Whitaker fight,

was like, you don't just drop one of my fights by putting a graphic on the screen. You got to roll this thing out. You got to make it a big deal. And they turned this into a WWF 1990s vignette. Like they were introducing Adisaniya to the world. And then they announced that he's fighting Jared Canaanere. So on top of that, we had already confirmed that Alexander Volcanowski, Max Holloway 3, for the featherweight title will be the co-made event, Sean Strickland versus Alex Beheada.

And on and on we go. G.C. will begin with you. you got to see the 10-fight slate on paper during the broadcast on Saturday. How would you grade it for an international fight week extravaganza type of card? Yeah, I mean, I'm going to give it an A. I would give it an A plus, but you know, you can always leave some room for improvement. I think Izzy Cananeer. I think Izzy's going to win, but if you look at Canaan, five is his last six wins are by knockouts.

So I at least think he's going to bring the fight to Izzy. He's going to try and finish it, which I just think will make for an exciting fight. obviously the comane with volkinovsky and holloway three i like i don't know who wants to see like doesn't want to see that the quick turnaround for volkinovsky uh it should be a tremendous fight and then you have you know lower key ones that are incredibly interesting uh Alex baezhae shan strickland i mean they're clearly trying to rush pehara along trying to get that third fight with israel out of sonya obviously my guy the sugar show trying to make it 16 and oh getting a a top 10 opponent uh drieke is two please is

Two guys, Jericus duplikas, an up-and-coming knockout artist, one of the most exciting guys on the card. On the flip side, up-and-coming submission artist and Andre Munez, I can't wait to see both of them fight. I expect both of their fights end and finishes. And then a vet battle with Robbie Lawler and Brian Barberana. I mean, I am very excited for this card. It has potential to be the card of the year if the fights go well.

So I give them an A, man. I'm very excited for July 2nd. Jay, we also have Misha Taitlor and Merv. on this card. Brad Tavares, Triches Duplase, Jessica Rose Clark, Julia Stoli,

Orenko, that's one that was not on the graphic, but that is happening on that card. Andre Meney's fighting Uriah Hall. We get Jessica, Macy Barber, Lala, Barberana,

and then the two title fights, at least for now. We've still got three or four glaring spots left on this card that could fill it up. So what do you grade it now? And I'll save the second part

of the question for later, but how do you grade it right now as it stands? It's an A plus. I mean, this is this is what you hope for um and this is what you expect especially for their kind of marquee event obviously fight week international fight week is always a really big one for the uc every year um they try and go you know above and beyond they brought brock back to do it you know it's just

sort of how that thing goes they're just really keyed in and this is what you expect and they're delivering i mean two title fights i'm less confident that uh addition to canaanesey going to be fun. I think that that could look a lot like a staring match for long periods of time. But that's still a plus peak middleweight fighting. Strickland Behaya, the winner of that is probably going to cut a promo on Israel Dissania and probably fight him next. Volcanowski Max Holloway, we've talked about it a ton. That's as good as fistfighting gets. And even if I feel extremely confident in the outcome, I'll watch them fight a hundred times because that is is the absolute pinnacle of this sport.

And then everything else is good. You know, Sean O'Malley is getting an opportunity to fight a top tier guy, even though he said for years he doesn't want to fight anybody in the rankings. Moonee's and DuPlici, up and coming middleweights, everything's great. Lola Barbarina is going to be a banger. This is A++. There's nothing wrong with this card. The only thing we have to hope is that it maintains this.

moving forward because there's a lot of time, a lot of real estate between now and July. And, you know, this is MMA. Things change all the time. But this is one of those cards where even if one of these, two of these fights drop off or have to get moved or something, the bulk of it is so strong that the card is still going to be fine regardless. Okay. So at least to me, this fight, this main event has a lot of stakes to it. And this is what I would want.

this is what I want to see if it's possible, because I feel like if you could do it, I feel like now's the time with the way that the lightweight division looks, right? If Volcanovsky beats Holloway again, let's just say he wins, it's convincing, there's no sort of argument, no discussion, no robbery talk, and none of that.

He wins a convincing decision or he goes out there and finishes Max Holloway. Ben-Mishu, is he in this conversation to fight Charles Oliver at all? Because I kind of want to see that fight, because look at the featherweight division right now. You got Calvin Cater, Josh Emmett. That's probably the next guy in line.

There's talks about Yayae Rodriguez fighting Brian Ortega. There's other guys coming up right now. In a year or so, maybe 18 months, featherweight's going to be a real interesting thing. It's very deep. There's guys in the top 25 right now who are not ranked, who are really good. But right now, Volcanowski is either fought or beat all these guys

or guys just aren't on like interesting enough streaks to be like, oh, this guy, like, I really think he's a really good chance to beat Volkanowski. Volcanovsky has talked about wanting to go to 155, and Dana White said on Saturday, if Volkinovsky decides that he wants to move up, he's getting an immediate title shot. So is there a chance that with a win on July 2nd for Volkanowski,

he is in this conversation to fight Charles Oliver for the vacant title? No. Oh, there's a chance, but I really hope it's not the case because it would be very, very stupid. I love Alexander Volkanowski. I think he's one of the five best fighters in the world, full stop. And I think you'd have a really good chance to be very competitive at lightweight, though I do have a lot of questions about how much that size difference would affect him,

because I think it would be pretty substantial in some of these fights. But the biggest reason I'm saying no, it's not like the lightweight title is super clear right now. So adding Volcanovsky, who as good as he is, nobody really cares about. Like, that's, I'm sorry, we just be honest. He is not an enormous draw. And so there's not a huge impetus to be like, all right, let's move him up here because it's going to do big business.

It's a great fight, very competitive. There's a story to tell, but it's not the same as, you know, when Connor moved up and this is inevitable. And we just kind of have to go with the flow of the money here. Because lightweight is such a fusser right now, like you just can't, I just feel like you can't do it even if he comes and beats max holloway again which again i'm confident he will do but that is by no way guaranteed but then putting him up there is like all right well you've got islamakachev now again just sort of being sitting around he's fighting benille der eush and then you still have

conner who's going to be trying to fight for the title it just it muddles lightweight so much and that's the best division in the sport you don't need to muddle it because he he deserves to fight for the lightweight title if he moves up. He also doesn't deserve to get to move up, if that makes sense. Like, Jose Aldo didn't get the chance to move up and win the lightweight belt, which he damn sure would have during his peak years because he just had to fight dudes. For as much as you want to say, well, the other guys in the featherweight division aren't having established themselves as like interesting contenders. That's just how the sport works.

Like, you just pick the best guy who's available. Every long-reaning champion has done that. Was Patrick Cote, were people hanging off the rafter screaming for Patrick Cote to get a crack at Anderson? No, but he was the next dude up because you defend your belt. And for as much as Volcanowski has said, I want to be a guy who defends my belt. He fought three different dudes, Max, Brian Ortego, both good, and then Chan Sung Jung, which is, you know, love Korean zombie. That win is probably not as impressive as it. feels like right now, right, from a, from a contextual standpoint.

And now he's like, yeah, I want to go get a second belt too. I want to do this thing. No, man, like, fight Calvin Cater, fight, fight, Josh Emmett, like fight Arnold Allen, fight A. Rodriguez. There are plenty of dudes who are different looks, who are interesting matchups, and because they haven't put a tin fight win streak together, we're acting as if that that's not a valid title challenger. And that's insane to me.

Like, I want Volcanowski to do the thing he said he was going to do, which is stay in his weight class, to fend his belt against the best challengers that are available. And I want lightweight to have some semblance of clarity established to it before we start mucking around in things. What do you think, G.C.? Are we okay to muck around a little bit considering? Especially, let's just say the UFC moves forward with Malkachev-Dare-Ush in October.

Let's just say, like, no one's going to talk me out of it, not Joe Rogan or anybody else. that's the fight we're doing in October. Is it, I mean, can you make a case, especially at the win on July 2nd, that Volcanovsky could go up and fight Oliver for the vacant title? Now, this is based off the assumption that you just said. If Dana White is, he is adamant that it has to be Makashiev Darius in October in Abu Dhabi, and you have to find someone to fight Charles Oliver for the vacant title,

then, yeah, I think you could make the argument for Alexander Volcanovsky if he goes out there and he puts on an impressive, clear win against, Max Holloway, then yeah, I mean, I know he would only have, what, four defenses against three different opponents. And I do agree with Jed that he needs to do more at 145 before he starts talking about moving up to 155. And I also do agree that if he does move up to 155, it might not be the best decision for him. The size disparity that he would have against Charles Olivera would be pretty big. We saw it with Israel out of Sonia and Jan Blahovic. I don't think it would go well for him. I think Charles Oliver would probably beat him if they were to fight.

but if the vacant title is there, obviously we mentioned it earlier, Porier, Gaichi Chandler, they had their chances at it, Islam and Dari Usch are fighting each other, then yeah, you can make the argument that Volk would deserve that title shot at 155 because if he moves up to 155,

he's one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world right now, he would deserve the title shot if he goes to that way clause. He would. Here's the other thing on this though. Like, I think he has, I think Oliver represents probably the most winnable fight amongst the top lightweights for him.

Let's say I have a great deal of respect for what Alexander Volkanovsky is a fighter. But let's say he goes up and he beats him. Like tremendous career accomplishment. This dude's, I mean, he's already a Hall of Famer, but that cements it. Great. Because lightweight still won't have clarity, he will then have to fight Islam Makachab, who will just beat the shit out of him. And so you have now sacrificed your featherweight champion to win a belt,

and now he's just going to have to go right back down. because Islamakov will beat the shit out of them. Like, clarify lightweight, and then you can start mucking about. But, like, there are, I mean, maybe other people don't. I think it is a very open question, whether Islamachchev or Charles Olivares is the best lightweight in the world.

And so have that fight first before you start playing around, because otherwise it's just going to be a weird situation where folk goes up, okay, he wins the belt, now he loses the belt, does he drop back down? Did he vacate the featherweight belt? Now Max has it again.

What the hell is going on? It just adds a bunch of uncertainty and clutter when it could just be as simple as, hey man, we want you to defend your belt two more times because that's what we expect from champions to defend their belt, or you can vacate openly. If you want to move up to lightweight because that's what you want to do, you just have to drop the featherweight title,

vacate it. Max can fight whoever. that and then you make the run to 155 and we'll play the game from there. But, you know, maybe I'm just an old man. You know, maybe I'm just the old man shouting at the clouds. I liked it when champions would defend their belt like five or six times before people would be like, I want to see what they do at another weight class. Maybe you are old, Jed.

Maybe you are old and crusty. I mean, could be. I mean, this is a chance for the UFC to have some fun here, right? I mean, the only reason I suggest that this could be. thing. You know what else is fun? Islamo Machia fighting Charles Lever's fun? Do that. That's the fun thing. Listen, it'd be more fun if he fought Daryush and beat Daryush, then it's more fun because he got his marquee win. And we're not having conversations on who's next because we know who's next. It's unequivocal who's next. You know who it is. You know how we wouldn't have those conversations

if they just came out and said Islam's next. That is also unequivocal. I know they're bad at promoting. I say it all the time, but I'm trying to live in a world where they don't suck at their job. And in that world, you should just say, yeah, you should have come out after Charles Oliva won and said, yeah, the same way that when they immediately stripped Henry Suhudo, like, Peoria Yan is fighting for the belt that Henry no longer has because he is retired before he even withdrew himself from freaking Usana. They should be like, yeah, Charles doesn't have the belt. He is fighting as a Mokachev.

That's the fight we are going to make for the vacant title. Dana want Dana still wants that freaking Darius fight. Why haven't they booked it then is my question? I don't understand it. It's so far out. It's October because they're going to do it in Abu Dhabi. And by the way, the only reason I knew about it is because Benile Darius talked to our own Damon Martin and that's what he was told.

Like we're planning on rebooking that one and do it in October. And they're going back to Abu Dhabi. You got to do it anywhere else. Does Dana owe Banyl a favor or something? Did he lose like a big blackjack hand to Banyl? And so he is like pot committed to giving him this. fight that nobody cares about because no one does. The only reason people care about it is because it will be the thing that Islam gets

a title fight. But if you were just like, not, Islam gets the title fight, I'd be like, cool. This is the one we want to see, the two best guys in the world fight. Maybe what if Darius won that fight? You're giving him no chance? He's not going to. Islam Makhashv would be a favorite over Charles Oliver. He already is for sure.

So how do you not give the guy a title shot of the betting? He would be a monster favorite over Benio Darius. If he goes out and dominates Benio Darius, what do we learn from that? It's just a huge waste of time. It is a waste of time. And that's the other thing. I thought that they were finally going to learn a lesson. Because Habib was the best lightweight in the world for like four years before they finally

put a title on him. But they kept dicking around with Connor and doing all this other weird, stupid stuff instead of just being like, that guy's the best. let's get him to fight and prove it as quickly as we can. And they're doing that with Hamzaa basically like, oh, that guy's great. We should figure out if he's the best. Let's make that happen. With Islam, they're like, not.

And it just makes no sense to me why we're doing this because, as Connor said, I mean, there are odds, Connor. And Islam is now only a minus 225 favorite over Charles Olivera. But, I mean, that's still over a two to one favorite. he was substantially larger until this past weekend. I think he was like minus 400 until Islam kind of trucked up Justin Gachi.

So like, yeah, just make that fight. That's the fight that obviously should happen. It's not that hard. And by the way, all the people saying that Oliver is ducking Islam is just, come on now. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. This guy might be the most game fighter in the world right now. Why are you looking at the ceiling, Jed?

Are you one of those people? he's not ducking him because I don't think professional fighters duck people but he's he is making a very very specific decision and that decision is I would like to fight Connor for a big bag of money and I don't blame him for that because that is this is prize fighting you should make that decision but in the same way you and I Mike have talked about Colby should be coming out and saying give me Hamzaat or Usman should be coming out saying I want to fire Hamzaa right now like that's it if you and Charles Oliver really wants to prove there's one lightweight champion. His name is Charles Oliver, and I'm tired of people disrespecting me. He has done everything he can towards that, but that man has not once said Islam's name, and that's the fastest way to do it. You want to answer all the questions? Islamakshap, baby.

And nobody will have shit to say to you if you just say, okay, we're doing a vacant, put me in Islam Abu Dhabi. I'm going to go strangle his ass, and the rest of you can shut up. I am the goat. And that's it. And he's not saying that. And I think that is primarily because he just wants the big bag of Connor money. But, you know, he's a fair point. He's not saying it. And there's, because also, you can do more than one thing at once. Michael Chandler called out like four different people. Like, he was just like, I'm just going to call out all these people, even if most of them are stupid and don't make sense. And Oliver could have easily said, like, I want Connor because I want, and he could be transparent. I want the big bag of money. I want to fight. fight Connor because he is an easy fight and will provide me the most money to take care of my family. But if that's not going to happen, I will strangle Islam Makachev and the rest of y'all can kick rocks. And he is not saying that. And again, I don't think it's because he's afraid, but I also

think fighters largely understand good and bad matchups. And if I had any ability to not fight Islam Makachev, I damn sure wouldn't because that's a bad look for me. It's a bad night, too. well the last point on Islam is the biggest argument for Islam is there's no like viable alternative like it's not like there is a clear second choice here you would be kind of forcing a fight if you didn't give it to Islam Makashv in this situation the only argument against Makashv is make him fight Darius first and I just think I just don't agree with that but there are people who feel like Darius's resume is better than Mokachev's I mean it probably is but also like who gives a crap. I mean, neither guy is a big star. Let's be honest. Neither guy's better resumes than Hamzad, and Hamzad jumped right up to Gilbert Burns.

Right. Islam gets the, he has Habib there, so it's enough. He's also 22 and one on a 10-fight win streak in the UFC. It's not like he is. And his one, his one loss,

like, I'm not saying it's a fluke, but it's kind of, it was kind of a fluke, though. Like, yeah, great shot. Like if they fought 10 times, do you think that happens more than three? Well, we'll wait and see.

If Islam beats Oliver and he doesn't call out Armand Sarukion, then we're going to have some words on BTL the following Thursday. That's for damn sure. How about that? All right. We have gone through regulation. I don't know if we see a poll. Come on, Paul.

I don't know who's doing the polls. We're getting all these random things. Who would you pick to win at 155? Oliver Volcanowski. It's Oliver 80-20. but I appreciate you guys at least putting that up for a vote. The point for round four,

point for round four goes to, the young man, GC, it's two to two. We got no sound effects at all. I'm trying to make this happen. Here we go. So now we go to the knockout round.

One question will decide at all. Each participant will have one minute to answer said question. Once that is done, we'll go to the peeps. Hopefully there will be a poll up here. There we go. There's the poll. Who wins?

Jed Connor. Cash your vote now. You can do pride rules. You can do round by round. Whoever you scored it. Here's your chance. G.C., you are the last person on the panel to pick up a victory here. So you have the champion's prerogative.

Do you want to go first or do you want to pass on over to Jed Michoud? I'll let Jed go first. He's going to let Jed go first. Let me pull the spanner because we already asked those questions. Jed, we are in the middle of two playoffs in major sports. The NHL has a playoffs going on. The NBA is playoffs going on. And it's also kind of a we're around award season for those sports as well.

So my question very simple, because I literally had no idea where I was going to go at this until about eight seconds ago. On this May 12th, 2022, if we were creating a part-time year MVP award for the sport of mixed martial arts through five months and change, who is it and why? One minute on the clock, your time starts now. Oh, man. This is tough. I think there's an obvious answer or maybe two, but I'm going to take one with a little bit

of a future projection. I'm going to take Alexander Volcanowski, mainly because we already know that he will be fighting again in July and it's the fight everyone wants and that first fight we got of him against Korean zombie a dude that we all love that every you know a legend of the game is I said it at the time still stand by it as perfect a performance as someone can have like there's he did nothing it was a flawless victory if this is mortal combat he didn't get touched and it wasn't a flash KO so yeah first punch one shot one kill we're done he beat that ass round after round until he finished him.

So that performance plus the fact that we're going to get another fight of the year contended with Max Holloway, he is going to be my MVP of the year through five months. All right. One man down. We head on over to GC. Remember, we get the poll open. You could vote. Who wins?

Connor or Jed? Connor, same question. Five months in. Who's the front runner for the MVP for the world of mixed martial arts? one minute on the clock go yeah i guess i should have let uh i should have gone first myself here uh because alexander volkanowski is who i was going to pick as well we'll uh will go with someone else though i'm going with another champion from down under uh i will be going with israel a sanya he's already got one one under his belt he's already lining up for a second one

against jared cannoneer in july and he says he has full intentions to fight three or four times in twenty twenty two and i think israel out of sanya if he gets four types federal defenses in, as you guys have been saying, this, the year of our Lord, 2022, I think it will be hard to argue against them as fighter of the year. I think I did this the last time. I think I came up short last time, but I'm okay with that. Yeah, well, I mean, what a professional job right there. You left us with 10 seconds.

Actually, a little more. I think 15 seconds. All right, I got time. Number two, my guy, Tom Aspinall. That would have been my number two. He's the man, watch him go out there and beat Curtis Blades, cashier. another underdog ticket for us and then we're talking about him for the heavyweight title. I was just going to sing the song. If I hadn't gone with the ball goes.

I just going to sing the song. We need Frank here to play it for it. I mean, how can you not love the guy? Yeah. If he does some sort of remix of that song when he walks out against Curtis Blades, Blades is toast on July 23rd in London. So there you go. You heard the answers. Poll is open. We're going to leave it open for another like 45 seconds. Is it Jed or is a Connor who wins after that? final round while we do that let us waste some time by plugging a bunch of stuff like jed meshew and gc's podcast no bets barred you want to potentially make some money on saturday this might not be the card to do so but if you're willing to to dabble in and try to make some cashola jed and conner

will give their plays and try to guide you into the right direction and then you got this show obviously heck of morning tomorrow 8 a.m. eastern we'll go live we'll have some fun again we got the way in show noon Eastern in Las Vegas, A.K. Lee, I believe I will jump on with him as well. Jose Young's will be in Vegas. We'll be a preview show not long after that. We got Bellator, and then Saturday, 7 p.m. Eastern, the People's Pre-Fight Show.

This might be the latest start for a People's Pre-Fight Show we have ever had in the last couple of years because the prelim started 7.30 Eastern, and then we'll have the post-fight show and all that stuff way later. And the press conference, too, because Jose is going to be out there. So drink some coffee, maybe take a nap on set. because there's going to be a lot of content and we're going to be up pretty late. That being said, let us go to the peeps. Let us go and announce the winner.

The winner of BTL this week is Jed Michoud's opponents, Connerberg, 64% of the boat gets it done. Wow, you really got me there. I thought Jed just took my own. Wow. He did not. Wow. Game show-esque, baby.

That's what happens. That was my Ryan CECS right there. I was going to go to commercial. I was going to go to commercial, but I didn't do that. So G.C. gets it done. He's now 2-0 on BTL. And G.C., you now have 30 seconds to talk about whatever he is you want to talk about, good, bad, different, M.A.

But I feel like you're going to take this opportunity to call out another member of the M.A. Fighting Staff who has come on the show on multiple occasions and use your name in vain. What would you like to say with these 30 seconds? Wow, I guess I never saw him use my name in vain on this show because he's just no draw. No one wants to watch him. I mean, that just is what it is. But yeah, it's Jose Young's.

I fully expected him to show up, move me to 2&O as well, just like Jed just did. But I guess he was scared. I guess he backed out. I gave him the money fight. I gave him everything he's ever dreamed for to come up against me. And he backed out. It's shameful.

So Jose Youngs, whenever you're ready, I'll be I'll be standing by sign the contract. Let's get this done. There we go. Jed, what did you think of your partner's call out here? And, you know, is this really a loss? Because either way, it's a win for no bets barred, right?

Yeah, just trying to get him over so we can get that big fight against Jose. Because Jose's easy work, as we know, because I have given him the work countless times on this program. So, you know, we're just, we're trying, we've got the, we've got, like you said, He's the rook, you know. I've been here. Been in the game a long time. Trying to help the new breed get up, get over, and, you know, stepping stone to great things for no bets barred.

There you go. Connor, thank you. Jed, thank you. Casey, thanks for nothing. Thanks for nothing. No, enjoy your vacation. Well deserved. We will see you back here next week.

But in the meantime, we'll see you tomorrow, 8 a.m. Eastern on heck of a morning for Jed, for Connor. For me, since I'm the producer this week. I am Mike Eck. Back next Thursday. you once again between the lengths. Good night, everybody. Love you guys. This is the awkward moment, but we're still alive, but not really. To the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first, there, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.