MMA Fighting - BTL | Colby Covington vs. Jorge Masvidal, UFC 272, Dana White vs. Islam Makhachev, More

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

A bitter rivalry will take center stage this Saturday at the UFC’s March PPV extravaganza between Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal. Although there is no title on the line, what is at stake for two of the top welterweights in the world? This week on Between the Links, the panel will attempt to answer that question, along with which fighter needs the win most in the main event of UFC 272. In addition, they will discuss some of the other top storylines ahead of this weekend’s card in Las Vegas — including the co-main event between Rafael dos Anjos and Renato Moicano — Islam Makhachev’s dominant win over Bobby Green and his involvement this week with dos Anjos that led to Dana White proclaiming he will not get a title shot in his next fight, Gegard Mousasi’s 85 second finish of Austin Vanderford to retain his middleweight title at Bellator 275, and more. Host Mike Heck moderates the matchup for the BTL title between MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew, who will defend his championship against his colleague Shaun Al-Shatti. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Shaun Al-Shatti: @ShaunAlShatti 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

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is Between the Links. And now your host, my... Yes, the iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of Between the Links. And this is a big one, my friends, as we are a little over 48 hours away from UFC 272. We get a big grudge match in the main event of that card.

And on this show, we kind of have ourselves a grudge match, too. We have a main event caliber matchup here on MMA fighting this week. Five rounds for the undisputed BTL Championship of the Universe, a potential five rounds. So let's get into this thing. Let us introduce the Challenger who earned a victory last week, thanks to the peeps, giving them the vote in an ultimate fighter style matchup on the record books. Not really, but this is for real, for real. This is for the strap.

Let us introduce from MMAFighting.com, Mr. Sean Alshaddy. How are you, my man? I'm doing well, Mike. I'm glad to be back. It had been a long time before last week since I'd been on the program. And it was such a wonderful feeling. I just, I had to come back, you know? I missed it.

And so here, I'm here, I guess to do it for real. Did last week not count? It seems like it counted. Should have counted. Just saying. It was a bragging rights matchup. So sometimes that means more than money in titles. So let us introduce the reigning defending, undisputed champion of BTL.

He won the tournament. I think it's safe to say we're beyond the statute of limitations here. He should feel like the real champ, but hey, maybe he needs to get a defense in the bag before he can actually feel that way. As you welcome back, Mr. Note Gray area himself, also from M.Afighting.com. The champ is here. Jedmishu. Hello, sir.

Mike, thanks. I have problems with everybody right now. I'm mad at Sean for the ranking show. If you haven't listened to this month's M.A. ranking show, a lot of slander was being cast in my way. on that show, garbage from everybody, so I'm coming for all of you.

And Mike and Maddie, you, because you, aside from being on the ranking show and contributing to some of that slander, might I just say, you also lead off by saying, we have a main event this week. We always have a main event when I'm here,

Mike. I am the main event. I am BTL. I'm the game. It's always the main event when I'm doing my thing. So what I said, that was just slender.

I'm glad you dried your hair at least this week. What did I say so badly? You came real hot on my Andrei Arlowski stuff. I will say that you at least defended portions of it, but you came real hot. And let me also just say, nobody argued against it. Everybody was like, that's just insane, but nobody actually gave a credible argument why.

I was like, that's just nuts. If you want to say he has the best career, which is exactly what I argued, so get out of here all of you. go listen, go listen to that show and understand all of you viewers that everybody I work with is wrong and I'm a genius. I feel like I, you know, with a lot of energy and passion sat right on the fence with that whole thing. And just buckled up and just buckle myself right on the top of that fence. But we can talk about this for another 45 minute.

I'm so, I am gray as hell right now. now and that's why I shaved my head because you can't see the gray. But let's get into this thing because we have so much to get into. This is basically going to start at the top of the hill. We're just going to build speed all the way down at a high rate of speed. But let's start with this past weekend and then we'll build to this weekend. We had two big time performances to discuss. One, a title defense in Dublin, Ireland for Gaygar Musassi.

The other, a dominant win from a guy many feel, including Jedmishu. And I believe Shaheen as well, the best lightweight in the world in Islam Makachev. Musasi steamrolls, Austin Vanderford, 85 seconds of Belator 275, retains his title. Mokachev, TKOs, Bobby Green, short notice replacement for Binald Daryush in a little over three minutes. Sean, I'm going to start with you. Both of these guys went out and pitched perfect games, essentially. Musassi on the betting lines closed it around a minus 225, minus 230 favorite on average. Mokachev, a minus 900 favorite for his 10th straight win.

Which win to you was more impressive? which win was more impactful in your eyeshell? We'll get into the Mokachev stuff with Dana and for this week in a moment, but performance-wise, which one will you remember more? Musassi's win or Mokachev's win? That's a tough one. I mean, they both were incredibly impressive if we're being honest with ourselves, right? So I guess ultimately, if I have to weigh between the two,

I will lean towards Masasi just because of the circumstances involved with Islam. Obviously, the Bobby Green fight was a short notice fight. Bobby admitted to himself, you know, that's kind of, it wasn't the best set of circumstances for himself to come into that fight. He was kind of behind the eight ball from the beginning. But I mean, Austin Vanderford is never going to be confused with Anderson Silva out here. Like he is Austin Vanderford. We know who he is.

But he still was an undefeated, you know, up and comer, a guy who, at least some people were thinking could maybe push Musassi a little bit. Musassi really just went in there. In an 85 seconds, I think reminded a lot of people who he was and who and how what this guy is about, man. Because this is a guy who's been around. he's been doing it forever. He feels like he got pretty bored in Bellator at some point over the last couple of years.

But that was just a no-nonsense ass kicking. Like that was just a good old-fashioned Musassi ass kicking. And I think that reminded a lot of people, A, this dude is still here. He's still incredibly relevant just at 185 and also just the global. So B like it might not be going anywhere for a while. Like that division in Bellator in 85 is pretty lacking at this point. I mean, he looks like he's going to go up to 205 now for the challenges against the Grand Prix winner. So to me, between the two, Musassi, I think, reminded a lot of people who

he is, and I think just opened a few more eyes as to the fact he's still around. He's still here, and he's still very much someone who matters. Jed, what do you think? Do you agree with, Sean, that Gayguard stole the show, essentially, or are you going on Team Makachev here? No, I mean, I think a lot of what Sean says, right, I, frankly, and we talked about it going in, I was a lot more down on Gagard than many people were, just because he hasn't looked great lately, frankly. But he obviously looked exceptional in that fight. And I'm starting to come around to the idea that people like you and Casey and some others were pitching before that fight,

that Gagard just kind of wasn't dialed in. He wasn't focused. And that explains his mediocre performance against Liotomachita and even Douglas Lima and John Salter, even to some extent. I'm starting to think that maybe there's a lot of truth to that. So great performance room, nothing taken away. But look, we spent an infinite amount of time talking about Islam O'Cachev and about how Bobby Green is a tough dude.

He is extremely strong, durable guy. You know, on that ranking show, I think Sean Al-Shadi said something like, nobody does that to Bobby Green. And then he admitted that I was right all along and that Islam is the best lightweight in the world, and it took the Bobby Green performance to open up his eyes to my level of genius. And so if you can take a stubborn man. That might have been a little bit of paraphrasing there. That might have been a cool.

If you can take a stubborn man like Sean Al Shadi and make him realize that I am correct and that Islam is the greatest lightweight currently competing in mixed martial arts, to me, that's just got to be the number one performance because it was. It was dominant. I thought Bobby Green, I was probably the most on mockage. side coming into this fight of anyone saying, I think this is a really good matchup for him even. But even I in my wildest dreams didn't think he was going to do that to Bobby Green. He rolled through him as if Bobby Green was nothing.

It was unbelievable. Bobby Green landed. Officially it says he landed Knox. I don't know where they came from because I don't remember him landing more than two. And he just got absolutely rolled up and put out to pasture. It was unbelievable performance from the best lightweight in the world. And when you start to solidify the idea amongst the non-believers, not the guys like me, but the other people, the Sean Al-Shattis of the world,

that you're the best fighter in the best division in the sport. That's got to be the best performance of the weekend. Let's go back to the ranking show, Jed, because you heard it. You didn't partake, but you heard it. But most of us have Busasi at number three. at 185 pounds on the only rankings that matter, the MMA fighting global rankings. But we have a guy, Jed, and Gaygard Musassi,

who has always been great, his personality is coming alive more than ever these past couple of years. And with that, like you said, he's starting to get up more, but he's getting some confidence. He's gone from, yeah, you know, fighting's fighting to,

I think I can hang with the top two guys in the world, to saying on that night, on Friday night, Adasanya Whitaker, whoever, doesn't matter. whoever standing in front of me that night, they all would have gotten it. Did last week's performance, Jed, change anything in the way you view Musassi amongst the elite 85ers? Like, is this version of Gagar Musassi, could he be the best or top two middle weights in the sport? I think he could be.

I wouldn't pick him over the two guys that currently have ranked above him. I would love to see a fight between him and Israel Adisina. I'm sad that we are never going to get that because by all accounts, Gagard says he's going to stay at Bellator and good for him. Get that paper, buddy. But that would be a tremendous matchup. Him versus Whitaker would be a tremendous matchup.

We're just never going to get those. I would still favor both of those men over him, but it wouldn't shock me if Gagard ended up, you know, if they did fight it, if Gagard won those fights. He has passed a victory in both of them. But kind of going back to the first question, I left impressed with Gayguard, but I ultimately don't feel that much different than I did before. I had him rank number three, though with the caveat that I'm not certain, you know, I'd be interested about how I would ultimately choose a fight between him and Jared Cairnoneer, just from a stylistic perspective.

I still have some of those questions because we didn't learn too much from the Austin Vanderford fight. Vanderford got hit with one shot and was functionally out of it almost immediately. But I think it's certainly proved, if nothing else, that Gayguard is still legitimate top middleweight in the world and absolutely, you know, could beat anybody on any given night if he gets that opportunity. Sean, Musassi has been on a role. You will not allow any Musassi slander on any social media timeline.

He's been at this high level for a while, yet kind of an under-the-radar middleweight for quite some time now. His record in his last 12-13 fights is ridiculous and no one really even goes back to think about that. But now we have a confident Gaygard-Busasi. We have a guy who has more belief in himself than he's ever had in his career. What do you make of him finding it now?

Do you think right now that this Gaygar Musassi, the one that went into the cage with Austin Vanderford and just rolled him, put him out pretty much of the first punch, took him out of the fight, do you think this is the best Musassi of his career right now? The best. I mean, that's a hard question because this is a man who beat Mark Hunt in the first.

round, you know, at some point in his career, like a heavyweight Mark Hunt. And that, so that's a hard question to answer the best because we're just not seeing him tested against the type of fighters that he used to get tested against, right? Like he, he left the, the U.S. people forget, but he left the UFC on a five-five winning streak, four stoppages over really good names. Like, Tiago Santos was on that. Uriah Hall, Chris Wyden, Talas later's even, like, he is not fighting these hitters. He's not fighting the killers anymore. He kind of went through the best of Bellator pretty early on in his career with the Rory McDonald's fight, Schlomenko, even Douglas Lima, those type of guys.

He's getting the table scraps at this point. So it's hard to say he's the best he's ever been because he's been very, very, very good for a very long time. But he certainly seems to be having the most fun that he's ever had in his career. And he certainly seems to be the most confident that he's ever been in his career because he's killing it, man. I said this before, but he's like a top three interview in the sport right now. Like he is just full of fun, full of entertainment.

and he almost basically is undefeated since 2016, which is like six years at this point. He has the Rafael Lovato Jr. one, which that was a majority decision. Like that could have gone either way. But outside of that, this dude has been unstoppable. And I'm sure that there's something to that of if you keep going out there

and you keep dominating these people to the point where, again, I've almost boredom, it's got to bolster you in some way, right? Like you have to come away from that feeling like you are better than you've ever been and I'm unstoppable and that sort of thing. So I'm sure Gaygard probably feels that he's the best he's ever been. I don't know that I could say that because, yeah, he's been a long time. But he's certainly having a great moment here late in his career. And I love, love the idea of him fighting Izzy or Whitaker.

I wish so badly that we could get those fights because I think they would be competitive. And the dismissiveness of it speaks to me. Like seeing, you know, some fans out there be like, oh, he would just get washed by those two. It's like, man, that speaks to me that you haven't really followed the history of the sport. you don't really actually understand the context when we're talking about a lot of these guys and you're just looking at his record on Wikipedia and seeing him fighting John Seltre and stuff.

Like, I would love to see those fights. Obviously, they're never going to happen, but Gagard's killing it right now, man. Like he is in line, at least it seems to be, uh, to have some kind of year this year where he wants to fight, you know, three, four times. If he's able to rattle off three, four wins,

win at 205 against the Grand Prix champ, all sorts of different things that he could do in Bellator right now. Like we might be looking at Gaggard's best year overall of his career, certainly. Man, Gagar Mursasi, fighter of the year. I mean, if he goes out there and beats Nemcoff or Anderson

and gets a second title and then wins like another one or two fights, he's certainly in the conversation. Let's go to Islam Makachev, Sean, because this conversation got a bit heated last week, right? Machachev goes out there, rolls through Bobby Green,

give me title shot, and we find out Raphael Fiziziz. It was out of the UFC 272 co-main event with Hafeel de Sanjos after testing positive for COVID. We found out live on the MMA hour. Everyone seemed to raise their hand for the fight, including Makachev apparently, or his manager for being honest, which was a little surprising Satid just fought and just said, I want to fight for the

title. But there was this back and forth on Twitter. And to me, the more tweets that came out, the less likely I felt that this is a real possibility. And in the end, goes to Hinata Moikano. Cool. But then Dana White jumps on with Robbie Fox and Barstool Sports and says, look, Islam turned the fight down. We're going to go ahead and rebook the Darius fight. No title shot for him next. And Darius told ESPN this week, not getting surgery. I'm going to do some PT. June, July. I'm ready to go. How do you react to all of this shot, especially with the discussion we had last week? Is Dana being petty? Or do you think this fight with Darius is absolutely going to happen next? Anytime you start a question with, is Dana being petty? The answer is probably yes. Like, yes,

he's a very petty man who is generally very petty when it comes to these things. And yes, he's being petty right now. I just want to backtrack really quickly to how you started this. The visual of RDA, this legend of the sport, absolutely like Hall of Famer, if there was a real MMA Hall of Fame, first ballot Hall of Famer, the visual of him finding this news out live from our good friend Ariel Hawani in the middle of an interview is so like emblematic of just how the UFC treats these sort of things and just how all of this goes, where it's just like he's finding out that his own fight is no longer on the books from someone else while live

on the air. Like how I continue to not understand how this stuff, how this stuff continues to happen. But I digress. I mean, the Islam Machachev aspect of this. Yeah, Dana White's being absolutely petty. And to me, it feels obvious what's being set up here. And it's something we actually talked about last week. But I'm going to be furious.

I'm not going to lie. Like, I'm going to be absolutely furious if this is just the flimsyest set up in the world for Connor McGregor getting a chance. chance to slip in here on a two-fight losing streak and suddenly fight the champion for no reason like that that is absolutely what this feels like it is uh it's it's just again setting the table for some sort of thing so that when there's you know this happens months down the line they can point to be like ah that's why islam islam's why and it's like oh really like you're going to take this guy's title shot away after he's won 10 straight because he didn't

accept a fight on like four days notice three days after he just won a fight like that is utterly ridiculous. Islam's the number one contender. He might be the best lightweight in the world. He deserves his shot. And I have to think at right now, where are we saying right now, because obviously we're still far away from the actual title fight itself of Charles Alivaera

and Justin Gachi. There's a lot of times where Dana White just says stuff. And then it's stuff that exists but doesn't actually end up coming true. This to me feels like it might just be Dana White hashtag just saying stuff. We'll see. But man, if Islam gets forced to

fight once more and he has to win an 11 or a row before he's actually getting a title shot out here that's utterly ridiculous. Jed, I think you actually, I think I heard you actually hit your microphone with excitement because you've probably been waiting for this moment to speak about this since yesterday. So have that it, my man. Your reaction to this? And is this going to start with, I told you so? Oh, no, I was just, I hit my microphone because my dog's being a bit rambunctious right now. So my bad on that. But it is totally going to start I told you so, because I forget which of the many programs we were. Hold on.

You can't start with it. I told you so because nothing has happened. Absolutely nothing has happened. You're not right about anything until something happened. I might be early, but I'm not wrong. Because all of these very programs, this gentleman sitting across the screen from me, Sean Alshaddy, this didn't just dismiss me. Like violently was like, you're ridiculous.

This will never happen. Islam Makachem, if he wins, is obviously getting a title fight. There's no world or scenario. I was like, I don't know. Pona McGregor's done a lot weirder stuff to this lightweight division. We've certainly seen other guys put together 12 fight win streaks and not get title fights. So I can totally see a world where if Charles Oliver goes out and gets that W, he comes back and is like, I don't want to fight Islam.

He needs a top five win. Give me Connor. And then Connor slides right in here. and all I'm saying, Sean's right. It hasn't happened yet. But man, the dominoes are lining up to be knocked on down. Because let's say, you know, what dare you said he could fight in June, July? Well, okay, Ramadan's for April.

So the earliest I'm going to anticipate Islam would be willing to fight would be mid to end of June. We'll want like a full fight camp for that bout. May 5th or 7th or whatever the date is is 274. Oliver goes, gets to W or arguably Gachie goes and gets to W either could still be the case whoever comes out of that fight they would still have to wait a month

and right around that time because around April is when Connor said that he could come back to like full 100% sparring right around that time Connor just sends a little tweet-a-tweet hey my belt or whatever I don't know whatever the hell he wants to do I think I read

yeah I read I don't know whatever they want to do man. I don't, I'm, I'm not Connor. I can't speak for him. He does a lot of weird stuff. Um, so whatever. He tweets and there's absolutely a world where if he really wants it and Olivaire wants it, the UFC's just going to go ahead and try and do it on, because on top of all the money and everything else, if he wins the belt, his contract is either, he either has one or two fights left to, based on my recollection, and putting a belt on him really changes the calculus sum, as we've talked about at. gnazim with francis and ghanu so uh i think for sure if if there's a world where they can make this

happen they will absolutely petty the hell out of islam makachev and try and hand khana mcggehr a title shot so i'm not calling i told you so yet but i'm i'm starting my fingers hovering on the dial i'm getting ready to hit sean with the biggest who i told you show in the history of this program is um we're not there yeah we're not there yet. Not there yet, but the stars are aligning. Well, I mean, we have a rivalry between Islam and Dana White. We got a rivalry here between Jed and John, and we're going to move to one of the more heated rivalries in all of MMA.

Let's head to this Saturday, UFC 272. But first, the point for round one goes to Jedmishu, one to nothing. Let the music play. All right. Let's get into why everybody's here. let's get it to the main event, right? This is why everyone's here. Colby Covington versus Jorge Mazbidal.

This Saturday, main event, UFC 272 in Las Vegas, five rounds, non-title fight. Although Dana is saying maybe he'll put the BMF title in one. I don't care about any of that. But there's a lot of heat on this one, Jed. You and I talked about this fight when it was first booked, and we both thought, yes, this was a pay-per-view caliber main event. It's interesting. but we were also kind of on the same page

that much like the Covington Woodley fight, this one was kind of, yeah, this is super cool, but it would have been way cooler a year ago or 18 months ago or two years ago. So one to 10, man, excitement levels for this one, 48 hours away.

Honestly, I'm with you. I agree that this still would have been better previously. I think I am now more excited for this than I would have been a year ago after watching both of these guys. guys, because I think the matchup is way more compelling than it would have been a year ago. Just because a lot of different things have happened over the past, you know, year, 18 months that make me come into this with a lot more questions. Like, at a very baseline level, Kobe Covington to win this fight, his style, like the natural style that he is employed for most of his career is really well suited to give Jorge Mossadol all problems.

And I think if you want to get real armchair quarterbacky, you know, psychologist stuff, You can probably read into this that the reason their whole beef started was because Covington was mad that he is a better fighter than Mossfodal and Mossfadol was getting all this shine. I think that's a reasonable read to how this whole thing went down, which he would know because they trained a lot together. And he probably feels that he got the best of those training sessions because I would have suspected he did. But I don't know, man, after that last fight with Usman, after Mossvedal getting knocked out, there's a lot more question marks. Like, Maserol's never been knocked out before.

I suspect that that won't really influence him coming into this fight, but you really don't know how anybody's going to react to something like that until you see them do it. At the same time, I think there's a really good argument that Colby Covington is, has reached, has surpassed his peak athletically, at least, based on just kind of how his fights with Tyne Woodley

and his second fight with Usman went, especially at the beginning of that, second fight with Usman. He fought super weird. I mean, that first fight with Usman, he didn't wrestle at all, which was obviously very odd based on how the rest of his career had been. But that second fight with Usman, he was really, it felt like he was very concerned with the power coming back at him. And then he kind of worked himself into that fight over time and got a little better. But I don't know if that's just something was going on with that fight camp or if that's just part and parcel of he's 34, 35, he's getting up there.

he's almost certainly not athletically what he was when he was 28 or 29. And so maybe he's starting to feel a little bit of that and that kind of eats at the undercurrent of his whole thing. I have a lot of psychological questions going into this. I have a lot of X factor questions, right? The X's and O's should be pretty straightforward. Mossadol gets backed up a lot. Covington's really good at backing people up. That should be a win.

But there are just so many other things at play that I'm way more fascinated by this. and what happens. We're going to learn a lot on Saturday night. However, the outcome is, I suspect we're going to learn a lot about where both guys are in their career, or at least I will. So I'm really excited for it. I'd give this 8.5 to 9 out of 10.

Sean, where are you out with this? In terms of excitement level, I'll probably like an 8, I'd say, maybe an 8.5. That feels about right. I mean, this is just a really damn good fight, right? a damn good fight between two compelling characters with a backstory that I think is easy to follow and a backstory that we've been following for years now.

And so it feels like the culmination of something. And in a weird way, it feels like the culmination of a lot of things here with this 170 pound division because these have been sort of the three main players that we have been rifling through over the last couple years. It's Usman, Covington, and Mazvedal. And Usman clearly now is a tier above these two. And then these guys are the ones who have been,

who've now both lost twice to Camaro. So they're sort of fighting for the table scraps in this division. And it does feel like it's a very high-stakes fight just in terms of where it puts these guys in there, for the rest of their career, really, in this division. Because, I mean, Jed hit the nail on the head. Colby Covenson is surprisingly old.

Like, he's 34. You don't think of him as 34. In this division, it's hard to keep going past a certain level of mid-30s, late 30s. We don't really see a lot of welterweights find success in their late 30s. And then Horamazzo is a guy who's been in this forever. And he's been in this. He's an OG.

He's been in this a long, long time. you can make a very real case that whoever loses this fight is probably just going to get, you know, rifle back down into the point where they're just being fed to the next up-and-comers, and they're sort of in that spot now where they're out of the title picture entirely, and it's just sort of they're having to either find fun fights, big fights with just randos, or, you know, again, they're sort of being used to propel others up, upwards up the ranks. So, because, again, we have, we've seen these guys, these three, these have been the three main players at 1,75. for a while now.

But we are also seeing just a younger group of 170 is coming up, led by Hamzat Shamaev, and you have a couple other names as well, Sean Brady's of the world, et cetera, et cetera. This division is going to look very different very soon. We've talked about it before in the past, how Camaro, he's getting up there in age, he has bad knees. At some point, he's going to lose that title, whether he loses it in the cage or he retires. We're about to undergo a sea change here at 170, and this sort of feels like the final chapter, at least on this period, this era that we've been going through over the last

couple years and it's incredibly compelling. I think stylistically, obviously Colby is a huge, huge favorite. Last I shacks, he was like four to one or something like that. But that's also not very dissimilar from what we've seen with Jorge and Masbidal's fights just generally throughout this run. He's been the underdog against almost everybody except for Nate Diaz. Even if you go back to the Ben Ascran fight, the Darren Till fight, he was the underdog in those two. This is just a role that he sort of is comfortable with. And I think a role we're comfortable putting him into. He's overcome it before. He obviously didn't overcome it against Camaro. I think stylistically, he's certainly at a disadvantage against Colby,

but then also you do have the fact that these guys trained together for such a long time. They know each other much more intimately than like a Camaro would or Jorge would have known a Camaro or anything like that. So that does have to play into it as well, just the experience level they have going against each other. And also whatever kind of dynamics are there in the training room, right? Like if you go against someone consistently for years and they're consistently getting the better of you, even if you may be better than them, there is still psychological element to that. And we don't know, we're not privy to a lot of those sessions, but you have to imagine that there's some level of personal history that's going to just play out psychologically as well when these guys out there actually go out there on Saturday and try to do this. So I think it's great matchup. I'm excited for it. I do wish there was one other more fight that we could look to a title fight or something. You know, I think we're just so used to the title fights being at the top of the pay-per-view, something with real actual meaningful stakes and a belt being awarded. I would have loved to see that out Saturday. But obviously we have had. had multiple title fights fall out and they made the best with the UFC made the best of a bad

situation. Ultimately, this is a good fight. I'm excited for it. Oddly enough, Sean, coincidentally enough, Colby Covington, according to our friends of draft Kings, minus 305. 305 on 305 minus 305 is everywhere. It's in the universe. It's everywhere you look. Did you see the floating 305? So actually, that line is dropped then because yesterday it was about minus 400. So money's coming out on Jorge. Maybe that. means something, maybe it means nothing. He does that so well. You just,

you just said, how extremely stupid is it that this isn't taking place in Miami on freaking March 5th, 305 in the 305? Like, how is this in Vegas? This seems so dumb to me. I mean, apparently there's like

not a rich history of MMA in Miami. There's like fighters who fight in Miami, but there's, I don't know, there's a lot of camps in that area. But they don't draw a lot and it's just yeah I mean I refuse to believe the Horace all couldn't sell out whatever arena in Miami fighting me much less fighting Kobe Covington

it seems really dumb if they did this in Vegas I think he talked about this didn't he that he wanted like a piece of the gate and that's the reason why it didn't happen in Miami because if it sold out solely because of him that's the case way to go UFC you guys are heroes well also you have to you have to think On this one.

Championship. We also have to think this one sort of happened last second. This was kind of a replacement main event. They were just slotting into it to an event that was already in Vegas. So they're just kind of making the best of it. I mean, I guess. It feels like they should have been better about this.

It's like how. You're talking about a company that only sent Stipe to Cleveland once. Like they felt like they really put a lot of care and thought into these type of things. I recognize they're awful at their jobs, but it doesn't make me less sad like when the Diaz brothers don't fight on UFC 209 it's still one of the dumbest things ever and I just, it should be noted

that the UFC are consistently really bad at doing fun promotional things. No argument. We will have a live preview show tomorrow evening after the ceremony away and so we'll break into the X's and O's and the stylistic matchup and all of that stuff and talk more about the actual fight and everything when that happens.

But this is more of a story. Ladd-Ridden show. Sean, you talked about the stakes and what happens, you know, with the loss potentially for either guy. So I'm curious who you think needs this win more, Covington or Mazadol, and why? Oh, to me, it feels unquestionably like Colby needs this win more. I mean, Horamazvedal is Horamazir al at this point. He's game bred. He's a, he's sort of a mainstream star. He loses this fight. There's other fights out there that he could instantly jump to and, you know, make a lot of money doing. He's still going to be a popular guy because people like hearing him talk and they just like his whole persona.

And he already had what happened in 2019. That whole rise happened. He's already a made man when it comes to popularity. Once you have that, you can lose a thousand times and it still sticks with you. It's very hard to lose that once you actually have it. Colby is a guy who is an interesting character, to say the least. He has certain rivalries that are able to sell to a certain degree, but he's not some incredibly popular fighter.

He's not this huge mainstream draw. if he goes out and loses now twice to Camaro and then loses to Jorge, who I think almost everyone is unanimously picking Colby and thinking that this is Colby's fight to win. If he loses to Jorge, in particular with all the talking that he's done and the lead up to this and how personally he's made it and going after kids and women and just all sorts of aspects of family and just how gross it's gotten, that's a hard hit for Colby's stock, man.

That really is. And that feels like one of those where it'd be hard to sort of come back from that. I mean, he'll obviously still be someone who matters in this division. I think he's the second best welterweight in the world right now. I mean, that doesn't go away. But his just stock in general will take a massive, massive hit if he loses to Jorge Mazadol, whereas I think most people expect Jorge to lose. So I don't think he's going to take as big of a hit.

Do you agree with that, Jed? Or can you make the argument that Mazadol needs this one more? I mean, I can always make an argument, but it wouldn't. It'd be tough even for me. because the reality is everything Sean said is totally correct. I'll just add on top of it, the way that both men are liable to lose this fight is way worse for Covington. Because if Covington loses,

he's not losing a competitive five-round decision like he did against Usman, you know, in his last time out. He is getting baptized by the dude he has spent two and a half years talking an endless amount of crap about getting, and like Sean said, getting super personal, saying that he used to, you know, son him in the training room all the time. He goes out and gets baptized. It's a hard, hard look for him.

Whereas Mossadol, you know, hell, Mossadol talked himself into an immediate title fight rematch against Kamar Usman after lost five or at least four, if not five rounds to Kamar Usman. Because, you know, he did it, but he got a hugged or whatever. And so it was everybody was like, yeah, Mothadol's still cool because he didn't fight like a wuss or whatever dumb people think about fighting. So, yeah, I'm just going to assume that if Mastradal loses, it will be because he gets grappled into infinitude.

And then he will get up and be like, yeah, that dude just sniff my crotch a bunch. I'm still the BMF. No one will care. Everyone will still love Jorge Moshadol. And that probably is what happened. So it's going to work out for everybody. but if it doesn't, if Mastrad, you know, Ben Ascran's, uh, Colby, real tough look for Covington.

I'm honestly not sure how he rebounds from that if it happens. And then real quick, we can just make this like 30 seconds, Jed. Where does the winner go? Because getting a title shot is going to be very, very difficult because Uzman has two wins over both of these guys. And Mazadol probably even more difficult because he got knocked absolutely unconscious the last time they fought with. one of the most vicious punches you will ever see.

So, I mean, where do we go? Are we talking about two guys? Either guy wins. They go for the red panty night. I know Colby's talking about Dustin Porre, but I have a hard time believing that fight happens. Where do you think they go? Honestly, depending on the fight goes,

they might run it right back to a rematch. I could see that, honestly, being the case. But my general assumption is that the winner here is going to have to fight somebody, that's ranked because neither of them have any relevant wins in the welterweight division. Whoever wins Saturday, this would be the first, this will be the only really relevant win that they have because Covington beat Tyron Woodley and who's gone, RDA, who's back down at lightweight and a bunch of people who aren't currently ranked.

And Horace Mastodal beat Nate Diaz, which isn't really relevant, Ben Ascran, who's retired, you know, Darren Till, who's a middleweight. It's just they're just going to have to fight some ranked guys. Masadol will have more opportunities to fight Nate Diaz or whatever, but my guess is they'll just be put in the mix. Vicente Luque, winner of Lucay Muhammad. That's my guess. You think so, Sean?

Do you agree with that or do you think bigger, bigger fights for the winner? No, I mean, I think that's pretty spot on. Both these guys are sort of in the Franklin zone right now, the Benevita zone, whatever you want to call it, having lost twice to Camaro. For Colby, it seems like the problem. play at this point is almost to just wait Kamaru out because if he again we don't know how much longer Kamaro is going to be in this he's talked about retirement he has the the age the knees all of it if the wait this out maybe a year or two more kamaro's able to comemar then leaves the division

leaves the sport entirely retire something like that if colby is still you know hanging around this top spot then he might be able to sneak in and grab a title right before his window exits as well but outside of that man they both yeah it's it's it's funneling in funnights for a guy like Jorge Mazvedol or for Colby, it would just be shuffling through those random contenders that are coming up and trying to make a name off him. So I think both men sort of end up in the same spot. Jorge is obviously in a better spot just because of his star power. But for the most part, I don't think this has any real impact on the title picture. Well, we have the UFC 272 press conference later on today.

We'll have you covered over an NBA fighting. I'll be honest with you. I'm not looking forward to it. Really not. I don't understand why both fighters come to the media day. and then do a press conference the next day when they're going to be asked the exact same questions again. I mean, there's probably going to be some awful questions mixed in there too, but they're just going to scream at each other and say ridiculous things,

and it's going to get ugly, but some people like that stuff. And if you do like it, then this one is for you, my friends. And it's going down later on the evening. Well, speaking to Bryce Mitchell, let's talk more about this card, shall we? The point for round two goes to. It goes to Sean Alshadie. is one to one. So let's move on to some of the other storylines heading into this car.

We touched on this a little early with the Islam Makachev stuff, but the new co-made event for UFC 272, Opfield Osangos versus Hanato Moikano, five rounds, catch weight of 160 pounds. Sean, the UFC has had to be quick on their feet with some of these big lightweight matchups because of guys having to withdraw for different reasons. Hanato Moikano wins the sweepstakes,

had to travel from Brazil on Tuesday. He's in Vegas, got there yesterday. Of the options that were available and realistic in your mind, Sean, was this the best one? Are you excited for this for a potential 25 minutes of RDA versus Hanata Moikano?

I guess it's fine. It's okay. It's better than fine if I'm being fair. But I mean, it's hard not to look at this fight and not think of what could have been, right? I mean, we were teased so hard. We were blue-balled so hard with this Mokachev stepping in on late notice.

Four days notice, cementing the title shot against RDA, this fight that we've been wanting to see between these two guys for years now. It's really difficult to not just look at this co-main event and visualize what could have been rather than what is actually happening. But it's a fine fight. I mean, Hanata Moikano has looked good at lightweight. He's three and one since he moved back up to 155. The last two in particular have been really good fights. I mean, the Alexander Hernandez won. And both and the Jay Herbert won both were just excellent finishes.

He's looked impressive. He might be somebody here who matters at one. 55. RDA is a good test for him. It's also just good to have RDA back in our life. I mean, this is a man who hasn't been around since November of 2020. So, like, that's a really, really long time. We were nearing the point where we're going to have to take

him out of our own rankings just for an inactivity. So I'm glad we're finally getting him back. He's had a lot of hard luck trying to, on the road to getting back. So anytime you can see RDA fight, it's always fun. Anato Moikano has been fun very lately. I should say, very fun lately. So it's not a bad

fight, it just doesn't scream deserving of a five-round co-main event on a pay-per-view, if we're all being honest with ourselves. But it's fine. It's whatever. I mean, I'm sure it'll be enjoyable. And again, it has its merits. Jed, kind of a tough ask for Hinata Moikano to cut all that weight and then fight five rounds against the former champion. And I know when this fight with Fiziv was made, it was supposed to headline a couple of weeks ago or a last weekend's card or two cards ago and then gets push to the co-main event here. We lose Fazeve. Mokachev's waved in front of us.

I knew I kind of felt like after the second tweet exchange that we weren't going to see the fight, so I kind of cooled on that pretty quickly. But we get Hanata Moikano. Out of all the names that raised their hand, it was pretty much everybody from Terrence McKinney all the way up the divisional ladder, are you happy with this one?

Is this one that you are going to sit back and just be like, man, I'm pretty stoked for this one. Yeah, I mean, this is fine. I think maybe there were some other ones that could have been better and a Tony Ferguson or rematch there. I would have been really interested in. Honestly, just putting Kevin Holland into that situation instead of having Holland fight cowboy Levera I'm pretty interested in.

But I'm super into it because I will always watch Hafeldos-Angers fight because he's a frigging badass. And I don't know why Sean Al-Shadi is so anti-people talking that ishaw-Ga-Garred Musassi, but he's going to run around here and be like RDA doesn't deserve a co-main event in five rounds one of the heroes of this sport look at who RDA has fought that man is for everybody no no no I'm not letting that slip I'm not letting that slip that is not that is a comedic this hard that is a ridiculous that is a ridiculous characterization of what I said because RDA versus Fiziev was awesome and I would have loved five rounds of that RDA versus Islam would have been an amazing

five-round fight but RDA versus Mokano on short notice, that just doesn't scream deserving of five rounds. And you know it. Come on. I see what you're doing. I watch Ardenadee fight a broomstick for five rounds because that man deserves nothing but my respect when you look at what he has done in this sport. He steps up time and again. He's always down to fight.

He gives as good as he gets. He's fought, honestly, off the top of my head, the only guy I can think of who like definitely has fought a tougher strength of schedule is a guy who will probably talk about in a minute, Edson Barbosa. But other than that, RDA has fought the best of two divisions for 10 years. and Hanato and Mercano is a guy who's top. I would argue that.

I would argue RDA's strength of schedule is even better than Barbosa's. Because Barbosa has a couple in there where it's like a macuana Miracani or something like that. Like RDA has no bricks. This is just murder after murder after murder for like a deck. He had Terry Chaffanin. Territz-Safin was like a former strike first champion. Like Terry Safenian was somebody. At the time, sure.

That's one of his weaker ones. But yeah, I mean, they're both right there as far as strength. of schedule. And so, look, everything else Sean said it was right. I'm really glad the RDA is fighting because we haven't seen him fight since fighting Paul Felder on seven days notice or whatever that

was. I want to see what he looks like back at lightweight. I think he was obviously very good welterweight. He was a better lightweight by my estimation. And so if he can still kind of channel some of that, he's really interesting sort of dark horse in this division. Yes, I'm sad.

The Fiziev fight was incredible. I loved the gimmick of the Raphael's fighting for their names. And I just love the style matchup, but you could do a lot worse than Moikano on short notice. And Silver lining, I'm pretty sure RDA is going to get a win here. So he gets to stay relevant in this kind of top lightweight conversation, and we can rebook the Fizzev fight. And I know he's got a move going on. He's got a lot of stuff. We can rebook that in a few months and go from there.

Or maybe they do the Islam fight because his own. not getting a title fight because Connor Gregor's getting a title fight where he's discussed that. There's a, I mean, if RDA goes out there and just puts on an incredible performance

against an Atta Moikano and wins in impressive fashion, his stock, even though it's pretty high in a lot of people's minds, he might have the biggest stock boom of the entire card because this is a guy

that's willing to fight Islam Makachev on less than a week's notice. He put it out there. By all accounts, he's calling bluffs, and then the fight doesn't happen. You got Dana White going out and public saying that Islam turned him down

and then you go out and win against a new opponent five rounds, that's big man. Like you go out and cut a nice promo and call somebody out, you could have a pretty stellar weekend, but I mean, you call out Islam, right?

Like if Ardia goes out there and he, and he does what he's going to do against Hannana McAnna, and he actually wins that fight, he's got to call out Islam, right? Like that, there's a story there now for it. It's just set up right in front of him, call him, you know, hey, you ran for me, you're a coward, whatever.

however he wants to phrase it like that's right there like that is it if the ufc is going to try to rebook islam against benyla d'arouche obviously that seems to be on the table but who know it's still uncertain how long benille's going to be out so shooting your shot if you're already a try to get in there man see but that's the thing i was going to say jad you agree with that because he could just no-sell machochev here and be like eh i gave him his chance he turned me down i'm moving on let's go connor let's go i think it would make a lot of sense i don't know if he would do it just, I mean, I know he has the built-in beef with Islam, but I also know that he is, to some level, friends with Penil Derayush. And so I don't know if he wants to step on that too much.

Whereas, look, if he does it, I'm cool with it. I think it might be a waste because Islam is not going to try to fight him. Islam, by all account, should try and push for a title fight, even if he's not going to get it. I hope he goes out and wins, and I want to see him fight Dustin Poyer because give me all of that. Give me all of that all day, every day for the rest of my life. That fight is a banger and I want to see that fight. So I didn't realize how much I wanted it until we were talking about it right now. But that's the fight I want for both of those two gentlemen.

So I hope he gets it done and tries to push for that because Porey probably takes it. Like he's not going to get the Nate fight because the UFC is refusing to do that for whatever reason. So RDA is a great fight. That's the fight I'd like to see. Nah, Dustin needs to fight, Nate. They need to keep pushing for the day. He's not going to. The UFC's not going to.

Eventually, eventually the UFC will break. If both him and Nate just keep holding out for that one particular fight and calling for it publicly and just drumming up interest in it publicly, eventually we will get some level of it. It's just, it's the negotiations. But at some point, it's going to happen. Maybe. Maybe indeed.

So we'll talk low-key bangers on the preview show. tomorrow but jad will start with you here outside of these two five rounders best fight on the card what's the one you have circled for saturday outside of the two main events um i don't i'm not going to we're doing loki bangers tomorrow so i guess i'll just go with the best one jalen turner jame malarkey um that's just that's going to be the most fun of the fights and maybe isn't the best even though i think both of them are actually really good prospects to the lightweight division um and probably top 30-ish or so lightweights. You know, the Edson Barbosa, Bryce Mitchell, that is a fight that matters substantially

more in a lot of ways. But Jalen Turner and Jamie Mularky are both really fun fighters. Their styles are going to match in a clash in a particularly interesting way for me, at least kind of from what I've seen. So it's the prelim main event for a reason, and that's probably the single fight I'm looking forward to the most outside of the main and co-made. What's your, Sean? What's the best fight on the card outside of the two five rounders, in your opinion?

I mean, Jed's out here talking about guys who are really fun fighters. You know, who else is a really fun fighter? Edson Barbosa and Bryce Mitchell, both of them are incredibly fun fighters. We haven't seen Bryce in forever, it feels like. It's like October 2020, if I'm not wrong. Like, it has been way too long since this guy was in here fighting it out and showing us what he's made of. And then Edson Barbosa is just a legend. Like, he's a beast, man.

like he is never an adult fight and he has actually looked surprisingly great at featherweight ever since he made the move down. I mean, he really should be three and one because I still scored the Danny Gay fight for him. But either way, I mean, that fight has banger written all over it. Stylistic matchup of Bryce is the grappler and Edson the striker. All of it, I love all of it. And I think there's a lot on the line for both men because Edson's in this sort of weird nebulous spot right now where he's what I think like four two and four over his last six. but he has looked really good in a lot of those fights, and it's one of those things where it's like,

how long are you going to be able to stick around among this group of really incredible contenders here at 145? And then Bryce, obviously, on the come-up, undefeated, at least professionally. He obviously lost the ultimate fighter, but undefeated professionally. I love it. I think all the storylines and the matchups,

the stakes, all of it for that one spells just a terrific, delightful entertainment fight for me. Plus, you know, Bryce with a hot mic, that's going to be a good time. Bryce with the hot mic, man. You never know. You never know what's coming out of that guy's mouth. Absolutely.

It's going to be a busy weekend. PFL just announced that the panel for the Challenger series tomorrow is Tyron Woodley, Vitor Belford, and Jarvis Landry. So for the low price of $64.99, you can get Fubu TV and watch this card because you only got the freebie for the first week, everybody. This is just a disaster. Pretty sure. Pretty sure it's Fubo, not the closing brand TV.

Also, Jarvis Landry? Yeah, Jarvis Landry. Real curve in there. Didn't expect to mention to him. Yep. I mean, welcome to BTL, everybody. But so much coverage and fun stuff heading your way over the next few days when it comes to UFC 272. So stay tuned for that.

Let's head to round four, ladies and gentlemen. The point for round three goes to. It goes to Sean Al-Shadi. It is two to one. Let's move on. We have exhausted UFC 272. More to discuss tomorrow. Let's talk UFC 273 quickly because a 15th fight, and I know that makes Jedmishu very happy,

is pretty much a done deal for April 9th. So not only do we get Volcanovsky Korean zombie for the Featherweight title, not only do we get Sterling versus Jan 2 for the Bannamway title, we are getting Gilbert Burns versus Hamzat Shemayef. Now, this fight was in the works for a bit. We've been telling you about it for months now. If you listen to the MAA, Arrows been spitting fire about this fight for like three months now. it did take a long time to get past the discussion phase.

Then it finally got to the offer stage. I'm told it was mid-February where the fight was officially offered. And then it was agreed. And then there was potential hold-ups with Shamiyev getting a visa. And that looks to have been cleared because he is in Las Vegas right now. And he's going to be spending some time with his coaches over at Extreme Coutor. So, I mean, to be in that room to watch Shamiyev and Sean Strickland get some rounds, that's going to be a hell of fun.

So Jed, we got this fight. Shemayev, you're very high in the sky. You've ranked him very high in the NBA fighting global rankings, getting Gilbert Burns, who fought for the title last year, your thoughts on the matchmaking and what this fight does to this card from a promotional standpoint. It's a bit curious. The matchmaking itself is not curious.

I think it makes all the sense in the world. Burns is ready to take this fight, and basically you match up Shemayev against the highest guy up the ladder you can, because if he gets the W, he is fighting for the belt, his next fight, there are no questions asked. If he goes out here and beats Gilbert Burns, whether he beats him be a decision or whether he does the same thing he's been doing

to everybody else, he is next up for Kamar Ustman unquestionably. So the matchmaking makes sense. And I guess the answer really is you just want to get it done as quickly as you possibly can so you can work on getting the Usman Chimae fight, should it happen, you can sort of book that for the summer. And so you're just putting it the quickest card you can.

but man uh 273 didn't need no help aside from the fifth i'm happy about it because i think you and i are going to be in attendance in jacksonville florida for this one so dope i'll get to talk to chimaev and explain to him that the rest of our staff are cowards you have him like sean al shoddy or whatever whereas i have him number two number two in the off the way ranks and so he's going to love me we're going to build a friendship a bond i'm going to be his you know his guy moving forward. It's going to be great for all of us as he gets the bell from the home to come to play this well plate you've ever seen. A lot of good things are going to happen there. So I'm all for it being on this card. But two 70s outside of it having 14 other

fights already, it's already, it's also just a really strong card. It's got two title fights on it. You don't need a third thing going on. You know, Dern Torres is like a really good fight. You've got some other good prospects. You got Giorzini or Rosenstrike showing up. Like, there's a lot going on this card. So it didn't need any extra juice. But we're going to be in attendance, so gas it up. Give me all the juice it can. I'm excited about it. This is going to be a great time. Let's go.

How about that? I guess some breaking news. But, Sean, what do you think? Shamiya Burns, we got it. What did it do to this card? Do you like the matchmaking now that we're eventually going to see that poster on the UFC's Twitter feed sooner rather than later? Probably

it'll be announced during the actual pay-per-view on Saturday would be my guess. I mean, I can't move past this scheme that Jed's going. I want to hear more about this elaborate scheme. He has to become friends with Hamzat Shamiyev and get in with this. This is much more interesting than whatever we're talking about. No, man, I mean... I'm driving the Chamaiochamai of train.

Been doing it since day one, baby. Get on board. You guys are going to be sending Christmas cards soon enough, man. I believe in you. Follow your dreams. Yeah, no, this fight is utterly spectacular. I cannot wait for this fight. This is probably one of my most anticipated fights of 2020 now at this point.

I've been waiting for it to actually get done. It was kind of stuck in pending for a really long time at this point. But finally got there. And man, this card, like we have been, I was going to say, like we've been starred for like a really good old-fashioned hyper-stacked pay-per-view. But that's not necessarily true. We had a really great run to end 2021. But God damn, is this card stacked?

Like, this is an utterly ridiculous set of fights just through and through. You could name probably what, like, eight, nine fights on this card that deserve to be on the pay-per-view. It's spectacular. I can't wait for it in the matchmaking itself, just with this one, is so good. Because for once the UFC is doing the right thing when it comes to fast-tracking someone, it seems like they fast-track the wrong people and they don't fast-track the people that they should be fast-tracking.

This one is absolutely the right call. Like Hamzat Shemayev looks like a guy who might win the belt right now. Everything we've seen from him shows that he might be that guy who's already in contendant. of these Gilbert Burns, Colby Coventon types. So the fact that he's already getting here and getting this opportunity this quickly, I love it, I can't wait for it. And just, man, this is going to be so good.

This whole card, Volcanovsky, zombie, Sterling, Jan, finally getting resolution, Gasolum, Imanov, which is great, Dern Torres, Aldana Lad, Yerzina Rosenstruck, Tybura. I mean, come on, man, there's, I could keep going. Like, there's so much on this card. It's ridiculous, and I cannot wait for,

what is it, April 9th. Like, I cannot wait for April 9th to come. can't come suited up. AK's favorite fighter. Chris Curtis, also on the card against Strickus, DuPasci. That should be a good fight as well. One last thing about this.

Shod, Jed said, if Shamiyf wins unquestionably, he's next for Kamar Usman. So that needs to be to think. So if you're Leon Edwards and his team right now, are you the biggest Gilbert Burns fan on planet Earth right now? Or do you think Leon's going to get the title fight next and then Shamiah will get the winner?

No, I would actually be surprised if that fight isn't already announced by the time we get to April 9th. I mean, that seems to be the plan. It's been the plan for a while now. I would expect if Hamzat does win, then they will book the Ustman fight for probably like, you know, third quarter, fourth quarter of the year, something like that. Like, it feels like the Leon fight is already kind of set in stone and they're just waiting for Usman to get fully healthy. And there's still a pretty healthy distance between now and UFC 273. So, no, I wouldn't be worried if I'm Leon Edwards. but again, he's Leon Edwards.

Like if yours anybody who should be worried about anything ever like this, it's Leon F and Edwards. Like that dude is the most snake-bitten human being that I've ever seen in this sport right now. So, I mean, nothing is ever safe when it comes to Leon. Bad luck just seems to follow him. But I think this time he's going to be okay.

But you never say never with that guy. What do you think, Jed? Do you agree with Sean? Or do you think that if Shemayev just goes out there and smushes Gilbert Burns like he's done to everybody else, the UFC just calls an audible and says Leon, I know you've been through this a lot, buddy, but you're getting leaped over again.

Mike, we work together for a while now. What have I always said about Leon Edwards from basically day one? Nobody cares about him other than his immediate family members and even those I'm not all the way certain on. No one cares. I would like to in my heart of heart believes

that Sean Ashadi is right and that that fight will be announced before April 9th. But April 9th is not that far away, man. It is a month. And if that fight is not announced in the next couple of weeks, if I'm Leon Edwards, I am paying somebody to Nancy Kerrigan Hamzaa Hamzaa Chimaya. Like, that's it. Because if Chimaiv goes out...

You got to pay that person quite a bit. That is a balsy-bosid thing to try to do that, man. You don't have the Nancy Kerrigan him, but like spike his water or something. Make sure he blows weight. You got to do something. So, yeah, you don't want an answer to carry. That would be a really bad idea. But you got to do something to prevent him from going out and doing his thing.

Because if that fight is not announced, if Usman Edwards, too, is not announced by April 9th. And Chameh goes out there and does the same thing he's been doing. It's a rap, baby. I don't care about Leon's meritocracy or whatever. He's not getting the fight. Like if Chameh first round whoops up burns, that's done. We're just booking that. moving ahead and Leon can maybe get maybe get next up but it's he he needs to close that deal

however he can I don't know if he needs to give Kamara a call and be like hey man can you just tell the UFC I would like we want to book this right now because even then I'm not certain like even if that card gets on the books and then Shemaya goes and blows up the world they might still just bait and switch him because no one cares about Leon Edwards ain't nobody going to be sad if he gets passed over for a title shot again, except for Leon Edwards. And at this point, it's kind of almost a fun gimmick to be the guy who is infinitely passed over for title shots. It's probably not fun for him, but I certainly get a chuckle out of it every time. So that's good because I don't get a chuckle out of watching him fight usually. So, you know, silver linings, Mike.

Wow. But listen, it's a great fight. This card is really, really good. I'm excited for it. we'll see walterweight uh welterweight could get very very interesting come april 10th but uh now we got to give out the last point of regulation the point for round four goes to it's hard to argue the passion of jed meshoo it really is so he gets the point it is two to two and i mean a historical moment on this program no one saw this coming but there's only one way this matchup between these titans of industry can go and that is to the knocker round i had no idea what i was going to do halfway through the show. I was like, man, I should have like made one of these combined questions like its own question and used one of these as the knockout round question. So I'm going to kind of wing this thing. But each competitor is going to have one minute to answer the question

and then we're going to turn it over to the people. And after the people decide, E. Casey Lyden will come on, read the decision. And between him and the combination of the peeps, we will have a champion. So Jed, champions, prerogative, you are the man with the title on the mantle. What do you want to do? You want to go first? And you want to pass it on over to the other side, Sean Lshadde. I will exercise the champion's prerogative. I will take second. Okay. We head on over to Sean Al Shadi. And again, I'm kind of winging this thing,

but here we go, because we got some, we got some interesting news. It appears that Kayla Harrison, after all, likely to return to the PFL after they reportedly matched the offer that Bellator presented her. Now, this isn't a done deal yet. PFL seems confident. Who knows, maybe Bellator will back the Brinks truck up, which they should have done in the freaking first place, but that's neither here nor there, but still a little fluid at the moment.

But let's just say, Sean, this is what happens. She goes back to the PFL. Now what? Because a lot of us have sat here and said, get that money, Kayla, get it now, but what does this do for her legacy? How can PFL capitalize on this? What can they do to keep her for more than a season?

Is this going to be one of those? Sean, that when we look back to the year 2022, that we wonder, I wish this would have gone differently and Kayla fought somebody else. A lot to unpack here, Sean, but one minute on the clock, Kayla Harrison, possibly going back to the PFL. Let's say she does go back to the PFL. Now what? Your time starts now. Well, it's a bummer, first of all. I mean, it just is. I mean, the best fight for her outside of the UFC, and it feels like the UFC wasn't in much of these discussions. It feels like the UFC wasn't really that much of an option. The best fight for her would have been cyborg.

That would have been the most interesting fight by far that you could really matchmake for her outside of like an Amanda Nunes or something like that. So it's a bummer that we're not going to get that because even yesterday we saw them going back and forth of each other and there seems to be heat there. And it would have just been fun. It would have been fun to see her tested in that way. But Kayla Harrison has the best job in all of MMA if we're being honest. Like she's going to go out there.

She's going to just utterly destroy an outclass, a bunch of different women who are not at her level. And she's going to make another easy million dollars. and then she might be back in this spot, depending on the length of the deal, by the end of next year or by the end of the year after that, maybe she's won another million already at that point. Like, she has the best gig in MMA.

It's going to continue to be the best gig in MMA. There's no one there that's going to challenge Kayla Harrison, like in the PFL. Like, she is going to continue to do exactly what she's doing. And then maybe we'll be back in this spot because she has time. It's not like this is the end of her career. This is the last window for her. In a year, two years from now, she'll be better than she is right now.

Maybe we can go through the song and dance again and maybe we'll actually get the outcome we won. All right. We heard from the challenger. We go to the champion Jedmishu. Kayla Harrison, Jedd, looks to be heading back to the PFL. Not a done deal yet, not 100%. She's still tweeting tweets of frustration,

even after Arrow reported that. But let's say this is exactly what happens. What does this mean? How can this be maximized? So as fight fans, we don't look back and think, man, I wish this didn't happen. She went here or there. Timing and all, one minute on the clock and go.

Mike, we've talked about this for a while now. We both thought that this was what was going to happen. And frankly, I think this is the best case scenario. I think this is what we should all want. Because Sean's right. Chris Cyborg is the best fight outside of the UFC for her. The second best fight is Julia Budd, who is currently in the PFL. So we can just knock that one out, get that fight done.

It's a great fight. It matters. And we can let this cyborg fight build for another year. Because Kayla gets to fight one more year, pick up the mill, and then put even more heat on that cyborg fight. fights, when the fights get to stew proper, it just makes a really tasty dish when we finally get it. And this is no risk of losing. Like, we're not going to lose this because neither Kayla nor Cyber were going to lose it.

If I'm the PFL, you do the budfight and then you don't even care about the tournament because it doesn't matter. We've talked about it before. Have fun. Do a one-night tournament where she takes on Queen of the Hill, takes three people on. Put a bounty on her that progressively gets higher. Every month she's fighting. maximize her usage. Let's have fun because there's no point in the tournament with her anymore,

but you can do a lot of great things if you've got some creativity. I thought for sure one of you is going to say, hey, Chris Cyborg's got one fight left in her Bellator deal. PFL maybe brings Chris Cyborg over and we do it there. But it could happen. It is MMA after all and it is a tricky thing. So we're going to let the votes pile up here. And a little programming note tomorrow,

weigh-in show. Get excited. Right around noon east to go a little bit before that. All the drama on the scales. UFC 272. It'll all unfold.

AK's Christmas. AK's holiday, his birthday, everything. He puts it all into these way-in shows. So get excited for that. Then we'll have your ceremonial weigh-ins. And we'll have a live preview show after that.

After all the chaos ensues, we'll be back to react to it. It break down this card from start to finish. Talk about the main event, the ins and outs. Saturday, people's pre-fight show. I believe we're going at 5.15 Eastern. All I'm going to say is because you never know what's going to happen,

45 minutes before the first fight starts. So if we lose the fight, 45 minutes before the first card, Jed and I will be doing the prelim pregame 9 p.m. Eastern on Twitter Spaces. So get excited for that. We'll watch the last two prelims before we get into this main card. That will have the press conference. Casey and I will chat back and forth while we wait 25 minutes for each fighter and individual to get on stage.

After that, sometime around 3.30 in the morning, live post fight show. And then AK and I will be back. Sunday morning, 11 a.m. Eastern for some matchmaking discussions right here where you're watching this right now, onto the next one live on the M.A. Fighting YouTube channel. So now that I have given the people enough time to tally their votes, let us turn it on over to the man in the corner. There he is. The sleeveless, guns out, guns out himself. E. Casey Leiden, who's got a big fight coming up himself. Yeah.

And right around a little over two weeks from right now. So he's getting ready to rock. But right now we get it, we know, we know, you're going to win your fight, but the real question is who won this one? Who won this virtual battle? Is it the champion Jed Mishu, or is he now the former champion because he's passing that damn belt over to Sean Al Shadi? The people have spoken, and your winner is... Wow, no drama here. With 53% of the votes. And still, Jed Mishot. Red Mishu, the people have spoken. Fifty-three percent. He gets it done. Wow, what a battle.

Tremendous. Just a tremendous battle. Wow. I could, I mean, literally, like how Hapio Los Angeles felt on the MMA hour, you are the exact opposite after that decision is read, like literally the exact opposite. So Jed Mishu, first off, before I give you your 30 seconds, now that you have an official title defense in the bag, does it feel more real? Does it feel more real?

You know, it's felt real for probably the last. two weeks. We could have done this the other week. Just I wanted to give Phoenix every opportunity. She's got some personal stuff going on. Absolutely no, no shame to her. She's still undefeated, even if maybe she should have lost AK. Whenever she's ready, she can come get a shot at the strap. I'll be here because, you know, I'm not losing it. So, you know, I'm happy to be the champ and hold it down because you got to fight. You got to be a fighting champion. And unfortunately, and Phoenix has not been able to do that. All right.

Well, now you get your 30 seconds, my man. I don't know if that was your 30 seconds, or what do you want to say? Good, bad, and different MMA. Go for it. I will just say that it's rare, that in any sport, much less in the mixed-up world

of mixed martial arts, that the people's champ is the same as the actual champ. And so that's what I love about between the links is that I can be both the BTL champ and I'm the people's champ because the people, you find folks watching

determine the outcome here come back next week when I'm going to beat up on some other poor schmuck and let's keep this right where it belongs right here Sean great great battle but the people don't love you

like they love me your response Sean I mean I don't really have much of a response I guess I just got called the poor schmuck so I'm letting that sit in that's a nice one to let's settle in on my day off yeah no I don't know I'm like two and two against you now, Jed.

I feel like that's fine. We're going to game five. This is not over. I'll be back. That's better than a lot of people. Jose Young's is like one and 13 or something treacherously bad. So you're doing better than your fellow Arizona. Arizona team.

I'm not sure the word. That's Arizona. It's Arizona. Yeah, you're doing better than him. So great, great effort. Oh, thanks. Maybe you're the Prince of positivity now, Jed. Maybe you're the Prince of positivity.

A.Ks made a heel turn. We need a new positive person on staff. Well, maybe it could be you. Who would have thunk it? This is like Taitu of Vasa being a top five heavyweight in the world. Two years ago, no way that you could just... This man just eviscerated Leon Edwards. For no actual reason, like he got really weirdly personal with Leon Edwards.

He cannot be the Prince of Positiveity. Like, that is not allowed. I'm disallowing that right now. I'm very positive about most people, just not. Leon Edwards, Michael Chandler, Steve. Femiochich, and I feel like there's one other person that I routinely bag on, but those three pretty much catch the hands. Otherwise, very positive person, Sean. Oh, Andre Austin is a dead away in the world. Oh, stop it, stop it. This is positively a great

episode and we got to end it. Otherwise, we're going to be here for 30 minutes just talking about nothing. So until that, everybody, we'll see you next week. Lots of UFC 272 coverage coming your way. So get excited for Jed, for Sean. I am Mike Heck. You appreciate you very much. If you missed all the show live, catch the replay, catch us on the M.A. Fighting Podcasting Network.

We are out of here. Casey Liden, take us home. Maybe we get the iconic voice of Esther Lynn. Good night, everybody. You sure do. This is Esther Lynn, and our big congratulations to the champion,

Chad Mashu. Thanks, Esther. I love you. Hi, Master. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.