MMA Fighting - BTL | Dan Hooker RIPS UFC, de Ridder vs. Whittaker Fallout, Herzog's Non-Stoppage, UFC Vegas 108

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

Reinier de Ridder and Robert Whittaker are now heading in two very different directions in the UFC's middleweight division following de Ridder's split decision win in the main event of UFC Abu Dhabi this past Saturday. Is de Ridder now in line to fight for the UFC title, and is Whittaker out of the championship picture at 185 for good? On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel reacts to this past weekend's headliner and what could be next for both de Ridder and Whittaker in the fallout. Additionally, topics include referes Jason Herzog's non-stoppage in the controversial Steven Nguyen vs. Mohammad Yahya fight at UFC Abu Dhabi, the UFC's return to the APEX this Saturday for UFC Vegas 108 headlined by Tatsuro Taira vs. Hyun Sung Park, news and notes for this past week including Aaron Pico's new matchup against Lerone Murphy at UFC 319, Dan Hooker ripping the UFC over tickets, Tom Aspinall taking shots at Michael Chandler, and more. Host Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew and José Youngs. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@m_heckjr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@JedKMeshew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs ⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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When I got a great deal on a great gift at Winners, I started wondering, could I get fabulous gifts for everyone on my list? Like this designer fragrance for my daughter. At just $39.99, how could I resist? This luxurious wool throw for my sister. This gold watch for my partner? A wooden puzzle for my niece? Leather gloves for my boss? Ooh, European chocolate for the crossing guard?

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We are back and happy Thursday to us all. A lot to discuss today. We were supposed to have some more MMA fighting family competition. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Jose Young's was scheduled to make his return, but for some reason, his water pipes decided, F that, not happening today. So his kitchen at his apartment in New York City is underwater right now. So he's got a plumber coming right as the show was starting.

He was going to have to take some time away to let the plumber know what was happening, all that stuff. So it would have been weird and random if that had happened. So Jose's going to be back on next week, which means we're going to do a little Q&A this week. And joining me to answer your incredible questions, let us say hello to Mr. No Gray Area, the hot take kid himself, the climber of climbers, although he's more limping his way up the mountain these days, but he's still ascending. He's still moving forward. He's back for vacation, the one and only Jedmishu from MnbaniFut.com with a fresh new haircut.

Hey, buddy. You know, after the devastation that was falling off the mountain, we decided to change the look, right? Just cut it off. Let's go playoff season. Now we're not cutting the hair until we climb the mountain. Don't hold me to that. We'll see how that goes. Good to be back, you know.

Had a much needed vacation, feeling refreshed. I missed out on some stuff. I did watch the main event in a couple of other fights. from last week so we can talk all about Abu Dhabi and my big beautiful violence goofball. And right, just happy to be back, guys. Let's have some fun. Yes, it's great to have you back. Casey is here as well on the ones and twos.

He was preparing for some more production, I guess, like the infighting, but now he's here to join in on the conversation. Where is he? Are there sleeves? Are there no sleeves? No sleeves. Hello, Casey. Hi, hi, everyone.

How are we doing here? Good to be here. Doing fine. Nice, nice Thursday morning. Beautiful Southern California where the weather is always beautiful. So yeah, having great time. Sounds terrible. Yeah, always nice weather. Who wants that? Yeah, I had to, I had to wear like a hoodie last night. I was like, ooh, it's kind of chilly tonight. Yeah.

I'm so sorry for the struggles you have to go through Casey. Yeah. It's like a billion degrees here and has been for like a week and a half, but, But luckily we're going to actually not as bad here. Last week in the hills of Alabama, who boy, was it hot? But you know, it's okay here. Yeah. It's a little less steamy. It was like, it's going to be like 97 today with like a, I think a heat index of a 114.

It's toast. But we just got to get someone who grew up in the low country. That's still quite warm. That's. Yes. That's tough. Yeah. Yeah.

Tough. Jed, while you're here, you mentioned your violence, son, one of your favorites, Ryanier-Daritter. And it was good to, because we're going to do you versus Jose. And it's always nice to have some MMA fighting versus MMA fighting competition coming off of an event where neither of you guys were actually covering the event. Like, Jose didn't cover it. Oh, yeah, that's right. It's nice to get some like fresh perspectives on things. But at least you're here.

And I'm glad you're here because Ryanier-Dirritter, one of your favorites. favorites, beats Robert Whitaker, very close fight, a very fun fight. Both guys are hurt. Both guys are nearly finished in the fight. And RDR gets the sputty. He's a serious player at 185 pounds. The man did it. And now we are closer than ever, at least in this wild universe of ours, in this middleweighty, middleweight universe. We are so close to RDR versus DDP, Jed. the fight that you have put out into the universe. I know there's others out there that are taking credit for this. No, they came late to the party.

It's like this idea just came to them. Oh, yeah, I'm brilliant. No, no, no, no. This has been you for like a year. This has been you. No over a year. It's DDP made his debut and beat Gerald Mershardt. We were on this road to RDR versus DDP

and the fun violence that it could give to fans around the world. and now Jed, we are one step closer. Your reaction to what RDR did on Saturday, the scoring of the fight, and how close are we to the stream matchup? Look, I'm trying to gatekeep stuff because, like, there are a lot of people with a lot of takes out there, you know, like,

people believe all sorts of things. And so I'm rarely going to be like, I was the first person on this island or this corner. Like, I did it with Juliana Pena, upsetting Manez, because I literally did. not see another human being alive, pick that one. And I'm going to do like, this is me, guy.

Like, I'm happy that everyone has come to this party. But both of these two bozos, I have been, I want to say, the earliest adopter of both DDP and RDR. I know for a fact, I was the earliest adopter of RDR because I'm literally the reason he started getting ranked in our rankings. So these are, these are my two. two, you know, medium-sized violent sons. And I want, like, it's not close.

There is no fight I want more in the sport. You know, we could talk DDP, Yeri. Like, that gets me excited. But there is no, like, you could give me a time machine and infinite money and be like, Jed, do you want to see John Jones versus Francis and Gano at their peak? Do you want to go back in fantasy matchmake GSP Anderson Silva or Fador versus Brock.

Nah, give me DDPRDR. It is the fight I'm like a 100% when this happens, I will go. I don't care where it is. Jose can take that week off. I'm flying to Timbuck 2 if that's where they're putting this damn thing because I must be in attendance. I cannot.

And I think I know how that fight's going to go, but I cannot wait. It is the best. It's just my favorite thing that is happening, these two dudes, so goofy and so good at fist fighting. Like it, I love it so much. DDP, like Casey knows this.

We've talked about it on shows. Like, I love the DDP looks like he doesn't know how to fight. It makes me so happy. And RDR actually like looks kind of like he knows how to fight, but he looks like he's the least athletic person, maybe to walk the face of the earth. And yet he is out there just knee and Robert Whitaker in the guts and beating him. and beating him up.

I did not watch the fight live. I was, we don't need to talk about what I was doing. I didn't watch it live, but I caught about an hour later. I went back and caught a replay of it. And then I've watched it again. You know,

if you want to score it for Whitaker, I think that's not unreasonable. I had a 3-2 RDR. I thought it was pretty straightforward, right? Like Whitaker was pretty, like would have gotten a 10-8 in the round that he almost killed RDR, but for the fact that he lost like,

four of the five minutes pretty convincingly and then he just like he was hurt immediately before he just kind of winged a hope and a prayer and it clubbed rdr and nearly killed him and so like i thought that was a pretty clear 10-9 to me and uh you know just a straightforward three two rdr get it done you know advance and move on and you know i i listened to on to the next one i listened to the post show i think you might be right in that we might that we may not be going RDR DDP. I can't be objective about this, Mike. That's the fight to make next.

Like assuming if DDP loses to Hamzaa, which he won't, then we're no, no questions asked. A thousand percent, that's the fight that you make. When DDP wins, still just think you make that fight. Do Kyle Barrello and Nassarini Neumov, does the winner of that deserve it more? Sure, do I care? Not at all.

Like, we got to do this. Give the people what they want. And the thing, you know, circle this all the way back to where I started, Mike. Because the thing that made me the happiest on Saturday as I am going through social media, watching the fight, et cetera, everybody's on board. Like, I believe I started it, but man, the community is really, really on board to watch these two goofballs go do violence to each other. And we should give the community what do you want.

Let's do it. I love it. I would love to see this next. I just don't know if we're going to get it. But I do think... Kind of thing DDP wants it. He might. And, you know, RDR is saying like the right things.

He's got like such a dry sense of humor, kind of like DDP, but DDP's just way colder with the things that he says. Like they're both just low-key, terrific promoters. There's two Dutch weirdos. It's best.

It's very fun. I actually. think the biggest losers on Saturday, they're not even Robert Whitaker. I think it's Kyle Bahalio and Naserdine Imovov. I think they needed Robert Whitaker to win that fight and just knock RDR out of the conversation and that it was a clear path for them.

Because here's what I think the UFC is going to do upon reflection what we've seen over the past few days. There is probably, I mean, there's obviously a way better case for Bahalio or Imov, whoever wins that fight to get the next title shot. And a meritocratic universe in the Bellator, world that we once lived in would get would get it paul costa if hamzaa shimai if wins the belt there is a very real world where they'll just go to the paulocosta fight because there's such

heat there and it makes absolutely no sense it's absolutely ridiculous but they might the ufc might just do rdr versus costa next and then the winner would just leapfrog one of those two dudes because rd rd rdr'll be costa and that'll be dope yeah because no one like there is there is outside of maybe Casey because he is he's been the driver of the nassadine imovov train for quite some time it's very good if imov beats kailio but that ddp goes out and or rdir goes out and finish as polo costa there is no chance that nassadine imov is getting a title fight over rdr just no chance zero in in today's ufc if imov just like obliterates bahalio i'm open to it because like at that point It's just everyone should want him to do it.

Like he is the most deserving contender right now. He's frankly more deserving than Hamzot is. But like they were never going to do that. And that's fair. If you all blows up Bahia, then they should just do that. But I don't, I don't care about what is fair or just.

I just want to see these two bozos fight. And the last two dudes who have beaten Robert Whitaker have gotten title shots. Let's make it three for three. And all of the, and look, if Hamzot wins, again, he's not gonna. But if he does, problem solved. Like there's, if he does and you don't book these two in a five-round main event somewhere,

you, it is promotional malpractice and I will be writing a strongly worded letter. But you should still do it when DDP wins because it will be by far the most fun any of us will ever have. God, the argument for an immediate rematch. If Hamzat wins the belt, off the charts. it depends on how he does it though because like I think most people and a lot of fighters have come out with his take think that if Hamzot's going to win

he's going to Robert Whitaker and he's going to blow him up in the first seven minutes or whatever take the back choke him out whatever it is if he does that that's a really hard sell for an immediate rematch if he wins like if Hamzot wins like a nip tuck affair that comes down to the fifth then they'll probably do an immediate rematch

is there any chance you think they could do DDP versus RDR with DDP losing? Like they should 100% do that if DDP loses. It's five round main event somewhere. Win or lose, you think. Win or lose, I would make that fight next.

That's what I'm saying. Win or lose, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Unless I guess the PDP gets. Lose, I think is much like if DDP loses,

I think it's much more actually likely. I think I side with y'all and think that like it's, he's probably not getting the next title fight. I wouldn't say never. And I wouldn't say it's a zero percenter. Because I do kind of think that the next middleweight challenger is going to be a, hey, who says yes at this time? Right? And so, yeah.

And I think RDR will say yes. Like, I don't think he's going to be like, he seems to be a dude. He's like, yeah, cool. As long as he can make the weight and it's not like next week or whatever because he's a huge dude. So I think that it's not 0%. But if DDP loses, I don't know why you would book any other fight beside this one. it would be ludicrous to do so. The biggest problem, though, unfortunately,

for the title picture and for Imovov and Bahaglio, is that neither of these guys are very active fighters. Like, DDP fights like once, maybe twice a year. Hamzat fights once a year, if we're lucky, if we get them once every two years, just based on what he's had to do over the past like four or five years. Like, that's a blessing for Hamzaat Shemaya fans. So the more time between the,

Because this title fight is happening in like two and a half weeks. And then it's going to be over. And then we're going to get to Paris. And then we still plenty of time for them to do RDR versus Kosser or something. And it's just going to be like who left the better lasting impression is going to get the title shot. So got to be interesting. It sucks for Fluffy. Oh, yeah.

It's just not really, not really in this conversation. It's pretty tough. If they booked Fluffy RDR, I would be livid because Fluffy's going to. beat him. And then she's like, what are we doing, guys? That's why I'm,

I'm trying to get the outcomes I want, not the deserve it outcomes. Yeah. Fluffy's got, Fluffy's at a tough spot because he, you think he's the best contender right now? Sorry, you think Fluffy's the number one contender?

I think Fluffy probably is the best middleweight contender right now. I wouldn't bet my life on it, but he's middleweight mara. That's just like, that's a really tough goddamn thing to beat. It seems to be the formula. Like, there is,

like if Hamzaw, he should do everything he can to not fight Fluffy. Like he should, I can't, I genuinely cannot imagine a worse fight for him than Fluffy. Because if he doesn't finish him in five minutes, which seems pretty unlikely, uh,

he is going to be drowned in the, not even deep waters. Fluffy will take him to like the middle end of the pool and drown his ass. He won't even have to take him out into the ocean. Is there anyway? Fluffy is, that's a cheat code to just have infinite cardio. Do you,

do you think, is Homsa ever going to move past that like he just fades kind of storyline because I mean I I think Mike going into the Whitaker fight that's what we kind of the assumption was that the later the fight goes Whitaker should get stronger and

RDR should start fading and it was RDR that kind of looked good toward the end so I'm kind of wondering do you think that he just has to do it right like most of his fights he just doesn't he's not there And so it's just like, how can we say that his cardio holds up? He blew up what occurred in four minutes, you know?

Maybe he has it in him. I would be surprised if he can, like, if he has that in him. Just the manner in which he fights is so much output that it would be, like, if he could somehow do it, that's great. And then God help anyone fighting him. But until we see it, we have seen him drop off. Not like die. It's not like he fell off like. who's that dude who just sucked in the third round oh god it's gonna drive me crazy little like

lightweight dude who i would used to live bet against every first round you'd win you're talking about macuan amirconi macuan amirconi exactly that dude like he's not macuan amir canny who just falls over and dies but like because you know he's still i think he won the third round against gilbert burns or whatever but like he absolutely drops off because or has and so if he doesn't he doesn't We're going to find out in three weeks or whatever if DDP can survive 10 minutes with him. We'll see how that goes. Yeah.

And here's the thing. We've seen RDR in five round fights. And we've seen him gas badly in five round fights. That was like one of the big questions. One. Oh, RDR. Sorry. Not DDP.

RDR. I was like, DDP doesn't gas. He just breathes through his mouth. He just looks tired but continues to fight at the exact same thing. I was saying he got that Pantosia thing. Pantoja looks kind of exhausted. Looks higher, but just keeps going.

Yeah, he just keeps going. Plus, that was before DDP got the nose job anyway. So now he's all, nose job DDP, unstoppable. This is true. Middleweight's fun. Middleweight is fun. God, it is so fun.

It's just wild as a hums that because. Best. Like, for the Homsat, like at 185, are we really basing all this cardio issues at 185 just with the Usman fight? I mean, yes. And, well, it's just, it's not at 185. It's just historically the two fights he's gone long, has not, he has not looked amazing in the later rounds. Yeah.

Some carryover from Walter Wade. Yeah. I just, I'm trying. I think Walter White is just so different. But we'll see. We'll see. I mean, it's also just like, if he fights so little, it's so hard to tell. Yeah.

It's hard to tell. But just straight up. It's like, I don't believe he can keep that pace because no one should physically. basically be able to like he he throw like he comes out so aggressively just like everybody like anybody at the gym who did they like cool you're going to win the first four training rounds and then you're just going to be dead for the next hour of the session again it is hard to believe maybe he can do it some people are freaks like that but yeah i we've yet to see it so it's hard to believe it can't wait for that fight we still get izzie in there somewhere too is he

Is he booked? I forget. He's not booked for right? No. No. There's a lot of talk of him in Strickland, but that was before Strickland got susied. Yeah. I don't.

I mean, we can still get it. I don't know. It doesn't seem like, I don't know if Izzy's in any rush to fight. Yeah. Okay. Izzy's in that kind of. Izzy versus R. God, that would be funny shit.

Yeah. I think R. D.R. just smoke him. Yeah, he would, which is why I'd be hilarious. Because Izzy's like, is he's like one of the most technically skilled fighters of all time. That's why he's such a good clash.

He's just getting cooked by like big, big bozos. This is big dumb bozos. Like him talking about the DDP fight is one of the funniest things I've seen in years. Him talking to Robert Whitaker and they're both like, he's not good. This is almost a direct quote from them. It's like he doesn't do anything like anybody would tell you how to do it. but then suddenly he suddenly i was almost unconscious and he was choking me out like it's it's super weird they like they genuinely could not like to fight geniuses could not wrap their heads

around drickus two plus he been like i don't understand him but he beat my ass and it is it was so fucking funny to me and the same shit would happen with r d r be like that's the least athletic man have ever fought. And then somehow he put six knees into my stomach. And that sucked a lot. And then he hit an inside trip and all of a sudden I was choked out. It's just, it's the best. I love them so much.

A guys like DDP must look, must look horrible in the gym and going, if you're just watching on the sides, watching new rounds in a gym, they're like, oh, that guy looks, you look okay. Yeah, they're like, he's a pro fighter, but you don't go. I don't assume he loses gym sessions constantly. Yeah, that's, yeah, he just wants. of those guys but he just but in game day he just shows up and that's such a that's such a wild wildly important thing in this sport the guys that just can always show up on game day it's it's

you can't train that that's just you just got it or you don't i don't know yeah the inverse josh thompson is the best like i i love them both so much all right what are the peeps talking about all right do the peeps uh more by the way well kie search for the question. Probably should have mentioned this top of the show. This new Eastern Star Time, this is the new Star Time

of BTL moving forward. Terrific. Very important. We're not doing the 1230 thing anymore. It is a new and Eastern every Thursday we will be here. Okay. Haza.

What do they think of this week being? I don't know what that means. I think number six, Tetsuro, Tira. But that's the UFC rankings that don't count. Yeah, that's why I didn't recognize. Where do we have?

He's number nine. He's nine in our rankings. That feels a little touch low. Let me go pull up our rankings. Please continue with reading the question. Yes. Get you and your crew to the big shows with Go Transit. Go connects to all the main concert venues like TD Coliseum in Hamilton and Scotia Bank Arena in Toronto.

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is available now on Spotify. What do I think of this week being Tyra versus Sung-Hung Park? Did the UFC do the best they could knowing that Amir al-Bazi was pulled on Saturday and we know Monday? So I'll add a little caveat to this. I can't, you know, hashtag journalism. I can't reveal all.

But here's what I could tell you. The UFC had other options to headline on Saturday. You may have seen a screenshot on social media circulating from an Instagram story involving Waldo Cortez-A-Costa, who is currently slated to fight Sergey Pavlovich on August 2030, UFC Shanghai. there were serious talks about having Waldo Cortez Acosta headline this Saturday. I know who was offered. I am not a liberty to say who he was offered. It was not Sergey Pavlovich, that I can tell you. But he said yes.

Was his name rhyme with John Paspinall? That would be incredible. What an apex main event that would be. No, we're not going to play the rhyming game because eventually you'll land on it is only 18 heavyweights in the UFC and it wouldn't take long to get there. WCA said yes, seemed like that was the direction they were going. And then on Sunday,

the opponent and his team, at least from what I am told, said no can do, sorry, just not happening. So WCA moves back to Shanghai. The fight with Sergey Pavlovich remains intact. So the UFC ended up going with Tyra versus Sung-Hung Park,

who's very, very fun. But Sung-Hion-Par are supposed to fight, Steve Ursaig, and based on ranking and numbers and all of that, that fight probably made a little bit more meritocratic sense and said Steve Erseg is fighting O'Day Osborne, who is not ranked, and Sung-Hung Park,

who has a little bit more momentum than O'Day Osborne does, gets bumped up to this main event. So, Jed, your reaction to this new main event, did the UFC do the best they could knowing that Albaazi, who was not medically cleared and found out pretty short notice on Friday, as a matter of fact,

do they do the best they could? here. I actually think this full marks from them. This is really good. It's not good in the terms of like they should have done Steve Ursaig like from as you said meritocratically. It kind of would make more sense. But the reality is it doesn't matter like this isn't selling pay-per-views anyway.

You know, people aren't tuning in for whoever's fighting this. Nobody knows that's Tu or Tyra. You know, they're tuning in for the UFC. This is a throwaway card for them. It's an Apex card and i think that this is a better result like steve ursegg he could win this fight he could be tutsu retire he absolutely could he also could lose and then you've got a guy who's on a three fight skid right or would it be four at that point i can't remember what's steve doing these days where's old stevie b at hold three right now because moreno he's at three yeah so vincenzo would be on a four fighter if he if he dropped it tyra um

We don't want that. You know, like, he's a fun dude, good fighter. Should probably not just kind of burn him out, just throwing him up against the very best guys in the weight class. Yeah, maybe he could win, and that'd be great for him. But I think Odey Osborne for Ersag makes a lot more sense. Fight backwards. I think Osborne is coming off a win if memory serves, but I don't remember who. But like before that, he was on like a bit of a losing streak.

And so this is sort of a necessary step back for Steve. and Youngtung Park is really, really good. I am picking Tatsu Rotaura, not to, you know, spoiled the preview show or whatever, because I've believed in Tatsu Rotaire for quite some time, and I think that he is one of the futures of this weight class, and he's just beaten better competition, fought better competition.

But absolutely, Hung-Sung-Park has a real opportunity to win this fight. He is very talented coming off-road to UFC. and I just think the fight's a banger. Like I think that this fight is better than the Erseg fight would be. And so this would not have been what I thought they'd do. Like if you told me, hey, Al-Bazi's out, I would have thought they'll go Ur-Segg and they'll get, you know, Hengeng Park, somebody else, whoever that ends up being. But I really like the direction they took it.

And I'm frankly looking forward to the Saturday's main event. It's not going to blow anybody's doors off. We don't have to pretend that, but I'm, I am very interested in it. Maybe some Brennan Allen, Chris Curtis vibes here, just a low-key, under the radar, slobber knocker. Plus, this is, it's staying five, right? It's staying five. Is that, is this correct?

Yeah, it's fine. Yeah. So, like, Hyeongsung Park has been training for a three-rounder or whatever. Now he gets to bump in. He gets an extra 10 minutes. Maybe you won't need it, but, like, I just really like this. I think they did a great job here. Yeah.

It's probably the more fun outcome, if we're being honest. Almost certainly the more fun. Because the Erseg fight is desert. Can Erseg prevent him from taking him down? Maybe he can. I would actually, I would pretty strongly favor Tyre in that fight. And again, I'm still picking him to beat Hung Song Park. But Park has been a fair defensive wrestler.

He hasn't faced a ton of it. I think statistically he's 100%, but that's a bit untrue. if you actually watch the fights he's he spent plenty of time on his back but uh he's a crisper striker pretty solid pretty fast hands i just i think it's a great fight i'm really excited for it all right don't skip like a family outing for this card don't don't please don't mistake me carrying water for the ufc here i like this card i'm happy to work saturday and see not i like this card.

I like this fight. I'm happy to watch this fight. But if you've got other plans, go ahead and do those. Apple picking? Apple picking. I mean, I don't know if it's Apple season. I think we're still the tail into strawberry season right now. Pumpkins coming right down the line.

You know, we're not there yet, but you can go hit up the pumpkin patch pretty soon. Go to a lake. You know, it's got a lot of things to do here. Look, it's Saturday, I believe, though I haven't been doing this in some time, I think school starts next week. So if you just got to take the kids and do some back-to-school shopping, go for it. Yeah, falling week for mine. But yeah, coming quick.

I think August 11th, back to school. Jesus Christ. All right. Thank you, Mr. Boza. Super chats. Fancy. Mike and Jed, what's your guy's handicap? Mine's been as low as six.

appreciate seeing the fellow golf and UFC enthusiasts of the world. What is your handicap, Jed? Real quick. As a golf person, what does handicap mean? I hear that term all the time. I have no idea what that means. It's basically a score of how good you are. But it's functional.

Like, one of the things that I do think is the coolest about golf in relative, like, in relation to other sports is there's no real way for me to play basketball with an NBA player. It's just not feasible. I could go on the court. But like, there's no way to level that playing field. A handicap is just a numerical, because everybody's playing to a score of 72 functionally, it's just a numerical way to level the field of you on average, at your best, you will shoot this many shots over par, which is 72.

And so, like, with handicaps, so. Do you sign yourself your handicap or I don't understand that? No, there's a, there's a, so you just submit your score. and your handicap is calculated off those scores. It takes into account things like a thing called slope rating, which is basically how difficult the course you're playing is. It takes in a whole bunch of factors. And it doesn't take your, it's like of your last 20 scores,

it takes like your six best or whatever to get you to basically what you can be expected to shoot on a good day of golf. And so like Scotty Schaeffler is the best golfer in the world. He doesn't, most pros don't have like real handicapped. I believe he's like estimated at a plus eight or something. I am currently a 9.2. So like because of that, I could go play golf against Scotty Sheffler.

And we would play golf and Scotty would spot me 17 strokes. Basically one stroke a hole. And I would still almost certainly get run over. But like you, the handicap system is just a way for you to sort of, get every like the people you are playing with to a level of even that's not super available in other sports and it's really cool I'm a nine two by the way I said that in the middle of it uh I'm a nine two currently which I believe is my career low that's good I'm not in single digits

right now right now about a 14 uh I played a golf league on Thursday nights now uh they had me as an 18 but after my round yesterday, I'm sure that that is going to lower. But I'm like usually mode to mid-80s. That's pretty much sure I'm at. Sometimes upper 80s, sometimes I'll shoot low 90s. Sometimes I'll shoot upper 70s.

Like I am a mixed bag of craziness. I rarely shoot 90 or over anymore. It happens. But I'm, my lowest scores for this year have mostly been like, low eight or high 80s and i'm pretty consistently in the low 80s or high 70s at this stage yeah i mean i have to really play like shit to shoot in the low 90s which wasn't always the

happens sometimes it just happens you know because golf is a very stupid sport in that regard but yeah if i can get the ball off the tee i'm shooting pretty well because my iron gains been pretty pretty good my wedges have been great it just the driver is very erratic so if i can hit it straight or at least in play we're gonna have a damn good round hole in play helps a lot I can't my approach game is a absolute disaster right now

but you know like I this so I was on we talked about this off air but I was I played a golf tournament that me and my buddies do every year over the past weekend and my rounds were of four rounds

one of them is a scramble so that doesn't count my four and my four and my three individual rounds were an 80 and 82 and an 84. And the 82 should have been a 78. The 84 I kind of played like ass. All right. Because you guys love talking golf, I just have to ask. Without getting political, because there are plenty of political podcast out there,

what do we think about cheating in golf? Like the Trump video of the caddy just dropping the ball for him? What do we think about people who cheat in golf? I think it's a testament to your character. Like, it's just, it's, it's lame to do. But like a lot of people do it or they flubbed their handicaps. We had a guy with us at this trip, and we all kind of knew it was happening. But he, he didn't sandbag his handicap.

His handicap is, like, much lower than he actually as a golfer. And the way we did it is we, well, you know, we pair up by handicaps, functionally for a natural pair. And so he got run over, which we all knew was going to, because the point of golf is not to beat the people you're playing yourself. Like I'm never playing whoever I'm playing against. I'm playing the course in myself and just trying to be the best version of myself I can be. So, you know, if you're not doing it for anything,

if you're not, if you're cheating for yourself and you're not, you know, taking money from people in a skins game or something, then I just think it's kind of lame, but like whatever, you know. But like if you're actually cheating in like for monetary stakes, you're a piece shit. Yeah. I mean, I think all of us who have ever played golf and played in like charity scrambles and things of that nature, you played with teams who fucking cheat. The charity scramble things are so lame.

It's so ridiculous. Like just go out and play and have a good time. Like that's just great about the Thursday. leagues. We all just go out. We're all handicapped. We go play. No one cheats. You just go and you play around and whatever happens happens. There's different rule sets and different

draws and different ways to approach. Like each week is a different format, which I think friggin rocks. Like for instance, like this past, like we did a four man scramble two Thursdays ago. We did a four man scramble last week. But the T-shot based on where you were slotted on the card,

whatever the T-shot goes, it's based it a dice roll. So if you're, if I'm number four on the card, yeah, you just, you roll a dive. If you hit the, if you hit a five or a six, you hit the best, you get to take the best drive. And then if it lands on one, two, three or four, you have to play whoever's ball off the T that it lands on. Nice. I like that. That's fun.

So like you can hit three great drives, but person four could hit the ball in the water. If you roll a four, you're dropping or you're reteeing depending on what hole you're on. So like those are just fun things. You just have fun with it. But like to see people go out there and I love the videos of like people getting caught cheating now. Like two teams will go out and shoot like a 59 and they're tied at 59. They're like, all right, let's go film the playoff hole. And you see all eight dudes just suck ass.

And you're like, how is this possible? How are you guys shooting 58s and 59s and 60s? Like this is fucking stupid. But yeah, that's annoying. If you're that person, you're a ridiculous. As long as you're only cheating yourself, I don't have any. Like, because the other thing, and like, I certainly did this early in my golf career. And I encourage anybody who, like, plays very casually or whatever, it's supposed to be fun.

And so, like, if you don't give a shit and nobody's harmed by it and you want to take multiple T shots to get one in play, do it. And then, like, that's fine, you know. But it's like if you're, if you are cheating somebody else and not yourself, then it's a testament to really poor. character. Yeah. Establish some rules. Like, Jen and I play the same rules. You can take a breakfast ball in the first team.

You get a Mulligan for nine. Yeah. We don't, the breakfast ball, we don't play all the time anymore, which is really fun, frankly, because if you could just be cold, but like, you know, have fun. However, you're going to have fun out there, as long as everybody's in agreement. And you're not like, oh, I found this ball that clearly was OB or whatever. Yeah. Not to harp on it too much, but like, what does it mean when the caddy cheats for you?

That means you have a conversation, right? I mean, maybe it's just a presumption, you know, that it means that it is frequent, right? It's just that you were feeling my mind. I was just like, what? It's just, yeah, it's pretty wild, but, you know. But yeah, here we are. All right. Perhaps.

Perhaps he was ordered to drop the ball there by the President of the United States, which you're really not going to say no to. See, I like it between the links. It's a cage fighting show and golf. And the golf show. It's right there. It's right there. It's right there.

So many things. All right. Thank you so much for this. Yes. I did get a hold of one yesterday. I did get a hold of one. Yeah, that's pretty well. Oh, hey, hold on.

Oh, thank you, LazyBad. Yes. the second one of my career both happened while my child was alive first one happened a month after he was born it was literally like the first time I was able to leave the house without my family my wife was just like go play golf

and I got one there and then I got one yesterday my kid and I were playing a match he was playing junior T's I was playing from the white T's and we're having like a pretty competitive match and then we get up to the third hole and I hit a just

just an absolute high riser right at the hole. I'm like, oh, this is looking pretty good. And usually I'll be like, just go in, just joking around. I said nothing. And I watched this ball bounce. And it actually spun a little backwards. And then it was gone. And I just was like, holy shit, it went in.

And my kid looked at me. He goes, what? I'm like, no, it's in. And it was far away. And I started running. And then I realized I have a 12-year-old who can't drive a golf cart. I mean, you can probably figure it out. Yeah, I mean, he can drive a golf cart?

I love it. Not on the third hole. We get to like six, seven away, like far away? Yeah, so I had a sprint back and get him, and then we drove down. And he was like, he goes, if this is in the hole, like, I'm just going to concede this hole to you. I was like, all right, that makes sense. And then he ran up and found the ball in the hole. And I was like, sick.

and I just kept It's pretty cool It is an absolute mind F when that happens Because the first one I got I was actually playing great I think that that whole one The first one that I got put me like three under for the round And then I fell apart

Like it was some of the worst falling It was the worst cliff dive in golf history So in the back of my mind after the ace I was like Just don't fall apart Don't fall apart So I teed up the ball and then I read on the next tee and then I realized this is the hole in one ball. I'm putting this away.

Oh yeah. And I switched golf balls. And then I nuked a drive that went right into the trees. And it was gone and I couldn't find it. So I had a drop for three. After that, I'm like, I'm so glad I switched that ball. Yeah. So it was great plan.

Yep. You know what sucks about I get what to me. I guess what's talk about getting a hold of one because it's not like on TV. It's not like a big show. So like you get a whole one, but you don't actually see it. Yeah. You just kind of. Yeah.

Yeah. So it kind of, you know, you don't have that footage of the crowd go, wow, putting in your head you do, I think. Because I would love, like, it'd be great to just be like, hey, film me on every part three in case they get a whole one. But then that gets like super annoying and you have to someone down there on the other end too. Yeah. You got to put the tracer on it. But like, yeah. It was real.

I'm not going to just make up that I know. No, no. That's awesome, man. That's a wild feeling. When I get a mini, you know, a put putt, hold in one, especially like a par four. And I got two bounces. I'm like, I'm a living God. Yeah.

So I'm a, it's so it's so great for you. What's crazy about it is I have no idea how to put spin on a ball in any way, shape, or form. So like, none of my shots ever in history have ever had any sort of spin backwards. Unless, like, hit a slope and just rolled backwards on the hill. And it's not like it broke 15 feet. It's not like 17 at sawgrass. This just like bounced over the hole and then rolled back in maybe like seven inches, which again doesn't happen ever.

So when I saw the ball in, I'm like, all right, there's no way this is going in. And then I just saw it disappear. And yeah. So pretty, pretty cool. All right. Thank you, lazy bed. Thank you so much. A few more super chats.

Oh, last week's card. Uh, Jed, did you get to watch the best fight of the night, which was Boudet Bucchia? What's his name? I've yet to see Boudet Buccecha. Bichita. Let me pull up the card. I'll tell you which ones I've seen off it. Please, please watch that.

So the main event. I saw Purion, Marcus McGee. I saw Shara Power Bar. Uh, I saw Bogdan Goosekov kill Nikit Kralov. Um, I saw Musum Salakov kill Carl. That took 10 seconds to see. Um. I saw the aftermath of Tabitha Ritchi Mende Hebas, but I didn't actually watch the fight.

And because I thought we might end up talking about it today because before I knew we were Q&Aing, I went and watched Steve Winn, Mohamed Yaya, but I did not see the Bucicudad fight yet. I mentioned sitting your pains in that because I caught it a robbery and a lot of people did, but it was such an amazing part. I heard a lot of conversation on the post show about it. I did not think I'd hear a lot of conversation on the post show about that, but there we were. Be in case it did a watch party just for that fight.

We had a Q&A rolled right into that night. That was the best thing, the best suggestion ever. That was the best suggestion. After the show,

I'll watch it and I'll give you my thought. Because I don't think I'm going to watch Bryce Mitchell, Syedda and Armaghmetto. Yeah, you don't need that. It's fine.

Or Billy Aliccana I, Ebo, Oslin. I just don't think I can hear about either of this. I definitely don't watch that fight. That's one. Yeah. I would rather watch Bryce Mitchell,

Saita, Nermaga made off a hundred times in a row than watch Ebo versus Eilcana one more time. It's one of the worst fights in the year. Yeah, I think I've seen all that I intend to see, except for now, I'll watch the Boudébu Chetcha fight just to check it out. Yeah.

Yeah. They started the card off of the main event. It's insane. It's rare that sometimes they do that, you know. Thank you, Elizabeth. Tanvir, Super Chat. Middleweight is on fire. I think Imovat beats Kyo.

Izzy versus RDR, Strickland versus Whitaker. Friday. I'd be fine with all that. Is he on your? If that they do, cool. I don't know. You like that? Assuming what are you?

They just haven't fought. So that kind of makes sense to some degree. The only like the biggest impediment I see to that is that both Strickland and Izzy seem to be interested in fighting each other again. And so then that just kind of puts Bob in the who does Bob fight next. You know, like, but like honestly, Robert Whitaker versus Fluffy is probably actually good. That probably makes some sense. But, you know, and then RDR can go fight for the belt as I think I'm going to pick Kyle Bahalio because I think that he's very talented and very good.

But I think that fight is very competitive and I'm pretty interested in it. Definitely so. All right. Thank you, Tamper. Last, oh, last and. Super Jat. What should a, I'm glad you brought this up. What should a ref do if a fighter is so durable

that they could just farm like 10 knockdowns and still fight back? So, Jed, I'm glad you got to watch Stephen Wynne versus Muhammad Yaya. I pretty much predicted ever the second that fight was booked that Stephen Wynn is going to put such a hurting on this man. I didn't think he'd dock him down six times, but officially, M.A. final final score,

seven knockdowns for Stephen Wynn in that fight. Just absolutely craziness. It was 100% eight knockdowns. It could have been eight. It could have been eight. UFC stats had it officially at six. We had it at seven if you wanted to date. That was so like even listening to the commentary,

they're like ruled a slip. It wasn't a slip. Like, I know he was on one foot. He got punched and fell down. That's a knockdown. Like I don't know what to tell you. Not all knockdowns are the same.

but like that it was eight knockdowns it was absolutely eight knockdowns in that fight i saw his ass hit the mat eight different times because he got punched i thought that was ridiculous um i thought herzog should have stopped that fight multiple times like i know yaya is like yeah i'll keep i'll keep doing it but no one has ever been knocked down that many times and just yaya's face just continued to get worse and worse and worse his eye got worse and worse and worse looks like a fucking softball was coming out of his face by the midway through the second round. It was, it was pretty nuts. Herzog has taken a lot of flack, although there are some people that are like,

yo, yeah, yeah, yeah, was still trying to get up and defend himself to subdegree. But there is always the case, fighter safety comes first. And when it comes to toughness and durability, and we've talked about it with certain fighters over the years, the caters, the holloways, et cetera, being tough is usually, when we say, wow, you're really tough, that usually means you are just getting your ass handed to you. And that can only take you so far. So now that you've watched it,

now that you've watched it, Jed, thoughts on Jason Herzog's performance. I'll start here. I expected worse. After hearing you guys on the post show, I thought it'd be more egregious. I think there are, I have two gripes with Jason Herzog,

but ultimately, ultimately, I'm not, I'm not going to kill him on this one. I, I, I would have stopped it at the, the last knockdown in the first round because that was a hard knockdown and he did not really look like he was altogether. But historically, that is a thing that happens all the time, right? Where a fighter gets knocked down, they've already heard the clapper and the fighter is kind of moving. and so you just err on the side of let them work through it unless they get put out. So I understand why he didn't. That is when I would have stopped the fight if I was in there.

But I'm not, again, I'm not even that opposed to him letting it play out there. I have always been a little more along the lines of let the fighters decide it than the referee intervened than most people. I just have slightly more of a stomach for that than I think a lot of people. do. And so I won't even kill him for that. I probably would have jumped in at that point, but I'm not, I'm not hugely upset with Jason Herzog on that. The other thing, the one that I am more upset with, and I think ultimately didn't really matter that much, but I think that I haven't noticed a lot of people come at him for. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. You still there. Jason and Erzog. Oh. I don't believe you. I don't believe you.

can see out of this eye. And he couldn't very clearly. And then between rounds, they were like, yeah, the eye, you can't fight anymore. And so there was two minutes there where he was one-eyed and they allowed him to fight. And I don't know what Jason Erzor was still. Like that, there was a clear opportunity to be like, break, got to check this eye out. It looks swollen shut. And so that is the thing that I actually think Jason Erzal really screwed up.

On paper, right? Like eight knockdowns. you'd be like, probably should have stopped it. And again, if he had stopped at that last knockdown in the first round, I would not have had an issue with it. And certainly that's probably when I would have jumped in and done it. But it's all explicable because part of it is like, it's not the Raniya or not Hanayaya, sorry, Muhammad Yahya, is that tough?

He just kept getting knocked down because he's not good at fighting. Like he just, a lot of those knockdowns like, yes, he was getting hit clean. He was getting hit clean on one leg or because he jumped in and his stance are squared. And he got hit and fell over. And he was, like, he was hurt. But, like, he wasn't, he just sort of fell over a lot. And so I think that this is, honestly, the gripe I have is not with Jason Erzog. It's with the Iyo's corner.

Because I have always been of the belief. I'm pretty on record with this for the history of my time here at Vox, like that referees are supposed to protect the fighters. from the other fighters, corners are supposed to protect fighters from themselves. And Yaya's corner didn't do that. They should never have sent him back out there for round two. And I know that he had that moment where he, you know, stumbled when,

but like his corner should have looked at him and been like, hey, man, you got dropped six times. We're going to call it. Like your eyes already a bit of a problem. You just got blown up. You're a wobbly legs. We're going to call it. and I'm much happier if that decision is put on the corner and not the referee.

I don't think the referee should be the arbiter of all this shit. We should just be like the referee should be there to prevent some dude from killing another dude because that dude's unconscious and we got to literally pull him off of the unconscious man. The corners should be the guys who make these calls and be like, hey man, you gotta live to fight another day and it is a pervasive issue in the sport that does not exist in boxing and I really

I don't know how to get corners to just not be assholes and look after their fighters but like because I have heard the arguments F all those arguments they're all stupid arguments well you got like nope you put like those arguments

exist in boxing too and boxing corners still stop fights because they recognize that personal health is better than a $10,000 paycheck or whatever. So my honestly watching, I expected it to be worse based on a lot of the conversation. My big takeaway was, Muhammad Yahya's corner sucks shit and should all not work in the sport anymore. So I'm with you. I'm with you. They should have not let him come out in round two without question.

my grape with Herzog and it wasn't even the first round it was from the moments of that last knockdown which was vicious I mean when his dudes had hit the back of the mat like it was bad and even when was just like all right I'm standing over him that's it I'm done

round ends dude save by the belt that's cool at all when Yahya actually stands up and tries to find his corner the dude is out to lunch. He has no idea what's happening. He's like a dude who just ripped a hundred Yeager shots in a row in like five minutes

and then tried to stand off of his barstool and walk to the bathroom. He was like stumbling all over himself. He's tripping over his own feet. You could tell he had no idea where he was. It was brutal. At that point, if you're Jason Herzog, you can say, all right,

I'm going to let you go out for round two, but the second this gets hairy, you're done. And then he gets, knocked down fucking two or three more times. And at that point, it's just like, that's the thing. That first knockdown wasn't even that hairy though. Like he got he got dropped, but it was like his eyes were clear.

Again, like, I just, I don't think the, the referee should be the arbiter of safety when it's as a last resort functionally. As like, this dude's going to physically die in the cage if I let somebody continue to bash as brains in while he's unconscious. The corners are the guys who know their fighters and should, and should have like an actual emotional connection, be like, man, I'm kind of tired of watching Mo get the shit kicked out of him.

Maybe we should throw the towel in here. Like, I, I don't disagree with you, by the last. It is all just, it's so, and like continuing to put the onus on the referee completely

absolves corners in a way that I think we should stop doing. Like the corners should be the ones getting raked over the coals here Because Jason Herzog, one, he refs a shitload of fights. Like sometimes you're going to fuck up, right? Like that just is a thing that will happen when you do anything a thousand times a year. You're going to make a mistake things like that. And so in general try to be lenient. And Jason Erzog has historically been a very good ref.

You know, like, but maybe you have an off day. Jason Erzog is not going to spin the rest of his life around Muhammad Yerzai. yeah, like ostensibly his corner will. You should want your friend and training partner and teammate to not get the shit kicked out of him for $10,000. Like that's, I, I just want us to blame corners. I genuinely think that it would be better for the sport in total. If we went back to like UFC three days where like I actually,

honest to God at UFC two, USC one, there were no functional rules. UC2 is when John McCarthy was like, I have to physically be able to intervene if a guy is going to die. But other than that, the fight goes on until the corner stops it or I have to intervene. That should be the standard. Like the referee is an arbiter of the rules to make sure the rules are being followed and a last resort of safety and everything else should fall on the corner. And if you start, if that becomes the set,

corners are just going to get better at this. and the health of the sport overall will be much better, I think. Yeah, but how are you got to, how is that work? If a corner is never going to stop it, what do we do in order to like get them? You just have to inform the corners, hey, we're not going to. And it is a culture thing. It's not an overnight thing that will happen. But like, I genuinely in your mind, how many fights in MMA can you recall ever being stopped by a corner?

I'm less than five. That's sort of an insane, like in a sample size as big as that, that's pretty wild. When it's a common occurrence in boxing, it happens all. Oh, no. Like, the one that jumps out the most to me is when Nick Diaz through the Talon, Nate Diaz against Josh Thompson. And, like, it was one of the best things Nick Diaz has ever done his career. Just do that.

Like, there was no reason to send Muhammad Yahya out there. and I think we should just be shitting on his corner and shaming them into being better. The problem is I think you need to educate corners more as well because I remember the uproar from the Max Holloway Calvin Cater fight. And I remember the heat that Tyson Chartier took for not stopping the fight and allowing Calvin to go out in round five to fight Max after the beating he was taking in that fight. and Tyson's response was like, look, I know Calvin better than anybody. I asked him questions. He answered them clearly. He looked fine.

He was staring across at Max. He stood back up. He was bouncing around. He was ready to go. I know the thing that I took away most from that conversation with Tyson after that fight was I was waiting for Herb Dean to stop it. The quarters are actually waiting for the referees to make the decision so they don't have to. And I wonder if they don't want that. Right.

And I wonder if. And I wonder if Herzog is thinking in that moment, I'm waiting for the corner to stop it because don't forget, not that long ago, Jason Herzog took a bunch of shit for a different stoppage. It was the Derek Lewis-Pous and the sheriff. I want to bring that up and just the crazy balance of the sport is. But that's sort of the point, right?

The referee will take the shit. And when the referee intervenes, by definition, he is taking an opportunity away from one of the fighters. Now, you know, whether he should or shouldn't, you know, like that's thing. But like fighters in corners with money at stake, most, most corners that I've, fighters I've ever spoken to are like, I would like to be unconscious.

I would like the referee to only stop it if I am physically not there because the stakes are so high. That's why we, and because they will lose their shit at the referee. That's why the owner shouldn't be on the referee. because the ref has to continue reffing other fighters from these teams, etc. Like,

they should just be on the corner. And the corners need to be adults. They need to grow up and accept that maybe the fighter will be mad for a minute. But then they'll go back and watch. And you would hope that the fighter has enough trust in you and what you see out there to acknowledge that you were taking their best interest into heart.

And like that's just why it should, it should be that way and it is deeply not in the sport and we got to find a way to get past that and get it to a better space so let me ask you this john addict suggested and i actually kind of like this rather than have this sort of internal dialogue between corner and referee who's going to stop who's going to make the decision should the ufc institute a knockdown fuck at this fight's overrule anic suggests suggested five knockdowns. If we hit five, it's over.

No? This, you know, it's, so my issue is this is never going to change. Ever. No one's going to take fault. Unless there's actual sort of guidelines put in place in some way, shape,

or form, I just don't see it happening. Like if, if we're looking at a world where it's like, all right, five knock downs and the fight is over, maybe corners would be like, fuck it,

where he's going to get knocked out a fifth time anyways. Maybe we'll stop it sooner. I don't know. Maybe that's some sort of, navigation tool to be like, all right, I don't need to wait for this fifth knockdown because if he gets knocked down a fifth time, it's over. Maybe they'll be quicker to the,

maybe they'll be quicker to stop it. I don't know. Again, because, I mean, this is honestly an example of why I don't want that. He got knocked down before the last knockdown of the first round, what I count as knockdown six. He got knocked down five times. I did not think that fight should have been stopped.

Like he, because a lot of the knockdown where he was on one leg and he got popped. Like he was still clear enough eyesighted there. And so like I once you start drawing hard and fast rules like that, like then it just becomes a numbers game in a way that's probably not like going to be massively impactful or like how many fights to have five knockdowns in them. Exactly. But it's still just like I don't why. Why do that in it? and hard and fast rules create opportunities for people to feel hard done by because of,

you know, other things. Like I just, no, I just, everyone like this, we don't have to reinvent the wheel, you know, like everybody just do their jobs. Jason Erzog protect the fighter. Corners protect your own goddamn fighter. Fighters protect yourselves and everyone should be okay. Yeah, I don't have, I even have referees at this point, you know? Again, again, referee should.

be there to, I mean, they don't, but they should be there to enforce the rules. They don't really do that. And they should be there to start rounds and end rounds. And they should be there to literally pull someone off of another human to prevent them from killing. That should be the use of the referee, in my opinion. All right. Great conversation. Terrific.

I remember Polly, was it Polly Maggi-A-A-Hani? How did he say his name? Polly, um, was it the, well, I remember him just talking about like basically until until an MMA fighter straight up dies in the cage, it's going to be tough for get these early, these late stoppages. Because boxing, a lot of boxers die every year in the, in the ring or like, or like moments after. And as a hundred percent true.

Yeah. It's just. That's it. And like, but the thing is like we, we're just not more. Morons, right? Like, we should be able to do things without the ultimate consequences occurring. Because that is, like, that is why it is a cultural thing in boxing. Because every year, a dozen fighters die in boxing.

And long-term boxing coaches, outside of the immediate deaths that happen, also see the long-term consequences of the sport. And how a guy like Muhammad Ali, his life ends, you know, how that, how the end of years happens. And so they just, like, we shouldn't have to relearn the hard lesson to learn the lesson. And there are people in the comments right now have been like, well, fighters say they'll fire their corners. Fine. Do it. They won't, by the way, but okay, if I am the corner of someone, I throw in a towel because it's the right thing to do. And that fighter says, hey, man, not going to work for me anymore. I will say, okay, I did my job. I protected you when you couldn't

not protect yourself and I can live with that. But that won't happen. I'm not saying it would never happen. The long history of combat sports tells us no, that fighters will think that in the moment. And you may have to have a hard conversation in the back. They'll be pissed like, I was still fighting.

And then in a week, they'll be like, actually this guy who has coached me my whole life, three people, like, yeah, he actually was right. Because if this were true, that's just, no, it wouldn't happen in boxing because every fighter, would fire their boxing coach and it would cause but that's not what's happened the like there is a huge sample size of this occurring that if you just do the right thing as the corner there might be some breakage and you might have one bad conversation and then everyone will realize oh yeah

muham yaya didn't need to go out there again that would have been okay that would have been better for everybody if he didn't and we could have stopped this you know at the end of the first round and that's that's just all will be like this the chicken little of all they'll be fired cool who gives a shit because they won't be but also that's fine like i would rather be i would rather be fired protecting somebody i care about's life than let like oh well i didn't do this and now when we're 50 i have to clean up your shit because you're incontinent like because you took a thousand brain damaging shots thank you last damn for their super chat so sarah patel a couple more super chats before we get out of here.

Heading from LA to Chicago to UFC 319 to see my friend to Carr fight. How would you rank this card versus others in 2025? UFC 319. My recollection is that this card is poop, but the minute of rocks. I actually think it's better. It got better. It's all right. Actually, yeah, this isn't bad.

Yeah, I actually thought even before it was it was better than people were giving it credit for. fun fights again not like a ton of stakes overall outside of the main event although the co-mate event has changed things jed so yeah uh so two-parter for you since you didn't get the chance to react to this in real time on saturday how does the card look now what's the mishulin rating as it stands now that we have the addition of this fight which i'll have you react to as well Aaron Pico taking on, hey, your favorite featherweight contender, Lorone Murphy on short notice. Actually, this fight's really, really smart and good.

This is the fight they should have made instead of the Mofsar fight, which is very stupid. Mofsar should just be fighting for the belt. I hope that this means we're settling on that now and doing the right thing in this regard and not doing the EIR thing, which would be impossibly stupid. I think the Laurel-Murphy fight makes a ton of sense, right? Like, you don't need Aaron Pico to come and be a, like, get a big star name, not that Mosar is.

You just, Aaron Pico is the A side of this fight anyway. You need him to come in and have a fight. And Laurel-Murphy is a very good, good fighter. If Lerom wins, then maybe he gets a little juice. If Aaron wins, he's 90% of the battle has already accomplished. Like, he just got a win inside the UFC and is totally in the title mix. So I think this fight is what they should have done in the first place. I, you know, as if it's a fine co-main event, I think that it's a three-rounder, I'm assuming.

Yes. Yeah, that's a fine co-main event. The thing is like the card overall 319, it is heavily reliant on the main event coming through. Knock on wood, that happens. So you should never be that confident when Hamzot's involved that a fight's going to go through. But knock on wood, we get that. And then the court will be good. If something happens to the main event, this card is not a pay-per-view.

They need to give it to you for free if something happens to the main event in the next couple of weeks. But the rest of the card is actually a lot better than I sort of thought. Again, we're talking like fight night quality, not pay-per-view quality necessarily, but still a lot of good, interesting things. And I'm excited to see Aaron Pico, who could be one of the best feather weights in the world. Now we get to kind of really have a nice gauge on where he's at in this weight class and sort of his title aspirations.

I think compared to UFC 318, this is a million times better. Like there is not a... I think it's similar. There is not a Jackson McVeigh versus Bruno Fahed anywhere here. No, top to bottom the card is better. It's deeper, for sure.

But I do think that they fundamentally have the same issue as their boxing paper views. They're one-fight pay-per-views. Right now. the opening fight is Edson Barbosa versus your car close. That's the opener as of right now. That is a pretty damn good opener.

Bobby Green, Diego. They're probably past it, but that is fun. Yeah. The worst, like, I think the worst fight on this card, like name value-wise and like merit-wise, and it's going to be probably the most fun fight on this card outside of the made event.

Is Gerald Mearsharb versus Bichick, two guys who get or get- That fight's going to be absolutely ludicrous. It's going to be awesome. That's the worst. That is the worst fight on this card, like in terms of like name value and rankings and all that. Like, that's probably true.

This is pretty good. Yeah. It's a good fight card top to bottom. It's like a really good fight night card with a pay-per-view main event. But if something happens to that main event, this is a catastrophe. So knock on wood, that nothing happens.

That it's a great fight night and a terrible pay-review. Yeah. What a great UFC on Fox card. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, like this is, this is exactly that, Casey. Like when they were doing the like initial stage UFC on Fox cards and they were

trying to care real hard. Like this is that plus a pay-per-view main event that's incredible. Well, is it, uh, it's February of 2016, the greatest year in the history of the sport. It was, I believe was Kane Velasquez versus Fabricio Verdume at first. Right? That was like the initial main event for that February. pay-per-view and then stepe was going to step in and then i think kane got hurt so they lost the made of it all together and then like on five days notice or something they were like it's not a

paper for you anymore we're doing it as a fight night and stephen thompson and johnny hendricks was the main event for the for the i don't even think it was a fox card i think we just ended up being like an fs one fight night card yeah yeah yeah yeah wonder boy nukes johnny hendricks in seconds and then gets a title fight or ends up getting a title fight. And that was the card where the prelims were headlined by Mickey Gall versus terrific cameraman. If you watched him on swing rounds, who became Derek Lewis's mortal enemy during that round of golf for snapping photos too loud

during a short putt for Derek Lewis. Mike Jackson with the winner getting the fight against CM Punk. So, yeah, 2016 was just a totally different time. but I can assure you in today's UFC there's no effing way even if they lose the main event that they're saying yeah this is not a pay-per-view anymore it was in fact an FS1 card I actually think if they lose the main event they will pull this off pay-per-view do you think so if they lose entirely if they can't be like Hamzot's out Nasrdeen is stepping in on three days notice or whatever it's Kyle Bahalio yeah

If they can't do that, yeah, it's like if the main event is is off, off, they just can't. You cannot do a Laurel Murphy, R. and Bico main event in pay-per-view. I will one billion percent tell you what they will do. And this is awful, but they will 100 percent do this. They will promote Jared Kannonier versus Michael Page for the interim middleweight title is the main event. They would do it. How dare you? How dare you put that out there?

I'll take that bet. I'll take that bet. I hope you don't have to make it. I think this becomes an ESPN card. And this becomes just an ESPN plus card. Well, then they have to do another pay-per-view then. I mean, that's fine. They can do a pay-per-view in September.

They currently don't have a September pay-per-view so they can figure. They're on the road most of that month. Yeah, you just make one of those pay-view. What are they going to do? Diego Lopez versus John Silva is a paper view made event now? Honestly, they might actually look at that card and say, can this fight is falling off? Can we bump DDP versus X person to the main event of that and make that a pay-per-view?

And that actually would be the best way to solve the problem, frankly. Can we, can we bump this back a couple of weeks against pick a name and that's a pay-per-view? What if? Bump it back to the Paris card and make Imelov-Berhalio for an interim thing as a pay-per-view. Like, that's a better outcome than making this card a pay-per-view. What if it fell off today and they announced RDR versus Kyle Bihalio for the interim middleweight title? That would be dope. Would that save it for you?

Okay. I mean, for me, I don't think it would save it for any other person alive, but for me, I'd be done. Although, I got to tell you, this won't happen in my opinion, but God, if DDP versus Humzat headlined Noce UFC. That would be a whipper, dude. The greatest thing of all. Noce UFC that was supposed to be in Guadalajara and now it's just in San Antonio. And suddenly it's DDP Hamzot.

But like that would be the one to do, right? If you're like, this fell apart, the no-cha. The Noche card is, you know, it's got a great co-main event attached to it if you do that in Diego Lopez, Jean Silva. And you just, you bump whoever, whoever's available to fight DDP on that weekend. All right. Dude, how does not say Noce UFC like Boer Drickis Duplessi? That'd be incredible. Oh, my God.

All right. Next question. That's so funny. RJ, PSA for all the fighters for whom English is a second language that Dan Hooker dunks on. Take a page out of Felders book and make fun of his name. He will implode again. I guarantee it. What is this about?

I've seen a couple of here. The Hooker says something stupid. I assume hooker. I mean, Hooker's been talking a lot of shit, a lot of people. I mean, Hooker ripped the UFC for taking tickets away from him. I don't know if you saw that. Yeah, I saw that. But this.

Hooker. He's been taking a lot of shit. shots at Armand. But he also, I mean, he got, but every, first of all,

everybody's taking shots at Armine. Let's put that out there. Armin's putting it off very public lately. Second of all, Dan Hooker, despite all the shit talk and Armand's a prick and all this stuff, that interview at submission radio, obviously the biggest takeaway was the UFC taking his tickets away from UFC 317

because he wanted to go watch Kai Kar or France fight for the belt. And then they're like, now you're off the list. And he's like, fuck it, that I'm not, then I'm not fighting in Perth for you because I'm still hurt, but I was going to do your favor. But now fuck it, I'm not doing it.

And then the other thing is so unbelievably shitty of the UFC. Yeah. It's tickets. It's free. Like, yeah. They're fine. Like,

we've all been there. It's not like they have a limited number. You just put an extra foldout chair for Dan Hooker. It's not hard. That's dumb. God, that's dumb. Yeah,

it was crazy. So that was obviously a big takeaway. And the other thing is he was like, yeah, Arbin's a prick. He goes, but the main reason I want to fight him is because like nobody else wants to fight him. So I'll fight him. And I think that's pretty sweet. Like good on you. Like no one wants to fight this guy.

Gaci's already been public saying like, I don't really care to fight him. Doesn't seem. Don't worry. Don't want it. Patty doesn't want it. They're up. And hookers like, yeah. Depporia should want it.

It's annoying that he doesn't. I get it. But it's annoying. Yeah. Gachi, don't book Army in Gachi. That's like one of the worst fights you can make in the sport right now. Do you think Gachie's the frontrunner to get the title fight right now? No, I think it's Patty.

I don't know if they're going to go that route. Like, I feel like they should. I feel like they absolutely should. My belief is always that they're going to go the biggest route, and that's the biggest route. He walked in the cage. I think that, you know, if he tries to negotiate himself out of it, maybe, but it's the one Ilia wants it has heat, I think that ultimately that's the move because nothing else jumps out as awesome.

So I think they'll go for that. I mean, Teporia versus Gaiji would be pretty awesome. It'd be really fun, but like. I think Teporia would obliterate him and get a highlight reel out of it. Yeah, almost certainly. Make the paddy fight even bigger. Well, yeah, most likely. But like, there are very few people who love Justin Gachie, the fighter more than I do.

He's a hard sell right now. I watched him get just sent to the shadow realm by Max Holloway a year ago. So it's like it's not impossible. He doesn't have a great claim to it. Just do Patty. It makes all the sense in the world. Do Patty now. You do it and that's fine.

And I don't, I believe that I will convincingly be Patty. I know that I am in the minority here. I get it. I know that when I say this, people are just going to come from me. I am not all that interested in continuing the Iliot-Tuporio retirement home tour. I'd like to see him fight someone who's not clearly past his prime like Justin Gagy is. I would just, Gagy's still an elite fighter. It's a great win.

That's all of his wins are old, like old great fighters who still have a lot going for them but don't have their fastball. at least patty's young you know he's not as good as them but at least he's not like shopworn give me that fight over over gaiti all day yeah we can keep going i don't know yeah i don't know about the fella yeah i don't remember feldder doing this to dan hooker at all um just be more creative than making fun of a dude for his name being hooker or if you're going to do it, at least do it really, like in a fun way, you know. Maybe that's what Felder did when Felder fought Hooker. I can't remember it all. Spectacular fight, by the way.

That was 2020? Look, Paul Felder, an underrated action guy. Oh, that. Dan Hooker, Dan Hooker in 2020 fought. So I think he fought three. He fought Felder and I believe was supposed to be Felder's actual retirement fight. And the Dustin Porre. fight happened at the apex that like fucking barn burner and was the chandler fight after that

was that was January of 2021 okay so that was January January dude Feldor and Porre were both absolute heaters yeah both both bangers yeah well feldor should have had a better career than he had yeah at least like a more memorably like because he's a really fun fighter he should have just be he should be a more beloved figure than he is. I think, yeah, Paul Feltre's kind of like Brian Stan, just like,

I ain't making that much money for the damage I'm taking. So I'm just going to get out and use my, because I, two gentlemen who have good brains, you know, so like I'm just going to use that

to make my paycheck. So he came out of retired. Brian Stan was also very fun fighter. He came out of retirement. He came out of retirement. Yeah, but Paul Feller came out of retirement to fight RDA on like three days notice

and a man. Yeah, I was dope. At the apex. Paul Felder is a guy who 100% would have fought for a BMF belt if that was a thing. Oh, yeah, without question. Underrated fun guy. For sure.

And a wonderful actor. Go and watch him in Hacks. Great actor. The best current commentator. Oh, yeah. Without question. Him and Sanko. All right.

Thank you. We got this. It's right through these super chats. Another Dan Hooker super chat. it's very loud inside I know the UFC is often scummy but are we actually collectively a bit shocked about Dan Hooker's

317 ticket cancellation after missing a UFC media obligation he seems to think it was a desk jockey I had not heard about the story at all until you guys just mentioned it I thought I thought the tickets were removed

and then he missed the media obligation but maybe I'm wrong but either way like even if it's just like just reschedule it Like, UFC fighters miss obligations all the fucking time. It happens. But just to take the tickets away, well, he's already there is pretty... It's still not excusable to take his tickets away ever.

It's at least like if he did at least do something, like make your obligations, you know, if that's the case. I just, I did not know about this story literally at all until you guys just said it. Yeah. They tried to get me out of bed at 7.30 in the morning. the UFC book me for some shit, which is three in the morning New Zealand time. This is Dan Hooker on submission radio. I didn't even go out.

I had an early night, but I'm not getting out of, okay, that's true, but I'm not getting out of bed at three in the morning to do just about anything. I slept in and I didn't go to the UFC thing.

They canceled my tickets to Kai's fight. And then so it's like, I'm going to rush back and fight injured for a company that's going to cancel my tickets to the event when I've traveled all the way to Las Vegas. I would have fought injured, but then someone at a desk. cross my name off a list.

You work in the office, brother. You think there would be a bit more respect there for guys who literally give their life. The amount of blood, sweat, and tears I poured into putting shows on for that company. I thought there would have been more respect there, but there's not, which is cool. Business is business. We can fight on my terms then. I'm not going to break my back for a company that doesn't respect me. That's a little tricky.

Dan Hooker got to the correct answer, which is you should not break your back for the company. anyway. I don't, unless they like literally the night before they were like, hey, in six hours, can you do this media thing? I don't, like, that's just a stone cold bullshit answer. Like, it's 730. 3.30 my time I slept in. If you said you're going to do it, do it.

Like, it's, that's just being an adult. I do things I don't want to do all the time because I said I would do them for one reason or another. And so if like, I don't have all the context. So maybe there is more here. But if he agreed to do it and then was just like, I'm tired, I'm going to sleep in, it's still petty for the UFC to do that. And like you would hope that the billion dollar entity can be a little bit more magnanimous than that. But also like him, I, there's a piece of me that is a little bit like my, my spidey sense is up when he immediately turns to.

blaming a nameless desk jockey. It's like you all like, okay, why did this immediately become antagonistic to some person who you don't even know and may not even exist? That feels a little suss to me. And just to put a bow on it, sure, you are the fighter. And theoretically, you should be compensated more for doing that. That guy also has a job and he showed up and did his job. so I'm not really sure like why you want to come for him.

It kind of feels like Dan Hooker's being like a little bit of a tool about this. But ultimately you still would hope the UFC would just be like, okay, that's annoying. But here are your tickets. It's fine. Yeah. I wonder if they were just like, hey, you're here. And then like 11 p.m. the night before they're like, hey, you're booked for this thing. Yeah.

And if they did that, that's shitty for sure. And then like, you know, also. So, but the other thing is, again, you can just be an adult and be like, I'm not going to do that. You just be like, oh, you guys didn't give me any prep. I'm, I'm jet lagged. I'm not going to do that. I'm the assumption here is that he said he would go and then just chose not to. And if that's the case, then be a goddamn grown up, man.

Like, I don't know what to tell you. What is that was a 3 a.m. call time? I don't understand that. Did they, did someone mess up on time zones here? Like, was it a Zoom call? I think he's saying he's saying it's 7.30, but that. That is, you know, 7.30 a.m. Eastern time, which is. But in his jet lagged brain or whatever, that's not the same.

That's how I interpreted it. Again, like, I would need to actually talk to him to get all the details. But basically how he presented that makes him look like he was a bit of an ass. And then the UFC did not take the high road, which you would want them to take the high road, right? Like that you would just hope that they could be like, well, that was shitty. but like here's a ticket but also he was kind of an ass it seems like TBD

yeah but also again the end point is correct you shouldn't be doing like set aside every part before the end you shouldn't be doing the company a favor because companies don't do you favors largely anyway and you

yeah and your career is so specific and so limited that you should not fight compromised ever basically. And so like he took a real roundabout way to get to the logical way to move through your career of, I'm not prepared to fight at Perth. I'm not going to fight at Perth. Like that should be the assumption you start with. He had to get there from some dubious methods, but right end point. Thank you, Simi Noob.

All right, a couple more super chats before we get out of here. Slito What was the last time we saw a towel thrown in Quarterman stoppage in the UFC? Dude, they don't even happen once a year. Dude, I can't, I've been working in MMA almost 20 years. I can't think, I can't do one hand how many times. Yeah, I can't do five.

I can't even do five. Somebody, maybe this year somebody saw, they didn't throw in a towel, but they stopped, the corner stopped it in between rounds. Yeah, there's few in between rounds. Like during, like in between. Oh, yeah. If you're talking actual towel throw, I genuinely think I've seen it once or twice.

Like the literal towel or getting on the cage and just. Yeah, like, hey, no. Like that's, yeah, that all, that never happens. Every once in a while a corner will stop it in between rounds. Just be like, hey, man, we're not going to let you go back out there, which is good. Do more of that. But it is the only actual towel throw, I recall off the top of my. my head in modern

MMA is Nick Diaz and ATS. And the ref was actually stopping the fight at He did not see the towel get thrown when he made the stop. Yeah, but there was a towel. Nick threw the towel and then they got to the cage and we're doing this. And the rest back was to them and then he stopped there anyway. Yeah. Fuck.

It's on. Did Cynthia Calvillo get a towel thrown? Someone beat the brakes on that. That sounds right. That sounds right. Not wasn't that he. Was it Andrea Lee? Hold on.

Like Andrew Lee just the piss out of her like so bad. Like rearranged her face. It was like the best. No, no. There wasn't a towel throw, but that is when Calvio quit on the stool. I between rounds. Yeah,

between rounds Calvio was like I'm not. You're out of that. Yeah. No, I'm, I'm, I mean, maybe officially the team said it, but I believe she said, I can't go back out there or whatever

because she busted her orbital and was like I can't do it I'm like I'm like 90% sure she quit on the stool yeah I think that that sounds more familiar and I think anyone's smart was like oh Cynthia did the smart thing

but of course all the jackasses out there were like oh you know you can't handle this oh yeah she got raked over the coals for it but like I'm again I'm like 90% that she told her corner I cannot go back out there Oh, I'm looking it up right now. This apparently is the most recent one. UFC 271, Derek Brunson versus Jared Cannoneer.

271. What's the date on that? Halfway through the second round, Brunson's cardio was nowhere to be seen. In the 2023. He reverted to his old habit of leading with his chin. Before long, Cannonier had him rocked again. A short elbow in the clinch said Brunson tumbling to the ground, and the vicious elbows that followed

were enough to convince Brunson's quarter to throw in the towel before the referee waved the fight off. Yeah, so that's two. It might be the most three. Two. And they're all kind of dependent on the referee just letting their fighter die.

I guess not a, it's not an early stoppage, I guess. Like you're kind of waiting for the ref to stop the fight already. It wasn't like, because you see that boxing, we're like, oh, they stopped it already. You know, you kind of like, but like, all right, you know, you just kind of get over. it pretty quick, you know, but... Do you corner, corner stop it in boxing so fast?

So many times. So wild. Just like, dude, he ate six punches in a row. We're done here. Like, if you, we honestly, we should legitimately do a video series of taking a boxing corner to just like, here are some MMA fights.

Tell us when you'd stop it. Yeah. And just, like, they would be, you would get people just like losing their mind. Like, you have Floyd Mayweather senior being like, oh my God. Are you trying to have crimes committed? What's happening here?

Especially if you watch the, I guess, the prelims on boxing. Maybe the top two, three fights, yeah, they'll go a little harder. But especially those early prelims, yeah, you'll see so many fights stopped real fast. Dude, they stop it in between corners for like all the time. Like, yeah, man, you're just not going to win today. Yeah, you're not going to win. You're good. The guy's just better.

Literally there are times when they'll just be like, you can't win, so we're done. There's no reason to get hit in the head because you cannot win the fight. Yeah. There was one fight on the- Chad saying DDP Brunson, Brunson's corner through in the towel of DDP, do you guys, is that true? I got what I have Brunson. A lot of Brunson in here. Brunson's corner is obviously very good.

I don't remember that at all. That was U.S. 285. Okay. It makes sense. So that's what, that's 2023 almost for sure, right? That's 2023, March, 23. Yeah.

You should remember that card more than any other card of your career. Which one is that? That was the infamous Alexa Grasso championship victory. Oh, God. I'm not, I'm not a K. Or not, uh, Jose. I can't. My memory is, is Swiss cheese.

The return of the return of John. I remember things happening. I don't remember events or dates. All right. Uh, thank you, Alito. Yeah, a couple more. Uh, this one's four. for Jed, I think.

How many more wins for? I saw this. I saw this and I started trying to piece it together. He has three title defenses currently. If he beats Hamz out, he will have four. Anderson has 11, should be 12. I think that's right. Or 10 should be 11, one of those.

Because technically the looter fight does not count. That's a title defense in any rational human beings book. Um, he, if he beats Hamzot and gets four more, we can begin a conversation. But until then, we don't even need to pretend about the conversation. And again, I'm DDP's number one fan. If he doesn't have at least eight, like what are we even talking about? The more interesting conversation is when he beats Hamzot, where is he relative to Izzy? So I believe Izzy is the number two middleweight of all time.

beating Hamzot he's probably still not like he and Izzy at that point are neck and neck if he gets the Hamzot win and so that's just very interesting we'll see first he's got to be Hamzat and then he's got to beat RDR and then he'll be number one in my heart if he beats RDR they're fighting for my love that's what matters and that is what matters but like Anderson Silva I know the end of his career was not as glorious as, you know, people would want. And he, you know, if you're one of those people who says that any failed drug test is disqualifying, okay, I suppose.

But the man had, and I wasn't, I like, again, enormous DDP fan was actually never a big Anderson Silva fan. You can't deny his accomplishments, his relevance to the sport, his greatness. and I will respect that greatness for a very long time. Yeah, Izzy had six side of fences. You can maybe call it seven if we're counting the win over Robert Whitaker and the unification bout because he being out. He has six. I know he likes to say that. It's nonsense.

I count it. But yeah. Either way. I mean, are you count that? Are we conning Tom Asmanals went over Curtis Blades? Yeah. I count in terms. I count.

I count in terms. They get paid the same, so I count them. But remain in the inters. The champ isn't available? The champ wasn't available because of the timeline the UFC wanted. I'm just not open to that one, really. Yeah, I don't punish the fighter for that one. If the champ isn't available because he's fighting Stepeh Mietich, who hasn't fought in four years,

I'm more open to that one. not we want to fight in april sorry you can't do it rob we're going to throw an interim belt on this uh and uh real quick before we get out of here uh this is this is this is a hyping jett up here oh sorry what do you want to say before i was just say i saw lazy in the comment say isn't throwing a towel in a foul it is there was like a period of time where they made that illegal but it's no it's no longer I just looked up.

It's no longer listed as a foul. I'm trying to imagine that. Like, oh, no. That's the other thing is like, oh, no,

you're disqualified when you quit. Like, it's, it's a nonsense, illegal foul. There wasn't period of time. It was. I think,

I think the answer is you can get like, fine for it or whatever, because like, theoretically it is a safety concern. If you throw it in, then a fighter trips and tears their ACL. But that's not, that's just not like real life.

So it's just, yeah. Yeah. It has been removed. removed as a foul in the unified rules. Yeah, it was just a stupid thing that was in there. Okay. Let's hype up Judson more.

Who is winning the fantasy league so far a month in the team? I knew I would be ahead early because I really had a lot of front-loaded talent. I've had how many fighters? I've had seven fighters compete in three events. That's a lot. That's a lot. It was a lot. Well, that was the whole plan.

And a lot of them like, like specifically, Kevin Holland almost certainly will fight again. uh shah bullet he's absolutely going to fight the the abu-dabby return daniels el huber i would be shocked if he is not competing at noche um and so it's just like that was kind of the theory but uh aside from kevin holland and daniels el huber who i hate for personal reasons outside of the fantasy leagues um and who both could have won like both could have won they were very vulnerable chances probably should have won like not just before the fight big but he did it like not just before the fight big big favorites. Just like in their physical fights probably should have won them. They both got me zero points. Everybody else has been clocking points. I was a little upset that Bogdan Goosekov didn't get a bonus until I realized that actually I don't think Shawl Bullitt deserved fight of the nights or kind of evens itself out there. But as well as you've done, you could have done way better. Oh my God. I could have another 400 points and I would have as much.

many points as I had all of last season already. Like, you've, like, if Kevin Holland and Daniel Zellieuber had just done their goddamn jobs. Yeah. Giant favorites. You lost, yeah.

But giant favorite. Like, I was so confident both of them. And then they just didn't, didn't win. Is your climb on one of those guys? Sure. Daniel,

I'll, technically I lost it on both. But I lost the big climb on Zell Huber. And then I tried to quick start another climb and Kevin Holland failed too. Oh, you did. You lost. I was like, hold on. I'm going to put in this bet on Kevin Holland and then it immediately lost.

Yeah. You were too busy being at the fight, Casey. My bad. I know. You're too busy being there for Dustin's last fight. I got, look, I got another one going this weekend too, Nora Cornoli. Let's go. Get it done against Carol Hosa.

And, uh, last time. Carol lost her last fight, right? Yes, because she's alternated wins and losses for like 20 straight fights or something. like that. There is a zero coming in your direction. Nah. Nor was going to get her done. Fight of the night, maybe.

Maybe she gets a bonus. Who knows? That would be dope. But, yeah, basically nobody else has had people fight, and I've had seven people fight. So I am miles ahead. I don't think, yeah, I think my next one is probably Hamza, right?

Yes, I believe that is correct. Well, technically my, Michael Venom Page will compete before Hamza does. Oh, yes. I get MVP on that card too. And he's kind of won. So. Yeah.

So, all right. Damon has not had anyone fight. Damon says zero people compete. Though he does have Tyra this weekend. Oh, he's tired. Oh,

Tyra is his first fighter this weekend. He loses his ranked opponent, though. He doesn't lose his ranked opponent, but he still gets a main event. And, you know, see how it goes. All right. Yeah.

My also like I thought people like I was like Carla Judeyce and Fatima Klein will win them both getting finishes Chef's kiss yeah it was terrific Your Judee's pick might be like low key like one of the best picks Like you get that pretty late and she's probably gonna fight again and she looks good I just picked her because I Carla Judice is one of my she's I think right now other than I'm trying to think who else I might like

You know, I have, I've got my boys. College of Duce is like my one girl. I'm just like, hell yeah. She's, she's, I'm convinced she's going to be in the promotion for 10 years. She may never fight for belt. I don't know. I need to see her in like three years. I need to see her in Dakota Dichiva.

Just knife fight each other. It would just be like an actual knife fight in the cage. It's so goddamn fun. I love her so much. She got some talent for sure. She's just a violent. She's a violent person. She's mean.

And I love that. Yes. All right. I think we're done, right? There it is. That music says it. We'll have a matchup next week because, boy, I don't know how much time it's going to think to react to UFC Vegas 108 or preview

to Vegas 109. Don't get PFL tomorrow? Let's use you Vegas. not even look like. Logan's story versus that gene, the main event, Jetting.

Big star. Star power. What? And no one has to nobody love it. I do like that Jean, but Logan's story is an abyss of fun.

Back next week. Good night, everybody. This has been between the links, an MMA fighting production on the Vox Media Network.