MMA Fighting - BTL | Dricus du Plessis Dominates Kamaru Usman, Covington vs. Muhammad, UFC Abu Dhabi

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

In the battle between former #UFC champs at UFC Oklahoma City, it was the past 185-pound champion Dricus du Plessis who got the lopsided victory over former welterweight titleholder Kamaru Usman. Following the Fight Night card, how can Usman bounce back, and where does du Plessis go after getting back in the win column? On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel discusses the fallout of UFC Oklahoma City, those suggesting Usman should call it a career following the loss to du Plessis, and how the middleweight division shifts with "DDP" getting his hand raised. Additionally, topics may include RAF 11 capped off by Colby Covington's win over Arman Tsarukyan, Belal Muhammad attacking Covington at the press conference and their announced matchup for RAF 12, Magomed Ankalaev's return at UFC Abu Dhabi, and much more. Join MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and José Youngs as they answer your questions all show long. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@m_heckjr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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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We are live a little bit later than usual, but we're here, aren't we? And that's really all that matters. Lots to discuss, as always. We're coming off of pretty wild weekend in the combat. sports world we had pfl in action we had the ufc in action at oklahoma city drickus dupleccee kind of put the boots to kamaro usman now there's a lot of

questions about where both guys go we had raf eleven and the incredible swan song for ben ascran we had colby and ballal wrestling and getting wins and then fighting each other at the press conference we got ufc abudabi this weekend pfls back this weekend lots of boxing this weekend so much going on. And I know you guys have a lot of questions. And joining me this week is a man who also had a very busy weekend in the combat sports world, but he was more having a little more fun than most of us. He was at Fanatics Fest in New York City and got to see some of your favorite fighters do athletic things. Maybe not so much Sean O'Malley kicking footballs, but it was a good

time nonetheless. Jose Youngs joins us on this Thursday. How are you, sir? What's up, dog? I'm great. So a lot of non-MMA athletes as well. which was kind of neat. I think the only ones you would... No, you like professional wrestling. So I saw a lot of wrestlers. Saw a big poppy. Saw a whole bunch of basketball players.

So yeah, that was a very stressful, but very fun time. Yeah, that event is... It's just wild. There's so many people there, and there's so many different things, and it's pretty crazy. This was the most chaotic I've ever... This is the most chaotic one I've ever experienced.

Like, they kind of flipped. if anyone's gone. Like before you'd walk in the Java center, all the activations would be on the left. And then like the games and stuff. And then like all the trading cards and everything and collectibles would be on the right. And they flipped it this year.

So, but the problem is like because the games were all on the right side, it cut the whole thing in half. And sometimes you were waiting like 30 minutes, literally just to go five feet. So not the most ideal thing. But we got some good interviews there. So watch that concept.

Go ahead, Bales. Go ahead. Dogg wants to go outside. He rang his bell. Now he's just standing there, doing nothing. So there's a pretty common theme thus far when it comes to combat sports with the peeps. We'll run through all them at once. Fury Joshua, both fighting this weekend.

I totally forgot until now. Coswell, best fight this weekend is Spence v. Zoo and nobody in the North America has any idea it's happening. R's 40. I had no idea Anka Lai of fights on Saturday. A lot of events going down, Jose. What's the one that stands out the most to you with all the combat sports craziness going on? I mean, it's the one that I'll be at,

and that's the Edgar Rolanga, Richardson Hitchens fight. That's at Madison Square Garden down the street. That's like the first big Zufa. There's obviously been big Zufa boxing events. Like obviously, Jaya Batio fought, and technically Dana promoted the Connor Ben fight. that was the same week as UFC in Miami, and he helped to promote Canello versus Crawford.

But this is, I feel like, the first real Zufa boxing event outside, like big Zufo, quote, big Zufa boxing event outside of the Apex. They've obviously had some fights in overseas as well. But after, but Canela and Crawford weren't signed to Zufa Boxing, Daniel was just promoting it. Obviously, they announced to Kerr Stevenson signed with them, and we had the Connor Ben, Ryan Garcia, Press, Cowens at Fanatics Fest,

but Berlanga and Richardson Hitchens were like the two big signings that the UFC or Zufa boxing announced, and I think we had their Q&A that same weekends when the UFC was in Miami for the Allberg-Gyrie fight to announce it. Max Kellerman was the host, so this is, I feel, the first real event that Zouf is holding with established names

signed to Zufa boxing at an arena that is recognizable outside of the quote, meta apex or metaX, as I like to smush together. So that'll be interesting. Yes, Abu Dhabi, early day MMA, just the way we like it. I believe Belgrade is also early day MMA. So love that. Wrapped and packed by like 5 p.m.

Got the evening to do whatever. It's wonderful. And I want to say the box, the Zufa Box. event I was just talking about is on Sunday. Oh, Sunday boxing. Sunday boxing. So for everyone's like, oh, we'll watch UFC go right into Zufa boxing. It's literally the next day. Now, you'll get UFC, boxing, PFL, more boxing, then you get to go to sleep, and then more boxing on Sunday.

So you will be filled. Joseph Kumar Usen was stunned by the scorecards in his fight with DDP. Did he actually think he won? I thought it was more along the lines. is like when Paul Felder fought RDA, like he was surprised that, in like the opposite sense. Like he disagreed with 50-45.

Yeah, I think he looked like to me. I think he was very clear he lost, but I think he was more confused that one judge said that Dreykis won every round in the similar sense of like Paul felt. I think someone either scored it for Felder or gave him more rounds than he clearly won.

So that was like the confusing right there. But I don't think he thought he won. Yeah, there's just no world where he thought he won that fight. But I think the fifth round was the one that, like if you're going to give Usman around, it's probably that one. But yeah, this is a DDP shine, if you will. And we'll see where Usen goes from there. Another one from Joseph can Mike some up his week in Milwaukee from his point of view. Very fun.

Milwaukee is a very interesting city. There's many different layers to Milwaukee, very blue collar. I got to go to the Brewers game on Friday, which is very fun. A little walk-off action in the bottom of the top. 10th. And yeah, it was just, it was very cool. It finally got the elusive Arm and Sarucan interview on Friday. Press conference was pretty wild. And then the event was just, the event was very emotional. This was, this was the Ben Ascran show through and through. It was the Ben Asking show, the entire build. It was the Ben Ascern show on Friday. And just the whole event was built

to Ben having that last match. And he went in there and literally left it all on the mat. I didn't think anybody in the world thought Ben was going to win. I think Ballal kind of took it a little bit easy on him. Maybe I'm wrong, but just what it seemed like to me, I think Belal understood the assignment. And then Ben had the big moment at the end where he laid down the boots and it was just awesome, man. It was just couldn't erode it better. This was Robbie Lawler, retirement-esque. This was Dustin Porreux, but a different kind of feeling doing it in his his home city, tons of wrestling fans there all showing their appreciation to Ben. It was just awesome, man.

And then obviously, Colleen Ballag got into a fist fight on press conference, which I felt like I was the only person in the world who saw that coming just by looking at the table and seeing all the name cards on there. Don't know why they thought it was a great idea to have them both up there together. But, yeah, there's only one way that was going to go. And that's what happened. So, yeah, good weekend in Milwaukee, and then got like an hour of sleep and went to the airport and flew home. So, yes, they'll be back August 22nd in Cleveland, and we got some stuff in the works for that week.

Perhaps the swing rounds going down that week as well. So stay tuned for that. It's got to be a lot of fun. Vermont, would you like to see Uspen going back to Welterweight? I know that DDP is a big middleweight, but he looked quite a bit undersized. So if you had your dredders, Jose, we've been going back to the weight class, he reigned over for quite some time.

Yeah, 100%. He was very clearly, the size was apparent, and then I think it doesn't help that Dreykis just looked really much faster than usual. And he's like, I think we all agree that was probably one of the better Dreyers' performances. We've seen in a long time, Pillard of Post. But there are still fights I want to see Kamar would take at Welterweight,

and he's probably what? do we think he's second, third, greatest welterweight of all time at this point? At worst third. That worst third. And that's only because the greatest fighter, arguably the greatest fighter ever, is a welterweight.

And then it's literally like a race between like him, Usman, Matt Hughes, Woodley. They're all doing the damn thing. So, yeah, it's, I would like to see Usman go back to the weight class that he dominated for so long. And there are just fun fights that, like, oddly enough,

there are still fights that he's not having. that are down there. Just go fight Balaul. Like, it's so obvious. That's the one. The only other one I would like to see is Shafcott, but I don't think that goes very well for him. But if he's going to fight one more time,

just give us the grudge match. Just give us B'L and call the day, and then he can jump to RIF and just wrestle the rest of the time. Speaking of RIF, what's RIF ceiling from Kylie if they got off the boomer app and on Paramount Plus? Also, what is the UFC's relationship with them? Do they let guys compete as a cost,

saving measure and or compromise. So yeah, I mean, I could tell you from, like on the second question, like, they have a good relationship. Chad and Izzy Martinez and Eric, they have a great relationship with the UFC. So they will allow their athletes to compete on the cards, mostly when they're not in training camps, but they will allow it. Now, they do not want to see UFC fighters compete against UFC fighters, which is a big reason why Colby Covington alerted them that he was retiring, at least for now, because if he's

not on the active roster, then we can do Colby Armin, and we could do Colby Belal, and we could do Colby Bow and things of that nature. There's no interference there, but you can't do Colby Bo if they're both active fighters on the roster. They're not going to allow that to happen. And as far as the first question, Jose, if they got off Fox Nation and jumped on Paramount plus, would they grow anymore? Like, is there a higher ceiling there? Like, yeah. What do you think? I mean, very clearly, if you're on a major streaming platform, I think it's very obvious that they would grow. Whether that's their ceiling, I don't know. And I mean, growth is, I don't think, when you ask me, can it grow very clearly? I'm not saying it'll grow like 100%. Like, say,

where they're doing 10,000 viewers, and this is literally just a random number. I don't know their number. Say they're doing 10,000 viewers. I'm not saying all of something to do a million. but Paramount Plus, I feel like Fight fans are already programmed to go to Paramount Plus for their things. Their matches and RIF's product and production is very good. The pacing is very good. I think that's what hurt the PFL when they were on ESPN at the same time as the UFC. They were both competitors. It wasn't an alternative.

And the pacing for PFL was really rough. And it was just like a lot going on. And there were matches that we didn't clearly want because of the tournament. So I don't know. But yes, the answer is very clearly, yes. They could grow if they were on the same streaming network as the UFC. Yeah, I mean, if the UFC is like helping to promote them, if CBS promotes them, the thing that's really helping them is that Fox is pushing them to the moon.

Like if you watch the NFC championship game, they're running RIF ads all over the place. And they're not paying for that. They're not even asking for it. It just happens. and you cannot buy better publicity than 30 million people watching a football game and just seeing an RAF ad on there and then jumping on Fox Nation. And obviously Fox News is very helpful during match week because they do a lot of stuff on there. I know right around Wayans, they always do some live hits from Wayans on Fox and Friends

super early in the morning, but they're there doing interviews. I know Dylan Dennis did a hit, did a hit right before. the Hamza match. Colby did one right after Wayans before the Armand match. So like they're getting they're getting buzz in that way. I understand that people don't want to pay whatever it costs per month to get Fox Day. I think it's 10 bucks a month. I get that. My biggest question is like what is their ceiling in general? Like they're just they're on fire right now. Like they can't miss even if like they don't want the brawls. The brawls aren't hurting them in any way. It's only boosting them. Like if you just said Colby's wrestling

Ballol out of nowhere, people be like, oh yeah, they don't like each other, but cool, I'll watch it. But now they're getting in fistfights. When they actually do wrestle, whether it's in Cleveland or Miami, like that's going to be a big deal. People are going to pay attention. Can they keep this going? I have big questions about this.

Can they keep the MMA stars competing? The wrestling fans are super into this. Like when you go to the arenas, they are loud, they know what's happening. They get it. I just, I'm curious how long this is sustainable for. Can this last another five, six years? Could be.

Is this like what the UFC was like early on where they start a little hot, then they fizzle, then they get hot, then they fizzle, and then they get really, really hot? I don't know, but they have the right game plan and they need to stick with it. They obviously have some big events coming up. Cleveland, which I'm told, there's a lot of surprises coming up. And then they're going to Miami, well, Moscow, then Miami. then they're going to Vegas in October.

I'm very curious to see what that card looks like. So, yeah, they're hammering it right now. Shout out to Twitchers, Nature Boy. Did you guys catch how many times Bisbing tried to throw shade at Herb Dean? DC won no part, and it was cringe. So I didn't hear any of the broadcast, Jose. Did you notice Bisbing chucking shots at Herb Dean? Not really.

I wasn't paying too much attention to the commentary. What I did hear was every time they announced Herb Dean, like every match Herb Dean graft, When they say the, who is it, Joe Martinez is like official for the matches, referee for the matches, Herb Dean, and then it's just boo. So yes, I heard that because that was very apparent. But in terms of broadcast, I don't really notice too much. I kind of tune out what I can tell you I heard a lot of.

And this is completely unrelated to Herb Dean is, I think almost every fight on the main card, Michael Bisbing or Daniel Cormier, whoever else was like, he's in that flow state. I'm like, ah, you're just plugging. the UFC game. I haven't played the game. I don't have a game system to play it because I'm still like two generations behind.

But I heard and someone in the comments can probably correct me. I heard they are, they've removed the flow state part of the game to like fix it. So I don't know if that's true. But someone tweeted that and I don't remember who it was so I can't give

them credit, but I don't know if it's true because I can't check. Help us out, chat. Help us out. Joseph, what do I think? UFC 330 as a whole. James Lynch put out a video on his channel saying it stinks outside of the two title fights in Aaron versus Jasmine, which, by the way, Aaron versus Jasmine off the card.

It's a fight night card, basically. Well, you have two title fights, so it's certainly not a fight night card. Islamachef is very popular, and he's in the main event. So you're going to get eyeballs because of that. McKenzie's pretty popular. She's fighting Gillian Robertson. It's not the fight really anybody wants. but it's not a bad fight.

And looking at the rest of the car, we get Edson Barbosa, Esteban Rivavovic, Lucay, Trayshon Gore, Mansor Abdulmael-Malek, Dustin Stoltzvist, Jeremiah Wells, Mick Debec Oroby, Jeff Neal-Chine, Jules Magni, Rameez, Rahimajimaj, Jalen, Kaui Fernandez, Charles Johnson, Jose Ochoa,

Raphael Tobias, Lucas Fernando, Dante Johnson, Eric Maconico. Very, uh, very top-heavy. That's for sure. yep it's not 329 that's for sure

my question is what is outside of a Connor or a White House fight what is a good card for the people that are complaining about it because I personally don't I don't particularly care one way or not this is going to be the most boring between the lengths because my answer is going to be don't care

quite often the the fight's happening I don't particularly care because you don't have to pay $80 for it anymore. And that's not, that is not me plugging Paramount. I hate Paramount app.

I think it's terrible. And if I didn't have to use it for the UFC, I would not have it. I just don't care. Because, again, I like Jalen Turner fights. Jeff Neal Chitty and Jaquani is a sick fight from people from Texas.

Neil Magni is Neil Magny. Edson Barbosa-Rutvich is kind of a bang or flying under the radar. Charles Johnson is a maniac. Like, these are fun fights. Is this a good pay-per-view in 2021 when we have to pay the 69-99-79-79-99? No. Don't,

not even remotely. But as of right now, in 2026, don't care. One way or another. Yeah, on paper, like, 324 is very good on paper. 325 is bad. Yes. 26 is good on paper, decent on paper

and not fun in actuality. 327 was great on paper and in actuality, 328, the same. And 329 was one of the better fight cards they've had in a long time. Obviously, the White House too was really, really good. So, yeah,

this is bottom tier, but you're not going to get 329 every single time. You're just not going to. Radin, if Bogdan Guskoff beats Uncle life on Saturday, is he guaranteed to be fighting for the title next? No, I would say no.

I think there's a lot. I think he would be on the short list, but I don't think, I think he would probably need one more. It also depends on how he wins. And timing makes everything. If he comes out unscathed and they need someone for a big event because we still have a big pay-per-view or pay-per-view,

what are we calling? Because they're not numbered events. We still have a numbered event in September. And this is not breaking news, so don't run with this. We may have two numbered events in October. We have a number of November. And they have not announced even a main event.

event for UFNOCE, UFC. So if they need a headliner for a numbered event and they're going to turn to a bunch of people saying, are you guys available because we need champions and we need tile fights? It's literally going to be the first man who raises his hand or the first one that makes themselves available or the first one that is or the one that is the least expensive to either get somewhere or take the fight or visa issues, obviously, because if you, there's international fights coming up, you need very specific visas. to fight there.

I genuinely just think it's going to matter of who's available and when they're available and which weight class they need. Yeah, because we don't know how long Alberg's going to be out for. I don't think he's going to fight again until, like, April or May of next year. Hopefully. Could they do an interim belt? Yes, they should. This is when you would make one.

Bogdan versus Yuri for the interim belt. Maybe. But also, like, they could do Paolo versus Yuri. That's true. has been saying a lot, like, they could do Paulo versus Hamzot. If Hamzot wants, they want Hamzot to go to light heavy. I know he wants the middle-late fight, but Paulo-Hamsat's been booked before, and there's clearly beef there as it is.

If, again, if Ankhalyav wins, like Ankolive and Yuri hate each other, or they at least talk a lot of shit on the internet. Yeah. So that fight would make a lot of sense, maybe, especially if it's a quick turnaround, make that headline Abu Dhabi, because they're obviously the U.S. you go to Abu Dhabi in October all the time. We still, like, Volcanowski still needs a fight. Marab Yon still needs to be booked.

Kayla Harrison, Amanda Nunes needs to be booked. So, like, there are a fight Josh Van, Alessandre Pantosia needs to be booked. So all the fights I just said are really great fights, but will they headline a numbered event? I don't know. They might want a bigger weight class because you even have like, like, Gachie's not fighting until next year if he fights ever again as it is. do you do an interim title at lightweight? Do you have Charles defend his BMF fight, BMF title?

So TBD on where, when, and who they need, and who raises their hand first. Speaking of Charles, is a five-round Charles Armand BMF fight headlining the UFC 331. Does that interest you guys? Maybe throw Van, Panthosia and the co-man.

Hell yeah, dude. That fight interests me a lot, both of those. I don't like undisputed titles, below the BMF, if that makes sense. That is the only thing that I wouldn't like. If they want to do Arm and Charles in September and they do like Ban,

Pantosia as like the co-main event, you could add like Harrison and Amanda on there. That's like a nice little one-two punch. I could just interim belt it because they don't know. For Armin and Charles. That's the other thing I was going to say. But again, like,

do you want to put an interim type? above an undisputed title like that's the only part that gets weird to me like is is the belt made that little that an interim title goes above it I know like we've done things like that for like when when Patty fought Justin for the interim title and Kayla Harrison Amanda Nees was the original co-made event for the undisputed bandway title and then that was the narrative people ran with like look how little the what UFC cares about the band and weight division that it's below an interim title and then even Rhonda

used that to promote her fight fight against Gina Carano. If you want to do both Banim weights title fights on the same car like Marab, Jan, Kayla Amanda, that's sick too. If you want to like do if you want to do little weird things and do

like Van Pantosia as the co-main event for like Tom Seril so you do biggest weight class, smallest weight class that'd be a fun little thing too. But if they're going to do Charles Armin, that's probably a headline on its own and I don't think you need an interim title or

another title in the co-man event if that makes sense. Yeah. We'll see. I mean, all these fights have to happen. I would guess Aspenol Gone is going to happen in Abu Dhabi when they run that back. We still have Volk and Movesar to gum too. I bet they try to do the heavyweight

undisputed title at MSG. Oh, okay. You know, like big undisputed heavyweight title fight at Madison Square Garden and you could do Volk Movesar in Abu Dhabi. even throw if you want to do you could do featherweight bannamweight both in abdhabi but then you also have rumored numbered event in salt lake city like what do you put there do you do do you bring kela back there do you bring amanda back there is that enough to headline in salt lake city uh i don't

know um but there's a lot of fun fights to be made in a lot of events that like but even before we don't even have no j and that's like the next that's like the big fight night in uh september so who knows Jose, you can answer this because you were in the Arizona area during the Gachie peak as he was coming through. Can you remember the first time you saw Justin Gachie fight live? Was it at Rage in the Cage or Ring of Fire? Any fun stories from those events? That was at Ring of Fire, 40, 41, I want to say. That was in Colorado, actually, because I was working freelancing for an event in Colorado.

And Justin Gage was, oh, no, be Kevin Kroom, if I remember correctly. UFC, BKFC, infamous Kevin Kroom for reasons we don't need to get into. But I really went because I was freelancing for someone in Colorado, and they had this big main event between prospects, Brandon Thatch, and I want to say it was Chitty and Jacawani was the main event. And Brandon Thatch, I think, knocked him out in like less than a minute, if I remember correctly. But yeah, that was the first time.

And I think that was Justin's either first or second. fight ever. And I wasn't there to watch Justin Gagee. He was oh and oh, no, at the time. And I don't remember what Kevin Krum was. He might have been like two and one or one and one or something like that. But it was not a mat, it was not an event that we were going to see Justin Gagchi. We were going there to see Brandon Thatch fight to Chittianjew Kwanini for a potential UFC slot in a little bit. Yeah, but that's the first time I'm so Justin Gage fight. There you go. Rob, if UFC decides tomorrow that none of their fighters could compete in RIF matches, how much of this hurt RIF?

And is the strategy of using UFC fighters to build their brain a good, their brand, a good long-term strategy? It would, it would hurt quite a bit. It would hurt, like, people covering them. Yeah. For sure.

Like, we're, to be fair, like, if you pulled the MMA fighters off these events, like, we're probably not going to cover them. Like, it's just the way that it is. like it obviously puts eyeballs on the on the wrestlers as well but we're probably not going to to cover them without armin and colby and all those folks but i don't think it hurts the gates very much because again like they're very strategic about what cities they go to for these events they're going to like very wrestling centric places like Milwaukee and philly like places with

like big time college wrestling schools and wrestling pedigrees. Like these are the places they are going. So you're going to get you're going to, it's basically like I compare these to W.W.E. House shows back until like late 80s, mid 90s. Like you go with your, your families. Like you bring your kids to these things. That's just what these events are. It's very family friendly.

I know there's bras and stuff. And that's why it kind of annoys them when that stuff happens, even though it helps them in a lot of respects. But I think it'll hurt their viewership. It'll obviously hurt their coverage. But all in all, the sport is starting to grow a little bit. So I don't think it like buries them and like knocks them out of business. But yeah, definitely, definitely would sting.

Definitely would sting. Yeah. And the UFC thing is a tremendous long-term strategy because you're getting more and more people who've never watched wrestling before, watching wrestling now. And if you watch one of those events, they go by super quick and they're pretty fun to watch. Armand, do you think Fatima Klein can be a future title candidate

and can potentially even win the belt at 115? She seems to want to fight Zhang Wei Lee next and hoping it will be a title liminear. Well, I think we can all agree, Jose, that she ain't fighting Zhang Wei Lee next. That's just not happening. Nope. But I would say if we're going to take anything away from UFC,

Oklahoma City, obviously Tommy McMillan was a big happening coming out of that event, but he also fought Montez, who's toughest hell, but maybe the 60 best fighter in that division. And Fatima Klein just ran over Tabitha Ritchie, who's the top 10 fighter. So what's her ceiling? Is she fighting for a belt? Is she winning a belt? What do you think?

Fighting for a belt? I could definitely see her beat in because if Whaley is not the champion, I think it's pretty wide open. Like, I think McKenzie Dern is a great fighter, and I think Julian Robertson is a great fighter. I think that fight is pretty 50-50. They're both so unique in the fact that this fight is so unique in the fact that their skills are so comparable. But at the same time, Tatiana Suarez is out there.

And I think a lot of people agree that Tatiana is probably the champion if Wayley's not eventually. Like, I think Tatiana would probably be, I'd probably favor Tatiana to beat Jillian Robertson and McKenzie Dern. Not saying she would go smoke them, but Tiangelo's, Tatiana looked real good against Lupi, but didn't look that great against Amanda Lamos. So where she at in her career? Does Janjohnana have a fight, or did I make that up? I know they're going to China again.

Good question. She's got to be booked, right? She's got to be on that card, right? Let me just make sure she is fighting. Denise Gomes, August 29th. I would say if Fatima Klein, you're definitely not going to fight Whaley. Waley's probably getting a title shot

when she comes back right. If she does come back to the Starway Division, I think that's kind of a no-brainer. I would be looking to fight is Verna booked, or did I make that up? Verna is, I don't think she is booked. I'm angling to fight Verna, I'm angling to fight, Tataiana, and I'm

angling to fight maybe the loser of the title fight. Yep. Those are the three. If I'm like really, like, if you really think that you're number one, call out Tata. For like a spot on that LA or that Rumored Salt Lake Card or MSG. I know you'd be Angie at MSG last year

And you want to fight on these big events. Just be like, hey, Whaley's not there. Everyone thinks Tatiana's going to be the champ. Let me fight her and prove myself. Plus, that'd just be a sick fight. Will she fight for the belt? Probably.

Will she win the belt? Depends on who the champion is. She's real good, man. She's real good. She was one that I was like, yeah, she's definitely going to fight for the belt. But after watching that performance, I'm like, yeah, she could probably win it. Like, I think she can beat McKenzie right now.

I think she could beat Gillian Robertson right now. Tatiana's the fight. I agree. Yeah, Ferratna, I picked the loser of the title fight. But yeah, that's the fight, man. Because I still have so many questions about Tatiana. She got dummied by Zhang Wei, and she did not look very good, like you said in in the Mendel Mesh fight.

She was one of the worst fights I've seen in a long time for top five divisional rivals fighting each other. So she looks real good. She looks real good against loopy in Miami. I think she tapped her, right? She did look really good against loopy. Especially like I think that's the fight. I think there's a lot of questions that Fatima that we have with Fatima like what do you do with someone that can also wrestle. Yep.

Because like Fatima famously like just literally threw Tabith around. Tabith is, Tabitha is unbelievable grappler. but Fatima like wrestled her and just tossed her around and if she can wrestle or fight someone that can A, negate that or B, do it better than her, then I think that's the fight because we also saw like when Tatiana fought Lupi I talked to her after and she was like

she took made it a point because Lupe's is very wrestling heavy too and especially her background and her sister and everything who's her sister's like an incredibly high level wrestling competitor Tatiana like was like made it a point to show that she was better. And I think Tatiana versus Fatima

would be fascinating to watch, to see their other skills. 100% because Lupi had her badly hurt in that fight too. Badly hurt. And then she decided to go on the ground with her and we're like, what are you doing? Just send her up and you probably win the fight.

But we're not the ones in there and adrenaline's pumping all that stuff. Vership, where the heck is Armine? Now they lost Colby and R.F. He needs to get back in the Octagon. I think you will see him back in the Octagon. soon yeah i talk when i talked to him friday he said he's going to wrestle colby and then he's off to Vegas on monday and he's going to meet with the ufc monday about his next fight he said he

knows who his opponent is he already said yes just waiting on putting pen to paper and the one thing that's it i was and i'm fighting in a place that i really like to fight in and we assume it's los angeles so but we'll see dano white told me quote nope when i asked if he had any update on arman That was literally his exact sentence. What went wrong for MVP in the UFC? Is it mainly because of his fighting style? Yes, he's fighting Nersulton-Rutzabayev in Paris. That's an interesting one.

That's a super weird fight. That's a, we want you to beat this guy kind of fight to an assaulting team, right? Yeah. Weird fight. Weird, weird fight, but yes, it's not because he doesn't have any knockouts in the UFC yet. Nope. RS40, why is Volk versus Bovesar not been announced yet? That's the fight I mostly want to see next.

I don't know, man. We don't make fights the night of the fights. Don't you know that? We don't make those fights. Mike, do you think the tough finale's will be added to 3.30? I was thinking that the other days the season will be finished by then. That's what they might be waiting on to announce. Yeah, that's actually a really good point.

Yeah. Someone had asked me the other day on Twitter, like, are they added more fights to this? And I was like, well, there's only 12 fights. Now there's only 11, now that we've lost the, we've lost the, we've lost the 25 fight. So yeah, I would be, that makes a lot of sense. I would say more likely than not. The only questions I would have is the fighters that they pulled, because I have not watched a second and the ultimate fighter. It's not my thing. That's an AK question. There are fighters who competed on tough who made their UFC debuts already. Yeah. So how far did they, do they go far?

Did they make it to the finals? Have they already lost? I have no idea. So that'd be like, like the only hiccup, if one of those fighters, like, made it to the finals, then what do we do? You just bring in the bronze medalist in there? I have no idea. There's no idea. Mike, would you make a Mike Alborati after your interview with him? Camus mother was being carried out of the arena after the fight was wild.

Jay Al Goretti is his name. Yeah, dude. So obviously, I was fascinated by that whole entire fight, Jose, because you saw the everywhere and insanity and all that. But I was like, well, you can't, I need more context to this. And then I went and actually, they went back to UFC Fight Pass. I've watched it multiple times. It is one of the weirdest fights I've ever watched in my entire life.

There are multiple fouls. Some are so glaringly obvious that there are, like, there are two really bad nutshot kicks, like real bad. And some other one went down in the heat both times. There is a possible eye pose. Jay said it was actually a knuckle to the eye, so it wasn't an eye poke. Smotherman saying there's a headbut. I can't remember seeing a headbut.

And there was like two, maybe three, like questionable low blows, but because the camera angles were so bad, it was hard to tell for sure whether they were low blows or not. Alderetti had been losing a point. And then about 30 seconds later, after the bad nutshot, was one of the close ones. And Smotherman was like, yeah, he got me. and Alderetti's like, no, you didn't.

Referee pauses it. Cam says, I'm ready to go, and then Alderetti kicks him in the face and chokes him unconscious and all hell breaks loose. The kid's obviously very talented. He's 6 and 0 in 2026 as a pro fighter. It's crazy.

Even he will tell you, the guys he fought before Smotherman were not very good. I think their combined records were like 8 and 25. So he's a guy who's been like asking for a step up. But if you're Fury and you're trying to like build something around this kid, you have to be obviously very careful with what you're doing with him.

And they give him Smotherman and Smotherman look pretty good, man. Like that first round was really close. There's double knockdown, which is wild. And then yeah, he goes out there and finishes. I think they should just run it back in Fury because I think that would just be like the biggest fight they can make right now. He's like, yeah, I'll fight him in the UFC if he makes his way back. He wants to go to the UFC. He's got, dude can fight.

He's green as grass, but definitely skilled. They have a foundation with him. He has the gift of gab. But what I learned and others that I work with learned watching that interview is, yeah, he's a little arrogant. Yeah, he's got some spunk to him. But he's also like, he's very thoughtful as well. Like when you dig through the layers of that, there's more to this kid.

Like he's a dad at 19, two-month-old baby, trying to provide and support his family. I have a billion questions left to ask him about where he grew up. The gym he works at, his dad's as coach, and like one of the big things they do. And like not the nicest part of Houston is they allow like these inner city kids who just have nothing. to come in and train, like they're giving them the chance to go train and do stuff. And, you know, that's his whole goal. I want to provide for my family and I want to grow this gym so more kids can come train with me.

And I was like, okay, this is a side of people. This is a side of him that I think people want to see. They're just so used to, oh, this dude cheated, filed him seven times, won the fight, talk shit. We don't like them. But I think there's more to this kid that meets the eye. So I'm very fascinated by him. I think they have something with him.

and I think the I think the UFC should absolutely put him on contender series even if he gets rinsed doesn't matter like just get him in there and see what he does and if he wins you have to sign him like they have something with him he's he's Raul Roses Jr.

with way more personality so yeah get him in there give him a shot let's see if not fight Smotherman again in Fury that was my takeaways yeah except don't make Cameron Smotherman have a 50 day turnaround after getting fucking knocked out by

Kai Asakur in the UFC. That's the gross part. That's incredibly gross for me. Cameron Sutherman is 28 passed out on the scale. Yeah, great point. In January, fought Kai Asakur. It wasn't a, it wasn't like a TKU, like he was dead in there. Like he was cold out

against Kai Asakura and then gets 50-day turnout. And someone tweeted like, do they have the same management? Yeah. I don't like any of that. All of that is gross. Protect the 28-year-old that has had been knocked out and passed out on the scale. And also when he passed out on the scale,

he face planted. Yeah. He didn't just stumble. He's face went into the ground. So, yeah, Jay is 19-year-old and Uber-talented and is thoughtful once you get through the layers.

Don't let Cameron Smotherman fight on 50 days after getting knocked out. And then he gets choked unconscious and then have him fight again. and Cameron Smoland should not fight for the rest of the year, just for his health. Like, that's gross. I don't like any of what you said, all of what you said bothering me, because Jay might be the best fighter in the world in like three years.

Right now in 2026, Cameron Smotherman should not have even been in that fight. That I do agree. Management should, the fact that they have the same management makes it grosser to me. I don't like any of that. Alderetti wants to fight Adrianian is in his UFC debut, which might be a bridge too far, but Adrian talked a bunch of shit. Kind of a hero turn rival situation because Adrian obviously came up through the Houston ranks

and Jay looked up to him and then Adrian had some things to say about Jay and Jay was like, say what you want, man, just like hit me up on Instagram and be like, hey, I thought this sucked and I'd be like, yeah, you might be right, squashed, but he hated that. He just took it publicly to Twitter and I don't know.

They got something with him. I will say that. Lazy room, I will say. Belomere versus Liv Beerle for Contender Series but now barely shelved with an injury is there enough time

to find another warm body to feed Mirr of course there is of course there is you can find somebody for her but yeah you gotta get Bella

on Contender Series for sure another one please to be Larry and Douglas hinted on IG that is a name and a date for his next fight he also recently expressed

interest in Tommy McMillan could it be and who would you take I would take Larry and Douglas in that fight and no they're not going to give Tommy McMillard

Larry and Douglas. No way. They're going to give Tommy McMillan like Roberto Romero, who's like 0 and 2 in the UFC. It was knocked out in his last fight. Like that's what they're going to do. Is Douglas the gunslinger? Is that that guy?

Yeah. Don't do that. It's nasty. Yeah. He'll eat your liver. He's a cubby dude. Yeah, that dude's sick. Kylie, two more days, two more Tuesdays until Contender series.

excited, expectations. What do you think of the last year's class, Pinaus, Iwo, Asplen, Tommy, Gun, Abdul, Hokit, et cetera. I'm always intrigued about Contender Series. We also know what Contender Series is in reality. It's a business venture for the UFC. It is a cost-cutting venture for the UFC, but there are diamonds in the rough that come through every season. I actually thought this last year's class was one of the better ones in a while because of some of the names that you mentioned. And I'm pretty excited for this class as well. Yeah, man.

Kahneman's fighting on the card, who's really, really good. There's LFA champions on here. There's always good. But, you know, there's 50 fights and 45 to 50 contracts coming. I think I'll be at one or two of them this year, just the way the fights are being lined up in Vegas.

So I'll probably be at a few. I always like cover. I like Carmen, the Contender Series. I would love to cover Contender Series. It's right on my alley. What else we got here? Audia Tires, Dakota's manager.

It seems like the UFC move is inevitable at this point. It's a matter of when and not if. I mean, it's inevitable, but it's not happening for like many years. She signed like a... Dakota sounds like a big money deal with PFL for many years. And if you're in Dakota right now, like just fill that bank. account up with all the monies. Just go in there, win your next fight, go fight Liz.

If you win, then if she wins, I don't know what they're going to do then. Yeah, that's the problem. Yeah, then you're just going to have to throw different kinds of challenges. So I don't know. We'll see. Damage isn't done. Darren Elkins, Yadir Del Valle, on August 8th. Not a fan of this.

No, I think I love when Darren Alkins shows up. He makes me laugh. he's he's a silly goose i think i'm pretty sure his first ever win was i want to say it was when john jones fought brand and vera i'm pretty sure dwayne lud would like broke his ankle oh yes yes yes yes yes and then he got armed by charles and then he just went on a bit of a run but it was all like weird fights so like his first two fights were strange and then it was just like then it's the Darren Elkins show. Who did he,

who did he be in like the craziest upset? Oh, Mirosad Bechtick. That's it. Oh, man. What, was that that one? No, not.

Yeah, it was. Yeah, 201. Yeah, 201, I want to say. I think it was Wonderboy. It was Woodley Wonderboy 2. That was supposed to be had Tony Ferguson and Habib. Yep. Yeah, that fight was wild because that was back when

Marisad Bechtick was supposed to be like, the man. And basically Darren Elkins's, lost the fight ended at like two minutes of the third round and darren elkins lost two rounds and then he lost a minute in 50 seconds and then knocked out very such like a head kicks him yeah that dude still living off that win like rightfully so and then i'm pretty sure he beat uh this is back i feel bad from this is back when dennis bermudas was like losing split decisions every fight and then he went out and choked michael johnson out and had like a six

fight losing streak and then I want to say it was in Boise Idaho fought this rising prospect called Alex Volcanoes. That's a wrap. Then he lost, yeah, that was the start of a four-fight losing streak. Volk, Llamas,

Ryan Hall, a little trivia question, and then Nate Landware, and then he finished during COVID times, Eduardo Garagori and Derek Mitter, got knocked out in two minutes by Cub Swanson, beat Tristan Connolly, lost to Jonathan Pierce,

choked out T.J. Brown, beat Daniel Paneda. And the last time we saw him was well over a year ago. He got knocked out in the first round by Juliana Rosa. So, I mean, look, it's not 50 days. We got many months off. So good to see him back. Connor, Super Chat. Tommy McMillan versus Aaron Pico next.

Are we? Why, though? Are we really going to do this? No. This, shout out to Chris Wyman, big Wyden guy, he's the man. This is one of his worst takes in the history of UFC broadcasting. Aaron Pico? You're going to throw this dude in there with Aaron Pico right now?

This is insanity. This is insanity. He was getting jaude by Alberto Montez over and over again. Now he durabilityed his way through this fight through record numbers, and he was very fun to watch, and he's a very fun fighter. you cannot throw him to Aaron Pico right now. That is craziness. Absolute insanity.

Let this dude cook a little bit. Let's build some more confidence. And then we can start talking. Aaron Pico's like 2028. That's what we can start talking in the Aaron Pico fight. But until that, Aaron Pico is like probably fighting a top 10 dude next. Certainly not going to go fight Tom McBillan. Who do you think he should fight?

Who, Tommy? Mm-hmm. You should fight on the Noche card. against Roberto Romero, who's like the 87th ranked dude. Like, let him go in there and just highlight real in front of his home crowd. Like, let him do it. And then we can start talking. Then we could build up to like a Juliana Rosa type and see how he does there.

And then we can go to like a Sean Woodson, something in that realm. Like there's no. And then we could start talking the Andre Feely's of the world. Like we can start pulling our way up there, but we're not there yet. That's, that's way too soon. What about a guy who's basically whole career has been win two fights, get fed of prospects, fall down, win two more fights, and that's Jordan Levitt. Ooh. Because Jordan Levitt lost to Claudio Puelles, who then they tried some stuff with.

Won a couple more. Loses to Patty Pimlet. Wins a couple more. Loses to Chase Hooper. Wins a couple more. Loses to Joe Anderson Brito. And when I say loses, like he's losing by like stoppage. Like he's getting stopped.

Leavitt's a good shout. I like that one. So fight Romero, get a win, then fight Levin next. I like that in December. Yep. Levitt's a good shot. That's where I'm looking right now. And even then, it's like, he won't get colded by Leavitt,

but Leavitt's a tricky-ass dude on the ground. Levitt presents issues that we have not seen Tom and McMillan have to go against. Yeah. I mean, look, Noche, we got Kevin Holland, Jack Delamadelaide on a Noce car. We could do, we could do Jordan Levitt versus Tom Billan on a Noce car to. That actually is, that's like perfect matchmaking right there. I think that's because Kevin Holland didn't want to fight in Australia like the week before. Yeah.

Super funny fight. Average Joe, Jose, how is absolute green arrow? Mike, how do we get you on the absolute train? Well, first of all, I need to know what absolute green arrow is because I don't know what it is. Absolute arrow. So the absolute universe is this, is DC's current, is like actually probably not even just DCs. It's the highest selling line in comic books

right now. So it's like the re they re they it's the modernization slash retelling of the DC universe in kind of a more dark modern setting. So absolute Batman, absolute Wonder Woman,

absolute Superman, where the three that started with absolute Batman for a very long time might still be was the highest selling comic book in the comic industry. Like Bruce Wayne's like 20 something like early 20s and like all it's they're still going through it wonder one is the best oh let me phrase absolute martian manhunter is the best wonder one's probably the second best

absolute bad man uh absolute arrow just started so did absolute catwoman flash and green arrow are fine but yeah it's basically if you missed the train for like 30 years and don't know how to get into batman uh you can go watch my interview i'll be shameless plug go watch my interview with kyle dockis because kyle dachs is like Everyone keeps telling me to read Absolute Batman, and then I just convince him to read Absolute Batman, and now he keeps posting on his Instagram stories how much he loves Absolute Batman. Or you can go watch my interview with, wow, who did, oh, man, I'm having a mind blank.

It's going to drive me up a wall. And I literally interviewed him. I know, because I keep calling him by his nickname. His nickname is Luke Fox. Denzel Freeman, because that's his nickname is Luke Fox. who's a Batman character. And we also just talked to Absolute Batman for like 30 minutes. So yeah, read Absolute Batman.

It's basically this is also very insider baseball. It's the ultimate universe. It's what a lot of us went through in the early 2000s with the ultimate universe in Marvel is what people are going through with Absolute Batman and the absolute universe right now. I'm not going to get into the lore of why this universe exists because we don't have enough time in the day.

But yes, people should read it. That's super funny. A lot of people ask about Ian Gary's brother. Have you seen this? Yes, yes, yes. I saw that literally right before. Ian, did you see this, Mike? I'm looking at it right now.

So Ian Gary's brother, and again, I don't know Ian Gary's brother. I don't know if this is Ian Gary's brother's official YouTube. This is a YouTube page, our channel that is allegedly run by Ian Gary's brother. I don't remember his name. And Ian did an interview with what's the YouTube channel that he did an interview? with? I don't know. It's the one that he just did. He literally just like something performance or it's one of those ones. High performance. It's the high performance podcast and Ian was one of the guests and talked about everyone seen the clips from all the aggregators stealing content on the

internet. Love those people by the way. Someone says I can't tell if you're joking or not but I hate them so much. But Sean Gary posted this very long comment pushing back on a lot of what Ian said and essentially it comes down to Ian, you're not a victim.

We weren't, we didn't have a bad childhood. We had an amazing childhood because I guess Ian said that Lalo was the first one that believed in him and he's like your parents our parents went to all of your fights. They supported you. They were great parents. We had a great childhood. I don't know why you're saying all of this. We hadn't

and so on. And missed your grandfather's funeral, didn't reach out, blah, blah, blah. And apparently, I guess a lot of people are saying that the channel has deleted quite the, I guess he's posted this comment a few times, and it keeps getting deleted, and then he keeps reposting it and saying it's been deleted four times now, and then he keeps posting it again and again and again. And he's hoping that, like, he's like, I'm something like, oh, I hope in like a year, a long time from now, you'll realize all the silliness that you're saying.

here's the end here's one of the last few paragraphs uh quote do me a favor i've been so quiet about your situation because i still feel bad for you but if even think about spreading this bullshit again i will make the full truth clear in its entirety and that's a promise wait 10 years ha ha ha you do realize we will not be waiting for you in 10 years time i want you to think about that my patience with you Ian has worn thin. I do hope you mature one day Ian, but I'm going to be honest. I will not be waiting 10 years for you to grow up

and admit your fault. Damn, man. Yeah, so I'm not going to get in the... Delete count Ford. Talk about controlling the narrative, delete it again, and I'm not going to hold back. Damn.

And then I know I haven't looked at it whatsoever, but I know he posted like YouTube links being like, here's proof that I exist and stuff like that. Here's proof that I say. who I am Ian's brother or related. I'm not getting involved in family drama. That's very silly.

Until Ian comments on it, I don't like talking about that. This reminds me of the Aaron Rogers situation in the NFL. Like, I didn't understand why it was such a big deal. Like Aaron's issues, Aaron Rogers' issues were like, I had more issues than Aaron Rogers. As a Packers fan, I say this.

I had more issues than Aaron Rogers. outside of the family drama. Yes. Drama was like non-factored me. So this is a non-issue for me either because Ian is still fighting. And until it affects the MMA world, I don't have any opinion on it. Yeah. Have you seen Master of the Universe yet, Mike?

It's number one worldwide on Prime now and it is free there. It's really good and a lot of fun people are loving it watching for yourself. I've not watched it yet. I'm very excited though. I haven't watched it either. I missed out I'm buying the sword at Regal Cinemas. I really wanted that. Yeah, I wanted to go see it.

We already got our Spider-Man tickets. We bought him like a month ago for next Friday. I'm seeing it. I'm going on vacation and I'm seeing it while I'm on vacation. Nice. Because I'm not letting that be spoiled for me. I also got my Avengers tickets. Oh, okay.

You can already order those? I can. Oh, look at you. how are you able to do this and little plebeians like myself can't i have friends that well i'm not seeing it like i'm not seeing it like days early i'm seeing it opening day i just got access to very early tickets that i still had to buy they weren't given to me i basically like i it was it was like the you know that you get advanced tickets i was given advanced tickets or given the option to buy tickets, I should say.

But yes, I really want to see Masters of the Universe really badly. A lot of people are saying it's similar to the Dungeons and Dragons movie, which I didn't have high hopes for, and then I watched it, and it was amazing. And it disappoints me that it did so poorly. And I had a lot of he-man

comic books growing up, big man-at-arms fan, so I'm really looking forward to it. Favorite discontinued beverage? Vault soda. Crystal Pepsi. Pepsi Blue was good, too. Oh. Surge.

Good shout. Good shout. Those are the best. Damn. Trying to think what else. I see some surges in here. I loved vault soda. That was my jam.

Joltz. That's the one with like the energy drink before energy drinks. Oh, yeah. Or just co-Cola with like two shots of espresso in it and just made your heart explode. Coswell says schlitz. My dad was a Schlitz guy back in the day. I'm also, I know for a fact, that Schlitz is not discontinued. Really?

I haven't seen Schlitz in forever. Oh, you could have gotten it in, um... In Rhode Island? No, in Arizona, there were a couple bars that still had it. No kidding. Crystal Pepsi was good. Pepsi black was also like real weird. That was like the coffee Pepsi.

Oh, yeah. What else was it? I remember they had Lifesaver soda back in the day. day. Tennessee Blue was my favorite, though. I never really tried Jolt because it freaked me out. Surgeon Vault were the jam, though. You know what I can't?

Shout out Ectocooli, too. Oh, yeah. That's discontinued? Oh, yeah, for sure. I haven't seen that in ages. Oh, man, Ecto cooler rocked. That was in my lunchbox every friggin day in elementary school. There's, um, I haven't seen it.

I don't think it's discontinued, but I haven't seen it in forever. Gatorade made energy drinks called fast Twitch. Those things are spectacular. Never had one. Oh, my gosh. You will run through a wall drinking one of those things. And maybe that's why you can't find them anywhere. But those are so good, man.

I'm pretty sure. Remember, I think Odd Walla juices no moss too. Really? Yeah, I think because I remember those. Yeah, I don't remember. Ah, squeeze-its? I remember Squeez. Oh, Scretus was the gym.

Fruitopia. They just discontinued Schlitts last month. What? There you go. Maybe that's why, in my mind, it wasn't discontinued because I remember having it, like, years ago in Arizona. Mr. Pib is back?

Wow. Tab is back. That's crazy. That's crazy. Man. Technically, Sierra Mist is discontinued, but it's not discontinued. It's, like, rebranded.

Oh, interesting. I don't know what it's called. It's, uh, oh man. It's so it's this, it is now, unless they, unless that's gone magically, but Sierra Mist was I'm going to look it up right now. Sierra Mist, new name, new name. I know what it is to. It's starry.

That's what it is. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what that's literally just Sierra Mist. Interesting. Um, we already talked about this, uh, Aaron and Jasmine off the card. we already confirmed this as well. Aaron, a little bit of an injury. It's got to be rebooked, probably in Edmonton,

but no one knows for sure, but I love these. OG pudding pops. Pupps are discontinued. Well, yeah, I haven't seen a pudding pop in forever. This things are really good. Killian Irish Red, Starring. Killing Irish Red. No, Star is not discontinuous.

Killian Irish Red is gone. on? That's crazy. That's like one of my favorite, that was one of my favorite beers. That's a bummer. Jose, do you remember Rocco's Modern Life? Of course I remember Rockos Modern Life. That was like right in the peak of my Nickelodeon era. Should I have been watching Rocko's Modern Life at the age I was?

Probably not. But I probably shouldn't have been watching Ren and Stimpy and Ariel Monsters and Cablam and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, hell yeah, I remember Rocco's Modern. in life. Fregan Renanin' Stimpy. That was a great show. I know that was Nickelodeon, but like, there's all

all Paramount. Yeah. Powdered toast ban. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Nickelodeon was throwing out of heaters back then. Oh, yeah. Doug and all those shows.

I read that Doug takes place in, like this, oh, man, it's like Fairfax, Virginia or Richmond, Virginia is like where Doug is based in. Really? Which threw me for a loop, yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, because like Cawahog, Rhode Island, which does not exist, obviously, and Family Guy is based off of Cranston, which makes a lot more sense because Cranston sucks.

I can say that as someone who spent, who was born and raised in Rhode Island. And is from Warwick, Rhode Island, Cranston East, y'all suck. That's what it is. They were like one of our main cross-city rivals and sports. God, Nickelodeon rocked back then. Who's the best? double dare was just an absolute banger guts

was a banger I one time I don't remember her name I had a this was so long ago I was definitely like eight or nine I went to the dentist and you know how when you go to the dentist office they have like all their diplomas

and like what they won and they had the guts trophy that they won when they were in like the crag thing the drag rock oh my God and I was like Well, this is the coolest sense. She had that next to her, like,

her dentistry school diplomas. And I was like, oh, you're, you might be the best dentist in Rhode Island. I mean, that's literally all you need to advertise. Just take a picture and put it on Facebook. Put that on your resume. That's incredible. What else do they have?

Wild and crazy kids was a great show. Oh, yeah. There's so many good ones, man. Just, yeah. Yep, bangor after banger. Salute your shorts. Uh, great stuff. Carmen San Diego was great.

Hey dude. That was a good one. Agro-Krag, Nickelodeon was like Studio 54. I visited Nickelodeon studios once when I was a little kid. That was a good time. People used to look up what it looks like now. It's super bummer. Yeah, it's all gone.

I put out a show once. We went to like the game show room and they were like doing little game shows and they were like, I think it was eight at the time. And someone was like, does anybody have like a weird hidden, talents that they want to show everybody. And, like, my parents are like, hey, go up and do the thing. And I'm like, no. No, go up and do the thing.

So I was like, all right, I'll go up and do the thing. So the movie Wayne's World came out. And there's a moment where Wayne is about to consummate something with his girlfriend, Cassandra. And she's on the phone. And Wayne just, like, stands there. And he, like, rolls his belly, like, in waves. And I, like, figured out that I had that talent when I was. I was eight. So I went out there and for everybody and like rolled and I did the Wayne belly roll

and people like went crazy for. They made me go up and do it again like once the seats filled up. And then like two days later we're walking around Universal and like people stopped me and my parents and were like, can you do the belly thing? And I did it like three more times that week. So that was my Nickelodeon studio story. Pretty crazy. That's fun. That's very fun. That place is awesome. It's kind of a bummer. Yeah. Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Was that Nickelodeon? It sure was. Yeah. That one, Are You Afraid of the Dark, was way better than. I love Goosebum's books, but Are You Afraid of the Dark was a scarier show. Yeah, it was like all that, all those shows, and then it would end the Saturday. Yep, it would end. Are You Afraid of Dark was like the last show of that block.

The episode with the Pool Monster. was terrifying. Yeah. I have a job. Camera one, camera two. Jim Dean, you know what I'm talking about. Yep, exactly. Anything else MMA related

before we get on out of here? Lots going on. There will be an interview dropping tomorrow with myself and the great Bogdan Goosekhov, who is a silly goose. He is a very silly man in all the best ways. So that is coming. My interview with Magamenekelaif is live.

Lots of stuff. Colby, Jay Alderetti, all on the YouTube channel, lots of stuff happening. Of course, a very busy weekend. Who loves Orange Sodom? My kids started watching Keenan and Kel on Paramount Plus. Good stuff. Good Burger was filmed in Rhode Island.

It was. How about that? Mm-hmm. Welcome to Goodberger. He was let go to answer what happened to Ryan Clark. Yeah. In the middle of a show. In the middle of a show.

Also, stay tuned for Sunday. I'll have video content from the Edgar Belanga Fight and Mass Square Garden. I'm not going to promise anything because... No promises. I'm not promising things in terms of like interviews because, as you know, my MMA faders are notoriously flaky. But it might have some real fun interviews backstage. But if that doesn't happen, we'll certainly have hopefully

Dan White post pressure and stuff. Yes. Two questions from She Loves the gloves before you get out of here. Noce and 331 headliner front runners. You're smiling like you already know the answer to this question. I mean 331 seems kind of obvious at this point. I wouldn't mind seeing, yeah, I would not mind

if they were the, if I was the matchmaker, if they were like, hey, Yaird Rodriguez, do you want to fight John Silva in the main event of Noce, UFC? It would be a fun little scrap. right that would be a fun little scrap uh no Diego Lopez okay I'd love to have a fight Diego Lopez what's the Paris headliner though okay wow put two and two together friends again this is not breaking news this is just theories absolutely not breaking news don't anyone run with this yeah just some theories maybe a BSD Diego Lopez made

have been interesting oh no no no no no no no now uh ha ha ha ha ha ha way better way better last question favorite interview you both have done lately personally when I say lately I'm going to stick to the last 30 days okay the last 30 days my favorite interview I did

was definitely Robert Whitaker because we did it in a room filled with people and he just kept ranting about why Digimon is better than Pokemon to the point where everyone in the room had to stop and be like, what is happening right now? So that's definitely my favorite one. Because it was so, and me and Rob always have a really good time when we interview

because we have a lot of the same opinions of video games. So definitely that one, because Rob doesn't get excited about a lot of things, but he got really excited about Digimon World and how annoyed he was that he always got a Patamon. And he just kept ranting about it. And like, people were stopping interviews and being like, guys, stop being so loud about Digimon right now.

I'm trying to interview. like Max Holloway. He was so good in his post fight after he beat Nikita Kroft. God, he was so, but cookies. Cookies for everyone is like my favorite line of fighters ever dropped. Have fun boys. Cookies for everyone. God, I've watched that clip eight billion times.

It's so funny. For me, I mean, Army was obviously very good. I'm going with, so this hasn't dropped. yet. I think it's going to drop at some point. When I was doing the red carpet before the MMA awards, I talked to Jay Farrow from Saturday Night Live. I don't think I've ever had more fun in a seven-minute time slot in my entire life. It was so funny. We were just like cracking each other up. He did a couple of Mike Tyson impressions. He was like, which Tyson do you want me to do? I was like, do the one who fought Peter McNeely. And he did it. And then he's like,

he's like, now I'll do the one now. And it's like a completely different mic, but they both sound exactly the same as those two Mike Tyson's. Very, very fun stuff. So hopefully that drops soon. I know it's like schedule. I thought we're going to drop it like last weekend, but obviously the new cycle continues and never stops. And at some point that'll drop. It's one of my favorite interviews ever. And yeah, that's it. That's the music. That means it's time to go. So preview show tomorrow. I think it'll be the great Jedmishu in the returning from vacation. Alexander Kay Lee previewing UFC. Lazy, lazy, lazy indeed.

Shout out, great to have my best friend back in action. We will have the People's Free Fight Show 8.30 a.m. on Saturday morning, I'll be back answering all your questions, and then I'll be working from the golf course. My kid has multiple practices before his big PGA Junior League week next week. I'll be doing all the fun stuff there, and we'll have the post-fight show, PFL's on, boxing.

Jose will be at Madison Square Garden for the Berlanga fight, so you'll get some Dana scrums, maybe some other interviews. We're not here to overpromise. We're just here to deliver the goods. And have fun, Jose. Enjoy the boxing festivities.

It's going to be a lot of decisions. A lot of decisions. That's what boxing does. So stick with us at Mayfighting.com. Lots of cool stuff coming up for Jose. I am I, Mike,ack, back next week to recap all the fun stuff. and get you ready for UFC Belgrade and much more.

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