MMA Fighting - BTL | Dricus du Plessis vs. Khamzat Chimaev, UFC 319, UFC-Paramount Deal

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

This Saturday, the highly anticipated UFC middleweight championship bout takes place in Chicago in the main event of UFC 319. Dricus du Plessis puts his championship on the line for the third time against the undefeated Khamzat Chimaev. What is at stake for both fighters outside of the championship belt? On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel discusses the wildly intriguing fight between du Plessis and Chimaev, and what a win can mean for both men. Additionally, topics may include Aaron Pico's UFC debut against Lerone Murphy in the co-main event and Pico getting the attention of featherweight champ Alexander Volkanovski, the UFC's multi-billion dollar new streaming deal with Paramount, Dana White promising fighter pay will go up with the bonuses, and much more. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@m_heckjr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@JedKMeshew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 will 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? At these prices, could I find something for everyone at Winners? Stop wondering. Start gifting. Winners, find fabulous for less. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first, there, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.

We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. The iconic voice, Sylvester Lidd, welcomes you to a brand new edition of Between the Links. Happy Thursday to us all. Happy UFC 319 Eve, Eve, that is right. We are a little over 48 hours away from UFC 319, a little of 48 hours away from Drickus Duplice versus Hamzat Shemayef for the UFC middleweight championship.

And a lot has happened over the last couple of days. And a lot, I mean, I mean a lot has happened since the last time we were on this program. And Casey is on vacation. So today we're just going to chat with all of you guys. All right. Next week we'll recap UFC 319. We'll have a contest. We'll do a little one-on-one matchup like we've been doing more so.

But today, it's a special time to talk with the wonderful listeners, the wonderful viewers of MMAFighting.com. And joining me to answer your questions, to talk with all of you, is the one, the only Mr. Doe Gray area himself. He is the hot take kid. The climber of all climbers. Where is he? There he is.

The one and only Jed Bishu from M.AFighting.com. I hear it's a terrific website. A terrific looking all-new website as well, Jedbushu. How are you? It is all new. I'm doing good, you know. I might have to take this AirPod out because it's starting to... My AirPod, like, I've had these for like five years and they're starting to go.

So this one's giving me some static. We'll see how that goes on. But Mike, we got the best fight of the year this weekend. I was looking through it. I actually do believe this is the best fight of the year. I'm pumped. Mike, I'm so pumped for this weekend.

I had a dream about the main event. That never happens to me anymore because like I'm like I don't know. You work in the space a long enough time. You just you're not like that excited ever. Like very rarely. I was really pumped for 300. Obviously it was 300, right? But like I woke up and I was like I had a dream about Drickus Duplissy and Hamzaa Tremayev.

I must actually be super interested in this fight. this weekend and and i am can't wait for it yeah normally if i have a dream about m ms it's like a work day thing where i was i for messed up a social media graphic or i was doing an interview and someone didn't show up but it's very rare that i actually like dream about a fight and the outcome of it but yeah dude i i'm so excited for this fight i knew i would be i've been excited since they announced it and i know there's always that trepidation when hums at chamoisa fights as he's gonna make it to the cage is you're going to make weight uh media day was yesterday it was awful i got to tell you if you wasn't i haven't i was off yesterday i did not pay one bit of attention to it spectacular move on

your part uh these media days are just brutal they're forever they take so long everybody's got ask 5 000 questions uh ddp was getting disrespected by uh by a journalist and then he maybe put out the most fire answer in the history of media day which I thought was great. But all at all, it's time for the fight. I am just so pumped for it, and I'm sure a lot of you guys are as well. But Jed, some other things have happened this week,

and we'll get to UFC 319 in a moment, but live on MAAfighting.com programming, we have not gotten your reaction to the UFC making their television rights deal official for 2026. Paramount is the home, multi-billion dollar deal, Aav, $1.1 billion over seven years. That's going to include 30 fight nights,

13 numbered events. So the schedule going away, taking a card or two away from the overall, not happening. In fact, it seems like they might want to do more. They want to do double the Contender Series cards, which if you watch Contender Series past Tuesday, might not be the best idea.

But all in all, Jed, UFC does the thing. They got their billion plus per year, at least on average. Your thoughts, your reaction to all of this. I've obviously, I think like everybody, I was really, really surprised with where this went, you know. I, in my head, this was, I felt based on a lot of the reporting, Netflix was the most likely outcome here,

or at least like a Netflix ESPN combo. So I think maybe the folks at the MMA draw were, were kind of on that CBS Paramount Plus could have, what was like a serious contender, but I didn't see like a lot of other talk about this. So that kind of felt out of nowhere. My sort of initial reaction after that was, hey, death of pay-per-view.

That'll be good for fans. You know, some, I want to couch that a little bit, just a little bit of trepidation there because like, we won't know for sure until it happens, right, until we are living in it that actually the, price to be a UFC fan is going down. But at least on paper, it seems like that's going to be the case, right?

You pay for your Paramount Plus subscription and you don't have to buy pay-per-views anymore. So suddenly that's like an additional $1,000. If you're like a hardcore MMA fan that you're no longer spending on the UFC, maybe you end up spending that money still on the UFC, you go to an event or something like that. But if you're, you know, you just want to watch fights at home, this should be, at least on paper, good for the fans. and ultimately I don't know what this is going to mean for the fighters.

I think I come down on the idea that it'll be better for the fighters in the fact that they will get paid more money in total, but John Nash had a tweet about this yesterday or the day before. I don't remember John Nash obviously incredibly knowledgeable about this sort of thing, the financial space in MMA. And I'm going to paraphrase it because I don't have it in front of me, but it was like, hey, they're adding an additional X hundred million dollars per year in revenue with this deal. You know, fighter pay, even if they raise fighter pay by these sort of just guesstimates that he threw out, you know, bump the bonuses of 75, bump the flat fee for contender series to 15s, you know, do some sort of a weighted pay structure in replacement of the pay. pay-per-view points that no longer exist.

You know, it's still, it will, of course, be a raise for the fighters across the board, but it will actually, the percentage of revenue will go even more weighted towards the UFC. It's still speculative. We don't actually even know what or if, like, how the pay structure will change. But it's like going to be a net positive in that fighters, I think, will get more money. but again, they'll be getting less money comparatively. And so don't really know how to feel about this, you know, from a fighter first standpoint. But from a fan first standpoint, I think that this is going to be good.

The thing that made me concerned, Mike, is I hoped. And I, this was not a hope that I had, right? Like, it's not that I believed would happen, but that I allowed myself to feel of like, maybe with such a high flat rate and the death of pay-per-view, right? Maybe the UFC says, you know what, we can scale back a bit. We don't have to do 42 events a year. We can focus a little bit more on quality and just do 36 events a year. And maybe that means we sign a few less fighters, right?

Instead of carrying a 700 fighter roster, you know, it's six. And we just scale back the events a little bit and make sure all the events pop a little bit more than they currently do. You know, I've been a long time on the, I think they should do three events a month, an Apex show, a road show, a pay-per-view show. And like, theoretically, this is the sort of deal that would incentivize them to do that. Lower your overhead costs. You have a flat rate for the money coming in. You're not incentivized to build pay-per-views in that way. but based on sort of a lot of the comments

doesn't seem like that is what's in the offing here and so instead it may be the exact opposite where they get a lot of money and they double contender series which I think would probably be bad you know like maybe we're just getting more events and even if the quality of those events will by definition drop off

because there's only so many good fighters in the world Mike yeah that's 100% true we'll see I mean look this is obviously a massive win for the UFC it is a massive win for the fans I know that at least right now the short term look at it from Dana White and the brasses hey for 1299

you get everything and I think at the start of this deal at least from talking to some folks who work in the television and sports media space that that's exactly what this will be January 1st prices will be the same the 799 1299 tier goodbye whatever it is and you get all of it but make no mistake i will

i'll make a friendly little like wager that you can go back to this little clip right here and be like mike you were so wrong and if you watched the ufc319 timeline boy i was wrong a lot uh when it came to the build of this hamzachma of drichstuplecci fight by the time the fourth of july card comes around that 1299 is going up. I bet we're almost, almost certainly I believe that. We're probably in 1999, which is still very good.

Yeah, it's still a good deal, but it's not staying at 1299. There's just no effing way that that happens. So I would be pretty, I like, I don't know if it'll be by the summer. Um,

I would bet a good chunk of money that at, at the end of year one, the price would go up because the price of all streaming services has just been going up steadily, basically forever. and, you know, ESPN did that thing where they're like, hey, actually now you got to have ESPN Super Plus to get all of our shit and it'll be 50 bucks a month or whatever it is.

So I currently have like a Paramount subscription anyway and I just assume that it will go up. Though I will probably be getting rid of my ESPN Hulu Disney Plus combo sub next year. Not 100% because I still use some ESPN stuff. stuff. They have F1. But, yeah, there's a good chance I'll drop that because the primary thing I use it for

is to watch the UFC. Hoverson. Let's see. Let's go to the peeps. RIP, Machiavelli, the Dawn. Thank you for the super sticker. I don't know if I've ever seen a super sticker. So this is.

I don't know what that is. History making. All right. So get in the chat. We'll pull up your questions. We'll get to as may as we can. Super chatterers get to the front of the line like John. I did not think that the first question would be a PFL question,

especially this question, but here we are. John asked, Mike, since you're covering PFL and Charlotte, what is one of the low-key bangor fights outside of the title fights? It will be my first PFL event. Oh, John, good. You're going to be there. I will be there as well. I'm heading out there in the morning.

It's very rare that these people... This weekend? It's tomorrow. Huh. I didn't realize that the Charlotte was this weekend. Well, that's never a good thing. Nope. It's usually not a good thing.

thing. So the old Bojangles Coliseum. Yes. I've been to the Bojangles Coliseum. Especially since arguably two at worst, top 10 fighters in the world in their respective weight classes are competing on this card. Gadsie Rabidanov might be one of the six or seven best lightweights on planet Earth, but we just probably won't know that.

Liz Karmouche, obviously very, very good. She's fighting. A strongly considered climbing. with Liz Karmouche, but then I was like, man, Liz Karmouche is 50. Also, money has poured in on Jenna Bishop, so super glad I didn't make that move. It's a good call. Low key banger. I mean, anytime Mads Bernal fights, I always have a good time.

It's usually pretty fun. And Robert Watley's kind of a madman, uh, CFFC guy. I think he's a former champion for them and he's signed with them. So that's probably the correct answer. And then, of course, I am always curious to see, especially after getting slept in his last fight, Biazio Ali Walsh, we'll see how he bounces back from a pretty bad loss in his last fight against a guy with a decent record. Yeah, yeah, that's, I mean, that's certainly interesting. So not a terrible card.

Am I working this tomorrow? No, I am. Well, I mean, you're working at it, but like, are you going to work at it and do this stuff? I'm going to do it's fair. Yeah, I'm going to do it. Dope. I just sort of always assume that when there's a full fried, didn't realize dope.

I'd love to have a Friday off. That sounds great. Yeah. So, I mean, I was like, well, I was just go. It's not that far. So it's not.

Charlotte's not far from me either because I've covered, I've been, I covered the last UFC there for sure. That was a while back. But yeah, it's a great town too. Really like Charlotte. Good city.

Yeah. I haven't been to Charlotte. It's so stuck there for two days. after my high school senior trip, like a bunch of my friends, we went to the Bahamas, and we had a week of craziness. And then we had a layover in Charlotte,

and that layover lasted two days because the weather sucked and there's some sort of like craziness. So that was, and then we got put up at like an embassy suites near the airport. And that's literally like our entire, that's my experience with Charlotte, other than driving through it.

Charlotte's a good little city. We got a lot of fun things. Dated a girl who lived in Charlotte for a minute. I like it. Yeah. Joseph, what do Mike and Jed think of Hamzat's teammate debuting on Saturday? After it came out,

we lost Bobby Green versus Carlos Diego Faheda from this card. Is that confirmed? What? The King Green thing? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's confirmed. Again,

I took yesterday all the way off. I did not pay a single bit of attention to things. This is officially. It's a day's story. Oh, okay. Well, it's, it's a today's story. In fact, our own Guillermo Cruz interviewed Diego Faheda last night talking about the fight and what it meant. And Diego was getting ready to use this fight in the purse to pay off his new house in Dallas because he's moving closer to 4 to 7 May to really make a run at this.

And then we find out this morning, Cole Shelton breaks the news that the fight is off. Diego Faheda told him. that the fight is off. He didn't know why. Of course, there's more to the story than that. So as I typically do, I reach out to some people. King Green is injured,

undisclosed injury, and that has scratched him from the fight. Honestly, it's pretty good. Glad, because he shouldn't have been fighting this. That's a fairly quick turnaround after being obliterated by a jump knee. Yeah, that's true. It's not as bad as the Charles Olivera fighting in Rio thing.

that's really bad idea, but still, like, he should have taken some more time. It was a really nasty KO loss. But even before this news was made official, we found out yesterday, we confirmed. Bisinger Sucer Koev, who was the star of the Contender series on Tuesday, because that card was a tough hang. You and I both watched it. It wasn't great. Sucer Koev is an absolute madman.

So he was great. Stole the show. will probably be the talk of the entire season, I would have to guess. He took on Eric, or he's fighting Eric Nolan, the CFFC Welterweight champion, I believe.

I believe that that is correct. He's a Jersey guy. I know he trains with a lot of those guys that live in that area. He's got some good knockout wins. And he's getting a turnaround three days after. Like, this is, I think this is freaking brilliant by the UFC, especially with Hobbs out fighting on the card.

And this guy getting so much buzz. coming off of this performance and Eric Nolan is a fun fighter he's gotten some good wins but this is a Walter wait so it is a lot of guy should be edged here this

the UFC could not have done a better job of this in my opinion perfect opponent it's gonna be a fun fight while at last and Susikai's probably gonna finish him and it's yeah just brilliant move it's perfect um as I was watching in Tindu series like

Sucyiv should be Joe Pfeiffer, right? Like he should have gotten put over in the same way Joe Piper did once upon a time. And literally the reason he was not is because his name is difficult for Dana White to pronounce.

That's it. Because like after like that, if y'all didn't watch Contendish series this week, don't go back. Ain't no need. Two contracts only got handed out. Honestly, I can't remember the last time only two dudes got contracts. Like I just straight up thought

they were going to give the French dude one because they're going to Paris soon or whatever. And he like had a solid performance, but it was a good performance just on not interesting performance. But they only handed out two and the first two fights were like,

they weren't bad fights honestly, but like they didn't dazzle. And then Sersikov comes out and blows that man up and he's leaving the cage and Dana you know Dana reaches out in his

like you just save my Tuesday night man he reiterates it in the post like there he he waits you know he gives the contract to tie Miller who I thought deserved a contract but he waits to do Sersakai of last to put him over but then while he's putting him over he's just like I'm gonna call him Jimmy

or whatever the hell name you pick he's like because he can't say he's just like by by Basanga Sersekaya like he can't Dana White's never getting that ever and like had he if he his name was like john brown it would have been like guy we would have gotten another be joe piper it would have been a be john brown situation because they dana was in love with him

there's a lot of reasons to like him he's undefeated super talented obviously you know trains both at killcliff and is a teammate of hamzaa chimaev so like there's a lot to get him over and then they like could have made made it a bigger deal but it was just he can't say his name so he didn't. But clearly they like him, and that's why they're doing this, and I'm fully on board with you. Like, this is A plus stuff.

Let that dude come in. And, you know, if he wins, I mean, I know that it's not technically, like the contingency isn't technically a UFC thing, but it will be functionally the fact, like the quickest fighter to win two fights in the UFC will be him because he will have done it in four days, which is,

not really possible in in the way the UFC constructs itself. So yeah, pretty dope and an interesting thing to add to to this weekend. Yeah, I wonder where they're going to place this one. That's what I'm looking at. I'm looking at the card on the website. You know what? That's a really good question. Yeah, they officially have removed green and fair from the website.

It wasn't that way like 10 minutes ago. No, that was prelim. I bet they just throw it in the. in the middle prelim section, the ESPN plus section. They should feature it. Just feature it. Who cares?

Like, it's going to be a absolute slapper. And what better way to lead into a Hamzaa Chbaya of title fight than like a protege of Hamzaa Chamaev? It would be, I don't think they'll do that. Just because everybody else on this card like has a name to some extent. Like Jessica and Drogh, former champion,

right? Uh, if they just, if they were just going for full on, like let's let's have fun me or short olick check is going to be a thing's going to be that's in the spot that's in the spot currently right now i see yeah like that fight's going to be going to be wacky so like if you're just looking for action to lead you in go for that but like wouldn't stun me if they're like let's we like chase hooper and chase hooper we at least is a known commodity as opposed to

buying so i'd be surprised it wouldn't be the worst decision but i do bet they throw in the middle prelims that they don't bear it in the earliest. Yeah, they should. Yeah, I don't know how they're scheduling it out right now. The ESPN prelims has five fights. Starting at 8 o'clock, so we'll see what happens. Welcome aboard Air Canada. Rocky's vacation, here we come.

Whoa, is this economy? Free beer, wine, and snacks. Sweet. Fast free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land. And with live TV, I'm not missing the game. It's kind of like, I'm all right. Ready on vacation. Nice.

Air Canada. Nice travels. Wi-Fi available to Aero plan members on equipped flights. Sponsored by Bell. Conditions apply. See Air Canada.com. Ontario. The wait is over. The gold standard of online casinos has arrived.

Golden Nugget online casino is live. Bringing Vegas-style excitement and a world-class gaming experience right to your fingertips. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting. Signing up is fast and simple. And in just a few clicks, you can have access to our exclusive library of the best slots and top-tier table games. Make the most of your downtime with unbeatable promotions and jackpots that can turn any

mundane moment into a golden opportunity at Golden Nugget Online Casino. Take a spin on the slots, challenge yourself at the tables, or join a live dealer game to feel the thrill of real-time action, all from the comfort of your own devices. Why settle for less when you can go for the gold at Golden Nugget Online Casino? Gambling problem call connects Ontario 1866-531-260-90 19 and over physically present in Ontario eligibility restrictions apply

see golden nuggett casino.com for details please play responsibly. Any knowledge on... A couple tough champions. Yes. Nick, any knowledge on other country's rights and when they will come do as well? I'm in Canada, I'll be damned if I'm still buying paper views. I have no idea.

No clue. I have no idea. If you're thinking about Canada, I'd probably maybe hit up Aaron Bronsider on Twitter. But they just changed, right? Didn't they go from TSN to Sportsnet like a year ago, maybe two? So like, in my head, it's recent, but I'm bad at time now.

So like, that could be one of those things where I think it was last year. It was actually 2012 or something. Let me see. Max Rapkin, you're right. B. By Sengar Sersakaiev does hit different. Yeah. It was 20, it started in 2024, the sports.

that deal. Sports that has held exclusive rights to UFC fight nights, pay-per-view preliminary events in the reality series, the ultimate fighter in Canada since 2024. Meanwhile, the next UFC pay-per-view fight available for Canadians to watch on Sportsnet cost $69.99. So I don't know when this

when this ends. But it's new. So, yeah, you're going to have to pay for pay-pree for a little while, I guess. I'm sorry for you. Get a VPN. and watched and a Paramount Plus subscription. Yes.

Jed, this question's for you. Slito asks, are you bailing on NB this week? Have you no shame? No, it's recorded. I recorded it late Tuesday night,

and then I had to do all the contender series stuff. So it didn't get put up yesterday. I have to edit it where I'm almost done editing it. It'll go up this afternoon. Have a guest. Don't have a climb yet. I still haven't figured out what to climb with. Part of me just wants to go with main event,

doesn't go to decision. I think the vibes. Minus 380. I think what is? I think Susserkaya is open at like a minus 380 or something. No chance I'm doing that. Oh, really? Okay.

Can't can't do it with a guy making his debut on a four-day turnaround. Just that would just be reckless, reckless endangerment of the climb. There were a couple of things. at the fight doesn't go to the distance in the main event. Oh, Canineer MVP over one and a half. That feels, but that's like a bigger price, but it's less fun than doesn't go to decision main event,

but we'll see, I'll get one down. What about Mirchart versus Olegzechuk does not go the distance, minus 370? Also in consideration, but I mostly want to climb with main card action when we're doing watch parties for the content of it. If that's the feature about though, if it's the feature about, I guess,

I guess we could open it up. I haven't done it yet. We'll figure it out. I just haven't. Nothing jumped out like, uh, like Chase Hooper probably isn't like the worst. But I don't know.

I'm still a little, little sketchy about Chase just because he wasn't great. Now he's been on this heater of a run. Um, so I'm still just a little concerned. I don't know. I'll figure something out. have it up before the fights.

But no bets barred should be up in a couple hours. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out my bets and I'm looking at it. And I don't, as everybody knows, I don't bet like very seriously. I do it for the content and I don't bet a lot of money. But even just looking at some of these lines and stuff, I'm just like, it's kind of a tough one to bet on right now. Like there, I feel like value wise, like there are certain plays that I might just have to take a shot at that I don't want to.

Like if Lorone Murphy gets to plus 150, I feel almost compelled. to take a shot at him against Aaron Pico, but he's not there quite yet, so we'll wait and see. I don't understand. Also, Mike, uh, semi-breaking news,

and it's not confirmed, so I won't even say news, but, uh, potentially one of the ultimate fighter finale fights has been scrapped from this record as well. Where is doing this? Uh,

it looks like Evan Coogler may have been the first to report this, um, that, uh, uh, Sazonado is out of, of the planned tough finale fight. So,

I don't know if that's true or not. It's just, Rodrigo Sazonato, Daniel Dunchenko may be in jeopardy. Uh, I put it into Slack so we can get some confirmation on it, but, uh,

it appears that the welterweight tough finale is, at least some people are reporting that it could, could be in jeopardy for this weekend. Okay. who is he supposed to fight i'm sorry uh denil dunchenko and rodrigo sezano or sezanoando i didn't watch a second of tough so i don't know these people but um per evan coogler says anando's team uh says that the fight is off this weekend the finale has been rescheduled for noche he sustained a training injury earlier in the week again that's not confirmed but uh we're going to try to say mike's probably working on that right now. Yes. Let's let's uh,

let's, Toby, there's no tough spoiler, tough, uh, it aired Tuesday. So the answer, the fight was spoiled already.

I don't have breaking news music, but, uh, I am told it is true. That's the best I could do. Um, yes, I'm,

I'm also seeing our own Damon Martin has confirmed at least part of it. Yes. So it, it appears. is the case that it is being moved to noche uh i have messages out to some others so we shall see if that is what's going on here but yeah i mean fights just falling off this card as long as it's not the main event knock on wood doesn't matter to me yeah tough scenes so my greatest fear mike

is that i will be driving to savannah saturday morning and suddenly slack will blow up and it'll be like Hamzot. Hamzot's out. Kyle Baha'aio stepping in and six hours notice. And I was like, God damn it. God damn it. God damn it. I don't think that's going to happen.

I don't think so either. Not wrong wood, but that's the fear. He's not fighting Kyle. Like if that happens, DDP's just not going to fight Kyle. And if I was... You think so? Why would you do, unless they pay him like way more money,

why would he do that? I think he'd get a bump in DDP. I just don't. feel like he cares i think he's just like that's fine i'll whip that guy's ass too i think he'd care he should i'm not sure he would have to go from hamsot to kio i mean he should care but i don't know man ddp's real game i think he i think he'd get a little extra money and he'd he'd say screw it ddp would be like i'll fight him in a storage closet no gloves no referee first person that walks out is the UFC middleweight champion.

Yeah. And he'll do it for the same. He's my boy. I, after the media day yesterday with DDP and him just like battling through a lot of the just ridiculous questions he was getting,

including the Derek Brunson question, which was so ridiculous. DDP might be my new favorite fighter to listen to speak. I think he's the best fighter on the mic currently. I agree. I think I put it over the top for me yesterday. when it was just like, first of all,

and I like to be like, oh, this guy asked bad questions and stuff. Like, I can sit there and just be like, I can look at things from a viewership perspective and be like, dude, this is, this is just tough to watch. But when you start off a question with, I don't mean to be a dick,

and then you ask your question. Good preface. Never a good thing, especially when you're talking about jerk his duplicacy. And he's like, Derek Brunson tackled you and made you work for a little bit and gave you a tough fight with your rest of, all this time ago.

And the DDP is just like, yeah, I'll give you the first round. And then I'll take the, I'll take your towel. He can't have the first round. I'll take your towel. He goes, it can't get any worse than them throwing the towel in. It was just so gangster that he's so good. He's just so damn good at this. Let's continue on.

Gator MF. Cornerwork by Nixick was the worst since Josh Fabia. His greeted ego put Roman in danger, new media deal, saved him from him from more scrutiny. You talked about this during the post-fight show, Jed. You are not a fan of Nixick's cornerwork on Saturday. And on top of that, yeah, Roman Deleads got his ass beat. Sure, good. Probably unnecessarily for a little bit longer than it needed to. But yeah, looks like there's some folks who would agree with you on this situation. So, yeah, it was just disappointing because I think Eric Nixig is one of the best coaches in the sport. And like that, the

corner work he was providing his corner work i would traditionally say is really good right like he was saying the things that are better um to say like giving actual like tactical and technical advice about how a fighter can do it the issue is that his fighter wasn't there there was nobody home to receive this advice and he was sending out of functionally defenseless man to go take an ass beating and it didn't need to take um i mean it's just par for the course in the sport it's it's sort of is what it is. But yeah, it was a, I would say that that was not one of Nixixix's finer moments.

And so that's why I was disappointed because I do hold him in, and some esteem. And, you know, but it is sort of just is what it is, right? Like, I don't think that my,

my guess is that this is just sort of a one off situation and not like, maybe Nixik, like this is indicative that Nixik is going to start being bad. I don't think that's true at all. Um, but, nobody's good forever. Look at Jason Herzog.

Jason Herzog used to be the best ref in the sport. He's terrible now. He's a terrible referee now. So like, I don't know what we're doing here, guys. It's, uh, it was a shame.

I hope, you know, I hope that it doesn't happen in the future, but I'm sure it will continue to happen. Yeah, Eric addressed it on his podcast. Did he? He did.

Yeah, he talked about it. He did his show, uh, I believe he recorded it like the day after the fight. Uh, there's a lot of talk about Sean Strickland and, and things of that nature.

and people saying like he's falling down since the Sean Strickland thing. And, you know, he kind of went to both things. And, you know, the way Eric kind of looked at it was basically just took his hat off to Fluffy. And I think he goes a little deeper into it. So if you want to watch show, go check it out. But I actually will. Yeah, a lot of it was, look, man, Fluffy would have done that to pretty much anybody, like hats off to him. I agree.

He doesn't matter who was that night. He goes, he just beat our ass. Like, what could he do? because he just handed us our ass like you just got to pick up pick it up and reattach it and walk on down the road like that's that's all you can do so we'll see i i think eric's one of the best coaches in the game as well you have ups and downs man i mean eugene berriman couldn't lose cornering a fighter for what seemed like forever and then his fighter started to lose like it's just the nature of the beast like yeah the other like volks getting caoed kai car france is getting beat Like all those dudes are getting beat like it happens. It's a roller coaster ride this this crazy sport of ours. Also like just be real. Nobody at Extreme Couture is just like a supernatural talent.

You know, it's like city kickboxing, which I believe is a very good gym and has proven that self over time. Like Izzy and Volk are like two generational talents. You know, like to corner them is still a. success, right? It doesn't, but they are probably going to succeed to some extent regardless. There's not a human being alive who understands fist fighting who would look at Sean Strickland and say like, that guy is undeniable. He would have succeeded no matter where he went. And so, yeah, if you're not working with literally the most talented fighters of all time, you're absolutely going to have some down periods. And I still think Nick Six is a great coach. I think he's a really

good corner i think he just he should have stopped that fight yeah uh look frances and gano chooses to train there and in work with eric so he's that's that so that is like their one supernatural talent and i forgot he existed because he doesn't fight anymore or go to pfl africa events but that's yeah that that was a tough scene god damn that's like the one time don said something that was like he probably shouldn't have that i was like honestly i even get this one Yeah, he's right. Like, you still maybe shouldn't just say that, like, in your position, but I get it. I get that one.

Yeah. I hope I get to meet Dapper Dahn in person tomorrow and perhaps we could have a conversation. Well, that'd be fun. That'd be great. I assume he'll be there. He's never come to the ATL ones as always Ray. Yeah, he was at the one a couple weeks back. So we'll see.

Chase, in a world where Islam wins the 170-pound belt, does Balaal just give up his title aspirations for a guy who, was clearly praying on his downfall. That's a great word. I'm telling you, it's a great wording. I said this before that, before the Belal fight, I don't think he was praying on the downfall. I think he would have been completely content to either eventually just fight

Balal or, you know, fight Ilya. I obviously would have been an enormous fight and, and wait. But I thought that the, way they were talking made me think they're not this isn't a close your eyes and pray this is a actually think jack might beat this dude like they spent some time around belal they that whole team the abdumannab

team clearly as like really really sophisticated understanding of fight sport and i think that it wasn't so much praying as it was like this is very possible and so we want to keep our options open if Islam wins I mean, Bal should probably just abandon his title aspirations anyway like regardless but because he's old and Walter Waite has like a million people

trying to vie for contention here. But if Islam wins, I'll be shocked if he has like a prolonged run at 170. Maybe he fights once would be my guess. He fights I'll say like maybe he does a triple champ fight with Ilya maybe maybe he fights chavkat maybe if hamzot wins he tries to go fight homzat and they say okay i would not say that zero um i wouldn't say it's likely but i wouldn't say it's zero why i would guess he fights once i i my belief is it wouldn't surprise

me if he just retired because like fighting fighting fighting longer will only pro like create more opportunity for this sort of storybook career to get upended in some way. And so my guess is he would fight one more time. Yeah. I mean, like I said, although I think he's got a little more grace after the JDM fight for being as fun as it was. I don't feel like Ballal has like realistic title aspirations these days. I mean, he can go out win like three in a row.

And if he goes out and just like beats Brady again and then, you know, beats an Oosman or beat somebody and beat Shafcott, like, yeah, it's like hard to deny him getting a title fight at that point. But he's going to have to win like two fights, maybe three, especially with Islam moving up. So, and they ain't going to be easy fights. Sean Brady said he has a fight like that he's agreed to.

He's just waiting on the other side. I don't know who it is. Is it Shafkat? Is it Kamar Usman? Because Belal's probably fighting the other guy in that discussion. So Belal's either fighting Usman or he's fighting Shafkot. So if he wins, then sure, puts him in a good position, but probably have to win again. If he just fights shop, got Dussum, that might change the conversation.

But I don't know. I don't know. It's going to be tough. Yeah, it's, I think he shouldn't have title aspirations, but I'm sure he still does. He's a fighter. But I don't think outside of him stepping in to replace somebody on a semi short notice situation, I think it's incredibly unlikely he's ever competing for the title again. Yeah.

This whole thing, because I know he says it all the time. I just need one win and I'm fighting for the belt again. That's just not true. It's just not remotely true. It's not true. He's got to win at least two, maybe three before that happens. And he's lucky that JDM fight was as good as it was because otherwise it probably would have to be four or five at this point.

But we shall see. Justin just asks very simply bold prediction for Saturday. I don't know if it's a bold Well like what are we qualifying as a bold prediction hold on let me take a look at something I mean it's getting more bold by the goddamn day I think DDP is winning And I actually I'm really coming around to DDP might win handily Oh really yeah like I think everyone is of the opinion that Hamzat's going to win the first round.

And I would still say that's the most likely outcome. But I got to tell you, Mike, you know, I've got blinders. I got the DDP colored glasses on. So take everything I'm saying with all the grains of salt, y'all. I absolutely love how he's approached the fight, everything he's saying about the fight. Like, I think that it's spot on where he's like, he had some quote, I'm just paraphrase, but he's like, yeah, I'm not coming in here to defend takedowns. I think you like, people are asking the Derek Brunson question, Mike, the, well, you've gotten taken down before and Hamzot's way better.

Like what he's and he's, and he's just like, bro, this is this is not me coming into sprawl and brawl. I am coming in to hunt that man. Like I, he is not approaching this with a like a defensive mindset of like, like, I. I got to survive this guy. And like when you're fighting somebody like a Hamzaat, like a terrifying force of nature, you can't come in, not even like afraid,

because I don't think like Robert Whitaker was afraid of Hamzat Shemayev, but you can't come in with any sort of like doubt, with any sort of like, I have to make it through round one and keep it on the feet and that's how I win. You have to come in with the swagger of a goddamn champion and be like, he's not, I'm not locked in the cage with him.

He's locked in that cage with me and I'm going to beat the shit out of this dude. I love his, like, I love the mentality. I've said this for months and weeks now. I think DDP is probably, and his team are probably the best game planners active in the sport right now. Like they are always bringing specific tools to the table to attack specific aspects of opponents' games. Like, the first round is always going to be. Hamzad is the most dangerous because he just, he comes out full throttle. Like he hits the Nas right at the opening bell.

I think he is going to be surprised by the physicality that DDP can bring to bear against him as well. Still, I would still say Hamzad is like the stronger, more physically imposing person. But I don't think DDP is going to crumble up. And as soon as he, as soon as DDP gets like one ounce of momentum, I think it's going to snowball in a really bad way. And I think DDP is about to silence any doubters that remain. I think they're coming out and be like, I guess that dude is the best guy going right now. And I can't wait for it.

Breaking news, Jed. Oh, man, more breaking news? Well, it's just a full circle of the conversation we had earlier. The UFC has released the updated UFC 319 card. Let me just hold on. one second uh that fight is off it's not on the card uh the tough fight the new featured prelim jed mishu sir sicaa f versus eric nolan is that that's really the featured prelim sure is hey but here's so we have i mean that's kind of crazy we have ebersmoralis sylva barboza

battle roots of biaf edson barboza versus jrcar close is on the fight pass early prelims that the that's wild it was always that though it was always the like main event of the early prelims you know the the lead into the ESPN plus stuff or whatever the ESPN prelims first fight chase hooper versus Alexander hernandez just gone drudge versus lupe go denies once nine p.m. eastern rolls around jed it is just going to be the best we get gerald mirshar versus mcale and say check ratings fever we're going up and up then we get surcicaa versus eric noel in the future be sick, man. Right into Tim Elliott,

Kaias Akura, Jared Candidare, Michael Page, Jeff Neil Carlos Pratchis, and then Murphy Pico in the main event. There you have it. Yeah.

I mean, it's a good fight card, man. I was talking about this yesterday on submission radio. This is like, if something happens,

knock on wood for the 18th time, and the main event falls apart, the card sort of nose dives. but like not because everything else is bad. Everything else is just like a rock solid B to B plus, but the main event is such an A plus plus that it just drags everybody up with it to make this like an A card. And as long as that main event holds,

this is going to be on paper. It looks like one of the best cards of the year. In actuality, like there's a world where Lauren Murphy here and Pico isn't that fun because it's going to learn Murphy fighting. Jared Kennedy or Michael Venham Page is probably going to be boring Tim Elliott

Kassakura could just be weird and so like there could be a chunk of time where we're like man this is sort of a slog in parts but it's not going to matter because there's no chance the main event isn't a total ripper and so we're all going to end the night with filet mignon and be pretty buzzing off of it

so yeah it's a great card I'm pumped about it my bold prediction is that Michael Venom Page gets a performance bonus on Saturday. You think he's going to blow up, Jared Canaanator? I kind of do. Okay. I guess I won't be climbing with the over one and a half in that fight then. It might be at round three, though, Jed.

You never know. I could be, but if he's going to blow him up at all, my whole thought is, it's a bold prediction, he throws one puncher around. So, it can, I, did I say this here? I can't remember if you dismissed me

or if this was yesterday on submission radio and they shook their heads like I was a fucking bozo. I don't think I'm wrong. The middleweight title picture is really, really jacked up right now. There's a non-zero chance that if MVP absolutely ice is Jared Kennanier

and then throws a pokey ball at him or some shit that he's fighting for a belt next. Am I crazy to think that that's like outside the realm of possibility? I think you're absolutely nuts people people hate people absolutely hate my polo costa could get a title shot of poms out wins takes but even paul costa has a better chance

of getting a title fight than michael ben page does again i don't think it's zero that paula costa gets a title fight either but like oh he's got it's paul it's it's all just so weird but it's all so weird at middleweight like if if in a couple of weeks kio and nassardine fight to like a really weird split draw or like the wrong guy gets the decision. And then there's MVP just did a jump knee and broke Jared Canaaner's face and then caught him like a goddamn Pikachu. I feel like there's a world where they say, screw it, let's do it.

We don't have anything else to do. Yeah, I don't think it should happen. But Hamza said like, yo, I want to beat the shit out of this dude and then fighting Abu Dhabi. That fight already, that Carter already has made events, Tommy Aspinall. But if Shemive really wants this and it's just, just like, yo, I'm fighting on this card. I'll do it in the co-main event. I don't care. I just have to be.

Then DDP's getting the call, baby, because that dude will fight next week if you want him to. Maybe it'll be DDP again. Maybe it'll be Paulo Costa because he'll say yes. So nobody else can. Who the hell knows? But hopefully that none of those things happen and that we just let this shit play out. We get fluffy RDR. We get Kyo and Imovop battling it out.

We have a little four-man tryout. Best man wins. Love it. Uh, interesting question. I'm going to try to decide. I had to roll this like seven times to even kind of understand it. I think I kind of understand it, but the back half I have no clue what's going on. Uh, what is your MMA flashpoint paradox?

Gone drops out. Derek Lewis replaces last minute. Derek Lewis, K.O's Tom, EG, GDS versus Kane one. J.J. tweets, Kio the king on White House lawn. J.J. wins that part of it. Uh, if that happens, I'll, I'll just walk. into the sea or just walk into the ocean and never resurface. I'll become Aquaman because I don't want to live in this world if that's just how it

unfolds. That would be terrible and I really hope it doesn't happen. I don't know what, like, I don't know the answer to what I would want, like, what sort of a weird, wonky flashpoint would I want. The things I, I'll tell, here's my flashpoint, like, here's the thing I want to happen. more than anything that maybe I've ever wanted to happen in the history of this sport. I would like Drickus Duplicity to beat Hamzaa Tchaimae of this weekend. And then I would like him to get on the mic and say, I'll fight anybody, but I got to admit,

RDR seems like it'd be a really fun one. I want to fight that other Dutchman. I got Dutch ancestry. He's Dutch. Let's go. Let's do that thing. And we'll do it in the neitherlands. You know, it'll be sick.

And then after that, he says, screw it. I know there are a bunch of other middleweight contenders. I'm going up to 205. And when he goes up to 205, who's the man holding the belt? God damn Yuri Perashka. And we get Yeri Pahashka, Drickus Duplasee for the 205 belt. After I've already gotten to see DDP versus RDR, I'll die a happy man. If that unfolds, I'll die a happy man.

I'll never have a complaint about life again because the gods saw fit to give me everything I ever wanted. that's great can you imagine how much ab like that is fun ddp versus yri for the 205 belt would be think of the press conferences mike think of drichus the best trash talker in m mhmay right now in a press conference with slavic ninja yiri perajka who is fresh off his university degree and beating magum and ankylaev for the belt

he's got the top knock going it would just oh it would be cinema every part of it would be cinema unbelievable it's all like if I have that I'll die happy I will die so happy if I ever get that what else you got what else we got what else we got

we're basically I'm just going back some comments here no bad refs because every ref is terrible the first time they make one bad call Jason if we're talking about Jason hers like making one bad call. He has made many bad calls this year. He is a tough year. He's a nervous Nelly right now. He is, he is there are stages to getting to hokey pokey herb. I think it's probably like a five stage

process. Herzog is on step three approaching step four right now. He is not comfortable in his own skin in that cage. He is indecisive across the board. And what he did on Tuesday night, he should not be allowed to referee a fight for like the next three to six months. It is. let a man had genuinely unforgivable. Yeah. I mean, that was the

that was one you just fuck up since someone I don't know if this is my guy Nolan King who tweeted this or not but I completely agree

that was the most egregious penalty since the bite. Yes, but it's not it unquestionably. I don't remember the other person

who got DQed for head butts was who who was that? Oh, Pierre Rodriguez? Yeah, I think that's right. I don't remember the timeline if that's on the bite, but like it's non-negotiable that the dude just like actively headbutt him.

To the point that Dana like made a quip about it in the thing was like, that dude thought it was 1997. There's on firing head butts like Mark Kerr. It's like smashing machines next year guy. You can't be doing that. And this is a guy who thinks headbuts should actually be legal in MMA. But like they're super not. and it was a super obvious thing.

It was so frustrating on almost every conceivable level, Mike, because one, there's been so, like, as we stand on the corner of, you should penalize penalties because that's how sports work. You commit a foul, you get penalized. Not, don't do that again. Like the pushback, like a big piece of pushback that has happened over the years that I've been on this fucking corner has been, well, like, you don't know the.

intent and it's like and my argument has always been he threw the punch the intent is in the throwing of the punch if he tripped and fell and his arm flailed because he slipped on a literal banana peel then that's not intentional but you throw a you throw a low kick and it hits a dude in the groin you intended to kick dude got a hit that's on you control your weapons that's not relevant to this discussion because the intent was clearly to headbutt the It's not like, oh, like, no, he intended to do an illegal thing that did land and clearly affected the opponent. Like, and then the do you want to continue?

That is, that just shouldn't be a question. That's not, that's not the question to ask at that point, Jason Herzog, because if, if we are allowing, you were acknowledging that the, that his intent was to commit the foul. Why is that, like, why are we fighting anymore? while like, okay, so now if I'm about to get knocked out and I intentionally square some dude in the balls to get a reprieve, we're just allowing this? No, like you were, you were giving a pass to outward cheating. Like, that should have been the most obvious DQ in the history of the world. And then he didn't.

And then to make matters worse, he took one point. One point. Which is just like, what are like, what literally what must be. done for you to take two points in that because that's the most obvious DQ that should ever happen. But if you don't do it for whatever God knows reason is in your head, how are you not taking two points from him there? Like, you're just saying I'll never take two points. There's never an instance where a fighter will get two points taken from them. It was, again, I thought Jason Norsar was the best referee in the sport like last year even, you know? It is unconscionable to me how

he butchered that that bad in a year where he's, you know, been indecisive, made like not great choices. That one, it's not like he had to make a judgment call in the moment. They had plenty of time while they're waiting for headbutted duty to recover to just be like, hey, man, we're done. You illegally headbutted a guy. That's not acceptable behavior.

Get the fuck out of here. And nobody would have been upset. Not a human being alive would have been like, well, because that's the other thing. Like you could sell me a story at least that he doesn't want to get involved in the Like I think that's stupid. That's literally your job. But you can sell me the story like who is going to bat for headbutt guy?

Do you think Dana would have taken you out back and been like, I can't believe you stopped it when that dude headbutted that guy pussy? We're like, no. I'm like, yeah, that guy headbutted a dude. He probably should have been DQed because he fucking headbutted a guy. The same as if he fish hooked a dude. we wouldn't be talking about this. It was insane.

The dude who got headbutted would have just got, Dana would have been like, look, whatever. You tried, you were a trier. You were illegally headbutted. We'll bring you back in a couple of weeks and like we'll give you another shot or whatever you're ready. But I got left with like, yeah, man, go win like five or six more fights and then we'll talk.

Like, what are we doing? Actively did the guy disservice. Yeah. Because then he wins that fight. And Dana's like, I don't think you won. I think it should have been a draw. Like actually, no, Dana. If Jason did his job, he should have won anyway.

Because I agree, he probably did lose the back two rounds. But it shouldn't have been a draw. He still should have won because there's been two points deducted. And like, just what are like, then the whole fight, because that was the other thing. Like in the time I was tweeting about it, I was like, you are supposed to decue that dude because there's no good outcome when you don't. When you let that fight go on, unless the guy who got fed. like finishes his opponent or just overcomes the adversity and delivers a sterling performance and shows out every other outcome is tainted because if the dude ends up losing if the guy

who got headbutted ends up getting knocked out later because the cheater you know goes for broke then you're like well i don't know kind of feels dirty that the dude who got headbutted lost that fight and if what happens is instead it's a tepid weird fight you're like I don't know. How much do you think getting headbutted influenced his ability to fight for the remainder of the belt? Pretty hard to say because he got headbutted in the first goddamn round. So like you just, you're supposed to deque that dude because that's the only good outcome is dequeuing him.

And it's the one that the rules literally say you're supposed to do. So you know, I thought we're on team if he ain't cheating. You ain't trying what happened to that. Yeah. We're talking about like, I don't. again, you got to not get caught cheating is the thing.

He does grab the fence. He's ever seen. It was literally a Mark Kerr style headbutt. Yeah, literally grabbed the fence. Roman Deleese had the most egregious fence grabs I've ever seen on Saturday. But it didn't even matter. Like I even, we talked about it on the post fight show like you even said it.

Like you're not even mad at Herb Dean for allowing it because he was just getting obliterated in there. So it was just like, all right, we'll let this guy. Yeah. And then eventually you just get. kind of fine. You have to take a point and then like if you're hearing it, it's like, F it up done.

Yeah, I'll finish this fight. It's different between a fence grab and like literally being on top of somebody, raising your head as high as you can and head budding a dude in the face on purpose. Also, he was ostensibly in a winning position and it was early in the fight. Like he's not like, that was just cheating.

It wasn't like KG savvy veteran move to get an advantage. You just cheat his dick off. It's ridiculous. There's lines to everything. Like the whole, you should always cheat is for like the, if you're getting taken down, grab the fence. They will not do anything. Again, also, I'm going to speak for you here, Mike. Our position is not that you should cheat because cheating is bad.

Our position is you should do it because they're never going to call you for it. It's like the one time because it was so egregious he something did happen as a result of it. But not even what should have happened. Also, to D Nixon, I get it. Herzog knew the stakes. No one gets a contract. Buddy, that's not his job. His job, literally like the reason you're supposed to have a referee who's not a UFC employee,

who isn't ostensibly employed, you know, by the commissions, is because they're not supposed to concern themselves with that shit. They concern themselves with, you know, administering the rules and protecting the safety and integrity of the fighters. and also even in a world where they are doing that, again, if you DQ that dude, headbutter goes home, guy who got cheated against, comes back in a few weeks for another contender series fight.

Like there's no bad outcome there. It is, it is an inexcusable thing to not have DQed that dude. Absolutely an excuse. He'll probably referee the main event on Saturday after that. They'll probably give him the fucking title fight on Saturday. And I got to tell you, DDP would probably headbutt.

calms out like that's just the same dp we'll do just do it in the first round then you lose a point one whole point and then you have damage as long as you finish it who cares you know yeah yeah mark otters our only hope uh by the way jed i don't know if you saw this uh you have another fight fall off no no no no no no uh we were wondering since ufc 316 because one of the big stories coming out of ufc 316 uh it was obviously the ban on weight division and marobreobre D'Aloos really doing Marabdoch-a-a-a-lis-related things. Apache Mix became a big story coming out of UFC 316. The whole build to UFC 316 was this dude's journeyman.

I'm going to smash him and I'm going to go fight for the belt. I'll do this on two days, though, or two months. It's not quite what happened, is it, though? And then he got lopsided decisions by Mario Batista and the Dare to be Great came out. in, look, I took this fight on three weeks notice, all that. You wouldn't do that. So leave me alone kind of thing. Lazy bed, I know.

I'm going to put you over. Don't you worry. There's a million things happening. We're wondering who patchy would fight next, Jed. It turns out he will be fighting Jacob Wicklacks. I can always forget. I always forget to pronounce the Polish days from KSW. The KSW Bannamweight Champion.

At least he was back in June of 2024. He's real good. What he had is his, we talk about trilogies and all these other stuff he bought a five times super super weird one uh jacob woodflex is 28 years old

uh ksw chap he's unbeaten since 2020 dude is nasty in there he's a finishing machine he is a submission maniac and that's who the thing is like they needed all five fights though like that's it's like they needed it in there yeah it was all it was all

it was all wacky shit, right? Like he wins the first one in Akhm, or wherever, like one of those things. And then it's all KSW the rest of the way. And he got one, like, he lost, he got finished. And then there's like that sick fight that was the splitie for their belt three years ago,

whenever the hell it was. And then the like, I was speaking of cheating, the illegal soccer kick that got no contest or whatever. I think it was a draw. You're right. It was like a tech draw because it had already gone into the fourth round. But it was just like he soccer kicked the dude, which is illegal and should have been DQ.

Yeah, Jacob. And they're like, no, it's fine. We'll go to the cards. I never. Yeah. I always suck with the, it takes me like, just go watch timeline. Like all the different ways we pronounce Hamzaat Shabayev's name from when he came into the UFC all the way up until 319. we'll eventually understand it because you hear it

like even the rig announcer for KSW will say different than the commentator does so I've heard that name pronounce in like 18 different ways but anyways it's Mix versus Wicklax UFC 320 October 4th Las Vegas Nevada I fucking love this fight so much but I'm so surprised that this is the fight

the UFC made oh I think it's incredibly weird it's gonna be really fun Wicklitz is gonna win I would also like to point out you can probably hear the leaf blower that's right by my head right now. So I will also point out

in defense of whatever referee it was. He was deducted two points, which is why the fight went to a draw. So at least he didn't Jason Herzog the shit and really butcher it. But if Jason Herzog had been reffing, wouldn't have the fifth fight as well he had sort of won on a soccer kick.

What about it? for not DQ. He would have won by cheating and then going to the cards and winning. Like, remember when Chris Wyden put the dude in the eyes and won? He literally won via TKO. I poke as well, the sickest outcome is for the sport. That's what would have happened if Jason Herzog was

refting in KSW at the back, whatever the fuck that was. Oh, my God. It's like last year, year before. That was UFC Atlantic City. Yeah, Jesus, man. Oh, the rest of the sport.

Yeah. what a what a time to be alive chris wybin fighting in new jersey getting the raucous ovation and even like the new jersey crowd was like yeah you won but we know what you just did uh yeah i am pretty sure it's jacob not jacob yeah i'm like fairly certain it's yacob yeah we're glad i i could absolutely be wrong on the last name though it probably i'm probably wrong across the board but look the way i look at it and we've said this with almost every name that comes into the ufc with john annick first says it on the broadcast. That is what the world is going to go with.

And that's it. So hopefully Anik mentions him on the Anik and Florian podcast over the next few days. And we can react. And whatever Anick says, that's what we are going by forever and ever. But that fight's awesome. That's a great fight. That tells me everything I need to know about how the UFC views patchy mix right now, which means they don't view him as very much at the moment.

Because this is, I mean, there is literally no uppercut. for patchy mix in this fight like all downs for some of us in this chat we'd be like all right that's a good win but for most of like the fan base that the UFC caters towards if patchy loses dude like he's done like he is cooked this must win is is an understatement for patchy makes he like has to win this fight I don't know what they do with him if he loses so very fascinating matchup is a very very very tough one for. I'm like just no upside. Yeah, this is them like given with lots of like a big shot.

Like hey, people will know this and we can put you over as the KSW. I mean, KSW at this point has a pretty good track record of fighters in the UFC. You know, like. Drink is duplosy. DDP, Yon, Baton, both champions, Gamrodot's a champion. I feel like there's one more than I'm forgetting. Um, but like, and like this dude's going to roll over and be sick. So, um, fun fight.

Very into the fight. Real tough out for, for patchy. Yeah. Uh, super chat. Normally I wouldn't put this up, but, uh, you are super chatting. So I appreciate it. Google tells me Wicklacks is in fact how it's pronounced. Okay.

Whether that's true or not, I don't know. Yaakov is, Jacob Wicklats. Uh, Mike was watching the timeline. And most impressive thing was your physical change in the last four years looking great, mate. Thank you. Yeah, man.

The baby face, the facial hair, all the different command centers, different zip codes, different states, different homes. I think there was like four or five different command centers that were featured in timeline. But yeah, pretty wild. I showed my son, like the first time we talked about Hansa, I'm like, look at this. And he was like, oh, my God, that's the old house and you have no facial hair. You still have no hair in your head, but you had no facial hair. here either. You look like you're 10.

And I thought that was very funny. And yeah, that leaf, that leaf blower is powerful. It's letting itself be known. That is definitely going on here. What else? I saw some other Josephosa had another question that I wanted to pull up. Where is it?

Ah, okay. Mostly the first half of this, Jed. What does Jed think is the first main event for Paramount Plus? I mean, Kayla Amanda's, I think, almost by definition, saved for CBS, because unless I missed it, Amanda's still not back in the testing pool. Are we talking, are we talking like numbered card? Or we just talk about first card that airs on?

That's actually, that's a good, it's a good question. I would guess it won't even be Kayla Amanda for first numbered card. That probably is something, like a little bit later would be my guess, something in like February. Um, I would assume that based on, actually, let me pull up the list of events we got cooking right here. So this isn't set in stone, right? But the assumption or certainly the rumor is November, that's Islam. Islam, Jack is November, MSG.

December still up in the air, though, uh, kind of timelines seem like maybe Alex, um, Volkinovsky is, will be doing a time. title defense in the December card that still is very much up in the air though. My best guess is that the first numbered event of the new era will involve the probably the biggest star the promotion has right now, certainly going to be if he's not there. And the first numbered event formerly pay-per-view will be Iliate Tepuri of fighting somebody in January, who that will be obviously very up in the air.

in my head and I'll still maintain this until I'm told something different. You want to make a big splash. You do Ilya versus Patty. That's about as big an interdivisional fight as you can make in the sport right now. That's how you make a big statement for your first CBS card. So that would be my odds on favorite. Ilya Patty is the first numbered event. If it's just the first event,

it'll be something like elevated mid, right? Because the first card of the year is usually an apex card. card. But if they're, you know, their first CBS card, they'll probably want it to be not quite an apex, but it'll be mid-January,

because they always take the early January off sort of their lone break of the year is the Christmas till mid-January section. And, you know, maybe they do a road show and, you know, that first card eases us into the new era with something good, but not great.

Like maybe that's Sean Strickland fighting, Iserada, of Sonia somewhere, you know, on a road show, something that is elevated, but still not like a paper view at this point. I think the first numbered event is Ilya Patty. That's what I do, of Azam, at least. I like that idea. I think Ily's going to fight in December.

I think they're going to try to milk one last pay-per-view out of the, out of this, try to get some bodies. They shouldn't do that. You could be right. They just shouldn't do it. They shouldn't do it, but that's what I... You can definitely be right. Their thought process is going to be.

Because they have no pressure on them at all. The deal is done. Like, they are getting $1.1.1 billion from CBS in the next seven years. You still want to put your best foot forward. Of course. But even if you did Kayla and Amanda, like, that's a big fight. Like, that's a huge fight. That'd be a great way to start off.

The man who is going... There's only one man who can headline the first fight night card. And it's Derek Lewis. I don't know who even give a show. Oh, yeah. That could definitely be a thing. You're right. Eric Lewis will be main eventing the first Paramount Plus card without a question in my mind.

Who it will be against? I don't know. It don't even matter. It truly doesn't. Some dude off contender series this season. It's Justin Tafa doing on January 17. Hell yeah. Throw him in there with Derek Lewis.

Let him get obliterated and Derek can take his pants off and then go fight Tom Aspinall. That fight, I will never give up on that fight until it happens. So yeah, that's where we're at. Maybe that's the resigning of Martin Boudai. Who the hell knows? Maybe they bring Martin Boudai on. Is he it work?

Is he at Octagon? Where'd he go? He's Octagon, yeah. He's trying to be a two-time octagon heavyweight champion of the world. Dude, Octagon puts on good shows. You'd sign with a lot worse promotions. What else? I'll take a couple more.

Derek Lewis versus Marching Taibora Lewis versus Blades 2 Maybe I like Derek Don't put Curtis blades in the main event I like Curtis a lot more than most people That's just the correct answer Derek Lewis versus anybody It's really a good answer

It's a really good answer Yes Justo Lewis versus WCA I don't know man I wouldn't hate that one either But WCA is going to say it's handful So Paul Hughes versus who's her demaga made off

two, Jed? They did it. They did it. I'm proud of them too. They are trying their asses off. It just convinces me that they literally watch our shows. And they understand that when I'm critical of them, that it comes from a place of love.

And they mostly try and do a lot of the things I say. Because like, we talked about this like a month ago. Or it was like, what do you do it? Like you, this is the only fight you have that people are interested in. You're not in the position where you can try and cultivate towards. If you have something people are interested in, you got to strike now. And you got to kind of keep doing that until you can build a product people connect with. And they listened.

They listened and they said, you know what? You guys are right. It's silly for us to try and, you know, trim this in the right way and hope it gets to where we want. We just got to run this and strike while the iron's hot. And hopefully the iron will get a hot for something else, you know, in a couple months from now, and we'll just keep going hot ironed, hot iron, until suddenly,

look, we've, we have, we have constructed a forged-in-fire blade from all of jumping on these important things that we have available to us. So good on them. Fight's going to be a banger. Like,

it's the best, probably the best fight in their promotions history. Certainly top four. And it's going to be a great rematch. Can't wait. Hugo spabbing, and I respect it, because you are literally the only person in the world who wants to know the answer to this question.

When does the press conference start? 6 p.m. Eastern. Those press conferences are atrocious. I don't even know why you're watching. Although, DDP at the live mic is always fun. So I guess to some extent, maybe you want to watch this one. But if you watch Hamzat's Media Day, Hamzat didn't sell a single pay-per-view. I'm just joking, Hugo.

It's all good. But yeah, Hamzat was just like not in the mood to be there at all. And DDP kind of also wasn't in the mood to be there, but at least like he tried to sell to like sell the fight and say some cool stuff. So that's always good. So he's he's not he's Hamzat's never been a talker. He just says smash. I will smash everybody. And then he does smash most people.

And that's good enough. He's got aura. Doesn't have the best mic skills. Yeah. You see him spin DC around? Oh my God. D.C's, dude, D.C's reaction to that was unbelievable. Yeah.

That was like the first time for the entire buildup that I was like, I might be wrong. There's a world where DDP does lose this because holy shit, that's physically impressive. And then I put it out of my mind because I'm not going to think about things I don't like. But that was pretty wild. Yeah, dude. Every time D.C. runs into Hamzod, he gets in a wrestling match with him. And that was the first time D.C. was like, he looked literally scale. Yeah, because he got double unders

And that dude literally spun him like a dad does with his child. Like just, yeah, it's like, holy shit. That's fucking 250 pound Daniel Cormier. Daniel Cormier getting just, and you know,

I know he wasn't like defensively wrestling, but still. He was trying to like get his feet back on the floor. That's a pretty good amount of strength to do that to any human, much less an Olympian. Yeah, a 245, 200 pound Olympian.

That shit was wild. I'm so pumped for this fight, man. Like that, normally like that those things don't help, but that actually helped build this fight. Hamzot doing that, did more, it did more to promote that fight than media day yesterday.

Which is, again, I can't stress to you guys enough. Give me a fighter combine. Give me a fighter combine before, instead of work like media day and the fucking workout days, which are stupid, because like fighters are half-assing through drills who gives a shit.

Give me the, you know, there's media day. There's open, open workout day becomes combine day where the fighters got to run of 40 and they got to try and spin DC as many times around, run around the rosy as they, like that sort of shit would get, I would be so pumped to cover it because like you could do a different, you could do a different spin every time. You could do them regional like, all right, we're in Chicago. I guess you can't really do like a hot dog eating contest because they're cutting weight.

Yeah, you could do like, all right, we've got a wall of ivy. You've got to climb the ivy wall. You could do fun, weird shit. And I would be so much more interested in these things if I was like, well, I was going to be betting Aaron Pico. But then Lerone Murphy scaled Wrigley Field wall in 12 seconds. And I was like, that guy's a fucking athlete. I bet he's going to win. be the best.

It would be. We've been trying to put this together for a while. We should. The fighter combine is just like, it's one of the better ideas I've ever had. And I can't, like I just desperately want them. Like every,

every single fight week, there's no reason the open workouts don't include, here's the punch machine hit it. Like every fighter would, like every fan would just be like, oh shit. Like, I didn't know Marab had hands like that.

He broke, 700 or whatever. Like it would just be such a layup and it would be awesome. I've been saying for like three years, Vox should send you and I to Vegas during International Fly Week and help set that up. Like just do it the ultimate who's the

like the CrossFit games, but it's like UFC fighters doing like fighting stuff mixed in with some physical challenges. Like that'd be so sick. Oh my God. It would be unbelievable. I gotta tell you, I would pay $10 to see DDP and Hamza.

just do like a deadlift competition. Yeah. Because like I don't know, feels like they could both deadlift moose, you know? Like, I love that. The Spin DC contest would be,

it would be the best game ever, like of all time. I don't even know the answer to this question, Jed, but you know this better than anybody else. And then we'll leave it at this. Which M.A. fighting staff member has the most to lose their fantasy team on Saturday.

Let's take a game. A big day for me. I know that. I have not done any looking at it today Guy is now in second place after Fluffy's just absolute shit kicking I am in the lead but I've had a lot of people compete already

I don't have anybody going this week I got I have Hamzot MVP I have Hamzot MVP since it's on Saturday kind of looks like it might be you because you've got Hamza on MVP AK's got DDP

AK has DDP and Aaron Pito. Damn. So both of you have that happening. The two of you have two, and actually might be the only folks up this weekend looks like it. So yeah, AK and Mike, you've had two compete.

You are 150 points up on AK, our defending champion. AK had Max Holloway, and that's the only one he's had to compete yet. So you've both got a fair amount at stake. And I've just had Gautier, right? That's it. You've had Piotr-Yon and a table of Go-Tiel. Oh, that's right.

That's right. And Peter-Yon. So, you have-K. Carlos Proches as well. Oh, so AK does have the most clues. He does have Carlos Prattis. Yep. Yes.

And now he lost Kennedy Freeman probably for a new higher year. So that's a tough one for him. Yeah, tough scenes. Yeah, you have Hamzot in Forrest Vinnie. He's not fighting. You won't do well if he does because they're going to book him hard.

Yep. So yeah, a lot on the line this weekend. A lot happening. I mean, our defending champion got two decent sized favorites,

not huge favorites, and then the underdog in DDP. We shall see what happens. I got to figure out what I'm doing. Right now, I think the, only bet I have is I have DDP plus five and a half points at plus one dirty. That's kind of like a somewhat hedge.

Jesus, it's still good. Yeah. I mean, dude, getting, getting plus money on the table. Five and a half points for plus money is a lot. That's wild. That's why I kind of felt like I have to take a shot here. And I took MVP a minus 198. I think that line should be way wider.

But I have a lot of underdog bets. they're not going to cash. And if Lorone Murphy gets to plus 150, we are going to take a shot on that as well. I'm choosing to believe in Aaron Pico, and I'm sure I'm wrong. But my disdain for Lerone Murphy being boring and then chiding people for calling him boring

makes me not want to pick him. I mean, this is like on paper, this is the featherweight version of Batista versus Vicks. Now hopefully Pico can bring the more fun Lorone Murphy out. Because, dude, Murphy's like not that boring. The E. Gay fight was pretty fun. The EG fight was fun. Barbosa was fun.

Barboso was fun because it had one big, he just beat the shit out of him after the first round. Yeah. But it was like fun. It was not fun to watch because it's in Barbosa just got tuned up the whole time. But it was, it wasn't the Josh Hibn fight. There's absolutely a world and maybe even the more likely world, is that Lorone just prevents this from being a fight

because he's really good at managing distance and sort of setting the terms of engagement and Pico like hasn't really fought a lot of dudes like that you know like he's just like he's mostly fought dudes willing to engage with him and if Lauren's just like no then this might be Pico chasing him around

and not really getting any viable offense off if Lauren's gonna win I think it's gonna be super boring So if Aaron wins, it might be fun. And if Aaron wins, he's probably fighting Volcanovsky. So I'm on team Aaron this weekend. I think it's absolutely insane that Draccar close as an underdog to Edson Barbosa, though. Yeah. I mean, look, you're only as good as your last fight a lot of times.

And Dracar got submitted and knocked out at the same time. I guess. But Edson Barbosa is like 40. and no longer having to cut to 45 though which that's like that's like the one thing where I'm like at least he's not cutting but edson's old and has fought like genuinely maybe one of if not the hardest schedules of any fighter right like it is an absolute slaughterhouse of people he has gone through and who have gone through him and it's just like I don't know drop or close is one of those dudes who's just sort of always been perennially underrated and I think he's He's got more in the tank than Edson does. But I guess we'll see. But I snapped on, on Dr.

Carr. Yeah, I like that pick. I almost want to just rip Lauren Murphy right now. Because I'm looking at, I think more money will come in on Pico. Yeah, I'm going to wait.

I'm going to wait. I say, I think more money will come in on Pico. Honestly, money will come in on Pico after they weigh in because Pico looks like a fucking stack of bricks out there. Big man. Dude is a well-built young man.

Who is, like, I asked this when they signed him. And, like, I don't know if I got, if we came to an actual conclusion. What is Aaron Pico's best win? Like, what's the, what's his best win? When you're like, when you look at his resume and people were like, why is he in the UFC? And like, the talent is there. Obviously, like, the foundation, dude's a super freak athlete. His finishes are nasty.

But, like, what is his best actual win? So, I mean, his best win is probably the Henry Carly. one, right? Because he had lost to Corralis already. But I don't know Coralus was coming off a... What? Because Kraus took a fight on like three days notice. I know the circumstances are weird and Kraus was coming off a loss

and like, but that's still like probably the best of viable one. The other one is him beating Leandro ego and it's like fifth fight because that was like I just distinctly remember being like, holy shit, we're throwing this kid in against Leandro ego who's a good fighter and like

he's wildly unproven. I already got like lost his when they threw him in his first fight and he lost and were like okay maybe we're going to slow roll him and then a year later like here's leon droigo and then he blew him up and it was like oh okay i guess this kid's the next john jones um and then he immediately was not so like it's very possible that it's like if it's not henry corallis it's leon droerigo i think yeah i really like how much you like pedro carvalio i think that's pretty mid i like the justing gonzalez win too I really like that matchmaking, but then we kind of found out quick, like, Pico could just tackle you. And if he just tackles you, there's not a lot of guys that's going to.

He's really good at tackling people. He probably would have made an Olympic team if he had decided to keep wrestling instead of moved to M.A. Super fascinating fight. I mean, I just, I'm very, very much intrigued by that. And you're probably right, the way this week has gone of Aaron Pico beats Lorone Murphy by hook or by crook. He's probably getting a title fight. So very exciting stuff. UFC 319.

It is wild that he didn't stay in wrestling. Like I'm just looking at him right now. He's 18 years old and he went hammering tongs during Molanaro. He beat Molinaro. At the Olympic trials in 2016, he beat Molanaro in the first one. Then he lost 3-4-4-4-4-tech decision. Like he was like a millimeter.

on making the Olympic team at 18. I don't think Molynaro meddled that year, but, like, Molyneuro is an accomplished fucking wrestler. And his kid was 18 and was almost on the Olympics. I was like, screw it, I'm going to go to Bellator. What a, what a choice. Can't just say that was the best decision.

Yep. Well, I mean, maybe the fruits of his labor will pay off this Saturday against the Roan Murphy. We'll have more coverage, obviously, preview show tomorrow. Holy shit. I didn't realize this. I just pulled a Frank Molanaro

on his 2016 Summer Olympics because I don't remember this at all. He placed fifth, so just outside the podium. And apparently in his reposage Viat Kvotsky bit him. He got bit with one of his reposage matches.

What a time. And he finished fifth losing to the dude who ended up taking the bronze. how about that so many storylines heading into ufc 319 we'll discuss them on the man but tomorrow erpico should stay wrestling dude we got pfl tomorrow we got uh people's pre-fight show saturday we get the watch party saturday onto the next on sunday it's going to be a very very very busy weekend here at mbmayfiting dot com we appreciate all of you shout out to lazy bit as well

we didn't get the chance to talk about mike perry versus jeremy stevens october 4th is going to be a wild day because 320 and that BKFC newer card going down at the same time. A lot. A lot happening. So stick with us at Mayfiting.com for Jedbushu. I am Mike Hack back next week. Normal show. We'll recap 319 and much more.

Good night, everybody. Love y'all. Into the Vox Media Podcast Network. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to Lux Beauty and Fragrance sets. Our special selection has something for every style and price point. Visit our Holt's holiday shop. and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com.