MMA Fighting - BTL | Dustin Poirier's Fight Off? UFC 300, UFC Vegas 85 | Fan Q&A Edition

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

After a rare weekend off for the UFC, the promotion returns to the APEX on Saturday for UFC Vegas 85. While there are some solid fights on the card, all eyes still seem to be fixated on the still-building UFC 300 lineup — which is still currently without a main event. On top of that, Dustin Poirier dropped a bit of a bombshell himself on Thursday saying his announced fight with Benoit Saint-Denis for UFC 299 is "off." On an all-new edition of Between the Links, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew return for a special fan Q&A edition of the program, where they answer your questions about UFC 300, Saturday's Fight Night card headlined by Roman Dolidze vs. Nassourdine Imavov, Kayla Harrison's upcoming UFC debut against Holly Holm at 135, and if her recent comments have made you more confident she'll make the weight, if the UFC will end up putting Conor McGregor in the main event of UFC 300 against Michael Chandler or another fighter, and anything else on your mind in the world of MMA and combat sports. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Defenders and cybersecurity are always there when we need them. They should get a parade every time they block a novel threat and have streets. sandwiches and babies named in their honor. But most of all, they deserve AI cybersecurity that can stop novel threats before they become breaches across email, clouds, networks, and more. DarkTrace is the cybersecurity defenders deserve and the one they need to defend beyond.

Visit darktrace.com forward slash defenders for more information. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm a fighting studios. This is between the links. And now your host, my... The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of BTL. Happy Thursday to us all. Happy February to us all.

And we're back for our monthly fan Q&A edition of the program and the timing. Couldn't be more perfect for this, my friends, because it's kind of a weird week in the MMA space. Not a ton of news that we could really talk about. Some things have happened. Some things are kind of floating around social media, perhaps that are making me a bit sad, maybe a little angry.

But I'm not all the way there yet, but maybe we'll get there on this episode. And speaking of angry, joining me in this venture this week to answer your questions, Mr. Hot Take, Mr. No Gray area, the cannonball kid, the man who has done scientific research, and is here to tell us, and I think I'm getting this right, Jed, goats and chickens can live in perfect harmony. Is that what it was? Is that what you came up with? I mean, they can, but they're just not the same animal. Like, I've, I've talked to doctors of animal husbandry.

I've, I've researched. You know, I've done the research. Do your own research, guys. I mean, you guys can all go out there and do your own, but I've, I've done it for you. And chickens cannot be goats. This is just how that works. I don't know what to tell you. I love this gimmick so much.

And let us also say hello to producer extraordinaire. I'm sure he'll be chiming in from time to time on some of this stuff. Mr. E. Casey Leiden. And guess what, everybody? It's Mr. 3024's birthday. Happy birthday. E. Casey Leiden, uh, 29, I assume. 29, yes.

Um, um, uh, 29's a big one. Um, I think you can rent a car or like I rent a Tesla now or something. I don't know what happens at 29, but yes, 29. So it's exciting. Um, woo. Happy birthday. Thank you. To Casey and, of course, AK, because every day is his birthday.

So before we get into the bit of potential breaking news that has caused me and others to lose their minds a little bit, a bit of an announcement because a lot of times we do these shows, we do the live streams, we do the Q&As, we get the peeps involved. And over the last couple of years, some of you have made suggestions. these suggestions have increased over time. We also get complaints. Why do the same people get their questions on the screen? Why is it always saying people get their questions asked and answered? Well, we've seen it and heard it all. So we've taken those suggestions.

We've listened to those complaints. And now for the first time, MMA fighting, we have super chats. That's right. It's obviously an optional thing. You can still watch the show and participate for free. But people have asked us to do this. And the beauty of this is, if you participate in the super chats,

you get to the top of the damn list. So if you're sick of seeing the same people asking questions, participate in the super chat, and you get to hop, skip, and jump right over them. We'll answer those before anybody else. And Jed, you had an idea in a meeting. And I think maybe we introduce this here. Maybe we add a roast Jed Michoud segment to the end of this program

for all the super chatters out there, because I'm sure there are people out there watching this. here program that will drop a couple of bucks to give you a piece of their mind. Why? I mean, that's just ridiculous. I think everyone loves me. I feel like we've established this, Mike. I'm the only honest man in MMA media, you know. I'm clearly the smartest. Like, I'm the only one doing this kind of research in MMA media. All these bozos out here, they know it. They're, they're fans. No one want to say mean things to me, Mike. Well, if you would like to, you have the option.

And Jed will be happy to take those that maybe prove your theories wrong. Maybe make you feel a little bit better about how we're feeling about life and about this great sport. So might as well just talk about the elephant in the room here, gentlemen. Jed, Dustin Porier took to Twitter not long ago. It's a picture of him training as one would do,

getting ready for a fight, a big fight. Posted this at 12.02 p.m. which was 34 minutes ago right now. He's got a smile on his face. And the tweet says simply this, my fights off, but still working. And with this little tweet, everyone is losing their minds right now.

Now, I will tell you this, we here at mafighting.com, we do not take this as gospel, even though it is an honest man, Dustin Porier, not a liar, we still have to do our due diligence. We've talked to numerous people

with knowledge of this, no one knows anything about this. So this tweet has come out of nowhere, essentially, but let's just say, Jed, we take Dustin Poirier at his word. And this fight with Benoit Sontini, which is scheduled for five rounds, co-made of any of UFC 299, is off.

What would your reaction be? How tough is this news? I have my hat here that I'm going to chuck across the room if we can confirm this news. That's how upset I'll be. How upset will you be? How devastating is this to, Everything going on a lightweight right now in the year of doing the thing for the UFC.

It'll kind of suck, right? I mean, like, aside from the fact that, I mean, not even kind of. I got, this is so weird because of all of the things that have happened are happening behind the scenes right now, right? Of no one knowing anything about this except for Poria's tweet. And it wouldn't be like him to just sort of lie, you know, that's, this isn't like a Connor thing where he just having a laugh over it. So very odd.

It would suck because it's just. fight is, you know, we've got a lot of great fights on the schedule. This is top five of them. Like, poor ABSD, that's one of the front runners for the fight of the year right there. And it also sucks because, like, 300 is sort of, we've got Armand Sarukian versus Charles Olivera happening. We've got Justin Gaci fighting. And there's sort of no one for Islam to fight at the moment, except for maybe a quicker turnaround

coming off of that. And we talked before, Mike, like, well, maybe just the winner of this sort of gets to slot in. Porier or BSD goes out there, gets a really impressive finish. They might just fit the timeline better for Islam's next fight. If this fight is off, I don't know who could step in to replace Porier because the wording makes it seem like it would be off for Benoit Sandini. So it really just turns lightweight sort of upside down unless what is happening is this fight is off because Dana has, brokered a deal with Nate Diaz and we're doing Dustin Poirier, Nate Diaz

for the main event of UFC 300, which I don't think is at all likely, but I'm just trying to scramble for why this would be happening when it appears that from everything, at least kind of quick reaction, no one knows that anything's going on here. This is the weirdest thing.

It's because if Dustin tweets something like that, you're like, oh shit, let's go and try to figure this out and get confirmation, but literally everybody's like, News to me. First I've heard of this. It's everybody. Like literally everybody we have asked about this.

That is the reaction. So how weird is this Casey? It's a very strange thing. And what did you think as soon as you saw that tweet? Yeah, it's just weird and kind of, I don't know if out of character is the right word. But I just don't recall something like this like Dustin putting out. When the Nate, when the Nate and Dustin fight fell off, what was a strange? How did that come out publicly?

Was it Nate that did all the I'm out or or how did that? Dustin got, Dustin got hurt, did he not? Oh, was that? I might be confusing. I'm like, was it wasn't like a weird press conference, a weird face off.

Well, so no, because it happened twice, right? Wasn't Porre and Nate were like officially set and then one time was kind of rumored. But one time I feel like Tori got injured. It was a hip injury.

Oh. There's a hitman. And then one time it was just like, Nate was like, I never agreed to this at all. I don't know why you guys are talking about this. Okay. They did a rooftop faceoff in New York City like a couple months before that. That was like the official announcement of the card and of the fight. And they did the face off and everything.

But then that poor, yeah, Pore got hurt and had a withdrawal. Nate's been calling it a win ever since. But I think mostly. what Jed said. This just kind of goes with the storyline and just, everything's just weird with the UFC in terms of how they, how we get news or get updates from the UFC. Either it's Dana White on a Friday night at 2 a.m.

telling us fights or Dustin Poirier with random tweets for a co-main event happening in a month, a month and a half. So I don't know what to say. It's weird promotion if it's not true. It's very weird promotion. Well, we are working on trying to confirm this news. So if we do, we will let you know.

And the hat will fly. So I pulled up $2.99 to look at it. One, fight card still bang. So we go there. It's like it's obviously lessened. If this is off, still bangs. I don't have any issue just kind of throwing RDA out the boat here and just poppin Matush gamrod in there against Porier. Be fine with making that swap.

and RDA can do whatever, you know. A little teammate versus teammate action. A little ATT versus A T. That'd be fun. I mean, that'd be fun. If not, you could, I guess, just throw Gamrod out the boat and do RDA versus Poyer. Either one that's actually fine.

Like, we should just keep Dustin Poyer on 299 unless they have some grander plans for him. Save Gamrod for, like, again, we don't know anything. This is just a tweet. Like, if Santanyi is heard or whatever and has to be, hey, Matush, you're not fighting a $2.99 on this mega stat card. We're going to save you for when Santany is better and you can go fight that animal. And honestly, like, prior to them announcing the Porre bin Juan Santini, like, that would have made more sense to me as a realistic outcome of like, yeah, RDA is a legend, Pori, that feels more like a fight he would take than a BSD.

And like, BSD wants to climb the ranks, Gamrot sort of in the way of things. because the UFC doesn't seem to want to throw him into a title fight, really? So, like, we could just end with that, which is a fine outcome. Like, I'd watch the hell out of Dustin Porier RDA. I hope this fights remains, but we'll keep you posted. Stay with us here and more than may fighting after the show if we cannot confirm this information. All right, let's go to the peeps. See what they want to talk about.

Oh, holy moly. Holy moly. Hold on, hold on. Oh. Our first one. No. Our first one. Were you ready?

I'm ready. I'm pumped about what the hell is going to be. Hey! We got our first Jed Road. Jet looks like homeless guys. I'm not sure you've ever seen a homeless person, but okay. It's Jed's like first day of being homeless. You know, like after like, no, year two, you're going to look, you know, you're going to look like a homeless guy.

But first day, homeless. That's Jed right now. Okay. $5 well spent. Thanks, Dan. Thank you, Dan. It's all to love, though, Jed. That seems like a loving tweet.

I mean, I feel like there are just a lot better ways to come at me than whatever that is. So do better. So I'm saying, like, wow, wow. There are plenty of ways to attack me. I'm not out here pretending I'm perfect. but it just feels like that's weak. All right. What else we got?

Keep them coming. Keep them coming. Not just that, but the questions about MAA as well. Kevin Lee fits into the new 165 pound division. I don't know where this 165 pound division and stuff is coming from. I get this a lot.

I saw a social media account, I think tweeted out like a week ago that the big announcement regarding UFC 300, was going to be the introduction of the 165 pound weight class and 175 pound weight class and that like 170 would be no more. And maybe that's why Kevin Lee came out yesterday and unretired. I don't think any of this is going to be true. But Kevin Lee did unretire, I guess, Jed.

You seem thrilled. You seem stunned by this revelation that Kevin Lee is no longer retired after spending a extreme amount of time on the sidelines all six months of it. Your reaction to this and maybe the UFC introducing these new divisions that Dana has been staunchly against from moment one. Yeah, for sure, not doing that. Before we answer that, before we answer that. I see the pain in your eyes, Dad.

Another $2, Dan. All right. Again, where would the pain even be from, Dan? Like, homeless isn't an insult. That's just a statement of fact. Like, if I don't have a home, I have one. I'm in it right now. Come at me for some other shit, bro.

I don't know. Call me ugly. That's fine. I only see one wall. I don't see it. We can't, we don't go to throw a 4, 360 view.

This could be, you could be in a cardboard box right now. We don't know. We don't know. We're a great white guy. Just saying. I'm with you, Dan.

I got to, Dan, it's also possible you're seeing the pain in my eyes from hearing this dumb bullshit about a 165 pound weight class. It's just not happening. Like, we don't have to, I truly don't understand the pull to this for some people. Like, who cares? It is, if it happened, it'd be fine.

Like, I wouldn't care. It's just not going to because 170 is such a marquee division for the sport historically. They're just not going to walk away from that. Like, arguably 170 at this point is the most important division in the history of, certainly the UFC, just because they've had a pretty clear run of really good fighters hold that belt time over time. Like 205 had bigger names, but also 205 had Yerri Perhachka. Jan Blahovic was a champion at 205. Like no one's that pumped about that historically.

They're just not going to get rid of 170, at least not while Dana's around. And then maybe at some point they would go back and conform to whatever. Because I think either the ABC adopt the like, new weight classes. I know one of the commissions at least did to be like, yeah, we should do weight classes or things. I just, why do you care? Kevin Lee's issue is not that there's not a 165 pound weight class.

It said he's not good at fighting. And that's just the problem, man. Like five pounds is not insignificant. It is not the end all be all of your career. I know this because look at the myriad fighters who succeeded despite, you know, not competing in their optimal weight classes. Frank, yeah, go on the fucking lightweight belt

and he's 135 or his whole career. Like it's just, it's five pounds. Either find a way to cut that naturally or add five of bulk. We aren't, like, we just don't need to do this. It has always been a massive pet peeve of mine. Yeah, like, it's not optimal. Sure. And there are probably fighters out there that it would be more optimal for it to be a

152 weight class. And we're not bending over backwards and crying over the spilled milk of their careers because it's just unnecessary. like you live with it sometimes life didn't hand you the perfect set of cards find a way to make 170 or whatever we're not going to do 165 we don't need to do it they don't need to add more weight realistically they probably just need to get rid of heavy weight and like a couple other weight classes so uh no this isn't happening Kevin Lee's unretiring because he's still a young man who can make money in this sport and I don't know like I maybe he could I'm sure he could make money

elsewhere, but like, he's going to make a lot more money in MMA than probably a lot of other careers. And also, you know, Casey, you've been around fighters. Do they ever retire? Do they ever think that they're done and want to leave? No, they just want to do it. Yeah, you know, I was going to say, I think we need another word that's not retirement, but that just means I just want to take like a year and a half off. Sabatical. Just a sabbatical. Take it to sabbatical. But I feel like fighters aren't They can only say retirement. I mean, maybe, do fighters say that? I mean, am I forgetting a well-known fighter saying, hey, I'm just going to take like a year off?

I mean, GSP said he was going to take a little break and then was gone for four years. But no one says, I'm just going to take, or they just say I'm going to take time off. And then that's sort of indeterminate amount of time, right? So then people are like, does that mean six months? Yeah, because the whole thing, I go back to Amanda Nunes. I go back to bring up Amanda Nunes. What she said makes a lot of sense. Fighting at such a high level,

fighting as a full-time pro fighter for the last 15 years or so. Dude, I get it. You just got to take a break, you know, just for your sanity. You might be performing great that week. You look great that week, but we don't see the mental just distressed they're under just every day. You know, so they need it.

There's no off season. Yeah, no off season. I've always thought that too. High level fighters, they're fighting five round rounds fights at least. They're going against the best in the world constantly, not just a fight, but the best. Like,

that's like a Super Bowl every three months, I guess. You know, it's insane. So, yeah, I don't, I'm not going to trash fighters for the whole, I thought you retired, why are you coming back? But it is, we do need it. I feel like we need better language for these fighters. But they need better language when they talk about this stuff.

It's been such a weird run for the guy. I mean, from the Charles Oliver loss, which was like the first event the UFC did with like out of crowd because COVID happened. Then he's out for a year and a half, fights Daniel Rodriguez loses. Then he's out for like another year and a half. He's out of the UFC. He goes to Eagle FC and he fights Diego Sanchez, wins a lackluster decision, gets hurt. And then he's out another almost. year and a half, comes back to the UFC and just gets colded by Hanat Fokratinov and then retired after

that. So it's just weird. Now, so I guess I'll pose this question to both of you guys, whoever wants to answer. I don't know what his contract situation looks like. I don't know if he has fights left on his UFC deal. I'm not sure. If you're the UFC, Jed, how do you handle this? If Kevin Lee comes back, do you take him on? If he wants to leave do you even fight him on this and if he's a full on free agent what's the best spot for kevin lee right now and is it the ufc if he wants to if he wants to if he wants to leave i don't fight him on it there's it's not but uh if he you know if he doesn't come to me and say hey i want to go test my market like all right i'd give him a fight and i just have him get clobbered by some

dude at welterweight because people still seem to like him like he is still he generates headlines people know like that's why we're talking about this despite the fact that he has like two wins in his last eight fights or something insane like that and to my previous point uh one of them is Diego Sanchez at 165 and I got to tell you I don't think him not having to cut additional 10 pounds helped him in that fight he looked like trash against a washed ass Diego Sanchez so if he wants to keep fighting for the UFC um I I would employ him as a star platform booster, like as the trampoline to bigger things for somebody at the weight class who's maybe outside of the rankings right now, someone who they have a bit of a shine to

and say, all right, come in and kill Kevin Lee real fast and that'll be great for you. And then when Kevin Lee stops being able to do that, then he can go on his way and do it else. But at the same time, he comes and says, hey, I want to go try my hand elsewhere, do something else but okay totally fine like i am not going to fight him over leaving the organization but if he stays i am not giving him a helping hand at all i i completely understand that from like a a ufc business perspective but let's just say Casey Kevin Lee can go wherever he wants what do you think's the best spot for him right now is it the UFC is it maybe try to sneak into pfl which by the way not a ton of roster spots what do we have i want to bring up this

that what you just said with this comment with this question do you think pfl should open up a 165 pound weight class and move 170 to 175 is a way to be different from the UFC okay maybe pfl does fine yeah okay i really like this suggestion because i'm i'm not 100% with jed about the weight class thing but i also am over the whole kevin lee could have been a champion if there was 165 i don't believe that either but i do believe i do believe i do believe especially at the highest level, 10 pounds from 15 to 175, 15 pounds is just too much. And I think the sport's big. And I feel the sports big enough, especially in that weight class to change it up a bit like this.

So I would like to say that. So I think this is awesome. I wish PFL did that. I think this would be a really smart move for PFL and I'd be totally fine with it. Again, I'm not opposed to doing it. I just don't care. I do not think it is a travesty of justice that there is not a 165 pound weight class. I think it's just fine.

It's totally reasonable or whatever because I really don't want us to be boxing. I really don't want MMA to have weight classes every five to seven pounds. Like that's just entirely unnecessary in my mind. But as a way to differentiate yourself from the UFC, it's a terrific idea. And particularly with them, it's not like they have, I mean, one, their lightweight champion has retired. So fine in that regard. To do who, who was their welterweight chance? It's Magma, Magma, Marama Karamov right now.

Yeah, that's fine. Bump him five pounds to live. I think this would be a totally reasonable way to maneuver this if you want to be the BFL. Hey, by the way, Kevin Lee fought at 165 before. He did. He did. It was a thing. Trash.

Yeah. Oh, what he did? But forget, that was an official 165-pound fight. Diego Sanchez was the 165-pound fight. He was awful. We're introducing this division. We're different, baby. I don't remember a big Eagle FC card since then.

I think that was their last American show. Last American show. That was the last one? I think it was. Not 100 on that, but I think it was. Was that the card with JDS and DeCastra? Was it the same card? Yes.

I believe that's correct. No. There's a separate cards. Those are both ego FC, right? They're both Eagle FC, yeah. Okay, okay. Yeah, the main event was Risvon. The co-main was Risvon-Cunia versus Anthony Hamilton.

Ray Borg, Ricky Vandejas. Impa Kasaginae lost on that card. Icrimal Ascarra fought on that card. Ipa lost on that card? Wow. Impa lost to Raymond Magomed Alive in a welterweight fight. What a strange career then. gentleman has had.

Amazing. And now he's fighting Johnny Eblen next or a couple weeks. He's a 5-pound champion. Now he's fighting Johnny Eblen, the Bellator middleweight champion in Saudi Arabia. Golly. All right.

Man, they don't, PFL slash Bellator doesn't even have like a ton of dudes to build that weight class, which is the other sort of, I mean, they could build it, but. Yeah, they're not, they're looking at their roster. like the rough rosters right now and it's just like both have pretty weak welterweight divisions

so like because that's what you would assume is that 165 would just mostly be welterweight like there'll be some dudes who would not be able to cut but like brittain ward's probably dropping an extra five to get to 165 you know yeah we'll see yeah it'll take them some time to grow it but uh i do think that like holistically terrific idea all right Saving and investing well is an art and a science. It requires high-level math, an intimate knowledge of economic history and theory, and a healthy dose of psychology. People have spent their whole careers and won Nobel Prizes, trying to figure out the best ways to do it. Betterment believes that you should be able to be a successful and sophisticated investor without having to get a PhD.

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B-E-T-T-E-R-M-E-N-T dot com. Investing involves risk, performance not guaranteed. Support for this show comes from the audible original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Roscoe Cadulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster.

The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-by journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine.

Available now, only from Audible. I think Kevin Lee should go to game. That's a terrific. That's a terrific name. Special Jetting. I want to be clear. I pitched last year a program called Judge Jed. Can you read it for the podcast listeners?

I don't have the pitch around me, but I pitched a program called Judge Jed, where it's pretty obvious exactly what was happening. But Special Judge Education is, terrific idea. Also, Jed Talks has been a, I feel like that one is a good solo. Do we get next? Did that get 86 by legal?

Jet Talk. We, we like loosely brought up to them and it was like, I don't know, I'm not sure about that. I feel like we could be okay with it, but I think we ultimately decided not to go down that road. Maybe just ask for forgiveness app to it. I don't know. Come on. Do you think TED Talks is really going to come at us? I think that seems unlikely.

A lot of judges. Jedd, let's discuss our combined two law degrees and zero lawyer sensibilities. I have terrific lawyer sensibilities. I don't know what you're talking about. I can't speak for you, Max, but I decided not to be an attorney. I think that's like the sign of having great lawyer sensibilities. Because every lawyer I know hates themselves and their job. almost every not everyone but like 90% of them just absolutely hate the profession yeah well when people

say the lawyers they never like go I'm a lawyer like like like like like a big smile it was just like yeah lawyer no because they're too Casey there's a reason for this because either you can be a lawyer and make a lot of money and sell at least a piece of your soul in however you're doing it or you can make no money but like feel good about what you're doing that's not a a great combination for a career. It's like, oh, I'm a public defender and I work 80 hours a week, but man, I saved this dude's life and I got three sandwiches as my payment for this and I still have massive amounts of debt.

Or I do M&A for a Fortune 50 company and I just crush some mom and pop with legalese, but God damn, if I don't have like a sick-ass beach house, like those are your choices. Jay, did you watch Better Call Saul, the TV show? I haven't finished it, but I've seen it fair amount. Oh, okay. I was just kind of interested because it remind me that the two lawyer spectrums what you just kind of mentioned. I mean, it's pretty much it.

Yeah, it made me think of that, yeah. Tremant of a show. Oh, here we go. Remember get the super chats in? You get to hop to the front of the line. From Zeno Gray. Thank you, Zeno Gray. If Yan loses to Song-Yidong that's four in a row,

would that be cause for the cut list, Jedmishu? And not the Oldsmobile, like the actual UFC cut list where you're no longer employed by the biggest promotion in the world. Do you think the UFC would go that far if he loses to Song-e-dong at UFC 299? Deeply unlikely that he's cutlist, but he gets, he's on watch, if that makes sense. Like, I don't think if he loses to Jan's four and

row and then that's five of six right because the aljo dq um with sandhagen as the lone win the sandhagen as a lone win is a terrific win um so that's doing great work but anytime you lose four in a row it doesn't matter who you're losing to or the circumstances in which that occurs it's really really tough to sort of ever bounce back from that um i've made kind of a point of mention this past few years like andre aloski is to my knowledge and i've sort of i've looked at into this pretty hard. The only like legitimate fighter who had multiple losing streaks of four or more and was able to rebound and like have a decently successful career, it is just so unlikely because when you lose four or even if they're to high end competition, it's still like,

okay, now you're Marlon Marais. Like all the dudes that got him were good. And then at some point, it just doesn't matter because so much of this sport is tied into confidence as well. And it's hard to be confident when you've lost four straight, you know? So I won't, like he won't get cut, but he'll probably get a step, like a bigger step back. And the question then becomes, is Peoria on just like a dude who's now the springboard into the top 15 for some young talent? Or can he get the wheels back on track? Because like he could definitely lose the song. Like song is a damn good fighter.

And he's going to be in a real, real weird spot because. years ago, heck, a year and a half ago, I think most people still thought he was the best, you know, ban them weight in the world. Many people on our ranking panel had it as the number one like heading into 2022. So it's just tough. Like it's game of inches, baby. I'm going to say a big no if a song, I'm sorry, if Jan loses a song. And, Mostly because you got to look at the actual fights themselves and the strength of competition. Al Jermaine, Shahn Amali, Marab. I mean, all guys top three, basically.

So basically, to me, if Yon loses, if Yon loses a song, we just, now we just have a better, a better, a better, a better, more accurate view of kind of where Yon is in his career. I guess we look back at, I hate saying this. The Al Jamein fight, I had Yon winning the split decision. I actually had Yon winning the fight against O'Malley. I understand why people went Sean O'Malley. I had Yon beating O'Malley, but I don't. It's not a robbery, but I'm with him. Yeah, he's not a robbery.

I'm just saying he was losing incredible competitive fights. Now, losing the Mabraub, that's just, that was just a star-making performance by Ravraub. That's all I see that has. I don't really see that against Yon. The song, though, if he loses the song, song clearly is a future title contender we just maybe find out Jan is just that kind of the highest level

gatekeeper I guess at Banton White okay but Casey let me let me paint you a picture here he loses the song he's on a four he's lost four in a row he has minimal leverage at all and I think 30 years old oh leverage stuff yeah yeah yeah yeah leverage is gone for 30 years old four fight losing streak

uh does that not feel like a setup for them to just be like, hey, homie, you got to fight Umar. And then then that's five in a row because Umar going to hand him his ass. And then where where are you? Like it's he needs to win this fight really, really badly. It's my point. I don't think he'll lose his job. But like he desperately needs to be song.

When this when this fight was made, if you're Yon's people, do you make this fight? Or do you ask for someone outside? of the top 10. I don't. I just... You don't make it why. Uh-huh. Because of what Judd said, if he loses and this is a fight, you can lose.

I mean, I understand. Yeah, but he can do that with anybody, though. Like, he could lose to John the Martinez. And that's a way, like on paper, that's a way worse loss. Yeah. So in my head, when I say that, I am, and I've said this a lot, I'm of the opinion that tune up fights rule and are useful. And I would have asked for a little bit of help here.

I'm like, hey, don't give me. me a top 15 dude like just give me some guy i can mow down and that'll be sick uh build the confidence backup do it or like figgy i feel like i could that was a good that that was actually the fight to make but now we're getting garbren so yeah well i mean no that's the fight to make mike don't get it twisted but if i'm yon figgy or garbrand feel like yeah he can beat song yodong of course i would be trying to get the softest ball i could if I'm Yon's people. And I don't think Song Yadog is a softball

by any stretch of the imagination. Now. And again, I think, and the problem, and again, and this is real meta, stupid sort of, because songs, like, highly ranked in the UFC's rankings, even if Yon loses this is on four-fight losing streak, he's still going to be a top 10 ranked in their rankings, which really sets him up to be the next guy for Umar.

And buddy, no one should fight Umar, like, just, avoid at all costs because then that's five in a row and I don't even know what happens at that point for him so it's a tough ask this was a tough fight for him godspeed Piotrion

who do you think who do you think umair's fighting I don't know because I just don't know who makes sense because like I would have thought Corey but then Corey went on the MMA and was like no so I truly have no idea Marab like Marab like Mara

might be crazy enough to take that fight. Rob's fighting Sohudo. Oh, I forgot that that's happening. Oh, yeah. Then I don't have a- Where's Zuma ranked down? Sorry.

In the UFC's he's 13. 13. See, that's the wild part. He's 13. We're talking like Umar, like he's top five the way we talk about him. It's wild. But I get it,

but I get it. I get it. All of the dudes above him. I like the Jonathan, I like, honestly, like, when I said that about Jonathan Martinez, I wasn't saying that in a bad way. He's a very good fighter.

But like on paper, people don't know who he is so like the gusto isn't quite there dude Jonathan Martinez for Umar and Magh Badov's fun-ass fight like that idea a lot and I think if you're Jonathan Martinez because of because of where he's at right now

because of how people view him like a really good fighter but a guy probably is going to have a very long road to get to a title fight if I'm Jonathan Martinez I'm jumping all over that opportunity exactly I think that's a great fight for Martinez and Umar actually although it won't jump up Umar in the rankings

as far as he probably won't. But for Jonathan Martinez, dude, you take that fight. Because if you lose, you're expected to lose. And I think you're in the same spot, even if you lose against Omar for Martinez. Yeah, I think that that's one of the few people who actually can like, it's not awful for him to take it. I'm just looking at the UFC's rankings.

Rob Fond. I don't think Rob's taking the fight. I just, I'm just like. The timeline is weird there. Yeah, it seems like really quick for Rob. I'm kind of just throwing away. Because Rob would make sense as in like, Rob can't demand shit.

He's lost four or five or whatever. So is Pedro booked? Yeah, he's fighting. Kyler Phillips, $2.99. Okay. I didn't know. Yeah, Jonathan Martinez is probably the answer because I can't find one else

because I strongly doubt Dominic Cruz is doing that. No, I don't think so. Not on that quick. It would be sick. All right. Next question. Next super chat question. Oh, let's go.

Let's go. Back to back from Zeno Gray. It's been super chatting with you. It has been. Who holds the bantam weight and welterweight belts at the start of 2025? I think 170, I think we're all going to be in the same page of 170 for some reason. And I think the name begins with an S and ends in Offcott. Rachmanoff.

Yeah. So when we did our, I mean, I think you can go check because we all should have given our stuff. And maybe that's changed for some people now. But I don't, it wouldn't have changed in these weight classes, right? Because nothing is developed out there. My pick was Shavkat, well to weight. I still feel pretty good about that one. The only issue is timing, really.

Like we are everyone in the world at this point is expecting Belal versus Leon Edwards to be either 301 or 302. two booking, probably 302, if 301, as rumored is the fight card that happens in Brazil. So if they're going to Brazil, you're just putting Alex Pereira versus whoever is in line at light heavyweight, if Jamal Hill can make that. And then, you know, Pantoja feels like he would be the co-main event if you're going to Brazil for 301 pay-per-view, which then slides back to 302 for Leon, which is fine. But, yeah, I feel fine.

Shafcott at 170. 135. I took a bold, bold choice and voted Cheeto. And I had a very specific reason. I don't feel great about it, but it's still probably my guess. I believe Cheeto is going to beat Sean O'Malley. And this will not be any definition of fair or reasonable. But they'll just run that fight right back.

Yeah. I went with Sean O'Malley at 135 because it's a vibes thing. and I just think vibes are on the side. And you know what? Even if Sean wins and it's like somewhat competitive, you could just run it a third time because they each have one win over each other. And I don't know.

I think if Sean wins, he's not defending the belt again this year. I think he's going to go try to box. That was my thing. I think if Sean wins, he's not a scheduling thing. He'll fight once and just no one's going to even have a chance. He'll try to box and try to get the UFC

to join him in this adventure. Well, I got to tell you. Maybe he fights Suhudo if Sehudo beats Marab. But if Maraub beats Zhawe, he's just not fighting Marab. He's just not going to do that. And he's not like, I guess he could fight Corey, but I'm still not sure he's fighting Corey.

Bainamweight is about to be where lightweight was in 2016 and just totally fucked. It's going to be, it's going to be interesting. All right. Everyone needs to hope Cheeto wins. Like legitimately, everyone who wants Bannon Waite to be a fun functioning division needs Cheeto to win. All right. Next question. From our super chat from Michael Harris.

Michael Harris. Would you be okay with Izzy D. So a lot of people feel like Izzy DDP is going to headline UFC 300. Should they hold this one back and do it in South Africa instead? No. I think you just take it. Like it's there. You already fumbled this ball once.

Don't do it again. You got a strike. If they were already planning to go to South Africa this year, then sure, you wait. But that's not on the books now and probably not for the foreseeable future. Also, there is certainly a part of me that's just like way cooler. Like if DDP beats Izzy at U.S.C. 300, his next title fight should be in South Africa. You got plenty of time to set that up at the end of the year or maybe early 20. 2025 against, you know, a rematch with Strickland or Hamzot or whoever it is can just be in South Africa.

And we then all get the bonus of not having the overtly racist true African champion storyline. So that'd just be a win for all of us if that's not like part of this. So if it was an option that was easy, sure. No. Take Izzy, DDP, do it 300. Let's get this. Let's get this pig done. And one if it's not for 300.

One if we have to wait six months for the UFC that really set up a pay-per-view in South Africa. Should we wait six months? No. Absolutely not. I think, yeah, because even they are going to South Africa, if it's pay-per-view, it's going to be a bit of time. I don't think they can just squeeze it in next couple months. Absolutely not. Just take it here. If DDP wins, then you go to South Africa for his next side of offense, and that's it.

But it's not like South Africa is a market that is demanding the UFC break into it. And this is their like biggest and best shot. It's not China, right? It's not like, oh, we finally have a Chinese champion. We got to go here now or else we're never going to catch this. South Africa is a fine market they'd like to be involved in. But they could just go to South Africa for a fight night with DDP in the main event, and it'll be fine. They don't have to do a pay-per-view there.

Yeah, I was actually thinking that if he, if DDP does lose his championship, then, yeah, you can run a fight night with him there too. There's options, but yeah. Or just do the rematch in somewhere else in Africa, and it's still just as big. You know what I mean? I mean, I would assume it's actually much larger. I am not like deeply versed, but I just have to imagine that if they're going to Africa, like Nigeria would just be like a bigger event.

based on population size, if nothing else. I was going to ask about that because I don't know enough about the economy and the population, how it was dispersed in Africa. But when they had the Nagano, Uzman, Izzy kind of champions, they weren't talking South Africa. They were talking like Morocco or Nigeria, like northern Africa, I assume. I mean, I know that I am dead certain that Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. I don't know by how much, but like I am absolutely positive that that is true. South Africa, I have truly no idea where it ranks.

I'm sure it's better than most, but probably not top five. But yeah, like it just would have, I mean, and also that was the whole like if they were going to do the African champions thing, like the three things, it's you just go to Nigeria because that's where, you know, it works the best. But yeah, if they're just trying to go to Africa, they can go to South Africa. with DDP and a fight night card, that's fine. Or if he wins, then you can't take a pay-per-view. But take this now. It's right here. Let's get this done.

This fight needs to occur. We have a tweet from Brett Alkamoto of ESPN. And he says, and I quote, Dustin Ports, on his recent fights off tweet against Benoit Sontaddy, UFC 299, to me via text.

Quote, there is no contractual agreement before the fight was announced and we couldn't come to terms. That is, according to Brett Acomoto, we have not confirmed this. Hell yeah. The literal broadcast partner of the UFC. Now, hell yeah.

This seems very. That means this fight's happening, boys. And Dustin's going to get a whole extra bag of money. Dustin's getting money, but instead of eff it, I'm retiring nonsense like a child. He's just like, yeah, I'm not going to fight for the. offer you've extended me. So pay, which is reasonable.

So Dustin, let the UFC promote this fight, put all this, just basically publicizes, sell tickets on it, put him on the poster, do all this. And the whole time Dustin's all like,

at the last, like, how far is that fight a month? How far is that fight away? A month, a month and a half? I've got to be a month and a half. March 8th.

March. So he had, yeah. So when February 1st came up on his calendar, he had a little thing is, scheduled tweet fights off because he you this is brilliant bravo that's a nate that's a nate move if there ever was one he learned from nate he learned from connor you know just how to make money this is price fighting he is not an idiot wow i like we'll see how this plays out if if this fight

still ends up and by the way for anyone that's like oh but the ufc announced this blah blah blah look at what happened with Atlantic City. Look at what happened in Atlantic City. And else things all the time. Sean Brady was not ready to fight Vicente Lucke. And I knew that. Like there was a reason why I was like, we talked about this.

I'm like, there's something they're working on to headline, but like I don't know if it's going to happen. And that's why. I mean, Sean Brady went on Rogan and said, dude, I'm dinged up. Probably not going to be able to fight like April or May. And then they announced it for a main event against Vicente

Luque. And now we come to find out a couple weeks later. That's not happening. So this happens a lot. This happens a lot where fights are announced before the contracts are signed. It's more of like a, okay, now you got to sign. We already put it out there. So God, if this is Dustin Porey like playing the game right now, respect.

Respect. I was going to throw my hat. I was going to throw my hat across the room. I'm going to put it on my head right now because I'm just going with what I'm feeling at this point. But we'll see. We'll see how it plays out. We'll have to obviously learn more, but I mean, this is the freaking broadcast partner that is tweeting this. I love it.

It's freaking wild. A plus, yes. A plus. All right. Please be true. Super chat from Jordan Childs. All right, Jordan. Oh, thank you.

Just drop. Yeah, all right. Yeah. All right. Keep a coming. I've been super chatting with you, Jordan. I'm stealing the AK line. Yeah, I was just going to say, this is gimmick infringement.

Shots to AK. All right. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Oh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements.

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Dom. Two pounds, not $2, two pounds. Oh, all right. How are you organizing 300 as it stands, start to finish? DDP is E1. That's the main event. I'm going to operate under the assumption that's happening until someone tells me that it's not, which is what I've been saying for like over a month at this point.

I'm going BMF title second. I know that some people take. Gumbridge with that because it's fake belt versus a real belt. And I get that. I don't care. And I like the straw weight fight. It is five rounds too. The BMF is five rounds.

And more importantly, it's Justin Gagey versus Macfriken Holloway, man. That's just going to be my co-main. And if you don't like it, I get your reasoning, but I do not care. I think there's an argument for maybe switching things up with the third title fight, but not how wide I end up. I'll just give the top three fights, the top three fights, and go Zhang Wei,

Yan Zhao Nan. And I am rounding out, if I am in control of this, that's different than what I believe will happen. I am absolutely certain Charles Levera Amon Surukin will be on there, and I would absolutely have that as, I think that would be my main card opener. Let's just start the main card off with the bang, you know.

And then what I believe, will happen is I believe they will have Hollyholm, Kayla Harrison on the pay-per-view, as well as the fifth fight. I would not choose to do that. I would open the event with Hollyholm versus Kayla-Herson. That would be my curtain jerker because that fight has a high possibility of being lame. And I want all the rest of these fights are almost guaranteed bangers. And so let's start the evening with the lowest of the low as far as like excitement is involved. And I would round out mine with, actually, this would be my main card opener.

It's, it's Figgy Smalls versus Cody. Of course. There was never a world that wasn't going to have that. That's the main card opener. I think that that's probably going to be the lead-in fight because it's, you know, former champ versus former champ, going to be a knockout, going to be the kind of fight that's like, oh, maybe I should drop 80 bucks and watch this pay-per-view. And I'll have any issues with it, but that would be my main card opener because let's kick the

card off like for reals you know yeah well it's got to be the main event whether it's ddp izzie or they bump connor chanler boy the people who have a problem with title fights not getting top billing are going to be real pissed if connor and chanler gets the main event spot no title gets the main event over and the actual title but uh but i'll go ddp izzie for now gaichie holloway uh the straw white title fight i'm with you exactly on the main card olivera serukian's the second fight garbrand figgy is the main card opener i do think they're going to put kela on espn because it's going to be on a bc as well so like two and a half million people are going to watch kela harrison fight all i home on abc and esp so i do think that's

that's a shame where you're you're putting sorry where you're you put in the straw white championship where did you feature by feature yeah so we go strawway title bmf the three spot middle white title fight. Okay, got you. Um, I would do, I think they're going to do Holm Harrison as like the featured prelim. You do Yuri. That's the worst idea I've ever heard. But they're going to do it. They're going to do it. That is going to make it precisely zero people want to buy UFC 300. But what if Harrison just goes and rinses her? Then a lot of people are got to go buy UFC 300. Maybe that just seems deeply unlikely to me. Also, I would. Do you do both? you put bow nickel in that spot again for them i think you put figgy garbrant in that spot

because a fight is two former champions the fight's going to bang but also legitimately uh based on holly holm saying that she's not all that inclined to fight keel harrison if she blows weight i'm not putting her on promotional material like the feature prelim because i don't have any faith that californ's making weight if she does great i was wrong but i'm not going to set that up as a thing like i i would tuck her on the main card or i would tuck her as the co the prelim co-main or whatever but i would not put her in the big spot i'm kind of with you and jett i i like what you're going on with that jed that with the just if kala maybe not making 35 yeah just if holly's not going to fight her which is what it sounds like like i didn't and she shouldn't

by the way sure i if i'm the ufc i would not book this fight if holly tells me that i she is not going to fight her if she misses way. But like, all right, well, we'll go down the line and find another one. Misha Tate will probably do it. And she's as big a name as you, Holly. So fine. But like, they are operating with a lot of assumption that she is making 135. And a lot of evidence is to the contrary.

That's going to happen. So 50-50, this fight even happens, you know? What's the first fight? Like, legitimately. I know you would put. Holly and Kayla I mean that very seriously I absolutely put that the first one

I think the first fight will be I think we're going to get two more fights as I think we're going to at the main and I think they're going to add one more thing

and whatever they add will probably be the first but if we're just going off what we have here you got 11 that's tough man do I go on Judge Marina Rodriguez first

I go do you go I think they end up doing Yusuf Lopez, which is I don't have any issues with. Because that's, you know, those are the two least large commodities of all of them that they're working with. And that fight will start things off being quite fun. But I think the main car, I think the whole event gets open by one more fight. That's like fine, but just a little bit lesser, you know. So you got to give people time to get in the door. Yep.

See, oh man, in my mind, I'm, excuse me, I'm kind of thinking this has like a, like the, like the, like the Rise in the Big Japan New Year's Eve cards. It's not really about the main event. It's about the whole card in general. And I'm hoping, I know American fans don't really think that way as far as when they think of cards and stuff. But like, I would love if, actually, I kind of love the idea of Holly and Kayla opening up the entire card. And just like, so you, so you may and you get people in the door immediately. That's what I'm saying. And you get, for the first time ever in Las Vegas, you will have a sold out arena, I mean,

a filled up arena at the very first fight, which you just never see in Vegas. You'll see that in other countries, but in Vegas, no. I think if you really heavily advertise that Holly Home Kea Harrison would be the first fight, you know, on the entire card, I don't know. I kind of like that idea. And then if the fight falls off, it doesn't kill you. Yeah. Yeah. I would just, so I went back and looked.

One, I also think there's a real chance that they just say F it and put Jim Miller, Bobby Green as the opener. I hate that idea. I think that there's an argument to make that your prelim main event, just because like the narrative around Jim Miller at this point is so large that that's a pretty good go-home fight to get you built into the pay-per-view. I don't think they'll do that. But I'd like him to have a little higher billing. But do you guys know what the opening fight for UFC 100? was. Oh, 100.

No, no clue. There's no chance. It's Shannon Googerty versus Matt Grice. 200 was Jim Miller versus Gohmi. So that's like a much bigger one. But I feel at the time, like that fight is bigger now, but at the time, Gomi was fondly thought of by several, like a section of the fans,

but he's also not in the best run of his career. Jim Miller was a bit of the always the bridesmaid, never the bride guy. It's not kind of who he's developed into now. Those are, the opening fights are fights that are fun and might drag people into the door early. But for people who aren't there early, or traffic's a little bad or whatever,

you just need it to not be like marquee event stuff. And so I think they should add another fight that's like decent, like a good fight, but just let our ease our way into this thing, you know? All right. Natty Ice goes out. does work this weekend turn her right around that would be like that would be perfect right like something something like that like a up and coming like a fighter who's got a little bit of shine to him but still

way out of any sort of broader narrative pictures and get them in there on a fun little scrap to start the evening yeah cool cool all right we got a super chat from cole zeman how many times we have to hear from cole in one day love you cole just joking he had two heck of them morning callings today. Thoughts on the roadhouse trailer and Connor's bike vids. I will take 1% credit for calling for the super chats. Thanks, Cole.

Yes, you are one of the people, Cole. Take two percent credit, Cole. I'm generous. You can take 2% in that credit. Wow. Thoughts on the roadhouse trailer, Jed. It looks bad in a way that I will enjoy a lot, which is high praise. I want to be real clear.

like when I say it looks bad, that is does not meant pejoratively, right? Like that is, I love trashy film. So I watch a ton of movies. I mean this with all sincerity. The best film I have seen this year thus far is the beekeeper. It's the Jason Statham movie. Oh, gosh. It's Jason Statham in the silliest film.

It's basically crank meets John Wick and it fucking rules. It's so dumb and it's so dumb. and it's so much fun. And like, hopefully that's what this Roadhouse remake will be. I have questions. I also, my other main comment is a lot of people notice like, wow, Connor appears to have a prominent role. I am deeply unsure that that is true.

Like, he, I think there's a real shot that Connor's scenes are in the trailer, and that's it, like that he is not in any more of the movie outside of the expansion of what we see in the trailer, which probably makes sense. I do think Connor has a potential to be like one of the better MMA fighters turns actors. I've thought that for a while because back when he was doing like commercials for whatever several years ago, the horse racing commercial, whatever. It was great. He was fine in that.

Like he was totally like a reasonable entity in that space. And so I think that he could be good in this. Also from his acting in the trailer, it looked like he leaned into the worst parts of what would make him good in these roles. So we'll see. but the movie looks almost certainly like it's going to be fun really doubt it's going to be good but who cares as long as it's fun which is what the first one was first one is it I mean yeah the first one is not a good film but it's quite a fun film yeah it's like scenes in it yeah Terry Funx also yeah

also there's a pretty legitimate argument that Doug Lyman the director like that's sort of his brand like so I think the born identity is an exceptional piece of of cinema that also then burst a lot of bad stuff, but whatever, the rest of his movies are fun and I wouldn't call them good. Mr. Mithismith is pretty fun. Jumper is pretty fun.

A lot of people like Edge of Tomorrow more than I do as like a good piece of tomorrow. The same guy. Oh, okay. A lot of people like that and think it's good. I think it's fine but it is fun. He hasn't made a movie that sucks is my point. So it seems really unlike his movies going to suck.

I just am not sure that it's like good. but who cares? It's not supposed to be good. It's Roadhouse. It's supposed to be fun. I'll tell you what. It's going to be much better than this movie

would have been with Ronda Rousey, which is great. And Ronda Rousey was supposed to be Dalton, not the Connor McGregor character. People think that was the Connor McGregor character that was supposed to be Rhonda. No, it's supposed to be Dalton.

Which is such an, whoever thought of that, just I hope they got fired. Because aside from that, not working in any aspect to it, Like, I do kind of like the idea of like, oh, we're going to gender shift Roadhouse. That's sort of a fun concept. Ronda Rousey's like the worst person I could imagine to do that with.

So we've made better choices. Was Rhonda like on the cover of Best Actress Magazine or something? Like she was on the cover of Ring? Like, where does this concept of her being like this? She's super famous, man. She's super famous. If you want to be a lead in the movie, you could be a part character, like I guess like Connor and just kind of play an exaggerated version of yourself on screen and it works.

But if you're going to do the whole dang movie, you know, it has to lead. You got to be, you got to be able to act. So I'm kind of, where did this come from? Was Rhonda in some movie or some part that we were like, oh, I can see this for 90 more minutes? No, she's, I'm trying to think what if she's been in. She's an entourage, but she's kind of playing herself. The expendables.

I mean, I think. Was she not? Oh, no, Fast and Farcy. She was in one of. No, no. Oh, is that Gina? Yeah, she was, no,

both of them were in a Fast and Furious. Oh. She is awful in the Fast and Furious. It's really, really bad. Okay. I've never seen the expendables.

She is in that, I think. I honestly think that it was like, hey, she's just super popular. And Gina Krono, kind of made it work. Well, yeah,

we could probably do that with Rondo. Because Gina is in Haywire. Like, she's in Sondberg film. Like, she's, that's ridiculous. So when you think about that,

but she's also not bad in it. She's not good in it, but she's not bad. in it. And so there's just like, we could baby do the same thing with Rhonda. And then they saw her act. I'm like, we cannot, she cannot carry a film. No. This, the first thing I thought of when I saw this trailer was like, okay, this looks Okay. Expendos three had Rhonda in it in a big role. This is 1,000% of movie you have to watch with like a bunch of weird people, like three or four like, like minded individuals who are

ready to have a good time. And then it's going to be a much more enjoyable experience. This is not one. you're just like, yeah, you're just kind of laying around and you just throw it. I don't know, man. I could absolutely believe. I could believe that this is a T&T All-Star in like five years, like 100%. One, Jake Gyllenhaal is an interesting actor who does interesting shit. And two, Doug Lyman has a litany of T&T All-Stars already under his belt. Like, I've seen the Born Identity more than most films just because if I'm laying on the couch forever, it was like, oh, what's on?

Right now. Oh, okay, I'll watch the board for a hot minute. I'll watch Jumper. I'll watch Edge of Tomorrow. Tom Cruise looping. Sure, that seems fun. Like, I think this could absolutely be both a good, like, friend experience and just a dope, like, I'm hung over and don't want to move today.

Let me door dash some fast food and watch whatever's on. Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. Let's watch. Not for first viewing, though. Not for first viewing. No, no. Not for first viewing.

But like, there's very much a world where I'm going to see this movie like 20 times. I'm just like, we're about to get to the scene where Jake Gyllenhaal just kills this dude in the octagon outrageously. Poor Jay Huron. Hell yeah, I'm going to watch. It was a Jay Hero. I'm like, hell yeah, let's watch Jake Gillen Hall dust up Jay Huron. Jay is killing it. Good for that guy.

Good for him. Good for him. Yeah, Rhode Australia looked good. It looked like what it was supposed to be. It looked like what it was supposed to be. I do think it's bullshit that they're not giving it a theater. electrical release. Like, why not?

Come on. That is it, to me, that's a really bad sign, though, because that means they've seen the final product. It's a bad sign. They've seen the final product and they go, okay, we got an awesome three minutes here. And we'll put that, we'll make three minutes of an awesome trailer. It's Medell Ian. It's Medi Ian from Entourage.

The trailer looks great. Oh, yeah. Hey, second entourage. My mom has this long running theory that if you look at a movie trailer and it doesn't have a rating yet, that the film's going to be. trash because and I honestly it's not like the worst idea I've ever heard like I think their parts are true. I do think that's entirely been supplanted in my head by oh, this is going direct to streaming. It's like, okay, so that's one step above direct to video. And look, there are some

direct to video films that I found quite enjoyable, but none of them are good. There's a reason that that's happening. Yeah, it feels like roadhouse going straight to Red Box. Then we'd be like, oh boy. It is. There's a level of concern for it. going straight to streaming. Did Never Back Down get a theatrical release? Oh, yeah, for sure. Sure did. You're talking about either one.

Weekend box office smash. Never Back Down is either the one, a incredible TNT movie. I mean, that movie, whoo, it's fire. That's either the best of the second best of the movie of all time. I personally think it's the best, but it's objectively not. But that movie rocks. Also, all of the sequels, I think, are on Netflix. and they're bad and hilarious and super fun.

What did they get up to four? Never back down again. Sounds right. So I know two's called the beat down because one, Michael John White just took over the franchise, which, yeah, he just took rocks. It's just awesome. He's like, I'm going to step in here and take over.

I got it. Yeah, you want Michael John White. It's rules. Two is called the beat down. There's one called Revolt. and there might be another one I can't remember off the top of my head because Revolts the one with Bisping in it

like where Bispings like one of the primary baddies or whatever sounds like you're naming random UFC's like in the 60s like pretty much Yeah UFC 62 we vote UFC 64

They did They just named it not Instead of never back down three or four It's like ah stuff What a franchise We need more Yes You're right

We are missing a bad MMA action franchise We're not missing it. It's called Never Backdown. Yeah, you're right. It's right there. The most recent one I pulled it up came out in 2021. Oh, my God, 2021.

Oh, you're right. That was the best one. That was the best one. That was the first, I thought we were done like by, wouldn't it never back down come out? Like, over 10 years ago. 2011, I think. Let me look down.

Yeah, that's what I thought around that time. Okay. What is time to be a fan? Oh, I'm sorry, 2008. 2008. Wow. Oh, 2008. I think Warrior came out in 2011, which is for those wondering, the actual best anime film I've made.

It's actually like a good movie. I have opinions on this, but we'll save that for another conversation. Yes. We have more super chats to talk about. Let's go. Let's keep them going. More super chat. Okay.

This is a quick one. So yes or no question from Liam, Liam Devine. Thanks, Cole, by the way. Is Jed a homeless cat? I don't think so. all right we got our answer I won

shouts to whoever it was who did the first homeless one apparently this is going to gain traction so good for you I didn't see it coming this is what we were hoping for at the super chats you're not just a regular cat

you're a homeless cat would you rather be homeless cat like would you rather be a feral cat I've seen the arista cats you know and it seems like Tom cat is out there live in the time of his life whereas all the yuppie kittens really enjoyed hanging out with him instead of their stuffy home with their mom.

Just saying. What a, what a turn job. Nicely done. I want to be clear, the Aristocats, that movie rocks. I think that that's like a top three Disney animation film of all time. That movie is so good. I've never actually seen the aristocrats. No, no, it's a ristocrats.

No, no, it's an aristocrats. Yeah, I've seen aristocrats. That's a different film completely. It's very different. You should. Yes. I mean this very seriously, Casey, you should go watch this like one. It's an old Disney movie, so it's like an hour.

This thing is not a two hour sit down. It genuinely might be shorter than 90 minutes. It bangs and it's got terrific. You would, I'm so confident. You know what? I have Disney Plus, you know. I think it's your birthday. I assume that it is on there.

You should a thousand. do it. I'm out of here. Here we go. I'm going to go watch it now. Everybody wants to be a cat. Just pull up the, I'm sure there's a YouTube for everybody wants to be a cat and watch me like, I'm going to watch this movie.

This movie's going to bang because it does. It's so good. This is the best episode of BTI, America. This is just a yes and no question. But now we're talking about cats now. So did you see cats, the musical? I saw that once. I saw that once live.

It's one of the worst experiences I've ever had in my life as far as entertainment. Oh, God. Watch the recent film that came out. No, no, I have no intention. I've seen the musical. Please watch it. There's no way it can be good.

And I don't hate myself to that extent to subject myself to it. It's the dumbest thing I've ever read. I don't understand how it became a Broadway musical and then like was popular. There's not a pop. It's character driven, man. It's not a plot driven. It's character driven.

Jeez, man. It's the worst thing I've ever sat through. And I enjoy musicals. Like, I am a big fan of theater and musicals. It was wretched. It's got that song in it, that song, that, the memory song. That song kind of kills every time. It's so bad, man.

Just here are 12 different cats singing about themselves. there's no plot and then the poor old one gets drafted up into the sky or whatever the heaven metaphor spoiler spoiler so now everyone's watched it out for 50 years i think it's fine we need we need a never if you like cats you're going to love aristicats man it's actually good never back down the musical jed now we're on now we're on to something i mean that's that's the best idea I've ever heard honestly I mean that would be off Broadway like they're probably not going to put that

on like one of the big ones but I would go I'd pay a lot of money to watch that musical oh my mind's going places I'm thinking about it all right thank you Liam

great question that was a terrific terrific effort from Liam not I guarantee you I wasn't expecting Matt to happen. All right. Now we have a question from Lazybed. Lazybed.

What were Feldman and Dana cooking up together? A Mike Perry return. Tony shipped to bare-knuckle retirement home, BKFC on Fight Pass. So there's a- Well, there's a photo of Feldman and Dana together. And I think Dana also took a picture with Eddie Hearn and the matchroom guys,

which isn't really surprised because Dana and Hearn are buds. And Hearn's getting a event. in Vegas, but Feldman is there as well. I don't think this is the first time Dana and Dave Feldman have met. BKFC's trying to get legalized in Vegas, so maybe Dana's trying to give him a little push or something. I don't know.

What do you think this means? Let's just say you saw this photo, Jed, of Dana and Dave Feldman together. Do you think it means anything or it's just Dave Feldman saying, oh, shit, Dana, wait, let's take a picture. I would probably make more sense to me to be that. Like, I don't, they don't need FightPass, right? Like, if BKFC wants to get like a broader broadcast deal, I think, I mean, they've got the juice to do that outside of Fight Pass with something.

And probably, like, I have no idea what Fight Pass pays these things. But I have to assume they could get more money elsewhere. And again, it's just, Fight Pass isn't even like that ubiquitous of a service, right? I don't think they would even entertain going on to fight pass realistically. And I don't think the UFC would want to pay for them to do it. I'm not sure that that would just be a business partnership at this point that makes sense for other side. I mean, I guess the fun thing, there would be a world where it's like, all right, let's figure out some way to sort of interconnect. And some of our aging veterans who have some interest in Bear Knuckle could come over.

But I'm not even sure how that would work. So I would just assume that this is, hey, they sort of know each other. They run in similar circles in this regard. Just take a photo. Be cool. That's kind of what I think it is, but you can have fun with it. Yeah. Has Dana ever talked about, I mean, we know he loves watching people slap each other,

but has he ever talked about bare knuckle publicly? Like. I'm sure he has. There's no way he's gone through all those. There's no way he hasn't gone through all those press conferences without being asked about it. about something that's happened, like whether it's a Mike Perry fight or something. Also, I mean, he's might talk about, oh, I'm happy for Mike Perry,

but he actually talked about like the sport of bare knuckle. He's definitely, I remember him being like, yeah, great for Mike finding sort of his niche. Like, that's a thing that's happened. I'm sure he has to have. I just can't remember him talking about it. Probably because if you think about it for more than five seconds, like, oh, this is what Dana should have done instead of Slash. overlapping. Yeah, that's why I kind of bring this out. He could have just been the bare knuckle dude too.

And that would obviously make way more sense and have better long term prospects. Yeah. He could have partnered with BKFC and did this. He could have partnered with Mazadol to do the like MMA fighters boxing each other. Like there's a lot he could have done like in that regard where he could form partnerships or, you know, dip the toe in the water, so to speak, in some regard. But yeah, I just think it's two dudes stalking. for now. Maybe they're cooking up something, but I don't think it's anything crazy. Like, hey, we'll trade you Connor McGregor from Mike Perry

for a night. I don't think we're getting that. I mean, that'd be fucking cool, though. That'd be cool. All right, go back to our super chats. Thanks, lazy bed. Thank you. Yes, good question. Hopefully it's something good. Yeah. Oh, this is a term, oh,

just a person, gentleman, maybe. He spent six dollars to say this. Happy birthday from GFH times 10,000. I guess. I'm not cool enough to know if that means something other than happy birthday. So happy birthday, case. Thanks. Times.

All right. Do you say 1,000 or that's 10,000, sir? That's 10,000. He said 10,000. He said 10,000. Oh, he did 10,000. All right, 10K, baby. Thank you very much.

I appreciate it. Yes. All right. And another super chat from Long. time commenter. Terrence Leverett. Hey. How do you think Molly looks at straw weight?

Yes, Molly McCann fighting Deanna Belbita this Saturday, rematch that the world has been clamoring for since their first battle, this time at 115. How do you think she fares at 115? How intrigued are you with this?

And I will say, Jed, you guys, I listen to Obetz Bar this morning. You and Connor talked about this fight, but neither of you mentioned it was at 115 that I could recall because Tabology does have it listed as a flyweight fight, but it is happening at 115. Does this change?

I don't think I knew. The way you look at the fight. I definitely didn't know that because I was rocking off tap. And no, why would it? I don't think Molly McCain is going to suffer much from cutting the weight. I think that this is a weight

class that makes sense for her. And, you know, she's had a good run at Flyweight, but I think that this is where she'll probably do her best competition. And she's fighting a woman. She already won against and who hasn't improved. I think this fight's going to look almost identical to the first iteration. So be good. 115 could use sort of Molly's stardom right now.

There's sort of a lull period coming for the weight class. Just a lot of names who have been around for a long time. and Molly at least would be something new and different here. So I think she's going to look great. What do you think, Casey? Do you think her ceiling is higher at 115 or do you think it's kind of similar to 125 where yeah, she can get some wins, put her on the UK cards, she gets the big pops. But when it comes to getting a top 10 step up, it's just probably not going to go great for her?

Or do you think maybe this is her weight class and maybe she can make a run? I think it's the same I think she's Where does she peak at 25 ranking wise She got ranked it wasn't It couldn't have been top 10 Before the Blanchfield

Probably just probably 12 Yeah that I kind of see that From Onom mechanic in whatever weight class Starweight and flyweight She's top 15 And then you know She'll win that fight And then she'll face someone in the top 10

lose that fight and she'll kind of be right in that area. But the big, actually the biggest thing I'm kind of surprised at is the, I mean, I don't know if this tap off. I don't know if this is accurate, but the card placement, she's the seventh.

Very weird. That's a, these are like, this is the placement of cars. It's all weird anyway, just putting her in the apex and just like, burying her in the middle. She's such a big arena fighter.

I mean, I feel like she's become that. It's like, I don't know. It's just, She has the pre-lim main event, Casey. So, you know. She's warm up the cage for Gilbert Urbina.

Yeah. It's odd. It's odd. I just find that more of the story is just on this card and the card placement. Not a main event, not a main event, but not a featured fight. So it's just weird. I don't know what that means, obviously. I'm not saying that this would have done a whole lot.

it's not like 2997 was a rock solid card you could have used a little extra juice somewhere in there I gave it zero star so like you could have used some help Molly wouldn't have gotten it over the thump but we just made more sense to swap a couple of those out like yeah it's why she was co-main her last fight co-main event in front of over 15,000 fans that were cheering for her and now she's on a mid card on a ape and a random apex card um that's just along with the woman who beat her on that card julius deliorenko is the third fight on the card oh so her also shouts to lazy bed again uh impossible meatballs balls bang wait how is solarienko farther down the okay sorry yeah this whole car page was wild so i didn't it's a very it's a very they don't care is what's

happened yeah i think i think you've answered the question yeah the next two events they are not interested in. I'm just like, got to get to 42 before the years out. Let's put a couple apex cards together. And we don't have anybody to put on them because we're stacking up the pay-per-views this section of the year.

So let's go, Gilbertabina. The day before the Super Bowl, which is also in Las Vegas, could have done something a little cooler, but it is what it is. All right. And we've got an hour 20. speaking about cats and Monlin McKinn.

This is wild. So we have one more super chat question or comment rather. Thanks, Terrence. Thank you, Terrence. Thank you very much. Good hearing from you. Tree Fitty, do you bros get the money from the super chat? I don't know.

I know nothing about this. Legitimately, we found out about this yesterday. Yeah. Was it yesterday? Yes, it was yesterday. You found out about this yesterday. Tuesday. No, it was Tuesday.

It was Tuesday. Was it Tuesday? Oh, yeah, because I was thinking it was part of our usual Wednesday meeting. But no, we did the special thing on Tuesday. Found out Tuesday and we're like, hey, instead of doing a competition of BTL, let's just try this thing and see what happened. Well, we do it once a month anyways. So I figure it with like literally nothing happening at all this week, I mean, literally the biggest news was Kevin Lee coming out of retirement.

That is until this Dustin Poria thing dropped like 25 minutes before the show started. This is one of those weeks. That's not even news. That's fake news because that fight's going to happen. They're just going to pay Dustin. I love it. Get yours. I mean, it's awesome. I fully support it, but that fight is still going to go on.

So. Probably. Probably. Okay. Sergey's insane. I'm sorry. I've been deeply invested in the comments today. Beyond chicken is better than real chicken is an outrageous.

just hot take. What kind of chicken is? Beyond chicken is better than real chicken. Uh, it's just just a, they don't like chicken. They do like chicken. I mean, I, I, I, I, I, a lot of beyond stuff. I like Beyond burgers a lot, actually, but I haven't done the Beyond Chicken. And Beyond Chicken does not. I don't like the burgers. You don't. Like, a lot of people, a lot of people overcook them. I'm telling you a lot of people overcook them. Could be the case. Like, I don't think the stuff's bad. I just think it has a place and it's different. And like, I have a very clear expectation on burgers. Somebody, and I don't, I haven't found it, somebody that was like beyond meat's perfect for stuff like spaghetti. I'm like, yes, that's correct because there's a lot of other stuff going on.

And so it's like fine. That's why the meatballs are good. A burger is 90% burger. I need that to be cow. Well, more cooking and baking advice with Jed Mishu coming up next week on Between the Lengths. But hey, we got a UFC event this Saturday. UFC Vegas 85. We will preview. Paul, my T-Swift takes are, I don't care. People like her, and that's fine. Yeah. She has some songs that I enjoy. But I, that's it.

I don't have a lot of hot takes on Taylor. Man, look. You can't blame her for this. The NFL is the one that's like putting her on screen every five seconds. They're not, they're not even putting it on that much. It's been a total of two minutes. Wait. We got more, exactly.

We got more Tanner Swift talk. I was just saying Taylor Swift is. been on screen for a total of two minutes in the playoffs he's not on that much it's the same as you get nicholson out of freaking leger's game or whatever it's just fine and i don't care i'm if if they're happy good for them she makes music that other people i don't understand why people are as in love with her as they are but i don't need to it's fine i don't understand why anybody has sort of that level of adoration for another individual because i have never felt that whoever it may be, but, you know,

rock on Swifties. You like your tunes? She's got some good ones. Just shake it off. Shake it off. Oh. You know? Well, I don't know about you, but I'm feeling 22,

and it's time to get on out of here. Back next week. Competition style. I think Casey's feeling 22. Today was a fairy tale on BTL. For Jed, for the birthday boy, Casey Lydden. We'll be back next week. We'll preview show tomorrow, all sorts of fun stuff.

and the iconic voice of Esther Lynn takes you home. Thank you very much. Good night, everybody. Chickens are not goats. They're not goats, ladies and gentlemen. Love y'all. This has been Between the Links, an M.M.A Fighting Production

on the Vox Media Network.