MMA Fighting - BTL | Eddie Hall Triumphs, Poirier's Last Dance Set, Ian Machado Garry's Big Win, More

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

It was a crazy weekend in the combat sports world this past weekend with MMA and boxing delivering big moments — such as Eddie Hall's crazy 30-second knockout win at KSW 105, Chris Eubank Jr. and Conor Benn's instant classic, and Ian Machado Garry's gutsy decision win over Carlos Prates in the main event of UFC Kansas City. This weekend, it's another busy time for the combat sports world, and the #UFC is returning to Des Moines, Iowa for a Fight Night card headlined by Cory Sandhagen vs. Deiveson Figueiredo. On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel fields questions from the listeners about all of the action in the combat sports world, including Saturday's UFC event, the plethora of boxing events featuring the likes of Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Canelo Alvarez, and what fight stands out most. Additionally, topics may include the UFC's welterweight division, UFC 317 still not having a main event with the card less than two months away, Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall, and much more. Join MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew for a special Q&A edition of the program. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠@mikeheck_jr⁠ 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

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Wi-Fi available to AeroPlan members on equip flights sponsored by Bell Conditions apply see Air Canada.com You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is between the links. And now, my... The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of BTL.

Happy Thursday to us all once again. And we're back with another Q&A edition of the program because, well, we are kind of short-handed here and we don't really have a choice. and are we even live right now? Okay. Well, hey, welcome to the show, everybody. You miss my epic introduction,

but I'm not going to do it again because I just don't want to. But thank you for joining us. Another Q&A edition of the show. So much going on right now. There's multiple events this weekend, and there's only so many of us to go around, and it's just one of those weeks

where we wanted to turn the programming over to you and joining me, heard his voice earlier, how much you heard, I'm not really sure, but he is Mr. No Gray area, the hot take kid himself, the one and only, Jed Bishu. Jed, how are we feeling? Describe how we're feeling in a, in a single word? In a single word, uh, poopie, you can show you know, um, not a great day and, uh, have no idea how much everyone heard, but, The answer might be more than zero. So not the best start to this either.

Okay. And here is well joining us. And dude has been getting welted up in the face, all about the face, all around it. Now we got black eyes, all sorts of in-jim war wounds for the one and only E. Casey Lide. And look at this man's face. Look at it. Look at it.

Look at this guy. Just getting dinged up everywhere. the U.S. economy right now. I was going to say, did you try to, were you trying to fight a gorilla or something? Is that what happened? Yeah, I read it as one man versus a thousand gorillas. It was a bad, yeah, I just, I didn't look at it more. Should have proof read.

You did okay. Yeah, I did. You did okay. Well, I am, can we just say the ubiquitousness of that topic is wild to me? Like, that is just everywhere right now. It's very, very funny. It is very funny, and it's, like, what do you think about that? Because I, like, I'm so sick of it already.

Like, I truly am so sick of it. And I'm sure there's going to be questions asked about it. And sure, that's what the show is all about. But, I mean, everybody's jumping all over this thing now. And I can't anywhere I turn. It's this topic. Here's the thing. I usually like topics like this, like very silly hypotheticals.

The problem is this has like a very obvious answer and so it's not that fun. Also it's open it's not open ended. It's definitive which takes away like previously we've all or I assume we've all if if this is just a me thing I guess I'll find it out in moments. How many eight year olds do you think you could beat up before they overrun you? Like that's open ended because you were providing a number of how many to do the thing and that's a great game to play. is like, okay, do I get a weapon? How do we do this? Like, that's a fun hypothetical to reason out.

This is a definitive yes, no answer. And also, like, it's a pretty clear answer. And so the fact that it has gotten as big is really wild to me. Yeah. So what is your clear answer? Oh, so we're clear in any normal circumstance, i.e. a scenario where this would happen, the gorilla wins. If we are crafting a scenario where 100 dudes feel no fear and also can coordinate

an attack and like pre-plan, then yeah, they're going to be able to get it done because like the thing of like a hundred people can't fight one gorilla. Like if you've ever been jumped, there aren't a hundred dudes. It's like at most five people can hit you at one point in time. So like the first two dozen are just. slaughter like sacrificial lambs and then you can start just throwing their dead bodies at the gorilla and you know eventually turning their bones into weapons to actually like stab it so like a coordinated effort if nobody's afraid of anything because we're all unsullied or some shit then sure

hundred dudes can get the gorilla but like half of them are dead at least half of them are gone as part of this uh but in any real world we're like oh let's mr beast this and put one silverback versus a hundred dudes on a, you know, arena. The grill is running through these people because the moment you see a silverback literally rip the head off your buddy Joe, you're done. You're out. You're not fist fighting that goddamn thing. So it's a very silly question.

See, you don't get this type of inside anywhere else, ladies and gentlemen. You just don't. So with that being said. Most of my life debating idiotic hypotheticals. Like come to me for these things. things because I got them. All right. Well, there you go.

We have put a bow on this discussion. Actually, probably haven't. But Casey, let's bring up the questions. Of course, the super chatters gets carte blanche, if you will. They get to jump to the front of the line. So let's see what they got. Super chat from Slito. Sleto.

What's up with certain media outlets refusing to cover the Francis situation? Is it a far, switcher take, no ability to confirm? I mean, you kind of nailed it. It's just the last part. Yeah. I mean, we're not, yeah, we're not going to until it's like concrete and we have something of evidence, whether it's a statement or a police report of some time, this is Cameroon too, so that not easy to get. Until that happens, we can't just say, because what if it's not true?

What if it's not true and we've sullied the man's name and we have no evidence or proof of any of this stuff? Like you're just setting yourself up for a lot of risk, especially if it's not true. So I would rather, at least in Jed, you can you can expound on this. I would rather be last and be right than be first and be wrong. Yeah. I don't know if you guys know this. I don't want to speak for everybody because maybe there are people out there

who just suck at their jobs. I don't have a whole lot of contacts in Cameroon. I don't have a lot of inside sources with the Cameroonian legal departments that exist. And so anything that we do is all entirely secondhand as a result of this. Obviously, we know that the reports are out there. I think we've come, like individually people have commented

you know, with the appropriate stipulations, but like, to the best of my knowledge, there seems to be validity to this because the Cameroonian outlets that are reporting it appear to be reputable places, right? But that is literally entirely secondhand information from us to the, you know, we have thus far, again, I don't want to speak for everybody, been unable to get confirmation from any member of and Ghanu's team, not for lack of effort. And so for now, this is a, hey man. Like, I don't, frankly, I don't even know how I would go about doing this.

Like, just DMing people who live in Cameroon and be like, hey, can you go check? Like, there's, it's so off beyond like our capability at this point to confirm based other than a few sort of specific instances. And so we're kind of just stuck waiting. And we're definitely not going to come out here and say something. some shit because aside from you getting sued, that's also just morally repugnant. Yeah. It's not like the Sedricke Dumas story where you could just go on the internet and see his

mugshot and all of the charges that are against him and that he's got $558,000 bail that he's got to pay if he wants to get out of jail for his however many if arrest that he's had over the last several years in the same county. Like that's easy to confirm. It's easy to find. Easy to look up. You can't. You just can't do it.

it based on a report. Now, if it's, if it's like Mike Coppinger reporting a boxing fight, that's different. You know, if you see multiple reports and Coppengers usually get the inside track on things, that is his job. Sure. It's Tyson Fury Alexander Usick 3 reported for October. Like, you can do that. And if it's wrong, you can blame cop, like all good.

It's not like no harm, no foul, but something like this, you just can't, you can't take any chances. So if this happened in America, we would have a, we would know. But it would be easy because every other time something like this has happened, we have immediately reported. It's just this is a hard one to confirm because of the circumstances surrounding it. Yeah. If it's true, it's not good. Like, I think we can flat out say it, but we don't know if it's true or not.

Desperly hope it's not true just because it will be awful if it is true. But, you know, it seems like there's at least some validity. here, which sucks real hard, if so. Yep. Thank you, Sleva. Stupid chat from our great friend, Spencer. Howdy boys, agree with you about wanting to see fighters defend and not move up, but why do you think so common in boxing but frowned upon in MMA?

I know more weight classes, but often guys fight up two to three weight classes in career in boxing. I mean it's the gap go ahead it's the gap it's like four pounds five pounds at most I mean that's the basic thing and you have different governing bodies so it's like you don't tight boxing is just a whole different world when he comes to this stuff yeah there's multiple titles and yeah and it's just multiple promotional bodies and organizations with multiple titles in every single weight class. Like the UFC has, they're the only game in town right now.

Like obviously there's other fight promotions out there, but nobody cares. It's all about the UFC and it's, it's not like, you know, Drick's Duplice is going to fight Johnny Eblen and then, you know, then he fights somebody else. And then he's like, okay, now I'm going to move up to 205 because I have four middleweight titles. It doesn't work that way. You only got one title. you can only fight the dudes that are signed to that promotion, you're limited to what you can do with that.

Boxing doesn't, it has some limitations, but certainly nowhere near the amount that the UFC has. It's just different governing bodies and it's all shaped differently. So you can get away with that stuff and these promotions are willing to work together, even the ones that hate each other, bring in Turkey Al-a-Shek with big money and big pockets. He can put these guys together.

Dana ain't going to co-promote. with anybody. So it's almost impossible to compare the two, I think. Yeah. It's just the two factors. One, frankly, more than the other. It is easier to do because the weight classes are so tightly compacted. Right. And so like that is just a less risk involved, right? Instead of a 10 pound gap, you're going up six pounds. That's, I know people really like, to me, that's just not that big a difference, right? Like it is. It's not really. But the bigger point, is that their fighters are their own bosses. And so they can do that shit.

They can't do that in the UFC because you have to be functionally allowed to do that or like totally willing to just think. Belts mean more in the UFC in general because there's only one of them. And so fighters up until the Taboria have been very unwilling to just be like, I don't care about this. I just, I'll leave it and go do another thing.

In boxing, you just be like, well, I'm going to go fight this. dude and because there's such you know each from organization or whatever has a limited number of dudes if you're a champion they're just going to be more willing and you have the autonomy mhm a fighters would move up and challenge for multiple weight classes constantly if that was like a thing that the ufc supported but they don't and so that's how it is yep and i frankly think that that is better all right uh thank you spencer uh stupid chat $10 super chat for Dave R18.

Thank you, Dave. Definitely not super plausible, but if there is a fighter in the UFC to ever win undisputed gold in three different weight classes, who would it be? Poetan has a chance, not really, maybe Makachev.

So to ever win undisputed gold, who would it be? Have we seen him yet or her? Is this, has this fighter, do we know who this fighter is? it's possible. Before we get into it, what do you think the three-way classes, most probable three-way

classes, the gap? Well, that's the thing. Middleweight. I think it's a heavy weight. So, like, yes. So historically, like, Valentina Shepchenko had a good chance just because featherweight and bantam weight were functionally synonymous. Yeah.

And so, like, you know, but that also would have felt kind of asterisky with that regard. My best guess would be like middleweight to heavyweight because heavyweight, like those, you're getting progressively worse. Middle weight than heavyweight's a worst or light heavy is a worst division. Heavyweight's a worst division. That's still really hard. Like Poetan could do it, but I still think that that's unlikely just because the top, top part of the heavyweight won't suck, right?

Like the middling part would suck. Alex Pereer could easily be like a top. top five heavyweight because weight class is garbage. But at top five, those guys are good and then the size difference comes into play, really. If I had to guess right now, and I am not suggesting that this will happen, I want to be very clear about that, the best chance something like this ever has to occur is somebody like Iliot Toporia. Even though these weight classes are really hard, like it would be in three incredibly good weight classes, right? featherweight, lightweight, welterweight.

He won a belt so early at featherweight naturally got bigger to become a natural lightweight, which we've frankly seen with a ton of lightweights. Natto Morcano, Dustin Porriere, Charles Olivera. These are dudes who were, you know, fought at 1.45 at one point, but just grew up.

And so then became elite elite fighters at 155. To where he already has won one belt. He's still 27 or 28 adds little weight. and then it's a stretch to go win welterweight. But one of the things I say all the time about why winning multiple belts is certainly impressive, but I would say less impressive than defending a title. You only have to win one fight, right?

Like if you win, you have to win that fight and that fight may be more difficult than your other ones, but you only have to win one. You got to get one good matchup one time or just have one lucky roll of the dice. And if Deporia does win the lightweight belt in the next couple of years, which I think is very, very possible,

even if it's not over Islam, right? Honestly, if Deporeo beats Islam Makachev, do you think he is going to go and be like, I will now defend against Charles Olivera and Armin Sauruqin? Not a chance in hell. He's going to be like, dude, I just beat Islam. Let me fight Chavkat or Balal or whoever has the belt there. And so he's probably the best bet right now.

But if it's going to happen, it's going to be a scenario like that. Of a guy gets a little bigger as he goes. And because he becomes a star, They just give him the opportunity and he high rolls. Yeah. And Ilya could still do the thing. And if he beats his, he can go fight Patty,

win that and then be like, all right, come out and just go up. Like he has at least a title defense with each rain, which makes it more impressive than just winning three fights. So, yeah, that's a good show.

If the, if it was a different UFC world, could Prime Auto been that guy? 35, 45, 55. Yep. It's not any question in my mind. Yeah. Immediately I was like,

if the, you know, the business world at the time in the UFC allowed it, you see a prime guy, I would assume he got up first. Prime Auto, who was the champ at 55? Well, Prime Aldo was the champ for a very long time. So there were a lot of champs. Frankie Edgar. Oh my God.

Frankie Edgar. Vincent Henderson, Anthony Pettis, I believe we're all. BJ certainly. I think that was, I think that was the run of, so BJ is probably not winnable, but maybe. Well,

Prime BJ, yeah, prime, yeah, because that would have been prime BJ. So that's probably not. Frankie, he beat convincingly twice.

Frankie, Frankie wasn't a 45 or always at 55. Yeah. Benson definitely winnable. I think Benson could win. But also I think that was definitely a winnable fight. And I would have confidently picked Aldo against Pettus. Yeah.

He could have easily. He could have easily, and that's one of the things that frustrates me about the Aldo legacy is like they didn't let him. He didn't really push for it. But like he would have easily been a champ champ. Like that would there wouldn't have been a question given sort of the lay of the land for most of his title reign. Yeah. And now that we know that he could make 35. And now that we know he can make 135, you could.

I would have always picked him to be Dominic Cruz or or brow whatever. Who is there ever that time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So auto's your answer. So yes. BJ is also like

BJ 100% could have done it because BJ was unbelievable but you know BJ was fighting heavy weight well not successfully but he was fighting it for sure I think BJ could have beaten like Rich Franklin

he definitely could have beaten Evan Tanner and I like Evan Tanner I got a lot of respect for Evan Tanner RIP but like he could have beaten Evan Tanner okay but then so okay yeah I was thinking 40 We're not going 45 though, BJ because he was no 45 at that point.

Oh, whoa, yeah, yeah. For him to do it, really. Fair enough. I think if Tom's not never got sick, he could have. Who knows? He maybe, maybe he still does. I don't know. Who knows?

If he wins, beats DDP and rattles off a defense or two and goes up to 205, like, pretty soon we're all going to have to acknowledge Drickus du plus C. I didn't want to say it. He can't actually win the heavyway, but God, it would be so funny. I want to see it. I want to see it. The amount of shit I would talk forever as being an early DDP adopter. And it was like, he's terrible.

Well, triple champ. Wear it. I thought Muhammad Kayaev could have done it at one point. But yeah, he just, I don't know what happened to him. It's still possible. He's young. Yeah. He's not going to do it in the UFC.

Who knows? Who knows? I don't see it happen. I don't see them rushing to resign him anytime. soon. Of the like the only realistic option right now I think is is ilia. Yeah. Are you a kind of that's not I don't think that's happening.

Star power has to be part of it. Yeah. That's what I was asking. We're not just doing pure no. They're never just going to let you fight for three belts. They didn't let Henry Sehudo fight for a third belt when like that's a pretty like there weren't a ton of great options for Volcanowski. Sehudo company guy, blah, blah, blah.

And they were like, no, we don't care. fight somebody beat him. I'll tell you all, man, if that, he didn't retire, if he didn't retire, I think they would have given him the chance during that COVID era where they were just trying to scramble shit together that was realistic,

and then he just walked away. He would have got dusted by boat. Well, I mean, they could have still done that. They could just had him vacate. They made him vacate the flight title or they stripped him a flyer belt. Maybe. Maybe.

But yeah, you're going to have to have star power to demand the third title fight. functionally. That's the problem. Yeah. Thank you. DDP. Or this huge brass wins.

And as soon as you win your second belt, drop it and be like, I'll move up. I'll fight whoever to get a title shot. No one's going to do that. Love that. Get no complaints from me. Parker Porter, main event, Parker Porter, by the way. 2028. 2025.

We're waiting for. Yeah. You want Parker to be like 40? Get out of here. Parker's in BKFC now, though. You know? Yeah. He's living his best life.

He's got to be the BKFC heavyweight champion sooner rather than later. All right. Good for him. What a chance. John, two milestones reach the heavyweight championship with the heavyweight title this week. Yes. Tommy Aspin all. Oh, John Jones is.

What was the ESPN stat that like turned out? Yeah. Oh, my God. The worst. Do you guys know how excited I was? The most ridiculous social. social media graphic ever created in this space. I honestly think that it was trolling because it's kind of the only way to do it.

And that's like low-key, great trolling. Do you guys know how excited I was to be like, I was just looking into it. It was like, oh, my God, today is the actual day that Tom Asperol is tied for the most days as interim champion. That was like my favorite tweet I've ever gotten to send and that everybody else picked it up was like, oh. And the response is universally bad for John. Like it is because when you can put it down so simply, right? Like John Jones fans can be like, ah, he just fought whatever, blah, blah, blah. But when you can put it in the clearest terms possible that even Eric Jackman,

our beloved New York Rick has to come out and be like, okay, it's kind of ridiculous that Tom Aspinall is now, the longest reigning interim champion because this is not an in it like he is wanted to fight and this is ridiculous John like when Eric is saying all right John John's got to give up the bell you know that this has jumped

the shark it was an unbelievable week yep well you have but you say trolling by the ESPN graphics makers but would the UFC on a broadcast would they try to sell that has like a talking

John was fighting. If John was fighting, yes, they won't just bring it up in relation to nothing, right? Because that would be weird. I was going to have nowhere. But like, if John was booked, they'd be like, he's now the second longest reigning heavyweight champion ever or whatever. So they would put, you would see a lower third as he's getting ready to walk in the octagon when they put the 100%. That's, oh my God. Be in the keys to victory for him.

Second longest raining heavyweight champion. That would be so funny. Those low key. those stats for like random apex prelims are kind of my favorite thing to watch. It's all like he's the one of 18 fighters born south of no, the Mason Dixon line. Like that's like a stat. It's like the weird. Dude, it's a regional brave lakes baseball staff.

Yeah. He's currently ranked fifth in middleweight strikes landed per minute since 2000. It's just like guys, there are too many qualifiers. There's just not statistical. You know what we should call those? We should call all of those stats the Anthony Smiths because they're not actually relevant, but like if you squint,

they kind of seem like they're relevant, which is really a perfect description of Anthony Smith. That's right. Tied it back into a conversation we were having last week. The legend, Anthony Smith, mind you. That's right, the legend, Anthony Smith. Roll the video package. Here we go.

Sorry, Lionheart. You called a stray. That wasn't straight. That wasn't Australia. That was directly pointed to you. Tired of the nonsense. Thank you, Johnny Ray. Connor.

When do you think Cedric Dume Bay is going to fight? It's a great question. If he's in the PFL, nobody knows. Well, I mean, it depends on which world we're living in. Because if we're living in the promotional draft world, he is a member of the UFC. And he will be fighting in September when the UFC, when the UFC probably returns to Paris, but I have no idea. They are literally doing a card in Paris soon, right?

Because they just signed the soccer dude. And Stoombe is just kind of going to be in the corner, I guess, because he's been training with the soccer dude whose name escapes me at the top of my brain. Who knows what PFL's doing? Yeah. They're just out there are suing a bunch of companies based on some things that I read because they're not getting paid for any of their sponsorships. Yeah, I tried to look at and confirm.

believe the reports because I believe the sourcing. I believe that Zach Arnold of Fight Opinion was the primary person doing that. But I haven't had enough time to actually dive into the nitty-gritty specifics. But that's not a great look, you know, if that's true. Maybe we should vet your sponsors a little better. Yeah? Maybe you should make your fighters that people like fight. You have like four of them.

You should just have them fight a bunch. That's how things work. That Don Davis has not come out. and tweeted we want francis ingano versus eddie hall is insane to me and i know that obviously now they're extenuating circumstances that should have been like the tweets he i or the lincoln post if don prefers he could have he could have linked it in right there and been like hey let's make this happen yeah don't know what they're doing saturday not optimal all right let's get let's go back to of being dumb again?

Love dumb. 10 Aspinals versus Gorilla, 25 Brady's, 50 Marabs. 10 Aspinalls are getting obliterated by they have a 0% chance of defeating a gorilla. There's a 0% chance in a audience.

25 Brady's also has zero chance. 50 Marabs is 0.001. Again, in the world where none of them have fear and they all like 43 of them are willing to be sacrificed. Yeah. 50 Brady would be interesting. 50 who?

50 Brady's would be interesting because that dude is just a, I mean, 12 of them are perishing within the first 15 seconds, but that dude is a tank. You genuinely just have to think of this like you're fighting the Hulk. Because you can't, like if you could punch a gorilla, it would do nothing. Like right now, if a silverback was in front of you and there would be no recourse and you could hit it as hard as you can,

nothing would happen to it. You would break your hand and it would be like, what just occurred? It's like fighting a two-year-old. You couldn't bite through the gorilla's skin. Like the only thing you can do is maybe shove a thumb in its eyes. And then it will just be blind and pissed off,

but not dead, and you will then be dead. I saw some scientists talk about how, well, the grill obviously is a tough, you know, animal defeat, but he said the real, the real challenger would be a full grown grizzly bear. Is that without a power? That's not even close. Like that's, we're talking like, we have to go like 500 people. Yeah. They're the same. We're not beating any wild animal.

There's a reason we developed pointy sticks because we got shit for weapons. We got no ability. Little fingernails, little teeth. Dude, without weapons, I mean this entirely seriously. I've thought about it a lot. Like, how many people would it take to kill a cow if you're not allowed to bring a knife? So many, because you can't do anything to the cow. You have no ability to harm that animal.

I'm just, I'm just thinking about it. You're like, you're right. If I kicked a cow as hard as I could, I would break my shame. You break your ankle. That's all that would have. happen. It was all that would happen and the cow would be pissed off and kick me in the chest and I would die.

You can't like we had pointy sticks because we can't do a goddamn thing to anything other than a bird. Now I'll fuck up a goose. Don't get me, a goose or mean, but I'll fuck a goose up. But anything bigger than that, it's the same thing as like one for who, like a ton of people say this all the time. So it's not like unique thought or whatever. but like people vastly overestimate their ability to get into fist fights and win

like their ability to do combat just in general and you see those graphs of like here americans and the biggest animal americans think they can beat and like five percent say they could beat like a rhino it's like you're delusional the biggest animal you could beat is a a medium-sized dog or a small wolf and even that is like not a guarantee by any stretch like you we can't hurt most animals without the pointy sticks. That's why I can't. Kangaroo would fuck me up, Masters of the Universe. Kangaroo are mean.

But what if you see red, Jed? What if you see red? Then the kangaroo would beat my ass and I'd be seeing my blood. That's what I'd be seeing. That's my favorite one. Oh, but I don't care if it's Alex Prairie or anybody else. If I see red, dude, it's going to be a problem. It is like, again,

medium-sized dog or very small wolf and that's not a guarantee like I maintain that I could defeat a small wolf but I would also probably die but like I could get it because a wolf you really like it's just the draw that's all they've got but like a small mountain lion fuck no I can't do that they've got claws and teeth you're cooked

there's nothing you'd be a plus plus 450 in that match yeah it's just Just like birds. You could beat a lot of birds. Can't be a ostrich, so we're clear. But like, I could kill a goose. And that is the extent of animals I could defeat.

I'm not killing a goddamn gorilla, psychos. So when you guys go to the Zuzza, do you look at the penguins? Like, I could take that penguin. Oh, I could definitely take a penguin. And I guess it would depend on weight. Like, I could beat up a flamingo, right? But like, that's, so that's where. you're going here.

There's just, we are not built to fight animals. We are built to stab them or to run them down with the fear of stabbing them. And then they die of exhaustion. Watch out flamingos. Watch out. Flamingos are like, that's the thing that weigh like 10 pounds or whatever. And the thing with the goose is if you just get it around the neck,

then you have a massive advantage on it. But the flight also makes that a problem. Like I'd like to believe I could beat a falcon, but I would also suck really hard to fight a falcon, you know? I could beat a honey badger. It would suck, but like, I can just kick it. I will punt it. It will go away, come back, and we'll do that until it says it's done. Any other animals you want to drop before we hit the next super chat?

I'm just looking at the comments. I can't. Can't beat a cabibara. Like, if you guys ever, I had to fight a ball one time. How could you ever see Red to fight a Cababara? No, Cabbarra? That's the problem. You were just like, I can't, I can't do it.

No way. Legitimately one of the most traumatic moments of my life. I'd fight a dog once because it was attacking my dog. And like it was, it was like a stray that got out. And I saw it coming and we tried to like avoid it. But it was being psycho. And so I like had to fight it off of my dog who was not, not a combat warrior.

And I was a soccer player of some ability. I kicked that dog as hard as I possibly could right in the head. I mean, I punted that thing like I was going for 50 yards in the NFL. And it stopped him from attacking, but it didn't put him down because animals are better at this than we are. This is not our lane. Thank you, left lane. Great. I don't know how we got there, but that was terrific.

$35 Super chat from Tanvir Whoa Where you go, Tan? Let's see In an interview with activist Omar Suleiman

Bilal stated he had to take the stairs to the title due to him carrying the flag And that early on the UFC brass informed him to stop being political Does this surprise you? Doesn't surprise me because I don't I believe that Bilal believes this I don't believe that this is true.

Not saying it couldn't be true, right? Like, you got to, I mean, this is a topic. You got to really tiptoe around. The Overton window with regards to Palestine in this country is shifted very, very far in one direction. And so it is possible that the UFC is like, hey, man, not that they're opposed to political statements, they obviously do not care.

it is possible that they care about this specific political statement to some extent. I am certain that Belal does feel that this is true, and so he is speaking his truth. I think the obvious, like the Occam's razor answer here, the simplest answer is, Bilal Mohammed is not an interesting fighter. Very good fighter. Not a very interesting fighter in the cage. He's had some performances that were good, but broadly speaking, not that great. and the timing was just tough, right?

Like he got the Leon fight as supposed to gets no contest because of the eye pokes. Like that's, he was a victim of some circumstances and the, his style of fighting did not engender goodwill amongst the powers that be. And so he did have to take the long way to the belt, but he is far from the only fighter to have those circumstances. And I fundamentally don't think that this is true, but I will acknowledge it could be. Yeah. Yeah.

I was sure remember the details. I know there were some details. or some shenanigans about certain fighters having a Taiwan flag or a Hong Kong flag or something like that. And so he's walking off the flag next Saturday. So good for him. Should be a good statement.

And yeah, that's about it. Yeah, I'm kind of with Jed on the first part for sure, whereas you could have carried the American flag and he still, the road would not have been any shorter, I don't think. just miscalculations along the way. Yeah, just, you know, it... I mean, the truth is, like, look at his resume, right?

Like, he was on a solid wind streak when he gets to Leon fight. That left a bad taste in most in their mouths. And that rightly or wrongly, like, no contests in those situations are almost always held against the fighter who does not choose to continue. Absolutely correct for him not to fight compromise, et cetera. but that is just the ethos that goes on. Oh, he was scared to fight. Whatever.

We laud Anthony Smith for fighting, compromised and losing a title fight. We inherently are like, oh, what a coward. He lost the first round to Leon, and then he got poked in the eye and wanted a way out. So then he fights Damien Maio, who's on the downslope,

fights Wonderboy, Vicente Lucke. Those are good wins, but also at this time, like, Leon is still trying to get to a title fight. at this point in time too. So he is sort of, is just a victim of circumstance.

I would be, again, I won't rule it entirely out. I would just be really surprised if this was actually the reason he had to take the long way there. All right. Thank you, Tamir. Sagar, Segar Patel.

What are you hearing about UFC media rights negotiations? Do you think the deal will potentially include changes to how sports pricing models work, i.e. all-inclusive pricing package, uptick on Netflix. I don't know, man. We'll see.

I'm not hearing a whole heck of a lot. I assume Netflix is in the mix. And all I needed to hear was the Netflix CEO say they're not in the mix for them to basically just solidify that they are very much in the mix. That's just called public negotiation. It happens all the time. So, yeah, man.

I don't, do you think there's a world where they end up with Netflix and nobody else did? I think there's a world. It's probably not the most likely world, but I do think that that could happen, right? Like Netflix just has infinite money for things like this. And so, you know, they already have the WWE to some extent. If they're looking at their WWE deal and thinking it would be better if we had more of this, right?

Like we get, they get raw. Do they get anything else from WWE? Nope. Okay, so they get raw or whatever. but if they're a year into that and looking and saying, man, wish when we had done the WWE deal, we had just done the whole cake and caboodle. We'd take it all.

Maybe they'd look at this and say, okay, well, you know, let's not make that mistake again. It's not that they can't afford to do it. I do think it will probably be a split of some kind, how that will look will be interesting. But it has been pretty quiet as far as like any sort of, sort of lines about what's happening when we are ostensibly in like the thick of of this starting to come to play. So my guess is it goes to some combination of Netflix and

Max or HBO. I don't know what their parent company is called at this point. But kind of everything's up in the air right now. You could convince me of almost anything. Yeah. I honestly don't know. I do think ESPN is still going to be involved in some way. Unless someone just pays them a billion dollars a year for the pay-per-views too and not doing a paperview model, then I see things changing. But I don't know how this is going to go, man. I mean, look, TKO has. Please continue. No, I was going to say, TKO has proven that, and you're seeing it with WWE now,

WWE is becoming very UFC the last couple of years where they're just chasing, they're chasing the money. That is 100% the most important thing right now. And yeah, business is booming. But you can't say, like, you can't watch a three hour raw and be like,

this rules. But the people in attendance are spending money and they're selling it out. And like they're, they're just long, tough shows to watch. but it's basically just the most compelling thing on Raw right now is just wrestlers not wrestling. They're talking. That's the best thing they have right now.

And people will spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars to go to the arena and do this and spend all this money to go to WrestleMania and all this stuff. But I mean, you're seeing it. WWB going to all these different spots that are doing all these different deals with them. We will pay you millions of dollars just to come to our place, whether it makes sense or not. and they'll be like, okay, I'll go, and they will. And I just, that's what this TV deal is going to look like. I don't think it matters when it comes to, okay, this is what we want as far as production.

This is what we want as far as many events. This is what we want this. I don't think they're thinking about this at all. I think they're thinking, who are the entities that are going to give us the most money, and we will work it out from there. And that's how this is all going to play out. So I hope one entity steps up and just offers. offers them like a billion a half and just says, all right, we want this and we will do whatever

it takes to do it. But you have to lighten the load on shows instead of doing 43 events, we're doing 35 or 32 or whatever. I think that'd be great. But there's just no friggin world where that happens. In fact, it wouldn't shock me if there were more events on this new TV deal than we have right now. Like I could see midweek events, all sorts of different things, because they're going to chase the dollar, the biggest amount of money they can get. So that's kind of the TKO way of business right now, especially in the combat sports world.

And I'll blame them for it. But that's their motivation right now and not to make history on Netflix, if that makes sense. Yep. I couldn't agree more. Thank you, Mr. Patel. Spencer, another super chat from Spencer. Amazing work to Jednakey for the best freak show fights.

With how good Tom is, argument last nine months should have defended title twice. Be bigger star, so fight more enticing and bigger for Jones plus grown. Spencer in this AIM level, level text here. Should Tom, basically the question is should Tom have fought more while trying to build the John fight? So no, he shouldn't fight. the answer is yes because he should be the undisputed champion and he should be defending the belt

no because he's not and there's no reason for him to defend an interim title at this point you're doing the things that should be championship you should get to fight for the belt or get to have the belt one of the two so no he shouldn't be fighting he should say yeah

I will fight John or I will defend the real belt those are the two options here I'm not going to fight in Cyril gone and defend the interim title. Why are you coddling this giant man, baby, take the fucking title from him. You would have done it to literally anybody else at this point. But yeah, you should be fighting because he should just be the champ. John Jones should have retired or walked away a la GSP and then can come back later if he wants to do, et cetera, et cetera. But then we wouldn't talk about him.

And God knows that it would be a terrible world if John Jones wasn't being talked about every day, as the greatest fighter who has ever put on shoes. But yeah, like he should because that's a normal promotion would have made John fight him not Stepe. And then or John retires and then he fights Stepe. You know, Stepe probably would have fought for the belt. Maybe he wouldn't have. But, you know, these should be the things that should be happening for the guy who is ostensibly going to lead your heavyweight division for years to come. And instead he's sitting here.

And at least I will say the clear shift in public opinion, supports him, at least that is in his favor, that people are now just like genuinely gravitating towards Tom Aspinall because he is getting so screwed here. But like, it would be better if he could just club around Cyril Gahn or Jailton Almeida and, you know, here's the thing I'm interested with Tom Aspinall, because eventually John will get stripped. It might take six years at this rate, but eventually it'll get stripped because he's not going to fight him.

How do we look at Tom Aspinall's title reign? because officially he has no real title defenses. But, like, realistically, he has one interim title defense. And so when does he pass steep for the most heavyweight title defenses? Do we count the interim one? Like, how does the UFC count it? I certainly will. How will the UFC count it?

We just need to move on from this situation. Like, it could not be more clear that we just need to move on. If John wants to fight, he can come back and fight. later and he can bring his belt and say, I never lost it in the cage and that's a okay. But we have got to quit coddling this man. Like he is a grown-ass man. He can fight or leave. Those are the two options, but make one choice.

Has Tom actually turned down a fight or is he not offered? We don't know. Yeah, because they say he should fight more often, but the UFC isn't making him fight or offering a fight. I don't, I'm kind of confused. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, again, but like, I know Tom Aspinall's dad kind of went on a rant on Tom's YouTube channel about this.

And he's not wrong. Like the UFC had put him in like almost an impossible scenario right now because like, you'd be like, yeah, you could fight Jailton or Cyril Gahn. And there is, let me, I'm here to tell you there is zero buzz for Tom Asimel versus Cyril Gahn, especially with Gahn's performance in his most recent fight. There's zero buzz for that fight. And most people understand what that fight is. It is a Tom Aspinall's, you know, fighting a guy who held interim gold at one point,

but stylistically Tom obliterates him. Like he is a probably a minus 500 favorite in that fight. He will tackle zero gone and he will finish him in the first round more than likely. And there's just no desire there. Like that's not a pay-per-view main event. It's just no desire there. And it's just an eye roll because of the whole John situation. So, but then if he takes this fight, if he fights Sierra and wins, let's just say that fight happens in July and John calls the UFC and says, I want to fight in September and Tom can't go, John's going to fight somebody else for the belt. And he misses that opportunity. So it's, he's just in an impot. He's in a no win situation. And if you go back to what we were talking about when they first announced Tom Aspinel versus Sergei Pavlov, for the interim belt and all the shows we did after that, we all said that putting an interim belt on the line in that fight was.

dumb and that this exact thing was going to happen if they don't go right to the tom aspinall fight and dana white was steadfast from day one the whole world wants to see john versus stepe we have to give the world what they want when yet after steepa got hurt and we saw what tom aspinil did the sergey ap pavlovich while injured by the way on short notice no other fight matters like this is the one everybody's wanted for two years now and we can't get that there. Oh, we have to do the steep fight. Why? Why? Because John wants it. Like, just come on, be honest about it. And then it like, it's still bad, but at least it goes over better. Like, no one's going to, no one's going to shit on Dana for being like, yeah, I want this

fight. John wants this fight. It's clear what's what this is. Just come on and say it. Like, we'd respect John much more if he said the same thing. And John, like, at least on the tail end of all this after he won at UFC 309 or whatever, which is like, yeah, man, I'm. trying to make as much money as possible. I want to fight Pereira. He's a fun fight. We'll make a lot of money together. At least he was trying to be honest.

At least for that day, he was being honest. And now we're back to this whole ridiculousness. It's just so silly. Just strip him with the belt. It's not hard. Strip him to the belt. Shiven. That's all.

Here's the thing, right? I mean, there are like a billion things. And we've talked this to death so many times. It's like, one, I'll go two things very quickly. The first is like, anybody who watches F1, this situation is like, the way F1 works is you've got two drivers for a team. There's usually like a A driver and a B driver.

And so if you're in a race and it's like, you will ask the B driver to sacrifice his race to better the A driver in certain situations. It's functionally what they are doing with Tom Aspernel's career. Like, hey, can you harm your own career as we keep cuddling John Jones for reasons that do not make sense. That's sort of an insane proposition for them to offer, especially, especially when, hey, there's now a very, very obvious answer because all of this was bad, it was really, really bad.

I never want to make it change. But you could talk yourself into it in a certain situation. But now, Alex Breer doesn't have the light heavyweight belt anymore. I don't think people care that much about him fighting Magma and Ankleye of again. Like, sure, if it happens, okay, we like Alex Pereira. Prairie and John can just go fight for a non-belts. They can call it their own belt. This is the goat belt or the heavyweight BMF belt.

They could do whatever the shit they want. And that's a fight that both men want would do big business and won't fuck up anybody else. Take the belt from John, give him the fight he wants. we can come on these shows and be like, yeah, John was legitimately just ducking the shit out of Tom Aspinall. And that he can have to deal with the fallout of that to his legacy, but he can get the fighting once. Nobody's set back. And Tom Aspinall can be the champion because he is the champion. He's been the champion for 538 days at this point in time because he is the only fighter in the heavyweight division who is defending against top challengers.

Like this is so simple. I cannot. I have to believe that they just. stubbornly think they're going to make this fight happen the same way that Dana thought Habib was going to fight again, where it's clear to everyone on the fucking universe and like on this planet and on the moon and in a galaxy far away, everybody knew that that wasn't happening. John is not fighting Tom.

Give up the dream or pay him $50 million. Those are your two options. You're not going to do option B. Give it up. Take the belt from him. Be like, hey, John, we're going to take the belt. Here's your consolation prize. It's a fight with Alex Pereira.

and we'll give you a different belt of some the goat belt or whatever the shit you want it to be for and you two can do this and we can move on with our lives it's the only working answer here yeah we have a young exciting heavyweight who can carry this division for the next five years and he's on the bench waiting for john and maybe this is part of john's plan i'll beat him out of the cage and the bank in the bank account conversation like this is maybe part of the game but it's just so still so plan is very clearly to hope Tom loses to somebody else. Yeah. Like that's clearly his plan as far as fighting Tom goes of like either pay me so much money I can't say no. Or if I just wait, Tom will fight somebody and maybe that guy'll beat him. And then I can put a snarky tweet out there. Yeah. Go go do.

If you want to do John versus Pereira, just fucking do it. I've been saying it for forever. Just do it now. Who cares? Be totally fine to make right now. John said he would. vacate the belt if the UFC made that fight. So just do it.

Do it. Just do it. It's so annoying. Does the UFC have to do any of this though? Like we keep saying, they're making money over money over money over money and And that's why they don't have a monopoly. Yeah, to me that's the biggest. As a monopoly, they don't have to do anything, Casey.

Yeah, I know how we judge things because that would have to have shows. We can just never do a show again if the answer is the UFC is going to make money. See you next week. But I hate saying it. I feel like that's so many times the answer. Right. But that's again, this is the position they are in. They can put Derek Lewis Rodrigo Nassimento as a main event and break the gate

record. That's they don't have to put they don't have to make this fight. Conmergary never has to fight in the UFC again. John Jones never has to fight in the UFC again. Does not matter. Sean O'Malley, any fighter you perceive to be a quote unquote star in the UFC right now, none of them have to fight. None of them.

And they will still do fine. Now they're in a, they're at a very interesting position right now because fan, they're at that sort of five year fan turnover spot right now where the fans jumped on in 2020, they're jumping off at a ferocious pace.

And we see what they've been trying to do ever since then. They're not trying to promote for us. They're not even trying to promote for the 2020 fan. They're trying to promote. to the Aden Ross fans. Like, that's who they're catering to right now. This is an experience. It's, you know, hey, come to our events.

You never know who's going to be there. It's a fun time being in the building. That's what they care about. They don't care about selling pay-per-views because they don't have to care because they're getting a floppy-de-gillion dollars from ESPN per event anyways to handle the production.

They could sell one pay-per-view. It does not matter. It doesn't affect them at all. So what does affect them is cities in towns seeing the traffic it brings to their areas, selling 19,000 tickets to a fight night that isn't great, and that a fighter is not bigger than the sport or the promotion anymore. They've tried to avoid that since the Connor McGregor situation. And guess what?

They have succeeded. And John Jones is not going to be the guy that is bigger than the UFC. It's just not going to happen. So let's just move on. UFC continue to be the star. Dana White can continue to be the face of the promotion. That's what everybody wants anyways. just do that.

Like, they'll just make this somewhat of a sport and not ridiculous. It's crazy. The Celtics can't just say, you know what, we beat the magic. We're still the champs.

We're going to sit out the rest of the playoffs. And then maybe, just maybe, if the Knicks go on and win the interim championship, maybe we'll sit out for two years and see if they don't, let's see if they win the championship the next two years.

It's not the real championship, because we have the real championship. And then we'll decide to come back. Maybe the NBA brass can pay us a couple billion dollars extra in order for us to play the Knicks. Like, it doesn't work like this at other sports. You play who you're supposed to play. You fight who you're supposed to fight. That is why members of media that cover other sports, they don't take what I do seriously.

They laugh at me sometimes because they don't think it's a real sport because of what this is. So it's all silly. It's all ridiculous. You know what this is a real sport? One of the fighters on the roster I just fought like last week is in jail right now. And that barely made a blip on the I feel like on the. That kind of happens a lot in sports now.

It's certainly more worse for us. But it. You know, that's just people. The tolerance has broadly gotten much more acceptable. People will ask about it, but no one's going to care. No one's going to ask, like, Dana about Zedri Dumas at the next presser. He's expected.

He has no idea who said Ricky Ma says. He has no clue. Couldn't take him out of Croutos too. I'm certain of that. Yeah. He was on the contender series and I know Dane is saying his praises, but you asked him about it now. He has no clue who he is. And honestly, why should he?

He's trying to get John Jones versus Tom Aspin all together. He's a busy man. Just a waste of time. Moving on. You start the potential 1 million. You lose 10K for every Tom Aspen all you roll out there. How many are you sending you to get the job done? I'm not good at math.

I have to have to subtract zeros to figure out. I mean, all of them probably. Right? Like I would take a free 10K. So all of them minus one. So I can win 10K if I succeed. Yeah. I was going to say, I was going to say, we leave 20 grand left.

And that's it. 10K would be great. That'd be cool, but like, not, don't trust it. You may not, none of them make him back. You never know. Thank you, Lufling. Grillas are 10 times as strong as people, and at most like six people can hit the gorilla at once.

That math doesn't work great for dudes in the battle. RJ, is Don Davis, unironically sharing Alec Baldwin's quote from Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, a movie about morally corrupt predatory salesman, on his LinkedIn, the most Don Davis thing ever. Does he always be closing on his LinkedIn or something? I assume it's that. What did he write? I don't go to Don Davis's LinkedIn a bunch.

You know what? Let's take a look at old Donnie D. Okay. Is he, I have to, all right, we should all read this together. If its coffee is for closers, it would be a terrific. A terrific thing. First prize is a new Cadillac. Second prize is a set of steak knives.

Third prize is you fired. That's the quote. Oh, yeah. That's the quote he used? Yeah. I mean, he didn't use it as a quote so much as he like, here's a meme, reposted it or whatever. Yeah.

Yeah, that's not a. That scene. That scene is friggin awesome, by the way. There's some questionable language in today's society. So if you're going to watch the quote, you've never seen it. Probably if you got a young child, probably not watch it in front of them. but the rest of it pretty

badass man the leads the leads are weak you're weak oh alec balvin just hit a grand plan I suspect Don Davis was in fact one of those dudes who in college

watched Gungerrigan Ross and thought it was dope like probably also maybe misread it yeah like probably watch the wolf of Wall Street aspirationally and like now I'd like to think he's old enough and mature enough to recognize the parts that you're not like.

This is actually a bad. He's a bad guy. Or just like a takedown of these people. But I don't think he thought this through it all. It was just like, oh, yeah, we can't finish in third. Blah, blah, blah. And here's the thing. Buddy, you're finishing fourth per our poll of the latest promotional draft.

I think PFL's four. Maybe PFL did better. I mean, if I'm not fourth, I'm taking that as an absolute victory for the UFC because it's You started hot and you started you cratered down the stretch, which is tough because people like don't want to have fun, you know, they People hate fun. I mean, he'll always Pugnowski and they thought I wasn't being serious. I was being dead serious. The UFC needs the best fight of the year.

Yeah, they needed that. They would have done so much better. It's just so great. But yeah, Don Davis is the choices PFL continues to make. make is just baffling to me. And that's why the UFC can do what they do. They have zero worries or concerns. Mike, you were in fact defeated.

You're at the bottom. Damon is the top. Actually, AK and PFL are number two and BKFC is number three. Yeah. I mean, you can't win with the UFC. It's impossible. It's really tough. I don't know what else.

I don't know else the people wanted for me. I got the best fighter, best free agent on the market. I got a little hipster. I thought it was good. I gave the world, the UFC fans, the best fight of the year. We were all playing for second place

against GFL this year. Oh, yeah. GFL was exactly what you wanted. You were hoping that wheel spun on you for GFL. All right. Mary. I think it's last question. I've gone an hour.

This is an interesting one to think about. Mike Jeddin, Mustache. We have been alive during initial rise and growth of him in May. 100 years from now, this time will be significant in history of the sport. This time will be significant in the history of the sport. How do you feel about this?

I suspect that the sport will in fact continue to exist 100 years in the future. I am not certain of that. And I say that for a very specific reason, because the place the sport is, right now is concerning. Not for like its immediate future, but it's long-term future, right?

Because like monopolies are bad. There's a reason we don't want them. The UFC pretty clearly has a monopoly going on. And monopolies never really are long-term good for anything. And specifically, they're going to be really bad in this sport, both like, we could dive into morals, whatever, not that. Like, there aren't that many fight fans in the actual. world. That's just the truth of it. Like, if you're here watching this show, you're a fight fan, right?

Like, it doesn't matter what happens. You'll find the fights. You'll watch him. And for a long period of the U.C. history, like, that was how the sports survived, is there was a small dedicated group of people on forums, like watching the fights as best they could as these organizations sort of struggled through. The U.S.C. has reached a level of success that I would lind, that makes me think it probably will sort of persist in perpetuity now. But it's not certain. And if they run this thing into the ground because all they are doing, basically all they've done for the last four years and all they seem to be planning to do forevermore is to extract as much value out of it, there's a tipping point where that's no longer acceptable, where if every

fight card sucks, there's one good fight or there's not even that. And it's still a 80 bucks to pay. People will just fall out. They won't care to watch this. And if that goes on long enough, the brand gets diluted and it goes away. And I don't know that there are that many like legitimately true MMA fans, fans of the sport itself, not of the spectacle, et cetera, to resuscitate it if things just go to shit for them over the period of 10, 20 years.

100 years a long time. A whole lot of things can happen in 100 years. I hope that it's here and we can look back and I can be like, oh, yeah, that was pretty cool to be like in early, an early adopter of this global phenomenon. I would not bet my life on it. Yeah, we're in a very strange place. Yeah, like I look at old images of boxing from 1920s and they're, you know, it's like, I don't know, Jack Johnson fighting from like 60,000 people. Something insane. Yeah, I'm like, I'm like, wow, you know, I mean, I wonder, I'm kind of like, are we,

that right now, you know, but... It'd be cool if we were. Yeah. I am not sure. Yeah. I hope we are. Oh, yeah. A couple more super chat.

Yeah. Rolled in. Oh, sorry. You're going? No, it's just, you know, kind of co-signed what Jed just said. It's just, I'll tell, I will say, I'm with Jed where I will say it will still be around. But the caveat to this is the UFC needs a competitor. If they don't have one, we're not going to be here or not.

years. I'm sorry. Because competition makes people better. And they have none. They absolutely have none. They have boxing and pro wrestling, which are not competition to them whatsoever, because they're diving into both. The company that owns them is in both. One is dominating one. They're currently aligned with the biggest wrestling promotion in the world. Exactly. And at least like, WWE is is just murdering it financially. Like their business is so hot right now. But they have competition. They at least have a competitor. An AW is a competitor with unlimited funds. They are never going away. The WW is never putting them out of business because Tony Khan can fund this thing for the rest of his life without any issue. We need that. That's why like when we shit on

PFL, it's not to be cool. It's because we want them to do right by the fan base because we need someone to succeed. Someone has to be good. Someone has to do the right thing and get excitement into the space to at least attempts to get anywhere near the UFC because anyone who has been that competitor, the UFC, he is either just bought them or has just disintegrated their promotion altogether, just clobbered them and put people in financial, just such financial strain because they're just crushing it business-wise and these other organizations. can't do what they do. They just don't have the function of it.

So we need a competitor to step up and and give them some. Oh, no. We lost Mike. Take over, Jed. We'll never know what Mike was going to say other than we need a competitor. And yeah, that's true. Like currently the UFC are the stewards of the sport. And they seem pretty intent on running this thing into the ground in order to extract value.

and where the sport goes, if that happens, I don't know. I hope it survived turns into something different. Certainly good. But again, I'm confident boxing will still be here because boxing has been here for 150 years. Actually, like 200 some odd years. But like we're new. New things can go away quickly. Yes, sir.

A couple more super chat before we get out. I think we lost Mike. Apparently his power is out. You need power to be on. You do need power. Yeah, so. Just leave him up there in the middle. Yeah, I definitely, I thought, ah, he disappeared.

No. I was going to zoom in on him too. All right. We got a couple of super chats, so let's power through the moon get out. Tobias Reaper. Sorry if I got that wrong, Tobias. Odds on Jones holding up the belt until the next Madison Square Garden card so he can claim to be the longest reigning heavyweight champion in UFC history.

I didn't look that up if that actually would be the longest reigning championship from a days-wise. That would be incredible trolling. I think if he's holding the belt, it's, you know, he just wants to fight at Madison. But it's not. He's not going to fight Tom. Give it up, guys. He's not, if he was going to fight Tom, he would have fought Tom. That, like, that's it.

The U.C. has apparently made their offer. John Jones doesn't get better. John Jones knows. John Joe's season to the road. Yeah. Correct. And John knows it. John, I'm pretty confident John is aware that he is no longer his best self.

And the only thing that's going to make him take the fight is if the UFC ups their offer. They've not. By the reporting, Ariel, a couple of other people, the UFC has made a good offer, whatever that constitutes. Unless Dana wakes up one day and is like, F it, this must happen. Here's $50 million. He's not going to fight him. And so, and that's fine. He doesn't need to.

He doesn't have to. So just give up. Give up because it's not going to happen, guys. All right. And our last super chat. Left Lane, out of curiosity, what are you guys prediction percentage for the year? I'll give myself some credit.

I'm at 69% this year with 82% over the last four quarters. 82%? Wow. 82's good. AK has also been on a heater lately as well. Yeah. I pretty much, I stay around that 60 to 65%. That my year.

over year is like six is right in that 64 stuff uh i am a little down this year i just looked it up on topology i'm 61 percent so slightly down for my usual but right in the same sort of range i wish i could i wish i'm not going to spend the time on it but to break down my predictions for actually fights that i actually care about because a lot of times oh that you that you are committed yeah not just doing yeah like maybe main card like a prediction is like main card paper views. Okay. I know these fighters.

I'm not just going, well, I remember that guy, you know. I finally missed, I finally lost on my main events this year. I had a really good streak. And then who was the last main event? The last one was Machado Gary versus Carlos Prattis.

Yeah. Oh, no, I did pick Pratt. No, I did pick Gary. I think it was the one before that. Well, I did, I was, I had a good streak. But overall, yeah. But Lafane, you were, if you're, But if you're 82%

That's incredible It's on a heater AK almost went perfect last week So that was done Almost But then he missed on a What did he miss on? Demoli door

Michelle Pallel The head of Sorry Yes Our boy So we had one last one come in Let's get out of here From Scretchen

Two bucks for Mike's light bill Hey man It's hard times out there Every little bit helps Mike's got to quit you know what you know what's the issue with kids these days all that duncan casey that duncan and the avocado toast mike's not out here paying his power bills because he's got to be powered by duncan gosh darn millennials hit the music you already hit the music it's always super weird to

take over hosting an hour and 10 minutes into the show uh thanks for tuning in everybody because I wasn't the planned host. We have a preview show coming tomorrow, but I don't know who's on it or when. There's all boxing stuff happening, so that's also part of this. Obviously, tomorrow the kind of square cards happening. Saturday, Canelo,

UFC on Saturday as well. PFL tonight, so tune into that, I suppose. Keep a lot of them. We'll find.com to the website. Love y'all. This has been between the links, an MMAT fighting production on the Vox Media Network.