MMA Fighting - BTL | Ilia Topuria Back? Dana White Testifies, Volkanovski's Greatness, More

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

Alexander Volkanovski delivered a one-sided performance in his UFC 325 main event rematch with Diego Lopes, leaving fans wondering why the fight was made in the first place. Now that the event has quietly come and gone, what will be the thing UFC 325 will be remembered for at the end of the year? On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel reacts to UFC 325, Volkanovski's dominance over Lopes for a second time, where he sits all-time, and if the UFC London headliner between Movsar Evloev and Lerone Murphy will determine the next challenger. Additionally, topics may include this weekend's trio of events from the UFC, PFL, and BKFC, which card is better overall, Brandon Moreno getting a new opponent for UFC Mexico, other news and notes, and more. Join MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew as they answer your questions all show long. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to conicsontera.ca. network from m mfiting 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 hope you're doing fantastic we have a lot to talk about ladies and gentlemen we're coming off of ufc 325 and thought we'd talk a little bit about that but we might even talk about ufc 325 i at all with all that's gone down this week with new ufc mexico fights and new main events and champions teasing comebacks dana white jumping on the the stand yesterday there's just so much that

is happy we obviously have a very busy weekend coming up in the combat sports world and i'm sure you guys have a lot of questions about that which i will answer and joining me to answer those questions mr no gray area himself he is the hot take kid the man will with the most fiery of takes, including Alexander Volkovsky not being the featherweight goat, at least not yet, the one and only Jed Michoud. Jed, how we doing? It's not even a fiery take. That's just correct. And I make a compelling argument if you are a person who's actually attempting to be persuaded as opposed to digging your heels in, it's on the website. There's an opinion column out of

where I do this thing called Give You Facts and Numbers is why. as opposed to just, I don't know how much we'll talk about this. And so I do just very briefly want to get this off my chest. I think I've settled on, I'd be a lot more open to the idea of Volk being the featherweight goat. If they hadn't been doing this instantaneously, like literally since the day Max Holloway beat Josie Aldo,

they were like, he's the featherweight goat, which in hindsight, I mean, even at the time, was very stupid. But now, like, it's just a ludicrous assertion. And then they basically did this with Volk, like, right after he beat Max a bunch. And it's just like, what if? Like, I'd be more open. If now, like, if you genuinely started and we're like, I think he's got it now, I'm a lot more open to that argument.

But it's all people who have been dismissing Jose Aldo for in a decade at this point. And so I'm like, I have no time for your nonsense. Here are numbers. Tell me when these numbers are math. So this is just, I mean, you believe this obviously with your whole chest, but a lot of this is also just pure stubbornness on your part. I mean, there's definitely a stubbornness because I told you on the post show. I was like, look, I'm just not going to fight it anymore because it's just not worth my mental bandwidth. If he beats Mobsar, I think it's a totally, like if assuming Mobsar beats Lowell Murphy or I guess if Lerom Murphy and he beats them, then it's a totally, totally fine position to take.

I'm not sure I'll be there. I'll just have to see when we get there, frankly. But I'm just not going to fight it anymore because I'm not convincing anyone. Nobody's like, oh, yeah, like you've drawn your line in the sand. And I've given you mine and you can have yours and we will stand apart and I'll stand on my side with numbers and facts and you'll be like vibes. And it'll be like, cool. you're so you're standing on the correct side in your opinion correct okay i mean insofar as there are like insofar as there's a correct side to an objective question right like it's

it's nobody's correct because there's not like all this is not math you know but uh i've seen nothing nobody has made an argument that dissuades me even some of our very own colleagues yes uh well let's get into the questions. Let's get into all the topics. By the way, just because I don't think we're going to get a lot of UFC 325 questions, I mean, as you could see in our little overlay graphic here, UFC 325 happened.

It's a thing that happened. It took place. It is going to be the most quickly forgotten UFC pay-per-view, maybe ever. Just because of how it ended and the main event was a fight that no one wanted. And it actually was a

worse fight than the first one. Volt just beat him a lot more. So I am curious, Jed, now that we've had a few days to digest UFC 325, years from now when the grandkids run up and say, Grandpa Jed, tell me about UFC 325. What will you remember most? What do you remember most about UFC 325? What will be the biggest takeaway?

Will be the memorable thing that happened? Dude, it's fucking four days after, and I don't remember a thing that happened in that event, right? That's not good. I mean, my biggest takeaway on the night and still is like, why did this happen? Why did we do this? What was gained? What was ventured here?

Because like at least at 323 or 324, sorry, not 323, at least at 324, the main event was fun, right? Like people have come out and they, you know, there's this very high and mighty and a bit, you know, a bit self-aggrandizing. well, that was actually a sloppy ugly fight and I'm only interested in high level mixed martial arts and those people can stuff it. Like that fight was fun. We didn't get a fun main event.

We just got the same one we got 10 months ago and it was boring. And the core concept was well, Diego was fun and so that sucked. And then like the rest of it's just like this was this was already a thin card. And so good win for

Mw Sondini, like, this may be, I don't think this is true, but this is wildly speculative, right? Of, but like, I think the best chance this card has to, like, be remembered or talked about it all in the future is purely a, this was the start of Mauricio Ruffey's run. And I don't think that's really going to happen. I don't project him to get to the title. But if he does, like, that's the only. only way this card has any memory to it whatsoever

because otherwise this will be the most forgotten Volk title defense you know like it just won't be a card that has any juice to it so it happened shout out to Talasin to Sharon Tai Taituivasa that was funny

but yeah I don't think we're I assume we're not going to talk about that much because like y'all get to decide if y'all want to talk about a we can I just don't know what you'd want to talk about. Yeah. I think we enjoyed Taito Yvasa Towson to share more than any two people in the world. Correct. Nobody else liked that fight. I thought it was very five, but we had a way time to get there. We did have that. You know, but like nobody else. Again, this was, that fight was the, I mean, I think we both

agreed it was a good idea anyway, but if I needed to convince anybody that us picking opposite teams was the way to go, that's the fight I'll show them, because that made us care about that fight as opposed to being with everybody else. Yes, I would 100% agree with you. So I had some people reach out to be on social media saying, like, you know, UFC 325 will be a turning point. It'll be a turning point for the UFC

to match-make their championship fights from a more meritocratic perspective. Like, this is the turning point because no one cared going in and fewer people cared coming out. And I was like, that's a take. I was like, I appreciate you spending the time to, to, you know, finger type this out. But you could not be more wrong. You think the UFC cares about how little people cared about this?

It is Thursday. We have, do you remember after UFC 324? We got numbers on Monday, right? Oh, this thing peaked at 5.93 million views. We average just under 5 million total views for all of UFC 324. We got nothing with this card. because I don't even know if a million people watch this and they could just access it any time.

It's just, I've never seen a card with so little buzz. Yeah, I mean, I respect that take. I don't think I agree with it, but if you're going to take, I mean, that's how you make a stance, right? You pick a pretty ludicrous proposition and then you give it some valid defense.

So I respect it. I don't agree. And I think we didn't talk about this in Hint. Like, at the time, But in hindsight, it also kind of makes sense to be like, I don't know, back-to-back pay-per-views is sort of a lot. The first one was the first one in six months. And so there was an energy, there was an excitement. And then there was literally outside of the car just straight up being worse.

There was no time to get pumped about it. It was just like, oh, we just, in the middle of the week, we're still processing the Gai Chi, how, what does this mean, et cetera? And then suddenly we're just back to another pay-per-view. So I think that that probably also plays of like all of these things work in concert to just make this one of the more forgettable paper views of recent memory. If this was UFC Sidney instead of UFC 325, do you think it would be looked at differently going in and heading out? Almost certainly because the numbers rightly or wrongly the numbers convey an expectation with the fan base of grandeur. and instead like everyone be like even though you know here in america we're not paying anything now now it's all the flat fee right but globally there are still people paying pay per view

and so if instead they're not right like you know if the the english fans aren't dropping whatever it is the 20 quid to get the thing and instead this is just like oh i get alexander Volkanovsky for free or functional free or whatever it is. I think that goes down a lot smoother. Then you get

again Volk this was a really a one fight card. The other main card had some other fights that were interesting. But nobody is entering the door to watch Benoit Sandini versus Dan Hooker realistically, right? Like nobody is tuning in.

I'm going to buy this or check this of an out for that. You're going for the main event, and the main event was really weak, both beforehand, which we talked that nausea about, and an actualization. And so if this was just USC Sydney, I think it would have gone down way, way better. Well, let's get into it. Of course, if you super chat, we push you up to the top of the line, but let's just, let's get right into this. Reverse up. Need to hear Jed's take on his boy, Lonnie Kavanaugh, Lonnie Kavanaugh, getting the call to fight Brandon Moreno, a UFC,

my opinion, this isn't that crazy considering all the nonsense happening in other divisions. So this affects both of us, Jed, when it comes to our fantasy teams. I wasn't that pleased about it. I'm very pleased about it. I feel much better about things.

I mean, I thought he would beat Asuma Amabayev. I'm quite confident he will beat Lonnie Kavanaugh, especially in Mexico. Don't be quite confident. That's aggressive. I feel pretty good about it. I feel pretty good about it. And it's a ranked win,

which will be helpful as well. So your reaction to this, was this the right call by the UFC? No. I don't think it's that bad. There was a huge backlash to it, which I don't think was warranted. I think this is fine, right? Like, you are making chicken salad out of less desirable chicken, right? When a fighter pulls out of a main event, just it, especially with this sort of timeline on offer here.

Because when is U.C. Mexico? How many weeks? 28. This is what, three weeks, four weeks? I'm not math guys. Yeah, three weeks, three weeks from Saturday. Yeah, so like three weeks to do a main event in Mexico City, like five rounds at altitude, like at altitude altitude, it's never going to be perfect.

In fact, I would honestly, you know, if I were running the world or whatever, I would be like, we should, if every main event, especially for something like this, a card like this in a Utah in a Mexico City, should have a preset, you know, fight to jump up on the rest of the card. So we've also got

some fly weights going at it and we can bump them up if something need be. But it's not what happened here. And so you're just scrambling to find something. The reporting that came out that Kio or Gucci wanted to take it, he just also wanted to fight on Saturday.

That is what's curious to me because they could have just waited, right? Like they could have told Lonnie and like, hey, Lonnie, 50-50 chance. You're going to get the call to step up here. So start prepping, you know, we'll let you know in a couple of days. Can announce it on Saturday after the event. Correct. And then you could just be like, all right, Kio-G, if you want to do it, we got to make sure we can't say yes and let you fight, you know,

Well, like, we can't be like, we're, we got to see because maybe you break your hand. Maybe you can't do it. But show us. Like, if you go out there, you dust him in 20 seconds or you just clean, dominant win and there's no problem. Sure, we can snap call that. And everybody would be stoked on that. So that would have made more sense to me. But my assumption is the UFC is just like, no, Kyoji would have gotten it if he'd have said, sure, like, we'll just bump him.

But it doesn't even really matter. We've got the co-main for this weekend, and that's fine. and there is a little bit of a Remember when we did this with Josh Vann? And the circumstances aren't the same. Obviously Josh Vam was on a big winning streak, or not a huge, but like a had put some wins together

and turned around quickly to fight, you know, Brandon Rival. But still, like, okay, now we can give a young guy an opportunity against a former two-time champion who is coming off the worst loss of his career. And if Moreno, you know, maybe this is a bit of a softer,

touch for Moreno in a friendly territory, right? Like he's in Mexico City. But it is kind of way better for us. If Lonnie Kavanaugh beats Brandon Moreno, that's a pretty good outcome for the UFC versus Kioji beating Brandon Moreno or Kioji losing to Brandon Marino. And then it's like, all right, well, now both of them are out of the title mix. Or if Kioji wins, it's like who the hell is fighting for the belt? Like seven dudes should be fighting for the belt right now.

So I kind of structurally get it, even if I, would have preferred. Let's see. Let's just let Kioji fight on Saturday and see what happens. And then we can make the announcement. We didn't have to rush to this. But I kind of get it. And then, you know, shame for my fantasy team.

I'm not big upside for my fantasy team. I will say that, right? Like if Lonnie pulls it off, that's mega. And at least he has bumped forward a couple of weeks. So now there's more opportunity for him to fight again this season, I guess, if I'm trying to silver lining this. I mean, it's good silver lining. I respect it.

I appreciate it. I had some obvious takeaways. One, Charles Johnson should be livid about this. He put his name out there. I'll fight him. I know he's coming off of a loss, but now he's stepping in to fight Bruno, so is Bruno Silva anyways.

You know who else is coming off of a loss? Lonnie Kavanaugh's coming off. Lonnie Kavanaugh. And guess who he lost it, Charles Johnson, who got finished by Charles Johnson, mind you. So he's like, okay, I guess like, he should be upset. He should be pissed.

Brandon Royval, I mean, I think it would have been an interesting story to just be like, all right, I'll step in on short notice again and fight you again in Mexico. That'd be really funny. That would have been very funny. Really funny. My biggest takeaway of all, because I haven't posted some stuff, I was like, who should it be? Because there's no way Moreno is not fighting on this card. And I mean, so many people responded, sent DMs.

This is it. Muhammad Mikhail's coming back. Your take is wrong. Here it is. The door is open. And I'm like, you guys for it. Yeah. And I was like, okay.

And my thought was like, you know what? If he's coming back, they're doing it now. Because otherwise, he ain't. This is the chance. You step in, you fight Brandon in Mexico City on short notice. You're in. We're giving you another chance. That is the most intriguing option of all, honestly.

And the UFC still didn't do it. They were just like, nah, we'll just throw Lonnie Cabin on there instead. He ain't coming back, guys. He ain't coming back. They're done with them. They are done with the Muhammad Makai experience, and that's okay. Muhammad could still have a very lucrative career elsewhere. But that was my biggest takeaway.

I was like, yep, they're bringing him back. I think he'll come back. I don't think he'll come back soon, but he's still 25. Like, it's just at some point, the water will go under the bridge. But this would have been a good opportunity. And nope. So let's go, Lonnie. Let's, you know, maybe Brandon's cooked.

I don't think Brandon's cooked, but maybe he is. And if so, Lonnie Kavanaugh, my guy. That's going to be a very busy day. I probably won't even be watching that fight take place because that will be RIF 6. In Arizona, Jose and I will both be there taking in all of the wrestling action as UFC Mexico is going down. Some super chats, Chase. Let's talk about some Tom Hate. He got poked in the eye and quit, then needed, quote, injections.

Meanwhile, Rose got poked, continued fighting, had surgery, and can't sneeze for months. This fits my narrative. She can't sneeze? What is that? Yeah, she can't sneeze. I don't know about that can't sneeze for months thing. That's wild. I think that's what she said when she posted that video that she's going into surgery.

She won't be able to sneeze for a while. It's part of the eye surgery. Okay. Um, yeah. I, I think that Tom Aspinall has done nothing wrong. And the longer this goes on, uh, I know people will dig their heels in. But, uh, the longer this goes on, the more the people who are like, you should have fought look like big dumb idiots. Um, and it's okay.

We all look like big dumb idiots sometimes. But yeah, I don't know, man. That guy hasn't fought for a while and he's had surgery. on his eyeballs. He literally posted entire, like, doctor's documentation about everything wrong with his frigging eyes. So, like, I just, I mean, it's, this is MMA. I mean, what can you do?

But the beauty of MMA, just like most sports, all Tom has to do is just come back and win a fight and no one will care about any of this. It'll be done so. Yeah. You know, my longstanding take. that fighters aren't cowards continues to look mostly pretty good. It's a great thing.

And so like, I don't know, I think the professional fist fighter who's world champion probably didn't look for a way out four minutes into a fight. He probably just got poked in the eye and couldn't see. That seems like that makes more sense to me.

Well, it looks like those wondering about a Giannis trade at the deadline will be disappointed. There is no trade happening. So that's wild but okay yes bucks have told teams they are not that they are keeping Janus through the deadline

this is Persham's so there we go what is a move that if a fighter landed would make them an instant legend to you i.e. Ryu sure you can uppercut for me I mean the shirukin uppercut would be

pretty banging that would be pretty banging showtime kick is sort of the best one to call for MMA because like it can be done. And like, that's whenever, knock on wood, we don't want this to happen anytime soon.

But whatever Anthony Pettis shuffles off this mortal coil, the first line of his, you know, obituary will be once ran off a cage and kicked a dude in a face in a championship fight. And it should be because that's like one of the six coolest things that's ever happened in the history of the sport. So that would be one If somebody ever did another mighty arm bar Like the mousetrap

That would be banging Josiah Harrell almost did it at LFA Not that long ago I mean that would just be Sick If anybody in MMA Like high level Not like Garbo

Thing Actually lands a Rolling Thunder KO Like that'll just be the coolest thing That happens that year because mostly you look like an idiot flopping but that would be dope

oh if we could get the the scissors sweep heel hook shout out Rio Chonin like that like bring that back if somebody hit like an Eminari role like actually successfully employed an eminari role that would be pretty like there are a lot of like really

cool things that people don't do but I'll give you one that this won't be a legend to anybody else, but it would make me particularly happy. Back when I used to grapple a lot, I was a particular fan of wrist locks because it's just a really annoying, crappy way to grapple, frankly. You shouldn't respect that level of the game,

but I did it not all the time. I've had high-level black belts be like, you suck. Not because I was very good at grappling, but you're just an annoying person. because you're trying to grab my hands. The first person who like pulls off a straight up wrist lock, they'll have my heart.

So you're like, you're like Michael Scott in the office when he did improv, always pulling out the fake pistol. And ending the scene every time. I don't, you're that guy. I don't think I have ever, like honestly,

outside of like specific drilling, I don't think I've ever finished like a triangle choke and a roll. Because like when you have the triangle, you also have their arm right there, and I would just grab the wrist. Like, okay, well, it's really hard to get you to tap to this choke. Ah, I'll grab your hands. So, like, the first person who does some shit like that, I'll be like, yeah, you're my boy forever. It would probably be like an RKO or like a Stone Cold Stunner or something.

I'd be like, oh, that was pretty sick. David Sanding with the Boston Crab, yeah, if somebody ever rocks the Boston Crabb in a fight. having a fight, but like in a, in like a real UFC or PFL fight. Not because any sorts, like all sorts of Tom Fullery gets going on the regional scene, well, he's got to be like at least a modicum of real. Yeah. Very fun. Uh, Joseph at Welterweight Shafcott was taken out of the rankings after 423 days of inactivity.

Colby's still in after 416 days of inactivity. How crazy is that? So obviously, uh, let's throw that in there. RS 40 with Super Chat Shafkat out of the ratings, but Colby's still there. It was genuinely really funny. I saw a lot of people

really had an issue with this. It's very bad. It's very bad. I want to be clear. I'm fine with Shafkat exiting the rankings, but like they should also just boo Colby. Yeah. I mean, Colby's not injured.

Like Colby isn't, Kobe's just not fighting. I don't know why he's not fighting. He is literally, said in pretty much every interview he's done, like, I want to fight. So I don't really know why he's not fighting. But Shafcott is like clearly injured and he's going to miss like all of this year. So like it's out there. The public knows he is definitely not fighting unless he is a miracle here healer. Colby could fight in June. At some point we're going to have to pull Colby out of the rankings. You know what I mean? Like we're just going to have to pull him. But at least he is not hurt and out for a year. year at this point while trying to make a comeback. So I don't know what's going on, Colby. But I think like if we get past the White House card and he still is not booked,

you pull him. Because you assume he's fighting on that card. But we'll see. I mean, you should just pull him. He should. Like, it's not even really you should pull him. It's a whoever is still involved in the ranking panel. Like ranking him is egregiously silly.

Like just he hasn't want to fight in seven years or whatever. Whatever the stat is, it's ludicrous. Like, he hasn't beaten anybody that's ranked or on roster. Like, you just give up. Like, why is he in there? Very, very silly. Let's see.

I want to talk about Dana White and court, but I want it to be fun like Ali McBeal. I don't know how we can pull that off because I've never watched it. I don't know what that means. But... Wait, wait, wait. Go pull that back up, sorry? I was chatting. I want to talk about Dana White and court, but I want it to be fun like Ali McBeal.

Yeah, I've probably seen like two Allie McBeal episodes in my life. You know those days when you're at home sick at school and after the Price is Right comes on and you just have to go to TNT to watch TV because there's what else you, you're not going to watch days of our lives. So also all the episodes of Charmed I've ever seen came in similar situations. Las Vegas. but I can't speak to what this question means in reference to Allie McBeal. I also, because I was off yesterday,

I am only very loosely aware of the Dana-White testimony in court. At some point I'll have to catch up and read about it. But best I can tell, he acknowledged the truth that we all know that he is no longer involved in UFC matchmaking and hasn't been for close to a decade. Or negotiations or fighter contracts. It's not like new influence.

though. Yeah, we've been telling, but now, like, the world can finally be like, see, I mean, I've gotten people like hitting me up today and being like, you and Jed have been saying this for like years that data has been like checked out and is not part of that end of the business. And I was like, I didn't really see it. But now like, obviously after the, the testimony, it's there. And yeah, man, like, if, if it wasn't like a, to this point, if it's, I don't understand why he's still in this position. Like, I mean, I get it. I think it's just kind of for him to be, like I'm the face of the company like this is me and obviously he is very important as we've said for a long time in regards to the the business side of things like they're not getting paramount without Dana they're not getting the sponsorship deals they're not getting bud light without Dana they're not getting a lot of this stuff without Dana being a part of it but in terms of like fight operations and the day to day of that they don't need him that he's not part of it so when we say like they could they could dump him and they'll be fine from a like a fight operations perspective.

We said this after the whole New Year's Eve incident. Like this is what we were talking about. They don't need him. He's not part of it. He's not in the negotiating room. He's not doing contracts. He's not talking to managers. It's Hunter Campbell.

It's Sean Shelby and Mick Maderd. Like is he in the war room when they're talking about certain things? Sure. But that's it. Like that's as far as it goes. So he's not part of the fight operation. He's just part of like, oh, you're going to pay us this much. Oh, we're going to name this the meta apex.

Sure. He's in those meetings. He's a part of that. Without him, that doesn't happen. But as far as the other stuff, this is a thing that you and I have known for quite some time. Dude, he's a CEO. Like, if y'all have ever spent any time in into corporate structure, like, how often is your CEO doing shit? There's not.

That's why there's a CEO. Oh, that's why there's someone handling operations and doing that. Like every corporate power I've ever worked for or at or with, like the CEO at most was like they are the big, the big driving visionary of general direction of the ship. They're not man in the rudder. You know, this is that margin call scene where Irons is like, do you want to know why I'm in this chair?

I tell you when the music stops. That's my only job. I'm not doing the rest of this shit. I just say and it is done. So yeah, like this is deeply unsurprising that he is not involved in the operations of the business. No CEO is. Like they may occasionally,

he can and he can call up Hunter and be like, hey, I want this or I talk to Donald Trump and he wants this for the White House. You know, he can put his fingers on the scales as, as much as he wants to do. But that's just no CEO in the world does that. You hire management.

And that this also brings up like questions like this. But Dana is saying he isn't that much involved in matchmaking. Do you think the beef with Armin is between him and Hunter? I mean, I think the beef with Armin is more so with Dana. But Hunter, Hunter Campbell is the creation of Dana White, right? he is the downstream effect of Dana. So he's not going to have really like a massive amount of independent thoughts about how things. The beef with Armin is Armin pulled out of a title fight the day of or the day before.

That's the beef. The entire beef with Armin is that happened. And they hate that. And then, you know, that's it. And now it has. And there's, I genuinely don't even think there's actual real beef with Armin. There was. I think they're fine with him now, but it is inconvenient.

And so they don't care. They don't have to like him, and they don't have to bump him in. Like, they didn't want him to fight at 324 because we know why. We talked ad nauseum about that. They wanted to potentially get Patty over and to have an exciting fight, and Armin probably ruins both of those plans. Now they're not going to move him to fight Ilya because they want to keep getting Ilya over. And Armine might beat his ass.

So, Armand's problems are that Armand screwed up one time and got behind the eight ball. And circumstances have not really dictated kindly to him since then. But I doubt that, like, they actually have any issues. It is just a useful scapegoat to say, Armand headbutted a dude so we didn't give him a title fight. Because everyone would be like, yeah, that's fine. Okay, sure, I get it instead of being like asking a follow-up question. Yeah. There are, it's, it's, it's blatantly obvious what's happening right now.

So it's all good. Uh, who do you even pair Colby with Jeff Neal, Sam Patterson? Obviously, Sam Patterson is booked, uh, with Michael Venom Page, which is kind of a, a weird one. I don't think a lot of people saw that one coming. That is, that's super weird. Jeff Neal is talking about going up to middleweight anyway, so let him go. The bone nickel fight is perfect. That's fine.

That's fine. It's fine. I wouldn't call it perfect, but it's fine. Yeah. If it's not like, would you rather them do Bo Nickel or would you rather them do Colby Wonderboy or Colby Gilbert Burns or Colby Mazadol 2? Kobe Wonder Boy I'm fine with too because that's two dudes who have no relevance to the Walterway Division spinning their wheels. That's fine too. Yeah. But I think Bo Nickel makes like, if we're trying to generate buzz, Bo Nichols.

Bo Nichols totally fine. Yeah. So we'll see what happens. do they have any fights book for the White House card yet? Not that I know of. I mean, they said they were going to start working on the White House card after 324. So they've had a week and a half to formulate plans. I mean, John, or not John Silva, I'm Eliot Tuporia came out today and it's like, I'm in the gym.

I'm getting ready for June. It wouldn't remotely surprise me if Elliot Tupori versus Justin Gage, he was at the White House. that feels like a thing that may well happen. But, you know. Yeah. Seems. John Jones has arthritis,

so I don't know if he can fight at the White House. Yeah, that's crazy. This is one of the funnier things that's happened. I can't wrestle DC. I can't wrestle DC. I can't fight somebody, though. It's like, okay. That doesn't feel like.

Alex Breyer, Estepe, come on down. Let's go. It doesn't feel like the same. Like, you could just be like, I'm not a wrestler, so no. That would be a perfectly fine answer, as opposed to I have arthritis in my hip. I need a hip replacement. Can't do it.

Okay. Sure. Yeah. I mean, there's reporting out there that says like, Ilya and his wife have like agreed on a thing. The charges against him or whatever thing was happening has been dropped. They've settled amicably upon like everything when it comes to that. We haven't like fully confirmed that yet, but it seems that was. where that social media post came from based on reporting out of Spain.

So wouldn't shock me if we see Ilya versus Justin. Wouldn't shock me to see Michael Chandler on that card. I spoke with him the other day. I'll be surprised if he's not on that card, frankly. He will be on that card. I don't know who he's fighting. It appears it won't be Connor McGregor. I know there's a clip of him talking to M.A. junkie about,

I want to fight Max Holloway for the BMF belt. if he beats Charles Oliver at the White House. My interview is a little different. That'd be fun. Yeah, my interview's a little different. I actually just beat the shit out of him. That'd be fun. Yeah, he's got like kind of a list.

I don't think any of them were really realistic, if we're being honest. But I do want to credit Damon Martin for this, because I think this fight is absolutely perfect. How about Michael Chandler versus Terrence McKinney at the White House? That's just fun. That's going to be 50 seconds of chaos. I love it.

I think it's a great idea. I mean, it's fun. fine. What would you do? How would you book Michael Chandler? That's good question. I don't know. It's a really tough question, frankly, because it's not very good. If you want to do, like, Chandler, I mean, I don't think they're going to do it because it feels like Moikano might be in the doghouse now. But, like, you can convince me Chandler versus Moichano. Chandler's ranked, which is wild.

That's pretty nuts. I don't know. Honestly, no idea. There's genuinely no clue to do with them. Anybody's fine. Like, he's fun. He's fun, exciting dude. I'll tell you what.

Here's what you do. Actually, yeah. Do Chandler versus BSD. Oh, okay. Because, like, BSD is sort of in an Also a weird spot of like he's trying to move up the rankings, but like I don't think he's getting a BMF title fight. And so then it's like,

do you want to fight the loser of the BMF belt? I mean, it's still upward mobility, but that feels weaker. And the other options, Armin. And he moves to Armin. So, fuck Michael Chandler. Like do one of those. Look, here, this is just a fun fight.

Let's do it. I mean, he should, he should absolutely lobby for that. After the whole situation with UFC 311, I think Chandler had some comments to Armand, and Armine was like, what's clapping back at Chandler? I'm like, Armine, get on the horn right now and fight him. Like, what are we waiting for? Like, just go fight him right now.

That would just go great for you. But, yeah, the day in a testimony is pretty wild. I think Hunter Campbell is actually taking the stand today. He may even be on the stand as we speak. So I believe our own Damon Martin will have coverage of that later on as well. It seems like we got like literally nothing out of Dana yesterday, which is pretty funny. I mean, yeah, if his response is I don't know the answer to any of these questions, this is not my job. And he's not going to give a lot.

Jay's asked so Dana Hates should be shifted to Hunter. No, because the buck stops with him. you can also dislike Hunter Campbell if you choose to but like that's the thing when you're the guy at the top it all everything is your fault even if it's not your fault

like even if you're not in the day to day of it you have set the path of the ship and so you are ultimately where responsibility lie yes and also you choose you also choose to like be out in the public doing interviews and answering questions and going to the press conference

Like you're supposed to know these things. You're supposed to answer these questions. Like you're here. If you stop doing that stuff, then like maybe you get let off the hook a little bit. So like I just this whole thing of like I have to be the face of the company. No fighter shall be. It has to be me. It's just it's so frustrating.

Like John those press conferences are so much better when John Annix up there just like moving things along. He like cares about the events, puts it over a little bit, has done research on the fighters involved, knows who everybody is. Like, yeah, it's, it's pretty wild. But yeah, I mean, some of the matchmaking things, yeah, you blame Hunter. You blame the matchmakers. And then, you know, and then you have Dana going on in public being like, oh, you don't like Volk and Diego Lopez, just don't watch it then.

Like, what? It's, it's, you're not even part of the matchmaking. Like, you had nothing to do with this fight. And yet you're, you're the guy telling people not to watch it. Like, what is happening here? The whole thing is so weird. I mean, they're making a ton of money and good on them, but holy shit. Just so frustrating.

Yep. Let's see. Lazy bed trying to break some news, the co-Jacobie Smith news. That's been out there for a couple days, from what I understand. That was supposed to happen at UFC Houston. No official word on that yet if it's getting rebooked or if Jacobi's getting a new opponent. But that's been out there, my man. It's been out there.

Harts my soul. There's got to be one guy that I have that, like, misses out on fighting during a fantasy season. And maybe it's Jacoby Smith, but I might actually have a flyway compete for the first time, uh, during this fantasy era in Brandon Moreno. So there you have it.

I mean, I have one guy missing out this season for sure. Oh, for sure. But see, but now you have the option to keep this man forever if you'd like. I'm not. You're not. I'm going to,

I'm going to part way of it. with him. Oh, wow. This is huge news. I can't, I can't be heard again. Solar Serpent says Armand versus BSD should be on the same card as Deporia versus Gaichi. I'd be fine with that. I don't know if it's happened. I don't really want Armand versus Benoit Santini is Screams White House event, but I wouldn't be upset about that.

I also just really don't want Armand to fight Benwasandini because in the very near future, lightweight is going to be an active title again, as opposed to defended once every 13 months. And so you need new contenders, and BSD is like right on the cusp. And so you're just, you're cutting off one of the possible contenders.

So I would avoid having those two dudes fight each other. So when Arman gets the belt, then they can fight for the belt, as opposed to Armand getting the belt and looking around, I've beat all these dudes. What the fuck do I do now? A lot of people ask you about this. Cosmo Kramer.

Will John Silva's beef with Marisha Riffy cause a riff inside the fighting nerds leading to John's downfall in terms of title aspirations? Pratchez and Kyo seem to be still on good terms with Marisha Ruffy? No. Also not something I'm deeply versed in. So correct me if I'm wrong here. It doesn't even really seem like he's got beef with him, right? Like, one, it wouldn't be a problem anyway.

because Ruffy is, I don't believe primarily there anymore now. And so, like, John is, so he'll be fine. Yeah, Ruffie workers, Volk and those guys. Yeah, like, so the guy who's in the gym all the time is going to be fine. But also, like, it just didn't feel like, I don't know what happened between them, but, like, seeing the comments on social yesterday was just like, okay, I guess, frankly, a pretty adult perspective.

perspective from Jean Silva of like, yeah, we aren't cool right now, but I wish him the best. And, you know, I hope that he, I perceive these things. I think he should maybe go seek some help like I do. And that would be great. But like he wasn't like, F that dude. I hope he kicks rocks in hell or anything, you know. Yeah. Let's see.

Unless I'm just totally like missed it. If that's the case, then I'm wrong. But like, not everybody's going to be your friend. Or like some relationships don't work out for one reason or another. And you can sort of not necessarily amicably, but part ways with respect, even if there are some hurt feelings over things. Yeah. Who's MVP playing someone ranked?

Doesn't he want a title? No. That's not in the cards for him. he doesn't seem like he wants the belt anyways so i thought i mean there were a lot of rumblings he was supposed to fight yaroslav amosov that was like the big fight that yaroslav was teasing we should super not do that uh and amosov was like has basically accused MVP of like ducking it uh i'm with all the respect to uh to both athletes we already seen that fight like not literally but we've seen something similar to it,

that could end up being just a sloggy slog, slog, slog fest. Not for me. So, at least Sam Patterson's, like, I'm not saying MSOF's not fun, but stylistically like Sam's going to try to, like, kick MVP's head off. And Amazon's not going to do that.

I just pulled up Ghee's article, and I would like to read this quote, as told to Lertaviana. I don't think there's much to explain. It's a ruffie on one side and me on the other. Internal business. I won't be the one to expose it. I haven't said anything.

My heart is at peace and I won't talk. It's all good. Him there and me here. That's the truth. All I can say is that I want distance from him and I hope he does too. If he says he doesn't, that he loves me, it's all good. I hope it's for real. I think he has his path.

I'm rooting for his success. He has a beautiful family and I hope he bears good fruits of his work, but I have my goals. If that's how I'm beef with people, I have a rich in full life, man. Like, just in total sincerity. Like, if that is my beef, is people speaking like that about me, my life is very, is very sanguine. Because, like, that is, yeah, man, we have some problems,

but I'm not going to air it out. And I, these are not problems that make me hate him. But we are different and we are at space. And I wish the best for him. that is if that's your enemy you got great enemies man hell yeah

shout out to the Twitchsters clone asking Jed are you climbing step five this week dude I'm trying to figure it out I might be climbing like step 10 this week there's so many viable options this week I'm trying to figure out how many to take

because like Michaela Lick-Sachier I mean Mark Andre Beeryl fun fact Mike Mark Andre Beiro, 0 and 7 as an underdog, and I suspect he's soon to be 0 and 8 as an underdog. The over 1.5 in the main event, the over 1.5 in the co-main event. Kiojurguji, Horgi, just straight up.

There are things out there that are looking tasty. So I'll have No BetSpart up at the end of today and have a cleaner idea of where I'm climbing this week and how many. Yes, there's lots of events. We have, of course, PFL Dubai, the start of, I mean, literally like PFL's entire... I've only seen one odds for that, and they are very long. Yeah.

I mean, this is the start of like, I mean, literally their entire promotion is probably on the line this year. So it is must, must win for PFL to... Minus 8,800 for Usman Narragamatov against Alfie Davis, per our friends at Fandall. What do you think about that line? That's a big line. Is there a part of you that things... Nope.

I'll put a couple shekels on Alfie Davis? Nope. Why not? Don't think he's going to win that fight. That is, look, when Vegas also the plus on Alfie is plus 800. Look, lines like that are Vegas saying, don't bet this fight. Just don't do it. Because if you're going to bet on Usman, the price is just not even worth it.

And really, like, you know, you'll feel great if you spike the Alfie, but you're just giving us free money if you bet on Alfie. So don't, this is a don't bet on this fight. And I'm going to, I'm going to take Vegas's advice. I'm going to not bet on that fight. Okay. Are you looking forward to PFL this weekend? There's definitely some good stuff happening on PFL this weekend.

And this is, I'm not mistaken. This is like an earlier in the day card, right? Yeah, they're in Dubai. So I think the, I think the prelim started like 9 a.m. Eastern. Yeah. Let me, uh, let me pull up. the old card because I know earlier this week I was

responding to a Caposa tweet about the card basically where he is like you guys should care about this and then I looked at the car was like oh yeah man that's actually I think the main event is a good fight right like Alfie Davis is on a pretty decent little run he won one of the tournaments right I think he was the champion yeah he won the lightweight Grand Prix totally fine like a reasonable fight even with the big odds and you get to watch Usman demergometov who's like one of the seven

or better best lightweights in the world. So that's against real opposition. Kermegov versus Musayev is a very high-level fight. I don't know that it's going to win any awards for excitement, but it's very, very good fight. Jesus Panato is just always dope to watch. And Isbilev might be really good, unclear,

but it seems like you could be really good. I'm looking at the rest of it. this. Cavalov, good fighter. That women's fight is, that's a fight that's happening. Rob Wilkinson's back.

Oh, he's probably going to kill Luke trainer. That's kind of fun. Yeah, there's some good stuff going on on this card. And it's in the middle of the day, so I'll tune in.

Pretty, like, this is basically the sort of best efforts the PFL can offer from a quality standpoint, not necessarily from a star standpoint, but quality. And so, we'll tune in because it will be good fighting.

Yeah. I like the Luke trainer Rob Wilkinson fight. I'm very high on Luke. It's kind of tough that he has not fought under the PFL banner yet in his entire run because he was hurt all of last year. So that's kind of a tough spot to be in. But a chance for him to look really good here. and maybe get a title shot.

Dude's got charisma, and he is very exciting to watch. So I do like that fight. I don't, I do not know a lot about Luke Trainer. So tune in early to watch him. I think he should be on the main card, honestly. I think that fight, like, we're getting a Carl Williams fight on this card. Yeah, that was, I was like, I don't know what's going on there, but okay. I mean, definitely a guy who was a middleweighty heavyweight for, for quite some time.

So that's a that's a thing that's happening. So I mean, well, this that this just has to be fun like it has to be fun. We can't have how many fights are on this frigging card? We cannot have 12 decisions out of 13 fights that just cannot happen here. The main card cannot have six decisions. It needs we need finishes. We need excitement. Watch this. It's on the ESPN Platinum app thing. It's like 30 bucks a month. stupid thing. Yeah. I don't know why they're doing that. I don't understand it. I know it's ESPN's all, but... I'm so happy. I'm done with ESPN.

Yeah. Get on the plus, man. Like, make this... I don't want to do this. Is it not regular ESPN at all? I have no idea. Maybe it is. I don't know.

I mean, I'm just seeing the ESPN toggle, so I don't really know. Leazy bed, M.A. Fighting a Dave Feldman reported. Mike Perry facing biggest name. He's ever fought times five in his next about simultaneously Nick Diaz claiming he'll be champion soon. Coincidence or collusion.

There will be an article coming out tomorrow. Mike Perry's response. If you want to get his response, you can go to our YouTube channel where I asked Mike about this. I read the quote specifically to him. And he agrees. Mike agrees that there are some things Dave said he wasn't, you know,

100% sure about. Dave's teasing, we're going to do this in Orlando. It's going to be a homecoming for Mike. Mike was like, yeah, the location didn't really hear much about that. And then I asked him straight up and like, do you feel like if this is the name you get, this will be the biggest name you fought times five? And he said, yes, dude's a legend. He's done legendary shit.

Things will get real mean in there. So I think there's some smoke to this fire. Perhaps, I mean, if you're going to announce it, if this is a thing, you should probably announce it on Saturday during your biggest event of the year. Knucklemania. It's your tent pole big event. so maybe we'll get an ounce there but

it can't be Nick Diaz right like that would just be that would be what my nightmares are made of if that's the fight they mean I think it can be Nick Diaz I hope that it's not

I certainly please don't do this to us but I I would guess that it is a little bit more likely that it's Nate oh Nick because Nate Diaz is a bigger name

the Nick DS is and there's nothing there's nothing there's nothing there's nothing preventing Nate from doing it is the thing that's true other than just whether he wants to right and so I'd be surprised because in general it doesn't feel like Nate wants to do that but also like if the paycheck's right and I don't know what else Nate's doing feels like a thing that he would do pretty well in realistically um And so if I was guessing, my money's on Nate, basically as I don't know who else would be. And I struggle.

I just really doubt that if it was Nick, Feldman would have laid it on this thick. Right? Like, I can see BKFC going to Nick Diaz, but Feldman is not like totally unaware of everything around him. And I just don't think he'd try and hype up Nick, given everything that's going on with Nick to this. degree, I could just be wrong, though.

Could totally be wrong. Yeah. I mean, would Nick be the biggest name? Perry's fought times five? In BKFC, yes. I mean, none of this is true because the actual biggest name Perry's ever fought is Jake Paul, but he didn't fight him in BKFC. Yes.

But I would say Nick Diaz, I mean, times five is hyperbolic anyway. But that's why I, because obviously I saw the Nick stuff. I was like, honestly, times five feels more like Nate. That just feels more like Nate Diaz to me. So Nate is my prediction. I wouldn't bet a lot of money on it. But if you're asking me to who I think it's going to be, Nate Diaz is the answer. So I was talking, obviously, Damon spoke to Feldman.

He made me aware of this quote before I talked to Mike. And then we obviously like went back and forth on Slack asking like, who could it be? because, you know, Dave Feldman has overpromised and I've underdelivered a few times. And I like BKFC. I think they have something there. I think they've lost a ton of luster over the last couple of years, which is sort of a bummer. But Damon threw out this name. And I was like, oh, my God, like, that could happen?

I don't know. Like, I was trying to justify not believing this could be a thing. could we get Mike Perry versus Anderson Silva in BKFC Also That would also make sense It can't be I love I love the Robbie Lawler idea

But I don't think that's I don't think that's the name Right to me Anderson is possible Yeah I don't know why Anderson would want to do that But You could convince me that as well

I'm still sticking with Nate But Anderson is possible It would be absolutely humongous if they pulled that off. Anders is possible, but I'm sticking with Nate. Let it be known. I haven't seen a lot of other people saying Nate Diaz. So if I'm right, click this and let me dunk on fools.

The best part of Nick saying he's going to be champ quote was the metal part at the end where it said from rehab facility. Like holy hell. Everything about that whole thing would make me sad. I mean, I'm not sad that he's in rehab. good for him. I hope that that sticks. But him being like I'd like to fight his Samakshav. I was like, okay.

I don't know how to gentle parent you out of this, but. And Hamzaa Shama if I believe was the other name you said. Yeah. Sure, buddy. Mm-hmm. Okay. It's just like talking to a toddler. Yeah, okay. That's right. The moon is made of cheese.

And you are the biggest and strongest boy. Where is Big Tuna at? The ocean? Dirty boxing. He had a knockout win at dirty boxing. Is the name Big Tuna? Is that who Mike Perry is fighting? I mean, that would be the biggest name he's fought times five.

I would be so excited for that. I told Mike about, I was like, dude, big Tuna might steal your show in Nashville. Just be prepared for that. The most mismanaged fighter in the history of Bellator, I cannot believe they screwed that up so badly. I mean, I can. I can. I can believe it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I could see it. I can see it. All right. Let's see if the Twitchers. The Twitchers. What do we got here? What other questions do you guys got? I mean, we could wrap this up pretty soon.

We do have a preview show for UFC Vegas. Do you like this? Have we, have we, do we have a fart score for UFC Vegas 113? Because I got to say, and people know I'm being, I'm trying to trend into more positive. lands in 2026. I was one of the few that was like, yeah, UFC 325 is a good card. And I got clobbered for it and

probably rightfully so for being honest, but I'm still trying to be positive here. I got to say for the meta apex debut, this ain't bad. Like it might feel, I hope it doesn't feel as solace as Zufa boxing

has felt in the newly designed a a feel of the meta apex, but as far as like a card goes, and if they can fill it up with vibrant fans who are loud and enthusiastic, I think we could have some fun here, Jed. What's the score for this one? Somewhere between five and six, it looks like. Tune in.

I'll have a score tomorrow when we do the preview show. Yeah, it looks like somewhere between five and six. I think the top three fights are quite good. with the caveat that one of them is a heavyweight contest, but I'm actually pretty interested in Almeida Kunif, at least, like, in principle. Olegsacea Barrow is just going to be fun. I think Basharat Matsumoto is a great fight.

There's a light heavyweight fight that's happening. Then the rest of it's like, there are some other fights happening. Veritinocha versus Price would probably be a murder. The other Basharatierat. Short-notice opponent, Wang Song's back. Like, there's, uh, Moon Gaffrov, Jakob Wicklatz is probably going to be really fun as one of the early, early openings. Um, you know, the prelims have some fun matchups and there are three very good fights and some other spots of intrigue. Like, this is maybe like a B plus apex card, right?

Like, it's not right down the middle of average for apex. Maybe like just one hash mark above average for an apex event. Yeah. It's a very solid main event with stakes in some importance, more so for Venetius Olivera. Batista, I mean, if he beats Venetius, I don't think he gains a whole hell of a lot from this, because he's a guy that's going to have to just win a million fights to get a title fight anyways. But if Loke Doggers out there, you're underselling this. This is, this is Mario Batista's first fight back with his full name.

Oh, yes. He's a great point. Now he can he keep it? Can he maintain his own name? We get to find out against a guy like Luke dog. Shout out to Gianni Vasquez, getting his opportunity finally with the UFC. He is, I'm sure Lazy Bed is well aware of who Gianni Vasquez is, the up-next fighting flyweight champion.

Dude has looked incredible. Arguably should have been signed with the UFC a long time ago. You probably know him best. by the way, has a win over David Martinez. So that's something to keep in mind. But he's probably most known for being on the wrong end of maybe the worst referee blunder we've ever seen

against Edgar Shirez, who is also in the UFC, the arm bar that was on forever. Remember he got his arm ripped off his body? While he was unconscious, and the referee decided not to stop the fight. He was given him, chance. He's giving him a chance.

Yeah, lots of, lots of chances. We knew the Texas commission was, was atrocious. I did a whole deep dive into that. If he has ever want to go back

and read it and listen to it on the podcast network is from, like in 2023, I think if you go back and check it out, a full deep dive from both sides, from Alex Marona,

who was doing commentary on it, from, Alex Rono is fighting this weekend. And Alex is fighting this weekend. Big John McCarthy was a part of it. Maybe one of the, probably one of the most, like, time-consuming things that I've done. I think it's one of the coolest things that I put together covering the sport.

But now we are, we are so close to that rematch, Jed. We could get that. We could get that. It's on offer. Well, I saw that he signed, and then, like, I reached out to his manager, and I was like, finally, like, you got him in. Like, he's there. And I, like, immediately assumed.

I'm like, all right, he's fighting at UFC Mexico. I was like, I assume he's fighting in Mexico. He goes, no, he's fighting Saturday. I'm like, what? I'm like, who is he fighting? And then he told me, I was like, oh, man, all right? Tough one, right? Yeah.

Winnable, though. It's pretty decent fighter. Yeah, I mean, it's better than Farid. Freed. Well, that's true. Also, Moshat's like a pretty big Banim weight, so flyweight champ might be tough on short notice, but maybe not. We'll see.

I don't know a ton about, um, Gianni, so. Yeah, he's good. He's very good. I mean, I don't know if he wins this fight. It wouldn't shock be if he did, because he is very talented. I bet he's going to be a really big underdog, but odds are not yet. Probably.

Probably. What else we got? What else we got? A lot of love for Jacob Wicklacks, the fighter who beat the pound for us. Best batting way in the world on the card. He did. I, Patchy Mixey's career was so bad in the UFC that I forgot he lost the Acoe Wiclats.

I thought he beat him because I think I thought that he won that fight even though it was like very competitive. And I was just like, yeah, Patchy went one and one in the UFC and then Bales. I actually know he went, oh, do I forgot he lost the Akob. Yes, tough scenes, man. Tough, tough ones. Cosmo, 7 out of 10. If UFC Vegas 113.

It's the new warehouse. It's the new warehouse. There are people at the warehouse. It might be better. Yes, we have a knuckle. It won't be great, but it might be better. Knucklemania 6, I believe this is. BKFC, let's run this card down.

I am legitimately interested to see this weekend like the apex with people in it and see how that. Because I haven't really noticed much. I didn't watch the second Zufaboxing because the first one bored me to tears. It actually literally bored me to sleep. But like, I didn't really feel like

I mean, it was a little bit better than thing, but I'll have a better concept of like, are the 700 seats actually substantive to adding some level of ambiance to the event? Yeah, I mean, we knew what the first UFO boxing event would be. It would be a bunch of like Dana's influencer friends just like showing up and doing kick streams in there while boxing was going on. I'm curiously how the BKFC event goes over because the lore and like, I guess the, the bigness, I don't even know that's a word. of these knuckle bany events are great word it's because of like m mhmai fighters competing on this

card like in a slew of them and like big name ones like mike perry eddie alvarez like fights of that nature like those are the types of fights we get in the main event slot and i knew we're supposed to get lorenzo hunt versus you all romero and like sure yeah i mean that's cool and all like the main event has been rothwell andrewolfs in a bare knuckle fight and then we have Hunt and David Medell but the rest of the card is like unless you are like a

huge BKFC fan like this is just there's not going to be like a ton of crossover here Ben Bonner Tony Soto which they fought before I need you I do need you to correctly characterize

the main event as Rothwell Arlovski 3 yeah oh yeah thank you very much Ben Rothwell finally getting his chance at redemption or will Andre Arlovsky continue to dominate

Ben Rothwell and take the BKFC title. We had Matthew Semmelzberger making his BKFC. I just saw that. I was like, oh, hell yeah. Way to go, Sim. Yeah, they were doing like a public tryout. And I think him and the guy he's fighting are like guys who won the public tryout. How about that?

Charles, Charles Bennett. Actually might be decently well suited to BKFC. Sort of a big physical dude. A great athlete who can't get tackled in this in this type of situation. I can kind of see Simulzberger making a little bit of a noise. here? Okay. Charles Bennett is apparently fighting on this card. Crazy horse. There's a man

Mike. Mike, are you on the Tapology right now? I sure am. Right under Charles Bennett. Are you talking about Bear Hill? And the photo that accompanies Bear Hill. That's a terrific beard. I mean, everything about Bear Hill

I don't want to learn anything about this man because I am confident that it would make me not like him. but just this photo and the name Bear the last Barbarian Hill Chef's kiss He's kiss

He's 2 and O in BKFC with two knockouts all in the third round He does have some MMA experience A guy like Two in one in MMA Uh His apparently his given name is Shelby Hill And he had and I was like

I wonder Bear Hill has a nickname I'd go to Bear Hill Yeah. Are they going to call him just Bear Hill or are they going to do Bear the last Barbarian Hill? I don't think you need an extra nickname with Bear. You don't, but if you look at this photo, you're like, okay. It looks like, I mean, if there was one remaining barbarian. Give him the last, but like Bear the Barbarian Hill, you'd be like, yeah. But Bear Hill, I mean, I was going to say sounds like, but it's almost absolutely like the location for a civil war battle.

Like that's like this was this was Custer's stand on bear hill is like a thing that happened and you can see this dude I mean I'm I'm gonna dive into the IG. Oh no there's no IG for burial Why is that's it? Maybe it's under Shelby maybe it's under the last barbarian no just the link from topology didn't work now he does have one 1600 followers what a what a king go follow everyone go follow bear hill he might be the he might be the he might be the big tuna BKFC. I mean, one of these is a video of a dude just throwing tires into his stomach, so that's fun.

Yeah, this guy should be the champion. I support him. I don't support his views on anything because I don't know and I don't want, oh, well, I see one thing that's not. Don't dive too deep, Jed.

One thing that makes me think he and I maybe wouldn't have the best conversations ever. But, Yeah, Bear Hill. This is a man who was literally built to fight in BCOC. He's only 32. Wow. I will support him.

I mean, one, great gimmick. Because, like, when you look like this at 32, when you're 55, I was like, you haven't aged a day. I'm like, yeah, I haven't. Oh, Bear Hill. Also, he's moving some pretty heavy weight in the gym. I mean, if his name's Bear Hill, he better be. I'm just continuing to scroll because at some point, I'm assuming I'll see a motorcycle. Because if this man doesn't own a Harley Davidson, I will be deeply, deeply surprised by his lack of that.

Nah, he should be riding horses. I don't know. With a sword. Oh, no, because he's a barbarian. He has an axe at the minimum. Oh, great. Great shout. Also, yeah, like, why am I not seeing this dude at axe throwing somewhere?

Like, that feels right. Man, he has a robust Instagram. There's a lot. Like, this dude'd be posted. He's only got 1,200 followers. He'd be posted. And a terrific beard. Just, I mean, really, an exceptional beard.

Shout out to Bear Hill. Oh, my God. I went deep enough to see a photo of him without the beard. Great call to have the beard. To just say, really good choice to have the beard, man. Golly. Yeah, I hope this guy beats the soul out of Patrick Brady. Probably a Philly guy.

Who's Patrick Brady is just like, okay. Sure. I went to high school with like three Patrick Brady's, I assume. How many Bear Hills did you go to high school with? None. Never met a Bear Hill in my life. Probably I haven't even met a Shelby Hill, although that's at least closer to something.

Let's go. If UFC 325 is a good card, what about UFC London? MVP for Sam. We mentioned MVP for Sam Patterson, but it's a fight. Obviously, we got Mozart of Loyah versus Lorne Murphy officially announced as the main event,

which not a single question about that, which is kind of surprising. Maybe it's because everything that's gone on last. Thoughts on UFC London? I mean, I have not seen a lot of positivity when it comes to what this card looks like. It's pretty tough.

I just pulled it up. So the main event's very good, right? Evel Mervis is a very good fight. Deletting CLD makes sense, right? Like, that's CLD is getting an opportunity to move in. Deleadze is probably leaving the rankings. Yep, totally fine on that.

Do you like Luke Riley, Michael Aswell, being the co-main event? No, that's very, very silly. But, like, they want to push Luke Riley to the moon. Okay, sure. Nathaniel Wood, Lusinkita, is a fun fight, but not like an amazing scrap, which is basically the Nathania Wood story at this point. Mick Park and Mario Pinto is...

We'll have a great time watching that one. I mean, that's a heavyweight fight, being heavyweighty. and then the rest of this is just like Louis Sutherland we're getting another heavyweight fight on this card okay fantasy implications here I got Movesar and I got Ewo fighting

former heavyweight Austin Lane yeah this card's pretty weak I guess MVP Sam Patterson is like marginally interesting Sam Patterson is a good run but off the top of my head this seems like the weakest

London effort of all time. It's one of them. It's one of them. You'd have to, you'd have to really convince me that there's a London card that's worse than this. What was, what was UFC London last year? Oh,

that was the Sean Brady, Leon Edwards card. I believe. Right? Edwards versus Brady. Oh. Well, I mean, you had some stuff here. The Komei was Carlos Ulberg, Janboehovic.

Okay. Kevin Holland, Gunner, Nelson was the featured bout. Sure. Molly McCann was supposed to... Those three already make it better than this card. We got the short notice debut of Alexia Tynera, retiring Molly McCann. Chris Duncan, Jordan Fuchennec, Nathania Wood, Morgan, Chariere. That was the main card.

Much better than this one. Yeah, that's superior to what's going on here. But, like, yeah, I mean, London cards are London cards. London's in the spot where they have England has a few very high-end fighters but those fighters are championship fighters so they ain't fighting at London

you know Axel Sola Mason Jones is going to be very fun I do like that fight I think some of these will be fun I assume Antonio Tricoli is going to get blown up by country We know I Antonio Trio

so like you know there's some fun stuff will happen it would be a decent time It'll probably, you know, because it's not a pay-per-view, so it'll be at a reasonable hour. It'll be fine. Yeah. It's a very UFC 325-e looking card. Yeah.

But it'll happen in the middle of the day instead of at night. And, you know, some stuff will happen. What times to start? That's a great question. 1 p.m. Eastern is the 3. I assume this is the, yeah. 1 p.m. 4 p.m. 4 p.m. They're not going to make this card wait.

Yeah. This is what UFC. 325 should have been. Could have been. But there's no road to UFC fights on this card. I mean, we got some road to UFC quality fights on this card. Yeah. AZ Ray, honestly, PFL has a better UK roster than UFC, to be honest.

I can't imagine that's true, but it's, you know, it's not like, I mean, the UFC has Tom Aspinall. That wins. it does win they also have patty pimbleau so you're kind of just winning with those two but there are obviously some very good UK

you know I know Ireland is not in the UK but also Irish fighters as well for PFL so yeah so that's that's UFC London we're still waiting the main event for UFC 327 we're waiting on the

co-main for 325 I mean TVD versus TBD. Do you think we're getting a John? I think we're probably getting a Josh fan fight. I don't know for sure. Sorry, 326. 325.

326. Excuse me. No, I think, I think the co-main event is going to be RDR versus Baha'u, and they're going to bump it. That'd be so disappointed. I mean, because that was already the co-meat. Yeah. It was already the co-made event.

Just making that. I agree. It's four weeks away. I don't think that they're going to spin anything up. I don't think you need to spend anything up. The main event carries this pretty well. The only thing that could track to me at all is if they do replace Morcano's opponent with somebody would juice, right? Because at least Moichano was already prepping for the thing.

But to just spin up a full flyway title fight in four weeks is that would be ludicrous. Because you can just move that to 327, which also needs stuff. So my assumption is they put that graphic up because they didn't, you know, maybe they had some ideas or, you know, they still might even be trying. But it's just going to be Baha'o RDRs to come in. Yeah. That's UFC 326. At least the main event.

I defended in the mailback column this week. Actually, this is a pretty decent card. It's not a great card. there aren't great cards anymore. You just sort of have to acknowledge that that's not on offer as a fan of the sport anymore. But that main event's rips.

So it doesn't matter. This is significantly better than 325 and arguably better than 324. Yeah, it's... Robocop... It's not better than 324. That's... Maybe an execution, it'll be a more fun watch.

I think it's going to be deeply fun. But how you already are is going to be fun. Roboop Bruno is going to be fun. Rob Fon, Raoulrosis Jr. I don't know that that's going to be fun, but that's like a, that's a good fight. That is a fight that it makes sense, that is logical, and the outcome will be meaningful one way or another. And then after that, there's no juice. But that's just all pay-per-views.

There are five, maybe six good fights, and then a smattering of stuff. Bunch squash matches on this one. And maybe Moikano fights somebody. And if Moikano fight something, that adds a little juice to it too, you know. Maybe Cody Garbrandt wins a fight. This is his best opportunity. It is winnable. This one is winnable.

I don't think he's going to win. And I love that Cody Garberant exists in this sport. He is perfect because I, instead of having to make like this long, rational, well, like, well-researched argument to be like, maybe we should stop anointing people as soon as they win

that they'll just never lose a fight again and that they're the greatest of all time. Cough, Ilya, cough. I remember when Cody Garberant was never going to lose.

How'd that go? I'm like, oh, you're right. We actually should have dudes fight the best guys in their way class instead of just be like, there's no point. He'll beat them all.

Cody Garberant is just the person. Perfect. Yeah, look, sometimes you can be awesome and then actually lose a lot. Have you guys seen the highlights going around to Volk blocking a bunch of Lopez's strikes with his elbow, shinbone, et cetera, great use of defense to hurt your opponent. Yeah, I mean, we're watching it play out live. He landed like four kicks actually during the fight and everything else got checked. Yeah.

And he broke his foot because he's not good. That's why we kept like when they kept putting the significant striking numbers up, I was like, Volk has like blocked 90% of these or checked them or at least got some piece of a guard up to sort of absorb anything. It was just, Volk's just so much, he's just a good fighter. He's just a good fighter and he knew he called it. He said, Diego is not going to be able to change what he needs to change in order to be me. So I'm just going to kind of do the same stuff and prepare for that guy, but a guy is probably going to go for broke a little bit more. and he certainly didn't do that.

He certainly didn't. And he was just like, okay, we're doing this. All right. Sure. This is a nice win for me. We'll go ahead and do that. So yeah, great stuff. And just again,

there's one of those things like, why do we do this? Shout out to Jack Slack and who else did it? I'm trying to think, what was it, Connery Bush? If somebody else who, and this never struck me, but it's 100% right, and now I realize why I felt this way for a long time. Daniel Lopez is just Brian Ortega.

He's the same guy. Like, he's just a big plotting dude with minimal footwork, but he can be like super dangerous in moments. And so that's it. Like if you get caught by Brian Ortega in the third round, and there you go. But if not, you're going to beat him if you're just like a very good fighter who doesn't fold to one hyper

offensive person i was like oh yeah good and i've spent most of my career at mhm a fighting being like brian rtega is trash and now i have a new guy to do that with for the foreseeable futures shouts man uh man one of my best takes ever that has aged so well like yeah he's trash uh who would you if they book Diego Lopez versus Yaya Rodriguez, who are you picking? Diego. Okay. I don't, I mean,

Diego feels like actually quite well suited to beating a guy like Yair. Duke Madduck, take a couple more than we get out of here. Benile Dyer, you said UFC, we try to book him in March slash April. Do you think he's getting fed to Manuel Torres? Probably.

I mean, that kind of makes some sense. Honestly. I had not considered that. but who man who kind of make more sense to give like an unranked dude at lightweight instead of like Torres moving up three spots and are you still holding a number who did I just be like for benny but um on onto the next one was it someone off of 324 who was it who was it who was it Who was it? Maybe it was last week, I don't know.

Oh, Killing Salka. That's who I picked for Benny. Oh, yeah, that's fine. That makes a lot of sense. They're probably going to, they're going to feed them to somebody. Killen seems like a good choice. Yeah, that's the one.

That's the one. Get them and, you know, Benny has a great night and Killen doesn't clobber him in the first three minutes. Killen should try and go fight Moikano. Arm and Sarukin should go try to fight Moircano too. They just go in there and beat them. And just be like,

you save the day. Let's see. I like how you've abandoned Derek Lewis and just adopted Armand Srucun as the answer to all of life's problems. You know who should fight that dude? Armin Srucun should fight that dude.

Let's see. Hot take Volka's a decision merchant yet doesn't get the same label as Movesar because he instead of wrestling tippy taps at range point fighting. There's actually some truth to this.

but not for the reasons he says maybe a little bit I mean just broadly the sport is or the fan base is negative towards grapple-centric victories but I mean also a lot of like a lot of being exciting or is the perception that you are exciting

and he has had very great fights against great fighters and so you're kind of when you fight Max Holloway a bunch just nobody's talking about that's you're actually a decision merchant but he is I was shocked when I actually looked at the numbers

he has four finishes at featherweight or in the UFC at featherweight you know whatever in like 15 fights he has four stoppages which is really low frankly

and that's like and I don't think like he's not in a spot in his career where it's likely he's going to get a lot more of them, you know? But a lot of it is just momentum. It's the perception that you're exciting. And he is also just objectively more exciting than Mofsar. But he is also like, it is statistically true to say he is a decision merchant.

Thank you, DJ. Good show. Remember, Mike, nobody likes the Patriots. I think they're going to win. I've come to the determination. You have. Yeah. I love this for you.

This is a great. This might be your best take yet. I mean, I have no dog in this fight. I will nominally be supporting them. Okay, Tom Brady. Okay, Tom. I have no dog in this fight. By the way, please explain why you think the Patriots are going to win

and the absolute backlash that Tom Brady has gotten that you've probably seen on social media. I have not. I have no idea. So Tom Brady was asked who he thinks going to win. I don't know who he did this interview. with. I don't remember. But he's like, yeah, I don't have a dog in this fight. And like, that's stupid. A lot of people. He has to say that because he is a team owner, but that's very stupid. He obviously has a dog in this fight. Asante Samuel, Vince Wilford, a whole bunch of,

like, ex-patriots are like pretty much like, F this dude. Anta Samuel's like, like, respond to me or I'm going to, like, out you for the human being you are if you don't respond by this time. Like so much shit going on with, like, his, some of his old teammates. But he's all, he's all also like a color commentator for the NFL. So like I don't know like what he can and can't say. And that's like like Teddy Bruske being on an analyst desk for ESPN. Of course he could be like, yeah, man, Mike Vrabel's my old teammate. Love that dude.

I want him to win. Oh, he is he calling the bowl too? Well, it's on it's on, uh, it's on peacock. But I don't know if like, I don't know. I'll say if he's not calling it. Then I mean, look, it's he is a team owner. and so he's not supposed to say stuff like that. So like, but also like he has a dog in the fight.

So it's just not something I care about to be upset by him saying I don't have a dog like him lying because he's just lying. But that's of the things to care about in this world, lying in that instance is not one that bothers me. But, you know, whatever. I've come to the determination, Mike, that the Pats are going to win. because I've listened to a lot of content about football this week and watched a little bit of it.

And you have the much superior quarterback. And while I do think there's a lot of truth to the idea that the Seahawks defense is better, the Patriots defense in the postseason, basically since they've gotten all their guys back, has been exceptional. And then I have also seen a thing where actually the Patriots defense,

all year long was quite good if you remove the first 15 plays of each game, which are the scripted plays. But then after that, they were still like, they're like one of the top three teams in DVOA for the remaining plays of the game. So their ability to adjust mid-game

to what is happening from the opposing team. And so, I don't know. I don't think it's a bold stance to be like, I'm going to not trust Sam Donald, despite he's actually played extremely well in the postseason for the Seahawks, but I'll believe

Sam Donald wins a Super Bowl when he wins it, and if he does, congratulations to him. But until then, you have a better quarterback and you also have a very good defense. So I'm going to assume

that the Sam Donald team loses. You're very smart. Killies Jr., not so much. But shout out to Killies Jr., who also channel member. Became a member. I mean, you love Achilles. He talks a lot of shit, but it's all right.

Itaz Riccio, Mina Kimes, is one of my absolute favorite people to listen to about football. She is very smart. She knows the game. She is very, very smart. She is much, much smarter about football than I am. Yes, Peacock will have the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics. We'll end with Lazy's Bed, Super Chat. Within 30 minutes of the heart into Cavs news yesterday, the local strip joint had a sudden welcoming into the land wild times.

that is spectacular. I don't follow the NBA basically at all at this point. But I do greatly respect that James Hardin has a gimmick and his gimmick is strip clubs. It's just high class. It's quite a gimmick. Quite a gimmick. All right.

I think we are done here. I don't know if there's going to be a show next week. I will not be here at all next week once Sunday. Oh, I forgot about that. We'll have a show. I'll figure it out. Maybe you and Jose can work something out. I'll look at the schedule.

I'll figure it out. We'll do a show next week. Okay. Even if it's in pod form, Jed will make it happen. We can make it happen. Also, I'm traveling next week too, so I'll get with Jose because I did not think about that at all.

And I'm going to Florida next week. Me too. How about that? Where are you going to Florida? I will be in St. Augustine for a little golf outing with. Oh, that's right. To my brothers. Yes.

So the Patriots are going to win the Super Bowl on Sunday. And then I'm going to head out on Monday. And then golf starts Tuesday. And it's going to be a great time. So I'm very excited for that. And very excited for Sunday. And very excited for the combat sports action on Saturday. PFL kicks things off at 9 a.m.

Eastern. Good weekend. Good weekend. Yeah, solid stuff. UFC at the meta apex with people, Very much looking forward to that. That is a pretty solid lineup. And then BKFC in Philly, Knucklemania 6.

And stick with us at Mayfighting.com. Great website. And it'll be great coverage. We will have all the updates, all the results, and all of that fun throughout the event. We love fun. We're big supporters of fun. We are big supporters of fun. And that's the music.

The music is playing. And you guys are the best. So I will see you guys in a couple weeks. You guys are the best. I'm glad Mike's mentioned that because our been like, how are we doing this on Wednesday? And now that's going to do that out. We'll finish out because there are no fights next week.

So we've got to at least be a detail to talk about all the big stories. Vegas 113, Michael. That's right. All the big stories. And we'll see you then for Jedi and Mike Heck. Enjoy the rest of your week, everybody. Love you all. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.