MMA Fighting - BTL | Is Jon Jones Trolling Everybody? Plus, Ilia Topuria Makes Major Move, More

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

UFC heavyweight champ Jon Jones continues to be at the center of the news cycle as he discusses his plans for a return to the octagon, and a potential fight with interim champ Tom Aspinall. While he says he's not "retired," Jones continues to send fans on an emotional rollercoaster ride. But is Jones to blame for the insanity going on in the UFC's heavyweight title picture? On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel discusses Jones' latest comments on social media, if he's trolling the fanbase at this point, and the UFC's choice to continue with Jones as heavyweight champ while Aspinall is approaching a year on the sidelines. Additionally they'll answer questions regarding Ilia Topuria parting ways with his longtime coaches ahead of his UFC 317 lightweight title fight with Charles Oliveira, the upcoming fight cards, Patchy Mix officially signing with the UFC to face Mario Bautista at UFC 316, and much more. Join MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew as they turn the programming of the show over to the fans all show long. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠⁠@m_heckjr Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠⁠⁠@JedKMeshew⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe:⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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In 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. Star for the late star that is completely on me and completely on Sparklight, my internet service. Hopefully we can get that squared away in a day or two. Maybe you guys can hit up Sparklight for me. that they get my Wi-Fi working the way it needs to work to do this show and other programs.

But thanks for joining us. You guys have a lot on your minds. I've been seeing it on social media all week long. So today we're turning the programming over to you guys and joining me to hear your complaints, to answer your questions and everything else. He's back on the show, Mr. No Gray Area, the hot take kid, the one and only. Jed Michoud, the climber of all climbers. There he is.

Welcome back. man so good to be back been been gone for a couple of weeks you know mike you always say you got to give the people time to miss you i was on other shows so i don't know how much they missed me but i missed you and i'm i'm happy to be back here yes it's good to have you here i missed you as well let's uh let's go case he's here as well producer extraordinaire he will join us to answer some questions and have some takes about Alexander Shavley's lightweight greatness, but let's get into this thing. All right. Shout out, Jonah.

What are the peeps on the talk about? 50 five memberships. Wow. Right off the top, Jonah Friedman. Oh, and I got a gift membership. You did? Wow. What a three heart?

We don't know how to not, how to give that to somebody else, but sick. Speaking of Jonah, here we go. Super chat from Jonah, wherever he's from. Should Chevy versus Wadey happen? Would you be in favor of Verna versus Natty Ice for the interim double champ? Wow. Awesome. It's honestly kind of great.

Wow. What do you think about this, Jed? We do interim. We do interim Straway versus Flyway champ. Verna versus Natty Ice? That is, that is an idea that the UFC, at this point might want to look into. It's kind of an awesome idea.

It would never happen. And I don't think it needs to, right? Like, assuming, I think we all think we're going to get the Zhang versus Chevy fight at this point. I mean, this feels really like the time to do so more so than any other weight class could use some juice, right? Like just the women's weight divisions in general, this would be a big fight. they kind of need to bring something to the table that might, you know, re-invigorate the conversation. And I love Viena Zerjarova. I believe she absolutely deserves to have her day in court against Zhang Lili.

Nobody's going to be that pumped to watch that fight. So I think the Zhang fight is going to happen. And if it does, I think that this is just like an obvious answer here of, okay, Vernan and McKinsey Dern run it back for the interim slash real strawweight championship, depending on if the UFC decides they want to strip Zhang or make her vacate as is becoming the norm, which I'm okay with, certainly. Either way, Virna versus Dern for a belt of some kind,

and we do Zhang Chevy because if not now, never. Casey? I'm just thinking right now, what's the biggest, no, money-wise, what's the biggest interim double-champ? fight the UFC could book. Interim double champ fight? Yeah. It's pretty obviously

Ilya versus Islam would be since they're both the number one contenders functionally for two weight classes. But I think that sort of goes against kind of the thing since we've talked a lot about that. No way, they would fight for the championship. Who would be like the...

They can't fight. They can't fight for the welterweight championship. which is where they're at now, Casey, Ilya's a lightweight, Islam's a welterweight, they'd have to be fighting for the interim welterweight championship. It's a good question. Let me think about that.

That's a hard question to think. Because that's too many moving parts. Yeah, too many moving parts. Yeah, I'm trying to. Kayla versus Amanda, and you bring back the women's featherweight interim belt. It's an interim unless Amanda wins that she decides. I like bringing back the interim featherweight belt for it.

Interim Featherway Bell. There's not a real champion. There's just an interim featherway champion. Yeah. I'm a big fan of that. I actually like that idea. I like that idea. Yeah.

All right. Well, thank you, Jonah. Got our brains moving a little bit. I'm going to jump out of the super chats real quick, just because I saw this and we'll just try to answer it right now. Thank you, Master of Universe, Classic. Fun challenge, you can work together, but see if you can come up with eight fighter animal nicknames.

between you. I mean, definitely. So, Pipple 100% lioness, 100%. That's easy. Lionheart probably doesn't count.

I mean, there's two pit bulls. They're like seven. We can go people people eight times in a row. We get it. Yeah, they're a million people.

But if we're trying to do different animals, Lioness, the eagle, the eagle. Hippo. Who's Hill? Anthony Peroche?

Come on. Come on. Casey. Oh, Andy. Peros. Whoa. That's right.

We're going, buddy, we've been in this game a long time. I got a hundred percent nail this. All right. If you're doing only actives, that might get a little more interesting. Rhino. You said rhino, Casey, yeah. Who is it? Who's the right now?

Champion from WEC, give me a second. With the incredible quote of knocked dead. I don't get knocked down. They'll get knocked dead. Give me a second and I'll come to it. And he looks. like the creative fighter from like Oh 100%

What's his name? Oh now I'm gonna look this up Oh um Cub Swanson Cub Oh yeah I guess Cub is not his name Derek compose

The stallion That would have to count We have eight yet Where are we How did I Don't know how many we have Obvious ones Um

Give me I'm too locked in to figure out the answer. Doug Marshall. That's... Doug Marshall. Doug Marshall. Yes. That was it.

Doug Marshall might be more obscure than Anthony Perroche. They're both pretty obscure. Oh, the Eagle. Sorry. Harge said it. Oh, did you okay? I got it. Let me talk.

Any Rotweilers? Doberman. C.B. Doberman. Yes. Raw, dog. I was just about to say that. Raw dog.

Shout out to AK Raw dog. Rod dog. I guess. I guess. Why not? You know? Yeah. Surely there's like a bulldog.

Surely there's a bulldog. Bruno Silva. Bruno, there you go. There's got to be a bulldog. I think there'll be more. I'm kind of surprised there aren't more. I'm sure there are. Also, I think we've done like 10 anyway.

Yeah. We're just trying to do different. animals and that. Oh, oh, oh, baby. So, okay, now I'm going to the comments. Baby shark. Baby shark. See, in my head, I went to T-shirt Torres.

I was like, Tornado's not an animal. And I forgot to go to Shark Nato. Yeah, I forgot to go to Sharknato, which has led to maybe our greatest segment of all time, fire quake. Okay, well, thank you, Master's Universe. If we just, if we come up with them randomly at the show, just, yeah. Oh, oh, um, dude's a mountain tiger or whatever. the guy who's knocking the shit out of people.

Zang. Yeah. Yeah. Miner is Mountain Tiger. Yeah. Million tigers. Million tigers, lions, bears. Oh my.

Oh, my. You know. Oh, my. Thank you. That was fun. All right. Sleek-zo. It didn't make me think that fighters need to be more creative.

Like, why is there not an elephant, you know? It can me just like, the bull elephant somebody that'd be to be fun hey mike i hope you're recovering well from your mental health episode i just assumed went on on now you suggested burns versus austin vanderford why is that a bad fight tell me why that's a bad one tell me why that's bad gilbert is in he's either fighting old dudes or he's fighting guys that the ufc is trying to get over right now and we're trying not to get gilbert hurt van derford is not a bad fight i think that makes a lot of sense. You're trying to get Austin over. Otherwise, why would you bring him into the

UFC? That makes no sense. So let's just put him in there and see what happens. Like, I don't think that's a bad fight, but we're going to waste Gilbert on somebody else at this point when he's four in a row. And Banderford's around that 20 range, you know, where I think Gilbert is. I don't think that's, I think I stand by it. There's no mental help episode. I stand by the selection. Colby is not going to fight him. Who else is there? Do we sacrifice him to proches? Like, what do we do? Like, he's got to fight somebody. I call me. I don't know. I wouldn't call him. I don't know. Colby should fight him. You like that. You like that fight. Kiesa and Burns aren't going to fight each other because they're buds. We've like had that

conversation a million times. Maybe if court McGee, court McGee beats Michael Kiesso, we do court McGee versus Gilbert Burns. But like, what sells more? Court McGee versus Gilbert Burns or Austin Vanderford versus Gilbert Burns? Vanderford on the poster is a little more. exciting. I don't know that either those are selling much. Well, Gilbert's not really a sell guy anymore. Now he's more of a use name to build up someone.

Gilbert is enhancement talent, but I don't even know how enhanced he is anymore. He's lost four in a row now. Like, Gilbert should probably retire, but you know. Yeah, he got nukes by Michael Morales. There's no,

if he's not going to retire, just fight, to fight, to fight and for the Covington fight makes total sense. Why wouldn't he take it? What wouldn't they take it? I mean, it's annoying that they'd both

be ranked and just kind of spinning the wheels that way, but like, not of them are really ranked. They're ranked in name only, you know? Yeah, I don't know if Colby takes that fight. I don't know, not because he's like, just I don't think it does anything. That doesn't do anything.

That's not a good fight for the promotion, really, unless it's like some weird fight night main event. The throwaway fight. Just, yeah, you got to find something to do with these people. Also, we missed the biggest one. John the Duck Jones. Boom. Right there.

or the chicken either one the turduck and one right there the turduck I'm doing all right I'm doing fine

I stand by my selection I'm with it even fine I don't think your selection's bad I just I don't think there are any good out like selections for Gilbert Burns right now

exactly because he's lost four in a row uh no okay We'll move on. I don't want to trash on Gilbert too much. It's another super chat from Slito.

Garrett-A. Davies mentioned that the UFC has more shooting stars than stars. Interesting point to agree. Also, why does he say, suck it in C? I don't know. So I was, I jumped on submission radio yesterday.

Garrett-A. Davies was a guest for like half the program. We talked about stars and the lack of star power. and yeah, they have more shooting stars than stars, which I think is, I don't know. Probably, pray, I guess. Wish upon them and maybe something will happen. But again, and this is the point I can train. You know, like stars who don't have longevity

but are just there for like a minute. Yeah, and they don't even have really, I mean, they kind of have that right now. But again, there is no bigger star than day. in the UFC right now. Like they are what's making this product millions of dollars, billions of dollars soon to be with this new TV deal. They're about to sign.

But look, the UFC is doing everything that they wanted to do. They don't, they want people to be popular, certainly. They want to sell jerseys and fight kits and all that stuff. And of course, you know,

if they could sell pay-per-view, great. But that's not their top priority. It does not matter who had, headlines these cards. It is going to sell out. It's going to do the biggest gate in the history of the arena. It's going to break fight night records. It does not matter what headlines any card. Does it even matter what the card looks like. They will sell tickets at astronomical prices and break all these gate records, which is perfect for the UFC because after the whole rise and surge of Connor McGregor leading into the Floyd Mayweather fight, the UFC from a business perspective has been saying themselves, we can never get. get in this position again where a fighter becomes bigger than the organization. And at one point, Connor McGregor was bigger than the UFC.

And now the UFC is bigger than the entire roster of fighters. And they will fight their asses off and do everything they can in order to keep it that way. So that's kind of where they're at right now. Yep. Everything Mike said. And I don't know what second and C is. Yeah. I don't know either.

I think it's just a deal with it type thing. Davey says that that's his thing he said it on the show yesterday like all right I'm just caught up in that yeah all right

I'll move on thank you Stato super chat from our wonderful friend Chase you all know what the hell we want to Jed to go off about at this point I no longer feel like John is to blame for this mess with the UFC to keep Tom on the sideline for

the rest of 2025. I also don't feel like John is to blame for this. So if you guys have like missed, if you've been hiding under a rock and you have no idea what's going on, John Jones has spent this entire week trolling the UFC, the fan base and Tom Aspinall.

Want to know why? Because he can. And it gets a reaction. And he's actually in a weird way kind of helping Tom Aspinall in some extent where Tom and his team can be like, look what this fucking guy is tweeting right now. And you're telling me,

you cannot strip this man of the belt right now, that you cannot take the belt away from him. And John knows that the answer is no. They will not take the belt off of him. So he's just going to keep tweeting. I'm not retired. I'm like a step before retirement. Just live in my best life.

And John is right. Every second that goes by, every awful comment, every duck and chicken comment made about him is making him more money potentially. So John is just trolling the world right now and he's loving every second of it. Are we officially past Jed the we need to blame John Jones for this?

And it's all about just the UFC being so stubborn. And this is let's get Habib out of retirement part two in order to get John Jones in the octagon with Tom Aspinall. No, you're exactly wrong. You're exactly the inverse of correct. Previously, we shouldn't have really blamed John Jones. It's fun to blame John, right? Like, you know, chickens can't be goats just trying to goad him into it. But I said the whole time and everybody agreed like he is trying to negotiate his worth.

And there's, I don't blame him for that. Now is the time that I do. And I'm not saying we don't blame the UFC. We blame the UFC. But I have the perfect analogy for this because I thought of this earlier this week as I was sitting around thinking on things. Here's the issue, Mike. What John is doing is technically not wrong. Like he has no.

obligation to Tom Aspinall to do this. There is no law mandating that he do this. The onus does ultimately fall on the UFC. And that is a way to view this and it's not necessarily wrong, but it is sort of implicitly wrong. Because think about shopping carts at a Kroger, right, or at whatever your food chain, you know, Publix, whatever it is that you go to. technically if you use the shopping cart and then just leave it wherever the fuck you want you have done nothing wrong there's no you don't owe anybody the obligation to return it but we live in a society where everything functions better if we have a baseline level of respect for others around us and so if you are a total sociopath and just say eff it the shopping cart goes over

there because i'm too lazy to do this thing over here that would set me back five minutes of my day or whatever, I'm not going to do that. You are not breaking any law, but you are an asshole. But if Kroger then just leave shopping carts all around the parking lot and never collects them, they are in fact the worse of the two because they do owe some obligation to manage, maintain this thing. And so, yes, the UFC is more at fault than John. But John is behaving in a way that is entirely and explicitly selfish.

and it is okay to be like, hey, man, we live in a society. It'd be a lot cooler if you weren't an asshole about this. You're not technically doing anything wrong, but you're also kind of doing something wrong here because if you know that you're done, you can just retire. And per his most recent tweet or whatever, like, I can come back whenever I want. Sick, dude, drop the belt.

Come back whenever you want because that is true. You can walk away from the sport for eight years and come back and immediately fight for the belt. You did it at light heavyweight and then just came and fought for the heavyweight. You could just do that. But at this point, the UFC is obviously worse. I will never say that they aren't more to blame for this.

But we can absolutely start being like, wow, John's just being a real ass about this when he could shit or get off the pot here. And so now is the time we should start blaming John Jones as previously we probably shouldn't have been. I mean, I think you're, I'm on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. John, John was to blame for the entire build to Stipei because John could have just said like, you know what, I don't want the steep fight.

Let's fight Tom Aspinall. And throughout the entire build, it was never about Tom Aspinall. It was about Tom hasn't done enough to earn this fight and who the hell is Tom Aspinall anyways. Alex Pereer is the one who has earned this fight. There you can blame John. I think he deserves all the blame for that because he just let this thing go. and then all the duck accusations and all that stuff, they were completely warranted.

Absolutely. And then him denying Adam Caterall an interview because he's friends with Tom Aspinall. Like those are dickish moves that you can blame him for. But at this point, you want to use the Coker. You don't think blatant selfishness. Like this is entire, like there is no level of this. Of course it is.

This is a almost sociopathic level of selfishness. He could do whatever he wants. He's testing his limits. It's like if you want to use a Croger, shopping cart reference, one, the guy, the, the, the, the Kroger employee who is responsible for putting the carts away at the end of the night, just says, you know what, I'm going to piss off Kroger by leaving one car in the parking lot. And then they give this Kroger employee a raise, even though the rest of the staff is saying, like, look, this dude is a lazy ass. He's not putting the

cart away. That guy's still a trick. You're not firing him. Exactly. But it's, at some point, you have to, but at some point, you have to make a move. At some point, you have to step up and make an executive decision. At some point, you have to make a decision that sends a message to the rest of the roster. And they're not doing it. All they have to do is say John Jones is no longer the champion. Tom Asimals the champion is going to fight zero gone. If John Jones wants to come back and fight for the heavyweight title, he can. All they have to do is say that. And then anytime, and then John can keep being an asshole, but at least he's not an asshole as the heavyweight champion of the world and parading around with a championship belt that he seems to have no

interest in defending. If I'm John, I'm doing the same thing. I'm seeing how far I can take this before the promotion says, fuck off, you're not the champion anymore. Yes, he's a dick. No, the thing is, you're not, Mike. I know you as a person and you are not a bad person. There's no world in which you would actually do this with the explicit point to be a

troll and an ass. And that is almost exclusively what is happening right now. You and I agree. The UFC is to blame. They are, have been from the beginning. They are the people with the onus to act here. But the longer this has gone on, the less acceptable John's blatant selfishness is because we live in a society.

It works better if you're not just totally and impossibly focused only on the betterment of yourself to the exclusion of anything else. John has let this go on too long as he is now explicitly saying, yeah, I'm probably he's not fighting again, but like, whatever, fuck him. I don't care. Ha, ha, ha. So yes, the UFC is the big 100%. I will never argue that the UFC,

they are Kroger. They have the obligation. Return your shopping cart. Be an adult. The tweet that gets me, though, that really put me over the edge on all of this was, I told the UFC my plans months ago. I don't know why they haven't relayed them to you.

That alone is like, what else do you want this guy to do? I mean, again, I'm with you. You're taking a John Jones tweet at face value. I would not do that. In this situation, there's no way that UFC is not aware of what he's tried to do, especially when there's precedent set.

Habeb Narbagham-Madav was like, I don't care if you offer me five brink trucks, each with $100 billion in them. I'm never fighting again. And for months, we had to watch UFC events, and Dana White Post-Fite press conferences like, eh, we've been talking. I think I might be able to get him back.

and there's zero chance of getting Habib back. I feel like we're almost in the same boat right now where it's like until Dana finally admitted he's like, yo, Habib ain't coming back like where the ship has sailed. Everyone's like, all right, now we can move on from this whole thing. You've dangled the car in front of us long enough. Just get rid of it here. I think there's a part of this where Dana is just like, yo, I promise these fans that I'm going to make this fight for them.

and now from all accounts and multiple reports, they offered John the FU money and everything he could have wanted for this fight. And now he's just like, eh, I'm good. I'm just going to chill and live my best life. Okay, well, if you've already met everything he wanted, like just come out and take the belt from him. John doesn't even care.

He even said in a tweet, like, oh, so how do you feel that you're going to get stripped of the belt? And he was like, do I seem like the person that would care about something like that? And it probably doesn't matter. to him. So what are we doing? He said everything he needs to say to take for you to take the belt away from him. Everything. And you're not doing it. It's, it's just crazy. And Tom Aspinall, who could be the greatest heavyweight we've ever seen fight is about to sit out for an entire

year waiting for this to happen. And the longer this lasts, the longer Tom sits. And we won't even think about Tom fighting until November. We're just wasting this. This is not Michael Chandler waiting for Connemar Greger wasting his prime. Chandler was already on the back nine. Tom Aspedal is about to hit his prime, and he's going to have to spend it sitting on the sidelines with the interim belt that he's already had to defend. He's the longest reigning interim champion in UFC history right now,

and he's only fought once since winning that title. It's crazy. This whole thing is ridiculous, and the UFC is allowing this all to go on for far too long. It's annoying. Yeah, they should have stopped this forever ago, but they don't seem intent to do so. And no, I, there is honestly a piece of me that thinks Dana didn't do the post presser at whatever the most recent one was is because at some point he's going to have to have an answer. And I know like far be it for me to say that in May media is ever going to hold Dana White's feet to the fire.

but like the first person who just go like add a thing is like hey Dana Tom Aspin is the longest reigning interim champion in history when are we going to do this and it's like I'm making the fight okay well you've been making that fight for two years like you were making the John versus Francis fight like at what point do you just have to respect the only champion you have who's defending belts and fighting against like top opposition and they don't want to answer that I don't for the life of me, I do not understand what they are doing.

Outside of them just actually believing they can make this get over the line, when it seems very evident to anyone with two eyeballs and a pulse, that this is not going to happen anytime soon. I just don't understand the UFC's position because we keep saying the UFC can do no wrong. So why do this? Dana should have never guaranteed that they can make this fight. He said, we'll try to get it done. Why is this the promise he has to keep?

When we, you know, we don't want to go touchy palace, you know. You know, we don't, we don't need to do this over and over. I mean, so, like, he's broken promises plenty of times out. Why is this one the one the one? Or is it just the most recent one until the next one? Because Dana's head has a very weird John Jones hole in it. Like, he spent half of last year arguing, like, blatantly. wrongly that and angrily that john is the top pound for pound fighter in the world before finally

being like i guess you guys are right was like because obviously there there wasn't a human being alive other than dana and john who thought that he deserved to be called the top pound for pound fighter in the world it was explained to him multiple times and he couldn't his brain just shut off in defense of john and it's super weird it makes no sense especially given the the like myriad problems John has caused him. Like John Jones has probably caused Dana White more sleepless nights than any other fighter. And somehow that inversely made him love John more to where he will do anything in support of him. And it is truly mind-boggling.

Yeah, it is mind-boggling. Yeah. But more importantly, is John Jones someone that returns his shopping cart? I think we know the answer. Dude, come on. I know. Yeah, okay. Yeah, we know.

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Because in my head when I first like read about it, I was like, there's not, nobody does that. Like only stone cold crazy people. And then you actually, the internet just makes everybody accessible. And you're like, oh my God, there are a lot of people who don't do this because you are just psychopaths. This is your. Hey, Mike, since we're doing this kind of special link up, I'm going to log you out and log you right. And I'm going to send you the link. you know the whole shabang.

Yeah. All right, hold on a second. Oh, hell yeah. I've got the ban hammer in the chat. I'm the lead right now while Mike's away. Let's get nonsense. Let me get a question up here. Why reconnect?

Where are we at? Let's take a trolley question, but no, not trolley. Josephosa. Feels like a Joseph Boza question is what you mean to say? Yeah, yeah. Was Patsy misrespected by facing number 10 Mario Batista at UC316? I heard another podcast. We don't recognize other podcasts.

Patchy should have gotten somebody higher for his debut and on a full camp. I don't think this is a truly question at all. I don't think that he was disrespected. And enough smart people who I respect are very supportive of this fight that I have to just believe that I'm, you know, wrong here. Because I do, I am a little more towards the, Patsy probably should have a full camp, that that's on him, right? Like he's choosing to do this, you know,

maybe he's been training and prepping whatever. I would like him to get somebody a little higher up than Bautista, because basically my view is Pachi Mick should be a one in title fight guy, right? Like he is a new name to offer the champion, Mrad Válezavile, who is currently looking at a string of rematch. is ahead of him likely. And so you just want to get Patchy won in there. And I don't think Mario Batista, like maybe if he really shows out,

the UFC just says F it and they do it because they have unilateral ability to do whatever the hell they want. But in my head, it would be like, yeah, maybe it would have been better if Patsy got to come in and get, you know, a top five-ish guy just so he can immediately insert himself against Mrab. But I think that this is fine. And the sooner we get patchy mix in the octagon, the better. So doing it quick turnaround like this is, I would say broadly speaking, not bad.

But Casey, I know we've talked about this on air before. I think Mike is a very big proponent of this matchup, this matchmaking. So if he comes back, he can defend the choices being made here. I like this matchup, mostly because of the timing. It's just because of the main event, Mara Bja, not being the most, you know, I don't know favorable fighter with the fans right now I think it's just a good

fight for patchy yeah I think I would agree like a slightly higher ranked fighter but I kind of dig this fight and I don't want to wait around another like six months it's like it's right next week that's the thing I would the timing is the option is this or wait six months

I would I would rather have this but like I don't know it's I'm trying to look to see like I don't know what song yodong is doing but like in a perfect world I would have been like song versus patchy you know August and then the winner of that gets to fight for the belt because that would be sick sorry I'm now having other technical issues getting Mike in so I'm just bringing the question up yeah yeah all right um oh this is the mic question oh we missed the biggest one

Oh, wow. Yeah. Spider's an animal. So Anderson, that's the, the spider. Also, uh, Kendall, duh spider grove. The spider. I don't know if that's different since it's duh, but yes. I mean, there are, there have to be a billion like animal things out there. Not as many as I thought, there are a billion, but there's, I mean, there's a lot of overlap because they're all living in the same things, you know. Yeah. Yeah, there's about 75. percent pit bulls after that yeah like oh there's a million pit bulls like give me a raccoon you know give me somebody red panda you know all right um here we go questions gentlemen oh lazy bed with arena guadalajara canceling events through september 4th and no chase set for the 13th are we at risk of a last minute switch to a different location and venue uh i don't think we're at

risk of this. I think that this is just going to happen, but I don't think it's going to be the last minute. And I don't blame the USC for this one. I think that trying to do the Guadalajara thing is a great idea for the Noce. It looked like the timeline was going to be open for them. The fact that all the delays have happened, seeing various reporting on the ground of like this place isn't remotely close to being done, I think just in the pretty near future, the UFC is going to pull the plug and say okay well uh this isn't going to work at least i hope i really don't want them to go through with like a half built arena that that's terrible i think in the next month or two they'll be like all right we tried it we'll come back next year when the arena surely by then will be up

we can do a noche thing uh somewhere else i don't know if there's a you know the availability of other venues in mexico on relatively short notice I don't think they'll do the Sphere thing, even though the Sphere thing, Casey won a whole bunch of sports Emmys. So credit for the Sphere show for that. Dana Gowaddy wanted, he said afterwards, or ahead of time, this thing's going to win awards. It did.

I doubt that they can turn that around sort of on that timeline for something like that. But I do suspect that based on all the ground reporting, it's just like this isn't going to happen. They are desperately holding out hope, but I think that that hope will go. away and they'll look to, you know, CDMX or if they can get that, they can get into Mexico City or something or just have to say, screw it and go to Houston or whatever. All right.

That'd be crazy. Yeah. Oh, man, can I get my can? Jeez. My Zoom. Now my Zoom is crashing. Terrific. Things are going great.

All right. Thank you much. Thanks, lazy. Blood and Beer, MMA fighting is so much nicer than Foresa Habi. Did Foressa Habi say anything that I'm unaware of? Yeah, any more details? I don't know. I don't watch for us as YouTube all that often, so I don't know what he's done lately.

I know his brother stole a win from Josealdo and sent him to retirement, which I was pretty unhappy with, but, you know, that's okay. Like I think we saw, if you're going to steal a victory from Josiah. That's how you do it. That's how you do it. At least he didn't Batista that. That's how you do it. So I don't know what for us said.

All right. Any more questions? I won't pick a fight blindly. All right, what else we got here? I got some golf questions, but we don't have Mike here. Are they questions about the old swing rounds? Who? I'll give it to you. I'll give it to you. You're a golf guy.

Hey, golf. Here we go. Mike, based on mere speculation, who do you reckon would have the longest golf drive on the UFC roster? So to the best of my understanding, this is a much more Mike question. To the best of my understanding, Gachi is actually quite good at golf. And I would suspect that he would have the longest drive as a result. because like if you ever watch pro golf like yeah brys and de chambo is enormous and like rory mackroy is not a small person but like a lot of the top pro golfers are not large humans and they still drive the ball 330 or whatever like i'm not like a huge person and my drives are like 270 so i think geichi being good at golf strongly and also like he's one of the hardest punchers at lightweight like the man has power so i suspect that he probably is it.

But if you're just going like, who could you teach to hit the ball furthest, you know, any of the big athletic heavyweights is probably a good answer. I don't know anything about golf. What does it take to have a long drive? Is it, is it, is it in the gym?

Is it all mechanic? I mean, could like... I mean, like there's muscles involved, but it is primarily mechanics. because like the club like we all have muscles enough and it's the club and the you're you're building torque functionally and so like yeah the bigger you are maybe the more you can generate but you're trying to get a lot of a whip like being live is usually a little bit better um but it's primarily mechanics so like you can teach any of these people it's just a hard thing to learn to do

gotcha oh yes i would bet tom aspinall has the ability to drive the ball quite far he's quite athletic and a big big strong fella you know what let's get the man to answer that right now oh he's back can everybody hear me there we got you sorry about that mike but you're back oh we got a question for you based on me your speculation who you reckon it will have the longest golf drive on the ufc roster. I mean, Derek, when Derek got a hold of one, he, he friggin smoked it. I mean, it took a baker's dozen T-shots to hit one.

But some of those, some of those only went about it, but maybe 20 feet too. Oh, yeah. It's, it's, it's got to be a fun video. We had a great, I had a great time watching the first draft early this morning. It's terrific. I bet it's like, I bet it'd be like someone like Yuri perhaps. because like if you, Yuri just seems like a dude that if you were like,

Hey, Yuri, I bet you can't hit a golf golf. I bet he'd be good. I bet he would obsess himself with the mechanics of the golf swing, but then put his own twist on it where he would just hit the ball a mile. So I will go with about three months of obsessive work. I'll go with Yuri Parashka to just be able to absolutely nuke one

once he figures out the philosophy of it. He would definitely have a weird swing. He would be doing some Matt Wolf shit, like some absolutely absurd nonsense. I could also see a guy like Michael Chandler just nuking a golf ball. My answer is Gaichi because he is good at golf and I suspect that that means he consistently drives the ball quite well.

Could be. Also, he hits real hard. He's athletic and he plays a lot of golf. I would just be surprised if like if Gaichi doesn't like have a standard to like a stock 280 drive in him He probably does Any any guesses who would be the worst golfer no matter how hard they tried Oh, I mean a lot of these people would be terrible at it just like J Jones

Is DC me good or is he just like playing DC does not have I D.C I don't think I don't know if DC is good or not the videos I've seen scene of him. They are old. He was terrible. I hear he plays more, so he might have improved. He does not have the build of a man that I would think is very good at golf. All right. Chris Wyden hits the ball pretty far. Like when he gets a hold of it, he can hammer one. You want guys with long levers. Wydenman has some long levers. Like, I bet MVP, if you could teach him how to swing a club. I've no idea if he can.

I would go average do. Joel Alver I mean he's an athlete So he'd do great Yeah I'm just thinking tall lanky dudes Yeah Like yeah you want All the people I play with that drive the ball

The furthest they're tall lanky dudes Because they can they can whip the club head faster It's all about clubhead speed Yep All right Thank you ladies of bed Lazzar I refuse to believe Chandler's the best golfer

I don't want to believe No We are Chandler and I are working on getting something together this summer. I need to know if he's good or not. I need to know if I can beat him because I need to be able to beat him. It'll hurt my soul if he's better at golf than I am.

The last interview I did with him, he said he hadn't played in a year leading into the paddy fight. Strongly suspect that I can beat him in. Yes. I think he went out for like his first round and over a year yesterday. Tanvir, does Anka-Life end up fighting Pereira or Ulberg or Hill get the next title shot? He still's fighting round trees, so he's already booked. I think, Jed, you and I are probably on the same page with the whole Ulberg situation. There's only one fight to make for Carl Solberg and one fight only.

And it's Dominic Grace. Yep. It's Dominic Grace. 100%. 100%. It makes sense. Makes total sense. I think Angolaev and Pere are going to run it back.

I think that that's stupid and it shouldn't happen, but it's fine. And if Oldberg beats Reyes, then he has to fight Yuri. next. He's like, he's gonna have to win two probably before he gets title shot. If he beats Reyes, but actually just beats him fun,

then it would be fine. But if he wins boring again, then yeah, I'll have to fight Yeri. Pereira shouldn't fight Uncle I have. He should just go to heavyweight. I don't know why he would, I genuinely don't understand

why he would fight Uncle Yves. Like, he should view this identically. Yeah, he should view this identically to the Izzy loss of like, okay, because like he could go win.

Like, I'm not saying he can't win. win, he could. What's the upside, right? Like, you've already put a loss in, like, you'll probably just have to fight him a third time. That's not, that, that's like the least exciting rivalry you could imagine is you and Angolaev. So that's not even like huge business. If you lose the third time, then you're going up to heavyweight anyway.

If you win, like, are you really putting together another light head? No, just go up to heavyweight, dude. Like, you did it. You checked the box. You were never going to be the greatest light heavyweight of all time. that's too high of a bar to clear take a less than familiar at Teparia you could never do it

so you're just like ah screw it I'll go up and try and do this other thing like that's 100% he should be like cool I'll go fight Jelton Alamed at heavyweight and if the winner of that gets to fight Tom Aspinall for the undisputed belt sick is if you take John Jones

out of the equation is Aspinall and Kaliva at heavyweight for the belt the undisputed heavyweight championship belt Is that the biggest fight the UFC can make? No. It's on colla. Wait, Asthma versus Sue?

Aspernata versus two? No, I said, not Enklaev. I said, you said Ashtonov. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You raised that, you raised that. Not Enkalev. I meant prayer. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

I mean, I totally meant prayer. Yes. Is astronaut Pereer. I don't know if it's the biggest one of the big. Yeah, to me, because now that Tuporia and Islam are locked up for a while, seemingly, that if they made a fight tomorrow, that would be the biggest fight they can make, right? It's right up there if it's not the biggest, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, just make it. Yeah. Just make it. Yeah. If all this stupidness, I was like, yeah, just make that fight. Or if you're Alex, just DM John and be like, hey, I'll fight you. We don't have to fight for a belt.

No one will care if we fight if there's a belt online or not. Tweet that you're vacating your heavyweight title and you and I will fight at cruiserweight for the goat belt of all time. Sick. Like that's fighting magma and uncle I have is like the worst of the options available to Alex prayer Like it would make more sense

Even money wise Even precarious duplus C at middleweight And it's to fight magma I have no idea Why he would possibly want to do that That's just pride at that point Because there's nothing to do of his bank account Yeah because that's very Money wise that's the worst fight of all them

All right Thank you much Okay Only 10 more presents to wrap You're almost at the finish line. But first... There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.

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when you lost the fall bake-off to perfect Penelope Johnson? Okay, a bit TMI, but we're here for it. So download the app today and get zero delivery fees on your first three orders. Instacard, groceries that over deliver. Service fees exclusions and terms apply. Hear me out, Jan versus Reyes too. I think the Reyes-Ober fight makes a ton of sense, but if they don't, I don't hate it. Sure.

Just keep Reyes away from Yuri. Don't do that again. As much as I love that first fight. The fight was awesome. It was awesome. Yeah, that was my fight of the year in 2021. But it was also the scariest knockout I may be seen in the UFC at to that point. Because I thought Dominic Grace was never fighting again.

I was just hoping he would open his eyes. And now he's one victory away from getting that strap back. Oh my gosh. What a story. But you don't, you want my scene that rematch out if it's for the belt, though. I know you're scared for Dom. but if it's for the belt, I think that rematch.

If it's for the belt, yeah, all right, if it's for the belt. Because that's got a hell of a story. Yeah, hell of a story. Oh,

geez. When you were gone, we, animal nicknames, we completely forgot the spider. And somehow, we missed this one. Oh,

the Iron Turtle. Of course. I saw that in the chat. Yeah. And there's, there are a million of them out there. But Iron Turtle on, on this show?

Come on. it's true all right another one from mr boza thoughts on keoguchi's return delayed for ufcnavcc 8 june 21st who should keoggi face in his return so for fans this is like

probably the best case scenario honestly right because people did not like the tigir Ulan back off fight they're just like what why are we doing this we watch kaius kirk get a title shot and now like this is happening. So who should KioG face in his return? I have an idea, but your thoughts, Jed.

Oh, I was super happy when this news broke. I don't know why. I don't know if we know why and I just missed it. But like the Ull and Beck off fight was just terrible. It was rat shit. Like that's I can't call it the worst U.S. matchmaking because Jose Aldo's last three fights exist. But it's really bad matchmaking that just,

like probably wouldn't even be that fun. No one would care. It doesn't put Kyoji in the mix immediately. So this fight falling apart is terrific. I don't. The truth is I don't care who you put Kioji against any top five dude will do. Throw them in there with pants. That would be sick.

They have both basically acknowledged they would fight each other for a title. I don't know who you'd be looking at and thinking because to me, the only choice, And I'm trying to think if this guy got booked again or not, but I don't think like Brandon Moreno, just run that at the, the wherever we do, you missed us talking about Guadalajara. Maybe not happening. But whenever that event, the Noche event happens if Kioji is able, because I don't, again, I don't know what forced him out of this. Yes, I said. That's that to me, that's the A plus. That's good one.

I like the cop Royval loser as well either of those two men would be fun but you're okay with you're okay if Kioji going straight to title shot too also facing the winner of pants who gives a shit you know well I mean not who gives a shit but if you could

I won't be okay with it if Manel cop beats Brandon Royval because he will be undeniably next in line that makes sense yeah if uh but also like If Pantojo loses to KKF, then things get very silly, very quickly. I suspect he'll get an immediate rematch, but that'll just throw a whole spanner in the works. But if Pants wins, MNL Kopp win, you got to do that.

There's nothing that can stand in the way. But if not, I know Brandon Orval will deserve a rematch, and I wouldn't be upset at that point if he gets another one, but I'd rather watch Kyo. That would just be more fun to me. Yeah, it's not too many options after that. Yeah. All right. I mean, if KKF wins, things get wide open in a hurry.

All right. Yeah, I'll be very. That'll be one of the more surprising results of the year if Kai wins this fight. I don't even. It is what it is. And normally it's like availability is your best friend, but there are multiple fighters available. Minel Kopp, specifically fighting on the same card and not fighting for the belt is a little annoying. That's on the same card.

Oh, I didn't know that was on the same card. Same card. It's the functional backup fight. If I'm cop or Royval, I'm coming in on championship weight and hoping Kikara France slips on a banana peel. All right. Thank you, Mr. Boza. Oh, yeah, we've got some more animal names out there. I see the Monkey King, Jordan Levitt.

Ah, great one. I guess Monkey King counts. Polar Bear certainly. The Great ape. Alexander Hernandez, the Great ape now. I forgot about that. The polar bear. The gorilla.

Oh, yeah. Polar bear, yeah. Polar bear, yeah. The Alaskan polar bear, Paul Varland's. Oh, Alberg. Black Jagg. Yep. Yep.

There you go. Although, when I think of Oldberg, I think of Ladies' Night, not Black Jagg. Yeah, he's Ladies Night. Super Chat from Chase. What will be the sentiment about Tom Aspinall if he loses his next fight after John is finally stripped? To who? loses to who? I mean, I guess

Cyril gone. It seems like the guy who has the inside track, but it could be Volkov or Almeda. That's a good question. My guess is John will start tweeting

and all the worst people on the internet would be like, yeah, see John. John was right all this all along. And so there will be certainly some of the like, actually, Tom Aspinall is all smoke and mirrors.

There will be some people who will just be like, damn, great performance from Jailton Almeida or zero gone or whatever. I think it'll probably be a lot of people who are having to be more quiet because it's very hard to defend John at this juncture will be quite loud for a minute. And then they'll recognize that John still didn't beat Tom Aspermore. John just didn't fight him. and then it'll settle out and it'll depend long term

on how Tom rebuilds. If that's a hiccup and he comes and reclaims the belt and goes on a long reign, cool. If he sort of Sergey Pavlovich is it and just kind of falls apart, that'll be tough.

All right. Because like that is the thing, the thing about that fight and we've all said it from the beginning. It's not that we think Tom is going to beat John. Like, I think at this point I'll favor Tom. But like, it would not remotely surprise me of John Jones asserted his greatness and beat him.

Because we still don't know how much about Tom Aspaw. He just punches dudes and they die. Like, that's it. That's all every fight has been him punching a dude and they die. And so like, Sergey Pavvich did that. And the first dude, well, not the first dude because Alistar Overim did it. But then after the Overim thing, the first dude who didn't die when he punched him and then he died because Tom punched him. Like it's, we don't really know like what Tom's game looks like against resistance.

And John, for whatever faults he has and whatever criticisms you can levy, is a man who will provide resistance against any human being he fights. It's a good fight and it's a fight that I would like to see because I don't know who wins, but I don't think we're going to get there. And so then people will just start spinning the narratives they want if Tom ends up They just should have never made Tom Aspinel versus Sergey Pavlovich that quickly for an interim belt. We would not even be in this company position right now. They really shouldn't have done that.

Really stupid. We said it literally the day they announced that this is a terrible idea. Is there a chance that would, if John isn't injured, why aren't they stripping Aspinall? Because John's also not defending his belt? and yeah yeah we're you can't you can't strip aspirin if john retires then you then you just don't have a champion and then you got to put tom back in a title fight and that's just very the optics are terrible i don't i genuinely don't understand what's going on i would like dana to answer the question and not answer it in a lie or a partial truth but i would like to genuinely just be like dana

cameras off, off the record. What are you thinking and why is this happening? This seems very, very weird. He'll say, talk to Hunter Campbell. He's been having all the conversations. He will also say, look, if you don't hear from us, it's bullshit. Anything anybody else is reporting is bullshit. So I said off the record, does it just me and him over a couple of drinks,

just telling me the real, like the actual truth, like what's going on here? because is it just that you are waiting until the next New York card and that's where you've drawn your line? I'm like, okay, if John won't fight Tom in Madison Square Garden, then whatever. And does this look bad? Sure, but we don't give a shit, so it'll be fine. And we'll just wait till then, and then we'll strip John if not. Like, maybe that's it.

I don't know. It's baffling to me. It's all ridiculous. A muscle shark is not a real animal. I didn't include dragons in my animal conversations either. But a muscle shark, while one of the funnier nicknames, that's a fictitious animal. Yeah, you've already said Doberman. Thank you, lazy bed.

What? Trenchola, though, yes. But also, he doesn't fight anymore, so, you know. Yeah, yeah, that's why we omitted it. Jeez, come on. What, which interim chant? I told Anthony Perosh the hippo, but we didn't get Jailantner, the torrential. To be fair, I think of Hippo all the time.

I think one of the funny nicknames. Which you have the interim champions have been stripped. They didn't actually fight for the title or lose the title in the country. Tony Ferguson. Was Whitaker? No, Whitaker fall for the belt. Whitaker was elevated. And Whitaker became champion after GSP retired.

It might just be... Oh, he got upgraded or did he fight for? He got elevated. He got elevated. He got elevated. Okay. Tony got stripped because he got hurt. He tripped on a cable.

He got stripped because he wouldn't fight Woodley on like a month's notice or whatever. Any other ones? I think that's it. That's it. Yeah. I'll take a little. Everybody else like... All the top of my head.

I think everybody fall for it. Yeah. Cool, cool. All right. Just wondering. All right. Thank you. Force Daniels. Should Iliate Taboria fight Patty the Batty in his first title defense if he gets past Charles? You bet your ass he's calling for that fight and you should. A billion percent, yes. I don't think he will call for that fight, but a billion percent, yes. You don't think so?

We usually call for Islam. Yes, I think you can know what Eli is going to do by what he says he's not going to do. because he said he wasn't going to fight Max Holloway and then he fought Max Holloway. He said he didn't have to fight for the lightweight title. He would just move up and fight Charles Olivaa or whatever. And he's fighting for the title. He said he won't fight Islamakov.

Islam's going to need to beg him for a win. I suspect quite strongly the man will get on the mic and be like, Islamachiev, you ran away. I hope you beat Jack Delamadalana because I'm coming for that belt. And I don't blame him. I think that if he can make that happen, That's good business for him, but if he can't, then I think this is a wonderful consolation prize for him.

All right. Thank you much. Masters of the universe really wants us to answer this question. We're favorite top three UFC commentators of all time, and who would you like to see commentate who hasn't already? All right. Play-by-player color. Who are we talking?

It's two different things. I would say all. I just include them all. I think Annick is the goat UFC commentator. so I would put him in there. I think he's just the best at it. You also understand my position. I think Brian Stan was good.

I'm sure that Brian Stan would have sucked if he did it for longer. My longstanding take that commentators should max out at three to five years is here. I'll include Brian Stan because he didn't. And I guess he doesn't kind of... Did Mere ever do UFC? I know he was the WC guy for a long time.

I don't remember he never had a year. He never did UFC. That's a shame. He was quite good at WC. Didn't he get fired for some reason from WEC? And then there was he. There was the, he said, I thought it was the Brock thing. He said something murder.

Like it was, he said something in a time. He said something at a time that they said it now. When you couldn't say stuff. Yeah, like now. Couldn't you say anything you wanted. Yeah, now. It was barely made the morning report. If he said that now.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Who's the I think Felder's really good. What can I think of his name? Good. Good.

Yeah, I'll go good. I like good. Good and is good. Their play by play by play guys are all. There are all excellent. The play by play by play guys are professional broadcasters. So they're much better at this. Then people that they bring in.

So I would honestly probably actually pick three play by play guys. Do you miss Goldie? No. I think Goldie gets a little bit of a bad rap because I do think there's a period of time where he was like what the O.C. needed. I don't ever think he was good at his job, frankly. But there was a period where he filled the necessary role

of like just being more excited. And this is going to sound disparaging and it's not really intended that way. For a big portion of the early development of the UFC, it was pretty good to have a dumbass in the booth because Joe Rogan could just teach him about fighting and so like if you don't know fighting like Goldie didn't know a goddamn thing

and so half of it was like being party to a lesson of this is jujitsu or whatever and so that was like honestly useful that utility ran out and he would stay long past he should have but I think that's a period where he was mattered what you say for Goldie I say for Rogan

exactly the same at the time. Rogan was so important to explain to new fans, to explain to these new bros why two sweaty dudes pressing against each other against the cage is the coolest shit ever. And you needed that, you know, and but I think we're past that.

And yeah, it's tough too. Because I think if you just did Rogan and Annick, I think people would appreciate Rogan's commentary more. The problem is he's fighting for the microphone with Daniel Cormier who, and you know, Daniel wants his time too. And they both want to say, like, prove who is the more correct. And you hear that when DC and Cruise are in a booth together or when DC and Bisvinger are in a booth together.

Like you have a bunch of alpha males on the microphone trying to say what they need to say and want to be more right than the other person. And then you mix in a Paul Felder and Paul's just kind of like the low, chill dude who just throws the cool commentary out there. And he also makes the cruises and the D.C.s and the Bisbing's better because Felder knows how to set those guys up. And he's not trying to talk over anybody, which I appreciate about him. And which is why I like, I think he might make my list of top three because of what he brings

to the table. He elevates everybody else. He makes Dominic Cruz better. He makes Bisman better. He makes D.C. better just because of his demeanor and he knows when to lay back. And I think he's the best post-fight interview. viewer as well of all these guys. And for some reason, we never get to see him do post-fight interviews anymore, even

though he's the best at it. He has to watch Michael Bisbing do it. And, you know, seniority, Bella's not going to complain, but he's just great. He's just great. And as far as who hasn't already, I think we're all kind of in the same boat, right? I don't know. Smith, Kiesa. Oh, I don't.

KS are great. Anthony Smith do commentary. I'm sure he'd be fine. Really? I don't care. Oh, he's great. He's great at color commentary. He's outstanding, actually.

I'm sure it'd be fine. I don't care. I don't, the people that they have on the booth, like, again, I'm sure that they would all be fine, like the people who do the analyst desk, none of them. Like, if we're going to do it, I would like us to do somebody who I don't hear talk about stuff in this context,

but who, I know to be geniuses of fighting. Because my issue with Dominic Cruz is Dominic Cruz is a very siloed view of things. He can only understand a fight through the context of which he would compete in it. And that has always been my issue. He cannot recognize that other fighters do things differently than him. And so when they are doing things differently, it's not a stylistic preference or choice. It's bad because they aren't getting the underhook like he would or whatever.

Like that has always been my issue with Cruz. Cruz is very smart and if when he is doing so like when he's commentating a fighter who competes in a similar fashion to him, I think you're you're getting the best of him. Daniel Cormey is a fight genius and for a while he was quite good. Then he became a caricature of himself because everybody lost their minds over the Thug Rose call and he just now does that. That's negative reinforcement. But like I want other fight geniuses. I just hear different perspectives. Like, it might suck.

I would, I would lock in for a Habib on a commentary booth just to be like, to talk shit about these people. Like, what, like, what are they doing? What's going on? I think Volcanovsky actually should get an opportunity. I think he might, he could potentially be very good at it. Because he is obviously a fight genius. Like, he is obviously a genius of fighting. And so I think when his career is done, I'd like to see him get an opportunity.

to do that. Habib would just be fun to me. And if you're going to give me a third, I tried really hard to think of like a female, like just a woman. Because they could desperately use more of that. But like, it's a hard line. Angela has this commentary all the time. I think she's great. I want somebody new. Like, again, somebody who hasn't already is the problem. But UFC hasn't brought her and she does it. Yeah, but like I want a whole fresh person. It's like I don't think Chefchenko should be remotely near a commentary booth. You know, like that would not go particularly well.

So it's just like finding somebody else in there and I don't, you know, maybe Yawanna, like that might not be awful, but that might not go well either. I don't know. Nah, Yohanna, Yonah should be like when Dana steps down. you want to should be like the face of the company she should be the Dave Shaw moving forward like just bring her in to talk about shit like that's that's what's up Laysbex is Justin Corey Sanhagen I would love Corey basically fighters who are going to become good coaches after their fighting careers are done I think those are going to make the best

color commentators yeah I think Kamar Usman at a time I always thought he'd be great at it maybe he still could I'll live my bit I don't know I think he's been so podcasting has killed so many of these guys because they forget. I know. Podcasting and color commentary are different things. And that's why I've always hated when Rogan and D.C. are together because they think they're on a podcast and not calling fights, which is two different things. And then you hear like DC do the college wrestling stuff and you're just like, man, remember this guy?

Remember him? Oh, yeah. It was like a whole different thing. I would very much like Drickus 2 plus C. Not now, but in a few years. Like, because the thing is I don't want an active fighter. I guess just you don't get somebody who can spend the time not doing other things with their time. I left just coaches, get coaches in there.

Oh, oh, we're all stupid. Porre should a billion percent get a crack. Oh, yeah. Porey should be, yeah. Porey should be, once he retire, he should be on every paper of your broadcasts. either on the desk or he should be a part of it in some way should perform. He's so good in that spot. But yeah.

Again, we should get to see this because they shouldn't lock in any commentator for longer than five years. There's no shortage of fighters who could have fun, be useful, be entertaining. Just rotate them through. All right. Thank you, Master Universe. Anything else? One last super chat before we get out of here. Jedd shading the goat Anthony Smith again boo

I just I don't I never got the Anthony Smith support I don't have an issue with him but he is not I give a lot of credit to that man because he should have had a nothing of a career and he had vastly exceeded the expectations of him

if you gave him a hundred tries at this I don't think he can possibly do better he spiked it and he has never like he's not a bad talker, right? But he's not the most engaging person to me. And so it's just like, I don't need to see him in the booth. I'm sure he'd be fine, but I don't care.

All right. Thank you, Achilles. And just- Give me Angela Hill in the booth. That'd be fun. Sure. Yes. Yep, yep.

And before we leave, one more thing. Return your shopping carts, ladies and gentlemen. That is a message we all need to learn. Return. There's two very important lessons in life. that will make you not an asshole. Return your shopping cart and pick up your dog's shit off the ground. You'd accomplish both of those things.

Also true. You're a good spot. Dude. Just don't be a lazy asshole. There have been times in my life where I was walking a dog and like thought I had bags and then the bag, like he pooped like three times and suddenly I don't have enough bags. And it's like it gives me stress to be like, I have to leave that and now I have to come back and get it.

But what if somebody is looking at? out their window and just sees me being an asshole right now. And there's not like a way to say, I'm going to come get this in an hour when I get home and then can get it, but like pick up your dog shit, man. I will literally stand there for five minutes thinking about my next move. Do I just, do I run home and grab a sign and put it around? I've gotten leaves. I've picked up leaves.

You do the leave thing. You do the leave thing. You know, that's what you do. I've done the grab leaves to then just throw it into a nearby trash can or whatever, like I'll do anything I can to not leave shit there because it genuinely makes me uncomfortable to be, was very stupid, obviously, but to be like judge silently. The last time I did that, I actually knocked, I actually knocked on the person's door where the poop was near.

And I was like, I promise you, I'm just running around the corner to get bags. I will be right back. And they were like, oh, thank you. And then I would run back and do it. And they're very thankful. very thankful. So return your shopping cards. Pick up the poop. Hit the music. Pick up the poop. Just pick up the poop, John. Pick up the poop. Pick it up, John. Pick it up, John. Put it in the poop bag. Put it in the poop barrel. All right. Pick up the poop. That's it, everybody. Thank you for joining us. UFC Backbex Week with Aaron Blanchfield versus Macy Barber at the world's most famous apex. We also got Matush Gamrot, Luke Klein, on that card. A.C. Chesson versus Captain Vieira, big fight, buried on the prelands.

We'll talk about that and much more. Hopefully, John picks up the pool. Jed, the Casey, I, and Mike. We're out of here. Goodbye. Love y'all. This has been Between the Links, an MMfighting production, on the Vox Media Network. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you.

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