MMA Fighting - BTL | Jon Anik Reacts To UFC 306, Dvalishvili Dethrones O'Malley, UFC 309 Fight Announcements

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

UFC 306 is officially in the books, and Merab Dvalishvili is the new UFC bantamweight champion after defeating Sean O’Malley in the main event via unanimous decision. Where do both guys go from this past Saturday’s card, and with O’Malley announcing he’s having surgery, can he get back to a title shot quickly? On an all-new edition of Between the Links, Jon Anik kicks off the show to give his reaction to the event, the Sphere experience with Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier, Dvalishvili and Valentina Shevchenko becoming new champions, and more. Additionally, topics may include the two big fights announced for UFC 309 with Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic becoming official, along with Charles Oliveira vs. Michael Chandler 2 getting revealed as the co-main event, Conor McGregor’s absence from the octagon extending even longer, and whatever else is on your mind. MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Jed Meshew take your questions all show long. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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But first, there, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. 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, as we embark on our monthly Q&A edition of the program following UFC 306.

Two new champs being crowned, the experience, et cetera. Love these shows. But today we're doing things a little bit differently. Jed Mishu is going to hop on a little bit later on for our usual banter session and to answer your questions. But right now, we kick off the show in a very special way because what better way to react to UFC 306 than to do so with the man who's in the building? who provided the damn soundtrack for the event,

who called the action from start to finish. My fellow New England turned Southeast resident, the lead commentator of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He is none other than the great John Anick. John, how are you, my man? Good to see you. Oh, I'm doing great. It's good to do this live.

It's good to come in off the Esther Lynn vocals. I like the music bed. As far as I'm concerned, we can keep that going as long as you goddamn well, please. But it's great to be with you. We've never done this live. and trying out this new studio at my twin brother's space to have a little bit more room

and hopefully it goes swimmingly backup setup in the kitchen just in case. It looks spectacular. Crystal clear. The guests have had crystal clear pictures the last two weeks. Luke Thomas did a tremendous job

last week. You're coming in hot this time. And look, UFC 306 is wrapped in pack. A lot of changes have been made in the title discussions. But let's talk about the venue, the production, the scenes inside the sphere, in Las Vegas.

What was it like being there? And then after you got the sneak preview and the first looks and everything, did it exceed your expectations still? So all week, I just was sort of marinating in the fact that Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier and my twin brother and all these people weren't going to have seen any of this until they walked in there on Saturday night. And given all that my Saturday holds, I'm thankful that I was privy to some of this because spectacular doesn't even begin to describe it,

a broadcasting experience of a lifetime for me. And it sounds ungrateful to say, please give us another shot in there. But that's all I think a lot of us kept feeling. It just was so amazing. I mean, Diego Lopez putting his hands in the air, my brother captured it if there's like a Coliseum behind him. Bro, it was absolutely unbelievable start to finish.

And, you know, I do think 10 fights is the right way to do it. I'd be fascinated to see how the UFC and how our live production team would approach a second chance in there when it comes to fight card and thematically what you would do, whether it was a celebration of the UFC or as Daniel Cormier would like, the stars and stripes, but just incredible, just incredible. And I think a lot of people are suggestive that with this sort of merging of sports

art and entertainment that, you know, with venues in the future, there's a lot of things that could happen from here in terms of venue construction and everything else. but to be a part of it very special and just give us another shot michael just one more shot what was i know there are some photos of like joe rogan looking at it for the first time that you had posted like what did he say to you was he just like oh my god this is like this is so ridiculous what was that like so he's seen it all he's a renaissance man far more that than me so i still felt convicted in the fact that he would be effectively blown away and yeah just jaw

dropped and oh my gosh you know and one visual sort of upstages the one that came before it. And we went all the way up to the 400 section as high as you can go, which are some of the best seats to do our pay-per-view open. And I actually didn't quite get down in time. And so we had a little bit of a lead navigation in terms of our throw to the next piece. But it was insane to see their reactions for the first time. And you think you know what you're walking into and you really don't. And, you know, even if heavy metal isn't necessarily my number one music genre, if there was a heavy metal concert at Sphere and I had recreational time in Vegas,

that's what I'd go do. Like, if there's anything going on in that building, I would want to go there. But for a live sporting event to play out like that with live fighting, just spectacular. I know you and I are not at an island with this. You just said, like, we got to do this again.

Like, I know the undertaking was ginormous and the amount of work behind the scenes. And shout out to everyone involved. I feel like Zach Candido, who you talk about pretty much every time we speak, he's like one of the, he may be the unsung hero of UFC 306 with how this all came together. But after seeing this, like, it doesn't have to be NoC UFC. This would be cool for International Flight Week or something else.

Like just that's one card every year. It could be a different theme. It was just so damn cool, man. Like even on television, I don't know if you got the chance to watch the broadcast back, but there were certain points where the production value, you're not in the building, but it made it seem like you're pretty damn close to being inside. the building. I thought it was frigging wild. Yeah, great lengths were gone to to make it translate on television and credit to go around to so

many people. Craig Borsari and Chris Kartsmark, Zach Candido, of course, and Michael LaPlant, and then directors, Anthony Giordano, we brought in Glenn Weiss on and on, I could go. But bro, when you look at the fight cards for UFC 307 and UFC 308 on paper, Jose Aldo's fighting on the prelims in Salt Lake City, UFC 308, I don't say this hyperbolicly, maybe the best fight card I've ever been assigned, go to Wikipedia and look up UFC 308, right? So just imagine for a second, UFC 307 or UFC 308 on paper,

Kamzachimaya versus Robert Whitaker at Sphere fucking Vegas and tell me we couldn't effectively change the game forever. So this was an amazing experience. I just think we need one more shot. Completely agree. But John, we had the experience as I talked about.

We have two new champions as well. One is Marab de Walshbili. And there's just something in the air this year, my man. The fighters who are long overdue for their championship opportunities, the long rotors to the top of the division, they're cashing in and making it happen. First it was Blal Mohamed. Now it's Marab de Walsh, really.

He gets his chance. He beat Sean O'Malley via unanimous decision. And it was, you know, some of the Marab chaos, but it was a controlled chaos approach from Marab. And despite a couple of 48, 47 cards, it sure didn't seem like that close of a fight, did it? He's the best band of weight in the world. And, you know, even if it wasn't to your point as chaotic

or as offensively pleasing as some of his last fights when he attempted 49 take downs against Piotr Yon, Marab Dwalis Willey's the man. And in the rub there of what you said was his chance. And not unlike Bilal Muhammad, he was getting one chance and broke through in a big way. You're right. It wasn't a close fight.

And even if you want to suggest that, O'Malley won rounds three and five. The outcome didn't really hang in the balance. O'Malley did need a finish in round five. And, you know, I love Sean. I really do. I'm excited to see the rebuild. He's a better grappler and wrestler than people think he has owned this loss,

honestly, in terms of being out strengthened. But Marab's the man. And it's amazing to think about a fight between him and Umar and Mungar Mago Medov, because anyone who's fighting Maraub, he's so quick, right? Like, Sean O'Malley has a speed advantage against everybody. seemingly. But man, Marab's quickness combined with his will, that third lung that none of us seem to have other than him and maybe Colby Covington and a few others figures to be a really hard got to beat. So really happy for him, for the journey, for my friend Ray Longo, for Al Jemaine

Sterling, who suboptimally had to defend his title against Sean O'Malley in a way that, you know, left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. You know, good on Marab Dwalis Willey, good on the nation of Georgia. And yeah, good on a longstanding winning streak type guy like Bilal breaking through and becoming the best in the world. It was just a perfect game plan. Like I know a lot of people wanted to see just absolute mayhem, but I think of Marab went full mayhem. Might have been a tough night for him. I thought it was perfect. He kept Sean just off balance all night long. And I feel like the story of this fight in the fallout is I feel like Marab's been kind of lost in it all to a certain degree because a lot of the narrative is Sean O'Malley was flat. He didn't look himself.

Then we find out about the injury and the torn labrum and he needs surgery and he's going to take an extended period of time off. And then there's the Herb Dean side of thing and things and how he was not a great referee in the fight and what happened at the beginning and him calling for possible timidity and all that stuff. Yet Marab won the fight and the title. Do you feel like he's not getting the credit he deserves in the aftermath of this all? Well, it doesn't really matter. I mean, I don't know if if that's a fair answer or dodging your question, right? But, you know, when Marab and Bilau retire, they're always going to be referred to as former undisputed UFC champion, no interim or otherwise, right, best in the world and defending his title probably in a few months, right?

These are going to be great champions for the UFC. And I hate to sort of align their stories, right? But if we put the focus on Marab, he's willing to fight all of these guys. Yeah, maybe he'd rather fight Davidson Figurito, the new Martin-Mago Medov right now. But it stands to reason that he is going to be a great champion. So, excuse me, even if maybe I inject the Sean O'Malley rebuild into our conversation prematurely, and maybe my curiosity on a Monday morning quarterback type situation lies there a little bit. Marab will be celebrated. You know, we tried our best to celebrate him as Challenger, even given sort of this Noce, UFC, Mexico backdrop.

And that's the thing too, right? Part of the balancing act, imagine Marab gets his chance. championship opportunity in a different setting at UFC 307 in Salt Lake City, right? It's a totally different lead-ups. So I guess I talked my way into thinking that maybe he's a little bit under celebrated and, you know, he deserves the world right now and it's in his hands. Umar has to be next. I, like you said, I know he's calling for Davison.

The shot O'Malley rebuild, like you said, is really interesting right now because it could be six months, could be nine months. He said it could even be upwards of a year. This division could look vastly different. by the time he comes back. Like I know Corey Sanhagan is called for this fight, Henry Sohudo is called for this fight, and there's just so many, a slew of contenders,

that would be interesting matchups for Sean O'Malley. So is he in a situation because of where he's at and how many fans he has where take your time, come back, get a win, and you're right back in there? Well, I think the good news, if you're looking for a silver lining for the UFC, is that had Sean won this fight, maybe this hip injury would have had to have been repaired anyway, right?

And then you have a champion who is idling and then you wonder if you need an interim champion. So I think right now your new champion is pretty durable and willing to take on all challengers. And a murderer's row, of course, awaits Sean O'Malley with the Corey Sandhagans of the world and everybody else. But there are a lot of dream type matchups at 35 for fight fans, right? I mean, even Sean O'Malley and Dominic Cruz make some sort of semblance of sense right now. So there's a lot of different fights at 35 that make a lot of sense. But Omar and Magomato is not going to be denied right now. He's undefeated.

He deserves the opportunity. He's been a guy who's been avoided a lot of his career. And, you know, thankfully, you have, I think, a new champion who wants to prove, you know, time and time again, however many times he needs to take you down and prove he's the best in the world. He's more than willing to do it. Great win from Rob to Lashvili. Valentina Shvchenko is once again the women's flyway champion. sweeps all three cards. Look, it wasn't the most thrilling fight of all time,

but it sure was dominant. At the end of the day, it's about getting the W, it's about getting the title back. And there are only a few times that pop into my brain immediately where a champion is in the midst of a fight and they are visually frustrated. One that comes to mind is Douglas Limoni, he fought Yaroslav Amasov.

This man just was like, I can't do anything about this, I lose in Bellator. like he just accepted it. Alexa Grasso was up there. Now she tried. There were certain moments that looked a little bit hairy, but Valentina Shvchenko was just a hoss in there. And it looks like the 36,

about to be 37-year-old John Anick, has more gas left in that tank, doesn't she? Dude, I mean, a year off for Valentina Shavchenko and Alexa Grasso coaching the ultimate fighter, my gosh man. And I hate to sit here and suggest that I didn't think this was inside of her. But gosh, man, just given the,

the Alexa Grasso trajectory and given what she had accomplished in both of the two fights, even if she didn't win the bulk of those rounds, just felt like maybe momentum in the series and the division might have swung that way. And instead you get this vintage performance from Valentina Shevchenko that makes me think she's an even greater problem for the Manuel Fjors of the world than I ever would have thought going into that fight. So credit to Valentina and her coaches and being the strategist that they are, but just to execute that strategy, as DC always talks about over 25 minutes,

is very hard to do. And gosh, she made it look easy. And Alexa Grasso was in the shape of her life and couldn't do anything about it. And I haven't heard what Alexis had to say as far as the lean into the offensive jujitsu as strategy. You know, I know D.C. and Joe even were maybe in some disagreement as to how close some of those submission attempts were. But from my standpoint, Valentina was not in trouble for one second of that fight. Hail Valentina Shevchenko. And if there was any athlete that didn't need a win like this to cement her legacy, it was her.

And yet, oh, my God, it might be her best win. I hope that isn't overstating it. Yeah, I can see that. And what's great about this result, either way, is, and I know Alex Grasso has a case to be made to run it back again. But I don't think they're going to do that. And I feel like when you sweep all three cards, the door kind of shuts, may not completely lock behind. Could be something in the future without title implications. But the division can now move along, John Anick.

Some interesting options for Valentina. Like you said, there's men in Fioreau who should be next. Rosamami Yunis is fighting Aaron Blanchfield. Natty Ice, Natalia Silva has looked fantastic. Macy Barber is on a nice run. Plus, Jean-Wei Lee is expressing interest in moving up. And now we saw a fight between Tatiana Suarez and Verna Gangeroba is close to being finalized for UFC 310.

Perhaps that's an option we could take a little more seriously. And we talk about this all the time. You and I are in lockstep about the champ versus champ fights, how they've lost luster. But if Jean-Wea-Lee is going to move up, if she does the thing I wish all fighters would do in this situation, if she says, you know what, I'm a flyweight now, here's the belt, have fun.

Should Mennon Fioro be worried? Because with respect to what Mannon has done, and she's damn good, there's no denying Shevchenko versus Zhang Wei-Lee is the bigger fight. I wasn't worried for Mennon Fior until you just asked me that question. I mean, she deserves,

this fight. You and I both know it. Obviously, she backed up this weekend, which most of your audience knows. I understand the nature of some of the big names, and they are big names. Rosenama Yunus fan base is excited about Aaron Blanchfield. Certainly the Zhang Wei Li angle, my gosh, but I think we have a pretty clear, rightful number one flyweight contender right now. I think the good news is that not unlike Dominic Cruz and Uriah Faber, 35 back in the day on the men's side, Valentina built this division. She really did. build this division. Nico Montagnos is not walking through that door, right?

Shevchenko built this division and now look at what we're talking about. Maybe a problem that there are too many deserving names. So, uh, yeah, I mean, I regret calling Menon Fior a bad bitch on ESPN's post-fight show, right? Because I could have used better words. Could have used better words, I guess, in that moment. But that's what she is. And she is front of the line as far as I'm concerned.

And even if she has to wait, not unlike some of these other guys, even Pantosia had to wait a while, Bala Muhammad, of course. Manon Fjors got to wait because there's no sense risking it fighting, you know, Nama Yunus and an eliminator. With respect to Rose and John Wei Lee, you know, meritocracy, baby, Menonfjure. There you go. John, there's going to be a 30 for 30 on this Diego Lopez rise up the featherway ranks and I'm all about it.

Another big win over Brian Ortega. This is one side. It was a fantastic performance. He had the unkillable Ortega hurt. many times. This man loses on the contender series. He hops on a short notice opportunity with Mobzar of Loeff who was 18 and 0 and undefeated, gives him one hell of a fight and defeat. And then he's just been off to the races, man. This story is just one of the big stories of the past two years. This is wild, is it not? There's no comp, right? Lost on the contender series, to your point,

then lost his next fight. Yes. Been trying to break down the UFC door for years. And then five days noticed against Mob Saar Iev-Loyev. I'd rather go on naked and afraid than do anything in an enclosed space with Mavsar-Ev-Loyev with no training camp and almost submitted him several times. So Diego Lopez is all the rage, rightfully so, promoters dream.

His mentality in fighting Dan Igay at UFC 303 is so rare at the elite level. There was so much at risk there. I thought there were a lot of reasons. If I'm a featherweight contender, I'm like, man, I could really do without this.

top 15 Dan Igay lurking knowing that anytime anyone drops out, this dude is in shape and ready to put down the children's book and come fucking fight me. You know, it's an inconvenient truth for Diego Lopez that Dan Igay is willing to do that. And look what he did in that setting. And then turned around without a real training camp and recovery period and did this against Brian Ortega. I'm out of words. What else can you say? You know, it's it's Volk, Holloway, or Topudia. I mean, shout out to Arnold Allen as well. I just don't know that he's going to be next in Diego Lopez's bracket. But yeah, the kid has gone from maybe after the loss, after Joe Anderson Brito on the contender series, the next fight losing that, maybe like never get in and now

might be fighting for the undisputed title in his next fight. Absolutely insane. Well, we'll take a few questions from the peeps in a moment, but I wanted to ask you about the fight of the night, the round of the year, one of the fights of 2024. Esteban Rievovich versus Daniel Zelle Huber, two guys who will both have rankings next to their names at some point over the next couple of years in the toughest and best division in sports, the lightweight division. And you've called some barn burners over the years, John Anick. I call this fight this generation's Cub Swanson versus Dooh-Chooy. What was it like calling that fight?

How did you still have a voice for the rest of that card? What a fight. Credit to my friend Jason Herzog, who would say he was lucky and not good, but to allow that fight to continue maybe of some of the visuals at times. You know, he was completely locked in as the referee and, uh, you know, that did allow for a potential fight of the year and a potential to your point, Hall of Fame fight. My goodness, man. Gosh, like credit to Daniel Zell Hoover for being so mentally responsible and desperately urgent in those moments to stay in the fight. And Esteban Riebeviks was obviously the guy who came in here as the betting underdog. And

you talk about how hard it is at 55. These guys really do have so much. many different skills and they both came in as one lost guys and yet maybe you're number 28 in the world and ignacio baum mondes might be better than both of them you know and he might be 37 in the world and he fought on this card and won masterfully so it's a really hard division in which to get a number next to your name mat frivol and all these guys drew dober can speak to that you know get it keep it very difficult but uh tremendous fight it's hard for me to sort of put it in context as to the great fights that I have called. I know it ranks very highly for Joe Rogan to be sure. But yeah, man, as it's going on, I guess I would probably relate more to Esteban Riebivix

that you're just sort of trying to not miss strikes and call the fight more so than you're thinking about epically what they're doing. Oh, so ridiculous, man. We posted a clip of just that third round of us on the watch party, just screaming our heads off for three straight minutes of Zell Huber getting hurt and we're like yelling at Herzog to stop the fight. There was the moment when Zell Huber just runs into the cage wall

and falls over almost and I'm like, all right, that's enough. We can stop and Herzog's like, yeah, it's no J UFC, let's go. And then he starts firing back with big shots. It was so crazy. Well, so I talked about this on the podcast and I spoke with Jason on Sunday,

I think after the fights. I mean, my head was in a cloud of smoke. but, you know, there's a lot that goes into this. And not unlike broadcasters, referees, judges, you sort of get one shot. And not unlike us being judged on every utterance potentially over eight hours, right? You know, my twin brother's like, dude, what are you doing, call him and off your, like, you know, on the post show. But, you know, judged on every utterance and Jason Herzog has one moment. And, you know, as I go back and watch it, right?

Like in the moment, I'm like, oh, man, you know, this dude, you know, it's 25 years old, you know? I want to see the kid become a world champion. Let's maybe not get another concussion. But no, Jason did a tremendous job. And historically, that's the thing. Historically, he and so many of these guys are so elite that more often than not, you know, they really are good more so than they're lucky. But yeah, dude, what a fight, man.

I hope it gets into the Hall of Fame. But I'll sit here in Pines for Matt Brown and Eric Sylvan, Cincinnati. And that happened in 2014. So how much time to have? That was an hell of a fight too. All right. Let's bring in some of the peeps. Let's see what they have to say.

rare opportunity. You get to sit here and ask John Anna some questions live on the M.A. Fighting YouTube channel. Let's go out. Let's fire a few of these away and then we'll bring jet in and the takes will be flying like crazy.

It's going to be a great time. All right. I'm bringing this one in. I don't necessarily agree if it comment, but I'm bringing in it. So prepare. Shout out to Pixie Ponpon. Hi, John.

Are you ever going to pronounce Mannon's surname correctly? It's pronounced Fioro for the record, not Fior. Love you from France. Love when we get to have these conversations, John. So I could pull up the name file of her saying it, but in the nature of time, I won't do that.

But really, we're just trying to mimic exactly what she says. And I will play that file for you, if you so desire, on the Anakin Florian podcast next week. But she does not pronounce it tri-syllabically, as you suggest she does say, Mano Fior. But I do believe I've heard from this person on social media.

And so if you would do me the service of checking out my show next week, I'll play the file, and then we can continue the conversation. But she doesn't say Fioro with that third syllable, and that's why we say Fior. There you go. Straight from the horse's mouth. Love it.

Jonah, question for Anik, how do you keep your voice for seven hours? Respectfully, I think for MMA, we should get other commentators for the prelims, your thoughts. Any thoughts about that? That sounds amazing. That sounds amazing. Not even so much for my voice.

voice just for the research. You know, I'm staring at 30 fighters at UFC 308 in Abu Dhabi versus 20 at Noce UFC. So the voice is a muscle. Sometimes I worry when I go to bed after hosting a ceremony a weigh-in and UFC live on Friday and official weigh-ins, two-way-ins, media, some requests coming in for the UFC that I really feel like I have to honor, right? Like, Mike, I probably honor your request nine out of ten times, but, you know, sometimes there is some voice or energy preservation that has to take center stage. But thankfully, most times on show days, I wake up okay. And yeah, I mean, even this past show, which is not the every show,

I did ask my stage manager for tea before the main event because I felt like it was going out. So, yeah, only so many bullets in the gun. But so far, it hasn't failed me. And yeah, I don't know. I guess less is more, right? It's television, not radio. So let the analyst shine and save your bullets. hell yeah thank you jonah

slito john bring the pronunciation of the week back oh man doing that anymore so we canceled it as of a week ago because my twin brother jason at boston annick said he just can't fucking take the segment anymore uh he really doesn't like it so i like it you know we play a file every week it's for educational and informative purposes and i do think a lot of it makes people wide-eyed as to how these athletes actually not only pronounce their name, but can pronounce it two or three different times as they actually say it for a broadcaster.

But yeah, my brother just feels like he can't fast forward that segment fast enough. But thank you for the feedback. If we get enough of that, he's in the other room. I'll go punch him in the face and we'll have the segment next week. Oh, I love that. Love the energy here. Ladies of John, you've commentated all over the world

on multiple continents. Where did the experience and vibe of the sphere stack up to some of the other atmospheres you've experienced? in your career. So part of the reason I'm pining to have a UFC 307 or UFC 308 like fight card at Sphere is so that I can put in better context what exactly this venue can do when maybe a pay-per-view main card is just absolutely crazy and features a few finishes. It was all decisions, even if it featured a fight of the year on pay-per-view. So we didn't have that loud crowd that would compare to Canadians or Brazilians or Aussies or the Americans in certain cities like Boston with total objectivity, right?

So it's hard for me to put sphere in that type of context in terms of just throaty, loud, lathered MMA fans. But there's no comp in terms of a broadcasting experience and the unique nature of it. All I kept thinking about was just what we could do with another shot with sort of the world is your oyster in terms of what you could do promoting. content in there dude it'd be inside we got to do it again got to do it again if ufc 300 was at the sphere oh my lord that would yeah i'm not the creative guy in the room i just all we kept thinking and joe rogan and dc and i were talking about uh is just to do it again uh it it has to be done again and i got to think if you're some sort of NBA executive all i kept thinking too was Celtics lakers right and you play out the historic the history of the rivalry in these

thematic, amazing images, and two historic franchises. Yeah, maybe extend the game a little bit and have a longer halftime, whatever you do. Far easier to execute that, I would think, than 10 UFC fight. Shout out to the greatest live production team in sports. Hell yeah. We'll take a couple more, Casey. Question for adding, do the Patriots get the upset win tonight? No, Jets minus six and a half.

It could be close, short week, potentially. Home opener for the Jets. And I think the Patriots are maybe probably getting exposed a little bit, but I'll be rooting New England every step of the way. Hell yeah. Dave, every guest should answer, what's their go-to pizza toppings? What does John Anick like on his pizza?

Well, I ain't going to be denigrating anybody for putting pineapple on their pizza. I don't hate it, but I like onion. I mean, if I had to put one topping on a pizza, it would be onion. I just want it to be as thin as possible. Respect. What does John Anick's go-to karaoke song?

I mean, I'm saving my voice. Do they have hip-hop? I mean, can we break out Buster Rhymes, break in any? you know, I'd be happy to wrap that. Fantastic. But yeah, I don't know if there's a karaoke song that, you know, maybe because I like to bang on my twin brother when he used to have long hair that he looks like fucking modest Yahoo. We could do one day.

That's amazing. So, yeah, the new wrinkle to the watch party is that I have to now sing a karaoke song because I lost in our pickum contest. So I have to sing, we put like all the popular selections on a wheel. So I have to go into some random karaoke. bar tomorrow night and sing the backstreet boys I want it that way which actually actually in hindsight of all the selections I probably I probably caught a little bit of a break because there was a lot of like Beyonce and Whitney Houston and some real tough ones that would have been real rough for me Friday night karaoke where is this happening are people are we soliciting people to come watch this live I'll let people I'll let people know tomorrow I got to get a sitter for the kid first that's that's first and foremost right but Yeah. We'll make it happen. You don't want to subject your kid to that, to be sure. I mean, he would love it, but he'll get to hang that over my bald head for a while.

John, do you and Jason still get into scraps? And if so, who normally wins? I'm so excited to hear the answer to those. Yeah, I mean, it's tough, right? Because if we really were to go at it, there would be some sort of injury that would happen probably 60 seconds in. So we actually did sort of get into it recently in a pool. if you really want to know.

And yeah, there were some fouls. He actually manipulated a joint. He didn't necessarily mean to, but the dude was like committing a legitimate foul, like manipulating my thumb when I got double underhooks. So he destroys me in arm wrestling. I've yet to figure out why that is so uncompetitive and not in my favor.

But yeah, if we had to scrap, I don't have a great chin. But I do think that I do think that I would be the slight betting favor, maybe minus 1,35. But yeah, we argue all the time. It just doesn't always get physical because there's some sort of self-preservation, maybe subconsciously going on there. Yeah.

I bet you're both just very squirrely in there. It just could get a little wild and rambunctious. Yeah, I mean, we would fight at 35. So, you know, we'd be pretty hangary at that point in time. If you really want to know, the only reason we haven't fought for charity is because I've been knocked out cold twice and I can't take a shot from my 11-year-old. daughter, never mind him. So I'm not trying to like set myself up to lose. So. All right, Casey, one more and then we'll, uh, we'll get out of here. Uh, we'll let John

enjoy the rest of his day. John, you're the goat. The research and effort you put into every card is much appreciated. Do you have any jet lag tips you've learned during travels? Well, it's evolved for me. And thank you for saying that. I perhaps focus too much on the preparation and it consumes me to a point where it affects my sleep. So don't let that happened in your life if you are not traveling for recreation. But as I've gotten older, I've leaned more into naps. Try to sleep when I'm tired if I actually have that time instead of trying to get on some country's schedule. So that's been the big change. Certainly try to sweat the plane off of me as soon as I land. I actually was so desperate in Perth in advance of UFC

21 and 2018 that I was doing all that earthing stuff and trying to touch my skin to the grass because I felt so poorly. But I just think sleep when you can lean into it and don't try to get on a country's time zone. Just sort of sleep when you can and when you feel good, go do things. I'm told we have one more fire away, Casey. Where does John Anick rank John Jones pound for pound?

Right now, if you are talking inactivity dating to UFC 285 in 2020, Is that what we're talking about, right? John Jones is the greatest mixed martial arts athlete for me. Pound for pound in the world today, I think it's pretty consensus that Islam Akashav is the guy. But yeah, when Johnny Jones is in an active competition cycle and given body of work, yeah, he's the guy. But right now, Islam for me is skill for skill and given activity,

number one, pound for pound. And I don't know how you could argue otherwise, right? Who is it for you? Islam? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. John's actually officially out of our rankings as of this cycle. Is there a certain like activity schedule you have to keep up to stay in the rankings for you guys? Or is it just 18 months? You don't fight in 18 months. You're out. Yeah. It really would have been interesting if Sean O'Malley had won and had to get his hip repaired, you know, and you don't see him for a year, you know, because there's so many 35ers. But there's a new world order and it's Marab Dwallis Willie, you know, and exciting times, buddy.

exciting time absolutely exciting having you on the program john a special treat to kick us off we've never done this before and like i don't even know how many hundreds of episodes we've done on this program but i appreciate you coming on tremendous job at ufc 306 what's next 307 you're not going to paris are you salt lake city i'm actually going to bristol connecticut daniel cormiere fought john jones and stepe miya chich a combined five times so i'm going to bristol in a few days to to film a show sort of centered around DC and his experience in those five fights. So that's next and then Salt Lake City. Oh, very cool.

Well, we will look forward to that. John, you are the man. And hopefully we get a chance to chat before UFC 307. Sounds good, buddy. Have a great rest of the show. Thank you guys. There he is. John Anick.

I mean, what a friggin start to the program. Joining us to kick things off to recap his experience at UFC 306. If you don't feel like. going back through this program to watch that we're going to cut this that interview out as its own thing we'll put us it on the youtube channel in the video section so you guys can just check that out if you want uh i assume our next guest our next panelist is uh going to be joining us mr no gray area the hot take kid the cannibal kid the baron of boop and seven million other nicknames uh the best golfer i know jed mishu there he is that's a fun one best golfer you

Yeah, Jet's golf game has really, really improved. I am impressed. I, you know, spend a lot of time doing it. When you don't have kids, Mike, you can spend in an ordinary amount of time getting better at very silly, useless skills. And that's where we're at. Yes. Great to have you here, Jed. Shout out again to John Anick.

Let's go to the peeps. This is your show the rest of the way. So let's have a good time. Casey's here as well. on the ones and twos if he wants to pop in. He sure can. There he is. No sleeves necessary.

Can I just say that I love John Inick and I support him just constantly in promoter mode because I believe that UFC 307, U.S. 308, those are great cards. But when he was like, maybe the best card I've ever been a part of, sir, 300 happened earlier this year. Come on. I don't know what you're saying. Casey. Yeah, yeah. There you go.

Are you calling John Annaick a liar? I'm saying we have too short a memory in this sport. That happened like five months ago. Those big screens, man. I think they change you when you're there in person. Everyone who was there was just like, I'm, they're just like in awe. So I guess. I'm a different person.

Just imagine if that, yeah, I guess, yeah, immediately like, God, one of 300 was here. then like yeah people were had just exploded Great event of all here we go here we go hit us up in the chat everyone let's go

Kenny would Max versus Chandler have made 306 much better so if you guys hadn't seen this Max Holloway or not Max Halley Michael Chandler did a scrum as a guest fighter at UFC 306 the day after it was revealed that Chandler is not fighting Conom

he's fighting charles olivera in a rematch ufc 309 madison square garden in november he reacted to that and then also dropped a little bit of a bombshell that the ufc approached him about a bmf title fight against max holloway at that sphere card but max ended up turning it down because he's on vacation and all sorts of other things and chanler is very confident that fight happens but if this fight was the main event. If they did, even if it wasn't, if they did O'Malley Marab,

they did Valentina versus Alexa Grasso 3, and then this is the feature bout. They did Max Holloway versus Michael Chandler for the BMF title. How much of an improvement would that fight have given this card in your eyes? Because it had to have been a big one compared to some of the other fights in the card, right?

So which fight would have been removed from this card then? I don't know, maybe none of them. I think they really wanted to keep it as the 10. And particularly because, like, as we talked about kind of in real time and afterwards, the event ran long because of all the vignettes and the stories and the chapters and stuff. And if you had a third potentially 25-minute fight,

I know none of us think it would go that far, but I feel like that would have just had to have replaced something, maybe the main event there. If it's just in either way, it's better just because, like, it's Max Holloway fighting. Of course. And I don't, you know, my. My thoughts on Michael Chandler are pretty well stated at this point, but like, I would never deny that the man since entering the UFC has been must see television.

Every time he goes out there, he is get or get got. And so him versus Max Holloway, like, that is an undeniable fun fight for the fans in this big spectacle. So it absolutely would improve it, whether it's an add-on or a replacement. Like there's just, and particularly because we get in hindsight, we like, if it replaced the main event, yeah, that would be more. fun because the main event was a big story, et cetera, but like that wasn't a fun fight, you know. I'm curious when this happened.

I don't know if this was. I would assume early on. Yeah, because Chandler had said like he knew about the Olivera fight for like four weeks or something, but I don't know if like he was asked about Max first because now after hearing about O'Malley's injuries, I wonder if they, this could have been a target or, replace the main event. I would have assumed that this happened. I mean, we know it would have happened sometime after 303 because otherwise, Chandler was

still ostensibly fighting Connor. And I would assume it had happened relatively soon after that just based on timeline. So like, hey, Connor's not fighting. You interested in fighting Max at the, at the sphere show? What if we'd angle that in front of you? It's a tremendous idea. It would have been a great fight, but alas. still may happen

All right Picks Pompon Hey Jed Who do you think is the most Haas The Chevy truck or Mannon I mean since you're off the Chevy truck Is it safe to say that I'm super not off the Shepard truck

I am the conductor of the bullet train And have been since day one I am Like that is the question I am the most interested in for this fight Like I hope that that is the fight we get Obviously you kind of brought up A real world scenario

Where Menon Maybe just gets kind of screwed here, but I think she deserves his title fight. And I am truly interested because, like, straight up, all that happened is that Shevchenko didn't do a dot. Like, as opposed to throwing the fight away that she did the first two times she fought Grasso, she was just like, I don't have to. I don't have to do this unnecessary stupid shit.

I am just a more physical human being than her. And Grasso cannot stand up to it. And she had some other things. I went back and rewatched it and you see her kind of throwing a little bit more in combination with her counters and, like, doing some other stuff. But at a very baseline level, it was when the opportunity presents itself, I am just going to plan her on her ass and she can't get up and I will win this fight in the simplest terms possible. I don't think she's going to have the same ease of doing that against Manil. But granted, I also think she's probably a better striker than Manal. So, like, I don't know if we'll get to see the two of them kind of get into these sort of physical battles that has always been a source of refuge for Valentina.

If things are not going her way in the striking or if, you know, it's even just more competitive. She can change it up. I don't know if she can against Manal. Because Manor is a freaking hoss, man. So if you're making me pick, I would still, I'm still going to favor Valentina just because she, I mean, just has a longer track record of being a physically imposing individual, even up at Bannamway. But, I mean, they could be just break even there.

It's a good fight. It's a good fight. I'm, man, and I'm absolutely worried. After seeing Tatiana versus Vayner-Gener Genderova, I am worried that she's going to have to wait a little longer. Yeah, I, the Tatiana virena fight is very, if that's for the vacant belt, 100%. No qualms.

Yeah. Absolutely no issue. issues with it. That fight existing in any other context beyond for the vacant belt is among the silliest things that has happened this year. And a lot of silly things have been happening. Yeah. I was one of the people that said I was, I did not believe Minnan, Manon, was going to, was guaranteed a title shot. She was there. Did they ever show her own camera? She was the backup fighter, Casey. Then she's definitely not getting it. As we know, if you weigh in as the backup fighter, you're guaranteed a title shot.

She is our French Gamrot. Gameaut's just still waiting for his type of shot. It might happen. She's waiting. I mean, the fact that they didn't show her on camera, they showed everyone else, that's like, look who's here,

they went to, they went to Umar, who has a, like, less ironclad grip on a title fight for, like, immediately did that. And they did not be like, hey,

Menon's here. What do you, what do you thoughts? I didn't hear, was her name even mentioned, right, on the broadcast during the fight at all? Like potential,

I mean, I don't recall it, but yeah. I bet Anak mentioned it. I'm sure you did. I would assume, but, you know, we're doing the watch. Definitely not feature. It wasn't featured. It wasn't like a rankings page. Look, who's next?

I'm just, all right. I'm just going to put this out there because they paid for it. Marab is scared of Umar. He knows what time it is. What do you think about this, Jed? Because Barab said, look, Umar, he even, said in the build. Umar is not deserving of a title fight. It feels Davis and Vigureto has a better case. And even in the aftermath, he's like, no, I should fight Davis and Vigaredo. Umar should

have to fight somebody else or have those two guys fight each other. So look, as the man who is the man who did chickens, you know, can't be goats, is this a say, do you feel like this is a similar situation? So I do agree a very, very specific interpretation of the words. scared though because if you were using the word scared the way that scared is used culturally like just as a word in the english language i do not think it is almost ever applicable there's like truly one time that i can think of where i'm like a fighter actively was scared to fight this other fighter and like then you will not convince me otherwise um not to throw her under the bus but she was the first women's featherweight UFC champion

who just bailed on the belt because she won't fight Chris Seiboyle. Other than that, I am of the opinion that professional fighters are not afraid to get in fist fights with other people because this is, I mean, one, they're mostly crazy and two, this is what they do as a profession. Like, this is what they do for fun.

So they're not scared in the way people may traditionally mean it, but I absolutely think that Marab de Valishvili is not telling the full truth when he says, I think Davidson Figurato deserves this more. I believe that he has made what I believe is a correct mental calculus of Figgy is an easier fight for me that and in some ways, in many ways, has more cachet than beating Umar. because if I, Figgie is a former champion. If I beat Umar, they'll just say, oh, Umar, uh, um, hype trained derailed or whatever, and I won't get the same credit. And also he's really, really tough to fight. Whereas Figgi, he's a smaller dude than me or actually, Rob's not a huge bantam weight either.

Like more competitively sized dude to me, I can probably win relatively simply. And this is a big cachet. This is a meaningful title fight in its own right. I think that he's not an idiot. And like, you know, that's prize fighting. He is doing, he is trying to do prize fighting. I don't think it's going to work out for him. And if I were on his team, I would have not encouraged him to respond in the way he has.

Just because I think that he is, you know, English, not his first language. He's not communicating things in the best way possible here. But like, it's really hard not to think that there's something more going on when the UFC is clearly pushing this. when Joe Rogan says, hey, here's Umar and they cut to him. And his answer is, I love Dana White. Dana White's the best guy. What a good man Dana White is. I want to be close with them.

I want us to be able to talk about things. And I am, you know, I just, I want to be an inspiration for people and actively not addressing Umar. It's really hard to interpret that as anything other than him not really wanting to fight Umar. That answer is bad. And again, fresh off a fight, English is not his first language. There are circumstances to explain why this has been.

And I firmly believe that he will fight Omar. He will not be like, I'm not going to do it. But he is stating his case for why he wants to. And again, he's not afraid to do it. But I don't think he wants to fight him. And that's, MMA fans don't, they don't like that. And that's an easy read for MMA fans. I take it.

He's prize fighting right now, Maraub. That's all. He's just price fighting. Not scared. It's prize fighting. Yeah. Is he, though? I don't think that's prize fighting.

I think Umar is the bigger fight than Figgie. I understand Figgie's a former champion, but worldwide, umar is a well. It's not about big loss. It's risk reward ratio. The umar is a bigger fight. Risk is substantially higher. Like, fighting humor and losing gets you nothing, you know? Yeah.

Get you a loss of belt and a loss of pay-per-view points. Yeah, he sees two championship fights versus one championship fight. Yeah, he's fighting. That is one of the funniest answers in post-fight history, though, which is. Hey, what do you think of humor? I love Dana. Dana's the best. And you know who else?

John Jones top half a belt fighter. Just an unbelievable post-fileged. interview from him. Did not address the question at all. God bless him. All right. Let me see what we got next.

Keyless Jr. I see you put a super chat in, but it didn't come through, so you might want to try again. All right. That's right. Is Valentina the number one pound for pound since Whaley only fights once a year? No.

She's the number one pound for pound because she's number one pound female fighter. Maybe it would be different if Whaley fought more and had even more wins in the weight class. And like, if you have Whaley number one, I have absolutely no issue. Because we're talking functionally the same thing. Like, Waley lost the belt but then reclaimed it.

But one of the big issues here is Waley never beat the woman who took the belt from her. She just got the belt through other circumstances. Whereas Valentina has functionally as undefeated in her. her weight class or has avenged all her own her loan loss in the weight class you know has a bunch of wins are a top thing i it's if wily fought more she'd have a more compelling case to usurp valentina's number one but it's the same thing that happened when nunez dropped picked up the belt back against peno most people return nunez either to one or two with val

but we have to be also honest with ourselves um well i mean Valentin actually caught up but both have both have fought the same amount since august of last year they both have the same amount of fights Zhang has fought twice valentine has fought twice valentine didn't fight for a year i think because we've seen valentina just on tough and things like that just way leach just seems like just to disappear for a year so it just feels like yeah i get that she has yeah but she has i mean to this point she has only fought technically once a calendar year the last what three years. She won the belt in November against Asparza. Then she fought in August and then she fought in April of 2024. So technically per calendar year. The difference is Valentino fought twice in

2023 and when Jang only fought once, it just feels weirder. But yeah, this is, this kind of speaks to the thing we were talking about earlier with the Viena Tatiana thing. I don't really see this as the fault of them. And I could be wrong. This is certainly speculative, but it seems really obvious in the way that the UFC books women's fights that they are not trying to keep these divisions incredibly active.

Like, I mean, one, if you just look at the stats, like I don't have them pulled up in front of me because I didn't know who can get this question. But like over the last few years, there have been like a comically low number of women. women's bantamweight fights. Just pure women's bantam weight fights is like 20 over the course of a year. And that's not how a division really like flourishes and grows.

And just with all of their champions, all of the female champions are fighting once a year, like at this point in time when there are flyweight has a log jam. Like we waited to do this fight between Grasso and Chepchenko for a full year, despite there are by my count three people with reasonable claim. to get title shots in this weight class. And that can be up to four if you're being a little more generous. Like they're just not moving these weight classes quickly. Wiley is talking about moving up.

Like, why is Wiley not fighting Tatiana Suarez and Vina is the one in waiting? This seems to be sort of how the UFC wants to do business with their female weight classes. And you can draw your own conclusions about why. There just hasn't been a lot of women's title fights at all. Yeah. the last couple years. Just very few. It's crazy.

Yeah. Oh, we got to answer from Akita's Jr. So if you're wondering. I just wanted to donate to Mike's Coffee Fund. Thank you. Had one today. It was delightful. Thank you, Kelly.

All right. So looking this up right now, in 2023, there were four women's featherweight fights. I am actually fairly certain that like three of those were women's bantam weight fights that then got weight was missed. There were 19. Sure notice replacements. Yeah.

There were 19 women's bantam weight fights in 2023. There were 34 women's flyweight fights in 2023. And there were 35 straw weight fights in 2023. Let's just take a look for funzies. heavyweight has 35 light heavyweight has 35 fights middleweight 56 like it's just

these are a lot 61 at welter 77 at lightweight featherweight 60 like you're just these are just fights overall that's not a high level of frequency for events and for fights in weight class to be happening

yeah it's amazing if I there's a card every freaking four day but yet, yeah, just, yeah, just disappeared. There are 42 events per year, and so what's that like not quite a woman's fight on every car, like in each weight class? It feels like we could up those numbers. On the contender series, does that, do those kind of ratios, does that kind of match up a contender series too?

So I have no idea on the stats, but anecdotally, I think there's been one female fight this season on Contender Series as far? Let me, let me pull that up. Let me take a look. There's the big upset. Yeah, but I actually think that was the only women's fight this season. Let me check. I'll get back to you while we continue to move on because it's going to take me a look on.

We have a wonderful super chat. I think this one is for Jed. Dope. Kenny, if Steepay gets injured, I highly doubt John fights back a fighter, Tom, who would then headline the MSG card, What would the UFC do with the heavyweight division? So I think we know the answer to the back. Maybe we don't know the answer to the back end question.

But what headlines MSG if steep A doesn't fight? How injured is Alex Pereira coming off of talking out Khalil around? That's 100% the answer. That's the correct answer. So we are assuming John would not fight Tom. Even though he's fighting a fighter. I actually think John would maybe fight Tom. I am still not convinced he would,

but the optics of refusing to fight Tom as a backup fighter under these circumstances are so egregiously bad that shame may force his hand. I'm not 100% on that, but like I'll go 5545, that if something happens to steep A, the week of the fight or you know two weeks out maybe john gets convinced unless john can be like hey is Alex ready can Alex just turn around fight which would also be shameless shit uh but it'd be deeply funny so i would say that it's 50 50 that he would fight him for the same amount of money or he would have to get like a giant he'd ask for more money they might give him more but they're not going to pay them an extra 10 mil, they might pay them an extra one or two. Oh, I think, yeah, I think they got to go at least five extra five mil.

What they take within the last month. If it's within a month, I don't think there's any sort of money that they'll go with. That would be such bad optics for Todd. Oh, no, John having bad optics, what's he going to do? So looking at this contender series run, I am seeing one female fight. I'm sorry, two female fights thus far this season. Unless I'm missing. Nope, two female fights

this far this season. We're through 29 fights, two of them or women's fights. All right. Thank you, Kenny. With Instacard, you get groceries that over-deliver, so you can over-share your preferences. Want russet potatoes with no brown spots?

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slash iPhone 17 Pro on select plans. Conditions and exclusions apply. Another stupid chat coming in. This one's probably before me, actually. How could you guys rank Evelyn and Mix that high? Mix clearly lost Amaga made off. How could you possibly motivate ranking him higher than Sandhagen? So let me, let's, I'll like Casey.

I don't. I didn't. Yeah. So I have Jed and I, Jed and I have Patchy Mix in the exact same spot. I dropped patchy Mixed after the match. How did I? As did I.

I got Marab, O'Malley, Umar, Sanhagen, Jan Mix. And I almost put Joseo Aldo above Mix on this past cycle. But I didn't.

I didn't. I have Aldo. I'll tell you it. If Joseoaldo beats Mario Batista, he will jump ahead Apache Mix at my rankings, without question. So we have him...

I don't have a Batista in my top 20, but I mean, it's... I have Batista at 14. He deserves to be ranked in my... I would say, I would for sure have him in my top 20s, not my 15, but is it my 20? Well, definitely not my 15, but yeah, regardless. But Mario Batista, to me,

Mario Batista is ranked higher globally than Magmaev's good fighter. I think he was vastly underval. I think that's what I think undervalued. I just think but I guess that's my reasoning. Magamad is just really undervalued. And yeah, it was a very close fight and it could have gone to Magamadoff. And I still I had mixed winning the fight, but I it was a very close competitive fight.

And but you have mixed very high. I have mixed two people on our rank. Yeah, there are two people at at yeah, you're one of them. And both of you have mixed at two. I think there's a four. and then, yeah, most people have one. I think I have O'Malley the lowest, too. I have O'Malley the lowest.

I moved O'Malley the six. You do have O'Malley the Lewis. Yeah. So. I have no issue. How can you, so, okay, so this is for you. How can you motivate ranking patchy mix higher than Corey Sanhagan? I love Corey Sanhagan.

And so Corey Sanagan just had a bad loss to Umar. Umar looks great. And but to me, my thing of rankings, I think everything is like a plus one. Kind of like a voter polls, voter polls, you know, it's like a plus or minus one. Like give them or two, give mix three. I don't care. They're all kind of the same. So, but I have right now, I don't know.

I just have mixed over San Diego. Like if I thought they were fight head to head, it'll be an extremely close fight, two versus four. I mean, either one can win. I'll go. I like mix. I like his fighting style. And I don't know. It was a close fight.

I don't know what people want to hear. There's no, they're in two different, they're in two different promotions. So there's, you can't do the MMA math. I don't know what they want. So, I mean, mixes, his only loss is that very, his first fight to Archiletta, which was very close. And I said that, I think he's been undefeated, correct? Yeah.

And then with the other end, Johnny Eblen, Jed and I, same exact place. We both have men number five, DDP, Strickland, Adesanya, Whitaker, Eblen. And you can make a strong case that Eblen could beat either one of those four guys. I just, middleweight's a weird one. Yeah. I just, you know, yeah, he had a really tough fight. Officially he won.

And so kind of factor that in. And it was just like, middleweight was really easy. Whereas like, here are the four dudes that I'm very confident should be ranked above Johnny Eblen based on accomplishments. and the fact that it's a coin fight with Eblen. And then everyone passed that is just like, Eblen probably beats him and they haven't accomplished enough to make me say he's got to go in front of him. It was like, DDP Strickland, Izzy would occur

have very clearly done enough to, by any measure, be ahead of him. Nobody else has. Yeah. And I'll also say this just to sort of defend Mix and Eblen. how can either of those two men possibly be motivated right now? They're in a organization that is putting no promotional push behind either one of them. They don't have divisions for either one of them. And they don't have fucking fighters for either one of them.

They're all just running back rematches right now. Like Patchy Mix has to fight, like had to fight Maga Badoff again. Because there's nobody for him to fight. Johnny Eblen is fighting Fabian Edwards again. Again. We saw it like, Ebbling, everyone ran,

like it was a closer fight that I thought it was going to be early, but Eblen stopped him. And Fabian Edwards, no disrespect. That was a fight. No one is ever going to rewatch with Aaron Jeffrey. That was a,

just one win over Aaron Jeffrey, who's probably like a top 35 guy just gets you right back into a title fight. Like, where's the motive? Like, how could these guys possibly be motivated fighting in that organization?

If I'm then, like I'm finding a way out. Like I know you're just find a way to get out of there. Like even pay them. Be like, yo, just here's half my purse from last fight. I'm out of here.

Yeah, I don't know how much guys are going to pay. I'm assuming they're getting more over there than they probably in the UFC. I'll give you. Yeah. So, I mean, their motivation is strictly the check.

Their motivation has to be the check. I mean, and I think I don't want to pun, and I think a lot of fans punish their, them in terms of ranking. because of the horrible job PFL has done, building contenders for them. I'm not going to punish them for that.

I still think they're just as good as I believe they are. But I get the optics of what PFL has done as far as building those weight classes, just playing freaking sucks. So I get it. If you have issues with their ban on weight rankings, I would actually say the one, these are rankings. So argue.

That's the fun. part of it. I would say the bigger thing, and I'm actually individually at fault for some of this as well, is just we have Corey ahead of Peodor Yan. And I think that that is explicable, but probably not good, right? Like, because they fought and Peirotr beat him. But, like, Peirder's lost a bunch and which is how that happened. But, like, that to me is a much bigger claim than the patchy mix one being like,

Yeah. It's just, it's, it's just kind of sucks. Everyone like, but you have, you have the PFL absorption. Oh, I do. Like I said, this is a big gap. At least I think my, I have just, you know, three and four or four and five close together. Yeah. Your, your, your gaps are far, actually. I really, uh, when I do my waiting, I absolutely, I don't think other people do this as much. I wait, uh, multiple losses very, very negatively. Yeah. Because to me, that it's significant. I don't care if you lost to the one, two, and three guy.

If you just haven't won a fight in like three years, like I, that's just a huge negative to me. And so I punish you a lot more. And so like if you looked at my individual rankings, people could very justify it be like, this is silly. I stand by it. I think I, you know, obviously I think I do it correctly. But like I do have Jan behind Sandhagen and.

Aldo and he has beaten both of them. Yeah. Yeah, it's the thing. I think, yeah, we just, you rank it low differently than I do. Like, I put who I put how dominant your victory is and who is across the cage from you at the highest value. Like, if it's for a belt or whatever promotion, I don't put as much value into it. But I do, I do put some value, of course. But I mean, that's why I do, I do have DDP, number one. And I didn't want to, but I just had to respect him. He's like, all right, he's done it, you know, even though, no, he hasn't lost in the UFC, never mind. Yeah. I just, he's come so close to losing, but he doesn't.

So, um, the, the unfortunate thing about the absorption of the, of Bellator, PFL, outside of the business side of things, like the Sabahamasi situation and the Gayguard situation and some of the contract situations, in terms of like a competitive side and like getting these guys over to where they should be, Patsy makes a Johnny Ebblin are the biggest losers in all of this. And it's not their fault. It's just what it's, it's terrible luck.

Timing was awful for both guys. And they have lost more than maybe any two fighters on planet Earth since the absorption. Because everyone, before that, the ranking show sounded a lot different, didn't they? We're talking about whether or not these guys were the number one fighters in their division because they were getting good wins.

They were active. They were fighting all the time. Now we're lucky to see them fight because they have nobody to fight. It's, PFL doesn't do shit to promote them. It sucks. It sucks for both guys. I feel for them.

I feel for it. I really do. Patchy's still riding high off the Grand Prix win too. Because like when that was happening, like, I mean, you can't convince me that the winner of this grand prix isn't the best band and wait alive. I may not agree, but certainly has a claim among, you know, one of the top three or four dudes. And yeah, he had a tough, tough fight.

And many people thought he lost. officially it's a win and so I get told all the time that John Jones did not lose to Dominic Reyes and I firmly disagree with that but the scoreboard says what the scoreboard says so you got like I can't I have to factor like that just counts

it counts as a win see I don't rank on wins and losses I rank on like basically like how you look in the fight like like do you have Yon couldn't disagree more with you doing that but yeah but I Like I thought Yon be O'Malley.

And then so I, that week after, I had Yon over O'Malley, even though O'Malley got the win. Yes, I recall. And I cannot stress enough how much I do not agree with that. But it is your rankings to do it as you see fit. I agree with factoring in dominance as part of your considerations. But I do also agree with giving the people the flowers. Well, they get the flowers. They get the paycheck.

They move up in whatever, the internal rankings of the UFC or whatever promotion. Why would you possibly think that's what they care about and not care about the MMA fighting global rankings? My bad, my bad. They clearly care about that the most. It's about all. Hill cares. Jamal Hill cares. There is one person that really cares.

Okay. Apache Mix cares. Yeah. That's a good thing. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Rayway. Man, where's Jamal ranked for us now?

I didn't look at these. Oh, boy. Number six. There you go. That's not bad. It's honestly probably correct or close to it. Yeah. Where did I rank him?

I have my seven. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, that's what he was before he randomly won the belt. And that's where he is now. Yeah. All right.

Question from Mr. I haven't. I have him quite low. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. That might be a touch unjust, but that's, yeah, that's fine with it. Best wins over a guy who's retired.

Only, okay, the Carlos Oldberg having him front, that's probably a bridge too far. I'm actually totally fine with the rest of them. Man, I love Nikita Krylov, and you have. I love like way above Jamal Hill. Dude, my mom is fun as hell and has like good wins. Okay, you're ranking on fun.

I get it. All right. No, but like he also just is beating a bunch of good dudes. All right. All right. So he's actually coming up on being out of the rankings. He hasn't fought in like, what's this?

16, 17 months. Oh, he's close. Oh, no. He's out now. What? AK didn't catch it. Krilov should not be ranked now.

March 2023. Oh, March, 2023. It was like a week after John fought. AK didn't catch it. Carlis sure. And then he fights it,

he fights at 308, does he not? That sounds like the three, no, 309. Oh yeah, he's going to be out in October. So he's out. Like one month.

Yeah. All right. Well, whatever. I mean, it is. I guess actually technically at the time we did rankings, Krylov was still three days in. He still had three remaining days left or something like that.

Yeah, he's still, he's alive. He's alive. By like a day. Still Alco-upon to me. Still Alco-pone to me. All right. This question is for Jed. This one's deep.

You're going to have to think about this. one, Jed. Jedd, do you see yourself ever being a father? What if your son admired Chandler shows Leon and Ortego? She's still over there. Wow. One day, I would love to be a father one day. It seems like, you know, the greatest gift and all of that stuff.

And of the things I've learned from my family and that I hold to be the most true, it's that you love your kids no matter what. And that's it. That's all you do. You just love the shit out of them, even if they make bad choices, even if they like things that you don't like, even if they are people that you wouldn't want them to be. You love your kid. And so, yes, I would love my children, should I have any unconditionally, because that is parenthood. Great question, though.

Very good. All right. How many more? How long do you want to go, Mr. Heck? Get a couple more in. All right. A couple more, yeah. Should Diego Lopez step up as a backup fighter for UFC 308

just in case something happens to Ilya and Max? Jose has taught me nothing is official until the cage door closes. Should he? I mean, yes, if he can. If you have the out, well, one, because we know that if you're waiting as a backup fighter, you get to fight for the title next. But mostly, like, the answer is always yes

if one of the outcomes is, will this result in me fighting for the belt? there have been maybe like four instances in the past five years where a fighter in my estimation made a good choice by delaying a title fight because it was so locked in that they were going to get it that the circumstances of a shorter notice I'm thinking specifically Drickus 2 plus where he was like I'm not going to turn around in eight weeks to fight Izzy I'm not doing that And then that almost actually didn't work out for him anyway, but it did because he was so clearly the guy who deserves a title of fight. Outside of that instance, always say yes, because if you get the belt, that's what that is the thing that matters.

And so if Diego Lopez has this opportunity and doesn't take it, there is absolutely no guarantee he fights for a belt in his career. So if he can get this opportunity, 100%, he should take this. I have no idea if that will be offered to him or not. But yeah, absolutely do this. All right. Be cool if you thought of Loyah, but doesn't look like that's happening. That's some, it's some super little shit. What's going on of that?

I haven't kept up of it. I was off. So Al Jameen's out. Sterling. I know how Jermaine's out, but who's the replacement? Why isn't it, Diego? So, I don't know. I, you know, we don't know the answer to that, or at least publicly.

we can't speak entirely to the answers to that. You know, I don't actually think he should step in and fight Mobstar on short notice. I don't think he should do that. But it hit like my issue with this, the way he's tweeting, it doesn't sound like he wants to. Oh, okay. And like he doesn't want to fight Mobsar at all. And so like that's to me the lame shit, whereas like he wanted the mobsar fight entirely and now he doesn't have any interest in it. because he's just kind of like being in his feels about stuff, which is lame.

I don't think he should step in as a short notice for this. Like I think that would be a huge misstep for his career. But he's going to have to fight someone to fight for the belt. And it's probably going to be MofSaur anyway. So like this, you know, to me it's a really bad look when you're like, I really want to fight this dude. And then suddenly you're like, I don't want to fight him anymore. Like keep your same energy throughout has always been my,

my stance and so you know uh i think they will end up fighting but it's not going to happen at 307 or whatever yeah yeah hope it make it happen just move it one paper view down or something that's my thing 307 doesn't need the like 307 is already chalk full of fights like just bump it back and you know let them both get a camp let them do it at msg or whatever yeah that'd be awesome and that's you know i think would be interesting you know i think would be an interesting one to step up because I think he kind of needs it. And it'd be a really tough fight for him, like really tough. I wonder what Calvin Cater's doing October 5th.

I mean, if Calvin Cater is supposed to fight Kyle Nelson, he's healthy. If he's healthy, he should take that opportunity after the, what happened in the Sterling fight. I think Cater stepping in on short notice and fighting a guy like that, he's just going to go for it, man. Like, he ain't get to sit there and be timid at all. he's just going to try to get after it. And he might just get wrestled and mauled for 15 minutes, but at least he's going to try and go for it. So I think that'd be his best chance.

I think it'd be an unbelievable idea. I would like to address S. Digger because I tweeted about this yesterday, and a lot of people are dumb as shit online. And it was very frustrating to be like, oh, why would Diego Lopez take that fight now? He's ranked above him. Well, because one, rankings are fake, unless they're ours. Two, you have to fight behind you.

Once you achieve a number does not mean you can only ever fight people in front of you. Three, he's actually lost to the dude, critical piece of information. Four, who are the people in front of him? Alexander Volcanowski's not going to fight him. He said he'd fight him for an interim bout. The U.C.'s clearly not going to do that. And so it's just wait. Your advice is Diego Lopez should wait.

He should wait for this fight to happen. And then he should wait for Volcanowski to fight the winner. and maybe in a year to 18 months, if nothing else interesting happens, he might get to fight for the belt. Oh, wait, during that time, Mofsar will be fighting and Mofsar has a win over him. And if Mofsar wins, Mopsar should, by all rights and very likely, move ahead of Diego Lopez into the rankings. It is like some critical thinking, some critical thinking skills, people. So much of this like, oh, he's ahead of it. Moesar didn't want to fight back at him.

No, when Movesor was number four in the rankings, he didn't want to fight the 13 dude who he'd already beaten because that is very reasonable. The number three dude not wanting to fight the number six dude, who he's lost to is not. And this shouldn't be hard to grasp. I do not understand why people can't figure this out. And to add to that,

in a meritocratic real world, like if this is a meritocratic organization, Mavzar of Loif's fighting Iliots-Porya. Correct. Right now. He's fighting him right now. It's not Max Holloway. It's Mobsar fighting for the belt.

You guys fucking 8 and O in the UFC's 18 and O overall. So what if he doesn't have finishes? The guy's winning all of his fights. He's got to win over Aron. Now he's going to win over Diego Lopez, which is aged very, very well. He's supposed to fight Algebraed Sterling. Now he's not fighting Alibade Sterling,

which is, by the way, no fault of Mobsar's, because he's been in Salt... Lake City getting ready already trying to acclimate to the high elevation. In a real and just world, Mozar is already fighting for the belt. So I'm with you on this. I'm with you on this. It's a dumb argument. It's just not hard. Like again, no one is saying take this fight on short notice. I think it would be incredibly stupid to take this fight on short notice. But to be very risky. But to be like, I am not fighting this dude at all, which has been a statement like that is what he is conveying online is incredibly dumb and to be like why would he do that that would be stupid of him

because you got to just critically think think critically for for just a moment people man vibes are still good of mozart right now just think about like belaw winning and then um morab winning is like man it's just you go back go look at our go look at our chant predictions for this year i have bozahsars with winning the belt this year. I have Armad Zuriching winning the belt this year. And one of those things may happen. Even Val,

I don't know. Just dominant wrestlers are back, baby. Dominant wrestlers are back. I also love this argument like, why would I fight someone behind me in the rankings? Literally 50% of all fights, someone is fighting someone behind them. Half of all fights.

So someone has to fight someone behind you. It's like, that's how it works. And do you know how you become a rising star? to becoming an actual star in the UFC in 2024 is you show your face all the time. Yeah. You say yes. You say yes, I'll fight.

Why is Kevin Holland the star? Because he fought five fucking times in 2020. Fought all the time. Anytime somebody fell out, he stepped in. Anytime he lost an opponent, he took anybody and just kept fighting and fighting and fighting. He was an interesting dude along the way. That's how he became one of the, probably the,

I don't know this for sure. I guarantee you, despite never fighting for a world title, Kevin Holland is probably one of the 5% highest paid fighters in the UFC right now without ever fighting for the belt. That's how you get over. How did Diego Lopez get popular? Because he's exciting as hell and he just fought a bunch. He said, yes, I'll fight Mavso in three weeks.

And this is not a Diego Lopez specific thing because a ton of fighters do this. Once they, like, it is easy to be the, to be Donald. Soroni when the stakes are low, when you are unranked fighting your way into the UFC or trying to make a name for yourself. It is hard to have that same energy when you have something to lose. And again, nobody on this program has said he should accept this fight on short notice. But like a lot of people do this where I'll fight anybody and then it's actually I got the number three ranking now. I'm not going to fight anybody. I'm going to pick because by the way, when you make the argument, he's ahead of him. Why would he ever fight back? No one.

can move forward. Why would Mavsar ever fight back Al Jermaine Sterling? He's ahead of the, like, you just, you just fight people. And don't fight him at 307, fight him at 308 or whatever, because like that's what's going to end up happening. The end result, I am so convinced these two dudes are going to fight. But now instead of it happening at MSG in a big thing, it'll happen after all of this stupid Twitter nonsense happens, and it'll be next year.

All right. and our last... You have a revelation too. Look at Movesar too. Last thing on this. I spoke to Movesar. This is a guy who was like heading into the Arlenal Now and fight.

It was all about when I went I'm fighting for the belt, when I went I'm fighting for the belt, when I went I'm fighting for the belt. And then Dana White said we had to say, I still to this day feel like Dana White confused his fight with somebody else's because I've gone back and rewatch that fight before I interviewed him. And I was like, I'm not really sure what fight Dana was watching because that was actually pretty fun fight. It was a terrible fight.

It was a terrible fight. What are you talking about? The least fun fight I've ever seen. The only fight I've ever seen worse than that was Jan Bolhoev versus Magwin and Goliath. It's the worst fight I've ever seen. Yeah. It's just absolutely ridiculous.

But now my observes, it's just like, you know what? I'm not calling anybody out. I'm never calling for a title shot again. I'm just going to beat everybody. I don't care who you throw at me. I'm just going to beat him until I'm undeniable. And for a guy like that, when you get that rep, especially from Dana, which is ridiculous.

You kind of just have to do it. Just fight whoever it is. He's going to have to fight behind, probably. Can you imagine if at the end of this year, Marab somehow Movesar and Belaw Muhammad are your champions just like last resort title fights? And then you go Ankylaiav coming out. Ankylai is just waiting. Right there.

Come on, guys. Come on. Like, I know you don't want me here, but please let me fight for the belt. Just the best. Yep. Hey, look about it. I was like, oh, wait, you don't got to be exciting. Just hold them down.

Hold them down. Just be strong. Like, I mean, Amir al-Bazi, not that far away. Yeah, me Obazi. Just being like the, I don't know, sure, I guess. Does Bantamway have one of those? I'm missing. I mean, Mara, Rob.

Rob. Yeah. You know it's Marab because when Marab was crowned champion, they immediately cut him them. We're like, this is the guy we want right here. He's them. I thought they were going to bring him in the cage. It was like, oh, man, they're going to do a Bellator right now.

It's like, just because they already don't want Mara off that belt. Okay. If somehow Gamrod finds his way to a belt next year, what a moment we have for the unsung heroes. I don't think that's happening. I don't think so either. All right. And one last question. This one will get everyone riled up. Oh, good. Who would you have matched Jose Aldo up with? I think we talked about this after Aldo returned at 301 or whatever.

I think the dominant cruise fight made all the sense in the world just to do at some point as a legend fight. I think the Batista fight is very silly. It's fine, you know, high-level. mixed martial arts or whatever, but meaningless in the grander scheme of thing. I felt that way about the Martinez fight. You know, if I had my druthers, I would magically

transform this Batista fight into Henry Suhudo or Davis and Figurado. Either of those would be fine for me. In my head, I would just be like, let's do Figgy versus Aldo next. And the winner of that can

fight for a belt. but you know I think there are a lot of ways they may go with Aldo if he gets past Batista I'll tell you what man the more I think about it I think Josiah is going to beat Mario Batista I already have a bet on him

because I got him at dog odds Joeza Alda versus shot O'Malley friggin rules like I don't want to see that fight I think that that is the fight that they would have gone with up until the point that O'Malley said he's going to be out for a year ish

yeah I think It doesn't seem like that's not likely now. It doesn't seem like that's the case anymore, though. Does it not? There's something changed in the last 24 hours? Well, I guess he said like when he revealed the injury and the surgery, he's saying like it could be six months now. Who knows?

So, and although's not the most, I mean, he's somewhat active. I think O'Malley should stay. I think O'Malley staying out for a year is an unbelievably good idea for him. I, oh no, I completely agree. Just like I like how Volk is just sitting around and he's not going to fight anybody unless it's for the belt. Like, time off. He's a big enough star, let people miss you.

You say it all the time, Mike. Exactly. We can't miss you if you don't leave. And sometimes you got to go and just reflect. And I think especially with the guy like Sean O'Malley, if he sits out a year and then comes back in fights in September of 2025, it's going to be a big deal. Yeah. It is going to be a big deal. Plus, a lot of things are going to be different by then.

Umar will be champion. Umar want to fight O'Malley. Like, yeah. So I think they're a big deal. a lot of good answers for Jose should get booked. Should he be Batista? I think Patista is like truly

one of the only bad bookings that I could have come up with as far as a ranked opponent for Jose Aldo. Yeah, it's a weird one. And it's so fine. It's just like the worst of the possible bookings. I wish you'll get the real story

on why they booked that. Like just they hate him. I'm convinced that there is a grand conspiracy, and that that is why John Anick repeatedly calls anyone other than Josie Aldo, the consensus greatest featherweight alive, despite the fact that it is a bold-faced lion Josie Aldo is that. I am convinced that that is why Josie Aldo is buried on the prelims. He is not just a former champion.

He is literally one of the five most accomplished fighters in the history of your promotion. Dude, he might have got a bump. This Aljo News might have got him bumped to the main card now. He shouldn't be bumped. He should very clearly be there. God love Roman Deleadsay and Kevin Holland. That does not deserve main card spot for Jose friggin' alto.

Well, what that said, Casey's left us. I don't know how we're still live. Hey, I'm back. Oh, there he is. He's back. I think we're done. I think we've done enough. Unless there's another like super chat in there.

But I think we've, I think we've given the people a lot of time. We've answered a lot of questions. We had a special guest join us right at the top of the show. It was pretty fun. And then next week, we get to get ready for the UFC's return to Paris, France. Yes.

And out to Boycano versus Benoit Saint-Denie will be the main event. And then it will be officially on the road to UFC 307, which is going to be a damn, damn fun night of bites. We appreciate you joining us for Casey for Jed Bishu. bad. I am Mike Eck. For all you ranking shows, Finns, live on the pod network, live on the YouTube channel. Check it out. See it Xxed. I'm

the iconic old special team. Love y'all. This has been Between the Links and MMAT fighting production on the Vox Media Network.