MMA Fighting - BTL | Leon Edwards Retains, Colby Covington Next, UFC 286 Fallout, Vera vs. Sandhagen

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Leon Edwards sent the London fans home happy with majority decision win over Kamaru Usman in the main event of UFC 286 this past Saturday. With his rivalry with Usman officially behind him, there seemed to be many interesting options for "Rocky," before Dana White announced his own option. On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel discusses the fallout of Edwards' victory over Usman, what the victory means for Edwards' legacy, and where Usman goes from his second straight loss. Additionally, they'll discuss the UFC president naming Colby Covington as the No. 1 contender for the welterweight title, Edwards taking a stand, Covington's interview with MMA Fighting, and if "Chaos" has done Belal Muhammad a favor, along with Justin Gaethje's big win over Rafael Fiziev in the UFC 286 co-main event, Saturday's UFC San Antonio event headlined by a pivotal bantamweight bout between Marlon Vera and Cory Sandhagen, and more. Host Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew and Damon Martin. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Damon Martin: @DamonMartin 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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See app for details. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. On M.MA Fighting Studios, this is Between the Links. And now, your host, my... The iconic voice of MAPS. Wester Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of Between the Links. Thank you for joining us on another Thursday. This week, we're still feeling the hangover effect from UFC 286.

The welterweight division has been turned upside down with a contender that came out of nowhere since we last spoke on the show. We have a massive Bannamweight main event coming up in a little over 48 hours. A lot to talk about as we have some interwebsite infighting on the program this week. introduce the contestants. First, he's Mr. No Gray area, the exhibition king, the Hot Take King. He's from No Bet's Bar, Dan they were good here on Mnayfutting.com.

He is Mr. Jed Michoud, fresh off his victory last week. Hello, Jedd. How are you? I'm doing great. This music reminded me that Price is right is coming to Atlanta pretty soon, and I got to tell you,

your boy is going to be there. I'm going to figure out a way to get up there on contestants' row, and then we can have a new name for me. Price is right. champion Jedmishu. Mr. Showcase Showdown? Oh, I've been preparing my whole life for the Showcase Showdown.

Is this like the real show? Like Drew Carey's going to be there? Is this one of the traveling road shows they do? I've been told. It's the real show. I can neither confirm or deny it. But somebody told me that this week. It was like, Price Strides coming.

I was like, well, I got to figure out how to be a part of this. So be on the lookout, guys. 11 a.m. just for the next six months. Just keep watching Price is Right. I want to say CBS, not even entirely sure that's the channel, but keep your eyes peeled because I'm coming one day.

I'm so excited. Phenomenal drop. Oh, man. And back on the show, the OG himself from Fighter versus Rider with the great Matt Brown, also from MMAfighting.com. Mr. Damon Martin.

Hello, sir. Welcome back to the program, my man. I'm ready to talk in M&A, but now I'm like really excited to talk about prices right. Because I actually know a guy who got on prices right. I used to work with him. And he won surprises and then got wiped out in the taxes he had to pay on the prizes. So good luck with that, Jed. Oh, honestly, I would have assumed that they don't even give you prizes.

They just give you like a dollar amount equal to the value of the prizes because it seems much simpler than being like, here's your jet ski. figure out how to get it back to your home or whatever. Always pass on the first showcase. Always pass. Never. Never. You might get a cool trip and maybe like an outdoor hot tub. If there's a dinette set, no, I'm not involved in the dinette set at all.

Even though as I'm like older and I recognize like actually that I could use that, that would be like a functional item. After that, I want some type of trashy ass cruise to grease. Let's do it. Oh, man. Well, the actual retail price for UFC 286 was 7499 plus taxes. And it ended. I paid $79.99, Mike.

Did I get ripped off? Oh, man. $79.99. See, I was doing the watch party, so I didn't even know. Yeah. For those who spent $79.99 plus tax, you watch Leon Edwards defeat Kamar Usman via majority decision in the main event. He wins the trilogy, wins the rivalry, retains the welterweight championship.

and a lot has come out of this, and we will save the aftermath of what is next for Leon Edwards, at least for right now for round two. But Damon, I want to start with you, because Leon Edwards, as we've talked about many times, he is a guy that has had to scratch and claw his way to a title fight, leaped over every hurdle put in front of him, wins the title with this iconic comeback knockout,

this memory we will never forget in the sport, and that led to so many questions coming into this fight. and Leon answered a lot of those questions and officially put Kamar Usman behind him for good. So what was your biggest takeaway from the fight and Leon's first successful title defense in the big win? Honestly, what impressed me most about, two things in particular with Leon impressed me with this fight.

One was his confidence, you know, because I think even though he won the last one, you know, the head shot dead, we all know about that. It was a very iconic moment. But he was losing that fight. And he was down three and a half rounds by the point he got the knockout. So I think getting that knockout instilled him with a lot of confidence because he fought Camaro with a lot more confidence this time. He fought, you know, in belief in himself that he could win, that he could go out there

and beat Kamar Usman again and do it without, you know, the late theatrics that he did in the first and the second fight. And then also I think obviously everyone's going to talk about it, but the takedown defense. I mean, that was just a huge difference in this fight. He shucked off Usman so many times. And even Usman did get him down momentarily. He got right back to his feet. And I will say, I had a conversation with Gilbert,

last night we were talking about the fight and he was saying that you know something looked a little off with usman in his takedowns he wasn't really committing to his takedowns he wasn't driving through his takedowns and i think there is maybe a legitimate question about that maybe in terms of like his knees or was he just you know worried about the head kick so he was or worried about the kick so he was being wary of diving for the legs kind of thing i don't know but the takedown defense was on point and it was far different than the second fight where he got taken down at will especially in the second, third, and fourth rounds. So it was just a stark contrast.

Now, ultimately, it still came down to a very close fight, though. I actually scored it a draw because of the point deduction for the fence grabs. So I had it at 47-47. So all these things I'm raving about Leon Edwards, it wasn't like it was a blowout. Kumar Uspum was right there and easily could have won the fight with one more round. So it was still a very good fight, very close fight. But that's really what I took away from Leon Edwards. Jed, what say you?

Biggest takeaway from Leon's big win. Oh, that's a good question, right? I think there are a lot of ways you can go with this. I think the biggest one, and it's not by large margin over many of the others. So I think that Leon might have had a point with what he was saying coming in. He was saying that the altitude really messed me up. It was a huge factor. I don't think a ton of people gave him credence for it, in part because the truth is, if that is objectively all the way true,

If the altitude really made it hard on Leon, he has no one but himself to blame. Like they are both competing in the same cage in the same area. That's on him to have better prepared. So if that was the cost of it, then okay. But I think a lot of people, myself included, kind of dismissed it as, okay, like, I'm sure it didn't help. But realistically, you just kept getting backed up to the fence and he kept wrestling you and there you go. And then we look at this one and one of the most notable things, like right out of the gate, is how much movement Leon is showing.

Leon, and whether that's because he felt he had more energy or it was purely that he recognized how bad last fight went for him, he was never stationary. He was circling constantly. It was a struggle for Usman to get him backed up to the fence. And, you know, his coaches told him that in the rematch said, hey, you stop backing up and he just kept backing up. And so to see the difference in that here, it felt a little bit like it was, okay,

maybe he really wasn't prepared for the altitude. And the, you know, fatigue makes cowards of us all, as the old saying. And it was easier for Usman to back him up in this fight. It was a lot harder. And I think some of that is from the movement. I'll also say some of it is maybe to Horacell's point. He said yesterday on Joe Rogan, Usman might have come back a little too soon.

And I thought Leon was flashing the head kick early to give Usman the fear. And he did not come in with the same level of confidence. It looked like, to me, that we've seen from Kamar Ustman, he looked like he got frustrated in there repeatedly with his inability to kind of get to the dominant positions he had had such success with in the rematch. He looked frustrated with his, the real difficulty he had cornering Leon, because he got there eventually, but it was work.

And all the while, he's getting kicked in the legs a bunch. He's eaten snap kicks up front a bunch. And so I think a lot of this is the first fight, you know, we all said it wasn't a, or the second fight, It wasn't a fluke, the outcome. Like, that was a prepared and a thing that happened. But I think most people, myself included, thought that's not a high outcome fight. Like, if they fight that fight 10 times, the outcome is not Leon pulling that off most of them.

But I think looking at this fight, the true answer is Leon wins more often than he loses against Kamar Usman, based on the style, based on the skills he's bringing to the table, maybe based on where they're at athletically in their age range, their gaps right now. there was no mistake. It maybe happened in an unconventional or unexpected way, but there's no mistake in Leon Edwards winning. He is the best wealth away in the planet right now. Let me, let me, if you mind if you'll throw this out there real quick, Jed, to your point. Great point about the kicks. I wasn't thinking about this, but something else that Gilman Burns said to give him credit for this

is that he said that, you know, Leon was targeting the kicks to the legs and to the body early in the fight to get in Camaro's head about the head kick. And he's like, I wonder if that didn't play a huge part in Camaro not wanting to commit to take downs, not wanting to commit to his punches because he was fearing that head kick. And to your point, that's a great example of, you know, even like the knockout, like, coming back too soon from the knockout, not so much like in terms of a concussion. I'm saying like in terms of the mentality of like being feared of hitting the head kick again. And he made a great, Gilbert made a great point saying like he was kicking to the body really hard,

kicking to the legs. He's like, A, that that diminishes your cardio and your conditioning, but hit, into the body constantly and two probably even bigger is that it gets in his head that he's going to go up high again and and we remember when john jones made that big point about a tendency that daniel cormier had when he tried to go when he went for a certain combination he would duck his head that left him up for a head kick then when they did the rematch jones hit him with that exact kick like exactly got in his head daniel made the mistake and john made him pay for it i think there was a little bit of that in this one so much was made of the head kick it got

in camaro's head he had to stop the head kick he had to stop the head kick he had to stop the head kick and he forgot to stop other things. I fully agree. Because just like, dude, like 80% of fighting his confidence. Like, you have to have the requisite skills, but one of those dudes looked a lot more confident in the second and third round in what they were doing. And it wasn't Kamar Usman. And I think a lot of it was just he ate a bunch of kicks.

He had now he, it was his first fight. Like, I don't think we made a big enough deal about it. We was talked to his mention, but like, first time he's ever been knocked out. And he wasn't, this wasn't GSP tapping to strikes getting knocked out, which still he went to a sports psychologist that had totally messed with his head. This was cold, like woke up in a different universe than the one he was previously in. And I don't think we gave that as much credence as we should because it, to me, it looked like a different, Kamala Usman mentality wise, confidence wise. And the same respect. It looked like Leon Edwards was as confident as I've ever seen him.

It was not, you know, he was not trying to point fight. He was executing a game plan and a really good one. Jed, long-time listeners of this program and many others on the MMA Fighting Network, know that you were the driver of the nobody cares about Leon Edwards train. You never said he was a bad fighter or anything like that, but you always thought he was a fighter that could never be a star. He can never get over that hump. And it wasn't his resume.

or his skills necessarily that kept him from title fights. It was the fact that you just felt that nobody cared wasn't really interesting. Do you feel differently now, Jed? Has he shown you something over the last several months that has changed your mind? Yes and no. So there's a little bit. At some point, you just got to walk back a take as strong as that one. But the truth is I stand by a lot of what I said, particularly at the time I said it,

because here's the deal, man. there's a reason that it took him forever to get to a title fight and it's not because the UFC was too worried that he would make the sport boring because he was so good it was because he wasn't a compelling fighter that doesn't mean he's a bad fighter we see this all the time John Fitch was an excellent fighter incredibly uncompelling to watch in the cage Leon Edwards not the same kind of we usually and that's the thing we usually associate that with like lay and pray guys and that's not really Leon

game, though he can do it if he needs to. He just isn't compelling. Here's what I'll point to. Look at his current Winstreet, which is great, undeniable, whatever it is, 12 fights or wherever we're unbeaten. There are three finishes in it. One of them being the all-time headkick of Kamal Usman. That's a highlight you can never take away.

And sometimes that's all it takes. One big moment, and that's about as big a moment as you can have. But prior to that, we're looking at a subcommittee. admitted Albert Tuminoff. I mean, okay, in 2016, that's fine. And then he finished Peter Sabata. And the rest of it is he's winning decisions, like not even compelling decisions over RDA or Gunner Nelson or Nate Diaz

where the fight was really bad. Like that fight was mostly awful to watch. And the only compelling part was the last minute where it looked like Leon was getting getting boxed up. So I think that that's still here. The difference is part of it. of being compelling and interesting is being in situations that are undeniably compelling and interesting, right? Like when you are fighting Peter Sabata, you're going to have to do something

for people to care because Peter Sabata. It's a very different calculus if you're fighting Kumar Usman for the Walterway title. And the truth is, if Usman had spent another minute and not gotten kicked in the head in the rematch, then this is done. Leon Edwards is never a champion. people aren't having this let's reevaluate his career where we're at moment Usman is moving on to whatever Leon goes back

to the bottom of the line and we all think of him as okay he lost an awful fight like a fight that was very not compelling or interesting instead he pulls that out and that starts to shape the narrative because he gave us

in my opinion the greatest comeback and the greatest head kick knockout in the history of MMA like that that means something and now he got to headline an event in London where look It's the sports nationalist in a lot of ways.

People were there for him because he's the champion and England is going to rally around him. And so to that extent, he gets to be a star. He's an English champion. That's going to give you pull and leverage in some ways. I still have a lot of questions on, a lot of doubts, not really questions. I strongly doubt that he is going to settle in in a major way

with markets outside of England. But that doesn't really matter for him at this. point. He's done the thing. He did the thing. He's got the belt. He's the champion. If they let him fight Jorge Mossadol, maybe he could build something up. But as we're going to talk about in just a minute here, that doesn't seem to be the case. So I, I'm not really sure he's ever going to resonate with the fan base at large. Damme, what do you think about that? And again, we'll talk about the aftermath of what Dana White said in round two. But do you feel like Leon has done enough to become, I guess, a guy that can carry this division for the foreseeable future.

Do you think a lot of that narrative about him being not really interesting, boring? Do you think that's changed since the second Usman fight? To a certain extent. To a certain extent it has because we got to see the head kick and the second fight with Uspen was actually a really, really good fight, and he showed us a lot of skills, and he showed us he could beat Kamar Usman

without pulling off the late theatrics in the fifth round. But at the same time, you know, the championship brings a certain amount of Star-Benzhen power and interest to everybody, but it doesn't put you over the top. You know, the guys or the girls who are superstars typically become superstars outside of being a champion. And then if you do become more of a star when you're a champion, it's because you built a certain resume that people are impressed by it. In Kamar Usman's case was a great example. He became the number one pound for pound fighter in the world. He had that huge knockout over Horacell that kind of put him over the top. And

and he kind of became a bit of a mythical figure in that way, because of a couple of great performances and also because he became the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the sport and every single fighter underneath him, whether you're talking about flyways, bantam weights, lightways, heavy-wates, whoever, they would inevitably have to mention him if they talked about pound-for-pound

because that conversation constantly comes up, whether it is Wolkenovsky or whoever else it is. So you're constantly being mentioned as the best guy in the world. So I think that Leon has some time to build that kind of cachet But the problem is that, you know, when you go into a fight like this and you're already not a super well-known guy and you don't have a huge amount of fan support outside of maybe your home country, and even that is relatively new. I mean, we always forget he got booed in a fight against Gunner Nelson in London. That was a few years ago. Wasn't like this was like a decade ago.

He got booed in his own home country, basically a guy who's not from England. So we got to remember that, you know, Leon will have a certain amount of fan support just because he's the champion. and obviously now just because he's from England. But I don't know that it's going to transcend to where he's going to become suddenly a pay-per-view draw or people are going to consider him must-see TV. I think it's really going to come down to where they put him, meaning are they going to continue to book him in English,

you know, crazy, awesome fan reactions, or are they going to book him in compelling fights to people actually care about, which, you know, as we're going to talk about here soon, comes to the Colby-Cubington factor, which I have a lot of thoughts on that one as well. But I think that, you know, the Mazzvedal fight,

probably would have been much bigger. But I think it's got to be those kind of things, those kind of rivalry fights that will draw, that will draw people to see him fight beyond just being Leon Edwards, the welterweight champion. Now, Damon, where does Kamaro Ouspin go from here? Because it seems like his legacy is set in stone is the second best welterweight of all time.

It's kind of hard to argue that at this point. He's talked in the past about not having a lot of time left in the sport. He obviously has a bright future outside of the cage, whether it be in the acting world in front of the camera or in front of the camera on a broadcast team for whether it's the UFC or some other combat sports organization, he's very good at that stuff.

And it seems like after Saturday, he wants to reflect a little bit, but it seems like he wants to keep this train moving. So where does he go from Saturday? Do you think he fights again? And if so, what kinds of matchups make sense for him right now? So my heart of hearts, I thought, if Kumar Usman lost,

on Saturday, he would retire. I just believe that not because I think he's done or that he's washed up or anything crazy like that. I just think when you reach a certain pinnacle in the sport and then you come down from that, a lot of guys and a lot of girls don't really want to try that climb again. You know, Camaro's 35, 36 now. He knows he's at the tail end of his career,

whether he's at the end of his career or not is debatable, but he knows he's at the tail end of his career. And he's already had his biggest rivalry fights with Mazvedal and Colby, and he's vanquished both those guys twice. So there's not going to be a real, you know, of interest in running either of those back for a third time. A lot of people have mentioned middleweight, you know, with his wrestling, immediately jumps in there and he's right alongside, you know, probably Hamza Chamaev is like one of the

best wrestlers at 185 pounds, but I still think the size difference would hurt him a little bit. He's not a massive guy for middleweight, so I think that would be an interesting move if he decides to go there. But I think it really just comes down to, you know, matchups at this point. I think, you know, I know, I know, Belal Muhammad mentioned, you know, if he doesn't get Colby, he doesn't get the title shot, Usman's a fight, he would be interested. in taking. I think that's a potentially interesting matchup out there for him.

I think there's other welterweights coming up. Like, you know, you could say Shavkat, recmonoff. Like, I think Shavkat against Ustman actually makes more sense than Shavkat versus Balau because if Shavkat beats Ustman, then you do have a, you know, 100% number one contender. And if Ustman can vanquish a real high level prospect like Shavkat, he can answer a lot of questions to say, I'm not done, I'm still going to get back to the title. And I said this before. I like Leon Edwards very much. And I, I'll be the first to admit I was probably right behind Jed and the, no one really cares about Leon Edwards thing.

But I really like Leon. Here's the problem, though, is that I don't know how long his reign is going to last just because of how volatile this division can be. And he could, he could lose to Colby Coventon. He could lose to Bilal Muhammad. He could lose to Shavkat Rachmanov. So I don't know how long his reign's going to last where we're talking about matchmaking in the future of Usman Edwards 4.

But I do think Usman could get back in there. But I think the Shavkat fight would be the one I would make. Or if he wants to test middleweight, you know, try it out. I mean, like I said, there's not a long path to the title when you think about it. I mean, you know, Chameh is already like one fight away from the title and he hasn't even fought there in like two and a half years. Chad, what do you think? Does he fight again? And if so, is he fighting a middleweight?

Does he stay at welterweight? What makes sense? I assume that if he fights again, it's a middleweight. I think I said that coming in. I just don't see the appeal of fighting at Welterway. If he wants to take one at Welterway, given that Colby Covington appears to be next in line for the Welterway title fight, because if Colby beats Leon, then Kamar would seemingly have to fight Colby for the belt.

If Colby will accept that fight, which I don't know that he would, because he clearly be trying to fight Conn McGregor at that point. So maybe he wants to spin his wheels he takes a fight. at at welterweight and i mean he can win any of them um i think it depends where he thinks he's going it feels like shavkat is going to be fighting below mohammed that seems like that's the next avenue forward at which point uh you could just just do usman versus step motorboy thompson they're two dudes who never fought um you know old heads in the division seems like the thing to do it's fine go with that uh but i think the thing that makes more sense is to try and

make another title run and the easier it would at least appear avenue for that will be a middleweight it's not as good a division as welterweight the champion right now ostensibly looks like somebody that ozman should at least have some stylistic matchups against obviously if izzie wins this rematch against perera coming up next two weeks or whatever from now that changes the math so i think that 287 will determine a lot if if izzie wins and i doubt ozman moves up for that but if he does he I suspect we're going to see Usman moving on. I would like to just pivot this conversation entirely, though, because you said something, Mike,

and I think I said it before 286, and I have since sort of reconsidered, certainly after the loss to Leon, Camar Usman's not the second best welterweight in the world, or at least I don't think we should be at all confident that he's the second best welterweight of all time. Matt Hughes, his resume, still holds up exceedingly well.

And we all kind of bought into this narrative when they were trying to push that Kumar was better than GSP, which was insane and still is. But if you go back and look at Matt Hughes, I am in no way sure that Kamar Usman is the second greatest volatile of all time. He's at worst the third. He's certainly no lower than three. But I would love to hear because I believe previously Damon had stated that he thought Usman was better than GSP.

And I want to know if he still holds to this belief post to Leon Edwards. and I want to know how he feels about where Oussman ranks historically relative to Matt Hughes because as I went back over it, I frankly put Matt Hughes above Kumar Ousman in the historical Walterweight rankings right now. Well, I think what do you think about that? I think skill for skill, I would, you know, Ousman is why. Well, sure. When I think of him being better than GSP, in terms of the second best welterweight of all time,

I still think it's, I still think it's, I still think it's Kamar Usman. And I know here's what's going to happen with the whole. Matt Hughes conversation is that, and I'm going to bring it up, even though I'm not as adamant about this as some of the other people are. But obviously, I think the level of competition has raised a lot since Matt Hughes was on top of the world, you know, winning, you know, winning by, you know, his opponent falling off the top of the cage and then power bombing him on the, on the canvas and waking up first to become champion. One of the funniest stuff comes in an interesting. Just an incredible way to win a belt.

Yeah, Matt Hughes has some impressive. Yeah, I won. Matt Hughes has some impressive wins on his resume. He definitely does. But he was also, again, in that era, he had a lot of, he had a lot of fights in there that he should not have had. Like,

there's fights on Hughes, there's fights on Hughes's record where you're like, why was he fighting this guy? And Hughes has talked about this openly after he suffered his first loss, you know, Pat Militich was his coach, and he knowingly put him in there against tomato cans to build his confidence backup.

So Matt Hughes, Matt Hughes fought a little different era. And when you look at his title defenses, does he have some good wins in there, sure? But, and again, I don't, I don't necessarily bang the drum as much as some people do about this. But I think in this current era of mixed martial arts, Matt Hughes would probably, like,

and again, I understand people evolve and get better, blah, blah, blah, but in this current era of Welterweight, Matt Hughes would barely be top 10 in terms of, like, who he could compete with, with his skill level.

He was very limited in his skill set at Welterweight. And I just think that when you look at, I mean, you know, he beat high out to him, Sok Sakurai, great win. But how much of a win, how much of a legacy win is that really when you start breaking down how good both guys were at that time. So again, it's a pretty big legacy win.

I think that was the win that like made him like the top pound for pound fighter in the sport. Yeah, but. Because mock was on fire. Does it still hold the same relevancy? I don't know. There's, I guarantee you there's a thousand people who are going to watch this right now and say, who is Hayato mock soccer? I guarantee that.

Nobody watching this has any idea who mock is. But I'm not, I'm not disrespecting mock soccer. I'm saying mock soccer was, again, a good win, but I'm saying like comparatively to today's wins, I'm just not sure. And again, we all have revisionist history, right? Like, because Carmaroisman has now lost two in a row to Leon Edwards, suddenly, you know, we're going to have this conversation. He's not as good as we all thought he was once.

When we kind of forget the last fight, you know, the second fight between them ended after Kamara was dominating for three and a half rounds and then got head kicked. And this fight, he lost in a majority decision that a lot of people myself include a score to draw. So it's not like he got blown out of the water and he's suddenly looking like he's past his prime and he's a bum. So I still put him number two. Hughes is probably three. And it's not a disrespect that Hughes is three. I just think that when you look at the entire body of work beyond just his title defenses, Hughes had a lot of bad losses as well later in his career. I understand everyone likes to discount losses later in your career. But I'm sorry. If you

keep fighting, it still counts. And he had, he did not end his career very well, uh, going out of the UFC. So again, like I said, I don't think there's, I don't think it's a huge debate, but I still put it to number two all time. Yeah. I think my, I mean, I understand the arguments. My, my thing is one, Hughes is, yes, all that, like, his first like 20 fights are mostly not relevant to the conversation outside of the fact that he was very busy.

But like, I just forgot how many title defenses. he had over two reins, but like seven total title defenses, I think is the number. And against this was always my big knock on Usman. I think he would have beaten a lot of dudes. In reality, we just saw him fight Hory Mastrow and Colby Covington twice. And then Gilbert Burns was also in there. It was like, I think he would have beaten a lot of the other top welterweights. But the one time he fought some dude that wasn't Mastoral or Covington, he's not lost him twice.

So it's like, whereas Matt Hughes at least was fighting different dudes every like Sean Shirk. That's, you know, you can quibble with it. But at the time it was a very quality one. Socceri, very quality one. Trank fight's great. One of it he did it after after getting a blatant blow blow, which was incredible. He gets the beat. He's beaten BJ and George St. Pierre.

Like I think Matt Hughes, we all sort of rode off, which is the point here of my comment of like, and I did it myself. It was like, we all just sort of got rid of it because the narrative. was Azusman better than GSP, so we sort of presumed that that made him at least the second best. I'm really, really not sure. I think historically Matt Hughes is a better well to wait. I'm sorry to derail your show, Mike. Well, you also got mixing. You also got to again, listen, you're right.

I think the BJ Penn's win stands very well. I think the George St. Pierre win, obviously very early in his career stands very well. But look at his record. I mean, again, you got Gil Castillo in there. No one remembers Gil Castillo. Joe Riggs. I know Joe Riggs was the man of the hour. That wasn't even a good, great win at the time.

The guy. Joe Castillo was like a mid-win. Yeah, the guy who should be fighting Jake Paul, according to certain reporters, Joe Riggs is out there. You know, that's that, but Hoyce Grayson. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're talking about the fight master?

Are you talking about the fight master, Joe Riggs? Yes. You know, Hanato Shrews. One of one? Yeah. I mean, there's, like I said, there's, again, there's a few people on his resume. Like, you look at the BJ Penwin.

That's a great win. look at, you look at George St. Pierre, even early in his career, that's a great win. But then he's littered with guys that you're kind of like, who? And I think, you know, when you look at Usman beating Gilbert Burns pretty definitively, you know, a guy who went out there, did that, which is a good one on his record, being the first person and the only person ever knock out Horace Mademois. And again, Horace Mademois and may not be the greatest, but he's still, you know, a veteran stalwart in both lightweight and Welterweight to knock him out, to knock him out, mean something. So again, we're quibbling over minor details, but that's why I still put

Usman ahead of Hughes overall. Here's a question. I'm really just taking the show away from you, Mike, and I don't care. I know why, but go ahead. Because Joe Rogan said a real dumb thing, shockingly the other day about how Horry Mastro is better than George St. Pierre, which is just like objectively false in just about every possible way that could be. if you took prime Matt Hughes against Prime and or modern day Mosphidal, does Mosphidal win? Because I don't think he does. I think I would pick Matt Hughes to just tackle Mossfodal for five rounds or whatever.

Is that a crazy thing? I don't think it's crazy, but I don't think it's one-way traffic. I think it's a winnable fight for Masbidol because Matt Hughes- It is winnable, certainly. Matt Hughes was a really, really terrible striker, really, really bad. So if he can't get him down,

he's getting lit up on the feed. So that's really what you're coming down to. Can he get him down before? Like, he just could knockout fucking hoists. He's, he's, you know, he's, he was, you know, obviously slightly better than Ben Askeran's striking, but it's not a far cry to say

they were very similar in their striking skills. So, yeah, I think it really comes down to can he get him down before Mazvidol hits him with a flying knee or something. Yeah, well, interesting topic, but I know, I know I try to hijack the show, Jed, but we have to talk. I don't want to do it.

We have to talk about it. Let's move on to the story of the week. Point for round number two goes to, round number one, excuse me. Damon Martin for not hijacking the show. For not stealing the show. You know, fair. Fair.

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At these prices, could I find something for everyone at winners? Stop wondering. Start gifting. Winners find fabulous for less. Of course, the story of UFC 286 was about Leon Edwards in the aftermath for about 30 minutes because he gets the win and it seems like there were a lot of very interesting options for him. And it seems like the UFC 287 matchup between Gilbert Burns and the aforementioned Jorge Mazadol had some massive stakes, especially for

Mazadol. That fight became infinitely bigger once Leon Edwards got his hand raised. But the stakes in that fight became massive for only a few minutes because at the UFC 286 post-fight press conference, Dana White goes up. He is asked who is next. And normally we don't make fights the day of the fight. Dana made a fight the day of the fight named Colby Covington, the man who surprisingly weighed in as the backup for the main event. Colby Covington is the number one contender. And according to Dana, nothing will change that, even if Jorge Mazadol, just obliterates Gilwood Burns at UFC 287. So Jed, you are not happy with this. Colby has done some media since that announcement, including with us, here at m-mafighting.com, and he has been making a lot of noise.

So I guess my question is, do you feel any differently five days later than you did Saturday night? And I guess my other question is, why are people so surprised by this? We're surprised by it because we're dipshit. I say we, because I'm absolutely among them.

No, not any cooler with this. I don't care enough to let this really affect my day or bother me. but it's objectively dumb and I wish we weren't here. These are the sorts of fights. Let's go back to old Matt Hughes. Matt Hughes fought Hoyst Gracie in the UFC, which was at the time widely laughed at.

But the reason he did it is there was nobody else for him to fight. Like there really weren't other viable contenders for him at Walter Waite. And so it was like, we get to do this kind of fun thing. And that's where this fight belongs. Kobe Covington by no metric, no reasonable metric. deserves a title fight right now. At least not with the vigor with which it has been bestowed upon him. Because Hori Mastvedol sits in waiting.

And I'm not here to tell you that Hori Mospadol deserves a title fight on merit. But if he beats Gilbert Burns, one, it's a better win than Colby Covington has in the last five years. And two, there's a baked-in story and the champion wants the fight. The champion actively has no interest in fighting Kobe Covington because Kobe Covington hasn't beaten anybody other than Horacello in five years. And so it's there's no reason to push this. This is a fight that would make sense if there were not other viable contenders. If Leon Edwards had cleaned out the division and we're trying to figure somebody else out,

here's or if it's a short notice, we need somebody who's going to try and gin up some interest, who's going to say something real dumb, who's going to threaten to murder one of our employees. That's a great look for us as an organization. we need that guy to try and drive, boost our pay-per-view and whatever they can. But that's not the case. This isn't short notice. And there's not a dearth of challengers available. There are at least two other dudes in this weight class who, like, outright just deserve a title fight right now.

Belal Mohammed deserves a title fight right now based on merit and based on how the sports should work meritocratically. Shavkaa Rakhmanov, exactly the same. add in Hamzaa Shmaev who seems to still believe he can make it well to wait but Dana White is just like no I don't I don't really know why the UFC is just like no not going to do it they've let plenty of other people catastrophically miss weight and then still go back to doing things so I don't I truly just don't understand the impetus here in part because I don't believe we have ever seen real metrics that show that Colby Covington drives the kind of interest to demand something like this. I could at least accept it or understand it.

Maybe not accept it, but understand it. If we're talking Connemer Gregory, if Connemarger beats Michael Chandler, does he deserve Walter Reed title fight? No, are they going to give him one? Sure are. And I get it. It's stupid and I hate it, but I get it. I don't think Colby's ever really shown that from any of the metrics I've looked at.

He does not appear to be a substantively bigger draw. than other people. Bigger than below Muhammad? Thousand percent. Is he that much bigger than doing below Muhammad in London? I don't think so. I think we're working minimal degrees of difference here. So still think it's dumb.

At some point, there should be some form of meritocracy going on here, even though I know that that's not really the name of the game. And so, yeah, it's dumb, but it makes total sense because why wouldn't something like this happen? I just, I believed too much in the goodness of the UFC, which was my first and final mistake. Damon, you were also not happy with this announcement.

I was more curious of like when this decision was made because I don't think it was that when Cole, because Colby was the backup, he automatically got it. I think the buzz that it generated him stepping on the scale Friday had Dana go, wow, people were talking about this. I didn't see this coming and the fact that Dana's own son called him on the phone and was like, what the hell is Colby Coveington doing in London? I think that kind of jarred something for him, but that's not here nor there.

But you're the man, Damon, who taught me many, many years ago, a very important lesson in the sport. Strike the word deserves from my vocabulary. And that is something that I've done for six or seven years. So why is this so surprising to everybody? I mean, reality, it shouldn't be surprising, right? Like, when we really think about it, it shouldn't be surprising because this is classic UFC.

This is what they do. They try to make fights based on fan interest, even though there's no demonstrable metric that proves that Colby Covington is this draw. He's had a couple of rivalry fights that have drawn well with Kamar Usman and Jorge Mazvedal, but there's no proof out there that Colby is some huge driver to pay-per-view sales that people are going out of their way

to plunk down $80 to watch him fight. Do people turn on YouTube to see him say stupid things and say crazy things and threaten broadcasters and, you know, say things that are just, you know, skirting the edge of all sorts of problematic. Sure. Is that going to be worth $80 to watch him fight on pay-per-view? Probably not.

So I don't know where's this idea that he's this huge star, this huge needle mover that people want to see fight. I guarantee you bring back Nate Diaz and do him and Leon Edwards, too. That does double what Colby Covington's about to do, which I'm shocked they didn't try that one. So no, it doesn't surprise me. I also think, I think, you know, one thing I will give Colby credit for

as I was thinking about this over the last couple of days is that, you know, when you really think about it, you know, him coming back kind of out of the shadows out of nowhere after going into witness protection program for the last year is that it just surprised people. We hadn't heard from him. He's been quiet. He didn't comment after Leon knocked out Usman. He didn't comment, you know, any of the other fights being made. He didn't comment on anything happening. He went completely disappeared off the map as a joke in witness protection after the Jorge Mazadol assault. He just went away. Never heard from him. We all kind of forgot about him. And then, boom, out of nowhere he's here, he's at the way ends, he's doing that, and then now he's doing

the media circuit again where he's back saying, you know, things that were relevant in 2020. So, you know, people are suddenly interested again a little bit. But I just, I just hate the fact that, you know, if there weren't other better options available, that just, it wouldn't, it wouldn't matter if that wasn't the fact. But Bilal Muhammad, I don't care what you think about Bilal Muhammad. You don't have to like Bilal Muhammad. I don't care if you do or not. The guy's unbeaten his last nine fights, and he has three really quality wins in a row with Wonderboy, with Vicente Lucay and with Sean Brady.

The winner of Gilbert Burns, Jorge Mazel. Now, you can say Jorge Maswell has a loss to Colby Covington, but he also has a three-piece of a soda. And that is a natural storyline to build up a much bigger fight with Leon Edwards. That would be a huge fight comparatively to Colby Covington. Leon Edwards can fight Jorge Mazel. And I would argue even Gilbert Burns would be a better option if he goes out there and start. Arches Jorge Mazvedal because he would have the two wins in a row and just a better overall resume at Welterweight than anything Colby Covington has done in the last five years.

But again, this is the sport we live in. Jed just said it. Weird things happen. Connemardator beats a lightweight at Welterweight. Michael Chandler, they'll give him a title shot. We've seen other weird things that make, I just, this one, the reason it bugs me or the reason I'm still just don't understand. I just don't get it.

Like, I don't understand why Colby suddenly became the guy. when you have a fight in two weeks that could potentially give you a much bigger, better fight, even if you could argue that Jorge Madsadol doesn't deserve it. No, of course he doesn't really deserve it, but, you know, he has the history of Leon. So it's a story. I just don't understand why you're so emphatic saying he's the number one guy who's getting the title shot. I will say one last thing about this, though, as worked up as we've all been over the last four or five days since this happened, no contracts have been signed.

Nothing's happened yet. We don't know if this fight's actually going to have. How many guys or girls have been declared the number one contender and Dana said they're getting the next shot? And they don't get the next shot. Something happens. Someone gets injured. They want to put a card somewhere that the other guy doesn't want to go to. The timing doesn't work.

I mean, for instance, in God who knocks out Steepi Miochich, the UFC desperately needs a main event four months later. And he doesn't want to fight that early. And so they just give an interim title to Surreal Gone and Derek Lewis of all people. That's how the UFC operates. They're saying Colby Covington right now. guess what? Colby Covington slips and falls on a banana pill tomorrow or maybe he gets punched in the crowd

for threatening John Anick and then suddenly by August we're like, oh, it's going to be Gilbert Burns and Leon Edwards. Oh, it's going to be Bilal Muhammad and Leon Edwards. This is all right now. A lot of things change in the UFC very rapidly. And so I'm still not completely sold. We're actually going to see

Colby Covington fight Leon Edwards. David, I'll do you one better. I'll do you one better, David. You don't need to go to Francis Zingano as an example for this. Colby has twice talked himself out of title fights already. He was

an interim champion and didn't fight for the undisputed belt. They took it from him and made him fight Robbie Lawler because this man knows how to shoot himself in the foot like very few other people in the history of the sport. He seems to be back in

the good graces. But also, he did just this week, threatened to murder a UFC commentator, a widely beloved employee of the company. So he may already have thrown his title aspirations out the window in no way as is said in stone fully agree with you. Yeah, and we'll talk about that in a minute as well. Honestly, to me, the biggest surprise is not cold beginning in Tyler shot.

It was just the announcement and when it happened. Like, if this was April 9th and UFC 287 is over and Gilbert Burns wins a 3027 decision over Jorge Mazdaul, and Dana goes up and says Colby's next, I don't think it's getting this much backlash, if you will. There'll be some people who think Bilal Muhammad deserves it, and he does meritocratically 100%. But I think if the timing was a little better,

if he just waited three weeks for the outcome of that fight, I don't think it's as bad. So let me ask you this, Damon, if Jorge Mazadol goes out there and just puts the boots to Gilbert Burns, flying knee, knocks him on the first round, will Dana White go on that, at that table with a microphone in his hand? and say, you know what, maybe we'll do Mazadol. Do you think that happens?

I don't know if he'll commit to it on the night because Dana, for some weird reason, always likes to say we don't make fights the night of the fight, even though he's done it a million times over. And he just did it, you know, four days ago. But 100% they'll reconsider. They'll absolutely reconsider because Mazadol winning is a bigger fight. It is a bigger fight for him to go fight Leon Edwards, especially if they do it in London after what happened the last time they were in London together with the whole three pieces

Minnesota. Absolutely, they'll rethink their decision because Mazvedal is a much, much bigger star than Colby Covington. And we just, you know, we all talked about earlier, Leon Edwards is still not that guy. He's still not that star. He's not that guy who's going to draw people just because he's Leon Edwards. He needs a rivalry fight. Guess what? Jorge Mazvedal is the perfect rivalry fight. And also because Usman's out of the picture now, we can kind of, you know, we can kind of move on from the whole, from the whole, he has two losses of Kamar Usman thing. He got, knocked out by Comor Oussman. We've got to move past that now, and we move into the rivalry fight. And absolutely, if he goes out there and just starches, Gilbert Burns, which I'll be

completely honest, I think a lot of us will probably agree. I don't see that happening, but it could. And if it does, 100% they'll start reconsidering it. I don't think he'll call it the night of the fight to say, it's over, we're giving it to Jorge. But I think suddenly you'll start seeing things get chipped away at the foundation of Dana White declaring Colby Covington is the number one contender, because Leon's going to immediately call for it, fans are going to start immediately calling for it. And suddenly people are going to start forgetting about Colby Covington. They're going to be banging the drum for Mazvedal to get that fight to go over there

and see if he can finish his combo meal with Leon Edwards. Jed, what do you think? Because look, me and Dana don't have a lot in common. We're both bald. He is considerably much more money than I have. But there is one thing we definitely have in common. We are stubborn as hell. And if we have our feet planted in the sand and people are against us, we're just going to dig deeper.

and Dana has probably seen the aftermath of this and there could be a chance that the Bostonian and him will just dig a little deeper here. But if Mazadol just goes in there and does what the betting odds don't suggest will happen, but if it does, and he goes out there in obliterate Skill of Burns and everybody, all the momentum is towards Mazadol, do you think Dana will change his mind?

I do. In part because, one, we've seen him do it plenty of times before. He had that famous quote of somebody asked him at a press conference, I remember exactly what it was about. It was something like this where he said this will never happen. And it's like, you, hey, you said that ship had sailed. What happened? Why are we doing it?

He's like, well, the ship turned around sailed right back. And I think that's where we're at. For all the reasons, Damon said, most importantly, though, which Damon didn't really mention, the outcome is so much better if Mosphidal wins. Because that's the part of this that is maybe more frustrating is what comes next, right? I'm going to pick Leon Edwards to beat Kobe Covington shouldn't they fight. I'd pick the same for Hoare Mosvold should they rematch

or I guess fight. They did not a fight. But what if he doesn't win, right? Like it won't be cataclysmic because again Leon Edwards isn't some huge star that you're losing. But it's way better for the company to have Horamospital with the belt.

You have a built-in fight with Kobe Covington that you can go to if you need it to. Or more likely, Masfadol versus Connor McGregor for the Welterway belt is the biggest fight the UFC can make with people currently on its roster right now. I believe that Connor McGregor versus Hori Mossvedoll in any instance is the biggest fight the UFC can currently construct. I don't think Connor is incentivized really to take that fight. However, Maserah has the welterweight belt. You got that 12 pounds of gold in the line.

It's the biggest fight you can do. There are, it's just better. Covington versus McGregor is a. a bad business, but it's not great. That fight's probably going to go one way, which isn't nearly as lucrative for the UFC to have Colby Covington lay on Conner Greger for five rounds. And then once Colby's done that, he's going to be impossible to work with. He is going to be impossible to get him to fight Shafkat Rachmanov.

Like, she just ain't going to happen. And so then we're looking at a year, 18 months down the line, the Walterweight Division is in shambles because you let Colby Covington get a belt and that's probably not the best business decision you could ever make. Whereas giving Mossfiel a chance, most likely just keeps Leon in charge, which seems to be working and fine for you. And even if it doesn't, you're creating a situation that's just better for you. So I think from a promotional standpoint of matchmaking and looking at how outcomes can play out, it's much better for Mossfodal to get this title fight. And it's under the Zach say Moss was his

Colt Covington getting it of like, whoa, they're there to sell tickets not be the most deserving challenger. So I think that cooler heads will eventually prevail if Mosswood Alkin flying knee Gilbert runs his face off.

If he can't, which I think is far more likely outcome. All right, Colby Covington's fighting Leon Edwards in October. Cool. That's where we're going to be. The funniest part about this whole thing

is that while everyone, no one no one understands why colby's getting the opportunity everyone understands why hori would get the opportunity because having talked to both gilbert burns and belal mahomet over the last three days belal mohammed said even on his nine-fight unbeaten streak he's like i was only worried about mazadol if mazzadol beat gilbert i was just pretty much resigning that i was going to fight colby like he wasn't even saying i i'm going to make a big you know drama show about not getting the title shot he said if masvadol won i was pretty much assuming i was going to fight colby And Gilbert Burns just said the same thing. Gilbert Burns said, I just, you know, when Leon won, I just immediately felt like my fight got bigger because everyone's going to wonder if Mazvedal could beat me. Can he get the title shot? Everyone's on board with that one, even though it doesn't really make sense when you think of Masfadol's overall record.

But nobody, there's not a person on earth who logically looks at the fight and says, man, Colby Covington really, this is a great matchup. This should really happen. Nobody's saying that. Everybody is, even the guys who were ahead of it. La Muhammad is saying, yeah, if Mazmah won, I pretty much assumed I was going to have to fight Colby, that wasn't getting the title shot. Even he logically can say, yeah, I get it. And when that happens, then you know it's a big fight because everyone sees the marketability in that fight.

It just, it just, like I said, it just boggles my mind how we've come to Kobe Covington on this date two weeks ahead of a fight that could absolutely make a bigger fight. Yeah, the whole thing with Balala has been really interesting because I've kind of predicted his path through all of this, through his entire run to get to this point. Just a lot of things, a lot of callouts he had, like, after these big wins, just didn't make a lot of sense when, like, Hamzat was right there. And then he would go and do the, you know, the media interviews afterwards. And then he would pivot to Hamzad and it was just too little too late.

And I think if he handled things a little bit differently in those moments, he'd be in a better spot right now. But that's neither here nor there. I actually think he's handled himself pretty well. He's getting out there. and I want to go back to the interview that I did with Colby Damon because he said some pretty crazy stuff as he typically does. He issues the threat to John Anick, which by the way, if you just saw the clip, I never asked him about John Anick. John Anick's name never came out of my mouth.

This was, it was just a general question and he brought that up on his own. And everybody watching this right now or anybody hearing this out of my voice, if you know me long enough, you know the respect and admiration I have for John Anick. so I'd never put him in that position anyways. I think he's one of the best commentators, not just in combat sports, not just in MMA, but in all of sports. I hold John Anick in such high regard. So that was a very uncomfortable moment.

So I could have taken two lanes with this. I could have just, like, doubled down on it and, like, kept it going. And I just felt like that wasn't the right thing to do. Or I could just pivot immediately and just keep the uncomfort level at a certain point. I chose the latter, pivoted immediately, moved on to other things. but Daman Bilala, and you talk to him, he has sort of used this threat to issue one of his own to Colby

saying that if he sees him in Miami, he's just going to go up and slap him across the face. He's publicly having John's back. He's doing interviews with you and doing it with ESPN. TMC's doing them with everybody. So did Colby actually do Allah Muhammad a favor with that comment?

Because more people seem to be jumping on Team Belal Muhammad than ever before, and it's mostly because of this. There are a few instances in the sport where a guy or girl who doesn't really have a ton of fan support suddenly becomes a bit of a fan favorite when they get passed over badly for a title fight. It's happened a couple times in history.

Now, people probably won't remember the outcry, but there was a pretty sizable outcry when Johnny Hendricks was the number one contender and the UFC just gave Nick D. as a title shot against George St. Pierre for no reason whatsoever. Now, of course, that was a much bigger fight. And, you know, we all agree it was a much bigger fight. But at the time, Johnny Hendricks was on this huge winning streak. And he was clearly the number one contender. And it kind of built people into backing him a little bit. And then when the fight did happen, it actually did make the George St. Pierre, Johnny Hendricks fight a little bit bigger and it felt bigger.

Bilal Muhammad is not that guy. He's not a star. He's not an overly beloved fighter. he doesn't have a ton of people banging the drum and saying he's this or he's that and he's great and he's being screwed. But first off, when you pass him over for a guy that nobody generally seems to like all that much, there's one because he was clearly the guy who deserved, quote unquote, as you and I know about using that word, deserve the title shot, nine fight on big and string all those things. But then Colby coming out and attacking a guy that, as you said, is so universally beloved,

it just gave Below the perfect ammunition to go after him. because there's just certain people you can't say those things about and imagine that others are not going to turn against you for it. So Bilau was so smart in doing the interview with me, which the clip blew up yesterday. He did interviews with a lot of people. And that has continuously been the thing that everyone's grabbed onto because threatening John Annik and threatening to orphan his kids and stuff

is such a weird, strange and also really aggressive threat to make to a freaking play-by-play guy who is, is, again, universally loved. And then Bilal Muhammad, who does a podcast on Annik and Florian's podcast network, because he did an interview with them first. Somehow, John Anick is the bad guy. Bilal Muhammad, taking that and running with it is brilliant. It's probably the best marketing he's had for a title fight yet,

and it has nothing to do with Leon Edwards or the championship. Him backing John Anick and saying, if I see you in Miami, it's on site, and even look at him sideways, I'm looking at him, slap you in your face, which will it actually have? I don't know. We know things have not worked out very well for Colby Covington in the street fights lately. So I don't know if that would actually happen.

But it's brilliant. It's probably the best bit of marketing that Balal's had in his entire career. And I love that he's running with it because people now suddenly care. People who were kind of, you know, not saying against him, but just kind of like indifferent to him now have two things to run with. One, he's getting screwed over for the title shot he probably earned. And two, he's backing up John in again, a guy that everyone loves. Jedd, what do you think about that?

Because I think he did him a favor. I don't know if this like this sort of buzz and reaction will leap him over Colby, but at least it generates buzz for a potential fight with Colby. Like if Mazadol wins, the UFC has two pretty interesting fights. They could just run two clips back to back to sell both of those fights. You could do Bilal versus Colby. It's actually got some interest and some heat on it. It was just kind of a thing before.

and it was a fight I never thought would happen unless Colby won the belt and Balal just kept winning and got his way up there. But now, for the first time, since Balal has called him out like a couple of wins ago, this fight is actually interesting. It could happen. And I think the way Bilal has handled this has been brilliant.

Did Colby actually do him a favor with just that out of the box, out of nowhere comment about John Anick? Theoretically, yes, practically, not really. It all makes sense from a hypothetical standpoint. The problem is, as we've all sort of nudged to during this whole thing, is all of it hinges on Horamastol beating Gilbert Burns, and that's not going to happen.

So it's all kind of moot. Like, theoretically, yes, I think that, one, I agree. Good for Ballal to pick the ball up and run. There's at least something here to build off. of and he didn't fumble the bag as he has been known to do. So, congrats on that. That's good.

Maybe this sets him up for a fight with Colby down the line. Should Kobe win the belt, et cetera? But even then, I still don't think that's likely because if Colby wins the belt, he's going to try and fight Connor. He's going to try and not defend the belt. He's going to call out to fight Israel,

Dissignor or Alex Pereira. He's going to not do the thing of defending against deserving, being no-named or names you can't remember despite their nickname names. Like that's, he's not going to fight those dudes. So, like, yes, in some world where Mossfiel does win and the UFC slash Dana White do decide to walk back their previous statements and Mossvedall gets the title fight, then Colby is in an okay position because he gets to say the UFC's screwing me out of the title shot. They guaranteed me. And they're giving it to a guy I just beat. This is garbage, and now they're making me fight this dude and nobody like, yeah, sure.

I just think it's all moot. I don't think this matters. I will be fairly surprised if we see Belaw Mohamed and Kobe Covington fight within the next 12 months. And I won't be at all surprised if Belaw Mohammed is secretly two wins away from getting a title shot, which sucks so hard for the man. But you adopted the Leon Edwards mantle. They gave Leon a shot and now you're the next guy in that realm. Sucks to be you. Sorry about it.

Real quick, like 30 seconds or less for each of you. Jed, I'll start with you. Will the UFC say or do anything about what Colby said about John Anick? Will they say anything or this would be a, well, we have 700 maniacs on the roster, blah, blah, blah. No, it's clown show organization. This is very seriously should not be treated with kid gloves. they should come out and make a statement. Like if this were literally any other,

not even sports organization, a professional organization, wherein one contractor threatened the life of an employee, they would be publicly reprimanded, and that's what should happen here. But clown show, clown show organization, garbage nonsense, oh, he didn't mean it, whatever. It's fucking bullshit,

but nothing's going to happen. Damon? The organization didn't put out a statement when the president of the competition, got caught on camera slapping his wife. Nobody said a word. No one said up, do you think they're actually going to say something to actually back John

Anagic against club? No, absolutely not. They're not going to say a word. If Colby, if Dana does eventually address it, oh, they're fighters.

This is fighting. This isn't ballerina. They're fighters. They're saying crazy things. They're not. Colby Covington is a fighter. He's threatened a non-fighter. It would be stupid and unacceptable if this was him

threatening the life of any other fighter, but at least you can lean on that. This is him threatening an employee who has never stepped foot in the cage. It is basically unacceptable, and there's not a chance in hell they're going to do shit about this. Nothing.

Well, round two is over. Let's go to round three. The point for round two goes to Jedmishu. It's one-to-one. A couple of good rounds. Let's put a bow on UFC 286 real quick. Co-main event, Justin Gachie, decision-win against Raphael Fizib. Great fight.

Gachie's showing a lot of smarts. He lured Fiziv into his world, his kind of a fight, and then turned up the technique volume in round three to about a 20. So I love the fight, Damon. I love the performance. How did you grade Gachie's victory? And is it the Dustin Poree rematch next? Yeah, it's the Dust of Porey rematch.

It's the only one that really makes sense. I mean, logically, Dustin Porre should be fighting Benil Daryush, but he turned that one down for some unknown reason because Benil apparently wasn't a big enough star. So he's going to fight Justin Gaichy instead. So, yeah, it's the only fight that makes sense. Justin Gaichi, huge credit, man. I mean, to go out there and beat just an absolute savage

and Raphael Fiziev, as we learned his actual last name is, to go out there and have that first round with the speed and the kicks and everything that Fiziev was doing well. and then to come back and meet him in rounds two and three. Also, I want to eliminate this weird narrative suddenly that it was a controversial decision. I don't think it was controversial at all. I thought Justin Gachie won.

Don't get me wrong. You know, Fiziev had a great performance, but I thought Gachy won. But Gagchi going out there and beating a guy who was lower than him in the rankings, who was kind of like the next up-and-coming, you know, the next guy, so to speak, go out there and vanquish him in such a pressure of fashion

and basically do what Justin Gachie always does, just walk through people like The Terminator and find a way to beat them, even though he's not technically probably the most skilled guy in the cage doing what he's doing. No one's going to argue that Hafeel Fiziev is not the better overall striker than Justin Gagey. But Justin Gagey still found a way to be. I mean, even throwing a takedown for Christ's sake. He shut up all the people like me who say, man, you're an all-American wrestler from a college that now, by the way, has another all-American wrestler.

They crowned their second one ever this past weekend of the NCAA championships. But you're an all-American wrestler. use your wrestling and he shut us all up by actually using going for a takedown two of me he landed one so yeah it's incredible performance from gache he understands he's at the tail end of his career he said i don't have much time left i think the pourier rematch is a big fight it's a it's a easy main event and i'm telling you can easily do a five round main event on a pay-per-view and it boosts whatever pay-per-view it's on so that's absolutely the fight and uh kudos to gaiji man that guy just continuously finds ways to prove people wrong when it looks like maybe he's done or maybe he's on a downgrade,

he just keeps pulling him out. Jed, great for Gage's win and are we doing Poree again? I mean, A, A plus, and we're for sure doing Poyer. Damon touched on it at the end there. This is one of the rare fights that can headline a pay-per-view that will not have a belt on the line. Like if the UFC put this,

just came out tomorrow and was like, UFC 290, wherever that event will end up. taking place. The main event is Dustin Poyer versus Justin G. You can even just go ahead and save because functionally it will be true. Lightway title shots on the line. Nobody is batting an eye. Nobody's being like, this card needs a little bit more juice to it or whatever.

We're all going to be fanboying out over it as we should. And it's going to do well on pay-per-view. Poria is a star. Gachie's not like a huge star, but well-known. And their fight, you promote that as this was the, the fight of the year five years ago, I think. I think it was the 2017 was when they fought. Fight of the year.

We're running it back with a lightweight title shot on the line. You get his Zamakachev to show up just to sit caged side for his next guy. I mean, it's the whole shebang. Or you can just have it as the co-main event, a five-round co-mate event. Either or works. And yeah, and we've talked about it a lot. The top of the lightweight division likes to squat, kind of play around Robin with each other credit to gaichi he took took the challenge he fought somebody behind him gave somebody an opportunity

most people were not picking him to win and he showed he still got it he he he says he's got one more one more run of the title left in him i'd love to see it i don't think he'll get the belt but i'd love to see him get one more chance because the most exciting fighter i've ever seen fist fight so i will always be happy to watch him and are you going to run back a fight of the year it's the only thing to do there's no other option Who is the low-key MVP of UFC 286, Jed? Oh, low-key MVP of 286. I think I said this on the post show.

I think this was where I picked off. And I'm still going with it. You know Al Ashmas. Like, didn't, man got robbed of a bonus, absolute thievery going on, giving Gunner Nelson a bonus. Not that his arm bar was bad or whatever, but like who that was,

it was all, it was even money for Gunner Nelson to submit Brian Barbra. Like, we all knew what was going to happen there. It's not cool, but, you know, Ashmaud delivers one of the best knockouts of the year. That left hand landing on Sam Patterson as Patterson's falling down and then just a savage follow-up, like on a card that didn't, frankly, have a ton of other stuff that was super compelling.

That was awesome. And the fact that he doesn't get a bonus was such nonsense. So, you know, Ashma's, props to you. Damon, low-key MVP. I mean, I want to say the CLD nickname, just because it gave us things to talk about for days after is how hilarious it was, that that was like suddenly an incredible nickname that is his initials.

I almost wanted to say Veronica Hardy coming back from three years away and actually pulling off a pretty impressive win the way she did. But I'm going to go with Muhammad Makaya because even though he may not be quite the prospect that we all built him into being, we talked about this on our ranking show the other day, the fact that he got caught in that knee bar and watched his knee just absolutely get shredded and he still managed to fight through that

and then go come back and get a win. I thought that was so impressive. And if he had just, weirdly, I think if he had just gone out there and just starched Jafel Filo, I don't think we'd really be talking about all that much because we'd say, well, it was expected. But the fact that he had to fight through that knee bar

a submission looked like it 100% should have finished him. And then he still went out there and didn't get the submission of his own like minutes later, huge. And I think that was the narrative. That was probably the biggest narrative coming off to prelims was Muhammad Mikhailov over everybody else. And even, you know, for the most part, in the early part of the main car,

because no one really buzzed about Marvin Vittori going out there and winning a 29, 28 decision because that's what Marvin Vittory does. Jennifer Maya beating previously undefeated Casey O'Neill. No one seemed to really care. And Gunner Nelson loved the dude going out there and armbarring a dude who he's just that much better down on the ground isn't all that surprising. But Muhammad Mikhailov, doing what he did, was shocking and quite, and quite a moment for that card.

Well, that's UFC 286. Let's move on to this Saturday. The point for round three goes to... Saturday is a tough hang, man. Damon Martin, it's 2 to 1. It's the matcha or the three ensemble Cadocephora of the fact that I just just niche that me energize so time?

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Visit our Holtz holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com. Jed's face, his reaction, the sound tells us everything. So we're going to start with you, Jed. Let's go right into this. UFC San Antonio, 13 fights on the docket, early start time. You get a 4 p.m. prelims Eastern Time, 7 p.m. main card, a main event that we're going to talk about in a moment, a really good main event between Marlon Vara and Corey Sandhagen.

What are your thoughts on this first post-286 offering from the Ultimate Fighting Championship? My thoughts can be summed up. I'm going to read you a line from the Wikipedia page of this event. Abandonweight bout between Marlon Vara and former Interbandoweight Championship Challenger, Corey Sandhagen, expected to headline. They were previously expected to headline UFC Fight Night

Androge versus Blanchefield, but were rescheduled to this event for unknown, reasons. Those reasons are only unknown if you cannot read, because if you can, you can then just scroll slightly down the page and look at the lineup and say, totally get why they put this very, very fun, great fight to headline this event, which otherwise would be headlined by Holly Holm v. Yana Santos-Nakunitskaya. This is a tough card outside of the main event. There are three flyweight bouts on this. You know my love for fly weights.

You've heard no bets barred. That's the card, realistically. Like, Nate Landre is usually a good time, so he gets to fight. But, I mean, it's a tough hang, Mike. And I'll tell you why. And there's a, also it's not an unknown reason why it's a tough hang. There's just other shit going on in the world. And they're not really focused on this event.

They had two pay-per-views this month. Asking them to put together that many great cards is a lot. And they've got another pay-per-view in two weeks. So we're just here. We've got a great main event. And there are, I don't know, like 11 other fights looks like, 12 other fights going on. 11 other fights and a really good main event. Yeah, that's the full breakdown on this card.

It is tough, tough sled. to find something that is compelling in like real ways. Dame and Jed sold that card so well. The viewership for Saturday's ESPN Plus offering is going to jacked up because of what Jed just said. Can you top it? Can you top that positivity? There are two women's band of weight fights on the card, Mike.

I don't make the rules. Two of them. They had like seven women's ban and weight fights in the entirety of 2022. They put two on this card. it's it's bad man it's bad card so there were there there were rumors if you guys probably heard this I know I mentioned it and I think

Ariel may have mentioned on the MMA hour there were rumors at one point the UFC was considering doing a all women's card for this event and I heard very very early on very early on that there was even consideration for Macy Barber versus Andrew Lee to be the co-main of the main event co-main, I think was the main one.

That should tell you where this card started and where it ended up. Corey Sanhagen and Marlon Chita Vera in phenomenal main event. Incredible main event. It deserves all the flowers. It's going to be awesome. I can't imagine it's going to be anything other than awesome.

But when you look down the rest of this card, it's just really bad. And also, let me just mention, in terms of like the matchmakers or ESPN or UFC or whoever's doing the card order here, I understand you try to build up the pre-level for a pay-per-view because you want people to get a compelling fight to then go buy the $80 pay-per-view. Why Manel-Cott versus Alex Perez is on the prelims and not the co-main event over a fight that, let's just be

honest, no one really cares all that much about between Holly Holm and Yonnas Santos, how that is on the prelims versus being the co-main event, which is outside of the main event, by far the most interesting fight on this entire card. I have no idea. So that in and of itself makes me angry because that fight is so far. down, you know, when you look at, again, I understand it's on ESPN Plus, so, you know, the prelims in the main card kind of, kind of blend together, but Andrea Lee, Macy Barber on the main card, shitty, Inja, Kiwanian, Albert Dariav's on the main card. I like Nate Landware.

That seems like a pretty fun fight, although Austin Lingo is a kind of a latest replacement, maybe not as much, but yeah, how Alex Perez and Manal Cobb is not the actual co-main events of this fight card? I have zero idea. So, yeah, it's rough. The fans in San Antonio, I hope you get your money's worth with the main event because otherwise you're going to be real, real, real disappointed when this one's over. Prescott's second fight of the main card is going to follow what should be a short fight between

Cheenchidi and Jokwani and Albert Drive. Oh, it is on the main card now. Yeah, it's on the main card. Okay, pooh, I was going to say, man. It really should just be the co-main event though. Like, yeah. I know that you're putting Holly home there because Holly home is Holly home,

but like no one cares, as Damon said. and you at least could maybe get some juice by putting Manel cop Alex Perez there as be like, oh, these people got billing above Hollywood. Maybe this is, maybe there's something to look at here, which there is in the flyweight division. Both of them are top 10 flyweights and not terribly far off of title shots. So it's a tough hang. It's tough card.

There's one really good thing about this card, Mike. Are we about to do like low-key bangor? I mean, sure. Chuck one out of there. I don't. It's not a low-key banger. It has nothing to do with the quality of the fight, which may well, it will be awful. The fight itself will not be good.

It may be entertaining. The quality of it won't be good. But it's a good thing, guys. This is for us. This is a little inside baseball. You know how for the last year we've really struggled to find 15 women to put in the women's band-and-weight rankings? The opener, the curtain-jerker is a women's band-whip belt. So one of those women can at least take the number 15 spot.

Whoever wins is going to be ranked by virtue of their literally not being another candidate worthy of it. So the stakes start right at the beginning of the night, guys. And to add to the stakes, to this tell you just how committed we all are to this, I think we all know on the stab. I have a hard time taking time off work. I tend to work a lot and I like my job very much. I'm actually taking this weekend off

to go to a horror movie convention so I'm actually going to miss this card and I don't really think I'm going to miss all that much outside of coming back and very much watching the main event is sick watching the main event that's the one thing I'm excited to see and you know what I may actually make it home in time

just for the main event I'm like you know what that's actually pretty good timing well let's talk about it real quick Damon like you said main event is great Marlon Vera on a roll four wins in a row 10 and 2 over his last 12. You can make a case that he should be 11 and 1 over his last 12. We talk about the Song Yudong fight, but that doesn't really matter here.

Fighting Corey Sanhagen, who, coincidentally enough, looked really good in his win over Song Yudong, former interim title challenger. Banimate is deep. It's fun. Second best division in the sport, but it's a mess right now, Damon. Like all these divisions, it is a gosh darn mess. what is on the line here for these two guys with this division being as messy as it is right now?

You're pretty much playing either the Marab de Wallisvili or potentially the Sean O'Malley sweepstakes depending on how this fight plays out because as much as Sean O'Malley is saying I'm the number one contender, and I'm next in line. The fact that Henry Suhudo and Aljabelle and Sterling

aren't fighting until May puts it in real jeopardy that Sean O'Malley won't fight again until 2024 because there is a really good chance depending on how that fight plays out, that the winner of that fight does not fight again until the end of the year or maybe early next year. And I, again, once again,

just like the Colby Covington thing, no contracts are signed, promises are made all the time. And yes, Sean O'Malley would be the biggest fight possible for Al Jermaine or Henry Sehuto. The reality is, is that, you know,

he would end up sitting out for the better part of a year or more to get the winner of that. And again, you're still not even guaranteed that. I mean, Al Jain Stirling is dealt with all sorts of injuries, bice injuries, neck injuries, wrist injuries. If he goes through and actually beats Henry, so he can be out for another year, then maybe you do a title,

interim title, and that could be the case. So this is really coming down to the Marab and or O'Malley sweepstakes for the winner of this fight. For Corey Sanhagen, you know, I know he said he wants to call out Sean O'Malley. I know he said he kind of figures Morab is probably going to be the guy because he doesn't know if O'Malley will actually fight him. But again, I think it all comes down to timing. If Sean Higg could go out there and win impressively, and then they do an interim title with him and O'Malley,

that would make a lot of sense. Obviously, if Chito wins, him and O'Malley, too, is a monstrous fight, probably bigger than the title fight, and that would also make a lot of sense for an interim title. And then Marab is kind of the man left out, but, you know, as we all know, he's not going to fight Al Jermaine. So until Al Jemaine is no longer the champion or he leaves the division, Marab is going to be kind of like the guy in no man's land.

So I think that's really what it comes down to, depending on how the fight plays out, and the timing of this with the title fight, And it's either an O'Malley or a barab to Wally's sweepstakes. Jed, what's on the line here? I don't know, nothing. I don't, because I don't think it's either of those. Like, if Cheeto wins, I think they bench him.

Like, that's what I would do. If Cheeto wins, like, you can't have him continue to fight people because he's the second biggest star in the division behind O'Malley. So I think if Cheeto wins, you're, you're, benching him and you're seeing what plays out at 288, how Sehudo Sterling shakes out, all of that. And less maybe, no, like I think you're just benching him until maybe the end of the year, early next year for a title fight.

Be that against O'Malley on the interim basis, what have you. If Sandhagan wins, God love him, like, he might actually end up fighting Marab just because it'll give Marob something to do. I don't think the UFC will be that upset if Sandhagen wins or loses that fight, so that might make sense. But I think the fight that I would hope to see happen here is that San Dagan would fight Adrian Yonaz, the winner of Yonnas font, because that fight makes sense. Like, he's, Bannon weights deep because they opted to do this Henry Sehudo nonsense.

It's a little bit jammed up at the moment. And because Chito Vero wants to stay active, it's staying. it's staying a little bit jammed up so I don't think either man is getting much out of this other than I mean, Cheeto Cheeto can win this and not fight again if he wins this he can sit and wait

for a title shot whether he will choose to do that whole different story if Sanhagen wins he's still going to have to fight somebody and it's maybe it's Mara but maybe it's somebody else but so it's not a title shot is theoretically at stake but I think realistically

it's a long time on the shelf for one of them and it's fighting Marab or Adrian Yana is next for the other. All right. Well, that's UFC San Antonio. We'll talk more about it on the preview show tomorrow, but point for round four goes to Jedmishu with his positive energy.

It's two to two. And that means it's time for the knockout round. One minute for each of these gentlemen. And then you, the fine listeners of this program, will decide the winners. cast your vote. I believe that the poll is up right now and we'll do the knock our round question. Jed, since you're preparing for your Price is Right television debut, what are we going to do here? Are you going to play the statistics, play the historical

numbers and pass this on over to Damon? Or are you just going to screw up the norm like you typically do and go first with this question? You know what? I'll go first. Let's mix up a little bit. You got to be prepared in case I don't have the option to pass. the showcase, I got to be ready to stay on my feet either way. So let's, let's test some new muscles. Let's go first. Okay. Well, if you watch the M.A. hour yesterday, you may have seen a person join the program. His name is Hamzaa Tchaimai F. Had a lot to say about a lot of different things, whether he could fight at 185 or 205 or 170. He says he's down for all three. And typically, Jed, after these cards, myself and my best friend, Alexander Kay Lee, we like to play matchmaker.

we try to get Otno points by predicting the correct matchup. So here we are. It is March 23rd, 2023. Hamzaa Chimaev wants to fight in July. Who we matching them up with? Try to get yourself an Otno point here. Is it at 170? Is it 185?

Is it 205? What is the match of question? Before we begin to clarify, is this who I would like or is this what I believe will have? Is this the magic wand to take the Otno? phrase or is this the predictive? This is the predictive. We're going with the predictive.

Magic wand is fun, but predictive is a little more compelling. That's why I wanted to clarify. So, predictive, one minute on the clock. Hamzaa Chimae versus question mark, question mark. Go. I believe in July we are going to see Hamzaa Chimae face the one, the only, Palo Costa.

It's going to be a middleweight bout. There is a beef there. We know what happened and I don't even remember the event. Was that too? I don't, the numbers all blurred together for me. The last time he was fighting.

We were supposed to fight Nate, whatever, the whole showdown, the Costa stuff happened. There was all that footage about, you know, them beefing with each other. They've built this. And we just saw, just broke earlier this week.

I want to say Guillermo Cruz is the one who broke it, but that might not be true. So don't quote me on it. Polo Costa has re-signed with the UFC multi-fight deal. He's back. The talk was a long time. He was going to PFL.

He was going to do it. No, P's back. And what do you do with that guy? You put him in the fight that he wants. You get Hamzaa fight over a top five middleweight. And then with the win, it is entirely reasonable and the correct move for Hamza to challenge for the UFC middleweight championship later at the end of this year. Yes, Paul Costa has not signed, has not re-signed just yet. He has agreed to the terms.

But Penn has not gone to paper yet. and with Paul Costa, you never know. But I like that one. So other options in play for Paul Acosta. He called it another name as well. Sean Strickland. Who knows what will happen. But, Daman, we go to you.

Hamzaa Chimae versus question mark, question mark. Jed went with Paul Costa. What is your matchmaking prediction for Hamzaa Chamaive? What weight class will it take place? One minute on the clock. Go. Well, it's going to be a middleweight. And I think we forget Dana White actually said at the Post-Fie press conference.

He was looking at October in Abu Dhabi. So I don't know if Comzatz's going to be. going to actually be back sooner than that. It seems like they're really trying to build up that Abu Dhabi card. And for that, whether it's July or October, I think the fight that makes the most sense and the one that would help Hamzaa get to where he's going is the fight with Robert Whitaker.

Robert Whitaker is clearly the other best middleweight, not named Israel Adisania or Alex Pereira. And he is kind of, again, much like Barab, a bit in no man's land because he's already lost Adasana twice. But that would put him in a big fight against Hamzot. That is a co-main event on a pay-per-view. That is a huge fight, and it would prove whether or not Hamzot is really the real deal at middle-aid. It doesn't have the same rivalry stakes in Apollo Costa fight,

but you're also not risking one of your biggest stars against kind of a problematic superstar in Paula Costa. So I think Robert Whitaker is the fight, and it will declare one of them as the number one contender in the division at Middle East. There you go. Man, Hamzao versus Robert Whitaker scratches me right where I itch. That's a fascinating fight. But it's not up to me. It's not up to me to decide here. Both those fights are intriguing and fascinating in their own ways.

Is it the build that you want? Is it the actual incage product that, that stimulates you? Lots to break down here. So cast your votes right now. Casey will tally them all up and then he will announce the winner in a matter of seconds. Tomorrow, programming note, 10 a.m. Eastern, we'll be on the Twitter spaces for heck of a morning. 3 p.m. Eastern tomorrow.

preview show for UFC San Antonio. We'll get a little more in depth in the Marlon Vera versus Corey Sanhagen main event, which is absolutely tremendous. Saturday, 3.30 p.m. Eastern, we'll have the people's pre-fight show, so we'll answer all of your questions. We'll have post-fight show after UFC San Antonio,

all that fun stuff. And then A.K. and I'll be back on Sunday for an audio version of on to the next one. Lots to be excited about as we... And then it's a rare week off for the UFC. and then we we're moving on to Miami, Florida for UFC 287 for

Are you just forgetting Are you just forgetting about Mazvedal boxing for? Come on now. Gamebred boxing for you forgetting about Jose. Aldo and Jerry. I know, but come on now. That's a big event. Look at all the tickets they've sold.

Listen, you don't think I'm, you don't think of my fingers on the pulse that and in PFL? And the return of the PFL? I mean, forget the UFC. You have a car. card they're number three baby isn't that also final four weekend and one of the most stacked bellator cards ever with marcello golemm headlining so i mean come on now you can't get much bigger to be fair to be fair at that

to be fair at that bellator card that main event is garbo but the rest of the cards actually pretty good the rest of the cards the rest of the cards the rest of the cards actually solid it's a bad main event though i i'm brys marra this fighting on the undercard i like him a lot uh there's actually a pretty good undercar, but man, that's like one of those. That's the opposite of UFC San Antonio. There's like one fight on UFC San Antonio and Bellator is the opposite. No one cares about the main event, but the undercard

is actually pretty good. It's, yeah, it's very solid, very solid. Casey, how are we doing with the votes? Is this a runaway? Is this the verdict in? Are we still compiling votes? Is it very close? Where are we at? I think we have a winner.

Okay. We have a winner. All right. Get your vote. in. I'm ending the poll in just a few seconds. Come on. I think we have a winner. Get your votes in.

Well, I want the last second. You never know. You never know. I might get a big rush. All right. Your winner today with 69% of the votes is... Holy shit. Nice.

By the way. Guys. Jed miss you. Jed gets it done. Wow. It's because I went first. He's been on one the last couple weeks. Yeah.

It's because I went first because Policost is obviously the right answer. Damon was in a box where he then couldn't say it the same. He's like, well, Holocaust just makes too much sense. I love the Whittaker fight. I can be honest about that. It is the bigger fight. It is the fight that's built up that makes sense.

Also like Hamzaa might just lose to Whitaker. and if Whitaker beats Homestadt and Izzy does win the four match or whatever, like it's just middleweight has a real potential to be a cluster very soon. Yes, of course, because there's a title fight coming up for the middle-adiest middle-weight title between Brennan and Jackermanston. Big one, big one in June. All the goal. We're talking about it off air.

That's very middle-weighted. 100%. Jed, you get the victory. You get 30 seconds. you get to do a victory lap. You don't get to do the Bob Barker and say have your pets spayed and neutered, but you can still say stuff.

By the way, I just saw a report as we were recording, potentially a meeting between the fight circus folk and the Risen folk. How about that? A little co-lab? That's a dream co-lap. They're doing things in the circus. Two weeks, guys.

Not this weekend next weekend, the same weekend as the Mastodal boxing. But I want to use this time to, not walk back anything I said, stand by everything I said. I do think that we didn't give Vera Santagin as much props. This is as good of a fight as you can possibly make it Bannonweight. The rest of that card, you know, we talked about it. That main event is worth the price of admission.

So I say this to you all the time. This is a weekend where you can absolutely come to MMAFighton.com great website. You can spend the time with your family, do something else. but I would highly recommend just keep the phone on you, download the ESPN app ESPN Plus, and then I don't know what time the main event's going to roll out, but when it does, that's when you open up the phone. The main event is must-see television for everything else.

You come to m.matefighting.com, great website. We'll get you all the best highlights, all the recaps, everything you need. That's my two cents. It's been a pleasure, as always. And that two cents is worth a couple of hundo right there. Damon, any final thoughts? Uh, yeah, I'm with Jed. Uh, 930.

I think it's around when it should start. Watch San Hagan's Vera. That's 100% worth your time. Uh, not much else on there. So enjoy your weekend. There you go. That's it. Hit the music, Casey.

We are done. Appreciate y'all watching the program, watching all of the stuff. And that's it for BTL. Back next week to recap UFC San Antonio. Get you ready for Bellator PFL, game bread boxing and so much more. So until then, everybody, for Jed Bishu, Damon Martin, EKC on the On Ones and Twos, the iconic voice of Esther Lynn, perhaps we'll take you home. I am Mike Hack.

Back next week on Between the Links. Good night, everybody. Love you. This has been Between the Links, and then a inviting production on the Vox Media Network. The Vox Media Podcast Network. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first, there, the last one.

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