MMA Fighting - BTL | Makhachev Makes Statement At UFC 294, Chimaev's Next Move, Jon Jones Injured, Fury vs. Ngannou

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

Islam Makhachev made a strong case for being the world's best pound-for-pound fighter after he demolished Alexander Volkanovski in the main event of UFC 294 this past Saturday. What is the biggest Makhachev question moving forward after getting closure against Volkanovski?  On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel recaps Makhachev's sensational performance to retain the UFC lightweight title, if Charles Oliveira or Justin Gaethje should be next, and how far he can go from a legacy perspective. Additionally, topics include Khamzat Chimaev's majority decision win over Kamaru Usman and the big takeaways from both fighters, Jon Jones suffering an injury scratching his UFC 295 heavyweight championship main event with Stipe Miocic, Sergei Pavlovich vs. Tom Aspinall fighting for the interim heavyweight title, if the one-two punch is more interesting than the original, Saturday's Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou boxing match and the interest levels surrounding it, and much more. Host Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew and Morning Kombat's Brian Campbell. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Brian Campbell: @BCampbell Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster, The Downloaded.

It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now only from Audible. The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of BTL. Yes, I am Mike Heck, your host, your moderator, and with the wonderful E. Casey Lyden getting some well-deserved time off. I'm also the producer of the show this week as well.

So please bear with me. But the good news is we have so much to talk about coming out of UFC 294. Now UFC 299, which comes up in a little over two weeks time. Looks a little bit different at the top, but John Jones suffering an injury, his fight with Steve A. Mietchich for the heavyweight title being scratched. And yes, once again, we get boxing versus MMA as Tyson Fury faces Francis and Gano this Saturday.

Saudi Arabia will talk about all of that and more. But let's get into it first. Let us introduce one half of our main event. He's Mr. No Gray area. Mr. Hot Take, the co-host of No Betz Bar, the man behind Dan, they were good. And the media member who has viewers of the show contemplating each week, if enemies become friends or friends become enemies, he's from M.AFutting.com. And he is living the good life, as you can see right now in the background.

He is Jed Bishu. Hello, Jed, Jed. unmute yourself. and then welcome yourself to the program. Hey Mike, I am living the good life. I'm in sunny Florida. It's just lovely. So I thought, I mean, I don't know, it's like 65 right now.

Thought I'd work from outside today. And why not do this show? Got a pool right there. I might jump in, take a dip in the middle of it after I'm done wailing on this dude you're about to introduce. Wow. I mean, if you win, you absolutely have to jump in the pool. And his opponent, uh, it's been too long.

my friends had to have him back on the show. He's from CBS Sports and the multi-time award-winning morning combat alongside Luke Thomas, the man, the myth, the legend, the gas station food advocate himself. Brian Campbell, good to see you again, BC. Oh, well, Mike, I'm still with Showtime Sports until they turn the lights off. Thank you. And also it's apropos that Jed would be checking in from the Redneck Riviera right here. I'm ready for this matchup, believe it.

Yes, I think we're all ready for the same. match up great place great place who doesn't love the panhandle and that's not where i am still see this is why case is better than this all right stop the damn music who we're live we're like onic you do have you do have to admit that very iconic very see the stupid program like even though i shut off loop the music it still pops back on so that'll be the last time that happens today so let's just get right into this let's start with the ufc two 94 main event this past saturday is like Mokachev, BC, he exercises the demons, which is weird to say after beating Alexander Volkanowski back in February.

But the rematch happens. It happens on short notice, but he closes the show, got closure for himself and his rivalry with Alexander Volkanowski. Big head kick knockout. Just beat the hell out of Alexander Volkanowski. He was a nasty K.O. First round retains his lightweight title. So, B.C., biggest takeaway from Islam-Machchev's performance and this big moment he had.

against Al Jena Bokinovsky and Abu Dhabi. Yeah, I think it's a pretty simple and easy takeaway. He's the best pound-per-pound fighter in the world, and now there is no longer a debate. And I know you get a lot of people going, hey, B-C. Didn't the UFC put John Jones's palm-for-pound number one? How is the goat? Not number one, because it's a countdown of right now in this moment,

activity, quality of opposition, and performance. And now in three consecutive fights, which included, obviously, is breakthrough through title win over Charles Olivera. We now have Islam Mahachev basically kicking his critics in the face. If you said he never beat anybody elite on his journey to the title, well, look, he's got victories over Olivera, Volcanovsky, and Volkanovsky, two by resounding stoppage.

And I think even more importantly in the larger picture, even above the pound-for-pound debate, which, by the way, even on my own CBS sports rankings, I did keep Volcanovsky at number one after losing the first fight. head to head with Mahajjav because of how much he raised his game and dared to be great. But I talked about kicking in the face of critics. I did get a lot of feedback in my DMs of how are you going to celebrate this man beating a guy half his size on 12 days notice. Look, we were all there for those 12 days of those 12 days notice.

And all we heard from Volcanowski was that he's ready, he's confident. And even with a lack of five round cardio, the best fighter in the world at that moment was ready to come in here and deliver a. knockout if necessary to get the win. I take that level of confidence from Volkanowski so profoundly that I even picked him to pull the upset. That's how much I believed in him. And I share that to tell you, there's no excuses here. Volkanowski signed the paper. We got the rematch that may not have ever come to fruition. We got it under these circumstances. And what did Mahachev do, who had the same turnaround, by the way, against a new and even more talented opponent? He

controlled every aspect of the fight and did something that hasn't happened to Volkanowski since 2013. He finished him due to strikes. There was, yes, a period where Islam was just Habib's boy. But I think Narmaga made off stepping out of the coaching corner and allowing Islam to get his full close-up and his full flowers. I think this victory for Islam actually meant a lot more than I thought was possible coming in. Pound for pound number one, not just Habib's boy, best fighter in the world and on his way, if his plans continue to maybe a shot at his own two division championship opportunity. What you saw was a great fighter come out of his shell even more and show us exactly why he's that great. Jed, your victory lap has become a marathon

when it comes to Islamakchev. You've been calling this for a while. You've been preparing the world for these kinds of moments. You even said heading into this fight, this fight may not be the same is the first one. And boy, were you right about that. Machachev gets the quick finish. He is MMA fighting's unanimous pound for pound number one. Where are you at five days later? Biggest takeaways from Mokachev's win and the fallout.

So the biggest takeaways, I echo certainly some of what B.C. just said there, right? Like particularly kind of the thing he said at the end, because you heard me coming in, Mike, I didn't think Mokachev could gain that much from this fight under these circumstances. I think beating Alexander Volkanowski more definitively certainly would help. But I thought that coming out of it, okay, if he goes and he wins, the takeaway will just be, well, 12 days notice. Somehow he defied that by doing it in such a fashion that we aren't really factoring that part in. And maybe that's a little unfair, though I do ultimately agree with BC saying, you know, Volk signed the paper. He knew he was getting into.

There cannot be excuses. So I think one of the biggest things I take away is that, but really the biggest thing I take away from this entire thing is how wrong we might all have been about the first fight. And I don't think the narrative of that initial battle was look at Alexander Okunovsky, what he accomplished here. He's a much smaller man very clearly. He exceeded expectations. He competed. He won the fifth round.

And if that was a seven round fight, maybe he wins the time. title. And that was the story we all took. Volk needs to get his second chance at Makachev so he can write the wrong and finish the job. And maybe it's unfair because of the extenuating circumstances here. But I think the benefit of hindsight can perhaps let us look at that first fight and say, look, not taking anything away from what Volcanovsky was able to do in there. That was tremendous. but maybe it was more a thing of Volkanovsky had one of the best performances of his career in front of a home crowd that was very clearly pumping him up and that Makachev didn't have a great night at the office that happens and instead not having a great night at the office he still

won four rounds and retained his belt of one of the best pound for pound fighters in the world and so the story coming out of that event maybe shouldn't have been let's let Volt get another shot it was like, let's let Mokachev put a stamp on this in the way that he feels he can because it certainly felt like that coming into that fight, like in the cage and afterwards, him doing the now iconic picture while Volcanovsky is bleeding and beaten behind him, that is a moment of him saying, no, you guys all had it wrong. This was not Volcanovsky's story. This is my story.

And I didn't have the best performance. I'm here to let you guys know I'm still only 31. I'm only getting better. You are all in trouble. The other big thing, Jed, and I'll go back to you here, is something that we've been preaching for a long time on M.A. fighting is that

as cool as that first fight was, it's probably going to be the fight of the year. The one thing about this fight that could have gone really wrong is that Volk could have won the lightweight title. Maybe we get a trilogy fight. Maybe Volk does go back and forth and do the whole thing. And we'll talk about Volcanowski a little bit more in a second.

But at least for right now, the lightweight division can move forward without the featherweight champion. The featherweight division can move forward without Islam Makachev in the picture. So we have featherweights fighting featherweights and lightweights fighting lightweights fighting lightweight. So when it comes to Islam Makachef, there's two guys really in the race right now. And yes, Mokachev has talked about possibly going up to 170, fighting Colby Covington, maybe fighting Leon Edwards. Although at the post-fight press conference, he seemed more inclined to. sticking around a 155.

But if Colby wins, maybe Islam kind of goes back to that well. But at least for right now, I'm happy to say that Makachev is going to fight another lightweight. But the two guys in the race right now, we have Charles Olivera, who earned this rematch by just annihil Daryush back in June, gets the cut over his eye. Hence, we get the Volcanovsky fight. And then there's a guy named Justin Gachie, who won the BMF title with a headkick knockout of his own against Dustin Porre. seemed like he was next.

Volcanowski stepping in. Might have hurt him a little bit, but he is still in the mix right now. So Jed, if you are the matchmakers, if the UFC called you right now and said, Jed, matchmake for Islam Makachep next. Are you giving him Charles Olivera? Because Olivera wasn't his fault.

He got cut. Or are you giving it to Justin Gachie, who may get one, this might be his last chance to become the undisputed lightweight champion? Before I answer that, Very quickly, I did want to say in regard to this, any victory lap I'm taking here is not about Islamakov because, like, well, I've been super on him.

I'm taking the victory lap of the one we should all be taking. We can all get back to real fights now. We can get back to divisions moving forward in the division, and we aren't tying up two titles for the sake of one. I am the most excited about this outcome because it means Islamakachev will get to fight the many lightweights who deserve a chance and that Alexander Volcanovsky can go back to his weight class and do the thing against Ilya and the rising crop of young contenders. Like that is why this was an awesome outcome. None of the rest of that matters. As for how this is going to roll it lightweight, we know what's going to happen at Featherweight.

I think you go Justin Gehche. I understand the arguments for Charles Olivera. I think that there are two really critical pieces of information here that I would argue against Charles. Oliver with the first being it's not like he he won that title fight because it was it was bulletproof or ironclad he was simply the dude who kind of fit the timeline yes he has a tremendous win over bin under der a yes he is clearly the second best lightweight in the world right now and that is enough to warrant him getting a title fight i don't have any issues if you do it but he got the bout because they booked pori gaecchi too close to 294 to make that time frame work for the

winner of it. And so now that that isn't really the case anymore, I think you go with Gaichi for that. And I think you go with Gaichi for another reason that he set himself kind of in the fallout of all of this. Who else is he going to fight? He's done what has been asked of him. He fought back against Hafeel Fazeev. He won that fight. He was an underdog in that fight came through, did it. Then he fights Dustin Poir with the assumption that this is for a BMF belt. And realistically, this is for a title shot. He has done all that has been asked. And you got to credit that. And Charles Olivaire beat Binaldereux, but there were no promises rendered unto him after that.

And realistically, I've said it from Jump Street, and I'll say it until forever, if you lose, you don't get an immediate rematch. And I would like to see you win two more fights. I think coming back and beating Binaldairush is a terrific win. I'd like to see him get one more to have a little bit more space between the first fight with Islam and the second fight. Because I thought coming into this fight, I wasn't that interested. because I watched the first one. I know how it will go. The second time,

give me a little more reason to believe in Charles Oliva. Have him fight Matush Kamrot for the next in, next in line, and let Justin Gachi get his final day in court to see if he can prove to be the best lightweight in the world. B.C., Jed is booking Justin Gachie. Are you doing the same here? You know, I am now, and it's only because the Volcanowski rematch got sort of forced in here out of necessity.

When the UFC initially booked Charles for this rematch, he wasn't my number one choice given at the moment of the division of who was available. But I certainly bought in on the idea because the champion used to have a name. And it was Do Bronx and the performance that he put off against Darius seemed to align perfectly with what was Olivera's working mission statement about what went wrong against Mahj of the first time, that it was an aberration, that it was 10 bad minutes as he, you know, paraphrasing him. as he said afterwards, but that that's not the fighter that he is. In that moment when this was originally scheduled, I was all for it.

The main reason now why I don't want that next and also look, let's be honest, is Gaichi a slightly better commercial option than a rematching Olivera for Machachev right now? I think, yes, when you just do a BMF pay-review against a fan favorite like Porier, we know what we're getting out of that. We're getting a sexy B-side in Gaichi, who's all-action. has a great reputation that he's putting in. But that's also not the main reason. The main reason is this.

If you go like this for Mahachev's title run, acknowledging that some of the criticism that he hadn't really ever fought anybody elite before he fought for the title, I don't think that's 100% accurate, but there's some level of realism to that. I don't want him to then essentially face the same two fighters in four consecutive fights because I do think that befell Kumar, Usman's reputation and legacy,

while we all can echo what, Dana White has said all week, although in this case it was for Usman's daring to be great company man attitude for coming in last minute and accepting a big paycheck one division up with the idea that Usman is an all-time great fighter. I do think that's true. The windstreet that he put together before getting to the title level and then the dominance that he showed as champion early on, you can't deny that? But can you point to the crack in the wall and basically say as great as that was we had to see him beat Mazvedol twice and Covington twice, both three matches weren't necessarily necessary, although I think there was more call for a Covington one, given that their

first fight was close. I think when you look back on that, it can be easy to say, well, look, he's a great fighter who put together a great streak, but as champion, who did he face? Why did he have to face all these guys consecutively? Mixing it up, putting Gachi in there now, doing what Jed said, which is making Charles, go back to the well one more time against, particularly if I could choose one of these next generation lightweights that are climbing up the rankings to sort to double down and fully earn it. I think it would make the possibility of Charles versus Islam, too, if we get there even bigger.

And I think when you look at somebody like a fan favorite of Justin Gaichi, when it goes for not just him, but this entire aging class of lightweight action stars, we know that when it goes right around your mid-30s, it tends to go quickly, whether it's your chin, your reaction time, or whatever, that makes you look old. Sometimes, like we saw with Volcanov, by the way, against Mahachev, it's a failure to launch, a failure to throw strikes. Gaichi seems like the next right fight right now, and I'm okay with it. And I think we're all in agreement that if they book Oliver, we're not going to complain about it.

But I just kind of want to see Gaichi get one more crack at it. You know what I mean? I feel like he's on his last legs at this point. For sure. So I would like to see what he could do. And plus him in Makachep is just, it's fresh. It's different. And stylistically, especially after seeing what Gaichi has done in his last two fights,

I am absolutely enthralled by that idea. But like I said, if you go with Oliver, I'm fine with that as well. Last thing, BC, let's talk about Alexander Volcanovsky, where he goes from here. Because before this whole thing came together, and I know it wasn't announced, and I know it wasn't fully done, Penn, it hadn't gone to paper, but everybody I'd spoke to, all signs were pointing towards Volcanovsky versus Toporia, January 20th, UFC 297, I believe, in Toronto. And then Volk gets this fight.

And one of the first things he said after he got this fight was, I'm going to go fight Islam, win or lose. I'm going to turn right back around. And I'm going to fight in January against Ily it's a pouria. I don't think anyone expected him to get knocked out the way that he did. And then he showed up to the post-fight press conference, got real raw, real emotional, talking about going through some sort of mental issues that fighters go through when they don't have an opponent and a date circled on the calendar to prepare for. Volk was happy to get the call because he felt like the,

the timeframe from July to January was far too long, and he still thinks he can turn around in January. I don't want to see that. I know a lot of other people don't want to see that. We want to see the fight, but if we have to wait two or three extra months, who gives a shit? But at this point,

your biggest takeaway from what Volcanowski has said in the aftermath, the Tuporia fight, him wanting to turn around in January, the whole nine. Yeah, this is an ill-advised idea, and you're going to get a lot of people to say, well, look, it was an ill-advised idea to fight, Mahachev on 12 days notice. You heard, you know, that was the biggest takeaway from Alex after the fight that this is not

the guy that you want to fight on 12 days notice. Well, also Alex, Toporia is not the guy you want to fight on two months notice after getting head kick-caoed and revealing some of the things he revealed. So let's be honest about this. I thought it was great what Volcanovsky said afterwards, showing us that these guys are human at the end of the day. What he's been doing lately has almost been in. or just superhero level of abilities, raising his wrestling game and fighting Machev on almost

even terms at times to produce the idea that, wow, we do need this rematch. And you know what? We can't count Volcanovsky off. That led to me buying in on everything Volkanowski said, as I mentioned earlier on this 12-day turnaround and the confidence that if anyone can do it, needing a knockout moving up a division, maybe it's this wizard. The problem is when Volkanovsky revealed his heart to us after the fight. I think he also revealed why I got fooled and a lot of people did on his confidence. It wasn't rooted in my opinion in the right reasons. If Volcanowski had come out after the fight and said, look, guys, I believed in myself too much. I read my press clippings too much. I read everybody's pound for pound debates too much. I believe that if anybody can do it,

it really was me. And you know what? I got humbled. That's okay. But I'm going to take some time. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to come back. Instead, his revealing of a very honest reality in this fight game that I don't think is talked about enough. It comes off as major red flags and I think explains in a negative way why he took this fight. And that's ultimately because not being in training camp, not being that dude, the pound for pound king, the future all time great, you're raining into feather defending featherway champion. That gave him a certain level of identity crisis.

That gave him a certain level of, you know, understandable sort of anxiety, maybe even depression that he dealt with where he said it was all going to his head and he just needed something to activate that and make himself feel alive again. The problem is that these fight games are, you know, as Dana White says sometimes, and it's a paraphrase on an old Vince McMahon saying that, you know, it's not a career, right? It's an opportunity. And even though Volcanowski's had an incredibly long career and probably still has some big moments left, you're not superhuman. It's not automatic that you can do stuff like this. And if you take a fight this difficult, meaning Machev, for the wrong reasons,

you 100% shouldn't double down and take a short turnaround to Poria fight, which you could argue is just as dangerous and for different reasons under the same circumstances. So while I applaud Volcanovsky for saying, this is the reason why I kind of screwed up and why I did this, he's not repairing it by then saying, you know what, I should take six months off,

I should go back, be a family man, and really figure out what my true identity is. I think it's something that's relatable to all of us when we have a successful career and we're trying to figure out, am I just living on the reputation of who I am in this job? Or am I happy with who I am in my day to day as husband, father, whatever you have you? I think these are true questions that Volcanowski has to look into his own mirror and figure out. Why?

Because if he goes in there against Tuporia with some of the same unfinished dealing of those emotions and loses, then look what happens in two consecutive fights and what that will have done to his legacy, losing the championship after losing an opportunity, basically for immortality by moving up away and going for a second title, I'm never going to hold the level of daring to be great against Volcanovsky that he did, because I think for some fighters, it's special, it makes watching combat sports fun, but when you reveal the reasons why it seems very ill-advised

and doing a similar quick turnaround against Topori after being knocked out, just not a strong idea for one of the smartest fighters in the history of the sport. The problem here, though, the UFC loves this. That's the quickest way to Dana's heart. So do I believe if he says he's ready and the doctors clear him that he could be there in Toronto in January? Yeah, unfortunately, I do. Yeah, I mean, like we talked about on the post-fight show, Jed, Volcanowski is beyond the prime of his career at this point. He's on the back nine, but it's still very, very good.

But he's in the prime of his prize fighting career. This is where he's making all the money. He's becoming a star. getting these big opportunities and big fights and main event spots, just had, you know, headlines international fight weeks. He's in big moments all over the place here. And what's interesting about 2023 besides all the chaos is this is the second time that a champion who reigned upon their division for a long time has dealt with this

because Israel Adasania lost the title in November against Alex Pereira. Then he regains the title in April and then loses to Sean Strickland. And a lot of the questions surrounding Izzy was, is the schedule just too much at this point? Yes, there's 12 days notice. It's a little bit different. But it's not like Israel at Asania had three months to prepare for Sean Strickland. He didn't have a whole lot of time to prepare for that man either. So Israel took some time to reflect.

And then recently said in an interview, I'm going to take some time off. But when I come back, you're all effed. So where are we at with Volkovsky here? I assume he's going to fight Tuporia first quarter next year. I don't think it's going to happen in January, but how are you feeling about Volcanowski five days later after this loss and everything that he said

and what he said on his YouTube channel and all that fun stuff? Pretty bad. I'll start with the positive. I watch his YouTube response, and I am happy to know that, you know, this, at least from his perspective, this was really not a,

bearing his soul in a way that he was reckoning like with things real time, that he does see a sports psychologist, just that these are things he is taking care of in his life. So I'm really glad to hear that, you know. I think that that was like one of the most concerning things. An entirely separate concerning thing has emerged since then. And B.C. sort of alluded to it kind of the previous question we were talking about.

And it was him just sort of saying outright, I couldn't really pull the trigger in there. I am open to the idea that that had to do with not being prepared enough, you know, big weight cut, sort of those parts, meaning that he just wasn't dialed in. But very much the first thing that goes as fighters age is almost always the ability to effectuate what their brain is thinking. The reactions are slow. They cannot pull the trigger as much. And we have just seen this time after time after time with aging stars.

And some people can get by with guile and make it work. But you see over time that that only deepens. and you get an Anderson Silva who still has all of the tricks in the bag but can't fire the shot anymore. Really concerning for a dude who just turned 35, because we all know the stats on being that old in lower weight classes and where that goes. Super-duper concerning for a dude who just turned 35 and couldn't pull the trigger

coming off his first knockout loss in a decade, fighting an absolute hammer in Ilya, you know, like on not even that much notice, I mean, if he gets right back into camp right now, that's still January is just around the corner. So all of that is deeply concerning about his long-term prospects moving forward. And like BC, I think if he gets medically cleared, the UFC isn't going to stop him.

He's clearly not going to stop himself. It doesn't seem like any of his coaches are going to intervene either. So I think there's a really good likelihood that we end up getting this. And as I'm feeling right now, I think that that lines up really. really well for Ilya and I'll go one step beyond what BC was talking about there because he said, hey, what if this is the thing that happens and he loses to Tupuria and now he's lost two in a row. Where does that put him? I'll tell you where it puts him. It puts him lined up for

losing three in a row because if he loses that featherweight belt, he is going to get an immediate rematch. Maybe Volkinovsky, if he gets knocked out again, says I need to take some time off and reset, but everything he is saying does not lead me to believe that that's where he is going to want to. to do. I pitched this about a year ago when he really started pushing for more fights, more fights, please keep me active. I am of the belief that Alexander Volkinovsky, one of the smartest guys in the business, knows that his time is near, that knows that his athleticism is dropping off that he is not the same young man he once was. And so he is trying to get in as much as he can while his body will allow. And so if he loses to Tupuria, I don't think he's going to come

back and be like, hey, man, let me take six months off. DePorea can go fight Max Holloway and I'll settle up with the winner. I think he's going to be in the same situation where, all right, let's run it back this summer. And at that point, he's staring down the barrel of 0 and 3 in his last three fights. And in a Kamaro Usman situation, like a very much the same situation as Kamar Usman. And then where does he go? What do we do with him? So one of the reasons I didn't like this fight. I, you know, this fight with Islam coming in. And I think that it has created a very dangerous, a precipitous slope for him moving forward. And so I really hope, you know, better reason wins out.

He takes some time off because I think coming back against DePurio on just a couple of months is, man, that is a tough, tough ask. Yep. We'll see what happens. We shall see what happens. Straight up, I might. to pick Deporia outside of these ancillary things just because a dude's been incredible. And now you're giving him the benefit of all of these other stuff.

Man, don't help. Don't help your opponents, guys. Don't do the things your opponents want to do. And if I'm I'm I'm Elliot Tupori, I am begging you to fight me in January. Yeah. I got to say, that fight was already really interesting. One of the fights I've been looking forward to the most, but that is far more compelling now.

maybe not the best ways, but it's a whole different outlook on that fight, especially if it happens in January. So we'll see how the UFC proceeds. We'll see how Volcanovsky proceeds. There's other storylines. Jed mentioned one half of the second storyline, Kamar Usen. We're going to talk about him coming up next.

But the point for round one goes to Jedbyshu. It is one to nothing. I forgot to put in the music. I just realized I should have actually done me. this entire thing in the pool. I should just be lounging in the pool and doing all of this. Maybe next time. Something to think about,

but a cannibal in the pool. Maybe the preview show tomorrow. Oh. Just tarps off and living life. Yes. We will be doing a preview show tomorrow for Tyson Fury versus Francis Nganoo. I think it's at 1 o'clock Eastern time tomorrow. And to mention for some programming notes, we are actually streaming the Fury

and Ghanu Presser on the YouTube channel as well. we're doing both at the same time. So here is my advice to all of you because this is a boxing press conference. This is not a UFC press conference. Get you a website that can do both. Yes. Maybe pull up a different tab, put that on, put it on mute, because we're probably not going to see Furrier and Ghana for like 45 minutes to an hour at this point.

So you can listen to the fine programming here. We're going to talk about the fight. And then when those two gentlemen come up and start saying stuff to each other to try to sell this thing, then you can switch over if you want, but you can always go back and watch it after the fact. So let's continue on. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. What? Sounds like Ojo time.

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With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. And let's talk about Hamzaa Tshima, of Jedmishu, because first fight in 13 months, we were supposed to get the Paul Costa fight. In comes Kamar Usman on less than two weeks notice. Intriguing matchup, but one people have been wanting to see for the last couple of years, once Usman was the champion of the world.

He had since lost the belt, but different style, different guy. Usman coming in with pretty much nothing to lose here and could have found himself out of nowhere in a middleweight title fight had he won the fight. Shami have looked like a superhuman in the first round. Seems like he broke his hand when Kamar Usom. Usman basically DDTed himself to get Shamiyev off of his back. Usman wins the second round, starts stealing some momentum. He's doing pretty well in the third.

And then Shemayev just runs him over in the third round with the takedown and gets the nod on two of the judges' scorecards. Some weird scoring, but we don't need to get into that. So now that things have settled down a little bit, Jed, we've had a chance to digest everything that happened on Saturday with Hamzaa Shemayev, Usman in this fight. What are we grade in Shemayev? What's the grade now?

Is it any different than it was Saturday on the post-fight show? No, it's about the same. Like a B-B-plus, right? Like, ultimately the most important thing he gets the W, right? Like, that's if he loses that fight, even if he gets the draw there, that's pretty tough scenes, particularly given the circumstances. Not what happened. He gets the W.

He gets a w. He gets a w-he gets a w-he gets a w-one over, one of the 20 best fighters of all time, who's still pretty firmly not in their prime anymore. but Kamar U. U.S.man is still a very competent dude, even if it's up a weight class, right? Like, Jemayev himself was once a while to wait, it's fine. But we can't pretend it's all roses and sunshine and gumdrops here. Like, it very clearly wasn't.

You know, there's reports that Shemaya broke his hand, broke his wrist. I cannot confirm that. I don't know that anyone has. And so you take this with a grain of salt. But the reality is we have now twice seen him not totally run over a dude. And in both instances, the fight has been quite tough for him. He is one of the best hammers we've got. When he's hammering, buddy, he's hammering you.

And when he is not, it is, he's still in the fight. He still beat Gilbert Burns and Kamala Usman, despite, like, after the first rounds, he still did enough to win. But it looks very different, obviously. And I think we have to treat that seriously. Like, this might be who he is. He may be a terrific canon. in the first round and then a little weaker in the back ones.

And that's something that might be pretty tough to make hay with, like in the title picture at 185 right now because a lot of those dudes, high cardio output people. So I think you can give him a good grade because he passed, but he left you wanting more there is work to do. But that works out pretty well for some other people in this weight class, Mike, set up before him and say it again, biggest winner on Saturday was

Isl Mokachev. Number two, Trichus duplice. New life for the South African after that performance. We will see if you were right in a moment. He's still out of the title picture at the moment. I don't see any new life.

I see it's Strickland versus Tumayev coming my way. And then the winner facing Adasania at UFC 300. So stick that one. Jed, are you in Florida right now because you're on the run from the law or on vacation right now? Or it's just, are you, have you been held in contempt of of MMA court? Is that, I mean, we have, all right, there we go. Hey, look, here's the deal.

All right. We've seen a lot of great first round fighters in the history of this sport. And if this is the direction, the history of combat sports, right? You look incredible. Shane Carwin, nobody ever look greater for the first five minutes of a fight. Ameri Khan and boxing. Problem with Chimai up now is I believe I have seen too many consecutive question marks across the board, which really have me wondering whether this guy is more smoke and mirrors than legit

and whether my colleague at times the great Hall of Famer Rashad Evans who texted me during the fight and said, oh man, I hope he's not the bully that he's starting to look to be. And what that means is you're going to look great when your plan A is going to perfection. When Tcha Mio is facing anyone below the A minus level in terms of quality of opponent, I mean, he's destroying them. The question is, what do you do? do when you're looking across at somebody who is your equal or has some element to their game.

And obviously for Gilbert Burns, it was that dog and that chin in him where they're going to make it difficult. Let's be honest here. Although I think Usman deserves flowers for his willingness to help out the company and take such a difficult fight coming off two straight defeats and for his ability to hang in that fight and not go away. But after the way he was dominated in round one and having his own failure to launch situations in rounds two and three, where I got to believe that Kamar was going to watch the tape from this fight and realize that there was an opening an opportunity to win. He just wasn't busy enough what we saw out of Chamae of in rounds two and three, even if he heard his right hand, which I think needs to be said,

even if he heard his right hand, I didn't see confidence. I didn't see a huge willingness to be that guy. Okay, let's say he took round two largely off because he kind of blew his wad in the opening round where, yes, he looked like an A plus plus, 100 level video game fighter right there. Even if he needed in round two to catch up, round three, man, I mean, yeah, he did enough to win, not super impressive against a opponent who we weren't really giving a ton of chances coming in despite his experience level because the age, the moving up in weight, the recent form, the question of the injured knees.

So here's what I want to talk about, Chamaev as a whole. Look, he may go out there and beat Sean. Strickland and win the championship at the next time. And by the way, there's always going to be fighters who, let's say, are missing certain elements of their game where, look, if things go their way, Sean O'Malley, if things go his way, he showed you that he can go out there and win a championship because his A game is so strong. But Chameh is now showing certain red flags that are scaring me as somebody who, from the beginning, from the jump in 2020, like everyone else was like, oh, my God, this guy's so special that he's the rare type of guy that I'm not even sure we need to wait until

shows us that he's fully legit. Let's get him right in the Welterweight title picture right now. Unfortunately, there have been hiccups that have produced some of these large red flags. Is it his fault that he contracted double COVID and nearly retired post-pandemic? Now he's revealing after the fact. I don't know if people saw this interview that he did in Russian where he said he was misdiagnosed with cancer, got scared. Turned out he's okay.

Separate from that, though, red flags in the Gilbert Burns fight. And that's nothing against what Gilbert Burns did. but Chimae's willingness to sort of just enter into a brawl and not lean on his own strengths had me a little bit concerned, but I wrote it off as he wants to prove to the world that he's that badass, that he's that dude. Okay, how about missing weight against Nate Diaz? Missing weight by nearly eight pounds in the closest thing you can get at the elite level in UFC to a showcase pay-per-view main event where you are being set up, pitched to the masses

in a fight that there's no chance you really can lose so that we can believe and buy in that you're the next pay-per-view star. Even if it, look, I get that Chameh did an interview during Media Day that kind of, kind of suggested some of the conspiracy things that I've thrown about trying to be a funny guy, but also having questions about that situation. Chameh hasn't necessarily explained whether somebody told him to miss weight. But let's just say it's all on the up and up. Are we okay with this same fighter who's now going into a title shot in a new division,

that when he got his biggest close-up opportunity, if there's no conspiracy, material elements to this of wanting to protect Nate Diaz and not get him beat up on the way out, then that's a monster red flag that with that much pressure on him in the spotlight, that he wouldn't misweight by two pounds or whatever, that he would misweight laughably. And I understand that he believes he didn't get the chance to fully cut that down, but there has to be a reason why his team and the doctors and the UFC told him not to. And now this new red flag of potentially not having the level of cardio you would need and also the potential of being a bully. If Chameh can't finish you in the first round as he's starting to show you now in two fights against elite opponents in

Usman and Gilbert Burns. And by the way, both were smaller than him. Now he's up at middleweight. I have concerns and questions when you're facing these killers that are automatically for the most car, if they're of the truly elite level or at least going to be able to push you to the third round, maybe the fourth round, and then we see what happens. When Chamaev is not in that A gear on top of you, dictating the terms of the dance and kicking your effing ass, I'm sorry to say this. He's starting to look a little bit human. And that's not a good thing for a guy who has so much hype behind him,

has this unnatural level of political connections to a dictator that's, you know, making a lot of people so uncomfortable. Maybe there's built in pressures in that relationship out of financial help and control. I don't know. I'm speculating. But that's what this whole conversation is, a speculation. Is Chimae of really that dude? I'm here to tell you he might beat Sean Strickland without fully showing us he's that dude.

But until I see him go in there against a guy who's at least his equal and fight on elevated terms for the full fight, even I am going to have trouble activating that knee-jerk response in me that wants to say that guy's a motherfucker and he's coming for all the belts. I once believe that. I'm not sure I can anymore. I'm sorry. That's just where I'm at. Show me. Show me what you got, Hobbs up.

You seem to disappointed. I once believed in you. I once believed. But here's the thing. he won both of those fights he found ways to win so unlike Shane Carwin in big spots unlike listen to Rosie Perez and white man

can't jump sometimes when you win you actually lose and sometimes when you tie you actually win or lose I don't know what that means but I think it explains everything hey look we're going to talk about Kamara Usman in a minute and that last portion of Rosie's quote

might actually play well into what Kamar Usman did but that's the thing he ain't looking superhuman like Alex Niromanov looked like, Jed, you and I were both like, this guy's going to fight for the belt. And then he got into a second round marching Tybora and we're like, nope, he ain't fighting for a belt. Actually, no, we were wrong.

Yeah, we were so wrong. And he hasn't been the same. But Shamiyev is winning. He's finding ways to win. And at the end of the day, when you don't have your fastball, if you could win, and these wins are not against Gerald Mearshot, no offense, Gerald Mearshot, but it's not like he's fighting the 45th best welterweight on short notice.

This isn't a Diego, Lopez-Mab-Zar of Loeb situation. This is Kamara Usman. That was Gilbert Burns. To be able to dig down and find a way to win, I took a lot from the Burns fight in a positive sense. I understand why there's a little bit of trepidation with the Usman thing, but he also was preparing to fight Paulo Costa a middleweight with a totally different style, and then

all of a sudden had to switch gears himself after a 13-month layoff and fight Kamara Usman, which is a totally different style. So I understand the trepidation. I understand the question. So BC, you mentioned Sean Strickland. You feel like you were very confident here that he's going to get a title shot. To what Jed was going to say and said earlier, DDP's best friend right now is availability.

And if for some reason, the UFC decides to exercise caution on Alexander Volcanowski and says, hey, you ain't fighting in January and they need somebody to call, they probably will just call Sean Strickland and say, hey, you fight. And if DDP says, gets the same call and says, hey, fight in January. January, you're not getting a title shot. If he says yes, that's probably the fight we're going to get. So question is, after this performance and everything you had to say, one to 10, how confident are you that Hamzaa Chayev's next fight will be for the middleweight title?

I'm really, really, really, really confident, like eight and a half out of 10. I don't think this is a fight that needs to be rushed and turned around in January unless, unless your sole intention is having the winner face out of Sonia at UFC 300 if it's going to go down in April, which storyline wise, whether it's Adasanya rematching Sean Strickland or facing DDP or heck, facing Chamaev, it's a big freaking deal. I just don't know if you necessarily need to rush this out. I mean, look, if you're going to put Chameh in the spot and put on the moniker of a number one contender fight in this Usma one, which they did, they raised the stakes.

And to your point, Mike, won the damn fight, right? We're not, we're not necessarily arguing over whether he should have won, although, yes, one judge did give the overall benefit of the doubt in every category to Usman to first to force, excuse me, that draw on that scorecard. I just think DDP broke in general, right? The one cardinal rule that you don't when the UFC's trying to put together their big plans and offer you a big life-changing opportunity, which is to say, wait, hold on, not sure I'm going to be ready in time, want to get the full camp, want to make sure I do me, right?

I mean, remember they did that to Francis when he's like, yeah, I can't turn around in three months after winning the title. Can I just wait for so I can go to Africa, visit my family, walk around with the belt, do that? They're like, no, no, sorry, you're going to get an interim title popped in here. And by the way, we hate you. That's sort of where it goes. And I think when we're in this era or this calendar year, when good Lord, endeavor and UFC only care about the money, the live gate, putting on big main events that cause people to sell out the entire card, regardless of the price as soon as it's put on sale, because they just so badly, want to see this traveling attraction in their own city.

When you do what DDP did to them, although fully justifiable and understandable in a regular line of work, when you do that in this calendar year when they are purposely watering down cards, and now you see the hustle they have to put in at both $294 and $2.95 just to keep this thing afloat and keep it on the road, nah, they're not going to call up your boy, even though you called that, and I still don't even see how it was freaking possible that he beat Robert Whitaker, let alone finish him. Shout out to DDP. You're way better than I thought. And by I guess Jed's way smarter than I imagine too. But with that said, no, you don't need to rush this back, all right?

They've shown us time and again that Chameh's their guy. Do you realize that pretty much any other fighter, if they miss weight by nearly eight pounds and a pay-per-view main event, forcing the entire card to be switched around last minute, causing all this extra money to pay to fighters to take last-minute opportunities? There's a penalty for that, unless you're the next big thing in the sport, which Chimai of is. I think they'll actually work around his recovery schedule to make sure that this fight is big

and that would they want the belt on him? Yeah, they would. So let's go to my up here. They don't like DDP. They don't need to love him here. He's just another guy to them right now. And you know that's true, Jed. You know it.

Yeah. And look, couldn't be more wrong, B.C. Yeah. I'll get to you, Jed. Just to clarify what I was saying. I'm only saying this because I don't think Hamzat's fighting in January anyways. So, but if they need to book a main event, Sean is over right now.

and the alternative is Raquel Pennington versus Giuliana Pena for the vacant Bannamway title. So I think if the UFC had their druthers, they're probably going to give Sean Strickland a call. And if he says yes and drink is too, please see he says yes. All right, we're going to fast track DDP into this fight just so we have a fight to kick off the calendar year

that people might actually want to see or buy or buy tickets for as opposed to this is what you get, Canada. You got Nunes Aldana. now you're getting pain you, Pennington. Welcome back. Welcome back. We miss you. We missed you very, very much. But Jed, outside of that happening, let's just say Voltaporia

goes through, all goes well, we can make hay with whatever we have in Middle Way. We don't have to rush anything. You think DDP deserves a title shot? Most people feel he does. But will he get it? Will he get it?

I think so. I am the fourth grade math teacher. who's looking down at Brian's paperwork and being like, you have it all. You've done all. You've shown your work and you somehow got the wrong answer. Two plus two equals seven.

That just doesn't work here, BC. You said it. The UFC cares about money. This is not an issue of doing anything other than we've got to put on cards. We need dudes to fill out the space. And the true answer is that the dude who's going to get the next middleweight title shot. is the guy who's going to say yes. It is not going to matter about the matchup.

It is going to matter about the timeline because that's what the UFC is concerned about. And if it is stepping in for the January card or maybe just being the headliner for February, either of those, I don't think Hamzot's going to turn around that much. And I don't think he's even the first call. I think if Hamzot,

if somehow DDP turns down the offer, Hamzot is a totally fine and they can sell that fight. But I think this cut as cleanly as possible for DDP at this point. He is clearly the most deserving in a meritocratic world. I don't think that's really beyond question at this point in time. And he doesn't even have the cell of fighting like Izzy, which is that was the thing that seemed like it was going to happen. Okay, Izzy loses. They're going to do Izzy DDP and Strickland's going to fight the winner of Hamzav versus Costa.

All of that's off the table now. DDP has no one to fight but for the belt, whereas Hamzot has the ready-made fight with Paulo Costa. You do that. I don't think he's as over as he could be right now coming off that performance. So instead, you give him the Costa fight. There's plenty to sell that fight. There is the built-in rivalry. Costa is a top guy in the division of former title challenger.

So if Hamzok can beat him, then that's an easy sell. He is next in line. No questions asked. And meanwhile, you get DDP in Toronto. Strickland and the last thing on this the thing that i think puts it ever so slightly over the top here for ddp is the champ himself shon strickland is going to fight whoever the uc puts in his way like that's just who he is and that's fine but he came out basically immediately and was like hamzot doesn't deserve this i shouldn't have to fight this dude i'll fight him but like

this is kind of bullshit and and he spoke truth to what we all know to be true like it is it's garbage to let Hamzok come in off of this win, a late notice eking out a majority decision over a career welterweight. Like that's, I think that ultimately reason is going to carry out. And as long as DDP says yes, he's going to be the next guy to fight for the middleweight title. All right, Mike, can I poke a few holes in that I don't know how the order of the show goes? I usually just talk when I hear something that offends me. All right.

Let's be honest right here, okay, on DDP's chances. Why was he allowed to cut the line and jump the queue? Because there was a USC or are they very good at what they do? They're opportunists. They play the hot hand. They blow up meritocracy when things change. Oh, Bisping fell into the middleweight title. Let's get 46 year old Dan Henderson back up in the bullpen.

Nah, it doesn't matter if he, you know, is trading wins with the Tim Bosch levels of the world. He's going to rematch Bisping for the title in the main event. That's what they do. It was the beef. But that Tim Bosch knockout was dope, though. So was the, Lector Lombard one, especially now the story behind it that Hendo shared on the Joe Rogan show wild. But let's get back to business here.

DDP was in the conversation because UFC recognized something, a growing hatred between two prominent fighters that just so happened. They're of different race and they're doing the All-African. I'm the real African champion thing. And whether that was blown up more by social media than it actually was or not. DDP never said that. He never said he's more African. He strictly just said that I am.

Objection. No hope to Africa. Objection. I am not more African. Objection. Does he live in Africa? No. I did put a disclaimer in there just now that basically said whether that was really true or social media.

I know. I just really like to mock DDP for that. But here's my point, Jed. DDP had his window when him fighting Adisania would have been massive. UFC actually could have said, you know what? Maybe we really could do a fight on African soil. If there's one to do it, it's that one since we're not going to. to do Jones versus Inganu, which probably should have been the one.

So my point is, now we have Adasania, who not only lost, not only lost badly, but he's come out in his own channel and said, look, I'm going to take some time off. Now he's got to be careful, though. He turns 35 next summer and then Luke Thomas's beloved stat of how it's impossible for anybody not named Tyrone Woodley to win any type of title fight, Walter Waite, or below, or not. That'll change that, although he's at middleweight. But my point is, DDP was allowed to cut the line and given the chance to fight Whitaker in a number one contender fight because,

of the potential for this. He turned down his own potential by breaking UFC's heart and doing the one thing you don't do when you're in his spot. Alternately, what's the word I'm looking for? Concurrently, I don't know, I'm not really good with grammar. The whole point is this.

Shemayev actually has a storyline because him and Strickland, I actually have a history of sparring in extreme Couture. And if you talk to people like coach Eric Nick Sick who was on the morning combat podcast in a lengthy interview recently, he said, look, Strickland, you know, you didn't get his ass kicked.

There were moments where they both had in their particular strengths. And it doesn't seem like they really like each other either. That's the area where it's going to go for GDP. He's probably going to end up having to fight the only other guy who has worse luck in this title picture. And that's Jared Canaaner, who was the backup, but then didn't get the call when they need to switch fights and then did get the call for this one's the backup and then injured himself after accepting it. That's just what that is. That's the truth. Let's wake up here, Jed.

Come on. Please. Let me go back to chewing this gum. He can't. He can't fight Canineer. Canninger blew out his MCO. No, Cannonier's not back for six or eight months. Paul O'Costa coming out of the elbow.

Also, what is, I don't understand what line did DDP jump by fighting Robert Whitaker? Was there a line to fight Robert Whitaker? He was like the number six dude fighting Bobby Knuckles. That's just how contendership works. There's a line of people who have earned enough quality wins to justify getting a number one contender fight against the former champion. Who, Whitaker already beat. Whitaker already beat all the other dudes. He was fighting the next highest ranked guy yet and fought.

And he caught himself. Your boy played himself, unfortunately. I'm sorry, you're saying he played himself by not accepting a fight on a very brief turnaround. It's almost as if we like just saw how well taking fights on short notice goes. Not all that hot. It's different when you have leverage. He only had leverage because of Adasania. Volcanowski had real leverage.

So if you want to argue that that was a bad idea, you can. I could argue. I assume that actually DDP's leverage wasn't the. Is he fight? Because if he had that leverage, they wouldn't have made him fight Robert Whitaker, which on this program and several others, I called the stupidest thing I've ever seen. His leverage came from freaking thumping Bobby Knuckles. Nobody thumps Bobby Knuckles.

I assume that that would have made him an ironclad title challenger. And they're just like, nope, we're going to do the winner on the Costa. But you have to agree, UFC works in reactionary seasons of what fights make sense to them and what fights don't. Charles Olivaire made a lot of sense to them until he got a cut. And now you and I are going, yeah, it's probably gaet you next. That's how it works, Jed. They do.

And that's why I'm saying that I think that it makes sense for DDP now. If Hamzot had finished Kamala in round one, we're not even having this conversation. If he fishes that chokeout, we're all on board. Obviously, Hamzaat's getting it. But the manner of that win. And then the fact that afterwards, he didn't come out and do his like Hamzot, I kill everybody. I've Sean Strickland.

You're dead. thing and he was just like no i'm just happy i just want to keep fighting you know like getting wins i like making money okay like he didn't he did not make a case that that made it necessary and i think the most telling thing of all of this is the post fight dana white you know who says he doesn't make fights immediately after events but like pretty often does do that was not like yeah we're definitely doing homz i's like yeah that's it's an option we could do we'll we'll see how it all plays out like i that's the death now for hamzot to me i think he's fighting co-exed to next and that fight makes all the sense of the world.

And then the winner of that fight fights, the winner of DDP Strickland. And then Izzy, when he comes back and fight whoever's holding the belt at the end of all of this. Well, the only reason why I like your Chima have Kost of ideas because it seems like Kosta fought off some unidentified Russian MMA fighters in the cage as soon as Hamzatz fight ended last week or outside the cage in the crowd. So that seems to explain that. It's the, it's an incredible story. Yeah, that seems. And by the way, back to you, Mike, if I'm going to check everybody.

the reason why the UFC won't talk about the future of the vacant Bannonweight title is obviously surrounding UFC 300 and their want to put together some combination of Rousey Holm Tate and Pena against each other. Come on. We know this. We know this. Rousey. It's Rousey home too for the Bannamweight strap. Let's go. It's going to be gross. And they're going to do it. They're going to shamelessly do it, guys. I called for this like, I don't know, three months ago. I'm super in. It's the dumbest thing ever. Let's book it.

All right. Real quick, before we move on. B.C. Kamar Usman fought valiantly, loses the majority decision. One judge gave it a draw after getting 10-8ed in the first. Where's his stock now? Three losses in a row. Two to Leon Edwards, lost the belt,

lost his chance to regain it, and then fought freaking Hamzat Shemayev on super short notice and lived to tell the tale. Where is his stock right now after three straight losses? It's kind of lingering in the middle because three losses is rough when you're 36. you don't really have a path now in either division to the top. But here's what you do have. Real leverage.

You talk about why would the UFC continue to penalize DDP for making one wrong decision, even though it was really the right one. We all know that. Well, Usman made a decision to help them for probably huge money to fix this fight in this card. Why? Because it seems like the site money the UFC is being paid by Abu Dhabi is so much higher than anywhere else that they are treating that like a major and will go to all lengths to replace the star power there.

and then what I say, as they should for a major pay-per-view card. But Dana said afterwards himself, I don't care if Usma wants to go back to Welterweight or stay at middleweight. He's going to get another big fight because of what he did for us. Dan's not even hiding his cards. There is a major problem, though. Even though Usman retained a certain level of his stock critically, when you consider that people like me up until fight day were like,

oh my God, this is such a bad idea. He's going to get knocked out. He's got no knees. I think they popped in that in that video with, Gachi, there's a shooter behind the bushes over there. Oh my God, is that the senator's brain on Mrs. Kennedy's coat? What's going on here? It was a lot of weirdness there for sure.

But I think at the end of the day here for Usman, showed your heart by staying in that fight and not succumbing to that first round attack that most fighters would, to be fair. But I think even his own very humbling reveal in his post-fight interview with Megan Olivie, which I think was very good on both of their ends, Camaro for being that open, Megan, for being that caring and pulling this out of him. But you hear Usman talk about that thing, right? So there's, we always think of getting old as only your chin went. But we're finding out that an inability to connect the wiring and your brain convincing

your body to do what it once did easily without thought is a major problem. Tyrone Woodley, the only guy that's beaten this sub welterweight, uh, Luke Thomas stat. When it was over for him, it was over like that. And it happened to be in that title loss to Usman and carried through. But the problem wasn't a lack of athletic ability or if he still had some semblance enough of speed and power to hang in there or even his great fight IQ, which I think has made Woodley's title run at Walterway, one of the most underrated in company history mostly because Dana spent so much of that time shitting on him publicly. When it was gone for Woodley in that sense, he couldn't get his brain and his body to agree. Usman just revealed to us that that's kind of what happened in this fight mixed with him not really having enough confidence in himself to go after. it. These are major red flags that you're already going to link with the fact that he's 36.

He's got a body that seems to be breaking down. Even Rashad Evans, his good friend told us that it's bone on bone in one of those knees. And you have a style. Then when you're at your best, you are using this crazy motor and taking people down. The thing is, while I give Usman a ton of credit for how he raised a striking game over Trevor Whitman, and it's really what allowed him to go to the level of number one pound for pound. And being in the spot that he was, I think he felt too. in love with his striking over time.

And when he's leaning too heavily in his striking compared to his wrestling, I don't think he's anywhere close to as dangerous a fighter. Yes, he showed a backbone and an experience level to hang through that fight. But I don't think it gets better from here. I think he pretty much loses all the way through unless they match him against another guy,

old name in a similar situation. The kind of matchmaking that I'm never against. Look at Robbie Lawler's exit. Look at how they've starting to smarten up a bit lately when you have these aging fighters. Let's put in the fights. They actually can win that the fans will celebrate them. Why are we putting Anderson Silva against Derek Brunson and Jared Canner?

It makes no sense, right? Yeah, no, it doesn't. So in this case, Usman, I don't think he's going to win again in terms of a meaningful fight, but I do think he'll get the opportunities. I just think when it goes, it goes. And he's got combinations of physical and mental now that are telling him it's over. That's harsh, but that's the truth. Okay, Jed, what do you got for me?

I mean, seriously. We're out of there's been stock right now. I think almost everything Brian said is correct. I will say, I'm not sure that the moving away. from the wrestling was so much a choice as it was a physical requirement because he doesn't have knees you can't take people down without knees like it's really hard to do that if you can't change your level like fundamentally he cannot change levels that's why he does the like single leg grab like just the snatch single that he keeps just like reaching out because he doesn't have knees had for a while like that's just where he's at there's a helicopter uh so i hope you guys can for that uh they've passed they found Found you, Jed. They found you. They found you. They got you. I've got this great canopy overhead so they can't see crap. That's why it's cool and breezy here. Look, I think most of what he's said is correct, though, right?

Like, Oussman's very clearly past his prime. I think given the way his style works, we are likely to see a pretty stark drop off as well. Maybe he could make a little more hay at welterweight than at middleweight, just stylistically. but the problem with him is sort of the same one I outlined in the post show is I don't know where he goes. There are two names that I think makes sense for him to compete against given where he's at in his career. One of them, which I think is going to happen. We saw it come after that's picked up with his team. Robert Whitaker, that was a fight I called for immediately.

I think Robert Whitaker probably beats him, but that matchup makes sense for both of them sort of as a legends match. And honestly, I think there is an argument. that Robert Whitaker, too, is falling off as well. So I think that fight would make a ton of sense. And I know he is currently booked, but Stephen Wonderboy Thompson is sort of the other one that kind of where they're at in their careers would make sense at some point. But the question for me is how long does Usman keep this up? Because like you talked about Mike with Volkovsky,

Usman is still kind of in his prize fighting prime. Like he already had his great run. He's never getting back to a title. I'm comfortable saying that. But he can still command attention. He is still a star. He can headline, you know, fight night cards or go places or service co-meant events. Who do you match him up with?

How long is he comfortable picking up losses? Is he comfortable having an Anderson-Silva-like end of career where he just sort of has these fun fights, shows something and maybe loses, like not in the worst way, like Anderson's against Daniel Korme, et cetera? I think that's kind of where it is, is how long is he content to do this? because I really doubt he's going to pick up many more wins. Like if I were saying over under a number of wins, Kamar Usman has left in his career,

I'd set the line at 0.5 and I would probably take under. I'm not sure we're ever going to see him win again, even if he will be reasonably competitive for however long he does continue to fight. Well, a lot of aftermath from this co-main event. Let's move on to the shakeups for UFC 295. the point for round two goes to Brian Campbell nicely done BC you've done it you're on the board back back all right there's your pomp and circumstance right there you go slap yourself

around all right let's get ready to this every time BC's on this is like a whole episode of morning combat it's like a two hour show and hey that episode of morning the most recent episode of morning combat helped me get through my seven hour drive this morning so I'm okay with that. It's a great program. Guys, UFC 295 doesn't look the same anymore. Woke up to the dog having to take a piss outside, had no idea what was going on.

It was like 3.45 in the morning. I'm like, yeah, maybe I'll look at Twitter. The dog knew. He was trying to alert you. Maybe I'll look at Twitter. And then I see Dana White make the announcement. John Jones is injured. We see the video.

Hitman steep air off. But we have a new main. events. Yuri Phrashka versus Alex Pereira, one of the most exciting fights on the calendar year for the vacant light heavyweight title. But the new co-main event, BC, for the interim heavyweight championship of the universe, Sergei Pavlovich, who has just been running fools over, taking on Tommy Aspinall, who after recovering from a serious knee injury, came back just iced Marching Tybor real quick in London. And now look at Tommy Aspinall, getting ready to fight for interim gold at Madison Square Garden.

BC, your reaction to Jones's injury, fight with Steep A-off, and now we're getting Sergey Pavlovich versus Tom Aspenol for interim gold. So there's this whole, you know, hipster, MMA hardcore fan reaction to this, which is like, you know what, there's a better fight and it moves the division forward with the younger generation. And you know what? Oh, by the way, I never thought Jones, Mio Chich was ever going to be competitive anyway. and I'm sure John would have retired after.

That's what people like Luke Thomas love to say as a response to this. And their hardcore heart is beaten hard enough that they're like, you know, at least we got a real fight. Problem is, you know, a couple times a year you need those historic crossover fights. And maybe it's just because I grew up 90 minutes outside of the shadow of the world's most famous arena and have had life experiences of, look, you go to MSG for anything, concert, circus, hockey game, next playoff game. you're going to see just an elevated excitement level.

It's why that arena is so hallowed. UFC finally getting in there after 16 years meant so much to me. And outside of that weird DC Lewis card, for the most part, they've delivered. It sucks for the star value. This is not a deep card, and I won't have any MMA fans tell me that. And some are, but I'm really telling you, you only think it's deep because it's better than the other pay-per-view cards this year that were decidedly not deep. It's still not deep at all and was very top-heavy.

But I loved the top. I love the two fights so much. Yeah, I want to see if McKenzie Derns for real, not against an Androger's getting beat by everybody left and right. And now we're removing this. And it ties in with just what's been the second half of John Jones's career, which has been kind of like the second half of Oscar De La Jolla's career. Damn, and the second half of Ray Carruth's career.

Very disappointing, mostly, you know, not just from all the arrest John has had, but just from the inactivity of when you have somebody so freaking great, somebody that we've been waiting for like a decade really to finally move up to heavyweight and cement the idea with no further debate of who really is the greatest fighter of all time. And look, it's John Jones, all right, even if this whole USADA thing didn't suddenly possibly, you know, clear him of all of that, which I don't even really think that's true. But the whole point is that guy's the greatest and we knew it. We finally got him to move up to heavyweight after it, mostly unexplained three or absence

of either whether he was waiting for Francis to retire for the UFC to finally. pay what he felt he was worth. Either way, we got a vacant title fight, and then Cyril Gahn came in there and shot his pants worse than Justin Kish. And we really didn't get this, a true understanding of who 36-year-old John Jones as a heavyweight really is. I don't care how well you think you know this sport or John Jones. You have no idea what it looks like with him against a real heavyweight, trading strikes, you know, five-round cardio, all of the stuff that goes with that. And John put on a considerable amount of weight and rebuilding his body. And while I know the hard course didn't want the Steepa fight

because Stepe hasn't fought in years, well, guys, wake up. Stepe only fights once a year and a half anyway, whenever it aligns with his beliefs and the UFC will make that one fight that he's been holding out for anyway. I believe he could have come in here and made a very interesting competitive fight.

Is it the two best heavyweights we have right now? Probably not. It's more name value and sort of historically driven. But if you're going to be the UFC and be as arrogant as they have been this year, you are literally charging $915 for pre-sale, not second market, worst row seats at MSG for this card under the auspices that the great John Jones might be fighting for the last time against the greatest heavyweight in history.

Look, I love the pomp and circumstances a part of that, because you do need a few fights per year that are big events that are for the casuals that are more of a close-up of come see what we're all about when we go to the prom each year and put on the shirt and tie for once. That, to me, what this type of tent pole card is. And even though I love me some Aspinall versus Pavlovich for the hardcore element of finding out who's the next generation of heavyweight and who can win such an interesting style contrast, this doesn't come close to replacing the star value of Jones Miyochic.

And on top of that, Tommy Aspinall's got to do this on like two hours notice the same shit we're talking that Volk shouldn't have done. So am I happy about this? No, this freaking blows. you know, the ignorance of everyone out there just believing that Steve A is going to come in there and just lay down and not be able to absorb strikes and not be able to keep himself from drowning on the ground. Do you know this fireman? I mean, seriously, now we don't know if this fight's ever going to happen. Not that it needs to happen. It had a window. Every fight's got a window, right? This window is now closed.

But to now know that I'm not even sure John Jones is even going to fight again, that could change the first time we hear him speak publicly and maybe it will. But he will be 37 next summer, which is around the time that he would probably return based on the eighth month turnaround here for this injury. And yes, there's going to be even more questions about his health. What's he going to look like at heavyweight? Does he still have the heart to want to fight the next contenders? Is it one return?

Then he retires. Basically, I want to see the potential of somebody who has a chance to be the greatest without even the debate. Get in the cage and actually show us that. And while this injury is not John Jones's fault, it does coincide with a lot. larger picture of the UFC this year that I do believe the hardcore fans refuse to acknowledge because they were so lusting after the idea of, well, hey, we get a card basically every weekend. Who cares if there's a crowd? Who cares what the matchmaking is? Who cares if Jason House manages

everybody on the card and they all make 12 and 12? I want my freaking MMA. So do I. I just like when it's time for the prom that people actually shower and get dressed up nice and we show this world what we can do. Now we're showing them this guy, Sergei Pavlovich, against this other guy, Tom Aspinall, go ahead, hardcore fans, enjoy, all right? I'll be sitting here just counting my blessings and wondering how quickly the UFC turns himself into boxing by constantly prioritizing greed above fan experience or fan retention. Thank you very much, Endeavor Arrow. Wow.

Now, you guys couldn't see this, but Jed was reacting. There were hands in the air, hands covering face. There was movement going on. There's a lot happening here, Jed. So let's turn it to you as one of Stepe Miatrish's biggest advocates, as a man who has done nothing but praised Stepe over the course of the history of this program on M.A. fighting for the last three years. Your reaction to this news and the new fight, interim title, and what BC just had to say there. Well, I had some reactions and then it just kept going on. Listen to this old goober, just yell at the clouds.

Like, oh, no, you can't work from home. You got to go into an office and work a nine to five. Oh, the sanctity of Madison Square Garden. We got to have a geriatric fight a dude who's a light heavyweight. It's got to be done for the promotion's sake. What are we even doing here? This is such a win. This is such a win.

Stepe versus John Jones is the most transparent vanity squash match in the history of fight, probably. Like, we all know what is happening. Even the UFC knows, and that's why Dana White basically explicitly said, we didn't even offer Stepe an interim fight against somebody else. We're just trying to make this fight happen because we know both of these two dudes aren't going to fight anybody else. They're going to fight each other. We can put on the marquee, not for the hardcore fans, which is also,

was blowing my mind up, BC. The hardcore fans aren't looking for MMA every weekend. It's the casuals who just want to be able to turn in Saturday and see two dudes making 10 and 10 just get out it's the casuals who want to see stepe a meachitz versus john jones because he's the greatest heavyweight of all time who hasn't fought in three years and hasn't won in like half a decade versus the greatest fighter of all time who like probably lost his last fight at light heavyweight has fought one time since then and beat zero gone okay like this is we traded out this awful vanity project that i could not have cared less about and i am on the

record because on our ranking show, which is on the pod network, you can go listen to it before this happened. I believe my exact words were, I don't give a shit about this fight because I don't. And most people with working cerebral cortex is agreed. It's a squash match. We know what's going to happen. It doesn't meaningfully do anything for this weight class and both guys are going to retire. We're training that for an actual legitimate heavyweight title fight. This won't crown the best heavyweight in the world. That remains Francis Ngano until such time. as he loses in MMA as far as I'm concerned. Or I guess at some point, if he just keeps beating like PFL dudes,

then we'll have to have the conversation. But this is legitimately for the best heavyweight in the UFC at this moment, because the answer ain't John Jones and it ain't steep. And that's not to discredit what Jones did against Cyril Khan. It was an incredible performance after that long time off against the guy who a lot of people were given a really good chance to beat him. But at some point, you have got to put in the work. You do not get toward yourself as the champion of a weight class for one fight in four years.

You've got to do the effort. You've got to be the guy who's going in and getting dubs. And I frankly have no idea of Sergey Pavlovich is good at fighting. I know that he hits people quite hard, and that is all that has needed to be shown thus far. John Jones is undeniably a better overall fighter, frankly than both of these two dudes. But these guys are in there every day putting in work, racking up wins. We are trading out a fight I didn't care about for a legitimate heavyweight title fight. I think this is an incredible improvement to this card.

It dramatically increases my interest because prior to this, I was interested in this fight mainly only for the co-main event. Now that co-main event is the main event and still freaking slaps. And we have a co-main event that is dope. The only problem with it is as BC ended with. 12 days notice for Tom Aspinall is not great. I don't love that. We'll see how it goes, though.

But that's really the only negative I have for this. That's an incredible amount of confidence that John Jones is decidedly the better fighter over Stepe right now when John's fought for about 90 seconds and four years, put on 50 pounds and weight. That's more than Steve-Bey's done. He's 40-2. Stepe went through hell three times with Daniel Cormiere, all right? Then he got killed by Engano, yet he still wants to come out fighting.

The guy's unbelievable. He's got a chin and a work ethic, and you're just basically like he's a piece of shit. He went through hell with Daniel Cormier. and since then you could have a kid in freaking kindergarten because that was half a lifetime ago. The last time we saw him, he got blown out of the freaking cage. Like, he just hasn't fought anybody.

He's a fire. I'll have you know that I underwent the three needles five years ago and it not only killed my libido and happiness and confidence, but it was really the darkest turning point in my life. So no, I will not be having any more children. Okay, none of them will be in kindergarten. And by the way, Jones Meochitz still mattered. beyond just vanity.

Yes, it was. They don't even like Steepay. This is the only fight they would give him, right? Because they needed that rub to give to John. Obviously, we get that. But, dude, this is not proper star replacement like this. And by the way, we're bumping up a fantastic co-main event. But another fight that's only happening because the champion got injured,

who only had a shot to become the champion, because two guys fought to a stupid draw after the other original champion got injured. And he only became the champion. because John Jones decided to leave this division because he had too many... I heard you say that on morning combat, and that's objectively false. You understand that, right?

One, the first champion you're talking about is one half of the dudes. The guy who vacated the belt is here, and that same guy you're saying only got the chance to become champion. That's objectively not true. He could have fault, John. John quit.

Like, John left the division. It's not his fault. John left the weight class. He didn't, he wasn't, He wasn't Glover Tashara who lost to John and then became the champion after. He could have been the dude to beat John. Had a good chance because I watched Dominic Reyes beat John. And we've seen what Dom Reyes has done since beating John.

Hadn't been good. Yeri totally could have been that dude. But John decided to leave. That's a great choice on his part. And then spend three years not fighting Francis and Ghanu. For whatever reason you want to believe that happened. So it's just nonsense. This is a true title fight in the main event.

Let me ask you this, though. I love rock and roll, a steam roll of Matt Fervola. He might be the closest thing to a household name on this card now, right? Oh, the rest of this card is hot garbage. Hot garbage. And I don't even think they know him outside of Long Island. That's what I'm saying.

Nobody knows a lot of these guys. So in that regard, this makes MSG look like Shiite, but they didn't go crazy to replace this like they did Abu Dhabi because the site fee ain't the same. You know that. It's all about money now. I do agree that if this were Abu Dhabi, they would have tried harder to replace this. But again, this is a great replacement for my viewing experience.

I am twice as interested in this card because there are now two fights I care about as opposed to like, you know, like you, I'm absolutely in agreement. McKenzie Dern, Jessica and Drogh is a, for Vola binwasandini is a terrific fight. But that's it. Like there's the rest of this is, is undeniably a weak card. That wasn't the conversation we were having. The featured bout is Diego Lopez versus Pat Sabatini, by the way. One of you just threw like side-eyed shade at like 20 minutes ago talking about Diego Lopez versus Mbzar. No, I mean, look, the fallout of that fight was great because everyone loved Diego afterwards.

But heading in, everyone's like, oh God, Mabzar of Loi is going to kill this guy. You know what I mean? That actually worked. You created a guy that could become a star. And then the Alexa Grasso thing on top of it, once people started to know who he was. People were excited about Diego Lopez. They were excited to see him.

Bobzar, boy, go ahead. BC, so I'm, I actually do fundamentally agree this card's weak. And if it were Abu Dhabi, they would have tried hard air. What do you think they could have even tried to do better here, though? Like, what fight could they make? They're hamstrung. They're hamstrung. I get that. But I don't know.

I wanted MSG to matter. I mean, you know, when when it's, Gary Alex is going to be one of the fights of the year. I love it. I love it. But that's, that's, yeah.

I mean, I don't want to be a hater. Dude, I obviously love to find out what happens in Aspinol versus Pavlovich. Heck, though, the Jouttsin Almeida fight the weekend before, I think is almost equally as intriguing just to kind of figure out how good that guy is

and what he looks like and now against the late replacement of Derek Lewis. But a lot of late replacements these days. That's the whole point. Okay. So it's like, look, injury. I'm not blaming these. injuries on UFC. I'm not blaming this injury on John Jones. I mean, shit happens, okay,

but when you're within a calendar year, which is already riddled with negativity, right, fighter pay, power slap, slap Mrs. White, like on and on, you know, WWTCO crossover and now, oh, let's go private again. But I don't know if we should sell it because this stock's tanking. Is that Vince's fault? God, I don't know. It's been a stupid year for MMA if you are purists. The matchmaking has been unexplainably weak and no one's questioning him about it at all except for me in front of this microphone on this show and I probably alienate myself to all of your audience. But like there's no answer for this overall lack of shit matchmaking this year when you're

making that much money. So then when you get an injury curse on top of that, not your fault, but kind of still your fault. You got to prepare for a rainy day. Yes, they pulled out the big guns to save $294. 295. They're sort of like, yeah, we'll just let it kind of lay as is. And then, you know, we'll see what happens the rest of the way.

This year has sucked, and I feel like the only one that ever even wants to put breath to that. All right? I do respect that they actually ostensibly were prepared for a rainy day by having a backup fighter. And for the second week in a row, they're just like, nah, not that guy. Not that guy. We're okay. This was a ceremonial role, not an actual one. Well, at least the backup fighter is actually fighting this time around.

Against the whole different person, which is great. I mean, imagine if you pay. $900 now for for Tom Asball. You know what I'm saying? What are you going to do? What do you go? I mean, I guess you can get a refund. But I mean, the whole point is sort of like, what are you going to do? People build. If you paid $900 to watch Jones versus Stipe, I'm sorry, homie.

You own this. Like, that was a bad decision. Yeah, but you're paying for history. You're paying for John walking away on top, right? I mean, this puts John's future in question. You see, let me put this in terms you can understand. How much did we give a shit about watching late career, Muhammad off Lee fight Larry Holmes was that like an event you wanted to go to I feel like you wouldn't have wanted to do that at the time because we all knew what it was are we really putting

stepey historically concrete chin stepe who took a bait in from francis and ganu before he you know he by the way he took a beating in the first round of the first fight too we're really going to lump him into why won't anyone get out force ali out of the ring as the obvious cTE takeover is like upon us visually no that's not an I've been trying to force Steepa out of the cage for years. The adequate comparison is Anthony Joshua versus Vladimir Clitchco, 2017. Clitchell's coming back from two-year retirement. But you know what?

He got regenerized, rejuvenated, went in their fall with balls, by the way. Not at least. That makes me so because Joshua was trying to get over on him. This is John who's already set. Who cares? Yeah, but this is John also trying to validate himself at heavyweight. And I know that your knee-jerk reaction will be Stipe's 41. But come on.

Heavyweight's age late. It's not my knee jerk. That's just the reaction. Yeah. This is, this is, this is, C.

Mayich does not have a win over a currently employed UFC heavyweight. That's just a fact. That's not even bullshit. He has not been able to the UFC currently employs. He's got the numbers. Casual fans know who he is at least. So I,

like, you're both right. You're both right here. So it's, it's tough to gauge because like B.C. is 100% right. The card from like a casual. standpoint does not pass the public

sell fewer pay-per-views. Oh, 100%. Oh, yeah. I just think this card is much more entertaining now. Oh, yeah. Like, this is the hard, this is a hardcore co-main event. This is a great fight. This is the fight we should have got on this card in a three-rounder to begin with. This should have been like the backup fight, like already put on the card. And then just elevated. You know where I'm wrong?

You know where I'm wrong, Mike? The, the hardcore fan isn't going to actually be pissed because the hardcore fan is stealing and streaming all these anyway and betting on them and having fun with their friends. So the Hardcore fan is just fine. So you might go, B.C., why do you decide to be the old guy on the porch that's screaming at the sky and warning everyone? Because, guys, it's happening.

They're driving out the hardcore fan, right? This isn't like, this is like when they say they're killing the middle class. They're driving out the hardcore middle class fan who keeps this thing afloat by just constantly shitting on them in worse ways than what? Oh, then the way boxing shits on the hardcore fan that keeps the sport alive by buying every pay-per-view. It's happening right in front of our eyes. Wake up.

See, that's where you're wrong, BC, because all they're doing is they're driving that hardcore fan to Mnayfighton.com. It's a great website. We're going to have all your UFC 295 coverage. If you don't want to pay 80 bucks to watch this, don't do it. We'll have live blogs.

We'll have recaps. We'll have highlights. Everything you need. One stop shopping. You mayfine.com. Great website. All right. Let's move on to speaking of boxing and paper views

and just crazy price tags. The point, How expensive is this thing? 80 bucks, same as UFC pay-per-view. The point for round three goes to Brian Campbell. It's two to one. It was a very close matchup. Fadda-da-da-da-fireworks.

It was a very close matchup, and then Jed made a cardinal mistake. He ran off all the great things you could do during UFC 295, but the most important thing, the watch party he did not mention. Oh, yeah, point. Oh, sure. In listening to BC, this event is poop

and not even worth a watch party. So I wasn't sure we were going to have one. It's just not true. We did a watch party for Vancouver. We did them for all. We did the watch party for 282 last year with Anka Lai versus Janbovich. I thought we might all be sad about the sanctity of Madison Square Garden and not want to lower it any further into the muck. You know?

Look, I get where you're both coming from. Okay. Do I'm on the last remaining person in an MMA who has respect for anything? Okay. Because, you know what I mean? The people that run this. game don't have respect for it. They're pushing power slap down your throat. Come on.

We wouldn't even remember WrestleMania at the Skydome if Hogan Rock didn't get after it. You know what I mean? And that match was even that good. It wasn't even that good. But the crowd was incredible and they were into it. Hogan Rock was the pro wrestling equivalent of Jones Mia Chit, so don't do it to yourself.

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Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Speaking of weird combat sports bouts, we get Francis and Ghanu versus Tyson Fury on Saturday. The presser's going on right now. Jed will begin with you because you are a fan of crazy fights. You were someone who wasn't into it at all, this whole boxing versus MMA thing,

went to a triller event, watched Jake Paul Ben Ascran, turn the tides a little bit and then, you know, it's kind of bottom it out a little bit. I think Misfits Prime kind of killed this for a lot of people after Dylan Dan is Logan Paul, but that's besides this point.

Francis, Mr. Fumble the bag, gets a big bag of money and he's going to fight Tyson Fury. So where are you at? Where are your interest levels here? Do you care if you, if you weren't working this card, would you pay?

Are you going to watch, are you going to pay 80 bucks to watch it? Uh, maybe. I mean, let's let's be honest. I'm going to, for one very simple reason, Mike, and it's a reason I've told you before. We don't have to bury the lead here. I'm going to pay 80 bucks because I want to be a part of history.

I want to watch Francis and Ghanu silence all of the haters, which is what's going to happen Saturday. Now, BC is probably just in a lather already hearing me say this. And I'll preemptively agree with him. this is not a rational pick. I don't think this is going to happen because he is a better boxer or any of those reasons. I think it's going to happen. One, the primary reason it's for the bit, right?

I don't have a lot of regrets in my life, Mike. I've made a ton of mistakes, but, you know, I mostly am just like, well, I was an idiot and I'm a piece with it. One of my biggest regrets is not picking Sean Strickland to beat Israel Disney. Because I spent a month on our programming being like, I'm going to talk myself into it. This has been a really weird year. Weird shit's been happening. I'm going to talk myself into it. And then I was a coward.

I will not make that mistake again. I have spent the last month talking myself into it. And the thing that pushed me over the top, the thing that cemented it, there is a cardinal rule in combat sports. The rule above all others beyond get the bag. Get the bag is obviously rule number one. It's the only rule that really matters. But rule number two, immediately behind that,

you do not book a fight when you already have a fight on the books. You simply can't do it. There is no counting chickens. It is, it's the word, like on the list of things that you don't do in life, Mike. Number one is you don't talk to a pitcher or talk about a no hitter when it's going on. Everyone knows that. Number two is you don't book a fight when you've already got one. And number three is you don't sleep with your best friend's mom.

That's the order of magnitude, the Tyson Fury. has beefed right here. He has screwed himself immeasurably by spitting in the face of the combat gods. And he's going to get his comeuppance because wouldn't it be the most MMA, the most 2023,

the stupidest, funniest thing ever for us to finally get Tyson Fury versus Ussick. After Fury pittled around this year and did unnecessary rematches, et cetera. Finally, that's going to happen. And then France, and gone who just throws a spanner into the whole works it's happening i'll pay 80 bucks to see it

happen because i want to be part of history i want to be there for that moment bc your thoughts i just have to say i mean i can't crap on anything jed said because he basically read the you know the working manuscript of any hardcore boxing fan right now as sort of the number one reason from that camp of which i am a you know card carrying member of why this sucks but i i i Look, love them or hate them, and more often than not, we hate them when you get this type of crossover bubble gas station type fight. And obviously Mayweather McGreg over my shoulder is the greatest example in terms of attention, money, and really the suspension of disbelief in modern crossover history that the other person can be competitive. And that's why I'm going to pay for it because I just have to see what happens.

Unfortunately, in this fight, and it's not Francis's fault. And I love the story of him not fumbling the bag. and now he's showing up with the prop, the bag at the press conference. I saw that on Twitter a minute ago and it was hilarious. But the promoters, the powers of B, have taken and removed, in my opinion, all the aspects that would make you have to care about this fight and have to, in some cases, even buy it and tune in if you're of some level of combat sports fandom. And it's basically centered upon this.

There has to be stakes. There has to be a potential penalty in a fight, you know, something that you're risking for you to actually care. Separate from exactly what Jed said, which is true that this is just idiotic, stupid, and greedy from Fury to schedule a fight this close when the fight of this era, one of the most important fights in like modern boxing history is already on the books for later and you could ruin it in many ways. Even separate from that, the powers that be have made this set weekends fight worthless. Even if Inganu did pull some kind of miraculous upset through knockout or cut or whatever was because what does he win?

Nothing. I don't know if anyone's been following the Twitter account of Dan Rayfield, big time boxing scribe, but he's been pushing the promotion all week to get an answer on, is this a fight or not? It's not listed on boxwreck.com. It doesn't seem to be. And your reaction can go, who cares?

Like, it is what it is, right? It's just, it's a money grab between two big punchers. Yes. But here's how this fight could have been different. If you're not going to put Fury's title on the line, in which they aren't. Then I think the only way this becomes must see is some type of hybrid four ounce gloves

and an M. M. M. M.A. Cage type idea. Because why? Because you're leveling in theory some level of the playing ground. Even Mayweather McGregor had a leveling of the playing ground. How? Because Mayweather was 40 and two years retired. And McGregor was bigger, younger, at the peak of his marketing and physical prime. And on the type of run that it became easy to sell to people,

he might be able to do this against old Floyd, as ridiculous as that sounds, right? Well, for Ingano, yeah, you got the one punch, you know, opportunity, but there's no tangible thing at stake. Okay, what about Mayweather McGregor? No title at stake, no. But Floyd built his entire career on the marketing strategy of 50 and O, of TBE of the best ever to break Rocky Marciano's mythic record.

That's not really a record. It's just more of a milestone. He actually put that on the line against Connor. If things went tragically wrong, it'd been 49 and 1 with an asterisk for the rest of his life. Like that kind of mattered along with the holy shit. What does this look like? Or the, you know what?

I think Connor might be able to do it if he lands the perfect punch. What do we have here with Inganu? If the title was on the line as ridiculous as that is, I get it. Even for a boxing purist when Francis says no for a boxing experience at all, at least it would have properly shook up the foundation of what real combat sports actually is. if he had knocked Fury out. I mean, what would happen next? Would he fight Usik for all the belts?

I don't know. Do you know what happens now if he does it? Nothing good. Yeah, he gets the bag and he'll get another bag. And anybody that still thinks there's an M.MA versus boxing fight that can remember Joe Rogan and Lou DeBella debating on SportsCenter back in 2008 or whatever. No, that debates over with. So what do you win there?

You win nothing. And Gano would have to do it a second time in a real fight if he did win. And also you'd completely fuck up Fury v. Usik, which was Judge Point in the reason. and as a pure boxing fan why you're here. But even deeper than that, guys, when you don't declare whether it's an exhibition or not, you give potentially Tyson Fury an excuse,

no matter what happens in this fight. Let's say it horribly does not go his way, and he's knocked down multiple times. You give him an avenue to, like, quit where it doesn't matter, right? So basically you removed all elements of what actually matters here short of, hey, this guy's a big puncher, and he's got a puncher's chance. You have big freaking deal.

I wanted, even under the auspicion, of this being a gas station hot dog, which is exactly what it is. But I wanted to buy in on the idea. Same thing I did for Logan Paul and Dylan Dennis. And obviously in hindsight, I was proven wrong for having bought in on that trailer park soap opera storyline they had. But at the very least in this one, man, I would have tuned in to say, you know what? I don't agree with this.

But what if Inganu does this? Fury has to eat his words and blah, blah, blah. Now if he does it, what do we get? A second fight, which we never wanted in the first place. This sucks, guys. I hate it. I don't want to be involved with it. And oh, by the way, I'm doing a live companion thing on morning combat that's probably

competing with yours. So I guess we all cash in in the end. But you know what I mean? But like Jules said, right? I hate it. I don't want to be a part of this. I will absolutely take the money to be making for it. Who will save your soul?

You know what I'm saying? We are going to price. We all got a price. Yeah. Yep. Well, there you have it. If you haven't, if you're not sold on it yet, that just did it for you. 80 bucks.

80 bucks. And you can listen to BC's commentary. Yes. The point's going to this episode's Prince of Positivity, Jedmishu. We're not going to do the pomp and circumstance because I have to pick up my kid in a little bit. So it's time for the knockout round. And okay, I'm doing multiple things at the same time. Each of these gentlemen will have one question.

Each will have 60 seconds, BC. I'm talking to you, brother, to answer this question. And then we're not even going to have a poll. going to let the commenters kind of come in and get after it and do the damn thing. So, Jed, you were victorious last week. What do you want to do? I'll go first. Screw it.

Why not? Okay. So I think we've asked this question one time, a portion of this question. And it was, you actually delivered one of the greatest answers in the history of this program. So we're going to go back to the well, Jed Mashu. We're going to go back to the well. You are the king of hot takes and you have such a spicy hot take about this coming Saturday in Saudi Arabia.

we have Tyson Fury versus Francis Ingano. It's going down. These guys are going to have a fist fight, and you are picking Francis and Gano to win. So what I would like you to do in 60 seconds as I tabulate here on my cell phone with the timer, I want you to paint a picture of what would be the best way this fight ends? What would be the best way this fight starts to build to a conclusion

and then actually ends so that everybody feels like they got their, their money's worth for their $80 that they may or may not spend for this card. One minute on the clock, go. This is really easy. We have the pomp and circumstance. We know that's coming. It's going to be a big event. It's going to feel that way.

And this fight is going to start out in the same way everybody expects. Tyson's a fear is going to be beating that ass. Like he's just a much superior boxer. Francis Ingan, who was a lot better than he is showing on the mitts lately. A lot of videos of him looking like he has literally. never punched a thing in his life. I'm going to tell you guys, the man is punched up.

I've seen it happen. He can do it quite well. He's playing a little bit of possum with that. I don't think that's going to be the case in the ring. He is going to be wearing it from Tyson Fury. As the rounds go on, I think this is an eight-rounder. Maybe we get into round six or seven.

Tyson Fury really starts to put on a show, try to give the crowd their money's worth. You know, he's dancing. He's shaking his tongue at him. He's doing all that. And then, bam, out of nowhere.

Where the missile lands. Tyson Fury goes down. He's dropped. He gets up. He does not beat the bell. It's over. All right. You're done.

Now where. Yes, it is over. That was very passionate. I appreciate that. BC, we're holding the tight clock here. One minute. You're the boxing guy.

What's the best thing that can happen here? Like as a viewer yourself, you're hosting the companion. Final minute. How does this all work out? What's the best thing that could happen here on Saturday between Tyson Fury and Francis Ngano, one minute starts right now. Well, first and foremost, the best thing that can come out of this, unfortunately,

is that Fury just doesn't get hurt at all, right, and doesn't get knocked out so that you would put the next fight in jeopardy. But separate from that, what would make this fun and redeemable and have some spin-off qualities for everyone is if Fury wins, yes, and he will win, but can Ngano knock him down, knock him down have one moment you know what I mean not land one big punch that shows you that's why I bought this pay-per-view

that's why I bought this ticket that's why I needed to see that the problem of picking an upset here is that dinner fury go like nearly 35 rounds with Deonté Wilder like arguably the biggest puncher in the history of the sport and got knocked down four times and just kept getting up each time

but does he hit with the power of the four score look it got who's going to gas himself out we kind of know this 10 seconds going to be careful and fool around early. But eventually Fury is going to go for the finish. Will he get caught with one shot that hurts him or drops him? That's the best case scenario.

We still get Fury Yusick and maybe Francis gets another back down the line. All right. Very good. Very good. We kept on track. All right. How do you, DC? Yes.

Vote. You're getting it in 60 seconds. All right. Get your votes in now. The guy was pulling me in my air to be fair, though. Okay. Yes, that's true. All right.

B.C. or Jed? That's your comment. One comment. I'm going to waste time here and just talk about what we're going to be up to. We'll have a heck of a morning tomorrow. Preview show 1 p.m. Eastern for this fight. It should be awesome.

Jed might even do it from the pool. Will he? Will he not? You're going to have to tune in 1 p.m. Eastern and find out. And then we'll have all your coverage on Saturday. We will do a people's pre-fight show right beforehand around 130. We'll have a post-fight show. I believe we'll have, we may or may not have the press conference. I don't friggin' know.

Just like I don't friggin' know what's going to happen. One of the quotes that was said during the press conference, not only do you get Tyson Fiery versus Francine Gano, but according to whoever's hosting the press conference, there are a number of, quote, mouth-watering fights on the undercard. So you're getting your bang for your buck for 80 bucks. I don't know who any of the fights are. What are there?

Five fights total? Yeah, former champion Joseph Parker's back. There's a couple of British prospects, but it's not what it's offering. No, it's not, it's not been in this. Yeah, this should be two fights. The British heavyweight title is on the line in the co-main event. Oh, all right. Well, you get a title fight for your 80 bucks.

So there you go. That's what's going to be going on this weekend. And then the UFC is back next weekend, Jelton Almeida versus Derek Lewis. AK and I are actually going to be recording a Ask Us Anything edition of On to the next one. So you have, till. I think tomorrow at 8 a.m. to submit your questions, however you submit your matchmaking suggestions. So let's scroll through here. This is pretty freaking close.

I definitely angered the hardcores with my, you know, things aren't as good as you think they are. And the sky is falling take. But, you know, guys, I've seen the financials. I'm right. All right. Let's go through one more time. We have 15 seconds. So I'm not sure I made fans there.

This is super close. This is super close. I mean, Jets are worthy adversary, right? It is. This is incredible. He just looks like the Mike Pyle of MMA journalism. All right,

five seconds. Let's see what we got here. That's the best compliment I've ever gotten in my entire life. Mike Pyle, what a freaking legend. The hockey hair on that dude. All right. I think we have a winner.

I'm going to check it out. Oh, there was a tie with ties and broken, I believe. Okay Your winner And BTL champion He's done it folks

He has done it Without the port Oh my God Ladies and gentlemen We've done it Who knew Who knew this could be done History has been made here in the BTL

Arena Holy cow I am the Israel Adesania of this competition If you give me seven tries, I'll finally win one. How are you feeling right now, Jed? Was it, was it Florida? Was it the backyard vibes?

What, what did it this week? I, you know, I think just the sun, just doing it outside, getting powered up by, by Mother Nature and vitamin D. It's just all it needed. The high of Islam Makachov finally putting order back in the world. It's, it's all just great. I'm so excited. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you guys for your support.

I guess tomorrow we have to do the show in the pool. I'm not sure how I'll make that work and I might get fired, but why not? You know, let's celebrate the good time. Do the cannibal now. Do the cannibal now. All right, let me see. Go to BC and I'll see if I can open this door and then we'll do it.

All right, BC, how we feel in here? You know, I guess I deserve this. I did beat Jed once by fan approval when I didn't earn it. Right? I didn't earn it that time. So, yeah, there we go. Hopefully 60 seconds or less next week. All right, that's great.

You did good. We may have an immediate rematch. Jed, what are we doing here? Mike, heck, I'm turning the camera, and we're celebrating in style, and then we can exit. All right, everybody. We're going to turn the camera.

Back next week. But Jed Bishue is about to do a cannonball. Oh, is he going to do it? He's going to do it. He's going to do it. The cage door is opening. He doesn't have the, oh, he's up. What?

He did the catam all. He did the catam all. Incredible. Wow. You look like Parker Porter with his shirt off. Wow. Yeah. Great.

Oh, man. I don't know how we're going to top this week's program next week, but we're sure going to try, everybody. For the winner, Jed Bishu for BC. I am Mike Hank. Back next week, normal show. We'll see everybody. Thank you so much.

You're listening to 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. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. Hi, I'm Sophia Loper Carroll, host of the Before the Chorus podcast.

We dive into the life experiences behind the music we love. Artists of all genres are welcome, and I've been joined by some pretty amazing folks, like glass animals. I guess that was the idea, was to try some time. personal and see what happened. And Japanese breakfast. I thought that the most surprising thing I could offer was an album about joy. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Oh, and remember, so much happens before the chorus.