MMA Fighting - BTL | Makhachev vs. Volkanovski 2, Usman vs. Chimaev, UFC 294, Dillon Danis' Next Move

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

While UFC 294 looks a bit different at the top than it did two weeks ago, it's still a pretty loaded card with two incredibly intriguing bouts at the top of the bill that have very high stakes outside of just wins and losses. On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel discusses Saturday's UFC pay-per-view event in Abu Dhabi headlined by Islam Makhachev vs. Alexander Volkanovski 2 for the lightweight title, what a win means for both guys, and more. Additionally, topics include the Kamaru Usman vs. Khamzat Chimaev co-main event, who needs the win more, grading Saturday's card as a whole, along with putting a bow on the boxing debut of Dillon Danis as he was dominated by Logan Paul in a forgettable six-rounder, where Danis goes from here, if he has any shot at fighting for the UFC, and more. Host Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew and Damon Martin. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Damon Martin: @DamonMartin 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 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 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. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is Between the Links.

And now, your host, my... The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand-new edition of BTL. Thank you for joining us on another Thursday. It is smack dab in the middle of fall. The weather's getting cooler, depending on where you are, their leaves are changing. And that means the UFC's going back to Abu Dhabi and they're there. Big fight this Saturday, UFC 294. We had a weird weekend last weekend. We'll unfortunately put a bow on that super weirdness. And then we will cleanse our palettes with UFC 294 talk. But let's not waste any more time. Let's introduce the combatants First, he's on here all the time.

Mr. No Gray Area, Mr. Hot Take, the co-host of No Betts Bard. He's the man behind Damn, they were good. And most importantly, heading into this big fight week, the president of the Alexander Volcanovsky fan club. He's from MMAFighting.com. He is Jed Bishu. Hi, Jed. I just need this week to be over, Mike.

Just one, there's a new damn. They were good in your earhole. You can listen to it on this very podcast network. If you are not watching live, you're listening to this show. Just scroll one down because we've got a damn they were good at Anderson Silva. So you can check that out. And number two, war Islam. Let's go.

Let's go, baby. And back on the show, the man who taught me an important lesson in this sport, strike the word deserves from your vocabulary when discussing the UFC. He's one of the OGs covering this crazy sport of ours. He's the co-host of Fighter versus Writer. Also from M.AFutting.com, he's the president of the high Halloween ends fan club. He is Damon Martin.

Welcome back, Damon. Well, you're really setting the stage for this one, Mike. I tell you what, yeah. This is, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm as big a, I'm a bigger fan as Halloween ends as Jed is of Alexander Volcanowski being the number one featherweight of all time. Oh, God. What's, what's your beef with Halloween ends?

It sucks. It's the worst movie ever made. Okay. Well, glad you cleared that up. It's really bad. It's awful. It's awful. Really, really bad.

Yes. So yes, it's Halloween season. Go watch Halloween ends and not like it. So let's start with this, everybody. First off, let me just tip the proverbial cap to Edson Barbosa because he was incredible this past Saturday. And the man deserves his flowers. And he deserves a segment on the show.

But unfortunately, he is not going to get one. So we're going to start with the man that made all of the headlines heading into the show last week. And then he stepped into a boxing ring. And on paper, it says that he fought Logan Paul. and it depends on how you define the word fought. I'm talking about Dylan Danis. He lost badly to Logan Paul.

He was not competitive at all. Barely did anything of note. I think he landed 12 total punches, maybe through about four or five more than that, and then goes out and just gets himself decued and even that was really bad. However, on the flip side, without Dylan Danis,

no one would have given one iota or cared at all. about this misfits prime card in any way. So, Damon, let me start with you. All things considered, the build, the drama, the promotional stuff, then I guess you get to add the fight in there as well. What grade do you give Dylan Danes for his boxing debut? F minus, is that possible?

F minus. Listen, you know, Matt Brown said on our podcast, like, he's like, you know, Dylan Danis trolling, Logan Paul got him moderately interested in the fight and Matt Brown hates influencer boxing. So by that regard, Dylan Danes won a little bit, but the buildup still has to lead into a fight. And the fight was God awful. I mean, Dylan Danis threw like eight punches. He did more attempting to turn it into M.A. with a guillotine. And he says he doesn't play. He did pull a guillotine. He did try. He tried to pull up the Nate Diaz thing and he failed miserably. He went for a takedown, that also failed miserably.

He tried to pull a guard that filled miserably. So, yeah, in terms of boxing, F-minus, there's no other grade you can give Dylan Danis for this performance. If you want to give him credit for anything, you can say, yes, he did build the fight up. up, but when you go in and crap to bed that badly, I think everything you did before it kind of gets negated. And on top of that, he's probably going to end up losing all of his purse when he gets

sued in federal court when Nina Agdahl, who probably has all the money in the world and all the lawyers in the world to go up against Dylan Danis. Yeah, it's it was not good. There was nothing good about it. And listen, you can talk all the smack you want. You can build a fight, but you got to go in there and perform. And Dylan Danis absolutely, he would have been better off actually dropping out of the fight. I think he would have been better off that way.

Jed, what say you? All things considered, all of the criteria in play here, promotion, buzz, swinging of microphones, swinging of fists. What do you grade Dylan Dennis for his boxing debut this past Saturday? I'll be a little bit more generous. I'll give him a D minus.

You know, we're not going to pass him. But if you're looking at the thing holistically, it's exactly what Damon was saying. If you look at the totality of the circumstances, he got people interested. Now, I'm not here to understand why people were interested. And I'm not trying to shame you people,

shame on all of you, for giving a shit about Dylan Dennis, but people cared. There was a narrative that I have to assume is true because the boots on the ground seemed to say that for whatever reason he had made a face turn. People were more into him this weekend. All of that is part and parcel of prize fighting. And as that goes, Dylan Dennis at least succeeded in that part. The boxing was bad, certainly, but about what I expected.

I said this and we did a post show. And I've changed no opinions from the. that post show. My biggest bit of confusion, the thing that shocked me the most is not that Dylan Danes did what he did. It's when he did what he did it. Because I anticipate, we talked about I would have bet a billion dollars if I had a billion dollars that Dylan Danis was going to intentionally get decued, that he was going to try and replicate the Nate Diaz guillotine attempt because Dylan Danis has never had a creative thought in his entire life. So he's not going to come up with his own thing to do. he is just going to rip off people who have been successful before,

would have absolutely tried to do that. And yet, he waited until the end of the, till the fifth round, whereas Nate Diaz did it in the final round of his fight with Jake Paul because this is a pretty Dias thing to do. But he also tried to box. He tried to compete with Jake Paul and lost. Dylan Danes, if that's him trying to box, then I weep for nations because that was awful. Like, no bullshit.

Like any of the viewers at home could do. as much or more than he did from a boxing standpoint. If that's what we're calling an effort from him. And I assume it is. He just can't strike. I thought he would do the Jake Paul thing, the Nate DS thing immediately. He would come in and he would immediately just mug it up and see how much he could cheat before they finally called the fight off as opposed to spend five rounds getting not beat

around the ring because Logan Paul is also a horrifically bad boxer. but pretty clearly losing the boxing aspect of this fight and then do it at the end. If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly, just do it from the jump. And so that's really my big takeaway is that even when Logan Paul is doing the things that are expected or good, he's or good. You know, he still can't execute it at the appropriate level because he sucks, man. And I hope that we're done with him now. I hope that this is maybe not the firm. end because these things never die quickly, but I hope we are nearing the end of the Dylan

Dennis experience in combat sports. All right. I'm glad you brought that up, Jed, because one of the conversations that has come out of this, and we talked about it on a heck of a morning earlier this week, is Dylan Dennis bookable in the future? Will other promoters even want to have him on their cards? And New York, Rick, among others, say, yeah, how can you not what the attention he brings of this stuff. And I'm sure a lot of the success or we don't even know what the actual numbers are. I saw some sort of BS rumor and innuendo

when it comes to how many things this did this did pay-per-view wise. I'm sure it did a bunch. I'm sure it was very successful. But on the other end, like you guys are both talking about, the bell is eventually going to ring and yeah, I guess that's really all I could say about that. So let's say, Jed, you are given the job

of promoting a wacky fight organization or any fight organ general and what your job is is to generate as much dollars as quickly as possible for this organization would you and your team be on the horn with dylan danis would you bring him in no i would think about it i would ultimately choose not to because uh yeah i mean the fact of the matter is while this experience probably is is a good one right like i think we can all say that this worked out though again we don't actually know the financial so maybe it you know, maybe that's more specious, but seems like this worked out well. There are equally as many, if not more, experiences where Dylan Dennis hasn't worked out,

where you have to create a backup fighter because there is the ever-present threat that Dylan Danis is simply not going to show up and do the things he says he's going to do. So kudos to him. He at least got in there this time. I truly do not think his career could have survived him pulling out of this fight at the stage it got to. but I can't trust going forward who I'd be booking against that he would show up to do it and to me that would be a very big part of wanting to do this business and the other is again I believe that Dylan Dan has played a role in the promotion of this event I'm not saying

that he did not I am very uncertain to what extent it mattered in the sense of dollars and sense because this event still had KSI and Logan Paul on it who are the draws here I I'm not saying Dylan Danes didn't add something. I'm just saying I don't know that he added a substantial amount of people who decided I'm going to buy this. And Damon, I could I could ask this question of you because you said Matt Brown hates influencer boxing and this made him more interested. I believe that that's true of a number of people. Did it make Matt Brown interested enough to buy it versus not? Because that's the line of value being drawn here. And I'm really not sure that anyone who was going, who wasn't going to buy this event on, you know, Monday,

saw Dylan Danis was like, I am now going to buy this event on Friday as a result of him. Yeah, it's funny you say that. It's funny you say that we had the conversation on the podcast. I said that Matt's like, yeah, I liked it. It was fun, like watching him. He trolled him really well, but I didn't buy the pay-per-view. Because ultimately he didn't care about to fight

because Matt's prediction was it's going to end in a riot, and he was proven correct. Yeah. He was in fact, nailed it, Matt Brown. Good work. You're absolutely right. I mean, listen, if I'm a promoter, you know, do I try to get a little bit more juice out of the squeeze here

and get one more fight out of Dylan Dennis probably? Do I think it's going to be a major promotion that does it? Hopefully not. I say, like, in terms of, like, major promotions, we should be done with him. Certainly looks like Bellator is going to be going away. I'm sure we'll talk about that eventually. I don't know, like, what interest would a PFL even have in a Dylan Danis

in terms of him being an MMA fighter. Good God, I hope the UFC knows better than signing Dylan Danez, no matter how much influence Connor McGregor has on them. But if you're trying to put on an influencer boxing card and you got money to spare and you want to bring, you know, a few extra viewers to your card, will you sign up Dillon Dannis to fight some other person? Sure, why not? Like, he's got, you know, one more, one more fight probably in him

where people are going to continue to buy into the belief that he can actually do something or he can hype a fight. fight. But I think beyond that, the, the, the, the, the, the, the timer's running out, the sand and the hourglass is running out on Dillianus's gimmick, because ultimately, when you promote yourself as a fighter, you say you're a fighter, uh, you got to go out and fight. And he did not do that on Saturday. So I think ultimately he's got maybe one more of these kind of fights in him. And then at that point, he's going to, I mean, and I say this at all, you know, likely knowing he'll never do it. You know, he's got to humble himself and realize he's a two and O mixed martial artist against two

terrible opponents with no real experience otherwise. He needs to go in there and actually get some fight experience and he wants to prove himself and end up fighting in like a UFC or even a PFL or even a one championship for that matter, although I don't think one championship would ever have him.

But I don't know if Dylan will ever do. Dylan spent four years just trolling people on Twitter saying, I'm coming back, I'm coming back, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And people continue to eat it up. So why would he fight? Why would he continue to embarrass himself to go out there and actually lose

and try to prove he's actually a good fighter. So, yeah, I think you get one more out of him that will, you know, people might tune in for the, for the freak show factor of it all. But I think beyond that, he is, his time is running out. Damon, as you have seen, Dylan Dennis has a destination in mind. It's not misfits boxing. It's not kingpin. He wants to go to the UFC.

He's been tagging Dana and the UFC and everything. And look, the UFC has brought in CM Punk. they brought in Brock Lesnar, which, look, the Brock Lesnar thing obviously worked out great, came the heavyweight champion of the world. And with this merger and public offerings and all that, the UFC is in the business of making as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, and then having that extent beyond the future. Does he have any chance of going to the UFC?

Do you think there's any way, Dane and the Powers that be, say, look, let's just bring them in for one. and let's just see what happens. Like, if not, where do you think he ultimately ends up? So sadly, in my head, I'm thinking, why would the UFC have any interest in this guy? Because ultimately, yes, he had two and O, he's a two and O MMA fighter. Yes, he was an incredible grappler.

But I know the Brazilian jiu-jitsu community is going to come from my throat for this one. But we've not seen a lot of like super high-level Brazilian jiu-jitsu guys just conquer MMA. I mean, you know, Gilbert Burns is a great example of that happening. Damian Maya had an incredible career, obviously Jack Ray Soza, but when you talk about like getting to championships becoming UFC champions, it really hasn't happened a lot. You look at a guy like Charles Olivera,

who's an incredible submission specialist, but he wasn't a world champion jiu-jitsu guy before doing it. So, but sadly I will say that there is a chance that he could go to the UFC, and here's two reasons why. One, Conn McGregor. We know the influence he has. We know the kind of power he maintains in the UFC. you know when he was going to coach the ultimate fighter you know there were guys on the show

Connor wanted to get his guys on the show they literally bumped a guy off the show to put Connor guys on Connor's guy on so are we going to sit here and say it's not possible that he calls Dana or or hunter Campbell and you know praises Dylan Danis and says give this guy a shot on my card when I fight it UFC 300 put him on the undercard you tell me they're not because they did it for a lot of guys they've done it for kabeb they did it for Connor I can't say they won't do it The other scenario would be if they continue doing the Ultimate Fighter, which I don't know why they would, but you know they will. Dylan Danis might be enough of like a freak show factor to get people to try to tune in a little bit and get some draw, you know, drum up some interest in that show when it comes back. He's a talker, maybe not so much of a fighter, but you put him in there and let him kind of bring in that Kimbo slice audience from the Ultimate Fighter 10.

So as much as I would love to say it'll never happen, I think Connor being a good friend. And the fact that Connor was defending him left, right and center on Saturday night, tells you everything you need to know. He's going to have his back. And sadly, I think there is a chance it could happen. Chad, do you think this could happen? Could we be living in a world that in 2024, Dylan Danis will have a UFC fight booked? It's really low.

I think the only way it does happen is, as Damon mentioned, through the ultimate fighter, right? Because look, they played the Connor card this past year. and it worked to some extent, I guess. People tuned into that show. We did a post-show show about it. So they don't have, they can't go to that well again. They don't have so many arrows in that particular quiver. And if they're just going to keep doing tough and they're going to, again, probably shouldn't, but whatever.

He makes sense as a dude to bring on to tough. I think even Dana would be like, why would we possibly? possibly sign this guy. Because, I mean, shit, they put Bo Nickel onto tough. You know, like they will just say, all right, if, or, you know, if he wants to come in here, let's at least try and leverage the stardom that he has into this, this venue. And then, honestly, I don't know that he wins tough unless they really put a bunch of absolute goons in there with him.

So I don't know that he'd take the tough offer is the case. Maybe. Maybe they would give him a contender series shot. Still just seems like if it would happen, they would just go for tough. And I don't know that Dillon Dennis would accept that next year. I think by 2025, when he's running out of options because Bellator is gone and the influencer boxing scene is dying down a little bit. And he sort of played out his string. Maybe he'd be interested in that.

But I'd be really, really surprised if it happened next year. Ladies and gentlemen, we are moving on from this conversation. And I couldn't be happier. Wow. We're not even going to talk at all about KSI and Tommy Fury and what that means for the history of boxing. I can't believe. What? The most hugs ever delivered in the history of a boxing fight?

Anthony Taylor was on the undercard. We're talking about most hugs? I made hugs for days. Oh, KSI hugged way more. It means a world hugging champion. KSI hugged way more and lost. At least Anthony Taylor won his fight. So he did it way more.

Did anyone win versus King Kenny? I think he's got to take. I think he's got to take, I think he's got to do it was Josh Coble. I think we need to change KSI's nickname to Huggy Bear. I think that should be as official new nickname. Oh, that was such a bad fight. Two of the worst, those two fights were two of the worst of the year. But we're moving on.

All the momentum, all the energy that the card had and tells it into. I know. The card wasn't bad up until that point. But hopefully UFC 294 delivers in a much better way. That's where we're going in round two. The point for round one goes to. It was a very close round, but Damon takes it with the Ultimate Fighter suggestion. Very, very good.

Oddly enough, I still don't believe the Ultimate Fighter actually exists, even though we had shows and finalities. And I even scrummed it up in Boston with four of the finalists. And I still don't believe that it's a thing at this point. I am telling your best friend, he is going to lay into you on a Hot No this week. Well, he knows how I feel. I laid into A.K. I not know this past week. Go to the podcast network and hear it.

I listened. It was a great episode. It was a great episode. Boarding for Flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. What? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy.

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From festive and cozy fashion to luxe beauty and fragrance sets, our special selection has something for every style and price point. Visit our Holtz holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com. Let's head to this Saturday. UFC 294, UFC back in Abu Dhabi, the main event, we reacted to it last week on the show because it just sort of happened. It's for the lightweight championship of the world.

It'll be a rematch, not the one we expected. It's Islam Makachev versus Alexander Volkinovsky 2. Now, Jed, I want to begin with you because you understand, despite what people have to say, you at least understand that this fight is intriguing in a lot of respects. But you have been against it, not because you think the fight's bad, but mostly because, one, the divisions become potentially,

stagnant in the aftermath, the possibility of future matchmaking that you don't care to see, and maybe burning a bridge too quickly with the short notice nature of this booking, amongst other things. But you do see the potential that the fight could be really good. So we're two days away from this card. We're seven days removed from your reaction to it on this program. Have you warmed up to it anymore? Nope. I'm a stubborn, man my keck and I'm going to live in my corner of the world. Look, if you just look at the fight, it's great. Just the fight itself is great. I know this because I watched these two men fight in February. It was one of the best fights of the year. And by saying one of, it is the best fight of the

year. It is the clear frontrunner to win fight of the year award. Terrific fight. All of the context around this rematch is something I'm very unhappy with. And because I'm sure that there are people in the comments right now because goodness knows my mentions have been terrific this week. Let's get this out of the way. Not the world's biggest Alexander Volcanovsky fan. And so, yes, this is a tough week for me because like if he wins, which you can absolutely do, I'll be taking it in the teeth.

And so that is part of me not liking this. Let me tell you all the other reasons I don't like this fight because the big one, I wrote a 1500 word breakdown of this that's coming out later today. I understand that at its best this fight can be good. And by good, I mean amazing. I think that there is an extremely possible circumstance, perhaps even probable, where this isn't that, or this idea that we have built up of what it can and will be,

is just not based in reality. Because the fundamental issue I have with this, outside of the other problems, like, man, it'd be cooler if the lightweight division got some motion in it, as opposed to it as I'm fighting the same two dudes over and over, again and hey there's a very clear number one contender at featherway and wouldn't it just be dope if feather if we stopped doing champ champ fights in general all of those play a factor but the single biggest issue i have with this entire fight is that i do not see a world where one of the two competitors

is not being screwed in one way or another the obvious one is that wolkenovsky is taking this fight on 12 days notice. And that's not a lot of time to prepare to fight the second best fighter in the world up a weight class. So in the generally accepted story and narrative of this fight, the broadly applicable one, it is, hey, you know that dude you just lost two earlier this year in large part because you were too small? You're going to fight him again and that hasn't changed.

But now you're also fighting him at his home territory. and with 12 days notice, like, that's just not, if that is what plays out and this fight looks like that, and Volcanovsky isn't fully prepared because he didn't have it, and Makkajav just kind of wins a ho-hum decision, which is the most likely outcome here, then this sucks. This sucks forever because what should have been the biggest build, the most exciting rematch of an unbelievable fight-of-the-year fight got taken away for no reason, and the end result is a lame fight that we are not.

excited to remember and means we'll never get these two again because once Islam gets two over him, he's not going to keep letting the featherweight champions skip the line. It's just not going to happen. That's the most likely outcome. The other most likely outcome is that there have been rumblings that Volcanovsky has actually been preparing that since his surgery six weeks ago or whatever, he has been just prepping for this moment on the off chance he got here. If that's the case, One, kudos to Alexander Volkinovsky. It was really a heads-up play for me, my man. Two, that kind of puts Mokachev in a bit of a box here

because he has been prepping for Charles Oliva. And I don't know if you have eyeballs, but Charles Olivaire and Alexander Volkinovsky could it be less similar as far as how they fight their physical personages and any number of other ways that that fight goes. And so now instead you've got Volcanowski, who is coming into this with secretly, almost full fight camp, not quite the same but better versus Mokachev, who has now had 12 days to prepare for this fight and not make it.

And the ultimate point of all of this, Mike, is that part of the reason rematches are awesome is not because the first one was dope. And so the second one will be dope because largely that's not true. Most rematches in history aren't that. The thing that makes them compelling and fun is you are getting, in this case, the two very best fighters in the world who fought for 25 minutes, extremely competitive. And now we get to see what they look like with the full camp and preparations. What are the adjustments that get made? How do they approach this problem now that they've been in there? What looks different?

What looks the same? How will this unfold over another 25? It's extremely unlikely we're getting that. and all because we didn't want to put Matush Gamron in or whatever the reason is. Like, I still hate this fight for just about every reason other than what is in cage. And there's just a really, really decent chance that the in cage is not what everyone wants it to be. And we're all going to leave Saturday thinking, well, that sucked. Okay, on to the next one.

That's what will happen on Sunday, as a matter of fact. How about that? Damon, all things considered. This is a pretty damn good plan B, getting Volkanowski back in there. I know it's not the most ideal of circumstance. We'd love to see a full build for this, but there's anything where we're getting. And with Mokachev talking about possibly moving up to 170, seems very serious about that. This might be the only...

That's also garbage, by the way. I just want to make sure that I'm on record. I hate that. So you... Okay, you just don't like... You don't like this. Stop doing champ champ fights. Fight the dudes in your weight class.

It's not hard. They did it for 30 years. years before Conne McGregor showed up. Just fight the best guys there. Particularly, Makachev, who has like at least three dudes he needs to beat in this weight class before talking about fighting Leon. I guess that was, oh, I hated that. I hated that way more than any of the stuff Volk has said in the past year.

But I, but, and I'll go back to you to him. But here's, here's why I don't hate this one. I feel like he's just going to go and he's going to be a welterweight. You know what I mean? I feel like he does that If he does that I'm okay with it Because it's the same thing I said for Volk If Volk wants to fight it wants to fight for the lightweight belt

Bail on Featherweight I ain't got no issues with that I do have issues with you beating Yayaeer Rodriguez at 145 And that earning you a lightweight title shot Because that's bullshit But yeah if Mogachev is just like I'm out I'm done I've done lightweight I'm moving up

Volkinovsky you can now fight Justin Gachey Or whatever for the new title I got no issues with that. Okay. But Damon, after hearing what Jed had to say, were you out with this fight being made, this rematch of arguably the best fight of the year happening just eight months later and on 12 days notice?

So in a perfect world, if we were going to get this rematch, it would happen under much better circumstances because the first fight was so great. Alexander Volcanowski is one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world. And if they're going to do this rematch, would be a year or two down the road, and we get to see it, it would be epic and amazing, and the buildup would be incredible.

But we all know the UFC operation doesn't go like that. The UFC will often cut its nose off despite its own face, so to speak, because everything the UFC does is for the now. They're not thinking down the road. They're thinking right now, we need a main event. We need the biggest main event possible for October 21st. Charles Olivares out. We can replace him with a Matoos.

Gamrod, a guy that is fairly unknown and won his last fight because his opponent twisted his knee throwing a kick, or we can go get Alexander Volcanovsky a legitimately big name, a champion. We can sell it a million different ways and talk about how the first fight ended in what some people consider controversial fashion. I didn't. I thought Islam won, but it was a great fight. They sacrificed the January card, which was going to be Volcanowski versus Ilya

Toporia. I joked with our friend, A.K. Alexander Key Lee, saying Toronto's going to get that marquee main event now. They're going to get Giuliana Pena against Raquel Pennington. I know that's the main event. But that's how the UFC operates. They're not thinking about January when they do this. They're not thinking about

putting, you know, everyone else on ice. They're not thinking about Eliot Toporia. They're not thinking about Charles Oliver. They're not thinking about Justin Gachey. They're thinking about selling pay-per-views on October 21st. And that's how we got Alexander Volkanowski. Now, is this the best scenario in terms of interest and appeasement for this card.

Yes, I agree there because, you know, Alexander Volcanozky did take Islam all five rounds. It was a close fight. And then Islam went out or excuse me, yeah, Volk went out, beat the brakes off Yaya Rodriguez to prove that he's still the best featherweight in the world. And in my opinion, the greatest featherweight of all time. But now he's going back to lightweight under, again, less than ideal circumstances. So, I mean, I don't love that it's happening this way. And I'm with Jed on the whole champ versus champ thing.

I'm so over it. It's supposed to be special. We've talked for years about George St. Beer fighting Anderson Silva. That was the only one we could ever, ever talk about because that was the only one that ever made sense. And it still never actually happened. We've had so much of this now where it just doesn't even feel special now. Like, Israel, Adasania went up and fought for the light heavyweight title.

no one talks about that anymore no that didn't feel special he just did it because we just do that now um so yeah like in theory this is a this is a much better option because it is a bigger fight and wolkenowski is that dude but on 12 days notice and you're ruining what could have been potentially a much bigger fight a year and a half maybe two years down the road that's the downside of this and again i can't say it enough i'm over the champ versus champ stuff in this scenario it only works because Volk is taking on 12 days notice. If he was going to get a second shot at this title, he should dump the featherweight belt

and just move to lightweight and be done with it. But that's not going to happen. That never happens. So, yeah, I mean, that's where we are. I've just learned to accept it because if something, if tragedy strikes on a car, the UFC will move heaven and earth mountains to make that card better,

not even thinking what that does down the road. Because, again, we may lose out on Ilya versus Alexander Volcanowski in January. we may miss out on Kamar Usman versus Bilal Muhammad. I don't know if that's a fight people were super excited about, but it would have been a good, pretty decent main event and potentially cemented Belau is the number one contender for the welterweight title.

I don't know. I'm just saying like all these things we're not getting because we have to sell these pay-per-views on October 21st. Damon, if Volcanovsky wins, he will get the praise and the accolades and be mentioned in all sorts of conversations. And we'll probably have those conversations in a moment. What is that stake for Islam Makachev here outside of the title?

Because he's got everything to lose here. That is one thing he said over and over again at the press conference. Volk already lost his losing his winning streak because I beat him earlier this year. He's not putting his title on the line. He's stepping in on 12 days notice. He has everything to gain nothing to lose. I don't know if that's necessarily true, but I get where he's coming from. Mokachev has everything to lose here.

What does he gain with the win here? How do you think the M. community will react to Islam Makachev beating Volk a second time on 12 days notice having to switch everything up will he get the credit he deserves? No, he won't, but

I also think it depends on how the fight plays out. If it's another five-round battle and he wins three rounds to two, he's definitely not getting the credit because people will say you just beat a guy a featherweight on 12 days notice. If he goes out there and absolutely beats the brakes off Volcanozky this time, takes him down, taps him out inside

of two rounds, I think he will get some of the credit he deserves, but again, people are still going to say, you beat a featherweight on 12 days notice. That's just the nature of the sport. We're built to discredit people for victories. You know, when Kumar Usman loses twice to Leon Edwards, it's because Kumar is getting old, his knees are shot, not that Leon Edwards just proved he's the best welterweight in the world,

pulling off an incredible comeback, and then actually beating him over five rounds the second time. We've got to diminish Kumar Usman instead of building up Leon Edwards. I think it's the same thing here. If he wins and wins dominantly, I think he does shade some of that away, but again, he's got to do that. Islam has to go out there and prove that Alexander Volcanowski does not belong in there with him, and he definitely doesn't belong in there with him on 12 days' notice.

Anything else is almost like a loss. And if he loses, it's catastrophic because Islam is supposed to be the second coming of his mentor, Khabibn Maghemademad Madov. That all goes away, especially his desire to go up and conquer Walterway down the road, which is something that Khabib never did. That would be something in the back of my head, I feel like that's part of the reason why Islam wants to do that because he will always live in the shadow of Khabib a little bit,

no matter what he does. I think if he goes up to Walterway, he kind of erases that and kind of sets his own legacy. But he loses to Volcanowski, that goes away. He's not getting Colby, he's not getting Leon, he's not getting anyone at Walterway. So this is all right. This is, it's not a lose-lose situation,

but it's pretty close to that for Islam, because he has to go out there and do to Volkanowski, what he did to Charles Olivera last year. If he could go out there and do that, again, it's not perfect because people will say it's still 12 days notice, but it does erase some of that for him. But otherwise, pretty much anything else is going to be taken as a loss. Jed, how do you view the overall stakes from the Mokachev side?

What does he gain from a win here? And I know this is probably a piece of why you don't love this fight being made on 12 days, notice. but if he just goes out whoops the crap out of Volk, if he just goes out there and just decimates him, does he gain anything from it? Do you feel like the M.M.A. community will give him the praise for it. Unless he finishes him in the first round,

he's not getting any praise. And even if he does, that's going to get forgotten very quickly. You know how I know this? Because he did that. He comprehensively beat Alexander Volcanovsky. I'm not saying that fight one competitive. Volk did very, very well. but if I've rewatched that fight several times,

they've watched it this week. There is a better argument that Makachev won four rounds than there is that Volcanovsky won three. He won holistically the grappling and the striking exchanges of that fight. He simply lost the final round. And the entire narrative coming in, this is for the pound for pound top fire on the sport. They didn't even give him that.

Nobody even gave him that. It was an immediate equivocation of it all, the immediate resetting of the goalpost. And you know what? I'm not upset about him not being the top pound fighter because like, also if you watch that fight, he is very clearly much larger than Alexander Volcanovsky. And the images of that take away. And the fact that all of the narrative going into this is now, Volk is on 12 days notice.

He's not doing it in Australia is there. All of this is in favor of Makachev, which means Makachev has nothing but loss here. He can simply avoid losing. by winning this fight. And that's, that's a tough hang for him, man. Like, that's a super tough hang. So he's screwed.

This is almost exclusively upside for Wokanovsky, as far as I'm concerned, with the caveat that, you know, he is, if he loses, he probably, probably doesn't get another lightweight title shot. I'm not even sure that's true because the world seems very content to just feed him the things he wants.

And if you want to argue that he's earned it. Okay. Maybe he has. One of the best fighters I've ever seen compete. But I think if he goes in here and loses on 12 days notice, they're not going to immediately let him fight. But if he goes back and he beats Dupuria and if Islam loses to Gaichi or something, I wouldn't shock me at all. It's a call up because he just says, hey, I want to fight for the lightweight belt. Look what I did on 12 days notice.

I got an opportunity. Like I don't, I think he has nothing but upside here. I think Islam has nothing but downside. And that is part is one of the major issues for this fight of me. It is so asymmetrical in what can be gained and lost here for each fighter. And that just is pretty lame. That's not to mention, guys, if Volk wins. Are you going to ask a question about if Volk wins this?

Because I have thoughts. That's where I was going. That's where I was going. Okay. Then why can let you set us up and I won't get into it? Jed, what happens if Volk wins? Two really awful things happen. The first thing that happens is I'm gone.

Y'all motherfuckers ain't never going to see me again. I'm out of here. I ain't trying to be around the Internet streets for that. The second thing that happens, I guess three things happen. The second thing, he enters the conversation of greatest fire at all time. He doesn't enter the conversation of featherweight coat because I don't know if you know this. 155 and 145, they're not the same weight classes. So whatever he does on Saturday does not have anything to do with him chasing down Josealdo and his six years of dominance and nine title defenses or whatever.

He's still got work to do on that front. But it does put him right in there with, you know, Anderson Silva, John Jones, Alexander Volcanozsche, Johnson, like that right there as far as greatest fighters, George St. Pierre, who have ever lived. Because it will be an achievement. It will be a stunning achievement if he pulls this off. And he honestly, like, super can do it. Here's the other thing. And this is pure speculation. So I could be wildly wrong here.

But I got to tell you, man, if I'm Volcanowski, if I'm in Volcanovsky's camp and he pulls this thing off, you couldn't pay me enough money to fight Ilya to fight Ilya. Why the fuck would I ever do that again? Nope, I'm done at Featherweight. I'm now the lightweight champion. And guess what? I'm done at lightweight too.

Because I got nothing but upside ahead of me now. I will immediately, if I am Bolkanovsky, say, hey, there was this talk about Islam going up fighting the winner of Covington Edwards. Let me, I'm the greatest fighter of all time. Let me cement that with a welterweight title fight. And it's just, I just don't want that in my life. I just want these dudes to fight the best guys at their weight class. And low key, all of the rest of you want it too.

And you just don't know. you're convinced that the multiple belts is a shining, wonderful experience. But the answer when I ask, why can't Volk just fight against feather weights? Well, there aren't any feather weights for him to fight. Dope. Then leave featherweight and go to lightweight. Fight all the lightweights. It would be sick to watch him fight Dustin Porre and Justin Gage and Charles Oliva.

Do that instead. You all want it. You're just conditioned to believe that multiple titles is this wonderful thing. Fuck that. Just fighting one weight class and just make a legacy. that weight class and if you if you want to be done be done that is all i have ever wanted ever is any of these people to just just keep divisions moving let the people who deserve to have their day in court and have it and you not be so concerned with collecting trinkets that are

meaningless i thought the horn was coming there damon what if volk wins where do the conversations go what does this mean? Well, I mean, listen, while I do already consider Alexander Volcanowski the greatest featherweight of all time, this win doesn't affect that. I agree with Jed. There, winning it lightweight doesn't do that. Does it put him in the conversation of one of the greatest fighters of all time? Absolutely. You know, we usually kind of put that upper pantheon five or six fighters deep right now.

I think it puts him in that conversation. And considering the wins he's had a featherweight and how dominant he's been at featherweight, I think, you know, when you combine that with a lightweight title, it's huge. And then again, doing it on 12 days notice, this is Michael Bisping beating Luke Rockhold territory where a guy comes in off the couch

and beats a champion. Granted, I think Islam is a much more accomplished and better champion to Luke Rockhold was at the time. No, he ain't to Luke Rockhold. I'm just saying to Islam is kind of a monster, whereas Luke wasn't quite that. But if he can come in and do it, it's huge.

And so I think for Volk, like, he writes his own ticket if he wins this. fight. If he goes out and meets Islam Accha, he writes his own ticket to do whatever he wants to do next. Now, maybe that really does include going back to featherweight and proving he can do it by beating Ilya

maybe that involves a third match, a trilogy with Islam, and this time they do it, you know, at a neutral site, they do it in Vegas, and it's a massive fund. Maybe they do it at EFC 300. That would be massive. Maybe he says, I want Charles Oliver, or I want Justin Gachey,

those could be potentially huge fights for him. Or maybe he says, you know what, Connor you're coming back buddy always say you're the best of all time I want Connor McGregor I'll quit the fucking sport I swear to God I swear to fucking Christ if he if he gets one of the greatest wins in the history of mixed martial arts on Saturday and calls out Connor McGregor I'm just done man I can't handle and I'm not saying that's wrong great business move from him there's got to be some fucking limits to this shit guys like there just has to be guardrails they've already they've already

They've already gone back and forth on Twitter. I'm just telling you it's possible. I'm not saying it should happen. I'm not saying I want it to happen. I do not want this to happen. Let me be clear about that. I'm just saying that it's possible it could happen because that's the sport we live in.

Alexander Wilkenows. That's honestly worse than him going to welterweight. That's like worse is him fighting Connor who hasn't fought in two years and isn't good anymore. He beat the brakes off Connor. For what? For who's benefit? Who doesn't do it?

doubt that could happen. Honestly, in all honestly, who wouldn't doubt that could happen? I know that it can. And do you now see why I fucking hate this fight? Come on, guys. Look beyond the weekend in front of you. Have some bit of forward vision and see the paths ahead and

where the bad things can go. Oh, this is just classic. Oh, my God. I'm going to have a heart attack. I'm going to have a heart attack. This is the butterfly. This is literally the butterfly effect for Jed. If Volcanovsky wins, you know, mountains crumble a year from now. Like, that's how bad this could be for Jed.

But I'm just saying if Volcanozky wins, he can write his ticket to do whatever he wants next. Let's move on. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. I just hate it. A couple weeks ago, Jed Bishu on this program said, I'm going to do my best to not swear on the show anymore. and that ended real fast. It's all over home.

Like, come on. Because he's right. He's right. And objectively, it would be the correct decision for Volcanovsky if he wins. What is the highest payout, lowest risk fighting Connor? That is objectively the right choice. And it would be the worst thing. Like, just the worst thing.

Come on. Like, dude, just look at lightweight and look at featherweight. two of the three best divisions in the sport, you know, adding in Bantamweight is the second best division in the sport. And we're going to somehow spend like a year and a half tied up in this rivalry and then Connor. And it's just let B'Neil Daryu fight for a fucking belt. Let the Bhaniels of the world have their day in court. Like let, let Aaliyah prove that he's not good enough or prove that he is. Come on.

let's move on let's move on to round three before jed pops a vein or something uh point for around because i can't it all of the conversation around it is so bad and it makes me so unhappy i cannot wait for sunday and i desperately hope that the least bad outcome happens let me let me let me throw out one thing i just want to say before you jump back in here mike let me say i do i do BTL occasionally. Jed is my guy. You're my guy, Mike. I did not come on this show

to give him an aneurism. I just want to be clear about that. It did not come on here today to give Jed Michoud an aneurism. The point for round two goes to. You need to pick me a point, Mike. I was going to give you one anyways. Ted Beshew, it's one of the one.

If I don't give him the point, I mean, he might punch pole. Just walk out. Yeah. He becomes the Andy Bernard of BTL and just starts punching walls. So let's move on to the fight that has garnered the most attention this week, whether for good or for bad. There's been a lot of drama in the co-made event. Paul Costa out with that nasty elbow infection.

Just disgusting. Kamar Usman is in. There has been some rumor and innuendo this week with Usman and a possible knee injury from the open workout. There's a takedown. Some people thought they heard, are you okay? Something popped, which all could have been avoided if Twitter didn't suck. And people were a bit more responsible. But regardless, Oostman has come out, said it's all BS.

The knee is fine. He'll be good to go on Saturday. So we'll start here, Damon, because this is just taking a life of its own over the last 24 hours. What was your reaction to the knee injury stuff? Usman shutting it down and all of this. Were you concerned at all? I wasn't when I watched the original clip I didn't necessarily hear him say it popped he said something to gaichi and gaichi said something to him back people turn into lip readers has anyone else seen those the real

movie lip reader trailers where they put together like videos and they they read they mouth what the characters look like what they're saying and it's not actually what they're saying you've seen these videos on youtube they're hilarious people started turning into lip readers yesterday and they're Like, what he said popped. I saw it. He said pop. Kne popped. Are you okay?

Listen, I don't know exactly what he said. I don't know that I care what he said in that moment. I don't know that it meant he blew his knee out right then and there and he's not going to fight or he's going to be compromised going into Saturday's fight. I think it was just a weird situation and people jumped all over it and then it exploded because one person tweeted it and then the whole world started talking about it. Am I ultimately concerned about Kamar Usman's knees? maybe in a grander context because obviously we know he's had some new issues over the years.

But am I worried about this? No, I didn't hear him say it popped. I think this is just another one of those, you know, is the, what was that thing from a couple years ago? Is the dress blue or green or whatever it was? Like, this is that scenario all over again where people are just grabbing onto something and freaking out for no apparent reason. I don't really know why we have to do that with this fight. But, yeah, I mean, listen, Kabarhusband's already in a bad enough way. going up to middleweight on short notice against a monster like Hamasat Chamaev. Do we really need to cook in an extra, you know, drama with this fight saying his knees

now shot? I don't necessarily buy it, but I just, it's such, I mean, it's, it's the dumbest thing ever to sit there and lip read and feel like we know exactly what he said. Also, I will throw out this one other thing. Why are we still doing open workouts? Who cares? Like, no one, this is the dumbest, like the UFC stopped doing this for the longest time. They would do media day, they would do press conference, and they would do the fight.

Stop the open workouts. I know occasionally it's kind of fun when Holly Holm brings up a little kid, and they do some cute shadow boxing, and then Sean Strickland brings up some dude, and he just punches him because it's Sean Strickland and whatever. Open workouts are dumb. Stop doing them. They don't do anything for anybody. Don't do them.

Just like guys go out and sign autographs, say hi to the fans, wave to everybody, and be done with it. Stop doing open workouts, because at some, some point disaster will strike. Does anyone else remember Ken Shamrock falling during a before a fight and cutting his head open and canceling his wife Kimbo slice? These things can happen. Tony Ferguson tripped up a wire in a television studio. Do we really need to get people a reason to accidentally get injured before a fight? But in this particular scenario, no, I don't think it's anything. I think people are reading way too much into it. And I think if Kumar Usman loses, it's going to be because Hamzaa Chamaev is a monster. Jed, what did you think of all this?

I think you should definitely stop doing open workouts on like old couch cushions for the matting surface. Like that mat was trash. I'm not really sure what we're doing with that thing. Yeah. Is weird how like angry Usman seemed to get about it? Because it's like I don't know why you would be perturbed by it. Like assuming that, you know, he didn't say it. And I'm not sure.

I think you can hear it. but it also is definitely not deterministic or whatever that that's what he said. And also he's had bad knees forever. So it might just be like, yeah, popped because my knees do that. My knees don't, it is an open secret that my knees don't work that well anymore. Because, yeah, he got up and continued going and seemed fine. So I'm just not sure why he would be upset by it. But like Damon, I do not think this will factor into this fight at all.

If he loses, it's because he's fighting Hamzaa Chamaev on 12 days notice. and that's a pretty tall task. And if he wins, then it's all a moot point. So it's been a very weird thing to have taken this sort of life that it has. But I think it's ultimately just kind of noise. Now, Jed, this is obviously an interesting matchup. You are unlike the main event, you are very much in favor of this fight for multiple reasons. And the stakes are incredibly high here with Dana White saying more than once that the winner will get a middleweight,

title shot against Sean Strickland. And both guys need this one in big ways. And much like the main event, there's a case to be made that Hamzaa Shamiyaf is kind of in a lose-lose situation. If he wins, yeah, he beat a dude 12 days notice. If Ushman wins, this is the greatest thing of all time. But Ushman is coming into this fight off of two losses, both to Leon Edwards losing the belt and then losing again.

And he could be looking down the barrel of three straight losses saving the day or not. So is it obvious that Hamza Chimayev needs this win more than Kamar Usman, or can you make a case that Usman needs to win this fight more than Shemayev does? I would say Usman probably needs to win it more than Shemayev, but they're both playing with a bit of house money in this respect.

We're talking just in brass tacks here. These are two unranked fighters who are fighting for a title shot. There's just a ton of upside both ways. I will say I'm way more into this fight than the main event. I still have issues with it. I would still way rather this fight be with full camps with full preparation. Probably matters less for Hamzaq, because I'm not entirely sure Hamzot's doing like a ton of specific preparation work for any opponent.

He strikes me as a man who just sort of goes, you know. So probably not as big a change as it could be for Machchev in the main event with kind of an opponent change. But for Usman, I have no idea what preparation. work he's been doing for this, kind of where he's at. And he is an extremely tactical analytical fighter. And so him having more time to prepare for this would have obviously been substantially more ideal. The other side of that coin is we're not losing anything because we're, you know, neither of

these men holds a belt in another weight class. So there's not an opportunity cost in that way. I don't like this fight now, though, because of the implications of the victory here. And I think when at first announced we did an immediate reaction, me and AK, and we kind of suppositioned. We're like, yeah, it probably is fighting for it, particularly if one guy wins in a really, like, emphatic fashion. You know, the UFC would love to jump them in for a title shot against Strickland. Because with Lewis, many, he already beat Strickland once, and then Chimaya, they've been trying to put a title on Chimaya for a while. I hate that it's just out there, in part because this fight did not need that to be added to it.

Adding the title eliminator to something juices it up. up it gives it more cachet. This fight didn't need that. Nobody is paying attention to this now because it's a title eliminator and they weren't paying attention to it before because it was just a fight. So it didn't need that extra. And now it's just like explicitly boning Drickus 2 plus C here, which is really, really harsh. Like it's it's extremely crappy for him, particularly the week that Israel, Disseigneur comes out

and says, I ain't going to fight for a long time. Drick has had to be like, dope. like I got a good shot at like getting this going you know like obviously they were talking about doing the rematch but if Izzy's pulling himself out I'm right there and now it's just like JK JK now you don't even get to fight Izzy at you know you'll see 300 or whatever so I if this is if the choice here is not have this is as have this fight but Drickis doesn't get to bat like to have his title shot give me Drickis his title shot over this because that man a thousand percent deserves to fight for a belt. And so I kind of hate this fight now because of the implications of it. Damon, who needs this one more? Usen or Shmaev? 100% is Shemayev because even though while Usman is off two straight losses,

I think people forget, you know, he went nine plus rounds with Leon Edwards and he won five of those at minimum. So it's not like he got, you know, he got caught in a fifth round knockout and he lost the last one by one round. But he's a welterweight, and he's one of the best welterweights of all time. Going up to middleweight on 12 days notice, again, kind of to use what Jed said, he's playing with house money here. I mean, yes, if he loses, obviously there's always something to lose when you lose

and losing three arrow will be bad. But he wasn't getting another title shot at Welterweight anyways. He even Colby Covington somehow beats Leon Edwards in December, which I don't see him doing. I still don't see the UFC just running back in and saying, well, Kamarro, you're off two straight losses. you can now get Colby Covington for a third time, he would have to win a couple. And I think that's why we heard rumors. Maybe he was going to fight Bilau, who seems to be the other odd man out in that whole scenario.

Maybe that would have done it. But, yeah, I don't think, Kamar was playing with House Money here. He already has a win over Sean Strickland, so you can play that up if he wins. And if he loses, he did it on 12 days notice, and he's a welterweight. Hamzaa Chimayev is supposed to be the second coming in this organization. He was supposed to be a Walterweight champion. make welterweight anymore, so we're going to make a middleweight

champion. I said this as soon as he was booked against Paulo Costa. I said, Dracus Duplice should start crying right now because he ain't getting the title shots. This is before the whole Israel had to sign anything happened. Hamza Chimayev is demonstrably a bigger name the Drake is Duplice, and as I always

say, the UFC is a right now business. I just said that earlier as well. They are a right now business. When Drake's duplice beat the brakes off of Robert Whitaker and and couldn't fight two months later, threw no fault of his own, by the way,

but he couldn't fight. He turned it down. The UFC will hold that against him. And as soon as that happened, as soon as Sean Strickland got that fight with Israel out of Sonia, I said Hamzat Chimaios getting the title shot, because they're going to punish him. They're absolutely going to punish him for not stepping up

and helping UFC 293 sell more pay-per-views than what it did. 100% that's what's happening here. So Hobzat has everything to gain, but everything to lose in the same regard. beats Kumar Usman, he gets his title shot, he'll fight Sean Strickland early next year, mid next year, however. What a ass-picking that's going to be. Jesus.

And so that's it. Like, he knows. Everything's on the liner. So, yeah. And let's be honest, like, he's a pretty sizable favorite for a good reason. He actually is a natural middleweight. He's been preparing. He's a monster.

So, yeah, I mean, he has far more losing this fight, but he also has everything to gain because all he has to do is beat. Kamar Usman, it doesn't have to be an absolute, you know, drubbing. He doesn't have to go out there and knock out Kamar Usman. He didn't have to, he didn't have to just demolish him. He can have another Gilbert Burnstile fight. And as long as he wins, he's going to get the title shot because A, Hamza, that's a bigger name.

B, they're going to punish Drake's duplicate C. That's what's going to happen. Last thing on this, we will have a preview show tomorrow. So we'll dive deeper into this card 1 p.m. I believe that's starting. Daman, real quick, what would be the most shocking result that could come from this fight? Kamara Usman knocking out Hamzat Shamaev. If he somehow pulls that off, that would be insane.

And, you know, as insane as I'm saying it sounds, it's not impossible. I mean, Gilbert Burns dropped Hamzat. He clubbed Hamzat a couple of times. Let's not forget that, you know, Kamar Usman knocked out Gilbert Burns. He's got more power than Gilbert Burns. I don't think it's impossible. Do I think it's going to happen? Probably not.

But that would be the most shocking result. If Kumar Usman could knock out Hamzat-Chayev, my head will explode. Jed, same question. What would be the result? And you'll be on the watch party on Saturday, so we're going to get it if it happens. But what would be the most shocking result from this fight? I won't be at all shocked if Usman knocks them out. I wouldn't say that that's what I think is going to happen.

But again, if this were full camps, I'd be really, really interested because I think Kamar Usman has always been the, was always the guy at Welterweight that I thought posed the greatest risk for Chameh, because he is such a good defensive wrestler that, you know, he's been taken down like twice in his entire MMA career or whatever. And if Chameh can't, we saw against Gilbert Burns when he didn't get the takedowns as that fight drug on. This is a really limited striker. I mean, he has power, but he doesn't have a lot of tools.

He doesn't have a lot of ideas on the feet. and Usman, not saying he is, you know, Floyd Mayweather or whatever. Like he's, he is not an offensive dynamo or a great striker, but he's got a very consistent jab. He's got real power in the right hand and he knows how to follow the jab with it. Like George Horacell found that out. We're Burns got knocked out with a jab. Like, I think it is a very real possibility that in good circumstances, Usman could simply stuff take downs and jab, jab, jab, jab, and then find a right hand.

as the fight goes on. I would be far more surprised if Usman pulls off a submission. To me, that's the only really shocking outcome because if Chameh just comes in and runs over him very much in play. I think he looks to be quite a bit bigger. And we saw in the Edwards fights. If Usman gets when Leon Edwards got on top of him, Usman could not get out.

He was stuck under there. If Chameh gets on top of him, he is going to smash him. So if he gets the takedowns, I can absolutely see Chimae of doing Chamae of things. If he doesn't, I can also see Shamiya of landing a right hand because he is big, he is powerful, like he could hurt him. I don't see Chameh of getting caught in any kind of submission from Kamar Usman. So that's the only really surprising thing happening.

Like, Chamaic just gets guillotined or something. But otherwise, this fight has a lot of possible outcomes. It would be great if this fight was on full notice and not sort of thrown together as an afterthought. We will see what happens this Saturday, early day MMA. Let's move on to a little bit more of sadder news, but important news. The point for round three goes to Jedbushu. It's two to one.

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Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. So we're going to end on a little bit of a summer note because it is the end of an era in combat sports as at the end of the year. Showtime. Showtime.

No longer in the boxing or MMA game. They will finish out the rest of the 2023 slate. And then they are just going to be done with the combat side of business for the foreseeable future. Jedd, we thought this day would come, and now it's here. Your reaction to this news. I actually thought we were talking Usada, not Showtime. Showtime is actually a little bit sad.

I already talked about you, Sad. I don't remember what we have and haven't talked about, Mike. We do this a lot. I've talked a lot on camera and on audio this week already for various podcasts. Yeah, this is a bummer. I would be shocked if this lasts for very long, just because being in this sort of business, you know, the powers of B seem to have decided to move away from it,

but these things feel a little bit cyclical. Sad for all the good people working at Showtime, even though it's a fake network. That's just not real. There were still a lot of good people doing a lot of good work there, but I largely expect that all of these things will find homes. And from a viewing standpoint, they may find homes at a network that is more readily accessible

than Showtime. Though, I will say, showtime getting under the Paramount Plus thing, this past like few weeks or months or whatever, has made it much easier for me to be like, oh, I don't have to own a Showtime. So now I just put this all together. That's so much better for me. So, you know, it just sort of is the nature of this business.

You're never happy to see people lose their jobs. But it's just how this entire space works pretty frequently. And this won't be the last time. And it is what it is, to quote Maximus Holloway. Daman, what was your reaction to this? It's a weird time, right? Like, if you told me five to ten years ago, we'd be living in a world where there'd be no combat sports, no boxing, no nothing of that sort on HBO and Showtime come 2024. I would have thought you were a crazy person.

But here we are, end of the year, showtime's going to be Dunzo, at least, like I said, for the foreseeable future. Do you think this is like a detour or do you think this is just done? And what was your reaction to finding this out? Yeah, I was I was a little shocked, but I was also a little sad because, you know, HBO getting out of boxing was kind of shocking because they had been such a staple of boxing for so many years and now Showtime going away. I think it's worse for the boxing industry than it is for MMA because all they had in MMA was Bellator. And I'll get to Bellator in a second. but losing Showtime boxing matters. I mean, they put on big cards.

And, you know, we consider, you know, people can pair it, what Dana White and Connor McGregor say about Stephen Espinoza, but he did big things at Showtime with Floyd Mayweather and Tank Davis and some of the other fights that were promoted. Showtime going away for boxing is a very, very big deal. I mean, that is a big deal for boxing because that's one less major outlet where boxers can go and find a promoter to work with. On the MMA side, I will say this,

while Bellator has had its ups and downs, I would argue right now, Belator has the best talent pool they've ever had in the history of that promotion. You could argue they have maybe what, you know, they maybe have one of the best welterweight's the world, Amosov is a monster.

I would still put Leon Edwards ahead of him, of course, but like he's there. Nimcoff is a monster. You look at Johnny Eblen, you could argue he's right up there in terms of middleweight. I think Patchy Mix is the best band to weight in mixed martial arts right now. His fight with Sergio Pettus might be my favorite fight still to come in 2023. So, and I think the biggest thing, the biggest takeaway from all this that kind of bums me out is it just pretty much signals the death nail for Bellator.

We all kind of saw it coming. We've all heard the rumors that's going to sell and things like that. But the reality is Bellator going away, while it could potentially make the PFL a much deeper organization, if that is who ends up buying them, the downside is it gives fighters one less option. in terms of where they can go to fight. And that's a bad thing for our sport. Having more competitors out there who are willing to pay fighters top dollar is a good thing.

Free agency and fighters having that option is a good thing. Bellator goes away. We are now down to two major North American promotions, the UFC and PFL, and then we have one championship in Asia. And that's kind of it. Then at that point we're talking about,

well, you better be ready to go do bare knuckle if you want to make money, or you better, you know, you better be ready to do some info, influencer boxing. And that's a bad thing that we need options for this sport. We need, we want options for this sport. And I think it's a bad thing that ultimately Bellator could go away. Again, even though we've seen the writing on the wall, I think Showtime, you know, cutting ties pretty much, you know, if it wasn't dead already, then, you know, we're pretty much

having a funeral rights come Bellator 301. What do you think went wrong here, Damon? Because Jensen's saying a lot and he's not totally wrong. The boxing model has always pretty much worked on Showtime. And they've even, at least from some of the articles that I looked up, some of their Showtime pay-per-views did really, really well and that they drew eyeballs. Obviously, the Bellator numbers, we won't know, but they ain't great because it's just hard to find. You have to pay a premium for it. It's not easy to do. It's more expensive. It was more expensive for like two years to watch Bellator monthly than watching a UFC event, like than watching three UFC fight night events on ESPN Plus. And that's tough on people who already pay an incredible

amount of money to watch the sport and watch everything to begin with. So why did this happen, ultimately, in your opinion? So a couple of things. One, I will say, I like Showtime. I'm a big yellow jackets and Billions fans. So I do buy Showtime for this subscription. I'll give me a little inside knowledge here from sources I've spoken to around the industry and around Paramount, is that this wasn't a financial decision. This wasn't based on boxing and MMA losing. money for Belator or losing money for Paramount. Paramount is just narrowing, narrowing their scope of what they want to do in the entertainment business.

They are still involved in sports. You got to remember Paramount owns CBS. They have the NFL. They have the NCAA March Madness. They have college football. They have, I think they have the Masters. They have a lot of big sporting events. And this was just a logistical choice to decide to cut ties with combat sports.

They have a lot of other things going on in sports. at Paramount, and they just decided that this was an expenditure they could get rid of and focus more solely, especially at Showtime, on scripted television, the script, you know, to go into more of that. And they've actually Showtime has produced a lot of really good shows. I mentioned, you know, a couple of them right there, the Yellow Jackets and Billions. So this wasn't a financial decision. This wasn't them saying, man, Bellator is just losing money, hand over fist, and we got to

dump this off our books. This wasn't Showtime boxing is costing us so much money, and we got to dump this off our books. Or on the flip side, they're making us so much money. We got to keep this and we're losing money by getting rid of it. This was just a logistical thing. They just decided ultimately they wanted to focus on the sports that they know people are going to tune in and watch every single week, which of course is football and come March Madness and things like that. And they're just getting out of combat sports. They're turning showtime. They want to turn showtime into HBO where it's prestige television where people go to find the best scripted content. And that's just

just the direction they're going and CBS will now be the home for sports and it just wasn't room for combat sports on there. So that's why it's happening. I wish there was a better reason. It's not because Showtime or Bellator were just doing a bad job. It had nothing to do with that. Well, God, yeah. I mean, objectively, Damon's correct, but also like they probably wouldn't cut away from a major cash cow if Bellator was doing better. You know, it's a little chicken or the egg there. Like, yeah, this was an easy cut for them because there was not a overwhelming reason to keep them outside of a broad, like Damon was saying, like if this was sort of a

part of a broad business strategy to invest in multiple sports, but that's not the direction they're going, which is interesting is just essentially like an hour ago dropped news that Disney makes all its money based on ESPN basically as opposed to their scripted content. So interesting to get out of the live sports, but it also makes a lot of sense if that's just sort of where their business is going, where they see the business moving. Well, hopefully those involved, I just hate to see people like lose their jobs and stuff. There's other questions I have in regards to people I have a lot of respect for that work in the space and is part of the broadcast and part of the network and stuff like that. but we'll see how it all plays out. And end of an era.

End of an era. And now it's time for the end of regulation. The point for round four goes to, I mean, anytime you get inside knowledge, you get the point, Damon Martin. It's two to two. Halloween ends, ties it up. So that means it's time for the knocker round.

And I have no idea where we're going with this. I have two options, so we're going to play a little fun game. And we'll get to that in a second, but we'll ask one question. Each individual will get the same. question they will have 60 seconds to respond and then you the wonderful viewers of this fine program will vote on who you think wins so jed we will go to you you were victorious oh you

were victorious right i was i'm re you were uh sure did you want to go first you want to um trying to think what the question might be that would make me want to go you know what let's let damon go first and i'll uh we'll just work because i honestly don't have any clue what we're going to talk about here. I wasn't really sure either, but I have two options. So I'm going to let the magic of luck determine this. So, Damon, do you want option one or option two? Let's go with option one.

All right. Option one. I was hoping you're going to go option two, but we're going option one. Option two is going to be Israel, Adasanya, saying he's going to take some time off and the reaction to that. But option one, Damon, is we found out. earlier this week. Speaking of influencer boxing, the man who began it all,

Jake Paul is going to be boxing December 15th against the dreaded, always undefeated TBD. So, Damon, in one minute or less, make your prediction on who Jake Paul will be boxing

on December 15th. Who will replace the undefeated TBD on December 15th, which coincidentally enough is the day before UFC 296, one minute on the clock, go. Well, I kind of wish I took an option too now that I think about it. Let's be honest.

I think the option, the number one option, the only option here for Jake Paul to run this back is with Tommy Fury. Tommy Fury needs to go nowhere near real boxing because here's a secret. Tommy Fury sucks. Tommy Fury is a bad boxer. He needs to go nowhere near actual boxing competition. He went to a majority decision with Jake Paul. He went to a split decision with KSI.

Tommy, you're not a real boxer. Stop pretending you are. Go fight Jake Paul, a fight you could win, potentially do it again, make another big payday and then go back to reality television in England with your wife and your beautiful daughter. Do not go anywhere near an actual boxing ring with real boxers because you will get absolutely demolished. So I think Tommy Fury is the right and only answer here.

It runs it back. It's a fight that Jake wants back. And it's still kind of a big fight, I guess. Okay. I mean, when you end it with a question, like I'm Ron Burgundy? It could be a multitude of things. So Jed, you were the man who was totally against this. And then eventually after attending the Jake Paul versus Ben Asgren fight in Atlanta,

getting the triller experience as I did not long after that in a whole different aspect. You became a little more sold. And now I think the water, you know, it's drying up a little bit. But Jake Paul still draw and still makes things interesting. So who's Jake Paul going to fight, Jed? This isn't who you want him to fight. This is who you actually think he will fight, December 15. I don't care who fights.

Okay, well, take this however you want, Jed. One minute on the clock, go. Yeah, I don't care who we fights. So that wouldn't even factor in. Upon reflection, I was a bit surprised that this was the question. As I think about it, I thought maybe we might get some Eddie Alvarez talk. And I'd love to watch Jay Paul fight Eddie Alvarez's future opponent, Mike Perry, but I don't think that's going to happen. I think Damon's heart is in the right place because his heart is, I would like to talk shit about Tommy Fury.

And that's always, always a good choice as far as I'm concerned. But what's actually going to happen is what got teased by the future opponent yesterday, Mr. Nathan Diaz coming out with the fight poster saying he's going to rematch this scared little word that I will remove. from my lexicon for BTLs in the future. And look, that's not confirmed, but it would make a whole lot of sense because why would you want to box Tommy Fury coming off the KSI performance where Jake himself thinks he lost,

where Tommy looked really bad. I just, I don't think you're getting that big of juice, whereas Nate, still people are going to be interested. Still people love watching a Diaz do anything. Run that back for max dollars. I found it so weird. that when the odds came out of who it could be Derek Brunson was like a plus

super weird right what yeah super how is that even possible he was the second biggest favorite who's insane I'm KSI who's KSI what do they know that we don't know with Derek Bronson fighting on November 24th and now he's gonna fight December 15th against Jake Paul

what are we missing here what is not yeah I was like I was like what did this come from him and I thought that I legitimately thought somebody knows something here because like I almost wanted to bet Derek Bruncing. It was like that's that number being that low means somebody knows something because otherwise it just would not be. Why would Nate Diaz do this again?

I mean, I get money. A big pile of money. That's exactly why he would do it. I mean, Jake, Jake Paul's... Nate hated that. He hated it so much. Yeah, because Mike, here's the thing, having you, you went to high school,

don't you remember thinking, man, high school sucked and then you leave it and you think about all these fun things that happened or any bad experience, you forget about the bad things. And you know what? I can't, I've never had this personal experience, but I suspect that if I did anything that I hated

and then a week later I got to check with seven zeros on it, I would probably think more fondly of that week. Be like, oh, dope, we should do that again. But if I could go. Well, Jay Paul's entire career is built around rematches now. He's fought Tyrone Woodley twice. He'll fight Nate Diaz twice. Do it very twice.

Like I, yeah. That many people to box. So do that. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, you're not, you're not wrong. I mean, I don't think you're totally wrong. I wouldn't be shy. Like, the first fight wasn't particularly good or close.

But sure, why not run it back? Like, why not? Nate Diaz never loses a fight, though. So, and he can just sell the whole thing is this time, I swear I'm going to knock him out. Yeah. And maybe he will. Maybe he'll turn Woodley him. Who can say?

Nate's not Dylan Dennis, though. Nate can go anywhere and get those seven zeros, literally anywhere. So why would he go through that again? Anywhere? I'm not sure. Most places. I think you could go to PFL, but. At one point,

at one point does Maswithal reenter this conversation? Because at some point, Dana's going to be like, yeah, just go do whatever you want. Here, you can go fight and, and it fits Jake Paul's pattern. He fights undersized MMA fighters because Jorge Mazzved, is actually a lightweight who fought it well to wait, kind of like what Nate Diaz did. So like, are we really going to be shocked

that that would be like another opponent? Because he ain't going to find an actual middleweight, you know, like I don't know how Derek Brunson gets in the conversation because he's actually, even though he's not a good striker, at least he's a middleweight. That ain't going to happen. Jake Paul can't do that. Come on now.

I think I've seen Derek Brunson try to box. I think Jake Paul could fight him and at least feel somewhat comfortable. I'd feel way better about boxing Derek Brunson than I would whore him off at all. Oh, I totally agree But I'm just saying like it's kind of like the MO To fight undersized MMA guys Yeah Yeah, no

This is just an ATS Everyone should want to donate TES I don't know why we aren't even just announcing it No one else The world doesn't care about a Tommy Fury rematch You pick the right question Damon There's all this extra discourse About that question

Which we would not have gotten With the other question So Yeah, Casey, do we have Do I need to waste time or the votes cast? Do we have a winner? We have a winner.

Who else could it even be, though, guys? Like, outside of those two humans? I mean, they could do, they could do, they could put Jake on one of those prospect series cards and just chuck them in there with anybody at this point. I mean, they could, I mean, they could still do the KSI fight. As bad as KSI looked, like they could, that's still a fight that would draw interest. And it's on the zone, which is where Misfits boxing's at.

So, I mean, that's a possibility. It's a Friday night. Yeah, that's a weird. I think we're getting, I think, I think Jake KSI is next spring summer. I think that gets like a full big build with a several months of prep and stuff. But if Tommy, if Tommy Fury doesn't fight Jake, can he fight David Benavita so he can just get the absolute stuffing knocked out of him? And we never, we never, Tommy Fury is the worst. He is the worst.

I mean, his, oh my God, I can't take it in the boxing. His boxing is so bad. He might be the largest person I've ever seen who could not knock out like a child. Like, it is astonishing, because he's a big human and has zero knockout power. And those two things shouldn't entirely go together. Casey, we have to knock out one of these competitors who won. All right. What a segue.

What a frigging professional you are. I love this. The show has been an hour and 20 minutes, and I think about half of it has been about how much we hate influencer boxing. But here we are. I did not say any part of the hating influencer boxing. I hate the rematch of the fight of the year, Casey. You get it right. Okay.

Your winner today with, wait, hold on. 27% of the votes went to a draw. Wow. 27% had a draw. But your winner today with 49% of the votes is... I'm terrible in math. And still, Jed Mishu. Hey, Jedmishu.

Everyone else hates it too. 49% of you also hate this main event. Let's go. Congratulations, Jed. Take 30 seconds to thank the peeps. and talk about how much you love Alexander Volkanowski and everything he's had to say over the last two years. I love that.

I love all of you. I think Alexin Volcanovsky is very possibly the best fighter I've ever watched to compete. I desperately hope he loses this weekend. And if not, one, make sure you listen to Damn They Were Good, Anderson Silva. And it's been great knowing all of you, because I mean this very seriously. If Alexander Volkanovsky wins,

I am going to bury myself in a hole and hide away from the MMA world for a long, long time. So Godspeed, everyone. Let's go Islam. Okay, I have to ask you. I have to ask you. I have not listed to No Betzbred yet. Did you bet on Volcanowski?

Yeah. I think it's objectively correct to bet on him. Like, these odds are... He's like plus 250 or something. Like, the odds are... Let me see where I... plus 260 is what I got him at. Like that's just,

this is a really good price for a dude who had a competitive bout with him before. And straight up, Mike, like, maybe this is also part of why I hate this fight because every part of my head says Mokachev should win. All of the vibes that I have

say that Volcanoz can do this. All of the vibes. Can I throw out one extra little betting odd here since Jed is the master of the odds? What are the odds of Jed's, surviving Saturday if Volcanovsky wins and then calls out Connor McGregor. What are like, is there a percentage? I won't know. Of him just, of him just dropping dead on the watch party. Like, the watch party just ends because

Dred Jed just falls over dead. I won't know. If he wins, I will just leave. Like, I'll just disconnect and I won't open the internet for at least a full week. Like, at least one full week, I will just receive. But the good news is if that does happen in case you can hit the music here. I'm going to block Volcanovsky and Connor on Twitter words too. If Volcanovsky wins, actually it doesn't matter who wins.

Jed will be on the post-fight show. So he will react to however this plays out. It's what you think. He will be there. He is contractually obligated to appear on the UFC 294 post-fight show, which thank God will not be a creative. I'll be sobbing quietly in this. corner. But we'll see how it all plays out. Watch party this Saturday for Jed for Damon. I am Mike

Eckack back next week to react to it all and more. Thanks to Casey on the ones in Tuesday. Iconic voice takes you home. Good night, everybody. Love you all. This has been Between the Links and MMAT fighting production on the Vox Media Network.