MMA Fighting - BTL | McGregor vs. Chandler, PFL Drug Test Failures, Bellator vs. RIZIN 2, UFC Vegas 74

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

The first episode of the highly anticipated 31st season of The Ultimate Fighter is in the books featuring future opponents Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler as the coaches. With the hype being built throughout the year, did the season premiere and the seeds planted live up to it? On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel will give a grade to the first episode of TUF 31, to both coaches, and if the intrigue levels for the rest of the season were raised after Tuesday's show. Additionally, topics include 2022 PFL champ Rob Wilkinson adding to the long list of fighters who have failed drug tests for the 2023 season and how bad this issue is for the promotion, Bellator vs. RIZIN 2 being announced for July, along with the addition of a Bellator flyweight division, Saturday's UFC Vegas 74 event headlined by Kai Kara-France vs. Amir Albazi, and more. Host Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew and Alexander K. Lee.  Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 reprise 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 Between the Links. Happy to have you here on this Thursday. Appreciate you all bearing with us with this later than usual start time. I hope you can bear with me a little bit. I'm a little under the weather. If I start coughing, my voice goes, don't frown upon me. Because good news, the UFC is back this week. We have some things to discuss from the UFC and beyond. So let's get into it. As we introduce the panel first, Mr. No Gray area, Mr. Hot Take. Excited to have him here, as always. He told me right before he hit record, he's never been more ready for an episode of BTL. He's from No Bet Spard and damn they were good. He's M.M.A. Fighting Zone. Jed Mishu. Hi, Jed. Hey, Jed. Hey, buddy. The Murfs get you down yesterday? Why are you sick? Or not yesterday two days

ago? Oh, well, then good for you for doing them anyway. I did. 52 minutes and change. I was very happy with my time. I probably could have done better. Not bad. Not too shabby. We got through it. It was painful. But folks, his opponent, this man needs no introduction, but I'm giving one anyways, because he's my best friend. And the co-host of On to the next one.

And the co-host of the brand new show that is sweeping the globe. It's called Tough Hang from MFFiting.com, Mr. Alexander K. Lee. Hello, my best friend. That's still me. Hi, my best friend. Hello.

Kirby is also here. Kirby is also here. So shout us to Kirby. I'm very excited. I'm so happy. The Ultimate Fighter is back. My soul is full. I'm like, I just want to say,

when you said, this person requires no introduction, I almost wanted you to say, this person requires no introduction, and then just not say anything. And then Casey just switched to me. I've always wanted to do that. I almost did it.

I almost did it to GC on Tough Hang, the first episode of Tough Hang, which you all can watch on YouTube, reaction to Tuft 31 episode 1, a notorious return. But then I was like, it's our first time really doing a show together. I don't want to mess with them like that.

But one day, one day I will do the requires no introduction and then just silence. Mark this date and mark the moment when it happens in the future. So let us begin with the long away to return. Big, big news, everybody. It's what everybody wants to talk about in the M.A space. Yes, the Rock is back in the Fast and Furious franchise. Just kidding.

I'm talking about the return of tough. Yes, that's where we're going to start because if we talked about the Rock, We would talk about an hour of Fast and Furious talking. You can go back into the archives of many of MMA fighting shows and get AK and Jed's thoughts on the newest installment of the series. But the first episode of Season 31 of The Ultimate Fighter is officially in the books a highly promoted, highly anticipated season

featuring Connor McGregor, the biggest star in the history of the sport, and Michael Chandler is coaches. They are expected to fight hopefully later on at the end of the year. And Connor is coaching all of the prospects, slash up-and-comers while Michael Chandler is coaching all of the UFC veterans. Weight classes are Bannonweight and lightweight. And in the first fight of the season, it lasted all of 10 seconds. Roosevelt Roberts of Team Chandler, stops Team McGregors, Nate Jenerman, and the vets are on the board.

So, AK, you reacted right after on Tough Hang. The format, the coaches, the layout, first episode, knowing what you know, seeing what you saw. What would you grade the first episode of Tough 31? I mean, I wish I could go higher than what I'm going to say. I'm giving it a good, a solid B, a solid B, which maybe might be higher than some expect, might be lower than some expect. I'll say, though, the only problem with the B grade is that's the same rating I would give to tough 30, season 30 episode one, season 29 episode one, season 28 episode one, season 20.

You get the idea. You get the idea. They did nothing different. And we talked to this event, the reaction show. In some ways, that's a good thing because this is their first time, I believe, on big time ESPN. You know, someone's airing prime, I don't say prime time because it's like 10 Eastern 7 PM Pacific. I wish they could air it a bit earlier. But it is, you know, whatever.

It is live 10 o'clock ESPN and also on ESPN. So if you're expecting a new audience, then you don't need to change things up too much. You know, it's a pretty professional, like, well-laid-out reality television show. The format, especially for the first episode, pretty straightforward. Let's see McGregor. Let's see Chandler. Let's see the fighters. Let's see the fighters.

Let's learn about Fighter A. Let's learn about Fighter B. And then we have the fight. So it's a solid formula. But for people who have been keeping up or even just caught the occasional episode, let's say you watch like one or two episodes a season or only watch premieres. You know, let's say every season is like you watch the premiere to see if it will grab you. you probably got 15 minutes into this and we're like oh it's the same it's the same show literally if you

and our producer casey the elapsed fan can attest to this let's say the last season you watched was season 24 and you didn't watch the last few years and then you came back for this one you'd be like holy crap did i just like watch the next episode of the last season i was watching because it's it's so much the same and same isn't bad but same is a little boring especially when you're you've got Connor McGregor. You've got Michael Chandler, who's a personality in his own right. I mean, listen, McGregor, the A side, B side, C side, no question. He's the whole deal. The whole reason is on ESPN, the whole reason that most people are excited about Ultimate Fighter being back at all. But Chandler can carry his end of the promotional bargain as well. So it's a little

disappointing. We just didn't see a lot from the coaches other than a little interaction. The fighters, we learned again just about Fighter A and Fighter B. This is normally how it goes. we don't learn about the rest of the cast just yet. Some of them are familiar faces. There's this weird prospect versus vet dynamic they're trying to push, which is less than convincing. But I'll stick with B, because, again, if you've seen the show before, you were probably fine with it.

If you've never seen the show before, like G.C., Connor Brooks, he would have given it an A. He loved it. He had never, he's never planned to watch a season beginning to end. This is first time that he's going to watch a full season. And he thought it was great. So I think B is the right grade. I'm seeing in the comments, some people saying see, and I don't blame them at all,

especially if you've been following this show loyally. Jed, not sure if you watched or you followed up on M.AFighting.com, as you would say, great website. Maybe you saw clips at the very least. Maybe you just watched the debut episode of Tough Hang, which is widely regarded. But your grade for episode one, the follow, the reaction, et cetera. I'm going to peel back the curtain here for the lovely viewers and listeners to the pod later on. You send us the topics beforehand, gives us some time to prep, do a little research.

And I was excited because when I got the topics, I was like, well, this first one, I'm just going to lose this category. That's a shame. And then I saw that AK was going to be my compadre in this. And so I can just say, whatever AK said, he's got a great pod. I listened to their pod today. And that is the only thing I know about this show is what I learned from Tough Hang, because I don't give a shit about watching Tough.

I'm never going to do it. I don't know, Mike, what you thought I was going to say. This is a television program with Connor McGregor and Michael Chandler. You know me. Why on God's Green Earth do you think I would care at all about watching that? It's not just a TV program with them. It's a tough with them. Super couldn't care less about this.

Wish all the people involved the best. Hope it does really well for whatever reasons that is. But like whatever the metrics are and for the people in there, nothing but the best. Sounds like some dude got got in nine seconds. that must be tough that's a tough hang right there but yeah uh don't care don't know why we're still doing this an infinite number of problems i loved everything case he said on tough hang uh about it the show just sucking because of course it sucked and didn't watch a second of it and i could have told you

it was going to suck because it is where it is if it is your thing don't let me dissuade you man do what you want to do if you get enjoyment from watching that cool but it is it is not for me and hasn't been for me. I think the last tough I watched was the straw weight one, where we invented a belt and did championships, like made a championship of it, even though the best straw weight in the world was actually already fighting in the UFC.

And everyone knew so. That's the last tough I watched and probably will ever watch. So incomplete from Jedmishu? Casey thought it sucked. And I am predisposed to thinking it sucked. So I'm going to go with Casey and say D. Oh, already trying to get brownie points with producer Casey in the anticipation of a fifth round.

I see how it is. I mean, AK hasn't been on the show in so long that Casey doesn't determine who wins. So I will say I watch it on Wednesday. It wasn't the best. It wasn't the worst. But like AK said, it was just more of the same. But I will say it did enough for me to say to myself, Mike, we're going to give it one more episode.

and see if they can hook me. And I might be more on the Jed side of things. Because I just haven't watched it in a while. How are they going to hook you? How? Explain to me what they're going to do that they haven't done the last 20 seasons. It's just the same show. And if you're into it, you're into it. And you know what's a shame is this, again, for anyone who hasn't watched already,

spoilers, I guess, it's been two days. You're on your own on this one. So we got an eight, nine second finish, seven seconds maybe. We didn't get a full. they didn't give an official time somewhere in the 7 to 8 second range very exciting performance by Roosevelt Roberts Lance just two great right hands

squares up Nate Jenerman and that was it the fight was over this would have been a perfect opportunity for them to shuffle the to shuffle the format a little bit because they know that okay so they know the first fight ends quickly why not put the fight in the middle of the episode

and then have the second half the episode be dealing with the aftermath we can learn a little bit more from Jenerman besides just getting to focus on how just being so friggin' sad. Again, you could give him people more Connor. This is what people are here for. It's more Connor. Let's get Conner's more of Connollors' perspective. Him consoling, gentlemen, we saw a little bit of that. I bet there was more. We could have shown gentlemen in the gym with Connor the next day. I guess we might see that the next episode. And I understand, like I said,

the format works as in they're trying to build towards the fight. They assume people are here to see shenanigans and also a fight. You're almost building to the main event of the show, which is the fight itself, but when it the fight seven or eight or nine seconds, how much, how much are you getting out of that really of having people, you know, stay on that long? I know a lot of people didn't. I saw a lot of people complaining about ads. There's just too many ads. I didn't watch it with ads. So I didn't have that problem. I saw a lot of people claim about ads. They just got bored. They just wanted to tune out. The format is fine, but clearly it doesn't work for everybody. So maybe putting the fight in the middle of this, and that might be a crazy idea too. Maybe people are

saying, well, they would just watch the fight. in the middle and then tune out. That's entirely possible. But again, at this point, you're 31 seasons in, you have the results ahead of time. You can play around with the format so much. What if they had done like a Christopher Nolan-Tarantino thing where they put the fight at the beginning

and then show it how we got to that point? Again, that might be the worst idea in history. I don't know. But this is coming from someone who's watched 31 seasons, what, 10-something-something episodes? Literally, over 300 episodes of the elbow fighter. And that's not even counting the international seasons, which I've also watched, I would love to see them try something different. It's just not going to happen.

And I think Jed knows that. Casey knows that. I think you know that too. Or you just know the first fight's going to end in eight seconds. Do two fights. Do two fights. Yep. What are we doing?

Just do a second fight. See, they're so stuck to their format, though, because that would mean another episode probably have to not have a fight, right? Because there's 10 episodes, so it's arranged so that there's eight. quarter final fights and then two semi-final fights. So I don't know. You're right. And it'd be cool. There's just an episode again, focusing more on Connor doing stuff.

Casey wanted to see more of Connor coaching or more of Chandler coaching. And I'm like, yeah, why bring these personalities on? Focus on that. There's your story. Connor's not there. How does the team deal with that? And instead, it's like you have these personalities. I would love to know how much of Connor, like relevant Connor footage was there even on

that first episode. It's like a 45 minute episode without commercials. he was on camera talking or doing something for maybe six minutes. I might be generous. There was a great part where he had his team spar. And he's like, yeah, and then even Connor put on the gloves, you literally see him sparring for maybe half a second, one to half seconds. And it's like, oh, that was exciting. And I'm like, we want to see that.

Show us Connor sparring with these guys. Didn't even use it. So I don't know what the point is of having these personalities if you're not going to feature them at all. it's frustrating what's the point of any of it okay and i don't mean that in this like nihilistic sense explain to me genuinely what is the purpose of this show it's not for prospect development i mean the contender series is a better vehicle for that so it's not that it's not really even star building who was the last star who got built off of tough that used to be what it was for it's not that and it's maybe is to build up a you know the fight between the

the two coaches at the end of it. Not this one. This tough season will have no influence on what Connor McGregor versus Michael Chandler is going to do at the box office. Who is this for other than ESPN because they are paying for it? Like it's just I don't,

you got to give me a reason to watch and Connor and Michael Chandler having a clearly fabricated beef with each other and a bunch of dudes who aren't going to amount to shit in the UFC is not a thing that's going to make me watch. Like, it's half of them already washed out. And I know that, like, team of Valley is actually, like, not a bad fighter, but there's, there's no hook.

There's no, ooh, the guy of tomorrow, the next Kamar Ustman is not there. So, like, what are we doing? Do something fun and not just be like, let's hope Connor lifts this boat. And it probably is. Like, Connor is probably enough of a draw to pull ratings and make this the most successful tough in some time. but like when Connor when you can't lean on the Connor McGregor crotch it's going to go back to being the same thing it is the same thing

it's just going to go back to have the same regular ratings like I just don't know who we're doing this for you sound like you're not excited at the process of Brad Katona winning the ultimate fighter again and then getting himself a second ultimate fighter contract that is that is offensive to me yeah what is the purpose of this show anymore listen it's it's a tough question and as someone like I said who was augudely followed this show. Yes, I've asked myself

the same thing because, yeah, like you said, does this show create stars anymore? Again, we're at the point we're doing this Vets Prospects thing where literally half the fighters on this show on this season are fighters who were essentially told, well, you couldn't cut it in the UFC.

I don't know who the most experience is. I want to say Roosevelt Roberts, who fought on episode one, everyone else I think maybe topped out at about four or five fights please correct me if I'm wrong I know Roosevelt Roberts managed I think six or seven I'm looking here oh Jason Knight I'm sorry no Jason Knight Jason Knight was in the UFC for quite some time that's about it that's about it and yeah Roosevelt Roberts behind him and everyone else kind of a smorgasbord of four or five fights and again these are good fighters talent Hunter Azure you mentioned Valliev again Jason Knight I just

said Roosevelt Roberts I think Kurt Hollaba the oldest guy in the show I'd still think he has something to offer. But yes, but why how much does he have to offer though? How much does he have to offer? That's the thing. This is not meant to be disrespectful to Kurt Holopaw. If he comes out and wins this show, he's never winning a title.

Like it's just do do something. If you and the UFC is not catering this to me very obviously and I recognize that. If you want me to care about this so we could talk about this stuff, Mike, it needs to be back to season four. Which I grant you was a horrible, horrible idea at the

time, even though it did lead to one of the dopest moments in the sports history, title shot for the winner. Bring in a new weight class. Let's do the atom weights. God forbid we maybe find eight women to be like feather weights in the UFC or shit at this rate, even bantam weights. You have to give a reason or something because other reality television shows evolve. Every season of Survivor, they do something new.

They've been doing it for like 50 seasons at this point. There's always like, here's a new hook. here's a new gadget or gimmick or whatever. It's just like, hey, we're going to put in 16 to 8 to, you know, two groups of 8 of weight classes of guys who weren't good enough to negotiate their way into the UFC without doing this and are willing to spend eight weeks in a house, like away from their families instead of just being like, let me have a contendent series fight, please.

And this is where you're going to get. This is crap. It's crap product. And it's never going to get better until they try more. The hilarious thing is even the prospects, like we were talking about like, oh, like, you know, what's Kerr Hallibon going to do? Even some of the prospects, Carlos Ver is 35 years old, Rico DeShullo's 36 years old. And guys, if you're out there, listen, good for you for being in there and start, you know, maybe you've got a late start to your careers. And if you guys become UFC champions one day, you can shove this clip in my face.

I will eat my hat. I will on air. If Rico DeSullo challenges for a UFC title, you'll eat a hat. Yes, on VTL. The whole episode can just be me eating a hat because it's just not going to happen. Rico, Rico or Carlos Mary, if you're out there, prove us wrong, prove us wrong, because, Jed, I can't even completely disagree with what you're saying. I still find some entertainment value.

I don't want to say value as far as like, is this show going to generate contenders? That really isn't the purpose of it anymore. But, you know, one thing Casey did like about the show, which I also still in. joy is I still get caught up in fighter stories. Listen, I know, we've seen a million of them. And you see them, it's the same thing. We see them in the contender series. We see them talked about, even on a preliminary, you know, a preliminary fighter.

You'll have a Brennan Fitzgerald. You'll have John Anna kind of filling you in about someone you might not have heard of. But, you know, when you get to get a nice closer look, we learned about Nate Jenerman's three-legged dog. We learned about Roosevelt Roberts, just two adorable children and him being willing to die in the cage despite the fact that he has two adorable children. It still works on that level. It still works as somewhat infotaining programming.

I feel, I feel. But I'm not by any means going to say this is essential programming, that this is like that the show has not been replaced by the contender series. I still want to see the show stick around forever, but I completely agree. It cannot stay the way it is. It cannot stay the way it is. I don't know what changes they're going to make. I don't know what advances they can make.

Because talent-wise, I mean, listen, They're just draining the pool every year with Contender Series, now Ultimate Fighter. Plus, again, regular sign. It's just their regular signing periods. I don't know what they can do. But I just know. Tough never die. That's all I'll say.

I can give you 10 ideas that would at least make Tough somewhat interesting, just off the top of my head. It's not hard. They just aren't. It's not what they want to do. It is not who. Tough really speaks to my fundamental problem with the UFC. They cannot fail. And yet they play it safe at every possible.

in the most infuriating way possible. I was having this conversation over Memorial Day weekend about a person who will remain nameless with my best friend. And he's a trust fund baby. And like, I'm not here to blame him for that. He can't choose to whom he is born. Like, good for him that he won the game of life by making it out of the, like out into the world.

But he like then just went off and became like he's a guy, no, good guy, but just became like a banker. And that's like fine. I'm like, but if I was born rich, I would spend my life pursuing something like fulfilling in a way that's interesting as opposed to like, what if I just keep trying to make more money? Because that seems like like, no, like I'll try, maybe I'll try and be an actor or an artist or whatever. But instead, he has the safety net. The UFC cannot fuck up. They cannot fail.

Nothing they do can crater the machine that they have. and they refuse to take even the smallest risk or have even the minimum amount of fun that can be had. And it's reflective in this program, a program that is actively derided that nobody really cares about and that they could do anything with. Dana could come out tomorrow and be like season tough 32. We're taking a bunch of people who have never fought ever, who sign up to do it and we're going to try and teach them. We're going to take 16 CM punks and see if one of them can at. least be like a baseline level competent fighter or season 33 we're bringing back competitions only this time there's stakes so before player a and player b fight each other on Wednesday or whatever they're

going to do a foot race in the desert and whoever wins they win the first round they are up one nothing and it's two rounds fight let's go like you could do things they just don't give a shit and that's why like it's frustrating i didn't want to be mad about this mike look We've been done, man. Will you be watching episode two? Will you be watching episode two? The only time I will ever watch this show is if you physically make me because I have to come on tough hands.

It's the only time I'm going to watch this show. I may be inviting you to come on soon. I know we talked about it. And so if I have to come on, then yes, I will watch that episode. The rest of it, no. Well, we tried. And maybe Jed will watch an episode. We did, right.

Oh, he will. Think how, I would tune in immediately if Dana was like this week, the contestants are playing ping pong and the winner, the loser has to fight with one hand tied behind his back, but like, hell yeah. Because who gives this shit? This isn't to determine the future of fighting. It's to determine a dude who's going to win this show

and probably be irrelevant in three years, if not sooner. So like, just do dumb shit with it and have fun. I wish they did the play-in fights. I did like that. That would have been a great first. That episode was at least good. That episode was always at least good because it was just an episode of, you know, 12 fights or whatever. So you just tune in and watch that.

And get their reactions to it? I would have liked that. But I understand. Bodies, contender series, free agent signings, all that stuff. All right. I think we are, we are toughed out here. The point for round one goes to, I mean, Jed is a trier, but AK gets the point. It's one to nothing.

Well done, Jed. I knew I was losing this one already, so we're good. I was prepared. It was really good. Having watched the show, I probably had a slight edge. Having actually watched the episode, so I'm a little unfair. Honestly, before I knew you were going to be on, I had intended to just come on and be like, I didn't see it. I'm not going to watch.

I have nothing to say. I hope whoever is across from me can speak. No notes. You got to listen to Tough Hang and at least you got something. It helps. So let's. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what?

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As yesterday, we confirmed a report from MMA mania last season's PFL light heavyweight champion. Rob Wilkinson became the 10th fighter this season to be removed from the 2023 season for a positive drug test. And we haven't even begun the second half of the regular season yet. Jed Sheesh, Wilkinson, Tiago Santos, Bruno Capulosa, and seven other guys. Knocked out of the season for positive drug tests. Coming on the heels of the Singano news.

not the good start the PFL was hoping for in 2020. Was it? No, no tough. A tough hang for the PFL as well. I mean, that's really catching all the time. Yeah, that's doing great. Great title, guys. Well done.

This sucks for the BFL because Rob Wilkinson is one of like five fighters that's actively interesting to watch compete for them. So as a man who's about to go to a couple of PFL shows here, in Atlanta over this month, not excited about whoever they are going to be able to roll in there because it seems like half their roster is gone. They just backed up the money truck for Francis, who's not fighting until next year. The PFL is like the exact opposite of Bellator, which means I like them more because, God, they're trying, but they cannot seem to figure it out.

and it's not really their fault I would say if on the PFOs don't ever go to Vegas again make sure you go somewhere where they don't test for drugs or they're bad at it or at least to where you talk to the fighters and be like hey this is just an IQ test

you just got to not be a total moron to get caught here yeah I don't the Rob Wilkinson before Rob Wilkinson went down I was like well it kind of sucks but a lot of those names are not the most interesting fighters like Tiago Santos.

I know that they invested in him, but he's Tiago Santos. But Rob Wilkinson is a champion going down as one of the most exciting guys in that organization going down. Is really unfortunate, particularly for me because I've said it many times, and I'll continue to say it. Couldn't give a shit less about drugs in MMA. I would way rather be watching Rob Wilkinson fist fight somebody in the next couple of weeks here. And now that's not going to happen. So tough all around. AK, your reaction to Rob Wilkinson being the latest domino to fall on this list.

May not even be the last one, but how bad is this early into the regular season? Just sad. You mean halfway at the halfway mark of the 2023 season. Like, sad, man. Just sad. I saw the, I saw the MMA fighting alert pop up, our own Damon Martin covering it. And I was just like, this is a day off. So I wasn't there as a story.

it was developing so it just hit me full force uh rob wilkinson ranked he's a m a fighting approved i think he was his first time i think he debuted in the most recent rankings that number 15 spot fun fighter like he's not just a guy who's winning fights in pfl his fights are like actually intriguing i'm looking i look forward to these fights and we were kind of thinking like man how high can he climb

like probably because i mean it's light heavyweight light heavyweight is not the youngest deepest division right now if you riled off a few more knockouts you know repeated his champion. I could see him like cracking the top 10. Now, I don't know. I don't know if people are going to plan to drop him out entirely. And, you know, of second most important to him, I'm sure, than losing his Emmy fighting global ranking,

amidsting on his shot at a million dollars, which, you know, hey, it's great he won at once. You know, I'm sure when he had twice to him better. It's such a bummer. And they tested for, I want to say he tested for clomophene and the other names involved, we've heard of so far. I think it's a clomophine and also Drostrustl known. I'm reading this off somewhere. Sorry, guys. Either way, bad stuff, bad stuff. I hate it for the PFL. I hate it for the league.

I hate it for the fighters. I don't know what you can do. I mean, I'm kind of with Jed. I wish we just didn't test for these things at all. I wish we just let the, you know, if you're the PFL, you just look, find a way to look the other way. But, but such a big part of the PFL brand is them saying, hey, we're, listen, they're called the professional fighters league. So the last thing can do is like this slide, right? Go ahead, Jed, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

This one here with you. Professionals take drugs in literally every sport. Hold on. Every single sport in the world, they are gassed to the gills. But they're not supposed to. They're not so fun. And if you're the professional fighters, you've got to put the emphasis on. No, if you're professional, you just, you say drugs are bad while looking this way like

you did in pride because you're an adult. Who gives you shit? Don't do drugs like our athletes. All right. See what they're doing? That's okay. It's tough. It's a tough position.

Don't take vitamins either. You know what? Don't take vitamins. Vitamin's are bad for you. Don't have surgery. That's unnatural. You can't put pins in your bones and shit. It's all nonsense.

Everything's dangerous these days. Everything's dangerous for the kids these days. But yeah, it really hurt me though to see to see the season hurt so much. To the point that I honestly, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, was doing a PFL write-up today and trying to remember like, oh, who's, who's likely going to be in the playoffs? Because it just announced sort of the date and location, San Antonio, for the first playoff event of the season.

And I was trying to think, wait, who's still on it? Who's still eligible? Like, who's going to be there? And it's because it's the light heavyweights are on that card. I don't know. And so this is, this is, if anything, the PFL benefit from two things. The Inganu news, I think, still overshadowing a lot of this. And two, this is almost like a backhanded compliment.

They're the PFL. And if this for the UFC and like nine or 10 fighters suddenly got busted, it would be much more of a story. This is one situation where the PFL's relative anonymity relative to the UFC that is benefited them. Because I see people asking us, Mike Eucene, I'm sure, was tagged in some of the on Twitter. Like, why is it not a bigger story? And I'm like, listen, we've been covering it. A lot of sites have been covering it. it's the people who determine whether it's a big story or not.

And they're kind of just like shrugging and going like, well, there you go. That's BFL. That's any league. That's not the O.C. And that's how they go about it. So again, it's probably good. It's not a bigger story. But it also says a lot about how people view the organization.

Well, I mean, it depends on who you ask, AK. And this is just a tremendous segue, because as interesting as this topic is, boy. Boy, is there another thing that popped up on the old Twitter feed that we just have to discuss around 1130 a.m. Eastern time because Don Davis of the PFL tweeted out a thank you to the fans for essentially making them the number two MMA company worldwide based on four key elements which I believe were like athlete quality viewership paid media distribution premium video products and and on top of that Jed I want to get your reaction is this graphic here with checkmarks

and Xs and all sorts of fun stuff we have format and years in existence and total viewing audience, global media rights, pay-per-view fights, which by the way, Bellator has had pay-per-view fights before, so you could probably pop an old green checkmark on the old Bellator tag as well. There's just a whole bunch here, and apparently this graphic is supposed to make it clear as day,

clear as a bell, that this is the number two promotion with the bullet. So, Jed, this has been quite the topic on our Slack channels. I'll give you the floor. What did you make of this tweet? And more importantly, this graphic here, going along with said tweet from Don Davis.

Look at all that green though. Green is good. Look at how much green there is. How can you guys like... Anyway, go ahead, Jeff. I need this graphic to stay up because we just got a process. Yeah, yeah.

Keep it up there, please. Yeah. Look at how sad this is. This is the saddest shit I've ever seen. And I don't like, we were debating in the Slack. I don't know what is more depressing. This is very much a... please, I'm stealing this from,

I don't want to say his name in case he doesn't want the credit. I'm stealing this from a coworker of ours because he's spot on. This is very much the, my mommy said I'm the most handsome man in the room like thing. Like, okay, look at who put this together? Here's what I need to know. When they come, maybe I'll get to talk to Don Davis in a couple weeks and be like, hey, man, somebody in your graphics department made this.

And then they handed it at least to one person in front of them who was like, cool and then you looked at it and like yes so i'm assuming at least three sets of eyeballs looked at this and nobody asked nobody was like this looks a little bit desperate guys like one payper view fights being a metric is very clearly a metric there to show that pfl is better than bellator in one despite one they've done one of them two wasn't very successful and three bellator's done as many pay per view fights and they just gave him an ex for no one reason. International regional leagues is like some real reaching of what that means, why that matters in any respect. Also, Bellator kind of has something similar going on, at least the same.

They had a Europe series. Did they not? They have exactly the same thing going on with the PFL's regional leagues. But the ones that really kill me, that that really, really gets me. I'm going to I believe the glaring thing for you, AK, as we were talking about it off air. But the one that kills me is technology. Because they're the only ones with technology. But in the tech one, they say smart cage. Granted, they're the only ones of the smart cage. I'm not here to say anything different.

Data, odds, and AI scoring. Every one of those promotions has odds. Because the odds aren't done by the fucking promotion. So you can't put that there. Data. UFC stats is a page for data. Like this is, they don't have the punch speed in MPH, which is the dumbest shit in the world because no one knows what a 14 mile an hour punch means.

It is so inconceivably dumb that they put this out there as like, look at me, this is a good thing. This, the goal they wanted to accomplish was just the top like four or five, Because hey, here's our format. We've only been in existence for five years as compared to the rest of these, even though it's also kind of bullshit because they are basically built to the bones of WSOF, but whatever. And then total viewership per event is number two. Global Media Rights number two.

Those are the things they wanted to say. And then they put all this other stuff so they could feel like Mommy's special boy. And instead they just look like the biggest nerds in the room. A.K., what did you make of this tweet and this graphic here? Listen, the chat is already losing it over the top of what I'm going to bring up in a second. The technology thing's hilarious. I left before you, AK. Thank you.

I almost wish you hadn't because I just, I'm really not sure how to address this. First of all, technology, how could you just put smart cage and lump it in with data? And smart cage, they should have just put has a smart cage question mark. X, of course, X, everyone. Like, they should have given themselves an extra checkmark because, I mean, that's worth it. Everyone, of course, looking at the, yeah. I would have respected that, honestly.

I would have seen it. Smart cage is a column. And question mark, like question mark. Do you have one? Yes, no, that's it. It's a very binary thing. Guess what? Only one promotion does.

Fighter diversity, certainly something to tout. Good for them. UFC, 35 countries we see right there. Yeah, drift me over there. Yeah, 35 countries. We see PFL, 25 countries, Bel-Tor, 25 countries. How many countries, one-champers?

I would think many, based on one-cham. But how many? 80% Asian. This is a unique way of presenting this information. This, we, again, inside baseball, we talked a lot about this graphic and Slack. And that, like, hit me right away.

And I was just like, I don't know what to say about this. Okay, first of all, Asia is composed of, I don't know if people are aware. I like Don Davis. I'm sure he's aware of this. I'm sure whoever made this graphic is aware of this. Asia is made up of many countries. So I don't know. Why does Asia not get like, there's a lot of countries in Asia.

I'm not entirely sure why Asia doesn't get the individual country count. Like, I'm not saying that it's not, I'd have to look it up. I haven't, I'm looking myself, but like, probably because it's more than 35 countries. It might be. We've got Thailand. We've got China in there. Japan. I mean, there's a lot of, I'm just, again, I'm just looking at some of these.

It was a little uncomfortable. It was a little uncomfortable when I just saw that. I am not accusing anyone of anything, by the way, like any sort of impropriety. But I wish they had just sort of thought about how they had. framed 35 countries, 25 countries, 25 countries, 80% Asian. The problem is the context. Dude, that's like day one shit. You just can't do that.

The problem is the context is clearly when you make a graph like this, you're trying to show, oh, here is why we are better than other promotions, right? That's, you know, that's the basic checkmark thing, right? Checkmark is good, X is bad. Look at how many more X's there are in everyone else's columns. Look how many check marks are in our column. Higher numbers are good, lower numbers are bad. Look at us. Number two viewing audience.

Number two, global media rights. Look at Belator, number three and number four. Look at us. 25 countries. Look at one. 80% Asian. That's not a good context to be presenting that in. It's not good.

I am being so maybe overly understanding as far as what they were going for here. I get it. I get it. They were trying, you know, they're just trying to say this is why we're more. What were they trying to go for? We are more diverse than Asia. But this would be like one saying, oh, your promotion is 30, like 40% European or like 40% American. It's like, why?

Why do it like that when you're only doing it for the one promotion? Again, I'm not accusing anyone or anything. I don't want to. It is just a strange, strange way of framing it. And I think if Don Davis were here, whoever made this graphic were here, they're would, you know, they would think twice about presenting in such a way. It is a, it's not a great look. It's not their best, not PFL's best moment.

Dude, I guarantee you if you looked at fighter diversity and PFL, it would be like 60% European. If they've got 25 countries, they're going to be pulling heavily from, you know, Germany and just all that group. Like, it's just an insane thing. Can we talk about the other thing that nobody mentioned in the Slack? and it doesn't jump off the page, but if you stare at this for as long as I've been staring at it now,

it really, really comes to the forefront of my mind. And it's percentage of top 25 world ranked. Because first off, let's just start here. No disrespect to fight matrix. It's a nonsense thing and it's not real and you can't use it. We at MMA fighting have global rankings. You notice they didn't put it up there because I think PFL has two fighters in it,

whatever, so they don't want to be looking at the 0.03% of their top ranked fighters with that one. Two, here's how you know Fight Matrix is nonsense in general. If you didn't know it at all. What does the math add up to at the bottom of this? These are the four biggest promotions by a wide, wide margin. 30% of the top 25 fighters in Fight Matrix aren't under the banner of one of these four promotions, that means it has to be bad. How? Is Ryzen doing huge numbers?

This is the top 25, top 25, top 25, come on. ACA, ACA's promotions. KSW. KSW. There's just, yeah, okay, so when you're telling me that all of the other promotions outside of these four combined have more collectively top 25 fighters than the UFC, I'm telling you that's a dog shit metric to be using as your quality of, you know, fighters or whatever.

It's just nonsense. The whole thing is insane. Let me get back to the positive. Again, I could talk about the 80% anything all day. And I thank you. I like the thank you at the beginning of the tweet. That's good. Thank you to the fans.

Okay. I'm going really right to the positives. Thank you the fans always a good thing. Thank you fans for making us the number two Emmy Company worldwide and just five years. I want that checks. But this is a graphic right in front of you. I know. I don't know what else.

Who is total viewing audience by who? Is this Don Davis's polling system? Did he call his immediate family members? Because I need to know who produced this info. Yeah. If Camel McLaren were here, he would be, I don't know, he would be firing shots probably at Don Davis in the PFL right now. Campbell McClare would be losing his mind and Chachin would be like,

this is obviously ridiculous. That's what we need is the three of those men in a room arguing over who's second best because nothing's better and more fulfilling than watching people argue about being almost as good as somebody else. I'm so mad he didn't put Combachi Global on here and didn't do biodiversity, like 95% in South American Kabatje Global. I would have been rolling on the floor laughing. That would just been so darkly hilarious, but probably a good thing that that didn't happen. But the second thing I'll say is positive is he's promoting. He's promoting.

He might be way out to lunch with some of these figures. I get this might be the exaggerate, you know, when people make those graphs where it's like, it's intentionally make it look way closer than it is. You're looking at the data. It's not even close. He might be fudging. He is. Why I'm saying it might be.

He's fudging the data here a little bit. But at least he's promoting. You know, we always get on Dana White if I're not promoting enough. He's not promoting any fuss. That's probably also a problem. He's promoting just the league itself and various metrics, but at least he's promoting. So my two positives are he said, thank you, and that he's doing his best to position to tell people his company's number two. Maybe they are.

Maybe they aren't. But you got to admire the chutzpah. And if you can convince anyone, you know, then it can't hurt, right? You've got to convince people. You're selling something here. In his slight defense, AK, he probably couldn't promote fighters for, fear that they too will no longer compete because they fail drug tests. Because apparently everyone's doing it in the PFL these days.

Funny how the UFC hasn't had any, you know, fighter of means and ability fail a drug test in a while. You think every top level fighter in the UFC is just living clean, huh? Anyway. Well, that was a hell of a graphic. And thank you, Don Davis, for giving us to talk about on the show. it did bring joy to my life today. I will say that.

Go PFL. PFL. Once is the PFL coming back? Next week, right? NFL next week. Tune in. Second half of the season. Next Thursday.

The overtime elite arena and Atlanta Georgia. Jed will be there. Jed will be there. And you know, just to tie this all with the bow here, if we didn't have this drug nonsense, Rob Wilkinson would have been fighting Wolf Flurry. Not happening. because both dudes failed drug tests.

So we shouldn't have tested anyway because it all would have been the same. Well, that was PFL's week. Let's head to a different promotion and talk about their week. Point for round two goes to it would go to Don Davis, but he's not here. So Jed Bishue gets the point.

It's one to one. As we head to the world of Belator, MMA. Yes. Let's head to Belator because they have been in the news as well. They did not need to create a graphic to do so. We'll discuss this first. They're bringing in a new division, a new men's flyweight division, and they will crown the first Bellator men's flyweight champion later on this summer.

We'll get into when and how in just a moment. But AK, a Bellator flyweight division. About time, eh? Ray Borg died for this. Let me put it this way. Ray Borg died for this. He was the only reason I think. I think, I want to say, I think they booked that Horaguchi, Ray Borg, that ill-fated would be putting it nicely doomed, Keoggi-Huraguchi, Ray Borg fight in Hawaii.

I assume that was meant to kickstart their plans to have a flyway division. Now, what they should have done is what they're actually doing with this fight. We have Kioji against Makoto Shunru and it's for a vacant flyweight title. That's what they should have done for the Ray Borg fight. I mean, listen, if they were going to make Ray Borg fight a flyaway, really, it should just never have been booked at 125 pounds in the first place. But at least let people know, like, oh, this is, you know, yeah, we're doing flyway now. I still don't understand why. Because the announcement that they're going to do it happened so shortly after.

Like, I don't understand, like, why couldn't they have made it that fight? Why couldn't they have announced it a few months earlier and saying we're starting a flyway division with Ray Borg and Kioji? I mean, people would have laughed because the new Rayborg wasn't going to make it. But anyway, I'm going in circles now. You know what I'm saying. But yes, I love this long overdue. They've had a very solid women's flyweight division for a long time. Men's flyweight have been killing it in the UFC.

Shout out flyweight unders, of course, always delivering. And there was just was really no great reason for Belltor not to promote it. I understand not wanting to, you're comfortable with the divisions you have. You don't want to promote too many divisions. But flyweight is there's so many good athletes in it, so many good athletes. fighting in other promotions that you can sign. It was a real mystery to me why they didn't do it.

But better late than never, I suppose. Great placement on it. Saitama, Japan, perfect. Again, I complained about the Borg fight, whatever, not being for it. How much better is that you have two Japanese fighters going for it inside Saitama Super Arena. So, yeah, that's awesome.

I'm super excited. There's a lot of guys they can bring in. I was just off the top of my head. I feel like I'd love to see John Dotson there. Love to see John Dotson get a shot in Belator. I don't think him and Kojiya fought unless I'm crazy. I know he's wanted that fight. So there you go.

So John Dodson's out there, a lot of good names. This is just a great thing for Bellator. And I have nothing, I don't know, I'm nothing critical to say about it. This is just me being a fan and saying it's about time. Jed, your response, new division. Belator doing things here, 125. A little less up about it than other people. people are. I mean, I think it's reasonable. A lot of the top flyway talent in the world is currently

under contract other places. So I'll be interested to see how they navigate that. But you have Keoggi and that's kind of the main selling point here is Keoggi is one of the best flyweight in the world and some level of a star, certainly somebody that hardcore fans love. So you want to give him a belt in a place to make Kay that totally traction works for me. I think honestly the biggest plus to this might be that the UFC is going to have to invest more heavily in their flyweight division. We've seen them take some steps forward after trying to kill the division. But if Bellator starts moving, they may get a little competitive and start really trying to go to the well, sign some of the ACA guys who, you know, ACA has a flyweight division that has largely been the best non-UFC flyweight division.

So, but ultimately, I don't know, I would have preferred to see them maybe do an atom weight division or women's straw weight division. But if they're trying to open up the books, but totally fine. They'll deliver more fights that are probably of high quality because you can generally at least expect that from Bellator. They are a professional fight organization. they are going to give you at least a base a bare level of quality even if you know their their ceiling often is not as high as you would hope it to be and new champion will be crowned july 31st belator versus rhizzen two and we'll have the final opening round lightweight ground pre fight on that card the main event a j mckee versus patrickie pit bull jett i love the concept the first time around on new year's eve i woke up early i watched it i enjoyed it i enjoyed it i enjoyed it i enjoyed it. They're going back to the well again seven months later. Do you like them going back to this well? Seven months after the fact? What are your thoughts on Bellator versus Rise and the sequel? I don't hate them going back to the well because it is cool. I have some questions. I do feel like maybe

maybe if this is a biennual thing, it's okay. But it feels like it should just be like a Super Bowl type of event. I mean, I've pitched that forever that like what the PFL and Bellator should do is just make a Super Bowl event. of MMA once a year, where the PFO, the champions for the PFL from the previous season face off with some of the Bellator guys, champions or not, and just super fights that are fun and interesting and, you know, et cetera. So I like them doing this with Verizon and never going to not co-promotion because it's better than not. I do wonder how many times they can do this a year before it just starts to feeling like,

yeah, they're just one unified promotion where when this loses the specialness, will I still care as much. I don't know. And also I'm wondering why AJ McKee Pippold's the main event. I'm not wondering, totally know why, but you're crowning a champion. You should just crown the champion in the main event. Let Keoggi have his shine.

But, you know, I know what to expect here. Okay, your thoughts on Bellator versus Reisen, too. As a man who loves series and many, many sequels to iconic things, Fast and The Furious being one of them.

Well, it's Risen 2. Where are we out here? Don't get me started, Mike. Yeah, listen, I say bring it on. Bring it on. Listen, it would be cool if you could develop a Belator and Risen supercard every year, like just once a year making this big annual event. Both promotions certainly have the talent for it.

But I also think when you're Bellator, I don't know if you can always bank on that kind of timing working out for you. That is something that when you're the, well, I was going to say number two, number three promotion, shout to Don Davis. in all of them. Or do you say they're number three, number four? Or them in one, two, tied. When you're tied for third, when you're...

It depended on the metrics you were looking at. The metrics, yeah. When you're, when you are battling for the bronze medal in the MMA promotional world, you don't always have the option of trying to, like, mark down specific time. We saw it with Hawaii. We saw it. Scott-Corps was like, listen, we'd love to come to Hawaii more often, but, you know, just the way things are.

The timing doesn't always work out. There's arena renovations that we usually go to, things like that. So you kind of have to go with what you're given. So if the opportunity comes to do another Belator versus Risen, let's say, you know, in fourth quarter of this year, like October, November, December, you just got to do it. You just got to do it. You really can't, you really can't, you know, hold back. So I still want to see what else pops up on this card.

I think it's only three fights so far that are official, I believe. Unless I have Miki Pitbull, Kiyoji, Makoto, and Kanawanaubi and Vita Arti. So yeah, well, let's see how much they load this up before wondering like, oh, what are they going to do if they have to come back here in, you know, four months, three, four months, five months. Because right now, like I said, they can't worry about that. Unload the clip. Just, you know, give us as many of these crossover things as possible. And if it comes to the point where, yeah, people just start saying, well, it's Bellator slash Risen. They're just one promotion.

That's not actually a bad thing. I actually think that's kind of cool. It certainly won't. I don't think it's a partnership that would be like by any means official or. or super long term. But I think there's nothing, I don't think there's anything wrong with fans, like enjoying that idea.

Like, oh, yeah, like, we want to see other promotions team. Like, why can't we get PFL1, PFLO, like more cost promotion in general? So I'm not worried about brand murkiness. Bring them on. More versus events, please. Are we going to get rise in rules for these Bellator versus Bellator fights?

Can AJ McKee and Picay and Pitbull, like, footstomp? Could we do some soccer kicks in those? fights that's the question I have that's question I have but yeah I was looking at the release I didn't see anything yeah I'm kind of thinking the same thing so we'll see what else grounds up you do that since it's a tournament fight like if the rest of the tournaments were also held inside Toma oh yeah but you can't you can't really let those two dudes in the lightweight tournament fight under a different rule set I mean you could if you're cool but like that's

not what anyone's going to do you think this will be a cage and not a ring because of of the same thing? I actually didn't think about that. It should be, but probably not. They probably will do it in a ring. Which seems dull, but. Well, we'll see how it all plays though. I also think it does not matter.

H.A. McKeese going to wreck him. So you can put this thing in any location setting you choose. Pitbull's getting smoked. How disastrous would Pitbull like flash K-Oing AJB for this tournament? this promotion. It'd be fine because it's named Pitbull and a lot of people might just think that it's the pit bull who already beat him the key. It's Patricio. They won't realize it's

the bad one. I'm like, oh, he won the trilogy. No, no, it's actually the shitty one. I'm just saying there is a possibility. It could be the Banway champion by the time this event happens. He could be. He could be. I actually talked to Patricia O. Yesterday, he said he might actually go down to 125

and try to win that belt too. And he's serious. He's not messing around. Honestly, let's go for four titles. Sure. I remember when Darren Tow was going to win three belts. Okay.

I do want to say that we are one ups, we are two upsets away from getting Usman or Megamatov and Patrici Pitbull two in the finals of the Bellator lightweight World Grand Prix tournament. Unfinished business, Jed. Unfinished business, guys. This rematch could happen. Business was not finished, but man, we don't need it. we could be better without it. You should have left me alive.

You should have left me alive. Look, that would be an incredible comeback. If Patricki beats AJ wins his tournament and beats. Like, that would be legitimately cool. Maybe that will happen, but we'll find out July 31st if Patricki can take that next step.

Let's head to the hallowed apex, gentlemen. Point for round three goes to the Prince of positivity. It's two to one. With MX Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too.

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See app for details. Yes, let's go to the apex. Jed yawned as soon as I said UFC Apex, and that kind of tells us the whole story. Why would I do that? So we have UFC Vegas 74 main event, which I'm sure Jed you're pretty excited about. We have fly weights. So flyweight under bets are probably in. Kikar, France, looking to bounce back from his loss to Brandon Moreno, taking on the surging.

Amir al-Bazi should be a fun fight. We were supposed to apparently get Jim Miller versus Jared Gordon, but there's reports surfacing. We haven't fully confirmed yet that Jared Gordon is out of that fight. And Jim Miller apparently still going to fight on the card against a fighter that is going to be announced shortly. That's where I'm seeing. We haven't officially confirmed this, but this is what is. making the rounds right now. Obviously, that was a fight that people were kind of excited about.

Alex Casares, Daniel Paneda. This isn't a bad card, Jed, is it? Like, if we're sitting down and watching fights on a Saturday night, I think we'll be, we'll enjoy what we watch, right? Seems like one of those cards. It's fine. It has a couple things going for it. First, we did just have an off week.

So that always makes any fight a little bit more palatable. Main event should be really fun, you know? that's a very good matchup two guys with stakes it's a good it's a good main event i know that it's not going to captivate some of the casual audience and that's fine too but it's our i mean it's historic it's our first non-title flyweight main event since 2017 uh if you listen to no best bard this week i had a whole list of things that have happened since the last time men's flyweight's headlined a card that wasn't in a title fight and it was ridiculous uh because six years go a whole lot like their first graders out there now who were not born the last time this happened

rarer than a blue moon so uh yeah and the other fights are fine um a lot of low like nothing that's really jumping off the page like super elevated super exciting but mostly good matchups um some fights that look like they're going to be interesting a couple of other fights that may be tough hangs but you know if this were 10 fights instead of 13 this would be a totally fine card instead of 13 so it's still a little bit longer than you need to be still asking a bit more of your time than this product should demand but you got nothing else to do on Saturday it's a good way to get the juices flowing for next weekend 9 p.m. main card as well uh AK I mean if you want to give a gymnastics score go right ahead. I'll save it for the

preview show tomorrow. I really don't have one right now, if I'm being honest. I'm plug. I'm really, honestly, a bit rattled by the Jared Gordon news. It's good to hear. We didn't, doesn't sound like we've lost the fight. Again, we haven't even confirmed that it's off yet, but we keep my eye on. We could lose the fight. It'd be great if we lost the fight. No, no, because we almost had, it's probably happened before. Jim Miller and Arlowski both competing. And Jim Miller, this is USC appearance. If he does, could still fight on Saturday. You see appearance 42 and number 40 for Jedman Shrews' greatest heavyweight of all time, Andre Rolowski. That's crazy. That's crazy. And that's worth tuning in for hardcore. That's not

something you're selling to the casual audience. Like, I just love to see an ESPN commercial going, like, guess what? We go two of the oldest fighters in UFC history could be the 82 combined pro fights. You don't know who these guys are at their fighting, but you've got to tune in. Not the sexiest. sell. But again, like I said, if you're someone who's been invested in the sport for some amount of time, you may be cherishing your moments with these elder statesmen of MMA. So I hope it's true that Jim Miller is still fighting, whether it's against Jared Gordon or they find a replacement opponent because it's cool. 42 fights for him, 40 fights for Arlowski. This may never happen again. We may never see these guys in the same card again. So that's

neat. Outside of that, Mike, as you mentioned, the card quality is it's not bad at all. It's not bad at all. I think they got the right mix of competitive fights and also fights that are likely to end and finishes. Jed, I did not listen to... No bet spart is out there already, right? It sure is. Okay. I did not listen to the episode yet.

I assume... I'm guessing main event, easy flyweight under. I'm not sure of what you guys said about Tim Elliott and Victor Altamirano, but either way, flyway fights are the bomb. As we just said, Bell Tor finally figuring that out. So we got two of those. And then a Jane Malarkey is on the under card. He's a lot of fun, John Castaneda. There's some newcomers. We had a lot of fighters

having to step in his replacements. But yeah, some of the, listen, some of the cards me a tough hang. I'm not going to lie to you. It's a 13 fight card right now. Some of these on paper look like they're guaranteed to go to sort of an uneventful decision. But that's okay. Like I said, not every card has to be a banger. I think this is a little bit better than some people might be giving you a credit for. But at the same time, I'm not saying it's appointment viewing. better. Okay. More on this card tomorrow on the preview show, Chad.

Andre Oloski debuted in 2000. When he debuted in the UFC, it had three weight classes. God love Jim Miller and what he's accomplished most fights in UFC history. It is substantially more impressive what Andrei Olavski has accomplished, especially when you consider that he took a big gap of not even being in the UFC and he's still like third on the all-time fighting list. What an unbelievable career.

And this fight is going to be terrible, but I will respect for the pit bull. Heavyweight over? Oh. Androluski is the patron saint of heavyweight overs. What is it? Seven.

Of his last 10 fights, he's gone to decision seven times. All seven of those, he won. The three losses, he got finished, and it was usually pretty early. And that's what you want. If you're going to lose the bet, you want to lose the bet immediately. And so if this gets into round two,

Andrei Alowski's going to do some Arlovsky things and we're going to make it a full 15 minutes. Love, I love everything about Andreiolovsky. That's, we didn't even talk about his various hairstyles. That's got to be, I love on draft kings. That's got to be, what, for a heavy rate over minus 3,000? No, it's minus 155. And Andre Golovsky really is number two all time in fights.

If Jim Miller pulls out, he gets, he's won back on Jim Miller at a very different weight class and in a very different manner. This man is never going to get the respect that everyone needs to give him. Hold on. We're bearing this here. Again, I'm sure people are listening to No Bet Spire. I already heard this. Wait, I'm sorry.

Over on this is only minus 155? Yeah, over two and a half is minus 155. Oh, fairly certain. Okay. Let me confirm. Hold on. Let me check my, hold on. guys, I've got to do something real quick.

One sec. I hear many clicks. Let me confirm that. I actually may be confusing that. Let me, uh, but yeah, it's a smash over. If it is, I'm going to say, listen, I tell people, don't gamble on MMA. Never gamble on MMA. But if you do,

sorry, it's minus one. It's minus 1.95 now. That's still too. It's moved a little bit. That's still not high enough. I don't know. Don't tell me. is young he's never going to like yeah i agree i agree heavyweight over is the best that's crazy

what's don't tell me is a finishing rate not 50 50% in the ufc all right okay sure sure all right fine don't get out will will a k piggyback on the most electric bed in mma find out this weekend during our uffs he made his ufc debut when randy katorre won the heavyweight championship for the second time This dude has been around for a lifetime. Literally. You're not even kidding. 20 something years. People have been.

20, it's sad. It's sad. It's sad. It's sad. In the promotion. It's sad to put it in this perspective. But there are people who have been born after Arndor, Alaska, enter the U.C.

And have died before, well before we see his last fight. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry to put it that way. That's so stumber. Got old enough to take a drink or, you know, do something else. There you go. And then, yes. Yes.

Raul Rosh's Jr. was like minus 5 when Andrea Rolofsky. He was a concept in the eye of the universe when Arjari Lovsky debuted. Oh, man. I hope Roloski never retires. I really hope he's coming out here and doing this forever. It will be the best. Well, I have a feeling we're going to talk more about these types of cards in a moment. But the point for round four goes to

Jedbushu because it doesn't drop in somberness upon us like AK just did talking about on Taraski's UFC debut that means we're going to go to the knockout round shocking development as always we'll ask one question of both of these gentlemen it'll be the same kind of a question

they will each have 60 seconds to respond and then you peeps will cast your votes which I believe we could probably do right now we'll bring Casey in he will announce the winner so forth and so on. So Jed, what are we going to do here? You won last weeks or two weeks ago. Are we going first? Are we passing this on over to AK? I'm tired of doing this. Let's go first so I can be done.

All right. Okay. So, you may have seen this, Jed, but we usually don't hear from the matchmakers of the Ultimate Fighting Championship all that often. We never heard from Joe Silva, Sean Shelby we never hear from but once in a while we hear from UFC matchmaker Mick Maynard who over the weekend sent out and out of nowhere tweet calling out Bloody Elbow

and some of the media in general for chastising event quality the tweet read quote Betcha Bloody Elbow complained about the UFC card this weekend and then followed up with I have no idea why I am doing this but which card did you actually think was bad these athletes have been amazing

people responded he responded to some of those, but there's one response that really caught people's eyes. Someone was saying, don't fall into the trolls, thank you for doing all this and putting all these cards together. And his response was, quote, it's an honest question.

I actually do remember the last bad fight card, and it's been many years ago. I feel the more cards we have, the more opportunity, the negativity is odd to me. So Jed, in 60 seconds, verbally respond to Mr. Maynard's thoughts and opinions on this because, It has been a topic of conversation over the last several days.

One minute on the clock, have at it. This is the type of shit that you do when you're so far ahead of the in the race that you have talked yourself into thinking you're behind. This is the shit where that we see a lot of like, oh, I too impressed, but like, no. Mick Maynard, you know that this is not real. Like, you are a professional who knows what you are doing. And every time you put Dino, Dana White Contender Series tag next to somebody on a fight card, you know what you're getting and what you're delivering. There have been 18 fights this year, 18 UFC events this year, including this one up this weekend. There are like five that were like had to be watched.

You do it all the time. And we talk all the reasons like you just don't have to say this. You could just continue to be quiet. But don't try and pick a fight about something that everybody has the receipts. on and the only people who will be like, oh, you're right, are the most boot-licking sycophants that have ever walked the face of the earth. Like, it's unnecessary. All right. I'm very intrigued after hearing that as we hear from the Prince of Positivity himself. You've probably seen these tweets. Talked about it a little about a heck of a morning because I was asked about. I just read them

back to you. Now, and you've heard Judge's response. So now it's here, the Prince of Positivity's response. One minute on the clock for you, my best friend, and go. I'm going to give you positivity. I'm not saying I agreed with McMaynard. In general, people with the stance of, you can't criticize any card. That's absurd. That's absurd. Some cards on paper are stronger than others. Some are clearly stronger than others. But as I said with Don Davis, Mick Maynard is doing his job. He's protecting the UFC. He's protecting his own reputation as one of the UFC's well-known matchmakers, him and Sean Shelby. He's protecting his own psyche a little bit too.

I say this as someone who moderates the comments on M.AFighting.com regularly. I read probably 90% of the comments. I know I shouldn't. But there does come a time when you want to defend yourself, when you want to interact. And the good thing for McMaynard is he's not going interacting, he's not waiting into a shark tank. He's, for the most part, knowing that he's going to get a decent amount of feedback from, as Jen mentioned, the sycophants. So just for his own mental health and well-being and confidence, he probably felt like, I need to step out there, and I want to hear back from the people, not from the media,

from the people who love our product all the time. And I think he's probably happy with the results. All right. Thank you, AK. Thank you, Jed. Jed, do you have something else you want to add? I desperately need the vote. I don't want to sway the votes.

I desperately need to keep talking on this subject after the votes for it. All right. Well, let's keep talking. Go. We need to waste time anyways, so keep talking. I really want to know what he thinks. the last bad card is. I,

while AK was doing, I was trying to go back and trying to, using the years as the qualifier. And like, I think that all, like, even the most bootlicking son of a gun

that's out there has to acknowledge that UFC Vegas 65, the Kennedy-Insichuku Ilankutalaba fight card in November, they have to acknowledge

that that was objective. objectively bad. And that was six months ago. Like, you have to. Of the, looking at it right now, what, 11 fights, the first seven went to decision, two of them splities, or no, sorry, six of the first seven went to decision. And the main event was Kennedy-Ens-Chukwa versus the Akuta Laba. All that.

This is just like, you can't pretend that that's, the co-main event was Walter Cortezza-Cost of Chase Sherman. The problem is. And that's good. The problem is he can play it both ways. One on paper, it was supposed to have a different main event, right? It was supposed to be Lewis and Spivak. And then he can say results wise.

It was still bad. I know. I know. What, no, but with every card, they're always going to have highlights they can point to because Jack Delamadalena was on there, right? How can it be a bad card? Jack Delamadelaela, you know, starts somebody. We had a spinning wheel kick, right?

And Andre Fialia was on there getting knocked out. That's always fun. And then, of course, the ultimate, like, defense, like, well, we got to finish. in the main event. Oh, people criticize the main event, but there was a finish. That means the main event was automatically good. That's, this is the, this is what they can throw out there to defend things. And I, I'm not saying I agree, but this is like how.

You're probably right. If you ask him about that event specifically, yeah, if you ask him about that event specifically, I bet you he goes like, no, that wasn't one of the bad ones. What do you mean? You're probably right. His answer, his answer probably is, what was the last event where there were no finishes? Right. That's, like that's probably the, because it doesn't matter if they have a 15,

fight card with 14 decisions if one dude does one cool thing. Well, these athletes, they're just out there compete. Like, sweet. Yeah. So are dudes at my pickleball court down the street. Not here to watch that shit in prime time television. I was, I was going to go like home via a better. And I'm like, oh, that was like, that was a few years ago, right?

Like that was just like May of last year. Like that wasn't even that long ago. And that card, you know, unless I'm forgetting something definitely was not. I mean, listen, that. You know what? No, again, he could just say that fight had Jeltsinelmaid made a part quarter on it. So, there you go.

That's one of the best. You know what? Can't be. I should have brought it up. 10 of the 18 fight cars this year have been bad. And it's just like, I say this quote all the time. And it's like, and I'm going to paraphrase it for this thing. But it's like, look, if you think that everybody else is an asshole,

you're probably the asshole. If you're here to defend, you are clearly here. the pushback that you are producing a bad product now. And is the reality, everybody else is wrong and my product that is tangibly different than what it used to be is still great. Or I'm doing a bad thing, but I'm doing it for the money. Like what is the more reasonable one? You know.

And that's why you could just shut the fuck up. You don't have to, you don't have to come out and say, we wouldn't be talking about you. You wouldn't be getting dunked to the center of the earth by everybody. with a brain cell on the Twitter. If you just hadn't done it, you can just not say anything. Can I plug something actually for you, J? I know we got to get to the,

I'm sure we've got to get to the score, the results soon, but I'm someone again who hasn't had the biggest problem with there being 44, whatever, plus events a year because I always thought that M.A. would become a, you know, some sort of weekly event type thing. I never thought like maybe this many events because I think I thought there'd be some sort of off-season,

silly me, why would they do that? So I'm glad there's a lot of events, but listening to the BJ Penn Dam. So anyone who hasn't listened to, damn they were good, the BJPen episode, boy, it reminded me of when there was a magic to these UFC events, maybe more so than any other damn you guys have done

because I think he's right in that era. I don't know if he's the only guy, but he's right in that era of guys, that rise of the UFC that you've done a damn they were good on. And it really was something special when a BJ was fighting or a Jersey P.R. was fighting. And not just that fight itself, but like, oh, crap, like that anticipation that anything can happen,

which you don't really get with the seven hour 15 fight card these days. It's just, I mean, you just can't. How can you possibly have that same level of anticipation? You have so much of the product now. So I will just tell people, listen to that. If you want to look back on the good times or if you were never aware of those good times and to understand why we might be so critical. these days.

Shucks. Thank you, Casey. Great production, as always. I stuck to it. I stuck to it. You hit the post, like an absolute savage. Casey, come on in. I'm sure the voting has been swayed enough at this point.

So who wins so we can carry on about our day? Shocking results today. Shocking results. Whoa. Your winner today with 57% of the votes is Hey K Lee! Wow!

This is... He did it! Listen, it's all the ultimate fighter. It's all Don Davis. Shout out to 80% of Asians out there. Shout out to 80% Asians. You guys did it? This might be, I don't know,

it might be 80% Asians in the chat. Maybe that's why. But, you know, this is, I am excited. I'm very happy. It's been a great week. It's been a great week. Celtic. Celtic is about to win the,

the Scottish Cup this Saturday. I'm super excited for that. It's just a good time overall. Thank you, everyone. Thank you who voted for me. Did you change it? Oh, no, wrong side. Did you change it already?

It changed. It changed. Eight and 15. What a moment. Jed? Any last thoughts? Look, I'm sorry all the voters are Philistines who don't know like they're eating McDonald's

every weekend, 42 weeks a year. Sometimes it's fun to have steak, guys. Sorry. We used to only get at stake. We'd only get it 12 times a year, but it was dope. Now we just get trash. It's where we're at. Well, there you go.

Final thoughts from Jedmishu. In case you could hit the music so we can get on out of here. We'll be back next week to recap UFC, Vegas 74. We'll get you ready for the return of the PFL, the world's prominent number two promotion in the sport of mixed martial arts. The graphic tells all. And we'll get you ready for UFC 289, which is going down next Saturday in Vancouver, Canada. Amanda Nunes, Erini-Albana, the main event.

But until that, everybody, we'll see you tomorrow for the preview show. We're A.K. For Jed, Casey, on the ones and twos, I am Mike Eck back next week. Good night, everybody. Love you all. This has been Between the Link. Fighter Diversity. And then I'm a fighting production on the Vox Media Network.