MMA Fighting - BTL | Muhammad vs. Della Maddalena, UFC 315, What's Next For Bo Nickal?

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

UFC 315 goes down this Saturday in Montreal with two title fights, including the Belal Muhammad vs. Jack Della Maddalena main event for the UFC welterweight title, as well as Valentina Shevchenko vs. Manon Fiorot for the women's flyweight title. While the card — most notably the pay-per-view portion — is pretty good, the buzz doesn't seem to be in the air for this particular event. Why is that? On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel talks the big storylines ahead of UFC 315, the fan reaction to the card, the two title fights, and who could steal the show. Additionally, they'll recap the big moments from this past weekend, boxing's tough weekend, #ufcdesmoines, Cory Sandhagen's big main event win, Bo Nickal suffering his first pro loss and the backlash he's received, and much more. Host Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting's Alexander K. Lee and Morning Kombat's Brian Campbell. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠@m_heckjr⁠⁠ 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

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Live from M.A. Fighting Studios, this is Between the Links. And now, your host, my... The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of BTL. Happy Thursday to us all. If you can all join us at an earlier start time this week, the little man has state testing this week, so I have to card them off to that every single day.

around noon. So hence why we're starting a little bit earlier this week, but no time to waste a lot to discuss, including UFC 315 this weekend. The promotions return to the Great White North. That'll be the back half of the program. But let us introduce the combatants. First, figured with the UFC heading to the Great White North, we needed some Canadian flavor on the program. So let us say

hello to the Prince of Positivity, the man behind the MMA fighting global rankings. The man who joins me every week on onto the next one to do some post-UFC event matchmaking and much more. He is my best friend, Alexander Kay Lee. Where is he? Welcome back, AK. Oh, bonjour. Bonjour.

How's it? How's it? La Belle Provence, Montaille. Very excited for the show. Yes, I did No Betts Bar this week, too. Mike, I'm everywhere. I don't know if I'm doing the preview show, but we'll do it on to the next one, too. Yeah, listen, I'm not in Montreal.

I'm not in the great province of Quebec, but, But I am feeling the Canadian energy. I'm feeling the Canadian love. And I'm always happy to represent. And it's always great to have you here. And it's always great to have his opponent back on the show. Gas stations, hide your hot dogs. And everyone watching this right now, this is where you put on your sunglasses.

You have a nice glass of milk in front of you because the takes are going to be hot. They're going to be spicy from my fellow New Englanda, one half of the morning combat, tag team champions of the world. rocking the total package Lex Lugar t-shirt. Brian Campbell is here. BC, welcome back, my friend. Thank you. I have the guts to wear this because I also have a total package.

I'm just happy that disbarred lawyer ain't here this week, right? But at least I get to go one-on-one with Don Davis' favorite journalist. So this will be fantastic. Meet me on LinkedIn after the show, guys. There we go. That's incredible. So let's get into this.

What a matchup. It shall be. So stick around. You're going to love it. Let's first close the door on this past weekend before we get to UFC 315. And BC, I'm glad you're here because, look, there was a lot of boxing last weekend, but I want to focus on Friday and Saturday, if I could. The Ring Magazine promotion led by His Excellency, Turkey Al-Asheek, the Riyadh season cards. They have this Times Square event on Friday, and the way they laid it out is kind of like the open. workout for WrestleMania 14 in downtown Boston. We're just going to put a ring in the center of the city and people can just come watch

fights. And that's not really how it turned out. It was kind of cool visually. And we had Ryan Garcia and Devin Haney competing on the card. Of course, they're not fighting each other because why the frig do that, right? And then Garcia loses to Roli Romero and Devin Haney delivers a fight comparable to Francis Ngano versus Derek Lewis in a win. it was like an apex card in one of the most known areas in all of the world and not great boxing.

And then Saturday, Canello fights and lays down a stinker as well, but in a victory. So BC, outside of those who work for ring or disown, pretty much everybody has shit on all of this. So let me ask you, where is that Friday Saturday? Where does that Friday Saturday doubleheader rank for all-time, crappy double headers in recent memory for boxing. Two snaps up, as the folks young living color used to say, hated it. It's one of the worst weekends of all time. I mean, what are we trying to do here if it wasn't for the levels of Ramon Cardon Cardonis,

Cardinoss, excuse me, and Iowa Inouet on Sunday night with the card top rank cat in Las Vegas, right? Imagine that. A card in Las Vegas with a Mexican-American on it to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. If it wasn't for that, I don't. don't know what else we would be saying. This was a major step back in the sport. It was normally the sports biggest pay-per-view weekend, Cinco to Mayo, hey, everybody go to Las Vegas and see Canello or Floyd or Oscar or whoever's on top in this sport. And it turned into this multi-city

boondoggle of overspending. And I know that the narrative to some degree has turned into, well, maybe these fighters are getting paid too much money. They're getting soft. Well, let's talk about the guy who's paying them too much money, who's putting on these shows, who took the biggest star in boxing Canelo Alvarez away from Las Vegas or Dallas or Mexico City or Wadolahara and put him in Riyadh at 7.30 a.m. local time in front of less than 4,000 people against an opponent who's known for circling away and not initiating contact. Yes, this was a worst case scenario, 48 hours of the sport. We came in with a card in Times Square that everybody could be a part of three of the biggest

young stars competing. And we exited with people standing one block away behind 15 foot walls with the ring banner on it watching from a soundless screen in Times Square. As one after another, some of these biggest young stars blew away their current markability or current stock. and we also, by the way, lost interest in what would have been a absolutely no-brainer can't miss Garcia Haney rematch. So yeah, what am I feeling right now? I guess happy in the end as we criticize Turkey-Elasique for putting three fight cards on the zone paper view in eight days, three paper views in eight days.

At least the masses didn't see what went on on Friday or Saturday night. I had argued with all that money being spent, can you float a time by on big CBS? can you do something to push this sport out to the people? I think this weekend we were just lucky that the only people that saw it were people that stole the event or the hardest of hard cores. Because this is not what I consider the future of boxing. This was the point case scenario of what happens when you make it too much about everything else but the sport. And as the great Hall of Famer Tim Bradley said in an epic rant on Saturday, when you use boxers as pawns to put forth a larger message.

When it stops being about what really matters in the ring, sometimes you're going to get exactly this. This weekend wasn't about boxing at all, except for what you saw Sunday night in Las Vegas. The ring tweeting out that they were early preliminary pay rebis or around 260,000. I actually laughed out loud when I saw that. I thought that was one of the funniest streets I've ever seen.

But, AK, you know, we had a lot of responsibilities of them made fighting. there were a million fight cards, it seemed, and you were a big part of the boxing coverage this past weekend. Yes, yes. Tough scenes out there, was it not? Some tough days for you. By the way, in addition to the pay-per-view numbers, I'm also enjoying the foot traffic numbers,

like, oh, 400,000 people past two times. Don Davis and I are proud, are proud of you for that stat. That is brilliant stuff. I hope, I hope Don, I hope Don the next time, like he holds an event, like at a you know one of those hotels that's also a casino or something. He says, man like 15,000 people passed to the casino this week or something because they knew the

PFL, I don't know, it's just like that's brilliant. Like that's brilliant stuff. It's not a lie. It's not a lie. Times Square, a lot of people have passed through. There just happened to also be a boxing event going on at the same time. This was tough, man. This was hard to watch. I'm sure some of us feel a bit vindicated about like, you know,

who have been questioning this model, that Turkey Al-Shik has been putting forward, that everyone he's associated with is kind of pushing. Because it is different, it is new. In some ways, it's exciting. And in some ways, a lot of people, we were kind of cautious about it. And we've seen previous events where,

these big events where, even when they went well, the whole, like, kind of having these events almost strictly in front of, like, VIPs and rich people and very closed off, it's really, it's really noticeable. It really comes off. Like, I kind of sympathize a little with what Ryan Garcia said after the fight. No excuses for putting it. on a bad performance, still gave me wrong. Full credit to Roli-Ramero as well.

But saying, like, yeah, it felt weird. It felt weird. It felt weird. Not having a crowd that was like just fully engaged for watching the fight. Like they were just there to, again, to be seen, to be at an event. It was outdoors, all the noise, you know, traveling upwards. So it was strange for him as to watch. I'm sure it was strange for him to fight in. It's a real shame that it went down like this too because, you know, again, people are going to use this as an indictment of boxing again. And let me get back to the second. But also, So we just had the amazing, like, UBank Ben fight the week before. And that fight was so well built.

It's an example of, like, what makes boxing work is when you focus on a storyline and a fight that people have been waiting for for years, you build up this one fight properly, right? You're not building up an event. You're building up this one fight. And, you know, to MMA fans, like one of the reasons so many people got in MMA was like, oh, no, well, we don't want to just watch one fight. Like, we want to be invested in the whole card. And that's awesome.

Like, that model works for MMA. We have seen it. The UFC is a billion-dollar company that works for MMA. Maybe it can work for boxing someday, too, but I think over the past couple of years, we've seen, like, it's not, it's boxing anime are just not the same. You know, they might have similar audiences. There's some crossover appeal. You can certainly market some aspects of them the same way.

But boxing is really out of the best when you have that rival, you have that one fight. So, you know, they tried to load it. They tried to have Garcia, Haney, again, not against each other, but with the obvious implication, oh, both these guys are going to show out. we're building up to their rematch. You've got Canello, he's going to take care of school. And then he's going to, you know, we have already announced. We've got the Crawford fight's going to come up.

But it was just too much. It was too much. It was too fast. I think your arrow was saying, I think on Monday, like, it's really not meant to be a sport where you're always looking ahead, where you're always saying, well, well, we hope, we're assuming this matchup's going to happen and this is going to work out this way. And then the match what we really want, like that now we're building to it properly. It's like, no, you got to kind of just do these things.

They should have had a Haney fight. They should just had Haney and Garcia fight again. I don't know if they could have made Canelo and Crawford happen so early, but they should have figured something else out for Cinco de Mayo weekend. And again, having it in a very sterile environment as opposed to in Mexico or even in like another place just where you can have a nice, lively appreciative crowd would have been so much better. So I don't want to crap on the whole idea of the weekend. Like I don't want to say like on paper this was a terrible idea. I don't know if you could predict that so many stink bombs would be dropped in the ring. You certainly could have imagined some scenarios, but, yeah, they got the worst case scenario, and it just hurts the, it hurts the business a lot.

It really hurts the business a lot. I'm curious how things are going to look for DKO boxing debut, Crawford-Kinello, so fight people want. So it shouldn't hurt it, but I am curious what the reaction will be now going forward. Yeah, we'll get, we'll get there in a second. Can you imagine if Dana White goes on Instagram and he's like, hey, UFC 317, this is what we're going to do. We're going to do Islam Makachef versus Grant Dawson for the lightweight title. And then we're going to have Ilya fight Mark Madsen, who's coming out of retirement. And then in October in Abu Dhabi, they're going to fight each other.

Like, it's just insane. Like, I don't understand why we do this double booking thing like we do with Garcia and Haney and just have them fight other people in hopes that we get something later in the year, aka why does boxing do these silly, stay busy fights? And because of what happened this past Friday in time, square, AK, is there still any juice at all with a Garcia-Haney rematch?

Like, if they made this, would people be happy about this? Would they be positive? Or would this be met with, like, a collective? Eh, all right, I guess. Well,

firstly, like the funny thing is, I like the idea of tune-up fights. I like the idea of, like, set-up fights. In general, like, in principle, I like the idea.

And not in regards to Garcia and Haney. I think for someone, like, it definitely doesn't work for someone, a Canello, I think, at this point his career. This is the kind of guy, like, you can't be giving him two-knob fights anymore. He's just not going to get up for these fights. Because, you know, in a perfect world, you give them a two-n-no fight, they show out.

They either put on like a brilliant 12-rap performance or they just take the other guy out. You're like, yeah, man, this is like, this is why this guy's on the level. I want to see them fight whoever, whoever's supposed to be their big opponent that we've been lining them up for. But Canello is not in that mode anymore. He's not going to go in and show out in a tune-up fight. He's going in, making a ton of money, trying not to get injured, and doing just enough to win. Garcia and Haney is a little bit trickier. You would have hoped that, again,

that they would have taken this opportunity to stamp it a little more. But I think, as you kind of suggested, they're so focused on each other. They should be professional. They should have put on better performances, but they're so focused on each other. And I think they assume that everyone else is as well. That oh, well, no matter what happens on Saturday,

in this fight, there's always going to be that fight with me and Ryan. It's going to be a fight with me and Devin, you know, whoever you're thinking of. So I think this definitely hurt interest in the rematch. All the controversy around the first one, good or bad, it was so like people wanted to see it right. If Ryan Garcia had not been suspended and you would have been able to book that within the next four to six months, it would have done incredible numbers. Numbers would have been insane. The year off heard it.

I think Ryan Garcia's personality in general and his behavior and his getting suspended, not a good thing. The lawsuits that came up after just had people tuning out, you know, and I'm not saying. saying Haney wasn't right to sue him, but I'm like, once fans are seeing that stuff come up, it does, that does not enhance a fight. That is just like, oh my gosh, I don't want to know about all this extracurricular stuff. I just want them to get in the ring. And now we are a year later. Now we're coming off these terrible, terrible performances.

Like I said before, I don't think Connell Crawford's going to be hurt too much about what happened this weekend. I do think Haney Garcia took a hit. So they're going to have to get back to hyping it up. It could absolutely still be a blockbuster event. But, man, those, you get a lot of people who are saying probably, I don't want to see either these guys fight again, much less like I'm going. each other. Yeah.

And like when I went off on that, that little mini rant, B.C., it's not saying that I don't agree with a tuna fight, but like, if we're going to do it, at least do the WWF superstars on Saturday mentality where you have the big stars doing squash matches. Like throw Garcia in there with like the third worst guy in the division and have Haney in there with like the fourth worst guy in the division, just have him kill him. And then, you know, at least with superstars, like they would get run over, Undertaker would squash Barry Harrowitz in 35 seconds, but then we know he's going to have a coffin match with Kamala at SummerSlam.

So we will spend money to watch that, maybe have a faceoff and some sort of rambunctious thing that happens in the middle of the ring. So again, we know what's next for Canella. We're going to talk about that in a second. But as far as Garcia Haney, like, is there still juiced there with how badly both of these guys's fights went on Saturday? What do you think of all this? I don't think, though.

I don't think, though. And I see Haney coming out and saying, I still want the rematch. We signed the contract. But, like, let's say a few things that need to be said. We saw three of the five worst fights in Compubox history in consecutive nights in terms of least total punches attempted over 12 rounds. Copyback goes, copy box goes back to 1985, by the way. So 40 years of history. And Canello himself attempted the least amount of any fighter in a 12.

round bout in the history of Kambia box. So you see what we were up against here. Specifically to Garcia and Haney, I get what you're saying about this probably should have been more of a squash. These were supposed to be celebrity squashes. You know, Roli Romero had been knocked out in two of his last four fights. The ones that he had won, one had been completely controversial, and no one accepted it as a win.

And the other one, he was in a get-well fight against Manuel Hymas. And because of his weight cut, he had no energy. He looked dead in there. Same thing with Jose Ramirez, who still had a great record of former unified champion that fought Haney, but he came in looking like no power. We assumed he was washed. You saw the odds.

It's weird here. The fighters deserve the blame just as much as the organizers. Yes. But the organizers deserve blame because how it was handled. It's not that this hasn't been done before, the idea of marinating and doing tune-up fights where you're kind of telling everybody what's going to happen next. but they took it much further this time,

actually having the contract signed for the rematch, which may be because there's no title at stake, told the fighters in their head, it doesn't really matter how I look here. The other part of it was what we talked about earlier. They put the tune-up fights on pay-per-view, on an app like DeZone, where the only people that have it in the United States

are hardcore boxing fans, so no casuals are going to run into it. If you want to build up to the Haney Garcia-2 payday, you put the setup fights on an app or under some form of access where everyone can see it and they go, oh, wow, this is getting juicy. Let me pay for the rematch when it's time. Everything from this past weekend was done for the purpose of what was really going on. The Saudi Flex, the further of the sports washing, and the setup for what's coming, which is a TKO future in combat sports for all of us.

So even though it might not be Turkey Alashik's fault that Devin Haney comes out and just sabotages his own brand with one of the most absurd, safe performances we've ever seen when all the pressure was on him to show us that last year was a fluke and maybe Ryan was on Osterine and all these things of maybe the Haney lawsuit made sense. And on the flip side, you got Ryan Garcia in a tailor-made fight for him to get a knockout, fights passively, gets completely disciplined by a guy who's not even known as a good boxer. Now we're looking at Ryan Garcia going, forget the star power. He never was good enough to begin with.

the one fight that he was great against Haney, clearly he was on Osterine. You can see the difference between the two fights. So it was a worst case scenario. But to me, again, it's a wake-up call of who do you want running boxing moving forward? Do you want boxing people who have history and knowing what they're doing? Or do you want a guy who's basically doing fantasy sports video game matchmaking? Not only were the press conferences for this event telling you that Garcia Haney was next in September, too bad for those B-side opponents that are sitting there on the day, right. We also got Ryan Garcia saying, and then I'm going to fight Teo Fimo the fight after, and then I'm going to fight, Boutzhenis, the fight after. We're putting way too much the cart

before the horse here, putting a fight in Times Square, not caring about the atmosphere, not caring that the fans couldn't even see it, even though up to the day before, they're still telling everybody publicly, come on down, even though the media, which didn't find out if their credentials were approved until the afternoon of the day of, We're not allowed inside the fences, I think, except for two, Ariel Hawani and Chuck Mindenhall, and I think one was a guest. Everybody else was told to go across the street, no internet access, no volume on the TV, but you can watch from a room.

I'm saying when you go to this level, again, putting the biggest star in the sport on Cinco de Mayo at 7.30 a.m. in Riyadh in front of nobody, you're almost asking for it. So yes, Turkey quickly rushed in Terence Crawford after the Canoe Fight. Yes, we can all look ahead to September, maybe on Netflix Legion Stadium. I think this whole weekend came across as a warning sign, though. Do you want all the food in the buffet to taste the exact same? Because it's coming.

It's the TKO takeover, and you're going to be paying more, and you're going to be complaining more, and you're going to have to listen to me on this program and many others in this business telling you, I told you so. Yeah, let's just go right there. September 12th, it's happening.

Canello Bud Crawford, Allegiant Stadium. It's the day before UFC 320 in Guadalajara. So it's going to be a very busy weekend. And as was announced with this fight, BC, this is the first big main event under the TKO boxing umbrella. And Uncle Dana White will be the promoter. He'll be the guy standing in between these two fighters. Your reaction to this being the big TKO boxing, here we are,

Dana being involved is the promoter? Is this good? Is it bad? Like, how does this look to you for this particular fight and Dana being involved in it? Well, it certainly wasn't a. surprise, as this had been the rumor so aggressively. I mean, Turkey almost gave it away March 5th when him and Dana went on first take and announced, you know, the future partnership, which felt

very telegraph, by the way. But what we know about the TKO boxing future is it's going to be two things at once. It's going to be this prospect league where they're going to try to reinvent the wheel. Obviously, they're going to reset the pay structures. And hopefully for them, not hopefully for the rest of us, they're going to amend that Muhammad Ali Act so have complete control. The other half of it is what they're going to do and launch on September 12th. It's the idea of maybe these big stadium, big ones, that'll be on Netflix where TKO will be not so much the promoter in terms of like housing the fighters,

but more of the platforms. I guess when Dana said, when I get to boxing, think of me as HBO. This is probably what he's talking about. So is this the right matchup to bring in the casuals? Yes. And is Allegiant Stadium potentially the right venue to do that? Oh, yes. I mean, how many times do I have to hear myself bark at Dana White

and say it's time for UFC to have these stadium nights where it's all about the atmosphere and the experience above the actual visual experience, these cultural events. I'm just wondering now if the pressure is even more on Crawford and Canelo to thrill us so that TKO can get kicked off well and survive so that Turkey Alashik can continue to justify to his bosses in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia that he knows what he's doing

and that all these losses that they're taking are going to have a means to the end of it. I'm just a little bit nervous because the only problem with the timing of the bout right now is we're coming off that performance for Canelo, where not only did he look older, right? We've seen him fight negative boxers before. We've also seen him chase them down

and make sure that the judges have no doubts on the scorecards. This time we saw Canello who just seemed unwilling to do exactly that. He was happy to just complain and say, yeah, I hate fighting these type of guy. Hey, Canello, these type of guys, the runners, you know who don't run? That guy, David Benavides, who used to be your mandatory for about three years, which you keep shamelessly avoiding. So what I'm saying is there's never been more pressure on Canello to come out and shine

and redeem who he actually is. I'm just a little bit worried that Crawford will see the blueprint that William School did. School had no business being in that fight or arguing that he won, but he did effectively play into that one kryptonite in Canello's game. an opponent with quick feet, an opponent who can move and make him chase, that can be a problem. I just hope for all the parties involved, including the sport of boxing in general,

that this isn't another snooze fest just because it might have to be for Crawford's best chance of winning. What TKO and Turkey needs is for this thing to feel like a Super Bowl and deliver on that level. I think the fact that people are doubting Canelo so seriously is going to bring the odds closer than they would have been, I'm just hoping it's also going to create a setup for us to get a really, compelling fight that makes all of this worth it.

If we take what we've seen over the past week, I mean, it's just one weekend, right? The weekend before, Ben Eubank, as you said, it just reminded us how much this rocky movie of a sport can just thrill us. But I've got to be confident if these guys really are taking the keys to the entire sport that they know what the hell they're doing.

So the pressure will be on September 12th, that Friday night, maybe on Netflix, to really show that we are in control boxing, moving forward, it's safe, you can trust us. This is what it's going to be like. It's a lot of pressure on one night, one fight, and two combatants in there. A.K., your thoughts on the fight, the promotion, Dana being involved in how important is it that this fight delivers?

I'm sorry, Brian, who was our friend there? I'm sorry, if anyone listening on podcast form later, we had a beautiful cat show up. This is Reggie Jackson. I mean, he's a violent individual, but even a thug has moments, you know, where they are like, yo, I need love. So, yeah, Reggie's big combat sports fan likes to bite his sisters in his free time. That's what we got going on here.

What a magnificent creature. Thank you, Reggie Jackson, for being on the show. Listen, I'm hyped for this card. I think Brian is totally right about how Connell has to deliver and how kind of janky this fight could be because I was just looking back at the school cards. And 150, there was a 1-15, 113 in there, and 116, 112.

And like we're all saying, he had no business winning that fight. But this is boxing. Something super screwy could happen. So if Crawford fights a more effective version of that, I don't know. Man, split decision, majority decision. The crazy stuff happens all the time. So it kind of goes to what I was saying before. They're like, I hope that they put all the focus on this card.

I know, I know the whole ethos of, you know, Dana White getting into boxing is like, I'm going to bring, you know, sort of what made the UFC successful. So I imagine he'll want to have at least two other notable fights on the card, probably some other title fight. They'll work something. There's what, 9 million boxing titles out there. They can do some other title fight on the co-main. But I hope they don't overdo it.

I hope they don't try and get another big like, oh, you like another well-built few long-anticipated fight. I know it sounds stupid. I'm sure fans are like, well, the more great fights the marry. It's like, well, no, boxing, like I said, focus on this one. You have an incredible headliner. This one fight sells this card. A Legion Stadium is to be unbelievable.

I'm also incredibly curious how, is how the TKO and sort of the Turkey Al-Sheek models are going to work out. Because if Dana-Wite is going to, like, UFC up the boxing world, that means, you know, production-wise, they've been pretty minimal in the past. We just shout out to Verizon. We just saw Ryzen this weekend, too. And they did their usual just crazy, just beautiful entrances. We had Mark Coleman and Yuri Prohachka in their underwear or the sumo gear beating on drums.

It was fantastic. U.S.E. will never do anything like that. At the Times Square event, we had people coming out in like cool custom vehicles. Ryan Garcia came out on the Batmobile. And like, yeah, okay, you can roll your eyes, say this stuff's kind of stupid. But like that to me is sort of what has separated boxing and other combat sports promotions from the UFC is that they can kind of go that extra mile and have these big ass entrances. So I wonder how is this oil and water going to blend here? Because TKio has very much been about, or at least Dana White in general, very much been about like cost saving, very much been about, you know, let's put the money.

let's keep as much money in our pockets as possible. But for this first big event, I feel like they have to put a great foot forward. I just, I cannot have it looking like some glorified UFC show. I know that some fans are used to. I know there's a lot of, I know the idea is, think about all these sort of M.

Maine fans who have, you know, were used to be boxing fans and, and, you know, kind of departed the sport. But now they're back because they hear Dana White's got a brand, you know, TKO branded thing. And he's team up with this guy, this disruptor, Turkey Al-Sheek.

Oh, I have to tune back in. And maybe they won't be bothered by a lack of pompous circumstance and pyro and all that. But I really need to see that. I think that has to be part of TKO boxing's long-term sustainability is to not just be the UFC of boxing. As sexy as that may sound on paper, there's the potential to do something cool here. And maybe I'm setting myself up for a fall. Maybe I'm setting myself up for, you know, Canella Crawford just being a stink bomb. I'm setting myself up for the event

just being this flat sort of lifeless event it's entirely possible but I want to be optimistic we have a long time until September we have a long time to properly build up this fight fingers crossed everyone stays healthy everyone goes everything goes along as planned and yes it's it's it's easily watchable like on Netflix something like that

easily accessible to the fans I'm hopeful guys I'm hopeful I am not letting this weekend drag me down I'm hopeful I can't wait for the big reveal 9999 on his own pay-per-view for this fight. Oh, boy.

Oh, boy. Yeah, just do the thing, right? Make that money. That's what it's all about. But let's move on to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, because the UFC headed to Des Moines, Iowa this past weekend. A couple big things came out of that car. The point for round one goes to the captain of the scally cap.

Brian Campbell won nothing. Nicely done. Let the confetti fly. When I got a great deal on a great gift at winners, I started wondering, could I get fabulous gifts for everyone on my list? Like this designer fragrance for my daughter. At just $39.99. How could I resist?

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Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first, there, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. Yeah, let's close the book on UFC Des Moines, which was a card that happened. I mean, there was certainly some things that stood out, some early prelim finishes. Jeremy Stevens-Mason Jones is a lot of fun. But boy, this thing got sloggy at times, especially after that Stevens-Jones fight.

But then Daniel Rodriguez, to me, was the MVP of this card. He saved the day with the knockout of Santiago Ponsinibio. He was the spark that that crowd needed at that time. And luckily, at midnight 1 a.m., it carried over into the last two fights for sure. And there were two big storylines that came out of this card. And AK, I want to start with you. And I want to start with Corey Sandhagen because he beat the hell out of Davis and Viguerreto. This fight was not competitive.

Unfortunately, it ended in an injury. Figgie got Ryan hauled, which is never a good thing. But all in all, dominant showing from Corey Sanhagan and AK, this man wants one thing and one thing only. He wants a title shot. He wants the winner of the Marab de Wallis really versus Sean O'Malley rematch at UFC 316. Is that what he's going to get, AK? Did this performance give him that nod at 135 pounds?

He's going to get it. And Corey, I know you're going to be in Newark, but do not, as I say, do not accept the backup role. Oh, am I, you did? Oh, no, I was, I knew, no, I was setting you out. Oh, okay. It's building drama. No, no, no, no.

Okay, okay. I understand he will very likely be the backup. He has been saying he'll be in Newark, he'll be in Newark New Jersey, he plans to be there for that fight. I just, I feel like he deserves, there's that wonderful word in combat sports. I feel like he deserves a full camp. He deserves to build as the guy, not as a backup. He's done enough. I know detractors.

point to look at all his opportunities he had in the past like there's a reason he didn't get a tell the shot in the past i said this many times in the lead up to des moines aljohn al jrameen sterling tj delishap pierre yon umar and ramaamaadow all the four guys his only four ufc losses all guys that beat him and then their very next fight was for the um undisputed bantamway title so clearly he has been put in title eliminators before this one wasn't even officially a title Eliminator. I remember I wasn't thinking that the winner of the Des Moines main event would necessarily be guaranteed the number one spot. But seeing how Corey performed, thinking about how the landscape of the division has been shaping out recently. I think his post-fight work was really

his promo work. It was a bit short, but he doesn't try to do anything on the mic that he's not comfortable with. And I think that's a good thing. He's not going to do some crazy long like pro wrestling style call out of someone. It's just silly. He's being very realistic that they have this title fight coming up next month. He'll be ready to fight whoever emerges as the victor. Even if it's a tie, let's say there's so unfortunately a draw and Maraub pertains, I would hope they wouldn't run that back. I would hope you would just give Cori to his shot.

It just makes sense right now. It makes sense right now. Umar has to earn his shot back. I know he just beat Corric, but he has to earn his shot back. You're not running that one back anytime soon. Peir de Jan, yes. Love it. Would love to see Peyodor and Corey fight again.

Their first fight was amazing, one of my favorite fights of 2021. But again, we had Peyodor fight Merobe before. So Marab retains, I don't know if you can sell that now, even though Maraub has been calling to fight Piotr. I think he was like, I brought a fight Piotr next instead of Sean O'Malley's, but there we are. So I came out of Des Moines, like feeling really good for Corey San Hagan's chance to get a tell a shot.

I know it's never really this clean. I mean, we didn't think Sean O'Malley was going to get a rematch in the first place, but here it is. Take care of that business. Let's settle that. Let's move on. Even if O'Malley wins, please don't run that one back immediately. There's no one is asking for it.

If O'Malley pulls it off, knocks up Maraub, fantastic, boom. Corey Sanhagen gets an O'Malley fight. There's some heat there. They've been building that up for a while. And Morav should be happy to earn his shot back. I'm not sure he's loving these championship checks. I'm sure he's loving the attention. But is it too much to ask him to earn his shot back?

So, Corey, in my mind, you are the number one contender at 135 pounds. Yeah, I don't think you have to worry too much if Sean O'Malley wins the title. I don't think they're going to be calling Marab's number very quickly. It just kind of seems that way, just looking from the outside in. But BC to Corey Sanhagan, is he next? If you had the Mighty Pencil, is he fighting the winner of Marab versus O'Malley, too? He is. It's his time right now at 33 years old, considering he's had that sort of Bispingi and

run without that rock-hold cash in at the end where he's gotten so close to number one contendership and loses that big fight. one of them, of course, being that interim title opportunity against Peyodor Yan. So I know you could be saying, well, BC, what about Yan owns a recent victory over Corey? The Corey thing that helps him the most, I think, is that think about it. We're getting this Maraub-O-Malley rematch that people didn't necessarily want. It feels like a rematch that's maybe a little, not unnecessary, but a little quick. And it just so happened that way that your argument of who should have been anyway would have been either him or Peyote or Jan.

And I don't mean to twice in a row when we, hit the same sort of crossroads go sorry pio de yon but you want the opportunity to have fresh matchups and the best thing going for corey is that the two people fighting for the title in a rematch that people didn't necessarily overwhelmingly want is that he hasn't fought either of those guys so it's automatically a fresh matchup and yes even though you're going to make yon go back through another hurdle when he seems to be in the midst of his own rejuvenation and resurgence after he went hard as hell during that stretch of fighting one killer after another. I think because you have the opportunity to make Jan versus Umar in between

to create that next number one contender, well, now you're cooking because what if Sanhagen takes the title, you really setting up the idea of more fresh matchups in there. So let's go Corey Sanhagen. He did what he had to do. It turns out that Figgy came in ill. His team wanted them to pull out, but this ain't no injury loss. It was caused by Sanhagen. and he knew what he was doing.

I love in fight number two under Trevor Whitman, who he has become. I think he's using what has always been his calling card, the constant movement and variety, but using it in a more efficient and smart way, even smarter than before, that it's time for him. Let's see what he can do at the title level.

Let's get through 316 and let's give Sanhagen his chance. In the co-made of NBC, Rineer de Ritter, this guy is just a hoss in there. He's fun. He's a little reckless, but in the best possible way. Shades of DDP, as Jed says, and I think a lot of other people see that as well. RDR shows his experience, shows he's a beast. He's 3 in the UFC with three finishes.

There's been a lot of shine on him this week and much deserved. But I want to talk about the opponent. I want to talk about Bo Nicol because he's become a giant story coming on of this card. And people are dumping on him for this loss. While you have the other fighters, you have coaches defending Bo Nick. Maybe it was too much too soon. Biggest takeaway for you, BC, on the Boe-Nichael side. And I guess the more important question, where does Bo-Nickle go from here?

My biggest takeaway is I can't believe how many people aggressively turned on him so hard and did the whole fraud check thing. He was never good enough to begin with, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The reality is, were we, if I'm counting media and fan reaction as a whole, too harsh on Bo? We were. but it's not as if there wasn't fuel to get us there. I think there's a couple sins in MMA that fans just can't let go by, right? Apparently like racism and stuff like that, fans are very quick to just be like, yeah, when's your next fight?

But stuff like when they feel you're a fraud or they feel that you are, I guess in this case, what's the word I'm looking for for Bullnickle? Disillusion, delusional maybe, because after that very close fight with Paul Gregg in which he didn't lean on his strengths and shoot one time, and was in some ways lucky to get a close decision in a horrific striking match. He was way too confident afterwards. Like, yeah, I needed the experience. This is what I wanted to do.

I'm going to be fine. And when you mix that with his other comments over the past six months, I should be minus 1,000 when I face Hamzaa Chamaev. Or DDP, give him to me tomorrow. I guarantee you all finish him. It's not that we don't want confident fighters. But when that is married with somebody who's not all that active, for having super prospect status.

And he did have super prospect status. He had that golden boy image to him because of his amateur success. He got two showcase opportunities on the Dana White Contender series. And then given the ultimate setup with his first few opportunities in the UFC, where every single time it was like an event to come see this bright young prospect, including at UFC 300. I just think his lack of activity has had people maybe quietly questioning, does he have the passion? Does he have the right mindset, the right built-in fight IQ, the right everything?

And I think not only did he maybe expose that in this loss to people, I think even more. Look, us keyboard warriors, we're not in there taking the shots. So you always have to be careful at what you're questioning. But there were a lot of people who felt like Bo could have continued in that fight or could have at least responded better to the first absolutely legitimate sequences of, you know, vulnerability, of pushback, of being in trouble on the rope, so to speak. The way that he, quote, unquote, behaved, as Teddy Atlas likes to say, didn't seem so much like a fighter.

It didn't seem so much, of course, like this bright prospect. So when you break the fans' hearts in that regard, I guess I can understand them coming out with pitchforks. The reality is, though, we don't count losses in MMA against people as aggressively for a reason. There's so many ways to lose in this game. And you don't come into this game as a full. finished expert. You're constantly, constantly evolving and adding. So in reality, if he has that winner mentality, is Bo Nickel in position to still be just fine? Yeah,

there still is that potential for him. But there's two things he's got to do quickly. One, get active, get serious. Show us you have that passion to be great. Fight four times in one year. You know, improve incrementally the right way. And number two, within that improvement, show us that that striking game is anywhere as dangerous or even efficient as what he can do on the ground. This could be the ultimate wake-up call he needed badly. I think, I think in the long run, we're going to look back and say we were a little bit too aggressive against basically retiring him after this. But he also needed this wake-up call.

So things do happen for a reason. Mike, you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, times. You get exactly what you need. That's what this MF are needed. No, I think you make a great point. And here's my biggest concern, A.K., you know this. We talk about the middleweight division all the time. We matchmake for the middleweight division. And there are certain instances where the UFC matchmakers, who as a whole have done a pretty good job, like building up talent, they have dropped the ball on some people. And they have dropped the ball in some people in this division. Edmund Shabazzian is the most perfect example.

He's just lightened the world on fire. He's fighting the right opponents. And then they chuck them in there with stylistically the worst possible matchup. And then when it doesn't go well, the UFC says, well, if at first you don't succeed, let's try again. And let's throw him in there with another grappling dude who will just take him down. And then, you know what, AK, you know what they did again? They did it again. And they keep doing this.

And they keep, he'll get a win. And they'll do. You know, it would be a great idea we're trying to build him Mitchibati? Let's throw him in there with Gerald Mearshard. That's a terrific idea. A guy who doesn't get killed and can kill you on the ground. None of these things are working out very well. Let's throw them in there with Fluffy Hernandez.

Let's do that. My best friend, please. You're going in an Edmund rant again. We've talked about this. But again, they are in a position right now where they're at a fork on the road. What do they need to do to avoid Edmund Shabazzium part two? And I'm not saying like Edmund can't make his way back up. He's a talented guy.

He's at a great gym and he can get better and better. but it's going to take a long time for him to get back there. He's got a tough matcher. I think he's fighting Petrosky next, which is, boy, oh, boy, that ain't fun. But what do we do here? What's next for Bo Nicol? How would you matchmake for him? I was on on to the next one this past week, so I missed the way you may have laid this out if you were asked about it.

But how would you do it? This is like, Mike, this is like the last ranking show where we suddenly spent like 20 minutes talking about who was that PFL, lightweight? I did not expect an in-passioned Edmund rant, but I get it, I understand. Yes, we don't want to go down that path. As Brian was talking, I was suddenly thinking to myself like, this is something I actually didn't explore on onto the next one. I actually haven't thought about it since until just now.

What would happen if Bowhead won? I'm trying to think what happened if Bow had won. Obviously, if he had won an impressive fashion, let's say knocked RDR out or let's say his wrestling was effective enough and he was able to do work in that. the ground, get a TKO, or I mean, imagine if you'd submitted RDR, incredibly unlikely. But let's say he'd gotten a finish somehow or won an impressive fashion. Then that's great. You know, onward upward, give him a top five opponent, next was fast track him to a title.

What would have happened if it had been another like Paul Craig performance? That's my question. What if he had like done just enough to win? I have to think in the long run that that would be more harmful than what we had just seen. Winning is great, of course. I'm sure people are thinking it's never bad to win. I'm like, it kind of is. If anything, I would also say that Paul Craig win.

Like the way that played out, the way he sort of reacted to it, he doesn't need to be apologetic for winning. You know, he won a unanimous decision. He stayed undefeated when he beat Paul Craig. But he was a little defensive. He was a little like, well, I felt like executed, you know, sort of the game plan I wanted to. And I showed I'm more than just to grapple. I stood with this guy for 15 minutes and I won this fight. It wasn't great.

It wasn't great. And there was shaky moments in the Cody Brundage fight before that too. So this is one case where these wins really might have, if not hurt him, certainly not helped him in the short term. Now, what happened on Saturday with Reiner de Ritter? It has to help. It has to help. If he's the guy who he says he is, if he's the guy who we think he is that he's been hyped up to be,

then the old adage of you learn so much more from your losses than your wins, it could never be more applicable because just watching alive, you could see, boy, he's going to learn a lot from getting swept there. Boy, he's going to learn a lot from not being able to get that take down

situation. He's going to learn a lot from getting lit up with the striking. He's going to learn a lot from taking those knees to the body. Sucks to lose. Sucks to get hurt.

Sucks to have people say, oh, he quit. Oh, he was exposed, fraud check, hype train derailed. Every cliche you could see in the book written out. But again, this is a guy

who was a three-time NCAA wrestling champion. I'm not super familiar with his amateur career, but I have to believe there were bumps along the way, right? Before he became Bo Nicol, the dominant college wrestler, there must have been bumps along the way. He has to find that guy again. He has to channel that guy, that person who struggles.

Be that guy again, and then take his prodigious gifts, add that motivation, get back in the gym, stay active, please stay active. If Bo disappears for a year after this, it's a wrap. It's a rap. I don't want to hear, oh, he's taking, he's doing the right thing. He's taking the time off after suffering his first loss to go back and really like tool. I'm sorry, man.

He might have to take another loss in the near future, right? Like this might be the stages career where we really learn if he's actually a fighter. We talk all the time about martial arts versus fighters. You have great martial artists. You have some people who are both. You have some people who are just martial artists or just wrestlers. And when it actually gets no fight, someone's beating the shit out of you, you got to find that fighter.

otherwise, yeah, you're going to get out of there. I'm not saying he quit, but I'm saying he didn't like getting hit. No, but most people don't. And he might be closer to most people in that regard than, you know, the guys we think of as high-level elite fighters. So please, Bo, yes, at Bryan's main point, stay active. Jed's been saying a lot to evolve and say it. Stay active, get back in there.

You could lose your next fight. And guess what? That's not the end for you, Bo. So talented, still young, under 30, in a division where I think he has plenty of room to grow that's always going to need fresh challengers. So overall, net positive. I know that's my whole theme this week. I think every week.

Net positive had to take this loss. I think he should be, and the long one will be glad to happen, and then he didn't just like eke out another decision because that might have been, I don't know what that would have done for his actual championship hopes. Yeah, he needs to Kevin Holland this shit,

just fight every six weeks at this point. He can lose again. Losing is okay. It's fine. Totally fine. Kevin Holland's making a bag and he doesn't win every fight that he has. So being active is how you get over in the sport.

That's how you gain fans. So we'll see what happens with Booneckle and we'll see what happens in Montreal. That's where we're heading right now, not literally. UFC 315 coming up on Saturday. Point for round two goes to Charles Racky's least favorite journalist, Alexander K. Lee,

because he's Canadian. Yay. He's got to get some revenge for the good old US of A. No, look at that. Look at that. Wow. Number one, dad. And it matches the scally and everything.

But yes, as we mentioned, UFC 315 coming up, a little over 48 hours time in Montreal. BC, we're going to get to the title fights and some other standout things in a moment. But I don't know what it is about these Canada pay-per-views, man, but they don't get a lot of buzz. Because 297 was bad on paper. It was worse than execution. UFC 289 wasn't awful in execution, but it certainly was not a compelling card on paper outside of Charles Olivera versus B'Neal D'Aroesh.

And now we have UFC 315, which is a pretty good card, honestly, but I've been saying for weeks now, this is going to be a pretty good card that nobody will watch. This is the UFC 206 of 2025, where it's sandwiched in between other big events. And our own Damon Martin screenshot at a photo of ticket sales earlier this week,

which is not what we usually see in terms of all the blue colors that are migrating throughout this photo. And I looked at Russell Ticks on Twitter yesterday. They're very good at talking about attendance. Arena is set up for 19,846. 17,953 tickets have been sold. 1,101 of those tickets are already up for resale. Fans are like, nah, I'm outy.

I'm selling these right back. 18993 tickets untouched plus the buzz for this one BC where's the juice on this card and why has the buzz been so not a thing well it's it's timing it's where we are right now it's also the fact and I saw other people making this argument compellingly on the old Twitter that you know it's NHL playoff season and you're coming

to a place that you inexplicably haven't been in 2015 even though Montreal notedly one of of the best fight cities in this entire planet. And you're bringing a decently deep card, but in a lot of ways, a hardcore card. And also in the top four, the top two fights, the two title fights, the four competitors, none of them Canadian.

So you're doing a couple things here against the grain, but when I mentioned timing is, look, this extended victory lap of TKO going, we beat the game, we got a TV set up that is built upon filling out content spaces and not worrying about numbers. It's why we don't spend money anymore to promote. Oh yeah, we pretty much don't care about building stars anymore on top of that. And we might be holding our best stuff for wherever these TV negotiations go,

especially if they sign with Netflix and need to come out with some big ticket bangers right away. They have no motivation under this current system to do the type of BTBs. I just created that. Get used to it. It's called big ticket bangers. It's the type of thing where you put a can't miss fight in the main event or a can't miss fighter who is on a certain arc with a certain story and you bring it to a hungry market and you load the undercard with locals. Do we have locals on the undercard? Yes, but they don't have that one automatic cook. So when I say timing right now, even though TKO is still not only won the war, I mean they're dominating every inch of it, They are starting to hear from the customers. And it's not in ways they care about, meaning media complaining or people tweeting. It's this. Maybe the UFC London car was a major turning point where people of the most hardcore variety were like, yeah, you're coming back tripling or 10xing the prices from the last time you were here. Only it's a worst card in general.

Look, I'm a hardcore fight fan as much as people like to label me a casual. I really like a lot of these fights. Women's MMA right now could not be less interesting in totality. Yet I'm all in on the co-main event. I'm all in on the multiple other women's flyweight bouts that will dictate the future and maybe the only women's division in the UFC that has depth, that has storylines and stuff like that going on. Yet that is not enough for casual fan in Montreal who loves the UFC

because you're not getting Connor or Max or Porriere or to Pori or to Pori or. or whomever. You're getting some very good fighters. I've come around on Belal. I'm remembering the net name for life. But you get what you, you know, you reap what you sow is really where I was trying to go right there. And UFC has been so shamelessly, blatantly,

extracting every possible scent from this sport in industry that they monopolistically control, put out an inferior product, increasingly, there has to be an end to that, a turning point. I think we've started to see that. By the way, just a heads up, if you try and announce Aspernel versus Gone for the interim title for IFW under any circumstances, I feel like that might actually be the bridge too far. We have not hit the bridge too far yet, but I'm actually kind of happy even though I almost never cheer against the success of these combat sports. Why? Because I feed my kids on the

success of these combat sports. But I do want to see a scenario where the audio, where the audience actually has a voice. Because whether you read the MMA draw, which is great, MMA fighting, or whoever you read in this sport right now, I hope you do realize at the end of the day that the people buying the tickets

are not the UFC's real customers. The real customers are the cities that they get these government contracts from and the big TV money and stupid sponsorship money and whatever the newest V-chain is. The actual paying customers that used to be the lifeblood

that booed, that buoyed the UFC, they don't serve anymore. So I'm not surprised, I guess, that we're seeing this. It's actually in a way kind of refreshing because you should get what you pay for. The fighters should be paid what they're worth when the company is doing record year over year financials. There has to be some penalty for shamelessly putting out an inferior product and then charging three to five times X on what it costs. We're finally seeing that. Yeah.

All we ask is for you to try. Just try and we'll be okay. But AK, you are the Prince of Positivity, ran down some ticket numbers. Interesting email I got earlier today from a gambling site. I'm not going to mention them, but they spoke to industry experts and not that we'll ever get pay-per-view numbers. But if they were to set a betting line on pay-per-view buys for UFC 315, the over-under, and I kid you not, is set at 60,000. 60,000 for a UFC pay-per-view.

Not 600, not 100,000, 60,000. I thought you could say 50. Yeah. How do you explain the buzz here? Like when you go to your pickup basketball games and you start just draining threes over fools, are you telling them with your trash talk? Are you watching UFC 315, bro?

Are you watching? And are they saying yes? And then I go like, Balal, and then I hit a jumper. Yeah. I should try that on one day. So here's the thing. I'm going to start a fight. Mike, I'm going to start a fight.

Not with BC, really, probably with just like America in general. Here's what you got to know about Canada. And I won't speak for, I won't speak for much, I won't speak for Quebec. I'm not, I don't, I won't represent that area. But Canada in general, we don't put up with a lot of bullshit up here. Some people may disagree. You know, we just had a recent election. So, you know, the political situation appears a bit murkly.

It's a bit tense at the moment. But I think in general, most Canadians would agree. We don't put up with bullshit or we don't like to put up with bullshit. And that is kind of what the UFC is putting out there right now, right? So we're going back to Montreal for first time in 10 years. Guys, this isn't Des Moines. This isn't Kansas City. This isn't Louisville.

This isn't Seattle or whatever. Where do they go, Nashville? Where do they ever go recently? Some of the Fight Night Road shows, okay? We don't just suck up to the UFC brand here. This is the house that GSP built. We know what a star looks like. It's been a while they've been here.

The last time they went to Montreal, they did not sell out. This was the infamous, like a UFC 186 event that was supposed to have two title fights, which I think even if the other one had stayed on, T.J. Dillishaw had on Barow, like that was supposed to be the main event, fell through. And then Johnson and Horvucci became the main event, the Flyway Championship main event. Even if those fights had both been on, it probably still doesn't do a monster number. I'm just looking here at Wikipedia. Attendance, 10,000.

Bell Center, I don't know if they did renovations, but I'm pretty sure even back then, it housed well over 10,000. Right now it says it's 20,000 seat arena. I don't know if they added seats, but I know even back then it was certainly more than 10,000. So did not sell up, did not come close to selling out for the last time the came to Montreal.

Buy rate was good, bar rate was 125,000, but this was a different pay-per-view era for the ERC for sure. I mean, they were still doing a lot of shows back then, but I think this was, oh, 2015, certainly less fight nights. There was certainly still some scarcity, to UFC events. So 125 back then was like a really bad number. Now 125 was like a good number.

125 back then was like a bad number. So it was not an in-demand show. And this one, as Brian so pointed out so well, like we would like to have some Canadian star power on there. Like it doesn't have to be. Or again, you have like a short, I can't miss name up there, like a John Jones or something like that. And we're not really getting either with respect to Belmontina Shepchenko.

They're not huge stars. The highest billed Canadian, is Aman Zahabi. And he's doing great, rising up the ranks, a good, big fight with Jose Aaldo. But he's not a household name up here in Canada. He's not a huge star in Canada. When you think the name's a hobby, most people would just think of his brother. They would think of Farras Zahabee, of course, in his relationship with GSP.

And then it all just leads back to GSP. So Aman, unfortunately, is being asked to carry this burden of being the highest ranked Canadian. I'm sure he's happy about it. But I would imagine very few are buying tickets or, you know, pre-ordering the pay-per-view for Amon's a hobby or any of the other Canadians on this card. So I have to say like it's not just the chickens come tories. It's not just the over saturation that we've had of cards. This could have like this event could have sold out.

Like you just needed the right storyline at the top. You need the right billing at the top. I think Balal Shafcott would have done better. Again, it's still probably not going to be a massive sellout, but it would have done better. People know that this is that JDM as deserving as he is of a shot is not the number contender. It is Shavkat. Shafkat was injured. And, you know, the UFC schedules these fights to events, not the other way around, right? They don't build events around fights. They build fights around events, if that makes sense, right? So they needed the main event.

Bala was ready to defend. Jack Della Madelaine is healthy. The dome in there. And Valentina Manofero, a fight that they could have made a long time ago, they're just, oh, well, this is the one we're going to plop it down on. It's just, it's not the stuff that dreams are made up. It's not the stuff that highly anticipated fight weekends are made of. So I'm not surprised at all that we are seeing potentially poor ticket sales. I wonder how much walk-up traffic they're going to have, probably not that much either. So as a fan base, yeah, we should be disappointed.

Like, this should be such a fun, a triumphant return to what was a very big and important market for the UFC during its rise in the 2000s. Like, make no mistake. Like Canada, you know, Toronto, Montreal, whatever, is not just a place that they visited because, oh, you know, we're just, we're like dabbling. We would just want to expand internationally. These were crucial sites.

when the UFC was coming up, you know, well before, again, the Endeavour era and all the stuff. Like, these are crucial sites because you had GSP, but because you had this grassroots, um, uh, fighters coming up, because you had such a passionate fan base. I hope we still get to see some of that on, uh, on Saturday. I hope that the, uh, the fans who do show up are just blowing that roof off with the noise. But part of me is a little concerned that there'll be like our, um, you know, our worst fears will be realized. And you'll get just very flat looking card. and an event that we won't be talking about

after except for, of course, the implications of the results of the main event, which I guess we'll, I assume we'll talk about more soon. Yes, and for time purposes, we're going to move on to round four where we're going to talk about the two big fights. So the point for round three goes to

a, okay, just drama. I'm going to start a fight right now. I'm going to start a fight, and then just a man of positivity. I love St. Louis and Kansas City and all those places. I'm not, I'm nothing. against the great state of Missouri, for the record. I don't know why I had to sing all those ways. And Des Moines.

Of course, yes. Welcome aboard Air Canada. Rocky's vacation, here we come. Whoa, is this economy? Free beer, wine, and snacks. Sweet. Fast free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land. And with live TV, I'm not missing the game.

It's kind of like I'm already on vacation. Nice. Air Canada. Nice travels. Wi-Fi available to AeroPlan members on equipped flights sponsored by Bell. Conditions apply. See Air Canada.com. So, main event is Blah Mohamed versus Jack Della Madelana.

And both guys haven't lost a fight in a very long time. JDM gets his chance, maybe not the most quote-unquote deserved chance, but still compelling after the Gilbert Burns win. But what's interesting, AK, and I want to go back to you, the biggest storyline in this fight is not the fight itself. Like you said, it's the aftermath. If Bilal wins, Islam Makachaf stays at lightweight, probably, as champ for a little while longer. And if JDM wins, does Islam move up? And it seems like UFC 317 is such a big focal point for fans right now that it almost has overtaken the entire fight, the entire main event. So because of what we're talking about, Buzz, AK, are you surprised that the UFC has not leaned into this storyline more?

because I think if they had done this, if they pushed it like this, hey, you want to know what the International Flight Week main event's going to be? You're going to have to watch this fight and see, maybe have Islam go out there. Who the hell knows? I don't know if he can or not,

but you could have moved around this a little bit more and made this more of a focal point because that's what everyone's talking about. So that and also, what is the more interesting world to live in? A Bilal Muhammad title retain and things staying how they are or JDM winning

and Islam moving up and lightweight gets turned upside down a bit. Oh, I personally, I want to see Ballol retain and, you know, Rada Lough, 3, 4, 5 straight title defenses. That's what I want to see personally. Is it more interesting? No, no, no, no.

No, no. That's not, that's, I'm a boring person. I want the boring result. The more interesting thing is, yes, a crazy upset. Just by the nature, just JDM becoming champion would be pretty mind-blowing. And then, of course, yes, the implication like, oh, now is Islam going to come up? What does this mean for Ilya?

Does Aal now fight someone for a vacant title? Does Bilal now consider moving up to 185? He's been saying, oh, I could so easily beat Drixuplusi. It could create this really quick shift of all these kind of named fighters just suddenly changing divisions and creating this weird fresh, like, I would hesitate to say super fights, but I guess by definition of like, oh, someone who was a star or champion in one division fighting a champion in the division. But you guys get what I'm saying. I'm not, I'm kind of not surprised that the UFC hasn't leaned into trying to build up these storylines. probably because one, as we know, the UFC is not that transparent with these things. They also suck at building storylines.

And thirdly, you don't want to make, I think, even any sort of unwritten promises to people, right? Like you don't want to tell Islam, oh, you're definitely getting the title shot if you beat. Like they are not in the business of guaranteeing things. It does not benefit the UFC to guarantee anything to its fighters, right? So I think I feel like there's been unspoken, you know, implications. I think there's been maybe, maybe, you know, some casual. individual conversations, but I don't think they want anyone officially saying if this sequence of events happens, this can be locked in, this is going to be locked in. They don't do that.

The UFC does not do that. And it is ironic, my best friend, Mike, it is ironic that we've had boxing actually, just to bring it full circle. We had boxing that was doing the, oh, these are the fights we're building up to. This is going to go this way, this is going to go this way. And then, boom, don't worry. We're going to get the Haney Garcia rematch. Both guys are going to be coming off wins. Connell is going to come off an dominant form to school. And then he's going to go. going to buy Crawford. So they kind of switched places. And frankly, again, neither, I don't think either sport is or either combat sport is wearing that cloth quite comfortably. But yeah, it doesn't surprise me they haven't. And I'm actually very curious, like if we even get that kind of intrigue,

should a JDM win, because yet, nothing is guaranteed. So I am, I'm hoping for stability. I actually think stability is the best thing. But for fans out there, I get it who have been kind of maybe a little bit bored with the first, first few months of the UFC in 2025. I totally understand the need to see stuff just get shaken the F up and set up at least like two or three possibly exciting title matches for the second half of the year. But the UFC, I don't know, man. I don't know.

I think they might have hurt themselves, though, yeah, with just saying, oh, we're waiting, we're waiting, we're waiting, we're waiting, we're waiting. Because fans don't like to wait. Fans do not like to wait. at me. BC, you're shaking your head. And I'm not even saying like the UFC needs to be like, hey, buy this pay-per-view to see where Islam Makachov's going to fight next. But even just a little clip of Dana being asked at a press conference, hey, does the main event result matter here? And he just does that little shit-eating grin. We'll see what happens in that little like, hey, I got something, but I'm not telling you kind of thing. So, but what's the more

interesting world, BC? Isla or Bala al-L retaining or J-DM pulling off a pretty big upset and shaking up a couple of divisions, honestly. Well, that's the crazy thing, the spot that they put the fans in, right? Like, I like Balal Muhammad. I was wrong on him the whole rise. I respect so much about his journey, him pushing to walk out with his own people's flag. Like, there's a lot of good that come out of Bilal, even if he's not the most exciting ever. But they're putting fans.

You know, I interviewed Balal this, you know, in the past week and saw the vitriol, the comments of people that just seem to hate him for whatever their reason is. They're putting you in a position to cheer for him to win, by the way. in my opinion, if you want the fights that truly matter, because if Balal wins and him and Islam hold firm to what we've heard is them not wanting to fight each other due to the friendship of Habib, Habib having mentored and trained Balal at time separate from his own camp, then isn't that the path for us to get to Ilya versus Islam,

the biggest fight you can make in the sport and the best right now? I mean, the fact that we are here in 2025, where UFC has this level of dominance and control over the, the entire industry, not to mention their own roster, where Dana had every turn is still criticizing boxing for going out of business sale every time and you never get the fights that you want, buy the blah, blah, blah. UFC has become boxing so quickly that it's disgusting. And the biggest part of that is not being a slam dunk that they would make the fights that

they built their whole reputation on, the slam dunk fights. I mean, we really have to go through a very small list of the fights we deserve to. as UFC fans over history and didn't get, right? It's like Randy and Fador, but we understand why to some degree. UFC was never going to do a co-partnership with M1 Global. Okay. GSP versus Anderson Silva, I mean, it would have been nice, but it wasn't as if it was like the only thing left.

These two fights, meaning, in my opinion, Elya versus Islam, when you have a window to make number one versus two in the same division, and they do, and of course, Jones Aspinall, we got potential right now to go through the, calendar year without them. I mean, let's not forget a year ago ahead of USC 300. It felt like the promotion had no plan for the main event. And they were just getting closer going,

oh, what do we do? I don't think Connor's ready. Ah, well, we'll call, uh, Poetan. He'll fix it. Well, he fixed it like three times for them last year. I felt like we had that same thing about the sphere. The sphere's coming. What are they going to put on there?

Is it going to be Connor? No, I mean, it's still good fights. But I think you're getting my point here. The fact that we're left to deduce that we would have to in some circles if you like Islam versus Ili as much as me and again, why would you not want the two best fighters in the sport,

two of the biggest brands to go against each other and find out who's the best? Like, you're going to get that chance to get that this year but you got to specifically chair for one outcome for it to happen. No, UFC, clean up your own house, be in control. I don't like the history of how they've controlled the fighters with the draconian contracts

and with, you know, the heavy-handed ways in which they negotiate and all the tricks they do like going public with fights that aren't even signed. But they still have that ability. So make the freaking fights that the fans deserve. Not as you guys eloquently said, and I agree, lay out the schedule and then try to figure out which square pegs and round holes will work together just to passably put off a pay-per-view card.

How about you get back to doing what we call you the greatest promotion? in the history of combat sports. It shouldn't matter what's going on Saturday night between JDM and Bilal. A fine matchup, by the way, but it shouldn't matter. That shouldn't dictate whether we get a fight we really want or not. But this is where we're at. It doesn't feel like anyone's in control of the wheel. Actually, it does.

It feels like TKO is in control of the wheel trying to get as much value in their own pockets as they possibly can out of this sport. It doesn't feel like Dana anymore has the power. or the leverage or the vested interest to be the Dana of old. So yeah, I guess we're going to have to tune into this main event on Saturday. And depending on what you want in the future, you got to cheer for that man to win. What are we doing here? What the frick are we doing here in 2025?

I mean, it's less than two months out from your biggest card of the year, a celebration of the sport, a Hall of Fame, a fan fest. We should be getting Connor or Elia versus Islam or something that we can't freaking miss. You might get that if you're sure for Bwall on Saturday. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. Well, I mean, maybe

we could take some pressure off those two main eventers. El Hormegero, which is a, apparently a very popular show. It's got millions of followers in social media. They will be welcoming in Ilya on their program

tonight where they are teasing that details for his June 28th fight will be revealed. So perhaps he announces like Dustin Porre did on Pat McAfee. Maybe that's how the UFC's doing things now. Or perhaps we get the wolf tickets where it's like, yeah, I'm fighting for a belt against two. Oh, I can't say. You'll have to watch UFC 315 to find out. It depends if it'll all wins, guys.

Oh, God. Co-made event, BC. You mentioned it Valencia Shepchenko versus Man and Fioro for the women's flyway title. Manifioro is just oozing confidence right now. I spoke with her earlier this week. She doesn't feel like Valentina is the same Valentina. She feels like she's ripe for the picking, essentially. But at least she gets her opportunity now. People thought Zhang Wei Li might jump her in terms of getting to the title shot. I was one of those folks, but she plays the waiting game and it paid off. So real quick, biggest question you have in this fight between Shepchenko and Fioro? It's interesting. I mean, it's interesting to see Valentina as the underdog, even though she is 37 years old, just because of what she did in the

last two-thirds of that Grasso rivalry. But the biggest question that I ultimately want to see, as much as it is, does Val still have it to take off yet another absolutely on-fire contender, who, by the way, has gone through so many former title contenders, title challengers, or champions to get where she is, right? Like just the last two of Rosnamu Yunus and then what she did to Aaron Blanchfield was eye-opening. But I want to see if Mano Othierro really has the complete game to back up the odds that have. have her firmly or, you know, as comfortably as the betting favorite. And it's not that we don't already know the game that she brings into the, I mean,

look, her take down defense was incredible against Aaron Blanchfield and allowed her to pick Aunt Blanchfield apart like a pinata. The difference maybe is that Blanchfield doesn't move her head and is more of a one-dimensional fighter, whereas Valentina has that complete game. But Faroe is going to have to show us here that it's not just the takedown defense. It's not just the ability to, you know, efficiently spam with hard. shots and in the way that she controls the terms of the striking. She's going to have to be great everywhere in the clinch and all of the areas where Valentina

can pull on those veteran tricks and that great experience and the fact, even though it's an overplayed narrative, it's so freaking true. This is her life, mixed martial arts, all right, whether she's training on a boat or down in El Paso randomly or back in Montreal with the Yonah champion. Valentina is living the life. Somehow she's getting better with age. Is she the same fighter as three years ago? No.

But the competition around her has gotten better in this division, and she's still the champion at age 37. So that says a lot. I want to see Manal not just win it as the betting favorite on paper, but go in there and seize the title from the champion with no doubt. Show us your greatness in this only division with legitimate depth of what's left of women's MMA and the UFC. That's what I want to see because I got questions.

I still feel like she's too one-dimensional. man, has that dimension been dominant up to this point? Maybe outside a couple moments against Rose where she was kind of challenged. I want to see a real challenge and I want to see Monroe swim and come out and show us that 35 or not, she's here and she may be here for a while. Yeah, she, that face off the UFC shared of them,

like somewhere in Montreal, man looks like a friggin' featherweight compared to Valentina Shofchenko. She looks huge. But biggest question you have about this fight, AK, is about the physicality and if Valentina can take it at 37 because Manon is going to be a Haasen there. I wonder, I'm a little worried about complacency. Now, Brian's kind of pointed out that that is not what we know of

Valentin Zerjcchenko. We have never, I think what has made her such a consistently great champion is we do not think of her as someone that would look past any opponent. We don't think that's what went wrong in the first grasshole fight. I don't think she, I don't see why she would do with Manaw. I especially since Manaw has been very much so the number one contender for the last like, what, 18 months, something like that? Like, you know, if it wasn't for that draw with Grasso and the rematch,

Valencia Manon would have fought already. So I don't think she'll overlook her. But I also think at this age, it's hard not to just lose a little bit of that edge, that mental edge, right? Looking ahead to maybe again, how many fights do I have before I retire? She's never talked about it. A lot of fighters her age, they get that interviews all the time. Not really something that's called up with her.

There is the looming Zhang Wei question. I still want to see Zhang defend her title at 115, but a lot of fans have kind of, you know, they don't care about the Vino-Jean-Jorov fight. They just want to see Zhang go up. They want to see Aaron Chivchenko fight. Like, it would feel like if they never fought, that something would be lost.

You know, it feels like these two have to fight at some point in their careers, preferably both of them having titles, right? You won it the most hype way possible, not like further down the road. I'm fine either way, but I'm not dumb. I understand the appeal of a champion versus champion fight. Is Valentina thinking about that? Because she cannot, again,

she cannot have the slightest slip against, Menlo. Like, I know Menlo, to the casual fan, maybe not that well known. Maybe not exactly a highlight reel of, you know, of knockdowns, of like putting her opponents in danger. That's fine. But she's super solid. She has made some very good fighters look pretty mediocre against her. Again, the Aaron Blanchville fight. Aaron Blanchville was so hyped and Manon just handled her. I mean, just straight up just handled her. Again, probably a size thing, maturity thing. That shouldn't be as much of an issue against Valentina. Yeah, the size, but Valentina is so strong. And, you know, she fought. I feel like she's, she knows how to navigate that sort of thing.

But yes, back to my original point, complacency. Is there even the slightest chance that Valentina is looking past Manor? I have to think that's one of the reasons why she's an underdog, because when I saw it at the beginning of the week that Valentina was at plus money, I was very surprised. Valentina by decision is like two to one, which is extremely confusing to me. So I am picking Valentina all the way. I am just, but I'm one, I'm terrible at picking fights.

So the way I would see it playing off by now is, Like, we see that Val is just a step slow for whatever reason, just seems a little bit off. And I would have to think it's more of a mental thing than a physical thing. So if that's the case, it would be, again, unlike anything we've seen in Valentina's career, but that's the thing with the MA, that's the thing with combat sports. Every fight is the chance to, like, see something we've never seen before. And sometimes not in a good way.

So picking Valentina, but again, let's not be surprised if we're here and new on Saturday. It's going to be an interesting fight. All right. We don't need the pomp and circumstance for time purposes. This is BC gets the point. It's two to two. There you go. Thank you.

So we're going to go to the knockout round. Same question for both gentlemen. One minute will decide it for each individual. That includes you, Brian Campbell. One minute means one minute. A.K., you are the home team here. What are we doing here? You want to go first or do you want to pass over to BC?

Like, put the number on the screen. Casey, put the number on the screen. Come on. Let's go. Let's go, Mike. All right. One minute on the clock. AK.

We're saving, we're just going to throw this question out right now. What is the low-key banger for UFC 315? Go. I'm going to go. I should say Nadi Ice and Alexa Grasso, but I'm not going to go there. I'm going to go with what could be either the best fight on the card or could be a truly, truly, truly, truly terrible fight. Mark Andre Bakio and Bruno Silva, going back to gambling for saying, if you guys have seen

some of the odds, some of the props to this fight, I am telling you, it's one of those fights, people do not know what's going to happen. Mark Andre on a three-fight losing streak, uh, Blendado Silva on a four-fight losing streak. This is a loser-leased town match. So again, you could have either guy just going for broke, going for that big finish, looking to not just save their jobs, but also prove like, hey, I had a streak of bad luck, but I'm not out of it. I can still be a top 20 middleweight or, or get middle-weighty real fast.

But again, both guys looking to preserve the UFC careers and not like a staring contest, but neither guy really committing to anything big. But I'm intrigued. I've had this sort of markdown. I think since this fight was announced, like I think it's perfect matchmaking. And I am rooting for someone to get a knockout. But if it goes the other way and turns into like trash,

I'm kind of going to plot that too. So there you go. There's your low key, uh, anger, quote unquote, banger definition may vary. Salesmanship 101 from the great AK. BC, what's the low key banger? What's your favorite fight on the card that's not getting the attention? One minute on the clock and go.

Well, you know, shout out to AK. He mentioned it right there. Alexa Grasso against Natalia Silva is a hell of a matchup, especially right now atop this deep 125 pound division. And especially with the target so aggressively on the 31-year-old Grosso's back that like this could be somehow her last chance at the elite. Look, I saw a lot of people basically dumbfoundedly, but come out and say, look, she may have lost it already.

What does she, the decline that she showed in the second and third, Shevchenko fights, according to people. I don't see it as aggressively. Look, Shevchenko beat her with somewhat basic stuff in the third fight, but that's also a great fighter through a prolonged rivalry, figuring out, leaning on those strengths and getting it done. And I think the performance of Grasso has people doubting whether Valentina's still it. That's why she's the betting underdog out under here.

And to see Grasso at the, the underdog against a streaking Silva who, yes, is won all six of her UFC fights. Yes, is one 12 in a row. Yes, is a great fighter. But not a finisher has not really beaten someone exactly on this level. I think it's crazy that Grasso is an underdog and being counted out when this crossroads fight will probably determine who fights for the title after the main, the co-main event. All right. Nicely done.

It was like 85 seconds. You got it. You got it. That's pretty good. Yeah. The over under was a minute 45 and you just smash the under. So get your votes at everybody. Is it BC?

Is it AK? Which set of initials get it done? You decide. Lots of stuff happening, obviously, this weekend. We'll preview show tomorrow. Get you ready for UFC 315. Saturday, People's Prefight show. We'll have the watch party.

Jed will be here in Command Center 4.0. We'll watch all the magic unfold. Jose is in Montreal, boots on the ground, so you get all the post-fight interviews and such. We get the press conference later on today, AK and all the way in fun tomorrow. I mean, just content galore, AK and I on to the next one on Sunday.

We'll be live on the YouTube channel getting after it, post-fight show. And then on Munn, well, actually, later on Sunday, a little journey will be taken. An airplane will be hopped on, and we're doing some traveling to bring you something absolutely frigging outstanding. I will leave the details.

for later. It may or may not involve golf clubs. All right. All right. It probably will. The end of Tiger Woods's marriage involved golf clubs just for the record. Oh, my. Too soon.

Too soon. I don't know if you guys are ready. I don't know if you guys are ready for what's going to happen. I'll just leave it at that. So Casey is here. He's got no sleeves on. And that can only mean one thing that he's probably going to work out. But maybe it means two things.

We have a winner. Who is it? Your winner today with over two thirds of the votes. 68%. 68%. Your winner is the beautiful Brian Campbell. Oh, BC gets it done. What a glorious return.

BC. Thank you. Yes. Take the floor. It's all yours. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to this platform below the line.

Thank you to my opponent, A.K. Lee. And I just want to say, I was on here once, and I asked E.K.C. Liden, if he's willing to get in that bare-knuckle pit circle against one Oscar Willis. And he said yes. And I'm going to hold him to that while I'm here. Thank you.

Wow. Wow. Dave Feldman. He's just waiting for the contract. He's just waiting for the contract. He's been saying it for months. He's ready. Thank you.

Thank you. It was great to be here, guys. All right? The total package is back in your face, all right? BC putting A.K. in the verbal torture rack, AK, your response. Other side. Nothing. I just need to hold on. Get a little. No, I'm not hot. Oh, I've got a weird. There it is. There it is. It's okay. It's okay. A little record. It's okay. A little record. It's okay. Sorry. Sorry. Hold on. Hold on. But Kate just... Oh, you ate it. You don't have to worry about that again. Oh, man.

All right, Casey, you can hit the music. Got to get on out of here. Appreciate you all watching, especially since we had to shift this to start time 90 minutes. Thank you to BC. Thank you to AC. Thank you to Casey. Thank you to the iconic voice of Esther Lynn, who's going to take you home at the tail end of this episode.

You guys are all the best. We're back next week to recap UFC 315. and much more. Until then, everybody, be nice to each other. See you next week right here on Between the Links. Good night, everybody.

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