MMA Fighting - BTL | Ngannou To PFL, Dana White Announces Big UFC Fights, Conor McGregor Doc

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

Francis Ngannou ended his MMA free agency as the former UFC heavyweight champion signed a new deal with the PFL. While there are still more questions that need to be answered, it appears this move has the potential to be a game changer for the sport. On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel reacts to Ngannou's next move, and discuss things from different angles, including some of the remaining questions we have. Additionally, topics include Dana White announcing a bunch of big fights for the upcoming UFC 291 and UFC 292 events — including Dustin Poirier vs. Justin Gaethje 2 for the vacant BMF title in Salt Lake City — Saturday's UFC Vegas 73 card headlined by Mackenzie Dern vs. Angela Hill, the new 'McGregor Forever' documentary series on Netflix featuring Conor McGregor, and more. Host Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew and José Youngs. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs 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 reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

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

in this follow-up to the audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now only from Audible. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is Between the Links. And now, your host, my...

The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand, new edition of BTL. Thank you for joining us on this Thursday, wherever you are watching or listening. It's great to have you here. A lot of stuff going on in the world of mixed martial arts. Some big news dropped from multiple promotions throughout the week. We have fights this weekend.

We had a new documentary series that just dropped featuring the biggest star in the history of the sports. A lot to get to. So let us introduce the contestants first. Let me introduce a man who has logged more travel miles for MMA fighting. over the past few years, and I could even fathom. He's the brains behind anything but fighting.

Great program. A true New Englander at heart. Let us welcome back, Jose Young's to the program. Hello, Jose. How are you, sir? Hello. I'm fine. The Celtics lost, so that's miserable.

The Red Sox are still in dead last. But if we were in the central, we would be in first place. And if we were in the West, we would be in second place. So the Eastern Conference and almost everything has just appeared to the Western Conference in just about everything. So I digress. Go Red Sox. Bruns, you failed me, and I will never, ever get my hopes up again with you for the rest of my life.

Oh, man. Well, his opponent, fighting out of Atlanta, Georgia, the co-host of No Betts Bar, the brains behind Dan they were good. He likes long walks on the beach, and he loves to cozy up by the fireplace with many leatherbound books. He's Mr. No Grey Area from MMAFighting.com, Mr. Jedd Nishu. Hey, buddy. You know what else I like, Mike? Jimmy Butler. What a great guy.

Just Jimmy Buckets. Love that fella. Had I known Jose was going to be the opponent today, I would have rocked a heat jersey just for the extra rubbins on both of y'all. Wow. We might have my first hosted program. Wouldn't have faze me. Jimmy Butler is a very talented and beautiful man.

So just would have given me sense. Would have just given me that much more, you know, motivation to sort of victory because Lord knows Jason Tatum can't do that. Look, he just needs the pressure on him. They needed to lose this one. It happens. I don't know. Something to see people say that,

but something about, you know, the Eastern Conference finals fourth quarter, that should probably be just about enough pressure as you need. You know, especially when you're winning a game. And it's game one. They did the same thing against the Sixers and then they kicked their ass in game seven.

So that felt more like it was a third quarter problem too. Giving up like 50 points in the third quarter is tough look. Let's let's let's let's let's let's let's let's let's let's let's let's let's if you give up 47 points in the third quarter the pressure is on in the fourth so all of this like Jason Tatum just needs the pressure on. I'm like what more do you need it's the Eastern Conference finals and you just gave up 47 points and your shot you made no. field goals in the fourth quarter.

Stop being bad at basketball and go back to game seven of the Sixers. Or just give the ball to Robert Williams. He's really good at game seven, though. Just give the ball of Robert Williams every time down low. No one could stop the man.

No one could stop the man, but... I don't know who's worse. Kelly Jansen in the ninth or Jason Tatum in the fourth. It's just the Red Sox just and the Selig just can't close out games right now. I'm about to get real mad and upset and probably to be.

monetize the video. Can the Bruins close out series? Well, the Bruins are going to 603 games in the regular season, and then right around when the playoffs come, they're just like, what is winning? I don't know. We just did it more than any other team in the history of a regular season.

Why would we do it in the playoffs? Listen, at least in hindsight, they're going to lose to the eventual Stanley Cup champions, and it'll least soften the blow a little bit. But let's get into mixed martial arts. We could talk Boston sports for another hour. I love that it's the most interesting week in M.M.A. this whole year, and we've been talking Boston sports to start the show.

What else are we talking about in the world? What's happening? Well, MMA? We could talk about France and Gano no longer being a free agent. I mean, look, the Boston stuff. You mean France and Gano with that headline to pay-per-view in Boston? That guy? He did. In Boston at the TD Garden. And I believe the UFC is going back there, which I'm sure we're going to get to. but Francis Ngano, former Boston fighter, signs a monster deal with the PFL to compete to be an ambassador, to be the chairman of PFL Africa. He has a seat on whatever the global advisory board is.

His opponents are going to make a minimum of $2 million to fight him. We don't know what he's making, but he says that he's got a pretty sweet guarantee. And if his opponents are making two mil per fight, you bet you bit he's making a bunch more than that per fight when he gets in there. So Jose, let us begin with you. Your reaction to this deal. And what has been your biggest takeaway since the announcement was made,

whether it's from Francis, the PFL, the reaction to the fans, whatever road you want to travel, my friend. I feel like it was the worst kept secret in MMA where Francis was going to go. I mean, the second, I believe it was his mom or his grandma posted, had the photos of her in the PFL shirt on his Instagram. It was just kind of where there's smoke, there's fire. And it just felt like we were waiting for the details of the contract, rather than where he would sign.

So all of this like, oh, BKFC won championship, is he going to box station fury, which I still don't particularly care about. I was literally just waiting for what the contract was going to be. And good on him if all of this is. He pretty much got, I know he said there were some things you can act, like I think his phrase was like you can ask for the moon and you might not get everything. But at the end of the day, the prize fighters,

good on him for getting his opponents. guaranteed a million dollars a lot of people are like oh but he's not fighting in the ufc like he can get x amount of money and fight really high level opponents or you can get x amount of money get his opponents to x amount of money and fight you know still talented individuals just without the bright lights of the ufc so good on him uh i think daniel corne said it best it just it made mma feel like legit or real where like free agency is now a big thing and we saw a francis kind of lay the groundwork for what you could do uh especially if you're a champion and i'm very good curious if this is the first domino, like down the line if, like, Al Jermaine Sterling becomes a free agent,

if Alex Volcanowski, Israel, Adasania, like not saying that they would leave the UFC, but these are big stars and they see what Francis got and did. And the PFL and Africa is obviously a very big thing because the PFL goes to Africa for a major event before the UFC. I'm sure Dana White's going to love that. So, yeah, it just, it added more questions. but not on France side. It's like, what will this do for the whole world of MMA?

And I think in the next 12 months, we're going to get a lot of those answers. But it's going to go down as one of the more historic days and moments in MMA history. Jed, we got your immediate response to this on the podcast. Now, great listen on the way to jury duty on Tuesday. But now that a couple of days have gone by and Francis has done some interviews, including with our own Aeroni on the MMA hour, what has been your biggest takeaway from this news? Before I jump into that, speaking of great listens, I this morning listened to you,

Shaheen Al Shadi and Stephen Morocco, and he just got to clap for Shaheen for the Pay Francis League. Just nailed it with that one. Well done. You guys could have stopped the pod three minutes in. He killed it. My biggest takeaway has changed. And I know that this is, you know, not that old. but my sort of thoughts have evolved because my first thought, and I think still the dominant one, is congrats.

Like he did the thing for all of the idiots and imbeciles saying he fumbled the bag very clearly did not. He got everything he wanted outside of money and by all accounts it would appear that he's also getting a sizable amount of money along with this. my other thoughts and this is kind of got shaped by the reaction pod that y'all did yesterday as I was listening to that and thinking through this this morning it was like I don't know

that this is a watershed moment I think it can be like there there's the potential for this to be the day we look back and say that was sort of the first stone to fall and the sport had a tangible shift I think a lot of that is going to depend on how

well the PFL can survive And that was something Stephen said yesterday, and I think really holds a lot of weight. They have to survive this because I don't think all of us have been glowing about this for a lot of reasons. I think this is a great deal for the fighters. It should be a good deal for the fans. But I don't think anyone is really out here making the claim. And please correct me if I'm wrong that this is good business. Francis Ngano is more than likely not going to draw a.

enough business to the PFL in the terms of eyeballs and pay-per-view buys to justify the price tag. And this is a bigger play from them. This is a play for notoriety. This is a marketing cost in a lot of ways. And I accept that. The problem is we've seen this happen before with other promotions who come out handing out, you know, gum drops and dreams and then they fold very quickly. The PFL appears to have deep pockets. They appear to have a good, maybe goods not the right word, but a firm investment backing where this is the ultimate designs on this are probably a sellout later. And so a lot of that is willing to appropriate risks.

They're willing to take on riskier contracts, riskier maneuvers like this. At some point, the rubber does meet the road here, though. And so I, my question is if the PFL has to survive this for this to be a watershed moment, and if it does, then I'm really interested because you guys on the pod said something that also stuck with me. It was like, and maybe it was Shaheen that said it was like the UFC isn't losing any sleep over this. They don't care. They've won. And I think that a lot of that's true, right?

The UFC isn't hugely reactionary to things like that because they do have a two. of failed promotions. But I think that a topic we're going to talk about in a minute here, very obviously, Dana White's breaking news about 291 was a reaction to this news because this does affect them. The numbers are too big. I mean, for the last year and a half, we've been talking about the PFL anyway as a draw for free agents because of the million dollar price tag on a tournament structure.

You're like, hey, if you're a mid-level top-15 guy who's really never going to get a title fight, Neal Magni looking at you, why aren't you just trying to, you know, play the million-dollar lottery of the PFL, and that being an incentive structure? This is that on steroids, man, also funnily enough, given some other PFL that's broken out recently. Like, this is any heavyweight in the world right now, if you have any good business sense about you, is looking to go to the PFL as soon as possible. A $2 million purse is more than any heavyweight in the world that's going to make other than John Jones and Francis Inganu.

Those are the only two heavyweights in the world are going to make more per fight. And I think that was a really savvy negotiation tactic from Ngano because we've talked about it. A lot of people have talked about it in the framing it. He's helping and wants to look out for other fighters. And I'm not saying that's wrong. Like I'm not here to cast aspersions on Francis.

in Ghanu. I do think it's pretty noticeable that frankly one of the best ways he could help out other fighters would have just been to straight up tell people how much he's getting paid. That secrecy doesn't help anyone else. Whereas like here's what is possible if you guys leave. And him not doing that, I'm taking note of that. But I think that that price tag for his opponent is maybe less about ensuring that other people get treated equitably. That's probably part of it. but it's more ensuring that I can have competition that will have people still invested in me because that is the knock on this is that the PFL doesn't have anybody for him to fight nobody cares about him fighting anti Delajre and Mateo Schaeffel and that's real but two million

dollar price tag buys a lot of friends and I think that's what we're going to get here we're going to get the Francis and Ghanu sweepstakes for anybody who's not currently under contract with the UFC and anybody who's even close to outside of that country. contract because God love Ty to Ivasa. He's never in the rest of his time in the UFC collectively will not make $2 million. Whereas he can fight out whatever is remaining in his

contract, do his job, and then come to PFL and make $2 million. That is a coup for any heavyweight out there. And I think that is the big thing to me that could make structural changes here. Jose, it seems like, it seems like, and you talked about it, a lot of the questions here are on the PFL side.

Like, how is this going to pay up? Because short term, you just nailed the biggest free agent on the market and he's happy as can be. And a lot of fighters reacted to this long term, as Jed was saying, gigantic investment for them. And it could pay off big. No doubt about it. But again, you spent a lot of money on this deal, it appears. You're going to pay $4 to $6 million just to opponents. of Francis and Ghanu.

So it's going to take a long time to get this money back. So what is the biggest question you have about this deal from the PFL perspective that you just don't have the answer to right now? How are they going to make money, I guess? Because if they're going to start handing out,

like Jake Paul has that, what, the revenue split, share, whatever it is, if he's in a pay-per-view, and Francis has that too, and they're going to want to stack this big pay-per-view with all their biggest names to kind of kick in the door and you have like Francis,

you got Jake Paul, Maybe Clare Shields comes back and you throw all these other fighters that they're going to entice with these offers. All of a sudden, you got a bunch of revenue splits and all of a sudden, how are you making money? So I guess that's my big thing is how much money is Francis actually getting? Because we heard what the UFC says they offer, but then we also heard what Francis says, don't believe everything you hear. Francis, for whatever reason, like Jed said, just say how much you made because everyone should know how much everyone makes because that's how people get paid more and get paid what they're worth.

So I guess my biggest question is how much you pay in Francis and how are you going to make money if you're having all this revenue split and share in this super fight pay-per-view. Because I don't want to say what got you to the dance because I don't know how many people are watching PFL religiously. I know our own AK Lee does. But if someone is watching PFL because it's a different product from the UFC and you get these this league format and you get seasons and you get like, oh, season one PFL. PFL champion, two-time defending PFL champion like Lance Palmer and Kayla Harrison and can't Kayla Harrison go for the three Pete and so on and so forth. And all of a sudden you're moving away from that. I'm sure you're going to drum up a lot of interest from people who solely watch the UFC,

especially with the Francis and the K. Especially if you can keep Kayla. I'm curious if they're just going to slowly do away with as many seasons, especially if they're going to sign these big name free agents. Because Lord knows, France. imagine Francis is ever going to be in a PFL season or PFL tournament. He could, but I highly doubt it. So let's see how you make money with France, especially if you're dumping a lot of money

into two or three people at the top. Jed, your big thing was, can they survive? And even Stephen said on that podcast, like that he talked to somebody from the PFL and said, just don't go out of business. And this might work how well. Because, I mean, look, it's a lot of money. And they went back to affliction and kind of compared it, not exactly the same, but kind compared it to the what happened with affliction paid a ton of money for big names and then before they

knew it they were done and they were gone so survival it's a long time between now in 2024 before you can get francis in there and of course you want to get them on camera and get them on television and get people excited but this news is going to get some eyeballs on the pfl for the next couple of cards because there are people who had no idea who the pfl was before this news dropped so what do they need to do to survive what do they need to do do to continue this momentum going downhill, going from a snowball to a snowman here? So I think they're in good shape to survive because I think, honestly, the critical piece for them is a willingness to lose. They have to be willing to lose money for a while. And I think

that they are that because that's like, that's what did affliction in. They spent a ton of money. They didn't make any of it back and there wasn't really a broader structural plan to to develop something or an out. They did not have an exit strategy packed in. They were like, we're going to do this, we're going to sell money, we're going to make it back. That didn't work. And so the powers that B stopped giving them money.

There is rumblings that something similar may be going on with other promotions in this space. I don't think PFL is that way. Based on the people kind of heading up their financials and sort of the stuff you here talked about, they feel like frankly they're a tech company right like that's they are a Ponzi scheme if you will as a man who worked in a tech company for many years profitability was never something we cared about and it wasn't something we were ever even actually close to effectuating it was just a thing like sure one day will be profitable but look at this cool stuff we're doing right now all with the plan that someday somebody with a whole lot of money, too much money, will just buy us and

then they can try and figure out what to do with this thing they've purchased. And it feels a lot like what the PFL's doing because they've got a good set of things working for them right now. The thing that they need is name recognition. You know, the UFC's currently value like $12 billion or something right like that. Like functionally, if you look at the WME merger and how that's with WWE, you give them about a $12 billion valuation. So any, you can go to a boardroom and be like, hey, the MMA space globally is probably

worth $13 billion, like somewhere in that neighborhood. We just need to carve out a small piece of that to kind of, that's our business. And the more we can carve out of that valuation, the more we can grow, you know, develop into a profitable entity. And here's all the stuff we already have. We have, we have, we're running a different rate. in the UFC. We are not strictly, you know, the best guide or five, guide in the bet. Like, it's not that. They're doing the season format that is theoretically more digestible to Western

viewers. They already have a deal with ESPN, a broadcast rights deal with ESPN. And that is a huge coup for them that they can hang their hat on, hey, if this gets, we get this more popular. We can get more money out of this deal a la the UFC. Then we're really starting to cook with gas here. The thing they don't have is brand recognition. They are lacking that in a major way. And that's where Francis comes in. Francis can help them in the immediacy with that, with a patina of credibility. We have the baddest man on the planet fighting for us.

And theoretically, can help the development of prospects, which is the other side of this. If you want to be a sustainable long-term business, you can't just steal the best fighters by paying them more money. You've got to also have homegrown talent. And so with UFC or with PFL Africa, with these other regional things that they say that they are trying to build up, then they can go there. So I think they have the groundwork. I can see the roadmap. It is just whether they have the gumption to follow it. And my understanding based on everything else is that they're in this for that reason.

So they should survive. But just don't get scared off if things don't go super well immediately. It's a marathon out of sprint. Jose, with MMA, it is a recency bias sport. And whatever the big news is, we react to it. And it's like the whole thing. And then that lasts like two or three days. And we all know the UFC is the UFC.

They win every day, a sheen al-Shadi quote from the podcast. They're far and away the number one promotion. They're so small to everybody else because they're so far ahead of them that it's not even funny. And they just make so much money on a daily basis. They can put on grade cards. They can put on not so great cards. And they can wipe away all the tiers with $100 bills. And this news clearly, as Jed said, warranted a response from the UFC,

which we're going to get into in round two. But as far as the overall pantheon of MMA promotions, what do this news do for the PFL immediately? Did it move them up the ladder? Oh, yeah. Above a one or a Bellator like Shaheen on our roundtable pod. So he feels like this immediately puts them at number two. Do you agree with that?

Yeah, without question. I mean, how many, how many promotions can you, argue have the top fighter in a division that's not the UFC. Obviously, I guess flyweight slash Bannamweight, if you want to count James Johnson Bannamweight, yeah, with one championship and then Francis at heavyweight and even, I know John Jones is John Jones and I'm on record saying at the beginning of the year in our title prediction podcast that I said John Jones would be the champion by the end of the year and probably the number one heavyweight.

But the fact that they signs, this is the biggest free agent signing. in how long? Like the Michael Chandler one felt big. The Kayla Harrison kind of sweepstakes was big when she went back to PFL. But even like when Yeri and Monell Cop signed from Verizon, like that was big for the MMA world, but this kind of transcended that.

Like Francis Gano broke the news with the New York Times, which is obviously the New York Times. So this immediately slotted them in the number two. And I would go even go so far as if the UFC and PFL both put on a fight card at the same time, the same day, and Francis was headlined in the PFL one, the UFC would have to put a lot of high level and big names on that pay-per-view to pull attention away from Francis's debut in the PFL, especially next year, and especially if he does well in his boxing debut, which is supposedly this year. Like, if Francis goes out there and for whatever reason beats a high-level boxer and then goes to PFL, that's going to be the biggest, the biggest, promote that card whenever it happens the pfl card is going to be the biggest mima card that month outside of like connor fighting habib or connor fighting

nate dyes part three so yeah it's immediately puts them in number two and i'm not saying they're close because ufc is very clearly number one uh by a long shot but it is this is the first time that i feel in a first time in a long time that a promotion has put even a dent into the ufc Jed, do you feel like they are number two right now with this deal or is it just too soon to say? They're probably number two because in this particular context, like when you're asking who's the second biggest of a promotion in the world, I mean, perception is reality, right? Like that's the financials here aren't going to be available, frankly, among any of these promotions. and the kind of metrics you're judging by are going to be wildly variable anyway. So I think for the last few years it's been Bellator sort of by default.

And I think Bellator still has a credible argument to that strictly on the basis of we have the best, we have the most good talent outside of the UFC. You know, Bellator fighters compose like 12% of our rankings or whatever. the UFC has like 84 or something percent. I did these numbers a few months back, so I may not be up to date. And then everybody else collectively makes up the less than 10 percent remaining. So I think Bellator still has an argument even with Francis moving over, but Belator doesn't have anything approaching the cachet of this at this point in time. Like this is a move to make yourself known.

And for PFL's many faults, and I think they have a number of them, the last year and a half, last 18 months or so, they have really invested in becoming a known commodity, which I think is the biggest sort of step for them. And this definitely gives them that cachet. This gives them the patina of credibility. So they probably have taken number two here. That may change over the next few months, though, the longer Francis is just there and not fighting, right? Because this is new and exciting and interesting. And so certainly right now, this is the, this is the thing. But come September when Francis is still not there and we don't know what Kayla Harrison's doing because she doesn't seem to be in the tournament, but who else is she going to fight? And there's, you know, the seasons are going,

but who really cares about the heavyweight tournament other than as potentially a sweepstakes with Francis? Like, it'll taper off. So maybe one puts the other big card or something, but I would say yeah right now they've got the they've got the ring yeah i don't know if i'm ready to go there just yet um i think bellator's there but their gas light is on and pfl just filled up the tank and they're moving yeah they're moving close here's the problem with bellator being there because i agree if you are just looking at the merits of the fighters on roster beltor has been the number two promotion for a very long time and as long as they don't sell themselves to pfl or somebody else, they probably will hold it because they have done a phenomenal job of building

from the ground up. They do an incredible job of investing in youth and talent development as a full credit to them. The problem is, Mike, when was the last time Bellator did anything that made headlines or made people care or galvanize them in this way? Ever? Have they ever done something that got the whole MMA community talking and being like, hell yeah, except for maybe the,

like the last time I could even think is in the neighborhood year is when they did the grand prix like show thing or whatever where the dudes got to pick who they were fighting,

which was like kind of fun and interesting. Like that was it, but I don't even think that really hits in the same way that Francis signing with the PFL did. So they're just Bellator.

I'll say is, and this is something I said, on the roundtable show. PFL has gasped up the vehicle. They are on their way. And they're going to get some extra eyeballs on them the next couple of cards when they go back to Atlanta.

Francis ain't fighting for a minute. They got buzz and they got a ton of curiosity. But they need to make sure that these next couple of cards coming up go well. And I'm not saying that these fights need to be like the best fights in the year. I'm not saying they all need to be Izzy versus Gastlam. But it needs to be an enjoyable experience for the viewer. The pacing needs to be better.

They can't just pull a Boston Celtics and play with their food here. They need to act. They need to make sure that the new eyeballs see a product that only produces some decent action, but that everything goes smooth and everything is just kind of boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, because they can lose momentum real quick if the Twitter feeds fill up after three, four consecutive cards like we always see, oh, the pacing is brutal, this is taking forever. It's got to be an enjoyable experience. They need to use this momentum to their advantage.

But Francis being there, good stuff. But now we get to deliver on that before his debut. And if we can keep this momentum going until his debut comes, they put on another pay-per-view that delivers and storyline at the end of the year. This could be a very interesting next year for the PFL. So that's Francis, his new deal, his new home. I'm sure we'll be talking more about Francis when we figure out who the hell he's going to box. But we will get to the UFC's response to this news coming up next.

but the point for round one goes to it goes to Jose Youngs and Jose didn't even have to say a word and he was getting the point because Jed is a Boston sports hater and it made me sick to my stomach I don't even want to really talk to you right now but I feel better about stuff

I just looked at those upcoming PFL shows in Atlanta let's just say that they are not going to be building on this momentum here look just have like cards that go by quicker than 18 hours. And I think you have something here. Just go and do the fights,

tell the stories, and get to the next fight. We can't be waiting 45 minutes between fights. It's just brutal to watch PFL cards. Certainly not waiting 45 minutes to watch Josh Silvary a fight Dilan Monty. Jeez. Well, let's talk about the UFC. Martin Hamlet, Sam Kai. Oh, God, this is awful. I'm going to be at these shows and I don't even want to go. How dare you? How dare you? Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time.

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or visit comex ontario.ca. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. So several hours after this Francis News drops, Dana White goes live in the studio, UFC headquarters, and he announced a whole bunch of fights, two locations for pay-per-views, even snucked. in a power slap promo at the end of it.

announces UFC 291, July 29th, Salt Lake City, the main event, Dustin Porreier, Justin Gagchi 2, which is a sick fight on its own. But now it's for the now vacant BMF title with Jorge Mazadol retired. We got Jan Bojovich, Alex Pereira at 205. We got Tony Ferguson, Bobby Green, Michael Kiesa, Kevin Holland.

Paulo Costa versus Isram Alaskaroff, which is wild. Wonderboy versus Bichel Pereira, Derek Lewis, Marcos Ruggiero de Lima, those are prelim fights. That fight, the Lewis-Rerio-Delima fight in elevation should be something. He also announces the UFC's return to Boston, August 19th, UFC 2992, Al Jamein Stirling versus Shauna Malley for the Bannamway title, the main event, Zhang Wei, Amanda Lemos for the Strawway belt, the co-main event.

And as both of these gentlemen sort of alluded to, in Jed especially, there's no doubt this was a strategic move by the UFC to try to steal some headlines away from the Francis News, if you feel otherwise, You haven't been paying attention. But guess what? I ain't hating on it. I don't blame Dana at all for it. And this is what you should do in the position you are in as the head honcho.

So I have no issue with this whatsoever. No issue with the breaking of the bunch of news and all these fights to slide people's eyes and ears elsewhere. That's what you should do. But Jed, how did these announcements land for you? When Dana goes on social and says, hey, be back here in 30 minutes. I got some news for you. And then this is what we got. How do you grade them?

Did this accomplish what you feel they set out to accomplish? No, it super didn't do that. Look, we were recording No Betts Bar at the time this happened. And so we reacted in real time. And when we got like saw the, hey, Dana's going to make an announcement in 30 minutes, my immediate reaction was, oh, I know why he's doing this. He's got to get one back over PFL and Francis and try and muddy up the news cycle. that's definitely why he did this and so my thought was okay we're going to get steeped john jones

is going to be announced i don't know what card it will be for but frank you know dana woke up saw this headline called down was like hey we all know this is coming we're just it's taken forever get the get the ball over the line here so i can announce this in a couple of hours and that's not it and instead i mean look i'm not here to shit on the fights poorie gaichi too is going to be awesome um don't love that any of this is happening in Utah, frankly. But that would just be my caveat for the whole of 291. Like, we've done elevation. Stop doing it.

It never is good. The fights are always worse because at most three people on the fight card have the money to like actually go and prepare properly. And so the rest of this is going to be, if Derek Lewis and Marcus, Marcus Rejadalima don't knock each other out in the first four minutes, it's going to be the worst fight you've ever seen because that's just how this works. So my reaction was one, I was disappointed because I thought we were going to get the

John Jones-Stepe announcement. Two, I was pretty pumped about us actually getting Poye-Ga-Ga-Ga-Chi because that's cool. Three, oh, we're getting it at elevation. That might, that fight up. I don't really know how I feel about that. The rest of the fights don't, like, they're fine. They're good. Like, they're good fights, but they aren't something that makes me think, like, I can't

wait for the end of July now, which is like, oh, that's. will actually be a good pay-per-view instead of a bad one. And then the 292 stuff was weirder to me as well, where I was just like, I'm not mad about him, but I don't know how I feel about the quick turnaround for Sterling when he's got some injuries and may or may not be taking this fight a little bit lightly the way he's talked about Charlton Valley. And like, yeah, I probably could spend some time to recover,

or I could just get a bag of money and beat this, doo-doo sucks. And that doesn't feel like the right way to approach a title fight to me at all. Not a professional fighter, so I could totally be wrong. And then the Zhang Limosch fights, like, it's not bad, but it's odd. Like, pretty clearly we should just be doing Shang Jan Shanan. And if we can't do it on this timeline, that's fine. You could push it back a month or two.

Like, that's very clearly the fight, as opposed to Amanda Limosch, who less than a year ago got throttled by the woman who Jan just sent to the depths of hell. So I don't, it's just a weird fight. It's all of it weird. And then you add in the Bantam or the BMF fight. And I'm just like, I don't know. None of these are bad. None of them are bad.

But none of these are taking away from the fact that Francis Ngano is now no longer a free agent. And he signed arguably the most lucrative deal in the history of the sport. Jose, how do you grade this slew of fight announcements from Dana White on Tuesday? Just on the fights themselves, I mean, I love everything about these fights. Don't particularly care about the timing whatsoever. We obviously know why Dana White announced them when he did it, and it was obviously to pull attention away from Francis and Ghana, because I'll tell you what, I had Dustin Poy versus Justin Gaci in Salt Lake City.

graphic made a good six, seven hours before he announced it because I had a feeling that that was coming the second Francis was made. And I was just trying to be, you know, prepared for when chaos erupted and I was driving down the street and I had to pull over to the side of the freeway to use my hot spot to build eight fight graphics. And I'm like, I should have seen all he's coming. But I don't know why, y'all. But there are some fights that I like that I was like, I thought John Boehovic was going to middleweight. I thought Bobby Green was, I had, I thought Tony Ferguson was going to stay at Welterweight,

and I thought, you know, Paulo Costa might fight a light heavyweight and then fight Hamzaa in middleweight, but the fact that he's fighting Ikrom at middleweight was not on my bingo board whatsoever. And then obviously the other ones, like Stephen Thompson, Michelle Pereira, we've been hearing for a long time.

Mockees of Kevin Holland, I think there's some seed of dissension between those two. I don't know quite know what it is. And then Derek Lewis in Salt Lake City. For a guy, for a website, that likes to pride themselves on liking bad heavyweight MMA, it's surprising that this fight had such negativity towards it because I'm like, the second this announced,

I'm like, well, I know what MMA fightings fight to watch out for on this card's going to be. It's going to be huffin and puffin' and Derek Lewis versus Marcos Higirio de Lima. And now we're talking about how this is claim in SLC. Hey, it's my time. I'm the one who likes bad heavyweight MMA. Don't put that evil on the rest of you people. That's a me thing.

How many? There is literally an emoji for Parker Porter on our Slack channel. Yeah, good heavyweight. That everyone put those days. Let's pretend that that's true for a second. So this fight card gets announced. Dustin Poyer versus Justin Gagee, I don't care if the BMF title is on the line or not.

I just want to see that fight. I was at the first one, and that fight rules. I like that this is it altitude, this fight specifically, because these guys are maniacs and I'll watch them fight on a sunken ship in full aquatic gear and I will be excited

Jan Alex, great again just confused because I thought Jan was going to Middle Way. There's a lot of questions on all these fights but every single one of these fights rules and I understand why Dana White announced him what he did but like Jed said it doesn't take anything way. The biggest story of the week is Francis signing the biggest contract

and most lucrative contrast in the history of this young sport and then the Boston thing I'm happy for the Boston fans. I feel bad for Aljo. I can't imagine he was even aware that he had accepted a fight when Dana announced it. When Dana White announced it, I'm like, I don't think Al Jal Jemaine Sterling knows he's fighting Sean O'Malley in Boston. And then all of a sudden we're seeing these reports of like Ray Longo being like, I'm not aware

of Al Jemaine Sterling taking a fighting in Sean O'Malley in Boston. His hand or whatever isn't even clear. I'm like, that tracks. And then I understand the Zhang Wei, Amanda Lemos, maybe. I obviously should. be yon and way lee but if they want to do that in china you got you can't just keep way lee on the shelf that long the last time she fought was november now she's fighting in august if she wins maybe buys the more time to do that big event in china that's just going to draw a lot of interest between

two chinese fighters fighting in the main event for the title again every single fight announced i love every single fight they announced is fantastic and has some sort of you know as an m m m m m mary i know MMAfighting.com talks a lot about people named salt poppy and phase temper and God knows who else is fighting on these god-awful YouTube boxing cards. And for whatever reason, maybe a year from now, we'll be YouTubeboxing.com, not MMAfighting.com. But as someone who still writes for MAPFighting.com, I like all of these MMA fights. They are a lot of fun. Let's go back to talking about MMA and having fun watching MMA because all of these fights are fun and I love them all. And also, let's be perfectly clear. The UFC ain't like calling Salt Lake City on the phone being like, hey, can we come to your city? No, they're calling them saying here's a big bag of money. Please come to our city. And they're like, okay, I will accept that big bag of money.

And we will bring all of these very interesting fights to your city. So Jed, can we talk about this BMF title thing? Because this thing just really drives me bananas. Because why are we doing this? Why? Because this fight is incredible. It doesn't need a gimmick. But if we're going to do a gimmick, Jed, why can't we just be more creative? Like, this is the ultimate fighter of gimmicks. It's the same thing we did before. We've already done this. We know how to, like, can't we just create a new gimmick title for this instead of doing the BMF title thing? It's just so silly. It doesn't need it. But if we're going to do it, like, let's be a little more out of the box with it, shall we not? Golly. I'm actually fine with this. Like I'm not fine with the execution. It's the same thing as which really makes it perfectly BMF because the original BMF belt, as we all recall, Nate Diaz invented it.

He spoke it into creation and it was this dynamic and cool and fun thing. And then because capitalism, the UFC took it and made it this ghost shitty awful belt that looks like trash that they just gave to Mosvdal and then never did anything. with it. So that's just how this works. It's how really corporate entities work in general. They take a fun creative idea and then they make it shit. And so the UFC's kind of continuing along the lines of here is still a fun idea and they could make this cool. I love the idea that there's at least a gimmick because the UFC doesn't even do those because of their absolute disdain for promotion of any kind. I like that this is at least the minutest of effort to be

interesting because they gave up interesting so long ago. What they could and should be doing is like, hey, vacant BMF belt, we're going to do it. Because frankly, great fight for any idea of what a BMF belt would represent. This is an ideal fight for it. What they should do is like, here are the rules of it too. It's a vacant belt and it doesn't, you know, it doesn't move along the same lines as a lightweight title does or whatever.

here are the ways in which it can be competed for or change hands. Or you can just come out and say, like, actually, you just get to own it. When you win the B of M.P belt, you own it until you retire. And at the point that you retire, then we just get the next two people get up and fight for it. And that's how just get some sort of actual structure to it, as opposed to being fully a shiny object to put on a promotional poster. you could at least give this layers. It's like you ever watch John Wick and John Wick won's awesome and it's just like really cool and it's just a man on a mission movie.

People kill his dog and they get there. And then the second one, they start unraveling layers of this cool world. Do that with the belt. You had the first one. It was a good idea that you kind of fumbled on, but whatever. Now this second one, let's unravel some pieces of this and what it means to be a BMF and how you get to fight. for it and what are the rules of transition can you only win it by knockout like if this goes to a

decision do we get a bmf champion i don't know we could figure all this out they're not going to but we could and this could be a stepping stone moment for the ufc to start doing the thing i've literally begged them to do for years which is add more titles not to wait classes because no one gives a shit just to like do cool titles that are worth nothing but worth everything Maybe it will be that way. Let's be optimistic that somebody will have fun for one time ever in the UFC. I mean, if they did that originally, I'd be with you because this is like, this is the one time, one and only time this title is ever going to be put on the line. And then that just wasn't true.

Like, we could do this like the all violence title or just something cool. That's the thing. This should. We already should have done the all violence title. It was freaking Gachie versus Eddie Alvarez was the most violent man alive and it should have been a crown of thorn. Like, I don't know why we didn't do it then, just a steel crown of thorns that you get to wear as the most violent man on earth. And we didn't do it. And we could do the same thing here.

And instead of they're going to make it shitty. But you're, you let's be optimistic, Mike. Come on. I'm trying to be happier these days. I'm surprised to hear you say this. I got to be honest with you. You're, you're, you're, if we could develop a set of rules and some guidelines and a roadmap for this BMF title, maybe. Pretty sure Copposa already has rules for.

it. Like, just use composes rules for it. What are we nitpicking here? What's this fight we're talking about? Who are the two men fighting? Talking about the BMF. Yeah. Who are the two men fighting in this? We're not talking about the fight. We're talking about the title. The fight is obviously amazing.

I ain't got a shit to say that about that fight. We're talking about the title. These two guys deserve their own original championship is what I'm trying to say. Sure. I get what you're saying. But we're nitpicking Dustin Pori versus Justin Gage. They can fight over a not nitpicking that fight at all right. They can fight over a bouquet of flowers and I'll be like, all right, I'm here for it.

Don't give a shit if there's anything on the line or not. Exactly. And that's my issue with this because it didn't need it. And if we're going to do it, let's just do something fun. And this could be fun. I'm curious. My question is when Dana Waite woke up that day, was this for the BMF title or the second he saw Francis sign with the PFL?

He's like, BIMF, put it on the line. Like that's definitely that question. Definitely number two. Definitely the latter. Hey, Hey, Warhead. Give you the belt back.

Francis signed with the PFL. Jed, I mean, you've been so positive. I'm going to ask you a Debbie Downer type question. Of all these fights, look, all these fights aren't going to happen.

We know this. Something's going to fall. Hell no. For whatever reason. Which fight is the least likely to happen on the date that it has been announced? Of all these fights that are announced.

Oh, least likely to happen. Now, I'm interested to hear what Jose thinks the easy answer is for it. I guess I have to go with Polo Costa Ikramalaskarov just because I don't have a ton of faith in Polo Costa in general, particularly against a dude who like, Policosta might just wake up and be like, I don't care to fight this young man. I don't know this man. I don't want to fight him.

I would rather not do that. Or he might blow weight by like 20 pounds. So like I'm just going to pick that one for those reasons. Jose, are you with him? No, I mean, I have no faith that Al Jermaine Sterling and Sean O'Malley is going to happen in Boston. The day was announced because like I said, I don't think Al Jermaine Sterling was even aware that he had accepted a fight. Data's like, this fight's happening. And Alge was like, big if true.

big if true so i would have to imagine that like like he said he wanted to fight in september he said he calls the shots o'malley doesn't call the shots he's not a hundred percent yet he wanted like x-rays back and he said he gained a bunch of weight because when you lose that much weight you gain it all back pretty rapidly after he posted that side-by-side photo where he just looks real soft as i said he looks like a bag of soup uh it's i don't know just something about that has shades i remember when they announced dj was going to fight like t j dillish and then DJ was like, no, I'm not. And then he put out that statement and just the fight never happened.

It's shades of that. They're putting, obviously they're putting pressure on Al Jermaine Sterling to take this fight. Maybe they throw a big wad of cash at him to do it because he, like he said, like Jed said, he's talking a big game saying it's an easy fight. Maybe Dana Wood's like, well, if it's that easy, you can take it on short notice. And now Sean O'Malley gets seven months to prepare for Al Jolmaine Sterling. And Al Jolmaine Sterling gets two months and still not 100 percent. still has the bicep injury, still has the neck issues.

He's not, I can't imagine he's going to, he's even remotely ready to jump back in camp. I think the easy answer would have to be Aljo versus O'Malley because I don't think Aljo even accepted the fight. I just think Data White announced it. Okay. So, Jose, I'll go back to you. And I'll ask you the same question, Jed. Let's just say that is the case.

And Aljo goes and sees whoever needs to see next week and they're like, nah, dude, probably not going to happen. You can't train for like three or four weeks. What happens then? Hmm. Is Sean O'Malley still going to fight on that card? Interim title? I bet they do. And they're going to have Dana White's going to do an interim title because it's the UFC and like, remember Cyril gone fraud Derek Lewis for an interim title like a month. They announced that like a month or so after Francis won the title and they didn't even give him time to celebrate the victory. So at that point, it's just going to be Sean O'Malley versus some sort of combination of it may be marab if marab's healthy but i know marab doesn't want to fight aljo so

maybe he just waits and heals up corius han hagen could obviously do it maybe they just pull henry seharto out because henry sehuto if he beats sean o'malley then he gets the rematch he so desperately wants umar is out there it's just going to be omali versus fill in the blank but i would have to imagine it would be in the interim title because they've they've made interim titles for less. Like, Colby Coventon fought RDA for an interim title. Like Cyril Gaon fought Derek Lewis for an interim title. They've made like interim titles for a lot less.

So, yeah, interim title O'Malley versus fill in the blank in Boston. Jed, is Sean O'Malley definitely fighting in Boston with or without Al Jemaine Sterling? I don't know because like reflexively I want to agree with Jose. But when you fill in that blank, as he says, uh, not. a lot of names that are super viable, right? Like, maybe you can throw, look, if Aljo physically can't do it, Marab would be the next light, like most obvious choice, but Marab seems not to be able to do it either. And also, I'm really not sure Marab would fight for an interim belt against the big money

fight that Aljo theoretically wants as his last one in the division. So probably strike Maraub off. So who knows, that makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways for the, UFC, but the end result could be you're running back Sehudo Sterling, and I don't know the appetite for that for any side other than potentially Sehudo. So then you're at Corey Sandhagen would be okay, but is that moving the needle like enormously for you as the UFC? And again, potentially you're removing the opportunity for O'Malley to fight for the undisputed title or really dangerous style matchup against Corey Sanhagen. Cheeto would be the best one, but

Cheeto just lost the sandhaken. So there's not like a super great opponent for the UFC to book him in an interim fight with. And frankly, if the UFC starts doing that, I think Aljo just says Yolo and it's like fights him with one arm or whatever. It's like fine because any of these fights really jeopardizes my chance to get these pay-per-view points to get this thing happening. So, okay, my shoulder doesn't really work.

I'll just do it because otherwise I will. will lose this bag forever and I'm not willing to do it. So I think ultimately we're probably just going to get that fight. But if it doesn't for like if Sterling really can't, I think I have I think I come down on the side of they'll just try and replace it with something else. Whatever that is, I don't know. But they'll they'll go to the well and try to find a new fight because there's nothing that makes a ton of sense.

As far as I'm concerned for a mallee to fight as an interim. I thought we were going to get possibly because of the timeline. I thought this was like we're going to get Leon Edwards versus Colby Covington because Yeah, maybe they're going to do it like when is this fight going to happen now? Because September's in Sydney, which could be a whole other issue because Izzy's obviously going to fight on that card. But you have Whitaker and DDP fighting. That's not going to happen.

I am so convinced that they are going to pull that fight off that somebody is finally going to not be a total dip shit and be like, oh, is he? he's about to fight in Australia and we need him to fight somebody hmm they're like someone has cooler heads have to prevail they're gonna they're gonna kill that fight

they just have to yeah they're gonna there's gonna be some shuffling going on there's gonna have to be let us move on let's shuffle on over to the UFC apex shall we the point for round two goes to Jed Michoud's one to one and I know Jed is only on this panel

to talk about this topic in particular. UFC Vegas 73. Yes, coming up on Saturday. We're back in the apex. The main event is McKenzie Dern versus Angela Hill. Look, this is not the greatest card. There are some pretty competitive fights on this card, but it's a tough one. And I think we're kind of in the middle of this sort of tough stretch of cards. This is kind of like spring training season, if you will, for the UFC. I'm not trying to be disrespectful. Like, good for the fighters. Go in there and make that money. But Star Power, these cards aren't spectacular, but Jose, let's try to find some positives here. Let's try to find some intrigue.

It could be anything. It could be any fighter, any fight, could be the main event, the opening prelim. I don't care. What's the biggest question you have? What's the most intriguing thing on this card to you? Ooh. There's not, usually it's my biggest question is, has title implications, but I don't see a whole lot of title implications on this. card like mackenzie durn angela hill obviously wasn't the original main advantage just got pushed back

a week was this the original man oh no this was the rocky irene fight card right and then heine is now fighting amanda so like obviously that had title implications because the winner of that would be fighting for the title obviously now irene filled in for juliana i don't i have i guess my biggest question is this entire card is like what's at stake with any of these fights outside of a check. Like obviously Michael Johnson did his whole media scrum where he's like, I'm thirsty for a UFC title I'm like probably not going to happen anytime soon.

I guess the winner of the main event between McKenzie and Angela Hill will obviously have the biggest title in the cases but they're not going to be fine for the title this year or maybe even early next year. They're probably going to have to win one, maybe two more. Like Angela Hill is on a win streak

which is good for her because at one point she had lost like five of six and now she's on a two-fight win streak and if she wins again over McKenzie Dern. That's three in a row. McKenzie Dern's obviously really popular name. She's coming off a loss against Jan Jow Nan, who a lot of people, including people on this panel, I think should be fine for the title, which is the right one, which will eventually happen.

But because of that, who knows? She's going to have to win at least two more. And then Edmund and I'm looking at the card now because they can think of it all the top of my head. Like Anthony Hernandez and Edmund's fun, but like they're not even, like, I guess they're fighting for a ranking. Emily Decode. Lupi is a short notice. Andre Fialo, walking Buckley,

someone's going to sleep in that fight. So I guess my biggest question is, what do any of these fights matter? Actually, I'm very excited to watch Clay and Carpenter fight because that man used to beat this shit out of me in training camp when I was an amateur fighter, so I always want to see him win.

So I guess that's what I'm excited for. Watch my own training partner. Fight again in the UFC. Other than that, I have literally no idea what any of the stakes are for any of these fights. That fight's not, is that fight still happening on this card? Is it not?

No. Yeah, it's off, right? Well, then there goes my happy days. Jed? Wikipedia still has it up, but Tapology says it's canceled, so I assume it's bastards. It's all right. Jed?

I'm sorry, what was the question? What's the most, what's the most intriguing thing on this card to you? No, nothing. how soon can it be over? Is that the answer? You were generous by saying that this is, they're in a down slope of events. There's like one event worth anything this summer

and it's $2.90 or whatever. Like this is, it's just the truth. Like I don't know what to tell you. 289 has two fights that matter on it in like the strictest definition of that. But there ain't nothing here. for anybody. Like, if you just want to watch fights, fine. There are fights on. And some of them might be good. This is a reasonably competitively booked card. I'm not here to say that this is

awful, but if you, like many people, are of the opinion that there needs to be something going on in the fight, there's some sort of hook outside of just, I'm going to watch some people fist fight today. There's nothing here for you. This, I've been calling this fight card the the fight card of prospects who never were because you got a lot of those you got a lot of people who at one point in time somebody thought some some way about mackenzie durn edmund shabasian uh uh chase hooper co uh covalkovich did at least fight for a title but you know you got a lot of like that that level of fighter of showed promise at some point in their career but never really backed it up and that's just where we get again mostly competitive fights if you have nothing else to do

on Saturday night. Worst ways to spend a Saturday, worse things to watch on television, but we're not going to talk about this fight car ever. It's just this is never going to be a fight car. We're like, man, and that's when the McKinsey Dern run really started in earnest.

She was like, yeah, there were fights. We fulfilled our obligations to ESPN and on to the next one, which is also just a collection. of fights that don't mean anything. That's what the summary is, ladies and gentlemen, a collection of fights that mean very, very little. Buckle up.

We get Talia Silva back in there. I like watching her fight. She is fun. She's exciting. She's the best prospect on this card. Like the best. What is she like a minus 1,100 favorite? Something insane.

She's like the only person on this card that there is even an avenue for them to be majorly relevant in the next five years. McKinsey Dern and Angela Hill are its relevant as they're ever going to be probably. Well, I do want to touch on McKenzie real quick because Jed, she's had a bit of a tough run. She's talked a lot this week about things she's gone through personally behind the scenes, lost two out of three. There are a lot of folks who believe she's lost all three of those fights because they thought Tisha Torres beat her at UFC 273.

And I think we've all seen the potential there, Jed. like the bread and butter of her game is top notch and she has evolved a little bit in her striking but there's a couple of elements of her game that are just missing that if she could figure out could make her a pretty big problem in this division and we've talked a lot about that but heading into this fight right now

where do you gauge her potential levels like right the second do you feel any confidence that at some point we will see McKenzie Dern fight for a UFC title no zero confidence in that that's the ceiling the ceiling is fighting and winning titles but she is not a prospect like she is not somebody who like 30 years old she's grown-ass woman she's been doing this for like eight years or some some like not insignificant amount of time like this is not oh she's just got to figure these things out the cake is largely baked you're going to be who you are and she needs she needs two

things that she does not appear to have and i have no confidence and she'll get them. If she comes into this fight and immediately takes Angela Hill down, that will be a huge thing. Like, oh, look, she, like, has learned real takedowns instead of the same awful stuff she's been trotting out there. And more important for me is if she could just be mean,

like, she is not mean enough to fight for a belt. That is as plain and simple as I can put it. Because if you look at the history of MMA, there's, like, maybe one dude who ever fought for a title and wasn't a mean mother picker in there and it's Damien Maya is like the only dude I can think of who wasn't mean because you have to be trying to hurt people.

You cannot try and cuddle them to death because that doesn't work. And if McKinsey, like McKinsey Dern could have beaten Jan Xiaonan, the number one contender, she had all the opportunity in the world but because she couldn't find a choke, Jan got up and then Jan out pointed her over it.

Like if Dern had stopped trying to choke her and just tried to put her fist through Jan's head, that fight would have been over, and we'd be talking about, holy shit, McKinsey Dern might be that dude. Like, she might be that dude. But she has never shown a willingness to do that. And until she does, I have zero confidence that that's in her.

The game ain't in everybody, and I don't think that part's in her. And so, no, she's never going to fight for a title until she gets that. Jose, I know you, when we ask these types of hypotheticals, if you will, you like to wait and see how things play out. but just go with your gut here. Do you feel like people are jumping off the McKenzie Dern train prematurely?

What do you think? I think they got one foot off, that's for sure. I have no idea if she will ever fight for a title because I guess straw weight has kind of been a hot potato at the top of the division for so long. And I feel like she's a popular enough name in the eyes of, you know, she is one of the more popular fighters in the strawweight division. So anytime that happens, DOC, she wins two in a row.

They might just stick her in a title fight because they want her in the title fight and there's just no one else. I think people are there's a foot off. If she loses this one and that's three of four, especially to Angela Hill, who historically hasn't done great against, you know, grapplers where she's been submitted a few times. If she doesn't beat Angela, especially in a main event, I think it's, I don't know if she'll have a fight for a title. this is going to be a make-a-break fight for her title aspirations, at least for the foreseeable future.

She wins. Obviously, she wins a couple more. She can fight for the title. This is just a lot of what is. I don't know. I don't know. That's the answer. Again, like I said,

I don't know what the title implications are. The implications are for any of these fights on this card. If she doesn't be Angela Hill, then for the foreseeable future, she's not going to be anywhere near a UFC title fight. And shout out to Angela Hill, always down to clown, always down to get in there and chuck them with whoever.

and we'll see what happens this Saturday in the main event we'll be covering it. M.AFighting.com if you want to watch it, great. If you don't, we will have you covered. So point for round number three

goes to... Jedmishu. It's two to one. Wikipedia let Jose down, but we shall move on. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats.

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Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus,

powered by Peloton IQ, built for break. throughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence, while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross-Training Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. So yesterday or Wednesday, for those listening after the fact, the new documentary, McGregor Forever, dropped on Netflix, a four-part series. It's essentially documenting everything from the build to the Habib Nabagamata fight

through his two losses to Dustin Porre, the leg injury, some of the recovery process since the second or the third Porre fight, and a whole bunch of other behind the scene stuff. And MMA fighting, we were prevalent throughout. AK was in there, his face, his voice, Jose's voice is in there. I believe my voice is in there. Mike, your voice is in there a good amount of time as well. but honestly like to me it was interesting getting some of the behind the scene stuff

on certain things during that timeline which was a very interesting one for the life and career of Connor McGregor so Jed will begin with you maybe you saw it all maybe you saw some but this is going to be one part to this question and then Jose you could do so as well from what you have seen uh be the Siskel and Ebert here thumbs up thumbs down thumbs just on your hand give it a grade it's not good. It's not bad. Like, it's a pretty well-produced thing.

Like, the people doing it are professionals, but if you are not a McGregor, like, diehard, then there's nothing in it for you. If you're a McGregor diehard, you probably are into it. There were, like, maybe two things that I had some mild interest in and seeing, just some of the behind the scene stuff, but even that, that was not a big enough draw for as long as it is.

It has two really big flaws for me. The first is it's not a mini-series. I don't know why they did it other than they just fucking wanted to. Make that a two-hour doc, man. Like, make it a two-hour documentary and instead of four episodes where it was just tough, it's parts of it.

The second is, and this is to be expected, but it is telling a story. It is presenting an idea of Connor McGregor. Calling it a documentary is using that term extremely loosely. It is presenting a narrative of who they would like to portray Connor McGregor as. And they even try to sell it to you early with to be like, look, Connor did the bad stuff. When he threw the dolly at the bus, that was bad.

He was in a bad space and fighting is hard and it hurts you mentally. And that's why he lost too is because he came in it with anger. That was honestly the funniest part. Because Connor, we all know how Connor's career is gone lately. He's just lost a whole bunch. And the doc presents each of the fail, like the first, the Habib thing is like, he lost because he had a very negative camp. And then he had a great camp.

And that's why he beat Soroni. And then it's like, but then he also loses to Dustin Porre. And that's the problem in it. it's telling, it is trying to convey a story of the hero Connor McGregor. Connor McGregor is not a hero by almost any definition in this time window. Now, you could tell a story of Connor McGregor as a hero, but you got to go back further because over the last, since the Habib fight, more bad than good. And that's just the truth of the matter.

Look up Connor McGregor controversies tab on Wikipedia. It's probably a thousand words long. And they leave a lot of that out. They don't mention, they mentioned the arrest for the bus incident. They don't mention any of the other arrests for punching the old dude in a pub or whatever. This is not trying to be an honest assessment of Connemer Greger over the past four or five years. This is, we want to tell you the story of why you should love this guy and when he does come back, why it's great and it's a triumph. And they don't, then that's the biggest flaw of it all to me is that I came into this thinking this was about his.

return and recovery. Almost nothing is involving that. Like almost nothing has to do with him getting back from the horrific leg break. It's just all the ancillary ship before then. So I would strongly recommend no one watch it unless you're a big Conner fan. If you are, then go for it. You're probably going to enjoy the hell out of it. But if you're just an MMA person, there's not a lot here for you as far as I'm concerned.

Jose, what say you? So I'm not critical. I'm not 100% done. with it yet. I've been trying to focus on it, but a lot of these fights I was at, so I'm like, I've seen this. I know how this fight ends. And obviously, Connor is never not in the headlines. So I feel like a lot of it is just kind of, like if you've been in this MMA space, you know what's coming in these timelines. And like Jett said, they've glossed over or if they lack of mentioning a lot of things that have happened in his life that have been in the headlines negatively, the parts to me that

I've enjoyed are the parts immediately after fights when like they're backstage like when he loses to Habib and Dana's in there talking to him. He's like oh, it's like the brawl after is like, oh, that was handbags. I just lost because that actually feels like when right when the fight's over, Conner's not being this character anymore. That's just how that is about as raw and as unfiltered as you're going to get him. So that is interesting because obviously we don't get footage like that, if ever, immediately after fight. Like we obviously see like people celebrating in the back, usually on Instagram lives or if they do vlogs and stuff like that.

But to get immediately after the Habib brawl and after the cowboy win and then the Pori fights and the leg breaks and everything, like those, the immediacy is the interesting part. Because if you like fly on the wall type stuff, that is right up your alley. But like Jed said, it's if you're a dot, die-hard MMA fan, you're a die-hard Connor fan. It's great.

It's great for you. If you're just an M.M.A fan, you don't particularly care about Connor. I would recommend watching the parts immediately after his fights because that's what I found most interesting because that's all new knowledge. Everything else seemed a lot of, I already know this. I already know this. It's like, remember when that Rick Flair documentary came out on 30 for 30 and everyone thought it was like the greatest thing since sliced bread?

I thought it was kind of boring because it's like, I already, like, we know the story of Rick Flair. None of this is new. This is just other people telling stories we already knew just in a kind of a stylized way. But like Jed said, the production value and whoever put the documentary together, it is a well-crafted piece of art.

It's well-shot. It's well-edited. The music is good. So if you're watching it for filmmaking, it's great. If you're just watching it to gain new knowledge, there's not a ton of it in there. But the immediacy after-as fights is what I found interesting. So if you're going to watch it for anything,

watch it for that. completely agree with that Jose like that part's really interesting especially the he'll be one even the first Dustin loss like all of them that I actually I actually felt pain that was interesting to me yeah

seeing how bad his leg was jacked up not even the break I'm talking about the first the second fight yeah but his leg just I mean his leg just looks so bad and like we we saw him we saw the aftermath that we saw him sort of get on crutches to the to the presser

but we didn't actually see what that leg looks like when the fight was over it's holy shit dude well it's it's why like it's why those parts like when i said it's just the most raw because connor's just giving himself honest assessment he's like my leg was dead in there like the fact that he's breaking down what went wrong immediately after like you don't we don't get that connor press conferences or media days or whatever else so it was a refreshing to just see at high level athlete talk about their sport rather than just being a character So again, I enjoyed that aspect of it, seeing parts of Connor you don't normally see. Yeah, that was the only one thing that I was really interested was at the first Porre one.

So the Habib one, yeah, he was like, like, that's real and raw, but I already, we already kind of knew a lot of that. But the immediately after the Porre one, when he's sitting next to D and he just kind of looks over and is like, that's it. And you're looking at a man sort of reckoned with the fact that he doesn't have his fastball anymore. and I think he quickly tries to talk himself out of that. But like that was the most substantial moment of the whole thing. It was like, oh, Connor knows. Connor knows he doesn't have it anymore because he just lost to a dude. He didn't think he was going to lose to.

And if there's one another cool kind of interesting retrospective that I recommend people watches, I think we probably, there's a scene. I forget which episode, maybe it's the third one. Connor is watching the Hubby versus John. Justin Gachi fight. It's three. Watching it all play out. And then here's Habib retire after.

That's super interesting too. Just like his reaction all that. Like you see he just look agitated and he's like, he's like, damn it. That's pretty interesting stuff. So if you want to watch it, it's cool. I didn't watch it like full bore. I had it sort of on the background.

I probably watched like 70% of it. But yeah, I think both these guys sort of nailed it in terms of what this is all about so you can't do these things while the dude's still here 30 for 30 like like like Jose said the 30 for 30 I don't I didn't watch that Rick Flair one or whatever so I don't know that that might hit for me because I didn't grow up watching Rick Flair but like if you watch the 30 for 30 on the bad boys pistons or whatever and you lived it you wouldn't give a shit if it was happening right now because you're like yeah I could just open up the news and read this too well because

the bad boys pistons happened in the 80s. and that came out 25 years later, the people who don't know get to learn, but the people who there get the nostalgia hit? This happened four years ago. Yeah. The nostalgia aspect plays a big factory because of late, my favorite 30 for 30 has been that the Mark and Wire Sammy Sosa one. Not the best.

Chasing whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Not the best in terms of like a documentary, but my entire life revolved around that home run chase. So like it was a blast for me. So other, but I 100% agree with that. Like in 30 years from now, this documentary would have been fantastic.

But we're going to talk to Connor by the end of the year at a press conference probably. You have to let these things breathe. It's like Mark Wahlberg keeps making movies about tragedies that happened like three years ago. You got to give them time. Specifically in Boston, but Mark Wahlberg is a piece of garbage and we don't need to talk about him on the show. Wow. How about that? Yes.

I agree with you on the home run chase 30 for 30. It's the second best behind four nights in October. Highly recommend that, especially if you're a Yankee fan. Of course you would recommend. If I could tattoo a video onto my body, it would be Kevin Malar saying, don't let us win today. Don't let us win today. I'll be like, Kevin Malar, wherever you are, if I'm in a bar with you, you will never have to buy a beer, ever.

if I'm with you. Fair enough. All right. The point for round four. I think the ball jacks one is the best 30 for 30. That is a good one too. All the all the stories and stuff. Point for round four goes to Jose Youngs.

I mean, this guy just nailed it. Just rounded it right out. I mean, just tremendous stuff. Just appealing to Boston. Just appealing to everybody. I don't know. There is a sect of Boston that still likes Mark Wahlberg for whatever reason. Yeah.

And they remember the rap days back in the 90s Did they remember him beating up that V-D-Bin-Bin and blinding him? Come on. I don't have any idea what you're talking about, actually. Wow. Go look it up. What Mark Wahlberg did he beat up someone and like the dude like lost his eye or something like that solely because Mark Warner's like, I'm going to beat up an Asian man and then just found the first one he saw.

I don't have a lot of thoughts about Mark Wahlberg. So this will be a good journey for me. that's good for you. That would be a good doc for you, Jedd, when that comes out. That'll be a good doc. I don't think they're going to do that for ESPN. I mean, it could be for Netflix. You never know.

But let's move on to the knockout round. We'll have one question. Each of these participants will have one minute to answer said question. And then we'll turn it on over to the peeps. You could probably start voting right now. And we'll go from there. So Jed, do you want to go first? Do you want to pass it on over to Jose?

Oh, I'll pass. I got to read about Mark Wahlberg now, so. All right. So Jose will go first. Jose, do you want door number one or door number two? Door number one, because Derek Jeter is a jabroney. You should win that on principle just for that answer. So we saw how the UFC reacted to this Francis and Ghana news.

They announced a bunch of big fights as we talked about. But now I think it's time to hear from some of the other players involved in this MMAC space. So you are at the podium. You are being asked about this news and how it affects your business. So you have 60 seconds. A state of the promotion address based on France and Ganoe signing with the PFL. You sir, are Bellator Scott Coker. You are Scott Coker. One minute on the clock. Your time starts now. Well, you know, as Scott Coker, I'm really, you know, I'm just going to have to get with my guys. We're going to have to talk about it. And then I'll be able to get back you probably next week. I don't really have any answers for you right now. I'm too busy building.

Another Grand Prix that will inevitably fall apart at some point in time. And we're going to have events in Paris and Sioux Falls and Dublin, none of which will be pay-per-views and all of which will be headlines by non-title fights. Also, Francis Ngano is above 35 years old, which means obviously Bellator doesn't need them, which is one of the many positive things that Bellator is doing. as someone on enemy fighting.com, Jedmishu once said, you know, they do a great job of collecting young talent and growing them,

Francis is not young talent, and he is a lot of money. Plus, I'm not saying we're not going to get sold, but I'm not saying we aren't going to get sold. So for all we know, we might just be in the Francis business soon. But again,

I'm going to have to get with my guys. I'll circle back and get to you guys sometime next week. I just don't have the answers in front of you right now. Wow. How about that? I didn't know what direction we were going to go with that. And if I had to take a guess, that probably wouldn't have been the direction.

But thank you, Mr. Coker. I appreciate your candor and your time. Let's bring Jed Mishu in because there's another man we have not heard from yet since all this went down. He was discussed and talked about on the MMA hour. Mr. Coker was put over as a professional. In the promotion, Bellator was put over as a professional. Sir, Chhatri Situatong, you were not put over as a professional entity.

you're put over as sort of a sideshow, as a guy putting on a performance, if you will. And I know, at least based on graphics and interviews you did, you were going to make a hefty, hefty offer to France and Ghana that you just flat out withdrew before any of this could even happen. So, Chhatri, one minute or less. What was your reaction to Francis and Gano signing with the Professional Fighters League, go?

Look, you know, Francis wanted to make that decision. And he did. And I can't, you know, no ill will for him. Less reaction to that, more of his reaction, more reaction to his interviews with Ariel. And it's, it's just a shame when the business has to get like this, you know, because we, we met. And Francis admits it. We did have, have some discussions. And ultimately, we left the table and realized that I don't think that we're aligned on some stuff outside of just the numbers. Obviously, with the, with the deep pockets we have, we could offer them.

most money, but he wanted some other things that we don't have. And it's a shame that he is taken to dragging my name through the mud when really all of the news cycle missed a big fact that David Feldman is the liar here. Dave Feldman was the one trash talking Francis in Ghanu. Not us. We said great things about the man. Feldman's trashing him, didn't even speak to him, didn't make him an offer. I feel like you guys are attacking me because you're jealous of my billion viewers. So grow up, Peter Pan. I think this is the this is the first time Chhatri has ever done an interview where he didn't bring up the fact that he also trains all of the time and he highly respects martial arts. I'll be honest, I didn't have my A game.

I was, I didn't listen to a word you said, Jose, because I was deep in the reading about Mark Wahlford thing. I didn't even know what the actual question was until Mike started talking. It was like, oh, whoops. I don't know if this is if it was symbolism or not but as soon as Jed finished I mean just a blast of thunder outside of outside of my garage here

in South Carolina I mean just like bowling like a bowling alley roll it's midday in the low country in the summer that's just how that goes so it looks like softball probably won't happen tonight but you can vote right now and who you think won this massive competition

between Jed Michoud and Jose Youngs and I mean, I don't really know what to say in terms of programming. Well, tomorrow we'll have heck of morning 10 a.m. Eastern. We will have a preview show for UFC Vegas 73, which will probably last about 18 minutes. Not sure when it's going to happen, but it will happen. And we will let you know about it. And then we'll have the People's Pre-Fight show right now scheduled for 3.30 p.m. Eastern on Saturday.

We'll post-fight show. And then AK and I will be back for on to the next one. And then we have a rare week off from the UFC for the long weekend Memorial Day weekend here in the United States. So Casey, come on in. You know what's happening that weekend in Arizona, Mike? What is happening that weekend in Arizona? To bring this full circle, the Boston Red Sox are playing in Arizona that weekend. There's no UFC.

Oh, tremendous. There you go. We know what Jose is going to be doing all weekend. All three days, baby. Nice. Hi, Casey. What's going on? Hi, Joe.

gentleman. Question about the McGregor documentary. I feel like we're all, we had a winner and everything, but I know, are we too close to it? Yeah. Would you recommend it for someone who doesn't live MMA? No. Okay. No, because it's a lie.

Okay, that's the question. Because it's a lie. Like, if you just want to watch this thing or whatever, then that's, like I said, it's well produced. But like, they are not telling an honest story. or they are giving you a very narrow rose-colored lens through which the story is told. So if it's just like a random, be like, hey, some level of interest in MMA,

should I watch this? It's similar in the sense that I don't know if any of the people watching this show or in the comment section will, maybe Jed, because he reads comic books sometimes, but there's an image comics documentary on Amazon Prime, where if you collected comic books during that time,

none of it is true. None of it is true. But if you don't know any of it, thing about image comics, you'd be like, wow, these guys really changed the game and they're all rock stars. I'm like, they're all terrible people. Like, don't watch this documentary if you know what the true story is. But yeah, don't watch that documentary.

It's done. And Todd McFarlane and Rob Lyefield are also Gibronis. I will say that the older I get, the more I kind of think every documentary is that, though. Like, there just aren't a lot of honest ones. The best documentaries, in my opinion, because artists' objective are the ones that, like, you just don't have any. Like, who dreams was fantastic? Because, like, I have never been in that position of those individuals.

Does that make sense? Sure. Like, that's an interesting story. And neither, none of the subjects are famous. It's just normal people living a life that I have no relationship to. There's a great doc on Netflix. I'm trying to find the name of them. Or Icarus is the best document I've ever seen because that was proper.

That's just proper investigative journalism right there. Yeah. That's the thing that's just a journalistic piece that's in the form of a movie, which is the difference. There's a great doc about it's called Untold Crime and Penalties, and it's about the Danbury Trashers, which is a minor. Oh, yes, yes, yes. That is freaking. Yeah, I saw what that was. Yeah, that one's not bad.

Yeah, that one's not bad. Mostly because I didn't know that happened. So, like, I was learning while having fun watching a documentary. I had read it in the Boston Herald once, but I didn't know anything about it. And then I watched it. I was like, wow, this is. Like, I remember when they, I remember when they folded, but I was like, okay, just another minor league hockey team is gone. Didn't know the story behind it.

Yeah, that's a good one if you need a wreck. So Casey, uh, who won? All right. Oh, watch Catching Lightning on Showtime, a great MMA documentary. I'm not done with it, but it's pretty good so far. I learned a lot. All right. All right.

We have a winner? Yeah, we have a winner. I wonder who it is. Casey, did you win? Are you an option? No, no, no, no. I got to make it fair. Okay.

Your winner today with 55% of the votes is Mr. Jedmishu. What a shot. 55% of the way Casey made it sound, it was like Jed got 92% of the vote. That was like not that far apart. Another 15 votes. Yeah, I don't actually think I should have won this one.

Yeah, Mike, tell the people what I said in our Slack channel when you asked me to be on BTF. Who am I losing to was the question? And I said, my response was, You're against Jed, so you might have a shot, and your response is sounds like a party. There you go. And with, I mean, and I've read that with such enthusiasm, too. Yes.

So, Jed, congratulations, buddy. Jose should have won that one. Just going to be honest. Hey, here's the, I'm faced against BC, Brian Campbell, and Brian didn't even give an answer. Yeah, that was nonsense. I heard that. He just says, I don't know. I don't have an answer.

And he's still what? So like, you know, let's get out. Yeah, by a landslide, I'm like, all right, whatever. At this point, it says, Brian, Brian took like 57% of the vote and there were four people in the vote. It was, we all knew what was happening there, but I was, this is also a bit of nonsense. Just the Jose haters, I definitely got cooked this time. I don't think people particularly care in the MMA landscape, particularly care for facial piercings and pearl necklaces.

That's just from, you know, I've noticed that the last. Do you have a facial piercing in? I have four earrings and a nose ring. Well, do you have a nose? Is your nose ring in? I just can't see it. Yeah, it's right here. Yank on that.

Well, there you got. Or maybe they just don't like Boston. That could also be it. A lot of, a lot of people don't like Boston. That's true. Yeah, but we don't, you know what? But you know what we call people from Boston? Champions.

Boom. Hit the music, Casey. Hit the damn music. Let's go. And you know what? Nobody lost. Everybody watching and or listening to the show, you're all winner because you learned a lot. You've got to hear from two of the best of the business. And that's what the thought about.

Back next week, I'm not sure what we're going to talk about. Something's going to happen at UFC Vegas. It's not going to be Vegas 73. And we'll discuss it right here on BTL for Jed for Jose. Shout out to Casey on the ones in Tuesday. The iconic voice of Afterland takes you home. I am ICAC. Goodbye, everybody.

Love y'all. This has been Between the Links, and I'm a fighting production on the Vox Media Network.