MMA Fighting - BTL | Reaction To Anthony Smith's Arrest, MVP-PFL Merger; Plus Ankalaev's Next Move, UFC Belgrade vs. PFL New York

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

The mixed martial arts and UFC community were left stunned after past title challenger Anthony Smith was arrested on multiple felony charges — including domestic violence and terroristic threats — and as more alleged details emerge, the situation seems to be getting darker. On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel reacts to Smith's arrest, the charges he's facing after being released on $500,000 bail, and the details provided by the district attorney in the county of his arrest. Additionally, topics include the fallout of UFC Abu Dhabi and Magomed Ankalaev's win over Bogdan Guskov in the main event, Sean Strickland's recent comments, and action-packed MMA weekend that includes PFL New York, featuring Usman Nurmagomedov and Dakota Ditcheva, and UFC Belgrade headlined by Daniel Rodriguez vs. Uros Medic, and more. Join MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew as they answer your questions all show long. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@m_heckjr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@JedKMeshew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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

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Sign up now at Disneyplus.com. The Vox Media Podcast Network. Anime Fighting Studios, this is between the links. And now your host, my... The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of BTL. Happy Thursday to us all. And a lot going on

in the MMA news cycle, so to speak, including some big breaking news that dropped earlier today. We will touch on the MVPFL merger. Is that what we're calling them? No, they'll eventually be MVP. We'll get into the ins and outs of all of that. Obviously, Anthony Smith

in the news for not so great stuff. Maga Ben-Akelaiath is still a hot topic coming out of UFC Abu Dhabi, UFC, PFL, both have events this weekend, which one is better. We can answer all of those questions. And joining me to answer said questions is Mr. No Gray area himself, Mr. Hot Take from Mammat Fighting.com. Jed Mishu, Jed, welcome back to the program, my friend.

Thanks for having me, Mike. Always a pleasure to be here. Excellent. All right, Jed. Let's just get right into this. Let's get right into the big news. And I want to make sure the peeps are part of the program here. Let's just go right to Coswell Kramer, just throwing it right out there.

We found out officially a little after 8 a.m. this morning, Jed, that the news that has been sort of lingering in the space for quite some time, a little over a month, five, six weeks since this has been kind of out in the universe. it is official now MVP and the professional fighters league they are merging jed they're going to be under the MVP mMA umbrella so pfl by january 2027 is no longer going to be pfl they're going to be mvv they're going to be m m ma we're wondering what was going to happen after that first event on netflix it was a rousing success we're wondering how could they keep this going jed how are they going to get a roster, what are they going to do in order to continue putting on these events? Because you kind of need fighters to put on fights. And since then, we have seen Mike Perry pick up a fight in a new promotion. Saladin Parnasse is a member of the UFC roster, is getting a freaking main event in his first

UFC fight. Rebellis to Spain is back in the UFC. And other fighters are competing on contender series that were part of that card. So, things are getting a little thin. Now they have the entire PFL roster and things are moving in a different direction. Jake Paul, Nekisa, Badarian, they will run the show. John Martin will be the CEO of this new sort of conglomeration.

MVP is now sort of all encompassed now. It's the boxing. It's the MMA. It's the media company. All that all merged into one. And like I said, by the time we get to January of 27, it'll all be official.

So Jed, here you go. Your chance to react to this. MVPFL, your thoughts, your reaction. Floor is yours. I don't even know if there's like that much of a reaction to have. Like, we heard the rumors about this happening. What it would look like was sort of up in the air. This isn't as good as fights, Mike.

I think we could all agree on that. Well, like, PFL needed to go. It can't, it's what a snake bit, it's cursed, whatever it is. It wasn't gaining traction. So a rebrand under the MVP umbrella, I think, you know, can maybe help put a new coat of paint on this thing. But am I excited about it? I don't know. I've seen some people be excited about it.

I'm not trying to run in anybody's parade because I hope, I certainly hope that this ends up being a very real and relevant entity. that can't compete with the UFC. Nothing's going to compete with the UFC. We're beyond that stage of things, but can present something else to the MMA landscape that people will, in fact, enjoy and that people will like. Because that is, like, that's sort of the biggest issue with PFL,

is they existed, but were there PFL fans? Not really. And so the hope is that that is what we can have go on here, but I have minimal hope that they're, that's real. Like I want to see when this was like when MVP first did this, Mike, I don't know if you remember this. When they first held their MMA event, we got a question. I was like, should they just merge with PFL? And I was like, no, because I don't, I don't know what MVP is gaining here. Ostensibly they're gaining a roster of talent.

Like, this is probably Usman Numerga Meadow's last fight on Friday. Dakota Ditcha was there. so okay i guess you're gaining that you know johnny eblin's probably not super long for the pfl world like that i don't know to what extent the the talent you're gaining is is meaningful it's not nothing but how important is that i guess we'll find out and you know they did their big event their special event that that drew interest without any of these people so i don't know i hope i have hope but i do not have optimism i guess is how I'll phrase is that this is going to be anything different than shuffling the deck, you know, shuffling the lawn chairs on the Titanic. It's like, yeah, we're still all just going down in the monopoly of the UFC,

but maybe we can feel a little better about it afterwards. I don't know. I have a million questions. I have so many questions. I wish Nikesa Baderin was sitting in between us right now virtually, so I could fire off a billion questions at it. Really? I have one question.

What's your question? I mean, I'd have like some smaller questions of like, can I see the contracts? Because I'd be interested to see like what sort of equity is, is changing hands here. But like my one question, the only question I think that matters at all, at least from my perspective, are you guys on Netflix? Is that, are you, is the MVP MMA going to hold 15 events a year on Netflix? because if it's if if fl's still going to be on ESP like then this is all for not if you are going to have a broadcast partnership with Netflix to God I hope it's not 50 events a year but if you do you know 12 to 15 to 18 events a year on Netflix then I'll have a little more optimism maybe so do I think they will be on Netflix at some point certainly like if they could put a big car together

I think it'll be on Netflix. Are all the cards going to be on Netflix? I don't know for sure, but I certainly doubt it. I will say this, though. PFL's biggest issue this year has not been the fights in the events because they've actually watched good fights. Have been very, very good. The problem is they're on a network that does not care about them.

ESPN could not, they just don't care about PFL. They are just running out the seconds. You know who PFL, I mean, you know who ESPN, has cared about this year, MVP. They have cared a lot about MVP. They have launched the Women's League on their networks. They're promoting it. They're pushing it.

They have a relationship. If you look at the content and the writing of ESPN of certain people who were there, they're very pro MVP. Could this help them not only solidify an extension with ESPN, perhaps they will actually give a shit about the promotion. They extended to ESPN and it's the same thing. Then I don't, I think that it's actively hurting them.

I don't think it's going to be the same. But I don't think it'll be the same thing. Like right now they're just, PFL's buried. They don't care. They don't promote them nothing. But in there at the whims of ESPN to be like, oh, actually we need to fill content here.

So do this. Like, right. They don't do that with the MVP. They think, yeah, they can't. If, if this is going to change. And again, maybe that's like a slightly positive thing. But like, if all this is is a new coat of paint on the same old thing, like, well, this ship is still sinking, you know, the, we haven't solved the problems. But could they still do Netflix as well for the, for the big events?

Absolutely. There's a relationship there too. Like, you're not going to put, like, you're just not going to put Johnny Eblen versus Costello von Steenis on Netflix. Like, that's, you're not going to, you're not going to get 15 people watching that on Netflix. but if you have like a backup network sure could you do francis ingano versus eddie hall on netflix apps a freaking lilly kid you could absolutely do that like they're gonna have to get real weird with stuff in order to get that Netflix platform because they're not getting ronda back ronda's done jena carrano can't carry this on her own Nate could you do Nate ds jake paul

on Netflix in an mma fight yeah certainly do that you could do that but i like you only have like two options right now of like big events that could be headlined by major names that will have people stay home on a Saturday night and watch Netflix and watch fights on Netflix. They shouldn't be on Saturday nights. I want to make that clear. Friday nights. Jared and Jake Paul. John Martin, if any of you are listening, stop doing shit on Saturday nights.

It is a waste of your time. It is a waste of your time. Saturday nights are owned by the UFC. They just are. You can bitch about that and you can be unhappy about that and be like, that's, not like you're not, you are just hurting yourself. Be on Friday nights. There's a PFO on Friday. It's perfect.

Like, there's nothing else happening on Friday night. And it's probably a better event than the UFC's got on Saturday. Honestly, yes, probably is. But like, it is perfect because it is on Friday night. There is no competition on Friday night. Now, maybe you are net, like maybe it's, it would be more optimal to be an open Saturday night than an open Friday night because Saturday night's fight night. but like you just

my biggest complaint this year and frankly for the last four years with PFL other than broadly you're not having fun like just have more fun and that'll trickle down to the viewer experience is like I don't ever know when you're on sometimes it's Thursday sometimes it's Friday

sometimes it's Saturday afternoon the UFC can do that because they hold all the cards you can't you need to stake a claim plant a flag on a day and time that day and time should be Friday evening hey it's Friday night that's when the PFL is on or that's when MVP MMA is on and then we build from there like that's that's my one ask of you guys moving forward stop trying to go head to head stop putting events on at the same time that's just dumb it's just dumb yeah they need a a good full-time

broadcast partner maintain the relationship with Netflix certainly if you can get everything over on Netflix? Like, that's gigantic. No doubt about it. But you need, like, a solid broadcast partner who is going to push you and care about you and actually, like, promote you that you are on their network and on their family of networks. You definitely need that. Without that, you're completely at. Netflix has pro wrestling, right? They have raw. They have raw. Yeah. Okay. Then, yeah, you should just be able to be like, hey, like, I would just go to Netflix and be like, I would like to put all our shit on you. and we'll give you, you know, two marquee events a year that you can structure around to promote in a big way. But like, just give us 18 Friday nights in 2027, you know, and two of those will be big.

And we will plan something special for our major events or whatever. You know, like I've been pitching the UFC. They should do four majors. PFL should do two majors a year, one in the spring and one in the fall, and then 16 other events on Netflix. and I feel like you could sell that. You could make that work for them. Maybe.

I'm also curious how they're going to create stars. Usman is gone. He's going to beat Arch Colgan tomorrow and then he's out of here. He's going to the UFC. Dakota Ditcheva has five fights left on her current deal, which is a big money deal. She's going to beat the soul out of these killed tomorrow. And then she's got four fights left.

She's going to fight Liz Karmouche. She's probably going to rifle through these fights in the next couple of years. If you are MVP, putting her on every card possible once that merger is officially official. And then she's probably gone too. So like you've lost your two biggest names within 18 months. So now unless they're just, unless their first order of businesses, we are going to give Dakota Dichva anything she wants.

Name a price. Here's a check. I think running two years with her is fine. Don't, you don't need to build the brand around her for the foreseeable future. you have to again that's a as a band-aided on a bullet wound you got to find a way to build stars

and trying to keep Dakota Ditchiva as long as possible like you've got her for two years that's good run that in the meantime use that use her as the bridge to figure out how you are developing star talent because that is a thing that Belator never figured out Bellator

I think they just went about it the wrong way to some extent I mean these are all interconnected right like it's hard to build stars on a platform no one gives a shit about, right? Like, that's a difficult thing. But, like, Bellator invested in youth development, but it didn't invest in star development.

And sort of, like, core concept was we will bring in a bunch of talented young fighters and hope, like, if we take that many swings, one of them will become a star. And it didn't really pan out all that well. And so, like, you've got to rethink your youth development programs to be less, you know, You know, like, I'm just going to go to Dagestan and get a bunch of, like, good Oves who can fight that people won't care about and will be bored by. You've got to find another way to skin this cat.

Yeah. Are they taking on, are they taking on the Bellator debt, too? Like, these are questions I have. I assume that the Bellator debt, it vanished. You think so? I assume, well, Bellator, I was bought. for monopoly money and so i assume that that monopoly money just disappeared

this is just we're just we we stopped pretending that bellator had value at all that's just good business right there it's just good business so i think this is probably good business yeah that's the thing like this like on its face just reads to me as like good business again i hope i don't have any optimism that this is like that this is like that that this changes the dynamic, I hope I am wrong and that it does because we desperately need, again,

not a competitor. We need a strike force. We need a WEC. Like, we need a pride, something that wants to pretend it's a competitor, but probably isn't. But at least is there

and that people are genuinely interested in. And, you know, maybe Jake Paul's enough to get PFL to be interesting. I don't. It wasn't when he was a partner with them. No, he didn't. But maybe now as the, you know, the face of it really, maybe it changes.

I don't know. I hope, but I am not optimistic. This is obviously very good news for the sport and the fighters because now you can negotiate. You have multiple organizations that you can, I guess, play against one another to get the best value that you can do. The UFC is not losing a wink of sleep over this. So let's just put that out there. I do see people that are like, this is changing the landscape.

We don't know that yet. And it's maybe it's changing the landscape in some degree that now it's like, okay, MVP MMA is a real thing. After the first event, they said, hey, we're a real thing, but we didn't believe they were a real thing because we have the same questions that we still have now. But now they are officially a real thing. They have a roster of fighters. They can actually put on events.

So this is good. This is good for fighters. Again, the UFC has no competition. They are so far ahead of everybody. It does not matter. Now you got Scotty Cokes coming back in 2027 as well, which brings up an interesting question here. Big Super Chat from our guy, Hossata.

Does this now make them a legit number two, not just the de facto number two? Can they land a deal with Netflix or Prime? I believe the one FC's deal is over this year. But Prime has serious buyers or more. about that, but that's another topic for another day. And this is the question that really interests me, Jed.

Should Scotty Cokes join them to really challenge the UFC? Could we create the Super Friends MMA organization to go against the evil empire that is the UFC? No. I like Scott Coker. I think Scott Coker has

been a successful promoter for a very long time. And I respect what he accomplishes. his time is gone. Right? Like this isn't, if Scott Coker was good at promoting or like was still,

you know, good at promoting in the landscape as things have happened, Bellator would be with us. Like, we'd still have Belator. He wouldn't have been on an ayahuasca trip into the trees for the last three years,

whatever he's been doing, right? Like he, I, this is, If you, Mike, you don't see nearly as many movies as I have, or as I do. You got a kid obligations. You've seen the Steve Jobs movie, not the one with Ashton Coucher, but the one with Michael Fastbender.

Have you seen that, Mike? No. I saw the crappy one with Ashton Coucher. Yeah. The Fastbender one is actually way, way better. There is a scene in that movie where Seth Rogen is playing Steve Wozniak and Fastbender's jobs, and they're about to do a product launch. for, I think it's the iMac product launch.

And, uh, job, like they're in this arena doing a pre-practice round or whatever. And Jobs is holding court and stuff. And Wozniak is like, hey, when you're doing this, take a moment to,

uh, give thanks to all the people who worked on the Apple II computer. Because they're about to get laid off. It's the least you can do. And Jobs looks, it was like, fucking no. And then they have this fight

and Waznax like, it's the only successful product we've ever made. You should respect them and do this. And Jobs is just like, yeah, they almost killed Apple and I'm here to save it. F that.

That's how I feel about Scott Coker. Yeah, made a successful product. He is the Apple too. He made a successful product. And then he ran Bell towing to the ground and he doesn't have, He didn't have his basketball anymore. That's fine.

We all lose it. The game done changed. Don't tie your horse to the old nag because you had good times with her. You find something like in life in general, I feel that we do this too much, but certainly in this industry. And certainly, like Bellator did this, they just stuck to names they knew. Hey, man, I got a relationship with these people for years on end. Mike, as a football fan, as a football fan,

would you not say that the end of Belichick's career got a little bit worse because he just kept going to the people he knew and didn't bring in new ideas and new interesting things? Like, this is the way of the world is that you hang on too long. If you team up with Coker, you're just, you are asking for problems, man.

We don't care about the Apple 2. It is the time of the IMAQ. What should cocker, like, what should cocker's organization be? Coeur's organization should be what Strikeforce was originally, which is a very small-scale regional promotion. And then he ultimately ended up growing that into something a little bit bigger when the opportunities presented itself. But like, he should not be swinging big here.

Honestly, like, does this hurt them bad here? I do think it hurts them, maybe not bad. Like, they probably need to pivot away from any grander ideas they had to being much smaller in scale. I don't, we don't see eye to eye on everything. And sometimes out of nowhere, he will decide to Twitter beef me, despite me never picking a fight with him. Cameron really does it pretty well with Combate of just, like, kind of knowing his lane. And then he talks like he doesn't know his lane, but he promotes like he knows, he knows what Combate is. And so, like, Coker should probably do something like that of like, I know where my bread is buttered.

I'm not going to get too big for my britches here and just stay focused. Yeah. Listen, the one thing we can say about all of this is that next year is going to be really fascinating. I mean, we're going to get answers to all these questions next year. So a couple more superchats, the degenerate MMA fan. Do you think PFL and Risen should put both featherweight titles on the line for a champion versus? champion fight on Netflix. I mean, I think that this will be a part of it, right?

Like, if they are, because Netflix, if Netflix only wants to be involved in big stuff, they can't work out a deal where they are collaborative, you know, multiple times, even with just less bandwidth, right? This feels like an easy win, right? Like there is a pre-set relationship between these two organizations. We're going to see the PFO and Rising Co-promote end of this year. or later this year.

And this, like, to me, this feels like a more easy way to do it. If you as a promoter are less focused on, like, we have the best talent, and, like, we are a competitor to the UFC because we have all this talent. And instead you're just focused on, we put on dope-ass fights, right?

Like, then you can just hang multiple belts on a fight and be like, hey, we're co-promoting with Risen to be thing. and like just to do this event as a periodic thing and it doesn't have to be you know the Super Bowl every year but like yeah we're just going to put together fun fights the primary thing i told pfl this for years it's like this new organization's whole focus should be fun be fun be fun if you can be fun and take advantage of things that the UFC doesn't do or refuses to do that's better right like that is it's It's like, oh, the UFC won't, like, if you could just get better refereeing somehow, like, that would be better. If you, you know, bring in knees to grounded opponents full stop, like one rules or kicks to ground opponents, that would be better. But if you can't do that, or that's the secondary, the primary thing, you need to build a brand. The brand needs to be fun. The UFC brand is fights and affliction or whatever.

But, like, your brand needs to be, you're going to have a good time. you're going to have a good time because that is how you build interest. That is how people flock to you and pay attention. They don't flock to you because, well, they might be the second best promotion in the world. No, it's like we had fun. We had fun watching their fights on Friday night. Yeah. And on top of that, we have with this promotional thing, we have dual bets putting on their own car.

We haven't even talked about this yet. dual arena one is going down August 29th in Orlando at the Kia Center. Mike Perry versus Dylan Danis is the main event. In an MMA fight in a ring, Jed. This is happening in a ring. So any excitement here? They announced like there's going to be some like influence the fights too. Sure.

It's happening. Not buying it? I'd be a little surprised because I think Dylan Danis would get wrecked here. and he tends to not show up to fights where he's going to get wrecked. He showed up to wrestle Hamza. Yeah, that's a wrestling match. That doesn't really.

This is a fight. It's a little bit. It's a wrestling match. So we'll see. If it happens, it will certainly draw interest. I am, my biggest reaction when this was announced was I'm surprised that this is not part of MVP

or Netflix or whatever because it feels like you could draw business with this. Yeah. And I don't know why that didn't happen, but, I mean, I guess good on whoever's putting this together. Shout out to dual bets. Patent or Patient Panda. Jedd and Mike, any thoughts on doing your own thing, kind of like Luke Thomas? Nope.

Same. Fahy. I have, I will say, I have flirted with the idea of really more for me than for anybody else. of was like I do own a YouTube channel but I haven't posted on it in 30 years of using that to talk about movies. I love that. Like that's no. I have no interest in anything else.

Yeah. The only thing I would. Or sports. Yeah. The only thing I would ever do on my own is like do golf content. Like even if just like it's me and my kid play and the like the whole golf content is like the road to him beating me in golf. golf. It's going to be a short series because he's going to be beating me in like a year.

There's no doubt about it. He's going to beat me in golf like that. That's a good, that's a good idea. I like that. Maybe that's what we'll do. That'll be my new side hustle. We'll just, oh, there'll be the road to me being humiliated by my 13, 13 year old son who just started playing golf like two years ago. He's going to beat me. He's going to beat me very, very soon. So, uh, Fahy. So basically I went to Afghanistan for three months visiting family and unfortunately the internet there isn't good enough so I missed you guys for three months. Oh, it's a shame. Glad you're back.

It's good to have you back. That was that, Afghanistan. You don't hear a lot of people going to Afghanistan these days. So I hope you have fun. By the way, shout out to the Facebookers. We're on Facebook today. The bookface. We're on the bookface.

We're on the bookface. I have to tell you, Jed, I'll throw this out there only because of all the things that I thought we get questions about. This is the last thing I thought we get a question about. How does UFC 330 look losing Jeff Neal versus Chee-Dichukwani? Does that fight fall out? Yeah, it's off.

I guess that happened either this morning or yesterday. They have it yesterday. Yeah, I was off yesterday and I have Mike, I got to tell you, I have this year, I'm really proud of my ability. When I'm off, I'm off. You're off.

I used to not be, because like, I slack on my phone and so then I would just sort of and or I just be like I'm on social media less than I've ever been so I'm not even like just on and seeing fight stuff happening. I'm just like vibe it. I'm out here playing with dogs outside, reading books, playing FIFA. I don't have a clue what happened yesterday until I woke up this morning and like looked at at MEPAFighton.com great website and I got to know a little more. That's typically what I do when I have an off day.

Unfortunately, our social media guru, Jose Youngs, is on vacation for the next nine days. So while I was at a golf tournament with my son, I was like looking at the news cycle and I'm like, Jesus, like on the way home, like we have to stop and get dinner and then I'm just going to have to make a bunch of graphics. And then all the Anthony Smith details came out. And I was like, oh, guess I'm making one more before I drive two hours. You were like, hey, I'm about to leave. And I was like, hold up, honey.

No, you're not. Guess what? This thing happened. Also, I'm just impressed by this, Mike. Way to go, me. The worst thing to happen to MMA? Wow. Being the worst thing to happen to this sport, like, is impressive.

So, good for me. Yeah, shout out to you. Oh, to answer that previous question, though, I'm looking at 3.30 now. I mean, in general, it kind of doesn't matter. This has two title fights and the number one powerful fighter in the world. Like, it can only lose so much luster. also that was like a fine fight but I wasn't stoked on it I was mostly interested to see where Jeff Neal's at in his career against the guy like Cheedy but we're not going to lose too much

this card is it's a have-and-have-and-have-nots card like the top two fights are great the rest of this is mostly weak but has some name value like the the fights are not that good but there are some some you know known commodities but But it doesn't matter. The main two fights are quite big. Yeah. It doesn't mean cheat. He's not going to fight.

Yeah. There are weeks to get him a replacement. Yeah. So I'm sure he'll still fight on the card against someone who's relatively near that weight class. That can make weight on a couple weeks notice. I am sad, though, that we don't get the Jeff Neal Magni parlay, which I was prepared to put together, even though it would lose. But the Jeff Neal Magny, I was excited. about that.

Well, let's get into this, Jed. RS40 with Anthony Smith and Dustin Porreier's situation, should fighting promotions fund independent lifetime neurological monitoring to track CTE and brain health. Well, let me, we should probably add some context, because unless you are under a rock and just have not been paying attention to M.MA over the past 72 hours, you have. Yeah, you're probably in a much better spot mentally.

we found out, I believe, on Monday, Anthony Spit was, maybe it was Tuesday, I don't remember, at this point. Yeah, it was Tuesday. Anthony Smith was arrested multiple felonies, including domestic violence, terroristic threats of some kind, like all sorts of craziness. And we weren't sure of like all the details,

and we still don't really know all the details, but things are coming out from like local news. But then yesterday, our own Damon Martin got a statement from the Sarpie County District Attorney's Office about Smith's arrest. And here's what they had to say. Quote, during today's bond hearing, which by the way, Anthony Smith was released on $500,000 bond yesterday, a prosecutor from the Sarpie County Attorney's Office offered the following information.

It is alleged that on July 26, 2026, the defendant was involved in an altercation with his wife at a bar in Gretna and Nebraska, during which she reportedly threatened to kill her if she did not get into his vehicle and go home with him. He is further accused of grabbing and pushing her inside the vehicle. At one point, during the drive, she was able to exit the vehicle. The defendant allegedly continued making threats, demanding that she get back inside the vehicle. After arriving home, she again exited the vehicle.

Investigators allege that the defendant attempted multiple times to use the vehicle to strike her. The defendant's wife was able to get out of the way and avoid any physical harm. So that is the statement from the DA. providing some more details on this whole thing. But what did you think of this, Chad? Before we get into what the UFC

and what other promotions could do to help these fighters in the long run after being in these crazy fights and these crazy battles with the brain stuff and CT and all that stuff, what do you think about this? What was your reaction to the whole Anthony Smith? The rest and now after hearing that,

what do you think? Obviously the details make it look like even worse but like when he's arrested you we have the charging documents and you see that he's arrested for false imprisonment or i think it was false imprisonment right um yes because but like you know that's just like not letting somebody leave a location but still not good uh and then you know like attempted serious bodily injury and terroristic threats like those are you can paint a picture and then you actually get what the picture that they're painting is and you're like oh yeah, this is horrible.

Now, maybe he's innocent. You know, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. That is one of the great things about this country and, you know, many of the free democracies around the world. I have my opinions on the likelihood of his innocence, right? But those aren't relevant to the court proceedings at play here. Yeah, this sucks. it is if it is true it's horrible and terrible and people were very quick to and Mike you have more

experience with this than I do as a pro wrestling fan where there have been like horrible incidents of stuff like this happening but like people were very quick to be like yeah CTE and like that could absolutely be case like he got punched in the head a lot and that's absolutely like I'm not discounting that that is possible. But we know, like, it's one of those things that we know inherently and that Dana uses as an offhand remark to brush

away bad deeds or bad comments of like, these are all crazy people. Because to be a professional fighter, you're probably a crazy person. Like there's, like, you're, it just sort of is combat sports and particularly

combat sports involving blunt trauma, right? Like, you're probably a crazy person if you're a wrestler. Like I've just, I wrestled in high school, I've been around wrestlers a lot. Most of them are a little unhinged anyway, but they are not day on a daily basis taking blunt force trauma to the dome, right? Like that's not like part and parcel of everyday training. To be a professional fighter, you probably have a screw loose. Like that is just how it goes. And that can manifest really poorly. I understand the inclination to tie Dustin Porre to this. I think that that is

it's not totally like off base, right? But Dustin Porre got hammered drunk and then kind of tried to like watch the video. He's sort of trying to fight that security guard, but he's not swinging on him. Like he's just

that's a drunk man with internal issues. What is alleged against Anthony Smith is much more severe. Right? And it's sad. I don't, there's not a great solve for this, but

it just sort of is, I mean, this happens not just in this sport, but I think it's probably going to happen more in this sport than any other. Yeah, it's sucks, man. I mean, again, there's the court of public opinion, then there's the court of law,

and those are two totally different things on how you handle that. So we'll see what more details come out, but is everything, At a looks right now, the allegations are pretty rough. The allegations are terrible. Assuming he goes to jail for this, which seems pretty possible, right? His life's over.

But even if he doesn't go to jail, he's like, he's pretty effed, you know? Like, I think the UFC, I hope, God, I hope the UFC would draw a line here about putting him broadcasts anymore like being an analyst um just for unless like it comes out that this is all somehow mistaken identity and is like the allegations alone should be enough to be like hey man wish you the best even if you're you know not legally culpable but like go on i this this is just tough for like i his life is irrevocably screwed here and maybe he deserves it but that still sucks for him. Yeah. I believe we pull it up. He is scheduled to appear in court August 17th. So that is the next time we'll hear more about this. And like it also again, all this is allegations.

Major caveat there. Super lucky if like if this is true or even in the general you know, direction of true. Super lucky he didn't kill his wife or yeah. know, like, cause her serious bodily injury, and that this doesn't become, like, I mean, the wrestler's Chris Benoit, right? That was the wrestler. This isn't a Chris Benoit situation. This isn't a Phil Barone situation. Like, you know, I'm glad she's okay.

Agreed. It seems to be okay. I don't actually know if she is, but based on the police reporting, he didn't kill her. and I guess she's not in the hospital or so. Lazy, we discussed it last month and you posed the question to Dana, should the UFC Institute a wellness program for their athletes? Dana said they do, but they don't discuss it. Is it time to be public about it?

So yes, that question was posed from this show and from Lazybed in particular. And when I was at UFC 329, I asked Dana about it because not only did Lazy ask me about it, a lot of people reached out to me afterwards. like yeah, I'm actually kind of curious about that too. And I was like, well, what better time to ask Daniel of this question than right now? And yeah, he gave me pretty much, yeah, we already do that. I'm like, can you give us like some details on it? And he's like, no, we don't talk about it.

He goes, no, I'm not going to do that. It's not, or whatever he said. He's just like, I'm not going to talk about it. It's not something we talk about. I'm like, well, why? And that was my whole thing. Like, you got to move the presser along, but it's just like, why don't you talk about this?

Like, this is, this is good PR for you, right? So, I mean, it's good that they do it. And Dustin has come out since and said Hunter Campbell reached out to him immediately and was like, what could we do to help? So, I mean, obviously, like, they care about this. But again, there's no public knowledge of any of this outside of Dana really saying that at the press conference. They're like, yeah, we do stuff. Well, what is it? I don't want to talk about it.

Okay. So is it time for the UFC to just come out and be like, hey, like, we do offer this stuff. This is how it works. It's not our call whether they buy into it or not or join these programs, but here's the situation. They can join these things. Should they come out about this? I'm not certain that they have it because Dana White says something does not remotely make it true.

And I don't know why if they had it, this wouldn't be public knowledge. And like if when like, because there's also entirely the possibility that Dana's mind is like, yeah, if they come asking for help, we'll give it. Like, that's not a policy. That's not a thing. And, you know, part, there maybe are legal complications as well. The UFC has spent a lot of time and energy making sure that their fighters are not categorized as employees, but independent contractors.

And that line, in my legal opinion, they are already well over that line. But, you know, that's just one man's legal opinion. But, like, you move further and further away from. from being an independent contractor, basically the more things you provide people and the more restrictions you place on them. I think when they started wearing uniforms, that sort of should have been the nail in the coffin

to their contracting. But like they're doing all these things. And actually we have a, like we have an employee wellness policy because I bet they have an employee well, like an actual employee wellness policy. I bet that is real, right? They're a pretty major conglomerant.

Like that seems, you know, company, yeah. Yeah, they've got an HR company or an HR division. They probably have a public or an employee wellness program. If they extend that to fighters, that then starts making them look more like employees or if they have to do something substantially similar. So I'm just not certain that they have one that's like codified and real outside of like, yeah, Hunter asks them if they need help or whatever and if Dana was just saying something.

Because if they do, I don't, there is no reason to not take the free. PR on it. Like that, the whole point of the performance institute is basically goodwill, right? Like, so why wouldn't they do that? And yes, we talked about this last month or whatever. I think that it would be a good, it's not a major overhead, right? Like, even if it was, this is a company that makes more money than God.

But it would just be a good thing to engender goodwill amongst the fan base and the fighters. and they should do it. They should just like, hey, come out, you know, the same way that they one day were just like, we're going to implement our own drug testing thing. They could be like, hey, we're going to implement this thing. And it seems like such an easy layup. I don't know why they wouldn't do it outside of Dana being either not telling the truth

and they don't have it so they have to build it. Or Dana, you know, like last month, Dana was out talking about like the only toxic masculinity is the lack of masculinity. Like he, this is not a man. It was an Instagram story post on like Monday night. That was a Monday. Like, yeah, this is not a man who like, he doesn't strike me as a guy who believes in mental health, you know. So like, I, that might be the reason, but this is just silly.

Like, do it. Like, the UFC should just look at, Dana says all the time they're, you know, in competition with the NFL. Like, then do what the NFL does. Like, follow the very. very like the most by far the most successful sports entity in this country they make infinitely more money than the ufc makes do what they do hey they've got this we should do that that seems like a good way to go yes and they're not in competition the NFL no they're not but like he says it so okay if you're in competition with them then why did

they have and they didn't you know they didn't always have it this a things came to a head but you can be like, oh, you know what, that's a good idea. Let's do that. WWE didn't have, like, didn't always have it either. They always had like some sort of thing. And then the wellness program became official. And now the CETE stuff like came to light because a former wrestler who was a Harvard graduate did a bunch of research. And they had the wearerthal. It would be like, hey, let's meet. Let's sit down and discuss this so we can learn more about it. And it wasn't like the easiest thing to do. But eventually they all got in a room together with the CET stuff. and they made some changes.

There's no like chair shots of the head anymore and like things of that nature. Like, yeah, wrestling is still tough and concussions can happen and weird things can happen. But they have at least narrowed down some of the issues of where this could stem from. You know, I know wrestling is not quote unquote like fully real, but is very athletic and you can get hurt. And we've seen careers ended in accidental ways. But I mean, back of the late. 90s, early 2000, like, dudes were getting like bashed in the head with chairs. Like, you can't fake that.

Like, maybe you could gimmick something, but you're still getting walloped across the head with the steel object of some kind. Like, you're going to feel that. And, you know, but they're kind of just ahead of the game in that sense. But yeah, crazy. Joseph, will there be a light heavyweight interim title fight at some point this year? Uncle I have called up Paula Costa. Is that the interim title fight?

I don't believe so. I think they're just going to wait. You think so? I mean, they don't care anymore. Like, they just don't. It's a vision. It's so bad, man. It's so bad.

We are in July, Mike. We're in July. Two weeks from three, two weeks from now. Not this weekend. Next weekend is 3.30? It's all right? No, we're back in the apex next week. Back in the episode.

So two and a half weeks from now. We'll be the first week and next week. will be the first women's title defense of the year. Like, they will let, they are comfortable, these divisions are bad, they're comfortable just letting them wait at this point. I think, I think we get Q1 and next year,

Alberg defense against whoever, maybe it's Paula Costa, maybe it's somebody else, but I think it's unlikely we're getting an interim belt. I would say unless it is, if Tremaya had moved up, yes, they do a Tremaya of Kosta interim,

but he hasn't moved up. So I don't think we're doing it. Coswell Kramer, UFC fighters are independent contractors. Remember, you know who else are independent contractors? WW wrestlers are also independent contractors. So it doesn't mean it can't be done.

Are they really? Yeah. That's insane. Oh, yeah. There's no, there's no association with any of that. Now, could like Tony Kahn E.W. come out and be like, hey, we're just going to like make them full-on employees

and give them this and that. Sure, they can do. that but they haven't done that so yeah they're 1099 1099 workers man like oh yeah it's been like that forever back in the 80s jed you know jessie ventura the uh who became the governor of minnesota uh obviously was big in the wrestling world uh he wanted to unionize all the wrestlers that was his thing should absolutely be unionized if they're independent contractors they should absolutely have a union yeah this is like 80s reunionize anyway but yeah 87 67 and they were all in

and then Hulk Hogan went to Vince Ben and said this is what Jesse's trying to do and as Jesse said he quote unquote stooged him out yeah and that's what happened and that's why I never and never happened again so you're not crazy

it's never going to happen at MMA by the way like I know people talk about it all the time it's never going to happen like we're never going to live in this world it's it's a bummer it's a bummer what else we got here a lot of

I'll read this real quick fun but challenging question Mike and Jed how many former UFC fighters can you think of where every single UFC fight they had were all decisions I don't have a clue Mobsar yes I don't think Mobsar's got to finish in the promotion right

he has not gotten a finish in the promotion okay I got one there you go you win I got one that's I like I actually you own are also like 30 20 for somebody in a fight or maybe worse you could definitely if you're like trying to play this game like just focus on lighter weight classes women's bouts and I mean I think she's had so many I'm certain rocky Pennington has finished people but like she went to a lot of cards you know yeah she

finished macy chess on I believe yeah yeah but like she like that's you just play the game that way of like, what are the divisions where people finish people way less? Has Daddy Ice finished anybody? I mean, she's fun as hell, but I don't know if she's actually like finished anybody. I don't know. Let's look. Maybe somebody early, surely, right? Well, I think her debut was Jazz and Jazz DeVizious and she just beat the hell out of her.

Oh, no, she's finished a couple. She fought Victoria Leone Arna, so she definitely got to finish. And Teresa Bleda. So, yeah, there's two finish. She had back-to-back finishes in 2020, 22, 2023. Okay. But since five in a row. Yeah, I mean, pick, I mean, Al-Mabayev has started to, like, pick, like, a random flyweight wrestler.

Like, that's Amir al-Bazi, is he getting finishes? I don't feel like Amir al-Bazi finishes anyone. That's a good question. This is a good little, it's a big, great... Oh, he knocked out Al-Sanda Costa. Actually, he's finished a fair number of people. Yeah, it is. My, I gave you disrespect to Mirabazi.

I probably... Sorry, I'm here. Sorry. They're out there. They're definitely out there. So it's a good question. Oh, Caitlin Chukagian is a great poll, Max Rapkin. She just fought enough that she probably got one in, but death taxes and Chukagian by decision. She didn't, she has, I'm sorry, Cermanara. But.

Yeah, no finishes. Great. Yeah, good call. Good call. She got finished a couple of times, but she never finished. Oh, yeah. She got, she got the. Gagin's great. Yeah, good shout.

Yeah, she got obliterated by Valentine's. No, RS 40. Arnold Island killed Dan Hooker. True story. He sure did. He killed Dan Hooker.

He did. Scott, do you think Poria got a pass compared to what would have happened to most people? He was only off the air for a week, and now he's leaned into it, and I see him everywhere.

Maybe a bit, but like, I, when I saw the Porriere thing, like, and this is where I tried to, tried to explain earlier. It's like, there's a very big difference between what happened with Porre and what happened with Anthony Smith, right? Like, you watch the Porriere video, and I was not, like, aghast. I was, I was just sad. I was sad at what was happening. But again, this was a guy who was queerly intoxicated, and this is not an excuse.

but like his intoxicated version of being a problem was being loud and offering to fight a man. He did not, you know, he said, hey, do you want to fight and put his dukes up? But he didn't run around swinging at him. Like he just, it is different. I think he probably should have gotten a little more time off, right? They shouldn't have put him on deep waters the next week. but he also nobody was hurt nobody was really ever at risk of getting hurt this was a he he was drunk in public like there's a difference between drunk and public and i tried to kill my wife like

those are not these are just not equitable things you know and so again he probably should have gotten like a little more than he did like hey why don't we sit you out for a month or two yeah you know like and then come back and when you come back we can I do think they did a good job of addressing it when he came back and not like pretending it didn't happen but you know like yeah he probably got a little bit better treatment but also this I don't think we needed to clutch our pearls and you know throw the book at Dustin Poy over this like he effed up he should have to do community service and pay a fine and you know these normal things but like we don't need to hold him out as the like a shining example

of all that is wrong in the sport. Like, yeah, I was bad, but it's okay. Other bads, not the same. Yeah. Some people are bringing up to, like, really interesting questions about, like, how the UFC handles the Anthony Smith thing? Like, are there, is there,

do you think there's an edict being sent? They're going to not talk about it. Do you think there's, like, an edict being sent to, like, D.C. and Bisving, like, don't talk about this on your channels or in your shows. I don't I bet that they didn't get an edict like I don't do this because also

I don't have any primary I want to be clear I don't like have an issue with either man um Bisping and I've had some friction previously but like I don't have any like actually thing against them both of them are the kind of company men

who don't need to be explicitly told not to do something they are both smart enough under the corporate structures that they operate that you don't have to send a memo that says don't press the red button you can be like hey look you know this thing happened just be careful how you approach it and they can both look at them and be like yeah the better answer is to simply not talk about that and i don't blame them for that i don't think that they gain much unless they have something really salient to speak about uh i don't think them coming out and being like i stand with anthony smith is a smart move from them.

So I think that they probably weren't directly told, do not speak about it, but they were probably given a warning and they are smart enough to interpret that warning as we shouldn't do this. Mike heck is Dana White's body double. It's like, Mike, you don't have to tell your kid

not to do everything, right? You can just be like, if you want to do it, you can, but like, it's probably not going to go great. You can just say that. And he can be like, oh, you're right. I'm not going to touch this stove. That would be a bad idea.

Now, if only I could have these conversations with the new puppy in the house. You'll meet in a couple weeks. If this is the guy I'd be more interested, or not Anthony Smith, sorry, Michael Bisping, because he, you know, podcasted with Anthony for a long time. And maybe the, like, if I'm the UFC, I'm just straight up telling Bisping, don't say anything about him. Like, for Cormier, I'd be like, dude, if you want to, but you probably just aren't going to. Yeah, why would he say?

He had a little, it seemed a much more personal connection with him and be like, nothing you say here is going to be positive, so please just don't say anything. But I don't know that they would have done that. They might be fine letting Bisping do it, and maybe he won't send out. Because, look, I, to liken this to the Kane Velasquez situation, which I have maintained from Jump was really, really bad, and Cain Velasquez is not a martyr or hero. I think that ultimately we actually got the appropriate legal response there, given all the circumstances.

But when that happened, everybody came out of the woodwork to be like free Kane. And I understood that, right? Like I didn't agree, but I do understand that. And it will not be interpreted or perceived by the fan base as negative for that to happen. for if if bisman comes out and is like my best anthony smith i hope he gets through these problems that will probably not be received nearly as well given the severity of what is being alleged against him yeah and you could also be just you know things could get off the rails i mean it's your friend you want to like defend your friend and you want to think the best of them could you know you

got to be careful what you say i don't want to come on and be like there's no world where this is true like you can't you can't just say things like that so yeah i think the best course of action is just to be like, hey, you know, maybe maybe sit this play out. Sit a couple of plays out. And that's, and that's, you don't always have to talk about everything. You don't. You don't.

What else we got here? Kozal, UFC is on pace for the lowest amount of title fights in over a decade, 20% lower than the previous year. Yeah, told you, man. They don't care that much anymore. You know, I mean, also that like those numbers can be a little bit misleading because we get 13 pay-per-views a year basically right and so it's like you get like 30 some odd title fights a

year because many pay-per-views don't have multiple title fights on them but basically every pay-per-view has a title fight on it right and so you know you're looking at 30 35 maybe title fights a year. And so for a big percentage drop, it doesn't take much. But there's no title on the line at 2329. You know, we've had a less double-stacked title fight or title cards this year. So it is smaller, but it's not like they don't feel compelled to make every pay-per-view have two title fights anymore. And if it's Connor, they don't have to have a title at all. 100%. I do think they need to announce the 331 made event like tomorrow i get like what are we doing here this is insane we are like five we're like six weeks away from that event happening and there's no main event what are we like i i don't

understand this i don't understand armand's rman's grappling on saturday like is he fighting all of error i was told that there's like nothing i was told there's really like nothing there right now um it seems like that's the plan but like as of like a week ago that fight was not done. Maybe things have changed since then. I don't know why that fight would be happening. To get him in there to fight somebody? I mean, I guess.

Number one contender fight? He already beat him. He is the number one contender. I know, but he hasn't fought. It's only had two fights since April of 2024. I guess. Coswell. Is the Amichato Gary discourse fair or foul?

Super foul. Because all discourse about Ian Machado Gary is mostly nonsense of a, at times, very toxic fan base. You can dislike Ian Machado, Gary, and I quite frankly don't care for him. But, I mean, you're allowed to dislike anybody for any number of reasons. But his personal life is just like, was, people hated him for that, which is always incredibly stupid to me. I've watched those comments. I watch Brandon Schaub go full

bozo on him which was tough for me because I don't care for Brendan Schaub I don't believe that Ian Machado Gary is serious when he says in case you didn't know it

he said that women should rule the world everything would be better I don't think he's serious in like this is a thing that we should do but more a broad statement. And guys, I'm going to let you in on something.

He's right. And all of us agree. Because how many, like, I can only, I guess I can only speak for me. But the sheer number of times that I hang out with my friends and all of, you know, our wives are gone. And it immediately turns into the dumbest thing you've ever seen because there are no guardrails. There's nobody there to keep us in check from somebody being like,

hey, watch this, and all the sudden it has spiraled into the stupidest shit of all time. Every guy knows this too. Like, we all pretend like we don't to get offended about some nonsense. But we know that in the, like, that if you took a group of dudes and put them together, within an hour, somebody is probably bleeding. Like, that's just, that's just going to happen. Or you take, like, a group of women and put them together. Nobody's bleeding.

Like, nobody has, like, broken, like, a leg because they are just a more responsible individuals than we are. Like, we need them. And he wasn't saying in like a real policy. He was, I think, just trying to make that same joke that I've made a lot. I assume many of you have made a lot. But people are happy to get after this dude because he is not, you know, dude bro max. And it's very, I wish he and Machado Gary didn't exist in the sport because I don't like him.

but I don't like him for very different reasons than the fan base and I don't like sharing a dislike for a man because they think I'm one of them. And I'm like, no, I don't dislike him because I think men are the superior gender or whatever. I dislike him because he's an asshole. You know who doesn't agree with the image out of Gary's sentiments? Urosmanich, as you will hear.

Yeah, some of the people came out. Yeah, I spoke with him. All I do is ask him about the title, fight and just like how he thought it would go and then it went full on into uh his his thoughts on in in his comments on that and boy he uh he went bananas so coming soon to uh to a may fighting here's the thing that that really struck out at me about this and y'all can be mad about this or not and that's okay with me the backlash to ian statements i maybe it happened but i I didn't see any backlash out there that was like,

well, actually, women shouldn't rule the world because no one genders. Like, everybody should sort of be collaborative. It wasn't that sort of thing where it was like, what he said is, is dim, and like nobody's better than anybody else. It was a lot of, oh, he thinks women are good. Like, just the most caveman. Women kitchen burr like response. Whereas it was like, okay, man, like that you're,

when I first saw, like genuinely when I first saw that, you know what I thought? Okay. And I scrolled on. And then it became a thing. Because like you're just, if you have like a big problem with it, that feels like that speaks about you more than it speaks about Ima Chado Gary. Yeah.

Apparently, I'm looking at this. Okay. A trending topic is Ali Abdulaziz dropped a list of the greatest of all time in each men's division. Oh, God, I bet that is rough. Flyweight, Demetius Johnson. Okay? Yeah. Unless you're, who was it that Josh Van say it was Pantosia, which I don't think I'll forget.

Yeah, because he never watched. You don't think I'll ever forget him. to his credit, he still stands by it. Look, if you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly, but truly the most wrong, like, he might be the only person alive who thinks that. Bannamweight Al Jermaine Sterling. I disagree, but I think there is.

You can make a case. I think there's an argument. I don't, yeah. You're going to love this one, Jed. Featherweight, Alexander Bolkanovsky. You could still make an argument. I mean, no, that's, I mean, no, that's, If I don't agree, and I think that the numbers prove that out wrong, but it's fine.

55. I'll get on a twist about. Yeah, 55 Habib slash Islam. I don't think anybody's surprised by that. Correct. You could make. Also, it's a beep. Yeah.

185 Anderson Silva. 205 John Jones. Heavyweight, Francis and Ghanu. Who do you think you said at Welterweight? Wait, wait, wait, wait, go run those other, 205, John Jones. Who was 185? Anderson Silva. Anderson? Okay, yeah, yeah.

Francis at heavyweight. Who do you think you said at Walter Wright? Oh, Camaroid. It's craziness. Come on. Yeah, that's, Camaro's not. This is not that bad. I'm looking at the top of it.

I'm like, all right, I get that. And then I saw 170. I'm like, oh. And the Francis one's a little. Yeah, Francis is silly. Open note grappling tweeted something like the other week. And it was like, I'm not entirely sure why people say, that Kamaro is the number two.

I think that there's an argument. I was like, buddy, I've been saying for years, he's not the number two welterweight of all time. It's Matt Hughes. We can forget the Matt Hughes existed, and Matt Hughes's not a great guy. No, he don't. But he's the number two welterweight of all time

based on accomplishment. Now, is he better? No, Kamar Usman is a substantially better fighter than Matt Hughes was, because things get better. But if greatness is a measure of accomplishment, Matt Hughes accomplished more than Kamar Usman did. And that's just like, I don't, you know, I won't get too upset if you're like, I'm fine if you put Usman over Hughes.

Like, that doesn't bother me. It is objectively silly to put Usman over George St. Pierre. It is very, very dumb. Yeah. It's like no basis on that whatsoever. Dave, that was not Mike's dog. That was on my end, actually. So I've got auto with me, but Mike, you know my setup, right?

And then across from me, there is a glass blowing studio. And I feel like maybe I've even told you guys, the owner of that used to have a dog who ran in the yard freely. And I was friends with. She passed away. She was 16 or 17. She was a super old dog. She passed away this year. he got a new puppy.

But before that, when that puppy was still with, like, its mother, it had been born. And so, like, did you can get that puppy yet? They were like, yeah, the puppy's coming. His grandson found another dog. And so now they just have two puppies that run freely in the yard. And one of them is very food motivated and has learned that I have food. And she will come and to the door. and Otto is sitting out at the door looking out and she was barking.

Oh, okay. So that's not Mike's dog. That's on me. Yeah. The puppy's like just sitting right next to me. Quiet as can be. And he is up. He's getting big, dude.

He's already bigger. Puppies grow so fast. Yeah. Ha, Bailey. He's in the 40s already. I mean, he's like five months. Puppies grow so fast. He's a big boy.

He's a big boy. He's very good. Kind of a pain in the butt at times. But, uh, yeah, there's a puppy. Very, very good. Predictions on this weekend's Cards main events. So we got Usur and Matamigil.

Main events, we understand. Yeah. Medich and DROT is a very interesting fight. I am surprised how wide the odds are in favor of Medich. What are the lines? Last I looked, he was minus 400. What? That seems crazy.

Let me take a gander if that has shifted. But yesterday, or day before yesterday, when I recorded No Bet's Bard, he's minus 430. right now. Holy shnike. Yeah. I mean, D-Rod has been out for a year, and a lot of that year was spent in lockup in T.J. And he's also going to be 40 in a few months.

But Medich hasn't really put the sword. Like, Medich's best win is Jeff Neal. And I'm now curious if Jeff Neal, if that's more reflection on Medich or reflection on Jeff Neal. Medich is super fun, but I've never been like, that's a top 10 guy. I'm like, he's just a really fun guy. And if he just comes in there and bangs it out with D-Rod,

he might win that way. That's very possible. He also might get jawed. And so, you know, if you haven't listened to Obetz Bart, go do. But I put 20 bucks on D-Rod by KO. Oh, okay. Plus is a plus like 530 or something. I kind of feel like if you're going to do something here,

I think you do Medich by Kio round. one. I don't know what the line is there. And if it doesn't happen, you live bet the shit out of Drod. Like, I feel the longer, the longer this fight goes, the better. The better than sir. Without question. Even though Drod is, is pushing 40. Dude is, I mean, just go watch the Kevin Holland fight. Dude was wrecked in that fight. He had, like, very little training camp for that fight. And it was one of the funest third round you'll ever watch. He's a very fun guy, man. Yeah. crazy. So, yeah, I think Dera is a way better chance than those betting odds are assuming. The odds are very long.

But, I mean, look, he's had a odds this week. He hasn't fought in a year, and it's not like he's been at home recovering. He hasn't fallen in year. He's been a lockup in T.J. Yeah, he spent eight months in a Mexican prison. But apparently, while there, he got all his nutrition and training. But he said when he got out, he was in. like horrific shape like really bad shape. You've been in Tijuana prison for yeah eight months whatever you're not getting your uh your creatine intake and correct all sorts of stuff so

that's an interesting fight I have no doubt that fight is going to be way more fun than Magam and Ancalaia versus Bogdan Guscoff. Uh yeah I I would be completely flabbergasted if this turned into that. I will also say that, I mean, I would never bet this. I do think Ditchieva being like a minus 10,000 favorite at some books is like sort of insane. She's going to be Denise Keeholtz. But like, she's going to clobber her. But like Denise Kielholtz is not without some ability.

She is a professional fighter. And minus 10,000 is just an enormous price. So that's, I think that's a little insane. but she is a professional fighter that is barely a straw weight fighting at flyweight against a flyweight who's probably closer to bannam weight and she's a lose but my 10,000 is so big yeah are you taking a shot on keel holts then no no no um but you should never bet like there's i was for the climb this week uh i'm on nina milosevic so um that's right the count is bad this is less being on nina milosevic who's fine but not amazing

and more absolutely fading Haley Cowan. And then I was talking with AK, my climb consultant, and Oosman was minus 550. That's within the range of what I, certainly what I can use. So I put him in. And I was like, I kind of just want to put Dichiva in

because then if I parlay Ousman and Dichiva together, that gets them down, it gets him down to the actual like minus 500 number. And by the time I tried to do it, but Dichiba didn't even move the line more than like $3. So it was like, I'm just not going to do this. This is a waste of time. So it's just just Usman and Milosevic this week.

To get to step 10, Mike, officially step 10, we are net step 10 right now. If we hit this, we will be between steps 12 and 13 from a monetary standpoint. And officially 10 steps up the mountain. You should after this one, if you get to that next, if you accomplish the steps.

Wow, the dog is snoring. You might be able to hear that. You should save it for 3.30. Step 11. For the old, for the old dub B. Because I don't,

next week's card I don't love in general. Yeah. Interesting. They're making Kill and Saul killed fight somebody instead of put somebody down. So I can't just keep betting Gilles'all killed because like he might just straight lose to Madoch Gamerat.

It's a very interesting fight. This is an interesting question from Duke. Do you think Fador is a perfect example of your legacy being quietly erased by the guys that won the war, similar to empires that got conquered by Rome? Yes. Not entirely because there are enough fans who know and he had such a cult of personality. But in like 50 years, yeah. Like nobody's going to talk about him in 50 years.

It's just like, assuming the UFC is still going and still the dominant in sea, which they probably will be. Seems very likely. You know, like, yeah, this is he, it's honestly a really good comp. Then Fador is like some lost pagan religion that just doesn't exist anymore. It's like, yeah, I used to be the god of these woods and now I'm not because the Romans came or whatever. It's like, yeah, nobody's, like, he, nobody will know him in a generation and a half. That's a great question I've never considered. It's a great question.

That's a really good question. We'll do a couple more. Flitter thoughts on Malat Buckley, Mike Mollaw's future champion, never besmirch his name. A lot going on with like the four circles of like welterweight slash middleweight. Joaquin Buckley is wrestling at RAF on August 22nd against Tyrant Woodley. Tyrone Woodley is also now booked to wrestle Hamzaa Shemaya, like two weeks later in Moscow. And now Buckley is fighting in a UFC fight in Edmonton against Mike Milott. So I don't think anybody is truly surprised about this matchmaking.

I thought Malat they'd give him like JDM or something, but JDM got absolutely. smashed up by Carlos Pratchez, so maybe him not fighting in October is a good idea. But yeah, man, this is kind of right. This is kind of the right fight if you're not going to do like Camaro or JDM, right? This is, I think this is the worst acceptable fight that could be made here. Because if you're Mike Malak coming off, you know, the biggest one of your career or whatever, you're old too.

34. Like you're trying to make hey, well, we can here. Buckley is like a top 10 ranked guy. So if you beat him, good. Like that's advancement. It's a good win. But he doesn't have a name that people care about. And you don't beat him and then can call for a title fight. You have to keep climbing after this. Like when Malat won, I pitched any of the former champions. Yeah. And not getting any of them. Maybe it is just. just a victim of circumstance. But, like, Leon Edwards is the one that I thought would make the most sense, because Leon could just tackle him, and maybe Leon finally gets a win, you know, instead of this perpetual freefall. But also, maybe Mike just, maybe Leon's just dead. Like, he's just gone. And Mike gets to get it.

So, you know, he moves up the ranking. Usman, yeah, just lost, so you don't rewrack that, obviously. But, like, there are a bunch of other champions in the sway class and to not get any of them and just get a top 10 guy who no one will care if you beat and also might beat you is pretty tough if you're Mike Malat fan. Yeah, he, I mean,

I get it, like, based on whatever ranking you want to look at. But at the same token, like he gains he gains nothing from this. I mean, he gets a win and he gets to get the hometown pop and look kind of like a star. But, I mean, like you said, at his age,

you just keep firing you gotta just you gotta go with this now like if you're gonna make him the face of Canadian MMA like you have to go now with him so I think this is just like yeah we have to get him on the card

but yeah Ballalt just fought so you can't do that Leon we don't know what the hell is going on with him and JDM just got the living hell beating out of him by Carlos Pratchez and Usman just fought like two weeks ago so yeah this is what we get and he's not going to

game match from it. And it's really tough. It wins. Like, it's horrible. It's a horrible thing for the UFC if Buckley wins this fight. Because like now you take away like the dude, you're building to be like the next GSP.

I mean, there is no other GSP, but you're using him to try to be like that face of Canada for your company. And yeah, he could lose. He could lose to Buckley. He definitely lose this fight. If you're,

uh, if you're Mike Mollat, just tackle away, my friend. tackle tackle tackle super chat Cody how can the PFL MVP

PFL slash MVP build stars and attract casual fans when even the UFC has fewer marketable fighters weaker divisions and quote unquote declining talent they got to find a new way to do it man

like this I'm not saying that this is easy I'm not saying we all have the same things I do think you know, they have some of the tools down, right? Like star development, we talk about this all the time, Mike. To me, I think the single biggest factor in building a star is frequency.

They got to be on your television a lot, right? And for pro wrestling, that's easier because they're on every week. And you just get to sort of iterate on it over and over again for fighting. That's tougher. But you need to keep whatever identified talent you have, like this guy could be something. They need to be active. You need to be matching them up favorably

in situations that they can score dramatic knockouts. This is, I mean, this is prospect building, is what you are doing. You are, and is that all the way honest? No, it's not. But, like, you also don't have to, like, take the Nico Ali Walsh thing, right? They let him just bomb on fools for a while.

He wasn't that active, though, which was a problem. If they had, if they made that same plan of like, here, you're just going to cook a bunch of nobody's. But we're going to do this, we're going to do five of these in the course of a year. He might have some juice to him. Now, Nicola Walsh can't really fight, which is a bit of a problem. You can kind of fight, but he can't, like, he's not like a good fighter. But, like, that's sort of how you have to do it.

You have to identify the talent you think is going to be it. You need to cast a wider net to get in new talent. And I would personally say maybe focus a little less on, like, quality fighters. That's, it's not like the primary thing you're looking for. Because like, you just don't want this to,

we already have RIF. You don't want a bunch of Oves tackling people. That's not going to engender broader goodwill here. And find new ways to do it. Find new ways to get fighters involved. Nobody realized that Armand Sarukian would pop the way he did because he just wrestled once a month and started going with streamers.

Like you've got to find a new way to get somebody over like this. And that is, I think, their biggest step for the next couple of years is finding and developing new talent, not just to be good fighters, but to be fighters that people care about. Not easy to do. It's not easy to do. Not easy to do. Lazy, thank you. Richie Miranda-Mannwell-Sosa next week.

Oh, I also, I think they should, I really think they should do one-night tournaments, not like all the time. But as a one-off thing, and it just, you have to approach it with the, you have to have to have, a lot of these conversations need to be had behind closed doors where it's like, hey man, we see, like, we're going to put together this eight-man tournament. This isn't a, you know, we'll pay you a little bit more to do this, but you've got to see this through. And like, you can't pull out after the first round because your toe is stubbed. You got to run the table here if you do it because at the end, then maybe somebody will have something like, hey, he won this one-night tournament.

That was sick. But you got to try new things and you got to set people up, again, not just to be good fighters, but to be no, like, memorable fighters. Also, don't do hour-long press conferences before events if you're MVP. Please don't do that ever again. Please don't. They still give me shit about me calling them out for that. But I will stand by that till the day I die. There is not a human being on planet Earth who wants to watch an hour-long press conference as a mixed martial arts fan.

Nobody does. And the UFC ones, the UFC is actually veering in the right direction. They're just doing the main and co-mains like the last couple of events. I mean, I know the White House one was a different kind of a circumstance. It's a white house. So it's different. Yeah, that's a one-of-one event and all of that stuff. But like, those are all like notable names that like people want to hear about.

We didn't get that with this one. And no one wants to see this. let's tighten some shit up. That's all. Just tighten it up. Tid fire. Here we go. Who should rebel us to Spain fight?

This is easy. Hum bomb. This is easy. Taitu Vasa. Let's go. Oh, yeah. Okay. We can finally do it.

I wanted this after his debut. We shouldn't do that because Taitu of Ovasa should not be fist fighting anymore, but sure. But if he's going to fight, I guess that's fine. Fight him. Thoughts on Hamzaa versus Tyron R.F. is that happening it's the main event of raf moscow September 5th

kind of interesting I like it I think that's gonna be gonna win but I strongly anticipate that but no that's good I like it yeah yeah I think um I don't think this will be the last you see Hamzaa Chamaif in RF this year

uh yeah shortly pretty quickly afterwards The greatest strength that R.A.F. has is their people can compete once a month, basically. That is a huge arrow in their quiver. 100%. I will say, though, I love R.F. I love what they're doing this one-year anniversary show. Eh, it's fine. Yeah, the first WrestleMania wasn't that interesting either. It's fine. Dude, you had Hulk Hogan and Mr. T in the main event. That'll do it. That'll get on both.

Everybody talks about the one with Hogan and Andre. Well, yeah, but without Hogan, Mr. T, there is no Hogan and Andre. The promotion dies that day. It dies. They went all in. You know more about this than I do. Yeah, they went all in. I defer to your knowledge.

I mean, it's fine. It just, golly, man. It is what it is. I mean, do we really want to see Marab and Suhudo again? I don't really need one. No, that was terrible, so I'm not sure why we're doing it again. I mean, the comeback was. sick and it was awesome because it was in Georgia.

Yeah. But yeah, man. Antonio Malkin also competing on that card, Jed. Hell yeah. There you go. Join the UFC. The Spain versus Gable.

Let's see where the rubber meets the road. It was a horrible idea. That's, come on, lazy. We love you, but this is. Yeah, I mean, I... Austin Lane, Austin Lane, beat him. The Spain's going to get like Stephen Aspland,

if Aspland wins his fight. next week or the week after whenever Asplon's fighting. I think Asplas is next week. If Asplen wins to Spain will get Aspland. Yeah. And we'll end here. Is the Despain signing more of a dig at MVP? No.

I think You don't think so? No, I don't think so. I think they signed to Spain and then he lost the fucking Austin Lane and they're like, this guy is terrible because he is. Like he just But like, there was a moment when we were because he can like if you let him do what he will do it will be thrilling he he he but he can only

do the one thing and they're like and they just realized like all right this isn't tenable if austin lane of all people is just like i'm going to do this like we can't we can't run forward with this let him go he can come back they didn't sign it they didn't like fire him with prejudice like yeah because they signed him he had like three fights anyways like all right go he picked up a bunch of knockouts, you know, out there. He picked up a knockout over a former champion or whatever. So now they can be like, okay, he can come back. Maybe he's learned to defend a takedown.

And we can have more fun with him in this, like, heavyweight division that is, has some juice right now. So I don't think it's a sign, like, I don't think it's a dig at them. I think this is just like, oh, I think MVP after up. And they should have had rebellious to Spain. They should have locked him up if they're doing this BFL deal because you can book him against Francis and now people would watch that shit, you know? Yep.

That's off the table now. I definitely think, is there a part of them that's like, yeah, dude, if he just goes in there and fights a bunch of strikers, he'll just get eight second knockouts, sure. Heavyweight's awful. You need as much help as you can get. But there's no doubt about it that there is a whole bunch of, oh, we're taking the next Francis and Ghanu fight away from him and MVP. Like, this is what we're doing.

We're not letting this happen. We're just going to sign them. So maybe. I think he's just, some staunch. He's just the, he's the other side of the Walter Walker coin. Like,

Walter Walker is not good, but can he heel hook bad heavy weights? Rebellus is not good, but can knock out bad heavy weights. If you merge the two of them together, you'd have genuinely, like probably my perfect MMA fighter of just a big goon who swings hard and throws leg locks is like,

I think my ideal. M.A fighter, but if you can't fuse them together, you just get two semi-satisfying meals, you know? Just keep them away from each other unless one of them comes champion. Walter Walker said he would teach, he's opening a gym to teach people how to take legs. If he can teach Rebellis, if Rebellis, again, if Rebellis is just throwing hammers on the feet and rolling for legs on the floor, even one of my favorite of memory fighters of all time. Brawler to Leglock Man. Shout out Ken Shamrock. that's all I've ever wanted is a ball or a leglock man.

There's no better way to end this. No better way to end this. Rebells to Spain and we'll have to listen to Jedmishu. That is. Nobody does. You're on the podcast. I'm the worst things ever happen. MVP and Ray, the offer extends to you as well.

John Martin, I know you know, but I can't stress this enough. My consulting fee is very reasonable. reasonable to just be your minister of fun. Yeah, I think that is officially off the table now, unfortunately. Look, you need it. You need someone who's going to have some fun in there because that's just, it's necessary. They feel like they got it down already. Reach out.

Well, that's it. Check out No Betz Bard. It's a great show. Great program. And then check out the preview show for UFC Belgrade, going down sometime tomorrow, all of the People's Free Fight show on. Saturday morning, I believe 9.30 a.m. Eastern, post show, all that fun stuff. Stick with us. SMAFiting.com for this busy weekend. And we're out of here. We will see you next week here on

BTL. We'll recap it all. We're out. Love you all. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you want a $3,000 a month payday for life, what would you feel free to do? Maybe take a long weekend, every weekend, or try a bunch of new hobbies. Would you feel free to upgrade and listen ad free? Don't worry. We get it. Every $20 ticket, can win you $3,000 a month for life and supports life-saving cancer research at the Princess Margaret. Feel free to buy your payday for life ticket today.

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