MMA Fighting - BTL | Reaction To Dana White's BIG News, Topuria Vacating, Huge UFC 314 & UFC 315 Bouts, UFC Seattle

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

UFC CEO Dana White gave the MMA world a lot to discuss on Wednesday night with a slew of blockbuster announcements — including Ilia Topuria vacating the featherweight title in lieu of a lightweight move, and a new champion set to be crowned at UFC 314 in April. And that's just the start of the news. On an all-new edition of Between the Links, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew react to Topuria's big move, what it all means, and what his legacy could become if his gamble pays off, or fails. Additionally, they'll answer your questions about Topuria's future, Alexander Volkanovski vs. Diego Lopes to crown a new champ in Miami, Michael Chandler vs. Paddy Pimblett set for the UFC 314 co-main event, Patricio Pitbull signing with the UFC to face Yair Rodriguez on the card, along with the UFC 315 title fights, Saturday's UFC Seattle card, and much more. 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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Shop now at IKEA.ca.ca.com slash Black Friday. IKEA, bring home to life. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. From M.M.A. Fighting Studios, this is Between the Links. And now, your host, my... A thunderous start to the program as the iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of BTL. Happy Thursday to us all. And happy Thursday, specifically to Dana White, who gave us a whole bunch of stuff to talk about last night with a slew of

announcements. Plus, we're going to answer your questions about probably some of these announcements and some of the fallout from it. We can talk to UFC Seattle, although I don't know how much people are going to want to talk about it with all the news, but perhaps you will. It is your show after all. And joining me to answer those questions to react to this news is Mr. No Gray area, the hot take kid himself, the Barron of Boop and the greatest climber in all of MMA, the one and only Jedmishu. Where is he at? There he is. What's up, buddy? Where the hell are you?

I'm in Florida. It was super fun, Mike. So I'm my best friend, you'll probably know this. You certainly know this. My best friend lives in Clearwater. I've been planning to come spend a week down here with him and his family. Did it. But as a result, like, it's like about a six and a half hour drive from Atlanta down here.

So to make sure I could work today, like be here on time for work to wake up super early. And so I went to bed early last night. And then I woke up and as I do every morning, the first thing once I, you know, blink the sleep away from my eyes, I go to M-Afighten.com. It's a great website. And apparently a whole lot of stuff happened while I was off in Dreamland. So pretty pumped to talk about this because you guys got to. In fact, in my drive down, I listened to the reaction pod, but I haven't gotten to react. And so we're going to have some fun, I think.

Well, let's just get right into it, Jed, because the amount of people who have reached out to me, over the last 12 or so hours, wanting to hear from you in regards to one specific thing that happened with Dana White's announcement. So if you guys already know what the hell happened, there's a million fights that were announced. We're going to have a brand new featherweight champion crown to UFC 314, as Alexander Volcanowski is going to fight Diego Lopez for the vacant title,

vacated by one Ilya Teporia, who Dana White said, can't make the weight anymore. He feels like he's accomplished everything he's needed to at one. He beat two of the greatest of all time and back-to-back fights, knocked them both out in Volcanovsky and Max Holloway. There didn't seem to be a gigantic appetite for Tuporia, Volcanovsky 2, but we kind of expected that was the direction where we were going. And then over the last few months,

Sepori's been talking about, I want to go up to 155, I want to fight as a Makachev. I could beat this man. I could do all these things. And last week on the program, Jed, Brian Campbell, our good friend from morning combat, was like, yo, we need to make Iliate Tuporia going up to 155 and challenging Islam Akachev

for the lightweight title, not tomorrow, not next week, not next month. We need to do it now, damn it. We need to book this fight now. And then you delivered one of the all-time, loud and epic rants in the history of this program saying, enough with this champ-champ shit, do the thing and defend your belt against guys in your division. There are many people for Ilya to fight at 145 to defend his title against.

A lot of very interesting matchups. Some fresh matchups we have not seen from Tuporia. But now, at least for the moment, the Mavzor of Loya matchup, the Diego Lopez matchup, a Volcanovsky rematch, any other combination of 145 fights you can make for Iliate Toporia off the damn table because he is making the move to 155. vacated the title on the way out, Jed, which we've, what a hero, in my opinion. And I want to get your reaction to this as well. When you found out this news, when you woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning,

getting ready for a long journey ahead. And you found out we're going to have a new featherweight champion at UFC 314. And that Ilya is vacating the title. What was your reaction to it? I think a bunch of people are about to be disappointed based on a lot of tweets that came my way last night while I slept and frankly just looking at the chat now. This is a great day for America and for justice because I said the whole time. I said during that rant and all the previous rant like rants before that, I don't have a single issue with this if he's going to bail

on the belt. That's what he did. Like he did the important thing. If this was, hey, Ilya Tupori is challenging. I would be angry. We'd be here on this pot today. I'm like, I am upset. This is nonsense. He's got multiple people to defend his title against, but he didn't. He doesn't. He left the belt. And we can quibble. We can argue about whether what he is saying is true that he doesn't have anything else to do there. I don't think that's true at all. But it doesn't matter because he did the important part of this. As a champion, you have a job. Your job is to give the next guy up his opportunity. And now he's not a champion. That job is no longer his. And so it's fine. There's a lot of things and a lot of stuff that we can dive into and parse, but the big picture,

the overwhelming sentiment I had when I saw this news was first surprise, genuinely did not see this coming, both because Tuporia had specifically said that he did not intend to give up his belt, like he was just trying to do it. And also, I think you guys touched a little bit on this on the React Pod, a lot of questions about the financial aspects, different pieces to this. So I was truly shocked that this was the news. I thought when it was. when Dana said, hey, I'm going to, you know, I've got announcements. I thought it would be, hey, we're going to get some of the fight announcements that came or the main events for these events coming up. I didn't think it would be something like this. So surprise and then pleasantly

surprised that he did the right thing and left the title. And then that's like 80%. There is a small, small piece of me that's a little disappointed. I'm not disappointed in Ilyat Toporia. I want to be very clear about that. I'm not upset in any way. So part of me that, is disappointed because I didn't want Ilya to defend his title just because, like, because that's what you do and this is right. Certainly a part of that is. Like, I want there to be merit. I want him to defend his belt because there are legitimately fun fights at 145, interesting

fights at 145 for him that at least now, you know, maybe things change in a year or two, but right now are no longer going to happen. Everybody knows I wasn't super pumped on the Volcanovskine. rematch. I understood it's going to happen, but like that had little allure to me. I was super interested to watch him fight Diego Lopez, to watch him fight Molfovo. I'm probably the only person alive who would have been interested in it, but like Arnold Allen is a fun fight because I think part of the thing people underestimate about champions and about being a champion and a title holder in the UFC is by virtue of winning the belt, Mike, you are the best in the world. Like whoever

holds the UFC title is the best fighter in that way. class in the world, 99 times out of 100. But that's also not the full story, because there have been plenty of times in the not that distant past, right? Where whoever was the champion, most people broadly assumed was not the best fighter in the world. They were. Definitionally, they get to be. But nobody outside of Michael Bisping thought he was the best middleweight on earth when he won the belt. He just got to call himself that. The way you get to establish beyond any doubt that you're the best dude is to defend your title several times over a few years, right? And so I'm not talking about the Jose Aldo, Anderson Silva, John Jones, like you do it for half a

decade, but just like it is unequivocal. There is no doubt that can be cast at all that Alexander Volcanowski was the best featherweight on earth for a period of time. I am pretty sure that Ilya is the best featherweight on earth right now, or I guess was prior to saying he's no longer repeating the weight class. But it wasn't 100% because you can't. They have to fight the fights. And Diego Lopez is a fight. Mofsar of Loewev is a fight.

They have credible claims there. And so I'm a little disappointed. We won't get the answer to that question. But that is far outweighed by the fact that the right thing happened. Like if he wants to do this, which is, as you guys pointed out on the ReactPod, like a cool thing. It is undeniably cool that he did that. And if he wants to go up to life, weight for his own career, his own ambitions.

He did it the right way. And so I was super happy that this is how this all worked out. Yeah, I mean, like having some extra time to digest this all, there's a part of me that was, and I take it a step further with Ilya at 145 because you and I are both on the same page when it comes to who is the greatest featherweight of all time. It is not Max Holloway. It is not Alexander Bokanowski. It is Joseo.

though. And seeing how young Ilya is and just seeing the performance this man has put on, if there's one guy who, in my opinion, could get to Aldo levels at this stage of the game, it was Ilya. Now, he had a lot of work to do, a lot. And some of the names he could have fought would have been super interesting. But now that, it's just going to be Aldo for a long time, unless Diego Lopez beats Volk and defends a title for five, six years and just annihilates a bunch of people,

Yeah, but I'm with you, and I said this last night, Ilya vacating makes this all okay. And I hope Islam Makachef and I hope Bilal Muhammad, and I hope Drickus Duplice and Alex Pereira and pants, all these guys who keep saying like, I want to go up and I want to challenge myself, do what Ilya did. You will get no complaints from me and probably not Jed either.

There may be a little disappointment because we may not get some matches we want to see. But if you want to risk it and go after that, second belt, go for it. But just vacate your other title and let the division move on. And that is what Ilya Tepore is doing here. So I respect the hell out of it. And I also respect the hell out of the fact that he is taking a massive gamble here, Jedmishu.

This guy has vacated the belt after just an incredible run, knocking off Volk, knocking out Max Holloway. Now he's going to the best division in MMA. Me and John Anick joke about this all the time. It's one of the hardest divisions in all of sports, the UFC lightweight division. And you mentioned it, and David mentioned it last night.

We talked about it. The one thing Dana did not say is he did not announce Ilya Tupori's next fight. He did not announce that Iliot Tupori is fighting Izalmachaf at all. He said once it gets done, he will let people know what's going on. Now, that has led people to sort of speculate. Is he going to get the title fight?

Islemaqchev has said multiple times. We saw Islam's manager, and it wasn't Ali, but Rizvan, tweeted out that, look, have Ilya go fight the either Porre or Oliveira. Damon mentioned Armin Sarukian. And if he wins that fight, sure, we will give this man a title shot. But we don't want to waste our time. We're sick of the, well, he's just fighting featherweights that are moving up to lightweight.

They're sick of hearing that narrative. They want to just make sure he can make the weight fine. He can conform admirably against one of the best fighters in this division. If he gets through an Oliverer, gets through a Sarukian or a Dustin, who it doesn't matter, sure, we'll give you a shot at the belt. So how big of a risk is this for Iliad Seporia? And obviously going up and fighting the number one pound for pound fighter is a huge risk. But when we talk about risk, it's not just about belts.

It's not just about money. It's about legacy and how people view you and view your run. And as special as his run has been at 145, if he goes up to 55, it just gets iced out by Mokachev or in some respects worse, gets iced out by Olivera or Sarukian or one of these dudes in his first fight or second fight at 155, his return to the division on this quest to win a second divisional title. How bad will this look for him in the eyes of the fan base? I spent a lot of time on the drive down here thinking about this very question, Mike,

because I was listening to the ReactPod, and I agree with a lot of what you guys are saying. I was just trying to figure out, like, what do I feel? about this because it was so many different things. And I think this is kind of a cop-out answer. And so sorry about that, but I think it's the truth. It's what you're getting. It's going to depend. We're going to see how big of a risk, how much of a gamble this was. There's a world where this is an incredibly balsy move. And if that's the world we end up living in, I have absolutely nothing but respect really supportive for doing it. And in that world, the path is this. And it's,

it is where I think I disagreed with y'all the most on the pod. You got very excited about the possibility of Iliate Taboria taking an Armand-Serukian. I don't think that's happening. If that is what happened, if he bailed on the featherway title to come up and fight Armin Sarukian in a number one contender bout, that is some hard-o stuff. And we should just praise the man because win-lose-drawl, that is what we want. When we want, like, the issue with, and this is a little bit roundabout, but follow me here. The reason people were upset with Yusuf Zalalal last weekend is because he wasn't risking anything.

And the reason we watch sports and combat sports is to see people not do things that we know they can do or to sort of just take the safe route. We want there to be stakes, there would be risk and reward. And that would be the issue here. Like if Deporia is doing this and fights Armets Tsrucian, that is as big of a risk reward ratio as is possible for him in his career at this point. and so nothing but respect. Still totally okay, even if the answer is, I'm bailing on this and I'm going to get an immediate title fight. Like, I'm less cool about that more holistically

because, like, it's a little lame because if he does lose, he can just bump back down to 1.45, and then he's just sort of circumnavigated it, but at least he did it in the best way possible to do such a thing. Either way, like, it's good. There's no negative to how he's handled this. It's just degrees of how awesome. this is. In a perfect world, I think that I know Armin blew weight and I know that this probably

isn't what's going to happen. Islam would say, dude, Armin's the best dude. Just let me fight Armin. At least he's a real lightweight. Let me settle this. Ilya fights Charles. They, and then that's no doubt about it, number one contender. But any way you mix those four, I'm mostly okay with. They just say, hey, Charles has won enough of these bouts that are like pseudo-contender bouts, former champion. Let's run the rematch. Ilya fights Armin. I'm cool with that. If Ilya fights Islam, you know, like it's not like my favorite thing, but no issues because the fight itself is compelling and interesting.

I would like to see him fight someone else in lightweight because that feels appropriate if you're going to vacate. And I think that it is likely because if not, why would you vacate? Like, I doubt the U.S.C. made him vacate if they're going to give him a title fight. So I think that he is going to have to fight somebody. I just don't, I think it's going to end up being Charles Olivera, which is pretty cool. Mike, I want to take this for just one more second. I've talked to what lot, but there's a lot of people in the comments previously saying stuff like,

this is great. Here's why I'm not enthusiastic, right? Like, I don't, I'm not excited about this. I'm pretty happy with it, but I'm not like, hell yeah. I just was really interested in the featherway fights that I think were there. And if what this ends up being is Ilya Teporea bumps up to lightweight and then fights the old guys at lightweight, I am a little less interested in that. Not, not interested, but like if he told, I think it was full sand like a week ago, maybe two weeks ago, he was talking to him,

was like, I don't want to fight Armant Suruki and he hasn't proved enough. I want to fight Dustin Porreux and Justin Geh. It's like, okay, you want to fight the old dudes, which is good business, but I'm like, I'd still watch, I'm still pumped, I'm less interested in him foregoing young, viable contenders in his weight class to try and pick off the elder state. who are on their way out of the next weight class up yeah i think i get what you're saying there i doubt it's going to be dust and poory i think pori is going to be able to get to call his shot it won't be that yeah all in all of era and i talked about this last night like how many number one contender fights is this guy have to win before he actually gets another title shot like he's

gotten multiples knocked up an eel derrius i mean he was booked to be fair to the ufc and then something happened and volk stepped in and the they didn't the rematch rushed to that real quick and we saw what happened there. And then he lost Arm and Saruki in a super competitive fight. But then Dana booked another number one contender fight for MSG. And Charles Oliveira put the boots to Michael Chandler over five rounds outside of a of a back body slam or two in round five, which is one of the funniest moments in the history of the sport.

And still he's not getting a title shot. It doesn't even seem like he's in the conversation for these title shots. So very interesting news there. I'm sure I had to bet, like. I would say that Oliver is going to get it. I am not, there's no level of confidence to this bet, by the way. But like, if I was just looking at the odds, to me, I think, and maybe I'm just riding high because justice reigned last night.

The good outcomes happen largely. I genuinely think the best outcome would be give Charles the fight because you are punishing Armin for how he handled 3.10, which I, or 311, sorry, which is like a little wrong, but also I get it. Like he blew weight in a really big moment of very bad time, like make him earn it back slightly. And so Armand versus Ilya co-main event for that car, for Charles Islam too.

And then if something happens like last time Charles gets cut again, has to pull out, then you can bump up one of them to the main event. Like if I had the power of the pen, that is what I would do. And I would say that that is, that would be what I think is going to happen, but very little level of confidence.

Mainly because, as I said, if you're going to have Ilya fight for the lightweight belt, why wouldn't this be an interim title for Vulcan and Diego Lopez? You say, this is for the interim belt. Ilya is going up and challenging. Why would you make him vacate? It's better to put on a poster two belts instead of one. So I think that they are, that's what I'm saying. If I had to place a wager, that's where I think it's going to go with.

Yeah. And as I would say for a while, like at the end of the day, sure, you want the, you can just bring us, just bring one of your belts from home and you can still have the image of the two belts. Like, none of that matters. Like, no one cares that John Jones was not officially the light heavyweight champion when he won the heavyweight title. Nobody cares at the end of the day.

It's just about, okay. And I think it's because of the symbolism of it all, it's actually way cooler if Ilya goes up there, vacates the featherweight belt. Like, if they book this Mokachev fight and he knocks out Isl Mokachev, holy shit,

like, this is seismic game-changing shit. between knocking out Volkadovsky, knocking out Max Holloway, saying, eh, I'm bored, I'm moving up to the tougher weight class, which featherweight is two or three in the rankings of the toughest weight classes right now,

and then knocks out the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Like that three-fight stretch, it'll never be touched again, ever again. I mean, I won't say that. The sports long, things happen all the time. It would be an unbelievable stretch, right? absolutely undeniable would be great. We'll see.

If he gets the opportunity, I will think that it is weird that they didn't just let him do it with the belt. Because, like, as much as the chat and people can say it's the right, and I can say it's the right thing to do, the UFC doesn't give two shits about what's the right thing to do. They care about promotional flexibility. And having their champion vacate the belt,

they would just be like, hey, man, we're going to give you the title. Just hold it. We'll do an interim title. Who cares? We're fine with this being an interim belt. And then if you do win the lightweight, then you can drop it and we can elevate. So my gut is that he is going to have to fight somebody. I hope he does because I think that baritocratically he should have to do that.

He has fought at lightweight once. It was Jai Herbert, who is not a top 30 lightweight. And also he killed him, but like he also almost died. So I think it would be just to have him fight. And also which is the most badass path here, like the coolest story. that Ilya could write is I'm bored. I'm going to go fight Armand Sarukian and I'm going to beat his ass and then I'm going to fight his arm. That is the coolest thing that could be done.

Really hard to do that. Like he's got to beat Armin Sarukian, which I think he can, but I also think he can lose. I think I've talked myself into thinking that that's where we're going, but I have zero level of confidence in that. Yeah. Anything that gets announced in regards to all of this will not surprise me. They give him a title fight won't surprise me. If he just gets Olivera, won't surprise me. If it's Armin, won't surprise me at this point.

Nothing can surprise me at this point. I also thought of this on the drive down. And I would say that this is exceedingly unlikely. 0.0001%. But Mike, what if this is actually the start of a chain reaction? And Ili is bumping up and Islam's bumping up. And after Balal fights Jack Della, who we're going to talk about, he's bumping up. And so we're just shifting everybody up.

And so Islam can go fight it well to wait because Balal's like, I beat Jack Della. Now I'd like to go fight Trichikus 2 Plus E or Hamza Chamaev. Islam gets to move up and Ilya now gets to fight Charles Oliva for the vacant lightweight title. I think that that's incredibly unlikely. But I won't say it's 0%. You can make cases that every single champion from Tupori up, well, obviously not John Jones, because there's a super heavyweight division, but you can make a case that all those guys could bump up one way class.

Maybe this is a domino. You just flick that domino and everybody is like, hey, let's do it. It would be super weird. It would be. As long as we have five or six vacant title fights, I'm fine with it. Let's get crazy. Let's get super weird.

So not only do we get Volcanowski-Lopez and the Teporia News, what else you want to say? Oh, I do want to just because you guys didn't really talk about this on the reaction pod. and I do just want to throw this out there very briefly. I feel a little bit bad for Diego Lopez. He is getting a title fight and an undisputed title fight. So don't feel that bad for him, like good. In the worst case scenario, right, the worst case of how this plays out is Ilya goes up,

whoever he fights, be it Islam, be it Charles, be it Armand, whoever, he gets got and then just says, okay, like, I'll just make the weight cut again. I can't actually compete at lightweight. I'll do that later. I want to go get the belt. and then if Diego Lopez beats Alexander Volcanovsky, whoever wins the fight between them will not be viewed as the true featherweight champion

because they didn't beat the guy to get the belt. So if Diego Lopez goes and gets the biggest one of his career, it'll still be great, he'll still get to call himself champion forever. These are small margins. But plenty of people will be like, you are a paper champion, you are holding. He will functionally be priced into calling out Ilya should he win, as hey, I know you left the division, but don't run away from me. And that's just a tough place to go.

If Volk wins, then are fine, problem solved. But if Diego Lopez does win, he gets put in an unenviable position as far as being a champion goes. And so I feel a little bit bad for him because, you know, he deserves to fight for the belt for the true title against the guy who's holding it. And now that's being taken away from him. And I just wanted to put that out there. It's not all sunshine and roses, but it's a pretty good outcome as far as things go. that's interesting because I actually think it's worse for Volk

because he becomes sort of the Daniel Kormier in this conversation because you know what I mean? I feel like Diego gets to shine more than Volk would. I mean, I'm perhaps tipping my hand. I believe Diego Lopez will beat Alexander Volcanowski. But you're 100% right. If Volk wins, he will just not be viewed as a champion. He can also sustain that a little bit more.

His legacy is already set in stone for the most part. So this is kind of just extra. It's a little gravy. It's Josealdo winning the featherweight belt back after he lost it to Connor. Like, it's just a little attache, just a little bit of addition to an already stellar Hall of Fame crew resume, whereas Diego Lopez will be starting his title run, like his featherweight championship run with a fairly sizable asterisk under it. And maybe he'll get to make that right.

Maybe Ilya loses comes back. Diego Lopez gets to fight him. Maybe Ilya wins. and just never thinks of featherweight again, and so nobody really considers it in the same way that once Max took the featherweight belt, nobody was like, okay, but did he beat Connor? I was like, yeah, Max is a featherweight champion.

So I think Lopez gets it a little worse just because of where they're out in their careers. And of course, sucks to be Mobsar of Leav, but that's just been the case for his entire UFC run. Which is crazy, because I still don't think Dana White knows who he is. I still think he has Mobsar confused with somebody else. And also, he legitimately may be. be the best featherweight on earth.

Like, yeah, I was, I always thought it was, yeah, not getting him in, in Tuporia hurts my soul, because I honestly think that if Loya was his toughest challenge,

style from a stylistic perspective. So man, who knows? Maybe Tuporia fights Islam doesn't go well and he's like, all right, I'll come back and maybe we still get those fights. I don't really know, but.

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So download the app today and get zero delivery fees on your first three orders. Instacard, groceries that over deliver. Service fees exclusions and terms apply. 314 is shaping up to be one hell of a freaking fight card. Michael Chandler, Jed's favorite is back. You will fight Patty Pimbleau in another five-round co-main event. We also found out that Patricia Pitbull. Patricia Pitbull has signed with the UFC.

And I see a lot of people on social media doing a bunch of victory laps. told you because they were copy pasting an inaccurate report, which even the, the initial site admitted fault. And there was a misinterpretation of a conversation with Patricia's management. From what we were told, everything was true in terms of what our good pal, Guillermo Cruz, tweeted out yesterday that he was not signed to the UFC. And it was maybe a couple of hours before Dana actually made the announcement that the deal was done.

So that's it. I mean, again, people are victory lapping here because of the news and all that, but purely coincidence from what we understand. But he is fighting Yahir Rodriguez, which knocks out of, now we get to address like another report that I kept seeing and I was going to address today anyways. And I talked to some people about it. There were people saying, yeah, year was going to fight Arnold Allen at Mexico. I was told unequivocally that wasn't true because Arnold Allen is getting some stem cells.

so he won't even be able to fight until around June or July at this point. But yeah, Patricia Pitbulls in the UFC. Danny Ege versus Sean Woodson, Carlos Pratchez versus Jeff Neal. And the list goes on and on. And apparently people are very, very excited about Mitch Raposo fighting on this card in Miami, which I get it. Mitch Raposo, shout out New England. That card's coming together. UFC 315, which we'll get to.

You know what, let's just go to the peeps. Everybody here knows the news already. Let's just go to the peeps. and we'll see what they have to say about stuff. I'm sorry, got so, so cooked yesterday of just like,

if Pimpo beats you a year, they're giving him a title fight. So it's just like, and there's nobody from Officer to fight now. Like, best cases he can serve as the backup fighter at 314, they're probably not even going to let him do that. So he's just like,

again, might be the best featherweight on earth. I don't think he is, but he could be. Like, I don't think a lot of things. The way I know is they get in there and they get their opportunity to settle it. And he's just never going to get it.

And that's so tough for him because he deserves it as much as anyone. So very, very tough for him. Also, underrated, nothing is going to happen. Now the possibility of the Tuporio Pimblet, we're back into a world where that could happen. With Teporea moving up, if Pimblec gets past Chandler, however things shake out, there's opportunities for that grudge match to finally get settled. And we can watch Patty Pimbleau die inside the octagon. Listen, if Ilya Taboria somehow becomes a lightweight champion,

no matter what the divisional landscape looks like, even if Patty Pimbleau loses to Michael Chandler, if he fights again before Ilya wins the belt, that will be his first title defense. Because I don't, I mean, you could obviously run back Islam and that would make all the sense in the world, but Islam kind of strikes me as somebody who will be like, all right, let me reflect on this a little bit.

Let's let's let's division play out. I'll take a little time and then I'll come back and get either a rematch or fight for the belt in my return fight. But you know the UFC is going to Sean O'Malley Cheevera this entire thing. There's just no doubt about it. So something to keep an eye on. But let's go to the peeps. We can talk 315, Bala Muhammad versus Jack Delamatta Elena.

Manon Fioro gets her day in court. It will not be Zhang Wei against Valentina Shufchenko. So I think the UFC got that one correct. But it was a day for justice, Mike. It was a great day. All the, all the good things that I've been calling for happened. So I was pleasantly surprised when I woke up at 4 a.m. this morning. Yes.

Day for justice, except if you're most of our. Yeah, but no one cares about him, so it's fine. It's only justice for people we like. Also, like, there's a world where walking Buckley, like, maybe deserves this over Jack Della. But I thought that. That's a great point. Also, I thought of the, like, as soon as you guys started talking about the 315, whichever one is the, I think that's 315, right, is the Belaw JDM fight.

Y'all didn't mention this at all. Quite possibly the person who got screwed the most in all of this is Ian Machado Gary. Because if he just hadn't stepped up to fight Shavcott, he would be the guy fighting for the belt right now. Like, if he had just stayed in fault walking Buckley and, like, I think I would have picked him to win. Maybe he doesn't, but like if he just wins that, I think he gets to call when Shavkat has to turn it down.

And so tough scenes for him because he did the right thing and fought his ass off and, you know, stock rows and may well have missed a title shot as a result of it. Right now, yeah, but he's going to get a big fight. Like he's going to get Oosman or somebody like that. Yeah, but there ain't no bigger fight than for the belt. And in the sliding doors moment, yeah, But in the sliding doors moment where he says, no, my training camp is this.

I think we're looking at Ian Machado Gary versus Belaw Muhammad instead. And because like the Jack Delafite is totally legit. Like I have no issues with it. It does feel a little weird. He's been out for a long time. His most recent performance wasn't like the most, the best one ever. And so it just feels like a next man up as opposed to there being any sort of real excitement about it. Whereas I think you could maybe have that with Gary.

But we also don't know. We also don't know if they contacted him about this fight. I guess that's true. Maybe they did. Maybe he was just like, why would I, you know, because he even said after the Shafka, I thought I performed admirably. I was proud of myself.

I did it on short notice. But I also realized, especially after not being able to submit Shavkaa late in that fight, that he's got shit he needs to work on if he wants to become a world champion. He said he didn't want to fight until like July at that point. He was like, I don't care what comes towards me. Like, I want to just spend this time to work on my game and figure all this shit out.

So they may have offered it to him. Who the hell knows? And maybe he's taking a calculated risk by turning it down. And maybe they have something else cooked for him for maybe international fly week. Maybe he's already signed on to fight Usman or something. I don't know. So we'll have to maybe dig into that a little bit. But Casey, what are the peeps talking about?

Real quick. Do you find it odd that Tupuria hasn't really said anything publicly either? about all this. He did a He posted a photo with him with the belt Which I thought was not like us Yeah, but he's got he has the belt on him He posted an AI photo of him with the belt

So I just think that's kind of I don't know everything that The Poiria thing still seems so weird to me Just very weird It makes sense if he actually If everything Dana said is true But still seems weird Because no one's really talking

My read is it's still a little up in the air and he's just not trying to say anything to screw things up and that there is still very much a world where he can just get straight to a lightweight title fight. That's by no means guaranteed. This is based on pure speculation. My best guess is that Islam has no interest in fighting him for the reasons he's outlined. He's already beaten a bunch of featherweights. I make the dude...

Like Islam gave an interview a couple weeks. He was like, if he comes up and fights beats any lightweight, any incredible lightweight, I fight him, no problem. I just would like to not have my entire title reign be featherweights, which I think is a legitimate, that's totally fine with him. I think that's a reasonable position to have. And so my guess is that Islam doesn't really want to, but there is still an outside chance where they just do it because the other part of this is there's not a super clear-cut lightweight contender. Charles Olivera has a claim. Armand Seru Kian has a claim.

both of them have issues. So I think he's just shutting the hell up and seeing if things break for him and he can get a title fight. Do you think that the reason they didn't announce this is because they think they can get John Jones versus Tom Aspinall on this card? They think.

I'm not saying that it's happening, but they think that Dana White thinks right International Fight Week because that's who you would guess. Like if they're going to do that fight, they're not just going to chuck it in Newark, New Jersey, in August. Like they're going to throw it on International Fight Week.

Like, it's going to be a big-ass fight and they're going to promote the hell out of it. Do you think the reason why Dana is saying that it's not done is because he believes in his heart that they can get John Jones, Tom Aspinall done for that card? And if it doesn't, then they'll announce it. Maybe. I still think the most likely international fight we card is Jekis versus Hamzot.

I've been saying that for a while. I think that that is just... It's very international. I think that that fight is big enough and makes some sense. I also think that their eggs are not. not in the John Aspinall basket. I think that there's, as you point on the reaction pod, there's very much a world that they can do John Alex and just tell Tom to suck it.

And so I think they're not announcing things because they've got enough ball in the air right now to cover their immediate needs and they want to see how things break. I want to see how things slide out in the coming weeks or whatever because maybe they can go to John for International Fight Week against Alex. Maybe they can find a way to get John to fight. John to fight Tom. Maybe Islam says, screw it. Like, I'll fight Balal.

I'll just go up to Eltaway. I don't care anymore. If my options are I have to fight another featherweight or I got to fight a guy I'm friendly with, I'll do it. So I think, and kind of the sign of good promotion is not closing any doors. And so I think that that is probably what they're doing. Their bases are covered for the immediacy. And now they can sort of see how things break over the next few pay-per-view events. If Alex loses, that probably changes the number.

dynamics at 313. If Diego Lopez wins, maybe that, like, a lot of balls are in the air now. And so they can just kind of wait and see how things shake out. All right. All right. Casey with the Gremlin shirt, sleeves galore. All right. Super chats.

Vic underscore VCC. Nick Vicka. Patty's on a very DDPS-esque rise to the top where everyone is in denial the whole way. If he beats Chandler, is he won away? Crazy to think. Jed, look, you did not, there was no DDP-esque rise in your eyes. It was, this is, this is my guy. He's the man.

Wait to you, I'll see how much of the man he actually is. You were on board before anybody else. Do you see comparisons in the Patty Pimbled rise right now to DDP? Or is this just kind of easy comparison to make? Not easy, but. I see it. I mean, there's a little bit here. It will depend how it shakes out because if DDP hadn't gone on to win a bunch of

fights and beat some of the greatest middleweights we've ever seen, people would look at him in the way that people currently look at Patty, probably. And so I think that there's enough differences that this is not identical. But if he beats Michael Chandler, I mean, given how lightweight is, he probably doesn't get a title fight. but I've seen weirder things happen than him beating Michael Chandler

and being like he's super popular Islam needs to fight somebody and just desperately wants to fight a dude who weighs 155 pounds let's fight let's it be Patty I think it would be

one away would be my guess if he beats Chandler but it wouldn't totally blow my hair back if he somehow found his way into a title fight especially if Deporia

somehow wins the belt because there is such a baked in storyline there and that's business. Would it be deserved? No. Would it be a murder? Sure would be.

But it would be cash dollars. And that's like, he may be won away, depending on how things shake out. I would guess that he is this fight and won away. But I mean, hell, if he didn't, if he does it, if he ends up winning the lightweight title, I'll be flabbergasted. I still don't think Patty's like,

I think Patty is good. I do not think he is great. But like, that's how just about everyone was for DDP. So I get the parallels and it's not a bad call at all. If Patty beats Chandler, is that the biggest outside of Toporia, I guess, if Toporio just doesn't get the title shot, if Patty beats Chandler, is that the biggest money fight for the UFC and Islam? Oh, for Islam? For $5.55? Yeah.

For the UFC, if Patty beats Chandler and they can make Patty versus Connor, just. Oh, Patty Connor, I guess. You're just printing money. But like outside, if you're just looking for Islam, Tuporia, I would guess, is the biggest money fight for Islam, though I don't even feel that confident in that. I do think that that's a big fight for him. I am, I believe Islam will be a megastar. I don't think that he is a pay-per-view megastar at this moment in time because he only has two fights.

He has two fights that people know and care about. And so you get in a little bit more. how do you honestly straight up patty may do better business uh for Islam in a title fight right now i wouldn't bet my life on it but he might yeah i like the point you made it earlier but that this is all smart by the ufc because it gives them options lots of options yeah so thank you very much nick like legitimately it's one of the biggest weapons that the ufc has and it's quiver over other promotions that they can have options whereas like i mean it worked out for PFL. Their best play last year was to get Dakota Dichiva into a title fight. And they're like,

there's only one way to make that happen. And she rolled high and got there. But like, the UFC, there are no winners and losers. Like, there are some and there are degrees of it. But the UFC is pretty comfortable with whoever wins and loses fights the way they match bake because there are routes after that, whereas that's just not the case for any other promotion in the world. They control the entire new cycle right now. Because if this, if this news did not happen yesterday, one champion like not a ton of people care about one championship but they have a pretty banger card going on live right now and nobody gives a shit but on the other end pfl is just getting dogged all week because of the aaron pico johnny ebblin shit and everything that's going on

there and now no one's going to talk about pfl at all no one's going to talk about iron pico maybe we'll get a pico question i don't know but don davis is off the hook at least for today based on this news from yesterday, because that's how this cycle works. This news overshadowed the actual UFC card in two days. I know. They haven't got one question about UFC Seattle, not one question. No. It probably would have anyway, but UFC Seattle is not a great card, which is.

It once was. It was. That's the thing it once was a good card. Now it's Frankinstein. Yeah, it's a, it is one of this. It's wild. All right. Thank you, Nick Vaca.

Okay. Need some water, Jed? You good? No, I just cough a little bit. All right. I'm a standing desk and I'm feeling a little more motiony. Yeah. I love, I have a standing desk too.

I did the award show all stood up. It was nice. I had a standing desk for a while, but then I just realized I like sitting. Yes. I can't write at it like so that's why I don't have one. Like, it's just much harder for me to write. standing but doing stuff like this super easy yeah for sure uh lazy chat sorry super chat from lazy bed uh two dollars to put towards some anne acid for jed buckle up

this came at the beginning of the show i think people yeah i think people thought jett was going to be crazy today but they definitely did i got many people tweeting and blue skying at me and bin lay i was like guys i was really clear in all of my rants about this if you give the belt up, I do not have an issue with it. And I don't. Like, that's, if he was holding on to it, I would be furious. This would be an entirely different. 100%.

100%. 100%. If Volcanovsky-Lopez, there's for the interim bell right now, there would have been a much different reaction podcast yesterday. Yeah. I'd be very upset about it. I asked this on the reaction pod, but maybe we didn't have an answer. But Jed, is there any time where someone has vacated a title moved up and wait

and not gotten an immediate title shot? No, basically nobody's vacated a belt ever. John is the only one who really, like, vacated and still fought. He fought for a title in his next flight. But that's the thing. He fought for a title. Like, technically George did as well, though that was also five. And he fought for a title.

Like, basically nobody vacates belts. Like, even going back in the day, like. Did, did he, when he vacated, did he come back for us, if it was a title? Or did he have to work his way back? He came back to sell for a title. Yeah, okay. Yeah. I was pretty sure.

Like basically, if you vacate the belt for any reason, your next fight is for a belt historically, I think this would be the reason not to, like, because the other ones happened long-reaning champions that are vacating. And like the back in the day, it's like Josh Barnett vacated to go to Pride. Actually, I think he vacated because he popped

and then went to Pride. Like, BJ, BJ vacated for a contract dispute. And so then he, I mean, he didn't fight for the belt, but he just like fought Hino-Gracy and Leota Machita. It's just people don't vacate UFC titles ever. So no, there's no precedent if Deporia ends up not fighting for the Belteer. Awesome. Okay.

Thank you much. Another super chat. Oh, another one from Lazy Bed. Can anyone from 314 turnaround fast enough for International Fight Week? Yeah, probably. Turn a half months? I would say not. optimal, but they could.

I'm trying to think who. It'd be like a Carlos Pratchez type. Oh, I mean, I was thinking the big top people, but yeah, certainly some other fighters on the car could do that. I'll tell you what, man, if Patty Pimblit beats Michael Chandler, if I'm him and he doesn't just, he doesn't have any broken bones or anything, I'm staying the F ready in case that phone rings because if they book Islam versus Ilya and Ilya can't go, he'd be. he might find himself in a title fight

headlining international fight week if they want Islamakachev fighting on that card. So maybe him. If I'm him, I'm staying ready. That's smart. Because you said it and we'll never talk about it. Carlos Bratis, Jeff Neal's a freaking banger that's entirely overshadowed by all the other stuff happening

so I get it. That fight rocks. I'm pretty pumped about that one. It's a great fight. I wanted to put that up earlier. Yeah, I just not talk to it. It's a great fight. Just awesome. Yeah. definitely the 10th most important thing that happened in the past 24 hours but fight sick I really like that matchmaking it's a good one just like uh thank you much uh stupid

uh stupid chat from rs 40 welcome aboard air canada rocky's vacation here we come whoa is this economy free beer wine and snacks sweet fast free wifi means i can make dinner reservations before we land and with live tv i'm not missing the game It's kind of like I'm already on vacation. Nice. Air Canada. Nice travels. Wi-Fi available to Aero Plan members on equipped flights.

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Get the new iPhone 17 Pro at tellus.com slash iPhone 17 Pro on select plans. Conditions and exclusions apply. If Sean Brady chokes Leon in the first round, can he jump over Shafcott for the title shot? It would be a better look than the fight with Ian Gary. So yes, this news completely flies under the radar. Leon Edwards remains in the main event of UFC London. Jack Delam Adelaina gets a title shot. And which I'm kind of surprised about like something in most other cases, in most other

divisions, considering Leon defended the belt a couple of times, maybe they just run him back in there. Like, I don't think there's a gigantic appetite for that, but you would think, at least from a dollars and cents perspective, more people know who Leon Edwards is than Jack Del and Adelaida, but they went with JDM and I'm totally fine with it. But Sean Brady now gets his wish. It's a weird way of getting there, but Sean Brady wanted the Leon Edwards fight, gets it, gets to go to London and do it. Jed, what are the stakes for Sean Brady? If he goes in there and he finishes Leon Edwards in his home country, in his home building, where does he go?

Does he get a, does shopcott have to fight this guy? Or does he immediately jump over shopcott? No, shopcott has the next title fight. It does not matter what else is happening. Like, there's nothing he can do. If Sean Brady puts on one unbelievable performance, he will not be as popular nor is deserving as Shavkat Rakhmanov. Shavkat Rokmanov, sure he had a tough fight with the Imchata Gary.

He won that fight. He's won every other fight he's ever fought and he's finished, all of them but the Iemich Outer Gary fight. He is going to get the next title shot. If Sean Brady wins, biggest one of his career, either he fights Joaquin Buckley in a true title eliminator or he just kind of is the next guy up after Shavkat. My guess is because of how the timing will work out. it will be he'll fight walking Buckley and a title eliminator,

but like, he puts him in the short list. It puts him if something happens to Shofcott again. He's a guy who, oh, I can pop right in there. Like I can sneak my way into this. Nobody is passing Shofka. There is,

Shofcott would need to be on ice for the next 18 months for him to get usurp for a title fight at this point. Because it's not just about deserving. It's about the narrative. People have talked about him getting the fight forever. He has done more than enough to get that fight. he had the fight and then belal pulled out of the fight not blaming ball ball ball should have pulled out of the fight

but like he he's getting it there's no passing it sorry my reaction was i just saw i was on twitter for a second you saw caposa showing the replay of roberto soldeche's knockout at one oh my god oh did he fight today who do you knock out yeah uh i don't know this man uh his last name is arson laniev but jesus christ it's a that is

that's violent oh god oh you see it bam oh my god I gotta turn it off I got to turn it off

I will not be able to pay attention to the rest of the show yeah you died I mean it's not alive that I'm yeah I mean it's very good

I mean it's very good that guy's very good that guy's having a that guy's having a worst day and I'm also I have the web is yeah no kidding geez eliz

okay yeah yeah guys I gotta turn this off you keep it running you're just gonna watch it a million times I just go whoa geez

damn all right what else you got crying all right all right we got here um

uh lazy I need a couple uh more Reds baby A couple of things, yeah. You and Karos both. Did we confirm?

I remember asking Guy to ask Prattis if he spoke to Reds because he feels like a Marlboro Red man. I am now going to look this. Sure does. Because I think that he said yes and it may be really happy. I love. Can I just say my new favorite thing of 2025 is the surge is the surge of Mitch Reposo on our shows being mentioned.

Like someone dropped money. to mention Mitcherposa versus Sumerji with everything that happened yesterday and I respect the hell out of it. Also confirmed Carlos Prattis is a Marlborough man which rocks. Just the most classic like

Carlos Prontas belongs in freaking Bangkok just being a psychopath Muay Thai fighter. He fools. Yeah. Karate Ted tunes Patty versus Chandler who wins Imagine the press conference. Oh God. I didn't even think about the we're getting press conference. God, that's going to be tough seeing.

What's the line on that? Chandler very close. Chandler's a slight favorite. Yeah. I'm going to pick Patty to win, not just because Michael Chandler. I think Michael Chandler's pretty close to washed. Uh, like he had absolutely nothing for Charles over there. Charles over there is, you know, at worst, the third best lightweight on earth. But he had nothing for him until just cheated a lot and then still didn't really have anything for him he just almost sort of had a moment by cheating vigorously uh i think michael chanler is probably pretty close to washed and patty pimblit has been better than i thought like he is i have consistently underestimated him coming off cage warriors where i thought he was good not great i think his ufc run a lot of it was good not

great but he gets better every time out and still like in his athletic prime i will pick him to win the fight. He's also really terrific match right. He's like a tough dude. And at this point, all Michael Chandler has is a double in the right hand. And I guess the front kick that he killed Tony with. It's just not that many tools that Patty has to be that concerned about. I don't think. Right now, Patty, Patty is a slight favorite minus 115. Come back on Chandler's minus 105. It's, it's basically a coin club. Chandler is a minus open as a minus 125 favorite. You said like Chandler had nothing for Al-Aver, but like if it was all of Vera versus Patty, wouldn't they go just as bad for Patty?

I'm just, I'm just kind of comparing their outcomes. Like, I just, I know Chandler is not, he's not prime anymore. I'm just kind of, hey, Chandler, Patty is my DDP. Like, I just don't believe in them. And then he just keeps winning somehow. But yeah, somebody had to be because DDP was your DDP. And now you're seeing the light. And that's the thing like, I still don't believe in Patty, but I'm more willing to believe in

him just because like he has gotten better every fight like every single fight he looks better than he did before and that's pretty important so like i i still don't think he's ever going to be champion i do think he beat michael chanler but i also think michael chandler sucks so maybe i'm biased yeah i mean look they have match made for him perfectly eventually we're going to have to get to a point where it's like all right man like you got to fight arm and sirruki in now and then i want to see it you know like fighting Tony Ferguson at that time was good matchmaking. Fighting Bobby Green at that time was good

matchmaking. Good stylistic matchup for Patty. Patty, especially after watching how Charles Oliverer just fought Michael Chandler, like I'm probably picking Patty as well because Patty can just tackle him and lay on him and win. All he's got to do is put Chandler on his back and he wins his fight.

DJ Serenity now makes an excellent point. Patty is not the physical specimen that Drickus duplice is and so like that's a pretty major difference he looks he looks pretty

damn big in that Bobby Green fight he's he's he's not he's not he's not TDP is hossing everybody like he's TDP's last span for the width of a full map

that he's not that so maybe just by virtue of Chandler, whatever your thoughts on him, and I've given my thoughts more than enough, the man is a physical specimen. So maybe that that just, maybe he can win just purely by being more, more hoss. Interesting fight. All right. Thank you much. Legitimately a good fight. Like, I think that's good matchmaking, both sides of it. I'm interested. All right. Um, uh, super chat from Slito. I believe this is the man who, uh, put Mitch Riposo in all of our hearts last night. You know, I love you guys, but let's be real. There's zero percent chance

Ilya vacated the bell to move up and fight a number one contender fight. He's fighting Islam. Zero percent chance? I think zero percent's obviously hyperbolic and wrong. My question, and I'm not saying you're wrong. Like I still, I think it is absolutely possible. I do not think it is by any means certain or else we would know it. They would say it. My question is why would he vacate the title. If somebody can give me a good answer for why he would vacate the title, then I'm much more open to this. But that's where I kept coming back to because the UFC didn't make him. If they're giving him a title fight, there is zero percent chance that they made him vacate the belt. So it would be entirely of his own volition. And why would you do that? If you were in Ilya

Tuporia's camp, if you were Tupori himself, like to appease the small segment of the internet population, that would be mad at you. Like, nobody's making judgment calls based on me shitting on him on BTL. No, like, so there's no reason for him to vacate the belt that I can see beyond he is not getting a title fight. Because the UFC cannot reasonably justify Ilya-Torporia fighting Charles Olivaura when he has legitimate contenders that he's supposed to defend against. If he doesn't have the belt, then they can. So if you can give me a good reason, I'm hoping.

open to belief that you were correct. But other than that, like, I just, there's no good reason why you drop it. I think it's pretty clear right now. I think it was all the lightweight talk pissed the UFC off a little bit. And they finally got to the point where it's like, all right, man, like, if you're going to layweight, fine. But we like, we need a main event for UFC 314. We need something to headline this card. And it is the worst kept secret in the sport that they wanted to Leah Tuporia versus Alexander Volkanowski to headline this fight card.

Ilya kept saying, I'm going to go to lightweight, but I'm going to fight anybody. I'm going to fight Volk. And then it just seemed like the more time that went on, the more Topori was leaning towards lightweight. And the UFC probably said, like, cool. But if you do that, you're not the champion anymore. So you present this however you want. If you want to play hardball and just not fight Volk, like, we're just going to strip you of

the belt. But if you are going to make this move to lightweight, if you are 100% dead set on it, we're not guaranteeing you anything, but you, we will. we will present it in a way that you are giving up the belt in order to take on this new quest. I think for in a weird way, Jed, and it's not oftentimes that the UFC and these shows are on the same page, I think the UFC is tired of this champ champ shit too. I think they're over it. They're sick of putting interim belts on the line.

Like if it's needed, it's needed. But I don't think like, again, it does not matter. The two belt photo, no one cares anymore. Nobody does, no one cares. If you want to go and fight for a second belt, cool. It takes nothing away from the accomplishment if you are not the champion already. It's cooler if you vacate and risk it all. It's so much cooler.

So to me, I think that it came down to that more than anything. I don't buy that. It could be wrong. I don't think the UFC cares that the champ champ thing is bad. I do think that they like to promote champ champ fights in general or that the interim belt thing is bad. And that's just where I'm at. I can absolutely be incorrect.

I'm totally willing to because like I said at the start of this. I don't think that it's set. I think that there is a world really against a lightweight title shop because things break that way. But I think they would, the UFC, I don't think the UFC cares about putting an interim title fight. some people, Volk has more standing than Ilya. I don't, not even sure that's true.

I don't think the UFC would care. The UFC let freaking Jaeer Rodriguez fight for an interim belt when Volklai could defended months before. I think that they, I, I, I just, the only is a Machachev. Yeah, but like he had, he had defended it before. There was no need to do that interim title fight. They just did it. I think, and till I am told by the UFC,

explicitly and the fight is booked. The only real logical thing to me to make him vacate is you are not fighting for the belt. If you would like to fight it lightweight, you can, but you have to drop the belt and it may well not be for the title. And I will be proven right or wrong when he gets his next fight booking. I will just be pretty surprised. Not pretty surprised. I will be slightly surprised if the end result is he fights for the belt.

but has abandoned his featherweight belt for no gain for any of them. Because like, certainly for Rilia, he would rather be champ champ. It's a cooler thing to say I am a simultaneous two-division champ than a two-division champion. And I just don't think the UFC cares enough that they were like, no, Volk must fight for the true title. They would slap an interim on that and not give a shit, I think. So we will find out. I think if this card was in somewhere other than Miami, I would agree. with you. But you know how Dana feels about Miami and the fans of Miami. This is an annual

stop. I don't even know if the Miami Tourism Board has to pay a whole bunch of money in order to get them over. So like Dana just loves Miami. He wants to go there every year at this point. So they weren't going to slap an interim title fight in the main event of a Miami pay-per-view. I just didn't think so. So we'll see how it all plays out. But look, it's presented in a way. Dude, it's presented in a way everybody's happy. Ilya looks like an absolute gangster for vacating the belt,

whether it's a vacation of the title or we just stripped you, but we're painting it in a nice positive brush. It's happened before. Look at Yuri Perashka. Look at Jamal Hill. Like, we've been here before. When we've seen guys,

like they technically stripped the fighters of the belt, but it's presented as Yuri is the true warrior and didn't want to hold this division up while he was rehabbing his bad shoulder injury. Like, we all know what the truth was. The year, he's basically said it in every subsequent and every sense. Like, what actually happened in that situation.

So there you go. Very unique situation. All right. Let's come more Super Jets. It will be, like I said at the start of this, it will be the like totally fine, not bad, probably the lamest of the possible outcomes if he's fighting for the,

title. It'll just be like because then if he loses it is overwhelmingly like it just drops back down to featherweight which if this fight if this fight happens are we not buying the weight cut oh sorry are we not buying the weight cut at all

I don't buy the weight cut at all. I think anything else that's just a lie I don't buy it either. I think that it is true that the weight cut is hard because weight cuts are hard I think that the long history of MMA has told us that fighters do awful weight cuts because of

the advantages of it. And so it's just not real. Like, I do not think that the weight cut is too hard. He's never failed to make weight. It's harder than he wants it to be. And if he thinks he can be equally as successful lightweight without having to go through that pain, sure, I do not think it's, I can't do this anymore. Because if it is the difference between owning a title and not owning a title, I bet you he finds a way to make one four or five. Kayla Harrison could never make 135. Now she is. Like it is, it's, people will suffer endlessly to get to the title if that's the only way. Islamy Chev is going to play this thing beautifully.

Either he's going to get what he wants and he'llies going to have to get a win or he gets what he wants in another way and they book this fight. Like, they aren't just going to convince Zalmachachep to fight Dillian support you. Hey man, you're under contract. You have to do what we tell you to do. He'll just say no. like he's he's he's he's in a good enough standing right now to do that and just say hell no so one of two things is going to happen either the ufc is going to give him way more money or which they don't typically do but i don't think considering who manages him i don't think they're going to put the ufcs back completely against the wall but i think he'll get a little something something out of it or they're setting it up so that yo islam if you want to move up and take your opportunity like we promise that if you take this fight, we will give you that opportunity to move up, whether it's at 170 or 185, whatever he wants to do, they will return the favor this time around.

And we'll see how that all works. But there's no way he's just going to be like, all right, fine, I'll fight him. It's just not, I don't think it works that way. I am progressively talking myself more and more into Ilius definitely not fighting Islam next. Because honestly, a lot of what you just said, Mike, like, do you see, there is no cause for them to force Islam to take this. I know that many people in this chat believe that this is a big fight, and it's a big fight. This is not, it's probably not a million pay-per-view by fight. Like, let's just be honest. I, I, I, I'm at Teporee is very popular. He is going to be a

megastar. He ain't Connor McGregor. He's not clocking those figures for that. And Islam Machshedraff, as popular as he is, is not doing the same. Like, this is not a earth-shattering business decision that is so overwhelming they have to do it. And the U.S. he likes Islam. Dana could not speak glowingly enough about him after 3-11, where he fought Renato Mochano on a day's notice was like, bet, whoever, doesn't matter, line him up, I'll wax whoever. Like, there is no cause for them outside of like the very small bubble of people who are convinced that Ilya versus Islam is the best fight that's ever been put on paper and must happen right now, because I cannot ever eat a vegetable, I must have my cookies this moment.

That's just not the reality. And so the UFC is not incentivized to break, like to hurt a relationship with a champion who they like, who is the number one pound for pound fighter. And that fight can happen. Who has never said I won't do it, but let me do something else that I want to do. Because of these two people, the person who deserves so much as we want to use that, a chance of a second belt, it's Islam. It's undeniably Islam.

And so there is no reason for them to move heaven and earth to let Ilya fight for a belt right now. And so all of this reads to me like, Ilya really wants to do this. Here's the price. Dump your belt, fight Arm and Sarugan. Do those two things? Cool. But you are not in a position where you get to call the shots. Here's the price for what you want.

And if you pay the price, then you can have it. And so I have come around to really thinking that this is going to be. be Ilya versus Armand Circuit. I like that logic. Look at that. That's why we do the show. We end up getting to a... Legitimately, I was driving home, I was like, you guys are insane.

Ilya's just never going to fight Armand. And as we have talked through this endlessly, honestly, by far the most likely outcome to me at this point, the thing that makes all the pieces fit together with the least amount of squinting your eyes and, oh, well, maybe it's just like, oh, actually, Ilya does not want to fight vote, wants to do this, here's how they say, okay, you want to do it? Here's the cost to do that. And he says, okay.

Thank you, Michael. Ian versus the loser of Brady versus Leon, it will be my odd now. I mean, the Leon fight would make sense. Comis, the question is not that that fight will be a banger. I agree it will be a banger. It is whether that fight breaks through to the broader public. It just doesn't.

Like, Islam Akashchev is popular. He is not mainstream. popular. Elliott, Tuporia has just not been around long enough to be broadly pay-per-view popular. Fights great. That is not a huge needle mover for the UFC in a way that it is worth harming existing relationships that they have. All right.

They have other options, too, for international. Yeah, there's other options. Other things going on. One more super chat. Casey, true or false, we get Islam Teporia, but lose Jones Aspinall. Hold on. Can I just rephrase, let me just ask a question to this question, Jen. I'll let you answer. How can we lose something that we're never going to get anyways? That's just like asking true or false, we get Islam-taporia, but don't get the GFL. Like, if it's not, if there's nothing to lose, then how can we lose it?

I'll say true in that I do think ultimately we will get Islam fighting Tuporia. I won't, because I'll pick Teporea to beat Armin Srukin. I am not. at all confident in that pick, but I'll pick it. Like, I think, like, gun to my head right now, I'd go to Boria. Would not be remotely surprised if I was super wrong there. And if he beats Armin Sarugate and he's, there's no question. Islam would not, at that point, would not have anything to say about it. Like, all I bet, that dude's a number one contender.

Because that's how he has been as champion. So I think that it is far more likely. Y'all know my position. John Jones is never fighting Tom Asperol. That will never happen. So, you know, if you were just asking which is more likely, definitely the former, the latter will not occur. Yeah, this is how I viewed the whole Belal Muhammad versus Shafkat or Kamara Uspen conversation. Like, you can't just give Kamar Usp a title shot.

Like, get a win. And I know it's a little different because Kfar is like not moving up and down, but like beat anybody. I don't get, I don't care. Beat someone and then you can have a title shot. But until then, like, I don't know. I, is, I mean, Tepore is a big. big enough. Like he's getting up there and he's getting up there in stardom. He's not like quite there globally yet. But again, like, Ilya's got time, man. Like this isn't a, hey, I'm about

to get rich thing. Seems like Ilya's already kind of rich, rich anyways, like doing stuff outside of the fight game at this point. And this is just all sort of cherry on top of the Sunday. So if it's about Ilya being patient, the dude's not 35. He's got a long, long time to go fight for a second belt. Yeah. Dude, just like, the thing that I've come to have been thinking about is like, we all believe Iliate Tuporia is going to be a massive star as a big star. Is there a human being alive who would suggest that Ilya Tuporia is remotely near

where Connor McGregor was when he knocked out Josie Aldo? I do not think so. I don't think that's a reasonable claim to make. That's why Connor got the lightweight shot because he demanded it with. with stardom. I do not think Ilya does. If he gets it, which still could happen, it's because lightweight is in a really weird spot and there's not a lot of other options, but I just have a really hard time thinking the UFC goes to Islam or like, we want you to fight this dude. And I know you've specifically said you don't want to fight this dude. Will you fight him? And it'd be like,

yeah, sure. It's just, that really is a hard sell for me to believe that is happening right now. Yeah, I don't, I'm with you. I just don't see a world where it's like, okay, sure. Especially when he just, he just fought a dude on a day's notice. Like, what else is this guy to do? He's taking short notice opponents like in multiple title defenses. Like, come on. Azi and Duro.

Yes, I've been very clear. It is really big. Muhammad has like a million Instagram followers. That doesn't translate to pay-per-view. And that is the currency of the UFC. That's important. hard guys. I know that there is a world outside of America. There is. I am not suggesting there is it. The UFC only minimally cares about that because that world doesn't buy pay-per-views,

and that's what they care about. Yeah, that's why they do fight cards internationally at like 4 a.m. local time. When the demand globally. Australian pay-per-views wouldn't be going at 6 a.m. for Australia. But they don't, because because they care what the East and West Coast of America will drop 80 bucks on. UFC 304? UFC 304. It was like overnight. Like literally like 2 a.m.

that card started for the locals. And I think Balam Moham and Leon Edwards made the walk at like 8 a.m. They don't care about that stuff. They just don't. They don't care. They don't care nearly to the extent that they care about the other stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

That's why, guys, I don't know if you know this. Jane really might be the greatest female fighter we've ever seen. What was the last time she fought in China? And China is China. Literally every business in the world has the tagline of how can we get into the Chinese market? The U.S. you don't give a shit because they don't China and buy pay-reviews. Do you have anything else?

I just got one question for, I'm just curious in your opinion on this. But Toporia versus Armin, is it if he fights a contender fight, Is it that fight or bust? I mean, is there anything else? I think he could fight Charles. Yeah, I think it's one of those two. Honestly, depending on timing, he could just fight the winner of Hooker Gagee. Like, I think those are.

We're just saying Hormon because Armin's out there right now. Armin needs a fight and there are no other. We talked about this at 3-11. It was like they have said, they said specifically Armine's going to have to fight. And it was like, who's he going to fight? They can't run. Like, I guess they could. but because we care about them running the Charles rematch right back?

Like, it's weird. And it makes a ton of sense. And it would also, again, in the world where we are trying to draw out the coolest path forward for Ilya, the most badass line here is to bail on the featherweight belt and go fight Armands Rukin and beat him. That's the coolest thing that he can do. That would be nuts. That would be nuts. That would be true pimp shit.

Yep, completely agree. Warfrey fights Charles. but again, he could fight anybody. He could literally fight anybody right now. And I think Islam wouldn't be happy. But yeah, he even mentioned Porre's name, the team. So it's a very strange situation. Again, none of this, nothing will surprise me when it comes to this.

So fuck, Islam, Ilya could end up fighting somebody else for the vacant lightweight title because Islam's like, all right, fuck it. Everyone's moving up. I'll move up. I just want to put it out in the universe. He cares it all about proving it really wrong. I was like to the university. If Patty beats Chandler,

injury-free, we could get a Topuria Patty for number one contender. I mean... I think we have learned... I meant a little tough. Taboria's patient. We got work going on in the kitchen right now. Here's what I'll say. If we're going to book Patty Pimbleit

and we want to figure out where this is all going to ago. There's only one man to listen to and that is on Sundays on to the next one because Alexander Kaylee has booked Patty Pimbleau perfectly in like his last three fights. He booked the Tony Ferguson fight. He booked the Michael Chandler fight.

He booked the Chandler fight. Well before the Olivera fight. He goes, I don't care. Patty Pimble's next fight is going to be against Michael Chandler. And we all laughed at him. We laughed and laughed and laughed. And we said there's just no way, AK. There's just no way you're crazy. And he's two for two. He got both

of these. So Otno points galore for Alexander Kay Lee. The man just knows how to book Patty Pimble. He's been on point. And I never would have pulled that out at all. And now here we are. It's happening. And it makes sense. And Tony Ferguson and then Patrick and then Michael Chandler. Wild. Do we have anything else? Are we good? We're good, sir. Okay. One championship's got a card. Go to Capos's Twitter and just watch the Rurdo. So, Dichanco it over and over again because it's been looping right here. It's more vicious every time. Hit the music.

Guys, we have UFC Seattle. We didn't get a single question about it, which will make the previous show a little bit better tomorrow. So don't you worry. Song Yidong versus Henry Suhudo. I spoke with Song. You can check out the interview on our YouTube channel right now. And yeah, that card is going to happen. And then they're going back to the world's most famous Apex for Menel Kopp versus Asu al-Mabayev,

and then they'll be on the road to UFC 313. So, Jed, anything you want to say here? PJ 098, Islam versus Justin Gae if he beat Stahooker, would be a bigger legacy fight because you are operating into the assumption that Ilya would be undefeited forever. We can't. I know Justin Gachie is a great lightweight. We have no idea if Dupuri is. So come on, guys.

Grow up. Love y'all. Bye-bye. This has been between the links and MMA Fighting Production on the Vox Media Network. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you.

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