MMA Fighting - BTL | REACTION To New UFC Rankings, Dustin Poirier. Josh Hokit Doubles Down

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

Dana White and the UFC finally revealed their new set of rankings, and people have had mixed reactions, with a lot of folks left scratching their heads after the launch earlier this week. Is the new Meta process the way to go, or will the promotion continue to have issues along the way? On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel reacts to the new A.I. rankings structure and how things shifted. Additionally, topics include Dustin Poirier's arrest and the viral video that went along with it, Josh Hokit doubling down on his controversial post-fight interview following his UFC White House stoppage win, Manel Kape's knockout of Kyoji Horiguchi at UFC Vegas 119, UFC Baku headlined by Rafael Fiziev vs. Manuel Torres, Dricus du Plessis vs. Kamaru Usman finally announced as the UFC Oklahoma City main event, and much 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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made the switch. So why not you? Try Odu for free at Odu.com. That's ODOO.com. A podcast network. May Fighting Studios, this is between the links. Your host, my... The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of BTL. Happy Thursday to us all. Hope you're all having a great week. We're coming off of a return to the world's most famous Apex just six days after UFC White House. But Saturday, it's UFC Baku, it's PFL San Diego. There's lots going on in the combat sports world.

Some good, some bad, some right down the middle. And that's why we're here. Talk about all that stuff with all of you guys. And joining me to discuss all of these things, all of these different topics that we can discuss. And much more, the one and only Mr. O'Grary, the hot take hit himself from M.AFighting.com. Jed Bishu.

Jed, how are you? How is Supergirl? Very mid. It's not like an awful movie. I'd see a lot of movies at this point. I think everybody knows that. There was an early release at my theater right next to me. So it's like, I'll go see it.

It was much better than Disclosure Day, which is a pile of dog water. But, yeah, it could have been better. I think Lily Alcock, I think that's her name, is actually a pretty good super. girl, but she just did not have a ton to work with from a story standpoint. So, you know, I've seen worse movies. And it's short, too. Like, that was the other thing. It's not like bad and two and a half hours.

It was bad in like an hour and 45 minutes or whatever. So I'll tolerate. Again, it actually was, again, it wasn't bad, but like it just wasn't good. But at least it didn't take that much of my time. Yes. Like disclosure day was rancid and it was over two hours. Yeah, it's like watching, yeah, it's like watching an apex card that ends in three hours. Like that, that'd be incredible.

Like, it doesn't matter how good or bad the card was. If it ended in three hours, you'd be like, oh, this is sick. It was awesome. Automatically bumps it up an entire letter grade. Exactly. It's honestly exactly. It was like, okay, well, I didn't, you know, I go to late showings because I work until the, you know, evening. And so, like, I'll go to a 9 or 10 p.m. showing.

And then you add 30 minutes of previews before that. It's like, the thing drags. I can be out there until 2 and then I don't want that. So, yeah. Yeah. You know, it's not the worst thing I've ever seen. Nobody wants that. So.

I think they fundamentally misunderstood the assignment, which was like the big problem. Spoiler alert, not really giving away too much here. She is nerfed like the whole movie. And that's just like, you don't. go to a superhero movie to watch them not be super, you know, like, I would like you to let supergirl just bomb on people. That's pretty cool. And when they did do that, I was like, oh, yeah, I'm having fun now. But like, there's just a lot of the movie where she's intentionally nerfed. And it's just like, okay, what are we doing? That doesn't sound like a lot of fun.

So I should probably skip this one. I mean, if you have other things, yes, because right now there's about to be like a glut of awesome stuff. Toy Story 5 is supposed to be amazing. I saw that. I might see it. I wanted to see that last night. It is still just functionally sold out

at the theaters by me. So I just am waiting until I can get a ticket that's not going to be super crowded. The Odyssey drops next week. Spider-Man drops next week. End of July. Spider-Man's end of July? Yeah, July.

I already bought a ticket. gets to opening night. It's July 29th. Oh, I guess, and maybe I thought that it was June, end of June. So I just, I was mixing up the months. But like, there's a bunch of good summer slate coming, uh, and or here. And like, you know, this is, I liked Masters of the Universe more than Supergirl. Oh, okay. I enjoyed Master of Universe. I actually thought that was pretty decent. All right. I have to go. I still have not seen that one yet. So I'll have to go check. I did not, what like, I did.

didn't watch he man as a kid like i don't i don't have any experience to the i had a good time we have to go check that out so supergirl is a is an apple picking movie so that's good yeah if you have nothing else to do you again you spend the worst time like there's worse ways to spend your time but if you've got other things certainly don't prioritize seeing it yeah all right well let's uh if you listen if you got movie questions fire them in there especially if you're super chatting Speaking of Super Chats, we got out right now from Lizar kicking us off. Jen and Mike, I'm aware everyone has covered Justin's situation. In your opinions, how common is this in MMA?

I assume he means Dustin. I assume that as well. So if you got, if you're here, you know what happened. The reports came out that Dustin was arrested for- Imagine you don't. Like, imagine someone's in the chat right now. It's just like, what are you talking about, Dustin-Poyer? Well, maybe the Justin thing threw you up,

But he probably means Dustin. Yes. I'm sure. If you didn't know, go back through it, May 5A. I don't want to go through the whole thing, but I'll give you sort of the, the Clif Dotes version of it, if you're not aware. And for those who aren't aware, uh, TMZ reported that Dustin Poria was arrested, uh, for some drunken behavior at an airport.

And we're just like, yeah, we're just kind of chalking this up to, you know, it's sometimes that happens, right? And then the video came out and Dustin is, is a mess. And he's trying to, he's, threatening a cop and all sorts of stuff happening. It's just not a good look. And you kind of, I don't know, there's so many different lenses to, to view this, Jed. So now that we've seen it all, we've seen the video and everything, what was your reaction to all this?

What is your reaction now that you've had a couple of days to let this pot simmer a little bit? my initial reaction we talked about it in our work stuff and people you know it's a little bit outside it could have been way worse i'm glad that it was not um i've seen a fair number of cop videos both in law school and afterwards and just in life i don't think i've ever seen a video where an officer actively attempts to fight a police or a person actively attempts to fight a police officer and doesn't suffer some sort of serious physical injury as a result of it. And so, like, credit to the cop, like the responding officer, good on him. He handled that situation extremely well.

Like, that should be teach tape for cops on how to deal with erratic, semi-aggressive, because it's not like, for it was swinging on him, but he was also threatening and posturing. So semi-aggressive erratic behavior was very well handled. I think that Poir probably was greatly benefited by being both famous and white. But like, I'm glad that this ended that way for him. Then from that, it's like, okay, well, yeah, this is sad. I don't think this is necessarily deeply uncommon. And this is not just germane to MMA.

It is relevant to society in general and certainly to athletics. Like across the board, pro athletes will tell you, like, it is hard to adjust to civilian life because you have spent so much of your time, energy and focus pursuing one thing, and now you can't play anymore, right? And Poir, there was some prescient interviews by Poirier beforehand. I believe it was with the full send guys where he was talking about he needs. the structure of fighting to prevent him from being a danger to himself, then this happens. Yeah, I think this is not like a super uncommon thing.

I think in MMA, it's perhaps it scares me a little bit more, right? Because while there are people from bad backgrounds, like unfortunate circumstances in all walks of life and in all athletics, MMA certainly seems to overly attract people with, you are choosing to be a violent person in your career, right? Like, MMA is objectively a violent sport. You got to be a little bit off to want to pursue this as a career, and that's usually caused by some sort of traumatic, you know, upbringing or something like that.

And so especially in MMA, too, like fighters just make less. So it feels like this can go a lot worse and be a little bit more common here. For Porre, it seems like you understand. understands that this is a problem. He's seeking help, and that's good, because that's like the first step of dealing with things. It's admitting you have the issue. And, you know, he has a good family. He has a strong support system around him. I have faith and confidence that if he takes this seriously, he can, you know, work through his demons here. But it is going to be a fight. It's a different kind of fight than the fight he's had before. But it's, you know, addiction, things of this nature are

are very, very difficult. And so I hope he gets help he needs. Yeah, it's very tough for fighters because, I mean, look, you've been around fighters and combat competitors before and probably spoken to them. And I was on with, uh, with Dennis doing some doing a little spot with submission radio last night. And we were talking about this. And one thing that I noticed in one of my takeaways from it was like, I can't imagine what Dustin's going through. Because I remember talking to guys like Mitch Raposo and guys like Jay Perrin and fighters like that who

were just going through the regional scene, right? They were just going through the regional scene and they would prepare for a fight and then the fight would end and then they would go into this like dark depressing place because the whole build to that one fight was over and they would find themselves in that place until like the next fight was booked

and then they had this new goal to go through. So when you have a guy like Dustin who's been so devoted to this game for so long two decades more than half of his life has been dedicated to this to this world to this sport 2009 was his professional debut but he he he's amy before that since like oh six i think yeah so like more than half of his life has been dedicated to the sport i mean he was a teenager right like when uh when fightville came out he was what 18 19 when that came out like he was super young going up through the through the regional scene in louisiana and and around that that part of the country

like that is that is what he knows right he knows you know having the wife by the side because she's been with them for more than half his life and then the fight game and then all this other stuff is just sort of new to him so again not excusing the behavior because you just can't do that too like doesn't matter who you are or what your mindset is like sure some of that has to be taken into account but like can't go out there threatened police officers you just can't do it and shout out to that cop I think he you're right if you're going to teach a cop how to diffuse a situation like just show that video everywhere like that is the that is the one like if you're gonna work for enterprise runner car you show the signfeld episode or how to you know how to

take the reservation just don't how to hold the reservation this is this is that like this is how you diffuse this is how you deal with this type of situation and the cop did an incredible job and i'm room for i mean dustin's been great i mean look at in the interviews of like oh man like this has been tougher than I thought. Like this has been going on since he retired. He was on Rogan like a month after he retired talking about it being hard. Yeah. I talked about like three weeks after he retired. Him and Bruce Buffer together. And you could just see it as Bruce was talking, even when Bruce was talking about announcing Dustin's name for the last time. Like you could see it in Dustin's face.

Just like, shit. This is the last time he's going to do that. You know what I mean? And like you could you could see it in his face too. Like try to put on a brave face because he's trying to represent Bud Light and talk about this cool contest they're doing. But he's just like, man, you can tell there's just a piece of his being missing through all of this. And this is like shortly after the loss to Max

and having to throw his gloves down in New Orleans. Like just a lot, man. And I don't think he has to worry about that Bud Light part anymore. I think that's probably, you know, and that's part of the thing. things that concern me here, especially, like, this is broadly concerning. Like, if it were any fighter, this would be a concerning thing. But a couple of things that are specifically concerning is, like, one, he probably has lost a spot, like a Bud Light sponsorship. Like, that's whatever deal he had with

them, that, that can't continue to exist, right? And so, like, he's going to lose some money from that, straight up. And that sucks for him. The two, he has things, like, he has structure. And that's what's concerning to me the most about it. Again, he seems to be aware that this is a problem, and I hope that that's not, you know, just, you know, wagon, like tongue wagon, that he really understands this and is seeking the appropriate avenues of help, because that's always also a question. Like, when someone says, I need help, that might not be the help that we think. It might be like, oh, I need to do something else.

Like, no, you should seek a professional. But, like, what concerns me is Dustin Poit didn't. leave for like retire from fighting and have nothing going on it's not i'm sitting around the house i got nothing to do he still by all accounts like trains consistently has worked with the guys at at t i i know that he has done some you know some specific fight camp prep for a couple of the at t guys he is all has been on broadcast for the ufc and he is on the deep water show that ufc on paramount puts out like he has things to specifically occupy his time and for this to still happen when they're like because that is normally what the first step would be like oh you're you're bored you're not busy enough

find find some hobbies find some things to take up your time to take your mind off this he has stuff and he still went here so that's pretty concerning to me again he seems to have a beat on it but that's it's tough yeah i mean and There are certain, and you see it with the guys like, like when you see, like you see guys like Derek Lewis. You see guys like Max Holloway. You see others like that who. Anthony Hernandez, another example. Like these are guys who, if you speak to them, they, when it's their fight and they are fighting, they are locked in on the fight world.

When they are not fighting, they are, they don't want anything to do with the MMA space at all. They completely separate themselves from it. Like Derek doesn't even watch the events. Like when he says that, he legit means that. That he doesn't watch the fights. He gets as far away from it as possible. And Max, like, we'll see the headlines. But Max doesn't sit there and watch every Saturday night and see what's going on in his division.

Like he knows because he could go on social media or do his Twitch stream and find out everything that's happening in his world. But he's not saying they're obsessing about the sport. They're able to separate themselves from it. And Michael Kiesz is like another example. Even like Colby, like say what you will about Colby. Like he is able, he's found stuff to do to at least get away from MMA when he's not a part of it, when he's not fighting. And it's hard. Not everybody can do that.

Not everybody can do that. Some people are just so into this. They're so obsessed with that like they don't miss a beat. They don't miss a minute. They watch every single fight as it happens so that there's just no other world for them. and it's not just MMA, it's like that with everything. Like you see with NFL players, you see what, you see with Major League Baseball players.

Like, when that ends, like, what do you do? Just keep watching. You just keep watching. You keep doing the stuff you were doing and you weren't fighting. Then it hits different. Like, I see some people in the chat saying, like, oh, maybe he saw Justin Gates, you win the bell at the White House and that just sent him over the edge. Like, I don't, I don't think that's the case.

I think he was already kind of there. But, like, that couldn't help. Honestly, as someone who was in that division, who has a win over Justin. Gagee, who's one-on-one with the guy. A fight, he'd love to come back. He would probably end his retirement to come back and fight Justin Gagee again for that belt.

Like, yeah, I'm sure that affects. I'm sure every result affects him. I'm sure to some extent, honestly, this feels to me, and it didn't feel this way at the time because he was so forthright about it and like so honest. He feels like,

he seems very obviously a man to me who was not right. to walk away, right? Like, he walked away for the, for good reasons, right? Like, he, he walked away because he wasn't going to fight for a belt anymore. And, you know, he can look at the landscape and be like, all right, if I can't be world champion again, I can continue to fight because I like it, but I am taking damage. Like, I, every future fight is knocking off healthy, happy years with my family down the road.

and it is one thing to empirically understand that, to look and be able to logically process that and be like, this is just bad business. Continuing on here, the juice is not worth the squeeze at this point. It's one thing to be able to understand that, like logically, and it's another to internalize that and to be okay with it. And it seems pretty evident to me that the game has not left him,

that he wants to keep doing it, but he knows that he cannot. And that is like that's where you find people who have the hardest time reckoning with it when their circumstances are not what they're not like comfortable or happy accepting it. And that seems to me what's happened here. Like he because he wouldn't have walked away if he was in the current situation he was if he was, you know, 30, right? Like if he was still young and in the prime of his career, it was just a, it was a straight up like, yeah, this is a logical time to end. And we all credited him with that, and I think that that's fair. But at the same time, now it's like, you know, I don't think he got it all out of his system in a way.

And now it's coming coming home to roost in a negative way. Yeah. And this is kind of like one of the things that I've been seeing as well since then. LazyVed should the UFC follow a similar playbook to their TKO counterpart to the WWE and institute a wellness program for current and retired fighters from their company? Now, obviously, the obvious answer is yes here, but there is a caveat, Jed, because if there's one thing I know about the UFC and one thing that I can say, one thing you'd say about Dana White, whether you like Dana White or not and agree with what he does or not, there are stories that come out all the time that are 100% true of Dana just doing stuff to help people without wanting any sort of praise or headline or anything like that. So something tells me just knowing Dana and not like personally, but just being around the sport long enough, something tells you that when Dana saw these headlines, he probably called Dustin and said,

hey, what can I do? Where do you like to go? I know some people, like let us pay for this. Like I'm sure these conversations have happened, right? You can't do that. Yeah, you can't do that with everybody. Like you can't do that every single fighter on your roster. You can't do that with someone who took a fight on six days notice, went 0 and 3 and got bust.

Like Dana's not going to call that fighter and be and be like, okay, we're going to pay, but we should be disc this this obviously, especially with what you were talking about earlier, how tough it is for an MMA fighter when this is, this is your life. Like this is your career. Like you worked so hard towards this goal. And if it's it just ends and you're done and you're left like thinking now what do I do? Like you can fall into these traps. So should should UFC do this? Should they reach out to W. and be like, hey, tell me how you guys do this. Let's try to institute something like this for our fighters. Should they do it? I mean, yes, I don't know that they will just because, you know, I think that that would be a moral and upstanding thing to do. I am not really super familiar with what the WWE's, you know, thing is. but anything that protects the long-term health,

mental health of fighters, of athletes, yeah, they should do it. They should also have some sort of a retirement pension plan for fighters, and they don't do that. So I'm not confident it'll happen. This feels to me like one of those things that the way the UFC's always operated. If Dana likes you and you've meant enough to him personally, he'll do it.

You know, he gave Chuck Lella a job after he retired. That was, by all accounts, a no-show job. And that's why when they sold, Chuck Godell got fired. You know, Forrest got a job, but he turned his job and he showed up and did stuff. And that's why he got to keep his job. I, you know, I think Dana White probably has reached out to Dustin Porre. He can't do that much here. This is, it's on, you know, he can recommend or put people into connections,

but Porre can find any of these things. Like, he's just going to have to do the work of, I don't know that it's a substance abuse problem. It may not be. Right. Like he was clearly drunk right there. But like I don't know that that's actually a, he has like a long term super unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Or if this was a singular event that manifested because he's depressed.

And like, you know, the answer is going to be seek professional help. And Dana can only help so much there. But he probably has reached out. And I think it would be good for them to have a better plan than good luck. But that has been the UFC's plan for a long time. Yeah. So, WWE, obviously they have, you know, it's not like you sat or anything, but they do do tests and there's certain things you can and cannot take. But the big thing about their wellness policy is if a WWE talent past or present needs to go to rehab, WWW will pay for it.

Like they will send you to where you need to go. They will pay for them. It costs the talent current and former nothing. They just are like. That's a good policy. Yeah. I think UFC should absolutely do this and handle it as such. Like, again, I don't know how realistic it is like for any single entity who has ever fought in the UFC. Like, what if fought in the UFC one time and like, does James Tony get covered on this policy? I mean, there's probably exceptions to the rules.

It's not like they don't got the money for it. But yeah, I get what you're saying. So they should probably look into this. And hopefully during international five weeks, these are questions. Dana has asked about it. If Dana's in Baku, like, not a bad time to ask a question. I believe UFC Baku last year. This is when we got the John Jones is out of the UFC.

He's been stripped of the belt or vacated the title, and Tom Aspinall is a new champion. So perhaps that press conference could get some answers there. The problem is, doesn't Dana not believe in mental health, like mental health? And I feel like, I feel like I've seen him be like, we do too much therapy, or whatever. So, like, I don't know. What do you consider this therapy, though? again, I'm not 100% certain that Dustin Porre's problem is alcoholism.

Yeah, I hear it. So, like, I mean, that won't hurt in general, but like, it's all kind of mental health. And so I don't know. I would love for them to do that. I think that would be an easy win for them to say. And, you know, come out and be like, hey, man, you know, Dustin Poitius meant so much to us. He was the Forrest Griffin Community Award winner once upon a time. And this is probably long past due, but he, his situation shown a light on a real problem.

And we want to, you know, we have the UFCPI to help fighters be their best heading up to fights. We want to do something to help them be their best when they've exited the sport, you know. Yeah. I think that would be great. I would love them to do that. If they do that, you will never hear me say a bad thing about it because it's obviously great. 100%. But we obviously wished us on the best in this process, because I've seen it.

it before it is not easy. It is definitely not an easy road and hopefully you can navigate it to the best of his ability. Easy rare videos. True or false Tom Aspinall defense his title by the end of 2026. True. I say true. I think it's I think that'll be your Abu Dhabi main event again. Is Asminal and gone? No insight. That's just what my guess is looking at the schedule right now. Because you're not going to do it at MSG. You think they're not going to do MSG? You think so? on MSG? No. Everyone champion of the world.

Yeah, but I don't know. I don't know who else is going to MSG is the thing. Gachi and Armand would be a pretty damn big fight for MSG. I mean, that would be terrific for MSG. I don't, I will be straight up floor if Justin Gagey fights again this year. I'm trying to think like. I think he's going to fight again, but I will be, they will have paid him so much money to fight again. because anything less than like $10 million, I don't think he says yes to.

And he should absolutely get it. Like without question. 100%, but like he's going to be like, dude, I fought twice this year. Did you watch? There are two of the four best fights, both of them are like in the top five for fight of the year right now. Yeah. So like I'm not doing that again.

Eat shit. Or it's going to be Sean Strickland versus Homs at Shmsemeyf, too. Now that could could be the case. But yeah, at some point this year, I think we get gone Aspinall too. Yeah. What if we don't? Do we have a new from heavyweight? It'll before next summer, the heavyweight belt will be defended.

I would be really surprised if it's not. What are the chances that if it, because look, if he's out for over a year, they can't do the Yuri Jamal thing and just be like he chose to move his division along and then he fights the winner, but still is treated as champion, despite not having the belt? Yeah, I think, I think what they would do would just be, again, I don't think they'll strip them. I think they'll do what they did to Randy when Randy was the champion and they were like, he was suing them.

And there was like, you can have the belt. We'll just have another champion who's fighting. Eventually, we will win. So like, it's, you know, it's interesting that they seem to consistently have beef with their heavyweight champion of the world. Like, yeah, it's like clockwork. The only one that they haven't is DC, Daniel Cormier. Yeah.

They really have beef with Steepa, at least not that I remember. Oh, dude. I mean, it wasn't like, it wasn't this whole like public thing, but I remember I was at UFC 220 when Steve A beat the shit out of Francis and Ghanu. Uh, Stevey was not a happy camper at the UFC. They felt like he was promoted as the afterthought. And in fact, after he beat Francis, uh, He was going to have Dana wrap the belt around him.

He took the belt from Dana and gave it to his coach. And he was just like, no, get out of here. And then Steve. But that's like fairly normal. I'm mad that you thought I might lose as a fighter beef, not like, I went out of my contract beef. Yeah. We had with so many heavyweight champions.

But Tom's not really saying that. He's got, it's Eddie saying it's not even that. It's just like I'm not. I'm not saying it. I'm not saying it because Eddie. saying it. I think Tom knows not to say it and he can let people around him say it. Yeah, exactly. But I mean, again, like, I don't think he said like, he's going to be a free agent. We want him out of it. We want him like out of the UFC. What they're saying is just like,

yo, like he should be getting paid more. He should just get a new deal, which everybody should be saying this at this point. So, but again, we digress. It's just, uh, it's a battle not worth fighting anymore because they've had so many chances to do this and it's never going to happen. uh, Dave and Chatri in the military, we had week long transition assistance class for going back to civilian life. I always wanted UFC to do something like that for retiring slash release fighters. It's not even that expensive. Yeah. I mean, it wouldn't be that hard for them. And again, also the military is like a substantially bigger organization than the every fighter who's ever competed in the UFC. Um, they could afford

to do this. I don't even think it would be an enormous cost. You know, they could draw something up. maybe the UFC just is like, we don't want to do it for guys who fought three times, like less than 10 times. But like there's,

there's a way to do this or to do something like this to be ongoing and supportive. And I would love to see it happen. Yeah. For sure. RS 40. Thoughts on the new meta rankings.

I think they're crazy, especially featherweight. So, pull those up right now. Yeah. I mean, the launch was hilarious because like Mitch Reposso was the

flyway champion for about 15 minutes on the rankings page, which that was incredible. Yeah. You know, look, tech launches, weird things happen. Yeah, it was very, very fun. A pass on that one. Why is he confused about the featherweight rankings? They look pretty normal to me. Arnold Allen is ranked above John Silva.

It's by John Silva beating him. Not now. Pat Zabbatini. Yes, he is. I'm looking at it right now. So am I. Arnold Allen's number five. John Silva's number six.

Are you, you're on the, you're at the media ranking toggle. I'm at meta UFC rankings I'm at UFC.com slash rankings there's a toggle in the right hand corner that's media versus meta when I toggle it over to meta John Silva is above owner and Allen

okay that makes sense so I don't on different websites in general I don't know so the people so the people rankings are dumb so the people rankings have been dumb forever yeah that's super dumb um yeah the the meta ones I'm looking at right

now have John Silva at 6 on an island at 7 at featherweight. So I don't know if I'm looking at the wrong ones or not. No, that's weird. Actually, no. As I toggle it over, the media one is the one that's right and the meta one's the one that's wrong. I don't understand this at all then.

Yeah, now I'm not... This is bad UI. Super confused. So at the top of it, it says meta-UFC rankings. When I click the toggle... Oh, then it says media on the other end. It says media panel, but in the right-hand corner, it says meta-rankings.

Okay. So the toggle is stupid, I guess. I don't know. This is dumb. Okay. So I'm going to go with, if it says meta-UFC rankings, like as a headline, I'm going with this. I think you're right. I think that's the one that's the meta at the top.

Okay. This is poorly, poorly you-eyed here. So Arnold Allen is five, John Silva is six. Pat Sabatini is seven. That is wild. That's pretty wild. Zalalal is eight. Nathaniel Wood is nine, which, by the way,

that's not unfair. He's ranked above Kevin Mujay host, which I think is kind of wild. A little high, but. Nathaniel Wood should be should have been ranked for so long anyways. So I respect it. This is just a, it's a makeup call. Aaron Pico's 13,

Jordan San Brito's 14. Jose Miguel Delgado is ranked at 145 right now. Interesting. Okay. Let's see what else we got going on here. These are dumb as shit then, yeah. Lightweight's not. It was horrific.

Lightweight looks, I'll tell you, lightway looks really stupid based. on the like how they said things are happening because arm and surukin should pretty obviously be number one agree with that gachi is a champion but like to poria has to poria is one and one at lightweight so why should he be ranked higher than technically he's two and one at lightweight if we count the giant i i was i was genuinely like did i did i black out and forget one okay sure the jai herber fight i was i was genuine like oh my god did i i was janeer her

Did I miss something? Oh, there you go. It's weird seeing, it's weird not seeing Raphael Fizz. Even though not seeing his name out of the rankings. Yeah, that's pretty wild. He's one and four in his last five. But like, if we're, if we're talking, if strength of schedule is to factor into these rankings, like, Fiziz's strength of schedule has been insane.

So, like, it's been very tough. But Manwell Torres number 13. What else are we looking at here? Uh, Pratchez, Gary Morales. Middleweight looks fine. Probably a little overvaluing Joe Pfeiffer. Joaquin Buckley being ranked higher than Kamar Usman seems wrong after Uspen 50, 45 to him. Yeah.

Yeah. But RDR being 15 at middleweight, even though he's not a middleweight anymore, is just a weird situation. Bo Nica being four spots or three spots above him. Pereira still being at. light heavyweight is number and number one when he's clearly done there i don't seems like a choice um it's also weird for any company to have two sets of rankings just put one set of rankings down it's super this is just so silly very very silly it's a very silly it's a very silly game this whole thing's very silly jocelyn edwards is the number one contender at women's ban and white

you know what though she if we're if we are in a factor strength of schedule activity and like all the things you want like she is the number one contender right now oh man I can't believe Julianne is still four in the basis of these rankings she shouldn't be in the rankings at all right now Robbie Bennington is 15 that's crazy

behind Darius is a guy so that's so that to me is insane that is wild I mean she hasn't fallen like two years whatever but she hasn't thought since Pena got like the controversial spitty against her Yeah.

15. God, way. They need to be four and hard to be 15 is a, there's a gulf there. Yeah, this thing needs a lot of help. That's for sure.

Look, it's an initial rollout. You know, you give it some time. I am interested to see what, what rankings they put on the fighters this weekend, though. Like,

after? Well, just like, no, what's the number, like when Fiziv walks out, you know, and their graphics,

it's usually the number seven. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're not good. He's not ranked in one of them. Yeah, they're not going to rank them. They won't rank them on the graphic. You bet your ass that they're going to go meta.

They're going to go meta on this for sure. Yeah, they, again. That Sabatini, who as best I can tell is the biggest winner of this whole thing. Yeah, no shit. The seventh ranked flyway in the world or featherway in the world? That's great. Cooking. Good for him.

What a day for Pat's, Look at Mitch Raposo, number 11. Go New England. Let's get it done. Who says New England in MMA is dying? He's killing it. What the hell? Well done.

Man. Yeah, these are all... By the way, we are mentally preparing ourselves for mid-year awards. RS 40. Justin has had his amazing year, but to be Sean Strickland is the fighter of the year so far. Not remotely. That is... I love your RS40.

That might be the worst take. It's an awful thing. It's a lot of year. It's very clearly Justin Gage. He's a fighter of the year. He's a shot Strickland fighter of the year. With one win. He's a good win.

He's got two. Who else did he be in? He beat Fluffy in February. Oh, that's right. My bad. He's still a bad day. He's in the top five, but. Gagey beating.

It's just in Gagey. Gagey beating the shit at a Patty Pimbley and then turning around and being the shit of the arguably the pound for pound best fighter in the world. Like, that'll do it. He has two of the five. best fights of the year. Clear wins. Both of them.

Like probably the front runner for fight of the year with the, with the Ilya. Maybe not. Okay. It's not the worst. It's not the worst take. I apologize for you. Yeah. I jumped the gun there, but it is clearly Justin Gagee right now.

I think Sean Strickland is probably number two. But like Justin Gagee, yeah, I don't. If Sean, if Sean beat Tom's out again, we have a conversation. We do. The other thing is Justin Gagee beat the piss out of Patty and then broke Ilya and I still I've watched the fight eight times I still think Hamzaat won it's not a robbery but I don't think Sean won the fight so yeah nah it's just engaging people again he adds one more we can have we can have we can have the talk we can

we can have we could definitely have the talk my bad hours for you I jumped the gun there uh da da what else we got what else we got uh okay lazy man if the UFC were ran like other sports with a trading window and free agency period. What's a trade you would love to make? I mean, it's getting Dakota Dichita. I say, without question.

I don't really care that whatever I have to give up. Give up like a lot of mid-level fighters to get Dakota Dichiva over. So you could have Dakota Dichiva fight. I mean, everybody, but particularly Val.

Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the answer. I mean, usually the biggest asset from like a fan perspective that PFL has is Dakota Dichiva.

Yeah. Yeah. Because Salty and Parnasse is not like Parnas I would go after, but like he's free, he's a free agent right now. Like he's not tied up. Yeah. Tied up to MVP at all.

Yeah. And it's the same thing for like Francis would be great. But there's, you know, Francis, Francis would be one of those players you trade for and he'd be like, I'm not playing for you. So you'd have to trade him away again.

That'd be very fun though. Francis has a no trade clause in him pretty much. But like, yeah. I think Dakota is the clear. and obvious choice for who you'd be trying to recruit here. Yeah. I'd love to see Phil DeFries back in the UFC just to have some fun,

but he could come back. I don't think that'd be an issue to do. Yeah. He's not going to. He's paid too much, but. Yeah. If we're trying to trade for exclusive folk, then, yeah, 100%. And I'll give you anybody who's outside of the top five.

I'll bundle a couple of them in various way classes. I'm trying to think, like, what they try. truly need right now. I think I wrote this in a mailbag like six months ago. Yeah, I know Derek Lewis is one of them. Derek Lewis was like Derek Lewis and like three other like mid-level people. I'd also like to trade for Umar, right? Like, but I also, I think he's just going to come over next year.

By Um, by Umar, I mean Usman. Sorry. Um, I think he's probably just going to end up in the UFC next year. But like, yeah, Dakota is the big one. Can you pair up like, I don't know, take Robocop and I just random dude

just pulled together a random assortment of people and they gotta take them. Yeah. Let's see. Here is your deal. Good Jed from a November 2025 mailbag that I dug up. UFC gets Dakota Ditchva.

The NFL gets Derek Lewis, Maggabanank Goliath, and Leon Edward. I was just saying, I'm pretty sure Leon was in the mix too, because I remember giving them two champions. I did not remember the Enklav was the other one. Here's, here's.

Because Leon can pair up with his brother. Yeah. The UFC, Jed says, and I quote, the UFC gets a rising star in a weight class that desperately needs it, and the PFL gets two former world champions,

one who has a brother in the organization already and an extremely popular star, who also makes sense as an opponent for France and Ghana, which makes no sense now because he's gone, but then it did. Who says no to that? And then Jed closes it with, I did it.

I'm a genius. Someone called Don Davis and Dana Waite. Let's lock this trade in with the league. Boy, just another example. Six months. Damn. Don ain't there.

Francis ain't there. Unbelievable. All right. Chris Cyborg will defend her PFL women's featherweight championship for the last time at PFL Tampa versus Katlyn Vieira. Will people take the PFL women's featherweight division serious after Chris retires. I don't think it will exist after

Chris retires, so no. It's just, it's the division itself, yeah, it's, this will be probably like the last major maybe the last women's featherweight fight they ever have, honestly, like, if I had to take a guess, like, they're just they should go all in on

125 or 115. Just like go, even open an animal weight division. Like, they should be all over that. I don't know why they're not doing that. But yeah, this is, this is going to be the end of their women's featherweight division, more than likely.

Unless, Kettlin beats her. Ketland goes out there and just clobbers her, then, sure, you got a little momentum, but then you still have to find the bodies to fill it out. But then you already let Larissa Bachecker walk. It's like, what's, I don't, yeah. I think signing Ketland Vieira to do a fight with Chris Cyborg as a retirement, totally fine thing to do.

Sure. this doesn't seem like a build to something long term. This is like, yeah, let's send Cyborg out. We're not going to do Sarah Collins in that weak-ass shit again. Cyborg probably just wouldn't fight Pacheco again. Doesn't need to. She won the first one. She gets to have that.

So they let Pacheco walk and they pull a body in to do it. You know, there you go. Yeah, it's fine. It's a good fight. Perfectly. We're fighting somebody people know, which is, which is, which is obviously good.

And, um, yeah, man, I mean, it's, I think it would have been way cooler to do cyborg ditch of us, but,

you know, like that's probably not a competitive matchup. Yeah, I mean, for us watching, sure, but yeah, it's like kind of fun and interesting.

Yeah. It's, it's, it's what we want from PFL, like trying different stuff, like not, not being UFC light. Yeah,

we like wacky. That would be super wacky. That's for sure. But yeah, if I'm Dakota, I ain't touching that fight. If I'm PFL, I would never throw Dakota.

in that situation either. More mid-season talk. What UFC athlete would you franchise tag in this imagined MMA trading era? I mean, Ilya think he's going to come back fine from this and this is a really bad loss but like he's what, is he 29 now?

How old is Ilya? He's 29. Yeah. He's 29. He's going to be fine. He's still a super big star. He's still one of the 10, best fighters in the world.

And so like, you know, I don't know. Who would you pick, Mike? If you wouldn't pick, like, because like you could make an argument, like a strong argument to me that Josh Van is like better right now than Ilya toperia. But like he's never going to be the star. I'll be. I probably do. Honestly, dude.

Like, like if we're looking at this as as this other league, right? Like if we're if you say Derek Lewis, I'm going to lose my mind. first of all how dare you besmirch the name of derrick lewis because that is in fact no i'm just kidding um no so we have to treat this like like the big leagues right so if if we're living in this hypothetical world we're living in this hypothetical world where these athletes cannot go and compete in other combat sports we ain't going to raf anymore we ain't doing this it's i'm it's armin for me like he is locking him down so he can't go do raf and he can't do all this other stuff like we at least i'm looking at this from a promotional thing like armin has become

a star all by himself he's gone out there and just done the stuff on his own the ufc has not helped him at all get to the point where he's at right now popularity wise and our r a f giving him the platform has certainly helped him no doubt about it um but now you take away that platform we'll see what happens but i army it would be armin for me for sure but ilis's good pick too it's one of those two guys Yeah, if you're just like, because the core concept is like who is, who are young potential stars. It's like Ilya, Armin are there, Michael Morales, Josh Hokit, you know, is in the mix. Gable, you know, Gable's very early. Yeah, Gables out of a lot now.

There, like, it's, you know, there aren't that many, like, they're young, talented fighters. I really like a lot. But, like, there's a difference between that and potential stars. I think Kevin Vos is going to be a champion. I'm not certain that Kevin Mujayos is going to be a superstar. Yeah.

Be cool if he was. I just don't know that that's happening, right? Like he doesn't have that same sort of aura about him. And so like that list is very small. True. Lem Ellis. Johnny Walker, Jamal Hill, Uspen, Whitaker, RDR,

a lot of people moving up. Who do you think will do the best? By the way, let me add to this, Jen. either guesman fighting ddp does this signify permanent move to middleweight because it doesn't to me i don't yeah i think it's just a fight that he thinks he can win this is this is max holloway this is max hall this is max hall i know there's no bmf title on this is max hallway fighting just in gachi ufc 300 russman goes out there and just batters ddp he has the choice he's going to fight islam he's going

to fight he's going to fight islam but at least then jess i guess maybe he could call like if he does beat DDP, he can call to fight Strickland, who he has a win over. That is very true. So I guess there's that. He's got options up here. I would have, by the way, I would have, if he goes out there and beats CDP, if he wants to call it Islam, I will, you will not hear a negative thing come out of my mouth about it. Because that is a win where it is justified. You could go call it Islam or call it's not a shot. I have no issue. Beating Joaquin Buckley. I still think I'd like them to do that, but it would be a fine call out.

Yes. This is a win where like those who have, are tired. me complaining about all the Usman Islam talk, it leaves. It leaves the world if he goes out there and wins on July 18th. But I think that's this fight for him, though, is like he, if he wins, his next fights for a belt, not certain which weight class, but it's one of those two for a belt. And like, that's why this is, it's a better thing than him fighting Michael Morales, where like if he wins, he's fighting for the welterweight belt, like, this just gives them more opportunities.

It's very smart business from Kamar Rusman here. Yeah. I was starting to get a little worried with DDP and he's coming out being like, dude, he's not signing the contract. And I was like, if he does not fight DDP on July 18th, he has the most mismanaged, like back end of career I've ever seen. Really, really would have botched it.

Yeah. So, um, God, can you imagine if he goes out there and beats DDP and calls out Sean Strickland? If you're not, he never, you're like, God, boy, will not abide that nonsense. poor Naserdine He's going to get jumped over again He's going to have to fight like three more times

This is crazy But of all these other names Who do you think does the best? RDR, he's already been a successful light heavyweight I think Whitaker could have an okay run The problem is I think Whitaker just is Really shopworn at this point I have

I believe Jamal Hill is like a Jamal Hill is one of the worst UFC champions of all time Not that he's a bad fighter, but like, I don't, his issues, him moving up to heavyways seems insane to me, other than the photo that came. It's very unflattering. But it's like your issues are not that you were too, you know, you were cutting too much weight at 205. That was not why you struggled in the weight class. I actually, a do think Johnny Walker could maybe be a little bit more successful at heavyweight. Problem being his chin has never been great.

and so boop up in the heavier weight class yeah r d rdr just has rdr is an enormous person and so probably is a natural light heavy weight and it just has plenty of success in the weight class i'll take him and he's my boy i mean that that was minus 1700 that yeah it was never picking anybody else in that group yeah i mean it probably is rdr right i think so like logically I genuinely do believe it's Rior. I actually think Jamal could be okay. Because I mean,

the Uri fight like showed me a lot and then he fought Khalil and I was like, what the frig is happening right now? Like this, this guy, I cannot believe he was a champion. But the dude of fought Yuri like that was an eye opening fight. Like obviously the Glover fight. Dude, he has very good fights and very bad fights.

Yeah, there is no in between. It's not really an in between for him. There's no okays. There's good and very bad. So I think this is actually like good for him. He has no chance of fighting for rebel to 205 anymore. Like he's just done.

He's already lost like all the dudes that would get him there. But man, like I think he's very smart with what he's doing right now. He's like, I'm going to heavyweight and I want to fight Hokka. He goes out there and fights Hokka and like somehow knocks him out. Like he's probably getting a title fight after that. So we'll see what happens. Heavyweight's not great. he's at least pretty athletic for that division

like he'll be one of the better athletes I know he doesn't physically look like such right now if you're if you take the screenshots and take the videos away was a very much of photos of him that they did him dirty with that just straight up whoever whoever post that did him dirty yeah he's also been injured and stuff like this might be just his return to training

trying to try to play devil's advocate here you know what I mean so um A lot of people asking about the Josh Hocott stuff in the chat. So shall we address, should we address the Hocat double down here? Oh, he, I'm not surprised by it. Again, I think it's a stone miscalculation, but he's an adult. He gets to do how he gets to live how he'd like to.

Is there a part of you? Because I talked about this yesterday with Subradio, too. And I have to preface this, and I'll preface this a billion times. I hated what he said. I just think this is really dumb. Like everybody has pretty much been in agreement. That was a really dumb thing to say. Is there a part of you that's just like,

you're the man who brought us, if you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly? He said it and he's not going away from it. Like he's keeping both feet planted in the sand. You ain't pushing them off that take at all. There's no, yeah, man, I was just in character. I said a bunch of dumb shit. That's just the character.

Not me. It was just the moment. and me trying to get over. It was him saying like, no, I'm never going to apologize. Like, I meant what I said, blah, blah, blah. Is there a part of you that, like, respects that, him just kind of standing on it and not making excuses for it? No, because he did make excuses for it. If you watched the aerial interview, he didn't make excuses for it.

And, like, he said, I'm never going to change my take, which, like, you know, I respect a stubborn king. Sure. But, like, he, the broad issue is. is that he's not funny. And that's it. Like, like, like that,

like that, he's just, he's not, like, some people are funny and some, some people aren't, right? And he's just,

he's not a funny dude. And that's not like a criticism of you, but like, you got it or you don't. And so a debt, like a more deft hand could maybe have pulled this. And he tried to, but if you watched the Ariel interview,

when Ariel asked him about it, he's like, I thought that was a compliment. I'm calling her a man. I'm saying she's very capable. And I was like, again, you're not funny, man. Like, this is not me clutching my pearls.

It's like, that's just not a thing that anyone's going to laugh at. And so he can't execute some of these things that he is attempting to do. And so, like, you know, it just doesn't, I don't care at this point. I think it is a bad career move to make a not even veil. bigoted statement about the first lady from 10 years ago, right? Like that doesn't seem to set you up well, in my opinion, for anything. But he's done it and he wants to live that way. And okay.

Sure. Yeah. God, he just, if you just did, if you just could take three seconds back in your whole life, that's probably the three seconds you should have taken back. Like, if he just didn't say that there, like he'd be in a much better spot right now. But again, it doesn't really matter. Like, at the end of the day, like, this is a very selfish sport. And he's also saying in various interviews that his next fight is like already lined up.

And, you know, if you kind of do some math. And again, I have no insight to this. You kind of expect, like, him and Volkov makes like all the sense in the world. Right. Like he was not fighting Pereira right now. Like, Pereira is going to be out for a hot minute after the beating he took at the White House card, legal or illegal strikes. no matter how you view it, but I mean, it just seems like the obvious fight to make, right?

And if they're going to turn around, like, you do put Volkov in a very good spot here. Like, if Valgen of Volkov goes out there and beats Josh Hoken, like, what else does that guy have to do to go fight for a belt? Like, that's a great fight for Volkov as well. So, I mean, the UFC certainly ain't going to, like, can him for any of this stuff. So, I don't know, man. Crazy. He is, and he, the problem is, like, when he's just being, like, true Josh Hokit, he is funny. Like he actually is quite funny. Like go watch my interview with him. He was pretty funny. He said some shit that wasn't funny. But like when he's just like his natural self, he's kind of funny. So I don't know, man.

My broad belief comes down to a discussion we've had many times in a show about many different things. I do not ascribe to the idea that all publicity is good publicity. I think that if you are in high school, I would rather be in high school and have no one know me than be known as the guy who shit his pants. That's just me. Some people would rather be famous than be unknown. Like that is a legitimately, that is like a who you are as a person thing.

you know, like people want to be known as the guy who assassinated John Lennon or whatever. I personally would rather no one know my name than be known as the guy who shit my pants. And right now, Josh Hocott is the guy who shit his pants. You know, maybe he can scrape that by if you, as we say all the time, Mike, winning solves everything. So, you know, he keeps winning this won't matter. But like, to me, what I've said from Jump Street to post that comment, I would hope that he would look at this. and be like, okay, maybe that's just a bad well to pull from.

I'll try something else. Like not, not, you know, just be a normal dude or whatever. You can still be a weird crazy person. That's fine. But like, maybe, again, be actually funny. Or just not make a joke about someone who has no relationship to anything. Like that genuinely my biggest problem with the statement is not that it's like a very overtly bigoted statement and like semi political it is just like why are you like if i got on here and was

making like i'm trying like what would be a joke from 20 fucking 10 to make it is it's just so old that it's lame to do so like don't be lame that's that's the broad advice i have for people try and be less lame yeah don't go on the mic like what's that like direct honestly it's like exactly that Ace Bogie just hopped on By the way, shut out. 1999. I'm concerned with Izzy admitting his ego won't allow him to retire.

The fight against Piper proved he can't really stay mentally slash physically locked into the fight for the duration. How do you all see it? So yes, if you haven't seen this, Israel Adasanya on with the, with Demetri's Johnson, talked about all sorts of stuff.

DJ does big ass numbers, man. It's crazy. The interviews, like, I'd never learn anything from a Demetri Johnson interview. And I'm not like dogging him or anything. Like it's just, it's just a lot of rehashing of like all past interviews.

But this was really interesting. Like him just asking him about this and getting his response. Like this was one of the more interesting things to come out of these interviews. What are your thoughts on this? Is he just like, nah, my ego won't let me call it a career, even though he's so far away from a title fight or anything like that. I think that that is a very honest.

answer and I respect that right and like it's the other side of the just of the Dustin poirier coin from earlier in the show and we're talking about that it's like yeah like he's is is real beyond the point Dustin poir was at when poirier retired and poorier retired to not lose a bunch and suffer damage etc and is he's the other side of it's like I don't the game hasn't left the game but I haven't left the game right like he he doesn't have it anymore He just doesn't. Like, that's just, you can feel whatever type of way you want about it. He could beat me in a fight, but he's not going to beat, like, a really competent fighter

because he can't take damage anymore. Like, and he can't stay, like, locked in and focused for the balance of the level of fight he's going to get. If he got kicked down to the regional circuit, yeah, you could pick up wins. But, like, the nature of stardom in the sport means you don't get softballs in the UFC. his if he is to continue fighting the ufc should be like we will give you the worst guy we signed off contender series the absolute worst one and beat him like and that we're like that could maybe help him deal with it but it's going to be tough like he it seems like he's going to have a tony ferguson you got a it's just going to have to get beaten into you and maybe like tony ferguson he can have a second act

in, I mean, I guess a third act because he already had a kickboxing act, but he can have a final act in influencer or something or other. But like, it's honest and it's one of the harder parts of the sport is this part of it. Yeah, I completely agree.

I thought that it was quite fascinating, kind of getting his take on it. By the way, because I saw a bunch of questions about this earlier as well, the Justin Gachy thing, dude just got one of the greatest wins in the history of the sport. He did it on the white,

house lawn and i know there's some people being like i met matt brown in particular who's uh one half of a terrific podcast here an emma fighting called fighter versus writer with with the great damon martin who feels like just in gauget you retiring is the dumbest thing that could possibly be said by people um i want to pull up the exact he's not wrong i want to pull up the exact one i want to pull up the exact one it's a little wrong it's not the dumbest thing but uh uh to do to do what is it George Sapier, I believe, this is in response to GSB saying

Gates you should retire after what he's the lightweight belt. Matt Brown says, no way his value is higher now than ever before and he can change his legacy from most exciting fighter ever to one of the actual goats of lightweight with the good title defense streak.

Retiring would be dumb right now. He's nothing to lose going forward only to gain. And then about a few hours later, well, he adds to this as well. Just to add to this arm in his good matcher for him and lower risk in terms of C. damage. He beats Armand Big If, then he gets set up to fight

winner of Max Connor, too much money on the table for him to retire now. And then a few hours later, got 100 replies like this which is nothing to lose. How about brain physical health? Can you guys show me a single fight in history where you weren't risking brain damage or physical health? That wouldn't be much of a fight, would it? He did it for

less money now. He could do it for more. He did it for less money. Now he could do it for more money. It's called prize fighting for a reason. So which side are you on, Jed, you on the gauge you should keep this thing going. He's as hot as he'll ever be in terms of value. Or should it be, yo, it's never going to get better than this. What a way to walk out.

Be the greatest retirement in the history of the sport. The thing is they're both right. And where Matt Brown fucks up is by couching it as one is correct and one is incorrect. And that's just not true. They are, it is a matter of perspective and what you value that will determine. the correctness of it. Because most of what Matt said was correct, right? Like, Gagy's value has never been higher.

He's an undisputed champion. His next paycheck will be the biggest he's ever gotten in the UFC, right? And should he be able to retain the belt, every subsequent one will be commensurately large. Like, he can make the most money right now that he ever has as a prize fighter. And yes, every fight, there is the damage, you know, consideration that is the nature of the sport you are trading health points for money um i think that there's a little bit of nuance there for like the levels of damage you sustain longer into a career but he's also getting getting paid more so evens out what what matt seems to give no credence to and i assume it's

because of the way he views the sport and legacy stuff is that like there are some things that are more important to individuals than picking up, you know, getting more money or whatever. And like, if Justin Gagey was the sort of guy who wanted to go out on top, right? And this is not specific to combat. This is across all levels of athletics. There are fighters. There are athletes. There are football players that want to retire as champion.

You know, I won this, Aaron Donald won the Super Bowl and quit football. And he was still like the best player in football because he's like, I just want to be done. I've conquered this mountain. I will never have a higher point of my career. I'd like to walk away on top. To some people, that's more valuable. That means more. And I think Matt's argument that like theoretically Justin could add to his legacy is true one in theory.

In reality, it's extremely unlikely that Justin Gachie puts together three, four title defenses. could happen and we'll never know if he doesn't try. I would like to see him try. But like, I don't think a single person should blame Justin Gagchi if he sits at home and thinks it's like, look, this is the peak of my career,

because it is. There's nothing he can do that will be bigger than this, right? Like, if he puts together four title defenses, you know, he defends against Armin, he gets revenge against Charles and Max, or however it goes,

Ilya second time, that will be epic and grand. And still, the first line of his obituary, when he dies, 120 years in the future will be won the UFC lightweight title on the White House lawn. This is the peak. And if he decides that that's when he'd like to, he wants to go out on top, he wants to Kostanzit, full power to you, man, you've earned that right.

I hope he doesn't, I hope he keeps fighting. And I think that if he does, George St. Pierre being like, he needs to, like, if he doesn't retire, I don't think George actually said that if he doesn't retire, that's dumb. But like the people who are saying continuing to fight would be stupid, can't eat legacy either, man. So if he wants to keep fighting, make, you know, another $10, $20 million to pat his, take care of his mom and his family and set his future kids up, also reasonable. I think both are right.

It is just what do you value. Yeah. The GSP quote was, quote, Justin is the kind of guy that works really hard and comes back from adversity. If I were him, I would retire. That would be an amazing ending. What else does he want to accomplish? He did it all.

So, I mean, look, the Armand fight is big. He will make a lot of money to fight Armand Sarukin. There's just no doubt about it. Like, if you did that at MSG because of what New York in that presence and, like, you know, the different varieties of culture there, like that is a huge fight at Madison Square Garden. I think any Justin Gage fight is big now. I genuinely think he hit a level of stardom after this because of the circumstances. Certainly.

That's like, I think he's Dustin Poye a level of star right now. Yeah. And Armand's a star too. So, like, you put those two together. That's a big fight. If he goes out there and beats Armin, then he's right. He can go, he can get the max rematch. He can go try to get that one back.

He can fight Connemar Greger. Like, that is a realistic thing. That's a realistic thing he can call for. He goes out there. He beats the golden boy Patty Pimblit, the one of the UFC was like, oh, throw him in there with Gachie, he'll win the interim belt. Then he can go fight Iliotsip Teporia. Gachi foils those plans.

Goes out there and beats the breaks off of Iliots of Ibrahimus of Euliottoe, one of the greatest moments. Your greatest upset. of all time. Crazy performance. And then he goes to beats Armin, like beats those three dudes. You can certainly get on the mic and be like,

hey, Connor, let's go. Let's have a fight. 100%. And that's it. You go beat Connor. Like, boom, you're out of here. You don't have to do anything else. Like, that's huge for your legacy.

But again, I'm with you. If he wants to, I've said many times, like, dude, you win the bell in the White House long? Like, you're right. It's never going to get bigger than this. Plus, he's like, yeah, he can take this popularity. now and Justin does sports. Just do golf videos all day

long with your buds. Like, people watch shit out of them. I think he's going to keep fighting and he'll lose the belt. I don't know if it'll be his next fight or whatever, but like that's good. It's what I hope. I would like to see Justin Gachie fight as long as he will because he's the most exciting fighter in the history of the sport.

So the more of him, we can't, like I was for many reasons, but I've been transparently rooting for him in every one of his last fights because he has been like, if I lose again, I'd probably done. He was like, I don't want that to happen. So I would love him to keep fighting. That would be awesome.

And we would be better for it. Yep. And look, if he does somehow pull it together and beat Charles and Max and Armin, that's like, that's mega wow.

Like, I don't, I just don't, that doesn't seem remotely possible. And so like, if he, if he even looks and it's like, I could, like, there's a chance that could happen. But why, why ruin it? Why not? We just talked.

We just talked about Israel. This has ego not letting him leave the sport because he's lost a bunch. How could anyone blame him if Justin's like, I did it. I did the thing that was never going to happen. I'm done. No one gave me a chance to do it. Yeah. Yeah.

He's done. He was never going to do it. He finally did it. He's one of genuinely one of, like with Michael Biss being one of the great stories of perseverance and ultimate triumph. Yeah. If he walks away, I am sad, but I get it. Sure.

A couple of super chats that we'll get out of here. The one and only, Med Jishishu, how much money for a photo with Mike, albeit R.A.F. Milwaukee. Just come up and say hello and we'll take one. It costs you nothing. David, could Dustin's incident have anything to do with Gachie's recent success? They're so connected.

Now that Gathe's champ, could Dustin be thinking that should have been me thoughts, Aussie Dave. We kind of discussed this, but it does, doesn't help, right? Like, that's just my takeaway is like, it's not the sole reason, but it's certainly it's in the damage bar of this conversation, it definitely took a piece of him, right?

That's how to feel. Yeah, I think it doesn't help is the thing. I doubt that this was an inciting incident because, well, I believe Dustin Porrier can look at Justin Gage, but I can win that fight. He did get smoked the most recent time they fought. and I think Dustin can acknowledge that he had his opportunities and he never got there

and Justin, you know, I think there probably is a twinge of jealousy that they are, they have very linked careers and that Justin managed to do it but I don't know that Dustin, I mean, he's a fighter, he probably thinks it,

but I'm not sure he looks, sounds like I could have beaten Ilya Tuporia. Like, that's a hard, it's a hard thing to do to be Ilya. So, yeah, I think he just doesn't help,

but I doubt that this was like a catalyzing incident for him. Yeah. Let me see. I did see. Someone asked about Oralby versus Jeff Neal. I want to throw this up from Scott. The connection is gone in my mind

different levels now. So the connection of their careers will never be gone. But yes. Like it is unfortunate for Dustin Pore. Justin Gachey is now a top five lightweight of all time. And Dustin Poy is not. Like he was sort of in that mix of like really like lightweight just has so many great fighters.

But like I think winning an undisputed title genuinely elevated Justin into that sort of upper upper tier of 155. Like not in the Habib Islam, you know, BJ mix. But like he's, you know, he's still probably behind Charles. But you could you could make, could make an argument to me that he's above Charles. think I buy it. But like he's, you know, he and he and he and Dustin Portia were basically the same. I think Justin is very clearly elevated now because of that win. For sure. We'll discuss this and then we'll get on out of here. Joseph asks, is it a big deal that Iem Machado Gary signed with matrim talent agency ahead of his fight with Islam?

I have no idea. Honest answer. Because I don't know what that means yet. We have not seen it manifest other than Dana White and Eddie Hearn taken kind of chip shots at each other through the media. So based of my understanding, the match room talent thing is not directly related to his combat

sports career. It's like other things. If I'm wrong, please let me know. Yeah, it has nothing, like they have nothing to do. He still has a fight manager, doesn't he? Yeah, he's still with Vayner. Now, yeah, to me this is like a draw. This is just like, okay.

like this did nothing for me once you actually see the details like it's good you know if this help gets him like better deals and better sponsorships and he can make more money than good good on him but in terms of the you know the war with dana white and all that stuff like maybe dana will read a headline and be like oh i see what he's trying to do here but like in the long of the short of it like eddie herne is not negotiating any ufc contracts for eing gary like he's got an mma fight manager this is just you know the outside of the sports stuff this is probably probably like outside of MMA altogether, just like different sponsorships and different sorts of stuff. So like, you know, good on Ian.

If he makes a bunch more money than this is a good move. Like say what you will, buddy and Gary, Jed, like he's young in the game. People don't like him for whatever reason. But he has been, he's very wise. He's wise beyond his years when it comes to elevating his name in the sport. So he also did a great job of announcing this after. the Islam fight was made official. You know, you don't,

you don't come out and say this when it's still like, you're on the one yard line, but that ball hadn't been punched into the end zone yet. Maybe that gets Dana's dander up, and instead Michael Morales is fighting his, he waits until after he's signed the paperwork. This is a hot, yeah. It's very smart, very smart stuff.

That was genuinely my first thought. I was like, interesting timing that this came like a week after that got official because I'm certain they've been talking about it for a while. Yeah. This is. Yeah. This to me was just like, okay. Like good for you.

Yeah. You know, good for them. Like it's nothing to do in the, the battle between good and evil, I guess, the way. I do think it's broadly interesting, right? Because I am interested to see how the Eddie Hearn influence, how that starts to manifest. Because one fighter is one fighter. But if he starts to get a stable of fighters who, even if he's not reppping them in their contract negotiations with the UFC, one, I got to tell you, it seems like long term, he might end up reppping them in their contract negotiations with the UFC. You know, and if he delivers to them, you know, he gives them deliverables that they see and think are good.

And he just starts, he just gets more of a stable. That would be interesting just to see how that sort of plays out. Yeah, I mean, we can keep the story going. We were talking about this. I think if Turkey Al-L shake can get all those dudes in a room together, Dana, Eddie, and Frank Warren and maybe Bob Aram, too, that needs to be on pay-per-view. That needs to be streamed to the masses.

That would be one of the greatest pieces of reality television I've ever watched. Just watch those dudes bicker about the stupidest shit. Oh, it would be unbelievable. Like, nothing. I don't think there's anything I'd want to watch more than those guys being in a room trying and turkey trying to broker peace between all those big ass personalities that'd be incredible theater

God do it the ring magazine wants to provide anything of substance to the combat sports face because let me tell you they haven't been doing it in a little while now this would be a great way to do it so it's the Bible of boxing you're talking about

uh lazy bad I liked Eddie's idea of a face-to-face debate with Bisbing I love this idea too and Michael shouldn't he'd get cooked Which is what Eddie said. He was like, yeah, there's no way he'd ever. He was like, he can't do it. He can't.

He wouldn't even be allowed to essentially. Yeah. And he's, he'd get defenestrated. It would be awful. And like, I think we're all pretty, we all understand like the role Michael Bisbing has right now and like what he's. Like Michael Bisping has made a career decision and it is not one I would personally make. But he has made it and that's okay. Yeah.

Just, you know. Is he, if he can be happy, if he's happy with himself. Like, Covenger made a similar position, like career decision. And, you know, feed your family. Feed your family. Feed your family. Do what you got to do. But just expect the consequences that come with it.

That's all. That's it. Like Eddie Heard. That would be. Don't fear me. You hear the consequences. That's right, baby. That's right.

I think we've done enough. tomorrow we will have a UFC Baku preview show this is uh shout out Paul Buintello I hope somebody in the chat got that one let's look at this Baku card not not the best effort they've had but not it's not gonna be like a bad I think there are a couple of really interesting fights yeah the main cards and then a lot of yeah Fiziv Torres is gonna be super fun I'm a huge fan

of the Tahir Abdullah of Jefferson Assaminto because there are two fights on this card where it's just straight up, oh, these are like acceptable level Azerbaijani fighters, got to put them on it, got to do it. Yeah.

Like, Farman Hosanov is like 5 and O, but he's from Baku. And they're like, put him on the car, let's do it. This guy would 100% be in the contender series if we weren't going to Baku,

but instead put him straight in the org. That's right. uh fazeve torres super interesting with some pretty high stakes really like the main of it uh it's really good fazeves on the little of the schneide right now and torres has looked spectacular in his last couple fights uh shara bull up michel perera i think we kind of know nonsense yeah we know what's that we know what this is supposed to be uh the zem satikov matthes camille is just going to be super fun because any time to seem catech feats it's a blast and camille is uh is a very good B side there.

I'm a buy of Charles Johnson's interesting. Bruno Ferreira. That fight's really, really good. I love that fight. I like the Bruno Ferreira Ikram Alaskara fight,

even though I think I know who's going to win that fight. Yeah, that's like, I think there are three great fights. And then there are a couple like, yeah, like the Alaskara Bruno fights won.

Abis, Olexech's one where I'm like, that could. That's a positive. Like, it could be fun. That one could be fun. That one's definitely going to be fun.

Yeah. We could get a boozy. real fast there. The Abusi, the Abus who fought John Strickland seems to be no more. We're getting, slow the pace down

a boost these days, try to get wins. If he doesn't throw the pace down, he is going to be gassed at minute seven. And then, you know, we kind of just get to the, the Hassanoff,

Nolens of the world. Almacomacomacomacu is an awesome fight. That's a great fight. That fights, like I said, there's three. I was the second fight on the card, though.

That should be, Yes, which is insane because I personally, and I know not everyone agrees with this, and I'm not saying these are robberies. John Matamato's 3 and 2 in the UFC. I thought he won all five of his fights. He's lost two split decisions. I scored both of them for him. I know you certainly did not score the Rob Fault for him, which again, totally fine.

I have no issue with that one. I thought he be freed Bachela. I really thought he be freed Bachela. That one I have much, that one I think is, it's not a robbery still, competitive fight, but that one was less competitive to me than the font one. And if this dude were 5-0 at Bantamweight, like he wouldn't be the second fight on the card. And he is two judges' scorecards in one round from being 5-0 like it is. And Almacons fought like hitters.

He's one and two in the promotion, but like he's fought. That's a good fight. Really, he fought Umar in his debut and comported himself pretty well. Who did he beat? He beat Brad Catona. And then he fought the other Teporeal. So he fought like he's fought three very strong dudes and looked good. That fight rocks, man.

Yeah, that's going to be very, very fun. Yeah. There you go. So, you know, look, name value wise. In the words of Das Riko, Beck sat versus Matsumoto might be two cats in a bag. I love that. God damn right. It's going to be awesome.

Well played. I'm going to be on a plane when that puts happening. I'm going to be pulling it up on my phone. Where are you going? Kansas City, baby. Oh, okay. My sister lives in Kansas City, as I think some of you know, and we have World Cup tickets on Saturday. So Saturday morning, I fly out to Kansas City, and then we are going to watch Algeria v. Austria, which I just learned today, Mike, is very fun because apparently neither team wants to win.

So based on how the World Cup formatting works, the winner would probably finish second in the group and have to play Spain, whereas the losing, gets to play somebody who's way shittier than Spain. Hey. Oh, this is going to be super fun. Try to not win. It's going to be great. You got so lucky with this one. I did not know it until today.

I was like, there's a non-zero chance. The key, like a goalie, like catches the ball, turns around and punts it into its own net. Oh my God. Which would be my favorite thing I've ever seen.

Make sure you get your photo, my friend. It's that episode of South Park where they're playing little league and they're both trying not to win. I'm so excited for this game now. All right. Preview show tomorrow. We'll see ya.

Love you all. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.