MMA Fighting - BTL Roundtable | Israel Adesanya vs. Robert Whittaker 2, UFC 271, Volkanovski Takes Aim At Holloway, More

Episode Date: February 10, 2022

Will Israel Adesanya become the greatest middleweight in UFC history with a second win over Robert Whittaker on Saturday, or will he still have some work to do to catch Anderson Silva in that conversation? This week on Between the Links, the panel will attempt to answer that question and preview the middleweight championship main event rematch at UFC 271 between Adesanya and Whittaker. In addition, they will take a look at Saturday night’s card in Houston as a whole, Sean Strickland’s victory over Jack Hermansson in the main event of UFC Vegas 47 this past Saturday and the potential impact it may have had, Alexander Volkanovski’s fiery reaction to Max Holloway offering to be a backup for the UFC 273 title fight between he and “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung, and more.  Host Mike Heck moderates the roundtable discussion and is joined by MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew and UFC bantamweight Randy Costa.  Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Randy Costa: @RandyCosta135 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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Nice travels. Wi-Fi available to Aeropin members on equipped flights, Sponsored by Bell. Conditions apply. See Air Canada.com. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is Between the Links. And now your host, my... The iconic voice of Esther Lynn

welcomes you to a brand new edition of Between the Links. I don't even know how we can even afford her anymore as she is just crushing the voiceover game these days. But there's no other way I would want the show to begin each and every week. But thank you for joining us for those watching. watching live right now on YouTube and for those listening are watching the show after the fact, we love you all. This week, a lot to discuss as always. This will be a roundtable edition of the show. So no points, probably some debate, but essentially this is the kind of show where we hit record

and just talk some of the hot topics in the sport of mixed martial arts. So let us introduce the panelists this week. First, he is the man who is victorious in the BTL championship tournament. He doesn't feel like a champion in his own mind, but in the book, on that plaque of title holders in the offices of the BTL Championship Committee, his name is etched in there as champion from MMAFighting.com. Mr. Jed Mishu in what I believe is his first panelist appearance since jumping on full-time with us over at M.A. Fighting. Is it not, Jed?

I guess he has the first panelist appearance. That's true because I judged last week. And yeah, I mean, my name, look, I'm not the champion. We've talked about a lot. My name's on that plaque a lot, certainly. Many instances of it, but just not this particular instance. But I did have one problem with what you said, Mike. If you're listening after the fact, I don't love you.

I don't love you as much, at least, as those people tuning in live. Thank you for joining us. We're going to have a great time today. All right. And joining Jed on the panel this week, because if you recall, prior to UFC 270, we had a guest UFC fighter on the show. It was Brian Kelleher, who did one hell of a job. And coincidentally enough,

have another UFC fighter, another exciting guy, and also he's a member of the deeply talented UFC Bannamweight Division. Let us say hello to my fellow New Englander turned southeasterner, Mr. Randy Costa. What is up, my man? What's up, man? I appreciate you having me. I wish I had some long monologue like you guys had, but a simple what's up will do it for me for now. And that's all we need. That means we can get right into the thing. And let's just get right after it. And start with this Saturday night. Now, normally we kind of go in chronological order, but I think it's fitting. I think the top storyline in MMA right now is UFC 271, because we have a fascinating main event for the middleweight title between Israel,

Adasania, and Robert Whitaker. We all remember what happened in that first fight. Whitaker has earned his way back. Seems in a tremendous place mentally. Adasanya comes into this fight. Just signed a very lucrative, multi-fight deal with the UFC ahead of this fight. Personally, Jedmishu, I love this matchup. I think the timing is perfect for it. I think these are are the two best middleweights in the world by a pretty wide margin. I know there's a guy over in Bellatory you would say is probably in that spot. But I feel like we're going to get the absolute best versions of both of these guys on Saturday. So at this point, we're just two days away from this fight.

Where do you gauge your excitement level for this rematch? Man, I've been all over the board. So I think I said on here a couple weeks ago or maybe two weeks ago that I was more excited for this rematch than I was their initial fight, just because I thought that I had more questions about it. Love you too, Enrique. Because going into the first match, I felt extremely confident about what would happen, and it turned out exactly like I thought.

I just thought Robert Whitaker had nothing to offer Israel, Adisina, especially with kind of the buildup and how he'd been talking and feeling that Izzy was winning the mental battle on top of his technical edges. I just didn't think that that fight was going to be all that competitive, and it wasn't. And so coming into this was way more excited. I was like, all right, I love the things I'm hearing from Whitaker.

I love that he has pulled himself back. He's in a better mental space. He's not going to come in there headlong, rushing it, is he? And I was all excited for this to be an epic, epic fight. And then I did the tape. So we've got a column that just dropped today on Pass to Victory for both of them that I wrote. It's on MMAFighton.com Best website in the world. Go check that out.

and after I dug into the tape, man, this is just going to be another shit kicking, dude. Like, I love Robert Whitaker. I think he is the second best middleweight in the world because Yo-Romero is now light heavyweight, so he's not the best middle-weight in the world. But this is just a horrendous style matchup for him. And he, I think he'll be more competitive this time around. I just don't think it's going to matter. Like, there's just, there aren't a lot of avenues to victory for him that I can see.

outside of fighting an absolutely perfect fight. And even then, he probably needs to do that, and Israel needs to have an off day. Like, I don't, I just don't see it. You know, maybe Randy can sell me on the idea some other way, or maybe you can, but he's not, he's not Jan Baloovich. He's not Yul Romero. He doesn't have this kind of one-hit or quitter power

that will make Israel respect him. And so then he just has to, fight a volume kickboxing game. It's a substantially better kickboxer. Like, he's just really bad for him. So I'm less excited about this than other fights on the card, frankly. I mean, it still is the most important, but I think this is going to be one-way traffic once again.

Randy, your thoughts on this one. Can you sell Jed in the other direction? Does this fight get you fired up? If so, why is that? What kind of chance do you give Whitaker to win this fight? So, I mean, I'm definitely excited for this matchup. However, I do agree with the assessment of Jed. I mean, people are saying, you know,

there's the blueprint to be Izzy, this, that, the other thing. Like, yeah, I agree. The blueprint is out there. However, Rob Whitaker really isn't that fighter. Rob Whitaker is a fantastic fighter at what he does. However, it's not the stylistic matchup that is going to play to his advantage. I mean, if you break down Rob Whitaker and kind of look at all the things he's good at, you can argue that he's like a finesse style kickboxer or a tricky creative kickboxing.

But Izzy has seen a million of those. uh, Whitaker has a really good rear hand, right high kick or rear hand, rare kick, um, that two, two high kick. Um, that's like, that's kind of an elementary level, like technique that you're not going to, that you're not going to hit against someone of the caliber of Izzy. It's a really good technique, but Izzy has seen a million of those techniques. Um, I think it's definitely going to be a more competitive fight than last time. I think Whitaker's probably going to mix it up a little bit more. But I agree with Jedman. I don't think there's like a clear path to victory for Whitaker. I think that Izzy is going to out finesse Whitaker for, I don't know if he's going to finish him

this fight, but I think it's going to be a pretty single-headed win. So as the sport and as these big fights that come up tend to do, it creates discussion, right? And about not just the fight, but not just about the ins and outs, strengths and weaknesses, but also from like a historical perspective, a greatness perspective. And that's what's been happening here heading into this fight when it comes to Israel Adisani because we got guys like D.C., we got guys like Chil Sondon talking about where Izzy ranks right now when it comes to who is the greatest middleweight of all time. Is it him?

Is it Anderson Silva? Jed is it Yolo Romero? Who knows? And Chale essentially says, look, the ultimate answer to these questions is if we have a question like this and two guys are involved and they actually fight each other, whoever wins, that's the tiebreaker. That's the answer to the question. DC is more on the, listen, Izzy is fantastic, but let's pump the brakes on him knocking Anderson Silva

off the top of the proverbial mountain. So Randy, I want to go to you. If Israel-Ad Asanao goes out there on Saturday night and beats Robert Whitaker again like you think he will, especially if he does it in dominant fashion, is he the greatest middleweight ever, or is he still got some work to do? So, man, this is such a tricky thing.

I mean, we're talking two pretty distinct different generations of fighters. Um, number one. And number two, Anderson is, is great. Like, there's no doubt about it. His martial arts technique is out of this world. However, one thing that's really, that that's tough for me to like completely lock in on that idea is that there's a massive asterisk next to the name or next to the acronym of goat when talking about Anderson Silva because he's failed a couple of drug tests. Um, that to me is, I don't know, man. If we're talking about like greatest martial arts, art technique of all time, you know, maybe, but it's tough to like sell me on somebody being the greatest fighter of all time if they've used performance enhancing drugs. I'm pretty passionate about that. I don't think that, I don't know, man, that's just a huge asterisk. And I think he failed, I think he had two pop tests, which is, you know, even worse. So I don't really know, man.

It's such a slippery slope, especially when comparing these guys. I don't think you can talk about Izzy and Anderson fighting. and then that's that's going to tell you who the greatest of all time is because like I said before, this is two different generations. So that's not even really like a level playing field. I think Anderson's the great of his time, 1,000%. However, I don't think it's fair to talk about him being the greatest of all time if you're taking performance-hancing drugs. That's my personal opinion.

Anderson is great. I admire his work. But it's just a tough sell for me. Jed, I always appreciate your perspective on these types of discussions. Where does an impressive point on Saturday put Adisadee in this discussion? Are we even, are we there yet? I know with the Usman GSP thing, some people think he's there, some people think he's close. You don't think Usman is close to GSP yet.

Okay, so where are we out with this one? They're even larger idiots in this context. I'll get this out of the way right up front. and Randy, we can verbally fight. We won't physically fight because I don't want to get my ass beat today. I don't care at all about performance-enhancing drugs never have and nobody will ever make me care. I think that they are, which hunt is maybe not the right word, but it's in the neighborhood. It's an extremely costly thing to be wildly invasive of privacy and not be effective and not really matter.

because if we had MMA 100 years ago, people couldn't have ACL repair surgery. Is that where are we drawing the line between what's enhancing performance and what a supplement is? So I just couldn't care less about his gas station pills. I'll leave the one word out of that for Anderson Silva. Anderson Silva is, to me, unequivocally,

one of the best fighters of all time, if you look at his resume. And he also has all the other intangible things that I really value in those conversations. namely his peak and his ability to extend beyond his peak. I mean, we see some fighters have really high highs. And when they fall off, they're done. Think Johnny Hendricks up there best in the world.

And then I was just in. Anderson's peak probably came at like the Demi and Maya fight, maybe even arguably earlier than that. And he still held the belt for like three years after that. But from a straight nuts and bolts, this is an absolutely absurd argument. The only argument against Anderson's, Silva is the PED one. Again, my stance is clear.

I also just don't think that argument really holds a lot of water, given that he didn't pop during his peak. He popped when he got old. And a pretty credible read of that is, yeah, he got old and wanted to stave off being old by taking drugs. So I just don't think any of that matters. And he has 10 title defenses and is he has three and we'll have four if he wins this one. like Anderson spun generations he defeated off the top of my head three Hall of Famers four Hall of Famers in title defense is not counting Forrest Griffin like this isn't it's just ridiculous chale's idea that is he beating Anderson despite the fact Anderson's 40 is absolutely patently absurd this whole thing's dumb and it's just speaks to the moment we're in where everything is the best it's ever been even though

It's not because we have historical context to things. So, yeah, sure. I'm confident that when Izzy wins, Joe Rogan's going to start that conversation on air because he did it like three fights ago with Usman. So that man loves to be ahead on his bad choices. So, yeah, that's probably what's going to happen, but it's all dumb. So let's talk about the Whitaker side of things, Jed, because like you said, he's handling this build incredibly well.

He learned a lot. He's grown a lot from the last fight with Adasanya. And while he is the second best middleweight in the world, there is a lot on the line for him in this fight. And Whitaker told me when we spoke ahead of the fight that it's not really about wins and losses. It's not about the title. He just wants to feel like he was very satisfied with the effort,

that he leaves everything in that cage, the chips fall where they may, and he is happy with that as long as he gives his best effort. On the sports analytical side, Jed, outside of the title and a chance at writing a wrong and getting this loss back, what is on the line for Robert Whitaker in the long run on Saturday? Man, I haven't heard that quote from him. I don't know how I feel about that quote because objectively it's correct. Like, that's what you're supposed to say. But so few people in the world are really able to internalize that and have that be true in their soul. so I got to process that one from him.

But from a nuts and bold standpoint, I mean, he needs this win really badly because I don't know what he does if he loses. You know, there are a couple of tried and true plans of attack when you become the rich Franklin's of the world who lost twice the champion and you're just kind of in that boat. And they're normally changed weight classes. I just don't think Robert Whitaker can move up a weight class. and have like sustained success, 205.

He is not a huge middleweight. He would be tiny against many 205ers. And I'm not sure he can make. I think he could physically make the welterweight cut again, but I just don't know if he wants to put his body through that. So then he's just sort of picking up scraps and middleweight. And for a lot of, there are a lot of things about the middleweight division that I think are good and valuable,

but it is really short on names at this point. And frankly, Robert Whitaker has beaten many older, you know, old guard guys in the division. There are not a lot of, you know, guys running around at middleweight that are legends tour fighters that he can just kind of spin his wheels with, main event fights against. He's just going to have to keep fighting like Sean Strickland and whatever. And that's, look, at the end of the days,

his prize fighting, he gets paid to fight people. But I don't know if that, I mean, he's talked before about how when he was in such a bad headspace, it was about motivation. And kind of, I don't know that he's going to have that same fire to just keep winning fights in a division where he has no realistic path to a title other than Addisina either leaving the division or losing to somebody else. So I think he really needs it to have any sort of career clarity. Otherwise, I frankly wouldn't be super shocked that he might retire. or consider stepping away from the sport. He's an interesting dude, has a lot of other things going on in his life, really values his family time,

and maybe he just says, hey, I can't be the champion. I'm going to spend time with my kids. Randy, what do you think? What is that stake for Rob Whitaker? Because a win would be absolutely massive. He's the champion, he said one of the things that really hampered him heading into the first fight is just being the champion. A lot of people just don't understand the weight of that

when they first hold the title. We've heard Rose Dimei Eunice talk about that. I've heard Demetri Johnson talk about that. I've heard other fighters talk about that. The weight of the belt, it was almost like a weight lifted when they lost the title. It was almost like a lot of that pressure was taken off. But now he seems to like if I would, I know it's in Rose is kind of in that same spot. So what do you think?

What's at stake here for Robert Whitaker? So I like Jed's viewpoint and a lot of things. And I agree with a lot of the things that he said. But I disagree with some of the things as well or not entirely agree with some of the things. I think with a win, obviously, it does wonders for his career. I mean, that's kind of a given, but let's talk about the losses. So I think even with a loss, I don't think he's that far away from getting back. I mean, you have a pretty, another pivotal matchup, a cannonier and Brunson.

You have Marvin Vittori still in the mix. You know, it's, I don't think the path back to the title is that, you know, is that far away. The motivation, however, maybe a different story. But there are so many what-ifs with the Izzy thing because Izzy's floating weight classes. You don't know what's going to happen where, you know, all of these things are assuming that one, Izzy wins and two, Izzy stays healthy. I mean, this is MMA. How healthy can you stay when you're bouncing two different weight classes and doing five-round fights? I don't necessarily think it's like a must win in terms of his career for Whitaker.

but it's going to be a, it'll probably be another at least two years until he can get another chance just given, you know, the state of the division and what is he's planning to do? You know, is he just signed like the biggest, the second biggest deal ever in UFC history? I mean, what's that going to entail for him in terms of how often he's fighting, et cetera? So I definitely do see where Jed's viewpoint. I agree with most of the things, but I don't entirely agree with some of the things. I don't think it's that, I don't think a loss is that detrimental to his career as long, of course, is. as his motivation is still there. If his motivation is there, then he definitely has a clear path back to the title.

Maybe not his next fight, maybe not in two fights, but it's still pretty clear. Yeah, man, Izzy's whole situation tricky because it's not even this fight that is determining what's next for the middleweight division. It's what's next for the middleweight division, what's next for the light heavyweight division? There are so many moving pieces. And then, you know, Al-Eab Diaziz is talking about doing Ushman versus Izzy. And while Izzy isn't on board with that yet. I'm sure that, you know, the dollar signs, I'm sure, you know, may speak otherwise. But who knows, man?

I don't, I don't think it's a must win necessarily for Whitaker, but it's, you know, it's a pretty, like, fork in the road in his career, for sure. Yeah, I see, I mean, I definitely see both sides. I'm probably leaning more towards Jed because, I mean, especially if this is a dominant win. Like, now if Whitaker loses a split decision, that's a different story. Another win or two, maybe you get back there. I'm sure the competitor in Adasania would be thinking, man, like, I'm happy to retain the title, but I'm not happy to like get that finality, all right?

Even his coach is saying, it was great to knock him out the first fight, but I want a five-round whitewash. I want a fight where we just dominate pillar to post, beginning to end, and then we know we have that finality. We could officially move on for Robin. Listen, Robert Whitaker can have a very healthy career. And I mean this in the most respectable way as possible as the Caitlin Chukagian of the middle late division where he could just headline fight night cards and just knock off contenders

and just keep his spot on the mountain just knock everybody down like there's there's some value there you can you can do that like that's frankly role like that's yeah that's a good role but i i just don't know i don't know how much rob wants to do that frankly like just based on the many things he said over the years and i i think that rob is not super long for the sport anyway maybe he is maybe the financials are just so good for him but he he just has a lot of other things that he takes interest in and he I mean before he lost the belt he talked about you know not really having the fire anymore and maybe not being that interested in doing this all the time like I again I think he totally can he's the second best middleweight in the world I think

he's by a pretty clear margin too like I don't I would pick him to beat any other middle weight not named Israel Dissin yet but it's just whether he wants to do that for the next couple of years when instead he's got a gym he's running he can do all these other things he's huge into games like i can do a bunch of other stuff and he's a pretty thoughtful and you know invested guy i just don't know if he wants to do it that long yeah he might be the bizarre oh colby covington but in the middleweight division and very nice and respectful like colby but uh i love this won't happen for a lot of obvious reasons.

I'd watch the hell out of Robert Whitaker fight Kamar Usman though. Like, if he loses, I would love for him to commit to the weight cut. Because he can make it. I think he can make it actually pretty cleanly. I don't think he'd be the biggest welterweight in, like, by far. So I would love to watch him against some of the top guys down there because him versus Usman is, that's a fantastic fight. Like that, that gets me up in the morning to think about that fight.

So if he does lose, I hope that's what happens. Yeah, I mean, of course, we've got to see what happens Saturday. I love the title fight. I think it's flying under the radar in a big way, but I'm all about. Hack the holidays with the PC Holiday Insiders Report. Try this PC Porchetta, crackling, craveworthy. You're going to eat that? Who are you?

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Please feast responsibly. When you're a forward thinker, you don't just bring your A game. You bring your AI game. Workday is the AI platform that transforms the way you manage your people, money, and agents, so you can transform tomorrow. Workday, moving business forever forward. Now, let's take a deeper look at the card as a whole, Randy Costa, because we had UFC 270.

That card was ravaged, and people were complaining about the final product heading in, ended up being a pretty solid card. A lot of storylines coming out of it, but not really anything to do with the fight itself. Some for sure. People were not really thrilled about this past Saturday's card on paper. Ended up being a pretty fun card for the most part as well.

And now we have this 271 card with this title fight. We have a really fun co-main event. We get a number one contenders fight at 185. A lot of interesting matchups here. So on paper, Randy, where do you rank this card as a whole? If you put like a letter grade on it, what are you looking at it? Just looking at it on paper. Dude, I mean, for the hardcore, I mean, for the casual fan, I mean, this, this card probably gets like, what may be a C plus.

But I, as a hardcore fan, dude, there's not much like, maybe not as much name value. But, dude, there are some bangers on this card. I mean, I give it an easy B plus. There are so many, like, really, really fun fights. I mean, kicking off the night is Jeremiah Wells. Jeremiah Wells is so fun to watch. Douglas Dandra, Suba Dandra, that's fun to watch. Moikano and Hernandez, you know, a couple of bannam weights.

Matt Schnell and Alex Perez, that's a pretty high-stakes flyweight fight. I think that this card has some potential, man. I think it's like I said, it's not, it doesn't have like that crazy name value per se, but man, there are some, there are some fun fights on this card. What do you think, Jed? I like it. I really like top to bottom. I think it's pretty solid.

I think the order of operations for some of these matchups, it's a little puzzling, and we'll probably talk about that when we get to the low-key-banger portion of the program. But just top to bottom, as a fight fan, are you excited to sit down and watch all of these fights take place on Saturday? I am.

I really like Drandy's grades, honestly. I think C-plus is probably accurate from a casual fan perspective. Mainly you've got Israel and Derek Lewis are doing a lot of heavy lifting to get casual interest up. people know both of those people even if they don't know anything else going on and then you know the rest of the card has almost zero casual appeal maybe people still remember on gerolovsky um but other than that there's nothing of the casuals but it's a lot of really well-made competitive fights um i'm genuinely pretty interested in a lot of stuff that's happening here i again uh 14 is just it's so 15 sorry 15 is just so many. Why can we just have less? You don't need

gravity is the soul of wit and nobody has ever told that to the UFC matchmakers. And so 15 fights is a lot, but most of them are compelling in one way or another. If you are a avid fan,

or frankly, if you're a person who likes to wager money on the outcomes of fist fights, there are a lot of interesting things happening on this board as well. So yeah, I'm pretty excited for it. It should be a good, should be a good little Saturday. Jed, you mentioned Derek Lewis.

And this fight with Tai Tui Vasa is just so much fun to think about because you have two powerhouses, two incredible personalities, two fan favorites. And I'm going to say something that I'm curious to get your thought on. I thought about this morning. I think this is the perfect co-main event. I think it's perfect. And here's why. If you could put together a co-main event in MMA, isn't this everything you would want?

because yeah, somebody's got to lose and that sucks. That's probably the worst part about it because both these guys are so likable. But at the same time, nobody's really hurt by it. We have stakes, but the fighters don't care about the stakes at all. And we got two dudes who are just going to go in there and slug it out and give fans what they want. One guy's going to win by knockout. The other's going to come back. And when they get their next fight booked, no matter what happens, everyone's going to be excited for it.

So there's an argument to be made that this is the perfect co-main event in my opinion, Jedd. Your thoughts. Yeah, dude, Derek Lewis is the perfect B-tier fighter. Like, if main events for pay-per-views are the A-plus tier, that's where you want your top echelon stuff going, Derek Lewis is just right under that. Like, he's all the things that you said. He can either be the co-main to a solid pay-per-view

or headline of fight night without issue. It'll always be a good time. He's probably going to win. He's probably going to win violently. He's certainly going to give you some sort of an out- landish quote. And so yeah, great time. Love Derek Lewis.

Huge black beast fan over here. So great co-main. Randy, there's great co-main. There's really good co-main. There's fun comane. But I think this is the perfect co-main. I think this is the perfect co-main event. When you mix everything in a blender and you pour it in a cup and you drink it, it's just

delicious. It's just the perfect concoction. Your thoughts. Is this the perfect combain event? I agree. Like a thousand percent, man. I mean, both guys are fan favorites. Somebody's more than likely going to get slept.

And there's one more thing that you really didn't mention, Mike, and it's that Derek is a Texas boy. This is a hometown fight for him, Coleman in, on a card that we're talking about may not have that much name value. I mean, he himself will, can sell out, I'm sure, the Toyota, I think they're fighting at, the Toyota. Dude, that's a, that's a fun fight. I mean, it's probably the inevitable that someone's going to get knocked out. Both are huge personalities. Man, I love this fight. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I imagine the odds are probably pretty heavy in Derek Lewis's favor. But you really can't count two of us to help because that boy is throwing bombs. They're actually not exciting as you a thing. I'm excited for it. The odds actually aren't that tilted toward Derek Lewis. Like, I expected them to be much longer than them. they are. Lewis is minus 170, two Vosses plus 150 last I checked this morning. Oh, wow. I figured it was

going to be closer to like two, two 25 is. Yep. I thought 250. So it's much closer than I expected. I think I think some people are maybe weighing in the Derek Lewis fighting in Houston factor, but I think he's kind of explained that with Ariel that, you know, it was more about the dates and him being the anniversary of him getting out of prison and the pressures of that took, like fighting for a title literally on the anniversary of the day you got out of prison. Also, just weighed a lot in his mind. There's also a way, there's just a huge difference between headlining a card and not headlining a card and the amount of expectation of pressure put upon you is like very

different. I would, I would suspect when you're, when you're just the guy, you're the follow up, you know, you're the bank over the B side. I think that's probably a lot easier to manage. Yeah. And then Ty Toe of Asa just talking about, I mean, the whole shooey-y thing, I don't get it. I get why people like to watch it. Go ahead, Jed.

Look, I said this on Twitter yesterday. I've done probably 100 cheeries in my life. I played college rugby. I've shot a lot of boots. Cuppie is where I draw the line. Taito Rivas is a monster. He is an absolute monster. And I've done some nasty shooies, man.

And that's especially like a freshly fought in Cuppie. That's no. That's just a hard no for me and for the, board of public health and for anyone human decency tie to divasa you are an animal yeah i don't know if i'm looking forward to even the possibility of a cupy i mean some people looking forward to it you're looking forward to it oh hey i'm fucking here for it man i'm here for it you're here for it too

can't not look at the train wreck there you go it's like we said victor henry's name in cases all over the the damn button so uh last thing low key bangor Andy. What fight, fighter, storyline is not getting enough love and attention, but it's just really sticking out to you? So if you asked me this question last night, my answer or my reaction might be a little bit different. But I think Moycona versus Hernandez is crazy. I think that now there's a little bit more attention on it now just because of, because what Hernandez had to say about it. But dude, that's a fun fight. And I also think that Kyler Phillips versus Marcello, I don't know if it's Rojo or Rojo. I don't mean to disrespect his name but that fight is so much fucking fun

that fight is it that's a banger man that's a banger I think there are so many really fun fights on this card that fight in particular the Bobby Green fight obviously but if you told me to do one then I would probably say Moikano and Hernandez Jed

it's a really good choice also the odds on that surprise me Moikano is the favorite which very shocked by that but yeah give me the fly weights man Alex Perez and Matchnell are just going to be fun

like there's winner flyweight's not fun is my go-to answer and especially both of those dudes you got Perez coming off failing to win a title so I think he's going to be looking to make a big statement and match now is usually game for some fun scrambling weirdness

so yeah that fight's probably going to be dope and they were supposed to fight just just a couple months ago or a couple of a few I think it was the car that I was on. I think it was December, I think it was 269. That fight, there was, I think, or the week before, something. But there was a problem with weight and the commission stopped. I believe Matt Schnell from cutting more weight.

So that fight got postponed. So, add, you know, this is like a 16 week, 18 week fight camp for these guys. And these guys are scrappy as fuck to begin with, man. It's going to be like it's a tumbleweed rolling around the cage. I'm pumped for it, sure. They've actually been. This might be. at four different times.

Four times. Four different times. So, 269. 262, the Barbosa-Chiccazzi fight night, and then Brunson Till, and then 269. Yeah, this is the fifth booking. This is with Tony Ferguson, Habib, Nirmagamatov that actually happened. Theoretically, we still have... Pump the brakes, man.

Pump the breaks, man. This is the fifth book. for Alex Perez since he fought Figgie. Because this is the fourth one with Schnell and then he was booked with Ascaroff in July. Oh, my goodness. And then that fight didn't happen. So finally,

hopefully we could see Alex Perez back inside the Octagon because that's a fun fight. I'm actually, I'm going with Randy for a lot of the same reasons that he talked about. It's Hernandez Moikano. I know a lot of people have had a lot of things to say about Hernandez in that conversation that I had with him

and him not being happy with this placement on the card. I think we need to call. clarify something here, okay? Because this fight, like, if this fight was on the ESPN prelims, I think he'd be fine with it. I think he'd be cool with it. But this is on the early, early prelims. And in my 100% right, I think he's got a gripe here. This fight deserves to be on ESPN. You can make an argument that I should be on the main card. And I'm sure Randy's with me here. New England, what's up? I like William Knight. I like him a lot. But you can't tell me that his fight with Maxim Grishen deserves to be on ESPN, but Hernandez Moikano does not. I am with him on

this argument. Some people just looked at the freaking headline and attacked him on social media. He's not wrong. And I'm sure Moikano feels the same way if you asked him, honestly. And he should feel that way. So that's why I pick for sure. I love the fight. Jed, the fingers on the mouth. What are we what are we pontificating here? So objectively, you're both correct. Like, this should be on that. But Alex Siena, Hernandez has really weird body type, and it throws me off all the time. And so I can't feel bad for him. Like, it's literally the first thing I think of when you say the name Alex Hernandez

is he is like weirdly square, just like his whole body is a square. And so I can't be like, oh, yeah, I can't feel bad for him. Like, he needs to win a lot to overcome his weird Josh Imody square body that upsets me. Oh, God. It's already been a pretty tough. tough week for her day and now we're going to get a bunch of SpongeBob memes with his face on it. Very Spongebob is all I'm saying.

You're unbelievable. Well, we got to move ahead. Let's move to a man who will be watching the main event Saturday. Very, very closely. His name is Sean Strickland. He picked up another win. This time he defeats Jackerbanson. The official MMAFighting.com stance on the fight

was 50 to 45 for Sean Strickland. Two judges scored at 49-46 for Strickland. No issue without those scorecards. One scored it for Jack Kermanson, which is an absolutely horrendous scorecard. I mean, one of the all-time horrendous scorecards. But Strickland wins again. Jed, what did that win do for him in this division? In other words, if you're Derek Brunson or Jared Cannonier or even Adison, you're a Whitaker right now,

are you losing any sleep after Saturday? No, honestly, I mean, it's tough to say that a win is bad because it's not. It's obviously better than a loss. But I don't know, man, that, I feel like winning even, I think, sure, Strickland was probably a little hard on himself, frankly, beat a tough opponent. And I think he, I like you, think that he should have won that handily or at least cleanly. but he did not impress and he had kind of a lot going for him. He had a big build.

There were a lot of, we talked a lot about him beforehand. And then it just ended up being sort of meek and just not that interesting when he was finally given the chance to really be put on the stage and just didn't really do a lot. You know, I mean, I don't know.

I just not, not his best performance. Sometimes you have all. nights, but I left that fight thinking, I never thought he had a great chance against Izzy or Whitaker. I left that fight thinking, okay, well, he probably is not beating like Canaanee or any of these other people either. And so he's just, he's just a good, solid, top 10 middleweight. There's nothing wrong with being a good solid top 10 fighter.

It means you're one of the 10 best people in the world at your job. But in sporting context, that's a tough place to settle in a lot of ways. What do you think, Randy, for the fighters' perspective? Because, you know, like most of you guys and gals, he was pretty hard on himself for that performance. Jab Tremanson over and over and over at will for 25 minutes did pretty much whatever he wanted to do. But he's also one of those guys that is kind of an anomaly in MMA where it kind of, I don't know who really to compare him to here, but you know exactly what he's going to do. Like when you fight Sean Strickland, you know exactly what he's going to do. He's going to march forward.

he's going to land that jab over and over again. He's going to throw a bunch of volume, pressure you like crazy. You know it's coming, but no one at 185 has been able to stop it. What did that win do for him beating a guy like Jack Kramansen? I think, like Jed said, I mean, a win is never necessary. It's never bad, right? But, I mean, this is close to, like, worst case in terms of winning because it wasn't like a wildly entertaining fight,

which is kind of against everything that, or against every fight that Sean typically has. Typically when Sean fights, it's a wicked fun fight, right? We kind of know that. He's fun to watch. There's a reason why he was headlining the card. But, I mean, he came out and he's been saying that, you know,

super hard on himself, obviously, and saying that he let, like, the suits get to him and all that stuff is probably true. I do see where he's coming from with that. But he certainly didn't like, I don't think that he made, I don't think there's like a this is the guy that has to get the next title shot

there's nothing that like jumped off he was a pretty boring fight he fought a safe fight he wasn't like over he didn't over engage he just kind of kind of played it safe over the course of five rounds I don't know how somebody had Jack Hermanson winning that fight but I don't know what they were watching but it certainly wasn't

Strickland versus Manson but I still think that I still think that that Strickland can get into that into the top guys I don't think he beats a lot of the guys but I think I mean you can call me crazy man you can call me crazy me the style fighter that izzie is is he relied a lot on like finesse and things like that strickland's gonna march forward i don't i don't count strickland out of a fight with izzie i think i don't think that i don't

think that strickland can necessarily be a lot of the top guy the top five guys at 185 but stylistically dude i think strickland's close to a nightmare matchup it's a guy that's gonna walk forward with his hands up and he's just going to jab you straight and your face. What are you going to do? How are you going to hit a guy with his head up, with his hands up, just walking straight forward and just jabbing your face off? I think that jab will disrupt a lot of the rhythm that Izzy has. Like I said, I don't think that Strickland can or will be most of the top guys at 85. But stylistically, I think he gives Izzy a lot of problems. But I don't think we're going to see that fight. I think there are too many people in the way and too many hard stylistic

matchups for him to get to until he gets that matchup. But I'm here for an Izzy versus strong strickland matchup, but not for the belt and certainly not yet. But, Jed. He's just, he's poor man Marvin Vittori. Like that's, or maybe not to use this term, but to bootleg it from him saying it himself, white trash, Marvin Vittori. Like he's, he's not as big or strong as Marvin Vittori, but he just walks forward and jabs

bunch and that's really effective and honestly a really good game plan but like I just I don't know I didn't see Izzy struggle with Marvin Vittori who can take a shot like unbelievably well and I just I think he just marks up

John Strickland at this point like that's I could be wrong I'm wrong all the time but I don't we just saw Izzy beat this a better version of this style I have no doubts that Izzy would post him the build to that I would be, I don't know what to think about the build to that fight. So it would be something.

Yeah, it would be something. All right. Jed, who was the MVP of UFC Vegas 47? Strickland won the main event, but he was not the MVP of the night. Who was the MVP of the night? I mean, is this a question? I feel like it's Shavkat Rachmanov. Right?

Like, sure, some other things happen that are pretty decent, but like, that dude's a problem. That dude's the man. Um, uh, Kyrgyzstan stand up or no, Kazakhstan, sorry, not Kyrgyzstan. Kuzkstan stand up, uh, spinning hook kick. And he's 15 and 0 in his career, all, all of them by stoppage. Like I have him, I think is my 14 or 15th ranked Walterweight in the MMA fighting global rankings. Uh, I think some of you, Jubroney's are finally going to get on board with that.

And he's going to actually enter our rankings at the end of this month because y'all are going to pull your heads out the sand. and recognize. But nomads here. Nomad's a problem. And I am stoked to see what this dude does. So I give me all of it. Give me the hat.

Give me the furry wolf hat. Give me everything. Everything, I'm in. I might be wrong, but I might have been the first person to put Rachmanoff in the rankings. I could be wrong.

I don't know. I've had him in for a while, but maybe. Yeah, I think I had him in like after the second win. But then he's just not as active. so it almost like it's tough he's like teetering on that spot because we got guys like saruky on and fazeve and all these guys oh no he's uh yeah he's 70 never mind never mind

he's a 70 year 70 year i get so many four fighters yeah he was there at one point i can tell you that uh who was your MVP randy who stood out on saturday night who is who's your guy i would say obviously uh shockbots up there 1,000 percent but another one man is is cheating nuchuani he mark andre beltrane is no joke me we've always we're Mark Andre Barreol. No joke. No joke at all. And Chitty made him look like a child.

There was one punch. The fight was over. The first fight in the UFC had a crazy contender showing. I would say that Shock Flats probably had the MVP of the night, but I think that Chitty's right there with him. Not on that same level, but I think Chitty's right there with him. He's just, he has a ton of hype behind him. He's so smooth on the feet. He had a bunch of fights before he even got on the contender series,

which is pretty unheard of, especially now with all the hype that he has. This is like a season vet having prospect type hype. He sees the opportunity. I don't think he's the MVP, but I'm super high on Chidi Nuchewan. Yes. Maybe he's the 10th player award winner for the event.

That's pretty good. No love for Juliana Rosa after that night and getting the whole bonus and 30% beats an opponent that missed weight. What a crazy-ass fight that was. What a company. backstory that guy has been Julian Rosa I mean the fight was a

banger but like if I'm thinking back on that event I'm thinking back on Shofcott's hook kick like that's yeah you ask us you know you asked us who the MVP was you didn't say what fights for fun on the car yeah I'd also give a shout to Nick Maxwell I listen

I'm just I'm giving him a shout out that's all he's not the MVP shop you guys are right Shafcott is the MVP he's the man didn't you get a didn't he get a $100,000 too Yeah, you got the whole fight on night for himself since Peterson missed weight.

It's good gig if you can get it. That's a solid gig. That doesn't suck. That does not suck. Someone hit us up on the post-fight show and said Juliana Rosa should be the UFC 150-pound champion because he seems to always find himself in these like accidental catchweight fights

with guys and he always has these crazy performances. And you probably should have got a bonus in his two previous finishes but didn't get him. And now he gets 100,000. So it goes full circle. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared.

That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. I wanted to hit on a couple more things before we get out of here. one pretty surprising one recently happened also pretty surprising honestly but uh let's start with the ufrey featherweight champion of the world alexander volkinovsky randy costa because like yourself this guy's built a career one of the you know he's he hasn't had to talk a lot of trash

like he's not a trash talker he became a champion he's one of the best fighters pound for power on the planet but he's not a trash talk he's not the kind of guy that fire shots on social media it he is who he is, but on Tuesday night, he did something I didn't think I'd ever see, takes a shot at Max Holloway, in reaction to Holloway being medically cleared, and then he offers to throw his name into the hat as a backup for the Volcanowski Korean zombie title fight at UFC 273. All right, let me pull up this tweet so I can read it exactly. So Volcanovsky Tuesday night on Twitter says, quote, Max Hollowe wants to be the backup fighter for the fight.

He was originally scheduled to fight. So in other words, he was never injured, just hoping he doesn't. have to fight me or fight me while I'm preparing for someone else, but hey, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying, no. I could not believe this tweet, Randy. Your reaction to what the champion had to say, because that was pretty shocking to me. So, like, I see where he's coming from, but one big thing that he failed to know or mention is that the fight moved like a couple, a few weeks back, a couple weeks back.

That's like a fucking huge note, a huge note, right? Because, I mean, if the dude can't fight in four weeks because of an injury, why can't he fight in eight weeks? You know, he's cleared now. The fight is, the fight has been postponed. Max didn't say he didn't want to fight Volkanovsky. Max said he doesn't want to fight Volcanoxie on that date because he cannot get cleared to fight. Right. Or he didn't even say that.

He just didn't get clear. So if the fight gets moved a couple of weeks back, I mean, that excuse of him pulling out of the fight is no longer, like, it's no longer valid, in my opinion. I see where he's coming from. I get it. I agree. You can't fail to note that very important, like, little tidbit. There was a four-week or three-week difference from when two fights that he's talking about. I don't know, man.

I see where he's coming from, but I don't know, man. The date pushed back, it's just kind of hard for me to, like, understand the validity of that argument. And to sort of add a little bit of context to this, because I know Ariel talked about it yesterday, and I was told the same things, so now I can say it because he already said it. when Holloway basically had to withdraw from the targeted fight, him and his team said, listen, if you basically told the UFC,

if you can find, like if someone else, if you get somebody on, it's, it's up to you guys. They like left it up to the UFC. Like if you guys can fight cool, if not like,

you know, I'll fight whenever. That's basically, and the UFC went out and they found zombie and there you go. So like, it's not like Holloway's, like, I hate this dude, but he was trying to be kind of a company guy from their standpoint.

So just kind of pointing that out there. But Jed, I am sure that you have been waiting to find a way to express yourself on this very topic in over 280 characters. What did you think? What is he trying to do here? Is there a method to his madness that I'm just missing? No, there's not a method. The method is I think Alexander, I'm going to play full arm. share,

armchair psychologist. I think Alexander Volcanovsky, uh, is genuinely bothered by the lack of respect he gets from fans, uh, because his two fights with Max Hollow have been so close. And because he caught a rash of crap from them for essentially saying, I don't want to fight Max again.

I've beaten him twice. I'd like to fight other contenders, which is totally justified. Don't be extremely clear. I've been pro Volcanovsky and a lot of this because he's right. Like he has two wins. wins, in my opinion, they're not controversial at all. I thought he won both fights. And he should want to beat other contenders. I think that's a valid concern and request from

your champion. But I think that the way fans have treated it, it's gotten to him. It's dug under his skin. And so he gets this way. And we saw Brian Ortega, like, in the tough thing. Wolk seems like a really chill dude. But he, I think he has a really real. real quick trigger on what is going to bother him in some respects. And Ortega bothered to crap out of him on that tough season if you watched any of it. For stuff that is, I would say, legitimate, but also he probably got bothered by it too much, which is probably why he's a champion and I write words on the internet for a living. But in this regard, like, this is just insane.

Randy nailed it. For no other reason, this would be insane because it's not the same fight date. That's just the difference maker here. Look, he doesn't talk trash for a reason. It's because he sucks at it. And so he shouldn't do it. Like, he just don't.

Look, I, Mike, you and I have talked a lot about how I would love to start a fighter consulting business because I think that I could get fighters to be more interesting. And the UFC certainly should do that from a promotional standpoint. But it's not by just do the Colby Covington thing. Like some people can, some people can't. And Volt can't do that. Like, he just is trashed this.

And this was so, like, if you're going to say that about somebody, you can't say it about a dude who's already fought you for 50 minutes and arguably beat you. He's clearly not afraid of you. He's fought you for an hour. and you haven't killed him, so why would he be afraid of you? He's also been aggressively campaigning to fight you while you have on multiple occasions been like, nah, dude, I want to fight other people. Not that that means Volk is scared of Holloway, but one of these two men has been all

in on trying to fight the other, and it's not been Alexander Volcanovsky. Like, it's just the stupidest of all possible trash talks. Like, yeah, Max Holloway tried to fight Habib Narugamette off on two weeks notice. I'm sure that dude's afraid of you, man, he's fought for an hour already. Like, come on, just be better. Like, it's just be better. You can say a lot of things or you just don't have to say anything about this one. It's totally okay to just be like, cool, Max, I'm going to focus on zombie right now.

You and I can settle up later. And that's okay. Like, it's just, again, I think Alexei Groski is one of the three or four. best fighters in the world. I don't believe he gets nearly the amount of respect he should for his resume and just how talented and good he is because I think he is a truly special fighter. But all of that specialness stops when he gets on the Twitter or on the microphone. And he just needs to quit doing that.

Like go do your cooking show on YouTube, man. That's at least entertaining and it's more your speed. Because this isn't it, bro. It's just not it. That was quite the promo right there. I mean, clearly very op brand for Volkadovsky. Pretty surprising stuff for sure. But let's talk about something probably a little more surprising, Jed,

because it seemed like we were on the road to a Kayla Harrison return to the PFL. By all accounts and everything I had been hearing, this was just missing ink on a piece of paper. And now we find out, thanks to our friend Ariel Halani, she is reevaluating things, talks have hit a snag. And now Kayla's career cup is essentially empty. So, Jed, here's my question, because PFL seemed to be the favorite from Jump Street. In my mind, in your mind, in most minds, get that money, make a Millie every season, get paid handsomely in between, easy, peasy.

Jed, how the hell is this possible? PFL, all of this, how did this get so screwed up? Do you think PFL shot themselves in the foot? Or did they just somehow lose? Like, how did this happen? Did they just lose their biggest start of the UFC or Bellator in a matter of 24 hours? hours? My guess is no.

This brings, I saw the first tweet that went out last night, you know, the bet on yourself or whatever. And that, it just gives me real strong Connor McGregor, I'm retired vibes, you know, like, my guess, I have no inside knowledge. This is entirely speculation. My guess is that Kayla had decided ultimately she's going to resign with the PFL for all the many reasons we've talked about. She can make a million pretty easily. It's a short-term contract.

She's just going to be locked in for one year. She can get the Julia Bud fight, which is a relevant fight for her legacy inside that organization and just, you know, in general. And so there's enough to do to keep her there one more year. And then she can move to Beltaire the UFC kind of branch out after she gets one more year of rep under her. I still ultimately think that's what will happen.

My guess is that she asked for something, a concession. he made, a little bit extra money in one regard or something like that. I don't know what the one thing would be, but kind of all the reports saying this was on the one yard line and now, you know, been stuffed two consecutive runs up the middle. Still feel like we're ultimately going to get it. But I think this is this is her playing whatever kind of leverage hardball she can with the PFL, whether it's to get a little bit more money, whether it's to even just have the opportunity to maybe go fight in another organization

instead of doing a, for all intensive purposes, fabricated lightweight tournament. Like, again, the PFL really offers her a million dollars and Julie Bubb. Those are the two things that they offer her that matter. Beating two or three other women on her way to getting the million dollars is unnecessary and does very little for anything

other than giving them viewers. So maybe what she wants is, hey, I want to do this. I don't really care about doing a lightweight tournament. let me fight Julia Budd, maybe bring somebody else over, I'll fight them. But also let me see about maybe branching out to do something else. And maybe they want to say no. And so now she's playing hardball.

But I think ultimately she's just going back because it makes all the sense in the world. If Bellator and the UFC didn't open up the money truck already to get to steal her away, I don't know why things would change at the 11th hour from their perspective. So I just don't know what would ultimately be a big change here. Randy, what do you think about this? And let me say, kind of like Jetson, we don't know the full story, we don't know what happened. You know, who knows? Maybe Kayla Harrison and Ali Abdulzi's went into the PFL executive offices like that nerdy guy in the dark night who demanded $10 million every year for the rest of his life and just like totally overplayed his hand.

But I doubt that's the case here. What did you think of this whole thing? So I've seen Kayla mentioned in interviews about like running a leg or like getting a legacy, getting a legacy fight. you know, short-term contracts, which, I mean, I see she's in the driver's seat, right? She's an Olympic champion. She's one of the greatest women combat sport athletes ever, won the PFL million-dollar belt a couple times. So I might be crazy, man, but I don't think she's going to go back to PFL. I think that a cyborg fight is a very, very realistic thing, a short-term contract with,

Bellator and I also think I mean Amanda Nunes and Peña are locked up for I mean you figure at least three four months anyway just because filming up the show fighting for the belt etc. Kayla's not going to go to the UFC and then fight you know the number three or four or five ranked person right she's going to get it and fight the number one right away I think that I don't know if I think it but I think I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities that she's going to have some sort of short short term contract with Bellator get a cyborg fight see how the Pena and Nunes stuff plays out and then reevaluate from there. PFL is always going to be an option for her.

They're not going to, if she leaves PFL, they're not going to say, oh, no, fuck you, you can't come back. It's not just not going to happen. She's an asset to that company. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility, man. I do think that there's some sort of, I mean, I don't know, man, there's got to be some sort of inclination to go to Belator to build up that legacy. Because obviously, if money, if it wasn't about money, I mean, if it was about money, then PFL would be the number one.

I mean, that's a no brain. You're going to get a couple of fights and then fight for a million dollars. But obviously the money is not necessarily the number one priority for her. I think building her legacy is. And I think a cyborg fight, you know, is a step in that direction

and then see how the Manor Nunes fights goes. Fight, fight goes. I don't think that Kayla's going to sign with the UFC right away just because of how the division's locked up right now because of the ultimate fighter. But I think a fight with our contract with Belator, a short-term contract with Belator

and a cyborg, fight is a very realistic thing. Just look at how many views it's going to bring. I'm sure cyborg's going to get excited with that challenge and that, you know, the money that it's going to bring to the table and the eyeballs that it's going to bring. That's my take, man. I think that I think that there's going to be some sort of short-term fights or something with Bellator and getting that cyborg fight and then ultimately waiting to see how

the Peña and Nunes thing plays out. Because siding with PFL, I mean, she's the top dog, but it's not necessarily a no-risk situation. could 1,000% go and get knocked out in 10 seconds. That's not out of the realm of possibility. Whereas if you go and get those leg... And then if you lose, all the legacy fights are out the window. Why don't you just take the legacy fight right away, sign that short-term deal with Bellator, where I'm sure is going to pay very generously, get that big fight with Cyborg and then see how

everything plays out going forward. I don't think she's going to sign with PFL. I don't think that's going to happen. I think that she's going to chase the legacy fights at this point. Scott Coker, if you're watching this right now, Get this done. Get this done. Get this done.

You have an opportunity. You have an opportunity. Like this is a game changer, all right? The UFC doesn't need Kayla Harrison. They don't need her. They can, I mean, it doesn't hurt to have her. They'll pay her, but they don't need her. PFL needs her and is kind of letting her slip away.

And Bellator really needs her. Maybe more than the PFL needs her. Scott, if you're watching this right now, listen to me. You know what? Don't listen to me. Pick up the phone and call Kayla Harrison. and Ali right now, you get on a conference call with them immediately, and you get this done because we don't get second chances in this life very often,

and you got one. You cannot let this slip away. This is massive. If they can pull a rabbit out of their hat and sign Kayla here, holy cow, that would be a massive turn of events for them. Jed, you look like you're just ready to jump through the screen right now. After you make that phone call, Scott, please give me a call, because I would love to pick your brain

as to what the hell you've been doing for the last five months anyway. Because the reason I think she's going back to PFL entirely is this should have been settled forever ago. The UFC doesn't need her, Elator Super does. The fact that Scott Coker did not just hand her the keys to Viacom and be like, write a check. Like it doesn't make any sense to me.

And so I cannot believe that there's a world in which this is anything more than her publicly showing the PFL that they need to meet her demands because other people will pay her. Like, I don't know what Scott Coker has done. They should have signed her. I always thought she was going back to the PFL because at this point, I don't believe in Scott Coker as a promoter. I think he does many things well,

but Bellator has not been successful the past few years in my eyes, certainly. So if this really is a chance, for sure, take it's Cock Coker. And then sit in front of a mirror and take a look at yourself because there's no world in which you should need a second chance. You should have spiked the football the first time around. Do better. Do better. Speaking of Bellator, I want to touch on this real quick and then we'll get out of here. Your boy is back, Jedmishu. Yo-O. Romero, he's back.

He's fighting. at light heavyweight on that Paris card he's fighting melvin man of co-made events of the ryan bader versus check congo heavyweight title fight your thoughts on mr romero coming back and do you like the matchmaking here i mean i love i love that your romero's coming back this is uh not good let's just let's just call it what it is i have a great amount of respect for Melvin Manhoff. We're talking about a guy who is probably a career middleweight, realistically, who knocked out Mark Hunt, like at the peak of Mark Hunt's chin.

I still don't honestly understand the physics of that one, and it will forever be ingrained in me as a, oh, this dude, like, this dude could probably knock out a hippopotamus if we gave him a shot at it. So he's got a chance to win purely based on that. When Melvin Manhoft's 45, I don't frankly know how he, has managed to string some wins together in the Bellator cage. And it's just, I don't need to see 45-year-olds compete unless you're O'O. Romero, because that dude is a Martian, who's 45 going on 20. So this fight's probably going to be awful from a nuts and bolt standpoint because Yowel will do nothing and Melvin will do nothing.

And then then Yoll will hit him one time and that'll be the end of it. but, you know, I'm always going to stand the true middleweight goat, Yol Romero, greatest middleweight of the past 10 years, certainly, and, you know, should have been a UFC champion, and I will forever believe that. So I'll tune in because it's YOL, but, man, I'm not going to feel great about it. Is this going to be appointment viewing for you, Randy Costa? Is it already on your calendar?

We can't do anything on May 6th, okay, because I have to watch Y'all-Ramero fight Melvin Manhoff. I mean, I'm going to watch, right? But, like, I mean, I probably wouldn't use the verbatim that Jeddus. But, I mean, I'm not exactly thrilled to watch this fight. I don't really see what the sense is behind it. I think it's a pretty straightforward win for Yoel. And I'm not sure what it does for either guy, aside from get paid.

But that's fine, because that's what we're in this for. I think it, I don't know, man. I'm always excited to watch Yuel fight. The dude's a freak. He's an insane athlete. To talk about he's in his 40s is just fucking out. I can't it's like too crazy to even believe um always going to be a y' old fan big uL fan going to watch a thousand percent going to watch that fight um but i wouldn't necessarily call

myself a supporter of that matchup what i did not realize this until right now and that was an honest to god reaction uh what melvin manhuff is ranked in the bellator light heavyweight rankings that is a true statement that man is number 10 in belton light because when randy said i don't know i was like honestly i don't even know who else you get to fight him it's not like they have a super deep 205 weight class that you can go fight leoto i mean sure whatever and i pulled it up the other man who is number 10 in bellator's rankings hoof that is a tough scene this is why we tell you ladies the gentleman. The only rankings

that matter and Mayfiting. That is a threat. That's the damn sure. God, yeah. I mean, we've, we've had many of episodes

picking those rankings apart. But yeah, so that's a thing. That's happening May 6th in Paris, France. And I feel like you all are mayor

is going to be so hard to match up in Belator. Like the Rumble fight was really cool. We were all in on the Rumble fight. And then, you know, Rumbull's dealing with the health issues.

And we get Phil Davis and nobody liked the idea of him fighting Phil Davis ended up being a way in people. And then yeah, here we are, Melvin Manhoff, the complete opposite of Phil Davis and yeah,

just crickets, pins dropping. It's just what it is what it is. But that's it. All right, we're done. Randy, you are the man. Thank you for jumping on. I know you got things to do. And we have with you all, Romero. When can we see you back in there?

When are we targeting a return? and Mr. Costa? I don't know, man. I'm just kind of waiting at this point. I'm within, you know, I can make wait in like two weeks, so just kind of focusing on, I mean, because, dude, I fucking laid an egg on December 11th. I mean, there's those, I got my ass kicked. I'm not in any sort of position to be calling out dates or opponents or matchups or

time frames or any of that. My job now is just to be in shape, be ready to go and improving every day. And that's what I'm doing, man. I don't have my eyes on an opponent. I don't have my eyes on a time frame. I'm ready whenever they're ready. Yeah, dude, could be next week, could be yesterday. Who knows?

I'm just, I'm just ready to go. I have to get that fucking trash-ass taste out of my mouth. I mean, this is a no-brain. We've got to put you on that April 30th card. You and Joe Lozahn fighting on the same card again, just like you did in October of 2019. I think that's a great idea. And we can put you in there with anybody.

I think that would be a tremendous idea. Jed, I believe. you will be joining us for the preview show tomorrow. Is that, is that accurate? I will, and I have three things to say, and then you can wrap us. Two of them are to Randy. The first one, Randy, you absolutely have the right to call people out and do all that. Believe in yourself, buddy, because you're a handsome man.

Two, on your handsome manness, drop the skincare routine because that's working for everybody. You're going to pivot entirely away. everybody go to mhmatfighting.com read to hell and back it's a story about our own damon martin it is on the journey of odi delania one fc heavyweight it is really compelling read very interesting and worthwhile about mental trauma and kind of the path to redemption stuff like that so really great effort from damon and just trying to plug that for everybody so believe in yourself randy drop that skincare routine everybody go read that story we out that's it. All right. You can hit the music. You can hit the music, Casey. We're done.

We'll be back next week doing something on this program. Maybe a competition. Maybe we get the dream match between Jed versus Phoenix for the undisputed BTL championship. Who the hell knows? We fly at the seat of our pants here at BTL. So until next week, everybody. We'll see you tomorrow.

Get the Wayin show. We got the preview show. And then Jed and I are actually going to be doing something on Saturday during the event, the prelim pregame. On the MMA fighter Twitter spaces, 9 p.m. Eastern time, you can join Jed and I, and we're going to watch the final two prelims before the main card. So join us for that. For Jed for Randy, I'm Mike.

Good night, everybody. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.