MMA Fighting - BTL Roundtable | Jake Paul KOs Tyron Woodley, Wonderboy's Future, Promotional Airing of Grievances

Episode Date: December 23, 2021

Did Jake Paul land a $1 billion KO punch on Tyron Woodley this past Saturday night following a lackluster six-plus rounds of boxing in Tampa? This week on Between the Links, that question is discussed, along with what could be next for Paul after one of the most violent knockouts of the year, Derrick Lewis getting back on track with a vicious stoppage of Chris Daukaus in the main event of UFC Vegas 45 and whether or not Daukaus might be better served at light heavyweight, has father time officially caught up with Stephen Thompson, Belal Muhammad's callouts and a potential mistake he's made in strategy, and more. Plus, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew air grievances and discuss what improvements could be made in the UFC and Bellator heading into 2022. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR 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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From M.MA Fighting Studios, this is Between the Links. And now, your host, Mike. The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a very special Christmas week edition of Between the Links. And again, if you're here expecting the BTL championship tournament finals to take place, it's not happening. Hopefully next week, maybe the first week of January, but at this point there's just so much going on right now I had to bring back on the man the myth the legend

and last week's show went over so well we just had to do it again and to react to all the big news and even some other cool things we're about to do is the winningest player in the history of between the links Mr. Jed Miche how are you on this fine holiday week my friend Mike I'm feeling great because I don't know if you remember this but two weeks ago I picked Giuliana to upset Amanda And I'm still riding high.

Let me just say, the shine from that one, it's gone nowhere. I could not be happier with that prediction. And yeah, still feeling really, really good about it, Mike. Just so great. Yes, that prediction will stand the test of time. Like forever and ever, that prediction will be on the Mount Rushmore predictions. But another sound clip made the rounds this past. week and it was in regards to this past Saturday night, Jake Paul versus Tyron Woodley,

you sort of laid out the blueprint as to how this fight in your mind should play out for a Tyrant Woodley win. And what we got was the complete opposite of everything we talked about. It was one of the all-time worst boxing matches of all time forever. Like from second one until the thunderous right-hand landed, this was really, really bad fight. The crowd was booing. everybody was shaking their heads. We're all thinking to ourselves, could this be the end of the Jake Paul circus? Because if this thing goes to a decision

and Jake Paul wins, this is not good. And then all of a sudden, boom, Woodley goes down in a heap. And now we're having a totally different conversation. So your reaction to the way this fight played out and then ultimately the way this fight ended with Jake Paul landing the right hand from hell.

Honestly, you sort of say, at all. If I was horrendous. I was so unhappy watching it because when a fight like that is bad, it makes you question everything you've done in your life to get to that point. Like, it's a Saturday night. It's the holiday season. Why am I alone at home watching this shenanigans and paying money to want to give to objectively bad human being? Like I got no

issue given Tyron Woodley money. Good for him. He is earned. He deserves. more money than he's earned. But Jake Paul neither needs money nor deserves my money, and he was getting the lion's share of the pay-per-view that you're ponying up there. And so as you're watching them just hug each other round after round after round, you just sit there and question what you've done. What choices have led you down this road? Thankfully, Jake Paul ended up finishing this fight for us to, you know, save us an extra, whatever that would, five minutes. I don't remember how into the sixth round he knocked him out to save us an extra i guess 10 minutes of our lives but this fight was horrible and the the biggest takeaway i have is i was right again mike because

tyrant woodley trying to box jake paul went over like a fart like it did nothing effective it was horrible and we actually just got to see how bad a box of titha woodley is because that's that that that's my big takeaway like woodley's thing at the end why did i drop my hand i know why you dropped your hand and anyone who has any level of understanding of the fight game knows. You down parry to body shot because he'd been hitting you with body shots and every time he even acted like he was going to punch you, you tried to parry. And that lead hand came down to down parry a body shot and oops, this time it was a fake and he came up with the right hand. That's like level one fainting and he got you because you bit on every single thing.

he was absolutely terrified to get touched in the fight it felt like and if instead he had just said screw it get or get got i'm gonna go swing he might have gotten it like either thing could have happened maybe goes out on his shield but maybe knocks jake fall out instead he just got actually legitimately outboxed by by a freaking disney channel youtube and that's that's it man like Karen Woodley has to eat that one now. For the second time, he got outboxed by Jake Paul for the second time. Now, a couple of things came into play because obviously with what you said, the elementary school comparison, I was watching those first two rounds very closely.

And I was like, oh, boy, this is a guy who hasn't gotten any fights in elementary school. And he clearly didn't hear what you had to say. But then there was a moment. That was a lot like an elementary school fight between two kids who was like, I don't know how to fight and I really don't want to get hit. So what if we just hold each other for like a minute? And then it seems like we're doing stuff. Yes.

And that's how it would be. He clenches and headlocks. Like that's how those fights play out. But then Woodley lands the accidental elbow and he cuts open Jake Paul. And I'm like, okay, now we can do the Jedmishu game plan and just go right after him. Because there's no way that he likes this at all. He knows he's bleeding. He's probably freaking out a little bit.

And then Woodley just didn't pick it back up. I'm sitting there watching like, what is going on here? Like, so then Jake lands that right hand and I'm in the building watching it. I'm just like, oh my God. Like that was one of those like holy S moments in your like live sports viewing like live that you're just going to remember. I'm going to remember where I was standing when Tyrone Woodley went face down into the canvas. It was just so crazy. But then what came to to mind right away was was that a billion dollar right hand that Jake Paul landed?

Because again, had he not land to that right hand, had that not fight? had that fight not ended like that. Like, how can you possibly follow up? Like, if we had two and a half more rounds of the clinching and the poor boxing and it went to a decision and Jake Paul won, like, would there be any clamoring to see any more of this? Like, I think it was hanging on by a thread anyways due to this rematch because I don't think the buzz is really there. But if the fight had ended like that, how bad would this have been overall?

Like, for the career and the whole boxing trajectory of Jake Paul? I don't know. I've been thinking about this because Michael Bisping said something I wrote about it on the site this morning. Michael Bisping said something to that effect of, you know, he's lucky he landed the right hand because otherwise that would have been the end of the Jake Paul experiment. And I think maybe there's a shade of truth to that. But my big belief is that probably isn't true because Star Power is a really difficult thing to quantify. And nobody knows what makes it or how it is.

But a thing that I feel like we've learned time and again is it just doesn't go away. Like, kind of no matter what happens, the series of events that have to occur for people to lose interest, it has to be over and over and a repetitive, you know, lack of delivering. It's like IP. How many Star Wars movies have they made that you would consider good, Mike? Star Wars? Two, three, maybe three at the most. Okay. You know, the original trilogy is great in my mind.

I think they've made a couple other since then of the 10 or however many they've made that were solid or serviceable. And it doesn't really matter. And most, I think most people kind of feel that way. A lot of people didn't like the most recent trilogy. But IP is IP. And so they roll out another one. People are going to line up around the block to watch it. This week, the fourth Matrix is coming out.

And I freaking guarantee you that thing. is going to be a billion-dollar movie, despite the fact that everybody universally hated numbers two and three. Like, everybody loved one, two and three were awful across the board. Nobody supports those films. And the fourth one is still just going to kill it because IP is forever. And Star Powers a lot like that. Like, I think Jake Paul would have seen a decline.

He would have had to say some stuff to explain, well, Woodley just wanted to hug me the whole time. blah, blah, blah. But I think ultimately his star power is probably not going to be diminished that much. But I think 100% getting the CO erased that even being in conversation. Like now, now we're just in this room where not only as Jake Paul defeated Tyrone Woodley, he slabbed him. He put him out cold, face planted.

Okay, well, now where are we going next? Are we doing Tommy Fury? Eventually he is going to fight Nate Diaz. and honestly, I'm legitimately interested to see how that fight goes. Because, like, not because I care about the fight itself, but if you buy into the core premise of seeing where the Jake Paul experiment can go, which I think we do, if only because the traffic it generates is tremendous. Huge fan of what Jake Paul does for me and you professionally,

even if I don't care at all what he's actually doing in the ring, because I think he's objectively not good at boxing. But, like, Nate Diaz is an interesting fight. Connor McGregor, which I've been saying for, you know, the past year and a half, and I think everyone who sort of watches or follows recognizes that's the ultimate end goal, is a Jake Paul Connor McGregor boxing match. Like, that fight is freaking fascinating to me because Connor McGregor is legitimately not bad at boxing. However, he's going to weigh 30 pounds less than Jake Paul if they ever get into the thing.

And, like, that might just be enough to be the, to be. the difference. Like all of the matches he's called for after the fact, Jorge Mosvedol, he'd be much bigger than, you know, Nate Diaz. He hits way harder than Nate Diaz, and it's not like Nate is unbeatable. There are very clear ways to defeat Nate Diaz in a lot of respects. And so, like, these are all fights that I'd watch and that people will watch. So I think winning helped and certainly getting the knockout helped. But I think ultimately, because he's calling out these people who people care about, it wouldn't have really mattered that much

if he had gone to a hugging decision over time with Lee. Because if he rolls up and he fights Nate Diaz, you know, next August, people are going to tune in regardless of what happened in his last couple of bouts. Just excuse the landscapers here. They decided now would be the right time to do some landscaping work on the property. So can I get your thoughts on the, yeah, we got to get ready. Can I get your thoughts on the conspiracy?

theorists that this fight was rigged. It was fixed. The knockout was fake. There were signals. Jake Paul signaled Tyrant to drop his hand. And then Tyrant apparently is the greatest actor of all time. He is the Leo DiCaprio of the departed of boxing. Like there's like, because there's so many ways you could fix a fight. Like no one would have the balls to do it. But if you're going to do it like this, there's other ways you could do this where it would work out for Jake Paul. And it would work out Eva a little better for Tyrone Woodley, but to get bolted like that, I mean, that might be the greatest acting job of all time. So I think it's all bullshit. Your thoughts on the whole, this is a fixed fight, this is rigged, this is nothing but acting. Academy Award goes

to Tyron Woodley kind of BS. This fight was definitely fixed. They fixed fights in boxing all the time. I want to be super clear what I mean. They don't fix fights by predetermining the outcome because that is illegal and can get you into like serious trouble with the federal government but like they fixed fights by making fights that you know the outcome even if you don't know the outcome like we knew what was going to happen in this fight we didn't know that j paul was going to knock tyron woodley out cold but we knew he was going to win and that's why they made this fight and so yes this fight was fixed but if you think one that tyron woodley took a dive you're just an idiot um like just straight up like whatever you want to believe about tyron woodley as a person or athlete or whatever

there's a zero percent chance that man would ever take a dive ever for like any any bag that could be offered him he's not going to take a dive that's just not who he is as a person uh not again not to mention the fact that that is a crime that comes with some very serious repercussions for fight fixing but like also just it they did it like last time they fought people the same thing happened and it cracks me up like well tyrant had him hurt and then he didn't follow up and punch him obviously this fight was rigged or that's just tyrant woodley fights man i guess it's you're you're making some real mental gymnastics to get to the end point of tyrant woodley got face planted when you could really just go a to b very logical

progression occum's razor baby the the more simple answer is not this josephs gigantic, theatrical thing where somehow Tyler got sweat, haloed off his freaking cranium when he got jawed and then his acting his K.O. as opposed to, no, he was just terrified of getting touched at all, so he bit on every faint. And then after five and a half rounds, Jake Paul finally fainted into a shot instead of just throwing a faint with nothing behind it. Because that's what happened. Jake Paul spent five rounds. either punching or fainting, and the first time he decided to faint and then throw a shot, he landed a chaos strike.

That is incredibly believable and, in fact, speaks volumes to the quality of both men as boxers. Perfectly said, I couldn't agree more. We all knew it was going to happen. Now, we threw out all these different ideas. Maybe it won't happen if Tyrant does this, but we knew deep down Tyra wasn't going to throw. We knew he wasn't going to go in there and be aggressive and let the hands go like he did in the Vicente-Luke fight. Although that probably was the best game plan. It is what it is.

I will say this. Tire and Woodley showing up at the press conference after getting knocked out like that. Good on him. Faces the music every single time. So I give him all the credit in the world. I think he's handling it about as well as anybody getting knocked out like that by Jake Paul. That's not Nate Robinson could handle it. Giving away money to people who takes the knockout and puts it in some sort of video meme.

just handling it like a true professional. This is Dominic Cruz levels of handling a loss. But you mentioned Nate Diaz. If I gave you 20 bucks and I said, put this 20 bucks on whoever Jake Paul is going to fight next. Is Nate the guy you think they'll go back to the Tommy Fury fight? What do you think happens next? I think it's Tommy Fury. I mean, Jake Paul keeps calling Tommy Fury's name.

And what he has proven more than anything is that he knows how to promote. He knows how to get people. people interested. He knows how to lay foundations and groundworks to build on. And him repeatedly saying, yeah, Tommy Fury backed out, I don't know if we're going to give him another opportunity. That is all textbook fight promotion right there. Of course, you're going to give them the next chance. I know odds on favorite is Anderson Silva. I don't think that's next because I think Jake Paul is smart enough to know that Anderson Silva would beat that ass, baby. And he, he's not trying to get that smoke. Anderson Silva can box.

and yes, he is old, but Anderson Silva is a much better boxer than Jake Paul at this stage of their careers, even old-ass Anderson. And so Jake Paul, he hasn't mentioned Anderson a bunch. And there's a very specific reason why Kid is not dumb as far as this game in his career goes. And Tommy Fury, I still think Tommy Fury is probably a bridge too far for him. I've said it since Jump Street of the Fury thing. But Tommy Fury is a fight that, you know, there's some risk there, but he can win that fight.

I don't think he has any real chance to beat Anderson. And if he faces Anderson and he loses, Anderson's 46, 47? Like, that's a tough, tough look to lose in boxing to a guy who's not really a boxer and push in 50. And he probably would lose. So he's not going to take Anderson. It's just going to be Tommy Fury. That makes the most sense. And it buys him the time because all he's doing right now,

is buying time for the big UFC names to get out of their contracts. Nate has one fight left. Nate will get that done early next year. I would be absolutely stunned if Nate Diaz resigned with the UFC because he knows he can get a very lucrative boxing match against Jake Paul. And then Connor McGregor, to the best of my knowledge, only has two fights left on his UFC contract. There's more opportunity for Connor to resign with them just because there's more money.

There's a lot more money at play for him with a couple of, and a couple of of other opportunities there, but I still think the most obvious outcome is Connor and Nate both fight out their contracts with the UFC. They both box Jake Paul, and then they both finally do their trilogy fight in a boxing ring, maybe in a independent UFC or MMA fight outside of the UFC control, just so they can get all the money that's generated from it. Because if that's not their plan, whoever their business managers and partners are are very bad at their jobs and give me five minutes to talk to them because you will make substantially more money doing that than retrilegeing in the UFC or whatever.

I think the next month or so will tell us everything we need to know about whether or not a Nate Diaz, Jake Paul fight will happen in 2022 because both fighters want it. Dustin Porre, Nate Diaz, even Dana White has talked about it. If this fight is not on the books for a March event, then the UFC is going to play hardballed Nate and just be like, dude, we're not going to just like let you fight somebody and then walk over to Jake Paul's promotion and make 10 figures. We're just not going to do it. So guess what, dude? Not happening. Not happen. We're just going to, we're just going to, we're going to bench you. We're going to bench you. We're going to bench you for another year. And then we'll book

you a fight. Because Nate's got, they can't do anything about it. So yeah, if, I mean, if they, if we find out the next three weeks, he's fighting Dustin Porre in March, then we know like, all right, he's going to go fight and then he's gone and now he can go on and fight Jake or start his own boxing promotion, which he could probably do with the amount of money that he has. So we'll see what happens. I'm with you. I think it will end up being Tommy Fury. I think

summer, July, August, somewhere in that range. I think Jake Paul probably knows at this point that he probably needs to take a break. Like four fights in 13 months, I think he needs to slow down a little bit, let the people miss you a little bit, and then come back

summer blockbuster, July, August, against Fury or whoever. But give it a rest. Also, we need to get better, man. Like, that, dude, that fight was awful for a lot of reasons, not just the Tyrone World League was bad. Jake Paul was really bad in it. If I'm Tommy Fury, I'm looking at that fight and saying,

man, I wish I hadn't busted my rib because I would have tooled that kid up. And it is the, by far to me, I know he got the big K.O. By far, the worst Jake Paul has looked in his boxing career. And honestly, I legit. I legitimately think that the biggest reason for it is he knew coming in that Tyron Woodley has the ability to hurt him.

He had never had to deal with that before. In the last fight after he got hurt, you saw him be extremely cautious moving forward and jab his way to victory. And in this fight, it wasn't just that Woodley was clutching. Jake Paul was content to hug for a long period of time. And to me, that just screams, yeah, okay, now I'm actually, this is the time I'm fighting somebody who I know legitimately can hurt me. I have felt what being hurt feels like.

I agree with you. I think he hated the elbow because he talked about it, a whole shitload afterwards. Like, he, I said it before, man, this kid has silk sheets and a soft bed at home. He is not, he is a pretend fighter. Like that is, and that is not meant in disrespect because he is actually going out and fighting actual people and legitimately entering into certified. combat but he is this is not a dude who needs this this is not a dude who even really wants this he wants everything that goes with it and the money he can make from it but if you took all the

money out of this he's not going to go get into fist fights because this is in him that's just not who jake paul is and you saw that this week like i think you saw that last weekend and if i'm tommy fury i don't know if that is that's in tommy fury or not based on, you know, his lineage and pedigree, I would suspect that he's got a lot more of that innate fighter in him because of his, who his brother is and where that comes from. But like, he just has to look at that and say, this kid can be broken. Like, I can make him want to leave. I just got to hit him. And so Jake Paul needs to, I agree, needs to take some time off, needs to rest.

And he needs to get in the gym and get better because I still think Tommy Fury beats that ass if they, fight. Yeah. And it doesn't really hurt Jake that much. The first L doesn't really hurt. You'll be fine. You come back and you fight Nate. You fight Connor. That whole MMA thing is still there. You're still taking on Dana's boys. And I loved what he said when I asked him, what do you want to say to Dana right now? I loved it. I embarrassed your whole company. Give me all of them. Give me Usman. Give me Mazadol. Give me Nate. Give me Connor. Give me all of them. Keep playing that stick. Keep planting those seats. Because even if you fight Tommy and lose, you still got that to go back to. And I think Jake's did a really good job promoting himself and diving into this boxing thing in just such a bizarre way.

I can't believe we are even having this discussion right now. But it is what it is, Jed. So here we go. Now we're back to our regularly scheduled programming, at least for now. The UFC was also back in action on Saturday. Derek Lewis destroys Christakis in the main event. And it was an interesting fight because Derek landed that early flurry. and Dawkus was able to survive, and I'm just like, oh boy.

Like, I was kind of watching in the background of my laptop with everything else going on. And then Derek just needs, like, just one little inkling of space to land that one shot. And there's nothing more terrifying than a Derek Lewis who has you hurt because he will just put you away. Your thoughts on the Black Beast bouncing back from that Cyril gone loss and just putting the wood to Mr. Christakis on Saturday. I coming into this fight I favored Chris Dawkins to win and as soon as I stood in the cage across from each other I immediately regretted my decision by a great deal and said ah crap he's about to get got and I base that entirely off of two things one I really like Derek Lewis a lot I think he's a way better fight of the most people give him credit for despite the fact that he's you know number four or five or whatever he is in the in our rankings as far as heavyweeds go he's very underrated in his skills and his tactical decision-making. Like, and a lot of that is because he wants it that way. You know, he cultivates the personality of, I don't know how to fight.

I just fight. You know, I'm not a mixed martial artist. I'm just a dude who likes to fight and I come in and blah. And sure, some of that's true. Like, I'm confident that if you just had to put Derek Lewis into a grappling match, he's probably not going to pull off a lot of subs. Whatever. That's not his game. But he is extremely smart about maximizing what he does well and about getting into positions to utilize his best weapons.

And so we saw that with the finish against Chris Dawkins. Somebody posted this on Twitter, and I don't remember who it was. But basically that entire fight boiled down to as soon as Derek Lewis was able to corner Chris Dawkes, the fight was over. And as long as Dawkins was able to stay at range and be mobile, and not have to be in exchanges or have the potential for exchanges to arise, he could win this fight. He could just outpoint Derek Lewis over time. But the moment Derek Lewis got his back to the fence and he did it with this like switch jumping lead kick that kind of just caught Stalkis by surprise and backed him up.

And the minute he got backed up to the fence, Lewis then just exploded in, took all that space away. and then that's just a contest of power versus power, and Derek Lewis is going to win that against just about everybody that's ever lived. And so I didn't see exactly that playing out, but when they were standing across the cage from each other, I just looked at him and thought, man, Chris Dawkins is, he's not a heavyweight, and he is fighting a real heavyweight who is sneaky good at fighting, and Chris Dawkins is a quote unquote better fighter, you know, whatever.

he's got more skills and a wider diversity of skills. But this dude is blown up light heavyweight. And at some point, he is going to get caught or cornered, and the fight's just going to be over. And that's exactly what happened. Like, Derek Lewis, you can't play any sort of the Derek Lewis game with him and succeed. And there are other ways to do it, but Chris Dawkins just didn't have the tools. You know, Cyril Gahn is good enough to stay mobile.

pick him apart at the end, chop down the leg, and keep that distance forever. And Daniel Cormier can just tackle Derek Lewis to the ground. But if you're not doing one of those two things, if there's ever a period of time where you and he will trade punches, you've just lost the fight already. Yeah, that small apex cage favors Derek Lewis so well. It really does. People think five, like five square feet doesn't make a huge difference. But I think in fights like this, it makes a massive difference. The small cage makes a huge difference.

for any weight class, but especially the heavy weights. Like, especially the heavy weights. Good win for Derek Lewis. I think he's beyond rankings right now. You can put him in there with anybody and people will care, people will watch. You want to do Tai Tua Vasa great. You want to do Francis Ghanu. If Cyril Ghan beats him and Gada resigns, great.

You want to do Steepa, great. John Jones, great. There's really no bad matcher for Derek Lewis. And as far as Christakis goes, I don't know. I mean, he'll be fine. He'll be a top 10. heavyweight and there'll be some fights for him. Chris Dawkins should just drop the 205 man. Like he is not a big heavyweight. He's not a small man. You know, he's six three. But he weighed like

two 30 something for for the fight against Lewis, right? Like 35. Yeah. Yeah. Like one that like that's 20 pounds, which is actually like that's reasonable to cut water weight. People do that at much lighter weight classes cut that amount of water weight for a fight. And not to be indelicate, Chris Dawkes has weight to lose. He is not shredded at 235. He's carrying some saw. If he spent any time at the PI and just got down,

like I have historically said that it's better to fight a heavyweight because heavyweight's a trash division. But like there is definitely a ceiling for how far you can go, like being puffed up in any weight class and 205 sucks nobody in 205 is good like chris dog is just go to the PI get his diet in order he could naturally walk around to like 220 pretty easily and then not even really cut that much to make 205 and look who's the shit glover to share is 41 and i love glover but he is old he is old in the champion like that is a wide open division and you don't the prize at 205 if chris dawkis goes on a run he gets to either get knocked

out by cyro gon or francis and ghanu those are your two choices pick one they both suck or you can maybe win the title by fighting yuri pahoshka which would also suck but at least you have a chance to win that fight or like yon blavitch like what are you doing dude like it it just blows my mind that he is a heavyweight right now because yeah heavyweight's bad but two of five sucks sucks real ass and you don't have the downside of eventually having to get knocked out by francis and ghanu if my career path at any point in time put me on the on the vertical of well if you do your best if you do really really well and you're great your reward is having to fight francis Sagina ghanu. F that, man. I'm going to go do something else because I value my life.

Like, Chris Dawkes, go, go fight Magman Akhalaya. That is going to be way better for your health and happiness and title potential. Go fight Iwan Kutalaba. You just got to get out of that first round and you'll win. Yeah. Like, it just, I don't know, man. If I'm just looking at it, like, I don't want to fight. Dude, even like, I don't want to call them bad. Not good. Have you? wait. So like, Jarzino-Rosenstrike, Alexander Volkov, like top 10 guys,

I don't want to fight them. That's really difficult and will probably hurt. It would be way better to go fight. I don't know. Paul Craig. Come on. I do like Doc as a chance against Jarzini right now, but yes,

Volkov, that's a tough fight because he's like 7-7, and you're not getting anywhere near that, man. I mean, so look, I probably pick him. to beat Giorzino, but also wouldn't in any way be shocked if Giorzino just clipped him. Like, he's just, dude, just go

you weighed like 2.35 and you're soft. Like, around the middle, you are soft. Not even like Fador soft, where it's like there's like, it's not hard, it's not chiseled from stone, but it does look like a drum or

whatever. There's like a, it's skin being pulled over this like barrel of stuff. It's just like, there's some extra hanging around there just get that in shape buddy and cut to 205 it would be way better for your career in the long run he was 235 and a half for this fight he was he was actually 21 for the fight against shemiel durahimov back in september at ufc 266 so yeah i mean get the PI for 363 months he could make 205 without actually focused losing weight like you could just cut that in water weight legitimately.

We'll see. I mean, him in 205 would be a really interesting thing. One of the questions that has come out of this event, Jedmishu, and I hate to ask this because I look at this man with high esteem. If my son had posters of this man on his wall, I would not be

upset about it. Stephen Wonderboy Thompson goes out there and gets dominated by Belaw Muhammad and this fight was not close at all. The Gilbert Burns fight was not really all that close, not all that fun. This fight, great win for Muhammad. but not all that fun to watch outside of maybe the first five minutes of the fight. Can we sit on this program right now and say that Wonderboy is washed?

Like, is Wonderboy officially a washed fighter? Yeah, man. Wonderboy has been washed for a hot minute. But, I mean, he's like washed, washed now. So that's, I mean, let's just, let's be honest. It's called what it is. Like, in the last, however, I don't even know. When did he in a homie fight?

Tyron Woodley, when did they fight the first time in 17, 17? End of 16, right? What was the first MSG card? End of 16, you're right. Yeah, November 16. And they rematched in 17. I think probably 2019. The Pettus K.O.

That's probably when I would have. And I was there for that fight. I was working that event because it was in Nashville. And Wonder Boy actually looked really good and was beating Pettus, but we have to remember this was washed Pettus who had bumped up to welterweight because he was washed. And then it was like, oh, yeah, Anthony Pettis is getting pulled up because he's not very good anymore.

And then he hits the like springing punch off the cage and knocked out Wonderboy. And I think that's when we probably could have said, yep, Wonderboy is, is done. He's not, not ever going to be the A guy anymore. Then he gets the win over Jeff Neon, Vicente Lucke. Both of those are really good fighters and those are good wins. But he's not, it's just clear to me that he didn't have his fastball anymore. And neither of those two men are trying to fight him in a fashion that they were willing to consent to the fight that he wanted. You know, they weren't trying to take him down.

And so if you're going to find kickboxing opponents for him, yeah, Stephen Thompson still probably has all the skills in the world to do that. But his take down defense, which is historically pretty good. honestly. I think he was decent against Woodley. He wasn't great. He gave up some there, but he was pretty decent against Woodley. He has historically been difficult-ish to take down.

That has gone all the way, and probably that is because he has lost some of his speed and his game requires a lot of fast-twitch muscles, a lot of reactionary movements. But yeah, he's just washed, buddy, and that's okay. Like, he's almost 40. So, you know, he can still win fights if you're going to match him up against guys who want to kickbox with him.

He still is very tricky. He's got a style that is difficult for people to, you know, have to manage. But if you put him in against anybody even with an ounce of grappling, he's probably going to lose. And honestly, like, I don't know who you match him up with at this point that you're not expecting, at least in the top of the division. who you're not expecting to beat him because most of the welterweight division can grapple. Yeah, I mean, he's in a tough spot right now. He's almost...

I mean, you want to do like a Kiyasa fight, and Kiyasa probably beats him too. Sean Brady beats him. Neil Magdie probably beats him. Shemayev would, like, I hate to do that to Wonderboy, but that would be like a nice little name to add to his resume.

I would have made sense if Wonderboy just hadn't lost to Muhammad. Yeah. Because that would have been the win that propels Shamaev to a title fight. I don't think you can do that now. Right. And speaking of Shamaev and Muhammad, I understand why people are glowing about Muhammad and saying he's the MVP of the night, and he made the biggest step.

He's not a top five guy or whatever. I thought he, Blah Mohamu was like this beautiful birthday balloon as this fight was going on. It was blowing up. You're like, wow, look at how cool this balloon looks. And then, like, he gets on the microphone, and someone who was blowing up the balloon was like, oh, no, I got to get the door. And then the balloon just flies away and flutters. It makes the fart noise because he calls out Usman and Edwards, which, you know, cool, man, shoot your shot.

And then... No, but why didn't you call it Shamiyev there? Why didn't you spend that, like on television, get on the microphone, and drop a Nate Diaz, Connor McGregor-esque promo on Hamzat Shemayev? That is the perfect time to do it. And then you go to the back and you speak to reporters and they're asking you about Shemayev. And your response was, I'd rather fight Hamzat Shemayev for. the title than in a title eliminator.

And now the next three days, you are on Twitter calling out Hamza Chimai F. No one wants to fight this guy, says Dana White. Oh yeah? I'll fight this guy. You know what, Blah? I like you a lot, but why didn't you get on the microphone and do it then? Because you know what? Had you done that, had you gone out there and spit some fire and left

Usman and Leon's name out your mouth and just talked about Chimae F, you'd be getting that fight. You would be getting that fight. And you probably have a chance to win that fight. It'd be tough, but you might have a shot. styleistically of beating him because you could slow him down. But you didn't do that. And now you expect to jump Neil Magni after not calling him out first.

You basically put this guy fourth or fifth on your call-out list. And now he's number one. You blew it, bud. You blew it. Sorry, you blew it. Who-hoo. Heated. I disagree for the simple fact of,

and I don't think this went through Ballal's head at all, but he should not want to fight Chamaa at all because Jamiya will wreck his house. house. Jhmaev will absolutely wrenzbole Mohammed, so he should strongly avoid that fight. I don't think calling Kamar Usman made any sense because he's clearly not getting

that fight. And so if you don't have the opportunity to do it, I think it's dumb. I think the Leon Edward, he should have just gone a whole hog into Leon Edwards and been like, hey, Leon Edwards and I fought, he poked me in the eye and then ran away like a little punk, like settle up now. You're trying to

gift yourself into a title shot, man up and let's do this. and go there. But instead, he did what he did. I agree that I don't think anything he did was good. But I just, I think Hamza-Chimae is the next Walthaway champion of the UFC. And so nobody should be trying to fight that man, unless you're Neil Magne, because Neil Magne is never going to get a title fight ever.

So there's really no risk. And if he does win, that's the biggest point he can possibly get. but other than that you should all pray that hamzat's name doesn't end up on the other side of the card from you because that dude is gonna murder everyone other than maybe kamar usman right i get what you're saying but don't come out three days later and say oh yeah i actually want i'm the guy who wants to fight him like i mean i'm okay with twitter posturing bro you got a you got a you got a twitter posture like it's look fighters but if you really wanted that fight you should have done it then yeah because he doesn't really want it because nobody wants it.

Fighters get mad when fans, you know, are internet, tough guy, keyboard warriors. But like, fighters do a lot of Twitter posturing as well for fights that they would probably would take because, again, I've said this many times before. My default stance is that if you are a professional combat sports

athlete, if you are a cage fighter by trade, you are not afraid to fight anybody. But not being afraid to fight somebody and not being a dumb ass are two totally different things. And most fighters, at least have some concept for more difficult versus less difficult fights and what are better for their careers. Like, I think if Belaw got the offer and that was on the table, he would say yes to Hamzat because he's not afraid of Hamzat.

But I think Ballal is also smart enough to recognize that, like, there's a big difference between Twitter saying you want to fight that dude and, like, really wanting to fight that dude. because you shouldn't really want to fight that dude. That dude is something special. Yes, but if you're going to fight him, you fight him now. Like you fight him right now because it doesn't... I think you fight him for the title because then at least you're fighting for the title. Right, but if you fight them now and lose, you could still get back to the title because you're fighting the very special fighter that we've never seen before.

But then if you go in there and fight him for the title and just get bolted for the title, then you're not getting back there anytime soon because you left such a bad taste in their mouths. So I don't know I just not a fan of it I think his callouts were bad He's got no shot of fighting Usman A very little chance of fighting Edwards I mean if you're going to go for Edwards

Like just go for Edwards and call it a day But Edwards will probably end up getting the title fight So we'll see what happens All in all good year for the UFC There are improvements Don't give Leon Edwards a title fight UFC Please give the Sintay luke the title fight He's fun and interesting

Leon Edwards sucks. My whole thought was let Usman take as much time off as he wants and do Shamaa versus Leon for an interim belt. It's still a title fight. You get the fight. The people who are like,

oh, now you do Shemaya versus Edwards, even though it's like just tomfoolery after everything Leon has done. I know you're not a fan of Leon's overall fighting resume. Like the wins are great, but the Diaz fight isn't the one that's like hankering for a title fight to be automatic.

But at this point, like, who else has left? Like, he took the Mazadol fight, a fight he probably win. Mazadol gets hurt, not his fault.

Should Leon just wait till March for Mazadol and just fight Mazadol at this point? Or does he just... Yeah. What does he do?

Leon should just fight Mossadol because that's a fight he needs. Look, man, I've said it a bunch. Leon's resume isn't that good. People are really excited about it because he's unbeaten in his last 12 or whatever

a large number it is. But, Like, I don't think much about beating Nate as in the year of our Lord 2021. The no contest against Ballal, too early to make any kind of credible statement about what that fight means. RDA, sure. I don't know how much to value that. I still don't know how to have viewed RDA as a welterweight.

He's just a very special circumstance to me. Gunner Nelson, split decision, not great. Cowboy, okay. Like, the Vicente Lucay fight, before Lucille was good, when Lucay was just fun, now Lucke's good. If those two fought again, I think that fight might go extremely differently. So I don't know. Like, he's got a lot of wins. If you want to give him a title fight, sure.

But I think he needs a statement one to make people even sort of care about that fight. And Horace Mahasbaal is the way to boot. Like, that's what Nate was supposed to be. And then he found, he found the one line. Like, there are thousands of choices of ways. things could work out. He navigated the one path that was him winning, but making nobody

care about him fighting again. So congratulations, Leon. One in a million in the worst possible way is what you did. So I think you gotta go with the Mosvital. There's the heat there. Nobody cares about him fighting. And just let Vicente Luque fight for the belt.

It's a new fight. It's fun as hell. Because again, the way Uzman is going to Usman, one of the big reasons I don't care about Usman and Edwards is I know how that fight plays out. Leon Edwards has zero percent chance to be Kamar Usman, barring a freak injury. Like, I am sorry to put it as cold and bluntly as that, but he cannot. He is just worse at all of the aspects of fighting than Kamar Usman is. And he doesn't even have the like Colby Covington sort of idiot level of cardio and pressure

that can at least make Usman work in a compelling way over five rounds. Leon Edwards will just get slowly squeezed to death by a superior fighter over the course of 25 minutes. Or at one point there, Usman will just hit him with something big and then Edwards will fall down and die. That fight has no intrigue because I am ironclad in how it ends. The way you beat Kumar Usman is with a violent burst of offense in a short period of time. Like that's how that's how you're going to beat him. And that is not what Leon Edwards does. That's exactly what Vicente Lucke does.

That man is violence in short bursts and it's awesome. And so I want to see it. Like I made, I've made this a comparison for Alexander Volcanovsky a lot. I think it also bears a lot of fruit with Usman. Volcanovsky and Usman, they're the house. They are the casino. They get, they have small edges that they, leverage into big wins over the longer periods of time.

And I want to see somebody go all in on a hand and get blackjack. And that's what Vicente Lucke can do, man. He can knock him out. He can wrap up a weird dars, like, or he'll just get beat on the edges. But that's a way more interesting fight. It's the fight I want. I hope that it's the fight that happens, but I have very little expectation. Yeah, you're probably right about that.

So the UFC's 2021 has come to an end. Get no frills delivered. Shop the same in-store prices online and enjoy unlimited delivery with PC Express Pass. Get your first year for $2.50 a month. Learn more at pceexpress.ca. Jed, your thoughts. How do you grade the UFC's year as a whole? I know, I mean, we're not going to go back and just break down every single fight car,

but just from a general sense. And what, let's air some grievances. What can the UFC do better in 2022? What needs to change? Oh, man, that is such a loaded question. I think it was mostly, it's a fine year in that it is where it is. 2021 is a difficult year to hold sporting events in general. We still have a global pandemic that is killing millions of people and very, very terrible.

So some of this is sort of baked into that. Like having every event basically be in Las Vegas is a bit repetitive, kind of. I would never have thought about it until COVID happened, but there is actually something dynamic and interesting about the UFC's travel schedule that makes sense if you are a fan in the locations it goes to, but is in a much more real sense. I didn't recognize as a viewer at home that I kind of missed when they would go to England and do a card there. even if those cards aren't maybe the best cards ever put on because they're front loaded with local talent that that is something different and it's interesting to see oh well this they're doing a card in philly this is going to have you know chris docket the darkest brothers and paul feldner and all these people like that adds a wrinkle that i am honestly missing sorely i've recognized over the past two years um but they can't really help that for me the biggest grievance i have is that they still have too many damn fights, dude. There's just too much of it. 40, what, like 3, 43, 44 events this year.

That's a lot of fighting to keep up with. And that's just the UFC. And that doesn't include contender series. And that, again, that's just the UFC. So that doesn't include the Bellator fights that are good. Or PFL, who try as they might have somehow, actually, I have some level of. interest despite all of their best efforts to make me not care about them whatsoever.

Vellator, I'm losing interest because they are actively trying to push me away as a viewer. Good for them. They're working. But, you know, there's just so much of it. And 15 fights. Like, a lot of these cards are having 12, 15 fights. Like, that is just not necessary. You can scale it back to 10.

10 fights is fine. And that's more palatable. It's just, I have watched. every UFC event or every fight, maybe not live, this year. And somebody posted this on Twitter the other day. The amount of my life that got spent on the UFC this year and the amount of money that I as a fan would have spent is unreasonable. And I would really appreciate it. They just scaled some of that back.

They got a business to run. I get it. You got to do 40 events because that's what your contract mandates with DSPN. And you want to get that 150 mil. Okay. can we just do them as 10 fight cards, not 15? Like, there's a middle ground here that isn't over saturation, and that is, for years, that's been my biggest complaint, and it remains that.

I agree with you. I like, I also think they should mix up the dates a little bit. Like, they don't have to all be Saturdays. Like, these fight nights don't have to be Saturdays. You could do a Sunday. You can do a Friday. You can do a Thursday. Once in a while, just, like, mix it up with a different day.

So, like, people can go out on Saturdays if they want to. or like and did watch the fights on Sundays like yes I agree with you 10 fights is perfect paper views you want to do 15 14 50 fights I don't care that's fine we're all going to be watching the main card at 10 p.m. anyways we're going to watch the ESPN prelims at 8 o'clock fine like you want to do 14 fights and do three or four in the early prelims I get no problem with that but these fight night cards that have 15 fights on it is insane especially when you're starting these prelims at 7 o'clock at night on the east coast and the main cards at 10 p.m and you have seven fights on the main car That is silly. Stop with that. Mix it up a little bit. Ten fight cards. Throw on a Sunday. Throw on a Friday.

Mix it up a little bit. Doesn't all have to be Saturday. Same time. Mix it. I love the afternoon cards. I really like that. You've got these Tuesday night slots. Throw a UFC fight on a freaking contender series card.

Like, who cares? Like, it's your promotion. Do whatever you want. Have some fun. Do some different things. Contender series, have some. and go back to like the first season where it was actually difficult to get a contract. Make that more interesting.

Make the ultimate fighter more interesting. Find ways to make your product more compelling than just doing the same thing every single time. That would make the UFC better. And this is arguably the UFC's greatest year of all time. So many good fights. So many good finishes. Incredible storylines. Just look at the new champions we got this year.

I mean, this is about as good as you can get, writing it up. But now we've got to take these thoughts, take these ideas. I know you're on a new platform. I know this is a new deal and you have to fill all these obligations. But let's have a little bit of fun with it. Let's mix it up a little bit and try some different things. And let's add some chocolate chips to this vanilla ice cream, if you will, Jedmishu. Yeah, man.

Look, I'm always pro creativity. I've just sort of given up on the creativity thing because I know they won't show it. They are strongly opposed to doing anything fun, new or interesting. because that's not who or what they are, and that sucks. But I agree with everything you said. There are many ways, I think, to make tough somewhat more compelling, though I don't know that you can really salvage that show being what it is, but I think there are ways to do it.

My big thing, I could not agree more on the Contender Series. I think the Contender Series is an objectively horrible thing, specifically because let's just be honest. The contingent series is cheap talent. That is all it is. It is a way for the UFC to mainline talent on 1010K, 10K contracts into their organization,

which we have seen over the past few years has directly led to them letting better fighters walk away because those fighters cost more money, which is why you're seeing undercards absolutely overflowing with people without Wikipedia pages. They're just, they're getting in chief talent. That is union busting tactics 101, and they don't even have a union that they have to bust.

But like, I don't know, I feel like they don't need to bring, you don't have to sign everybody who wins on the contender series. My thing about the contender series has always been, dude, just make it a tournament. Make it a one-night tournament. You get eight people. They fight it out. Whoever wins gets a contract.

I'm interested. The UFC is so opposed to doing tournaments, and I don't get it. Because tournaments are linear storytelling in a very digestible format. For people who don't give two tugs of a dead dog's tail about your product, they can at least look at it and be like, okay, I know how sports work, eight people, one person wins, they get the prize at the end. I don't even need to watch over several weeks. I can watch for two hours and see who wins this tournament, and then I feel complete.

I feel like they have done the thing. I have been part of this journey. There's closure here. I have a satisfaction from watching that. I get that doing a tournament on a pay-per-view is difficult because there are a lot of problems that go with it, you know, late replacements, et cetera. That's why they got away from that in the first place. But nobody cares for the contender series.

Nobody is watching and is like, oh, well, the replacement guy got to come into the finals, and now he's going to win UFC 3, and Steve Jenham is the worst person alive because he can't even fight. Like, no one cares. The contender series, it's for 10 and 10 contract. You're just handing out like candy anyway. At least make me care. Straight up, I didn't watch one contender series this year because why would I? I don't care.

I can do other things on my Tuesday night if I, A highlight happens. I can tune into m.m.afighting.com. They're going to show me the cool thing that happened. Otherwise, I don't need to watch regional MMA with stakes, quote unquote. I know that everybody who wins going to get a contract. I'll have to watch them, the prelim for UFC 270 or whatever down the line. So I didn't watch one this year because there's no reason to watch the contender series unless you are Kaposa.

Like that's far as I can tell. That's the only reason to watch. But if they came out, we're like, hey, instead of having five fights, blah, blah, blah, we're going to put eight women's featherweight fighters on this show and the winner gets a contract. Now, granted, if that was the division they chose, they should just sign them all because they'll have women's featherweights. Right. But you get my point. I would be like, oh, I'm actually legitimately interested in this because I can learn about this guy who will win because he'll fight three times in one night. And so I'll get to learn more about him.

and I'll get to see him fight a couple of times, and maybe then I'll be connected to that individual as a fight commodity as opposed to nameless contender series dude who beats other nameless contender series dude and his cannon fodder to fill airtime at a fight night event in Milwaukee or wherever the hell. Or just do season-long tournaments. Like even that's more interesting.

Just bring on eight fighters from each weight class and do a tournament that way. One night, this is the first round of the Bannon weights. One night, it's the first round of the feather weights. This is the light weights, welter weights, middle weights, et cetera. And just do it that way. And then the next one, here's the semifinals. And then you put all the finals ones in like consecutive weeks. Here's what's getting contracts.

These 10 fighters. That's it. Nobody else. Yeah. There are an infinite number of ways to make your product more interesting and entertaining, especially when you're the UFC, because they don't have to make their main product interesting. Like, they can just leave it being what it is. Because this year, they honestly did a really good job in the, in the broad strokes,

to give them slight proppers because I will bag on them forever. Like, almost every main event they had this year was valuable and good. There are like two I can think of that should not have been the main event of cards. And maybe one or two others that weren't supposed to be, but then kind of happened because of circumstance. And I won't blame the UFC for that. But, like, I don't know, other than Ryan Span, Anthony, Smith, I can't think of anything off the top of my head that's just like that main evented. That was the headline fight for a freaking card.

They did a really good job of putting at least one good fight on each card, even if every card, you know, wasn't top down great. But they could also just be interesting in all of their other aspects. Like hire somebody who likes fighting. That is what I want more than anything else. I want the UFC to hire. somebody who does not like business because that is what they feel like. They feel like they are a fight promotion, quote unquote, that is run by people who like business, who want to do

business and make money, not people who like fighting, hire one dude who just likes fighting, who's just weird and really wants to see fighting in all its forms and fashions and let that dude be in charge of tough or the contender series. Everything else can fit your corporate funnel of making everything feel exactly the same and under the UFC brand, but have one dude who's doing something cool to unbutton the top button of UFC Inc. And to have some freaking fun, because they just never have fun anymore. Like, there are fun things that happen, but it is not the drive.

force of any UFC event and it hasn't been for, I don't even know how long. Yeah. I mean, and yes, these are changes they need to make. I mean, they actually don't need to make them, but they should because it's more fun. But obviously there's a lot of good with 2021.

Outside of 2016, because 2016 was just insane between New York and Connor becoming two division champion and John Jones, the UFC 200 and the sale of the company and like all the stuff that I would do. 2016 was the most newsworthy. the year in the history of MMA, no doubt about it.

But in terms of just like overall quality, 2021 was probably the best year, especially for the UFC. This was a really good year for them. There was like one bad card, like out of all of them. There's one like pretty awful one, but everything else is like something really good came out of it. There was some sort of storyline we could talk about on this show or other shows. So overall, I mean, this is an A year for the UFC, but it could be an A plus.

and I know those are very tough to do, but it is what it is. But Bellator, Jed. Ooh, I have more, I have one more grievance. Oh, let's go. Let's go. I don't want to get bogged down in this because I've said it a billion times. But for the love of God, please pay fighters more money or pay them a set salary or change your bonus structure so it's not performance bonuses.

And the win bonuses are just finished bonuses. is because every single time that a fighter gets in the mic after a win and says 50 G's baby, part of me dies, which means that in the year 2021, 4,000 parts of me died. Because it happens every single fight that a fighter just begs for, they are literally that is what it is. They are begging for $50,000 because they need $50,000 because they don't make any money. Like, I don't care how you do it. You see, the best way would be to pay them an equitable share of revenue like other major sports do. Obviously, you're not going to do that.

WME paid $4 billion for you. They got to pay that bill down. And that money ain't coming out of that. But you can do it in a way that still. makes that not happen. Like just if you performance bonuses go away. They don't really mean anything.

They're just an add-a-boy. Finish bonuses. Every fighter gets a finished bonus. That is actually a substantially better way to incentivize fighters to try and get finishes and compete in exciting interesting fights than a 50G bonus for a nebulous

fight of the night that is awarded based on no set criteria. like just I just it's just exhausting honestly to hear every fighter especially when you know that the fighter isn't going to get it I can I don't honestly know which one's worse the fighter who's obviously not getting 50 g's but is just flatly begging hey Dana I can't afford my mortgage this month please give me 50 gs or the fighter who's like obviously going to get it but still feels compelled to say I think that's worth 50 g's like yeah you did a spinning wheel kick KO obviously are getting 50 G's like just I just want to hear less about the financials because it makes me feel bad that you guys don't pay fighters real money. I feel like three years from right now and I was telling AK and I recorded a like a ask us anything on to the next one. We were talking about this in Tampa three years from right now. I cannot wait to see what this combat sports space looks like. This is the this is the elementary school comparison to in two and the years.

2000, cars are going to fly, boats are going to fly. All these things are going to be happening. And I feel like we're at this time where we're like three, four, five years away from octagon's flying in the space. Like all sorts of chaos, all sorts of craziness where everything is going to

change. Everything. And I have no idea what that's going to look like. But I'm so fascinated by all of it, Jed. I can't begin to tell you with the whole boxing model, the celebrity stuff, all these fighters jumping on the success of other fighters. We're seeing it with YouTube.

We're seeing it with promotions. We're seeing Habib run his own promotion. You bet your ass is going to be five or six other fighters who feel they can do it just as well, if not better than Habib. So this is going to be, this whole space is going to look so different. And then, like, are we going to be having financial conversations? Is this just going to be like, is the UFC just going to be the WWE? And I feel like, and I've always thought they were the WWE.

Listen, we're not here. You're not going to get rich. We're not going to pay you rich money. We're going to give you the opportunity to get rich. That's why in the 80s and 90s, WWF was a very good spot, but their talent wasn't getting paid a lot of money unless you were Hulk Hogan or Brett Hart

or like some of these big guys eventually got to the point where they were making more and more money. But it was always about the opportunity. And Dana White has always talked about the opportunity. But I feel like with some of these new ventures, the WFL, et cetera, PFL offering million dollar tournaments, Bellator paying fighters very well.

UFC doesn't have to change anything. but soon I think they're going to have to, Jed. Three, four, five years from now, I feel like we're having a different conversation. I hope so. Me too. I don't know. My gut is that they don't because it's all top down.

As long as Dana White's in charge, they're not going to make big changes. He doesn't care about these things. And so I think Dana White is a seminal figure in the history of this sport. I think he's on the Mount Rushmore. If there's Mount Rushmore, of the sport.

I think he did a lot of things incredibly well at a time period. And maybe he was the only guy who could have done what he did at a very specific point in time. I think since the Ultimate Fighter reality show debuted, Dana White has held the UFC back from being better. And I think as long as he is in charge of it, he, that is still the case. The UFC has succeeded vastly and tremendously, in my view, in spite of him, since Tough made them burst onto the mainstream. And I think that this all sort of ties back in. No one, there's no way to know. There's no way to prove this theory. But as long as he's in charge of it, the same dumb things that I think hold it back from broader significance and cultural appeal will continue

and it won't be bad. The UFC is a really successful business, but it won't be what I think this sport still could be. And so it will always be a little bit sad to me, but ultimately fine. We shall see. Hopefully, I think we all are in agreement that the fighters should be paid more. but maybe if there's a company that's actively competing with the UFC that's constantly promotes the grass being greener. And while Bellator MMA has certainly found some fighters who have sung those praises,

the promotion itself, not a great year for them this year. Some of the storylines played out the way we wanted them to, but the aftermath of the year, I don't think it was all that great for them, Jed. Belator's got a lot of work to do, in my opinion. and considering the talent roster they have, the opportunities that they present because of that roster, because of some of the names on it, I feel like they should be at a much bigger spot right now,

but they have so much work to do, so many things wrong with the promotion itself. Now, the people who work for Bellator, the PR folks, some of the finest people in the world, I would rather deal with Bellator PR than any other PR in any combat sport, bar none. But they don't, they're not the ones putting the product on television.

They're not the ones presenting the fights. They're just making it better for us to cover them. But it's very difficult at times to cover Belator Jed. What do they need to change? Because, I mean, we could be here for another hour. But, I mean, there's certain things that have to change and fast for them. Are they going to be in some trouble? They need to change a couple of big things.

One, more than anything else. More than any single thing in the world, what they need to change is they have got to get on a real television channel. Like I've made the crack and the joke about it, punny. Showtime, but straight up, showtime is not a real, it's not a real channel. Like, it is a real channel. Some people have it, but it is not a broadly held channel to view sports on. Like, not, there is not a soul that I know outside of the combat sports world who has ever watched a Bellator event because they were just on, like they were flipping through channels.

and oh, I'll go see what's on Showtime. Like, it's not, PFL, by virtue of being associated with ESPN, which is a channel that every, let's just call it what it is, MMA is vastly populated, the fandom is vastly populated by dudes between the ages of 1836. And every person who fits in that category owns ESPN. They all probably have an ESPN plus subscription, so they can just turn on their ESPN app and what's going?

on right now on Friday night. Okay, there's the, there's the Georgetown women's basketball game and there's Virginia lacrosse and it looks like fighting. All right, I guess I'll watch some fighting. What do I care? Like that, that is a non-zero number of people that you can get to tune into your product. And you have to view every event as an opportunity to build a fan base, to get more people interested in what you are peddling.

And they can't do it. there is no extraneous runoff into Bellator from Showtime. You have got to get on a real channel, a real network. That is first and foremost the only way I can see people caring about your product at all. Second is a way bigger thing in the abstract. I think Bellator is really stupid name, and I actually think that it fundamentally hurts their ability to create market share, because it sounds very dumb.

It sounds vaguely, you know, gladiator-esque. And it doesn't sound like a sport, frankly. It doesn't really sound like pro-wrestling either. I don't know what. If you weren't in the fight game and someone was like, hey, you're going to watch Bellator, what would you think that is? You wouldn't think it's a sport because sports are like three letters. Chess.

Yeah, you watch. Sure. Like, that's, that's closer. It's like the NFL, the NHL, the WWF. Like, these are all, they are all three-letter acronyms or whatever. Is that the right word? Initials. I'm not sure what I'm looking for there.

Bellator is a word into, like, unto itself. And it doesn't, it doesn't convey at all what is going on unless, I don't know, Belator might actually be a word that means something. I think it's a gladiator type thing. I do believe it's that's where it stems from. So unless you speak, oh yeah, I'm sorry, it is Latin for Warrior. So unless you're a freaking nerd who took Latin in middle school, you just think, all right, this is weird.

I don't know what this is. I'm not interested. Like, I know that it's tried to be extric XFC or whatever the hell it is, but I genuinely think that having a product called Bellator MM. is like way, I think that's a legitimate barrier to entry for like a broad mass appeal of fans because fans know what the NFL is. They know what the MLB is. They don't know what Bellator MMA is.

It just sounds dumb. Yeah, they got a lot of work to do. Their entire broadcast needs to change. Everything about it. Well, no, I won't say that. I won't say that. And I want to put this out there. I don't want that like this is an airing of grievances.

This is not meant to disparage Bellator. or maybe in some ways it is. And this is not to disparage. And this is for me. I want to disparage the crap out of that. And this is not to disparage the people involved. But they need a lot. They need to change a lot.

I will say this. When I say you have to change everything, I don't mean that. I think the play-by-play guys that they have right now are fantastic. I think Mara Rinal is the combat sports goat play-by-play guy. I think Sean Grandi has done an excellent job. His hiatus, him coming back, he's better than ever. He's tremendous. is. I wouldn't change a thing with those two guys.

John McCarthy is a color guy. Look, he is, he's not great, but he adds value. But what it should look like is that, like, his role, right? Like, your role is the color guy. Like, be the color guy. Don't read the tail of the tape. Don't narrate the digital programming. Don't narrate the embedded, the Belter's version of embedded.

Like, that's not you. Don't do post-fight interviews. Your value is to help viewers understand what is happening in the fight from the fighters, the techniques, the refereeing, the judging. This is the stuff you know. Like, this is your value. But too much John McCarthy is not a good thing. It's a bad thing. It just is.

John color commentating, good thing. John doing post-fight interviews, reading the tale of the tapes, doing all that other stuff. Not good. Not good. Oh, I think John should not. I don't think he's very good at color either. I think John McCarthy has very, the most obvious career trajectory of all time is he's just Mike Perea.

Like, you just bring him in as the dude in the booth, hey, we've got a stoppage in the action. Let's cut to John and he's going to walk us through what this looks like or officiating. This is literally the dude who wrote the rules of him may. Like, that is what John McCarthy did. He invented the rules of MMA functionally. Like, go to him for that. Let's not go to him for fight analysis because he's not very good at it. I'm sorry, John.

You're just not, man. Like, you're not awful, but you're not compelling in a lot of ways. And just frankly, you're not, like, you don't have the bombastic interesting personality for that role. You are not awful at it by any stretch. They're far worse than you. but his strength is as he is sprinkled in as all right there's an eye poke let's cut to john let's talk through well here's what you're supposed to do in this you know you get five minutes blah blah blah like that's it he's mike peria that's that's how he should be

bellator's obsession with john McCarthy and josh thompson i mean literally i want to be in a meeting to understand why because i say what i said about john i somewhat disagree that i actually think he's a pretty good color guy but just when he's color Like, let him focus on that and nothing else. Josh Thompson, there is way too much Josh Thompson on these broadcasts. Look, you want to, the Mike prayer, like, you want to put him in that Dean Thomas role, Josh Thompson, like for 30 seconds to start around? Fine. Here's how I scored it.

This is why. That's fine. But to go to the desk to Josh after every single fight for five minutes is horrible. Now, I will say Belleter did one thing white, right? they put Amanda Gera in that lead desk role and she has been a breath of fresh air because Jen Brown on the desk, very talented, that role is just not great for her.

Backstage interviews before a big fight, she's very good at that, very good. That's a great spot for her. But you have to find your strengths, maximize them, and eliminate the weaknesses. Amanda, fantastic. More of those. Mixing some better voice on the desk.

Get Josh out of there. Bring in some more polished fighters. The UFC does that very well. I thought Austin Vanderford did a great job. They had Shale Sunnan on the desk for so long. He's excellent. MVP was good. You have, at your disposal,

Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell, you could put them on the desk, and they would be tremendous with Amanegara. Like, what's the point of having Luke and Brian out during these cards to just host morning combat on location? Use them. Put them on the broadcast. Amanagara, Luke Thomas, and Brian Campbell,

would be a tremendous desk and then throw in a fighter once in a while to like talk about the upcoming fight if it's in their division. Like they have broadcasting talent. Use it. Use those guys. They're under contract for your company for Showtime for CBS. Put them out there. They would do it in a second. They'd kill it.

Kill it, Jed. I agree with everything you said, especially I think Amanda, she didn't have, she came in this year, like pretty recently, right? Like two cards ago. Like, yeah, like at the back end. And I totally agree. I think for me, one of the lone bright spots for them. I also think using Luke and Brian would make a ton of sense for them. Before you said that, though, honestly, I was thinking of something different, which would be very different and maybe feels a bit a bit too inside baseball or perhaps just to self-congratulatory.

I think aside from getting on a better network, which I think was very difficult but necessary, I think the easiest, fastest way that Bellator could up their traction with the broader MM community in a very tangible way is sign Ariel Helwani. Fregan sign him. Like you and I both know Ariel really well, works with us. He is a man doing a ton of different things for a ton of different places.

but Ariel speaks and people freaking listen. And he was doing analyst boot stuff for ESPN. I thought he was very good in the role. And more importantly, if you just get attached yourself to Ariel's wagon and people will care more about your product by nature. Because you aren't making it easy to care about Bellator, Bellator. but Ariel is a great champion of things. He'd be tremendous in that booth analyst role or in any number of roles you could have working, have him working in.

And I think that is maybe the easiest way you could bolster a lot of your shortcomings now other than hiring me because I will stop bagging on you every chance I get. You guys hire me and I'll be the number one, number one guy. Ask Fight Circus, who their number one promoter is. Because they will tell you it is freaking me. Because most of the people listening to this only heard about Fight Circus because I scream it from the rooftops. So other than me, I think Ariel would be the fastest way to success for you guys, Bellator.

And if you don't want to do that, everything you've said, Mike, is totally true. You have a lot of really good people at this. use them instead of the not good people that you currently use. Yes. Put a Showtime mic in Ariel's hand. Not a Bellator mic, a Showtime Mike. Let him be the Showtime guy. Like, that's not a promotion paying him.

That's a network paying him. And he's under a network umbrella. Yes. But still put him on all the broadcast. You're the Showtime Bellator guy. You're not the Bellator guy. You're the Showtime Bellator guy. I think that's a great idea, a tremendous idea.

And then maybe we won't have to see Garth A. Davies on the broadcast anymore. doing those satellite fight previews. Because I like Gareth. He's a great guy. What is the point of going to Gareth A. Davies in Europe to talk about two Americans fighting in Florida? It just doesn't make any sense. That's no value.

Now, when they go to the UK and they go to Dublin, he should be on the desk. Like, throw Gareth on the desk for those cards. That's great. But putting him on an American broadcast, not in the building, and just going to those different shots of him, like outside of some UK landmark, it makes no sense, Jed. It makes no sense. Like, it throws the broad. It's in so many different directions.

It just makes no sense. We're going to go to the desk with Amanda and Josh for five minutes. And then we're going to go across the world to get Garif D. Davey's fought about two Florida fighters fighting in Connecticut. Like, that makes no sense. Yeah. Dude, there's so many things that don't make sense. So maybe that's our advice.

just to Belator. Bellator, hire a minister of logic and common sense and just go to them for all of your decisions because a lot of the things you do are not wise. Yes, and there's two last things that I'd like to see them change. One, MMA requires a certain level of professionalism and hype before a fight.

And Michael C. Williams is not that. Joe Martinez is, and he's sitting out there part-to- timing it in the UFC and doing freelance stuff with regional promotions. Why Bellator has thrown a big fat check in the face of Joe Martinez is

wild to me. He is the best ring announcer in the sport. And there's no debate about this. Bruce Buffer Bruce Buffer is a legend. And his voice equates to, okay, this is the UFC. It's Bruce Buffer. And he's still very good. He still gets be fired up for the biggest fights of the year.

But overall, Joe Martinez is better. He is better. Bellatar not making a run at this guy is a misfire of epic proportions, Jed. Like, epically, so bad. Especially because, like you said, like, he's freelancing it. Like, I don't, you don't even have to back up a Brinks truck for him. Just hire him.

Like, he's out there to be hired. He's the best person at this job. Like, you know, I think everybody who works in a MA agrees. I think a lot of fans still, you know, like Buffer because they don't. They're, you know, casual fans. They don't recognize. But like, anyone who lives and breathes and stuff, everybody I've ever talked to is like, yeah,

Joe Martinez is obviously way better at this than anybody else. He is great at this role. Just hire him. Like, it's, that's an easy win. Take the easy wins when they are there because you're going to have to fight for a lot of your other ones. But I don't know, man. I don't understand.

I would absolutely kill to spend, like, three hours just talking to Scott Coker. just privately about choices and decisions and how the business is run because I can't figure out so many things that they do. Like, it just don't make sense. And then the last thing, and I think maybe the most important, and it kind of tacks on to your first thing, network aside, I will say this, it should not cost me more money to watch Bellator than the UFC.

It should not cost me more money to watch a Bellator event over a UFC fight night. And it does. It costs you $12, I think it's $10.99 a month. to watch Showtime, and it costs you $6.99 a month to watch ESPN Plus. That should never be the case. Ever, ever. Belator should never be more expensive to watch of the UFC. Having said that, Belich...

It's like, showtime sucks, dude. Like, I get HBO, like, HBO at least has good other programming. Showtime has billions. They had Dexter. Dexter. The return to Dexter. I haven't watched a second of it, by the way. I'm not going to watch the return because the show's ending was awful, and that show ended like, whatever.

seven years ago or whatever. Californication was a cool show when I was in college. But like, they got billions. Showtime has billions and nothing. In Bells. Nothing else. So like, do HBO

at least as like everybody has HBO. At least do that. That would be interesting. They should do a CBS sports app. You should be able to watch this for free on a CBS sports app. That's what you do. For now. Like Invicta,

putting going on a cable network was a terrible idea at least the next card is going to be free to stream and that's what they should do but bellatory you got to promote your cards you got to promote your cards you got to get these guys on big platforms talking about these events the ufc does a fantastic job of promoting their cards they got the videos but they're also sending their fighters out everywhere to rate like on radio stations they're on television they're doing all these different things. A.J. McKee, when he won the featherway title, like, this guy should have been on Good Morning America. He should have been on all the shows. He should have been on Howard Stern. He should have been everywhere. He went nowhere. He went nowhere. He showed up on the broadcast of

Logan Paul versus Floyd Mayweather because, well, he was there anyways. Like, that's it. You got to do a better job of putting your guys over because no one knows who they are. A.J. McKee should be a way bigger star than it is right now. After he beat Pitbull, he should have been everywhere. You should have on all the shows. Medium Market Tour, two weeks long. AJ McKee should not have been home for a second. He should have been at this place, this show, this place, this show. Should have been on the Kelly Clarkson show everywhere. Get that man's face out there. They did a terrible job with that. And they continue to do a pretty rough job with that. They need to get better at that. Put their stars over. Put their cards over. Because oftentimes,

I have fans telling me the day of a Vellator event, oh, I didn't even know they had a card tonight until like right now, until I listened to BTL the day before. I didn't even know they had a card this week. You got to do better at that. No MMA fan should be emailing us or hitting us up on Twitter saying, until we listened to your show the day before the card, we didn't even know there was a fight card. You got to get better at that.

Got it. Dude, I work in this space. Like, this is my job. And I frequently am like, oh, I did not realize that there was a Belator Friday night. Like, that's my job. And I don't, like, that is, that's not good. Not good, John. Yeah, you just got to do better.

And I say this because I think Bellator can be really good. I think the foundation is there to be really good. There's just like little things you got to do better. Like this obsession over some of the guys you have on your broadcast. Like you just got to move on. You got to mix it up a little bit. Like you just throw it in a blender. All the martial arts and a blender just mix it up.

Whatever comes out, throw on the broadcast. But you can be better. You just got to do it. Just got to do it. Anything else you want to add to this airing of grievances, Jed? Fight circus is nothing need to change, though, so we don't even need to go there. PFL, we've already saved them. We saved PFL.

Ray Saffo, if you're hearing this, please. Are you still in charge of PFL? Is that right? Yeah, he's somewhere. He's part of it. He's still around there. Reach out. I have more thoughts, and I legitimately want to make the damage bar exist because that would be spectacular.

Fight Circus, I love you forever. you guys are still innovating top of the game and you don't need to be saved at all because you are saving MMA from itself. No, I got no, my grievances are sort of longstanding aside from what we've already talked about. And they're not things that will ever be fixed. It's just what it is. So, no. All in all, I thought 2021 was a pretty good year for MMA, given the, you know, the parameters. with which we had to work, you know, ongoing global pandemic and all.

Yes, completely agree. And maybe things sounded harsh, but it's all meant out of love because we love the sport. We love covering the sport. We love doing the show and talking to all of you each and every week. And I don't know what the show is going to look like over the next year. But in some way, it's just going to be a lot of fun to discuss the comings and goings. And like I said, next three or four years, it is got to be a very interesting time. Good.

I do. I do have one, because I think we're about to wrap up. I have one last grievance. And this is not with any promotion. This is with my esteemed colleagues at m.m.a fighting.com. Oh, boy. And this grievance boils down to something you guys are going to see in the coming weeks. As far as our end of the year awards go.

And I don't want to get too into it because I'm sure we'll talk all about it at the time. But I just want to say that as much. as people want to hate for any number of reasons, there is a very obvious fighter of the year this year to me. I think far and away, clear cut, there should be no question at all about it. And this individual will not win MMA fighting's fighter of the year in 2021 because we are an oppressive group of people who don't respect that Jake Paul is the fighter of the year this year. We already talked about him.

We don't need to get into it too much. I don't like the man. I have been extremely clear that I do not think he's a good person based on many of the things you can go Google about him. But undeniably, when we look back on 2021, you know, there are a lot of fighters that have made an impression that have, you know, things that will stick out of Julianna Pena with the greatest upset in the history of the UFC and maybe mixed martial arts. Charles Oliver Toshera winning titles despite their long tenure. You know, Kamar Oussman putting together this dominant run to become the second greatest welterweight of all time.

All these people did a lot of great things. But when I look back at 2021, Jake Paul is the fighter I will think of first. And I know that he is not competing in MMA, but he is competing in MMA because all he is doing is boxing MMA fight. Like that is go talk to people who run boxing websites. Jake Paul is not generating a ton of traffic for our sister site bad left hook because boxing people don't care about Jake Paul. MMA fans care about Jake Paul.

He's an MMA fighter in all but the rule set he competes in. And he is by far the dominant storyline of this year. Hate that as much as you want, but ask anybody who works in the industry and they will. all agree that that man is the one who put food on our tables this year. And so I just wanted to get that out because he is not MMA fighting's 2021 fighter of the year. And I vehemently disagree with that because he absolutely should have been. You can't argue with that. And you know what?

You could even argue that he has the knockout of the year in 2021 with that knockout of Tyron Woodley. There's an argument to be made there as well. there's an argument. I wouldn't. I don't think that's the knockout of the year. I wouldn't even put that in my five. That will be the vote.

Even though the year is over, that'll be the most viewed knockout of the year by far. It will definitely be that for sure, for sure. I don't know. I don't know. The finish of dude, Ben Ascran, it's not as good a knockout, but Ascran had a lot more people interested in that fight than Woodley did. So I could see that being viewed. more.

Yeah. But I got into this argument the other day with one of our compatriots. And yeah, Kamar Usman, Charles Olivera, Julianna Payne, Valentina Shepchenko, etc. They're all great fighters. They all have great years. But 2021 was the year of Jake Paul in our sport at the very least. And that's just what it is. if we if this was a regular

BTL and the final question was who is your fighter of the year Jake Paul is the right answer and I will hear no argument against it he is the he is the fighter of the year he is he is I mean you're right about everything you just said and you can

even make an argument that Logan Paul might be the freaking fighter of the year because his day that fight against Floyd Mayweather is like it's I think it's the most traffic day we've ever had. It's up there. It's just insane that this is what it's come to, but

Jake Paul Fighter of the Air. Shortlist of it, like, trying to think of way back to other days we did insane traffic. That was pretty, yeah. The USC sale, maybe, because I know that day was a monster. That was a crazy day.

That was a wild day. I was in here for that, but just like for what I was doing. And then obviously Mayweather McGregor was huge and all this other Yeah. Melvin McGregor, that paid everybody's salary that year. Yeah, that's a huge event. But listen, 2021 was fun.

2022, a lot more cool stuff coming up. Jed mentioned the awards. We'll start, you'll start seeing those awards. And then next Thursday, the plan is a week from today as you get this, we're going to have the very first MMA fighting award show, like actual show that we're going to put together. So stay tuned for that. And you may see Jed's face on the award show because we're going to do things a little different.

Oh, yeah. We'll have to talk off air about this, but we had our little initial meeting and we're going to find ways to do this. And in fact, you can make your Jake Paul argument on the award show if you like, too, Jed. I will absolutely make a lot of arguments on that show. As you should. I hope that Michael Chandler wins an award and I get to present it. That would make me extremely happy. that maybe that happens maybe that happens either one of those would work for me i think there's a

don't know what steep a could win this year uh other than most comical knockout to eat but i don't know if that's an award we give but uh we might see chandler get an award though there's a very good chance michael chanler gets an award this year for his fight with justing gaitchie but i haven't looked at the numbers i did not vote for that as my fight of the year i believe it was i believe I don't even know if that made my... No, I made my top three. It was in my top three. I think it was three for me.

It might have been four. I picked Volk Ortega for number one, and I don't get wide dope. I feel like I'm on an island with that, and I don't understand it. That fight was obviously the best fight of the year to me. So I'm going to pull back the curtain because you're going to see it anyways. I went with Yuri Barashka versus Dominic Reyes, is my fight in there. That was in my top five for sure. That fight was banger.

Go watch it again. implore you. Everybody go watch that fight again and tell me that I'm an idiot for putting that number one because I'm not. Definitely not an idiot. I just five rounds is really difficult. It's like has such an advantage over two and a half or whatever. Did he knock him on the second round or the third? Is the second round, but both guys were like in serious trouble in that round. Oh yeah. Yeah. Dude, right before we got knocked out for hash, it was like on skates. It was wild. That fight was awesome. I picked that for knockout in the year too. So over Usman. Oh, no, I did the Usman one just because Masrall has never been that.

Like, that's not. You're right. If we were going to win, it wasn't that. And that was the intersection of mattered and, oh, my God, that I usually look for for Kio of the year. But that's spinning back elbow for, that was in my top five for sure. It might have been three. I think I still went.

The Sandhagen, like, fadeaway jump knee. I think is so sick. That's a really good knockout. Yeah, there's a couple for Corey this year, so that could have made it. Keo of the year was really good this year. Some of the year sucked, but Keo was awesome. And we're also adding a new category this year, or revamping a category.

The breakout fighter of the year is now the rookie of the year, and you'll hear more about that. Yeah, I think it's because I got like people were calling for my resignation last year because I had to write the breakout fighter of the year. But even though I didn't even pick the guy who won. Who did you pick? last year. I picked Kevin Holland last year. Oh, bro, come on.

It was obvious. Homsat was right and people calling for your resignation are dumb. It's just a pit, like, the argument I made is it depends on how you view it. If it's just like a guy who's in the UFC who broke out in the promotion that he was already fighting in, Kevin Holland is clearly the winner.

But if it's a guy who came out, if you're looking at it as a guy who came out of absolutely nowhere to become something massive, then yes, it's Homsat. So if it's like, I just go for curating bro. Yeah, either way. Start of the year versus end of the year,

one guy gained a lot more than anybody else who was Hamzai. Yeah. I mean, both guys, both guys at the end of the year, people were calling to fight for titles. Like, fight for titles. Hamzai was booked to fight Leon,

but people were talking like, let's just throw Kevin Holland in there in a title fight right now. Let's just throw him in there for the middleweight title because he'd be jockey. I would have been hilarious. Lots of hilarious stuff on the way.

We're getting out of here. Otherwise, me and Jack could talk for another hour. But that's it. I don't know if this is going to be the last show of the year. If we can somehow do the BTL finals next week, we'll try. Something tells me it'll probably be the week after that. So this might be the final BTL of the year.

But stay tuned for that. We will have an award show next week to fill that Thursday slot. I think we might have we got next next week. No week got next this week. So end of the year is always crazy. UFC's off for the next few weeks. And Jed, I appreciate you jumping on here and waxing poetically per usual, my friend. Of course.

I appreciate you, Mike, for, you know, making this show that I have commandeered for my own ends and purpose. I appreciate all the fans of the show and all the haters as well, because I know a lot of people don't like me, and I could not care less. I'm happy for myself to make you mad or you to dislike the things that I say, because I got Giuliana Pena upsetting Amanda that is correct. and you can't take that away from me. No one can for the rest of my life. I think I'm going to put it on my resume, and that, like, bottom facts, like additional facts, correctly predicted the greatest upset in mixed martial arts history,

the only person to do so. But, yeah, I have had a ton of fun this year with you, Mike. I've had a ton of fun with all the other competitors who have come on this show except for Sean Alshaddy because nobody likes him. bad person and I want bad things to happen to him. But yeah, I'm looking forward to when we finally get to crown myself as the just and true BTL champion. And other than that, thanks for tuning in everybody. And have a happy holiday, holidays. And we'll see you in 2022.

That's right. Thank you for listening. Good night, everybody. Thank you.