MMA Fighting - BTL | Sandhagen's Big Win, Texas Blunders, Gamebred Boxing 4, Bellator 293, More

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

Cory Sandhagen looked incredible in a dominant victory over Marlon Vera in the main event of UFC San Antonio — at least that's how it looked to all who watched it with the exception of one judge, capping off a miserable weekend for the TDLR.  On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel will discuss Sandhagen's fantastic performance, his callout of Merab Dvalishvili, and where Vera goes from the loss. Additionally, they'll discuss the Texas commission's awful weekend from the judging on the UFC card, to the frightening officiating blunder at Fury FC 73 the night prior, Donald Cerrone getting the nod for the UFC Hall of Fame, Jorge Masvidal's Gamebred Boxing card this Saturday featuring a slew of MMA fighters competing in boxing matches, Friday's Bellator 293 event, the PFL's 2023 season kickoff this weekend, and more. This week, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew banter about the top stories in combat sports and beyond. 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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Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here.

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The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of Between the Links. Thank you for joining us today. The second to last day of March. Spring is in the air. And today we're kind of shooting the breeze on BTL. We're coming off UFC San Antonio.

No UFC event this weekend. We're on the road to UFC 287 next Saturday in Miami. A lot's still going on in the combat sports world this weekend. We'll discuss that and much more. Today, it is myself. And joining me in this venture is Mr. No Gray Area, the exhibition king, co-host of No Bet's Bard, and Dan they were good. A great episode of Dam is now on the pod network going through the interesting

and underappreciated career of Benson Henderson. Let us say hello to Jedmishu from MMAfighting.com. do you think about that particular website, Greg? Jed? It's a great website. And you are correct. There is an episode dropped yesterday, the latest one for Damn They Were Good. Honestly, one of the more fun ones.

Benson, not like one of my personal favorites. Like I respected his career, but wasn't like a huge fan. And as we dug into it, I feel like I remembered a lot. I learned a lot. Good time was had by all and well worth your time. So you got a long. drive fired up because we got plenty of content for you on that show we definitely do uh so let's just get right into it let's talk about the big story from ufc san antonio let's talk about corey san

hagen jed he puts on a show everybody who witnessed this fight believed that it was a dominant performance everybody was extremely impressed by corey sanhagen except for apparently judge joel O'Heda, he saw a completely different fight than everybody else in the world, egregiously scores the final three rounds for Cheeto Vera. And we'll talk about that more in depth shortly. But Jedd, thoughts on Corey Sanhagen's performance and how he handled his business against a very tough opponent in Marlon Cheeto Vera. I mean, he looked great.

It was, I said it on the night, and I will stand by this. It was disappointing. not in that, I mean, the performance was exceptional, but I, like, I think many came into this being, you know, expecting a potential fight of the year, a really thrilling, exciting battle. And it's not really what we got. And that's a full credit to Corey Sandhagen, who kind of talked,

like, he just said the dopeest shit after that fight, frankly. Like, he's got a really good analytical mind. And he was just like, yeah, you know, we knew what we were going to do. We had a plan. Cheeto talks about wanting it more, but we all won at the same level at this. At this level, we all won it the same.

So it's about the other parts and doing it. And we felt pretty good. And that's what we did. And that's what you saw. And so it ended up not being this kind of blood and guts affair, which I think a lot of us hoped for. Certainly I thought we were going to, maybe not the whole fight,

but I thought we get a lot more of it. But instead, Sandhagen really just kind of dissected him. And it, it proved that Corey Sandhagen is when one of who resolidifies himself as one of the very best band-in-weights in the world and there's a world where he is the best guy right like I mean he got run over by Al Jermaine Sterling and when they fought that sometimes it happens sometimes you get speedbagged you know if they fought again I would probably still pick Sterling based on how that first fight went but I wouldn't pick it to go the same way and it wouldn't at all surprise

me if, you know, of Corey Sandhagen could beat Alchraman Sterling, if he could win a rematch with Peoria, particularly given kind of the tough scenes Peoriaeon has had to endure the last couple of times out. And, you know, Corey Sandhagan versus Henry Sehudo, he's got a fair shot against anybody in the top of this division. And he just proved it by kind of really blanking, arguably the most dangerous guy in this division. So great win from Corey Santagin makes me kind of reevaluate just how good he is as a Bannamweight. Is he better than top five? And makes me interested to see him continue to push for a title.

Yeah, you know what's funny is I couldn't wait for this show following this performance because a while back, you were on this very program after Rob Fomp beat Cody Garbrandt, and you said, you know what, Rob Fomp might be the best Bannway in the world. Yeah, you said that very confidently. That was something that you continue to say for several months. He might have been. He wasn't. He wasn't, but he could have been. Do you have those same vibes after this performance? Are you feeling like this dude's, he might be the best? Like, I'm confident he might be the best band in the world. Yeah. A little bit. Like, he definitely could be. And again, like, I don't know that he would win any of those rematches, but I know that he would have a chance to win all of them. Like, better than a puncher's chance. Like, he is a complete, well-rounded, analytical.

mixed martial artist with a unique maybe isn't the right word but a game that a lot of the other dudes at the top of the division don't have and that can present problems to those same guys so look peyote on beat him not that long ago in a really fun fight where

Corey Sandhagen had his moments and if they ran it back Corey Sandhagen could make adjustments because we've seen him approach the fight game that way Al Jermaine Sterling like I said like maybe Al Jaljo tackles him backpacks him and wraps him I just don't think it happens the same way. He's going to have to work a lot harder,

and Corey San Hagan's getting better. So I'm not willing to call him the best Bannamway in the world right now, but he on any given day he could win the belt. And that's about as good as you can ever aspire to be in this sport. And I think Corey Saining is pretty definitively, at least for me, cemented himself in that legitimate title threat conversation. San Hagen told our own Damon Martin prior to the fight that he had a plan of some kind or he was developing some sort of plan to call out Sean O'Malley if all went well on

Saturday and all went very well for him Saturday. He didn't do that, which I thought was very smart. He instead calls out Marab de Wallis really and he did it very respectfully. He put Marab over as sort of the boogeyman in this division, the toughest fight he could possibly have right now. And Marab, of course, Marab of course seemed into it as he showed. should since the UFC is offering him Umar and Maga Madoff on May 13th.

They may still offer him that fight in the future, but Sanhagan calling up Marab, I thought it was brilliant. I loved it. What did you think? Was that the way to go for San Hagan? Or should he have tried to shoot the O'Malley shot with everything kind of up in the air at 135 right now?

No, no, no, no. God no. He pitched perfect. Like, he did this. He was perfect on Saturday. from start to finish. You could maybe give Cheeto that last round if you want to. It's fine. But he was perfect in everything.

His post-fight speech, his call-out, all of it was exactly correct. Because that is the right call-out for him. Mara Baudelaus-Fili is, honestly, actually, if I had a gun to my head, I would say Mar-Badhaelish-Fili is the best band of waiting on Earth right now. And so that's a really tough fight to call out. But that is, that's the fight for Sandhagan to, take or to pursue because it is achievable and it then also sets him up for the thing that he wants. If he tries to call out Sean O'Malley, he's just not getting it. Like that's just,

Sean O'Malley is going to wait. That is a, it's functionally what's going to happen. There's, I strongly doubt that he will be like, I just want to fight again. Well, thing, like he's, he's getting the next title shot. He's just going to wait. The UFC will have no issue having him sit to fight for the belt against the winner of Aljo Suhudo. So calling him. him out as a waste of a call out. It will never happen. If he doesn't call out Maraub, of course, Sandhagen, you know, tried to pursue that, tried to just call for a title fighter or some, some other nonsense that we've seen some people do. Then we talked about it coming into the fight. Then he's probably getting the winner of Adrianianian, Jannes, Rob Fon, which is a fun-ass fight,

and sign me up, but watch the hell out of it. But that's fighting back in a like, it's a real, real way, font several stations back from his ranking at this point. This is the idea. fight. It's tough as hell. Maragvalch really is impossible to fight functionally. But if Corey Sanhagen can win it, he's number one contender with the bullet. He gets that fight and he can win it. He gets a title shot. It doesn't really matter what else is going on in the Bannamweight division at that point. He will have solidified himself. So it's a hard ass fight, but this is absolutely the correct call out from him. And I think he's going to end up getting it. I think this fight makes the most sense for Marab, who's going to have to fight again, also won't get O'Malley.

God knows who wants to fight. Who are no more than a bet of? Like, that is just, at best, you are going to win an extremely difficult fight over a guy who is not ranked very highly. So I think he's going to get it. I think the callout was great. Literally a perfect Saturday from Corey Santagin could not have drawn it up much better than he got. tough night for marlin vera four wins in a row heading into the fight his usual game plan of let's get an opening let the guy hit me with a hammer and then i'm gonna just come back and hit him with the sledge hammer didn't work here he didn't get going at all he had some moments in the third and fourth round but cori was just too much for him and he's only 30 so hopefully you'll learn from this i'm sure jason perilla has been all over him since saturday but what's next for him i mean he called out peyter and he's certainly makes sense from a ranking standpoint, but is that the fight to make?

What do you think is the future, at least short term, looks like from Marlon Verre right now? I think that's the fight they are going to make. I'm not sure it's the fight I want. Don't give me wrong, if it's great. I don't love Marlon Bear's chances in that fight. I'm not saying he can't win it, but it's certainly going to be a five-rounder. And the way Peodorian's offense builds on itself, like we, we, we, we, we, have seen realistically the way to beat

Peyrean and you are going to have to outwork him and just overload him and Marlon Vera is very much not that kind of fighter. So I think that that sets up poorly for him though the fight is still probably really fun because Mignon got caught

a couple of times by O'Malley. Marlon Verre is better than that. I think I'd prefer in general I would prefer he not fight Peoria because again we start to get into the neighborhood of squatting, which we've talked about with other divisions, but when we're talking about Sandoagan fighting Vález Fili and Jan fighting Vera, and O'Malley

waiting for the winner of Sterling Suhudo, that's the whole top five booked, right? Like that's everybody in the top five functionally is now covered. So then it's these other guys who are coming up to Umer Narmar Gamedos, Adrian Yannes, is, you know, that that group is is being functionally boxed out of of upward mobility, which I'm never a huge fan of. I've always sort of been of the idea that if you take a loss, you need to fight back. And this wasn't a controversial loss. There's no, he takes a loss.

You need to fight back and defend your spot, and then you can go back to it. So I'd love if instead we got to see Marlind Barra versus the winner of that Rob Fon, Adrianiannis, right? Sign me the hell up for that one. Absolute banger alert. but I think we're going to get Piotr Yan, and it's hard to be mad about that because that fight is certainly fun as hell,

if nothing else. It does potentially run the risk for Piotr Yan of losing like eight in a row or something insane at this point, which would be a tough, tough scenes for our guy, but that's life in the Banimate Division, baby. Who is your low-key MVP of UFC San Antonio, Jed? Oh, let me look at this card,

remember because I was not working this event so is Nate Landwer doesn't count as low key does he I mean it's not the main event so I mean I don't know who else you can pick really he's he's he's the MVP of the card I'm not certain he can I just don't think he can constitute low key that's that's probably the the low key MVP of this card here's who the low key one is for you uh and I'm gonna I disagreed with this on fight nine I still disagree with it, but it delivered something really cool, and it's Jason Herzog. Because CJ Vergard should, that fight should have been stopped. I know Casey disagrees with me. I fundamentally believe that the CJ Vergara ended the silver fight should have been stopped.

Because if at any point in time you are literally fleeing, like turning your back and running away, I got this a lot because I commented this. I agree. That is totally intelligent defense. In fact, running away is arguably the best defense for any fist fight. The problem is you're no longer fist fighting. You're in a track meet. And those two very different things. So it's certainly intelligent defense, but you are actively disengaging from combat, which is the whole point of this thing.

It is, by definition, timidity and should warrant a foul on a point deduction. I mean, that certainly didn't happen. But for me, I have just always been of the opinion that if you are ever in a position where you literally are running away, then you're not, you can't, the fight's over. That running away is far worse to me than turtling up. Like they're the same thing of not, of strictly defending yourself with whatever limited means you have capable at you. So I think that fight should have been stopped. However, because it wasn't stopped, we got a really sick comeback. Like, CJ Vergara manages to not, you know, get knocked unconscious, makes it to the end of the round,

and then comes out on Barnstorms in the second. So the low-key hero of this fight card is Jason Herzog. Even though I think it's one of the few times that I fundamentally disagree with what Jason Herzog did as a referee, it did deliver us probably the second best highlight. I mean, honestly, just the best highlight. It's better than Land War Lingo. So the best single, like, moment of the event was, because of Jason Herzog.

So shouts to you, Herzog. There you go. And it's not often when we think back of this past weekend that we're giving kudos to a referee. So let's transition to... He's the best ref in the game. He missed on this one, but it was a happy accident, so it works out. We mentioned Judge Joel O'Heda,

and there are other judges who were Texas-based with weird cards throughout the night. but this is a pretty tough weekend for the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation Jedmishu. The TDLR, the commission overseeing UFC San Antonio. Also, the Fury FC 73 card on Friday also in San Antonio. And I'm sure everybody who's watching this right now, everybody who's listening to the sound of my voice, has seen the viral clip. Edgar Chiraz, Contender Series veteran, likely down three rounds in the main event of Fury FC 73. It's fighting Gianni Vasquez in a five-round fight.

He did miss weight. First time he ever missed weight, but that's kind of besides the point because Vasquez is winning the first three rounds. Round four starts. Vasquez, as he had done a couple of other times in the fight, picked Chares up, threw him on the mat, and then finds himself in a nasty figure-forward triangle. And Vasquez clearly goes unconscious.

everybody sees it in the arena except for the referee Frank Colazo who just allows this submission to continue while everybody is screaming at him to stop the fight. Chires transitions to a nasty arm bar to the unconscious Vasquez whose arm is getting hyper-extended

he wakes up, he tries to tap with his foot, then he goes out again, he wakes up again and eventually works his way to tapping out. Now Colazo, who was very much in the public eye, on Saturday, probably millions of people had seen this clip by Saturday afternoon, he is rewarded with the judging assignment at UFC San Antonio,

and this is just frigging ridiculous. So Jed, Texas has been under scrutiny many times before. This just put it over the top. How bad of a weekend was this for the TDLR in San Antonio, the site of both the UFC event on Saturday and that Fury FC event on Friday? It's tough hangs. that's just Texas is on some whole other ish look I

I don't know how to feel about the him getting rebooked as the as the thing it's obviously not like a good good optics or whatever but at the same time it's not the same job so kind of whatever on it the the awful rough stoppage is like far more important to me than anything else to happen because it's really, really bad. It's actually the worst I've ever seen in the sport, I think. Like there's just not really a credible way that you, to me, and I'm not in the cage,

but it's very hard for me to imagine looking at that and being like, this should continue. We should let this go on. you got to have some baseline level of ability here and it really feels like the referee did not so far as the judging I mean it's the worst scorecard I've ever seen it's not the actual worst scorecard I've ever seen but it's top five so heroic efforts from from Texas

to be because the part that is I won't even say concerning because it's not or just know how this game works at this point there will be no ramifications either way. And that's the part that sucks and is super lame, right? Because things don't get better when there aren't, when there's no incentive for them to get better. They will just continue existing in perpetuity because this is not the first, this is not Texas's first rodeo with this kind of clown shoe shit. So it's just going to keep happening because they don't seem to really have any huge impetus to improve. and that's a shame

but the UFC will still probably go to you know Texas once every couple of years because they've got a lot of the major markets in the country maybe just stay away from San Antonio you know to deal with a lot of this stuff because I mean like the same like Frank Colazo ain't ref and fights in Dallas like how ref fights in San Antonio judge fights in San Antonio I think he's just making the John to Dallas

maybe I'm wrong I don't know but when you saw that clip on Saturday like what did you think of it were you like throwing shit across the room because i was no i was just like while that's really bad um because it was really bad like it's i i don't get all that up in arms about things all that often anymore um in this because it's sad to say like grown to expect it right like this is just part and parcel of the sport it's it is why it is it's frankly partly why it's a dangerous sport outside of everything else about what you are doing in in organized combat there are a lot of inept people that are involved structurally at every every stretch of it and so look like i there's no i'm

not here to put any blame on on um vascas like i'm not here to put any blame on him but this should serve as a lesson to other people this is why you tap you should just tap there's there is no honor or dignity in going to sleep because there's a scenario where you don't wake up for no reason because somebody else is bad at their job. Like you should just tap. Should it just tap? The ref should stop it. And this is a dangerous game.

And you shouldn't have idiots working dangerous games. And sadly, it's where we are. And so I was happy that he seems to mostly be okay, which is obviously the best outcome. come. But man, that's, it just sucked all around. There's no good thing about this. Yeah, hopefully is okay. Not really sure. But breaking on the fourth wall, I have something cooking with this whole entire thing. I'm sure some people have done interviews about it, but no one's going to go as in depth with this whole saga as we are. As you'll see and hear over the coming days, the story is-

So we're a great website. Way more layers than I thought. Many roads to take with it. it's absolute insanity. So stay tuned for that over the next several days. But while many hold the California State Athletic Commission as sort of the gold standard for commissions right now with Andy Foster at the helm, is Texas the complete opposite right now, Jed? Can you confidently say this is the worst commission in combat sports right now? I mean, I can't say confidently just because there are a ton of them that we don't know anything about, right? like when was the last time an event was held in Idaho? I know, man.

Like, UFC isn't going to But Montana or whatever all that often. So like there couldn't be boys out there. Hasn't the UFC been to Boise? Wasn't there a UFC Boise not that long ago? Maybe. I mean, it couldn't have been recently because COVID.

So by not longer, you mean like five years ago potentially. But like I don't, I can't recall all of them. 2018. Yeah. Okay. Literally five years ago.

But Texas is certainly at the nexus of being catastrophically bad and frequent. You know, it's just so, I mean, they probably are. It's hard to imagine a commission being much worse, but also it wouldn't shock me if South Dakota. So some other state that just don't go to is terrible. And we just don't know because that doesn't, they have two events a year. for some Midwestern Smoker Show or whatever. But I mean, it's a safe bet. If you're just placing money, they're the odds on favor

to be considered the worst commission. Minus 150 or higher? Oh, much higher than that because people know, because they also have the perception of being so bad. But yeah, I mean, again, I can't say it all the way confidently because they don't, the UFC hasn't gone to every state recently or whatever, and we're not going to get, like, how often is Fury FC or whatever competing in, I don't know, Minnesota? It's, I just don't know.

But I wouldn't feel bad saying it. Like, it's probably not wrong. Well, there you go. So that's that. More on this whole saga coming up on M.Afighting.com. Stay tuned. But another thing happened at UFC, San Antonio, which has caused a little bit of a debate, Jed. I didn't think it would, but it has caused a little bit of a debate.

on heck of a morning and other shows. A very cool announcement during Saturday's broadcast. Donald Seroni, Cowboy, is heading to the UFC Hall of Fame. He's part of this class of 2023, which includes Jens Pulver, Jose Aldo, Anderson Silva, and now Donald Serroney. And most people are very happy about this. I thought the moment was very cool. He was very emotional about it. And it brought his, you know, significant other and his kids out.

I thought it was very, very cool. The highlight package. The UFC does a tremendous job with that stuff. But it is created a little bit of a debate. A lot of people are wondering whether or not the UFC might have gotten this wrong. Is, you know, is Cowboy Seroni a Hall of Famer? You know, obviously he was very important to the UFC, but is he a Hall of Fame fighter? So what was your reaction to this?

Have you noticed a debate that has been going on on social media and other programs as well? I because I honestly with any Hall of Fame induction this is the most you know debate that I've I've seen from the UFC Hall of Fame so outside of like this person should be in why aren't they in what do you think about Soroni getting in have you seen these conversations and debates about it I have not seen any of the debates so interesting my my issue with it I don't really have an issue I think like fundamentally should be one though I agree with Ariel Havani when he says that like it would just be cooler if there was that five year gap like let us miss fighters a little bit in part that's why Jinses felt so special when he does did get announced because there had been a lot of time to internalize that and be like oh man now let's go back and think about Jens pulver and all this and it made it feel more special whereas Anderson and Jose getting into just like okay they recently retired and we all know that they are undeniable first ballot Hall of Famers, but you could let you could let it breathe,

you know, you could decant their Hall of Fame careers if it were. So with Seroni, it's still definitely a lot of that mixed in. There's no reason to have done this so quickly, but it's a little more so. Not because there are other people who deserve it over him, though. I think that that's also true. It just feels very weird. Because doing it, so quickly is like so quickly after his retirement makes it feel to some extent like this guy is a no doubt about it, you know, first ballot in other sports how that would work. He is a first ballot hall of famer, particularly because he's getting inducted with three other people. This one really caught me all the way off guard because I just thought the class was set. We

already had three inductees. That's usually what they're looking at, two to three people making in him per year. And then we've just added a fourth here sort of quickly. And frankly, a fourth that's a little more errant. That is not like there, there's undeniable for Jose Althe, for Anderson Silva, undeniable. Jens Pulver also should be undeniable. It took him far too long to get in there. But we're talking about a former champion and a true legitimate pioneer of the sport and of the lower weight classes, which is really important for, for where MMA got. And you've got Donald Seroni, who I think is a Hall of Fame caliber fighter. I mean, we already did a damn they were good on him when he retired.

It was great. He's unbelievably exciting. He holds a bunch of records in the UFC or partial records in the UFC. But at the end of the day, he never won a belt. He never won a major belt, which is a knock on him. And kind of, to me, should be like, okay, you don't have to get in immediately. you can wait a year or two after the thing just because it's sort of how it feels like.

So ultimately I have no issue with him going in. The timing again feels a little weird, but they, you know, it's all sort of moot. The UFC's just kind of playing this by ear and doing whatever the hell they want. And that's okay. As long as the right people ultimately end up in the hall, then I don't like,

we're really quibbling about stuff that doesn't matter at that point. So congratulations. It was a great moment on Saturday. It was just fun and touching. And maybe that's just all they were looking for was just let's add a little juice to this. We'll get this fun, exciting moment. And I'm sure when they do the speeches, he'll have a fairly cool, fairly interesting one because he's lived a very interesting life and can reflect on that pretty well.

And so it'll be okay. Nothing to get up in arms about. But I can understand being like, that's a little odd. Yeah. And like honestly, the UFC Hall of Fame, like he belongs in there 100%. Like he has meant so much to the promotion. And I think some people are getting it, you know, it's not the same as like an MMA Hall of Fame. Like the WWE Hall of Fame is what it is, but it's not the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Like the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame, there's different names, there's different meanings, there's different things. The WWE Hall of Fame will put in people who meant a lot to the company. And Donald was a integral part of UFC allure. And I think some people are confusing the UFC Hall of Fame with like an overall spectrum of the sport. Like some people look at his record and just be like, well, he's not like a Hall of Fame type of fighter. But for the UFC, he was so important to the company. So like, well, Jason Veritech will never be a, well, he won't be enshrining Cooperstown for being a baseball hallfamer. He sure as hell is going to be in a Red Sox Hall of Fame and probably have his.

number retired at Fenway Park. But that's what this means that that's what I thought of this altogether is like, why is anybody up in arms about this? Because this is a UFC Hall of Fame. And Don Tarone was such an important piece to the company. He was the ultimate, I'll take any fight any time against anybody type of dude. And people loved them. Like I don't understand why there's any quibble about this. But a lot of people kind of confused the UFC Hall of Fame for like the general Sports Hall of Fame, which there is none. There is none of those right now. So the UFC is running this.

This is their thing. And Donald Serony is a no-brainer, Jed, for a UFC Hall of Fame, in my opinion. I do agree with you that maybe it's a little too soon. Even if you waited one more year, I think it would have a little more weight to it. But still, this is a no-brainer for me. UFC Hall of Fame. Don Salon-Sorone is a UFC Hall-Famer without a doubt. Yeah, sure.

I mean, he headlined 11 events for Zufa, right, between WEC and UFC. fought, God knows how many times, like 50 or something. Like, he's, I'm with you. He deserves to be in there. I just, if I were in charge, three seems like a pretty standard class. We're upping it to four for a guy who I think could stand to wait, you know, a year or whatever. And there's, I think he, of the four people, he's under, if I had to cut one, no question silence around.

He's the guy who doesn't make the cut. It's just, but that's sort of the other. of it is there has never been criteria. There has never been a voting body established like you have largely in other sports. It is, I don't actually know how it is made, but if you were to tell me, Dana just picks people, wouldn't shock me at all. Like that could easily be the criteria to be abducted. Is Dana's just like, let's go with these guys.

I like them, sure. And that's, Frank, that's not a terrible way to do it. Like, again, they've mostly got the right people in there. a couple of clear exceptions, but you're going to have that with anything. But it's just there are no criteria. And so this feels a little more odd, particularly when you're just adding another guy in who's clearly a tier below the other three guys that are going in. But again, it's fine. There's no limit to how many people can be in this thing.

The more the mayor here. I would say Donald Seroni deserves it. And so it's totally okay for him to be in there. it does not detract from anybody else's admission into it 100% completely agree with you it is only March so and the ceremony is not until July so are we going to get a fight Jed are we going to get a fight we'll definitely get a fight we'll definitely get to get what are we going to go in what's the fight oh they're they're really bad at picking fights so I mean they are really bad at it so that's the thing I'm not really sure um because I mean we've

basically gotten a fight every year right see we did we got on 13 15 16 18 19 21 and 22 so we haven't gotten them every year a couple of missed years there which is insane because there are so many fights that should go in here um the thing is like right away well no there are two fights that i would obviously say should go in there but they suck at putting fights in like they're like look i'm not here to really throw shade on diego sanchez cleguida it's a fun fight Why is that fight in the Hall of Fame before like 30 other fights? Cubs Watson, Do Ho or Troy? Great fight.

Again, really fun fight. There are 30 other fights that are more meaningful, better, more interesting fights to put in there. Like, they have historically not been super great at it. Hopefully it is one of Robbie Lawlers. Condit will always be my choice. It's the best fight of all time as far as I'm concerned. But I know a ton of people stand for Condon. McDonald 2.

If I'm betting, the UFC would put that fight in over, over Condit Lawler. But my guess is it's not either of those. It'll be, actually, I'll tell you what fight it is. Here's the fight that will be going to be happen. And this ties into the also Donald Seroni thing. It'll be a Joanna and Wiley-Jang. It's one of the five best fights of all time. They don't have any women's fights in the thing.

they probably should. Yawanna retired. Yawana should frankly be inducted into the Hall of Fame before Donald Seroni, but whatever again, not relitigating that point. I would bet if I'm betting for a fight,

that's the one I bet they throw in. Yeah, that's one of them. Do you think they would put Ronda Rousee Liss-Karmouche in there just because of the historical aspect? They should. I mean, that fight should be a thousand percent be inducted in the Hall of Fame,

which I think would make Ronda Rousey the first double inductee. No, Matt Hughes is in there with Frank Trigg. Yeah. Oh, and Coleman's in. So actually there are a couple of double inductees in there. So, but I mean, yeah, that fight would be totally fine. If that's the fight they chose, not the most exciting fight in the world, but arguably the second most meaningful fight in the history of mixed martial arts behind Bonner Griffin won.

So the fight a thousand percent should be in. Congratulations to Cowboy. Well deserved. That's going to be a very interesting watch in July for this holiday. of fame with Aldo and Anderson and Jen's Pulver speech is going to be amazing. I'm sure Cowboy is going to be incredible as well. So this is a no-brainer. So congratulations to Cowboy Soroni.

No UFC this weekend, Jed, but tomorrow, the good old folks at Bellator return to Temecula, California, Bellator 293, the main event, a heavyweighty, heavyweight main event. We got Marcelo Gullm versus Daniel James. We have a nice, tight 15 fights on this card. We did lose one. We lost the Joliel Willis Rustum Kabula fight. We found that out during Wayans today. So 15 fights.

Main event, I think a lot of people would agree, is not stealing a lot of headlines. But to me, the rest of this card is pretty damn solid. If you take out the main event, it's like the complete opposite of UFC San Antonio in a lot of respect. So your thoughts on Bellatour 93, and their return to Temecula tomorrow. We were talking about this in the pre-show,

and sort of it's just been a thing that's been mentioned sort of around the office, the digital offices all week. A lot of people are higher on this card than I am. This card is extremely mid to me, but I can at least understand the arguments. I do not understand the main event. I understand why it exists.

It's a fight between guys. that I think are in Bellator's top 10 rankings. And, you know, it's a fine fight for what it is. There is no reason that Katz, I can find why Katzangano is not headlining this. I guarantee you, look, I don't think you're doing a ton any which way you slice this as far as drawing up interest. There is just no name brand value on this card. If there is any, it is in Kat Zengano.

more to the point. She's building towards something. The winner of Gholm Daniel James is, what are they doing? They're not fighting. They're not about to fight Ryan Bader for the heavyweight title after this. I mean, I guess theoretically they could, but that just doesn't seem like that's in the cards. Whereas Katzangano was theoretically being built to be a title challenger for Chris Cyborg,

to have that fight, which at this point has, how long has she been in Bellator? It feels like that fight was teased three years ago and it still just isn't happening. So I know that Cyborg isn't currently under contract or it's some kind of murky gray area there. But that's the fight you're trying to work towards. So why is this co-headlining? Why is this just not the main event? Just believe in the people you're trying to set it up because you're not getting a huge ratings bump any way it goes. And ultimately this is, these are the sorts of events where Bellator loses the plot because it's not an awful card.

But what this is fundamentally is a Challenger series card. This is, you know, Strike Force, PFL Challenger Series or Dana White Contender Series, like maybe a level up from that. This is Bellator's B offering. But because Bellator doesn't have a structural way to present that, this is, just becomes part of what Bellator is as hey here's our here's our fastball every time we do an event

it's our best go and this is this is what it is man like there's their developmental prospects there are okay fights nobody's tuning in for this that cares too much and this will to me this is always like

this is the biggest hindrance for Bellator they physically do not have enough people to headline events in meaningful ways to do their 18 events a year or whatever. They need more stars, more people with names. And so three or four times a year, you're going to get one of these events. And it's more palatable when it's fell toward Dublin. And everyone just kind of accepts that this is a Dublin card.

We're going to do a Dublin thing here. When you're doing it in Temecula, it just reads poorly to me. So that's kind of where I'm at. Like, if you watch this, I'm sure it won't be awful. Some of the fights are okay. But nobody is building a calendar around this event. Like, got to stay in. Got to watch this one.

Can't watch the final four this weekend. Bellator 2.93 is coming up. And that's just a, it's where they consistently fumble the bag. Because the rest of this year, to say something nice about them, the rest of this year leading up to this moment, their first quarter has been exceptional. Like literally A plus work from them. The fights that they put on, the structure, all of the planning that went into it, great.

The recent announcement, the pit bulls going for a third belt, great. Like all of that stuff has been ideal. But then you just have this one and it kind of puts a downer for certainly for at least this weekend, if not for like your general feeling of Bellator. I just think they should just done an interim title fight with cats and guy. That would be better. That would be way better. I'm not saying strip cyborg because we don't know what's happening.

Like keep the belt on her. I don't have a problem with that. But like, what if Chris doesn't come back? Like, we got to do something to like move this along here somehow. I know there's not a ton of fighters in this division, but you slap a title on here. Like, it's something. You know what I mean? But the rest of the car, I actually like like a lot of this guy.

Belton should do more interim titles because they're fake and they're stupid, but who cares? And at least like maybe you'll trick somebody if you give Marcel Goldman Daniel James's interim belt. Or frankly, they should just do different belts instead of interim belts like we've talked about for years. You can have other belts. You can have an intercontinental heavyweight belt or whatever, something dumb and cool. Like you could have fun with it instead of rolling out this card, which again, is not awful. Like some of these fights are okay,

but it's awful. At the same time, it is not awful in practice, but it is awful on paper. And that's just where they fall short consistently. I do like this card, though. I like the Aaron Jeffrey, John Salter fight.

Aaron Jeffrey could find himself into a title fight if he wins this one. I called Aaron Jeffrey the Chris Curtis of Bellator. How he just needed his chance, and now he's shining. now that he's got his opportunity he doesn't need to qualify or fight. Why are there 15 fights?

Why? That seems entirely unnecessary. Also like Joey Davis, good prospect, can we do something fun with Joey Davis? Give Joey Davis some kind of idiot belt. Who cares? Make one up. Make up a crown.

Like do find other way like that. Again, that's been my criticism of Bellator for years. And it's also criticism of the UFC, but the UFC is playing with house money so they can kind of afford it. Like there are ways to make things that are otherwise uninteresting, interesting. That's literally the purpose of promotion is in fact to sell the idea of watching this to people. And some of these fights like you've pointed out are compelling for reasons, but only if you are deeply in the Bellator game.

Not a soul alive gives a shit about John Salter versus Aaron Jeffrey unless you are a deeply invested in the Bellator title picture. But you can package and present this in other ways that are interesting. And that might make me be like, okay, like, this is a, this is at least something different. Let's, let's see what this is about. Let's try it out. And instead, the same criticism of giving them year after year, they are running the UFC's playbook without the UFC's roster.

And that is a huge flaw in them. I largely think that they are a good promotion. I largely think that they do things well. They don't get out over their skis. That's why they are still relevant year after year after year. But they don't do, they don't have the little extras, the little panache. That could make a card that is otherwise uninteresting for the vast majority of people, something that maybe I got nothing to do.

Maybe on Friday night. This is a Friday card, right? Yes. Yeah, maybe Friday night I got nothing else to do. I'll click over to Showtime and peep in and see what's going on because they have given me something else other than an event headlined by the number 28 and 39 heavyweights in the world or whatever it is. You mentioned the Bellator 297 announcements.

We got Vadim. Holy shit. It's worse than what I said. According to Tapology, we're looking at 35 and 61 in the heavyweight ranking. Well, that's not where these, it's not where Vidim Nemcoff is ranked. He's going to defend against Joel Romero. They've rebooked that one. That fight's awesome.

Patricia Pitbull challenging Sergio Pettis for the Bannamway title. Obviously, there's history on the line here, but as much as people love this fight, people were kind of scratching their heads a little bit because coming up in like three weeks' time, the finale for the Banimay Grand Prix is going to happen between Rafi on the Raffioméhion. Stotz and Patchy Mix. Obviously, the winner will be the interim champion, the million dollar winner, and we'll obviously be fighting the champion next to unify the belt. So people are kind of puzzled why we're booking another title fight when we have a

Grand Prix wrapping up in April. I honestly don't care. Either way, I just think this fight's great. And the winner of Stats and Mix can get the winner of this, and it's going to be a great fight. But what are your thoughts? How surprised are you to see that Sergio has a title defense? It's not against the Grand Prix winner

and that Patricia Pitbull is the guy looking to become a champion in three different divisions for Bellator and Mameh, trying to make some history. I didn't see this one coming, but it's cool. Like this is good matchmaking. I don't give a shit about the Grand Prix stuff. Like this is really good. As an addendum to this, this is also another problem from Bellator.

If you're running a Grand Prix, you need to run that Grand Prix in the year that you're running. it and not have it bleed over into first second quarter of the next year because then it's like, oh, kind of forgot we were even doing the Pan Amway Grand Prix, in part because like the Stott Sabatello felt like it obviously wasn't the final, but they are the two most vocal guys that felt like it could have just been the final. And instead we, there's just been this kind of still dragging on, still waiting to close it down, which they seem to consistently do with these.

and that's a tough scene but who gives a shit because this is a good fight like the Pipple Pettis fight is compelling and interesting and I will tune in to watch that fight and then sure the winner of Stats mix can get the winner of that fight

into a small little four-man tournament basically and it will be great like you should not air promotionally you should not air on the side of well we've got this thing going like just make cool fights and let the rest of rest of it settle out.

Like that should just always sort of be the answer. The UFC, honestly used to do this more. Now they are in this sort of weird thing, but it's like, hey, you know what you should do? Just always make the best,

coolest fights you can right now. And we'll figure out the rest of it later because we should be living in the moment. And this fight's awesome. I'm in tune in. This was honestly the best thing they did the whole, the whole first quarter of this year, which was, again,

a good quarter good things happened and accomplished and were booked and fought and it's like oh i have something to look forward to now not a nebulous grand prix which again the lightweight grand prix is a great idea but it's a little harder to like i look forward to i'm looking forward to too many composite parts this is just like yeah that event's going to be sick i'm super excited to tune in and watch and bell tour needs as many of those as they can as many things that make me say hell yeah let's tune in and watch this that's where belator needs to consistently be pursuing. When I got a great deal on a great gift at Winners, I started wondering, could I get fabulous gifts for everyone on my list? Like this designer fragrance for my daughter. At just $39.99, how could I resist?

This luxurious will throw for my sister? This gold watch for my partner? A wooden puzzle for my niece? Leather gloves for my boss? Ooh, European chocolate for the crossing guard? At these prices, could I find something for everyone at Winners? Stop wondering. Start gifting. Winners. Find Fabulous for less. It's the matchat or the three ensemble Cajodoo Cephora of FACC that I've been to deniches that I'm energize over? Mm, it's the ensemble.

The format standard and mini regrouped, what's good, and it's pretty much to give it. And I know that I'd they'd offer it, but I guard the Summer Fridays

and Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez. I'm, I'm just the best ensemble, the Cadowdo of the Feds CIFRA des RAREDs, WEREBewdy, Way, Cifera Collection, and other, part of VIT. Procurring-Berrouped for

a better quality of price. on CIFAR APSEA or in magazine. That event will be happening in Chicago, Illinois, in June. Looking very much forward to that. But this Saturday, not far from Chicago, in Miliwakei, in Algonquin, which means the good land. Thank you, Wayne's World and Alice Cooper for that tidbit of information. Gamebred Boxing 4 is going down in Milwaukee, big arena.

Obviously, Jorge Mazeldaal's promotion. Roy Jones Jr., versus Anthony Pettis is the main event. We have Vitor Belfort versus Jaceret, a rematch. Jose Alder versus Jeremy Stevens, a rematch. We have other notable names from the MA world. Pearl Gonzalez

fighting Gina Mazani. We have B. Win versus Andy win. Joe Riggs, the great Joe Riggs, who should be fighting Jake Ball right now according to some people. Fighting Marcus Perez and, you know, in some other fights on this card. So this is going

down Saturday. You can watch it ppv.com. You can watch it on you. You could order through UFC Fight Pass. 50 bucks for this. If you go on the website, Ticketmaster, doesn't look like the ticket sales are going great. It seems like a, I don't know, I love the concept. I love it. Love what they're trying to do here, trying to get some fighters paid, giving some different opportunities. Love it. Tough weekend to do it. And tough location, if we're being honest. Like somewhere in Orlando, somewhere near Miami, somewhere in Florida. I just felt like Milwaukee was just such a weird place to host this event.

But hey, I'm not a promoter. Who the hell am I? But where are your excitement levels for this? We're 48 hours away. What are we thinking, Jed? Oh, come on, man. You know, I'm the wrong guy to ask. This is not, this is fine.

I like you. The general idea is interesting, maybe not compelling, but certainly interesting. You got a lot of names to try and grab attention and unclear that they are accomplishing that. But at the end of the day, there are a couple, like, I... It strikes that note where I've never once thought about Roy Jones Jr. boxing Anthony Pettis. So that's interesting because it's at least something

that I had never even conceived of. Is it something I care about, though? And the answer is not really. Roy Jones is really old, but he's a professional boxer, Anthony Pettis is not a great boxer in general was much better at kicking things and that's not going to happen here. He's probably just going to get tuned up.

And if he doesn't, then it won't be cool. It will be sad. If Anthony Pettis wins this, it will just be sad because it's him beating up an old man. That's a tough hang. The co-main event, that's at least more interesting

in the fact that it's, you know, two guys of the same size and the same era. and Jaceret hits really hard, even though he's not really a boxer. Vitor obviously much better in that realm. Again, it's kind of sad either way that fight goes probably. The Jose-Aldo Jeremy Stevens fight,

and really, like, that's actually something that's very interesting and compelling to me, just because their mixed martial arts fight was fun. And Josealdo, you know, liver shot at him out of the cage, and he can totally do that. But Jeremy Stevens is, you know,

better served, I would imagine, in this than in an MMA fight against Josie Aldo. So, fights actually, like, genuinely interesting, and the rest of it's, I don't know. The biggest issue with this event for me, Mike, the reason I probably won't be watching

is because I don't know if you know this, Saturday is a busy day in combat sports. We've got game bread boxing. I mean, just in regular sports, we'll have the final four, which I'll be watching. But more, most importantly, PFL one.

incorrect. Fight circus is back, baby. I cannot tell you who's on PFL's fight car without looking it up right now. But I can tell you that fight circus is back. Pooket, Thailand, doing the thing again. And look, maybe I'm a goon. I might be.

Like, I'm not here to tell you I'm some sophisticated, consumer of fine art. But fight circus has been consistently the most entertaining non-USD organization I've watched and sometimes that even includes the UFC in it and they know how to make look here's Beltor you can't do a lot of this stuff because

you can't for brand reasons and I understand it but Mike have you looked at the lineup for Fight Circus this this weekend? No I was actually going to let you shout it out by the end of this. Let me tell you I have the lineup right here and it's great We're looking at 12 fights. Fights is maybe a loose term for some of the things that are going to be happening. But the main event is obviously the draw.

It's Siamese boxing. If you don't know what Siamese boxing is, it's honestly one of the best things fights. Fight Circus has actually produced two products that I think are legitimately good and entertaining. One of them is the kicking only fights. Human cockfighting is what they call it. Those fights are always electric because it's just really fun to watch people kick the out of each other and the other. Siamese boxing is like instead of doing power slap,

Dana-White should be invested in Siamese boxing because this thing could have real legs. It is you basically put two dudes in a big shirt and they each get to use one arm and they box somebody else doing the same thing. And that is like, that is actually a concept that could be iterated on and built into a real thing because it's hilarious and engaging the few times it's happened. And in this one, they've paired Quentin Rampage Jackson and Bob Sapp up as one half. And they're fighting John Nutt and a dude named Woody,

who also just like works with the two fight circus guys. So one, you're getting to watch Bob Sapp and Quentin Jackson actually physically fist fight their fight promoter. Dana White, you know, once upon a time was talking about maybe fist fighting Tito Ortiz. That never ended up happening. But Bob Sapp and Rampage, they're about to fight. fight John Nutt. In this carnival explosion of whatever it is, it's going to be great because it's always great. They're making fun of the Power Slapp League.

They're doing that. They're doing a musical chairs thing where you get a bunch of people and they play musical chairs. And then the losers have to fight each other, basically, which is a great idea. MMA symmetrical is back two-on-one fighting. So I've got the presser in front of me right now. it's Walter John Veal versus the two people who win musical chairs. So they'll play it out and all the losers will end up fighting each other. And the last two people who get chairs will then fight a two on one fight.

Blindfolded moitai, that's a thing that's about to happen on Saturday. That can't be good for anybody's health. But I will watch that like a train wreck for sure. The Wheel of Violence, which we've talked about a bunch of, just in general as being a good idea of just spinning a wheel and then competing under whatever the rule sets are there. The human pinata, which I don't really understand what it is. But the pitch is basically Steve Panda Banks, who's a fight circus, a legend, legend of the circus,

Panda Banks is fighting six dudes. I'm not sure if they're all at once or how it goes, and there will be some other things, but you got that. it's just it's the best goonish entertainment this sport can offer and i'm a firm believer that the roots of mb may are in carnival side so shite so shit and that we get a little too serious about things at points in time and it fight circus is a lot of it's awful i'm not here to tell you that it's all winners but it's all fantastic even when it's terrible and so a thousand percent if i'm picking one of these things to watch.

Also, Fight Circus costs like five bucks on Fight TV. I do not know what the pay-per-view for Mostval Boxing is, but I cannot imagine it's... Yeah, if I got to choose between 50 bucks for Game Red Boxing or five bucks on Fight TV for Fight Circus, I know exactly which one of those I'm buying. Yeah, that's...

Well said. Yeah, it's a tough weekend. Final Four, we got... Yep, PFL. We got Fight circus. We got WrestleMania. There's just so much going on. They do that on, they do that Saturday night now too, don't they? Mania? Yeah, it's both nights, Saturday and Sunday.

Yeah. Jeez. I mean, yeah. You picked a really tough. Picked a really bad weekend for this, Jorge. And can we talk about that? We didn't, we didn't, we never talk about this, Mike. We never talked about this on air. Come on. Come on. Come on. You're not even going to show up to your own event. You're not even going to show up to your own event. You're not even going to show up to your own event when he told ariel that he was not going to be in milwaukee for game bro boxing i was like i don't i don't know what we're doing here man like you gotta you gotta show up for your oh i know you have a fight frankly you shouldn't have picked this weekend anyway based on all the stuff

we just said you're competing against and it being a week before your fight so you can't even go if if you aren't willing to go to the fight that you're promoting why should i that's my question. That is, it's a tough. That was a tough, tough, tough scene to hear him say that. From what I hear, there will be sort of like a live, I don't know if it's like a watch-along, but like a live chat option during the pay-per-view and Mazadol will be on the broadcast talking about it. So at least he will be there as part of the broadcast in some way. But yeah, I thought that was. So you got to go and sign autographs and get people in the door.

I did is tough scene. I will say, I will say, I don't think there's anybody better than him when it comes to that. Because I've obviously covered some of the icon cards that were in Savannah. Mazdal is, I mean, he is the best when it comes to that. He will stand there and literally talk to every single person in that building and sign all their stuff and take pictures of everybody. There's 3,000 people there. He will sit and wait and talk to all 3,000 of them. It's pretty cool.

And that's perfect. And like that's where you need if you're trying to build something. And that's kind of my overarching thought about Game Boy boxing is like the icon stuff seems to be going well. Like he, from everything I've heard that he is successful with it and kind of advancing that and where he wants to go. And this is a huge swing. And it's honestly my biggest takeaway from this is I hope that this is frankly an overswing. he is out over his skis at this point in time. Like there's no way that this thing makes money.

I just cannot imagine it possibly could. My great hope is that this is not an affliction style event where you're trying to make so much noise that you forget best practices. And when it fails, then you just recede from it and don't do it. Because I do think largely the idea, the concept of doing something like this is good and we need it. But we have just seen historically people

take this exact path forward and it has never once succeeded. And I don't think it's going to work here. And I just go back to building from the ground up. That's just a way better way to go about this stuff. Yeah. That was one of my whole things is like, look, you got to start somewhere. And even if, you know, the numbers aren't what you are hoping they will be, you can't stop. Because I think they have something with the concept. And I think the initial announcement got some buzz and attention. But yeah, it's just a tough weekend. You'll learn from it. I think 50 bucks is a little too much. I mean, the PFL pay review is 50 bucks and we were we were ragging on that.

I think 50's a little too high. Cut that in half. I think you'd be a little somewhere with it. I mean, the BKFC card, the BKFC card coming up in April is 50 bucks too. That's where I wanted to go. Let me ask you this, Mike, because this is sort of another angle I thought of this. Is BKFC, it feels like this is BKFC's lane. It's obviously a little bit different because it's bare knuckle, but a lot of what they have done

has been to captivate draw eyeballs, draw interest with a different thing. Bear knuckle is different, but using people that you know, et cetera. Do you think that game bread boxing can have a similar success to that? Or do you think that, because I'm not sure, kind of feels like honestly bare knuckle is enough of a twist and also like a macabre captivation, that that will just inherently draw more eyeballs than let's just put boxing match on with some MMA fighters, which I'm not sure. I still don't know how much leeway this has. It's interesting because, I mean, BKFC, what's so compelling about BKFC is that, one, the events

are super fun to watch, two, they go by so quickly. And three, they know who they are and they like go all in on it. and like they they know how people do that. They're very well-run promotion. They are a very well-run promotion. They know what they're doing. They know what they're doing. But also, on top of that,

they have had plenty of time to put on these massive, do you remember when the Artem Lobov-Poly Malaggy fight happened? That was like, that's it. This is the peak. It's never going to get better than this for BKFC. This is the beginning of the end. They're going to start to plummet downhill. And here they are all these years later.

And it's like they've made mistakes. they've been able to learn from those mistakes. And then they just have accepted who they are and how people view them. And they just do that. They just go all in on it. Now, I do think there is a place for Gamebred boxing because like a lot of these fighters who want a box

like don't necessarily want to go to BKFC. They don't want to go in there. But sometimes they're just throwing out this incredible amount of money. And you're just like, well, how can I possibly say no to this? So at least they're creating a different alternative where if you don't want to do MMA but still go into boxing, you potentially have somewhere to go.

And this is a compelling idea. My one fear is not BKFC. My fear is if Dana White goes through with this boxing thing, because this is what it's going to look like. If Dana sees this and he's like, all right, you know, this is pretty cool. And he jumps on a similar concept of doing MMA fighters, past and present boxing each other.

And they put that promotional buzz behind it and that promotional team behind it, what does that do for this idea of gamer boxing? Now, it is on UFC FightPass and maybe those two calamities can work together someday. Maybe that could happen. But that was like one of my things is like, well, this thing goes really well. Like what's to stop Dana from being like, well, we've been talking about Zufa boxing for six years. I guess he recently did something saying like a year, two years, three years, I'm going to try to do something.

What's to stop Dana from being like, oh, I like this concept, but I'm going to take this and do it better. and put my entire UFC promotional team behind it. So I don't know, maybe I have no idea how this is going to go. Power slap. He decided to pivot resources to power slap instead of making a boxing product. Maybe he'll pivot back. I don't know. I mean, he's all in now.

But I don't know. I think there's something to this. It's just a matter of this is going to be a big time learning experience. Like how big of a building can we do this in? When can we do it? how is scheduling going to work Milwaukee doesn't seem to be the type of city to do this in.

Should we be more Florida based? Should we do this? Is the price point too high? Are the arena is too big to host it? Like this is going to be a very important event for them. Not just because of the dollars in the sense that it makes. It's what they take away from it so that they can improve upon the next one.

And because I think the name values, I mean, the name value is really good. Like even some of the undercard fights, There are known fighters who are, and shout out to the fighters. They are promoting the shit out of this card on their social media. I can't go anywhere on any social media without Pearl Gonzalez or B-Winn or any of the other uncarb fighters just promoting this everywhere on social media.

So they are doing a good job doing that. This is going to be a very pivotal learning experience for them. Like if this doesn't go as well as it's, I don't think they're going to make a lot of money, like you said. I just think it's a really tough weekend for it to happen. a week away from the UFC pay-per-view. We got all these other sporting events happening. Like they could have waited two weeks and done this.

They could have done it April 15th. I know you get the Holloway Allen card, but at least that's an option and that's there. Yeah, it would have been. And then you get two apex cards coming up. Yeah. And then you get two apex cards coming up on the 22nd and the 29th. I know you're dealing with BKFC with one of those dates,

but yeah, I think they're going to take, hopefully they could take lessons from this and continue on and not just do a one done with this type of process. And this is going to be a pivotal weekend for them. I don't think they're going to sell it to building. I don't think they're going to sell a ton of paper views here at that price point. But hopefully they can create enough buzz so that, because I mean, I'm going to be watching

and I'm going to be covering it. So, and I'm, I'm excited to watch it. Like, that's my role for Saturday. And I'm, I'm excited to do so. But not everybody is going to be, not everyone's covering that event. So what's to say, you know what? I'm going to drop 50 bucks on this when I can watch the final. 4 for free or I can watch

Fight Circus for 5 bucks or watch the PFL card on ESBM Plus or wherever that's going to be broadcast. So yeah, it's just or WrestleMania for 5 bucks. You can spend five bucks to get both nights at WrestleMania. So it's just a tough weekend. It's a tough location. The price points a little high, but

again, this is something they can learn from. I do like the concept and I don't think BKFC is like really competition for them. I mean, maybe in some ways, but I think BKFC is just kind of on like they are their own thing right now and game bread boxing

can kind of be their own thing if they can keep things where there's a lot of MMA related competitors and known in that space boxing against each other but we'll see last question loosely related why

why doesn't he just change icon to game bread MMA it feels like that's just the move forward here because that that just has to be better, right? Like, and then this shouldn't just be part of an entire promotional organization instead of GameBart boxing's over here, icon FCs over here. Feels like it would be better for him to have this all unified and like maybe you do some MMA fights and some boxing

fights and then you can do MMA in a ring which God knows Casey loves and so do a very ardent section of MMA fans. So it feels like we should just do this. Am I crazy? Well, he has a GameBred FC It's the bare knuckle The Bear Knuckle MMA league that he does So that's already there But ICON has his name attached It's not it's not ICON FC

It's Jorge Mazadol's ICONFSI So the branding is still there But yeah, I don't know what's going on With GameBrette FC honestly I don't remember GameBred FC at all So that shows you where I'm at On this particular topic I guess But I mean

Look it gets fighters operations And I'm all down for that. And hopefully they're making great money. And they want to do it again. They're treated so well that they want to come back and do it again. And by all accounts, people I've spoken to, they do a good job with that. So yeah, I don't think this is going to be a box office success by any stretch of the imagination. But you got to start somewhere.

And it's going to start for them on Saturday, April 1st, with Gamebred Boxing 4. And let's see how this all plays out. So I think we're done, Jed. Is there anything else you want to say? I mean, you wax poetically on on fight circus, but I would love to hear if you have any more thoughts about anything. I need to correct. It's actually $10 for the standalone pay-per-view on fight.tv.

If you're already like a fight person, I think it's like $8 because that's a like subscription thing. So it's $10, which is still $10. And I'm for sure giving that same money. I own a Fight Circus T-shirt, so I'm obviously going to give them $10. to watch old school MMA, Mike. I didn't even mention it.

One of the first fights is a single 10 minute MMA round. They're bringing it back to the roots, baby. It's going to be great time. You should watch Fight Circus this weekend, guys. They don't pay me to say this. I just genuinely love their product because it's insane

and the sport needs more insane things. Is it NHB or is it gloves? Like normal rules out? I don't know. I'm going to assume that it's gloves, but also I don't know rules it could be anything Mike is there's not a commission that's really spin the wheel baby spin that wheel they're doing blindfolded moitai I'm not sure that anybody is actually checking to make sure that everything's on the up and up here like it's we're just going

and we're hanging and it's this is the promotion that if you and your buddies got drunk one night and we're like we should make a fight promotion and then you woke up and like followed through. That's where fight circus is and it's delightful. Oh, man. Well, I mean, with that said,

there's not much more we can add to that to put the show over the top. I think we've, we're out of the red zone. We've crossed the threshold. Touchdown BTL.

We've gotten it done. We're on the board. And next week, we will recap all this action and we will get you ready for UFC 287. Their promotions returned to Miami, Florida,

first time in pretty much two decades. that they're back in Miami. We got Adasania versus, or excuse me, Pereira versus Adasania for the middleweight title. We got Burns versus Mazadol. We will have a watch party.

Connor Birx, shout out to G.C. He sent me over the cold open video for UFC 287 that I need to voice over for the watch party. This is going to be, I'm going to say it. This will be the greatest cold open

in MMA history. I mean, it's, it is so good. I had goosebumps this morning when I watched it. I'm like, I cannot wait to voice this thing over on Friday. So get ready for that. We'll get you ready for UFC 287. I'm going to try to get a special guest on a fan favorite of BTL for next week's show.

We're in discussions. We'll see if we can make it happen. Hopefully we'll have more on this Fury FC situation. There's a lot happening behind the scenes here. So hopefully by the time we're back here, we can talk about that a little bit more. And then it's time to see if Jorge, Mazdaal can put a wrinkle into Dana White's plans. Let's see if Israel Adasani can get his title back.

That 287 main card is friggin awesome. That whole card is pretty damn good. So looking forward to that. Yes. Casey, you could hit the music. We are done. We will have a weekend preview show coming up in a little while, 3 p.m. Eastern.

And we'll just talk about all about this weekend. We'll probably take a lot of fan questions too because there's so much going on. We'll see where your interests are peaked. So for Jed Mishu, Casey on the Ons and twos, I am Mike Eck. Thank you very much. Back next week on BTL. Good night, everybody. Love y'all.

Between the Links, an M.mary fighting production on the Vox Media Network. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.