MMA Fighting - BTL | Topuria vs. Gaethje Headlines UFC White House, Dana White vs. Jon Jones, Rousey vs. Carano

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

After months and months of speculation, the UFC White House card was finally announced, and in the main event, Ilia Topuria battles Justin Gaethje in lightweight championship unification bout. In the co-main event, Alex Pereira and Ciryl Gane fight for the interim heavyweight title. After a mixed bag reaction, how does the card stack up overall? On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel reacts to the White House lineup that was announced during the UFC 326 broadcast, the two title fights, what was missing, and what was surprising. Additionally, topics may include the ongoing Jon Jones vs. Dana White saga after Jones was snubbed of a White House spot, the Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano press conference, Francis Ngannou being added to the card after his release from PFL, Charles Oliveira dominating Max Holloway and the future of the BMF title, Colby Covington vs. Dillon Danis added to RAF 7, and much more. Join MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew as they answer your questions all show long. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@m_heckjr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@JedKMeshew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. The main fighting studios, this is between the links. And now your host, my... The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of BTL. Happy Thursday to us all. And man, do we have a lot to talk about this week on the program. Of course, UFC 326 is in the books. I doubt we're going to talk about.

that very much if we're being honest because that was an event that transpired and if you go to Wikipedia or tapology you will see that UFC 326 officially happened this past Saturday and that's kind of the end of it but the big news coming out of UFC 326 was finally the UFC White House card was announced it has been met with mixed reviews to say the least we have Dana White versus John Jones we have the ronda rousey Gina Carrano press conference Francis and Ganu is fighting on that MVP MMA card. There's just so much going on. And joining me to talk about that and much, much, much more

is Mr. No Gray Area, the hot take kid himself, the one and only Jed Bishu from MAAfighting.com with a blank whiteboard, maybe for the first time since the whiteboard came into existence. Jed, how we doing? I forgot to put anything on it. And then I got distracted because I realized, Mike, while you are running the show here,

I have all these powers. And at any point, I can click this in-stream button and just throw the world to chaos. Drunk with power. I have no idea we're going to talk about, but I suspect, like you, it's not going to be UFC 326. So let's have fun, you know, mixed up, whatever you guys want to chat about. Let's do it. I think it is super important that we discuss something that happened recently. Yes.

High Brazil, Jedmishu, might be the event of 20. 26. I can't even really put it into words what I watched last night, but all I know is I had a great time doing it. It has been a very long week for me. Jose is on vacation. Some balancing a whole bunch of stuff. So there was a there's a part of me deep down. I'll be honest with the world. I was just like, man, I kind of just want to like not work tonight and get some rest. And then I started watching hype Brazil and I was like, oh my God, I'm so glad I got put on this duty. Volter Walker might be the promoter of the year. Hight fighting might be the promotion of the year and hype Brazil might be the event of the year because this is the most insane thing I ever

watched. It was capped up by Armand Sarukin, just Hassan Maham Mahmahev, which I don't think is really surprised. Anybody choked him unconscious. He's multiple weight classes bigger than Muhammad Kyaev, and it certainly looked that way inside that ring. But we had impromptu bare-knuckle fights between fans. We had grappling matches turn into brawls, stemming from the press conference the day before, and Walter Walker was literally in the ring commentating, even canceling a fight and saying,

you're not getting paid because this fight's terrible. I'll give you one more chance. And then poor Hudson-Barboza gets put in a position where he's grappling. He's doing what he wanted. He just did what everyone is. Jed, I had so much fun watching this. Something tells me you had a blast watching it, too. Give us your thoughts.

on hype Brazil. I had a good time. I mean, this was not, you know, dog fight wild or the peaks of fight circus, but we're in the same genre

of promotion. I mean, it was really, for a lot of it, it just felt like Walter Walker was just freestyling, just whatever. He was like,

oh, okay, he just randomly hopped in the middle of the fight and was like, this is terrible. I'm going to cancel it and not pay any of you

if you don't do better. and that was like the most sane thing he did of the evening. At one, he repeatedly announced that the fight that turned in, that the submission grappling match that turned into a fight, which was hysterical, by the way, a dude repeatedly tried to like a flying drop kick in a submission grappling match ostensibly. He appears like his fights to know a contest, we're canceling it. And then is everybody just stayed in the rain?

he was like, yeah, okay, maybe we'll go. What if we'll promise me that you guys won't do it immediately things get off the rails again. He's like, oh, don't do it. Robin Black, who I normally am just not a big fan of, was not that bad last night, in my opinion, because he mostly was just like didn't know what was going on at any point. He's like, well, they're not supposed to be fighting, but they are. But now they've shaken hands, so maybe they'll stop. I don't really know what, like he was so.

clearly taken aback by what was happening, that it was awesome. Volta Valker was doing the whole thing in English, which is a little weird because, you know, it's a fight in Brazil. And he doesn't like, he has way better Portuguese than I have, than I do,

or his way better English than I have Portuguese. But like, he couldn't say unanimous, which was hysterically funny. By umanimous, um, unamus, like he just kept not saying unanimous,

which was deeply funny. And because he's not like a ring announcer, he kept reading the scores as they were on the card and not traditionally, you know, by unanimous decision 30, 27, 30, 27, 30, 27. It was by ominous decision, uh, hefe 1, 26, 29, hefe 2, 28, 29. And then judge 3, it was just like,

Dude, it was. And then, yeah, the Edson-Mobosa thing, you were just like, all right, let's keep going. Edson's like, dude, no. I got off the couch yesterday to do this. No. He's like, come on, Edson. Come on. It's, come on.

It's fine. It was just the most ludicrous thing that has happened all year. Oh, it was unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yeah, if you guys, I think they're doing another one, April 8th, I believe, in South Paulo. So they're doing another high Brazil event. I highly recommend. And even if this is on pay-per-view and I know people are like,

I can't believe it to watch this for 30 bucks. You should absolutely spend the money. It was worth it. It was the most fun event of the year so far. I know it's only March, but it was by far, it was a million times more fun than any UFC card this year. It was,

I mean, it's certainly not to everyone's taste, but I had a good time, especially because I had no idea what to anticipate. Honestly, one of my big takeaways was like, it's really good that we didn't have the, Armin Poulis matchup at the top of this because like they barely had control of this thing anyway.

And that would have just been Armand hurting that dude. Because it's not like the the ref straight up had to tackle the one guy in the Luterbach grappling match because he kept jumping and he did it again. And the dude just hit him with like a snatch double while he was in the air. I don't think that the pool this fight would have gone very well because Army would have probably just hurt that dude. So it was a carnival side show. But honestly, we could use a, you know,

I don't want that every weekend, but it was a nice, nice change of pace given everything that happened the weekend before. It was funny because at the beginning when Walter Walker's ring announcing and then just doing everything, I'm like, oh, I don't know. And then by the third match, I was like, this rocks. This is just the best.

So yes, shout out to hype fighting. Shout out to our own gear. My crews who's in the building for that. And he's covered a lot of events in Brazil. And he said it was the craziest event he's ever covered in like 15 years of being boots on the ground. Guy ended up tweeting it. But when he sent us a picture to Slack of just like two dudes standing behind him, he's ringside. He's just like, there's two dudes in Walter Walker.

And he's like, Walter's trying to get these two dudes to fight. And one guy's like, let's do it for the beer. I was just like, okay, so this is a special evening we've got going on at this point. Yes, absolutely. So shout out to hype. Very much looking forward to April 8th. We'll see what that card looks like. Perhaps we get Armin Sarugin versus Dylan Danis on that card.

Dylan accepted the callout. And then Armin. I mean, that makes sense if I'm Dylan Dennis. I would in fact accept that call out. Yeah. And then Armin called out Charles Olivera for a UFC fight. So I like that too. He also like kind of called him out for a hype fight because.

Again, Walter Walker's not very good ring announcer. And so, like, Armin makes his initial statement. And he's like, man, look, you keep you're doing great. And he's like, yeah, I'm going to be the UCLA champion, be the BMF champion. I'd like to fight Dylan Dennis here in hype or I'd like to fight Charles Olivera. And then Volter's next question is, all right. So who do you want to call out as if he didn't hear a thing that Armantzuki just said? No, because what do you said?

Because I actually listened to it a little while ago. because we pulled the clip back up, is he, Armin said he wants to go against Dennis, but Volter actually asks him, who do you want to fight in the UFC? Oh, does he say in the UFC? Okay.

UFC. Who do you want to fight in UFC? And he's like, yeah, what to fight Charles Oliver? I was like, love that idea. I mean, that's a very stupid idea because he should be trying to fight for the belt, but sure, whatever, who cares?

Yeah, I mean, maybe the best you can get right now. But all right, let's go to you guys. Let's go to the peep shot to the Twitchers as well. Here we go. coming in hot with the super chat. Thoughts on Ilya telling Justin it will be quick. When you wake up, everything will already be over.

This can't be a good idea to have an American get sacrificed on the South lawn. So unless you're living under a rock, you guys are well aware that the main event for UFC White House is Justin Gagee, challenging Iliott's Aporia. It's the interim champ challenging the unspeated champ in a unification bout.

And Iliotipiore is already like a minus 14 billion favorite in this fight. It's a fight. It was not the first choice for the UFC, as has been reported. And now that it's kind of out there, I can tell you that the initial idea was Elite Tuporia versus Islamakachev. That's what everybody sort of put out on the table. Islam was injured, so the fight couldn't go down. And now we get Illiates Poria versus Justin G. instead.

What's the... So, funny story about that, Mike. I'm not debating that that may is very likely true. But, you know, Ilya comes out with this whole, ah, Islam has ducked me again, faking an injury,

which is a silly and stupid thing anyway, because the first time he ducked him was to go in the welterweight belt, so that's very stupid. By the way, something Ilya said he was going to do as well. Yeah, very very stupid.

Made, made hilariously stupider this morning by Ilya's own manager Malki Kawa, who I don't know who he was doing this with, but I think it was the Anaciflorian pod. It is the Anaclorean pod. He said, pulled it up. And here's, here's some words from Malki Kawa, functionally making his client look either

like a liar or very dumb. We were focused on getting an Islam fight. Then on Wednesday, I was asked, what you guys want to do, Islam are gay cheap? We said Islam. They gave us a number, and we said, no, absolutely not. And after that, we didn't hear anything. So Malky's out here being like they offered us Islam and we said no because they didn't pay us. So it's just like this whole thing is a cluster man.

And like just stop tweeting, Ilya, just stop tweeting, man. You don't have to. Islam wasn't fighting. And from what I was told what Malki said ostensibly is accurate. They basically do you want Ilya or do you want justice or Islam? And they said, Islam, okay. And then apparently Malki's adding that there's a number of three. thrown out and conversation didn't go any further.

And I think even if they didn't throw a number out, I don't think conversation would have gone much further because his Lamaikchev wouldn't have been able to fight on June 14th because he's injured. So Ilya puts out this big tweet about all of this. It's incredible. Takes a shot at Ali. And then he basically says, Justin, I'm going to clobber you. It'll be over quick.

And when you wake up, I'm going to be standing over you. Thoughts on this being the main event. and how the reaction will be if this is how UFC White House ends. I'd be fine. Because, you know, like, this isn't really an America. I mean, it's, they're labeling it freedom 250, which is just so gauche.

Like, oh, my goodness. Especially when data's out here being like, we're not a political organization. And you could not like my politics. We can be friends. Like, okay, maybe. don't do a card on the White House lawn and call it Freedom 250, weirdo. But, like, ultimately, most people tuning in are not tuning in because rah, ra,

America, they're either going to tune in because it's such an absurd thing to have fights at the White House lawn or they're tuning in because they want to watch MMA fights. And so, like, some people will watch this and be like, that's a shame. But most people watching will anticipate Ilya winning anyway. And so it's like, whatever. and on the off chance, or Ilya loses and Gaichi pulls it off. One, I'll never stop laughing.

I'll just never stop laughing. It will be the funniest thing that's happened since Sean Strickland beat Izzy Od disney. But two, like that'll be just this uniquely fantastic story. And then everybody will come around and be like, actually, it was great to put Gaichi because look at how triumphant and awesome this was. Again, I do not have any expectation that that will happen. but, you know, maybe they'll poison Ily the night before and he'll fight bad.

I don't know. Like, it's not going to happen. But if it does, on the off chance it happens, it would be unique and special. And if Ilya wins, you know, the guy they're positioning to be the next biggest star in the promotion is gets a win in the most visible card, you know, of the year and probably of all time. So, you know, I think it's fine in that. And I have no issue with Ilya's comments towards Ghaichi. Like that's a pretty badass cool line to say like, hell yeah, go for that.

My issue is when he talks about Islam as if Islam's a punk or whatever. And Islam has just done everything he's done. So you just seem like a fucking dumbass. Also, my issue with this fight is primarily that it's stupid. Because everyone in the world at this point knows that Ilya needs to fight Armand Serukian. That is the fight. and we're never going to get that fight,

and I hate that a whole lot. Amen. Testify. All right. Thank you, Masters. Appreciate that. Yes, UFC 326 was a card that happened. Joseph Bose,

the other day, AMA fighting confirmed that April 25th, Aljo versus Yusuf Solal, is the main event. Can we get their early thoughts on that? Is that a title eliminator? So, yes, we confirmed this last night. shout out to Leo Walker who is first to report this that fight is happening that is the new main event

for April 25th the original main event was Sean Brady versus Joaquin Buckley we haven't fully confirmed this but it appears that that fight is being moved to UFC 328 in Newark a couple of weeks later so not fully confirmed but that seems to be the plan for that fight that is why Aljo versus Alal is now the new main event so thoughts on the matchup

Jed, Al Jemaine Sterling looked me in the face a couple of weeks ago in Phoenix, Arizona, backstage after his R-A-F win, and went bananas about not getting a fight, wants a fight, and now he gets one. He gets a main event spot at the world's most famous meta-Apex against Yusuf Salal, who was won eight in a row. Not to mention, a month prior, next week, as a matter of fact, we have Lorone Murphy versus Mbzharv. That is 100% of number one contender fight.

and then a month later we have this fight. Oh, okay. You don't believe that that is a number one contender fight. I think if Laurel Murphy wins, it's the number one contender fight. I think if Mobsar of wins, Alja versus Lowe might be the number one contenders. They hate Mobsar. They just straight up hate his ass.

And they are going to do whatever they can to not give him a title fight. And the truth is they just don't have to. Like, this is everything that this year has happened should show. you prove positive Mofsar's not fighting for the belt. They are trying to have him lose to Lerle Murphy. Should he win, unless it's the coolest win of all time,

they are, I will bet you a substantial sum of money that the winner of Aljo versus Zalal gets it unless that that dude gets hurt or that fight sucks horribly. In which case, they'll just run John Silva in there. They're just not going to have Mavsar fight for the belt at this point. which is like a genuine crying shame

but that's this is the UFC now it has nothing to do with merit anymore it is who they like who they think people will respond to it has no bearing on what is deserved I know this because apparently

they tried to book Ilya versus Islam which is and would be the most ludicrous title fight of all time like they don't they do not care at all anymore. And so it doesn't matter if Moffsar wins 30 in a row. I think he's got two on his contract unless he's re-signed since then. If he beats Murphy, he's going to fight random dude. And if he loses to Murphy, I might just cut his ass. Like this time next year,

I very, very strongly doubt Moffsar of Love is in this promotion. We will see. I don't know if I necessarily agree with that, but hey, he's just got to make it to the fight. If he has a good performance, I mean, this is the fight Volk wants, and they like Volk. So, but again, they low- Vogue-Volk-Wordered it last time, and they gave him Lopez again. Yeah, which is crazy. Still crazy. But I digress.

Joe Medina, who would you all favor in the hypothetical fight between RICO versus Francis? Yes, at the press conference, the Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carrano press conference, Francis Ngano, who's now fighting Philippe Lins on that card, shared that the original idea was they were going to do RICO Verhovan and then Rico obviously went to boxing and he's boxing Alexander Usik and making a whole big bag of money to do that and he probably would have made good money doing this too probably more way more than the UFC was offering him but the Usik deal he probably made a lot more

because good old Turkey's involved so if this fight had been made and this was the co-main event to Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carrano Jed I have my answer who would you have favored Francis versus Rico uh uh I mean, you got to favor Francis if it's an MMA fight, obviously. I mean, he could knock out Rico. He could also just tackle him like he did to Cyril Gond. But I am at least heartened to hear that that was the original idea, because that is a way better idea than Philippa Lins.

And you could hear Francis, like, you could hear it in his voice. He's like, this was the best of the other options. Because, like, yeah, the Verhoeven fight would have immediately, people would have been like, I'm pretty interesting. But shout out to Rico the Ucic fight good for him. I don't know how they decided Felipe Linz was the next best option because that just can't be true. But at least this wasn't like plan A. So I guess I feel some level of good about that.

But yeah, I mean, honestly, I like that matchup. I think that we will get it because Francis is never coming back to the UFC. You know, he's getting older. but if he wants to keep fighting, they're just aren't that many available for him, especially outside of the PFL at this point. There are a few. And I kind of think he's about to enter that Fador stage of his career

where he's just like, all right, I'll go fight here. And maybe I'll go to KSW and fight Phil de Freeze and just do a couple of those before he cashes out. So I think the RICO fight is very much still in play, either for later this year or maybe early. next. Yeah. And obviously this event will kind of lay out how many more events MVP will do an MMA and Netflix will do for MMA. So I assume that this is, uh, I assume this won't be a one-off because I think a lot of people are going to watch this. The UFC is apparently counter-programming

with an apex card. So that's good. Good on them. The reported fight is Malky Costa versus Arnold Allen. We have not confirmed that. It's not on our website. So that's really, all you need to hear from us. That is some counter-programming they've done. But, yeah. Would you like to watch a worse streaming service and fighters you don't know? Or would you like to watch fighters you do know

on the best streaming service in the world? Pretty tough, tough to say. So like 60,000 people watch the UFC and about 17 million will watch Ronda Rousey and Gina Crono. Sean, thank you. Any thoughts on Risen? Caught my first live event this weekend. spent the whole time thinking that's how mMA should be done rip my goat patchy mix

risin's always a good time it's just you got to you got to rest your body appropriately to wake up and and watch fighting till seven in the morning but yeah when you watch it it's it's fantastic the single biggest issue with risin is the ability to watch it it is just not easy to watch here um you know you if they had some american broadcast partner instead of having to buy everyone as a pay-per-view they would have much more western interest i don't particularly think they do doesn't seem like they care about that because i mean this is not a new thing for them um they have a foothold uh on that side of the world and they do quite well from what i hear and so good for them but yes like that is risin octagon ksw

These are the best promotions in MMA right now. I don't really even think it's arguable as far as putting on an experience that is broadly enjoyable. The UFC has really take, they have all the best fighters or a vast majority of the best fighters. But their product is, it is flaccid right now. So, yeah, like watch Verizon, watch Octagon, watch KSW. these are the people doing sort of the best promotional work in the space at the moment. And trying. Like they're trying.

And that's all we ask for in our MA is promoters and organizations that try. And it's not just about making money and all of that. So Joseph loves this topic. The James Lynch, Armin Sarukian saga. The other day, James Lynch did a video saying that Armand should take an MMA fight only. He said, if you think that Armand got a title shot based off Avaria, you're wrong. Dana is right.

thoughts on that. I will... It's silly. I mean, it's not that I like completely disagree with this take. I do. But here's the thing. If I'll, if I'mauporia, and I think he's going to just dust out Justin Gaghi, Armistarukis is going to fight for the belt next.

There's going to be a vacant title. It's going to be Charles Oliver versus Armand Sarukian. Like that is going to be the fight for the vacant lightweight belt if Iliot Teporia knocks out Justin Gachi. Many of us assume that he will. So, yeah, I mean, look, the UFC's not booking him. what do you expect him to do? Sit on the sidelines and do nothing.

Dude just out there grappling and making a bag every single weekend. You got to make that money. You got to do something. If the promotion is not going to book you for fights, do something. He dude wants to compete. So there is nothing, honestly, like there is, there is no bigger thing that happened for us in terms of traffic and viewership.

Nothing bigger in 20206, thus far, than anything Armand Sarukin and Georgiopoulos, did not just at RAF 6 for the brawl, but even before that. Anything Armand touches is massive right now. It's absolutely massive. So this is just enhancing his brand. And if he doesn't fight, he's making tons of money doing all the side stuff. RIF's got money to spend.

Hype apparently has a ton of money to spend. Their owner, whoever their promoter is, so they're saying they were going to pay Georgia $2.6 billion due that submission-only grappling match. So, yeah, I don't think this affects. again, I said this, I say this all the time. This does not affect the way the UFC looks at him. Could Dana White go to a press conference and be like,

yeah, I have an issue with Arm and it's not just because of this. Sure, because Dana has an issue with frigging everybody on the roster. So that should be of no surprise. But to say that him competing for RAF or hype Brazil is hurting him in this conversation is ludicrous. It's absolutely insane. Yeah, I couldn't disagree more strongly with James Lynch on this one. Um,

Armand Syrucan is the most popular he has ever been. Popularity is all that matters in this sport for the UFC at this point in time. He didn't get popular because he fought once an MMA last year. Him beating Dan Hooker is like the least popular thing he did last year. It, he should continue to fight, right? Like that is helpful.

He should not exclusively do side quests. But the reason he is, over right now is because he grappled five times last year and because he has done two wrestling events and a grappling event this year already. We say it all the time. The way you be a star is to be in everybody's face all the time. Armin has internalized that better than just about anybody. He is competing roughly once a month, once every two months. He is just in the news for things other than saying something stupid or whatever. Like this is outside of getting paid.

If he was getting paid nothing for these appearances, this would still be a net positive for him because the currency that matters for the UFC is that people like you and people know you. And if he had, you know, if he missed out at 3-11 because of the back injury weight mismanagement, right? And then fought again in November or whenever it was,

he fought hooker. It was a backup fighter and made weight. Yeah, like, but if all he was was the backup fighter, he's not okay, he's the backup fighter, but he hasn't competed, he hasn't done anything other than weigh in. So that's, all right, we saw him twice last year, but that's not what he did. He competed five times plus an MMA fight last year. He fought six times last year in various things that you got to see or hear about or watch clips of. And he's doing that pace again.

Like, if Armin was like, now I'm going to wait for my title shot, it'll be like cool you're going to wait until november that's a horrible idea continue to compete continue to do these things because it is net good for you so i could not agree or disagree more strong with james lynch the way you get title fights is not by doing nothing like maybe once upon a time you could do that if you're really lucky and nobody else was available but like Armand is like the best thing going in combat sports right now because everybody else is just kind of waiting around and that's not how the game works anymore.

You get popular by showing your face and competing. Whether it's in an octagon or anywhere, that's how you get over is by being out there and competing as much as possible. That's what it is. That's why Sean Shirkin got over in other ways too, but the biggest reason Sean Shurgan got over is because dude is fighting every weekend. He's fighting all the time. He was saying yes.

He was stepping in on short notice for main events. Dude is always fighting. And that got him a title shot. Availability is the best ability, especially in 2026. So, Armand's got to get his shot. Don't you worry. He's going to get it.

Yeah, he's going to fight Charles Oliver for the vacant belt because they're going to let Ilya move up and it's the stupidest shit in the world. It's what's going to happen. September October. Bet money. Pinball chef. Shout out to the Twitchsters.

I think Dana's lost interest in the UFC because he thinks that. the same thing we all think, that it's just not the best fighting the best anymore. Maybe he's handcuffed on making the fights he wants to. By the way, didn't Dana Underwrote say he doesn't make fights? Didn't he say that? It's Hunter Campbell's promotion. We don't do that. But yet literally, this past Saturday, I picked the White House fights. We negotiated with everybody. They gave us a list of fights that they put together. I picked them. I believe that some of that is true. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing us

spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988 Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. I mean, Dana does not do the day-to-day fight booking. Of course not. But for a big specialty event, he is going to be where the buck stops. I have no issue with him saying that. That's fine. but like he's not hamstrung either like the UFC holds all the cards they can make whatever fights they want to make

these are the fights they want to make it is like nobody is in his ear being like you think Ari Emanuel is going to be like hey Dana Hunter Mick this isn't working for me let's like no they don't they don't care they don't have any idea I don't have a clue they're not hamstring

ronda Rousey saying that at the press is because Ronda has a good personal relationship with Dana that she would like to keep at least to some extent good, but also wants to and fairly rip the UFC for their dog ship promotion. And so it's a fine line to walk. And the only answer she has is the UFC is bad, but it's not Dana's fault. It is Dana's fault.

He is the guy steering the ship. He is who's at fault. But in a granular level, it is. Hunter Campbell was just not as good as Sean Shelby. wasn't this. I guess that depends on what your targeting goal is here, but, or not Sean Shelby, sorry, um, um, um, Joe Silva, uh, Sean Shelby's also like, man, whatever. Like he just, these are the fights Hunter Campbell wants to make and these are the fights we get. I think most of them are terrible. Uh, it doesn't really matter because the UFC is never going to not be making money.

So here we are. Masters. Mike and Jet thoughts on de Ritter moving to 205 fights you'd like to see him have there and who would you have him fight first? If you listen on to the next one, I had the perfect wildcard pick. I mean, just nothing better. Since Dominic Reyes is booked, he's probably going to get knocked out by Johnny Walker. He is officially off the table. So we literally are, spend a little time, eat his donuts, bulk up a little bit. And then he can welcome Jamal Hill back.

That's the fight to make. Incorrect. Let's get two real weirdos go. Johnny Walker, baby. Let's go. Let's just get real weird with it. Let's have some fun. I love him at 205.

I wanted him to go up after the Brennan Allen loss. It was obvious once he lost to Kyle. There's nothing here at 185 move up. That's great. We're going to have some fun with him. You know, I really, it does not matter. Book him whoever you want it 205. He's two fights away from a title shot.

Let's go. Remember Mike Hexed Anthony Joshua's a nobody before fighting Jake Paul? Never face-pom so hard. Does this guy even have a clue? I don't remember saying that because I don't remember that. That has never, ever been said by me. So, I mean, do you remember when C. some people lied to everybody?

Because I do. It just happened at 12.03 p.m. Eastern time. Did I say he wasn't like a massive star and that more people would watch him fight Jake Paul than any other fight he's competed in? Yeah, and guess what? That was true by a lot. By about seven to eight times.

So yes, I never called anything, Joshua, and nobody. So get your shit straight. just want to put that out there and correct the record Cecil peoples what else we got she loves the gloves what's up thoughts of the fact that apparently Gina Rhonda was the giant fight Dana T's at the end of 2024

yeah it seems pretty obvious now at that press conference in Tampa yeah seems like that was the fight they were gonna make and now they didn't so because I don't know the paper new model was on whatever uh i'm not going to read this dave uh so so ready to watch the ufc fall over the next five

years this year is an absolute embarrassment they're not going to fall jed jad you wrote something very interesting we do after every pay-per-view we do like a grade report and the first thing we do is like a blurb of the event and you said something i don't have it in front of me to the extent of ufc 326 was the first time and maybe forever that you felt like the future of the sport is is is in a little bit of trouble right now. Yeah. It genuinely was. Like this has been a recurring theme

from some of the more, you know, pessimistic corners of the MMA internet. Because like the card quality has considerably dropped year over year. And it is just not something I really ascribed to a lot.

It's like, yes, like I can acknowledge that card quality has dropped, but like, it just kind of felt like there was a floor like, okay, you know, there is some, at some point adults will take over and be like, all right, we can't be completely nonsensical. And 326 was the first time I was like, yeah, man, actually, maybe that's not true. Maybe this is, we are, there is no bottom and we are just going to continue to this end. Because every event this year has been some level of bad. we have tried to be positive about them.

You know, there are always some good fights on them, but like when you look at the marquee events, the numbered events, you had a nonsense interim title fight. You had a nonsense featherweight rematch. You had a nonsense belt that ended up being, that was the fight that the most people were interested in that then ended up being kind of a nothing burger of a fight. and then the announcement of a card that I have just got increasingly more antagonistic to.

You were there with me. My immediate reaction to White House card was a couple of months, we'll all realize that this is at least a pretty decent card. And while I think that in the aggregate that is true, as I've thought more about it, I like, I hate it. I hate the White House card. I hate so much about it. because it is just indicative of where we are at the sport.

Ilya has to at some point unify his belt with Justin Gagee, I guess, but man, it just reminded me that this is a fight no one cares about. It's a fight that is functionally meaning this Ilya is going to kill him, and we're not going to get the arm in fight, which is the fight that everyone should want. And because of the way the UFC has handled it, there is simply no world in which Ilya fights Armant's Rukin

because he basically was already offered the fight he wants, which is to move up to Walterway, which is categorically insane. If he goes up and beats Ilyat Tepore, or beats his Lamakchev, which I don't think he will do, frankly. I think he has a very low chance of doing that. It would be an incredible personal accomplishment, and it would completely back in the sport forever,

because it's not like Iliate Tepore is the best Walter Witt on Earth. If he beats that, he won one fight, he'll never fight again. Can you imagine the optics of that small-ass man fighting Michael Morales? You super can. It wouldn't work. He'll never defend it, Welterweight. So we've allowed him to do this thing that actively hurts the sport for his own personal enrichment. And F's over like the five deserving welterweight title challengers. It was already a little species to let Islamakov move up and fight for the belt.

So that Ilya do it would be ludicrous. And it's definitely what is going to happen. The fact that the UFC actively did not want to book Pereira versus Gone, but settled for it because they simply wouldn't pay John Jones money. They were like, oh, no, we're not going to do that. This is a company makes an infinite amount of dollars. And they're like, nope, don't want to do it here. Take the leftovers.

We are getting the leftovers. We are getting, we're not getting the best fighting the best. Like, it, and it's, it's just a bummer. And like, I don't, there's no, the only way something like this gets course corrected is if they feel pain. And there's no way for them to feel pain. They make a billion dollars a year guaranteed. like they are going to do whatever they want to do. And it seems very evident that what they want to do has nothing to do with the overall health and wellness of the sport and treating it as a sport, but in just kind of going off whatever vibes they have.

And I got to tell you, maybe you disagree. And it's a totally valid opinion to have. I don't love the general vibes that the people in charge of the UFC have about anything. So I have very little confidence in their stewardship over the next seven years. It, I am, it's, this is the downest I've ever been. As an MMA fan, I've been a fan of the sport for over 20 years. It's tough, man. It's, it's very WWE right now because WWE is, if you watch like Raw or SmackDown or their shows,

it's literally the same thing. Like, you're literally watching the same effort from them. And it's all under the TKO umbrella. It's all about making money, overcharging for tickets, being able to go to a press cards, be like, we broke the gate records. Like, they care, that's what they care about. They care about that more than anything else. I don't know what they're going to do.

Like, honestly, I saw Ariel say, you know, Connor McGregor might have the best timing in the world right now because the UFC has to see the bad feedback, feedback from the fan base on the White House card and be like, yeah, let's make it up to him, put Connor on the card. I don't think they're going to do that at all. I don't think they're thinking that way in any way, shape, or form. I really don't. They're just going to put, like, three random title fights on there that, and none of them are spectacular. I don't even think they're going to put three title fights.

I think they're just going to put there. They, and this is, I want to say this in a very specific way. This extends beyond MMA, where there is. is a lot of life and just how societies work is not governed by the rules, right, what you can and cannot do. There are just general social contracts that exist, right? Because everything can't be litigated and legislated at. She's like, yeah, man, you in general treat people around you with respect. You don't have to. You can't legally go around and just punch people in the face or whatever, but people don't generally walk around and just like throw trash on other people's lawns or not pick up after their dog's poop or not return shopping carts.

Like there are general ways to behave in society that you cannot really legislate. But everything works because we all just. just agree to act like adults, to act like grownups. Because, you know, everyone can agree that you, if you're raising a child, you would not agree. Like Dana can say he believes in free speech to the ninth degree. I promise you that if his 12 year old son looked him square in the face and said, F you, Dana would have some repercussions to that because that's just how the world works.

we all have to behave in a society. And the UFC's current activity is just like, we will do whatever we want because no one can stop us. And this is technically true, but the fiber of all of it, the fabric falls out if you don't at least pretend that this is about the best fighting the best, that this is a sport of some kind.

And it is like I said, man, it's just, this is the worst I've ever felt about the sport in 20 years of fandom. Tough times. Like, I don't know what to do, man. Like, it's, I don't know. I, I have been asking for years for us to get back to some sense of meritocracy. And this year we have gone completely away. Like, we've gone even further a field of it, which is just, it's exhausting.

Like, it is exhausting. exhausting to be like, okay, this is sure, I guess. I have to try and find reasons to like fights. Yeah. And this is the year I wanted to be as positive as possible. Yeah, like, I was like, okay, especially because I genuinely came into the year positive. It's like, they're going to try really hard because it's a, you always want to put your best foot forward. And they have tried in a very different way where it's just like, yeah, whatever.

Like the one saving grace here is I do think 327 looks pretty good, right? Like, Pyravan is legitimately good and a, it's not the fight I would have gone with, but there's no claim.

Like I'm not like, that's a travel. It's like, yeah, you had a lot of options. That's the one you picked. I'm fine with that. Prohashka Ulberg, fine with that.

It's like the vaguen. That's got a lot of good things going on, but everything else right now is tough scenes. sorry hold on one second no worries um dj serenity hold on uh let's get the spencer real quick i don't hold on we'll get to that a sec we got a super chat i was just gonna i was just gonna vibe while you were doing whatever you're doing oh no we're working on some logistical things for uh raf seven because we'll be there obviously for that uh jose will join me uh at least for the first two days

uh he won't be needed for fight night which is good which is nice because the two matches that we care about are the last two. That's a beautiful thing. Plus swing rounds happening that week. Stay tuned. Howdy, boys, Jed, 100% agree with your thoughts on White House and state of the UFC. Long-term fans, no, we're not getting what we deserve. Still, I'm excited for Poetton at heavyweight, maybe Tom next.

What's your pick for Alex versus Cyril Gaon? So Cyril Gaon getting his fifth title fight. His fifth title fight. He's getting Alex Pereira. I don't think anybody's truly surprised by this. I think a lot of people had their hopes up that we'd get John Jones back, but we knew this is going to be one of the options for Pereira, especially after they announced that Yuri Pajshka was fighting Carlos Oldberg

for the vacant belt of UFC 327. So thoughts on that. Do you have a pick right now between Pereira and Ghana or do you need to watch a little more tape? Need to get a little closer to UFC White House before you have an answer to that. And my thoughts are that I hate it. John Jones made more sense in every capacity. and the fact that it didn't happen purely because the UFC is greedy

that that is truly the only reason that fight did not happen by every piece of reporting that was the fight they wanted John Jones asked for a price that they were willing to pay for another fight but yesterday's price is not today's price. UCC said no, John said no so they went we literally

got the backup fight and it's a backup fight that is worse in most respects because if Alex beats John then he doesn't doesn't hold a UFC, like a third UFC belt, but he has defeated the, you know, to some degree the UFC heavyweight champion, a guy who never lost the heavyweight title in the ring, whatever. So, and most importantly, he just beats John Jones. It is a much more significant win. Now, if he beats Zero Gone, he technically becomes the first three division champion in UFC history, but there's a major asterisk because of the interim nature of the belt.

and he will be fighting like at best the third or fourth best heavyweight in the world to do so. So it's like, okay, this feels shoehorned because we don't have other options. And it just, it is much cleaner to do Tom and Cyril fight each other. John and Alex fight each other. And then the winners can maybe fight except for we know John will never fight Tom. So like this is just, it won't be nothing. And the matchup itself is at least kind of interesting, but of all the heavyweight matchup. this is like the one I'm the least interested in seeing Alex Pereira in.

I think Pereira is going to win. He's a better kickbox than Zero Gone. And he's not that much small than him, frankly. And he has much more like one-shot power. I think he is going to win. I am at least vaguely interested. Not vaguely. Like, I'm interested to see how Alex looks at heavyweight.

He's always been huge anyway. But, yeah, of all the fights to get, like, this was and by the USC's own admission not the best option it's the one we got because this is the one we live in yeah i mean if you weren't going to get john and they should have just paid him to do it honestly for this event i'm sure been less interested in this than i wasn't alex versus holberg oh okay that at least like that that that is a fight that means more to me and would be more interesting but i get that but there's no there's just no way alics was yeah it wasn't going to happen and that's fine there's no way alice wasn't fighting for

either John or or gone or Tom. And we know Tom isn't fighting anytime soon. So how do we get out? And if gone beats Alex, it's just like, dude, what even? It makes,

it definitely makes the Aspidal rematch bigger. It makes that bigger. But then it's like, all right, so is Alex just going back to fight Yeri after Yeri beats Olberg? If they're like, every fight, every fight the UFC is making right now is just like,

I there's no ability to look beyond what's immediately in front of them and more or like maybe one step ahead and it's just like I don't know dude like yeah it's it is weird because this is it's a historic fight that feels bad which is just like how do you do that how do you put together a fight where history is possible and somehow it feels bad and the UFC found the way you got to pull up the other thing that you had Oh, that was just me vamping while you were doing something. I don't really care about speaking about. Okay. Lem, if Ian gets the Islam fight, do you believe it can be competitive? So if they go Ian Machado-Garri versus Islam-A-Chief? Okay. Yes, I do believe that that can be competitive.

I don't think he will win. I think Islam will beat Ian Machado-Garry. But, you know, I think Ian has a much better chance than Jack did, you know. Ian's not like a big The problem in that matchup for Ian, I think, is that he doesn't have dynamic offense, right? Like he has scoring offense and I think that's just like a really problematic way

to fight somebody like Islamachachev who has both dynamic offense and the ability to win rounds very, very consistently. Then the fight probably looks a lot like the Shavkat Ian fight, only a little bit more dominant for Islam. But Ian can bring some things to the table and be competitive.

He's one of the best what's worth in the world. So yes. Also, I'm going to throw a question up because somebody said this, and I want to respond to this. Lemellis, what would he do if Jones beat him, Jed? It's the same. Well, it's actually not the same, right? Because John Jones is not going to fight after this.

So if Cyril Gahn beats Alex Pereira, Alex just has to go to 205. But if John beats him, one, he lost two the greatest fighter of all time. that doesn't really diminish your stock in any respect. And two, he can still go fight a dude at heavyweight and there's not a guy clearly in front of him in the title picture line. So if John beats him because he tackles Alex and taps him,

great win for John, hooray. But if John... Hold on. Sorry. I had somebody come in the house. What was I? Oh, I was like, so if John beats him, right? X, Y, Z, Bob's

your uncle. If Cyril beats him, okay, now what do we do? I guess he can fight Derek Lewis, but that doesn't do anything. Whereas if he loses John beats Derek Lewis, like, all right, he can fight Tom Aspinall soon. Like, it is substantially different for this fight. It's why

I don't like it. It was my landlord, by the way, guys. He's doing some work out front of my house and open the door to tell me something. I was like, I don't, I don't what to do like he could clearly see me doing this just open the door to talk like all right cool michael ilia's going to stand and trade with justin and justin could catch him just as easy as

ilia could could him i wouldn't say just as easy i would say that it is possible yeah i and i don't think i think ilia's going to like stand with him but he's not going to like get into like a brawl with him he's not going to fight a justing gagey fight he's no the fights yeah Gagy's going to, I'm telling, like, this is, I'm going to lay out. If Gagy actually kicks the shit out of his legs, the fight gets much more interesting because Max had like plenty of success against Diliah doing that. The problem is the speed difference in the fact that Gachie is just not remotely at his best anymore.

Peak prime version of Gachi would be quite an interesting battle. I were, we're just so far past Gachie's prime at this stage. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's saying, here's what's going to happen. That, what you just. said, I think is going to happen. I think Justin Gates is going to kick Ilya a few times in the legs. We're going to sit there for the...

They're going to get your right hook. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to stay here for the first 90 seconds of this fight, probably on a watch party, being like, okay, Justin looks pretty good. And then we're going to see the horror villain that Iliate Siporia is. I said this on submission radio and this is what I compare Iliott's Borea to. Iliott's Sporey, is Michael Myers. He shows up in the room. and then he hides.

But you know he's going to kill somebody. Like you know at some point he is going to kill you. And then eventually he jumps out and does it. So he's in the house. That's step one. And he's slowly finding his way in. And then he's just going to get you. And you see it coming from a mile away.

You saw it in the Volcanowski fight. You saw it in the Max fight. And you sure as hell saw it in the Charles fight. We're just like, okay, he's starting to land a little bit. He's not getting everything, but he has figured this person out and he is getting closer and closer. And you know it's coming. You know that kill shot is coming. And that's what's going to happen here.

Probably by the three minute mark, we're going to start saying, oh boy, he's getting closer. He's figured it out. And then he's going to knock Justin Gagey out by minute four. That's just who he is, man. He is a cerebral as hell fighter. He catches, reads real quick. He already knows what he's up against. But perhaps the fighter he faces.

is the opponent will do something that kind of surprises him a touch. And then he figures it out on the spot as good as anybody as I've ever seen. Volcanovsky's spectacular at that too, but Ili is so good at just picking it up so quickly and then just eking in and then boom, the fight is over. And that's going to happen here. And that's just it, man. Now, if Gachie does somehow find a way to lure him into a street brawl where they're like in the middle and they're just slugging it out, yeah, of course.

Gage could land something. But I don't see Ilya doing that. Like especially if he wants the Islam fight, dude is just too smart for that. He's too good. He's too talented. He's too sharp. It's not going to happen. I think Gaghi has to land 10.

Like, Gaci has to have a bit of the Habib strategy. He needs to land like 10 low kicks immediately and hope that that takes the legs out from Elia and diminishes his power and can maybe slow him down. And yeah. But like, again, if this was Pete Gaichi, I'd be much more interested. Gaci is so far past his prime at this point in time. And it's a credit to him that he's still doing, you know, that he beat Patty Pimbleau. But like, he has very, very minimal chance to succeed.

What else we got? Maxivizing profit over all other aspects. It's all about milking as much from the stone as you can. They'll bleed the UFC dry and discard its husk. That's pretty much what's happening. That's the endeavor way. I mean, that's just the American way at this point. You know, that's venture capitalism, maybe.

If they want more casuals, book fights that get the core to make noise. That's the thing that, like, I've been thinking about a lot lately is they grew the UFC from a $2 million purchase price to a multi-billion dollar organization. and they have just broadly moved away from the principles that got them there. It's just like, okay, I mean, I know you've won the game. And so, again, there's just no, there's no recourse. Nothing is coming back. But like, you made billions and billions of dollars by doing it one way.

Why are we changing that now to eke a little more short-term value out? why not just keep doing it like that? Like, our greed knows no bounds, bro. We live in a society indeed, Jed. Oh, we're supposed to. Okay. Lots of comments. A lot of people on the same page here.

A lot of management talk. Hold on. I'm scrolling back through because somebody said something that I wanted to grab. Now I find it. Between Gaiji and God, I believe it's something like six or seven failed to attempts to win undisputed gold. I mean, that can't be true. Gachi fought Habib and Gachi fought Charles.

This will be Gachi's third shot. Cyril fought Tom. He fought John. He fought Francis. So this will be six. Yeah, this will be six. Spencer, I think God looking good against Tom makes him the interim belt a little more legitimate. I could not disagree more. I've seen plenty of fighters look good and lose fights. Also, he looked good by cheating.

So, you know, that fight doesn't count. You know what that fight? It's no contest. Nothing happened. It's very silly. Tom or John steamrolls Alex. Maybe. That was also why I was interested in the John fight.

I gave Alex more of a chance than most. I do understand and think John should be the betting favorite in that fight for sure. But, like, he's actually, Alex is a pretty good defensive wrestler in general. Alex can low kick. John is absolutely faded as well. That was, I was more interested in that. But it could totally happen that either of them tackle Alex since game over. But I'll tell you what, I have, Alex Brewer has done a lot of impressive things.

So you should never count him out completely. This finally found the one I was wanted. Jed, after Ilya knocked out Max, she said that's the best fighter in the world. Do you still agree it was a reactionary? It's him or Islam. There's the two best fighters in the world. I mean, it wasn't reactionary.

And that's like, yeah, like, that's one of the two best guys in the world. I don't know how to settle it. If they fight, I guess that would determine it. But I also am old enough to remember when everyone agreed that when Islam fought Alex, it would determine the best fighter in the world and Islam won and then a lot of dudes

were like actually no it's still Alex until he beat him the second time on short notice. It was weird. I'll tell you what's reactionary. I genuinely hope I'll be I and Islam never fight. I hope that. I hope everyone who has just been dying for it

has to be miserable in the same way I am largely about fights at this point in time. I am so, so over over it. Like I don't, I do not want it.

I would like Ilya to fight Armand Sauru Kine and actually establish a full-blown legacy in a weight class. And I would like Islamakachev to defend the belt against multiple of the best

welter weights on earth. And in two years' time, if they've both done that, then they can fight. And I don't want it one moment before. I agree. The problem is, like I said,

I'llie's going to fight Justin. He's going to fight Islam and he's done. He's not fucking good. It's a bummer. That's going to suck for the UFC too. Like really, it's going to suck.

Yeah, you finally got somebody you can put the rockets to. And that's the thing that is just like, I don't, I like, out off camera, sit me in a room with Hunter Campbell and the brain trust and be like, what do you think is the good outcome here?

Let's say you let Elliot Tuporia do whatever, continue to do whatever he wants. And he goes up and he, knocks out Islam, would you say that overall, Connor McGregor has been like a long-term investment for you've gotten two fights out of him basically since then. Like, if Ilya knocks out Islam, you've turned three belts into semi-forses because he's just left them all, right? And you're maybe going to get a couple of fights out.

You've done great for him individually, but you're not going to continue to promote him because he's not going to do it. What is the good outcome? Like, this is short-sighted in the most egregiously infuriating way. They shouldn't realistically have let Islam move up. But okay, like, I guess fine. They probably shouldn't have done it.

If you wanted to book this fight, you should have just done it then. I'm like, Islam, you can't go up. You got to fight Elliott lightweight, and then we can talk about it. Like, they just, there are dogs chasing cars, and it is exhausting. Jase, how did the product decline so rapidly?

If you look back to 2023, that was truly a great year filled with epic moments. I mean, they, buddy, they just stopped caring. I don't know. I honestly don't know. There was no Zufa boxing. Was Power Slapp a thing in 2023? Heard thing in 2020. Almost certainly.

Almost certainly. You know, they prioritize what they wanted differently. And they move the sport towards the thing they have said it is not forever, which is Dana's whole thing is the best fight, the best, and we're not boxing. And they've just tried to move it more towards a boxing thing. But at least in boxing, you have multiple parties competing for something, right? And they just pick the people they want.

Like, Sean O'Malley, they're just going to make him happen. Come hell or how water, they're going to make him happen. It's like, all right, man, I guess. I don't know. and Sean didn't even look good against Songyedong like he looked bad no it was not why he's not fighting dudes who could beat him he's fighting amos a hobby

and credit to him's a hobby amends everybody came at me for that and I was like so we're clear I actually do believe amends a hobby deserves an opportunity like this even though I don't think he's good he's earned it but that if you think the UFC

that this matchmaking was for amends a hobby's benefit you are a moron you're just like you don't have critical thinking skills. They did not book Sean O'Malley versus Aiman's a hobby because Aiman deserves a big opportunity and we'll see. They booked it because it's,

it is a fight that Sean can win and come hell or high water. They're putting Sean O'Malley in another title fight. They are absolutely trying to book Sean O'Malley versus Peerty on two. And they probably should have just done it anyway. I'm honestly not sure why they didn't just book Sean versus Peirder, too, given how, how they handle everything else. but like that's it that is what they want to do it is not for amends a hobby's good straight up i hope amazahuby wins that will rock like i don't want to be in the position

where i'm just hoping that the worst outcomes happen for the ufc so maybe they can learn a lesson but it's kind of where i'm at now it's not going to change anything they're going to keep doing it so if you were the fantasy matchmaker for rousey versus carrato who would you have in the undercard oh god i know where jed's going anthony pettis andrewson sillis the Diaz brothers, Sam Alvi, Uriahall, Josialdo, any other free agents. I would be stunned if Anderson Silva's not on this card. Yeah, that would make sense.

You don't put the Diaz brothers. They're not going to do it either. Yeah, they wouldn't do it. But like that, again, you got a, I don't think they need much more, right? You've got Francis in the Comey, and I think that's the most important thing. I think you could do other stuff.

I, like, I lobbied for and still believe if they should have done Francis versus Gable. Steve said they're not going to do it. I don't, again, I, Gable, if you are watching, if someone connected remotely to Gable is watching, do whatever it takes to compete on this car. Like there is,

you're not at the White House. He's got to be at the White House. No worry. I mean, you can keep trying to speak that into existence. It does not seem that it's happening. There's another fight coming. So fight, fight, like you should fight at this.

This is basically in the White House. Like, fight, fight somebody. fight andrew oloski be a terrific fight for you on the undercard but other than that i don't think they need that much on the under card couple of names sprinkling some things it'll be fine holly home versus somebody we already talked about yeah she won't be on that card unfortunately you know like those would be the things i would do but like they've got the juice at the top you just fill it out mainly fill it out with fights that are going to be fun right like again the event should

try to be focused on being a fun thing so do that Andrew Silver versus Chris Wyden If you're gonna do you're gonna do an boxing Just throw this on here who gives a shit I could see Pettus being on it Yeah, be fine Nothing wrong we're putting Anthony Pettus on there I don't know who he fights but you figure that out

I think there'll be some more names certainly Won't be I think we got like the big ones But hey throw it in silver Maybe they get Woodley back out there I kind of don't want to see Woodley back out there After what I saw in the boxing match He looks rough in the there when he's actually competing.

I mean, good shape. Dude looks good getting off the bus. No doubt about it. Woodley versus Pettis. You could do Woodley versus Pettis. Yeah, that's not too bad. You know, like some GFL stuff. Oh, I mean, yeah, the shout out to Duke Matt Duck, who I think was the person, one who said

it ages ago. Tony Ferguson, Dylan Danis, put that on the card. Like, I absolutely think that fight should happen on that card. But yeah. I mean, if you're MVP, though, not that, not that it matters, but like, do you trust Dylan? Yeah. Like, because it's, because it's not even on the marquee, you can trust him is if he doesn't show up, it doesn't hurt. Yeah, I mean, that would be my, he's on the poster.

That'd be a problem. Well, you're not going to put him on the poster. So it's fine. Yeah. What else he got? Scroll down. This is an issue question. Do you think the White House car will be a long, wind, an event or a quick event?

Less fights, but I'm guessing there will be more. between the normal. I bet it's long-winded. Fewer fights. It won't be that long because my guess is most of it will take place on CBS proper. But I think,

I mean, the pacing this year has just straight up been worse. 326 is brutal. They got to fit more ads in to cover their carry 1.1 a year. So I'm going to guess we're going to get

some more commercial. commercials, maybe some more video packages. I don't think that the seven fights will take as long as, you know, the 12 or 13 normally do, but probably going to take longer than seven normally does. This will be a four-hour broadcast for sure. Even with the seven fights, it'll be a four-hour broadcast. We do have two title fights, too, and not that I think either of them will go long. There is the chance that they do. There's always a chance.

So got to keep that in mind. plus like at the same token this isn't like you're not filling an arena here you're just inviting your friends and politicians and stuff and i can assure you that any even if you're in like local town community politics you don't want to sit in the same place for four hours you certainly don't want to sit there for five so i think because of like who is actually going to be at the event i don't think it's got to be like a job dragged out thing. I just think it's going to be,

it's just going to be like a normal UFC. It's going to feel like an apex main card with like a little bit more pomp in circumstance. That's all. I don't think it's going to be much different. Maybe they move a little quicker just because these guys and gals have better things to do, honestly,

than sit on the White House lawn for seven hours and watch fist fights. But, and who knows? Like, the world, how it is right now, it's in shambles with the war and all this stuff. Like, it's, I don't know. It's definitely a weird time for this. So I don't know. I don't know how they're going to do it.

It's super weird that I mean, dude, when even Joe Rogan is coming on, like it's kind of weird that we're going to have fights on the White House on when we're in the middle of a whatever conflict. I guess it's not technically a war. We're bombing the shit out of the Middle East. And we're like, yeah, it's fine. We put fights on the White House on. Like it, we live in a very surreal time. Mike and Jeb,

with Cub Swanson announcing his upcoming bout versus Nate Landre where it will be his retirement bout the WEC era officially comes to an end good for him

yeah as management team put it up there they're like here's our upcoming fighters Cub Swanson's final walk to the Octagon what will be your lasting memory of Killer Cub

I mean WC never die it makes sense he's like 40 something so at some point he was going to hang him up I think the answer the positive answer is the duo Troy fight, right? Like that's fight of the year,

Hall of Fame. That's great fight. Genuinely, the first thing I ever think of with Cub and it's very unfortunate, but it is true, is the Josaldo double-k knockout in like four seconds. That's like when you say Cub,

that's the first, like he just and had a great career, probably won't go in the hall. of fame like on his own right he's already in because of the fight obviously but like you know the sort of dude the damn they were good was invented for and i like that is just the lasting image in my head is that but i think for a lot of people and certainly if you're writing his obituary in 40 years hopefully right uh the first line of it is fight of the year with do ho troy and who was that 12 when was that Hold on.

When was the Doho Choi? 16. 16. 16. 16. Yeah. God, there's so many good ones. Yeah.

I mean, obviously the all the ones is a good one. I mean, I was there for the Billy Q fight in Tampa. Like, that was just sick. Like, that fight was just ridiculous. Even in his 40s, like, still put on absolute heaters like that is really fun. And there were times where we're getting very concerned about watching Cubs Swanson fight, right? But.

Holy. What? I did not realize this. Do you want to know the wildest stat you're going to hear today? What? Can you imagine who, Cub has back-to-back wins over Charles Oliver and Dustin Poirier. Oh. 2012, 2013.

He knocked out Oliver, which I do remember that. It was nasty. And then he won a UD over Dustin Poirier at a London card, a couple, like, four or five months later. That was like, which is shocking. That was right when he was in the, like peak of his,

okay, he's going to fight for a belt again before he lost to Frankie. I mean, it's the best run of his career, but I just straight up did not remember the back to back beat Charles and Dustin. That,

I mean, that's it. And then they, I remember they try to make Artem Loboff happen. And then that didn't work out very well. And then Cubs went on like the long losing streak. And then they tried to make Cron Gracie happen. And that didn't work out too well.

But yeah, I mean the just flip flopping. I remember like after the giga chikaze fight, I was like, yeah, this isn't good. This is not good. Cubs are going to go down as one of the best dudes to never fight for a title. Which was literally, which was literally the original idea of them they were good was that. And Cub is, you know, I don't think he's quite the best dude who never fought for a belt. But he is, he is in the conversation of best dudes who never fought for a belt. Good for Cub.

And what a, what a way to go. 8.5. The Knights is a lot. 8.5 of the Knights is a lot. 12 if you count W.C. Yeah. In that press conference in Tampa, I figured, I figured there would be one more, one more in them. So.

Let's go ahead and do that. someone's just throwing out. I mean, also with Nate Landrear, it's entirely possible he closes out with the 13th fight of the night. Yeah. What else we got? Luke Tom's actually, he finds the Poeton-Alix fight, the most intriguing fight on the card, and I definitely agree. I mean, it has the most questions of them. It's the most significant fight for sure.

It's the most significant fight. It has the most questions. Also, like, the other fights aren't that intriguing, so it's not. not that hard for the cream to rise to the top there. It's my favorite fight on that card. Somebody asked this earlier too, so it just suggested like pretty easily my favorite fight on that card is Diego Lopez, Steve Garcia.

Kind of fits, you know, Garcia's an American fighter. And there'll just be a banger. Like that's the sort of fight Diego Lopez should have had instead of fighting for the title. But, you know, he did,

he lost, now we're here. Great fight. I love that fight. Yeah, It's it's a it's I don't know if it's like I don't think it's my favorite fight on the card it's just so random like I didn't I just didn't see a common which is why my reaction was like so what it was it is the per like this fight is great if it's the first

fight of the night if it is the third fight of the night it's not great anymore like it's still going to be fine but that that that needs to be the tone setter that needs to be the tone setter I think you can put it anywhere and it'd be fine I do think it should be be the first fight of the evening, but they're not going to do it. Obviously, I think it would also be a fine feature about to lead into the two title fights. Uh, the fight is awesome. Like that fight's going to win fight of the night. It's going to be incredibly fun.

Yeah. And I'm not going to have that much fun the rest of that card. I don't think. So it is the thing I'm looking forward to the most. Uh, Colby said the white house card is piss poor. Do you think the UFC gets angry that their own fighters rip the white house card? No. They shouldn't because free speech, bro.

yeah i mean Kobe also again I agree not something to say all the time Colby mostly just thinks it's piss poor because he's not on it right but like yeah

what are they gonna they've already punished Colby in the most way they can they don't want him to fight on on the card that is the whole like his whole gimmick is this and they're like nah bro um

so I think you know They'd probably prefer it if fighters didn't say anything, but what do they care at this stage? Yeah. We'll take a couple more. I got to take my kid to the doctors in a little bit. What do you think the week leading up to White House card will be like? Like Media Day and Lincoln Memorial. No.

It's going to be the same as every other fight week. Like it is just going to be the same. Now, they have to do media day somewhere because they're not going to do that in the local office. Yeah. It's going to be the same as everyone. Now could they do? I bet they do somewhere cool.

Like the ceremonial is not official way and so 100%. Could they do like an open workout or something? Like could they add that to the to the festivities? Do it at the mall somewhere. Yeah. But for the most part like it's going to,

the media day is going to look exactly the same as everything else. Like it's just, it's going to be the same. It'll be a little different because it will be fewer fighters. That'll be nice. I think it'll be a little different. They're going to have every single fighter

up there. So it'll be 14. So yeah, it'll be 14 fighters. It'll still be a long as this will be a long ass media day. I think it would be a little bit different because the whole thing is supposed to be a celebration of America 250. You might get a couple of more bells and whistles. They're not going to do anything at the leak of moral. That would be cool. All right. But like also it would be a huge pain for the promotion

to like shut down these things for that. It will largely be the same. I bet there's a couple of other things that happen. Um, and then yeah, I don't, I'm more curious about like what the event would be like because I still, I don't know. It seems like where are fighters getting ready? Like where are the, so the White House law. It's not in a arena where there's like a locker room. I don't think they're going to be like hitting mitts in the Oval Office or whatever.

I don't know what they're going to do. I don't really know what that's going to be like. I assume that there will not be media in actual attendance cage side. other than like the knelke boys will probably be their cage side because that's the universe we live in these days. So it'll be like a real weird thing that I'll be curious about. But I doubt we're going to get too much different. Yeah. Let's see.

Mike, can you get a cub interview before the fight? I'll try. I will try. That would be cool. I'll throw this out. With the White House fights announced, which two former presidents dead are alive would you book for the main event? I mean,

you have to go Abe Lincoln. Of course. Like, Abe, for those who somehow don't know, Abe Lincoln is in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. You know, like he, you know,

some of this might be apocryphal or exaggerated. It's apparently a very good wrestler in his day. So you got to go Abe Lincoln. And then, I think if I'm booking it, I had never, I want to be clear, this is a terrific question I've never thought about. Abe Lincoln's obvious and immediate. And you got to find somebody because like, you know, Dwighty Eisenhower, obviously accomplished general, but the physical difference there pretty, pretty major. Give me long, lanky and strong Abe, Abe Lincoln versus a big robust Ulysses S. Grant, who may or may not have had a major drinking problem.

but yeah like that's that's the one i'm booking i mean teddy man teddy teddy tony reddy rose i think teddy's too small for abe i don't know in my head you got some open weight shit that dude that dude's been through it do i mean shot and then like does a two hour speech afterwards he's such a savage uh edger jacks is a good one uh teddy fdr would be a good one teddy's five 10 you can't do fdr and polio you can't book FDR. What are you talking about? Oh no, I can't do FBR. You can't do FDR. So you're right with Grant. That's where I was doing. That's the thing. I think you go

Grant, who in my head is at least like a very robust man. I mean, Abe's going to be the tallest of any of them. How tall is Grant? Let's find out. Grant. I am incorrect. Apparently Ulysses S. Grant is 5.8. Teddy's 5. 10. It's Teddy. I didn't realize Grant was 5.8. He's a little guy. Yeah, but that just doesn't seem right. Also, you know, Grant and Lincoln kind of.

Maybe you've got training partner issues going head to head there. So, okay. Man, I did not realize he's fine. That is tough. It's Teddy. Teddy's not bad. I still think that's Abe. He's walking.

He could take a beating. Maybe you do George. You do George and Abe just one versus two, you know. Pound for pound best prezies. Well, it can't be in the UFC because the UFC certainly wouldn't book that fight. Yeah. Also, we're not booking Andrew Jackson because Andrew Jackson sucks ass. So I'm not putting him on this card.

George versus Abe, that's what I'm changing it. Let's go. Yes. I did not realize today I learned the Ulysses S. Grant was just a little guy. He's just a little guy. He's just the little guy. All right. Let me scroll up and try to find one more question.

What else we got? Someone asked, I think it was Duke Madduck, what do you think the UFC offered John Jones to compete on the card? I mean, I mean, based on reporting, kind of have some reports. Yeah, Ariel said, I believe Ariel said it was around Connor Ben money. So it would be 15. He wanted, he asked for 30 and they were like, here's 15. He's like, no. Not fighting.

So yeah, that's pretty much it. Look, this is, this is where we're at now. It's all about for profit. It's all about making the shareholders happy. It's, it's, this is what, this is what it is. Like, this is the UFC. I mean, we need, we need this MVP card to do great. Like that, like, we need this.

Now, they're not, the UFC should not be looking over their shoulder. They should not be worried or any of that nature. But they need something to like make them work a little bit. but who knows? Like even sometimes competition doesn't do it for you. I mean, there was a time where like when AEW started to get hot, W. W.E. was was cranking.

They were putting on good shows. There's an entertaining product. They saw them on their heels and then they just blew the doors off him. And now AEW is like getting closer to them and they're just like, eh, we'll just keep doing the same boring shit every Monday and Friday. We'll put on these boring ass pay-per-views. I hope wrestle.

God, I hope WrestleMania doesn't suck. I really hope it doesn't suck. I assume we're bad, but I don't know. I'm also, I'm going to spend an in an ordinary amount of time, fantasy booking president fights now. There you go. There's your, there's a piece.

Let me do DJT versus Grover. You know, the two split presidents, let them settle out who is the best of the split presidents. So we could book that one. I don't know who Teddy's going to fight. Teddy needs to be, fighting somebody.

Teddy's headlining. Teddy's headlining. Taff? Maybe we do Teddy and Taft. Teddy kills Taft. I mean, Taft, Taft, big fella. Not tall, but very wide. You know.

Oh, listen to this. Fox has given a two-season order to Stewie, a spin-off of Global Juggernaut family guy setting on the Griffin's evil genius toddler son. That's a new Stewie show. Whatever. Have you watched Ted on Peacock, the TV show? I've seen some

pieces of it. I've never watched an episode. Do you know who our shortest president was? Who? James Madison. Would you care to guess how tall James Madison was? 5.3. 5.4. That is just a little guy. My kid's almost 5.3. I don't think you literally could be president at 5.3 in the modern. Like you would stand on stage. Like Marco Rubio is called Lil Marco and he's like 510 or something. Five, four is, I think that's disqualifying to be president now. If you, if you like that. A. Z. Ray, we're not putting Andrew Jackson on because he's a inveterate piece of shit.

So I refuse to book him on this card. Oh my gosh. We're off the rails here officially. I mean, whoever asked that question, well done. Yeah. Now we got, I mean, Jed, you have worked. I, I'm not, I'm going to be useless for the remainder of the day thinking. about that that is going to be an article on nbate fighting dot com buddy i promise you come white house card

this is that that that'll roll up for the white house card hosea if you're watching prepare you're ready to make a graphic buddy make the graphic make the brackets i feel even better about oh my god we can bracket them one night tournament jett a one night turn of it hell yeah oh my god i have the right. This is a hundred percent presidential bracket. I'm going to have so much fun with this stupid ass idea. Betting odds. I mean, this is, this is great. I'm literally making a note right now so I don't forget this. Just make those notes. All right. I mean, I have so many brackets. I've got the World Cup bracket this summer. First time in four years I'm going to have fun with that. And now the Presby bracket. Let's go. Well, that's going to do it this week. This is a great time.

I had a blast, but unfortunately I have to have to run out, but and take the kid to the doctor. But we are, we're rocking, rolling here into UFC Vegas 114, the main of it, Josh Emmett versus Kevin Biajos, who I've talked to, I talked to both men. I believe the Josh Emmett interview will drop on MFAFighting.com tomorrow. The Vaheos interviews dropping on Saturday. Also have an interview with Gizim Salmani dropping tomorrow. He's the former WVE tag team champion who's making his BKFC debut. on Saturday.

So lots coming up. And then, yeah, we get fights on Saturday. There'll be a preview show tomorrow discussing that apexe apex event. And then it's London. And then it's Seattle. And then I believe it's back to the world's most famous apex again. And then off to Miami for UFC 327. So lots going on, Jed.

Mike, I mean, I'm in my own world. Can you imagine how much fun? Can you just imagine the comments? section of the presidential bracket if and i don't control the brackets obviously so anything could happen not saying this will happen but imagine if in the process of this presidential bracket donald trump had to fight joe biden can you imagine how how cool people would be about that that's the first fight the ufc had booked i don't have the most fun with this like the uc sucks now but man i'm going to have a great time this summer

I'm so excited. Well, we had a great time. We'll have another great time next week right here on BTL. Thanks for watching. Good night, everybody. Love y'all. What a question. What's the best question we've ever gotten.

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