MMA Fighting - BTL | Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou, UFC vs. Bellator MVP, Cejudo's Comeback, More

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

Will UFC heavyweight champ Francis Ngannou get his wish and box Tyson Fury?  That question is discussed following Fury’s sixth-round KO win over Dillian Whyte this past Saturday and the post-fight moment between the two combat sports champions. In addition, the panel will also react to the Bellator doubleheader and the UFC’s event at the APEX over the weekend and which fighter was the MVP of the slate, Henry Cejudo’s chances for a championship fight in his return to the UFC, UFC Vegas 53 this Saturday — which will be headlined by a bantamweight bout between Rob Font and Marlon Vera — the history making boxing match between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano and more.  Host Mike Heck moderates the matchup between MMA Fighting’s Jose Youngs and Jed Meshew.  Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs 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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Commissions fees and expenses may apply. Read the funds or ETF's prospectus before investing. Funds and ETFs are not guaranteed. Their values change and past performance may not be repeated. You may have heard of the sex cult nexium and the famous actress who went to prison for her involvement, Alison Mac. But she's never told her side of the story until now. People assume that I'm like, this pervert. My name is Natalie Robamed.

And in my new podcast, I talked to Allison to try to understand how she went from TV actor to cult member. How do you feel about having been involved in bringing sexual trauma at other people? I don't even know how to answer that question. Allison after Nexium from CBC's Uncover is available now on Spotify. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. MMA 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 Between the Links on this Thursday afternoon.

Thank you for joining us. Apologies for the delay, million things happening, multitasking, so forth and so on. We have to do this show, and there's so much to discuss. But before we get into that, you guys and gals, the listeners of BTL because of this delay, I'm going to give you guys a little bit of a gift, all right? I'm going to let you control some narrative here on the show. Not only will you be voting for the winner of the show this week in the soon-to-be displayed poll on the YouTube chat. We're also going to let you, at least one of you anyways, get some credit for creating the knockout round question.

So if you have a fun, MMA-related, a little bit spicy, topic for this final round have at it put in the chat Casey will scoop them up he'll pick the best one will flash down the screen that's how I'll end the show let's get into this let us introduce the participants first he is the brand new

commissioner of the PFL apparently and you can check out his first five draft picks for the 2022 season over at MAAfighting.com or you can listen to them on the MAA fighting podcasting network the multi-time BTL champ

Mr. Jed Mishu. Hello, sir, or should I say, Commissioner Mishu? Look, we're doing great things with the smart cage. I'm really excited about our future. Bruno Capulosa fighting tonight, you know, that's a thing. So tune into the PFL because also it's coming to Hotlana to a place that no one knows about, but it's coming to Atlanta nonetheless. The PFL, we're on the rise, baby.

Let's go. And now we hit you to say, very busy individual. He's been a part of all iterations of this show over the years. He'll be ready for some home cooking next week covering UFC 274 right in his backyard of Phoenix, Arizona. We welcome back from MAAfighting.com. Mr. Jose Youngs. Hello, my friend. What's up, guys? Decided to bust out this sleeveless shirt today because it is exceptionally hot today, and I'm going to dread walking through downtown Phoenix all my camera gear tomorrow. So it's trying to stay cool. And again, I called out another

person he didn't show so you gave me the Walmart version of him also from I guess the same state let's bring it on there you go dad your uh your response to this before we get into the first topic I I don't need to talk trash to Jose one I'm clearly not the Walmart version of Connor but we did go to EGA I'll let him have his beef with Connor you know they can settle up we've I've handled Jose plenty of times before so I don't need I don't need to bring myself to his level. I've got things to do with the smart cage, okay? Focused on taking things to the top.

The MMA draft is so tremendous. Go read it, go listen to it. I don't know if I've ever had so much fun on a day off of my entire life. But let's get into this gentleman. Let's begin with the biggest story in combat sports right now. Tyson Fury and Fury planting the seeds for a fight with the UFC heavyweight champion, Francis Ngano and Gano goes into the ring after Fury picks apart and then absolutely annihilates Dillion White in the sixth round in front of 94,000 plus in London.

Francis goes on the MA hour, said the fight with Fury will happen. And if the UFC wants to keep him on the roster, that has to be part of the negotiations. So Jedmishu, a few days have passed since the greatest post-fight show in MMA fighting history took place. and we discussed this in the almost immediate aftermath, five days later, is the idea of these two men fighting more enticing, less enticing, or have you feeling exactly the same as you're done Saturday night? I feel almost exactly the same because excitement was never the issue or the point that was a

problem here. I'm not that excited about it. I'm fine with it, and it'll be a fun, exciting thing that happens, even if it is a foregone conclusion for the outcome. It will still be an interesting thing. We haven't had a lot of these crossover fights before. And when you have, you know, the two best guys in their respective sports competing, that is at least some level of interesting, even if we all know how it's going to go. So it's not about the excitement level, but I feel extremely confident that this fight is going to happen. I feel I was pretty confident on our post-fight show. I'm even more so now

because I think Francis Ngano just desperately wants it and Tyson Fury is willing to do it. You know, I know that my opponent was very into Tyson Fury doing a bunch of boxing things, and maybe that still happens. I'm not here to say that Tyson Fury won't decide he wants to have a $500 million fight with the winner of Joshua Usik.

If he does, great, I'm buying it. I'm tuning in. That's an awesome fight. But he can do that and buy it his time until next summer at which point Francis Ngano, he's going all out. You heard him this week say, if there is no world I re-signed with the UFC if boxing is not an option.

I think the only reason he does that is because he feels truly like that Fury will give him this opportunity, and he is going to take it if it happens. And so he is setting himself up to do it, and there's no reason for Fury not to do it, frankly, like why would Fury pass on this? For what reason would he be like, I don't want to do this.

He's going to take that free big old paycheck that comes with it. So I'm feeling even more confident that this is what happens. But my excitement level is about the same. Jose, maybe we won't use the word excitement level because you have been stanchly on the other side of the excitement discussion. So has your stance changed at all? Has your interest levels risen even one inch? Because I can't imagine that they could have fallen any more than where they were at on Saturday. day.

I'm going to, a lot of people are under the misconception that I don't want this fight to happen, period. I just don't want it to happen next because we keep here. Like, if it happens, I'm going to watch it because weird freak show fights will draw up any interest in anybody, especially like in the comic book world, whenever Marvel and DC did things, I was very interested in it. But in the grand scheme of things, it didn't do anything for any. store in line I was interested in. Now we keep talking about Tyson Fury box and Francis Gannon.

Next, I don't want that at all because we keep saying like, and there's a lot of people saying, oh, this like the Ussig Josha fight will always be there. He can always go back and do that. That's not true. The best Tyson Fury we have right now is right now. There is not, as my opponent said, there is not an outcome outside of Tyson Fury, Mollywap and Francis Gano that is going to happen. He could take two years off from boxing and probably still be Francis Ngano.

I want to see Prime Tyson Fury fight Prime Usik or Anthony Joshua. And then you know what else will still be there? The Francis and Gano fight. Let Francis and Gano heal up. And then when Tyson Fury makes history and cements himself as a top five heavyweight in the history of boxing, then that fight gets that much bigger because if he beats the winner of Joshua and Usik, he becomes the undisputed heavyweight champion in the world, something that very few people have done,

and no one has done since Lennox Lewis retired and vacated all the belts. He needs to do that for his legacy. And everyone keeps saying, you can't buy your lunch with legacy. His legacy fight just happens to be his biggest money fight as well against the winner of Joshua Ousek. I also do not like this narrative that Francis and Ghana deserves this. I hate the word deserve because that is very,

subjective. If we're talking about deserving, if Alexander Usik wins, he would have four of the five belts and in the middle of a war where he was on the front line. Tell me who doesn't deserve a shot at unification from someone that is basically like leaving his country behind to go do a sport. So like the phrase deserved needs to be struck from the lexicon of this fight because I hate it. I had, I've had difficulties in life. I deserve to watch a undisputed heavyweight title fight. That's my stance on that. But my interest level in this fight is the same.

I don't want it next. But if it happens in like a year or so, so be it. I just want an undisputed heavyweight champion in my life. That was a very good speech right there. So I'm going to stick with you, Jose, because you're on fire right now. Because we have Fred Sagano, a guy who is becoming a bigger star for the UFC every time he fights. and he's not really doing it through the UFC's promotional machine. He's sort of doing it on his own, if we're being honest.

Now, the UFC has an interesting decision to make here. You could help your heavyweight champion, get a big fight with Tyson Fury, something you'll probably be able to get a little bit of a sliver out of in some way that could be worked out and negotiated. No one expects Francis to win, as both of you have alluded to. So his value in the eyes of MMA fans certainly would not drop. Francis gets paid, UFC gets a little slivered, liver of that. He's happy. I mean, there's a lot of positives here, Jose.

UFC executive, we're going to put that hat on you right now. How are you feeling about this right now? Like, are you go, if you work for the UFC executive committee right here, are you going into the boardroom and putting Francis over for this spot? To fight Tyson Fury, if I'm the UFC, that's what I want to do. If there is no part of Francis Ganar that wants to resign with the UFC unless you add Tyson Fury, I would just, you know, do the Connor thing. Like at the end of the day the ufc's going to want a piece of the pie and it's going to be a massive number it's not going to be as big as fury joshua that's not going to happen i'll say it again but tyson fury francis gano is probably number two number three most valuable option for tyson fury now outside of

like mike tyson getting a tie machine and coming from the from the past to fight him but if on the ufc and i want a piece of the pie i at least bend a little bit to francis and gano you did it to conro if i'm frances gano i don't want that to happen obviously because if you don't include the ufc You get a bigger piece of the pie. You don't have to give any to the UFC. But if I'm the UFC and you lock up your heavyweight champion for the foreseeable future and you let him go do this boxing thing, I think that would be best case scenario for the UFC because like you said, him losing, which he will, will not hurt him in the eyes

of MMA fans or in the MMA world. And he'll get that much, he'll become that much bigger of a star. And he has to come back to you after. If he doesn't resign, he goes to fight Tyson Fury, gets more of the pie. and then can sign wherever he wants or just be boxing. You get nothing. So if you want something out of it, re-sign, give Francis what he wants, let him fight Tyson Fury, increase his salary.

The UFC's not going to be happy, obviously, because Francis is becoming popular without them. But that's probably the best case scenario if they want any sort of monetary value from this hypothetical silly goose fight. Jed, the UFC, Dana White. I know you're not really focused on them because you're running the PFL right now. they have to be aware of the situation. Francis wanted to be, you know, renegotiating his contract with this as basically priority one.

Give me the Tyson Fury fight or we ain't coming to a deal. Now, we all know how stubborn and petty this organization can be. And listen, they're a multi-billion dollar company. They're doing the backstroke on the ceiling of the corporate offices and stacked hindoes right now. They don't need Francis Ngano. So in the end, losing him doesn't really crush them. But it certainly doesn't hurt to keep him happy. and in the promotion.

So what do you think they are thinking right now? Do you think they're thinking about, hey, let's get this guy the Tyson Fury fight, let's make this dude happy, or let us just push him right out the door. Go fight Tyson. Good luck, son. They don't give two tugs of a dead dog's tale

about France and God who's happiness. That is just not a thing that matters to them. I think they are thinking the same thing they've been pretty overtly thinking. We're not going to do this. and we will call his bluff. And if it is not a bluff, then okay, we've already moved on. I mean, shit, they moved on as soon as InGonu, they tried like hell to get InGonu to lose.

They gave him gone and were like, hopefully Seorogon will just solve this problem for us. He didn't, and now they're in this room. But they immediately moved on and were like, all right, well, yeah, he's going to be out. He's not going to fight. Whatever, we're going to make an interim title. And they're trying to put John Jones and Steepam Eichich in an interim title, you know, maybe in the fall. Maybe not because, you know, I'd take anything John Jones says with a huge helping of salt.

But if they're trying to do that, they've already functionally moved on from the same way that when Henry Suhudo said, I've retired unless you paid me more money. Dana said, cool, I'm going to give that belt to Piotr Yan, and we're done with you. Bye. He's chucking the twos at Dengano. They're gone. Throw deuses, man. It just is what it is.

They aren't going to do this for whatever reason. Maybe it's pettiness, maybe it's stubbornness. Maybe it is just recognizing that they conceded once, and because they conceded this the one time, this is now a semi-ever-present thing. Because boxing is where fighters can make more money than in the UFC, because the UFC is a terrible organization that doesn't pay fighters what they're worth. So now they're getting more and more fighters wanting to go box. They want to go box Jake Paul and do all this stuff. and they're just not going to give that any bit of kindling to light a match with because they don't want to have to deal the same thing with Kamaro Ustman down the line.

Even though Uzman is even less likely to get a fight with Canelo Alvarez and Tyson Furious because ain't nobody other than Kamaro and Kamaro's immediate family want to see that fight, they just don't want to have to have the conversation. And it is, Inganu is not worth it to them from a value prop to have him maybe go lose, maybe dampen his value or the UFC value, however you want to view it. Maybe he gets injured. Maybe he goes and fights Fury and then just does never come back. And then they've gained really nothing from this but allowed him to do it and maybe

got a small piece of that action. They're just, they've drawn a line in the sand and they're not going to let him go. It's ridiculous, by the way, that they can draw this line of the sand because boxing is not MMA. And so there's no reason that France and Ghanu shouldn't be able to go compete in an entirely different sport than the one he is under contract with. But it is what it is. They're not going to move.

And so Inganu is not coming back to them. I don't think. If life were an MMA fighting article, Franz Ingano would be in a great position right now because he'd be with Eagle FC. We would allow this fight to happen. We would allow any boxing fight to happen. But that's neither here or no there.

So last thing on this, there's talks about whether it be next or at least sometime in the future. so let's play this game. Jed, true or false, by this time next year, this fight is signed. May not have happened yet, but this fight will be on the books.

Fury and Ghanu, some weird combat sports matchup by this time next year. True. I think this fight happens probably not next May, just because that's usually when Canelo likes to fight,

you know, May 5th or whatever. But if Canelo's injured, Wouldn't be shocked if they tried to snake that weekend, but I think early next summer. So this fight will be signed. We will be moving full steam ahead towards the fight that will make Jose the most unhappy man in MMA media, but will make me happy because I can spend months arguing for a tetherball match between these two big old behemists who can just swat that damn thing. Jose, true or false? Same question.

by this time next year, you and Jett are back on BTL debating whether or not this is the right decision to actually put this fight on the books because it will be done. Signed, probably true. It won't happen in May because, you know, May 5th or whatever, you know, Singleton Mayo, as we call it in my, you know, culture. Important date, which Kinella will box on for the rest of time and he won't be injured ever for that way. But probably true. It'll be on the books. Just won't have happened yet because also Francis Gano had pretty bad knee surgery. So let's wait for him to heal up before you can talk about a boxing match.

Look, for Francis' sake, I hope he gets it. I'd love to see him get that payday. And it's part of the UFC thing. I think he's a man of principal. I think he will come back and fulfill his UFC obligations. But if not, he makes more money. We'll see if there is fun to be had in the combat sports world. There will be more fun to be had here in the virtual combat sports world that is BTL on this program.

But the first point of this match goes to Sonzo Gunzo. Jose Young's. It is one to nothing. Excellent start. Let's go back more into the MMA sphere. Let's talk about this past weekend because we had a lot of MMA. We had two Bellator events in Hawaii. We had three title fights. We had four filled five round fights.

We had two new champions crowned in Liz Karmouche and Rafian Stotz, the latter being an interim title. Chris Cyborg retained her title on Saturday. The UFC was back in the apex as well with Jess Gondraud, strangling Amanda Lamos with the standing arm triangle in the first round of that made event and some other notable things that came out of that card as well. So Jose, we start with you.

Who won the weekend overall in MMA? Before we get to the whole MVP chatter, was this a Bellator victory or a UFC victory? Probably Belator, simply because they had a lot of fights and I think there were more talking points coming out of it, both in the minds of diehard fans and the media. Like you had Sabateli, you had Cybor, you got a new interim bantamweight

champion the ante medeiros fight was a bangor you just re-signed anton medeiro so you basically just guaranteed a bunch of bangor of fights moving forward so probably them i think the androd the last like the androd almost main event was obviously very high level stuff but the rest of that card obviously left much to be desired so i'm going to say bellator they just seem to have more storylines coming out of it and how often do we hear about us

talking about like, oh, I can't wait for so-and-so to fight so-and-so in Bellator. And that's what we're getting with Savateli and Rufi Beyond Stotz. Sign me up for all of that. So I'm going to say Bellator is the big winner. Jed, agree or disagree? Are you on Team Bellator coming out of this weekend? Or do you think the UFC went out there and snuck going away with their one event against two Bellator events? Man, no love for KSW, Sebastian Prism, you know, getting a second round submission.

one of maybe one of the top 15, 135ers in the world? Fine, fine, Mike. Okay, I see we're at. We're UFC Bellator only. Give me Bellator, though. They, I don't know, the UFC card felt like no one cared. Hell yeah, Jessica And Raj. She's awesome and one of the most exciting fighters in the world.

But honestly, there's not a lot to add to what Jose said. The Bellator had, there are too many fights. I watched all of them, covered both events for us. They didn't really need to do back-to-back events. They could have just made one super awesome card. But the fights are mostly good. And all of the fights that matter were actually really good. So, you know, for 278, obviously the Karmouche thing was ended in a way that leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

But the two play-in fights for the Grand Prix, Enrique Barzola looked awesome. and Danny Sabatello. This is, I want to be extremely clear, this is a Danny Sabatello podcast now. Whoever's on, whoever's competing, they are contractually obligated to rep Danny Sabatello. Because as the man told us himself, he's really effing good.

And Leandro ego sucks. And that was one of the best promos that's ever happened in the sport. So for that alone, they would have won. But then 279 was great. I mean, Cyborg Blenkao was way more fun than anyone. thought it would be. Even if it was mostly one-way traffic,

Arlene Blinko is tough as hell. So props to her. Ralphian Stott's taking the title, the interim title, whatever, with the knee head kick thing over Juan Archelaeta, who's a guy I respect a tremendous amount. And Patchy Mix just turning our rankings up on its head, basically. We talked about on the ranking show this week,

because everyone really likes Kioji Horaguchi essentially at MMA fighting and we think he's really good and then Patchy makes beat him that really screwed up like our entire Bannamweight rankings and now suddenly Bellator has four Bannam weights in the MMA fighting global rankings the only rankings that matter so I think it has to be Bellator just from the overall quality and the importance of what they delivered this week or last week. now jedd you ran off a lot of a lot of significant moments that happened through the weekend there are a lot of fights as you mentioned there are some results that were surprising there were results that were not so surprising so who is the MVP of the weekend you can only give out one MVP award

for the whole weekend from these two cards i know ksw we love you but just not here who stole the show in your eyes and why dude the answer i'm i'm going to give give josey and stott's the second best answer. It's Danny Sabatelo. I know that he was just a playing guy, but that promo is, I'm not kidding, the best promo since like maybe Connor McGregor, we're not here to take part.

We're here to take over. Just an unbelievable mic drop moment from him. It was no perfect every step of the way. And he has somehow, he's done the impossible. He, if there is a man alive who is going to suddenly make people, people say, I could, I'm, I'm a little bit interested in what's going to happen over in Bellator. It's, it's that dude, man.

That was an unbelievable effort for him, a great fight, a great performance, and an even better performance on the mic. And so while Ralphion Stott takes the title and was not too bad on the mic himself, give me the guy who's really effing good, uh, because my most anticipated fight for Bellator this year now is to watch him beat up Leandro Higo, who we now know sucks. did not know it before, but now we know that he sucks. And so I'm excited to watch the guy who sucks lose to the guy who's really effing good. Jose, Jose, your MVP. Well, I wasn't going to say Rufi on Stats, but since my opponent decided that he was going to answer for me, I decided to

change my mind as soon as he said that. So the winner of the week, I would say it's Chris Cyborg, because, you know, she heard a contract is coming up. So obviously, you want to go out on a win when you're about to enter free and see a la Michael Chandler because then you can ask for a load of money to do whatever you want to do. So Chris Seiborne. I think a lot of us thought she was going to just start Charlene Blenco in like what under a round. I think a lot of us said a round and a half, one and a half rounds, two rounds, whatever. What five rounds? Hard fought fight. The fact that we had that, like, it's not the answer, but the fact that in the post show, we were like, what was this the best fight of the weekend? The answer was no, because that was

the pfl fight between jeremy stevens and um wow uh chase collard uh i mean that clay collard that's the best fight of the weekend this is probably two or three so the fact that we're putting a five round chris cyborg rematch in that conversation kudos to you you went out on a hard fought way and you did an akuma punch in the first round which is just straight out of street street fighter a very absurd technique to use but the fact that a video game technique worked in real life kudos to you again and now you can go sign a bunch of money to fight kela harrison and and actually, you know, throw yourself back into the mix of, is Chris Cyborg the best female fighter in the world?

Because if she goes out there and just dismantles Kayla Harrison, the answer is probably yes. And if Kayla Harrison gets to dismantle Chris Cyborg, she makes a lot of money and then she cements her own legacy. So I would say Chris Cyborg, winning probably her last fight on her Bellator contract, going out on a high note, using an Akuma punch, going five-round hard-fought fight, she's the big winner.

And Jose is, I mean, I have to assume that Valentina Shavchenko got hit by a bus for Cyborg to suddenly be the best fight. And like a big bus, because as we've discussed before, if she gets hit by a small one, she's going to do more damage to the bus. Well, I guess my reason would be if Chris Cyborg beats Kail Harrison, that's a bigger win than anyone Valentin has ever had in MMA.

Ooh, that's an interesting question. So if Chris Cyborg beats Kayla Harrison, she is right there on the conversation again. I think a lot of people kind of push her to third or fourth now after Valentin and Amanda and Kayla. If Chris goes out there and just smushes Kayla Harrison, she has to be one C. She's certainly in the conversation. Yes. I'm just, I'm trying to figure out if I think beating Kayla Harrison is better than beating Holly home.

Is it better than Yawanna at Flyweight? That's another thing you got to add in that. That's also, I don't know. The Giuliana Pena win has aged very. well? Yes, it has. And when she beats her again later this year, it's going to be... But the thing is, the thing is like, Mike, Mike, you said it a lot in Jacksonville when

you interviewed people, that when Hamza fought Gilbert Burns or when Hamzao was on the rise, it was just a matter of fact of he was going to just eat his opponent. That's Kayla Harrison in the women's division. That's Kayla Harrison. Everyone just assumes she's going to win. So Chris Seibor goes out there and has a hyper-competitive fight or just crushes her. the fact like what we would be talking about with Gilbert Burns if he'd be in Hamzaa would be the same thing

you know we have odd on that fight somewhere it's got to be somewhere we'll see if we can find it at least by the preview show tomorrow especially if Chris Cyborg goes up to 155 to fighter and beats her that would be even more impressive oh wow Chris Seiborg is a favorite is a favorite in a hypothetical matchup

minus 200 Wow, I didn't think it would be that high But I would probably favor Chris I would not have thought it would be that high either Yeah, I didn't think it would be minus 200 By the way, shout out to you Danny Sabatelo I'm jumping on the train Because I've been on the show

And I've been telling people that Danny Sabatello Should have been in this damn tournament From Jump Street That should have been a 16-man tournament Just to put him in The commenters laughed The panelists laughed All of you laughed

And now you're looking at the platinum hair And the big shades and the promo A plus. Well done, Danny Sabatelo. You are the MVP of the weekend. There was some fun stuff for sure. We're going to close out the show with this weekend stuff. But first, some triple C talk.

That's why you're all here. Let's go. Let's keep that conversation. Go ahead. Point for round two. Goes to the president of the Henry Suhudo fan club, Jedmishu. It is one to one.

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Sponsored by Bell. Conditions apply. See AirCanada.com. And by the way, Jed Mishu, Jed reached out before. we recorded the MMA draft show and he said, please, please, can you bring up the Henry Suhudo comeback question? He was very excited

about this. So let's talk about it because you are the PFL president, Jen Mushu. Because in all honesty, I have been very open and honest about how I feel about this situation, but it continues to come up. Henry Suhudo, retiring when he did,

was probably the worst miscalculation. One of the worst readings of the room, maybe in the history of sports. I mean, just really terrible timing. What an awful misfire. Basically, Suhudo had a beach ball coming at him with a cartoon-sized tennis racket in his hands, and he swung 20 times, and he missed them all,

and it created like a tornado, maybe a hurricane of swings and misses. And now two years later, with little to no demand, Henry Suhudo is coming back, folks. Look, I'm not hating on Suhudo. make that money, the guy's resume might be the best ever

in combat sports. So the competitor, Henry Suhudo, no issue with. The problem is nobody seems to care all that much. At least that's what I see, and that's my opinion.

So Jose, Suhudo is coming back, it looks like. Fans don't seem to care all that much. Dana White certainly doesn't seem to care all that much or even believe him at this point. You are the man who says,

I don't believe it until both men are locked on the case, your reaction to this comeback or this potential comeback of Triple C. It doesn't surprise me. The second he retired, I'm like he'll be back because it's not like he was retiring because he was hurt, because he was old or washed out or anything. He just wanted, you know, to make a lot more money. And then it didn't come his way.

And then all of a sudden a lot of outspoken bantam weights. And, you know, he wanted to do the history fight against Alex Wolkonowski. But obviously, Dana was wary for probably a couple of reasons. one, Henry Zahuto left him high and dry as a double, as essentially a double champion. That obviously pissed him off. Two, he doesn't want another George St. Pierre fiasque would happen where a retired fighter comes out, beats a guy in a white class above him, and then immediately retires again because that just, you know, you look silly there again.

So a lot of, I was not sold on that fight ever happening unless Henry Suhuto, which, again, I wasn't even confident he would stay at featherweight because he would be an exceptionally small featherweight. Imagine him fighting Jaire and Max and Zabit and all those guys. Like it's not going to happen. Him coming back at Bantonweight was always a lot more feasible to me. There's not a lot of, you know, fights that he would take at Flyaway, especially now that his teammate, Figuero is the champion. And maybe the Moreno fight down the road because there is beef there.

But the fights to make were always Abanemite. Peirion talks like a type of trash similar to Habib, where it's very matter of fact and scary Russian. Aljo for as corny, cringy as he is, can also, like, you know, get into verbal spar matches with Henry Sehudo. They're both high-level wrestlers from their backgrounds. They're high-level wrestlers. Obviously, Henry Sehuto's won an Olympic gold medal. His is a little higher.

The T.J. Dillishaw rematch at 135 was always there, too. Dominant Crucite fight, the Jose Alda fight, which was booked at one point before, you know, everything fell apart. So the more interesting fights, both in terms of selling point with both guys verbally sparring and actual competitiveness. 135 was always the white class I wanted him to come back at. I'm just very surprised. I'm not surprised he's coming back. I'm very surprised that Henry Suhudo is now tweeting about Al Jermaine. I thought he would be all aboard the fighting Volcanovsky train,

especially when Volcanowski said like, yeah, I'll fight you. If no one at Featherway is going to cement themselves as Dunwoogentender, why not fight Henry Sehudo? So I thought that was going to be the route that Henry Sehudo would take, just keep on going after Volcanovsky. I bet he had a conversation with UFC brats. They're like, chill out with a. featherweight thing, maybe down the line, but for now, focus on Bannonweight. So that's what

he's doing. Uh, so I'm more surprised that he's going after Bannam Wights. He's like pivoted very hard to now want to reclaim his Bannamweight title. So not surprised he's coming back. I'm surprised he's focusing on Bannamweight. Jed, your thoughts and, uh, your thoughts on Jose's comments there because he makes a lot of sense. And I all, and we kind of talked about this couple weeks ago, which is off topic. We're even planning on talking about it. And we both went on kind of a ran about this. we both sort of felt that if you were going to make the Volcanowski fight, you made it, you should have made it for the Jacksonville event.

Because there's your chance. Holloway out, there's your chance. You got zombie, cool. But if you're going to do it, like, that was the time to do it. And they didn't. So what do we think now? A couple weeks later, So Hudo's coming back. Do you care?

Your thoughts. I have many thoughts. The first one is that I do not care, like even a little bit. I just don't. Henry Sohudo has managed to make me not like him and not in the good way where I will watch him lose in the way where my happiest scenario is he just vanishes from the sport and I no longer have to think about him. And I did not feel this way prior to his retirement. I was like, oh, Henry Suuto. Like, I don't know, this king of cringe stuff is real weird, but like pretty damn good fighter. Love to watch him compete. Now I'm just mostly like I would.

love to not have him on my timeline. That would be Chef's Kiss Beautiful. And for the record, we did the Fantasy MMA draft. We took 25 fighters, including luminaries like Brandon Moreno and Riney DeRitter, and Henry stayed on the sidelines. So I don't think I'm alone in believing that no one cares about this man. Who is, just for the record, not the greatest combat sports athlete of all time because winning a UFC belt does not really register in the global scheme of combat

sports. I'm sorry, MMA is a great sport and we love it. It's been around for about 30 years and does not have the lineage in history of winning multiple titles in, say, seven weight classes in professional boxing or multiple gold medals in wrestling or judo. So, sorry, Henry, you're just not that. To Jose's point, I don't even know if Henry had to have a conversation with the UFC brass, because you can pretty much establish what Henry's going to do by just looking at it and thinking,

what is the most obvious transparently self-interested move possible? Because that's what Henry has done for the past three years, functionally. He knew he is not going to get a featherweight title fight. I would venture to say he's never going to get one, but he's certainly not going to get one coming back. regardless of what happens. I don't care if Alexander Volcanovsky plants a flag in the ground and says, I will only fight Henry Suhudo.

Dana White is not going to open himself up to his second GSP scenario. He just ain't going to do it. Man got burned once. He's not going to get burned again. And so, knowing that he now has to come back and win a fight, his options are, well, I can go try and fight Max Holloway,

who will beat my ass, or I can try and go fight more winnable fights at Bannamweight, reclaim the belt, and then potentially use that as leverage so the U.S.C. can at least promote a super fight of champion versus champion down the road. I don't think that will happen. Again, I truly do not believe they will let Henry Suhudo fight for the featherweight unless he commits to fighting as a featherweight because if he did win and he would not,

Volcanovsky would defeat him, but if he did win, that man would retire in the ring instantaneously. is not a chance in hell if he ever wins the 145 strap that he is fighting again. There just ain't no friggin' way. And there's no incentive for the UFC to want him to do it. So he put himself in a box with all of this. He's made himself substantially more annoying and less interesting for guys like me. And it's all just kind of where it is. Like if he comes back and fight Aljo on the merits, that's a great fight.

I'll watch the hell out of it for that reason. But no one's clamoring for it. and I still think that there's a fair chance he doesn't actually come back and compete because he's just said it so much. I need to see him in the cage before I say, yeah, he's actually going to fight. And even then, my level of care is very low.

Just going back to the draft, Vicente Lucke went in the draft before Henry Sehudo did, just putting that up there. I mean, that makes a ton of sense. Yeah, I mean, that's a great pick. I'm happy, I'm thrilled. And the beauty of it is I still get Henry over at Eagle FC.

at least on the commentary side of things, which is just fantastic. I feel confident saying that we could have gone another five rounds. We could have done 10 rounds and 50 fighters, and I don't think Henry was coming off the board. Like, I just truly don't think anyone was trying to take that man. Super hot take.

I would have taken Jake Paul over Henry Suhudo. Just throw that out there. There's a business move. It's a business move. But anyways, that's neither here or there. Jed, you got the magic pencil now. Let's just say,

all your doubts go away Henry's coming back we know he's tough to deal with because if I get the mighty pencil he's not getting a title shot he's not fighting Aljo he's certainly not fighting Volcano he's certainly not going to fight Figgi

if Moreno beats Figgi maybe maybe do Moreno versus Oudo there's a story there but let's just say he has two options 135, 1.35, 145 Bannamweight featherweight you could do Sterling there's Dillishaw there's Aldo

you could do Holloway, you could do Volk, you can do Cater, Alan Rodriguez, Josh Emmett, Ilya, you name it. Are you giving Sehudo an immediate title fight? If so, who is he fighting? It's just not Volcanov, obviously. So is he getting Sterling?

If he's not, who is he getting? I, if I got to choose, and we're throwing all the rules out, I'd probably give him like Isla Makachev just because I want him to lose. But if we're trying to stay at least in the framework of reality, uh give him max holloway because max will solve this problem for us real fast max will beat the hell out of him

and then we don't have to deal with henry again then if henry wants to be a 135er and just do that great uh but then we just don't have to deal with the problem again if you're if you're keeping him at 135 uh i don't have a huge issue with you giving him a title fight right out of the gate i don't i still don't think you need to though because if we're being honest he he doesn't deserve one. He won the belt by knocking out Marlon Marius for a vacant title, a win that has

aged about as well as milk, given where Marlin's career went. And then he defended against Dominic Cruz, a man who has physically aged as well as milk, because he's 104 in fight years. So those two wins do not

scream to me that he deserves a title fight over hot take, T.J. Dillishaw, the man he knocked out of flyweight. Hey, flyweight isn't freaking ban him weight. So give TJ a fight over that. Or someone like Jose Aldo. So I would want him to fight first.

I recognize that's probably not what would happen. But I would say, let him fight Corey Sandhagen. Like, who beats Corey Sanagan, I'm not a title fight. But, you know, I'm sure that I will be in the minority with that take. That's an excellent idea, by the way. Jose, what are we doing here? You got the magic pencil. Ceuto versus Blank.

How are you booking it? Suhudo's going to fight Peter Yon, the fight that should have happened instead of Yon versus Aldo on Fight Island, considering that out was for the vacant Bannonweight title. So Yon gets to fight Suhudo. Winner can get the number one contender shot against the winner of Al J. Sterling versus T.J. Dillard will fight Dominic Cruz. It has to happen now before the two get more old and injured. Corey Sanhakin can fight the winner of Rob Fawn versus Cheeto Vera.

Marab can fight probably the winner. of, I don't even know, maybe maybe he gets the winner fun Cheeto. Sean O'Malley will probably fight Adrian Yannas, Frank Yeager, will probably fight Ricky Simone, Pedro Munoz versus, I don't know, fill in the blank. So there's a lot

of fun fights at Bannon Way, but Peter I'm going to fight Henry Suhito if I have the matchmaking pen and everything else I just said will happen as well. I will say this. If Henry signs on for either of those fights, I'm not going to say my stance changes all that much until he gets in the Cajun fights.

But if he goes on and beats either of those guys, then he gets all my respect. I will come on this program, and I will sing his praises. I won't. For sure. I think Jan is the fight, it just makes the most sense in the fact that Yon,

if Yon beats Suhudo, you can't argue he gets the winner, you know, the next title shot because he would have essentially beaten the guy that never lost the title. And if Sohudo beats Yon, he never lost the title, and he just beat the number one ranked band,

and went after the, current champion. See, that's why I don't like it, though, because I don't, I want Peoriaean to win two, two freaking fights.

Like, he's, he's lost twice to him, and I know that a lot of people don't take that, but like, I want to see Jan versus Marab just because I think that that's a fun storyline. And then you could do the Suhudo thing.

I'm not, I'm not against that fight at all. So Hudo Yon is a great fight on the merits, but like, I just don't want a world where Peoria Yon can challenge, counter the belt again because it just starts to feel like we're just trying to make him the champion and like come on we don't need to do that it's just such weird timing because henry sehuto the coach was actually getting really interesting getting in the coach of the air conversations and things

like that some of the things he was doing with some of these fighters that went over to fight ready seeing what davis and figurato did and the adjustments he made we're seeing john jones going over to fight ready we're seeing yury freaking per hashka go over to fight ready like if yury goes out there Glever, which he will not, then I mean, come on. He's he's right in that conversation. Can you imagine how different the narrative is? If instead of Henry retiring immediately saying he was doing it because he wants more money, the UFC laughing at him and crowning a new champion, and then him chirping incessantly

for a year about getting a title fight at a weight class he's never competed at, if instead he just actually retired, walked away at the cruise wind, said, I've proved all I need to prove. I did this in wrestling. I retired at 21 or whatever it was wrestling after I won a gold medal. I had nothing left to prove there. You know, I value my health. I'm going to go on. I'm going to transition into coaching.

And for the last year and a half, he had not said shit about coming back. He had not chirped at Volk at all. And instead, he was just doing his thing, trying to be a media personality, a commentator, and a coach. And the coaching thing he had, it would be such a different narrative. because we would be asking him if he never learned that and I don't understand how he didn't learn that

because everybody asked Habib incessantly if he was back everybody asked George incessantly hey when are you coming back when are you coming back every time you can put a mic in front of when are you coming back nobody asked Henry that

nobody in the world asked that man when he's coming back because he just kept saying pay me and I'm coming back let me fight that man it would be there would be so much more interest in him coming back. There'd be so much more an appeal of build to it. Everyone would be seeing his praises as a coach on top of it and say, man, he's still got it. Look what he's doing

with his mind and as a coach. I would love to see him fight Al Jermaine Sterling. I would love to see him fight Peoria. Hey, Henry, when are you coming back? And instead, he is just, he's just giving it to us. He's just throwing that the thing and now we don't want it. It's the stupidest thing ever. He's so bad at this. So Hudo didn't even retire after he won the gold medal. You know what he did? He came back, tried to make another one, and lost and failed to even qualify. He's just, he's so bad at this.

Like he has four of the five steps needed and then just does the exact opposite one in the last moment. It's so mind-numbingly infuriating. Habib has like written the blueprint for you. Like since October of 20. George wrote the blueprint. Like five years ago. George did exactly the thing. Just do George for every young MMA fighter.

Brian Stan, we posted on the site, I think, last week. He had four piece of advice for M.A fighters. It's great. Go read it. Honestly, that's just good advice for any human being outside of anybody in a competitive, work environment, anything. It's great advice. Or, if you're an MMA fighter, just do what George St.

did. Just look at him like, I'm going to do that because that guy did MMA better than anyone else ever has. And if you can take some cues from his career, just do that. And Henry just was like, nah, I'm not going to do that at all. I'm going to do this way dumb. I mean, we could do this for another 20 minutes, but we're not. We're not going to do that. We're going to give away our point for round three.

It goes to, I mean, this is a Jedmishu round. all day. It's two to one. You need questions and make me angry. Well, I mean, we could talk about this weekend. Hopefully it doesn't make you that angry because the UFC is back. That's been away in the world, baby. It was amazing on Saturday

watching Tyson Fury and Dillion White fighting in front of 95,000 people. Everyone was electric. People were throwing shit in the ring. Like, it was just, what a scene. and then the first thing we see in Las Vegas is an empty apex, and we see Dean Barry almost ripped the eyeball of Mike Jackson out of his head.

Like, it's just, what a weird thing. I'm glad to see the UFC starting to venture out with these fight nights. They're going to Austin June 18th, so now we're starting to do a little something traveling outside of the apex. I get it. It's a moneymaker. It's great to have your own venue, but I'm starting to get a little bit, starting to get a little bit tired of it.

But anyways, the UFC is back in that iconic thing. building this Saturday, UFC Vegas 53, the main event. Rob Font versus Marlon Vera, big fight, and maybe not the best division in MMA, but certainly the deepest division in MMA. Jose, we begin with you. Your thoughts on UFC Vegas 53, this main event, the card as a whole. Bannway, it's not the deepest division in MMA. It's just, it's not.

It's very, like, one through 25 is so good, but like one through 60. and lightweight is also even better. So, yeah, Bannamway is the flavor of the month and the thing that people like to say when they like to be different, we call them contrarians. It just happens to be the second best division in MMA right now. That's either here nor there, because this Bain event rules. I don't agree that Rob Faw is the best Bannemant in the world,

nor does my opponent. He's just, again, going to say it because it's the thing to say right now and he likes to be different. Marlon Barry is very good. I think I am not quite, sold on marlin vera being a top seven bannamweight in the world because he was about to lose to frank eager before he front kicked him uh the josialdo fight and the songly dong fight i think he lost fair and square the song the song the dong fight i know is little murky and this and that i'm also not

a big fan of how marlin vera handles losing because it's always everyone else's fault and not his uh he also like if you watch marlin vera fights he does a lot and i know we like to use the phrase if you're not cheating, you're not trying, or everyone should cheat in MMA and this and that. But no one actually believes that. Again, they're just saying it because it's the funny thing to say. Don't hit your opponent after the bell. Marlon Barrett does that a lot, and he gets away with it a lot. He'll throw like a sneaky elbow on the ground and then stand up and walk away.

Just don't do it because you're elbowing another human being in the face when you're not supposed to. He also likes to give the finger to people. That's fine, but like, why are you doing that to Frankie Edgar? it doesn't really make much sense. Like you're giving it to Frank Edgar and then you're hugging him after. Just keep that same energy, bro. I don't quite understand that

because if you actually look into Marlon Verra's background, his story is actually like pretty fantastic and how he like got into MMA and his daughter's medical conditions and this and that and how he's fighting for all that. It's great. Doesn't need all the Tom Fully that goes around. But if that's him, keep that same energy, I guess.

Rob Font, I thought that fight against Jolzealdo is one of the more underappreciated. fights of last year. It was obviously the best fight of the night. It wasn't the was the Mallory Martin, Chey and Valismis fight. Was that that card? The Aldo Fonk card? That was the best fight. Sure what. Aldo Fon was the best fight of the night

and one of the 10 best fights of the year, I would say, one of the better Bannonweight fights of the last year. So I'm excited for him to fight. He's very good boxer. I'm also excited to see Marlon Vare fight over five rounds because Rob Fon's done it, can Marlon Vair do it? If Marlon Vare just goes out there

and destroys Rob Fon, then we got another top five Bandomay in the world, and then, you know what, that fight, that inevitable rematch against Sean O'Malley will be that much more interesting. Now, if Rob Fon goes out there and just does what Calvin Cater did to Giga Chikaze, Rob Fon just cements himself as not the best Bannamway in the world, but very clearly a top five. So 10 out of 10 main event, do I wish fans were in attendance? Sure, but I'm also in the boat that I don't particularly care where this fight takes place. I just want it to take place and I want them to get paid to do it.

I will watch them fight in an alleyway. I will watch them fight in front of 100,000 people. I just want to see Rob Fon fight Marlon Vair and I am exceptionally excited for this main event. Man, it's well said. Nicely done. Jed, is this one you're calling your friends and saying, hey, don't go out. Don't go to the barbecue. Stay home.

Watch this event. No. God, no. Those shouts, it is an earlier one, and I love those because it means, you know, things will wrap at a semi-reasonable hour here on the East Coast. Look, the main event's great. I'm going to disagree with Jose on a number of things. First, fully support cheating. I don't support hitting your opponent after the bell because that feels dirty.

But like a low blow, that's just part of the game at this point. maybe don't go full eye gouge like Barry did but you know cheat cheat to win get two paychecks it's what's all about I do support him that lightweight is the best division but band and weight's really fun it's just not the best because four bellator fighters are rankings which I think by definition means that division can't be the best division in the world but these two bannam weights are really good they're really good fighters for there was a time when I thought that maybe Rob Font was low-key the best Bann-M-A-Waid in the world, and then he got taken to school by Joseo.

So he's not. But, you know, he's top five Bain-A-Wa. Marlon Verra is certainly top 15, probably top-10-ish, certainly in that kind of fringy range. And this is a really great fight. And then because my opponent didn't mention it, I'll go ahead and say it. If you're going to stay in and watch,

it's for one reason. It's not the main event, which is a 10 out of 10 fight. is for the co-made event because the greatest heavyweight of all time, Andre Rolovsky, the most successful and accomplished UFC heavyweight of all time. This is math, not opinion. Mike, it is fact based on data and science. Andra Lovsky is going for his, I believe it's his 38th UFC fight is happening on Saturday. That is an obscene amount of heavyweight fights for one man.

and he's doing it again. It's against Jake Collier. That fight itself is probably not going to be the most exciting thing you've ever watched. But you have to respect a man who has 40, damn near 40 times, stepped into the actual Octagon to fist fight, another man who weighs somewhere between 205 and 265, and is going to try and separate him from consciousness. He is the greatest, most successful UFC champion of all time.

and I will tune in for that if nothing else. It's a classic Jedd Nishu pick right there. Also, Jedd, you are our gambling enthusiasts. There's many MMA fighting gambling columns that come out. Some history being made on Saturday. Right now, Alexander Romanov, Jed, is a minus 2,200 favorite against Chase Sherman, which I believe, and you might know better than I, he is the biggest favorite heading into a fight in the history of the UFC.

I think that's probably correct. Also, that line is insane. Don't get me wrong. I suspect that Alexander Romanov is going to win this fight and probably do so handily. The man is looking, he's looking spelt these days. You can't take anything away from him. But I'm interested because this was supposed to happen last week and Chase Sherman was only like a plus 800. He's now like plus 1,200. And I don't know if it's just because

everyone got smarter and was like, oh, plus 800. That's he should be a big favorite. Or if they were just like, they got scared off by whatever the medical issue that Chase Sherman had that meant he could fight seven days later. But I totally meant meant to say this. We get to watch again, said it last week, brilliant matchmaking. The vanilla gorilla versus King Kong. Like this is, that's a plus. work from Sean Shelby and I'm here for it I'm here for it I like this card a lot like it's not listen is it the deepest star riled card of all time no but there's some really good fights on here there's some storylines that I want to see play out Andre feely joe Anderson brittow is an interesting fight can grant dawson bounce back from the Ricky glenn fight against the tough dude in jared gordon

we get GM3 Gerald meersharp back in our lives we got what else we got We got Tzuro Tira making his UFC debut. I mean, this is fun. Crystal, Jocko, Gerald Mearshar, may be the fight between the two fighters who I have the most consistently screwed up spelling their names. Like, I don't know who else would be in contention for that particular award, but I can never spell either of those gentlemen's names correct in the first try. Yeah, Jocko, Jocko is definitely on the list.

Real quick, last thing, by the way, before we get to the last quick topic here in regulation, get those question ideas in for the knock around because it's coming quick leave him in the chat case he's collecting them I'm sure Jose speaking of history we got a big one on Saturday Madison Square Garden boxing Katie Taylor versus Amanda Serrano this is it these first of all let me just say that both of these teams have done a tremendous job promoting this fight these two ladies have been everywhere on the freaking today show this is what you're supposed to do in combat sports this is how you intro introduce these individuals and these fighters to the public. This is how you build stars. You do that. You do that. You put them on these programs. So taking all that aside, as a boxing enthusiast, Jose, this is a historical fight, two women selling out of MSG, massive gate, all that.

Are you interested in the matchup itself? Like, what about this matchup itself stands out to you? Well, it's the two best female. It's two of the three best female fighters. I know Clarissa Shields if she wants to declare herself or if people want to tell me that Clarice Shields is the best female boxer

on planet Earth or of all time I'm not going to argue because she's pretty much done everything you can in boxing like she herself said she could take five years off go do MMA for five years come back to boxing and still be the best and you know what she's probably right

for that weight class now Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano they sold out Madison Square Garden for a couple reasons one because they are you know like I said two of three best And anytime you get like two of the three best in the same weight class, you want to see them fight. Wouldn't it be crazy if that happened in the heavyweight, the men's heavyweight boxing division? That would just be bananas, wouldn't it? If Tyson Fury fought the winner of Anthony Joshua versus Usec, it would be the same thing.

It's that. They're the two best female, two of the three best female fighters on the world going for all of the belts. A man of Serrano, I believe is one of three, maybe one of four fighters to hold like championships in like four or five, six white classes like her, Madi Pacquiao, Oscar Del Hoy, and I think she's the only female fire to do it. So she also has wins in Jiu-Jitsu. She also has wins in M.MA.

She also even did some pro wrestling and impact wrestling, so she's doing everything. Katie Taylor just happens to be the better boxer, I would say. If you're just looking at the sweet science of boxing, Katie Taylor, if you look at her last fight, maybe the age is catching up to her, she's still won. If Man of Serrano goes out there and tries to get in a boxing match with Katie Taylor,

She's probably going to lose because Katie Taylor is one of those rare fighters where she doesn't care if she's on the outside or the inside. She can just win. Amanda Serrano hits very hard and she's very talented. I just think Katie Taylor is a better box for now. If she wants to make this really ugly, the only real path to victory I see for Amanda Serrano, which is there, this is as close to 50-50 fight as I can say. I just favor Katie Taylor to win. But if I'm her coach, you want a man, Katie Taylor historically hasn't looked very beatable at all. but she has shown some signs of weakness towards pressure fighters.

So I did say she doesn't mind getting close and like getting the phone booth fight. But if she is on her back foot while trying to fight in a phone booth, she had shown openings to defeat. That is how Amanda Serrano could win and should implement her game plan. But at the end of this, if this fight is going to happen, I'm glad it's happening now in front of people in Madison Square Garden. And if we waited like three, four years for this, both ladies were probably out of their prime

and at that point I wouldn't be surprised if either lady had lost by then because people are catching up. It's like when Manny Pachial fought Floyd Mayweather, that fight should have happened in 2009 because they were both in the primes of their career and they were both on those long losing streaks. I don't want that to happen to circle back

with Fury Joshua and Usik. That's why I want this fight now. I don't want that freak show fight. Katie Taylor and Manciron are doing a right. They're actually co-promoting, which in and of itself is historic with like most valuable promotion matching boxing in Madison's Score Garden. So there's a lot

of history to be made, but this fight as a pugilistic high-level boxing match checks all of my boxes because it's the one versus two best in this weight class. Also, I think Katie Taylor, if she does win, is the best female boxer of all time. And like I've said, a million times. Anytime the best does something,

I'm going to tune in and watch it. And for Manisturana wins, I fully expect them to run it back, maybe even three times. And I think that's what women's boxing is missing. One of these high-level rivalries that can really because if they fight three times every single fight is going to sell out in an arena especially if they win the irish they travel Puerto Ricans they travel expect a lot of fights in the crowd and a lot of fights on the streets of new york because their Puerto Ricans are

very outspoken and the irish are very outspoken so checks all the boxes for a high level sporting event outside of boxing this is just a great sporting event i am very excited for this but in terms to the actual fight couldn't ask her a better matchup Yeah, it's great fight. Tremendous. Manus Serrano loves fighting in New York. She has fought in the theater many of time. She's not been in the actual garden competing.

So this will be huge, especially at the top of the bill. Jed, your thoughts on this fight between Taylor and Surround. Now we get a million-dollar bet between the promoters. Oh, I didn't even see the million-dollar bet. Cool, whatever. Yeah, this is really, this is as good as it gets in women's comments. combat sports basically. So I'm all here for it.

I'm a little surprised that Katie Taylor's the underdog. I mean, it's getting a little old. That is shocking for me. But it's pretty, I would have thought that it would be flip-flopped or close to a pick-em. But, you know, love that free value. Going to take that free value. Just smash that bet all day. This is easily the best fight of the weekend.

The only thing negative that you can say about it is. is that it's two minute rounds. That remains very sexist and stupid. But, you know, we pick our battles. You can't win them all. We're getting everything else about this is sensational. And I haven't really nothing to add beyond what Jose said because he pretty much nailed it.

This fight rules. They should fight three times at the minimum because it will sell out everywhere. The fight will be awesome every time. And it will matter significantly. to the sport. So this is the thing I'm by far the most excited

to watch this weekend. Well said, gentlemen. With that said, point for round four, and hopefully you've been sending in your questions, goes two. I mean, typically when an opponent

says, I don't have anything to add, that's usually good for the other person who said the thing before him. So Jose Young's gets the point. It is two to two. Shocking development. Hack the holidays with the PC holiday Insiders Report. Try this PC

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Okay, okay. Try the season's hottest flavors from the PC Holiday Insiders Report. Please feast responsibly. So that's, let's go into the knocker. round, the mysterious knockout round, because I have no idea what this question is going to be. Casey is here in the bottom right-hand corner. Hopefully some questions have come in, some good spicy questions. And once this question pops up on the screen, each individual will have one minute to answer

said question, and then we will turn it over to the people who have been voting in the poll that hopefully has been up throughout the show. Casey, what would you like to say? I was going to say, I'll get a little small talking. I'm still waiting for the questions. We got some questions, but I want to... Because we're a little bit, people are listening right now, they have a little about 15 second delay. So I want to, you know, get everyone in.

So, you can talk so much yourselves. I will say, I will say we have not discussed in depth the Kamar Usman-Kinello-Alvarez situation. I will walk off. We haven't talked about what's going on. I mean, there's some big stories out there. We have not talked to MMA draft. We have not talked to MMA draft. which we would certainly do.

There are a lot of things we could talk about. Jake Paul's next opponent. You know, how do we fill one of these big pay-per-view slots at this point? We get international fight week coming up. No one out's main event. We got July 23rd in London. Don't know if that's going to be a pay-per-view or a fight night. We get July 30th.

That's supposed to be a pay-per-view. We got so much going on. Okay. I think I picked the question, but before we do that, you do who's going to go first? Okay. Jose was the most recent victor pulling off the victory over Shaheen Al-Shadi. Jose, you want to go first? Do you want to pass it?

Uh, a jet can go first. All right. All right. All right. There he is. I like this question. I like this question, Mark is zero dude 41, straight up. Why was Judge M.A. draft so terrible?

That's not going to be the official question, but... My draft was unbelievable if that's the question. I haven't even... I haven't listened to what looked at it at all yet. I got two of the five biggest stars in MMA, and I have positionless MMA. And I got Tommy Laskin all. My draft ruled.

All right. I have a question. Casey got to pull up the question. Here we go. One minute on the clock. I will read the question. And then once I, finish reading, we can

start the timer. I forgot to get my clock ready. I was so busy to get the questions. All right. Jed's focused. Here we go. Here's the question. I'm going to let you read it, Mike, when I pop it up. All right. As soon as I finish with the question, here we go. Knock out question from Scott McCraight.

You are Dana White, Jedmishu. How do you ensure UFC 274 exceeds one million pay-per-view buys? Go. Uh, I, I, I don't. Like that's, I mean, this is a great idea.

I love the concept, but that cake is baked right now. That's, that's next weekend. What can I do if I can go, uh, I can go kneecap Charles Oliver or Justin Gehche and a hope that Connor wants to fight on a bum leg. Like, there's, there's nothing I can do on six days notice to, to make this add 600. 50,000 paperbee pies to it. Like, honestly, there's, I'm, I pulled up the card. I'm looking at it right now. Like, you've got two title fights.

Don't get me wrong. This card rules and the third fight down. You got Michael Chandler, Tony Ferguson. But for the love of all things, we're bringing Shogun who is desiccated carcass out to rematch OSP? Like, this isn't, there's nothing to work with here. How do you, unless Dana wants to fight Tito on this card on four days notice, we ain't getting them.

Millie. Wow. That was a terrific answer. That was terrific. That was excellent. So is Jose getting the same, he's getting the same question. Yeah, same question. Same question.

All right. Jose, Dana White. You have what? You have nine days to ensure that your big pay-per-view event exceeds a million pay-per-view buys. Not a lot of time, my friend. How do we ensure it exceeds a million pay-per-view buys? Go.

Well, first of all, if I'm Dana White, I pull up my phone and I hit speed dial to Elon Mux because he has a lot of money and I assume has a time machine. So he's going to go back in time with Dana White and pluck a bunch of fighters out from the timeline. Or you know what? The multiverse because Dr. Strange came out. I just saw everything everywhere all at once. The multiverse obviously exists. So we're going to pick a bunch of fighters out.

We're going to have, you know, Sean O'Malley fight prime dominant crews because, you know, they're both from Phoenix and Tucson. this takes place in Arizona. That's a rivalry. Henry Suhudo can just fight Josealdo, you know, prime Josealdo from the WC that's knocking fool's legs out. The main event, that can stay because, you know, those are the two best lightwits in the world.

We're going to do a million pay-per-view-byes without Conradger because we're bringing back Brock Lesnar. We're going back in time to that crazy island in Russia where Dana White met Fedor. Fedor's coming with us. That's now a three-round co-main event because, you know, title fights get priority over Brock Lesnar and Fedor, Mellian. Rose and Carla, they can stay there. Yawanna is now the referee because we went back in time and made her a referee and not a fighter.

It's all going to happen. So let's make it happen. I love the avenues both of you took because Jose went like full on cartoon, like full on 80s, early 90s cartoon. And Jed went like a Netflix movie starring Kevin James Path. It was amazing. Just like pull something out of thin air and let's hope it. happens. I legitimately pulled it up to make sure the 274 was next weekend. And then my mind wasn't like playing tricks on me. It was like, there's no way to make this a million in seven days.

That's why that's why I love the question. I was like, well, this is going to be good. Great question. It's a great question. So vote now. Vote for the next, I don't know, 30 seconds or so. I'll fill time. If you haven't listened to it yet, go listen to it. The draft is, it's great. It's to read but it's more fun to listen to uh on the m a fighting podcast network but if you're a visual learner go check that out m mayfiting dot com the uh it's a long read it's a it's a long listen it's like an hour and 25 minutes probably maybe more but it's who's the first who's the first pick i selected francis and gano for eagle fc just so we could get some of that Tyson fury money to set us off the next five years and i got john jones in the second round and i got john jones number two so not only do i

get how many people were in this draft five five what you you wasted your number two pick number two big is never going to fight uh you wasted you wasted you wasted your first two picks on the two best heavy weights in the world that will probably never fight mima ever again they're gonna fight they're gonna fight in my world and france is going to make that tyson fury money first and then we're gonna bank and then john's going to come in and they're going to have the fight we're going to make that fight happen. And if we don't make it happen, no one's going to make it happen. The thing is, Mike came out really strong and he, he really faltered down the stretch in the eyes of me. Not at all. Mike does not agree, but he started strong. I'm building a business. I'm building a

business. I'm building a dynasty league. I'm not building a one-year fantasy team. I'm taking the Jose Young's fantasy baseball approach. Okay. I'm drafting some power. houses, but the 60% of my draft picks are guys who are going to be with me for the next decade. My fantasy baseball team, if you look at my fantasy baseball team, there's a lot of 18-year-olds that will not play professional baseball until like 2024. I can't wait till next year when we reclaim and I'm the victor and I have to take the fifth pick instead of the first pick.

I got Mosfordall, Porier, Max Holloway. I'm covered. I got bangers everywhere. All of those people are going to retire. in the next 12 months. I liked the Mazzo because people are going to watch. Now that's a hot take. So, Holloway's going to break the smart cage.

Whoa. Were you, and then you, Sorry, go ahead. Now, were you picking as promoters? Yeah. Okay, so like your PFL, your UFC or something, your PFL. Yeah.

Max Hollow in the smart cage. What could be better than that? Well, you used a lot of money on those. picks and then when the smart cage inevitably breaks for the 3,000 punches that Max Holloway throws, you're going to have no money to fix it. Yeah, but the great thing about the smart cage is we could literally just put up random numbers during the broadcast and no one will know the difference. We just have to have one guy who's like, I don't know, 40.

Put that on screen. The draft is fine. The draft is very fun. My reasonings, listen, I came out so fiery. We made an impact and now we're building our promotion. behind the impact they're making. So go read. I have explanations for all of them.

You may not agree with them. A lot of people feel like Showtime MMA, the promotion formerly known as Bellator MMMA, was the best draft, and it probably was. But more people are watching, more people are going to watch My Eagle FC event, maybe even Jed's PFL event, if you're being honest.

But he does have Connor. But anyways, let's go. We got the votes in. We got the votes in. We got the votes in. Who gets it done? Here we go, hold on. I honestly forgot.

we were doing this. We just turned this into the draft show. Back in the draft show. All right, everyone's votes in. I see him. All right, here we go. Showtime MMA has the better draft. I didn't even read the rest.

I only read the first three. You're a winner. Anthony Pettis first, but go ahead. Your winner. Oops, dang out. Messed that up. You're a winner. with 60% of the votes

Mr. Jedmishu Wow 60% of the vote not as much of a nail biter as it was last week nicely done I would have totally voted for you Jose

I love time yeah see Jed won with Jed won with a literal non-answer you can't that's my answer that's the true answer Jed's one of these guys

where it's like who's your favorite Disney Prince and he's like probably Prince John from Robin Hood he had four minutes of screen time and he's just you know one of those people that has a non-answer as his answer. Jed used baking analogies and that's all you need. The cake's already been baked, baby. The cake has. I think that's what got it over. Well, Jed, you didn't mean to do this. This was not part of your plan but you have come through for your Georgia, comrade, G. but you did this for yourself selfishly, as you should.

So now you have 30 seconds to talk about whatever it is you want to talk about. I will not say I did this for GC in general because he can fight his own battles. You know, Connor is a grown-ass man. He can fight his own battles. I hope to see him in here fighting with Jose in the near future. Jose deserves that fight. Frankly, I loved his final answer. And for me, the only thing I have to say is go listen to the draft pot.

go read the draft article. We talked a lot about it. It's honestly the most fun I've had on this site like all year long. And it was one of those things where we weren't going to do a podcast. It was going to be a written article. And then we spent too much time talking about it. And we're like, oh, this obviously we need to just record this. So it's really good, great vibes.

Go enjoy it. And I love you all. It was very fun. Thank you, Jose. We look forward to your coverage with the promoter of show time MMA in Phoenix next week for Belator 2 or you excuse me UFC 274 we just a million pay-per-view buys hopefully and the train keeps rolling so yes go listen to the draft it's super fun we'll be back tomorrow 3 p.m. Eastern for the preview show getting you ready for

you havec Vegas 52 53 excuse me so many friggin events and then uh taylor serrano heck of a morning back 8 a.m. Eastern tomorrow morning free for all Friday and then we'll have the uh the people's free fight show, I believe, either 3.30 or 4 p.m. Eastern, we'll let you know on on Saturday. But until then, for Jose, for Jed, Casey on the ones and twos, the iconic voice of Estieland takes you home. I am Mike Kek. See you next week. Good night, Eric. This has been Between the Links and I'm a play in production on the Box Media Network. What a delightful surprise. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first? There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.