MMA Fighting - BTL | UFC White House Reactions, McGregor's Comeback, Makhachev vs. Garry Official

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

UFC White House was the biggest event of the year, and one we'll talk about for a long time. Justin Gaethje scored one of the most impressive upsets ever, Alex Pereira is still fuming about Ciryl Gane beating him, and Josh Hokit went viral, for not the best reasons. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. On an all-new edition of Between the Links, Jed Meshew takes the reins to discuss UFC White House and the fallout from this week, turning the conversation into mostly a viewer Q&A. Topics discussed may include Gaethje's upset over Topuria, Gane's latest controversial win, Pereira's response to his loss, Conor McGregor's comeback, the finally official Islam Makhachev vs. Ian Machado Garry fight, and more. Join MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew as he answers your questions all show long. 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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made the switch, so why not you? Try Odu for free at Odu.com. That's ODOO.com. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-Frey at O-D-O-D-O-O-com.

That's O-D-O-O-O-O-O-COM. That's not entirely true. As you can see, I am not Mike Heck. I am Jed Mushu. This is still between the links. This is the M-AFighting.com podcast. YouTube network, however you want to call it. And a bit of a different tone today, boys and girls.

We are, how many days removed from UFC White House. Big event, quite obviously. As a result, that took up a whole lot of our time over the last few weeks. And Mike Heck is on a well-deserved vacation, as are several other people at the company right now. We were building up to the White House card. We got through it. We had a good time, quite frankly.

But people deserve breaks. I will be taking one in the coming weeks. So I am still here and I didn't want to go without a show this week. And so it is going to be a good old-fashioned Q&A session with you guys and me, you guys and girls, whatever, and me talking about anything you want. I suspect we will still talk about UFC White House fallout. There are some things I would like to speak to on that topic. one in particular

Alex Perez crash out but anything else about UFC White House so you guys want to talk about chat about have thoughts about absolutely we got fight announcements

yesterday is the Makachov versus Ian Machado Gary has been officially announced the rumors had been flying for months but that is set for UFC 330 in August along with McKinsey

Dern versus Jillian Robertson so we could talk about that we could talk about Connor McGregor's media rounds We can talk about anything you guys want As you see the scroller on the bottom This is your show this week We won't go forever

But we'll We'll just talk about stuff And see what's going on Yes Wishful thinking there are females watching Look, we are inclusive Anyone who wants to join And watch our program absolutely

Because I run a tight chip I will get everybody the hell out of here If you're being an asshole in the comments That's just how that's gonna work for Mikey T. Jetty, you watching the World Cup today? So I'm not watching in person, obviously,

but I have been watching most of the games. I've missed a couple. I don't love the expansion to 48. It's just a lot, but we've got four games today, I think, going on. And there are games here in Atlanta, so it's been a bit of a nightmare. But yeah, we're going to have some fun.

Let's also, bear with me because having, I do this so very rarely that it's going to be a little bit difficult to, to manage pulling quotes and being the only person talking from Master of the Universe. How would you feel of Gates you're tired with the belt? Other than a vacant, I think it would be great as he achieved everything for a Hall of Fame career. If you had a defense, cool, but not needed to prove anything now. It's a really good question. I wouldn't love it, but I would understand it. And maybe you guys disagree, but like for me, I said all week in the buildup to UFC White House is, you know, if this happened, and I came up, I did not think Justin Gatchee was going to win.

I didn't think he had a reasonable chance to win that fight. You know, I wrote a piece trying to sell how he could be competitive and some of the stuff I said he did, but I didn't have any expectation that he would actually be competitive. I was super wrong. So there were a lot of people, but I was super wrong hand up. But I said in the lead up to it, I was like, man, if he does pull this off, one of the greatest upsets in the history of the sport. And I am kind of at the point now

where I think it might be the biggest upset in UFC history. It's not mathematically, right? Like odds-wise, Matt Sarah is much bigger. And I think that that's the one it's competing with. I think Matt Sarah GSP is such a different level of upset, especially given what GSP went on to become afterwards. that that even in hindsight, that looks like crazy, right? Whereas you talk about Holly Homer Rousey, that didn't, like, that's still a massive upset

and a historically significant upset for what it meant to the sport and kind of how it became a demarcating line for women's MMMA writ large, because that is, if you're pointing to a time when the women's MMMA game, like, started to decline in the UFC, see, that's probably the nexus point of that. But like, so it's not going to be as mathematically big or maybe, and not as historically significant as those, but it's sort of kind of this perfect combination of all of these things. It feels like Bispings upset over Luke Rockhold and that it's a fan favorite, a guy who people love finally doing like the storybook sort of moment that he gets, but he gets it on

the grandest stage possible at, I know Dana White. is saying that or Joe Rogan said 150 million people watch it. That's just obviously not an accurate thing. That's just not true. But like a lot of people saw this. He was wildly counted out. And then to do this and for him personally to do it in these circumstances, it's a really massive upset win.

And, you know, I was thinking about this today. I was like, man, the next time, if Gachie fights again, right, if he defends his belt again, the question I want to ask him, Like the question I would love to see someone talk to him to say, how are you able to get motivated? Like whoever it is, if it's, you know, Charles Oliver, Armand Surukin, a rematch with the Zipora, whoever it ends up being. Like how are you able, what's the mentality coming into this fight?

Because you've now done it all. You have been to the top of the mountain. You're never going to put together like an eight fight win streak, right? Like an eight, like you're not going to put together a long, long title reign. You wouldn't say that to him. But like, after achieving so much and finally getting there, how does this feel different? Because he talked about having to be perfect coming into this fight. And he was.

Can he have that same mentality coming through? I don't know. If he retired, I would understand from his perspective. And I think that that would be fine. I do like to see the title change hands. I would like to see him make a title, you know, try and defend the belt as long as he can. because to me, you guys know my opinion on this. The name of the game is get a belt and hold it as long as you can.

That is the point of the sport. And so I think Armand Surukin should be next. I would love to see him get his opportunity. We hope. We hope we hope. A couple of super chats in here. Thank you for those, as always. Super chats, of course, get priority.

First up from Lazar Aston QTI. Five bucks. Thank you. There's nothing here, Lazar. So comment. And if you had a question, it just didn't come through. Let me know. And I will try and get to it.

But running a one-man show, I don't know how strong I'm going to be at pulling questions. But then from Kangal Zaya, thank you for the $5 Canadian. I will pass that along to AK. Do you think Ilya leaving his head coach played a role at all in his loss? So I have thought a lot about how this happened, right? like what are the factors? And I think certainly a huge chunk of the credit goes to Justin Gachi and Trevor Whitman, who were very prepared.

They had a clear game plan. It was super effective, right? I think that you can also blame some piece of this on Tuporias. And Whitman said this. You know, Whitman was like he was too cocky and too confident. I think you can put some of this down to that. I think you,

I don't think he had the best year. And I want to give full credit to Puri. I've been super critical of him because I don't particularly care for what he has done, like all of the stuff he has said over the past year. But he took the loss like you're supposed to take losses, right? Like he took a loss in the way that other people who lost the UFC White House are not taking their losses. He came out and was like, Gagie, you said you were going to do it and you did it, man. Props.

I'll be back like you kicked my ass. Like that's the gist of what he said. And he said, no excuses, best camp in my life. And I think that that's probably not true, but that's okay. Like, that's the lie you're supposed to tell in this when you were in his position. Because it is hard for me to imagine that given the personal turmoil going on in his life this year, that he is like, this was the best mental state that he could have. But that doesn't matter once you step in the cage.

You are there to fight and he lost the fight. So I do think that like the the personal aspect, the changing in his, in his training, his coaching, the situation with the wife. I think that all played some factor, maybe not like an enormous factor, but we're talking small, small margins. You get that. I absolutely think his arrogance was a bit of a limiting factor here. And that's not just one in this fight, but that feels like it has grown. The heavy hands boys were talking about that this week. Go listen to my podcast if you haven't.

when they were talking about, yeah, like, I think it was Phil. It was like, yeah, you've sort of noticed over his past several fights. Tupouria's game has gotten less interesting, right, in that he is, he's not concerned with winning rounds. He's concerned with not getting knockouts and finishing the fight. And I said in the lead-up, I was like, if Gaech is going to make this interesting, it's because Tuporia can get a little single-minded in what he's doing, right? And like we have seen guys Max Holloway and Volcanovsky both had like levels of success against him. And then he just sort of overwhelmed them eventually, right?

He tried to do the same thing that's Gachy and it did almost work. But when Gachy didn't break, he gassed out. And maybe he gassed out because his training wasn't as good as possible. Maybe just gassed out because he tried really hard and didn't get it, right? Like that absolutely happens. You think you empty the tank thinking you're going to get a guy dead. doesn't die and suddenly you're shot. Maybe the heat, the humidity played a, played a factor fighting outdoors.

Like, I think all of these were very small pieces that added up to what ended up being a fairly massive upset for him. So good on him, man. It's, I think I, I think I'ma Tuporia is going to come back from this quite strong. Because I think if they fought, you know, next, not next month, because Tupori still jacked up. But if they fought next year. if they ran it back, which they should not do. But if it happened, I would probably pick Deporia to win

because he could come in with a more adjusted game plan of, okay, so I need to have more than an over-the-top counter for his jab. I need to not blow my tank trying to bury him with body shots and go to the ground. I think he can adjust. He is so talented. But this is just, it's a little bit like a prospect loss. it just happened to come in a world championship fight, right? Like these things happen.

He is still super young, super talented. And he seems to be taking the right lessons. He did not come out and be like, actually, Justin Gates you tapped at the end of round two and the referees are terrible. And I was probably going to win anyway, but I did like he's not doing that. He's not crashing out over this.

He's taking it on the chin. And so I have a lot of confidence that he is going to, um, to rebound effectively from this. Dad's Rico, I'm not going to put your comment up, but that's 100% correct. From Belatrix Potter. I'm a female and I'm watching. I believe there were other females at the last watch party.

Thanks for making us feel welcome. Belitrix, you know, we do our best. We like everybody except for assholes to be welcome here. And if you are our kind of asshole, we are also acceptable of that. But you got to fit into the happy box. From Nick, Nick Zamp 95, $5 Canadian, Nick. Thank you. to AK. Ilya had that

Mike Bobo has game plan Saturday night. Super stoked Gachie finally won. Really happy or really hope he comes back for Armin thoughts on the 330 fights. I am super stoked for Gachi. You know, he and I don't see eye to eye on many things

in real life, but he is one of my favorite fighters ever. I think he's unequivocally the most exciting fighter in the UFC and MMA history. I've thought that for many years now. but as he continues to do this, it becomes more and more inarguable of like,

at the very, very minimum, if you are having the conversation of who's the most exciting fighter ever, he has to be, if you don't have him in your top three, four, five, anyone with a brain would be like, that's just wrong. I think he's the greatest underdog in UFC history at this point. He's been an underdog in like 11 of 15 fights or something insane like that. and he's won like 10 of those.

It is outrageous. And he said that coming in, right? You know, he is one of those dudes. He is vindicated everything he said coming into this fight car. He was like, yeah, man, I've been an underdog a lot. I keep winning. They keep underestimated. I keep winning.

It happened again. And it's probably he's going to be an underdog his next fight. Whoever it's against. He's going to be an underdog. If it's against Armand, underdog. If it's a Charles rematch, underdog. Unless it's somehow Connor McGregor, and I do not think that's likely, he's going to be an underdog wherever he fights.

So incredible. And I was stoked for him to get that win to do the thing. It puts him like in the top five lightweights ever now. I think that that's cemented. He had an argument for it before, but the lack of an undisputed belt is a super black mark in that conversation when lightweight is historically so strong. But I think that this probably puts him in that top five.

So it was awesome for him. I don't I touched on this at the post show and a little bit already here I don't think Ilya's game plan was that bad in that I think his game plan is what his game plan has become and it has been working for him and so you don't know until you know right like you only know what you know and for the last five fights Ilya Taboria has known I will bury a person, right? Like if I can't, if they start to get ahead on me, if they start jabbing me and winning a range game,

I will just go harder at them. And like that's what happened. Go back and watch the Max fight. Like Max is kind of picking them apart early in that fight. And then DePore just starts cutting more, more aggressively. He just turns the dial up and goes harder and harder. And Max eats enough shots that he falls down.

And they're like tactical minor adjustments. and there. But the broad strategic stroke is I'm losing, I will try harder, and when I try harder, they will fold. And I like it. I was on submission radio this week and I likened it to this fight, but I think the analogy holds up. It is very much Connor McGregor versus Nate Diaz, right? Of like, Conner's entire run-up, he faced minimal resistance in general. And then when he did face resistance, he could simply turn the dial up and then the resistance faded away. And it was when he got to Nate Diaz, a guy who had some obvious physical advantages over him, right?

He was huge in a similar way to Tupori versus Gaci. He tried that. He was teeing off on Nate. And he was like, all right, just keep going, keep going, keep going. And they never, never surrendered. And that's it with Gaci. Like, Teporia tried it. And Gaci was just, he's a tough son of a bitch, man.

He's a really tough, tough dude. and that he gassed out he got hurt early and beat up and then once he was tired and his face was broken and gaichi was still there hitting him it just it all came crashing down so in concept the maybe the game plan is not great but i think that it was it's not different from his he did not have a bespoke justin gaecy game plan this is who he is and now i think he's going to go back to the drawing board and be like all right especially at lightweight there are some going to be guys that I can't just wail on and and they will falter because like he did that against Charles and he ate a bunch of shots against Charles too like you remember he ate that really big elbow

but his plan was I'm tough enough to take these shots he was tough enough to take a lot of those shots from Justin and then I'm going to put you down and Charles went down Justin did not so as far as these 3 30 fights go um I we've known about them for a hot minute I don't know if the rumors were out about Dern and Robertson or those were public, but that's been something that we had been hearing rumors or I'd been hearing rumors about. And it's not entirely sure why

Zhang's not in there. I have not heard a good response about that. Other than timeline, I assume Zhang wants to drop back down, but maybe it's also she just does not want to return to straw weight. And I think Robertson deserves a title fight. So like I think that fight is totally reasonable

if Zhang's not going to be it. There needs to put a defense down, and Robertson's on a five-fight win streak. So probably going to be super ugly. Like Robertson is a grappler, and that's not the best way to succeed against McKinsey darn. So this might be a pretty ugly kickboxing belt, but if we get scrambles, that'll be fun. The main event, we've known for some time that it was going to be Mokachev versus Gary. And I think that, I don't know if it's the right one, but I think it's one of a couple

of right ones. I think you could have picked Michael Morales or he and Machado Gary for the first title defense and either would have been okay. I believe that had Deporia won at White House, he probably wasn't going to fight in August. Like that would have been too fast to turn around, but he would have been in attendance to this event and been waiting to try and fight the winner. But it's good. There's a glut of contenders at 170 pounds right now. You know, Gary did recently lose. But the guy he lost to is the guy I think is like the most deserving. But Chafcott can't fight. He can't fight. And that's, that's tough, but that is what it is. So there's much better than when we were thinking maybe Kamar Usma, we get a shot at it. If you, if they did Michael Morales,

I think I'd be a little bit more interested in that fight, just as a nuts and bolts battle, because Morales is so big and has such a profound weapon in his power that that can, that presents to me a much more difficult challenge than Gary does. To me, my early read on this fight is Gary's not dynamic enough to really threaten Islam in a way that I find super compelling. And Islam Makachev appears to be the Err fighter right now of like, if you're going to beat him, it has to be in one big violent motion because it's not going to be over 25 minutes of small edges, right? Like, I think on the feed Islam, that fight is very competitive. on the ground Islam has a substantial advantage over him.

And Gary's not like a big one hit or quitter in the way a Morales was who would be like, okay, yeah, Michael Morales is going to weigh 300 pounds on fight night. And if he lands a big uppercut, you might get it. I think this is going to be, you know, 48, 47, 49, 46, Mokachev. But it's a good fight. It advances the division. Totally okay with it. Support for this show comes from Odu.

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Thank you, Dustin. Any sauce on the 80 million viewership for the event. Jed, we really need another damn they were good. Buddy, I would love to do a damn they were good. I can't even get a second person to do this show with me right now. They are struggles in that moment. but we have several people that we need to do dams on Dustin Poirier, Justin Gachey, in the not too distant future, we'll be getting one.

I think the 80 million is just stone wrong. Everything that we're going to say here is entirely, you know, debatable. It is up to interpretation because we're never going to even see the real numbers. But Joe Rogan being like that thing did 160 million is like, it didn't. it didn't do paramount plus has like 70 million i don't even know how many paramount plus subscribers there are um like just nationally and so i've seen some estimates that feel a little more true to me

um i think dave melzer put out 17 million and that feels much much closer to being something that could be correct um this thing is not going to do super bowl numbers even internationally and i know that, you know, their broadcast rights elsewhere. Big event, but like 80 million would be the biggest UFC event by like 10X. Like, that's just not a thing that's happening here. So I tended, you know, I thought they were for sure going to crack 10 million based on, you know, some of the stuff afterwards. If they got to 20, that's a resounding success.

And so I'm not really sure why they would feel the need to lie about things. But, you know, this feels. like 1517 based on some of the reporting I'm seeing out there that feels a little more just to me we'll see when they roll out whatever latest numbers unless they've rolled out numbers today that I haven't seen in the last like 20 minutes uh yeah it just doesn't strike me is that that's viable from 1,000 rings thank you 1,000 rings if gaiti only has one fight left how would you feel about a legend's only retirement fight versus hollowing mcgregor i'd hate it a lot if I think that that is possible though I do want to be clear about this um I call for many years I called for

Justin Gaichy versus Connor McGregor I think they're two of the most exciting fighters in the history of the sport whatever your thoughts on McGregor I have many and most of them are not kind he is a thrilling fighter to watch compete like to to just physically watch fight he is thrilling and so the two of those the way they would have matched up at their peaks I think would have been fascinating I was like Gaichi to win it, but I just think it would have been a great fight. That fight is, unless Connor looks like a man reborn against Holloway, that fight, I think, is not particularly competitive anymore and makes no real sense from like a, it's deeply unmeritocratic, but that's not really where we live in.

So I think that this fight could happen, and it would not be the angriest at it, right? Max does have a win over Gaichi. Connor would be really big but I would like the best I would like to know who the best guy is in the world and I currently don't know that like I said this before the White House fight and Justin Gaichi is a legitimate lightweight champion

like you cannot take this away in the same way that Ilya Tuporia was a legitimate lightweight champion I don't ever know if Ilya was the best lightweight on earth because he didn't fight the other best dude he beat Charles Oliver at lightweight who had a loss to Arm and Sarugin and he didn't beat the champion to get the belt.

Armand Surukian is the number one dude. I would really like to see him fight. And so I hope that if Gachi has one fight left, it's Armine. Again, a fight that Armine will be a favorite in, and I think Armine will win. Well, we've said that about Gachi for, like, well over half of his EOSC bouts and he keeps pulling it off. Armine will be a less big favorite than Nilea Teporia was. And so I would like to see that. If they go another way, it's not the worst thing that ever happened.

But, you know, we'll see. We'll end up seeing how it goes. From Luflain, when can we expect the next fantasy draft? Still not fully sure why you guys didn't just run through end of June. You would have had a week off the planet. Oh, we are is what's actually happened. So, well, the thing is when we booked the fantasy draft. So an update for those, we talked about this on our live watch party.

When we set the fantasy draft up, left lane, we didn't, the schedule wasn't out. Because we recorded this thing in January. We didn't have the full six months ahead of us, but we knew that the White House card was coming in June. So that was like, yeah, we'll just end it June, right? Because like we'll end on a big event. It makes sense. As the schedule has come out, there's now an event this week and Baku next week.

And then there's a week off before 329. As you can tell, we couldn't get, we can't get two people on to do this show. Oh, we couldn't get the fantasy thing done this week. So then it would have to roll through. Vegas, whatever this apex card is, 19, 20. And then we had, we've got Baku coming up. We could get one done before Baku, but it makes more sense. So we extended our fantasy season now two more weeks.

It's not going to end up making a difference, AK has run away with this. We will draft in the week off between Baku and 329, and then we'll reset for the remainder of the year. Yeah, Connor doesn't, Connor didn't quite say that. Connor said that he I think

Connor can cut down to 155 he would for the right money and opportunity I think the bigger issue is that I don't know if Connor would like to be in a title fight because he has two fights left on his contract is clearly trying to get out of his UFC contract and should he win a title that gives them a little bit more control over him

in such an instance so we'll see Oh, oh, thank you for Masada 1, $5. Made me respect Islam more. He's bladed and exhausted against Dustin Poy. He still pulled off the Darth and the fifth. There's levels. I mean, yeah, everybody should respect Zemakchev, who is probably the best fighter of this generation.

The second greatest lightweight of all time. Could have been the first, but, you know, exited to go pursue the welterweight belt. We'll see if he manages to actually defend the welterweight title, it will be basically the first time in history. A fighter has been a legitimate, undisputed champion in two weight classes, right?

Because if you go back and look at the history of the other 10 champ champs in the UFC, most of them don't have title defenses. They're only a couple with them. You know, like DC's light heavyweight one has a bit of an asterisk to it. Right? His heavyweight title defense came against Derek Lewis. You know, Amanda Nunes. was a two-division champion,

but women's featherweight was, it's a weak, weak-weight class, let's put it that way. Henry Sohudo defended against Dominic Cruz. Like, these aren't most of the two-division champions with successful defenses in both weight classes. You know, there's a pretty good argument that even at the time they were a champion,

they were not the best fighter in the world at one of those weight classes. And so, Mockchib has a chance to do that. But, yeah, like, the reason I say this all the time and I you know the reason I say it because it's true the hardest thing to do in the sport is to make title defenses

against people who are giving you their best effort every time and like I do not leave this fight having any down thoughts about a Lillia Tuporio was like yeah man that dude's tough as nails he got his face broken both sides of his face were broken pretty sure his ribs were jacked up too and he was just out there man like

dude's got heart and an impossible amount of talent sometimes the dye doesn't roll your way um the goutch will smoke the cop am I right the white yes you all right McCurto I don't know uh I do love the fight this weekend it's a crying shame

that uh horaguchi cop too is in the apex like just a crying shame but that fight is still very good so boom next two seven I'd rather see Connor go back to lightweight. I think the welterweight guys are two huge miles bomb fiend carrier giants. Yeah, I mean, he's not going to fight real welter weights at welterweight. That's just not.

He's going to fight this. Like, that's the thing. He's going to fight max. And I do, I think his best weight class was featherweight because he had some clear advantages there. And he could still compete at lightweight. But I think had he stuck around to really do a lot of fights at lightweight, I, I've always said, I think Connor would have lost a lot of them because his

skill set is very well suited to fight Eddie, right? And that's it, basically. Like everybody else would have been tougher fights. It's, Connor is sort of destined to be kind of the weirdest character in the history of the sport

because his stardom grew so vast that it outstripped his actual abilities in the cage. And then we never had to see those abilities tested because he could sort of maneuver over around things. So yeah. Oh, left land.

What do you have thoughts on pound for pound rankings update? Feels like complete mess with no right answer. Pentos are still getting majorly disrespected. Yeah, we talked about it a lot internally. We updated our pound for pound rankings. Two of our three top pound for pound fighters lost. And we have a post on on the website. I encourage you to go read it.

The comments of that are all like, can't believe you're doing it. And we've just been like, yeah, any criticisms you have right now, the pound for pound list is in chaos because when is the last time two top pounds for pound fighters lost in the same night, right? And, you know, some people are like,

well, prayer shouldn't be docked points for going up to heavyweight and losing, but he's still lost. And that's like pound for pound is largely a list about like the current run you are on. And so he didn't fall off the list entirely, but to not dock him some points for a loss seems generous. Toporia has to drop down.

Gachi, I think, made our top five now. It's like, he's probably not one of the five top pound fighters in the world, but he just beat the number two dude convincingly. It gets, it's a total mess. It's been a disaster. Basically, since Tron Strickland beat Israel Dissania, it has been a very, very difficult, like, thing to go. So it's very tough.

Full-time killer, not a toxic relationship. I did not ask Luke. Luke has his thing. I probably, I could have text him. I didn't. I did, I text Long Island, actually. But he's at the Knicks victory parade today. And Luke Thomas is a kid and a wife and a lot.

I don't think you'll understand how much Luke does. So I try not to bother him with stuff like that. He probably would have asked him. Cosmo Kramer, who would be the ultimate last fight on contract for McGregor? Protis and Morales for Shafcott. So, the Connor spoke to Ariel Hawwani this week. He also went on Fallon, I think. But with Ariel, he revealed, we knew that he had two fights left on his contract.

And even with the negotiation, that didn't change. He also announced that his next fight, the last fight, he's fighting obviously in July. And the final fight of his UFC contract is set for April, that that was pre-negotiated. That was part of the deal. I've got some theories on why I think, mainly it's the UFC wanting to control him as long as they are able to. That gives them more opportunities to renegotiate and get him under contract for longer. But, you know, he's not, I do not think he's going to resign with them because it's a bad,

it's a bad financial decision to resign with the UFC for Connor. Just straight up, bad financial decision. He can, I, I believe he can make a half billion dollars outside of the UFC over the next couple of years. And maybe that number, maybe that's like slightly high, but it's not high by much, right? He'd get $80, $100 million to box Jake Paul. Like that, that, that, that, you get that right now. You know, he does a fight.

He does NAPT has three, 50, 60, 70, 100 million for that. Because again, once he's outside of the USC, he gets, he gets a piece of all of it. He gets a piece of the gate. He gets a piece of the merch. He gets a piece of everything. So he's not going to resign with the UFC. I think there's almost no chance that that has. happens. And as that becomes clear, I think that they are going to build somebody, you know, do their

best to use him to propel somebody upwards. I think it's a two horse race and not the same two horses I would have said before Sunday. But previously, I would have bet a good amount of money that Patty Pimbled was in very much in the mix. And I think that he's probably the front horse right now, the leader, because Patty is going to be with the promotion for another. other five, six, seven years, right? And still probably competing near the top. And that fight kind of makes a lot of sense. The other one is a person who, like I said, I didn't think was viable.

But after Sunday, Ilya Tupori is probably not fighting again this year based on his injury list. And you do Ilya versus Connor, both coming off losses. And, you know, you do it up at welterweight or whatever. And Ilya will say yes. and you can get Ilya over in the biggest way possible and you can continue to hit your wagon to him because he is your best hope as far as future stardom

in this sport goes. So I think it's probably one of those two. But it's a long time between now and April so any number of things can change in that period of time. Did Diego Lopez secure top five anime picture of the decade with that White House shot? I mean, I don't know if it's like top five of the decade, but I was not.

is enamored with the White House gimmick as others. It was not for me, right? I'm not trying to shit on anybody's parade here. But not to my taste. But it is, I would be hard pressed to argue that him, the photo of him like from the cage side photo, looking up,

he's on top of the cage, White House in the back, but that's not like a pretty, pretty hard-ass photo. Like that's, it's hard to argue. There's a similar one of Gaichi doing his back flip off the cage

in similar fashion. But yeah, it's a, it's undeniably a very, very cool shot. And there certainly were a number of those. That's the thing about the White House event. There was a lot of like pretty weird, cool things that happened there. From Hannah, member for three months, Hannah, shout out. Thank you for being a member. I think three months means you're still a blue boat, but maybe you got to purple now.

Hey, Jed, when are we watching Bloodsport? That's a good question. we got to figure out how to figure out how to do those watch alongs but that is a thing that we've talked about doing as far as member support like doing some sort of member specific content um because also things like super cheap to be a member of our channel i think it's like three dollars or something a month um now that we're clear of white house we probably have a little more time i'll tell you for sure once we're done with i fw we'll have a little bit more time to kind of sit down and piece together some some better things um everything for the past month and a half has been building to white house like i some of the stuff i wrote for in the preceding weeks i'm working on that for a month month and a half like these are this was it's why everybody's off this week it's like yeah they just they shouldn't have this this apex card i do not know why they have this apex card uh it's such a fast turnaround given the event was on sunday um but hannah

we will figure something out and try and get that done at least before the end of the year. From Lazy, Tyrone Woodley versus Walking Buckley at R.A.F. Thoughts expound. I think it makes sense for Woodley to come to R.F., right? Like, he's, you know, Tuesday. I think he was a two-time All-American at Mizoo. Buckley's already wrestled once. It's, he got cooked by Pat Downey. I am, I don't know, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. what he's bringing to their table, but I think this is a matchup that makes sense, and it's pretty okay. And, you know, Woodley has not won an athletic competition.

He finishes U.S.C. career on a four-fight losing streak, and he's lost all three of his boxing matches. So it's been a hot minute since he's got his hand-raise. I think he has a good chance to get his hand-raise against Buckley. This is the event in Cleveland, which is a little weird because they are both Missouri people. It's not like super far away, obviously, but you could take this. This could be a matchup for a Mizu event, which they could go to.

We'll see. It's almost like you can enjoy things if you don't go in with the presupposition of it being negative. You can also enjoy things if you go and think it's going to be negative. You can be surprised by how something works out, right? Like, hmm, I will happily admit. the White House car was better than I thought it was going to be from a bells and whistle standpoint. It was not everything worked for me, certainly, but like,

it was less overtly heinous to watch for most, from the production side. You know, UFC can't really control what Josh Oak it says. They could try, but they're not going to. But like, you know, they did better than I thought, but at the same time, it's still like, it wasn't for me. but it was obviously for lots of people. Plenty of people were really stoked about it. I've talked to a lot of Normies,

and they have been, it's been a mixed bag, right? Some people hated it, some people really liked it. Some hardcore May fans were like, that was as good as it possibly could have been. So I think it would be foolish to call the event anything other than a success for the UFC,

even if I do think there are some, like, long-term problems with it. Um Um Do you Likelihood we get Protis Morales on 330 for an in-night tournament Maybe Brady Amasov. Who would you pick in each?

We're not going to get an in-night tournament like that. Like we wouldn't get all of those fights there. I think that it is very possible we get, um, I think so Brady's going to for sure be there. I don't even know if that fight has been booked or not. Um, I'm not Mike. I'm bad at that. It's Philly. Brady's going to be there.

Brady Amasov, I think, is a great fight. That would be sick. I hope they do something like that. And then that does provide you a buffer if something happens to Gary. He has to pull out one of those two dudes can pop in. I think Morales protest will happen at some point this year probably, but it will be the headliner of something. That is a head.

That's a fight that should be 25 minutes, whether it goes out. We'll see. But yeah, I think we get that as the headliner. point in the future this year because you can't i know protest is talking about sitting and waiting out um he's also changed his tune a little bit on that but yeah he's got to there's just too much happening in the weight class right now to feel comfortable that you can wait forever uh this is the last one i'm going to put up on you because you're either real dumb or you're trolling um ruffy just like ruffy lost the bsd not that long ago so no um yeah cosmo i had mMA

I had friends talking about MMA at volleyball on Sunday. That's never happened in the past three years. This thing absolutely broke cultural contain. Like it broke the contain of the bubble to two positives and negatives. I also had a lot of friends because for a lot of people, and you may dislike this, you're entitled to dislike this, but I'm telling you a factual statement.

For a lot of people, the thing that they know about this event, the thing that registered with them are Josh Hokit's comments. that broke into political media and got free, right? And that's like the thing where Glenn Beck is talking about it or whatever, you know, that's thing. But I did also have plenty of friends who maybe either saw that or dismissed it or wasn't their primary thought, who were like, you know, talked about the event or were at least curious about it. And so checked in a lot of, a lot of my friends just candidly who are not MMA, people were like,

dude, it was too late. I sort of saw things later, but I think it was Sunday night at one. I'd work on Monday. I think the Sunday part of it was a big negative component for that sort of aspect. But a lot of people told me about the band that they thought. And the people watched the event, I tweeted this, but the people watched the event unequivocally, it was that last fight, which they always, these are normies. They didn't call it the main event. They were like, the last fight was insane, which it was.

And the band was really cool. It was like, yeah, man. BSD Mald, the Rufiso, and Patty destroys him. He's next. Look, if Patty beats the breaks off BSD, it's a non-zero chance they run that back. They shouldn't. They shouldn't. But it's a non-zero chance that they run that back.

He's super famous. And there it is. Dude, I lied. He beat Charles at 300. That was not three years ago, you jackass. Like, I'm going to ban you from the channel. say one more thing. So that's your choice. Say one more thing that I find obnoxious. I'll ban you from the channel because I'm tired of you personally. And I'm in charge. So there you go.

Don't you think Ian's length will be a problem for Islam? I mean, like, it can be a problem. Like he can find a way to make it difficult. Right? Like, I'm not saying he's incapable of, of, I am not saying I Eamachado Gary is incapable of winning this fight. What I'm saying is that I think that he is unlikely to win this fight. It is, whereas somebody like Morales, I think there's a much way for me to be like, oh yeah, this is how he goes. This is how it can happen. Now, in the same way that I had to like write up how Justin Gage could make problems for

I think that, you know, Gary is super well-rounded. So if the fight goes to the floor, he's not going to get run over in the same way Jack did. He's long, he's ranging. He can kick a lot. I think kicking is one of the most effective strategies against Islam because you can keep a super long range. The problem is he's very defensively sound.

So, like, they're just, you know, how can he utilize that range to be a problem outside of just being long? Is it be long and win enough points? That seems like a really, really difficult proposition to me, because that's just not that's not how you beat as a Makachchev. The one dude who ever beat him

lamped him in the face, you know? So we'll see. It's a fight that I'm not like over the moon excited about because it's an IMA Chado de Gary fight. I don't think anybody's ever that excited about

Yamachato Gary fight, but it's a very good fight that I'm interested in watching. And I'm glad they booked it, right? Like that is, to me, that's the fight that they should have booked. So I'm glad they did it.

And we will, we'll get to see it. Hi. Effort show. Hi, not. I got something to decorate those walls behind you as a Gaichi fan, DM. Gacheo. Oh, hey you. Dark Yusuke, when is Jose coming back?

Someone needs to ask him about absolute bad man. Jose is, I think, currently at Penn Station, dealing with the nightmare that is traffic in New York at this point in time. but yeah he's he he's around do you just mean being back in terms of he is part of the thing oh hell yeah boom guys i got rid of him that makes me really happy took me while i do that while things are happening from andrew car 249 thank you andrew hard being an irish fan staying up till 6 a.m yeah man i i strongly believe that that is true That's the thing that I am the most curious about.

It's a shame we're just never going to know because they seem intent on lying about what the viewership for this freaking promotion was, which is sucks. It would be way cool if they would just be honest. But like we talked about in our live watch party and I maintain a lot of curiosity about how doing it on Sunday. We all know why they did it on Sunday. We don't have to go into that. That has real ramifications, especially there was an act. hour-long weather delay. And so the fights didn't start until 9 p.m. on a Sunday night.

People got work in the morning. That's 9 p.m. Eastern. You're west coast. It's a little bit easier. But if you are in Brazil, if you are in Europe, like that, that becomes a thing that you're probably not watching live unless you are a super hardcore fan or don't have anything else to do.

So them being like 160 million people saw it, be like, that's just, there's just no way. There's just no way. uh, uh, shot Jolive. I'm not going to say his first name. Um, announced he signed,

Ali Abdel Aziz dominance. Is UFC signing imminent? Uh, pretty much. Yes. Um, that dude's sick. It's really good.

So, uh, I'm excited to see him in the promotion. I think he will get there. But, uh, yeah, if he's not signed in the next couple of months,

if he's not making his debut on Contender series, is that's going to kick up soon. I'd be shocked. Uh, Andrew Carr, called in sick. Exactly, man. Like, it is, uh, I had Monday off because I had to travel back from work.

But like if I wasn't, yeah, I think 100% like if you're doing that, you should do that. Left land. I think if they've done this this way, they should on CBS start two hours early on a Saturday, maybe at 30 million. That's the other thing too, man. Like, again, international is different. But like, I all week, I was, I had people can like tell me. They never broke.

And they're like, they're not going to put it on big CBS. It's staying on the plus. And I was like, okay, they say that. But come, you know, come Friday, Dana's going to get up and make it announce like, the reaction to this has been so great that we're going to put it on CBS proper. And they never did it. And so you're just like CBS is in, it's like 60 million homes in America or something. And Paramount Plus is in like a third of that.

You're minimizing your ability to do this. And I know the idea for CBS is to drive. people to the Paramount Plus platform. I'm sure it did. Like, of all the things that the UFC can do to drive people to subscribe, this would have been one of them. I doubt there'll be long-term subscribers, but maybe they do it. And then they're like, oh, shit, man, I can watch Dutton Ranch or whatever.

But yeah, it being on a Sunday, it being late at night on a work night for most people, it being on Paramount Plus, that a big CBS, you know, I think that this, I think this thing could have easily cleared 20 on big. CBS. Domestic. Again, the international numbers get a little murky, but I think we could have done 20 easy

on big CBS. Not the choice they made. Yeah, the NBA finals topped out 33 million. I doubt the UFC got 10 behind the streaming paywall. I think they got 10. Domestic,

interesting, maybe not, maybe not 10 domestic. Let me look up the Paramount plus subscription numbers. Well, plus subscribers. Apparently Paramount Plus is 79 million subscribers. That just seems higher than I would assume.

That's what I'm seeing on a Reddit. Yeah, okay. Apparently Paramount Plus has 78 million subscribers. So I think 10 is pretty doable for that. And it was such a big cultural event. I think that's entirely possible. But what is CBS households? U.S.

Oh, household growth fell for the third straight year. That's tough. I can't figure out how to Google this more effectively than whatever the book I just put in there. But yeah, I think this thing did over 10. I'd feel pretty confident domestically that cleared 10. Now, that's concurrent viewers at peak hours. I would love to see what the maximum number of viewers were. And if they were during the main event or people,

because people may have just tuned in to be like, what is this weird thing? and then tuned out when it's like, it's midnight, I need to go to bed. So we'll see. I'd love it for us to get actual numbers. We're just never going to get those numbers. It's the same thing. Cosmo, were you surprised by the amount of people outside the ellipse?

I sure was. I wasn't surprised. Yes and no. I thought when this was, I thought that the ellipse would be enormous, right? Because if I was in D.C., I think that that would have been a cool thing to do, like a cool experience. All right. We'll go watch.

it is that become because it's a free entry right you're not paying to get into the ellipse so that is a cultural experience of like oh i can go watch these fights for free around a bunch of people be yob hang out it'll be fun like this will be such you like i would have absolutely gone to that if i were you know a young person in the dc area even moderately inclined to watch fights or something like this or even i watch fights just go hang out like i assume that there were a significant number of people at the ellipse who were not that interested in the fights, but were, you know, a couple of my friends are there, my boyfriend's there, you know, like, well, just hang out in the grassy area and chill.

Like that's, we used to do that growing up. We would have Shakespeare in the park was a thing. And when I was eight years old, I did not care about Shakespeare. I got to be honest with you. I actually like Shakespeare a good deal now. But when I was eight, nobody gave a shit about Shakespeare when you're 10 years old. But you can go at the park and your parents can go and, you know, watch a play. and have some drinks on a blanket.

So I'm not surprised to the amount of people that were there. That being said, I was surprised, given the weather, that it did not seem to diminish them at all. And that felt like maybe I would have been like, it's raining. I'm not going to do this.

But yeah. Scott, stoked for House of the Dragon season three Sunday. I haven't caught up on season two. I'm trying to get that done this week. I did just watch Nine of the Seven Kingdoms, which I had never watched before. I read the book or the books, the novellas, whatever. I will watch because I'm broadly interested in the world of Westrose.

I think George R. Martin built a very good world. House of the Dragon does not compel me in the same way Game of Thrones did. I didn't realize the bear drop this week. I'll probably watch that season. That show has gotten progressively worse season over season. I think this is the last one, so I'll probably watch it. But yeah. I was hoping Hookett would turn a new leaf, but he continues to be trash.

Yeah. I think if you are a person who believes that what Josh Hookett said is clever or funny or interesting, you're entitled to that opinion. I'm not even going to argue about that point of it. I would hope that anybody can see that that was not the time to do that, right? that it's it's not a funny joke just out like it's just not it's not a particularly compelling joke to crack a joke about the first lady from 12 years ago you know or whatever like that's it's not even a current event to do to be talking about and so it's like real tryhardy and kind of lame to do that again if you think it's funny sure i guess whatever man but like everybody should have been raised enough to be like oh yeah

there are times and places for things. And perhaps the White House lawn is not the time and place to do something like that. You know, just in the same way that you wouldn't take your pants off and drop a deuce in the middle of your neighbor's front porch, right? Like, you can not make a total fool of yourself. And everybody, the fact that any people are defending it, and this is not like a free speech issue. this is just being a functioning good member of society issue, right? Because, like, again, I also think that there's a substantive difference between if Josh Hocan had said something uncouth towards a fighter, like towards somebody else,

towards Derek Lewis, towards Pereira, right? Nobody's upset about the Shama on your mama thing, which is also kind of silly, but like, that exists in the world of fight sport. He is, he particularly went outside of fight sport in a place that in general, should inspire some level of respect and cordiality and was just like, what if I don't operate like I understand how society works? You know, if he was my child, I'd be deeply embarrassed by him. And I would hope that all of you would be embarrassed if your children, you know, took a two in their hand and threw it at a kid at kindergarten. You wouldn't be like, man, what a

rapscallion. You just don't understand the joke. You'd be like, yeah, it's probably not great. that's probably not like a thing that should we probably we could all be like oh it's not great you know we don't have to raise up in arms over it but i feel like we should all be able to be like yeah that's not great yeah that's the thing or vandalate or sorry i didn't mean to click art vandalate as earl wakins yeah cringed that's the thing man like it's that's not a there's not a thing about politics it's just a thing about like just being a good person that's it's like being not even a good person, like being a person with a basic sense of decency and manners. And it's a shame that he did that and was truly one of the only like overt black marks on an otherwise wildly successful event.

Crazy idea. Could you see Volk fight against Connor for Connor's last fight? He's a name probably sits around 170 out of camp anyway. It'd be a great double retirement. I think that's an awesome, awesome idea. You know, it's a very small caveat If I like the belt to change hands Volk seems like he's going to fight Mozart That seems like where we're going He's saying September as a target I think from like a pure

We can have some fun here That'd be fun. It would be a really fun thing to do I think people would be super behind that As a double wouldn't be a retirement for Connor Would be for Volk He can vacate the belt and go do that I would love that I don't think that's remotely possible to happen.

Correct. Lazy. It's just basic decorum. There are plenty of things he could have said and we'd roll our eyes and like that's hokey. But the setting, everything. Yeah, like, I didn't anticipate him go out there to make some like Independence Day speech about humanity. But you can just,

you can have some ability to read a room and be like, now's not the time to do this joke. But, you know, he has. what he is. Uh, Judd nut thoughts on Jamal Hill at heavyweight. Um, Jamal Hill said it came out in case you missed it, came out, said he was going to go to heavyweight. Um, okay. I don't think he's going to particularly, his issues are not that he was cutting weight to light heavyweight. I got to tell you that. And this feels absolutely like there are times when a fighter moves weight and it makes sense. He's cutting too much. It's affecting his performance. He's, you know, even Diego Lopez, who came out,

I was like, I know I'm not getting a title fight at Featherweight anytime soon unless something changes. So I'd like to kind of move up to lightweight. That makes sense. Jamal Hills reeks of, I've lost three in a row and I can't recognize that I've lost for my own failings. It must be a, the problem must not be operator error.

It's something else. Let me go up to heavy weight. You know, I'm sure it'll be happier. He doesn't have to cut weight. Cut weight. He's not going to be any more highly ranked at heavyweight than he is at light heavyweight. I don't think this is a good career move.

It's just a move. That's the thing, Dave Sandine. If I was hoaget, I would just recite a Bill Pullman speech from Independence Day. Had he done that, everybody would just be like this kind of rules. You would start and be like, this is pretty cringy and silly. And you'd be like, yeah, but that speech is sick. And like we're in such an America moment, you know, they've been like, yeah, America. or whatever.

So it would have been great. Penn Dragon or Penn DGent. His issues are he's bad at fighting. That's correct. He's not bad at fighting. He's actually pretty good at fighting, but he has a limited game, and that has been a problem for him.

Oh, lazy. On a similar note to Hill moving up, thoughts on Diego Lopez saying he said to lightweight. Yeah, it's the same thing. I mean, it's not the same thing because he he's pretty honest about it. He's like, I'm just not getting a featherweight fight, so I'd like to take fights at lightweight.

I believe, like if Monsar beats, assuming Monsar gets it and he beats, well, Diego will come right back down. But of all the people who gained a lot on Sunday, and several people did, right? Like, I think there's a pretty strong argument that Diego Lopez gained behind Gagee, Diego Lopez gained the most because he came out,

he had a banger of a fight. he has the iconic photo now that came off of it. He weighed in twice, you know, got a little extra love for just being the guy who's down to clown, and then went to the fan fest afterwards and was like mob by people's support for him. He is, Diego Lopez is not the best fighter in the world. I think he's a fairly limited fighter, in fact. He has some huge problems, and elite elite fighters are going to beat him every time because of the shortcomings in his game.

but he approaches the totality of fighting in the exact right way, in my opinion. You know, there's not one right way to do anything. But like he is, and Volcanoz, he's giving him credit for this. And like, and I think it's just super true. He says yes to everything. The reason, like, some of you have commented that I'm on a lot of programs. You know, I go to some, the reason I say yes to everything. Somebody calls me and they're not like, you know, they have some level following.

and I am capable of doing it. I say yes. And that like Diego Lopez just, yeah, I'll fight that dude. I'll fight that dude tomorrow. Oh, can I weigh in twice? I'll weigh in as the backup in case something happens. He is always saying yes. You know, he is, he's Jim Carrey yes manning it.

And that's opening doors for him. He fights in a super exciting way. He has been very successful fighting that way. And like that's how you shouldn't be Bo Nicol when you fight once or twice. Like fight all the time. take opportunities, take risks, you know? And then when he loses, Diego Lopez doesn't really come out and be like, everything is not my fault.

He's like, yeah, man, okay. And now he's, he's going to go up to the lightweight, I don't, maybe it's a lightweight title fight. Like, that's not impossible to happen. But we could definitely happen. And I've heard him lobby for this is like, what if we do a BMF fight, me versus Olivera? Okay, I think Charles will win.

But if they book that, would you be upset that Diego Lopez was fighting Charles Oliver? Be like, nah, it's fun as shit, man. so credit on him. Who's Rufie get next? So let me pull up the rankings right now. He's in a weird spot because he's coming off. He's got two very good wins now and that will one.

Chamberlare is not a good win, but he didn't murder him. Wow, Rufi's up to seven in the Osses rankings. I think the one they should do is Matush Gamrod. A guy who can tackle him. And that's the thing like, Ruby has two good wins against dudes who have not tackled him. I'd like to see somebody tackle him, and I think Game Rock can't tackle him. We will do...

I mean, yeah, Charles... Yeah, or, I mean, Charlie, Charles will win, but... Would you be upset to watch that fight? Nah, man. Nah, you'd have a lot of fun. We're going to end on this one. We've gone for an hour, which is more than I thought I would do today, but it's from Master's Universe Classic.

How do you rate the first half of the year for the UFC now? If you remember at the beginning of the year, people felt it was slow, took a couple of, people felt it was slow give and take a couple of events. It is, it feels a lot like two years ago and UFC 300 year. That year was bad. It was just straight of bad.

The first half of the year was quite poor. But 299 and 300 were very high watermark events. And that is able to wash the bad taste out of people's mouths. I think this has been a bad year of UFC through five months and some change. But the high water mark will have this international fight week

basically at the turn at the halfway mark. And those will be feel big, right? International fight week is a return of Connor. It's going to feel massive. White House is the thing that's been built for a year. It's felt big. And much in the same way how fight cards work, right?

like a fight card if the fight card is absolute dog water but the main event is good people sort of forget that the rest of the card was was buns if you have a if you have the tent to pole events right like you are judged in other sports are judged this way too right like an NBA season might not be that great but if the playoffs and the finals in particular are awesome people remember the year very well nobody remembers a golf season for shit they remember how the majors went same for tennis right like these are and for mMA if you have a couple of high water marks it can lift the whole of the year um this year has been very very low to me with white house which was a transcendent event like probably the the event that left people feeling the best since 300 right like i don't know if

there's been an event that people have been more stoked about in the aftermath other than Alex Pereiro who's crashing out super hard. It was, it's a huge win. And so it has definitely helped. They needed something like this because previous before this, there was not like a tent pole event that lifted it. But this, this certainly helped. I still think on the balance, most of the numbered events this year have been weak,

far weaker than I imagined, given that this was the start of a new deal. But it's hard, hard to argue that this hasn't helped lift things up. That is always the case. Their summer run is usually the best part of the year. If you're a UFC fan, that's when they try the hardest. You get the most good things. And our next few events look good, right? Like, International Fight Week is a little questionable,

but there's such a piece to it. The return of Connor is not that interesting for you and me, probably. Certainly not for me. But it will do big business. It will be a big people will ask me about it. And that always feels a little special, a little different, a little interesting. 3.30 looks quite good. We're very, very early in the build of that, but that card looks like it's going to be quite strong.

If Volk is fighting Mobsar in September, you put some other juice on that. That's pretty good. October or in Abu Dhabi heard some rumblings about what might be happening there. Can't say. And then it's MSG. So I think the back half of the year is going to be better than the front. And with the White House, it has lifted the whole of it, like the whole year up to be like, yeah, man. okay, we'll feel okay at the end of the year with one really spectacular thing in the first half and then a level of quality in the back half. So that's sort of where we're at.

Ladies and gentlemen, press the music. Went over an hour. It's not introspect going over an hour. And I think you're all from doing with me. It's super hard to do a queue a day when you have to fill the questions and do all the answers and do all the talking. It's not that easy.

And nobody gave me so much capital. I appreciate that. I'm trying to think what we've got going on this week. I mean, we've got a UFC event going on this week. Coppour Gucci, UFC, Vegas 119 at the apex on Saturday. We will, of course, have a coverage plan for that.

Same as always. We'll have a preview show on Friday, which tomorrow, happy Juneteenth. And we'll see you then. We'll see you over the weekend, y'all. Love y'all. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Support for this show comes from Odu.

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