MMA Fighting - BTL's 2022 Promotional Festivus | Grading the Best & Worst From UFC, Bellator, PFL, More

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

With just a couple of days left in the year, it's almost time to say goodbye to 2022, and hello to 2023. In the sport of MMA, there was certainly a lot to like, and a lot that needs to be improved upon — from the UFC, to Bellator, and beyond. On an all-new edition of Between the Links, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew bring you the second annual BTL Promotional Festivus — where they will grade the UFC for their 2022 performance, both in and out of the octagon, along with their airing of grievances for things that happened negatively throughout the course of the year. Additionally, the panel does the same for Bellator MMA, PFL, and ONE Championship, and give their thoughts on things they did better from the year prior, and other ideas to bring into 2023. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original, The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cadulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever.

Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster, The Downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now only from Audible. The Vox Media Podcast Network. From M.A. Fighting Studios, this is Between the Links. And now, your host, my...

The iconic voice of Estherland welcomes you to a very special... edition of Between the Links, the final BTL of 2022. And this is going to be a fun one, ladies and gentlemen. As for the second year in a row, it is the MMA Fighting between the links, MMA promotional Festivus. And I know Festivist took place about a week ago, but here at MAAFighting.com, it is the year-end tradition here on BTL, and I'll explain more on what this Festivus means for MMA in a moment. But first, let me introduce my tag team partner for this endeavor.

He is Mr. No Gray area. He is the exhibition king. He is from No Betz Bard and more. Mr. Jedmishu, how are you, my man? How is your holiday? I got a lot of problems with you people, Mike. You're about to hear about him. I'm doing great.

I'm really excited when you were like, hey, we're going to do the festival, and it's like, yes. Because it just so happens that I'm writing something very closely aligned with that, with this idea. Maybe it's slightly more optimistic, but I feel that I'm in a good position to talk about this.

So very excited to talk about the year of 2022, what it meant for these promotions and where they fumbled the bag. Oh, yes. And you can make a case that all four of these promotions fumbled the bag. In some way, at some point throughout 2023, the bag was dead or 2020. The bag was fumbled by all four of these companies. and I am excited to have you here for one last show for 2022, Jed. And what we're going to do, go ahead.

I have a surprise great. One of these companies got a surprise great. You'll never see it coming. So I'm really, it's a big twist that I'm excited about. This is awesome. So this is the second year we've been doing this. And we're going to add a little caveat to this. Last year, we just did a straight airing of grievances.

It was just a complete, this is why you sucked in 2020. kind of a show, but we're going to sort of be professors in this sense. We're going to give year-end grades for the four major promotions, at least the way we kind of see things. The UFC Bellator, PFL, one championship. We'll sort of give our marks. I argued. I tried.

I made the case to get Fight Circus. I mean, we've had two Fight Circus events in the past, like, 36 days or something. But Mike wouldn't hear about it. So it's just the big four. I mean, we could just do a whole segment at the end about Fight Circus. And this is what these MMA promotions should follow. A good little PSA for the UFC and company. But we'll give our marks.

We'll do the quote unquote airing of grievances because while these companies did do some good things, they did a lot of bad things as well. And I think it's important and fair to highlight those. And in the end, none of these organizations are going to listen to anything we have to say. So on next year's show, it's going to be pretty similar grievances, I'm sure. But Jed, let's just kick things off right away with the UFC, who is, they're just so far ahead of these other three promotions. Like, this isn't, I heard somebody say,

this is like the NFL and the XFL when Vince McMahon owned the XFL. I'm like, no, it isn't. This is like the NFL versus the E division Pop Warner team and fucking Norton City, Virginia, where you drive your cars through Norton City. and then five seconds later, you're not in Norton City anymore. Like, that's what we're talking about right now. We're out of Norton City. And the UFC could, like, they can get away with so much more stuff

that these other promotions just can't get away with. But this is a pretty big year in terms of memorable moments and fun fights and fun cards. Yeah, there were a lot of not great moments at events. But the in-cage product overall, it was very solid. We had a lot of title changes. We had some big-time title changes, dramatic spots, latent fights.

If you're a UFC fan, you got a lot of good stuff here, but there are some bad stuff as well. So what would you grade the UFC for 2022? So maybe this is controversial. Let's discuss Mike. I'm giving them a C. Thought this was a C, a C year from them. And I will explain my reasons.

But first, I'd like to hear where are you just on a grade number before we hop into my reasons? I'm on a B plus. I'm on a B plus. And I, I, C just seems, I'm so curious to hear why you had a C.

I think, I think the big moments were just so big and captivating that it almost negated some of the bad stuff. I flirted with like an A minus at a time, but I'm just like,

nah, that's probably too high. But I feel like B plus is the sweet spot because they had some issues, but the things that, the things that went really well for them, the things that were so captivating and intriguing, just it kind of like took away a lot of the bad stuff. And like you like to say, some of it in hindsight,

considering the builds to some of these things, were just hilarious. Like Leon Edwards being the Welterweight champion right now heading into 2023 is just incredible, especially when you have the promoter of your company agreeing that your long-reigning Welterweight champion should just go up to 205. Like, we're not going to stop the guy. And then he gets knocked out in the fifth round by a guy that you never wanted to put in a title fight to begin with.

Like, those things are just hilarious. And the UFC just found a way to turn it into, well, this is not a bad thing for us after all, because we'll just do a bigger thing here. And maybe we'll drop in a little hint of this. And everything will work out in our favor. But there are just a lot of great moments. I think I'm curious to see why we're dropping a C-bomb. I want to thank you because I forgot all about the Usman Blahevich stuff, which is at the time was hilarious, in part because we had literally seen Blavich beat the middleweight champion in large part because he was simply bigger than him.

It was just like, oh, weight classes matter. And there was a lot of technical stuff going on there. But at the end of the day, half of the reason Jan beat Izzy is just like, yeah, he's like a true 205er, and Izzy super isn't. And instead we're just like, what if we forget all about that? And let's go, let's go one bigger. Even one more way class down. Let's see how that feels. It's just the dumbest thing of all time. The moment that happened, that's when I should have bet my salary on Leon Edwards,

because it only ever works out that way. The UFC gets Their eyes get too big for their stomach And they immediately collapse So thank you for reminding me of that I gave them to see Because I don't think that like there were some big moments But overall

This This did There were no like What was the what was the call your mom Or your mom calls you moment? Like what fight was the mom test fight this year? Maybe Nate Diaz is one fight and I don't remember it really being that way.

There wasn't so, everything had a, there was a lot of events, which was a huge doc for me, 42 events, and we talked about it every freaking month and almost every week it felt like of, well, is this the worst card of the year?

Or, oh, is this the worst card of the year? There was just so much of it, and there aren't 42 main events a year to go around, much less, Comains, and there were several times, like this was the year that AK really dove into the penultimate fight instead of the co-main event, because the second to last fight on the card sucked a lot of times. And when the second to last fight on a card sucks, you know that the rest of the card isn't bringing depth, and it felt like we had so many of those events.

The oversaturation was a huge issue for me. And as I was just kind of broadly looking back at the year, the paper, reviews weren't that big. Those are supposed to be the tent pole landmark events, and it's, you know, and Ganu, Gan was a bit of a dud, and then you go to Covington-Masidol was awful. And Volcanovsky, Korean zombie, I know some injuries took place, and that was supposed to be a thing, but that fight felt like a letdown. And there were some, you know, to share Pahashka, one of the very best fights of all time. Can't take that away. Edwards has come back over Usman, unbelievable moment. Those are like the two biggest moments of the year. And then, you know, and then, you know,

I guess you do the Izzy Pereira. And so that's three decent moments. Like those are not decent, three good moments. But those aren't, those don't feel transcendent in the broader cultural populace

like Connor at MSG did or whatever. And so that with the oversaturation. And then the last factor that I added in, they had a lot of problems this year, man. And some of them, like, we can dive into here. but my like very brief list of things that were that are not airing of grievances issues by the way. I have a separate list for airings of grievances versus why I'm grading you this way.

Too many fights at the apex. They did get back on the road this year, which was a win, but they still just, it's so easy and convenient for them. And I'm sure the financials are simpler that they just do everything at the apex. And that Ariel Hawani gets on this a lot. it really does take some of the sting out of some of these fights. The optics of the Nate Diaz situation were horrific. Granted, that all kind of came out okay for them,

but the whole buildup to that was treacherously bad. The light heavyweight fiasco at the end of the year, those optics are terrible. Maybe that's weighing too heavily on my mind. Dana White Power Slap League, I know that that's not technically the UFC, but it still feels like it jumps in here to make me think, well, this is stupid.

And then the biggest one, which we've talked about ad nauseum, but maybe not enough for some people. The James Krause situation is real. Like that is a very real, very serious thing. And even though I think the UFC is doing for the most part the best that they can to manage this and is not really at fault in this measure, that is a big problem. And when, to me, frankly, probably the biggest story this year is not Leon Edwards or I, Prahashka. It is probably the James Krause thing. And when the biggest story of the year for you as a promotion is that, which at best is really bad optics and at worst is like low-key fight fixing, that's a bad year for you. Especially if you don't have the super high moments to offset it.

And I just didn't feel it did. So I could, I flirted between C and C plus and then I just kind of ultimately felt that this was a C year. It's not a, it's a passing year. Totally fine. You get you out, you know. You're not grounded. Yeah, you're not grounded. It's not a D.

You're not scraping by. But it's, it's not something that you, it doesn't help the GPA. And I don't think 2022 help the UFC's overall GPA in any substantive manner. I get where you're coming from. I definitely do. A lot of the,

a lot of that stuff, I actually didn't really account too much into the grade. Like the Krause thing and I'll get into, You made a couple of points that I did absolutely agree with. A lot of the losing of fights and penultimate fights wasn't really their fault. It was just the cool fights that they put on cards all fell out. They all fell out. We had two Kyle Borallio co-made events, not planned.

That's just what happened. It is their fault, Mike, and that's what I'm saying. Because when the 282 is the perfect example. When you build an event and there is one fight that can headline it, that is asking for the injury gods to fuck you, and then they do. You have, like, if they've ran fewer events, and I know they can't,

because 42 is the magic number for the ESPN deal and the, like, $200 million they get for it, if they were running fewer events, instead of having 14 fights and, like, half of them don't have wiki pages or whatever, you could have fight night cards be a little bit better, and then they could take these blows a little bit, better. And it's

this maybe, I know a lot of people hate this argument because they just want to see fights and they don't really care. To me, you can, you can go watch Regional MMA. That's on every weekend. Go check out Caposa. The man had Grabaka Hitman on Twitter.

The man has a list every week of all the stuff that's going on and how you can watch it. If you're just trying to watch people fist fight each other, you can go watch some dudes in Russia, chuck them. Like that is a thing you can do, but if you want to watch something with a higher production value and something that should be substantive, then we could just, we could do, if they did 35 events a year,

even 35, that would fill their, there would be less chaff at the bottom of cards, and every card would be a little bit better and could survive injuries a little bit better, you know? That's, and that's my core thing, because it's not their fault. in some ways it's not but think of the people who headlined freaking cards this year man Kennedy and Chukwu versus Eon Kutalaba was the main event of a fight night card two months ago that is a fundamental failing as far as I'm concerned every part of the line and that the buck stops with Dana White and the UFC yeah look there's too many cards

I think everybody knows that. There are some people who are just going to be like, oh, I wish there was three fight cards a week. You're all insane. And then on top of that, there's just too many fights on these too many cards. And I'm sure you've, I'm sure we all felt this at some point.

And some people are going to be like, oh, you guys cover a me for a living. You're a bunch of whiny babies, blah, blah, blah. I know it's my job, but I never ever want watching MMA to feel like a chore or actually feel like work. But there are, are points heading into some of these fight night cards.

Most notably in the second half of the year, more so like the fourth quarter, I was just like, ugh, it's, it's too much. Like, this is too much. Like, I'm getting, like, I'm just getting sourly burnt out a little bit for some of these apex cards. And it's like working out. Like, I don't really want working out to be a chore. Like, I just want to be like, I'm excited to go work out today.

I don't want to be like, ugh, I have to fucking work out today. That's what, like, watching the UFC was like towards the end of the year. And sure, we get the biggest fights, but the fight night cards, especially at the apex, like you're saying, like, here we are. If you don't like it, tough Krapola. But it got tough at times. And despite that, I think the in-cage grade was pretty solid. Like, I think the fights that we actually got all delivered for the most part.

We got those great moments. The out-of-the-cage stuff, like you said, anytime Dana White had a mic, microphone in his face. It definitely takes the grade down a little bit. Things that happen outside of the octagon, the James Krause situation. This grade is going to be lower in 2023 for sure, mostly because of this James Krause situation, because we're just gathering information now. We have, right now coming out of 2022, we have potentially this could be very bad, but 2023, the potential is going to be like, okay, here it all is. This is really bad. So I think the grade is really going to take a hit in 2020,

because of this. And most of the other stuff that we both talked about, the UFC just, they don't care because they're a freaking cash car right now. But I will say this.

My grade goes up a little bit because of the fighters. Because some of the fighters are starting to realize I ain't taking your shit anymore. Paulo Costa. I ain't fighting Robert Whitaker unless you give me more money.

And I'll be, I'll happily sit out for that. There are other fighters who don't the same. And I know you hate to hear this, Jed, but let me, let me shine a light on Stepe Meachich for a moment. UFC 282 because you want to know why we are now enemies. Right. But do you know why UFC 282 looked the way it did?

Because the UFC was for sure certain. We're going to get John Jones and Steepay to fight. Steepa ain't going to say no to us. And by all accounts, they said, he said no. Nope, not doing that. Here's your offer. Fine. Give me this and I'll do it.

And they're like, no, take it or leave. He's like, okay, bye, I'll just go be a firefighter and a dad. And he'll be fine doing that the rest of his life. And it's unfortunate for the fans, 282 wasn't as, the main card, like, was still very intriguing by the time we got to Saturday, especially with Patty being Patty and some of the other fights that were on there. But yeah, I think the fighters actually, some of them anyways, and Francine Ghanu is another example of this, and that's still an ongoing thing.

Some of the fighters realized, I'm not playing this game with you. anymore. Like, I don't have to play this game if I don't want to, and that's, that's nice to see. I would like to see more fighters do the same, but at least we got some of the bigger names out there going public, going on the MMA hour, and airing their grievances about the UFC and the contracts and the money that they're making. So that was a nice little change. Not enough of that, but we got at least some of that, which is a little bit refreshing to me. Well, look, I'm never going to be against fighters doing better unless it's steeped me hitchage. or maybe Michael Chandler,

but God knows Michael Chandler will not be the guy to stand up to the UFC. No. I don't have to worry about that one, I'm pretty sure. I don't even need to see this contract, Dana. I'll just...

Virtual signature. Got you. Let's go. So you said what you had to say for your explanation was not your airing of grievances. No, I have some grievances. Let's hear the grievances, Jed.

So, Mike, you mentioned it at the top of this show that these organizations aren't going to listen to us. And buddy, you're right because when I knew we were doing this, I decided to go listen to last year's end of your BTL episode where we aired the grievances. And I got to say

all of them are still active for all of the stuff we talked about. Both the Tien, Delator. So I'm going to start with basically the same stuff because it's still the most relevant to me.

The first one, the biggest one, is it's pay fighters more. This is not really specifically germane to the UFC, like kind of everyone could take this, but particularly for the UFC. And here's why, Mike, I almost downgraded the UFC this year because the news that has recently broken

of the Ali Act is going to return to be pushed through Congress or at least make the effort of. I didn't because ultimately that's a 2023 thing, not a 22-2 thing. thing. If that ends up happening, the whole sport is going to change overnight. It will be the biggest thing that's happened to the sport basically since the UFC sold to Endeavor and maybe, and frankly, probably much bigger than that ultimately. It will be massive. For years, I have

railed against it. Not because I think that there's necessarily a moral problem with it. I don't. I think it's fine in that regard. Because I don't want it. Because I don't want MMA to be boxing because that sucks. Boxing is one of the most fun sports in the world to watch when it is doing the thing at the highest level. But that gets so few and far between because of the Ali Act. And ultimately, that's probably a net good. My position on the Ali Act has changed largely.

And for those who don't know, the Ali Act is... The short version is it breaks up monopoly in combat sports. is functionally the short answer to this. So I want the monopoly because the monopoly is good for the consumer at the end of the day. It is beneficial for all of the best fighters to be under the same rooftop because then we get to see all the best fights being made. That's always Dana's thing is that we make the best fights, even though that's provably not true a lot of the time. The monopoly helps in that regard. but the other end of it is when you monopolize something

you can absolutely gut the workforce and take all their leverage away. I have for years not wanted the Ali Act because I want the best fights to happen all the time as a consumer. I just want you to pay fighters more so the Ali Act doesn't become a necessity and this is a fundamental problem with human nature is that greed seems to win out all the time. And so at the end of the day,

the UFC, if they would just pay fighters more right now. Frankly, if they had been doing it for years, the Ali Act wouldn't be a problem. But if they would just pay fighters more right now, maybe the Aliak could go fuck away. And then the UFC could instead of reaping 80% of the revenue, do 50% like the NFL does. And then we can get all the best fighters under one roof,

and we can get all the best fights. And everybody wins except for, the very top CEOs of corporations who reap astronomical benefits from this. And if the options you're presenting me are everybody can win and Dana White loses, or Dana White wins and the rest of us lose because eventually this thing happens and now we don't get to see the best fights happen because everybody can promote shit. I know which one I choose. So my biggest one is to pay fighters more.

And I know you agree with me on that. maybe not for all the same reasons, but fundamentally pay fighters more is not, you can't argue against that if you have a soul. Yeah. And you could just, you don't even have to just go right to 50. Go to like 28.

Go to 30. Like even that is a massive difference. And then we could eventually get to 50. We could start somewhere, but we got to do better than 20 or 18 or whatever the numbers are being reported. It's awful. And I blame, and I do blame the UFC for this, but at the same token, I blame the UFC fighters.

They fucked this whole thing up themselves. I always blame them. It's so bad. I always blame the fighters. Like, they did this, they screwed this up by not trying to associate after the sale of the company. Then with this ESPN deal, you had multiple opportunities where you're just like, okay, they're making so much money right now. and I understand we're still kind of making more than most, but that's not even the case anymore.

When Ariel says that PFL, UFC fighters are so curious about the PFL, like he's not exaggerating because I'm sure he was having conversation with like bigger names than I was having, but there were so many UFC fighters that were like hitting me up during the PFL championship broadcast watching these fighters. Like Rob Wilkinson win a million dollars going through a tournament

and they're just like, they really do this? Like, this is real. And you're like, yeah, man. Like, this is what it is. So it's crazy. But yeah, they should just definitely make more money. And it would be great PR for Dana just to come out in his own. Like as like just a, as just a way to combat this Ali act thing.

Because it looks like it's, we're not even going to, this isn't going to even hit the table for several months. And then it's probably going to take another year plus before it even gets put through. with all the different things that happen and the challenges and all the conversations and all the discussions and all that. But if Dana just comes out and says, listen, we're going to boost up

the fighter revenue to like 28% right now, it's tremendous PR for the UFC and it's great for the fighters. They make more money. And it's a big difference. Like it doesn't seem like much, but it's actually a big chunk difference. Yeah. And Jake Paul, God bless him, has done all the math

for us for the most part and put it all out there. So 28, 30, You don't even have to go to 50. But let's pay these fighters more. Get out in front of it. You know, good. That's going to make you look. You get out in front of it.

You get out in front of it. And then you can kind of control the narrative too, which is what the UFC loves to do. They love control the narrative. They sure do. It would just, especially because it's, I mean, we see some of it now. It's only the longer the sport exists, the more it is going to happen where the life's, the lives of these fighters and the myriad problems they are going to have afterwards becomes front and center more like that is that I do not want to speculate on any of the recent passings that have

happened but it would not shock me if there were a connection between dying young and the fact that your career choice is to be a professional combatant because that makes sense. And so it is you protect, protect the people involved in making your sport what it is, pay them adequately. And it will, until the end of time, frankly, at this point, it is probably just until the Ali Act takes hold, which at some point it will. And that may not be for five years or whatever, like, because they're going to lobby super hard against it. But until it does,

fighters, and then unless Dana White has a ghost of UFC's past moment and gets visited by three specters to teach him how to be a morally acceptable human being, then this is going to continue until the Ali Act comes and it just is going to leave

the, it's the worst part about this sport, bar none. Like, it's not even close. It is the worst part about this sport. It's only going to get worse as this shit keeps happening. And then you get UFC veterans. Steve Amirich, who I'm sure is actually financially set, you know, is lucky in that regard. But there are plenty of them who don't get to retire and, you know, choose to be a firefighter. They retire and have to work at Walmart or whatever it is because they, despite being a professional athlete, didn't get it. And last point on this topic, because it's the

one that really this is me throwing a lifeline out to the worst people imaginable who are like fuck them I don't care about the fighters if that's your stance you're a terrible human being but it's your right to be that

that's okay here's what I'll say to you this sport gets so much better if you fighters get paid like real fighters like do you have any look at the number of fighters who have just been like like this year who have just been like, yeah, I was just good and I didn't try because like, why did I need to try?

Like Kennedy and Chuku, who else, Apache Mix, and there's one more, like basically all said Ryan Span, Ryan Span, basically all said some variation of the same thing. And it's just like, these are the people who go into fighting because it's simple and there's some money into it. but think of the myriad castoffs like like d3 college football players who are still like if they just rolled into the gold's gym or whatever would be throwing up numbers that you would blow your mind to be like holy shit that guy is a professional athlete it's like actually no i watched out of d1 and had to go to juke or whatever there are so there's so much athletic talent in this world that doesn't move into fighting because it doesn't pay. Like, why would you do that? This is, like, there is nobody of means and talent who fights if they have other opportunities because why would you do it?

And so the sport will just get better. If everybody can train full time instead of work another job, the sport will get better. Hell, Habib gave an interview this year where he was like, part of the reason I'm so good is I think fighters are very stupid. and they don't train rightly. And they're like, can you explain? It's like, I train twice a day, and then I go home and take a nap.

Like, I train and I sleep for three hours for my body recover, and then I go train again. And nobody really does that because they have other shit to do. Half of it's working a job or whatever. So it's just like, if you just have the money to focus on this,

it will lift everything so much if fighters just get paid more. So we won't have to watch Jared Vander a fight if fighters make more. And if that's not a good enough argument for you, I don't know what is, frankly. And again, we don't know enough about the cross situation.

But if fighters are being paid more, you think Derek Menner stepping into the cage with Nern and Becca? Hell no. Hell no. I guess, look, I'm not saying that if you paid fighters more wouldn't be having a gambling scandal. Because there's greedy-ass people out there that just want more and more and more. There would always be something.

but Derek Minner wouldn't have been fighting. He wouldn't have been fighting. End of discussion. End of discussion. He would not have been fighting. And also there's a big difference between taking a risk of, well, I go in there and I lose my, I only make my 10 grand versus and then I get fired,

but at least I, you know, we have my family put a bunch of money on this thing and got paid out a lump sum versus, oh, I make like 100K to show. Like, overwhelmingly it is, more likely for shenanigans to take place with guys like low level dudes and this is not germane to buy like this is to boxing

certainly as well like guys who don't make a lot of money are far more likely to exist and have set of circumstances where they want to do something shady than the dudes at the top of the card because those people make more money and why risk the golden ticket for something unless it is an astronomical amount. So yeah, all of the, every aspect of this

board is better if fighters just get paid more. There is not a single part of it that is worse except for some executives somewhere lose money and fuck those people anyway. Yeah, but the UFC, even if they go to 28%, they're still making nine figures.

Infinite dollars. Infinite money. This thing prints cash right now. Yeah. And you could do, I hate to say this, but if paying fighters more means we have two apex cards a month, fine with me. Let's go. I'm cool with that. I would accept it. Me too. Like if you, if you're just going to run them out every, every week, there's 52 events a year or whatever, that's fine. If it means the fighters get half the share, I, cool, run it. Yes. I'll even pretend to like it. I will have so, so many less problems with this company and this sport if fighters got paid equitably. Because then I wouldn't have to feel shitty about any of it.

Because, like, that truly the only part of, like, the parts of this sport that make me, like, not feel great about it are that it is inherently a violent one, and they get paid little. But if they get paid a lot, I don't care. They are grown-ups making a choice, and that's okay. They get to make that determination. You get to live your life how you want, and that is okay. It is that, and then there are a myriad number of people involved in this sport that aren't very great. but I kind of think that that's just everywhere in the world.

So you sort of just have to make peace with it. But anyway, that's enough on the fire pay thing. I have two other primary grievances. Well, I will say the oversaturation could probably fall into this, but we already talked about that enough. The next one, I'll throw out Fire Day in a white because I said it last year, and I think all of those things are the same.

So I won't rehash into it too deeply, except for the White Power Slap League is awful, and I think I care, I think I am less offended by it than most people I have seen online in this space. And yet, I still think it's horrifically stupid and just adds, it is the Dana White problem condensed into one,

where there, as I said last year, there's a period of time where he's probably the only dude alive who could, or one of a very limited few who could have turned MMA into what it is today, taking the seat of the UFC and blown it up into the sport it is. Even though a lot of that credit really should go to the Fertitas, he was still the fulcrum piece here. He was a pivotal and instrumental. But all of the various aspects of him are bad now.

And he is obviously not an awful business person. like he's clearly successful, whether he's good or bad is actually still up for debate, I would say, but he's clearly successful. If you put any random fight promoter, like, and not even fight promoter, just took any business exec. Some guy from any other company and put him in the head of this, it is not going to be worse, and it is probably going to be better because you are not going to have him yell at people over dumb shit, or say vaguely questionable things or rail against all these other stuff or start up a power slap league that is going to get bad press. Like it's he is he is just not part of the future of this sport in a or in a in a growth and mainstream way reasonably.

And that's, I'll believe that until he finally steps down and I still believe it today. and it's, this wasn't even like a particularly bad day in a white year. Like he didn't say a bunch of like racist stuff or anything. It's just he, he clearly doesn't care either. Like, which is a huge problem. We're going to talk about that with some other orgs. Like, he clearly just doesn't give a shit. So I don't like get somebody who is promotion.

And this is the big one. Here's my big one. And this is, again, not actually specific to the UFC. I'm going to say it for every one of them. he doesn't care and that rubs off on the product you have to be interested half of the reason Eddie Hearn is like a captivating dude to listen to speak is because he gives off the vibe

that he gives a fuck and like that's the essence of promotion is to make people care about what you are promoting Dana White clearly doesn't I'm not even that big of a I don't even have that big of an issue with him saying stuff like if you don't like it fuck you don't watch it because there's a part of me that at least like okay it's honest fair but that's not your job your job is to make people like it and you can't please everybody but you can try and make it

make it feel like you are invested and he does not and so it's that that is my biggest thing for all of them the ufc needs new code of paint hasn't had one in a while and it needs to up its production value make something new and interesting happen be a little more creative all the same things I say all the time. They are a monolith now. It is the three letters and they just roll out the same thing every time. And sometimes it's fighters you know and sometimes it's not. But it is just the product. And that is my second biggest issue with them after pay is that. And I think that's a top down thing. I think getting rid of Dana helps. But it's just getting some people in there who want to do something exciting, who are interested in this sport and making something

cool happen. And that's, we haven't been there in a long time, my friend. Or at least go back, go back to like 2010, 2011, where even like, you cared,

like you were so into it. And it was so funny, like going back and watching, I don't know why I even fell in this rabbit hole, but going back at watching Dana White at the Connor McGregor Floyd Mayweather hype. Like that Dana White was the Dana White

that got people falling in love with the sport. was the fucking hype guy. He got you all fired up. For good or for bad, the dude told the truth and he was very passionate about it. Now, fast forward to now, he's still very passionate about things, but you don't tell the truth anymore. And him not caring, it's been that way for a long, long time, seven or eight years at least that he's had that attitude. And we got a little bit of a comeback with the McGregor-Bayweather fight. And then he just kind of went back to the same old Dana and I thought all this weight loss and his life changing forever and him being able to sleep better and all the changes he's made physically in his life would help him be in a better place

spiritually, mentally speaking. No, not that way at all. I have at least learned to get my UFC hype from other folks. That's why I love talking to John Anick before and after fights because he gets He's so good at it. He's so good at it. He clearly cares. Yeah. He cares more than maybe anybody in the company. He's so good at his job. And that's like half of why he's good at his job is because he cares and he lets it be known. Like that is so important in promotion. 100%. And yeah, I don't think he can lose Dane altogether just because the casual audience all know him. They all love him. The dude is a view machine no matter how you feel about him. And people love when Dana goes after the media. It's great to them. But yeah, I mean, what an interesting,

world we live in in a Dana whiteless UFC but looking Dan it Dana ain't no spring it's gonna happen at some point and it's I'm so excited to just see just see what it looks like and maybe it doesn't look any different maybe it's just it's just more professional because that's it like he's very not professional and at least that would be something I guess like but it's I just want to see what it looks like with somebody else at the wheel who cares about this sport yeah and he's it's we're going to see that version of Dana with this power slap league. Like, we're going to get hype man Dana for that. And then

he's going to have to fast forward to Saturday and we're just kind of to go back to Mopey White all over again. So. Yeah. I mean, the fighter pay, a lot of things you said spiral down to all these other promotions because when you're the top dog, everybody, you kind of lay out the groundwork and everyone just kind of tries to find

their different variation of it. So if the UFC ain't paying fighters, then the other companies aren't going to pay fighters that much either. It all starts at the top. So I think that makes sense. And I think we're good. Did we cover everything with the UFC here? Yeah. My only other thing is just, like I said

at the end there, just give me something new. The production has looked identical for years now. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but you just have to give it an update. You have a fresh coat of paint. Give it something new. Add a little zest, little spice. Because

you know, we're not getting it. With that many events, I need something. something shiny to differentiate me if what we're doing. But yeah, otherwise we're fine. I mean, they're doing some different stuff like different camera angles, the different tail of the tapes and stuff like that. So that's one thing. But yeah, I do agree with you.

Like the walkouts are all the same. It's nothing has changed. It's all monochromatic, especially with the uniforms. A very small one. And this is less a grievance just as a suggestion. I want a lot more booth makeup. Like they have whatever, six, seven people that fit in their booths.

You do 42 events a year. Like, fuck that noise. Just run a bunch of dudes out there. Like, give anybody who can talk into a microphone. Give him a shot. You don't have to run the same group at time in and time out. Like, let me see what any random person.

Let me see what Cheeto Vera is like on an English broadcast in the booth. I know he does Spanish language, but the man speaks perfect English. Let's roll him out there. Like, let's make things more fun in that way, at least differentiate something and see what happens. Like that's, again, not a huge grievance, mostly just like, it'd be cool if they were a

more fun organization because they're not fun. They are definitively not fun in with regards to the sport. Chris Barnett should be on as many broadcast as possible. Yeah, that would be awesome. Just haven't we walk to the cage and say hello to the fans to kick off every show. I'm fine with that. Have them walk out and do a little, do a little shimmy on the way down to the octagon, welcoming fans. Then he can bring in the buff man or Joe Martinez.

Can you imagine just that and just that? Can you imagine just not like, all right, well, we'll, we will use Bruce Buffer for pay-per views because whatever, we still want to stay committed to him. What if Chris Barnett just announced? Like, like, just have your in-ring announcer be a fighter just for funzies. Because why not? Like, these are the types of things that would be fun and something different. and frankly, like the Enchoku Ion Kutalapa fight card, if you had given me that little out of them like this is the best fight card of the year

because Chris Ballick Buggy Bear was announcing, and that's at least something to talk about. If you're going to feed me a bunch of garbage, at least sprinkle it with some sugar on top, you know? Well said. We could go on another 15 minutes of this topic, but... It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Almost, almost anything.

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For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ, built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move.

Lift with confidence, while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus at OnePeloton.ca. I guess we should move to the wonderful world of Bellator. MMA and I know what some of you might be saying oh we still get this bell tore versus rising card they're not done yet technically they're pretty much done since she ain't getting it live anyways and by the way let me just reiterate belator is just as pissed about this as we are from conversations that i've had so let me just throw that out there but jett let me just start with

this and i'm you listen to last year's show i'm sure a lot of the grievances we both had are exactly the same as they were last year but i really want to want Bellator to do well. I want them to be where they should be. I want them to be where more of a casual audience think they're actually at right now, but they just can't get out of the mud, man. I don't think they go backwards at all. And sure, they can get some momentum. Like, maybe a nice day can harden up that gooey, muddy road. But even then, like, it gets so hard and crusty. Like it just rolls a couple of inches forward.

Like they're not they're not traveling back up the highway. They're just kind of stuck in the same position. And slowly but surely they move like a couple of tire rotations because it's just sort of the same stuff for them in so many ways. So boy, am I curious. If you're giving the UFC a C, what are you giving Bellator for 2022?

I'm between a C minus and a D plus. So they Because they're they did some things They they I won't say they tried Because they don't try Um But look they

They were on the road A decent amount this year Which is cool They did the the Dublin show Which even though they weren't Like high Like high profile fights That show

Doing a show On location With a bunch of fighters there That crowd popped And you could feel it through the television. They had some things that were okay. Johnny Eblen's a new champion.

That's a good moment. You know, the Sabatello Stats fight and just Stats in general kind of emerging as a future star. And Sabatelo, too, in that regard. Like, that's a good moment. The co-promotion with Risen and I know hasn't happened yet. I love that. It's one of my favorite things that they do. So, like, that's a good thing.

Vadim Nimcob, having on roster, arguably the, best light heavyweight in the world and frankly like given Yiri Perashka's current situation probably the actual best light heavy weight in the world if you had to like have a champion defend your honor tomorrow I would be Vadim Nimcov for me in 205

since he doesn't have a working shoulder like that that means something that is a very they have some things the fact that they only did 18 events this year meant their card quality and I talked about it on several shows this year their car qualities were good like they don't have a

enough headlining acts still. Like they are still lacking that. But their card quality up and down was just like, this is watchable. And for years, that was not the case. Especially as they did more events. It's just like,

dude, you guys can't run 25 a year. That's not sustainable for you because then you have awful undercards. They were better in so many ways. They struggled mightily in the fact that they didn't. What were the moments? Like what was the big moment? this year for Belator.

I think it's Doc Sabatelo. And that's, as much as that's not bad, like, that is not. You don't hang your hat on that. That ain't it. You know, Pitbull McKee, too, I guess, is the other end of that. But it's that, I don't know, man. They, they are, and I'm going to blend right into grievances with them. Their biggest issue is what we talked about at the end with the UFC.

they, their promotion, they are awful at it. Like they are truly, truly bad at promotion at this point because I work in this industry. This is my career is to do this. And several times, if not nearly every event this year, I was surprised to find out that there was a Bellator happening this week. Like, oh, shit. Bellator 288's going on this week or whatever.

Like, oh, missed that. and that can't happen if you're supposedly if you're nominally the number two org in the world like you have to be better about making your product known because if I as a hardcore of an MMA fan as can exist am not sure about what's going on and I'm not looking forward to the moments and I'm not anticipating and circling the calendar

then why the hell is anybody else man like who who are you pulling in and that's that's going to be their biggest issue forever I think at this point, because they don't seem concerned about fixing that. Do you remember what the first fight of the year was for Belator? They actually were developing, or at least they were given the gift from God of a potential superstar that fell onto their lap in Big Tuna. And what do they do in the first event of the year? A superstar.

He opens the prelims against an absolute murderer. that nobody saw and he just got trounced. So you had something, this guy had so much buzz. People were so excited about Big Tudah and you just chuck them in there with Sullivan Cully, the first prelim fight of 2020. And I was just like,

Strong, Charlie, man. What the hell is wrong with you? But I think you're right, man, because I was, when you brought up the question of, like, what was their biggest moment of the year? I think my favorite,

I think my favorite, favorite fight was Adam Borich, Mads Brunel. But, but, like, that wasn't a big fight. It, like, it was a cool fight. But, yeah, I think Stotzabatello was their, was their big moment. Their biggest moment, legitimately, like, no bullshit at all. Their biggest moment was Stats and Sabatelo being separated by Ariel Hawani on the MMA hour.

Three months before that fight happened. Yep. And so it didn't even carry the heat because it lost it all because that's how they did it. And then they faced them off, like, four more times. It's just, they. they are physically incapable of not shooting themselves in the foot at every step of the way. And it's they have a decent roster. Their band and weight division is excellent.

Their bandamweight division is at certainly at the top level, absolutely comparable to the UFC's band and weight division. And considering that's like at worst, the third or fourth best division in the sport probably is number two. Like that, that is saying something. And they can't, and they have stars. Sabatel and Stats can be stars. AJ McKee can be a star.

They cannot do it. And it is a fundamental failing in every aspect of promotion. Like outside of, outside of them making money, because truth be told, I have no idea their financials. Maybe they make money, which is the core concept of a fight promotion. So if you're doing that, okay, I guess. It would still sort of surprise me if they made money, frankly. But maybe they do.

they miss every step of the way. Coker is disengaged. He has not been interested in fighting for a while as far as I'm concerned. He has never once made me tune into a fight for the last like four years. I'm like, hell yeah. He doesn't seem like he gives a shit. Everything we said last year stands. Absolutely.

The production is, it needs to. a lot of work, man. It needs a lot of work. John McCarthy is still doing stuff. And I know you and I have a little bit different opinions on John. He's still doing a lot of stuff. So is Josh Thompson and Josh Thompson's popping off at the mouth when he doesn't

know what the fuck journalism is about, which ain't a good look either. So like, that's all bad. The name is still the most I wrote about this moment ago. It's still the stupidest thing in the, maybe in the, maybe in the entire sport, the name Bellator

is, I'll never get over how dumb it is. I will never get over how dumb it is. And I'm trying to remember what I likened it to. I was like, because somebody comes out of you like, Belator means thing in Latin. It's like, it's not that

bad or whatever. I'm like, yes, it is that bad. Because you notice how the NFL is the NFL and not like whatever Latin for football is. It's like Pedex Palo or something like that. Because it's stupid as shit. And everybody,

you're like, what the fuck are you talking about? If you're going to start up a new football promotion, you're not going to call it something in Latin. You're going to call it football. People are going to know what the hell you mean. And it's just, like, Showtime MMA.

If they are, then they appear to be locked into working with Showtime, which again, I still think is very stupid because it's Showtime. But if they're locked into it, as you said last year, use the various resources

at your disposal. Change your name to Showtime, get Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell involved in your production shows because it will be better. I swear to Christ it will be better. Do better things. Promote things better. Make people care. It is just they can't do any of it. And it is so they have a half decent roster.

And there is no promotion that gets less juice out of the squeeze than Bellator in the entire sport. for the quality that they have fundamentally in roster composition, they get the least out of it that they possibly could. And that is infuriating. What they should do for television, and they are doing it February 4th, they're going on CBS. And I'm not saying you can go on CBS for every card.

I totally understand that. Get them off of Showtime and just stream all of their cards. And I know there's a new deal where you can get both together. put them on Paramount Plus and call it a day. Yeah. Enough is enough, dude. It's a better step. Yeah.

Go to Paramount Plus. The big cards, three, four, even if you do it three times a year, the massive ones. You do one per quarter. CBS and Paramount Plus. CBS and Paramount Plus. There you go.

There you go. Do UFC did it too? And they screw. I should add this to the airing of grievances a little bit. Where's the ABC cards? Where are the ABC cards? This was such a big deal when you did the Cater Holloway card. People were so into this.

Why did we stop doing it? And even when you kept on doing it, you gave us like Darren Till versus Derek Brunson on ABC. Why? At the apex? It was so stupid. And now we're not getting it all. We got, what, Long Island was ABC.

So we got one. We got Anik and the crew. At least they got the gold jacket thing right. We got that part right. but more of that, more of that, make the sport more accessible. Make it more accessible. You being on Showtime does not do that. Does not do that.

I will say this though, Jed, and you're not going to agree with this. I actually thought John McCarthy had a pretty good year. There are some things, yes. I do. I actually agree with this. I still think that fundamentally he is a net negative in the way he is used. I will say this was not his worst year by far. And his in cage interviews with Sabatello were actually legit.

Like he legitimately did well. And so give the man his flowers. Him counting off the number of fuck Sabatelo said when he was like, they told me I can't curse. I don't give a fuck. And he just starts counting them up as Sadatel keeps doing it. That is like, that's probably the best Big John has been since he invented MMA rules. I actually thought he had a good year.

I think his color commentary, it's not for everybody. I get it. It wasn't for me for a while. It's getting better. And what I think is better about it and I think his personality is a little better. I think he flows a little bit better with whoever he's doing the shows with. It's that he's just being a color commentator. He's not the main voice.

He's not voicing over all the videos. He's not doing 500,000 things because they love him and Josh. Like they throw them into everything. But you let them do what they're good at. You let John do the color stuff. Post-fight interviews, he's definitely getting better at him. And you let Josh ramble incoherently like a jackass because that's where he excels. Josh, man.

I said this on, you'll hear our 22, 2020 predictions recap in a couple of days. But I said this. One of my resolutions for MMA is to give Josh Thompson more of a pass. I'm just going to give, because for some reason, I don't know why he's become this for me, but he is my, like, he's become like my anger foil. I'm the positive, I'm a pretty positive dude. But when Josh, like, says anything, it actually legitimately gets me mad. And I'm working on that not being the case anymore. But Josh, man, here's, here's what I'll say to you. Your heart is in the right place. It is. You're, we all want the same things. We're just all going about different ways to do

it. We're going about, like, the honest, actual way that it could get better. you're going by putting more pressure on your promotion to do things that they just ain't able to do. They're just not. From a production standpoint, from just an in-cage product, it's a vanilla broadcast, man. It just is. And for a while, and I will say this too. Josh was actually better this year as well. They didn't go to them as much.

I think getting Jen, and I don't want to like dog on Jen Brown, but bringing in Amanda Garrow was huge. I mean, it was so big. Like, Josh is a lot looser up there with Amanda kind of just bouncing off him because Amanda is like fun and she's such a professional and she's been doing the thing at CBS sports for a long time. I have a lot of respect for her. And what also has helped Josh too is that once in a while and I wish they would do more of this, much like the UFC.

Let's get some more fighter personalities in the booth for all these cards. Because Rafion Stott was spectacular. He was awesome when they brought him on. And I actually thought Sergio Pedestine. a great job on the December card too. And it makes Josh a little more comfortable because Josh is getting better as a broadcaster. He's getting a little more comfortable up there.

But man, there are certain cards where it's just like, we've gone to this guy 500 times. We don't need it. Like, we don't need it. So less is more of Josh. I'm not saying take them off altogether. Pass that. I want Josh to have a job there. I think Josh does provide value.

I think you've got to use them just a little less. And we need a new ring announcer. I'm sorry. I'm still, still agreements from last year. We need a new ring announcer. Michael C. Williams. Steal Chris Barnett, baby.

Yes. Go get Chris Barnett. Michael C. Williams is doing this for a long time. But we need a change, man. Like, we need a change. Michael C. Williams at this point couldn't get me excited to eat a bowl of cookies and cream ice cream. And I love cookies and cream, man.

Michael C. Williams couldn't talk. me into doing anything. Now I kind of want some cookies and cream ice cream. Hell yeah. Or at least like Michael, wore a pair of sunglasses. Just get a little more excited, man. Like give me something.

I'm not saying be Bruce Buffer and do 360 jumps, but a little bit of excitement, man. Come on. Let me, this is not specific to Bellator, but I have been toying with this idea, right? I think we're, I think all five promotions are missing an opportunity.

I assume that you've seen the cinematic masterpiece that is a knight's tail. Yes. Oh, God, yeah. Wouldn't it just be a lot cooler if instead of having Bruce Buffer or Michael C. Williams or whoever announced like, ah, in the red corner weighing 205 pounds and blah, blah, blah. What if instead you got to pick your hype dude and you got to pick the same way he does, the same way the homeboy does in the knight's tail and just gets to go and you have 20 seconds It's for your hype guy to announce you as, you know, the Nigerian nightmare put on this earth to steal souls or whatever.

Wouldn't that be so much more sick instead of a generic buffer 360 fist pound or whatever? Just be like, all right. And we hand the mic over to Kamar Usman's hypeman or whatever. Like that would just be awesome. And I don't know why we don't do it. Like I don't know why we've given that to one man. who isn't going to be nearly as as cool or as individual

or as fun as letting the fighter have their own hype guy. Like it would just be way, way better. Because every fighter has one friend who would do that shit. Like you can't, there's no fighter who like couldn't come up with a guy. Like some dude would be like,

hell yes. I don't care if I'm your coach or whatever. It would just be the best. Oh, I love that idea. Belator would be the perfect promotion. Take it, man. take it because no one will give like some people would would be mad if like Bruce Buffer didn't get to do his job anymore because people are stupid but like no one will care if you did it in Bellator or would just be dope.

They would just be like this is sick. Like this is really cool. Do that. There you go. Be creative. Be fun. Be interesting. They were a little more creative at the end of the year as well.

I love the Liver King thing. Uh, you just jump on that hype while you have it. Now Liver King is who he is. Doesn't get the same street cred as he did. when they used him with Paul Costa to eat raw liver on stage with Patrici Pitbull, I believe. But it is true. Like, that's an effort. Like, they did something. That's the thing. They tried sometimes this year. The Dust Commander. Nice little video with Daniel James and Twista.

Dude, can you imagine how fun it would be if the freaking Dust Commander introed? Oh, what's his name? Give me his name. Dude who's working with him. who just got knocked out by Chris Curtis. Oh, uh, Waukeen Buckley. Wachian Buckley. Can you imagine how fun it would be if the Dust Commander is the guy doing Joaquin Buckley's intro?

Oh, this has been taken from us fans. You guys don't, nobody's out here talking about what they have stripped from us, what they have taken from the fans and the viewing. This is the best idea I've ever had. This is, this is the 2022 version of the Kayla Harrison PFL week.

This is what it is. The hype man will. It's true. The hype man would be so fun. I don't, there's not a personal life who wouldn't find this interesting, right? Like nobody would be like this is, this is worse.

It's better if Bruce Buffer and his tuxedo just gives, ah, weighing five, ten from England. No, this is so good. You could still do both. Like, you could still do both. Michael C. Williams just introduces the hype man. Hype man hypes them up,

gets him the walkout. And then you could still do the, I think it still did the actual introductions, but the hype man bringing them out would just be spectacular. I love all of that. Rick Ross would be great at that. I don't know if you watched them. I know you're not a big pro wrestling guy, but...

I have no idea what you're about to say, so I'm excited. Who doesn't love Rick Ross? So they brought Rick Ross on this AW episode to, like, be a mediator for two wrestlers, and AW, like, screwed up the timing on different things. So Rick Ross on TBS, mind you, with a live microphone, looks at one of the guys because he called for like the other guy who's going to mediate to come out like two or three different times and the guy didn't come out.

So he goes and looks at the big dude, he gets to the ring. Live television on a live microphone on TBS and just looks at him and goes, man, you a big motherfucker. This is the greatest thing I've ever seen. Like, that's amazing. It'll be the best. You get more people, more personality, more interest. Rick Ross could have introed freaking Horny Mosterol against Covington.

Oh, man. I bet they'll have been sick. So sick. They're both Miami boys, Dane County. Let's go. Oh, man. This is my best idea I've had since the damage bar. Yeah.

I love this. All right. Make it happen, Bellator. Make it happen. Any other grievances? No, no, no. We've covered the. Bellator means well.

They're just not very good. at it. Just be realistic, baby. Just be realistic. And I'm talking to you about this, too, Josh Thompson. Be realistic, okay? Just be realistic. Be honest.

Just be honest. The fact that this card, and I know this is not a Bellator problem, but the fact that this Bellator versus Rising card is not going to air live in the United States is a friggin travesty. And I know it's not all your fault. It's a tough hang. It is tough. It's so ridiculous, dude.

It's so ridiculous. And you can't sit there and be like, Oh, the media, you got to sit there and make sure this is priority one. No, it doesn't work that way. Not if we can't watch it live. Who are going to tell is happening? I have to go on Twitter spaces at 5 a.m. on Saturday morning so that American fans can jump on and I'll tell them what's happening since they can't watch it live.

It's crazy that this is what we're doing in 2022. But again, I know Belliger's pissed about this too. But again, if you stream this on Paramount Plus instead of freaking, showtime, you'd be all right, I think. But no, no. You don't want to listen to Mike and Jed. No one's listen to Mike and Jed in the airing of grievances. No one's going to do the hype man thing.

You know who's going to do the hype man thing? Fight Circus is going to do the hype man thing. I'm actually fairly certain that Fight Circus will now do this as I've thrown it out into the war. Yes. That's a really good idea, Jed. We're going to steal that from it. And they'll win.

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Let's move on to, and we talked about this on a heck of a morning because someone was like, well, Belator is the clear cut number two. And I was like, are they though? Like, are they? because while Belator is like Belator I want them to do well and they can the the foundation is there We can build a nice little Belator palace if we really if we brought in the right people While they were stuck in the mud a little bit the PFL who by the way is far from perfect And they screwed up a lot of things this year including the playoffs and going to London

And all these different things that they screwed the pooch on gigantically. I felt that if we're in the game of life in MMA, I feel like PFL might have won? I feel like they might have won this year. I think they made some big steps.

I think while they were awful at many things, the things they did well came at perfect times. They got a ton of momentum to end the year. And they got more people actually caring about what the next year's slate looks like than maybe ever before Jed? Like that's at least the way I say. By the way, I gave Bellator C.

PFL, I'm giving a solid B minus, man. I'm giving them a solid B minus. And this could have been a much worse grade. And heading into Thanksgiving week, I thought I was giving them a D minus, D plus at best. They made a lot of mistakes, but I'm happy with the B minus. I think that's a pretty fair grade.

I think PFL made more strides and have more momentum compared to last year than anybody else, in my opinion? I don't hate it because I have given them a B. All right. I considered B plus even. They are thus far the strongest of the organizations. I thought their 2022 was the best, you know, comparatively. Obviously, the U.S.S. is the best overall.

But, you know, when you're talking about via perspective, look, they still have some major issues. The biggest one being their overall fighter quality is fairly low. They only have a couple of fighters who are ranked in the MMA fighting global rankings in their weight classes, almost exclusively that, and actually not even almost, I think exclusively those fighters got ranked by winning the championships this year and are low, like just inside the top 15. Because frankly, we're most one belong like i love brindonan great year really good fighter i think i have him you know borderline top tenish guy he's not any higher than that like and you can't you can't view that uh in any sort like you can't seriously look at him and be like that is the best featherweight in the world that's

not realistic or whatever uh but you know they've it all everything with them boils down to the championship because I thought they had a good year, broadly speaking. They made some big signings. Some of them good. Some of them are not as good, but they are at least headline-catching signings. Fundamentally, they feel invested. Like, they feel like they care, which is a big moment.

They are still on ESPN plus ESPN, which is huge for them. I talked about it last year. they can get they can get viewership by existing on that platform by being hey we're the only game in town on this Saturday night if you're a dude between the ages of 18 and 36

or whatever the target demo for MMA fandom and you turn on ESPN Plus because you for sure own it and you all do I want to watch lacrosse or do I want to watch you know something else or pool no there's fist fights on I'll watch that you can pick up fewer

just by virtue of that they did a lot of things were good this year. They still have, I'll get to my grievances later, but the championships are the thing that sold them. The championships, we talked a lot about it. I thought that it was really dangerous and could totally blow up in their face,

and it didn't. The PFL championships this year were as close to an A plus as you can get. I do think Kayla Harrison losing would have been better if she had won, but it's not really cataclysmic that she lost that fight. It sits up a thing for next year,

at the pay-per-view you're eventually going to run. You got six champions. Most of the fights were good. The stories weren't largely good. And I still, I love the season format. I think it's different. It is, it restricts you from being the top organization in the world, but you're not going to be that anyway.

It does, but it does cap a ceiling on you, but it differentiates you in a really substantive way. That is, that I like. So I gave them a B. You think a B plus is a fine grade for them as well. they had a good 22, man. They set themselves up

to make noise in 2023 and I still don't think they will overtake Bellator as number two but they can start making it a race by virtue of the things

that they are doing and that's good. They're close. Like they're close to Belator. It's a conversation to be had. I will say with the year they have. It's a conversation now. I still think that because a lot of like

what's the number two organization really just strictly comes down to a vibe, like what feels like the second best award, and Bellator still has the most other good fighters that aren't in the UFC in it, which really just carries the weight. But PFL is starting to make inroads in a way that matters. And that million-dollar prize, we talked about it early in the show,

fighters are interested, man, because a million dollars is no joke. It's a lot of money. And, you know, shit, people sign up to win Survivor to win a million dollars. So professional fist fighters look at, you know, Ante Delajja just won a million bucks as the heavyweight champion of the world in PFL.

I could beat that dude and maybe I should go. That's going to keep giving them traction. That's a huge thing in the back pocket for them. Yep. Kayla losing was a huge story of the year. Larissa Pacheco, hopefully PFL continues to put her out there, give her interview ops, get her on big shows where she can shine. You got to get her out there.

You have to do, and they did. They did. She was on the M.A.R. She did interviews with like pretty much everybody coming out of that win. AJ McKee was just a ghost after he beat Patricia Pitbull, which is just incredible. We didn't see him again until the freaking Jake Paul, Tire and Woodley fight, which is a disaster. You cannot do that. you got to put her out there at least build her potential maybe she doesn't translate completely with the u.s

audience but at least with the audience that she will translate with you got to do that this is a big few months for that man like that season's going to come up april's going to come real quick when that season starts and you can do the challenger series like whatever i don't care about the challenger series does not matter sometimes it could create gold sometimes you get a new talented fighter that that rides through these tournaments and gets to the finals and maybe even win the thing, but I don't care about the Challenger series. You just spend these months signing free agents,

getting on the horn, knocking on doors, baby, because this is a huge off season for them. And they got Shane Burgos that's getting ready to debut. Please don't throw him anywhere near a cage with Marl Morayas. I do not want to see that. I didn't want to see it in November. Don't do that.

Let's be smart with the book. Firm disagree. What? Get Shane Burgos to, a classy looking win. That's going to look great for Shane Burkos. Not anymore. I mean, it's fine.

Who cares if Malamara... It wouldn't look good in the first place. Marlon was already on a five-fight losing streak. Losing again, doesn't matter. Look, I'm not saying this is good for Marlon's health, but we don't talk about it enough. Like, Shavkat Rakhmanov, Jeff Neal just pulled out of that fight for the UFC. And they're probably going to end up...

You were just not going to find, like, a top 15, Walter Waite. wants to fight shop caught on short notice because most people have common sense right uh so they're going to end up moving him off that car you know that jan 14 which i hate that idea it sucks and that's and that's my point here dude there is a huge amount of value in just having dope people do dope shit against warm bodies like that and that is oh staying active and turning in fun performances and over a name like martin's a name even if he's old that's still it's still it's valuable. You can still build with that.

I think people underrate how important it was to building Fador-Millionenko and pride the cartoon fights against fake opposition. There were real fights in that stretch, but he was just active. Like he fought a lot. He fought like four times a year. And sometimes you fight

that much, you're not going to fight the best guys or if you do, you will lose because that's how fighting works. But if you fight Crow Cop and then you fight Minow Man, like that's dope. You just get to watch and do cool shit and that's cool. Let Shane Burgos do cool shit against

somebody and if it's Moly Marlins, well-being, but it's great for Marlins' well-being, but it's great for Shane Burgos. Right, and I agree with everything you said, just don't throw them in there of Marlon Maris. I don't need to see that. And just like Shafkat, Rakhbana should just fight anybody.

Anybody, anybody, any welterweight or lightweight who doesn't want to cut to 55 and they'll just jump in, I want to be in the UFC so bad, just let Shafcott, chuck them to the ground and smush him. Yeah. And then Shafcock could still fight Jeff Neal in March.

Everyone's like, oh, well, why would you do that? What he could fight Jeff Neal, March 25th in the main event in San Antonio? Do both. Do both. That's what we need. Get him on television. That's what it matters. Get him on television.

The single biggest factor to building a star is just volume. Like, Hamzaa Chimayev is a star because he's really good at fighting, right? He's also mostly a star because he fought three times in the span. or 21 days. And if you are watching fighting at all, and maybe you don't catch every event, but you're going to catch every other one or once a month, you saw Shafcott.

And then you saw them talk about Shafcott is a crazy man who's fighting again and again. Like just fight a bloat. Fight a bunch if you're young and talented and good. And if you're a promoter, just do it. Have Shafcott kill people. It would be the best. It would be the best.

So, yeah, I'm with you. I gave him a solid. B minus, good year for the PFL. Not all the way around. I mean, the playoff structure was horrendous. I mean, moving the playoffs to England was awful.

That was very dumb. It was really dumb. You took probably the heaviest favorites to win some of these brackets just out of the picture altogether because they couldn't travel with their visas. Just awful.

And hopefully they don't do that again. But what other grievances do you have with the PFL? only have two major ones. I will also throw, they still fall under the caveat of promotion. PFL does it, still doesn't. They don't really promote that much. Like, you don't see them around or nobody's calling to ask about stuff like that,

even though they're partnering with ESP and could do better in that regard. But my two biggest ones are, first, maybe controversial. The season, I love the format. It's too short. Two is not a season. Two is a pair of fights. you have to have three fights for the season. I know that that introduces a lot of problems,

and then at that point you're functionally asking fighters to fight like five times a year or whatever, but it is just not really viable. And so I think the way you do it is you world cup it, where you take two groups of four, they round robin in their groups of four, they each fight each other, the two winners come out of that into the semifinal matches,

and then there's a final. So it's three, it's four, it's five fights for the winner. That's a lot of fights. I recognize that. But I don't, two, it's a fake season, especially with the way that they score stuff. Because you can fight once, but if you get a first round finish,

but you came in as an alternate, it just, it sort of undercuts the entirety of what you're trying to do structurally. So I'm just, they've got to hammer this out in a better way. Specifically also, the rules are dumb. because of the way they do seating. I'm trying to remember who exactly it was. I should have done the research and pulled this up beforehand.

But some people like got missed the playoffs because they they lost the point seating. But people they beat made it in. And some people because that like the person they beat also won a first round thing. And somebody else finished lower in the stand like in the seating standings than somebody else because of the way that they incentivize things. And that's dumb. It's really dumb. If you can look at something and be like,

hey, this guy's not making it in despite beating one of the guys who made it in. That's very stupid. Then that's a problem. And you've got to fix that. And they've got to do that. But my biggest one, here's the biggest one for me, Mike. And tell me how you feel in this. I want them to go WEC.

What I mean by that is just abandon the shitty weight classes. Heavyweight is a bad weight class. It's not a good weight class in the UFC. It is, I would have so fewer jokes if they didn't have a heavyweight weight class because I couldn't make the joke that Ante Delajja is a millionaire, which is hilarious, by the way.

It's like, it's just so much worse to say Sadu Sua's a millionaire or whatever because that's like, he's at least like a competent fighter where his auntie Delajia is hilariously bad. It's, you got to get rid of heavy weight, and you probably got to get rid of light heavy weight. And I say that with absolutely all due respect to whoever the hell is, who won light heavyweight this year? Rob Wilkinson.

Rob Wilkinson was the light heavyweight, right? Yeah. Yeah. Rob Wilkinson is a great year, tremendous finishes. He could also make middle weight. You just get rid of that. And just go welterweight down. Welterweight, lightweight, light weight.

You could do a flyweight and do the women's divisions. Just do that. get the good divisions with depth that you can really build around. It's just way better as far as I'm concerned. I like that. There's a lot that you said there that I completely agree with. Let's see. Let me just go through real quick.

Yep. I agree. I would love to see them just definitely get in the lighter weight classes anyways. Get Bannumweight flyweight. They said they're doing Bannum weight or they're like 50-50 on doing Bannum weight this year, which would be good. Like that's the best The second best weight class in the sport

There's depth and talent there You can build around that Definitely women's weight classes A little bit more Um, 125 would be fun 115 would be fun By the 105 would be great

Everyone wants to see the freaking Adam weights Go to the UFC Just say no We ain't letting them have them We'll do it ourselves Yeah take them all Take them all That'd be a great idea

I don't want to say this But I feel like I have to Randy Gattour is tough Oh, terrible. He's tough. I know he cares. He's just not all there. Florian's great.

O'Connell is fantastic at his job. Just excellent stuff. Pacing definitely needs to still get better. Paperview wasn't awful, but the prelims before the pay review were atrocious. We got to improve the pacing. We did not improve it at all in 2022. There were some really rough cars.

that just lasted way too long. We got to get better at that. And we talked about Dana White not caring. We've talked about Scott Coker being disengaged. The PFL certainly does not have that problem because Don Davis is out here, just chirping at everybody. He cares too much. And normally that's not a problem, but he actually like cares too much that it's sort

of a detriment. It drives me crazy that he puts himself up. At least he cares. He cares and I like it, but it's stupid. Even if some of it's stupid and real dumb, at least like I'll take I'll take stupid and passionate over disengaged and smart any day of the week. Aggressive mistakes are okay, Mike, in my book. But listen, they had a great year.

They had a great year. They made a lot of questionable calls. Most of them didn't work out. But the things that worked out worked out in a big way for them. So, and again, they have a lot of moments. right now. If they can somehow land Apollo Costa or something like that in 2022 or 2023, it's just going to be massive for them.

So the next couple of years, it's just about building up that roster, getting some bigger names, and just polishing everything up a little bit because, yeah, I think you're, you're in a pretty good spot right now. You're in a much better spot this year than you were at this point last year. And onwards and upwards for the PFL, making that case for the, you're in a pretty good spot right now. the for the number two spot. But while the PFL had a great year, they certainly did not bring billions and billions and billions and billions

of eyeballs to their products. Like one MMA organization did. One championship, Jed Bishu, who I don't even know what to say because they have this big deal. They debut on Amazon Prime and it's great. And boy, do they come out with the bang. Demetrius Johnson, Adrian of Marais. They promoted the hell out of it.

Everybody was fired up. The production value was on point. The card was fun to watch. Like, everything about that first Amazon Prime event was spectacular. And then it ended. And they turned the page and it's like, oh, yeah, we still have, like, other things. We're just not going to tell anybody about him because we told everybody about this first Amazon Prime card. And we're apparently satisfied with that.

And they signed Roberto Sold Deach, But then they don't tell anybody He's making his freaking debut For their company. It's just wild Some of the decisions they make I'm giving one championship A D plus Jedbushu

What do you give in them? I told you I had a sneaky one. Oh boy. They get an A. What? I think that's the best year of 2022. How? How is this possible?

The Amazon Prime deal And it's that None of the rest of it matters. That deal is, huge for them. To have a legitimate distributor in North America outside of the thing. We can talk about all the rest of it, but at the end of the day, one of these organizations had Mike Tarrico and who's the Thursday Night NFL crew. It's Kirk Herbstreet and whoever talking about it. And they say, you know, they're reading out a promo for one championship Friday

night thing on Thursday night football. That that's bigger than anything anybody else did, including the UFC this year. It is, it is monstrously huge. I have enormous problems with a lot of other things that they are doing,

but one has a foothold in Southeast Asia, like the metrics bear that out mostly, though I would say a lot of that. Or certainly some of the numbers that are thrown out by Shatri's Sit-Yodong are generous to say the least.

But they do have a foothold there. People, they are a recognizable product, and they now have a real path to inroads in North America. And everybody, I talked about it with ESPN. Everybody owns Amazon Prime. Everybody has that. And we are not talking that they are buried on Amazon Prime somewhere. When that event is live, if you're on Prime,

it is right there for you to click at the top. That is massive. Their roster needs help. They don't have a huge amount of depth. I think that it is the height of stupidity that they do kickboxing and moitai. Pick one if you're going to do, I think that it's a deeper conversation,

but I don't fundamentally think it's wrong for them to not focus specifically on MMA. You can sprinkle in some grappling. You can sprinkle in some boytai. You can't do grappling moitai and kickbacker. boxing along with MMA that's just too many pick one and kickboxing Mouitai I know are different they are not different enough you can just choose one path to go down they don't have enough good fighters like Demetri's Johnson Kristen Lee René Ritter and Atole Malikin like that's really the

the length of what they have there um but they I mean do they got angeloly Lee too I guess I forgot the Amazon deal is huge and what that is going to do for them this year what it already did for them from a optics and visibility standpoint in 2022 they I think they if they can

if they cannot think that they are great which is I think going to be their biggest blocker is that they insist on making outlandish statements that are verifiably not true even if you can argue numbers or whatever like when Chachry says I view the U.S.

see as a 1A and where 1B, that's counterproductive. Because it's, even if you can make that argument with handpicked numbers, it is demonstrably not correct and nobody thinks it is. So when you say that, you come off sounding like an asshole and it, it erodes confidence in you and in your brand. If they could just temper some of that down, just take a little bit off that, recognize that they are not the best or the biggest mixed martial arts organization in the world, but that they have a solid foundation on which to build, and now with this Amazon deal and their backers, they

could be number two as early as next year. If they just committed to it, they could do that. I'm not sure they're going to because I think Shotree is a little too crazy and too stuck in the ways that he is, but they have all the bones to really make a statement in a case here. And that's why I'm giving them an A. Like, they position themselves better than any organization for growth and success in 2023 over the course of this year. You make a great case. I get it.

I think the Amazon deal kept him from an F in my eyes because they just, they suck at promoting. Like, they're worse than Bellator. Here's the thing. They're worse than Bellator. I agree with you. If they don't have the Amazon deal, they are an F. But because they do, it's an A. That deal is that that is the swing there for me.

It is make or break their entire promotional identity. The first, like heading into the first card, I was feeling like, oh, maybe one could be a very high grade. And then they screwed it up with the rest of them. But it is, again, it doesn't matter. I just don't want to see them fall into the, eh, we're already on Amazon Prime. So I don't really give a shit anymore.

That could also totally happen. which would suck. Which kind of happened after the first one because they're like, oh, the first card did well. Now we have billions. Now we have tens of billions and billions of people watching our cards, which is crazy. I think the problem is less that and more it's,

we got this deal, which is great, but we don't have the product to back it up. We don't have enough juice here to make this work. And that, like, this year, you talked about PFL needs to sign people and stuff. And that's true. I think every promotion should, just sign better people.

Like that's, that's how you get better fundamentally. One, one is the most in that boat for me. They need names and quality like right now. Because part of the problem is that they, some of their cards are run with kickboxing fights and moitai fights. And I,

frankly, I am not deep into either of those worlds. I have a cursory, cursory viewer of those products. My assumption is that, that glory is still the number one kickboxing org in the world. So I doubt that people really care that much about kickboxing in one. And I would feel the same with Muay.

Like they aren't, you know, Lupini Stadium or whatever. So it's, I don't know what they're drawing with those, but those fighters, like those things are headlining some of their cards. And that's, that takes away from your overall product and brand. You've just got to get bigger names, better fighters and better MMA fighters in the door. to build out this upcoming slate of Amazon cards you have. And when you have something, you need to get him out there. Jared Brooks.

I mean, what a year. They finally pushed him. I mean, my God, they finally gave him opportunities. And now he's the freaking champion for them. Swear to God, until we were going to talk about this, had no idea it was their champion. Yeah, he looked it up when I was doing things. It was like, oh, the monkey god, look at him go.

Yeah, the guy who beat Figured. He smalls and got robbed. Got the big fat hose job from the judges that night. What a different, what a, what his career would look like now? If that win, if he actually got that win, who knows? I mean, he's an interesting cat, but ended up getting back. He knocked himself out with a slam of Jose Shorty Torres and hilarious. Self-K-O slams are among the best parts of the sport.

Oh, man. And if there's one guy, he's probably, he's just that. But he seems to have, uh, I mean, he's always kind of. clicked. He's always been sort of a freak athlete and really good at this, but he seemed to to really find his stride. And hopefully he can get some big fights moving forward. Hopefully Roberto Soldege can do something moving forward. Here's what I'll say because I don't want, I just, I'm trying to end the year positive. So I'm not just going to sit there and absolutely annihilate one championship, even though I really could. So I'm not going to do that.

Here's what I'll say. And this is a message to you, Chatri. please stop with this I will only co-promote with the UFC thing because you're a fool by saying that what you should be saying is huh Bellator wants to line up with our guys here's my phone number Scotty Cokes

give me a phone call because if you're that confident that your roster is better than theirs and better than the PFLs you're not going to co-promote with PFLs their structure's too much it's just not going to happen I could see a world where if it's done correctly,

like, PFL is going to sit there, be like, let's do a cross promotion. But Don Davis likes to do his talking on the social media, and Scotty Cokes hates that shit, hates it. He's a true blue professional. Call me on the phone. Let's set up a meeting.

I'll fly to you or you fly to me. Let's get in the boardroom and let's do this thing professionally. If they could get in a room together and somehow figure this out, I think they could get a deal done. And if I'm Chachie, I'm jumping all over this. Like you're not 1B, bro. You're not 1B. But if you want to make a case for being number two,

you call out the promotion to do a co-promote that many feel is the number two, whether it's true or not. And you get in there. Roberto Solich getting in there and getting after it with either, I mean, it won't be Gaygar, but Robert Soljee versus fucking Joddy Eblen would be awesome. Throw them in there with somebody else at 170.

Like some of the matchups you could create for that. I think one could have. honestly and do really well. So don't be playing this world. We're going to go with the UFC stuff. No, no, no, no. You throw that fish in line in there and you reel in Scotty Cokes and Bellator

because you can put that together and you can somehow get yourself on Prime and Paramount Plus and show, like you could get on both those streaming platforms at the same time. You could have your broadcasters on Prime. You could have their broadcasters on Paramount Plus. that's gigantic.

It's huge. And you could do it. You could do it if you just stop being so full of yourself. Be a little more John McCarthy and a little less Josh Thompson. And I think you could do it. I think you can make a big stride here. 1,000%. We talked about a lot.

I think we may have mentioned in the last year's episode. A Super Bowl of MMA exists. Not with the UFC. You're never going to get the UFC. No. But with the other orgs, it does. And that is, with PFL, it probably doesn't because of their structure. It's too hard.

And that's okay, too. That's fine. Unless, and this honestly wouldn't be a bad idea if the PFL just said, cool. We have our 2022 champions. They are not going to be involved in the 2023 playoffs. We're going to crown new champions. And those champions will fight the Bellator champions in April. Like, you know, at the start of our year, the kickoff of our season will be,

the Super Bowl of MMA the PFL Champions versus Belator One could do that They could do that and it would be a big Big event because here's Here's the part if If in a magical world You got to co-promote with the UFC

Every single one of your champions Save for Demetrius Johnson Is gonna get put in a fucking box Like and I like a lot of your champions There has been no bigger proponent Of the Dutch Knight Riniadur than I have for years I was the first guy to rank him on the MMA fighting ranking panel. I have built him up.

I love that dude. That dude would get absolutely smoked by several of the top middle weights in the UFC, and I think he's a great fighter. Christian Lee, hell of a fighter. He is your welterweight and lightweight champion, which is truly lightweight and featherweight, and I can't imagine something funnier than watching Christian Lee fight is Lamachachov.

Like, I cannot picture a more. or hilarious, watching Chachry be like, where one be as Islam literally throws this man out of the cage. So it's just like you can't, you don't want to co-promote with them. You don't want that smoke because you, Demetrius Johnson, who people best know as the long-rein UFC flyweight champion,

is the only chance you have to get a W. And then people won't even be like, hell yeah, one. They'll be like, oh yeah. I thought Demetri had retired. Demetrius had retired. I guess he's still in the UFC or whatever. You don't want to promote with them.

But Christian Lee versus who's the Belatoll Lightweight Champion right now? Usman or Magamatov. Usman. Okay, well, that's also still tough for you. Still tough for you. More winnable than Islam, but still tough for you. Christian Lee versus like A.J. McKee is fun. Yeah, that's like fun.

Ridd Ritter probably doesn't beat Johnny Ebblin, but like he has a much better chance. just because Eblen is still raw. Anatoly Molligan is dope. Like, that dude can fight his ass off. Like, he could absolutely beat Vedim Kov. Like, those are winnable fights for you, and it's okay to do that. I'm a thousand percent on board with you, the co-promotion, etc. Here, my big grievance for one.

And maybe this is low-hanging fruit. I don't know. But maybe we end here, because I could say other ones, this is the big one. your weight classes are fucking joke and they make everything harder and no one fucking knows man and like i i get the point i love that you are trying to clean up weight cutting um i've i'll just be honest i just throw it out there i don't believe you i just don't believe in it because uh it it doesn't register with me that guys who miss weight but can come back an hour later and have made weight while also qualifying in the hydration because that's not how

weight cutting works. You lose weight by losing hydration. So I don't really buy it if we're being frank and it's just stupid. Look, weight cutting sucks in MMA. I am so on board. It is one of the most dangerous aspects of the sport, blah, blah, blah. You ain't ever going to fix it. You just not. People are going to look for edges. That's just how it's going to work. People will think that they are better served. The way to solve, quote unquote, the issue is simply this. Wayans happen two days before the fight. That's it. You give people 48 hours to

rehydrate and that helps tremendously with the danger aspect of it. It doesn't change the fact that people are going to cut a fuckload, but people are going to cut a fuckload any which way you go about it. You can at least get them in the cage healthy and just deal with it from there. And it is so frustrating for you to have

a light heavyweight champion that's 225 or whatever and maybe cuts weight. None of us know how to rank these fighters. None of us know how any of this works. It is just, you're not cool or edgy. It's just complicated and unnecessary. Just get rid of that shit.

Yeah, it's absolutely atrocious. And it's wrong. And they look, they just look like idiots. Like, they look like absolute idiots every single time. And shout out to the, shout out to South China Morning Press. Who's like at all these weigh-ins. Yeah.

And like keeps us filled in. Because, I mean, we end up getting the email. else from one anyways, like hours later about the hydration results, but it's every card now, man. Everyone's missing. Everyone's missing and they're coming back and magically having made it while qualifying hydration. And look, my eyes are not lying to me. When I watched Demetrius Johnson fight Adriano Marias, those two dudes didn't both make 135 pounds while, while making the same hydration. They just didn't. And that, it's okay. That's fine. It is a problem, but it is what it is in this sport.

But you cannot tell me that Adrian Amarais makes like 125. If his life dependent on it to make the generally understood weight class of 125 tomorrow, I would bet a substantial sum that he could not make it. Because it's my eyeballs aren't liars, Mike. They're not. So stop lying to me with the stuff. stop doing this, just commit to it. Say it sucks. Here's how we're going to try and fight the weight cutting thing. And if you want to do a broader approach to it, which I think is also reasonable,

the same way California kind of does, of we monitor weights, you know, to some extent, year round, et cetera. And we, you know, if you're missing, we monitor your rehydration for fight night, if your X percentage, we just won't let you fight it this weight class. That's a good way to do it, too. This is just overly complex. And even if you're, you know, if everything is on the up and up, which honestly, I still have real questions. If it is,

it looks shady. So just get rid of that shit, man. Completely agree with you. And who knows? Maybe co-promoting with Bellator will, maybe they'll go on their guidelines and things will be a little bit more on the up and up. But we'll see.

We've gone for an hour and 42 minutes. I didn't think we would go this long, but we have... We talked about all of the big ones. Yeah. Take some time. Basically, I guess my other... My last message to everybody is,

just do what fight circus does wheels all sorts of fun stuff fighting cars fighting phone boots if you just do like a little bit of that just take take a little spoonful of it and chuck it in your shake mix that all up you're going to get something good pfl we gave you the the opportunity of a lifetime jed dropped the damage bar we gave you the Kayla harrison wheel idea wheel of fun idea you can't do the wheel of fun idea anymore because she lost and it's just not the same anymore Belator, we've given you gold with the hype man stuff. So, I mean, I don't know what else to, we just don't know what else to do for you at this point. The UFC isn't going to change a thing and they don't need to from a business sense. So, and then one just, I don't know. I don't know.

I don't want to say I've given up on you one, but. Get better fighters and get rid of kickboxing and boytie. Keep, at most, keep one of them. I'm not even sure you should. but that I think would be a big win for them because it's just frankly part of my disinterest in one is that like sometimes the cards aren't

mixed martial arts cards so why do I give a shit I'm like okay I don't care this is kickboxing I don't need this fight card like at least if it's just MMA and I know that it's serving some grander purpose for the one thing being cool so that would be my single biggest thing outside of sign people you need good bodies

get them in the cage Or do more of the like Rod Tang DJ fights Where it's like you mix you mix up the rules every round I love that Yeah that's at least that's fun as hell I'm less interested in those so I think that's at least fine It's for every organization If I could give you one piece of advice

Beyond Pay Fighters more which is the one that my heart and soul speaks to It's just I like fight circus Not because it's great It has a lot of problems it is probably, like I'm astonished that hasn't been fully milkshake-ducked already but it seems like that's coming somewhere

down the pipe very soon. And their most recent outing, I will admit, wasn't their best show. It wasn't, it was the worst show they've ever put on. It still had some moments because at the end of the day, their driving purpose is to have fun. And that's,

this is supposed to be a sport that is fun. And that if every promoter just thought to themselves, when they were doing something, is this fun? And the answer is no, then they would be better. Like, they're just like, oh, no, it's not. Let's not do that then. Or, no, it's not fun, but there's a really good reason for us to do it.

You can just have a little more fun, and this sport needs more fun in it. So that would be my one ask for anybody. Try and have a little more fun with the man, because it can be really damn fun. Completely agree. Well, I think we have done our part. Festivus is over. the feats of strength are done so now Festivus is moved on

and it's onwards to 2023 and we are excited for a very fun year and probably some different ideas coming your way so Jed thank you very much my man any final words for the BTL listeners and viewers just that I love this sport I love my job I love all of you for tuning in

and I'm really excited because 2023 might be cool because maybe people will listen to us and the sport will be better, Mike. And that's all we want at the end of the day. So for Jedmishu, I am Mike Heck. Casey Lydden will be back next week. We'll be back on video the iconic voice of Esther Lynn. Actually, she's not going to take you home,

but the cool music will. So thank you very much. Back next week on between the links. Good night, everybody. Love you, God.