MMA Fighting - BTL's 2023 Promotional Festivus | Grading the Best and Worst From UFC, PFL, More

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

With just a couple of days left in the year, it’s almost time to say goodbye to 2023 and hello to 2024. In the sport of MMA, there was certainly a lot to like this past year — and a lot that needs to be improved upon, from the UFC, to PFL, 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 grade the UFC for their 2023 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 duo do the same for PFL, Bellator's year prior to the merger, ONE Championship, BKFC, and give their thoughts on things they did better from the year prior, other ideas to bring into 2024, and what could be the breakout promotion in the space for the upcoming year. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter 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 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 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. From the Vox Media Podcast Network. From M.MA Fighting Studios, this is Between the Links. And now, your host, my... The iconic voice of Estherlyn welcomes you.

to a brand new edition of Between the Links, the final edition of Between the Links for 2020. And for those who have been following the show from day one, as you know, at this time, there's only one way to do the final show of the year. It's to look back on the promotions that stole our hearts, stole our brains, and stole our thoughts throughout 2023.

Yes, it is our promotional festival. episode of Between the Links, we will discuss the grades, the good, the bad, the ugly from some of the major promotions in mixed martial arts and thorough combat sports. But as I just said, I am Mike Kack. And joining me, as always, for another promotional festivist has become an MMA fighting tradition. He's Mr. No Gray area, Mr. Hot take himself, the Cannonball Kid, the man who always has thoughts and just says whatever's on his mind. And that's what we love about him. the Woody page of BTL, Mr. Jedbush. Jed, hope you had a great Christmas in a final stretch of 2023.

How are things going? Oh, things couldn't be better, Mike. You know, this is, when people ask me, Jed, what's your favorite week of the year? It's always the final week of the year. Wow, because you love Christmas and New Year's? No, I do love Christmas. I don't really care about New Year's, but if you like it, good for you. It's because we get to do this stuff, Mike.

We get to talk about our year-in rankings. we get to argue about our coworkers and their stupid rankings versus our brilliant rankings. And we get to have a festivist for all of us, not just the rest of us, Mike, for all of us. And I'm excited. I always love this. This is the best episode of the year. So excited to talk about what all these promotions did wrong. And you left one thing out about what they took from us.

They took our time, our brains, our hearts, our minds. Some of these promotions took our money, Mike. And I got a problem with that. And we're going to get into it. I'm very excited. Now, before we get to that, you are not on the final panel edition of BTL this year. This was usually, there's a tradition we set for the final couple of episodes. Once the UFC's calendar year ends, we start to get into award season.

We're knocking on the door of award season. And as this is going on, a couple of the awards have already come out. So we do like our award preview show. But this year is a little bit different because we're still feeling the hangover effects of UFC 296. things were said between Leon Edwards, things were said by Colby Covington since they're not great fight at UFC 296. So I feel like you may want to chime in with your thoughts since, I mean, you let Leon Edwards really have it on the post-fight show. Some people thought you were a little too critical, but do you feel a little bit vindicated on how things have been handled since UFC 296 on the part of Leon Edwards? and what have you made of Colby Covington since you have C-296?

I always feel vindicated because that's one of the hazards of always being right, Mike, is you're always vindicated. As time goes on, more people come. I get more messages from people being like, dude, I cannot stand you. And I hate your takes. And like half the time, I just, I think about it for an hour and I come back like, he's right. Because that's what it is, Mike. Maybe Leon was like was not the biggest takeaway from two.

96, but I see these things. I saw where we were going. And Leon's inability to sell himself, to sell this fight that's going to happen, it's, it is tanking all the goodwill he has built up this year and last year with the win. It's really impressive. I don't want to spend any time on Colby Covington. He is getting far too much attention as it is. Needless to say, I thought you guys handled it expertly on BTL. I thought all of your points were, or valid and correct. And this is the last desperate gasp of a man who sees the, the Reaper of fame coming for him and knows that he is almost out of the limelight.

So ugly, bad. And the less we speak on it, the better, frankly. So as far as I'm concerned, Leon still the talk of 296 and his inability to build this fight that is buildable, that Balala is trying to build with him, had some people push back on me even since then being like, well, he's, he's said that he's willing to fight below. That's not the point, boys and girls. It's just not it. I'm willing to do a lot of things, Mike.

I'm willing to pay my taxes. Am I excited about it? No. Is anybody going to be excited about watching me do this thing that I do begrudgingly? If you aren't excited about your fight, why would anyone else be? I say that phrase all the time, promotionally, and it sticks to the fighters as much as the promotion. If you aren't excited, why is anyone else going to be excited for it? And if you're not excited for Ballal, that's fine, but you've got to give us an alternative.

Like, you have to give us a real alternative that you are excited about. And maybe that builds a narrative. But just being like, I'll fight whoever. I don't really want to fight Ballal, though. Like, he's lame. Like, that's the worst way to handle this. And it seems to be the line that Belal, that Leon and company, his coaches, etc., are moving forward with.

So, been a tough little. end of the year for a relatively decent year, but we'll get into that as we go. Yeah. And as I said, and I'll end with this, just to be honestly on, if you want to fight Connor McGregor, just say it. Just say you want to fight Connor McGregor. I respect that more, even if I'd hate it. Just say you want to see what happens when he fights Michael Chandler at UFC 300 or whenever

that fight happens. You may, that you're waiting to see if and when that fight gets booked. And then you're going to be watching very closely because we get it. You're 32. About to be 33. the window is small. You want to make that money because you know, as well as anybody else, Leon,

you could defend that title 11 times in a row, but the second you lose it, you're not getting another shot unless you go on like a three-fight win streak. So you want to hold onto that belt and you want to make money. I totally understand that. But just say it. Just say the words. We might eye roll a little bit,

but at least Taron Woodley would say it. We gave him a bunch of crap for it, but he didn't just hide it and say like, oh, I'll fly whoever and then no show everybody. Healy said, yeah, I want Nick Diaz and GSP. Wrong answers, but at least he was honest with himself. And that's all we're asking for. That's all we're asking for.

I'm asking for you to also be entertaining because what you say is true, Mike. Like, when he lose the belt, he's going to have to win at least one fight, probably two. He can change that. That is a narrative that can change if you can be interesting. And coming off that incredible comeback knockout, it was all there. The world was lined up for him to seize this moment. to take it and run with it and become a star to build off that iconic promo that came out afterwards of that moment.

And instead he had a very tough fight that he won but wasn't exciting with Usman. And then one of the worst fights of the last four years with a guy that nobody even thought was deserved. And then he doesn't even have the decency afterwards to cut a promo. Like, you're hamstringing yourself in this regard. and you're not doing your career any favors. And I, for one, hope that the Leon Edwards title reign is over sometime soon

so we can get to somebody who will at least pretend like they're interested in the job that they have. Because that's better. It is better when you are an interesting person and holding the title than someone who, maybe like this, I could be a little off base here,

you know, check me if I am. It feels to me like Leon, rightly or wrong, is just really carrying the grudge of his career and that that is the primary thing in his head. And so his head is not, all right, I got past all of these hindrances and these roadblocks. Now I'm going on.

Like now we're, it's no, I had to get past all this bullshit. F all of y'all for making me do that. Make Bilal fight 10 times to do that because I had to do it. And it is, that is not the way to build a, a fan base that's going to care about you long term in my opinion.

So that's where we're at. Before we exit, because I'm done talking about Leon. I'm done talking about Leon. Before we get into the Festivist, Mike, I do want to talk about one of the things. And that's our year-in awards, because you guys got to talk about,

kind of run out your lists for, you know, Fight of the Year submission of your rookie of the year and kind of explain yourselves. I don't want to do that for all of mine because largely chalk for me. Like, I agreed with a lot of, of y'all, I have the fight of the year, Islam Volcanovsky won for all the reasons you guys kind of talked about at that moment.

Keo of the year, Izzy Alex. I think it's going to probably be a runaway submission of the year, Alexegrasso. But I do want to talk about my fighter of the year. Also, for posterity, my rookie of the year is Bo Nicol. I didn't feel great about it. I consider Diego Lopez. But I kind of, the overarching guideline that I have for these awards is, what am I going to remember 2023 about.

And a couple of years back when I look back, what are the things that are going to jump out? And in some of these categories, there are a lot of contenders and others like submission. There was one submission that is really going to jump out. And so then I filled the rest of it out with like, what are cool things? Like, what are the coolest things that happened? With Rookie of the year, I think Diego Lopez could be that guy. But I think it's mostly just going to be Booneckle. This is the year Booneckle joined up.

And Bo Neckle, I think, is going to be. be a very, very critical piece of this picture moving forward. So that's why I want it. By that same token, my most controversial choice that I know I'm going to catch shit for when these drop and our ballots are revealed. My fighter of the year, Mike Heck, was Francis Inganu. And I love this take, by the way. I stand by it.

I have regrets about my fighter of the year list afterwards, maybe not regrets because I've, I have spent a lot of time looking at it and trying to figure out who I would pull for what. But my fighter of the year list as it stands is Francis Ngano won, Sean Strickland, two, Tommy Aspenol three, Drickus 2 plus C4, and Islam Makach have five. I feel real bad about Alexa Grasso and Patchy Mix not being in there.

I sort of justified Grasso with that second fight wasn't that fun, and she's getting, she's almost certainly going to win sub of the year, so she's getting her props. You didn't think the second fight was fun? I thought the second five was awesome. But the end takes away from it. Fair, fair, fair, right.

It being weird. It sort of detracts from it. And for the same reason, Islam is my number five and not any higher, despite him probably having a year that is more notable. I detract for fighting the same person multiple times. I've said that on many occasions before. To me, that is less impressive than facing a mix of people, even if you're fighting Alexander Volkinovorkovsky, one of the best fighters in the world.

my ultimate choice here is I think when I look back on 2023 I'm going to remember this year as the year Drick is Duplessi arrive and I'm going to remember of course Tommy Aspinall this is the year Tommy Aspinall ride I think we're going to remember it as Islam's year you know because the the fight of the year with Volcanowski that dominated so much of the conversation but this was a two horse race for the actual fighter of the year for me

Strickland I think is probably going to win it though it's not set, I don't believe yet. At the time of recording, I think he's probably going to get the nod here. And I understand I don't have an issue with that because this is very much a year where we will be discussing Sean Strickland. To me, there is at least a slight difference in a way that we don't acknowledge. And we don't do an upset of the year. Sean Strickland would obviously win upset of the year.

It would be a landslide victory. His year is impressive, but it is, less impressive than mostly it is one fight that is singularly impressive. The other stuff is good and an addition, an add-on, as you will, but we're not remembering 2023 for Sean Strickland the whole year. We are remembering it for the one thing he did. Whereas to me, I think in a few years still, when I look back, the first thing I'm going to think about this year is Francis Inganu. And Francis Inganu going head to head to war with the UFC and winning that war. How often in history has a person come out ahead of the UFC?

Arguably never. It has arguably never happened where somebody in this position has battled the UFC and lost. Randy Couture famously had to sort of tuck his tail between his legs and come back and fight for the promotion. Francis instead did the thing, went to war with the UFC, ate a rash of shit for months on end from people saying he fumbled the bag. I can't believe he's doing this.

to screw up, gets his deal with the PFL, gets everything he wants. And we're like, well, who fumbled the bag now? Yeah, but he's still going to get knocked down boxing goes. I don't think he technically did not beat Francis, did not beat Tyson Fury. He lost the fight, but he won the war. That no man is, it was more talked about in 2023 than Francis Ngano deservedly so. And maybe this is just, you know, me being a beta or whatever, but I'd also rather just Like in a thing where I think two men have very clearly the best cases,

I would rather side with the dude who I feel better about, who did something inconceivable. Because what Sean Strickland did is unimaginable. Nobody would have predicted it. What Francis Ngano did is actually inconceivable this year. And so, yeah, he didn't fight MMA once, and I know that I'm going to get the backlash for it. We spent a lot of digital ink talking about Francis Ngano this year

and covering him and dealing with him. And he won bigger than anybody else this year. So he's my fighter of the year, even though I do not believe he will win honors. Listen, I love the choice. I tried so hard to justify getting him on my list. I really, really tried. And then in the end, I listened to my head instead of my heart.

My heart says Francis Ganu was like in the top three. But there are just like other factors in play. Like I could not. It was basically like, do I put Francis in? to just be that guy, which he deserved, by the way. I mean, him beating the UFC is the biggest victory of all.

It's literally never happened. It's the biggest victory of all. But I almost was like, damn, I like, I want to get, I want to get Patchy in there. Like, I want to get Tom Aspenol in there. And I was just like, one of these guys has to go

if I put Francis in. I just couldn't do it. So, but I get it. Like, in my heart, fighter of the year. But on Prince and in my brain, he doesn't get there. I will say this.

In the sport of boxing, he's not the boxing fighter of the year, but he is the most impactful boxer of the year. Nobody in boxing made more noise than fucking Francis and Ghanu did. Nobody. He shocked the world, lost the fight, but everyone, I mean, even just covering the Jake Paul card talking to boxing media, they couldn't believe it. They were stunned.

They think Tyson Fury is about to get mopped up by Alexander Usik because of that performance. They think Francis deGano exposed Tyson Fury for just being slow. I had a member of the boxing media tell me after that fight. I never really thought Tyson Fury is that good anyways, and Francis and Gano proved that he wasn't really that could have a boxer. I was like, that is an insane take. But all right, I mean, if that's what puts you over the edge to throw out a great take like that,

I mean, at least in your eyes, sure. But, man, the impact that Francis and Gano made him the box. boxing world in a loss. And he's the 10th ranked heavyweight in the freaking world right now in boxing in the WBC rankings. That is the thing that really made me solidify that if I, because I asked was like, are you all going to really allow me to rank Francis since he didn't fight him in a? And they said, go with your heart, do what you feel.

And as soon as I was legally allowed to do it by our committee, the thing that put it over, I was like, you know what? If you had asked me in, you know, December 2020. what is more likely that Francis Inganu becomes a ranked heavyweight boxer or Sean Strickland becomes middleweight champion? I think, I don't even think. I'm really positive. I would have said it's more likely Sean Strickland becomes middleweight champion.

That'll never happen. Absolutely couldn't happen. But like there's maybe a world where it could happen, whereas Francis has no shot at this. And yet, here we are in this world. And that's why he's, that's why he's a dude. And ultimately, I think this kind of works out well because I think by virtue of me placing him first, he's probably going to get some love in our ranking, in our year end awards. I doubt he will ultimately win. And that's, again, that's just par for the course for Francis and Ghanu.

All of y'all out there doubting him, just disrespecting a man who has done more than anybody else in combat sports. But let the record reflect. Francis, I see you. I saw what you did this year. It's incredible. And I chose to honor you for that. And I'm sad that you won't get your due improper, bud. Hey, listen, his victory lap goes on forever.

Our victory lap for defending Francis against all the negative Nancy MMA fans will continue on forever. And we'll see if these victory laps of sort will trend over to the promotion. So let's get into this promotional festivist time. We're going to talk about what we like, disliked, and then we'll give a grade for each promotion. So boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time.

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only please play responsibly concerned by your gambling or that if someone close you call 18665-3126-0 or visit comex ontario.ca. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first, there, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. We might as well start with the UFC Jed because I don't think a lot of people remember and you throw out the Francis thing.

they had a real bad start to 2020 to 2023. A an awful start. Between everything that happened with Dana White. What happened? Everyone forgets about the data thing. Dana caught on video getting into a spat with this wife. It's striking her. The whole thing with Francis and Ghanu.

And it was just a dark first three weeks of the year in the sport in general. But the UFC was carrying the flag for that. Dana gets, I guess, through it. as we expected him to do with absolutely no punishment, nothing from the UFC, nothing from Endeavor. Dana at least tried to face the music. He at least took questions from the media. Wasn't everything we wanted,

but at least he sat there and was like, do your worst. And the people in the room at least believe they did their worst. Now, is it everything? No, but we talked about that at nauseam. Then the fight started happening. Francis goes to PFL. Francis leaves the UFC.

John Jones comes back and becomes the heavyweight champion. We had some good cards. UFC 285 was good. The UFC back in London for a pay-per-view. UFC 286, Leon Edwards retained the title. We had a fight of the year contender in that card as well. UFC 285, at least on my list, had three submission of the year nominees. Just from that one card from the last, I believe, three fights.

Shofcott, Alexa Grasso, and John Jones were all on my list. It's all from UFC 285. 287 was a good card. 288 was a stinker in my opinion. 289 was ended up being way more fun than a lot of people gave it credit for. 290 is one of the

290, 2901 were excellent. 2.92 is very good. 2.93 is when Sean Strickland won the freaking belt. It was the funniest thing you're testing forever. Still my favorite post fight show of all time. That whole post show is just incredible. It's us laughing for an hour and 15 minutes.

It's so good. We had 294 with the short notice fights. 295 back at MSG, Alex Pereira becomes a two-division champion. Tommy Aspinol becomes an intern champion. And then it ended with 296. Kind of went out with the whimper because the made event was not fun to watch.

Leon Edwards and Colby not really doing the thing in the aftermath. Colby saying some heinous shit. DDP and Sean Strickland saying some heinous shit. Sean Strickland, DDP, quote-unquote, fighting in the crowd during 296. It feels like it started awfully. got okay. Obviously the apex cards and

in the fight night cards and all that stuff and them going back on the road for a little bit more of the events, non-paper view events, and then it kind of ended in a whimper. What do you grade the UFC? Just kind of running that down. We're not going to do this for every single promotion because there's not a lot of notable moments

from the other promotions if we're being honest. But what do you grade the UFC? What's the takeaways? What's the good? What's the bad? And what do you grade them overall? I gave them a C. as I was pulling together my sort of list on promotional grades.

It's a passing year. I doubt the OEC's ever going to have a failing year, but it wasn't a very strong year. They had a good run in the summer stretch, 290, 2.91. That sort of stretch was pretty decent. Certainly in the pay-per-view-wise, they're always at least putting their better foot forward in that regard. But, I mean, they're still kind of middle in some of those too,

because you're looking at $2.90, what's the event right after $2.90? It's Holly Holme, Marlboro and Silva. And yes, MBS ends up winning that fight. It's overturned. That's not, I remember talking about it at the time. I was like, this probably isn't going to be all that fun. It's sort of how it went.

They have high watermarks, and then everything else is lowering. The floor on their baseline events is lowering and lowering and lowering as they keep getting away with it. And so they get a C for that. I mean, they get a C for ending the year poorly and starting the year poorly. The list of stuff I had jotted down here is, look, Dana never got punished for slap and I don't know how to tell you guys this. That's just dog shit.

Like, I know that this cycle moves quickly. I know that everyone is already over it and they were over talking about it in mid-January, some of these people. I'll be over talking about it when justice is done, like when something real. And again, you can read the article I wrote after the time. after the time. I credit Dana for taking it on the chin in some respects. Owning the statement completely.

There is no excuse for this. I did wrong. All the people defending me shut the hell up. There is no excuse for what happened because that is correct. But you all like it, it's not enough to own up to bad things. Their contrition requires repent. And so saying, hey, I fucked up,

but what is it due to remove me from the UFC? Gee, all that does is hurt. No, he did nothing other than apologize, which is more than nothing, but it's not enough for me and it never will be enough for me. And the fact that we've moved on past it is not surprising, but it is disappointing. And so starting the year, there was never going to be a, this year could never be an A without that, without Dana saying, hey, because I fucked up, here's what's happening. I'm committing time and resources to helping women shelter.

I am taking in your management classes, et cetera. Here are the ways I'm doing. I'm setting an example for other people that this is wrong and that when this something like this happens, there needs to be an expectation of fixing this. It's not how it went. And so that's where we're at. But then you continue on. There were just a series of mishits and failures this year as far as I'm concerned.

And granted, they still put out the best product of any of a promotion. They're always going to do that. we are grading on a curve in some respects with the UFC because they are the dominant player we expect more from them but too many events we say it every year Mike here's some stats for you bud in case you're one of them 43 UFC events this year 43 of them that is not including tough and it is not including 10 contender series so that's a whole lot of fighting how much fighting is it might you ask it's 101 hours 31 minutes and 40 seven seconds of fighting.

If you watch, that's not including the tough fights because I didn't add that up, but if you watched every second of fights, not even including commercials or any of the other stuff, just the fights, it's 101 hours and 30 plus minutes. That is so much fighting, my heck. It is an inconceivably large amount of your time to be devoted to this thing. And when a lot of that isn't great, that hurts it even more. or like we're all turning into Caposa just by being UFC fans,

which is tough, love Caposo, but I think even he would say he doesn't wish anyone to watch as much fights as he does. That's just a ton. And then here are the list. I've got one big thing, but then here's the list of fuck-ups.

The DDP Izzy situation. What are we doing here, guys? Like we had a clear fight that now may never happen because Sean Strickland authored this great upset. And so we do get that great upset and that's cool. but you know what would have been cooler this big build promotional thing not buying bellator i think

we're going to look back on as a lower moment i understand why they didn't they're facing a lawsuit that i'll talk about in a moment that probably wouldn't be a good look for the to buy bellator but when it came out that bellator got purchased for monopoly money basically free pfl basically got belator for free the uc could have offered up like a million in actual cash and just gotten Bellator and all of those fighters, which would help them fill out the 43 events plus a year they're trying to do with better content. I think that's a huge misstep. The whole John Jones, Stepe Meachich, we're really taking the mask off to show you exactly what we value and where things are. That's a terrible look. The Colby title shot, him getting

the title shot at the beginning of the year, it not happening until December, and then how it all played out. Astonishing that nobody asked Dana at the post-fight presser of 296. You're like, hey, do you have any regrets about giving Colby this title shot after two years when no one was asking for it? Because I think if he was honest, he would say yes. And then the biggest, this is where I just want to take my victory lap for just one, there's one little moment, Mike.

Remember when everyone was all stoked about, ooh, it's really exciting to have this Alexander Volkanowski is the Machachev, too? I know short notice was great. And I was like, this fight sucks. This fight blows because, one, it's just not a real accounting of this fight. Their first fight was amazing. It's fight of the year. But this one, no matter what happens, there is going to be a tenor of, hey, it took it on short notice.

So however it goes, it affects the outplay. And instead of getting this unbelievable, like magnetic rematch with a big build and a big promotion behind it, instead we get that fight and how it ended and credit to Islam he found a way to overcome what I thought was an impossible task to look good in but still I think in the cold light of day with a little bit of hindsight everyone's like man it would have a lot cooler if we had that fight in February of this year built up because Volk fought to Purian and beat Tapurian now we have this collision course to Islamok yeah that's that's how we want to do it and again just missed it because they are

sort of running around aimless at times in the UFC. And then the big one, Mike. The biggest thing is not something that happened in the cage and it's not something that's resolved yet, but this is the year more than any other that it really appears the UFC is headed for a really bad set of outcomes for them. Specifically with regard to the lawsuit because the class action lawsuit has been playing out in 2023

and the way it has been playing out. You know, I went to law school, but I ain't no legal scholar, but go listen to the actual legal scholars in the MMA space. We all pretty much agree that this unilaterally looks really bad for the UFC to a point where when this goes to court, it seems very likely the UFC is going to lose at this point. And what that means we don't know for sure, but what that could mean is billions of dollars paid out,

in injunctive relief in the form of totally restructuring how UFC contracts are operated. And so, 2023 may well be the year where the UFC changed irrevocably and how they operate and do business. And that's a huge loss for them. So it's a C, even though they had a really good run in the summer and tried to rebound, like there were just too many missteps from this promotion this year to give it a better grade. Yeah, I mean, if they have to pay out the money, like it sounds like a lot.

It is. It's a lot. I don't think that bothers them too, too much. I mean, it's going to suck. They could survive it. Oh, they'll be fine. They'll be fine. They can pay that off.

They're making hundreds of millions a year. They can foot that bill. Yeah. Easy. And they could spread it out over a hundred years if they want to. Like, the payouts could take forever to happen. Ask the NFL. That's how they survived the player lawsuit.

and all that. They just pay it out over a large period of time that it's just like, oh, okay, it's actually not that bad if you really think about it. If the contract change and the sport changes, now that hurts way more than the billions of dollars they could possibly lose in this situation. That's going to be super interesting.

I ended up with the C plus here. I almost gave it a B minus because, I mean, look, in terms of chaos and being a fan and funny moments happening, and me just kind of enjoying when the UFC's plans fall apart. This is a great year for the UFC's plans falling apart. It happened everywhere. We're going to just set this up because this is going to happen in the end.

And then everything they laid out was just wrong. And they failed. And it was hilarious every single time. And it just got funnier as each incident happened. I agree with almost everything you just said, which leads to the grade. I had a B minus. I couldn't go lower than C. And then I realized one other thing.

I realized one other thing that really pissed me off about the promotion this year. And one other thing I want to, and it's, and it has to do with Dana White. And I know what you're out there. And all you guys just hate Dana White. You can't not talk about him. I don't hate him or love him. It doesn't matter. None of that matters.

What Dana did on New Year's Eve, he even says it himself. It's going to be very difficult to come back from that. Yes, he did answer questions. Is he, did he repent it on? I don't think so. The dude was out. He's in a middle of like a midlife crisis right now where he's hanging out with the knelt boys and gambling every night and loving Las Vegas. It doesn't seem very repentful and remorseful to me with how everything went down.

And every time he's asked about it, I got to look my punishment is I have to look myself in the mirror and realize what I had done. That's my punishment. It doesn't seem like he really dealt with anything at all. Power slap. They had to shove power slap down our throats. And let me just say this for the five millionth time. If this is your cup of tea, cool. I don't care.

The timing of this coming out was abysmal because of everything that happened with data. The fact that TBS, even though we understand what this deal was like, it was never really made public. But I think we kind of understood it. The UFC paid TBS to air this product thinking they would have a strong lead in from AEW. But then they realized AEW pro wrestling fucking sucks. It's terrible product. and nobody watches it. They start off strong because they're coming out of reruns of the Big Bang theory.

And as the show progresses, the ratings dwindle. And the second people realized power slap was coming off, you could not turn off the television fast enough. And their ratings bombed. They went one season, and TBS is like, fuck this. We're never doing this again. What a waste. And Dana kept saying, well, we're the only one that actually did good ratings after AEW.

You know we can look at the ratings anytime we want, right? You know, we can go back in history and look at any week in the history of Wednesday nights and realize that you're unbelievably wrong. And the amount of televisions that turned off around the world when your television show went on the air was at record numbers. So you're just wrong about that. And the fact that it kept being doubled down and tripled down upon, even though most of the UFC fan base hates it, was just unbelievable.

If your product is that strong, let your product promote it. Don't let the UFC promote it. Keep it off of UFC.com. You know many times I just went to look at a at a UFC pay-per-view lineup just to see what time the prelim started for an article. And I was inundated by Power Slap pop-ups. You think I don't care. I don't care about any of that.

If you want to watch social media clips of people getting undefensively slapped in the face, fine. It ain't for me. And you don't need to shove it down our throats. If your product is really that's wrong, you don't need the power of the UFC to do it. And this turned into the year of the UFC just shoving power slap down people's throats. So because of that and everything else, you had just said, C plus, the fighters are the only reason why this grade is so high.

If this year was not as chaotic and as funny as it was, this could have been a D year for the UFC. But luckily, a lot of things happened that we're still talking about. John Jones coming back, even though he has handled that terribly and the UFC has handled it even worse, was a huge story. Alexa Grasso's title win, huge story. Shavkat Rakhmanov doing Shafkat Rakhmanov things. Huge story. Them being wrong about Colby getting a title shot, still funny.

It's so funny. It's very, very funny in the end, because even before Mazadol was going to fight Gilbert Burns, they're like, nah, I don't care what Mazadol does. It ain't happening. Like, Colby's still getting the title shot. Like, all these wrong things. And one last thing I want to talk about that kind of drove me crazy. This whole thing that happened with Dana, and look, it's too late for the UFC to penalize them

or endeavor to even make a statement about it, which none of them did. And it's ridiculous. But now the roster knows that they can get away with pretty much anything they want. Because if you didn't punish the boss who did this publicly on video, how are you going to punish a fighter for anything? How are you going to punish a fighter for saying something at a press conference, for fighting in the crowd, for doing anything? You're never going to be able to do it.

So there you go. Jed, your response to that. C-plus. I don't even, and this is mostly for the fighters in their efforts this year, for the most part. Just very brief on Power Slop, because I feel like I'm one of the few people in the space that truly doesn't care that much about it. Like, it's, I just don't care. Before you go, before you go, before you go, let me just add that. Outside of Dana being asked, and this is another reason why, outside of Dana being asked about.

Bellator PFL merger and him getting red-faced and talking about one shitty promotion buying another shitty promotion and he got sort of the old Dana. The dude clearly does not give a shit about the UFC anymore. He's all in on Power Slap. He's a little checked out. He's super checked out of the USC right now. He's a little checked out. I just don't care about Power Slap.

If it's your bag, it's your bag. Exactly. And I am not, but I also am not like there are several people in the MMA space who are like offended by it. And, you know, if that's your bag, that's also your bag. The only part of PowerSlapp that irks me and all is when the UFC uses their own YouTube page to promote it as if it is that. You know, them having ads or stuff on the UFC.com is annoying to some extent, but I can have a little more tolerance for that. Your YouTube page is the UFC product. When you are conflating your product with a separate product, that is, that's the only part that I'm

really irksome. It's like, I have to scroll through 27 power slap vids to get to the latest embedded or whatever to kind of check on something. But other than that, I don't really care. But that's like a valid reason to dock points. One thing we didn't mention, Mike, which I did want to raise here because I didn't know whether to dock points or give points to them for this. But it struck me, as you said, you know, fighters now know that they can kind of do anything you want. Hey, remember this is the year UFC killed USADA? Yes. When they were just like, hey,

we don't care about this anymore. We are bringing in our own independent man who is heading up the USADA, which is going to be substantially similar, but we're just going to in-house it instead of externalize it, which to me is the funniest explanation of all things. Because, like,

one, one of the things that I made fun of USADA about frequently was that while you see, Asa is a third party, and so thus should have some semblance of autonomy and, like, the ability to us believe them. The same point, their bills are getting paid by the UFC. So that autonomy has a limit, right? They can't just sort of do whatever they want. They can, but there is always the risk that the UFC will stop paying them.

Funnily enough, that's what happened. And whether the timing of this is just interesting or not, The takeaway is largely Connor McGregor killed Usada because Usada decided to draw a line in the sand about their testing, et cetera. And the UC is like, dude, we pay your bills.

F off. Yeah. An incredible miscalculation by Usada, which is funny. But the same thing even more so carries through to their future plan of, well, he's in house now. So it's fully out like,

he's fully on. autonomous, he could do whatever he wants, he's running the program, I was like, okay, who's signing his checks at the end of the day? Is it Dana? Because if it's Dana, then that's still not like really a third party. And so there is the veneer, the patina, as you will, of legitimacy is eroded by that. And they've just gotten rid of it. And I, for one thing, it's great.

I don't care about drug testing in this sport, like whatsoever. I've been really clear about that over the years. But for those who do, that has to look bad. Like it just, you have to really be walking a fine line between believing that drug testing is necessary in MMA and that the UFC getting rid of the only, like one of the only major parties that does this consistently and has a track record of success in doing so. However, have you measured that? Opting to say no to that and we're going to in-house it and just kind of. of quietly do so without the transparency of USADA. Like, it's objectively awful if that's a sort of thing you're interested in.

So just to note, that's a real bad look for the UFC. If you're the type of person who cares about it, if not, it's quite funny, which to me is what it is. But I know a lot of people are very up in arms about it. And they just got rid of, they got rid of a program that they had spent like years saying this is desperately necessary. This is why we're legitimate and good. Look at what we're doing. We're so advanced in this part of the game.

We are more legitimate by having Usada. And then they were just like, screw it. That's an extra $18 million a year we're paying to somebody when I can pay my buddy Steve 20 bucks or whatever to do our drug testing. Like that's because that's it. That's what happened. The Connor thing was the straw that broke the camel's back. But what really happened is somebody looked at the spreadsheet at the P&L and was like, we are spending $18 million a year on USADA to do this.

And we can do that for half the cost by just doing it in-house and testing like randomly. Because also, Mike, let's take a look at the list of suspended fighters. Because this is my favorite game every year. I've been doing this game personally every year since Usada happened because, you know, it's like, ooh, Usada is really protecting the sport. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, sixteen, twenty. Twenty fighters got popped by Usada this year, per my accounting. The biggest name, I guess, is Meyer Buena Silva, who got popped, but is like... But that was a Usada suspension, right? That was a Nevada suspension.

Exactly. That's an NSAC suspension. And that's the thing. So, like, half of this list of people is mostly NSAC or USAT or overlaps. And almost all of them were just like, yeah, well, they got six months because they unwittingly, they're not doing shit. It's like, Daniel Rodriguez is maybe the biggest name other than the way of the silver who got popped. It's like, whatever. And he got a six-month suspension. It's a fake-ass thing.

So it's both a good thing that they killed it because I think it was very dumb. and this is probably going to lead to a better end result, even if it is much shadier and much, like, much, much worse if you're the kind of person who cares for it. But if you're a kind of person who cares for it, this has to be a big black eye on the UFC this year. Yes, I will say a couple other very positive things about the UFC. The handling of Robbie Lawler's final fight was incredible. Well done. The UFC Austin card was great.

It just goes to show you when they have some of these great moments when they actually try and care they can do the thing. And it's great. John Anick needs to be hosting every single press conference, the rest of time for the UFC. Dana should not be hosting any. And John Anick should be the guy. And shout out to Laura Sanko for getting her pay-per-view broadcast debut.

And I hope to see a lot more. Them finally pulling the trigger on that was awesome and well-deserved. And it should have happened a long time ago. But at least they did it. She knocked it out of the freaking park. and hopefully there's more of those in 2024. And hopefully the first... Rotate the commentary team.

Rotate the commentary teams more. I would like to see her do UFC 297. Hopefully that's what happens. Because you know Rogan ain't going to be in Toronto. Throw a lot of our sanko on that right off the bat and let's start this thing off on the right foot. But yeah, there you go. C plus, I think that's a pretty fair grade.

It might even be too generous if we're being honest. But the fighters deserve credit. And they did do a lot. they did do some really great things. It's just kind of Dana and him, his stubbornness, honestly, which by the way, I've defended being a Boston guy. I understand it wholeheartedly. I could be a stubborn prick just like he is,

and he would be the first one to admit that he's a stubborn brick. But they did do a lot of good. They did do a lot of good things. And a lot of just, let's just throw shit at the wall and hope it sticks things when it comes to the apex card. And by the way, they're not going anywhere from the. So if you're hoping for that in 2024, they're probably going to be there more in 2020.

So they just booked like four more events for the first quarter in the apex. Yeah. It's like going the card before UFC 300, the go home show for UFC 300 is going to be at the apex, which is insane. But we'll see what happens. It's going to be real interesting to predict what the grade for the UFC in 2024 is going to be, especially if this lawsuit does not go their way.

So, fine year. for the UFC. It's going to be a really bad year for them if they lose the lawsuit. Yeah, absolutely. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. 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.

Thank you. 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. Now, this is the last, this, well, I guess technically we'll be able to do this next year? No, no, no. Why, but there's going to be a Belator, Jed? No, not for us.

There's not. Fair. All right. So Bellator. There's a gauge warriors, but we don't talk about it. Oh, no. That's right. That's true.

Bellator MMA. We entered 2023, already sort of hearing rumblings that Paramount was going to dump them altogether, that they were for sale. Then the rumor started to get a little bit more heated. There were all these different things. It was happening. It wasn't happening. There were different suitors. There were different players.

PFL seemed to be the favorite. Then it wasn't going to happen. Then this needed to happen. Then there was the last straw. And then Bellator has Belator 301, their final event. With all this hanging over their heads, most of the promotion is treating this as they're like, well, it's the final card on Showtime.

But a lot of people like, this is going to be the final card of Bellator as we know it. And then sure enough, a couple days later, Don Davis announces, PFL announces they have acquired Bellator for, as you said, Monopoly money, they have all the assets, they have all the historical video, they have all the fights, they have the library, they have all the contracts, all the champs, etc.

And all in all, this is a pretty good deal. But as far as Bellator goes, they had some good moments, they had some really good cards. There are a lot of times they bumped up against the UFC in their fight night cards, or even fight night cards on the road. And more often than not, we said,

if I can only watch one, I'm watching the Bellator card because they have the better card on paper. Did Bellator give us Daniel James versus Marcelo Gollum is a main event for a card? Yeah, they sure did. They sure did. They introduced the Bellator lightweight Grand Prix.

They wrapped up the Bannamweight Grand Prix. But it just seemed like they didn't give a shit, Jed. It just seemed like all and all, they knew what was about to come. They knew what was going on. And let me just throw this out there because I've talked about this a lot too. A lot of people from Bellator were not happy with our grade of last year. We did not grade them very highly.

We said I thought were some things that were very fair in regards to that. And some of those folks agreed, perhaps maybe a little too harsh on some of the things, because we know how good they could have been. But in the end, this is the final time we get to grade Bellator. So what are we grading them, Jed? first, I just want to be unequivocal. For you people who work for Bellator, maybe some of you now work for PFL.

I don't regret a fucking word. And let me tell you, Mike, when you ask me at the top, are you feeling a little vindicated by Leon? Here's why. Because look at your asses now. How am I wrong about what Bellator does when you fold up shop 11 months later? That's it. You get an F for this year. And here's the thing. You have to get an F because you've literally failed. You absolutely failed as a promotion when your doors closed. When the answer was we are either going to get bought out or we are simply going to go away, which is what was going to happen. That's an F, my guys. You did not succeed. And it's a shame because I had a decent year. It was the same thing. It's all the same stuff only turned up.

to 11 this year, it was last year. You know, it feels a little bit like people are checked out. You don't have the roster to put on as many events as you want to do. Your roster has highs, but it is then really propped up by a bunch of nothing in the underneath. And that's a struggle. It's all of that more so. This year was a great year. You are more creative than the UFC is.

You were producing some better spots with the talent you did have. but do man it's hard i get it i've quit jobs before i've had jobs i know that we're going to end when you put in your two weeks notice somewhere that two weeks that last two weeks is fake everyone knows it's fake work you're not there to work because you know that you're exiting on and that was your whole year and so credit that you stuck it out to the extent that you could um it was not like the world's best you know fight booking if we're being honest or whatever but The big event that you kind of kickstarted the year off with Ryan Bader and Fador in February. That whole scene having all that, that had a moment to it.

You put together some good fights, but you went out of business, so you get an F. And that's just all that can really be done for you at this point. Yeah, I mean, basically this year was exactly what last year was, but nobody cared. And it was just obvious. They just didn't care. Promotion was worse than ever. People are just checked out, like you said. And I will say their roster, I mean, kind of vindicated itself in a lot of ways because

in the end of this year, like, you could make a strong case that in like four or five divisions and you didn't all, it wasn't as ironclad as it is now, you could maybe make the case last year, but you can make the case a lot stronger this year that Bellator roster pre-PFL, they had best fighters in the world and multiple divisions. So the roster was great. The problem is nobody saw them fight

and that's the problem and that's been the problem for years. And it all just kind of came to a wrap here. Even like the last broadcast like Mara Rinala was not the same dude. Just kind of checked out. Still very good at what he does,

but checked out. Everybody was checked out. Everybody was checked out. And you can, only do so much with a good roster of fighters. That's just not enough. When you are trying to do everything the UFC is doing, it's never a good thing.

You've been calling them UFC Light for three years as long as it started working with you. They're running the same race and they're doing it poorly. Yeah. And even the Grand Prix is not like clicking anymore. They're good for like a week and a half. They're good for like the first round. And then it's just like, okay, when's the next round?

Can we be done with this? Dude, you know when you watch like the Olympics and like you're watching you same bolt race and it's a hundred meter dash and he he's running so fast that he has time to like ease up and sort of look back and you're like holy shit that dude's fast and then part of you's like holy shit those guys behind him are just slow it's like actually no they're the two and three fastest motherfuckers in the world they would put a hundred yards between you in six seconds on a racetrack. But it looks so daunting. That's Bellator. That's been their whole career. They are running the same race as the UFC and thus they look bad because of it despite being ultimately like pretty solid at the

nuts and bolts of this game. And look where that got them. It got them almost bankruptcy or whatever, however you want to couch what would have happened to them. And instead they got acquired for fake dollars by BFL. So. I hope that all the people who have signed with the PFL to continue their works do good work. I hope the PFL can have a big year and we'll talk about them in a moment. But we sort of did a retrospective on Bellator at the end of it. And like, what are the big moments? Like, I don't even know.

The things that stick out to me are not like these wonderful. There are certainly some high moments. They have 300 events. Like, they're going to have some good spots. but it's just like none of it resonated broadly. And that was their big failing. And like I said at the start, 2022, we all saw what was happening.

2023 is just when the chickens came home to roost. So I'm sorry, but for your final year, you get an F. Yeah. And most of this blame goes to paramount, if we're being honest. And, you know, just like they said on Remember the Titans, essentially, if you don't have good, leadership, people ain't going to follow.

And that's kind of what happened there. Paramount just kind of let the ship sink. And everyone's like, all right. Yeah, that's the quote. Thank you. That's the quote we're looking for. So. Wood Harris is an all timer.

Yes. Happy trails to Bellator MMA. We were rooting for you along the way. You'll still be in our lives. You'll still be in our lives. And we'll talk about that in the second. But let's talk about the professional fighters league, Jed. I mean, look, if the UFC is number one,

according to Don Davis, PFL is also number one, like one B. And maybe in their eyes they're not even a one B. Interesting year for PFL, they did some, they got Francis Ganoo. Jake Paul is a part of the roster. And they'll be part of the pay-per-view division. They had the full season again that took, seems to take forever and ever. Shane Burgos did not make the, he ended up making the playoffs, but under just a weird circumstance. There were just cards that were heavily hyped up by the promotion that American fans could not watch.

We got Cedric Dume Bay, which outside of social media, American fans could not watch. We had the million dollar event that lasted 44 and a half hours. We had the return of Kayla Harrison. We had PFL buying Bellator for stock, which I don't even know how you can do that when you're not a publicly traded company. but that's not my thing. They got the entire Bellator roster. They got plans. And then they have Don Davis quoting Gandhi and saying,

we are the co-leader and then backstepping and backsliding and saying, hey, in five years will be the co-leader. To then quoting Gandhi after Dana White trashed the deal as he should in some respects and said, well, now we're one checkmark away from being the co-leader in the MMA space. So obviously a very big year for the PFL, moves were made. They got Francis on the roster. Jake Paul. They have all of these plans.

The co-leader, all of that merging with Bellator. Don Davis said a whole bunch of things. I'm very curious, you're great for PFL this year. Give them an A-minus. I'd also like to add that you forgot the Don Davis graphic that said one was 80% Asian. Are you sure you want to stick to that A-minus after the graphic? I am. The graphic is one of the funnier things.

Just like, we talked to, about at the time when you release a graphic like that, sometimes it's very obvious when you're stretching for reasons to either big up yourself or bring somebody down and just being like 80% Asian as if one, that's like inherently negative. And two, as if like Asia isn't home to most of the world's population. It's just like one of the dumber things has been said

and then he went and won up himself with Gandhi quotes. Look, this is a, really big year for the PFL, obviously. Acquiring Bellator for free money is a fantastic maneuver. They got a ton more round of angel investors or whatever. Now you can have your thoughts on where that money comes from. I certainly do, but kind of can't really escape where that money comes from these days in sports writ large.

So we all just kind of have to accept that part of the deal. They did a lot of, this year was, I would argue, one of their worst NKG years. frankly. 100%. The seasons were not strong. They spent a lot of money on top tier names, and those names did not really deliver.

Also, shout out to Livia Alba Mersier, who I realized I left off my Fighter of the Year ballot, and that was, I should have found a way to get him in there, because I think this year he deserved it. It was tough to find a way

to get him on there, even like looking back, but I could have cut Islam for OAM, and that wouldn't have been the worst thing I've ever done. They get in A for doing the things that they needed to do and are proper. Again, their in-caged product was not very strong this year. I went to several events.

I will give them this credit. Their events in person are much better than their events on television. They move faster. When you are there, they're doing their best in small arenas to make a lively fan experience in the best way that they can. They set them, and I talked about this before, they have set them, up for 2014, or 2024, sorry, to be a major year, particularly if the lawsuit comes back negatively for the UFC, because they are now positioned, not as the co-leader, but as the number two

organization, certainly in this hemisphere. And, you know, broadly speaking in MMA, we'll get to one a little bit later. They are right there for if the UFC suddenly can no longer have these restrictive contracts, if their contracts now are capped at two years, and champion clauses are removed stuff like that pfl is now right there to pounce that's great they set themselves up really well in that and acquiring bell toors added so much talent to them that will help them put on a better in cage product next year but all of that gets you an a but the other parts of it knock you to an a minus and almost had you at a b plus i'm i'm giving you the benefit of the doubt but letting Don Davis just say things is undeniably funny to me.

But we talked about it before, man. Like the co-leader comment is shit that sticks because we're never going to let it die because it's funny. And while that may not be that meaningful, it's not nothing. It's not nothing for people broadly, fans of the sport to mock your product and your leadership so roundly and so frequently, as they will with the co-leader comment. You have given them fodder that every time something breaks bad for you, well, that's the co-leader for you. It's just going to come out like that. That is a misfire that is totally just not recognizing the moment in where you are.

Keeping Bellator, I maintain, is probably something to do with contractual obligations of acquiring Bellator for TV rights, etc. But you did not acquire Bellator for the brand. The brand is meaningless. The brand is out of business. what the brand is. You acquired it for those fighter contracts so they wouldn't go on the open market and you wouldn't have to bid up the UFC for them. Keeping Bellator alive for any reason in that way is stupid. Just get those people under the PFL banner, move some of them into your season

structure, get going forward. Their plans for 2024 have me very concerned, but I have chosen not to dock them points for that because that's a 2024 issue at the end of the year. Maybe they will prove correct. Maybe not. I think that they are trying to juggle way too many balls and that that's going to blow up in their face. But looking just at what happened this year and not at what their future plans are, it's an A with a bit of a point docking because Don Davis is routinely putting up layups to get dunked on. I don't know how you throw a layup so you yourself can get dunked on, but buddy, he's doing that week after week this year. Yeah.

I mean, if they don't, if they don't get Bellator, I mean, what is the great? It's a half year. Yeah. Maybe not. It's a D plus. It's a D plus year. It's probably passing, but yeah, it's a really bad year. Yeah.

If this deal doesn't happen, it's a D plus. And it might, I honestly think it's a D. The in cage product was terrible. It was really bad. That pay-per-view was not good at all. It was really, really bad. Didn't really enjoy much of it. It's just too long.

They need to fix this and they need to fix it fast. It's a two-day event. It's a two-day event. Yes. If any of you are listening or new PFL hires who were formerly bellator and got mad at this last year, I mean this with absolute sincerity. Reach out to me. I will give you a bullet point list of ways to stop fucking up because it's not hard.

The PFL Championship, it's a two-day event. It's the easiest thing in the world. It's a Friday and a Saturday. You do half the fights on one Friday, half the other Saturday. You take over a whole weekend. You build it up all years. This is PFL Championship weekend. This is the thing.

You split up your fights. You can have more of the big fights because it's on two different things. And products, the product will get over better if casual observers are clicking through ESPN plus on a Friday and they see PFL championships. they'll be like, oh, what is that? I don't really care moving on. But they do it again that next Saturday and still there. Well, now this thing is happening a lot.

Maybe I should tune in and see. Once you get them, it's on you to keep them. But two-day event and make it your Super Bowl. It's so simple to do this. Just look at what the WWE does. The WrestleMania is like a whole weekend thing. Just do the thing. It's so hard.

So hard to not do the thing. And you continue to fail in that regard. I agree with everything you just said. Let me just read off Don Davis's like last, most of his last like five tweets. Those can't be good. December 3rd was the Gandhi quote. Never quote Gandhi. That's also one of the bullet points.

And not while they're still technically on step two, which is first they ignore you, then they laugh at you. They're kind of still laughing at you, Don. You haven't done anything yet. You got Bellator, but now you have to do something with it. Your plans as of right now have all of us scratching our heads. Like, how could you possibly make this work? You are the underpants gnomes from South Park of steel underpants, blank, profit. Then the next tweet was, PFL is innovating and growing MMA.

PFL Europe is a great example. PFL Europe equals best European players plus all events in Europe, plus Europe local primetime. PFL Europe, 2020, championship this Friday, and they're pumping it up. But we can't fucking watch it. You're watching. Innovative ways for me to watch fucking sports in a moment. America. This is no bullshit.

I had to find a stream that is not necessarily legal to watch Cedric Dume may make his debut. Because you gave me no, there was no option. I couldn't have paid five bucks. It wasn't on you. There was no way for me to watch it legally, which is insane. December 16th, MMA fans, thank you. You changed the MMA landscape. Number one, PFL audience, 40% of UFC on ESPN, which by the way, prove it.

I would like to see those numbers. And I would like to see if they're real or not. Because you take out that one event, you take out that one quarter hour where Borey's Green was fighting in the main event. We knew John Jones and Francis were going to go face to face. You take that out. A plus matchmaking, though, boys. I will give you credit on that one.

Honestly, outside of Bellator deal was the best thing they did all year. That was the best thing they did all year, by far. So I don't believe that for a second. PFL Europe sold out of three or three or four events. I kind of believe that, but I'd buy that. But also, I also understand how attendance works and you could fudge that too. And it's a small, these are small venues. So yeah.

PFL international viewership up 250%. Again, I don't really know if you could justify that. I mean, I can buy that because viewership internationally might have been like five people. Like, it's, it would not shock me if 250% is still not an impressive number. That's true. Rit large. We are fan-centric, so appreciate you making PFL the number one. Listen to this.

The number one fastest growing sports company worldwide. Almost no way. That's true. Not even close. You're not even in the top 50. Come on, man. I mean, I'm sure that there is some metric that they pulled for that. But like, yeah, it's like power slash.

being bigger than the NFL and WWE and the NHL and Major League Baseball There's some basis for that, but it's like if you revealed what the actual basis was, it'd be like, yeah, that's obviously wrong. Okay. Jake Paul wins a boxing match, turns into look at everything we did for fighters,

lists a whole bunch of names. And then this was one of my favorites with PFL's acquisition of Bellator. And I had to read this, I had to look at it again. All the top 10 fighters at 145 pounds are at PFL. And I'm like, excuse me, when did you get Volcanovsky and Holloway? And then I realized he bet the women's featherweight division.

And with every top 10 in the world available to test Kayla Harrison, who should she fight in 2024? That was hilarious because they're the only ones that promote this division. And number two, I don't even know if Kayla's yours right now. By the time January 1st rolls around, I believe Kayla is a free agent. So she might not even be yours at this point. I are leaving PFL would honestly, I will cry with laughter if that happens, especially after this tweet.

I also, what, how was he qualifying top 10? That's a pretty critical piece for me. Because I need to see how he has determined this, because Tapology's top 10, Norma Dumont's number two. Yep.

Norbert Dumont competes with the UFC. Did so twice last year. Like, I just don't, Josian Nunes is number eight in Tapology. They do have the other ones, but I mean, Fight Matrix has, do they have women's featherweight? It probably is Fight Matrix, right? Because they tend to use Fight Matrix for stuff. Oh, yeah. That was the other thing.

We have the same amount. No, no, Fight Matrix does Norma Dumont. So it's not funny. What was Donstatt? We have the same amount of percentage ranked fighters on Fight Matrix, which is totally incorrect. And I have a little bit of respect for what Fight Matrix does, but their algorithm, because they're designed mathematically,

it like clearly fails in spots. Yes. And so it's a kind of a good marker for historical stuff in some respects, but it's not good for accurate, like up to date. The only rankings that matter, they are the MMA fighting global rankings who do not have women's featherweight covered because it's a fictitious division. We don't even want to have women's band and weight covered in this toy.

And that's not me trying to shit on these women. No, not at all. I have Larissa Pacheco very highly ranked in my pound for pound rankings. I hope that PFL gets behind women's featherweight in a way that builds it into a real division. But when you say stuff like that, it is. that is more harmful than helpful. When you have to couch, when you can't say we're the best ever, when you have to say we are the best at this very specific thing

in this very specific way, at this very specific time, people aren't dumb. And they recognize that there's a lot of qualifiers you're putting there for you to be the best at something. Yeah. What's the deal? And you can't be a co-leader if you don't have all the divisions. You've got to have all the divisions, like all of them.

I don't even have men's Bannamweight, which is the second best division of the sport. They're not adding it. And I get, like they're going to do Banym weight fights next year, but that was the thing. It was like, yeah,

we want to take the time to build a Bannamweight roster properly to do a tournament. Why? Bannamweight's sick. Just pick eight dudes to put in your season and do it. It doesn't matter who they are to Bannamweight. They'll probably be cool. Put Danny Sabatello in the season right now.

You have a whole, you have a whole host of them. You have a whole host of Bannamweight style. Don't put like your. best ones because those go into the super fight, but like pick the other dudes, pick Danny Sabatelo and like four other dudes from Belator and then sign a couple of Bannamwaits from the middle of Kazakhstan. Magam and Magamato.

Something cool will happen. Yeah, there's two right there. You're good. You're good. I'm rooting for the PFL. I really want this to work. But I got to tell you, and I stand by this and this has got to be one of the truest things I've ever said.

If 2024 is not a great year for PFL, they are done. They're done. I think they may have one more year after this to be okay. I can absolutely believe that 2024 is a make-a-break year. I can believe that this 2024 is the setup year for 2025 to be make or break. I'm not sure, and obviously there will be many moving parts to that, but it would be, they can't have a year like this year. They have got to deliver in a real way next year,

and I genuinely hope they do. I think the sport will be better. If they become a co-leader, the sport will be better. I agree. I just don't think that's going to happen. They need to be, I thought 2020 is a really good year for them. Like, I thought their in-cage product is really good. I think they had some momentum.

I think the pay-per-view actually worked because- We were very positive. Very positive. And then they did the downslide this year in terms of the action in the in the cage. They got to be better, man. They got to be better. These events have to be tolerable. I don't want to spend nine.

hours on a Thursday night watching PFL. I don't. The pacing's got to be better. The cards have to be better. We just have to be better. I do think they've taken better bets for this year. Like the Bellator talent is a better bet than bring in Washington, Anthony Pettis and Shane Burgos and stuff like that. I think they made some better bets. Let's see how they, yeah, they've got to cash them. But yeah, if they have all the tools to have a successful 2024, it will just depend on if they do it or not. All right. So I want to combine these last two.

And again, we're rooting for your PFL, do the thing. We have one championship, which is kind of hard to grade this year, Jen. Oh, no. This is super easy. Okay. And then I also wanted to throw BKFC in the mix here. So please tell me what you're great for one is because a very weird year. It seemed like they had a little bit of momentum.

Obviously, they're coming off the Amazon deal. They signed in 2022, which is a very big deal. I think you gave them an A plus because I did. That's a terrific deal. but like they didn't really they didn't really do a lot of MMA this year they had the big event in May

in Colorado which was a big deal with DJ Marais 3 but there were a lot of like I mean just a shitload of Friday fights cards mostly kickboxing some mixed stuff which I dig like it almost differentiates them from the UFC in a lot of ways

like this whole comparison like one in the FFC almost didn't make sense at the end of the year, which I thought was really smart in strategy. And if like you just wanted to watch cool things happen in terms of mixing the martial arts and doing different things, like they had some fun cards. But then it turned in and then the end of the year, Chotry had to go do interviews and say things. And I'm just like, oh, God, we're just going to go back to where we're before. So please, Jed, how is this easy? Where did you grade them?

Where are we at here? From an A plus two? They're a D plus. They're the exact inverse of three. PFL. Their in cage performances were pretty good. Like you said, and particularly branching out beyond MMA, they're not an MMA org anymore.

Like they don't do mixed martial arts fights hardly ever. Like that's just sort of a fact. A couple of their key, you know, marquee fighters have had some things happen and they just don't really do that anymore. Or, which is fine, but like they're sort of a moitai organization that also does some grappling stuff. And those things are cool when they put them on. But, uh, like, I don't know. Antitoli Malikin's cool.

And he hasn't done anything since winning the heavyweight title in June. They're just like not booking these guys to fight. And so they put on like a lot of events this year, like 50 some odd events because they're putting on so much moitai, so much stuff like that. But they're also, they are where Bellator was last year when we shout on them. Like, their encased product is pretty decent, right? But what are they doing promotionally? Where are they? What kind of promotion are they?

Oh, and also, by the way, the reporting is that they're going under next year. That they're, they have big, deep financial backing from Qatari investors who are reportedly not super into burning money anymore because one is not profitable. They got the Amazon deal and that's great, but that I don't know to what extent they have been able to capitalize on that, particularly as they have leaned more into Muay and stuff. I enjoy Muay. That is not a product that is broadly viewed here in the United States, which is where that Amazon deal is going to do the most damage for them. And so when you're no longer putting on MMA events every Friday for Amazon to cover and it's Muay, that's tough. They have reportedly laid off like 10% of their staff this year.

And all of the reports are that by Q3 next year, that is when one is running out of the backing. Seems pretty likely that they're just screwed. They're not generating a ton of revenue. Their costs are extreme. They're doing so much stuff across so many borders that their identity, certainly in, you know, in America and kind of this hemisphere, is tough for them to kind of have a really strong. wrong identity for consumers to grasp onto, other than just the martial arts organization. They do a lot of stuff. I think they're probably going under next year.

And so because they had good product this year, they get to pass. But it seems really likely they're about to fail next year. So it's the minimum pass. Yeah. It's a D plus for me. When I watch their events, they're fun. I enjoy them. fun.

Daniel Kelly's becoming a star. They're doing good things. The belt's way too big. The cage is sort of stupid, but they're fun. But we're not seeing any fights. Like, why is DJ only fighting once? Why is Jared Brooks not fighting? Like, what are we doing here?

Why are we not booking a Jared Brooks versus Demetre's Johnson fight? Like, what? Like, these are the things I want to see. I want to see more M.A. I wanted to give an incomplete because of that, but they did do some decent things. Chodry just clobbers them in terms. of just him having a microphone in his face. It's a brutal man.

So we're clear. They had five mixed martial arts title bouts in 2023. Five. It's not enough. It's not enough. They had seven kickboxing, 12 moitai, six submission grappling. I'm not here to say that those were bad because a lot of that stuff was cool. The kickboxing is fun.

The moitai is fun. The submission grappling is like kind of, I mean, they're making Mikey, uh, Mikey Musumisi a star, right? Like that these are things that are happening. Cade Ritolo. But is that landing? Is that connecting with the fan base? No.

And when you're MMA, which is ostensibly the organization that you are, at least the foundation, you're doing it five times. And that's just, that's nothing. Yeah, they're hanging on by a thread according to those reports.

So we'll see. Maybe this will be a breakout year for them. What about BKFC, Jed? We're starting to wind down here. I do have one more question for you after we talk about BKFC. But look, BKFC, they are who they are, and they celebrate that. They do crazy shit.

There's never a bad BKFC card. Are they all notable? No. Are most of them not notable? They're not. But occasionally they bring a big one to the table. And usually Mike Perry is involved in these types of events. But if you watch a BKFC event, if you watch all of them,

you had a pretty good time watching all of these cards. If you are a member of the media who covers BKFC and you're writing recaps of a BKFC event, you have a pretty good damn good time because these cards go very, very quickly. And it's a very easy watch. And there you go. What do you grade BKFC? I mean, they're not MMA, but they're obviously tied to it because of, I mean, they have a ton of ex-MMA fighters. Some are still currently fighting MMA.

Some are, we're big names of the UFC who have come over to them. So how do you grade them? It's an A. It's an A. It's an easy A for me. Look, I think that you can quibble and have some issues with some of what BKFC does. And I think that's fine. I think they do two things really, really well. And that those are the things that are the most important.

Look, one is what you said. All their events are fun. It's a particular brand. Not everyone will be into this, but everything to do, it moves quickly. It is fun. If you are covering them, if you are watching them, you are almost surely going to feel like you got your money's worth and that your time was well spent and moved quickly as well. And the other thing is they have found a really good niche in making big fights at big moments. They do not pretend that every card of theirs is the biggest event ever.

this is must see television. They focus on a couple of key events. They build those very big. They create fights that maybe we haven't even thought about. Like nobody had ever conceived of Mike Perry versus Luke Rockhold before. And then it got announced and we're like, hell yeah, that's kind of dope. Let's watch it. And it was.

They are doing really well in that regard. And to me, it is the most obvious thing in the world. Why? David Feldman loves this shit, man. And that's it. Like when you love your job. job it is contagious. People can feel it from you.

And David Feldman is the kind of guy who's going to take out extra mortgages on his house to make a bet on something because he knows that he loves it. And he is betting that if he loves it, other people will love it too. BKFC has a lot of problems that are facing it. But if I was Qatar or if I was Saudi Arabia, if I was any of these countries with a lot of excess cash and looking to get in combat sports, there's not a chance in a hell I'd give to Chachari, who I genuinely believe cares about like martial arts, but I believe that Chachry Sitchatong cares more about himself than he does about martial arts of any kind. He cares more

about promoting himself and being attached to a thing that is successful so he can thus be successful. That is the vibe that is given off to me whenever he gets in front and starts talking. Don Davis, maybe a little bit less that and more like Don gives off the vibe of a snake oil salesman. Like he is a guy who is trying to sell you that his product is good because he wants you to buy it so he can cash out and exit. Like that, those are the vibes. Dave Feldman, he's a dude from Philly who just likes watching people get fucked up and

wants to be a part of making that happen. And that, and it is genuinely a top down thing with MMA promotions. When Strike Force was cooking, when Bellator was at its peak, Scott Coker is a dude who loves mixed martial arts and loves fighting love pride and that came through to the customers. It maybe didn't land in the way that it needed to for them to be successful, but it came through it resonated. When Dana White and the Frititas brought the UFC from the verge of bankruptcy to the mainstream, say whatever you want about Dana White, I will agree on most of it.

That dude at that time loved fighting. He loved fighting. And that's it. David Feldman loves what he does. he loves bare knuckle and it comes through because the joy with which he match makes is apparent. And so they have a lot of problems about maybe their ultimate growth ability. But he's not trying to. David Feldman has said that point blank.

I'm not trying to compete with the UFC. We're our own thing. This is the promotion I would get behind if I was a dude with money. I would let Dave Feldman do the things he wants to do and keep supporting it because you're going to continue to get years like this where maybe every event isn't a knockout of the part. winner. But we talked about BKFC. It drove more traffic than all these other organizations. It is more in the public conscious for the reasons I said. I think this is another unqualified A for a promotion that, you know, we had respect for at the start of the year. And at the end of the

year, I'm like, yeah, this is what they're going to do business. We cover every BKFC because they do business. They're going to draw interest because Dave Feldman is like, what if we just had Mike Perry and Eddie Alvarez car crash into each other? That'd be pretty cool, right? And we're all like, you know what, David? It would be pretty cool. Let's keep doing that. And he's going to keep doing that.

And it's going to be successful as long as he has this verb for what he is doing. So A for me. B plus. B plus. It could have been better. I think the one thing they need to do better, because they're doing a lot of things right. They really are. One thing they need to do better is they need to promote the women better.

I honestly think that they are the, like Mike Perry's the star and the guy you build the promotion around, but the one that gets you over the hump is the women's fights. They have more potential stars in the female divisions than they do in the men divisions. It's not even close. Britton Hart could be the female face of that company. And in some people's eyes, she is. But, I mean, boy, did they not capitalize really at all on her beating page or her getting to these wins? like they could have done so much more with her.

Just look at our numbers for like video interviews we do. Britain Hart always knocks out of the park. Taylor Starling always knocks out of the park. Now I know Taylor laid a huge egg against Christine Ferrea, but at the same token, like she is a potential star for them. Why are we not doing Taylor Starling versus Jenny Savage? Why are we not doing Taylor Starling versus Britt and Hart? Like there's beef, their storyline there.

The women need to be more active. Ty Emory could be a freaking superstar for them. them. The dude, not the dude, the woman flashed her breast assists to the crowd. And that was like the biggest thing they did this year. Honestly, that got them so much momentum. And that was on a BKFC talent card. Bring her to the States. Match her up with some of these fighters. Let's build some stars here. Because eventually, the one thing I worry about with BKFC is once the Mike Perry juice runs out, that they just, they're toast. Like, they're in big trouble. They really are. And I'm not saying it's running out, but you need a dance partner for Mike.

You got to find dance partners for him. And you have to build it. You have to build some through your promotion. You can't just go and pull Eddie. There aren't Eddie Alvarez's on trees. You can't just go to the Eddie Alvarez tree and start plucking them off and throwing them on fight posters with Mike Perry. You need to do something different.

You need to build other interesting options for guys like Mike within your organization. Throw them in there with Luis Palomino. I don't care. That's one of my like 10 most excited fights for 23 or 24. You have to do stuff outside of like the Mike Perry side show. Mike is a draw, but we have to keep him invested and we have to keep people invested in him. And we can't just shelve him until you find Luke Rockholder, Eddie Alvarez. Like you have to focus on fighters and your own promotion because you have, you have potential stars.

You absolutely do. They're there. Just look at the metrics. It's very easy. They're very easy to find. They just don't do that well enough. And I think that has stung them. I think they could have done a lot more with the women's divisions, a lot more with some of the women's fighters.

Christine Faria should be a bigger star than she is right now, if we're being honest. She is the Mike, she is literally the Mike Perry of females in this sport. I think they could do a better job with that. Other than that, I mean, solid B plus for them. I mean, damn good year, B, B, plus. There's just little tweets they need to make, and they're going to be an A every year forever, in my opinion. Yeah, pretty much.

I would love to see them get into some tournament structure stuff a little more. I love that. Not with Mike Perry and like the big name stars, but it is very simplistic. I think one of the most efficient ways to build stars is to do tournaments because it just lets people see somebody over and over. It lets them have a narrative of, hey, here's this guy.

We have multiple chances to tell his story. story as they go through a, you know, a crucible. So doing a little bit more of that on the undercards of stuff, helping to build guys that they have who aren't just like, hey, there's a former MMA fighter. You know, I agree that they're, if they can continue to build off this, it would be great. And I think they can. That's it. Like, dude, Saudi Arabia.

Give David Feldman $20 million. He's probably going to do something decent with it, you know? Yeah. Give it to him over. PFL or anybody else. Yeah, over one. Come on. That dude is going to work for your money.

That is absolutely the truth. Plus, we need him to have a house. He needs to not have so many mortgages on his house. Yeah, we don't want that to happen. Last thing I want to ask you, it could be any of the promotions we talked about. I think PFL could be a pretty easy answer. BKFC could be a pretty easy answer, even one, if they just completely change everything they did last year and focused more on MMA. Of any of these promotions you mentioned, or maybe there's an outside.

here. What promotion do you think has the best potential to make the biggest move in 2024? The Sean Strickland, if you will, of fight promotions. And I'm not talking about like, you know, half of Capost's timeline. You think it's BKFC? Well, because BKFC doesn't have a TV deal. Yes, that's a great point. Like, if BKFC can get attached to a real television product and, hey, we sign, I mean, if I'm David Feld, I'm doing everything I can to connect with Netflix, both as a live sporting platform and more so to get a Netflix docu-series about us in some way.

Because I'll tell you what, I've watched just about every Netflix sporting doc on sports I don't give a shit about. And suddenly, I'm invested. I watched the Tour de France this year, Mike, because I watched the unchanged Tour de France thing that's just like full swing or drive to survive about Tour de France.

I would watch a hell of one of those. BKFC that would help build stars for BKFC. I watched the W wrestlers Darky series about whatever that Great stuff. OVW. OVW, yeah, I watched that and I was like, okay, this is it. And I don't really care about pro wrestling,

but it was interesting. Like it was I found myself Googling some of this is like, hey, is this dude stupid? Like, why? What's going on here to ask these questions and figure out about it? If I'm BKFC, I'm trying my hardest to connect with Netflix as a streaming platform.

for my fights because everyone has Netflix. Netflix is like by far the most owned streaming service and they are trying to get more into the live sports thing. And I am connecting with them. They're like, hey, as part of this, give us a set of things because we have a hook. We are not the UFC. We are its own thing. Bare knuckle is its own thing with a rich lineage as well to dive into.

So I think being a FC certainly, if for no other reason alone, they aren't currently. stuck to a television deal has the most upside in in 2024. So I'm almost, so I'm almost lockstep with you, but I went a different direction. I went with GameBred FC, Jed. I won with GameBred FC. Not a bad choice. Not a bad choice at all. Because it's all about potential.

They have something like super fun. Like the concept is there. They're probably going to be in our draft series replacing Bellator this year. Yes. The concept is incredible. fun. I think they could do something here. Boy, do they have to tweak the crap out of a whole bunch of things, though. They got to tweak the entire broadcast, all of the production stuff. I mean, some of the production is really good, but they need, like, fresh faces. They need, and I

understand. Do you stop going to venues they can't sell? That's a big one. What they need to do is they need to be, and maybe you don't understand this term, because I know you're not a big pro wrestling fan. What GameBred FC needs to do to succeed outside of the business practices of what Paul Heyman did, they need to be the ECW of MMA. They need to go into VFWs. They need to go into like small conference rooms. They need to go to fairgrounds and do their shows in front of 1,500 rabid fans who just have bloodlust, who are going to just get this product over by the passion for the sport. as opposed to let's go to the Vistar Veterans Memorial Arena where the UFC has held multiple pay-per-views

and sell 3,000 tickets there. You can't do it. You can't do it. Small venues, good acoustics, weird venues too. Like, let's get crazy with it. And then just have some fun. They have to find the right pieces

in order for this broadcast to work. I like Robin Black a lot. I have a lot of respect for the man. You had Dan Lambert and King Moe on the broadcast as your color analysts on your last card. And those guys barely spoke because Robin had to be the lead play-by-play guy and the color guy. Robin's great color guy. It's not a great play-by-play guy.

And I understand you want to be on the edge. You're the most violent show on earth. I get it. But you've got to make it just, you got to make people want to like continue to watch the broadcast. Robin is just tough to listen to because he doesn't stop talking. Let you have so much expertise. Peace to your left with Dan Lambert, who knew half the fighters.

Guy built one of the best gyms in the history of the sport. King Mo, guy's been around a long time, knows this game. Like, you got to be better with that stuff. And yes, you're absolutely right, Jed. Doing this and doing the AW thing and trying to fill up NBA arenas with events that are only going to, you might be lucky to sell 5,000 tickets. If that, just be better. Like, be the ECW of this shit.

And you could do it. You can do it. Hell, give me a call. I'll help you out. I'll put your shit over. Like, not as like a, you know what I'm trying to say. Like, put me on, like, on the analyst desk. As long as you let me cook and be myself and not like PR the fuck out of you.

Like, I'll do a damn good job here. I'll put you over. But be ECW. Don't be WWE. Don't be the UFC. Don't even be BKFC. Be you. Be you.

And do it as best as you can in 2000 seat VFWs and fairgrounds. Across this great country of ours, if you do that, I think you're going to have a pretty damn big gear. And I think you're going to be able to start charging people to watch your product. Not a ton of money, but I think you're going to be able to start charging people to watch your product. And people will buy it. You've got to know who you are and who you are has to be someone worth knowing. Those are the keys here. Bellator knew who it was, but who it was was was just bad UFC.

That's not good. That's a bad selling point. BKFC knows what it is and what it is is a product worth consuming, not for everyone, but there are people who it is for. Gamebred can be that. They can, it's a little bit of a narrow thread to hit just because BKFC does currently exist, but it's different and they can do it. They have the opportunity, but you can't do it by being like,

we actually think we're bigger than we are. You just have to own that you're not there, but that you can grow because that's that's how all of these things work successfully. So they're going to be the fifth team on the draft this year. So that's a big opportunity. It's a big opportunity. Eagle FC could not convert with that opportunity and got booted. BKFC took over the fifth spot last year.

It's going to be returning because Bellator is going to be kicked off the draft board. So GameBreda, it's your time to shine or else we're going to like Cage Warriors. And I'll tell you what Whoever signs Parker is going to get an A in 2024 Terrific signing Yes

And Randy Costa needs to be the face of GameBred FC Like come on now What are we doing here This guy should already be booked He should be out Doing all of your interviews He should be in face And she should just sign

Randy Costa right now Yeah Wouldn't be a bad idea She'd be like hey That was pretty sick Want to do that Without grappling at all Cool let's go

He'd be really good at it too he'd be really good at it too. All right, I feel pretty good about myself. I feel about 15 pounds lighter here. Our grievances have been aired. I have one major grievance for everyone that we touched on. I just want to end on. Just reach out to us, guys.

We're geniuses. We're probably the smartest people in MMA. We know how to solve all your problems. Just reach out. Like, DMs are open. Come hit us up. We'll be happy to talk you through it. We'll be happy to give you ideas to make you the next successful MMA promotion.

And maybe we'll be happy to sit on the desk and explain to fans why they should pay 20 bucks to watch your card this Saturday in, you know, Fort Worth, Texas. Yes. We can do those things. Find a television network that will be on the checks. It will do it. We're not going to do it if BKFCs on the checks or game reds on the checks. Yeah. Yeah.

Find a television distribution network that will submit the checks. We're good to go. So I feel a lot better. Thank you very much. And the last message to all of you. Two things. Do the thing and don't take this. Take it seriously, but understand we do this out of hope.

We do it out of love. We want you to succeed. We want you to win. We want all of you to win, all right? So just do the thing. Do it better. And you might have a chance. Stop being so stubborn.

And I think you can make this happen. So it's been a great year of BTL. I really appreciate it. I really enjoy doing the program. And we're going to enjoy it a lot more in 2024 as well. It's going to be a lot of fun. If you guys have certain members of the media, fighters, anybody you want on this program, hit me up.

I will do my best to make it happen. I think I've delivered across the board on pretty much all of your requests thus far. I'm trying to think of a name that I've gotten that I have not gotten on the program yet. And I can't really think of one at the top of my head. So if you guys have anybody else, except for a huge. I retract it. My name previously was Colby. You don't want Colby anymore?

We're not going to give them a platform to spew nonsense because impressively we have better journalistic standards than Fox News apparently. But no, I refuse to give them that plan for it. But anybody else, look, these hands are open season, baby. Anyone can get them. Anyone can take these verbal hands except Colby Covington. We're beyond you at this point. Well, who will Jed give the verbal hands to in 2024?

We'll find out. We'll help you to find out. We're going to get it. All right. Well, let us know who you want to see. Thank you very much. Happy New Year. Have a great rest of your holiday season for Jed.

I am Mike Hack. The iconic voice would normally take you home, but case is not producing, so you just get music on the way out. So thank you all very much. We'll see you next week on the YouTube channel. Good night, everybody. Love y'all.