MMA Fighting - BTL's 2025 Promotional Festivus: Grading the Best & Worst From UFC, PFL, More

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

With just a couple of days left in the year, it’s almost time to say goodbye to 2025, and hello to 2026. 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 fourth annual BTL Promotional Festivus — where they grade the UFC for their 2025 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, BKFC, and give their thoughts on things they did better from the year prior, other ideas to bring into 2026, and what could be the breakout promotion in the space for the upcoming year. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@m_heckjr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@JedKMeshew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit unsmoke.ca. listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Live from M.M.A. Fighting Studios, this is Between the Links. And now, your host, Mike Heck. The iconic voice of Esther Lynn welcomes you to a brand new edition of BTL, a very special. special edition of the program. Hope you're all having a great week. A Merry Christmas Eve as you're hearing this.

A happy holidays to those who celebrate, of course. But today, this one goes out to those who celebrate one of the most iconic holidays of all. Festivus, because that is what it's all about on today's program. It's our annual Festivist for the Restivist edition of Between the Links. And today, we ear our grievances. We talk the good, the bad, the ugly in MMA and the combat sports world. We give you our honest assessments of how the year went for some of the major organizations in combat sports. And to be frank, it's one of my favorite shows in the year.

But this is also a show that if we're being fair, it's piss some people off, especially those who work for or are part of some of these promotions that we talk about. But hopefully they can accept what comes their way. But before you do that, let us say hello to my co-professor, so to speak, Mr. No Gray area, the hot take kid himself, Mr. Jedeshoe or Dr. Jed Michoud, PhD, maybe for the purpose of this exercise, maybe. How are you, Jed? Happy holidays. I have a delicious glass of eggnog here as we celebrate this festivist for the rest of us. I'm also wearing a hat. I didn't realize this was audio only, so you don't get to see that folks at home. my Santa hat is on I am prepared to celebrate the best of holidays because I got a lot of problems with you people you're going to hear about them yeah audio only for the show because shout out to

all the the road warriors this holiday season who are going to be sitting in traffic and you know stop at a gas station trying to get back on the highway it just kind of doing the travel thing it's not easy and for the especially for the drivers out there you know there's a lot of passengers but for the For the people who drive, you can't watch this show, but we're going to give you the chance to at least listen to what's going on. So this show is for all of you. And if you're new to this, welcome. And if you've been here since day one,

Jed, we're kind of running out of promotions to talk about at this point because there's no more Bellator. There's no more Eagle FC. One is not really an MMA promotion anymore. So we're just kind of like running out of options here. So what we're going to do, Jed, and I would get your comments on that. We'll grade and discuss the year that was for BKFC, PFL, and of course, the UFC, Jed. We're in a much different spot than we were, like, five years ago.

Are we not? Oh, my goodness. Just, it is, it's a tragedy. Because we even debated not doing BKFC, right? Like, we talked about maybe dirty boxing, but they just start. and I don't have anything. I mean, I guess we're not the whole show. Could we do GFL?

I'd say the whole show would be GFL if we did GFL. But also, can you even have problems with an organization that's not real? You know, like, and I won't lie to you. I had a lot of fun with, with the, with the one of GFL. I had a great time with that, frankly. You know, it just It is what it is The sport is contracting

One championship, not even really an MMA org anymore You know, so we were left with The two stalwarts of MMA promotion And BKFC, which is not MMA, but certainly MMA adjacent You know, maybe by this time next year We'll bring misfits into the fold we certainly deal with them a lot as they continue to bring

MMA fighters in or just influencer boxing as a whole because then we could lump Jake Paul underneath that banner but yeah we're running out of people Mike we certainly are but what we're going to do is like I said it's BKFC PFL UFC we will give our grades we'll explain why and discuss until we have said everything that we've needed to say and then we'll we'll also throw out an honorable mention or two at the end, give some comments and some things

to watch out for in 2026. But today, Jed, let's just kick things off the way we always kick it off. The promotion that brings everybody to the MMA dance, so to speak. Let's kick things off with the ultimate fighting championship, the UFC, the premier MMA organization, the premier combat sports organization, trying to bring their way of doing business into the boxing world, Jed, 42 events, 13 pay-per-views, 29 fight-night cards, 12 of which took place at the world's most famous Apex, 17 fight night road shows all over the world. I had a little bit of a tough time with this one, Jed, in terms of a grade and how to score it because you have to weigh out a whole bunch of different things.

So I'm curious, Jed. How did the UFC do? Did they make the grade? What is that grade? So this one is obviously very tough for a lot of the reasons you said, Mike. My biggest issue with this was how to factor the many things about them. Because I have a lot of criticisms this year. Objectively, they're doing very well business-wise.

And I do want to acknowledge that that 12 apex event number is pretty low historically. They have tended to be more towards that 15, 16, 17, closer to 20. apex events over the past few years so we got on the road more which Dana White did say early in the year that they were planning to get on the road a little bit more so that's good and there's certainly positives

I settled Mike on not grading their year as a business but just on my personal what I liked and or did not like about it how I feel about their year so it is entirely subjective

And weighing it all, I took the cowards way out, Mike, and I gave them a B, just a middle of the road B because there were positives, you know, going to the apex less. There were negatives. We're going to get into those negatives a little bit. I went with the B as well, Jed. Nice. I went with the B as well. But I weighed the business part of it into this because I honestly think, and like you said, well, We'll get into this and I'll tag you in a moment.

Without what they accomplished business-wise, this is a C. This is probably a C. I mean, they were still like, yeah, in terms of like MMA organizations, like they are, they're at the top of the mountain. But as I go into sort of my diatribe as to why I would have given it a C, it was honestly from like going back and listening to last year's show. listening to last year's or earlier this year's on to the next one prediction show listening to shows we had in January and other shows in December of last year about how we viewed the

UFC and what we were excited about heading into 2025 and it seemed like none of that stuff happened so that's that's something we'll touch out of the second but honestly I didn't go back and listen to last year's show that probably would have been a good idea yeah I mean I was just curious it was more after listening to the next one show I'm like I wonder if this is like sort of a theme that goes along with it. And you guys can listen to AK&I's predictions extravagance, part one, which is actually going to be dropping this Sunday here on the podcast network. But Jed, uh, explain your B grade.

Let's talk about the, let's talk about it all, man. Let's talk about the negatives. Why did we get to this point? What are, uh, what are some of the grievances you had with the UFC? I do want to first give them a couple positives, right? The aforementioned apex one, I think that's an under. underrated positive because outside of just like thinking about it in retrospect in the moment it felt like that right it felt like i did not feel the same slog i felt in 2024 of like

we're back in the apex we're back in the apex we're back in the apex because they had done so much loading up on 300 right they spent so many months robbing peter to pay paul that it felt like we were in the apex every other week whereas like this year we had like a six week stretch we weren't even in the apex and so like that is that's better that is just a straight up better time and I felt that in the year that I was having more fun um as a result of that so definitely want to give them props for that I'm giving them props also for the new television rights deal because even though that's going to take place next year and you know probably gets more benefit there this year there is genuinely a level of excitement for me in that I'm less

for me specifically because this is our job Mike like we can expense a lot of these things but as a basic MMA fan if you are like a casual UFC observer next year price goes down by a substantial amount you know you get paramount plus for a hundred bucks or whatever it is for the year that is just incredibly cheap compared to yet the new ESPN like if they stayed on ESPN I'm sure the UFC stuff would be on the new ESPN $30 a month thing, and then buying pay-per-views. So I'm giving them a little bit of credit for that. We had some good fights this year as well.

We did some good things this year. But that's sort of par for the course. They always have good fights. Because I have such a list, Mike, and I don't want to dominate the conversation, why don't I throw one of the things on my list out, and then we can sort of volley back and forth and sort of go that way.

And I'll say the first thing, The first grievance I have is one that I think other people are much more upset about than I am, but that if you're a casual fan, I think this is maybe your biggest grievance of the year. And I base this on talking to some other people, hearing other people in the media industry talk about this and sort of the expectation for 25 versus what was delivered. I'll kick us off, Mike, and say, the U.S.C. had two megafights on the table. heading into 2025. Neither of them got made.

Neither of them got close to being made, frankly. I'm speaking, of course, of Islamakshab, Ilya, and John Jod's Tom Aspinall. Those were the two fights that every MMA fan wanted. They weren't remotely close to happening this year. And so that is the first grievance

I will lobby to you. Yeah, and I'll return the volley, so to speak. I'll return the birdie, the ball, the pickleball ball back to you with my first grievance. which kind of carries over to what you just said. They,

they ruined the heavyweight division for most of the year. Like they ruined it. Not that the heavyweight division was like, not that people were like super overly excited about the heavyweight division, but we literally ended 2024 with Dana White's final words in Tampa, Florida, I'm saying I 100% guarantee you that John Jones versus Tom Asmodal will happen in 2025. 100% guarantee you and people believed it people were so fired up and we went on shows after that jet and we were like this means nothing them saying it means that they're just so they're probably

further away than we think and then we bought it and we got excited and then we found out about the 30 million dollar offer and john turning it down and the ufc still believing they can do it until john had to call them and say i'm retired and then we made tom assid off the champion And then we had to wait until October for him to fight Cyril Gunn. And the MMA gods were just like, nah, we'll just end it in a no contest. And again, like that's not like 100% the UFC's fault, but we wait until October for Tom Asmodal to fist fight anybody. And that is the UFC's fault. That is on the UFC.

They ruined the heavyweight division. Now thank God for, you know, Waldo Cortez Acosta, who had a great year and did like really exciting things. and a shout out to some extent to Cyril who although he did poke Tom in the eyes and made things difficult and has kind of screwed the pooch he at least was somewhat competitive in that fight and at least when they booked this rematch people believe Cyril has a better chance than people gave him going in I thought he had absolutely no chance I thought Tom was just going to tackle him and brutalize him in the first minute of this fight and Tom decided you know what I'm not going to try to tackle him at all but just this way and just benching Aspinol for almost two years, like all of this was just so brutal, man. Like ruining their marquee division, at least the way they view things, the heavyweight champion is the baddest man on the planet. You benched them for all this time. And then we got a no contest out of it.

Most of it's their fault. Some of it isn't. But yes, they screwed up the heavyweight division. And that is a big miss considering the excitement heading into it after 2024. for yeah i mean that's this is mostly just a full tag along to that but another item on my list is just the entire john june situation yeah that the the handling of that as you mentioned was so poor and by all reporting they apparently met john's offer and john hemmed and hawed and then decided no and then oh the white house that's something i'll do that or whatever

um the the handling of john jones and frankly this dates back to 2024 as well um letting him do whatever the hell he pleases for no discernible advantage and to ruin the heavyweight division and tom aspinall in many respects um because i got to tell you the backlash to tom aspinall right now it would be happening regardless there's no world in which uh that's just how the fight game works It's not fair. Both of us, I'm confident speaking for you here. It's not reasonable that Tom Aspinall is catching this backlash. The reason he's catching as much of this backlash, I believe, is because, yeah, he said he couldn't fight.

Man, it's getting an eye surgery. So, like, maybe he was right, you know. The reason it is as vociferous as it is, is because it is John Jones supporters have glommed on to this. and they have determined that Tom Aspinall is their enemy in the same way that Daniel Cormier was very obviously a good person and John was very obviously not a great one. And it didn't matter because John Jones fans were just going to go for the throat about D.C. constantly.

And they were given more ammunition, more leg room to continue to do this sort of thing because the UFC let John do whatever the fuck you wanted. And they could have said no. I'm like, hey, John, let's go. And eventually John decided, okay, I'm out. But the dragging on of that whole thing really diminished Tom Aspinall's heavyweight rain.

And the way it could have, you know, gotten something back is had he blown the doors off zero gone. That's not what ended up happening. And so now it's so much worse. But yeah, the entire handling of John Jones is all of that, as you mentioned, is pretty bad. let's carry on to I'm trying to go not in the order of my biggest gripes right and so

this one isn't totally on the UFC and frankly it's not even really on the UFC but it kind of is Mike because the UFC is the dominant entity in this space they if Dana White decides there's a problem

he can quote unquote fix that problem very quickly because he holds all the levers. He has them all. You know, whatever the associated boxing commissions think that they're running the show, they know they're not. And so it would not be a difficult thing for the UFC to do if they wanted to solve this problem.

And I'm speaking, of course, Mike, about something we've talked about, ballparking at 100 hours this year of conversation surrounding this. topic and uh refereeing in this sport has hit an all time low and again well it's not entirely the UFC's fault really they aren't technically in charge of the refs it's kind of their fault mike like they i mean shit we saw dana be like steve mazagotty will never work again and steve mozagotty doesn't he doesn't work anymore and so like he could do that for the refs who are very clearly doing poorly and you know in the last couple of months we herb dean came out and said hey we're going to start enforcing the rules but like you know this is a year where

dammergliazza said don't make me do my job in the middle of a cage fight he said don't make me do my job like when that sort of thing is happening if the commissions aren't going to take action and they clearly are not i feel the onus is on the ufc to this is their sport MMA is their sport right like you got to take some ownership of it and the fact that they have not done so and Dana just comes to the pressers

and it's like I don't know that sucked bad stop what are we going to do buddy we'll talk about what you can and can't do with athletic commissions a little bit later in this section here you could do something you're choosing not to

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If you have questions or concerned about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1866-531-2,600, to speak to an advisor free of charge. Yeah, it's a good shout, honestly. And I guess I'll go to the next thing It's Dana in general And normally he'd be a little bit higher But I'm just kind of done with the whole Dana thing

Like I'm not gonna rip him I'm not gonna like He's just checked out Like he's completely He is getting more and more checked out of this Every single year And I know Especially this year he seemed more prevalent

But the biggest reason is because The UFC was working on a new TV deal And he's He has to be part of those negotiations. Without Dana putting that deal in place, they probably don't get the deal that they have. They're not with Paramount for all this money. They're doing it because Dana has a relationship with everybody,

and he's the guy, right? Like, you need to have him as part of this. They, Dana specifically, we talked about the heavyweight division. A lot of that is his fault. They have screwed over. and they, I mean, Dana and company, Dana's at the top of this. They have screwed over multiple number one contenders heading into 2026.

Like, it is absolutely insane that Armand Sarukian is going to have to watch two people fight for an interim belt and he's not a part of it and may not fight for the belt at all in 2026. I hope I'm going to remain positive about this, that he does fight for some sort of championship in 2026. And as much as I like watching him grapple and compete in wrestling matches, I think he is the best lightweight in the world. And the fact that he is not going to get the chance to prove it to the entire fan base annoys the crap out of me. Bobsar of Loewev as well. He has to watch

Diego Lopez fight Volcanovsky again for the second time in 10 months. He has to watch Volcanovsky fight the same guy twice in a row. It's absolutely bonkers that this is happening. The data checking out thing is just getting worse and worse. And I, you know, I get why. Like, he's won the race. He has won. And because of him, we're still getting power slap ads on UFC programming, which if it was doing so well, Jed, if it was getting 50 cabillion views every month like they say

it is, why do you need to use the UFC to promote it? Why do you have to use that entity to put over power slap when you can hear it in the commentator's voices, it hurts their soul every time they have to do an ad read for Power Slap. Like, it's obvious. Anyone that has any broadcasting experience can tell the candor has changed completely when they have to read a Power Slap ad. Like, if it's that big, you don't need it. And so that's like a question I keep coming back to. But it's just all of this, it's just all of this stuff, man. Like, I think from a business perspective, like data is doing a lot of things correct like just for what they're trying to do like if i was him i wouldn't be talking to us i wouldn't

be doing the unmade media stuff i would be talking only to the social media people because they're not going to ask him a real question and if you're going to bring it if you're going to grow your audience and try to attract new fans like that's the way to do it we're not going to we're not going to bring you in the door those people will but the ones that actually like study the sport and get into it outside of that bullshit they come to us to keep them here so the what like they don't and this is something that that fans need to realize especially the newer ones and this is the dana white way of promoting and and building a business and building a brand all they care about is that you get on the train they do not care when you get off if you get

off at the next stop they don't care because you got on if they if you go go if you go forever, if you're on that train for the rest of your damn life, they don't care. They will not promote you ever again. They will not try to do anything for you ever again once you were on that train. And to me, like for a business standpoint, it's good business because that's what they're trying to do. But from it just like, hey, let's give back to the people who have been with us since day one. Yeah, we got UFC 300, but that's like, it was nothing like you said we were going to get like that fan base is the ones that put it over the casual fan base hated ufc 300 fucking hated it on paper so this the whole dana thing like

just be in or out man like you're either in this thing you want the ufc to thrive you want to be the face of the company you want to be triple h triple h at least comes out and introduce himself at every single wrestling event all the big ones triple h kicks it off like he is out there every time he's at every event you see him somewhere he He's tweeting about it. He's doing something at every event, and it's him. Or just don't be a part of it. Like, you could show up and do an ad read here and there

or just be like, hey, there's a thing. You want to announce a fight on Instagram? Fine. But, like, you can't, I just would prefer you do one thing or the other. You're either all in or you're all out. But it's just annoying, man. It's just, as much as I love me, a good Dave Shaw scrum, you know, when Bilal Bahamid loses the welterweight title

to Jack Della Madelana in one of the best fights of the year I would love to hear from the face of the company as to what that means you know so pick aside homie yeah I didn't even think of like Dana specifically

none of your you know grievances are ill-formed I think it would be better I'm surprised Dana hasn't started to abscond a little bit more or he had I mean he had

but it like it feels like this is a very obvious time to do a transition of like instead of it sometimes it's Dave Shaw and sometimes it's John Anick and like just pick a guy to be the day to day face of the company and that guy can be it and it shouldn't be Dave Shaw no disrespect to Dave Shaw but it should be a person with charisma because that's like part of the the allure of Dana doing it Dana is a very charismatic man. And so, you know, pick somebody with charisma to do the stuff you don't want to do. You don't want to do the postpressor stuff. Like, so why are you doing it?

You don't need to. You can be the top man because that role is a figurehead role and you don't have to be the figurehead. You want to focus on boxing and do this other stuff. Do all that and be in charge of the, be the CEO broadly in charge of the direction of some stuff, but you can have, you know, Daniel Cormier can just be the guy who goes to post pressers and is like, hey, this was the best event, man. I was in the commentary booth all night long and these fights were tremendous. I talked to Dana and Hunter backstage and it would just go so much smoother if they were

going to do that, I feel. And Dana would be happy. And I think everybody would be. But that's not going to happen because it's just not going to happen. But I will see what you started with and raise in the sense of, let's add on to it, because you kicked your whole segment off with Armand Sarukin. Not just Armand. Everything they're doing now is this is one of my, I won't call this my biggest gripe.

I think this is my second biggest gripe with the UFC. And arguably it should be the first. biggest but the biggest grape I have is a little more big scope picture the absurdity of the lack of meritocracy it it is genuinely if I did not work in this space it would make me reconsider my fandom and I don't say that lightly or hyperbolicly but like at the end of the day in my perfect world MMA is a sport the UFC is is the biggest league of a tremendous sport and there are innumerable issues you can have with something like the NFL or the NBA, right? Nothing will ever be perfect. There will be roughing issues and

various other things. But at the very baseline of the NFL, there is merit there. You feel comfortable in saying maybe the best team did win the Super Bowl. Shout out to your 18 and one Patriots, Mike. But, you know, according to the rules at play that everyone was aware of and that are not dependent on the whims or emotions of people, but are strictly wins

and losses in the manner that they matter. The Giants won the Super Bowl justly that year, right? They might not have been the best team, but they justly won. And the best team, we can all acknowledge the Patriots that year. We're the best team. arguably the best team in the history of football.

They got their day in court and they lost because sometimes that happens. But they did. They don't have to go home feeling we got robbed because we didn't even get to play in the Super Bowl. MMA for years has been drifting more away from merit in general. But at least it used to be a one-off thing or like one specific. fighter, you know, like Connor might get more opportunities than others because he was so big for business. And that's not ideal, but it is better than being like, okay, Diego Lopez gets to fight for a belt. And because the truth is, Diego Lopez does not significantly move the

needle over anybody. Like the UFs, you know, even if the UFC were still selling pay-per-views, Diego Lopez is not selling like that many more pay-per-views than an Alex versus Mavsorev-Evla of pay-per-view would sell. He just, he is not a star in that way. It is purely, this is what we want to do now. We like, you have done us favors and we, we like who you are. And so you get the preferential treatment. There has never been a time where Dana White Privilege has been more in your face than it is right now. and Justin Gaichie is fighting Patty Friken Pimlet for the lightweight belt.

I'm sorry, the vacant interim lightweight belt that may well become the actual belt. It has never been more obvious that the best thing you can do to be successful in the UFC is be popular. It does not really matter about wins and losses. You have to win some. But that is, that's really like long. term, that's bad for the sport. It's just bad for the sport. And it is absolutely

hurting my fandom to be like, I don't know who the best lightweight in the world is. And I haven't known who the best lightweight in the world is since June when Islam vacated. Because Ilya didn't fight the number one lightweight in the world. He fought a guy who lost to

the then ranked number one lightweight in the world. That guy fought Dan Hooker. You know, and he's not even close to fighting for a belt. Like, I want to know who the best fighter in a weight class is. I don't. I don't know it. And that is incredibly frustrating because this is supposed to be a sport.

And I recognize the entertainment will always have a place in it. But the balance of power has shifted in a way that's really, really negative in my opinion. Which adds me to, this is like an honorable mention, but I'll throw it out there now. I just put like in just put a little notation on the bottom with an asterisk. And this adds to sort of the day in a discussion. Kamar Usen is not the best welterweight of all time. Can we stop doing that? Because we know we're trying to do here.

He's not even the second best one to all time. Yeah. I'll die on this hill. Yeah. What are we doing here? And again, like this is going to happen. This will be the welterweight division will be my number one grievance in 2026. Almost certainly.

Because they are going, they are going to throw Kabbaros. You see that train coming down the track and you can't get off it. I can't. You are tied like Snidly Whiplash. It's, it's, it's like that, it's like that scene in Jurassic Park where they're trying to log into Newman's computer. It's like, ha, ha, ha. You didn't say the magic word. It's going to be a train coming with Usman just laughing in my face with sunglasses on.

Like, it's just like, what the hell are we doing here? Yeah. And it's going to. And I'm going to be frigging livid, even though I know it's coming. It is that, I'm telling you right now, that will be my number one grievance in 20206 is that Kamara Usman gets a Walterway title shot over like literally five or six guys who are ahead of him in this conversation. It's friggin insane.

And the only reason people, the only way people can actually justify this is this is the biggest fight. And it isn't because he's not, like, Kamara is not this like million dollar draw superstar. He has one pay per view over a million and it has nothing to do. with him. It's because of he fought Mazadol, who was red hot at the time. It was just a Mazadol million pay-per-view by pay-per-view, not his. So it's, it's just, just foreshattering what's going to happen. My next grievance before I get to the big one, even though there was less apex and maybe the overall slogginess of, oh, we're here three weeks in a row went away. It hasn't gone away completely. It's still the most soulless sporting arena

maybe in the history of sports. It's so brutal to watch these events. And honestly, we're going to have our award show coming out later this week. I think that there are a couple of fights that happened in that building that would have made a lot more top five lists if it had been in any other building anywhere. Like literally anywhere. Estabst. Don Rievovich and Elbs Brenner and like what was the fight of the same freaking car were two Shropetsky and Chris Duncan like if those fights are literally anywhere else I think they're both in the top five like I think those are both top five fights at worst one of them is in there but the fact of the matter is it was in that building that soulless building

now they have at least there have been word about an expansion of the apiece of the and of UFCHQ, which is cool. And there are reports of them actually selling tickets to Apex events now. It's not just the, you know, you spend $2,000 or 700 bucks or like this giant amount of money to get a, you have to get the VIP treatment, so to speak, and you have to pay an arm and a leg to go sit in that warehouse and watch fistfights with 12 of your closest friends. Like, it's just insane. So if they are expanding this and adding a thousand seats and putting a lot of. little soul in that place then that'll be awesome that'll be on the net positive side of things and

you know for me we need that as many net positive things as possible and there were and there were some this year jet as you pointed out uh in some big moments and things we will remember from from a positive side in 2025 like ilia teporia gave us the moment of the year at ufc 317 he went out there and just wrecked shop and was like all right that's that's that's the dude we could put the rock to this guy. And there are some fun events and some good pay-per-views. And there are some awful pay-per-views, Jed. Like, just some awful ones.

And we'll get to what that means in a second. But the place just needs some fire, man. It needs a soul. And at this point, like, I'm trying to do my best because people always give, the most shit I get DM-wise or anything is when it's an apex card that has no life to it. And we talk about the lifeless. card in the soulless card and give it sort of negative reviews and bad fart scores and all

this stuff because it's the apex takes points away almost almost automatically and then in the fallout of these events there's nothing to remember them by like we're we're already turning the page like we always say like we're not going to talk about this event again and like after sunday we're not going to talk about this event at all ever again and i would love to live in a world where that is not the case anymore. I would love to live in a world war where I'm positive about these apex cards because I have now officially, it took me a long time. And I know I'm maybe the last person boarding this train, Jed.

We're never leaving the apex ever, ever, ever. You really are the last person boarding that trade. Yeah. My great, great grandkids are going to watch the UFC on some sort of platform, probably in a flying car on their way to their next destination from the fucking. Apex. Like, this is what we're doing. There is not enough cash grabs. There's not enough site fees to be to be thrown in their direction that will get him out of that building. So I have accepted officially that we are going to be watching Apex fight night cards

for the rest of my days. And I just hope it's with some soul to it in 2026. Please do this UFC. I'm hopeful about the sole thing because I think that that though I will also say that if they put seats in there, they might get back to really doing 20 events a year there, which I am less interested in. Though, if they do contender series there, maybe that makes contender series have a little more juice, if they really let people be in the apex. I am nothing for me on that. I'm just letting it live.

We'll see how that goes. I mean, this really is a corollary to my last one, Mike. about the meritocracy going away. But I didn't mention it, and it does feel a little different in that it's not just the opportunities you get by being liked. It is the UFC's increasing willingness to not employ the best fighters in the world. And this has been happening for years. It's been a consistent trend back to when Phil Davis was just too expensive and they could replace them with contingency series contracts, right? This is top of mind because today, as of our recording this,

Renat Fakhredinov appears to no longer be on the UFC roster that he fought out his contract and the UFC declined to re-sign him, which, you know, given he's 6-0-1 in the UFC and pretty clearly one of the 25 best guys in his weight class, like you would think the UFC would be inclined to keep a fighter like that. but he is far from the only person who sort of suffered this fate and again this has been happening

over the past few years in general since basically since the advent of the apex and the cheap labor that comes with it on 10 and 10 contracts who was the dude that they oh man who's the dude who they lowballed with a contender series contract

I think that was last year though the kickboxing guy Veritinov yes yes yes yes yes yeah very Tenikov where he was like, no, I'll just go back to glory. I'm not taking 10 and 10. They are just much more willing to do this now and to let, you know,

it seems like Mavsoor Evlov is probably just going to get let go after he fights out his contracts. They don't seem interested. Maham Mahayev is very clearly one of the five best flyweight's alive and has been aggressively lobbying to return and they don't seem to care.

They are not in the big, business of, you know, if you're not attached to Habib or, you know, super exciting, it doesn't matter if you're very good. They, they kind of don't seem to care. And that is, uh, it's pretty lame, man. It's, because there are ways to make fights exciting that aren't, um, we will only hire not the best fighters, but ones that, you know, will swang and bang. So, uh, a continuation there from me, Mike, of my previous one, but genuinely one of my biggest issues in the sport right now.

Yeah, and I mean, that was one of my big ones last year. It was just the contender series just being so watered down. And I'll tell you what, like you know, one of the, one of the big themes from listening to the on to the next one

prediction show was we're a year away. We're a year away from this happening. We're a year away from this happening. I get assure you that if everything the UFC has potentially put on the table comes true, there are two things that will automatically be on my grievance list, one of which I already mentioned the Usman thing. The other one is if we're doubling up contender series,

it is an absolutely horrendous idea. I heard, we've heard some like rumblings that maybe that won't be the case, but I know how much Dana reveres that show. But I think people need to understand like, that show has become and it's just like jed said it's become like a watered down version of what it used to be now i will say this was a actually pretty good year for the contender series every outside of the first episode i feel like it was like a fun ride almost on a weekly basis like there were good good fights we had one of the best fights of the year come off contender series and but again like all

you have to do is win and get a contract and we know why like i wish the stakes for contender series were higher man like i really wish we were back to where we were like the first three seasons when you know chris curtis couldn't get a contract and austin vanderford was getting like first second round finishes he couldn't get a contract we had guys getting first round finishes in the first season of contender series that didn't get contracts like it was literally the best of the best got signed and got opportunities and got their chance with the company Like, that's what it was. Now it's just like, hey, as long as you fight on this show and win, you're in,

and Renna Fokritinoff is out. And Eliza Zaleski-Dos Santos, who has been with us forever, is out. And I don't hate that one because I feel, you know. That one's fine. That one's fine. But, like, but Martin Boudai is out. Who's one, like, he's one of the best heavyweights of the world. They're just like, nah, we're out of here because we just signed a record amount of

contender series guys to 10 and 10 are 12 and 12 contracts. like it's friggin it just gets so watered down and I don't care how exciting the fights are I just want stakes I want things that matter I just wish it was back in my day I don't like I don't care if I sound like a carmungian old season dude but that's like I'm telling you right now if you go back and watch those first three seasons a contender series and compare it to where it's at now it just feels better it feels so much cooler than the than what we have now So, yeah, I hope we could get some back to some semblance of glory for contender series, but I certainly don't expect that to happen, Jed.

So have we gotten to the point of your number one gripe here? I've got a couple of others, just quick ones. And I forgot one thing that I did want to throw out as a positive. The Dustin Poirier retirement. Hell, yeah. That was terrific from them. It's the sort of thing we, I mean, I guess you'd say the Anthony Smith retirement, but that's a little less intriguing to me.

But like this is a sort of thing we've asked for for a long time, you know, giving fighters that sort of opportunity, especially ones who have done a lot for you, like Porre going to New Orleans. That was awesome. And so full credit to them, that was sick.

Really enjoyed that. This might, I think this is more of a critique for this year. him for next year, but there could be some overlap. We talked about this recently, Mike. I am exhausted with the White House already. Just announce what it is. It's fine.

We don't have to wait until February or March. Just say the thing, like, Dana could just come out and say it. Yeah, we're going to do, these are the ones we hope to do. And then great. And we don't have to have this ever-present conversation of, I'd like to find the White House. No, I'd like to fire the White House. I'm the only American champion.

and I want a pony and blah, blah, blah, like, no, just say what's happening and then we can all look forward to this grand event. So the White House won. Not really their fault, but like, an honorable mention for me.

Because again, not entirely their fault, and I do actually think that like Dan has handled it fairly well and so far as it can be done. But the ongoing gambling fiasco, um that's a that's a problem for them that they and they do seem to be taking it head on and addressing it well uh the broader issue there is like well if you paid fighters more they probably would be less inclined to do this but whole separate issue you don't have to go down the road so i want to make a note of that um i've got two big ones one's much bigger than the

other but um and i guess this is sort of an extension of a long-held, like, grievance of the, like, we don't stop fighters from doing anything, blah, blah, blah. I'm not in charge of them. There are 600 crazy people on roster. And I couldn't really think of anything, like, specifically, other than, you know, Bryce Mitchell has a job, and he shouldn't have a job.

That's just it. I won't not stop believing that. You can come into the comments and say free speech, but like, I don't know, it seems pretty obvious to me that when you're like Hitler wasn't a bad dude, you should probably not have a job, especially a job where you might get a microphone, a live microphone handed to you after victory on ESPN or now Paramount Plus. And so the continued willful ignorance, not even ignorance, really, willful rejection of any level of responsibility for their product

and the fighters who are functional ambassadors for them is a pretty major grievance for me. Sadriq Dumas, there's no reason for Sadrique Dumas to be on the roster. You don't want Renat Fakradinov on roster, but Sadrique Dumas can get arrested 18 times and like, yeah, we'll just wait, we'll push his fight back because he has an ankle monitor and can't fight.

Like, you could just let that dude go, you know? Like, Connor McGregor is Connor McGregor. I understand he is incredibly famous and huge for your brand. But, like, to not even make statements when stuff like Connor McGregor getting found civilly liable for sexual assault, like, it is the lack of professionalism, like baseline professionalism that is happening in no, literally no other industry in the world. could a fighter come out and be like I think Hitler wasn't that bad a guy

and the Holocaust is not real it's not exactly what he said he said it's not they way over blew the numbers or whatever and also not just Hitler's not a bad guy but like he had he made good points it's just like how why is that dude employed so uh that's my second biggest grievance of the year is the totality with which

They do not have any standards of professionalism, despite having an athlete code of conduct. Couldn't have said it better. It's absolutely ridiculous at this point. But again, and I know Ariel's talked about this, and I know we've mentioned this on other shows and stuff. But like, I would just like for someone to ask Dana White, like, even if he goes on a podcast, please ask him why this is now okay. but multiple as many as like six six seven years ago this stuff was not okay like ever it was like it was like the greg hardy signing changed the entire viewpoint of the ufc because data i no one wanted greg in the ufc besides like a couple of people because of his pass and everything and then

you actually like watched him compete in the whole like inhaler gate thing and it's just like why are we why are we doing this there are so many fighters who like deserve this roster spot but we're really defending this and then from that it became well why is he fighting on the same card as rachel ostovich in his debut and it's just like well blah blah blah blah blah and it turned to this big thing like and since then it's like okay now it's free speech but back then it wasn't back then it was just like straight release of things or there's a company statement or something but like you didn't need a reporter reach out and say do you have a statement about this it's it's more of like oh we didn't even know that this

happened and then they find out about it like it's friggin insane that this continues to happen so yeah it drives me it drives me wild that this continues to happen i'm going to let you kind of cap off with the big one but i'll give you like one more thing that like i guess my biggest takeaway because i think our big one's going to be relatively the same but the biggest takeaway i had listening to our show last year and like some of the past shows a year ago and even like january and february was when it comes to 2025, all of us

expected a bigger year in terms of effort because this was the contract year for the TV deal. ESPN was done. Netflix might be involved. Like who is going to like throw all this money at the UFC?

This is the tryout here because they were so big in 2020 after COVID, like once COVID hit and they were the only ones doing stuff. Like they got so many fans. from that but i can assure you most of those fans have left they're just done they've they've seen the BS and they're out of here and they're not going to stick with watching 43 44 events every single year plus contenders they're just not going to do it it's too much for them and they're out

so this is the year to to show people hey we're fun we can put on big fights wait till you see how much how many pay-per-view buys we sell in this fight like we're going to give you john Jones versus top basketball we're going to do all this stuff they did they absolutely did not put their best foot forward in fact like I feel like they took their their foot off the gas all together you know what I mean like it just they just coddled stuff together and yeah like not all the events were bad like I thought ufc 311 on paper was fantastic and it's not the UFC's fault that arm and serukin didn't make it to the to to the main event that he didn't make it to the fight but then you give us UFC 312

which is do-do like it was so bad like you gave a strickland ddp which is kind of like an interesting fight but like the rest of that card was ass like it was so bad and like even 313 was not great 314 was fun because you always let up the miami cards but like it was just a bunch of like just a bunch of me like even international fight week like ended up being a really fun event but like the card wasn't spectacular it was all built around one fight really and it's just so many ups and downs like Like, in the big moments that happened, there were, I mean, Tuporia, Islam, Piotr Yan. But like, it's just, I don't know. It just felt like a mad year in terms of effort when you're about to put this new TV deal in place.

But listen, they signed a deal, which is why I gave them a B. The biggest reason why is because they made seven, almost $8 billion on this frigging deal. And I give a half point to this jet as well. because of this paramount deal we all get to cancel that horrendous application that is ESPN Plus. Like it is gone

and I this probably would have been a B minus if they got $8 billion from ESPN but the fact that we get to get rid of that app and never have to use it again if we don't want to gives it an extra boost

in the letter grade but yeah this was this is not a great effort considering it was a contract year for them I was genuinely surprised at how little of an effort given that because like you expect contract years to be something big and I thought that this year they would go much more in and they didn't and I the answer is probably they just don't have to you know like live media rights are worth a crap load of money and they are the only game in town realistically so you know I guess that's how that goes. um like my last one the big one and i don't think any other people will share this with me and

i totally get that but for me this is the thing that offended me the most this year and bothers me deeply and again all of it really does like all of my grievances if you look at the through line to them just track back to i'd like this to be a sport i'd like this to be a professional sport and the UFC does not want that to happen and as a result of that not only do they not want that to happen they don't want boxing to be a professional sport either they would like to take that over in the same manner that they've done this and so my biggest grievance with the UFC this year is not specifically the UFC but the powers behind the UFC and their aggressive lobbying for the Ali Revival Act

Because while I absolutely agree that there are problems in boxing, right? Like, boxing has things that need to be addressed and fixed. The amendments to the Ali Act will maybe fix some of them, but will mostly make boxing the UFC. And I know a lot of fans don't care. And I'm sorry about that. I care about fighter pay. I care about fighter pay both morally and selfishly, Mike.

I care that morally, I want fighters who are suffering long-term physical health damages to have long-term medical benefits and commensurate pay for their sacrifices. I would like them to be making as much money as possible because they are the ones providing the product, not the UFC, not the people who do promo packages and stuff. It is those people and their health is doing. So morally, I want fighters to make more money than they do. And, you know, at the very bottom of boxing, you don't make crap. That's absolutely true.

I'm not here to debate the clear numbers there. But elsewhere, you do make substantially more. And that is why you have a guy like Ilya who didn't even grow up boxing. Like he came into MMA as a grappler and then, you know, started to box. And now he is outright saying, I got a couple of fights left. then I'm going to try to transition to boxing. The career arc for the best MMA fighters in the world now

is I'll get good at MMA and then I'll try and cash out a couple of boxing paydays, maybe a Jake Paul payday if I'm lucky. That sucks. That sucks. Can you imagine Mike at the height of the Patriots dynasty? Tom Brady has just won his third Super Bowl

and he comes in the mind. He's like, guys, this has been awesome. I've done it. Three Super Bowls, Hall of Famer, one of the greats. Now I would like to go pursue badminton. I'd like to go do badminton. Maybe rugby,

because rugby's where I can really get paid. And, you know, that's what I'm looking for. It would just suck. This only happens in this sport. Fighters don't leave other sports when they get to the peak. And so I want fighters to get paid more. And I don't want the Aliyah to come to boxing because I don't need boxing to be the next form of UFC. I'm good.

At some point, I would like the insatiable greed to subside and for everybody to just be reasonable. It feels very holiday. Mike doesn't feel festivacy, but it does feel very holiday to be like, you know what? we don't need to be Ebenezer Scrooge and count our pennies sometimes we can share the wealth with those who deserve it so that is my biggest grievance with the UFC this year coside I mean I can't really can't really add more to it it kind of goes off to like the Dana's checked out thing

but yeah I mean I think people are just kind of bored with the vanillaness of the UFC and not just like how it looks on TV and all that stuff like that's why Spear was kind of like special and the pourier thing was so special because they tried and it's nice when they try it's not just about a buck it's not just about trying to monopolize a situation it's not just about all the stuff it's just but now it's like not even with the boxing thing it's not even just like Dana now we're getting nick con who like knows nothing about MMA like outside of like just the business aspect you have you know lawyers and lawyer

it's it's friggin nuts like these are the ones that are like promoting for the sport and they can get these people to like take their sides and everything because of like relationships they built even though it's so wrong like it's just they're monopolizing another sport or at least attempting to or monopsizing whatever the frig it is but yeah perfectly said man like it's crazy and and people love to bring up the fighter pay thing like i've given up on that at this point not just because the ufc's just got to win but like the fighters don't seem to want it anyways so like let's just call a spade a spade there i want it though i do too i want it morally i want it selfishly because we i want the best fighters i want the best athletes in the world to do fist

fights and they don't because why would they like why like at at least outside of the united states like where a dollar can go further the pay is a little bit better but like there's just never going to be a good American fighter again. They just aren't really going to be because it's like why you could do any other sport and get paid a lot more money and take way less brain damage.

It's just pay them. Pay them. Pay Elliot Tuporia to stay fighting forever. I would like to be sad about Ilya fighting into his 30s when he should retire, but he can't let the game go. Give me a Philip Rivers

in the MMA world because the money's so good not because like they have to to pay basic bills goodness had it better myself my friend goodness had it better so that's that's the UFC and yes like we mentioned there's there's good too but the UFC can can do better they could always do better uh the fans deserve it and that it's again when i i i always i always say this to people who who think like we're too negative. It is never a bad thing and I will never stop fighting for the UFC the greatest organization in combat sports, the most premier one, the most known one to actually try. Like I don't think it's wrong for me to say, please try. Like please make any kind

of effort and not just go into a Tuesday matchmaking meeting with Velcro darts throwing it at a board to make fight cards at the apex like just try make things special make people care not just contractual obligation event number five of 2025 like we don't just try that's it just try and that's my my my my last thing with with ufc and get you and your crew to the big shows with go transit go connects to all the main concert venues like tuesday Coliseum in Hamilton and Scotia Bank Arena in Toronto and Go makes it affordable with special e-ticket fairs. A one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel across the network

on any weekend day or holiday for just $10. And a weekday group pass offers the same weekday travel flexibility from $30 for two people and up to $60 for five. Buy yours at gotransit.com slash tickets. Let's go to PFL, Jed. Let's go to PFL. And I'm going to get into this. I'm just going to, at this point, because we spend an hour talking about the UFZ.

I'm interested to see your PFL grade. I'm just going to go into everything I have to say about PFL. I'm just going to go and I'm going to give my grade and I'm going to hear your thoughts. I don't have that much on them, honestly. Like, it's, it's all, we're all going to have the same stuff. Yeah. Just go. Yeah, it's going to be good.

It's a roller coaster ride, okay? Because PFL, this is kind of an important year for them only because Don Davis did that town hall, like, leading into 2025. and it gave us a lot of questions. And that was like one of the takeaways from the answer. The next one prediction show was we weren't 100% sure what was going to happen with PFL. Like we do they're going to try to do some things. We didn't know what the season was going to look like.

Are they going to do Grand Prix? Like we did not know for sure. Don teased a bunch of things. What's going on with Bellator? Because we were still heading into 2025 with here's the PFL champion series brought to you by Bellator Champions. How are they going to hand it? handle the belts and do all this stuff.

And Don's response to the Bellator thing was, well, we want to keep the lineage intact. We want to make sure that Bellator doesn't die, that we honor the past and do all that by having the Bellator champions, remain the Bellator champions, even though Bellator is a promotion no longer exists, which confuse the shit out of people. It was very stupid.

But the good news is eventually. You should have burned the Bellator belts and sacrificed it and celebrated as if they slaughtered their enemies and be like, ah, we have defeated Bellator. You should have been like, what would KSW do and do exactly that? That's always the right answer. But the good news is they eventually got to where they needed to go.

It just took some time. They got rid of the confusing season format. They switched to a more traditional Grand Prix format. And all in all, I will say, I thought they had a pretty damn good year in terms of fight cards and excitement and the Grand Prix delivered interesting results. The international shows are fun to watch.

Once we could actually watch them because they figured that part out. We watched Paul Hughes had this incredible moment in front of his home crowd on fucking Twitter because no one could watch the fights live in the United States. But to their credit, and this is kind of like a theme for them, whatever issues they had along the way,

they attempted to fix them. They tried. Well, the UFC didn't put forth an effort, they did they tried to do the thing as much as possible the submission of the year for all of mma and it was pretty clear it came from pfl cassela von steenis submitting johnny eblin that was big like that was such a moment for them that's like a baba o'reilly kind of moment for them they re-signed dakota ditchva to a multi-year deal absolutely had to do it she is literally the face of that organization right now they let her go to the ufc they were screwed for sure so

I'm sure they threw the kitchen sink at her monetarily, which is very, very smart. Fat Gene comes along. He becomes a star. Usenermagamata versus Paul Hughes had two great fights. The first one was a fight of the year contender. Rematch was really good. The scoring was horseship, but that's not PFL's fault. I thought it was a pretty damn good year for PFL overall.

However, they made some mistakes along the way. Mention some of them. We mentioned they resublished. signed Dakota Dichiva, but they also benched her for eight months and she only fought one time. And yes, I know she was in, she got injured in the Samika Naba fight, but she, that fight should have been her second fight or maybe third fight of 2025. They should have trotted her out there as much as possible, feed her to people early on because we're trying to set up this Liskarmouche fight, which they're still not giving us,

which, whatever. But on top of that, now we have to. talk about like the issues with the talent they had on their roster that it seemed like weekly jed they were calling pfl out patricio pitbull and patchy mix and corey anderson i think johnny ebblin at a time was calling them out pit bull's gone patchy mix is gone honestly like i think it's probably like a good move for them like kind of cutting bait financially and a business wise and it seemed to be kind of age well especially the mixed one anderson and eblen stayed losing erin pico so like that was a huge loss for them because he could have been a guy you could like truly build this

promotion around you just got to get him fights and like get him more excited about things and they just were not doing anything that got him excited so they eventually just cut bait and let him go to the UFC a lot of good and as I mentioned like the cards are great but the biggest problem they have right now jet is nobody cares pfl is just not on is not high on the priority list for for combat for And then you're putting these last two big shows on the new ESPN premium thing, which is like 30 bucks a month. And it's just not smart at all. Like I know that's not like all their faults that ESPN wants them there.

But like you got to try to like get out of there and like put this thing in front of more eyeballs, these big events because there's no way people are going to spend that amount of money to watch PFL. And honestly, there's one thing that really dings them, Jeff. and it's something we've talked about on BTL at other shows because this grade should be a little bit higher but the Francis and Ghanu thing him sitting out for another year

not allowing him to fight because the names of a potential opponents were not big enough at the time and all that stuff that coach was saying on the town hall like why why is he not out there clobbering fools at a record rate why is he not Waldo Cortez accost in this shit

like just pay this man all the money you want and just let him nuke people because you have no way to promote him right now because you have no highlight reel you've had this guy for three years you have nothing you have one fight one highlight in three years and now he's on the cusp of being done one more fight left on his deal and then he might be gone like this whole thing has been botched especially this year pure and simple and yeah i do blame francis a little bit too but the whole like we need the right of opponent. It needs to be special thing. Here's the thing, PFL. John Martin, Don Davis, who are listening to me right now. If this special opponent is Eddie Hall or someone like that of that ilk, great. I will take everything that I just said back. But if we waited all this time just to do Francis Angano versus Vadim Nemcoff, that is a huge issue and that annoys me to no end. And that doesn't give me a ton of hope heading into 2026. So I'm going. Jed with a B-minus, which I think is the best I've given them outside of the year where Kayla lost to Larissa Pacheco.

B-minus, I think it's fair. It would have been higher if they did more with Francis and didn't publicly say, well, we're not just going to trot them out there to fight a can or fight a nobody or fight some we don't deem a star because, Jed, unlike the UFC, they tried. They tried. They addressed issues. And for a lot of the stuff, they fixed them. They fixed them.

And that's all we can ask from, from any kind of a player. So I think, I think B minus is a pretty fair grade. You are more generous than I, buddy. Okay. I need him a C. Okay. I recognize that they made some improvements, right? You know, they have done away with the tournament format for their real belts and

they're doing it differently. Like, these are positives. And so I don't want to overlook that. But. I have two very major issues. I echo a lot of your individual grievances. My biggest issue, the single biggest problem I have with PFL

and the primary reason they got a C for me is what do they hang their hat on this year? What's out there for them? What do you remember from PFL this year? They had some good moments, right? Like, Paul Hughes, Newsman Norma Gmadov, like, those fights were very good fights. The Castellivan Steenis is probably going to win submission of the year. Like, those are good things.

But this just, like, feels tough, man. It feels really, really tough to be like, okay, Thad Gene sort of emerged. There's something. But it does not feel like they had anything they could hang their head on this year. Last year, Dakota Dichiba arrived. That was a thing. And they followed up all that momentum with having her fight one time versus someone she's clobbered and that's it. They didn't do anything to stand out.

And you can do that if you're the UFC. If you, if you are the house, if you control all the chips in play, then it doesn't matter. You don't have to do stuff. You don't have to make noise and stand out. But if you are the, you know, the runt at the dog bowl, you got to fight for your position. and it just does not feel like they fought for their position this year. It does not feel like they gave us something massive and memorable. It does not feel like they even know what they're doing at times

because they have some commodities. Dakota Ditcherva should be fighting every four months, every three or four months. Dakota Ditchever should fight somebody. Francis and Ghanu should be fighting more. You know, maybe he's prohibitively, he's too expensive. And so I can at least accept that argument.

But like you should have been fought at least once. You should have supported him and been like, hey, man, go fight Jake Paul. And we can be attached. However you want to do that. You know, the other Johnny Eblen, I know he ended up losing his belt, like should be out there. Aaron Pico was like a young building block that they just let walk away. Not even just let walk away. Pissed off and then let walk away.

Like you, they're not retaining talent. A lot of the acquisition of Bellator have left or publicly been furious at them. And then they weren't even fighting that much, you know, it's just like, I don't, I don't know when they are internally being like, what are the highlights of your year? Okay. Usman Hughes and that's it. Like, that's, that's what they got. And that, that's bad when you are fighting for survival. You are not maintaining a status quo. You are fighting for survival. And arguably, this is not even a joke. Arguably the biggest win that the PFL had this year

is that the UFC left ESPN so now they're the only fight game on ESPN but like I don't even know if that's a big win for them so that's like the primary thing and the other one is I mean the other big thing is

you can't be the second run promotion and piss fighters off but you just can't be doing that so the handling of so many of their fighters and this is a carry-over from last year as well it was pretty poor um and so letting those fighters walk and for me like this isn't i can't really knock them for not doing what i said but i've been saying this for a couple of years i'm just going to keep saying

this one mike keep banging this drum because we know they listen we know that they understand that this is not out of animosity this is out of love i want you to do well PFL, please, for the love of all things in 2026, I got two words for you. And they're the most important two words you can ever hear. And if these two words are your guiding principle, I'll give you an A at the end of next year. Because it is what you need. Be fun. You have got to be fun.

You cannot be UFC light. Nobody is drinking R.C. Cola in this world. You are drinking Coke or you are drinking water. You cannot be the Big K Cola of MMA promotions. There is not enough air in this space. And so you have to stand out. And the only way you can stand out is by being fun. Because you tried with tournaments and you've abandoned that.

And I think that that's probably good. You know, but like at least you were trying something there. You got to be fun. And I know that Saudi Arabia and stuff give you site fees. Go to France five times a year. I don't give a shit. Go to Paris all the time. Do be whatever you do.

The beginning of every meeting you ever have, be fun. How are we going to be fun today? How are we going to be fun next month? How are we going to be fun at our first event of 2026? And, you know, that answer is. going to be Dakota Dichita is going to fight a lot. You know, we're, we're going to do creative things, but be fun because that is your only way to make this work, because otherwise you're going to go, you know, do you know, Mike,

do you know another promotion that started out with a tournament structure and then shifted over to just generic champions and maybe occasionally did a grand prix, but was basically just doing the UFC thing with less talent. Do you know the name of that promotion? Bellator, who went under and you bought for Monopoly money. Don't be Bellator. You cannot be Bellator or you will be Bellator. You will just do the same thing they did.

And in a couple of years, you will go under two. I am begging you because this sport needs. Like, we need you. We need somebody else to be out there and be a haven for fighters and an opportunity for fighters outside of them. you have to be fun you have to do it please because you were not fun this year whatever pfl was this year fun wasn't it can't do that again i i think they were pretty fun i think the events the events were fun but again the problem lies it's the if a tree falls in a forest

does it actually make a sound if no one's around to hear it and in pfl's thing was a pfel event fun if no one watched it and that's that's the big issue because if you did watch if you watched every pf if you watch every ground pre event you probably had a pretty decent time like honestly you probably had a good time and if you watch like the africa events and watch them the other stuff like pfl africa was a frigging great like especially the von steenus thing like that was sick anybody who watched that had a great time and anyone watched a lot of their events oh boy and literally as a room and literally the timing of this is so good this is unbelievable this is unbelievable dakota ditch but not fighting a pfl dubai so not a great start uh not a great start and that's in

februaries that's two months like a little less than two months from now and now you have dakota so good i was actually stunned she was in a fight after the injuries she had she suffered um but again Well, now she's not. Well, good, because this probably, I hope this means PFL has been listening and said, why are we doing Dakota Dichita v. Denise Keelholtz? Dakota Dichita should not be fighting anybody else, not named Liz Karmouche. Correct. Now we can make this fight happen.

We could do a title fight. And that's big. Like, that's big. Anything else, but that fight is bad. And they will start off with an immediate F in 2026. if that is not the fight that is booked so that is pfl hopefully we can again and i and i we say this every year jed and you're 100% correct we need you to succeed we need you to be good you have to be good so if that means if that means you're not on esPN after 2026 that's fine because fans it should

not cost fans three months worth of stuff to watch you guys like literally it's going to cost UFC fans $60 to watch their product all of their events all 40 something events it's going to cost fans $60 if you're putting events on the premium thing it is going to be more expensive for fans to watch your product than it is to watch the UFC buy a lot buy a lot so don't do that find a way to get back on ESPN plus get off the premium service whatever it takes whatever it takes you it is imperative imperative you get eyeballs on you this year absolutely imperative speaking of that jed let's talk about the third promotion we're going to discuss bear knuckle fighting championship who they are a mainstay they are the number three

promotion they have been the number three promotion for a long time in fact there have been a couple of years number two yeah they're not now they're just not now and i'll explain why but there have been years where they are 100% the number two promotion behind the ufc where they beat the shit out of bellator and pfl and one and eagle fc and like literally everyone around them i am real curious to see how you graded bkfc this year jad because a little uh little spoiler i did not grade them very high I gave him a B-minus. I think they had a down year for sure.

And I don't have, like, many critiques of them. I've got two, like, specific critiques. But it does just feel like they lost some momentum this year because they have been on such a heater lately. And, you know, they couldn't really stop it. But Mike Perry getting his own fight promotion, probably not good for them, realistically, considering it's a face of theirs.

But one thing I did want to shout out BKFC for, and I don't, in, this might be a better in concept than in actuality, but I don't want it to fly under the radar in that, whatever it was, like a couple of months ago, one of their events, Dave Feldman announced that maybe, maybe it was with Con, I'm trying to remember, that they had started to, they were making BKFC a fighter-owned company. Or, you know, if you had fought for, I forget the specific numbers, if you'd fought for them multiple times, held the belt, you started to get a ownership stake in the company, which is awesome. Like, I think that's a really cool thing. Now, again, whether that amounts to anything, we'll see. But that is a cool thing to do to try and pay fighters back in kind in a way the UFC would never remotely consider doing. And so I want to shout them out for that I didn't feel like any of their events were that big They had the knucklemania card or the Philly card

I don't remember if it was knucklemania or not actually It was It was You know they had some moments Also sort of just a broadly I know they traveled internationally Several times this year They held more events than PFL this year

Which is wild But a lot of it felt like noise right so it just kind of felt like they were a B minus because of a couple of specific issues I had with them and it's just a year that didn't seem big but where'd you land

C minus C minus and I honestly it would have been lower had you not mentioned like the the fighter equity thing it would have been bad because they they have lost a ton of buzz just a ton of it

and like their fight cards are always fun like if you watch them like you don't have a bad time it's never a slog they that their pacing is great it's just like it's too many hats on hats right now with bkfc and it annoys me to no end like yeah you got connor mcgregor which is obviously like a really good thing to have that name like attached to your brand and they just trot them out there in these like random spots and yeah it's decent exposure but it just feels like it's a little this is about me more than this is about BKFC and

you know and the biggest shoutout I will give them is they are the only organization smart enough to take a chance on the goat Paca Porter and boy is that paid off did you see what his last fight like a week ago it was fucking sick like if I didn't already put in my fight

of the air votes like that might have been on the list it was that good it was that freaking good so it's again it's never a bad time to go and I always tell people and I'll still say this despite my lowest grade if someone said like hey I have tickets to this this this or this and BKFC is part of that list even over the UFC like but you can only go to one I would choose BKFC you will have a much better time there I guarantee you you have a better fan experience if you go to a BKFC event over pretty

much any other combat sport right now what hurts them is you bench Mike Perry for almost the entire year. It's so frustrating. He is literally that makes the engine run. He's the guy who makes the engine run right now. And it's not because he was injured or anything like that. You just chose not to fight him. This guy wanted to fight the entire year

and you just chose not to put him in there. And yeah, he fought Jeremy Stevens. But no one thought Jeremy had a chance to beat Mike Perry in a BKFC fight. Like he performed admirably and I will give him credit. But he was like a smaller dude who, just wasn't going to beat him in that game. And what hurt that event even more is they booked it on a horrible date,

like on the same day as a UFC pay-per-view, and they didn't sell enough tickets, and very few watched it because of what was going on that day. Here's another question I have for you, Jed. Where the hell is Britton Hart? Where is she? Where is Taylor Starring? I'll tell you where's Taylor Starling is,

fighting a misfits boxing card. Britain Hart fought one time this year. should be a way bigger star for them i don't understand how they cannot create a single female star or anything close to a female star when things have literally been put on a platter and dropped on their laps when it comes to the female fighters britain heart made herself a star when she beat page you've done nothing with her like you've literally done nothing with her to put her over in a bigger position that she should be in than she is right now anything she is done has she has done herself taylor star for them and yeah they've they've done some stuff

with her where she's doing like backstage interviews and stuff like she's not fighting enough for them you need to get her in there fighting they have no female stars it's so frustrating the press conferences have been an absolute disaster this is bare-knuckle fighting jed that in itself is a giant big fun hat it is a big you can't miss it It's the giant oversized hat that people just want to look at and if you're at the bar, like people want to try your big oversized hat on because they cannot believe it. They cannot believe people would wear a hat like this. And then BKFC, what they've done this year at these press conferences is they have the super big hat

and they take the world's smallest hat and they try to fit it on top of the world's biggest hat. And it's so annoying that these things just feel so staged and they go on way too long. And it just makes them look awful. Easily the biggest shoes are way too long. on what are we doing here like they do like the amount of one press conference they could they get six fights in during an event it's insane and here's the worst thing of all jed the worst thing that they did this year was the frankie edgar stuff and i understand this that's my number one thing my number one individual grievance is frankie eager the frankie edgar the frankie edgar stuff and

i understand the side of let this man live his life the way he wants to live it but this man should not have even been on a fight poster to compete with anybody and anything besides like a grappling match or a wrestling match. And yes, Jimmy Rivera is a good fighter. And yes, he probably wouldn't have knocked Frankie out cold. But still, he would have hit Frankie Edgar a bunch and nobody wants to see that. And regardless of what really happened, Jed, both Frankie and BKFC have different stories as to why he did not fight that day. And Jed, we talk about this all the time. You know how it is in combat sports when you have two completely different stories. It's usually somewhere

in the middle. And the perception is not good for BKFC. The perception is they put Frankie on the card to sell tickets and they paid him a bunch of money to put him on this card in order to help sell tickets in New Jersey. And because they were real bad

about selecting a date, ticket sales did not go very well and in the end, the end didn't justify the means, but we can go out and call the commission thing because people didn't want to see Frankie fight anybody. Frankie's story seems to be a bit different. And again, nobody knows for sure outside of maybe four or five people.

But to me, it's probably a little of column A and a little of column B if I had to guess, which is what this is. And it could all been avoided by just not putting Frankie Edgar on a fighting card, especially BKFC. Nobody outside Frankie Edgar's circle and some folks in Tom's River were like, yay! Frankie Edgar's back and he's fighting without glass. loves. There was not one person who said that. And this is coming from somebody who was a huge

Frankie Edgar Mark. He was my favorite fighter ever before turning in the fan hat for the reporter hat. And I along with 99% of the combat sports community was like, oh no, why are you doing this? So that was bad. And we'll see how 2026 goes at this big multi-million dollar toughest SOB in the world tournament they have going on, which honestly, I think this is like a third. hat on the big giant hat and they will get they will get no better than a D plus for me based on this tournament if every they need I mean the biggest names possible for this to be big because nobody will care if it's a $10 million tournament but nobody anybody knows is fighting on it like you cannot do this this needs to be the biggest names on earth in combat sports

that you can get your hands on like Connor McGregor I'm not going to say he needs to be part of it, but like, if Mike Perry is not in this thing, like you're, you're killing it. If y'all or marrow is not in this thing, you're killing it. Like, yeah, do that. Like that's something. You need every single, get Eddie Hall's ass in there somehow. I don't care if you pay him a trillion dollars. Get him in there.

Because this whole thing is like, who is the baddest man on the planet? If that's what we're doing, get them all. Like, these are the names. Anything outside of these names? I don't know. Half the guys that were at the Buclemania press conference. I don't want to see any of those fighters on there. You need the biggest, baddest names to get people to care about this.

And as much as people care about money being given away, again, they mostly care about the personalities and names that are involved and warranted. If you did the internet invitational, gave away a million-dollar prize pool for YouTube golfers, but you didn't have Grant Horvatt and all these names that you had on there, nobody would have friggin watched it. So I'm skeptical at best heading into 2026, and I like BKFC, Jed. I asked Brian Campbell

I was one of the dudes I was like this is really fun you really need to watch it is a little barbaric but it is fun as shit and to this day BKFC 19 was the best fight week I've ever covered

it was the best coolest event I've ever been at I love BKFC's PR team I think Bertie and Ed are two of the goats in that department hopefully BKFC can bounce back because I really like

what they do most of the time I just feel like this year and then you throw in the Frankie stuff which looks shady as shit. And at least that's the perception of it. This just was a really down year for them. I just feel like they're, I feel like they cruised,

which is fun because another reason I give him a little bit of a slightly edge up and it's only a C minus is they announced this cruise that just gave my imagination is running wild about the BKFC cruise heading into 2027, Jen. I mean, the BKFC cruises. What an electric idea. I can't.

I mean, that probably should just make them an A, frankly, just without any other consideration. You nailed a lot of stuff, and so I don't need to go over it. My biggest single issue with them this year was the Frankie stuff. Left a really bad taste in your mouth seemed, you know, for as grimy as BKFC seems, right? Like, this is, these are, MMA has people who are rough around the edges. is a whole different brand of that and you know to some extent it's probably an aesthetic they're cultivating but it's also just truth of the nature of the sport but for all of that BKFC has never really felt exploitative um to me in a way that like power slap kind of feels exploitative uh BKFC has

never felt that the Frankie is one where it was like okay this is starting to feel a little grimeier and I did not care for that especially with the resolution though I am ultimately happy Frankie didn't fight so I don't think Frankie should fault the only other thing and again similarly and I recognize that this

this is me with my rose-colored glasses Connor McGregor still being a prevalent face of your company in the midst of sexual assault allegations and you know a civil suit holding him live

for such is it's not the best look that any companies ever had and I would never have expected them to cut ties with Connor certainly he's an owner they're not Dave like hey sell your shares back to me or whatever but you know maybe not putting him front and center at pressers and stuff but that's also probably just me not realizing the year we live in and how those sorts of things work these days but um you know otherwise i agree with most of your grievances i it just felt like a nothing year for bkFC in a lot of ways and kind of for all three of them broadly speaking this felt like a pretty down year for mama um and combat sports in general like the biggest combat sports stuff of the year was a boxing event arguably it was two boxing events you know

like Jake Paul Anthony Joshua and Canelo Crawford felt like the biggest fights that happened this year and so it's you know there were there were good moments across the board that knucklemania was fun that press conference for knucklemania was super long but there were like three things that I'd never heard my life uttered there that I still think about because they're jarring you know PFL had some highs the UFC you know 318 was good Ilya getting the belt was good as I'm getting another belt was good um but it it doesn't feel this feels maybe more so

than any recent year uh a year I'm just not going to think about a lot in the future like I don't know if you felt that way but I certainly felt that way going as we start our awards ballots have been submitted that those will start being um revealed in the coming days but like even going through the awards ballots this year. I was like, man, the whole year felt a little down. And I'm sure that it's a cyclical thing. You know, years will ebb and flow.

But across the board, nothing really jumped out at me, I feel as it has in other years. Yeah. Kind of, kind of strange, man. But let's hope, let's hope everybody that has a terrific year. So last thing I want to do before you get out of here,

Jed, is there another promotion, another entity that you want to shout out, whether good nor bad or bad here? I have one, but I don't know if there's anybody else that kind of stands out for you. Oh, I mean, we touched on it. I, I love the 34 days of GFL. That was, that was just a terrific, the GFL draft was, the GFL draft is destined, if you were a long, long time. I'm MMA head like I am at this point.

You'll find yourself thinking of days gone by and ridiculous things. Like the IFL rap, which half of the listeners probably don't even know what that is or what the IFL was. I think of things like that and the GFL is destined to be one of those. It's like, you guys remember where this company said they were going to pay tens of millions of dollars to the most old washed fighters you've ever seen? and they even held a draft and the draft that they held

was cartoonishly bad I pitched and was excited to cover the GFO draft because I love drafts and I love fights and I was like this will be fun and then immediately it was this AI AI Slop Fest

pre-recorded they weren't even nobody was drafted they just pretended to do a draft with clearly established teams of like all right here are 10 fighters based in Miami so we'll call them the Miami and then pretend to draft them or whatever

and then Tyron Woodley was the first overall draft pick which will never not be funny to me that will be a piece of trivia I will have in my head forever who was the first overall draft pick for the GFL draft retire and Woodley who hasn't won a fight since 2018 and then the draft show the draft was so long that they just stopped in the middle of it and they screwed it up too

like at one point in the entire draft like five minutes into it draft board early then they were like oh by the they they improperly drafted the order because they wanted to have a spot where John Jones drafted I think it was Yol Romero but instead they did it like three picks after he was supposed to do it um it was like robin black and brandon schaubb on the analyst it was just the world's biggest fiasco this was a company that had a grift an idea of a grift and an AI generated song for the

gFL and we're like this is all we need to make a fight promotion baby it was electric it was so much fun I wish like every couple of years we'd have somebody doing something insane like that because it was it was a great month I had so much fun for that month GFL keeps teasing their they're they're they're they ain't done Taryn Woodley keeps saying they they ain't done so I truly hope they're not done I hope not but I think they're done oh they're a hundred percent done they will they will never be a GFL event but I can't be done if you never started I guess but oh dude I mean I feel like they're apart they were such a big story

like if someone was like Mike what's like the 10 biggest stories that have happened since you started in May fighting I think GFL is one of them because they they weren't even GFL at first they were the weren't they like the world fighting league first weren't they WFL and then like someone tried to sue them over the letter so they had changed the GFL that sounds vaguely familiar or UFL it was something like that and they went on the MMA hour and like announced that this thing was happening and all the stuff and then we didn't hear from like a year and a half and then they come back and we have this gFL thing it was just insane the whole thing is nuts uh i will leave things with this uh

shout out to dirty boxing i actually i really like what they're doing it took a minute to get there um in terms of like the professionalism of it uh bringing in like a great ring announcer and doing all these things now there are obviously some things that are not professional but like there are some things that that sounded look better than they did before and there is some sort of like weirdness that I think they need to figure out I love the setup I love how it looks and feels when I'm watching it like it's a small town thing I don't want to see them at an NBA arena or anything like that I don't want them to do what game bread MMA was doing like where they're trying to go to Amway center where the Orlando Magic play basketball like I don't need that what game bread MMA failed to do was be the ECW of combat sports I think dirty boxing can be the ECW of combat sports like they could take that throne where they just have like the small group of crazy hardcore fans that go to all their events they make make a bunch of noise and you don't go there just for the fights you go there for the ambiance

and the experience and you want the crowd to be into it so much it's almost like they're trying to take over the show at some points and I I think Dirty Boxing can do that because they have some of the personalities that can do that with Mike Perry and even John Jones to some degree because that's the kind of the fan base you want. You want it to feel like this sort of underground crazy promotion. Watching their events is not bad at all because it goes very quickly. The pacing is always very solid.

And they are taking it on the road a little bit. I don't know, man. I think they have something here. I'm just, I hope in 2026. when we come back on the show that I have more of an understanding of what the vision of this is. Like, what are they trying to accomplish?

I still have more questions and answers about them. So far, I like what I'm seeing from them. I just don't know where it's going. And I hope this is a year where we kind of find that out, but they don't grow too quickly where they feel like they have to be

a little too big for their, for their britches. Obviously, like the Gable-Sieves thing was huge getting, getting him. over and some of the other decisions they made but uh i think they have something there i'm really interested to see what they do in 2026 i know they announced they're they're starting off at houston they've announced a bunch of fights for that and i don't maybe they're doing back in national i'm not really sure but yeah i think this is a big year for them i think this is kind of the year where like enough people are invested where they're curious so i think it's very important for them

to come out and have a big year so i like what i'm seeing next year, I would like to put them like in the mix as a promotion. Because the last time we threw Gamebred out there, they were dead five months later. Like, they would do like one or two events and then they were just gone. We haven't seen them since. So hopefully

Dirty Boxing can take that ball and run with it and be fun, Jed. Because like you said, fun is everything and I think they can be very fun. Be fun. I mean, that's why BKFC got over. It's got a gimmick and it's fun. Yep. It's got a unique slant. It's not, it's not

UFC it's different and it's fun and that's all you can ever be uh gFL was fun they weren't real but they were fun and that's half the battle if they could get real and fun then we'd be cooking with gas uh yeah karate combat was once fun oh yeah i mean karate combat's probably not going to be solvent in the next like four months so yes um can't really do them um i would like one to just do more MMA stuff. But it seems that they are really just going to transition to not really an M.A.org, which is fine. And if that's working for them business-wise, okay.

But the last few years, they have shifted so heavily away from their MMA focus. That it's tough. I'm shocked, too, because when it happened, I was like, I think the Amazon deal is going to be really big for them. Yeah, I remember that. And it didn't transpire that way. I'm sure it's been good for them, but I thought that was a real, real coup d'etat. And instead, they do every fight in the Pini Stadium and they primarily do kick sports.

So, you know, misfits boxing, or just influencer boxing writ large coming along, continues to go. You know, I wouldn't associate with Angie Tate personally, but I think, it's not the choice they made that fight was awful so they didn't gain any it was the schadenfreude me at least had some fun but like everybody who didn't watch that fight is happy that they did not watch that fight chase to more is he's uniquely bad at fighting but he won so he is a hero to many he he won it i think chase d'more might have the record for worst fighter of all time given his general athleticism

and this is ostensibly like Chase Stamore looks like he's never trained a day in his life and I assume he trains because he's the misfits heavyweight champion so I assume he actively works to get better and he is one of the worst fighters I have ever seen it's it's truly incredible he just wins by being big and he has had no technical advancement and he's the face of misfits boxing right now it's what a what a time to be alive what a time to be alive indeed so uh thank you all very

much we appreciate you cannot wait to be back here in 2026 to talk about the ufc and pfl and maybe Just maybe another organization will come along to get themselves in the mix. GFL, baby, let's go. That'd be awesome for our promotional festivist. So thank you. Again, stick with us. M.A.5.com. It's great website.

We have the award show coming out on Christmas Day. So stay tuned for that. We'll have our awards kind of sprinkled it on the website throughout the week. AK and I on Sunday on the podcast network here, part one of the predictions of extravaganza. And then AK and I will be back January 4th. uh for part two of the predictions extravaganza but like for 2020 26 all the buy sell questions all that uh just start submitting them we have some incredible ones already but we appreciate you thank you for listening for watching all of our programs throughout the year and obviously

we'll see you in 2026 so enjoy the rest of your holidays have a happy new year everybody and we will see you in 2026 right here on btl the best day show in MMA. Thank you all so much. Love y'all.