MMA Fighting - Coffee Talk: UFC 250 Edition - MMA Fighting

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

In the aftermath of UFC 250, MMA Fighting's Esther Lin and E. Casey Leydon are joined by The Athletic's Fernanda Prates. For this episode, José Youngs and Alex Savas react to some of the top stories in mixed martial arts. Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc Follow Esther Lin: @allelbows Follow  Fernanda Prates: @nandaprates_ 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. All right, Esther. We're ready to go. We're recording. All right. We're coughing and talking. All right. Welcome to Coffee Talk.

Thank you for joining us this Sunday after UFC 250 with the wonderful Fernanda brought this. Hello. Thank you for having me. And we are drinking, well, over here in England. California, we're drinking. I decided to treat myself this week, and I bought some Stumptown Founders blend. It's just real fancy.

And we did it to pour over. Nanda, what are you drinking? I'm drinking Mexican coffee that it looked fancy. The packaging was real pretty. That's all I can tell you about it. It tastes nice. I use the plastic thingy and a filtered thingy, and it has caffeine. So, yes.

That's all I need. Wait, but you're in Mexico City right now, right? I'm in Mexico City, yeah. Yeah, so it's just coffee. It's not Mexican coffee. It's just coffee. It's just coffee. But it's actually really good coffee.

I just wanted to sound exotic. Yeah. And you're like totally, yeah. I ruined it, yeah, yeah. Mexican coffee, like a very Mexican land from somewhere in Mexico. All right. I love Mexican coffee, by the way. I like all coffee, but especially,

South American, Central American, Mexican, you know, those are my favorite blends. I'm spoiled because Brazil has amazing coffee, but it's stronger, right? So a lot of Americans, when they go there, they have a tough time just dealing with it because we drink coffee in small cups, usually. We don't drink in the big cups because it's so strong. And everybody trying it for the first time, like, this is an espresso, like they're outraged by this situation. I'm like, this is too strong. It's offensive.

Brazilian coffee's good coffee. But I like watered down American coffee, too. I'm like U.S. They're all coffee is good coffee. I'm very democratic like that. I do love Brazilian coffee. And my favorite thing when we were traveling to Brazil for events was having a little bit of Brazilian coffee

and then a little bit of the flan. Oh, the pujing. Puging, yes. Yeah, it's like better than a flan, but okay. I like coffee in Brazil because it's always those little tiny cups. I hate the cups. I hate the cups. It's ridiculous.

They're so tiny. Like, what are you trying to accomplish? I don't understand it. It's culture, I guess. But I will defend my coffee in the big cup. But I do the Brazilian coffee in the big cup. So it's a lot of caffeine. So this is why I am the way I am.

That's the short explanation. Too much caffeine. Got it. Yeah, among other things. Well, thank you so much for joining us on this day after the fights to discuss Amanda Nunes' successful defense of her featherweight title against Felicia Spencer, among a bunch of other action at UFC 250 really quickly. Let me just get your first impressions of what happened last night. Oh, man, I'm still getting over Amanda. Like, that's the thing, right?

So Amanda Nunes goes and does exactly what we thought she was going to do. Some people pick Felicia because some people will always speak like that. But everybody just sort of knew what was going to happen. And dude, she did exactly what we were expecting her to do. She was every bit as dominant as we were expecting her to be. And then she leaves that outstanding performance, defends the featherweight belt, becomes the first USC fighter to defend both belts while being simultaneously.

Multini Champini, yada, yada. And the first thought is like, what next? I think everybody was just like, you go from, I am in awe of this performance to we have a problem in our hands with Amanda Nunes. That was my immediate reaction to it just because she's just so insanely dominant. At O'AWS of where we can go with her at this point. Where do you go? Because, you know, if you go to the UFC website and you look up the featherweight rankings,

there's nothing there. It's blank. Like Megan? Like, Megan lost to Felicia. Yep. So, okay, she's on a streak now. She won two in a row, I think, right?

She won the same event that Alicia got her title shot. And who really is interested in that fight? No offense to Megan, but like seeing how Amanda Nunes looked against somebody who beat, you know, I know MMA math is not exactly accurate. It sounds make fights, yada, yada. We can go over this forever. But just it's not an intriguing fight. And then you go back to Bentonway, you have a couple of girls.

We have Irene, right? Irene Aldana. You have Aspen Led. But do they look ready for Amanda Muniz. One of their careers? It's just such a weird spot for her to be in. I don't think it matters if they're ready. That's kind of, to me, if Amanda is so far ahead of the pack right now, that's just how it is.

It's like we're kind of entering that Anderson Silva when Anderson Silva was on his run. I was like, okay, Anderson Silva versus Patrick Cote, you know. And it happened and, you know, MMA didn't die. The UFC didn't go out of business. Anderson Silver was still Anderson Silva. But this is just part of the process of being a dominant champion. And like when you're in the era, I don't think it's that exciting. It's more maybe a few years from now when we kind of look at it.

But in the actual moment, it's just like, oh, you know, it's like, oh, she's really good. Yeah, you know, for a long time I was very hesitant to call her the greatest woman fighter of all time because she had a very rough start to her career in a sense. She won a lot but also had some very high profile losses. However, just how much she's improved over time is really a testament to her skill and drive and what makes a champion and all that stuff. But so now I'm like, oh, now she can be called. not that beating Felicia Spencer made her the best ever,

but it's like the fact that she does it so dominantly. And the fact that we have all this feeling afterwards of like, I don't know who she should face next because I can't imagine anybody even presenting her a challenge. And that's part of the mythology of a great fighter. So I think in some sense, as Casey, you're right. Like it does, this is just how it is going to be.

When you imagine a dominant champ and you try to think of people who could fight them. The whole point is that you can't think of any challengers. But for a long time, yeah, I am one of those people that picked Felicia, mostly just because I really probably always took the other dog. And I thought if anybody was going to do anything, maybe it would have to be somebody who's an excellent grappler. But she didn't even get to grapple very much.

She tried to. She tried to, but she was on the bottom the whole time. and she really had nothing. That was the size too, right? I would take that into account as well. Like Amanda hasn't really fought many women who really had the size of Felicia, right? So I think that really, yeah. A true feather weight, essentially.

Yeah. Felicia could not cut down to bantam weight. She couldn't be abandtom weight. So in that sense, I was like, oh, be nice to see. Because so many times, especially in women's divisions, you end up fighting one or two divisions above where you would fight because there just aren't enough people out there to fight. And I would say, because at some point someone's going to say it's because there aren't enough

good female fighters and that's not true, it's because there's not enough money in it. And if there's not enough money in it, there's not enough athletes to go and move into it. So Amanda's not going to get the kind of like huge competition until more fighters feel or more athletes feel like this is something that they could get into to make more money and to enter. because right now if you're Amanda's size and you are just that athletic and that talented, why wouldn't you go play a different sport that is just so much more lucrative? Yeah. I mean, I think for women, MMA ends up being a more lucrative alternative than other things in a way.

Like you get that complaint right from, especially boxers, right? Women boxers make that case for how it's different. how in MMA the female fighters actually get paid better than they do for the most part. But still, like you said, there's not money. And there's, I mean, there's not, I feel like it's changing, but they're not as encouraged. I think a lot of people, like you said, just really go back to the argument. There aren't enough of them. And while we know that we may not be seen enough of them, A, and B, there just isn't, you know, enough encouragement for there to be more of them.

I just think that in Amanda's case, there's like, I agree with what you said, Casey. I just think that it's part of the cruelty of people in her position like he was Anderson because what people use, well, there were the doping violations now. But like before what a lot of people we used to sort of discredit him in the greatest of all time conversation was like, oh, but the level of the competition because you had like GSP fighting the division, like going twice over a very stack division and you had Joan Jones. fighting also the top of his division, and then you had Anderson with not such strong competition,

but then at the same time, I agree with you, what are you going to do? I just think that the difference with Amanda is, even with Anderson, you had sort of like, or GSP or Joan Jones, dangling carrots of legacy. Like, with Joan Jones, we're always talking about how the heavyweight situation, right? Like, when he's done here, he can go to heavyweight and test himself. Anderson did the 205 fights, and we had always those conversations about superiors,

fights involving Anderson. Same with GSP. The GSP Anderson fight was something who, even if it was delirious, like those were talks that we could have that were ways that we could add to those people legacies. And then when we go to a man, like, what's there? The biggest fight was already made. And it was her and Chris. So you have a rematch that she, with a person she already starts and who's in another division. You have the trilogy with Alentina Chavchenko, who she beat twice or a boxify with Clarissa shoots, which I'm not the person to really entertain those conversations. But in Amanda Nunes's case, I will because like, what are the options? So it's just cruel, I think, a little bit her position because it's really not her fault at all. She's

dominating two divisions. What else can she do? But it's just one of those situations where like, okay, how can we add to this legacy? And there's just nothing there. It's so strange. Yeah, it's true. It isn't her fault. We have to go out and find new challenges for her. And this isn't to say nobody was a challenge. It's just that there, like everyone always says, there are levels to this game, right? She's just

so much farther ahead right now. Just like when Rhonda first emerged, she seemed so much further ahead than everyone else. And that's also what happens when you just don't have a very long history to go through yet. So over time, of course, there will be more competition, things like that. But for right now,

Amanda Nunes is a dominant champ and we don't have any idea of what to do next. What do you think about? Actually, I think we're at that time when we go back in time when Anderson fought when Anderson fought Chris Widman. I mean, we covered that fight, Esther.

And everyone's like, okay, well, Chris Whiteman, he earned his shot. But at that point, but the selling point of that fight was he's going to lose eventually. You don't want to miss the time when he eventually loses. Like when Mike Tyson lost the Buster Douglas, it was at that point, Mike Tyson was unbeatable. And that was really a throwaway fight.

No one really thought of that fight as a significant Mike Tyson defense. But then he lost that fight. So I feel like we're in that era with Manda Nunes. I think you do have the Adonnas, you have the Aspen Ladd, you have the Megan Andersons, in the sense that, yeah, they're going to be heavy underdogs, but it's MMA. It's combat sports. Like at some point, you just pay your money because you don't want to miss that one time that she does lose? Or, you know, does that make sense? And if she doesn't, you don't want to miss another spectacular performance.

I mean, people still, like, for a long time, people still tune into, you know, Floyd Mayweather's last six fights, even though he was favored to win all of them. Because you never know and you just want to see if it happens. But also, at the same time, you want to see somebody masterful doing their craft. And that was actually one of the key points I thought I took away from Amanda's fight last night was that she looked really good. You know, she was really, she hit her stride. She started just mixing up her strikes even more. And the fact that she easily lasted, you know, five rounds while being a feather, you know,

while fighting a featherweight. And when you're heavier, obviously, you don't necessarily have the same amount of energy you would have when you, you know, cut down to your normal weight or you've been dieting throughout the camp and things like that. So it was a lot of things that just really impress me about Amanda and that she shored up all of the problems that she had earlier, all of the holes in her game from earlier. And so even though people don't want to see,

or Dana, White doesn't want to see a third fight with Valentina Shepchenko. And I'm not really, I still want to do it because. I don't care. Yeah, they lost twice. I don't care. care. It's like the two most dominant athletes in all women's divisions right now. And they fought before. Of course I want to see it. Yeah, you want to see it. It doesn't matter. The reason why those fights were so contentious before is because they are so closely matched. And that's what happens

when you get a fight where both fighters are so good. It's going to create what seems like just like an impasse, you know, because they were both the both fights were so, so close. But that also is why I want watch it because I want to see it again. I want to see if there's been any kind of change in that very, you know, close level that they've been at for so long. I think of like just regular sports, you have a best of seven, you know,

when two teams are that good and I feel like they're that close, like, yeah, so Amanda's up too oh, but there's still more. You know, it's like, they weren't like you watched, if you watch both those fights, you don't walk away thinking, oh, there's no

way in the world, Valentino, whatever beat this lady. You just go, okay, Amanda won those two times. Let's see what happens the third time. I just... Yeah. And again, we have to go with, like, reality and what makes sense and what we have availed.

But at the same time, because I actually wrote a full column explaining, that was before it was after Amanda B.JDR. I wrote a full column explaining why the trilogy makes all the sense. Go away haters. It went all sorts of ways in the comment section, I'll tell you that. But because I really do feel like this is a fight that makes the most sense.

And at the same time, I felt like a giant hypocrite because I'm the first person to be like, oh, the contenders in the divisions, it's not their fault, that the champion is super dominant. They've been working at it, give them their shots. And then I'm like, no, let's have a man in the fight clearance to shoot. It's all unfair. Of course, Irene Lowe, and Aspen-Lead deserves shots.

And just because I deem them unready, it doesn't mean that they aren't. But it's just the kind of, like, power I think, that Amanda has in the conversation, right? I would love to see her fight Cloresa Shields, though, because I... In boxing, right? We're talking boxing. Yes, in boxing. Because that is the part that I've seen Amanda improve, you know, so greatly, is that she was already a very good striker. And her hands have gotten so much better.

And also because that's how she's going to get the big payday. And I want her to get her big payday. You know, she's about to have a child. And I really want to just, I want, like, her to have this wonderful big success story because it really just still bothers me that she's not a giant star. You know, I was like, I don't know how one fighter can be so dominant and really just perform so well over the last, like, five years. and not have more of a push behind her and be such a unique person and has such a unique life.

And I love, I mean, it's a commercial and it's cheesy, but her Modelo commercial is great. You know, like, I just want more of that for her. I want success for these women. I think that the ship's sort of sailed on superstardom for Amanda, in my opinion. Like, I think there's a lot that goes into it. And we've had these conversations a lot with, like, the way, women are marketed, you know, and just not a story alone is enough to push it. Amanda Nunes herself is not a big media personality, right?

She's not going out there doing the media circuit. I don't think she particularly enjoys it. Like, she's not feasting the attention. She's kind of like Aldo in that sense, right? Like for a long time, I was like, Aldo, I wanted Aldo to be a bigger star. And then I'm like, Aldo doesn't want to be a big star. Yeah. You know, so I think with Amanda, there's a bunch of things that go

to it. So I don't, I agree with you. I would love to see her getting like tons of attention. I don't know if that's going to happen at this point anymore in terms of just crossing over to mainstream or whatever, but I would love her to at least get paid. Yes. So last night, she said she was going to take a year off. Well, take the rest of the year off. Yeah. The rest of the year off. Sorry, take the rest of the year off. And in some ways, I feel like that's fine because it kind of gives the division time to, the two divisions time to like prepare, right? Now we can have lots of contender fights. People can go on a streak because right now I think the biggest streak in

Benthamweight is two fight wins, two wins in a row. Streaks are overrated. Streaks are overrated considering how many fighters get chances off losses. Winds are overrated. But yeah, go on. But at the same time, I feel like if you're going to compete with Amanda, you really need to show a variety of skill sets. in your wins, you know, and a variety

of wins over a variety of opponents and a variety of like, uh, my brain just melted. Sorry. Uh, just there hasn't. A variety of, a variety of mixing the martial arts. Yeah, well, no, because we said, well, roundedness. Well, roundness. Because, you know, we were saying like,

we don't know if Aspen Lad's ready. Yeah, because her, her last major loss was Jermaine. Who lost to Amanda Nunes. And I know a man, MMMA math isn't straight. That's the, Stop it. Still, she probably would have lost it. That's how I feel about it. Esther? COVID and hot.

Love it. Fight me. Love it. Loving the attitude. But I still, this thing is like, so when she comes back next year, even if we don't think any of these contenders are ready, I still want to see her fight them because I want to. I think part of the is, you know, when we see a dominant fighter fighting someone who you don't think is good enough. Part of it is seeing them dominate someone else, right? You want to see that.

And that's what we'll add to her legacy or whatever. And it is actually okay that she doesn't want to be famous or bigger or whatever. But I do feel like she probably does want to secure a future for her family. So, you know, I want to see her get all the opportunities that she deserves. Yeah, I don't really see. Sorry. Like what Casey said, like Chris Wyman had to had a chance to beat the guy who beat Anderson and Sylva and it's only fair that these girls coming up have the chance to be what Chris Weyman was. Yes. That's why you do this.

That's why you go through the regional circuit. That's why you go to the contender series. That's why you go to the prelims to earn that chance to get your ass kicked. That's what you're doing. You have earned that chance to take a full-on ass open from Anna Nunes. And it takes years to get there. But that's what and taking that away from the Adonnas, the lads, the McGee & Anderson's, that's not what the sport is. they've earned that shot to get their butt kicked.

So when Amanda Nunes is ready to come back, no, kicks the butt. Yeah. Yeah. Which actually just brings me back to another thing about last night is a lot of people felt like the fight should have been stopped earlier, like right after the fourth round. And there is an argument for that considering that Felicia probably wasn't,

there was no way she was going to pull out a Hail Mary submission and win in the fifth round. But I also think about the kind of punishment that Chase Hooper took earlier in the night and how that fight wasn't stopped. And just over the last few weeks, And Felicia was present the entire time. She, you know, obviously didn't guard very intelligently at some points when she was just kind of running. But she's also running. So that is actually kind of intelligent just to get away from Amanda Nunes.

But like it's, I didn't like that discussion. That was probably one of the things that last night of a lot of people were just saying. I was like, I think you're just saying that because they're women. I actually think that Felicia's fine. She's super tough. and well, women are super tough and also I think that she just she wanted to keep going

and even when you in the corner when they're like, are you okay to continue? She's like, yeah, you know? And it was very clear. She was very clear-eyed when she said it. She didn't look like she was in pain. She didn't look like she was struggling with the, it was really different from the between the rounds

when you saw Raquel Pennington in her, yeah, in her in between rounds when she was facing Amanda Nisbergh, Pettington looked defeated. You know, she looked like she was like, I'm trying everything I can and I just, I don't want to do this anymore. Whereas when you saw Felicia, she was like,

okay, I lost that round, but let's try again, you know? Oh man, the end of the fourth round when she was essentially like, if she wanted to quit at that point, that was her way out, right? Yeah. That's when you tap and then you're like, I don't need a fifth round of the situation. I am sort of I always have a tough time with a corner stoppage discussion

because it's such a it's so layered right I think it's very easy for us to like look at it and be like oh they were not intelligently defending themselves versus they were like there's a lot that goes into that intelligently carries a lot of weight in that sentence

it does a lot of the heavy lifting for that sentence so it's in that small detail that I think a lot of people get lost I understand people think well, there's nothing else that she's going to produce in terms of offense and it's clear, so let's get her out of there. But at the same time, I agree with you that, you know, how unpopular this opinion is, right? Remember when Aspen let's try to even give out the idea that women might be treated differently,

that she was received with such strong backlash. But I do agree that people, I think that people have my bigger, they're more sensitive still to watching women take damage than they're. are to watching men take damage. And not all of it is mean and deliberate. It's kind of like the society that we'll live in. We all know that we have to sort of untrained our eyes and brains to certain sides. So I agree with you.

There's some of that. And I agree that she was still in the fight. It was stuff to watch. But I don't think that it's an egregious situation. I think like Thomas Gifford was an egregious situation. I think Anthony Smith was really like a clear-cut situation with Felicia. I understand the fight going on as long as it did. I don't think there was any crime committed there.

Yes, especially with Anthony Smith telling, you know, handing his tooth over to the ref. I feel like that's kind of an indication that. Anthony Smith, Tony Ferguson, like, Gifford, like, all those guys, they went, they, they went, they got a medevac, went straight to the hospital. Felicia Spencer was just bruised up and beat up. Like, we just, we wanted it stopped because, not because of Felicia Spencer, it's just because we saw no path. the victory. Yeah, for our own comfort. Yeah, it was just for our own.

We're like, okay, it's late. We got to go. We know the results, you know? So I think that's just what it was. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I didn't see a controversy at all. I was kind of surprised.

And I also kind of reminds me back of, whenever I think about this, I always think about Misha versus Katsingano. You know, Misha Tate was winning that fight and then Katsi Gano came back in the third round. You know, was it third or second? I can't remember. Anyway, when she smashes her nose. and the fight gets stopped pretty closely after that

and Misha was just so pissed afterwards you know after in the press conference all of it she was just like it's just blood you know and she was so mad that she didn't get the chance to keep going

because she's like I was fine it's just blood I was fine we had a similar situation in Ballotaur it was a small fight so not a lot of people paid attention but Brooke Mayo when she fought Vita Artiaga

when her head yeah we were like She could see out of the eye, right? And then it was literally just a hematoma, nothing was broken. So what she was so pissed about was that the doctor barely looked at her and said, you're done. And just weeks before, Mitrioni had fought through an entire fight with that giant-ass high.

So it's like, it's hard to even measure the impact that it has on the car. Right? Because it's so hard to come up with numbers. Because I remember when that conversation started, people were like, so how many women fights were stopped prematurely versus, those are not hard numbers that we can just access. Like, there's so much that goes into it. But that's really when my feminist brain

comes in conflict with my worst brain because I want all fights to be stopped before it gets really ugly for my own comfort because it's like I'm not the one Lizzie have my paycheck I'm not the one who trained for three months but I'm uncomfortable as a viewer but at the same time I'm like girls break the glass ceiling

you have every right to break every bone in your face and have to eat through a straw for two months I'm not sure who the ref was, but that's why I think that Wiley versus Yowna was such a legendary fight, not just for mixed martial arts, but for women's MMA, because we always, I always kind of say, the girl stoppage. It was a girl stoppage. And like, say the Brooke Mayo, she had like a little hematoma. Yowana had that for like four rounds, and they let her, they let her fight. And it was an amazing fight. And, yeah, so that's, I think that's why. that fight was

broke that glass ceiling in a sense that oh we got wrong that fight we can see women get their ass kicked yeah women were yeah true

like that because that became even when we just did our survey like I there was recently biased but we asked fighters to pick their biggest their favorite

fight of all time and Yuan and Yili Jung won out of all the fights yes imagine if you're like oh no she's too hurt But that was different because they were both like trading and it was sort of a close fight.

But yeah. The damage was ugly. Yeah. You know, that is an interesting paradox you're discussing, though. And this is something I fight with all the time is this idea of how the feminist part of my brain is like, yes, we do have the right to get our face is broken and, you know, and keep continuing. And at the same time, the other side of me, which has, you know, been shooting MMA for over a dozen years. and I, every time I see, every time I see anybody get hurt. I'm always like, oh, that hurt.

Like, anyone. Like, it's always, I'm always fighting that urge inside of me, like, to watch fights. I love watching their skill and their, you know, technique. And at the same time, I have a really hard time watching people get beat up. So that's not, I don't feel like that's ever going to go away. And I always, always wonder about that how all of us fans and writers and journalists, we were all kind of stuck in. this like I really like watching prize fighting and gosh beautiful violence is so beautiful but also

it's still violence. Oh yeah and we project too I think that we like a lot of these conversations that we have so passionately about safety I think a lot of it is just guilt like voyeuristic guilt that we have like no I'm okay with watching these people get need in the face and get their nose is broken but like not too broken there are limits to this okay I'm civilized Like, I think that a lot of us, I at least feel that way a lot. And I know you do too, Esther, but it's just a lot of it is just trying to, like, balance out, okay, what is legitimate concern? What is me, like, projecting stuff? Like, what is guilt?

It's such a, that's why I say it's a complicated conversation. When I wrote a story on corner stoppages, like, I went into it with the set, like, it doesn't happen enough. Please, people explain to me why you don't protect your fighters, right? And I talked to a bunch of corners. I talked to fighters. I talked to a lot of people like, and, you know, they all said, well, we have a connection with our fighters. We've trained together for, I don't know how many years.

Like, we have to trust them. We know their limits. And we know. So I don't say that they're right to not stop the fights. I'm not saying, I'm saying that it's just complicated. It's not as easy as it might look for us to go and determine. Oh, no. That should have been done that, you know.

And it's not a popular argument because. nothing that is nuanced as popular. It's easier to go just be like, oh, no, this was awful. This was wrong. This is right. This is wrong. But we have to navigate gray areas as people, as professionals in the sport, like natural. Thank you so much for bringing that up, though.

Yeah, corner stoppages are very, such a complicated thing. We don't know how to talk about because we, I think, we also just don't know how to talk about how to deal with just watching. just even to the very basic thing of somebody winning and somebody losing, you know, a fighter winning, especially by knockout, say Hafele, a Sunsao, just getting deaded yesterday. And like, the way that feels is like, it's so hard to balance. And there is so much guilt that just sheer, who, what, what admiration of what, what, Gaurbrand did, right? Just like that punch, the faint, all of that stuff.

And then, but then you look over at Hafele-San-Sau, and it's very hard not to see him struggling to get on the stool. You know, all of those things. When I'm, one of the things that I miss a lot about shooting Caged Side is being closer to that feeling. You know, when I'm watching on TV, I feel like I'm a little further from that empathy. And I, I, I, I don't, because a lot of times what happens is that when I'm at a fight, a lot of times those knockouts happen right in front of me.

And it's, you can, I have that conflict in me as I'm shooting. You know, I'm like taking pictures. I'm like, how much, how many photos do I need if somebody laying on the ground unconscious? How many photos do I need of somebody cheering? And is there too much of it? Is there, is it too exploitative if I keep taking photos of this guy laying on the ground? And that's a kind of a constant feeling. And I don't know, how do you deal with that conflict? That's the big question for me. It's interesting to me to hear you talking about how that translates to your work. Because in mine, like, I do the same thing with the writing. Like, even the smallest words that I'm using in a sentence, I'm trying to be respectful of the person

because it's very easy to sensationalize and talk about how amazing it was that Cody starched as well so and then you're like okay but this person that got starched like am i do i want to use that term like do i want to talk about it like this you know and you have to sort of when you ask how to deal like we don't right we just we just do our jobs and we go and sometimes it hurts more than other times but generally like you have to have some level of okay i can't overthink this otherwise you're not going to function but balance that we have been aware and sympathetic at least it's what I try to do is think of it this way. Like, okay, I'm just going to honor this person's story when it's an interview.

I'm just going to, you know, focus on all the nice and the good aspects of it all. Or try to, like, at least in my phrasing, show some, be sensitive, I guess, it's the word to the other side. Because there is a huge conflict, like you said. Like, remember when Jessica Andrade beat Rose, Namayunez, like the way that happened? It was just, and you had in one side, Jessica Andrade, who, dude, she became champion. She really deserved that chance. And it was such a beautiful moment for her to get that in Rio. And, you know, that's gorgeous.

And you have that, you're happy for her. Then you have rose on the ground in a position that was so scary that we all, like, sort of just held our breath for like 10 seconds before we knew that she was okay. And to lose like that. So I don't, honestly, I don't know how I deal. I just do. And some days I'm like, what the fuck am I do? with my life. And other days, I'm like, oh, this is a beautiful sport.

And, you know, somebody's got to do it. So at least I get to write about it in a way that I at least try to honor what these people go. Yeah. I really, actually, thank you. I'm glad that this conversation took this turn because, you know, whenever we're discussing, like, oh, what are we going to talk about on coffee talk? And I think, let's go, you know, let's recap the event.

And I'm like, I'm really not a recap the event kind of person, you know, just because that's not an anonymous. I'm not a fight analyst. This is not my job. But what I, you know, what has been our job throughout this entire period of time is to tell stories and is to relay what we see and what we're, you know, experiencing in the most respectful and honest way possible, you know. And I think that when I look back at the card and I think of just like certain moments, I think of like Eddie Wyneland laying there with his mustache like flapping in the wind from, from, from like the impact of him falling on the ground,

his head hitting ground. Like all, there's so many things. There's so many images that are both simultaneously, uh, super frightening, super violent, but also beautiful because they are just so,

they were so technically, um, execute, well, sound and so well executed. There's so many things that they're, I feel like maybe, I want to kind of delve into this now.

I was just like, do we love, watching fighting because it is this huge conflict. Because I feel like, pardon if you don't feel this way, but I feel like we're kind of masochists. You know, we definitely punish ourselves and we definitely try to get into things, I feel like that kind of like put guilt in our brains.

But we're not, we're kind of punishing ourselves. We're enjoying this thing that's like painful, but or maybe we're also sadistic, right? So painful to people who are, you know, but also beautiful, technical, skilled, martial arts but also just really violent sometimes we love brawls there's just so many things that kind of pack into this thing um why are we doing this are we sick is there something wrong with us oh yeah yeah we're all sick fucks all right next topic

sick fucks what are we doing of our lives is that's one way yeah that's the conclusion that i come to like most days some some days yeah yeah the good when I'm in my right mind. Yeah, it's strange. I asked myself that too. You know, like, when I first started enjoying the sport, it was so random for me. Like, I had no connection to sports.

I had no connection to anything. Like, that was not a path that I would have ever imagined for myself. And it's been my career for 10 years now. So it's like, and I didn't, just something really drew me to it. And it was, it never happened in my life. I'm usually like a very skis. skeptical and very pragmatic person, you know, like I don't, this is not, I rationalize things a lot. And this I didn't, I couldn't rationalize. Like, I was just very enamored with MMA.

And over the, and at first it was really the action. And over the years, I started really, I think it was more of a voyeuristic thing, really. And just the fighters, like, they're, it's such a complex person. a professional fighter, right? And for anybody who like us, like, who tells stories, you have to really appreciate that because you have these people who

go through, like, they face these insane situations, like, what type of person just like voluntarily walks out in front of this crowd and gets into a cage? The whole thing is just insane. And you have to have something in your brain, something that makes you a little different

to be able to do it. That's my belief. And even though of like in that say that in the night as nicest way like i'm not saying that you have to be crazy i mean i think you have to be crazy to be a journalist like it's just a stupid profession but stupid uh but talk about being a masochist but like so that to me is like just the fighters and the athletes to me are why i love the sports and that is also what causes me the type of conflict that you have because like you learn to have such an appreciation for them and to really understand how much they're putting on the line for very little.

These people have very short careers. They make very little money. And they're literally risking their lives in there. We haven't seen a tragedy and they have seen it, thankfully, and we haven't seen it in the big leagues, thankfully. But that's a lot. Those are really high stakes. To me, it's just fascinating to tell their stories.

Like, there's always something interesting. To me, even the most sort of, quote, unquote, bland of things. fighters when it comes to quotes and interviews, there's something that drew them to that. So I think that's what keeps me in the sport. It's not necessarily what drove me is what keeps me. But yes, also I'm a sick fuck. Yes. Yeah, I'm pretty much on agreement with you that while, I mean, before I knew, before I

started working in the sport, like all MMA, all UFC was, was basically, it was just, it was those VHS tapes that Blockbuster is like by the faces of death videos like just like just crazy stuff you watch but like you don't it's just like man people are insane and but but that's not what really kept me in the sport is yeah once he actually started meeting fighters and under I don't understand but just listening to their stories like why are they doing this like why are you doing this and and and there's just so many different different types of personalities and stories and just craziness and sometimes just normal see that just normal people are in this sport, like, what are you here? You're not even crazy. Like, what's crazy about you?

Tell me. You act normal. It's something that you're lying to me. So, uh, so. Uh, so. So, uh, so. Uh, something happened. Um, yeah, it's just a, yeah, it's not, yeah, the violence kind of, I, I was attracted to the violence at the beginning, but like, that doesn't keep you here for this long. There's something more. Yeah. And we're sick fucks. Yeah. We have to do sick fucks. I think that's the takeaway. Yeah. I, I know we're sick fucks because you know someone during the way in stream had asked me if I'd ever gotten blood on my face and I didn't answer right then but I was shooting a boxing outdoor boxing match and um there was very bloody and I ended up and not realizing it I because I had two cameras I had one kind of waiting on on the apron and and one that I was shooting with

the other one that was waiting on the apron had gotten doused in blood and I had no idea and so I picked up the camera and I put it up to my face and I was shooting and I was like why is my face wet? And then I put the camera down and Cynthia who was editing photos for me that night, she was my assistant. She looked at me and she just like, her face just changed.

But she immediately grabbed her phone and was like, you'll take me later. But it was like in my mind, I was like, oh, this is so gross. But at the same time, I was like, I don't want to see that photo. Yeah, I can see that.

Yeah, sick fucks all of. even though it's who looked normal like you, Esther. One thing that called my attention is similar. Well, your story is actually a lot better, but I remember I was reading, I don't even remember who wrote the story, one of the people at the Athletic, one of my co-workers. And then they wrote a story that had involved John Anick,

and John Anick was talked about how he saved a shirt that had like a blood splatter on it. And I don't even remember which fight it was, but he held it like as a trophy and it was like a prize possession. And then you look at John Enig and he seems so normal. Like, you know, like, the daughters, they're so adorable.

Exactly. Like, he looks like this like super like normal guy, like straight laced and shit. And then you, you casually talking about how he kept his shirt that way because he had blood on it. And you're like, hmm. Yeah, something's off about all of us. Like, we have to unpack certain things there. And with that,

thank you so much for joining us sick fucks on this summer morning. I'm really so, I so appreciate you taking the time for us and joining us for this. And I'm so glad I finally got to have you on Coffee Talk. Oh, God. I'm so glad people could invite me. I mean, I was just waiting. I didn't want to pressure you or anything. When is that if I got to come?

And then you got the DM. I'm like, waited five minutes because I needed to act cash. Like, I haven't been staring at my phone literally. waiting for that opportunity. Me? Oh, okay. I'll talk to my assistant, but I think I might be able to

work something out. Thanks for squeezing us into your schedule. Thank you so much. It was lovely to talk to you today. And I feel just, and this has been a super hard week for you with losing a lot of your coworkers

at the athletic. And I just wanted to reach out to you and let you know that they're all wonderful and somebody will pick them up. And if I could hire all of them, I would because I love them all. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I was just like one of my cold water curse. Y'all do such great work. I'm so, you know, it's such a relief to have something like the athletic around because because it's independent and, you know, and because you all don't have like normal access to the UFC in a way, you're able to do really deep dive stories that I very, very much appreciate and I think are missing from a lot of the report.

we do as a site that just kind of covers everything that comes our way, you know? So I appreciate it and thank you. Thank you. I mean, I feel like I don't have the right to like be sad because I am still on the team, me, Ben Folks and Shaheen, who obviously you guys worked with. But of course I'm sad. I felt like we had the dream team and then more than half of it is gone. So yeah, I'm sure they all appreciate.

I saw a lot of support that they're getting online, so this is awesome. I'm sure they'll all land on their feet that other outlets would be very lucky to have them, and hopefully we'll get a chance to work together again. But, yeah, I would hire all those sick fucks too if I had the means, but unfortunately. Maybe we'll should come up with a million-dollar idea and hire all the sick-fucks and have just like an amazing sick-fuck assembly. I don't know. That's probably the name of some.

some type of weird porn. We might have to walk around that. It's a tough time for everyone and for media. Yeah, that shit happens. But thank you so much. Hopefully, I'm still there. Hopefully, we're still going to be able to put out the type of good work we have been putting out. And more importantly, one day, I hope that we can have coffee together in person.

For sure. Thank you. Thank you. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.