MMA Fighting - DAMN! They Were Good | A Farewell To Melvin Manhoef, One Of The Greatest Action Fighters Ever

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

DAMN! They Were Good celebrates the careers of the most exciting and influential fighters in MMA history, and this episode, we are covering the career of one of the greatest action fighters of all-time, Melvin Manhoef. During his 26-year, 103-fight career, Manhoef established himself as one of combat sports' premiere knockout artists, competing in practically every major organization that has ever existed. Though he never won a major title, Manhoef delivered highlight-reel KO after highlight-reel KO, making him appointment viewing for nearly three decades. In honor of Manhoef's recent retirement, host Jed Meshew is joined by MMAFighting's Alexander K. Lee to remember the unparalleled violence that was "No Mercy." Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Follow Alexander K. Lee @AlexanderKLee Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster,

the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. To Damn, they were good. A podcast dedicated to celebrating the greatest, most exciting, most influential fighters of all time.

I am your host, as always, Dr. Jed K. Mushu, a writer for M.M.A. Fighting.com, the greatest website in the world. And today, we're getting back to our roots, because this week, we're going to talk about a legitimate legend, not just of MMA, but combat sports in general, the one, the only, the recently retired Melvin Manhoof. But before we get into all things no mercy, let me introduce you my compatriot in commemoration this week, a staple of the damn series, the king in the north, the prince of positivity himself, although maybe that title, he might be losing the latter title in recent months.

Alexander Kaylee, A.K., how you doing, my friend? I'm a little hurt that you would question my status as the Prince of Positivity. I'm very positive still. I'm positive that I recently have been disagreeing a lot, maybe, with some of the takes of my brilliant MMA-fighting colleagues. But, I mean, again, it's all love. It's all in good fun. It's definitely going to be all love today.

I have so many positive things to say about today's subject. I think we, I mean, every damn is important, but this is a really important one because, again, you know, he's freshly retired. And but I feel like where, I don't know, we reached a point where he sort of, where Mr. Melvin Manho have kind of fell into relative irrelevancy, if that's a phrase that. makes sense. And I think I worry that a lot of people were like, you know, he retired and, you know, most of the reaction was like, didn't he retire or whatever, three or four years ago? And, you know, and people are forgetting, I don't want to say importance.

Importance might be overstating it. But what a notable and enjoyable fighter he was in his prime. But again, I know we're going to get to all that. I have to ask you, Jed, is this the first, is this the first damn on a fighter who'd never won a title with a major promotion? Oh, no. Ceroon. Ceroon. But Cerooney, yeah. Yeah.

Was, did he ever win a WBC bill? No, he didn't win it. He challenged four times. He just never won it. So, Ceroni is the first in that regard. And he also feels like he's on another level of sort of, at least in North America, like mainstream notoriety then. Not in Manhattan, though.

Certainly. Yeah, okay. Yeah. And the thing, the big difference here, and we're going to get into that later a little bit, is, I mean, Soroni challenged for multiple, like, super relevant titles and technically Mannhoff did as well. But then it's the Bellator middleweight belt, which is whoof. So there's all that going on. But I will disagree with you right out of the rip. I do think that Manholt's career is important, not because of his accomplishment.

but because these are the guys who make up this sport outside of the top top and when I said earlier getting back to our roots that's what I meant because I love doing this podcast. This is my favorite thing that I get to work on. I love that I somehow have a job that they they have allowed me to do this passion project of mine. And the original concept for it, the original point when I pitched, I want to do this thing is, hey, it's about celebrating all the fighters who made us love fighting, not just champions and goats and the top of the top, those people who are in the Hall of Fame, but the other guys,

you know, the action fighters and the scrappers and the people who round out the rich pageantry of M.MA. And for over 20 years, Melvin Manhoef did that. He is, I'm not going to say he is as important as a George St. Pierre and Anderson Silva, but there is a very clear reason, for me at least, why I wanted to do a podcast where we do talk about Anderson Sullivan and Jose Aldo and those guys. But we also talk about Carlos Condit and Melvin Manhoeff and kind of this other section of fighter. Because I think Manhofe exemplifies a lot of the parts of this sport that I love. He fought everybody all the time, just didn't care any white class. and he did it for over 25 years.

And in doing so, delivered some unbelievable highlight reels. Like, that's, you can't ask for much more from a fighter. And so I do think that he's important to the overall story of MMA. Maybe, again, you know, he doesn't get his own chapter if you're writing the textbook of MMA. But the man deserves a footnote. And damn it, that's what damn is here for the footnotes. I have two very important questions for you about M&A. Melvin-Manhoof. Before we get into the categories, you know, prime the waters, the first.

What is your, what is, what was your first exposure to Melvin Manhoff? People know, I'm a pretty relatively late bloomer into MMA fandom. It got its hooks into me in the 2000s boom. But Melbourne was always a name, again, and when you're talking about, you know, the 2000s boom, you're talking a lot about the UFC. But Melvin, of course, was always a name sort of on the periphery, you know, when you're trying to catch up. People were like, oh, you see, you know, one of these guys who fought in Japan, these guys who fought, you know, outside of the USA. You know, Melvin's one of those guys, really super exciting.

And then I got to see him fight, and we're definitely going to talk about this fight more. Robbie Lawler. Robbie Lawler, of course, I was a little more familiar with. And again, as far as I knew, this was like a coin toss fight. I was like, damn, this, like, I heard a lot of good things about Melvin's. It looks pretty badass. Anyway, this happened in Miami. me. And again, I don't want to spoil it now because we're going to talk about it more, I think

very, pretty shortly. But yes, it was, it was quite the introduction to Melvin, both, both good and bad. So, yeah, but this is 2010, around 2010 when I first really, really saw it before getting to go back and go through his catalog. Okay. And I mean, that's a fantastic way to start your your velvet man of exposure for being honest. For me, I will, I again, he was a periphery guy. I am a little bit longer tenured in my MMA fandom than you. I think I got really into it in like 2004 is around like right when I was in the middle of high school. The first thing I ever remember seeing was somebody showing me a video of Antonio Rodrigo Nogera and Bob Sapp.

and I was in like 2003 I think so in like 2004 I got into it and Melvin wasn't a big deal until then but I was a forum guy I got I devolved into the forums and it's not like I was watching cage rage like that's not the thing and we're going to talk about this fight a ton coming up but the cyborg Santos fight like that was the one that hit on the forums and you were like oh this is hilarious and awesome and I don't want to I don't want to step on the toes there. But, because I have a, the thing where he really jumped out at me is a few years later, but that's also in my Mount Rushmore fight. So we'll talk about that in a second. Because the second thing, I couldn't find a way to put this in a category that did it feel incredibly forced.

So I just wanted to talk about it here because it's a very serious question. Is the name Melvin just far more badass of a name than I think I give it credit for? Because in my, in my head, right? In my head, I think of Melvin as like a John Hughes character, like the geek in the breakfast club. Like, that guy should be named Melvin. But the only actual Melvins I have any knowledge of in the real world are Melvin Manhofe, Melvin Galard, and Melvin Ingram, who's a football player. And all three of those men, I would not seek quarrel with. So honestly, this was like one of the first things it struck me as I was diving into this was like, it's just, I never thought about his name being Melvin because he's Melvin Manhoof, but is Melvin a secretly a badass name?

And I just don't know about it. Are we sure that Vin Diesel is not a Melvin? Are we sure that, no, I'm kidding. We know he is. He's a Vincent or whatever. No, no, he's not his. No, I think it's completely. His last name is Vincent, isn't it?

No, I think it's completely manufactured. It's Mark, he's Mark Sinclair, I think, just completely manufactured, just said, I want to pick two things that sound cool. Wow. Okay. He's a sub-made man. That's a whole other, I can't wait until we do our whole, I don't know. I've told Jose Youngs, we're going to get on that anything but MMA podcast and just take

once we can find a fighter. Oh, my God. Who says down the clown with the Fast and Furious series as we are. And I know they're out there. You and I, you and I, we might say, Jose, Jose, take a day off. Let us take it to this episode for you. We got this also. Lesson to all the Sean Brady's and Anthony Smith's, just pick a new name.

You don't have to be whatever your parents named. You can just be Vin Diesel because I guarantee you Mark Sinclair, he is not getting, he is not Riddick. They don't cast Mark Sinclair to be Riddick. Vin Diesel, that is a man who can spearhead a car-based franchise that makes over a billion dollars like that's change your name shan brady be more interesting and yet and yet i'm completely doing it back now it worked out for the melvans for the most part uh melvin galar certainly has had a mostly successful combat sports career that's gone on way too long and melmanhoff today i mean

again we're going to talk about just a legendary series of knockouts and badass braws and that very few can match, right? If we're just talking about accumulated violence, he might be in the top 10. I mean, we're talking about him not being like a top 10, top 20, top 30, all time great fighter. Every time,

just accumulated violence, both giving and receiving, probably in the top 10. It also helps, I think both names sound kind of cool. Like Melvin Gallard, I like. Melvin Gellard's a cool name.

And Manhuff. Manhuff. They add a lot. Yeah, if he was Melvin Johnson, I don't think we would care. about Melvin Johnson. He wouldn't be fighting.

He wouldn't be an M.A. Yeah. And it's, it was one of the first things that struck me. I was like, I kind of think of Melvin as a, as a dweeb name. But that seems like that's really stupid idea of me because I, there's no world in which I would call Melvin Man off a dweeb or geek or nerd. It is a dweeb name, but it's a dweeb name that makes you tougher. There's some names that will drag you down.

I think this is one that, yeah, it's right in that spot where like it's going to take you to another level. I have to, you know, overcome the Melvinness of my name. Do we think that that is why Melvin Manhoof became such a staple of combat sports violence because he didn't, he was trying to fight beyond his own name? If he had just been named like Anthony Manhuff, would he be, would he be a lesser fighter for it? You can't rule it out. I'm just saying, I'm not saying it's the main reason. But if you're, if you're ruling it out, you're just being a fool. That's fair. Before we hop into the categories of Doreld the snuff with an inane talk, do you have anything that you couldn't shoehorn into a category, etc., that you want to talk about

Mr. Manhuff? The only other thing I want to mention, and I was talking before, is he the first guy to not win a major title? No, we had the Sironi as well. Is he the first, and I know, again, this will factor into some category later, I'm sure. Is he the first guy to not fight in the UFC that we're doing a damn on? I would have to say, yes. He has the first. He is the first guy not to fight in the UFC that it was not that. Again, and I don't know who else we could do that's had as long a career as he's had with as many memorable moments that's never fought in the UFC. Of course, I mean, someday, you know, pit bull, pit bull frere maybe. But other than that, I don't know.

I don't know if I'm trying. There will be some. And Fador will at some point get a damn. Oh, him. If he ever retires. Oh, him. I mean, I was just thinking we'd already done that. or you guys had done an episode without me.

Maybe that's why I thought Fador had been done. But yes, I mean, that's number one. Yeah, Fador is obviously number one. I mean, there are some other people who probably in the pretty near future. There will be an episode on Magumi Fuji just because she's criminally underrated historically. But not that many. The UFC, once upon a time, there were a lot of people who hadn't fought in the UFC. and then 06, 07, 08 happened,

and suddenly everyone who's ever fought has competed in the UFC, at least for a stretch or two. So not that many, but Melvin is certainly one of them. All right, we're going to move on to our categories. We don't need to get too deep into the weeds here. If you've listened to the show before,

you know what the categories are. But before we do that, as always, I'm going to give you a very, very brief rundown of Melvin Manhoops. career. In case you, like I'm sure many people listening to this, have never watched Melvin Manhofe fight in real time unless maybe they watched a retirement bout against you, O'O. Romero, a couple weeks back. So a very brief rundown of his career. Manhove made his MMA debut in 1995. He was 18. He then almost immediately just went to kickboxing.

He returned back to MMA in 01. He then spent basically the rest of his career splitting time between MMA and kickboxing. It doesn't have a lot of those big time career highlights that a lot of the other damn subjects have had. But in 2005, he did win the Cage Rage Light Heavyweight Championship. It's a pretty solid non-major title. Michael Biss being the most famous of the former Cage Rage champions. So they shared that belt.

He defended it twice. He left the promotion, went to K-1, spent a lot of time in K-1 doing kickboxing and heroes in MMA. He's the 06 light heavyweight Grand Prix runner up. He popped over to Dream. He's the 08 middleweight grand prix semi-finalist. He signed with Bellator in 2014, and he spent the rest of his MMA career there. He did challenge for the middleweight title twice, which we will talk about.

And that's really kind of the highlights for his career in that regard. Overall, in a career that span 1995 to 2022, that's 27 years. Did I do that math right, AK? Pretty sure I did. In 27... Yes. 27-year combat sports career. He has an overall MMA record of 32-16 and 1 with 2-0 contest, 29 KOs,

and an overall kickboxing record of 38 and 14 with 27 chaos. That means all totaled in 27 years of fist-fighting people, 103 fights, 70 wins, 30 losses, one draw, two-no contests, and 56 of those fights, he knocked the dude out in. By any measure, to your point earlier, AK, cumulative violence, there aren't many who are going to have more cumulative violence than that. So, that's the career in a nutshell of Melvin Manhoof, but let's get to the nitty-gritty. Let's talk about the real things.

The reason you're here and the reason this podcast exists, the categories. again, if it's your first time, you never heard them, you'll catch up. But the first category is always the most important category. It's the one we're going to spend the most time on. And I'm interested in this. We were talking before the show. I think we're going to have a lot of overlap. I don't think that's necessarily has to because obviously, Manofe has a huge career,

a hundred fights, so you can pick a lot. There are some things that are real clear high water marks that stand out. I know I am confident, too, of our. will be the same. Yes. I also just have a list of runners-up and other things I'd like to talk about in this category, but I am interested to see if we have even more than two that are the same. So I'm going to kick us off with one, and then I'll throw one back to you,

because I'm certain that this fight is on yours. All right. I think it is maybe not the defining moment of his career, but it is the defining moment of his career for me and my relationship to him. it is his knockout of Mark Hunt at Fields Dynamite 2008. I'm almost certain this is on your list. Can you confirm that, though? Correct.

The very first item on there, Fields Dynamite 2008, December 31st of that year, Saitama, Japan. And it was, what, 18 seconds, officially? Yeah, something like that. Yeah, something like that. It's all on YouTube, the whole thing's on YouTube. Go find it. It's there. All magical 18 seconds of that fight.

On TikTok. Probably there's a tweak. Gravaca Hitman probably has his tweet. Kaposa is out there with a tweet. You can watch it in tweet form. There's no reason not to check this out if for some reason you haven't seen it on a on a MMA highlight reel on a weird world of sports ESPN thing. I don't know.

Like this is like this clip has been everywhere. It is shocking. It is shocking in retrospect. I didn't watch a live obviously. I imagine it was somewhat shocking at the time. It was incredibly shocking at the time. Mark Hunt, of course. course at that point had not been knocked out. I mean, this was only the 10th fight of his career,

but had not been knocked out. I mean, he's, he'd been submitted. He's kind of similar to Melvin in that way, at least at the time, there was the idea that, oh, you get him to the ground and you can, you know, you're just going to submit him. It's not a big deal. He has no ground game. And later on, he developed at least some, you know, idea of submission defense. But early on, yeah, he could be submitted. But he could not be knocked out. This man could not be knocked out. He was in there with Vanderlae. He's in there with Crowe Cop. He took a flush headkick from crow cop. Peak of right leg hospital, left leg cemetery,

Crowcock took a flush shin to the dome, couldn't knock him out. And this is prime, possibly chemically enhanced crowcop. Again, I'm not, I don't mean to cast aspersions. I just, you know, talking about pride in its heyday. Prime pride, baby. Prime pride. Yeah. So Melvin is not a heavyweight by the,

way, I mean, Melvin has competed at light heavyweight, but I mean, even that's a stretch. You look at Melvin, he's not the biggest guy. I mean, Mark Hunt's not a super tall guy either, but he is a, you know, definitively a heavyweight. So this is, this really was a natural 185er knocking out a heavyweight again, who had not been knocked out, had not been knocked out up to that point and would not be knocked out again for another four and a half years. I know there's a smattering of knockouts on Hunt's record once he got to the UFC, but before that, again, it was only.

only Melvin Manhoops. So when people talk about the legendary knockout power of Melvin and being able to knock out anyone, this is the one they point to. He literally made history, which was impressive at the time and even more so looking back on it. Yes, this is the fight where Melvin Manhoff's entire aura became entrenched and established. Because I won't pretend that I watched this live. It was happening in Japan. It happened overnight for me functionally. But this was, it's hard for me to say the peak of my MMA fandom since, you know, I like work in the industry or whatever, but I was deeply, deeply invested in this sport, but at this point.

And this was back in the days when I would listen to all the shared-dog radio network stuff. And they used to do post-fight, you know, similar to how MMAfighting.com best website in the world does post shows. They would do that. They also just had weekly shows. on their radio network. And I can't remember if there was, I want to say they did a dynamite post show, but it may have just been like the Jordan Breed show that Tuesday or whatever.

But I distinctly remember waking up and seeing that this happened and thinking, this can't be possible. Like something had to, something happened. Like it was an injury or whatever looking at the result. Early stoppage. Early stoppage. Yeah. Early stoppage.

Because going in, the whole point of it was, man who has no way to win. He can't take down and submit Mark Hunt. Honestly, Mark Hunt is just so big. Like, that would be more like he can't, what's he going to do, knock him out? Like, he's not going to knock Mark Hunt out. And then for this to happen. And this line has stuck with me for as long as I have been a fan, however many years it's been since then.

I mean, oh, wait, so what's that? 15 years functionally. So in the 15 years, this line has always stuck in my head, Jordan Breen, and I think it was a post show as I'm remembering it. Jordan Breen is just flabbergasted that this happens. And I don't remember who he is talking to, whether it was savage or whatever at the time. And he just says, I didn't think this was possible. Like, I don't, I just, who, who can he knock out?

Like, now I just want to see whom other men can physically knock out. like, put him in there with a horse. Can he knock out a rhino? Is that like a thing that could happen? And I was like, because that is how ridiculous it was. It was like, he knocked out Mark Hunt. Could this man physically punch a horse into unconsciousness? And so this is, like I said earlier, the first time I ever was introduced was the forums

and the Santos fight. But this was the fight that I, oh, okay, well, Melvinanof is now a going, concern in my life because if you can knock out mark hunt like this you you are somebody that i need to stand up and pay attention to every time you fight moving on so clear number one for me glad he i knew he'd be but i'm glad he's that's on your list can you love give me your second one i will know i will say i love that between him and hunt 80 pro fights not one submission win not even an accident so knock the guy down and kind of like the guy rolls into his front. Oh, no, because then they were just kind of,

the-submission had amazingly accurate follow-up strikes. If anyone watched, like, a lot of his knockouts, a lot of it is the first shot, like, cracks the guy, and, like, the follow-up shot almost always lands, like, right on the button and just devastates the opponent even further. So he was, I don't want to agree, yeah. I was just so we're clear. Mark Hunt at least tried.

I am honestly, I won't pretend that I went and watched all 100. of Melvin's fights. I watched several coming back. I watched a bunch of them, but I didn't watch all of those. But Mark Hunt did at least one time try to Americana Fador. That's one time he tried to do that. So he made an effort. I love that.

Mark Hunt, I cannot wait until we give him his damn because he's definitely getting one. He's for sure getting a damn. It's really a companion piece almost to this to this Melvin. There's actually a lot of fighters we're going to mention. I feel like today in the Melvin chat that will be. probably end up getting a dam. I can't really like three or four. And I will say, I feel bad for Jordan Green because he probably did not get his wish

after of like, oh, who can we put him up next? Then in a bit of almost like UFC mishandling, he fought Paulo Philo next. So this wasn't in, this was I think for a different promotion. He fought. Yeah, Paulo Philo next, a very good submission guy. Like, how dare you? How dare you dream? Why would you book that?

And then, but then, when was this? And then, oh, back in Dynamite, they're like, no, here's Kaz Musaki, a guy who to that point had also never been knocked out cleanly. There was a broken arm, just looking at his record. There was a broken arm way, way early in his career. And it wasn't until 2009 when he ran into Melbourne that he was actually finished with strikes. And the guy only has three losses by a knockout in his career. And of course, Melvin was one of them. So there you go.

I think Jordan Breen did get his wish eventually. Also, just so we're clear about Kaz because Kaz doesn't get enough of, it's not like he, a bunch of canes didn't get knocked out. I mean, man fought Dan Henderson. Granted, this was maybe before Dan Henderson really became H-bom-tho and Hindo, but he fought some real hitters and never got stopped. Twice. Fought Hendo twice, my God.

Phil Barone, the best ever. The best ever. Did not, did not get to. Phil Barone. Did not get knocked out by me. But, yeah. Sadly, I don't think they ever made, like, a Spike TV show just watching Melvin Man of Punch Animals for.

you know, well, probably a lot of reasons that that show didn't do me. I would certainly hope not. But like, I, that line is just always stuck with me. So it's like, I don't know, can you knock out a horse? What about a rhino? Is that like, what, where does this stop? A.K., give me your second. Yeah, this is the other one that's automatic.

You mentioned already. The cyborg Santos fight their first meeting, K-Trade 15, February 4th, 2006 in London. This was for, again, it's kind of, you know, we're talking like he's never won a major title, but he was the K's race champion. This was Melvin's first title defense, I believe.

And it is, again, guys, this is on YouTube. There's a couple of different uploads, but I think no matter which one you find, you're going to get the whole fight. It is just, what, eight, nine minutes of pure chaos. It's exactly what you would expect, given the characters involved, you think they're going to come out swinging. They certainly do in round one, just throwing bombs, leaving literally nothing left.

This is leaving nothing left in the, after the first round. And by the- And by the end, it is one of the great, neither guy has a damn thing left endings. Their arms are just deadweights. And it's whoever falls down is not getting back up, whether they trip, whether it's because of a takedown. they're just not getting back up. Like Melvin, after he gets the knockout, he falls back. He almost was like he's the one who got knocked unconscious.

He is actually in the worst shape. The subwork is immediately kind of complaining like, no, no, I'm going to get back up. He gets up. He gets up, but immediately, the whole thing is insane. If you haven't watched it, watch Mark Hunt because it will literally take you 10 seconds to find that video and watch the K.O. and it's wild. But if you have nothing, like, if you do nothing else today when you were listening to this, the only thing I ask of you, dear listener, is to go find this and spend 10 minutes of your life

watching this fight. Because it is the note I wrote down, one of entirely dead serious, unironically, one of my favorite MMA fights of all time is Kimbo Slice versus Dada. Because it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen in a cage. and it is there's certainly some of that is a touch tongue and cheek of laughing at the thing that's ridiculous

but also you're watching two dudes who have nothing left to give giving literally all of themselves to the point that Dada like dies in the ring or whatever and then gets resuscitated you are watching that aspect of fighting and there is something moving

and poignant and special about it this fight Man Hove Cyborg is like like the platonic ideal of Kimbo Dada. It is like taking Kimbo Dada to a better, happier place. Because you are absolutely correct. They have nothing left to offer. And the part that is so funny is that at the end of it,

when Cyborg has fallen over or gotten knocked out, I don't honestly know exactly what happened. I can't entirely tell if he really got hurt or if he just collapsed. manhove rolls over and he's like not moving he's just done the ref is intervened and called it he's not moving cyborg gets up like he gets onto his knees and it looks like he's like padding manhuff's chest being like hey hell of a battle but then the ref grabs him and he's protesting and then the commentary is like I think he was actually trying to hit him he couldn't he couldn't make his arms to hit him so just like He's just like tapping him on the chest because they don't have, and Melvin can't do anything

because he's collapsed in exhaustion. It is when you, one of my least favorite phrases in sports is I gave 110%. Because that's not how math works. You can only give the maximum amount, which is 100%. If you gave more than that, you physically can't do that. There's only 100%. this is one of the rare times that I'm willing to go with it because Melvin clearly gave more than he had like that man clearly like his adrenaline or whatever it was carried him beyond his

own physical capabilities and Cyborg too and this fight rules and it's it's incredible I'm so happy we did this if for no other reason that I got to rewatch this fight like three times yeah it's super fun and it's funny you mentioned Kimbo because it actually reminded me also of the Kimbo slight. Kimbo's in so many great dumb fights. The Kimbo slice. Oh, Kimbo is going to have a day. The Kimbo slice Houston Alexander fight, which had the classic both guys,

hands, which we have never seen, hands on their knees, just leaning over. Amazingly, the ref did not just call the fight there, like to say, okay, forget this is like a no contest or a double, you know, knockout or so these guys can't go on. You never see that. They really should. Because you shouldn't at that level. I'm saying the ref should really be like this because that's how somebody gets really hurt. That's what happened with Donna.

That's what you said. The Donna fight was later and we're like, oh, we saw what happens. Yeah. It's even it's even worse. And in this case, like we almost saw it. There was a moment, not quite hands leave, but both guys have like hands on hips kind of staring at each other, taking like a mutual. Like, give me one second. Just give me one second before we start throwing again.

And at least this time we got an ending, but it did remind me a little bit of a. Dude, no, 100%. Kimball fights in general. There's, I had two other notes specifically written down here. One of them is that in the second round, there's a period where Melvin literally can't lift his arms and Cyborg has steeled himself to throw and he's like attacking Melvin and Melvin can't just can't even lift his arms. He's just kind of swaying his body to not catch clean shots.

but and then he after Santos gets tired than Melvin does they really go full rockum sock him for a minute of all right it's your turn I'm I'm gonna take a breather and there is to your point the in the same position of them just being huh the thing that struck me as I was watching

I was like I've been in around several fights like in school or you know out at the bars or whatever I've seen a lot of those and mostly fights that happen in the wild, they're bad because most people can't fight, right? Like, they're not professionals, and they certainly don't have. Fighting is incredibly difficult. If you're listening and have never gotten to a fight, I don't recommend you do it.

But trust me, when I say, whatever you think you can do in a fist fight is entirely wrong. And whatever you even can do, you can do for at most 30 seconds. If you've gotten to a fist fight to last long in 30 seconds, you're done. So is the guy you're fist fighting. And so I have seen it happen several times, like Alex. in the wild of they fight, they scuffle for a little bit, and then both do just get tired. And then that's usually when somebody will come in and break it up or they'll just be like, all right, well, I'm done with this.

Like, I just don't want to do this anymore. And there's a mutual agreement to just walk away. Like, all right, well, nothing's been settled, but I don't have the anger anymore. I'm too tired. That's what happened if this weren't a professional cage fight. If Santos and Manhoef were just fighting over like a spilled beer or something, They would just be like, all right, man, I don't really care. It's my bad.

I'll pay for the beer. Just walked away. But instead, they had to continue. And we got one of the most entertaining things I've ever seen the cage. And again, we cannot stress enough. This is on YouTube, guys. You don't need any fight pass to track this. I don't think they would want this fight on fight pass.

I don't think it's legal to have this fight on fight pass. The UFC does not want to be associated with this fight. Not because, again, it's not, I mean, we're laughing at it. but it's really not like a bad fight. It's a super, it really is like a super, it's amazing. And we're not saying like,

oh, it's so bad. It's funny. Like we're making fun of these guys. Like, no, it's an amazing fight, an amazing show of heart.

And again, you guys are so funny. It's just also funny because it's MMA and MMA, like some of the greatest MMA fights have a little bit of humor in them. We just talked about, on a show, we just did recently, Jed,

like we were talking about the fight of the year in 2020. It might be Yuri Parajika Glover DeShera, which is one of the funniest fights I've ever seen in my life. Oh, absolutely. A high level UFC championship fight, nearly 25 minutes of action. But it is such a funny fight. It is a hilarious fight to watch.

It's for sure my pick for a fight of the year this year. You were dead correct. And yes, it is, we are not, that's part of the thing that makes me love M.A. And part of the reason that I can love guys like Melvin Manhoof is MMA is not just about high, like, peak performance. it's about all of it. And I love watching Alexander Volkinovsky and Max Holloway. That's a phenomenal fight.

I also love Kimbo-Dada. And I love Manhoof Cyborg, which is somehow both of those fights merged into one. It's really, really a phenomenal 10 minutes. And like I said earlier, if you haven't seen it, if you do nothing else, if you listen to nothing else I ever say in my life, spend 10 minutes, Google this and watch it. Your day will be improved for having done so. I will say, Jed, my next two picks, I'll let you go first for the next one, but my next

two picks also have humor in them. I want to think that we still have one more in common, but maybe not. Like I said, he has so many fights, so many memorable moments. But I will say both of mine have some humor, but I want to hear, I'm wondering what your next, what your number three pick is here. So I think I know the one you're talking that you think that we might have in common, and it is my honor. It's my number one honorable mention.

It just got cut off. I'm not certain that I was correct in that, but the way I chose to do it, I listed it at five. But number three for me, pretty simple. And this is the one that it probably should be removed from my list. If I'm going to cut one of them to replace one of my honorable mentions, it's a Sakikato of Bellator 146. And this fight, the reason I have it on here is one,

I did want to have he, though honestly my thoughts of Melvin Manhoof are not as a Belator fighter. It's about all the stuff from when I was at peak. He actually spent the, maybe not a majority of his career because the various iterations of K1. But he fought like 12 times, I think, in Belator. Like he was part of Belator from 2014 through 2022, which is insane to think that he spent eight years with this promotion. Yeah, it's one of those things that were like, even though we know, you know, there's always the joke about Beltor signing guys like past their prime, things that. I kind of thought, and when you look at the guys he fought, I ended up fighting.

I kind of thought, oh, he's just being brought in for like three or four fights. I think like being brought into, you know, maybe produce a knockout, but probably get knocked up by some of these other guys that Beltor is either investing in or they signed before him. I never thought it would go for eight years. Yeah. in no way. And so I picked the Cato fight.

It's the one that ends up getting him a middleweight title shot. And it is also just, it was a really, a great showcase of the things that made Melvin really fun. Because Cato is tuning him up. He really takes control of this fight. And he's got Melvin in real dire straits and backing up to the fence. He is hurt. And then Melvin just sort of says, F it, swings a big combination. It gets Cato to back up.

he starts thinking twice and the second nicato finally like takes a step off to think milvin leaps with a draymond green left monster hook and absolutely floors him uh and i just wanted to have one bellator fight one big highlight could have gone dog marshal could have gone there but it felt that i needed to have him represented in there for some reason so of all the of all the fights on my mount rushmore of my four this is the one i'd be the most comfortable replacing with any of my honorable mentions, but this sick, K.O., and I put it here anyway. Yeah, it's a good, it's a good one. And there's also a bit of a walk-off element to it. Yep.

Which, again, I was kind of saying before, it's not super common with Melvin. I'm sure he has them. But again, a lot of Melvin was when he knocks someone. A couple, but not that many. Yeah, when he knocks someone down, he's going in to just do more damage. He likes to punch people. He seems like a pretty nice guy, a pretty sweet guy. I meant to mention at beginning the show. Of course, I did interview him before his retirement fight recently, so I'm definitely throwing in some Melvin Seds here and there.

But yeah, he seemed like a decent man who really enjoyed punch people in the face even after. There probably could have been a few more walk-offs in there, but really, until the ref gets in there, why should the fun stop? Yeah, just why stop having all the fun that you're having? So that's my number three. What about you, AK? Well, I assume this is your honorable mention that you're saying, or it could be your fourth in your list. I'm not sure.

Pretty sure I know where you're coming. Well, yeah, and I mentioned earlier, my first live Melbourne experience was the Robbie Lawler. That's my honorable mention. Okay. I don't know if you stuck with mainly wins. So people should know, obviously, he did not win this fight. That is why it didn't make my list. because since this is on your list, I'll let you take the lead here.

Sure, sure. I do have some thoughts on this fight. Yeah, it's a super memorable fight. Anyone who saw it definitely did not forget it, it's memorable for many reasons. Again, Melvin Manhoof, you know, at the height of his powers, Robbie Lawler. Robbie Lawler in that weird stretch where, like, he just didn't seem like he was that focused on. Like, you know, he's showing up. He's collecting a paycheck.

A little listless. A little less. He's winning some fights here. He's winning some fights there. He's fighting at 185. You know, just like, yeah, I don't want to cut weight. I'm just showing. I just want to show up.

show up, fight good. And he was fighting good names, you know, Jake Shields was in there. Obviously, a terrible matchup for him, but that was in there. So it was a bit strange. And again, even with what little I knew about Melvin, I was pretty much under the impression that there was a very, very good chance that

Melvin Manho was going to fuck him up. And boy, was he. And that's certainly how the fight played out for about, let's see, how long did this fight last? This fight was, where are we here? I think it was like three minutes. Three minutes and 33 seconds.

For about three minutes and 15 seconds, he is messing Robbie up. I mean, he is, I mean, good defense, definitely, definitely some, some smart tactics, you know, not getting caught by anything really clean. But if you're just watching the head shots, he's not in the head shots. He's mangled. Yes. And he's getting these leg kicks. And at some point, and this is, by the way, like I said, very early in my MMA sort of education,

he starts eating these leg kicks and and he cars just like throwing his leg out in reaction like he eats the leg kicking like throws his leg out and it gets higher and higher to the point like he's almost kicking like a rocket like near the end of the fight as Melvin like hits him with these inside leg kicks to his lead leg and I'm like I didn't know I'm like is that an effective way to defend like I would think not I would think you never want to be on one leg

when you're in the middle of an MA fight but I'm not Robbie Lawler I've never fought Melvin Manhoof maybe this was all part of the strategy and sure enough I just as I think like oh Melvin's gonna put this guy away he's putting a wampin on him one huge Robbie right hand a left as Melvin's falling down

talk about guys with accurate follow-up shots and that's it I mean and Manov is out I mean he's out cold eyes open staring at the ceiling body stiff this is this this this is such an exciting weird fight it might make Robbie's Melmushmore someday I'm not sure

we will do that someday it might make it it's such a cool weird fight I'm trying to think Robbie off the top of my head. I mean, there's two that automatically make it, but I feel like they should take one slot. The problem is Robbie literally has three fights of the year. So not a lot of Mount Rushmore room for when to do Robbie. I feel like. There's three fights of the year.

Can Rory and kind of share a spot? It's almost unfair to, no, no, no, he deserves to separate them. Those two have to be there. And then it's like I, but yeah, this is certainly in Robbie's thing. I, like you said, I left this one off just because in the general vibes of this, I decided I wanted to stick with wins. But I think this is, was honestly maybe Manhoeff's best performance, but for the fact that he got absolutely cold it by Robbie at the end there,

because he looked so very good. And those leg kicks, they might be the hardest leg kicks I've ever seen in the sport. Like you, the, just in, at least in the visual. right because you know we talk about a lot of big time leg kickers in history we just did an episode on josie aldo one of the goats a tremendous leg kicker he literally ruined every part of your i favor's leg those leg kigs look like they hurt but they didn't look like his leg was about to literally fly off his body like robbies did as manhoeff is just chopping inside just chopping inside the leg is like you said look like a racquet his leg is like it's flying it's flying

higher and higher. But he was doing it on purpose, right? I mean, this had to be a thing. Do you think they trained it, right? I think he was lifting his leg and trying to pull away, and then the force of Manhurst kick making contact, in fact, blew his leg up because that's how physics work. I didn't know.

I thought it was like rolling with, again, this is how ignorant it was about MMA and just combat sports in general the time. I thought like, oh, this is like rolling with a punch? Is it like, oh, if I throw out my leg at the same time, it's absorbing more of the force. but I'd never seen it before. I have not seen it since. I think he was trying to lift his leg in the same way that you see people coming in.

And as it's coming in, it's just hitting the leg and it's firing. Robbie's leg up with force. I'm going limp. I'm not resisting. I'm going limp. I've never seen it since. No, because it clearly wasn't effective. Robbie was hobbling around.

And if Melvin hadn't had just kept his like traditional high-gris. guard and just explicitly kicked legs for the next two minutes. He probably gets TKA by leg kicks. But that's not what happened. And so because that's not what happened, it ended up being number five. But I had it there for sure wanted to talk about Strike Force, Miami. Strike Force. What a promotion.

They did some wonderful things with that promotion. Give me your number of four then because my number of four is pretty simple. We don't have to talk too much about it. And then I have a list of other honorable mentions. that need to be brought up. Yeah, I was very tempted to put something from Belatoron there, but nothing really, other than the, the, the, the, the, Sasaki Kato one, nothing really, like, made me jump for joy.

So I picked this, again, I was just digging through some of his highlights, and I was like, okay, who's this guy? And then he fought someone named Fabio Silva at Heroes 10 on September 17, 2007, in Yokohama. And I don't know anything about Fabio Silva. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him. But in this fight, which again, available on YouTube. guys, Fabio Silva, Melvin Manhub, it's all up there. He's doing like this weird

Vanderlea cosplay thing. He's doing the, he's kind of got the shorts, the same kind of shorts band they would wear. He's doing the knuckle rolling. He has the head down, a wing and bombs thing. He's not Van der Le Silver. So when he tries to pull this.

He is a shoot to box guy. Okay. So this was probably, that's what I was like, is he a disciple was. He is a shoot to box guy. Okay. So this was like, this was okay. This is not like gimmick infringement.

This was like, Yeah, no, I think this is just, yeah, this is him. I mean, maybe it's a little gimmick infringement, but there's a connecting line there. Sure. It did not work out well for him. I'll tell you right now. He goes in with the trademark ax murderer, head down. I'm throwing bombs just like over my shoulder and at some point just leads with his head way too aggressively.

It walks into a one-two from Melvin that clearly just removes his soul, instantly removes his soul from his body. and then and just drops to the canvas. And he's not out cold. You know, we get some Melvin follow-up shots. It's not like an ice cold knockout, but the one-two is so clean. You just know the guy is done after that. Like maybe he could have continued, but probably shouldn't. And it's just funny to me because he just tried to style on him.

And against Melvin at that stage of his career, really not a smart thing to do. Just very few people could just stand with him and trade. It just was not wise. And now you see wise. So if anyone has seen an example of a lesser known fighter thinking like, I'm going to make my name off of Melvin Manhoof. A lot of many tried and did not succeed. Hey, that is a totally reasonable choice for your number four. I went, I rounded mine out with Fabio Piamonte.

It is the, it's the fight that he won the light heavyweight title at K.J. And I, that's why I rounded that one out just because it is the most notable. title he won in his career. And at some point when you're picking through Melvin Manhoove highlights, they're all the same, right? Like, he's just a hyperviolent individual throwing literally the hardest punches you've ever seen. I don't know if I've ever seen a man.

Maybe, you know, Francinegan, who throws, like, his punches have more force. But nobody threw harder than Melvin. When Melvin was throwing, he was throwing. It is every possible buildup of energy in those hooks as they're coming. And he does it to Piemonte and he takes a belt. So I rounded it out as my fourth. The videos you find aren't that great just because the angle is actually behind Pumonte. But it's pretty cool if you go watch it just because you can't see like the optimal dope angle.

boy you can see is Melvin step in on this dude the dude slump over straight Humpty Dumpty style and you can see this little white flash in the top corner which is Piamonte's mouthpiece just rocketing out of his face so uh that one rounded mine out but I'm totally willing to the only two you have to have in the top two I would be more than comfortable putting Robbie Lawler in here instead of either of my back to but You do have a couple others that I feel bare mentioning. I hope. I hope you don't mention Sakaraba.

No, no, no. Got it. Okay. Because that's just, Sakharava getting knocked out at some stage of Sakharab's career was just not fun to watch. Yeah, it was, Sakaraba is probably the king of this. I probably won't ever do a damn on Sakaraba until I'm ready to just close the show permanently

because no man is more. He will just be the capper to the whole show. But I got real Kalamura. That was at 1-FC. It's just a phenomenal one-hitter-quitter-cao. Kalamura gets caught shooting in, but like a half-shot, he's not committed, and just catches a clean hook, Humpty Dumpty Fall. It's a great K.O.

Well, oh, this isn't a fight that you should watch because it's not that interesting, but there is a really funny clip of Melvin Manhofe fighting Brock Larson. In the first round, Menhoff wins in the second. round he gasses out because that's the sort of a thing melvin done and brock just wrestles him but there's literally a clip where brock larsen runs away from him like uh like a looney tune cartoon with melvin just chasing him around the cage and brock larsson wanting absolutely none of that smoke it's amazing enjoy your decision win brock larsson because let me tell us something that is not what we remember from that evening okay yeah great great you got the decision

way to go there's a reason broc Larsson isn't getting a damn they were good and it's for shit like that. Respect, respect. I don't respect you running away. It's not fun. It's not what we're here for. Remy Bonjansky, I want to

bring up Remy because I don't have him actually in any of the other categories. There are some places you could have put him, but a memorable tetralogy. Before the kids, before Davis and Figueroa and Brandon Marino were doing it, I know it happens a lot more in kickboxing, but Bonjansky and men have had a good, quality tetrology. One of those fights is one of the dopest chaos you ever going to see.

Unfortunately, for the purposes of this show, it's Bonjansky with a flying high kick of Mannhoof. So that can't make the rush more, but you should go look at that highlight because it's dope. And I do want to celebrate that aspect of Mavahav. Because to your point at the very beginning, which I'm coming back to a lot because there's a really good one, man delivered cumulative violence, both in what he delivered, delivered and in what he received. And Varnjansky was one of those.

And then the, I feel like I had, oh, the last one. Last one I had here. Very specific reason I have this one here. It's Ruslin Karev, man of one, it's just another solid K.O., big hook, floors the dude. Leg kick as he's falling over is quite funny. It's like a 15 second K.O. Or whatever.

The reason I put it in here is Melvin himself. identified this as one of the three like most significant fights of his career. Not significant, but in an interview with Shaquille Majuri, a great guy, give him a follow. If you don't know who I'm talking about, look him up on the tweet machines. In an interview with Shaquille, man, he got asked, hey, what's the, basically what is your Mount Rushmore of somebody who doesn't know you very well? What performances should they look at? And he picked Mark Hunt, Cyborg Santos, and then Rusankariev, which is just a really great

K-O from back in the day, you know, back in his old kickboxing. That's a K-1 kickboxing. It's not an MMA fight, and it's 30 seconds. But big savage left-hook chaos, you can see just how violent the man is. So I wanted to talk about it since Melvin himself felt it was important. Yes, Melvin also, I asked similar question, also added Sakaraba. So we have our official Melvin Mount Rushmore. We have the official Melvin Mount Rushmore.

Mark Hunt, Cyborg Santos, Sakaraba, and Karayev. I think I had only asked about MM. I think it's pretty strong, made it clear. Like, I was only asked for MMA. So props to Shaq, because I think together we have just the first time. I think we have a fighter's official. This is the first time in the history of damn that the fighter themselves has given us the definitive Mount Rushmore.

So there you go. Hey, we did, well, 50%, half of the Mount Rushmore, we got correct. We didn't get the other half, but, you know, that's okay. I don't think Robbie was going to make his personal. Oh, Robin was never going to. And on the other side of that, Sakaraba was never going to make ours because, come on. I'm not doing that to Sakarama. It meant a lot to him.

It meant a lot to Melvin. Come on. I mean, it does. And I get why, but there's no world in which I, would have listed that for him. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. What? Sounds like Ojo time.

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but there are some very clear spots here where I struggled or I think there's going to be difference. So let's start with a category that I frankly don't think we'll spend too much time on because I'm going to be honest. A couple of the negative categories, I don't have that much interest in diving into. Those categories are better when you're talking about nitpicking the careers of all-time greats or whatever.

But when you're talking about a guy like Manhoof who has clearly established flaws, who cares? And so the second category, the inverse to the Rushmore, I'm not impressed by your performance award. This is for what is the low point, the worst performance the man gave. For me, I had a very, very clear choice here. And it's a bit of a cheat because it's two. But I chose his pair of fights with Rafael Carvalho at Bellator for the Belator Middleweight Championship. And I chose these for a very specific reason.

or two very specific reasons. They were boring as shit. And that's not what Melvin Manhoof does. Like that, his whole career, Melvin has never been boring. And I say this with the caveat that I watched the first one, I don't know if I was doing coverage or if I was just locked in because it was Melvin fighting for a title in the year of our lore, whatever the hell that was.

So it wasn't that like 2018? It's 2016, sorry. I was like, Melvin's fighting for a title. Cool. Melvin's always worth your money. This will at least be fun to watch him probably lose to CarlValio. At the time, I thought he won. I did not go rewatch that fight.

I'm not here to stand by that assessment, but I remember at the time thinking, Melvin just edged this awful fight out. Somehow this man has finally got the belt. He maybe doesn't deserve, but that makes my heart sing that he got. And he gets jobbed in a splitie, and then they run it back.

And in the rematch, Melvin just looks awful. He does almost nothing, gets a point taken away. He just looks bad, and then when he finally starts to do stuff in the fourth round, head kick K.O., not for him, upon him, just, I think his two worst performances overall. And, you know, you could find or argue other spots, but easily the part of his career where I'm skipping over because we're going to talk about how proficient this man was. as a finisher. In his entire career, he had only been into the third round like two or three

times before this, never gone beyond it. And somehow he fights Hafeo Carvalho for combined 43 minutes. Just horrible, horrible stuff. So this is my non-pressed. It was very clear for me. Where are you coming from AK? Yes, that first fight, probably the whole series, as you mentioned, is not looked upon fondly. MMA decisions, by the way, the first fight. Not too many media scores up there, but there's

six, all six were in favor of manhoof. Mammat Torch.com had it had it 50-45 manhuff. And again, when we even I think if you scored this 50-45 manhuff and thought it was a robbery, it's like, there just wasn't a lot to score. These are very narrow.

These are very narrow 10-9s, even if you gave them all to Melvin. Matt Wells, now with M.A. Junkie, formerly of MAA latest news.com had it 5046 manhoof. Sherdog.com doesn't say who did the scoring, but 5046 Manhoof. And Sean Sheehan, Sean Sheehan of severe MMA, 49, 47 manhuffs. So that was four of the scores, but all the people who had a score up on the MMA Decisions.com for Manhoff.

And then, yes, unfortunately. Justice for Melvin. One of the judges gave it to him. It was a split decision in the first flight. He did get his immediate rematch. And as you said, another stinker. And worst of all, he just straight up got knocked out. So certainly the bottom moment.

I didn't have a specific one. I was just like, man, there's a lot of first round submission losses on his on his record. And listen, I don't want to say like, oh, he could have done more. He could have put up a better fight on the ground. But it's not great when you've got like Sexyama submitting you in under two minutes. Gayguard, obviously a great fighter. No shame we losing the Gayguard, but there's a 90 second submission there to Gayguard. Paula Filo, I mentioned before, two and a half minutes.

Tim Kennedy first round submission It's just it's a Mamad Kaladov a great another great these are a lot of great names on here but there's also a lot of quick submissions so we'll find touch upon his ground and grappling deficiencies

a bit more later but I'll just say I didn't have a specific name here just like it was always a little deflating when he was matched up with a grappler and you're just like we know we kind of know where this is going yeah what are we doing here This isn't how you maximize what the hell you guys are thinking.

Yeah, it is where it is with Melvin. You could pick a lot of other performances. Any of those performances you can pick, but that's not what I'm about here. I'm about the one time I had, because I didn't have issue with him. I didn't have issue with the Gayguard loss. What can he do? He's just not, is that there's a limitation on his ability there. But the Carvalio fights, the limitation was.

on his willingness to throw. And arguably it worked because he probably, like, as we point out, he should have won the first, should have won a belt by being really conservative, by managing his energy. Super didn't work the second time out. And that's where we ended up. But enough of that, enough of unfortunate categories, categories that don't celebrate the man because one of my favorite categories every week.

It's the Ivan Minge of R. Ward. This is for the weirdest, most surprising fighter that Melville. of a man who faced in his career. 100 total fights. There's a lot of rich ground to tell here. Also just because I didn't mention it, sorry, I should go back and say, the reason this category is named the Ivan Mingerar Award is because George St. Pierre, all-time great, welterweight champion, first fight of his career came against Ivan Minjavar career

bantam weight. And it has always been one of the funnier things that's ever happened in the sport to me. So along those lines, AK, I have one name and one name only. I don't know if it's the right name, but it's the name that I found the most enjoyment in. Do you have a name? Do you have one or multiple names? Tell me where you're coming from. I have a feeling we somehow land that on the same name as obscure as it is.

Because I think if you do even a little bit of digging in sort of the first 14, 15 fights of Melbourne's career, you find a guy named Paul Cahoon. This is not the name I have. This is not the name. Okay. I know where we're going. I love it. I, I don't. Are you familiar with the Kahuninator, the Big Kahun?

The Big Kahuna? The Big Kahuna, or Boom, Boom, is apparently what's his nickname? The Big Kahuna is so much of a better name. I don't know how he missed it. I mean, he's, it's okay. How are you missing that? So Paul Kahoon is one of a few fighters that he's fought more than once, Melvin fought more than once.

And, again, when you're this early on and your fight having to step into the cage with Melvin more than one time, it's bad times for you. I already feel bad for you. So I, and they're so, you know, he doesn't have a Wikipedia entry, so that's always a fun kind of, oh, let's do a little Googling and dig in. Yeah, like Google entries. A little Googling. The man has a story.

The man has a story. He apparently, at most, this was May of last year. The latest we've heard of Paul Cahoon is that he might be hiding in Dubai because he apparently has a rap sheet in his native England. This is from the Liverpool Echo A Cahoon 45 is thought to have fled to Dubai several years ago and maybe living there under a different name. Last month, a Liverpool man named Paul Mugan.

Also, wanton release drug offenses was arrested in Dubai. This is in some connection to some sort of large-scale drugs conspiracy, which stretched from Merseyside to South Wales. So maybe not a good dude, but I'll tell you, If you want to dig up some like, who is this guy that Melvin pounded twice early in his career? Apparently a wanted criminal possibly hiding in Dubai as we speak. This is all allegations we don't know. So Paul Cahoon, wherever you are, turn yourself in.

I don't know. I don't know what to say about the situation. So I think Paul Cahoon is probably the actual correct answer to this one. I found him. I willingly chose to forego it for one. I was pretty confident you were going to find it and that that would be where you go, and I thought maybe we wouldn't step on each other. A couple of side notes.

The first one being my favorite part of that Liverpool Echo story is that it intros with. Paul Cahoon is a well-known MMA fighter. Paul Cajun is a 13 and 12 MMA fighter. Well-known is not how I would describe him. But if you look at his resume, it's incredibly funny. He fought a lot of people whose names you will know. Manhuff, Hiramitukhankara, Amar Sulu, I've twice. He also just was really bad at fighting, apparently, for much of it,

because at the time he faced Manhuff, he had a three and seven professional record. Just want to throw this out there. So really he turned it around for 13 and 20. 12 career record. Three and seven is first 10. You know, that's good. A story of a comeback. He also fought, there's another guy who I will throw out, though I don't want to speak on.

Rodney Glunder, who I originally. Great name. Great name. Rodney Glunder. Melvin's got a lot of good people with good names. I originally wanted to have Glunder in this because if you go to Glender's Wikipedia, the opening line is, one, he was born as. Rodney Favaris.

So he chose Glender. Uncleared decision making behind that, but that's what happened there. And his opening wiki line is a retired Dutch kickboxer, mixed martial artist, professional wrestler, boxer,

actor, entrepreneur, and bodybuilder. It is a man of many hats. And he's had some stuff that was kind of interesting going on, and that's why I originally picked him. But But then in March of this year, he was charged with rape by Dutch authorities and found guilty and sentenced to prison.

So I didn't want to pick him for a category that I think is fun and celebratory. So instead, I chose a man who talking about great names. And Melvin fought some dudes with great names. Yority Yonkers, the first fight of his entire career. 1990. It's a young man by the name of Yorti Yonkers. Unbelievable name. That is the name for an Elmore Leonard character.

Like that is, in an Elmore Leonard novel, Yordy Yonkers is the young kid who thinks he's really smart, but he's actually stupid and in over his head. Like Yority Yonkers is a great name. And it's even funnier because this fight is on YouTube. You can find it pretty easily. This is in 95, remember. So MMA in 1995 is not MMA.

Like, it's not anything close to. We're talking about basically the pancreas. They're doing it in the shin pads. It's only open palm strikes, so it's no punches. You're watching 18-year-old Melvin Manoff without punching people. And Yor de Yonkers looks like a frat kid. Like, he just looks like an 18-year-old Dutch frat dude or whatever. and Melvin is not hulking huge Melvin yet,

but knowing who Melvin is going to be and then seeing this little frat dude walk in, you're like, oh, this is going to be bad. And for the next seven or eight minutes, because he gets out of the first round, because again, no closed fist striking here, Melvin is just slapping this man around the ring. Like, because it's open palm slaps,

and we're not talking to Stockton slap. he is just pummeling like a boss root and bar fight slap, just bashing this dude about the ring uh, bloodies him up. It's incredibly funny. It is like watching young Melvin Manhoof beat the hell

out of Johnny Lawrence. Like, this is the exact image I have in my head. And with his name being such a great name, Yor de Yonkers. That was the one I had to choose. I won't say you need to go watch it, but if you've got time, nothing else to do. I had a great amount of fun watching this fight.

I'm watching it right now because for some reason I did not dig. I assume this wasn't on YouTube. I don't know why. I forgot that this is the internet and everything's there. For the pro wrestling fans out there, it looks a little bit like a young Daniel Brian, Jordan, Jordi Ankers, John Brian, of course. Melvin's rocking kind of an Elijah, former Elijah Burke, the Pope D'Angelo DeNaro look. Pro wrestling fans will know what I'm talking about.

It's actually eerie. I have no idea you're talking about. Okay. And Melvin looks like a lightweight. My goodness. He's still shredded. He's still shredded. I mean, he is, he's an insane.

This man looks like he's been an insane shape. Yeah. His entire life, this guy's been muscular. But yeah, his body shape, it just doesn't. I recognize the face, but a boy, the body shape is unrecognizable. It's so weird too, because I'm watching it. And Yonkers is the guy who makes the walk first. And so that's when I saw Yonkers walk.

I was like, oh, my God, he's going to die. Like, why is he fighting? And then Melvin comes up and you're like, that's definitely Melvin. But, like, Melvin really hit the, hit the weights and added some bulk in the five years between here and him coming back to K.H. Wait, so you can head kick? Yeah, so you can't. There's no closed fish striking, but you've got the shin pads.

So it's okay to head kick people. I'm not like, I mean, I'm not a thousand percent. I didn't dive into the rules, but, because this is a Battle of Amstilveen, too. Not confident. I know that, but I'm assuming that the rules are like basic pancreation rules. Okay. Because, you know, no close-fist striking. You can kick it the head.

I think there's like a downing rule or whatever. It's obviously weird. It's proto-M-M-M-A if it's MMA at all. But it's incredibly funny. And the man's name is Yority Yonkers, which is just an A-plus-plus name. People watch this play. And I'm glad we did. Again, this is the little corner of the damn universe that needs to be mentioned and acknowledged.

I will say before we move on from this category, just because it's been mentioned, I love one day, if I ever choose to write a novel, a fiction novel, I'm just going to go look at the fight records of damn fighters and some of their early opponents. Because there are a number of names you can pull from there that are just like built for, Pulp Fiction. Basically, everyone that Melvin fought until he went to K. Trach.

Ladaslav, Zach, like, that's a great name. Matthias Riccio. Paul, Paul Cahoon is a fantastic name. The Big Cahuna.

Crosley Gracie, the worst of the graces. Today I learned there was a Crosley Gracie who is, and I thought like, oh, unrelated. No, he is the grandson. Oh, he is somewhere down there. The worst of the grace.

The grandson of Carlos, nephew of Hilsson. So he's in there. He is of the Gracie family lineage. What the hell? It's awesome of that. When you think of that fight, because that fight happened in 06, it was the hero's lightweight Grand Prix quarterfinal. Going into that fight, the idea is that Crosley Gracie is a Gracie, and Melvin

Manhofe is Melvin Manhoof. You take him down and you submit him. And Crosley could not manage that feat. Sexy Yamma did it two fights later. but Crosley Gracie can't be done. This man only fought four times, speaking of Crosly, and three of them were against Hayato Maha Sakurai, Akahiro, Gono, and Melvin. And then he's like, you know what?

I'm good. And he beats Mahasakarii, wow, I think later in Sakurai's career, but still, wow. So, I mean, that's pretty big. It's the problem with being a Gracie, man. What? And he had four. You get forced into the big ones. He had, true, the name, right?

He had four pro fights against opponents with a combined. I'm going to do some quick math here. like, if I'm doing this math, right, 80-something wins, like 20-something losses and even like double-digit draw. So his opponents had like combined like 120 fights. He had four. That has to be on the short list of combined opponent record career.

That's pretty tough. That is bizarre. I'm going to give this to the big Kahuna because I think that's the right choice. But I'm glad we got to dive into some of the other ones. The next category, the Fador Sweater of Absolute Victory Award. This is for Fighter Memorobilia. If you could have one piece of memorabilia from this fighter's career, what would it be? I believe there is only one correct choice.

I feel like you will have gotten this one, even though I know this is a category where sometimes you branch out a little bit. I picked the iconic Gladiator shorts. I mean, those, he didn't wear him for much of his belt or run, et cetera, but, on his own gym, the logo for his gym is him in the black and silver like gladiator shorts. You can see all of his dopest highlights have them. I don't particularly care which fight they're from. Just give me the iconic Manhuff Gladiator shorts. Shorts is always a good one.

So like I think that's why I veer away from that. And also by the way, one of the reasons why I'm glad he never fought like under the UFC and like its current era. because seeing him come out in whatever, some Reebok or Venom-branded, like, uniform shorts would just be a tragedy. It would be, though, if he came out and, like, I mean, it wouldn't be dope still because of the financials, but it would be cool if Reebok was like, we'll make you some Reebok gladiator shorts. Like, that would be cool, but that's not a thing they do because the UFC is not fun. That was our hope, remember when they got a sponsor? Like, oh, cool. Maybe they'll accommodate people's, like, signature looks and, like, create these.

Bray. Like, it would a good idea. It would be so much. It would just, there wouldn't be Condom Depot on everybody's ass anymore, but you could mission successful. They pulled that off, but it made everything monochromatic and boring. We're still like, oh, everybody can work with them to make something cool that's still, that doesn't have Condom Depot on it or dynamic fastener or whatever. Like it's like, look at Condom McGregor shorts.

They're green. Like Ireland. See, we told you. We told you we'd let people have their own looks here. You know, how dare they assume. Good time. Jed, come on. You know I went weird with this one.

Come on now. I figured you probably did it. It seems to be what you do. It's right in his technology picture. Give me the collar and leash that he was coming out with for a few fights. Listen, somewhat. This is actually one of your reference. I would say that.

I think somewhat problematic imagery for many reasons. But, you know, whatever. A look, he seemed to really enjoy. He did multiple times. This was not for one fight. He came out with the, sometimes without the leash, just the collar for multiple fights. It was a very, and listen, he fights like a bulldog. I mean, that's, that's really what they're evoking here.

Plus, also, it would go really well with the, if I also managed to get the sex suits from the Ronda Rousey, Sarah Kaufman, Showtime commercials. I'm really putting together a collection here is what I'm saying. You have got quite a collection. in the memorability category. I will say this is at least a good one. Definitely a little off the beaten path. We support that here. And yes, that stretch of peer fights where he did come out

and was like literally let off the leash before he walked in the cage. It's like a very, it's maybe a bit too on the nose, but you saw what they were going for. And he, I mean, look at his topology picture. You have never seen a person happier than Melvin Manhoff making his way to fist fight somebody with a literal spike dog collar and a leash being held by his cornerman walking behind him. He's into it.

He's into it. And good. Look, we're not here to yuck anybody's yum. As long as you're not hurting other people, whatever makes you happy, whatever floats your boat, damn supports you in that regard. our next category. The international player-hater's ball, as I mentioned earlier, not too interested in spending too much time nitpicking this man's career,

but that's what this category is for. It is nitpicking the career of the fighter we're talking about. And the problem with Melvin is very easy to nitpick his career. You could say a lot of things because he doesn't have the high water marks that a lot of the other people we've done dams on for. I just pulled a couple things down here just because we should mention the bad stuff. But the great part about Melvin is the bad stuff isn't the isn't bad, right?

Like for all intents and purposes, it seems like a really good dude outside the cage, you know, works with the kids. So Jim, we've had some of these where the bad stuff is like, well, there are some really titchy allegations going on and stuff. With him, the only nitpicks I have from Melvin's career is the man never was good at grappling. He ostensibly tried, but he never had it. And he had pretty limited cardio. but I don't even think those are downsides because he knew his limitations and he fought in a way mostly but for the Carvalia fight for being real.

It was like, all right, cool. I only have seven minutes of cardio. I'm going to give you hell for five. And if you can get through five, okay. But if you can't, I'm coming. So that's all I had for nitpicks, AK, do you, is there anything you want to talk about on the downsides of Melvin's career? No. I mean, look, how can I hate on that?

Oh, would he have had a better career if he had rounded out his game? Okay, sure, he would have scraped out a few more wins than it. Maybe he wins the Bellator title, you know, great. That's awesome. Awesome for him. Make some more money. But something would have been lost yet. Something would have been lost if we got more well-rounded.

You didn't have a damn on him. You are not a fan of the kinder gentler de Molli D'Or, Michelle Pineda. You're not a fan. God, no. Right? And imagine, he's not a win streak. And imagine if Melvin Manhoff had gone down that path, it would have been super sad. Like him, like winning decisions and going like, yeah, I'm on a four-fight win streak now.

I'm coming for that Bell Tour title. That version of Melvin Manhoff does not interest me at all. You know, I'd be happy to see him win. I'd be happy to see him win. I just would not be enjoying his fights and looking forward to them as much. So I can't hate on him having no ground game. Come on. So you hit the nail on the head, though.

That's the thing. Because when I thought he beat Carvalio, I was really happy. It was like, this is great. I don't care that this is a fight that I don't want to talk about or whatever. The moment exceeded the fight. So it was like, this is an uplifting thing. I don't want to see him defend the belt five times. Doing it, picking your spots, one or two kind of dud performances,

to get by and accomplish the big goal is okay. Don't be who you are, you know, and that's who Melvin is. I wouldn't love Melvin. You wouldn't love Melvin. people who are just coming to know Melvin, they would go back and watch some fights and be like, the hell, why do I care about this guy? Why are we talking about this guy?

Because that's the gamble. If you're going to be boring, you better be great. And if you're not going to be great, it's hard to be great. It's pretty, it's different, but it's doable to be exciting. Melvin managed to be very good and exciting. And that's what I'm here. to celebrate.

Like, I'm not here to celebrate. Ah, Melvin worked with, you know, the ATT guys, and he got really locked solid takedown defense. And now it's, now he doesn't throw as much because if he does, it opens him up to get wrestled to the ground. It's like, no, go out there, chuck him, see what happens, buddy. More times than not, Melvin knocked him out. Over half of his fist fights, he got it, and his plan worked.

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Peloton cross-training tread plus at one peloton.ca. I'm going with it. We're not, we're done here. I'm not going to be talking about the downsides of his career when instead we can get to the hypotheticals of his career, the best, what could have been for his career. Yes. I have two for the next category, which is the alternate universe award. It is for the biggest what-ifs of his career.

I only have two. They're pretty, pretty basic, pretty simple. let me lead with one, come to you, see how you feel. The first one I have, what have you had signed with the UFC? We talked about a little bit, never fought in the promotion. It was rumored to have happened. At one point, there were reports in 2012-ish, 2013 that Melvin had signed with the UFC. It turns out those reports were, and this sort of touches into my second one,

those were a little overblown, a misconstruement. That's definitely not a word, I'm going to pretend it is. of Melvin's signing with Blackhouse, working with Leodomachita and saying, his manager at the time saying he'd love to see Melvin in the UFC got carried away. But for me, if he had signed the UFC in 2013, and I guess I just have to tie both of mine in, because at the time,

the talk was that he signed to compete as a welterweight. And so those are my questions there, because one, what if he just signs in the UFC? to Melvin wasn't, he was certainly not truly light heavyweight. I think middleweight was much closer, but Melvin was 5'8. He still wasn't even a big middleweight. His manager at the time seemed to think he could have made welterweight. I have real doubts that that is true, but if he hadn't put on as much mass to compete

at the top range of kickboxing, certainly you go back and watch that Yor de Yonkers fight, Melvin could have been a well to weight at some point in his career. What would have happened in those? had he signed with the UFC in 2013 to compete as a welterweight, I think it would have gone horribly for him. That division was dominated by kickbox or by wrestlers. Would have been really, really bad for Melvin. Middleweight could have fared a little bit better.

Probably still wouldn't have been great, but there could have been some fun matchups. And I mostly just like to think what his career could have looked like because the UFC's bad at promoting, we talk about all the time. It feels like they wouldn't have screwed Melvin up. Right. Like it feels like they would have at least known, okay, we just got to put this guy in fun fights. We don't have to build him for a title. Put him with dudes who are going to scrap and let's just watch the fireworks go. So those are my two what ifs. What do you got for me, AK? Sorry, what year did you say that this was going to happen? Could have happened?

2013 was when the rumors were that he was signing. I believe that they were, the rumors happened just before Anderson ended up losing his title. widening. Okay. But you said, and that you said, the Welterweight was a consideration. Welterweight was part of, so the rumor started because his manager said he would love to see Melvin sign with the UFC and compete at Welterweight. Oh, I hate that. Again, I have real questions that he could have pulled that off, but there is, which we'll, we'll get to in the next category. I don't want to get ahead of myself, step on toes. There is a welterway fight that I would have been incredibly interested in had he signed with the UFC in 2013. Okay. I, I, will say but I mean gosh just the idea of I already said I hated the idea of him having to be

draped in Reebok and then also extreme weight cutting melvin in 2013 where they do it when was rebuck I have to think that was during the Reebok era I'll just do a quick Google in here if I don't remember when they started I don't think it had started yet it was that it was that much later no it had to be was it 15 oh 2015 I was say I think it's 2015 okay okay either way I feel like it would have seeped into that at some point. I don't need to... If he signs at the UFC, he's hanging around for a long time, and at some point, he's Melvin and Reebok. And I don't want the weight cutting. Who knows? You know what? Maybe we're wrong. Maybe his manager's like, hey, he could have made 170 all along. I don't need to find out.

I want Melbourne living his best life. And the idea of him dropping to 170 to, I don't know, again, to quote-unquote, contend. I don't care about that. I just want him in fun fights. So I went a similar way and just sort of fantasy booked and said, okay, what if? What if instead, let's say 2006. Let's say 2006, after his last appearance for Cage Rage, he ends up signing with the UFC, competes a 205. Imagine him possibly mixing up with like Tito, Chuck Liddell, Forrest Griffin, Marshot Evans. Lillette will be fun.

And God, if he hung around long enough, because this guy joined a little bit later, Rampage Jackson. Oh, my God. Oh my lord Nice friend There's guys like James Irvin Kees Sardine Michael Bissing was at 205 at the time So you could have had the sort of cage rage Versus like first British tough winter thing

And then I fast forward a bit What if at 185, 2009 Coming off of the Mark Hunt knockout She wants some of these, Jed She wants some of these Chris Levin Vanderlay Dan Henderson

Sexyama rematch Again Bisping again Back now at 185 Nate Mark Court Damien Maya just because it would have been hilarious. And then Nate Corey. So there's just so many great... Just because it would have been hilarious.

It would have been hilarious. I am leaving out one, obviously, one obvious name because I want to get into that sort of in our next section. But I will say... I say, we're stepping all over the next category, so we may as well just fold directly into it, the category being the Habib Tony Award for Fight and never happened what you wanted to see. Because I will say, to what you gave me to chew on, the number one thing, I've got, I

have a list. I've got a lot of names here because you could have had a lot of fun with Melvin. The number one name I had was Vanderle Silva. That is, that fight was never like, they were a bit of two ships passing in the night. You know, they were never booked to fight each other, but they were hanging around similar orgs for very, well, they, it could have happened and it never did, it never got talked about, but man, give me that fight. Every, That is, that's, I didn't realize it until I was doing this, that that is immediately in my top five fights of all time that I wish I could have seen. Like, that could have happened. Because we were talking about the Silva fight earlier.

Fabio, did that not scratch the itch for you? No, that just got the juices flowing. I don't want to watch him fight bootleg wandy. I want to watch him fight the real Wondi. I want the full pride, you know, sandstorm. intro, the wrist rolled, the axe murderer stare down, Melvin just chucking so many hooks. The greatest fight of hooks in the history of MMA. It's immediately, I hadn't ever thought about that fight until doing this.

And now it is instantly in my top five fights of all time. I wish I got to see. And as like I said, they were both fighting overseas. Then if he had come to the UFC any time from like 06 to like 2010, it could have been at like heavyweight, it could have been a middleweight. like it really feels like it could have happened and it could have happened in bellator when when when that goes into belitt like there was a lot of times it could have happened and i don't support this i don't want this to happen but i if you told me tomorrow that melvin said eff it i'm

coming out for one last go around i van der leigh just failed in his gubernatorial or whatever political position he was running for in Brazil. And then he said, I want to fight Melvin. We're going to do it for Golden Boy MMA 2. Vanderlai Silva versus Melvin Manhoff. I will hate myself, but boy, am I buying that pay-per-view.

There's no, I know me. I know my limitations as a man and my limitations as a man dictate that I will be buying that pay-per-view and watching it. Listen, Melvin told me that he is accepting offers for the next, if some create offer for the right money came along over the next six months. So we're about only a few weeks removed from his retirement fight. We got a long window here, people. Throw a, throw him a seven figure offer to fight Vanderlay for Golden Boy. Scott, Coker.

Scott. Do the right thing. Do the right thing. Scott, I am speaking directly to you because I, I mean this whole. wholeheartedly with every piece of it. I'm going to get this, I'm going to get this portion of the show clipped out so we can pump it on social. Scott, I give your promotion a lot of shit. Frankly, I think a lot of the shit I give you is deserved. Maybe not all of it. And I know that this is the exact fight you have been systematically trying to move away from in your booking strategy.

I don't care about that. I need this to happen. Make it happen. Offer Vandalea two-fight deal. because I'd also like to see him. The correct retirement fight for Fador is Vanderlay in Russia. Obviously, that's a whole different thing. We'll talk about it. Two fights for Vandaleigh. One more fight for Melvin. You do it.

Put it wherever it is. I'll go to it. I will fly to Scenic Uncissville or Thackerville or any of the other ugly-ass-vills that you put your show on in. And I will go and give you every bit of live coverage I possibly can. Scott, make this happen. I'm into it. I'm into it. I will say, I will say. The other thing that Melvin mentioned to me is he did have a, he does have his own dream fight in mind, his own sort of Kabee Tony. Man, Melvin is just doing our work for us. I know. And I'm so, I joke, like, you know, normally we have a more, at least three person panel for these things. And I'm like, oh, could we have gotten Melbourne? Should we have tried to gotten Melbourne himself?

I didn't even think about it. Maybe we should have. He is, he is pals with the Anderson Silva now. They've trained together a lot. But there was a time when they were both. in Cage Rage, both champions. Anneson was a champion in 185. Melvin was a champion at 205. And Melvin says it was never in the works or anything, but he did think that they were going to fight. Melvin was there from 05 to 06,

Silva from 04 to 06. So he really wanted that one. That's interesting. Yeah, before he met Aaron's Silva, before they became friends, before they trained together. And especially seeing what, you know, what Anderson Silva became. I mean, he was already like a popular fighter overseas

and then what he became. you know, became one of the five greatest fighters of all time. Now Melvin, I think, really looks back on it. I'm like, man, what if I had gotten to him before the UFC, you know, before he became what he was and like, that still would have been a huge fight for Cage Rage. It would have been a big deal for the hardcore. And again, just another cool name from Melvin Dad to his list, which is so many people who became champions.

Back then, back in whatever, 03, 04, that's a more winnable fight for him. Sure. When I was looking into this, you know, that's a name that comes up. You're talking about preeminent middle weights in the world. Melvin may be signing with the UFC. That fight didn't interest me. I was like, yeah, Anderson will win. I would watch it.

But doing it in Cage, which I didn't even think of, honestly. That is a very interesting one. That's not a bad trip. Melvin's doing great as the honorary third panelist on this show. Thank you, Melvin. Thanks, buddy. I have a few more. I'm just going to run down a list, if any,

If you want to say anything about it, cool. If you have any that I miss out, jump in. My other list of people, Carlos Conant, which is the name I just threw in when I realized the Welterweight talks. It was like, I don't want to see him fight, you know, Johnny Hendricks or whatever, but fighting Carlos Condit would be pretty sick. I would watch that fight. Nick Diaz similarly would have been pretty cool.

The big one for me, the number two behind Van der Le Silva, a more off-beaten path, I think. Scott Smith, Scott Smith, who a lot of great performances in Strike Force. The reason I want this fight is because Scott Smith somehow created this little niche in his career where he was the king of comebacks, where he would just get hurt really badly and pull a Hail Mary out of his ass. And we've seen Melvin both do that himself and we saw Robbie do that to him. and so I just want to see, like that feels like a chaos fight of the highest order

because either man could be ahead and pull it out coming back or the inverse either way. So that was my number two behind Vandele. Oda really loved it that had happened in Strike Force during that period where it could have. And then I'll just throw two others out because these were fights that he was booked for that feel a little bit weird in retrospect that he never fought these guys, given how his career flew. One was Peter Ertz. He was scheduled to fight him twice in kickboxing in 08 and 11.

Both times fell through when you look at kind of the list of names that he did fight in kickboxing and sort of their parallel paths. It is a bit surprising that Melvin never got in there with Ertz. And then Alistair Overeem, they were set to fight in 06. Again, two dudes who did kickboxing, did MMA parallel pass, but never quite crossed both of those fights. I would have been interested in watching, but they're not high on my list of if I had a time machine and could make something happen.

It's Van der Le Silva. It's Scott Smith. It's Scott Smith. There's a man who deserves, I want to find out where this guy is. I'm very curious to see what happened with Scott Smith. Again, a guy who when I was kind of coming up in MMA, I thought he was a world beater. I mean, there were times he looked like a world beater. He's got some amazing wins that over some huge names, Robbie Lawler being one of them.

Kong Lee, the first time they fought, he beat him. So that's a whole other, again, that's a whole other damn they weren't bad or somewhere in between. It's like it's not quite a damn they weren't bad, not quite a damn they were good. He's somewhere, I don't know. He might get a damn they were good. Oh, boy. I think we didn't define him, though.

Yeah, I'd love to talk to him first. He'll get a little, it won't be a soon one. But he had a really good run there and a really fun run during the elite XE Strike Force days. He had a lot of fun things going on in that stretch. Do you have any others that weren't mentioned for Habib, Tony? No, I'm good. I'm good. You really got me thinking about, it's just a shame. He fought neither Vanderlei or Anderson of the Silvas and really felt like they were in the same orbit. Did fight. We did get Fabio. So. He didn't fight kickboxer Anderson Silver either.

No, not that. known as Anderson Silva. So he got Fabio. That's not bad. So people are going to say, find that on YouTube if you need that. That you need that it scratched. All right. We're closing in.

Not that many left. The next category, though, one of my favorites. The Brad Ims, What Are You Serious Award? Named after Brad Ims, the Hillbilly Heartthrob, six foot seven heavyweight, who once won back-to-back fights by Gogolata submission. This is for the most impressive,

unbelievable wild career statistic. I didn't have anything that great. There were some ways you could have played with math here. I want to throw to you, do you have anything you feel good or strongly about here? I mean, you know, 29 knockouts out of 32 wins is insane on its own. But for one, I get a little more obscure. Normally, I lean towards you in these, Jed. But this one is also on the surface once you kind of just take a step back and look at his record.

So he debuts in 95. He didn't fight to a three-round decision in May until 2012. He'd been in some two-round fights that had gone the distance, a couple, two or three. But for 17 years, this man did not compete and go to the distance in a three-round fight. This is 36th pro bout. And he won that fight. His first three-rounder that went to distance, he beats Jai Young Kim, by split decision at a Road FC show. 17 years

this guy's a very active fighter never went to not go to a three-round position that is I looked I looked at something like that I'll dive a little bit deeper in that because from the period of July 2007 until that decision in September of 2012

fought 13 times in that five year stretch fought 13 times every single one of those those fights ended in the first round. There was a five-year period of Melvin Manho's career deep into his career. We're not talking the first five years on the regional circuit, deeply into his career, 12 years into his career, where you were getting your money's worth because that man was

get or get got, baby. Mostly he just clobbered people, but he was blowing him all out. So that is one of the stats I pulled. the other big one I have is 10. And that number is the number of major to semi-major fight promotions he fall for. You don't see this a lot in MMA anymore. Honestly, you don't see it really even back then that somebody fought this many times and this many different organizations.

But rings M1, K-Drage, K-1, Dream, Road FC, Strikeforce, 1-FC, KSW and Bellator. That is every major organization in MMA history but for pride in the UFC and a lot of the other second-tier promotions. You don't see a guy with a career like that basically ever happened anymore. So felt worthy of note, at least.

Next category. Third to last? not that many the best category though the one where we get into the most heartiest of disagreements the Sean Farris Award

for actor who should play them in a movie of course this award is named after Sean Farris the actor who played Jake Tyler in the cinematic masterpiece never backed down AK we've talked a lot about this

before recording I settled on the one that I liked I had one in my head I couldn't quite come to it and it finally hit me and I'm really excited about it. Before we get to that guy, I want to talk about a guy that we both independently came to and we revealed to each other before the show.

My number two, the guy I had here and my note three, Don Cheatel with a time machine and a big bucket of juice. And apparently you also felt that Don Cheatel, you know, 20 years ago and with a strict GM regimen could have pulled off Melvin Manhoff. He's a brilliant actor. People know, I have, I think people should know by now. I have like two tricks. I either go gonzo and just go like, well, let's just get a great actor and transform them.

We did that with, I said that was like Daniel Day Lewis playing Dana White, you know, for our, our sport killer film. It looks nothing like Dana White, you know, but I feel like he would do a transformation. I think Don Chittle would as well. I'd like to see him try the Dutch accent. he did a flawless sarcasm, Cockney accent in the Oceans films. He was great in the Oceans.

He's great in the Oceans. His accent questionable. But he's an amazing actor. Can we talk about the artistic decision to add that accent? He did not need to do that. That was a choice. Good for him. He made a choice.

It's just awesome. I just don't know how that happened. And nobody was like, hey man you shouldn't do that it's like malcovich doing teddy kgb like somebody should just be classic come on that's classic oh that's the thing is it became classic and uh there is a matt damon quote from some interviews doing where he's talking about the teddy kgb thing and he's like you know work with john malcovich this is awesome and i lean over and i'm kind of like what the hell are you doing and malcovich just looks at me and smiles and goes i'm a terrible

actor. Let me just say, I use the phrase very aggressive, at least like a hundred times a day. Every day. Every day. Very aggressive. Alligator blood. She keeps hanging ground. He keeps it all the time in my daily life.

And certainly at a poker table, it's the most over-coded thing. But again, we've been derailed. Yeah. But yeah, my two tricks are I pick an Academy Award winning or nominated actor and just say gussy him up, or I just pick someone from a British person, obscure British actor from Game of Thrones. That's it. So I'm revealing my tricks now. Do you want to go first? You felt pretty good. You said you felt really good about this one. I do too. I think you should go first, actually, because I think you'll find mine fun. So I think if we're making a moment of a movie,

I think the actor who actually gets the role. This is not my choice. The actor who gets the role, I think John Boyega would get the role. I think he's got the physicality. I think he's got the acting chops. I think he can pull that off pretty well. I think he's the guy who gets it. But my actual choice, and this is, I'm going to butcher this name, so I do apologize. I know who it is. Go ahead. Gabanga Aki Nagu-Bae. You don't know who that is. If you've ever seen The Wire, he is the guy who plays Chris Partlow in the Wire in seasons three, four, and five of the wire. So I think they have a very similar look to them. And if you've ever watched it, he can pull off Melvin's, the menace of Melvin Manhoof with just a touch of underlying, like, sincerity and care

there. But I think he can really do it. And that's the one who I knew that I was thinking somebody and couldn't figure it out, and that's it. So that is my actual choice. Though I do think if we're casting this, John Boyig is just the guy who's going to get the role. Yeah, John Braga is going to bring in the viewership too. He's got a name. He's got the Star Power for sure. You put him on the poster. We're done.

I'm looking at Mr. Benga now. And he's got the physique for it, though. I mean, he looks. He does. That's it, man. He's got the body. I think there's enough of the facial features there to make it work. I went with, normally I don't like to pick an older actor because I do feel like it

limits it. Then you kind of have to cast someone to play the younger Melvin. the lightweight Melvin that we saw and then, you know, hopefully. But this guy has, he's been a model and actor his whole life. He's pretty much looked the same for the last like 15 years. So I don't think it really matters. I went with, uh, a Jiamen Hun Su. Jiamen Honsu.

It's a great choice. And you might like this because, uh, he, he knows Mr. Sean Ferris. He was in. I was going to say, it was never backed down. He was going to be Jamin Hunsu. He's also part of this cinematic. Master, he was never back down. He was in Never Back Down. He's familiar with the combat sports MMA, MMA, MNus of this movie that we will be making for Melvin Manhoof. So, yeah, it doesn't

really look like Melvin, but I do like, he certainly has the body for it and the acting chops. So I'm going to give, I'm going to throw Jamminusbone. My primary issue is just that he's like almost 60. He's almost 60, but he looks, again, he hasn't aged in like 15 years. He looks the same as he did 15 years ago. So it's true. Incredibly handsome man. I don't hate that choice at all. I think that choice is pretty good. So look at it. Never back down full circle. It does make my heart sing to have it there. We've got three things left and we are, this pod is honestly way long and I thought we'd end up. I can't believe it.

Rich land to tell here. Next category, this was the one I had by far the hardest time with. It's the Cole Conrad career change award. Cole Conrad, if you haven't checked it out, go to MMAFighting.com. Our boy, Shaheen Al-Shadi, did a phenomenal follow-up piece on Cole Conrad, former Bellator heavyweight champion wrestling standout, who abandoned the MMA game to go sell milk. Literally just decided I'm done being a fighter. Undefeated, great career at the top of his game.

It's like, nah, I'm good. I'm going to go on and do other things. What would Melvin Manhook do if he were not a fighter? I think he'd have to be in some sort of law enforcement or vigilante. I know this is kind of a boring answer for any martial artist, but we did have the incident. Was this March of, March of this year? March of this year. I forgot this was this year.

I just say last year where Melvin chased down. Afterhanding criminals. Three burglars who attempted to rob his house and he was not happy about it. So he did chase him down, ran him off the road, I believe punched through a window. And again, fortunately, Melvin told me the, the authority. in Amsterdam were understanding of the situation and I guess they considered a shut case.

He did not face any sort of repercussions for his vigilante justice. Whether that's okay or not, I leave it to the listener to decide, Jed. But certainly he seems to have the willingness to confront crime on his terms. So I don't know if vigilante is technically a job, maybe some sort of official law enforcement

would be better. He was just trying to knock out the car, make Jordan Green's transfer. It's what he does. It's what he does. He knocks things out. I went similar, though, slightly different. Like I said, it's really hard for me, but I, he just gives off such like, he just gives off such, like, guidance counselor to at youth risk vibes to me.

Like, a guy who, you don't f around with him. Like, you don't f around with Melvin. But he has a bit of an underlying tenderness there outside of the cage. But if you're coming with the nonsense, he's going to catch you correct real quick. But in his personal life, he has spoken about, like, wanting to help the youth and whatever. It felt there. That's just kind of where I settled. For a moment, I thought similarly, like, law enforcement.

And I was like, eh, well, let's do it with the children, you know. It's all about the kids. Wu-Tang is for the children, and so is Melvin Manhoff. I will have some words from Melbourne to close out the show if that's right. That's perfect. Yeah.

We have two categories left. One of them. Also really difficult category when you look at his career. It's the Phil Broney. I'm the best ever award for the fighter's peak. What is the peak of Melvin Manhood's career?

I really struggled here, A.K., how about you? Really? I mean, it's got to be. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, that's the thing is hunt felt like the low-hanging fruit sure but it was also just a little bit

it just felt a little weird to pick hunt just because it was sandwiched by the moose and the filio institaps so it was like I ultimately chose not to just because even though that is certainly the probably the correct answer it's certainly the thing I remember A number one with the bullet about him but since we already talked about that

for the Mount Rushmore. I decided to go with the Shungo Yama the second fight, Heroes 7, as his career peak, just because while the man of Hunt is probably the most iconic thing, when he fought Shungo Ayama the second time at Heroes 7, he makes his way into the Heroes' light heavyweight Grand Prix final where he's going to fight Xezyama. That's probably where he was at the peak, of what this guy could be as an MMA fighter.

So he's got a 16-2-1 record at that point. All of his losses are back in the day like this. So we're, you know, if the UFC signs him at 16-2-1 right at that moment with the highlight reel as knockouts, because, oh, let me also clarify, he had won 10 fights in a row, nine by knockout, eight in the first round. Like, in today's day and age, that happens. he is getting signed to the contender series immediately so he can fight for a 10-and-10 contract, and they're going to big up him as big as they possibly can.

This guy is a destroyer of worlds. So I picked that just because I think that's probably when he had the most, like, natural hype. But Hunt is probably the correct answer because that's certainly when the most people cared the most about him. I like the thinking, though, there, because Sexyama, I didn't realize this, was his first submission law. So you're right, we did not. We didn't. I'm sure people thought like, oh, this guy's ground game probably is in the strongest, but who knows? And sexyama, again, a good fighter. That's fine. But then, yes. And that's sort of worth of run of people realizing, okay, he can't fight in the ground at all. He's his next four losses, all by submission. So, and again, all in the first. I'm sorry, one of them was in the second round. But other than that, most of them are pretty quickly in the first round. So, yeah, I see what you mean. So from that perspective, it's like, yes, the sky was the limit. But I think even after he knocked out like a Mark Hunt, yeah, huge moment, but also like, okay, but if he faces a grappler, we know what's going to happen.

Yeah, exactly. It was more of a, it was more of a, this is insane and dope, but less like, can he make a run? It's just like, all right, that was a really cool thing that happened. Whereas at that point in 06, you know, if you could have, if we had a rankings panel at that time, I'm going to just be real with you. It wouldn't have been right. Almost certainly would have been wrong.

I would have for sure had that at him ranked in 06 He'd have been in my like bottom 10 Of the light heavyweight Middleweight. But like this guy just knocks everybody out. Like I don't know what What do you guys want?

What more do you want? He's killing everybody in three minutes. This is the best. But you know, oh, I just thought of another light heavyweight. Houston Alexander would have been a hell of a fight. Oh, there was a lot of good weirdo guys. He could have fought.

You could just pick a name. He would have fought a bunch of dudes who would have been awesome. All right, we're going to move on just because this is going to be two-hour episode, which I did not see coming, frankly, about Melvin, but I've had a great time. And now we're closing it down. We're at the final moment, the end of it all. It is the Legacy Award, which I'm probably retitling to the What Did Melvin Mean to Me Award, because that's really what this is about.

It's putting a bow on all this, wrapping it up with what this fighter meant to you, what he meant to the sport, why fan should care, everything else. you have to say that we haven't already said. And how will you remember them the most, basically, where they fit in the great tapestry of MMA? So, AK, I'll lead with you, and then I'll close the show out. The quintessential glass cannon. I mean, there's many in MMA, but he's right up there.

If you're talking about what is a glass cannon, what does that mean? I would say, watch a few Melvin Manho fights, watch these three wins, watch these three losses. He just goes out there to do damage. And if he gets shattered in the process, it doesn't matter. He's bouncing right back and coming back and fighting again. And just an original, you know, just an original as far as personality, his look. We talked about the shorts. Just his, we just see that less and less these days.

And that's fine. You know, we'll always say the sport from a technical standpoint from sort of the level of competition is higher than it's ever been. But it's also more uniform. You know, again, we have so many UFC fights, so many Beltor fights. Even if you want to go with promotions that are a little more out there, like, whatever, one championship rise in. There's still often a sameness to fighters.

And, you know, a guy like Melvin just really stand. You just go back and watch his career and it's like, wow, he really stands out. He's one of those guys, if you see the silhouette, you know who it is. And that's not true for the majority of fighters these days. So he's up there. And it's, it was, I'm glad he got to retire. I hope he sticks to it. He got to tire with a big back-to-back big fights, Yoel Romero.

And before that, Corey Anderson, who might be the best light heavyweight in the world. Again, we don't know. That's another, that's a conversation for our ranking show in the future. So he went out with, he went out with big fights. He still had a name. He still had a lot of people who cared about his fights. And for a lot of people, you know, when he reached their 50th, 50th, 51st fights, he's 46 years young.

That's not the case, but that's how he went out. So he always did it his way for better, for worse. and God bless him for it. And I'll say, do you want the quote now? Do you want me to save it for after you are? Fire. Fire, because I also have a quote, so you can close with yours. So here's what I, here's what Melvin said when I asked him,

are there any mistakes, you know, that you kind of warn other up-and-coming fighters to avoid? And you said, sometimes you fight and you didn't think about health. Talking about himself. I had a fight against Remy Bojanski, didn't specify which one. And then on five days notice, I had two liters of blood in my life. lungs and after that I still got on the plane to Japan and I still fought another fight. This kind of thing is dangerous. But the other side, if you're a fighter, you have to do this kind of thing.

So it's advice that I can give because I'm getting a little bit older. When I was younger, I was like, yeah, this is part of the deal. This is part of the life. So again, just a walking contradiction, you know, that is Melvin. I love that quote because I think it does speak a lot to Melvin. and I have a quote from him as well. Before his retirement fight, he spoke to CBS. And when I was doing the research, it's just kind of stuck out with me.

Because let's be real, Melvin has done his own share of heavy lifting on this pod, the unseen third member of the panel. And I'm going to let him close it down. Because I can't sum him up better than himself, which is for my size and what I could deliver, I got the most out of the fight game. I'd say people have to remember me like that. A guy who is knocking everybody out, wasn't scared of anybody, gives it as all.

That's how I think you describe me and I think that's very special. And I don't think there's a better way to describe him. Melvin was, I don't like calling him a glass cannon because he could take shots. I prefer to go with my pet phrase of he was the definition of a get-or-get-get-godfighter because he wasn't going to wilt under pressure immediately, but he was not coming to let the judges do work that day. He was coming to give people there's money's worth, and he always did.

And part of the reason I wanted to do Melvin this week, not just for his retirement, was, as I said at the top, I love all the people. I love this podcast. I feel like everybody we've done has deserved to be here. But part of building this was part of the initial conceit, was that we celebrate greatness in this sport, and I want to expand our definition of greatness. Manhoof was never the best fighter in the world, and if we were really, he's probably never

like one of the ten best fighters in whatever weight class. But for 25 years, certainly over 20 years, he was appointment viewing television. If that man was fighting, you could tune in with a high level of confidence that your night would not be wasted, your dollars would not be wasted, that you are going to see something awesome one way or the other. And that is rare. There are only a handful of dudes in the history of this sport who can say that. And say that they did that for 20 years, it's nearly unheard of. And really, I cannot give any higher praise than that. So I'll leave it with that of Melvin, thank you for everything. Damn you were good, man.

Thank you for sticking with us. If you have stuck with us for this whole two-hour episode, I love every single one of you for it because, as I said, this is the most fun I have. I love doing this. I love remembering some of these guys. And I love the research that takes me down in memory lane. I don't know who we're doing next,

but it'll be out in a couple of weeks. We'll figure out at the time. But until then, if you haven't, go back to the old episode. The longest one ever, previous. Josealdo, still great. Worth all of your time. A.K., I appreciate you joining me on this journey, and as always, love you guys.