MMA Fighting - DAMN! They Were Good | Celebrating Joanna Jedrzejczyk, The Bogeywoman Of The Strawweight Division

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

DAMN! They Were Good celebrates the careers of the most exciting and influential fighters in MMA history and on this episode it celebrates the seminal career of Joanna Jedrzejczyk, the woman who built the UFC's strawweight division. After flirting with a comeback earlier this year, Jedrzejczyk ultimately decided against it, officially notifying the UFC of her retirement in August, and as one of the most important and exciting figures in women's MMA history, it's only fitting we send her off properly. Host Jed Meshew is joined by MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Morning Kombat's Brian Campbell to take a deep dive into Jedrzejczyk's singular career and discuss exactly what the woman who dubbed herself "Joanna Champion" means to the history of MMA. Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Brian Campbell: @BCampbell Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco 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 two, ghosts in the machine.

Available now, only from Audible. Oh, friends, it's me. It's Jed Meshue of M.AFighting.com. Best damn website in the world. Don't care what anyone else is telling you. And today we got another good one. It is damn they were good. the Yawanna-Jich edition.

Because we're doing Yawanna and J-Chic, there was only one man I could call. I guess that's not true because I did call two people. Of course, we have the esteemed Mike Heck, the man behind between the links, and so many other things that you watch on the M&A fighting channel.

But more importantly, arguably more important than Yowna herself, we've got the man, I would say the man responsible for the best parts of morning combat. Brian Campbell, BC himself. Amen, brother.

How you doing, BC? You're making your damn debut, and damn does it feel so good? Yeah, it feels great because you invited me to talk about my favorite fighter of all time. But I've got to be honest with you. I hope this doesn't cancel my appearance. I thought the show, you thought you told me it was called Damn, they were hot. I was like, yeah, let's do this. And then here we are.

But, you know, great career. Notwithstanding, I'm still, I'm still ready. So that's where we brought you on. I was lucky. enough to be on morning combat the other week. And you mentioned in passing that Yohanna is one your favorite fighters ever. And I'd been looking to do one on Yonana. I have a list, a pretty robust list of people who will get their dams and keeps growing

every day. We only have one woman thus far who has been inducted. That's Ronda Rousey, I think, the obvious choice if you're doing an episode like this. And Yowana feels like a really good one. It felt like a good time since she, I know that she had previously announced her retirement, but she like made it official a week ago to the UFC saying, hey, I'm actually really done now. And so all the stars just aligned.

And, you know, this might cost me my job at mhmaphiting.com, giving you a microphone to talk about you ony and J-Chic. Who knows what bad things can happen. But that's why we have, Mike, heck here. Mike is a professional, a reasonable man and a gentleman above all. So Mike, tell me your thoughts as we're about to, dive into the career of Yohanna champion. I've been called many things in the sport and I've been portrayed in many different ways,

but the redheaded stepchild of a damn they were good panel was not one of the things I expected to be. And that's how I feel. And look, Yoanna's had a great career. Like BC, one of my favorite fighters to watch inside the octagon. She had some incredible performances.

And I will say this, Jed, I've been on a few of these. This was one of the toughest ones in terms of categories. Like, I think some of the basic categories when it comes to her fighting career were pretty easy. But when it came to the sort of out of the box ones, I'm stumped on a couple of them. I can't lie to the world right now. You don't need to because it's, I mean, we're going to get into it as this episode unfolds.

I was talking about it in the green room beforehand. I think this is the most difficult damn that we've ever done. And it's odd because, like I said, I have a list of fighters who I just want to cover for various reasons. and I don't really take a dive into them before. I just, hey, this is the guy we're going to do for this reason. And then that's when I take the deep dive. And like you said, Mike, Yawanna has her career speaks for itself in a lot of ways. But as you get into a lot of these categories, there are either one clear choice.

So there's not like a ton of room to get creative and have fun with it. Or there's nothing that stands out, at least for me. So I'm very interested to see how this unfolds. I think talking about the fight career is obviously there's a there's a lot of meat on that bone, but certainly some of the oddball categories that I normally have a great deal of fun with. I'm interested to see what you guys have brought to the table because I don't think there's going to be a lot of unanimity on this one because there's so few standout choices. But before we get to any of that, you know, we like to riff.

I like to have a couple of broader conversations before we dive into the categories. I've got a couple that I've sort of just been interested, but this came up. Actually, we were sort of talking about this on Morning Combat, BC, at least got kind of thrown out there. So for both of you, is Yawanna the strawweight goat right now? Where does, you know, Wiley, Rose, it's all sort of weird. Who is the strawweight goat? Is it Yawanna champion? Is my first question for the panel?

I'm a Yawanna super fan, and I'm a, uh, unfortunately here to tell you that if you have her as your go, her accomplishments and consecutive title defenses, and really stardom and reputation speak for itself, it wouldn't be an egregiously wrong answer. But I think the best part about being a journalist that also is not afraid to hide that we're fans is we can be huge fans of people,

but still need to keep our journalist cred and pick apart the parts that they're missing. For me, the greatest straw weight I've ever seen is Rosamai Yunus and two wins cleanly over both Zhang Wei and, you know, and you want a champion, although both of those two series did have a close rematch that was certainly somewhat disputed. To me, it values most what you did in the cage. It's sort of how I debate pound for pound, that accomplishments get you into the conversation, but it's who would win in a fight against each other? Who's the best right now? That trumps it. Now, when you're doing the goat straw wait, we're not talking about right now. We are talking about the totality.

accomplishment wise jj's right there if not number one but i did see uh rose nami unis at her best prove that she's the mother effing best and the two wins over those two great champions despite going oh and two against inaugural champion carla asparza uh seemed to trump that in the way i look at it like where you're where are you out here i think i agree with bc that i think rose is probably the best overall straw weight. And this might seem kind of weird, but I do think Yuan is the best strawweight champion we've ever seen. Like she,

the amount of title defenses that she had, the performances she had, winning the belt, her first performance after winning the belt, the performance against Jessica Androge, she has put together some of the, like, just incredible performance.

And before they even gave away, before they crowned the first UFC strawweight champion on the ultimate fighter, we all knew, like, what was awaiting the winner of that tournament. It wasn't, you know, they're going to become the strawweight champion.

It's who's about to get the mitts put on them by Yawanna and Jacek because we knew that everyone knew the actual strawweight title was Claudia versus Yowna like two weeks before on a fight night card. 100%. So to me, I feel like she was the uncrown champion even before tough. She was the best straw weight in the world before that tough season even happened. And just the run she had after that was massive. and we'll get into a little bit more about how, like, without Yohanna and Jacek,

there is no Rose Dame Unis. Like the Rose Namuiochus superstar, there is no superstar without Yohani on Jacek. And it's not because of just the performances. It's how Yowana promoted that fight and kind of, she put Rose over in such a massive way. And I think Rose would even say to this point, like, without those, without that first fight and everything leading up to it, we're not even having this conversation right now. both the goad and superstars and all that because Yawanna made her. And that is an important trait when it comes to these dams.

And when it comes to the Rosamayunas dam that we're surely going to do someday, Ywani and Jacek is going to be fully entrenched in that episode. I mean, their careers are extremely linked. I understand where you're coming from, B.C. I at least get the point. I think, Mike, you said it best. She is the best champion that this division has ever had. And that's fairly unequivocal.

just because she's the only champion this division's ever had who is like held the belt in a meaningful way do you know the next show she has five title defenses do you know the next highest number of title defenses successful title defenses it's one one everybody else either immediately lost the belt

like Jessica and Josh or they got one win and then they dropped it back which doesn't boat all that well for Wiley Zhang coming off her first successful title of the fence against Limosh, but I guess we'll see how that unfolds moving forward. So for me, she is, she's still the goat just because I largely put your title reign in that kind of stretch as it's the most significant and meaningful. But I do get that she got iced up by Rose in the first one. And then lost the second one. Thought the fight was very competitive, certainly, but she, I have no issue with the scoring in that fight.

We'll talk about the first Wiley fight a lot this episode. I think there's a much better argument you want to won that fight. But we'll get into that a little bit later. So, we'll- For having the most title defenses, the most consecutive title defenses, the only one that she didn't have before this Limos fight was a fight she was in and lost. And as we talked about, you know, ad nauseum since it happened,

you could argue JJ beat Whaley in that first one. You can also argue that's the best performance of her career, not in terms of dominance, but in terms of pouring it all out and showing you what she's made of. So it's crazy that the next closest is one title defense, and she may have actually won that fight. So that does speak a lot to what she's accomplished. Yeah, I mean, she is the older I get and the reason I put so much weight behind consecutive title offenses is that the more you're in this sport, you just see people win belts. Like, Sean O'Malley just won a title. And I'm fairly certain he is not the best ban on weight on earth.

Like he gets to hold the crown because he just won the belt, and you cannot take that away from him. And he might even get a title defense or two. But if he goes through the murderer's row at Bannamweight, like it's just impossible. So when you see someone string together enough wins, they are undeniably there's a period of time where there's no reasonable argument against them.

I think Yowana certainly has that. And like right now, Waley is the strawweight champion. She got two L's to Rose, who has two Lels to Carlos. sparsa of all people. So it's just a very interesting thing. So along those,

tying into that conversation, and this came up on, I want to say this was on the MMA hour this week, not with the area of Hawanee this week, but with the esteemed Connor Birx and New York Rick, as they were, you know,

taken the chair. Women's MMA Mount Rushmore. We have a Mount Rushmore category that we'll get into, but if you're just talking the W. MMA Rushmore. Yawanna, I'm not, is number three for most title defenses in UFC history behind Valentina, certainly, and Amanda.

She's, oh, I guess she's four. She's also behind Rhonda. Yawanna, as you said, B.C. and Mike, really important to the growth of this weight class. Does she sneak in to the women's MMA Mount Rushmore? Is she on yours personally? And do you think she has a reasonable case to make it there? if somehow they added a fifth head to Mount Rushmore, yes. Okay.

But there's only four. And unfortunately, that is how Mount Rushmore works. Yes. I think Valentina is in there over her. So I think it's Rhonda. You think that's the break? All right.

Yeah, it's Rhonda, Nunes, Cyborg, and Valentina Shibchenko. Those are the four for me. There are others that you could make an absolute argument for. But to me, those are the top four. I don't hate that. I don't hate that Mount Rushmore. BC, I noticed you nodding. Are you, are you in an agreement?

I think it depends on how you look at it. So I think Rhonda Rousey's legacy has slowly been changing, the more we get away from her dominant run of victories, and it will continue to change. The idea of her being both a pioneer and an inaugural breakthrough household name crossover star will never be taken away from her. Neither will be the run of Mike Tyson level dominance where it's like, you could have put anybody in there during that run and she probably would have beat them in 15 seconds. But I think as we get away from her career, she's having the diminished returns in the way

that Hoyst Gracie is also having, where, yeah, you're always going to talk about the dominance and the pioneership of Hoyce Gracie and what he did early. But once everybody caught up, it wasn't that dude anymore. I'm wondering here how long we are away from Rousey, and now this is a hot take, but from Rousey fully falling into that pool where it's like, look, no one's ever going to touch certain parts of her, but the other part of it, who she beat and when and how developed they were. Now look, Yawanna, there's something to that. Straw weight's the deepest, most competitive division in UFC women's history, and Yuana's the only one that's been dominant, and you could

argue that during that stretch that she put together four or five straight title defenses, she wasn't beating the level of quality that the fighters have evolved to now. If you want to make that argument, I think what helps Yowana is she still had a couple big wins on the back end or big performances and losses that showed that any era, she's great. But I think you could sub in Yawanna for Rhonda on the Mount Rushmore. You get a lot of booze for it. You get a lot of debate. But I think every day we get further away from Ronda's career,

we do realize how one-dimensional limited and how overwhelmed and not dangerous her opponents on the title level actually were in reality that I think you could make that argument. But I know that's a hipster take. And I know it bleeds into this media hatred of Rousey because she didn't give everybody the interviews they wanted. But I, you know, I think it's a valid point. B.C. Was, was, was, was, youana on the cover of Ring Magazine?

What was Yonah? Was Yonna talked about to box Floyd Mayweather that she could beat Floyd Mayweather in a fight? I mean, come on. She's not on the Mount Rushmore. No. I get, no, but I do. Who's the better fighter?

Who's seriously the better fighter, Ronda or Yawanna? Who's the better fighter all time? I think Yawana is a better fighter than Ronda Ross. No, I don't hate that take at all. No, I think you're absolutely right. And honestly, I don't think we're that far away. I think we're, if Rhonda, Rhonda's been able to somewhat stay in the spotlight so people like don't forget about her.

Like she's gone to WWE and all that. And MMA sites still cover what Ronda does in WWE because she was the biggest, one of the biggest stars in the history of the sport. But if she just goes away and we don't really hear from her at all over the next three to four years. I think you're right. Because as a newer crop of fans come in, some of those fans are going to be introduced to Yuana far before Ronda Rousey going back and watching the Zhang Wei Lee fight. Because Ronda's never had a fight like that. It's not there are very few Ronda Rousey fights are like, oh, you know what? I'm bored. I'm going to spend the next half an hour watching this

Ronda Ronda fight. There are really none of those. But Yona, there's a few. There's a few with those Juana one. So I don't I don't dislike the take at all BC. I love this take because I didn't see it coming. I don't think I agree. I feel like Rhonda's the most cemented into the Mount Rushmore because she is the second biggest star the sports ever seen. And so you don't just get to walk away from that for anyone. Like we can be hipster about it. But Rhonda is the only person like of people, my mom knows three fighters maybe of all time. Connor and Rhonda are two of them. I think she gets to hold it.

But I love the angle, love the energy. That's the sort of take we need coming in here because I did not think I'd hear, well, Ron, we might forget about Rhonda, I'll see in a year or two and replace it with Yonnie and J-Chic.

So I think I agree with you guys. I don't think you want to make some out Rushmore. I'm not even sure five. I might need like six faces. She's, she's in the conversation. Don't overdo it, yeah.

Don't overdo it, please. Why not? Why did Mount Rushmore need to stop it for? There's a mountain. You could keep carving dudes in there. It'd be fine. At some point,

the nation keeps growing. You need to add, add some levers to it. So, uh, I think we're all, we're sort of all there together as far as this goes. And I have one more topic of conversation.

I kind of want to broach, but I think we can get into that with, the awards. So before we jump into the awards, is there anything either of you would like to say, broadly speaking, or just sort of something, thoughts you have on Yonah that didn't fit into a category that you want to get off your chest now? I think it just comes down to, you know, if somebody said to you, I have no idea who this person was, who was Yawanna Young Jacek. I think she's one of the rare people that can say she was equally a self-made stock. right? She didn't come in from somewhere else with her reputation and she didn't necessarily have the, obviously, the crossover heights of a rousey, but within hardcore MMA, she became a self-made superstar and was up to the task and also an absolute savage.

And what's interesting is we're going to talk about there were some legitimate holes in her game. Yet she was such a savage, both in terms of conditioning and in terms of willingness, that she damn near, even. even though the women's game evolved so quickly throughout her career, she damn near outwilled people at the highest level in some of her biggest fights. And I hold some of those parts of her legacy as a fight fan near and dear. The idea that you could have gone from unknown to making yourself pretty much a decent level star, at least to hardcore level fans. And at the same time, you were an absolute savage who had longevity at the top.

I don't know what else more we could ask out of our favorite fighters. And if that's the key elements to how we remember her and how we talk about her, she did damn good. Yeah. She's a four, I don't know if she's a five tool player, but she's a very solid four tool player where she could fight her ass off. When she was on,

she was as good as anybody, if not better. And she was so good at like promoting fights. She was so good at it. And I don't know if there's anybody in women's MMA any better of with saying nothing. but it meaning everything. She could be like, yeah, outside of the cage, I'm very nice. But in the cage, I'm an animal.

And you're like, you know what? That's the most cliche thing any fighter could ever say. But when Yohanna says it, it means so much more. You can see it. You can see it in her. A tremendous advocate for the sport. And then when you see her locked into the cage, even better advocate for the sport.

Like she is this fucking sport when it comes to the cage door locking and doing all the right thing. So good with the meat. even after she retired. Like she's just a delight to be around. But then once Fight Week comes, she's just a different beast altogether. And she just came in at the perfect time. Like women's MMA was a snowball that was rolling downhill.

Thanks to Rhonda and thanks to some of the big fights that happened in Strikeforce before that. And then you bring in Yawanna who's just like, listen, if we want to promote this event, let's put it on the back of Yawanna and Jacek. She will get it over. And she'll show up to everything. If I called her and said, hey, you need to fly to Denver in three hours.

She'll be like, okay, I'll go and I'll go on all the radio stations and I'll plug this fight and then I'll go beat the shit out of somebody four days later inside the Octagon. Perfect advocate for the sport. And I think low key just isn't, even though we talk about Mount Rushmore and she's not on there, low key, she's just, I don't think she gets the credit she deserves. I really don't. I'm very much with you on that. And that's fine, sort of just probably her lot in life.

And yeah, great advocate for the sport. great advocate for the promotion. Have you ever heard Dana White say a bad thing about her? She is of that Rhonda Rousey ilk where she just said yes and the company loved her for it. And maybe that works out for her. She was pre, she had the superstar in her ready to come out. And none of us saw it coming. I mean, obviously, if you look at pictures of her from her first couple UFC fights to be the starlet she became,

where she regularly embraced the idea of the camera. camera on her. She's done modeling. She's rep brands, you know, both in English and in Polish. I mean, but it was sort of like she had that in her all along and it just came full bloom, not overnight, but over a four or five year period in such a beautiful arc. So before we happen to the categories, I do it every week or every episode, not week. Just a very brief rundown of her career. So if this is your first experience with Yawning and J-Chic, because you're a recent fan, here are the highlights. multiple time world champion in women's moitai so five-time world champion got a silver medal

in 08 so from 08 to 13 she was in the finals that silver came against uh valentina shivchenko who turns out to also be fairly decent at at the kick fighting sports as well fortunately for yuana valentina moved up weight class and then valentina ran the 57 kilogram weight class for the next six years. Made the, kind of dabbled around, still doing kickboxing in MMA, Moitai and MMA, but made really the transition in 2012, fighting in Poland, joined the UFC a couple years later in 2014, and it's off to the races. We alluded to it earlier, a couple of fights, including one with Claudia Gidella that was,

I don't remember if it was billed as a women's strawweight title eliminator, but everyone who followed MMA was aware that these were the two best strawweight. competing and that all of the wonderful women in the tough 20 house were going whoever one was going to get jawed up by the winner of this fight that's what ended up happening she takes the strawweight title from carlos bars in 2015 holds onto it for five title defenses drops it to rose in 2017 and then her careers the the best part of her career is over she loses a rematch she bumps up to 125 to fight for i guess it wasn't the inaugural but it was also the inaugural women's flagway title at that point in time

because we had done the tough thing again for this weight class that no one needed. And then she fights once more for the strawweight belt against Wiley Zhang in 2020, has a rematch two years later, and now she is officially retired. She retires with a number of records, the highlights being most title fight wins at strawweight, most title defense is at straw weight, most wins at straw weight.

She's tied with Carla a 10 for that, I believe. as the number. Fourth most significant strikes all time in the UFC, second most title fights in UFC women's history, and the longest winning streak in women's straw weight history. Also three five of the night awards, one performance of the night, and she was in the 2020 fight of the year with Wiley Zhang.

Those are the hits, people. Now it's the fun stuff. Now it's the categories. And we will start, as we always do, the Mount Rushmore. We've talked about Mount Rushmore already on this episode. this is yanna's four fights you got four fights from her career that you're putting on the rushmore for yawanna i this was very simple for me there were only four that i was going to choose uh i'm not

sure there's a great case for others but i would love to hear it if you guys make them so my four i went undeniably the carless bars at uc one 85 march 14th 2015 so when she wins the belt uh a qualified ass kicking is handed out of you guys i'm sorry ass kicking is handed out of out. I am assuming that is on both of your lists. I'm getting nods and affirmations. Absolutely. No, it's not. I mean, it's on the list. It's on the second question of what I, when you said alternately, her four best performances. But if I was going to show somebody four fights, if they said, who is this person and I want to see what they were great, I'm giving them the first way Lee fight, the greatest fight in women's history,

the gadalia rematch, the Nama Yunus rematch, which I think is in the top three of best female fights of all time, that makes two appearances from Yonan, if you're keeping score, and the absolute destruction, urinal caking of Jessica Pene

and the first title defense. I'd put those four up there, but if you want to sub-out, Pen-A-for-A-Sparza, we're tomato-tomado at this point. Okay, we're going to circle back to this list because I have questions. I don't necessarily disagree,

I do have questions. So I certainly have a sparser because I think that you should always have the fight that they won the belt on probably, particularly when it's such a listening, going back and watching that fight, listening to the commentary and Joe Rogan just being flabbergasted by how ineffectual Carla Sparsa is being. Do you know she gassed out within like rewatching it? Carla gassed out within three minutes of failed takedown attempts. just completely gassed out just done diving on the legs can't get any traction looks terrified to be in there and joe rogan is just befuddled what is it's like oh carla spars is a champion and she is she getting bullied she getting beat up in there mike like it is it's an incredible rewatch both because it's like one of the shortest fights of yanna's career and she is just laying the lumber the whole time

and hearing the commentary team be like carlo wants No part of this is. Well, I think what killed Carla is, she actually got Yawana down in the first round and could not do anything. So that, you know, that started to really pull out her guessing. But you mentioned the look in her face or you tease toward it. She did look like she took a crap in her Unitarred while she was walking to the cage and standing there. And she did say in the post-fight interview, real champions don't give excuses. So I'm not going to tell you.

But just so you know, fighters go through things during training camps. I'm not going to use it as an excuse. But that was her way of saying, I have a very. reality shoes. I've never figured that out or asked her about that, but in hindsight, rewatching it, as much as it's an absolute domination and a passing of the torch and really the beginning of the Strawway division and for real in many ways, that's got to be Carlos worst night at the office for ways that I think we don't even have the full volume of why. It's definitely her worst performance. And I, if she's not going to give us an excuse,

then I can't give her an excuse for her. But I also, So certainly the way their careers unfolded, I still struggled to think she might have done better, but I don't think that fight really goes any different based on what we know about them. So that's certainly mine. I have Claudia Gidea, too, on there, an exceptional fight. I think that to me shows some of the best of Yawanna, as you guys alluded to at the top here. She's just an animal in there. And Gidea came out so strong, had such a good two opening. rounds off of the fight where she arguably won their first fight. The three-year-on fight split

decision was very controversial. Uh, and she comes in and looks like, okay, now, maybe she's the one who's supposed to carry this division forward and the championship rounds come and Yawanna is just a whole different animal in there. And Gaddaia can't, can't get things going the same way she was. I thought that was, uh, maybe not her best performance ever, because we're going to talk about that, but, uh, in a championship performance, it highlighted a lot of stuff that, uh, uh, you know, I think goes underappreciated from Yanna's career. I also have the Jessica. Actually, also, I don't think you have this one.

Jessica and Drogh, I think, is the best performance of her career. And so that's why I'm putting it here. Interesting. She took a lot of shots. She took a lot of sneaky power shots late. And I was nervous in rounds four and five on that flight live. She did, but she, she weathered through it. And for that, the opening round from And Drogge,

And Drogh has always been a very, very strong starter. And then from that moment on, even though she started to flag a little bit later, she still was in total control. It's the most control she's ever been in a fight, except for, I will say that the Valerie Luterno one is probably better. But I just rate Jessica Androge as a much more significant and quality fighter, given that Androge would become the champion afterwards. Like, this isn't Androge is already cooked. This is Androge really at the peak of her powers. and Juana just kind of takes her to school for a lot of that fight. I think it's probably her best all-around performance,

but then the most important one, this conversation, if you don't have Wiley Zhang, a UFC 248 in there, I don't know what we're talking about here. It's the greatest female fight of all time, and I want to talk about this fight now, y'all, because rewatched it twice for this. I believe Wiley Zhang should have won the fight. I think that there you can score that fight for your one and I don't have an issue with it.

Is this a top five fight all time regardless of weight class or not weight class, regardless of gender? I think it could be as high as top three. Top three. Because the only thing it's really lacking is, in my opinion, is character. Well, no, that's wrong because there is character. The softball, the alien head that starts morphing and growing out of Yawana's head. So that fight does have character. I take that back.

Sometimes I think certain action fights get overrated when it's just two guys or girls just really bouncing into each other like trains colliding and there's no, let's say, knockdowns or swerves of momentum. This did have character because I was ringside watching through my fingers, like almost getting over-emotional where I wanted to grab a white towel and like run up at the cage and throw it because I'm like, you don't understand UFC and referee and commission. These two will fight to the death. Like they have found they're equal.

But I will tell you, I think action-wise, savage. wise, what it meant in terms of the former champion trying to come back and resurrected and show the new guard that she's still out. I mean, what, what Yawanna did to dig deep in that fight and it is, and it's not just digging deep to say, okay, I'm an absolute dog and I might have the most dog of any other female fighter. And that might be true, by the way. It's more of like her ability in a very high level to figure out and make tiny adjustments on the fly and figure out how to have a say in that fight. Luke Thomas has always said, He was there too that night that he scores it for Yawanna.

I was there. I scored it for Wei Lee. It's definitely a three, two. You can go either way. I just think the power difference from Cage side was clear throughout. And since the strikes were so even, you got to go way Lee in that spot. But Mike Heck, top three all time. It's up there.

It moved us. What the hell do you? What else would you want from this fight? Nudity? Is that the only thing, Mike, that's hold this fight back? I mean, this was everything, okay? I thought I was supposed to be the professional here. Why are you posing that question upon me?

The fight was incredible. Like, I mean, it's, it's, I'm with you, B.C. I'm, I was at top five easily. I'm jumping on top three island with you. It's, it's that good. Is there any time you rewatch that fight and you're like, you know what? This fight wasn't, wasn't as good as I thought it was. You always come out of that thinking it was better than you thought it was.

And there aren't a lot of fights in the history of this sport where you just feel differently about it in a. positive way. You can never get sick of watching that fight. You watch that fight a hundred times and a hundred days. By day 100, you'd be like, I'm going to do 100 more. It's that fucking good. So yeah, it's top three for me. It evokes so much emotion. It's why we love this sport so much because of this fight, the will that both these women go through, especially Yawani and Jacek, who looked like a different human being at the end of that fight, like a totally different person from the beating she took in that fight,

but kept coming and kept giving it back to Zhang Wei Li, who might be in a legendary run right now. I know historically it's kind of like one title defense and then you lose the belt. And certainly that could happen here if she fights Tatiana Suarez next. But I just kind of feel like Zhang Wei Li is on one right now and to do that to her and still come through it,

even though you look like a different human being, special shit. Special shit. Normally how history goes is Yawanna would have been dangerous in that first fight against Wayley, but would have faded late and Layley would have either finished her or won a close decision, but it was clear. That's how history goes. What Yawanna did at what? In her early 30s, when we had doubts to turn that around, it's just that's what greatness is. Even though she didn't get a win there, even though the second half of her career, you know, once she became a superstar had more losses than wins. That's a all-time performance. That's a championship performance. there's only been three times in my life where I either thought somebody died in the cage or feared it could be close. The first Bigfoot versus Mark Hunt fight right around the middle part of round four, I'm like, guys, you're going to televise a death here if you don't turn this off. When Machitas fell and his eyes rolled back after the front choke from John, and this moment,

like I said, like I cannot express. It might sound like hyperbole, but I don't know if you guys were there. I'd love to hear sitting literally in the front row like I was, I cannot express, even though I do this for a living and cover fights, how scared I was for the in the moment health of both athletes because there was a willingness to go to that place that, forget saying, I don't see it often in a women's fight, which I guess you can make that argument.

I don't see it often in life. I mean, there was a willingness, there was an eye of the tiger combined from those two that got scary to watch that close. It was just brutality, but just, I mean, it was, when it's so good, it's painful, then you're on to something, right? Then you're touching different fields.

That's the good stuff. I didn't realize you were Caged side for this, for what it's worth. I think it's a top five all-time fight. I don't think it's top three, but I do think it's pretty firmly entrenched in the five for me now. BC, I didn't realize you were Caged side. So put this in context for me, because we've talked about this. We were both at Izzy Gastilum, which is a top five fight.

for me. It's the best fights. It's the best fight I've ever seen live and I held felt many emotions in the same way where you were also gauged side for that where put it in context to that so I can better understand being in the arena for that event. It's crazy. I still put Izzy Gasolam just slightly higher and I know there there are people that I would put it as a fight higher certainly but that I'm aggressively overrating that fight and I will say the experience of having been there certainly changed my experience but when I talk about character that fight had so much character and swings of emotion and in momentum and sort of like, oh, my God, you know, Izzy really is that much of a badass. Oh, Izzy might get stopped. Oh, like, wait.

Oh, and then, you know, the, is he looking at gasoline and saying, I'm willing to die here is just a, God, that's an all-time average remote. But yeah, so I mean, that's the greatest combat experience I've ever had. And I've been lucky in boxing in MMA over the last decade to cover some big ones. Not always some great ones, right? Usually the fight of the years I tend to miss more often than not. I've been there for the big ones. There ain't nothing like I ever felt for Izzy versus Gastilum, and Yawanna versus Whaley won, is number two as close as you can be to number one, right behind that.

And this also includes pro wrestling. And if you haven't been a pro wrestling fan where you are, well, I was a journalist and fan, but when you are all in on the level that, like, you're literally critiquing and raiding, the storytelling in the arc of the match, and did they hit the spots and the momentum changes at the right time, there are some pro wrestling matches in this modern era I've been to

that are like they actually could, be number one on this list. And yet those two MMA fights still trump all three combat sports in terms of the feeling it gave me sitting that close. See, that's why we wanted to hear. That's great context because I remember watching this live and being like, yeah, this is one of the best fights we've ever seen. This is one of the best fights we've ever seen.

But counter to what you said, Mike, going back and watching it, I was less impressed. Now, big caveat. I'm not saying it was bad. I think that I had built it up to something in my mind since the last time I had watched it, which had been years. And it is better as a technical fight. But in my head, I just remembered this being like a blood and guts nonstop war. And it wasn't really that. I mean, it is largely there is that part of it.

But it is mostly just a technical war going on in there. a both women showing a lot mixing things up a good narrative arc back and forth in the swings and and the visuals but rewatching it was like maybe maybe someone could sell me that this isn't a top five fight and then I got you two guys on who are not here to sell me that story at all so uh we can firmly put it in the top five I will have it at five though um that's fair it's because condit luller Lawler McDonald, Izzy Gastilum, which, like UBC,

being there, I feel like maybe I view that fight better than others as a result of it, but that's what I was close to a religious experience to sit there and watch that cage side.

Those three, and then I think that the more time we have away from it, the more I've come around to the idea that Yeri Glover might be the best fight I've ever seen. Not from a technical ability, but holy shit ability.

A sneaky red wine fight where that's going to get so much better with age because that had... It's going to keep getting better. That had stupid levels of character. You know what I mean? A fight needs action, but that fight had character of the narratives and Glover and what we, you know, just pouring it out and Yerry being so crazy that, I mean, and then Yerry subbing out a dead Glover at the, I mean, what... You're right.

Glover was winning. Glover had scared to take down and all he had to do was sit for the next 60 seconds or whatever it was. And then he just, I think that fight is. is going to age so beautifully. And so to me that those four have to be in front, but I'm really comfortable sliding this in at five. And I feel good about it.

I go Lawler McDonald one, Hendo Hua two as one. I'm sorry, as my second one. Yeah. And then the Yawanna-Waley fight as the third. Hey, I'm sorry, you Gastilam-I-M-I-I-I-Lam-I-I-I-L-E-I-L-L-E-W-L-L-A-L-L-L-A-R. So I guess it's not even in my top three, so maybe I'm a big asshole. But is, is it top three worthy? Yeah, it is.

Sure, sure. It has a seat at the table, if nothing else. So let's, Mike, I've given my list. BC has given his. We may have to circle back on some of his. Mike, where are you at for your Rushmore? The Carla's title win is on there for me. It has to be.

It took Carla Sparza seven years to even acknowledge Yawani and Jacek's existence after the beating she took that night. I remember going to Syracuse. And it was an important weekend in my career because it was the weekend that I decided that any content I do outside of my full-time job was going to be MMA because I went to this event. It was this big fan expo with like some of the current fighters and a lot of the past fighters. And it was a two-day thing. And Carla was there, like Felice Herig was there and a whole bunch of others.

And I remember doing some interviews with with some of the. fighters there and Carla's manager was there. And I was like, oh, can I, she, and he let me talk to everybody. But when it came to Carla, he was like, okay, you can talk to Carla, but you cannot mention Yawani and Jacek's name at any point in this conversation. And I'm like, wow, okay. That's rouse you like right there. I was like, okay, she's like, it, it just, it, it, it was that bad. And of course, some fucking asshole that was there interviewed Carla Sparza and the first thing you asked her. So what about that Yawanna fight? And then, of course, the manager came out to me, goes,

now you can't talk to her because like this asshole asked about Yana. It took her a long time to get over that one. And this was kind of the moment we were ready for after the tough season. And I mean, she literally, Carlos Spars literally stepped in the octagon that night with, with the boogie woman. And you could see it in Carlos face when she stared across the octagon from her that this was not going to be good. She could have had, it could have been the best Carlos Spars who've ever.

seen and that same result was going to happen that night. Yawanna was the uncrowned champion before and she got crowned that night. She was the queen of 115. Yeah, she was spooked. Yeah. Carla was spooked walking to the cage. 100%. And then once she looked, once she looked across the cage at Yawanna, it was like,

uh-oh. Let me tell you, Yonah wasn't spooked. No, she wasn't. It was just one of those changing. Yonna looked like she was there for a murder. Yeah, and Carla wasn't expecting that, and I don't know why. And then the Penne fights up there too, because we talk about dominant ass kickings and

Stroudway title fights. We just saw one with Zhang Wei Li. But before that, it was this fight. The statistical anomaly that happened in this fight, I think it was like 129 to 20 or something like that. You want to just battering poor Jessica Penet, blood everywhere, just an absolute ass whoopin. 126 to 25. Yeah, something insane like that.

And this was not a five-round fight. This was a three-round fight. And then mercifully, the fight was stopped in the third round. What a performance. Zhang 1 is obviously up there. I wasn't sure where to go with this other one. I ultimately landed on Zhang 2 because God bless you on Janjc. She was out for so long.

And she had to try to exercise that demon going, trying to go hammering tongues with this woman again. And this is not the Zhang Wei of 2019 or 2020. This was the dude. This was the gal. This was the uncrowned queen of this division. This is the one who like peak of her powers. Like this is the beginning of the peak of the Zhang Wei Li era. And Yuanna didn't give a shit.

This was not Carla Sparza that night when she fought Yuanianne. This is Yonah being like, I'm going to give you everything I got, even though I don't think this is going to go very well. And that first round is so friggin' fun. it's just so fun. And then she gets kind of killed in round two. And you know what, Jay,

we talk about this all the time. Even though it wasn't 100%, and we still weren't sure whether or not Yonah was going to come back, it was the perfect end to her career.

Go in there, have a brawl, even though you may be outgun and outmatched and out athleticism in this fight, you want to just put her heart out there

and just got after it. And it didn't go her way. And if that's the final fight, of her career and I really hope it is. What a way to go out. Just a Yawanna-esque. Just take the beaten and then just get on the microphone and put your opponent over and talk about how great you were as a fighter.

So it's not a popular pick, but I wanted to go a little bit outside of the box and just show appreciation to the Yawanna and Jacek who just was willing to overcome the adversity no matter what, even though she didn't win, even though that first round she took a ton of damage, she was just like, I don't give a fuck. I'm going to go out there and just throw everything, but the kitchen sink at this woman.

And it didn't matter. And she just took it on the chin and walked away. And that's the final fight of her career. And it was goddamn fun, even though it didn't go her way. Okay, I love that you put that in there. I got to jump in and say because you made a great case for it. And I will say that, like, we just talked about the retirements of both Amanda Nunes and Robbie Lawler back to back and how beautiful they were in their own way and how

they were perfection. Both of those did come in wins, though. Yawanna may have had the best losing retirement based on all the things you just said. And most importantly, and this is one of those things where the box score doesn't tell the full thing. And if you just look at her Wikipedia page, you'd be like, oh, her last two fights, she got dominated by Waley, right? And if you didn't know the context, she was in the best shape of her entire career for that Waley rematch. Like she went back to the well after having already gone back to the well ahead of the first Waley fight

to kind of reinvent herself and prove she's still there. And even though she ended up getting dominated and sent to hell, really, the finish is almost spectacular. Her, like, leaping forward and getting caught flush is almost a thing of beauty. And for her to pop right back up afterwards, as you said, Mike, put over her opponent, be the ambassador, welcome the love. That's hard, man. It was perfect. It was just perfect.

The only other losing retirement that would have been better was Luke Rockhold after the Paul Acosta fight. But of course, that retirement lasted about 11.5 seconds. So, and then he got his teeth knocked up by Mike Perry. So, Yuana just don't go to bare knuckle. Just keep doing what you're doing, be an ambassador for the sport. Or do, let's be clear. I'd watch the hell out of you want to bear an uncle right now.

I'm not here and tell you not to do that. Mike, that's a compelling case that honestly I did not expect to see that here. But you make a great argument. Like it's a phenomenal. Her post fight is phenomenal sort of the approach there. I always found it a small and delightful thing that the way she gets got is with the spinning back fist, right? like that's that floors it and in in the wiley first fight the last strike that has landed is a

spinning back fist from huana that catches wiley and like puts her on like checks her legs for a second there i was like oh wiley wiley learned something from that fight a and she falls off and and coos are with it basically so uh it's a compelling argument not sure i agree but i at least I appreciate what you're trying to go for there. BC, your list was, uh, you had, you have the penny on there,

correct? So yeah, I have penny ahead of a sparsa only because it's her most dominant win. She's a murder scene. I mean, she kicks the shit out of poor Jessica Penne to like almost a gross level, really. So that,

so to me it's either or in there. I've obviously got the first waley one. I've got the second clausia one because I think that's the peak of her powers. I think that night because I don't like saying what somebody's either best fight or Mountain Top or whatever when it's one-sided completely because I want to see them have to make championship level adjustments, which happens when you fight the best. I cover that fight that was UFC 200 Week that you could not have had a better build up from the ultimate fighter and the constant petty chatting and near fighting between them. And then for clausia for two rounds to come out. And let's be honest here, guys. Godelia won the first fight and got screwed.

Yeah. Like I love Yawanna, but especially watching it back, I can't even make an argument for her. Like she got lucky, Yuana in that first fight got lucky that she dropped Klaugia with an uppercut in the final five seconds of round one to steal a round that she was already losing. She definitely lost the second round. And I don't even think it's a compelling enough argument that she rallied in that third round. So there's all those questions in that fight. And then the great Klajia Godelho would always loved and respected for her attitude and work ethic.

I mean, for two rounds, she looked like an absolute world champion. She looked like that first fight was wrong in an aberration. And then to see, you can feel it coming. Midway through the second round, you can feel the change happening before it actually happened. And when her cardio kicked in and Clausia started going the other direction, it was like Yawanna's cardio got better throughout the rest of that fight as she put a licking on her. you got to see against extreme opposition how great she really is. And the fourth one, and I'm actually disappointed, both of you don't have it on here,

because I do think if we're talking about, well, this is the one I want to talk to you about. This is a take, and I'm really excited to hear you take. So get after it. Okay, the question to me is, or at least how I fielded it, was the Mount Rushmore of her best fights, of if you're showing somebody what makes her great. And I love a great fighter that has had losses when they're daring to be great against great fighters where they perform great, but like we said, came up empty in the first Waley fight. The second Rose fight for me is on the short list of the greatest performances of Yawanna

Young Jacek because of how disastrous that first fight went. I'm not going to be labor with points in the first fights. I'm sure we're going to talk about it in later questions, but we all know it was the most disastrous training camp for life. Damn, did she screw up the mental warfare, all that, and then she got absolutely dominated. For her to come back in that rematch, meaning Yawanna, and put forth that performance against somebody as great as who Rose was at that point and be under the auspices of UFC 23 and the Connor bust dolly incident and the whole like this got shoved into the you know up as sort of the fight

yeah we still had Habib versus raging Al but suddenly okay this fight got got a little bit more of a close up we all want fights to be great action fights and even better right when you're debating greatest fight of all time or fight of the year if that action fight has technique and character and all those other things but some of my favorite type of of the years are high-speed chess. The fights that never escalated into full-on brawl or full-on action classic, but were competitive, there's constant adjustments and was so close that it, technique-wise, game plan-wise, adjustments, both fighters are operating at a 10 out of 10.

Both fighters are putting forth a championship-level performance. That's what that second fight was to me. I think it's one of the three greatest female fights of all time. And I think it's one of the most underrated overall fights to see two, of the greatest female fighters of all time at the peak of their rivalry, put forth five rounds of pick them. Whose did you like more? And to see Yuana have a Mea culpa and show you almost like, by the way, way Lee's Mayaculpah

in the second rose fight, it's similar sort of storylines there to come back after the knockout and put on that performance. I have so much respect for Yuana that night and I still hold it in my heart because that was a daunting task against somebody that just knocked her the hell out. and that fight was brilliant, and neither of you two wanted to remember that. Damn. It was on my short list,

but I didn't put it there. I love this pick, B.C. And I didn't, honestly, I loved that we had different picks on all of this, because we could have been unanimous on all of these very,

very easily, but I loved how we had different views and we take sort of the definition of the category and take it in different directions. It's fun. It's fun about Mount Rushmore. That's a great choice. And you made it really,

good case for it. I don't hate the choice. It was on my shortlist. I did briefly think about getting like real fancy and going Rosie Sexton just because, you know, like why not do something outside of the UFC run ultimately chose not to. The take that I'm the most interested in from this, though, BC, an ancillary take and it's going to derail us. If this is a top three and we know number one, what's number two in the female fight category then for you? You could already, argue, was it, Andrage in Claudea, who had that absolute three-round war, uh, toward the, that one is up there in my mind. Am I missing a major, major, major one? Because if Wayley-Yoanna won is the greatest female fight of all time, it's hard to argue against.

I got Rosen in, and, uh, the rematch here with Rosen, the two greatest star weights of all time against each other. That's a great question on what should be the working number two then, since I'm the guy offering you these rankings. Um, yeah, I just, sort of assumed you had it when you said top three i was like he must have one that he clearly believes is better than i failed us here because i i used to have a working sort of top five to seven list of the greatest one that's in order misha tate holly home is probably yes yes that's definitely number two that's definitely was my number two mike that's good thank you all way to save bc he needed some help and just with the assist because definitely number two um and i'm open to the idea

that Rose, Rose, Joanna three or two is, is number three on that list. And you, let's run out the top five with Rose versus Andrage two. I mean, that fight's terrific. That's great.

The only flaw in that fight is that it wasn't five rounds. And it wouldn't have been. If it was four rounds, Androge was about to flatten her again, because Rose was cooked at the end of that third. And I will die on the hill that Androge should have won that fight. There's one other, there,

there's one other that probably is going to be in, contention if and i believe casey liden would will absolutely argue for this fight jessica penn a michel waterson very fun fight holy shit falls that is that's a hammering tongs fight and seriously if you if you don't remember clausia versus and drosge that go back and watch that that was an absolute war of two sluggs i don't i don't remember that fight off the top of my head so i may have to go back and watch that um okay we've a couple of honorable mentions i think we sort of talked about them because they really aren't like a lot of the rest of this stuff no one's going to put carolina covalcovic in the mount rushmore fight is a good win very quality win not just we've sort of we touched on all the key parts here so

well done us and now we kind of get to move into that's always the big part of the show bc and it's your first time mount rushmore is always the thing that takes the most time unwrap holiday magic at holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to luxe beauty and fragrance sets, our special selection has something for every style and price point. Visit our Holtz holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com. Black Friday is here at IKEA and the clock is ticking on savings you won't want to miss. Join IKEA family for free today and unlock deals on everything from holiday must-haves to cozy at-home essentials,

all the little and big things you need to make this season shine. But don't wait. Like leftovers at midnight, our Black Friday offers won't last. Shop now at IKEA.ca.ca slash Black Friday. IKEA, bring home to life. And now we kind of get into the other ones, and we're going to start with the I'm not impressed by your performance award.

I'm not impressed by your performance. This is the career low point for the fighter. I have two choices. I'd like to go later in mind because I think one of them is going to be the obvious choice. And I did, I did get us out of the box with this category for the, for the actual answer I'm going to proffer. So Mike, why don't we start with you?

What, what is the low point of Yonni and Jacek's career? I mean, I went with the low hanging fruit, because like you said, the low hanging fruit is the most ripe. It's, it's the Rose K.O. loss. Got to be. 1,000 percent. It's got to be just, I know she had a terrible camp and I know there's a lot leading up to it, but the Yawanna that showed up for the press.

conference, the Yonah that showed up for the wayans and faced off with Rose and talked up a whole bunch of greasiness and then just got clocked in the first round. It's got to be that. It's got to be that. She did bounce back and have an admirable performance in the rematch, but as important as this fight was for the history of this division, because it made Rose a star, this was just not her night. And as much you want to say, like, you want to make Rose. that night, Rose kicked her in the face. And, you know, Rose, Rose beat that ass and knocked her out. So it's that.

It's definitely that one. It's obviously number two on my list. It's very low-hanging, low-hanging fruit here, BC. Yeah, it's definitely that one. But I think it goes deeper. It's not just a disastrous result, especially after talking trash. And it's not just her low point publicly where she actually became a legitimate villain. Like, looking back, Rose did an incredible job. And, you know, I was intimately attached to

that fight interviewing both of them ahead of time. And I think even afterwards and, you know, to see Rose sort of begin the first early stance of her career as like kind of an advocate, which I think Rose is very underrated in certain elements of being very honest about things, including mental health. And that was the time where did you want to go too far? Yeah, you want to went too far. She basically brought up the fact that Rose's dad was, I think, schizophrenic or her had some serious mental issue that it ultimately led to his death. And she tried to rub it in her face. Now, looking back as I did on sort of the compilations of the trash talk ahead of this,

that fight, Rose, I mean, Yawanna felt validated in her behavior because she claims Pat Berry called a female member of Yowana's extended team a bitch or those bitches. And that gave her sort of like the excuse in her mind to get as nasty and gnarly. But it's definitely a low moment because it really painted her as a bully. And it created this one of the first of many incredible moments from rows of like comeback or validation or rejuvenation of some level. But it's also a really bad miscalculation on Yawanna. And what I mean by that is the strategy of mental warfare, which I don't think too many people really realize the value in it because we look at it sometimes more as a character clown thing of, oh, you're just trying to be like Connor and trying to get people to care about your fight. so you're talking all this shit.

Yawanna was a master of it. I went back and watched some of the way-ins and the end of, like the face-offs at the end of media days for some of these fights on the build-up. She absolutely dominated Asparza, Pena. I mean, she was like... Her stuff with Gidella is incredible. Yeah, villainy and bitchy. And she finally kind of met her match in Gadelia in both fights,

particularly obviously the second one, where they could volley, they could go back and forth. They can call each other real nasty stuff about being a bitch and a whore and all this stuff. stuff. But there were certain matchups in there where she dominated people. And guys, I've been playing basketball, you know, competitively since the sixth grade. And I was always shitty and came of, at least to some decency as an adult, right? Where I was always sort of a shitty backup as a kid who wanted to play so bad, but was awful and came around. So to stay on the

court during my younger years against very good players, I had to develop strategies for value. That became doing grunt work like setting picks and being an incredible offensive rebounded for sure. Clean that glass, baby. Glassman gets paid. It also came from the idea of realizing that there are two kinds of basketball players in this world. People that can play like shit if you challenge them and make it mono and mono and make it personal and they becomes, you know, they hog the ball, they do too much, they fall out of the team flow, or the people who take that as a lightning rod and then become three times better as sort of a FU shooter. I, I've always been a master at realizing which people I can sort of get in the head of.

And unfortunately, I bring it out a lot, even in today's over a 40 action of guys who are very friendly and nice. But to me, on the court, man, fair game's fair game. And I'm going to use every edge for Yawanna to misread Rose that badly and have it blow up in her face. It's a major low moment. But I think even more than that, Yowana was already talking about being unable to cut to 115, like two fights before that and particularly ahead of the UFC 211 on Drogge fight.

She was openly saying in interviews, and I had her for 25 minutes before that of like, you know, I want to have children one day. I can't make this weight cut anymore. She was also during that season on the buildup to the Rose fight, if you remember, she had become engaged and then had a really bad falling out with her fiancé, which led to her breaking up with her initial team management and kind of accusing them of things. So it really was the low moment for her in every possible way. And I do think all the chaos around her emotionally led to what was probably a shitty camp to begin with heading into that Rose 1. And I think she tried to overcompensate with the trash talk in ways that are similar in hindsight to Rousey at way in day against Holm where it's sort of like, shit, I don't know if I'm fully prepared for this because I've been doing movies, but I'll just try to intimidate her to cover up for that. It all came together where not only was Yawanna suddenly a villain, she got K-T-F-O'd and it was sort of like, wait, was that the passing of the torch that would mean that. but Yohana's going in that direction,

which is probably why I overvalue the performance in the rematch so much. Again, I don't know that you overvalue that performance. I have nothing to add to this point, because you guys laid it all out beautifully. I will just say that for as great an argument as you made, you've missed one very critical performance that was her worst. And it's in the lesser known, certainly, but no less valuable performance in women of mafia, too,

a film that Ewanian J. Chick had a cameo role in as a prison inmate who teaches the main character how to fight. The main character is a woman in prison. She gets beat up. She goes to Ewanna for help. And Ewanian J. Chick is not a very good actress. She's not as bad as some people. Jed, I've seen Cell Block Sisters 1, 2, and 3. This is very similar plot lines. I don't know what that is, but I'm willing to bet that this Polish film that Yohanna is in is probably exactly the same. Found it. Her performance is not as bad as some MMA acting performances as are out there. I would say that Yona is a better actress than Ronda Rousey.

So good for her in that regard. She's got one up on Ronda there, but it's very hammy. And the parts where she has to, like, fight is awful. Because she can fight, but she can't TV. fight. And so it's, it's pretty tough. If you haven't checked it out, their YouTube videos, you can go watch Joanna's acting debut. And then you'll be like, ah, I think we've, I think we've done enough of this. So that's going to be my low performance of Yana, because it was too easy to pick

Rose for all the reasons you guys laid out. It was very, very simple. By the way, credit to her because of how poorly the weight cut to 1.15 was going in the bad weight cut and the Rose knockout, the wakeup played a big part. For her to reinvent herself and then figure, figure out how to cut weight safer and smarter. But after moving up against Valentina and losing and suddenly it was like, she might be done for her to come back. That's how the Waterston fight was almost an honorable mention for me. Because for her to come back against somebody who at that point still had something left,

and it was a gauge of can you want to make weight again at 115? Does she want to be here? She came back and she was like championship level elite in that performance. And it was in the main event. It was a big fight. And Waterston wasn't washed at that point. It's fun that you mentioned the Waterson because she tied. into the next category here, which is the

Who the fuck is that guy award for the weirdest, most surprising opponent that a fighter has faced. Who the fuck is that guy? Normally this is a category you can have some fun play in. Like you can dive deep on some of their regional opponents and see, hey, this dude is now a window washer or whatever. Very tough in this category for me. So I had two options.

And I dug deep on Yonah. I pulled up the old Muaytai record. I really tried to get it in there. And one of those options is Michelle Waterston, not because it's a weird opponent, but I just forget that this fight happened more than any other fight of her career. It's just like, oh, yeah. I forgot that after the Valentina thing, she did have one before. It's in my mind just Valentina into the Wilees.

So that's from that aspect of it. And the other one I have is Lily Kazik, who she, fought her like third fight or second pro mma fight and the only thing that's really i have is weird here is the kazek was 16 when this fight happened and yawano was 25 so um in many states and or countries that could be considered child abuse but i guess in poland it's fine because she beat a 16 year old's when she was a grown woman and that's that's it like that's all i could find and i went into the Muay Thai records and all the people she fought that they're at least records of are like credible fighters like they they were champions and other organizations or stuff it was

very tough to find something so did you guys find anything here you're missing one other caveat to the to the lilia pick okay because after you want to put the boots to her three years later Zhang Wei put the boots to her and finished really I missed that true story bro Interesting. So she was 19. So she was 16 when you want to beat that ass. And then she was 19 when Zhang Wei beat that ass for. Oh, what a tough career for Lily Cassick.

Coonlin fight 47 July of 2016. She's fought some like good fighters. She fought Maria Gopova lost to her. She has a win over arena Alexiva. Who is in the UFC right now? Those are people who are known. Like she's like strength of schedule wise. She's fought like.

some really good fighters. But yeah, she got bolted by Yowna and then got bolted by Zhang lately. She fought Jing Jing Zong. Who's one like one. Yeah. Yeah. One one champion or one title challenger. Wow. I didn't die that deep into her other than that. Also of note in this fight, Yonah's lone submission victory of her career was so a lot of a lot of things at play here. BC, did you, did you uncover something I could not? Well, I wasn't able to interpret this question in the traditional way because there just wasn't a ton there. But I did look at the amateur and Muay background. And you touched on it earlier.

But what's interesting about her connections to future UFC opponents, one being that she's got an amateur submission win over Carolina Kovalkiewicz, which was, I don't think it was played up enough in the buildup to their UFC 205 showdown, which, by the way, was a sneaky harder fight than people remember. I was backstage doing interviews for SportsCenter and got to see every fighter as they walked out. Also got to see Madonna back there, which was weird. DC, we were at all the same events.

I was at this event too. Why do I not know you until the last year? Apparently we were looking at the spider band meme. Maybe you looked too much like me. I thought I was looking at the mirror. We looked at an absolute dirt hole. But here's the deal. Yonana like hung on and bit down for that fight.

Carolina was a physical problem for her. And even though you want to outwork her and dropped her. And similar to the second clausia fight, like just dug so deep into that championship well of will and stamina. It was Yowana who was, walked out carefully put in a back of an ambulance and sent to the hospital after that win. And it was Carolina who did about 55 interviews as happy as can be. So even though the wins and loss happened for both fighters, they had opposite reactions.

But having that Carolina connection and then fighting for the title and an all-polish showdown was interesting. But Shevchenko's more interesting. Here's the deal. Yawanna was 37 and 3 as an amateur kickboxer. All three losses came to Valentina. and all three were in Yawanna's first three fights as an amateur kickboxer. So Yuania young J. Check got into amateur kickboxing, got dominated three straight times by Valentina Shivchenko, and then never lost again and became one of the best Muay Thai fighters in the world.

And then they inevitably circled around and fought for the fake inaugural title one division up, which was one of the more sad fights to watch on the Yawanna run because you knew from the start she had no chance of physically moving or bothering Shibchenko. Yeah. Did y'all take a gander at actually watching the Shevchenko Moitai fights? Because they're very interesting. One, it's in full paths, which is just like annoying,

particularly when you watch either of them compete in Muay at later points in their career when they're doing it like real adults. So that's odd. And mostly it looks exactly like you would expect. Valentina Shvchenko is just box. She just throws her to the canvas, like repeatedly. Very, very big sistering in those fights. And so unsurprising how their ultimate fight in the UFC went down.

Next category, the Randallplex Award. This is for the best single highlight of the fighter's career. And this is a really tough one because this is not what Yawani and J. Chig is known for. She does not have, she had systematic ass whoopings of people. There was not a, oh, look, she just obliterated that one person. And so this BC is where I, and I guess Mike actually, this is where I chose to put the Peney fight. Yeah.

Because there isn't a standalone highlight from her career. She really doesn't have any clean K.O. wins. The Rosie Sexton, K.O. isn't like a super, it is a walk-off K.O., but it's not a faceplant. Rosie Sexton is just getting murked and a clean, I think it's a clean left hand. By the way, quick interjection. Did you hear Jen's Pulver on that call? That's you on us. I have that coming up.

Before coming to the UFC. They're basically crowning her as the greatest female fighter of all time during that fight. I have that in our next category. So, so yes, I did. But yeah, that's really like her only real walk-off highlight. And so instead I was like, all right, I can put the pin A beat down here. Because as you guys mentioned, this was, this is as consummate of an ass-wipping as has ever occurred in the UFC cage in this weight class or in any weight class. So that's where I settled on.

What about you guys? That's my pick. I mean, it was a pillar to post, as BC put it. It was a near murder. The referee saved Jessica Penny's life that night. And that's it. Yeah. There's one of those, it was just one of those performances. There was just, there's just visceral and tough to watch. And Jessica Penny's family and friends were not having a good time. That's for sure. Yeah, that's the downside of bringing your family and friends to a cage fight. If it goes wrong, it can go real, real wrong. I could also accept Carlo Sparser here for the exact same reasons of watching Carla just get slump.

She didn't actually get slump, did it? Because I think whoever it was, because it wasn't. Some dude who never refs just jumped in and was like, stop, stop killing this poor woman. That's really kind of what it was. So our next category, right leg hospital, left leg cemetery award. This is for the best quote by the fighter or about the fighter. It's a recent addition that we basically brought this category in for Robbie Lawler in our most recent episode. Because Robbie Lawler saying he would take Connor McGregor's soul is the funniest thing that has maybe ever been uttered into a microphone.

The delivery is the, it's the greatest delivery ever. What would you take? His soul. It's unbelievable. But yeah, so relatively new category here. And I think we have actually mentioned the best ones already. So I'm the boogie woman. Like that, that quote is a very, very good you want to quote.

And to your point, BC, I also have Jin's commentary for basically the Rosie Sexton fight. They even repeated his line in the, I think it was the Asparza fight, where, it was either Joe, I guess it was Goldberg because Joe Rogan wouldn't say it where Gin says she's pound, Joanna's pound for pound

the strongest striker I've seen with long hair which is just like a ridiculous statement from Jim's Pulver to make. So we've got that one and then I think the most iconic one I have here as well as coming into that fight

when people are asking you're like like hey, how do you say your name? It's very tough. It's like Saturday, you can just call me Yoanna Champion. And then that ended up sticking as her nickname. So I think that would be the one I would choose. Oh, I also have on my list very quietly great line to me during the various gadia break, you know, face offs on tough and stuff.

At one point, she starts cursing at gadia in Portuguese. And I don't remember exactly what she's saying. And I probably couldn't repeat it because I'm sure it wasn't all that kosher. but she just looks at her and goes, I learned Portuguese for you. And this says some other Portuguese expletives to Cotelia. I was like, what an insane thing.

I learned Portuguese to shit talk, you woman. It's fantastic. A lot of great quotes from Yonna, in my opinion. BC, do you have anything that I did mention here? I think the real answer is 1A or 1B. It's either the creation of the Boogie Woman character or, like you said, call me Yawanna champion. But I think, unfortunately, some of her best work before it got too nasty was the buildup when she played super bully ahead of the first Rose fight.

And that's when she delivered the single best quote. It was at the end of the press conference when they did the face-offs. And she was being a bully to Rose for sure and doing the whole, you know, you don't know shit about being a champion. Like it's going to be the worst day of your life. But she grabbed the microphone after when Rogan was interviewing her and was like, Bogie woman is coming tomorrow. But she doesn't know. What's coming?

And I played that sound drop so many times on my original CBS Sports MMA podcast because it's so awesome and ridiculous and almost borat, but like savage borat. You know, it's just like so over the top ridiculous that I got to pour one out for her. You're right. Boogie Woman, that whole persona,

it was absolutely hilarious and incredible and so memorable. Mike, what do you got? I mean, those are the correct answers. but like going through other Yawanna quotes, it's just, it's a barren wasteland in a lot of respects. Yeah. So I guess I landed on like kind of the perfect Yawanna quote that encapsulates almost the rest of her career. And this is just, this is a tough one outside of those.

When I must be mean, I'm mean. When I can be nice, I'm nice. like that's like that just encapsulates her so much outside of like the the boogie woman persona and the yanna champion and those are those are the clean ones but my honor of mention i was like this like if i just said that line and you're like which fighter said that almost anyone who's watched sport over the last eight years would be like oh that's yuana easy can i can i offer something quick about her stardom that's not necessarily connected to this always like i really appreciate how she built her, not only her stardom, but the respect that Dana White always had in talking to her and about her. And I think Mike mentioned that earlier is sort of like a rock solid company woman who also delivers is we often talk about in the end a star by the time they really cross over and become a big star. We talk about that maybe the UFC didn't pay them enough or push them enough or whatever. And there's always that chicken and egg debate, the whole Kogan, Vince McMahon thing of, you know, did the star make the company or the company make the star? I will say this.

Like she used the UFC engine to her benefit and appeared from the outside looking in to actually like use the situation and elevate herself in a very strategic way. Yes, it was always on the reputation that she's a badass, but she also can clean up and do like I said, like sort of the crossover modeling look. But it's like normally in a lot of male fighters were like, man, they could have been this star if the UFC bought in or didn't shit on them or whatever. Like she took what was available to her and I think maximized it better than almost any other fighter in terms of using the vehicle to her advantage and becoming a pretty damn big star. Never the face of the company, never rousey levels, but like an organic hardcore fan favorite face. You know, she could be an ambassador like you said. You could roll her out there in a lot of different settings. And she really built that on her own over time.

and, you know, like, yeah, she's pretty, but it wasn't about, like, overly selling sex. It was just sort of like this great professional, all-time great fighter in the midst of her career. And I feel like she had a lot of things going on always with business opportunities outside the cage, and she played her hand probably better than anyone else did that didn't benefit from sort of, like, an overnight.

Like, Rousey and Lesnar, those guys were just different conversations of how they became popular and how big they became. But she was, again, a nobody and then became, Pretty big damn deal. And I give her the credit, not the company for that. Yeah, I think you should. This touches on some quotes I have for her later to kind of wrap up. But when she first announced her retirement before, like, really committing,

that's what she denotes as like the, her proudest achievement, right? And you know, you always get that question, hey, well, what's the best moment of your career? And she was like, it's not a fight. It's there was a time I was broke. I had nothing and I was just like, F this, I'm going to, I'm going to become a superstar and champion and then I did it. And that's, that's the thing I take from this. And she did it. You know, UFC helped certainly, but it's, Yawanna is the reason Yawanna is where she is, not, not Dana White or Hunter Campbell or any of those people. So I'm with you on that B.C.

Next category. Fador's Sweater of Absolute Victory Award. It's for one piece of memorabilia. If you can have one piece of memorabilia from Juana's career, what would it be incredibly difficult for me? There was not a obvious answer. And this is the category more than any other that I am afraid of what Brian Campbell's answer is going to be. And whether I will still have a job at Univining.com after it, B.C. Do I even want to know what you've chosen for this one? Yeah, I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to do what you think I'm going to do, which is, you know, just sort of get all weird. Yeah, get all gross.

It probably wouldn't be the weirdest anyone's ever been on this because I believe A.K. Lee famously once asked for a bloody jockstrap. So you probably can't get weirder than that. Like she doesn't have, yeah, fair. She doesn't have like sort of that one signature gimmick where it becomes an artifact or anything necessarily that stands out to me. It's sort of to me like you look at Nolan Ryan, like, you know, one of the greatest players of all time has so many individual unique aspects to his own records and stuff.

But like if you could have one Nolan Ryan thing in your house, you'd probably want that autograph picture of him beating the shit on Robin Ventura, right? Or the one where he took a fastball to the face and stayed in the game and threw a complete game and he's all bloody and people sometimes think that's from the Ventura fight, but it's not. You just want that fastball? Yeah, I would want what is the most iconic moment in who Yuan is. And that's to me the hematoba, the alien head she had in the Wiley first fight.

Yeah. That I would, as much as I, like, I hate seeing that photo. Like, I hate it because, you know, it's, it's ridiculous. It's, it's the most ridiculous thing that's happened in a fight, but yet the fight kept going. It's just like, what I don't even, I didn't even know what to do at that moment. I was overwhelmed. She might never, she's going to look like this forever. It's like the first time you took shrooms.

You're like, oh, my God, I'm going to feel like this forever, aren't I? How am I going to go to work tomorrow, right? This is unbelievable. I would want her to autograph that, but I wouldn't hang up. in my office, I put it in my closet where no one could see it, but like that sums her up to me, but no, I don't want anything gross to autograph by her. No, thank you. I respect the discipline. Do you guys remember the photos from Yuana after the hematoma? Like, like after the thing had subsided and her face is just black, like the, like that way grosser to me. Like the hematoma is obviously

disgusting. But the photos afterwards still kind of haunt my nightmares of like, honestly, it kind of looks like she is wearing blackface. It is so freaking gnarly. So I don't think that's a bad choice at all, BC. I don't want that. I don't want to have that in my house at all. So I did not.

Who's that? I went for the very boring but traditional. give me the old school UFC title, the one she won over Esparsa, because that is in my not so humble opinion, the actual first strawweight title that was ever given out in the UFC. I do not acknowledge the tough winner being champion. This was the inaugural title fight and Yohanna won it. So that is, that's the piece I'd have.

Mike, what about you? It's the penny gloves. Penne gloves. It's the gloves. The gloves used, in an attempted murder, like a legal attempted murder. Just covered in vodka sauce, Mike, right?

Just, you know, put it in a case, you know, have a little sharpy sign. Call it a day. Those are the ones. And then you can tell people's stories about, you ever want to see like a cage fight that is about as one side as you can get? Go watch this fight.

Yeah, I'll go with those. Or is B.C. is like, hey, you guys want to see an alien? I got one of those for you over here in the bin. just absolutely disgusting the international player haters ball award I got to come up with the new name I don't like this name anymore I don't have one though

but the answer is we're going to nitpick a fighter's career I'm gonna keep this short and sweet I have one nitpick I got one for for youana because I don't really care about negging any of the other parts of her game uh she she was very very large

for this weight class and that was to me that That is, if you are trying to poke holes in her career, a lot of it, it's not about who she beat because she beat all the best people she could beat at the time. Like, you can't really have those arguments. You can say who she lost to. But what you can say, and certainly it really stuck out to me a lot when I went and rewatched fights this time around. She is, she towers over Carla Sbarza, over Jessica Drozh, who, you know, had a successful run at Bantamweight.

Juana is just so much bigger than all of these women. And it was probably her superpower in relation to this weight class. And that's why she had trouble. She met a physical match in Carolina. You know this. I mean, she had a lot more muscular clarity than Carolina did. It's she, the, the bully thing kind of became a narrative after the, the Rose stuff and BC, how you kind of pointed all that out.

But a real part of that career run is that she was just enormous relative to, opposition and i think that's fine she made the weight that's all you can ask habib certainly was gigantic versus every lightweight he ever beat the hell out of so it is what it is but if if i'm finding one nitpick that's my that's the one i have for yawanna's career i could hit a a couple obvious ones just you know five stoppages and 16 wins it was always going to be hard for her in my opinion to linger at the elite level over a long period of time because she had to outwork and out volume people or beat them down in a sustained way

that wasn't going to be as easy that when she was slowing down, mixed with how quickly the division was evolving around her and to the level of fighters that she was fighting at the end of her career, as opposed to at times to the more limited ones in the beginning of her career. But she almost pushed back against that

and was still very relevant at the end, you know, look at what she did against Wei in that first fight and the adjustment she made. Also, since losing the invincibility against Rose in the first fight at UFC 217, just two and five to close her career, did always seem to come against the right opponent in terms of moving up and taking a big name and a big opportunity. She fought the best. It's hard to hate that. She was more of a start and that late, you know, twilight of her career, but just two and five overall.

And she had no ground game. Take down defense, yes, played a huge. role in key parts, although Claudea seemed to have her number consistently with the take down. She had an underhook and a stand-up, B.C., that's all. Yeah, and it can be all you need if you're super great and super elite. And, you know, obviously she had better technique, a better championship mindset, was usually faster. To your argument, she was usually bigger than a lot of her foes, but it really, at the end

of the day, came down to the dog that separated her. You know, how did she beat Claudia? How did she beat people, or how did she push back that close against Rose? How did she almost beat Way, Lee? the dog, the dog in her. It overcame a lot of inadequacies if there were. But she's not a well-rounded fighter. I mean, she was not unable to use the ground game

in any sort of offensive level or layer. There really wasn't even a reinvention point where you're like, oh, she's a wrestler now. That could sustain things. She was who she was, which is why the Valentina fight was such a bad idea, and you knew within 30 seconds she had no chance. Fair. Mike, anything to add?

Not much. I mean, BC kind of nailed it when it came to the defensive wrestling, like good takedown defense was able to kind of get up. But if you fought a like a well-rounded top position grappler, it's going to be not so hot night for her. So I'll go with that. And obviously we talk about the build to the first rose fight. That obviously wasn't great.

And I also liked what B.C. said about just the finishing capability is like she was a savage in there. And she had some great like TKF performances, but she didn't have that like one hit or quitter kind of power. And it's kind of strange to think about this, but like if you want to arrived on the scene now, like if she went on the contender series and 3027 somebody would strikes, would she have gotten a contract? I don't know because now, yes. Yeah.

This year, yeah, like four years ago, no. Yeah, she got 12 and 12. Yeah, definitely. Maybe the best overall fighter on the season. And she was a woman did not get a contract on Tuesday night. And she had a really complete performance. And the reason Dana didn't give her one was because I'd like to see her get better of finishing people. Even though she beat the living snot out of the woman that she fought.

That's real dumb from Dana. Yeah. That's real dumb for Day. Kaya Machado, the heavyweight who had the most boring fighting contenders series history gets a contract. But this woman who actually looks UFC ready did not get a contract. So. But there's really not a whole lot to nitpick with her considering how well she did. Her career is what her career is.

She spanned two eras, but she proved that. she was super early and competitive with anybody once in the second era when the division caught up with her. So because she did that, because she fought like a savage, because she was always willing to take on hard fights, it sort of made up for the fact that she dominated people early on in a way she was never going to be able to later on because of the evolution of the game. Waterson being an elite, you know, quasi-elite at that moment, but smaller, considerably smaller than her. And, you know, she kind of looked into the mirror against Tisha and the only other win she had in her final seven where Tisha again didn't have finishing power but was sort of a poor man's

version of Yowana that was always going to be Yowna. Exactly. That is exactly who Tisha Torres. Right. But that's why Tisha Tchares'r's career can be summed up as the discount brand Yonani and J.C. But that's why Yowna went two and seven or two and five over the last seven, right? Because, you know, like when you're fighting the first generation, it's you can outwill them and outlast them. You weren't going to be able to do that against the true all time grades that were coming up, which includes Rose and Way Lee. Yep. When I got a great deal on a great gift at Winners,

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I had no answer for the Habeeb-Toni Award for the fight. Never happened, but you wanted to see. Because you want to fought everybody. She fought all of the people of her generation, and there's really nothing less. I, you could make some cases here, I guess, if you wanted to. I ultimately went for, Mike, you laid out a really good case for the second Waley fight being the perfect way for her to end her career. I don't disagree with that at all.

I could have and would have been pretty okay with if they had done Claudia three. Because I think Claudia won the first one. That was a rivalry with a ton of heat, a ton of business behind it. Claudia had retired already, so that's why it probably never even got talked about. But I would have been pretty comfortable if they had said, hey, retirement fight for both women. You guys should be one in one. This was a very meaningful rivalry for this weight class. Let's send you guys out with one final one.

That's the only fight that I really even have much of an interest in. The rest of it would be like, I'd watch her fight because I'll always watch her fight, but do I care if she fights Felice Herrig? Angela Hill, not really. You know, what about y'all? Honestly, the only name I came up with and has nothing to do with Yohanna is Carla, giving Carla a rematch.

Carl, because Carla actually like came around to the idea. And as somebody who hosts a matchmaking show, every time Carla won a fight, I just never felt like she was ever going to get a title shot unless she beat Yonna. So I kept pitching that one. Like, go beat Yonna.

She should be calling up for Yonna. And everything, her entire, like everything in direction, should have been toward Joanna. Whether she got the fight or not, should have been like, you know what, I'm going to exercise the demons. I'm going to beat that ass if she ever gets back in the octagon with me. And if she went in there and beat her, like, there's no doubt about it. It could have been like a, not a star making performance, but the way people viewed Carlos Sparsa from that point moving forward would have been much different. And she tried, like when I asked her

about Yonah, she was open to it. Like, yeah, I'd love to have that fight back. She got over. It took a long time. But other than that, like, she's fought everybody. Like, she's literally gone up and fought Valencia Shachako. Like everything you could have asked her to do during her run, she did. So the only other one I would have liked to have seen was just see if Carla could get that win back. And it really has nothing to do with Yohana. Wow, you guys have great answers because I have an answer that's separate from yours, but it was a hipster pole. It was pulling straws. The fact that you just laid out perfectly is the espar, I'm sorry, first the Claudia trilogy, obviously rare when somebody wins the first too. I asked both fighters about each other for like 17 straight interviews over a four-year run,

trying to talk that into existence in which a lot of times they gave me good quotes to support that. And I think especially after the second Rose loss or after the Valentina loss where Yonah really didn't know if she was coming back, we didn't know if she could make 115 again. Those would have been perfect times because Clausia lingered for a while where she certainly wasn't as great as she once was, but was solid. That would have been great. It would have been sparks and fire. You could have done that instead of Tisha or Waterson.

And obviously the Asparsa rematch. I didn't even thought of, but that would have made ultimate retribution sense because let's give Aspaza credit. She also lingered in the new era and actually went all the way back and won a belt a second time, which with Yawanna was completely unable to do. My answer, though, comes in the two years between the Zhong Wei-Fights, where we did know that Yowana had very little left and she was ready to retire. but she was constantly teasing coming back for at least one more. Inevitably, I think she was asking for too much money because there was like a long wait. During that time, McKenzie Dern had become early on like that next thing in this division. There was talk about a crossroads matchup between the two.

And I just think style-wise and personality-wise, that would have been a very interesting fight at that point where Yawanna, certainly for the right night, had enough left to pour out the jug. and she proved that in the first waley fight, but wasn't the same, could Dern in that really interesting style matchup have given old Yawanna problems? I still really wish we saw that during that two year break,

but not enough to make an aggressive case for it. It's not a bad choice. The stylistic matchup is great. I think to Mike's sort of point, that feels more, though, again, that's not a bad fight. That's a fight more for Dern than it is like, what do I care about Yonah do? It's like it it would have that could have been a huge star making performance for Dern though if she can get out there and get that one.

So I don't hate that fight. Good answers all around. If they had made the Rose Yawanna trilogy and there were I don't know if you guys remember there were small stretches where that actually was a topic of conversation especially since Rose tends to, you know, have a loss every three fire or four fights and reset herself. Would you guys been okay with that considering? I would have been fine with it because I think that there is a case that you want to won the second fight. I'm not sure that I agree with the argument, but having you watch the fight, I think that there is very clearly a case. I know on fight night, I think I scored that fight for Ewanah, actually, but upon reflection and kind of rewatching it, I do think Rose prop does more substantive work. But yeah, I would have been fine with it because there's a good narrative there.

Like, that would have been a good story. And that's kind of the part of this category is there. There aren't any stories that weren't told. So you just kind of got to continue other stories realistically. The Dan Henderson H-Bomb Award for if you take one fight of their game, one piece of Yonnas game, add it to your own or make a fighter. We have mentioned it ad nauseum for me. I'm glad everybody at least mentioned it previously.

I want that dog. She got that dog in her and I want that dog in her. Like that's whatever your quibbles, you cannot doubt that this woman wanted to be a fucking fighter and was. So that, that's for me. Mike, what do you got here?

The, my exact, what I wrote down was the Robbie Lallerisms. I mean, what else? We all took that dog from Robbie as well. It's the, it's the Robbie Lollarisms.

Like she could, she was born for this shit, man. Like when she was in that octagon, she was her and Robbie Loller, if there was like a mixed tag team division, they would be the violence tag team champions of the world. Dude,

when you, When you watch like old, you know, whatever Viking movies or whatever, and it's a trite thing. But whenever you see like, oh, there's the like female Viking who gets, gets a part and is like she's actually going to kill way more people than the dudes because she's meaner. That's your wanna. Like she just give this woman a battle axe and let go. Like see what happens. A thousand percent. I had two answers.

One of them obviously being the backbone, the dog in her. And this kind of aligns with it. Her stamina, guys, is some of the five. you know, five round championship stamina at a high constant output and all the energy that went into take down defense as well. I mean, you know, that's why I think the Clazier rematch is the is really the mountaintop moment because she won that fight on stamina. She won that fight on like, okay, if you're going to pour it all out against me in these

first two rounds, like you're going to suffer late. She was, and maybe that's part of being game. It is connected in some level to the intangibles. the backbone and the fighting spirit. But like, she never faltered in that category. Never. And that's the reason why she was able to hang with Wei Lee in that first fight till death do them part if it happened.

You got to give her that. Seriously. Like, that's triathlet level, just gross level of stamina that she had. Yeah. She was never the one quitting at the end of a fight ever. Next category, you guys don't have this on your list because I forgot to include this. but in my research, I thought of this and wanted it.

See, Brad Ims, Are You Serious Award? named after Brad Ims, who once famously won back-to-back fights with Goga Plata. He's a heavyweight, and it's really funny to me. This is the fun with stats category,

and I just wanted to give you guys this stat, because when I was doing my research, it jumped out at me as insane. You know that Yuanian and J-Chic holds the record for the most significant strikes in UFC title fight history, over Max Holloway, even. I think if you asked anyone

who knows fight, They would have just assumed Max Holloway owns that record. Nope, Yawanna. Yonah's got him by like 50. So, very fun stat on her career. Wanted to put that out there. Sean Ferris Award for the actor who should play them in a movie. This is named after the seminal masterpiece.

Never backed down. Sean Ferris, the actor who plays Jake Tyler and one of, if not the greatest MMA movies of all time. I have one very clear answer. Jumped out at me immediately and I did no research beyond it. I went a leash of a candor who, you know, very famous actress played, uh, um, what's, what's that dumb video game movie? Tomb Raider. She played Laura Croft in the most recent Tomb Raider.

She's Swedish. So, you know, there's that Western, Northern European vibe going on there. Uh, I think the face lines up well. And she has, she can be to your point previously, Mike, she can be nice when she wants to be nice. She can have a little bit of that menacing edge when she needs it. Great actress. Very easy choice for me on Alicia Vikander. BC, this is your first time in this category.

This is very hit or miss category for people. I want to see if you hit or missed. I struggled because not only do I not know the young starlets of today's Hollywood, apparently on any level of you. I just, there was no obvious answer. And I have an answer, but unfortunately my answer, she's now 49 years old, which I also didn't realize. It's fine.

You can go young version of whoever. I'm going to go Amy Adams. It's not just because they're both white chicks, but she played white trash so well in the fighter. And I'm not saying, Yonah's white trash, but I'm saying could she take on a scrappy accent and play the physicality of this role and just be a scrapper?

Yeah, I bet you she could. So I'm going to pick that. Look, you're going with someone who has, I don't think she's ever won the Academy Award. She's been nominated like 12 times. So you're going to get good. a good performance out of her, if nothing else. Mike, where are you at here?

So my, this is super hard. Like I thought about like a younger Angelina Jolie. I thought about Marion Cotillard, who is the love interest in public enemies starring Johnny Depp. Okay. But, but I was convinced earlier in the program that there's only one woman who can play Yawani and Jacek. And it is Yawani and J.

Because I mean, if her. If her acting prowess can be shown in a movie like that, the life story of Yawani on Jacek, there's only one person who could play it. And that is Yonah herself. So give me Yonah. You obviously have not seen mafia, but I can't even remember what the damn name is called. Mafia. Women of Mafia 2.

Sorry, it's not even women of Mafia 1. Listen, we have learned through her fighting career that she can come through her lowest moments and shine. So maybe she could do that with the acting chops. Maybe a rebound on that. The Cole Conrad Career Change Award, named after Cole Conrad, who is selling milk somewhere instead of being the belt or heavyweight champion of the world. What would you wanting and Jach do if she weren't a fighter?

I struggled a little bit on this one, so BC, let's go to you. What do you think Yerana would be doing if she wasn't ever a professional fighter? Some of my knee-jerk answers involved professions. I've either already seen her through social media, kind of take a stab at because of her becoming a superstar and she does have charisma that you know like tv presenter like stuff like that she'd probably be pretty well at but would she have become that if she was the same kind of scrawny gnarly looking fighter who showed up with long hair and sort of just like you know not the starlet she became uh later on so i'm going to have to go since her endurance is so sick and her competitiveness

she could have been a marathon runner right she could have been an endurance athlete that seems to match up pretty well if if fighting never worked out that's not bad i don't like that i don't i don't i don't hate that. I went something fashion related, just, but it partly because, like you said, she's done a lot of stuff like this, modeling. And she always had a good sense of style. She's very into sneakers. I think there's that. But I didn't know if I could say this. I don't feel like it's sexist, but maybe it just is, and I don't understand my own biases. I feel like she would have been a great Peloton instructor. You know, like that that's like, the people who do Peloton classes or whatever, feel like she could.

be really nice and genial and motivate you in positive ways, or she could just be like, get off your ass and start peddling your fucking bike kid. And the fitness is there. So that's those are the two I had. Imagine you're struggling up your last hill and she's like, old balls are coming. But you don't know when. Yeah, that'd be great. That's on that mic.

What about you? So I went kind of your direction, Jed, but just in a way better way. The way I'm viewing this question is if I could take like peak Yawanna and put her somewhere in life, there's only one other spot besides the Octagon that I think would have been perfect for her. She would be the co-host of Nickelodeon guts with Sean with Michael Malley. Yeah. Because I would climb that fucking agro-crag so goddamn fast with her yelling and blowing that damn whistle in my face. I would break the record for the agroo-crag climb. she would be the co-host of Nickelodeon guts

and she'd probably win a bunch of daytime Emmys for it. So yes. That's the fucking best answer I've ever heard, Mike. Let's go. Can we bring back guts just so she can host guts now? Did they? I don't have children. Yeah, but you didn't have Yuana, so it failed miserably.

Like, if there's an American gladiators. Can we just do an adult guts? Like, just turn an Ninja Warrior into guts. When we do the combine, Jed, Yonah has to be the field. Oh, my God. Yes, this is the best. Like, remember Mo? the British

Yeah, we just replaced Moe with Mo's out. Mo's out. Mo's out. Mo's sneaky hot. No one wants to talk about that. Maybe I just love average. Underrated, dude. Completely underrated. This is a very important part of my development

as a young man. Absolutely. Moe would crush it on like, hey dude. She could be like a character actor's on Hey, dude. To salute your shorts. She would have been great. A great camp concerts and salute your shorts. You could have a British, British woman and hey dude.

I feel like that's what that show needed. She could have been Donkey Lips's love interest. I've been talking. What a ridiculous name. I briefly did want to talk about this here because I didn't know where else to put it. Why is you on and not more involved in the UFC? Like,

I know that she said when she was retiring, she wants to kind of like maybe move into management and she's very into entrepreneurship, but why is she not getting like broadcast spots? Feels like she would be really good at that. No, honestly, I don't think broadcasting where it's at. I think she should be, like when Dana doesn't go to events, she should be the one promoting.

She should be at the press conferences. David Shaw seems like a real nice guy. But Yawna being up there and talking about international growth and going to different places and how cool a card was, Yowna hosting pressers internationally. Like that's her role. She like when eventually Dane is going to step away. And there's like John Anick will handle the American duties of the press conference hosting

and being the promoter and stuff and like putting things over as he's very good at, but Joanna would also be incredible at that. So that's where I would put her. I think that's a great spot. I just, I had thought about it a little bit. And then as we'd been even talking about it more, I was just like, why is she not around more? It feels like she really should be.

Our final true award of the evening, it's the look at me now. Leon Edwards Award for the best moment, the peak of their career, the moment that stands above all others. down to me so I couldn't do it. Look at me. And for me, I'm going back to the well on this. I pick the Jessica and Drodge win because, as I mentioned at the top, I think that this is one of her best performances.

It's certainly the peak because after this, she drops the belt. But I think this was a fight that many people thought she could lose. Jessica and Drodge had been an absolute terror since dropping down to strawweight. And it was a masterclass performance for her. And so to me, this is the. the peak of it. I think there are plenty of other arguments for this, though. So, Mike, let's go right back to you. What do you have for her Leon Edwards moment? I was just going to go back to the Pentewell again, but I'm going, I'm just going to go back

a fight before that when she just beat the shit out of Carla Sparza and won the title because that was a, that was a moment that we had to wait an entire ultimate fighter season for. And then she got there. And she basically took Carla Spars's promising career and knocked her backwards for like two years with that performance. So and then she just she got what was rightfully hers that night. She got the old school UFC belt wrapped around her waist and barely broke a sweat doing it. So I think it's got to be that.

I think when you get that belt wrapped around your waist for the first time and you have a performance like that where you're just so dominant, it's got to be that for me. And there are many others, but that's, that's what I ultimately landed on. I think that's a good choice. I think there's one other choice in BC may be taking it. I feel like I might know where he's going. Mountain top to me is, you know, peak of the powers. When was she the absolute best?

Sometimes it's the last time. They were that great. I think she peaked at the Gooddaelaah rematch, and I think that the fights after that, although both wins, both solid wins against both Carolina and Andrage, she took more punishment in those than I was used to. Now, that's also two dangerous, big fighters. you know, big in terms of power and And And Androge, no question.

And like I mentioned earlier, Androge landed some sneaky bombs in the second half of that fight. But to face the resistance of what Claudia did in the first two rounds and how great she looked. And Claudia coming out with so much like fighting spirit because of the hatred from tough because of, you know, because like, you know, what one moment could have changed you on his career? How about if she didn't get the decision against Claudia in the first fight? You know, Claudia probably goes on to be the first, like, solid legitimate. legitimate champion. She probably takes it from Asparza right there, and we end up inevitably with a rematch for the title, but it could have gone that way. Maybe it should have.

But when they got to that rematch, Claudia could not have been better for 10 minutes. And yet Yawanna dug in and showed us what makes her just, it was like superwoman like. And I watched that fight from backstage and I interviewed her like right when she came back through medicals and it she had an aura of like on camera of almost like you know not just that that bitch like yeah she's the man she's the woman she's the champion but that there's you're just not going to find somebody who's going to be able to break her or beat her like it's not going to happen for a while you know what I mean like so that that's why it really feels like mountaintop to me even though she had two title defenses afterwards that moment was like she no matter what

they bring against her she's going to figure out a way to beat them and again and again and again. Yeah, and that was it right there. I love that fight. I love that performance because at the end of the second round, I'm like, she's going to lose this fight. She's absolutely going to lose this fight. Everyone thought it.

Yeah. Everyone thought it. And then it happened. And that brings us to the last thing for us. We're going to put a bow on things. We're going to exit, talk about the legacy of Yawani and Jacek. This is, you know, BC your first time with us. We'll lay you go first.

This is your opportunity. Anything that didn't get said that you want to say now. about Yawanna, let it be known. I think she might be like the, I mean, we talk, it's really the Mount Rushmore conversation we had before. Like at best, she might be the fourth best female fighter of all time. You know what I mean? At worst, she's still probably a top five female fighter of all time.

She's still the most decorated champion in this great division's history, the only female division in UFC history that really has been elite from start to finish. Okay, maybe that first Carla versus Rose fight wasn't the, highest elite representation of who was in the division at that moment, but that division has been killer. Yawanna has span, career has spun or spaneth the entire length, more or less of that division's history. And she was an elite, unique dog separate from everybody else,

not just in the amount of title defenses that would give her that argument for a lot of people of being the division's goat, but also having a, just that combination of it factor, will, backbone, like ready made, ready for the star for the spotlight and kind of walked right into it happily she had it all and it wasn't a flash in the pan she persevered she still gave us she gave us almost more iconic loss moments and losses like what iconic moment defines her the most the freaking alien coming out of her forehead and the fact that she still may have actually won that fight like that's just ridiculous she was washed up she was at the end of her career no and so you know yeah whatever approximation

of who's the greatest of all time, she belongs there still. She had it all. Didn't have a well-rounded, didn't have a complete well-rounded game, but in all of the other category, she had it all, an absolute killer in every possibility of what that word means. She was a killer. Beautiful. Mike, close us down on you, Anna.

I mean, I think I said everything I needed to say at the beginning of this, but I will add one more thing because I sort of talked myself into it throughout the episode. she is everything Robbie Lawler would look for in a fighter she is the she's the UFC's female version of Robbie Lawler if Robbie Lawler liked people if that makes sense because Robbie don't like people he just likes fighting and Yohanna loved fighting and she likes people and she likes doing the media and she likes putting the company over she likes doing all those things and she's very good at it she knows the right things to say she's the Miz and Robbie Loller all mesh together where she is a company woman, but she'll beat the fuck out of you inside that octagon and she loved every second of it. So she is first ballot. She's a first ballot hall of violence fighter. She's a first ballot just person and advocate for the sport. And honestly, there is the sliding doors award. I don't even know if we even touched on that. But like one of the biggest questions I've had with sliding doors is that what if she didn't

not what if she didn't get knocked up by rose Nama Yunus that night like what would this division look like now and she she made fighters like she was able to with her name and her reputation she made the division and she made other fighters with it she left the division in a better place than when she started in it and to me as a professional fighter someone who is an advocate for the sport isn't that what you want isn't that the ultimate goal is to have incredible success for your career, but also leave behind a division that is actually better and growing from when you found it originally. And I know there's evolution.

I know she started early in the game, but she was 115. The reason we love 115 and revere it so much is the deepest, most fun division. The division that I've been saved for years, the strawweight division may not be, to have all the sexiest names, but it never, ever let you down. And Yawani and Jacek is the captain of that friggin team. So onwards and upwards, baby. Thank you, Joanna, for everything you've done. And Nickelodeon guts 2.0 or 3.0 is going to be awesome.

You know, I got to jump back in because you making, both of you making that Robbie Lawler comparison for whatever ways that makes sense is interesting because we often on morning combat do the, okay, like, who are the top five most exciting fighters ever? How I really define that answer is if you're alone at home and you had a couple pops in you and you're turning on UFC fight pass and you got about an hour before you pass out, Who are you putting on? You know, so for me, it's always like number one, Robbie Lawler, number two, Justin Gagee, number three, you know, Tony Ferguson, on and on. Female-wise, is she that number one with a bullet?

She has to be, right? She's got like three of the five greatest fights of all time, like she has to be. More importantly to that, B.C., and this will be the, well, this will be the intro to my closing here. It's not just that she has these highs. What's her low? What boring fight was she ever in? And the Valentina fight is, I guess, probably her worst fight in terms of entertainment. So, yeah, I think she's absolutely there.

I also hadn't thought of this at all. But I love, can we just ship Lawler and, you know, J-Chic? Can you imagine the violent little children those two could make? Just training down at ATT, just the next generation of absolute monsters. God, I hope that this happens. That would just be the best. Yeah, can we play MMA matching? MMA matchmaker and just create more power couples and

yeah we that's the power couple that needs to happen um i'm you know i'm sure robbie's perfectly happy with his family but still you know just saying let's make some things happen for me uh i got talked into this over the course of the show this wasn't where i was going but uh pretty simply beawny and jicic is the first female fighter that um i really was a fan of I had a great amount of respect for Ronda Rousey and for Chris Cyborg, and I would always watch them. Chris Cyborg coming up was just like, wow, this woman is unbelievably dominant. And then you go further back, and Magumi Fujiji, I didn't get to watch a lot of that live and came to her after the fact and respected. But Yowana was the first one that I was really like, she's my CTV.

I want this woman to win every fight. I was emotionally invested in her. That means a great deal. And as the show went on, at the top of it, I said, you know, I'm not sure. But I'm not sure that she's one of the top five, you know, top Mount Rushmore. She's at the table. I'm in it. I think that she's the fourth spot on the Mount Rushmore.

That's where I'm locked in because I think you have to have Rhonda. I think Rhonda stays forever. I think you have to have Amanda for very obvious reasons. think Cyborg is pretty close to Lockton. You could sell me no. And I think the four spot goes to Yonah, because of what you said, Mike, because she is this division. And she maybe not, won't end up being the greatest champion of this division.

And she's certainly not the best fighter this division's ever seen. And she made 115 matter. She made it the premium division in the sport. And when Rhonda left, Yonano was there. Yawanna was the standard bearer of women's MMA moving forward. And she rose being a champion and being beloved matters because it was over, Yawanna. And Wiley reclaiming the belt and then getting there mattered because she beat Yowana. She is the person who elevated this weight class.

And I think that that means a whole lot for me. And so I want to end with a quote from Yowna herself. I always wanted to be remembered as one of the greatest and I will. I'm just a girl from the hood JJ from the hood I did big things that's it she wanted it and she spoke it into existence

and that's what it is she is one of the greatest of all time one of the most exciting fighters I've ever had the privilege to watch and I hope that whatever she does moving forward she stays a part of the sport because the sport is better for it

and that's it all I have to say about you you want and J-Chic is damn you were good and that's it ladies and gentlemen another episode in the can I want to thank Brian Campbell for joining us for Morning Combat, making his debut on the damn podcast. Mike Heck, always a pleasure to have you along. I don't know who we're doing next.

Got a couple of ideas. We'll see who it ends up being. But until then, thank you for listening. We love you all very much. Good night.