MMA Fighting - DAMN! They Were Good | Celebrating The Career Of Jose Aldo, 'The King of Rio' And The Featherweight GOAT

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

DAMN! They Were Good celebrates the careers of the most exciting and influential fighters in MMA history, and this episode, we are covering the career of one of the greatest fighters of all time, Jose Aldo. During his 18-year career, Aldo was the undisputed featherweight champion of the world for 2,405 days — second most all-time behind only the great Anderson Silva — and amassed an incredible nine title defenses. The former UFC and WEC featherweight champion’s career spanned multiple eras, establishing him as one of the all-time greats even if he had chosen to retire after UFC 200, as it was rumored he might. Instead, Aldo continued fighting and dropped down to the bantamweight division where he remained a top contender until his retirement this past weekend. Host Jed Meshew is joined by Shaheen Al-Shatti, Guilherme Cruz, Alexander K. Lee, and Steven Marrocco to remember one of the most important careers in MMA history. Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Follow Steven Marrocco @MMAFightingSM Follow Shaun Al-Shatti @ShaunAlShatti Follow Guilherme Cruz @guicruzzz Follow Alexander K. Lee @AlexanderKLee Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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

It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now, only from Audible. And welcome to another episode of Damn, they were good. I am your host, as always, Jedmishu. I'm a writer for Mammatefighting.com. It's a great website.

The greatest website, some may say. but this week it's a sad week because it's a somber week is really what it is because one of the greatest fighters of all time. The legend, the king of Rio himself, has laid down his crown and stepped away from the sport of MMA. That is right. Jose Aldo Jr. retired this past weekend and as such there was no way we weren't going to talk about, arguably the greatest fighter of all time, especially when he probably is my favorite fighter of all time. And apparently I'm not alone in that because we have a host, a horde, a smorgasbord of people volunteering to talk about the great one and who am I to deny them?

So normally I've got one or two guests with me, sometimes three if I'm really feeling frisky, four people joining us for this episode, four fantastic writers, also from mhmafiting.com, great website are on board this week. Mr. Stephen Morocco, Sean Alshadhi, Alexander K. Lee and making his damn debut the other king of Rio, the king of Brazil, and certainly the king of our hearts, Mr. Guillermo Cruz. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me. I'm really excited.

This is going to be total chaos. But how is everyone feeling about the recent retirement of the goat, Jose Aldo? Well, is he really retiring? I mean, for the purposes of this podcast, Stephen, we are. But it would be awesome if he wasn't. Okay. I'm feeling sad. I'm feeling sad, Jed.

You're bringing negative energy, Stephen. We are commemorating this man's career. Let us believe that he has done in MMA. Sean has the right approach because I am super damn sad. I'm feeling sad. I'm feeling wistful. I'm feeling nostalgic. I'm feeling a lot of things I wasn't expecting to feel coming into this week, man.

One of the greats, one of the greats of all time, one of the greatest who's ever laced it up, one of the great Savar era, certainly, is done. And it feels bittersweet in a way because it feels like he left so much on the table still. Like if we were talking about this before recording, but I think if Jose Aldo fights Dalgames Sterling for the title right now, which almost could have happened, I would favor Jose to win that fight just stylistically. So should have happened.

Ridiculous that we threw away. Should have. Ridiculous that we threw away this guy's final fight, fighting at altitude against the grinder. Like, okay, sure, that's great. That's what everybody wants to see. A Grindr who has no path to the title. I'll say that too. I digress, though.

I'm happy to be here to celebrate Scarface again, one of the greatest fighters of all time. Also one of my favorite fighters of all time as well. I mean, this guy is just amazing. He's absolutely amazing. Guy, how are you, did you, I mean, your boots on the ground, you are the king of Brazil, as we've established. Certainly now that the other king of Rio has retired,

I feel that that is now your rightful crown as well. Two coronations this past week globally, so good to know. How do you feel about Joseo's stepping away from the game? I admit I was a little bit surprised when it was announced that he was retiring because I really expect him to be part of the UFC Rio card in January because it's the first time UFC is coming back to Rio in almost three years. and UFC needs stars to build a huge pay-p-view events. Like new TV deals here in Brazil, a lot of stakes.

They are bringing five-past here, so they need stars. And Jose Aldo carried the UFC over his shoulders for a long, long time. But, yeah, I mean, he had one fight left in his view, and I possibly thought that he would have going to fight. that fight to end his career and not be tied to the UFC. He has said over the years that he would never fight for another MMA organization because the UFC is like the biggest one and he would never fight for Belator and other ones that he considered minor leagues.

But he has always talked about boxing and competing white type. Things the UFC would never allow him to do. And I was shocked at the UFC like let him go. away without fighting that last fight. Like GSP couldn't do that. Nate Diaz couldn't do that. They were throwing Nate Diaz at Hanukimair. But Jose Aldo, like, they were, he was so good for the UFC in Brazil for such a long time.

And he had such a great relationship with Lorenzo Fetia that I thought, yeah, if there's someone they would do that for, that's Jose Albo. You know, you've touched on the loan thing about this that I've been able to at least somewhat okay about it, so that I may get to watch Jose Aldo punch people in the face still. It may not be in the same capacity, but kickboxing, moly type boxing. So let's turn to the Prince of Positivity. What are there other positives to take away from this, AK, because otherwise, I'm just looking at one of the best fighters of all time.

We still got juice. He's still, like, this is a man who still could win the belt tomorrow, still very much a top five guy in a weight class. Like this is not Tony Ferguson. We're trying to push him out the door quietly because he's washed. Jose Aldo is still one of the absolute best fighters in the world. I think he's ranked in our pound for pound rankings right now. Like how give me a positive spin, oh Prince of positivity.

Yeah, I think he's like the number six bantamweight as well. So like a top 10 contender in his division. But I mean, kind of what you just said, that that is a positive, that he's going away with something left in the tank, that he is going away with that, not on a BJ Penn-esque eight fight under, you know, on a winless streak, you know what I mean, like that we can still say, oh, would he have, could he beat this guy? Would he beat this guy?

Is he still competing in a championship level, you know, at the highest level of MMA? Absolutely he is. I think that's, that's indisputable. So it is a good thing. And again, we don't know exactly his, his, you know, his medical, you know, situation, what health issues he might have from having competed in MMA for so long. But he just, he seems content.

seems like he's he's walking away in his own terms. The day that it happened, he didn't, the first thing he didn't post was like, oh, farewell, everyone to the sport. It was that he just had a child. He had this beautiful Instagram posts about his newborn child. And I'm like, this is a man whose his head is in the right place. His head and his heart are in the right place right now. Yes, will he box again the future sure? Will he someday fight in M.A. again, possibly. But right now, like if he walks away, like he can be very, it sounds like he's very happy with what he did. And that is the positive takeaway. Maybe for fans, of course, it's, it sucks. There's no nice way to put it. But for Jose Aldo, it looks like he's got at least

somewhat of a happy ending, even if he didn't get to do that last fight in front of fans, the kind of big, you know, a curtain call. But again, we've seen that not always go so well for some fighters. So maybe it's better this way. Well, how can you not be happy with what you've accomplished when you're maybe the greatest fighter that's ever, ever fought people, right? And so that is, before we get into our whole spiel, the stuff we do all the time, the categories. The open question that I want to lead off with, even though we've already talked about some other stuff, is, is Joseph of the goat? Because I have thoughts, and I want to hear y'all's thoughts on it. And I'm sure we'll talk a lot about and around this.

First off, let me just clearly state this for anybody who's too stupid. Looking at you, John Anick. Josaldo is unquestionably the greatest featherweight of all time. There is not a debate nor an argument about that. But is he the greatest pound for pound fighter of all time? Stephen, what are your thoughts on this matter? Wait, so you started that by saying there is no argument for his featherweight goat status? Like, there's no argument.

I can't even, I can't even go there. There is not even. Careful. But wait a minute. Speak carefully. Steve. Max Holloway beat him twice. He'll kick you off this podcast.

Who calls Steven to be part of this show? Max Holloway being twice. Alexander Volcanozhenowski beat him. Conno McGregor beat him. Those are those are things that technically happened. They didn't, they happened. There is no technicality. They actually happened.

All right, I see we're getting off to a good start here. This is like saying Anderson Silver isn't great because you lost your right of hole. Yeah, it's a damning loss. Yeah, I mean, look, pound, I tend to, I think this just gets back to my philosophy on the whole rankings, uh, schema in the first place. That if you lose to certain people, uh, if you lose to multiple people who are considered in, you know, to be among the pound for pound best or, or the best. in their division, that you slide down a little bit as a result of that.

And so I understand the sentiment as far as saying he's the pound for bound best at featherweight because of the strength of his schedule and the history that he has at the top of that division. I guess, you know, I can't forget those other things that happened, you know, the losses that he did have to the people that we would consider the pound for bound best right now. Like Alexander Volcanowski, who's number one in our pound for pound right now, right? I mean, he's he's at the top. Like, he's kind of undisputed at this point. So I'll put that aside, though, for a second and let you guys. He's definitely disputed because three of us don't have him as the top pound for pound fighter.

right now. I'll let you guys pick at that as you as you want. But as far as pound for fun best, absolutely. He's got to be within the top, at least the top five and probably the top three for his strength of schedule for what he's done for the amount of time he was at the top, for the amount of time he held the featherweight championship, his bantamweight run, which was just incredible. The skills that he retained in a weight division lower than the one he fought the majority of his career i would say at least top three um if not you know top five at an absolute minimum that's correct that's a good opinion i'm glad you saved yourself stephen because we started going down a road i wasn't excited about gee what i'm going to pivot this for you

is josaldo the greatest brazilian fighter of all time no he is not i think he's anerson We're still thinking it's Anderson Silva. Yeah, Anderson Silva, there was something magical about here. It wasn't just the wins. It was like the things he was doing to his opponents. Josealdo is like, there were two Josealdo. Like the WC, Josealdo was like a machine. He would just destroy everyone.

The UFC was more like the brain so smart. him is the way he just dominated that made them look easy, but not the same way that he was doing in the W.C. Like, Anderson Silva, like, just, like, doing magic. But Jose Aldo's, like, a close second. He's just on another level. I'm surprised at how easy that was for you to say,

and that's why I wanted to come to you, because for me, obviously, incredibly not Brazilian. I am very not Brazilian. I am very not Brazilian. I'm shocked. I certainly give off an air of Brazilian, I'm sure, but I thought that that would be a much harder question. It was kind of immediate for you because I'll throw this out here.

I think he's the second greatest fighter of all time, and I'll give my reasons kind of as we go along and talk about things. But it just, it feels especially like in the moment, certainly Anderson was the bigger guy in just about every way. But a lot of people, and I am not one who gives two craps about the whole PED usage thing, but a lot of other people do. And that feels like, especially with the end of career loss as Anderson suffered, to Stevens' earlier point, that kind of took some of the shine off Anderson in those sorts of conversation. So I'm surprised at how quick that was for you.

And I guess I'll turn to AK kind of outside of the Brazilian thing, just in the context of greatness as a fighter, how do you feel about Josealdo in that conversation? Well, I know, see, people know, I'm not just a prince of positivity. I'd like to be the prince of preparation as well. So I know we have a section normally at the end, Jed, where we kind of, you know, talk about legacy and put a bow on things. So maybe I'll save some of these thoughts for that. I will say unequivocally, and I'll repeat this later, top five pound for pound. I think I was actually after, you know, the retirement happened. I kind of very quickly just went to make a document and just could do a quick, oh, who's in the top 10 pound for pound?

Because I knew we'd be having this discussion and doing some writing about it probably later this week. And I couldn't find a way to keep him out of the top five. I just couldn't do it. In fact, he actually bumped out Anderson. So, like I said, we'll talk about Legacy at the end. Then I'll give my exact current list. I didn't put a super amount of thought into it, to be fair. And for the longest time, Andrew Silva was certainly one of the default answers.

Most people would say top three, certainly top five. But I have a couple of fighters ahead of him and all those one of them. So yeah, he's certainly in there. And one more thing I want to note, just because we didn't quite fit in the intro, this is such an important episode to do, because normally when we do, you know, the theme of damn was to kind of take fighters who are personally popular fighters and well-known fighters, but for whatever reason had, you know, maybe just not been gotten there due, you know, recently, right?

Or in recent years. And I wouldn't say that's the case with Aldo, but I think we're going to, and we'll talk about this later, I'm sure, in a later section, we're going to, there's this point, you know, there's a point where a whole new breed of fan came into MMA. and it seems like that new breed of fan does not appreciate what Jose Aldo was before, oh, I don't know, December 12th, 2015 to pick a random arbitrary date. So we'll get to that. Totally random.

Just out of a hat. Yes. So we will get to that. I'm sure we're talking about that a ton later. But I do want to say that while Aldo does not fit the usual like damn profile, it fits perfectly now, not just because the retirement, but because, yes, I think people need to be reminded immediately how good this man. was and we'll have a lot of that for sure i mean yeah absolutely that was the entire premise of the show and we are going to get into that because i think jos aaldo's incredibly underrated even still

even though he got the kind of end of career statesmanly your favorite fighters favorite fighter king of rio everybody has nothing but the utmost respect for this dude you still get a bunch of her dipsets on the internet who can't figure out that this guy is a freaking man. And for that, I will then turn to Miss Sean Oshoddy because I love Josaldo. If he's not my favorite fighter, he is two or three. There are three fighters that I very clearly have at the top. And he is amongst that group.

And so I'll turn to Sean because I know that Sean also loves Josealdo. Sean, is Josaldo your favorite fighter? because he's your favorite fighter's favorite fighter of that I have no doubt is my favorite fighter of all time that's so that's hard I that's Anderson I mean Anderson was my guy a guy who got me into this Anderson was a magician he was a wizard he was doing things like he said that no one had ever done and I've really never seen since but Joe's I certainly have to do an episode on Anderson because apparently apparently this Anderson Silva guy was pretty good huh oh I told you the moment you

started this show I'm in on the Anderson episode but no I think episodes like this are exactly why I like this show so much, and I think this show is important because it is important to contextualize guys like Jose Alta who have been around for so long, because there's a lot of elements to this, right? Because AK hit it right on the head. The cycle of fandom, of MMA fandom is so short. It's about four or five years, and then a new crop cycles in, and then the new crop cycles in, and the history within this sport is forgotten every time that happens. One of the last times that happened was the McGregor era, right? In the McGregor era fully launched, kicked off, hit its fever pitch,

maybe not the fever pitch, but started to reach that fever pitch when Josiah August sparked out in 13 seconds. And it's still one of the more, I don't know that inexplicable is the right word, but it's certainly one of the just wilder results that we've ever seen in MMA history considering what we've seen from ConorSense and from Jose before and after, just what Jose represented. And I think that poisoned, that tainted the well for an entire generation of MMA fans who just did, had no comprehension of who Josaldo was, why he was important.

And their whole experience with Jose is he loses this fight, and then he's sort of in some boring fights after that, maybe Frankie Edgar, whatever, gets the title back. And then he just gets washed by this generation of featherweights once he's sort of past his prime, whether it's Max or Volcanowski or whatever. And that is just doing such an immense disservice to Jose Aldo because when people bring up the featherweight goat conversation, it's so frustrating because there is a right answer. and it's just, it is sort of inarguable because, sure, results are one thing, like I understand, you beat this guy on this specific night. That is meaningful. But greatness is measured over a long

period of time. Greatness is not won or lost on one particular night. Greatness is one or lost over a period of years. And Jose Aldo ruled over this division for nine years, essentially. He was the king of this division for basically a decade. Two thousand, I think the actual number, 2,215 consecutive days as champion in his prime. Like that is absurd, nine title defenses if you include the WEC, which you should, because that was the UFC title and just transformed once they bought it and all the best talent was in the WEC. The level of dominance that this man had over the 45-pound division has not been seen

before or since, and probably won't be scenes. Like, again, I mean, it would be really difficult for Alex Volcanowski to reach the level that Jose Aldo reached in terms of how overwhelming. he was, how much better he was than his peers, how ahead of the game he was, and just the sheer number of trophies and belts in his display cabinet. So Jose Aldo is easily the featherweight goat. I don't care if you want to throw out all the names he lost to. Most of that was past his prime unless you want to talk about Connor, which Connor's not really a featherweight in the grand scheme of the historical scale, right? He sort of bounced around once he does business.

And outside of that, Jose Aldo is absolutely a top five fighter of all time. Like, if you want to look at the list, I feel like the list is just going to objectively have, GSP Anderson, Jones, Aldo, DJ. In whatever order you want to throw in, that feels like, at least for male fighters. That should be the list. That's sort of the standard, right? And then however you want to order that,

I don't feel like there's a right or wrong answer. I probably have Aldo 4 with GSP Anderson Jones top three, but I'm not going to argue anybody who wants to do something otherwise. Just in general, for the grand scheme of MMA, what this guy meant, what he represented, again, how far ahead he was of just anybody else in the damn world. who could make 145 pounds from his prime, his peak, it's otherworldly. It's absolutely ridiculous. And if you go back in time and you watch some of those WEC fights, you watch some of the early

UFC fights, you watch the Chad Mendez rematch, which is one of the low-key, most underrated great fights of all time, it's just crazy to see the level of expertise, dominance, intelligence, explosives, just everything on display from this guy. Again, he was magic in there. And I feel like, again, I'm glad we can have these type of conversations on a show like this to be able to properly articulate it because there's a reason that people my age, Stephen's age, Jed's age, Gereme's age, all of us revere this guy and love this guy. And it's because he was, he was the man.

He was the king. The King of Rio is not just a nickname. He was the king for so damn long. Man, what a beautifully said thing. And we could transition directly into the bulk of this, the categories right off of that because you set me up for it well. But before we do that, I wanted to come back to Guy for one last thing, which is, I know the first time I was exposed to Jose Aldo. It was the WEC because there's very clear, it's not like I was watching, you know, regional Brazilian MMA in the early 2000s. That's not a thing that I could. even do at that stage of life. You, though, Kyi, when did you first meet, because you can give us this kind of really special context,

when did you first meet? You can't? I can't. Because when I started COVID-M-M-A, it was just like six months before he made his WEC debut. So he was like fighting in, he had just fought in Japan. He was like treated as a,

an absolute fantastic prospect but then he was thrown at Pekano in the WC I shouldn't know get up and he was expected to lose because Pekano was such a legend a veteran of the game and people thought he would get choked and he just destroyed Pekano

beat the hell out of him yeah an absolute beat down and that fight showed like yeah this kid is for real and from then on that like fighting bodies left and bright until he became like the king and that was impressive because he was just like a random kid in Rio he was just like walking out the streets taking the subway to

go training and like living in the crappy area of Rio until he became the UFC champion he was still living in a crappy area of Rio taking the subway to train like just like a normal guy he was something different. That's why I think many people in Brazil love him more than other fighters, like who are more popular in Brazil, like Inners-Silva, Vito Belfort, Geras, Van der LeSilva, Chauvin, because people relate to him, like, he's a human being. Like, he takes a subway to train. It takes a subway to work, like just a normal guy who can also kill you with his hands and kicks off. Yeah, just the people's champion.

And I think Gierme hits on a really important thing that people don't, I guess, realize or understand it, which is like the quickness, the rapid nature of his rise is really like remarkable to look back on because the dude went from anonymity to the best in the damn world in like 27 months. And again, it was just a, it was one of those things where as soon as you saw it against Puccino, it was just like, oh man, what it would. What is this going to be? Like, this is, this is going to be a big problem for everybody. 27 months to basically go from nobody to the best in the damn world.

Like that, that is rarely seen. Especially, like, that just doesn't happen, especially nowadays, right? Like, it's just not a thing. Okay. Then before we break into the categories, does anyone else have anything to get off their chest or throw out? I want to open it up in case someone has something that they don't, that they want to talk about, that isn't necessarily going to be in the categories. He's going to piece you off, Jed.

I'm starting to have regrets about bringing Stephen on, but Stephen, the floor is yours. I was just going to say that I questioned whether he was still retired because I'm not emotionally kind of ready for it to happen. I mean, I think that Jose Aldo has been such a consistent presence in my life. He's been such a consistent presence in my life that he's, you know, these death and taxes. He's, you know, he's the one thing you can rely upon in this, in this world that he'll be around.

And it seems more like, there's more of a cognitive dissonance there because it seems like, well, why would you, why would you quit at a time like this, you know, when you have, when you have so much left in the tank? So I think that's the reason why I started out the way I did. Especially when we see fighters, I mean, it's fair, because especially we see fighters hang on for far, far too long. And he clearly isn't doing that. So maybe he's just smarter because he's always been like the smartest fighter in the world anyway.

Maybe he's just smarter than the rest of us. There's also a lot we don't know. I mean, this could be, I have a lot to do with business, you know, the state of his personal business and where, you know, now that he does have this permission, there's some not, there's some lack of clarity as far as I'm concerned about where exactly, what exactly happened as far as, you know, his release from the U.S. what exactly that means, you know, what, I mean. That means he's no longer on the contract with the UFC.

Well, right, but it's like, was there, was there, was there any, was there, was there any, uh, caveats to that? I guess is, is what I'm unclear on. But all of this is a way of saying that basically, you know, I don't, it's interesting that we're doing this at this time because I think we're going to see, I think we're going to see more of Jose Aldo. I think what we're really just talking about is like his UFC, his MMA career. and what that meant, which was obviously an incredible amount.

It meant the most. And so let's talk about exactly what that meant. We will break into our categories now, which honestly I was able to keep us from talking for like a full hour and a free-for-all. So I already feel like I'm doing a great job of hosting a five-man front here. So let's move into the categories. But before we do that, as always, I give it a little rundown on the career in case you didn't know. not going to totally do that this time because two main reasons.

First, there's just way too much to go over to try and hit you with the highlights. And second, it's Jose Friggin Aldo. You know who we're talking about. You know what he's done. So I am just going to hit you with the bullet points. And along those bullet points, let me get this out up front. I think it was Sean that alluded to this earlier. Aldo won the WBC title in 2009.

He defended it three times there. For all intents and purposes, that was a UFC belt. Zufa owned both organizations. Hell, his fight against your eye favor that I'm sure will come up later. That was functionally a UFC pay-per-view. They brought in Bruce Buffer to do the announcing, and Goldberg and Rogan were on commentary. This was a UFC organization in everything,

but act the three letters, and the cage color. Same thing, but because it was technically not, all of the UFC's record keeping stuff, it doesn't take into account his WEC work, his WC tighter defenses. So officially, Jose Aldo has like fourth and fifth or whatever on some of these.

Bugger that, that's all garbage. The actual true numbers are what I'm going to give you with reference to his career, and those numbers are this. He won the featherweight belt in 2009. He held it until 2015. he later won an interim belt was promoted to champion we'll talk about all it etc he is tied for third all time in most title defenses at nine that's tied with george st pierre

he has tied for the second longest win streak of all time at 15 it's tied with kamar oosman who just lost leon edwards who was trying to tie inderson silva he is tied for fourth all time and title fight wins at 11 he is the second longest title reign all time in days i think sean said it 2,216 days that is behind only Anderson Silva. He is the youngest champion in promotional history at 23 years and 69 days. John Jones is 23 years and 243 days. He has the also, just as the cherry, most wins in WC history. He's got four or five of the night bonuses, five performance bonuses.

And if there has ever been a thing as a first ballot Hall of Famer, Jose Aldo will be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame next summer. I have zero, zero doubts about that. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ, built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move.

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Stop wondering. Start gifting. Winners, find fabulous for less. So that's the bullet points. And now we get in to the even more prestigious awards than all those that we just talked about. The damn they were good awards. On the first category, as always,

is Mount Rushmore. In this man's illustrious career, you get four fights, gentlemen, four fights to show who he is, what you care about, what you think are the most exciting, fun performances, however you want to do it.

It's four of them. I've got four, and one of them I think is going to be controversial. I'm excited about it. It was tough for me to break it down. I don't want to go first. Who would like the floor to kick us off in this journey? I'm going to pick Alexander K. Lee, who is waving frantically at me to lead us off. So, AK, Mel Rushmore, let's go, baby.

Yeah, I think I usually don't go first on these. So, you know, we end up having some of the same list. So at least, yes, let me be the one to break down some of the ones that. There's always some overlap. And there is at least one of these fights that I would be incredibly surprised if it's not on everybody's list. Yeah. I know. I mean, I have to assume the Uriah Faber.

Uriah Fabor, WC.C. 48 was my number one. Was like my first. That was your first pick. If you're drafting and that's the fucking order. Yeah, because, I mean, I'm not saying he hasn't had better fights, but we talk about the insane run he was kind of having. If I remember, Uriah Fabor was the man at 145 as far as fame goes, he was the man. he was the man of WEC, you know, he was, he was the face of that promotion. So even after he lost to Mike Brown, there's sort of the thought that like,

ah, he'll come back, he'll get the belt sometime. He'll get the belt back again. And it wasn't long, of course, before he got his opportunity to fight, fight Jose Aldo. Jose had just ran through Mike Brown, just smoked him. And by that point, people were definitely like, holy crap, there might not be anyone at 145 pounds who can touch this guy. Because Mike Brown, again, sort of not the most famous guy either. He got bit, he beat Faber, and then, you know, that made him.

sort of this big name and afterwards I mean really the favor win was probably the peak of his career so we'll do an MTV at some point maybe show this wildly underrated career Thomas Brown so so Jose had already kind of taken Mike Brown's heat and then you know he gets the master with favor

and boy he he just you know dominates the California kid for five rounds just shows off everything shows off the insane striking the ground game he's beating him on the grounds like favor's a wrestler favor's gonna give him trouble on the ground and Aldo just went jiu-jitsu all over his ass, and then, of course, the leg kicks. Maybe the most famous leg kick barrage of the, in recent memory.

She has favors leg, never the same, probably. I mean, he probably sells trauma from how badly he was dominated there. So, yeah, just an amazing, if you want to talk about the passing of the torch, you know, people really having to say, okay, this is the guy now. You know, this is the guy. Like, we had said favor was the, you know, the man at the below light, below 155, favors the man you know favors especially in north america i mean you know uh jed you and i talked about like kaj yamamoto before but i don't think he quite had that he didn't quite resonate in in

the u.s as much as uh as favor so oh for for sure he did i mean kid kid kid was actually the dude yes but because it was always the favor kid fight was that was the one that got away but kid kid kid was certainly internationally in in the forum geek that was the man but favor was the most popular sub-1505-figer, like, by far. And Josealdo took that. I mean, he really took that from it. I'm not saying favor wasn't still more popular after it, but as far as like, if you, you know, anyone who's watching and paying attention and knows what they're talking about,

was like, this is the guy. There's no question. There's nothing lucky about this. There's no fluke. We really don't need to see a rematch. Just beat him pillow to post for five rounds. It was just amazing. Credit to favor for not getting, for even making it to the final bell because he was

straight up dominated. Next, I'd go another five-round decision. I got to go the Chad Mendez rematch. really just one of the best title fights of all time. I mean, you talk about title fights that are forgotten. I mean, people bring it up when you're talking about Josie Aldo, but I feel like now when people talk about the best title fights of all time, and we've had some great ones over the last few years.

Don't get me wrong. I understand why some of the ones from, like we said, 2016, before that, kind of get pushed back. This one should not be forgotten. I've just said anyone, cue this one up. UFC 179, October 25th, 2014. Amazing five-round battle. And much needed.

After Josie really smokes Chad in the first fight, Chad fought his way back. And then I think we got a much better, much better effort over five rounds, which is awesome. Third, I'm going highlight real. Hold up on that one, okay. Yeah. That's on this on mine. And I just, for the sake of expediency, does anyone not have that on their list? Because that's the one I think undeniably is in the Mount Rushmore.

But I would love if someone is counter to it, I would love to it. I would love them to stand up and make themselves known. No. A lot of nothing. That rematches. Yeah. Absolutely. It has to be.

It has to be. I mean, that is, I said earlier, A.K. just said it, like, that is one of the great forgotten title fights of all time.

Like, if you go back and rewatch it now, and it would be just as exhilarating as it was. I did. I actually watched it this morning. It was awesome. Yeah. And being there in the arena to watch their life was,

like, amazing. It's one of the best fights. Probably the best fight. I watched live. Yeah, live. And by the way, a clear win for Aldo, like I would say, a great back and forth fight, but a clear win for Aldo.

But that absolutely elevates like both guys. Like Chad Mendes is another guy, I feel like doesn't get a lot of respect just because, listen, he fought in the same era as Aldo. He wasn't going to beat Jose Aldo. That's just, that's how it had that's life. Sorry, buddy, but Chad Mendes, amazing featherweight. Poor Chad Mendez, man. First seven years of his career, he is 17 and O. And then the two losses, he's 0 and 2 against Jose Aldo.

Like, that is a rough time period of 11. That's some DC John Jones stuff. More importantly to that, because this never gets talked about, that man had to fight Aldo twice in Rio. Both days. He didn't get to fight him in Vegas. Like, Frankie got to fight him in the T-Mobile or whatever. Like, all right, Chad, I know you went to Rio. He blew your face off and then danced in the crowd with the fans.

Why don't we do that again, buddy? Like, that is such a harsh booking for, like, I get it. Aldo should have never fought outside of Rio, but to see that other fighters didn't have to do that, but Chad Mendez, well, here sucks to be you, man. Tough hang for Monty Mendez. Great title fight. No, don't, Chad Mendez, great title fight and your one half of respect. It was also because I wanted to bring this up because I am the proponent of MAAFind.com.

I'm always telling you guys, it's a great website. hand up granted i didn't work here at the time and i'm actually not sure if anyone on this call worked here at the time now not our fight of the year for 2014 is that true it was not even the second best fight of the year according to emily fight i worked here now i need to look this up yeah okay so the fight of the year is i don't i don't think it's good but the fight of the year is hendricks Waller. It was the Hendricks win. I at least accept it. Are you looking at it now, Sheen? Because there is a second fight in front of it, which I think is super garbage. Okay. So let me go ahead and defend the website for a second. Or at least contextualize this very poor list,

because it's a very poor list. It's not very good, man. Chris Wyatman versus Leotto Machina is for some reason the number two on that year's list. I don't know why. That's a very bad choice. But let me say that this was in a different era where back then we were just going to pretend I didn't work here at a time. So back then, back then the way that year-end votes and the awards worked for the website was we just had, hey, here's all the awards, who wants what, I'll take fight of the year, I'll take knock out of the year, I'll take submission to the year. And then you just wrote your own list off your own opinion. No one had any other input in it. And sometimes it became, the website essentially, represented very, very bad opinions. Like, I remember the year at St. Barbosa, Terry Edom knockout, wasn't the knockout of the year.

It was Cungley, like, Rich Franklin or something. Because now I have to figure out who did that because I know who it is. And he's my buddy, and I'm not going to put him on blast. But it led to a lot of really, it led to a lot of really bad awards that I then, I think it was after this year that I was like, hey, guys, we should, we should change up this whole award thing. Can we like maybe vote and make this a team-wide thing? And then now we do it the way we do it.

So this was kind of the catalyst of why that happened. I'm glad to know that. Listen, if only this had been the case in 2017 and I had been handed submission of the year, the year of the Mighty Whiz Bar, Brett Johns was robbed. Brett Johns, you would have an MMF submission of the year award on your mantle right now if this was done

as I had been able to break it down and do it myself. I just say. That same year, Demetri's Johnson was robbed a fighter of the year. We're digressing. I just wanted to be up front because I always say how we're a great website. We dropped the ball on that one. And when I was doing my research, it was like, I can't believe this. I accept Hendricks Lawler.

I still think it's not their choice I'd make, but that's a fair argument. It's a great fight. And we've been, Machita's a good fight. But it ain't, it ain't this. It's not this fight in any capacity. So sorry to derail you, AK. No worries. I wanted us to stay focused on this particular thing.

and now please continue. You've got team on the rush more. Definitely. I want to get to your guys' list. So my last tour are like highlight real picks. One of them, the Cubs Swanson, like the double knee,

still like one of the most insanely timed opening strikes I've ever seen. It was just, it's way better than the, than the Jorge Mazzved all and Ben Ascgren. Like, it's that good. And I hope people haven't forgotten this knockout.

It's eight seconds. It was the fight that got in the title of shot. Cubs Swanson was a very good fight. fighter before that. He was a very good fighter afterwards. He would go on to start his UFC career. I think I'm looking at it at 8 in 3, 9 and 3. He went in an amazing run, 10 and 3, excuse me, like 10 and 3 to start his UFC career. So he had better days after that knockout. It's not like, oh, Josie Aldo smoked Cub Swanson. He was never the same. It's like, no, Cub Swanson was as good as you remember and continued to be so for a very long time. And Aldo legit annihilated him. I cannot remember seeing

anything like it before or since, again, even counting the Mazadalkeo, this was just unbelievable. And I wanted to go obscure for the fourth pick just because I went in a little rabbit hole, just trying to see how many of Josie Aldo's, like, you know, pre-WC fights could be found. So I was like, okay, and I'd never seen this one before up until like this, this last couple days. Aritano Silva Barbosa, find this guys, it's on YouTube. His first five pro fights are on YouTube actually, Josie Aldo. And this is like one of the nastiest knock. off the wall pick.

Right? This is one of the nastiest finishes I've ever seen in my life. I'd never seen it before. Jose with soccer kicks should never be allowed. Oh, literally the explicit reason

it's on my list is because Jose Aldo with soccer kicks is like giving somebody old Freddie Kruger glove before they go in the cage. But even before that. It's not a fair. He hits an unbelievable, like, knee combination.

He hits a standing knee sort of a exchange during exchange, which rocks, Barbosa and then while when Bruce is going down he like pivots quickly and hits him with another knee right on the button which probably the fights over there but this is like Valetudo

you know or whatever so. Freaks like I gotta give this guy a chance and Jose just starts teeing off on this man's head and it is so gross with soccer kicks. It's so gross and I had to put this is really just like yeah you people have to like if you think some of his finishes later were nasty

this is so bad like this is such a grotesque one. This is from 2005, my goodness. So there we go. That's a quick question more to work off of. To add further context to this, the whole sequence is like 20 seconds long. Like, it happens very, very quickly. It is incredibly gruesome. I grew up in the era of stomps and soccer kicks. I will swear until the day I died that I love stomps and soccer kicks and I wish they were still part of the sport. But this is like example number one of why they absolutely should not be allowed in MMA. No, no, no. It's the best. It is. 22nd long fight that probably should be half that in length.

And it had to feel like a lifetime for Barbosa. Barbosa was also on my list explicitly because I wanted Jose Aldo with soccer kicks. I wanted the kids to go down the YouTube radical. Actually, there are multiple soccer kick finishes in the Brazilian scene. I just went with this one because I thought it was better than the Anderson-Silverio one. but I'm so glad somebody else put that one on. That makes me incredibly happy.

I'll open it up. Does anyone have, did anyone have the exact same list that AK had? I had two, I think, of the sames, and I have two difference. I had one of the same. You only had one of the same. Yeah, Chadmane's rematch and the favorite one.

And Stephen also has two of the same. Stephen, did you also have the Chad Mendez? Oh, no, actually, I'm sorry. I had three. Yeah, I had three. The only difference that I had was Fond. And that was because of when it took place. Oh, then perfect. I mean, we're talking about his second to last fight, you know, in the UFC. And after that fight, I don't think there was anybody that it was just like another, you know, inscription on the tablet of Jose Aldo's greatness that he was able to do that to one of the young up-and-comers. Like, you know, Rob Fond obviously had been around for a little bit, but he, was still considered on the ramp up, considered an extremely talented bantam weight that could potentially be a future title container

and Jose beat him handily. They beat the crap out of him. And I think that's just from the coverage that I remember after that fight, after that win, I just thought it was, it should go on the Mount Rushmore because of when it took place. It wasn't something that took place,

mid-care, early career. He's had a ton of impressive performances, but when he did that and to whom he did it too made it worth that type of consideration on his rushmore. I love the pick. Font was the fifth spot on my rushmore. He got replaced by Barbosa because I deemed soccer kicks more fun than the third act. But I have absolutely no arguments against you because at the time, I was boldly making the claim that Rob Font, was the best Bannon way to life. I was wrong. And Josaldo showed that I was very wrong.

Did anybody else have font on their list? And by anybody else, I would mean, Shaheen and Guy. I did, yeah. I had Rob on my own. So then let's go to you, Sheen. So you had Mendez Rematch, Faber, Rob Font. Is that, am I correct in those three?

No. So you got two of them. So this was, I've been on a couple of these episodes now. and this was easily the hardest Mount Rushmore that I have experienced and participated in so far because usually you get a group of maybe like four, five, maybe six, and it's like you have to whittle it from there. I felt like there were a seven or eight

that I could have easily just thrown on there and completely justified and felt great about. Like I was still on my list have like, I was tweaking it as we were doing it because it just is so many. So I approached this Mount Rushmore a little bit differently than I normally do. I sort of made this one a time,

line of Jose's career because it felt like that was maybe a bit more appropriate when I have such abundance of options. Oh, the three arrows. Okay. Yeah. So for me, my first one is Piquino and O'Gera. And we mentioned this, Gierma put great context behind this. But to understand the story of Josaldo, like, you kind of have to understand the story

Pekino and Elgara a little bit because this is the first guy Jose fights on like a major platform. And Piquino was kind of Joseo Alto before there is Josealdo. Like, he wasn't quite on that level, but he was sort of that guy. for a long time. He was this overpowering Brazilian who was just dominating Shuto for like basically a decade more or less and just like gorging on a lot of these Japanese fighters who were just super un-overmatched against this guy. And then Jose just goes in there. He's not supposed to be, you know, he's not, I don't know who is the favorite, but like Jose was certainly not looked at like, oh, he's going to destroy Pekino and he just goes in there and does exactly that. And that sort

of announces his arrival. Piquio was a minus 250 favorite. Just so. Minus 250. I mean, in other words, like that's so much. In other words, it was supposed to be his coronation, you know? That's the way I remember. Very much. It was more an issue of like, this guy is graduating to the big time, and then we've got somebody, we've got an opponent for him. Dude, that was the young kid from the smash on.

There was like Verdun fighting Juno de Santos in his UFC. He was like a top rank heavyweight fighting Brazilian unknown and just, who just got like smoking. And that was the whole Frank Mere commentary, too, was I forget who Mier was partnered with for it. But it was other guy was just like, well, I don't really know anything about these. And Frank Mier's like, yeah, Picayne Gera is a legend. And I don't know anything about Josie Aldo except for that he's Andre Pettneras Black Belt, so he could probably grapple some. And then Aldo just tunes him up.

And Frank Mier's like, oh, this kid's really good. Yeah. It was instant. Like, you could see it. instantly. It's very rare we get those moments where it's just like, oh, like, I, okay, I see what the future this division is right now. Okay, I see it. Am I used Todd Harris? Todd Harris, I feel like was usually the guy. I think Todd Harris probably was it. Yep. So, Bikino and O'Gero is my number one. I have Chad Mendes rematch on there at number two,

or at number three, I guess I have one before that. But I also really kind of wanted to put Chad Mendes one in there. It was really tough for me to not put both Chad, because I didn't I didn't want two Chad Mendezes on my mouth much more. But like, I get it. But like, I used him for a later category, the first one for a later. So I totally get where you're at, though. If you guys go to M.M.A.fighting.com. Great website.

There's a tremendous feature up right now by my man, Gareme Cruz over there, Brazilian beast. And it's got an abundance of Brazilian fighters, coaches, etc., sort of speaking about Jose and what they meant to him and just the influence they had on him. And so many of them, it struck me because so many of them brought up that first Chad Mendes fight and what it meant. And I'm going to tell you, like, I didn't include the portion of the quotes of many of them because pretty much like 90% of them mentioned that fight as their favorite moment of Josie

Aldo. It went out to say other things. I didn't want an article of 40 people saying, like, I loves it for Chadman's fight. Yeah. It feels like it was a really seminal moment in, like, important time for Brazilian MMA and the celebration and everything. So it's hard for me to leave that out. but I will say I felt like I had to put one other WEC fight in there

because that is such a giant part of Jose's career and sort of his legacy. And so I put the Mike Brown fight rather than Uriah Favit. Because that to me was the one that proved like this is going to be the next guy. This is not a fluke. This is not somebody who's too early or this is too much for him. Like Mike Brown was legit, man. Like I know people just know him as the ATT coach at this point. He's a tremendous coach.

But like he washed Ery of favor when they fought earlier in that year. or the previous year or whatever. Washington twice. Yeah, man. Like, it was unquestionable that Mike Brown was better than Uriah Favor. And then Jose just goes in and it's not even close. And so that was my second, third was the Chad Mendes rematch. And then fourth was exactly what Steven said,

which is the Rob Fawn fight. I considered maybe the Cheeto Vera fight. I think I feel like that's interchangeable. But it's just to me a representation of, again, greatness to me is longevity. Greatness to me is how long did you, were you so great at what you were doing. And the fact that, like, this dude had this third act or fourth act or whatever you want to call it at the age that he did in a division that he had it in and against the competition that he had it in is frankly absurd and shouldn't have happened.

Like, it didn't make sense that it did happen. And when it was starting to happen, where he's like, okay, I'm losing all these fights at featherweight. I'm going to drop down. I'm going to go to 35 rather than 55 when the entirety of his career, we all expected. If he ever moves division, it's going to be 55 because he can barely. make 45. I'm going to drop down to 35 and it'll be great. I'm sure I am on several podcasts around that time with very bad opinions that did not age well about how this is a terrible decision. This is clearly a panic move. Like this is just, you're not along on that way. This is going to

fail spectacularly and I don't want to see one of my favorite fighters get hurt. And instead he almost won the damn title, like a couple different times. So the fact that he was still at this age doing this in a division where like, like, bantam whites don't age well, feather weights don't age well, light weights don't age well, anywhere and below 155, like you do not find an old UFC champion ever.

And when you age, you go up, you never age down. It has never happened in the sport. You do not go to the quicker Twitch, fast twitch division when you're getting older. And yet this dude did it, did it incredibly successfully. And again,

probably should have fought for the title rather than T.J. Dolishaw's cheating ass. But like, we're not going to do that. But either way, that felt one of those fights, either Cheeto or Brat font felt like it had to be on it, just that Mount Rushmore for me, because again, it's just a certain point. You're just defying the laws of gravity and time and space and just everything we feel like we understand. I like it. Gee, where are you out on your Mount Rushmore?

I'm now struggling to remember. I know you had the Mendez rematch in. What were your other ones, Guy? Okay, so I had the Chalzman's rematch. I had the favorite one, the Mike Brown. But the fourth one was tough for me because, I mean, ultimately, I went with the Pekano fight. Alexandre no Geera, Pekano. Because it was like this, his first fight in the global scene in a bigger platform.

He's just destroying this veteran. It was supposed to kill him. But I almost went with the corner one. Oh, no, no, no. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about that. Yeah. I refuse to put Connor McGregor on my Jose Al-a-Aldo.

That's why I didn't pick that one. Damn. That's what about Rushmore. Yeah. Yeah. It's the Picano one, not the corner one. Wow. This is fascinating because I have a pretty different list.

I have the Barbosa, the Aritano Silva Barbosa one for the stated reasons. I also have the Chad Mendez rematch for the stated reasons. I share Cub Swanson with AK just because that is the individual highlight, right? Like that's the one that plays over and over and everybody's head forever. But the last one, I am astonished that nobody else. I did Frankie Edgar. Oh, I considered it. I did Frankie Edgar one because it's Frankie Edgar.

It's Frankie Edgar. A lot of great fights. Not only is it Frankie Edgar, it's like Frankie Edgar literally right after the dude dropped the lightweight title. It's, and didn't deserve to either. That's the thing. Like he beat Benson and Wilson twice. Benson won both those fights.

Come on. That's very not true. I'm not going to let you get away with that. Frankie Edgar won those fights. He absolutely did not win those fights. He was at worst the second best lightweight in the world. He was the best if you have eyeballs. He was the second best.

but either way he's one of the top two lightweights in the world he's coming to featherweight to own this division and then he just gets taken to school josie aldo is the bus driver and he takes frankie egger to school and it was awesome and so like i to me i i left off the mike thomas brown thing i know it's him winning the belt and that's that's significant etc i still when i think back on WEC. The first thing I think of, as far as Jose Aldo is concerned. The first thing I think of is the showtime kick. The second thing I think of is the double clutch knee on Cub Swanson.

That's just how my brain works. It goes to those two things. So that was my WEC highlight. And then you have to have Chad Mendez. And I don't know. Frankie Edgar is when he established to my eyes, undeniably, this is the greatest pound fighter in the world. He just beat the lightweight champ, basically.

and beat him convincingly. Like, this dude, this dude is the truth. So that's where I wrapped it. I'm pretty sure. We had a fairly wide diversity of choices here, which I think speaks to the man. By my count, it was eight. It was like eight different fights, I think, Jed.

I don't know how you, if you kept count it. I wasn't keeping track, but I think that's right. I had seven on my personal list that I whittled down to four. I very nearly threw in the Frankie Edgar rematch, too. just given considering where he was in, Josay was in his career, where it's just like, dude just lost in 13 seconds to this force of nature,

and now he's going to come back and just coolly win the title, like it's nothing again, like to bounce back like that. The big problem with that fight is, it's unwatchable because that cage is horrific. So you can't go, you can't go back and watch the UFC 200. Is that gold,

it's like bad cage warriors? It's not even gold. It is, it is P. and it's the worst than it's ever happened in the UFC. By the way,

I also want to say I would have liked all those chances against Benson if he jumped up to 1505 and fought Benson Henderson. There may be a category

where we can talk about this very, very thing. All right. I won't jump the gun, but I do think he would have

beaten Benno. I think he would have very clearly beaten Benson Henderson. He would have lost the fifth round, but he'd have won the four before it.

So, I thought the Benson Henderson slander in rewriting of history right now. Like that guy's not one of the greatest lightweights of all time is, is frankly a little insulting. I didn't realize Benson Henderson had such a stand group on this particular podcast. I think I know a guess. There's dozens of them. Literally dozens.

I agree Benson Anderson was good. I just, I thought Frankie clearly won the rematch with Bendo. But maybe I'm misremembering. I'll go rewatch. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply.

Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to Lux Beauty and Fragrant Suts, our special selection has something for every style and price point. visit our Holtz Holiday Shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com. Second category, the next one. We're not going to spend a lot of time on this because unless you guys have something else to offer here, this is the lamest category this week. It is the I'm not impressed by your performance award.

It is, we talked about the highs of Mount Rushmore. What are the career lows? I think there's one obvious choice. It's obviously Connor McGregor and how that ended up shaping the rest of the conversation around Josealdo for the next 100 years and the internet dipsets who don't understand anything. But if anyone else has something to offer here or anything they'd like to say about this particular moment, I open the floor. I think the corner fights is the obvious one. You can pick another one. So I would say

the second worst moment is the Volcanowski fight. We know he's great. But that, That fight was just bad. His performance was just so disappointing. Again, watching that live in Rio, everybody's so excited to watch him in that fight just sucked. And it was the end of 145. That was the he's not going to be the featherweight champion again, right? We just knew, as I don't know, Jeddor Sheen had said earlier, that the next generation of featherweights had arrived,

and although it was no longer part of that picture. So I want to say, man, going into this fight, And I'm not, I wasn't a Connor hater by any means during the stretch. I was definitely a fan of Connor McGregor. But there was already that rising tide of fans. I was like, oh, Connor's the best man. He's going to win the title no matter what. And I was like, you guys, like, this new wave of fans, you guys really don't know about Josie Aldo.

Like, just wait. Like, I was so sure. I don't remember if there's ever been a title fight between two like, you know, pretty, pretty like, I don't remember what the odds were. Was McGregor favored by fight? By the time Fight Night came, McGregor was favored. Yeah, that's what I remember. By the time, the Irish landed in Vegas. Exactly.

The line had moved, yeah. I had never been so sure of a relatively competitive title final paper that one guy was going to just choke style on the other guy. I was like, Josie Aldo is the better striker. He's got the grappling that, you know, it's still a question mark for me with McGregor. I'm like, he's going to win this. I don't know if he finished him. I don't know if he, you know, 50, 45s him. He's going to beat this guy.

And it's fine. It's like, nothing bad on McGregor. just like that's how good Josio Aldo was at the time. So to see him, to see the fight unfold the way it did, I think we were all, a lot of us, all the fans, we're like Marlon Sandro. I think Marlon Sanjo's reaction is etched in history. That's grabbing your head, eyes wide open, wanting to cry.

Like, wanting to cry. I've never seen, I don't know if we've seen a corner react quite like that since. But I remember that's burned into my brain too. Obviously, it's part of that horrible, horrible moment. And I felt the same way as I just could not believe it. I'm like, and immediately it's into the, if they run that back a hundred times, there's no way that like, you know, at least 75% of time, Chelsea all that wins. But what could you say after that 13 seconds?

There was no comeback. There was no comeback for the Wave and McGregor fans. And really nothing, it's not a stretch at all to say that the world of MMA would never be the same again after that moment. Like, it was so crazy and so disappointing. It's genuinely one of the most. surreal moments in the history of the sport, the way that played out. Because I remember being in the arena for that fight.

And just like, it was one of those things where like the entirety of however many people this is just can't even actually fathom what they just saw. Like the pause between the finish and then the actual applause and like adulation and everything, it's probably only like a second or two, but it felt like an eternity in the moment. Because no one is understanding what's happening. It's a whole entire arena of people. turning to the left or to their right saying, what just happened? Did that just really happen?

And then freaking out. And then at that point, I remember the T-Mobile because that was when we were still at the MGM Grand. That was when we were still at the MGM Grand. I missed that place so much. Just becoming just a rain shower of beer with the amount of beer being thrown around and just the revelry and all of it. Like it was so unbelievably surreal to watch, especially considering the lead-up to it. Like, the lead-up to that fight was basically like eight months. nine months, right? Like, it was more, it was more than that. It was, Connor McGregor's entire UFC life up to that point I've been talking about Josie Aldo, but the lead-up in full had really been this eight-month, nine-month thing where they have

the world tour before 189. It's the coolest, like media setup I've ever seen that that world tour ahead of 189. Like, that was one of the best promotional jobs the UFC has ever done, ever, if not the single best, was building that fight towards 189 with the world tour, all the different stops, stopping in Brazil. I remember Guillermo, you were at the Brazil stop. The Dublin stop, like all of it was just crazy. The vlogs we were getting every day from it and just the way these two guys were interacting and what Connor was drawing out of this very stoic guy, like this level of rage and frustration we had never seen before.

And then the delay of the injury and we sort of have to wait even longer and now Connor's even more emboldened off of the Mendez thing. Like I really have never been a part of or experienced or seen a fervor for a fight, like a just an aura in an atmosphere for something like what I think what was it would it end up being 195 you have see 192 195 no it's 194 144 144 yeah yeah yeah I've never seen anything like that before and since and like in a way you kind of miss it because it was it did feel like a very special moment in time of the sport but the fact that josaldo did not let that break him and the fact that he was able to bounce back from that and continue to just be great and like have

again, a couple different chapters of his career after that, and he didn't let a loss like that to find him, I think a lot of lesser fighters, even great fighters, would have let something like that break them and define them. He never did. That's incredible. It absolutely is.

The only thing I will say, because I don't want to talk about the sad parts, because that's not what this shows about, is it's the worst thing that ever could have happened in the possibilities of this sport, and it makes me sad every day to think about it. and so I don't want to talk about it anymore because it's literally the worst thing that's ever happened in the sport. It's why was it the worst thing?

I'm just glad, Steven. Because it made all the worst thing. Because it made all the worst people feel right and vindicated about being stupid dick shits. And I watched this fight with a bunch of dudes from the gym. training with at the time. These are people who train MMA, they like know things. They're not total, like, plebeians or whatever. They have some context here. And several of them were, obviously some Brazilian guys, very team Aldo, et cetera. Several of them were convinced that

Connem Regger is the single greatest fighter that has ever laced up a pair of gloves. And I remember thinking, Aldo should win, but Conne McGregor can win, that this could be a really competitive. competitive fight. Be really excited to see how it goes. And it, of course, gets contentious because you've never met a Connemer-Gregor fan who isn't an asshole, because that's just how it goes. Especially around then, especially in like 2015-16 range. Especially when you're all together at a pizza shop slash bar drinking a bunch and you've

been watching all the other fights and it's building up and it turns into this incredibly contentious thing of factions. And I naturally am put into the Aldo faction. favorite fighters. And even though I think this is a great competitive fight, it's just like, you guys are being unreasonable pieces of crap about your boy. And then 13 seconds. And it's because it's the stupidest scoreboard that exists in the sport is when, I mean, hell, we saw it this weekend when Alda retired and everybody's coming out and saying these wonderful things. Matt Brown comes out and says one of the all-time greats or whatever in a tweet.

and like four dudes on Twitter is like you obviously have never seen the Connor McGregor or just 13 seconds and it's 13 seconds is literally my least favorite thing that is around this sport and if I could change one outcome it's not even

that Aldo would win I could suffer it more if they had a fight it is that it happened in that way and that's not to take away from what Connor accomplished because I think the thing that is not mentioned because the way Connor fans reacted to it, it diminishes what is the crowning achievement of his career as far as I'm

concerned. Beating one of the best fighters ever in that way should be looked at as this dude rules and look what Conner was capable of at his absolute peak. And instead it's, that guy's trash and our dude's a hero. And I just, I hate it so, so much, Stephen. That's why it's the worst thing. I am filled with anger and hatred just thinking about those gibronies right now yeah that fight in the way he ended made me stop tagging me uh on on twitter when i was like just like interview josialdo post the story i wouldn't sag myself in the i believe it's like i could just like delete twitter because the main just people let's just respond 30 seconds 30 seconds just so annoying and we just stop stop using twitter because it was

was so annoying. It's not because I'm Brazilian, just because the, but it's annoying. It's such a bizarre moment in time. That one fight is such a, sorry, okay. Okay. Just real quick, like that's such, that one fight is such a bizarre moment of time. I remember being in Vegas for that night. I was with Chuck, Chuck Menadol, who was with MMA fighting at the time. And afterwards, we had finished. Never heard of him. Great guy. Never met him. Afterwards, we were done with our work and it was pretty late at night. And so we were in Vegas, you know, it's the end of the week. He worked a long week.

that week. That was a three event in three days week. And so we ended up just at like some random bar in a hotel casino type of place. And it was just all of the Irish were in Vegas, just burning down Las Vegas at that point. And I remember just like the drunken Irish people just buying us drinks all night and talking to us in a way that like, and us like saying the sentence to them like, you guys have the next Muhammad Ali. Like that was the sentiment at the time after that fight. That was the, like, how much we held Aldo in such high regard that, like, you beat Aldo in this way, like, your guy is about to be the next maybe goat of all time. Like, Connor might go down as the greatest fighter in history because he just did this. And then obviously it plays out

how it plays out. And that's not at all the case, but it's just such a bizarre moment in time that that whole week, that fight, that rivalry, all of it. This is just like, I just sort of add on to Steven's question and Jed's response. Like, this is one of those, uh, fights, highlights, I would, I will never, like, go out of my way to rewatch. If it pops up in a highlight reel, which it's not like, it's not like the worst thing. I would never, like, normally, normally do you like preparing for show like this? I'm like, I know, it's on all the time. Oh, you, it, but that's the thing is, it's so stupid short.

So you've literally seen it a million times. I know, I know. I've seen gifts of it tweets. Yeah. I rewatched every Aldo fight in preparation except for that one. I watched all the rest of them. Commentary on did it. And I was like, skip.

not doing that one because I hate it. I normally feel you, A.K. Normally, the only reason I wouldn't rewatch a fight is if it ended in like a horrific injury or something like that. But this fight is like, it creates this, it brings me back every time to the moment it happened. This gut, just the gut dropping feeling of like, oh my God, like yes, one, everything coming, all the McGregor fans and all the Aldo doubters and all like the people who just don't know about Aldo and what this means for the UFC going forward.

Like you said, you saw the future was now and it looked a little grim if we're being honest. Um, like you saw like certainly prosperity for the company. No, certainly prosperity for the company and, and great things from McGregor, a super exciting fighter. I mean, that was that was, you know, a fun ride for a long time. But knowing the consequences. And again, just what, what people thought, how people were going to perceive this moment until the end of time, it makes me, I'm getting ill just talking about it.

And I, again, I've, yeah, I would not, I would not go out of my way to rewatch this if I, if I can avoid it. I mean, I think you just said it. It's like, and the way you frame it is a grim time. And it's like, well, from whose perspective, you know, like, I totally get what you guys are saying as far as the Connemer greggar jerks and what it engendered as far as attitudes toward the sport. It also really helped the sport. This guy was a major breaker star at a time. Oh, it was unbelievably beneficial for me.

Without Conno McGregor, by the way, I don't have a job. For us, personally, 100%. I don't. I agree. All five of us on this call, it was a huge benefit. Now, I'm also thinking to the next step. It was also, it also was the foundation on which Zufa's previous owners used it to leverage into the WME sale. And we can talk about, you know, what that's done to the sport.

Sorry, I have a fly, you know, that loves me a lot. So it depends on the perspective that you look at it from. Like, I feel like there's this very strong vibe of like, he didn't earn it. You know, he's not one of, he, he wasn't the hardcore favorite. He wasn't, he didn't, he just came and he took this. He didn't, he wasn't properly vetted or didn't walk the proper path. And I guess I don't necessarily disagree with that. And I understand that sentiment, but the fact is that he did, you know, he won.

And we all benefited from it. So I I kind of walk the line on that one. I'm not, I'm kind of not totally on your side. I'm not totally on my side. I just, I think there's some more context to be had.

What is the low point of his career, Stephen? What is the low point of Josie Aldo's career then? Are we jumping ahead now? Can we do the next? So I do have some answers for this, for this, I'm not,

wait, are we talking about the, I'm not impressed by your performance. We're on. We're in that now. Yeah, we have been in that. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't really have any other one other than that.

I thought that the, I didn't think he necessarily, you know, I thought that the Marlon Mariah's fight was kind of weird in it from a judging perspective, you know. But I don't really want to stand on that hill, you know. I think that's, you know. Yeah, I mean, I just thought that the, the judging was off. I call that not a robbery. It was a classic. Yeah. Well.

No one at you, A.K. I know. I know. All right. I still love you, though. To keep things moving, because we got a little bog down there. And I think it's just a very obvious answer.

We will move on to our next category. One of my personal favorites, the Ivan Menjavar Award. This is for the weirdest or most surprising opponent, Jose Aldo's face in his career. He's named after Ivan Mennjavar, I say it every episode.

The first fight of George St. Pierre's career, Ivan Mennjavar, career bantam weight fought george st pierre and gsb's debut fight so this was honestly pretty tough for me uh because most of his opponents made sense in one way or another uh i have two that i think are uh i have three written down uh so i'll just lead with mine and then if anyone has has come through in a strong way agrees or disagrees feel free the first and i think the most obvious one i have is Chris Mickle. That is mostly just because I don't understand why that fight happened.

Because Jose Aldo was already 3-0 in the WBC. Mickle was making his debut. He was only on a two-fight winning streak from like Midwestern smokers. So just didn't, this dude was already here and we all knew he was here. And he fought one of if not the worst fighters of his like actual real not first five fights career. So that fight just didn't make sense. Can I quickly, can I tell a super quick Chris Michael's story? If you've got stories, this is where stories come through, baby, so for sure.

Very, very quick one. But when I do, I remember very, very clearly when I was put together the night we faced Aldo and calling all the former opponents and just talking to people, Chris Mickle of all, of everybody, talking to Faber Mendez, whoever you want to throw out there, Florian, everybody. Chris Mickle was the one guy that was still planted his flag of like, oh, no, like Jose beat me but you'd run that back I could easily beat Jose like that was no big deal like I could definitely be Jose nine out of ten type of thing so much and there was so much of that interview that I couldn't use because it was just him kind of being salty about like Jose getting a fluke

win over him and it was like all right man like I wish I walked through life with the level of confidence you do because Chris Mckel's a new favorite fighter a lot of cool stuff going on if I had that kind of confidence I Chris Mickle is now winning this award for sure. sure just based on that because I strive to live my life with the irrational confidence of J.R. Smith. And it appears that Chris Mikkel has successfully achieved that. So I'm so glad you brought that story. The other two names very quickly, Anderson Silverio, I'd note this one just because Silverio went on to coach Rob Font. Oh, geez.

So 16 years after he beat Anderson Silverio, Jose Aldo then beats Rob Font his student, which I think is just a really interesting and cool, cool factoid I found. Is there a worse way to lose than TKEO, parentheses, submission to soccer kicks? No, that's a great way to lose because also soccer kick, K.O. should be by submission.

because if you're about to get soccer kicked, you should be tapping out, screaming, I quit, like, right away. So I wish there was more of those. Yeah. This is why he went into coaching because he's a smart man. He is. If you, his website has, like, all his accomplishments, and one of them is that he fought Jose Alto and that he is more of the jiu-jitsu coach for

Rob Faw, whatever. And I was, like, this is incredible. And was not knocked out, but it was not knocked out by a soccer kick because he rolled over and was quitting. He submitted. dude. That's super smart. Yeah, good. The only other guy I had, I just wanted to make a note to Luis de Paolo, because the man fought one time.

He fought once in his career. It was Jose Aldo. Jose Aldo beat him within an inch of his life. It is a savage beatown. He gets crucifix. He ends up arm-trying with this dude. But that dude fought Joseoaldo in the regional scene. He was like, I'm good.

I don't need to do this anymore. And that's how I'd react. I wanted to shout out Luis de Palma because that's exactly what I would do if I fought Josealdo on the come up. Does anyone have any names, anybody else they wanted to throw out, shout out, anything like that? Yeah, of course I do. Oh, go ahead. Cheyne, you go first.

Oh, go for it. No, no, go for it again. Go for it. Okay. Okay. I can't believe. I thought it was going to be on your list, Jed, when you started saying you had like a few options and I thought you were going to take it.

But of course, you know me? I got to bring the ultimate fighter angle here. One Mr. Jonathan Brookings. Remember that guy? I remember Jonathan Brookins? He won tough. He won an ultra-fighter to Brooklyn.

Won a very clear decision against Michael Johnson. I'm pretty sure Michael Johnson was favored going to that fight. I don't remember the exact odds, but this was the GSP cost-check season. I think they're both GSP guys. Anyway, and Brookins won a good decision against him. That was that lightweight, immediately dropped back down to 1-45, wisely. And then he goes 1-3 in the UFC, but he loses like Eric Coe, who was a top 145 or at the time, Do Bronx and Dustin Porreier.

So, congratulations. Damn, that is a tough run for him. is not winning the ultimate fighter, buddy. I didn't even know as Brickens' run was that hard. Oh, my God. That's a thing. I think because he was bad enough to convince him not to fight MMA anymore. So maybe when you said wisely drops down to 145, you were incorrect in that assessment.

I think because he won the elephant fighter, they're like, oh, yeah, he's the older fighter winner. This immediately boosts him in the next tier of competition. And my God, that tier of competition was insanely deadly. And again, two names that are still top five. Lightweight champions. Not control lightweight champions. And the fight itself is kind of interesting. It's like a little competitive in the first round.

Aldo pulls away the second and then just smokes. He smokes John the Brickens with the right hand. And if you watch it, guys watch this, he pulls back on a soccer kick. We actually almost probably saw it as qualification. I noticed that. I was like, ooh, that would have been awesome and terrible. He wanted it. He almost had a win over Josie Aldo.

So John the Brookins. It would have been an Anderson Silva DQ. lost to Yushin Okami of Aldo's career. So close. So close, Jonathan Brickens. Hopefully it's just enjoying his life. Because, yeah, what a strange early opponent in Jose's WC career. Can I, I have two quick anecdotes about Jonathan Bruggins.

I love the anecdotes. That's what the people are here for. Because I remember, because I did a couple things with Jonathan back in the day. And I, at some point in my life had a decent relationship with him. So we talked quite a bit about stuff. And I remember him telling me that he, before the Jose-alda fights, like before he's about to fight Jose, it was like either the day before or two days before or something, it was on the fight week. Jonathan wakes up super early.

Like, he's really yoga. Like, I'm just going to get up. The earliest that human being can possibly get up. Like, he is all about that life. Jonathan gets up super early to go to the sauna, the gym, whatever is in the hotel. And he goes to use the treadmill. There's only one treadmill in the entire gym. And he is up before anybody else.

else than the planet is up. And he walks into the gym and Jose Algo is on the freaking treadmill. He is on the only treadmill in the whole damn place using it and just like unapologetic about it. And Johnny was like, I was so mad. Like I was so just personally mad that this one guy beat me my one particular thing that I'm supposed to be good at. Like how the hell did he get up? And so I'd always remember that sticking with me. It's the old Kobe story. The drive there before everybody else's. The drive of young Josealdo. And then the second thing, I'll do very, very, quickly. I remember Jonathan talking about this particular fight, he was saying, essentially, like,

in the lead up, his coach being like, hey, John, you really need to defend the leg kicks. Like, the leg kicks are here with this guy. Like, that's a big part of his game. And Jonathan had only been in so number fights, and he'd been pretty successful. And his mindset at the time is, like, oh, lake kicks don't hurt. Like, that was his response to this guy. He's like, oh, leg kicks don't need to worry about the leg kicks. He definitely needed to worry about the leg kicks. He got his leg utterly destroyed. He got the crap kicked out of him. And he's like, he's a lot of he was telling me later, I think I was talking to him in like 2014 about this. So it was, it was so many years removed from whenever this fight was. And he was telling me to this day,

his knee would still swell up and have fluid in it and had cartilage all out of place just because Jose ripped so many muscles in the leg and like blood was draining into the knee after that fight for almost like two months. Like they would have to use like a syringe to syringe the blood out of the knee like two months later after fighting this guy. And it's still happening. You do not want to fight Josie Alder. And I want to read this quote from your, The Night We Fight.

Yeah, your classic The Night We Face Josie Aldo feature. This is another quote. One more quote from Brookins. He says, by the second round, I was just like almost trying to jump over the leg gigs. Every time they were coming, every time they were coming, I remember being terrified.

This is a pro fighter. That's scary. That whole piece is awesome. I mean, yes. Just a quick message to all the fans here that if you love a fighter, if you have your favorite fighter, just tell him to never last John write a story about like the night to face all, though, they'll not be faced whoever. That just ends careers. Oh, no. Don't do that, Guy.

I think you're right. Wasn't Bisping after he retired, right? No. Well, okay. Okay, so Anderson, I think BISP was the before the GSP. No way. So, not the Anderson. So I did Anderson before Wydenman 2.

That didn't go well. I did, I did Jose before, obviously, Connor. That didn't go well. I did Nate Diaz before the Connor rematch. That didn't go well, although I would argue that Nate Diaz has had a very fine career. Yeah, I did Michael Bisbing, but he was like going to the Hall of Fame. I don't know that that counts. Yeah, yeah, it was after.

It was after. It was not before GSP. But also, I will say. Say, also I will say when I started working on Michael Bisbing, he was still an active fighter. And he was supposed to have one more retirement fight. And then he got so scared of that retirement fight because of the Alshoddy curse that he just didn't, he just didn't even have it. It's true. And then the last one was DC before the, the, the Joachian.

Yeah, the Miotich. The Miotich trilogy, his last fight. Trilogy, yeah. Oh, my. I did not realize you. But before the McKee fight, too. Oh, no. It is me.

Wow. The Alshoddy curse is real. I'm telling you, man. Grim Reaper. That curse is real. Don't let anybody know about this, guys. I can't let this get out there. It's just between us, right?

I'll edit this from the pod. Yeah, yeah, this is off the record. Oh, I'll remove from the pod. Wow. Did anyone else have anyone for Ivan Minjavar that didn't get mentioned or anything to be brought up here? Dope. I had Mario Begola. who it was the exact same reason as you, Jedd.

You had a guy who fought once and it was against Jose. Mario Bagola fought Jose. It was the only fight of his career. They were both debuting. And he lost via 18 second head kick and was like, MMA's good. I'm good. I don't need to ever do this again.

I mean, totally agree. Saw the fight. You can find it on YouTube. She comes out, gets kicked right in the head, fights done. That's the end of my career. I'm good. Yeah. That sounds terrible.

I would not like to do this anymore, please. The next category, the Fador Sweater of Absolute Victory Award. And this is for one piece of memorabilia from Josie Aldo's career. If you could have it and keep it, mixed bag of things that happen here. Some people are good at this category. Some people are really bad at it. Let's start with historically the worst person that's ever been at this category. Because it's always interesting, even if sometimes it's very,

very weird. A.K. What is your favorite of absolute? Wait, why was I, what was some of the things I said before? What did I say for? Bloody jockstrap was the first ever one of these given.

Definitely. I remember that now. That was the, Crona's Condit. Didn't for the, Joanna, where did you, weren't you the one who did like a,

like a latex jumpsuit? That's a Ronda Rousey. Ronda Rousey, there we go. Okay, I'm starting to see your sense. that was super, another one that was like a bloody something that was bad too. It's fine.

We don't need to go over it. You made your point. Two examples is enough. I won this category this time around. I'm just going to throw that out. I think we're all in agreement. I have feeling we're all, this one I think was an easy one.

I struggle with this, which is why I end up with coming up with something like bizarre. I think this one's pretty easy. There is, of course, of course, the beloved moments on YouTube, a two-minute clip of Josie All trying out, right? Trying out his suit for the first time.

We were all, I think, I was the only question is what item? Like, I would like want anything that he tried on that day. That's especially one of the, just give me one of the hats. Because I believe in the video, he tries on a boulder hat and a beret. The beret would be amazing. I give me the beret that was once upon Jose Aldo's head. I don't know where you guys landed if you also went to this video. But yes, what an amazing moment.

Again, anyone who hasn't seen it, Josie Aldo trying on suit. It's on YouTube, two minute clip. best one of the most joyous two minutes of mMA related content you'll see in your life um right up there with uh new york ricketing his head shaved by uh by paula costa and uh yeah i would just say that's some some item from there i'll go i'm taking the beret okay i'm so proud of you yeah that is i have three items that was the first one that came to mind i think it's the the choice it has to you picked one that's reasonable and good i have some others before we get to my other choices does anybody else, Sean, it seems like you're very much, this is where you're at.

It has to be. That's one of the best videos on the internet. It is just like a absolute kid version of Jose Al, though, trying out his very first suit, joking around with his pals, pre-fame, pre-money, pre-all this, just like loving life and saying, ooh-ee, like 40 times. It's just fantastic. And it speaks to Ghee's earlier point of why this is an every man. This is, he's very relatable.

because, like, I remember giving my first suit. Like, it's very much. Guy, Stephen, did you guys have anything else for this category outside of the suit? Yeah, I have one. Oh, let's hear, Guy. When I worked for a Tatami magazine, it was right before the first chat man to fight in Rio. And he won. He was, people started calling him King of Rio.

We had, like, a popular. soccer magazine here in Brazil that did a photo shoot with a soccer star at that time. Because like the local teams, they had like Romario, if you know soccer, you know Romario and other great players. And they would crown the king of Rio to whoever was the top score of that year. And this player won. He did a photo shoot with a crown. They dress him as a king.

And after Josie Aldo won the chat man's fight, I told the address at the time, we should do the same with Josaldo. We should just buy a crown and stuff like that and do a photo shoot with him and put on the cover of the next magazine. And they called him and told him the idea to do the interview for the next edition of the magazine.

And when I showed up there, my colleague didn't buy the king stuff. I was like, what? I mean, I don't know, it's okay. It's going to just do the interview. It's going to be fine. We just use a random picture of the, of the, no, no. I won't let it happen.

And I just took the subway. It was like a month before the carnival. And I took the subway to find a store that was already selling stuff for the carnival to buy like a crown and all the things to dress him as a king. And that was the cover of the magazine. I tried to find online now. I couldn't find it. And I would choose to have the crown.

I have no idea what the thing is right now. I don't know if he kept this. He reposts a lot of things today on his Instagram stories. And I think one of his teammates at that time took a picture of him wearing the crown that day. And it's on his Instagram right now in the stories. So when this podcast goes live, he won't be there anymore. But I think that's the crown I bought that day. And I think he kept it.

I don't know. I would choose to have that crown. Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. It's not like a great crown. It's like a stuff for kind of, but I would choose to have that. No, that isn't. That's an incredible one. Damn.

That might honestly be better just with the context and the story than the suit stuff. I had two more. One, when he is, when he becomes the king of Rio, after he knocks out Chadman, does, jumps into the crowd, does the whole celebration. I don't know what any of this means, but they've hoisted him on their shoulders, and he grabs a flag that says Torcilla Hovum, and it's a black and red flag, and he starts waving it around. Give me that flag, because that's like one of the most iconic moments in the history of the sport, as far as I'm concerned, that would rule.

You don't have they been a booting for that. Did they? I don't know what that flag means at all. All I know is that was dope. That's a flag for his soccer team, Flamengo. So not a lot of Flamengo flag. If you were to find him, grab the flag. No, there's a lot of supporters of Flamengo.

It's like one of the teams and more supporters in the world. But if you do that after a fight, and this fan is not a Flamengo supporter, he's going to boo you. That's why he just grabbed a flag just for three seconds. He just dropped it because he put a boy him. I just want some boying me. Just like, forget about that. Well, I would have loved to have been the guy who picked up that flag.

I would also accept if you could cut out the portion of the cage that he grabbed to not get taken down by Chad Mendes before he need his face into the stratosphere. And then frame that, I would put that on my wall 100%. So. Stephen, did you have anything that's not been mentioned? I'm pretty sure mine wasn't mentioned. I used the suit bit for a later category. So I just put Jeremy Steven's soul because he stole it with that body shot. And the reason I put that,

oh, wow. The reason I put that, it's like that. After Jerm, after Joldo, beat him with that body shot, Stephen's career went steeply downward. And he was never really exactly the same kind of guy. And it was all because of that body shot.

I'm just going to three, he was on a three-fight, he was on a three-fight win streak. I'm just looking this up now. And then as Stephen just mentioned, has his soul taken apparently by Jose Aldo, and then goes winless in his next, against very good competition, but winless in his next six.

fights. Wow. I mean, he was known for his leg kick early in his career, but later in his career, he was known to me as much for his body shot. He had a great, great body shot. And I don't think there's any better example of that than the Stevens fight. Stevens is a very, very tough guy, or at least he was for the majority of his career. He took a lot of shots and survived a lot of stuff. And to hit Jeremy in the body the way he didn't stop him cold like that, to me was insanely impressive. And then I looked at the actual aftermath of Stephen's career. I'm like, oh yeah, things like really went downhill after that. So that's what I put. That's a phenomenal answer that I did not see coming. So I love the ones that I don't anticipate the most.

This might be the best round of Fador's sort of victory we've ever had. Holy cow, those are all amazing. It really was a very good one. Speaking of those leg kicks, I'm going to use that to segue us into our next category. The international playoff. Hader's ball. This is to nitpick the fighter's career, nitpick Jose Aldo's career. If you've got any things that are negatives about him, I know it's impossible because one of the greatest fighters ever. The only nitpick I have about Aldo's career is that he stopped kicking people in the legs. He used to do it a lot. It was the thing, especially in the WEC days, it's all they talked about, is how he, I mean, apparently he permanently maimed Jonathan Brookins for life. And then he

really gets away from it. I looked at the numbers and they really is a stark drop-off basically after like his second UFC fight. Occasionally he'll make he brought it back, but mostly he went to. And I think Guy was saying earlier, my guess is a lot of it had to do with him being more defensively minded and a changed approach to the game. But that was the only nitpick I had for his whole career. Is that certainly late career, Aldo, it was an ever-present question of when is Is he going to kick people in the legs? He should do more of that. Does anybody else find fault with Josal, though?

I found it tough to do so. Sean. Yeah. I mean, this pains me to say because obviously I love the man and he meant a lot to sort of my journey through MMA. But I do think there is a legitimate nitpick when you just look at sort of the second half of his title reign and sort of what he became, I think, to a lot of UFC fans. because we like to think of him as it's W.C. era, right, Jose Alto, this murder, even the Chad Mendez fights.

But I think there was a very long period of time where he was this supreme talent who just almost refused to like lay all of his cards on the table once he was very established as champion. Like there are a lot of snoozers sprinkled in amongst the second half of his title reign. And it was to the point where it was like here was a guy who had a lot of people very mentally beat by the time before they even got in. into the fight. And so guys would approach Jose in a very careful, cautious way. And he was more than happy to content and content to cruise and just do enough to win and just sort of just kind of, right, I'm just beating you a little bit, beating you a little bit. And by the end, it's a 50-45, and it was never close, but it was also like sort of what is he's going through now, right?

Whereas just he, he, he, very much. He, he, no one was pushing him in the way that he needed to be pushed to really get the greatness out of him. If you, I remember someone telling me, like, If you're in second gear, he'll go to third. If you're in fourth, he'll go to fifth. But he'll always just go just a little bit above wherever you are, just enough to eke it out. And it was, I mean, I think that was very frustrating for a lot of people at time, myself included.

Like there are some fights in there. No one's watching him versus Ricardo Lamas, you know, or any of these other just latter title defenses. It's a symptom of, you know, long titlehood, right? I mean, or long championship reign. Yeah. Generally, you become more conservative. We saw with Jones, right?

And GSP is an example I think of. It's a classic example. Yep. Really, Anderson is like the only guy who never fell into that. And he did briefly, though. He did briefly. We're going to just pretend. No, Anderson definitely did.

The middle of his career didn't have that. He did briefly, but I mean like old version, Anderson was still out here doing ridiculous stuff against guys. Like the very end of the title run, Anderson, he's putting on Stephen Bonner type fights. He came out of it for sure. But yeah, like I think it's what Stephen said. It's just any long-reaning champion sort of.

There hasn't been one in MMA that hasn't had that except maybe DJ. I mean, I'm trying to think DJ. Off the top of my head, DJ's criticisms were largely that FlyWitt was bad unless that his performances weren't stoke like awesome. But he went to some decisions with some people, but I'd have to go. That's a DJ conversation, not a Jose Aldo. I think it's a fair criticism, and it speaks to kind of the broader point. I know we talked about the fight already, but part of the reason that Chandler-Aldo rematch is so big is that narrative existed going into that.

Jose is, he's winning a lot of decisions. He is not doing the things that people fell in love with him for. You said your favorite fighter chat, Michael Chandler, yeah. I was trying to figure out of talk on Michael Chandler. Yeah, you never miss enough to me. They're the same guy. Look at them. They're both large.

They're the same person just down the way class. Oh, stop. My bet on that. But yeah, it's, you know, that that narrative existed. And then Chandler brought out the best in Jose. And even if it was him still just staying one level up, Chandler kept ramping it up and Jose kept answering the call and won uping him. That's what made that fight awesome.

So that's a fair criticism. Does anyone else have any more? I have an unfair criticism. Oh, okay. That's fine too. And this actually might segue, as long as known as anything else, this actually might segue into our next usual bit, Jed. If that's not to take the reins, but it may.

No, no. Yeah, it might lead right into it. Why don't you segue us right into it? Okay, I will, because this is also a little bit of a criticism. I wish he had fought Connor McGregor at 196. RDA, of course, goes out. Nate Diaz steps in instead. One of the, again, leads to a whole other alternate path of history for both men,

for both Nate Diaz and McGregor takes both their careers to next level. you know, whatever. As I own Gierme had written up for our site back when this happened, Josie Alder just wasn't ready at the time. His coach, Dei said, you know, just, it was like a week, only a week's notice, a little over a week's notice. Aldo just isn't ready. He had made a post earlier in that year saying, like, I will only fight, you know,

I only want a McGregor tell the shot. I'm ready anytime, anywhere. Obviously, that's not meant to be taken literally. I get it. But for me, the optics of it, I was a little disappointed. I was a little disappointed. It's certainly reasonable for all though not to take the fight more than reasonable. But I do remember thinking, man, this is his moment.

This is his moment to like jump in there. And again, one more time. If they're not ready, they're not ready. You should not force someone to fight. But I always thought, man, what if he had been ready? What if he had just been poised to take this McGregor fight for months and months and months and just stayed like right, you know, just right in the right shape to be able to take that opportunity if it came up? And I thought this was it.

And I was disappointed. So this is, yeah, this kind of goes into alternate universe thing that we normally discussed Jed. Because I tell you, if that fight happened again, Aldo would just smoke his ass. It does lead us into the ultimate universe, the next category of the biggest what if. And to a case point, similar, not the same, because I totally forgot about how 196 and that whole shook out. but it was, as we mentioned, just what if Connor doesn't one shot him?

What if they actually fight? How does it play out? Because I'm not taking away. That is a clean punch. It's as good a punch as you'll see. And honestly, the way it's set up with eight months of borderline bigotry and just inflammatory comments to incite this sort of action out of Aldo, somewhat uncharacteristic, especially at that point of his career, it's all done.

But what if they just got in a fight and just had it out? What if even later stage they fought? Because the dynamics of that fight were still so fascinating. It still are. They'll forever be because Connor does have the one shot. Everything else about Aldo's game is really well aligned to beat Connor McGregor. And so it just, it will always be the biggest what if for me. You know, could have some other ones about what if he had moved up to 155 or dropped

to Bantamweight sooner, et cetera. The biggest one for me will always be what if these two dudes actually fought instead of the thing that happened. What about what about you guys? Stephen, Guy, heen, where are you at on the what ifs of Joe's Lado's career? I think it's what if he doesn't lose to Max Holloway that he would still be the federalist champion Corner was going to box Fort Midwether

and maybe he comes back and Aldo fights for the lightweight title against him instead of like Connor staying out for so long I mean that's... Or maybe Connor goes back to 45 to fight out of again God, I wish I think the biggest one is what if Connor doesn't want to be. win or doesn't be like that. But I think him not losing to Max the first time would make things interesting in a way

that maybe Connor goes back to 45 or maybe Aldo finally moves up to 55. Chase him up. Yeah, to five, Habib or to five, Connor. Yeah, I mean, it feels like any what if. Yeah. Yeah, it feels like any what if you have to have about Jose Aldo in regards to this category is going to include Connor McGregor to some degree. And that was sort of where mine was too.

Although mine was, what if they actually do fight at 189? Because if you remember the circumstances going to that, everything was kind of not going to go, regardless of however you think they match up, it would have been a different fight because Connor was so hurt. His knee was barely basically hanging on by a thread when he goes in there to fight Chad Mendez. Like he was deeply hurt and he was just going to say,

screw it, I'm just going through with it. Like there's too much in this to back. out. If you go against Josie Aldo, especially that level of Joseo, like, kind of compromised, we're not seeing a 13-second knockout, and we're probably maybe seeing a different result entirely. And at that point, that was the greatest UFC event of all time. I still think it's the greatest UFC event of all time. And it was such a massive platform. If Jose goes out there and beats a compromised Connor McGregor at UFC 189, he probably becomes a superstar to some degree, right? Like, he's not going to become Connor at all because he can't, he couldn't speak English.

And there's just elements of him that were obviously never going to be that guy. But like, he maybe becomes like Anderson Silva level of star of just like this is like someone who is just truly generational star wise. Like, I don't know. There's just so many sliding doors moments with that. And it sets up the inevitable rematch, right? Because if immediately after losing Connor says, my knees jacked, whatever, Connor comes back. the whole Mayweather thing doesn't happen. So honestly,

we're probably better off as a sport. If Connor doesn't go boxed Floyd, should be dope for all of us. But then he'll, he's still Connor. They're still going to put him back in a title fight. Jose had, you know,

did a rematch with Chad Mendez. He ultimately rematches Frank Yeager. Like he has rematches in the books. Connor picks up two wins. And there's the story of, well, my knee was shot and I fought you. Now let's do it for,

real and then you do i mean that rematch is the biggest fight in ufc history like that's it's just absolutely enormous so i mean that would have been dope been way cool i'd have super been into that okay no one has anything else in the alternate universe no i mean i'll throw one more quick one then before we move on i will say one other one that i came up with like what uh what if he would actually fought anthony pettis because at one point the two of them were like booked well let's let's let's let's let's let's Let's talk about that in the next category. It's in there.

Which is the Habib Tony Award for what's the fight that never happened that you wanted to see? Number one with a bullet for me is Anthony Pettis. I have two more also on the list. But Sean, why don't you take it away in the Anthony Pettus cat. I think a lot of people don't realize that that was like a thing that was actually booked for like a very brief moment of time where Anthony Pettis is sort of at the pinnacle of his career, right? And then Josie Aldo's same. It was just sort of this dream match.

that we didn't think we could get and then all of a sudden it was there didn't end up happening obviously but just think of the kicks yeah man the dynamic actions in that fight would have just been outrageous ufc 163 and uh that instead became a somewhat underwhelming fight between uh korean zombie and josea it was great to see korean zombie get a title fight but uh obviously it felt like a real a big drop down at the time from from honestly we we didn't give it the credence we should have But obviously, Connor is the low point. Somehow making Korean zombie not fun is probably the second low point of Joe's career. Because it's pretty tough to me to be like, ooh, Korean zombie fight.

I don't care if I watch this. It's not a thing that happens a lot. I'm going to say. I'm going to say his Josh Crispy at UFC 125 because that would have robbed us of all the, the pleasure of watching him administer some street justice in the cage to a known dirtbag. That one wasn't even on my radar, but as soon as you said it, I was like, oh, oh, yeah, that was a thing. Stephen, I love it. You're coming from the rafters, baby. I'm pulling it right out of the back.

So this was originally, so Stephen, this was originally what Eric Co. versus Aldo, then Aldo what happened I forgot Eric Coe just get a this one of those mutin fights where both

both fighters ended up getting removed and it somehow became Crispy versus Dustin Porreier is this am I remembering I just

I just had Aldo out for neck and yes yeah it's right okay yeah yeah

weird I think he still got some street justice from Porier though if that helps I remember foray handling him pretty

pretty badly so yeah wow Josh Crispy Josh Crispy went and four in the UFC. So several,

several justices were, were administered appropriately. Yeah. I totally forgot that that was supposed to be his UFC debut or whatever, ever instead of the hominic fight. Also, anyone else. Yeah, yeah, Aldo Sterling, man.

Like, the fact that we didn't get it is still. Yeah. That's true. I'm not going to, I'm not going to relegate it. No, we don't need to relitigate it. Let's go. Because we've been on 20 different. podcast. We've been on 20 different podcasts saying the same thing for months,

where it's just, what are you doing? Like, if you're going to throw away the last Joseano title shot, title run, whatever, if you're going to throw it away, why are you throwing it away to someone who is not going to be fun, not going to be entertaining, and has no actual path to the title because he's not going to fight. He is not going to be fighting for the title. You literally threw this away for no reason. We have nothing, we gained nothing from this terrible matchup. that you put in altitude for our to send our legend off.

We gained zero. We didn't gain a contender. We didn't gain a possible matchup. We gained zero. We killed off a contender who was beloved for no reason. It's just stupid. All we did was lose. It would have been obviously in my what if,

but for this category because I maintain and will until I die, Jose Aldo beats Al Jermaine Sterling. I totally would. We'll never know. We'll never know. But Marab is a much more. difficult fight. Rob at altitude is a much more difficult fight.

I just, I would be confident in Jose in that fight, frankly. Like, I'm not saying he's the best band of weight because I, he lost to Peoria on.

I would pick him to lose to Peotriott again if they fought. I think Corey Sandhagen is a pretty tough fight for him in a lot of ways too. I think TJ even beats him. I think TJ is a really, really fun fight. I would have loved to watch that fight, but I probably favor TJ. I just think I'll,

Aljo is the justified champ that I've been ranking champ forever since he won the belt, but I think it's a really bad fight for a man. It's just the worst possible style matchup. Like, he's not going to get Aldo down. He's not going to get Aldo's back. Like, it's just not something people do. And he's just going to get outpointed for four rounds. And then maybe he wins the fifth.

And that's okay. Because Jose, Jose only needs to win four of them to take the judge's cards, baby. And it's. And it's a shame that we didn't get Aldo and Sehudo. They were booked to fight here in Brazil. They were booked. I would have watched and been happy with that fight, but I think Suhudo is pretty tough for him at the stage of his career.

I'd love to be wrong. But I wanted the world where he beats Al Jermaine Sterling. They do it in Rio. Screw it. I don't care. Make him fight in Rio. He gets to be the king of Rio. He is the champion.

And then he walks away at the pinnacle of the world. the sport, just the goat. Because if he gets the band-in-weight belt, even if it's maybe not like the cleanest win, nobody talks about how GSP wasn't ever like really the best middle weight in the world because it doesn't matter for the narrative. And then he goes out on top. It would have been everything I want in sports if that had happened. And they took it from us for Mara-brickin-Balishvili.

Promotional malpractice. Utterly ridiculous. I'll just throw out Dominic Cruz I'm surprised no one No one threw that out there I would have loved He's on my list But I don't care

I love No I think it's a fun matchup And also just Beat the hell out of Cruz She probably would have I'm interested in it I think that's a fight That would have any

Dominic Cruz was willing to come to Rio To fight in January Yeah Joseo would have fights And that fight would have made sense They didn't like Try and force that Because they know Dominic would never come to Brazil to

by Josie Aldo. So they just went the other direction to retire and all that. Sometimes you got to take one for the team, Dominic, and you're going to go to Rio and Luam O'Hare. You got to die in Rio and that's okay for the rest of us to get the exit we deserve. And that Jose Aldo deserves. But yeah, but that what a nice end to the, you know, and quote unquote end to the WEC era that would have been arguably the two best guys to ever, I mean, one of them, Jose Aldo for sure. I was certainly. consider Cruz be the number two to do best of 5WC just to meet at 135. 140 catchweight.

Screw it. Don't even make them cut weight. Make it a 140 catch weight. Whatever, whatever facilitates this matchup. Just open weight. Who cares? Yeah, open weight. Who cares?

Mike and I on to the next one. I mean, this matchup must have been brought up on at least like six or seven different episodes. It's just by us, by the listeners. People really want to see it. It's just who cares about title fights. Who cares about what it meant for the rankings? It would just be a nice, really poetic.

cool moment. And again, how the U.S. They could both bring their WEC belts to the cage. Right. I just like think about how savage that would be. If they both were just like, all right, we're going to, we're going to do all a fight week with our old WEC belts and just, oh, now that's my number one. Can we give them some blue gloves too? Like, why not?

Please. Can we, can we talk to some people, gee? Get Jose on the phone and be like, hey, man, I know you're out. But like, what if this happened? No, the UFC doesn't believe in fun. They don't do fun things. It's a fun thing. But like, what if we pitch this all to them?

I will buy 50 pay-per-views myself to boost those numbers if that's what we need. Like, I don't care. I know. All I want is Jose versus Dominic Cruz now with all the WEC bells and whistles. Let's take Todd Harris up. I know they don't like Frank Mear right now, but we can put them in the booth. It would be great. It wouldn't be hard for them to decorate the apex.

I'm just saying that's what the apex is for, so they can flots around with it. So I don't think it'd be that difficult to throw a splash of blue here and there and, you know, go see it up. But I've been legitimately sad since hearing that Jose, like, like, honestly, way more sad than I thought I would be when someone retires. And I am now like, I'm a little bit heartbroken that this is never going to happen as we've, as we've brought this up. Just like, damn, dude. What a way, what a thing that could have been that just isn't. Oh, I'm sorry. that we probably ruined your day with that great bit of matchmaking.

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He's named after Brad Ims, the hillbilly heartthrob, a 6-7 heavyweight who once won back-to-back fights by Goga Plata. So this is for the most impressive or unbelievable career statistic. It's fun with math. You can do a lot of weird things. I have won. Does anyone have, is anyone sued? excited about this category, or should I lead us off? I'm going to lead us off based on the facial

expressions that I just got. I have one. It's only one. It's one single number. It is 2,405. That number is the days that Jose Aldo was the undisputed champion of the world at the featherway weight class. That is good for second all time behind only Anderson Silva at 2457. Now, if you add in the days that he was the interim champion when Connor had vacated but hadn't actually vacated whatever his total record days as champion is 2,546. This is the most all time. And he does not get the credit he deserves for it. But this man for nine years, fortunately, was the champion of the damn world. And there's no more impressive statistic than being the guy who held the belt longer than anybody else in the history of MMA. That will always be the best stat for me.

We need to cut out that 20-second clip. And anytime anybody on Twitter throws out, so Max Holloway, is the greatest featherweight of all time. Alexander Volcanoffi is the greatest featherweight. I'm just going to post that 20-second clip because that's it. That speaks to it. That's exactly it. 2,546, baby. That is a light. I agree to tags, Stephen, on these tweets. Yeah, I think he will. I think he's going to just clip the two clips next to each other.

Jed, just to extend it further. I would never dream of it. Just to extend it further, Jed, 25 and 1 to start his pro career. And that one loss of lightweight, by the way. So, yeah, and he had some other lightweight fights, too. But either way, through the first 26 fights or his pro career, did not lose when he was competing at 145 pounds. This is from 2004 to 2015.

Did not lose. And again, numerous highlights. And as you guys, this is why he's still the best featherweight of all time. The Holloway consensus talk, every time Annax said consensus, I wanted to scream. I'm like, who was his consensus? Who are these people? Honestly, that is the thing that bothered me the most. It was less that people said it than it was that.

And it was like the consensus. Like, that's not what that word means. Because it's very obviously not what that word means. In a moment and right now, Max and Alex will both tell you Jose's the featherway goat. like both of them will tell you that. Yeah. Easily, okay,

AK2, I want to let you finish, but to your point of the 25 and 1, Volcanovsky has a very similar resume. Oh, for sure. He is X and 1

and his one loss was not in the weight class because you can't call Volk the goat until it's all set and done. Like you've got to see because he could lose his belt in two fights. Like that is just, you can't have the context until it's over. and Jose had a career of accomplishments,

and that's why he's the featherweight goat. Yep. Well, please continue, AK. Yeah, longevity and combat sports matters, and that was my last note, is that Volcanovsky is well in his way. I love Alexander Volcanozky. I'm such a huge fan.

I think if you take prime... He has a chance to take it. For sure. He absolutely has a chance to take it. And even if we're talking primes, if you take Prime Josie Aldo, the best personal version of Josie Aldo and the best version of Volcanowski,

which is what we're seeing now, that's a super competitive fight. I'm not making picks either way. But like... I think Volk probably wins. right? For sure. Volcanovsky

I mean, I could see it either way, but the fact that it's even a conversation tells you where Volcanovsky is. Like, he's just that good. But yes, he needs, again, a few more tele-defences, a few more big, huge wins, and he can get them.

And so Volcanowski well in his way, but as of this recording, I think most people should be in agreement that Josie Aldo is number one at 145 pounds. And I hope Volcanovsky surpass him because, again, I love watching Volcanowski fight.

And if he goes in a run, that surpasses Jose Aldo, what a treat that will be for all of us as fans. But right now, let's give our respect to Jose, please. That's the thing is, like, Alex has it all in front of him. Because, like, Jed, you've been banging the drum on this for a while now. Like, that dude, people talk about he has cleaned out his division. Like, that man has done the farthest thing from cleaning out the division. Like, he could lose to Mofar, Evloy of, like, two fights from now or one fight from now.

Like, there are a lot of really crazy up-and-comers coming up at Featherweight, Honorable Allen, Tuporia. Like, you could just go on and on. by the end of it he very well maybe the greatest fighter we've ever seen like he's on that path but he's just not there yet like there we can't jump ahead in time that's always what i've been saying about it because if he does clean out his division then i'll say it i'll be happy to agree because they're killers at featherweight he just hadn't fought him yet and we've got to see we are our time is going so does anyone else have anything for brad imes that

exciting. Sean, I see you have one. I just have one, and it's not as good as your guys is, but it was something I was curious about because historically, one thing that stands out to me when you mentioned Jose Aldo and his skill set, obviously the lay kick stand out, but also just his take down defense. His take down defense was otherworldly. Best in history. To a degree that like even in his last fight ever against a man who takes down everybody, I think Marab went like 0 of 19, right? Like you were just, even when the people have caught up to him, he is still just refusing to get taken down. This is not a wrestler. This is not a guy who grew up

wrestling. He is just naturally great at doing this particular thing. And so for me, my stat was 122 times, 122 takedowns were attempted against him throughout his UFC and W.E career, or I'm sorry, UFC and WEC career, which lasted about 14 years. Most of the time of those 14 years, he's fighting the best damn fighters in the entire world. 122 tried against him. 112 he stopped 112 he stopped out of 122 10 take downs over a span of like 14 years against the best damn fighters in the world

that's all that's all like it just unbelievable and you know who had one of those and all that in training a gym with out of the cage no one didn't have a cage is true like yeah that is insane

only had a cage and an octagon like for the past I would say four years or something like that I think they should have gone out I got into that little bit I got a story Yeah

they they never had It was like a small room Just as well A small room with a small ring in a center And that's it Are you kidding? Yeah that's true So that's

That's extra unbelievable to me For Because I have no idea This is mind blowing There's a little We bear the lead. There's an old quote that Kenny Florian told me a long time ago that has always stuck with me when it comes to the takedown defense. And I have it up up in front of me.

Florian says it's also his knowledge of cage wrestling. He's so good at digging his feet into the cage. There's a little mini moat between the cage and the mats. It dips down. No one talks about that. And it's something a lot of guys now are aware of. A lot of people don't want people to know about it because it's a very strategic thing that guys are using now in fights. And he was one of the first guys to utilize it very well.

He would stick his feet inside that little hole and it was almost impossible to remove his foot from there because it's grooved. You're telling me, this is just natural instinct. Like he wasn't training in a cage when all of this was happening. That just blew up. Yeah, I'm just training it on the wall.

It was just a wall. I ran the wall. Dude, let's give him. No cage. Can we give Josealdo like two years of working with the cage and then see, just see if he can take him down? He'll really be something. Let's see if Habib could take him down.

I just want to add one of those 10 successful takedowns won Mr. Jonathan Brookins. I just want to throw it out there. They weren't bad. I'm just saying this. I did a little mini, damn, they weren't bad for Jonathan Brooks. Dude, what do you think the most takedowns he ever gave up in a single fight was over the course of 14 years?

I know the answer, so I can't answer this one. But I know it specifically because that was a stat I was looking for for this. I know because I saw you you tweeting that. Oh. Oh, did you tweet it? I did earlier. Frankie Edgar. Prime Frankie Edgar.

Which one? That was the best anybody ever did for takedowns against this man. Which fight? Which fight? Two of eleven. Is that? The first one. Oh, the first one.

Okay. The first one. Two of eleven was your best night. Like, come on. Also, just to be clear, one of those, the amount of control was... Millisseconds. Let's call it negligible. only one of them like did frankie really hold position for an amount of time so dude this for my money

i mean maybe it's kamar usman just because usman has been taken down officially once in his ufc career or whatever but for my money josie out there's the best defensive wrestler in the history of the sport like he it's just not that close to me he he did it all in a division that is highly specific to wrestling how many great wrestlers were in his in his division when he was ruling that division like pretty much all everyone he fought for the most part was a great wrestler and they all tried to take him down they were like not we're good we're good uh anyone else uh on on the brad imes fun with stats award i see no hands we move on because this is i knew it was going to be the

longest damn, but we're trying to keep this sub three hours. The next award is the Sean Ferris Award for actor who should play them in a movie. It's named after Sean Ferris. The actor who played Jake Tyler in the cinematic masterpiece never backed down. Fun fact, a man has played Jose Aldo in a movie. I did not pick him. I don't, I have one choice here. I feel pretty good about it, at least from a physical likeness standpoint.

Maybe not from a human being who performs standpoint, but I will say Jose Loretto played him in, Guy, I'm going to let you say the title of this film because I sure can't do it. It's the actor's name is Jose Loretto. There you go. And the movie is called, Most Forte than the world.

Stronger than the world. Stronger than the world. It's a Jose Aldo Biopic, essentially. and I didn't pick that gentleman I picked Jaden Smith I'm just throwing that one out to start because if you're side by side

their photos he's a young he's a young enough actor and he has a lot of similar facial characteristics I almost went I could see this almost went Mike Kay Williams just for the face scar

because that that would be a meta and funny thing to do but RIP Mike it was I was gonna say I have other issues with the Michael K. Williams casting. Yeah. The RIP, just one of the most talented actors of my lifetime. Yeah.

The RIP, just one of the most talented actors of my lifetime. But I would say I would ask, is there another kind of young up-and-coming actor? Maybe not a huge name. I would be more most comfortable, I think, casting a Brazilian. actor but if on that note i actually would like because i don't obviously know anything about presenting cinema gie was was jos eliotto a good a good choice for this yeah like is that a good movie i i'm very curious i like it yeah i like it if you if you guys haven't watched it yet uh it's it's a good movie tells his story and all that uh i i already knew like his entire story so

there was never something new to me but uh but like it's a well made like quality movie yeah yeah i think the the only thing i don't like that about that movie is is that they made joseaardo throw a showtime kick it makes no sense it's in the trailer it's in the trailer it's in the trailer that's not right it makes no sense listen no never i i i wish he had uh and you know by the there's probably people out there who and and he's just sorry sorry kate go ahead but joselle o're not the original actor oh that was going to play josealdo it was going to be a Malvino-Savador wasn't a good choice.

He's now married to Keira Gracie. I mean, he doesn't look like Joseo by phone. But he likes Juzzi Or so now that, but I mean, Jose Loretto, yeah, Joselle Loretto is a better choice compared to Movinas Salvador. Was that a popular movie?

Like, was that a big movie in Brazil? I mean, the biggest mistake is that they waited for the Joseo the corner fights to release that they were playing like

okay there's this mega fights yes Aldo is gonna win and then boom it's gonna yeah huge a sack so when Aldo loses it's like disaster so they just postponed it

and they released that I think it's a month before the Frankie Edgar fight so Aldo just lost in 13 seconds you just yeah if if if if if if

If they release that before the quarter fights, I think it's going to be a success. I was going to add, there's probably a lot of people who are like, I don't remember there being a Jose Aldo biopic. Like, why did I not hear about this? And I'm like, this is why you didn't hear about it. Yeah, I'm just reading here. January 14th, 2016, the original release date, as he said, how crazy would that have been? He beats Connor, huge international release for this movie, probably gets some traction in North

America. People are actually watching this. Instead, it's pushed back to summer, summer of 2016. June 16th, we're probably just died a quiet death, not in Brazil, but I mean, over here probably got no distribution, no recognition. So, yeah, so people who don't know, yeah, this is why this movie

kind of just faded away and didn't get. But they made it like a four-episode series. Like, you see where sometimes randomly. I was watching TV like last week, and it was on. Oh, it was on. Oh, just the movie. They broke it up. Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah. Man, movie executives needed to talk to MMA journalists because we know Stinger 2 about, like, planning features and stories and items for fights that never happened. It should have talked to you. Not directly, Sean Bachelors was like, yeah. Damn, Sean did have that piece, man. We're going to read that right now.

He's going to lose. No, they... I interviewed, like, Haffinia Bachelors was like a super popular comedian who, who playing that movie. as well. It's like he's 6'5 and he plays Marcos Galvon, who's a bento-in.

And he was telling the story that he was watching the fight with the whole crew. They got together to watch the Connemagrav fight and went out of a lot of 30th. It was like, that's it? Is it over? That's it? Well, listen.

Man, we lost. We just lost a lot of money. They went all in and I support that. I told I told Jen, I don't like to hedge. So I'm glad they went all in. They assumed it was going to be a win, and they, I mean, they fell flat in their faces. But still, I went with a deep cut here, guys. All right. So I wanted to find an actor who speaks Portuguese. This is assuming it's a Netflix or someone picks us up. They want to like, no, no, we want to, we don't necessarily just want a Brazilian person. We want to like cast outside the box here. So there's a young man named Lino Facioli. And if you're wondering why I've heard of this young man, it's because he was on a very popular show, which you may all have heard of called Game of Thrones. He played one of the most despise characters in the show. He's also in sex education. Sure. He's a very young man. He was Robin Aaron, who you guys, if you don't remember the name, was the breastfeeding prince. That's probably how he's best now, the juvenile breastfeeding prince. So, oh, yeah.

He's also Dex Thompson in sex education if you've watched Netflix ever. He's going to need to beef up. He's going to need to beef up for sure. He's kind of a skew. You saw the show. He's a bit of a skinny boy, but I assume he's at least matured since then. He's actually, he's British, Brazilian, but he speaks fluent Portuguese. He's born in Sao Paulo. I'm just raised, of course, with that, with Brazilian parents. So he speaks fluent Portuguese. He could play that part. I guess he probably wouldn't need to speak English much. But yeah, I went with, and I think we can redeem this guy, because I hope he isn't know, like he said, it's good. He is on a show. He's part of the Netflix family already. But I do think most people still know him

as this very insufferable character on Thrones. And perhaps we can, we can help this young man's career. So he's no longer has such a strong association with that character. I can't look at him and imagine Josealdo. He's an actor. He will transform into the role. He's an actor. All right. Who are you going for likeness? Who you got? Guy, I want to know who you got. That's a tough one because I think I think it would choose like some not I wouldn't go

with a popular actor. I would go to someone that really looks at one that really looks like him, like someone who's obviously talented, but looks more like him. I wouldn't go with Joseo Oireoto. He's a good actor, but I think we choose someone, like, if I looked at the screen, I think like, okay, that could be Josealdo. That was my issue when I looked at Joseoerta. I was like, that dude doesn't look like Joseo.

That's not the man, but, anyone else have anything to offer in the Sean Farris Award? No, I will say. No, no, no, no, no, I have one. Okay. I, uh, Diego Luna. Guys know Diego Luna? That's not bad.

He was Rogue 1, Mutu Mametambien, Narcos. Andor. Andor. He's one, this week. Narcos. Andor. He's 165. Okay.

Narcos. He's 165. He's a little taller than. Jose. He could cut to 145. He could buff up. And I think he has the acting chops to actually pull off as complex a character as Joseo I think he has the best acting job. He's a little old.

Well, Jose is an actor, aka... CGI, baby. But I mean, I assume would be telling the early stage of his career. There's limits to that. He's this guy's 42 years old. I'm just saying him playing a 20-something-year-old, Jose, I would be on comfortable with that. But, you know, again, you're right. That's flexibility, right? Okay. Moving on. Cole Conrad, career change award. What would Josalda do if you weren't a fighter? I think this is going to be our quickest award. Yeah. One, because for me, it was very hard to see him as anything other than a fighter. And so I defaulted to the answer that is the stock answer of he'd play

football. That was his first thing. Does anyone have anything other than footballer here? Ooh, Stephen does have something other than footballer. Stephen, please. I would say number one, a burger entrepreneur because he's already that, right? A chain operator of some of the finest burgers in all of Brazil. Or a greeter slash salesman at men's warehouse. Oh, I like that. Oh, yeah.

I like that. That one's a good one. I love that one. If someone was just making that sound next to me every time I try it on a suit, I would 100% buy it. I could buy that one on. Wee, sir. Just, you know, you have to have enthusiasm for the product when you're doing retail. And there is no one that had more enthusiasm than that man.

Oh, I love that. I think football players, it's the obvious answer. But that's not something that's not easy. He's got talents. If you can fight on YouTube, him playing like one of those year-end star games when he was playing against Neymah and just pulled a crazy stunts against Neymah, like the Neymah. But I think it would be hard for him to make a queer out of soccer as well. It's not easy. A lot of – I think every kid in Brazil wants to be a soccer player, and 99.9% of them fail. So I think you wouldn't be like a nice story. I think it would probably have like a regular job because he came from a sorry, I'm going to ruin this.

Like his family foundations, like they were really poor. And I think we just like working construction or stuff like that, he wouldn't have a good life. It wasn't for Friday. No, no, no. He would be a salesman and greeter at a suit. That is great. I think that's the right thing. I believe that's Stephen correctly chose the answer for this category.

Gereme, real quick, I have three very quick questions that are very important. Probably the most important questions that will be asked all day. One, have you eaten the Jose Aldo burger? Two, is it good? Three, is that like a popular restaurant slash chain? Like, is it a chain at this point? Yes, yes. And no.

They're good, but they're not like, man they're the best in Brazil they they have like I don't know how many Berger joints they have he has right like burgers shops

he has right now but I haven't been there in a while because I don't live in Rio I live in I live in Italy it's a city like across the bridge like if I live in Brooklyn

sure no it's a different city but just a bridge away from real but there's like a couple of them there's like a chain not here in Teroi no in Rio in Rio in Rio he has

he has he had like last time I checked we were like six or something like that six but uh yeah yeah there's a lot I think the he gets money what's it called but it's it's not uh famous burger famous burger famous book yeah they're they're good but they are not like super popular name we need we need a little more from the name famous burger yeah scarface burger or something like what do we goat burger goat burger I don't know That's where I want to go. I'm in.

King of Rio Burger. You. No one calls him. King, maybe. Something like that. Burger King of Rio. It sounds very. That's litigious.

That sounds actionable. That sounds actionable. And no, no. But he can get the photo with the crown for the geese photo with the crown. Burger King is perfect. Everything works out. It's better than goat burger. I regret saying goat burger.

Maybe that's where he gives the crown. I mean, that would be perfect. You just give crowns out. Yeah. He can give crowns out to the children. That's not actual. I think it's time to go there. Second to last award, the last real award, the Phil Barone.

I'm the best ever award. It's for the peak of Jose Aldo's career. What is the A plus number one moment? Where is he at the height of his powers, however you want? What's the top, top moment? Does anyone particularly want to go first here? No, cool. I'll go first.

I have two. I have the moment that I believe is actually true, and I have the moment that is in my heart. The moment that is actually true that I believe is it, it is when he chaos Chad Mendez and jumps into the crowd. I don't, I mean, the second Mendez win, how whatever, he still has plenty more wins. I don't think it gets bigger.

than when he becomes crowned king of Rio. But I will say, for me personally, the moment that I could not have loved this man anymore was when Connor McGregor jumps the fence and gets into his face and is screaming at him. And Jose Aldo is just sitting cage side and he is laughing. He was just laughing at this lunatic who the rest of the world is terrified of. And at that moment in time, I was like,

Jose is going to kill him, and that's the hardest dude that's ever lived. Because Connor McGregor is a crazy person, and if he was staring me in the face and screaming, I would be curling up into the fetal position, and Jose Aldo is laughing at him. And that will forever be the happiest moment of his career for me. But I do think being the King of Rio is probably the objectively correct answer. That was like the seaver fight, right? I believe that that is correct. Yeah.

But yeah, the UFC After Connor, yeah, it's a CFA fight. Yeah, it wasn't the Diego Brano fight, it was the CIFRA. Correct, because that was the fight that was going to set it up and then the whole Mendes stuff happens, etc. So yeah.

The UFC 142 moment, the Chad Mendes, the first fight. And this fits your category of the best because, because this is something Phil Barone himself would have actually done. Like, if, I mean, he did. He did, he was the best effort. Yes, he just didn't think of jumping out of the cage

and running around like a maniac. He didn't jump out of the cage, so we're clear. He is running around the cage as soon as they open the door to let the doctors. He sees it and jets through the door. Because in my head it was him leaping the fence. That's how he was a vision. He was just running. He just saw it all open.

He is looking around the cage and as soon as he sees the door, you see his head turn. And then he is gone through that door. It's awesome. Yeah, he's again, Phil Brony wished he would have done that. So it's yeah, it fits like a glove. It's such a, we've said surreal a bunch of times during this podcast, but it was a surreal moment. Does anyone else have any moments to offer that are not those? I kind of had the second Chad Mendez rematch.

I mean, the second Chad Mendez fight because to me, that feels like the pinnacle of Jose's career, right? Like the just, again, one of the greatest fights you'll ever see. And that was sort of his last high point. but at that point it was such a high point. Like he felt like just the greatest and no one was ever going to catch up to him. I had that, but I could totally find that. I think career-wise, that is the high point.

But like the contextualization of the just, I don't, there are not a lot of moments I think of more, like as iconic moments in the sport than Jose. I don't, I've never seen anybody leave the cage. They go to see like their family or their, whatever right next to it or to talk to Dana not just sprinting into the crowd also did that in the WC i don't remember against who he did that but he did that same thing the wc yeah but it's the wc is just not it's not the same yeah and it's not real like

yeah exactly and it's him like fighting off the security guards who are credit to them they're doing god's work just trying to contain the situation in any capacity and he's just like And even the commentary team, Joe Rogan's like, this is insane. Jose Aldo is the security guards are trying to protect him. And he doesn't want protection. He is trying to go back to people. It's just, it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I totally agree, Sean.

Like the second Mendez is the peak of his, his career from like sporting context. But man, I, the Rio, the first Rio is, it's unforgettable. Yeah, to me, either of them work. You know, I'm on Sean's page. I'm on Sean's page as far as the sporting context, but I can easily see your argument for the first one, just given what happened afterward. So I think we can all agree it's either one of the other, right?

Yeah, I think it just has to be. It can't be any of anything else that happened. Thanks are being part of this chat. Yeah, man. Chad Mendez. Got a real talk legacy here. Thank you. Yeah.

The stepping stone for Connor, Volk, And Jose, that's tough. We may have to do an episode of Damn on Chad just as a Mayaculpa for For the strays he catches. Yeah, professional courtesy. I mean, we just need to do a spinoff series called Damn, they were close. Lots of guys like that. Holy that is.

That one got me. Lots of potential guys. We could be on that. Oh, there's so many for damn. close. Oh, man. Sorry, that derailed me. That was really good, Sean.

Well done. Let's wrap it up. Bring us home, Jed. We've been talking for quite, we've been talking for quite some time, and I've loved every minute of it. So it's time for us to put a bow on this, to wrap up our conversations about one of the all-time greats Jose, although the final category we talk about it is the legacy award. It is just any of your final feelings that haven't been talked about.

said or you think needs to be said, Stephen, since you're the, you've already been weighing us down with some of your takes of not pure adoration for this man. Why don't you start us off and then the tidal wave of unrealistic expectations that the rest of us are bringing can close the show? I just put, he's one of the best UFC fighters to ever live. He's one of the most durable, one of the most talented and most humble fighters to ever fight in the octagon. We struggled to come up with strange moments outside the cage because he's just not that kind of guy. I think what I'd put under a lot of the things we've been saying, he kind of represented the martial arts spirit.

And it was his battle versus Kna McGregor, the sort of WWE, you know, the clash between those two influences and the sport, which made that meeting so devastating in its own way and so pivotal, but you think of him as the quintessential martial artist who was like just at the top of his game for so long beat so many of the amazing people at the top of their game and remained kind of the same.

guy the whole time. That's that's what I think of. And whatever, you know, uh, uncertainties I have about his place, his exact place on whatever list, which I don't like doing anyways. I don't really like ratings, rankings and pound for panelists and whatever. Wherever he occupies, I think he's without a doubt just one of the best to ever do it. And, um, I'm not fully ready to let him go. Neither am I. Yeah. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I think that's such a beautiful, yeah, if I could. I think that's such a beautiful point that for the most part, he was unchanged. Anyone who's in this business as long as he hasn't going to have their moments of frustration.

I agree, you've interviewed him a bunch of times, and I'm sure people can go to M.A.fling.com and find old articles where he said, ah, he's, I'm upset about this and fed up with this. And that's fine. That's everybody. You know, there's, again, he's been in the orbit of some of the greatest athletes, combat sports athletes in the world. We're always, you know, he's accommodating interviews. he's getting poked for quotes, he's going to say things here and there.

But other than that, yes, it does. And we touched upon this at the beginning, the positives take away. It feels like he's got perspective on his situation. And he's like, this is it. This is it for me. One fight, I don't have to fight out of this last fight in the UFC. I know I'm done when I know I'm done. My coach is telling me maybe we consider it.

Let's have this conversation. And let's go. I'm moving on to another phase of my life. I just had another child. And it's just such an incredible thing. So I love to, that's how I want to look at it. And I agree that we can talk about rankings all day. I have him top five.

For me, that's not going to move for a while. Like I said, let's look at this. You know, revisit 10 years down the road, maybe some other names surpass him, depending how they go, you know, Volcanovsky, I don't know, Kamar Usman, guys like that, see if they help they build up their resumes in the latter stages of their career. Then we talk about it. But right now he has to be top five pound for pound.

And one of the most exciting strikers I've just ever seen. Exciting, creative, so fun to watch, so affectionate. effective. It really, for someone who was a kind of a late bloomer coming into MMA fandom, really gave you an understanding of what that next level of striking looks like. When you thought you knew what good strikers were, then you saw Josie Aldo fight them or Josie Aldo fight anyone. And you're like, oh, that's the best guy. Like pound for pound, that's the best striker in the world right now. And I hope people remember that. Shaheen.

Yeah. I mean, I ultimately, echo a lot of what Stephen said and a lot of what AK said, just in terms of the way that this man approached the game. It felt so pure in a way that I think a lot of maybe a lot of champions and a lot of fighters don't sort of reach, I don't know if it's a level, but just sort of that approach. Again, it just felt so pure, it felt so genuine. It felt like this guy would be doing this regardless whether he got paid a dollar, $10, $20. Like, this was just his life's love. And you could tell the whole way through. And yet, I think that, One thing that made sort of the Connor McGregor rivalry so compelling in the moment, right,

is obviously Connor's just this ultra-compelling figure, but also just the two were such diametric opposites the way they approached the game, but also just the way they approached life, where Conner's this big, boisterous guy, he's going to say a lot of crazy things, he's going to be super brash, and he's going to let you know all, you know, why his life is great and all the money he's making and stuff like that. Whereas Jose, kind of just, especially at that point in time, like this changed maybe a little bit later on his career, but during his prime, He was sort of the guy that disappeared for months at a time. And then all of a sudden, you just randomly hear about him when he got a fight booked.

And then all of a sudden he's back in your life. But for the most part, he was kind of just doing his own thing. And yet he was still, like, at that point in time, the only UFC champion among that whole crazy list of champions, right? That whole, we always see the photo and the posters of like that really crazy era of GSP Anderson, Dominic Cruz, like all these champions in a row, Frankie. Jose was the only guy among all of them who consistently would criticize the UFC when they needed to be criticized. I can pull up right now

a bunch of different Garemay Cruz articles on MMA fighting of him saying we need a fighters union in 2014 when no one was talking about that of him criticizing the Reebok deal when it happened and saying, you know, we look like the Power Rangers and all sorts of different stuff. He was never afraid.

That was a great quote. It's a great quote. And he was just, that was who he was, right? He was not afraid to speak up when he saw some bullshit. shit. And I don't think that that's something that was prevalent at that point in time. That is a lot more prevalent now and people take it for granted for how much fighters are willing to speak about this stuff. But it took a progression to get there. And Joseph was always that guy. He was that guy

from the moment he entered the UFC. And I think that that's something we haven't mentioned. That's maybe overlooked in all of it. But again, that just speaks to who he is and what he stands for. I was going to say exactly that that Sean. just said that he was always willing to speak his mind, criticize U.C., criticize Denowai directly when he saw something that he didn't agree. Yeah, sure, he would backtrack a lot of the things later. But to see that from, I mean, the number one guy in Brazil for some time, like being the one that's going to represent the brand,

Because he lived in Brazil and he was headlining like pretty much every car here in Rio, every pay-p-pav-view car in Rio. He meant a lot for the sport, made a lot for the fans. Like everybody knows Jose Aldo in Brazil. He's a legend. He's to talk to like 40-something guys over the last 24 hours about Joseado and see like fathers from, fathers who are just starting the UFC and who never fought in the

UFC like former champions from other organizations and how highly they speak of Josealdo shows how big Josealdo is and to Stephen I don't think we're going to have to miss Josealdo that much

I do think he's going to come back to box eventually maybe next year right now is going to just relax with his family, but he's definitely coming back to box. There's a lot of money to be made there. He doesn't need money. He was very smart with his money.

He bought a lot of apartments here in Rio. He has like two gigantic homes, houses in Florida. You can rent. They're online for rental next to, close to Disneyland. They're really, really big. I mean, he has made a lot of money. And he was very clever with this money. So he doesn't need to fight him and he doesn't need to box.

But he does it because he loves it. And I know he's coming back probably the next year to fight more. So we're going to see Josie Aldo doing something he loves something he was willing to do for a long time. So yeah, just out is a legend. He made a lot. He has done a lot for the sport in Brazil. Jake Paul don't want that smoke. That's all I'm saying.

Jake Paul don't want that smoke, baby. And I'll wrap us up by saying, I loved everyone's perspective. This is why I like to have a bunch of people on. I will take it back to where we started, which is when I entered this, Jos Ald is one of my favorite fighters of all time. It's him. It's BJ and it's Habib. That's kind of where my trifect is of the people who shape me in the sport.

and that being the case, I have always felt he is one of the top five guys. And as I went back and rewatch the fights and we've talked about it and I dove deep into it, I thought his career was always going to be defined, even if he didn't want it to, in some respects, by the Connor McGregor loss, just because that being so high profile, it set him as the most underrated great. great champion in my eyes. And then I realized the hell, I think even I did that, because I think he's the second greatest fighter of all time. I think George St. Pierre is the only person who, if I got to choose whose career I would

take, GSP is the only fighter who's ever lived whose career I would rather have than Josaldo's. It's that simple. He beat everybody that was worth anything. He was the champion for nearly a decade. He took on everybody. did it in the right ways, as you guys said. I know that probably it capped his stardom by never like becoming fluent in English to open that up to the market.

But in some respects, that's always the thing I respected about him because it wasn't about doing this. He did this because this is the way he wanted to approach life and he did it on his terms. And that's that is why he is your favorite fighter's favorite fighter. That's why everybody who ever was anything in this sport came out when he retired and said, that dude's one of the greatest fires of all time. Like, I have nothing but respect for him. That's why when he gets crowned the king of Rio, everyone's totally cool with that because

he's, he's the king of Rio, it's the king of our hearts. We didn't even talk about the fact that he's like one of the most savage ground fighters in the history of the sport. I'll just throw that in at the end. When this dude goes on top of you outside of every other skill he had, He beat the hell out of people in every position and every time. He is everything I think of when I think of elite mixed martial artist. He is the playbook.

He's the prototype for it. And that will never change. So the only thing I can say is the same thing. Is the reason this podcast exists is to say things like, damn. Jose Aldo is good, man. He was the best, in fact. So thank you. It has been the longest episode.

that we've ever done on this show. If you have stuck with us, I don't care if it took you three different days to listen to the whole thing. We were so glad you did for everyone with me, Guillemé Cruz, the new king of Rio, for Alexander Cayley, the Prince of Positivity and of the North. Gershene O'Shotti, he doesn't have any royal titles, but he's the best damn writer in the business. And for my personal idol, Stephen Morocco, I want to thank all of you again from the bottom of my heart. I love you all. See you. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line.

But first? There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.