MMA Fighting - Fighter vs. Writer: Alan Jouban Argues Chandler Is Too Invested to Give Up on McGregor + Poirier’s Star Power, More

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

The Fighter vs. The Writer returns with UFC analyst and retired welterweight Alan Jouban and MMA Fighting senior reporter Damon Martin discussing the latest in MMA including Michael Chandler’s continued waiting game for the Conor McGregor fight. In April, Chandler turns 38 and he’s approaching two years out of action as he waits for the McGregor fight to get booked but should he just give up and move on? Jouban argues that Chandler has invested way too much time to just take another fight that’s not against McGregor. We also discuss what’s next for Ilia Topuria as the UFC targets a debut in Spain before the end of 2024. Should Alexander Volkanovski get an immediate rematch or is there a better option out there? Plus we look ahead at UFC 299 and the star power Dustin Poirier brings to the card despite Sean O’Malley headlining the event against Marlon “Chito” Vera with Merab Dvalishvili waiting in the wings. All this and more on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer! Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser 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 Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer,

but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now, only from Audible. Welcome back to the Fighter versus the Writer. I am Damon Martin this week, as I am always so happy to have as a co-host. I am always welcome to talk to this guy,

one of the top analysts in the sport. calling fights, doing analyst gigs, doing it's just staying busy, doing podcasts, doing all kinds of stuff. Always my pleasure to welcome in, Alan, Joe, Band. Alan, how are you? I'm doing good, brother. Always happy to be here and jump on with you.

Absolutely, man. So obviously, you were just calling fights since last weekend. I know that's kind of been like a passion thing for you getting into calling fights. I'm telling you, they're going to call you in for the UFC one day soon. It's got to happen. It's coming, man. I think the path to get there is starting to kind of,

it's starting to kind of present itself. You know, I do the road to the UFC, which is kind of the Asian tournament that the UFC puts on. And it looks like this year, I'm going to get to do the color commentary on it. I was supposed to do it last year, but I got sick.

So I think they're giving me another shot at it, which would be my first color kind of color commentating debut. And then after that, I would love to jump into a contender series. I think that's the one to just make sense. It's a smaller show. They don't need the big guys to do it at first. And guys like me can go in there and get repetitions.

But it's coming, man. I think we're on path to getting it done. Absolutely. Well, Alan, obviously always a lot going on in the MMA world. We are gearing up for a very busy couple of months. I mean, we are basically a week, a little over a week away from UFC 299, which is a ridiculous card. And then, of course, we got a couple other cards in there, Atlantic City. And then we roll into UFC 300, which is basically at this point, less than a month,

you know, less than two months away, about six weeks away at this point. This schedule, man, it's wild because like last week we had Mexico City, that card was insane. with all the crowd and everything we roll right into this weekend. Gotta be honest, maybe not the strongest card on paper, but then $2.99 is, I mean, I've had people tell me they think $2.99 is better than $300, which I don't know if I necessarily agree with that top to bottom,

but the main card is pretty ridiculous. Great, great main card. I mean, obviously, O'Malley is one that gets a lot of attention. Fourier something neat is just a boring burner of a fight. And then, like you said, it's riddled with stuff. the entire main card, the entire pay-per-view portion is solid. But it's one of those that you can't, when you look at 300, you can't compete when you talk about the first fight of the night to the last fight of the night. Solid fights, solid matchups.

Yes, we didn't get the star power overwhelming type of somebody coming back out of retirement or the superstar, Connor McGregor, and a DS type guy on there. But when it comes to top to bottom matchups, it's definitely, I would say it's the strongest card we've ever had from top to bottom. about him. Yeah, I read, it's funny, we did the podcast before, and Matt Brown said this last week or two weeks ago, and he had a great point. We were talking about the Jamal Hill and Alex Pereira fight that got announced, and he's like, I think the UFC made a mistake announcing this incredible top to bottom card and then just leaving the main event because the expectations were just too high. He's like, if you were to announce Pereira and Hill right away, people may have been like, oh, it's not the big blockbuster, but then you start announcing Gachie Holloway

and, you know, and Kayla Harrison making her debut and all these other fights. Then it's like, oh, well, you know, maybe the main event's not the strongest fight in the world, but we have just a stat card. He's like, and I agree. Like, they should have gone in reverse because I don't think anyone would be complaining about Hill and Prayer if you saw the rest of that card afterwards. But listen, people were just going to, people were not going to be satisfied unless they announced Brock Lesder fighting Fador.

Like, that's what people were expecting. That was never going to have, which, by the way, come on, at this point in their career, Like Lesnar is like 46, Spade or it's like 45. We really don't need to see that anyways. But people just had these unrealistic expectations. Like we're going to get George Sapier against Khabib. And it's like, come on. That was never on the table.

And I think people don't understand is, you know, this wasn't the UFC's first choice. I mean, they came out and said it. They were looking at Hamzai. They were looking at Leon. They were looking at Izzy. They were looking at all these fights. And they couldn't put them together. You know, Jamal Hill came out and said, I got a call on Friday night before they announced it on Saturday night.

So this was obviously a backup situation that had to happen. So they were trying to, you know, wrap it out of a hat and give the fans what they wanted. They just couldn't do it. And thankfully, again, the UFC roster is deep enough. And we've got guys that are like can compete in multiple way classes that you were able to still make this strong main event, not the one that we all love. You know, we don't think it really, it blows the roof off of the place in comparison to every other fight on there. It's aligned with every other fight. Solid matchup, solid matchup, solid matchup, but it's not a huge headliner.

But, yeah, that's the thing. They would have announced it in backwards order if it was something that they had booked months in advance. But they figured that out a day or two before they announced it. And then you can't really hold off on announcing the other ones because it's going to get leaked, right? Fighters talk, fighters to interviews, managers. talk. Everybody kind of, the word on the street's always out. Like, every time you hear Ariel Hohanis say, trust me on this one, guys, I've got a feeling about this. It's because he knows something. He's being polite. He's not just, he's not just, you know, he knows he can't say

stuff sometimes so he get in trouble or it'll look bad on him. But he's saying, look, I've got some intel, and this is what I'm thinking. That means he's been told that by a fighter or a manager, and he said, look, keep it on the low. So you can't just hold out on fights for so long. These days, they pop up so fast. So the UFC kind of had to do it the way they did it. But all in all, I thought they handled it pretty well. Like they made a terrific card that just doesn't have that one spark fight, but it's just a solid card from top to bottom.

The one that I think we all imagined, the one that would have been, you know, I think it would have topped everything in terms of expectation, which we all expected, which was Connor McGregor, Michael Chandler. Seemed like that was a no-brainer.

Everybody would have been happy. Yeah, everyone would have been completely. happy. But now we're in a world where Connor announced June 29th, Dana has been emphatic saying that's not happening. Maybe the fall. They say maybe the fall. I don't know what's going on with this. I really don't understand this

kind of situation. I know he was shooting a movie. He had to pass you Sada. All that is now taking a back seat. What is the holdup at this point? I wish I knew. I just saw Connor post. Obviously he's got roadhouse coming out next month, which I know he has to promote that.

And that's part of the contract when you do a movie. You have promote it and I get that. Maybe that would have interfered with, you know, UFC 300 basically two weeks later because that movie drops, I think, March 21st. Connor put on, I think it was on Twitter or Instagram today, he said, I did all my own stunts. So obviously his leg's okay. Like, it's not like he, you don't do stunts in a movie if you're walking around on a broken leg. Like, he obviously was healthy enough to do that. I don't know what the holdup is, but here's my question, because I think this is something that it doesn't get discussed enough because Conner's the star. We all agree Conner's the star. And when Connor shows up, we all

watch. But we saw right after all this happened, Michael Chandler got a really cool moment on WW Raw last week. They gave him the mic in front of the crowd in Anaheim. He said, you know, Connor McGregor, I'm waiting for you. And I think everyone watching is like, cool, but we're all waiting too. Like, you're not the only one. I realized looking today, Michael Chandler in April, April 24th, I believe, he will turn 38. He has now been out of action for almost two years. He was last fall against. I didn't realize his channel was that old. I really didn't. At what point, at what point does he have to move on? Now, I had, like, I defend the idea that this is such a massive fight payday wise, stature wise. And, you know, Chandler's coming off a loss. He lost to

Dust of Pori in his last fight in 2020. It's not like he's coming off four wins in a row was waiting for a title shot. He's passing that up to get Connor. He's not in line for that anyway so connor is the biggest fight he could get but at what point do you have to say enough's enough and i got to move on like i don't know what that answer is because it sure doesn't seem like we know when connor's going to fight again it makes me realize that connor holds all the cards i mean we already we already kind of knew that because he is the a side he's the star right so he gets to call the shots the way class the win the fight where i mean he seems to call it all but you just mentioned i mean michael chanelers 38 years old and what is his style he's one of them

most entertaining fighters inside of the UFC because he goes for broke. You know, it's not that he doesn't have an high IQ, but he throws that IQ out the window to give entertainment to the fans. That type of style, completely contrast for somebody that's getting older is what I'm getting at. You can't. That's the first thing to go, taking big shots and staying in there. You have to fight smarter and smarter the older that you get. So it makes me realize this plays in Conner's favorite more.

I mean, it's like the longer he, he's. waits now he's fighting an older Chandler it's like the better percentage of Connor winning and I'm not saying that he's doing that but he's like what am what do I have to do I got a movie premiere coming out I got everything going even though I'm not fighting I still the Connor train is still rolling along and oh by the way my opponent as they are both getting older you know at the same time but my opponent is at that age now 38 I retired a week before it turned 39 I know what it is 38 39 that's that's the age where guys are really taking on losses so it almost been a

it's Connor, the more that he wants to sit out, he's in no rush at all, you know, now that I have, then I'm realizing this news. But for it also on the other side of things, you look at Michael Chandler, you've got to hold out in my opinion. In my opinion, what are you going to at 30 years old? You say I waited two or three years for this huge Conner fight, this huge payday. And now I'm going to sit out all that time and not get the reward. I'm going to put that aside and go back to a contract negotiated payment fight against somebody in the top 10? No, like, and maybe that's, maybe Chandler has one or two fights left in him. You know, I don't know what he gets paid, but if he's going to go back and get a pay scale where he might make one or

$200,000 and fight two tough guys, or he could stick to what he's doing and get a couple million dollars and fight Connor McGregor with all these question marks surrounding him, you've got to stay the course. You've got to stay the course and fight kind of McGregor. It's almost like he's too deep into it now. It's like when you make an investment and the stock keeps dropping, you're like, well, I'm screwed anyway. So I might as well just wait and see if it turns around. Because you're just too invested at that point. It's like watching a bad TV show.

And you're like, man, I just got to finish it. I've already been this. I've already invested four seasons. I guess I've got to watch the fifth. But, yeah, I mean, I get it. I feel bad for the guy, though, because he's been waiting. I mean, I, like, realizing this, the Ultimate Fighter started filming a year ago. It's been over a year since they even did that show.

You know the great thing for him, though, and he mentioned this. He said, look, he hasn't got the fight. But look at the flip side, and he mentioned some of these things. All the time he's been able to spend with his family, all these opportunities that have came up, that probably weren't going to be there before the kind of thing. You know, tough enough, the ultimate fighter, rather. He did the ultimate fighter.

He got a lot of publicity from that. He was on ESPN a lot doing interviews. The WWE thing, the WWE now, am I saying that correctly? Yep, you go. That's how out of the loop I am. The TKO group coming together. They're looking for guys exactly like Michael Chandler. By the way, he nailed that.

I don't think any fighter in the U.S.C. could have cut a promo quite like that, not just doing so well, but he took his style of making a hot mic moment. And he mixed that. He merged that with the WWE world. I mean, he seemed like a wrestler that have done that before. Yes, and that was one of his first time doing that in front of arena full of people where he's in the crowd. You know, he didn't just get them with a fight and have a lot of drilling.

He's sitting there on the sidelines cold, right? And they come up to him. And you're just sitting there. You didn't do a match. You're not in the middle of the ring competing. You don't have the energy of the rock or somebody kind of fueling you. You're sitting there nervous waiting in anticipation. I know this girl was going to come to interview me.

And I've got to just flip that switch and turn it on. And he did it. And he, I mean, you couldn't have. done a better job. And I think the TKO group type people that made that decision, look, let's have this merger that's saying, okay, he nailed it. We need everyone to be like this and even more. But what I'm getting at it at the end of the day is for a guy that hasn't been able to fight for so long, and he's holding on to this fight so closely, he has been able to monetize from it. He's been able to make money. He's been having to have appearances. His brand has continued to grow and he's

been able to spend time with his family, let injuries on his body heal and get stronger. So it would suck at the end of the day for Chandler not to get rewarded with this fight, but this is the best possible outcome for not fighting and waiting on a fight in three years to any fighter that could have in terms of the reward that he has received. Yeah, it's a weird one. Like I feel for the guy because he is, and I don't, I mean, I think Chandler would probably agree with this. Like, he is the B side.

Like, he has to kind of jump to the. you know, he has to kind of jump to Connor's tune a little bit here because Connor is that guy. Like, you know, Connor has that power. And it's just a weird situation because, like, I remember talking to Chandler right before he left for filming. And I was like, so what would you think in August September? And he's like, yeah, I think that would probably be a good time. You know, the show was going to end in August. And he said, you know, probably September pay-per-view would be a good timeline.

Okay, great. And that would be at that time where, like, that would give Connor plenty of time to get back in the testing pool. Good. And then September comes and goes. and then we hear December, and they're like December into the year, and then that comes and goes. Then we think, well, maybe it's going to be UFC 300, and then that doesn't.

It's just like, I just, like, I'm with you. Like, in the back of my head, as he's about to turn 38, you know, in a month or two months for now, I'm like, at some point, like, how many of your prime years are you wasting, just waiting for Connor McGregor? Because at this point, by the time he fights, it's probably going to be at least two years between fights. Now, that's not ideal at that age. for anybody because you'd only have so many years in fighting and he's going to be 38.

That's, you know, you're at the tail end at that point. We all understand that. But I also understand the flip side is you've invested so much time in this. Do you really want to give up on that and go fight Matush Gamrod? Go fight Armin Saruki and go fight, you know, any of these other young up-and-coming killers in the division, not say you can't win those fights, but you've invested, like I said, you've invested so much time an effort into getting this Connor fight. Like, it's almost like you've got to stay the course.

Like, you just can't give up at this point. You got to, you know what? I'm just going to keep waiting until he finally comes back. Because otherwise, what have you, what have you wasted for these last two years? And it makes sense on both ends. That's the good thing for Chandler because I don't care what anyone says about this. I don't see Connor coming back and ever looking anything like he used to. He's not.

He's been away too long. His body has changed drastically. had a severe type of life-altering type injury. Guys that have those type of injuries, they don't come back and throw kicks to say. You remember when Anderson Silver broke his leg and he would throw kicks and knees and everything? After that, he never threw low kicks anymore. He would throw a couple high kicks. He didn't even want to kick the elbows or wrist kicking a bone.

He would, now and then he would place a low kick. I mean, guys, they just, they don't feel comfortable throwing kicks the same way or having the same type of mobility. Do I feel like he's fully recovered? he is back to as strong as he will ever be moving on from this injury. But with the time that has gone by, the injury, not being active, the body change, you know, whatever he was taking while he did it, I'm not even going to get into that, but his body obviously changed. He was taking some stuff.

He put on 20 pounds of muscle. He did the movie. He's coming down, coming up on weight. He's not going to be the same guy. Connor doesn't want to go in there. And as you just mentioned, fight a Matias Gamrod. to fight one of these Armand Sarukian, young hungry lions that are still in the prime,

in their peak of their career. He needs a 38-year-old Michael Chandler that will step into there and step into the fire and go to war with him. They need each other just as much as both need each other, but Connor's not willing to admit that, because Connor can fight anybody that he wants, and he will.

But realistically, Connor needs Michael Chandler to go out there and have this storybook type of ending, have this fight. Chandler needs him just, just as bad because after that he can't pass up this payday after all this waiting. Yeah, and also you got to remember, like, for Chandler, like, he already had the other two big fights this division he could have. He fought Gaichi and he fought Porreier.

Those are two big fights that you would get that are like, you know, those Barnburner guaranteed five of the night kind of fights. He already had both of those. So what else is out there? Like, again, is he going to fight Sarukian? That young savage? Is he going to fight Gamrod? Who is a great fighter, but let's be honest, that's not a monster fight, you know what I mean,

to fight gamrod against Chandler. And same number of Connor. Like, you're right. Like, Connor could come back. Connor can fight anybody because that's Connor. But realistically, does he have, do we, we give him a great shot at this point in this year beating Arm and Sauruqueen? I mean, I don't.

I don't. You know, and you know, the, the, the aura of Connor is gone, I think. I think the presence, the star power will always be there. as long as Connor is around. Him having this touch you one time, you go to sleep, the hardest hitter,

the precision striking, the accuracy, he's got those things, but they have somewhat diminished or the aura of that is now gone. You look what Dustin Poirier did right there. You know,

Dustin Poyer obviously lost their first fight. Connor placed that beautiful punch around the side of the ear, put him to sleep. Dustin, as famously said, he's the hardest hitter of every, going against. And he might still say that. Dustin might still say that that. But Dustin stood in there

toe to toe with him these last two fights and he took some of Connor's best punches and he shrugged it off and he came back and he knocked Connor out and then the leg break. But you could stand and trade with him now and people are saying, oh, you don't have to be like so scared or so nervous energy like Josealdo where you rushed in and got caught. It was more of a timing thing mixed with the power. But the aura of that invincibility or that the whole, hardest hitter with the best timing and precision striking it's kind of gone connor's gotten older too he's been away too long and again all these different body changes and injuries mixed with seeing somebody put him on his back not not from wrestling from striking standing

toe to toe Connor's best weapon and they're winning now against connor so that's gone he needs chanler he doesn't want to go in there with these young lions anymore so what do you think right now just out of your i have no inside knowledge of this and i'm sure you're in the same boat is everybody because we just don't know why. Do we see Connor back this year? Do you think before 2024 is over? Do we see Connor and Chandler actually fight? Yeah, I mean, I would think it would be this year.

I would. I mean, the talks of it has been, have been, you know, steadily consistent lately. And I think once this movie is done, I think there will be no more strings holding Connor back. He's going to have this fun in the entertainment world. and he's going to say, all right, I'm in shape, I've got no more excuses. Connor's got to be thinking as well, how many years in my prime do I have left?

Which, like I said, in my opinion, I think that error is gone. But is he still a young, enough fresh fighter to still, you know, headline and do all these things and have these big top fights, guys in the top five, the top 10? He's still in that category. He's got to do it now, though. I mean, you can't take off a whole other year and think it's going to happen. But I would say, end of 2024, we see this. his fight, Connor McGregor, Michael Chandler.

I think November probably makes a lot of sense. MSG, huh? Connor, I said this last week on the podcast, I didn't, like, I didn't even do the timing, like, because I was at his fight with Eddie Alvarez when he kind of ascended to, like, a different level of star power becoming champ champ. It was eight years ago. It was 2016. That's insane to me.

It's eight years ago. Eight years is a long time, but, yeah, I think November, because you got to imagine September, they're going to do the sphere. They said that now. Do you think that has to be like a Mexican main event? You know, do you think they would like, what if Connor wanted to do the spear? I mean, I guess it would like kind of do whatever he wants. But the only reason I don't think they do the sphere for Conner is because ticket sells because you couldn't get as many.

I think there's a limited. I think there's a limited amount of like seating. I think it's like $14,000 or something. Yeah. Which is more than I thought, to be honest. It is. But 19,000 at T-Mobile, 5,000 extra tickets. That's another million dollars or whatever.

So I think that's going to be on. But I do think, I do think if they're doing the pay-per-view, I don't think it's going to just be a Mexican Independence Day card anymore. It's going to be like, you know, we could see Alexa Grasso and Valentin on there, but I don't think they're going to just go with that. I've heard rumors, you know, other fights could be on there. Like, you know, in terms of titles, things like that, maybe it's Izzy and Drakis, maybe it's Dracus and Hamzot, something like that.

Like, that would be a big fight. But then. I'm so, I'm laughing because I'm like, you're talking about Izzy, and drink is duplice the Africans fighting on Mexican and independent you never know you never know

those guys in Africa damn we're in Africa but then you got Nate Diaz was tweeting about it yeah there you go then you got October that's probably

going to be Abu Dhabi that's kind of been the timing for Abu Dhabi you got to imagine that's going to be that and then November MSG I think that's kind of the perfect landing spot

for Connor in my opinion like it's weird it's weird to think it would be that long to get that fight but yeah like in the back of my head

I'm like, man, Chandler, you can't keep wasting time. But you're at this point, like I said, it's like I said, you've invested so much in this stock. You're like, I'm going down with, I'm going down with the plane. You've got to. You've got to go down with the plane. I mean, I would. I really would. I think at this point, if I was in his shoes and everything that's happened and how much I've promoted it to all of a sudden say, no, I'm jumping.

Like jumping ship? What? After all this, dude? I mean, like, you're going to give somebody else the red panty night? You're going to give somebody else this huge opportunity to headline this to make all. all this money after you've been in the back seat the whole time waiting for your opportunity. Now you're 38. The young lions, no, man.

Go against Connor McGregor. He's not the same guy. You're getting older. The payday is going to be there at the end of it. It's worth it. Yeah, you're going down with the ship at this point, buddy. You're the captain and you're on the Titanic. You hope that you survive, but you know you're going down with this ship at this point.

You might as well just stay on board. So I also want to mention this last weekend, a huge moment, which doesn't get as much attention in America because I'll be honest Alan, I'm not a soccer guy. I'm not like I grew up. I played soccer as a kid but like in current terms I don't know the players. I don't watch soccer at this point in my life.

But yesterday, Ilya got to go out and do the honorary kickoff for a Real Madrid game in Spain. 80 some odd thousand fans in attendance and everyone I've talked to who is an actual big soccer fan says this is a massive massive deal. Now Dana has said he wants

to take the UFC to Spain. year when that would be, I don't know, I think maybe August, that could be a potential. Like, I think that kind of date maybe is open. If they're doing, you know, they're doing September at the sphere. So the big question is who? Who does he fight? Brian Ortega pulled off an incredible comeback this last weekend to beat Iya Rodriguez. Of course, we know Alexander Volcanowski, former champion, multi-time defending champion.

Of course, he wants the rematch. He's coming off two knockouts in a row, though. So, like, where do we go with Ilya, do we need to see one more fight? Like, do we want to see Mosaar fight? Maybe is Max Holloway if he beats Gaichi? Like, what is the fight for Ilya to putoria? It's a good question. I think those are the three guys that you named, though.

Mavsar Yvloyav, I think that would probably be, I think that would be as toughest test, to be honest. I think Yvloev would be the toughest test for Tuporia. Now, I think that you look at Volcanowski, and I think it's a rematch. He's warranted for him, right? He's the goat in my eyes. Greatest, by the weight we've ever had in the UFC, he's beaten all of the other people on that list that are possibly competing against him. He is the goat.

He got caught. He got caught by an expert striker. He's really good on the ground, Ilya, but I think a rematch would be warranted. I think if he wanted it, I think the UFC should give that to. them if they decided to go elsewhere. My goodness. I mean, Brian Otega, my man. I feel, you know, Brian, Brian had almost the type of kind of fight that he needed, you know, because I feel like a lot of people had kind of passed on Brian Ottega. They said, you know, he's had some opportunities, got real, real high in the sport, real fast in the sport real quickly. And then I had some lows.

And he was out for a while. And you, being out, in the UFC and fighting is like a loss. You know, it's all about momentum, and he lost all his momentum. And people kind of forgot about Brian Otiger. Not only did he come up with the win, but he came out there and he showed heart. And people respect heart. People love heart. People love a comeback story.

He goes out there and he rolls his freaking ankle in the jumping. I felt so bad for him because you could see in his eyes and his cornerman's eyes. They didn't want to acknowledge it. He looked back at his corners and they were just like, like positivity. You're good. You're good. You're good. right. I mean, it was just you can't acknowledge you. Okay. You don't say, are you okay before war?

We're good. But it's like, shit. What else could go wrong? That goes wrong. He goes in there and gets blasted. He's hurt. It was almost over early in that fight. And he comes back with the heart, gets the win. I mean, God damn. I mean, he just, and then that speech afterward, the guy was beat up. I mean, it was almost, I think it was written beautifully. It was like, it was like a movie the way that I was written and I think even though everybody wants to go in there and not get hurt, when it wants a clean fight, I think, in my opinion, it brought his stock higher because we say this guy, he's so good in Jiu-Jitsu, oh, he's got some bad boy Mexican boxing, and the kid is tough as nails, and he's got hard, and he's always in the fight.

And this is his comeback story, and he won over the crowd, and he won over the fans. And so that puts him in that conversation as well. It's a tough, it's a tough pick for the UFC, but it's good to have these type of options, right? I mean, I think ideally if he's healthy and ready to go. And again, that's the big question. I think you've got to give Volcanowski the chance. I don't love back-to-back rematches,

especially when the guy got knocked out. It wasn't like it was any kind of controversial. Like when Max got a rematch after a split decision, I was like, that makes a lot of sense. Like, that was a razor close fight he should get it because it was Max Holloway. I don't love it like this. because he got knocked out clean. It wasn't really that, you know,

I know technically he won the first round of scorecards, but, you know, he got knocked out clean the second round. But if he's healthy and he's actually ready to go, I don't see how you can deny Volcanowski. But I will say this, my other caveat I'll throw in here, maybe Volcanozky wants to actually take some time off. Like maybe he really wants to take time to recover, let his brain heal, let his just emotions heal,

all that kind of stuff. If Max Holloway can go out there and beat Justin Gachy, which I know that's an incredibly tall order, If he beats Justin Gache, no offense to Volcanowski, and I think Iliate's report is on his way there. But Max Holloway is still the biggest star at 145 pounds right now. Max Holloway, when Max Holloway fights, people watch. Doesn't say controversial things, doesn't try to sell his fights that way. But when Max Holloway fights, people pay attention.

If he could beat Justin Gachie at UFC 300, I don't know that he will. That's an incredibly tough fight. And become a BMF. And become a BMF. imagine him and Toporia in a stadium in Spain. That would be massive. And then you've got Toporia, who is becoming a star in his home country, against an established veteran star in Max Holloway.

I think if Volcanowski's not ready or hurt or just wants to take time off and you can get Holloway in there against Toporia, that is a massive, massive fight. I don't think it's too far-fetched, man, you know, in talking with Dustin Jorge about that matchup, I remember him telling me that he thinks Max Holloway is going to be too much.

And if anybody knows these fighters, Dustin knows them better than any of us, right? He's fought both of them twice, I believe. He thinks Max's style might be too much. And so we'll see, man. It's a tall order going up, bigger, hard-hitting Justin Geishi. But if anybody can take a good punch,

it's Max Holloway, right? the guy, the guy doesn't get knocked down too much or ever. Yeah, I mean, that's the good one too as well. I like that because, you know, when I look at, I agree with you, by the way. He got finished, Volcanowski. Does it warrant an immediate rematch? Again, he's the goat. So I think it trumps everything else.

But it was a clear, clean cut victory. So it's not as enticing, as you said, as like a split victory or, you know, something like that, split decision. But when you look at the kind of starboard, power or the greatness that Alexander Volcanowski brings to that fight or a rematch over Brian Utega, who's been out for a very long time, just got came back and had a beautiful victory, but it doesn't, it's not like Brian Ortega is the baddest man on the planet that these two guys have to collide. Brian Ottega is now back on track and he's got his mojo back, but we still

need to see more. Then you look at Yvloyev, he's lowered down the rankings, I believe, right? I think he's one of the tougher tasks because of dominance and the grappling, but he's not the star power. He's not the name that people are dying to see. He's like that really, really good grappler that nobody wants to face that's a little down in the rankings that has a tough time getting fights. He's not selling out stadiums. So because of those two reasons,

I agree. Hey, Max Holloway goes out there, Beach Justin Gasey, you would have to look at that fight in regards to also looking at the rematch with Al Janna Volkanowski. Both of those two against the Poirier in Spain all day, baby. That's a beautiful fight.

It's going to be huge. I mean, like I said, the UFC loves to expand and get out to new territories. And if they can pack a stadium with 80,000 people or whatever it is, whatever number that's going to be for Tuporia, that's huge. And I think, listen, I'm with you on Ortega. I think what Brian did this last week, it was incredible. It was an all-inspiring victory. But I think you also got to be realistic and say, like,

the guy was out for two years. Can he stay healthy? Like, I think if he stays healthy, you book him with Mousar, give Mousar a chance to either become. a star or Ortega to pick up a win over another established good high level featherweight and then he gets a title shot because he's had a couple opportunities and neither one you know he had a he had a couple moments in the Volcanovsky fight with the submissions but outside of that it was a pretty one side of fight and max just absolutely beat him up it was not a close fight max just absolutely beat him up and

and brian looked like he had gone through a car crash at the end of that fight yeah so it's almost like I'd like to see him get one more before though because dude the last guy you want to go in there taking damage with Zilea freaking Tepori. That guy will put damage on you like nobody's business. So I'd like to see Ortega get one more. I think the Mosa fight would be a good one. Put him on a big card, maybe international fight week. You know, something like that.

Or maybe he's, you know, maybe you put him on the same card as Teporia and whoever he's fighting. I'd like to get, I'd like see Ortega get one more and also prove you can stay healthy because, you know, that's a real issue. Like when you've been out for two years, obviously you're dealing with injuries. And he just, he rolled his freaking ankle, which was the most bizarre thing ever. But that

freakishly happens before you even fight can you trust he can stay healthy for an entire camp and be champion I think one more would probably do good like he can stay healthy and fight Ebloev and then you move into the title fight I'm fine with that but I think to me it's it's wait till UFC 300 see how Max

does against Geishy and then how much does Volcanovsky want to return by let's just say August if that's the date they want to do it if Volcanovsky wants it and he's available I don't love it because I don't know, it doesn't really get me super excited because the way the first fight ended, but it's Volcanowski.

How can you deny him? He's the goat. I mean, I don't love it, but he's earned it. So, yeah, you do it. And it's not like some new guy. You're like, I don't know if he's ready or is it too soon. It's Volcanowski. It's like, they don't get any better than this.

It didn't look good the first time, but he's always going to bring it. He always has a chance. You know, I mean, it's like, it's Volcanowski. And I like what you said, you know, put those guys, put Ortega and I've loyal. and the call main event on that spain card. That way you have a backup fighter in places if something happens, you know, and then they're on the same timeline as well.

Both of these fights happen. Let them both take a while off and then let them meet in the finals again. Yeah, and we got to remember. I mean, listen, Julianna Pena, you know, choked out Amanda Nunes wasn't, you know, it's an emphatic victory second round fight. And then we saw the rematch. Amanda came out there and just beat the brakes off her.

So, you know, if there's one guy learned not to doubt, it's Alexander Volcanoff. So if he really is again if he wants it and he's ready you got to give it to him because he's the champ. He deserves that. He deserves that. And again, I don't love it. I kind of would like to see something different. But again, if he wants it and he's ready, you got to give it to him.

And I would say this. I don't know if the next fight would go differently in terms of the outcome. I don't know. Not necessarily the knockout the submission to finish, but in terms of who would win. I'm not saying Volcanowski would beat Ilich. in a rematch, but I'll say this. Guys like Ilya Tuporia, you could learn a lot about

facing them one time because when you go against somebody who is next level striking, next level boxing, all of a sudden you go, oh my goodness, his shots are so much faster and there's so much cleaner. Like there's less wind-up. You just get used to seeing these like MMA-type punches

and then you see a shot from Tepore and then it's just like, it's just like they stabbed you in the gut. It's so precise. There's no chamber fire. It's fire. And he kind of mentioned it. He goes, man, I mean, we knew you couldn't really make too many mistakes. And his boxing was so good. I guarantee you, if they do rematch, he's going to fight him differently.

He's going to know you can't just put these four-ounce glove guards up and expect to defend some of these combinations. He's so good at changing levels with the body to the head, punching is Toporia. He's going to have a lot that he's going to take away from this first fight. If they have a match up, I just don't know if he's good enough to beat him. I think Toporia is as good as we think he is. And listen, that stat that's out there, I don't always agree with stats because I don't think I'm 35 and older.

But that's, I mean, you can't deny it's not like we don't have a sample size. It's 15 times, you know, we're 15 guys have tried and 15 guys have failed. Yeah. We just talked about Chandler turning 38. Conner's 35 now. Like, that's just not, there's a, there is an expiration date. Whether we want to admit it or not, there is an expiration date on that. And I don't know, listen, again, I've learned not to doubt Alexander Volcanowski,

but I also look at I at Liottapori and say that kid, is a freaking monster, man. He's not one-dimensional. Look what he did to Bryce Mitchell. Took him down and submitted to Bryce Mitchell who's a high-level grappler. Dude, Teporia is a monster, man. That guy's a scary, scary dude.

Like, that guy is going to be a force to be reckoned with. My only advice, and I know you agree with me, Alan, let's just stay at Featherweight. Let's stop with this whole, like, I want to fight Connor and I want to jump to lightweight already. And I'm so over that. We had that conversation last time you were on the podcast. Like, I'm so over this.

Like, dude, there's so many good fights for you at Featherweight. right now. You can do the Volcanowski rematch. You can do Holloway, Ortega's out there, Moe Sars out there. Let's just stick a featherweight. And to piggyback on that, like Sean O'Malley was talking about, like fighting to pouria if to

Sean, first of all, we just stick with the topic. Let's stay in our weight class, to clean out of the division, then we'll have talks to that. But I don't think O'Malley really wants any piece of him. I mean, I know the fighter inside of him does. But realistically, his coach has got to be thinking, no, no,

No, no, no, this isn't great because he's bigger than you. He can outstrike you and he can out grapple you. Let's be the taller, ranger striker in our division first. Yeah, that would not be a good matchup for Amali. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo, great idea.

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his first title defense and let's be honest there's no guarantee he's going to get through Cheetah Vera Chita Vera is one of the tough is that dude is that dude is like a $2 steak he's incredibly tough he could lose that fight but just let's say he gets past Cheetah that's still only one title defense. Like, let's slow down on the whole, call it out Ilya Tuporia stuff. Like, Marab deserves his shot. He clearly earns his shot.

And I think, and maybe you've seen this a little bit even more than I have because you're around the UFC more because you obviously work as an analyst. I feel like Marab, like, transcended to a different level of startup after that Sohudo fight.

Like, he got cheered. He did the whole Mexico thing. They showed him on camera this last weekend, and the crowd went absolutely bonkers. Like, it's almost like he's kind of crossed over a little bit where everyone's kind of like um you know marab's kind of boring he's a wrestler blah blah blah it feels like the the page has turned on that a little bit and when when sean did that video he's like well i thought people would get excited about this but apparently not everyone

wants marab and i was like thank you i'm glad the world just kind of come around on that i mean the people are starting to get educated now we're like no no no you need the next guy online i mean people are starting to really want the system to work as it should look look These are the rankings. This is a guy who's been starching everyone. Marab. The one fault that Marab had was that he wasn't, you know, he wasn't super entertaining in the octagon with his style of grappling,

repeatedly taking you down. He wasn't a great talker or this or that. Well, he flipped the script on everyone, man. He makes these entertaining videos. He's hilarious now. He's calling people. I mean, he understands the game. He gets it.

He gets the entertainment side of it now as well. He was already a top-notch fighter. as an top-notch entertainer as well. He has earned his shot. I mean, he's doing all the right moves right now, is Marab. I joked with him when I talked before the five to one video he did as Professor Professor Machine, which cracked me up and he said he was going to call out Frankie Signs. The guy who beat him in his UFC debut when he becomes chairman.

I was cracking him. I was like, that's a great point. It does. It seems like Marab has like whatever people had against him, him smiling at the camera, yelling at Zuckerberg in the cage while he's beating up on him. Sudo, like, I think he is like now become, and that's how quickly it can happen. You know, that's how this sport works. You make a star making moment and suddenly people care.

And now all the people who are like, eh, you know, Marab, whatever, you know, I don't really care. Now everyone's like Marab deserves his shot. He's earned his shot. We want to see it. And let's be honest, listen, again, I don't want to, I'm not looking past Chita Vera. Chita Vera is an incredibly tough dude. That dude can knock you out.

If you're down four rounds, he can still find a way to knock you out in the fifth. But hypothetically, if O'Malley wins, O'Malley Morab is now a big fight. Like, it may not have felt like a big fight before. It is a big fight now. Yeah, the UFC was, you know, like you're saying, a couple months a year ago, they were like, who can we throw Marab at? We don't want him fighting for the battles, you know? What do we do?

We have this guy that just grapples everybody to death. He's a star now, man. I mean, look, somebody told me the story with all this online presence that he has now is, I think it's his neighbor or something like that. his neighbor does a lot of social media stuff does record production stuff and so they link up and they start to doing these videos and it is taken off i mean he has won the internet and and it's it's building it's not building just his followers online but it's it's building his brand as a fighter and it's helping push him towards these title these title opportunities so it's a great move smart move

for him just got to keep fighting like he's doing keep making these videos i think he's going to be champion i do I think he's the toughest guy in a division. I think he's the best guy in a division, if I'm being honest. I think stylistically, he gives everyone that he goes against trouble. Look what he just did against the toughest type of matchup. And Suhudo, yeah, he dominated him. He outr wrestled the wrestler. I think he does that to everyone else in the division.

He's becoming a star. It might be Marab's here by the end of the year. And we do our rankings on MMA fighting, and I'll be honest. And listen, I have absolutely nothing against Sean Amalley. This is not a knock on Sean Amalley. My top three bansomweets, number one, I have patchy mix. I think patchy mix, in my opinion, is the best band to win in the sport. I have Marab at number two, and I have Amali at number three.

That's not a knock on Sean O'Malley. I just think, and again, if you're talking UFC, it's Marab is number one. I have Patchy slightly ahead only because when you look at what Patchy has done over this last year, just absolutely wrecking people, like just knocking them out, submitting him. He's just been so dominant. And Patchy and Marab trained together. Like, they trained together. Marab was telling me before the fight, like he said,

He told me he's like, I don't like to sit there and be kind of egotistical and say I'm the best. I'm the number one guy. So I'll say Patchy is the best because I've gone with that guy. Patchy's a monster. But Patchy is not in the UFC. So you've got to kind of take him out of the equation, obviously. To me, it's Morab. And it's not a knock on Sean.

I just think when you're on a 10-fight win streak and the one thing I can say about O'Malley, let's be honest. Marab's had a better body of work. I mean, I know I know I like O'Malley, but like he, come on. He beat Yon, maybe. He beat Yon. I know a lot of people didn't think he won that fight. Now, he beat Al Jermaine. That's a legit, 100% good win. But look at the, I mean, look what Marab did to Peter Yon. Look what Marab's done to pretty much everybody. I agree. I think he's the best band's waiting the UFC. And yeah, that's the fight we all want to say.

And it got, it's, it just, it sucks that like it had to take that to happen. But you know what? It worked out for me. He beat Henry Suhudo. He's styled with Zuckerberg. He's now in Viva Le Mexico Marab, which is hilarious. Like, he has just become, like, in a weird, as much as I think he should be the guy fighting Sean O'Malley at UFC 299, in a weird way, it worked out better. And I do want to give credit, by the way.

You mentioned his neighbor. I do want to give credit. His manager, Orrin Hodak from K.O. reps, I know he's spearheaded a lot of, like, trying to get Marab out there, doing more social media stuff. Because he does it with Kevin Holland as well, who is another his clients.

And I know he's like, Kevin does a lot of videos and stuff like that, too. But yeah, you know, as much as I, believe in my heart of hearts it should be marab fighting at ufc 299 in a weird bizarre way i think it worked out better for him this way because now the whole world is calling for him to get the title shot and he's grown a much bigger fan base yeah all right you know it's it's like um i don't know why i'm thinking a comparison now of marab and bala or bala i was trying to do as much as he can online presence he has that show remember their name or remember

remember the show and all that stuff. You know, they're trying with Bilau, too, you know, to like, look, what is it that you don't want to give him a shot? But Marab somehow jumped the line. Marab in his videos, Marab and his style of fighting. He became a fan favorite, man. And it's just funny. Every time I see a video of Marab, I smile, right?

And it's not like, oh, I don't like this dude. Everybody just smiles. He's like this likable guy that people can relate to now who is dominant at what he does. And I think you're right. I think whoever wins. I'm leaning towards Cheeto just because I think he is the longer,

a little more precise, a little more just a faster fighter. But Cheeto is a dog and Cheeto's my guy and I think if anybody could take him into deep waters, then Cheeto could do that.

But yeah, if O'Malley does get it, whoever gets it, Marab is up next and I think either one of them are going to have a very tough time dealing with him. Yeah, let me be clear about that.

Like I know what we're talking about that. a lot about Morav. I want to be clear about this. Like, I'm not discounting Cheeto Vera. Like, that dude hits like a truck. He has a win over O'Malley. I don't care what O'Malley says about that. When you have a win over a guy, there is a certain level of confidence that comes from that. He's been in there.

It didn't go long, but he's been in there. So you were talking about earlier about, like, the Toporia thing. Like, you know, but you don't know until you get in there. He's been in there with O'Malley. He's felt him a little bit. He felt him in the grappling a little bit. He felt him in the striking. He knows his reach.

And Cheeto at his best. can beat anybody. Now, has he done that? No, he's had some losses in there. You know, he had the loss to San Hagan, had the loss to Jose Aldo. But look what he did to Dominic Cruz. Look what he did to Frankie Edgar. Look, I mean, at his best, Cheeto could beat anybody in the world. And I don't know, man. Like I said, recipe, like, it was like, it's like when Michael Bisping really wanted that fight with Dan Henderson back. And they ran it back. Dan Henderson didn't technically deserve a title shot. I don't think anyone would have said he did at that time. And Bisping won. He absolutely won. But there was that moment where Bispin got caught with that right hand. Do you remember that? He got caught. We're like, holy crap. Here it comes again. Don't count out Cheeto Vera. It sounds like I am. I promise you I'm not because I will not be shocked if the day after UFC 299 were talking about Cheetah Vera as the new Bantamie champ of the world.

Man, you know what? I don't know what this came to my head while you're saying all these things about O'Malley. Did you see the video of O'Malley entering the arena recently? And he had on like that fur coat or something. something with no shirt on and they were kind of escorting him to the to his seat in the arena and the headline on it was like something along the lines of oh this guy's a draw and what they were getting at is they escorted them and you know while the arena is kind of peaking right the fights are going and normally they're crowd erupts whenever you see a celebrity or one of the fan favorites you know

Nate Diaz um even uh even if patty pimlet to be honest patty pimlet he would come into the arena and the place to start going nuts. He started chanting and I'm like, and I'm like, oh, this is Patty. He is a big deal because look at 16,000 people recognize that he is in the same building

with them and it provokes something out of him, right? So I saw this video and I don't know if it was touched up or not, but it did make me think like people weren't jumping out of their seat to see O'Malley. They weren't trying to get a high five. They weren't singing.

They weren't the volume of the arena didn't change. changed. And it makes me think, what is it about O'Malley that it seems like he's a huge draw on social media numbers, but he's not a huge draw on like pay-per-view or in the presence of him. And I don't know the pay-per-view numbers, but this is kind of what I've heard, that it really doesn't sell the pay-per-views. He's more of like a social media presence. And I don't know, I don't know how to connect the dots. I'm maybe asking you a question. I don't know what the question is. But you get what I'm saying, though, right? There's a difference in his type of

of draw. I think it's a little bit of this is something Sean Strickland said. I don't totally agree with what Sean Strickland said when he was talking about the old Jake Paul thing, but I think there's a little bit that Jake Paul thing where he's like a huge influencer, huge numbers on social media, huge YouTube numbers, all that kind of stuff, but are his fans of the age where they're going to plug down 80? Yeah. And so I think that could be part of it because when he does something on social media, he does Twitch, all these kind of things he does, people pay attention, but are those fans, the 19, 20-year-old college students, they plunking down $80 to watch him fight.

And I think... No, no, no, they're swiping. I think there's a little bit of that Jake Paul thing where Jake... Because anyone that doesn't say Jake Paul isn't a star is lying in them. He is a massive star. But everyone always talks about it, does his pay-per-view sell? And I think that's what we're talking about here is that... Yeah.

I was at his fight with Tyron Woodley in Cleveland here in Ohio. I've never been around a younger audience in my life. I had so many, like, teenage kids coming up and saying something about the fight and talked to me about to fight. And it was, and I've covered a million EOC shows. I have never seen less under 18 people attend to fight than when Jake Paul fought Tyra Woodley. Yeah. But will those same people turn around and then spend $50, $60, $70 on a pay-per-view? And I think that's kind of where O'Malley's at.

Like, when you hear Al Jermaine talk about their pay-per-view numbers, it wasn't like this big record-breaking number. Like they did a pretty, you know, moderate, like by 2024 standards, 2023 standards. Is it okay? Yeah. But Dustin Porre sells more and Max Holloway probably sells more. Like, I think that's it. I think he's got the influencer presence, but I don't know that translates into buys. You took the word that on my mouth because that is probably why Dustin Porier was able to get that extra money that he was asking for when he was holding out.

and none of us really knew this, but he hadn't signed the papers against Ben Wall-Sault-Anne because he wanted more money, right? And he's not fighting a Cona McGregory anymore. He's fighting somebody lower in the rankings, but he wanted more money. The UFC was in negotiations with it. When you look at the bigger picture like we just brought up, O'Malley is the headliner, but O'Malley probably doesn't really sell that many. He sells pay-per-views, but not that many because he's the younger demographic.

You have to now insert a pay-per-view-type guy like a Dustin-Pourier on there to to help the card. They needed Dustin on there. So that's why they were in negotiations, but they had to pay Dustin his money. He had the leverage right there. He's like,

you have your star headlining it, but he's not a pay-per-view guy. You know that. And so I want my extra X amount of money. He ended up getting it. So it played out. So I think we're on a right track

to figuring this whole thing out, man. Like it or not, and again, I'm not saying this to be offensive to Sean O'Malley, but like it or not, Dustipore is a bigger star. Like Dustipore is a bigger star.

is a bigger star than Sean O'Malley. Dustin Poirier draws, and that's proven. I mean, we see it. We know when he fights people, like, the stories I wrote about just in that 24-hour period about he's out of the fight and like four hours later he's back in the fight, like there's a million people just clamoring to know about what was going on there. And the UFC's smart to put him on there because at the end of the day, if they sell 500,000 pay-per-view buys, O'Malley was the headline and they said,

look what O'Malley can do. But how many of those 500,000 paperbyes were saying, I'm going in for Dustiporri. Because Dustoporri, in my opinion, is one of the bigger draws in the sport. And so there's a reason he's on this card. You and I both, like, no one, Sean O'Malley's camp may not say it.

You and I both know he's on here to boost O'Malley, because I don't know if this was just O'Malley in like four of the random fights. I don't know this would sell. You put Dustipore on here? It sells. Now it sells. It's sherry on top because it's an unbelievable.

unbelievable card, but it's not an unbelievable card full of draws. It's just a solid freaking fight card topped with O'Malley, who's, we're unsure or unsure how much he draws he does alone, right? You put him on there with some other names. We've got these big draws plus O'Malley. Oh shit, this is a fire card. O'Malley by himself, we don't know. So yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right, man.

You throw Dustin on there, you give him the extra bag. Get this card solid. All right. So before we get out of here, and I know, I'm asking you a step on a bit of a landmine because I know Dustin's your guy. Of course, you guys are Louisiana guys. And to be clear, and this is not, like I like Benoit Saint Denis. I think he's an incredibly talented fighter.

But I've known Dustin for 15 years. I mean, I've been around Dustin. I've always liked Dustin. How much danger is Dustin stepping into with a fight like this? Because this is, in my opinion, every fight, there's a risk in every fight in the UFC. I don't care what you're doing. There's a risk. Of course, it's a fight.

But this to me feels like a very high risk, low reward fight. Because if he beats Benoit Saint-Denie, everyone's going to say, well, Benoit was number 11 or whatever, and you should have beaten him, right? Because it's Dustin Porier. But if he loses, that's two in a row after he got knocked out by Justin Gagee, and he just lost it. And I don't think this is like, I think when Gilbert Burns fought Hamzat Chamaev, it was different. because even though Hamzot wasn't ranked, he was already kind of a star. I don't know that anyone,

Dustin's the star here. I've not heard anyone banging the drum saying I'm buying this solely because Benoit St. Denise on this card. This is not a Hamzot situation or even like a Patty Pimbley. Like Patty Pimbleau is not a ranked guy, but if you're a ranked lightweight,

you should beg for the Patty Pimblit fight because he's such a big name. How much of a risk is Dustin taking right here by even taking this fight? there's risk, right? But I'm going to disagree with you for a bit. I think a win over Benoit-Saint-a-Ni, Dustin is right back where he wants to be.

He's got the leverage because you mentioned it. He's one of the biggest stars in the sport. You take a guy who's one of the biggest stars in a sport. They don't need a title run, right? They just need one win. They need one win to be right back where they were. And, oh, yeah, lower-ranking guy, who's on, what, a five-fight win streak finishing all these guys?

He's the new, trying to be the new face of France right now. He's got momentum. And build up to this fight, I had a guy from France. I had a guy from Paris reach out to me. Hey, we're in Lafayette right now. We're filming because we're building him over there. Can we come to your house and interview you? And you could tell us what I go.

A guy from Paris came to my house a couple weeks ago. It sat in my den and interviewed me and asked me all these questions. And I was like dumbfounded. I was like, you flew here from Paris with all this equipment and stuff just to hype this up? He's like, we're really trying to build him. We're trying to push it, MMA over there. they're building this over there. He is their guy that they want to be their number one face

if he can get past Dustin Poiray. I think Dustin Poirier, if he goes out there and puts Binwasson-E-O-A, he's right back in track where he's going to say, I want a title shot, I want this, I want the BMF. He's right back in that one, two, three position. Now, is there a bunch of danger? Obviously, Dustin's getting older now, Binwant-on-a-something-kney.

Not a young guy, but he's on a tear right now. He's a lower-ranked guy. But when I look at the matchup, a little bit X-S-N-O, Benoit's on the knee. I used to always say this. When I first found him, when I first became a fan of Benoit, I said,

he finds the weakness in other fighters, and then he exploits it. And he does do that. But the more I watch all of his fights, I go, he does that, but really he leans on his grappling. I didn't think of him as a grappler

when I first saw him. I thought I'm as a well-rounded guy who finds the holes. But the more that I watch him, he's a guy that comes forward kicking in that nervous energy range from far away. Hard kicks, hard kicks. He'll throw a big hand looking to get his hands on you,

back you up against the fence, get you to the ground. He's not scared to go against the fence, he's not scared to go against you, due to black belts. He takes them all down, and he finishes him. I talked to Dustin about this fight.

I'm like, he is going to try to close the distance on you. If you could stay off of the fence, man, and circle and keep this in boxing range and don't let him take you down, man, this is yours for the taking. You are the better boxer. And it's South Paul against South Paul, which now you have your jab, now you have your body. But by the way, I'm not, for the record, I wasn't educating Dustin.

He knew all this. I was giving him my input. So it's a super dangerous fight against an up-and-coming guy, lower-ranked, but a very winnable fight that people are more thinking about the danger than the winnability that there is for Desmond Poirier. But to wrap it all up and put a bow on it, I think he's right back in the right spot, man. I think with a win right here over a lower-ranked guy, he's in that. conversation again. And we also got to remember with Benoit. Like, I think he's an incredibly talented guy. But there is, there's a difference of being an incredibly talented guy knocking out people at the UFC Apex versus yeah. Co-main event, Miami, 20,000 people going nuts and you're

fighting Dustin Porre. Like, like it or not, you and I both know we have some, we have seen some guys fade in the spotlight. It is a big moment and it is a lot to take in. You know what I mean? He's going to do more interviews that week than he's probably done his entire career. He's going to have to do more video packages talking about Dustapourier than he's ever done his entire career. So much more pressures on you when you're in fight of this magnitude, like it or not, that's a real factor. Can he stand up to the pressure, not only with Dustapore in the cage, but can he stand up to the pressure of being in that situation this early in his UFC career? I mean, this is not by ranking standards, he shouldn't be fighting Dustaporee. Let's be honest.

Like, you should be fighting, you know, Dan Hooker or somewhere in that, like, 10 to 15 range where he is. Yeah. He's getting a huge opportunity here. And listen, like I said, that's, I still do think this is high risk for Dustin. But you're right, though. The flip side of this is if Dustin wins, Dustin's in a, Dustin is, he's not Connor. I know that he's not Connor. But he's like the next tier down from Connor.

Like, he doesn't need as much. Like, he goes out and dusts Benoit Saint-Denie. We don't forget about the gay chiefs. you fight, but we move on pretty quickly. Like, we're just like, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, he lost the gaitche, but he just knocked out Benoit Saint-Den-Dun. Let's see him fight, you know, Charles Oliver again. Let's see him fight, you know, one of these other big names. So, yeah, you're right.

Like, he's kind of transcended to where the other name doesn't matter as much because he's the star. And I think that's where you get into, like, who has real star power? It's when you can fight anybody and people will tune in to watch you fight. And that's kind of where Dustin's at right now. And you know what else on the financial end? Dustin renegotiates his contract every fight, right? We get locked in eight fight contracts, six fight contracts, five.

I heard somebody the other day, God, who was it talking about? Cowboys are Roney. Cowboy, Cowboy is a star. Cowboy was probably like we're talking about tears, right? There's Connor, there's Dustin. Cowboy was probably somewhere under there. You know, he's a huge star in the UFC. Everybody loves him.

He's beloved by the fans. He just, the UFC adores him. But even though they adore him, what did he say? He said he fought Connor McGregor under his contract pay. You kidding me? Connor McGregor under your contract pay? Dustin Portia is at a place now where I think he's got like a seven-fight contract. I don't see that being fulfilled.

I don't think he's going to fight seven more times. But every time he fights, he goes from fighting Connor McGregor to Michael Chandler to Benoit-Walt-Sont-Ne, and he still got the bag. He still got the payday and he still held out. and made the UFC pay him more that speaks to the level of star power that speaks to the level of how many people would pay the $80 to cough up that money

for pay-per-view vise. He's a star man. He is. And you know what? I want to give credit where credits do. Dustin is an incredibly smart guy and I know he's got good people in his corner. You know, I know people who work with him.

But how incredibly smart has this guy been to know his value? And, you know, they didn't get him to sign a contract. Well, guess what? He has all the leverage. You've announced the first. fight. So now you're going to pay him a bag, a little bigger, bigger bag, and credit to him for having that kind of business savvy, because you and I both know some guys would just, you know,

the UFC calls, yes, I'll take it, and they're fine with the contract pay. And I get it. You're under contract. Like, Dustin's not going to get out of cut. He's going to, he's going to retire in the UFC. Like, we all agree, seven-fight deal. He's not going anywhere. But they need Dustin. They need a star like Dustin. So they're going to come back to the table. He's, he's going to He's in a little bit of that like Nate Diaz position where he has a little bit more power, a little bit more sway, a little bit more influence. And he can say, you know what? I got a seven fight deal, but I'm going to re-up my seven-fight deal and you're going to pay me $2 million to fight bin Juan San Deney. And they're going to say, okay, well, we need you here.

We're going to have you fight. And, okay, Dustin, I love that he's in that position now where you can say, I'm worth it and you're going to pay me what I'm worth. And you're right. Every single time Dustin fights, a little inside baseball knowledge here, I think every fight since every, every fight with going around the Conner fight, he's renegotiated every single time and got paid more money. And good for him to do it, man. I love it.

Not everyone has that power. Not everyone has that leverage. Dusty poor A. does and damn right, he should be doing that. It's a good position to be in, right? And if he was here right now, you know what he would say? Aiden Fool, baby. He's done it. He's got probably the toughest

roster resume in all of the UFC. When I think about guys that have fought, the the toughest fights, the dogs, the dogs, it's Dustin Poirier, it's Hafeo do Sanyos. I mean, there's two or three guys that have fought the caliber of fighters that he has. And so he's there in that position that he sits in right now. I remember being in his fight in W, it was UFC. It was in Virginia when he fought the Korean zombie.

Like that, you realize how long ago that was? Like that's how long this guy's been. It was like UFC on fuel. T. Yeah, man. Yeah, I always remember that drive home because I drove home from there and had to go through West Virginia and I always remember it was late at night and it was fog and I could not see five feet in front of me. I had one truck in front of me and I was following their red light, their tail lights all the way through West Virginia driving home from Dust of Porre's fight

with the Korean zombie. But this guy's earned it. Like that's, he's earned it. He's put in the work. He deserves it. And yeah, I'm so happy that he goes out there and gets paid a huge bag of money as he should. and when this paper use, when this paper is done and the numbers come in, I hope Sean O'Malley walks backstage and gives Dustin a handshake and says, thank you, man.

Yeah. Because they're going to, because this is an incredible, listen, Gilbert Burns, Jack Del and Madelan, is, I mean,

I talked to Curtis Blades last week. He's playing Jelton Ahmed on the prelims. That's the featured prelim. It's Curtis Blades and Jalton Alameda. Oh my goodness. Yeah. What a match, yeah.

But Sean O'Malley better dab up Dustin be like, you know, just a little, just a little fist bump to say thanks for bumping up the paper read numbers because you and I both know, Dustin being on this car is going to sell a lot of pay reviews and you know. He needs to send him a chain like, like what's his name, the boxer that you mentioned the what's the influencer? Jake Paul, Jake Paul sent him that Connor chain after you remember. Yeah, after this is over, O'Malley needs a cinema.

Thank you for sure. Oh, absolutely. It's going to be great, man. You know, we're getting all hyped up here. Like I said, we barely talked about USC 300. UFC 299 is so good, man. and I don't want to look past list. We got this weekend.

Umar Naraga Maddof's coming back. I'm super excited about that. Muhammad Mikhail. He could potentially earn a title shot. Right now, we don't know what's going on a flyweight. Pantosia doesn't really have a true number one contender. I feel bad for Roy Vall. But Royval just fought him in December.

I think it's hard to run that back. You got Mikhail against Alex Perez. That's a really fun fight. Let's be honest, Alan, the main event's not the strongest in the world with Rosenstrike and and and and and and and and and and and yeah the rest of the card sneaky good umar coming back but then man 299 like i'm just getting hyped right now thinking about it like that card is so good man it's gonna be this these next couple months are gonna be really really good in this sport i was gonna say that i mean that's why we're jump in this card because it's it's it's you know

it's it's an it's an average kind of apex card um but the good ones i mean it just gets better and better 299 300 it's it's we're going to be after these these these fights are done 299 and then 300 god who has to follow that who's at 301 or is that going to be brazil that's brazil yeah brazil i mean it's 301 302 they're in a tough spot right there they are but man i tell you what 299 300 are going to be a lot of fun uh before we get out of here allan where are you going to be at next what are you got coming up soon so people can be on the lookout for you man i don't even know right now but i'm pretty sure oh you know what i'm going to be on i'm going to be on a UFC Atlantic City baby I'm going to Atlantic City I've never been there before

and I've just always wanted to go just as a fight fan man over the years you always would see like like access TV days or lion fight moitai and Atlantic City UFC has been there before I used to live in New York for a couple of years but I've never been there so I'm bringing my family and they've got some new additions to the card making that one a little bit more exciting so check me out there I'll be on the on the broadcast at that one I just talked to Chris Wyman a couple weeks ago he's getting ready for that one one. Wyman's on there, right? Yeah, Wyman. Yeah, it's a good card.

Aaron Blanchfield. Yeah, I've been to actually K. Luka was added. I mean, that's a good. First ever, first ever UFC card I ever covered in person was the UFC card in Atlantic City when Rich Franklin knocked out Evan Tanner to become middleweight champion and And And O'Darovsky knocked out Justin Eilers

in the main event. That was my first UFC event I covered as press. I went to Atlantic City. I've been to Atlantic City a bunch of times. And the majority of the MMA world wouldn't even know who Rich Franklin is. Yeah, or Justin Eiler. Sadly, he's gone. But yeah, Justin Eiler, she's had named to somebody. Like that card. Yeah, it was a great card, man. It was Atlantic City. But Evan Tanner, of course, also sadly not with us anymore. But yeah, that was the middleweight title fight. And then the

heavyweight title fight was Arloskey and Eilers. That was my first ever U.S. event I attended his press. Crazy. And Arlofsky is still fighting. He's still around, dude. He's still around. Still kicking it, man. Not going anywhere. Absolutely. Well, Alan, it's always a pleasure to have you on the show, man, I appreciate it. We're always glad to have you on, man. And thank you, as always, for the time. And we will chat again real soon. Pleasure, man.

This is a fun one. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.