MMA Fighting - Fighter vs. Writer: Matt Brown Explains Why Belal Muhammad’s Game Plan Didn’t Matter at UFC 315, Breaks Down Jack Della Maddalena vs. Islam Makhachev

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

On the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer, Matt Brown and Damon Martin discuss the fallout from UFC 315 with the UFC legend explaining why Belal Muhammad’s game plan didn’t really matter much in his loss to Jack Della Maddalena. We also talk about Della Maddalena’s chances against Islam Makhachev plus Jose Aldo retiring, the state of women’s MMA and much more. 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

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He is UFC legend Matt Brown. And Matt, we are now living in a world where Bilal Muhammad is no longer champion and Jack Della, Matt Elena, pulls off the upset and gets the job done. He is now the new welterweight champion of the world. I don't know that was necessarily the results. A lot of people saw coming in that fight,

but boy, does that shake things up in the UFC. Dude, I don't think anybody expected that, right? And it's not that Jack's not a great fighter, but, man, you know, Balal doesn't seem to have any weaknesses, you know? Even though, you know, he obviously has to put on the most exciting fights. That's the big criticism. But the criticism is never about Belaw has never been him not winning fights. It's about he puts all boring fights. And here Jack comes in, how big of an understatement?

was he had to been a big underdog right I want to say it was like minus 250 my or plus plus 200 right around that I think below I was like minus 250 something like that's like two to one two to one odds yeah that sounds about right actually but yeah I mean that was an impressive win man you got to give it to jack and and what a fucking war right 100% and okay let's let's let's get let's just jump out of the gate and and I want you to address this Matt as a fighter because you always say this, and by the way, I don't actually think even saying this takes credit away from him. I think Jack fought incredibly.

He had a, I mean, brilliant fight, shutting down the takedowns, beating Bilau on the feet. But the question is, like, I guess the question is game planning, because a lot of people are saying, did Bilal not approach the fight the right way? Because he didn't go for takedowns early. He wasn't putting as much pressure on Jack, and when he did turn to his wrestling,

Jack was able to counter him. I don't say easily, but he showed off that he had really worked on his takedown defense. Now, I know you say this all the time that you can't tear down one guy and then refuse to build up the other guy. Like, why take away Jack's win? I don't think anything Jack did was wrong. I think absolutely Jack deserves all the credit. But the question I have, Matt, and maybe you can answer this how much it matters, is do you believe Bilau approach it with the wrong game plans? There's this idea, and he talked to me about it. He talked to a lot of people. He wanted to show

up his Canelo hands. You want to show if he's the best boxer in the UFC. Now, you and I know, lots of guys say this kind of stuff before a fight, then they're going for takedowns, as they should. But watching the fight and seeing his approach, is there part of this, so you have to say this is, Blau had the wrong game plan? Yeah, you know, my feeling was like his game plan

was always to end up taking down Jack and which we've seen him doing it later on a lot more. But I think he had a lot more confidence in his hands. But then when he realized that that wasn't going to be the way, he didn't have another option. Like his wrestling wasn't another option. So, I mean, he was just stuck in between a rock and a hard place, you know, but, you know, he warrior through it an amazing way.

You know, what a chin on the ball, right? Like, the dude just got a chin from hell, man. But it almost, it's almost an irrelevant question, to be honest, because it didn't matter what his game plan was. Like Jack had an answer for everything that he did. now yeah if you're on if you're on ball's camp yeah you're probably looking back saying okay we probably could have game playing differently but it's hard to imagine that would have changed anything you know when you go back to the drawing board for belal you got a lot of drawing to do you know

when you're looking at a jack della madalina fight i think i think because when you look at the stats he went for like five or six takedowns and not it's not like he abandoned his wrestling and just stood with him like he went for takedowns i think what surprised belaliener and I think surprised me and probably everybody else was how much Jack had improved his defense. Because when you watch him into Gilbert's fight, he got taken down kind of at will. And Gilbert's an incredible grappler, but I would think we would all agree that Bilal is probably a better wrestler than Gilbert. Not grappler, maybe, but better wrestler. And he went for takedowns.

But Jack, you know, year off, he must have spent that big chunk of that year working on his takedown defense. And maybe he realized that. Listen, he got taken out a bunch of Gilbert Burns. obviously he had the broken arms so he couldn't fight for a while. But knowing Below's the champion and knowing that people are going to critique you and say, hey, you got to do this. And,

you know, he was matched up with Leon Edwards, but I know for a while there are people like, you should fight Sean Brady. If he can't beat Sean Brady, he shouldn't get to a Bilal because he's an incredible wrestler. He just worked on his craft. And I think that I think he just improved so much.

I think that probably surprised Bilal a little bit. Not saying Belal didn't prepare for him. I'm saying, like, when I want to. When it didn't happen, that changes everything. That's kind of what I was saying. Yeah, I think Belaw was maybe a little bit overconfident in his wrestling, maybe.

And maybe, maybe it's hard to say, you know, I don't want to say what he was doing in camp or anything. But maybe he was working on his hands a little bit too much, you know, which is interesting to me. You know, it seemed like Balal to me was boxing with him a little bit more than I would have liked. If I was game planning for him, I would like to see him maybe do more teeps. or kicks and, you know, different, mix it up a little bit more, do more distance stuff. Like, like, we already know, like, Jack is a really good boxer. Like, he's very tight, very technical, looks great, you know, when he's throwing hands. So, you know, that's the worst way to approach him.

Whether it's you want to stand with him or whether it's you want to take him down, like, even if you say, okay, I want to stand with him a few rounds. Like, let's not just box. with a boxer. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's, yeah, you know, Ballal has a lot to look to learn from on this fight.

He's got a lot that I think he can go back and look at and improve on. I just don't know if it's ever going to be enough to beat Jack the way, you know, the way the fight went the other night, like I'm not sure if there's anything he can do matchup-wise. And sometimes that's the big thing is just the matchup. And, you know, and the fact is, Jack had a perfect game plan. You know, we could talk about Ballal's lack of game plan all day. But, you know, look, Jack had a perfect game plan. Like, he executed extremely well the entire fight.

And also, I mean, listen, I think part of this, and I'm sure you probably agree with me, Matt, you know, Balow tends to get a lot of hate, you know, he gets, he has a lot of hate out there. And so when he has a loss and he goes out there and talks a lot about the Canello hands and his boxing and listen there's gamesmanship we all understand that we've seen that a million times before and guys said i'm going to stand with a guy and then they're shooting 30 seconds and they're just playing the game and that's what you're supposed to do and but because below said that and then didn't shoot takedowns right away didn't go out there just try to wrestle jack everyone's like oh well he really was just trying to prove something and because below gets a lot of hate it's like

the blame goes on him but i i personally think that his boxing didn't look terrible by any stretch the imagination. He's just facing a longer, rangeier, harder hitting boxer who also showed off unbelievably improved takedown defense. I mean, this was not the same Jack Della Madelana that got taken down by Gilbert Burns

or by a half old that Fazza, the Hafez guy, the one you were, your boy was going to fight him when he got that short notice fight and obviously he didn't get to fight him and he got taken down a bunch in that fight, that Basil Hafez fight. It's not the same guy. He's not the same dude who got taken down in his fight.

And I think that just shows, it's like when you see a wrestler suddenly develop really good boxing, like when you see like George St. Pierre develop wrestling and he still has like a nasty jab. Guys get better. Guys evolve. And what we saw on Saturday night was Jack Delamadalena evolved. He showed off tremendous takedown defense. And I think strategy or not, you can sit there and say, you know, maybe Bilal approached with the wrong idea. I don't know.

But I think it was Jack shutting him down. I think it was kind of surprising. I was like, oh, crap. Like, I thought I'd be able to get this the guy down. I could play with him on the feet a little bit. Now I could take him down. And he couldn't. And that changed everything.

Which is interesting because then when you see how much Jack's wrestling improved over the last, what, year, I think, has been since he fought. You got to wonder, like, what's the ceiling for this guy? You know, I mean, he looked amazing, though, tonight. Yeah. And look, I mean, obviously it's just one fight. And guys, we always say, you know, they look invincible when they're the champion and everything. But he looked like he has very few weaknesses in his game. And he's going to have to be, you know, it's going to have to take some really good strategy to beat this guy.

It's not going to be an easy fight, I don't think, in any way, for anybody in this division. Now, again, the only thing I think I would have liked to see from below a little more was like, you know, more of like a Muay Thai kickboxing style, you know, and just boxing with a boxer that's, you know, it's, it just doesn't make a lot of sense in my head. Yeah, I feel like we, and you know this, Matt, we do get, this industry, we get stuck in a pattern of, of wanting to kick a guy when he's down, as opposed to building a guy up when he's, when he's winning. So we always, yeah, and see to like, blame the guy who lost and say, what did you do wrong?

What did you do? You know, he did this wrong. He did that wrong. versus celebrating the guy who won. And as you said, I don't think it really matter what the game plan was because Jack Della Madelana was just the better fighter that night. And because when you look at the stats, you can't say Balao didn't wrestle, he did. Maybe he didn't wrestle at the accord that everyone thought he was going to.

He was going to go out there and shoot, you know, spam takedowns like Marab de Wallisvili or something, but he's not Marab. He is, you know, he is a different fighter than Marab. And Jack just fought brilliantly, man. Let's give credit where credit is. Dude, Jack Della and Madelaine approved he's the best Walter went to world. He looked incredible. Yeah. Yeah. And again,

I don't know if it would have helped him anyway. You know, Jack's take down, his wrestling looked great. And even when Ballal did get him down, he got, he stood right back up, I think every time. I'm not remembering any time that Blah held him down for any decent length of time. And he used a few tricky little things, a little hip toss type thing to create some space. He was really good at staying off of the cage, which is, you know, even if Belaw wasn't able to take him down,

I think that was kind of our assumption was he was going to be held against the cage for most of the fight, and it was going to be really, really boring. And I think that's what everybody was calling. I don't think that was just me calling that, but, you know, it didn't work out that way. Jack just, you know, he did, you know, I'd say, like, in a strikler versus grappler matchup, probably 60 to 70% of time, like you're going to pick the grappler, right? you know, the guy trying to get the takedown, especially when a guy's had a lot of success with it.

And when you got a guy with as good a hands as Jack and can stop takedowns, it's very, very dangerous. Yeah, 100%. I got to ask this question before we kind of move on to Jack of what's next, because I think we all kind of see what the writing on the wall is. But I want to ask this question to you, Matt, because Below is 37.

He's not a young guy, you know, and he had to work his ass off to get to a title. let's not forget that. Like he had to go on like a 12 fight on beating streak to finally get to the title. And he did. He'd had a great performance against Leon Edwards and he did it. But after Leon lost, I think we had a similar conversation like, you know, will he ever get back here again?

Now, again, you can't, you know, you can't say never because that's just how the sport works. One thing can change and a guy gets an opportunity. But then Leon goes out there, gets absolutely dominated and finished by Sean Brady. And you kind of solidify your thought. Like, I don't know if Leon will ever get back to that title. Is there a world wearable out? Like, can you see him getting back to the championship?

Or have we maybe just seen like he should always be proud? He conquered the world. Like, he became champion. No one can ever take that away from him. But at 37 and watched what you saw on Saturday night. Is there evidence that you believe, like, we will see Bilal back in the championship circle again? Yeah, there wasn't anything I've seen that showed him not being a championship fighter still. I thought he looked great.

He was just fought a better guy. I think that's all there was to it. And again, I don't know if there was anything that he could have done to beat Jack. I don't know if there's anything he can do to beat Jack in the future. They may never even become champion again. But, you know, someone else might come in and beat Jack. And then, you know, how that plays out. You know, there's a million different ways that this could work out.

But I thought Ballot looked great. You know, he just didn't look as great as Jack. You know, that's all he came down to. I think a lot of guys, he would have been out boxing. Yeah. A lot of guys at the top. And it's funny. I don't know if you, I'm sure you maybe saw the photo that Dana posted broken nose, broken orbital, split lip.

Dude, and I mean this with the utmost, I'm saying this was like as a compliment to both Jack and to Bilal. If that was pretty much any other welterweight, I think they would have gotten knocked out in that fight. The Bilow's toughness and durability was ridiculous. And I know I've said on this show before Matt, and I know you know I've harped on this. Like, I think sometimes saying a guy is a good chin is almost like an insult because that just means you get hit a lot. but man like belal just took it and kept coming i was like jesus christ what is this guy made of because that was jack versus like 98% of welterways he would have scored a knockout on saturday night yeah 98% people of the world as a matter of fact yeah yeah and ball you know he it didn't

seem like it really phased him either like he just kept coming like kept his head on straight and everything so yeah it was very impressive um and you know i don't think it's offensive at all to could say he has a great chance, right? You know, especially coming off of that fight. And, you know, he hasn't taken damage like that in his career very much. So, you know, I think he's going to be fine. I think he'll recovery from it. And it's just a matter of his own goals and motivation. I think if he wants to get back, I think there's still a lot of great fights out there for him. I think there's a lot of great matchups. I think he can still get back to the top. He's proved he could do it before. And I absolutely think he could do it again. Just a matter of, you know, if he can,

could ever beat Jack Della Madelina. And, you know, from, I mean, we've seen crazier things in the past, right? I mean, Leon was dominating him, and then he dominated Leon. You know, crazy things happen. We've seen no signs of him being able to beat Jack on Saturday. I could see him coming back and do it, though. I don't think anybody picked him to beat Leon the second time based off the first fight. I did.

I picked him to beat him, but you're not wrong. narrative built that he got he was getting sliced up in that first fight and then he got the eye poke and everyone's like eye poke saved him okay you know what is and i agree i think and listen i know that um he's already booked against walking buckley but dude if you don't book kamar usman against belal mahomed know in the history that they have now like easy matchmaking just easy matchmaking the job's already done like i know buckley's got to fight him and if usman wins maybe he'll try to play the like title fight card or something i don't know what he'll say but Dude, Belaw and Kamar Usman is a big fight.

Like, you've already built yourself into a perfect fight to come back to when you're healthy enough. So I don't think- Yeah, you just got to wonder what Usman's going to do if he loses that fight, right? Yeah, that would be four in a row. He's up there in age. So, yeah, he might, that might be it for Kamara. We'll see. For Jack, though, I know we all saw this coming.

I'm sure you saw the announcements last week, Matt, even after we did our podcast. You know, I'llia Teporia basically said, you know, my future is going to be decided on Saturday night, and Islam Ocachov came out and said the same. A Bilal Muhammad win means we were probably going to get Islam Akashv against Ilya Teporia, a Jack Delah Madelena win means we're probably going to get Islam Akashv against Jack Delamadalana. And sure enough, like clockwork, the minute Jack Delah Madelena won, of course, in credit, you know, Makachev, you know, sent a nice message of support to his guy Bilal Muhammad, but all signs are pointing to him getting that title fight.

And it's kind of funny because Ian Gary, you know, who was calling for a title shot, he was there. He said all along, like, if Islam wants the title shot, we all step aside. Like, you got to give that man his do. He's the number one pound for pound fighter in the world. He has more title defenses of lightweight than anyone in history, S4, which is more than anyone else has ever gotten. If he wants a title shot, we could argue about Ilya, and I know we had that discussion

before, you really, it's harder to argue against Islam. But the downside is, is there's a bit of a logjam now, because you got Shavkat, we don't know when he's coming back. He's injured right now, but he's out there. You got Sean Brady, who just took out Leon Edwards and became the first person to ever finish him. And you got Ian Machado, Gary, who is probably third in the pack. I know we talked about this last week or two weeks ago, probably third in the pack, but he's in the race, right? So is the UFC making the right move with giving Islam the immediate title shot and doing Jack and Islam later this year? Is that the move? I don't know. What do you think? I don't know. That's a, it's a big fight.

right? It definitely makes for a gigantic fight. I'm not, I think I've said before, Matt, I'm not a big fan of these champ versus champ things. Like, it just slows down divisions. And I think you prove just as much by being a nine-time defending champion as going up and winning one fight as a double champ. Connor McGregor, for better or worse,

ruin this for all of us, because he did it one time. And now everyone wants to be champ champ, champ. Everyone wants to be double champ. That being said, if there's one guy, besides John Jones, who when he went up, I was like, give him the title shot. Of course, it's John Jones. You give him the title shot.

The one guy that it would be hard to complain against right now is Islam because he broke the record. He broke Khabib's record for the most title defenses of all time. He is the number one pound for pound fighter in the world. And through no fault of his own, his last opponent dropped out. He got the arm in fighting in a fight in Mekana. It's certainly not his fault. He won the fight. And I tended to agree with Islam about the whole Ilya Teporia thing.

Ilya has one win, one title of defense, and he's not really a lightweight. Go get a win and prove yourself. I've always been on that train. So while I don't love it, I understand it. This is the one case where I'm like, yeah, you know what? If this guy wants it, kind of like when Volcanowski went up, I'm like, the guy kind of cleaned out his division. Like, I'm not a big fan of it, but you're not, he didn't, he didn't, he did everything he needed to do to get there. And Islam is out of every champion in the UFC right now outside of maybe Zhang,

and obviously looks like she's probably going to get a champ champ opportunity herself. Islam's like the one guy where I'm like, I don't love it, but I get it. I guess it's the way I'm saying. I don't love it, but I get it. I do think it makes for probably the most interesting fight for Islam and maybe Tuporia, but you know, we know that situation. But I'm not sure there's anybody in the 55 division as interesting as Islam going up and fighting Jack Della Madalina.

Yeah. It's intriguing. That really, like, sparks your interest where you're like, bro, I want to see how this turns out. Yeah. I mean, seeing what Jack did to Bilal and stopping his wrestling, I mean, of course, Islam is a different animal. And we say he's number one pound for pound guy in the world. But that's a big weight class difference. This is 15 pounds.

You know, you're going up. You're going to give up size. I mean, Jack looked a lot bigger on Saturday night. That's against a legit welterweight in Bilal Muhammad. I don't think you can look at that fight and say, well, Islam's just going to beat him. I don't know that you can say that confidently right, at least I can't. And the reality is, like, I would argue at welterweight, I know Shavkat is the guy, but, you know, Shavkat's injured right now, and we all know about how timing works.

You had you, I mean, if he was healthy, he would have fought on Saturday night. He wasn't healthy. Sean Brady's coming off a huge win, but, you know, you could argue maybe Sean, maybe he rematches blal he has that lost him or maybe he does something else and i like ian gary but i don't care how you try to paint him man you beat you lost to shabkat you beat carlos protest who was like the number 13 ranked guy you're not getting a title shot off that so shabkat's probably the guy who probably who has like the greatest argument to say like hey man like i'm here but he's injured right now and i don't know when he's i haven't heard anything about when he's coming back maybe he's 100%

healthy right now but i've not heard that so if that's not the case if you can book islam and Jack by September October, I mean, I guess go for it. Yeah, it makes the case a little bit better when you got muddy waters in the division, right? And it's just not totally clear who's a nice contender with Shopcott injured.

Yeah, he's like, why not do it? You know, especially if you're the UFC, you know, like I said, I think it's probably the most interesting fight out of all those guys you just mentioned anyway. You know, it's definitely going to like spark the interest of of the fans more or anything else.

but it's also like you said it's not a clear cut anybody I'm not sure if there's a clear contender for Islam either right so like why not go and do it so I know this is again kind of an impossible question to answer because we got to you know wait and see I mean we don't know how Islam's going to adapt to 170 I think he'll be okay he's a big guy and I've you know I've seen him stand next to welterweight he's not a tiny guy but after watching jack's performance on Saturday night. It kind of reminds me a little bit of like when Israel Adasanya was riding high and everyone's like, oh man, he's going to be double champion. And he goes up and gets beat by Jan Belhovic. I think that surprised a lot of people because

Jan was kind of an unlikely champion and everyone had kind of anointed Israel as the guy and then you know, Israel lost. Um, off top of your head right now, Matt, I'm not saying pick to fight necessarily, but how like how difficult is that fight for Islam now? Now that we've seen what Jack could do against another wrestler and a good wrestler and a good fighter at a welterway. He just beat a legit guy in Bilal Muhammad who has a somewhat similar style to Islam a little bit, maybe not the same, but they have a similar-ish style. I think it opens some eyes. I don't think you can just sit in and say, well, Islam's going to be double champ now.

No, for sure. But I think it, again, makes a very interesting fight because, for one, Blah did get some takedowns. I don't remember how many. get him down just jack was able to get up that that's going to be different with islam i think you know i think that's going to be with the biggest difference you know if he does get him down is jack going to be able to figure out a way up versus islam you know whereas obviously like he had the success with bala but that's a different beast with islam on top of you um and then the striking like you know i think it's going to be interesting to see how islam striking has evolved like

We've definitely seen it come along as he's been champ at the at 55. But it's got a long way to go to catch Jack. And if he starts having a little bit of extra confidence in that he shouldn't have, you know, might end up like Ballal and he better hope that he's got a chin like Belaw. Yeah, it's interesting. If you would have asked me this, like two weeks ago, I would have probably pretty heavily leaned towards Islam just because of the rest. Yeah.

But now watching what he did to Bilal, I'm like, well I don't know about that. I'm not so sure about that. And on the feet, Islam has definitely gotten better. There's no doubt about that. But Jack's going to have the size. He's going to have the reach. He's going to have the better boxing.

And he's clearly powerful. And listen, as you said, you better have a chin like Bilal because if he hit you, man, you're going down. And just like anything else when you go up and wait, you know, that's tough. Like it used to be like when Connor did it and beat Eddie Albert's, I was like, oh, man, it can be done. And it has been done a couple times. I know Daniel Cormié went up and one heavy.

be waiting things like that but we have seen some people fail at it too and and you know guys who come up short Israel being a great example of that so I don't think it's like two weeks ago I would have been leaning pretty heavily towards Islam right now I'm not like I'm not saying he can't win I'm just saying like my confidence is not as high as it once would have been after seeing what jack did it definitely makes it interesting now especially the way that jack just won you know I think that the next interesting part is you know how they're going to be doing training between now And then, because you know Jack's only going to be, not only, but he's going to put a pretty heavy emphasis on keeping that wrestling improving. And he better.

But is that going to start taking away from his striking? You know, and now Islam is obviously going to keep evolving his striking. So, yeah, the whole thing is pretty fascinating to me. And I'm with you. I'm not a huge fan of these champ versus champ things too much. This one I find really interesting. The only downside is think, you know, for Jack, I hate seeing his first defense against a guy coming up from a lighter division. I think didn't Islam do the same thing with Volcanovsky?

His first defense was against him. And I hate seeing that personally. But other than that, I mean, it's just a great matchup, I think. It's a very interesting matchup. Yeah. I mean, listen, we're all guilty. Well, not you and I. I think we're pretty complimentary.

But people are always going to have that revisionist history. Like they tried to take away the wins from Volk or from Islam over Volk. So you beat up a Fed away. But at the time, nobody was saying that. Volk was number one pound for back. He was on an incredible streak. He'd beaten Max Holloway three times. Like, he was the man.

No one was saying he didn't deserve it. No one said he didn't have a chance. And he went out there in that first fight, and it was a very, very close fight. Yeah, he took the second of 10 days notice and got head kicked out of the octagon. But that's, you know, it happens. So if Islam goes up, like don't take it away from Jack. I agree with you. I don't love it for that reason because you know if he goes out there and knocks out Islam Akachov,

the immediate reaction is going to be, oh, you knocked out a lightweight. Don't do that. No one was saying that going into Volk and Islam. No, not a single person was saying Volk didn't deserve it, didn't deserve to be in there. Only afterwards did we say or did anyone say, oh, he beat up a featherweight. So don't do it now. Don't do it if Islam goes up and gets absolutely obliterated by Jack Delam. and then take it away from Jack.

He just, if he wins, he just beat the number one pound for pound fighter in the world. And that still matters. Just as much as John Jones going up to heavyweight, and he would have gotten rocked and knocked out by Cyril Gone. It didn't happen, of course, but he could have. And you can't take that away from Cyril Gone. He would have just beaten the best fighter on planet Earth. So don't take that away from Jack just because he's fighting a guy who's coming up a weight class.

Yeah, I agree. And the, you know, weight matters in this sport. no question about it, but I think matchup matters more. And that's what's fascinating about this fight. I think it's, again, a couple weeks ago, we would have not really thought about this as a great matchup, but at this point in the way that Jack fought last weekend, this looks like a great matchup on paper.

Who knows how to play out, right? Most of the great matchups on paper don't play out the way we expect. And then the ones like last weekend, the Della, Madalina, and belal right turns out to be a great fight we didn't think it was a great match up so you can never predict but on paper this is a very interesting fight and i think a lot of people will be hyped to see it would you be on board with ilia fighting charles olivera for an interim title i think that's the perfect fight to make if if islam's going up you match up ilia and charles and do the damn thing i'm

sign me up for that one tomorrow yeah yeah i'm down for that 100% yeah why not When does Charles Oliver not put on a fun fight? Yeah, as I say, I love watching Charles regardless. You know, the only downsides I do think Charles is, I don't know if I want to say he's on his way out or not, but I get a feeling like he's towards the end of his career, right? He's got to be. He's had a ton of fights and, you know,

has a lot of really tough fights. But he's looked great in his last few fights. So, you know, it's tough saying that. But I would, I guess if I just had a choice, you know, it'd be a younger guy for Tuporia. But, you know, that's kind of nitpicking and, you know, pulling what they call it, splitting hairs.

You know what the fight they should make, and they're not going to do it, just to be clear, they're not going to do it. Excuse me. Just do Ily and Patty. They hate each other. Do Ily and Patty, man. That would be a big fight.

Patty's on a role right now, and he's talked a lot of trash about Teporia. Ilya does not like him. Who wouldn't watch that? Come on. And Patti look great, man. Patty just absolutely demolished Michael Chandler. Like, why not, dude? Let's have some fun.

Do Patty and Ilya? You know, I wouldn't be against it. You say, hey, you guys wanted Ilya to have a fight at 55 before he gets a title shot. There you go. He gets to fight Patty. And I'll say right now, I would not be confident in Iliott to Borri winning that fight. I'm not right now, I'll tell you that. I think

Patty Pimble looked good, man. He's a big lightweight. He looked, I mean, he dwarfed Michael Chandler. He's going to dwarf Iliot to Boria. The size would be the big X factor. Other than that, I mean, I think I'llie is, I'm definitely leaning towards Hilia pretty heavily. I mean, skill wise, yes, but when you add in that size factor, remember, he got, he got blasted by Jai Herbert, who is not an elite line.

Yeah, yeah. Not trying to knock Jai Herbert. Very big. Not trying to knock Jai Herbert, but like, Jai Herbert is not a top 15 lightway. He had Ilya on the ropes. Patty hit you like that. Patty gets on top of you like that. It could be a bad night at the office.

So I'm just saying it's an interesting match. Yeah. We talk about this a lot, Matt, when we have retirements in our sport, and I know we've talked about this before, you know, when you walked away and guys walking away at the right times and things like this, on Saturday night we saw Jose Aldo go out and have a questionable decision, for lack of a better word, lost to Amos Zahdi. And then afterwards, he pretty much said, I can't do it anymore.

And he didn't totally retire, but he kind of did. He took out of his gloves and I can't do this anymore. My body's not reacting the way I wanted to. I'm kind of out of here. And he obviously had a tough weight cut. He didn't make weight. He had to go up to better weight, all those kind of things. I guess the question I'm asking, Matt, do you truly believe we've seen the last of Jose Aldo?

Because I hate, I know we told me that this. That was the Anthony Smith thing. When he's pre-plan the retirement, you said, why you don't like that? And I tend when you explained it, I was like, you know what? I kind of agree with you. But I also hate the in the cage retirements. because you're in the heat of the moment. He just lost a really controversial decision.

He clearly had a bad week because he couldn't make weight and things like that. But I'm always like, man, I hate when guys do this because you know it's such an emotionally charged moment. Like, give yourself a couple days. So I don't know. How did you feel about it? And do you think we've actually seen Jose fight for the last time? It's tough to say, man. I'm not sure, you know, first you got to point out the fact that how bad of a decision it was, right?

and it sucks for that to happen to anyone. I don't know why, but for me personally, like it hit a little bit harder when it happened to Jose Auto, you know, just a legend like him. And, you know, you got to think, you know, his mind is still thinking, get back to the title. And, you know, he's such a great fighter. And then, you know, gets robbed of it, you know,

from some bullshit, right? You know, the truth is it probably hurts the up-and-coming lower fighters worse. So I should probably have more sympathy for them, I guess. But actually, I wish, like, can we just fix the fucking judging at some point? You know, I don't know if it'll ever be perfect, but it's just atrocious sometimes, you know,

just like Saturday. But, you know, who knows if he's going to stay retired, man? Like, oh, what is he now? He's got to be... 38, 38. Yeah, he could definitely be coming back, you know. At 38, that's, you know, he's always had a hard time cutting weight, I feel like, and he's put his body through a lot.

And, you know, the thing with Jose is, like, he relies on his speed and his athleticism a lot, and that's probably what he means by his body not reacting exactly the same, because that starts going around that age generally, which puts him in a tough position, but he still has good technique, you know, and I think he could still win a lot of fights. I think when you start getting to, because you got to wonder if he would have felt that same way had he won that fight, right?

And, you know, at some point he's, you know, he's probably asking himself, like, is this worth it to go in here and get robbed of these fights or, you know, to not be winning, right? Just period. And then maybe that's why I hit a little bit harder with him getting robbed and it's just like, you know it just seems so unfair and um i don't know again you don't know if he would have kept

fighting or not maybe he all maybe he did pre-plan it just didn't say it publicly but i had i got the feeling watching it that you know it heard him that he got uh they lost the decision was like dude fuck this i got i went through all this shit just had this hard fight almost got a finish and all this and and here I am fucking getting half my paycheck and walking out with my head down. Yeah, it was a bad, it was a bad decision. First off, let me just say that. I thought it was a terrible decision. And I have nothing against Amon's a hobby.

I've talked to him before really nice because certainly it's never the fighter's fault, by the way. It's always the judge. No, it's not the fighters, not, not Amon's the hobby's fault. As far as whether or not we've seen him for the last time, I kind of agree with you. I think it was an emotionally charged moment. He's probably just like, man. And can I just say, like, generally speaking, I think the UFC matchmakers do an incredible job.

Sean Shelby McMainer, they give us 98% of the fights we want to see. And yeah, you can complain sometimes one guy doesn't get a title shot or whatever, but it's still a business. Generally, it's a business decision when one guy gets a title shot. Usually it's because of timing or opportunity or fanfare or whatever the case may be. But Jose Aldo's run when he came back has been so weird because he kind of came back. back out of nowhere, got announced that Jonathan Martinez right down to Brazil when they needed a big fight to go along with the

Pentosia fight. They weren't able to put Alex Prairie down there because he fought at UFC 300s. They kind of out of nowhere, Josie Aldo comes out of retirement. And Jonathan Martinez is a good fighter, but it was still a little bit like that that just seems like a little bit weird matchmaking. He beats him. Then Mario Batista, I like Mario Batista very much.

Mario's a good fighter. He's got a big fight coming up with Cheetah Vera coming up. But even that one, I was like, this just doesn't make a whole lot of sense and then amazahabia i was like where did this come from like i know it's in montreal but like what are we doing for josialdo i know dominant cruz is retired and he's not going to get a rematch of marab and stuff like that but i'm just like we couldn't do like we couldn't do amali at aldo when o'mally was out or we couldn't do a aldo versus san hagen we could like a better matchup for him than those three like i'm not trying to insult you know zahabi and martinez and batista but those were all three

Like for Aldo, like he's a legend. Doesn't he deserve something different? Like a little bigger? No, I feel that. Yeah. And, you know, that's what this sport is, man. It uses you up and choose you and spits you out. You know, right?

So, you know, that's just what it is. And but I agree, man. You know, someone's legendary as Aldo and as great of a fighter as he's been and all the great things he's done. I would love to see him get a better send-off, you know? And, you know, I guess at this point, the best you could ask for is, you know, he'll get in the Hall of Fame and the, they'll give him a little montage during a paper view or something he's already in the hall of fame he got inducted after he retired the first time so he's already in the hall of fame oh well there you go so yeah my bad um yeah i mean there's not much more you can do for the guy you know so but that's what this sport is man you don't get to pick your matchups right you come in you want to fight you got to fight the lions and you know it's it's gonna chew you up and fit you out man

that that's just the nature of the game. The sad reality, and I know we talked about there was Anthony Smith and I don't want to repeat myself from that podcast a couple weeks ago, but the reality is far more guys, legends or not,

go out in this sport, having an Aldo moment. Now, his was, I think it was frustration because he clearly believes he won that fight, and I think he won that fight. But rarely do we get the Robbie Lawler moment.

You know, that is so rare and few and far between when a guy's like, I'm done, I'm retired, going to go out there and score this epic knockout, play the montage video, and I get to go out riding riding high. That so rarely happens in our sport. I mean, look at all the legends of the sport that are out there and check their record. And 90, probably 95% of them are

coming on a loss. A lot of them worse than that. I mean, I think Al does was more frustration because he should have won that decision. But still, that's the image of him sitting down against the cage with his gloves off looking pissed off. That's 95% of it. MMA retire because guys don't typically go out on top. That's the reality. Yeah. I don't know where his mind has been, right, retiring and, you know, why he came back, you know, if they gave him something special, you know, money or something.

Yeah, so it's just hard to say, man. You kind of got to dig into his own mindset and see he's, we're all so different. And if it's the only thing I would say is, you know, look, thank you to Jose Otto for everything you've done, man. I watched him in WEC at the Hard Rock when he fought Mike Brown. I think it was the first time that they fought maybe. And been a fan ever since, man. So, you know, I give nothing but props to that guy.

I love him to death. Don't know him at all, but love him to death, love watching him. And to me, he's been one of my favorite fighters to watch over the years. And, you know, so it fairs, I just hope the best for the guy. It's funny. I think I saw on Saturday night, and I didn't double check this, but I'm pretty sure it's accurate. When Dustin Porre retires in July with the Max Holloway fight, I think he is the last active WEC fighter still in the UFC. I think Aldo was the other one, of course.

And I know at the time, W.C was basically just UFC under a different banner. But I think Dustin Poree will be the last one. Like, it's weird to think about that because we always, like, for years, we always talked about what he did in W. what this guy did WEC, Condit was there and Faber and all these guys, but they're all gone, man, and the time passes. And I think, I think Porre is the last one. Wow, that's pretty wild, isn't it? Yeah.

That is wild, man. WC was a great organization. Probably half the people listened is don't even know what WEC is. But, hey, man, that was a great organization. And some of the best fighters came from there. So I remember watching it back in the day. You know, Faber was kind of the face of the WEC. back in the day, you know,

so I had some great memories from that. Oh, yeah, WC was great. My mentor, of course, Ryan Bennett used to call fights for WC, but yeah, you know, guys like, Yerai of Faber, I always remember Razor Rob McCullough fought over there. Carlos Condit was big over there. Yeah, and that's, I mean, you know, that's where

the lighter weight classes got, band weights, and fed weights. I mean, Dominant Cruz was incredible over there. And, you know, I mean, the list goes on and on. But it's wild to think about that. when I saw that thing on Saturday I was like, yeah, I guess that's kind of true because Cruz just retired.

I mean, favor's not to UFC anymore. I know he was going to fight for GFL, but that's a whole other story. But in terms of being into UFC, I think Porriet's the last one, which is crazy. I didn't even know that Poirier came from W.C. either way, he was a good featherway.

I think right before, right before they transferred everyone to UFC, he was like one fight away from a title shot, and they all transferred over. And then he got close, I think that's when he had the loss to the Korean zombie, and then obviously I had to fight with Connor, and then he moved up to Lightway.

But, yeah, Dustin was a WC original. He was younger, though. That was like his starting was in WC. He didn't get, he didn't get known until he got to the UFC. But yeah, he was in WC too. So it's kind of weird. Like, I know it's not really the end of an error because that last, like, three years of WEC,

those were all technically UFC guys. They were just, you know, UFC owned it. They just didn't have the divisions over in the UFC. But it's kind of wild to think, like, they're still pride guys kicking around. And to think that all the WC guys are gone, it's kind of crazy. That is wild, yeah. When I got a great deal on a great gift at winners,

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Yeah, well, what we got coming up next? This weekend, Gilbert Burns, taking on Michael Morales at the Apex, everyone's favorite Apex, which is not everyone's favorite Apex. And then next weekend, we got Aaron Blanchfield and Macy Barber, which is a pretty interesting fight. We all know you're a big, big fan of women's MMA, so that's a big one coming on next weekend. And then we roll into UFC, what number is it, 316, with Marab and O'Malley 2. So that's coming up. So about three weeks away from that.

Nice. You got a lot of good stuff coming up. But that would be clear, you know, when I talk about the women. MMA. If anyone wants to talk shit from all the messages that I got, like I do respect some of the women in MMA. Shevchenko actually liked her fight last weekend. You know,

it wasn't the most exciting fight ever. But like, I actually like watching her fight. She's really skilled and it's cool to watch. Kayla Harrison is a fucking monster. I used to love watching Cyborg. So it'll be clear. Like, I'm not opposed.

to simply women's M.A. My point is the vast majority of them fucking suck. And, and, like, you can't, I think it's a hard argument to make that most of them don't suck,

right? It's, uh, I'm not even gonna, I'm not even gonna get in that side of thing, but I think it's, you don't want to say, you don't want to say anything. No,

no, what I say, when I said, and I said this when Kayla came over, because I said, my God, Kayla is like, she,

They needed her so desperately because that division was dead, deader than dead in the water. Like Rhonda leaving and then Amanda leaving was like, oh my God, this division is just dead. Kayla coming in was a big deal. And now they're actually the anticipation building towards her and Giuliana Pena. And last Saturday night, you know,

Valentina won. Immediately everyone's like, you got to make the fight with Zhang Lee. And I saw people saying, you need to make this fight because it gives something to get excited about. Because are people going to be, I think Natalia, silver look great she beat Alexa

Grasso, a great win, but is anyone really going to be that jazzed to see Valentina versus Natalia Silva? That's not a knock on Natalia Silva. I'm just saying like there's no excitement right now. Like there just isn't. Well, mainly like the excitement is Kayla Harrison because she's good.

Valentina is legitimately. Valentina is a monster. Like she is good. Like you probably remember maybe a year ago, maybe a little less, a little more. when Aaron Blanchfield was coming up. Like I was big on her.

I was like, bro, like we have a actually like really good skilled lady here. Has it panned out quite the way that I expected. But, you know, look, when I like watching very good, high-skilled MMA, this substandard kind of, you know, Betch Karea type MMA doesn't do it for me. It's funny because I get, I get criticized. I honestly criticize. I get, I get comment. occasionally when they're like, why don't you tweet and cover a lot of regional promotions?

And I'm like, I do watch regional MMA. I do. I like to watch LFA and I do like to watch KSW and other promotions. But there's sometimes when I watch regional MMA and it looks like regional MMA. Like, yes, you can get a highlight real knockout, but that's because you're watching one guy who's kind of good and one guy who's really bad. And you can recognize that. Like, you know, you can recognize when the skill level is like, I know, I'm, I'm, I'm,

I'm beating up on him. I'm sorry, I don't mean to do this. But when you watch CM Punk in the UFC, you knew he didn't belong in there. You're like, this guy has no business being in the UFC. This is, as you said, the Super Bowl MMA. This guy didn't, this guy should have been nowhere near. I don't belong in there. Trust me.

I know I don't belong. Like, I know that. And so that's why when people are like, man, why don't you? I'm like, I do watch it occasionally. But when you get used to watching the UFC or Bellator or PFL, where they had like the best of the best, it's hard to go back and watch the guys who are 3 and O and they're just clearly not as skilled or the guys who are who do guys are like 15 fights in their career

and you know they're never going to get to the UFC. You just know watching them. It's no different than watching football. And you say, that's like why don't more people watch the NFL or whatever it's called the one of the Rock owns? It's because it's the players who aren't good enough to be in the NFL. It's not the same level.

Right. And, yeah, and again, I just got to reiterate it because I think people misunderstand. And they think that I'm against it just because, like, I don't know, misogynist or some fucking weirdo or something or I don't like it just because it's women or like I'm Sean Strickland or some shit. And I'm like, no, like, I like watching the best fighters. It doesn't have to be a bloody brawl every time. You know, and that is why I think a lot of people like women's inmate because it turns into brawls a lot. the time. Like wild brawls, sometimes bloody, sometimes not, because most of them don't hit that

hard as it doesn't get bloody. But it has nothing to do with whether it's male or female. I want to watch the highest skilled motherfuckers in the world. And, you know, it's the same reason like no one watches WNBA. Like, they're not dunking. You know, I was like, okay, well, I don't really want to watch it then. You can't even touch the rim. Yeah, it's different.

I'm not defending what you're saying, but I, and I'm just putting it out there. Like, I'm sure you remember years ago, like, Kibibna Mavameda, okay, Mom, and said, like, I just don't want to watch women fight. He's allowed to have that opinion, by the way. He's a lot. But his thing was he just didn't want to see two women hit each other. And then he gets Sean Strickland, who's like, you know, I want you to be back in the kitchen or whatever. You're not even, you're not saying it in like that way.

You're not saying women shouldn't be allowed to fight. You're saying, I want to see more skilled fighters. and right now that's not represented, in your opinion, by women's MMA. That is probably a one sentence clear way to say what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. And guess what? You could probably say that about some of the men's divisions over the years as well, by the way.

Oh, yeah. Maybe not right. You could definitely say that about some of the men's divisions. 100%. Like, I don't watch regional MMA hardly at all, like unless I'm going with one of my guys. Because it's not that interesting. I'm like, yeah, you get some wild brawls and stuff, but like most of them suck.

Like you said, you know, and it sucks for women because, you know, Shevchenko, she's had to fight like some fucking women that shouldn't be fighting. Like they, sometimes I watch them and I'm like, like you legitimately should not be competing in this sport. And I think that's where, you know, Sean Strickland says it a little bit more harsher,

but he's like, you should just be in the kitchen. Because he watches some of these fights, and he's like, you could probably cook better than you could fight. It just, it was like, Hedge Correa is sort of the, the archa type of what I'm talking about here, right?

She's the scene punk of the way. Yeah, I mean, I mean, she's literally the archa type that, that I'm talking about where, like, like, why would anybody want to watch that?

Well, and as I talk about the regional MMA, like, I've seen some really cool highlights of, like, a guy getting a spinning wheel kick knockout. And occasionally, something like that will go viral. Someone will be like, oh, man, and everyone picks up on it. But the vast majority, when you just say random dude knocks out other random dude with a cool kick, unless it's something so spectacular that you've never seen before, people don't really care. But if you say Jack Della Madelena. scores crazy knockout over such and such guy or Edson Barbosa or whatever, there's name value because we know how good Jack Delah Madeleine is. We know how good Edson Barbosa is.

Just saying fighter, random fighter A, knocks out random fighter B. I've been to regional shows here in Ohio a lot of times, and I've seen some entertaining fights, but there's a lot of times. There's one show. I can't remember the name of the car. I was a few years ago, and I was there. I think maybe it was, maybe Ouse was there doing, I care who it was, but it was here. in Columbus. And that was why it was a long car. And I was watching the fights and I was like,

Jesus Christ, this is just like, it's rough, man. Like this is like, these are guys who are, I understand they're young and they're very early in their career, but there was a couple of guys on that car where I'm just like probably shouldn't think about this as a career. You should probably, this should be your hobby. This should never be your career. I don't, I want to see the UFC. I want to see the best of the best. Right. And that's what's unfortunate is, you know, when you get, when you're watching a UFC card and you're watching some girl go for a head arm throw and slip on it again. And it's like the 10th headarm throw of the month that you see from girls that they miss because it's a poor technique. You know, it's like a playground

technique. It's like, yeah, that doesn't really interest me, even if it turns into a wild brawl. You know, it's like, like McKinsey Dern, I think is like an amazing fighter. But when I watch her stand up and throw punches on the feet. I'm like, why are you even doing the sport? Like, go back to Jit-Soo. And, like, I love watching her fight, actually. It's fairly enjoyable when she gets to the grappling part. Then it's all of a sudden it's fascinating.

It's like, you're doing some really cool things. But if she's on the feet, I'm like, like, I can literally go to a car this weekend and watch a guy in his first fight, and he's going to have better technique than that. well as and i and i said this last week and i'll say it again now i think the problem my and i'm not even talking about the skill level my problem is there's just been no development like we just don't have like Aaron blancheville's a great example she's a good she's 26 she's a good example and she's like macy barber who's like 26 or 27 that's a good example of fighters who are young and coming up and could get better we talk about jack i think jack's like 29 between

his last fight and his new fight we saw how much better he got right when you're 35 36, 37. I'm not saying you can't evolve, but you're not at that stage of your career anymore. You are, you know, you are who you are probably at 38, 37. You're probably the same fighter you're going to be until you're done. That's who's representing women's MMA right now. Every champion is 35 or older. We're not getting that youth movement in there. There's not that like surge. Like we have Rola Roses Jr. You can say Rola Roses Jr. isn't a top 10 guy yet, but he's 19 years old or 20. He's got a lot of time to get better. You know what I mean? Like John Jones, at 23 was already the champion, but he's still gotten dramatically better now.

He's like 38. There's no 23-year-old right now in the women's division. I'm like, man, she's got it all, and she's just going to get better. Everyone's like 35, 36, 37, 37, 37, years old. How is this representing the sport getting better? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, it's difficult. When you talk about development, too, like even just bringing in

younger women that are good like that? I mean, I don't know. It's tough enough even for men which there's thousands of them in the world. Like every man wants to be a fighter, right? Like it's just a normal thing. But the only ones that really succeed in it's like they got some real fucking screws loose, you know?

And you get in there with, I don't know, you put some women in and you know, they got these like I think you got to have like a little bit of extra screws loose to be a woman that wants to fight. And, you know, or you have to be like a real martial artist, like a chef chinko, right? Like, I think she's got her head together pretty well, but she's like a martial artist, martial artist.

And there's just not as much draw to it. You know, when you're growing up as a woman in America and probably the same in other countries, right? Like, why you want to be a martial artist, right? And if you got screws loose, it's like, it's, if you got these screws loose. You know, most of them, they go into like only fans or porn or something or stripping or something. Like that's the job for the women with the fucking screws loose, right? It's not going to be a fighter.

It's so much easier to just go fucking take your clothes off. Well, it's also, and the other problem that I think a lot of the women have right now is that like there are really, there are like Chris Cyborg is a monster. I think you would agree. Chris Cyborg is a monster. Problem is Chris Cyborg competes in a division that doesn't really exist. There aren't that many good, 145-5-bun fighters. I know talking about Kennedy Blades.

I don't know if you know who Kennedy Blades is. Silver medalist Olympian. Monster. And I've talked to her before. She trains with Izzy Martinez, of course, well known in the MMA world, coach John Jones,

Holly Holme, so on and so forth. I asked her at one point after the Olympics, and she said, she said, I'm interested in doing an MMA at some point. Like, I think it'd be crazy not to try because she trained,

she helped Holly Holm get ready. for a fight like she trains out in albuquerque problem is that i think if i did the conversion right i think uh kennedy blaze wrestles like 160 pounds yeah if she does m m tomorrow yeah she's vener she's one the best athletes in the country but she has no one to fight because there's no hundred and there's no good 160 pounds what look what happened to clara s shields she lost to a really bad fighter in m m m ms she's an incredible boxer there's no one for to fight m ms she five weighs like 165 she has no one to fight because there's the depth is not there so that's another problem you can be a chris cyborg is a legend she's legitimately good fighter but after she rolled

through like five girls there's no one else for her to fight yes i think it's got a long way to go i think it's an uphill battle to be honest but um but look for all the girls out there that are trained as martial artists and want to do something you know i'm going to hope the best for you And I really hope it works out. Like I would like to see some high level women's MMA. Yeah. I think it's just an uphill battle. I think it's a difficult thing to do.

And I think it's going to be tough to accomplish. And I can't stress enough, you know, what I was just saying. Like the, I look like, like very, very few people do this sport that are not fucking nuts in the head. You interview fighters all the time, right? Like not saying not a lot of intelligent people, well-spoken people. or well-spoken people, but to decide to go fight in front of people for money and risk your life to make money,

it's just a terrible business model, right? It's not the most intelligent way to go. It's not a sustainable way. It's a low, it's a high risk, mostly low reward for most people. You get little to no reward for the vast majority, and then, you know, you have a very small few that make some money and make a living doing it right it should just not it's like trying to be a

musician you know it's a fucking uphill battle it's just the it's not a great business model and and and you know the only difference between this and like trying to be a musician is you know you could tear a cell any time you know you can fucking get knocked out and never speak properly again you know the the consequences the risks are absolutely enormous so you know, if a woman is that crazy, like, I know a lot of strippers, bro. Like, if a woman's that crazy, like, that's probably going to be their lower hanging fruit, right? That's their fucking, you know, if you want to go into a job with, you know, where your psychoness helps you. Like, in, MMA or stripping, like, what do you think most women are going to choose?

There's fucking strippers all over the place, right? Well, and also you got to remember, we talk about depth of a division. Like, remember years ago, there was like a very, very brief period of time where people were like, we need a 115 pound men's division. You remember this? Like, this is going back like maybe like a decade ago. So I think like in Atachi Palace, which is what WC kind of became, they had like a 115 pound division. There was a little bit of a buzz.

We're like, we need a 115 pound men's division. And then everyone's like, hold on now. A, a lot of people don't really care about fly weights, which are 125. and there's not realistically there just aren't a lot of really good men who walk around 115 pounds that's a tiny human being for a man yeah i think you have to go over i think like divisions like that probably work better in like asia you know like you go watch boy tie fights over in asia like there's a lot of 115 120 guys all over the place yeah but i think my guess has always been that's part of the one of the issues with moitai right like in america for

whatever reason like we love heavyweight fighters right the heavyweight division is almost always been one of the weaker divisions in boxing and in mama but it's always got the most popular guys right like we love heavyweight mhm a we love you know gigantic guys going there swinging and knocking each other out with one punch in asia they love skill technique and and and warrior spirit and stuff like that. And there's generally more population of smaller people. I don't know another way to put it, right? They're just smaller over there.

Like, you can go over to Japan or Asia or something. Walk around, you'll see. Like, they're just smaller than Americans. So I think that that would work great over there. But, you know, when you're trying to appeal to the Americans, you know, and someone relatable and someone that they're going to talk about at the bar like this dude fuck up everybody in here or what's the whole thing now like would how would would would take a gorilla or something yeah yeah yeah it's like you like my answer that question was like

well what first what are the hundred men look like do i get a hundred brock lesnors like i think we got a shot but do i get a hundred you know tie guys that you know coming from the rice fields like okay i'm I don't have my, I don't have quite the same confidence now. Yeah, 100% true. 100% true. Well, like I said, and you know what? The reality is, like it or not, everyone can agree or disagree. You are 100% entitled to your opinion, and that's your opinion.

And you're certainly, I mean, you are a legend of sport. You can like what you like. You can dislike. There's people who tell me they don't watch heavy anyway to me because it's sloppy. Okay. You know, you know, I do subscribe to like, you know, have your own opinion thing, but I also subscribe to like your opinion should have some fucking backing to it too. Like don't get to have a fucking opinion because you got a fucking opinion.

Fuck your opinion if you don't have some reasoning behind it. And it's like like all of my opinions, you know, not try like to my own horn, but I try to think like all my opinions can be changed. Right. You know, I don't think anybody's truly like that. Like your opinions are really your opinions. But, you know, I try to be open mind. to the point where like, okay, if you can prove me wrong, like, if you show me like, I don't know, 10 really high level women's martial artists in the UFC,

you know, maybe I'd be more interested in watching, you know. Maybe one day, maybe one day Papa Roach will put out a death metal album. They'll really turn things around. They'll look at the Shugga and suddenly you'll be like, whoa, what happened at Papa Roach? You guys turn me around on you guys. In my opinion of Papa Roach can change. but if they still are called Papa Roach like they're going to have to change your name

you know yes you are you are you aren't you're changing an opinion that's a fired up fucking weird leech here there's too oh Papa Roach all right yeah good stuff and yeah

I mean listen that's I agree with you in a sense of like your reason you actually have reasoning I don't want to just sit there and dog on Sean Strickland But you're not just saying I don't like women Because they should be in the kitchen You actually have a reason for disliking it So I think there's a little

I think you have a stronger opinion That Sean Strickland does Matt To be fair to Sean Strickland I think he's saying He's just not expanding on what he actually feel You know And I don't know He might just be a dumb ass too

I don't know But yeah I think he I think he likes to keep it short and simple to get more clicks, too, right? That's true. That's true. That's kind of Sean Strickland's thing. All right. We're going to be back next week.

Like I said, we got Gilbert Burns and Michael Morales coming up this weekend. Interesting fight. We're going to get closer and closer, of course, to U.S. 316, Marab and O'Malley 2, and of course, Kayla and Giuliana Pena. I'm sure that breakdown will be fun. So we'll talk about that in a couple weeks. So we always got something going on. Hopefully, I'm wondering by the time we do our next podcast, Josie,

who's already announced his next fight. I think that's definitely a possibility. You never know. As always, like, say, I wouldn't thank you to tuning in. Matt, if people want to check you out, obviously get the new gym open now. So what's going on?

People where they want to find out, what you got going on besides the podcast? Yeah, you know, the social media, at I'm the Immortal on Instagram and Twitter. The Immortal Matt Brown on Facebook. Yeah, that's where you can check me out. I haven't been too active lately, though. You know, I've just been doing my thing, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Actually, which I guess I could announce on the podcast too, I'll be playing a first gig, actually, June 14th. It'd just be like cover shit, you know, in a local bar here. But it's been a fucking blast, actually. I've learned a shit ton. Like, I've never tried to, like, actually play songs, you know, outside of just, you know, the bedroom, right? But, you know, setting up for live and, like, trying to be in sync with the whole band and everything.

It's been a pretty good experience, you know, being around other good musicians. It's been pretty cool. So we'll have some fun with that. That's been kind of why I've been so much off of social media. I've been fucking practicing, man, trying to get good to this motherfucker and do it good. So I knew about this gig, because I'm going to go to it. I knew about this gig a while ago,

but can I ask? I don't think I've been asking you on the spot. Do you guys have a name yet? I don't think I ever heard the name. Did you get it come up with the name yet? The senior came up with a name. I don't know if we're going to keep it. That does not sound like a ringing endorsement.

Well, we'll see. You know, it's an all right name. He called an unclean slate, which is like, that's a cool name, you know. I just thought they would, I was trying to not, you know, pump myself up too much, you know, but I was kind of like, I feel like we should probably use my name. Like, I'm not like, I'm not like fucking Brad Pitt celebrity or anything,

but I'm kind of, like no one cares about just another cover band, right? Yeah. They want to see the UFC fighters, I think. I don't know. Like you said, I feel weird saying it because I don't want to like shoot my own horn and be humble about it. But I'm on the other side, I'm like kind of true though, right? I mean, no offense. Like, you know, I mean, people are going to come out and see the band, chances are for the first time they're going to want to come.

They're going to try to come see you play. You know, they're not necessarily going to see like, you know, Johnny, the lead singer they never heard of before. so yeah, you know, call it like immortalized or immortal something, like it kind of makes sense, you know, so. Fucking immortal. Yeah, the immortal. Just called the immortal. I think that works. Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong.

That's not an ego thing. That's a truth thing. Like, you know, so. Yeah, so whatever. We'll figure it out. I don't give fuck what the name is, to be honest. I'm just going to be playing for fun. And, yeah, it'll be a good time, man.

I think you'll care. I think you'll care if they announce you as Mama Roach. I think you will care if that's the name they come up with. Yeah, that's a idiot reason. Matt Brown walks off stage during debut show after band announces Mama Roach. All right. As always, I want to say a big thank you to everyone tuning in. Make sure you check us on all your favorite podcast platforms, Apple Podcast, Spotify,

and of course, ever on the best website in the world. M.AFighting.com for Matt Brown. I am Damon Martin. you back next week for another edition of the Fire vs. The Rider. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you then. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to Lux Beauty and Fragrant Sets, our special selection has something for every style and price point.

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