MMA Fighting - Fighter vs. Writer: Matt Brown Explains Why He Wasn’t Impressed by Justin Gaethje vs. Paddy Pimblett at UFC 324

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

On the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer, UFC legend Matt Brown and Damon Martin discuss the fallout from UFC 324 including Justin Gaethje’s win over Paddy Pimblett. Brown explains his criticism about the fight and why he wasn’t blown away by the performances he witnessed on Saturday night. We’ll also discuss Gaethje’s chances against Ilia Topuria, if Pimblett got fraud-checked in his loss plus we look ahead at Alexander Volkanovski vs. Diego Lopes 2 at UFC 325 and 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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champion, kind of a dubious honor. I guess it would be a two-time interim champion, but he is now the two-time interim champion put on a pretty dominant performance against Patty Pimbled. Sean O'Malley takes out Song Yodong, first ever show on Paramount. Thoughts, Matt, how you feeling after the weekend? And also here in Ohio where we got absolutely dumped on the snow. I know, right? Like, got out of the house for the first time. And few days today and to go shovel snow like a lot of fun but you know hey we got to sit at home and i think overall like it's a pretty entertaining car right i mean i think a lot of the complaints were justified about the ads and not seeing walkouts and not listening to the corners very much

and constant ads right that i think that was kind of annoying but overall i mean i think it was about what we expected right there was no armin there was no ilia um you know, the two significant fights, right, which was Davidson and versus Omar and then Sean O'Malley's song yadong. I mean, they weren't, I wouldn't say predictably the way you predict, but I think it was pretty much, you know, nothing surprising there than the way those two went. And the main event, I guess there was a little bit of surprise there that Patty kind of hung in the way that he did, but as I'm sure we'll get to, you know, I think a lot of people already

know my thoughts on that fight, but... Well, let's get into it because, you know, there was, I hate to use the word controversial. It's just an opinion, but like, you know, Josh Burnett, who I love, Josh is a friend of mine, but go back many, many years, Josh is a great dude, and obviously been around the sport, coached and fought at the highest level, so he's obviously entitled to his opinion. He had actually said, you know, one of the worst main events. Like, he said it was not a good fight, you know, sloppy, and I don't want to misquote him, but I know you basically said, I agree.

And, you know, and basically neither one of these guys, Justin or Patty, would have much of a chance against Ilya or Armin. And, of course, the Twitter army comes out for your throats because you dared to say a slug fest that got fight in the night was not a good fight. So, Matt, I'll turn on floor, but you, can you explain? Because, like, on Twitter, you just don't have, you can't really characterize what your true feelings are. So, like, give me your thoughts when you say, like, he said one of the worst main events ever, and you agree with him.

Why? Why did you say that? Look, me and him, well, I'd actually tweeted my own similar thoughts separately, right? And then I was just kind of scrolling through. And Josh Barnett's one of the people that follows. So he came up on my feed. And I said, oh, wow, he basically said the same thing I said in different words. And basically all that I was saying was, how do I put this way? Okay, so look, when I go to watch a UFC fight, and particularly when I'm watching the title fight,

again, this is not necessarily surprising what we've seen. but when I go to watch UFC, I'm looking at the Super Bowl of MMA. I'm looking at, you know, I want to see the highest level martial arts that the world can produce, and that's what the UFC does is they go get the best guys in the world

and they beat the hell out of each other until one gets a title shot. And when you're looking at a title shot, even an interim title, you're looking at two of the best martial artists on this planet. And what we've seen on Saturday was two of the toughest guys on the planet swinging for the fences with no skill, hardly at all.

And I believe both of them are more skilled than that. I'm not taking anything away from them, but what they showed on Saturday night was probably non-indicative of their skill, but they did not fight like I would expect a world champion to be fighting. When I'm watching, When I think of a world championship fight, I think of GSP, I think of Anderson Silva, Israel-A-Assain.

Hell, just a couple weeks ago, one of the most skilled fights I've ever seen in my life, Peter Jan and Marab, however you say his last name, Rob. I mean, you know, it was a slug fest too, right? I mean, these guys went in some ways, but, you know, these guys went at it with everything they got. And they left everything out there, but they showed skill constantly. And that I have a ton of respect for the way that that Patty and Justin fought. I mean, I've literally seen fights like that on local shows. I mean, here in Columbus. So, you know, not trying to take a single thing away from them.

You know, I'm sure, you know, if this gets clipped out onto Instagram, whatever, you know, it would be, it'll be hater after hater thinking that, you know, I'm, I think, I'm better than them or or, you know, who am I to say this kind of shit? Well, you know, whatever kind of shit people say. But when you're looking, when you're watching UFC and you're watching

a title fight, that's what, is that not what you want? Is the best? Right? If you're watching an NFL, you're watching the Super Bowl, you don't want to see the Browns versus, I don't know, the, who else sucks? Like the Panthers or something. You know, I don't, you know what I mean? The Browns

is the only what I can think of. Right? But, you know, you know, you know, you don't want to watch, you know, a high school game or something, right? You want to see the best going at the best, and you want to see the skill. And, you know, I get where it's an entertaining fight too, right? It was certainly entertaining. I mean, there was a lot of back and forth. And Patty showed up, right?

I mean, he fucking showed up, man. And he fought the best that he could fight. Probably not the best game plan, but, you know, he fought his heart out. and he's certainly got a chin, but, you know, what is having a chin, you know, being tough? What does that mean, really, right? Like, we're all, we all have chins. We're all tough. So every fighter in the UFC.

So that's the long version, I guess. Yeah. Well, and here's the one thing I noticed definitely about the fight. I'm sure you'll agree with me when I say this. When we did our preview last week, I said one of the things that Justin Gaguchi has gotten so much better at is he become a lot more technical and tactical. in his approach. I think that's how he knocked out Dustin Pori, but that really taken a lot of damage.

He went out there and headkick knocked out of Dustin Pori and had a good fight. Justin had kind of gotten away from that, like just go out there and swing for the fences, let's put on an entertaining fight. So they were still entertaining, but he put a little bit more skill into a little bit more game planning into it. It felt to me like Saturday night,

he just threw all that out the window and went back to the old Justin Gachie. It reminded me of like the World Series of fighting Justin Gachie, the guy who fought Michael Johnson, Justin Gathey, who just goes out there and just balls, the wall, hammered down on the gas pedal until it's over. And, because he was swinging

from his hips. Like, he was just swinging. Now, maybe part of that is because he just didn't feel danger from Patty, because once Patty hit him a couple times, he kind of walked through it and didn't feel maybe he was in damning. Patty hit him like a knee up the middle, and Justin just kind of blinked and kept coming. Like, it didn't even look like it affected him. So maybe he's just like, you know

what? I don't need skill in this fight. I'm just going to I'll just beat the shit out of this guy. And to Patty's credit, he showed an incredible chin, although I've said for years, I think it's kind of a dubious honor to be like, you had a great chin. That means you get the shit beat out of you and you just survived. I don't know if that's a really great compliment. But it was weird because, like, I thought, like I thought if Justin won it was going to be like because he fought like Justin had been fighting recently where he's really, you know, really tactical, not just getting drawn into those brawes.

He just kind of threw all that out of the window on Saturday night and he went back to the old Justin Gachie. Now that Justin Gachie won a lot of fights and did a lot of great things in his career, but he was also taking a lot of damage. And I don't know that he took as much damage, but he did seem to just kind of throw the whole game plan out the window. And he's just like, I'm going to march this dude down. And if that was, you know, probably 95% of their lightweight, so they probably would have got knocked out. Credit to, you know, I guess once again, credit to Patty for surviving. But that's all he really did. He survived.

He didn't go out there, like, he didn't bring it. Like, I think Justin almost felt like I could just walk through this dude. And he did do a large extent. Like, you know, what we're really crediting here, Matt, in like the slugfest is Justin beat the show. out of Patty Pimbled, and Patty Pimbleau wouldn't go away. You know what I mean? There was like one round. There was like one round where Patty kind of had a moment or two.

But like even then, Justin never really seemed hurt. He never really seemed in trouble. He just walked through the dude. And like I said, I'm not making his shoes for Justin Gagie. I just wonder maybe he went in there, felt his power. And he's like, you know what? This dude can't hurt me. I'm just going to walk this dude down.

Yeah, it made me it almost worked in like the first minute or two of the fight, right? You know, I think honestly, like what it is for me. and maybe Josh is on the same page. I've been around the sport for a long, long time, right? And as so of you. And to be honest, like these slug fest, like, they just don't excite me like they used to. You know, I've seen so many of them and hell, I've been involved in enough of them myself. You know, I'm not out here like putting myself up on a pedestal.

Like I'm some special guy that hasn't been involved in these types of things myself. But it's fun, right? I get it. I get where Justin once at because it's a fucking blast, right? No doubt about it. But, excuse me, but look, like, maybe I'm just becoming an old grumpy man or something, I don't know. But that just doesn't excite me like it used to. You know, I like, I watch Moytai all the time, but you see fights that are that intense and tough every week at Raja Stadium.

Every week. But these guys are showing the highest level of skill and composure and posture and balance and technique and, and reaction times and skills and trying new things and and and that's what I like seeing man you know I like seeing you know Israel Adasani and Kevin Kelvin Gaslam was a great example right these guys you know that was a fucking slug fest right they're beating the shit of each other back and forth and and work it through like like it's like there's one type of heart where it's just where it's just a will to go and and you know throwing sloppy punches and and strikes and

and doing wild stuff it's another type of heart like a true warrior that can work through those those the pain and the suffering and maintain your composure and still be able to use technique right Dustin Poirier is one of the greatest at it right like he would he would have he's knocked down drag out wars but the part of of him being able to maintain, you know, his chance to win was that he stayed composed constantly, right? He could be getting beat to hell, but he keeps coming, but he stays composed.

And that to me is just another level of respect to have. We all like watching these slug fest. We all like watching the knockdown, dragged out wars. But, I mean, I want to see the skill, right? And, again, I kind of, you see it all the time in other sports. and I just expect that out of a UFC title fight, and it's not what we got. We got what literally looked like a regional show fight.

Well, and I'm not justifying or trying to, you know, I'm not necessarily backing up what you're saying, but here's where I think, and please tell me if I'm wrong. Israel out of Sonia afterwards said this felt like Bonner Griffin. This was a tough one finale. I think that's a pretty fair comparison because that was just an all-out slugfest. Now, here's what you're talking about, and here's where I tend to agree with you. Griffin Bonner was iconic.

It was a slug fest. It is a memorable fight, but that was two dudes trying to get in the UFC. Now, did Forrest Griffin go on to become a champion? And great, he did. He absolutely did, and he deserves that credit. But that was years down the road. Those were two guys just basically like, let's put on the show for the ages and get in the UFC. And guess what they did?

That will always go down as one of the most iconic fights of all time. But when I think about what you're talking about, I think here's what you're going to agree with me, when I think about what a great fighting is, is and like oh my god the skill level we just saw islam makachev against alexander volkanowski won yeah that was a five-round war quote-unquote war back and forth great ground great striking had everything back and forth back and forth back and forth and then islam ends up winning the fight that to me was like the highest skill level of like a title fight that you will ever ever see right i think the comparison to griffin bonner's pretty accurate right like that is a slug fest but those are

I don't know that you really want to be compared to two guys who were just trying to get in the UFC compared to two guys who are trying to show we're the best 155 pounder in the world. Is that kind of what we're getting out here? I feel that, yeah, because you're also talking about two guys trying to get in the UFC, what, 15, 20 years ago also, right? Like, if we're not involved past this at all? And it was also, like, neither one of those guys showed any signs that they are the best in the world. Look, and I'm not hate on these guys.

you know, this is where I know it's all going to get twisted up and be, ah, he's a fucking hater, like, he's a dip shit or, you know, whatever kind of things people say. But, but look, like, they did not exhibit anything showing that they're the best in the world. They showed that maybe they're the toughest in the world, right? But, you know, we don't really know, right? We haven't seen Ilya in a fight like that, right?

I think he had one tough fight where he got knocked down, came back, and ended up beating the guy pretty handedly after that. But, like, who's to say, like, he, can't handle that kind of situation. Armands had very tough fights at the fight with Islam, which I mean he did lose, but I mean, he stayed into the end and it was a very, very tough fight. You know, you get something like these guys can't do that or they're just actually good enough to not have to have to do that.

And that's that was kind of my biggest complaint. It's like, okay, first off, before the fight even happened, it shouldn't have happened, right? This should not be an interim title fight to begin with. and then they go out and they basically prove to us that this should not be an interim title fight like neither one of these guys truly deserve to be fighting Ilya or Armin and yeah so it

I wouldn't say like left a bad taste in my mouth or anything I mean I was just saying what I felt right and I mean it was I think those guys themselves would admit like it was a sloppy you know undisciplined fight like no they had no responsible hands, responsible posture, no discipline. I think they'd probably agree with that, right?

And Justin Gagie, I mean, with all respect to him, I mean, the guy doesn't care about that stuff either, right? It seemed like he was kind of moving towards that. But Saturday, he did not care about that stuff at all. You know, maybe there's something going on. Like a lot of people were saying he had staff or something. Look, you know, maybe there was, you know, Maybe when the UFC called him, like, hey, we'll give you this interim title fight, but you better fucking go for a war.

You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. Like, it's all just guesses, but, you know, the fact that anyone would disagree with the fact that this was a sloppy slug fest, I mean, just blows my mind. I mean, it wasn't a high-scale, high-level fight. It was just two guys swinging for the fences. And, you know, Justin's just better at that game. He's probably the best in the world at that game. And I'm not making excuses for Justin.

I just wonder, like, my one question coming out of it was like, I wonder if he just looked at Patty and said, realistically, this guy's no danger to me. And I'm just going to go out there and beat this kid up. And he did, by the way. That certainly would have felt like when he first came out, right? Yeah, like, he just went out there and was just like, no, this dude's got nothing for me. And he just, I mean, even when, even like in those brief moments in the grappling,

Justin was winning those exchanges. Like, when he got him down in the front headlock, Patty couldn't do anything. So I wonder if there wasn't just part of Justin's just like, I don't really need to be technical in this fight. I could just go out there and beat the shit out of this kid. And he did. Now, I will say this. And I know this is something else you mentioned on Twitter. And I agree.

My one thought coming out of the end of this fight, and by the way, I think Justin Gachie is a tremendous fighter. All-time legend, he will go in the Hall of Fame one day. But my first thought coming out was, man, cool to see him win. He dominated the vast majority of the fight. I had it 49, 46, four rounds to one for Justin. And the one round of Patty won. I don't, it wasn't really like a blowout. He just kind of like a couple things here and there.

And I think Justin kind of slowed down a little bit. But my first thought honestly was like, wow, Ilya is going to assassinate either one of these guys. Because he is technical. He's not a brawler. He is incredibly sound. And I was like, if you go in and have this kind of fight against Ilya they're going to carry you out of the octagon.

Because that dude is a monster. And if Patty fought him, Patty would not last two rounds with Ili. Now, I'm giving credit where credit is due with Justin. If Justin fights like he did against Dustin Porre in their rematch when he knocked him out the headkick or what he did against Fiziv, maybe it's a better fight. But if he fights Ilya the way he fought Patty, that might be the worst knockout of his career because Ilya will absolutely terrify you doing that because that guy is not a brawler. He is technical. He is sound and he hits like a truck. That was my first thought too. I was like, oh boy, I did not get excited about either one of these guys fighting

in Ilya Tepori right now. Yeah, or Armin, right? Yeah. I didn't see anything in either one in that fight at all that indicated that either one of those guys has a chance against either one of the two guys that should be fighting for a title. Yeah, 100%. And again, that was, you know, to me, that just kind of added to the, I don't know, the bad feeling about that fight, you know.

And then the way they fought, you're kind of like. God, like, you know, this doesn't look like or feel like a title fight at all to me. And I don't know. You know, again, I still enjoyed it, right? I thoroughly enjoyed it. Like, but again, maybe I'm just getting old, man. Like, I don't know what it is. May I've seen enough of that?

And I don't enjoy it like I used to, right? And I see what I truly, like, Jan Marab, I fucking love that fight. You know what I mean? I could watch that, like, 20 times and study. and see the intricacies and, you know, how did he get out that little thing? And, you know, there's even some of the details. Like, like I still remember Jan elbowing his forearm.

You know, like, I never thought of that. Like, that's really smart and slick, right? And, you know, just some of those things. And would you just see nothing like that in this fight? We, with nothing to learn from it, nothing to take away from it. And yeah, so it could just totally be a personal thing. me, you know? Well, it could be, I mean, you can have the same, I mean, you can have two opinions on

the same fight. You can say, like, yeah, it was fun, you know, like, it's like, I know it's a weird comparison, but it's like watching a football game in the rain. Like, guys are slipping and sliding and fumbles are going everywhere. Like, yeah, it's fun, but I don't necessarily want that for the Super Bowl. Like, I don't want the Super Bowl to be like a sloppy, like, you know, playing in the rain, guys slipping and slide in a sack, you know, like, it's fun to watch occasionally.

You get to, oh, it's kind of fun to play you. Because I played, I played games in the rain. I know how nasty it could be. But that's not what you want for the Super Bowl. For the Super Bowl, you want the two best teams with the, you know, even playing field, and you want the best game possible. You don't want one team, you know, coming in and they're slipping and sliding and the other teams not, or whatever the case may be.

So I think, like, it's like watching Griffin Bonner. I can appreciate Griffin Bonner. It's a great fight, incredible fight, Slugfest. But if that was for a title, would my perspective be different? Because is this really the two best guys in the world representing the absolute best of that division. I wouldn't say so. So I get where you're coming from. I don't think you're wrong in saying that. And like I said,

you're basically saying the same thing. You're saying, like, I can enjoy it, but not necessarily as like the two best guys in the world. That's not what it's supposed to look like. Exactly. And again, there's so many other title fights. We've seen the two best in the world. You know, like

I just was rewatching GSP Matt Hughes earlier today. And, you know, that kind of, that fight holds up today. You know, like the skill level, it was the first fight is the one that I rewatched today because I'm kind of working on that little arm bar counter to the Camorra a little bit, you know. So I was watching how he did it. And but like if 10 years from now, if I'm wanting to learn a new technique or working focusing on a technique,

like, is there anything that I would come back and watch that fight, Patty, gaugey and kind of study right is there anything to study out of that like you know maybe like how to take a punch or something i don't know but you know that's those are the kind of fights that that are memorable to me and maybe again that that might just be my age it might be you know because i've watched enough fights or just maybe a personal little thing that i got or whatever but yeah the sloch fest they just don't do it for me like they used to you know I'm not blown away by a slug fest anymore. Unless it's, you know, again, I watch Raja all the time.

I see slugfest there all the time that are fucking amazing, you know, where they're elbowing each other and they're kicking and punching. But they're trying to show the judges like I'm the stronger one and keeping their balance and keeping their posture and maintaining discipline and keeping their hands responsible. And that's far or far more. impressive to me. My favorite fight I've ever attended in person, I bring

this up all the time, was Connor versus Nate DS2, UFC 216. And that fight, I would quantify it as a slug fest. I mean, it was back and forth and just beating each other on blade, but there was a lot of technique in that fight. You can't watch that fight and say that

like Connor and Nate didn't show skill. There was real skill in that fight. They beat the shit out of each other, but there was real skill in that fight. So I get what you're saying. My all-time favorite fight, I always tell people like, oh, what fight would you show someone to get him into M.MA? I always said, Frank Shamrock, Tito Ortiz. It's not a slug fest.

It's showing, like, you know, Frank's incredible takedown defense and how he could survive on the ground against a much bigger, stronger opponent, and then he wore him down, wore him down, and it took over, and Tito couldn't survive. I always bring that fight up. Is it a slug fest? Was that an all-time war? No. It showed skill.

I want to show people like the skill of what a great fighter can do even against a bigger, stronger, you know, heavier opponent, which is what Tito was. And Frank just survived. survive, survive, kept working, get working, tired him out, showed him out

important cardio is, and then took him out whatever was like the fourth round. So I get where you're saying, let me ask you this question, Matt, because I'll be honest. Like,

I got, I don't say I got fooled, but I did get, I did get drawn into, like, the patty hype of it all. Like, I thought he was better

than what maybe we thought he was, even though he didn't really have the resume. He was younger, he was bigger. You know, Gageeus 37. We know it's a fact that generally you don't get,

you don't get better as you get older. MMA, like at that point. To your credit, you did pick Justin to win. I don't know that it played out necessarily how you thought it might, but here's a question that comes up anytime a guy with a lot of hype gets beat pretty dominantly.

And like I said, I'm not trying to, I hate kicking a guy when he's down, but the reality is Patty didn't do much in that fight. He got beat up for 20 of the 25 minutes. He showed incredible chin, incredible heart, incredible durability. But like I said, that's a weird

compliment. It's like a sideways compliment. Oh man, you can take a fucking meeting. Did Patty Pimble get fraud checked on Saturday night a little bit? Like, is there any element of that where it's like he finally got a top five guy and here's what happened when he did? I think in the terms of fraud check is more like, like, okay, you're not a title contender yet, right? But I think he still has a lot of room to develop, you know, assuming that he goes back to the drawing board, he doesn't get fat like he always does, and he stays in the gym,

keeps training. I mean, I think he's a lot he can take away from this fight, you know, and it's probably a good eye-opener for him as to what it's going to take to get to that next level. Like, I think this could be one of the best things that happens to him, assuming you didn't take too much brain damage, right? Because that's always a big question for a kid that young. But no, I think it showed, like his ceiling might be as high as they think it is, right? I mean, he has the toughness. He's got the heart. And even more so than the toughness. Everybody talks about the chin and the toughness.

Like, like punches are odd things, you know, like the same punch could knock out one guy is not another or the same punch. You could get hit by the same punch twice one time it knocked you out the other time it doesn't. It's not, you know, an exact science, right? And, you know, it depends on like how much you roll with it, how your body's positioned, how his body's position, you know, exactly where it lands. There's so, so many details.

So, you know, it's not like, you know, he wasn't taking, I don't think he took Justin's best shots, to be honest. I don't think Justin threw his best shots, if we're keeping it honest. I think he hit him with some hard shots. And, you know, Patty got rocked a couple times and he was able to work through it. So he could not take nothing away from him there. But, you know, I think there's a lot to learn from that fight. And I think he can go back to the drawing board from his fight and improve from it. it's a good step forward from him for him right he knows where he's at now i wouldn't go as far as

calling it a fraud check other other than you know he's not a title contender yet right he's just not at that level he's just not a top five guy but he's a fucking good fighter right he's a really good fighter i mean i think he might be a top 10 guy we're going to find out in his next fight most likely right because i don't think he's going to go you know way back down the rankings or fight somebody too far down. But, but yeah, I don't, you know, so I think we'll find out in his next fight. I don't want to use the word fraud check because I think that's a big extreme. But here's what I will say.

And because I've seen this, this is a very general comment about Patty's performance saying, oh, he can get better from this. He'll grow and learn and get better. And I think he will. But this idea to like, yeah, but the idea that like he's coming into this fight is like this young, you know, a little bit too early. He's 31. Like, you know what I mean?

Like, he's not a 23-year-old kid. Like, when, when Raul Rosas lost that one fight to Christian Rodriguez, I was like, dude, he's 18, he's going to learn. Like, he's going to get better and he's going to grow from this. You know, you got to give him some time. Like, you know what I mean? Like, he's 18 years old or 20. He's 31.

Patty's 31. Now, I'm not saying he can't. I didn't realize he was 31. And I'm not saying he can't get better and grow from this. I'm just saying what I saw on Saturday night was evidence enough for me to say that Patty He could be a fun fighter. He could be a winning fighter. He'll go out and probably beat some top 10 guys.

But judging by that performance, and I know Justin Gagee is an animal. I've got all of credit in the world of Justin Gaci. But, like, I wouldn't pick him against Max. I wouldn't pick him against Charles Oliva. I certainly wouldn't pick him against Armour, or Ilya. Like, and that's the top five right now.

So, like, then you've got to go down the list a little further. Now, I think him and Dan Hooker would be a really fun fight. I know him and Dan Hooker really do not like each other. I think that would be interesting. So I think there's, I think there's an element of that for sure, but he's 31. Like, he's not, he's not a 23-year-old kid. And, like, he just got pushed too early. You know, like, if John Jones had fought and lost a Shogun at 23, we'd be like, well, dude,

he got kind of rushed into a title fight. He lost it in Shogun's a legend. Now, that didn't happen, of course. John Jones went out of an absolutely terminated Shogun. But, like, at that point, he'd be like, ah, John Jones is 23, man. He's got a lot of room to grow. Patty's 31. He's not a young guy.

Like, you know, he, I mean, I'm not. I'm not saying he can't grow and get better from this, but it's not like he has all these years to wait to get back to where he's going to be at right now. Like he's on the cusp of like 35 is usually like that cutoff point where he start looking like, he's not that far away from that. Yeah, interesting.

And I'm just looking here at the top 10. Yeah, I mean, he's got some interesting matchups there for sure. You know, I don't know who's got a fight coming up or, you know, what they can make next. But, you know, when you go, well, like you said, I mean, he's on the U.S. UFC website. He's number three right now, or number five right now. There's nobody above him that I give him much of a shot against, right? Yeah. But below him, there's some interesting fights there. I think all

of them, right? You got Dan Hooker, Matus Gamrott, Benoit, St. Denis, who I know has a fight coming up, Faisiv, Moikano, even Derush. I think those are all interesting matchups for him, where we really find out who he is and where he's at at this point. Yeah, I mean, and like I said, I think there are definitely some fun fights there. Like, I want to be clear about that. Like, I think there are definitely some fun fights there and fights that are winnable for him. But like I said, when you look at the hierarchy of the division, like, Benile Daryush is a very fun fighter. Like, I think he's a really fun fighter and he's been around forever and that could be a fun fight.

But, and also that one little run B'Neil had where he got close to a title shot, he didn't and we fought Charles Oliver. He got beat pretty dominantly. And we're like, okay, well, Benile's not quite that guy. You know what I mean? Like he's a very good fighter, not quite that guy. That kind of feels like what I'm saying about Patty right now. I was about to say the same thing.

Like, good fighter? There's a lot of similarities there. He'll win some fights. He'll put on some exciting fights. But would I classify him as like one of the top five guys in the world? Or do I ever think he'll be one of the top five guys in the world? I can't say for sure unless I've told this story a million times. I'll say it again now.

And by the way, Michael Bisping's a buddy of mine. But I said for years, like he would lose a fighter. But well, that's it. Like he's not going to get a title. because he becomes so close, so close, so close, he'd lose the number one contenders fight. So close, so close, lose the number one contenders fight. I was like, oh, well, probably not going to happen.

Then short notice, UFC 190 goes out there, knocks out Luke, Rockhold, and becomes champion. Very, very cool moment for Michael Bisping, and I loved it for him. So you can't sell it. I'll never say never. But, like, looking at the lay of the land right now lightweight, like I said, you look at those are the five guys, Ilya, Armin, Max, Charles, and Gachie.

We just lost to Gachia, and I wouldn't pick him to be any of the other four guys. So, you know what I mean? Now, you know, the landscape can change. Guys retire, guys leave whatever. But right now, if you're, like, trying to force me to, like, peg down and answer and say, do I think Patty's going to be a championship contender? Based off what I saw Saturday night, no. I mean, Max Holloway is, what, 32?

Yeah. 33? Yeah. Yeah, they're not young guys. Like, Max feels like he's been doing this for 30 years already, you know? Yeah. He's been so long. I mean, I think that's a great fight to see him against next,

but or even, you know, if I have my choice, like, he fights Fiziv next, right? Because I want to see if Fiziv can beat someone, you know, that has the grappling of Patty, which Patty certainly is a good grapple, right? So if he can beat someone that has the grappling and if Patty can really hang with a good striker, you know? Yeah, no, I agree. I think that would be a good one. I think that would be a good one as well.

And obviously, Dan Hooker's fighting, but no one saying to any of this, week. I think that could be fun. You know, like those two obviously, Dan. And I don't even know what Gamrod is, where's he even been? Has he been injured? Well, he lost, he lost Oliver. He had that Olavera loss. He jumped in on short notice and lost Olaverer last year and he just hasn't booked

another fight since then. So, I mean, he's still around. That's very, again, these are all interesting matchups. You know, I could see them giving them like a Moikano though, right? Because for one, like Moikano is going to talk a good game back, right? And it'd be a good fun buildup and he's that guy that would give him that side. And it's a proper fight too, right? It's a good matchup.

And it's certainly not an easy fight for Moikano. But, you know, I think I would favor Moikano in that matchup. But I think that's a proper fight if you ask me. Well, I think, and to give it a comparison, and I want to look this up real quick because I didn't have it right in front of me. Let me just double check this where I'm at here. Make sure I'm on the right information here. Looking at Benoit Saint-Denie.

Hold on one second here. So Benoit St. Denis is 30 years old. He just turned 30 years old. So, like, when he fought Dustoporier, what was it back in? Was it 20? He fought Dustoporier in 2024, so about two years ago. So he was about 28. He lost to Dustoporier.

He lost it now to Moikano. And since then he's come out and had three wins in a row and looked really good doing it. That's kind of the idea where I think about, like, with Patty Pimbled. Like, Patty Pimble, he's that age. But he's not. He is in his 30s already. So, like, Benoit Saint-Denie took that loss to Dessel, which, by the way, great fight. He ended up losing a great fight.

Then he had that kind of weird fight with Moikano. Then he comes on. he's had three incredible fights in a row, you know, takes out Maricio Rufi when he was on a big run, took out Benar later, usually like 30 seconds or whatever it was when they fought. And now he's got a test in Dan Hooker this weekend, kind of like they're, you know, Dan's 35, Benoit's like, you know, just now 30. They're kind of like seeing, is he the young guy going to make a run right there. I just don't know that like I'm going to like, like, I don't know what the ceiling is for Patty,

but if you're pegging me down to say based on that fight, I would say his ceiling is like number six. Sure. Now, that's not a bad place to be, by the way. I want to be clear about that. Being the number six guy in one of the toughest weight classes in the world is not a bad place to be. But I'm just saying, like, if you're pegging me down to say, do I see him becoming a champion? No. Based on that performance, no.

Yeah, well, you know, unfortunately, like I said before the fight, like, everybody would ask me, like, who you think is going to win, Patty or Gagie? And I'm like, well, you know, I'm leaning Gagie. And I said this last week on the podcast. You know, I lean pretty heavy towards Gagey, but, like, we just don't know who Patty is. We just don't know how good he is. I honestly don't really think the fight told us how good he is, right? I mean, it told us maybe how good his stand-up is, and it's not that great. It told us that he's tough, and he can make it five rounds, right?

Like, those are some good things. But skill-wise, like, it didn't really tell us anything. So, you know, when we're talking about, like, what his ceiling is, I mean, like, does he beat Mauricio Ruffy? I mean, I don't know. Like who do you favor in that fight, right? I mean, Michael Chandler probably shouldn't even be number 12 still. You know, does he beat Manuel Torres at 13? Yeah.

You know, like, these are, I'm not sure who for us, Ziam is, but he's number 15. And I'm like, he's solid. He's a good fighter. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Like the one that I know the most about when I look at like 10 to 15 is rough. right and of course Chandler but um you know and I'm like dude does he beat ruffy yeah it's a question I don't I don't I think that's another good fight

next fight for him right and yeah we give Ruffy a chance to break into the top 10 on a win right where you know so I again I wouldn't say this one was fraud a fraud check because it didn't now now this now this entire conversation might be different had he had Justin finished him quickly like he almost did he was very very close to finishing there early on and we we'd probably all be saying yeah he's fraud checked right that'd be the that'd be the narrative going into uh this week but now i don't think we know right where he's at yet right most people work their way up yeah he went from what number 15 or something to you know fighting for a interim title shot right against just and he survived and i didn't tell us that

how good of a fighter he is. I told us he can survive a five-round fight with somebody who, no knock on Justin Gagey, but had the worst game playing you could ever, not worst game play, but no game plan at all, right? Just swinging for the fences. So, okay,

you survive, you know, the wild slugger. Does that tell us that you're a top 10 guy? Not really. Yeah, no, I agree.

I agree. You got top 10 toughness. We give you that, right? You have the tough. to be in the top 10. Do you have the skills to be in the top 10? You didn't be Justin Gagey, but Justin has top 10 skills, right? He's already proven this. So it doesn't, again, it just, it didn't, at the end of this fight, I didn't feel like, I don't feel like I know where Patty's at still. And that's where he needs to fight a ruffie. He needs to fight a Fazeve or, you know,

a hooker or Denise or, you know, he needs to fight one of the, um, Oikano, these guys, uh, you know, it's just more of a proper matchup. Yeah, I agree. We already kind of mentioned it, and I know the odds came out today, Matt, and I'll say this to you now, because unless something changes, it's going to be Justin Gaci against I'm going to be Justin Gaci against I know. I know we consider preach all day how it should be Armusaruky,

but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. Odds came out today, Matt. Ilya is a minus 600 favorite, six to one favorite over Justin Gaci, which is wild to think about because, you know, Gagia is still a dangerous dude, but do you give, I mean, I ended like, let's discount to like, it's a fight, I understand it's a fight, but like, do you give Justin much of a chance to beat Ilya to Pore?

Or is this like almost, I hate to use the word mismatch, but is it almost a mismatch? That's a good question. I mean, you know, the fact is Justin has survived with some of the toughest guys out there, right? And, you know, he's, that's, that's his MO. Oh, he is a survivor, right? And he can take it with the best of them. And if he lands one, and he can hurt you pretty bad.

So I think it's tough to make the odds worse than that. You know, that's about the best you can say with that. It's tough to make the odds worse because you don't want to be the odds maker when Justin Gagey's on the other side. You know, I don't care if he's fighting Godzilla, right? Like, you don't want to be the odds maker on the opposite side of Justin Gagey. So I see why the odds are the way they are. I see some money coming in on Gagey and that. line closing a little bit.

Maybe a little bit, not big, right? Maybe like 500, maybe 400, but that's, you know, it's hard to bet against Justin Gagee, man. He's a hard guy to bet against. I think stylistically, it's literally the opposite kind of fight, but it kind of reminds me when Justin fought Khabib.

You know, like Justin's is really tough run, you know, just he can endure anything, super tough, hits like a truck. And, you know, he gave Khabib a little bit of a problem in that first round. once could we've got him down, it was pretty much a wrap. You know, and if Justin went out there and tried to wrestle, Ilya, maybe it'd be

different, but, like, if he just goes out there and is a striking fight, I can't see I'll go out there and playing that game with Justin, where he's just going to stand in the pocket and just wing punches. Like, so, like, it kind of feels like that. Like, do I give Justin a chance against anybody. Like, Justin is just too good,

too durable, too hits too hard. He's such a dog. I give him a chance against him a great chance against Ieport. If you're, if you're, Like, we were breaking out to Ilya Arman, I can give you a thousand ways why I believe Armand wins that fight. Same way I could probably give you a thousand reasons why Ilya wins that fight. I'll give you a couple reasons why Justin wins that fight. I can't give you a bunch, but there's a world.

But I'llia, man, like I said, when I was watching that fight on Saturday night, my first thought was, man, slugfest, potential fight of the year, what a cool moment for Justin. God, it's going to look bad against Ilya Teporia because Ilya is just such an assassin in there. He's a sniper, and he hits, like, a truck. And I was like, man, this could end badly for either of these guys. That was before the fight was over. My thought was this is not going to end well for either one of these guys. I think that was a standard feeling with everyone, right?

Like, this is just a placeholder title, which it is an interim title, but like not even that, you know. And that's what sucks about it, man. Like, I don't feel like either one of those guys beat Tillia or Armin, you know. That's like, you got. Yeah, I don't know, man. But ultimately, look, his only real shot against Ilia is if he starts to use his wrestling, which I've always kind of, I don't know, it's almost a conspiracy theory, I guess, at this point. But, like, I've always kind of theorized that Justin's just saving that wrestling for when he finally gets the right fight and, you know, the right moment. And, you know, it's a title fight.

and I kind of thought that he might use it last weekend, right? Like he was saving it for this moment, you know? It's like you're on Paramount Plus. You got to win this fight. It's Patty. You know, don't take no stupid wrists or anything. Of course he didn't. But, you know, I'm kind of starting to throw that argument, that little theory out the window, though.

I'm like, he's just going to keep being who he is and get as far as he came with it. But at first time to use it, fucking against Ilya, motherfucker. Like if there was a time. because the like what we think's going to happen with him and Ilya is he's going to his chance against Elia right that if we

if we kind of draw on paper how a potential way of Justin beating Ilya he takes a beating until he lands a big shot right like like that's his that's if you're his coach that's how you game plan right you're like dude just keep your hands up and

high guard like you do and you know but watch out for the body shots and then when he punches you with two, you throw your one, right? Like, what kind of gameplay is that? But, like, what else do you do? It's fucking I don't know what a game plan there would be. Yeah, you're right. No, I think you're right.

It's interesting. But like I said, and the worst part coming out of this, and this is certainly not knock on Justin or knock on Patty, but watching that fight, my thought was, man, do I want to see Ily in Armin? Like, I know that sounds terrible, but that was my thought. I want to see that fight much more than I want to see the other. ones, but that's not what we're getting. The White House card is getting made.

It seems almost like fate that they're going to do Justin against Ilya, although maybe not because maybe they don't want the American guy getting absolutely terminated on the White House card. I don't know. But, I mean, maybe they do that. Maybe that's one of the big fights and they want to do Ilya versus Joe. And hey, like it or not, it will be entertaining. It may last for

three minutes, but it'll be an entertaining three minutes, so I guess there's that at least, so you can't say that's not true. You know Justin's going to make it entertaining for as long as he's in there. Yeah. I guess that's one reason to make that fight, right? Particularly on the White House card. It's like, look, Justin can probably survive a lot of these hard shots.

But, you know, it's hard to even say that, right? Like, Max Holloway didn't survive them. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know. And Max Holloway has like a legendary chin. Like, he has a legendary chin. And yeah, so. At Desjardin Insurance, we know that when you own a cleaning company,

things need to be tidy and organized at every step. That's why our agents go the extra mile to understand your business and provide tailored solutions for all its unique needs. You put your heart into your company, so we put our heart into making sure it's protected. Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at dejerdin.com slash business coverage. Let me, real quick for you again,

I want to talk real quick about Vulcanowski-Lopez this weekend, but I want to ask this question, Matt. I had a pretty good opinion about this coming out of Saturday night. Umar and Magamato beats Devis and figurator. Pretty one-sided, but it wasn't the most exciting fight in the world. And Sean Amalley goes out there because it's a 29, 28 decision over Song you dog. Once again, good performance, not like, you know, right home about kind of performance. And my first thought coming out of those fights were, well, Sean won,

Umar won, we now need to see Morab versus Jan 3. Because, like, if Sean had gone out there and absolutely just walked through Song Yadong, knocked him out devastating fashion. I see a world where they put Sean in that title fight. Deservably or not, I'm saying there's a world where they do that. Or if Umar goes out, there and absolutely wrecks Devis invigorated, like, hey, let's do, let's do Jan and Omar. There's some bad blood there, a little bit of heat, both Russian. All those two fights showed me on last night or Saturday night where we need to see

Umar or we need to see Jan versus Marab free. Like, there's nothing that happened in those two fights that made me more excited for those versus seeing Marab get the trilogy. I don't know. Do you disagree? Nope, nope, nope. And I mean, I think I'd kind of rather just see Sean versus Umar and Marab versus uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, what, you know, yeah, yeah, God damn it. Um, yeah, I mean, that's what it felt like is the right way to go after I watched last

night, you know, Sean didn't look that great. Umar did look good. I guess if I had to pick one or the other, I mean, Umar was completely dominant and, um, so you have had to pick one or the other, I mean, If you're just looking at like, okay, you had a better performance. You're the guy who gets it. Like you give it to Umar. That's, you know, Sean didn't look that great, honestly, right? Like he didn't, he didn't look himself.

I didn't think. I mean, I thought he, maybe, you know, maybe give the credits a song for that. But Sean didn't look as good as I thought that he could look at. I mean, he debatably lost that fight. I mean, I think there's people that would make an argument that song, Young, won that fight. and I wouldn't hate on them for that, right? I mean, I did think that song won. I was kind of following on Twitter.

I think I had a lot of people, a lot of people had it scored for song. And then after the fight was over, they're like, oh, yeah, I knew Sean won. You know, it was kind of one of those things. Yeah. But, you know, I don't know. I think Sean, you know, he didn't do anything

that I felt like he was capable of doing, right? He just kind of cruised to victory. God, dang. sorry. But again, maybe that's credit to song, right? He's such an aggressive guy and, you know, swings hard as hell every time. But, yeah, I'm with you, man. You got to give it to Marab.

I thought Maraub should probably get it anyway. Yeah, yeah. Have Sean and Umar fight and, you know, give it to the winner there. The winner versus winner. Like I said, I think it would have to take something truly special. Like I said, if Umar just goes out there and absolutely wipes out, Devin, or if Sean goes out there and brutally knocks out, song, you say, okay, well, you know, we're going to

switch things up a little bit, make Marab wait a little while longer. But now, like, whatever doubt, whatever potential doubt was there is gone. Make Marab versus Jan three, it's got to happen. It's the fight to make. And maybe Sean fights Umar, maybe Sean fights Corey Sanagan, maybe Umar fights. I don't know,

but nothing in those two fights made me say we don't need to see Marab in that there. I think there was like, I think there was a chance, but that chance is gone now. Matt, this weekend, we get our second straight numbered event. We got UFC 325 from Australia going down. Not the strongest

card in the world, a lot of local talent. I do really like that Dan Hookerbin-Wa-Saint-Denefite. That is chaos potential. But I'm curiously, what is your interest in Volcanovsky versus Lopez, too? Because we just saw this fight less than a year ago. It wasn't particularly close, but it also wasn't a particularly great fight.

Like, Volcanowski won, but it wasn't like, oh man, what a tremendously skilled fight. It was just like he won, and Lopez looked like it was a little bit too much too soon for him. It's been one fight. He beats John Silva. Great win.

Totally different fighter from Volcanozio. So, like, how interested are you in this rematch? It's the weirdest rematch, especially when you got Mousar and Lerone Murphy out there, but whatever. Yeah, speaking to John Silva, he looked greater than we could too. He did. Yeah, you know, the only thing I think we're going to get from this fight, look, maybe Diego comes in and, you know, finds a way to win for one, right? And, but, you know, I think the problem with that is, like, if he does, like, I think the narrative is just going to be like, you know, Volk's old, right? And he's been through enough wars and enough battles.

He's seen his day. And, man, that's all there is to it. And that kind of sucks for Diego, even though he'll, you know, he'd have the title, which is great. But, you know, I don't know. Other than that, I think most likely, you know, we're going to all favor Volk to win this fight again. And, but I think we'll get to see kind of how the. two have improved, right? If folk is still evolving and progressing and kind of see where he is at in his age, right? Because he's got some tough guys on the backburners sitting there,

you know, coming right up his ass ready to take him out, right? So I think it might tell us a little bit about where he's at, where his head's at, and yeah, I think that's about the best that we get out of this fight. So in that sense, it does interest me because I'm a huge Volcanowski fan. So, you know, I always like watching him compete and I think it would be cool to see where he's at and how well he does in this fight versus the last fight. But outside of that, I mean, we know the fight probably shouldn't have been made. There's other guys that are more deserving

and, you know, probably should be getting title shot. But, you know, I guess my point is it's more of a... When we're talking about watching this fight, it's more just from an analytical perspective than from, you know, I'm excited to see how this matchup goes perspective. Yeah, it's a weird one. Like I said, it doesn't make any sense logically whatsoever. I think Diego looked great against Jean Sova.

What a great knockout. Great finish that was. And he kind of stopped a rising contender because John Silver looked great up to that point. But, yeah, I don't really get – Like, this is one of the weirdest rematches I've seen in recent history. It's like, why? Like, they wanted to put Volk on the Australia card. I totally get that.

But you had Mosar right there. You had Lorone Murphy right there. I don't know. I don't one of those would have been like Barnburner fights. But clearly both guys were more deserving. Yet, you know, here we are with Diego. Lopez. I don't know. It's a weird rematch. I favor Volk still, but like I said, you always got a wonder, like, you know, guys go from relevant to like too old in a pretty quick path in

the sport sometimes. Like, maybe he's slowed down. And the other part of that is like, once you've, like, they can game play differently against each other now too, right? They felt each other for five rounds. They went back to the drawing board. They know what, you know, they know each other well now. So when they go back, it could be a very different fight. Um, could be the same. fight again though. Yeah, we'll see, but yeah, it's an interesting one. Like, it's not, the last week's card was pretty stacked. This week's card is not,

but there's a couple good fights. A lot of Australian guys, but hey, you're only paying $8.99 a month now for Paramount. You get a lot of ads, but you're not paying $80. What's funny is I saw, because I complained about on Saturday, too. I said, listen, I get it. You got to have advertising. You got to have commercials. You got to make up that $7.7 billion.

I get it. But I was like, don't make it at the sacrifice to not showing the walkouts and, like, sometimes that stuff is kind of bugging. me, but I actually had a couple people today be like, I'd rather pay the $80. I was like, well, slow down now. Slow down. It's annoying. And yes, I did, like, the ads did get a little bit to be too much.

But I'd rather pay the $8.99 to get annoyed by ads and pay $90 to our $80 to watch every single UFC, like big fight. Like, come on now. Let's be a little reasonable here. I know it's annoying, but not $80 annoying. Yeah, I agree with you. I'm on your side on that one. But the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

Pacing felt slower. I don't know if it was slower, but it just felt slower to me, maybe because of the ads, you know, and you're not as into it the whole time. But it felt like there was longer between the fights. There was longer buildup to the first fight to get the show started. And that was what I didn't like. You know, I can deal with ads.

Again, like we know we're getting, you know, we're used to pay $1,000-something dollars a year to watch all the fights. And now, you know, I paid, I think I did the two-year plan for like $150. 50, 160 bucks, something like that, where you get a little discount from the 899 or whatever. So I basically paid for one or two pay-per-views to get it for two years. So I can only complain so much. But to me, the pacing, that's the part that I can't get over because I'm like, dude, I just want to see fights. Like, I don't give a fuck about what I wish they would do so bad is like, which they could do now with Paramount, right?

they would kind of do it with the paper views before right where you know they do all the buildup stuff and then the pay-per-view starts and then get to the fights yeah right like if you want to watch the build-up stuff we got to hear for you you know that starts at seven o'clock the pay-per-view starts at eight by eight-ten you got a fight starting yeah right because that's what a guy's like me that's what i'm paying for i don't care about your fucking build-up i don't care what you said i don't care what your mom thinks about the fight. I don't care what your training camp was or what your coaches got to say

or what you went through. Like, if I want to see all that stuff, I'll go on YouTube and find it. Like, I don't need to, I don't need that during the time that I sit down to watch the show. And again, I'll go back to, I'll circle back to what we said earlier.

I'm probably just an old grumpy-ass man now, right? I got gray hair's coming in. I've been doing a sport for fucking ever. I don't need to see all the bullshit. I want to see the highest level of martial arts. That's why I pay the money. That's why I sit down and take the time to watch the shit. That's why I'm even interested in talking about the shit.

It's what I teach my guys to do. That's what I like doing myself. So, yeah, I don't need anything else. Yeah, the commercials are annoying, but at the same time, like, I watched the AFC and NFC Championship games yesterday. and like they had like two plays a commercial punt commercial timeout commercial like so it's not like

it's that much different trust me like I know it's new because we're used to just like when you get to a paper you just kind of get all the paper view and that's really it but like watch an NFL game to be fair there's nothing to see in between the plays at a football game right you don't get to you don't get to the to hear what the offensive

coordinators talking to the coach about right If they showed that, I would actually be interested in watching that, right? You know, we're like a, you know, if you ever been to like a NASCAR race, I know it's boring as hell, fuck, blah, blah. But if you go and you get to hear the pit crew stuff, right, because you can get the little radios. And I mean, you feel like a complete nerd and you're like, why am I doing this? But then when you actually listen and pay attention, you're like, oh, this is actually pretty fascinating. But you don't get that with the NFL. In the UFC, we want to walk out.

We want to hear, you know, what kind of stupid thing he's saying in the corner. We want to hear, you know, or what kind of smart thing he's saying every now and then, you know, this is the stuff that we want. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. It's first show, you know, we're going to get another one this weekend. We haven't even had a fight night card yet. So I'm going to give him, like, a month to, like, iron out the details and see what we're at. And if we come back around to UFC, what is the UFC 326, which is Max and Oliva.

We get back to that one. If it's still the same problems, then maybe I'll complain a little bit more. but I'll give up a little bit of time to wrinkle out the details. It's the first show, and I know they wanted to do it big, and that's why they had like 30 minutes of intros before the actual first fight started, which was horrible. But I get it. First car, you want to make a big splash.

Okay, we got through it. Let's get through it this weekend, and let's get like a plan in place to where we can kind of, you know. Like I said, I can live with the commercials. Just do it in the right places. Like, you know, I mean, don't cut me off from seeing the walk out. Don't cut me off from seeing the corners. Like, there's other ways to shoehorn that shit in there,

without disrupting the actual broadcast. But I'll give them a little time. Like I said, first broadcast. And here's what I will say. The entire stream worked the whole night. Whereas when it was on ESPN, I want to throw the fucking computer across the room. Yeah, that's app was dog shit.

I could not make it through a single UFC show without that thing crashing or just suddenly like rewinding to the beginning or just freezing. The circle of death. Circle of death. Zero problems on Saturday night. I'm not, I'm just saying. Like, I had zero problem.

No, it was flawless. The screen looked great. The view looked great. So, hey, that's a win to me because I was ready to go nuts watching ESPN. And Paramount was flawless. So credit to them for that. Yeah, I'm right there with you. So, yeah, we'll see how it turns out.

But at least it's free on Paramount now, you know, regardless of, you know, the behind-the-scenes stuff that we talk about all the time, you know, with the money, the bonuses, the. the politics, the whole game, you know, how, how fucked everything is, whatever. We got free MMA on TV, free, you know, with a subscription, cheap. We get cheap. Cheap UFC, it's good times we're living in. We got to enjoy that while we can.

We're paying $13 for ESPN plus, plus $80 of pay-per-view. So it's paid $9. Pretty goddamn good discount. Real quick. How many years is their deal? seven seven years yeah seven years it's like a billion a year plus yeah so it'll be very interesting you know see if this lasts forever right like well seven years from now or six years from now they start renegotiate whatever yeah and we got to fucking enjoy it while we can knock

a plane too much and and just take it in man we get we get to watch ufc every time now who are you taking this weekend tfimo lopez or shakur stevenson oh shakur man i think shakur is freaking amazing, you know. Yeah, I agree. I'm picking Shakur. May not be, may not be the most exciting in the world. It's kind of Shakur Stevens's lot in life. He's not, he's not always the most exciting dude, but he wins and yeah, I think he'll win. So, yeah, it's a good fight, man. I think it's a really good fight. I think, uh, because Tiafamo, look, I mean, the guy surprises people, right? He comes out and he throws punches that people aren't expecting, and he, I mean, would he beat Vassal Lomacheco? I mean, that was surprising as hell. And Vassal was one of the best,

defensive guys out there, man. I mean, obviously the best offensive guy, in my opinion. But yeah, it's going to be exciting one, man. I'm not exciting like Justin Gagie, Patty Pimlin, exciting. Yeah. But exciting, you know, technically. I've always said, I've always said Tiafima Lopez being LaMachinko was almost like the best and worst thing because it was like such a incredible thing,

but like set the bar so high for him. And he's never quite lived up to that again, you know what I mean? because, like, yeah, huge win. Loma Chinko's legend, but, like, it's hard to, like, come back and do that again. He's never, I mean, he's won a lot of fights. I'm not trying to say he's not a good fighter, but, like, he's never reached that same peak again. You know, it's almost like he peaked a little too early. So, you know, but that's because that's how good Lomachenko was.

So, Matt, if people want to check you out, what you got going on, man, where can they find you? What can they do to support you? At I'm the Immortal Instagram and Twitter, the Immortal Matt Brown on Facebook. Absolutely. next week. We'll kind of talk about the fallout from USC 325. Dana White said they're going to start matchmaking in the UFC White House cards. Maybe we'll get some fighting announcements soon. Find out who's actually going to be walking out to the White House in a couple months. We'll talk about that.

And as always, I want to say big thank you. Everyone at tunes in the show. Make sure you to check us out on all your favorite podcast platforms, Apple Podcast, Spotify. And, of course, over on the best website in the world, MMAFighting.com. For Matt Brown, I am Damon and Martin. We will see you guys next week for another edition of the Fighter versus the writer. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you then. Podcast Network