MMA Fighting - Fighter vs. Writer: Matt Brown Loves Tony Ferguson vs. Paddy Pimblett; Explains How He Wrote the Blueprint to Beat Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

This week on The Fighter vs. The Writer, UFC legend Matt Brown and MMA Fighting senior reporter Damon Martin react to the latest fight announcements including several title fights and an intriguing matchup between Tony Ferguson and Paddy PImblett. While there was some backlash to that matchup, Brown defends the fight while proclaiming Pimblett as the perfect opponent for Ferguson as he tries to put an end to a recent losing streak. Brown also addresses the upcoming welterweight title fight while admitting that Colby Covington could be a nightmare matchup for Leon Edwards. Then again, Brown addresses Covington’s future if he can’t get the job done against Edwards, which would be his third straight loss in a UFC title fight. We’ll also react to the booking between Shavkat Rakhmonov and Stephen Thompson, which has Brown reminiscing about his own past fight against “Wonderboy.”   All this and much more on the latest installment of The Fighter vs. The Writer! Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from Volkswagen. As the U.S. gets ready to host soccer's biggest moment on a worldwide stage, Volkswagen is helping. people discover new turfs and new ways to play the beautiful game right here in the U.S. From deaf and power wheelchair soccer to beach and futsal, Volkswagen is actively supporting all the communities and teams within the U.S. soccer ecosystem.

They're supporting talent from across the U.S. soccer extended national teams and are focused on helping to give these less widely known forms of soccer a platform moving forward. From the pitch to the sand and everything in between, welcome to our turf. to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Welcome back to the Fighter versus the writer. I'm Damon Martin. He is golf legend, Matt Brown. Well, I guess UFC legend, too.

But now these days, he's golf legend, Matt Brown. Matt, what's going on? Future golf left legend. Take, take two. What if I go from UFC fighter to pro golfer? You ain't going to be laughing so much. I mean, I'll still laugh because I just can't. It still freaks me out that you're a golfer.

But no, I'd be very proud of you if you went pro with your golf skills. No, I'm not going on pro. And I'd probably laugh too. All right. I still can't wrap my head around you being a golfer. Obviously, I saw your golf in there with our buddy Jeremy Loper. Now, here's the question, Matt, because here's one of the reasons why I never was able to play golf because I just don't have patience for it. Like, I do not have patience for golf.

Have you broken any clubs yet? Like, that's the key. Like, have you broken a club, thrown a club? have you done any of that yet dude i am actually one of the most patient people you'll ever meet i'm probably to honestly like i'm patient to a fault like

i'm so patient that sometimes like i need to just hurry things up and i'm not lazy or anything like that but dude i don't like nothing gets to me man yeah that's not me dude i can't i don't have the patience for it i know me like i i miss a put

the putter would go flying in the woods like I know me so oh it's I mean it could be frustrated but man I I don't know man I'm really really good at controlling my emotions and I I got I didn't never used to say that because I felt like I was like kind of bragging or talking about myself but I'm like dude I'm actually like really fucking good at it so I'll fucking say it yeah do it up man be proud of it trust me there's a it's a it's an art form because I definitely do not have much patience. I am not that person.

I get kicked out to high school tennis team because I threw a racket at somebody and chased them over the net. But you were on the tennis team? I was in high school, yeah, for like two years. That's awesome. Yeah, so we're all capable of things you just couldn't imagine. True that, true that.

You know, the only thing I feel like I'm not patient with is women. I there's a lot of things I'm probably not finished with yeah that's something I need to work on like like I probably don't need to break up with you because you ran a red light you know or because like you ordered some awkward food or so you know what I mean like you're like you're like you're like Jerry Seinfeld that one episode where he breaks up a woman because the way she eats her peas she eats them like one at a time and says. scoop him up he's like yeah i can't be with you again i'm done we are we got to break up i mean i feel

that i see where he's coming from yeah that's when you know you're really nitpicky at that point you're like you know i don't really i don't really care for the way you eat your food so we're just going to have to end it right here we're good to go we're done yeah but i just need to be more patient with it you know everything else i'm patient with but you know they like want to argue one time and i'm like games over like like forget about. Oh man. That's cool.

Yeah, that's wild. Yeah, I guess I mean, listen to each, each to their own. I don't have patients like that. You have three kids,

though. So like, that's like, you have to have patience ingrained in you to be a parent because I, like, that's another reason why I don't have kids.

Like, I don't have the patients to work because I would lose my shit. I think that's where I realized that I was patient because, you know, the kids, they can drive you up the fucking wall.

And like the whole time, I was just chilled. I didn't even think it was that bad. Yeah. That's, Yeah, that's when you know you're a patient person. When you can deal with that and not flip out and lose your mind, then you must be a pretty patient person.

Yeah, I remember my ex-wife now, she should be flipping out, like going crazy. And I'm just like, what's the problem? Like, they're kids. That's what they do. Like, did you expect this to be easy? Like, it never made sense to me. Hey, you know what, my bench patience pays off for a fighter. I mean, that's a good trait to have.

I mean, you know, actually being able to show patience on a fight and training and things like that. Like, you know, knowing that things don't get built overnight, it takes time to get better and evolve and all those kind of things. Like that's patience has got to be a crucial asset for a fighter because, again, I don't have patience. I understand that frustration when you want to learn how to do something and you don't learn it quickly and it can get frustrating and things like that. Like I imagine that's actually a pretty pretty incredible weapon to have as a fighter both in training and in execution in the fights. Oh, totally. I couldn't agree more. And I mean, you see it all the time with this younger generation.

These fighters want everything right now. They think that they're so good right now. And I mean, usually there's something I have to constantly get through to my fighters all the time. It seems like, not even my fighters, but just fighters in general that I, you know, communicate. with in different ways of relationships with or come across. I constantly have to tell them that the amount of volume that they're putting in versus the amount of volume that they should be putting in, like that gap is so fucking significant.

And they think that they're just going to get good at it in a year. You know, like, hey, I'll be in the UFC in two years or next year or something. And I'm like, I'm like, dude, like you have so fucking far. to go. Like that again, that gap of the amount of volume, like people think that they're putting in, you know, a few hours a day is going to cut it. I'm like, bro, you got to do 24 hours a day. Like every single part of your life has to be this.

Like a few hours a day at the gym isn't going to cut it. And, you know, so it just goes back to that being patient. You know, you got to put in that amount of work. Plus be patient. It still might take years. for it to happen. Yeah, and I think that's part of it, too, is like the frustration. It's like I see guys and girls all the time who earn like a Brazilian jihitsu black belt.

And it's like a, you know, it could be a decade or more long process. Now everyone moves to their own speed and some people, you know, stop training and start training things like that. But I mean, in general, like that takes a lot of work and a lot of dedication to become like a black belt and Brazilian jihitsu. But you do see that frustration and that impatience growing people when they want it right away and it's like you know like anything else it takes time to learn like it takes time to understand you know all these little nuances whether it's striking or grappling or wrestling and things like

that and you want it you know it's like it's like you said like no and like oh yeah i'll be in the o'c in a year like dude you're nowhere near the uc level like right now like you go to the oc you're you're going to get murdered like and that's that i get it like i understand like i understand that level of frustration i understand that level of impatience because i felt it in other ways It's not in fighting, obviously, but it's true. Like, we are, I mean, we're all guilty of that in some form or fashion when we want something that we're not ready for, but the impatience kind of grows in us, and we just want it then.

We don't want to work for it. Or we just don't want to wait for it. Or, you know, even the working part's not always the problem. It's the waiting problem. Like, we don't have the patience to wait for something to get better. Yeah, I think a lot of that goes back to the basic old-school adage of, you know, it's the journey or it's the journey. not the destination, right?

You have to enjoy the journey. And, you know, the advantage of, you know, getting a black belt, for instance, is, right, that's why they give you those stripes along the way. That's why they give you the different colored belts along the way. So you do see progression regularly. But you could be dreaming for a UFC fight or really about anything, you know, any noble or worthy venture, you know, you might put in all that work and not get any results. That's where people fuck up.

They want results right away. Like, you might do all that work for years and get no fucking result from it. Yeah. You might get, I mean, I fought on the fucking, you know, local scene for like, you know, four or five years. You know what I'm saying? Like, I was like, dude, like, this is never going to happen. This dream that I have is fucking ridiculous, you know, and I felt this in my bones many times, man. But I just stayed patient and stayed on that grind.

And that's where people fuck up. They want it now. And it's like, you know, you have to keep putting in that extreme amounts of volume. And the way that I always looked at it was it was like this. was I wanted to put in so much work that there was no logical way that I could figure in my mind that I could put in any more work.

And if it happens, it happens if it does and it doesn't. But there is no way that I'll be able to sit back at night and maybe write down what I did or think about what I did today and be able to logic that I could have done more. Yeah. Yeah. And also like the effort,

beyond just the effort to want to be there, like, the understanding that, like, it's really hard. Like, just talking about fighting in general, like, we're more adept these days of, like, understanding that it's, it's a little easier of a door to walk through to get to the UFC than it was, like 10 years ago, 15 years ago, because the path is. But even then, like, even then, like, it's not like it's easy. Like, we've seen incredibly talented guys and girls come into the UFC and last three fights and never fight there again. Like, it's not easy to do it at that level, and you have to keep your expectations real to kind of circle back to, like, myself, like, being a journalist in MMA, like, I'll get messages every now and again from, like, somebody who's like, I want to be an MMA journalist. Like, what can I do?

And I try to give them advice on, you know, be patient, you know, pay attention to local regional shows, get to know the fighters who are local to you, who are fighting locally, who are in the regional show looking for some sort of press, looking to get their name out. there blah blah blah blah and like not everybody I want to pigeon all everyone to say this but I would say like out of 10 responses at least seven of those are like how much money will I make when do I get to talk to Connor McGregor like that kind of stuff and it's like dude like I I've been doing this for 20 years and I can't just call up Connor McGregor be like hey man let's hang out and do an interview like it just doesn't work that way like you have to really bust your ass I work for free for many years covering mixed martial arts just because I loved it now obviously again we're at a different time in the sport where you can actually make money being around the sport.

But, like, I was like, did I work for free for like four or five years just because I loved it? I loved the sport and I wanted to work in it. I didn't do this whole time. So it's like setting those expectations. A lot of people don't want to put in that work. They don't want to put it in the time. Like, I'm getting out of college and I want to make $100,000 a year. When can I do that?

I'm like, that's the wrong way to look at things. Like, that's the exact wrong way to look at things. Well, that's exactly it, right? It's knowing you may never make $100,000 a year doing this. if you want to make a hundred grade a year, stay in college and go get your doctor. Yeah. That's what your goal is. It's like there's simpler ways, more proven, statistically proven ways to do that.

But you know, I heard this great quote the other day. I don't know if you ever heard of this. Cody Sanchez. She buys businesses and she has a big YouTube channel. She put a great tweet out and said, you know, getting rich is really fucking hard. Running businesses is really fucking hard. buying businesses is really fucking hard guess what else is being hard being poor and it's like okay choose what hard you want to do and i was like dude that's actually a

really great quote you know like every every fucking thing you do in life is going to be hard so you know again forget about the fucking destination enjoy the fucking journey we're all stuck here on this rock together you're going to be stuck here you know, obviously like, you know, until you die, enjoy the motherfucker, enjoy the fucking journey, put in the goddamn work, put your, bite down your mouthpiece,

walk forward, and let's fucking go. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Like I said, you gotta, you get out what you put in. That's, I think that's the easiest way to say, you get out what you put in. And if you don't put in.

That, that's one of the things I tell fighters all the time. Like, you're going to get out what you put into this. But the one thing about fighting and business and many ventures that are worthy ventures, okay, if you go to school to be a doctor, you are going to get out what you put in, right? If you do the work like you're going to get your doctorate,

you're going to get a job. Fighting, I would bet in May journalism, business, that doesn't always work. Right? Like you could put in every fucking thing. How many hardworking, amazingly talented athletes have we seen get to the UFC and get fucked up something shit happened and they don't get anything out of it I bet you've seen it in MMA journalism right

oh yeah absolutely absolutely yeah that's what I mean I've seen it in business like these guys that are very talented know exactly what to do they put a lot into a business and they don't get shit out of it yeah so that's where so when I when I talk to people now you're not necessarily just fighters and you know they ask what they should do or whatever or my kids for instance they talk about what they want to do with their lives and I tell them what would you do if you knew that you would fail at your result not what would you do if you knew you would succeed because you don't know if you're going to succeed but what would you do if you knew that you were going to fail like know it like so and that's a different way to think about it when you know you're going to

Like, would you still do it? Yeah. That's when you know you love something. Yeah, absolutely. No, you're absolutely, that's a hundred. That is a great way to say it. And it's absolutely true. Like I said, because when you look at a sport like mixed martial arts,

you know, they say the cream always rises. Because, like, we think about the numbers now. We think about the UFC having 600 guys in the roster. And that sounds like a lot. Like, it does sound like a lot. There was a man, it's a lot of people. But then let's think about who's in Bellator and PFL and one championship. And guys who are on the,

the regional scene who just haven't gotten that look. Guys on the regional scene who are the Mike Pyle of their regional scene, and I always might use Mike Pyle as an example. Mike Pyle, incredible fighter. And if you ever talk to anybody who ever trained with him, said in the gym, this guy is a UFC champion, but he just couldn't quite turn it on when he fought. He always struggled to, like, flip that switch in the fight. In the gym, he was the greatest ever.

And in the fight, he just struggled at times. Still a very good fighter, by the, let me be clear. Mike Pyle put together a great career. I'm just saying, like, he was the guy that ever. Every time you talk to his teammates, people would say, that guy's destined to become a UFC champion, and he just couldn't quite put it together when he actually got in front of the crowd and in the spotlight and all those kind of things.

Think about all those people out there. And then you whittle it down to just 600 than the UFC, and that number starts to look a lot more meaningful, right? Because it's not just like, yes, that 600 sounds like a lot. But we're also talking about, what, eight, nine champions? Like that's one weight class, one champion across, you know, nine divisions or whatever the number is. Start whittling those numbers down,

and you start to see how hard it is to find true success at that level. We can sit here all day and say, oh, see, you go to the contender series, you get in the UFC. I know a lot of guys who can't get on the contender series. Like, they don't get the call. Like, they try. And they're like, yeah, we're not interested. Like, I know guys like that. I know guys who couldn't get on the ultimate fighter.

I know guys who just cannot get a look by the UFC for whatever reason. So, yeah, like, you can sit and say, oh, 600. Everyone gets signed with the contender series, all this kind of stuff. But then realize when you really, really start digging into the numbers, and really, really start digging the total number of fighters that are out there across all organizations. 600 is really not that big of a number. It was a big number 20 years ago when MMA wasn't what it is today. But now MMA's huge.

There are gyms who specifically just teach MMA. Like they are MMA gyms. So we're at a different age. 600 people sounds like a lot. But it's really not when you start drilling down to how many fighters are out there who would all love that opportunity to be in the UFC. And when you also think about how many countries are involved in the UFC now, because when, you know, when I was coming up, I mean, there was America, Brazil, and a little bit of Europe. Yeah. I can't really think of other countries that were really involved in the UFC at that time.

I don't know if you can, but, you know, so the, you know, the amount of countries is also expanded. And within those 600, there's a lot of turnover at the bottom that we don't really hear about a lot too, right? Like there's a lot of people that come in, get cut, you know, get injured. I mean, there's all kinds of things that happen. You know, so I guess I'm in the top, what, 0.1% or whatever, you know, in terms of longevity and tenure in the UFC, I would think. I mean, I think I'm in the top 10. We had this conversation months ago, if you remember, we were talking about Jim Miller being a UFC Hall of Famer. And there were people who were saying that, like, he doesn't deserve it.

He hasn't put together the resume. And we both agreed and argued and said, listen, longevity in the UFC absolutely counts an accolade. To be in the UFC for 15 years or 10 years, 11 years and have 20, 30 fights or whatever the number is, I think he's got the most fights and the most wins in UFC Australia. Like, that absolutely matters. Like being in the UFC as long as you've been in the UFC, you get in what, 2007? Is that right? 2007? Eight. 2008. That's 15 years.

Do you know how hard that is to stick around for 15 years in the UFC at this level? Like, do you know how many people come in and leave? Like, there are champions who have come in and left inside of three years, four years. Like, that's, it, there's, it is so difficult to do it at this level for such a long time. Like, that is a special, like, that's why when people tried to diminish Jim Miller and say, well, Jim is, you know, 24 and, you know, 11 in the U.S. year. I'm making that number of whatever the number is. That's not Hall of Fame war.

It's like, do you realize how hard is to get to 35 fights to the UFC? Do you realize how what a difficult endeavor that is to get to that many fights to the UFC? Like how few people have actually done that? Yeah, I think it's, well, Bispying, Jim Miller, Damien Maya, Tito Ortiz. Tito has like way more fights than I realized.

He's actually way up there. Yeah, those are the only guys that come off top of my head that have like around like 30 fights. Yeah, it's wild. It's wild. That's why I say like not everyone's going to become a champion. We understand that. Like that's the reality. As I said, when you got 600 guys turnover all the time and you got nine titles or whatever you can go for.

In your case, you got one. I mean, I know you fought and you could fight a middleweight, but I'm saying realistically, you're a welterweight. You have one title. There's not nine. titles at Welterweight you can pick from. Like, I could be the Ohio UFC champion, or I could be the Midwest UFC. It's one. You get one. There's one title.

That's it. Everybody's competing for that one title in your weight class. You know what I mean? It's just like I said, I think people lose track of how hard it is to do what people do at this level. And I think we take it for granted. We definitely take it for granted these days because it does seem like the UFC signs

so many people. Like right now we're in the middle of the contender series and they signed four or five, sometimes six people a week and you're like man that's a lot of people on the roster but you also have to remember a lot of people get released and the UFC's putting on shows every weekend with like 14 fights on a card we generally think about it we pay attention we're like oh we're going to see you know in October we're going to see islam makachev against charles olivaara and hamzatimae against paolo costa those are both huge fights right that's massive fights right but then we forget about the other 12 fights on the card and there's going to be a couple people opening the card and a couple

but people are not going to be on the you know what i mean like so the numbers seem big but then when you really start drilling down like they're not as big as you think and it's still really really hard because i know a lot of i think there's a lot of guys who are incredibly talented who have gotten to the ufc didn't work out for them and they're gone inside 10 fights sometimes less than that right yeah another one i was just thinking they're there day too was uh joe lozahn yeah because i just seen his highlight their day of him knocking out jins palver and i Looking back, I'm like, dude, that was a big win, actually. Yeah.

I just crossed my own thinking about him. No, you're absolutely right. Like I said, we take it for granted sometimes, though, right? Like, we take it for granted when you think about longevity and number of fights as like an achievement. It is a huge achievement. Like, there's so many people who can't do this. Like, I was talking to, I did an interview the other day of Aaron Pico, and we were talking about him training with John Jones. And I said, you know, I consider John Jones the greatest mixed martial arts of all time.

and it's not like an offense to, you know, I love George St. Pierre, Anderson, Silva, guys who are also in that conversation. I was like, I was like, I was at John Jones's title fight when he became UFC champion against Maricio Shogun, who, in 2011. It's 2003. He still has never lost after that. Like 12 years, all title fights. Every single tie, every single fight, every single fight he's had since 2011 has been a title fight. And he's never lost. You realize how fucking insane that is, Matt?

like how insane that is that somebody go 12 years and never lose a title fight in that time period like that's how ridiculous john jones is yeah that is pretty ridiculous and what uh is he how many does he have now how many defenses uh he's about to go do his first at heavyway and it was steep he had like between two title reins because he gave up the belt won it back i think he had like nine i think he had like nine or ten or whatever and light heavyweight total but they were never consecutive because he had to give up the belt when he got in a whole hit and run accident thing he gave up the belt DC became champion then he got a back and he defended like four more times

so I don't know what I did look I know he's undefeated in title fights whatever that number is but yeah I mean I think total was like nine or ten something like that yeah it's pretty amazing right I think Anderson has the record still right Demetrius has the record Demetrius Johnson has the record with uh it was a 14 I think 12 or 12 or 14 I remember the exact number yeah he has the record and Anderson is number two. But again, that's consecutive. We're forgetting about, again, John Jones, you know, he would have been if obviously his life had been what it was at the time. I think, you know, he probably would have safely cruised into that record. But yeah,

he had separate title reigns because of that. So yeah, it's Demetrius number one, Anderson number two. Support for this show comes from the audible original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days. left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey

where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two ghosts in the machine. Available now, only from Audible. I'm Nealai Patel, editor-in-chief The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. We've talked a lot about generative AI on the show lately, which is a very big idea that is causing quite a few problems. And one thing we keep hearing about over and over again is that generative AI is causing a lot of problems in schools. There are a lot of people out there, including many of the listeners of the show who email us,

who are worried about the obvious problem, students using chat GPT to cheat on assignments. But when our team went and poked at the story, they found that the issues in education with AI go a lot deeper, to the very philosophy of education itself. If this technology becomes more ubiquitous, we'll have courses created by AI, graded by AI, with submissions from students absolutely generated by AI. So it begs the question, what are we even doing here in higher ed? This episode is presented by Salesforce. Gotcha.

Well, yeah, well, I apologize, but I'm a little tired tonight, Damon. I just got out of my sauna right before we jumped in here. Me and Coleman, and my buddy Josh, who's fighting this weekend. He's going to go, he'll be moving to the foreno after this weekend, assuming that he wins, which you will. Yeah, we hit a hard, hard sauna session. Coleman makes sure we push it a little bit extra hard, you know, and I think just hanging out with Coleman for an hour,

you know, is a pretty high stress amount of time. When you add in the sauna and the cold and everything, you know, it was a good time, man, so we pushed it a little hard. So if I'm a little tired, a little slow, you know, I've got to apologize, but I got to thank Redwood outdoors for hooking me up with the sauna. Got it all together. Put a roof on it yesterday. And we're cruising now, man.

That fucking thing gets hot. And I'm loving it, bro. It's one of my favorite things about my week now. Having an at-home sauna sounds like such a luxury. Like, sounds like such an incredible luxury to have. Because we talk about it obviously for a fighter. But like, sonnas are beneficial across the board. And having one at home would be.

be huge because that's you know i mean you generally if you're going to go to a sauna you have to go to a gym and you know not everyone lives near a gym or not like right now do the gym that i go to um when i work out is uh it's it's it's down in it's literally five minutes for my house but they're doing construction on the road right by my house so it's closed from like four lanes down to two lanes so to get to my gym it takes so freaking long right now because everything's closed down to one lane unless i go at like midnight if i go any other time i have to i have to wait through like a huge amount of traffic and it's a pain in the ass and I know that sounds like total first world problems but like not everyone has access to just you know go to a gym some people don't live near a

gym some people don't live conveniently to where they can get to the gym every day but guess what we got a son at home it solves a lot of problems for that part for that part of it well i'd say well in two days you're talking about the benefits man i've been researching a lot about the sauna since i finally got one uh man the benefits are out of this world like i'm so amazed by i listen to Huberman and Rhonda Patrick and this Dr. Suzanne Soberg or something like that, does tons of research on it, but it's amazing. But also what I found since having my own home gym, or home sauna, I'm sorry, is the gym sonnas are fucking garbage, man.

Like this one, I have a wood-fired heater so I can get it as hot as I want. I mean, I've had this thing up 220, 2.30 degrees before. I get it as hot as I want. And since I've been doing this research, this is the craziest thing, right? So there's three types of heat. There's radiant, convective, and then there's, I forget what the third one's called, but it's basically steam, right? Like a wet heat, right?

So with the sauna, you have the radiant heat, which is the actual fire. then you have convective, which is the stones, and then you have the wet heat. In a gym sauna, you're most likely only getting one or two of those, and rarely are you able to do the wet heat. So when you get, you know, the moisture in there, get it humid as hell, you know, rinse off in a cold plunge, rinse off in a cold shower, go back in, right in your backyard and I got I don't know if you even been to my house have you living five minutes I've been to your house I haven't been to your house since you did the sauna I haven't seen that yet so okay okay so you got to come to the sauna you know I got the beautiful backyard you know my I have neighbors but you know they can't really see in so you know

we can walk around naked whatever in your underwear at least Colin Coleman likes to walk around as I was gonna probably scares the Coleman probably scares the neighbors walking around He's like, what's going on, guys? They're like, oh, whoa, what's what's going on over here? He tends to, like, walking down the street in his underwear for some reason. I think they have a lot of questions about what's going on there. But it works out. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Yeah, the police are going to come to your house. Like, sir, we've gotten reports about a nude man running him down the street around here. What's going on? He's like, oh, it's just, you know, it's just UFC legend Mark Coleman, right around nude. He did get stopped by a cop walking through Hilliard. underwear.

Oh my God, dude. Only Martin Coleman. I don't have the idea what that conversation was like, but if we could get those police records, that would be pretty freaking amazing, I would think. Yeah, we need to have Coleman. We need to have a conversation about it just run around your underwear. Like, that's a touch much, man. Like, put on some clothes.

Like, it's cool. Like, you know, like, there's nothing wrong with extra clothes on. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah. That's what he loves now, man. He loves getting the sun and bare feet, grounding into the earth and walking miles and miles and miles every day. Hey, gets it done.

And you got a song in the backyard. Now you can heat it up too afterwards. Yeah, yeah. Hey, man, he's staying sober and he's living a happy life. So I'm proud of him. Absolutely, absolutely. Getting on to some fight, we've actually been off for a couple weeks, Matt.

I had people messaged me. Like, what's going on to podcast? Where's it at? And I was like, we're coming back. Matt had some family stuff. And then I had a week. A week off, I went to, uh, I went to a concert and I had Monday night football this past weekend to watch the Bengals win their only game of the season, which has been depressing. But I didn't get to see them wins.

At least I got that. So I went down to Cincinnati for a few days. You know what, dude, not to get off subject here. I don't know. How often do you get down to Cincinnati now? Like, we both lived there before. Like, how often do you get down to Cincinnati? just when I have a reason.

So not very often. I lived down there, obviously, for many, many years. They've done so much work and, like, short, like in race and Vine Street down there. It's, like, a totally different world down there now. Like, I remember what it was like when I lived down there close to campus when I was at the University of Cincinnati. Dude, it's so different now. Like, because I don't go to Cincinnati that often.

Like, I go down there for a concert or maybe to go to a convention or something. I don't, like, hang out in Cincinnati that often. So, like, when I would go down, when I went down there, I actually went to dinner. downtown. I was like, my God, this looks like a whole different world for when I lived here. Yeah, I think like over the Ryan and all the places down there that used to be scary to go through now are like some of the nicest places around. It's weird. It's weird how that all changes. So, yeah, we've been off for a couple weeks. So lots of, lots of stuff happening in the MMA world. We got a million fights get announced. We saw Leon Edwards and Kobe Covington finally going to fight December. Yuri Pahoshka is going to fight Alex Pereira for the vacant light heavyweight title in November.

We got Shavkat Rechmanoff against Stephen Wonderboy Thompson. We got Ian Machado Gary against Vicente Lucke. We got Tony Ferguson fighting Patty Pimblit. That's one I didn't see coming. Any fight that got announced recently that you're excited about Max? There's a lot of them. Boy, I think you just named them all. Yeah, I can't think of anything else, man.

it's a good time what do you what do you make of what do you make of tony and patty because that's probably one of the more interesting kind of weird or matchups because tony of course legend of the sport uh former interim lightweight champion been around fought everybody but he's obviously on a bad win losing streak i think six in a row right now he had the loss to bobby green most recently then you got patty pimblit up-and-coming guy popular but

probably not as good as a lot of people want him to be. Like he's a super popular guy, but we talked a lot around the Jared Gordon fight about he lost that fight and didn't look particularly great in that one. And, you know, do we see championship level medal in a guy like Patty Pimblit? Not yet anyways, but, you know, he's taking on a legitimate, like, there's not like a lot of legitimate stars, like well-known guys in our sport. Tony Ferguson is one of them.

Like, he's a well-known guy. People tune in to watch Tony Ferguson. but it's a weird one because it's kind of like this is do or die for Tony. If he wins, he's sticking around. He'll break the pattern. He'll break the loss streak. If he loses, Dana, you know, Dana White has already said. Like, I kind of imagine that's going to be it for him.

And what a weird way to go out fighting Patty Pimbley of all people. Man, you know, I think this is the right matchups to make, though. And I'm glad that they made it. I mean, I think Patty's a very winnable fight for Tony. But he's got the star power, you know, to get in there with Tony, right? Like, Tony doesn't need to fight just some nobody off the street just to get a win. And obviously, if, if Patty's able to pull this out, then he gets, you know, even more notoriety, right? And obviously the UFC loves that, right?

Like, given the, you know, given the stars, you know, magnification, right? Like, magnifying glass for him, right? like it's let's blow up you know who they are right so i think it's the right matchup man and i think it's actually a good matchup um certainly uh you know six seven fights ago i don't think we anybody would give patty a chance in this fight um at this point you know i think um it's pretty up in the air who's going to come out on top on this right no one really knows where tony's at these days, but it also gives him a chance to get his confidence back and get his group back in there. If, you know, assuming that he's able to do that, I mean, who really knows, right?

Yeah. It's a weird one because on paper, like, you think about experience and you think about level of competition. Well, Tony blows him away. Like, it's not even close. Like, Tony's fought everybody. He's fought every top lightweight in the world. He was the top lightweight for a long time.

But it is weird. Like, he goes on this losing streak and now suddenly everyone's like, well, this seems like a pretty even fight and it is i mean honestly it's it doesn't seem like a you know like a mismatch on paper these days that it would as you said six fights ago like when tony fought justing gaitiii they said tony's fighting patty pimple we said oh my god we shouldn't get this kid killed like do you just want this kid to get demolished by tony ferguson now it doesn't seem like that and i hear the other thing where they're like oh man tony's you know coming to the end of his career they want to hurt tony i don't i don't really see it that way i think tony i still i still think tony's a bad match

could be a bad matchup for Patty. Now, you know, if Tony loses, does that show us that maybe Tony really is maybe done? Probably because, you know, like there's no shame and losing to Bobby Green. There's no shame and losing to Nate Diaz, which a fight you took on 24 hours notice, you were getting ready to fight a totally different opponent and you get, you know, Nate Diaz on last minutes notice. Benile Darius, Charles Oliver, like, none of those are bad losses. Like, you know, does it, obviously, they're losses.

and he got dominated in a couple of them, but like none of those are bad losses. And I don't think losing to Patty is a bad loss necessarily, but I don't think this is like somehow mismatch or it's like, oh, we're just sending Tony out to be retired by this young up-and-comer. I don't see it that way at all, and I actually think Tony's got a great chance of winning this one.

Yeah, I'm right there with you. I think he should be able to win this one. Again, we're just going to see where Tony's at. You know, if he doesn't win this, I mean, I don't I don't see where the UFC would take him, right? Like, I mean, where do you even put them at that point?

Right? Like, what kind of available options are there? And, you know, about your only choice is to bring in, you know, some guy that you should be that probably doesn't have any star power, right? So Patty is about the only guy out there. I love this matchup. I think Patty's the only guy out there that makes sense.

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. I agree. And, um, I know. I know this sounds, people are going to say, this is the wrong way to look at things. But Matt, you and I both know this is true. When you're paying a guy a lot of money and I know Tony doesn't make peanuts, he makes, you know, he's probably one of the higher-in guys. They're not going to put him on a prelims against some no-name guy from the contender series.

Like, that's just not how it works. They're not going to pay Tony Ferguson $250,000 to open a preliminary card. That's just not how it works. Like he's too big of a name, too big of a star to just put in there with anybody, you know? And, you know, Bobby Green. like Bobby Green is like a top he's a fringe top 20 guy like he's not in the top 15 but he's right around there and he's fought a lot of good guys in his career um there's no shame in losing a baby Bobby Green's headlining the card in days he's fighting Grant Dawson in a headlining card

like you don't get that opportunity if you're terrible like Bobby Green's a legitimately good fighter uh so there's no shame and losing to him so I don't think there's any shame if he loses to Patty but I don't know that he's going to lose to Patty I think this is a very winnable fight for Tony but to be fair I don't think there's really that you You use that term a lot, but I'm not a knock on you for using term, but there's really not a shame in losing at that level at all, really. So, yeah, so that kind of goes unsaid. But, you know, I think Tony would be pretty embarrassed to lose to Patty Pimblet.

I would say that much, right? Like, I think, you know, with his experience and his fighting skill, fighting ability and his level, like, he should be able to go in there and beat Patty pretty handedly. It's just a matter of, you know, is Tony just washed up? I mean, I guess it kind of happens to everyone at some point, right? I mean, I think it happens to the best of us, man, that, you know, we all have a father time is undefeated, man. We all have a time that's just not going to come back, right?

It might have happened for Tony. Yeah, also, you got to remember damage. I mean, like I said, I always said after Carlos Condit had to have. fight with Robbie Lawler, like he was never quite the same guy again. Like, he still won fights, but he was never quite that same kind of savage in there because he took so much damage. I said, like, Robbie and Carlos took a piece of each other's soul in that fight, because Robbie was the same way. Like, Robbie was still good. Robbie, we talked about his retirement, like, you know, it was iconic, but he never, he was never quite the same guy after that, after that

Carlos Konda fight. I think for Tony was that Justin Gaci fight. I mean, they went to freaking war, man. That was an incredible fight. He took. He took a, he, took a lot of damage and he ended up losing but you wonder like could he ever really come back from that right like at that point he's already in his 30s you know he's 35 36 at that time he's 39 now I think um you just lose something in there and it never comes back you know and that's just the reality of the sport and like that's like and again it's not like losing to deriuch or or charles loa vera is is a terrible thing um but yeah like i just think like sometimes man you just like I said, it's not impossible to lose a step because you had a beating out of you.

Like, that's just part of the sport, man. Like, we're lucky that there are guys like yourself and guys who are alleged to the sport who are still going at a very high level and doing really, really well at it because it's not easy. We go back to the whole longevity thing. Like, look at that. Like, there's a great example. Tony Ferguson's been around forever, but it runs out for everybody.

There's just no rhyme or reason to it, though. You know what I mean? Like, we can sit here and say, like, yeah, he's had six losses in a row. Yeah, but they're not six terrible losses. Tony was in all those fights. He had moments in all those fights. And yes, he lost, but, you know, who's he losing to? He's losing the best guys in the world.

So is it really that bad? Like, is it really a bad loss? No. You know, so, yeah, we'll see. I mean, as you said, you know, we'll see how it goes with the fight happens. Yeah, and that's kind of one of the differences in MMA and boxing, too, where, you know, boxers, when they lose, like, you know, they kind of take a step down, right, and work their way back up.

and like Tony never did that, right? So this, it seems like now he is kind of getting that chance to do that. And that's not to take anything away from Patty Pimbleau either. I mean, you know, we're going to find out, you know, how he performs against Tony. Like, you know, on his end, it's a tough, I think it's a tough matchup for him because, well, for one, like if he loses, he lost to a guy who's 0 and 6 in his last 6, right?

if he beat a guy that's 0 and 6 in his last 6. So, you know, it kind of doesn't do as much for him, but it gives him a good name and keeps the ball rolling for him if he keeps going. But, you know, I do see it at least for Tony, whether or not he's going to win or lose this fight, it is a step down versus the level of competition that he's been facing. So I think it's good for him. Yeah, man, I think it's, like I said,

I think it's a very winnable fight for him. A lot of these matchups men are really good. I tell you what, the one, I'm really looking forward to it weirdly, even though I don't think it's the fight that should happen. And that is Leon Edwards against Colby Covington in December. They're going to headline the final UFC pay-per-view of the year. Matt, I got to be honest. I mean, I'm just being honest about this.

I still to this day do not understand what Colby Covington has done to get this title shot. Now, I say it all the time. If you're a mixed martial arts fan, you've got to strike the word deserves from your vocabulary because it'll make you go crazy. And on paper, it should be Bilal Muhammad, undefeated, eight fight, nine fight, win streak, whatever it is, beaten Gilbert Burns,

doing the things he's done, he should be fighting for the title. But Colby Covington has a name, has name recognition, he's a little bit of a star. I won't say it goes as far as a star, because we've got to remember, like Colby's biggest fights

have when he was fighting Usman, who also was a star in his own right, and that was a rivalry fight. Like, Colby's not been a guy who by himself is just a little, a bunch of pay-per-views. And Colby's, you know, Colby hasn't had a win over a guy on the current UFC roster since he beat Dosanos in 2018.

Like his last two wins were against Mazvedal who retired and Tyrone Woodley, who obviously left the UFC and only fought Jake Paul since then. You know, so like, is this, is this the most compelling matchup on paper? I don't personally think so. Not to say Colby can't win. I don't think that's the case. but it's got to be one of the weirdest way. It's very much like we're having this debate recently mad about

Chito Vera fighting Sean O'Malley and Chito possibly getting the title shot with one win and because he has a win over O'Malley, he's going to get it over guys like Corey Sandhagan or Marabda Wallyushvili or maybe an Algeman-Steirling rematch. Colby is getting this fight because there's the expectations that people are going to tune in to watch him either win or lose. Like people are going to tune in to watch Colby win or lose.

it's not really about Colby's earn this opportunity. Yeah, that's a good point, man. I didn't realize he hasn't even, you know, since 2018 beats him on the roster. So, you know, but, like, you know, we've seen Colby fight enough. We know, like, he's got a good shot here. You know, he absolutely could,

this is a very winnable fight for him, to be honest. But Leon is just one of those guys that fucking knows how to fucking pull a fight. it out, you know, like with what we've seen with Usman. But on top of that, just, he just seems to always find a way to get it done. But boy, I do think that Colby's a bad matchup for him, man. And so, you know, this is going to be real interesting. I think it really depends on when you say bad matchup. I think bad matchup comes down to wrestling because I don't think, I don't think Colby wants to stand and trade with Leon Edwards. That's just a recipe for disaster. I think it's pace and

cardio and pressure and wrestling. But, you know, in that second fight with Usman, like I felt like Leon, because Leon gave a lot of takedowns in the first fight, or I guess technically the second fight with Usman, his rematch for the title. And then that fifth round he comes out and gets the head kick knockout, which we all know, you know, shot hurt around the world. When they fought for the third time, Leon started shrugging off Usman's takedown attempts. And he stopped showing, stop letting Usman get him down.

I think his confidence kind of exploded in that fight. and we saw he better. We saw Leon Edwards beat Kamar Usman over a five-round decision. He didn't knock him out. He didn't need this crazy comeback. He went on there and beat him in a five-round decision. And I think that confidence is going to play a huge part in this game because Colby's pace and pressure and wrestling are all really, really good.

But if he can't get Leon down and he's not fighting a Mazadol at the end of his career in a fight where Mazadol just hated him so much, you know, there's just so much emotion in that fight. same with Woodley. Like they hated each other so much. I know he's going to say, take crazy things about Leon Edwards. He's going to insult him and all that kind of stuff. But I don't think Leon really cares.

If he can't get Leon down, he can't pressure him like that. Like, he can be in trouble in a hurry. And I'm also a big believer in competition, man. And, like, Colby's best performances lately have been two losses to Kamar Usman. Like, those are his best performances over the last, like, four or five years, have been losses to Kamar Usman. I don't know, man. like I don't I don't disagree I think Leone I think Colby can win this fight but I'm leaning pretty

heavily towards Leon in this one to be honest with you yes I think if you break it down in the sense of like okay if it stays on the feet we're probably going to favor Leon if it goes if Kobe's able to take him down then yeah he's probably you know going to be able to if he's able to consistently take him down then it's probably going to go to Colby but I think it's a little deeper than that because like Leon is such a sniper on the feet and I think think when you compare with like the fights with usman like usman was kind of trying to play that same game he was kind of trying to snipe with um leon a little bit and that that's leon's game and usmom was having a lot of success fighting like that against other guys you know and i think

particularly like against mazvado you know who's kind of a sniper himself too and then usman ended up obviously like knocking him out but colby it just brings a completely different fight to the feet there. And I'm not sure how well Leon's going to handle that. Even though Leon is, if it's a pure kickboxing match, I think Leon wins like no problem. And I think if, you know, if Colby doesn't fight him properly on the feet,

then it's going to be an easy night for Leon. But the way that Colby fights on the feet, I think it could bring a lot of problems to Leon on the feet to open up that wrestling. and that's where I see, like, when I say a bad matchup, like, because Colby, like, he'll come forward and just throw and not really even care if he gets hit, you know, in the process at some points, you know, almost like a light, like a lesser version of like Diaz brothers, you know, he just kind of comes forward and throws and throws. And I'm not sure how Leon's going to handle that. You know, I, you're not wrong, but I still think that, like, I think Leon is just a different level of striker than what he, because when you think about the guys that Colby's fought in the last couple years,

he fought Usman, who, Usman turned into a knockout striker, but Usman, I don't think anyone's ever going to tell you that Usman had the most elite striking. Like, he had good power. He obviously had huge power, and he had pretty good boxing. But I don't think Usman, even Usman would tell you that he's like an elite striker. He was a good, he was a good mixed martial arts. He could mix things really well together. He could disguise his strike it with takedowns and takedowns with striking.

And if you made a mistake, he'll make you pay for it because he can put your lights out as he did with Jorge Mazadol. But we saw him when he fought Gilbert Burns. Like Gilbert Burns dropped him on the feet. Like it's, you know, Kamarro was never an elite, not saying he was bad. I'm saying he was never an elite striker. You know, Tyron Woodley was always one punch.

Like he was always looking for that one punch knockout on the feet. He was never an elite guy. Mazvedal, I always thought Mazvedal had very, very underrated boxing. But also, I know people are going to say you're making excuses now after the fact. But Maswadol was never the biggest welterweight. Like, Madswell was a lightweight for most of his career. Like, he was always giving up size and power to a lot of guys he fought at welterweight. And I also, and again, I know this sounds like I'm making excuses.

But, like, he was at the end of his career, man. Like, he lost Colby. And then he looked sluggish and kind of old against Burns and he retired. Like, I think, and I think Woodley was kind of the same thing. Like, Woodley was at the tail end his career. I wish we had seen, I wish we had seen Woodley and Colby when Woodley was still champion. Like, I think that would have been a much, much better fight. but, you know, it never happened.

Leon is, as you said, he's a sniper, man. He's as elite as it gets on the feet. And I think his confidence exploding by beat Newsman twice in a row is really going to help in this fight. So I don't know. I kind of disagree with you. I do think he could, Colby could be a bad matchup for Leon. I just think where they're at in their careers on now, Leon, by the time they fight,

Colby's going to have been out for almost two years, you know? I just, and his last win was against Mazfidol, who is not the same Mazfiel. all is like four years ago when he knocked out Ben Ascran. So I don't know. I'm just, I don't know. There's something about this matchup. I just feel like this is a, like I think Below would have been a tougher fight.

I'm just being honest. I think Bilau would have been a tougher fight. Well, Belaw is for sure the proper fight. And to be, to be full disclosure here, like I'm not necessarily, I'm not picking Colby to win this fight either.

But I think Kobe could cause him a lot of problems, a lot more problems than maybe meets the eye. right like i think he could bring a lot more to the table than we think here um and i mean i can see like a lot of ways for him to pull this victory out right he has a lot of paths to victory here um you know like and again like if it's if it's if it's just a kickboxing match if uh you know a proper kickboxing match with big gloves like in glory or something you know leon doesn't even have to break a sweat doing this but m m m m ms i i don't even have to break a sweat doing this but m m m i

think Colby's going to give him some real problems and probably win a round or two and might even be a close decision. We'll see. I mean, like I said, I mean, it is intriguing. And this is, I don't want to, when you're a guy of Colby's level in terms like attention and star power, like you're never that far away from a title shot. But you have to imagine, like, two losses to Usman, one of them you got knocked out and got your jaw broken. And this is a fight that a lot of people are telling you you haven't earned. Like, you haven't, I mean, if Colby draw. his stick for five minutes

and you asked him this question, did you really go through to deserve this title shot? You know, come on. He didn't beat Burns. He didn't beat Belial. There's no question that it's not deserved. Like you said,

you just got to drop that word from the vocabulary. You know, the sad part is it just fucks Belal Muhammad again, man. Like, I can't believe this guy ain't got a title shot. Yeah, that's the hard part. But what I'm saying about Colby, though,

is like, if you're a cold but you're already kind of getting away with one right now, right? Like, he doesn't really deserve this. If he loses to Leon, he might have to go through Shavkat or Rachmanoff. He might have to go through Gilbert Burns. He might have to go through Bilal Mohamed. In that point, you're like, man, I don't know. That's a lot of work to get back there again.

Like, you might want to win this one because you may not get another one. And also, it's not like Colby's like a super young guy. He's in his mid-30s. Like, he's not like 25, 27, whatever, doing this. Like, he's an older guy. you know, if he loses to Leon Edwards, man, it might be a tough road to get back to another title shot. You know what I mean?

Like, especially at this level. Like, you look at a guy like Shavkat and he and Machado Gary, guys like that coming up, you know, and even guys like, you know, like Sean Brady's out there. And, you know, there's guys at Welterweight who are really, really good right now and coming up in younger guys. Like, dude, it's a long road. Like, you better, you better take this opportunity and win it

because you may not get another one. Yeah, I'm a hard time believing that he's going to continue fighting if he loses this fight, to be honest. I mean, he just doesn't come across to me like that kind of guy. Like you said, he hasn't fought for two years. Like, I don't think he's the, he's not built like me where I love fighting. And if I lost like 10 in a row, I'd still want to fight. Maybe I would or wouldn't. But, you know, he's the kind of guy where I think, you know, he's in there to get paid, get his money,

get his stir up as much shit as he can and get out and you know nothing against that i'm not saying that's a wrong way to do it i mean had i worked operated in that fashion maybe i'd be uh living in a bigger home right now right but it is what it is right but i i just i don't see him you know this is how many title shots now for him this is three one third title shot yeah yeah and you know like you say he has a fought for two years. What would he even do after this, you know, if he were to lose again? Like you said, he's got a murderous row coming up. You know, if we talk about, put that deserve word back in, you know, talk about him, you know, earning one to get a deserved title shot, right,

in the future. I mean, like you said, he's got a, he's got a lot of fucking hard work to do and probably not going to be able to get that done. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of good guys out there who aren't even in that ranking. You look at guys like, you know, I mean, you look at guys like Jack Della Madelena, Kevin Holland. I mean, there's a guy's like, and that's on the guys on like the fringe of the top 15. Like that's at the tail end of the top. Look at Brian Battle.

Brian Battle just got a big submission win. He's off a couple big wins. Like that guy's toughest nails. He's not even ranked. You know what I mean? Like there's guys out there who are, this is a, I've always said, Welterweight is one of the deepest, nastiest divisions in the sport. It just did, and for some reason people never wanted to mention Welterweight alongside Lightway,

but I've always said Welterweight. It's just because I think for a long time, because George was so dominant, we kind of forgot how good everyone else was. It's just George was the best. But when you look at Welterweight, top to bottom, man, it's a murderer's row. And like, you know, to get, like, look at what Leon. Leo had to win, like, 12 fights in a row, whatever, to get to a title shot. Like, he had to win, like, a ridiculous amount of fights to finally get a title shot.

Yeah, man, you can't, you can't sleep on these opportunities. And I don't think Colby is, by any means, by the way. Let me be clear about that. Like, I don't think Colby is sleeping on how big this is for him. him but I don't know that you're wrong if he loses this one like if he does lose to Leon Edwards like does he have motivation to be like oh yeah well you can come back but you're gonna fight Shavkat Reckmanoff you're gonna fight you know Ian Machado Gary you're gonna fight Jack Delamadalana you're gonna fight Kevin Holland you're gonna fight

fight Brian Battle you're gonna fight you know you're gonna fight those guys Colby really gonna want to do that you may be right like that may be it you talk about how deep the division is I mean you keep forgetting to mention your favorite welter way too Matthew Immortal Brown I don't know if I am. You better be. Damn, man. If you're not my favorite, I'm screwed.

Of course, of course it's, I'm still waiting for Matthew Immortal Brown to fight on you. Maybe that's why you don't like doing the podcast in person. Catch a straight left hand for what I'm saying on the podcast. Whether you're a founder, investor, or innovation company executive, you need a bank that truly understands your business inside an a bank that offers uniquely specialized solutions for your unique needs. A bank like Silicon Valley Bank.

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Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close you, call 186653310 or visitcomicsonterio.com. No, I'm so... You know, I mean, you keep saying he's a potential if Kobe were to lose, but we don't know that he's going to be Wonderboy here. He's got that fight coming up. You know, that, you know, Wonderboy is one of those guys, man. You don't fight him right. He's going to fucking get you.

Calvin Holland found that out, right? Like Kevin could beat Wonderboy. I think 90 out of 100 times. But that one time he's like, no, I'm going to stand with you. Not only am I going to stand with you. I'm going to do like distance fighting with you. Like, I'm going to give you your space to let you throw your techniques. and I'm going to throw mine too,

and we're going to see who's better. Well, Wonderboy is pretty fucking good at it. So, you know, you don't want to play that game with them. I don't see Shopcott playing that game with him either. I think Shopcott's going to close some distance on him, put a lot of pressure on him, be aggressive, and fuck him up pretty good. Yeah, I mean, I agree.

I mean, but Wonder Boy is one of those guys, man. Like, he got, Shaftcott got drawn into a bit of a firefight with Jeff Neal, and he obviously ended up getting him and beating him, but, like, you can't play that game. with Wonderboy. You cannot play the like, I'll trade you punch for punch with Wonderboy because he will fuck you up from the outside.

Like you'll be, you'll be coming forward. He'll be coming towards you with a question mark kick. You're like, where the fuck did that come from? That's just that dude. Like there is a path to be Wonderboy

that's been shown. But if you don't follow that path, he will dice you up and leave you on the ground bloody. Like he is a nasty. Remember what he did to Mazvedol? Remember what Wonderboy did to Masvedol? Like everyone forgets

because Mazvedal went out there and torched Ben Ben Ascran the way he did, go back and watch him fight Wonder Boy. He could do anything. Could not do anything to Wonder Boy on the feet. Nothing. It always surprised me because I always felt like I kind of opened the mystery box of Wonderboy when I fought him. I was like, this is how you fight him.

Like you walk forward, you buy down your mouthpiece, you walk forward, you might take a shot. But don't stand out here where he can spin, where he can blitz, where he can dance, where he can dance. around with his fast feed and his long limbs and shit like go forward and it doesn't even have to be a wrestling thing like you know everybody says i just wrestled him like i took him down most of it i think three or four of the takedowns were sweeps you know like like moitai style um like that's what you got to do you got to be right in his face and that is where guys with that style i see them all the time guys with that style do not handle it well and they'll wear themselves out of trying to create distance all the time.

That's how you fight them. The blueprint is there. You fight their style. They're probably going to win. That's what fighting is. Like that's literally what combat sports is. Like Jordan Burroughs has a great double leg. We all know this, right?

But everybody forgets what his real game is. How does he get everybody to that double leg? Right. That's his whole game, is setting it. it up to get to them. Like Wonder Boy's whole game is how do I impose my will on you by funneling you to

my strength? And a lot of these guys, he doesn't have to funnel them. They try to play to his strength. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think in a lot of ways, like the way you beat Wonderboy was a blueprint for the way Tyron Woodley ended up fighting and beating Wonderboy.

Like he closed that distance. He would not let Wonderboy have room to move. even when he didn't get the takedown he just didn't give him room to operate. You cannot give that dude room to operate. You give that guy room to operate. He is going to surgically pick you apart. You can't do it.

You did. And also, to be clear, because Stephen Wonderboy Thompson is a very good fighter. People try to do that and it doesn't work. But then you look at what Bilal Muhammad did. Bilal Muhammad, same thing. Went in there, close the distance, never gave him room to breathe. And it wasn't as, yes, the takedowns were obviously important. But, like, never allowing that dude enough.

like if you give him enough room to throw a spin cake or to throw a question mark kick or he's going to fuck you up like he is a really elite striker from the outside and and you cannot give him that room and yeah like you made the blueprint but it doesn't mean people are going to follow the blueprint that's the problem you know what I mean and Wonderboy is still a really good fighter so yeah it's not it's not not a not a cakewalk for Shabcat Regmonov that he's just going to walk through Stephen Wonderboy Thompson it's almost like if someone was fighting bow nickel and their entire game plan was to out wrestle him. Yeah.

And it's like, like, what are you doing? You know, like, I see that all the time with, with these Wonder Boy fights. And, you know, it's like their game plan, like Kevin Holland, I mean, I think Kevin took that one on a very short notice, too. Was that one of those? No, it wasn't, it wasn't short notice, but he had like that, that basically like that gentleman's agreement. They weren't going to go for takedowns and he actually stuck to it. Yeah, he's stuck to it. Yeah.

which is still fine. Like he doesn't have to go for takedowns. But, you know, it's, you know, San Chai is very similar, right? If you, if you fight with San Chai, you know, like he's lost fights. Like people kind of forget that because he wasn't really famous until he started fighting internationally. But he lost a fair amount of fights in the stadiums because certain guys knew how to fight them, right?

You walk forward. You buy down your mouthpiece. You clench him up. You grab them. You take away the space. You dirty box. you know, it's the same thing with Wonderboy. And it's not saying that it's easy to accomplish either, you know.

So I'm not hating on someone for not being able to get it done. But it kind of takes me back sometimes when guys don't try to do that, though, when they're trying to play into his game and trying to beat him in his own game. But I don't think Shavcott's going to do that moral of a story. And, you know, I would, I'm favoring Shavcott pretty heavy in this personally. Yeah, I lean Shavkat as well. You know, it's an interesting matchup and, you know, we got Ian Machado Gary

against Vicente Lucke. I just have so much respect for Vicente Lucke, but I lean Ian Machado Gary in that one as well. I think he's you know, at this stage in their career, I think he's a better striker overall. And Vicente has taken a lot of damage in his career and I think that does eventually catch up to you. It's a new age, man. Like I said,

if Leon beats Colby, you know, we could be at an age where we're looking at a completely different well-to-weight top five than we were two years ago, three years ago. I mean, when you think about the Turner, when you think of Bilow now being the number one contender and you think about Shavkat you think about you know potentially

Ian Machado Gary guys like that and you know not say like Gilbert Burns is that far gone he just lost one fight to Bilal Muhammad but like the turnover is pretty dramatic when you think about like at the top of the Welterweight division like a year from now versus two or three years ago you know it's pretty crazy like where we and again none of this is guaranteed not just if Vicente Leukee could pull off a crazy submission

and beat Ian Machado Gary and Wonderboy could go in there and Shabkat's like you know what I want to prove my striking against Wonderboy Thompson. He goes out there and gets knocked out and gets his head lopped off. I mean, it's possible. So, you know, we can't just start changing the guard yet, but it's possible. Six months from now, we can be looking at a whole different top five in that well-to-way division. And I'll tell you what, like, I think we've watched this sport long enough that we've got to learn the lessons.

The Shavko might go in there and point fight with Wonderboy and beat him. And Luke Kay might knock out Ian Gary doing a moitai. style fight. You know, Leon and Edwards might take down Kobe Covington. You know, it's like, like, dude, I've watched his sport so much, or I've seen so many crazy things happen in the sport. Like,

I don't put anything past it anymore. Like, the athletes in the sport are fucking amazing. Everybody's training so hard. You know, everybody's getting such high level training everywhere. The coaches are coming up. I don't put anything past anyone anymore. Yeah, you're absolutely

right. I still live with regret about the whole Sean Strickland thing when I was like, yeah, he can't beat Israel out of sign. Yeah, well, fuck, I was wrong on that one. That didn't work out too well for me. Real quick, when we get out of here, Matt, we talked about all the matchups that have been made. One that hasn't been made, and I want to bring this up because I just wrote an article about him yesterday, which is Sugar Sean O'Malley.

He is awaiting his next assignment as Bantamweight Champion. He did Joe Rogan's podcast, which I watched that thing. I know you've done Rogan. I like Joe Rogan. Let me be clear about that. Like, I'm not, you know, Joe Rogan hater. But good God, dude. I tried to go to that pie.

It's three and a half hours long. I was like, good. I don't have three and a half hours to spare. Like, I don't know how anyone listed this damn show for three and a half hours. I had it on the background while I was watching the Canelo Charlo prelimbs. I was like, Jesus Christ, this thing's three and a half hours long. Anyways, I wrote a story about that. And O'Malley said, you know, he wanted to fight in December.

UFC said, no, we want you to headline your own card next year. So he's going to headline his own card. And it looks like from what I'm hearing, the rumors I'm hearing, it's going to be February. I've heard rumors. February for O'Meck. because April looks like UFC 300. Obviously, he's not going to headline that one on his own. We already know that's going to be like three title fights in that car,

whatever it ends up being. I've heard Volcanovsky's going to come back in January. I don't know about March, but it's looking like O'Malley in February is the rumor I'm hearing. And obviously, O'Malley is still pushing for the Cheetah Verifite. Al Jermaine Sterling won a grappling match on Saturday, and he called him out again. So, give me a rematch or fight Marab, fight the top contender. So, Matt, what's it going to be? Who's going to get O'Malley?

What's going to be the end of this sweepstakes to fight Sean O'Malley? Well, I don't know. Are we talking about who's dessert or? Who do you want to see? And if you're playing Sean Shelby or Mick Mayer, you're the matchmaker, okay, take it away all the politics and bullshit. If you're the matchmaker, who is Sean O'Malley fighting next? Who should he fight next?

If Matt Brown's a matchmaker, he's fighting Marab. 100%. If he beats Maraub. He's fight now, Joe. Yeah. I'm 100% agree. agreement 100% agreement yeah I think it's simple you know and like you said or like I said deserved or what's going to happen he's fighting Cheeto yeah right I think he should be

fighting Marab he wins he fights out Joe but what's probably going to happen is he fights Cheeto. If he wins, probably Mara Baro Joe. Yeah. I like Cheeto. Let me be clear about that. I like Cheetah. He's a super tough guy. But we're talking to when we talk about like who has not even let's let's get the deserve. Let's get deserves out of there. Let's just get that word. Let's just talk about the fight. I'm not even going to completely say like Cheeto doesn't deserve it. Right. In a sense he does, but not, you know, when you look at statistics,

and you know who beat who you know the whole picture like yeah he's not like marab deserves it but go ahead but let's so but let's eliminate deserves for let's just talk about the fight you know what mean like chito is a really good fighter but omali has a to me has a much easier path to victory to beat chito vera than he does to beat marab or or even corey sandhagen who's out there like i think cori sanhagen is a really interesting matchup because cori's just as tall just as long, nasty striker. He could do things to O'Malley on the feet that O'Malley really has an experience. And I do, listen, I call me maybe I'm defending Algeman Sterling, but I think Algeman

Sterling just had a really bad fight. He got caught and had a terrible fight, and I still don't like the fact that he had to fight three months after going five rounds with Henry Sehudo. But that's neither here or there. He took the fight. He accepted the fight. That's on Aljermaine. But I still think a rematch could go much differently.

But the Cheeto fight is a chance for O'Malley to defend. his title successfully. I think that's, I'm not saying it's an easy fight. It's certainly not an easy fight. I'm saying to me, Sean O'Malley has a much clear path to victory over Cheetah Vera than he does against Marab de Walshville. Like, Marab is a, is a takedown spam machine. He's going to go out, he's not hiding what he's going to do to you. You know what I mean? Like, the chances of O'Malley losing that fight are much greater than him losing the Cheetah. He can't lose the Cheetah. Let me be clear about it. can lose to Cheeto. But the differences are so dramatic.

Like the Morab fight, maybe it's 50-50, maybe it's less than, I don't know what the actual odds are like 50-50 who wins. I think it's like 70-30 with Cheeto. Like I think O'Malley, yes, he dealt with an injury the last time. That's legit. He didn't not get it. He did get injured. But he lost. I still think he has a much better chance of beating Cheeto.

But he fights Marab. Those odds drop dramatically to me. Right, yeah, you're just talking about statistics and probabilities and shit. Yeah, I'm right on point with that. Like his probability of beating Marab is far lower than his probability of beating Cheeto. You know, and the other thing, too, you know, when he fights, if he fights Cheeto, which is what I think is most likely, like, I feel like Sean O'Malley has improved more than Cheeto has, at least from what they've shown, you know, in the octagon in their fights and what I

personally witnessed on TV. There may, you know, that that could be completely wrong behind the scenes, right? But just from what I've seen, like, Sean O'Malley has done a lot of things better than he was doing back in the day, whereas Cheetos is really, maybe a sharper Cheeto, maybe a better Cheeto, but he's still like Cheeto. Like, like, Sean O'Malley is, like, he's doing really, he looked really, really good. And he's doing a lot of really special things. I would agree.

I would totally agree. And I think if we were picking that fight right now, Matt, I'd pick O'Malley to beat Cheeto Vera. Like, I agree with you. I think he's gotten a lot better in areas. His striking is nastier pinpoint, power. We saw him go to war with Peoria and it wasn't an easy fight and he gutted it out. And I'm not sitting there debating the decision again. But he gutted out to win.

He got the job done. and he went out there and sniped Al Jermaine Sterling and did a great job at that. I don't know that I've seen dramatic changes and improvements in Cheeto where I'm like, man, he's going to make it a much different fight for O'Malley. I feel the other way. I feel like O'Malley's gotten that much better where he's going to make it a different fight for Cheeto than it would have been, you know, three years ago when they fought. But again, I think Marab's the guy. It bums me out. And this is, this to me, this to me even goes beyond the, the Colby-Cubington thing.

Like Colby Covington, like it or not, he's a pretty solid name. Like, you don't have to like what he says. I certainly don't. But he's a pretty well-known name. Like, he's a pretty markable name. Everyone knows Colby Covington, right? You can argue Colby Covington as one of the bigger names in the UFC, right? That's true.

Like, no one can debate that. That's true. I don't know that Chito Vera is that guy. Like, I know Chito's popular, but I don't know that you're like, the reason Chito's getting it is because Cheeto has the win over O'Malley and O'Malley wants it back. You know what I mean? I don't think Cheeto is that much bigger of a name than Marab de Walshville.

They're like, oh, my God, it's like, you know, dramatic difference in sells pay-per-views. I don't think it's that dramatic. You know what I mean? Cheetah's only headlined a couple of cards in his career. It's not like he's headline pay-per-view and, you know, he's like a, you know, a multi-time pay-per-view co-main event or anything like that. Like, I don't think Cheetos is that much bigger of a name than Marab. He's getting it because he has the win over O'Malley.

That's what's getting him the title shot, not because he's like a superstar. Amarab's not. I don't think there's that much difference in their name value, but Cheeto has the golden ticket because he has the win over O'Malley. Yeah, to be fair, I'm not sure. Well, I think it's pretty obvious. No one else in that division carries the name value that O'Malley does. Like O'Malley is the star of that division,

and then he went out there and won the belt. So everybody vying to fight him is going to be the B side. Yeah, you're absolutely right. But that's also we think about the Connor thing. When Connor, you know, got to the top of the sport, like that's also a benefit to him, though, because O'Malley is the A side. Like, you don't have to be a star to fight O'Malley because O'Malley is the star. Like O'Malley is the star. He's going to sell the card because he's Sean O'Malley.

And that's legit. And I do believe that. I think he is on his way to becoming one of the top three or four people in the store. The problem is, and this is where you get him to avoid Marab de Wileshhhhili, is you want him to stay champion. And you put him in Marab de Walshili, there's a much greater chance he's not champion anymore. Right, which is why I think he fights ends up fighting Cheeto, right? Because he wants it. The UFC said, okay, we would prefer you to have a better path to defending this.

Like they're big star for us. Amali wants it. Let's go. not do it. Yeah. Well, there was that time, if you remember, when Connor was coming up, people were complaining that he wasn't fighting, like, he was fighting Dennis Siever and guys like that. And they're like, why isn't he fighting? Like, you know, why isn't he fighting the Chad Mendez of the world and so on and so forth? And he ended up getting Chad Mendez on short notice. But like, you remember that, right? Like the complaints back

then. Like, why isn't he fighting the best guy? Why isn't he fighting these? And because there is a path for some of these guys. And like it or not, that's right. Now, I don't think Sean O'Malley, and it would be clear, I don't think he's scared of Marabda I just think that he knows that's a much more difficult matchup than fighting Chito Vera. Chito Vera is a very winnable fight, and I would favor Sean O'Malley to win that fight. I don't know that I would favor him to beat Marab de Walesh Vili, and I don't know that I'd favor him to beat Al Jemaine Sterling a second time, and those are the other two guys right in line there. You know what I mean? Now there are other fights.

Like I think him and Sanhag is a really interesting fight. I think it's a really fun fight. I hope we could see that one day. But yeah, Marab, I don't know if you beat Marab. Al Jardine, I don't know if you beat him again, but can you beat Chito? Yeah, I think you can. And I think I would pick him to be Chito.

Yeah, like I said, it makes sense on all fronts. So it's probably going to be Chito. And, you know, hopefully it ends up being a great fight, man. I think Chito, I love Chito, and I'm going to be cheering for him. Not that I dislike O'Malley, but I really like Chito, man. And I really hope that he's able to pull it out. But the way O'Malley's looked lately, I think it's a tough, road for a cheetah bearer i'd tell you what real quick though i do want to mention listen to that

rogan podcast because i i've interviewed sean a couple of times but i don't know him that well and shot has this like very public persona demeanor the colorful hair and he's you know smoking weed doing all that kind of stuff he's got like kind of like that out there demeanor but he was talking about like how he lived a championship mindset before he was a champion like you know eating right going to bed early like just training you know not party and like he like he talked about like not like going out and celebrating wins because he wanted to focus on training. Like we kind of get this perception of O'Malley is this like, you know, kind of out there kind of dude and smoking weed and like, you know, kind of like that persona about him.

But to hear him talk about it, like I actually was super impressed by it. He's like, no, no, I'm working constantly. Like I'm in the gym constantly. I eat right constantly. I sleep. I do this. I do that. I don't do this.

I don't. Like he was kind of impressive to me like how super dedicated he was. Like he doesn't half-hast anything. And I was kind of impressed by that. Not to say I had a bad opinion of him, but like the persona, the outward kind of flashy persona of Sean O'Malley, you kind of get an impression of him. When you hear him talk about it, he's like, no, no, I'm in the lab working. Like, that's what I'm doing.

I'm in the lab working. And he's like, I think that's what separates me from a lot of the guys in the division is because I never stopped working. Like I was living, like, I was living a life as a champion before I was a champion. I was doing the two a days and this and that and the nutrition and blah, blah, blah. like all the little things he was doing before he got to the title. And he's like, now that I'm the champion, I got to work that much harder. And I was like, I was impressed.

Like, I was impressed. He had that kind of mindset. And like, I don't party. I don't drink. I don't do anything. Like, I just stay home. I work. You know, be with my, my girlfriend and my kid.

And I work. And I work. And I was like, that was super impressive. I was like really impressed by that. Yeah. I respect that. I mean, that's, I tell all fighters that I train. I said, you need to train like a champion before you're champion.

you know, you don't become champion, then all of a sudden start to train like a champion, right? That doesn't make it sense at all, does it? I respect all that. You know, I think the only thing, when I hear people say that kind of stuff, I always do have a question of, you know, what their definition of like hard work is, what their definition of living like a champion is, eating, right, and all those things, because everybody, definition is a little bit different.

Like some people, what they consider hard work is a warm up for someone else. So, you know, and some people talk a big game, but not necessarily walk a big game. So that's not to say that he's not doing that. But I just always keep that in the back of my mind. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. You're right. I was just impressed by the attitude. You know what I mean?

Like, the attitude was right. Like, he's just like, I'm not the dude you think I am. Like, I'm not the guy. out there partying and being doing stupid stuff on my free time and like you know just celebrating life as a champion like I'm working my ass often because that's what it takes like I know we talk about Connor a lot you know you talk about Connor a lot and Dana says it all the time like you know when you're when you become that wealthy and that rich and you don't need to do anything it does get harder to motivate yourself like when you're waking up on a yacht in the middle of the freaking Mediterranean

on a 30 million dollar yacht or whatever you know you wake up and you know are you motivated to dock your boat and go run a do it eight minutes do eight miles on the road and like are you motivated to go to the gym and work you know to 30 hours a week where the number is like it's true and so yeah like you know amally's a star and i'm sure he's got a lot in his bank account but the fact that he's still dedicated to do it and wants to do even harder says a lot because you and i both know man it can backfire you on you rather quickly if you let fame get to your head and you let that celebrity get to your head man it can it can ruin you in a hurry yeah well i gotta say i hope he's doing the truth because i think he has a high ceiling and I really enjoy watching him fight. I didn't care for the dude when he first came in the UFC. I didn't think his ceiling was as high as it is. But the more I've watched him, the more he's kind of grown on me. And I actually believe him when he's saying that. But I hope that he's being truthful with it.

I hope he's putting in the work because I can't wait to see what he does. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, Matt, we're going to get out of here. Obviously, next week we got more. The UFC's back on the streak now. We got UFC Vegas 80 this weekend Grant Dawson and Bobby Green

And the next weekend is kind of a weird one Was he Sadiq Yousef and somebody I can't remember who it is even in the main event But then we roll into Islam McCachiev Yeah yeah you're right yeah It's Barbosa Barbosa barbosa and Yousaf for the main event next week Which is kind of an odd one Yeah

And then we roll into UFC 294 Which of course is Paulo Costa Hamzaa Chamaev And Islam McAv against Charles Olivaire That's a good one So we'll have lots to talk about with that. Also, next weekend, big bag. We just had Canello fight Charlo, which was a 12-round boxing match. The real championship boxing matches next weekend, KSI against Tommy Fury and Logan Paul against Dylan Danis, your boy, Dylan Danis.

So we'll talk about that next week as well. We'll actually break down and make picks for those fights, Matt. Are you ready? Are you excited? You have to. Yeah, we have to. We have to do. We have to do picks for Logan Paul and Dylan Danis.

We got to do it. It's a necessary evil. All right. Let's do it. I don't know who KSI is still. I still haven't never Googled him. I make my picks the best of the king. You're not missing much.

Let me just leave it. Let me just tell you that. You're not missing much. So yeah, that's next weekend. We got to start putting something on the line with these picks. Yeah, we can. Are you still trying to make up the difference for that Conner-Megger back from all those years ago?

Is that what you're trying to do with me right now? Still trying to double or nothing, you and everything. You bet against you bet against Connor and Josialdo and I beat you and you've never lived that one down. How much do I owe you still? I don't even paid you. I think like $250. Something like that. I got to make sure I get you, bro.

I'm not going to be negative fed. So I do got to get you. I will. It's been what, 10 years. Yeah, like six, seven years now. I think something like that. We've had that bet going that never got paid off. You know, it is what it is.

Like I said, it's, you know, I like having the scoreboard. I like having the scoreboard knowing that you, I have one over on you. So that's, that's as good as money in some households. All right, we'll take it. We'll talk about that. Yeah, like me picking Logan Paul and Dilladana's like, I don't have a lot of confidence in either, any pick I make on that fight card. Well, that's why I want to put something on the line because we can no idea who's actually going to win because they both suck.

Yeah, there you go, exactly. We're like, I have no idea. One guy throws a punch. The other one doesn't. I don't know. So, yeah, we got that. that we got macaachev and olivera and then the end of the month we got ingano in fury october is a weird month matt it is a weird month for fights we could literally change the whole show just to talking about

the fucking influencer fights he's there's so many of them now there are there are a lot of them there are a lot of them yeah engana is already fighting usick now he's like i got in ghana but that's easy work i'm gonna go and signed to fight alexander usick in december january which i think tells you everything you need to know about the Ngano fight, if I'm being honest, but, you know, we'll see how it all plays out come October 28th. Same that it got it tweeted about it. Like, oh, you better worry about what's going to happen with me. And I was like, I mean, I feel where you're coming from there, Francis, but I don't think

Tyson's feeling what you're saying, bro. I have the same time. I'm like, I get it. I get what you're saying. And I understand the perception of like you're kind of getting disrespected by him taking a fight, you know, three months after he's fighting you. But, I mean, come on. I mean, you know, I think Tyson did that on purpose, too.

Like, after I thought about it, I was like, I was like, he knew he was going to take that Usik fight right before he fought Francis, like, just to disrespect him. Yeah. It's a, like, I think he'll hand all this out. This is like a, I think, I think it's like, it's almost like a glorified sparring session. Like, because now you, you know, Matt, if he's signed to fight Usik in December, January, he is not going to dick around with Francis and Gano. He's not going to risk that. He's not, because there was a part of me that thought if Tyson just didn't give a shit, that maybe, like, maybe he could get caught at one point. I still didn't think he would lose.

I'm just saying, like, he might half ass it and get clipped and be like, oh, shit, I guess I got to start fighting, right? I don't think there's any chance of that right now. If he's fighting Ussick in December, January, and that is literally for the crown of the best heavyweight in boxing, and if he beats Ussick, who else is that? there for him to fight, like that's the end of the road. There's no way he's going to half-asset against Francis and God. There's no way he's going to go out there and half-assed it against Francis and Ghana. It won't happen. He's going to make so much money this year.

But I mean, but seriously, right? Like, you can't, you can't risk that. Like, you cannot, like, there was little to no risk for Floyd Mayweather when he fought Conne and McGregor, like, realistically, but also, like, business-wise. He had already beaten everyone he could possibly. beat he beaten packie out he beaten alver he beating canelli being all these guys we now know that tyson has the fight we all want the usick fights what we've wanted for him that's booked he's not gonna dick around and let frances gonna stick around with him for 12 rounds my only question is

okay i i don't think it's gonna happen but what if francis does knock him out the world changes forever like does he still fight usick does that that fight even mean anything at that point. Again, I don't think it's going to happen. I mean, you know, I don't think it, you know, I think Tyson is going to, you know, do whatever he wants to do. But there is that chance. I mean, France is a big, hard hit and heavyweight.

Like, there is a chance somewhere in hell, you know, maybe in the deepest depths of hell. But there is a chance down there somewhere. But I think, I think also the other side of this, Matt, and I said, I know I had this conversation with his head coach Eric Nixig, but I said if Francis somehow pulls it off, this one in a million chance,

he pulls it off and knocks out Tyson fear, I don't think he ever comes back to M. A, why would you? Why would you come back and fight MMA when you could make an ever $50 million payday for a Tyson rematch or whatever? You know what I mean? Why would you even consider coming back to M.A?

I mean, if he knocks out Tyson, I mean, my suggestion is, you know, just do the Eddie Bravo, just walk away, bro. I'm done But if he's making If he's if he's if he's hype Let's just say he's making $10 million or $12 million

To fight Tyson this time I don't know what the actual number Let's let's just say that's the number He knocks out Tyson Fury He gets 50 million for the rematch You know what I mean? Like you just walk you like yeah Okay maybe you should walk away

But you get 50 million Why would you ever come back to MMA? Or you start in Godo promotions And yeah You know Yeah you fucking you know, do a Floyd style and you make $100 million for the rematch. I mean, yeah, obviously, like, the, there's no limit on what he does if he actually

pulls that off, you know. Yeah. It's just a matter of off. You got to fucking do it, you know, and which is pretty unlikely. But if he does, you know, that really fucks Tyson's career up. You know, it's crazy. I was watching covering Canelo and Charlo last night. and I watch, I don't watch a lot of boxing.

I watch the big fights. I fully admit, I watch Crawford and Spence. I watch the big fights. I fully admit I'm not super immersed in boxing like you are. You are like a hardcore boxing fan. But I've watched a lot of influencer boxing over these last few years, because that's just part of my job now is like watching Jake Paul and Logan Paul and whatever these fucking misfits fights, whatever they are.

Dude, it is so hilarious to see the skill level. when you watch Canelo and Charlo go out there and fight and then you think about because Jake Paul was doing commentary and he's like Canello couldn't handle my power and I literally burst out laughing. I was like dude stop. Like I've always said stop with that but like watching Canelo last night

and then watching Jake Paul fight Nate Diaz I'm like dude stop Stop talking. This is it is the fight Did you watch Conello Charlie last night? Did you watch the fight? I just watch the highlights The one before that

Was it Ugas versus Berrios I think was the name of the fight The co-main event Watching those dudes fight And those guys I think are like heavyways They're closer in weight to what like Jake Paul would be Dude I mean the fight would last

Four minutes maybe Like maybe four minutes Like the way they snap off their jabs And their combinations and their Oh my God Like it's just like It's a different I've always said it's a different world, but holy crap is it a different world when you talk about like that level of boxing versus what we're seeing Jake Paul do.

A hundred percent. And that's just what you just see it on TV. You know, the level, you know, when you're in the trenches with guys like that, I've been with pro boxers many times, man. And like, it's just a different world, man. When you're standing right in front of the guy, like there's things you can't see on TV that these guys are doing to you that is absolutely. mind blowing and and like you can be a really really good boxer you know that's why these guys you know an in may like they become really really good boxers but that's different than being a high level professional boxer like that's not a really really boxer that's a fucking

professional elite level boxer and we talk about canelo i mean bro the way that he beat charlo was fucking amazing. And I'm not even the hugest Canelo fan. Like I think he's a little bit overrated and, you know, I think he's lost a lot of fights that they gave to him. But like a dude like that,

like Jake Paul's never even seen a level like that in the gym. Yeah. Yeah, it's just like what? You can't watch it on TV and say, I'm going to beat that guy. You know, like you got to box your heart. whole life and work your way up to that level.

You know what I'm saying? Like it's just, it just doesn't work that way. Like what you're seeing on TV does not do justice for the level of things he's doing in there. Yeah, it's, uh, it was like, I remember they interviewed him one time and he said he brought David Benavides,

who was closer to him in wait. And he's like, I want no part of that. Because you're smart enough to know you're going to get fucked up if you fight David Benavie. Like you're going to, if you fight the guys around your, like you're hoping because Conella is 100,

164 pounder and you're 187 pounds that maybe your size and power could save you in there. Fight someone around your size, dude. Fight 185 pound boxer. You're going to get fucked up real bad. It's going to get ugly in a hurry. Those guys are going, because I watched the light heavyweights last night. I was like, oh my God. And those guys weren't even like, you know, they're not even like the champions of that division.

They're just like the next step down. They're not even of the Benavides level or of whatever was it, better be of. and those kind of guys who are the higher weight classes, you will get fucked up. Exactly, yeah. You got better be of you. You got Bevall. Canelo can step up to that weight.

Look what DeBibble did to Canelo. Look what Bivel did to Canelo. Right. That's what I'm saying, bro. Yeah. Yeah, Jake Paul, I don't know why he's saying these things. Well, that's why I go back again. I'll close out on this.

That's why I kind of always go back to the Ingana thing. Like, yes, you're right. We're all right. And Gano has that puncher's chance. He does, because he does have, as Joe Rogan called the nuclear option, he does have that. But on paper, unless he somehow uncorks one that just, we never see coming. And certainly Tyson Fury doesn't see coming. I don't like his chances to do much of anything against Tyson Fury.

And that's not a knock on Francis Gano. We're talking about Tyson fucking Fury, the greatest, the best heavyweight boxer of the last maybe 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, I message with some people and talk with some people that they're saying, and they think Tyson's the best boxer they've ever seen. They're like, he's up there. You know, Ali and Fraser and Joe Lewis, all these guys.

I'm like, I never really thought of him as that great, but maybe he is. I don't know. Yeah, we'll see. But that's what I said. Now that he booked the Ucic fight, I think that's bad news for Francis. I really, really, truly do. I think that's bad news because, like, maybe he'd go in there a little out of shape and, you know, he could just, like, you know, fuck around and beat Tyson.

You know, fuck around and beat Francis and Ghana. If he's getting ready for Alexander Usik three months later, he ain't going to fuck around. No, it's going to be a tune-up fight for him. Yeah, so it's a sparring match. It's his way to get ready for Usik. It's way to build the hype for Usik. Yeah, except it's kind of a tune-up fight, but it's just going to be in front of millions of people, man. We're all going to pay to watch it.

And, you know, Francis is a much, much different fighter than Usik, though. It's the only thing. like maybe not so much a tune-up fight because they're polar opposites but um yeah i agree with you man like francis isn't going to fuck around he'll go in there and i mean he might though like once he gets his rhythm going shit he might go in there and just fucking dance around have fun who knows we'll see a couple weeks away all right folks that is our podcast for this week we appreciate you sticking around we're off for a couple weeks so we win a little extra time here for you this week we appreciate everyone tuning in as always make sure you check

us on all your favorite podcast platforms, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and of course, over on the best website in the world, MMAfighting.com. Matt Brown, where can they check out and support you? I am the Immortal Instagram and Twitter, except my Twitter just got hacked. So I've been on there in a couple weeks. I've got to go through that process of fixing it. So I'll be back on there soon. Facebook, The Immortal on Facebook, Immortal My Brown, the Immortal Coffee. That's it today.

All right. Well, folks, we'll be back next week. We'll kind of talk about the fallout from this UFC coming up this weekend. Next week. And, of course, we roll into the spectacular KSI Tommy Fury and Logan Paul versus Dillon Danescard. I know we're all very excited about that coming up. So stay tuned for that next week. And for Matt Brown. I'm Damon Martin. We'll see you guys next week for another edition of the fighter versus the writer. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you then. There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.