MMA Fighting - Fighter vs. Writer: Matt Brown Offers Advice to Michael Chandler; Kenny Florian on Fighter Pay and PFL Becoming an Option in Free Agency

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

In the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer, Matt Brown and Damon Martin debate the latest topics in MMA including Khabib Nurmagomedov, the greatest lightweights of all time and Michael Chandler’s style. Brown, who is widely considered one of the most exciting fighters in the UFC, offers Chandler some advice when it comes to his style inside the octagon that has earned him a lot of bonuses and praise from UFC president Dana White but still left him with a 2-3 record in the promotion. Does Chandler need to change his style if he wants to become a UFC champion? Brown argues that Chandler can absolutely remain a fan favorite willing to put on bloody wars from now until the day he retires but if he wants to claim a UFC title, something might need to shift in his strategy for future fights. Brown also discusses Nurmagomedov’s growing legacy as a coach in mixed martial arts and the resume he’s putting together since retiring from active competition. Also this week, PFL color commentator Kenny Florian joins the show to talk about the legendary career that Jose Aldo put together and he addresses the pay problems that continue to plague the sport, particularly where the UFC is involved. Florian will also discuss Kayla Harrison’s dominance and the chances that she’ll eventually face Cris Cyborg one day. All this and more on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts Subscribe: Spotify Read More: MMA Fighting Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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

in this follow-up to the audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two,

Ghosts in the Machine, available now, only from Audible. Listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Back to the Fighter versus the Writer. I'm your host as always, Damon Martin, and I am joined, as always, by the great, the immortal, Ohio legend, himself. Matt, the Immortal Brown.

Matt, what's going on? I like the pump up. bro, thank you. I got to, since we do this week to week now, I got to find out like new ways to introduce you and like come up with like more fun, creative ways. Like he plays guitar in his spare time. And that's going to be like every, every week there's going to be a new intro from Matt Brown.

Like I got to keep coming up with interesting facts about you to like introduce you on the show. I think anyone watching the video can see that I play guitar in my spare time, right? A little bit, a little bit. You got the axi. I like it. Yeah. How many guitars do you have? I only have those too.

and then bass. Well, I have an acoustic also, so three. I don't, I'm not that guy that likes having a bunch of guitars. I find one that fits. I find one that feels right. And I fucking hammer that one, man. The only thing that sucks is when you have to retune it, right? Because I play songs and lots of different tuning.

So I have to constantly retune it. Yeah, I guess what I have two of them. So I have one that's in, uh, drop C and one that's in standard. Yeah, I can't play guitar. Tried it and failed miserably. So my thing. I did two for like, 10 years.

Dude, I just like, I tried, when I was in high school, I was in a band, and I sang in the band. And not to say I was good, not say I was a good singer. I'm just saying I tried to sing. But there was a point where, uh, it was rock metal. Was it like the cookie monster metal? Like, right? Not quite that far. It was more like just like, like, like Allison Chains, like that kind of like, you know, like

that, that style of rock. I want to hear voice now. Uh, but we did, we, we, we had a rhythm guitar player and he left. And so they had the bright idea to teach me to play rhythm guitar, and I would play while singing, and that our lead guitar player would play lead. And so I learned the very, like, most basic, like, basic chords to play during a song. And so we did it at like a little garage show. And literally when I was playing the guitar, I stopped singing because I was focusing on playing the guitar. And like literally the guy's like, you stop singing.

I was like, what? And I realized I had just completely stopped singing the song. because I was looking at the guitar like what am I pressing right now? So yeah, that was the end of me trying to play guitar. It's hard to sing and play. Some people just have a knack for it.

Like Max Cavalier was talking about the other day. He's like he can't sing without playing. Like he did some vocals. Like I guess when he goes in the studio or something like he actually like plays his guitar on mute or whatever like while he's singing because he can't do it without it. Where someone like me, I'm just like you, man. As soon as I try to sing even a little bit,

I try to even like lip sync. Like I recorded some videos and I tried to like lip sync, you know. And yeah, I can't even keep it going at all. Yeah, it's not easy. I, because I've seen Metallica in concert like 15 times. And I always marvel at James Hetfield being able to play guitar and singing, like, and do it well. Like, he actually plays guitar really, really well and sings.

Now, granted, he's been doing it for, you know, 40 years or whatever, but still, like, I'm always amazed that, like, how much, like how much he can do both things. It's like, you wouldn't think it'd be that hard, but it really is that hard. For sure, for sure. Dave Mustang blows me away, man, just because, like, I play a lot of Megadeth. And just the fucking rhythms are so hard sometimes. And I'm like, dude, like, I can barely even play this.

How the hell are you singing at the same time? I love Megadeth. And I listened to them for years. But every time someone mentions Megadeth without fail, immediately I just go, hello me it's me again I always love that line that that song from from Megadeth from from from sweating bullets yeah sweating bullets sweating bullets

it's such a great fucking song man what a great album all together you mentioned you mentioned Max Cavalera of course and of course the Cavalera brothers from the great Sepulterre did you notice I don't have you noticed this when you watch the UFC show did you notice that Alex Pereira walked out to a sepulah song? Yes. When he fought Adasanya? Yes. And it was just the perfect walkout song. Perfect for Alex.

Perfect for Brazil. Yeah. I was blown away. I was like, dude, that was spot on. I gig. That was like the best intro songs for two fighters in a row because then Adasanya walked out to the theme from Saw, which I'm a huge horror movie fan. So when that came on, I was like, oh my gosh, it's the theme from the Saw movies. So it was back to back. It was Sepulter and the Saw music. And I was like, this is the greatest back-to-back fighter intros of all time. And it was one of the greatest fights of all time in some ways. It was. It was.

Have you seen something? It wasn't like a knockdown bloody brawl like the poor E. Chandler or whatever. But the skill in that fight and the, you know, the close calls, like just the constant close calls, man. Like when you know what you're watching, obviously like in the second round, when Adasana, you heard him and Alex barely got through. Or was that the first round? First round into the first.

Yeah, into the first round. Man. And then Pereira finally pulling through there at the end. Yeah, just what an amazing fight all around. Just sucks that you were right and I was wrong again. I mean, I just keep telling you. But I got the other two. You were.

Well, we both pig Porre. I clearly came up short on the whole Carlos Sparser thing. But, you know, that's neither here or there. It was right on Alex Prairie. We'll get that. By the way, have you seen Semple-Tura in concert before? I seen Soul Fly, not Sepulterra. No, I should take that back.

I seen both of them. Yeah, I seen Sepuletura after Max was gone. But it wasn't so interesting. I haven't liked them quite as much. But I seen Soul Fly. Actually, it was my first concert ever. It was Morbid Angel, Soul Fly, and Pantera. Oh, geez, that's a heck of a concert right there.

Yeah, that was a great first concert, man. I saw Sepultero without Max, but I saw them with Earth Crisis. Do you remember Earth Crisis? Of course, yeah. Yeah. It was by far one of the weirdest shows I've ever been to because you had the old school metalheads there for Sepulah, and then you had all the straight-edge kids there for Earth Crisis.

It was like 40-year-old grizzled like biker dudes there for the metal for the sepeltura, and then you had like the 19-year-old with like exes on their hands, straight-edge kids. It was the weird, it was by far one of the weirdest shows I've ever been to in my life because it was like the cross-section of like pop culture in there. It was the weirdest crowd I've ever been to for a concert. concert. Yeah, that's what makes metal so fun though, right? It is. It is. So we had some fights this past weekend. The UFC card kind of fell apart. Derek Lewis fell out of his fight with Sergey

Spivak last second. It's so like, okay, I'm going to be honest here. Now, I know you are, you know, you are proudly a UFC guy bat, but I'm just going to say it. These UFC fight night cards lately have been real bad. And I'm talking like real, real bad. Like the lineup is not been good. And, like, everything has been, now listen, everything is always based around the main event a little bit. We know that. Like, you know, we understand that. When there's a title fight, there's a reason why the pay-per-views are called UFC, whatever, Adasanya versus Pereira. We get it. We understand title fights big. We understand main events always sell a card. But I remember not that long ago when these UFC fight night cards would have two or three

cards deep, or two or three fights minimum deep, whereas like, oh, that's a really good fight. Oh, that's a really good fight. I totally understand not every fight card is going to be that way. But Lewis versus Spivak was already not a great main event. I'm just being honest.

It was already not a fight that lot of people were like, oh man, I can't wait to see that one. When that fight falls off, and absolutely nothing against Kennedy in Zetiaqua and Ion Kutalaba, absolutely nothing against them.

But I was like, man, like when you take away the main event from this, card it is a bit of a barren wasteland like man i don't know what's going on like they're loading the pay-per-views and these fight night cards are suffering yeah it's sort of almost like a feed organization isn't it yeah almost seems like like it's the you know you hate to say like the the the B card or the B team but that's sort of like what it is right like um you know the main events are usually the guys that are maybe getting opportunities to get on the pay-per-views but

you know the model makes sense right these guys are coming up and they're they're giving them opportunity to show what they got before they put them on a pay-per-view well it seems like like back in the day it felt like things were more spread out you know what i mean like if you look at ufc if you look at ufc 21 what we just had adasanya perera espars a jang porier chanler uh dan hooker and claudio polias uh and i care what was the fourth fight the fight but anyways those like there was a time where chandler porreier would have headlined the fight night card and they would have gone with the pay-per-view with just two title fights and then whatever else you know what i mean now it's all going on the pay-per-view and i feel like the fight night cards are

kind of like whatever we can throw together and hopefully have two ranked people on the card like because i feel like i think don't they is their deal with the espion they have to put on so many fights too. Well, yeah, well, they do. They do. And the pay-per-view is where they still make the bulk of their money. Like, they're still getting pay-per-view money. So that's, I get it. I do. But it's like, it's just such a weird one to me because like years ago, like, I feel like Porri-A Chandler would have just headlined its own card on Fox or ESPN. Totally. And then the paper, I mean, we also, we come from the day where it was like every UFC card was just gigantic, right? like I remember back of the day we used to wait three or four months for a UFC card.

Oh yeah. It was just, yeah, you know, it was the biggest thing. We were pumped for weeks or months at a time. And, you know, that's been watered down through the years tremendously. And now it's like even those bigger cards, like I don't even stay up and watch them. I watch them the next day. Yeah. Oh, it's just weird because like I said, I mean, and again, you know, Dana, Dana White says it all the time.

If you don't want to watch it, don't watch it. And I get it. And I guess that's just kind of like, I don't know. I just, I've always been like I don't, I mean, granted, I work them because, you know, it's different for me. I work the card. So obviously I'm not going to miss them. But like, like I used to always like I used to, that was like my Saturday night plan.

Like sit down and watch fights. And it's just these cards lately have just been, man, it's rough. Like when they lost that main event on Saturday, I was like, who boy, this is this car just took a nose dive. And again, that's not a knock on, on Derek Lewis or Sergey Spivack, but it wasn't like that was already, you know, like a marquee main event. Like, you know, I mean, like Derek Lewis was coming off two losses in a row. You know, Sergei Spivak is a solid fighter, but not very many people know who he is.

So it was already kind of like a hard sell to be like, here, take your Saturday and watch these two heavyweights. And then you lose that fight. And it's like, man, like, what are we sticking around here for? Yeah, I think most of the people watching it are probably the hardcore guys like me or you or the guys that are sitting at Buffalo Wide Wings and it's on the TV. And they're like, oh, what's going on over there? there. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But this weekend, we did see before that on Friday,

Bellator had an event. Vadim Nimcoff went out and defeated Corey Anderson. That was a super impressive performance for Vadine Nimcoff after he largely got dominated in his first photo, Corey Anderson, got a big win. Now he's going to fight you all Romero. That's a really fun fight. And then we saw Usman Nirmagamatov, the cousin of Khabib Nirmagamatov, go out there and absolutely dominate Patrici Pitbull for five rounds to become Bellator lightweight champion. I want to pose a this question to you, Matt, because you are a fighter, but you're also a coach. And one thing, I quote you on this all the time, every time I talk to a fighter who is a coach or going to become a coach, I always say, one thing Matt Brown has always told me is that

when my career is over, I'm going to become a better coach than I am a fighter. You said that to me on numerous occasions, and I use that quote constantly when I talk to other coaches who happen to be fighters. Khabib Naraga-Metov is arguably the greatest lightweight of all time. Maybe you could argue against it because he retired a little. early and you could say, well, he didn't get to accomplish all he could have accomplished. Sure, okay, fine. But in terms of sheer dominance, 29 and 0 lost maybe one round or two rounds max in his

entire UFC career. He was incredibly dominant, incredibly good fighter. But now, as a coach, Khabib is representing the UFC lightweight champion in Islam Makachev. He's now representing the Belator lightweight champion in Ushman Mugabedov. He's got his brother or I can't remember what relation. and Umar and Marka Badav is a band to wait in the UFC. He's a monster.

You know, he's got all these other guys coming up under him. There's a guy in one championship who's the number one contender. Like, am I wrong in thinking that Kibib may end up being a better coach and he was a fighter? And that's a pretty high bar to set because Kibbib may be the greatest lightweight of all time. Yeah, I don't doubt that he's going to be a better coach. I mean, the fact is he comes from a coaching family, right? His dad.

And, man, you know, that guy, I mean, he's accomplished everything. there's nothing that he hasn't been through, nothing that he hasn't seen. So he's going to be able to give all this information to these guys, and they want to rise to the level that he's at, you know, that he gives him something to inspire to be like. So I absolutely think he'll be a better coach, man. And I mean,

he's already an amazing coach. There's no doubt about it. So I'm very stoked to see how this plays out, man, and all the guys that come up under him. I mean, and he's already got the advantage, like with the Dagestani wrestlers. and I mean, God,

AKA, you know, this guy just has everything. I mean, he earned it. You know, I'm not saying you had to hand it to him, but, you know, he's got all the right infrastructure for him to build champion after champion. And like who wouldn't want to be coached by Khabibh.

Yeah, it's kind of crazy too because he had a, you know, he had a phenomenal upbringing his dad. Of course, Abdul Monop was his coach's entire life. Sadly, he passed away. But that was a great influence as a child, like having that guy as your coach, wrestling coach. and then training him in Sambao and then eventually MMA.

And then you go from there to Javier Mendez, who was an incredible coach in his own right, created numerous UFC champions over the years, you know, Daniel Cormier, Kane Velasquez, Luke Rockold. I mean, the guy had the pedigree, right? And I think that's important, right? He had the right people around him to learn. And now, like, I talked to Usman before his fight the other day,

and he said that Habib is basically a mirror image of his dad. Like, his dad taught him to be a coach. And now, because he was coached by, you know, Kabib's dad before he passed away. He said, Kabib is basically a mirror image of his father. And, like, that's got to be huge, right? Like, the influences you have around you become who you are as a coach.

And so when you think about that lineage, like his dad to Javier Mendez, who is an incredible head coach in his own right, like, Kabib's got all the pieces in place to build this legacy as a coach. Like, I know that it's hard to say, like, will he surpass himself in terms of accomplishment? because coaches don't typically get as much love as fighters do. And I get it. Like, it's probably not right that we don't give coaches more love. But it's pretty amazing to think, like this short, basically two years in his coaching

career, he's already got two champions and two major promotions. Now, we consider to say, listen, Islam is already very good, you know, before Khabib became his head coach. I mean, Islam was already on his way. But I'm just saying, like, he still has to have that influence. Yeah, and it's crazy. So if you look at the way the guys coached is usually because of the way they were coached, right?

That's just the way that they do it. So Khabib is probably coaching the way that his dad coached him, but it created a championship. A lot of these guys coached the way they were coached and it didn't necessarily bring a lot of success. Someone like me, like I'm drawing from multiple coaches and I'm trying to take the best of what I learned from each one. and add it up.

Some of the guys have built champions. Some of the guys haven't. But, you know, try to take a piece of what they do and use that, just like in the martial arts, right? Like everybody's going to teach you different things. You have to take what works for you and throw away what doesn't. But Khabib has, you know, like you said, I mean, the guys that he's drawing from have all made champions.

So, I mean, who wouldn't want to be coached by that, right? Like, he's passing down all the knowledge of anything that he's throwing away. way is because, you know, it was probably good information anyway. So he's, yeah, he's got it. He's got it made now, man. So, you know, it's just a pleasure to watch, man. And he's such a good coach. You can tell. Like, you can just, you know, you can see from the outside look at it. And this dude's just a great coach all around and pushes his athletes. And you see some of those behind the scene stuff of him pushing them. And he just, he knows what he's doing and knows how to get. the results that he wants and

it looks to me like he's fucking doing it man. Yeah, no, it's awesome to see and also like what I loved is I had, I talked to Balal Muhammad. We had him in the show recently after his fight and his win over in Abu Dhabi when he beat Sean Brady and he had worked with Khabi and had Khabib in his corner.

And I said, like I asked him and I said what was it like working with him and like will you have him as your coach again? He said, absolutely. He's like it's just a different atmosphere working with that guy and working with his team the way he pushing people. And we're talking about, you know, Balow's in a top five welterway. Like this is not a guy who's coming in brand new. He said, just being there, I learned so much from having Khabib around. He's not just like a figurehead. He is like in there

every day working with you on the ground, teaching, you know, instructing, you know, he's got a way about him. And he's like, I'll do that every camp now. I want to work with Khabi moving forward in some former fashion. You know, he may not be the head coach, but he'll be a part of my camps. That speaks volumes, right? Like when you have the faith of a guy who wants to work with you like that. And I think also like this, it's kind of funny because everyone loves to talk about Khabib coming back. I don't know if you saw today, Connor McGregor, you know, took a shot at Khabib again and said something about, you know, you wanted to get out of there. And I'm like, listen, I get it. You're trying to go to him back because, you know, Khab kind of had his way with

you when you fought a couple years ago. And, you know, but my thought is, is like, we, we have this weird obsession, Matt, when fighters retire, that like when you retire, when you actually retire on top, and there's two great examples recently, it's George St. Pierre and Khabib, retired as champions, right? Retired as champions. No one will ever let it go ask them about when they're coming back. Like, shouldn't we be happy that they walked away on top and they're getting out when it's getting good? And like, you know, George is doing some movie things and whatever and he's got, whatever he's got going on. You know, Kabe's becoming this incredible coach. Like, let these dudes retire. And then like when Frankie Edgar retires, everyone,

one's like, well, it's about time, Frankie. Like, yeah, it's a bad loss. It's time for you to walk away. But Khabib, you're happy and doing well? No, no, no. We can't allow that. Come back and fight again. Like, it drives me insane.

I hear you. I think it's a good thing, too, though, right? Like, we want to see the top level guys go until the wheels fall off, man. And, um, Kabeb, I think with all, everything we've seen, it seems like he has more left. And, uh, and that's what I think people are like, do we want to see more of it, you know? So I don't think it's necessarily like, like, you know, let's, you know, get back until the wheels fall off and you lose or whatever. I think a lot of it's like they just want to see him smash some more, man. Like he did such a great job.

And especially after he beat Connor, like how many people love that. You know, so now GSP, I think he was probably actually was towards the end of his career, right? I think he was. What would you say? like just, you know, he was towards the end, right? Like, you know, I don't think he had a lot more left to give. Whereas Khabib, it looks, you know, everything we see looks like he has more to give. Yeah.

Well, I appreciate that he's sticking to his guns, though. You know, I appreciate that he's like, you know, I'm done. I moved on, you know, and now Islam champion, like that was kind of like the coordination of his guy. And you can see, like, if Islam had lost, then maybe people would say, you know, we got to see, you know, we got to see if Kibb comes back in a vengeance. the loss or something, but now, like, he's got no reason to come back. You know what I mean? Like, he's happy. And he's still making money. You know, he's coaching guy. I just, I feel like, in a weird way, I feel like Khabib is kind of found himself in coaching, if that makes sense.

Like, I feel like he's kind of, you know, like you talked about like, I'll be a better coach than I was a fighter. Like, I think he's kind of embracing that in a way. I think he's kind of embracing being a coach and he enjoys it. Like, he enjoys his new life now. And, uh, I celebrate that. But it is crazy. Like, when you think about it, like, this dude is already building a roster that's just rivaling, you know, rival, the rivals most coaches that have been around for 20 years, you know, Khabib's done it in two years where he's built two champions and more on the way. Yeah, yeah.

You know, good for him, man, right? Like, he looks like he's happy and he's enjoying life. And I think people forget, you know, we're all humans too. And that's what it's all about, man, just getting up every day and doing what you'd love to do. And he's financially set and he's loving his life. you know, why should he go in there and risk his bones and his health? So, you know, good for him. And I think GSP about the same thing, right? Like, you know, he's happy and living a good life. Why are you going to go in there and risk all that stuff? And, you know, I think the big thing, too, for Khabib is, you know,

he did retire undefeated. And we all know in this game, you fight long enough, you lose, period. And I think that's what a lot of people want to see, too. We're like, look, we want to see where your kryptonite is. We want to see what will beat you. And we don't know what that is, but we also know that it is there. Like he's human just like everybody else. And if he keeps fighting long enough, he will lose too. Is it going to be father time that beats you? Is it going to be, you know, someone that can stop your takedown?

You know, like what exactly is it going to be? And we got to see that with GSP, right? Like, you know, we've seen him lose and come back. And what a great story that was. We could be we just never got to see it. All I quits, it came pretty close, it seemed like, but that's probably about the closest I seen. And honestly, I thought Connor had a lot of really good success where I could see him beating Khabib at some point, even though that's maybe a bit of a stretch.

But when you look at some of the things Connor did in that fight, like he just need a little, like he was only like a hair behind on some things, right? like Khabib's been wrestling his entire life. Connor tried to catch up in a couple years. And he came pretty close. You know, he almost stopped a few of those takedowns. But,

yeah, so I think that's what it is, man. We just want to see, you know how fans are, man, when they want to see everybody lose at some point. Yeah.

And I always remember the quote that Matt Hughes had years ago, which is if you're not losing, if you're not losing, you're not fighting the right people. Yeah. there is a but but listen you know to be fair kabib fought all the right people right like he he went to the championship and he never i don't i don't think he ever turned a fight down or anything but he did retire a little bit young he did he did i disagree with you a little bit on the

connor thing though because i and i like connor i really do i just think that i think that stylistically is always going to be a bad matchup for connor like i think Islam and and kabb those kind of heavy wrestlers with like the super grappling style. Unless, Connor suddenly becomes a freaking, you know, I just, I've never seen the wrestling from Connor to, and the preparation from Connor and wrestling to believe that he's really going to turn around.

I think what, I think my biggest criticism of Connor over the last few years is that while I appreciate the extreme loyalty, he's shown to his guys in Ireland and John Kavanaugh and those kind of things, I can't help but wonder. would he get better by working with different people? Because I feel like in Conner's camp, he is always the best guy. And I know this, I know it's a cliche thing to say, but you can't be the best guy in the room if you're going to get better.

And I wonder like- I'm with you on that. Yeah. You know, I agree. Yeah. Like, I'd like to see. Like if you watch that fight closely and you kind of know what you're looking at, I know it's a stretch to say Connor would beat him.

and I don't necessarily know that Connor would. I think he'd have to have his full preparation, and I think he'd have to be totally focused and in his prime, which I don't know if all those things are the case now. And this is all obviously hypothetical anyway, so it doesn't really matter. But the fact is Connor did some really good things, some high-level things.

And you could tell that he ended up getting some of those takedowns just because he was more experienced, and it just wrestled so many more years than Connor. I think Connor would pose more problems next time if they were to fight again, hypothetically. It would cause more problems and it would give them some opportunities. Whether it would be enough, I can't say. I wouldn't put my money on it. I can tell you that.

So it wouldn't be double or nothing with you, Damon. I know you'd want. But I so I wouldn't accept that bet at all. But I wouldn't count it out. Like, I think the first time they fought, I was like, you know, 100%. Khabib's going to beat them. This is a terrible matchup. We all knew it.

I'd be probably like 50, 50 or maybe 60, 40 if they fought again. Yeah, I would still be on the other end. I would still be 100% on the end of the Khabib. I think most people would. And it's not, it's twofold. It's twofold because I have that much admiration for Khabi, because I think he is the greatest lightweight of all time. And I also think that, again, my biggest criticism of Connor.

And I think Connor's incredible. Connor's an amazing fighter. But I think that Connor, the areas where he is not as strong and wrestling has been, you know, you could argue maybe a bit of his cryptonite. You wonder, you know, like how much better could he be if he just came over and worked with the Penn State Wrestling Room for a month or too much, you know what I mean? Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Or, you know what I mean?

Like, because I wonder is he getting. Who else is he in that? conversation of greatest lightweight. I'm trying to fake it. BJ Penn, I think,'s got to be there. I mean, during his heyday, BJ was a monster, you know, you wonder, like, you know, I mean, he, God, he would just, when he annihilated Sean Shirk and, I mean, yeah, he's just, he was a monster in those days.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's not a long, it's weird, it's not a long list because no lightweight champion has been, like, it's kind of like heavyweight. Like, there's not been, I think three is the max for lightweight title defenses. So it's not like there's been this like Anderson Silva with like a 10 fight, you know, win streak or anything. But BJ, Khabib, um, gosh, that's a good question. I couldn't think of who else would even be in that conversation. Yeah, I mean, it was a smaller sample size, but you could argue.

I'm not saying he's in the, I'm not saying he deserves to be like number one or two. I'm just saying like he's in the conversation. I think you've got to argue a little bit for Frankie Edgar. I mean, beat BJ twice. Yeah. You know, two wars with, with great. Maynor beat him, you know, defendably the second. Now, I thought he, the first fight he lost to Benson,

I thought the second fight he got screwed. I thought that was a bad decision. But he doesn't have the resume overall, obviously. I'm not saying Frankie's in that same conversation, but he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, who had the, he's, he's in the, and, and Kabit with three. I think that's the list. They both had three. Okay.

Okay. So. Yeah, that may, I mean, it does make it pretty tough. And you know what? I'm going to say another one that needs to be in the conversation a little bit. I'm not saying he's number one. or number two. I'm saying he needs to be in the conversation like top five.

And I'm being serious when I say this. Dustin freaking Porriere, when you look at the list of the guys that he's fought and beaten, yes, he lost the game and he lost Oliver. So I'm not saying he needs to be number one or two or three, even four, maybe. Maybe not even that. Definitely in the top five.

I put him in top five. Dude, every, I think it's like the list of fight. I think it was like the last 10 fights, nine out of the last 10 fights he's had or some ridiculous stat like this. He's fought champions or ex-ch champions of major promotions. like Eddie Alvarez, Michael Chandler, Justin Gachey, Charles Olivera, Habib, I mean, it's just, it's ridiculous the list of guys he's fought and the majority of them that he's beaten. Because he hasn't had an undisputed championship, it gets knocked a little bit and I get that. But like when you look at the murderers role of guys he's fought, holy crap, I said this to Mike Brown, his coach.

I was like, I don't think Dustin gets enough credit for like how much he's done. Like I'm not saying he's in the same. I'm not putting him in the conversation for greatest because, you know, one on one he fought could be even could be beat him definitive. Right. There's so much, there's so much like timing in this game too. You put Dustin Pori at the right time, right place, right matchups. He wins.

He gets a title and defends it three or fourth times. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he beat Max Holloway definitively when they fought. But Max, but Max to me was one of the best pound for pound guys in the sport at that point. And I thought Max, I thought Max would do better in that fight, and he didn't. Dustin beating. I agree. I agree.

I did the same. I was like, oh, this is going to be a really fun fight. It was a fun fight, but Max was not really in the fight. Like, Dustin beat him pretty definitively. Step behind the whole time. Yeah. I was like, geez. Like, I just did not see that coming that way.

Again, I'm not saying Dustin. It definitely comes down to Kabeen and BJ, really. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it, I can't think of anyone else. I mean, Frankie, I can't put him above. either one of those. I mean, he's number two. Yeah, I think it's got to be. He's number three. He's number three behind one of those guys is number one, and the other one's number two, and then, and then Frankie. Yeah, it kind of breaks

your heart because you're like thinking about BJ. Like, BJ did spend time outside the UFC, you know, when he wasn't fighting in the UFC. When he came back, he fought well to weight. Like, you wonder how much more BJ could have done if he only ever fought a lightweight? Like, if he only ever did that weight class, it didn't go up to middle weight and fight Leodda, and he trained the way that Khabi did. us, right? If he put the heart and soul into it, if he had Kabeeb's dad as coach. Yeah, like we all kind of know.

I mean, listen, it's all kind of like folklore. And I've known BJ for a lot of years. We all know the story about BJ and training. He was never the guy spending, you know, eight hours a day in the gym and like, you know, going to these grueling train. That was never BJ. BJ was just so incredibly talented that you had to be really, really good to be BJ in those.

There was like that three or four year stretch where BJ looked invincible. Like, you're just like nobody's beating BJ Penn. Like nobody's beating BJ Penn. I know someone who went to a camp for BJ. He was in a Ohio State wrestler and BJ brought him out for the Sean shirt camp. And he told me he's seen BJ one time. Like BJ bought him a plane ticket, like flew him out to Hawaii. This guy is like not even excited to go to Hawaii really.

He's like, I'm just going out there to train. And said he's seen BJ one day and said he couldn't come close to taking him down either. He was like, the dude was just ridiculous. But he did not train. He said, you know, he was in there twice a day, every day, like, training his balls off as a wrestler, you know, just a grinder. BJ comes in one day, fucks everybody up, goes home. And it goes out and destroys Sean Shirk.

Yeah, you know, you say you can take that story for what it's worth. No, but I've heard many stories similar to that though. Yeah, this is the folklore, right? Yeah, this is the folk. If you've been around the sport, we've all heard these kind of stories, like, where it's like BJ never really trained, but BJ was just a force of nature. Like you did not, you did not. And those, like I said, that three, four, five-year stretch where he just, he was invincible, dude.

You could not mess with that guy. You absolutely could not mess with that guy. He was unbelievably good. And, like, there was just no stop in him. And, you know, it eventually caught up to him. He went up to Walterweight and, you know, GSP had his way with him. And then, you know, he never quite got back there again. And then, you know, time and age and everything catches up to you eventually where, you know, what they say, you know, hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.

It eventually comes back to bite you in the ass. But for a long time, man, BJ got away. with it and he did it well. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I don't know. I kind of put Khabib over BJ in that sense. But, uh, well,

also, I mean, Kibbeam's undefeated, you know, I mean, you know, he never got, you know, I don't, I don't place anything on the undefeated personally.

You know, like that, that doesn't, for me, it doesn't carry very much weight at all. Like, it's more about who did you beat. How long did it last?

How did you beat things like that? Like, if you lost a fight or two and then, um, I mean, like technically, John Jones isn't undefeated. But we know that story, right?

So, you know, that, that, uh, those couple losses, uh, on somebody's record, that doesn't really change it for me. No, well, yeah, and I, yeah, let me be clear about that. I'm saying, like, when I say undefeated, I mean, he just mean, like, he just never really got touched. Like, Khabib never, like, he fought Gaichi. He fought Poria. He fought Connor.

You know, and like, they really couldn't do much to him. Like, none of those guys. And those are three incredibly good fighters in a row. Like, he beat Connor, Gage. and Porre in succession. And two of those guys are still very relevant today. So, yeah, it's a weird debate because, like, really there has, it's kind of like heavyweight. Like, do you put Steepa number one because he technically has the most title defenses or do you

have to say, well, you know, as great as Stepe's been, we can't forget, like, Fador does exist or, you know, whatever else is out there. Right. Or, you know, like, a guy like Kane Velasquez, like, you can argue at a time, like, Kane Velasquez may be talent-wise the greatest heavyweight to ever. compete in mixed martial arts but injuries ruin that guy's career like he I've never heard anyone

talk about a heavyweight more than Kane Velasquez at his peak unfortunately we saw Kane at his peak in like three fights because he was injured so often that he could never get in there like I like in my heart of hearts I think Kane Velasquez would have been a six time defending heavyweight champ

but he couldn't stay healthy yeah but and maybe we should do a full podcast on every class on this someday, right? And just go through the whole thing. You know, the injuries are part of the game, too. And, you know, we have to only look at results. I hear this all the time about Mike Tyson, you know,

about how he was one of the greatest. And they're like, well, you know, he could have beat everybody or should have, whatever. But it's like, well, they didn't, you know. So that's what it comes down to. And Kane sort of the same way. Like, I think I totally agree with you. I think he could have defended basically his,

as long as he wanted to. But he didn't. And if it's because of injuries, that's sad and that's tragic. But, you know, that's what it is. I mean, I have enough fights, enough losses on my record. I can, you know, attribute to injury or, or, you know, whatever kind of background cause or whatever. But we can only look at the result. And that's what puts you where you're at in history.

Yeah, absolutely. Speaking of lightweight, we talked a little bit about last week on the podcast. We talked about Michael Chandler. his loss to Dustin Porre, incredible battle. And I know we touched it a little bit. We were kind of doing a breakdown of the entire car. But, you know, Michael's been out there doing some interviews now, you know, talking about the fight and addressing the loss.

And, you know, and he's, you know, kind of addressed a little bit of what, you know, the quote-unquote armchair quarterbacks are telling him about his style, about going in there and kind of going balls to the wall and leaving it all out there and maybe not fighting with what people would continue, what a lot of people would consider a smarter strategy. Now, I said last week on the podcast, Matt, I said if Michael Chandler wants to be the most exciting guy in the UFC and get paid $50,000 bonuses and always guarantee himself a spot on the pay-per-view and, you know, all that kind of, I'm fine with that. I have zero problem with that. But I also said last week that if Michael Chandler really, really wants to be a champion and he wants to hold a UFC title one day, he's got to make some changes in his style because clearly in the two big.

fights he's had in the U.S., in the three biggest fights the UFCs had, that style has not worked for him. He lost to Charles Olavera. He lost to Justin Gasey, he lost to Dustin Porey. His wins are quality wins, Dan Hooker and Tony Ferguson, but Tony Ferguson is not the same Tony Ferguson he was five years ago. And Dan Hooker is a top 12 kind of guy. He's a good fighter, not, you know, not top tier.

And he was in the Gagee fight, he was in the Pori fight, he was in the Olivera fight, nearly had Oliver out in the first round, nearly had Porier finish in the first round, nearly had Gaetchi hurt in the first round. So that's not to say you can't hang with these people, but then, you know, that tendency to just kind of bite down in your mouthpiece and throw, you know, their caution to the wind kind of comes back to Biden. I mean, I get it, you know, I get him kind of reacting to the criticism. But I want to ask you, Matt, as a fighter, because you are known as an exciting fighter, right? Like when we see Matt Brown on the marquee, we know what we're getting. We expect that you know, you hear it. Matt Brown's fighting.

We're going to get a Matt Brown fight. Like, you know what that's like. You know that expectation on your shoulders. When Matt Brown fights, we're getting a Matt Brown. It's literally a phrase. We're getting a Matt Brown fight. I'm curious, like, am I wrong in thinking that, like, Chandler might have to change some things if he wants to be champion?

Or am I just overblowing it because he lost a fight? No, I said the same thing you did last week. I mean, you know, he needs to fix his strategy. And there's two different things. In my particular style, like, that's just how I fight. Like, that's how I beat guys. I go in, I'd wear them out. I make it a tough fight, you know, kind of like Dustin Porre type thing, right?

Like, we go in, we make it dirty, we make it grimy, and guys get worn out and overwhelmed by it. Now, Michael Chandler, you know, he doesn't, we get the feeling, at least me and you and people watching, we get the feeling he doesn't have to do that. right so he is fighting for the fans and there's basically just two different different ways to fight and that's like okay do you want to fight for the fans or do you want to fight for yourself and win like gsp fought for himself right he went out 100% his own strategy solely to win um Anderson silver was one of those that was like able to kind of combine the two i think a little bit better than most people but um and then there's guys um like a chris lytle like he would he would come out and tell you like I'm fighting for the fans like I want a war I want a battle and you know he

never got a title even though he probably had the skills to get a title um so I think you know Michael just has to make that decision is he going to come out and fight for the fans and he's going he's going to risk losing the fights to pourier or gaugie guys who are also experts at that style right that guys that that's what they do too and they're looking for sort of the same thing or is he going and maybe follow more of the GSP or Khabib style where, you know, maybe it's not always as pleasing to the fans, but it wins the fight. And I think the issue here is that we see that Chandler has the ability to do that, and he's simply not choosing not to do it.

Whereas, you know, guys like, like Poirier, you know, we're not, maybe he does have the ability to do it, but we don't see it clearly, right? That he has the ability to go out, maybe just take a guy down, pass his, guard, pound them, you know, or just hold them down like a Khabib or something. And that's to me where the real issue is, like, if you can, if you have the ability to do it and you're saying you want to be a champion, then go do that. Like, you don't have to please anybody. Now, if he wants to just go out and please the fans, that's fine too.

Like, we all love that. Like, you'll keep getting, you know, top billings on the paper views. Like, you put on fucking amazing fights, Michael. We love that. but you got to kind of decide your strategy and what you want to get out of this. Yeah, it's true because like I said, because he has had those fights.

Like in Bellator, when he fought Brent Premus in the rematch, it was a lot of takedowns, a lot of wrestling, a lot of ground and pound, you know, and it wasn't what people would typically say the most exciting fight in the world,

but he won, and he won dominantly. You know what I mean? He got his title that was coming back from an injury and he wanted to go out there and kind of prove a point. And he did. Since he's gotten in the UFC,

though, I think he's kind of built this reputation where every time he steps in there, you're going to get this crazy war battle, you know, this is just exciting. Now, again, I have no problem with that. I have zero problem if that's the legacy he wants to build. Absolutely, again, go on and do your thing, man. Like, I'm not criticizing that.

But my point is if you want to be a champion and you want to hold that UFC title, you got to change something because that style hasn't, it hasn't benefited you yet in two of the biggest fights against two of those guys. It didn't work against Port. Like we seen with Porier, like in the second round, that's what he did. He took him down. He held him down. And I think most of us were probably on the page of, look, you probably could have done that for three rounds, you know, or at least use that in the first round, start to wear him

down a little bit before you start doing your big exploding wild punches and, you know, try to throw them off a little bit. Yeah, and there's an argument. I mean, listen, I've had that. slight criticism of Justin Gachie because Justin Gage was an all-American wrestler at Colorado State. He has that. But the difference is Gachi's never been that guy.

Gachi has always been to like march forward, you know, you're going to take a punch and I'm going to give you 10 back and I'm just going to walk you down and beat you. We've never seen that. Chandler has that. We've seen Chandler go out and out wrestle guys. We've seen him fight strategically before. And we've also seen him getting these kind of crazy knockdown, drag out wars. And again, this isn't like saying he's not, he's an incredible fighter.

But if the goal is to be champion, to me, you got to change something because it hasn't worked in two of the fights that need to get you there. Now, it kind of worked against Olivera until it didn't, right? Like it worked, he went out there and had this crazy battle with Oliver and he allowed Oliver to take his back. He got him off. He had him hurt. But then Oliver caught him clean in the second round and it's over. So that style, like, again, if you want to be the bonus. baby. You want to be the guy getting bonuses and Dana's crazy. Dana called him the Arturo Gotti

of the UFC. Now that's an incredible compliment to be paid. Arturo Gotti. Godi Ward, right? Like, you're a boxing guy. But, but okay, you're, you are the, okay, you are, when I talk boxing, I usually turn to you because outside of like the biggest fights, I don't know boxing as well. You are a boxing guy. Educate me, Matt. Arturo Gotti was an incredible. incredible fighter, but do you hold Arturo Gotti in the same regard as, as, you know, Floyd in terms of championships, in terms of like, do you put him in the same? Right there, you called it. Like Floyd pieced him up easily, you know, I mean, that's exactly it, right?

And Godi never developed those skills. And that's sort of the difference with Chandler and Gotti. And I think Chandler, as much of a compliment as that is to be compared to Artur Gotti, like Chandler, I think we see he has the ability to go out there and win. titles. He should go out there. I think most of us assume we don't know for sure, but we assume he probably could have beat Dustin Poirier with a smart strategy. But he's playing Dustin Poirier's strategy. He's playing Justin Gagey strategy when he does that and when he goes at their wings like that. Now, does that mean you're going to lose it every time? No, because

it works for him a lot of times too. But what you're doing is you're playing those guys game. take them out of their game if you have the ability to do that a lot of guys don't have the ability to do that right you know there's there's guys that you know that's what they're kind of stuck with yeah and like I appreciate like I get like

Dana's not wrong when he says he's the Arturo Gotti because God that was Godi style man he would go out there and just getting these incredible battles and these incredible wars and they were fun again Gotti Ward we all remember that if you're a boxing fan even if you're not a

boxing fan, go watch Arturo Gadi and Mickey Warner. Those fights were incredible. But Gotti was never, he never got to the level of where he was a Canelo or where he was a Mayweather or where he was like this, you know, a Terrence Crawford or, you know, champion, champion, title fight. He was never, he was never that guy because that was his style of fighting. And that's what I'm saying. Like it's a, it's a, it's almost, I don't want to say it's a backhanded compliment, but in a way it kind of is, right? Like it's, you're, Arturo God is an incredible. we all have incredible memories of Arturo Gotti, but was Godi,

Godi was never that guy, right? Like, he was never, like, he was never, May, like, what do we, what do we remember Godi for? The wars. What do we remember Mayweather for? Not any wars. We remember him for piecing people up.

Yeah, the championship. We remember him as undefeated champion, one of the greatest technical boxers, blah, blah, blah. We don't remember him. And again. And that's my whole criticism here. And, you know,

not to knock on Michael Chandler, love the dude and love his style, love everything about him. And, you know, it's his career. You know what he wants. But we, what I see, the ability for him to go out there and be that dominant champion. Um, and he simply chooses not to. He chooses to be a tour guidey when he could be Floyd Mayweather. Yeah.

Whether that's right or wrong, we have to, you know, we have to see if he ever decides to change up his style. But, you know, that's what it seems to me is his own choice. Well, and that's also. a great point because when when michael was coming into the u.c and i was interviewing him he kept he kept saying he wanted to be the guy to fight kabib because he felt he had the style to be because he had the wrestling because that's one thing that could be kabib kububcab classically the one style that he didn't typically go against a lot in his career where guys with really really

strong wrestling now you did fight gaichi but again we just say gaughey's not a guy who's ever used his wrestling he's never been that guy chandler has chandler has used his wrestling and Chandler's used it very effectively. And I 100% believe if Michael Chandler fought a strategic fight with his wrestling, he could have given Khabi problems. I stand by that. I 100% stand by that. You know, I kind of thought that Gagee would too, but, boy, Kibib took him down like nothing.

But he's. And I agree with you. I was kind of the same myself. Oh, here we go. But Gachie's never been that guy. Like, Gajee's never tried to engage in wrestling. Like, that's just not who he is. I never shown it, but could be engaged in the wrestling and engaged you had nothing for it.

But Chandler does. I don't know if Chandler would or not. Yeah, but Chandler does have the wrestling and he does it in MMA. You know, he actually, we've seen him do it. And I think that's the frustrating part is like, if you fight the way you can fight and you use your wrestling and use all the tools in your arsenal, you could be the guy to beat Islam Makachev. You potentially could. You have the skills.

Yeah, yeah. But if all you're concerned about is going out there and entertaining and having these kind of crazy battles, these bloody wars, I don't know that you're ever going to be. That's what, like I said, you said it perfectly. Do you want to be Arturo Gatti or do you want to be Floyd Mayweather? How do you want to be remembered? There's nothing wrong if you want to be remembered as Arturo Gatti. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. I mean, in the end, like, look at GSP. Like, he didn't have exciting fights. A lot of people fall asleep during his fights, but he was one of the greatest and we love him for it. You know, and that's what

it comes to people love winners more than they love brawlers or anything so you know i could um knock myself for this too you know like i probably could have settled down many times you know and just kind of may pick people apart or use a little bit of wrestling or something but you know that's what people are going to remember in the end is the winner right that's why people remember that's why people talk about Floyd so much because he keeps winning and what does Floyd talk about all the time how he wins right that's what that's all he brings up so that's what that's what people are going to care about. The boring aspect

of the fight, people will forget about that next week. They're going to be like, well, he won. You know, that's what it's going to come down to. The result in the history books is what people are going to care about. Yeah, I mean, like I said, George St. Pierre dealt with that criticism forever, but what did George St. Pierre do? He's the greatest

welterweight of all time. Nine-time defending champion. Took out everybody. You know, never, and when you say that, does anyone ever stop and say, oh, yeah, he was one of the greatest, but he was pretty boring. No. No, really. I mean, there might be some dickhead out there that says that, but no, they're going to be like, oh, you're right. He was one of the greatest.

Yeah. And our sport, in a way, you know, George St. Pierre is the Floyd Mayweather of our sport. He's the guy who didn't try to go out. He adjusted his style. After he got knocked out by Matt Sarah, he adjusted his style and stopped taking those kind of risk and was an incredible defensive fighter. fought to his abilities and fought strategically to beat his...

When he fought Johnny Hendricks, now, Johnny Hendricks, you could argue, won that fight, but it was a close fight, but he knew in the back... GSP knew that was probably not the fight he was going to go out-wrestle Johnny Hendricks. When he fought Josh Koshchek, same thing. He didn't go out there, no, and I'm just going to out-wrestle an NCAA-frikin champion, Josh Koshchek,

who in my opinion, to this day, I say, probably has the best blast double in the history of mixed martial arts. His blast double was incredible. He didn't fight him that way. He went out there now jabbed and broke his orbital bone by jabbing him in the face for five rounds. And Johnny Hendricks, now again, that was a very close fight. He took him down too.

He took down Kostech, too, though. He did. But he had, like, he went out there with a different style to beat Johnny Hendricks, because he knew just getting into a wrestling match may not play to his benefit because Johnny was an NCAA champ. You know what I mean? He strategized to beat these guys. That's what's needed to be at that top level.

you want to be a champion you have to know and like I said I have absolutely nothing against Michael Chandler going out there and earning every bonus from now until Doomsday and walking away a rich rich man because he's earned pay-per-view points and then pay-per-view main events and all these games and all that and that's all great I'm fine with all that but if you want to be a UFC champion something's got to change or like you said you got to decide are you fighting for yourself or you're fighting for the fans yeah he's exactly right and he'll get richer if he's championed then putting getting $50,000 bonuses yeah exactly and like I said again I yeah when he said that when Dana always said that about the Arturo Gotti thing is it's actually a pretty fair comparison but you know what you know what do you do you remember do you remember God he as a champion because I don't I think he had some lower belts oh yeah but I'm saying like do you remember him like oh my god he was one of the greatest box that's not you know yeah you're exactly right that's not the first thing it comes to your mind we think of Artur Gotti you think of him as a fucking warrior that went in there,

been down his mouthpiece and threw down. Yeah, I remember watching, do you remember when that movie came out years ago, the fighter, the Mickey Ward movie, the headmarked.

So I remember, because I had seen those boxing matches. I remember those boxing matches, and I went back and I watched the movie. It's a good movie. It's a good movie. But I went back and watched it afterwards that I had forgotten.

And then I was when, at that point, when Mayweather was kind of on top, I was like, oh yeah, they fought. Mayweather fought Goddy. Like,

they were around. Boy, oh, boy, that was not a fun fight to watch. I mean, it was, but it wasn't like it wasn't a goddy fight by any stretch of the imagination no the only thing i remember about that fight was at one point floyd hit him with i think three or three to five

right hands in a row like without even taking a step back like just right hand right hand right hand and i mean that just goes to show the the insane skill level of floyd mayweather i mean he was an insanely skilled boxer just one of the most overrated boxers also but that's another subject I actually, as we end the show, I'm actually going to play an interview here. I forgot to mention the top of the show, and I apologize, because we have the PFL finals coming up on Friday. I'm going to have a conversation in a minute with Kenny Florian. I want to play that on the show today. So we'll kind of end the show on that.

But before we get there, Matt, before we get out of here, real quick, we're talking about boxing. Did you see the announcement that Gervante Davis is going to fight? Yes. Why my friend is Ryan Garcia? Now, I'm not a boxing guy. not you. I personally think Jervante Davis wins this fight.

I like Ryan, but I don't know that Ryan is quite on Tank Davis's level. Am I wrong? I couldn't agree more. Educate me, Matt. Educate me. I think,

you know, I haven't really broke down either one of the stuff. I've watched a tank a lot more than I've watched Ryan Garcia, so I can't speak completely on him. What I do know about Ryan Garcia is he's a speed guy,

and that's really his big thing. You know, he's got a really fast left hook and really fast hands, which we all know, like he's Insta Famous and everything. But Giovante is just another level. I couldn't agree more. And it only takes one shot from Giovante.

He's got such slick moves, such slick technique, sees things, amazing eyes and just power for days. When he hits you, it hurts. And I just think he's so much better. But, you know,

that's one of those. I'm going to look at some film on both of them. I haven't watched enough Ryan Garcia to say a lot about his style. I mean, obviously, like, I know his basic of his style, but, you know, I got to watch, you know, how he strategizes throughout a match and things like that. But so I have to break that down and watch that. But, yeah, my first intuition is Javante is way better than him. And this is a bad fight for Ryan Garcia. Yeah, I'm glad they're doing it.

Like, I'm glad they made it because it's a big fight. You know, we're missing, like, we're not getting Terrence Cross. Offert's coming up fighting. He's not fighting Aral Spence. Should be fighting Aral Spence. He's not fighting Aral Spence. He's not. Just tragic. I'm just glad that they're doing a big fight, even though I don't, even, I'm not going to go as far as say mismatch because that's insulting, but like I feel like... It's definitely not a mismatch. That's not. It's not. But Jervante, I think Javis is one of the best guys, period. And again, I don't know the sport as well as you. And I don't follow a lot of the up-and-comers. I don't watch those cards. You do. But again, I felt like pretty confident saying that I thought, Ronte Davis was that much better. Yeah, I couldn't agree more so far. Again, I haven't watched enough Ryan Garcia to really break it down and see. The one that I'm excited about, I haven't heard a lot of people talking about, Benavides and Caleb Plant.

Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, that's going to be a good one. Yeah, this is a fucking good one. And the winner fighting Canelo, I think Benavides has the style to beat Canelo, which is what makes it really interesting. I don't know if he has the style to beat Caleb Plant, though, is the question. I think it's a tougher matchup for him than Canello, but we'll see. So that's the one that I'm really excited to see.

And, you know, whoever wins that gets to fight Canelo. So I thought Caleb Plant did a great job the first time against Canello. I thought he was winning when, you know, the commentators were extremely biased towards Canello. I thought the judges were even biased towards Canello, but after seeing the scorecards after. but I thought Plant was doing a great job. I thought Plant was imposing his will really well, just wasn't taking the shots very well. But I think a second time,

if Plant ends up getting to fight him a second time, I think he'll do a lot better this time. I think Benavides, I just can't wait to see him against top competition. I've been watching him for a long time. And this guy shows so much great technique. And he's got probably the best jab at that weight class, which is the way that you beat Canelo. So I'm really excited to see this.

It was the funniest thing when they did the Jake Paul fight in Arizona with Anderson Silva before the fight, you know, because Jake keeps talking about like, I'm going to beat, you know, I'm going to beat champion. I'm going to beat this guy, beat that guy. And somebody brought up Benavides to him. And they're like, what about Benavides? He needs opponents. And Jake literally just stopped dead in his tracks. He's like, yeah, I don't want that fight. I don't want Benavitas.

And it was just hilarious because, like, even he, like, in all his life. like, you know, listen, we know he's not going to fight Canello. He's not going to beat Canelo, but it's just he doesn't for attention. I get it, whatever. But, like, he actually was honest in that moment. They were like, what about David Benevarez? He's like, yeah, I'm not. I don't want that fight.

Well, you know why he said that, right? Because Benavides would probably take that fight. He knows Kenevarez is not going to actually take the fight. Yeah, Benavitas would take that fight. Dude, I, yeah, he's like, I need the, I need the clout, bro. Like, I need to get my name out there. I need the clout, and I can get, and I'll be done in two and a half minutes. so, you know, it'll be a quick night for me.

I got two and a half minutes to spare. Like, I got two and a half minutes to spare. I don't know if it'd be that quick for him. He's a, if you've watched Benavitas, he is kind of a slow worker. Like he is, but. Again, he's a jab guy, man. Like, that's his whole game starts with his jab. And, um, but your point still stands regardless.

Yeah. I mean, it's still, you know, we say mismatch. That's a mismatch. Uh, you know. That is a mismatch. Yeah. But I appreciate, I appreciate. I appreciate Jake was honest enough to say, no, no, that's, that's not a fight.

I want. Like, that's not what I'm pursuing. Yeah, I feel like, I think if Canello would actually, if, if, if there was an inkling of Canello actually accepting that fight, he would probably say the same thing to about that. Yeah, he probably said, well, can we wait? But then again, you know, but also the difference, too, is if you fight Canello, like, you're getting a multi-million dollar payday. You're fighting David Benavitas. Yeah, you probably still making millions, but not enough millions where it justifies getting knocked the fuck out. Yeah, I joked. I joked. I joked with Francis and Godo ones. I said,

listen, because we were talking about him fighting Tyson-Fierre and getting paid a bunch of money. I said, dude, you offer me $10 million. I'll let Francis and Ghana who punch me once. I can get knocked out for that. I mean, you know, as long as he doesn't like literally put me in a coma, I'm willing to risk $10 million for taking one. That's the risk, though, right? He might actually put you in a coma.

And you're going to take $10 million to go in a coma? He can put, I'll put my hands up. He'll knock me out through the ring ropes, and I'll just hope my head doesn't hit the floor. I'll take the risk. You're paying me $10 million, I will absolutely take that bet. And like I said, if Conello, if Jake Paul fights Canello, it's going to be a lopsided loss but hey if you're getting $10 million for it go for it like that's what I say

for guys like a like a dionte wilder Francis and Godo it's not worth that $10 million you're probably going to the fucking coma bro yeah you don't have kids so yeah I got kids so if I go to the coma at least my kids get to enjoy this money you don't have kids bro it's not worth it yeah it's true I still $10 million that's a lot money I'm just saying like you know like I'll you know like I said you know you're going to enjoy it in your wheelchair Hey, dude, Alastair Overeign got up, okay? That's all I'm saying. Alastair Overeo got up after Francis Ngano knocked his head into the fourth row in Detroit.

I was there. I was at that fight when I saw Overeign. I thought Overeign's head was going to come off like a Pez dispenser. So, yeah, yeah. Like we talked about, like, I'm going to knock his head into the crowd. Like, Ingano actually almost knocked his head into the crowd. Ingano might have the, like, the sickest power ever in, in like, I'm not saying, like, in boxing, but like, in MMA, I don't know there's ever been a more power.

powerful guy than Francis and God. That dude is scary. Everybody wants to see Engano in Fear. I want to see Wilder in Engano. Just the sloppiest, wildest heavyweight boxing match with like the smallest margin of error for death ever in a boxing match history. Did you see Wilder's knockout where he like barely glanced the guy and the guy just

crumbled? Like he didn't even, he didn't even hit him clean. He just tapped him and the guy was done. Tyson Fury talked about Deontes power and even he was like, he had no idea of what he was really getting into. And he's like, after I felt his power,

he's like, I've never felt anything like that before. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Could you imagine Deonté and Francis? Like, the fight might last like 45 seconds,

but it'd be a fun 45 seconds, see which one of his first. Yeah, just be windmills all over. It'd be terrible, but it'd be awesome. Yeah, could you imagine Deonté hitting somebody in four-ounce gloves?

Yeah. Yeah, it's like punching a pumpkin, you know. It's just going to explode. All right. We're going to get out of here. We'll be back next week. We get back in the action with UFC cars next week. It actually a really fun card next weekend.

Kevin Holland and Stephen Thompson, a guy you're very familiar with. Of course, you fought Wonderboy back in the day. So that's coming up next weekend. So that should be a fun card. So we'll talk about that next week. And before we get out of here, I do want to mention, of course, my interview is Kenny Flore

and, of course, the PFL final coming up this Friday. night on ESPN, so I enjoy my conversation with one of the first guys I ever actually did a podcast with back of the day was Kenny Floring. We used to have him on the old MMA Weekly Show to break down fights. So always glad to catch up with Kenny and talk a little PFL and get ready for the finals card on Friday. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of that. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything.

So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice, yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no, but chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too, along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. When it comes to people I go back with in this sport, I don't think there's one guy that goes back

further than this guy, and that's a long ways. Now, I'm not trying to knock him for his age or anything. I'm just saying we go back a long ways. I'm always happy to speak to my good friend, PFL commentator, and the host of the Anakin Florian podcast. My good friend, Kenny Florian, Kenny, how are you? David, how are you, man? I am fantastic, man. Yeah, I joke about it, but in all serious is like, When I first started covering the sport, you were like one of the first two people to like, to like reach out and like want to do interviews with me. I'll never forget that.

Thanks, man. I appreciate that. It's, it's been many moons since we first started talking. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So you're always a very, very busy guy. You got your podcast. Of course, the PFL finals coming up in November.

What, like, do you take a day off ever? Like, you know, anything like that ever, like take downtime? Lately it hasn't been that way. You know, I haven't had a whole lot of days. off, man. Just trying to stay busy, trying to push a little bit, try to push myself to get into a lot of different things. But, you know, all things that I enjoy. So it's been good.

Yeah. So lots of talk with you about, of course, with the PFL coming up. Before we get to that, I do want to talk to you about the recent news that Jose Aldo, former UFC champion announcing his retirement for mixed martial arts. He's made per sole boxing match. I know that's something he's dreamed about for a long time and that's awesome. Good for him. Go get that payday. But you fought Jose. You know, you fought him in the prime of his career.

you know, when you went down to Featherway, you went down and fought a guy like that, and the longevity that guy's had in his career is ridiculous. Then to go to Banterweight become a serious contender there. Can I ask your thoughts on Jose, the career he put together and his retirement? Clearly, one of the best to ever do it. You know, when I'm looking at guys and kind of ranking them or, you know, talking about some of the goats, right? He is certainly in that conversation, why. You look at the consistency that he had, not only as a fighter going undefeated for almost 10 years,

but also the run of him being a champion for as long as he was, both in the WEC and then when he came over to the UFC, he was also a guy that not only remained undefeated, but he was changing the game with a lot of the techniques and movements that he was using. Here was a guy that didn't come from a wrestling background, yet guys who came from high-level wrestling backgrounds just couldn't. take him down physically uh he was one of the most impressive guys that i've ever fought against his speed his strength um you know his intelligence when he competed uh his ability to uh do it when he needed to when the lights were on um you know he was just uh he was the man dude so i'm really happy for him not only because of all the accomplishments that he's had but the fact that at 36 years old he is hanging it up. Not everyone is able to do that. He's made great money in his life, which is awesome to

see. But also the fact that he's going out at a point where maybe he wasn't at his peak, but he's not getting knocked out left and right, you know, where it's just clear that he can't hang with these guys. He can still hang with some of the best in the world at 135 and 145 pounds. But for him, I don't know. I think he probably gets a sense that he does. doesn't need to do it anymore, for whatever reason, whether it's motivation-wise or money-wise or whatever, he might just be looking for a different challenge or go on to other things. And when that happens when someone is retiring before they have clearly deteriorated, I think that's a rare thing in this sport. And the fact that he has a say in when he gets to go out is awesome and

a great model for a lot of other fighters out there. Yeah, it's a rare thing in this sport. I said it on Twitter a couple of days ago, I said, you know, it's a rare moment when a guy gets to retire from the sport before the sport retires him. You know, that we know the reality, unfortunately, in this sport, nine times out of ten, the sport retires you to where you just kind of have to leave, where you get released, or whatever the case may be. And I actually argued, I thought Jose should have gotten the title shot over T.J. Dillishaw. Like, I thought the run he was on was so impressive. And again, credit to Marab de Walsh Vili for going out there and beating a

legend like that and making a statement the way he did. But I thought Jose was the guy who should have fought Al Jamein, you know what I mean? Like, if Al Jemaine was the guy coming up on October 22nd, like if that was the fight, I would have been completely okay with that. So it's pretty ridiculous. This guy is going out where he's still one of the best five fighters in the world at another weight class. Kenny, I know we have this debate all the time in him. We're all guilty of it. I'm guilty of it. It's kind of a stupid debate, but it is still fun to talk about, you know, the greatest of all time, those kind of things. You know, when Max Holloway beat Josealdo, I was guilty. 100% guilty, say, man, Max Holloway's the dude.

Like he's the guy, man, you beat Jose Aldo twice. You're the goat of that division. And then Alexander Volcanowski comes along and he beats Max, you know, a couple times than this last one, it was so dominant. He actually has a win over Josealdo, but he doesn't quite have the longevity. When Jose retired, I had to look at his whole resume. I looked at the run he went on in the UFC. Obviously, you fought him during that run.

I was like, you know what? I feel kind of bad that I ever jumped off to Joseo Alto as the greatest featherweight train. Like I'm a little ashamed of myself that I did that because we all do kind of to become prisoners of the moment. So, Kenny, you're a guy who follows the sport. You know the sport better than, you know, most people I'll ever talk to. Where do you, is Joe, am I right? Like, Jose is the best friend of the weight of all time and it's not a knock on Max. It's not an actual knock on Alex. But man, the longevity, the wins. Like I, when I look back, I was like, man, I'm kind of bummed that I didn't just stick with Jose this whole time. No, I think that's well said.

You know, like you say, you know, we get caught up in the moment and it can be easy to do that. you know the problem is people remember josie aldo as the guy they got knocked out by connor mcgregor in 13 seconds that's that's the unfortunate reality um but the real reality is the fact that this guy went undefeated for a very long time against killers look at you know look at all the best guys in the world whether it's the uriah fabers early on in wec mc mike brown when he was at his peak. You know, so many great fighters. Then going over to the UFC, you know, whether was Chad Mendez, Frankie Edgar, when he was

at his peak, you know, fighting at 155 pounds, you know, and coming down to 145, you know, he beat so many of the best guys in the world, guys that for a lot of people looking from the outside and say, I don't know if this is a good matchup for Jose Aldo. This is a tough wrestler or this is a guy who could strike. And Jose Aldo always had an answer. Consistency. winning again and again, even when you're not at your best, is a very difficult thing to do at the highest levels of the sport.

And Jose Aldo did that. So I would say no one has been able to match the consistency, the longevity, and the quality of competition for as long as Jose Aldo has. Volcanovsky is knocking on that door now, but I'm not ready to give the throne over to Volcanovsky just yet. He is on his way, but Jose Aldo doing it for as long as he did. For me, he's a featherweight goat. Yeah, it's hard to argue against it.

I feel a little shame that I jumped off the train. I feel a little bit bad now looking back like, man, the guy when you look at his record, his resume, it's kind of ridiculous. Kenny, of course, you know, in your other one of your many, many jobs you hold, of course, doing commentary for the PFL. Of course, we just saw the PFL championship card get announced this week. Go into pay-per-view for the first time ever. Now, I know I'm asking you to step on a landmine here,

ask you to talk about the company you work for. pay-per-view is a dicey situation. We understand this. Now, we don't know the price of the pay-per-view. We have no idea what it's going to run. I'm sure we'll learn that in the coming weeks. Got to say, in terms of car value, it's a stacked card. It's a really, really good card.

Of course, Kayla Harrison is at the top. No shock that she would be the main event. You got Marlon Marius and Shane Burgos battling it out. Two guys who just got recently signed to the PFL. I like that they're both getting fights on this card. The finals matchups were all really good, and I know there's been talk about adding another big marquee fight before it's all said and done.

But you've been around the sport long enough to know how dicey pay-per-view is. We've seen promotions come and go who tried to live on pay-per-view and they died just as easily. We all remember the afflictions of the world and other people who try to jump in and do pay-per-view, and it just doesn't work. Now, PFL's in a little different situation because they're a more established organization. And again, we don't know the cost. If it's 10 bucks, you know, there's probably a lot more likely people are going to chip in and buy it versus if it's like 60. What do you make of the pay-per-view move?

We heard this was coming. I know Pete Murray's talked about it. Don Davis has talked to me about it. We all knew it was coming, but now it's coming now. What are your thoughts on PFL finally going to pay-per-view? You know, I think that it's going to be an experiment, right? I think that, you know, I'm not necessarily privy to all the business decisions that the organization makes. But, you know, I think they're probably going to do it as a test run, you know, see how it would do when its first PFL debut.

You know, I think that there is some great value with a lot of these championship fights. what the price of the pay-per-view is going to be and all that stuff, I don't know. I'm curious to see where it falls, see exactly how it does when they do announce the price and all that stuff. You know, for me, I'm excited to see who ends up winning at the end of the season. Really, my focus is kind of on that. I hope that it does well. But certainly, any time you're doing something for the first time, there's going to be challenges.

So, you know, I'm sure the PFL understands that. And we'll see how this does. And it's PFL debut. Yeah, one big thing. And I know we talk about this all the time of the PFL, and I'm sorry to continue banging this drum. But I think it always needs to be talked about. You know, we're about to crown a whole lot of millionaires coming up in November.

A whole lot of people are about to make a million dollars. And I'm not sure if you saw it. Tiago Santos recently signed with PFL. And he said, the chance to fight for a million dollars is more than I ever made in the UFC, ever, you know, and this is a guy who fought for the title. Two years ago, far from the title is John Jones on paper. You said, I never made that kind of money in the UFC. Now, this is not me asking you to take a knock at the UFC

because it's an organization you know very well and work there for many years. But when a guy like Tiago Santos, an established veteran who's been around this many years and fought for a UFC title says, I never came close to making a million dollars in the UFC. And that's a big reason why I wanted to come to PFL. Like, I, it's like I praise the PFL. for doing this, but I also have to take a step back, say, man, it's kind of sad, like a guy like Tiago Santos, doing what he's done,

the career he's put together, he's never made a million dollars. Like, that's kind of crazy to me. It's a harsh reality, right? I mean, even, you know, you talk about, you know, UFC being the biggest organization in mixed martial arts. It can still be very difficult even for people fighting for several

years. And over the course of those several years, to even get close to a million dollars is a rarity. You know, that is just tough. You know, I think that for guys like the Tiago Santos, for guys that maybe are on the precipice of signing with their first big league, and even for guys that are elite in the top five,

or for guys that can't break that top five, they're going to start to look at places like the PFL, the PFL specifically, because they're going to start doing that math in their head. They're going, wait a sec. You know, I'm knocking on that door. Maybe I'm not there right now. But as my contract is coming up, is this the best place for me to be? I could go to the PFL and I know that in my first year or second year, I can potentially make a million dollars or more. Like, you know, and not to mention, you know, you get sponsors. You get sponsors on your shirt and your shorts and all that stuff, you know, things that were kind of taken away over time in the UFC. So I think

that it's going to be, it is a legitimate viable option, but still fighters don't have that perception of the economic reality of the mixed martial arts game. And I think that not only are more people going to come over from some of the other organizations, but I think the up and coming talent is also going to look at that as a very viable option for them as well to come up in the PFL to get built up and say, man, in a couple of years, I could be fighting for a million dollars. You know, again, so much could happen in mixed martial arts, and so many things do happen in regards to politically who gets the fight, right? It's like, I can come into the UFC, and if I get a big name and I had two great fights,

I could be knocking on the door of a championship fight. Or you get the other guy who's been in the organization for eight years, busted his ass on the regional scene, taking all the tough fights that the UFC are giving them, winning most, losing some, and not even being close to a title fight and not even being close to maybe making six figures for a fight. So when you start doing the math,

you're going to wait a sec, what's the best option for me at this stage? I could be a world champion and make a million dollars or more at the end of the year or grind it out with potentially no payoff. And, you know, obviously there's name recognition. You have to, you know, look at that. And, you know, potential you could, you know,

There's millionaires in the UFC, no question about it. But how many of them are there? How rare is that? And how many years do you need to grind to be able to get to that level? Where in the PFL is nothing to do with any political decisions or, you know, how many followers you have on Instagram or anything like that. It has to do with who you fought and how you won. Like, did you win or not? That's it.

It's a complete meritocracy. And I think we're going to be even getting closer to that as they make some changes moving forward, I think. So I'm excited for the PFL because I think more fighters are going to recognize this. So we'll see. Are we at the peak of free agency and mixed martial arts? Because when I think about like years ago, like going all the way back to pride, when pride was around, pride was, you know, arguably they were bigger than the UFC. And of course, the UFC exploded and got bigger than anyone. And then you think about like, you know, when strike force is around, strike force was a viable option, they had a lot of big cards, you know, promoting Carano and, and, and, of course, you know,

and cyborg, things like that. They had Bellator come along, and Bellator, you know, when they got the backing of Viacom now Paramount, like they had some money behind them. But now we're kind of at the peak where we got the UFC is still the biggest. No one's debating that. But you got Bellator, you know, with a real financial backer in Paramount, a real company there.

You got PFL paying out a million dollars guaranteed to champions every single year. And I know, listen, I know, you can't say this. You may not know. And I said this, you know, a while ago, Kayla Harrison signed, re-signed with the PFL. And I said, listen, from what I know, from my sources, she's making a million dollars per fight going into the finals she's making

that's how much she's getting paid she's making huge money she's probably making more than any woman in the sport outside of maybe Rhonda Rousey did at her peak listen we all know there's some financial issues at one championship but they're still paying people but Demetri's Johnson isn't getting paid peanuts

to go over there and fight for one championship there are viable options now more than ever am I right in thinking this is actually the peak for free agency Shane Burgos a great example Dana White said we screwed up. We messed up. We let that guy go. We should not have let Shane Burgos go.

UFC's loss is now PFL's gain. We would not have heard that 10 years ago. UFC was it. That was the show. If you want to make money and you want to make millions, you had to go to the UFC. That's no longer the case. Yeah, no, absolutely. I agree.

I think that's accurate. And I think people still get caught up in, you know, name recognition. And a lot of fighters, managers, coaches, you know, they see the UFC as, you know, the only option out there. Like, that's where everyone is heading towards. But there are other options, guys. There are other things that you can do. And I think once people start realizing this and that gets into, you know, the general consciousness of the MMA community, I think that is going to be a more popular decision amongst people.

And it's great. Again, more competition, the better it is for the first. fighters. It may not be for everyone, but I think more fighters, more managers, more coaches are going to be aware of it and start to take that route. So I'm curious to see how it develops in the future. I think there's a ton of potential for the PFL still. And also, you know, a lot of the fans are, you know, they're funny. I'm not trying to make a guilt trip here or anything like that or guilt someone into, you know, watching or whatever supporting. But A lot of guys say, oh, man, the fighters should be making this amount of money,

should be doing this, should be doing that. But then, you know, we'll complain about the PFL doing a pay-per-view. He's like, guys, what do you want here? Either you want the fighters to make a lot of money and you want to support them. But if there is no support from the fans, then guess what? The fighters aren't going to be making that. But at least, you know, the PFL on their own, they're offering up million-dollar purses. Now, what's going to help the fighters that much more, of course,

are fans tuning in to watch a product that is free the whole year. They have one pay-per-view at the end of the year, and that support really helps the fighters more than anything else. So, no, I hope it's a good turnout. It's, of course, going to be an experiment, as I said, but I'm looking forward to seeing how the organization develops and evolves over the course of the next few years as more fighters kind of recognize that, hey, you know,

there's a lot of potential for me to make some great money, which, you know, may or may not happen in the other organizations. Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, and listen, everyone's got their own journey. Everyone's got their own path. But I'm sure you'd probably say the same thing. I hope more fighters test free agency. That doesn't mean you have to leave the UFC.

It doesn't mean you have to leave PFL. It doesn't mean you have to go anywhere. But at least find out your worth on the open market because there's actually a time now where we can see legitimate organizations are going to bid for your talent. We can see someone say, hey, you're making $500,000 here. we'll pay you $750,000 to come over here, or you can come over here and make a million dollars. We're at a whole different.

I wish more fighters were. Again, that's not to say everyone needs to leave the UFC. It just means know your worth, right? Know your value. Absolutely, man. I talked a minute ago about Kayla Harrison. Of course, we know she's coming up fighting Larissa Pacheco in the main event of the PFL championship.

You will not find a bigger Kayla Harrison fan on this planet than myself. I've been following her since the Olympics, since she was in the Olympics, and I said, if she comes to MMA, she's going to be a star, and she's going to be a force of nature. She has been all those things. I talked to Kayla before her last fight, maybe it was after her last fight,

and I said, Kayla, I think you already could argue that you're the best pound-for-pound women's fighter in the world. When you think about her level of dominance, and this is not a knock on, I think the three, in my mind, are Valentina Shochinko, Amanda Nunes, Kayla Harrison. When you talk about the best of the best

in the women's division. Now, I am taking Cyborg out a little, bit because in my opinion, Cyborg just hasn't been fighting great competition, and she has a loss to Amanda Nunes, pretty definitive loss of that. And, you know, she seems to be going into boxing doing some other things good for her. Again, no, no problem there. But I think the class of the women's division right now are those three. And I said there's an argument to be made. Kayla's level of dominance puts her at number one. Now, people will argue she doesn't have the same level of competition. I don't disagree with that necessarily, although I do think she does have some quality wins.

And Larissa Pachecoe being at the top of that list, uh, because Kail is, told me, she's like, I think Larissa would beat Chris Seiborg. Right now, I think she beats Chris Cyborg. Larissa Pacheco's on a run. Am I wrong in rating her that highly? And that's not a knock on Valentina or Amanda. They're both incredible. And I said that's the three. I'm not saying one's necessarily better than the other, but I think the three best women in the world are those three. I think that's absolutely accurate. You know, cyborgs in the conversation for sure. But yeah, I mean, here's the thing. You know, consistency matters. Kela of course is undefeated, something that is very rare in this sport.

But I think, you know, Larissa Pacheco is someone that is really being underestimated right now. I think she's one of the best female strikers in the world right now, the power that she carries right now and how she's putting together her whole game, Kayla's going to have to be on her game against Pacheco. Pacheco could beat, I think, 95% of people in her way class, in and around her weight class. I truly believe that. Now, let's put this into perspective.

What other, so we remember how dominant Ronda Rousey was, right? And this is not a knock on Ronda at all, but, you know, Ronda was still a bronze medalist. To get a medal in the Olympics is just insane. To do that as an American and a sport that has been dominated by, you know, Asia and the Europeans as an American is, is crazy. Rhonda got a bronze medal. Kayla got a gold medal twice. That's the level of athlete that we're talking about. When you're talking about that, you got to think about that thing, that event happens every four years. There is no room for error, mistakes, injuries, say goodbye to them. It doesn't matter. You've got to compete anyway. This is the damn Olympics.

All those struggles and adversity, all those things, for someone to come out on top, against the best in the world, against, you know, the Asian competitors and the European competitors who have been doing it longer with better coaching and better competition. For all those, for Kayla to come out on top, shows you the level of athlete

and the mental fortitude that is required to achieve that. She's in mixed martial arts now. That alone is such an advantage. There's no other woman that can claim that level of competition. It's just you can't. Like, it's not even close. Now, Kayla still is not a perfect mixed martial arts fighter. She acknowledges.

She needs to get better with their striking, putting it all together, you know, getting a little bit more comfortable in the cage. But still, she has been dominant. So I'm, you know, I think that in time, people will recognize just how great she is. She still needs to get by a very dangerous literacy of Pacheco. the only woman to go the distance against her, right? She's the only one who has gone eight rounds against Caleb. Twice.

Yeah, exactly. So it's really, it's really a tough fight. And I think if Kayla goes in there and dominates again, I mean, it's just another testament to how great she is and how great she can be. So she's been a huge star for a very good reason. I'm asking you to step on a landmine here, Kenny. And listen, I fully acknowledge that. You know, we saw Don Davis,

put out the tweet a couple months ago with Chris Seiborke saying, we'll pay, you know, we'll get you guys both a million dollars up front. Let's do the fight Chris Seiborg versus Kayla Harrison. And then Chris comes back and says, why should she see? Why should she get the same money? It's been 80, 20 split, all these kind of things. Now, I said at the time, and you're talking, listen, I'm the guy who said Chris Seiborg would wreck Rhonda Rousey if they fought in the UFC.

Like, I truly believe like that was a fight. Rhonda honestly just didn't want. And I still stand by that to this day. Rhonda didn't want to fight Chris Seibor. I truly believe that. In my heart of hearts, I think that was a fight. Ronda's like, you know what, I'm good. I'll fight other people.

I don't want to fight Chris Cyborg. When you say 80, 20 split and you say, like, you know, why did she, why should she get the same? All these kind of things. I'm like, Chris, I love you. I think you're a legend. You're one of the greatest fighters in history sport. Just say you don't want the fight. Just say I don't want to fight Kayla Harrison.

I'm okay with it. Chris's legacy is set. She doesn't need to do anything else to go down as one of the greatest fighters in the history of sports. So this is not a knock on her. It's just being honest. Like if at this stage in your career, you want to go to boxing, you want to fight Katie Taylor, you want to go to boxing. You want to fight. Great.

I have no problem with that. But when you come out and say I need an 80, 20 split, she doesn't deserve the same money. What's to say she's the draw? Just say you don't want it. I'm okay if you don't want to fight. But don't make all these kind of crazy demands just to not have the fight. Because I was like, come on, Chris. Really?

That's what you're going to say? Yeah, you know, I was a little surprised by that as well. You know, it's like you're getting quite possibly, I mean, it has to be the biggest payday of her career at that stage. It would be anyway, her and Kayla on a pay-per-view. And that's when you can really just destroy fights from even happening, you know, because you get, you know, promoters that are like, hey, all right, we're going to bend over backwards to make this happen. Here you go, we're going to give you this. We're going to give you that. And then you get a ridiculous demand.

like, well, you clearly don't want to fight. So I hope that's not the case. Maybe it's Chris just being aggressive in her negotiating, negotiating tactics or, you know, her management. Chris is an awesome fighter. Every time I've talked to her, she's been so nice and really inviting and warm and open about, you know, her career and all that stuff. She has accomplished, you know, so much in the sport. I hope that she takes the fight. I think that, you know, for a lot of fighters, when it's all said and done, you want to know that, hey, you know, I fought the best out there. I competed against everybody. I gave the fans what they wanted to see. And I think this is one of those fights that a lot of people want to see. Chris Seiborke against Kayla Harrison, they've been going back and forth.

You have, you know, I guess some bad blood between both of those two. They've been going back and forth for a long time. The contrast of styles, the athleticism that both women possess, the fans that both women possess. It could be a massive, massive fight. I hope that they end up making it. I hope Chris decides to, you know, change your tune a little bit and, you know, try to make the fight happen because I think a lot of people would love to see it. I think it would be the biggest fight in the sport for women right now. And that's, you know, listen, I would love to see Chocinco Nunes 3. I think it's a worthy fight. Chichinko's been on an incredible run and you will not find a bigger Valentina Chofinco's

stand than myself. But we've seen that fight twice. You know, know what I mean? There's not the intrigue. You know, there's a lot of great fights. There's none bigger. Harrison, Cyborg, would be the biggest fight the women's division could put on since we talked about Rousie versus Cyborg, in my opinion. I don't think there's a bigger fight. Am I wrong? I absolutely agree. I mean, the other one out there would be Nunes and Harrison, but that one isn't really possible right now, whereas the Cyborg and Harrison fight can legitimately happen tomorrow. So let's do it.

Yeah, I love it. I think it should happen. I hope it does happen. What's funny is we always talked about for years, Kenny, about co-promotion, you know, people working together. You know, we have an organization, PFL saying, we're ready to work with you. We're ready to work with you, the Bellator, like, make this. And let's be clear, I don't think this is Scott Coker, not wanting to work with PFL. It's just funny. Like, we actually have an opportunity here. There's always a hurdle, right? Like, it's not as easy as we just say, oh, they want to do it.

It's not that. Listen, I actually stand by Dana White. when he talked about the Fadoor a Million Inco situation years ago, I've heard stories about how much money they were going to pay Fadoor to come fighting the UFC, and yet his managers and handlers said, no, no, and they wanted those crap. I'm like, at this point I'm done. Like, I love Fader, you will not fight. I love Fadoer, A Million Inco. I think he's one of the greatest fighters ever, but I actually stand by Dana.

Like, they tried to pay him a boatload of money to come fight in the UFC, and he just didn't want to. So, you know, can't fault Dana for that. Like, it's not his fault. Absolutely. You know, it's like some managers or, you know, They'll, they've killed more fights than anything else. And, and I get it, you know, but the only thing is they have to see what's reasonable in the market.

You know what I mean? Like, I think that the big promotions, they are willing to pay you what you deserve. They really are. You know, so I think you're going to have to fight for it a little bit. But when you, when they start giving you into your demands and then you ask for like the moon on top of that, you're like, oh dude you know you don't want to you don't want this to happen um so more fights have been killed by a lot of management um and yes again i'm all for fighters getting what they deserve and getting paid awesome money but you also have to be you know realistic as well yeah absolutely pfl finals coming

up in november this card is stacked it's a really really good card i've had a chance to talk to a lot of the guys brendon lock named bubba jenkins is an incredible fight uh that's a that's a great one uh of course we i mean the finals in every division are are are incredible. You know, Marlon Mariah Schaenberg, this is a great card. This is a really, really good card. And from my understanding, it's not done being built yet. So I think we're going to get even more fights. Obviously, you just signed Aspen

Ladd. That's a good signing. We can see that. You know, maybe there's potential hurt coming on the card. Great card coming up in the PFL. I know you're excited to call the fights. You're always excited to call the fights. And also, real quick, before I get you out here, Kenny, I was watching the Anik Florian podcast. Try to catch it as often as they can. Not going to lie, can't catch it every week. But I do

try to watch it. One thing I do love that you and Jean-Due on there is when you let you guys, when you guys get to float into your Boston accent, although I will, I will say every single time you guys do it, I immediately start thinking of quotes from the town. Without fail, I'm just waiting for one of you guys to just break into the whole like,

I need you help. I can't tell you what it is. I can never ask me about later and we're going to hurt some people. Who's caught we're going to take? I always float into the town. Every single time you guys do the Boston action, I can't help myself. I'm with you, man.

with all the Boston movies, right? Goodwill hunting and departed. Yeah. The departed. All classics. Kenny, it's always a pleasure to catch up. I appreciate taking the time and now how busy you are. So I appreciate you doing this. Have fun calling the PFL finals coming up in November.

And thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. Damon, my pleasure, my man. We'll talk soon. Take care. Bye-bye. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.