MMA Fighting - Fighter vs. Writer: Matt Brown Reveals His Picks for Fighter of the Year, Fight of the Year and Discusses the Time He Fought With a Broken Jaw

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

In a special year end edition of The Fighter vs. The Writer, Matt Brown and Damon Martin give their picks for the Fighter of the Year and the Fight of the Year. Who tops the list out of all the performances in 2022? Find out in the latest episode. Plus we break down the biggest news stories from the year including Conor McGregor and Jon Jones not competing at all in 2022 plus the situation involving former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez following his arrest. Brown will also reminisce about some of his legendary sparring sessions and reveal details about the time he suffered a broken jaw in training and then made his professional debut long before the bones had actually healed. Brown will also give his reaction to the recent altercation between former UFC fighter Jake Shields and Mike Jackson at the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas. All this and plenty 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 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 reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2, 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 two, ghosts in the machine.

Available now, only from Audible. To the Vox Media Podcast Network. Writer versus the writer, I'm Damon Martin. He is Matt Brown, and we are back for our special year-end edition of the podcast. We get a wrap-up 2022 here on the podcast. We are going to do a look ahead at 2023 in a couple weeks but it is coming up to the end of the year the final

UFC event has taken place Matt uh let's be honest in my opinion i think the final ufc event kind of went out on a whimper rather than a than an explosion necessarily i don't know what do you think you mean you weren't going crazy during that made event i was not uh there were some great fights on that car drew dover dude drew dover man yeah how about drew dober huh have you have you have you sparred with him i assume at some point when you're on colorado yeah, we train together a lot. They have good friends, man. I really like Drew.

He's an amazing guy and a great athlete, man. And it's just so surprising me. He's not a wrestler. Like, he looks like a wrestler. He does. He does. He does. He knows that a wrestle.

Like, he is a good wrestler. But he told me he's a moitai guy. I was like, there's no way you're a moitai guy. You're a wrestler. Dude, what a, what a fight, man. Bobby Green. And credit to Bobby Green, too. Bobby Green looked great early in that fight.

And Dover, my God, that dude, just the tank, man. Like, he just took some shots and got beat up. And then he's like, I'm going to keep coming forward. I'm going to keep throwing left hands and eventually I'm going to get you. And sure enough, he got it, man. That was a brutal knockout. That's exactly it, man.

He's a tough guy, bro. You can tell, you know, inspiring. And he hits hard, man. He's a tough guy to beat, you know. It's only good, you know, the only, what we see with Terrence McKinney, right, when he fought him. I mean, he had him rocked so bad. I mean, if Dober gave back, like, yeah, what a great fighter, man.

I think Dober has a, the sky is the limit for him. And I think he can do a lot bigger things, and he's done so far. I think Machachev, he fought him, right? Yeah, yeah, Machachov. Markachov, Delta, but I mean, that's, you know, Makachov's going to do that to, you know, 98% of people out there. So, yeah, there's no shame in losing that guy. Yeah, and that's one of the things that sucks.

Drew would be a champion. most organizations, right? He's in the UFC with all the pit bulls, man. Yeah, Drew used to tell me, I talked to Drew, and he was telling me stories during the pandemic when everything was kind of getting shut down and so everyone had to kind of like train in secret, like, you know, because the gyms were closed and everything.

And he was telling me about, like, it was him, him and Justin Gachie would go in the gym and just have these epic sparring sessions to help each other out because Gagy was coming back, obviously to fight Tony Ferguson when you did that interim title fight. And I was like, dude, what are those training sessions? like when it's just you and him like in there like rocky style just beating the hell out of each other

yeah that would be exciting to watch yeah i never trai giggy when i was out there but dober a lot man and you know he he's underrated in a lot of areas too you know like he hits hard he moves well um but he's got a better ground game than people think too yeah here's a here's a question for you man i'm going to throw this out there on the fly here because i always tell this story and I love it because again like there's you know when you sparring is not fighting let me put that out there right now we know sparring's not fighting you're not going out there

to literally I mean you're you're sparring hard but you're not going out there trying to hurt your training partner if you're out there going to try to hurt your training party you're not sparring well that's not the point of sparring you're not supposed to go out there and literally trying to hurt your guy but so I don't want to make it sound like that but I remember I always tell this story and people probably get sick at me telling this story but I remember when I went down to

American Top Team a couple years ago I was doing a feature on you on yonj and jcheck but I was at the gym for like five days in a row. And I knew a lot of the guys at the gym. Well, I knew Dustin Porriere very well. And I've known Eve Edwards for years. And they were getting ready to do a sparring session between Dustin Porre and George Mazvedal.

Jorge Mazfadol. Now, they're close teammates, friends, and now Jorge is a welterweight, Dustin's lightweight. They're not going to fight. Probably never will fight. But I got to watch them spar for five rounds. Now they're wearing headgear and shin pads. You know, they're not, you know. But man, it was a blast to just watch them go at it.

Like I just said they're, you know. obviously didn't take video or anything. I wasn't trying to be intrusive. I just got to sit there and watch these two dudes throw down. And this was at the height. This was right before Mazvedal fought Damian Maya, if I'm not mistaken, and Dustin already at that point was one of the top line with. It was so much fun just watching them spar.

So I'm curious. Every time we do this show, you surprise me with somebody else you sparred with. Like you're telling me about Dan Hooker. I was like, when you spar with Dan Hooker? What is, have you ever had like a training partner that was like an unexpectedly fun sparring session you got to know with like not a regular guy not a guy you normally train with was there ever a guy you train with was like man that was a really fun

session you know who is surprisingly fun I would say was Brandon Thatch oh yeah I remember Brandon yeah not a huge name but if I had I think what four or five fights into UFC probably and man this guy is just a wild man

but very calculated wild man you know he just had he has so much potential like switches stances, does spinning stuff, just does so many different things in there and is very, very good, man, like very calculated. He could be very technical. And we would have great sparring sessions without hurting each other. And we went hard before, too, you know.

We pushed each other hard, but we would also take care of each other a lot of times. You know, he's just a really, really fun guy. I would certainly put him at the top of list of fun guys that was unexpected. Yeah, I remember, man, Brandon's one of those guys. Like, I kind of feel bad for him because he came in with so much, like, attention. And then he just had kind of a bad run at the end of his crew. He was so much, you know, he had, to be fair, Brandon, he had some sort of skin condition. I think it was a skin condition where he couldn't really grapple very often.

Because we would always be like, dude, like, you need to grapple more or whatever. And then we found out later, his skin would, I forget what, you know, some sort of allergic reaction or something. And when people were rubbing on him like that, he just couldn't stay on the mats very much. So he was always doing striking. And people figured out pretty quick that he's a hell of a good striker. And he's just a gigantic guy for that way, too. You know, people figured out he's a great striker and his weakness is the ground. He just never had the opportunity to really work on it that much, I guess.

Wow, that's crazy. I didn't know that. Yeah, I went out there and covered his fight with Benson Henderson in Colorado. That was one of the times I went out to Colorado to Broomfield, Colorado. and it was a five. He was a really good dude. Good five. Benson,

for that matter as well, I've always liked Benson as well. But I remember that. Like, he was just all the, all the talent in the world that sucks. It's like, it reminds me of,

uh, you know, anytime you hear about guys that just have like an unfortunate situation that kind of like, you know, put a, you know, kink in their career.

You kind of feel bad for him. Like I, we're going to talk about this later. We're going to talk about the biggest stories of the year. But I don't think there's ever been a bigger case of like somebody's body backfiring on them bigger than Kaineville. Velasquez. Like, I think King Velasquez talent-wise, probably the greatest heavyweight ever.

I mean, that dude was a monster. He was an absolute monster, but he could not stay healthy. Like, he could not. Like, if he was healthy, and I understand it's heavyweight. So, like, you know, you have to play in like the one punch, you know, catching you off guard kind of factor. I understand that. But if there was one guy, you were going to ask me to gamble my life savings on that would have had like eight title defenses at heavyweight it would have been king of lasquez he just could not stay healthy i totally agree with you on that man and he'd certainly had the best cardio of any heavy weight i think we've ever seen i mean this guy pushed the pace that like even if you're like you better knock him out you know like because he's going to the fifth

round he's still going to be throwing volume i mean he he had the cardio better than a lot of the lighter weights that you see i mean so i'm right there with you man i think he could have been one of the greatest. And you know what's crazy is like he was never the biggest guy. He was not actually a very big heavyweight. I remember when I met when I met Kane the first time years ago, uh, right after he kind of got on the scene. Like I think I was at his first ever UFC fight. I want to say it was like the next event. I met him. And I was like, you know, I mean, obviously you know me, man, I'm like six foot three. I'm a big dude. And I met Kane. I was like, this dude does not look like a heavyweight. Like he did. He was smaller than me. I was like, what the hell? I remember when

he fought Lesner. And I know, listen, we can all sit here. about Brock Lesnar's like all the flaws he had in his game. But like Brock was a big physically strong dude. And Kane just like chucked him around the cage. Like it was nothing. Dude, I was so blown away. When I met Brock, he fought Randy Kutour. I fought on the same card.

I'll stand in there. There's the office, the UFC office getting ready. And he comes in. And when looking at him straight on, I was like, wow, he's not as big as I thought. Shook his hand. I couldn't even see my own. and then he turns to the side and you see how thick he is and it's all muscle. Like you have no idea how big this son of a bitch is.

I mean, he's so thick. And I mean, you would think he's like a fat guy under there, you know, but this is just a gigantic, thick, wide man. And I remember that my first thought was, you know, I could kick him in the head, you know, like he's not as big as I thought. And he turned the side of him. I'm like, I do not want to try to kick him in his head because he's a fucking, break me in pieces.

He was such a, I remember the first time I met Brock, like, dude, his shoulders are so wide. Like I was like, Jesus Christ, this guy's like a house. So thick, man. I think maybe that's just a fighter thing. Like every time I see anybody,

my first thought is like, could I kick him in the head? Can I take him? Can I take him? Yeah, he's like natural, right? We just size people up the second we see them. That's funny. That's funny.

But yeah, I don't know, like, because Brandon was a. super talented guy, but there's a few cases of that where like the guy, like you just wonder, like, what could have been? You know what I mean? Like injuries just wrecked careers. I'll give you another fun one.

While we're on the subject, I'll give you another. Hiato Sakurai, maha. Oh, yeah, I remember him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I had a blast with that guy, man. Like, because he's just the funnest guy, too, man. Like, he speaks as broken English in Japanese. You know, like, talk to you in the middle of the round.

Like, oh, good bunch. He's just a silly, silly guy, man. But, you know, he's got that serious look about him, but he's so silly and such a funny guy. We had such a great time, man. That was when I was fighting, Don Young Kim, actually, my first UFC fighter. I trained with Sakurai a bunch. And just a, you know, he's so old school, you know, that it was like he just do things that, you know, people, no one does today, you know, just that old system style that you just don't see a lot anymore. obviously, you know, he's Japanese, so he's got a little different style.

So just a blast with him, man, and just such a great guy. It bums me out. And I understand that's part of the sport. Like, you know, like, I'm not, I'm not excluded. I'm not like trying to, like, disinclude people because, like, if you became a fan of the sport, through the ultimate fighter, like, I remember, you remember back the day, people used to, like, make fun of people. Like, you became a fan of the UFC's or the ultimate fighter.

You're a fan of the ultimate fighter. You've now been a fan for, like, 15 years. Like, that was a long time ago when that show started. But, like, it always bums me out when, like, you bring up a name, like, Hiatto-Mach Sakurai, and people don't know who you're talking about. Like, that always bums me on. And I get it. Like, I get it.

I get it because, again, the sport has, you know, I don't, I don't care. If you became a fan of the sport at UFC 200. Okay, cool. Come watch the sport. I'm all for it. I'm just saying, like, it always bummed me out. Like, people don't remember Jose Pele Landy Johns. Like, people don't remember that dude.

You know, remember that dude? The freaking soccer kicks on that guy. That guy had some of the nastiest knees that kicks in the game. Rio Chonan, like people don't remember that name, like guys like that, like, just old school guys that, like, you kind of forget about because they weren't in the UFC or they didn't really have, like, a big career in the UFC, maybe not even that big of a career in pride even at that point, you know what I mean? But, like, there's some of those guys that, like, people kind of forget, like,

soccer is a great example. Like, I loved Washington that dude. But if you ask anyone today, like 100 people, I guarantee there's, like maybe 15 remember him. It's funny. I was in my gym the other day, and I was. doing some like gorilla punches, you know, like two-handed strikes, like from the guard. And I was like, yeah, Sakaraba. And this kid, he's an amateur, really good amateur, actually.

He was like, Sakaraba, like, what's that? I was like, you motherfucker. Like, get out of my gym, bro. You don't know who Sakaraba is? I've, in my, in my lifetime, I've owned, like, five MMA shirts, one of which is an immortal shirt I have, my immortal Affliction shirt that you gave me. I have an old

school WEC shirt that they gave me when I went to a WEC show and I kept that because of course they're gone. I have an affliction Josh Barnett versus Fador, Emilian Inco shirt that they sent me and that event got canceled and I kept it because it's kind of funny because the event never took place.

And I have, my old job at MMA Weekly, our owner used to live in Japan. He used to go to Pride shows. And so I have two things. I have a little pride glove that's like a keychain and I have a Kazushi Sakaraba t-shirt.

Nice. That he brought me back from Japan. I'll net. I think I wore it one time. It's like blue and orange and that's not really my style of color. I was going to ask if you wear it or you're saving it as a key chain. No, I saved it. I wore it like one time and I'm like I don't really want to wear this, but I still have it because it is from Japan.

Like it's not like, you know, he bought it and he bought it in Japan and brought it to me. But yeah, Kazushi Sakharaba shirt from like, I don't know, this got me from like 2003 or something, like old, old, old shirt. But yeah, that's like one of the only MMA shirts I've ever owned was a Kuzushi Sakharov. That dude, when I first started covering the sport, like, that was my favorite fighter. I loved watching Sakaraba, dude.

He was so much fun. Yep. He was the Sakharaba Hoise Gracie fight was the first fight I ever watched live that I've, either I bought it on pay-per-view or my friends bought on pay-per-view. I don't remember. but the first one I ever watched live, freaking hour and a half long. But the whole time,

we were just gripping our seats, you know, like when I go back and watch it, I was like, damn, I think I did that like last year, a couple years ago. And I was like,

dude, this is really boring. There's nothing but on. But at the time, like, we're just clenching our fists the whole time. Like, this is so nuts because,

you know, like Gracie Jiu-Jitsu versus Sakharaba. And the sock was getting it done, man. The Gracie Hunter. That's the old. Dude, I'll never, a guy who I absolutely adore tell some of the best stories in sport, Hino Gracie. Hino always cracks me up.

He's got great stories. I've always had a good relationship with him, but I'll never forget when he snapped Hino's arm, dude. Like, that was one of the nastiest injuries. I mean, it was very reminiscent of, I mean, different move, obviously, but very reminiscent of when Frank Mier popped Tim Sylvia's arm. When you just see it snap.

And it's just like, oh, oh, no, no. And he did it's a hoiler too He twisted a hoiler's arm off his freaking body Yeah And they didn't tap either I think either one of them Zenzzo or hoarling right They didn't even tap

They're like hey What are you stopping it for? Like dude your arm's gone You might want to think about not fighting anymore Yeah What great times man Pride was what got me into the UFC Or into MMA you know

Back in that day That's what it was man It was pride or UFC And I guess I was kind of a country contrarian so I like to I like to pride a little better and then their shows were fucking amazing right oh they well I grew up on UFC I started watching UFC but then I kind of got out of the sport I was kind of out of it it was going to college and so you know just kind of got out of it and then uh I remember watching mark Coleman our guy old Coley went over to went over to Japan was fighting in the grand prix and

that got me back into it because I was like Mark Coleman was always my like before I knew him and actually consider Mark a friend and did a podcast with him for three years or whatever. I, because when I first started watching, like everybody, I like Toys Gracie. I like the little guy who was going out there tapping out everybody, just going, doing crazy things. But then when Mark came in, he was from Ohio State. Now I'm an Ohio guy. So I was meeting like, oh, Mark Coleman. That's cool.

Mark Coleman's there because I knew him from wrestling. I knew him from Ohio State wrestling. I was like, oh, Mark Coleman. And so then he was just wrecking people. He was a total badass, whatever. And then when I heard he popped over in Pride in Japan. I was like, oh, I got to watch Mark Coleman fight again. Mark Coleman's still fighting?

What's going on? And that got me back into it. So, like, a lot of my fandom was built around being a fan of Mark Coleman, like, growing up. And then, you know, I've been blessed that, you know, I've been able to become friends with the guy and, you know, talk to them fairly regularly. But, yeah, he was the dude. Like, I was like, oh, he's fighting. And so I started watching pride shows and, you know, the rest is history. That's amazing, man.

And I'll tell you what, to this day, there is still no fight that I've ever felt attention. for as much as Fador Cro Cop. Oh, yeah. I remember the build up for that, staying up till I think it didn't come on to like three or four in the morning over here. Oh, it was super late. Yeah, and just the tension, Jesus Christ, I remember like just chills running down your spine when the crow cop is walking out.

And you're just like, dude, what's going to happen? Yeah, like I still remember that to this day, man. That fight paid off too, though. That fight was great. That was a great finally. Like that was not one that got built up and you kind of get let down. Like that one paid off. That was an incredible fight.

Yep, yep. And, you know, I remember because I actually broke my jaw, like, either the day before or the day of. And I, and I was like, couldn't eat. Like, everybody's eating pizza and drinking beer and I'm just drinking beer because I couldn't eat anything. I was like, dude, I'm so hungry. I guess I'll just get all my calories through beer. Oh, you broke your show. for a fight we broke your jaw?

No, that was actually in training. Funny enough, there's a newspaper article. So it was, this was in Lancaster. And there's a newspaper guy coming to interview me, or interview all the fighters. It was, you know, a group of fighters out there. Aaron Crowell, higher power promotions, if you remember.

I do. Yeah. Yeah. So he's coming to interview everybody. And after the, I got my job broke. I didn't know it was broken. And I just, my mouth was bleeding a lot. And in the newspaper article, it talked about how this guy named Matt Brown is spitting blood into a cup as he's talking to doing the interview with me. And it made for like a pretty good article.

I need to find that article sometime. But, no, it got broken. I just didn't have a mouthpiece and I was far and got hit in the jaw, broken in two spots. and I think it's part of why I have such a strong jaw now. Like it repairs stronger than it was before. Never got it wired or anything. I was like, I didn't even know it was broken. I was just like, well, it hurts, you know.

But I guess I wouldn't have an x-ray, maybe like a week or two later. It didn't have insurance or anything. So, you know, it's like, what do you do? Oh, man. So you just went on with the broken. I was going to say, did you get wired shut? Apparently not. I did not.

I actually ended up fighting about three months later right after that. Oh, my gosh. Because I remember for like two or three weeks I was trying to train because, again, I didn't, I didn't even know what a jawbreak was. I was like, well, it's broken. Like, what does that matter? Does that really matter, you know? But I'm sitting there training and like I'm hitting the bag and like the shock running through

my body's hurting my jaw. And I'm like, dude, I still got to keep hitting the bag anyway. Lord knows how much worse I made it. But my teeth are a little crooked now. to get a fixed up. They said to fix it. They have to re-break the jaw and go through the whole process again. I'm like, uh,

you don't really want to go through that. Oh, man. That's, yeah, that's when you know you're an old school guy right there when you're just like, broken jaw, no insurance, I'll just let a heal on his own. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, I got so many stupid little stories like at, you know, just fighting with torn ligaments and, well, a broken jaw, I guess,

you know, just stupid stuff, man. Like, you know, We're young kids and we just wanted to fight. It's in such a different world today with, you know, of course, social media and just the whole, the size of the sport, the chances out there.

Whereas back in my day, it's like, we just wanted to fight. I knew guys that would fight, you know, Ohio used to have more shows than any state in the country. And there'd be shows on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I know guys that would fight on all three of them. I mean, you know, we were just a bunch of young, savage, dumbasses, man. But we had a fucking blast doing it and made us who we are today. So you fought three months later.

So you probably fought with a broken jaw. Like there's no way it was actually healed at that point, especially if you didn't have a wired shutter. No, it definitely still hurt. And I had a boiling bite mouthpiece. I didn't have no professional mouthpiece. So I wasn't protecting it very well. I'm pretty sure it was my pro debut was when I fought after that.

And I remember going in thinking like the guy happened to me. He was a golden gloves boxer, a really good one. And I remember, like, you know, I wanted to show that my Muaytai would outdo his boxing. And I was like, man, I'm just going to take this motherfucker down. Like, if he hits me in the jaw, that's kind of hurt really bad. And I guess to make that story even a little bit funnier, so the cage was, it must have been made out of like a dog kennel panels

because it had a bar running straight across the middle, you know, like about belly button. height, right? So I was like, oh, I'm just going to run them straight into that bar. And that's exactly what I did. I just, you know, did a double leg, blast double hard as I could, ran his back into that bar. And then it was easy fight from there. And, you know, as soon as he hit the bar, he's like, oh, I'm pretty sure that it worked. You know, you know, it's a high quality show when they've, when they've stitched together dog kennels to make the cage. Yeah, yeah. I'm pretty sure it was dog kennel panos but if if it was it was still the same it didn't have the

i still remember like it didn't have the rubber coating you know like all these fences today right there like black they'd have that rubber coating over them like this one if you ever look at a chain link fence like they have like little bumps in them sometimes and like you had it still had those on it like this is chain link from fucking home depot you know like the cheap stuff so i was like you know i just wanted to use my surroundings i was like well there's a bar there the the fence itself is a little bit rough i'm gonna try to use this to my advantage and it worked out and the jaw was okay so you made it through the fight and the jaw didn't get hurt yeah didn't get touched one or didn't get punched once at least oh that's crazy yeah that's uh

yeah i always like hearing stories about first fights because like i remember i was talking to anthony smith on the show one time and he was telling me about the time he fought i care it was in Nebraska or something. It was like raining and like he fought like they fought in the rain basically. Like the mat, the mat was slippery and there's mud like, dude, you people like that's what you know because like Anthony's kind of like he's been around for a long time fought in a lot of the regional shows like the people who the people who and it's not a knock on them. I'm not trying to make it like it's not, but like people who make debuts today and then like four fights later than in the UFC. Like they don't understand when you made your debut in like 2005, 2006 like in that era.

Like people making their debuts in bars and like there's not an actual cage. Is that like some mats or something laid out? Like people made their debuts and some wild shit. Well, that was my pro debut. So it was actually better than it was during my amateur debut. So, you mean, I fought the rainbow before. I fought with no commission more than once, which is really the funnest because then you can kind of get away with whatever you want. I knew the reps really well.

Mark Mathini rep, basically, every show. and you knew if you got Mark, you'd just be on his good side. You can basically get away with whatever you want. So, yeah, it was definitely the Wild West back then. We had a great time. But I said, the craziest thing, one of the craziest things I'd seen was, like I said, guys fighting on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I mean, they literally fight three days in a row.

I mean, just savages, man. But again, like, we just had a blast, man. Like, that's what it was all about. Like, there's a show this weekend. You know, what are we going to train for? fuck that. We're just going to go fight, man. Like, you know, our training is going to be, I don't know how many times we trained out in the grass

in the backyard, just have some drinks and, you know, learn some bullshit from the guy who, he happens to know one technique, and it's probably not a proper technique, but he's like, dude, check this out. I learned this from some DVD. Like, we used to watch Frank Shamrock

DVDs. That was my favorite. And it's amazing because I always discounted all the leg lock stuff. He was showing leg lock stuff all the time. or I guess they were VHS, not even DVDs, but he was always showing the leg locks stuff. And this was over 20 years ago. And I'm like, dude, if I would have paid attention to that,

you know, because nobody was doing leg locks. Yeah. I mean, we could have been 20 years ahead of the curve. We could have been John Danaher before John Daner. Okay, let me ask you this. Without his brains, too. Yeah, let me ask you this, because I'm pretty sure I watched those same instructional.

That's where I started watching instructional when I used to do Jiu-Jitsu because I loved Frank Shamrock. Do you remember? I'm not sure that they said it was a three tape set that they had for Frank Shamrock and it was like

striking ground and submissions. I can't remember that was like the three tape set. But one tape I remember learning submissions. He always had weird names for the submissions that weren't the names that you would know them by now. And I'll never forget his one move he taught that I was really good at

because of my size, I was really good at a move we all know now as the key lock or the Americana, right? He called it the telephone lock. Do you remember this from that instructional? Because I'll never forget when I first got involved in actual MMA, I used to always call the telephone lock and people like, what the hell are you talking about? I was like, it's called the telephone lock. And like, you mean the Americana, like the key lock? And I'm like, no, the telephone lock. It was Frank Shamrock's instructional and that's what he called it.

You call it because you have your head, you have your hand up by your head, like you're holding the telephone. And so he would grab the arm and twisted like it's a key lock, it's a key lock, but he called the telephone lock. And I'll never forget that for like years. That's what I thought that move was called because that's what Frank Shamrock called it. You know, that makes a lot of sense, the telephone lock. I kind of like that. I might switch my naming for that now. Yeah.

But it isn't amazing how ahead of the game Frank Shamrock really was. When you go back in retrospect and you look at it. it now you're like, dude, Frank Shamrock was actually a real pioneer, man. He was so far ahead of everybody. Frank Shamrock, in my opinion, and I know there's going to be people who disagree with me, and that's fine. But I think Frank Shamrock was the first true mixed martial artist. Like, in terms of everything, like, he was not specialist at any one thing.

Like, Hoyt's Gracie was an incredible, you know, submission specialist. And Mark Coleman was obviously an incredible wrestler in the ground and pound master godfather, ground and pound. Frank Sherryryryryry was an incredible specialist. Rock was like the first guy I remember who mixed it all together so well. He was a good striker, good wrestler. His conditioning was off the charts. He was great at submissions.

Like I always consider him like the first true like hybrid. You know what I mean? Like you could not pinpoint what he was good. He was good at everything. No, that's a great point. And like you said, his conditioning was just another level compared to the guys of that day. Oh, I remember, I mean, one of my all-time favorite advice. Back in the day, whenever I would.

meet someone and I would say, oh, do you know mixed martial arts or UFC? And they're like, I kind of know what it is. And I'm like, so you're a fan? They're like, oh, I don't really know. I don't really watch it. I was like, all right, come here. And I would sit them down and I would make them watch Frank Shamrock versus Tito Ortiz. Because that fight had everything.

Tito was so physically strong and such a great wrestler. He controlled Frank for a big part of the early part of that fight because Frank was smaller and Frank wasn't as good as a wrestler is Tito. But as the fight wore on, Frank made him. him works so hard for every position. Never, and he tired Tito out by like the fourth round, Tito was gassed. And I'll never forget. He went for a take down.

He couldn't get it. And Frank just started a hammer fist in him in the head. And Tito was just done. And I always show that fight to people because I was like, that to me is the definition of a real mixed martial arts fight. A guy who did everything. He showed ground. He showed striking.

He showed conditioning. He did everything. And that was always one of my favorite fights. To this day, it remains that way. but like back in the day, I would show people that fight who would say, oh, it's just a bar fight or it's just, you know, it's brutal, it's this. I'm like, watch Frank Shamrock and Tito Ortiz,

your opinion will change because that fight is anything but it is all technique. It is all just masterful skills in that fight. Absolutely. And so much of what happened in that fight still applies today. Oh, yeah. The guy holds you down, just keep moving. Just keep going.

Even if he's holding, just keep moving. And you're going to start wearing them out. making him work. So many of these things apply today. You know, Tito was a little bit ahead of his game too, or the game too in his own right. And, you know, with his ground and pound, you know. So the elbows particularly, right?

He was kind of, he was like the innovator of back in the day when people used to try to pass guard. He was the guy who wanted to be in your full guard because he'd drop elbows. He would literally hold guys in full guard and drop elbows. because he didn't want to move because that was perfect space for him to drop elbows. He didn't want to be in side control. He didn't want to be in half guard. He wanted to be in full guard to drop elbows on you.

Yeah, I remember my first UFC fight, Ultimate Fighter finale, Tito was out there yelling. I couldn't hear my own corner. I have no idea what they were saying, but I hurt Tito because I fought Matter Royo. He's a jitzo guy. He pulled guard, pulled me into his guard, and Tito's yelling, elbows, elbows, elbows hurt worse. I ended up punching them, you know, knocking them out with a punch from guard. But I think I made Tito proud that night because still didn't pass guard or anything. They cracked him with a good right hand, finish the fight right there.

But that's something I always remember about Tito. I don't think I've ever even spoken to Tito in person. But hearing that voice, I can still hear his voice today yelling. Elbows hurt worse. Tito's got a little on the Wackadoos side these days. but Tito was always incredibly good to me and I always liked Tito and like Tito because when I first started getting into sport

like Tito was Tito was Connor before Connor was Connor like Tito was one of the first guys who would sell a fight before you got in there like he would like his rival with Ken Shamrock was legend the entire Lions then really but like the whole Ken Shamrock thing that was so built up because Tito was a showman he was a fighter but he was a showman

he did the big elaborate intros And I'll never forget the fight with Frank Shamrock when they fought a UFC 40 when they had the had fire, the pyro popped up. And I remember it said, I'll never forget. There's this robotic voice and it said, who's in the house. Tito is in the house. And then it did his intro and he came out and he had the punishment shorts, the fire and everything. Like Tito was a showman. Like he was built as like he was like the first showman of that era who.

built trash talk and like showmanship into fighting and then now you know that's like i mean everybody does it to a certain extent i mean we're doing podcasts now like they didn't have that back in the day like where people could sell their fights on a podcast like tito did that you know what i mean and like you know Connor and obviously all the great guys who do it now but uh tito is i won't say he's the first but he's kind of like the pioneer of that like you know trash talking to build fights and then go out there and just kick the shit out of somebody yeah I mean, it had been around in boxing for a long time. He was just, I can't think of anybody in M. May that did it before him.

But what was the first UFC fight you ever witnessed live? My first UFC event live, actually, funny enough, was UFC 47 when it was Tito versus Chuck in Vegas at Mandalay Bay. And that was the night that Nick Diaz knocked out Robbie Lawler. I remember that. Cabbage Carrera fought Tim Sylvia. I'm not mistaken. Chris Lytle was on that card. But yeah, Tito and Chuck,

and that's the night Chuck knocked out Tito in the second round. I was at that fight, UFC 47. And side note to that story, I went to the after party, and I was a big Tito guy at that point. So I was a huge Tito guy, and I went to the after party, and Tito showed up to his after party.

He got knocked out. Probably one of the most, like, worst nights of his life, right? Showed up to his after party, signed off. autographs, took photos, hung out with everybody. And I remember that was the night actually met Frank Meir for the first time. Frank Meir was there at the after party and he was actually working.

He had to leave the after party because he was working as a bouncer at Spearmint Rino, the to Topless strip club in Vegas. He was at the after party. He had to leave. I met him there. He had to leave because he had to go bounce that night at the Spearmint Rino. And he was in the UFC at that point. I think it was like six months later he fought Tim Sylvia for the title.

but he had to leave the after party because he had to be a bounce to that night spearman righto but tito showed up took photos took all he signed autographs met all the people and listen i'm not going to sit there and defend tito's whatever the hell he's doing these days but i'll always remember that because i was like man this dude like he lost probably one of the most embarrassing fights his life was a huge moment him and chuck had this huge rivalry and he could have easily just slinked away and not shown up you know what i mean like just kind of going you know what i don't know that would have blamed him right like it was a bad like I'm not gonna I wouldn't expect him to show up and like be cordial with people he was he stood there and took autographs signed autographs took foot you I was like I'll always remember that about Tito because that was really cool like he didn't have to do that very cool yeah dude you were right around the same time as me my first live UFC event was 49 oh wow very very similar thing happened I'm is at the MGM grand but I go back to the Mandalay Bay where I was staying well first I seen a you know a

You know, Nick Diaz fought Carl Peresian that night. I seen him in the crowd after, I believe Carl beat him, if I remember right. Yep. Yeah. Okay. And I remember Nick complaining, he was very cool to everyone, but I remember him complaining about, you know, not getting his full purse. He's like, oh, it sucks. I'm not going to get in half my pay or whatever, right?

We'll go back to the Manate Bay. I'm in the elevator going up to my room, and there's these guys wearing Randy Couture shirts. And I was like, hey, did you guys go to the five? and like, yeah, we're going to Randy's after party. You want to go? So I go up to the Penn House or whatever, the top floor of Mandalay Bay, and there's all the team quest in there. And I walked in, you know, I'm half drunk.

And, you know, I don't know who these guys are. But I just watched Vandalay and Dan Henderson not too long before that, their first fight. And there's Dan Henderson standing there. Matt Leland's there. And I'm just in fucking heaven. You know, but these guys, Randy's ever there eating like chicken and brown. You know, these guys, they're just relaxing, you know, like, just being nice.

And I'm like, dude, I'm in Vegas, like at Rainy Couture's after party. Like, let's party. And they're all just kind of chilling. But what a great first experience, man. Oh, yeah. I mean, I was. I mean, and it was a private party. You know, there's only like maybe 15 people there at most.

And, you know, they're just everybody's being cool as hell. Dude, talking about old school super teams, man, back in the day, team quest. Like when they had like, it was Matt Lindeland, Randy. tour, Chris Lieben, Nate Corey. I mean, they just had a freaking monster. Chal Sondon was there, I think, at that point. Like, they just had a freaking monstrous room back in the day. Like, they were one of the first, like, super teams of that era was Team Quest.

Like, they had a monstrous team back in those days. Yeah, and every single one of them was just a killer wrestler in their own way, too. Yeah, absolutely. That was great time, man. Monstrous. That's funny that. You were right around the exact same time as I was. Yeah, I remember a UFC.

I was going to say, I actually went to Vegas, not even knowing a UFC fight was happening. I just happened to be my first time going to Vegas in my life. I just turned 21, not too long before for that. And my brother had an extra ticket. Someone backed out. He was planning on going. He came back from the military. He said, hey, you want this extra ticket to fly to Vegas?

I was like, okay, but I only have like $100 in my name. What am I going to do when I get there? He said, yeah, just come and hang out. I spent the hundred bucks before we got there. We'll go down from the casino the first night. The first time we come down and check out a casino. I look over at the ATM, there's fucking $500 in an ATM sitting there. So I walk around, grab the $500.

It's like, no one around. Grab $500. Like, all right, it's mine now. And then it happened to, you know, so I would go walking up and down the strip. And I said, wait, oh, there's a UFC. I wonder how much tickets are. And they were like 50 bucks, I think. And I ended up sitting next to a Vitor Belfort's manager.

Andre Arlowski was like five rows down from me. But yeah, what a crazy experience, man. Great memories. That's, it's funny you say that. I remember I actually had a similar experience. I went to Vegas for, I think it was my 21st birthday right around that time. And I went and I didn't know there was an event taking place that weekend. And I found out about it.

There was a K-1 event being held in Vegas. and I got to see Bob. I got to see Bob Sat versus chemo in the main event. And I saw Remy Bojansky lop off Vernon Tiger White's head. He did a flying kick across the ring

and literally knocked him out. And it was like the craziest knockout. It looked like something out of a street fighter because he flew across the ring and just blew Vernon Tiger White's head off. I still remember the knockout. I didn't even know that in Vegas. Yeah, I was there.

there and I met Mike Tyson that night because he was supposed to fight Bob Sapp. They had built it up. It was going to be Bob Sapp against Mike Tyson. And Mike Tyson was there

and I'll never forget I got, I didn't really meet him, but I kind of like brushed past him. I wanted to meet him. But Dr. Dre was there, of all people. And I remember meeting Phil Barone

that night because Phil was there and he came in with like two women. He was wearing like a fur coat. He was all decked out. Like this is like in the class of like New York badass days. But like it was the weird. show and I was like I think I paid like $40 for a ticket that was like third row like I was like way

close to the ring like really close to the ring and it was wild I had no intention of going but I heard about it I was like okay one this should be interesting and yeah it was chemo and bobstap was the main event and kemo absolutely won the fight and they held down if you remember this fight but like they held the corners like it was like a one minute one minute break between rounds and like kemo or bobstab was done and they ended up having like a three minute break between rounds to give Bob Sap time to recover and then he comes out and ends up knocking out chemo but it was so rigged like it was so 100% rigged for Bob Sao because they wanted him to win because they were trying to set up the Mike Tyson fight which never ended up happening anyways

yeah dude that's amazing man what great time I like I feel it was bad a lot of these kids are never going to get to experience these kind of things yeah I remember first time at randy Cotor, U.S.C. 53. It was Andre Arlowski and Justin Eilers in the main event, heavyweight title. And Randy, I had known one of my editors and he comes over and has dinner with it. We have lunch in Las Vegas at the Trump Taj Mahal or whatever, whatever we were at. And I'll never forget, Randy sat down and ordered a veggie burger and, like fries and a salad, like this huge, like it had to be like, it felt like a five-course meal. I have never in my life, seeing a human being devour more food in less time.

Like, I swear to God, Randy could have been one of those, like, competitive eaters. Because he plowed through that, like, I sat there and watched him just plowed through this meal in, like, three minutes. It was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever seen. I was like, Jesus Christ, this dude can eat. And he's just like, oh, he was literally like a shark going to his food and just cleaned it out. And I was like, holy crap, what an appetite.

I was like, Jesus, Randy. Nice. Good for him. I think we're going to talk about some of the things that happened this year, right? Yeah, we're getting locked in our old school conversation about it. We'll have to do like a series of podcasts on all the old stories, man, from back in the day. Yeah, we should. We absolutely should. So, yeah.

Boating for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. What? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo, great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Feel the fun.

Boarding will begin when passenger fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close you, call 186653310 or visit Comexonterio.ca. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to luxe beauty and fragrance sets, our special selection has something for every style and price point.

visit our Holtz holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com. We're talking about the end of 2022 as we come up here to the end of the year. And I think we should kick things off and talk about Fighter of the Year because this was a, this was kind of a weird year where we didn't get a lot of like, you know, we didn't get like, Kamar Usman was Fight of the Year, in my opinion, last year because he had fought and defended his title three times, which is so rare. You know what I mean? He had the big rival with Colby Covington and all that kind of stuff.

But this year we didn't really have that. just go ahead and give you my pick, Matt, and I think this is going to be a very popular pick. And, you know, again, Phil. Go ahead. I can already guess. Volcanozky. No, it's not Volcanoz. Okay.

Okay. Go for it. Let's hear. Alex Pereira. knocks out Sean Strickland and knocks out of Sonia and that was such a big win and out of nowhere. I mean, this guy, in any other world, let's be honest, Matt. In any other world, this guy wouldn't have got a title shot the way he did. He got it because he had the two wins over Adasania and kickboxing.

Adasanya kind of cleaned out the division. He really didn't have any contenders left. He'd already beaten Robert Whitaker twice. He got it because of the rivalry with Adasania. And he went out there and did the damn thing. That was an incredible showing for a guy with like 10 fights. And basically, I think that was his fourth fight in the UFC. And that's after knocking out Sean Strickland, which, you know,

Sean Strickland just had to fight this past weekend. We know he's a tough dude. and Sean's not like a joke, you know what I mean? He went out there and knocked him out in the first round, knocks out, comes back and knocks out of Sanya in the fifth. That's my pick for fight of the year because he just did it in such a ridiculous way. Yep.

I think that's a hard one to argue, to be honest. When I looked it up who other people were picking a fight of the year, a lot of people were saying Volcanovsky, which was kind of surprising to me. Obviously, he had a great year, did great things, and is on to even bigger, greater things. But I'm right there with you. I think Pereira, hard to deny he's number one, man, for the year.

And mainly because of his win over Adasania, right? I mean, he beat one of the greatest middleweights of all time, I mean, next to Anderson Silva. So I think I'm right there with you. I was the only one, I was a little torn personally when I was looking at everybody of the year, everybody we could think of. and I had a little list here. So I think some honorable mentions are worth mentioning. And Chris Curtis is one that popped out to me.

You know, this guy had such a great year and obviously didn't beat the same level of opponent as the Pereira, right? He didn't have a title fight against one of the greatest. But I thought he looked great in every single fight and certainly, you know, fought some tough guys too. And his last fight with Buckley, I think that was his last fight, right? Yeah, yeah. Just looked amazing. So him and then the other one, and I think if he would have got the decision last week, I think Anka Live would probably be the guy I would be picking here.

It's hard to give it to him because he had to draw and, you know, kind of a controversial fight there last week. But I had Uncle I right there at the top too. And then I'm going to give you one more honorable mention just because I fucking love the guy and it's hard to make an argument for him as fighter of the year, but had one of the greatest

years and that's Sergei Pavlovich and this guy man, knocking out Derek Lewis and Ty Tovasa and had a third win too. I can't remember what it was, but this guy has looked absolutely amazing.

So those are kind of that's kind of all my picks right there. But I'm right there with you. It's hard to beat anybody. It's hard to deny prayer on this, in my opinion. But it seemed like a lot of the media had Volcanovsky's number one. I like that you went down the list a little bit because a lot of the unsung hero guys, the guys aren't in title fights. They don't always get in the conversation for fire the year.

You know what I mean? It's kind of unfair in a way because, listen, you know, you can accomplish great things and you're not necessarily having to be a champion to do that. So I like that you mention him. I will throw out, it is a championship guy, but just because he lived up to the potential. But I will say Islam Makachov is another guy I got to mention. I mean, you know, yeah, the Bobby Green win wasn't like as monumental, but to go out and do what he did Charles Olivera after Olavera had just wrecked everybody at lightweight and for him to kind of live up to the potential about everyone thought he could be. I think that was pretty awesome.

Also, another one that's, I know it's not going to get a lot of fighter of the year across like, you know, women or men or however you want to categorize it. But I guess they're at Larissa Pacheco, four knockouts, the four three knockouts this year and then beats Kayla Harrison. Now we can sit here all day and say, was Kayla real? you know, was she as good as I believe she was. I was extremely high on Kayla Harrison and for Larissa to come out there after losing to her twice and then to come back there and beat her convincingly. And the third, I just, listen,

I just thought it was an amazing showing and just, you know, goes to show, man, you can be down but never. She lost to her twice. She came back and beat her that third time. You know what I mean? Like that was, and she had three knockouts this year on top of that. Like Larissa Pacheco, man, give her a little bit of credit this year.

Yeah, that's a good call. man. Like I said, if Uncleayev had got that nod last week, I just can't give it to him because he didn't get the nod, but I would give it to Unclelyev over everybody else. So personally, like I thought he looked tremendous in every fight. I thought that he did win last week, or it was the last week or the week before. I thought that he won, and I would pick him for a fighter of the year based on that, but he didn't, so I can't give it to him. So if my votes mean anything here i'm right there with you Alex Pereira

you know and came from you know half of the UFC fans 90% of UFC fans they probably didn't know who out square was at the beginning of the year 100% the way they knew about him was because everyone talked about him being the guy to beat autosania and kickboxing they didn't know they didn't know that this dude

was a freaking badass at kickboxing beyond the the audasania wins like the autosania wins were good but Pereira was a freaking monster regardless. So you could take those Adasanya fights out of his record and he had an incredible resume as a kickboxer. That was a monster in kickboxing. But that's how people knew him. Everyone's like,

oh, it's the guy to beat Adasania. And then you see the highlight of him knocking out Adasanya and then you get a real impression who this dude was. And yeah, I mean, for him to come in, you know, whatever it was, like seven fights on his record or six fights on his record, win three and then go out there and knock out of Sanya and his

fourth UFC fight, dude? That's unbelievable. Yeah, you know, I would have like to see him have to work his way up a little more personally. You know, he was obviously like thrown into that title fight really quickly because of his previous history with Adasanya. But I think it probably would have been a tougher road to get there than it would have been to be Adasanya for him if he would have done the road that everybody else would have to take, right? He's got to get through Whitaker. He's got to get through Vittaker. He's got to get through, you know, just the who's who's who. of that 185 division, whereas he beat Sean Strickland, which is a great

win. I mean, Sean has certainly no slouch and we just seen it last weekend. I mean, Canaanere is a fucking savage and it's questionable who even won that fight. But, you know, so Sean Strickland's not nobody by any means. He's absolutely championship-worthy, championship-level fighter.

But Pereira skipped everybody. We all know that. And that's the only thing that puts me kind of in between Pereira and Uncle I have. Like, you know, I think Uncle I have worked his way up there properly and he fucking got it done, man.

Yeah, I mean, you wonder, and listen, I mean, I'm sure I'm not the first person to suggest this, but like, how would have Pereira done if he would have had to fight? I mean, I know everyone's like, I know everyone loves to hate on this guy for some unknown reason, but like, what if he had to fight Derek Brunson,

who was an incredible wrestler? Like, would he have even gotten to the title shot? Because Brunson, like, for a three-round fight? Maybe Brunson had a five-round five, but look what Brunson did to Darren Till, Look what he did to Edmund Shabazi. And like Brunson is a monstrous wrestler. Like could Pereira stay on his feet for two minutes with Derek Brunson?

Maybe he could, but that would be an interesting test. You know, Vittori's another one. Vittori's got really good grappling, really good takedowns. Could he have survived three or five rounds with Marvin Vittori before getting there? I don't know. Right. And that's my whole point there. But you know what?

He got the title shot and he won. So more power to him. And he looked tremendous doing it. And it was certainly coming. of the year, in my opinion, if we're going to have that on our list this year, we definitely got to have, I think Pereira has a easy case for comeback of the year. Yeah, he was down and pretty much, you know, on his way of losing. Yeah, I was going to say Leon Edwards.

Maybe it's not such an easy case because Leon Edwards had just as big of a comeback. There's another one that, like, again, fighter of the year. Like, he only fought one, so it's a little harder because you don't have a bigger resume. but for him to go out there, listen, I was on the, I was one of those guys who said, if Kamar Usman would have defended his title a couple more times, like, I would have put him right alongside George St. Pierre as the greatest welterweights of all time, because the one knock that, the one knock that GSP had during his reign, and it's a very small criticism, trust me when I say this, but he wasn't going out there and just wrecking people. He wasn't knocking people

out and putting him away. He had a lot of really dominant decisions. And, you know, again, he was incredible, maybe one of the most talented guys we've ever seen. But Usman, you know, he did knock out Gilbert Burns. He did knock out Jorge Maslito. You know what I mean? He did those kind of things. I was like, man, if Uspin wins a couple more, like he's right there, man. Like he might be in that conversation.

And then Edwards just out of nowhere in that fifth round sets it up beautifully, hits the head kick, knocks him out. Incredible. I look forward to the trilogy, hopefully, in 2023. But yeah, I mean, let's not forget what Leon Edwards did this year. I mean, my God, be down three rounds to one. looks like everyone thinks it's over everyone's just like it's done you know he's going to lose a decision good for you sticking around and then boom out of nowhere just knocks out kamar usman i mean

that was because it reminded me a little bit of when um when george fought carlos condit back in the day carlos hit him with that head kick in the third round and it looked like he was going to get him and george was able to recover and you know come back and win the fight you know oosman didn't come back usman usman doesn't remember what happened that night you know I mean, he got clocked, that was it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so putting Leon Edwards up in there, yeah. That was his only fight this year.

Yeah, that's why it's a little harder because it was a big one. You know, can't deny it was a big one. Yeah. What about a fight in the year? Because there were some really good fights this year. And I know the two at the top of my list, Matt, that everyone's going to talk about. And I tend to agree that they were kind of like the most epic. Of course, everyone's going to talk about Yuri Prahashka and Glover Tashir.

That was an incredible back and forth five-round fight. But personally, for me, Matt, my favorite fight of this year, one that I've gone back and rewatched a couple of times, and I just loved, like, back-and-forth nature of it, was Gilbert Burns and Hamzaa Chamaev. I loved that fight. That was a war, and that was the fight where we finally found out how good is Hamzaat? Because to that point, I don't think we really knew. And Gilbert Burns was, like, two exchanges away from winning that fight.

He had him hurt badly. It had him, like, on the ropes a couple of times. That was such a fun fight. And, you know, it's harder because it was three rounds versus five rounds with the title fights, but I loved that fight. You know, that was my top one also. Really? I had two other ones that were comparable, but I had Humboldt up Burns as number one. Chandler Poirier is certainly got to be up there.

No doubt about that. I mean, you know, kind of the same, you know, there's just, you know, Chandler's a wild man, you know, so he just makes it a fun fight no matter what. And Porre would stood it and, you know, Porre took the shots and threw him back and, you know, it just makes it for a great fight. But I can't forget about what my own personal favorite fight of the year was, and that's my own damn fight. And I thought it was a pretty good fight, but got to toss that in there. that was, you know, top five, I would say, but it wasn't up there with those two. That was the first UFC event I had attended in like three years because of the pandemic. That was here in Columbus, and I got to attend that fight.

And Brian Barbarina, man, that dude's a dog. It was a great fight. I still think the judges got it wrong, but that's, you know, maybe I'm a bit biased here. But it was a good fight. Credit to Barbarina, we talked about it last week about, like, you hit him with some shots. And he was staring back at you like a caveman. Like, you know, like, credit to him for having that chin. But that was an incredible fight.

And that was, God, it was a dog fight. And, yeah, that's what, you know, that's one of those fights where when it's over and I know you feel this way. Like, because obviously the judges didn't give you the decision that I thought you earned. But like, it feels bad anyone has to lose. You know what I mean? Because that's just such a freaking epic, amazing fight. Like, you kind of feel bad either one of you has to walk away the loss on your record because it was just such a great fight. Yeah.

and the only reason I probably put Chandler Porre probably as my number one, even though I just said Hamza Burns, I think I'd probably change my mind. Chandler Poirier was the only one with a finish out of all the top fights that I've looked at. Yeah, that's true.

Well, yeah, I mean, you know, Uri did tap out Glover in the fifth round, so give him credit for that. He did get to finish in that one. But yeah, no, you're right. You're absolutely right. It is. It is crazy.

because like that was the thing with like gaigi chanler like gaigi chanel like it didn't put chanler away it does kind of put the exclamation point on when you're able to get a finish and that that poory chanler fight was great that was i mean that first round was ridiculous talk about like a like you could just watch that first round and not watch the rest of the fight and be like that was an amazing fight yeah it's it's crazy man uh those guys god they just threw some heat man like it just didn't even care especially chanler i mean this guy just he wings his punches so hard and just doesn't care if he gets hit, like just throws caution to the wind.

Doesn't give the slightest shit, man. Like, what a savage guy, man. I just love him watching him fight. And Porier, I mean, he's just showing the time and time again. I mean, how many top five fights in the years he had now? I mean, this guy just is able to get it done, man, and wins the vast majority of them, you know? Like, you know, the Khabibs and Makka Ches,

that's how you got to beat this guy. Yeah, it's funny, too, because we talk about Chandler at the end of the year, we almost forget, like, at the beginning of the year that he had that Tony Ferguson knockout in May. Like, he had that crazy wild front kick knockout over Tony, and then he capped off the year with the dust of Porriet fight. Like, we, uh, we, listen, I think, honestly, we had some criticism for Michael Chandler after the Porrier fight, you know, talking about, you know, you know, and you brought

up, and I brought up as well, do you want to be, uh, you know, do you want to be everyone's favorite fighter or do you want to be a champion? because, you know, your style is built for fight of the night, not necessarily performance of the night. Like, your style is built to win a lot of $50,000 fight of the night bonuses, but that's a style that may never allow you to become a UFC champion. I think it's an honest opinion, honest of criticism. But there's also part of me that's like, I don't want him to change

because, my God, do we get some fun fights out of this dude? Like, I want to see him against Porier. I want to see him against Chandler or against Gaichi. I want to see him against Dober. Did you imagine Dober and Chandler? Oh, man, what a good call. I'd love to see that. Love, love to see that.

Could you imagine those two dudes thrown down? Yeah, dude, what a great call. That's a perfect fight for both of them. Yeah, like, come on. And I think Dober deserves to fight some top guys, man. I think he's earned his right to get up there and with maybe some top five, top ten guys. You know, that's one of the things with that division.

We keep seeing these circles of, you know, Poré, Chandler, Gagee, Olivera, Of course, Mockachev came through and ran through everybody. But, you know, I like to see some fresh blood in there. And one of those guys deserving of that, I think, is Drew Dober. One of my biggest issues with rankings in general, whether we're talking about Welterway, lightweight, whatever, are when people sit on rankings, you know what I mean? And they're like, I don't want to fight this guy because he's lower ranked than me or he's unranked. And I think we miss out in a lot of good fights.

Like, technically right now, I don't think Drew Dober's ranked. But how would you not want to watch Drew? Drew Dover and Michael Chandler fight. You know what I mean? Like how would you not want to see a fight like that go down? I forgot about that. Yeah, like, but that's what I'm talking about. Like, who cares?

Like, that's just an amazing fight. How would that not be an all-timer? Like, you know what I mean? Like, who would not want to see that? Like, that kills me because while I understand it, like you want to fight people above you or around you to advance your career, I get that. But, like, rankings aren't everything. And I feel like we do, because you mentioned it, there's like this circular

pass sometimes where we get locked in like everyone's like well we got to see porre fight chanler now we got to see chandler and this guy or chanler and oliver and it's like mix it up throw judeauber in the mix throw you know whatever throw you know i mean you know throw one of these guys in like that yeah we can we kind we kind of figure how that one's going to go uh but yeah like throw some of these guys in there and let's just have some fun like throw the rankings out the window for a little bit and just have some fun fights. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And, you know, we understand why the guys aren't kind of trying to fight down either.

I mean, you know, they're all out there trying to get that belt. Everybody's trying to be the top dog. So, you know, we can't hate on them for that. But, yeah, you know, I wish there was some sort of solution for that, right? Yeah, no, I agree. Like Chandler, go fight Drew Dober. You're not risking your ranking. Like, if you lose, you're going down two spots.

Like you're not losing your full rank here. You know what I mean? Like I don't know if there's a solution. I'm just spitball and shit. But, you know, I'd love to see a way to make it happen. Just super fights like that, right? Like we see this match up. Let's see a fucking super fight, man.

I agree. I agree. Before we get out of here, Matt, so the plan is this. We're not going to be on the air next week. We're going to take a week off to celebrate Christmas, have some holidays with our families. You got kids. We're going to take next week off.

When we come back the week of January 2nd, we're going to do a special episode. We do a look ahead at 2023, and we're going to do kind of a repeat of what I did earlier this year with Paul Felder, great UFC lightweight in his own right, and of course one of the top commentators in the sport. We did a look ahead and we looked at every champion in the UFC and we picked the biggest threat to their title and who would be the champion at the end of the year. It was a really fun episode. So when we come back on January 3rd, will actually be the date of the episode. It's going to be me, Matt, and Paul Felder.

And we're all going to give our picks for the biggest threats to the championship. is in our look ahead at 2023. But before we get out of here and kind of close the book on 2022, I want to talk real quick about a couple of the biggest stories in MMA in 2022, beyond like, of course, you know, just individual fights. And I want to kick things off with, you mentioned rankings. And one, you brought it up when we talked about the whole Connor McGregor situation a few weeks ago with the whole USADA thing.

You kind of made you mad that he was sitting on a ranking, right? Like he was still ranked. Well, Connor's not ranked anymore. He's out of the UFC rankings officially. as of the last rankings. I don't know if it's just he got voted out or they pulled him out, whatever the case may be, he's out. We went all of 2022 without Connor McGregor coming back. We also went all of 2022 without John Jones fighting, which was a big tease this entire year.

John's now been out for two full years, hasn't made his heavyweight debut. Now, I understand part of that is the Francis Inganu factory. He got injured in January, had his ACL surgery. He was out the rest of the year. He's also got a contract situation, which hopefully will be resolved in the near future. But John Jones didn't come back. We didn't get to see him fight Francis. We didn't get to see him fight Steepay.

Nobody. Matt, I got to ask, like, these are two of the biggest names, but also, like, in terms of talent, like, I've said it many times on the show. Like, I think John Jones is the greatest mixed martial artist of all time. He's now been gone for two years. You know, Connor McGregor is the biggest star in our sport. There's no question about that. He's gone, and it's going to end up being about two years. What, like, I don't know.

Is it, like, when we talk about, like, we know the UFC machine is. big that it's going to keep rolling regardless of who's in there. I mean, they've had now 28 straight sellouts. You know what I mean? Like all these numbers are great. They're breaking bank at the at the box office and all these kind of things. So Connor and John Jones not being there seemingly hasn't hurt the UFC in terms of what they're drawing.

But at the same time, it's a bummer, right? Like we're not getting to see. I'm actually, I'll be honest. Like, I'm more bummed that we didn't see John Jones this year. Like, I like Connor. I love Connor. I'm a Connor guy. I like Connor very much.

But Connor's got to work his way back into conversation because he had those two loss to Porier, and all this kind of things. John Jones, like, I'm missing John Jones right now. It's been two years, over two years. I'm right there with you, bro. I don't necessarily agree he's the greatest. I think he has the greatest resume.

Personally, just my own opinion on this is anytime you pop positive, there's an asterisk next to your name. and I'll stand by that. Like, you just, for me, you know, it's like saying, you know, Barry Bonds was the greatest or something. And I don't even follow baseball, so I don't know if that's a good analogy. No, it's a good one, yeah.

Yeah. So, and I'm not saying he did anything either. I don't know. But you popped and, you know, you were not, you didn't convince me that you didn't take anything. And I would be hard to convince, right? because you pop motherfucker. So I put an asteris next to that.

But with that said, I'm right there with you. I want to see John fight. I want to see him fight a heavyweight. I want to see him fight a heavyweight. I want to see him fight in Ghana. I think we're going to get it in March, right? That's what the word on the streets is, right? Yeah, that's what everyone's talking about.

Hopefully it happens. It does like I was actually like I was signed, right? What's that? Signed. It's not signed yet. No, because in Ghana's talking about. hasn't completed his contract. He's still technically going to become a free agent about a month. Okay. So, yeah.

I hope we can see that fight. I want to see that fight. You know, whether John's juice or whatever he's doing, you know, he's absolutely, whether he's ever taking a thing in his life, he is absolutely one of the greatest ever, an absolutely amazing martial artist. I love watching him fight. I want to see him fight and got him. I want to see if he's gotten in him. Straight up. It does. Like,

I understand the Angano thing this year because he was injured, right? Like, we got to, you know, give him a break on that within terms of, like, because, and listen,

John Jones deserves a title shot. I'm not going to doubt that. He's the greatest, like, I have no problem with that. The only other fight that would have made sense for him, and I am a little bummed

and get seen is the Steepae fight. And I'll be honest. Listen, I know Steepe, you know Stepe. We're Ohio guys, so I don't want to like, I'm saying this,

as an opinion, not because I have inside info, okay? So I don't want to make that clear. I'm not saying this because I've spoken to Steve and he's given me some insight on this. I'm saying this as a outsider looking in. Stepe not coming back this year and not, because I think Steve A wanted the Francis and Gano fight or the John Jones fight. I think those are the only fights that really interested in coming back. For whatever reason, the John Jones fight didn't happen.

And I know for an absolute 100% fact, they were talking to him about that. And I know that, again, I don't know how far. Hart went. I don't know how deep the discussions go, but we all know publicly there was a push for Steve and John to fight this year. They talked about in September. They talked about it again December. Never happened. I think there's a chance we've seen Steve a fight for the last time already. Like, I don't know if he comes back. Like he's 40 now. He's got a family. Steepay to me has always felt one of the, it felt like one of those guys who always kind of had one foot out of the sport anyways. Like he was never. like the super like you know he didn't show up at every event he wasn't doing all the podcast talking about the fights and you know he was just kind of like he was a family dude a fireman who liked to fight you know what I mean like he was a really damn good fighter but he always kind of in my opinion always kind of had one foot out not because he wasn't dedicated I just feel like he was he was just I don't think fighting was ever like the the greatest thing in his life

now he's got a family he's a father that seems to be his biggest passion and you know what I get that. He's 40 now. He's accomplished everything he wanted to accomplish. He's the longest reigning heavyweight champion in UFC history, multi-time champion. I don't know. Like,

I feel like we may never see Steve. I know that's kind of going off topic here, but like I feel like as much as I miss John Jones, I feel like we may never see Steve A again. Boy, yeah, I miss Stipe as just as much as John Jones, man. Like, what a fun guy to watch also. Yeah. It's going to be ready to see how this plays out, man, because we got, you know,

Francis has some real battles in front of him, too, right? Let's assume he gets his contract taken care of. I'd love to see the UFC go to Africa, give him a big main event over there. That'd be fucking amazing. And, you know, I've, like I've said before, man, I think Sergey Pavlovich is going to give some people some problems, man. I'm not going to necessarily pick him to beat Ingano. know, and he may have to get a fight between now and then, right, to get that title fight.

But I want to see it, man. I think that guy's got what it takes. But regardless, man, what a, yeah, I want to see John come back. That's all we want to see. We want to see him fight a heavyweight. Let's go, John. Come on. Let's get it going, man.

Yeah, I'll put you on the spot. John Jones, Francis, and got it. Who you got? I got Francis. I'm with you I thought I was going to be I thought you were going to go the other direction I love John

and I think I've said it again I'll say it again I think he's the greatest talent most talented fighter ever in this sport I've never seen anyone quite like John Jones but more than DJ more than DJ I think more than DJ because he was more damaging he was more damaging in my opinion

but that's also weight I get it he's a bigger guy like when he was at his prime like when he did to Brandon Varon and things like that but again, I'm getting off celebrity here. John gets hit. Not badly, but he gets hit. Francis and Ghanu hits you one time,

and you're waking up the next day saying, what the hell happened? That's my biggest thing. Heavyweight is a whole other animal. Heavyweight, like I said, Kane Velasquez could even, like, even through the injury, like he still had multiple title reigns,

but he got caught. in a conditioning situation, he got outworked by Fabrice Overdome. He got knocked out by Francis and Gano, clipped and just clipped and caught in the first round and done. That's all it takes. Heavyweight power is a whole other animal. And just like you tell us, Sergei, you know what I mean? Like one punch and it's over.

Yeah, and not just heavyweight power. Francis Ingano fucking power. Jesus Christ, this guy hits like nobody else has ever hit before. And I think a year, maybe two years ago, I would be heavily towards John's favor in this fight. Francis has gotten better, too, though. He's out there improving all the time. You can see him getting better in every fight. I'm assuming he's out there working still and still getting better.

And that's just bad news for John Jones. Yeah, and I know that, listen, I know that, you know, Francis will have been out for a year because he had his knee surgery in March and so by the time he comes back it'll be about a year but you know I'm a big belief I'm not I'm not I kind of subscribe a little bit to the Dominic Cruz idea

that like you know ring rust can kind of be an excuse a little bit you know what I mean but I also believe that like you can be off on your timing and things like that little things that you can't quite duplicate in training you know not so I'm being conditioned for a fight but John Jones's been out just as long as Francis he's been out longer that's what I'm saying like two years like the last time he fought was Dominic Reyes

that's how long ago was as like. But also on the on the ring rust thing, you know, I've heard Dom's ideas on that or thoughts on that. I've heard, you know, the boxing thoughts on it, which basically all of them talk about ring rust all the time. You know, they do two and up fights and stuff like that. And I'll tell you, my opinion is it's individual.

Like some people, it will affect them. Other people it won't. I don't see it affecting John Jones. I don't know about Francis deGarra, but just from my perception of John Jones, who he is the confidence level that he carries and the belief in himself. I don't see it affecting him. In Gano, I don't know. But John Jones, I don't think it would affect.

I think it is very individual. I don't think you can make a general blanket blanket statement on all fighters saying whether ring wrestlers going to affect them or not. It's not an excuse. No, you're right. You're right. And like I said, what I was saying before, like, well, I tend to subscribe more to the dominant cruise theory.

I also say, like, you can't, there's certain things, you can't duplicate in training. You can't duplicate exact hand speed and exact, you know, hand-eye coordination and, and, you know, little thing, timing, you know, timing is just a big thing. Timing is such a huge thing in the sport. Like, you know, your timing, your punches, gauging distance, things like that. And you can, again, sparring is not fighting. Unless you're Sean Strickland, you're a lunatic in there trying to just kill each other, which, you know, hopefully for the healthy.

your brain and your future, he should be doing that. But yeah, so, and I, like I said, like I said, John's going to be putting on, like, 35, 40 pounds, like a big part of his, a big part of his weaponry was he was so smooth and quick in his movements. Like, is he going to be more labored? Is he going to have, like, the same fast foot work at 260 that he had at 205? Is he, you know, like, maybe he'll have more power, but is his wrestling going to be as explosive and things like that?

Little things, because we know how good Francis is. heavyweight man that dude is a monster and probably the scariest frances and gano in my opinion is the scariest dude ever in this sport like if you were going to throw me in a cage and force me to fight a fighter that would be like the last guy i would choose i would be mortified to step in there and see frances and gano throwing freaking punches at me that dude like literally when i was at his fight when he fought uh alister over him in detroit and i i'm not kidding i thought he i thought he decapitated over him with that punch. He hit him so hard with that uppercut. I was

like, oh my God, we just saw our first death and I'm not trying to make light of it, but I'm like, that's how hard he hit him. I was like, we just saw this dude's head get popped to the third row. And I'm wondering, again, I'm big on this Sergey Popovich. I think he might be the scariest

guy soon. Right now, obviously he hasn't fought of Francis. He hasn't fought for a title or anything. But I'm thinking this guy's going to do these big things. And He might end up being the scariest guy. I might be wrong on that. I'm high on him, too.

I tell you what, what's funny is we may be talking about John Jones and Francis and Gano. At the end of the year, we may be talking about Francis and Sergey Pavillich. That may be the fight we're talking about by the end of the next year. You know what I mean? 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 plainly.

Nice? 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. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region.

See app for details. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. Built for breakthroughs. personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence, while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go.

Explore the new Peloton Cross-Training Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. Last thing I want to touch on before we get out of here, the biggest stories of the year. We talked about the titles changing hands already with Autasania and Usman and things like that. got to mention for the biggest story of the year. And this is the one, I'm not going to sit here and try to give a lot of conjecture or opinion on it, but I just got to bring it up the biggest story and kind of like, you know, the biggest tragedy of this year was the Kane Velasquez situation. We all know what's going on.

Kane's actually got another quarter appearance coming up in about a week. It will be the date when his trial date gets set. He did get released on bail fairly recently. He was able to actually go to a pro wrestling showing out on Arizona. I know he's hanging out with Ryan Bader, Bellator heavyweight champion out there, former Arizona state teammate. I'm not trying to get into like, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not past a judgment, not trying to talk about that. But like, that had to be one of the most, like, crazy, sad, insane stories of this year.

And I know it was one that kind of captured the headlines, captured all of our attention. And in so many ways broke my heart. And I'm not, again, I'm not justifying what Kane did. I'm not trying to get in that conversation. But, like, God, I don't have, I bring this up for a couple of reasons. One, it is the biggest story of the year. Let's be honest. Like in terms of our sport, Matt, like this was, you know, this transcends the sport.

Like, this was international news, right? Like, this was a big news story with Kane Velasquez. You know what I mean? I'm not. I'm not, you know, listen, I've said, my dogs are my kids and I will throw down for my dogs. Don't get me wrong. You hurt my dog. I'll freaking throw down.

But you have kids. Like, I can't imagine being in Keynesc. Again, I'm not, be clear, I'm not justifying anything he did. I'm not. I want to be clear about that. but like it's just heartbreaking to be in that situation and again i don't know the whole you know we don't you know give everyone their legal like you know even the guy who's accused of doing what he did to kane's family everyone's got to go to the legal system so again be clear about all this

but that whole situation was just absolutely heartbreaking yep and i think i'm going to speak for the entire make community and all the dads out there i'm a dad like you said and i have a daughter I'll speak for everyone. I'll say, look, we're cheering for Cain here. He did what we all would want to do. Again, we don't know the whole story. We don't know all the details. Maybe he did something wrong.

Maybe he didn't. Maybe he stepped out of line. I have no clue. But from what we know right now, the story that we know, the story that we've heard, the details that we do know, fuck yeah, Kane. We're cheering for you. We got your back, bro.

You did what we would all want to do. It's a, it just makes. Like I said, it's such a heartbreaking situation because, again, I want to be legally clear here. Like, I don't, you know, I'm not condemning anyone. I'm not condemning anyone. Like, I want to be clear. So I'm not trying to throw out allegations or anything like that. But, like, I, when you try to put yourself in King's shoes in that moment, like, man, I just, I can't, I can't wrap my head around it.

Like, my heart breaks for him. It breaks for his family, too, to be clear. Like, it really does. Because that's just. And they were out without him for eight months. I understand you do something bad, you go to jail, we all understand that. I disagreed with the whole, like, not letting him out on bail situation. Like, in the day and age we're at, like, you know, he's got, you know, electronic bracelets

and all kinds of stuff, GPS and everything. Like, he's, you know, and Keynes is a celebrity. Like, he's a well-known guy. You know what I mean? Like, he's not going to just, like, suddenly, like, show up at the 7-Eleven down the street and no one's going to recognize him. Like, everyone's going to know it's King Velasquez. So, like, I never agree.

with that whole thing, like, because, man, like, what his, what his kid went through and, like, then they're living without their dad, too. Oh, my God. It just breaks my heart. And listen, I, I admit I'm closer to Kane. I don't know the other guy involved in this case. So I don't know. Like, I'm not trying to, like, you know, I know Kane.

And, and it breaks my heart that he had to go through this. And, like, it's still ongoing. We don't know what's going to happen with the case. I don't know. But that was, that was such a huge story this year. And, again, it's, I keep going back to it. I don't know a better word for it, but it's just heartbreaking. Like, I really feel for Kane Velasca as a situation.

Again, I'm not justifying what he did. I'm not trying to sit here and, like, say, like, he was right or wrong. I understand the emotion of it, though. Let me say that. I understand the emotion of it. I think we all do, right? Like, and in some way you have to, right? You have to understand the emotion of that.

Absolutely. And I think I'll, you know, maybe you have more say, but I'll end the conversation or my part of discussion with this. and that's the real victim in this, you know, that we should be praying for if you're a God person or meditating on whatever it is, you know, sending positive energy to is the kid. That's the real victim and the whole thing.

Fuck everybody else. Everybody else to be all right, man, pray for the kid. And I hope that, I don't remember if there's a boy or girl, but, you know, he or she, you know, gets through this, okay. That's the one that's really hurting. Yeah, and I think that's what killed me the most about the whole thing was like when he was, you know, being denied bail and everything is that, you know, he was without, like they were without him. Now again, again, you can say, well,

he, you know, you do the crime, you do the time. I get all that. I'm not justifying it. But, like, that was also what broke my heart. Like, this all went down. And then his kids without his dad for eight months, you know what I mean? Like, oh, my God, it just kills me. You know what I mean? It just breaks my heart. And again, I can't put myself in his shoes. I can't put myself in your shoes, man. I don't have kids. Like, I'm not saying you have to have kids to understand this or anything but like you're a dad you know what I mean like you're a dad like I can't I'm not I can't sit there and say like what would I do I can't say that because I don't know you know what I would do is but it's a it's a horrible situation you would want to do what he

did whether you would or not it's a different thing but yeah that's true yeah so it's probably probably a better way to say it yeah some people have the balls too some people don't you know and I say props to him you had the balls to do it. He knew there was going to be consequences as to what he was doing. Yeah. Yeah. And we may not have resolution to this for a while. I mean, you know, like I said, his trial, we assume will happen next year. We don't know. I know that there's been a real outpouring of support for Kane. Weirdly, this sport has gotten big, Matt. You and I know this. Like, it's so much bigger than the stories we were telling about, like, you know, going to the EOC events back in like 2005 or whatever.

But that was one situation where it seemed like the entire. community came together and supported Kane, like, you know, selling T-shirts and, you know, trying to raise legal funds and, like, do whatever they could because, you know, in these moments, that's when the community kind of does come together again. Like, we are a much bigger sport than we used to be, but I've never seen a bigger outpouring of, like, support for anybody than Kane had this year. Like, that was a really, like, I mean, it was, because, listen, there's very few things that can, like, bring everyone together in MMA. We all disagree about something, and very rarely do we all agree on something?

It seemed like even the people who disagreed with the action still kind of felt for Kane in that situation. You know what I mean? Like that's what I said. Like I'm not justifying what he did, but my heart breaks for him that he had to go through that. Because if the allegations of what happened to his kid are true, man, I just, I don't know if I, I don't know if I, I'll be honestly, Matt, I don't know if I have the mental wherewithal to deal with that. Like I feel like I would be broken. You know what I mean? Like personally, like that would break me.

Like I don't know if I could deal with that. You know what I mean? Like that level of atrocity being carried out on a child. Like that just, I don't know, man. Like I don't have kids so I can't say, but I don't know if I could even deal with that. Yeah, even the thought of it since to chill down my spine. Like I would do the same thing.

Kane did. Like maybe worse. You know, maybe he meant to do worse. I don't know. But again, you know, it's the child here is the victim. And this one we should all be praying for and, you know, sending positive energy, whatever you can for, man. That's the one suffering the most out of all these. Even Cain, spending the time in jail, whatever.

The child is the one suffering the most in this whole thing. Yeah, we had a lot of weird legal situations this year. We had the cane. We had that one, of course. That's, of course, the worst of it all. And, you know, again, you know, not making light of it, obviously a very horrible situation. We had the Colby Covington, Jorge Mazadol assault, which was a wild. weird one. And in this past week,

and we had Jake Shields and Mike Jackson. Did you see this story? Oh, yeah. Yeah, who didn't see that story? Oh, my gosh. How wild is that? I mean, more part of Jake, man. This guy was talking shit to him. And I know Jake says some fucking

crazy shit on Twitter. I've followed him for a long time. He says some shit that no one's going to agree with. But you don't go calling people Nazis and shit, man. And, you know, and Jake is far from a Nazi. He might say some shit you don't agree with. He might be, you know, a little out there on some things according to you or whatever,

according to someone else. But come on, man. You know, you know, like, you can't say that shit and then confront, you know, see some, see Jake Shields in person. He's not going to do anything. So fuck Mike Jackson. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a bad one because, like, um, this is, this is what fighters do.

And I'm not saying like fighters are Neanderthals. can't control their emotions, but you are fighters. You say, like, I say this all the time. Words have consequences, you know what I mean? And, like, I'm not, like, I don't justify what Jorge Mazadol did to Colby Covington because you had five rounds to hit him in that fight when you fought each other. And you didn't, you know what I mean? You didn't win.

Now, of course, you're still pissed off and you still want to get yours, but running up on a dude and I don't know that, again, I'm being, you know, I don't know the full story. And, like, again, I'm not trying to continue. damn horay but like you know you you run up and punch to do when he's not looking and that's probably not a good look like your professional fighters you had five rounds to settle it you didn't settle it but you know you taught like I said you say enough stuff online eventually it's going to come back to bite you because that's always like the old school thing right like you what would you say because my thing my I've said this for decades don't say anything to anybody

online through text message over video that you wouldn't say it to him in their face if you wouldn't if you wouldn't say it to them to their face knowing the consequences knowing that you might get smacked then don't say it yeah especially when you're Mike Jackson like you're a UFC fighter too like I don't know if he's still in the UFC I don't think he is

but he is actually he's still he's still okay well there you go even worse right you are in the UFC too like you're you're an open book to that's an open invite to fuck you up or fight you you know like especially at the UFCPI like what do you think Jake's going to do I said more power to Jake man like fuck that guy

have you ever had a gym incident like that um I've been involved in them myself not quite like that but um I've been in a yeah I mean I've seen some actually I got a good one so I was training for Robbie Lawler had about

five or six guys in my camp this guy was talking shit you know on Twitter saying he's going to come in and fuck me up and this and that I'm like all right so I gave him the address to the gym this is what we used to do on Twitter

I don't do this anymore but I just gave him the address to the gym all right come on down buddy he actually showed up and started saying he's going to fuck me up and I said well you got to go through my training partner first. Like I'm in the middle of training camp.

You know, like I'm, I'm going to see if you're any good, right? So he went with my training partner. He didn't know my training partner was actually, you know, probably as good as me. This guy who's Anderson Silva's former really good friend, training partner, trained a shoot-o box for like 10 years or something. Mario Shalind is his name. I forget his last name, but Mario would call him Shalyn. and there's a bunch of Brazilians in my camp

Mario Flocked him up And every time he would drop him You know all the Brazilians are like Oh poorah get back up Motherfucker Get back up I got a video of it

I have to say it to you He's like get back up motherfucker Get back up He dropped him with a body shot You go down They just let him get back up Knock him down again Finally they knocked him out

He was out for I don't know 10 15 seconds We're like, all right, bro. Just go home now. Did he say anything on the way out after all that? No, I was training for Tim Means, not Robbie Lawler. What was that? I said, did he say anything after that?

Like, did he say, like, when he got up and left, did he apologize or anything? Never heard another word from him. It always reminds, like, the gym challenge. We always see, like, I remember somebody did that with Josh Koshak, back in the day they showed up, and Josh just beat the living hell out of him. Like, credits are showing up.

Credits are showing up, because most guys wouldn't, but yeah, like, listen, I'm not going to, again, I'm not going to pass judgment on what's right or what's wrong, but like, you know, you know, words have consequences. And when you're fighters, like, I would hope, and I know Jake has said this, I would hope Jake's got a good enough sense to, like, if some idiot online said that and he ran into him in the street, Jake wouldn't attack some random dude, you know, no.

I think that's what I was getting at a minute ago. I don't think he would, but you're talking a UFC fighter talking shit to him. Yeah. you know, right? Like you're a UFC fighter, bro. Like you're, you're opening yourself to those consequences. Like you're,

you're going to talk shit to another UFC fighter. When you approach it, when you guys see each other, you're probably, you're either going to be fighting or he's going to try to fight you. I mean, you see this with UFC fighters all the time. Like,

you guys are ready to throw down any second. Paulo Costa and Hamza-Hamzaa about threw down the UFCPI a couple months ago. There you go. And to be clear, let me say this. I've known Mike for a long time. I've always liked Mike.

I've always liked Jake. I've known Jake for way longer. I've known Jake for 16 years. That's how long I go back with Jake Shields. I disagree with about 99.8% of everything he says these days. He's a little far out there. Don't like that stuff. Not my thing.

Not trying to get political. Just not my bag. But I've always got along with him. He's gone a little, you know, like he's falling down the crazy tree and hit a lot of branches on the way down lately. But, you know, yeah, I know. It's a weird one. And, like, everyone. The one thing on that note, like, I know Jake, I hung out with him for a little while.

And, like, he will debate his stances, you know, like, he will, like, friendly debate them. Like, he's not, I mean, he's certainly, like, a hard line and will kind of, I mean, he's a hard ass. You know, he's a tough guy. Like, he's going to say what he feels. he's going to say it in a strong way and he's going to make his point known. But he will also talk about it. And I've noticed on his Twitter particularly, like people, they respectfully say things back to him. Like, you know, he will debate it, right?

Mike Jackson didn't do that. He called him a fucking Nazi. You know, it's like, like, how you disagree. Like, if you felt the need to disagree with them, like you wouldn't start calling him names, right? You would say, you know, I disagree with this because of this. as soon as you start insulting people, especially professional fighters, again, you're opening that now. And even more so, if you're a professional fighter, you just open that door.

I've said this for years, and this is to this day my standing policy on Twitter. I don't block people for arguing with me on Twitter. Like, I have no problem with that. But the first time you name call, I just block it and be done with it. Because you just, you just lowered the conversation, right? Like, if you just call me stupid or call me a dumbass or, you know, insult my hair, whatever the hell you say about me, then you've just, you've just lost because you're no longer debating what we were debating. You're just name-calling. And as soon as you name-call-

people actually insult your hair, Damon. What's that? People actually insult your hair. I can't believe that. I, you know, it happens, dude. It's just the world we live in, man, the world we live. No, but seriously, like, when you go to that realm, when you, when you stop discussing whatever it is, you get so angry that you just have to start name-calling, then I don't have time for you. Like, I could disagree with you all day and we could completely I've argued with Jake on Twitter about stuff and like you know we've had like

during the pandemic we had quite a few but at no point did he ever call me a name or I call him a name in response like I completely disagree and I think he had a completely wrong stance and he probably thought I had a wrong stance and that's fine but yeah when you start name calling

I kind of lose interest like that's kind of my philosophy on Twitter like when you call me a name I just block you I was like all right you're no longer you're no longer intelligently defending your point, we can, we can disagree all day. That's fine. We may never agree. That's fine.

But when you start name calling, I got no place for you in my life. Like, I have no place for you. When you start calling me names. Well, we start name calls no longer a conversation. Like me and you, we've had political conversations and we're vastly different, right? Like when we had our last podcast, I think we'd maybe start talking about a little bit too much, right? We're like, all right, motherfucker.

No more politics talk, right? but we were like great friends the whole time still are like we never you know like i never thought lesser of you because you have a different opinion than me and i assume the same right like it's you know so when again that's where mike jackson fucked up he goes out starts calling names and not just any names like really bad names you know like you can't call anybody a nazi and think that's okay even a nazi you can't even call a nazi i don't think I don't know. I don't know any Nazis, but I assume like if you call him that thing, they go, hey, fuck you, right?

But yeah, it's just, yeah. And then like, because now, like, the big controversy is like he's talking about pressing charges and, like, I saw Landon Banada and other people. And everyone is losing their freaking minds about that. Like, that is what everyone's losing their, like, losing their minds about right now about that. Yeah, of course he would. Like, he's a, I mean, he's a pussy guy. Like, I'll say straight. Like I would say it to Mike Jackson's face. Like you're a fucking pussy. Like you just say that shit to Jake Shields online.

Then you got your ass whoop. Like suck it up. Okay. Like those are fighting words that you said. Like you again, you open the fucking door, bro. Like if you can't accept those consequences, then you're a pussy. That you just start pressing charges. Like you said fighting words and you got into a fight about it.

You lost the fight. Fair enough. Like Jake's a fucking bad dude. You know, like he's a tough son of a bitch. a lot of people are going to lose a fight to them. There ain't no shame in that. Yeah, you know, it's weird is like you and I have seen this when guys have had like real bad blood.

And it doesn't always, it doesn't always go this way. But we've seen it a million times of the sport where guys have like legitimately bad blood. They go in the cage, beat the shit out of each other for 15 minutes and then like it's all kind of behind them. Like, you know what I mean?

Like that's kind of like how you work. That's how you work out your frustration. Like you work out your beef in the cage. And now, you know, there's exceptions to the rule like Colby Covington and Horri Mout. at all, but there, you know, a lot of times we've seen really bad, nasty rivalries get settled by punching each other in the face for 15 minutes, and then, you know, shake hands and it's all over, you know, like that's how you work out your anger and your frustration.

They're fighting solves everything. That is the Matt Brown philosophy of life. Fact. All right, we're going to get out of here. As I said, we're not going to be on the air next week. We are going to enjoy a little holiday time, some family time, the new year. And then we'll be back to following week. Matt, I can't wait for that show. You, me and Paul Felder doing our year preview of 2023.

It's going to be a blast. Paul's one of the top analysts. He's a great dude. Had him on the show earlier this year to do the 2022 preview. And now that you are the permanent co-host on the show, it felt only responsible to have Paul come back and all three of us give our opinions on the, on what we look forward to in 2020. Before we get out of here, Matt, what can people check out about you, what you got going on, what else is happening? and people can throw you some support as they are listening to the podcast. Follow me on social media, man.

I am the immortal on Instagram and Twitter, and I even just started a fucking TikTok, man. My kids got me on it, man. I'm Immortal on TikTok too. At The Immortal Coffee. Check it out right here. Make excuses, not coffee. Make excuses not coffee?

That's what you just said. Make coffee, not excuses. Whatever. you get it. Okay. Also, dynamic extracting, man. Check out my clinch instructionals and should be dropping

the partner drill instructional any day now. And if you go on social media, and if you go on social media, don't call Maddie names where you'll show up and beach up. So I'll just sit out there at the last of it. I mean, if I see you, I will. Somebody's getting beat. Maybe you'll beat me up, but one of us is.

All right, we're getting. getting out here. One of a set big thank you. Everyone, the tunes in the show, each year every week. Make sure you check us on all your favorite podcast platforms, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, all that good stuff. And we'll see you guys for our year,

our year ahead preview on January 3rd. We'll be off next week. So enjoy the podcast until then. And we'll see you in the new year in 2023, right here on the Fighter versus the Rider. See you then. Podcast Network.