MMA Fighting - Fighter vs. Writer: Matt Brown Rips Judge in Cory Sandhagen vs. Marlon Vera, Calls His Scorecard ‘Absolutely F****** Ludicrous’

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

On the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer, Matt Brown and Damon Martin discuss the scoring in the Cory Sandhagen vs. Marlon “Chito” Vera fight as well as David Benavidez’s big win and what Conor McGregor’s career trajectory could have been if he didn’t take the Floyd Mayweather fight. Following UFC San Antonio on Saturday night, we’ll talk about Sandhagen’s big win as he took another step forward towards title contention with a potential matchup looming against Merab Dvalishvili. Of course, the scoring in Sandhagen’s split decision win will also take center stage after one judge somehow gave Vera three rounds, which Brown calls arguably the “biggest bulls***” scorecard in the history of the sport. We’ll also talk about David Benavidez picking up a statement win over Caleb Plant and the chances that he takes out “Canelo” Alvarez in his next fight. In fact, is Alvarez on the downside of his career at this point? Plus we’ll discuss what would have happened to Conor McGregor if he would have just continued fighting in MMA after he demolished Eddie Alvarez back in 2016. Is it possibly he could have beaten Khabib Nurmagomedov and cemented himself as one of the greatest fighters of all time?  All this and much more on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer with Matt Brown and Damon Martin. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts Subscribe: Spotify Read More: MMA Fighting Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With Amex Platinum, you have access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. So your experience before takeoff is a taste of what's to come. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. 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 rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those.

Goaltenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes, because those are groceries, and we deliver those too, along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Welcome back to The Fighter versus the Rider. I'm Damon. He is Matt Brown. And Matt, we are back for another week and another week closer to you punching somebody in the face. I will continue to kick off every single show with that until May 13th rolls around. How is face punching practice going for the immortal? It's going very well. I'm doing a lot of punching, elbow, face elbowing, face kicking, face kneeing.

So, yeah, all the things are getting sharp, man. It's coming close. I realized so we were talking. There were some news out today. It was a weird one because there was a rumor that the UFC was trying to book. look, Umar and Ramagamatov against Marab de Walsh Vili is the main event on May 13th. And that's your card, of course. And I saw that and I was like, okay, that's interesting.

And then I was like, hold on now. Wasn't there already a main event for May 13th? And it's Anthony Smith against Johnny Walker. So I was like, what's going on? Well, long story short, Umar and Margot Madov is not fighting Marab de Walshvili. Marab's still dealing with some lingering injuries from the Peter Yan fight. And let's be honest, that's a two-month turnaround for another five-round fight. That's a lot to ask of Marab de Walshvili.

So the fight's not happening, but I was kind of like, why are they trying to book a main event for a card that already has a main event? Hmm. So I did some digging today. For my understanding, there's no problem with Anthony Smith and Johnny Walker, at least from what I can find out. So I have no idea why that was happening or how that started to happen or who had the idea for that or what. But either way, as far as I know, Anthony Smith and Johnny Walker are still headlining the card you're on. And as we all keep hearing, it's going to be a fight in front of people. We don't know where yet, but it's going to be a fight in front of people,

which I know is exciting because, dude, I'm over the apex. I just want to know where, man, is that, I mean, I'm, normally I don't really, I don't really care where I'm not really sweating it, but it's like, I got people asking me every day, like, well, where's your fight at? I want to get tickets. Everybody's trying to come out. And I want to know what the medicals I have to do, right? Like, depending on the different states, like, I have to do different medicals.

I want to know if I need to get adjusted to a different time zone. you know there's just a lot of things it's really a I don't ever remember not hearing about a location I think we're seven weeks out now yeah it's weird too because like I said this is getting pretty close like generally by now they're they got tickets on sale you know they're trying to get things you know moving and it's weird that they don't have this now it's I've heard rumors I'm sure you've heard the same rumors I heard rumors that maybe Nashville but if that's the case like why like what's the hold up and like confirming it and then tickets going on something Like seven weeks, that's not very far.

You know what I mean? Like you got to sell tickets. You got to get everything arranged. Like it's just a really weird situation. But I've heard the same as you, which is at least assuming you're hearing the same as me, which is it's going to be in front of a crowd. Like that's all I've heard. I've not heard anything else besides.

I've heard it's going to be in front of a crowd. We just don't know where. In other words, it's not going to be at the apex is all that we know. Yeah, all we know. But I mean, that's exciting enough. But in your case, absolutely. Like you want to know all these different things. Like you got a lot of logistical stuff.

to figure out. It's been confirmed, right? Because they're kind of holding off because they're like, well, we got the apex just in case, right? Yeah, I'm just, I don't know, man. Like, I'm over the apex. Like, this last weekend, they did the card in San Antonio, you know, 16,000 people. Wasn't even that big of a card if we're being honest.

Great main event, but it wasn't like it was that super deep of a card. But 16,000 people. And I know eventually, you know, when people, you know, when the UFC starts going back to cities, you know, twice a year, once a year, maybe you'll, won't get the same crowds you're getting right now because people are still kind of coming out of the pandemic and it's been like three years since they've been to a live event but uh yeah like it's just the energy and everything you just can't replicate that like it's just such a different feeling and uh you know i just like i said i don't really want to go back like the apex was cool for like five

minutes like oh i could hear the corners and i can hear the punches and i can hear when like you know kevin hollins talking to an opponent in the ring like all those kind of things are fun but it it quickly loses its appeal. Yeah, and fighting there, I mean, to me, is not enjoy at all. You know, once you get in there and start fighting, a fight to fight, and it doesn't really matter.

Like, walking out with no crowd, it just, it doesn't have the same energy. Fortunately, like, I've been through it before. Like, I fought on the ultimate fighter. There's no crowd on. You know,

it's foreign to me. and again, once the fight starts, it kind of does a really point. But it's more of the before and after, like before the fight, feeling the energy of that crowd is the most amazing thing ever. Just, you know, people over the place, like shaking your hand, wanting to meet you, you know, coming to the hotels or, you know, whatever after party you get. And, you know, hearing the crowd, hearing the crowd chant after your

fight and cheer, man. After a big knockout, there's just not a better fucking feeling in the world, man. Yeah. No, I know. Like I said, I embraced the apex at the beginning. Maybe it's just because, like I said, the UFC got up and running again. I just was excited

to see fights, you know, after we went a couple of months, basically, without any fights. But then, like, and like I said, at the beginning, it was kind of cool. Like, I remember, you know, the first couple of fights without fans when it was like, oh, man, it's cool. You can actually hear the coach is yelling, and you can hear, you know, the fighters talking to each other and you can hear like the punches landing and things like that like there were little

things that you don't normally get to hear and when you've been around the sport as long as you and I have like they kind of maybe you take a little bit for granted like you don't hear these kind of things but after like I said after about six months the novelty wore off and I'm just like god this is just weird like when a big punch lands or a like obviously this one's a little closer to home for us but like when Steve Bay fought Francis and Ganu the second time and and Francis got that knockout now listen obviously Steve is our guy, he's an Ohio guy, but like that's a big moment, right? Like the heavyweight title of the world going up for grabs and Francis scores a huge knockout

over a guy that absolutely thumped him the last time they fought. And it goes down and it's just over. There's no crowd. There's no riproar. It's like it's just like one of the biggest, one of the biggest moments in heavyweight history and there's no reaction. Like it's just dead silence. Yeah, that's going to go down.

History is just a crazy time. It just sucks, bro. like I don't know why they yeah I mean I know why they did it but I don't know why they kept doing it I mean I take it back I know why they kept doing it but it's I'm with you it's time for it to stop

you know you know more cards I get it cool you know business and everything it's great but for us the fighters it's all there is just not

that cool like we want We want crowds, man. That's like, that's a huge part of why we do that. Love being in front of the crowd. We love being under the lights. We love hearing the crowd cheer. At least it feeds me, gives me energy. And that's a huge part of the experience of when I go in there and fight.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, this past weekend, we did get a crowd in San Antonio. Of course, the main event, Corey Sanhagen, defeated Marlon Chito Vera. I'll be honest, the fight didn't play out like I thought it would. I thought it would be a little bit more back and forth, kind of a battle. It really wasn't a battle. Corey Sandhagen largely dominated, really mixed together his game really, really well.

A lot of takedowns, ground and pound with his striking, controlled the distance. You know, Cheeto had a couple of moments here and there, but largely it was a Corey Sanhagen win. I didn't think it was really close. And I think I scored, I think I scored a 5045 or 4946. It was no controversy there. Before we get to the controversy, which we'll talk about the second with the one scorecard, What did you make of the fights? I know you were watching.

And again, Corey's a guy. I know you've trained with him out in Colorado. So I know that's kind of your guy. But even I was like, as a guy who's actually been a big Corey Sanhagen guy for a lot of years, I thought this was one of his strongest performances. Yeah, that was it right there. It wasn't just a Corey Sanhagan win. It was a Corey Sanhagen masterpiece.

And we need to take a moment to appreciate the masterpiece that he put on because he absolutely looked phenomenal in my opinion. And Chito, you know, with all due respect to him, I mean, stylistically, was a tailor-made for Corey's a masterpiece, but Corey put on even more of a masterpiece than I expected him to. And when we both, we talked about the fight before him, we said, look, you know, we all, we were kind of 50-50 towards Corey a little bit. I think, you know, maybe I had a little bit of inklings of leaning towards Corey,

because we knew what he did Saturday was possible for him to do. The X factor, what we kept thinking, you know, was that Cheeto would eventually, you know, just catch him with a big shot or find his timing or something like you do with Dominic Cruz. You know, and Cheetos, that guy that is just always in there and always always good problem, you know, you could do that to Cheeto for 10 rounds

and he'd still give you a problem. So, again, I just, I appreciate watching the fight and watching Corey Sannhagen because, you know, I can't say enough good things about how good. And he fundamentally so sound. But also, you know, I tell all my fighters when I'm training guys, look, you know, if you guys, kind of new, maybe they throw a lot of this wild stuff and spinning stuff and all this. and I always tell them, you have to know the rules first to break them. And when it came to Corey Sanhagen, he followed the rules very well and broke them at the appropriate. A lot of the things he does is sort of within the constructs of as a standard way to do things

or a proper way, as some people would say, which, you know, there's no such thing. But he does a lot of things out of the box. But he did them on Saturday at all of the times. against a dangerous guy like Cheetah that's always there to take advantage. That's where Cheeto sells, I think, is when guys do get a little out of position, they get a little bit, try a little too hard to do. And he does a good job of getting them fired up and, you know, coming and being angry and, you know, getting him a little bit emotionally involved.

And Corey just stayed stoic and just a fight, I thought, man. Yeah, that was the kind of fight. Like, I've been a guy for a long time saying Corey Sanagan's going to be a champion one day, and that was the kind of performance that kind of reaffirmed that for me. Like, obviously, he's had a couple losses in there. I mean, there's no shame and losing Peter Yan. Short notice, you know, he took that fun and shorter notice, went out there and had a fight with Peter Yan, lost that fight.

Good for Peter Yan. He's still a monster. I thought he beat T. I thought that was a bad decision. I thought he clearly beat T. I still don't understand how that decision happened. but he has a loss on his record there I don't agree with it but yeah like there's still something about Corey like I feel like he's still

right there and obviously I know afterwards he called out Marab de Walshvili seems like the perfect fight to make we know Marab's not going to fight Al Jermaine Corey did fight and lose to Al Jemaine a couple years ago so it kind of seems like the perfect fight to make especially with Sean O'Malley you know supposedly getting the winner of Suhudo and Sterling so I think it's kind of the perfect fight to make and that's a man I tell you what that's a fascinating matchup with the way that Marab looked in his last fight and the way that Corey looked the other nightman dad is that's going to be if it happens that's an

incredible fight absolutely that is a wild fight I don't know what's going to happen in that fight if Sanhagen versus Marab happens that's going to be an incredible fight I hope it does happen I don't know like I because Corey said he told me beforehand like he thought about he was going to call out O'Malley because he thought you know that would be a great fight I agree that would be a bang or two and O'Malley's going to end up sitting out waiting for the winner of Sehudo and Al Jermaine, and they both said they want that fight so I get it. But man, like,

O'Malley's going to be sitting out for a while because, you know, Al Jermaine and Sehudo aren't going to fight until May. And then you got to imagine, unless there's a quick finish, like, they ain't fighting nobody until probably September, October the earliest. Like, oh, Malay's going to be out for a year.

I don't know. Like, I'm not saying he should try to fight Sanhagen or, you know, risk his title shot. But, yeah, it's kind of weird when it's, like, weird for the Banda Band's way division's out right now. But lots of good matchups. lots of good matchups a lot of talent in that division

is we got what what just a god man just a fucking amazing group of talented fighters in that division man yeah absolutely absolutely so let's get into the controversy from Saturday night Matt because you know the fight ultimately played out and

scored you know we ultimately went to the right guy we all agree Corey Sanhagan won the fight he dominated for the largest part of five rounds there was no there was no doubt about that but then the scorecards got read. And Bruce Buffer read the first scorecard and he said the score was 4847 for Chito Vera. And everyone was like scratching their head and saying what in the hell is going on here. Of course, Sal DeMato, Chris Lee, two more experienced judges. They ended up scoring it correctly. The right guy won.

But it still goes down as a split decision. And the fact that one judge somehow saw that fight for Chito Vera is a massive problem. Now I'm not sitting. I know you said this on the show and I agree with you, Matt. We got to call their names out. We got to make this public. So, we understand who these people are and when they blow a call like this. The guy's name is Joel O'Heda. Now, I'm not trying to make Joel's life a living hell because I'm quite sure he's already heard about it from every single MMA fan on earth by this point. Here's the problem, Matt.

This guy had only judged two fights in the UFC, two. And the other one was a prelim fight on the same card. Now, I'm not saying he's not an experience judge judging other cards. But this isn't even going into the criteria. We can have a, we've talked about having an entire show, and we will do that one day, where we will sit down and, like, come up with what we believe would be a proper scoring criteria and how to fix it. Now, again, even though we can come up with this plan, doesn't mean they'll ever be enacted,

but we can at least theorize, all right? Like, we can say, well, here's how you should score a fight, get rid of 10, 9, here's how we would score fights, blah, blah, blah, blah. We're not going there today. The problem today is this Joel O'Heda guy had no business being a judge that night for one. and for two he certainly had no business judging the main event because his card giving it 4847 the Cheeto is proof positive that he had no business being in that judge's chair on Saturday night and thankfully Chris Lee and Sal Diomato got the score right because imagine if another judge had been just as bad as that guy and then Corey Sending is sitting on a loss today that everyone and their mother knows he won I mean this is and the And this also goes down as a problem, Matt, because a lot of times we get lost in, well, the right guy won, right? Well, yeah, the right guy won. But they're still a horrible scorecard.

We can't ignore that. Yeah, I'm not trying to make his life hell either. But I think he should find a different job, though. I don't care what his experience is. I don't care if he judged a hundred of fights before. Like, there is no excuse for that scorecard whatsoever. And that's all it there is to it. You can, you have to struggle to find one round for Cheeto. And I know some people

gave him a round, I think probably the third round. Yeah, I think that was one round. And it's ridiculous to give him the third round, like, because he landed a punch. You know, I mean, look, I love Cheeto Bear, one of my favorite fighters, but he did nothing

to earn a single round on Saturday night. not a single thing. No way. And I think he would come on in a minute himself. Like I don't think he would be dishonest about it. You know, maybe it wasn't his best performance or, you know,

maybe something happened. Whatever. I don't know. You know, he could, you know, talk about that. I'm sure he's moved on.

You know, he's already talking about wanting to fight Peter Yon and things. But there's just simply no excuse for that score card, period. Like, there's nothing else seen as, say about it. Like, that is the biggest bullshit scorecard I think I've ever

seen. It's so bad, and you made a great point on Twitter. Somebody brought it up to you, and they were talking about Brian Barbarina, and he's had a couple of big high-profile fights recently. Obviously, he had to fight with Gunner Nelson a couple weeks ago, and, listen, he's had a couple losses. That happens. I mean, you know, Brian's a, you know,

a good fighter, and he's had a couple losses. No shame there, but they were talking about opportunities. You know, opportunities come when you win, right? Like, that's just how the sport works, and you had mentioned something on Twitter about that, and that's, again, what gets lost. Like your fight Brian Barbarina. Incredible fight. Fight of the night. It was amazing. But when the right guy doesn't win and then we just kind of move on from it, we forget about the other factors, which is what opportunities didn't you get because you lost that fight

versus what you would have gotten if you had won that fight? And we talk about all, again, this is like a butterfly effect, right? You get one bad scorecard and you lose a fight. Not only do you lose half your money. Maybe your next contract. They're like, you know what? We're not going to offer you quite as much money for your next contract. When another big fight comes up, maybe a guy falls out and you're like, you know what, let me get in there. Let me get that fight. And like, well, you're coming off a loss. You know, we're going to look for somebody off a win. And little things like that. Opportunities go away. So we can't just sit here and say that, well, it was a close fight.

You lost a close decision. We got to take into account all the reverberations, like an earthquake, like all the things that happened down the line from that one thing. Now, again, thankfully, Corey Sanhagen got the win. And it should. should have been a unanimous decision. The right guy won. Again, we always say the right guy won, but we can't ignore that horrible scorecard because guess what? The UFC is going to go to Texas. They're going to go to Dallas. They're going to go to Houston. They're going to go Austin. They're going to go somewhere else. And if that judge is anywhere near there, like, they should lock him out of the building. Like, they should literally just like put his phone.

You know, like they put up like the wanted posters. They should put up like the not wanted posters for this dude. Like they should put up outside the building. If you see this man, please report. him and make him exit the building they should let him get nowhere near the scoring table of a UFC event again and like you said the right guy won the fight that's great but there's only three judges there's only three score cards like he was one away from you know losing that fight you know so it just speaks to the larger problem these guys but you know whether it's the judges themselves or whether it is the actual scoring system is a little bit flawed and confusing. It's just a larger problem.

And, you know, I'm glad that we're highlighting this because, you know, a lot of people would look over it because the right person won and it's just kind of forgotten about. But it needs to be highlighted. Like, he was one scorecard away. Corey was one scorecard away from getting this taken away from him. Now, the fights, like, you know, for my, you brought up some of my past fights, you know, and, you know, my arguments are a little different, right? Like, Corey's and Cheetah was a very, very blatant, obvious, like, any child could score those fights.

My fights, I think, you know, that we were kind of referring to, you know, there's other ones too. We're probably a lot closer, and I think, you know, you just have to have more of an understanding and that's where I kind of get into the whole, like, judges suck thing, and they're just uneducated. This one isn't even just an uneducated. I mean, if somehow another judge scored that fight for Cheeto, like we would be saying that was a, you know, there was money involved somewhere.

Like, there's no possible way that you could have scored it like that. So, I mean, we've seen some pretty bad ones in the past, but that scorecard's got to be one of the, the top five because like I said, Cheetah in the third round as far as I remember, he landed like one punch. And don't look at I'll go back, I've said it a million times before,

don't look at the fucking stats, the significant strikes, the total strikes. It's all fucking garbage, man. Like, you know, these guys, that's just human beings looking at the fight and, and, you know,

and at least I know in boxing, that's what they do. They literally have clickers on their hands. You know, they click it with their thumbs when there's a fight, when there's a punch to land. And it's like, these people don't know whether it was significant or not. They don't know if it was a fucking clean punch or not. Like punches, there's so, such fine lines in between a punch that is meaningful slash significant, whatever that's supposed to mean.

And so in a punch that isn't. that just grazes or slides off. And sometimes a punch can even land very well and not be significant, you know, towards the outcome of an actual fight. And that's what, you know, in the rules or the judge the end act, that's, you know, I don't remember their wording, but, you know, it goes something along the lines of, you know,

that's contributing towards the finish of a fight. So, like I say, it's so many gray areas, and I'm not sure that there's a perfect way, by the way, but again, we'll have a conversation about that sometime and we'll lay everything out and you know make it all very clear maybe take some notes and stuff beforehand do some research but the uh you know so I'm not sure that there is a perfect way or a perfect solution but if that scorecard there isn't an obvious sign of something is fucked up here something is wrong something needs to change then I don't

know what it is two things let me let me mention what you said before I've said this on Twitter before strikes is the stupidest dumbest bullshit stat ever. It's stupid. It's ridiculous. What is a significant strike, quote unquote? Like, you know what I mean? Like, if you want to count strikes just so you have a strike count, okay, fine.

Still shouldn't play into the factor of who you think won the fighter didn't win the fight. Now, to be fair, the judges don't actually have access to the stats. So I'll give them that credit. They don't have access to that information during the fight. Yeah, that's a great point because I only bring that up because all the fans on Twitter

or whatever. Everybody always brings it up. I'm like, for one yeah, that's a great point. They don't even fucking see that to start with. So why, but I actually hate that they show it on the screen because it's like, well, what does that even mean? Like, what is that, it doesn't mean anything. Like, you call a

significant strike versus a strike. What the hell is the difference? Like, they'll have like, you had 200 total strikes, you had 180 total, or 200 strikes thrown, 125 landed, and 100 of those were significant. What the fuck does any of that mean? How do you know those hundred were significant strike? It's a stupidest. It's the dumbest, most misleading stat in history. It means nothing. It means

I go crazy when people talk about significant strikes because it means nothing. I hate it when I see my own stats because I'm like, I'm like, oh, you're saying I hit him significantly a hundred times. There's no way he's not knocked out if I hit somebody a hundred times significantly. Yeah, it's ridiculous. So let me just start there. Ignore that stat, first and foremost. Like, if you're watching TV and they put up the stats, ignore it because it means nothing, okay, first and foremost. Secondly, the other point I want to bring up about judging, and I've had this issue with Texas for a long time, the Texas Commission might very well be the worst commission in all of sports in terms of the athletic commissions, with the referees they use, with the judges they use, with some of the rulings. I mean, I think it's,

I think Texas was the state that overruled one of, overturn one of Curtis Blazes wins because he tested positive for weed. I mean, just unbelievably stupid and just terrible decision making by this commission. And here's the biggest problem, Matt. There's no uniformity between commissions. I've praised, left right and center, I have praised the California State Athletic Commission as the gold standard of athletic commissions. Andy Foster, the executive director there, goes out of his way. to try to make real substantive changes to the rules and to the referees. Now, is it ever going to be perfect?

No, you and I both know it's never going to be perfect, and I don't expect it to be perfect. Because, like, when there's really close fights, just because you scored the fight a different way, it doesn't mean it's a robbery. It just means it's a close fight. You know, I've had that argument. We talked about Sean O'Malley, Peter Yon, is a great example.

You scored her for Yon, I scored her for O'Malley. But guess what? It was a close fight. I wouldn't argue with you one bit if you said Yon won it, and you really, I know you didn't really argue with me. I said, O'Malley won. It was a close fight. That's not a robbery. That's just a close fight. But what happened on Saturday had one judge somehow scoring three rounds for Chito Vera, oh my God. And the fact that this guy was anywhere near a judge's seat and he'd never judged a UFC event before.

I mean, I know the UFC doesn't go to Texas every week. I understand that. But there's a lot of events in Texas. And one thing that Andy Foster does, and Frank Trigg told me this, because Frank Trigg is a referee out there. And he said one of the reasons why you don't see more fighters and more people involved. with judging and refereeing is because Andy Foster requires you to go through hundreds of hours of training and hundreds of scorecards before he'll let you get near

a Bellator or a UFC or a PFO one of the major organizations. It's just like any other sport. You're not going to referee an NBA game unless you've refereed a lot of high school and college and you've got to work your way up saying NFL, whatever. You're not going to do that unless you've already gone to the lower levels. Andy Foster makes the referees and the

judges go through a just ridiculous amount of training and then go out and score lower. So you will know, if you're in California, you will not sniff a UFC fight until you've judged, you know, LFA and all these other organizations, these regional promotions. And I'm not saying those fighters don't deserve to have their fight cards scored correctly, but we're talking about, you know, getting minor leagues to major leagues. You keep moving your way up. He doesn't allow it. Well, guess what?

Sure doesn't seem like Texas has those same requirements. of this guy is judging a main event and his first ever UFC fight was earlier the same night. Like that seems, and they also had Dan Mergliata judging fights. He's a referee. I'm not saying Dan Mergleada doesn't understand the sport, but what criteria, what world do we live in? Like, I think he hadn't judged a fight in like 15 years. Like, there much changes in 15 years? Like, it just, Texas Commission just boggles my mind.

I've always said Texas and Florida are the two commissions that drive me to craziest, but Florida's actually come a long way in the last couple years. Like, they've actually made some pretty sound decisions. I'm not saying they're perfect. Trust me, they made some really boneheaded decisions as well. But they've made strides to get better because a lot more MMA is going there. There's a lot of MMA in Texas. Like, they do a lot of events.

They may not do UFC events every weekend, but there's a lot of events in Texas. the fact that through all the criteria and all the judges and all the people that could have worked there, they decided to put this guy in the main event? I mean, it's just, it's, I mean, it's frustrating. And that is also, we talk about, like, we're not even talking about the criteria. We're not even talking about how to properly score fights. We're not even talking about the 10 point must system. We're just saying that Matt, if you got a fight in Texas, I would call you and say,

Matt, don't go there. Don't go there. Don't fight in Texas. Because this is the risk you. run. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, when we talk about judging, that's just another layer to it, right? Like, what kind of professional job do you just step into at the highest level, right? You have to work your way up in every single profession, right? Yeah, I didn't even know that myself. That's ridiculous. And, you know, Ohio is pretty decent about it, too. Like, they're going to make you,

you're going to be a reputable, ref or judge when the UFC comes here. You're not, How could it be a first-timer guy? I don't know exactly what all the rules are and everything. But yeah, that's just, well, you're just blowing my mind even more. I can't believe this. That's what I'm saying. Like, this is the issue is that, like, now, like, you can't even, like, you don't, you have to now be specific about where you fight because you've got to be worried about, like,

who are, because we're not, again, we're not even talking about the criteria. We're not talking about, like, this guy didn't know the criteria. Clearly, he didn't if he scored the fight for Chita Fera. but like we're not even getting into that we're just getting into like the the obvious you don't even have to know the criteria to score that fight for court yeah like you know that it's a fight and do that's a punch in the face yeah like i've scored i you know through my career as a journalist i've scored hundreds upon thousands of fights you know what i mean but even me for all my experience i still wouldn't feel comfortable sitting down and just judging a fight because i haven't gone through the proper you know the proper you know the proper instruction. I haven't said to it because like I actually have sat in in a couple of California State Athletic Commission meetings where Andy Foster will lead uh matches for referees and judges and they'll have discussions. Like we actually rewatch Al Jermaine Sterling and Peter Yan the second fight when I thought there should have clearly been a 10-8 round in there and they debated that

round and they were talking about why it was or wasn't and you know it was like they voted on it and they had a discussion and you know some judges were like here's why I would give it that. here's why some judges wouldn't and they had another fight. I think it was Robbie Lawler and Roy McDonald from your card where you fought Tim Means. They scored that way. They had discussions. They talked. Everyone had a chance to win their opinion.

Andy Foster was talking about criteria, blah, blah, blah. Now, I'm not saying commissions in like Texas and Florida, other places don't do this. And I'm not going to continue to sit here and like bang the drum to just go to California. But like these are the issues we're talking about? Like, are you actually using educated judges? Do they truly know their criteria? have they scored hundreds of fights before they're actually getting to judge Matt Brown or Corey Sanhagen or Cheetahe Aver.

Like, it just blows my mind that this guy was anywhere near a judge's chair. Like, that's just a bad commission. Like, that's not even bad referee. Like, that's like me saying, that's like you saying, Matt, that's like you saying, Damon, I know you, you like cars. You own a car. So I need you to replace the engine in my car. I'm just going to leave you be.

And you're going to switch out the engine. in my car. Guess what, Matt? I don't know shit about replacing engines and cars. I could probably go in there and unscrew some shit and some shit will fall off your car. But does that mean I know how to fix an engine in your car? No. You shouldn't put me anywhere near there because you didn't qualify

me as a mechanic. That's basically what they did on Saturday. Like, do you know fights? Yeah, I know fights. Do you watch fights? Sure. Here go, Judge, the main event of a freaking U.O.C. event. Yeah, he was probably the guy in the crowd, y'all, why don't you just get up and knock him out?

You know, speaking of journalist scoring fights, it reminds me of an interesting little thing. You know, back, you know where judging started actually was back in, you know, in boxing, it used to be basically unlimited rounds. You know, they go 100 rounds, whatever. And then they started being shorter, right? They just simply didn't have the time for it, you know, and there were, you know, a lot of different reasons. and what they would do. They never did hire judges until, I want to say, like, the 30s or the 40s. It might have been later than that, maybe the 50s or 60s.

I have to reread up on my boxing history. But anyway, they used to have the newspapers would judge the fights. You know, if you ever hear the old story about, I believe it was Willie Pep that won a round without throwing a punch. Like, he didn't actually win the round, but the newspapers have. him winning the round. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, so it's a, which from, you know, you say, oh, my gosh, but, you know, the, the story is he truly did win the round, right? Like, his defense is that amazing, you know, but.

Yeah. I'm not sure, you know, Willie Papp was amazing defensively. But anyway, you know, that's, I think that, I don't think that's something that should be completely thrown out either. You know, there's the, I don't know. again, we will have to have a whole conversation about this. I have put more thought to it, but I don't think there's any reason why you couldn't have a lot of people scoring a fight, you know, educated people.

You know, why does it only have to be three or, you know, four or five judges? Why couldn't you have, you know, a lot of media people do it? Well, there's so many things that they had. Like, I know in New Jersey they talked about trying where they were going to put judges in like an isolation booth where you wouldn't hear the crowd. You would just like watch the fight. I mean.

And I've heard, like, you know, putting them in a booth where you don't hear where you're not by the cage. Because I've said the one judge and one, one, one criticism, but one defense I've had a judging in MMA is that I've sat cage side hundreds of times. And I would say out of those hundreds of times, let's say I've been to 500 UFC events. I have no idea I'm making that number up. 500 UFC events, I probably spend about 375 of those staring up at the screens because with the actions right in front of you, it's hard to see her.

and you're on the other side of the cage or you're in grappling exchanges on the ground. It's tough to see from that vantage point. Now, granted, the judges are about five feet closer and they are elevated. Like, they're actually up at the eye level, the octagon on a little lower than the octagon on the table for media.

So they have a little better vantage point. But ultimately, they're still looking at, you know, when you're across the cage, like, it doesn't seem like it's very far, but it is far. Like, you can't really see the nuances of, like, when someone's going for submission sometimes when they're all the way across the cage. So, like, they've talked about doing that.

where you put them in the back and they have a TV screen because you can see better on the screen. Like you just can. That's the reason why when you watch the commentary teams, when you watch Joe Rogan or John Anick or whoever, they're watching the monitors. They're not watching the octagon. They're watching the monitors because they get a better view of what's actually happening.

So, like, there's all kinds of issues here of what you can do to fix it. Again, I'm not trying to get into like a whole conversation of fixing judging, but this one was so egregiously bad that it's not even, like, the criteria. It's not like, you know, it's not like he wasn't looking to screen. This guy just had no idea what he was looking at. Like, he was just, I think I finished with like, okay, we could always say it's not the criteria, but dude, you don't even need to know the other criteria. Like that was, it is that bad of a decision. Like this is a, again, my mom could have watched that. And my mom doesn't even watch my fights, by the way. When I use her as an example, she's not a big

getting a May fan. She wishes I didn't do this. So, you know, she could watch, my grandmother could watch the Pines and tell you who won that one, you know, like this, it was that bad of a decision. And, you know, we could harp on it all night, man. And, you know, we did on Twitter a little bit. And, you know, and it's the same thing, man. We're just going to, it's like another bad decision. This one just to me was just the fact he gave him three, rounds too. You know, if there was like one round in question, right? I think one judge gave him a 49-46,

right? Maybe a different judge gave him. Some people were talking about third round. He gave him three rounds. You cannot justify that. That is absolutely fucking ludicrous. You don't know of here with that. And as I said, and just to close out on this, Matt, and again,

the right guy won. We keep saying that, you know, thankfully. But there was also, like, I know there was talk about, like, Macy, Barbara, Andrea Leifide. There was a little controversy in that scorecard that night. I didn't get into like the, I'll be honest, I didn't watch that fight from start to finish. I basically watched the main and co-main from start to finish. I was gone on Saturday, so I wasn't actually watching the event from start to finish.

But anyways, again, I just want to mention again, the right guy won, but we also talk about when the right guy doesn't win, the opportunities to get taken away. We talk immediately about loose and happy. There's just so many repercussions of when a judge gets. it wrong. Like I said, we blow up and say, oh my God, this guy got robbed, but then you think about, well, they just lost half their paycheck, opportunities, maybe sponsors, maybe their next

con, like, again, I think that has to be pointed out, like, yes, Corey Sanagan won and the right guy won, and thankfully two judges actually watched a fight. But, again, as you said, imagine if one guy didn't, imagine there's one more guy. And he got it, and now, what, Corey's, what, he's on, you know, he's on a loss, you know,

that Morab fight goes away, he's no longer close to a title shot. Like, so many things go away because these judges can screw up a fight. Yeah, and then we forget about it tomorrow. And that's why- Blow up, talk our Twitter shit, talk our podcast shit. And we're like, all right, on to the next thing. There's too many fights anyway, so.

Yeah, but that's what I'm talking about. Like, that's the realism, right? Like, you, like, again, I keep going back to you because we taught, and I know yours was a closer fight. But again, you lost half your pay, you know? Maybe you would have been. Maybe you would have gotten a tough. 15 fight of that. I know you said on the podcast, you're not necessarily chasing titles anymore,

but like you could have had a co-main event or a main or a main card fight on a big pay-per-view. Like, again, little things like that go away because you're off a loss and not a win. Well, you know, in my particular situation, you know, like I said, I lost Condit and now Barbarina, right? So I'm on a two-fight losing streak. Both of them I felt like I won. I think, you know, there is an argument to be made that Condit beat me. So, you know, I'm not going to, again, I'm not going to harp on it. I don't dwell on either of these. It's just part of the conversation that we're having right now. But a two-fight winning streak versus a two-fight losing streak,

your mind is a lot different on where you're going to go with your career, right? Like right now, you know, I'm saying, yeah, I'm probably not, you know, not really looking to get a title fight or anything. I'm just going to do a few more fights and do it for fun and things like that. whereas if it's on a two-fight winning streak against those guys, you're like, okay, maybe I would start thinking about, you know, going for a run or something, you know?

And it's not that that's out of question now anyway, but, you know, that's not where my mind is. I'm like, I got to get back on the W column. Yeah. This is not, you know, just exclusive to me. This is just my situation that I'm talking about. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right.

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 with 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 Tread Plus at OnePeloton.ca. When I got a great deal on a great gift at Winners, I started wondering,

could I get fabulous gifts for everyone on my list? Like this designer fragrance for my daughter. At just $39.99, how could I resist? This luxurious wool throw for my sister. This gold watch for my partner? A wooden puzzle for my niece? Leather gloves for my boss? Ooh, European chocolate for the crossing guard?

At these prices, could I find something for everyone at Winners? Stop wondering. Start gifting. Winners find fabulous for less. Real quick, obviously we talked a little bit about scoring and everything. This past weekend, you mentioned boxing with Willie Pep. This past weekend there was a big boxing match. David Benavides beat Caleb Plant. You know what's funny going in, I'm, again, I've said this a million times in the show.

I'm not a huge boxing guy. Matt, you are a huge boxing guy. But I do watch the big fights. This was a big fight. I'm a big Benavides guy. I like him a lot. And I actually thought going into the fight that Caleb Plant was being a little bit underrated.

Turns out I was right with my initial instinct, that David Benavides is a freaking badass. Because, man, he looked good. And boy, I tell you what, he looked amazing. And now he wants Canello. And I'm just, I don't know if Canella really wants Benavita.

I don't know. You tell me, like, am I a little too high on the David Benavita's train right now? No, I was never as high on the David Benavita's train until last weekend.

And I've been fairly high on him. I just never thought he really had a chance to beat Canello or I kind of, thought Caleb playing would probably give him a tougher time than he did. I thought Caleb would probably make him miss a lot more. And, you know, Caleb made it difficult for him, but, you know, Benavita has shined. You know what I mean? So now watching Benavita has come up through the ranks, I've been watching him for a while.

And I am set he is going to beat Canello. Just stylistically, I think he's a terrible matchup for Canello. I think with his jab, he's got one of the best jabs out there. He's long, he's tall. He hits very hard, has a lot of power. And I don't think Canelo has ever dealt with someone like that. And I think that that's kind of Canello's weakness, really, is like someone that can jab well and withstand the power or hit him with some power, I should say. And, you know, Conno's going to hit him, though, also.

And I think that's going to be the biggest question is if Benavides can handle him. handle Canello's power. And Canello is very slick and it's very good defense. But, you know, Canelo's going to try to walk him down. That's what he generally does, right? He's sort of a pressure guy likes to walk you down. He's gotten slicker and slicker over the years. But, you know, he really shines when he walks people down.

And I don't think he's going to be able to walk down David Benavides because of his jab and his power. Let me ask you this, Matt. I'm asking this question because, again, I'm not as experience and understanding of boxing. But obviously, like, when Canelo went up and lost a fight to Demetri Bivel, like, I think even though he was going up a weight class and obviously, and all those things were in account, people were still, you know, thinking this is Canello at his best. Canelo's, you know, still pound for pound best guy in the world. And then Bivel put on a performance, and you're like, okay, well, maybe it was a bad idea going up that high in weight, whatever the case may be.

I think back of, now, obviously their ages are different. I know that. Like when Canello fought Triple G, I thought he lost. you know, he lost. Yeah, so. The third fight. Yeah, so the third fight was not really great. Like, it was Canelo and Triple G, you could just tell he was a little older.

You know, he wasn't the same Triple G that was just blowing people out of the water, you know, five, five, six years ago. And we all knew it at that point. Now, that's not to say Triple G can't go out there and knock out some people and win some more fights. I'm just saying, like, maybe he's not that guy anymore. Like, he's not the number one guy anymore. Maybe number three, number four. Are people catching up to Canello a little bit now? Or is Canela slowing down at all?

Or is this just really like the competition is just that much better now? Because I remember a few years ago, outside of the Triple G fight, like there was just not a fight where I felt like confident somebody could beat Canella. Now, I fully admit, I did think Triple G could do it. And I did think he did at least once. But again, that's neither here nor there. But I don't know. I'm not saying this as a, I'm not saying this as a negative to Canella.

I'm just saying, like, am I, is there some validity in the competition is Kevin catching up to Canella? And maybe is Canela taking a step back now? I don't know. I'm curious. I'd say in my opinion. And there's going to be a lot of different opinions on all those questions that you have there, right? I can only give you my opinion. I picked Bevall to beat them.

And not just because this size, but because Bevall is very fundamental and a little bit awkward. But does the fundamentals just so fucking well. and moves very well and has a great jab. That's, again, when you talk about fundamentals of boxing, like having a great jab goes farther than just about anything else. That's why Triple G beat him

the one time that he did beat him, even though they didn't give it to him. You know, it was because of the jab. I also, see, in my opinion, Canelo has never been as great as they have made him out to be. He is a great boxer. he's a champion he's a hall of famer all that but he's not number one pound for pound I never has been in my opinion I believe he's lost a few fights uh arsalandi laura for one I think

beat him really badly actually um I picked bevold to beat him now I'm picking benavides to beat him and again I've just never been as big on canella I'm a huge canello fan so not like putting them down or anything or trying to be, you know, that guy or anything, you know, but to be honest, I just don't think he is as great as they make him out to me. And one of the things I love about Canelo is he goes out to prove me wrong, too. Like he goes, like he went up and wait to fight me bowl, and that was very respectful. He fought Triple G three times, which I didn't think he would do. With all I said, yeah, I think the competition's catching up to him. And, and because he was never,

that far above all these guys to begin with. So yeah, so it's not, so it's kind of a combination of thing. It's not necessarily he's losing a step. It's maybe that he wasn't, in your opinion, maybe. I hate using the word overrated, maybe a little bit. He was made to be a little bit better than what he actually was, like that kind of thing. Like just a little bit like, you know, like I, people are going to lose their minds when I say this, like, because I've picked him many, many times, but like a little bit

of our, like when Connor McGregor was on top of the world and he was being everything, he looked unstoppable, but then you put him in. against the Khabib, that's just a bad matchup, and he's just not Khabi. Like, he's just not, that's just going to be a fight that he's going to lose probably nine times out of 10, if not 10 times out of 10, just because that's always going to be a bad matchup for him. In a way, in a way, Connell is a little bit of that. Like, he's probably going to struggle with Bivel every single time.

Like, that's never going to be a fight that he's going to look good in. I think you're not who stands up somewhat. I would only disagree a little bit because I actually think Connor is that good. I'm not saying, I'm not saying, I'm saying like in certain matchups. Like I'm not saying Connor lost the step. I'm just saying like as on top of the world as Connor was, Kavid was always going to be a bad matchup for him.

Yeah, this is where I think we've had this conversation before, where I disagree a little bit. I think, yeah, actually, if he stays himself and trains the way he did coming up and puts everything together, I don't think Kabib beats him 10 out of 10 times. I think it's more like 5 out of 10. I think I think Connor is way closer to beating Khabib than people think he is.

I disagree on that one. I disagree. I think everybody would disagree. But I see a lot of little details when I watch that fight. I watch it like three or four times. And Conner made very, very small mistakes in stopping the takedown. Very small. which I guarantee if he goes back, has the right coaches and everything,

has that hunger to train and drill like he used to, I think they could be fixed and I think he could come back and beat him. I mean, I think if Connor could do to Khabib what Volkanowski did to Islam, except you have Connor's power because Volcanovsky is not known as a power puncher. He's a volume puncher. He'll put your lights out, but he'll do it over four rounds. Connor can do it with one hand. If Connor had that kind of take down defense, it's a different fight.

I just haven't seen him. I've said this a million times, and I appreciate his loyalty to John Kavanaugh, and I appreciate everything. But, like, I want Connor to work with, like, world class. I want him to bring in, you know, Bo Nickel and, you know, and Gable Stevenson and, you know, guys like that, like Roman Bravo Young, who just won an NCAA, bring in these just monstrous wrestlers who are going to do. You're not going to throw.

punches. They're just going to put you on the ground and you got to get up, get up, get. Like, I want to say, and I just, that's the one thing I feel like that's always been missing from Conner's game in terms of the wrestling is even Porre was taking him down. I'm not saying Porre is an good wrestler. Porre is an incredible fighter all the way around. But I'm saying, like, Porier is not a guy you would look at saying, man, his takedowns are just off the charts. You know what I mean? Like, that's not what Porier does at his very best. He's known for his incredible boxing, his lightning quick speed and I want to see if Colin is a little high It's all hypothetical.

It is. Me personally believing that Connor, more of his falloff was due to his own personal partying and issues than it was his talent. I think he has the talent to beat anybody in the world. I think he actually has the talent to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest of all time. But he enjoyed the spoils of war too much and it's over. And that's why it's so hypothetical now because he's not going back. to that grind that he was in one time.

He's not going to that he's still going to win fights. I think he has a great shot against Chandler. I think it's going to be an amazing fight. But he's not going to go through that wrestling grind that he has to go through to beat Kabin. You wonder, like, it's so crazy. When he beat Eddie Alvarez, and I was there that night,

and that was one of the most incredible performances, the way he just absolutely danced around. I mean, it was. Eddie Alvarez is a really good fighter and he just I mean it looked like a mismatch like it was not it was not a fight like you don't do that to Eddie Alvarez like Eddie Alvarez like Eddie Alvarez you know what I mean you do not do that to Eddie Alvarez he just I mean it was I was like I was stunned and I picked Connor to win that fight but I was like my god I didn't expect you to go like that um you wonder if he just continues on at that point and doesn't do the Mayweather fight like because I think that was Connor to speak. And if Connor kept going after that in 2016 going to 2017, I would agree with you. I think we might be talking about the greatest mixed martial artist in history. He was on a run. His confidence was sky high. He was as good as ever. He took that. I don't fault him for taking that payday, by the way. He took $100 million payday. Anyone would do that. I would do that

today, Matt. You know what I mean? Matt, we talked to the last couple weeks ago, like, you would never fight your friends. If somebody offered us $100 million to fight each other to fight, the fight would last seconds, but fuck yeah, I'd take that money, and you would too. $100 million, hell yeah. And it would be the easiest fight of your life. But I'm just saying, like, I don't fault him for taking the money. That's life-changing. That's generation-changing money.

But I also think that one moment changed everything for the course of his career. Yeah, it changed everything for the course of mixed martial arts period, right? Like, wouldn't Godot be where he's at right now and Connor not done that? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, it's just so weird. Like, it's just like that one, like, again, I'm like, I'm of two minds. Like, I can't say he did it wrong because, of course, $100 million,

biggest, second biggest pay for you in history. Of course you do that. But on the flip side, I just don't think Connor was ever the same after that. Like, he took off two years. He came back and fought a Khabib who was hungry, who was just nasty at that point. He had all the, just that was. Kabib in 2019 or 2018 when they fought was what Connor was in 2016. You know what I mean?

Like, he had, oh, man, he was on a roll. And he looked like a monster. He was only boxing. He was only boxing. Like, like, boxing is fucking hard. But it is not wrestling hard. Like, when you grind with wrestlers, with high-level wrestlers, it is a different fucking grind that not, like, it sucks, bro.

Especially for the first, like, year, two years. Like, I was at the high RTC with those guys for years. and I mean, I never got to their level. But, dude, when I say it sucks, like, I was young. It sucks every day. Like, the things that wrestlers can do to you are the worst things that you can imagine. And when I say what they could do to you, yes, they could do sexual things to you if they wanted to. Right.

Like, when you're going with a guy smaller than you, that can put you in any position he wants, any moment that he wants. Like that is so much more miserable than just getting punched in the face a bunch of times. Like I would rather get punched in the face any day by a fucking Floyd Mayweather or Canello or Bevall or whatever. Then you go up against these Olympic level wrestlers, you know, like a bow-knuckle, right? Didn't you used to train Logan Steber when he was there? He was down there when you were there. Me?

Yeah. I mean, Logan was there, but he, I mean, he's a. 130, 130, 140 pounds. I didn't go with him. I wasn't sure. He's still a monster, though. I got so I'm talking about it.

Don't be wrong. He probably still fucked me up. No, some of my main training partners down there, you know, somebody names, Keith Gavin was probably one of my main guys. He's the head coach at Pitt now. He was number, I want to say number two on the Olympic ladder.

He might have even got on a world team once or twice. But, you know, he's every bit of world medalist level. He was one of my main guys. Mike Bicillo was a big guy who was a two-time national champion. And one of the things I found out about him is he actually won one of those with a torn peck. Like, I mean, this is what I'm talking about with wrestlers. Like, these guys are a different fucking breed, man. Like, are you seeing any boxers out there winning with torn pecks?

You know what I mean? Like, it is a different. fucking breed of person, man. And these guys aren't doing it for the glory, right? Are doing it for money. Right? Like, you know, Canelo might be one of the toughest guys

world, but he's also getting paid $50 million every time he steps in there. These guys are doing a 10 times tougher sport and then getting jacked shit. You know, I mean, they get a little bit. You know, they live a decent lifestyle or whatever. But, you know, they're on the fucking

mats all day, man. when you talk about a different sport, like you can't, like you can't describe it until you feel it. Like it's something you have to go in and do and you have to experience to understand how miserable it can be. I went with Kyle Snyder, for instance, when he was 16 years old.

He was on a recruiting trip. And because NCAA regulations, he's not allowed to go with the team. So they put him with me, you know, just this, you know, stupid fighter guy that'll go head to head with anybody and, you know, scrap hard as I can and give him a good look, right? And thank God he went on to be a freaking Olympic champion

one of the best wrestlers America's ever seen because I'm 32 years old at the time. He's 16. And, I mean, he literally could have done anything he wanted to me. I had no recourse whatsoever. So, and you're talking about a 16-year-old kid, you know, like, wrestling is different, bro.

Again, when you're in there with these guys, like J.D. Bergman was one of my favorite guys. I mean, he could just get another guy. I could just do anything he wanted to me. You know, he was a Big Ten champion, All-American more than once. And at the time I was going with him, he's wrestling at 211 pounds.

So he's walking around 215. And, you know, he was being pretty light with me most of the time. But you're talking about, you know, you're bending down for an hour straight with a guy pulling down on you and pushing you, you know, pulling on your back, pulling on your neck, grabbing your arms. And again, there's nothing you can do to stop it. People don't understand until you've experienced it. They don't understand when I say there's nothing you can do to stop it. There is nothing. Like, it's like me playing with my children.

It's funny you say that because I remember talking to Kyle Dake a couple years ago. Olympic bronze medalist, four-time world champion, four-time NCAA champion. One of the best wrestlers in America today. And I remember I interviewed him a couple years ago before the Olympics, and he had talked about doing a grappling match with Kabib, like a grappling, not a wrestling match, like a pure grappling match. He said, yeah, it would be a lot of fun. I asked him, was like, so you're talking about grappling, not wrestling, and he kind of laughed. He's like, no, no, not wrestling, grappling.

And I was like, oh, so you wouldn't want to wrestle him. He's like, no, that's not a fair fight. Like, that's just not fair. Like, me wrestling, Khabib, is not fair. And I said the same thing to Kyle Snyder, because Kyle at one point was like, I want to fight, I want to fight. And, you know, he eventually said, I don't want to fight. I'm just going to stick to winning gold medals and winning medals from the United States.

And I said at some point, I said, would you ever consider doing, like, a wrestling like, you know, like, they had like, whatever. And he's like, it just wouldn't be fair. Like, when Jordan Burroughs wrestled Ben Asker after he had been out of wrestling. Remember when they did that, it beat the streets a couple of years. good. It was like 16 nothing or whatever. It was like just a, it was over in like two minutes. And that's Ben Ascran. He was an Olympian, a two-time national champion and Jordan just toyed with him. Because when you're wrestling on a daily basis, like it's a different level.

Like, Khabib is an incredible wrestler. It's a macachia is an incredible wrestler. You throw them in against Kyle Snyder, against David Taylor, against Kyle Dake. They're going to get wrapped up like a bow and thrown down to the ground because it's just a different. Like you said, it's just different. Wrestling. And that's a great. wrestling for MMA. So yeah, but that's why I talked about with Connor going back to the Connor conversation. Like, when you're not that guy for a little while, you just lose it. And I just don't think he ever got it back. And that's not to say I don't think Conner's great. I think Connor's incredible. But I just think it's like that one moment in his life. He zigged left and I don't

blame him for taking the payday. But imagine if he's zigged right. Imagine if he just kept going on that path where he was the baddest motherfucker on the planet. Right. And you see that in all fighters and even all athletes all together, right? There's a, you have a window of time when you're firing on all eight cylinders. And as soon as one of those cylinders starts misfiring, somebody's taking your spot, man, because they're going to be firing on all eight cylinders. And that's the game, man. That's what makes it so exciting.

Everybody's so fucking hungry. And, you know, and Connor's not on all eight cylinders anymore. And like I said, if he was for a long time, I think he, you know, again, it's hypothetical, but I think he could be anybody in the world. Well, I mean, let's not forget, and I'm just throwing this out there, that, you know, there was once upon a time on our old podcast

when someone was convinced that Jose Aldo was going to be Connor McGregor, and there's somebody else sitting on the other side who said Connor McGregor's going to win, and I put down $250 against somebody else, and I said Connor McGregor's going to win, and then, you know, when it was 16 seconds later, I was right. I'm not saying the other person who made that bets, the other person on the other end of this conversation,

but I'm just saying, I wasn't, I'm definitely a Connor guy, Like I picked Connor many, many times. I just, again, we talked, I know this is a little slightly different conversation. We talked about it last week with the whole age thing. Like, you know, fighters over 35, fighting for UFC titles like 2 and 28, whatever the ridiculous record is at lower weight class, be smaller than 185. And I know age is a slightly different conversation, but it's the same kind of thing, like same kind of theory.

Like when you, when that, when something changes, when that younger guy is hungry and that guy's coming for you and you lose just a little bit of. of a step, whether it's just maybe you're not wrestling as much or maybe you're sleeping on silk sheets or whatever we want to talk about. Like that, just that little bit is the difference we're winning and losing in this sport. And when that other guy comes up and he's willing to do what you're not, or he's doing what you're not, not that you're not willing, but he's just doing it at a different level than you're doing. That's just, that's the nature of the beast, man. Like I said, this is, this is, you know, this is man versus beast kind of thing. You know what I mean?

when you lose and I think Connor I 100% of the doubt in my mind if he had fought if he had fought could be right after the Eddie Alvarez fight without skipping a beat I'd be with you 50-50 100% I'd be with you coming back from the Mayweather fight

I was no longer 50-50 right right so that's yeah that's where I'm out like and I don't even know necessarily right after the Eddie Alvarez fight but you know I think it would have been more competitive for sure at that point but I even I don't even know if Connor was going through that wrestling grind at that point.

But I think my whole point is if Connor took that time at some point in his career, went through that wrestling grind. I think, you know, he was excel in it. And I think he'd be able to beat Khabib. Yeah, he could. I mean, you could throw that guy in the Penn State Wrestling room for him. And when you're talking about guys like Connor and Khabib, you know, fighting at that level, you know, especially, you know, like guys like Kibb fighting at that level.

I mean, you know, to beat a guy like that, you know, you're not going to beat him 10 out of 10 times. Yeah, no. That's just the nature of the sport, right? You're not beating the guy 10 out of 10 times. Like, I don't think Alex is going to be Izzy 10 out of 10 times. They might end up fighting 10 times. You know, Izzy's going to have to find that magic moment, you know?

But that would be next week's conversation. But, you know, again, when you're at that level, like 10 out of 10 doesn't work. Like, you have to be so on point that single night. It's so funny before we get out of here, we talk about Khabib and his team, the monsters. I mean, good God, that team right now. You got obviously Kibb's retired. He's not coaching as much now, but you got Islamchav on top of the world. You got Usman Nirmagamatov ruling over in Bellator.

You got Umar Nirmagamatov, who is a freaking monster, all these up-and-comers. And then I just broke the news last week. The Olympic silver medalist in wrestling from 2020 who beat Kyle Dake, blanked him, 11-0 in the Olympics. His full name, check out this name, Matt. Now he goes by a different name now. Magamad Khabib, Kaji Magamatov. That is like the most badass Russian name.

Like, you were just fucked fighting that guy. Listen to that. Magamad Khabib is his first name. You got those two names combined. You ain't beating this dude. He's going by Kaji Megamatov is what he's going to go by professionally now in MMA. He signed with Belator.

He trains with the Nirmagamatov team. He came up under the Nirmagamatov team in Dagestan. Holy shit. Like here's another one. A silver medal. He's a featherweight. He's going to fight a featherweight. He beat Kyle Dake 11-0-0 in the Olympics two years ago.

Oh, my God. This dude is what's so fucking exciting about this sport, man. When I was coming up in this sport, I mean, I guess we had like Mark Coleman and, you know, occasionally, you know, amazing athlete like that. But, you know, these guys are starting to make the move into MMA and, you know, like the Bo Nichols and, you know, Kaji. and I mean, bro, this is, you know, even the kickboxers, Alex and Izzy, you know, this sport is going fucking places, man. It's just amazing, bro. Like, the athletes coming into this sport, wow. We're off to the races now, and it's just going to be a sight to see.

And I'm glad I don't have to fight that sum of a bitch. That's all I'm telling you. Well, we're going to talk about some fights next week because next week is going to be our official preview show for UFC 287. We're going to talk about Israel-Aad of Sonia against Alex Pereira 4, 5, 3, 2, whatever you want to call it. They fought four times now, two times in MMA. It's going to be amazing. I can't wait to talk about that. We're also going to talk, of course, about Gilbert Burns and Jorge Madswindal. That's an incredible fight. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to break down fights, give our picture predictions and break down

everything from that. And, of course, the fallout. This weekend we don't have as many cards. PFL's coming back. Of course, Bellator's got a card. Of course, there is that game bread boxing event with Roy Jones Jr. against Anthony Pettus. That's an interesting one on maybe different levels than what we're thinking. And then Jose Aldo boxing Jeremy Stevens. Jacare is boxing Vitor Belfort. So I don't know. We'll see how this whole thing plays out over the weekend.

So we'll maybe talk a little bit about that on Monday. I don't know. We'll see. But we're going to definitely talk about UFC 287 next week, of course. And we'll get one week closer to Matt's fight as we continue with the camp countdown, so to speak, for Matt Brown versus Court McGee up on May 13. before we get out of here, where can people check you out? Where can people support your sponsors?

Support the people who are supporting you. Yeah, you know, you can check me out on Instagram, Twitter, at I am the Immortal Facebook, the Immortal Matt Brown. Check out my sponsors, routine.c.c.r-O-O-T-I-N-E dot CO, multivitamin, precision nutrition specifically made for you. They take your blood, your DNA, build a multivitamin around what you need, your deficiencies, what else, the immortal coffee.com. you know no crash coffee man best coffee you're ever going to have have you had my coffee by the way

i have not had your coffee why are you so are you too a coffee guy i'm not a big coffee guy now oh that's why you haven't had it yeah i'm not but but but you could still give us some coffee because my girlfriend loves coffee she loves coffee so she's the one she could probably testify to the immortal coffee so you want to give us a place about 15 20 minutes away from your house where you can go purchase them oh really where is this at it's in Lewis Center it's called the Immortal Martial Arts Center

let's get another advertisement I was trying to lead you in that advertisement there let's lead into the gym that's making champions up there in Lewis Center Ohio yeah well so far a bunch of amateur champions at least but we've got some guys working a way up

the nice thing about my gym is like all the guys are homegrown you know there's not any guys that you know I don't invite guys to come from other gyms and stuff. You know, local gyms I do. But, you know, I'm not inviting guys to come. I'm not trying to swindle or, you know, pay guys to come train, build this bad-ass team

like that. Like I want all the guys coming up under me, building that trust and loyalty. And, you know, they're few and far between. But that's what it's all about, man. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, so make sure you check all this stuff to support Matt. And, of course, we'll be back next week with another edition of Fighter versus the Writer talking about UFC 287.

Make sure to check us on on all of your favorite podcast platforms, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and of course over on the best website in the world, MMAFighting.com. We will see you next week for another edition of the Fighter versus the Rider. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you then. Fox Media Podcast Network. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line.

But first, there, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause. that refreshes.