MMA Fighting - Fighter vs. Writer: Reaction to UFC 314, What’s Next for Paddy Pimblett and Michael Chandler and GFL Crashes and Burns

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

On the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer, Matt Brown and Damon Martin react to the fallout from UFC 314 including Paddy Pimblett’s huge win, what happens to Michael Chandler after another devastating loss, Jean Silva’s star power plus GFL crashes before holding a single show plus much more. Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 will 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. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Back to the fighter versus the writer. I'm Damon Martin. He is UFC legend Matt Brown,

and we are now living in a post-GFC 314 WorldMat where Alexander Volcanowski is once again Fedowweight Champion of the World. And Patty Pimbled, wow, what a performance. Absolutely beat down Michael Chandler finishing him in the third round. Overall, incredible card. Main card was incredible.

What a show. Yeah, hell of a weekend, man. I mean, first, you got to start with Volcanovsky, right? I mean, what a fucking soldier, man. We got to give him all the props in the world. And, you know, it wasn't an easy fight for him either. I mean, Diego's a tough son of a bitch and game all he can handle. But, man, I felt I was a little bit skeptical, you know, I called that that Volk was

going to turn up like that. And I'm just really happy he did. You know, I think he's a great guy, great champion. But I was a little skeptical of my own pick, you know? especially after all my other picks kind of fell apart. Yeah, I was super, I mean, again, it wasn't, you know, Diego didn't get blown out of the water, but, you know, Volk definitely won. But super impressive.

My first guy ever, over 35 to win a title at the lower weight classes. That says a lot about Volcanowski. I've said for a while now, I know people disagree, and it's okay you disagree. Even he disagreed. He said, like somebody asked him, you know, the featherweight goat, and he said, I still have Aldo number one. I put Volcan number one for that reason, because what he just did, like, no one's ever done that. Like, that's history. And, you know, he's, he's close in total title fights and wins as Aldo. But I think that achievement, you know, when Aldo, you know, I know, Aldo lost to Connor and then came back and he won. He did win a title against Frankie Edgar, but then he lost a one fight later to Max Holloway. I just think it's so impressive that, you know, he gets knocked out by Toporia, comes back, beats a young gun like Diego Lopez and, you know, does an impressive fashion. So for me, I put Volcan top. But again, I don't, I think Aldo's

incredible. I'm certainly not negating what Jose Aldo did. I just personally, I'm like, man, I think Volk to me is the featherweight goat now. But again, I understand the other side. But what an incredible performance, man. And like I said, proved a lot of people wrong, myself included. Like I thought Diego was going to get it done and Volk got it done. Man, Vogue's always in the game, bro. Like, it's going to be interested to see how long he lasts, man, because, I mean, you know, he's in a killer division. But, man, I mean, he just seems like he's just got durability for days. man and he can keep you know he's just got that style where he can always find a way you know there's just like nowhere you know i mean things happen right he's lost but there's nowhere where he really

tends to get dominated you know uh you know he got knocked out by islam obviously and you know but you know they were i wouldn't call him flukes by any means right but they were you know kind of one punch, one kick knockout types things, you know, it wasn't like he got dominated and then, and then lost. I mean, I think, you know, Tupori was ahead of him the whole time before he knocked him out, but, you know, he's just not the type

of guy that's going to go out there and get dominated anytime soon. It doesn't look like. And, you know, you hung with Islam on the ground in their first fight, right? I mean, it's hard to imagine, like, how he's just going to, how he's going to be taken down, you know, other than, you know, Tuporia, you know, big,

one punch knockout guy. Yeah. And credit to him, too, because he did, he actually got knocked down, like not hard knocked down, but he got dropped a couple, you know, kind of flashed knockdowns in that fight. I think Diego Lopez is going to rewatch that fight, kind of kick himself in the ass, and he didn't kind of go broke in those moments. Because I think he kind of, he hurt him, and I think he's almost like, I don't want to spend too much energy because Volk is so tough.

And so he kind of let Volk recover a little bit. I bet he's going to rewatch that fight and be like, I should have just gone for the kill. I don't know that he would have finished, or maybe he would have gassed out. I don't know. But I think he's going to rewatch him, like, oh, I should have. should have gone for it but credit the vault he got dropped but he came back he didn't he didn't

he didn't go down from it and I'd say after every fight win or lose you're kicking yourself in the ass so it's like you might as well just get used to that and you know I'm sure there's guys that don't do that but I think most guys like you know we're watching the fights of ourselves and we're thinking why didn't I do that

even if you dominated someone you're like dude I could have you know done a flying spinning cap away a kick you know right why didn't I do that there's excuse me, there's always another, why didn't I do that? Yeah, Diego is definitely going to be going back to John Borton, putting the pieces together, and as he should, right? Yeah, I mean, but overall, I mean, he's got to be happy with his performance.

As fast as he's risen up to the top and as much as hype has been around him and everything, I think he should be happy with that personally. I mean, he debuted New CLS than two years ago. I mean, that's a crazy fast rise. I mean, you listen, and we know title shots don't get given away every day. So, you know, who knows? Maybe he never gets back here again. We have no idea how it's going to play out.

But I feel like Diego's talented enough and smart enough that he can get back here. And, you know, just like anything else, we always say this. Like, you're never out of it. I mean, you know, I always use, I hate, I always use this example. But it's true. You know, Dustin, got knocked out by Justin Gachi, beats Benoit Saint-Dini, who wasn't even a top-10 fighter. And then, you know, he's back in a title fight.

So you're never truly out of it unless, you know, obviously. you go on like a really bad losing streak or something like that i guess you know unfortunately like the tony fogerson route or something but um you know you're never if you're if you're if you're an impressive fighter and you can win and you can get people on your side you can get right back into it yeah and i guess kind of where i was going with that was like what i really hope dago doesn't do is is go back and change everything up switch camps or you know make of huge changes in his style or training camp like he should be happy with what he is keep keep on keeping on keep doing what you're doing and just sharpen it up and make it better, you know, keep being you.

And I think he's going to do great. I think we've seen it far too often guys switching up camps or doing, you know, getting rid of their coach, you know, something like that. And actually, a guy said this to me once later in my career. And he was like, you know, we see it. He has a smaller gym, you know, and had like three or four UFC fighters. And he was like, you know, he said he's seen it a million times where his guys will come up and they'll win, you know, 10, 12 fights or something,

then they lose one and suddenly they want to switch camps. And it's like, I say, bro, like you won, like, statistically, like, we're still the camp for you, you know, like, you won 10 and only lost one. That's, you know, a 10 percent. So, yeah, it's a, Diego still has a huge ceiling, I think, you know, I think, a high ceiling. I think he's still got a lot of potential. It's just, you know, you got Volcanovsky at the wrong time, right?

Yeah, it was not like he got dominated. I mean, he lost, but he didn't get dominated. He didn't get beat up. Like, he lost the fight, but there's a difference between losing and getting beat up. Like, he didn't get beat up. He lost. And truth be told, like, a couple of key moments in there he could have won. Like, he lost on the scorecards, on my scorecard, I had it four rounds to one.

It could have been three to two. There was one round. It was pretty close. And I think I gave it to Volcanowski, but it could have probably gone to Diego. But when you're in like a, even, I know 4-1 even sounds extreme, but like, if you say 3-2, you're one round away from winning. One round. And I don't think he's going to do that.

I think he's got trust in his team and the people around him. And it seems like he knows. And listen, sometimes you don't win it on the first try. You know what I mean? Sometimes you've got to come back and get better. And I'm sure he will. And I think, remember, this is first main event,

first five-round fight in the UFC. Like, these are all things he's going to learn from and come back and get better. And again, me saying this, he just bought the greatest featherweight of all time. There's really no shame in that. that you went to a pretty good decision with one of the greatest ever. So that's not a bad place to be.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. Like you said, he didn't get beat up. Like, you know, someone else on the card that we didn't expect to get beat up, right? Yeah, that's a real quick before we move on. Let me just throw this out to you, Matt. I think you'll probably agree with me. So I know Yaya Rodriguez beat Patricia Pitbull. Great win for him.

And I know Jean Silva, we're going to talk about him. Obviously went out there and thumped Bryce Mitchell. I love both of those. There's all this discussion now, but who gets the next title shot? It's Moussar Ebloev. Give him the title shot. Like, no one else. No one else should get it now.

Like, if Diego won, I can see where you're like, you know what, we got to do the Yair fight in Mexico. It's too big. It's a massive fight. And they had bad blood. They went out of the presser. I get it. I don't agree with it, but I get it.

Now there's nothing. You have no reason not to book that fight. Mosear deserves it. He's on the longest winning streak. Yaya lost two in a row. And yes, he did beat Patricia Pibble. It was a great win. But come on now.

And, like, John Silva just beat his first-rank guy, and Bryce Mitchell was like number 13. Let's slow down here. It's most our envelope. I know he may not be the most exciting guy. And maybe he's not your favorite fighter. But he deserves the title shot, right? I think you would agree.

Oh, 100%. And, I mean, there's an argument to me made that he should have got the title shot over at Diego, right? He beat Diego. So, you know, I think there's a good argument. He beat Al Jermaine in his last fight, if I'm remembering, right? I mean, yeah. Yeah, I mean, the guy 100% deserves it, you know, and that's going to be a very tough test for Volcanowski, too, right?

That's not going to be, you know, Moussaar has a lot of tools to bring to that table and has a lot of, I think he just brings a different dimension than I think what Volk has fought against before. I agree. I agree. Now, it's funny, Matt, because while the main event was, I've had the way title fight, and it was great. It was a fight of the night. The attention going in this card really centered around two fights.

It centered around Jean Silva and Bryce Mitchell, which we'll talk about in a minute. It's circled around Patty Pimbley and Michael Chandler. Now, I'll be the first to admit, hand on heart. I got it completely wrong. I thought Chandler, it was set up for Chandler to go out there and put on a classic Chandler performance and just really go out there and just knock his dick in the dirt and just blow him out of the water because I thought he had that in him. Boy, did that not happen.

Patty Pimbleau proved a lot of people wrong. This guy included. What a performance from Patty Pimlet. I mean, first round, Chandler did get a take down, but he didn't really hurt Patty. He just kind of took him down and, like, controlled him a little bit. But then, man, it was almost like he couldn't figure it out, and Patty just beat him up. And then to take him down and do what he did to him in the second round, I mean, to take him to mull him on the ground and to finish him with strikes on the ground, that's pretty damn impressive. I mean, Patty Pimble really showed me something on Saturday.

United. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think it took everybody off guard, not just the fact that he won. I think we all gave him a chance to win, but the way that he won, you know, and came out of there practically unscathed, you know, and just beat the hell out of Chandler. And, you know, I guess there's, for me, I mean, there's a little bit of, I don't know how, how you feel about it or how others feel about it. You know, there's a little bit of questions in me. It's like, okay, you know, how great Chandler, how great really was Chandler

or is Patty really all that, right? Because Patty, I've seen a stat the other day. His last three opponents are like 1 and 13 or 0 in 13, something,

some ridiculous stat like that. So, but also we've never seen, I mean, Chandler has absolutely fought the best. And, you know, he's beat some really good guys too.

And, you know, especially like back in Bellatory, beat some really good guys. So, you know, I guess there's still a little question.

mark in my head. Like, you know, was Chandler just not UFC material? Maybe did his head get a little bit off course, right? Maybe, you know, played a little bit, it was too much into the Arturo Gotti role that Dana kind of called him, right? Maybe bought into that a little bit too much.

Or is Patty really all that good? You know? I mean, he certainly looked good last weekend. Did he look like a champion? I'm not sure about that. I think, I know, And you say this a lot, and you're absolutely right when you say this about, you know, you got to give credit where credits do.

Don't take away the win from one guy or don't take away, you know. So you're absolutely right. But I do think you make a valid point here. And that's not to diminish what Patty did. What Patty did was incredible. He looked amazing. And he should absolutely get all the credit in the world. I think Dustin Porre said it on the post fight show.

He said that, you know, man, that fight proved Patty is legit. But at the same time, you can't help but wonder if, like, the clock has run out on Michael Chandler. Because he's like in that second round, it just didn't look. look like Chandler. He was slow. He didn't look like his gas tank was there. And then he just got beat up. I mean, and, and again, like even Chandler at, I don't know, 50%, 70%, whatever the number was, like, you know, he's still, he got beat up by Charles Olivaura six months ago and he still didn't get finished. And Patty finished him inside three rounds. So, you know, I'm not saying he's better than Charles Oliva. I'm just saying like if this is like the, if we're

starting to see the diminishing returns of Michael Chandler, he's still managed to go five rounds with Charles Holvera six months ago or five months ago and Patty finished him inside three so I think Patty still deserves credit but you can't not ask the question like have we just has the time just passed Michael Chandler like is he just he's 38 and I know like you can't live in this you can't live with the whole hindsight of this 2020 thing but like man like if there's one guy who's who's going to live with regret and that two years missed for the Connor McGregor thing you got to feel like because that's he's now 38 like you know that's a that's a lot. That's a big gap of timing miss when he could have been like kind of still in the

tail end of like what you would call the prime of your career. But yeah, I mean, listen, I know you said it. And I know I know you said it not as an insult to Patty, but you said that like fighting down in the rankings where Patty was like a fringe top 15 guy, if Michael Chandler loses, he might want to start thinking about the next thing. I agreed with you. And now I agree with even more because he not only lost, he got beat up. I mean, he's. He got mauled. He didn't just lose. He didn't lose a close decision.

It wasn't a war and man. Like, you can justify Porre and Gagie and say, man, those were just amazing fights and he lost. That wasn't close. It wasn't a fight of the night. He got mauled by Patty Pimbleau in two of the three rounds and got finished. Yeah. And I guess ultimately, I mean, the two things could both be true. They're not necessarily mutually exclusive, right?

Chandler is either past his prime or just wasn't what, you know, just wasn't you have seen material to begin with, right? And Patty is a top 10 guy. I think both things could be true at the same time. Like, Patty proved to me that he is a top 10 guy. You know, I wouldn't necessarily have had Michael Chandler ranked in the top 10 before that fight. So, like, in my, if I was doing the rankings. I would say you still need to beat a top 10 guy to be in the top 10, but you are absolutely worthy of fighting a top 10 guy. I think that's what he proved. And, you know, fight somebody that's maybe on a win streak this time, you know, and we'll see, you know, now we'll really know where you're at, but you've proved that you are valid in that match now, right? Like, you're not going to be discounted

when you go fight a true top 10 guy. And Chandler, you know, I have the questions of was his best years in Belator. And that's what I mean, but I mean, he's a great fighter. You know, I don't want to take anything away from him. But, you know, I get the feeling that just his best years were in Belator. And, you know, he got to the UFC a little bit too late. He was maybe out of his prime. Or he just kind of bought into the hype a little bit too much, right? And kind of, you know, kind of what I thought Justin Gage was going to turn into, like the guy that just goes out and puts on wars for fun and, you know, you know, sort of the old Chris Lytle type guy, right? Like, I'm just fighting for fight of the night type guy. And certainly he didn't.

turn out that way, but it seems that Michael Chandler maybe has kind of turned out that way. So I know we said it beforehand, like no one on this card was in a bigger do-or-die position than Michael Chandler, because even Volcanowski said, well, he's already cemented his legacy. He's one of the greatest champions, even if he lost, he's

already there. And we've said, you know, everyone, everyone always says something to lose, but we said Michael Chandler had the most to lose because a loss drops him to two and five, a loss in this fight means he lost to a fringe top 15 guy, which again, I think Patty Pimble has proven he's a top 10 guy now.

But again, at the time he was number 14 or 13 or whatever number it was, like the lowest ranked guy by a wide margin that Chandler had fought. I mean, what do you do with Chandler right now? You said it beforehand, like, maybe he's just started thinking about what's next. I don't know that I disagree. Like, I don't, because who do you have him fight? Like, what, you know what I mean? Like, he fights some random dude coming up to contender series?

Is that what we're at? Like, what are we talking about here? You know how the UFC is too. they'll always find a fight for him, right? And if they make it, we'll be like, oh, that actually makes a lot of sense, right? There's so many guys, like, there would be a fight that could be made. But, you know, Chandler said it himself, right? He, it's, it's a belt or nothing.

And it looks at this point like it's nothing. So, you know, and if that's really his mentality, if he's going to be who he says that he is, it's time to walk away. And I think that's pretty clear. If he's, you know, once they just keep fighting, you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think you put them in there with some guys who are just going to throw down and make fun fights, right? Like he's still got the name where he could be, you know, at least a co-main event, if not, you know, maybe even a main event on like fight nights or something, you know,

probably not going to get any pay-per-view draws at this point. But, you know, unless Connor McGregor comes back, right? Like, that was a perfect time to make the Connor fight, right? I guess both on losing streaks and nothing to really fight for. So why not go fight? and bare knuckle or something against Connor. Yeah, so, yeah, I don't know what you do if you're Michael Chandler, but the nice thing, he's, you know, he has a good problem, right? He has a huge name, and the options are all over for him. And I'll stick by what I said.

I think he'd be a great commentator, analyst. I think he'd be a great, I don't know, interview type guy or podcast guy. I don't know, you know, something along those lines. Like, I think he's got a great voice. I think he speaks well. and he's got to look for it and everything. So, you know, I hate saying that about such a warrior like that. But, I mean, that's what it is.

I mean, he's won one fight in the UFC. And I'm not counting Tony Ferguson because that's not a fight. So, you know, what do you do at this point? Yeah, I mean, it's tough because, you know, I've said this on the show before. I never liked to tell guys to retire or walk away or whatever. But as you said beforehand, and you made a very good. point. You know, Chandler's always said his title shot or bust for him.

You know, it's title. It's what he wants. You want to be the UFC champion. Well, again, I know you can never say never, but it's pretty close to that never says. Pretty close to that never now. He's two and five. He just got mauled by Patty Pimble. I mean, they're not going to give him Gauchy.

They're not going to give him Pori. They're not going to give him Holloway. You can never say never, but you can also look at the reality of, you know, you can lose 30 in a row. I'm never giving up, right? Yeah, okay, well, that doesn't mean it's smart. Yeah, you can never say never, but you got to use your head too. Yeah, and he's also, I mean, he's not even in a position. Like when I, when I, because I always say my famous one that I thought would never happen was Michael Bisping when he had, you know, he just kept having those number one contender fights and I was like, man, maybe it's just never going to happen for him.

But he kept working his way back to those number one contender fights. So my doubt with him was like his age was getting up there and he just kept losing the number one contender fights. Chandler's never, I mean, outside of, obviously fought Olaver for the title, but then since then, it's just been, you know, he obviously knocked out Tony Ferguson. I agree with what you're saying there. He lost to Gage, he lost to Porriere, lost Olaver again, you know, now he lost to Patty. Like, he's not losing number one contender fights. He's just losing fights. Like, so it's not even in a situation where he's winning three, losing one, win and three losing one.

Like, he's just lost. He's two and five now. Like, that's a, and again. Up to this point, every loss you could say, well, you know what, though? He gave Oliver, like, he almost beat Olivera. Man, he hurt Porre bad in that first round. He was giving as good as he was getting in that Gaichi fight. Every single fight you could say that.

Can't really say it here. He never hurt Patty, never had Patty in trouble. Never, never really threatened Patty. And he took him down kind of and held him a little bit. But, like, he didn't do any real damage. Patty took him down. Patty beat him on the feet. Patty hit him with that flying knee and busted his cheek open.

And like, this was not, this was not the kind of loss you can judge. Like, we talk about Diego Lopez. Like, Diego Lopez doesn't really have to hang his head low. Yes, he can be disappointed. He lost a title fight, but he still gave a great accounting for himself. You know what I mean? That's not what happened with Michael Chandler. He did not give a great accounting for himself.

This is not the fight where you walk away and say, you know what? He lost butt. There's no butt here. It was a one-sided fight. And Patty Pimbley finished him inside three rounds. That's not. And at 30. like come on like you got we got to be real about this we got to be honest yeah and the biggest

butt that we would want to put in there is you know but it was a top four or five guy like gauging for it like patty hasn't even cracked the top 10 and you know i'm guessing like some people today probably put him in the top 10 because he beat michael chandler i don't know how that makes you a top 10 guy personally you know if you just look at the objective rankings and the or the objective wins and losses, but I'm sure that it's going to happen. And, you know, of course, there's a lot of, I don't know, a bias favoritism, you know, in the UFC, right? Like a lot of people want Patty Pimble to be in the top 10. Like he's, he's as the ability. One thing we got to talk about Patty Pimler is, you know, he actually has a very, very high ceiling on his startup. Like,

the guy has a fucking mouth for days. You know, he's a unique personality. And he's a unique personality. he looks unique he looks like an old beetle or something uh one of the beetles not a beetle um you know he's a unique guy he's a fun guy right like he is fun to watch um he's fun to listen to you know not necessarily my cup of tea but that's what makes him even better right that like the fact that he's in your face and probably not most people's cup of tea that makes it even better he's a little bit of a villain right so uh i think he has a you know a ton of a star potential there and and we know that the UFC wants that to happen. And, you know, they want them to be in the top five, top ten.

They want them fighting for a title or at least, you know, one of these top, top, what, three, five guys. Yeah. And my favorite thing about Patty is, obviously, he's from Liverpool. We're not from Liverpool. He uses these random words to insult opponents and it absolutely cracks me up. He called, I think he called Chandler a mushroom and he called Toporia, helmet and I'm like I don't know what the fuck any of that means but it makes me laugh like he's like he's an

absolute mushroom and I'm like I don't know what that means but it makes me laugh because it's like random words he just uses to insult he's like he's an absolute helmet and I'm like what does that even mean like I have no idea what that means but it makes me laugh because it's just funny the way he says exactly exactly he's constantly saying loud with everything yeah like he's he turned me around like I'm not saying I didn't think patty had potential but he really did turn me around because like I said, I did, again, win or lose, I know I'll tell Michael Chandler is, and that was not a tough fight for Patty Pimble. He rolled their Michael Chandler.

I'm not sure anybody's seeing the physical potential that he has, which is what he really showed Saturday, right? Like, we all knew he had the star power potential, you know, with his personality and everything. But physically, we're like, bro, he's probably not going to be competing with the Chandler's, you know? Yeah. He didn't compete with him. He blew him out of the water. And did you see the backstage thing with him and Colby Cove? You know, I've seen the clip.

I didn't turn the sound on. I was like, I don't need to hear this. I'm just like, dude, like, Patty, Patty is on the rise and he's a star. And I'm just like, Colby, like, what are you doing, man? Like, just. Colby got exactly what he wanted. He wanted you mention it on this show right now, right? And everybody else.

I said it. He just won. I said it on, I said it on Twitter. I said to quote Patty Pimble, what a sausage. That's what I actually said on Twitter about the Colby thing. I'm just like, dude, he's not in your weight class and you haven't won a fight since 2018. Like, let's slow down on, like, getting in these backstage altercations with guys. Like, you know, come on.

Like, it's so dumb. Like, if you get, like, did you, I think at some point over the last few months, like, he ran into Usman at some function. And they were, like, cordial to each other. And, like, you know, nothing happened, of course. But then Patty Pimble, a lightweight, instead of doing an interview and you start talking shit. I'm like, dude, I think it was Ben Fulke, so I like very much. He, I think he wrote, he's like, I wonder if Colby Covington just ever gets tired of being Colby Covington? I was like, that's probably a good point. Like, dude, just let it go, man. Like, it's just over for you.

Hey, again, he won. We're talking about it. Other people are talking about it. The clip went viral. You know, that's exactly what he's doing it. That's exactly what he's doing it for. And it worked. So, you know, more power to him. If he was doing it with a welterweight, I guess I'd understand it better. But why are you doing it with a lightweight, dude? You're not going to fight this guy. Like, you're not... Yeah, but Patty's the star right now.

So he's the... You know, all the spotlight was on him at that moment, and Kobe won a little piece of it. So he got it. Yeah. He can't do it by fighting recently, so I guess he'll do it by doing something outside of the case. And plus he probably knows that Usman isn't going to fuck around.

Like Usman, I don't know Usman well. I've hung out with him a couple times. But he comes across me as a type of guy where you fuck around and find out. he'll be like Well there goes that other side of my jaw Like there Yeah exactly Yeah yeah

Yeah yeah It's just like I'm just like dude Like come on like you know Like you want to talk shit Like I don't know how you talk shit to Wonderboy But like talk shit to Wonderboy There's a fight you can actually get You're not gonna fight Patty so what's the point

Anyways That fight actually that'd be a good fight That would be a good fight I would watch that John Silva man What I'm talking about Patty Pimbleut is Let's be honest The biggest star coming out of this card

Let's just be honest about that. He is. But Jean Silva's second. Like, dude, he had a great week. Obviously, him and Bryce has some great back and force. And then he goes out there and just absolutely blows through Bryce Mitchell, dominates him on the feet, chokes him unconscious on the ground. You could not have written a better script for for Jean Silva this weekend.

Yeah, yeah. I actually didn't get to watch that one. I was a little bit late in the night. Had some different things going on. my kid's turkey hunting one of them right so we talked about that before the show um but yeah man come on john sylva another guy i don't have to watch the fight and i could tell you like you know another guy with the sky's the limit for him all those fighting nerds guys like i don't know where they came from what they're doing down there but there's something in the water man them they're all

just on cloud nine right now and you know it's it's got to be a great feeling when you got was there four of them in the ufc right now for four four i think there's like four guys and one girl i I think from the team. And the guys are 19 and 0 now, I think, in total. Yeah, I mean, how's that got to feel? You know, like, you're just walking into that room just with a winning mentality and and just confidence soaring. I mean, that's got to be a great thing for them.

Amazing. And I'll say this. And I'm being honest when I say this, because I've been as critical of Bryce Mitchell as anybody since he made those idiotic comments back in January. Dana White says, I'm about hearing the press, and I agree. And he said, you know what? Bryce showed up. took his punishment. He didn't back down for the media. He didn't back down for the questions.

He stood his ground. He went out there. He got his ass kicked. And he didn't make a scene of it. And then he did a little video post-fight and said, you know, I'm okay. You know, he's like, no excuses. I got choked unconscious. You know, I lost. I'm not going to sit here to defend Bryce Mitchell because I think he said a lot of stupid shit. A lot of stupid shit. But I will give him credit for, you know, he showed up, took his lick. And afterwards, he didn't make any excuse. He didn't say, I got thumbed in the eye. I got knee glow. He got lucky.

None of that. I got my ass kicked. I got choked out, put to sleep. Kudos to Jean Silva. Good for you. Like, I think that's how more people should react. Like, don't, you know, don't, don't do. Don't go to the Colby route.

Like, we appreciate a little humility. Like, even, I remember when Connor got choked out by Nate Diaz, I was at that fight. I remember post-fight. Now again, it changed two days later. but that night he was very humble. Like he was very, you showed a lot of humility in that moment. Like, ah, you know, I got caught and he beat me. And I don't know, maybe I go back to feather away, blah, blah, blah.

I know three days later he's making excuses. But in that moment, show a little humility. Credit to Bryce Mitchell, man. Like I said, he still says stupid shit, but he at least showed a little humility in that moment. Yeah, man. And, you know, that's because fighting is real, right? All these things that he talks about, you know, I don't know, flat earth or whatever, Holocaust. whatever you know whatever kind of silly shit like you can kind of make all that shit up and you

know believe what you believe and you know here's some random shit on fucking tic talk and all the sudden you believe it you know all kinds of crazy fighting is real you know there's there's no like there's no dancing around it there's no conspiracies about it's two men going in cage and one man wins and excuse me uh bryce knows that and bryce is uh a very solid fighter um i think it's pretty clear you know he's probably not going to be uh champion or anything at any point doesn't seem like he has that potential we never know right we've seen crazier things but but um you know fighting is a real fucking sport man it's is you know not to be a nerd here but it's real as it gets in the ufc right it's true it's

it's as real as it gets man you know as as real as we got right now and uh you know bryce Like you said, he handles it well. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I don't like him being necessarily identified as the person that he's kind of gotten known to be. Because his platform got made because he's a good fighter. And that's who we should think of when we think of Bryce Mitchell. He's a knucklehead.

We know that, right? You know, he's a helmet, right? If we want to use Patty's words there. He's not a bright guy. You know, he's been misled. He's been, you know, he's been brainwashed or fed the wrong information without his life. It's sad, right? I think it's more sad than anything else that, you know, there's people that they just can't come to grips with reality.

But he can face the reality of fighting. And he is a fighter. So what else do we want out of the guy? Yeah, I always remember the, I care what comedians said this years ago. and he was talking about like, he's like, we're not born to hate people. He's like, you learn to hate people. He's like, I have a two-year-old daughter. You know what she hates?

Naps. He's like, she doesn't hate anybody. You learn to hate. So I think in Bryce's case, like what you're saying is like he's learned the wrong things and he said the wrong things. But remember, he wouldn't have the platform he had if he wasn't a good fighter because if you're a dog shit fighter, you'd be the guy on a regional show spouting to the heavens right now and no one would be paying attention to you right now.

Because I'm sure there's some lunatic fighter competing in some random. him show in Texas right now or Montana or wherever saying inane stupid shit just like Bryce Mitchell but we don't know who he is we don't care what he says. Bryce Mitchell because he's a top 15 featherway we care what he says. So yeah, I agree. And hopefully I don't like what Bryce says but I really do hope one day he wises up and and you know fix it. You know to this point he says hurtful things.

Thankfully he's not done hurtful things. Like he's not gone down that road. you know what I'm talking about, but hopefully he course corrects, is I guess what I'm saying, but you know, good for him. I don't anticipate him in course correcting. And I don't think in his head he is hurting people. Again, you know, it's always interesting, you know, when you've kind of experienced such a small part of the world.

I mean, I think this is where a lot of the funny things and the old mysticism and shit where it comes from, right? They didn't travel back in the day, right? their whole world from beginning to from birth to death was like a hundred mile radius at best maybe a 10 mile radius right and it's like yeah when that's all you understand and you see a fucking tornado coming you're like dude like what's fucking demon is that you know what I mean but you know when you're able to travel the world these days and you see you know for one that the earth is actually around you know or you see that you know the way people live and

you know where all this you know you see so much and you gain so much knowledge about that. And, you know, I just think that Bryce, you know, come from a very small town, probably like I did. So I guess I can sympathize with him a little more because I was raised around a lot of the same type of people that he apparently has embraced where I just pushed it away. I was like, you know, you motherfuckers are stupid, man. I'm getting the fuck out of here. And he was like, oh, these are my people. I'm here.

This is what I do. So, you know, fair game to them. You know, I have a, I guess I have a little more sympathy for it. Well, you and I, you know, we came from different towns in Ohio, but very similar towns. I came from Southern Ohio down to Portsmouth and you came from Zina. Yeah, you're probably worse than mine, to be honest. Yeah, mine is, I, I've said this openly. I did not, I did not meet a black man until I was like 16 years old.

Because my entire, like every, it was just a farm community, small town community. Didn't, you know, so, yeah, like, it's true. it. That's the reality I grew up in, but I'm much like you. I resisted. I was like, no, fuck this. Like, I get me out of here. I want to, I do not want to agree with you people. I move me away and I moved to Cincinnati. And, you know, now I claim Cincinnati is my hometown. You know, but I, you're right. You're right. Like, he was like, these are my people. Like, you're probably right. Like, that's exactly. You and I were like, we got to get out. Bryce is like, I'm staying. Exactly. I know a lot of people like that. You know, I mean, I still, I know people from a lot of, you know, the small towns. I mean, I mean, I know, I know people from a lot of, you know, the small towns. I mean, I mean, I visit some fairly small, hell, over the weekend, my kids did Turkey out in a small town, Ohio. You know, I was around a lot of those people. And look, I have sympathy for it, you know, the, but again, when you travel the world and you see, like, dude, there's so many different cultures and people come up with so many different ways.

And, you know, we kind of realize that everybody has kind of a different story. And, you know, people believe absolutely insane things all over the world. It's not just an American thing. It's not exclusive to us. And, you know, there's small towns and villages. around the world where people believe crazier things than we do than people here do. So, you know, again, I have a little bit more sympathy for it than I think than most people. And, you know, so I'll stick up for Bryce a little bit on that front.

You know, just when we're talking about his personality and we have to stick up for his fighting too, right? The guy is a hell of a good fighter, man. John Silva is just a fucking beast, man. And, you know, I'm really interested to see how far these fighting nerds go, all of them, man. And they all got a lot of talent. They're doing something right down there. And they're putting in the work. So we already talking about Volcanowski,

getting Moussa, that's the fight to make. With Patty Pimblit, who do you give him next? Who do you think he should get next? And we'll do also for Jean Silvali. Who do you think Patty? Because my suggestion was, listen, I understand there's going to be people who are going to disagree with me and I get it.

But dude, I say book the Teporia fight. They have bad blood. They do not like each other. And I said, I think, Patty versus Toporia could be the biggest non-title UFC fight they could book since Connor and Diaz. Like that's how big I think that fight could be. Now, I understand Teporei could be getting a title shot. I understand Tepore can easily fight Armin or Charles and those are better.

I understand that. But in terms of magnitude, Teporee and Patty is a massive, massive fight. So that's the one I just like, fuck it. Let's just have some fun. What about you? Who do you think, who do you think should Patty get next? You know, that's a tough one. I'd like to see him fight someone on a win streak, which of course, Tuporia is.

So I get that. I don't think he deserves someone that high yet. I don't think Tuporia should have to fight Patti, I think, is more than the inverse of Patty getting to fight to Port. That's an honor for, I feel like, for Patty to get to fight a former champion, you know. I think he might even still be the champion, right, of the featherweight to be. vision. You know, I think, you know, my first thought was actually going to be someone like a Fizeave,

you know, like, let's see if you're fucking real, bro, like, here you go. But if Fizeev's lost his last fight, maybe a Dan Hooker, I think that'd be a solid fight. I don't know if Dan has a fight coming up. He does not. He does not. He's come out of that injury that knocked him out of his last one. Yeah. I mean, if we're going to stick with guys, you know, that they're coming off a win.

Like I think Dan Hooker is the perfect opponent You know, I think there's a lot of guys coming off losses That would be good fights, but I just again Patty's come you know, he's on a win streak and I think he needs somebody coming off a win you know somebody hot like there's a lot of great fights for guys that are coming off losses like Moikano Fize Eve like I said Yeah, but I think I think hooker is the right fight for him you know

The only downsides, I think Hooker would be, you know, he wants to fight up, I'm sure. Yeah, I think Hooker is a good fight. I also don't think it's a terrible. I mean, depending on who ends up is the odd man out in the old title shot, number one contender thing between Armin, Charles, Gachy, and Teporia, because there's four of them. And you have to assume one of them is going to get Islam. I don't know which one.

I don't know how they're going to play that out. Maybe they are going to have them all fight each other. And then the winner, the best winner gets Islam. I don't know, but if there's an odd man out, I think the odd man out can get, can get Patty because you can say you're fighting down, but just like I talked about with Reiner de Ritter fighting in a couple weeks in Des Moines getting Bo Nicol, Bo Nicol isn't as highly ranked as Marvin Vittori isn't highly as ranked as Jared Cananier, but you could argue that's still a bigger fight.

I mean, no offense. I'm not taking shots at Marvin Vittoria or Jared Canaaner. I'm saying like in terms of magnitude, there's more eyeballs on Bo Nicol right now. And so, yeah, you can say you're fighting down. I'm just not sure if Hooker needs that sort of promotion. You know what I mean? Whereas Ryan really needs it. Yeah, but I'm saying like if you're the odd man out in this situation,

like you don't get the title fight, let's just say they give to Porti the title shot. And they make Armin versus Gaichi and you're Charles Oliver and you're stuck as the odd man out. Why not fight a Patty Pimble and just get a massive payday and fight a big guy? Because again, he may not be ranked as high, but he's a massive name. you can headline a card with that one, you know what I mean? You can absolutely, or if you're Gaichi, you get the odd man out, you become Gaichi. Okay, you fight, Patty. How is that not a massive fight?

So I think you let things kind of settle. Whoever's the odd man out, I think Patty can jump. I like the hooker idea, but I'm saying, like, whoever ends up being the odd man out, I don't think that's a terrible idea. I know he asked for Charles very respectfully he asked for Charles and Gaichie. I think those are all fun fights. Yeah, those are definitely fun fights, too. And like you said, the odd man out, I wouldn't be against that at all.

The only other one that I would kind of like to see, but again, coming off a loss would be Benoit. Yeah. I think that would be a tremendous fight. I think matchup-wise, I think stylistically, that's a phenomenal fight. He's got a fight. He just booked a fight with Joel Alvarez in May at the next card, the next favorite. So maybe he wins. I mean, that gets him back on a win.

You know, maybe that's because I think St. Dene would be a good one. But, yeah, I think if he's a good one, you know, if he's a good one. you're Patty, you got all the options of the world right now, man. Like, you just went out and blew the doors on Michael Chandler. Like, you got lots of options. Jean-Silva, I think John Silva is actually a weirder position because when you look at Featherway right now, like, there's not, I mean, I think Mosares deserves a title shot. I think the UFC is going to book Diego against Yai-eer.

They have a lot of bad blood. You got that car cover in September. You know, they're going to Mexico. You're going to do Diego and Yair. There's no reason not to do that. I don't know. Who? Learone Murphy.

I was good or I think I was wondering if that was going to be the one you were going to come up with. That's the easy call, I think. You know, the only downside, which I'm guessing is probably what made you not so excited about is like neither one of them are really big enough names. Leigh Roan is obviously not had a, you know, tremendously exciting fights also. And neither one of them really are the big names. I don't know how much beating Bryce did for John Silva in terms of name recognition. I know it did some. Like it brought him up for sure.

Brought his name. I'll say, I'll say this. In terms of attention that we saw over the weekend, Jean Silver Bryce Mitchell got more attention than anything except for Patty Pembley. Like that fight got more. Like I said, if you would have just re-ranked the fights afterwards,

Patty Pimble, Michael Chandler was number one, John Silva-Brice. That was bigger than Volcanozkin Lopez. In terms of like attention. In terms of like what people were tweeting about and talking about and reading, that was the second biggest fight on the card. So I would say he's in a pretty –

Yeah. So, I mean, the only reason I didn't say Lorraine Murphy was because I'm like, Laronne has a tendency to just kind of outpoint guys. They're like, man, I don't know if I really want to have Sean Silva, but you're right. That probably is the match up to me. To be fair, if there's a guy that's going to throw down, you know, even during a guy's trying to outpoint him, you know, a guy that's going to push through that and try to make a fight happen,

it's going to be John Silver, right? I think there's a lot of other guys, you know, when you look at matching up, Roden Murphy, you know, if he's able to outpoint a lot of those guys, you know, a lot of them are going to keep playing that game and keep trying to catch up to him the whole time, right, trying to, you know, little by little, try a tactician with him. Whereas I feel like John Silver will kind of be like, you know, all right, fuck this, bro. Like, I'm going to throw down. Like, you might keep outpointing me, but I'm fucking throwing at you.

Yeah, and you got, I mean, and you got to say, like, I love Josh Schmidt. That's my guy. But, you know, he is 40s. You know, he's not the youngest guy in the world. John Silver was very much in the prime his career right now. Yeah. That dude is prime. So, I mean, listen, if you want Lorone Murphy to have a fight that's going to get him on the radar,

if he could be Jean Silva, how does that not put him in title contention? Then you got to go to John Silva. He goes out there and knocks Lorone Murphy the next week. You solved a problem that we kind of talked about before. It's like, Lerone keeps winning, but is he really getting people excited about him winning? So, yeah, you're probably right. That probably is a matchup to make. Yeah, Leone reminds me so much of Leon Edwards.

like just you know kind of under the radar you know not not the most exciting fights but gets the job done on the regular and um but you know absolutely john silver is the type of guy i think it'd be interesting too also to see you know the skills that john silva has like we i didn't get to see the fight over the weekend um so i can't speak 100 100 on that but from the fights i've seen in the past i mean he's just a very strong hard hitting come forward, you know, not really a tactical, technical guy, right? And I think Lerone Murphy would test that part of them.

And you're going to have to have that to get up to the top of that division. So I think it would be a good test for him personally. And to his credit, he did. I mean, he did catch Bryce and Ninja Choke and choked him unconscious. So he obviously has the submission arsenal. So, yeah, I think you're right. And Bryce is a great grappler too.

He is. Yeah, that's not a small feat there. Yeah. So, yeah, no, I agree. It's probably the fight to make. It scares me, but I guess that's the kind of point. It should scare you. Real quick before we get out of here, Matt, while we were right after our podcast last week,

I'm sure you saw, because we talked about this before, but I got to bring this up because it's been the buzz of the industry for the past few days besides UFC 314 is the GFL crashing and burning before ever having an initial show. They had a show scheduled in May. Both shows got canceled. A lot of fighters are not happy about that. I know Paige Van Zand has already said she's a free agent. I think Alan Belcher just posted that he's out of there.

And I guess from what I've been told and what I heard what Alan Belcher just said publicly, Darren Owen, the commissioner, owner, whatever you want to say, the GFL is actually going to fighter saying, we're still going to try to put on a card, but instead of giving you a guaranteed purse, are you willing to take a revenue share of the card? Which, Matt, let's be honest,

you're not probably selling a lot of tickets. You're probably not getting a big broadcast deal. what is the revenue share of 20 bucks? Like, are you really willing? So we all had our suspicions, and I hate to say we were right. Go back and listen to that episode. But here we are. GFL seems like it's dead before it ever begins.

Yeah, it kind of sucks, man. I don't know what, uh, I always just wonder, like, you know, these guys, I thought we've seen this, we've seen this book before. We've seen the whole story before. And, you know, I actually like Ariel O'Anne, but I feel like, they always get promoted on his show. The same kind of story. And there's not hating on Ariel,

but, you know, I don't know if there's something to that, right? Like, are they paying them to be on the show to promote their thing or whatever it is? But yeah,

what a shit show, man. It sucks because, you know, we do need more promotions out there, I think. You know, I think there needs to be more competition. I think it needs someone to step up,

but it's just a tough fucking business model, man. And I don't know if it's ever going to happen. maybe ever, right? I mean, we could talk about things that would need to happen for that to happen. Then it does not look good on any front, right? And it's, I don't know how they get investors to do this. I mean, if you, you know, if you're going to open a business and you're looking for investment, you know, you show some sort of proof of concept, you show some, you know, you do your market research,

all these things. Like, are these investors even looking at what happens? I mean, this is a common story. Again, we've read this book before. What sucks, and I tweeted this when I put out the story last week about the shows being canceled, I said the worst part about this, like always, the fighters are getting screwed. You know what I mean? Like, I understand, like, I understand investors can get screwed,

but generally speaking, if you're investing in that kind of a business, you've got money to burn, generally. I'm not saying everybody, but generally speaking, you got money. Like, you're not sitting around with two pennies rubbed together to invest in a G. You've got millions in the bank and you're investing a couple of your million in the in the in that organization. It's always the fighters, man. That's the shittiest part about this. It's always the fighters who get screwed.

And listen, for anyone to say you should have known better. But listen, when you're a fighter and you're, you know, older or out of an organization or not in the UFC and a guy comes to you and says, we're going to pay you $800,000, $700,000, a million. whatever the numbers are. Now, you can sit there, you can be skeptical and say, okay, I'm skeptical, but that's still a shitload of money on a contract. It's not like you gave it to you. It's not like you shook your hand and said, I'm going to pay a million dollars. And in writing, I'm going to pay a million dollars, or whatever the number is.

You can't fault the guys and the girls who did this. What sucks is, is I know for a fact some of these fighters turned down other opportunities because they were promised, hey, we're going to put on this show and you're going to make X amount of dollars. And so they're turning down other opportunities that they're. could have made something and now they're making nothing and this guy has the fucking balls to say no i'm not going to give you a guaranteed purse will you take a revenue share fuck what are you talking about dude revenue sharing nothing is still nothing man like this is it just

pisses me off because it's always the fighters who get fucked in these situations yeah i don't know man i don't know how anybody kind of fell for it but look hopefully they figure something out i don't know that there's just not a whole lot to even say about it, man. Again, we've read this book so many times and we're just like, you know, I hope all the fighters recognize what it was. You know, and if they weren't, if they didn't, you know, this probably because of their shit-ass managers, you know. This fucking managers in this sport is the worst, man.

That's the whole, that's the biggest problem when we talk about things like this. And, you know, I'd say it a million times. Like, I haven't met, I had a good manager. but even like you know when rebebock came around you know we parted ways i keep in touch with him still like we parted you know um you know on a friendly basis he understood it but the fucking the any fighters out there listening like just don't even get a fucking manager bro they're fucking pieces of shit every one of them i'll push back on that a little bit there are good managers the problem is there are also bad managers that's very true i don't think they're all bad

I think there are. I shouldn't say, you're right. I shouldn't say all, right? There's absolutely some good people out there. And the biggest issues, you know, they're putting a tough position, too. The fact that they decided to join this, to do that as a job is what makes me question it, right? Because it's not a good job. You know, if you're doing it with integrity and doing it with morals and ethics, like, it's

not really a good job. I'll say, like I said, you're not wrong. There are definitely bad people who do it in this business, but I will say, like, I'll just, I've tweeted this today. I'm just using this as an example of a story today. I'm not advocating for any one person over anybody else. I'm just saying this is an example. I talked to Fabian Edwards today from the, he's fighting the PFL tournament this

weekend, and he got removed from the tournament briefly, like he got replaced, and like they never said why. They're just like, Fabian Edwards is out. And then he got back in. I was like, what the fuck happened? And so I talked to him then I said, dude, what happened? He said, I had a little visa issue.

And PFL said, you're out. Like, you can't get the visa issue fix your, you're out. And he went to his manager. And his manager made some calls, you know, visa issues, got it fixed. He got back in the tournament. Yeah, but you're going to tell me, you could tell me, what was the guy's name? Fabian Edwards, Leon Edwards, brother. Yeah.

Yeah. Are you going to tell me Fabian couldn't have called him, be like, hey, I'll fix my visa? Well, I don't know what the details are. knows he told me it wasn't PFL. PFL didn't do it. His manager went and like, hold on now, I can get this fix for you and he got a fix. Whatever it was, whatever the outstanding issue was. His manager made a call that

he could have made in five minutes. That's what my point is, like, all these managers are fucking garbage. They're useless. But I'm saying like in the middle of a middle of a training camp two weeks out from a fight, the organization tells you you're out. And they're just like, you're out, bro.

You got a VC issue. They're just like, they didn't do it. And his manager's like, hold on now, we're going to get this fix. Now, again, I'm not saying the fighter couldn't have done it, but it didn't, and it got fixed, and now he's back in there with a chance to fight this week, and it makes some money. So I'm just saying there are, and I do know there are, there's a million other examples of people who have stood up for their fighters and go to battle the UFC, and it's happened. So I'm saying there are good managers out there.

There are. Are there bad managers? Do I have a million stories of bad manager stories? Sure, I do. But I guess getting back to the GFL, like, Like, we can sit here and say, like, maybe she. Well, that's where this discussion started from, right? What were the fuck were these quote, unquote, managers thinking, you know, putting their athletes in a contract with this?

That's why, again, these managers are fucking idiots. And I feel bad. I feel bad for all the fighters because, like I said, it's always them who gets it screwed in the end. You know what I mean? Like, Darren Owen. Like, people forgot this guy announced WFL three years ago, four years ago, same concept, same. concept, same exact everything except it was a different name. They're like, oh,

we forgot this guy just fleeced us four years ago, never even launched anything. Now he's back and it's almost like, we forgot. Like, I didn't. I remember when I was like, do you not remember like four years ago the same guy? I forgot about the WFL. Yeah. I said, I was like, this is the same

guy who four years ago said, hey, we're launching this team-based format. And I'm like, hold on now. This sounds really familiar. And sure enough, that was bullshit. And here we are four years later. bullshit. Man, yeah, I wish somebody would get it together, man, but, you know, it's just not, it's not a good business, you know?

To your point, though, and to your point, you're right, like, we need it. We, like, we always say this. We talk about other organizations. Like, we talk about PFL. We need these organizations to see because not everyone could fight in the UFC. The UFC's not going to hold on to 1,500 fighter contracts. They can't employ everybody. That's why, like, I've been so happy to see BKFC for.

find success. Not everyone's going to do bare and uncle. I'm not saying you should. I'm just saying like, I'm glad BKFC exists because at least the guys and the girls who want to do bare and uncle can go like Mike Perry has probably made more money doing BKFC than he ever made in the UFC. You know what I mean? Like, I'm glad for him. I'm happy guy because Mike Perry was like a solid welterway, but he was never a top 10 guy. He was never a championship contender. But now he's a fucking star making millions in BKFC. That doesn't happen if he's only in the UFC. So we need these organizations to exist. So when it sounds like I'm bitching and complain,

I'm not bitching and complaining because I don't want them there. I bitching and complains because they don't do it. They don't get it done and the fighters are always the one who gets screwed in the end. Yeah, that's unfortunate part. Which again goes back to the manager's idiots because the fighters are the ones always getting screwed. So fuck he's managers. Regardless. Yeah, well, I'd like to see it, man.

Somebody needs to do it. Maybe I'll step up and pull up my britches and do it one day. you know like but the problem is you know the um i don't know these regional promotions like you know their only goal is to get on like ufc fight pass you know like it's just it's just not a great business man you got to give props to dana and company like you know they took over the fucking sport and they built it from nothing more or less and you know they're a powerhouse man you know there's no room out there for a lot of promotions right there's not even the room for it like UFC is the fucking monster.

And the regional shows, and I'm not saying they don't, I mean, there are great regional shows out there, but the reason they survive is because they're not, A, they're not going beyond their means. They're doing local shows selling two, three thousand tickets. Yeah. And they're paying guys a couple grand. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm saying that's what you get at the local level. Like they're not trying to pay guys.

They're not promising million dollar pay days. Like certain organizations are just crashed and burned. Right. You know what I mean? Like they're not saying, we're going to pay you a million dollars. You can't afford. to pay him a million dollars. Don't try to pay him a million dollars.

You can't do that. So yeah, it's frustrating. Real quick before we get out of here, I want to close out on this. While you were gone last week a couple days ago, I put out a message on Twitter. Corey Anderson, Bellator Light Heavyweight Champion, Corey Anderson put out a message talking about how he's been inactive. Over a year, he last fought March 2024, hasn't fought since then.

Kind of complained basically as my entire athletic career, I've never been out of action this long. And so I put out a tweet, and I just documented. Didn't say a word, didn't say it, didn't knock anybody, didn't say anything like that. I said, Bellator Champions, Corey Anderson last fought March, 2024, Patchy Mix, May 20204, Johnny Abel in October, 24, Ramazahn Kermagabatov, June 2024. Usman was in January. Usman and Margarbadoff was in January.

Patricio Pitbull and Ryan Bader gone. That earned a response from PFL founder and co-CEO, whatever, he is Don Davis. Now, he edited this tweet like 19 times. The first time, the first time he came at me, he called me, he said, I'm a clown. Then he edited that and long story short, he says nobody, here's this tweet that stands as it does now in like the 19th edit. Nobody has to be here. PFL provides the only premium global lasting platform for fighters other than UFC. Countless others have come and gone because they are not serious people. PFL takes our leadership role to grow MMA for fans and fighters very seriously.

Now, I didn't respond to that because I'm just like, I don't really see a need, but he also came at Ariel, and Ariel went back at him and went scorched earth, and it was pretty good. I'm not going to lie. But I'll say this to publicly to Don Davis. Don, I don't dislike you, man. I've actually interviewed you before, and I, you listen to our show. I want PFL to succeed.

The problem is the PFO business model has not been working really well, and you're coming at me for pointing out that your champions from other, this, champions from this organization you made a big deal about signing and selling and buying and all this stuff, they're complaining. I noticed that your tweet didn't address Corey Anderson. I notice your tweet didn't address patchy mix.

I notice your tweet didn't address any of those guys who've been out for a year or six months or eight months. Johnny Ebelon was complaining. I noticed you don't have any tweets about that. But you're the global, you're the global leader or whatever, you provide opportunities and anyone that doesn't want to be here can leave. Okay, well, like, great.

So Patchy Mix is a free agent? He can go sign up the UFC tomorrow? Is that what you're telling me, Don? Because if that's what you're saying, I'm sure Patchy Mix would love to hear that. I'm sure Patchy Mix would love to know he's a free agent right now and he can just go sign with the UFC. I bet that's not what's going to happen, no, Pat, Matt.

I bet you, Don Davis is not going to just release Patchy Mix from his contract and let him just go sign with the UFC. And you let Aaron Pico go apparently, right? Eventually, not at the start. It wasn't the start. Yeah. And like they took the matching rights and all that. And I know for a fact, like the Bellator guys, here's the complaint.

And I don't want to get too deep into this. Here's the complaint. A lot of the Bellator guys had bigger contracts when they bought them. And so Patchy Mix is guaranteed a lot of money when he fights, just like Patricio Pitbull was, just like Ryan Bader was, just like whoever else is. I understand it's tough to justify paying a guy like PatchyMix. I'm making this number up.

I have no idea if this is a number. Again, I'm just saying this is a number. If he's guaranteed to make a million dollars a fight, I understand that's difficult because PatchyMix probably isn't of the star power to justify paying him a billion dollars a fight. I understand that. Here's my problem, Don Davis. You bought the organization.

You saw the contracts. If you don't agree with what they're getting done, paid, don't buy it. Don't buy it. Don't buy out their contracts and make a big deal about how you bought Bellator, but then you're going to sit there guys for a year because you don't want their contracts and tell me you've never gone to them and said, will you

take less money? Because I know you have. Right. I know they've gone to these guys and said, we'll fight you if you sign a new contract for less money. If you don't want to pay them their contracted amounts, don't buy the organization. That's my message. Like, they're all complaining about

sitting out for a year, nine months, ten months, whatever it is, you know what they're getting paid. You knew that when you bought them. If you're a serious businessman, how bad do you look that you bought an organization and now you're saying they're getting paid too much? Didn't you know how much they were getting paid when you bought it? All I'm saying. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know what Don Davis. I don't know if he knows what he's doing here, you know? It doesn't seem like he knows much about this sport, huh? Yeah. I just, it's fun. It just, I don't know the person I responded to is Alan Jaban. kind of came to my defense and I was like dude I was like I don't really care name calling called me a clown whatever I don't really care but you notice he didn't

respond to Cory Anderson he didn't respond to Patsy Mix he didn't respond to Johnny Ebbled he responded to me I'm not Cory I don't rep Cory Anderson I'll rep patch Patchy Mix I don't rep Johnny Ebblin you don't respond to them but you respond to me what does that say and in that in that tweet he didn't answer any of the questions he didn't say like it's also not like you were saying anything insulting either all I do is point out when their guys had lost fought. And somehow that... You're a journalist. It's kind of your job, right?

And somehow that rattled his feathers enough that initially called me a clown. And then, you know, he took it back. He edited the tweet like 19 times, whatever it was. But still, that tweet, I didn't insult you. I didn't say you're a bad business man. I didn't say PFL was dog shit. All I said was, here's the last time these guys fought. And that upset you so much that you had to call me a clown. That says a lot to me.

Let's set it up. Don Davis versus Damon Martin. Don versus Damon. I mean, for what? Like a debate or? Oh, no, a cage fight. Oh, well, that wouldn't be a... In Thailand, fight circus.

That's not a fair fight, Matt. Come on, now. That's not a fair fight. Talking shit. I mean, I'm not saying, listen, put me in there with any UFC fighter, I will get my ass absolutely handed to me in about 18 seconds. But there's still some fights I could win. That's all I'm saying.

Oh, you went, you went, you went, you. muted Matt what happened there you are now you got back not the little thing came loose yeah so you got so excited with me fighting somebody you got excited not your phone right why yeah I'm not crazy fights I you know I give props out the craziest fights all always I got to give a shout out to my little buddy Jeremy Smith he's a midget and he fought some influencer guy over the weekend and kicked his ass it It's kind of funny, though, because, okay, he is a midget, right? He's like three foot something, like tiny guy.

A dwarf, I guess it would be more PC these days or whatever. He don't give a fuck, so whatever. And this influencer guy never fought in his life. But Jeremy is also like a world record power lifter. He's got like 10 world records. And he actually wrestled in high school. And like he's a midget boxing world champion. fucking stink bug.

Midget boxing world champion. It was the funniest thing ever because Jeremy just beat the fuck out of him. So shout out to Jeremy. Great job. That's awesome. Who was the influencer? Just some random dude for like TikTok or something?

I forget his name. Yeah, it was some Instagram or TikTok fucking dork. That's hilarious. I'm always, I always feel so old when I see all the TikTokers. They're like, this guy has like 8 million followers. I'm like, I've never heard of this guy. I feel really old right now. because I'm like, I don't know who you're saying.

Like, how's the 8 million people hear about this guy? Yeah, seriously. All right. That's our show. We're going to get out of here. So there's no UFC fights this weekend, Matt. So I assume you're going to be watching WrestleMania. That's this weekend.

Oh, I didn't know that was this weekend. It was a joke. I know you're not going to be watching wrestling. I know, right? This weekend, I'm going to take it easy, bro. Your guy, CN Punk's wrestling this week. You're not going to watch your boy, seeing Punk? Maybe I'll watch old CM do something.

I don't know. But this is going to be the first weekend that I can remember in a long time where I'm just going to chill, bro. Nice. Nice. Well, we do have good fights next week, which we'll talk about when we do the show next week. We got UFC Kansas City with Carlos Prattis, another fighting nerd taking on Ian Machado Garry's. That's a good fight. And Anthony Smith's a hell of a fight.

Oh, man, that's a hell of a fight. Yeah, Anthony Smith's retirement fight. So we got some good fights at Kansas City next week. So I'll watch to talk about next week. So, no. Who's Anthony fighting? God, what's his name? Hold on.

I don't want to fuck up his name. I'm going to mispronounce his name, and I don't want to fuck it up. Let's see. He is fighting. Zhang Ming Yang is his name. Zhang Mingyang. All right.

He is, and he actually is pretty good. I mean, he's actually a pretty good fighter. Zhang is, hold on here. He is, what's his record in the UFC here? Let's see. He is 18 and 6. overall, but he is 2 and O in the UFC with knockouts over Brinson, Hebero, and Ozzy Diaz,

both first round knockouts, and he knocked out a dude on that road to the UFC, all that, Tucco Tucos, who's actually in the UFC, a heavyweight in the UFC, actually knocked him out on that road to the UFC, and then he won his first two fights. So he's two and O in the UFC with knockouts. He's getting Anthony Smith in his retirement fight, so. All right. I'll be excited to see. I love Anthony, man.

So I definitely try to watch his last fight. Yeah. But that's next weekend. But we'll talk about that next week's show. And, you know, maybe, maybe Don Davis will join us for a chat on here. I never know. All right.

All right. All right. As always, man, we appreciate you guys tuning in. Make sure you check us on all your favorite podcast platforms, Apple Podcast, Spotify. And of course, over on the best website in the world, mhmapfiting.com. For Matt Brown, I'm Damon Martin.

We'll see you next week for another edition of the fighter versus the writer. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you then. You know,