MMA Fighting - HOAM | Advise To MMA Fans About Controversial Scorecards, Plus UFC 289 Chatter

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

This past Saturday featured another UFC event, and another bout that has led to divisiveness due to the scorecards. While it can be frustrating, fans need to understand a very important lesson — this isn't the first time this has happened, it won't be the last, and nothing is going to change anytime soon. On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck reacts to the scoring of the UFC Vegas 74 main event between Amir Albazi and Kai Kara-France that saw Albazi win a controversial split decision, and answers questions about open scoring, robberies on the cards, and commission transparency. Additionally, topics include UFC 289, the main event of Saturday's pay-per-view card between Amanda Nunes and Irene Aldana, the co-main event between Charles Oliveira and Beneil Dariush, where the UFC goes with Islam Makhachev if Oliveira is victorious, Alex Caceres' ceiling at 145, and much more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 10 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, everybody. I am Mike Keck. Hope everyone's having a great start to their week. We're coming off of a pretty interesting UFC Vegas 74 card. And by interesting, we mean the scoring in the main event, which I'll touch on in a moment.

We are just days away from the UFC's next pay-per-view event. UFC 289, Amanda Nunes versus Arrini Aldana, the main event for the women's Bannamweight title, the highly anticipated lightweight matchup between Charles Olivera and B'Neil Daryush, the co-main event. The UFC's return to Canada,

first time in around three years, heading to Vancouver for that card. And of course, like usual, I'll be heading to New York City on Saturday morning, watch party going down, Saturday evening, myself, the great GC, will be in the MMA Hour studio watching the fights with all of you. So if you're watching the pay-per-view, if you're ordering the pay-per-view,

watch along with us. We'll give you the times. You can see the clock so we can watch it and sync up together. If you don't want to spend $80 on this card, which I completely understand with two pay-per-views coming up in July, we'll just tell you what happens. And you can save yourself 80 bucks if you need to do that. So we can talk about that.

We can talk about other stuff. But I feel we should probably talk about the main event of this past Saturday between Kikar, France, and Amir al-Basian. Boy, oh, boy, where people fired up about this fight, the scoring of this fight, the R-word being chucked out there, robbery, all of that. And look, I'm in the same boat as I was Saturday night.

Not a robbery. Bites not a robbery. It was close enough where it's just not a robbery. The problem is one judge's scorecard for one particular round. Because the way I look at it is if that judge, I believe it was Derek, I don't know, wasn't Derek clear. I don't know at this point. Just so many of these decisions that are questionable and the robbery talk, all that.

Here's a couple of things that we need to know. One, we can sit there and get pissed off and get mad and say that we hate the media and all this stuff. Like, that was one of the comments that I saw. We headlined the post-fight show was Kai Kar-France robbed on Saturday. and someone literally responded and said,

no, this is a statement, not a question. I hate the media. I hate the media. That's what this fight has done to people. Caused hatred for some reason. So we need to keep in mind that this is not the first time this has happened. This is certainly not going to be the last time this has happened. And or this is going to happen.

So we just need to accept the fact that if we are going to watch MMA, We're going to watch UFC events or Bellator events or PFL events or what have you. These things are going to happen. The scoring in MMA is stupid and it's dumb and it's based on a boxing model that makes absolutely no sense for MMA. Makes no sense. But this is the world that we live in. And we have to accept that this is going to happen. The same way we look at fowls and point deductions and whether or not,

point should be taken away in certain instances. It's the same thing. That's why at M.AFighting.com, we've been telling people that coaches in gym should have the last 15 minutes of practice be about cheating and not getting caught, or even if you do get caught,

for the most part, they ain't going to call anything. They're not going to call anything because referees don't want to be put in a position where they take a point away from a fighter in a three-round fight and that that point deduction could cost said fighter, not just the fight, but a whole bunch of money in the process.

So we have to keep that of mind. These are, this is the world we live in. And decisions like this are going to happen all the time. And just because they're close, it doesn't mean it's a robbery. I don't think this is a robbery. The scoring of the individual round is fucking terrible. It's pretty bad. But at the same token, if that judge who scored the fourth round for Amir al-Bazi,

scored that fourth round for Kaira, France, but scored the first three rounds for Amir al-Bazi, we are not having this conversation right now. We're not. It's just the way, it's just the 10-9s and all this, it's just stupid. It's just dumb. And to me, the fight was close and competitive enough.

One and two were very close rounds. It could have gone either way. I've watched the fight a bunch of times. If one judge scored the first three rounds for Amir al-Bazi, I may not necessarily fully agree with that, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. The fourth round being scored for Amir al-Bazi is awful. It's awful.

It's bad. But even then, like, I just, I saw some people say, you know, the strike statistics and all that, they don't always tell the whole story, and that's completely true. But in this particular round, it's pretty clear that Amir al-Bazi,

it's not that he took a round off, but he took his foot off the gas a little bit. So I just don't know how you could score the fourth round for Amir Al-Bazi. You certainly can't score the fifth round for Amir Al-Bazi because that was a clear Kai-Car-France round. You can't score the third round for Kai-Car-France because that was a clear Amir-A-A-A-Bazi round

every time I've watched it. I understand that Al-Bazi had control, almost got a submission, didn't land a ton of damaging shots in the process, and Kai-Kar-France had a moment. in the last 30 seconds of that round where he got on top and landed some shots and all that,

I just don't think that was enough to steal the round. I just didn't think so of all the times I watched it. So that is a clear Al-Bazi round. But one and two are very, very close and competitive. They're very, very close.

So you can make a case that Amir al-Bazi won three of those rounds. I'm not going to argue with you. I don't necessarily agree because I think Kai probably snuck away one of those first two rounds. I think I keep getting the first and second round confused. But there's

one round, like I felt pretty confident that it was 1919 heading into the third round. I felt good about it, watching it live, going back and watching it. You could have scored the first round for Kai Kar or France. You could have scored the first round for Amir Al-Bazi. You could have done the same in the second. How we got to the

scores is the issue. But to me, Albazi winning, it's just, it's just not, it's not, there have been clear cut robberies in MMA. This is not one of them. This is not one of like the Mount Rushmore bad scorecards, bad scoring of the history of the UFC or MMA. It's not even close. It's not even close.

It's not even close. It's almost like the reverse of the Al Jemaine Sterling Henry Sehudo fight. because, I mean, it didn't really work out the same exact way, but to me, the right fighter won, but had one judge scored the fifth round the way it was supposed to be scored, then Henry Sehudo would be the Bannamway champion right now would be having a much different conversation.

So sometimes the right guy wins, the way we got there isn't always right, and sometimes the wrong guy wins, the way we got there is weird. So you just got to take the good with the bad, my friends. It's just the sport. It's going to happen. We're going to see fouls not get called.

We're going to see points not being taken away. We're going to see scorecards that are weird. And if you've been watching the sport long enough, you know that there are far more egregious scorecards and far more egregious decisions in the history of the sport than what we saw on Saturday night. So I'm just, I'm not willing to call this a robbery.

I'm not willing to call this a robbery. How we got there, I get it. That fourth round is a little weird. But to say that there isn't a case to be made at all, that Amir Al-Bazi could have won three rounds. I just don't think it's true. I think you can make a case that El-Bazi won the first three rounds. I wouldn't score it that way,

but I could see a world where it could be scored that way. And that's not completely out of control. and egregious. And I also understand that one of the things that got people so riled up about this and one of the things that has become so prevalent in the sport is gambling. Gambling is a big part of the sport right now.

We talk about betting odds. I love to look at the betting odds and just kind of see where value lies within certain fighters. But that also creates a lot of heat, a lot of anger, where Kai Kar-France betters were probably feeling pretty good about themselves after that final horn sounded.

They were already figuring out how they were going to take their winnings and how they were going to use them this coming Saturday at UFC 289. Well, I wasn't going to bet this much, but now I got this extra money from the Kai Kar-France win. I'm counting my cash already. And then the decision goes to Amir al-Bazi. And everyone who bet on Kaikar France is just angry and, livid and they're pissed off. And that's

the chance you take, guys. It's the chance you take, especially when the scoring structure in the sport, especially in the UFC, it's just so stupid. It's not boxing. This is MMA. It's a whole different thing. Certain

10-9s cannot be scored like other 10-9s, but they are. It's just so weird. And props to Ariel for reaching out to Andy Foster. and reaching out to Mike Missoulli and reaching out to other people in these decision-making positions within these commissions about what we can do to speak to the officials and at least get context on why they scored things the way that they scored things.

Like California, I honestly, like that was legit breaking news. I had no idea that there would, that there is a meeting in California after these events. that the media is welcome to attend with all the officials. No clue. I had no idea that was a thing. And I also had no idea that not only could you attend physically, you could attend virtually as well.

You could call into the meeting and listen in and give your thoughts and hear what the officials have to say about certain fights. Like, that's great. I wish every state did that. I wish they all did that. And I think the sport would be a much better place if every state were able to do that. If we could hear from certain judges, why do they score things that way?

I saw somebody suggest the other day that when you're writing down your score, there should be like a little box next to the round where you could fill in one sentence or so about why you scored it that way. It doesn't have to be like a big paragraph, but just be like, this guy did more damage. This guy had position. This guy did this, this guy did that. Three, four words.

That'd be an interesting edition as well. But I would love to see things change. We would love to invoke change in a lot of different aspects. But unfortunately, it's just not going to happen. It's not going to happen. And I saw a lot of people like blaming the UFC for this and that. And I don't think that's necessarily fair, if we're being honest, because the UFC doesn't appoint the officials.

they really have nothing to do with it. It's based on the state and it's based on the commission. They assign the judges. They assign the referees, all that. They assign those referees beforehand. And for pay-per-view events, they assign them at the commission meetings. And they have to be approved by pretty much everybody across the board. So it's not the UFC that's to blame for certain things.

It would go to the commission. And that's why we want these officials to have the ability to explain themselves. because being a judge sucks. It's not an easy job. It's a thankless job. Once in a while you get praise for having the correct scorecard and scoring a 10-8 when it needs to be scored and all of that. But it's a very thankless job.

You get very little praise and he get all the shit flung at you. And you're not making a ton of money to do it. It's not an easy job. But I think even some of the officials would be, like, all right, I'm getting dumped on on every podcast and every show on planet Earth based on my card. I would love the ability to explain myself. Maybe not everybody, but I'm sure there are certain judges who would love that opportunity. But those things need to change.

And that we can change. The actual scoring structure and all that, could it change? Sure, but it's probably not going to happen anytime soon. So we have to think more positively, and we have to at least prepare ourselves that this is not an anomaly. This is not a unicorn. This is going to happen more often than not. And I guarantee you on Saturday, a UFC 289, there's going to be a decision that people aren't going to agree with. And then we're going to talk about it.

And then a couple days later, we're going to be getting ready for Barb Vittori, Jared Cairn and here. And we're not going to be talking about it anymore. And guess what? There's probably going to be a controversial decision on that card too. This is just the world we live in. There's going to be close decisions. There's going to be things that we don't agree with. Do I think Kai Kar-France deserve to win that fight?

I scored for him every time I watch the fight. But do I feel like overly confident that he won three rounds? Like I'm over the moon. 100% confident he won three rounds? No. I'm confident he won two. but it was a close competitive fight. And we're just, we're looking at one card, one round.

To me, it's not a robbery. To me, it's not a robbery. But some of you may disagree, and that's okay. But there's nothing to get just riled up about because this is, this is life. This is MMA, my friends. This stuff's going to keep happening. We just need to prepare ourselves to not get so angry about it. All right, Tristan, kick us off.

Hey, Mike. And to piggyback, off that. And I've been thinking about this a lot. To think, where we're at, as far as the state of journalism and media covering MMA,

you know, I've been thinking about this a lot and one of the things is I was listening to a podcast and they went to, this was in regards of the local newspaper being gone and

diminishing. And I think He was David Simon, who was a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. And then he actually created the show The Wire. And he was on Capitol Hill. And one of the things he had said was, this is a great time to be a corrupt politician. And everybody laughed, but he was the one that was very serious. As far as the USC is concerned, and we've talked, and you've, and I've been observing, very observant what you've been saying about certain things. Like, you've gone to the point where, like, I'm not even watching the press conference.

because it doesn't make sense for me to watch Dana-Wa-Wi talk, because he's not going to be transparent. Why is he there? We've talked about him being reassigned. The control that they have with the media, we're like, there's no follow-up questions.

Because if you ask, and Luke Thomas brought this up, if you ask some probing question, you get your credentials pulled away. And listen, not everybody knows Ariel Hwani that could survive it. They could be a point where if the credentials are taken away from the journalists,

or the reporter, they've got to go back to the publication. Publication is that we've got to let you go. If you lost your credentials, we can't, we can't bring you back. And it's just, I mean, it's that to the point where, and this is probably for a long time, the UFC is, it's Teflon, and they are Mr. Untouchable. And it's going to be astonishing where, moving forward,

how much more are they going to get away with it. And we, this stuff probably, we don't even know. that might be really bad. And again, we don't have enough publication that we have bloody elbow, but we don't have much. I mean, there's so much you can do. There's so much MMA fighting can do. There's so much MMA junkie can do. Everybody has to make moral compromise.

So I just, I mean, again, people don't want to hear this, but it has to be talked about every couple of months or so. Like you said, with the Dana White situation when he hit his wife. Got to keep bringing it up because it's got to be talked about. But it's so hard because not enough people care about it because MMA is so unique. If you look at the other league, you have outside the line investigating reporting because there's enough people that care about it. With MMA, it's just not like that. And, you know, I'm just bringing it up because I'm concerned and I'm just wondering, man, what more UFC is going to get away with? And there's nothing we can do about it unless, you know, people speak up.

Just your deep thoughts about this or if you had any reflections about this, Mike, thanks. I mean, look, like I said with the whole New Year's Eve incident with Dana and how it was covered and how certain outlets ESPN in particular sort of, I'm not going to say they defended Dana, but they definitely gave him a pass when other sports, if this happens, they would have been much harder on it and they would have spent a lot more time on it. when I had people who cover other sports text me that we're all laughing at you. Like, I never forgot that. We're all laughing at you. You guys are who we all thought you were from Jump Street. And that was something I just haven't forgotten.

And that's just kind of where we're at right now. That's just kind of where out. Now, I don't necessarily agree with all that because if you've seen some of the press conferences, you have seen certain journalists challenge Dana in certain ways. And Dana seems to be up for the challenge more oftentimes than not. And oftentimes he'll answer your question with another question, to try to trap you or try to get you off your game.

And it works on some people. It doesn't work on others. And that's just the nature of the beast and the nature of the business right now. the thing that's going to change that is competition competition because like you said they are untouchable right now they are printing money they are killing the game they could put on any card of any substance with any 25 26 fighters can't do 25 fighters because no one's going to fight themselves but you know where i'm getting at and people are going to watch and they're going to get a whole bunch of money just for putting the cards on.

And at the same token, Dana being at a press conference is its business for sites. Being able to take that media scrum and put it on your YouTube channel and write articles about it based on what Dana says. There's something to that. There's something to that.

Dana provides value in that sense because people want to hear what Dana has to say. Now, it's not the same as it once was. where Dana's word is gospel and everybody believes it to be gospel and that the media are always the bad guys and Dana tells the truth about everything. I feel like I'm not saying those days are over, but I think more people who have been invested in the sport long enough are starting to see holes in what Dana has to say. I thought the Jared Gordon situation was ridiculous. The whole blaming him for all of that. Like, what are we doing here?

You're going to blame Jared Gordon for that? When you're literally watching him fight Bobby Green and seeing how that fight ended and you're just going to, okay, let's offer him a fight. His team's like, yeah, go ahead and take this fight. And then they pull him because at the press conference, or at his media scrum prior to the fight, he said he had a slight concussion.

Of course he did. No shit, Sherlock. Of course he had a concussion. He bashed heads with another fighter and they got punched in the face a whole bunch. Of course he got a concussion. And then you go out into a live microphone and you blame Jared Gordon for that? What's he supposed to do? This is how he makes money.

If you're going to offer him a fight in an opportunity, what's a fighter going to say? No. No, they're going to say yes. because they need to make money. They need to make money. His last fight was a no contest. If he gets a chance to fight Jim Miller and he wants to win and he thinks he can win,

what's he going to do? Say no, because I had a slight concussion six weeks ago. He's probably like, what? They're offering me a fight? Okay. This is how I make my living. And then to blame him for that, I don't know.

It's silly. But the only way that's going to, all this stuff's going to change and all that is, is competition. Like I said, like I've said, a million times. Where the UFC is right now

is where the WWF was in the mid to late 1980s. They were the juggernaut. They were the powerhouse. They were making money hand over fist. They were selling out every arena. They were running. I mean, UFC's not running

the Pontiac Silver Dome putting 93,000 people in the seats. But WWF didn't have to pay the wrestlers that much unless they were big stars. They just, provided opportunity. And it was until,

wasn't until WCW came along in 1996, 1997 started offering guaranteed money to certain talent that led to other big name wrestlers wanting to jump ship and make that same guaranteed money, which forced WWF to start putting out guaranteed contracts. And it changed the business forever. Right now, the UFC doesn't have any competition. They have none.

there are certain regions of the world where they do like i completely would understand and believe that ksw is more popular in poland than the ufc is i believe that 100%. that's the truth just like one championship in asia is probably more popular than the ufc but globally they're not and ksw knows that like ksw is not more popular than the ufc anywhere else besides poland and they know they they know that. that. But everywhere else, the UFC is just killing it. They're just killing it. And until somebody comes along that can help change the game and maybe PFL could do this, but then at the same time, like PFL shoots themselves in the foot by having multiple drug failures. Yes, they signed

Franciscanaganu, which could lead to something big, but I still have concerns and questions and trepidation and we need time to pass before we can judge whether or not this is a great deal or not. we got Don Davis coming out and putting out graphics that are just, hey, look at me, I'm here, a bunch of crap. And every time it seems like a promotion gets any momentum at all, something happens and they shoot themselves in the foot. And they either go backwards or they stay the same for a long time. So again, much like the conversations about close decisions

and rather than getting upset about it, at this moment, we just have to accept that the UFC is number one with the bullet. They have zero competition. Even though there's other promotions out there that people care about, they've zero competition. They are so far ahead of everybody else, they have lapsed the competition 50 times over. And until somebody else comes along that can challenge them in any way, this is what it's going to be, folks. This is what it's going to be.

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All right, let's get to VBMMA picks. VBMMA. Yeah, yeah. Hello, and thank you for, you know, invited me here and accepting. I see my people here. some of the guys I follow and I follow you too. I watch your interviews a lot, so thank you for adding me.

Thanks, sir. I want to ask you about like this idea of five judges, you know. I think that could be, that could be interesting topic because there are some organizations who have that, you know, and honestly I see less like this robbery is there when they have five judges, you know, than three, which I think is doable and it's not they hard, I don't think, you know. So why not have five judges? and I'd say to make a mistake, you know,

and you still have a correct decision, you know? So I wanted to ask what you think about that. Yeah, I mean, look, look, I'm willing to try anything at this point. I'm willing to try anything. And one of the things that I've been suggesting for a while is something that CFFC tried, like five or six, seven years ago, where they did an event somewhere in New Jersey, I think it was in Atlantic City.

And they had three judges Caged Side. And then they took three other judges, and they put them in a room where they could watch the monitors, watch the broadcast, and they wore noise-canceling headphones. So they couldn't hear any of the commentary. They couldn't hear any of the crowd reaction. They just watched the fights in complete silence. And they wanted to compare the scores. how did the three judges Caged side score it and compare it to the three judges who watched it in complete silence? And I feel like the complete silence would make a massive difference.

I feel like that would make a massive difference. Now, I know in the apex, there are not a ton of people there. But there are people there, and they do react to certain things that happen. And obviously you have a big crowd. Like if Max Holloway, when you fought Arnold Allen, if Max Holloway, whistled, the fans would have erupted. They were big Max Holloway fans. And sometimes, that we've seen in some of the sports biggest robberies,

that crowd reaction can sway judges. So, I mean, is open scoring the answer? A lot of people think it is, I don't necessarily think that's the case. I just think you're just going to get more complaining and more negativity round by round. Could it make a difference in certain things? cases. Yeah, but not in all. But I honestly, like, I don't know if it's some people have suggested, well, let's have fighters be the judges. That's great. But the problem is it is a small circle. Okay. Most fighters, no fighters, whether they're teammates or they've trained together once or

twice or they've seen them fight and they're a fan or whatnot. So there could be an issue with being biased and things of that nature because fighters know other fighters. That could be an issue. It's just, it's just tough. I would just like to see things tried. Like, if open scoring is really the answer, let's just try it. Let's just try it.

If the EFSI goes back to Colorado and you could do open scoring there, like try it. what's like what's the worst thing that can happen you're going to make headlines because you're trying it maybe it works maybe it doesn't but at least you tried but i think like the noise cancelling and watching fights and silence and all that i think that'd be a nice thing to try too let's just experiment with it let's do what cfc did whenever a pay per view comes about have the three judges cage side let's just pay three random dudes who are judges judges, men and women, who want to be judges who are judges, put them in a back room, they spend the night in the back, and they score fights in complete silence while watching the monitors,

and we'll see how the scores compare. Let's just try something. And that's, and I know it's a commission by commission thing. It's also a promotional thing. Just because a state offers open scoring doesn't necessarily mean that the promotion is going to use that open scoring. But again, when you're the UFC and you're so far ahead and you can't lose and you're printing money left and right, they just don't see any need in taking a risk or trying anything different. I don't know. The scoring structure needs to change, but we have to try something. We have to see what works.

We have to find what's consistent. anything, but we have to try. Invicta doing open scoring, it's a cool concept. There's a cool concept for the first events, but now it's just like a thing. We just know that Invicta's going to have open scoring. It doesn't make headlines anymore.

It's not going to make headlines until another big promotion does it. I don't know. It's a weird thing, but it's not going to change. And if it does, it ain't going to be anytime soon. Toke. Hello. The quiet little recess from the negativity, because I didn't watch the card this weekend. I decided not to.

I'm just staying out of all the drama. And I'm just going to say this. Firstly, congratulations to KSW. You are leading the charge in making European MMA great. You and Octagon MMA are doing great things with interesting concepts and actually bringing in the incentives. same production value for both of those organizations. So firstly, thanks to you and your European efforts.

And other than that, I've seen a lot of people shit on the upcoming card and I'm not going to say, hey, it's a great card. But when I saw the Dan Igay versus... Nate Landware. Yeah, Nate Landware. I got chills. I mean, that fight is exactly what I want. And because, you know, Daniga has had to up and down results, let's call it that.

But that fight still chills me to the bone in the excitement that I'm going to experience there. And we might, the only negative thing I'm going to say, we might be one step closer. And that's actually positive for me, but it's probably going to be negative for you. we have one step closer to the Chris Curtis at Welterweight experiment that I've wanted for a long time and I'm still calling for it because I and I don't think he's going to beat him above. If he does, great. Then he's back in the middleweight game. But I do think that he's going to lose.

I think this is a bad style matchup for him. And I think that he, I still think he should be a welterweight. I know you were against the last time I talked about. about it, I still think he should drop back to Welterweight, where he would be the right size, or like same size as his common fighters. But that's it. Great European MMA and a few fun fights at the upcoming card. See you.

Yes. Shout out to KSW and Octagon, doing big things. They're having fun. They're having fun. They're trying things. they're differentiating themselves from the norm and I respect that it was just cool seeing some of

like Nick Baldwin was there at the KSW event taking photos and taking some videos and just man it was just so cool to like see that building and seeing 50,000 people into an MMA card and seeing how it was all set up and the pillars the Coliseum look like all of it was just so cool and then we went to the apex for the UFC card It was just like, ugh, back to the norm.

But yeah, shout out to KSW. Look, 289 is, it's a, it's not a great card, guys. Like, it's not great. I love, obviously the headlines are going to be on the co-main event, Charles Olivera versus Benile Derruch. There's incredible stakes in that fight, especially for Derruch. I love Danny Yeager versus Nate Landware, but we're also getting a main card.

And I'm not saying, I'm not trying to be a hater or a bum or a negative Nancy. But Eric Anders, Mark Andre Burial is a main card fight. It's, it's, come on. Come on. It's for a pay-per-view that you're asking people to spend $80 on, it's not great. It's fine. There's some good fights. There's things to like.

There's things to like. I like Mike Malat. I like them. I like the guy. He's powerful. He's fun. He finishes dudes. That's going to be a fun fight.

But it's an $80 fight? I don't know. Chris Curtis Nassardine Nemovov. Probably could have served better on that main card, if we're being honest. But that's neither here nor there. I'm going to watch it. I'm probably going to enjoy it. But if you're, it's just the whole thing.

Like, you're asking people to spend 80 bucks on this. And then a month later, spend another 80 bucks on the International Fight Week card, and then three weeks after that, asking people to spend another 80 bucks, and then three weeks after that, asking people to spend another 80 bucks. It's just asking a lot of the common man,

the common MMA fan. That's 320 bucks you got to spend over, like, two and a half months. It's a lot. It's a lot. I'm not saying this is going to be like a bad card, like when we watch it. I'm not going to say that the people who say, spend the money aren't going to be entertained, but

compare this one to $290. It's not even close. 288 wasn't a great card either. 287 was good. But again, this is the UFC world. They have to fill so many cards and I do like the fact, I do like the fact that this

one's 11 fights. I do like this is 11 fights. I think most cards should be 10, 11 fights. I think 13, 14, 15 is too many. Whether it's a pay-per-view or a fight night card, that's just too many fights. it's just too money. It's too many.

But there are things we like and there are things that we could probably do without if we're being honest in terms of what's on the main car and whatnot for an actual pay-per-view broadcast for fans, all that. The Chris Curtis thing, it's not that I was like against,

I'm not against Chris Curtis going to 170. Like if he decides, like, I'm going to move back down to welterweight, go for it. Like, I'd watch. I'd be intrigued by it. but if I'm Chris Curtis at this point in his career, you're in the UFC,

it took you forever to get there. You don't have to cut a bunch of weight. You're winning fights. People like it. People know you. You're just outside the top 15. I think he's, if he even moves to welterweight,

he might not even be as high ranked as he is a middleweight. I still think he's in a fine position at 185. And I don't think he's a title contender at 170. be. I think he'd win fights. And then once he got to the upper echelon of the division, he's probably going to lose those fights. But he's in the same position at 185. It doesn't have to cut a whole bunch of weight and seems very happy for the most part. So it's not that I'm against it. It just doesn't seem like he's really interested at all

in going down to 170. So, and I think he could beat him above. I think he could beat him. That's going to be an interesting fight. It's probably like, the fourth or fifth most interesting fight on the card. Probably the fourth most interesting. But I'm in. Australian talk, hello. Good day, Mike. A quick question, mate. And maybe a follow-up if you'll allow as well.

So the UFC's hesitancy to implement the transparent scoring, is their argument that they're doing that because they believe if the fighters know who's clearly winning, going into the third round of a three-round fight, for example, that the person leading two rounds will just coast through, and therefore the fights will sort of pan out. You'll have fighters trying to defend their lead rather than ensure the win. And I would say, don't we already see that a lot of the time anyway, mate?

Yeah, I mean, that's the argument against open scoring from a lot of people is that, well, the guy who's up two rounds is just going to coast, especially if they know they're up to rounds. But here's the thing as well with open scoring is that just because you have it doesn't mean the fighters necessarily know or have to use it. So, I mean, I've watched them in Victor cards where they have open scoring.

And what they do is they take like an iPad and they put it up towards the corner and the corners can decide whether or not they want to use it or not. Some use it. Some want to know where they stand. And others are just like, no. They fight better when they don't know where they stand.

Let's just keep the pressure on like you're down to rounds. Let's keep you fighting. Let's keep you top notch. So just because it's there doesn't mean you have to use it. But that's the argument against it. But I'm with you. It doesn't... If a fighter's confident they won the first two rounds,

they could coach that they wanted to anyways. But again, that's... But that's the referee. If that's the case, if it's a stalling thing or if it becomes a stalling thing, the referee could just take a point. You're stalling. Warning.

You're stalling. Point. Gone. So there's ways around it. But again, I don't necessarily think open scoring is the answer. Because all it's going to do is just imagine if you're Kai Kar France. Imagine your Kai Kar, France.

You probably felt pretty damn good about that fourth round. Imagine finding out that a judge scored that round against you. What is the guy car friends? that going to do to your psyche? You're going to be pissed. And maybe that translates to a great fifth round, but maybe it doesn't. Maybe it translates to, oh, you got to be shitting me and you're down on yourself. So there's pros and cons to everything. If they wanted to try it, I would be like, cool, try it. And I'd be happy that they're actually trying something. But they're not going to, so I'm not going to get too excited about it. Panda, hello. Panda, are you there? Okay.

I don't hear you. We'll move on. Mikey. Hey, hey guys, how's it going, man? Just going to keep it a little light because I'm still on a high from the night's ass whipping above Panthers last night. So, listen,

I just want to say, I get it. 289 is not the most blockbustery looking card. But also, can people please stop pretending it was supposed to be? Everyone's like, well, it's not 290. No shit. 290s international fight week

that's that's the 10th pole card. The June card always gets a short end sometimes because it's like it's the card before international fight week which is supposed to be the big one. And two just for perspective it was like oh these cards are watered I'm like remember in 2011 UFC

129 aka like the biggest card ever because it was George St. Pierre and Jake Shields and in a stadium. The main card had Jason Brill's and Vladimir Matushenko. Like, you know what I mean? So, like, I get it. Mike Molot's on the main card and whoever else.

But, like, these some pay-per-views, more often than not, these pay-per-views look like what this week's is. And, too, again, I'm sick and tired of it that, you know, you guys complained that women's M.A. needs to have more depth, but then you also don't want them to main event anything. So, like, you know, and another thing, too, about open scoring. whether or forward against it is, you know, I can waffle back and forth. But I think sometimes, too, it's so much easier for fans to project what they prefer to see from a broadcast perspective. Like, oh, I want to see open scoring. Or I want to see, you know, fights and legalize certain things.

And then you think about it and you're just like, well, that's you as a fan. You just mentioned it with Kai Kaua, France. Like, okay, what's open scoring really doing for the fighters themselves? Oh, but they'll know what the score is. I'm like, okay, is that something you necessarily want to know? Like, honestly, do you really want to know that? Because then what? You're just going to be scoreboard watching?

You know, are you going to, because you have, imagine having a game plan. And then finding out it's not working. And then it completely discombobolates you. And you're just like, well, shit, now what do I have to do? Again, I get it. I'm just saying more often than not, fans always claim like they want something done, but they don't really think about the practical application of it for the fighters. Or even the athletes, like when we watch football and basketball,

Everyone says, they should change this. They should change that. I'm just like, are you sure about that? Do you think that would actually make the game better for the players? Or do you just want it as a fan because you're sitting at home? I mean, that's all for me today, guys. Have a good week. Be kind of.

Well, I mean, with the 289 thing, I mean, I agree with some of what you're saying. I don't agree with all of what you're saying. Like comparing 288, like I said, 288 wasn't great either. That was a lot had to do with just Domino's Files. falling on that card. So we got a Belal Muhammad Gilbert Burns fight which made absolutely no sense. And

I think the more time goes by I think the more we're going to learn that that fight made absolutely no sense for that particular card. The fight made sense. The timing of the fight made zero sense. Because you're just having these guys come in on less than three weeks notice fight for what is perceived

to be stakes, yet there probably isn't any at the end of the day because of how this division might actually look at the end of the year. And there was no rush to put this fight on to begin with. This just seemed like, you know, this was kind of the card we're going to get. And for eight, you're just, like, to me, it's just, if you're the UFC and you're the predominant organization and you're asking fans who are already paying a certain amount of

money per month to watch your product, to spend $80 to watch a show, you want to put your best forward as much as possible. Now, I understand that's not going to happen every single time. But at the same token, because you are making money, hand over fist, because you are profiting $300 plus million, profiting, not making, profiting. That's not what you, that's not like what you made. That's what you're profiting. The fans expect more from you. And $290 compared to most international fight weeks. I love $2.90. As a fan, I love it.

It ain't for everybody. It ain't for everybody. I love Volkadovsky-Yaya-Rodriguez. I love it. But when most people think of International Fight Week, they think of Israel Adisani. They think of the biggest stars. And comparing this International Fight Week card

from a casual standpoint, compared to others, it's not the same. It's not the same. Last year's, on paper, from a casual perspective, was better than this one. Not to me. I love this card.

I love this card. I love Moreno Pantosia. Love it. Love that fight. Volkiair is probably the fight I'm looking forward to more than anything else that's on the books this year. But again, when we're looking at it from a casual perspective, bringing in new viewers, who's going to want to spend $80, if someone is hurting for cash right now and is like, but it's a big M. fan. And they're like, you know what? Budgeting this out, I can only choose

one of these cards in July to buy or choose one of these next three pay-per-views to buy. I would be pretty confident that most people are going to take 291 over 290. And most people aren't taking 289.

Having said that, I like the 289 main event. And like I've said, I get vibes. I have I've had a feeling since the fight was announced and I had more of a feeling after that first press conference, I feel like we're going to see Ernie Aldana win the title. Maybe I'm completely wrong,

but if we're going by vibes, I got vibes. I've been feeling pretty strongly about this one. I feel like Aldana is just ready to go. I feel like it's her time. I'm not saying like the aftermath of 289 couldn't be something where we have storylines for the next week. It's very possible, but again, I just don't see a lot of people buying this one. I just don't see a lot of people buying it.

And that's a problem. Panda, do we have you? Hey, my man, Mike, you know, we got those phone issues over here. How are we? Good. What's up? Yeah, I'll just go quick two things here. In my opinion, it's going to be so hard to switch to open scoring.

And obviously, what do I know? You know what I mean? I'm a goddamn panda on Twitter. But with that being said, the gambling community, the actual UFC community, like, just the way that things have been run up to now, like going so unorthodox to open scoring and, like, having the actual fight stopped to then let us know how that last round went while these judges are already still making decisions. And Dana White doesn't even care about the decisions these judges are making because he's out there promoting his slab fighting. So, like, the judging isn't ever going to get better until the man in front of the judge. charge starts talking about it. Secondly, I think there's one fight Saturday.

We're very, very, I mean, as a community, I'll speak up for the community excited for. Bineal versus Charles is a banger. Talk to me about it, Mike. Are we excited? Are you as excited as I am? I think Charles might be able to put him out and catch him late, but Bineal does pack a lot of heat in his hands. Thanks, Mike. How about heck of the morning?

So addressing the first thing, is it hard to transition? transition? Not really. All I'm asking. And I've been one of those people who have been saying that open scoring to me is not the answer. This is not going to fix everything. It's just going to lead to more grumpiness because we're going to see it round by round. And if we're grumpy after seeing scorecards after the fight, boy, are we going to be grumpy when we see scores after each round and who scores it for each round. Twitter is going to be a cesspool. So if we think that's going to change the negativity, it isn't. All I'm suggesting is if some people feel like this is the answer, and if it could actually fix judging, all I'm saying is, why not try it?

Why not just try it once? And just see, if it's a failure, don't do it again. All I'm saying is just try things. It's okay to try. Trying is good. Just give it a shot. And Dana has nothing to do with this. Believe me, Dana has shit on enough referees and enough judges over the years. You can go back and watch many a press conference. Dana has done that.

He has no say over this. None. The only thing he has say over is if they go to a certain area that offers open scoring, it is up to the promotion whether or not they want to use it. But Dana cannot, Dana can

talk about referees and judges until he's red in the face. And it's not going to change anything. The commission, it's all about them. They make the decisions. But if they go to Colorado, or they go to Kansas, or they go to someplace that has open scoring,

just try it once and see what happens. I mean, it doesn't hurt. I don't think it's the answer, but it doesn't hurt to try. And yes, Darry Usholivar is the best fight on the card, even above the main event. Love it. With MX Platinum, $400,000,

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For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Daniel, hello. Hey, Mike. I'm a morning to you. Just because everybody's on this judges thing, you know, when I look at this, I'm just kind of curious.

Like, if we took all the controversial decisions in the last five years, like, what percentage of those decisions have? Saudi Amato, Crissly, Adelaide Bird, or Doug Krosby in it. Like, it feels like it is the same culprits pretty much

every single time. I mean, I rarely log into Twitter after a controversial decision and I'm disagreeing with the general public and, like, siding with the judges.

Like, it seems like most of the time the whole world, you know, scores a fight one way, and then these three or four people scored a different way.

I'm just really curious. Like, There will always be bad scorecards here and there, but I just don't understand why we're not, you know, disciplining these guys, why one of these people maybe hasn't been fired. I know Doug Crosby did the 50-45 for Sabatello. Then he flew to Vegas from Connecticut that same week or whatever

and then scored the Paddy fight and the Jerry Gordon. The next day. Yeah, yeah. The next day. He did it the next day. And then I didn't even realize this. Then right after that, he went and did a judging clinic or something at Extreme Couture.

And apparently I was reading an interview with Chris Curtis. And Chris Curtis was like, dude, we were trying to ask this guy questions. And he had no idea what he was saying. He's like we literally walked out of the training. So, I mean, that was just a horrible little freaking weak stretch for that guy, two week stretch. So I mean, I guess we haven't seen him since. But yeah, I'm just, I don't know. Like it seems like these three or four people have the longest leash on any rep or judge across any sports.

Like even bigger professional sports, NBA or something like that. Like they look at the track record records. these judges and make sure we have the most competent ones in the playoffs and the bigger ones. So I don't know. I'm just kind of mind-blown that these three or four people just keep popping up. Maybe we should just give a shot, maybe just, you know, not using them as much. I don't know. Thanks, Mike.

Yeah, I mean, it's something we could probably like go through and try to figure out. But at the same token, we've seen the, like, we've seen the UFC go to, like, different states and different cities that they haven't been to before. are like, look, you got to use the local officials. Look at Texas, for God's sake. Look at the San Antonio area. We had the Fury FC incident where Gianni Vasquez gets choked unconscious. The referee allows the fight to continue while he's unconscious, gets put in arm bar, his arm is broken.

And then that referee got to go judge fights for the UFC the next day. And we saw some awful decisions on that card because they use local officials. We've seen it in Kansas City. we saw it in Charlotte with like referees who had no idea what they were doing we've seen like it like it doesn't matter like we could use the we can statistically do that but if they go to another area and use local officials we've seen the local officials screwed things up too so I mean again it's a very difficult job it's a very difficult job we can watch the fights on television and hear the commentary and see all the angles

we get the best view of anybody else, way better than the judges have. The judges have to sit in their one seat and they look at their specific angle and they can only judge what they see. So if one judge has, one judge could have the entire round right in front of them,

while the other judge, like may not be able to see really anything because they're across the cage, they're clinching against the fence, and like maybe they're not getting a good enough view from where they sit. Like, that happens. And I'm willing to give a little bit of a pass to that.

But if this is a problem, all I'm saying is, let's just try some things. Let's just try some things. Maybe one of the ideas, I remember talking to Eric Nixick about this, and he's told me the Doug Crosby story as well about Crosby going up and trying to answer questions and not really answering them. So they're just like, fuck this, we're out of here. And one of the things we've talked about is like, the judges can be caged side, but let's put them in a box. like let's put them in like one of those like photo boxes

where they have a monitor and they there's another commission official in there watching them watch the fights on the monitor no sound coming through the earphones and then they can print up and give their cards right there and then they get the same view as everybody else like what's the problem with them watching the monitors as long as they're not listening to the commentary

or hearing the crowd react or anything like that like it can be done let's take all these outside elements out of it. Sometimes the crowd reactions can sway the judges. It can. Especially when things are happening

across the octagon from where they're sitting. They just hear the reaction from the crowd. They see a punch thrown and it looks close. And the crowd's like, yay! And they're like, well, I didn't really see it, but the crowd seems to think it landed. The shit happens. But, again, the scoring structure sucks.

10-9 must. It's a boxing scoring model. It's not an MMA scoring model. And this is just going to keep happening, my friends. Double A. Hello, hello, hello. It's been a while. How are you?

Good. What's up? I want to talk about Nate Landway if we can. Okay. So, um, every, um, Nate Landware is, um, that fighter that if you see him,

you love him, right? Because he's like he's crazy fighting style. But, um, in my opinion, just because he isn't that, well, he isn't really that known because he's only fought on fight nights, really. I thought, I had in my head that if he had won in Nate, quote unquote, Nate Landware fashion on this card, it might have been like a star-making performance for him. But now I'm thinking that it might not, because it's 289 and the UFC might have made a mistake

in putting him on this card. What do you think? I don't think they made a mistake putting him on this card. I think people are really excited about it. I think it's more about the fight in the matchup than just one fighter in particular. I think it's both guys. I think this has the recipe for chaos, and I think people are here for it. I don't think Nate Landware is going to be, like I think Nate is getting over,

but I don't know if he's going to be like a superstar, even if he beats Danny Gay, which I'm not picking him to beat Danny Gaye. I could be wrong. I think Dan's going to win. But it's going to be fun as hell while it lasts. So I don't think it's a mistake putting him on this card. Let's give the guy a shot. He's getting over.

He's fought in front of crowds the last few couple of times and the people are going crazy for him. So let's put him in front of this audience and fans are going to go nuts. It's going to be a fun watch with the reaction to that crowd. So I don't think it's a mistake putting him on the card. if he fights on 290 or 291 he's on the prelims you know what's i i think it's fine

i think it's fine and i think dana i think nate win or lose is going to be a guy people are going to be excited about no matter what i don't think he's going to be like a big star but i think he's someone that invokes excitement like seroni or back in the day or even nico price or mitchell perera

guys like that. He's kind of kind of be in that, that atmosphere, which is a pretty good place to be. You can make a very good living being in that place. Abzwalia. What's up, man? I'm doing good. Yeah, so I'll just have two questions,

just like us. Firstly, the main event. I think it's a really great main event overall. For Al-Bazi, I reckon they should definitely do the Brandon Roeville versus Al-Bazi for, title eliminator, you know, depending on what the outcome will happen with

Pantorja versus Marino next month. But assuming Marino still wins the belt, that would be the fight I reckon the UFC should make. And it's probably common sense because Alba, Abazi, I don't think, has earned a title shot yet. Yes, Kai Karafran's technically worst fine for interim title

last year of July, but that's not really anything that makes sense, you know? Like, I would say if Kai Karah France did fight for a title, that would have made perfect sense, but in this case, no. And my second thing, just regarding PPVs, you know, one thing I've, I wish the UFC really did was market the pay-per-views much.

But I'm not saying they don't, you know, don't get me wrong, they really do. But this is a trend I've noticed particularly this year, you know, despite how grave year this has been for five cards and overall, like I'll take a good example, 284 and 288, not really, I guess, remarkable high cards, but they like 284 it came i think one day just before the super bowl happened and you know same with like 288 when the NBA playoffs are happening and the baseball season just started like i really wish the uc scheduled and planned some of their cards where they can be i guess the biggest event people talk about the whole night because i'm just seeing the current schedule that they have

upcoming like such as um 291 that's going to be really huge card we all know that but that's coming on the same days that terence crawfair versus spencer five and no doubt my mind that fight is probably going to overtake the Justin Gage versus Dustin Porriot, just based off the name alone, how long fans have been waiting for that fight card. And also the fact is boxing. Boxing always just seems to out smart and play UFC whenever the biggest, biggest fights happen.

I'm not, like I said, maybe, you know, I might be overting this a little bit, but I reckon the UFC could really push their marketing up to another notch because they have come to a point now compared to maybe 20. 12 years ago when I started watching the sport from my perspective, where people are actually talking about these cards. You see, like, I've seen how 285 was talking about, how even a car as big as 286 was talked about. Like, it was talking about, you know, even last year, the year before,

like maybe 262 or, you know, 258, all these big cars. People are talking about it as much as you would see an NFL post or a baseball post or your average NBA post we posted on social media. But I really would like to see the UFC. step up in marketing. I think this company's come so far. They could take things up notch and really push the brand to

possibly getting close to that next populated level. Thanks, man. That's all I have to say. Have a good day. I mean, it would be nice, but they don't have to. They've already won. They've already won the game.

Whatever they've been doing, they could just keep doing. Because that $2.901 card, whether one person watches it or it does a million pay-per-view buys, it makes no difference to them. Because Salt Lake City is paying them millions of dollars to come to their area.

They're making money regardless of how that does on pay-per-view. And they'll market it. Terrence Crawford, that fight wasn't even a thing when this card was announced. It wasn't even a thing. Wasn't even discussed. There was no target. There was no nothing.

So it's just going to be like, all right, it's going to do fine on pay-per-view, even with the boxing. It's going to do fine. It's a loaded card. It's going to do fine. But that car was never going to do a million anyways. But it's going to be fine.

And they don't care. They're making so much money that if that does 300,000 pay-per-view buys, like, you think they care? They don't care. They don't care. We'd love to see the market more, but they don't need to. They don't need to do anything. everything they do is money makes money everything they don't need to take risks they don't need to spend any

additional money they don't have to do any of that stuff and they're never going to be the nfl or anybody like that but they're doing just fine they're making so much money they're they're killing everybody there's not a combat sports company like all of them combined are making what the ufc is making right now in profit none of them they don't have to do anything anything. Everything they do turns to gold. CV, hello. CV. All right, move on. Try to get to everybody here. There's a lot of you. Four-ounce sniper. Hello.

Hey, Mike. Can you hear me? Yep. Yeah, I got you. My audio is back. Just real quick, I wanted to ask you your thoughts on Alice Casares' performance this past weekend. Got a fight of the night along with the victory. I think he's on a four-fight win street. I think I remember him calling out Alexander Volcanovsky for maybe a future title shot. What do you think his ceiling is truly? Because I remember two, three years ago, seeing him fight, I never would have thought he probably would have broke into the top 15.

I don't know what it was. I just never thought he was that good. But it seems he's made a big improvement in his game. And, I mean, he's ranked 15. He'll probably bump up to maybe 14 or 13. and that means he's like two or three fights away from the title. So just your thoughts on his performance and his chances of breaking in the top five.

So yes, Alex Xeris, great fight. Enjoyed that very much. Daniel Paneda is just, that dude is just a zombie. And it's great to have a good dance partner. Yeah, Cacaris look great. He's won two straight now, seven and one in his last eight fights. And he's been fighting backwards like every single time. So, yeah, let's get him a little something, something.

My suggestion was Edson Barbosa. Let's go that route. I think that's a really fun fight, and we'll test him there. Is he a top five guy? I don't really know if I'm ready to say that, but dude's real good. He's very good. Featherweight's a great division. People talk about lightweight and bannam weight all the time, but featherweight's right there.

Featherweight does not get nearly enough love for being as deep as it is. and Casares is just another one of those examples. Daniel Paneda too. Daniel Paneda has like 29 wins and he's finished all of them. That's nuts. He's been fighting forever. Super fun fighter.

Super fun fighter. But yeah, give me him and Ed Zimbabarboza. He needs to fight somebody with a number next to his name. Enough is enough. His next fight needs to be against a rank guy. I think he's more than earned that at this point. Four corner sports hello Hey Mike are you but hear me

Yep All right Mike so I wanted to talk to you about Yeah the I think One of the callers ended up taking my point About Who should fight Who should Abazi fight

I think Abazi should fight Brandon Royvo I think that Both these fighters need to fight quick In my opinion you want to get it You know within the same timeline as Marina versus Pantosia just because that way it's not such a long layoff and then you don't have somebody jumping over you. But do you imagine if they have Kikar friends fighting on that Sydney card just because it looked like he didn't take too much damage or anything like that.

And if he spins it around, it might be a quick turnaround. I mean, I imagine a lot of the city kickboxing guys are going to be fighting on that card. It would be surprising if KKKF doesn't fight a lot of. that card but um i do have a prediction for this main event i just feel like everything is timelining on what's the quote amanda nunez like leaving the sport i think anthony smith had said it best that you know her involving her family on a lot of these uh ventures on her i want to say what three four fights i think ever since like the megan and anderson fight um that she brings the family along and just sees like she has one foot in and one foot out and that's never good i feel

like that's one of the reasons why she lost to juliana pina i also have other reasons why she lost to her but i just think irene aldana is a more hungrier fighter i think that she has a good chance of getting it done and if amanda lets her ego get in the way look what happened with her against juliana pina they were at a swinging war and you know amanda got exhausted and not for nothing arine al dana hits a lot harder than Julian Appania. So I'm predicting, and I'm going to say it right now, it's probably going to be a second or third round TKO, and don't be surprised Amanda Nunes walks away from the sport after that, because she already had accomplished everything at that point.

And it would actually be best because she's holding up the Bannerweight Division, and we can actually have, you know, a lot more Bannaway fights. What do we have last year? Like 12, 13 women's bandweight fights last year? That's ridiculous. I mean, the title should be defended at least twice a year. year. And overall, within like the last four years, it got to fund it twice. That's ridiculous right there. But that's what I wanted to say. Let me know what you think. And it's always

a great so you can see, Mike. So there is no women's band-and-weight division. There's 12 fighters. Look at the UFC rankings. The last three ranked fighters at 135 don't even fight at 135. There's no division. There's no division. It's insanity. There's like five active fighters. there's like seven who fight every so often. Julia Obula just had a baby. We don't know when she's coming back. And then like Chelsea Chandler is ranked at 135 and she doesn't fight at 135.

It's nuts. Norma Duvant is ranked at 135. She doesn't fight at 135. There is no division. There is no division. It's crazy. Whether Amanda's champion or not, we're still going to have the same problems.

You don't have any fighters. So my sit, we've been talking about this a lot. I would like to say the UFC just make like one women's, like 115's its own division, 125's its own division. And then we combine 135 and 145 is like one division, like the women's heavyweight division, if you will, where we can open things up. We don't have to, women don't have to cut to 135. Just do like one title for like all of them.

Who cares? Like I wouldn't hate that. there's just not enough, like, there's just not enough fighters of that weight class or at 45. So it's just a big problem. I don't necessarily agree, like, the family thing. I just think that kind of helps calm Amanda down and separates her from the sport a little bit. And I think a lot of fighters do that, Max Holloway being one of them. And there's a lot of fighters who involve their family and need that sort of separation from all of that.

And I don't think it's, that's why she lost to Julianna Pena. I think she lost Giuliana Pena because she thought she was going to kill Julianna Pena and the timing just worked out perfect where Amanda thought like it would be just an easy win and Juliana just outhearted her and took big punishment and Amanda was like damn couldn't put her away and Juliana got her back but when she actually prepared for it Amanda beat that ass and if they booked them for a third time, the same thing probably would have happened. So I like this fight.

I think Rady Aldana is very physical. She's big for the weight class. I think she's bigger than Amanda Nunes. And I don't know. I just kind of feel like, I don't know. I just kind of feel like it's Aldana's time. I feel very good about that.

I could be wrong, and Amanda could just out class her like she's done to most other fighters, but I feel like this could be a really good, night for a rainy aldana the kai car francing sure if he wants to fight on that card he will and with albazi i think he's going to fight pantosia no matter what if pantosia meets barina morano i know everyone's saying like well they're just going to do an immediate rematch and yeah will morano get a get a title shot right back sure but if pantosia wins what's going to happen is the ufc is going to abu dhabi they're

going to Abu Dhabi in October. If Brandon Moreno beats Pantosia, there is no way they're going to convince Brandon Moreno to turn around in three months and defend that belt against Amir al-Bazi in Abu Dhabi. Not going to happen. If Pantosia wins, I could absolutely see Dana White going to the press conference saying Pantosia is going to defend against Amir al-Bazi in Abu Dhabi because the crowd would be very much behind Amir al-Bazi. He would be a star there.

And I could see that happening. The timing actually works out pretty well for Amir. Where if Pantosia wins, I could definitely see a world where they turn Pantosia around quick, fights al-Bazi and Abu Dhabi. Moreno gets the winner of that fight. There you go. Doesn't slow anything down. Make the Abu Dhabi fans happy.

Make the government happy bringing over a guy that people are going to care about to fight for a title. Islam on the card, et cetera. So I could definitely see that. happening. And if Pantosia loses, you do Moreno versus Royval for the belt. He fights Pantosia with the win. He gets a title shot. So I don't think, I don't think Roy Val and Albaozy are going to fight each other, but we'll see. That's how I would do it. If Pantosia wins the belt, I have, I have a strong feeling they're going to try to turn Pantosia on fast to try to fight Albaozy and Abu Dhabi. But Moreno, I can do that. No chance. Let's go to James. Then we'll go to CV.

Hey, good morning, Mike. Good morning to you. I'll just keep it short and sweet. I like to guess the lines of the fights coming up, and I'm kind of shocked that Nunes is a minus 330 favorite. Kind of curious what you think. I kind of figure should be more around the minus 150. And at this point in time, do you think we'll ever get the Nunes

Shefchenko trilogy? Like always, Mike, thanks to what you do, and have a heck of a morning. I mean, I wouldn't put it at minus 150. I'd put it. Minus 3.30 seems a little high. But it's not, I don't think it's far. I don't think it's far away. Minus 270, minus 280.

It's probably where I'd have Nunes. It's about right. Don has taken this one on, she wasn't the first opponent, somewhat short notice. It's not like it's three weeks notice, but it's somewhat short notice. Yeah, I don't think it's too far off. Minus 150 would be insane.

I would, all the value beyond a man in unism, minus 150. So, yeah, I don't, yeah, I think that's, that's, uh, that's about right. I don't think the lines are too terribly far off. I think the value's on Aldana right now, but I think that line's going to get a little, a little closer. CV, hello. Hey, Mike.

Can you hear me? Yep. Hey, man. Uh, two quick, uh, things for me. Um, first question, um, assuming you're Michael Chandler and you're, like, assuming the worst possible outcome, which is Connor not fighting. this year. Would you hold out for, I mean, would you wait for the McGregor fight if you're Chandler or do you try to get another bag and try to get another fight in before the year is done?

Because I guess if like he doesn't fight again this year, his last fight would have been, I think, Poria, right, back in November? And second question, thoughts on the Brad Tavaris and Chris Weidman matchup. Thanks. It's a good question with Chandler. I think he would wait. for Connor to a certain extent. But I think there comes a point during this where he's just

going to have to be like, eh, it's not going to happen. But I don't think he'd settle for like, who is he going to fight? He's fought everybody. He's fought Olivera. I mean, I mean, it would not shock me if the UFC

just gave him the title shot, even though he lost to Dustin Porre. He's already fought Porre. He's already fought Gae. He's already fought Oliver. He's lost all three of those guys. I think he's going to wait for Connor as long as possible. As long as he can.

Does he get to fight for Zeeves? Does he get to fight Syrucians? He's going to fight Grant Dawson. No. He's not going to fight any of those guys. So I think he'll wait for Connor as long as he can. All right. So we've got five people waiting. This will be the final five. Viking, D.C., Barbarusa, the homie and Ani. That's how we're going to

do this. We're going to go rapid fire. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Viking. Viking. Hello, Mike. Hello, what's up? I was to be back full time, I'm going to. So I just want to start with the one in the journalist,

the unbiased journalist, Ariel Helwani, because everyone is, a lot of people in the space are sharing. thoughts based upon what Ariel had said on this show the other day. But show, by the way, the most transparent journalist I have ever seen in my life in the world, whether it comes to the sport journalist or crime or many other streams, I mean, exposing Dana White and UFC. Because no one's going to do that if it wasn't for Ariel, Helvani, and who is raising voice for fighters like Francis Engano and Jared Gordon,

Kaikara, France, no one but Ariel and who is contacting commissions for what the judges are doing without any responsibility and causing a lot of problems for fighters. And I'm 100% sure if Engano does mistakes in the future. Ariel's going to criticize him and going to ask him a lot of questions. Jedmish should learn a lot of things from Ariel, Helvon. The best journalist of all time, if not the best, we all need such kind of motherfuckers. God bless Ariel. Thanks a lot.

Ariel's the man. What can we say? He's the man. DC Betts, hello. DC Betts, are you there? All right. Let's move on. Barbara Russo. What's that, ma'am? How are you? Good.

I just want to ask you about the lightweight division because the upcoming fight is between the one who should be fighting for the title, Benile Darius. And I think Olivera is going to win. He had the better opposition. I wish for the division it's going to be better if Binal wins. What do you think if Olivera wins, do you wish that then Alexander Volkanowski walks through Yair, which I think it's pretty hard, and Dustin and Justin, neither of them is going to be winning with no issues, which he can't make a quick turnaround for two months, a little bit more. what do you think is going to happen with Islam? Is there a scenario where he doesn't fight in Abu Dhabi?

I don't know. Thank you, Mike. So, no, I think he'll find his way on that card, one way or the other. I mean, if Darius wins, you don't have to worry about it because he'll get the shot. If Oliver wins, I think Volk would probably be the next choice. but kind of like the last caller said, maybe they offer it, maybe they give it to Chandler. If Chandler's available, I can see them making that fight.

It doesn't make a ton of sense from a merit perspective, but Chandler's a name and he'll be on the season of the ultimate fighter if Conner's futures up in the air and Chandler's the dude, let's just say Volkanowski and Yahyar have a war, wouldn't stun me. but Darius wins and we don't have to worry about it. D.C. Hello. Hey, Mike. Can hear me now.

Cool. Sorry about that, brother. So I wanted to, I wanted to ask if you had a chance to listen to Chris Curtis and Sean Strickland's new podcast on YouTube. It's called The Man Dance. It's just, it's freaking hilarious. So I have to recommend that to anybody. And then also Robert Whitaker has,

has his own podcast too. It's called the MMA Arcade. And so if you're in a video games and MMA, it's perfect. And Robert Whitaker is a freaking nerd, man. But it's really cool to see that side of him and everything. But what I wanted to ask you and talk to you about is the beef I have with you because I don't understand, and I'm just joking, but I just can't understand how when you talk about how the UFC should cut out

one of these fights or one of the, you know, one of these guys. of Duplice and Whitaker that you keep saying that the obvious thing to do is to give Duplice to Otisania and give Whitaker to Strickland, which I'm like, I don't understand that because the obvious thing to do is Duplice go to Strickland because you barely beat an old man Brunson and you guys couldn't even make it past the second round, either one of them. So why should he get a championship fight for that when it seems like we're just trying to make it. it like the WWE here and what's the best storyline. Okay, well, we got this, this race issue shit going on.

Let's do that. Instead of, you know, the real thing is Robert Whitaker has earned that title shot. He should already have that title shot. It's the third one. I understand that. But, you know, people still argue to this day that Robert Whitaker won that second fight. So I don't know how people can't say that it's not, you know, that it's not a fight

that people don't want to see or people, yeah, you know that people want to see. So if you could just explain that to me, we'll argue it back and forth. I appreciate your brother. Have a heck of morning. I mean, there's no argument to be had. It just makes sense.

Like, if you're going to make that fight, you have to do it now. Because if DDP fights any, if DDP fights Robert Whitaker, he's never fighting out of someone. Because Robert's going to win that fight. He's going to win it running away. So, like, let's just do that.

Let's get Adasanya fighting a guy that stylistically, he will be very fun against, stylistically that he has a very good chance of getting a highlight real knockout and a very good chance of looking like a major superstar in his home country. Like, what's wrong with that? And then Whitaker can fight the winner. Whitaker fights Strickland and gets the values in the same position

just goes and fights the winner. The reason I'm saying that right now is like, we've already seen it twice, but they just fought last year. And Adasani won. And there's no controversy. The fight was closer,

but there was not one watch of that where I was like, oh, maybe Whitaker might have snuck that one out. No. And Adasani didn't fight great in that fight. So, in the first, one, Adasandia just ran him.

Just ran him. So, let's just do something different. We have a fresh man in a division where Izzy's already beat pretty much everybody already. Like, he is, when we talk about cleaning out division, Adasania has pretty much cleaned out his division. There's a couple of names he hasn't fought. But DDP's one of them.

Let's just build this thing up. Stylistically, he's probably going to be, it's a more fun fight. like let's just do it and if Whitaker beats Strickland or wherever he fights and he gets the next title shot

like if they didn't they just moved Whitaker to it fine what's the other alternative though what's the other alternative I don't know but it doesn't seem like they're changing anything UFC 290 is coming up in a month

if we're going to change something we better change it quick because right now you're taking a big risk with Whitaker and DDP fighting, hoping one of these guys can turn around in two months. It's a tough ask. Whitaker Strickland from a casual perspective is way more interesting than Whitaker versus DDP.

Most people didn't even know who DDP is outside of like the MMA community. But a lot of people know who Strickland is and Strickland will say some shit at the press conference that'll get people all sorts of riled up. So that's how I would do it. The other option is we do Izzy versus Jamal Hill and I just don't really have a ton of interest in that idea. I could see them doing it, but like, I don't really care to see it right now. Jamal Hill hasn't even defended his title yet.

Let's go to the homie and they were going to Ani and that I got to go. Just wanted to ask based on sort of the first half of the year, how is 2023 shaping up for the UFC? Like, I know that they're enormously successful and their parent company is inking huge deals based off of their success. But just as a fan, you know, there's kind of a lot of bummer headlines out there, between Dana White domestic violence and the commission in UFC being on autopilot, which the Jared Gordon incident kind of shows.

Just as a fan, do you think we're going to look back on 2023 and think, like, man, that was kind of a rough one? Thanks, Mike. I don't know. It's tough to say. Potentially, yeah. Potentially, yeah. Because we're not going to forget about the Dana thing. that's going to be one of the bigger stories of the year.

And they just haven't, like, John Jones's return has been big. No doubt about that. But if that's the only time John fights, boy, is that tough? And if we don't get Michael Chandler, Connor McGregor this year, that's tough too.

There's a lot of stuff, like a lot of people aren't happy that Colby's getting a title shot. We don't even know when that fight's going to happen. The treatment of Al Jermaine Sterling. There's just a lot. From a business perspective, Debra doesn't give a shot.

shit because they're making so much money that it really doesn't matter and the cities keep paying the UFC just so much money to come to their locations that they could just drive their negative tiers with $100 bills. They're okay with that. But is this going to be, as of right now, is this shaping up to be a memorable year for the UFC? No. No, it isn't. The Power Slap thing hasn't been helping with a lot of the marketing and promotional stuff

being shoved down people's throats on the UFC accounts for the power slap thing that nobody really cares about I don't know I don't think it's going to be but again they have no competition they can do whatever they want

no one's going to stop them there's no one competing with them they are the WWF from the 19 from 1987 that's where they are right now and no one could touch them so they could do whatever they want

and nothing is going to stop that train. As of right now. Ani, hello. Yep. Not noisy today as well. Did you notice that? Because...

It's very good. Yes, I am in my office, Mike, and I tell you, like, I am frustrated marking these papers. As a research student, you eight teachers with things like invigilating, marking, teaching, and stuff like that. Man, I don't understand what has happened to students and their handwriting, you know, the way they're right in their papers. It's as if they forgot to shit in the morning,

and they just shat on the paper, you know what I mean? Like, it's just, anyway, I apologize for that rant. So with regards to, you know, judges and everything, I know a lot of people have spoken about this. I think the idea of having a judge or at least a representative of the Athletic Commission, as in a spokesperson on behalf of an athletic commission, to come and speak to the media would be good.

But the judge does not actually, if they really want to protect their judges or if they're really worried about the judge's well-being or whatever it is, but then keep naming and shaming them, though. So what I say is first, when you announce a split decision, how about we just refrain from mentioning

the dissenting judge's name and then we just ask the dissenting judge to give a written report? like a couple, maybe just write 10 lines or just write these are the identifiers from Fighter X, which is why I gave the round to him. Just give a written description and ask a representative to read or not, it doesn't even have to be a representative. You know, after, you know, we have to bear Dana White's press, you know, post-fight press conference, have someone like a John Anick to, you know, to alleviate our mood, you know?

It's really nice to listen to John Anick speak. So maybe he can read out the report from the judge. So that way, you know, you can protect your judges. And you'll also have a well-thought-out written report. I'm pretty sure, like, by the time you have at least two or three fighters and Dana White do their post-fight press conference, that is enough time for, you know, these judges to give a written report for specific fights, for specific fights. And another thing that you need to keep in mind, not all robberies are split decisions, Mike. There are certain unanimous decision robberies as well.

I mean, when I say a robbery, I use the word robbery in a very judicious manner. When you have a clear round for Fighter X that is given to Fighter Y, that is a robbery. But a close fight is still okay. So that's there. And I'm really happy to see Chris Weidman back. I think he has one of the best walkout songs in terms of pure emotion. Do you like that song? I won't back down by Tom Petty.

That will be all from my side. And I know Ariel is the man, but he doesn't give us a platform like you do. So you're an even bigger man, Mike. You're the man for us. So thank you very much. I mean, Ariel has on the nose. So he does listen to you guys and read your thoughts and questions and response to them. So look, I think transparency is huge and we don't have any of it.

So whatever we can get on the books for transparency. transparency's sake when it comes to judges and officials, sign me up. Sign me up for that. Chris Wyman's walkout song is great. Love it. It makes perfect sense. It makes even more sense now after the catastrophic injury had and coming back and doing it in Boston, which he's fought in Boston before.

It did not go very well for him in Boston against Dominic Reyes and his quest of the new weight class but yeah Brad he's fighting Brad Tavares a lot of people were like oh I wish they gave him like a further step back but I don't think you really can I'm sure Chris is making

pretty good money to compete so I think you have to give him somebody with some sort of name value but you don't want to throw him in there with like Icram Alaskaroff you don't want to throw him in there with somebody like that so yeah I think this is a good name. I think it's a good, a good test, and we'll see how it plays out. I'm going to, uh, I'm actually going to reach out to Chris Wyden later on this week. I'm not going to reach out to him right

the second, because I'm sure his phone is blowing up like crazy with this fight news and, but I want to do something. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to offer him an idea, uh, that I think would be really fun in the lead into this return fight that I think he would dig. So yeah, I like the matchup. I do. All right, I'm May locker room. What's up? What's going on, Mike, man? Welcome everybody. M.M.A. Mafia. How are we doing today? Good man. What's on your mind? All right, man. How are you not going to address the big wolf in the room? We keep talking about October Abu Dhabi. I mean, Kathmat Chamath has to be penciled and to be fighting. And I mean, let's just think about it.

We've been seeing them on social media training, left and right with Jalen Turner out there. I think it's going to be a fight versus Kamar Uzman at 185. Kamar Uzman is at the point of his career to where he just wants big entertaining fights. It's a fight to where either way it goes, whoever wins is still going to be in that title contention in any division. If Kazmat wins, of course. You know, he's right next there to fight for that 185 title.

If Ouzman pulls off the wind like that, I mean, the ball's in his court. He could do what he want from there. But, I mean, I just think the rightons on the wall. We've been seeing Kazmat training left and right, left and right. And it's a little writing on the wall saying that he can't fight in the state. So it all makes sense to me. Yeah, I expect him to fight on this card. And maybe it's Oosman.

If it's Oosman at 185, I'm cool with it. Like, why are we not doing the polycost to fight? Like, what are we doing here? What are we doing here? That is, like, the biggest no-brainer fight of all. These two guys have been circling each other, calling each other out. Like, what are we doing? That fight just makes so much more sense than the U.S.man fight.

But now they want to match, instead of doing Costa versus Shemayev, we're going to do Costa versus Alaskarath? I mean, I'm intrigued by that fight tremendously, but, like, it just doesn't seem like Paul is going to take that fight. Like, Penn's going to go to paper for him to fight Alaskarov. But I think Penn would go to paper to fight Hamzaa Tchamayev. I don't know. It's so weird.

Like, I'm getting to the point with Hamz out where, like, until he's actually in the cage fighting and he, like, until he shows up on Fight Week, there's an embedded with him on location, he weighs in successfully, does ceremonial weigh-ins. We get the video of him walking into the arena. before he fights, and then he actually steps in the cage and Bruce Buffer announces him, I don't believe he's going to fight.

Like, I'm getting there. I'm getting to that point. Not that he's, I just don't know. It just seems like he's been sort of penciled in to fight so many times and now, like what,

it's just getting to the point where I have to see it. And then I'll believe it. Whether it's Usman or Costa or, or whoever. But I think everyone just wants to see this man fight. And I want to see him fight at 185. I've seen photos of Hamzat.

It doesn't look like there is a world where he's fighting at 170 anytime soon. He looks like a fucking light heavyweight right now. Maybe even big. He's like 220 right now. He looks gigantic. How the hell is he going to make 170? I'm in on the Uspin fight if it's at 185.

I'm not in if it's at 170. Not in. It's too risky. All right, we've got to go. Holy shit. Hour and 41 minutes. This is probably the longest show we've ever done. But there was a lot to talk about in a lot of opinions and a lot of things people wanted to say.

And that's what we're here for. But I have to go before I get in trouble. So thank you all very much. You are the best. We'll be back on Thursday. 10 a.m. Eastern, we'll do it again. And we'll get ready for UFC 289.

Watch party, all that fun stuff. It's going to be a fun week, everybody. Jose Young's is on his way to Vancouver. I believe as we speak, so he will be there. Media Day tomorrow. Presser on Thursday. This show on Thursday, BTL on Thursday. It's got to be a fun week, everybody.

So thank you for joining us back on Thursday, right here on the M.A. Fighting Twitter Spaces and on the M.A. Fighting Podcast Network, have a great rest of your day. And as always, have a heck of a morning, everybody. A podcast network. Hi, I'm Sophia Loprakero, host of the Before the Chorus Podcast.

We dive into the life experiences behind the music we love. Artists of all genres are welcome. And I've been joined by some pretty amazing folks, like Glass Animals. I guess that was the idea, was to try something personal and see what happened. And Japanese breakfast. I thought that the most surprising thing I could offer was an album about joy.

And you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, and remember, so much happens before the chorus.