MMA Fighting - HOAM | Reaction To 'Embarrassing' Floyd Mayweather Boxing Card, Fun UFC 289 Event

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

While UFC 289 exceeded expectations on Saturday night, Sunday's Floyd Mayweather headlined boxing card was the exact opposite for more than just the post-main event shenanigans that took place between the teams of Mayweather and John Gotti III. On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck reacts to UFC 289, including the big wins for the now-retired Amanda Nunes, and Charles Oliveira — who stopped Beneil Dariush in the co-main event — as well as the "embarrassing" Mayweather vs. Gotti III boxing event. Additionally, listener questions include the women's GOAT discussion now that Nunes has retired and where "The Lioness" ranks compared to Bellator champ Cris Cyborg, if Oliveira will end up getting the rematch with Islam Makhachev next, if anyone can sneak in and take the shot from "Du Bronx," the UFC women's bantamweight division that currently doesn't have a champion, 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

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

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original, The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer,

but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose

to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now, only from Audible. The Vox Media Podcast Network. Tuesday, June 13th, 20203, and it is indeed a heck of a morning. We are live on the M.A. Fighting Twitter Spaces,

you can hear the show, start to finish in its entirety. Shortly thereafter, on the MMA Fighting Podcasting Network. Hello, everybody. Thank you for joining us. I am Mike Hack. Hope everyone's having a wonderful start to their week.

We are coming off of UFC 289, which ended up being a pretty fun card, which is one of the things that we sort of discussed on the show and all our other programs. On paper, this card was compared to most UFC pay-per-views. On paper, this is not a great lineup. This is not a star-studded lineup by any stretch of the imagination. We had a somewhat interesting main event on paper,

one that a lot of people are hoping, or at least predicting, could be real interesting, and perhaps another upset could happen. A lot of people were on the Arrini Aldana underdog train, myself included. And it turned out that Amanda Nunes just brought, her A plus game and Arini Aldana did not bring anything close to that.

There's a combination of the two. Amanda just did her thing, did it really, really well, and Arini just had nothing for her. That was, and I hate to say this, but this is what we do. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to be honest with what we saw. That was one of the all-time worst performances from a championship challenger I might have ever seen in the UFC. She just, I don't know what it was.

And she landed like a really good shot in the first round when she got a little more aggressive. She did. Like she popped Nunes in the first round. She landed the best strike of the round. And then just nothing. And she admits that herself. So I'm not like, I'm not trying to pile on her. But this was bad.

This is a really bad showing from Rini Aldana. But I don't want that statement in what I just. said to take away from what Amanda Nunes did because she looked great. She looked incredible and she beat the hell out of Arena Aldana. Lopsided win. I, 5043 was a fine scorecard in my eyes. 54 was about as generous as you can get. And then Amanda Nunes announced her retirement from the sport of mixed martial arts, which we, I think we all sort of saw that coming, right? I felt if she lost, she was definitely going to retire. She would feel like the division is in good hands with somebody that she truly respected.

And if she won, there's just nothing else for her to do. She could fight Giuliana Pena again. I think Amanda was well aware of the reaction to that fight to begin with. Not a lot of people were really clamoring for it. We saw how Giuliana Pani reacted to all of it. And I thought her sticking around, out of spite was pretty tremendous. And I think she retired kind of out of spite too,

all towards Giuliana Pena. And I respect that. And to a certain extent, even though a lot of people have given Giuliana Pena a lot of backlash, I actually sort of respect what she's doing too. I just wish she was a little more honest with herself with how she's doing it.

Like, Jed says this all the time. If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly, Juliana Paine is a grizzly, but she's also, I don't know if it's just completely dishonest or just outright naive. I think it's probably somewhere closer towards the former, but a little piece of the latter as well. And Giuliana Pena, it's talking to the talk, she's probably going to get herself into a title fight for the vacant belts.

I would assume they're just going to go ahead and do Juliana Pena versus Raquel Pennington I think that fight makes all the sense in the world and my whole thing was just do it on

the tough 31 finale like do that fight on that card like let's not do the tough finale fights on just a apex throwaway fight night card which they've been doing the last couple of years

let's get a small arena you know 2,500, 3,000 people and you're Usually with those old Ultimate Fighter Finaleys, we would get a main event with some stakes, sometimes some name value. Let's put the title on the line. Let's do the title fight on that card.

And like the backlash I've been getting from that is, well, the UFC doesn't do that. They have done it. Maybe not on a tough finale card, but they have done fight night title fights. They did it with the first ESPN card. They did with Henry Sehudo versus T.J. Dillishaw. They did it with Valentina Shepchenko versus Liz Karmouche. There's a September 16th fight night card that's going to be at the T-Mobile Arena that's being sort of billed as a Mexican Independence Day card. It would not shock me at all if they did Alexa Grasso versus Valentina Shepchenko too on that card, which in most people's eyes, we're talking about pay-per-view draws and selling pay-per-views.

That one is going to do much better and get a few more clickety clicks on ESPN Plus. then Raquel Pennington versus Giuliana Pena is going to do. So if we're going to put that one on a fight night card, why not just do the vacant title fight on the tough finale card? Because these two were around each other. They built sort of a rivalry. Dana White thought these two were going to fight each other in the finals of that tough season. They were both on to begin with.

Let's just tie a bow here. Tie a bow to this whole story. Raquel Pennington has not said nice things about Giuliana Pena. Julianna Payne doesn't say nice things really about anybody. Let's just do it there. Like, who cares? Where are we going to put it? Where else are we going to put it if we're going to do it this year?

Everything is already coming together. Boston, we have two title fights. 29th is booked, or for the July 29th card, UFC 291. It's not going to happen at 290. They're going to Sydney. The fight makes no sense to do it in Sydney. It makes no sense to do it in Abu Dhabi. MSG, no, why would we do that?

It looks like maybe they do Joan Steepa wouldn't stun me if they did Colby Leon on that card as well and then if they get Connor back in December why put it on that? You don't need to. So are we just going to wait until January or February to crown a new champion?

Why would we do that? Just put it on that card. Have a little fun. More people will watch it. Let's just have a little fun with this. Of course Charles Olivera. Wonderful performance against Baneal Daryush, knocks him out in the first round. I see a lot of people on Twitter talking about, well, I guess Bineal was not really good to begin with.

What? That take drives me nuts. That take drives me nuts. Because Bineal was doing pretty damn good. He had a good start to the first round. Got him down, was doing really well. Olivera was doing decent on the bottom two. He's landing some elbows.

landed in some shots, up kicks were nice, but then eventually got back to the feet, and Oliver got him out of there in the first round. Like, he just blasted him. Absolutely blasted him. Bineal was hurt. Oliver had his back. B'Neal did a nice job getting back to his guard,

but Charles was like, all right, I'm just going to punch you in the face a bunch. And you got to feel for Binal Daryush here, but that is the lightweight division, my friends. That is the lightweight division. And I respect Binald Daryush a lot for, putting his standing and everything on the line there. But now it's Charles Olivera.

Looks like they might just do the Islam Makachev rematch. I'm down for it. I'm much more down for it than I thought I was going to be. I didn't think there was really any chance they were going to go to that well, but I think they're going to have to at this point. The only way this doesn't happen is if Al Jena Volkanowski just absolutely runs over Yayao Rodriguez in record time and does it without taking a punch

and can turn back around real quick and fight. It all depends on Volk. If Volk has the performance of a lifetime against a really tough guy, runs over Iaer Rodriguez, and then gets on the mic and does the damn thing, I do see a world where the UFC could just be like, all right, we're going to do this instead. You can see it happening. Abu Dhabi, that whole area, that government pays the UFC a shit ton of money

to host cards there. And if everybody feels, like this is the bigger fight, they could go to that direction. I don't want to see it personally. I do want to see these two guys fight again. I don't want to see it too quickly. We just saw it. We just saw it.

Let's let Volk do his thing at 145. Let's let Islam Makachev defend his title against some lightweights for a little while. Next year we can revisit this if they both run off two or three title defenses. I'm fine with that. But I could see a world where the UFC could pivot if all this happens. other than that, I'm cool with Charles Oliver getting a title shot after that. I honestly don't think the fight's going to go much

differently than the first one, but I think after that performance, fans are going to think that maybe he has a little bit better of a chance. And who knows when Chaos Olivera goes out there and does the damn thing. So great performance from Olivera. I love that he cut the promo in English. I thought

he had an 8 plus night all around. Absolutely. And not only that, the dude is over like Rover. He was like the honorary Canadian. He got the biggest pop of anybody all week long. So good for Charles Oliver. Well done.

Good for Mike Mallade as well. What a performance he had. Really well done. Danny Gay did Danny Gay things against the dangerous Nate Lambware. Mark Andre Barrio and Eric Anders had a middleweighty middleweight fight, at least on paper,

but then they just beat the hell out of each other. And that was a fun fight. Great performance from Jazz and Jazz. It was great performance from all the Canadians. This was a fun card. If you spent the $80 on this card and watched it, I think you were fine with it. I think you were happy with what you paid for.

This wasn't the sexiest card on paper, but I think if you bought it and watched it, I think you had a good time. This over-exceeded your expectations. I had a great time watching it. Me and G.C. during the watch party, we had a blast. And then Ariel jumping on was a nice little surprise

and getting to watch some fights with Shaheen Al-Shadi, watch the main event with my best friend, A.K. Lee, who is standing by. We'll get to him in a moment. That was Saturday. Feeling pretty good about the combat sports landscape after Saturday night. Post-fight show, we did on to the next one for I to catch a flight. And then Sunday rolled around, my friends. And then Sunday rolled around. And the way my flight schedule had worked out, I was home by like 4.30 p.m. Eastern time in my house. And one of my colleagues had asked if I would be interested in being sort of his tag team partner in covering the Floyd Mayweather, John Gotti, the third card. And to be honest, I wasn't really interested in it.

However, on travel days, I prefer to work on Sundays and have Monday off. That's what I like to do. I like to have Monday to kind of just rest, recoup. kind of recharge the battery. So I was like, all right, I'll do it. If I can have Monday off, I will, I will tag in and do this. And boy, was that a horrible decision. That card was absolute fucking trash.

It was trash. I honestly was embarrassed to be watching it. It was so awful. Everything about it was awful. there is nothing good at all. First fight ends with a third round knockout by Kamari Burnside. Like a clear as day knockout. Clear as a bell.

Anybody who watched it saw there was a knockout. You know what they did? They called it a no decision. Parry Burnside knocked out a man and they called it a no decision because it was an exhibition fight. What the fuck is that? And on top of that, my colleague who was covering the card with me was told that the fight started at 9 p.m. Eastern. He didn't even know the fights are happening. I hit them up on our Slack channel.

I was like, are you watching this promo right now? They were doing a promo on Zeus about this reality show that was fucking terrible. It was just a bunch of women fighting and screaming and yelling at each other. I'm like, who the fuck watches this shit? It was like a nine minute promo. this is not like a 60 second promo. This is like a nine minute promo. And I'm like, are you watching this?

And he's like, you're scaring me right now. The event doesn't start till nine Eastern. I'm like, no, it's on and we've already had a fight. So there is one problem with promoting the event. Then we got another boxing match, which went to distance, no decision, cool. They actually announced a winner, but then declared it a no decision. Then we got a bare knuckle fight between Hector Lombard, 45-year-old Hector Lombard and journeyman MMA fighter.

It says Eric Turner. That's how it was broadcast. His name is actually Eric Smith, who's, I think he's 39. And they had, in my opinion, the least vicious, the least compelling and the least violent bare-knuckle fight in the history of bare-knuckle fights. Hector Lombard won, but like these guys didn't even have a mark on their face. It was just, oh, golly. And then we get to the next fight.

Jarrell Big Baby Miller is on this card against Antonio Cepeda. And this is supposed to be like the Jarrell Big Baby Miller comeback fight. This is my first step on the road to getting back to, you know, maybe fighting for a world title someday down the road. this was the worst fight I've ever seen. This was the worst fight I've ever seen. I tweeted out saying this is a bad fight is not justice. I had to say bad twice. It was a bad, bad fight.

It was so bad. Awful. One of the worst fights I've ever seen in my entire life. What are we doing? Then we get BKFC fighter Yuli Diaz versus Kualas Karim. Klaus Karim looked good. This fight wasn't bad. It just wasn't very good.

clearly won, but it's an exhibition, so it's declared a no decision or whatever. And then we finally get to the main event. It took us like 45 minutes to get there. If you want to know how I was feeling at the time watching this card and then getting ready to watch this fight, I probably delivered the most honest live blog in MMA fighting history.

Because this card was already a tough hang. The commentators are doing their best to keep people invested. but like the fight just never it took forever to get there and this is like I know in boxing like they will build things up and they'll spend some time and like sometimes it takes forever in the spacing of fights especially before the main event at this point like nobody really cared what the hell is going on and then finally here comes john godi the third john gody the third makes the walk I like john I've met john many times I've interviewed him many times during his MMA career.

You can tell he was taking this seriously. We talked about naivety and being naive. I think John was a little bit more naive than he probably should have been. He comes out. He's taking this very seriously.

And then here comes Floyd Mayweather. Floyd makes the walk. Nice moment. He's got his sort of infant grandson carrying him. They're having a nice moment. The grandson's like smiling. Like it's really like it's adorable.

It's adorable stuff. and then Floyd is just standing on the ramp for what seems like 35 minutes and then he eventually walks to the ring and he walks to the ring with like 800 people this was a line of people that would not end

including David Ortiz former Red Sox stud most clutch hitter in the history of baseball David Ortiz is there along with 699 other people. And it took Floyd Mayweather and this barrage of people forever to get to the ring. So they do the introductions. They're both in the ring. We're about to get this fight started. But guess what? We can't get the fucking fight started because there's 800 people surrounding the

goddamn ring are so close to the ring that the judges, the commentators, everybody else ringside were just like getting crushed everybody was trying to squeeze into this little ringside area so we had to wait like another five minutes for them to clear the fucking ringside area out and i'm just getting frustrated i'm like what the like what is this i felt literally horrible for anybody who spent money on this piece of shit card and not even to on top of all that there were like musical performances that made me want to rip my ears off and rip out my eyeballs.

It was just awful. They tried so hard to be Triller and they sucked at it. It was so bad. I was embarrassed to be a combat sports fan watching this pile of steaming dog shit on my screen. There was a point where I was like,

anytime we write up an article on MMA fighting about Jake Paul, people get pissed. I am here to tell you that enjoy Jake Paul for as long as you can because compared to this fucking fiasco, Jake Paul is the man compared to this thing. I was like, get me to August 5th. Get me to Jake Paul Nate Diaz right now

because I would be the happiest person in the world. People say like Jake Paul's ruin in boxing. No, this shit. is ruining boxing. This shit is ruining boxing. Oh yeah, by the way, they had a fight. And Floyd is just doing Floyd things to poor John Gotti the third.

And John, he's a trier. He tried. And Floyd just piecing his ass up. John can't touch him. This is what we expected. But then Floyd starts talking a bunch of shit. And John is not a great boxer, but he's not going to listen to your shit talk either.

again, him being kind of naive, not understanding what's happening here, is getting, you can tell he's getting a little pissed at all of this. And then he starts talking a little shit too. He starts talking more than Floyd. And Floyd just laughing at him. Floyd just laughing at him.

You know the image of like, the bigger, stronger person is just standing there and then like the smaller person who can't do anything to you is trying to move towards you and then the more emphatic human being

just sticks out his hand and puts it on the forehead and the other person just swinging his arms trying to get inside and can't do anything. That's what this was like. Which is what's to be expected. End of the fifth round John Gotti's pissed. And the referee, Kenny Bayliss, goes over to Gotti

and says, stop with the shit talk. Stop with all of it. listen to my instructions and if you don't do that I'm going to stop the fight and Goddy's corner says cool I get it but go over to Floyd's team and tell them the same thing

tell them to stop talking shit let's just have a fight and then out comes the sixth round and all hell breaks loose there's a clinch Godi won't let him go they're talking to each other and the referee stops the fight

and I'm like what the fuck is this are you kidding me and then Godi's just like okay and then just goes after Floyd just goes after Floyd and throws a punch and he's trying to throw more punches and then Floyd lands the best

right hand he has landed in 25 years he hit Gotti with the best right hand he has landed on any boxer in the last two and a half decades And Gotti was blasted. He was like, he got hit so hard. He just backed up to his corner.

And then everybody jumped in the ring. It was Gotti's team of like five or six people against 200 of the 800 members of Floyd Mayweather's team. And they're fighting. They're fighting. They're throwing punches, all this stuff. And to me, like, I'm thinking of this as it's happening. I'm like, what the fuck?

And I like literally send, a slack message to Stephen Morocco, who I was doing the car with. I'm like, holy shit, man, what the hell is this? And we're thinking maybe it's a work, or maybe this is supposed to happen. I don't know. Goddy gets like immediately shifted out of the ring. He gets out of Dodge. The coaches and the corners and the teams just continue to go at it in the ring.

And then I'm still thinking like, all right, maybe it's a work that like, like, fell apart and it's become a shoot, I don't know. And then all these videos start coming out. We see videos of Godi's team and Mayweather's team, like friends and family. They're just fighting in the crowd. And Godi's team's like beating that ass. Like all those fights that are like one-on-one and not cheap shots, the Gotti guys are winning. Like they're winning.

And then we see videos of fights in the locker room area. one of the wonderful performers getting into a fight in the backstage area, this card was a fucking embarrassment. This was trash, light it on fire, throw it in a trash barrel. Fuck that. Fuck that. I don't regret very much in my MMA fighting run. But volunteering to help out covering that card,

I would have rather worked Monday. I would have rather worked Monday. this was a this was despicable all of it i hated my life for three and a half hours watching this card it was awful it was so bad and now goddie they're probably gonna do their shit again this is awful so if you watched it i i'm sorry if you didn't watch it i'm literally telling you how you would have felt about it you saved yourself 20 bucks and you saved yourself serious regret. The only thing that mattered, I guess,

that anybody gave a shit about was the aftermath and there were clip solver social media. So there you go. You just saved yourself $24 after tax or whatever it was. But this, this was awful. What a shit show. Jake Paul ain't ruining boxing.

This is ruining boxing. This is ruining combat sports. All of it. Exhibition bullshit. It's running its course. And what's insane to me is that they sold out the building. They sold out a hockey arena for this card. Wow.

So there you go. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need. need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those.

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My best friend, Mike, I'll do what I can. I mean, listen, you were just talking about what a great car you watched. What a great fight that you saw in the main event and all the other great fights you saw. I'm really happy for you. It's great to see you in such a great mood to start the day. But speaking of great fights, so we got into a little we, I say me and Casey and I don't know, some Randos on Twitter. like a little mini debate about the goats,

Amanda Nunes, the women's of a me goat. I'm a huge fan. You know, her accolades, unmaschable for sure. Casey made a point replying to someone that like,

it was weird that Nunes, like the one thing she's kind of missing on her resume, and I don't know if you saw this conversation, some of these conversations that were happening, is like she's kind of missing a great fight. Like a great,

like really memorable like five, but not even a five rounder. It was just a fight that was somewhat bad. and forth somewhat competitive. She had competitive fights, but most of her competitive fights were pretty bad. Like I think the one someone throughout the counter was like, oh, Shvchenko, Nunes too. That was a great fight.

And I'm like, well, now I know I'm dealing with a crazy person because that fight was atrocious. So I don't know. Do you agree? Do you agree that she's never had? She's had great performances. No one would dispute that. And very entertaining ones, too. Like it's not even saying like, oh, her dominance is boring.

No, that Ronda Rousey fight was great for as long as it lasted, Misha Tate, Megan Anderson, what's that I'm forgetting. Oh, Chris Seiborke, 51 seconds, super exciting. But yeah, I don't think she has that really memorable. Like when we think of other all-time great champions, George St. Imperial here has a few, like Carl's Condo was a great one. Of course, Anderson Silva, maybe the greatest, most exciting, like championship comeback ever, Chelsonen.

And Amanda Noonis just doesn't have that moment. Not that she needs it. It was just a conversation. It was just like a, this was not too nice. nitpick or diminish her say like she's not the greatest. It was just sort of like, you know, just examining her legacy and saying, oh, that's kind of a weird, quirky thing that she doesn't have that. But I don't know.

Maybe you don't agree, Mike. I don't know what your, what your thoughts are on whether she is missing that and whether it matters. I mean, like, look, the cyborg fight lasted 51 seconds, but that, to me, is probably the one. It didn't last her a lot. We didn't get to see, like, a Glover-Teshirea, Yuri Prahaska fight. out of Amanda Nunes, and I guess that's okay.

But her and Cyborg just beat the shit out of each other. And it lasted 51 seconds. They were just throwing 100 miles an hour at each other for those 51 seconds, and then a man just caught her and dropped her and beat her. But I see the point, but I don't think that should take away really from what she's accomplished. And what's really interesting about Amanda is that she's kind of leaving at the peak. of her powers.

Like that performance, the last two performances were like, if we're talking about mixing the martial arts and checking off all the boxes,

those are probably, those are right up there as like two of her most well-rounded performances. And they weren't boring. Like, they weren't boring. This wasn't the germane

to randomly fight. This wasn't any of those. This wasn't the Felicia Spencer fight. Like, she beat the hell out of Giuliana Paine. She beat the hell out of Arrini-Eldana. She fought two durable, tough fighters. And she tried to finish.

She tried to get both of them out of there and couldn't. But she tried. And it's just, yeah, I guess it's an interesting point compared to, you know, a lot of these hashtag goat fighters. But, I mean, there's a lot of fighters you could say that about. But to me, it's Amanda with a bullet. I think this performance, anyone who doubted it, It kind of puts it over the top.

But I get why people are having that discussion. Like, you want to see the all-time war. Like, when you do damn, they were good, you want to have, like, when we do the Amanda and Nunes Dam episode, we want to have, like, this war, this incredible fight. Like, we did it about Benson Henderson. Benson had some absolute wars in his career. And maybe Amanda doesn't have that. But I would say Chris Cyborg is probably there.

It just was a fight that didn't last very long. But I get it. I want to try to debate everything, have a conversation about stuff, and try to make it all make sense. Henderson, hello. Hey, Mike, heck of a morning to you, man. You too. So I have two ideas for the 135 women's division that I think would be a new way to refresh the division. And one of them has to do with somebody moving up from 125.

and I know you talked about Valentina or someone on the podcast talked about Valentina may be moving up. But how about Aaron Blanchfield to move up to 135, not worry about cutting weight, keep working on her skills, fight the easier competition up there? And she could probably pick up that belt before she would ever have a chance to fight for the 125 belt. So that's one idea. And then another idea was,

You talked about how there aren't as many women athletes at upper weight classes. And one idea that I've had before, and obviously it's worked a lot for the men's divisions, is there's a lot of women's rugby players around the world, and there isn't really a women's rugby pro level that's successful. And we've seen men's rugby players convert to MMA pretty quick. So I bet if somebody went out there and tried to pull like a John, Henry Hendricks, like, invest in prospects and turn them into MMA fighter system, they could find some great athletes in women's rugby in the Americas and also, like, around the world, because

there's women's rugby in a lot of places. So interested to hear what you had to think on those two ideas and also Charlie Olives is the man. So, all right. Heck of a morning. Great show. Keep it up. Thanks, man.

So, I mean, could you do that, sure? like going off the off the beaten path so to speak to try to find prospects sure you could do that you could do that with any sport really it's just a matter of is the juice worth to squeeze for these athletes

that's the whole thing and we've talked about this before and there's probably some truth to it I don't know like I'm getting closer to actually being on that side but if you want to if you are

if you are an athlete Like if you are a super athlete who played another sport and couldn't quite get over the hump, but you want to continue to compete, if you just got into MMA and like really took it seriously for three or four years, you could get to the UFC. Like getting to the UFC as a professional athlete might be compared to all the other sports. It might be the easiest road of any of the other sports to get to like the big league. if you put in the time and you're an athlete and you can do all that stuff. Because the way you do it now, I mean, all you need is like have an amateur run,

go pro. If you win four fights, like you're in. You can go on the contender series and if you just win a contender series fight, you're in. More oftentimes than not. So there is a little bit of truth to that.

As far as the Banimate thing goes, shout out to Aaron Bronsetter. He was first to report that Aaron Blanchfield wants to throw her name in the hat. 4-1-35, and I respect the gusto. I don't love it, though. I don't love it. It's interesting, but she's 24.

She's on a nice run. Not saying like she can't get back if she loses to somebody. Like if she goes in there and fights Giuliana Pena and loses, like that's going to look bad on her. People are going to just like chew her up. And I just don't want to see that for her. her right now. She's a win away. Like, the rumblings that maybe she fights Manon Fioro on that Paris card, do that.

And then her first fight of 2024 would be for the belt. Now, could she take the title fight and win? Sure. But there's just no rush. She's not like 30. She's 24, 25. Like, she's just getting started. I just, if they do it, I'll watch, but not. To me, it just, this just feels like, hey, if the UFC needs somebody, give me a call, be ready, but I just don't think it happens anytime. I don't think she gets the call. I don't think she gets the call on this one. But I think the UFC will be like, all right, she's game.

Respect. And it's always a good place to be in. The correct answer with all this is to do a tournament. Like, I know the UFC doesn't have fun with this stuff and they don't do tournaments, but they should do a tournament here. you want to get this division in people's minds you want to get people invested in the division as a whole do a tournament do an eight-woman tournament or a four-woman tournament i don't care just do some kind of tournament if it takes a year if it takes a year 14 16 months to crowd a new champion who cares

who cares you want women's banam weight bouts that headline fight night cards to matter fights. Just do a tournament. Have some fun with it. And if Aaron wants to be part of the tournament, cool. But then she's out of 125. She has to make a choice. And I'm down for the choices. Let's go to Four Corner Sports. Hey, Mike, are you ready to hear me? Yes. So that's the only I was going to point out earlier was Aaron Bronsetter. He's put that out there. I believe, and this is my only opinion, maybe she just doesn't want to wait. She's maybe just getting frustrated that DeGrasso,

Sertchenko fight hasn't been announced. So maybe that's why she wants to enter her name. I think Bronzer has said that she wants to make sure that she's the youngest champ. She might be 23 if I'm not mistaken, but it may be a lack of patience on her end. That's why she kind of wants to get in there. But I think it's a bad idea because Julianna Pena or she fights for Kel Pennington or whoever, most like the Pena, and it'll be the other half of that vacant title fight. It commas up her psyche.

It can mess up to her going back down to 125 and then carrying that and that loss because, you know, they say that you learn more about yourself after a loss than the win. But I did want to talk about the main event and the co-main event. Main event was really bad. Never seen that. Never seen what's the called Irene O'Donah act like that. I mean, it's also the point that people should put like an APB out on her, you know, wondering, you know, where is she at? because, you know, she just wasn't there. You know, Amanda, you know, I know

Cormey said that, you know, Irene Adana was, you know, pretty much like taking pictures, like, you know, as like a phrase. But Amanda, you know, took her time. I mean, she probably could have planned out her whole retirement speech in the method that she was fighting, Irene Aldana. And I just think that I can't see Arrina Adana, you know, fighting for a belt after that performance, you know,

maybe after three or four fights. but that performance was really bad and maybe she just felt the pressure and maybe, you know, she just only had one game plan and if that was the case, then that's pretty bad just because Amanda was able to exploit the lead leg, you know,

drawing those front kicks and it really took her off her game plan. I believe what's it called I wouldn't mind what's the called seeing Oliver versus Islam. I know you don't really care for it, but I just think that who else is a who else is going to be there available?

It's not like they're going to put Islam on ice and him avoid the Abu Lobby card. Gaiji and Poryi, they're not going to be able to recover that quickly. They're going to pretty much go through a car crash on July 29th. You can't put in anybody else and would make no sense of what been there used to be in there after a loss. So, I mean, Oliver is the next obvious choice unless Chandler just sneaks in there

and, you know, just says, the hell with the McGregor fight, you know, just put him in. But, I mean, that's a, I would say that's like a 20% possibility. But if Olivera goes inside there and, you know, carry that same model and just tries to crack Islam, then it would be a very interesting fight. I mean, Islam is one of the more better defensive fighters that I've seen in the lightweight division. But this time, I mean, Olivera has to change his whole game playing apart. And the way that he carried himself against Dariush, the moment that he threw that first,

high kick. I already knew that if it's on the feet, Oliver is going to be able to, you know, starch derision. That's what ended up happening. But Mike, always good speaking to you, and let me know what you think. Thanks. Yeah, well, I'll touch on the co-main event stuff. Yeah, I'm in. I'm in. Like, this is the kind of performance that

that gets you back there. I honestly, I don't think the fight goes any differently. I don't, I didn't see anything in that fight that makes me think like, oh boy, Islam's in trouble. Because I even said, like, I even said in the build to the first fight. I was picking all there

because, mostly because I picked against them too much and I was just, I can't pick against them anymore. And until somebody goes out there and beats him, I'm going to keep picking him. And because everything on paper told me that the fight was going to play out exactly the way it played out. Now did I think that Islam was going to drop him before he finished him?

No, not necessarily. But everything on paper told me that Islam was just going to kill him. And he dominated Olivera, and it'd be interesting to see what kind of adjustments can be made because Oliver can make adjustments. He did it in that fight.

You saw him do it in the fight with Darius. Started off hot, made a mistake, got double underhooked, got taken down, got beat up. And when they got back on the feet, he made adjustments and then he knocked Benny out. But Islam stylistically is a horrible fight for him. It's a really tough matchup.

Now could he win? Could he land something big and hurt Islam? Sure. Could happen. But everything stylistically tells me, especially with a guy like Islam who very rarely gets hit, very rarely gets touched,

is so well coached, all of that, I just don't know if it happens again. Now I'm intrigued by it. I will watch it. it'll be a fun watch party the bill to it'll be fun and if oliver can go out there and beat that man and win the belt golly do they have not just a great fighter they have a guy oliver is growing as a star right now he is evolving into a star people care about charles oliver do i think he's on the

first tier first tier of superstardom in the ufc no do i think he's second tier he's knocking on the door do I put him like in the Max Holloway territory right now? Absolutely. He's like right where Max is as far as a star. Because Max gets those same reactions, no matter where he goes, whether it's in Hawaii or Canada or California or even good old Kansas City. Max Holloway is a fire that people care about. Now does that translate into hundreds of thousands of extra pay-per-view buys?

No. There's a difference between being a source. star in popularity and a star as a draw. Because we're having this conversation on Sunday, like, who's the bigger star? Is it Dustin Porrier or is it Charles Oliver? And to me, it kind of just depends on how you look at it. If you look at it from who's the bigger baby face, who is going to get cheered anywhere he goes, it's probably Olivera. But if it goes by who is going to get more people to reach into their pockets and spend $80, it's Dustin Portier.

Dustin has earned that. He's gotten to that point. It's him. But Oliver, if he goes back, if he goes out there and finishes Islam and wins the belt, he could be right up there with Porier as well. So he's on something right now. The fans are behind him. Let's see how it all works.

But I'm in. I'm in for the fight. And you mentioned one name that could cause an interesting wrinkle to all of this. It's Chandler. It's Michael Chandler. Like if Connor doesn't get back, Connor's still not in the USada pool, still not back in.

Now, that doesn't mean anything because the UFC could just chuck an exemption at him and he could be like, all right, it doesn't matter, you're right. But if, like,

Chandler starts to get frustrated, he's like, when's this fight going to happen? If by like the end of July, we're not talking about when this fight's happening, if Chandler wants to fight for the belt, the UFC's going to ponder it, there's no doubt about it.

they love they love them to michael chanler love it they love him but oliver should get the fight uh dania hello hey mike heck of a morning to you um just wanted to talk about dan ege's performance this weekend um just i guess more about his career than his performance but uh it feels like dan i gay really loses to the next level of opponents like a cater uh tk z emmett um but he's clearly beaten the level below like a you know like a Nate or damon jackson Gavin Tucker um just curious if you'll think he'll ever beat those next level guys at 145 i mean he called out ortega and mitchell at a media interviews post fight me personally i think mitchell is probably the best matchup for him i mean at least just in skill wise feel like he could have some success there but just ultimately what do you think

ceiling is for Danny and Gay. Yeah, just curious where you think he could possibly go. Thanks, Mike. I like Danny Gay a lot. I like the way he fights. I like his attitude. I like that he's so open and honest about who he is and things that he goes through as a professional fighter.

Like, you can learn more about the fighter life from Danny Gay than most other fighters. He's that dude. Family man, just an all-around good guy. If I, like, if him and Cater, again, I would probably still pick Cater, but it wouldn't shock me if Dan beat them. Like, Dan can beat those guys. Like, I think if Dan and zombie fought again, that's an interesting fight.

I think Dan just had a lot of, like, just having conversations. I think Dan put like a ton of pressure on himself for that zombie fight, like maybe too much. And zombie look great in that fight. So I think Dan can still beat some of those guys. Mitchell fight I like It's a fine fight Ortega I'm more into

Because I know Giga Giga Chikazza's been out there saying that Oh they want me to fight Brian Ortega I would rather see Dan Igay fight Brian Ortega than see Giga Chicaxia fight Brian Ortega 100%. But the fight to me is Dan I against Giga Chacinze

That's if I want to see because Dan is, I don't know if I put Dan, like a lot of people say Dan is like the ultimate gatekeeper. I use that term sometimes, but not all the time. Like I don't think Dan's a gatekeeper. I think there's levels to gatekeeping. I think it's gatekeeper and then it's above that is the litmus test. And Danny Gay is the ultimate litmus test.

I think Jafiela Sunsel for a long time at 135 was where Danny Gay is now. Just beating all those guys. And if someone's on the come up, let's see what they got. Can they be a top 10 dude? Let's throw them at Jafel Ossonso. Let's throw them at Danny Gay. And Dan's just got two of those back to back.

So now it's time for him to get a step up. But at the same token, since Dan is the ultimate litmus test, let's give him to Giga Chikaze. Let's see what happens. Can Giga be the guy? Remember when Giga fought Calvin Cater? People were talking about him fighting for the belt. And then Cater beat his ass.

There's a one-sided performance. And Giga hasn't fought since. It's been well over a year since Giga Chikaze has fought. Let's get him in there with Danny Gaye, and let's see what this guy can do. Is he a guy that could fight for a title, or is he going to be an exciting top 10-15-ish kind of guy? That fight will answer the questions. I don't want to see him go in there and take a step up after getting battered by Calvin Cater. If the UFC wants to build him up and they think they have something with him,

why would you throw him to Brian Ortega? That's a really tough stylistic matchup for him. Like, let's build this guy up a little bit. I'm not saying Dan's an easier fight, like a way easier fight, but I think stylistically, it's an interesting matchup. And we'll get some answers. If Dan wins, he's a top 10 dude. He's like the number eight, number seven ranked 45 are in the world.

Now we can give him another. step up in competition. And if he loses, we can push Giga, because that's a really good win. That would be the best win on his resume, in my opinion. Like right now, year of our Lord 2023, that'd be his best win.

I know he's got Barbosa on there, but Barbosa isn't the same dude. Ege is still in his prime. Nige is still evolving and getting better. So that's the fight I would like to see if I had by

others. But Mitchell's fine, but I think Mitchell and of Loy ever kind of circling each other. Marshall's buyers travel far and wide, hustling for great deals on amazing gifts. So you don't have to. They've bagged this season's Italian leather handbags. Designer. Handpicked the finest sweaters from the rest. Ooh, cashmere. Landed makeup pallets from the brands you love. Rushes too. And hustled all those wishless topping toys. plush. Our buyers have got you covered. Marshals, we get the deals. You gift the good stuff. It's the matcha or the three ensemble Cado Cephora

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What's up for us? Hey, heck, good morning. Just a quick question about Amanda Nunes. I guess on your personal goat list, where would you rank her amongst, obviously she's number one for the women's divisions, but amongst men's and women's divisions combined, where would you rank her on the goat list?

Is it, can you put her in the top three? Can you put her in the top five? or would you have her around the 8 to 12 range? I personally, I think I put her at like 11 or 12 just because I think she belongs in the area of like dominant crews, just behind D.C., just above the 10 range. I was just curious where you would rank room.

It's an interesting question. There was a time not that long ago, a few years back when people were saying that Amanda Nunes was like the best fighter on the point. plan. You guys remember that? Like men or women, she is the number one pound for palm fighter

in the world. People were saying that. Having said that, I'd have to, like, really think about this. But I would say she's, I would put her in the top ten. I'd put her in my top ten. With everything she's accomplished and just this run,

she's had, I mean, she's been a, she was a UFC champion for seven years. for seven years running she was a champion seven years that is a ridiculous run i know she lost a juliana pania but sometimes it's good to have two titles even when the division doesn't exist because then you can have that that statistic but i really think like and i think most people would agree i mean i just thought she was going to kill juliana pania she didn't seem all that into the matchup didn't seem all into that into the fight and juliana caught her at the right time. I'm not calling it a fluke.

Like, it just seemed like everything lined up perfectly for that upset to happen. But it happens. I mean, GSP lost to Matt Serra. That is the greatest upset in the history of the sport. That will always be the greatest upset in the history of the sport, at least in my opinion.

But then they ran it back and GSP beat the hell out of them. Same thing happened with Nunes and Pena. So, yeah, she's top 10. where do I put her? Not sure, but I feel comfortable saying top 10.

Let's go to Cole. They'll go to Barbarossa. They'll go to Anish. What's up, Cole? Good morning, Mike. Yeah, on that, all I got to say is New York, Rick, get that cyborg talk the fuck out of here. She's not to go.

People dogg on Amanda for that one loss to Giuliana more than any fighter ever. And she avenged that loss, dominated her. Get that out of here, New York, Rick. I don't want to hear it. That's all I got. I mean, I get it. I get it. I want to pull up,

I'm going to just pull up both women's typologies real quick. I can't put, the same way I couldn't put Volcanovsky above Islam after that fight in February as like the number one pound for pound fighter. Because if you fight, And this isn't work out always because time goes by and like things can happen and all that.

But like if you fight and it's a debate and one person wins that fight, that person gets it. And Amanda fought Chris Seaborg and knocked her dead. Knocked her dead. And this wasn't a fluke. This wasn't anything. These are two women who were landing big punches and Amanda knocked her out and won the title. She won the fight. So let's see.

Let's take a gander at the last, since 2016. Chris Eyeboard beats Darla Ibrugamova, Leslie Smith, Lena Landsberg, Tanya Evanger. Those are all finishes. Decision against Holly Holm. Knocked out Yana Santos. got knocked out by Amanda Nunes, beat Felicia Spencer

via unanimous decision, and then went to Bellator. Beat Julia Budd, that wind did not age very well, submitted Arlene Blanco, finished Leslie Smith again, knocked out Chenade Kavanaugh, won a decision against Arlene Blanco.

Mandenudez since 2016. Valencia Shiff-Chank. sounds like a good name to have on the resume. Misha Tate to win the belt. Finish her in the first round. Ronda Rousey, 48 seconds. Balantina Shepchenko again. Close fight, but Nunes won.

Finish Raquel Pennington in the fifth round, and that was a vicious beating that Raquel Pennington took. I remember the fallout of that fight, and it had nothing to do with the man of Nunes. It's all about Raquel Pennington's. corner not stopping the fight because that was just a vicious beating then the cyborg win knocked out holly home beat jermaine deranemy beat felicia spencer submitted him megan anderson lost of paina beat paena beat peri prena chris cyborg's resume is way more impressive it's way more impressive

And I get it. You can only fight the people that are available for you to fight. But beating Arlene Blanco twice, Shnade Kavanaugh, like, no disrespect. But Julia Budd, Leslie, like, none of these fighters are anywhere near the vicinity of Valentina Shepchenko or even Raquel Pennington or Drain Duranemey. who's about to come back, it appears. So Nunes's resume is just better. It's just better.

She just fought way tougher competition. She's fought way better competition. So to me, it's not really a debate. But I get it. Like Chris has done it for longer. She only has the one loss. Nunes has a bunch of losses early on in her career. It was kind of like the same way where she just faded and got beat.

happened with Alexis Davis, happened with Sarah DeLelio, happened with Katzenganu. Katzengano, Ganon, Gangano. And it kind of happened in the pain you fight, but, yeah, I don't think this is a debate. I think it's

Nunes of the bullet right now. Let's go to Barbarusa. Barbarissa, do we have you? You're muted, Barbarossa. Hi, Mike. How are you doing? Good, how are you? I'm good, I'm good. I just want to ask you about the lightweight division.

It just seems like it's everything aligning up to make a rematch of Alexander Bolganovsky against Islam because it kind seems the same thing. The second best guy in the division beats the guy on a long win streak. It happened to Arnold with Max and now happen to Benin. and you can say that you came to my home and coming to yours and fighting for the title. And as you said, as much as good Charles looked, I think he doesn't bring much more from the table right now. I think it goes to the thing. What do you think, Mike?

Yeah, I mean, look, this is different than Matt. because Max has already lost a Volk three times. Like if Oliver has already lost a Machchip three times, I don't think Dana-Way would have gone to the press conference and said, yeah, that fight makes sense. I can't wait to see it. It just happened three times. And then the third one was just so dominant that there's just,

there's no interest in seeing Holloway fight Volcanowski again. There's interest here. There is interest here, especially with how much people just care about Oliver right now. Like they all want to see. him succeed. Everybody loves them. I love the fact that he's learning English and he was cutting promos a little bit in

English. I love that. That's just going to help you even more. And just beating Banneal the way he did it in timing too. Timing certainly helps because look at what else could be available. It's not going to be poor. he and gauge you. It's just not going to happen.

Those two are going to kill each other. There's no way either of those guys are going to be able to turn back around in two. two and a half months to fight Islam Makachap, nor would they want to. Nor would they want to. I do think the winner of that fight will get a title shot, but it just won't be in October because it just doesn't make sense timeline-wise.

So the only other options that are there, one is Chandler, because if Chandler says, screw McGregor, I'll fight him next year, give me the title fight, the UFC is going to think about that. They're going to go into the war room and they're going to talk about it.

And will, and Islam Chandler probably, does slightly better on pay-per-view than is Lam Oliver. Chandler's over. You only got him for a certain amount of time. You get a strike while the iron's hot. So you could do that.

The other is Volk. And that's more likely, in my opinion, to happen. Nish, you can hop back in. I'm going to get to you in a second. But he has to, everything has to line up for it. So he has to go in there, just beat the hell out of Yai'i Rodriguez. and be fine enough to the point where he can turn back around and fight Islam. And Volk wants to stay active and that's great.

Problem is, I don't think this fight's going to be easy. And I think Yahir Rodriguez, like he does to most people, ask Max Holloway about this, when you fight Yahir Rodriguez, you usually lose a piece of yourself in that octagon to him. He did that to Max Holloway. Max Holloway won the battle, but Year might have won the war. Because we saw how Max looked against Volk. And even the Arnold Allen fight, Max is still good. Still real good.

But he doesn't have his fastball anymore. He's not throwing 95. He's throwing 88 on the corners, which is still very effective. But if you want to strike out the best hitters in baseball, got to have a little gas on you. too. Max's, the Iyer took a little piece of him. And there's a chance,

Yaya takes a little piece of Volkanowski too. Volk's not 28. He's getting up there in age too. So if he goes out and has a five-round war with the Yair, it's going to be tough for him to turn back around. I don't want to see Volk right now. I do not want to see that fight right now. I want to see it again.

But give it to me next year. Same time next year. Because I think Islam will probably still be the lightweight champion by that. even if he fights he fights Oliver, I'm picking Islam to win that fight. If he fights the winner of Gaichi versus Porier, I'm picking Islam to beat both

those guys. And then Volk can fight Yairair. And then just Ilya beats Josh Emmett. We get Volk versus Ilya Teporea.

Who doesn't want to watch that? I want to watch that. I would love to watch that fight. There's plenty of guys for Volk to fight right now. They're all coming. So go defend your belt a couple of times. Islam's still the champ. Next year, Abu Dhabi, let's run it back.

There's no need to rush it. There's no need to rush that fight. No need to rush it. So I think Oliver will end up getting the shot. Just because I think Volk, I think Volk's actually probably the favorite. But I just think, I think Yair is going to give him, I think Yaya is going to give him hell.

I think Volk will win the fight, but I think Yair is going to give him a lot to think about. He's going to hit him. He's going to bust him up. Yair's good. He's real good. I can't wait for that fight. Can't I wait for it.

All right. Well, thank you all very much. I had to get a few things off my chest. I feel like this is a safe space. And I feel better. I feel better than I did on Sunday night. I'll tell you that right now. So thank you all very much.

We'll be back here. day. We'll do it again. 10 a.m. Eastern. Then we'll have a BTL. I think we're going to drop a like not a UFC preview show per se, but we're going to do like a combat preview show because this Bellator card is coming up on Friday

and it's a damn good Bellator card. Ah, here's a niche. What the hell, man? Let's see if we can get them in. Yeah, man. How are you? We're all good. We're all good. I'm not by saying that you have a great space, a fantastic face.

If you could actually put a face to it, you'd be better off than Ariel Helvani show. Okay. Yeah, and I say that from the bottom of my heart because you have a great presence and the confidence and the flare. I mean, you don't do this as a job.

It looks like, yeah, you really, really enjoy doing this. You're not bored. So that's fantastic. All right, let me just jump back to the fights now. So, yeah, I really love your take on what you said about, Vol Ken, Ayr. I mean, you just bang on here.

But yeah, as far as the lightweight division goes and who gets the next shot, I can guarantee you that Olivera is getting the next title shot. I can guarantee you that. Well, and I'll tell you why he's not announcing it as yet because he, Dana has his habit of just leading fans into the next fight, which is for that crappy BMF belt, whatever it is. But if he actually goes out and announces Olivera versus Maccacha right now, people will be less interested. interested in watching the outcome of that fight because there's no guarantee what the winner gets next. He very well knows that they won't be able to do a quick turnaround like you mentioned, and there are no other options available. But he'll hold on before he makes that announcement.

And once that announcement is done, he'll give an excuse as to why Porreya versus Gigi winner is in the next title challenger, and he'll just announce Olivera. That's about the lightweight division. As far as Amanda Nunes goes, you were perfect. detailing how Chris Cyborg is actually the best female fighter ever. Amanda Nunes, I think she ducked the rematch, the Cyborg rematch. He wanted nothing to do with it. Dana White, we all know what he did to Cyborg.

So, yeah, and I mean, you said that Amanda people considered her to be like the best of all time, like even amongst the men. But I don't know if you remember, but if you've, been watching MMA for a very long time. I don't think there's ever been a woman, apart from Ronda Rousey, concessus greatest of all time. I mean, Joe Rogan and all these other dudes were comparing her to people like Jose Aldo, I mean, who's been around forever, had eight title defenses. They thought she could go up to the men's division and she could beat all of them up. And the kind of hype she had, I don't think any fighter before Kahn of McGregor broke into the scene had.

I mean, arguably, as a woman especially, the... because Amanda doesn't even come close to it. That's the kind of hype she had when she was in her prime. I mean, before the Hawley-Horm fight, when she starts bitch Correa in the first round. So, yeah, that's my take on it. So, yeah, I'll leave it at that. Thanks, man.

So I am actually on Team Nunes as being number one. And I laid out the resumes. And to me, like, this is, It's almost like picking fights to me. When it comes to, like debates like this, like who's number one, who do you pick,

all that, it goes by a level of competition. And by far, Amanda Nuda has fought better competition than Chris Cyborg. It's not even close. It's not even close. She has fought better bodies.

Chris is fighting who she has to fight in Bellator. But there's just nobody there that matches up to like really, outside of like you take megan and flesia spencer out of the equation it's not even close so to me it's just level of competition plus they fought each other and amanda knocked her out in 51 seconds that puts her over the top for me but i get where you come from i'm willing to listen to a chris cyborg debate here i know she has me blocked on twitter for some weird reason i don't know why i've had nothing but like good things to say about her but she blocked me whatever

the other thing about the lightweight division I agree with you it should be Olivera I think he has done enough that performance has done it to throw out the word guarantee is tough and to say that Dana likes to slow play things is just wrong it's just not true and perfect example

Colby Covington Leon Edwards beats Kamara Usman less than a month before Gilbert Burns and Jorge Mazdaal are about to fight. Everyone is saying, boy, we're living in a world that if Jorge Mazadol beats Gilbert Burns, he's going to fight Leon Edwards for the belt. Let's put it into this three pieces of soda nonsense and let's just have these two fight. And what does Dana do after Leon's title defense? Colby's next.

Oh, but what about the Mazadol fight? Nope, doesn't matter what happens to that fight. Colby's next. Depends on what day you get Dana, really. But it was Colby all along. And then it just took, it was like a gut punch when he said that to the Mazadol-Burns fight. It took all the stakes out of it. Took everything away.

We knew Burns wasn't going to get it. But Mazadol in Miami, if he beat Gil with Burns, if he knocked him out, got the huge reaction from the home. crowd, cut a great promo, which you would have, just throw it, it just got thrown away. But, yeah, I don't know. Saying guarantee about anything when it comes to pay-per-view and title fights, I don't know.

It's tough word to use, especially in the sport in general. Guarantee is tough. It's tough to guarantee anything. It's one of the most valuable lessons I have learned being involved in this sport. Nothing is guaranteed. Just ask me, Neil Daryush, if anything's guaranteed. But with that, we are done.

Now we're really done. Thank you all very much. Back Thursday, another edition of a heck of a morning. Until then, have a great rest of your day. And as always, have a heck of a morning. The Vox Media Podcast Network.