MMA Fighting - HOAM | Reaction To Fighter-less UFC 300 Poster, Antitrust Lawsuit Settlement

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

The UFC 300 poster was revealed on Wednesday and it was met with a whimper, along with a bunch of shade thrown in the UFC's direction. Should we have been surprised by this poster considering the landscape of the company in 2024? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck reacts to the poster, and gives an explanation as to why it was to be expected with the promotion being the star of the show in today's UFC. Additionally, topics include the UFC reaching a settlement agreement for $335 million in their antitrust lawsuits, what we've been able to learn about it, why it's a short term loss for the UFC, yet worth every penny for them in the long run, what it means for the PFL and other promotions, Bo Nickal's UFC 300 main card placement, Calvin Kattar vs. Aljamain Sterling flying under the radar, 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 to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit darktrace.com forward slash defenders for more information. Listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. It is Thursday, March 21st, 2024, and it is indeed a heck of a morning. we are live on the MAFunding Twitter space you hear the show in its entirety shortly thereafter on the MAFutting Podcasting Network. It's going out, everybody. I am Mike Heck.

I hope you are all doing fantastic. It's another week in this crazy sport of ours and another day where there is a whole bunch to talk about. So thank you for joining us live. Thank you for joining us after the fact on the pod network. Some things I want to talk about real quick before we go to the calls. one, fun stuff.

As you heard in the M. May hour, we're headed to Las Vegas for the UFC 300 watch party. It's going to be super fun. I'm very much looking forward to it. I'm going to be flying in the day before. So I land like late afternoon, early evening, Vegas time on the Friday. And then we'll do the watch party Saturday.

From fight one to fight 13. We're going right away from the Davis and Figurato, Cody Yarbrant fight, all the way through the main event between Jamal Hill and Alex Pereira. Every single fight, every single moment, we will be live for it, and we'll be doing the show in Las Vegas instead of New York City. So that is very exciting. A couple of things I want to clarify. One, it's not going to be in front of an audience.

I saw, I got some DMs. I got some responses to that. Basically, we're just going to be in Las Vegas. When we first started talking about this, and honestly, when we first started talking about the watch party in general, started putting it together, one of the goals that I have for the watch party, and I think G.C. sort of agrees with me on this, is eventually we do something like that, where we take the show on the road, we do the watch party in front of people, people joining us. however it may happen kind of like what barstool does when they when they're on location watching like playoff games or whatever uh something to that extent but for this particular one we just we just couldn't make it work uh for for a couple of reasons uh it was just kind of too quick to put together and and try to try to figure out the logistics so uh i it's going to be more of an ambiance thing

um and from what i understand how the setup's going to look, it's going to be pretty friggin' sick. So I'm looking forward to that. But when I tweeted some stuff out about, you know, hope to see everybody there, I know Ariel sort of talked about it and the guys did as well about possibly doing like some meet and greet stuff.

And hopefully we do something on the Friday where we can get together whoever's going to be in Vegas, you know, fans, whoever wants to come out and see everybody. That would be pretty damn cool. So yeah, it's going to be in front of an audience. I really wish it was. Not this time. Hopefully that's something we work on in the future, but I do hope to see everybody who's in Vegas out there,

at least on the Friday or before the watch party on Saturday. We'll figure something out where you can put everybody together. There will be more announcements coming in regards to UFC 300 and the road to UFC 300 and some cool stuff we're going to be doing. I will announce those at the top of BTL today at 1230. I think you guys are going to dig it. Secondly, let's get into the big news from yesterday. The big news was the UFC reached a settlement to close out both antitrust lawsuits that were hanging over their heads to the tune of $335 million. And this led to a lot of reaction. First of all, for me, I think my...

reaction was essentially what a lot of other people's reactions were was like okay this is it one for the number and two a decade of this this is what it comes down to and also we headed into this year especially with some of the things we saw at the end of last year and some of the stuff we've been seeing this year public files essentially of the UFC's business practices text message exchanges, email exchanges of how the UFC does business from time to time. And had this gone to trial, you would have gotten a lot more of that. And it would have gotten worse. And as I was saying throughout the build of all this, if this goes to trial and these files start getting open that we really

start to dig in, you're all going to understand the nature of the business and how dark it can actually get and some of the weirdness going on behind the scenes. So when this all came out, there was a part of me that was like, shit. Now we're just not going to get the whole story on anything. And I can tell you this, there are a number of people, a number of people who are going to be a part of this in some way, shape, or form who was breathing a big, big sigh of relief that a lot of this shit didn't come out. And I think those people know who they are, and that's fine.

But there's a lot of talk about who won here. Did the fighters win? Did the UFC win? Did the UFC get off easy, et cetera? My first reaction to all this was, what? Like, this is it? Because I really, really wanted this to go the full way. Because this was the biggest story in the sport, potentially.

This potentially could have been the biggest story. Not just of 2024, but one of like the top five biggest stories ever covering the sport. If this had gone to trial and we went through the whole thing. And we didn't get that. So at first, I thought it was like, damn it. Like we could have gone the, I wish this thing could have gone the full way. You saw sort of what they were seeking in all this anywhere from 800 million to 1.6 billion. So when you see 335 million, you're like, man, like, that's it.

it, that's a pretty low number comparatively to what they wanted. So that was like my initial reaction. It was like, man, the UFC is doing a victory lap right now. They should feel a thousand pounds lighter. $335 million is a lot of money to us looking at it.

But to them, it ain't shit. They make as much in profit in one year then they're going to have to pay out to the fighters. And obviously, it's going to go in a different way. The lawyers are going to get some stuff. some of that money.

I'm not sure how much. We'll find that out in about 40 to 60 days. And we don't know how this is going to be allocated. We don't know if this is going to be like, hey, every month or every couple months you get like this amount. How long is the payouts going to take? Or is it going to be something that kind of like the old players that want to lawsuit against the NFL, this is going to be paid out over like decades,

decades of time. Or it's just not, you're not just getting like a big paycheck. You know what I'm saying? So we'll see how that all plays out when the final papers are filed and everything is disclosed before the judge signs off on it. And then still feeling a little bit disappointed. The UFC is just like, shit, man. Like they just can't lose. They just cannot lose.

The one big opportunity where they could have really taken a hit, they ain't going to because of injunctive relief. None of that is going to happen here. According to some of the fighters involved in the lawsuit, again, we don't know all the particulars, but it doesn't seem like there's going to be a lot of changes to the business practices, and that kind of stinks. And my second thought on all, this is like, man, PFL is fucked. One championship is fucked. Because the one thing that could have really helped them in this race was if the UFC had

change their business practice because they were considered a menopsy. Like, if that had happened, it gives them more of a fighting chance. Now, they're fucked. Like, they have no chance. Like, Don Davis can say whatever he wants, and I'm sure we're going to get questions about that interview. And boy, are we going to talk about that on BTL today. But this notion that they're close to the UFC, that they're nipping on their heels,

it could not be further from the truth. They are so far away from the UFC. It's not even funny. The UFC has lapped them around the world like six times. And I don't care what kind of mode of transportation you have, whether it's you're just the fastest runner in the world, or you ride a bike really fast, or you're at a freaking jet plane.

You ain't catching them. It's not going to happen, especially with this result. So that was another thought that I had. And then the third thought that I had was something that I picked up later in the day, because our own Steve Morocco did a reaction podcast with John Nash, who has covered this lawsuit from day one and has done an absolutely incredible job and any knowledge that I had of this at all, which is very minimal, until maybe the last 24 to 48 hours or so,

this guy has just been killing it all over Twitter. And Stephen had John on, and they were talking about certain things, talking about the payout numbers. He sort of predicted that this was probably going, to happen. And comparatively to other antitrust lawsuits that have

been settled, and he used some examples like the national realtor one that just got settled. They wanted like $1.8 billion, and I think they settled for like 400 and something million. Apparently, according to John, like this, and he was sort of

citing other antitrust lawyers who thought this is a gigantic win for the fighters, that this doesn't happen all that often. So looking at it through that lens, maybe it is a win for the fighters because this doesn't happen that often. And based on like every antitrust lawsuit, maybe ever in the United States, I think John said something, and don't quote me on this, you can go on Twitter. It's, I think it's the 51st biggest payout ever, which if that's true, is, it's pretty

good. So it's kind of understandable how you see both sides. If you look at it, this is a victory for the fighters, then cool. I guess you can look at it that way if you're looking at it from sort of the extent of the law perspective. But if you're looking at it from like a fans perspective, wanting to see the fighters get more, wanting to get a peek behind the curtain, so to speak, maybe business practices change, fighters get paid more in the long run. doesn't seem like any of this is happening. Now, could there be some changes to the language of the contracts? Sure, that could possibly happen.

John was talking to Stephen on that reaction podcast, which you guys haven't listened to this, and you're not all that familiar with the case. Highly recommend you listen to it. It's about 20 minutes, 25 minutes, and you learn a lot in that 25 minutes because Stephen asks great questions. John provides a lot of insight.

So I highly recommend you go back and check that out. but John was saying he does expect like some of the language to be changed but very minimally where it looks like it just looks on the surface like it affects the UFC but in the long run it doesn't so he kind of went back to when the UFC sort of changed the language a little bit in 2017 adding the sunset clauses that Francis and Gano took took advantage of but nobody else really did and then the UFC eventually took that all away maybe they add that back or they add something similar to it. So he expects maybe something, but again, until all those documents are filed, until that

has made public before a judge and he signs off on it, we'll get a little bit more of an understanding. So kind of bittersweet, fighters get a win. The UFC does suffer. Like if we're looking at this from a like tapology standpoint, there's a red mark next to the UFC in this. They lost. They lost the battle.

But in the long run, I don't think they lost that much because, again, if this had gone to trial, everything's out in the open, everything's on the table. And even if they lost $1.6 billion or whatever it was, yeah, that stings, man. But the way they are making money right now, it doesn't sink them in any way, shape, or form. The big thing about this was whether injunctive relief was going to be a part of it of the decision. and if the UFC was going to be forced by law to change their business practices. If it was proven that they have a stranglehold on the industry, but that's not going to happen because this is not going to go to trial now. John was also mentioning that maybe some other things could happen.

Potentially maybe one or PFL or another promotion could file an antitrust suit against the UFC, not for a monopsy, but for a monopoly. They could try to prove in court that the UFC has a monopoly on the industry with what they're trying to do. Probably not going to go particularly well, so John didn't really expect that to happen. So all in all, 40 to 60 days, once that judge's pen hits paper

and we find out all the details, this thing ain't ever going to trial, and that's going to be it. The UFC train continues to roll, so you better get off the tracks. So I'm sure you guys will probably want to have your thoughts on all of this. If you have questions, I will do the best that I can to try to answer them.

Again, this is not my fortuit. pay, but I did learn a lot yesterday about all of this. And yes, it's a win for the fighters, but it's a giant win for the UFC. Yes, they still have to pay $335 million, but all at all,

all those documents, all that shit that we could have seen involving the company, managers, negotiations, all of that. None of that will make the public eye now unless there's some sleutty suits out there.

So let's hear from you all. I'm sure Henderson, who will kick us off, had an interest in all of this. And I'm curious to get his thoughts on this. Henderson, are you there? Yes, Mike, great to talk to you about this. And congratulations on the upgrade flying out to Vegas for the big fight. So as far as the settlement, I do think it's a good win for the fighters in that they got paid. And they basically got the UFC to admit, like not legally.

but admit that they were not fair in how they treated them and that they should have made more money. So that's good for them. What I'm interested in is those changes, like you said, because I'm interested to see what John Fitch and like the other fighters that are leading this lawsuit. Since the settlement, like info came out, they've been saying like that it's a victory and that it will help make UFC more of a competitive sport and stuff. So I'm interested what changes they actually got the UFC to give into because I do think there's a chance. Like you said, the UFC definitely didn't want this to go to trial and all that info to come out. So maybe they did agree to something hopefully that's useful for fighters in the future. But I would think that there's something there.

But I also had one big piece of news for you, which is that as I've talked to you about before, I collect UFC rookie cards and first autos. So that's like the main thing for UFC cards is what is going to be somebody's rookie card and their first auto card. And because MMA makes no sense and because UFC cards make no sense, that's why I love them. And it can really be any year, any fighter gets it because they just make the cards with no rhyme or reason, really. For instance, Robert Whitaker finally just yesterday in the new set got his, first auto and so did uh pantosia but the most exciting news of the day was that parker porter got his first rookie card and first auto which is usually reserved for like top prospects like bow nickel to get them

all in one set and uh parker porter out here just changing the world so just wanted to let you know to look out for uh tops chrome 2024 parker porter rookie auto oh man what a watch party moment that would be if we drew Parker Porter Auto. That'd be awesome. I'd lose my mind. We'd have to get Parker immediately on. Immediately on. So, yeah.

Excited to see what the tops looks like. I'm sure we'll be ripping packs during the 300 watch party because we have seven hours to kill. And there won't be fights every second. On the other stuff, again, it seems like, I don't know, we'll see how it all plays. though. I mean, we don't have all the details of the settlement yet. What changes are going to be made? So I didn't go crazy. But Nate Corey wrote something on Reddit yesterday. Steve Morocco wrote a great article that dropped this morning

sort of both the reactions from a whole bunch of different fighters, some on the record, some off the record. Like, Gioriah Faber was the name that he spoke with. Jake Ellenberger was the name he spoke with. Ben Rothwell, Gray Maynard. So those guys were on the record. There were others that were not on the record. But Nate Corey was on Reddit and responded to somebody, and he said this. No, we didn't get everything we wanted. Our goal all along was to change the sport.

However, we had quite a few delays that we had to deal with. And to get injunctive relief, i.e. change the sport. We would have had to refile both lawsuits and combine them, go through discovery all over again, retake depositions, about a five-year delay, and then hope we get granted class action status again. We'd be looking at another 10 years just to be where we are today with no guarantee of winning any punitive amount of injunctive change. As I said, weighing all the possible outcomes, this seems the best outcome. We're not high-fiving one another, but we are pleased that a lot of fighters are going to be getting some compensation for being underpaid.

Wish we could have done more. Over time, I'll be able to speak more in depth about all of this. But for now, with apologies, this is about it. There are always going to be critics and detractors, and my response is always the same. I think you could have done better. Show me how. Step into the ring.

And then he threw out a Teddy Roosevelt quote. And then he ended with, it's very easy to sit in the cheap seats and criticize. once you step into the ring, once you taste your own blood, your whole world changes and you're a little more understanding of those who attempt greatness, even when they fall short. And for those that have been sharing us on, thank you for your support. I can't say much more than that.

Thank you. We didn't get all what we wanted, but we will be able to help some guys that are hurting now. So there you go. Nate Corey's been a huge part of all of this, and it kind of seems like he wrapped and packed it right there. Now, again, once everything is filed and goes before a judge, we'll get all of the details. So perhaps there will, you know, maybe everybody agreed on some sort of contractual change.

But based on hearing what John had to say and based on things I've been seeing, I don't expect it to change very much. And it certainly ain't going to change the industry. So there you have it. There you have it. Four Corner Sports. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

Four-corner sports. Not connecting. All right, hop back in, four-corner sports. We'll try it again. Saving and investing well is an art and a science. It requires high-level math, an intimate knowledge of economic history and theory, and a healthy dose of psychology. People have spent their whole careers and won Nobel Prizes, trying to figure out the best ways to do it. Betterment believes that you should be able to be a successful and sophisticated investor without having to get a PhD.

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Go to Betterment.com to learn more. That's B-E-T-E-R-M-E-N-T-com. Investing involves risk, performance not guaranteed. Support for this show comes from the... The Audible Original, The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer,

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Do we get you, Abzwalia? Hi, Mark, I'm Mark Hakem morning. What's up, man? So, yeah, so before I begin what I want to just kind of put my input on, I just want to ask you a question as a, you know, report on this. Regarding with the whole outcome for the fighters, did they get paid at least a decent amount of money that, you know, that's at least somewhat desirable? Because we know that they're not going to get paid what they really treatise up, but did they get paid enough where, okay, it's a little bit compensated and, you know, they can go on their merry way. It's tough to say. I'm sure there are fighters who are involved that are according to, and this is according to John,

some of the names that were involved in the suit aren't eligible to be paid at all for a number of reasons, whether they signed a waiver after the fact about this that pretty much knocks them out of the conversation altogether. there are other factors to this as well. So we don't know where it's going yet. We don't know who's getting what. And we won't know until that all comes public before the judge. And we don't know how much they're paying the lawyers, too. Could be freaking 20%.

We don't know. And that's a big chunk of change. It's like 60 million right there. So I think some will get a good chunk. Some will get a few dollars. Some will get a little something, something. And then there's going to be a whole group of fighters that are going to get happen. Interesting. I appreciate that perspective and input. Much appreciated. You know, look,

it really kind of sucks, man. I feel there's just no winning as a professional ever made father. I can't speak. I'm not in the position. But like, even if you, like, end up winning, it just really seems like they're not going to get that full cut date. But that's just the where we live in as well, you know, which is fine. Everyone needs their bread and butter. But what I wanted to say is, firstly, I wouldn't say it's a win for the fighters, but it's not a loss either. Now that you kind of explain the gist of it with one of the fighters who was answering the fans' question. I can see the perspective, all right, it's better than nothing. But in the long run, it's not a really good outcome.

You know, hopefully we do see some changes at least like you mentioned contract change and stuff. but I just want to touch on this. You know, unless now, unless really truly if, like, say, fighters decide to just, you know, kind of going to strike, like the way we saw the Hollywood writers recently do, or the actors recently did last year, right, where they just refused to straight out go and act in that movie. They halted every project.

If USC fighters were to collect, we come to that bargaining agreement, just, you know, I'll drop out this event. that I was scheduled to be fighting at. We're all going to go on strike until we don't get our paid desire or our privileges such as healthcare rights, the money that we desire, you know, a proper union, you know, then we're not going to fight for you.

But, you know, obviously I don't see that happening because this is an individual sport. There's too much of bullshit going around. Not a lot of people generally desire big outcomes, you know, like especially with a lot of fires being foreigners and stuff. They kind of are okay, being paid away. there and it's also just the fact that Dana White, he will blackball or really sabotage your career if you even, I guess, try to speak out against it. And, you know, I've also felt this,

it just kind of also affects the gist of it, you know, with the marketing, you know, the building up of fighters, whether you're like going to be a future staff or the company or the sport. Also, if you're just a great fighter, who would be like a perennial contender. I just think there's So there's no proper solution that will come out of this. And it just kind of sucks. You know, I've said this before as a person. I would love to see the sport grow big. But with things like this happening, it's never going to happen.

I mean, if you look at it, every single other sport on this planet has some form of union. Even I think the W.W.E, they literally give their parent company. They give their, like, prorescers, some benefit of rights. You know, now I think they do underpay some of them still, but they still get much more better. advantage than even a UFC fighter or a bellator fighter or PFO fighter would get. I was sick to UFC here because they're the main subject. But you just imagine every single sport on this planet, like every league, like major league, they promote the hell out of their stuff.

They make sure to even promote the hell of their like other athletes who are, you know, at least can get some money out of it, you know, good, you know, good life-changing opportunity, whether that's endorsements, whether that's like, all right, I can get into like a bit position with this company, you know, as a director, as a head vice president. In the UFC, all right, we do have Daniel Kormier doing that. We have guys, you know, who are doing broadcast, which is fine, but there's still a very niche sport, you know, probably is always going to be unless things do change. It's just like, as a fan, you know, I look from perspective, if I was a UFC fighter and I was in a position where I am possibly one of the biggest stars of the sport,

and I'm not going to compensate away some of my fellow athletes and other major sports so I would be pretty fucking pissed honestly speaking like you know imagine going to the hard work having that talent you know also maybe have desires and dreams of doing things you know even within the sport

maybe becoming broadcast or outside the sport where all right maybe I would love to be acting in big movies especially if I'm that popular I bring eyes to my sport and outside the sport you know I would love to do movies or I would love to be, you know, doing something in the fashion world, or I would love to be working with, you know, entrepreneurs.

I just don't think that's ever going to happen because the UFC doesn't care. And I know it's going off top of it. I feel related to this course because this whole fight was essentially for the general MMA fighters, you know, like a future, you know. And obviously I was kind of, I think many people who are against this, like, you know, the fires kind of getting their pay was kind of right. they were only looking out for themselves essentially. Like, they're not really caring much by the five.

But just think about it for a second. It really does suck that we're going to kind of be stuck with this possibly for maybe forever. Like you said the other day, even by the time you're probably an old man or maybe, you know, dead. It's maybe one they might actually do something bad. So, yeah, it sucks, man. I mean, you know, it's probably more of a win for TKO. I wouldn't say it's like the biggest one for UFC, but it definitely has. certainly saved them from any hubber like problems that they could have possibly got if this lawsuit

went into um into suit and uh yeah but i mean the only other chance that you like these guys have to maybe possibly do something is this tv deal but i doubt anything's going to come out that it is what it is we just have to live with it now as fans the best thing if i mean if you know if any fighter wants to do something on the sport, have a business-oriented mindset, play your cards right, you know, and diversify your bonds. You know,

where to Wu-Tang Clan, you've got to be smart because you're, like, you're the only person you can look out for. You know, that's really all I could say as a fan. I know there's probably no fighter here listening, but that's probably the bouncer I would go

and if I was in that position right now. That's all. I have a great day. Yeah, look, I've been telling you guys for three years now. They're never going to unionize. It's not going to happen. They're just not going to do it. There's too many fighters and there's too many managers who are,

how am I going to put this? In cahoots with the UFC? Like, I mean, it's obvious. It's obvious. Just look at, you know, just look at it. There are managers out there. who care more about their relationship with the UFC and being on their good side

than getting the clients the best deals possible. It's just the nature of the beast. It's imperative with the way the UFC does business to get in good with them, to curry favor with them. And there are certain managers that do that, and there are certain managers that are just business as usual. And that's just the nature of the beast. And until everybody is on the same side,

and everybody is willing and I'm not just talking about the fighters, talking about the managers, the reps, all that. They all, you have to get everybody on board to be like, all right, we just ain't fighting anymore. The UFC has to fulfill 43 events. We're just not going to fight.

We're just not going to fight. And you know how the UFC will look at it? They'll be like, all right, we'll go to the regional scene and find 26 other people who will. And they'll just do the show. It doesn't stop them at all. That's just how it is now.

they didn't do it when they sold the company they didn't do it with the Reebok deal they didn't do with any of the sponsorship deals the Venom deal they didn't do it with USADA they didn't do with this new drug test policy they didn't do it with the merge the merger with WWE

they didn't do it with anything and they're not going to do with this new TV deal either so this is it guys like this is it of course we all want the fighters to make more money of course we all want to make more money do what we're doing. But guess what? Unless you're willing to take a stand and walk away, you can't do it. It's just not going to happen. You're not going to get 650 people

from the biggest stars to the ones that are about to make their debut on Saturday and their managers all on board. It's just not going to happen, guys. It's just not. So a part of what this did with this result yesterday was it basically put a nail, I'm not going to say a full nail in the coffin, but we're pretty damn close. We're pretty damn close. So unless the UFC on their own is like,

you know what, these fighters are nice people. Let's just give them more money. They ain't getting it. And why would the UFC give it to them? Why would they? No one's asking for it. No one's demanding it. they are running the 1890s

WWF model where if you get over and you become a star you can make money. If you don't, you get what you get. That's it. That's it. I don't know if I misinterpreted this, but you had mentioned all the other sports have unions, even WWF.

WDF does not have a union. There is no wrestling association. Never has been. The one time it was attempted, Jesse Ventura wanted to do it in the 80s and from what Jesse says Hulk Hogan stoogeed him out to Vince McMahon and tattled on him

and then Jesse got fired Jesse got fired and then he ended up suing WWF for residuals for videotapes that WWF had put out featuring Jesse on commentary and he was like nah dude like I don't work for you I'm going to get paid for this if you're going to use my

like this pay me and he ended up winning that case so yeah that's that's just it guys that's just it this is a big opportunity here and look i'm not sitting here shitting on the fighters like i'm not the one putting up my money and my time in all this to try to fight this battle i'm i'm not the one that's been in the in the trenches with these guys and gals for a decade now so i don't know like i don't know but if it was going to be like hey is this worth another according to nate quarry is this worth another is this worth 10 years to get basically rewind all this and get back to the point we're at right now and then

have the chance to get nothing that's the risk you have to take and from the UFC perspective whether of course like on the surface it's like yeah the UFC lost and they're basically only settling because they're admitting that they're wrong I don't look at it that way I look at it more like hey it's going to cost us $335 million which is basically a year of profit to make sure that our brand stays fully intact, that nobody sees any of this stuff that will be disclosed in a courtroom, that the whole world can have access to. It is worth every freaking penny, in my opinion.

It would have been worth $500 million. It would have been worth $600 million for this Sadako to trial, whether they're right, wrong, and different. And both sides felt like they had a strong case. And if you want to do the injunctive relief and all that, it's very, very difficult to win. It's almost unprecedented to pull that all off. So you take the win where you can get it,

I guess there's no guarantee if it goes to trial when you go to the jury of your peers and God bless America, not all those people sitting on a jury are all that smart and intelligent, and I would say a big chunk of them probably have no idea what MMA is. And they probably make sure that's the case.

you kind of have to. It's all you get like an MMA fan in there to be like, yeah, let's rule for the fighters. You have to find like 12 people who don't know what the hell anybody's talking about. You know what I mean? So, yeah, it was, it's, golly, it's worth $335 million for the UFC.

Their brand is worth way more than all of this. And if we start seeing more public stuff come out, that could really butcher them and it probably would this is a giant win for the UFC. This is worth it. This is absolutely worth it because they're about to sign a big gas TV deal

that this can be a $335 million to be a drop in the friggin bucket. So there you go. All right. Let's try to go a little more rapid fire here, guys. Four corner sports, go ahead. All right. So really quickly,

I feel like everything that was touched upon on what you said is accurate. This was like the final strike that they had left in the chamber for them to even come close to getting whatever they want for fighters pay. And, you know, this is small change to what was expected for them to possibly come out and win. I get it, you know, you take the money whatever is given to you because if it goes to trial, I mean, I feel like they could have won, but it goes to trial, you know, the fear of losing and then you coming out with nothing, I mean, you don't want. want to be holding a bag of, you know, emptiness, you know. But, you know, they fumbled it, the, you know, the people that were trying to get that settlement. But, I mean, it is what it is. I mean, I no longer care, you know, I stop caring, you know, about fighter pay because if they

don't really care about it, then why should we? At this point. But I wanted to talk about two things. One, I know you guys ended up putting it out there about the UFC 300 poster. And I was very shocked. I felt like it was just, the USC just put very little interest into, you know, that poster. It just felt like, you know, that's it. That's all you give us. You know, I don't, I thought they would have given us something like a little more special. You know, the promo was great at the end that they were putting out out there.

But the poster, I mean, man, like that's, wasn't expecting that. I mean, it's not a surprise. I mean, I feel like Dina doesn't really put his. is mine into, you know, advertising for the sport anymore like used to. I mean, the USC is already winning. And then lastly, I mean, I know this card, the main card starts at 10 p.m. But what, I mean, who do you guys have for the main event between Rose and Amanda Hebas? I'm interested to see what type of roles we're getting because, you know, every single time the Rose gets in there, you know,

you never know what she's going to come out as. You know, she can be there, you know, be a killer and try to finish somebody. This can be, you know, like a dragged down 25 minutes. So that's all I got. Thanks, Mike. I think Rose is going to win. I think it's a really good matchup for her. She's going to fight somebody that's going to get in her face

and kind of force her to be active. And Rose is just a way better fighter than Amanda Hebas. I love Amanda Hebaugh. She is fun. She's got a positive personality, and she's in fun fights. But she also gets finished a lot when she fights somebody who is better than her. and by all accounts, looking at skill set by skill set, Rose is the better fighter.

So I think Rose should win. There you go. I'm not going to be working Saturday. So I'm pretty excited about that because this card is rough. It's a tough one, especially that late. Being a 10 p.m. main car with six fights, I'm probably going to watch as a fan, like the main card. But, man, Rose and Hibas are going to start walking out of like 10.

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So let's talk about the 300 poster, because I kind of figured this is coming at some point. And as my best friend AK knows, I don't like to put myself over or anything like that. But this kind of goes by something I wrote the other day. So I believe it was Sunday we dropped our sort of UFC 300 content grading UFC 300. So as myself, Jed and Stephen Morocco, we all gave our grades. We all gave it a plus or better on paper. So I will let me read you what I wrote because I think this ties in perfectly to this poster and this is my first thought when I saw it.

So basically I was just like if you're not giving this an A, then you're being unreasonable. But let me get into the next paragraph. UFC 100 and UFC 200 came at times when the promotion and the sport as a whole was gaining buzz, gaining notoriety and a lot of that was based on larger than life stars getting them to that point, guiding newer eyeballs to check out the product. Brock Lesnar was a gigantic part of the success of both those previously mentioned events. Star Power sold. But that was then.

This is now. A world where the letters UFC shine the brightest on the marquee were the best fighters of the world compete but are not the stars of the show. The two biggest stars that are on the UFC roster right now have only fought a combined three times since 2021 and Connor McGregor and John Jones and the UFC do their credit. has only gotten more popular and are hotter than ever. This card appropriately represents what the UFC is in 2024. Tremendously talented fighters who are incredibly fun to watch,

but no big superstars to be found. And that's totally okay because this card is ridiculous. Every fight matters. Every fight is meaning, and there's high divisional stakes to just about all of them outside of the Bow-Nickel versus Cody Brunage fight, which will end very quickly either way. Here's just a few highlights.

Pereira versus Hill, already on my list for fights into C in 2024. Zhang versus John is historic. Gachi versus Holloway is by everything. My all in on Surukian prediction for this year will either age tremendously or turn into Ash very quickly. Fascination with Cater versus Sterling, then there's the rest of the card.

It's so damn good. If UFC 100 and 200 represented where the UFC was in those times, then UFC 300 absolutely does the same. Yet this might be the best card top to bottom the UFC has ever put together. the UFC is the star and the sentence I wrote that really stands out

this is now a world where the UFC where the letters UFC shine the brightest on the marquee where the best fighters in the world compete but are not the stars of the show that is everything that poster is and it's right it's completely 100% accurate

it represents what the UFC is in 2024 and we just talked about Well, like the fighter pay and all of that and the UFC's business practices, this is what has got the UFC over. It ain't the fighters. It's the letters. It's the letters UFC. They are the stars.

Dana White is the star. That's it. That's what that poster represents. It's about UFC 300. It's not about Perey and Hill. It's not about anybody else. Would I, like, should there be faces on the poster? Fuck, yeah, there should be.

There always should be. But the amount of surprise with this poster, I was like, come on, man, this is, this is 2024. This is what's to be expected. And this is, and this dropped the same day that the news of the settlement was reached. Like this is all like, this all was full circle. So why is anybody surprised? the star of the show is UFC 300 That's it

That's it That's why Like we got this main event We're like Okay it's a fine fight But it's not 300 They don't give a shit We're all gonna watch anyways

Because it's the UFC And it's because it's 300 No one saw that poster That flag yesterday It was like you know what F this I ain't watching UFC 300 That poster is friggin' stupid

No. You're just like, wow, this post is freaking stupid, but I still can't wait to give you $80 on April 13th. Or buy ridiculously expensive tickets to be in the building. The poster did not negate a sale, not one. And the UFC knows that. It's an awful poster. It's terrible. But it should not be a surprise. No one should be surprised by the poster. This is 2024. This is what the UFC is. Octagon blog, go ahead. I don't hear you, Octagon blog. Try again. Let's go to Cole.

Hi, Mike. I totally agree with everything that you were saying there. That was kind of my point. Yeah, like, the card is amazing. And anyone who says it's not the greatest card in UFC history, it's like, show me another card where there's pound for pound guys on the prelims. Like, okay. My question is, it's a big day in the world of sports.

It's, to me, the most exciting two days of the whole year in sports, college basketball tournament, baby. Who you got? Are you making a bracket? Who's your Cinderella? Who you got making the sweet 16? Who's your double-digit seed making the sweet 16? What do you got? I agree with you.

It is the best two days. I hope my parents aren't listening to this right now. from eighth grade until my senior in high school, I skipped school every first day of the tournament. I found a way out. And we would just go to my buddy's house whose parents worked to like 7 p.m. Eastern. Same dude's house.

And we would watch basketball all day. And those are like some of my favorite times. It was just so fun. We felt like we were so ruthless. We were so reckless. We were gangsters skipping school to watch the NCAA tournament. We did it for five years. It's never got caught.

So Mr. and Mrs. Heck, mom, pop, if you're hearing this for the first time, I'm sorry, but things had to be done. Having said that, it is 2024. I am not doing a bracket. I almost jumped on the NBA fighting one or the MA hour one, and maybe I still will, just throwing darts. I have no clue who's going to win it. I've watched maybe six minutes of college basketball all season. I just don't have time. man. So I have no idea. Will I be peeking in on the games today? Oh yeah. You bet your ass I will.

Will I be, you know, doing some work and then on the television here watching some college hoops? Sure. Do I have a, do I have a dog in the fight either way? No. But all the best to all the teams, all the athletes, the coaches, et cetera. And I hope all the games are just super fun and compelling to watch. Matt, go ahead. the horrible UFC 300 stuff. So my wife is not the biggest UFC fan, casual. She'll watch like the pay-per-views with me. I watch every week. But we were at this restaurant and she saw this lady with like a 50th anniversary

NASCAR shirt. She was like, that is cool as hell. I hope that the UFC has some cool stuff for us that we could buy as like memorabilia, like a shirt, something like that. And she saw the 300 logo and was instantly disappointed and was like, oh, well, I guess we're not going to get anything because that's pretty stupid. So I did think that that was actually pretty funny. But also, I am so excited for the fight between your man Calvin Cater and Al Jermaine Sterling. I think that that is a sleepy good fight that nobody's talking about.

And it's just because, like somebody previously mentioned, we have champs pound for pounds on the prelims. And I'm just so excited for that fight. I think it is just going to be way better than people are expecting. Completely agree on all ends. They're going to sell a shitload of Yosie throughout a t-shirts anyways. Even though they can be the most boring t-shirt you've ever seen. But yeah, dude, Kater Sterling is great. When they announced that fight, I was like, hell yeah.

Even when Al Jem Stirling started teasing it in December that they had offered him that fight, I was like, dude, this is really interesting. for a number of reasons because Cater can hit like a truck. Sterling's coming off of a knockout loss, whether you thought the stoppage was early or not. In all respect to Sean O'Malley and his technique and his power, but Calvin Cater hits way harder than Sean O'Malley does. He's way bigger than Sean O'Malley. Maybe not as tall, but he's definitely wider.

Cater's pretty big featherweight. And Cater can wrestle. Cater can wrestle. Now, is he as opportunistic as Al Jermaine Sterling? No. But Aljo's, I don't think, and Alge's a big ass dude, I just don't know how, I think this is the perfect test, is basically what I'm trying to say. Now, if I was Al Jermaine Sterling, and I said this from Jump Street, and a lot of people disagreed with me, a lot of people agreed with me, too, that Al Jamein Sterling, the second he lost the belt to Shotomalley, should have went all in on Max Holloway. That was the fight he should have taken.

because if he ever wants to get a title shot, they're going to make him beat Max Holloway at some point. So why not get it out of the way now? And he waited too long to do that. He kept going for the rematch with O'Malley, which is never ever going to happen unless he becomes the featherweight champion. So you might as well try to get the other belt so that Sean will come to you because that's the only chance he's going to fight you again.

But if it ain't Max, like Calvin's perfect, perfect test. Because of Calvin's skill set, what Calvin brings to the table, his size, his technique, his power on the feet. I love this fight. This is like my third favorite fight on the card. I love it. I know there's title fights and all that. This one is good. It's really good, and we're going to get a ton of questions answered about Al Jermaine Sterling as a featherweight in this fight.

It's perfect. Love it. Viking, I see you waving, man, but you can't jump the line. Can't jump the line. You're on deck, though. Octagon Blog, do we have you now? Yes, we have you. Yes, thank you for having me back, Mike. You're doing a very good job. If it comes to the payment, who is going to pay this $335 million? And what kind of role does Flash Entertainment still have if it comes to the, well, the whole environment around U.S.C. Abu Dhabi and Fight Island? I like to hear your take about the situation.

And it seems that they, according to Jan Nash, they get 10 to 15% of their revenue. I like to hear your take. Thank you. And good luck, Mike. I mean, none of that is surprising. Will they, again, and this is what I'm talking about, $335 million to them to not have their dirty laundry aired out in front of the world is worth every penny. It's worth every penny. This is nothing to them.

The amount of money they make every year is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Look at UFC 301 right now. Look at that card. As of right now, we're getting an Alexander Pantosia versus Steve Erseg main event. Now, I'm not here to say that that's not a fun fight, because I think it is going to be fun as hell. But do you think the UFC cares that this is going to do like 150,000 pay-per-view buys? Hell no.

because they're getting a whole big bag of money from ESPN just to even put this card on their network. They are fine. Paperview is just icing on top of the cake, man. So, yeah, TKO is just going to pay it and that's it. John Nash also mentioned they have sort of like a surplus that they could use as part of the business practices.

I think it's, I forget the actual number, but it's, I'll tell you what, it's more than $335 million. And it's maybe like 400, like high 400s. So John was kind of puzzled by the number only because they had this like surplus they could use. And they thought they would, John thought they would use it almost all of it exclusively on settling the suit. So John felt like maybe the payout would have been bigger because they had this sort of surplus that they had put aside, you know, in case of an emergency. But they don't have to tap into all of it. So, yeah, the whole thing is just, it is what it is, guys.

Like, it is what it is. Fighters got something. UFC has to pay and they lose. It's a loss for them. But in the long run, it costs them $335 million to keep their brand fully intact to the casual audience, which is what they're trying to promote towards anyways. They're not promoting for us. anybody in this room

they're not promoting for us. They know they have us already. They know we're watching at 10 p.m. Eastern, even though we're frigging exhausted, we're going to turn on ESPN Plus and we're going to watch five pretty awful fights and then Rosnami Unis in the main event. They can have us. They got us. They don't care.

They don't care. $335 million ain't shit to them and it won't be and it's worth every, like I said, it's worth every penny. every penny to not have this go to trial and for all that dirty laundry to come out because that would have been real bad for them real bad all right viking what do we got hello i'm not aware of what is happening in m m m r world since the past week so i just want to talk about the fight between sorry why bonica is fighting

over Charles Oliver and Armand Saruclian what are your thoughts on that because he's not a he's not that big of a star and Charles Oliver and Arman Salukin they are their their fight is title I think that the winner of that fight is going to fight for the title so what are you thinking about that and the other thing I just want to tell my Indian brother-in-law a.k. that 37 is a perfect age to get married, so get married. Thank you. Yeah. That's right.

Why is Bo Neckle on the main card? Because he's going to win quickly. Like, that's it. You have to remember, like, I, look, I get why people are like, look at all the names on the card. How is Bo Nickel in his third UFC fight after beating the two words? worst middleweights in the world, how is he on the main card of UFC 300? I get it. Totally understand it. However, if you are fighting on the ESPN slash ABC prelims, if you're those fighters,

like you would rather be on that. Because even though I think 300's going to do a really good buy rate, you might get triple the people watching you on ESPN and ABC. On network television, come on now. Kayla Harrison is going to be fighting with like two and a half, three million people watching her fight, make her UFC debut. More people are going to know who Kayla Harrison is coming out of UFC 300 than they ever have before, ever before, because she is on this portion of the card.

So I'll say that. I will somewhat defend Bo being on the main card. I'm not going to go into everything that I went to last week when we talked about this, but you have three title fights on this card, on this main card. There is a real chance all these fights go to go to the cards. Every single one of them.

It's a long night. And there's a real chance Armid Suruki and Charles Olivera goes to the cards. So if we go and by the way, they changed the lineup as well, if you guys haven't seen this. When they first announced, I think it was during 299,

it was Saruki and Olivera was first, then nickel-brundage, then the three title fights. If you watch UFC Vegas 88, the graphic changed where it's nickel-brundage opening the main card, then Sarukia and Olivera, then Gaichi Holloway, which maybe the UFC kind of sees Olivera-Serukian going in a way

that I think it's going to go. I think that fight's going to end in the first round. I think someone's going night-night real fast in that fight. I don't think it's going to be a 15-minute war. I think they're going to go in there and they're going to slug it out, and someone's going to fall down. and then the fight's going to be over. So the way I viewed the Bo-Nickel thing

with the original reveal of the main card was, look, man, after we get to, all we're going to want to get to is most of us anyways. Like, we're interested in all the title fights, but we want to watch Justin Gagey versus Max Holloway.

Like, that's the people's main event. And to me, once that pay-per-view starts, my eyes are going to be focused on that fight. Like, how quickly can we get there? and you have to the way they're looking at this is like people are just going to want to get to that fight and you're right so how can we get there as fast as possible we'll put bow nickel versus cody brendage on there and either way no matter how that fight goes it's kind of end fast and then we're going to get one step closer to that fight to the three title fights so that's the way you

construct it if we have five fights and all of them go to the cards like we're going to like what do you think the reaction is going to be. Boy, this is a long night. We don't want that. You got to mix in some finishes. You got to mix in one on that main card, right? And pretty much outside of Davidson figurator versus Cody Garbrand in my eyes, there's one fight that is guaranteed to get finished fast, and it's going to be that fight. So just chuck it on the main card. The quicker we get through that, the quicker we get to Justin Gathe v. Max all the way. All right, we'll take one more. We'll go to Hitchie Go, and then I-Guts to go. Because we got BTL coming up shortly.

Hitchie Go, do we have you? You're muted. Hitchie go. Are you there? I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to. Sorry, sorry. Okay.

Is it too? Oh, shit. Hop back in. If you want to ask the question, hop back in. Sorry. I thought you were saying, like, I didn't mean to request. I'll give you like 10 seconds. I didn't mean to hang.

up on you. Unless you didn't really want to ask question, then I did the right thing. But I appreciate you listening, nonetheless. All right, we're done. Appreciate you all. Cole, we already got to you. So come back tomorrow. We'll get you again. But thank you all very much. BTL. 12, 30 p.m. Eastern Time. Obviously, more talk about the settlements. It'll be Jed and Shaheen al-Shadi. Hopefully, Shaheen doesn't have any internet issues. We can get right into it. We'll talk about the latest with Connor McGreg. Do we believe him? Is he fighting in June?

Is he fighting this summer? Is he never fighting again? We'll talk about Don Davis's conversation on the MMA hour. As it relates to Francis and Ghanu, Francis saying, I want to do boxing again. I think boxing kind of owes me something after the Los Anthony Joshua. Don Davis coming out on the M.A. hour. Just being Don Davis and saying so many Don Davis he thinks,

things. But he did drop a little nugget. Francis is going to fight in the PFL against Henan Ferreira, no later than September on pay-per-view. So we'll get the reactions to that and other just hilarious things that Don Davis had to say. We'll talk about UFC 301, those big announcements, including Jose Aldo coming back. And then we'll touch on some of the stuff this weekend as well. But we will begin BTL with some fun announcements. In regards to UFC 300 and the build to UFC 300, I think you guys are going to dig it, especially some of the newer fans and even the older fans. I think everyone's going to like this announcement.

I think it's going to be super fun. So appreciate you all. You're the best. We'll be back here tomorrow. 10.15 a.m. Eastern. We'll do it again to lead you into the 2024 debut of the newly put together Belator Champions Series event in Belfast. So there'll be lots of MMA this weekend for you.

So thank you all very much. Back tomorrow. Have a great rest of your Thursday. Have a heck of a morning.