MMA Fighting - Noche UFC Post Show: Reaction To Jean Silva’s Big Win, Tommy McMillen’s Rise

Episode Date: September 13, 2026

Jean Silva is back in the mix at 145 pounds. On Saturday, Silva headlined the fourth iteration of Noche UFC, taking on Jose Miguel Delgado in the main event in Glendale, Arizona. And while he was slow to start, Silva was quick to finish, dropping Delgado in the third round and then tapping him with a one-armed rear-naked choke. Afterward, Silva called for the winner of the upcoming Alexander Volkanovski vs. Movsar Evloev title fight, but will he get it? Following Noche UFC, MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew (and Alexander K. Lee for a brief moment) chopped it up about Silva’s impressive performance and what that portends for his future. Jed then also discussed Brandon Moreno’s win over Joseph Morales in the co-main event, the rise of Tommy McMillen as a new star, Alexa Grasso’s return to form, and the rest of the action from Glendale. Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@JedKMeshew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Alexander K. Lee: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@AlexanderKLee⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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 megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for Calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. All right, Mike Heck here from MMA fighting, and my good friend Jed Michoud is here with me as well because Jed, the day has finally arrived. It's App Day, the all-new SB Nation app. It's live now.

It's live, Jed. It's alive. Yeah, man, I'm really excited. And it's awesome, man. Combat sports, like all sports, but combat sports fan especially, you guys are going to have your voices heard like never before within SB Nation. MMA boxing, not me, but you pro wrestling, Mike.

It's it is a community-based app. It's all about community with the USB Nation app. It's so easy to use and it can keep obviously combat sports fans connected to their favorite teams and all of sports too across the board so I can keep up with the Red Sox, the Celtics, the Patriots and the Bruins all on my phone and it's so simple to use. Yeah, like you mentioned those teams. But there's so much more because I don't care about Boston sports, Mike. But I get to follow the NFL, all the other sport, F1, the various sports that I care about outside of combat sports.

And then there's the live experience because that's, to me, that's one of the coolest things. You can chat with us during fight cards every Saturday. And you can chat with other people in the communities as big events are happening. So it's a really good time. So ladies and gentlemen, come fight with us over on the all new SB Nation app, Download it today. Download it right now. What are you waiting for? Download it. Yeah.

Those are the victory horns, ladies and gentlemen. Victory is sounding from the horns, and that victory, it sounds for one. John Silva. I mean, it sounds for many other people, but primarily it sounds for John Silva, who just defeated, and I mean just defeated Jose Miguel Delgado in the main event of Noce, UFC, version 4.0 that went down from Glendale, Arizona just moments ago. Hi, I'm Judd & Shoot and Mayfine.com. Great website.

Thank you for joining us. I do say us because I am joined by the King in the North and a man who won't be joining us forever or certainly for very long. The man known to the people as Alexander Cayley, AK, look, you dance into the horn. Can you see me? Can you guys see me? Oh, okay, sorry. I don't know how long we're going to see.

Yeah, I'm at a weird angle. Leave us. Yes, I'm not properly lit. Sorry, guys. I look quite frightening right now, almost indie Navarette in obsession-like right now. And I'm saying that because I finally saw that movie. But yes, I do want to talk about Notcha UFC. A lot of, like, I think a lot to discuss here, a lot to discuss.

So not a bad card at all. I'll say it again. I know I'm being a real, like, chill these days. I think these UFC cards have been, like, consistently solid. I had a good time. Like I'm covering boxing right now. As we speak, I have boxing on the screen. So you guys see me glancing upwards.

I apologize. Very rude of me. It's not to give you guys my full attention. But yeah, I thought no, Jay. I don't know if I would say it was good as Shanghai or Sacramento. But again, I think if you watch top to bottom, pretty good day. Maybe I'm wrong. Am I wrong?

Guys, am I out to lunch? Does this card suck? I thought it was pretty good. The prelims were quite good. The main card got dragged down a little bit. And honestly, we probably, I mean, could have. seen it coming. I was super invested in David Martinez, Dan Ege,

but that fight was not, that's a David Martinez fight. Like, all David Martinez fights look like that. You can appreciate the quality, but they're never the most exciting fights in the world. The heavyweight fight was a real stinker. We'll get to, I'm sure, or maybe you and I won't, but we'll talk about it. The Grasso-Mennon fight was awesome,

and then they business picked back up, but the prelims carried a lot of momentum, and it, Curtis plays Waldo, Costa, really kind of depressed the mood that David Martinez started to tamp down anyway. But we ended, I'm going to say we ended on a high note AK. And I, just to be crystal clear, I mentioned it, you mentioned it, you are covering boxing. So right now on Paramount Plus, I believe you, oh, you didn't even have to shift over because I still have my stream up. If you were watching the UFC, they pivoted it over and whatever fight this is on the boxing is just now going.

You are covering that. And so you will have to leave us once this fight. is concluded to do some more coverage for the remainder of that event. Depending on how far along that is, I'll still be here, we'll go. But you may have to dip out. And so I wanted to get right into it. And getting right into it means talking about the main event mostly, AK, as John Silva submits Jose Miguel Delgado in the third round with a one-armed rear-naked choke after, I mean, a classic, can we at this point just call it a classic John Silva fight,

AK? Super weird first round. He did not throw a strike for four. minutes or something like that. Basically through one strike in the first round total, got dropped by Delgado. In the second round starts to come alive a little bit more. And in the third round, he becomes the John Silva we expect. The guy we know is there and will eventually show himself, though sometimes a little

later than maybe you would want. Drops Delgado with a right hand sort of in a transition set of strikes. Delgado shoots, he immediately stuffs the take down, moves to the back, sinks and the choke gets the tap. Some extracurriculars, maybe we'll get to that as well. But AK, great John Silva's performance in the main event of Noce UFC.

I mean, listen, I'll go B-plus. Like, I'll go B-plus. I think, like, I know we'd like to see him put on a less scary performance. I get it. I think we were rightfully nervous at first. because I think, I don't know if you said it in the, I think you said it on the app,

the Espion app, which you guys should all download now. U.S. and Canada. I think you said it like he's trying to win a fight without throwing a punch, which was a bold strategy. And I got, it's not like, trying to pull off the Willie Papp. It's not like we haven't seen

fighters who, you know, take their time to build up their offense and stuff. Like, you know, to talk another great Silva, Anderson Silva, he had some fights where it looked like he wasn't doing much. I don't think he had. ever hit this level of an activity i always felt like amsterdam had like that right balance of sort of like picking his opponents apart and then you know uh unleashing but once the lasers were

locked in unleashing his like highlight real offense um so and sylva jian sylva is not that okay because i mean listen he got knocked down that's bad it's not conducive to winning fights but he's really tough he has a really good gas tank and he's crazy a f which apparently works out really well for him and I think he's smarter than like then we give him credit for. I do think there's some calculating going on there. He just made need to be more careful and a little more do something-ish, a little more Tomic McMillany when he's not, you know, just analyzing and downloading. But hey, end result, third round submission.

I mean, how much can you complain? You know, it was pretty good, pretty good performance. Jed, I actually do need to run. I think I have the fights out of order on my blog. What are you supposed to be live blogging? I was going live blogging something right now. Well, go for joining. Go Gian Silva.

Thanks for having me, guys. Why are we live blogging this fight, by the way? I'll let you know when I start. Okay. See you, bud. See you guys. A.K. Lee has left us. So it will just be you and I for this post show.

And I wanted to get him on. I'm sad he had to leave. I thought we'd get at least a little bit of time with him. but, you know, it's sort of happens on Noce events now because of the boxing. Got to cover that too. Thankfully, I do not have to. I've got it on. If you guys want to talk about it, I can peep over and see what's happened.

I've not watched any of that. But I do want to piggyback on what AK was saying about Jean Silva because I, I mean, I do agree. Like, I think that he is actually a fight. He's a fighting genius, I think, but he's a crazy person. So he's a fighting savant. And now, like, it's very clear that that whole camp, the Fighting Nerds Camp, has a really intuitive, great grasp of, like, picking apart specific opponents, how to approach fights broadly. Like, John Silva in all of his fight, like, in the one fight he lost, he got caught, right? Like, he lost badly in the first round, cooked Diego Lopez badly in the second round, and then looked like he was on his way and he got caught because Diego Lopez is a really hard.

like just a really hard-nosed dude who packs potent offense and caught him. But like structurally, you're not seeing Diego Lopez get out, out-fought, out-game planned. He'll get, he can get beaten. And for a moment tonight, I thought that that was possible with Jose Miguel-Dogato. But like he very, they, like, there is a method to the madness, as that saying goes. There's a reason he came and didn't do anything for three minutes. And while I think that that's probably not a good thing to do, honestly, pretty clearly by halfway through the second round,

he had his reads on Delgado. And the commentary noticed it too. I'm like, yeah, Dogato's backing up a lot more. He's not landing offense anymore. Like, John Silva had to take a little while to sort of assess, all right, here's how he moves,

here's his timing, his speed, and by the time he got it, you know, he'll still get caught. He'll still get hit. This is MMA. You're never going to,

unless you're Anderson Silva fighting Chris Lieben, you're not going to, you know, slip every punch. but by the second round Delgado's offense had been thoroughly muted and Silvas was starting to come alive and then by the third like I felt really confident in the third round

I don't know about y'all but as I was just watching the texture of the fight unfold by round three I was like oh he's he's going to win pretty clearly here he just had Delgado backing up constantly doggado's offense was was missing most of the time when he was trying to fire back he was only having success in short like in their very tight flurries. And so I was just like, it's a matter of time until this goes.

Now, when it went very quickly and that sort of is also part of the Jean Silva story, his offense is predatory when it really gets rolling downhill. But this is a guy who's very, very good, very, very, very talented, very smart about fighting. And honestly, like, I think he could be the best featherweight in the world

if he could rain in just a little bit. You don't want to totally tame a wild stallion, but you have to be able to put a saddle on it, right? You cannot ride a wild horse without one. So he's got to find a way to tweak those numbers just a hair to get himself away from, you know, the first round, basically, this fight where he straight up gave that first round and he got dropped. And I don't think he was ever in serious trouble when he got dropped,

but he got a nice shiner out of it, clearly lost that round. A very aggressive scoring judge could give that a 10-8 round because he simply did nothing in it. And so I think he's got to find a little bit better way to sort of tweak that and just get it under control a little bit more. But there are very few fighters in this division who are as like offensively gifted as him. And I thought this way coming our contender series and I still think it like if he fought our gender, you know, He called for the winner of Alexander Volkanowski versus Momsaravlev. I would probably pick both of them to beat him right now. I would not have an immense amount of confidence in it just because...

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Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. Like he is more dynamic than both of them. Very clearly, he brings much more offense to bear than both of them. Now, the way they do, what they do, to me, looks like it would match up quite well for him. I mean, Alexander Volcanovorkovsky is a legitimate fighting genius. and so I think he can probably pick his spots, but Volk's getting old.

He's just getting hit more than he ever has been. And there's a real chance that Silva just has enough unique and specialized offense to get Volk out of there. And with Mobstar, in my head, Mobstar probably tackles him a bunch of wins on the ground. But that might not happen because John Silva, again, like he's very, very talented. It is about it's about maximizing his offensive gifts and not changing who he is as a fighter.

But like the first round of this fight, people will forget it because of how it ended. That is not conducive to success. You can't be just punting full on rounds against the very best fighters in the world. And it's not a disrespect to Jose Miguel God, it was a very good fighter. But he's not, you know, I think eventually he will get ranked. He's not currently ranked. and he was stepping in on short notice, you can kind of get away with that against somebody like him.

You do that against somebody like a Volker or a Mov, so I'm not sure the fight goes very well for him. Or even, you know, like you go slightly down the list, like a Lorone Murphy, if you, especially in five-rounders, it's a little more, you can do it a little more, you just have more rounds, but you can't be doing that in three-rounders. You're just punting a third of the fight away. So it worked tonight.

I would love to see him sort of bottle that just a little bit, and that is kind of I think my big question, my big takeaway coming from this fight is what does this do for him? Afterwards he called for the fight with like I said the winner of

Okunovsky versus Evluev and I think that it's a fair chance he gets that. Featherweight is a little bit open right now and I know Al Jermaine Sterling's been making noise. It wouldn't stun me if they gave him a crack at it but John Silva is riding a wave of momentum.

It seems like Diego Lopez is out of the weight class now, though perhaps if Mavsar beats Volk, Diego comes back. So we'll see. I think it's in the realm of possibility he gets a title fight. And I didn't really learn anything super new from Silva here other than just a continuation of super talented, super dangerous can be a real problem for anybody in this weight class. And let's see how it goes.

Delgado side of things. This fight honestly looked a lot like I expected it to. And my pre-fight call on this was like, I think Delgado's dangerous, especially early when John Silva can be a bit too much of a bozo. He could really make hay. But over the balance of the fight, I thought Silva just had more offense.

I did not think, Delgado's been quite durable. So I didn't think Silva, once he got rolling, would really cook him like that. But, you know, it's what happened. You can't really take anything away from Delgado.

steps in on short notice, big step up in competition, look good early, faltered against one of the more potent fighters in the weight class, dust yourself off, get back up, climbing there again. Brandon, just my opinion, I think Vol could get a TKO on Silva, dangers either way. I mean, that's sort of my thought is I think Volk could get a late TKO by just being so tactically aware of what to do and so versatile as a fighter, but he's got to wade through a series of danger all the time

and he's pushing 40. That's 40 is just not great for fight sports in general. Jed, if there was a full camp Volkanowski in there tonight, Silva would have lost 50, 45 entirely possible. And that's, that is why that matchup is interesting because it is totally possible that Volk just outsmarts him for 25 full minutes. It is also entirely part, like, I know Diego Lopez beat John Silva.

I am not, did not forget that. John Silva has a different and trickier style of offense to prepare for than Diego Lopez. Diego Lopez is big and fast and hits hard, but it is almost entirely linear. It's one way. He is a bull in a China shop. And John Silva is just significantly weirder. And Diego Lopez got to Volt.

So it is possible that Jean Silva could get to him too. It would be a really fascinating match. match up to me. I don't know if we'll get it. We'll see. We'll see how that goes. Because also, Volk has to be Mobstar, which I think I'm going to pick him to, but I am not confident in that fight either. Look, featherweight's really fun right now, man. Not to beat a dead horse. We surely a Tupperu was still here because there'd be a lot of really fun fights for him at featherway, too.

This is the other point from George Ginnup. So what's with Silva swinging on him at the end. So I didn't see him swing on him. I'm not saying that he did not. I did not see this because I was working and live blogging. What I did see is him like getting his, like after the choke pushed it or maybe pushed him and then was barking his face. And Jose Miguel, though, God, I got very upset about that. Which I understand like in general, you would like people to be classy always.

And certainly if you just beat me and then you're going to rub my nose in it, I'd be pretty upset about that. I do always think it's a little weird when that happens. and then, you know, Dogato tries to fight him. Like, you just fought him and tapped out. We don't just, it sucks. He's being an ass. Just walk away. Be the bigger person in this scenario.

But what's up with it is he's a weird person. John Silva is kind of a crazy person. You know, he jumped over. Early in his career, I thought that a lot of what he does is performative. In the same, like, in the way that Hamza of Chimaeves, I'm going to smash everybody. It's pretty clearly performative, right? Like, you see him out and around.

He's just, like, mostly normal. And then he's turning the dial up to promote because that's what he think he's supposed to do, right? You know, like, you know this is a pretty common thing. I think John, like, this is sort of just is who John Silva is. He's a weird guy who barks at people and does weird shit. He jumps over the fence and takes his gloves off to talk to Hunter Campbell and shake his hand and bark a bunch.

like he is, he's just a very weird dude. And I think he was being, I think he was being true to himself and himself is just a very weird dude. Boat mode, I actually do largely agree with this. Lopez would be unranked if he didn't have an iron chin. Yeah, but he does. And that's his style is in large part built around his durability.

It's a very good sort of thing to have. What does that do to unranked Jose Miguel Delgado? Like I said, I don't think it does anything to him. I think he's okay here. You know, you got the Brendan Fitzgerald saying he dared to be great. And I think that'll mostly be the takeaways. You're not as good as John Silva, who's at worst, like the fifth best featherweight in the world. That's not too bad, man.

You know, he'll probably still get an opportunity. He stepped in on short notice. It was a fun, exciting fight. He's not going to get the $100,000 because of the time McMillan-Rahiki fight. But, yeah, you know, it's okay. Silva is given a pass for behavior that would get other fighters punished. I don't think this is true because I don't think other fighters be punished for what Silva is doing. Because when does a fighter get punished ever anymore?

That you get punished for being boring, you don't get punished for doing anything, really. So we'll see. You know, I know that the Vegas Commission just made a big deal out of fighters jumping out of the cage. Obviously, Silver just did that. We'll see if Arizona wants to follow suit and if he gets fined or something for that. I think we all agree that that's stupid to find fighters for such thing. but it's possible that he could get in that level of trouble. But otherwise, like, DOC's never going to say anything.

And I honestly, I didn't see him swing on him after the fight. If that happened, then that's over the line. Everything else is not to my taste and I don't care for it, but within the bounds of sort of what I think is allowed to, should be allowed to exist. Like, if the worst thing he did was bark at him after beating him, is that a little bit low class? Yeah, not wish he wouldn't do. that. Do we need to regulate that? Not sure we need to. I think that'd be okay.

We can move on to the co-main event as Brandon Moreno gets back in the wind column takes a splitty over Joseph Morales. Shout out to Brandon Marino, you know, who I think clearly is past it. He does not have his fastball anymore. He just looked slower in there. His volume is dropped off. He's not the same dynamic guy who won the belt a couple of times. But this was a big spot for him back against the wall, loses this, loses three in a row. That raises real questions. Not really, I don't think this should have been a split. It seemed very clear to me that Brandon Marino won this.

Goes to a split. Not that this fight wasn't competitive, but I thought it was pretty obvious that Brandon Marino won at least two of the rounds. But it is what it is. He gets to splitie back in the win column. Tough for Joseph Morales, who got a big step up in competition, his first loss since coming back. But, you know, Brandon Marino, on the opposite,

where John Silva is a crazy person. And Tommy McMillan also has a little bit of that in him. Not quite the same. But, you know, Brandon Marino is just a joy, just a joyful, wonderful little human being. And so it's unfortunate that he probably is a little bit past his prime, but it was good to see him get a W. He gets to be happy. And we'll see where he goes. I'm going to be on doing on to the next one tomorrow with AK.

So, you know, get up my picks or whatever for that. But we will see where that ends up going. Tommy McMillan in the feature fight takes on my mind. Rwan Rihiki. That's going to be a fight of the night. One of the better fights of the year, quite honestly. I don't know if I would put it as my fight of the year. I think there are a few above it, but a very, very strong fight.

I don't know what bonuses are yet, but I am certain that the bonuses will be what they are. Ooh, apparently Aljo tweeted, I'm next in line or we can fight for it. December run it. Al Jameen Stirling versus John Silva, number one contender fight at MSG, November 14th, tag Sean Shelby. Don't hate that idea, quite honestly. I would be fine, not. because you can just book the, you know, one of them against the winner of Mobstar versus Volk.

But if they want to do that, I don't think anybody should be upset by that either. That would absolutely be fine. And straight up, credit to Aljo for seeing it. Adjo's not standing on ceremony, not being like, it's definitely mine, where your turn getting in line. Hey, we can fight for it. That is fight business 101.

Like, that is how this sport is supposed to work. So shout out to Aljo. Back to the Tommy McMillan fight. I don't know what else there is to say about this time, Millon is what we thought he was. He is super fun. He has a ton of cardio. He does not have an enormous amount of skills,

but he has all the willingness, and that will paper over some deficiencies in ability. Certainly in this sport and certainly at this level of sport. The higher you climb, the more his lack of defense will start to hurt him. And honestly, like I really thought it was going to be done this time. I picked Rehiki to win and I thought it was going to look just like the second round or I was like yeah, McMillan will be in his face, but McMillan's going to get jawed and

Rahiki's going to bury him. And I still am not entirely certain how Rehiki didn't. He had that man dead to rights for like 60 full seconds and couldn't quite get it done. And a lot of that is because time of McMillan is very tough and has a lot of heart. But, you know, eventually that's going to come back to bite him. The way he fights is you can't do that forever and he's not talented enough to do that at the very highest levels, but he's not at the highest

levels and maybe he will get more talented. He's still young and developing. And so, you know, this can be a situation where this style carries him through this phase of his career. He continues to add tools and he's, you know, these don't become as big in issues as he gets against more active competition.

And for now, they're going to keep giving him matchups that he can win because they have something with him and they want to push him. And he's going to get to keep having the kind of fights he wants. And whether he ends up becoming a champion and fighting for a belt, that's sort of superfluous. Right now, he's making 100 grand plus every time he fights and building a fan base. And that is, this is prize fighting. Not everybody can win a belt, but everybody could be Tommy McMillan.

Like, you can choose to fight this way. And he is winning sometimes if you try to do it, maybe you wouldn't succeed as much. but he is maximizing his profitability and we'll see how he ends up as a fighter because he's right now he's doing as good as you can do at the start of his career it is a very very strong start he mixed in the wrestling which you know he has the background in

but that was at least a nice little addition mixing in the wrestling I think he's going to need more of that the higher up he climbs but he's not going to climb high for now he's going to just keep doing this he called for his next one I think he said he called for a December fight whoever in Vegas give it to him

no reason not to let this dude fight if he's gonna fight like that put him on every card he wants to show up on because it was it will always be a really good time and if you were a casual person watching this or your first time you're gonna be pumped about it

like that's you're just gonna be like oh you're gonna leave this event mostly thinking about him bonuses we have bonuses quite obviously fight of the night goes to McMillan and Rahiki where are the other bonuses?

I just saw them. I just saw the other bonuses. I don't have them yet. I'll find him. But for your question, Young Barrymore, Father than I obviously got it. Mike should be happy for Fantasy League. Tommy's on his team.

Yeah, I mean, he's certainly going to be. But as we wait for more information on bonuses, oh, here it is. Jean Silva and Sean King III got performance. its bonuses. And yeah, I'm pretty okay with that, you know. I don't think giving Usory Belgari won for knocking out Jordan Santos is whatever. I would probably in a vacuum go Tommy Gant over Jean Silva because inverted triangles or reverse triangle choke, not inverted, sorry, is very cool. But both of those are cool. Sean King's chaos was sick. So hell yeah.

fly weights happened also in this fight Alexa Grasso Menon Fjure super fun fight honestly should have been five rounds odds Grasso would have won if she's pulled from Noche and fights for the title well let's start with this fight and then I'll get to that question how about that trippy Grosso wins I think a pretty obvious 2928

she won the first two Manon takes the third if you were really squint in your eyes and trying to you could make a case that Manon won the second, but I don't think that's real. I think the judges got this one correct. Grasso came out on fire and throw in heat, and it took Manon a while to sort of acclimate to that. She was backing up.

She got dropped. She got jawed. They were mostly boxing, and Menon looked slow immediately. She built her way into the fight productively, so that was good. And had this been, in a five-round fight, I would have been really interested to see how the fourth and fifth

went because the momentum seemed to shift a little bit and perhaps in a like a title fight or a main event that this should have been. By all accounts, it should have been the main event. That might have shifted. That might have been maybe Monon pulls this off. We'll never know at this point. But this is the second final row Grasso has looked like a better version of herself because after losing, I thought she both won and lost the second Val fight. Right. So like I, I remember watching that and real time, me like, she won the fight because Val punted the fifth round away, right? That she did it. She punted the fifth round. I was like, okay, that should be Grasso 3, 2. And then you look at the judge's scorecards. You know, like those those scorecards are categorically insane. And based on how they're happened, I guess Val should have won. Instead, we get to that weird split draw, which honestly felt kind of like an okay result because it was. such a weird fight in some ways. She very clearly loses.

She just looked listless and bad in the third fight, and she loses that. And then Natalia Silva just sort of outworks her. And she doesn't, again, she looked listless so not very good. The Macy Barber fight, she looked rejuvenated. This fight, she came out and looked rejuvenated. So I don't know if this was just a two-fight streak where Grasso didn't have it or was in a mental funk or something was going on at home or in a personal life. but that that has now been gone for two fights and when she fights like this i think she could beat natalie

silvers she came out gangbusters and all right we're going to exchange and tommy silver doesn't have a ton of power and grasso clearly does so if this is not a hey natty ice gets to outpoint me by just outworking me but i'm going to hit her harder for every every she lands two to my one but i'm going to knock her on her ass when i swing that fight gets really competitive really quickly And so to answer your question, yes, I do think she could have won if she got pulled to it. Like if the woman who fought tonight fought her, well, at the same time we have seen them fight and it's hard to pick against the person who won that fight not very long ago. This is why I thought Manafort should have been the person to fight Natalia Silva for the thing. And Alexa Grasso could have taken on Wang Tong at this.

But this is what we got. and instead men on now her second loss she's getting up there in age she's probably out of contention in this weight class which is tough because she's been like nothing but extremely good and she lost on the margins to vall the greatest flyweight of all time and she again if this has been a five-round fight it's entirely possible she comes back and and beats grasso there but really good performance from alexa grasso it's nice to see her kind of be be back Also on this note, did Valentina vacate the title of Wens Flyway and give Alexa a second life? If she doesn't come back, yes. If she comes back, which it seems like they're planning that, though I pitched this on BTL.

I actually think once Val left, like I mentioned this, like my initial thoughts to Val vacating was like, oh, this is very dumb. Jean-Silva-1, you can Google this snake crawler. once Val won or once Val vacated my initial reaction was oh that's very very silly but then I was like oh this division is kind of really fun now

you know we get the vacant title fight is silly right you know like the people involved Wang Tong shouldn't be involved but it is her absence from the division makes it more interesting because there are a bunch of people who are nominally like half of them vows already beaten so we're not that interested in the other half we're like do we care that much about valentino shi chenko fighting natalia sylva we'd watch it it's a good fight

but it's kind of better if natalia sylva fights aaron blanchfield and menel and elix de grasso and these these other women who have been sort of oppressed by the presence of val can flourish in a way and so honestly i think they should not have her come back i think you know jang because all the same things at strawway right now straw weight is better without jang there because she's just so much better than everybody there's no point but if val leaves jang and stay at 125 and be in the mix and so if i was the ufc i would just go to her and be like hey we'll slip you a couple extra bucks you can we don't want you to go back to 125 what we want you to do is we want you to wait and then be in the crowd sitting cage side for the inevitable kela harrison amanda nunes fight so we can set up you

fighting the winner of that. That's interesting and new and helps a division that needs it. 135 has nothing once Kayla and Amanda's gone. There's so little going on there. That would be cool and interesting and let these other divisions flourish in her absence. Because Zhang can move up and do things. That would all be cool. That's what I would do.

We'll see how it ends up shaking out. Yeah, Villayos is, I've been saying Valleos is going to be the champion. At some point, that's going to happen. But he's just a little further back in the line because of the timing for that. But one day we'll see VEO's Silva, too, and it'll be great. Their first fight was one of the best fights, like, of quality on Continuum Series ever. Let's just run down the rest of these results, and then we can just go full on to your questions for the remainder. Curtis Blades wins a decision over Waldo Cortezzo Costa, just an dreadful, terrible, no-good, awful fight.

Blades got a couple of takedowns. WCA was terrified to throw punches because Blades would take him down. Really bad, really, really bad. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager.

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You know the same way you can skip an ad? I get it. I'm Siaya and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently that's how I roll. bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride.

Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem. David Martinez put on a very David Martinez performance against Dan Ige. They all look the same. He is extremely good. I really respect watching him because he seems very, very smart about fighting. I do because his style, Luke Thomas pointed this on Twitter, his style is all about winning rounds and scoring points. he does not have a dynamic finishing offense. I think that that does limit all fighters in general.

It is much harder to win 10, 15, 20 minutes of a fight than it is to win, you know, 10 seconds of a fight and knock somebody out. And so his inability to do that, it just means every step up the ladder is more perilous and trickier. The harder the competition gets, you have to be perfect time in and time out, and that is so challenging. And for him, I think it's really going to be because they're not going, think they dislike him, but they're not going to be in a rush to put him in title fights with

this style. And so he's going to have to beat a lot of top opposition. He's already doing it. He's going to have to continue to beat top opposition over and over until he gets his day in court. And maybe he does and maybe he wins, but it's a hard road to ho in this game. But Dan I actually thought it looked pretty decent for his first fight at Bannonweight, a little slow, but I'm willing to, I thought that would be the case. Martinez is quite quick in general. This could be a good weight class for them, we'll see. You know, I'm not going to take too many, too many big things from, from just one fight. Then moving to the prelims, the prelims were pretty fire, man, not going to lie.

Tim Elliott takes in a decision over Edgar Chiraz, just a savvy veteran performance, honestly. Shirez was hot early, but Elliot, I mean, Elliot is just a warhorse. He's been doing this for a very long time, and it's the guy with exploitable holes like Chires, he was able to take advantage of them. That's the sort of performance that I really love, watching a guy who's not the best in the world, but who just knows how to fight and knows how to work out and solve problems in real time. It was a great performance.

Ignacio Bahamondez, I'd be interested to see what y'all think about Bahamondes' his performance. I was underwhelmed. He won cleanly over Muslim Salakal. There was never a point where he was going to lose this fight. but I don't know he just maybe it's just that Salakoff can be tricky especially for the style Bahamondas brings he didn't show out in the way I was hoping to see in his return up to to welterweight so let me know what you all think because I I was underwhelmed I'm not going to throw him out but this felt a little bit more

this felt a little bit less like Gilbert Burns has moved up to welterweight and now he's a a legitimate real player and uh this felt a little bit more like joel alvarez moves up to walterweight and i'm not seeing quite the same dynamism i had hoped uh that i used to see from bomb on days usually bulgari puts jordan santos to the sword we all knew that was coming don't need to say anything tommy gant looked really good against jrachar close uh jrker close super good veteran been around a long time um made gant work for it and in the end but gantt again really was just kind of beating him him in all phases and then it hits a reverse triangle joke to tap him, which is sick. Gant is old and that is a huge concern for me as far as like a prospect.

He just got into the game too late. But I mean, he's making the most of it right now. We'll see where he goes. But like, you know, we're talking about getting this guy top 25 guy his next time out, work him into the ranking sooner rather than later because time is just not on his side. wrong zoo uh beats uh rafa raffa garciras or garcia not sure i said garciras um it's late i've been doing this long time it's not actually that late but it's late in my mind geez it is late it's already nine p m um it was a fun fight nothing much to say wrongs you just kind of tuned up raffa garcia um Garcia's face got real busted

up in this one he was dog he was tough wrongs you just had a little more style those uppercuts are nice uh the big winner and a performance bonus This winner, Sean King gets a chaos slam of Jesse Rosas in 36 seconds. That is the elder brother of Raul Roses Jr. And quite frankly, it's one of the better chaos slams you'll see in the sport. Sean King ducks under a left hand, gets a body lock, up he goes, down he comes, around to his head, spiked him dead, followed up with some really nasty shots that just were not necessary.

He was already out. But a 22-year-old undefeated prospect on New Orleans, who I straight up did not really know about before this and now I'm very aware of him so great performance uh I mean can't ask to start your UFC career off any better no damage too so he should be able to return very quickly but that was a I mean that was a gnarly gnarly slam one of the but like I said one of the better ones you'll ever see in the history of the sport and uh regina taren takes a decision over j J.J. Aldrich I will admit I did not see much of this fight so I don't have a lot of thoughts on this. I was doing something else behind the scenes while this was going on, but good arm,

Regina Taryn, still 21 years old, making moves. From Dave, aren't head spikes illegal unless defending submission? Hello, K.O. That's not, there's no illegal in case unless defending a submission. You were not allowed to spike vertically on the head, so you can't pile driver somebody straight down, you know, on the head. He did not. He went up and took him down and smashed him to the side of the head. So pile drivers are illegal. That was somebody else could show me in the rules and perhaps I'm wrong. I do not believe that was legal.

There was a thoroughly legal knockout blow. And the commentary actually, I thought the commentary was a little wonky in points tonight. DC leaving the booth is always going to bother me, but whatever. But I thought they were really good in that one as DC and Cruz talked about like this is why they tell you not to escape to that side because your hand will collapse like because when you're doing it if you're turning to that side your hand is collapsed and the way he had it he's got the like you don't really want to post but like there was nothing his left arm was pinned going up and so coming down there was nothing to take that fall other than

the side of his head because he had no way to block because the way he was pinned in the way he tried to defend so i thought i thought some some parts of tonight were very good on the booth, honestly, which is good. You don't see, I mostly don't listen that much, but a lot of the time I'll listen and be like, I don't, I don't think this is good work. I actually thought they did mostly pretty well tonight, which is not something I say about the D.C.s all that often. Cruz and D.C. were saying J.G. Aldrich was doing good. She had nothing.

Like I said, I did not see that, so I have no idea. I was thinking you could slam during an arm bar attempt. So the Roros Androge is you cannot slam them straight down. But again, we're tall. Like you can't pile drive them. That's it. You cannot go vertical down. The row, she like smashed her down like this basically with her face going this way, which is fine.

You can do any of that. You just can't. The safety precaution is that pile drivers break necks. And so they don't want that. I mean, you can break necks otherwise too. Like, that's, nope. The Rose thing was brutal as hell. But again, I think totally legal.

You are lucky for not watching that fight, Jed. Yeah, I don't think we'll go back and watch it. So there's that. Tired, Rehiki was gasped before he dropped him. I mean, that is really, I think, why Reiki didn't get the finish. Outside of being really, you know, like tough. time mill is very tough. Rehiki was also quite tired.

Hey, Hank, appreciate you for being here. It is my job. I also have other parts of my job that were concurrent so I wasn't doing it. So your second comment coming at me, if you have a third, we'll just end your participation tonight. Totally okay. You can go other. If you don't care for me, totally get it.

I'm not everybody's cup of tea. You don't have to be here. And I can fix that for you if you want to keep doing this. I mean, yes, the number one slam is. Randleman Fador, that did not knock out Fador, which is sort of the only thing. I still think I go rampage as a Rona bomb. That's, you know, that's big. But that's the, the Randolplex is the coolest thing.

It was not a question, big, bro, because your previous one before that had tone. You know what you're doing. You don't think nice. I say this with love in my heart. I don't have to have anger with you. but I run a tight ship and you're you're walking the line Hank is just a troll don't address him no see I solve trolls by kicking them out

I just won't let them in the chat Jordan Levin at a great slam okay Hank you're gone bye buddy then I solving this problem for me is great two people noted I bet Levin had some slims.

George Gano said, you didn't miss anything. I'm just running solo and I've been doing a lot today. Close looked like dog water today. One, I love the phrase dog water. I sort of agree. I think a lot of it is just that Tommy Gann is a tough guy to fight, especially if you're a guy like Jarkar Close. But Close's been doing this long time.

I don't think we're getting the best of him anymore. and Tommy Grant is a really challenging style matchup and he just didn't he had nothing for him is a thing he just had nothing for him why does Curtis never get any respect um uh kind of zina for a very long time I felt this way

and I still think that it's a fair question is largely because it's not because he is his style is not appealing to a casual audience for a really long time I thought there was a chance Curtis Blades could have been the best heavyweight in the world because he had such a specialized skill set against like a lot of the rest of the dudes competing. I don't think that that was ever true. We never really got to see it.

And then he did finally get a title fight and he got run over. He has limitations that are a problem. But his skills are a problem for a lot of people, but not in a way that's dynamic. Luke Thomas has banged this drum for quite some time. I think he's got the right of it. that MMA grappling has receded in many ways and that nobody is Habib. Nobody ever will be Habib really, so just Habib is a unicorn.

But even the fighters out of his camp, they don't, nobody does damage on the ground that much. I think Saladin Parnas actually is very good at this. We didn't get to see that in the hooker fight, but like grappling is very much a control game with some damage and submissions primarily mixed in. that's become the meta for grapplers in the space. And Curtis has always been that.

He will throw these hammer fists when he's got you in the side ride or whatever. But he's not beating the sin out of you. And if he had that in him, people would love him. But because he doesn't, he wins a lot of decisions. And winning a lot of decisions at heavyweight is just, you cannot be super popular if all you do is win decisions at heavyweight. People will hate that thing. Jacobi Smith has close.

Jacoby Smith does have good ground and pound, but the difference is like Jacobi Smith is not doing that good ground and pound against like elite level dudes yet. Maybe if he carries that up, okay, but we got to see if he can carry it up. It's just not, I'm not certain that he can. So we'll, uh, and, and truth be told, Habib didn't always have it either, right? Like, Habib's ground and pound came later and almost directly as a result of people

shitting on him for being boring. She's like, okay, fine, I'll just start killing people. So there you go. I don't know what this person is, but I'm going to, okay. One example of an illegal spike, Big Sap Bob Nogg, or Bob Sap Big Nog. Yep, it's very true. Yeah, if Hamzot had Ground and Pound, he would be insane. He would be so sick.

Also, very true, Chase. Prime John Jones is just like the best, so it's sick. and then he got ruined by like not by being someone different by thinking he's a kickboxer or whatever because clinched John Jones I think John Jones is the best clinch fight I've ever seen he is among the best positional like grapplers I've ever seen as far like in a offensive grapplers because his ability to throw elbows and he just didn't ever do that in the back end of his career so yeah man um like i wish if we if that john lived forever that john would have been said that john would have been so that john would have mowed down anthony smith but instead we got jab oblique kicked john

at the end of his career that sucked i really like this fight conanina tim elliott brandon merino next i really like that i think that's great um can get a title fight off of that i don't know who that one is for. But was ball dumbing Leon and I said illegal? I don't remember that. I just, that is not coming to my mind right now. So I don't know. But

ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages. Do you know what time it is? Forever. Oh, man. I mean, look, I can do this all day. You can build accounts and keep

doing this and I can ban them so much quicker than you can build them. It's two clicks for me to do this. Have fun as long as you'd like to, but I will not be tolerated. I still have a ton of work to get to tonight. You've got to do all the post stuff. There's boxing going on. I'm not working that, but I got a lot to go. And without AK to have a more dynamic conversation, I'm going to end it here.

Thank you for joining me tonight, though, because the fight's really fun. I had a really good time watching No, Jay, but for the heavyweights. I just played with a Costa. Let's never speak of that again. But what we can speak about is, uh, M.A.5.com website. Tomorrow, onto the next to me and I'll get into K. Lee. So tune in for that. Download the app. We had a really good time in the, uh, the feed chat watching the fight.

So make sure you're part of that. And again, thanks for tuning in, guys. Love y'all. All right. Mike Heck here from M.A. fighting. And my good friend Jed Mishu is here with me as well because Jed, the day has finally arrived. It's App Day, the all-new SB Nation app. It's live now. It's live, Jed.

It's alive. Yeah, man, I'm really excited. And it's awesome, man. Combat sports, like all sports, but combat sports fan especially. You guys are going to have your voices heard like never before within SB Nation. MMA boxing, not me, but you pro wrestling, Mike. It's, it is a community-based app. It's all about community with the new SB Nation app.

It's so easy to use. and it can keep obviously combat sports fans connected to their favorite teams and all of sports too across the board so I can keep up with the Red Sox the Patriots and the Bruins all on my phone and it's so simple to use yeah like you you mentioned those teams but There's so much more because I don't care about Boston sports Mike but I get to follow the NFL all the other sport F1 the various sports that I care about outside of combat sports and then there's the live experience because that's to me that's one of the cool things. You can chat with us during fight cards every Saturday. And you can chat with other people in the communities as big events are happening. So it's, it's a really good time. So ladies and

gentlemen, come fight with us over on the all new SB Nation app. Download it today. Download it right now. What are you waiting for? Download it. Into the Vox Media Podcast Network. Do you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know the same way you can skip an ad? I get it. I'm Caya and I live in Iceco. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned, and today I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem. Where some see heroes and others see egos. Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes.

while others follow the noise we follow the money learn more at bloomberg.com