MMA Fighting - PFL: Battle of the Giants Post-Fight Show | Reaction To Francis Ngannou's Brutal Knockout In Emotional Return

Episode Date: October 20, 2024

Francis Ngannou reminded MMA fans how vicious he can be in the cage as he absolutely steamrolled Renan Ferreira, knocking him unconscious in the first round of the PFL: Battle of the Giants pay-per-view event in Saudi Arabia. Where does Ngannou go from here, and is that even a fair question to ask with everything the former UFC champ has gone through? Following Saturday's PFL event, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and E. Casey Leydon react to Ngannou's incredible performance in his first MMA fight in nearly three years, the emotion that came over him and his team, his game plan, and Ferreira filling a pivotal role. Additionally, they discuss the fantastic co-main event between Cris Cyborg and Larissa Pacheco, where Cyborg goes from her win, how a hypothetical fight between Cyborg and Kayla Harrison would go, Paul Hughes' big upset win over A.J. McKee, if Hughes should face Usman Nurmagomedov next, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc 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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Yeah. Just wasting a couple of sticks while I find out and let the people know we're doing a show right now reacting to the battle of the Giants. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome, everybody. Hey, everybody. singers are here and the BFL's battle the Giants pay-per-view is officially in the books. And what a moment it was for the former UFC heavyweight champion.

The lineal heavyweight champion of the MMA world, Francis and Ghanu knocks out Henan Faheda and not in the way many expected him to. This wasn't a stand-up fight. Francis shoots a takedown, takes Henan Fara down, brutal ground and pound knocks him out cold Francis and Gano very emotional as expected and we're here to react to that and also the incredible co-mate event between Chris Cyborg and Larissa Pacheco

a little special edition of the post-fight show as we'll touch on in a matter of moments but I am Mike Heck and back again producer extraordinaire the hardest working man I know bad is stash E. Casey Lydde. Producer extraordinaire. There he is. Lots of chairs. Battle of the Giants.

Daytime MMA. I love it. I'm happy to be here. Then I don't know you T-shirt? Yeah, yeah. Bob, you know, it's Bobby Hill. I don't know you. Bobby Hill. Terrific.

Oh, my God, that is a great shirt. That is a great shirt. I don't know you. Hey, listen, pretty, I'm going to say it was a great night for PFL. It was a good day for PFL. The two fights they needed to deliver, delivered. Chris Seyborg, Larissa Pacheco was a friggin' banger. Those two women beat the hell out of each other for 25 minutes.

This is a sensational fight. And there's an old additive in the old WWF world that no matter what the storylines were, no matter what was going on, there's a certain point of time in WWF history where at the end of the night, Hogan must pose. doesn't matter if it's by DQ or whatever. The end of the night needs to be Hulk Hogan posing in the ring. This was their Hogan must pose moment in my eyes. Francis standing tall, emotional after delivering a knockout.

They can brag PFL that they have the best heavyweight in the world. If they want, they can make the claim. Not everyone will agree with it, but they can make that claim. In the end, although it got pretty sloggy for quite some time, the way this this card ended casey this is a big win for pfls and not absolutely um sorry fix this for quick um um uh uh i don't want to say the this is like the best possible ending best possible pay-per-view for pfl but it's up there it's really it went really well for them and especially you just got it in the night off like this and it ended off perfectly and i thought

the production handled it. They gave Francis all the necessary time. He had to be on the camera and to express himself to talk about, you know, the incredible hardships. He's gone through just to get here. And it just, I don't know, I got to say,

I think we were all kind of very like, oh, man, I'm not, I'm not, we were very skeptical about this main, this paper view. But PFL did it and it pulled it off. and their man won and one big.

And I don't know if this saves the PFL in the sense that, oh, now they really are the co-leaders. But it kind of, it's a stay of execution for PFL because PFL was not in good shape, I don't feel. And tonight, they look big. They look big. And they did a great job. And congrats to PFL. Congrats to the fighters. And I really had an enjoyable time watching, especially the last two fighters.

which were really the fights that we all came to see. Yeah, completely agree. This was, this was, again, this was, this needed, to me, I think this needed to be their UFC 300, the way they built this card. Like, every name they have in the merged organizations, all should have been on this card to some extent, outside of, outside of like the ones that were fighting for the championship, like Dakota Ditch of and stuff like that,

like they need to be saved for those cards. and it was just a good solid night. Hennon Fahara did his job terrifically where people believed he could win, and he could have. He's had a terrific run. He was built up as this huge guy that posed this massive threat to Francis and Ghanu.

And in the end, the man showed up, looked massive, looked dangerous, was confident that face-off was fantastic. Francis gets the win. Henan can still go fight for a million dollars if he wants or just fight other knockout artists and fun fights on paper views or just main cards they want to do. And then Francis can kind of just go off and do his own thing right now, right?

Like he can go box Deonti Wilder. He could just go fight a bunch of heavyweights. He could fight Ryan Bader if he wants to. He can fight Vadim Nemcoff, which I think would be the most interesting fight that he could get right now. there is the winner of the PFL million dollar tournament. That could be like the prize. You get a million bucks and a shot at Francis.

So it's just kind of a good spot for him to be in. But in a weird way, well, we want to talk about what is next for Francis Casey. In a way, like I feel like, I feel like it's not fair to do that right now with everything this man has gone through. Absolutely. I mean, I know we all kind of as soon as fights in, we're like as journalists, we're like, what's next? What's next? And for Francis, I think as just humans, we just want Francis to take a big breath out now and just maybe just let him live his life as just, I don't know, just a family man or, you know, just just be of his friends and his family now and just kind of get away from this, this fighting stuff or just a little bit. It was really, it was just very emotional.

Thank you. It's just very emotional. and I don't know we don't get this feeling watching fights that often to be honest this this the human side of it so I think no we're so you know

oh violence violence violence violence and we got lots of violence tonight but I don't know I just just put me in a different place watching Francis do that and just as a fan and just as someone and I don't know I want to see the man happy

he's had he's already a legendary heavyweight and the kind of just show the haters, I guess, who no, you ran away from John Jones, you ran away from UFC, you ran away from tough fights, you know. He did this thing. He, he, he, what's the term Jed loves? He did the thing. He did the thing, yeah. And I don't know, I just, I'm just very, it was just a really cool experience to watch, not only the main event, but the co-main event, too. I know we're going to talk a lot about that, but just these two all-time greats, these giants kind of just do their thing and kind of remind people you know why we watch this sport

and why we kind of love it 100% and we talk about i remember we talked about this in september of 2022 when nate diaz was supposed to fight hamzat shimai if remember ufc 279 it's very rare that the mhma gods like show positive show positivity and they do the thing that like they really should be doing and they did it there with the whole tony ferguson situation and Nate leaving off of a submission win. And now in this situation, it's just good to see Francis win, man. Like, however you viewed the fight and the promotion and all that,

like at the end of the day, we're very hard on PFL and we will continue to be hard on PFL. I feel real bad for them when Jed and I do our promotional airing of grievances at the end of the year, although their grade will be a little bit higher after what transpired today. At the end of the day, the most important thing was that Francis could have a whole bunch of emotional weight removed from his shoulders because no matter how you feel about the john jones situation if you want to take dana white side on that that's totally fine but in the

end we're all human beings this guy went through a tragedy that no parent should ever go through and to come through on the other side and to see all that emotion just sort of fly off of him was just it was a really special thing so congratulations to francis and ghanu um whatever happens next i'm gonna watch it and that's it man like go box Deonte Wilder go fight in MMA I don't care whatever you want to do

totally cool with me and it's good to see him sort of scratch that itch but I was shocked how many people doubted him coming into this fight like stunned stunned people thought I was absolutely insane

for picking Francis it's stunning maybe maybe maybe have to give some credit to a PFO give credit to Hennon for error for or really, you know, selling him, you know.

And like, he is a very intimidating looking guy, what, 6-8, 6-9, just a giant. He makes Francis look small. And, you know, he went out there and he fought. He did give, he did give Francis a little trouble at the beginning. He made Francis think and everything, you know. And I don't know. I haven't seen Francis's full post-flight press conference.

I don't know how much wrestling was part of the plan or he just kind of saw something and he took it. but yeah i was trying to get yeah give henna and ferr like he's not he got yeah he got his he got he got he got he got hurt tonight but i don't think any less of him as a heavyweight he's still clearly a very dangerous man and um i actually i look forward to you know him trying to rebuild his himself and uh has an elite heavyweight too and um yeah and i i was very critical of pfl promoting this event but i think in the i guess the uh the the last year or so that Hennon's kind of built himself up.

They've done a good job and making him seem like a very, you know, a force of nature. And I think that's why people were skeptical if Nogano could kind of reclaim that baddest man on the planet, you know, distinction, this, that award, whatever, you know. Yeah. Well said. Well said. Chris Seiberg, Lurzscheco, great fight won by Chris Seiborg. I'm sure we'll talk about that fight

but look I said at the beginning we're going to do something a little different here it's the people show we didn't get to do the people's free fight show we're going to do the people's post fight show so for the next like 20 or so minutes we're just going to take questions the rest of the way

there is a UFC event going on as you're well aware we're a little short staffed so we're giving you what we can trying to fill as many roles as we can so we couldn't do a people's free fight show I will just forewarn you unless something that has maybe never been seen

in an MMA fight ever before happens in the main event of the UFC card there will probably not be a UFC post-fight show just because you don't have the bodies for it but we will do the matchmaking show tomorrow and we'll take your questions now. So let's go. All right.

Let's get reactions. Does Joseph Boza want to apologize for his bad take? let me see what we got here I'm just kidding YouTube gold here we go YouTube gold

tonight was good to get Francis some cage time but the real fights need the UFC to co-promote and make MMA heavyweight great again yeah I mean

they need the UFC here's the thing PFL needs the UFC they need the UFC to make this fight happen UFC does not need PFL they don't need John Jones versus Francis to happen

they don't need Francis versus Tom Aspen all to happen. They don't need anything from PFL or anybody on their roster. They have lapped and lapped and lapped this promotion to a laughable degree right now, no matter what Don Davis and Peter Murray want to tell you. So it would be cool to see Francis fight John Jones Casey, but unless I don't even think a bag of money from Turkey, like a big bag of money is going to get Dane off that high horse enough to be like,

all right, fine. That's a lot of money. We'd be stupid not to do this. I think Dana's so stubborn that he will just continue to not do this. And let me just say this before all the Dana fans out there. Like, oh, you're shitting on Dana again. I completely agree with him on this. Completely agree with him on this.

He does not need to do PFL any favors. He does not need to. So just throwing that out there. But yeah. Yeah. I mean, if he wants to get. give the fans what they want. Yeah, he'll make the fight.

But I think business is always business first. And yeah, he's a businessman before anything. So, yeah, I don't expect that to even not even come. Yeah, there's, I don't. I, there's not an amount. Let me ask you this. Yeah. Let me ask you this question, because I thought about this in the fall of this.

What's the biggest fight that could be made at heavyweight right now? There's three options. John Jones versus Francis and Ghanu, John Jones versus Tom Aspinall, or John Jones versus Alex Pereira. What's the biggest fight of those three? What would do the most on pay-per-view? What would do the biggest gate?

What would have the most buzz of those three fights? With the UFC promotional machine, I actually think it's John Jones versus Francis. If the UFC promotional machine, full-blown, you know, we're doing it, you know. With the countdown shows, like, bring, bring, bring, bring, bring, bring back a, what's the show they had that that was great for a while? They could not be count. They're 24-7s, you know, prime time. Bring back that.

Yes. Great call. Yeah. If they bring back a prime, like a three-episode prime time, we're like real stories. Because like the John Jones story, his whole career and the Francis de Gano's story, his whole career, his venture out of the, out of the promotion into boxing back into the UFC. If they can honestly do that, it will, without a doubt, be to me, the biggest fight.

That they could do second, prayer, third, unfortunately, probably aspirin. Which sucks for, which sucks for because he's the interim champ. But yeah, I would, God dang,

I would love to see John versus Francis. I would love to see it. Yeah. Love to see it, but apparently they're scared. I was going. I really thought Francis would be slower getting started considering his last outage.

The Anthony K.O. didn't seem to phase him. No. It sure didn't. Yeah. This is good. I'm glad he tackled him. If you go back to the interview with Eric Nixick, I said, true or false,

25% of this fight, more than 25% of this fight will take place on the mat because of wrestling. and he said true, without hesitation. So smart game plan. It just seemed like he was going to do exactly that. I haven't looked at social media at all.

Or fans upset that Francis wrestled? I mean, I don't know why they would be after the result. Yeah, I guess after the result, yeah. It's like, yeah. Okay, I was just kind of wondering if how fans took it because I don't know, I like fighters fighting smart. I know it's fun. We just want to see guys close their eyes and just, you know,

Linda Garcia, I know we want to see that, but this is, you know, we got reality here. This is a real fight. And I just kind of wonder what people thought about Francis. So if in the comments, tell me what you thought of Francis' game plan. You know, was it entertaining enough for you? I just kind of curious. All right. Actually, in the comments, too, tell me where you would rank?

France is right now and worldwide and heavyweights. I'm very kind of curious what people think now. All right. Oh, let's talk about this fight. Will Hughes make a rise like Connor if he beats Oussman? Oussman. Do you see anything tonight showing he can win that fight? So it's interesting.

Paul Hughes, you know what? It's kind of weird. Like, Paul's going to get attention coming out of this, no doubt. but because of how the last two fights went down, he's like the bronze medalist in all of this, where it's just like, yeah, he did great, but we want to talk to the gold medalist or the silver medalist,

the one that was so close. And that's kind of Cyborg Pacheco or like co-silver medalist. France is obviously the gold medalist. And then Paul Hughes is still on the podium, but he's just not there. So I still think there's a story there. did you come out of this being like, you know what, this is the next Connor McGregor, and this is a guy who, if they book him to fight Usman or Maga Madoff in February,

I would confidently pick him to win this fight. He is not next Conner McGregor. No one's next Conn McGregor. But can he be a star? I think he can be a star. I really do. He was very impressed for the night. I was picking AJ McKee to beat him tonight,

mostly because I just, I've only seen Paul Hughes fight a couple of times. I know he's good, but I didn't know he was that good. And I'm very high in Asia McKee. And it was a competitive fight, but Paul Hughes looked great. But I still think it's a bridge too far to suggest that he would be Uzman. Yeah, it's nothing against Paul Hughes.

Just like, like in my personal rankings, I have Uzman that has the second best lightweight in the world. I know it's a little higher than everyone else, but I'm just very high in the guy. I think he's incredible. And Paul Hughes looks like he's a legitimate, you know, top 10, top five, like heavy, lightweight in the world. Top 10.

Let's go top 10. I don't need not top five yet. But top 10, top 15 for sure. But yeah, the problem is I just don't know how many, I guess he has fight a guy like Shabbily. Is that his name? I don't mind that fight. I even said that on the watch party that I would actually be okay

if they gave him Shobbly first before fighting Ushmah. And Shabda, who just had a competitive loss against Usma. It was gonna win the fight. It was competitive, but it was my one. So if he can go through someone like Shabli, you know, then yeah, I guess. But it's not quite there yet.

Not quite there yet, but he's definitely on the road to there. But he's not in the road to getting Connor level. That's just, You need the UFC behind you to get that. Exactly. Exactly. Now, the best thing that could happen, and I don't want this to sound like shade, Paul Hughes needs to, I mean, he'll probably go through the season. And if he wins the million, great.

And if he does that, if I'm him, I ain't doing the million again. He's still going to be under contract for another year. By the time his 30th birthday rolls around, he needs to set him up to being himself up to be in a position where he can go to the UFC. Because if he wins the million and then wins a couple of paperview fights for them and his contract expires and he enters free agency, he could be a star. Like Dakota Dichiva is a rising star.

She's had a great year. And if she wins and beats Tilos Santos, like, that's great. But once the UFC starts putting cards on in 2025 and we have to wait for, A, either the next regular season to begin to even hear her name, or B, they throw her on another pay-per-view. The UFC will have done 8,000 other things that people are going to be talking about more than that. But the first chance Dakota gets to go to the UFC,

I think she will. And that's kind of a tough spot for PFL right now, is that they could build new stars. But it's going to get to a point where the star wants to not only just win fights, they want to become a brand and they want to scratch the most competitive, a bitch that they can and you're just not going to get it in PFL so yeah um yeah it's just unfortunately but i would not pick paul hughes to beat usman and ronov no no good win tonight but i can't i wouldn't have picked agent mckee to beat uswin and raga made off yeah no matter what

no matter what happened unless they threw some just laser punch i don't know the agent mcke exploded or something like whoa i don't know who's one was going to stop that outside of some supernatural force. There was nothing those two gentlemen could do tonight that was going to make me think that they were going to beat Usman. But Paul Hughes has proven to me, though, he has maybe earned a chance to get his butt kicked by Usman, which is still a big deal to even enter the cage of someone that good. A couple of people said, as far as where you're ranking, Nagano, you know, we got, basically everyone's like, number one. I mean, if, if, if, if, if, if Someone from Boston's ranking them number one, then, you know, I got to shout out.

Got the new socks cap that I get to break in right now. But, you know, but more important for PFL, they're back in the conversation. Now when we're talking heavyweights and stuff, now we're mentioning PFL again, you know? So they're, they're at least, the promotion itself might not be, they're not co-leaders. They're not, they're not strike. They're not even strike force, even strike force at its height. But, but they're talked about. You're Bellator.

Like, they're Bellator five, like four years ago, five years ago. Remember when Coker go to those press conferences? And he would say things that just were wrong. But like good promoters speak, being like, you know, Agent McKee had won like the semifinals of the Grand Prix. This is before the Pitbull win. And he was like, AJ McKee is. H.M. Key is not just the best featherweight in the world.

He's the best pound for pound fighter in the world right now. And I'm just like, okay, that's a little ridiculous. That's a little crazy. And then he would say, he would do that every once in a while. And we'd be like, all right, like, it's not true, but like, you're doing it in a respectful way, so I can't hate it too much. And then fast forward, like, two years, and you have patchy mix and you have Johnny Epplin and you have like some of these other guys that you,

and Ousman Ramagamatov, and even. Pitbull and AJ McKee. Like you had a, you put yourself in a position, even with Corey Anderson when he was battling for the light heavyweight title, we're like, you legit have like four or five cases where you bet your champion might actually be the best fighter in the world. PFL just does not have that right now.

But with Francis, he's like the legit first one that they have ever, that they can say that, that we have legit. And if Henin-Fahir, it would have been a great win for him and for the next 72 hours people would have been talking about him

and then come Tuesday because UFC 308 fight week wouldn't be talked about again and you it would be a much harder sell for Don Davis and company to be like Henan for Air is the best heavyweight on planet Earth right now he's better than John Jones

he's better than Tom Aspidall it's not as sellable but Francis there's some cachet there there's at least a little bit of oomph there's a discussion to be had. So it's important. Now, I guess the issue is if I think we're all assuming, Francis, in the next six months,

we'll go bounce back over to boxing. How long can PFL kind of keep that momentum? Or once he bounces, does he do, does PFL just back to where they were yesterday? Probably. Probably. I don't know. I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.

Yeah. just first of all stop with the bellator shit can we just stop with this get rid of it i also get rid of it what get rid of it you've canceled three shows like stop it stop with the bellator just get just dump it dump it all together and just be super pfl and then you could do like more stuff like you could just do more things like you could still do the season but you could still put on like a fun card once a month that's not it doesn't have to be a pay-per-view with like other fighters just Just the whole Belator thing, like, killed them. It just, they've just had such a bad year.

But, you know, maybe October is like officially Francis and Ghanu PFL fight month. And I'm okay with that. But just do other cool things before that. And then we're okay. All right. We don't have any questions on this, but, um, can we talk about cyborg and Pacheco? Yeah. dude like the more I think about I just I freaking love that fight it was just so kind of had everything it really did it had its swings in it there were there were moments both fighters looked like they were done but Checo just had some just I didn't realize how incredibly tough becheco was like she just ate she just not show damage she ate a full on kick to the dome just ate a bunch of hard overhands and just kind of I think she got dropped a couple of times and she kind of worked her

way up and then back to normal. Her cardio looked amazing. I mean, if you just go by no pride rules, yeah, she probably won the fight, you know? But, yeah, I was just, I was just, I was just so impressed by both women. Cyborg, I know, her age 39, I think she is. She's been at this for 20, 20 years fighting at an incredibly high level coming. I think this is like, I don't know if I think you said this may be the first time in like over a decade.

She's been an underdog coming into a fight. She's never been on drug, ever. Oh, never, okay. It was the first time in the entire career. Yeah. Yeah, just a great performance by both women. And yeah, I was just kind of in awe that cyborch still doing this and that Pacheco is the real deal. She is just a legit, unfortunately, 45er, you know, which doesn't really exist.

But at that way, they both are just, just a great fight and just really gritty and just really gritty. It was like, man, it was just a great. It was just a great compliment to have the main event to the main event too. It's just a 25 minute just bloody brawl. And then you know, Francis being Francis. So yeah, I just want to make sure I give some props to the ladies because they, it was a great performance by them too. That fight like look that fight saved the card.

It saved the entire card. Like obviously like the headlines will be the main event and what Francis did. and rightfully so. But that card was heading towards Slog City. And those two from immediately, as soon as that fight started, they threw fastballs at each other and a bunch of them.

And Pacheco is not a human being. She's not human. Chris Cyborg, still at 39, has a spectacular chin on her. She cuts very easily, but she battled through it, globs of Vaseline just hanging off her eyeball and just fighting away.

It was a great, great fight. I loved it. I want to see them fight again. And that leads me to this question I have for you, Casey, Ladin, because I don't know, people weren't sure what to expect from Chris Cyborg. She had gone to boxing. There was, you know, all the public back and forth on social media. And we know that's especially on Twitter, that is not Chris at all.

If we're doing this super cross promotional card that fans are dreaming of where the UFC and PFL comes together. If they book Chris Seiborg versus Kale Harrison right now, 145 pounds, who would you pick? Oh, man, that's tough. It's tough, right? You know, and the fact that I'm saying that's tough, I mean, that's awesome. That means I really want to see that fight. I'll just say, I don't know. Unfortunately, you know, Chris is 39, you know, so, but I'm assuming she's still, you know, the age isn't too much of as much as a factor as I, it probably is. But, um, Yeah, I would love to see that fight. I'd love to see the Man of Nune's rematch.

It's something that we're never going to see. But, yeah, Chris Seaborg's back. She's back. And I think she has at least, I would say at least two more big fights in her. Two more big fights. Main event, co-main event on pay-per-views. So that's exciting. And I just, I'm just bummed out by the politics of this world, this sport.

because Cyborg Hela, especially how I think Cyborg has, she's evolving as a fighter, her wrestling and just her, mainly her wrestling has just been getting so dominant now. It's becoming almost just, it's really complimenting her, her, you know, her classic shoot a box striking. And I love it. So, and just watching how tough Cyborg was out there and kind of the shots she was taken, cuts and just the blood all over and the fact that she never seemed to be she never seemed to back down or anything it's insane that dana and fans were ever accused her of trying to being scared of another of another female fighter it's just it's wild but yeah great fight great performance

and uh you know selfishly i was very happy with the way that fight went down because i bet that that fight would go to the cards i can't believe i got plus 200 on that fight going to the cards It's insane to me. That was like free money. And I felt that even on the preview show yesterday. But good fight, great performance. And it's one of those fights that went to the... It's just going to be interesting to see what they do with her.

You know, usually, oh, went to the decision. We're kind of like, oh, but this is one of those fights where I went to the decision. You're like, oh, that was a great 25 minutes. So, you know, it wasn't a... There was a sloggy 25 minutes right before that. But that's not, we don't need to talk about that. Yeah. But this was...

Well, I mean, to Jopian Edwards' credit, it was a sloggy, like, 21 minutes. And that it got it. Oh, you know, I forgot. The fifth round was, the fifth round actually was pretty wild. You're right. Yeah. They're both just dead. Yeah.

In close, just trying to raise their elbow high enough to land something. All right. Do you got anything else? We could take a couple more. A couple more. Hold on. Charles Johnson's Sumedherjee are battling. Apparently a point was taken in the last fight in the UFC, which I can't believe it.

It's been a- Name five. Name five UFC heavyweights The PFL could lure over That would interest you five Five Five let's go Start of two maybe

Maybe Maybe the loser of the The loser of the The loser of the curtain jerker of tonight's UFC Apex Cart Rebellis But the book is out on how to beat him It just tackle

It doesn't matter like how good or bad Your wrestling is Like if you're just going in there to win fights Like rebella's to Spain should be in karate combat. That's what he should be doing. Is it wild? I want to see if Rebellis does get another fight in the UFC,

I know he just fought two ugly fights, but book him against Derek Lewis. Yes. So after his win, I said he should fight Taito Ivasa. Actually, Taito Vasa, that's probably a better option. But now, like, you've ruined it. You've ruined it.

I thought the Austin Lane booking was brilliant. And then I found out yesterday he was trading with Eric Nixick and company at Extreme Cout. And I'm like, ah, they're just going to tell them to tackle them because that's exactly what you should be doing. So Derek Lewis would actually be the correct answer. And when Derek Lewis did the, had that incredible flying knee knockout of Marcus Jerry to Lima, that was his last fight on his deal. And I was like, PFL should throw a truck of money at him, all of them. and but it just seemed like Derek Lewis didn't want to go anywhere else he was just he was like done with free agency maybe three days later he had resigned Derek Lewis would be perfect

um it's just not that interesting of a division right now yeah like like there's interesting fighters in PFO there's not interesting divisions like you can't like I have a hard time going like oh these like they had a tournament right now actually I think their best thing they are going right now is their female fly weights. Their female fly weights actually, they picked up some good pre-agents and Dakota looks like a star. I had the answer. There's one. We do Sergey Pavlovich versus Francis Agano.

That's the fight. Sergei is a good one. Francis might just tackle him. He might just tackle him. Might do it overreem did. That was a long time ago. But that's a fun one. That one, that one I would be pretty excited about.

And then obviously Tom Aspinall, but they can't, they wouldn't be to lure him over. A Pavlovich, I could see them. Like a Pavage management team is like, look, we're not going to win the belt. Tom Aspinall is the future. He just knocked our guy out in a minute. Can we let him go? Maybe go to the PFL. You think the UFC would be like, hell no.

They'd be like, I mean, I guess. See ya. then go if I've got and Sigano make a bag. So I hope Henan-Ferreira made that that Francis money. What was he saying?

Like two, at least two million bucks. Yeah. Oh, I think I think you got two. I think I was reading reports about two million. So,

and now, and it's, for what I remember, that was kind, that was almost kind of part of Francis's deal. Like Francis, yeah.

Wanted his opponent to make, you know, a fair amount to. So, just another reason everyone should love Francis.

Yeah. All right. Let me see. One last thing before we get out of here. Oh, I like this question. Map out the best case scenario for the PFL over the next nine months. Ooh. All right.

So if I was PFL, if I was PFL, I would take this momentum you have right now. Okay? Because you have some. You don't get it often. You take this momentum. Don Davis jumps on. whatever show, Sports Center,

want to jump on aerial show, whatever. And he goes on to simply say, guys, November 29th, PFL, World Championship card, we're going to do something

we haven't done in years. It's going to be free on ESPN plus, just to ESPN plus subscribers. It's a free card from Saudi Arabia. It's free on the zone and ESPN Plus for people who already have subscriptions. That would be, be a great thing to do because then you get eyeballs on the eyeballs that you accrued tonight,

which you probably got a few, turn them over, keep them, maybe get some more. If Dakota Ditchevah goes out and just runs over Tila Santos, I can assure you people are going to want to see more of her. Then she's a paperbue star. Then she's somebody, she's a legit star that people will pay to watch. But you have to get new eyeballs on. I would come out and give a nice special treat to the fans, do that card for free. I would be very busy and free agency.

I would dump Bellator. Bellator needs to be done just RIP, get rid of it. It's dumb. We knew it was dumb the second they tried to keep it around. It's just real stupid. They should still do like a PFL versus Bellator thing just for the funzies of it, just to have some fun. Like this was Team Bellator.

It's like when WWF bought WCW. Like they were still part of WWF, but these are the WCW guys. So we could still like have those fun cars. So you should probably do that again in February. Another PFL versus Bellator or another PFL versus Risen, some sort of cross-promotional event. Have a middleweight season. Have a Bannamweight season next year for sure. So announce those.

And what I would also announce if I was PFL, if I was real smart, especially. If you watch Dana White's post-fight presser after the contender series on Tuesday, you do an atomweight division as well. Yeah. You do it for the UFC. Beat him to the punch. Beat them to the punch. So when they try, Dana's saying, we want to do Adam weight.

Like, we're thinking about it. Not anymore. If PFL starts it and they sign eight fighters to fight for a million dollars, who are you going to find to start it? So that would be terrific. And then I would say by January or February, you have an opponent picked out for Francis for October. Even if you have to,

even if this is a seven or eight month build, if this is GSP Michael Bisbing, which was like a year build when they announced that fight, fine. Build that up. Francis is fighting on this card. This is who he's fighting. And there you go.

That's the best case scenario. And Don Davis should just stop doing interviews. or or you know what here's my message to dapper don don i respect you you want to do one of these interviews do one with me doing with me because what i want to do is i want to do a town hall all right i want the people to ask you the questions i want casey here to bring them up respectful questions and then i want to see what you got and then i'll follow up as as needed but that's like this is the conversation that needs to happen. Like, the people need to talk to you, the people want to hear your, your reactions to their

questions. This is not about selling sponsorships and advertisement and distribution. Nobody in this space cares about any of that. We care about what you're going to do to make your product the best it is for the people who are watching this show right now, the fans that are going to spend the money to watch your promotion. What are you going to do to make them happy? I challenge you to come on here and let's have that conversation.

I'm not going to be a jerk about it. You're just going to answer the people's questions. And then if I see something that I feel needs to be followed up on, we'll do it. And we'll do it in a respectable way. But don't go on Bloomberg. Don't do that. Come on.

Let's do the thing. Let's have a good advanced discussion. And I'm rooting for you. I want you to do good. I think this would be great for you. I think it's a great thing for you. Because you're not like, like I get you, you're very.

You're very smart on who shows you go on in the conversations that you have. I totally get it. But you even said, like, you're not the media's promotion. You're not the advertiser's promotion. You said you are about fans first and fighters first. You're a fan fighter first organization. You've said that a million times. The fans have things to say to you.

They have thoughts. They have takes on what they want to see. Let's hear them out. Come on here and let's hear them out. There you go. Do that. That would be great for the next nine months. I'll have command center 4.0.

We'll do it in a nice setup. You can come here. I'll have an extra chair. We can do it right here. We can do it. We got a chair waiting for you. We got a chair waiting for you, Don. There's a chair with your name on it.

I'll wear a suit. I'll wear a suit too. I have no any chance I could get to wear a suit. and look like a game show host, I'm going to do it. So I'll be happy to do that. But yeah, let's do that. I'm, because I'm curious. I have questions, too, about that.

The business-wise, seems like you're doing okay, but how are we going to get buzz? How are we going to get, how are we trending upwards? How do we get to a point where when you say you're the co-leader that we're like, okay, he's not there yet, but, you know, They're having a good run right now. Like, they're doing good. They're doing their own thing.

Like, people are excited to watch them. I just want to get to that point. And I feel like if they can get to that point, we're in good shape. But please take this momentum and do something with it. I'm begging you, begging you, do something in this momentum. Because the last time you had it,

you didn't do shit with it. So let's go. And I was about to get out of here, but we got one super chat. I was, sorry. I was like, this is going to be, I was like, this is either going to be the super weirdest question or it's going to be a question about like, how's my dog doing? Speaking of follow-ups, one Francis-sized duck or 10 duck-sized Franks?

I don't know. Like, who would I, was this like a fight? A fight? Who would I rather fight or who would I rather like, do a movie with? Who would you rather fight? Who would you rather fight? Oh man Because I don't

Like the 10 duck size Francis is Like how how would I not laugh at Duck sized Francis and Ghanus All looking the same and like Like if I tell a joke That laugh that he has It's so infectious like they just beat me into submission right there So I'll say one Francis sized duck

But that's probably not going to go Yeah I'm going to go Yeah I think either way is a tough It's a tough night But thank you Thank you for the Super Chat. What a way to end it. What's going on in the Outsary?

Apparently is a really good fight between Charles Johnson and Syracian. Well, Johnson's Jim Mujergy. Johnson just planted a big toss. He got side control in round three. He is committed to that hairstyle. Yeah, good honor, man. Good honor. Well, thank you, everybody.

Could you grow that hair? Could you do a Charles Johnson? I probably could. I'm not going to. But I could. That I absolutely could do. But look, you could go watch Charles Johnson for the next 50 seconds

and then the rest of UFC Vegas 99. And AK and I will be back tomorrow and we'll talk all about that car from a matchmaking perspective. And then guys, UFC 308 fight week. We're just about there. I'm so effing excited for UFC 308. It's going to be a fun week.

More daytime in the mess. More day time, MMA! Back to back weeks! What a great time to be alive! It everybody!