MMA Fighting - Rankings Show: How Low Do You Go For Paddy Pimblett? | Plus LHW Silliness, MMA's Worst Division, Futures, More

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

Paddy Pimblett isn't a top-15 lightweight. That much is clear after his controversial win over Jared Gordon. But just how far down the 155-pound ladder do you have to drop to find his place in the global lightweight ranks? That's right, the MMA Fighting Rankings Show is back after another wild and wacky weekend at UFC 282! Co-hosts Shaun Al-Shatti and Alexander K. Lee are joined this month by Jed Meshew and Damon Martin to debate the fallout of the UFC’s year-end pay-per-view, Pimblett’s place in the lightweight landscape, the sad state of affairs in the two saddest divisions in the sport, Kayla Harrison’s future following a stunning loss to Larissa Pacheco, and more. The gang also take their stab at wagering on futures for several of the brightest talents in MMA. Follow Shaun Al-Shatti @ShaunAlShatti Follow Alexander K. Lee @AlexanderKLee Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Follow Damon Martin @DamonMartin Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cadulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever.

Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the audible original blockbuster the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. Available now, only from Audible. Podcast Network. What's up, my friends? Welcome. You already know to the MMA fighting ranking show. We appreciate you, as always, for joining us.

Hope you're out there enjoying the holiday season. having a fantastic little December. I mean, this is just so wonderful. The air is crisp. It's the best time of year. Cheers is in the air. You really just love to see it. And what a group we got today.

My name is, of course, is Sean O'Shti. I'm here with the man himself. The King in the North, the Prince of Positivity, Alexander K. Lee, AK, my man, happy holidays. How we doing? Happy holiday, Shane. Welcome back. The people miss you.

Thank you. The people love you. They're very excited for all the new developments in your life, but they miss you. They want their they want their she and Al Shadi time. So, you know, we can be in the MET community can be a little selfish. So we're happy to have you back. It was a very short ranking cycle that we'll be talking about three, three UFC shows,

Bell Tour was in there. One, there was like a one, couple of ones. One's got a weird schedule. One's got a weird blank could just generally be like a- Sure. And we lost a lot of fights. We lost some notable fights that I was fully expecting to be talking about on today's show. But that did not happen.

We'll see what we've got. We've scraped together for the people on this episode. You really, that's quite a tease. I'm sure if people are very interested now. So, of course, you guys already know, this is our monthly peak behind the curtains of the MMA fighting global rankings, AKA very much appreciate you holding down the fort last month.

I was out there on diaper duty for a newborn. And I'll tell you what, man, I challenge anyone on this team to come at me with a diaper speed-changing contest because I'm out here putting out record numbers. I'm just saying, Gauntlet is thrown, if anyone wants to take it up. I don't think it's supposed to be about speed from what I know.

I am not a father myself, but I think if you're doing it too fast, you might be doing, you might, you know, there might be some mistakes being made. Look, AK, you change 20 diapers in one day, and then you're going to start thinking about speed. That's all I'm saying. You can only take too long doing this. But let's bring in our panel, because it's been a bit of a shorty-ranking cycle, as we said this month. As you guys know, we go pay-per-view-per-view, AK laid it out, three UFC events, a little splash bellatory. well, PFL finals. But we still had quite a bit going on, so we're going to get into it.

The gang, though, our other brilliant minds joining us on the panel this month. First, the legal eagle himself. He is the host of No Betts Bard. He is the host of Damn. They were good. A.K., he's your best friend and mine. Oh, shit. I had it written down Mike Heck, but this is not Mike Heck.

This is definitely jempsure. So we do that. No, you know, we're keeping it in. I was like, he's one of my. He's one of my best friends. I was so excited. I thought I got promoted and then nobody told me that I'd moved up the best friend life. You're one of my best friends, Jed, for sure.

Sean, this is exactly like the magab and ankle eye of robbery because I wasn't even thinking that I was going to win. I didn't even think that I was going to be A.K.'s best friend. We all know who has a title. And then suddenly you're throwing it out there. I'm like, ooh, oh, this is a free gift, a free gift. And then it snatched away at the last moment. The hope really is what can.

kills you in the end. I am Jedmershoe, not my keck. Happy to be here, guys. We're thrilled as always to have you. We appreciate you. And of course, the OG, the brains and really the charm behind Fighter versus Ryder. You know him has the future governor of Ohio. He is Damon. What's up, my man? Oh, boy, that's a lofty expectation from my home state. Yeah, I'll just say the man who's going to watch his Ohio State Buckeyes beat the Georgia Bulldogs. Oh. And the college football playoffs just throwing down the gauntlet to Mr. Jedman shoe right there. Let's just get this party started. I mean, I know that we aren't quite as good as some of the fierce competition that you

struggled with mid-season, but I suspect reigning national champions headed by a 35-year-old quarterback is going to be able to do something that's pretty okay. I'm glad you brought that up, David, because we're going to have a little preview almost here today of the Civil War we're going to see between you guys later uh dame you're obviously mr ohio state jad you're mr georgia bulldogs you guys are going to be sworn enemies here come on december 31st your team's meeting the ncdb a college football playoffs for people who don't know like what's the relationship like right now like this is the calm before the storm is there is there tension you guys a little wary of each other you drop in dropping dropping little slights here

and there like how's it what's this like honestly i'm pretty good uh i didn't think we'd be here anyway because I was born and raised in Georgia and my life is built to expect bad things to happen to sports teams from this state. So when we won last year, I'm good. I'm good for like a decade. Like, I'd like to win more. That'd be awesome. But if we just never win again for the next like five years, I can't even be that unhappy because the way it all unfolded last year was great. So I think we're going to win.

And I would sure love to beat Ohio State. But it, you know, great year. if not. I'm okay with where we're at. I'm just a happy guy. Yeah. And on my note, all jokes aside, I didn't think Ohio State was even going to get in the playoffs after losing to Michigan. So I'm already writing. I really thought you guys are dead there. Already already right now. Thanks to USC completely blowing it against Utah. So yeah, I'll just be happy that we got in and hope that Ryan Day doesn't screw up another game like he did the Michigan game. And also another big rivalry game come up in two weeks just to throw it out there for

our staff. It will be my Cincinnati Bengals taking on the Buffalo Bills in a couple of weeks. So I'm calling him out as well because we got we got a big game coming up in the in the in the jungle in two weeks. Damon Martin just wants all to smoke. He's here for it. Can I can I say I have way less beef with Damon than I do? I'm so mad at USC and Caleb Williams because they were a cupcake and I had already written it

off. It was like Ohio State they threw the ball. We're done. Michigan beat them. I have no fear of Michigan since we thumped them in February. And now we're going to get to play USC in the semis. It's just as a buy. You might as well not even make us play the game.

Now we have a much more difficult test because USC sucks. I mean, I'll tell you as an alum of a PAC 10 school, a general rule to live by as if a PAC 10 team or anything in any sort of high pressure situation, they're probably going to blow it. Like just expect the worst and maybe. be surprised if something else happens. But we're not a college football podcast. So maybe we start somewhere else because this ranking cycle was really all over the place,

fellas. So Jed, let's start with you, my man. When it came time to sit down at the ballot box and really fill out your rankings this month, what was the standout story? Who was the standout move for you? I wrote down many answers.

I didn't know where everyone would go. I wanted to bring some diversity. I have a second one that I'd like to bring back at the end because it's not the but I want to mention it on this pod. But the lead for me, and it's probably not going to be a lot of people joining me, Anatoly Malikin, that dude is unbelievably good.

And I know that this is wild to start with a one champion. I'm not expect us to start here, but, no, because everybody else is going to talk about the other stuff, and we even have a whole segment to what I think is the actual true answer to this of Kayla Harrison, but we're going to collectively speak about that. but Anatoly Malikin came out of nowhere and we all know I'm a big RDR guy and I've been I was the guy leading the charge to get him ranked at middleweight.

Everybody started to come along and believe in him too and he got walloped by Malikin and Malikin's looked good but he looked good at heavyweight. This is first time fighting a light heavyweight. I'm pretty sure that that's true like in his whole life but it's certainly true in one. and he looked unbelievable. We're out here trying to solve the rest of the light heavyweight division and all the various complexities is going on with the nonsense of last weekend. And it's entirely possible that the best light heavyweight in the world actually is fighting in one championship right now.

And that blows my mind. So I want to pick him because he's certainly the biggest, I think he's the biggest mover numerically because he was unranked, wasn't even a far and wasn't even close to being ranked on anybody's thing. And I think now we've got him close to a top 10 light heavyweight. So he's my choice for the biggest story of this cycle. Can I pour water on this? No.

I feel like I know how you're going to do it, but please. I mean, it's not hard. Well, one thing I do. He's not a light heavyweight. He's not light. Well, one, I give props to Jed because Jed, you've been your big RDR fan. You love Rainer de Ritter. And so for someone to beat him is a big deal.

though we still think Ryan Ritter is like a top guy at middleweight, you know, light, heavy weight. He can beat the light heavy weight and forgot to beat him, hand him his first loss in either division. Very impressive. But yeah, I mean, he's, do you know what Malik can wait in for for this fight? It was like 225. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I mean, like. Yeah, but that's, this is, we don't need to rehash this thing. No, no, no. That's, that's how one does their stupid shit. They do. They do.

And we've decided to treat that as how it goes. No, but even with like an Adriana Marais, like he has made 125 before and it's like, Hey guys, can we talk about fly weight real quick? By the way, let's talk about the flyweight division. Hold on. No. So Malikin technically still has not made the light heavyweight division like by it by any other, anyone else's standard. But that's fine. He is he is a one light heavyweight. It's just weird to say that he's finally. Oh my God.

That's clearly the number one answer. Listen, there's no need to get defensive. I'm just clarifying for the listeners at home. I feel like we need to institute a no one championship conversation at all, like rule on this show because it inevitably leads to the... I won't do that. I won't do that. I won't do that. I won't do that. I didn't think about that at all.

My fault. Malikin deserves his flowers. This guy is incredibly impressive. And I think he could make 205. I think he could make 205. Let's be clear here. I think he can make 205 as well. I don't look at this guy.

He and Geraldton Almeida. He and Jalton could both do 205. And they're probably two of the top 10 heavyweight and light heavyweets in the world. Yeah, he's six feet tall, so he's not like a massively tall, like, heavy. He was not that much bigger than RDR for being honest. He just put the boots to him. Yeah. It's awesome.

He did those flowers. I'm just watching this unfold. He's watching us all unfold. Yeah. We got us off. Right. I'm supporting. Now that 90% of our audience has dropped off with all the Malagos.

Damon, what was your standout story of the month? So this is going to be a weird. one i'm going to say of course kela harrison's a big one but we're going to spend time talking about her so i'm going to go with the biggest mover going one spot in the rankings there was going to say one spot one spot i'm going with step and wonder boy thompson resurrecting his career with one win uh he was off two losses in a row kind of felt like he was forgotten at that point like we kind of knew what wonder boy was and it seemed like he was just going to continue to like tinker his way down the rankings and he only moved up one spot this month which i know i said it's not a lot

like a monumental thing but let's be honest at 39 going on 40 i think a lot of people have written wonder boy all for him to go out there and have that kind of performance over a really good fighter in kevin holland and a striking matchup and kevin holland wasn't ranked but kevin holland's really good um for him to go out there and lay the kind of beat down he did on kevin holland and stop him in the fourth round i just i loved it and it just again it just kind of resurrected his career yeah he only moved up one spot in the rankings but i think it was like a legitimate one spot because everyone kind of wrote him off and i'm not saying us as a staff i'm just saying like as a sport we kind of wrote wonder boy off after he lost to below and and gilber burns back to back and even though

two of the top five guys in the world but still he lost pretty one-sidedly to below and it's kind of like ah we know who wonder boy is we're just going to kind of forget about him i just thought it was really impressive he went out there and kind of resurrected himself with one big win i mean he was in a spot where any sort of upper trajectory is like like that was it right like he needed anything to move him upward because you're right at this point it felt like we had all sort of written him off as like like i think we're still writing him off i ain't changed but he still he clearly has to squeeze you know yeah and to be clear like he's not going to tackle him yeah to be clear he still isn't beating usman he still isn't beating shimaii he isn't beating the wrestlers but you know we

forgot he has a winner over jeff neal he has a winner of recente lucre he has a winner a lot of the guy he has a lopside of winner he has a lot so striking mass vassment he has a lot so striking mass Chops. But now, like I said, he ain't going to beat the wrestlers, but, you know, you can still get to, like, number six again, which is probably higher than most people thought he'd ever get to again. It's funny you mention that because you're right. He's not meeting the wrestlers. Would you care to take a look at our welterweight rankings are currently? Leon Edwards, Kumar Usman, Hamzaa Chimayev, Colby, Covington, Gilbert Burns, below Muhammad, Yaroslav, Amasa.

And then Shavkat, Rachmanov, are our top eight. the only one of those is maybe Leon Edwards doesn't just tackle him to the ground. Nine is the tops for Wonderboy because he is not beating a soul on that list and has already lost to many of them in fact. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I actually think, you know what? People are going to say I'm crazy. I think the Edwards is a winnable fight for him.

I've always said that. I thought Wonderboy could beat Leon Edwards. Like, I think that is a winnable fight for him. He's never going to get there. That's maybe the only. But again, and again, I'm just giving it tackling people. Yeah. I'm just giving credit where credits do.

I think, I think universally across the board, we all kind of were like looking at Thompson is like going down. And he actually made a bump up and actually did it get a big win and an impressive win. So I his credit where credits do because he did kind of resurrect himself when he was seemingly all but forgotten. I mean, I'm a big fan of giving credit where credits do. And I want to do the same with my opportunity here because my boy, I'm, Julia Tuporia is going to take this division by Storm sooner or later. And he finally made his first move for us, at least, to really make that first step. Right.

He is now a top 10 fighter for us. I think he was number 14 before UFC 282 and is now number nine. So he's in that conversation now. And, ah, God, man, I go watch that guy fight every single day. Like, he is entertainment personified to me. Watching someone swing his hardest, he swings with the grappling skills that he does have as well. Like, he is a total package on it. I am completely here for any Ilya Taporia matchup that the UFC could possibly throw me at this point.

Like, feed this dude to everybody, speed run him to the top. I want to see this. Firm. He's a monster. Yeah, this dudes. He was on my list, but I just figured somebody would pick him, so I didn't want to, I want to rehash it. But yeah, everything you said, Ilya rules. Guys can't fight for a belt.

He completely outclass a very good featherweight in Bryce Mitchell. Like, I think we all think, regards to personality, Bryce Mitchell has the skills. to be a top 10 guy. But we saw this between, I mean, now we think Ely is like a top five guy. He's only number nine this month. He jumped 14 to 9, I think. 14 to 9. It's probably a little bit too low.

Probably a little too low going in. It's probably why the jump was so dramatic. But yeah, he looks like a top five guy. Bryce Mitchell still looks at top 10 guy, nothing against him. But boy, that gap between that top five and, you know, again, like Bryce Mitchell, I think is pretty huge. So can we dig into that for a second? Yeah, for sure. sure that Bryce Mitchell didn't lose some shine there.

I certainly think that I think that I'm re-evaluating some things about Bryce Mitchell following that fight. Yeah, I'm not sure that he's a top 10 guy in the world right now, to be honest. I definitely don't think he's a top 10. I think he maybe can get there. Like, he's still young. Well, I think I have him right at 15. Yeah, you never had him in the top 10 and you kept him out.

You dropped him as fine. You had it at 14. You dropped into 15. So you never believed, Jed. You never believed in Arkansas. I just had some questions. He clearly has like a really good skill. Like he is an A plus grappler, but one of my big questions was he has been the hammer in almost all of his fights.

And this was the first fight that we really saw him get punched. Like, and if you look at his resume, I talked about this on the post show. He hasn't fought a string of hitters either. Like Edson Barbosa can punch really hard. Edson Barbosa got taken down instantaneously. Charles Rosa, same way. he hasn't really fought a guy who's punched him in the mouth and then see where it's at and you know i know he's come out and say he had had the flu and didn't feel good and maybe this is

armchair psychologist it looked like he wanted no part of the business with ilia from moment one the first left hand that came through bryce's entire demeanor to me look like i don't like this and like that's a huge concern if you if if if the key to beating him is you just have to stuff the takedowns and then he is going to be a very fundamentally different fighter. That's why I put Brendan Lognardine above him. Brendan, obviously, had a great run through the PFL, showed that he can stuff, stuff to take downs and has got the hands. I have real questions about what Bryce's ceiling is.

If this is all true, I need to see him fight a little more now. To be fair, though, I will say the first time Iliate Tuporia punches anybody, they're probably going to have that same exact reaction unless they're an absolute maniac. He's throwing his whole body at you. Brendan, by the way, making his debut at number 15. So, Brendan, what a, what a cycle for him. I mean, he becomes a PFL champion, wins a million dollars, and gets the number 15 spot and the NBA fighting global rankings.

He's looking at all three of those things right now. What's the best of those, you know? It's like the LeBron. I can't believe this is my life meme. You know what I mean? He's just like, oh, he saw that number 15, MMA fighting next to his name. It's not every day you win a million dollars,

and it's the third best thing to happen to you. I actually I just looked at my rankings I realized I didn't bump to pour you up quite as much and I think the main reason was is because I didn't have Bryce Mitchell as high because I wasn't sold on Bryce Mitchell so it's not that I don't think to pour is that good I think he's absolutely legitimately I said after the fight I said give him Arnold Allen that's the fight I wanted to see I put it on Twitter I said I feel bad for Arnold Allen you know Arnold Allen against Max Holloway is probably the better fight to make but Max doesn't really seem all that it shouldn't fight right now at least it doesn't on the surface he doesn't seem all the enthusiastic about it. So I said, Allen versus Topori is the fight. The only reason I didn't bump him up higher is because of that, because I just, I just was not sold on Bryce Mitchell. I just, I don't think he's a bad fighter, but I definitely don't think he's a top 10 fighter.

Good win, quality win, tapping him out was really impressive because Bryce is good on the ground. But I just, I was not, I was not sold on Bryce Mitchell. Even with the Edso-Barbosa fight, I just, I wasn't ready to annoy him like a legit top 10 guy. I think I had him ranked in the top 15. Now he's down at like number 14. I just, I wasn't sold on him. So I didn't bump Toporia up quite as much, although I will say I'm 100% sold on the guy.

AK, what about you? What was your big move? I would have picked Toporia, but I want to go in a different direction. I would pick Toppor. Again, and with all the, you know, whatever you feel about, how you feel about, again, whether Bryce Mitchell is a top 10 guy or not. Just the way which he cleared him was like so impressive. I'm like you, I was just wowed.

I mean, we all, I think we all thought Ilya was going to win. But, man, just complete dominance. again, yeah, made Mitchell look like a top 30 guy, not a top 15 guy. So I'll go to the heavyweight division. And it's a big jump as far as like, you know, it's harder to go from, you know, to get into a top five spot, I think that it is to like go from unranked into the top 15 or from the top 15 to the top 10. Once you break into that top tier of the top five guys, it's impressive.

So Sergey Pavlovich, man, I mean, this guy looks like an absolutely insane killer with his striking. Taito Voss was the perfect matchup for him. him you knew there's going to be cast there's certainly a chance he could have been the one that gets that got got i mean it's heavyweight but uh the way he looked like i don't even think it was just random i think like you run that back 10 times i think sergey probably probably which wins nine times out of 10 um there's just a there's just something to his power which is so scary uh and i was just looking i was checking back here he was obviously going into 22 unranked he hadn't fought in

like three years just had all kinds of things that kept him out of the out of the octagon so it was pretty much a non-factor like i think we're all aware he was good but anytime his name came up it was just like oh why hasn't this guy fought not like this guy's a future contender for sure well also like he had that his debut loss where he just got just demolished by alist over him right in all time great yeah it's very easy to write somebody off when that's the first introduction to him and the guys he beat after that weren't like super great shout us to marie screen but i mean like you tico these guys in the first round you're kind of just doing what's expected of you and he comes back in this year.

It gets three wins, I think, three in O in 2022, not just knock people out left and right. Everyweight MVP, baby. Probably a dark horse on Fighter of the year, to be honest. Like, just to at least land on the ballot. Not ranked going in again because he really wasn't eligible. And number four now, number four on our list heading into 2023. It's great, great choice. Can I bring up the thing I wanted to talk about?

I didn't want to lead with this because it's really negative, but we kind of mentioned it a little bit in passing and I was looking through this and I got to say this won't be the story of the cycle so much as it's the story of the overarching thing women's band and weight is a tough scene guys I talked about this I brought I looked up a stat because I was trying to I was looking at it and we had a discussion about our ranking there and how it goes offline do you guys know the last time there was a women's bandamweight fight in the UFC oh I'm going to guess it's a really long time so let me say two months was it Lena Lansberg was that the last one was that uh fight was it didn't she have a fight for like not recently but like was that it was

lena Lansberg carol rosa at at UFC 280 and u.sc 280 and there is not another one until um uh i think it's the gasloomime evolve i think the january card has one on it yes because that has katelyn vera right right So we're talking UFC 280 October to January 22nd to January 14th and that's if Vieira Pennington holds up still several weeks away that could fall out. God. This is a division that there's no movement in this division because nothing happens and it is I just wanted to mention it because I see it.

That's crazy. I know that other people out there see it and that's just it is just, it is just wild to me that there has not been a fight in this division in three months. It's nonsensical. Holly Holm. It's number four in our rankings. What's Holly Holm done in the last like few years? She arguably beat Ketland Vieira. Yeah, not she didn't. Lossed officially. She definitely did not. She took some photos with fighters at UFC 283 this past weekend. Okay. So she's around. She's around. She's on social media. Yeah, I put us in some photos.

I saw that. Yana Kunitskaya is number seven. She hasn't fought, I think, since having a child. Like, it's really tough scenes. I just mentioned this. I officially didn't put a number 15 ranked fighter in my women's fan. Wait, this time. Protest.

In protest. Well, no. I mean, the topic came up because Julia Avila. Julia Avala left. Yeah, past our 18 month mark, and she was holding down a spot. And I think all of us were left in a situation. where we're either going to rank Lena Lansberg or Lucy Poutilova

as this number 15. And it's just like, that's where we're at. And I just refuse to rank Lansberg. Because like, I just can't do it. I can't put her in here. It's a rough division, man. I contemplated leaving the last spot just empty

to see if anyone would notice because I feel like an empty spot is better than what I had to choose. Because that division, like we talk about how bad, like featherweight isn't really a division. Women's Featherweight isn't really a division because it's not. I'm starting to think Bantamweight is that way. It's like five fighters and that's about it.

Like it's real, real bad. Fun fact, Women's Featherweight has had the exact same number of fights over this period of time. And they will have one at UFC 283. So really we're looking at the same rate of activity division-wide at this point. Norma Dumont? Who is that? Who is what?

Fando Santos. Oh, I love Jose and her. I'm not going to talk any chunk about that fight. Yeah, it's a fine fight. It's just when we were talking about it offline, then I was looking at him like, what's the story? And I know that this isn't the story in the same way, but this feels really relevant that when a fighter exits are,

but by time limit, it's like there's actually no one to put in here because there's so few fights globally to do with this division. Some of the other divisions where that happens, we're kind of like, oh, cool. Like there's guys like I have like some really good deep divisions. We're like, oh, cool. Finally, I get to go with this guy in the ballot, get him a point.

Like, you know, the division is just so deep. This one, we're like, um, who? NFL. PFL, I am encouraging you. I like to reward your champions, especially if they had really good seasons and weren't like some like I've got a couple champions ranked this time. Make a women's Bannonweight division. You're going to get like four ranked fighters just by having it.

I was going to say. Alexis Davis is number 12. She's no longer with EOC. she hasn't we haven't heard of peep if she's going to fight for anyone ever again and she's still holding on to the 12 spot in our rankings ahead of misha tate was one wins is coming back over marian rano who's retiring in the last seven years and her last fight was it flyweight and she's holding down our 13th one win in this is rough it's it's actually a perfect segue because if you look at that 135 pound division for the women that used to be the marquee division for women right like

that was the glamour division for so many years And then if you look at the men's side, for so many years, the glamour division was the 205 pound division. And what we have now come upon with this 205 pound division, I mean, obviously, fellas, a lot of the movement from this past cycle came from this past weekend at UFC 282, final paper review of the year. And Jesus, the MMA gods gave us a weird one. Like, it might have just been the kind of pay-per-view we deserve because I don't know that there's a more proper way to close out one of the weirdest years that we have ever seen with some just king weird. weird-ish as we're headed out the door that we got. And so we published our ranking shake-up figure on MMA fighting, focusing on light, heavyweight, this Monday.

And I don't know how else to frame it other than this division is just a mess right now. Like, it is just an absolute mess. This event that is supposed to give us some sort of clarity gives us zero at all. Nothing makes sense. The UFC's out here making decisions on the fly in the same way that I would at like a country harvest buffet, just sort of picking things on the fly and saying, hey, you know, I'll have a little bit of that now. have a little bit of that. Anthony Smith's out here getting his heartbroken on live on national television.

After all of this, here's where we landed. The top two, hold firm, Yerian Glover, one, two. Then we have Mamogelma and Kalev. I suppose the winner of this draw, moving up two spots from six to four. We have Yombovitz moving down one spot to number five. And then creeping in at number three, kind of the dark horse of the division, Bellator Champ Vadim Nemcoff, who gets his revenge on Corey Anderson. Corey doubles down at number six.

So again, in order. Yeree, Glover, Nemcoff, Ankleye of Yon, Corey. That's your top six. Damon, how did you make sense of this? How do you make sense of this? And did we get this one right? Because this division right now is just all over the place. Yeah, I mean, I think the Ankeliah move up was justified because I think he won that fight.

I had a 48, 47 for him. I still have issues with the judging that night. I'd have a lot of issues with the judging that night. Don't even give me start on Patty Pimble. So I had at 4847. So I didn't really completely understand. the scoring and I've kind of learned to live a little bit by the the edge of my Jedmishu pants and that I just kind of go with what I feel and I feel like Anklei have won that fight. So I put him up.

And I think that's the only way to live in this game, Damon. Welcome to the dark side. I think it's I think it's kind of justified to bump him up. Nimcov had a really, you know, really impressive win over Corey Anderson dominated him and really just kind of flip flopped from what happened in the first fight where he was getting dominated and nearly finished before the clash of heads. gave it a no contest so i think that's justified listen we know we all know if things go the way they're going to keep going that you know yury is probably going to drop at some point because chances are he's going to be out for a while i mean maybe he's not out for 18 months but it doesn't i mean shoulder injuries are nasty i mean t j jillishal just retired from shoulder injuries so who

knows and it's not like yurries you know this super young guy is not 22 so right now i think we got it right yury is you know he was still the rifle champion he didn't lose he didn't you know do anything to surrender the bell besides get injured glover still number two nymcom feels right at three it's just we had no we had no clarity from this past week and even though ankely have got bumped up a little bit and again i think justified but he's not number one you know even if he had beaten yon i don't know that i would have really ranked him number one because yri still legitimately is the guy i think i would have been willing to move him to two though right like if he goes out there and it's a pretty impressive performance like i would have been willing to bump him up to

too. I mean, A.K., we've been doing this Rankin's endeavor for a while now, and we've had a few times where being the UFC champion doesn't exactly mean that you end up with number one spot, right? Like, I think Dustin Porre is a memorable example. A lot of us had that number one at lightweight when he wasn't the champion. Even right now, you look at Demetri's Johnson. He's sort of holding down the throne at flyweight. This, though, like I said, it just feels like they're just throwing darts at the board. And now we're having a brand new title fight next month between guys who weren't even involved in this title fight. Can you remember an instance where a UFC belt has felt like more of a prop than whatever this one will feel like after next month.

Yeah. And I mean, it's crazy because we didn't even have to use the word interim. Like normally when there's interims involved, I'm like, yeah, there's tons of times where it's felt like a prop. There's certain interim title on someone. This was a clean vacation by Yuri Prohachka, whether people think he should have done it or not. That's up for debate. That's fine. But it was, it's vague.

This was supposedly whoever won on Saturday. I have to jump in and say, it's super weird to hear you say vacation like that. vacation. It literally made me stop, like, where's he going? Is he on a trip somewhere? Oh, what do you think he takes vacations? He's a weird guy. I feel like he's got some spots.

He definitely goes to Japan. A thousand percent he goes to like Okinaw or. He'll have plenty of time. He'll have plenty of time to travel there, I think. I guess he ends up in Antarctica doing some like ice diving, ice fishing or something. Depends how he rehearsing a polar bear. That would be nice. Maybe that'd be good for his shoulder.

I don't know. But it's such a It would not It would not It's such a weird situation because We've never We've never seen Tidal fights together

So quickly on fight night I think we talked a lot about this After on the post fight show Like when do you see Dana White like make a fight after? That's usually the worst thing Dana White is Is at doing as he'll always say Oh wait till Tuesday We'll until Tuesday

We have our matchmakers meeting And he's not wrong to do that either I mean sometimes we'd like to see him build up You know the next logical fight more But it's true They're not going to sign contracts, you know, the night of. But this time it made it sound pretty clear that they're like, yeah, this is happening. You know, this is like a verbal agreement.

Like obviously, Jamal wants to do it. Global Chair wants to do it. So it's, I was, I immediately mentioned that on Twitter, of course, that remember, belts are props. And this doesn't mean that like fighters shouldn't be proud to have them, that they don't have some sort of inherent value. Certainly they do. But I don't see how anyone can look at this situation with we're about to have again three, well, we're supposed to have three different world champions. But we, three title fight, three title fights booked in the span of two events. And I honestly, yeah, I don't know what it would have meant if Ankeleyev had won.

It probably the method would have mattered if he had somehow just run through Jan in like a round. I think we could have gone as far as that, yeah, he's number one. But I think we nailed this. I think to go sort of the original question sheet, like, how did we do? I think we nailed this. Like this order is perfect. Prohachka to Sharon Nemkov and Goliath. blakhovich anderson that's your top six i don't think you can sneak anyone in there i don't think

anyone is is necessarily out of place um it's a it's a bit of a hit to core anderson because he was like he got high did he got high to get in our rankings as high as like you got as high as number three i think maybe two or three it was two or three and there was a definite talk about him taking the number one spot that was when glover was champion right and so yeah and after he like was beating Nimcov and then got the no contest. I distinctly remember us having that conversation. I think Damon actually was I had him rank number one. Yeah, I did.

I did. I didn't right number one at one point. How weird is it that we had two really big light heavyweight title fights? Well, I'm sorry, well, one disappeared, but two big light heavyweight title fights and inconclusively because Nemcov Anderson won. We thought like, oh, this will bring some order to our rankings. Didn't really. Just cause more chaos and that has not changed since. I just, I can't

help but think of all of this as a bubble. Because like we were so excited, right, for the Jiri era. Like that was the start of something fresh again. It felt like this is this dude's a maniac. Like whatever he was going to bring to 205, it felt like it might be that element that we had when the Chuck Tito, Rampage, Vanillae, Shogun, Machita, like that cool era of the division. And now we're just like left with this weird layout where you look at the pieces on

the chess board and nobody's really getting you excited. I don't know. The whole thing, just to close out this whole topic, I mean, Jed, which light heavyweight of the pieces that we actually do have on the board right now, do you feel like has the best chance of actually having some sort of extended stay at the top? Because right now this is just being passed around like a hot potato,

and I don't know that that's going to change anytime soon. So I think that's the fun part, right? I was excited for Yuri because Yuri's fun. But I did not think he was going to be a long-reigning champion because I kind of think it's sort of impossible the way he fights for him to like, for us to realistically think he's going to, going to string together four title defenses.

He's a lunatic. Like, that's just not how that works, and that's what's compelling and interesting about it. And this sort of tumultuous upheaval is really compelling. The long-reigning champions, those are not compelling. Like, John Jones's title run was compelling in some ways because it was something we had kind of never seen before. But it was also like, I mean, we talked about it with Izzy before Perjara,

and all of the other, it's just like, well, one dude's going to win, and now it's a question of how he wins. And naturally over time, long-reaning champions get less exciting. That's just how it works. Fighters start figuring them out. They have to adjust themselves to prioritize retaining the belt, et cetera. And so the answer to your question, Gene, is it's the same one I would have given you a year ago, probably two years ago. And I still feel even after Saturday.

Maguette Ancalaev is the future of this division. It is not going to be fun. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to that era. I'm not going to lie. Yeah, he is not a fun fighter. He's probably just the best one. I felt comfortable moving into two. I talked beforehand.

If he had gone out there and out of respect for Yeri and the fight of the year, quite possibly the greatest fight I've ever seen in my life, I wasn't going to bump him from the top spot unless Magumet did something really, really tremendous. He did not. So he would have been two, you know, had he won. And even with losing, I still, I scored that fight for him. I think most people thought he.

won that fight. I see no reason to dock him points because whoever, Doug Crosby wasn't on that fight, was he? No, that was a Patty one. Ron McCarthy and somebody else who's also crappy, I think we're on that. It's just like, for them sucking, I don't see any point. And I also think it's fine to score that fighter draw.

He's the best guy in this division. He's still young, and he is, we saw him overcome adversity. And if he rematch Gian, I'd still pick up. him to win. I'd pick him to be Glover. I wouldn't pick him to be exciting because that is, that's beyond what's going to happen for this man at this point. The only way he is not going to be the future is if the UFC is so mad at him that they make him jump through several hoops to get back to a title fight, which is apparently possible. And I'm not sure why. Because Dana got all hot and bothered about that being a terrible fight. And it was not a bad fight. Like, I thought that

fight was fine. It wasn't, it wasn't a year he fight. But, But no fight. It was a freaking eerie fight. So the first three rounds were incredibly compelling. It was super compelling. And then he did what he showed the championship medal and did what he needed to do at the end of it. And cool. Like, it is what it is.

I still think he's the best light heavyweight in the world probably. And so he's my pick to be the guy to bring kind of sustained dominance to this division. I really want to know how much, how much Nemcov can move by this time next year. He's already three in our rankings. I guess, I don't know if he never. I don't think he can move up unless he can do some cross-promotion fights or the light heavyweight division like Glover and Jamal Hill go to a no contest. And then in the inevitable Anthony Smith versus Ryan Span light heavyweight title fight ends in like a double knockout.

Maybe NIMCob, we just move him up to the top. I just like make a sacrifice to the MMA gods. But other than that, I think he's capped. Just to close us out on this particular topic, like, what a weird year Mago Man Ancolaeva's had, right? Because this is a man who's fought three times in 2022. And I think, like, pretty unanimously, everyone who felt very, very highly and strongly about this guy at this time last year probably is like colder on him this year. After fighting three times and not losing any of those three fights. Like, just the excitement and whatever it was around him seems to have dissipated.

completely despite the fact that he basically won all three of these fights for the most part. It was a horrible year. He just was the least interesting person this year by like a lot. It was like the, it was like the excitement of Tiago's Santos after he lost a really close decision to John Jones and everyone was like, man, Tiago Santos really showed something.

And then he just completely just, you know, crapped a bet after that and didn't do anything. So he kept losing. Magamette keeps winning. He did it. Yeah, granted he did it with no knees, but still we all had high hopes that Tiago Santos was going to be something and then he just did not do anything after Johnny Walker's and

this light heavyweight man this is this division you show you show a hint of promise and it will crush your soul I was going to say light heavy weight is the women's bantam weight of men's divisions settle with Shaheen don't go there this this division gave us the best fight of the year so let us just relax a second it really did this division did give us the best fight of the year I mean we can say that yeah there's an exception to every rule I guess here we're going to take a quick break and then we have a lot more we're going to get into Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what?

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Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. All right, y'all, we are back. Second biggest story of this whole cycle was actually someone who, I don't even know that it affects anything that we're talking about when it comes to rankings, right?

Because this is a ranking show. And he may never affect these rankings. And I'm talking about Patty the Batty, Patty Pimbled, some hellfellas by the skin of this man's teeth. He is still an undefeated fighter in the UFC. We're looking at 4 and 0 now. But this was not the same as some of these past performances. and this kind of felt like we finally reached a point maybe where we all sort of expected we would get here. We got a little glimpse into his ceiling here at 155.

Obviously the Jared Gordon fight. Damon, did you have any inkling, just even like the slightest tinge to rank Patty in your top 15 at 155 this month? And if not, where do you rank him? Like how far down do you got to go? Well, first off, he lost. So I'm definitely not going to rank him. And I think this fight with Jared Gordon did one thing for me with Patty Pimblit. I think we've reached the ceiling on Patty Pimbleau because Jared Gordon's a solid lightweight.

But Jared Gordon's not a top 15 lightweight either. And he lost that fight. And it wasn't close to me. I had a 3027. At worst, it should have been 29, 28. Patty Pimbleau reached his ceiling because he's not going to be the top 15 fighter. It's just not going to happen. He's not going to be.

I mean, fighters who are outside the top 15 in the UFC right now, I would pick to annihilate Patty Pimblit. Terrence McKinney would, I mean, it would be a crime to humanity to put him in there with with Terrence McKinney. Drew Dober, it would be a crime to humanity to put Hinauco Moikano, go down the list. Are there still winnable fights for Patty Pimble? Of course there are. There's a lot of fighters in the UFC and a lot of contender series guys that he can tear through

because we all know how, you know, Dana White loves to sign guys at 10 and 10. but patty pimblit is not a top 15 fighter he's not a top 20 fighter um top 30 maybe i'd have to really look at my list of 30 lightweights to the uc because it's a pretty deep division but no he's not a top 15 fighter i don't think he'll ever be a top 15 fighter and i think if you put him in there with anybody and the the only guy in the top 15 they're like would make me really sad to see him fight right now don't do it i know i'm doing it's tony it's tony it's tony ferguson it's tony Ferguson because Tony Tony's just at the Tony's at the end of his career right now let's be honest he is and and I'm not saying he beat Tony first and by any stretch him I'm just saying like

because Tony is so at the end of his career like maybe he somehow gets like another Doug Crosby S decision but yeah he ain't beating anybody else anybody else is even close to that top 15 he is not beating uh no patty pimblit is a is a is a fun guy who gets a lot of social media buzz who gets paid a lot of money by barstool sports, who says weird things and calls people sausages, but he is not going to be a top 15 lightweight. He is in one of the deepest divisions in the sport. He is getting, he is not sniffing. The closest he's going to get is hoping he shares a locker room with the top 15 fighter. Damon Martin, my favorite member of the NBA fighting team. Let's, we need the batty for Zell Kakuwee. I love it. I am genuinely compelled by that fight.

I was right forever. I still am. I hate every aspect to this conversation. I just want to see how washed Tony is and that's such a good barometer for how cooked are you. Stick a patty in you are you done?

And that's how we figure it out. Like I honestly I would love that fight. It will never get made. But I would, that would be a patty fight that I would actively be really interested in. Shaheen, on a scale of 1 to 10, how mortified would you be?

If in the year of our Lord, 2023 coming up, 10,000. beat to a verse. I would not, I would, I would not be able to work that event because I would be so bummed out at the inevitable result that I would get from it. Like, I could not watch that fight. Tony could, honestly, I, I'm not a mark. And you're talking about a man who doesn't believe in Tony at all.

And Tony might win that one. Like, that is a winnable fight for Tony. And that's, that's what I said. Like, that's the one I might caution myself to not pick against him. Like, Patty has a chance in that one, but that's it. Like, there is no one else. even nearby that top 15 that I think he'd be. Michael Chandler does suck.

The other side of that, though, is if that fight did end up happening, Patty wins it. At that point, Patty, you're a top 15 fighter. Goodly have fun against Demiris Magulov. It's the best. Jaylon Turner and everybody else you want, great Dawson, whoever you want to throw in there. You're not going to have a good time with it. I thought I was Saruki and see how well that goes for him. So we only go to 15, obviously, on our rankings.

I agree, Damon. 155 so deep, Patty is very far away from 15 right now to me. I doubt that he's ever going to get there, just like you do. If you look at our friends at Tapology, though, Jed, they do a really good job with this stuff. They go way deeper than 15. Just wild guess. I hope you haven't looked at this. Where do you think Tapology has Patty on the lightweight ranks?

I looked at it before we filmed, so I actually know the answer to this. Can I guess I haven't looked? Maybe ask somebody else. I know the exact number. I was about to look at Fight Matrix. but I have not looked at, I have not looked at. I have no idea of Fight Matrix has him at.

I'll read that after. Well, if they're like my rankings, they might have Patty Pimblit in the top 25. Where do you have him? Now I'm curious. They might have him at number 24.

Wow. Good guess, A.K. They do, in fact, have him in the top 25. They have him at exactly 25. Wow. So right underneath the likes of Brad Riddell, Marco, Mats, and those two guys ahead of them.

And then here's some sampling of some names below Patty Pimble. Usbander, Nervynumma Madoff, Clay Gwita, Nazrat Haparass, Terrence McKinney. So those are just a few names who are below Patty. A.K., do you think that's right? You give them higher or lower? Where are you going to? So the problem is by MMA math,

because I think pretty highly of Jared Gordon, he has to take Jared Gordon's number, or you bump Jared Gordon down a lot for losing the Patty, which I don't think, again, or we don't even think he lost to Patty necessarily. So depending how you do your rankings, you might not have put him above Jerry Gordon. I did. I thought, like, even though I did call to robbery in the official M.A fighting robbery review,

which, by the way, I respect. Great call. I know you don't hand those out willing-knowing and you don't hand those out often, so I very much appreciate. But regardless, I did respect the official decision as it was. So put him just above Jerry Gordon. You're a man of principle. I don't always do that, especially if it's a robbery.

but this one I was like, it's a bad call, but, you know, I'm fine with putting him a one spot above Jared Gordon. I should have dropped Jared. I should have dropped Jared. I said I was going to put him one spot above Jerry Gordon. And I should have dropped Jared Gordon in theory. But then again, because the fight was pretty competitive, I thought Jared Gordon did fine. It feels unfair to punish him for taking this loss. So I was just like, okay, the simple solution, M-May Math.

Patty takes his spot. Because Jared had some good wins. I mean, I thought Leonardo Santos, yeah, one foot out the door. but I thought that was a pretty solid win. So, you know, I have to, yeah, I think so, right? So then I, that kept him in the top 25 for me. Yeah, go ahead, dear. Can I ask, Sheen, you said, can you tell me the three people behind Patty in those rankings right now,

so name them again for me? I have it, Claudia Poyez, Terrence McKinney, and Jared Gordon. Would you pick, okay, take out Jared Gordon? I would for sure pick, Jared Gordon. Would you pick Claudia Poyez or, or Terrence McKinney to lose to Patty Pimble? No, Poyas, maybe. I would I would pick both of them to win I do believe that Patty can win those fights I think Terrence McKinney destroys Patty Pimbley I think that's I think that's the

most likely outcome but if Tance McKinney doesn't destroy him he will be dead at at the five minute mark and Patty for his many flaws he Homer Simpson basically yeah Patty for his many look Clay Gwita did it you know in last year or earlier this year, whenever the hell that stupid one was before this most recent one. Patty's got a lot of faults. Dude's tough. I could see him surviving round one, and then Terrence McKinney has nothing left to offer. These are some names in Patty's orbit that I actually think he could potentially beat.

Vince Pichel, I think. And Vinceville is pretty good. It's good. I just think Patty could beat him. Clay Guida. I would pick Patty to be Clay Gwita. I truly believe Clay Guida is the actual fight to make for Patty. We say that on the post-fight show, and ever since, that's all I've thought about that's the fight.

Realistically, the fight is Connor McGregor, but I do have some concerns that the frequency with which Jared Gordon landed a left hook means Patty might get decapitated if he fought Connor McGregor, but I still think that's the fight to make. But if they're not and they're still trying to build him, Clay Gwita's the one. He would be Clay Gwita. My best friend, Mike Heck, I'm getting way up in the rankings now because this was suggested on onto the next one. Did not hate this suggestion. We don't think this fight's happening because I think this guy is going to get the fight he wants. One of your favorite fighters, Jed, Michael Chandler. I hated it when I saw it.

No way. No way. I think Michael Chandler is annihilers. Patrick does suck. Patty Pimplet. Michael Chandler would destroy Patty. Yes, but Mike was saying that he sucks should be so. Not just that.

Mike was saying the UFC version of Chandler is a little bit like reckless and kind of wacky. Like if it was the Bellator, I'm just in it to win it every time version of Chandler. destroys Patty, destroys Patty 9, nine times out of 100. But this kind of, this version of Chandler, who's like, oh, I'm just in there to have fun and put on fun fights and fun on exciting fights. Like, you do feel like something stupid might happen.

I would never bet against Chandler in that fight, but I kind of see why people think that would be a fun one, I guess. No. Yeah, no. No. Michael Chandler just. People think that's a fun one because they want to see Patty get hurt. That's the answer.

Possibly. Yes, yes. Yeah, Michael Chandler. Michael Chandler. this weekend. You can, you can say a lot about Michael Chandler's UFC run and you can sit here and I've criticized him and said like his

zero strategy is coming back to Biden because he's going out there to have fun instead of actually going out there to win. But he did have moments with Justin Gachie. He did have moments with Dustin Porre. Neither of those guys would, Patty Pimlet would last as long as either one of those guys allowed him to stay in there with them. Dustin Porey and Justin Gachie would walk through.

Patty Pimbley. Michael Chandler, for all his faults, still hits like a truck. And Patty Pimblit, judging by his performances past weekend, has zero striking defense. Literally cannot block a punch, except with his head. He has a huge chin, though. He has a huge chin. Any of their punches getting past his head, Damon? Doing great out there.

If Michael Chandler, if Michael Chandler hits Patty Pimblet with one of his punches, his head will be, they'll find his head in Liverpool somewhere. Okay. That's how badly he got a really good chin, though. That is undeniable. Yeah. He gets hit a lot in his fights. He actually has a really, really good chin.

Roy Nelson had a good chin at once in a time, too. What happened when he fought Mark Hunt? I mean, that's what I'm saying. Eventually, your chin will get cracked. If that's your best defense, is you can take a punch. I want to tie one little thing on because I don't like to lie to the viewers. I did say I'd mention Fight Matrix. Patty is not ranked on Fight Matrix.com.

Very math-based ranking system here. So they have some pretty deep cuts in there, too. lot of guys outside the UFC. So pretty nice list. So I would tell people to check out that list. But I would imagine they only go up to 25. I would imagine Patty's not anywhere near the top of their 25. But I could be wrong.

He could be like hanging on the edge. But I don't think. 35 or something. 35ish. I probably outside of 10 there at top 30. I think he's probably 35. On Fight Matrix probably. Well, shifting gears a bit.

Let's talk about somebody who actually is affecting our rankings because their biggest rise and fall of the whole month actually came courtesy of the women's pound for pound ranks because you had Kayla Harrison out there. And she plummeted out of it. I think she was in the top nine. She dropped from nine all the way to 15. And really, she was just a sliver away from getting to 16. I think it was a one point difference between her and 16.

And of course, on the other side of that is the woman for whom third time was the charm, Larissa Pacheco. She vaults all the way up from 12 after being unranked. Jed, I'll go to you first, man. I mean, surprise, not surprised, overreaction, underreaction. Does all of this make sense? Like, where are you at with where we landed with these two? No, this is exactly what I expected when this happened.

It's, you can't not. Caleb Harrison, it's just a weird thing. Her whole situation is very odd. The eyes and the dominance mean we have to give her credit as one of the top, you know, 20 pound for pound fires in the sport, even if, I can't imagine what something like Fight Matrix, like has as far as a one pound rankings just because there can't be a good math product. to be like, yes, she's very good. She's beaten nobody except for now Pacheco.

But Pacheco is only somebody realistically because Pacheco then beat her. And it's just, it's just a hard, weird thing. You know that she's really good. She just doesn't have anybody to compete against. And now she's finally took an L, which really sets her back all the way. It's, I think I was the highest honor before this loss. I think I had her like three, something very, very high. and I dropped her way the hell down

because I couldn't be like, well, I can put Lewis a Pacheco at three and we can just make this work. It just didn't feel right. I settled on putting her at like 10, which still feels kind of right to me. Like you want to have her lower, you want to have her not ranked.

My only quibble with having her not ranked is you're starting to really put some bodies in your top 20 rankings, given that Bannumweight, as we just established earlier in the show, show is very close to a fake division featherweight obviously not a real division either so i i truly don't know what to do with her like i think loriceko is good and she looked really good and so i felt comfortable moving her up and into kind of a top 10 position i could be all the way wrong i have

no level of confidence on this so if somebody else feels more strongly convinced me and i'll make a move but I don't know, somewhere in the middle seemed about right. It's a tough one, man. I mean, it's really, and it had me thinking just generally because I feel like we've seen situations like this, right? Like, Damon, do you feel like, do you think there is an element almost that comes in these situations of waiting for someone to fail

to a certain degree with these types of figures? The fighters who aren't in the UFC who are over there feasting on like overmatched competition and for maybe for whom the mystery of what they could be, sort of eclipses the actual facts when you put resumes in front of her eyes. Like, is there an element of just all of us waiting to fail when it comes to the ranking element of this? 100%. And I'm guilty of it with Kayla Harrison. Listen, I still think Kayla is incredibly good fighter,

but I was ranking her based on potential more than reality. I mean, she hadn't beaten top competition. But when I looked at Kayla Harrison, the eye test told me she was really, really freaking good. Now, I don't think she's suddenly terrible. I'm not going to overreact and say she's not good anymore but um pacheco beating her the way she did and pacheco largely dominating the rounds that she won really showed me that maybe kela had some holes in her game that we had just hadn't seen exposed before and so yeah we're all guilty i mean i think to a large extent we could even argue that for chris cyborg for a huge part of her career i mean after she beat gina carano you know whatever that was like 13 years ago like she was fighting nobody but she was so dominant doing it

was so hard not to rank her. And we had to wait until she got into the UFC to really see her challenged and, you know, going to a decision and actually getting beaten by Amanda Nunes. We're like, oh, wow, okay, maybe there's competition out there that she wasn't quite ready for that she's not as good as. And I still think Chris Seidberg is an incredibly good fighter, but very similar situation. And because also Kayla, I think what also hurts this situation or what makes this one harder to rank is that, as I said earlier, Kayla fights in a weight class that doesn't.

exist. She fights it either featherweight or lightweight in women's. There's no women's lightweight division. There's really not a women's featherweight division. So it's harder to gauge how good or bad she is because we don't really have a metric. We don't have a measuring stick. Unlike, even as bad as Bantonweight is, at least we have a few established people like Holly Holm, like Kettlin Vieira, of course, like Amanda Nunes or Juliana Pena. We can say, okay, we kind of know how good you are based on a larger, you know, a large pool of a resume we can't say that with featherweight and lightweight so cyborg and kela harrison to a large extent of very similar because we just don't know and then when they lose

you know we're kind of like well here we go because we don't know what what else is out there and kala isn't say what what is kala what is kala going to do now kala's going to rematch larissa pacheco maybe she wins she's three and one against pacheco does that really tell us how good kela harrison is She meets Aspen Ladd. Does that really tell us how good Kayla Harrison is? She's in an impossibly tough situation. A.K., I see you're shaking your head over there. I was shaking your head over there.

I was shaking my head. There was something that I was shaking my head. Something that I was nodding my head, Shaheen. When Damon mentioned Cyborg, I had to chime in with a big yup because I was a big detractor of Cyborg's career for a long time. She seems like a nice person. Her fights were super exciting. I like the mystique around her, but I was always like, man, her, like, again,

featherweight is not plus, but I. maybe more so than women's lightweight, that's fine, but it's just not a great division. I think people, if they go up and down her record, there's some good names in there, some people I really respect, but fighters who, again, aren't necessarily 1-45ers.

Over time, I grew to respect her, especially since it's MMA, I don't care who you're fighting. If you're fighting at a relatively decent level and you're winning fights for like a decade, you're probably a pretty good fighter. So, you know, not my favorite, like, resume for a fighter to have, but eventually she had to get her flowers.

But I was very skeptical, and I felt the same thing with Kayla Harrison. who I never ranked highly. I had her 16 going into the third Pacheco fight, and now I've dropped her down to 18. So she never even cracked my top 15. I just wasn't convinced. Again, like Cyborg,

she probably eventually would have climbed up if she went undefeated for four years, five years, six years, she would have to really climb up the hard way or unless she dropped down a featherweight or if somehow lightweight got a bunch of new blood. So I didn't feel like vindicated or anything

when she lost to Pacheco. Like it wasn't that kind of, because I think most, was here spoken to Kayla. She sees a really nice lady. It's nothing personal against her at all. And she certainly is a talented fighter. But definitely I didn't think the quality of opposition was in her favor as far as ranking her, as far as judging her, her true abilities. So it was very much out of her power. Like Damon said, it's a difficult situation for her. She can only fight who she fights. But yeah, I was, you know, when Pacheco beat her, I was like, okay, this kind of, this makes sense

to me. It's not that shocking. Beating someone three times is actually really difficult. especially when it is a talented fighter like Pacheco. So yeah, I'm not happy to see, you know, Harrison fall down the rankings, but I feel like in a way this is just kind of has corrected itself. And by the way, I do want to say, Jed earlier, you said, you wish PFL had made a women's phantomweight division. I love it, not just for the talented person. I want Pacheco to drop back down to 135 because how happy would we be?

Like if she won a PFL tournament, just like ran through like, you know, two and oh in the season. ran to the tournament, I honestly would make her like the number two ranked like women's band. I would happily like put her above Julianna Pena. Like with with glee, I would do this. Right. How exciting. How fun would be there.

I'm tempted to do it anyway because she really is like she's not like she could, I think she could make 135 no problem. Again, we'd have to see it, I guess, but I think she kind of is a bantam weight. I almost want to put her in the bantam weight rankings. She's, when I spoke with her earlier this year, she is not a. small person. She's gotten big. I think if you look at her compared to previous season, she has pulled on.

She has clearly put on some, some muscle to do the lightweight thing. Yes. Obviously, she can make $1.45 no issue. I suspect she could still get down to $1.35, but I would like to see it before just going full rogue and just making her the number two band way in the world. PFL, women's 135 next season. Let's do this. Come on.

I can just hear the excitement from here. Last word on this, when it comes to Kayla Harrison. I mean, she was number nine before this. I think it's probably going to be a long road back to that sort of spot, even if she does beat Larissa Pacheco, right? Like, this is just, we have now seen her lose that oar of invincibility is not here anymore. Question for you, fellas, yes or no, is this the peak? Like, is that the peak?

Is Kayla Harrison ever going to be a top nine pound-for-pound fighter for the women's ranks for us again? Yes or no, Jed? I'll say yes. I'm like 50-50 on it. I do think if she goes and beats Pacheco in the rematch, I won't have any issue moving her back up pretty highly because we know MMA is MMA. We all did it for Mennon,

and I know that the circumstances are not entirely the same, but we all agreed to essentially say, look, sometimes MMA happens. And she came back and she dominated Juliana Pena. She's clearly the better of these two fighters, losses happen. It did docker. The loss ended up affirmatively putting

Shevchenko at number one and Nunes did not reclaim that spot. And so maybe I won't have Harrison as high as I previously did, but I think she can still move up pretty highly if she goes. And it's like, yeah, it was a thing. It's not a fluke in that, you know, it wasn't an accident happened, but it's not the reality of how this matchup goes or who I am as a fighter.

And she comes and chose that. That's cool. I have no idea if she can, though. I have real concerns about what I saw from her. Damon mentioned it. I'm fascinated to see how she rebounds from this, how she looks. A lot of times, fighters talk about losses being the thing that defines their career and makes them become,

you know, great. Maybe this is her. Maybe it's not. We're going to find out. And so I'm going to side with the upside and say, yes, she can go higher. Damon, Kayla Harrison ever get the top nine again? Yes or no? I'm going to say yes because I think she can beat Pacheco in a fight.

She's already done it twice before. And then just a winning streak because, again, unless she fights Cyborg, which I don't think she's ever going to fight Cyborg because I don't think Cyborg has any interest in fighting Cail Harrison, she can go through and win 10 more in a row. And just by default of how, you know, win streaks go and divisions go, she can make a climb back up. Will she ever get really high? not without fighting better competition.

She's going to have to fight Cyborg. She's got to fight Amanda Nunes. And I don't think that's going to happen because I think her value or stock went down dramatically. In terms of negotiating power, when she becomes a free agent again, I don't think the UFC was ever going to pay her a huge amount of money to come over and fight

in a division that doesn't exist where they already have Amanda Nunes fighting in a division that doesn't exist. So can she get there again? Yes, but it's mostly by default because if she beats Pacheco, again, who else is she going to fight? Who else has a legitimate chance of beating her in that division that doesn't exist?

So, yeah, she could rattle off 10 more in a row. And by default, she might get that top 10 again. What do you think, okay? Yeah, default is the right word. I'll go as far as, I'll go beyond could. I'm saying she will. She will make the top nine again. I'm the Prince of positivity, right?

She will make the top nine again. Default is the perfect word, Damon, not just because, like you said, who's going to fight her at Woon-25 that she can't be. besides Pacheco. I think she's just going to outlast some of these names. Like if we let's say it, let's say she continues competing regularly for the next two years. I think some of these names are eventually going to drop. So Amanda Nunes, I think is going to, I think she's going to outlast Amanda Nunes, even

if they never fight. I'm saying like Amanda Nunes will retire. Chris Cyborg, Carla Sparza. These are all names that are ahead of her in our rankings. Carla Sparza, Liz Karmouche, and Holly Holie home. So that's like five names that are ahead of her in the rankings. If she just keeps fighting, she's, there's names are probably going to return. hire and get out of her way. So yeah, I think she pretty, pretty is not easily. She has to

keep winning as Damon said like 10, like 10 wins in a row, just going another dominant streak. But she's more than capable of doing it. So yeah, she'll she'll make the top nine again. And man, maybe could even go go higher. I don't know, man. I don't know. I have a I, I, I feel like I need to zag where you guys are zinging because I just don't know at this point. I mean, she's 32 years old. She's made a lot of money. She's made more money than almost everyone else in the women's pound for pound ranks for the most part. And after this season, I mean, she's just not going to do the PFL season stuff anymore, right? So she's going to then do these one-off fights.

And as we said, who knows if the UFC's really going to pony up for them next time she's free agent. I just don't know how much longer she's going to be in this to really be able to work back and get that type of opposition like Damon said to make that move up. So here's how it happens, Sheen, and I think you'll even have to agree with this. She comes, she beats Bacheco, she fights Julia Budd or Aspen Lad. Cool. those wins or whatever. If the cyborg fight happens,

I still am picking her to beat Chris Cyborg. I might be wrong, but if the Cyborg fight happens end of next year or early 2024, Cyborg who is currently number four in our pound for pound rankings, if she goes and beats Pacheco gets another win, finally gets to fight Cyborg,

she is going to be top five if she beats Chris Cyborg. And I think that that is very possible. I just don't, I agree with Damon. I don't think that fight ever happens. No, I think Chris has no interest in making that happen. Oh, Chris, certainly has an interest.

And to be fair, and I've said this, I've said this on my show before and I'll be honest. I don't think Chris has any reason to fight Cale Harrison. What does she gain at this point in her career? Like, she's doing the boxing thing. She's going to go out there and fight Casigano. I mean, Chris is, Chris is tailing towards the end of her career. She gets nothing from fighting Kayla Harrison, honestly. Like, she's not.

It would be a fun fight as opposed to the last four years of her career. No. She's been an unwatchable, terrible garbage. She's doing the boxing thing now. She clearly wants a Katie Taylor, like Big Payday. There's genuinely one fight in all of MMA that would do anything to help Chris Cyborg's legacy whatsoever. And that's the Amanda News fight. And she's just not going to get that anytime soon.

So, yeah, I don't know. It's a weird situation. How about her versus Harrison in boxing? Social gloves seven main event? Oh, my God. I would pick Cyborg in that. I would pick Cyborg in that. also.

Well, let's move on, fellas. We've gone long already. The last thing we have for you guys here today. You know, Jed, you're a betting man. You've been known to dabble a bit. Love, love to wager recklessly and foolishly. Huge fan of it. You've got to indoctrinated AK into this dark, seedy world of yours a little bit, too.

None of more. Thanks, Ontario. Yeah, Canada ruined all of my good work. Thanks, James Cross. Thanks, James Krause. Derek Minter. but so fellas this is a little something AK has cooked up for us we're going to do a little future wagering here today if everything was riding on it we're going to throw out some names and you're going to

just tell me who you think is going to have the better run from this point on so just who has the brighter future ahead however you want to frame that and so we just have three different three different little questions we're going to throw out here and let's start here with a gentleman who just fought this past weekend. I don't know if you know, but he is the youngest UFC fighter of all time. He's also the youngest fighter to win a UFC fight, 18-year-old Ralph Roses Jr., which is, by the way, you are mandatorily required to call him 18-year-old Ralph Roses Jr.

That's how this goes. Him, 1-0 in the UFC, or Bo Nickel, who right now seemingly the best prospect in all of M.A. You have both of these gentlemen. One has a lot more ahead of him than the other, most likely. If you have to put a future bet on one of these two, A.K., who you take it? Is this just like who has a better career, I guess, however you, however we could judge? I'm not just like who makes more money or who's going to win more championships.

Just who has a better career overall? This is your game, A.K., however you wanted to frame it. I was trying to sound like it wasn't my game, but it was. I'm going to go, maybe I get recency bias. We just saw the man perform. Oh, my God. You're not about to do this. Raoul Rosas.

Junior. I also just wanted to show my excellent pronunciation of the young man's name. The rolling of the R's was just peak. Thank you. Thank you. Listen, Bantamweight is super deep. I get it.

I get it. The path for Bownickle to win a title. I mean, theoretically, theoretically, Bo Nicle could win it. Two other panelists have their head in their hands right now. Let them. Let them. Theoretically, Bo Nicle could walk into the Octagon tomorrow and fight Alex Pareda and beat him. I understand this.

I understand this. But I also don't know if like I think Bonickle He'll have a great career I have a feeling he won't fight for that long I think because I think when you like he'll get to the top pretty quickly I don't think he'll fight for long I think with Rosess I think I have feeling for better for worse

He's a young man who's getting into the game very early I think we're going to see him around for a long time Now does that run include a bantamweight title I'm not sure it's way too early to tell He just beat Jay Perrin who is a warm body experience guy, but someone that Roses was set up to beat. And it's fine. And he took care of business.

That's exactly what you want to see in a UFC debut like that. But I do think, I think he has the mentality. I think he has the skills from what we've seen. He's going to grow. He's going to grow into a featherweight. So we're not even talking about bantam weight, talking about featherweight, which is also a very deep division. But I think he could have a really, really long lucrative career.

And even without winning a UFC title, we could be saying that he has a better career than Bo Nicol. Just through longevity, just through the kind of fights you might end up having. Because again, I think Bo Nicol, even if he wins a title within his first two years of the UFC, I don't know. He just seems like he would win. And then he's like, okay, well, I've, you know, I've achieved this. I'm not going to stick around.

Get my brain busted open. So that's, I'm giving points for longevity to the young man if he, if he fights for like 10, 12 years in the UFC. I think my head might pop off here in a second. Even, even, do you might have I, do you might if I jump in here? Do you mind if I jump in here? Is that okay? Go for it, okay.

Okay, so first off, let me say, AK, I love you, like a brother. Thank you. But you are so incredibly wrong that I feel like

I need to drive to Canada and, like, hit you upside the head. That's a good nasty turn. That's a nasty turn. Boe Nickel is the right answer and the only answer for any number of reasons.

But let me just start here with Roe Rosa Jr. And I like the kid. I don't know him, but he's a fun kid to watch. and, you know, I appreciate this. Did you see the list they put out on Saturday night with the youngest fighters ever

and they had him. No, but this is awesome. And Dan Lowe's on. And like every fighter on the list with Chase Super. Every fighter on the list with the exception of Vitor Belfort who fought when he was 19, flamed out hard after getting the UFC.

You do fighting at 18 typically, unless you're like one of the lead children over in one championship, rarely works out for you, okay? Anyone who starts fighting like 16, 17, 18 generally flames out and has a really bad run because it is really, really hard to go through a fighting career and start that young. Most successful fighters do not start at 16, 17, 18, 18 years old. Has it been done?

Yes, very rare. And especially in this level, when you start fighting the UFC at 18, 19 years old, they generally flame out badly after a couple of years, okay? you don't give them time to develop because you keep winning, you're going to fight better competition. It happened really early to Sage Northcut. It happened to Dan Lozon. It happened to a lot of people when you start fighting 1819 in the UFC.

That on top of all that, that's not even talking about the actual right answer, which is Bo Nickel, who is a freaking multi-time NCAA champion wrestler. He has a far better pedigree than Rowell Rosa Jr. I'm sorry, Raul Roses Jr. You do not have the pedigree of Bo Nickel who is a freaking stud at Penn State. the best wrestling program. Shots to I and M.A. F, whatever the amateur amateur.

Sorry, sorry. Sorry for you guys, but you're not, the Penn State wrestling room is far better than anything the Roososius Jr. has seen in his entire mixed, in his entire martial arts career. Bo Nickel is a monster. And I, listen, I took a lot of flack when I said the Bo Nickel would beat Israel out of Sonia. I understand why I took a lot of flack for that. But the reality is, is we can look at the time.

top 15 in the middleweight division right now and I guarantee you there are fights this entire panel would pick bow nickel to be favored in okay some fight I'm not saying all them saying there's at least one fight in the top 15 of the middleweight division right now the bo nickel would be favored to win in right now we don't know what rule roses is going to be he's one and oh over a guy who is oh and two in the ufc we don't know bow nickel I unless there's like a like a you know just an absolute disaster. Bo Nickel is going to be a title contender in some shame form or fashion

in his UFC career. And I believe he'll be a champion. Roe Roses is 18. Roe Roses, I have no idea what this kid's going to be. He may not be in the UFC in a year from now. That's how the Chase Hooper. Remember when Chase Hooper?

Everyone was so high on Chase Hooper. Oh my God, Chase Hooper? So fun. What happened the last time Chase Hooper went out there and fought? He got his head knocked in the middle of the third row, okay? Slow down on. crowning any 18 year old kid as being the future of the sport. Bo Nickel is the answer.

He's the only answer. And I'm just, I'm sick in that I even have to say that. Damon, I just love that you're, we, we are the hypothetical. There's at least one fight in the middleweight division that everyone here

would pick. And it's like, yeah, the champion. The champion. We would all pick Bo, Bo Nicol to be the champion. Well,

and I guess Darren Till is probably still, you know, topish ranked. And I assume we'd all pick him to dare and till to lose as well. Yeah, I don't need to pile on here. Damon really outlined it all. My big point was just going to be the UFC is really, really bad at developing prospects. Like, they're super, super bad at it.

As Damon pointed out with that, the fun thing about Vitor, he was 1940 years ago. So not the same ownership, you know, not the same, not the same coming into the game. Fighters were a lot less good. And like, also a lot of, a lot of. Chemicals running through the blood of that 19-year-old back in the day. Yeah. Those hands are so fast. You know, it's, I have tried really pointedly not to crap on the 18-year-old child because he's an 18-year-old child.

And we don't know what he's going to be. But I, he, at this point, even like, if you take his age out of it and we're just like, what's he as a prospect, he does not strike me as like a super impressive Banimway prospect. I think Featherweight is certainly his future. And then when you factor into the age, a lot of people extrapolate that out in like a really positive way. Progression in this, especially in this sport, super not linear.

Literally the entire history of the sport has just proved. It's not, oh, we'll give that guy six months sprawl training and he'll be great. Like people develop in different rates, different times, in five years. He also is 18, so he might wake up tomorrow and be like, I don't really want to fight.

I'd like to be a carpenter or whatever he wants to do. Like any of that can happen. And while you, AK, point out, and I don't even necessarily agree with you or disagree with you, the Bo Nickle might not fight that long. Where you really and truly lost me was when you said, sure, maybe Bo Nekle, you know, fights with the belt, wins the belt, and then retires two years later, whereas Raoul Roses Jr. stays in for 15 years. That's it.

If you win the belt, your career is better, unless the other guy is in longer and wins the belt. Like, I don't give two craps that Clay Gwita has been fighting in the UFC for 27 years. He is not, does not have a better career than Habib. That is just not. Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar has a better career than Clay Gwita. What about Donald, Donald Seroni? Nate Dia, I mean, compared to Brock, like, Donald Soroni, Nate Diaz.

I still think both of them do not have. have as good a career because they didn't win the belt and they made much money even has a defense of the belt by by the way very good defense over a very quality of the ones the Shane Carwin Shane Carlin yeah I thought he defended yeah I don't know too no he beat Frank Mere which was a unification right I thought that he won the belt again no he wanted it's Randy he did so you're right unification he has two title defenses and he made a lot of money boom yeah like it's if there is a way you could skew it where if like if Alex Pereira over

retire literally tomorrow, then maybe I take Donald Seroni's career over Alex Pereira. I have to think about it. I'm not like, lock certain. So yeah, no. Belts are props. The only answer. Belts are proff. What does that even mean?

What does that even mean? Through the belt. But we all universally recognized him as the best guy in the division because the rankings will show that Bo Nican will be number one. And I'm not sure Raoul Roses Jr. will ever even be ranked. This is coming from, by the way. I was going to say, this is coming from the same people who've been telling me Muhammad is going to be a two division champion.

Aaron Blanchfield is for sure going to fight. I don't know how those correlates. I believe, I'm just saying. You've been very true. Oh, I agree. No, but I'm just saying, it has been thrown in my face that like when I have said the same thing like, oh, this person's 20 years old, this person is 19 years old. We don't even know if they're going on to fight an Emmy tomorrow.

I have brought this up before. And now you're using my own logic against me. How dare you, Jen Bresue, how dare you? I also think both of those fighters are. are way better. Yeah. The answer is Bo-Nickle. Jane, why did you let me create this question?

This is your game. Why did you let me do this? You let me, you could have told me in our own one-on-one conversation. Your other ones, your other questions in this game are way more compelling. I stand by this one. So let's move on to the second one,

which to me is a much more interesting debate. We're moving to the heavyweight division. The man who just got one of the biggest wins sort of of the of the cycle as we said sergey pavlovich five at o in the ufc since his debut lost alice over him he is now number four in the world who's going to have a better future him or curtis blades the forgotten man in this division 12 and three in the ufc his only losses to the champ and derrick lewis he's number three in the world damon if you had to put your money on one of these two gentlemen who's having the better run from this moment on it kind of in a way it breaks

hard to say this because you will not meet a bigger Curtis Blades fan than myself. I love Curtis. I absolutely adore that guy. And I think he, not only is an incredibly nice dude, he's a super badass fighter. And I love wrestlers. I think that's been made, you know, abundantly clear. He is the best wrestler in this division. But I got to go with Sergey because Sergey has the kind of fight changing power that can knock anybody out. And he's actually a pretty skilled guy on top of that. Like when you watch the fight with Tai Tuva, Tuvaasa does what Tuvisa does. He leaned back and sort of winging big punches. And that's what caught Derek Lewis.

That's what caught Cyril Gone. When Cyril Gone got a little overconfident, Ty Tuvisa nearly had him hurt in that fight. Sergei actually like stopped throwing for a minute, let Ty kind of go crazy. And then he went back in for more. Now, I know the fight lasted, you know, 54 seconds. But if you watch it, Sergey actually showed some smarts. He didn't just let Ty Tuivasa tee off on it. him like tie has done to so many other people.

Sergei has one punch knockout power and let's be honest, this is a one punch knockout power division. Also working against Curtis, Francis and Gano is the champion and he has two lopsided wins over Curtis Blade, so that also hurts him a lot. He's not going to get a third fight with Francis unless there's literally just no other options out there for Francis and Gano. And a guy like John Jones, I think Curtis Blades has an interesting style for a guy like John Jones as a wrestler, but to be to John Jones, I think, you know, the biggest thing that

John Jones is going to face it heavyweight is the guys with that one punch knockout power. That's why I think Francis and Gano could potentially beat him. That's why Sergey Pabalich could potentially be to John Jones because it only takes one, one glancing wrong shot and you're done. And I think Sergey has that kind of power. And I think he could beat Cyril Ghan. I think he could beat Curtis Blades. I don't know that he'll be in Ganoe, but he could.

So I got to go with Sergey Pavlovich. It has to be Pavlovich. It has to be Pavlovich. I mean... Does it? It has to be? Oh, I'll play the devil's adjective. You don't know.

It has to be. It has to be. Okay. Listen, this guy's an 18 year. Oh, sorry, we're moving on from the... We're moving off the Roses thing. If if Sergey Pablovich was 18, I would agree. I would say it has to be him.

I would also question what the hell they're feeding that man. I'm genuinely shocked to hear you say that it has to be him. Because that to me feels very... I just... Jumping on the first. flavor the month type of opinion from you. Well, I don't know if you heard about my answer to the last question, but I'm kind of in that kind of in that mood right now, Shane.

Yeah, I, the Blades is, is, you should, you right, you should benefit from having the more established track record with the company. But M.M.A. is such a what have you done for me lately business that, like, his longevity, in this case, actually, like, works against him. Like, the UFC, I think, takes a guy like this for granted. Which is not to say that he's not going to win a lot more fights, that, you know, they'll put guys in front of him and he can beat them. He's going to stay top five for a long time.

But Damon made a great point. The two friends in Ganoo fights. And again, Angano may not be champion for longer. Like, we don't know what's going to happen with the contract thing. Is he going to get the John Jones fight? Maybe he loses John Jones. That completely opens the door for Curtis Blaze to get a title fight. But there's a lot of ifs there.

With Sergei, I feel like it doesn't matter. I feel like if Inganu is the champion, he can get that fight. If John Jones is a champion, that could happen eventually. It's just, he's so fresh. He's so fresh. He's so exciting. He's so intriguing. I'm just speaking from the matchmaker's perspective.

they just don't see a ceiling with this guy with a guy like for now for now i mean that's going to last six months right for a guy like blades again they i think they feel like oh well we know what we have with him and i think they really don't necessarily appreciate him i like blades too he just seems like a really good dude and um i think he's underrated as far as being fun to watch i actually enjoy watching a fight i mean there's been a couple of whatever a wrestle heavy fights in there it's fine that's that's that's m mhm that's how happens when you mix the martial arts sometimes but um he just has always been missing i don't know what it is about him that X factor that the UFC likes to see when they're really going to get behind someone and push them

and give them the big opportunities. And unfortunately, the times that he has gotten the big opportunities, he's falling a little bit short. So the same could happen to Sergey, but again, I'm speaking from the matchmaking's perspective from the perspective of like, oh, the unknown, we don't know what we have with him. So that potential is so exciting to me. So I'm going with potential. Second question in a row. And I'm surprised.

I'm surprised to hear this from both of you guys because I think, Jed, it feels like you're sort of coming from the same place as me. me. Curtis Blades. I'm on Blades. Yeah. Curtis Blades is still 31 years old. He's still very fresh in this heavyweight division despite how much mileage he has in the UFC. He's got 10 years left at least. Doesn't take a ton of damage outside of the few fights that he's lost. And if we're being real, he is a nightmare matchup for every single person in this division not named Francis and Gano, including John Jones. I actually also think he's a really bad matchup for Francis. I know Francis is beating him twice.

That was four years ago, the most recent one. Like 2018, yeah. Yeah, almost five. Yeah, I'm with you, Sean. Like, I don't feel like all the way confident because I haven't ever seen Taitu Vasa get melted before. So like maybe Sergey has like the Francis touch where he just hit you. But we also saw what the Francis touch. like you have to have something else behind it eventually somebody can take the shot and then it's

what's what's plan B what's plan C Curtis blades might be the best heavy weight in the world my only my honestly my biggest trepidation with this is that sergey has a much easier path to success that's fair because the UFC ain't going to do Curtis no favors they haven't been for years and they are it is like we're suddenly going to get on the Curtis Pades bandwagon and push him to the moon. If he ever slips up, he has to win like six more to get back there. Whereas Sergey just ether's a couple of dude, like, Gires, your new Rosenstrike gets his head blown off and Sergey's back into title conversation. So it's my only trepidation.

But I honestly think Curtis might just be the best heavy weight in the world. So he's, I have to pick him on the principle of it. That's sort of where I'm coming for because like there, there are certain situations where opportunity doesn't necessarily put you ahead, like all the way ahead in a conversation like this, right? Because maybe Sergey Pavlach, he probably will get opportunity sooner than Curtis Blades will. He is the new hot thing and he's melted fools left and right. When he gets that opportunity, if he doesn't take advantage of it and he ends up losing,

I mean, Curtis Blades can play the waiting game. He's young enough and fresh enough to be able to play the waiting game and just outlast a lot of these heavyweights. And at some point, he will get a chance. And I, again, I just, I would favor Curtis over. almost everybody in this division in a fist fight. It's here's the thing. As I said when I gave my answer, I love Curtis Blaze.

I think he's a monster. I just think I just think circumstances are working against him because he has the two losses to Francis. He's a little bit in like the Daniel Cormier John Jones situation where John Jones was the champion and Daniel was clearly the number two guy in the world. He just couldn't be John Jones. And I think that's kind of where Curtis is where I'd not say he can't beat Francis. I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying they have fought twice and he has two losses to him. So he's stuck in a situation and you and I, all of us know, the UFC, as we've said, is not going to do him any favors.

They're not going to give him Francis in a third fight. They're just not. So, you know, he's just got a harder path. I actively, I have for a long time

thought that that was the case. I think it is, it is not so much that he has two losses to Francis that is the blocker. It's that he's Curtis blades and they don't want him to be their champion.

champion. Well, yeah, I mean, that's, you're not wrong, but I'm saying like, yeah, that's the thing. Eventually you just win enough. And I think Curtis is going to do that. But he also had, like I said, the one, like I thought for sure Curtis was the guy. And then Derek Lewis caught him with that uppercut. And I'm like, ah, man. And like I said, that's the scary thing about heavyweight.

And that's why I said, like, I'm just worried that like with the UFC kind of actively working against him and two losses to the current champion, it's just a tougher path for Curtis. I don't think it's right. I just think that's the reality. I also have some real concerns about Pavlovich. Just like, he came out of nowhere and people like that, maybe this is like the new dynamic or maybe Ty came out of nowhere this past year.

And then he just got Etherd. Like, Sergey might just be Giorzina Rosenzschei. He might just be the exact same guy. Yeah. Yeah. You're not wrong. All right, fellas. Well, last one.

And we'll be brief on this one because I think we hit this topic earlier in the year. but obviously all of these guys have fought since then, and the question has gotten a little more intriguing when we bring them up. The featherweight division, Jed, you and I have been on this, banging this drum for a while now, but the young up-and-comers in this featherweight division are monstrous, and they're growing more monstrous by the day,

and we already hit Iliot Teporia. He is one of these. Also will throw Arnold Allen and Mosevar Evloy of in there, too. Ilya Teporea 5 in the UFC, his best win, Bryce Mitchell, Arnold Allen, 10 and O in the UFC, see his best wins. Calvicator, Dan Hooker, Sadiq, Yusif, really, whichever one you want to throw in there. And then, have Loya, his best win, Dan, he get his 6-0 in the UFC.

If you have a futures bet right now, gentlemen, which of these three are you thrown in there? Let's start with you, A.K. Listen, who have I saw, all these answers? Who did I see fight more recently? All right, this is how I work. Who did I see? I got the memory of a goldfish. You've also picked the youngest guy in all of these, too.

I did pick the youngest guy. I've been, I hope I'm not getting reputation on this show for being ages because I've been doing a lot of like picking against older fighters and in fights and anyway. But no, I mean, Tuporia, I think he's a total package. I mean, listen, we saw, I think we all saw this. I think after like a second fight where I like, well, this guy just looks like a world title contender. And there's the issue making way, he has to go to the lightweight.

It takes kind of a meaningless but super fun fight. It turned out to be a super fun fight with Jai Herbert. And he just has, I need to see like an A plus skill when I see a fighter. Now, I mean, now you can, you can get a, I think that you can be. become a champion on an a plus skill. I would argue, and this guy is just being by becoming champion has broken so many rules. Leon Edwards doesn't have like a super a plus skill. Maybe those people say is striking.

I don't think he's like an a plus elite super striker. But he mixed the martial arts well. Boring the pants off of me. Okay. That's let's be nice. Deporia, I consider to be, I think he has a plus power. I think the grappling is legit. Like I think, and I need to see that.

That's why I put him over above. And I swear I don't hate Arnold Allen. It's just, I don't know. I don't know. I've never been on the bandway. Again, the guy has been an incredible win streak. I just feel like the huge moments have been few and far between. It's unfortunate he didn't get to show up a little more against Cater because that could have been a really nice, you know, performance. If the injury hadn't happened, as it is, we didn't quite get to see that big, big, big, big, big step up that I wanted to see.

So, I mean, the guy doesn't lose, but I feel like if he fought Teporia, I'd pick Tuporia. And I think Tepore is on his way to a world title shot in sometime in 2023. So I got and a long, long successful career in the UFC or whatever other promotion he ends up with. So I got to go with, uh, with Ilya. My man, AK. You already know I'm with Ilya as well. Damon, Jed, you guys. Arnold Allen for me.

Um, and that's with some trepidation, mainly because Ilya is 25. And so I think the, I think Arnold Allen is pretty close to a finished product. I love the product. And I think that it's reasonable. Like, he may be the best. featherweight in the world you can't pick anybody against you know the champ at this point but i would love to see on it all in fight alexander volkenovsky i think that fight is incredibly compelling i i think tippurie is going to challenge for a belt at some point in the future and again he still

has more development to go given his age but i honor down has done nothing but impress me he hasn't lost in like forever. So, and he's had some unfortunate turn of events for him, but I thought he should have been the guy in the interim title fight. I would have absolutely picked him to beat either dude. Did he either a year or him for the interim belt? And I'm, I'm going to keep sticking with him because I,

he has very few flaws outside of the fact that he is not a compelling person on the microphone. So give me all at Alan to put a close second. I love Mobstar. I love. Still think he's great. He probably gets in the title conversation too, but we're talking about two dudes. I am extremely confident fight for the belt.

And then Evelev, who's a little less so. I'm going to, I'm going to switch it up here. And I'm going to say the right answer is probably I'll get to Poria. He's a monster. My one concern with him, he showed a little bit in the Bryce Mitchell fight in the second round. I do worry a little bit about his conditioning because he throws so much into everything he does. What happens if it goes in around four and round five? because I do I do question that so my answer as my and I'm super high on support let me be honest about

like he's he's he's the dude but I'm going to go with Eve love I go with the wrestler I think he's got that one skill you talk about that a plus skill he's got that his brother is a gold medalist in in wrestling he's a phenomenal wrestler he's just had injuries and things like that have kind of slowed him down he had a big fight scheduled obviously and they fell out of a due to injury so I think Eve is a is a monster and I think he's got the one skill and the determination to use that one skill. Like Josh Emmett is actually a pretty good wrestler. He just never uses his wrestling. Ebleweb is not that dude.

He's going to go out and wrestle you. He's going to go out and make you work for 15 minutes or 25 minutes. And I think that's a skill set that makes him a dangerous guy. For me, Arnold Allen, Arnold Allen is to me what Leon Edwards is to Jed. I'm not sold on Arnold Allen. I think he's a pretty boring fighter. He had one exciting fight. And that was a future champion.

Got it. He had one, he had one, one exciting fight, and that's it. And I'm just not sold on him. I've never been sold on him. I think that I just don't think he's ever going to beat him. I don't think he'll beat him. I'll be an Alexander Wilkenovsky. And again, he's already on like a 12-fight win streak, and he can't even get an interim title shot.

So, uh, I'm going to go with Evelab, even though I, I kind of agree. I think Tepore is probably the right answer. But, you know, I'll go to Evalev to kind of stick something different in there. But by the way, I love what we all just. stayed true to form. I picked on Allen Allen because I've been been wrapping him for years.

Shaheen picks Tupori, I've been reping him for years, AK goes against the old people because he hates old people. Oh, come on. Damon picks the wrestler. So we all just stayed right on our brands. By the way,

well, we're consistent. That's what people come down in May fighting for. By the way, I would pick any three of these guys, Evalue of Allen or Tuporea to beat Yari Rodriguez or Josh Emmett. I agree. Yeah.

I agree with that. And that's why that to me is why this division is so good. now like I love this division is Toporia yaya is a really good fight that's a fun fight I think I picked deporia still but I could see you're taking that one tarot island I want to see to poria and Arnold Allen

that's the fight I want I'd watch that fight too I would pick on it on to win that fight now a couple years maybe that's different the fact that we were able to have that discussion and all three of us pick different or all four of us all four of us like end up picking the three different people like that just speaks to how ridiculous the next generation here is at 145. Let's do this at lightweight. They're like six of them.

I love it. I absolutely love it. Well, that is all the time we have here today. We went a little long for you guys today. But we appreciate you as always. Keep it locked to the MMA Fighting Podcast Network. Usually the ranking show. We only do one of these a month pay-per-view to pay-per-view.

You know the cycle. But it's the holiday season. And we're feeling a little more generous. And actually, my favorite show, one of the shows that I look forward to the most the whole entire year. We're going to do a little bonus episode later this year or later this month. I should say we're going to have the second annual airing of grievances. It's tremendous show. These of people have been holding on to some issues. We're going to get we're going to work through it. So look forward to that towards the end

of the month in the meantime. We appreciate you guys so much for joining us. Thank you Jed. Thank you, Damon. As always for A.K. Lee. My name is Sean O'Shaunee. This is the MMA Fighting Ranking Show. Keep it locked to the MMA Fighting Podcast Network. It's a great network. And we love you guys. We see you soon. Love you guys. Josh, Annas, 37 years old.

Josh Emmett is ancient. Josh Emmett is. I'm definitely not looking at him. Yeah, we know. Because of other reasons, not just because he's 37. We tell him, okay. You know, we're thinking about what a streamer for a while on top. It's going to be quite certain.

I did ask you. I did ask you.