MMA Fighting - Rankings Show: The Best (And Worst) International Fight Weeks Draft + 3 FWs Most Likely To Dethrone Volk, More

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

The dust has settled on another chaotic International Fight Week, but where does UFC 290 rank among the greatest pay-per-views in IFW history? Shaun Al-Shatti, Jed Meshew, and Damon Martin reflect on the stunning rise of Dricus Du Plessis around (7:55), rank their three most likely men to end Alexander Volkanovski's featherweight reign around (15:30), fantasy draft the best (and worst) IFW cards of all-time around (36:26), and pour one for three fan-favorite fallen comrades who tumbled out of MMA Fighting's global rankings in this latest rankings cycle around (1:17:25). Follow Shaun Al-Shatti @ShaunAlShatti Follow Damon Martin @DamonMartin Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser 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 Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster,

the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two,

Ghosts in the Machine, available now, only from Audible. Podcast Network. What is up, my friends? Oh my goodness, we are back. What a time to be alive. I hope all of you out there just having the best day.

This is the MMA Fighting Ranking Show. we're back after a little hiatus, and we appreciate y'all for joining us. My name is Sean O'Shti. We are here in that post-paper views Hayes. A three-man panel today, the Prince of Positivity, my co-host, Alexander Cayley. He is on a well-earned vacation. It's out there in Japan. So my two good pals, Jed Mishu, Damon Martin, they are here and they promise to be the most

positive versions of themselves today to make up for that difference. How are we doing, fellas? What's going on today? I'm doing really well. I could be perfect, but I have a bone to pick with you, Shaheen. We'll get to that in just a moment,

though. David, how you doing? I'm good. Before Alex, before A.K. left, did you hear my new nickname for him?

I was very proud of my nickname for him when he went on vacation. I called him vacay instead of A.k. I said, vacay. Yeah, very proud of myself for that one. Very proud of myself for that one. Well done,

sir. Well done. laid on me, Jedd, what's up? You're already throwing the challenge out. I'm here for it. Look, so maybe this bone is with AK, but he is not here, so you're going to take the full brunt of this. I tweeted this out, so loyal followers of me on social media are aware. I have a great issue with our current pound for pound rankings because it says erroneously,

erroneously, that Islamakov has two votes as the number one pound for pound fighter in the world. and that's just not correct. I am one of the people who has been attributed to giving him the top pound for pound vote. I did no such thing this ranking cycle. I did the only thing that is just and fair and reasonable in this world. And I ranked Robert Glenn Lawler

as the number one pound for pound fighter in the world. And I come to find out, I submit our vote, the very secure submission of votes that we use high-end tech here. Somebody changed things around. That was thrown out. and everyone bumped up on my list. So, AK's not here to speak for himself.

You are the other keeper of the keys. I blame you entirely for this. Look, let me just say, there is no bigger fan of Bob Violence than me. Robert, as we can call him, I feel like we're all pals here. We can call him Robert. I think we can call him Robert. Robert earned that number one spot.

And I'm actually on your side, Jed. I have no defense. of A.K. The tyranny of Alexander K. Lee, I'm glad it's finally out here in the open. We've sort of been suffering in silence about this, but I'm glad that people now can see what this man has done to us. Because, hey, I think you're right. I have no quibbles and qualms with what you're saying to me. So we're clear, if you would go look at our site, what it should say to accurately reflect is that Robbie Lawler got one first place vote and that he slots in tied for 18th along with Sergio and Brandon Moreno at 25 points.

Because none of the rest of you did it, so it had just been me, but he should be right there firmly entrenched in the top 20 pound-for-pound fighters on his retirement. And it's not, and it is one man's fault, but he's not here, so you must answer for him. It's okay. Alexander K. Lee, I know you are listening to this right now.

I see you out there in Japan. Jets coming for you, man. Jets coming for you. The tyranny must end here. Today we are making a stand. I'll tell you what, Jed, on our unofficial list, Robby Law, there's number one for all of us in our hearts. Number one in the hearts for sure, just undeniably.

And when you go out like that, don't you deserve to be fetid? Do you not deserve a coronation? That's what I thought. No one else agreed. And AK is a tyrant. So I just wanted everybody to know that before we get into the meat and potatoes of the rest of this podcast. I will say, I do think there's some sort of rule maybe that we have written down about

retired fires get taken out of the list. And if he's retired, which we called it the most perfect enemy retired. retirement ever, you know. You gotta give a big thing about it. This is the best of MMA retirement we've ever seen. He's very retired. He's crying in the cage. It feels like he's probably gone.

So I don't know. I feel like the retirement rules might have to change anyways because I don't know that I can rank anyone like Amanda Nunes should have just stayed number one because. Oh, geez. I tried to do that, Damon. I in fact tried to do it. And again, the tyrant vacay Lee was like, no. Vacayee.

We will not allow this. That was very smooth. with the way you slipped the vacantly in there. Also, you, that's actually factually incorrect. You didn't rank Amanda number one. You ranked her number one, number two, number three. Stand by it. Spot the lie, people.

That's fair, actually. That's a fair ranking, I must say. Yeah, that was the one where I was that, that was the one retirement where I was like, do we really need to remove her? Can we just leave her in there for, I don't know, a year, maybe two? Frankly, we're probably pretty lucky right now that AK's not here

because somehow this show would turn into two hours. of women's bantam weight talk because I'll tell you that division right now doesn't make any sense look at the rankings there's first place folks everywhere half the people on our panel have just written above the division burn it to the ground and all bold it's just well over half at this point actually I'm glad I started that trend I'm really excited because I'm telling you this now people we won't be doing a podcast after this upcoming week's events which is insane we have two vacant titles on the line, the women's band-of-weight, vacant belts on the line. I will be ranking

the winner of Holly Holm-Vosalma versus my Breonna Silva is the number one women's band-a-weight in the world, and you all can't stop me. I already got ahead of you. I already put Hollyholm home number one, so I don't even want to hear the argument right now. She's already my number one Bansomweigh, boys. I don't even have an argument about it.

I'm trying, I literally don't care. I'm just saying, you know, when you're, you know, when your former champion has not a single win over any current rostered UFC fighter. I cannot put you in. I mean, I don't know. It's just, I don't know.

Sorry, Giuliana Pena, but you know, you have zero wins over anyone currently on the UFC roster. I can't put you number one. I put Pennington because of that and because, you know,

she's won a bunch, but like, I don't feel great about it. So the winner of this fight gets to be the uncrowned champ as far as I'm concerned. I don't know how we do it. Somehow we always just get the women's band to wait.

And we did it right off the bat. At least we just got it. It's the funniest division in the sport. It's the best. I think the real question here. And so, you know, this is a ranking show ostensibly. So we rank things. I think the real question here, the people need to know,

where does your DDP pick over Robert Whitaker rank on your all-time, hot take, dart throws? And how long do you intend to take this victory lap? Because inquiring minds are curious. It's number two. I mean, number one has to be picking Giuliana Pena to upset Amanda Nunes. Because I think there was like actual. one other person in the world who picked that to happen.

And in absolute transparency, that was a joke pick. I did it on BTL as a joke and then just stuck with it because it was funny. And then it happened. And so that was hilarious. DDP was kind of a joke, but I also just wanted it to happen. And like, that was more of a willing into existence type of thing.

Yeah, you manifest the reality you want. And so while like my logical brain was that, I probably can't really do it. but why not? He's been beating a lot of people by doing weird drickus things. He could probably do that to Whitaker. Let's go.

I didn't think it was going to look like that. I didn't think it would frankly be so easy. Toss him around like a sack of potato. Ran through him like he was sort of nothing, which is shocking. But the thing is it's hard. I'm less dining out on the pick, which is great.

I am more excited that all of you were wrong, not about picking DDP to win, but about saying we don't want the DDP-Izzy fight. Because after the Derek Brunson thing, I was very hard on the corner of, don't make him fight Whitaker, this is the matchup, just do this title fight,

and everybody was like, no, this is terrible, like, we don't want to do it because it's going to be icky. No, everybody's like into it.

That was not the argument because I was on that corner of we're not ready for it. A, it wasn't time for it. He didn't really have the momentum yet and B, the Pereira fight was the one that I wanted and then that ended up not happening because he went to 205.

That was, let's not rewrite history. That actually is true. I forgot the Pereira aspect of it. And my argument, my argument wasn't, I was actually, I was all for the DDB fight. I was against the Whitaker fight because I thought he had no chance of beating Robert Whitaker. Well, you and the rest of the world.

Clearly he proved me wrong. So I was like, why are we making this fight that we know he's going to lose and then we miss out on the Israel-A-Sania fight? Well, credit DDP, you've me wrong. I did a Mia Copa on Fighter versus Rider already. I'll do another one here because I was totally wrong as probably the rest of the world was outside of

Jedmishu that, you know, no one was picking DDP to win that fight. But I was on board with DDB Audissanio. I was like, at least it's something new. I mean, it can't be any worse than Otisanya can in here, so let's go. It definitely cannot. Middleweight is such a glorious mess

right now. Like, Izzy is the undisputed number one and that's justified. But he also just got knocked out not that long ago. Granted, came back and avenged it, but like, there are a ton of dudes who could beat Pereira. Pereira is probably never coming back to 185 in general. It's just such a weird, awesome division at this moment in time.

I love this chaos. And to use that as a transition DDP this month elevates all the way up to number two on our middleweight rankings. Number two, before this month, he was number eight. So to rock it up to number two, beating. Being the first man to beat Robert Boydick or outside of Izzy Adasana since 2014, just a tremendous accomplishment. If we're ranking things, that's probably my number one most anticipated fight of the year at this point.

And it's also going to be the number one ugliest fight of the year by the time we get done with the lead-up of it. And Disney is just, I've said this a couple times, but Disney is so, so ill-equipped to handle whatever is about to come from these guys. It's already started. If you just look at Izzy's Twitter account, like this is going to get so fabulously messy. I'm so here for it. it's going to be awful in the best, most interesting ways.

So it's going to be the most uncomfortable fight of the year. Let's leave it that. It's going to be the exchanges between them are going to be so uncomfortable and you're not really going to know how you should approach what you're going to say about. That's what it's really going to be about. I don't think it's going to be that bad. It's going to be that bad. I think it's not going to be that bad because I think we've hit the, the apex.

of problems. It is not going to get worse than Izzy excitedly repeating a word I can't say pretty clearly trying to bait DDP into saying it back. And while DDP is like actually handling this with grace to some extent or certainly handling it well. In that moment, because that was 100% as he was trying to do was debate him, did you have like a sneaking tear in your head of like, oh my God, don't say it. DP, DDP, please don't say it.

No, I didn't think there was ever, ever a chance because like one, and Mike Heck, when he still had his voice, uh, sort of expertly outlined this of like DDP knew what was going on the whole time. Like he knew that Izzy was in the cage standing behind him and he kind of chewed on his words during his interview. He wasn't trying to big up, Izzy. And then my favorite part of the entire thing is when Rogan's like, and now we're going

to the best middle way in the world. that sort of just haphazardly DDP is like, I'm not really sure about that. Like he's just dismissing him. And then Izzy's trying to bait him into saying the word and looking really bad in, like all of this and going to his awful 23 and me line, just some of the cringiest shit in the world. And DDPs is like,

I'm not your brother. We're not friends. I'm going to fight you. Why are you being a weirdo? He handled it. I think D.D. has been wrong a lot in this awful animosity building thing, but

he handled that really well. Like, Izzy was very clearly in the wrong there. And I can't see things getting worse. Like, they're going to have to interact. I don't see it. I can see this getting a lot worse. Yeah. How? I don't think Izzy's ever going to be in a situation where he is repeatedly screaming.

Okay. I disagree. I disagree. Let me remind you how many times that he say he's going to leave you on skates like Elsa? He tried to land that line like 40 times. He's going to the 23 and me garbage, but that just is cringy and not like this is getting too uncomfortable. Like I think it's-

But I mean, he doubled, he doubled down on it after the, after the thing. He said, I called him another bad word. I called him this word. You don't like it. So like, where do you want me to go? Like he's just, he doesn't, is he doesn't conform to the standards you think he will? He's going to say things that are bad. And Izzy's trash talk could sometimes be a little cringy.

And this one's always, it's just, but yeah, there's, no, it's going to get way, it's going to get way worse. Like I'm, this is, this is going to get it. This is going to be the ugliest buildup to a fight since Connor and Habib. Oh, easily. It's going to get, it's going to get real ugly. But guys, he doesn't see color. I don't, I don't see color guys. For people to bring in in color as if it has anything to, that's offensive.

See color. All right, Dana White. All right. We'll have plenty of time. Dana's response Saturday was incredible. Can't even do it right now. We'll have plenty of time over the next few months to delve into this. I'm sure this is just going to continue on.

And again, only get more interesting and complex. But let's revisit the weekend at hand. Because once again, it's Alexander Volcanovsky's world. The rest of us are just living in it. The featherweight champ reclaims the pound for pound number one spot over Islam this month in our post-290 ranking cycle. You got four first place votes. as Jed alluded to Islam and John Jones each get two.

I don't, you know, Robbie Lawler maybe floating in there as well. And so there it is, Volk, retaking his place at top our list. UFC rankings don't matter, but he did the same for them as well. He's tied with Jones on there, number one. Either way, he looks unbeatable. He looks untouchable. He looked as good as he ever has. Once again, some of the stance switching encounters that he was thrown at

Ja'Ir-Ir-Rodriguez were just absolutely disgusting with how beautiful they were. So I want to start with the champ, but I also want to start in a different place than usual because all of us here in the show we've already talked plenty about the performance the runny's on what this all means on our various shows instead i want to talk about the end or or rather the man who is going to be the grim reaper to all of this before all is said and done because whether it's this year next year or the year after at some point this title reign is going to end for alexander vokonovsky it happened to anderson sova it happened to demetreus jonson it happened max holloway hogeosialdo that's just how these things work. Alexander Volcanowski is going to be 35 years old this September that is ancient

for the lower weight divisions. And at some point, he is going to slip on the banana peel of fate. And if history is an indication, it will be against someone we just didn't see coming. So gentlemen, what's put on our Mystic Martin, our Mystic Michoud hats here, people are saying that Alexander Volcanowski has cleaned out this featherweight division. That to me couldn't be further from the truth. So if I ask you, rank me your top three featherweights who will eventually end what is becoming in a historic reign here from Alexander Volkovsky. Who are you Ion on that list?

Damon, let's start with you first. Well, I mean, I know it's going to be the popular pick, but I mean, reality is, is I think that you cannot discount Iliot Tuporia is the biggest threat. I mean, he's really, really good. And him doing what he did to Josh Schindman, I mean, Josh Schind only went five rounds

because Josh Schmidt showed incredible, incredible chin, incredible heart. But he got blasted for five. five rounds. What blew me away was Ilya kind of wondered how his cardio would hold up because he throws so much power between every shot, but his jab was on point.

His, I mean, his boxing was on point. He was hit with power, but he also had cardio to go for five rounds. So I think the only right answer is the biggest threat is Ilya and I do believe that. I believe he is the biggest threat to Alexander Volcanoz. You want me to go to number two? Yeah, give us your list.

Number two, I got Moussar, Evloev wrestling, obviously top-notch. I mean, he's still got some room to grow. He's not there yet, but I think he's still a guy you got to watch incredibly dominant his brothers of gold medalist in wrestling, incredible wrestling. And, you know, we taught, I mean, obviously we saw it with the Islam fight. You know, Alexander Volcanowski has incredible scrambling ability. He got off the bottom in a way that no one's really done to Islam before, so that's really interesting, but I still have a lot of faith in Evloev's wrestling. And again, he's not there yet, so I don't, you know, I don't think he has to be ready for Alexander Volcanowski right now. And my

third by wild card pick and I'm only throwing this out there because I was looking at our rankings and I looked at my rankings and I was just like who's out there that could be there in like two years because as you said sheen everyone falls off at some point everyone's everyone the gas runs out on everybody so I'm thinking like long term and I picked a guy and I know this is a wild card pick and everyone's going to scoff at the idea but I said Jonathan Pierce I have a number 15 and he's a big featherweight super powerful good strike good overall game, but he's, he's two, two and a half years away from even being in that conversation. And that's why I say maybe he has a chance, because if he actually gets

healthy, which has been a big problem for him, he gets healthy and can slowly start to make that climb, you know, 20, 25, maybe he's got a chance. And, you know, maybe that's a part of Volcanoes declining as much as it is Pierce Rising, but I'm picking somebody at the bottom of the list because nobody, like I know everyone here likes Arnold Allen, you know, good fighter, but I don't think he's anywhere close to touching Volcanowski right now and he's already there so i'm picking a guy at the bottom of the list who maybe like two and a half years from now would have a chance if alexander volkinovsky is still doing this damn thing at age 38 37 which whatever that would be by then like that dude is the goat but i mean you know but we'll be having those conversations

shaheim there would that be but that's what i'm saying how good is wolkenowski would we would be totally shocked if he somehow pulled that off and he's still championed at that point that That's what I'm getting at. Like, I would be totally shocked. I'd be pretty shocked. I would be pretty shocked. I would just for the lower way divisions is tough. But I mean,

that's an interesting list. I didn't expect Pierce coming up. What do you got, Jed? I like the Pierce thing. That's fun. I don't think that fight just ever happens from a time standpoint. So, low hanging fruit,

but I'm with Damon. It is number one. I wouldn't have had him prior to the Josh Hammett fight. I thought he grew up a lot in that fight. We saw a real defensive responsibility that he has never shown before, whether he hasn't had it or just didn't feel the need

to be defensively responsible against the guys he was fighting, and then he fights Emmett who can punch real hard so he thinks needs to, but that's one of the most exciting fights that I think the UFC can put together. I don't know that Ilya can do it, but I think he can present a lot of fun challenges,

a different look, certainly than Yaiyir gave Orkanowski, so, and he's going to be the guy who gets a chance. So always just go with the guy who's at least having the opportunity. My number two, Damon dismissed him. I'm not going to because I'm still a big Arnold Allen guy. Love it. Yes, Arnold Allen lost to Max Holloway.

A lot of people lose to Max Holloway. Styles make fights. I think Max Holloway is a much better chance of a much more stylistic advantage against Arnold Allen than Volcanovsky does. Not to say that I don't think Volcanox can or wouldn't beat Arnard Allen, but we hear it a lot all the time as well. Fighters level up after losses. I mean, they figure out, hey, here's where I got to work on.

I got to go back to the well. I think Arnold Allen, still young, still super talented, going to come back strong. He's going to be a couple of wins away from it. But I think he has a very good chance in the next couple of years to get himself into a title fight and to, you know, maybe high roll against Volt. My number three, I had Evluev for a little bit.

Um, but I ultimately just couldn't because my big issue with Eve is the way he wins fights. Uh, decisions are just awful. Like he's 17 and 0 or whatever, like an unbelievable record, but you want him to be finishing top level people to be like for me to really view him as like a true title threat, even though it's been very, very good. So I went, I went the other way, uh, a guy that nobody is going to give any credit for. for and maybe it's reasonable. But he's going to have a chance, I think. And it's Al Jermaine Sterling, the Bannonweight champion.

Volcanovsky is focused on the lightweight belt, and that's his prerogative, he can do that. But if Sterling beats Sean O'Malley, which I think he has a really good chance to do, he's moving up to 145. And as much as the UFC have been pretty shitty towards him in some regards, the champion moving up to a new weight class gets to fight for the belt. a champion who has multiple title defenses,

you know, has a claim for one of the top fighters of all time in that division. He's going to get to get a title shot. And Volcanovsky may not like it and may be like, I don't really want to do this. That's not the thing. He's just going to have to fight Sterling if Sterling does make the move up and wants to Purry is done.

So he's going to have a chance. I don't know that he can do it, but I think he's going to have an opportunity. And look, we've all doubted Aljo at various points. time and he has continued to sort of overachieve. Wouldn't totally shock me if he found a way to backpack Volkanowski like, like Islam did for two rounds, and that's enough to sneak his scorecard.

So those are my three. I love it. I like the Sterling pick. I love the Sterling pick. You kind of stole my thunder than a little bit. I have the exact same list as you. Were you taking Sterling? I have the exact same list as you.

I have to point number one, Sterling number two, Arnold Allen, number three, for all of the reasons you just listed. I have been so on board the Toporia bandwagon from the very beginning of this UFC run. From the moment I saw this man, I felt like he was destined to be a UFC champion in some degree, and I still hold firm to that.

And the Josh Emmett went to me was just like you said, that felt like a great leveling up to the point where he's like, okay, this guy's kind of ready to get this opportunity. And also he fits the mold of like, when these random title reigns end, it always feels like it's off of some sort of

one crazy shot, one sort of, like a Wyden Silva or like a Leon Edwards, Usman, just something like that. And if anybody in this division is going to catch Okunovsky with a shot from hell, it's the man who, like Damon said, throws every ounce of himself into everything that he throws. Like, I could picture that happening in my head. So that was my number one. But number two, the Sterling pick, like, I feel like he's sort of being discounted here, man. When when people say there's not a lot of challenges out there for Volk outside of Islam, it's like, we're one fight away from Aljo doing this. Nobody has once brought it up and it feels really indicative of Aljo's entire title

right. 100% being widely disrespected. He has basically said, I am leaving after my next fight, which is in like three weeks or whatever the hell Boston is. And in a month or something, I'm moving up. And nobody wants is like, all right, well, if you're moving up, you get a title fight. It's just like, well, uh, Volk doesn't have anybody to fight. Go fight Islam again.

there's nobody else to fight. Yeah. The Volt doesn't have anybody to fight thing is driving me insane hearing people say it. This doesn't, this doesn't excuse me for saying this, but in all honesty, I was only looking at featherweight. I didn't even think about out.

Like, it wasn't, it wasn't me forgetting. Nobody is. No, but no, but it wasn't, it wasn't a disrespect to Aljo thing because I agree with you. Like, if I could change my pick, my third pick would be Al Jermaine because I was only looking at featherweight. Like, I was just trying to look at featherweights currently in the rankings who could maybe have a chance.

but you're absolutely right. I'm with you on Al Jermaine Sterling. I love that pick. And sorry Jonathan Pierce, you're getting bumped for my list for Alginam because I do. I do like that pick. And the thing is, is like,

I'm with Jed. Like, I don't, I don't discount him pulling it off. His ground game is insane. He's a really fascinating style for like, you know, what Volk represents.

Long, long, rangey, good wrestling, incredible grappling. You know, we saw, I mean,

listen, Brian Ortega, and I'm not saying Brian Ortega, I'm not trying to say Brian Ortega is better or worse than Algeman on the ground. I'm just saying, we saw Brian Ortega caught Volk and some nasty submissions. Now, Aljo gets your back and sinks in that choke. I don't know that you're escaping it. So I'm not going to discount him pulling that off.

Like, in all honesty. He's also a really, really large bansom weight. Like, he would not be at a tremendous size disadvantage whatsoever against Volcanowski. Like, just from a physicality standpoint. I don't know. I think that matchup is endlessly quick. Interesting. Yeah.

I have a lot of speed. Like I, again, I think it's like a reasonable matchup just in general. So, uh, I'm glad we all agree because I thought, I honestly thought for sure when I was building this that nobody else is going to be on this. It's just saying, it's just going to be me being being that guy. I love it. I love it. I love it.

I love it. I did. I just, I honestly, I just looked at featherways. I didn't even contemplate throwing in algebra and I should have. I feel bad. I didn't. A hundred percent he's there. 100 percent he's one of the three. That's the champ versus champ fight.

I would much rather see if folks going to be involved in one rather than this is long thing. And also, I'm with you, Tim Arna, I'm like, that guy's not done. He's young. I saw a lot in that Max Holloway fight that I like. And I don't know. I'm not made to write that guy else. I went back and we watched it. I'm very wrong.

He didn't win the fight. But Cage side, I was watching it. And I was like, oh my God, this dude just beat Max Holloway. And then the judges did not agree. And that's correct. They shouldn't have agreed. So I left that fight with more thought, like higher esteemed. I think Arnold Allen and Moser are going to run into the same problem.

They got to stay healthy and actually get big fights. Like I'm not against Arnold Allen, but it took him forever to get to Max Holloway. And it's like, dude, if he stays healthy and can go out there and fight, you know, I'm just sort of like Emmett or or take. Yeah. He is there, though, now, right? He is. He finally is getting the fights.

Like, it's after you fight Max, it's pretty hard. hard to go back down to fight. He's absolutely, I just, he's got to stay healthy. That's my concern with Arnold Allen. He cannot stay healthy to save his life. Like, and that's kind of a scare with Mosar. He keeps running into injuries. And I'm like, that scares me because like when like I like all right out,

I think he's a really good fighter, but it took him forever. And it's not even the opportunity. He could not stay on injured. He just kept getting injured and missing opportunities. Quickly before we move on to the main course of this year podcast today. This is just a little appetizer. Jed, what's the title of defense? record for feather weights. I know you know this off top of your head because you're such a

Jose Aldo guy. So it depends on just for UFC going with just for UFC for UFC for UFC it's seven okay and Volk is at five currently as we speak right now he is at five I do believe that that is correct if I throw an over under at you over under 1.5 more title defenses for soon to be 35 year old Alexander Volkanowski you guys going over under you think he matches the record, breaks the record, or doesn't match it? Doesn't match it. You go under? I will.

So he loses in his next two fights at featherway. Yeah, I think, yes, I would absolutely say it. Or he just bails on featherweight because he's afraid of Al Jameen Sterling. Not actually, don't come from my throats, but. There's the disrespect that Volcanovsky's looking for. He's waiting for you to disrespect him. The answer to all of these questions is always under because we really, it's like, you know how the human mind can't comprehend how big the universe is? It's like scientists say that like the universe is is even larger than all the grains of sand on a beach and your brain just can't encompass that.

MMA fans' brains, all of us cannot really understand how impossible it is to defend a belt more than like four. four times because it never happens. There are actually like, there are two people who've done double digits in the history of the sport. There are only like four who have ever gotten to seven. It's just so hard. So the answer should always just be under because outside of the rarest historical outliers,

it always is under. What do you think, I mean, Jez probably right. The under is probably the correct answer because that's just how this sport is. you know, everyone looks unbeatable until they get beat. And that's the reality. But I'm going to go over only because I just, I've stopped doubting Alexander Volcanowski.

Like I was one of the guys like going in when he fought Max. I was like, he's not going to beat Max. And then he beat him. The second fight was not going to beat him again. And then he beat him again, although the second fight was a little closer. I still scored it for Max is what it is close fight. Third fight, he's not beat Max third time. Not going to happen.

And then he goes out there and absolutely demolish his. for five rounds. That was the most incredible performance. One of the most incredible performances I've ever witnessed. So yeah, and then like this last weekend, suddenly Yaya Rodriguez became the huge upset pick. I had a lot of people picking Yaya Rodriguez. We're like, you know what? He's got a style. He's got that length, that range, the creative kicks, and then Volcanowski just goes out there and curb stomps him. I just, I'm done doubting the guy. I just can't do it. So Jed's right. 100% he's right. It's probably under because the road runs out on everyone. Every great chance.

I mean, it's hard to get that many title defenses, but I'm saying over because I just can't, I can't doubt the guy anymore. Like in my head, Ilya is a really tough matchup, but Volcanowski just kind of feasts on that. He loves it. So I'm going to go over even though I'm probably wrong.

I like the idea of where you're going with it, Damon. I just, I just can't see it happening. I'm with Jed. The age to me just looms so large. And it's similar to what I was considering towards the end of Usman's run. We're like, It was fun looked tremendous.

It was fun looked like the best he had ever looked until all of a sudden the one day that he doesn't. And then all of a sudden it's over, right? Like just things end. And even that day, he looked great. He just got kicked in the face. Yeah. And stylistically, no one was picking Leon Edwards. No one was picking.

Like he was the- And for 24 minutes, we were all right. No one should have picked him. Yeah. So that's what I'm talking about. Like, that's what I'm saying. Like, it's just like in my head, you're right. You're absolutely right, Jeff.

I agree with both of you it's under, but I just, I'm saying over because I just say I can't doubt the guy anymore. It's just a certain, at a certain point I got to stop picking against Wokanovsky, but yeah, like, you're right. Like, that's the sport. Like, he's going to, something's going to happen. He's going to get late-nose replacement and they're going to throw in, you know, who knows, they're going to throw in somebody who absolutely doesn't deserve to get the shot and he's going to be the one to pull it off. Like, that's just how the sport is. And that's the thing. Volk looks like a bad cut. Volk looked better than he ever has on Saturday. And it doesn't matter because all of a sudden,

one Saturday he's going to show up and he's going to be that half step slow and then that's it it's over and it never comes back he if he does this at age 36 age 37 like that is historically unprecedented on like a real crazy level for someone his size he's already historically unprecedented he's already the oldest or the old he will now officially be the oldest champion sub 170 the only other person there davison figurato is also 35 but given the timelines uh volk should pass him with this title defense because he's about to turn 35 in September. So it's already unprecedented and the odds are just not in his favor. And it,

honestly, it could even not be him falling off. Like probably would be he takes one half step, but maybe he just gets a cut. You know, cuts happen. Cut on the eyelid. Oh,

no. Maybe he rolls his ankle walking to the cage. Any number of weird things can happen. Leon Edwards can kick you in the head. Or, you know, it can be an Alexa Grasso situation where Grasso was losing the fight, finds her window,

and then afterwards is like, yeah, because we had seven years of tape on Valentina Shvchenko, we knew her triggers to spin. And we knew she would do it. And when she did, we trained to take the back and go. The longer your champion,

the more tape there is out on you. Like, he's been, he's been like champ for four years now. There's just more. There's just more time. Like, if he does it,

it's an incredible achievement. But the odds aren't in his favor. Can I add one last thing before we move on here? Sure. And I said I wasn't going to do this. I meant to not do this. And I'm not trying to debate anything. Oh, no.

What are you doing? I don't, I just want to point out, you said seven as a title of defense number. It's nine. The answer is nine. And here's how I can tell you the answer is nine outside of the WEC versus UFC. Because everyone's going with seven.

But you know what those seven are? The first one was a. defense of a championship that Josealdo never won. If you're not counting WEC, Josealdo has six because he would have won the featherweight championship against Mark Hominnick and then defended afterwards because he was just given the championship for the UFC featherweight because he was the WEC.

The answer is nine. He has nine featherweight title defenses, nine times he stepped into the cage and proved he was the best guy in the world at this weight class. it's not seven and it bugs the hell out of me that people are just like, nope, seven. Blame the UFC. That's what they have them under.

I agree with you. It's nine, but that's just what we deal with. And I will confidently say under nine. I will feel real good about saying Volk. Volk doesn't get four more title defenses. Because no one can do that. It's not possible.

All right. Let's move on. And I'm very excited for this. because UFC UFC 290 it had everything didn't it like two fight of

your candidates the most perfect retirement in MMA history you had DDP shock in the world you had a blue chip showcase for

Bo Nickel all timer of a champ doing the damn thing in the main event and like we just said I wrote in my post-fight column that that was one of the best international fight week

paper views we have ever got days later I stand by that but I have seen some discourse some MMA debate arguing that this was

the best international fight week card ever. So you know what? I want to go back and I want to actually put this question to the test because today we're revisiting the format of King, the original rankings method. We are drafting the best

international fight week paper views ever. There's 12 cards. This thing's been going for 12 years now. One of them kind of didn't count because it was pandemic, but it was still like supposed to be an international fight week card. So we're counting it. Three of us, four rounds, snake draft. again, the format of Kings.

Are you fellas ready for this? I am, I won't say extremely ready, but I feel pretty good about my, my current ranking of these. So I like my chances to pull together a good set of cards. I didn't, I didn't realize, I didn't realize until looking at the full depth of international fight week cards, how many there were that were not good. But, yeah, I'm, I'm feeling pretty good now that I at least, I've at least got some ideas here. so yeah when i realized that there were 12 of these um there are like four good ones so i just we think of international fight week is a good time and historically it hasn't actually been that i

went to every wikipedia page and i looked at and i was just like i almost i almost dropped a message in our little chat and i was like do we really want to rank all 12 like can we stop at six because it's rough it's rough i didn't realize it until we started looking for this, but it falls off a cliff about halfway through. There are some great ones. There's some good ones. And then there are some real, real bad ones. So we'll see where this goes. There are three great ones and

then some other ones. And maybe four. Yeah, yeah. Maybe like four-ish. So we're going to jump into this. I have a draft randomizer right in front of me. You guys can't see it. So you're just going to have to trust me. But I'm hitting generate draft order right now. Damon number one, Jed number two. Shaheen number three. Boom.

There we go. Because I'm real confident I'm going to get mine. Boarding for Flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements.

What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Feel the fun. Morning will begin when passenger fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concern by your gambling or that if someone close to you, call 1-866-5-312 or visit comex ontario.ca.

With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. All right, so I'm kicking things off, and this was actually tough because I had two at the top. There's no way this is tough. this this was a little tough but uh ultimately not because this past week it was incredible but number one for me the all-time international fight week card is UFC 189 that's conradger chat made is roary macdonald uh robbie luller rhodbert glen lawler excuse me uh and you know what

the thing is the card itself actually up until the final prelim when my boy my co-host on fighter versus writer, Matt Brown, taps out, it gets a submission to cap off the prelims. The undercard was actually pretty bad. It was all decisions and it was real bad. And then Matt Brown goes out there, gets the submission over Tim Means, and then kicks off the main card, which is just on fire.

So UFC 189 is my number one choice. That's number one for me, International Fight Week. It's the right choice. Caped off by Connor McGregor's whenever Chad Mendez. It's the perfect choice. It's the right choice. It was the only choice. I was going to be literally,

you heavily if you didn't pick it. It's the greatest pay-per-view of all time, the greatest seven-fight run in in MMA history. And you're right, your boy Matt Brown kicked it off because before that, that party sucked. That card was terrible before Matt Brown got things going. And can I tell you a real quick story about that card? I was actually on vacation at San Diego Comic-Con when that was happening. And I still was like, no, I'm not missing this card. So I went in my hotel

room in San Diego at Comic-Con and watched and helped cover the UFC 189 card. And then about three, four days later, I actually flew to Vegas and actually interviewed Connor McGregor and Uri of favor because they went into coaching the ultimate fighter after that. So I left from San Diego and flew to Vegas to interview Connor and your eye after that. But yeah, that was an incredible car. It's like, there's no way I'm missing this one. So I watched it from my hotel room at Comic-Con. I cried tears of violence that night.

Like I legitimately teared up on our post-fight show for Emma fighting. It's it's just magic. It was magic. Great big. Jed, number two, you're on the clock. I knew that that was going to go number one. And frankly, I'm okay with it because it wasn't my number one. It wasn't my number one.

Even hotter take, wasn't my number two. I had UFC 189 as my third pick. Well, that's just insane. I knew I was never, I knew I would never have it because I was never going to be in a position to take it because everybody else loves it. I think that we have some rose-colored glasses in hindsight on it. I ought to say, the early part, real tough hang, as you alluded to, not there. You know what wasn't a tough hang?

You know what just kicked ass from beginning to end and did it in a way that built and just stacked on top of each other and just grew and grew and grew. And oh, by the way, four sub one-minute finishes, modern UFC records, the greatest retirement in the history of mixed martial arts. Oh, just that little thing. One of the best prospects we've ever seen just icing a dude with the Mitz. Two fight of the year contenders on this fucking thing, by the way. One of the greatest upsets in recent UFC history,

not the biggest statistically, but a nobody was given this man a chance. And then a main event, I mean, one, the co-main event, probably either the fight of the year, number two on the fight of the year list. and then the main event, an all-time great fighter delivering an all-time great performance over a guy, as, as Damon said earlier in this podcast, that had become a very trendy upset pick.

It's UFC 290. I felt really good saying it immediately after the event. I know that there is the fear that we are just prisoners of the moment here. I don't think so. I think you look back at this card in 20 years, in 15 years, you can say, well, the top end is all great. all of that is very good. The prelims built and were exceedingly fun. And oh, by the way, we got one historic historic moment in Robbie Lawler's retirement

and two other extremely important historic moments in the two title fights. And it's not even to say if DDP goes out here and he beats Israel Addisonia and becomes the UFC middleweight champion, this is only even going to look better with time. 290 is the best card. The best international fight week card of all time is in the first. running for the best UFC cards of all time, and I am happy to take it with the second pick. This is the only first two picks of the draft. It had to be.

That's one and two. I mean, it's not better than 180. I disagree vehemently with you on that. The actual pay-per-view portion itself of 189 had two fight-of-the-ear contenders in it, just in the paper view alone. And then to end with the Connor climax, like that Connor fight is much more interesting and a better, more exciting watch than the Volk just domination. So also let's

290 has two fight of the year contenders in it and the retirement of Robben. And I know and I know we're talking about just the fights here but I just want to throw this out there. Like I also remember because you know UFC has kind of become like the carbon copy league like every card looks exactly the same.

They actually showed some creativity because they had Sheneid O'Connor. Yeah. The entrances. That one like credible. Yeah like that was cool. Like they actually put the atmosphere with all the Irish fans. And so many people that.

we doubting Connor with the Mendez thing like that was just magic and then the greatest fight of all time we haven't maybe mentioned to that in this conversation but also that wasn't the greatest fight of all time was number three maybe uh oh no number three also i mean yeah an all time great fight and i hear to say it's not i also think if y'all are going to bring up the shenade o'connor which i think is a very fair argument for it i'm not saying that sort of ambiance is cool i distinctly remember i wasn't working in mimea at the time but i remember as a fan thinking and feeling a little bit, just a very slight amount of upset because this wasn't supposed to be Chad Mendez.

Chad Mendez is coming in on two weeks notice. We had spent a year basically prepping for Josealdo. And so, yes, while the fight was revealing and the co-made event had been this tremendous moment in history, the main event, as fun as it was, still a little bit of a letdown in the fact that I was anticipating the Josealdo fight. And I think we forget about that looking back on it because of how the Connor Josay fight ended up going. And so I think people write that off. But that was a very real feeling at the time of, well, okay, this is still pretty cool.

But it's not what I wanted. It's fair. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. That's fine. The only two picks that could have gone first and second. I mean, either way, we watched history this past Saturday. You got to love it.

It's one of the reasons why you love this sport. I have another one over 189. I'm not going to say it because I'm hoping I get it. All right. Well, let's see. Let's see if it works your way back. I now have two picks in a row. In my mind, this is the start of a new tier because those two were on a tier of their own, call it S-tier.

And now we're on the A-tier level. I'll go back to back here. And I guess my first pick, I don't know that I'm super happy with it, but it's one of, if not the single most stacked paper view ever on paper. it didn't play out that way in reality, but it was still a very fun night. Also, just the lead up to it, the week of all the drama with John Jones and D.C. And then the fight getting pulled last second.

And Jones is up there crying. And you had UFC PR people coming straight from their spin class in the middle of the night to do this whole press conference. The whole thing just felt like a circus the entire week. And you got Brock Lesnar involved as well. The whole thing was just ridiculous. It was magic. UFC 200.

You had the weird yellow color on the cage, too. It was supposed to be gold, but it was really like yellow and like a weird mustard color. Cage Warriors cage, baby. It was awesome. Noons Tate, Lezor Hunt, D.C. Silva, Aldo Edgar, Kane Velasquez, beaten the hell out of Travis Brown. That to me, 2016.

And then the day later, the UFC gets sold for like $4 billion, five billion dollars. That's my first pick. I think that still holds up as a very good card. It could have been one of the best cards ever if it played out a little differently. But it's funny. It's funny. Two of the top three are both main events that got altered, like in the days leading up to the event because it was supposed to be Connor and Aldo. It was supposed to be Jones versus Cormier and both got switched at the Jones Cormier really was.

Like you were there. I was there. Like we were hanging outside a room at the MGM Grand waiting for the UFC to show up to tell us what exactly is going on at like 9 o'clock at night. And then here comes John Jones crying and Daniel Cormier looking like somebody just, you know, kicked his child in the head. and like it was just a very somber weird week so yeah and then we remember and it was supposed to be they were going to do Brock Lezor as the main event that the last second they switched into Amanda Nunes the main event remember that so it was like

it was a really weird event but yeah I agree it was a lot of lot of fun and it's a sneaky underrated part of this too is it started out looking tremendous because the first three fights Jim Miller goes out terrific knocks out GOMI Gagar Musassi somehow on the deep deep prelimbs knocks out Tiago Santos and then Joe LaZone knocks out Diego Sanchez and we're just rolling three straight knockouts and then things got bogged down a little bit. But it was promising there for a moment.

And that card also gets an extra bonus for me because I met Leonardo DiCaprio that night. Whoa. I met it backstage. I was walking out of the media room and he's standing there and I was like, yeah, I'm going to go talk to Leonardo DiCaprio. And so that's how I met Leo. What was your opening line to Leo?

He was standing there talking to people and I just kind of, I didn't want to interrupt and he's like, hey man. I was like, hey, I just want to say, I'm like a huge fan. I love your work. I loved everything you do. He's like, oh, thanks, man. Thanks.

So he's like, so what do you do? And he just got to chat with me for like two, three minutes. He was wearing a West Virginia mountaineers ball cap. And he was just standing there right by the media room. As I was walking out of the media room, he was just in there talking to a couple people. And I was like, you know what? It's Leonardo DiCaprio. I'm shooting my shot.

And so I did. I stood there and talked to her for maybe like two minutes. What a Mitch. I respect it. What a Mitch. Shaheen, this was my actual number two. And I stand by it. Like, there's a.

section of the prelim cards that weren't the most exciting. But if you add in, I think you want to talk about the ambiance of 189 and stuff that happened in that fight card. Everything that happened the week of was incredible. Watching DC and John Jones, that whole thing unfold is just one of my favorite things that's ever happened. Watching DC, like, crying when they tell him that he doesn't get to fight John Jones. And his history would show was like, actually, that's probably a really good

thing for you, Daniel, but him being so upset that this is gone. We get the coronation of a man in Nunes who goes on to be the greatest female fighter of all time. If you look at there, there are 12 fights on this card. The worst fight by up in mile is Sage Northcutt, Enrique Martin, and that, but when you look at it, that is so glaringly bad that it stands out because the rest of it, with 12 fights, 24 fighters, 11. UFC champions compete on this card.

13 MMA champions, if we want to count Gaygar Musassi and Takenori Gomi, who I think should sort of get that credit. Five more people who fight for a UFC belt are at 18 of 24 fighters fought for a major world title or 1-1. Like this is as stacked as a card can possibly be. And even in hindsight, I'm not saying it delivered as much nonstop action as 89 did.

In hindsight, this is just a, this is what you expect 200 to be. Yeah, and it's delivered in a lot of ways. You expect 300 to be something like this. 300 isn't this because it's just a bunch of contender series people.

I'm going to lose my shit. Because this card holds up just looking at it. It's like, okay, well, again, 11 UFC champions fought on this card. That is an insane stat. The only thing is, that's probably the most ever. If they do 300,

this that also means that the three weeks before it and the three weeks after we're going to have the worst apex burn those weeks down who cares so that's the concession that's the trade off you got to make you got to do a big occasionally 11 champions i did not look at the stats i guarantee you that is the most champions on a single ufc card of all time 11 is nuts well i'm glad that you made my case for me for ufc 200 so my second pick now first pick of the second round And these are going to start going quicker because you'll find out this falls off a cliff pretty much right around here. Like some of these are still good. I think we've got two more that are good.

They're good. They're not great, but they're good. For this one, I think I have to go this way. I don't feel great about it. But the main event itself, I don't even know that the main event, I do know. The main event didn't deliver in the way that I wanted, but the lead up to it, it felt like the biggest thing in the world in the moment. And it was something that I just could not wait. It was the anticipation for this fight was out of control.

UFC 1 and 48, Anderson Silva, Chale Sondon, 2. The rematch, after all the talk from Chal Sondon, and you also have Forrest Griffin versus Tito 3 on that, which is actually a very good fight. Habibner-Nor Gaminov, like, look at the worst he ever did in the UFC against Gleason T-Bow. Chad Mendes, getting a 31-second K-O over the immortal Cody McKinsey. I got to go with 148, go back to the beginning in 2012.

I believe this is the first international fight-week card ever. and they started off on a good note Anderson Silva Chil Sondon and one of the best rivalries of all time so that's my second thing was that the night was that the night that Cody McKenzie wore the shorts he got from like Dick's

Sporty goods I can't remember which night which fight that was I'm not sure I was I wanted to look it up I didn't get a chance but it might be yeah that might be the one I was at that card I just don't remember if that was what he did I remember when he fought the Cody McKenzie he came up with white shorts on and we're like

what's going on and they still had the tag on him I'll never forget that straight from Walmart I got to say, didn't see that one coming. That was not my top five. I just love that main event. That main event felt like the biggest possible thing in the world in that moment in time. So all that a nostalgia pick. The main event did a lot of heavy lifting.

And so it was still, I think I had that seven overall in my ranking. But didn't see that coming. So good. I knew that we weren't talking about the same fight card when you said the main event because I'm going to level with you. my second pick not a great main event I think people now really realize

how bad it was but at the time maybe it at least felt tense because of what could have been unfolding but I'm taking UFC 239 John Jones defends his light heavyweight title against Tiago Santos a Tiago Santos who has no knees takes him to a split

decision I personally scored the fight for Santos but I don't think most people were that way your co-main event a man and Nunes just kicked Holly Holmes head off in an ironic twist of fate for Holly Home. Jorge Mosfadol, guys ever heard of him. He did this thing where he got the fastest knockout in UFC history with a flying knee on Ben Ascran. And watching Ben Asking get laid out really made me quite happy. Jan Belhovic sent Luke Rockhole to the Land of Winding Ghosts.

Just another heartwarming knockout there. Michael Kiyah dominates Diego Sanchez. Arnold Allen, Gilbert Melendez, a pretty good damn fight. Then the undercard is lacking. I'm not here to defend the undercard. But the main event or the main card was really strong. The main event's not great. But that's sort of where we're at.

We had the kind of top tier cards. And then every other card from here and out has some flaws with it. To me, this one had the fewest because you do get the Mastradal-Askron moment, an all-time moment in the sport. You get two title defenses. is one of them, which at least was tense, the main event looked like maybe John Jones was about to lose to this dude.

And you get Lou Crockhold getting sent to the spirit realm. That's always just fun. That was my other top pick because while the main event wasn't great, I mean, you know, Mazvedal's knee was all time. I don't think anyone that was just one of the like most iconic moments in sport history. It's going to play on highlight reels forever.

Yeah, Blahovic breaking Luke Rockhold's jaw. That's forever. Like that's another one that's just going to live in infamy forever. That was the star of the legendary Polish power. I mean, come on. That was, the main event was like the only kind of letdown to that entire car. Like the whole undercar was great.

It was just the Jones Santos fight was pretty lack of loss. That fight was stressful in real time because I genuinely thought John Jones was about to lose his title to a man who did not have working knees. It was like, oh my God, how are you not just killing this dude? He can literally barely stand up right now. And you are just point fighting him because you don't want to,

even present the possibility that he could punch you in the face. And so you almost lose a split decision. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. I can see that. Oh, my God. You've left me with a whole lot of, man. I think, yeah, I think there's one last.

There's one more. And I'm assuming it's the one I'm about to pick. So, yeah, my choices are not great here. But I'm going to go with the one that actually did have a couple of interesting outcomes on here. It also happened to have one of the worst fights into this. Yes. Do it, David. It is, it is such a weird dichotomy with this card.

But yes, I am picking UFC 226. Daniel Cormier knocking out Stevie Miochers to become heavyweight champion. Mike Perry, Mike Perry, Paul Felder was a sneaky good fight. Paul Felder kind of to dwell to it. That was really good. Anthony Pettis pulled up to submission over a depleted Michael Chias, a Kalil Roundtree, kind of a shocking knockout over a Go-Consock. Everyone was trying to build up Go-Consocky like he was Alex

Pereira. Like it was like, oh my God, go the original Alex Pereira, yeah. And then you know, and then and then KoloRontri and then yes, that was the fight card with Francis Ngano and Derek Lewis, one of the all-time worst fights ever, uh, the fight that I'm sure both of my favorites. One of my favorite fights of all the

worst, the worst, that has got to be one of the worst fights like top three all-time worst fights like ever. The fight that made my good buddy, Mark Romandi, do a shooy because of a bet we made on live air. It was great. Oh, so bad. And also. That fight was enough to keep that like near the bottom of my list.

The theater also kind of feel bad for Steve being knocked up. But then the theater, Brock coming in the ring afterwards and a fight that never actually happened. But it was kind of a cool bit of theater with Brock coming in pushing DC. The DC's coach, what's his name? The boxing coach who like five foot four getting up in Brock's face afterwards. Like that was great. Yeah, a little theater there.

So yeah, that would, you know, that was why like I was like, I was like, I was like, guess I'll put this in her because Inganu, in Ganu, uh, Inganu Lewis really knocks it down the list of like all-time cards because that fight was so abhorrently bad. Um, yeah. Also, you got a lightweight Dan Hooker knocking out Gilbert Milliman, or, uh, not Malinas, but Gilbert Burns said lightweight. Just randomly on the prelims.

I love it. Oh my God. After that, I did not see. I did not see that one coming boys. I thought the co-made event was enough to blackball that. forever that event is i can't get past it all the rest of it sounds cool the second worst fight in modern history yeah it's bad i mean it's pretty bad it's pretty pretty freaking bad yeah i mean like like when you go beyond that though like i'm

man i'm struggling here with where i'm going my next oh don't worry you're gonna you're gonna pick last so you're gonna end up with one that is very clearly the worst one ever so i don't i don't i don't i get two no but lat but you will get the last you will get last We'll get last pick. Yeah. Yeah. But you do get another pick here. Now I'm hoping you don't take mine because there's one last one that I think is good.

Because you got one more pick before you end up with the worst one that is very clearly the worst one. Yeah. I guess I'm going to go with my other pick is going to be UFC 266. Great main event. A lot of theater in the Brian Ortego with the whole submission thing. You got to watch Valentina Shepchenko bludgeon Lauren Murphy into oblivion. Little sadness with Robbie Lawler beating Nick Diaz, but, you know, still a little faith in Robbie Lawler at that moment.

Kind of forgettable about Curtis Blaze doing what he did. Jessica And D'Haraas, just obliterating Cynthia Calvillo was fun. And yet the all-time, Barab-Dualishvili and Marlon Mariahs was an incredible fight. That was amazing. That was like all-time kind of Marab star-making moment. So yeah, that one's, that ones, again, the main event, or not the main event, like the whole main card, again, Nick Diaz, very sad. And then, of course, you know, Robbie Laude Laudea was really sad.

and no one's ever going to talk about Curtis Blades win, but in Jarzini Rosa, strike, that's very much forgettable, but the main event was pretty cool. The couple submissions that Ortega almost pulled off. I can live with that. I can live with that one is my next pick.

Can't quit with it. That's respectable. Respectable, not my choice, though, so it's great. Interesting. Because the other one I had that I, I have as a top five overall choice, and I get why other people may don't. may not. I'm going UFC

251. Main event, the Kamar Usohn Hauer on my list. Threat thrown together. That was so low on my list. All right. So look, the main event is not the best. The first round is pretty fun and the rest of it is a really bad fight with Usman just

holding Mossfarl up against the cage. The rest of it, very strong. You've got Volkanowski Holloway 2, which is just an amazing fight. A lot of people thought Holloway win this one. I didn't think that way, but I mean, that fight is about as good of mixed martial arts as you can possibly

get. You get Jose Aldo getting his bantamweight title fight against Piotr Yan. Also a very good fight, an important fight historically. Rosemanni Eunice, Jessica Androj, arguably Androj should have won this fight, but that fight was fun as hell, particularly the third round and Drodge. Starts really

barnstorming looks like she might actually just have Rose's number. And then Amanda Hebus rips Page Vincan's arm off. That's pretty cool. it's not like historically relevant. Importantly, your prelim main event, the debut, the man we had all wanted to be in the UFC for some time.

Uri Perashka comes in and is the violence king with Volcan Orozdemear just immediately sets his UFC career on fire. It's like, all right, let's do this and it rules. And then the rest of the prelims are pretty tough. And that's why it's not like a very high card otherwise. But that's six.

I'm very happy with five of the six. and the main event, it is where it is. There's a short notice fight. It's unfortunate, but if you swap the main event and co-main event orders, I think people would remember this card much more fondly because you'd be going out on the high of Volk Holloway 2, which is such a tremendous fight, instead of going out on the foot stomping clinch wrestling that was Usman Mosvedal.

So I'm taking 251 as my third pick. I have that solo on my list, strictly for the main event, which may be the biggest dichotomy between, or like biggest gap between hype for a fight and actual reality for like a championship fight and where it landed, because the hype for that fight was out of control with Maswood all coming in last second.

And then to watch it play out just dreadfully slowly for 25 straight minutes of foot stomping and doing lots of cage clinching was god awful. It erased everything that came before it. He couldn't do any better. He came in on three days notice. He's not.

Nate Diaz. That has to be one of the, like that rivalry, what it was has to be like the biggest letdown. One of the biggest letdowns ever because not only did you to get that fight, which was just horrifically bad, but then they rematch and then Usman just, I mean, the knockouts all time, don't get me wrong, but I'm saying like the hype you would hope it'd be a lot, like at least a decent fight, one of the two, and you got neither. You got one, which was a completely forgettable five-round boring fight. and then the second one,

Usma just lays out Masvidol. Like, it was all the hype. And it was kind of like what we had with Masidol and Colby as well. Like, oh my God, these guys hate each other. And then what they did outside a restaurant of Florida was way more exciting.

All right. Well, I'll go ahead and go next. I got two picks here. I mean, I guess I know which two I'm taking. Not a lot of options. I was thinking about,

like, which one should I take first? But it doesn't even matter. I'll just go. the back-to-back years, 2013 and 2014. UFC 162 and then UFC 175. 162 was Silva Wyden, which still hurts my heart today. But that had some fun stuff on it, too. Frankie Edgar, Charles Oliver had a really underrated fire of the night on there.

Cupswantz and Dennis Siever, yeah, but Getson Barbosa, killing a dude with leg kicks. That was some good times. And then 175, Wydenman Machia. I love that you blew past Tim Kitton. The Hodger Grace. Yeah, it doesn't need to be mentioned. Just a horrific fight. It doesn't need to be a mention.

Oh, Gracie's fighting in the UFC in the year 2013. That fight's going to suck ass. I was saying, I always remember UFC 175 for my all-time, one of my all-time worst breakdowns of a fight card when I said, you know what, Alexis Davis is pretty tough. She's going to take Rhonda Rousey at least to the second round. Boy, did that backfire on me spectacularly. I was like, Alexis Davis is a super.

tough. She's going to make it around with Rhonda. And boy, did that not backfire on me just unbelievably. Well, you know, you were only four minutes and 44 seconds away from being corrected Damon. That's my first pick of the last round, my final pick. Wyadman Machito, which is sneaky,

sneaky great fight. Like, that's a really fun fight to watch in retrospect. Rhonda Rousey, 16-second K.O. You could argue this was approaching the apex of Rhonda. Yeah, this was when, like, could she beat Floyd, weather type of talk started that that really picked up even further when she did it to

bechkohea but this was sort of the beginning of like oh she's got hands uh also this is maybe the only four fight pay-per-view this was the fight that got her on the fucking cover of like ring magazine yeah which is one of the funniest things that's happened in the history of combat sports that everybody forgets about did whoever we were in a real moment in a real moment did did whoever made that call at ring magazine like are they still there like because that's got to be one of the all time like looking back on it be like yeah we really fumbled the bag on that one are you kidding i'm sure that sold so many more copies than a normal edition of ring magazine i'm sure it did but i'm like in hindsight like looking back at that like oh my like of all time bad choices to put on the cover of ring magazine like that is hilarious There can't be. The tagline is, I just pulled it up. She conquered MMA is boxing next.

Good. What a moment this was in time. I should have elevated this in my pick order just for this. I want that magazine cover just framed next to the GIF of her doing shadow boxing. You know the GIF. You know exactly the GIF. We all know the GIF. And she did that exact shadow boxing to knock out fucking Alexis Davis.

And Betch and Betch. Also, last note on 175, I think it might be the only four-fight paper view of the modern era, because it's the one where like randomly-strandt-struve died. Yeah, mid-paper-view, the Struv-Mittreone fight gets canceled because Stefan Strub has like a faints essentially in the rock room. Yeah, that's right.

I forgot about that. Yeah, I was looking at Wikipedia with that when I was like, why is this only a four-fight main card? And then I remember that. I was like, that's right, because I was I was you were there then I weren't you sheen I think so I can't remember I was I was I know I was there I know I was there because I remember I was sitting I think I was sitting next to raymondi actually in the back um but yeah I remember I remember I remember being there for that one so I remember

when the whole thing happened and Mityrione and and strew when that whole debacle happened so yeah I kind of forgot about that this is an important card because I think as I'm looking and remembering back this might be the card that started um the the discourse that we all love about whether it's better to be on the pay-per-view or on the prelims because your eye of Faber fights Alex Casares in the prelim main events and that was favorite and instead you've got Russell Donne Marcus Brimidge and I want to say that this might have been the card that Faber was like no I would rather be here I can get more people to see me and it leads us to having Russell Donne and Marcus Brimidge in as 25% of the pay-per-view that

you pay for which is certainly a thing that happened. And I'm reading, I'm reading the Wikipedia page. I don't remember this because, you know, just kind of forget what happens, but there was also supposed to be

Shell Sonna versus Vanderley Silva was going to be one of the, I was on, it was originally going to be on this card or was supposed to be on this card. Las Vegas ruined that. And Hindo Cormier before that got bumped to 173. Imagine how much better it would have been with those fights. Not that, I mean,

Hindo Cormier was just kind of sad, but like, you know, he freaking hurled it. I know. I have, I literally have that in my background right now. That's my favorite highlight ever. Chucked them across the cage.

Like I was like, oh my God. Oh, you think you can wrestle. Woo! Go for a ride. It was awesome. Yeah. All right, fellas. We have two picks left, one for each of you.

And, uh, you know, have fun with it because really. Uh, great. So, uh, I mean, I'm definitely not taking. I thought that the one I'm going to leave you was the worst, Damon. So there's a very clear worst one. And I hope you get you're about to.

I assume that we're all talking about the same one. I will be taking UFC 276. Oh. Give me Israel Dissinia and his horrific fight with Jared Canaaner. It's bad. Not going to defend it. I'm getting another Volcanovsky Holloway. This wasn't a super entertaining fight,

but as I think you alluded to this earlier, Damon, and I've said it several times in my history, this may be the actual best performance that has ever happened in a mixed martial arts cage, factoring in quality of composition, or of opposition, sorry, and just how good Volcanovsky looked against Max Holloway, who is a terrific all-time fighter.

You get the super fun, Alex Brerero, booping Sean Strickland into the Land of Winding Ghosts, which is still one of the funniest highlights in recent memory. Brian Barbarana, Robbie Lawler was a fun fight, even though it was a sad one. And then you have Pedro Munois, Sean Amalley, which was what it was. But prelims are pretty decent.

Jalen Turner, just sort of ruining Brad Riddell, Jim Miller winning the trilogy or rematch. One of the two with Donald Soroni. Always love a Jim Miller time. My boy, Drickus Duplessi doing the damn thing against Brad Tavares. And then some other stuff happened that we don't really care, I need to talk about.

But prelims were okay. Main event was trash, but you do get one of the actual best performances ever from any fighter in the UFC. You get a great knockout in Pereira and some other stuff that's okay. So give me, give me that one. Give me 276 to round out the team. And that leads you, Damon. that leaves me with UFC 213

this is a tough one now now hold on I'm actually gonna I actually would have gone with Adasanya as the last one that would have been my pick now maybe that's a little recency bias because that fight was so bad with him and Jared Canaaner walking out to the Undertaker music and then literally putting us all to sleep that was the one of the worst main events

in UFC like pay-per-view history but the reason all I'm not, I'm not, I would have put that last, but I will stand up because this payperview I picked 213. Ramara Whitaker was legitimately a good fight. I both fight fights were good. I love that fight. Also, this is a card and it's not even ought to the card, but it's just part of it. It was originally going to be Amanda Nunes, Valencia Shepchenko, and this was the moment when Dana White said,

Amanda Nunes will never headline another payper view because she had her sinus problems. And he said she will never headline another card. and then she headlined a card like three months later. Yeah, that was also on there. I don't even remember I don't even remember how bad the Overeem for Doom rematch was, but I'm, I know it was bad. I know it was bad, but I don't remember how bad. Yeah, Curtis Blaze meeting Daniel Omo, how I can't pronounce his last name.

I'll be lame chink or something like that. Oma Lee, yeah, Anthony Pedeson, Anthony, yeah, Anthony Pedus and Jim Miller, Rob Fon, you know, tapping out Douglas Sylvie. with Dandrage, a couple decent finishes. The prelims weren't as bad, you know, Santos Sleep and Mirchart, Olinick, putting, putting Travis Brown down and out.

Was that Travis Brown? You just reading things on a Wikipedia page right now. Like, what's that? That was Travis, that was Travis Browns, although Travis Brown's still not retired. He's still in the Usada pool. So there you go.

Like Travis Brown officially never actually left the UFC. He's still there. Wait. He's in the, did they even have the USada pool in 2017? Yeah, 3rd and 2016, yeah. I don't remember. Yeah.

So, yeah, you know, it's bad. It's bad. But, yeah, I mean, I listen. I'm at the bottom of the barrel. I mean, you know, I actually would have put the Audisona-Ni-Eer card last, so I'm not totally. Oh, I had 2.13 is my last pick. So I'm, I, this feels the correct place for it. I'm not, yeah, I'm not defending it.

Trust me. It's pretty bad. It's pretty bad. I'm pretty happy with my list, frankly. Yeah. I have a feeling if we took this to a vote. that Damon's would win just because of the number one. But I don't know.

I have four of the top six according to my pre-draft rankings. I feel great. So just a quick recap before we get out of here. Damon's team, Team Martin. UFC 189 Mendez-McGregor. You've C two-26, Miotich-Cormier, 1, 266, Bokanofsky Ortega, and 213, Romero-Wittaker. And now Jed, team Michoud here.

You have UFC 290, Bokinofsky, Ruff. Rodriguez, UFC 239, which we can call Joe Santos, but it's really Mazvedal Ascran. UFC 151, Usmin Mazvadole, not great. UFC 276, Addistania Canaanier. You're really top heavy. You're really top heavy. Again, I think I have four of the top six.

I will also say that as the resident Alexander Volcanowski hater, I have somehow ended up with three of this. his fights in my life. Also, can I throw out one of a little stat of mine? I think I may have the best and the worst fight possibly in the UFC history. I have Ronnie, I have Robbie McDonald, and I also have Francis and God of Derek Lewis on my list. So I may have actually topped that with the best and worst fight in you know,

is the history on one. And God and Lewis is definitely not the worst. It's probably the second. Rose Carla is the worst. That's true. Okay. I do also think that Robbie McDonald is is probably like the second. best fight, so you've got the numbers two

on both ends, which is pretty impressive. I can live with that. That's very impressive. I forgot about Rose Carl. I've tried to put Rose Carl out of my memory forever, so I kind of forgot about that. As we all should. I was in the arena for both of those terrible fights, so you know, I'm bringing it up. I've never been in the arena

for a really bad one. I've been there for some all-time grave fights. I've never been in the arena for just a shit box. That sounds like we need to send you to more fights, so just for the betterment of everybody in this I was in the arena. I was in the arena for Kevin Jordan and Gabriel Gonzaga back in the day, okay? So I've been to some really bad fights.

Highs and lows, Damon, highs and lows. Then rounding up to you now shoddy here. I got UFC 200, Tate v. Nunes, also just one of the most stacked paper views ever on paper, at least. UFC 148, the original International Fight Week, Silva Son and two. UFC 162, Silva Widman 1, and UFC 175, Wydemon, Machita. So I actually didn't realize it, but I have 2012, 13, 14, and 16. So I'm just here for the nostalgia, apparently. So I think, I think based on,

based on well-roundedness, I think Shaheen wins because you have like good, pretty good, okay, like, A, than B, B kind of. Yeah, like they're not, like you don't really, like, I, mine completely drops that way. I go from the highest of highest, the lowest of lowest. Like, you're, you're very like, you're very even killed. all four picks. Mine really starts strong and is really badly. I love my list. I think I just pantsed y'all. Well, we'll figure out a way to put it to the vote and I fully expect

Damon to win because people just look at the top of these type of things, but we'll see. Oh, yeah. Who got 189? Well, that's going to be the winner. Yeah, exactly. That's usually how these fan votes go. Anyway, we have one last quick thing to do before we get out of here. What we do on these ranking shows, we pull our one out for our fallen comrades. And this month, this ranking cycle, we had three notable names fall out of the rankings, two of which maybe potentially fell out forever. I would say one guy,

maybe still has a chance to get back in there. But this pains me. This deeply pays me, gentlemen. Gagard Musassi, our sweet, sweet sassy prince, he finally tumbles out of the middleweight rankings after seemingly being in here forever for his entire career, more or less, losing to FABian Edwards. He goes from number seven, just down to unranked.

We just showed no mercy on the, this one as a team. We really just let him have it. Back-to-back losses now after Johnny Abilins and Fabian Edwards. He's 37. Tough to see him getting back in. It's considering fighting for Bellator. Not going to get the level of competition. Also, it seems like it might have passed him at this point finally after a billion wars. Also, Derek Lewis, his slow tumble, his slow erasure from the heavyweight ranks finally culminates after the one, the new one champion and Tully Malkin and sort of kicks him out the door. Derek Louis, 38 years old, one and four in his last five.

And then finally, Michael Kiesa, dropping from that number 14, Walter Way spot that he was just clinging to. This one was more about inactivity than anything else. He finally surpassed our 18-month mark without fighting. He's actually scheduled to fight in a couple weeks here against Kevin Holland and UFC 291. He's also coming off a back-to-back losses to Sean Brady and Vicente Lucke.

Gentlemen, last thing before we get out of here, of these three, do you agree with me that two of them are probably gone forever? I mean, the two of them are definitely gone forever. Is it three out of three? 50, 50 that Kese gets back. I mean, if he gets to be tall and he might sneak back in just immediately anyway, because a lot of respect for Holland, he's a good fighter. He could, he has by far the best chance, but, you know,

a lot of new talent coming up at Welterway, tough division. It could be, he could miss it. So, but yeah, I mean, there's a 0% chance for Sassi gets back. and never say never at heavyweight, Derek Lewis, but seems pretty unlikely. Yeah, I think Musasi, sadly, I think he's gone. I think he's done. That's unfortunate because we all like the Moose, but I think he's pretty much gone. I give, I give Derek Lewis a slight chance to get back in there because he could ether somebody

and heavyweight is pretty weak like at the bottom. Like it gets pretty bad when you get outside the top 10. So there's a chance. Plus he still has a big name. So he might get, you know, like a higher like a rank. guy just because yeah they could throw him in there with somebody he could he could pull off a big knockout

and still kind of sneak back in so I'll but yeah I think Kiesa's the one of the best chance but um yeah his are slipping a little bit too because welter is really really good and you know I mean beating Kevin Holland would be impressive but he's actually got to stay active at that point and

you know guys like Jack Della Madalena and Ian Gary are coming for those spots and I just have a hard time seeing Kiesa getting back in there but you know you never know let me say this. I hope Derek Lewis doesn't get back in there because I want Derek Lewis and BKFC. He's done MMA.

We don't need to do any more MMA. We're fine with it. Go to BKFC, Derek. Let's start really having some fun. Jed. Yes. This is why you're just below your mind. This is why you were the captain of team BKFC

in our fantasy draft earlier this year. I mean, that's just, that's goals. That's promotional goal. Derek Lewis versus Ben Rothwell. How much mass is that in the cage? Is the most fitting BKFC fight possible? Like, I don't know how they haven't already tried to make it happen. Like, it's just the most obvious thing to do.

Oh, that just makes me so happy. If Derek Lewis goes to BKFC and knock somebody out, I may rank him in our rankings again just for the sake of celebrating that idea. Yeah, so. If Derek Lewis goes to BKFC and he's fighting Ben Rothwell, I will be in attendance. I will, I will buy a ticket and fly myself. there just to go as somebody who wants to see these sorts of things happen.

So that's it. I'm putting it out there right now. Yeah. Manifest the reality you want, boys. I like it. That might be the best thing that's happened on this podcast. When you said that, it's like, oh, my God, this is amazing. How have I never considered this? This is just incredible.

Oh, my gosh. I mean, that's the happy note that Prince of Positivity would have left us on. So let's leave it on that note. This has been another episode of the M.A. Fighting Ranking Show. We appreciate y'all so much for joining us. We got another pay-per-view coming up just in like three weeks. This is the second one of July, and it's a damn good one. Justin Gaichi, Dustin Porey, a rematch that you've been waiting for.

So we'll be back after that. In the meantime, that man is Jedmishu. That man is Damon Martin for the absent Prince of Positivity, Alexander K. Lee. I am Sean O'Shti. We love y'all. See ya. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything.

So, no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. 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. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton.

Built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence, while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross-training Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca.