MMA Fighting - Rankings Show: The Colby Covington Reckoning + Our Biggest Surprises Of 2023

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

The knives are out for Colby Covington, but why have the past few days felt so different than when any other polarizing MMA figure loses? Old pals Jed Meshew and Damon Martin join co-hosts Shaun Al-Shatti and Alexander K. Lee this week to unpack everything UFC 296. The gang hits the absurdity that was Strickland vs. DDP around (11:05), as well as the reckoning Covington now faces around (20:51) and where his third title loss ranks among the great ya-blew-it nights in UFC history. Then, the boys discuss Leon Edwards snatching the No. 3 spot from Jon Jones on the pound-for-pound list around (1:02:43), Shavkat Rakhmonov's ferocious ascendance to title contention around (1:19:49), the biggest rankings surprises of 2023 around (1:30:58), and much more. 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 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 reprise 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 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 two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now, only from Audible. Podcast Network. What is up, my friends? I love you all so very much.

I hope everyone out there just having a wonderful holiday season. This is the NBA Fighting Rankings show. I am Sean O'Shahti, and we got the whole. gang here. He is him, the Iron Claw. Behind the MMA fighting rankings is the Prince of Positivity. He is the king of the North. He is the man of so many names. Alexander K. Lee, also joined by our good friends, old pals, Jed Mishu, Damon Martin. We are winding down from

one hell of a week to close 2023 roller coaster. How we doing, fellas? How's the holiday cheer over there? One hell of a year, really, you know, and doing great. We're done. We're We did it, boys. Another year. We made it. This year flew by. I was thinking about fights that happened in January. It was like, my God, this year went fast.

Yeah. Even speedy. Even Leon, the first, the first fight of the year was in February, right? That was the Usman rematch. He was March. March. It doesn't feel that long ago in my mind. It really doesn't feel that long ago.

I know there was a gap between, obviously, that fight and our most recent paper view, but that feels not long ago. nothing feels long ago this year. Do you know why? It's because one, we're all old. And two, this is just a deeply, deeply funny year. And when you're laughing, time flies. And we were doing a lot of laughing this year.

We're having a great time. We're all having a great time. Well, gentlemen, it's fun having you here. I'm looking forward to this. One question I have for you, just because it's starting to weigh on my mind and my shoulders as well, I'm just starting to get a little stressed out about it.

I haven't bought any gifts for anybody right now. I am at zero for everything. I need to buy all of my holiday gifts for my entire family and my wife and my son and everything. I got nothing going. Are you guys, where are you at when it comes to the gift giving? Are you a procrastinator like me? Are you trying to hit the earlier bird specials? Are you knocking this out by like Black Friday?

Like where are you guys following this spectrum? Because I could, every year I do this to myself and I hate it because it's just miserable for the next week. I'm doing okay. Fortunately, I have a partner. good at staying on top of these things so we do go out ever if we ever go out there's always like oh do you want to stop off of this mall and get knock off some shopping so there's some some major ones done you know taking care of my parents things like that uh my family thank goodness we do gift exchange i don't know if you guys have that benefit where you just do the one gift like a secret

santa or white elephant every year something a little different but generally it's the one gift and everyone just gets one and you laugh and have a good time so in that sense for bloods i don't I don't have to get one for like every, every, like, beloved uncle and cousins. It's just one big family gift. Even, and then friends, we do a gift exchange too. So I'm part of two different gift exchanges save so much time and all the big ones. I'm mostly ahead, but definitely some, some gifts that still need to be done. And it's really, by the time this podcast airs, we less than a week away.

I mean, I'm, I'm just learning for the first time that Canada has Christmas. I just assumed, I don't know, you do Thanksgiving in like June or something insane. So I just assumed you don't have Christmas. So that's great. I'm, you know, glad, glad to hear it for you, A.K. We have our version of Christmas. Yes. It's, you know, it's a lot of more maple syrup, which you get directly,

which you get directly from the Christmas trees. It's pretty wild. Yeah, it's pretty wild. Milk in the trees. It's magic in the Christmas trees. Yeah. It's magical almost. It's magical almost.

Yeah, it's great. I mean, that sounds, let's do Canada Christmas next year. That sounds great. You're all invited. I will take you off. on that. I've stopped doing Christmas shopping, like, the last couple of years. Oh, you're just on strike?

Not, it's not, you know, strike feels like you have a purpose, like you're trying to achieve something, but like we were really desperately fighting the good fight. And then COVID happened. And then the first year of COVID, I didn't get to do Christmas because I got COVID the day before Christmas Eve. So like the 23rd, I just like, I have COVID. I can't see my family. And that's kind of the last year we just hang out now.

It's just like Thanksgiving only in December sort of. Like we do a big meal. This year we're taking a family trip up to go skiing. But because we're traveling, we're not bringing gifts. I was like, is everyone okay? Because I don't want to bring gifts to Vermont. So you'll then have to bring back. So we just have kind of stopped.

And it's just about the family season now, you know. You're giving the gift of your time, which is really the most valuable gifts we have. it's true plus the older you get I well I don't have a kid you know I was gonna say tough scenes for the kids in the Michoud family because they're you know killing it so my cousin of kids and we'll like we all get them kids gifts you know so that's like very much a thing but and you know you've got a son totally makes sense that's still if I ever procreate I would I'll get back into it but uh it's weird I'm a grown ass man I can just buy the things I need and I do buy the things I want so I don't need you to get me anything.

I'm good without that. And we can just hang out together and share time and love together. And that's okay. Money bags over there. No, I just, I'm a simple man. The only things I want in life are for fighters to stay in their own damn divisions and defend their titles and for bad things to happen to Colby Covington.

And look, things are coming up in a shoe right now. Merry Christmas to Jed. I'll just, I'll just say. I'll just say my Christmas was done a month early, mostly because the main person I have to buy it for is my girlfriend, and we had a big plan to do a big Christmas this year.

And then she decided her one present she really wanted was a new Kindle. And it went on sale for Black Friday. And I was like, well, I can buy it for you now and just give it to you. And she's like, I'll take it now. And I was like, all right. And then I went and she got me something. And so now we have no plans for Christmas. We already bought everything we wanted.

So that was it. That was, you know, back in the day when I was doing, doing the gift giving thing. That was always the funniest part of it to me. It's like, hey, I need this thing like now, but it's December,

so I can't really buy it? So can you get it to me and I'll just wait for three weeks until you give it to me? Or you can just do that. I'm like, hey, you want this Kindle now or do you want to wait for three weeks to use this thing that you would enjoy having at this very moment? It's just timing's tough.

The older you get, man. The anticipation. The anticipation makes it stronger, you know, it makes it sweeter. That's the thing. We did Christmas.

so big when I was a kid and it's my favorite holiday. I still love it, but it's not, I don't wake up to boxes of Legos anymore. If I did, I'd probably still be super pumped. Like, you know, that's just not, this is not how it goes once you're past 12. Yeah, the presents under the trees and all that. Like, you know, we're going to make dinner. And actually what I was more concerned about was making sure I had no presents for my dogs. That's where I'm at in life right now is making sure, like, I'm getting my dogs a special

Christmas dinner. You got to. picking up on Saturday. Like that's, that's, that's my most special part of Christmas. That's, that's a great call.

What's the special Christmas dinner for the dog? Oh, we have a, yeah, we have a place here. I live in Ohio. We have a place here that actually is like a dog, like they make dog food specifically.

And we've got them around. Yeah. And they, they make Thanksgiving dinners. They make Christmas dinners and you special, you pre-order them and then pick them up like sometime before Christmas. So Saturday I'm going down and picking up two special dinners for my two Boston Terrier.

So that's like my, my big Christmas festivities is picking up dinner for my dogs. You love this. On the one hand, I love that. On the other hand, do you think your dogs might just like bacon and eggs that you could make them yourself better? No, no, no. Don't push back on this.

That's a wonderful thing you're doing, David. That's tremendous. That's where I actually. I went out of my way to buy extra special toys for them. Like, the dogs have a good Christmas and they have no idea. It's actually Christmas, but it's special for us to give our dogs a good Christmas. I will say that is probably my most fun aspect of Christmas the last like several years of my life.

Now my son's maybe getting a little old enough to like where he's going to be able to open gifts this year so that'll be probably entertaining. But like past few years, my dog who I love so very much, Evie, older dog, she opens gifts, she will go through the bags, she'll like rip them apart. It's the best.

It's the best thing I've ever taught her. She knows all sorts of tricks and commands, but opening the gifts is the best. One, that's adorable. Spell your dog. name. So it's Evie like the Pokemon, but it's EV. Like the Pokemon?

Okay. It was EVI. All right. We switched it up a little bit. Okay. Anyway, fights. Fellas, that was a pretty fucking weird week.

That was a pretty, pretty weird and absurd week. It felt like every day last week there was something that sort of took over the MMA world for like 12 hours. Ian Gary, start in the week. Remember him?

Yeah, remember him, right? I have not heard his name mentioned in the past 48 hours. Giant winner over the last couple days, Ian Gary. Yes. Completely falling out of this whole news cycle. Thursday, the comments from Colby, the presser, the man out there dressed like George Washington, just saying terrible shit. And then Friday, Sean Strickland and DDP kind of replicated the entire same thing

with their own spin on it. And then Saturday, of course, everything. UFC 296 and everything between Strickland and DDP again, volume two. So I go to you. A.K. What's the biggest story from the weekend? What's the biggest takeaway? What's the biggest thing that moving forward we're going to be talking about?

I mean, moving forward, I think it's got to be the DDP Strickland thing. Maybe I'm biased. I will be at UFC 297. UFC's first trip to my hood of Toronto for the since before COVID. So like five, four years, four years going on five years now. So yeah, I was kind of excited for that fight. People know I'm personally not a Sean Strickland fan. I'm not, I don't like the man.

I don't like the thing. But I thought the fight was good. I think I saw some people kind of rolling their eyes at the double bill of like Strickland DDP and Marribella Sillvin, Raquel Pennington. I'm so glad you're getting women's bantamweight. I'm so, so glad you're getting women's bantamweight. You do. If anyone in the NBA media will appreciate it and not be all snarky and hipster about it,

it's this guy. You've been carrying water for that division. I really have. Only personal rankings that doesn't have something about burning it down on it's on it. People, if you'll see our internal documents. It's not a division, A.K., there's no title on the line. It's a division does. It does.

They promote it. The UFC promotes it and thus it exists. We just had a fight-of-the-year candidate out of it. Do they really promote it, though? I mean, do they, the fight's, like, the title's been vacant since June, and they still have crowned a new champion? Do they really promote it? They haven't crowned champion.

I think we all have my head of Buenos Silva is the uncrowned champion. I'll actually have more to say about that later on the show. There's a little teaser guys to keep them hooked. That's going to keep them glued. For the next 90 minutes. it's going to be glued like oh when's he going to mention right and then i think every like 20 minutes you do that thing like the awards show are like coming up myri bruno silva talk at some point not that's that's that's the outro for before the ads i like it yeah yeah yeah yeah coming up stay tuned

somebody at women's bandit is making moves we'll tell you on the other side uh but the uh the strickland ddp fight uh i think well i think we were glad at least that ddp got the shot uh that strickland was doing a quick turnaround because he said he wanted to he he uh he looks like he wants to be a fighting champion. That was the reputation you had going into the Izzy fight, that he's active, he's available. His best ability was availability. So I got that fight and won it. And I think the fight is going to, I think they're in crowd fight at 296 is going to

generate a lot of interest. Oh, 1,000. I thought it was completely phony. Like, I think they might not like each other, but that was a, I got to break down a, that was a bit of a pro wrestling style fight. If you guys watched the video, it's a lot, it's, it's, it's, you pull the guy's head down and then you're kind of throwing these. like punches that are like maybe hitting the back of his neck and his shoulders and I'm like

that looks a little phony to me I know both these guys are a little nutty and and getting them to follow a script probably not the easiest thing to do uh so it's it's probably better to believe that like the UFC put them in position for something volatile to happen and it just you know nature took its course but I don't know is this conspiracy okay those are just how fights work in the real world when there are a bunch of people around you and you're not cordoned off in a I know. Like he's kind of mauling weirdness. Yeah, go ahead, Damon.

Does anybody else remember the old WWE skit back in the day when show and Steve Austin attacked Vince McMahon in the hospital, which is like one of the greatest things ever? He's hitting him with those little like rabbit punches. That's kind of what it looked like. That's a little bit of what I did. Yeah, I did kind of look like that. Like the Steve Austin attacking Vince McMahon punches.

So we're clear. Brock Lesner made a career out of those little rabbit punches, by the way. That's very devastating. That's super true. People are throughout to listen to the episode of Damn, you were good. the greatest rabbit. We spent a solid 10 minutes talking about those little baby bunches.

You could have gone longer. But it did feel, again, at best, like, yes, like not pre-planned, but I do think there's an element of pro wrestling there, even though, again, both guys are volatile, hard to control. One guy gets ejected. They had the footage ready right after the pay-per-view. They had the footage ready. And the Canadian, the U.C. Canada tweet that had the footage also had the Meganilevi interview as part of the clip. So it was very, very packaged, very, like, timed to go right on,

right after the pay-per-view. And again, it could just be their great production team. They're very, you know, they're very ready to pounce on these moments when they happen. They're ready for anything to happen, but. I love this. I love this take. Yes. This is a conspiracy A.K. showing up to close out the year. I love it. And it's working.

You know what I appreciate most, you know what I appreciate most about it, though, honestly, is after the whole Khab, Connor thing from a couple years ago when, when Dana came out after and said, this is the worst moment UFC history, and it's abhorrent, and then, you know, whatever. And then, of course, like clockwork,

when the fight's coming, they're using it to promote. We all knew it. We all knew it was going to happen. This time, Dana just embraced it. He's like, you know what?

It happens. And I'm to blame. I decide him next to each other. And, you know, that's, like, he didn't even try to disguise like they're going to promote it. And I'm like,

you know, good. Like, at least you're not putting over the weird veil of secrecy. Like, you actually care that these guys got, into a fight. You're just playing out to saying, you're saying the quiet part out loud now.

You're basically just saying, yeah, we're going to promote it with this. We've already put out social media clips. Like, I kind of appreciate it for once. It was just honest and not like, oh, man, that's such a bad look for us. No, we embrace it. We love it. I'm a degenerate. I love it. I liked it in the moment. I liked going through the various phone videos like the Zabruder film pointed and like look at it different weird things that happened. She'd Overe's face, Volcanovsky jumping on a chair immediately to get a better look because he's 5 foot six like all of it.

It was all. That was just the best. I was a huge fan of the Volk photo. Moving Gilbert Burns kids out of the way very calmly was the best thing. It actually made me a Sean Strickland fan. The fact that he literally like quietly ushering the children

out of the way and then left at DDP is the best thing ever. And that happens in pro wrestling too. Well, security will usually help if they're in on it. Like they'll move people out of the way before like, oh my gosh. jumped into the crowd and is fighting the guy like that's a thing and pro-rests and they do that they move the people out of the way uh it just makes sense because sean strickland understands what he's

doing like not a pro wrestling sense like the reason they are fighting hyper self-aware yeah it's just like hey you know ddp said some comments about child abuse and sean strickland's very keyed into that and he while i disagree with many things john strickland believes and or says like he's pretty clear about like where his lines for physical violence are you know and it's not on children so credit to him in that regard i got to say i'll say oh go ahead shean and then i'll i'll i'll cap it off i was just gonna say ddp habitual line stepper yes in a way that i did not realize like i did not understand that this like like john he'll sean strickland beyond habitual line stepper like he's in a different category but ddp he's got it in him and like it seems like if he's like it seems like if he's a little heal he'll be on him and like it seems like

If he, if he ends up being champion, it could just get real gross for like every fight. He's like going there immediately with Strickland is wild. Here's the difference. When Sean Strickland is stepping over the line, I genuinely don't think he understands that there's a line that he is stepping across. Like, Sean Strickland is just a, he is just doing him in the world. And he has a set of rules that he lives by, but like he's just, I don't feel like he's aware. DDP knows what he is doing and it is pointed. Like it is, I refuse.

to believe that when he says I'm going to be the first African champion as a white man in South, like from South Africa, that he did not know every bit of what he was implying or what would be implied upon his words. Like he knows what he is doing in a way that, uh, is both a bit revolting, but also kind of sick. Like it's a really, really good heel. Yes. I, I will just agree, uh, and leave it at that.

So I don't go. I don't incrementing myself any further by agreeing with you. The last thing I want to say about this incident and the video is, again, credit to production team as well and why I think this is like a sort of put so put together. They cut away right before the incident happened, right? You see, you see, you see, DDP kind of beckoning him on. They had the one video. And this is before, I think Ariel was pointing those out in the MA hour.

It's like right in between the prelims and the main card. And they show them and they're kind of, DDP's kind of shouting out, I'm telling to bring it on. And then they cut away. And then we hear Joe Rogan and them going like, oh, my gosh. looks like there was a fight. And then we get all the cell phone footage. We get everyone around. It goes viral from other people, you know, capturing their video.

And then the UFC, obviously, they're recording the whole time anyway. Then they get to put their version of the video out later. Like, oh, you know what? You saw the crappy kind of angles or some of the fun angles, but low quality. Here's the HD version of this fight. And I think it was really well done. And I think if they don't do that, I think that they release it right. It all happens on camera right away.

It goes, but it doesn't go organically viral. When you have everyone else sharing all their, and everyone's scrapping and, you know, looking for the anything, like, oh, who has the best video, looking for the incident? That's how you create a viral moment. And I really think they nailed it. Again, and I think so much this is on purpose and deliberate and plans. And then, yes, then they clean it up, give it their whatever, sanitized, you know, HD version later. That's it. And everyone's happy. Everyone's happy. You got the viral moment and you got the, you got the close up. It's perfect. It's so funny. It's so funny how this dumb sport works. It's so funny how all of our

dumb brains works. Uh, just we eat it up. We eat it up. We eat it up. you're right, I asked you what's the biggest takeaway from the weekend. What's the biggest thing we think about moving forward? Obviously is that, right? Because that is what's next. But that is also a conversation for next year. So I want to table that for a second because to me, the other conversation that seems to be prevailing over the past 72, 48 hours,

whatever you want to put it, is the aftermath of all of this and what it means for Kobe Covington. Where does sort of what we just saw from Kobe Covington, like trying to put it into context within history, just within the sport and just all of it, like within the one-to-way division, all of it. Because Colby has always been a very polarizing guy. But the reaction over the past few days,

it is really unlike, it's like few things I've seen in more than a decade in the sport. And Damon, I'm super curious for your opinion on this too once we get into it because you've been around for a long time as well. The knives are out for Colby from every direction. And it's very curious. Like there's a mixture of glee, and just like straight up revisionism going on from almost everybody,

or maybe reexamination is a better way to frame that. And I think there's a point to be made that when you spend the majority of your career at this highest level, just fostering this character, that epitomizes the worst qualities within humanity, right? Hate, division, all of this. You're eventually going to have to pay the piper when your own public failings and maybe reach a point or a level like it did on Saturday night.

But man, even on Saturday after the fight, Colby's out there, he's trying to thank first responders. He's glazing Trump. He's trying to go back to the stump speech. And he's getting booed out of the building by his own people, the own people that were so with him all week. It feels to me. And you guys correct me if I'm wrong. But, Jed, I'll start with you. Does it feel to you like something changed since Thursday with the Colby narrative?

That this is something that is never coming back. in the way that it has changed. And I wonder, do you think the sort of reexamination of the Colby legacy that is happening right now? Is that fair? So that's a lot of different questions. Let's start with the top of something has changed. I am not sure that it is irrevocable, right?

So I think certainly in this moment, and hell, dude, don't fight night. Like even the thing about it coming into that fight, the fans were cheering him. He was feeding them the red meat of America and freedom and all that stuff. And, you know, they were all on board and by the end of it they are booing his post-fight speech even when he is actively trying to go back to that well of thank the first responders and stuff like that's that is

meaningful and the people in that crowd were able to finally after years of either willfully ignoring it or uh just being the dimmest bulbs that ever came out of a box they caught onto the grift and we're like oh this guy's actually just full of it i'm not sure that it sticks forever because when you were talking to pre-show, like thinking of cops. Closest to what I can get, and it's not exact, but I think the large structures here that are similar enough is Connor after Porreux 3, when he has broken his leg and he is sitting down and he is screaming horrific things at Porre and his wife and his family and the immediate turn by unilaterally everyone to be like, well, one, you're talking a lot of shit

for a dude who can't walk? that's and who the fight before got slept for real for real so that's not a great look and too it's just like really gross that you are bringing his family into this and threatening to murder people and it was like a pretty universal turn on connor right there and then Connor went away for a while and Connor's still Connor and so ultimately we've all sort of chosen to forget that as we deal with the endless Michael Chandler saga um i think Colby has an opportunity to just kind of go be quiet for a hot minute and people will sort of forget because memories aren't long and, you know, the red meat crowd needs the red meat thrown at them and he will continue doing that forever.

As far as a reexamination of his career, dude's totally fair. There has been an interesting contrarian angle from some high profile people in this space who I will not name personally, but you know who you are who are trying to carry water for Colby. And that just don't. Just don't. I don't care to dunk on him. I don't think it is necessary. But we don't have to pretend like his career is more than it was.

We don't know if Colby was good. I'm not here to tell you Colby was vastly overrated. We just will never know how good or not Colby was because he never fought people in the prime of their career during the prime of his. And that's just a fact. You can be like, well, yeah. Except for Usman. He fought Usman in the prime. That was like the one guy.

He did. And he lost both of those fights. And that's great. And I know that people are really, really pumped to give credit for losses. I understand the inclination. I think I ascribe credit in those situations far less than other people do because he didn't lose controversially. He lost the fights.

And so good. I'm glad he, we know that he has a good fight in him in a losing effort, but beating Robbie Lawler when he's already passed it, being Tyrone Woodley when he's already passed it. He can't help that part of it. he can only beat the dudes are in front of him, but he also willingly chose to fight Hori Mastopol

and to do these other things. And so I think it is more than fair to say, yeah, he hasn't beaten anyone currently on roster that's not blown up lightweight Raphael dosanjos. Like, yeah, all of his wins have come over older people. And the inclination would be like, yeah,

but at the time they were good wins. Even at the time, they were okay wins. They weren't good wins. They were wins where at the time were like, man, Woodley already lost is kind of coming off. But Robbie's not really at the peak of this. RDA is on a good run, but he's still kind of a lightweight. I'm not sure if this is real.

Like these, it's not revisionist history. It's just in a true accounting of the facts. And part of that's on Colby. He could have done other things. He could have chosen to fight Young Hungry Up and Combers. Instead, he sat out for two years. And then he just got his ass beat. So it's all fair, man.

And then he calls out the 40-year-old loser. Yeah, and then he doesn't. And again, it's very consistent. I've actually pro that call out. I think it's a quality call out. But the man's playing to his bit and this inclination by some people of the MMA media for whatever reasons to be like, don't dunk on Colby.

One, no, this man has literally been begging to be dunked on his whole run. So take your shots now. And two, like, just you can sit this one out. We don't, we don't need you to save him. It'll be okay. So, Damon, I've been thinking a lot of about this just because it is so unique the reaction since that fight. And really, maybe since Thursday, when maybe this started with the press conference and

those comments hit in some people a certain way, but really the fight and how impotent and flaccid that performance was against Leon Edwards, considering everything that had been spoken beforehand. And sort of, again, the reason why this fight even happened, right? that it was supposed to be the more entertaining fight than Bala Muhammad, aside from just a bigger fight, which it was. I'm trying to think of comp comps, as Jed said. And Connor is maybe a decent comp, but Connor also had such inherent of a history built in of like goodwill of people liking Connor, because he is the most popular guy we've ever seen here.

He has won two different titles, things like that. The Connor comp is there, but I don't know that it fits. I was trying to think of my own, like I thought maybe Al-Sanin after the Anderson-Silva. rematch where he loses so badly and it's just such a bad performance and again I think flaccid and impotent and could be thrown into that as well but again Chale

had so much goodwill that it doesn't feel fitting or that loss. That is another thing the reaction right Chale wore that loss very well he immediately pivoted to a very successful light heavyweight thing regardless of what you think of it like Shokin out Shogun and then having the whole rivalry

with John like that worked that was a very successful pivot and he that is back pocket already ready. I can't think of a good comp right now. And so I wonder for you, you've been around a long time as well. What do you make of what you've seen over the last like three days, the reaction to this? And does anything stick out to you of like something similar of a fighter? Like one fight, one night having such a massive ramification on how we think of them for like moving forward, historically all of it.

it's hard to compare it because colby is such a weird interesting case of a guy who has built his over the last few years he has built his entire personality around being a trump acolyte and a guy who doesn't actually win fights that matter that much um you know the woodley fight happened about two years too late the masvithal fight happened about two years too late the luller fight happened about two years too late the luller fight happened about two years too late And as Jed said, when your claim to fame is winning three rounds out of 10 against Kamar Usman, that's your claim to fame. That's not a claim to fame. I mean, Connor McGregor won one round against Kabibn Maghamatov. Does that mean he won the fight? No, he lost. He got choked out. He didn't win the fight.

He won one round that was actually a pretty close round. Doesn't mean he won anything. Winning three rounds out of 10 and getting your jaw broken in one of those fights does not mean much of anything. You lost, you lost definitively both times. It's hard to compare to other guys who just, their story has changed so dramatically because Colby is such a weird situation because Colby has been built up based upon the things he says. It's not based around merit. Nothing he's done has been married based. Nothing.

Zero. He has zero wins. His last win over a current UFC fighter came in 2018 against Hoffiel Dosangos, who is not a welterweight. We all agree on that. Yes, he does have wins a welterweight, but he's not a legit welterweight. He is a lightweight who blew up to fight a welterweight. that's it that's five years ago he does not no one else and and and him giving usman a tough fight does not i don't give him credit for that you still lost you got your jaw broken once and

you got beat definitively the other time you coming out saying i won and i got robbed and so that doesn't mean it actually happened but there was just this still this ground swell support for colby because he did have that kind of inherent right wing maga audience that kind of got behind him because he had embraced Trump so much that it's almost like people kind of saw him as a Trump acolyte. When Thursday happened and he made the abhorrent comment about Leon Edwards' murdered father,

everyone jumped ship. Not a single person that was like a Colby fan seemed to like defend it. I had a couple of idiots on Twitter. I had, there was, there was some, but it was generally noticeable. I'm marginally defended. It was pretty noticeable of like, oh, like,

he just might have lost some of the people who were on his side. But they had to move the goalpost to like, oh, guys, this is the fight game. Like, you can't be so critical of everything they say in a fight. Like, the goalpost shifted ever so slightly. I'll still defend it and I won't move the goalposts. Like, I get hating it and we don't need to litigate this year. But this is that scene in peekie blinders. I don't know if you guys watch the show, but when Alfie Solomon's like,

what line am I supposed to have crossed? What line, man? And like, there's not a line. Just you say whatever. As long as you're saying it with your chest, you can't say it and then be like, this was all promo. It should be noted. Jed, it should be noted.

You are a terrible person, though. Sure. Okay. Let's. And I'm saying if you, if you disliked it, that is a totally reasonable thing to dislike. I get it. But here's the thing. Here's the thing.

When Sean Strickland says you went too far, then you've really gone too far. When Sean Strickland is actually defending like Leon Edwards and saying, the Colby went over a line. That to me was like, I said this, I said this on my podcast. I do with Matt Brown. I said, Sean Strickland is the guy that Colby Cumberton wishes he was. Because Sean Strickland just says whatever's on his mind. And he says dumb, stupid, heinous things.

And he's very, you know, belligerent. But occasionally he does throw out a nugget. Like last year on our best of for 2022, I said the best trash talk was legitimately Sean Strickland when he went after Israel out of Sanya in that one press conference. And he said, I'm not going to lose to a guy who, you know, what he does to cartoons. It was a funny line. It was so, and it flustered Izzy.

You can absolutely see it flustered Izzy because he just kept going back to the whole, I believe you froze like Elsa line, which has never landed. Izzy let that one go. He ended up getting starched by Alex Pereira, you know, 48 hours later. But that line absolutely landed. Colby, everything Colby does is rehearsed. And when the rehearsed lines don't work, he goes for, the lowest common denominator.

You know, he was, when he sat up on that press conference on Thursday, he went after Wonderboy, he went after Ian Gary, and he went after Leon, and you could tell he was absolutely sitting at home, reading lines and rehearsed him, and he still messed them up when he said, I'm going to take you to the seventh level of hair, which was hilarious. Dude, at the media,

at the media, he specifically came back after his scrum to call it LeBron James, and then he called him La John Braims. It's just like, he's turning into, he's turning into Tito. He is really turning into Tito Ortiz, who cannot speak to save his life and, like, publicly. Like, he's going to run for the mayor of some small town in Florida soon enough. Like, that's where it's going to go with Colby Covington.

But, yeah, it's hard to compare it to anybody else because no one has, no one has built their persona around such a weird thing. Like, actually, up until the whole comment about Leon's father, Leon actually had the best line at that whole press conference when he said, because Leon's British, he's not involved in America politics. And someone's like, what do you think of his obsession with Trump? And he's like, I don't get it. I don't understand anyone being that obsessed with one other person, maybe he needs to get a girlfriend. And my thought was maybe he needs to get a girlfriend he doesn't pay for

because that seems to be Colby Schicken life, just paying women to be around him. But that was the line. Like, that's true. And doing it after, and I think after the fight, here's where Colby blew it. This is 100% where Colby blew it. When he lost to Oosman the second time,

he had two minutes of humility. In that moment, he went over and shook Oosman's hand, said good fight. Remember that? Like he had two now post-fight goes back to Colby. I'm going to get back there or whatever. Okay, two minutes of humility. This time he didn't do it. This time he's like, let me give a shout to the first responders.

I was off for two years. I had ring rust and Donald Trump, 24, Donald Trump, this, Donald Trump. And the crowd's just like, we're done, dude. Like you lost. Like show five. You had a garbage fight after talking all this yak. and you come in here and do nothing. You did nothing. And they're like, I'm done with you. I mean, I'm like, I joked on Saturday night, put a tweet up and I said, Donald Trump probably,

like, you know, I never knew Colby Covington. Like, that's how bad it was. It's like, Trump's going to disown him. Like, he's like calling him up, like, Trump, can I come to Marlago and it's going to go to a disconnected number? That's how bad it went for Colby Coveington on Saturday night. And it's impossible to compare it because even though guys have fallen from grace and weird ways before. No one has had this much of a public persona built around this kind of personality and then go out and, sorry for the language, shit the bed as badly as Colby did and then do it again post-fight. He just, it's, it's an anomaly.

And I think that's a, that's, I think that's a great point. And that's one thing I've been thinking about this whole time is just, okay, do you feel like, because we said it about Shale, the pivot. He pivoted so hard, so quickly, and he was gracious in it. And then he had a very good game plan of like, okay, light heavyweight, I'm going to take this, I'm going to attack this, and John Jones is going to be my new rival.

Was the lack of a pivot after such a poor, poor performance, did you think that was what caused what has happened over the past couple of days? It's just like, if Colby goes out there and lays that egg and has that really terrible fight, and then afterwards, it's like, you know, man, this was not my best performance. I was really bad.

Leon's really good. You know, it was awesome to fight him, and I'll figure out what's next. And that's it. He's gracious in defeat. Does that change what's happening over the next couple of days? After that performance, after his whole fight week performance, really, I don't know if there's anything that he could have done to get back in the good graces of the people.

I mean, you can talk about saving face. You can talk about maybe we're not quite slagging on him piling on as much. But it was just a bad fight, man. It was a bad fight on his part, bad performance, bad week on the mic. It was all the worst parts of the Colby Covington experience. And there's really no coming back from that because he's kind of gone at this point this week he kind of went all in and you understand why this was probably his last title shot. I would imagine this is his last title shot.

Maybe he beats Stephen Wonderboy Thompson and somehow talks to another one. But again, after that performance, I just can't see how. So yeah, when you go all in like that, there is, I don't know if you can pivot. I don't know if he knows how to. He's not that quick on his feet. He's not that quick at adapting. We know that he's dumb. Thank you, Jeff.

He's not a smart. I didn't think you would say it. I thought you were too nice to say. I was dancing around it. Everything Colby does is rehearsed. And when he doesn't, when the rehearsed stuff doesn't work or he says seventh layer of hair, then he gets flustered and he has to go for the lowest common, the lowest. But that's the good stuff.

That's the thing, Damon, is like it does the rehearsed stuff doesn't work because he's dumb. And that's harsh, but like he is. and so he's not clever like dumb maybe doesn't know right he's not clever and I think that's more fair that's more fair yeah that's more not dumb he's not clever and that sort of pro wrestling thing requires a bit of cleverness

to pull off a canned line and there has to be a little bit of artistry to it and he doesn't have that that's why like legitimately his best trash talk is when it is he is super flustered and he is going for that lowest stuff and it people hate it and you should like it's pretty reprehensible in a lot of ways but to your point previously damon you know

leon didn't give a shit about anything he got like very visibly upset and then spoke about it after the fight saying it still carried through to him when when colby went there like if that's half the purpose of trash talk which is is like that is largely the more important purpose of trash talk that's where colby succeeded and but he's not clever enough to do it because aka there is a way for him to have balanced this out. All he had to do is get on. He shouldn't have said anything positive about Leon, but you have to have a little bit of humility of the moment.

And that's what Chale was good at, being like, hey, man, you know, thing. And because Chale was winking and knowing with it, he could say, Anderson's really good. Colby could have just gotten up there and been like, I'm really sorry,

let all you down. You're booing me. I totally deserve it. I let America down. I lost to that shitty Brit over there. He's not good. And he just beat me because I sucked. But, you know,

America hasn't always succeeded. We've had setbacks. We're going to come back. I'm going to do it just like this and I'm going to do it again. Like that would have gotten the crowd back to him. And that's my big thing on this and I'll end is we are a little bit prisoner of the moment right now. I am not confident to how this looks in six months because yes, I think for the broad population, this is an easy opportunity to take our shots at Colby and have at it, you know.

But his fans. turned on him that night. I am really not confident they turned on him forever because I'm trying to think of the way to say this in Nice Free. They are not, the people largely attracted to that are not doing it on strong moral foundations. It is, hey, he's saying this thing that I like. And so I like it too. And so with some time, he can probably be right back in the same spot. I think that's, It's fair, but I think that you have to win. I think that that sort of thing, everyone works if you're winning.

And if you're losing, and in particular having performances like that, that does not work anymore. And I think people will say, even when he does pivot, like on Saturday night, when people ask him about fighting Shavkat, and he's like,

I'm not interesting, Shaftac. Give me wonderful. It doesn't make sense. Give me wonderful. It's a thing in the weekend. And I put it out, and everyone is just like, he's ducking Shavka.

He doesn't want, like, people, that's how quickly it turns, because you could justify it all day why Colby got the shot over Bilal simply because he was the bigger name with the bigger personality, selling more pay for use. Okay, I can, I could, even though I didn't agree with it, like, Bilow should have gotten the shot. I agree that, yes, he has a bigger name. But when he pivoted and tried to do that and he said, Wonderboy is the bigger fight, I have no interest in Shafat.

Everyone immediately was jumping all over and saying you're ducking the tougher fight. It's pretty clear. So again, six months from now, we may have a different story. Also, when you tie yourself so intrinsically to one to this Trump thing, which is still utterly bizarre to me, like, it's spiraled out of control now to where he's wearing like jackets to press conferences with, like, it's gone way beyond what he used to be. It's his entire personality. Like, it is one thousand percent his entire personality now is Donald Trump.

But it's so weird to just tie your, like, it's gone so far for Colby now. Like when he tried to do that on Saturday night, it didn't work. And no one cared. No one wanted to hear at that point. No, this is great. When you don't have your own personality, like co-opt a movement. That's a very easy way to live your life. And it works.

Like if Colby, think about it. Like Colby, do you remember a thing about Colby pre, you know, the lining MAGA? No, because he was just a nondescript, decent fighter who wasn't interesting. It still won't say that he's super interesting now, but he hasn't identified, like he has an identity and that's like 85% of the battle we're talking about him we're talking about him way more than we're talking about leon right now at least with at least when colby like i remember after he beat was a dong kim and he flipped out on woodley on the microphone i think that was when he was fighting and was it wherever it was overseas and everyone was like what the hell because colby and tyrant were both

american top team fighters it was such a weird moment like oh my gosh like this guy just went for the throat of a guy he's teammates with and that was out of nowhere and then obviously he you know, he went for the throat for Woodley for years, and it was, you know, he got pretty ugly talking about his divorce and things like that. But then by the time he got to Mazuradol, it was like, I want to out-trump you on Trump. Like, who does Trump like better me or you, Mazidol? That was the theme. That was the theme of that fight.

It was so weird that that's where it went to. Like, I'm not saying Colby was ever good at this because he wasn't, but at least when he did the Woodley stuff, like you could tell there was a personal rivalry there. Like, that was really, that got really ugly there. between those two. But then it's all shifted now to where it's just all about Trump. And it's just, I don't know, like wearing the George Washington outfit to the press are like, he's become a joke.

I thought, he's becoming a joke. I can't, I think there was a way to have that be effective. I think he just didn't, he didn't win the plane to have it be effective. He's not clever enough to do any of this. Sheehan, you said an important thing before in this, that he has to win, right? He has to win. And that's why the speech was so much. So that speech he gave after the win, that's the speech he was going to get.

Oh, sorry, excuse me, losing to Leon Edwards. That's the speech he would have given if he'd won, too. A few words would have been changed, but that's it. That was the canned speech. That was the win or lose. I'm going to go in on this Trump thing. And it came off that way. That's why the crowd was booing.

It was that speech and then it would have added a call out. But yeah, you nailed it. Talk about how much Leon sucks. It would open with how much Leon sucks. Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, call out. And you can tell you, like, this is weird. Like, this is a weird post-lost speech. It's a weird speech to give under any circumstances,

but it definitely felt like someone who thought they had won in some way. And it's like, you didn't win anything tonight. like this is not the this is definitely not the time for it and also on the topic of pivoting when you want to compare someone like him to someone like a Connor or Gregor and not that you should Connor actually people forget he would always pivot in the short term right he he knocked out although I'm sorry to bring that up he's one of the greatest losers oh yeah he would he would lose with grace until the the point when he when he knocked out although there was the whole there's the audio of him going like oh we'll run it back we'll do it again this is before

we knew he was never going to run it back with anyone but at the moment in that moment if you see the audio, it seems very sincere. Like, oh, he actually does feel a little bit bad for Aldo. And like, they'll rematch it. He respects him. They'll run it back. After the second Diaz fight, they're like, yeah, we'll do the trilogy. Yeah, we'll run it back.

Great fight. We'll do the trilogy. And then, like, within 48 hours, they'll go on Twitter and like pivot back the other way. And then at some point, he kept pivoting back and forth so quickly that it's lost all effectiveness. But on the way up, he was really good at like, if there was a setback, he pivot to nice guy. When he won, he pivot to nice guy briefly. Except for the Eddie Alvarez.

I'll apologize. No one, which is fantastic. He's so much better at it. So when people compare Colby to like Chale or Connor, it's laughable. And the Chale thing, I do want to say about the rehearsed stuff, try to imagine, I thought of this while you guys were talking, try to imagine Colby pulling off the little gnaws. The car. That's a big knog, excuse me, the cat would never happen.

Try to imagine Colette pulling out. And I'm not defending that story. If you'll find that story like kind of racist or offensive, I get it. It's not kind of. It's like deeply. Super rich short. But the delivery on it makes it work. It's classic.

It's classic. People talk about it. He keeps getting away with it as it were. Because it was, I don't know, I feel bad about laughing about it. But the story is kind of absurdly funny. Actually, the way he tells it. Imagine Colby trying to pull that story off or any of Chal's stories. Chell has a lot of stories. Some less offensive than that one. Colby's not pulling any of those stories off. He cannot do it. He can't. I've fallen victim to doing the same thing we've all done. We talk about trash talk and like running back to the Colby and Connor comparisons. because Connor, Connor is one of the greatest trash talkers of all time, but he's,

he's fallen into the Colby trap lately of going for the most personal shots possible. It started with the Kabim thing where he just got really ugly, talking about his wife and stuff, and it just, it wasn't comfortable, it didn't feel good, and then suddenly pivoting to Jolie Porriet and stuff. Like, that just wasn't good. But we all remember the best of Connor with Red Panny Night

and who the fuck is this guy? Like Jeremy Stevens could win the next 30 fights in a row, he could knock out Floyd Mayweather in an exhibition match. and somebody would inevitably say, who the fuck is this guy? That's how good Connor was in the moment of, like, just ripping people to shreds. Kobe can't do that.

Colby's not chale. Kobe's not Connor. He's not that, as Jed said, he's not that clever. So I have to, I am guilty of comparing it just because we talk about trash talk.

Colby's not that good. If Kobe, as we said, if Colby can't rehearse it in a mirror at home and figure out what he's going to say, he can't respond to people. And that's why I said, Sean Strickland is who Colby

Covington wishes he was because Sean Strickland love him or hate him is authentic he may be authentically someone you don't like but he's authentically Sean Strickland. There's never doubt about what he is or Colby Covington wishes he was Sean Strickland like he does he wishes he was Sean Strickland where he could just be that guy and get people to like him for saying stupid, stupid stuff. Colby's not that guy like he can't be and I think it flusters him that he can't be that guy. I'm sorry, I just had to throw that in there. Well, so speaking of pivots, I want to pivot a bit because for our purposes, the ranking of Colby was always going to be interesting to me because Colby,

that was very ominous laugh, okay? Colby was taken out of the rankings several months ago because he passed our threshold for inactivity. You sit that long. Eventually, it comes time. It's a hard and fast rule, 18 months in you're out. He passed 18 months. He was out. It happens to everybody. It's happened to In Ganoo. It happened to steep. It happens to everybody. So he was unranked coming to this past weekend. And the most interesting part of it to me was how folks on our team were going to treat this if he lost. Because again, if he won, he would have probably been number one, right?

But it has been said a lot at this point. The resume is certainly lacking just in terms of you look at the rest of that top 15 in the welterweight division. Colby hasn't fought any of them. And the ones he has fought, he has lost to. So there's just not a lot there to build a resume. around if you're trying to rank it. Ooh. Don't stop at the top 15, though. Go to the top 50.

You don't follow me those people either. The top 150. You're not wrong. It's such a bizarre case. I genuinely, again, thinking of comps, I can't think of many comps for this. And then Kobe goes out. He lays the egg that he laid. One of the worst

performances again in a long time. And now you look at our rankings today. They're about to come out, I think, on Wednesday. So if you're listening, it's Tuesday, they haven't come out yet. but they will come out on Wednesday, and we've already done the math. Colby Covington, spoiler, he's not even ranked in the top 15 at Welterweight for us right now. He is eligible and he did not make it on anyone's ballot except for two people.

Those two people were me. I put him on my ballot and Mike Heck. Mike also put him on his ballot. Defend yourself. Outside of me and Mike, none of y'all on the eight-person panel put Kobe Covington on their top 15. And so I wanted to throw it to you because I think a lot of people would be surprised by that. Whoever wants to answer this question

because you're all sort of in the same boat in this case of none of the three of you did it. If I am a Colby Covington diehard fan and I am outraged by this, sell me on it. Sell me on how this makes sense that he is not even a top 15 fighter. The first thing I'm doing is giving you a hug

and telling you that life will be okay and to pursue other interesting. in life. Yeah, someone has to. I feel like that's what led you down this path for a Kobe Covington fan. I'll say first, I'm very consistent with people coming off of layoffs and losing. You did this with Suhudo. This goes all the way back to the Suhudo.

And Sehudo did, let's say, he did a tad better than Colby Covington did in his title fight, his comeback title fight. Some would argue that Henry Seudo beat Al Jermaine Sterling in their title fight. And I still didn't rank him. So I'm somewhat consistent where if you come back, I want you to win. I just want you to get a win. Or, and this has come up on the preview show, I think Mike had asked me,

what a strong, there's a strong performance from Colby, you know, 48, 47, uh, uh, uh, suit Edwards or like a split decision, something like that.

Maybe if he, he rocks, Edwards has Edwards in some sort of danger during the fight. Will you rank him? And I actually, I think I said I would. I think I said, I'm,

I'm just eyeing it here. He would land somewhere, uh, behind like Ian Machado, Gary and Jack Delumette. and like guys who aren't as accomplishes him, but are certainly more active lately, he had been picking up bigger wins lately.

So he would still be in my top 15. But the performance was so bad, it was very easy to leave him out. In fact, it was difficult to think of a way I could include him because, yes, we criticize Walterway for stagnation sometimes, but actually, like, the lower part of the top 15 has actually been pretty busy.

So I can't put him in the top 10. I can't put him over some of the guys who have been doing work in Bellator. Jason Jackson just took a spot in there. I would rank Jason Jackson over Colby Cumberton. I'd pick him to beat Colby Cumberton if they fought. So it was pretty easy for me to leave Colby out. And this is not getting into discussion of Colby's legacy.

I know we've said to ad nauseum, the relevancy of his wins from three, four years ago. Even discounting that, it's just like the performance wasn't good enough. You can't be away this long. He had to show something. He showed nothing. I can't imagine someone watching that and telling me that they thought they were seeing a top 15 in alterweight in action. I think you all know me that I'm the merit-based guy more than anything.

Like, I'm the wins and losses guy. Like, and there's a reason why that matters most to me for everything. Colby doesn't, I know I keep saying it, but Colby doesn't have a win over a current fighter on the OC roster since 2018. That's five years. Now, I know he sat out for a big chunk of time. That's five years. That's a long time to just get one win that matters.

He doesn't have any. He doesn't, his last win that technically matters was high. Raphael dos anios five years ago. And in that time, guys like Ian Gary have picked up big wins. Kevin Holland has more impressive wins. Yaroslav Amoslav has more impressive wins. Jack Del and Madeline, I'm looking at my personal list here. Jason Jackson, Sean Brady, Vicente Lucke, Jeff Neal.

All these guys have more impressive wins. At least one, at least one quality win. Colby has none in five years. Now, talent-wise, do I believe Colby could potential beat, let's say, a Kevin Holland. That's a guy I have ranked in there, Logan Storley, who, let's be honest, is not great.

But at least he has a legitimate win, a couple of them. You know what I mean? He has a couple legitimate wins over the last five years. Would I pick Colby to beat a couple of them potentially, maybe? But he's done nothing to earn it. At some point, you have to earn it, and he has not had a relevant win in five years.

That matters. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm not going to spend too much time dunk it on Colby. Though at the end of this, I will ask you to defend yourself, Shaheen. This is really simple. I wouldn't rank him in that if we did it down to 25 or 30, motherfucker wouldn't be in my rankings. It's very, like, by this point, everyone lists to this probably aware.

The thing I put the most focus on is who would win in the fight on neutral ground. But then I look at like actual wins, actual losses, performance and then activity. Like those are the sort of the five factors that I look at. He doesn't have any wins or losses at this. Like his losses are losses. You don't get that much credit for a loss, even a decent performance in him.

He doesn't have the wins. He's not active. And he was like AK said, he was poop on Saturday. Like it wouldn't shock me if he can fight better than that. Also wouldn't shock me if that's just who Colby is now like he's a little older been a long layoff not sure how good he was i know that he wasn't bad i know that he was a pretty good fighter at the peak of his powers but seems like we're not there so

you got if you're going to be gone that long you got to come back and win something like we're going to talk about this later i give john jones less credit than everyone else does because he has fought once in the last five years or whatever it is but at least he won and and did so dominantly. He didn't lose the, say, leader for worst fight of the year. So, because that's like, if you at least lose with Verve, but no, you lost a bad fight to a guy who wasn't doing much either. It's, there's no reason for him to be ranked unless it is purely holding on to.

And this is the most critical piece. Losses to Kamar Usman that happened and just true fact, two and. four years ago. Losses that happened two and four years ago. Like if that is what you were holding on to. Four years ago. That makes me feel so old. December of 2019.

That is crazy. You did not have a. Sheen, you did not have a child by what I'm assuming is the reason you still have Colby ranked at all because he lost to Usman that second time. You were without child at that moment. Like it's, you got to get wins over people at least relevant to be in the conversation of ranking to me. That made me feel so old.

I didn't, I had not, I had knew that. I knew that, but when you speak it out loud. Yeah, when you speak it out loud. I mean, I'll defend myself just real quick because we are going to move on. I try to stay for the most part away from theoretical with my rankings. I slip into it here and then if I'm very high on somebody. I try not to go full Jed, because that is what Jed tends to do. You go full theoretical of who I believe will win this fight.

That feels ridiculous to me for rankings purposes, which are maybe a little more scientific or should be. But I slip into it sometimes. And really, that's just what this was. I look at the bottom of my welter rate rankings. I had Sadaboo C and Kevin Holland at the very last 14. 15-15 spot. I don't know where Colby is at this point. He is old in this division.

It is a young man's division, and he looked old. He looked slow. So I don't, like, if you put Colby up against Jeff Neal, you put him up against Ian Gary, I think he loses any of those fights. Like, that's just realistically where it was.

So I couldn't put him above those guys, but I do think you put him up against Kevin Holland, who bad stylistic matchup for Kevin. I think he could win that Kevin Holland fight, and I think he beat Sadducee. So that was sort of where I ended up. up with it of just like, okay, like this is the place for Colby now. People are going to think I am joking.

And I swear to you, this is an honest question. Is Sadabusi that much different than the Leon, the performance Leon offered against Colby on Saturday? Rangy kickboxer who's just not going to engage a lot. There's a, they are stylistically similar by brother. I mean, I'll tell you what, we'll find out. Because if this wonder boy fight, this very dumb Wonderboy fight, happens, that is another rangy kickboxer who's not going to engage with him in that way.

And if Colby looks really bad again, that's it, man. That's the end of it. I want to be real clear. So the people yelling right now, I am not saying that Saddhousi is anywhere remotely as good as Leon Edwards. I'm just saying, I would not confidently pick Colby to win that fight. I might pick him to win it, not a ton of confidence there. It's funny to say that because everyone talking about the Wonderboy call out, which was, you know,

totally on brand for Colby. Matt Brown said, he's like, I don't like that. He's like, I don't think that's a fight that Colby could definitely win. He's like, I think Wonder Boy could beat him. Wonder Boy at range and, you know, he's showing pretty good take down defense over the years. He's like, I don't think that's just an automatic win for Colby. I'm like, you might be right. Also, Shaheen, this is not being critical.

I'm just for your next cycle, maybe, maybe look at our boy double magamette because he did beat Sadaboo C. Thank you, Jed. Convincingly. He's won six straight fights. He's won like 19 of his last. He's very good. More importantly, he's the champion of the co-leader, you know? And you don't have a lot of co-leader representation on your rankings.

So I will say. To defend myself. To defend myself. It was right there. The last ranking cycle was before the double Magamad wins. So I hadn't had chance to replace him yet. And also, he was my last man out on my 15. I was really struggling to not get him in there, but I couldn't find his butt.

I think he'd be like a minus 500 favorite Megalmed, Megamad, Megamov over Colby. He's got two Magamemez. So I think he would. I think MacGamac for America would annihilate Colby Covington right now. So it was right there. If the Colby from Saturday shows up, a lot of people are going to annihilate him, man. Like, that dude's not the guy on Saturday, I don't know about what Colby was at his peak. We can argue that the guy on Saturday has not beaten a whole host of homies.

Like, he was a bad fighter. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm interested to see if we find out. Because I think there are two ways this can go now. Colby can set out for another year. and by the time he comes back, maybe some of this has moved past, but also I feel like people will have just forgotten or will have stopped carrying.

Or he can try to do the quick turnaround thing of like, okay, that was just a fluke, ring rust, and try to get in there with Wonderboy quickly in 2024. And if he loses that one, then it's kind of over too. So we'll see. There is a way to save this for Colby, but I don't know if we're going to get there.

That Wonderboy fight is so risky. because one let's risky the Shavkat no no no I think the Shafcat fight like you're just going to lose but it's a little bit more explicable but if you spend a whole buildup calling this dude a pedophile

and then he's just Wonderboys all over you you actually just can't I don't think he can recover from losing to Wonderboy in the way that he would build but also he cannot spend the whole build calling one of the nicest guys anybody knows I mean he's definitely going to do that that will not work it will not hit

and it will backfire incredibly hard. He's definitely just going to keep doing that. It will, it will backfire harder than anything Kobe's done so far. That will be the way to torch any lay, and if he loses it, and then he loses it, he's done.

That's super risky. We'll see. They're going to make him fight. They're going to either make him fight Wonderboy or he's got to fight Vicente Lucke, the other nicest guy ever, but Vicente Luke is also very violent, but that's the other one.

Like, he'll do something like that. That works for me. Vicente Lucke works for me. The Sente Lucca actually makes a lot of sense. That's the matchup. Well, we've got a lot more left to get, so we're going to take a quick commercial break, and we'll be right back.

Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. 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. Grooby.

Hey, I won! Feel the fun. Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 186653310 or visit comexonterio.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, y'all, we are back. Quick other things we want to get to. also the really we haven't talked about this man very much and he was the winner of the final UFC pay-per-view of the year. Leon Edwards, the welterweight champion of the world. And what a turnaround has been for Leon Edwards over the past couple of years. We don't need to get into it.

We've talked about a lot on various shows. Ariel, our good friend Ariel Hawani had a tremendous breakdown on the MMA on Monday of just the road that Leon has taken over the course of his career and sort of how how incredible it is that we've reached his place with him because I said it on the post-bite show on Saturday. But for the majority of this man's career, no one cared about him. No one really was in his corner. In the whole entire time,

he was hearing about these two guys at Welterweight who would crush him, that he didn't stand a chance against them. There was no reason he should even fight them because it wouldn't be worth it. Talking, of course, Kamar Usman and Kobe Covington, and now Leon Edwards has a combined three victories over both. And so for us, for our purposes,

Leon Edwards, obviously the number one, to wait in the world. That hasn't changed. But on the pound for pound list, we are now starting to talk in pretty rarefied air for the prime of Birmingham. He jumps over John Jones on our latest pound for poundless. He is now number three behind the two the two titans we have had for a while, Islam and Volk. Leon Edwards is now that number three spot. And there was a lot of reaction to this news when we put it out on Monday. Very little of it positive. I will note. There was a lot of you guys are insane. or why these rankings are dumb, all of that. So I'll throw it to you guys.

Did we overthink this? Is this a good call or a bad call? You left out the best part of all of this, Shaheen. Because I wanted to make sure I had this right when I was looking at it. So this is my fault. And I couldn't be more happy about that. I'm glad you're taking ownership. I'm glad you're taking that.

Yeah, okay, good. Yeah, my fault. And I couldn't be because here's what happened. I think you would look at this and reflectively say, oh, well, Leon's getting credit for this sort of lame win that bumps him up. That's not what happened here, ladies and gentlemen. Leon moved down in my rankings by a position and nobody else moved him. So he stayed the same for everybody else and he moved down one spot in my rankings.

I elevated Alejantan Tosia for his spectacular win. And we can talk about how I think y'all aren't giving him enough love, but that's a separate thing. what happened was F. F. John Jones, baby. We're going to drop him down because he's not fighting. And that's the most important part of being a ranked fighter is doing the fighting thing.

And this is not a career pound for pound list. If it was, John Jones might be right at the very, very top. But this is not the greatest of all timeless. This is a list of the pound for pound fighters actively competing and Jonathan Bones Jones. Jonathan Dwight Jones has competed once in three years. It was a great win. I just talked about it.

But as I said, I still felt like I gave him a little too much credit because it's just the one. And the thing that really sealed it for me is because it has become in arguably apparent what is happening here. John is out. He's injured. He can't fight. John is going to fight steep.

That is a fight that doesn't mean shit to him. anybody, but sure it's going to happen and we've all accepted. When that's done, John is done. We do not need to stand on ceremony and pretend like he is an active participant in the sport of MMA. He is prize fighting one individual and he did beat Cyril Gond. The only reason I didn't drop him from my pound for pound entirely is because I thought y'all might actually like not allow me to do that.

I thought I would get some angry messaging from the rankings association and be like, hey, we got to talk about what's going on here. And so I bumped him down. And because again, it is, this might even be different if he had beaten Cyril gone like in November. He beat that dude in March. And he hasn't fought since then. He has one fight since like kids are in first grades.

He's just not actively competing. And he has made it explicitly clear that he will not actively compete moving forward. I would not have docked him this for Justin. injury. Like if it was just an injury, I think we could have a different thing, but it's just been made evident. I'm fine, like, he's fighting steep when the injury is healed and he's done after that. I'm, I'm done pretending like he is part of the conversation of the actual sport and not in his own separate little bubble, which is fine. But like he, the rest of these people are putting in work two to three times a year and deserve to be recognized as such for it.

The UFC and John Jones could not have poked the Jed Mishou bear more with the making it so vividly clear that no, John Jones will not be fighting Tom Aspinall. John Jones will only be fighting Steve Miotich. It's like they wanted you to do this, Jedd Mishu, we know you're out there. They're like, we dare you. They're like, we dare you to drop John Jones in the rankings. And you said, oh, really? Oh, really? And you dropped him down pretty low.

Did you say, did you, I don't think you said? I'm down in 12 now. Out of the top 10. Yeah, I haven't down at 12. So part of that was also, he was the first implementation of next year, because we decided that I wasn't allowed to keep changing the way I do rankings because AK didn't like it when I was doing the like every month and just sort of firing from the hip. But at the end of the year, I get to kind of, we're going to take a reset and I get to sort of implement some new rules. And one of them is an in an activity boat. Like if you are inactive, you are going to start being penalized and John hasn't fought since March.

so that knocked him a couple of spots. And then really, like I said, I actually would have just popped him off entirely. But I honestly thought that I would have, that would be more work to explain. Well, I mean, you almost could have hit him with the retroactive in activity penalty because you know, you say he hasn't fought since March. And before that, he hadn't fought since 2020 or something. What is what is this? Because I love it.

I love it. Think about that. Like, y'all explain to me. And there are arguments and I'm happy to, because again, I'm the. dude who's just, I'd pick the guys I think are the best fighters knew a win. And if that's your, if that's your reasoning, I'm not here to argue that point. But if your reasoning is on meritocracy and accomplishments, where are you drawing lines for what shit matters?

Because the other part of it, too, is it's not like John's back end at light heavyweight was something we want to talk about. He did not be Dominic Cruz. He got a win over him. Dominic Grace. He got a win over him. Anthony Smith did not inspire. by our confidence.

Tiago Santos, he probably won, but Tiago Santos had no working knees. So you are really leaning heavily on things that happened six, seven, eight years ago. It was sick when he dropped Leoto Machita like a sack of potatoes. I ain't here to argue that. Damon. That's a lifetime ago, man. I want to let, I want to let Damon get in here because he does have one of our three panelists who still has Jones number one in heavyweight and top two at pound for pound.

but the two more funny notes I have to add to this thing, Jed. You were one of the earliest people to submit your rankings in cycle, so you didn't know the effect that this would have. I had no clue. You had no clue. The math was not even close to being done. I think you were the first or second person to just have your ballot in already. You can't see this.

In our math, by our scoring system, which is used like an inverted thing where, you know, number one is worth the most points and number 15 is worth less points. Jones is only behind Edwards by literally one point. If you had put Jones at a, even one spot higher. And here's, and I'm, like, I'm, that's, we got, somehow you did it. Our process might be flawed.

I think that's honestly a, like a more than fair result. You know. Even, even by y'all's standards of wanting to reward John Jones for wins literally a decade ago. Like, Leon Edwards has just been beating very, very good people for several years while John has not been doing anything. Like, let, let that man eat. And I'm the dude who's shitting on Leon.

And, Jed, Jed, just to make people, wait, just to make people more mad. One last thing for Jed, does it mean people more mad and to push our much-needed heavyweight agenda here. Can you say the next four people ahead of John Jones up to your number eight spot? The next four people ahead of John Jones? You have to look at your own, right. I'll do you want to say it for you. I'll pull it up. I'll stay for you.

Okay. So between, I got those for Charles Olivera, feel great about that. Max Holloway, feel great about that. Alex Pereira. It's weird, but I don't feel bad about it. uh tom aspinall um i mean i don't feel bad about it and that's funny that's most important that's the most important i don't feel bad about that and that's funny uh aljo feel great about that sean strickland again weird but like omali omali oh maly you forgot omalley oh maly oh maly again a little

weird but like okay with it why not i don't know all these dudes are consistently beating guys and fighting more than once every three years i'm with it damon okay so hold on let me let me say you got I'll set you up, David. I'll set you up, David. I'll set you up. Okay, okay. All right, all right. Because there was a lot of Jed. We just got a lot of Jed right there. I have to say, I hate the process.

I hate everything that you just said, Jed, because it feels very flippant. It feels very, uh, just I'm going to kind of do some stuff, very chaos agent. I don't mind the result because ultimately the top four that we have now on the website is the same top four that I have on my personal list. With Leon Edwards number three, John Jones number four. I agree with you in the respect of like, hey, what have you done for me lately?

That is what pound for pound lists are ultimately about, is who is currently putting together the best crop of work resume within this short time span and it gives you that snapshot of like who right now are the best fighters in the world who are actively competing. So I agree with the result. I have no problem with the result. The process is very dumb to me, but you can do you. That's why there's eight people. Usually one person's opinion does not have this sizable of an impact on the rankings

because of the way it averages out, but you manage to beat it by one point. It's just incredible that you managed to beat it by one point. Wait until I drop his ass further. We'll see how low we can bring him. But, Damon, I want to bring you in here because you are Mr. John Jones. You are the biggest John Jones defender in every respect that I know you've already submitted to me your fighter of the year ballots.

John Jones is on your fighter of the year ballot, and you are so far the only person to do that. So what do you think about, A, our rankings now, John Jones being out of the top three, and what do you think about what Jets been saying for the past 15 minutes? So you're going to be a little shocked to hear me say this.

So I actually did play a small part in John dropping as well because I actually bumped Leon Edwards up to number three pound for pound and dropped Volcanowski down to number four. So Leon Edwards is number three on my pound for pound list. I have John Jones. Hoisted by you on guitar. I'm sorry. I have Islam Ocatchev, John Jones,

and then Leon Edwards. And I dropped Volcanowski down to number four because like it or not, I don't care. You took it on short notice. You got head kick knocked out. You'd get dropped a little bit when Leon Edwards goes out there and has a quality win. So that also played at least a small part.

But here's where I say you're going to be shocked at my answer here. I weirdly understand and weirdly kind of defend Jed's point for this reason. If you look at my women's pound for pound list, Giuliana Pena is nowhere to be found. That's because her last win, her last win. came in December 2020 over Amanda Nunes. Since that time she got absolutely dominated by Amanda Nunes

and hasn't fought since then. She's been out since July of 2022. I in good conscience cannot put Juliana Pena on the pound for pound list. And any chance I've gotten to drop her lower and lower women's band's weight, I've taken it because she hasn't fought. She hasn't beaten anyone who's,

she has zero wins over anyone on the current UFC roster. Now, I will battle a little bit with Jed over John because John does have a legitimate win over a top five heavyweight and zero gone. That still matters. That's why he's still ranked. And that's why I have him still at number one heavyweight. That's why I still have him number two at pound for pound behind Islam Ocatchezza. But I defend Jen a little bit here because I have a similar reasoning with Juliana Pena,

where I've dropped her completely out of pound for pound. And I think she's like number nine or 10 on women's banty weight. And I would drop her lower if women's bantamate wasn't a garbage fire. and there's no one even in that division at this point. So in that weird way, even though I don't agree with his ranking, I have to kind of defend it because I'm doing a lot of the same team to Giuliana Pena in her division. But to my defense, at least Giuliana Pena,

at least John Jones has a win over a current top five UFC fighter in Cyril Gahn. Juliana Pena does not. So again, I feel a little bit better about my Giuliana Pena ranking. But in a similar fashion, I'm doing to her kind of what Jed is doing to John Jones. So in a weird way, I kind of defend Jed in this situation. This is the handshake meme right here. This is just, what is incredible? That felt like a weird drive-by on that Julianapania for no reason.

But I'm saying, like, I'm using the same logic. Like, I'm using the same basic logic. Like, I'm saying, like, she has zero wins over anyone in the current UFC roster. She has fought in a year and a half. I can't in good conscience put her in the pound for pound list. She's not, I just looked at my pet. She is nowhere in my top 15 women in the pound for her list. It's incredible.

So many rebuttals ready. Like I was, I was ready. I was like, all right, I got my rebuttals. I know where he's coming. A lot of it's fair criticism,

but here I got fired back. And I'm like, nope, we good. We good. It's incredible. We eat now here, y'all,

you're listening could not see, but Jed has literally been doing a happy dance for like the past 75 seconds. I was so ready. I was so ready to get into the muck here. I was like, oh, oh, you guys,

well, half of y'all have Tom Aspinall's your top heavyweight. But somehow John, Jones, you're really just living and dying on 2016. No, don't even need to go there. Damon knows what's up. Damon knows ball. That's what we've established.

Damon knows ball. All right. Let's move on. We can just move on. As I said, I like the result. I don't like the process, but I'm one man. I'm one man. I'm always saying somehow at the end of that, we still barely talked about Leon.

We've talked about Julianna Pena on the show more than we talked about Leon. I feel like Leon deserves it, though. I will just say like Leon deserves to be in the top three. When you go that long without losing a fight in your. fighting very talented fighters every time out. You deserve to be in that spot. More, even more so than that.

So I'm going to say a nice thing about Leon and a bad thing about Leon. And so, oh, God. Because that, well, it's just true. Bad is relative. It is just a true fact.

Here's the thing about Leon that I think, I think we all go, you know, he's won however many is it in a row that he has not lost a fight, 13 or something. It's that he hasn't actually, he has lost one fight in the last eight years. And that one fight he lost,

he then double avenge. Like, that's an incredible run, and you, no doubt about it, need to give that man his, like his due improperors. The very first question you sort of asked, Jehine, and I had my thing here, but then we sort of moved off to talk about Colby and stuff, was, what's your big takeaway? And I totally get all the big takeaways. My big takeaway this weekend is, man, the Leon Edwards era is going to kind of suck.

Okay, I'm cutting you off. We're not doing this again. This is just the post-show again. I know where this is going. It's just the post show again. I'm not trying to get like deep into it, but explain this to me. I don't have to be as vibed as I was. I don't need to go into that.

Can you look me in the eyes through our Zooms right now and be like, this is going to be a super fun run? It's not important. That's not what's important. That's definitely important. He's one of the top three best pound for battle fighters in the world. I'm going to use what you said as a pivot. I like lots of talking about pivot.

on this show, by the way. We've had lots of pivot conversation. It's good. Shavkat Rick Bonoff, who I think all of us on here believe, is probably the future champion of this division. Or at least I certainly do it. I know Jed, you do as well. I'm pretty sure Damon and AK you guys are on this train as well.

He feels to me like we are just waiting for him to take this belt at this point. 18 fights, 18 wins, 18 finishes. I said it on the post show, I have not seen a finish rate this consistent and this impressive amongst the highest tears since the prime days of Carlos Condit. Since like full NBK, natural point killer going out there,

getting killer be killed every time out, and he's the one coming out on top every single time. This is kind of unprecedented. It's not fully unprecedented, but it is bordering unprecedented levels of just when you get to historically when this happens, when we have a person who is the finished machine on the regional scene, and even on the lower end of the UFC,

that does not translate all the way up once you go all the way up the ladder. Hamza Ashmaev, going to decision with Gilbert Burns. Like eventually you meet people who are just too talented, too tough to not be able to get put out there in the first or second round. And yet Shavkat Raghmanov is still doing it with one good leg out here being the only person to submit Stephen Wonderboy Thompson in a 13-year career. It's ridiculous. And I saw like people crapping on that performance of like,

ah, this is so boring. Shafkrat's so boring. And you could say, sure, maybe you don't like his mic work. He is objectively not a good listen for interviews. that certainly is a valid criticism. Man has one boring round his entire life, and you're going to start calling it boring, like whatever, what have you done for me lately?

But he gets these dudes out of there, and he does not need the judges. And it feels to me, Jed, you asked, Zalian Edwards era, we're going to be fun. Probably not. I also don't think it's going to last very long. Because I think it's, Shafkat is one fight away at most

from then getting his shot, and he's going to be the betting favor to win the belt in that fight the moment it is booked, and then it's going to probably happen and who knows how long that's going to last. But for our purposes, Shafkat Rukmanov, today is now our number three well-to-wait in the world. He jumps up to number three and leaps over Balal, Muhammad. So he's only now behind Leon Edwards, Kamar Usman.

Is there a case to be made that we are too low here? Am I too excited right now? Is there a case to be made that Shavkat should be number two or does number three fair? Right. There's a case to be made that you're all wrong, and Shavkat should not have jumped over Bilal Muhammad. Let me start there. Okay. Because while I do, no, while I do believe, and I agree, Shavkat is the guy.

If I'm picking like a future champion, I would 100% agree with that. But, and I like Shavkat, this is not a knock on Shabcat. Let me just be clear about that, not a knock on him. But yes, he has a winner of Jeff Neal. That was a dog fight, incredible fight. He ends up putting him away. And obviously going out there and submitting Wonderboy. absolutely matters. It really does. But this Bilal Muhammad thing, I still say, again, Gilbert Burns,

short notice, again, take away all the conditions around it. He'd be able to beat Gilbert Burns pretty dominantly one side of fight. He knocks out Sean Brady, who I think we all agree, is a really good fighter. Like, we saw that when he just went out there and absolutely decimated Calvin Gastelam. Sean Brady is a good fighter. He dominated Wonderboy. He didn't finish him, but he dominated Wonderboy. He beat up Wonderboy. He took him down and beat him up. I mean, that was the, that, was the fight. Do you all remember when Balow did that to Wonderboy, that's the fight where we're like, wow, Wonderboy might be getting old. Like it might be

time like he's getting past because Balau just beat him up. He did that. Sean Brady, Wonderboy, Damien Ma. I mean, five fights in a row against top ten competition and not and Leuke also, let's not forget, the Luque fight was a revenge fight because he lost to Luke

early in his career. He went out there absolutely dominated Luke for five rounds. Those are all quality wins and none of them were close. Like none of them were even remotely close fights. Did he finish all of them? No. Knocking out Brady was super impressive. But doing that to Gilbert, I understand Gilbert was injured. I don't care that it was short notice again. All that has to get

wiped away. When you step in the octagon, you meant to be there. You don't get to use that excuse afterwards. He dominated Gilbert Burns in a way that Hamza didn't. He dominated Wonderboy in a way that other people hadn't done at that point. He dominated Vicente Lucke in a way and stopped Vicente, the run he was on. And he knocked out Sean Brady. it's not a Shavkat knock. It to me, it's a knock on Bilau.

I don't understand the disrespect there because Bilau deserves that. Now, will Shavkat get there and become champion, maybe beat Bilal? I'm not disagree with any of that. Based on merit alone, Bilal Mohammed should be, in my opinion, the number two welterweight in sport. And that's, again, I have a ton of, obviously I think everyone knows my respect for Kamar Usman. I think he's one of the greatest welterweight of all time. But he did lose two times in a rotally on Edwards.

so I can't, off two losses, can't keep him number two when Below's on the streak he's on. I think that's totally reasonable. I think that there is, if you are focused entirely on merit, I would probably even agree that Balal should be number two over Usman. It gets a little hairy just because Usman had a really long run at the top, you know, with stuff, but I'm open to the idea. I don't know, this comes down to two things for me. one, Shafcott is my number one world to wait in the world, which I did not think I would get to heading into 296.

I thought that I would give Leon the respect with a win, but that win was really, really bad, and I'm not here to have anyone tell me it was good. It was a win, and it wasn't competitive, but it wasn't good, whereas Shavkat did something that's never been done. And by the same kind of to riff off what Damon said, look, ball beating the hell out of Wonderboy is awesome. Like, that's a hell of a win. He couldn't finish him. And now granted Wonderboy is a little bit older, but it was so effortless. And that's the thing.

Shavkat has largely been effortless in just dismantling people. I think he's the best Walter way on the planet. I don't think it would be particularly close in a betting line if you matched him against Leon or even Usman or Ball at this point. I could always be wrong. But trial by combat, I need one champion to defend my life from the guillotine. I'm taking Shafcott. It ain't close. So he's my number one.

Yeah, I'm kind of with Damon on this one. But I was of two minds on it because I don't think Shafqqad's done enough. He beat Wonderboy after Muhammad had already done that. As Damon said, after, I hate this word, but after Balal had already kind of exposed, you know, maybe what where Wonderboy is at this stage of his career and what his obviously glaring weaknesses are. So that sense, yes. I went based on accomplishment. But if I was using the Jedmishu method of who would I pick to beat to, who do I think

in the top 10, if I matched them up with everyone who wins the most fights, I mean, it's Shavka. It's Shavka. I'd pick him over Leon. I pick him over Kamaro. I pick over Bal. All guys who I've ranked ahead of Shavka right now, but I just, I think he still needs, I don't know, one more way. I'm not sure what could get me to push him up further up the ranks other than beating

Balal, Usman, or Edwards. I don't know. Like if he fights, I'm just looking at the list, too. He's left to fight. I don't know. who he hasn't fought. If he fought like Luke A or Brady or I don't know if him beating them bumps him up in a I don't know.

Maybe it would. Depends how he did it. But it's a tough. He's a tough guy to rank right now. But if he, if he beats Luke A, Bilau beat him. If he beats Brady, Bilau beat him. That's what I'm saying. Like it's not.

And it's not, it's again, let me be clear. I think Shavkat is a future champion. I'm 100% declaring that. But it's just based on accomplishment. He hasn't done anything that Bilau hasn't already done. You know, they mean in terms of like all rankings. I will say, I think that's why I'm so excited about where Walter Wade's going in 2024 because I agree, Jed, the Leon Edward era,

probably not the most exciting era we've ever seen. It's certainly no Bobby Lawler era, right? Like, we can all have to hope Shafcott wins. But Welterweight has been in such a weird place in 2023 because of this Colby thing and just waiting endlessly for this fight to happen. That probably shouldn't happen. That we've now reached a place where Balal and Shavkat both very much deserve that shot and they're not going to get it.

And so anyone else below them has probably fought either one or both of them. So we just need to get this cleared up. So I am excited in 2024 that we're able to get back to the fights that we should be having. Because I'll agree with you, Damon, I'm glad that you reframed the question to focus on Belal because that's actually my personal rankings. I have Balala at number three, Usman, two, and Leon 1 with Shavkat at 4. So I'm actually in total agreement with you. It's just, God, Shaftats, Shafts time is coming, man.

I just want the answers. Like, listen, I think it's all well known. Like, I love Leon Edwards. I like him very much. Yeah, we had a great interview before the fight. I like Leon. The one thing I disagree with Leon, vehemently on, is him basically saying that Bilal doesn't deserve.

That's ridiculous. That's absolutely ridiculous. Him knows selling Shavka, or Balal, is one of the wilder things I have seen from a UFC champion, just in terms of reaction because A, the Jed's point of if you're the champ, you should big up the challengers so that the fight's bigger so that it seems more legitimate

so that just people who are paying attention will be like, oh, that's something that like the champion's recognizing this person, I should pay attention to what he's doing. But also B, your option B, if you don't get Balaal, is Shavkat. And I don't think there is anybody in that division who would rather fight Shavkat than Belal. So like if you're Leon and you're trying to have this GSP title run,

you should probably be hoping for Belaw rather than Shafkat. And by all accounts, let's just be honest. Bilal is Leon from two and a half years ago when Leon was waiting for a title shot. Except here's the thing. And I know. And by the way, I'm just throwing this out there. Being clear, I like Leon Edwards. But Below's done more to earn a title shot than Leon did at that point.

Just being honest. That's actual facts. Like Leon had a great winning streak, but Bilow has better wins. Below has four wins over current top 15 fighters. Leon beat Nate Diaz and that's how we got here. Yeah. Like that's just saying like that's, you know, like just let's be. So hopefully like I suggested already.

I think it should be Below and Leon headlining the UK card in May after UFC 300. If they do that like that timeline, that would make a lot of sense. But Tom Aspinall, maybe he's the headline or whatever the case. Maybe do an all British guard. Do Patty do Tom and do Leon and do Leon and Belial. on that card, let it happen. And then we can answer all these questions. If he goes out there and knocks the hell out of Bilal Muhammad,

we can be done with that conversation. But Bilau has earned it. He deserves it. And then we can, you know, then we can end. And listen, Shab Katz also dealing with an ankle injury, probably going to have to have surgery. He's not going to be fighting for six or eight months anyway.

So let's just let Bilau get his freaking shot. And then we can answer these questions in the cage. Everything's broken right for him. Like that has stuff. And there isn't really another option, especially if Shavkats hurt. Yeah. What's the fight we're going to get?

That's good. Yay for meritocracy. All right. Fellows, let's move on. Let's hit our last little segment here of the day before we get out of here and pour some out. I want to look back just very briefly at where we were going into 2023 because it has been, we've spoken about it often on a lot of shows, one of the wildest years for just crazy shit in a long, long time.

At seemingly every turn, whatever the weirdest result that could happen and ends up. up happening. And so we've just had a lot of like really, really weird and seismic jumps in a way that I don't think a lot of us expected. And Jed, you and I were talking about this before we taped, where like it's actually very curious because you look at like, yeah, there's the Sean Strickland's and things like that of the massive jumps from somebody going from number 10 all the way to number one, things like that. But then the middle class is more or less like kind of in the same place that it was last year. You have the, aside from these weird outliers, everybody else more or less stayed stagnant, whether that's an issue of inactivity,

whether that's an issue of a lot of these divisions being clogged up. And so there's not a lot of fights at the top that are happening, things like that. It's just been a very weird year for results, for rankings, for all of this. And so do you think about it. Like last year, Jailton Almeida came from nowhere to be like a top ranked guy. Do we have anyone this year that's done that? Like, it didn't feel like we've had any new people outside of the Strickland thing. which obviously, you know, enormous.

Doesn't feel like there's been anybody who's just been like, yeah, they weren't, they weren't being talked about. And now they're a top 10 player. It feels like it's just been the same people. How dare you? If I'm missing. I mean, if I'm missing someone, please, please inform me. The number one women's bantamate in the world,

my own, Bruno Silda. She was ranked at the start of nowhere. She was ranked at the start of last year because I have her on my list. What was she? She was 14. Not high enough. No, and I agree. She's, but that's my kind of, she sort of making my point here because I have a note of her as being like, I think if you asked us at the start of this year, no one really would have predicted it.

But even that, we at least still had her on a radar somewhere. I got one for you. Jason Jackson is a terrific answer. He was my number one choice for this thing. Okay. Well, so let me set up the thing. We've kind of jumped ahead. So let me, let me explain what we want to do here.

So I'm just curious for you guys. you look at back at that snapshot from December 2020 what is your single biggest surprise of 2023 when you look at the overall spectrum of what we're working with now and how is it we enter 2024 and this has to we have to caveat this with this is not Sean Strickland like this is a non-Shaun Strickland edition because otherwise I think he would probably just be everyone's number one answer

but aside from that aside from the middleweight champ what's been your biggest ranking surprise of 2023 Is it Jason Jackson for you? So for me it is. He narrowly edged out my number two. I have a list of six. Jason Jackson though is because this was framed as big a surprise. And this was easy to be like just trying to retroactively go back and look at these people and be like, well, how shocked would I have been about my brain and Silva?

Women's been away pretty trash and she at least like was coming off some good wins. Jason Jackson, like he had been on a big winning streak, but it was like bad ballol. Like it's all decisions and none of them are impressive. And so you're just like suddenly he's going to be a, I don't know where he landed in our overall rankings, but a top 10 welterweight out of nowhere. Jason Jackson's dude, I watched barely win the LFA welterweight title

because that happened in Atlanta. I went there. And I watched a crowd of not that many people be like, this fight is boring. This man is barely winning the LFA title. And I can't believe that he's a top 10 wealthier. to wait and deserves it. So to me, that was the number one shock for me.

I wish I had a, I wish I had a better answer because Jason Jackson probably is the answer. That's the one I was thinking of as well. But I will say this. Let me just, this is not a big jump, but more of like a respect thing. And I'm just glad to see it because I have him ring number one on my rankings and a lot of people bumped him up a lot with his, with his run this year. And that is Bellator champion patchy mix.

You know, Belator's had a great bandway division for him. It's been the, I think he's going to get a lot of. a lot of love in the year end awards as we're seeing the balance trickle in there's a lot of patchy mix on a lot of different things like he's been in the ranking so he's not you know he's not like out of nowhere and bellator's had a really good ban to way division for these past couple years i think we all agree on that but him going out there and starching ralphionstats and then just decimating sergio pedis like it was i thought it was going to be an incredible fight it wasn't he finished him inside two rounds i think people actually putting him in number one or you know there's a couple of people

have them lower, which, you know, I can have, I can have issues with that. But several of us have him as the number one band to wait in the world. I think that's awesome to see for a guy who has been on a great undefeated run and been just finishing people left and right. I mean, finishing, you know, going out there and having the war with Kyosur, Gucci, finishing Maga Medov, finishing Rafian Stas, and then finishing Sergio Pettas. The run he's on right now, I just love the respect he's getting that, you know, at worst, a lot of people may have in two, three, four.

I mean, again, it's not often that someone outside the UFC really jumps up that high in the rankings. I love that patchy makes us getting that respect this year. It's a good call. That's a good call. That's a really good one. I had left off my list, too. It was a great call.

I have one more surprise, and it's going away from the divisional rankings. Really, you've got to go to pound for pound for this. Women's pound for pound. We had someone breaking into the top 10, who I wouldn't have expected, really. And I get it. In fairness, the women's top 10, the women's pound for pound list is obviously thinner than the men's. The men's, we're working with, what, eight, nine divisions, right? And then the women's, it's essentially five if you want to count women's featherweight and also Adam Wade.

It's really three that people are primarily focused on. It's three and in other category. There's a feather weights in there. There's Adam weight in there. But yeah, so it's easier to break into. But Jan Shanan, ending our year at number 10 in the women's pound for pound rankings, very surprising. because she's kind of been a non-she was still ranked at straw weight, but otherwise kind of a non-factor.

Like, after she got smashed by Carla, I was just kind of like, oh, well, you know, I don't know if we're going to see much from her again. Loses a close splitie to, you know, Marine Ride Hodriguez, so not the worst thing. And then ends 22 with the win over McKenzie Dern. I didn't think she'd be cracking the pound for pound, but fights once in 2023,

knocks out Jessica Andrage. Obviously, that's going to sort up the rankings, Andrade, the women's pound for pounds. So it was kind of surprising. She's a top 10 10 pound for pound fighter in the world. Also an underrated. A couple sneaky.

It sounds weird. It sounds weird to say. That's sneaky. I got a couple to riff off that. One being also in the women's pound for pound. I had Alexa Grasso on the list. That's my number one. That was going to be my answer.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, she's the number two in our women's pound for pound. So I've. And she was unranked. She was unranked to start the year. Yeah. Not only was she unranked. She was the number.

She was the number eight. She was the number eight women fly. way going into the year. That to me is the biggest surprise outside of the Sean Strickland situation is Alexa Grasso's incredible rise because there was a moment where she was almost number one on pound for pound women's list. Like it's it's remarkable and it's not something that I ever saw coming. Yeah. And so the reason that wasn't a little higher is because at least I was trying to go back and think on it. Like okay you could at least sell me that like how this happens because she was going to fight Chivchenko and if she beat Chivchenko, then this is probably it's going to

happen, even though I did not think that was at all possible or likely. Jokes on me, I guess. But also from what you were saying there, A.K., I also put a couple of people the other side of things. So Jessica And Raj, who was our number two flyweight at the start of this year and had a really rough run in that way class particularly. like her kind of fall was pretty surprising to me. I also on this list, I have Umar just because at the beginning of this year,

I would have been like, yeah, Umar's going to make moves and he just hasn't fought or done anything. And so he's had a lost year in a lot of ways, which is tough. Um, and then the total wild guard. Alex Pereira, because at the start of this year,

I, we are now all on the boat that this man could walk on water and none of us would be like stunned, be like, well, yeah, that kind of makes sense. If you had told me in January that, hey, he's going to lose his next fight, but he's going to end up the light heavyweight champion. I would not have believed you because it seems weird for him to,

he's having a year where he is arguably the fighter of the year. Again. Despite being on the wrong end of the knockout of the year at the beginning of it. Like that is, I don't understand him. He defies law and gravity and logic. So yeah, super surprising that he's our number one. I can light everywhere. No, I think at this point we always joke about the Tyson Zone.

Alex Pereira is the Tyson Zone. You could give me any headline of Alex Pereira did this and it being like a feat that's very impressive. And I'm just like, yeah, okay. I believe you. I'd like to see it, but I believe you. For me, I think most of the ones that I had on my list have already been mentioned, but Lexa Grasso was my number one by far.

Two others, though, that haven't been mentioned that, looking at it, I am surprised. Trick is too publicity, man. I just did not see this coming. You look at what this guy was coming into 2023. He was a meme, right? Like, he was very much just a meme. Like, he was kind of a guy to get behind in a very weird

and terrible middleweight division that was just like, oh, look at this guy who's so sloppy and who somehow gets it done in, like, very ugly ways. He was our number 11 middleweight, and he was unranked at pound for pound. Now he's number three middleweight and 19 power of a pound. The fall of Robert Whitaker crossed with the rise of DDP. And we just spent the first like, what, 15 minutes of the show talking about DDP in a week that he didn't even fight? Like what this man was able to accomplish.

He gets a W in January. He can't be moving up some lists. Did not see this coming. Definitely did not see this coming. And then the other one from me. He's going to be a top seven pound for pound fighter if he beats Strickland. Yeah. It's nuts.

Robert Whitaker. It's a great call. Robert Whitaker is Strickland back to back as a hell of a run, especially if you can finish Strickland. My other one on this list just warms my heart and makes me feel good. And it's something that I've wanted to do for a really long time, but it's Tatiana Suarez. Because I didn't know if this person was ever going to even be able to just generally compete pretty regularly. I've been on the Suarez train since the beginning, which at this point is like seven years, it's just a pleasant surprise. because I didn't think that this was going to come and she was unranked in everything

coming into this year and now she is our number two straw weight and number six women pound for pound fighter and it's just she's like right there on that title shot precipice and I think obviously she gets it I've said it forever I think she'll win it I'm just very excited that this is actually hopefully happening because I didn't see that coming it's very positive sheen

it's very positive I like that I thought you all might come with some more negative options so nobody's we've had a week of nothing but negativity. I feel like it's a good good to be positive. Also, there just really weren't that many dropers. The Andraj one is like the one that was easy for me to be like, yeah, just sort of fell

all like out of nowhere kind of fell off. She didn't fall that much, right? She's like number five in our straw weight still. Strawway, I was, but I'm just talking about her flyweight. Yeah. Because she rebounded with a win, but like her, her straw, like her flyweight run was so bad she left the division.

She's like, I'm done with this. Well, speaking of fallers, Let's do our last little thing here before we get out of here. You know how we like to do on this show. We like to pour one out for our fallen soldiers who have left the rankings. And this time around, there's really only one big one. And it's someone near and dear to, I think, maybe AK's heart, if only for the allegiance to the country. It is OAM, Olivier Albion, Albanyi, Albanyi, Olivier Albanyi,

two-time PFL champion, double millionaire? Multi-millionaire. in there. You look at the earnings list for tised earners in MMA for fighters over the last two years. This man's... He's on the first page. He's going to be on the first page. He's going to be in that top 20.

And that's a hell of a thing for OAM to say. He has retired. He has called it quits after another million dollar year. He was our number 12 lightweight. If he hadn't fully officially confirmed that retirement, he probably would have moved up to like a number 10 spot. But we respect to the process. We respect his decision. he leaves MMA 21 and 5, 10 and O in PFL, which is nuts.

And to me, he is the perfect case study of how to have a successful non-UFC career in this sort of era if you're a Borland top 15 guy. But fellas, pour one out for your boys, OAM. Nailed it. I tried to rank him. Merci beaucoup, no one cares about that, Jed. Thank you, Oluvier. Adieu.

I tried to rank him so we could send him off with, you know, the final ranking of his career but we didn't get to do it. We just did. I do just want to say, though, shout out to OAM's mom because that was my favorite part of the whole thing was afterwards when he was talking about like, yeah, so honestly, I kind of wanted to retire last year. I'd won a million dollars, a lot of money. And then they called and offered me, what was the one first fight of the year for him?

Who did he fight? Oh, uh, Bergos. Oh, Shane Burgos. Shane Burgos. Yeah. Then they called, they offered me the Burgos fight and was like, well, okay. like that's pretty interested. And then suddenly I'm in this tournament and I kind of want to tell them I don't want to do it.

And then my mom is just like, or you could finish and get another million dollars. And so then I stuck with it. And I was just like, that's sick. Way to go. And it was just it was just an incredible little anecdote of like, I didn't really want to do this. But my family was just kind of like, well, you're already almost there. So like what if you just win again and get another million dollars? That seems like a good plan.

Dude. And he looked. Shout out to M.A. M.A. M.A.M. M.A. M. M.M. M.A. shout out. He looks great. That's amazing. He was knocking Fools out. Like, this was a hell of a run. The difference between him being like, I'm ready to retire,

but I'm just going to stick it out versus Rory McDonald being like, I'm ready to retire, but I'm going to stick it out. Vast. Night and day. Just a world of difference. Dude, we say it all the time. There are not a lot of happy endings in MMA. OAM out here at age 34 exiting this sport healthy, wealthy, and at the top of the game.

And wise. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You did it. Not a lot of people win this race OAM, but you won the damn race. Job for you, man. Good job by you. And for us, that is it for 2023.

It's been so fun, you guys. I've enjoyed this space so much every month. we appreciate everyone out there for rocking with us throughout the year. It's crazy that this year is over. It continues to blow me away. But 2024 has so much good stuff in store. I can't wait for it to start. We're going to have a full slate of year-end content for you guys over the next couple weeks.

Then, of course, the year preview content starting in 2024. It's going to be a good ride. I hope everyone out there has a great holiday. Enjoy the time. Enjoy the time off, hopefully. Enjoy the time with your first. family, your loved ones, pet your dogs. If your dogs are out there, we love your dogs too. And of course, we have coming up for us, for our purposes, our annual airing of grievance episode,

where we can maybe get out. Yes, a little bit. Got a lot of problems with you people? Now you're going to hear about it. Get out that little, little ugliness that we got left over. We're going to save it for that. So expect that coming in the next couple weeks as well. But in the meantime, thank you again, guys. We really do love you. I hope you have a great, great. Holiday. My name is Sean Oshaddy for Damon Martin, for Jedmishu for our boy A.K. Lee over there. Keep it locked to MMA fighting. We'll see you later. 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 IQ, 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 trekkers. your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton cross-training tread plus at OnePeloton.ca. When I got a great deal on a great gift at winners, I started wondering, could I get fabulous gifts for everyone on my list? Like this designer fragrance for my daughter. It's just $39.99, how could I resist? This luxurious wool throw for my sister. This gold watch for my partner? A wooden puzzle for my niece? Leather gloves for my boss? Ooh, you're a peasant. be in chocolate for the crossing guard?

At these prices, could I find something for everyone at winners? Stop wondering. Start gifting. Winners, find fabulous for less.