MMA Fighting - Rankings Show: The First Annual Airing Of Grievances, Plus Best (And Worst) Takes

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

The holiday season is finally upon us. Can’t you just feel all that good cheer? On the final Rankings Show episode of 2021, co-hosts Shaun Al-Shatti and Alexander K. Lee take a quick peek behind the curtain of the latest update of MMA Fighting’s Global Rankings to solve the Yair Rodriguez dilemma, discuss the biggest risers and fallers of November, plus much more. Then, the duo are joined by four of their fellow rankings panelists — Damon Martin, Jed Meshew, Mike Heck, and E. Casey Leydon — for the rankings committee’s first annual Airing of Grievances. It’s a festivus for the rest of us, if you will. The crew takes their seats around the roundtable and demands answers for the worst calls and most puzzling decisions by their fellow rankers. Why is this name so high on your rankings? Why is this name so low?? How you could possibly leave this fighter out?!? Consider it our own secret Santa gift exchange — only instead of gifts, the panel is handing out some accountability. Catch new episodes of the MMA Fighting Rankings Show on the first Wednesday of every month. Follow Shaun Al-Shatti @ShaunAlShatti Follow Alexander K. Lee @AlexanderKLee Follow Damon Martin @DamonMartin Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Follow Mike Heck @MikeHeck_JR Follow E. Casey Leydon @ekc 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

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. What is up, my friends? How is everyone? Let me be the first to wish you a happy 1st of December. I hope you're out there having a wonderful day. Enjoying the holiday season. And for all of our friends in the U.S., we hope you had a happy Thanksgiving break.

You and yours enjoyed the festivities. Welcome to the M.A. Fighting Ranking Show. My name is Sean Al-Shadi. And thank you once again for starting your month here with us. I'm joined by the Prince of Positivity. Alexander K. Lee and AK, we are back at it again. My man, November is behind us. The final month of the year is ahead.

It's the holiday season. It's year-end award season. It's Bryce Mitchell album drop season. It's just an incredible time of year. How are you feeling today, buddy? I'm feeling great. Thank you, Heen, my man. I hope everyone in the U.S. did enjoy your weird American Thanksgiving.

As I'm always saw, people, we celebrated that business a month ago. Very strange. while you guys do it the way you do it, but that's fine. We just wedge Thanksgiving and Halloween together, and that's it. And then November is holiday free. But whatever. I know you guys like to make a big deal out of these things. So, yeah, but I'm feeling good.

Like I said, this is our last show of the year, our last ranking show of the year. So I wish there was more to talk about from November, but we'll certainly have more to talk about later. There's a little tease for our listeners. Yes. So, of course, you guys already know by now, but this show, here is our once a month look at the MMA fighting global rankings. First Wednesday of every month, we're just taking you behind the curtain and letting you know where our heads at with some of these decisions. And AK, you alluded to it. Keeping with the holiday season, we have a special show here

for you all today. A fest of us for the rest of us, if you will. Normally we like to bring in a few members of our rankings voting panel in the second half of the show. Do a little roundtable discussion, a little internal dialogue about whatever was going on that month. The biggest debates of the month. This month, though, we're going big, my friend. We are making it a party. Six out of our eight panelists are going to be coming together, old friends, new friends, and AK, this is either a terrible idea or a great idea. Do you want to explain to the people what we're doing? Yeah, this will be the first annual and possibly last annual, if that's the thing, airing of grievances slash what I am calling, and a free exchange of rankings, concepts,

questions, suggestions, very, very friendly suggestions. Almost like a more pointed secret Santa, if you will. Sure, sure, exactly. And nothing physical is actually being seen. It's just concepts and ideas, which is what I think we're all great at. But suffice to say, you know, we've been doing this for four months now officially for MMA fighting, this rankings program, the rankings post. And we've had some internal disagreements, as you sort of mentioned, about where certain

people have placed certain people or not play certain people. People, listeners and readers have certainly had questions. So I think it's only fair that, again, we all kind of sit down, have a nice family dinner in and hash these things out. And by the end, we're all going to be so much closer for it. Oh, my gosh. Again, this is either the worst idea or the best idea. I have no idea how this is going to go.

I cannot wait, though. In the meantime, though, A.K., let's go a couple quick rounds here to start off as we do. Let's have a little you and me time here. Look back at the biggest movers of November. Let's do a quick three rounds. All right. Round number one. Let's start here because AK last month, we did not know how good we had it.

There was movement galore all over the divisional ranks. Last time we were here this month, tons of big fights, tons of big results. We called it the busiest month yet. But October and November, we're very, very different. Because this past month, kind of basically the opposite. If we're being honest, there was plenty of great fights. Tons of good action, but just not a lot of consequential outcomes when it came to what we're here to talk about, which is the actual rankings themselves.

So, AK, I throw it to you to start us off. Who did you feel like was the biggest riser or faller of November in your rise? Yeah, higher ranking fighters generally won most of the fights with a few notable exceptions, which pretty much we're going to cover all three of them because there was only like three. And one of them wasn't even a winner. But he definitely bears mentioning. And he reenters at a very high spot. People don't know by now.

Of course, I'm talking about El Pantera, Yeira Rodriguez, who had a great five-round fight with Max Holloway. Unbelievable. Yeah, amazing, amazing fight. I think most people agreed Holloway won, but I certainly saw some Rodriguez arguments out there. But regardless, he only exited the rankings in the first place because of inactivity. I think most of us had made up our minds ahead of time that he was going to reenter the top 10, regardless of he won or lost. The only question was how high. He comes in at number five consensus.

At number five shot, I believe you and I both placed him in that spot as well. Our top fours look a little different, but we also both said five. And I think most people, I don't know if anyone went any higher than that in their rankings. I'll check right now. But yeah, what did you think of Rodriguez coming back in the rankings like that? I was just so blown away by this whole situation. I mean, for a guy like Yaya to come in unranked, as you said, off of more than a two-year layoff, just sitting out there on the sidelines

missing all of this, the featherweight division moving on without him. And then it come in there and have that kind of performance that he had against a man who, I mean, we've debated it before, who's either the number one or the number two featherweight in the world, depending on how you see it. That is simply incredible to me. It made me honestly pine for

what we probably lost these last two years with no Yaira Rodriguez, right? Because this man is just such a showman. He is such a fierce, fun competitor watch. He's guaranteed excitement. And every time he steps in there. And as we saw with this one, man, he's not just some finesse fighter, right?

Like he's not just some flashy guy. He's got plenty of that dog in him. And AK, you alluded to it. I mean, for us, Yaird debuted this month at number five on the featherweight rankings for the site. Actually, six out of eight of the panelists, including you and I, voted him at number five. And that was usually behind some combination

of Volcanowski, Holloway, AJ McKee, Pitbull, and Brian Ortega. The other two voters, one had him at number seven, the lowest had him at number eight and that was right around that zombie Calvin Cater Josh Emmett region but I'm actually proud of us for this one this feels like one we actually got right as a team one of those fights where the guy doesn't really lose much despite actually losing the fight right like I feel like a lot of people came into that fight with a with an idea of who yaeer Rodriguez was and he maybe changed some minds and some hearts with just his performance

and in the losing effort there because it feels it does feel like he fits now in exactly that next tier, whatever that next tier below Max Volkanowski, AJ McKee is, Yair Rodriguez is in that tier and he might be the best fighter in that tier. We don't really know. So I have to ask you, I mean, quick question, does this feel, was that your fight of the year? Like, we've had a fairly ridiculous stretch here of late between that, Chandler Gaichie, Alexander Volcanowski, Brian Ortega. Like, where did that fight sit for you? I mean, I'm going with Gaetchi Chandler. I think the visceral thrill of it. And I think I think I like that it was a three-rounder. I know when it comes to these end of the year things,

five-rounders generally dominate the charts, but I like that it was a three-rounder. I think Michael Chandler himself said, like, man, if it had gone five rounds, it might have been a very different fight just because we might not have put it all out there in the first two rounds like we did, you know, at 268. So I think that's totally true. They completely threw all, well, it's funny. You know, we say they threw sort of all care to the wind, which isn't true. There was a lot of technical. Like, if you watch that fight again, I was just watching it closely this past weekend. There's so much technical stuff still going on there.

Up until the end when, you know, Chandler's just dropping his arms and telling him to bring it on. But through the first two rounds, there's two and a half rounds, man, it is, it is a great technical brawl. Guys, they're still using combinations. They're still using feints. And they're just landing all these clean shots. And it's just awesome.

So that to me probably might fight of the year for now. Would you say Rodriguez Holloways number two or number three? I think I agree with you that Chandler Gachie that for me is still number one just like the endless tension that you sort of had throughout it of all 15 minutes just knowing that at any moment this thing is just going to pop off the rails and usually was you said was that number two Rodriguez Holloway for you I don't know yet I feel like I need to watch Czech Congo and Sergei Karatanov again and I'll get back to you and by the way I'm only being like half sarcastic I think that's a great fight that's what like one of the most that's like maybe the most one of the most memorable fights of the year just I think it's the surprise factors well. Most surprising fighter. Yeah, yeah. When we see Czech Congo fights, great fighter, very accomplished, not always the most exciting

guy. But that one was wild. I did not expect to be talking about Chicago on this podcast. I love it. Let's move on. Round number two. And this was the other biggest mover on the men's side this month. Sean Brady.

And this is an interesting case because this is a gentleman now who's 5 and 0 in the UFC after this really hard fought decision over Michael Kiesa, who came in. to that fight as our number eight welterweight. And now as such, Brady vaults from unranked into that number eight spot in this welterweight pecking order. And he was someone who our panel really didn't know what to do with that were being honest.

All over the place. All over the place. All over the board here. I mean, some had him as high as number seven. And then some had him as low as almost double that at number 14. And if you don't mind me revealing this, you actually had him the lowest on your list of anyone by like a fairly decent margin.

I had him coming at number 10 and you had him in that 14 spot. AK, why do you feel like we were so split as a team on Sean Brady? Like, what are we so unsure of and how did he end up where he ended up for you? I mean, that's easy. This was the perfect storm of how high do you think of Michael Keyesus wins at 170 so far? And also, what did you think of the result of the fight, which was, you know, I think Brady clearly won the first two rounds.

And then some people thought Keisa won the second round. I don't agree, but I would have had a two rounds to Brady. Most people had that way. But Keza very clearly came on strong in the third and exposed a lot of Brady's holes, which is fine because Brady, again, is inexperienced compared to a lot of guys. So it was to be expected. So, yeah, I should mention, though I had Brady the lowest, we actually had one panelist who ranked Keisa higher than Brady. So I simply bumped Brady and Keesa down. I think others just gave Brady Kaysa's spot and then some did a mixture.

But that's kind of why it was both who have they both fought and also again, how did the fight actually go? So I don't blame anyone from ranking him again as high as seven. I certainly won't apologize from ranking him at 14th and just on the fringe of the rankings. I'm a huge Sean Brady fan. I think he's a future champion, definitely a world title contender. But I do think some things were exposed here. And I did knock him down behind some more veteran names. It's almost, did you feel like you came away from that fight, even though it was a

win almost having his stock taking a hit like it almost feels like you're lower on shown brady now than you were before that fight even though he won see but i'm not because he wasn't i mean technically he wasn't in my top 15 so he did move up he still moved up my rankings he moved into 14 um if anything i like that look you have to win these ugly ones sometimes everyone has these gsp the first fight with with bj pen to this day people still say a pen won that one but you know on the score cards the way mma is judged jr jr jr jr jr jr st pierre was the winner this is the same way it's like did brady win a fight, a pride rules fight, or even, again, even if you if you scrutinize the second round more, could you have found a way to give it to Keiza? Certainly. So, but did he win an, did he win an

fight? Did he win the rounds? Yeah, he did it. He did enough. So for me, that's great. I think that's exciting for him. But I also think it gives us a better gauge of where he is. I don't see him as a top 10 guy yet. But I think he certainly will be by the end of 2022 with the right booking. I agree with you in one aspect of that. I felt like I came away from that fight, not, maybe not believing in Sean Brady less, but I certainly feel like maybe his climb up this division will be slower than I think a lot of people were forecasting, right? Because he did come in, undefeated prospect.

He looked spectacular up to that point. And then this was kind of that wall where you hit that wall. And it's like, okay, like we sort of reached maybe your current level. And obviously this guy has tons of potential. But maybe right now, this is sort of where you fit in this division. That's kind of like how this one fell for me. Because you're right. We did have even one person rank Michael Kiesel.

Above Sean Brady, and I'm assuming that he just felt that Michael Kiesa won that fight in his eyes. Sure. Which, I mean, that's, I wouldn't agree, but it's not the craziest thing I've ever seen. But in the meantime, let's move on. Let's hit round number three. And to do that, we move over to the women's side of the game. The biggest mover on our women's list this month. And we have to jump over to 125 pounds.

Talley Santos. Am I saying that right? Is that Tallia? It's Tila. Tila. Thank you so much. You're here to try. Everyone's calling her Talia. Everyone's calling her Talia.

I grew up watching the animated Batman series, and I just saw the name Talia is always in my head. Talia Al Ghul. Yes. There you go. Perfect. By the way, that's on Disney Plus, and it's still a great rewatch. It's the best cartoon ever. It's the best cartoon ever.

In my head forever will be one of, like the imagery, the aesthetic of like, if you've seen the episode where I think it's a Riddler and there's like a Minotaur maze. Oh, so good. That is, that episode is just in my head, the aesthetic of it for my entire life. I have no idea why. That's how I learned the quickest point between two things. It was a straight line. I honestly did not know that for that.

I just watch that show. It's good stuff. You guys should check it out if you haven't. It's nice to relive that nostalgia. But in the meantime, Tyler, Tila, getting that right. Tila Santos. Yeah. She jumps from number 12 all the way to number eight on the 125 list after just steamrolling

through Joanne Wood and less than around. And now we're kind of in an interesting place because that's four in a row now for Santos in the OFC. after losing that debut of hers. And there's some good names if you look in that run, right? It's a Roxanne Monteferry in there. You got a Molly McCann in there, Gillian Robertson. These are not bad names to have on this resume already that she's building. And AK, I mean, this one was kind of an example where we all saw it the same.

Everyone in the eight-person panel had Santos somewhere in that six to nine range at 125. You actually had her all the way at number six. I had her at number nine. We were kind of hitting both ends of the spectrum there. but the thing is when it comes to 125 pounds, the conversation inevitably will always turn back to one thing, right? It's Valentina Shepchenko. It's her division, and she rolls it with an iron hand,

and all roads forever lead to her. And we've seen it a thousand times before. When you're in a division with this all-consuming, ultra-overwhelming and just dominant champion, it can be really this double-edged sword because when there's no viable contenders sitting around, because the champions are already beaten them, that path to a title can be an expedited one.

But it also means you may not get that title shot when you're actually ready for it. So, A.K., if you look at this landscape right now, there's really nobody else new at 125 pounds. Is Santos going to fight for a title in her next two fights? Is she ready for that? And do you feel like she stands even any sort of chance against this champion? It could be her next one. I mean, it could be the next fight. Look, it's almost silly that we mentioned Tyler Santos last because she could be getting a title shot before Sean Brady.

certainly before Sean Brady and possibly before your year Rodriguez as well. So, I mean, I know that sounds crazy to people who maybe the Joanne Wood win was the first time that she really landed on their radar. But as you said, they built her up the right way. You know, first two people around her range, Molly McCann, Gillian Robertson, then two veterans, Roxanne Mautafarian, and now who knows what's next? But if Valentina Shepchenko says, all right, this Nunez trilogy about isn't happening or vice versa, the Nunez, let's say, beats Juliana Pena and says, I still don't care about doing Shufchenko, the trilogy about just yet.

And Shepchenko says, look, I want a fight or March. I want a title fight. I want to keep going. They're going to have to pick somebody, and it's going to be either Tila Santos or maybe Andrea Lee. And I think most people would put Santos above Lee, except for the name value. Obviously, Andrew Lee, a little bit more well-known. But, yes, it's as crazy as it sounds, Tala Santos could be the number one contender.

I would like to see her fight a Jessica Andrage or a Caitlin Jukagian. first get through one of those two elite. We don't even say gatekeepers. They're like literally right in front of the Shepchenko door. They beat and everybody else. But I would like to see Santos fight one of them. I like her chances against Chukagian. I think that would be a great matchup.

I know Chukagian is already booked. But maybe the winner of the Chukagian Maya rematch, Santos gets them and then gets Chivchenko. But again, the champ dictates her time. And the UFC loves a busy champion. Valentina loves to fight. It could be Santos next first quarter of 2022. too. It's not even crazy to say. Not at all. It's not it's not it's well within the realm of

possibility and at the it's kind of a weird situation because Santos is almost at Valentina's mercy right now right like she's almost on Mount Valentina's timeline because if you look the only women at ranked ahead of her in the other rankings out there the UFC rankings are Jennifer Maya Lauren Murphy Caitlin Jukegan and Jessica Androge and you probably already know this but that's literally the last four people Valentina's beaten like that's it the time is coming soon and if Valentino wants to fight and defend this title and just demands the UFC Booker a fight, regardless of whether or not Santos thinks she's ready for,

she's that next name up in the list. This might be the first thing that we're seeing in the 125 division come 2022, which I don't know if she's ready for that, but I can't lie. I'm intrigued by the matchup. She feels like she brings something a little different to a Shevchenko challenger than we've seen before. It's as sellable a fight as a Shevchenko fight gets.

That's outside of the Nunez Tril. you about or like a Jessica Androge or someone with like name value like that. I think like this way. I think Santos, I think there'd be a lot of respect for her, relatively speaking. I think she'd be no more than a plus like 350 and 400, 400 underdog. I think, I think. Which is fairly respectable for a Valentina fight. Compared to other people who fought her.

We'll see. We shall see. As we said, the time is probably coming soon regardless of whether or not Thailand. out there. I think she's ready for it. In the meantime, AK, that has been three rounds. Those are the movers and shakers of November, and it's time. We're going to take a quick break, and then the first annual arian of grievances shall commence. Let us try not to get anyone fired, please. All right, y'all, we are back. Joining us now. It's the whole crew. It's a party. Six out of eight of our esteemed ranking panelists are here returning to the show. Damon Martin, Jed Mishu,

Mike Heck and making his first appearance. E. Casey Layden. Big thanks to all you guys for jumping on here today. So I'm a little scared right now. I'm not going to lie. I'm a little nervous with what we've brought into the world here, AKA the general idea, just a general idea for the audience

of what we're doing here, some ground rules. We've been doing these rankings now for about five months, almost half a year. And I feel like it's really brought us together. You know, it's brought us together for these sort of monthly debates, it's been a lot of fun, sparked a lot of fun conversations. So in the spirit,

of the holidays, we thought, hey, why not do a little supersized roundtable here? Our version of a little secret Santa gift exchange, only instead of the gifts, it's our chance to err, whatever grievances may have built up over this last half year within these rankings. So we're going to do this like this. Everybody has come prepared. Everyone has one or two names. They have singled out one or two little beefs. They want to ask someone about, why is this guy so high on your rankings?

Why is this guy so low? We're going to take turns going around the room. A little friendly, again, friendly exchange of ideas. is, questions. We're going to try to keep this civil. Let's try not to hurt anyone's feelings. Let's try not to get anyone fired. This is either a very, very terrible idea, or maybe it'll work. I suppose we're about to find out. And so with that, let us begin. The first annual M.A. Fighting, rankings committee, airing of grievances, aka the so-called Prince of Positivity. Would you like to start us off?

The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people. Now you're going to hear about it. You. As we said before the break Sean, uh, airing of grievances slash exchange free exchange of ideas, suggestions, questions, general goodwill. Uh, yes, I will start. I will start, of course, uh, as he suspected, as he suspected, uh, we were a little, a little off-air chatter. Uh, my, my, my, my good, a misfist partner and a long time acquaintance, uh, judge. Kameshue, a brilliant man who has done some shuffling of his rankings. Anyone with a keen eye looking at this month's rankings post will see a scattering of votes

for other fighters that maybe didn't make the rankings but weren't mentioned in previous articles. Jed, you seem to have found a newfound love for one championship. I would like to know how much are you being paid to vote for some of these fighters. or perhaps more indirectly. What has inspired this inclusion of some of these names, namely the outstanding Rainier de Ritter, who is both ranked at your middleway and light heavyweight,

but various other names are in there as well. So why all the One Championship love all of a sudden? Well, as we all know, one championship makes billions of dollars a year, and they have been so gracious as to give me some of that to try and get them a little shine here. No, I, you know, I was on last month. I got it handed to me pretty heavily for ranking Corey Anderson very low, which honestly, as we go back to it, I still don't think I was that far off.

But I made some adjustments and I was going through it. I just kind of decided, eh, why don't we retool this from top to bottom? I'm still not sure I figured out the formula exactly what I'd like to do. but as I was looking at it, I drew inspiration from everybody else because, you know, we've all decided apparently, and by all, I mean,

most of our panel has decided that Rauch Manfio is one of the 15 best lightweights in the world because he won the PFL, which is objectively insane, but a number of people decided, eh, and clearly the obvious point there is, let's give a little love to some of the other organizations,

the champions, people doing good things there. And so I decided, you know what, I can't in good conscience put Rauch Manfio over 30 other sensational lightweights. But light heavyweight and middleweight are pretty bad divisions. And Vineyard-Daritter is dope. Guy can grapple his ass off. So I was like, like, objectively, I will hand up and say he is probably not one of the 15 best light heavyweights in the world. You rent to him.

But I did. You haven't been seven. You haven't been seven in middleweight. No, I said light heavyweight. At middleweight, I think he could legitimately, like he's legitimately a top 10 middleweight. Okay, okay. A light heavyweight, I have him ranked at Leia Heavyweight as well. He is not, he's probably not actually won a 15 best, though I wouldn't be shocked, because again, that division is trash.

But he's got a belt and other people are doing wild stuff. I thought it'd be a lot cooler and more interesting to, instead of rewarding people like Jorge Moshvedol, who doesn't have any good wins in his division for losing to the champion and letting him stick around. Let's reward some of these young up-and-comers, some guys who are probably going to, we're going to be talking about

or who have titles in other divisions or other, not division, sorry, other organizations. And so I got a little wild with it. And I stand by it. And here, Derrida, is dope. He's great. I don't want to get stuck on this

because, Jed, by the way, I should have mentioned the top. After you get picked out, then it is your turn to do a call-out. So Jed, you will get a chance to what calls someone out next. But specifically, you have Arjun Bulr, a proud Canadian, who I'm very fond of, at 13. You're the only guy to rank Arjun. You have him above Marchant Tobora, which I think is absurd.

Two questions. Why is Buller so high? Two, without looking, can you name a person that Arjun Buler beat besides Brandon Vera? Oh, well, yeah, because in the UFC, he beat Louis-Sen-Rieck. I don't know who Since the USC Since in one In one

He's fought like One time in one And it was Brandon Vair And yet And yet is the 13th ranked heavyweight Above March and Taborah Who's like five in one Since that's in that time

Yeah Look I'm not Where would you have Where would you have Brandon Vair Oh Brandon Vair is not in it But here I will also I talk 100

How the salt How the sausage is made Tell us. Please, please. Because I wanted very, very seriously when I was re-kind of re-looking all of it. I wanted to just go whole hog into ordering them who I think would beat each other. But then that sort of got insane to me to be like, ah, Humberg May I was the second best welterweight in the world or whatever.

You have your limits. You have your limits. Yeah. I couldn't in good conscience do it. So I sort of settled on if there was a very clear, ah, this guy beat this guy and we can MMA Mathit or one resume is obviously, like, substantially better than the other. I tended towards that. But then I also just let if I, if the two guys are going to fight who I think would beat the

other one up, I let that take a lot more precedence. And Arjun Buller can fight. Like, he's not a great fighter, but his dude has an incredibly accomplished wrestling background. And I don't know. Like, if you want to tell me that Marcisianzegro is better than Arjunbuehler, cool. but like you also can't be that confidence. That's not a passionate argument. I would make a passionate argument.

I would make a passionate argument. It's not going to get laid on for 15 minutes. He's totally freaking good. I just think his, Debarre's resume is so much. But let me just say, that's my first time I've ever heard Jed say the words. I can't in good conscience do something.

Good conscience has never dictated this man's behavior before. So I'm very impressed. But yes, I'm ready to move on. I'm ready to move on. It was legitimately Hamzaa Chimaev. I didn't want to rank him number two. because then I thought everyone would just start fighting me.

She's like, all right, fine. I feel like you kind of cheated a little bit there, AKA you maybe got a two for one in to start us off. I'm monopolized a little bit, but now Jed, please. Let's hear yourself. Oh, so I have the same beef with everybody in a number of ways, but here's how I'm going to go. It's just the one beef, but Sean Al Shottie,

why don't you stand up? Oh, let's do it. And you, or I'm coming at you instead of EK Sliding, because Casey is going to be judging a BTL contest of mine later this week, and I don't want to make enemies across platforms. But if you can go to your featherweight rankings and justify how you have Max Holloway, a man who has lost twice to Alexander Volcanovsky above Alexander Volcanovsky, a man who just won maybe the fight of the year, and again, has two wins over Max Holloway.

That would be sensational if you could tell me, just explain to me why I, I should have gone with whoever we think should win because results don't mean anything to this ranking panel. We've already done this once, Jed, but I'm happy to do this with you again. With pleasure, I will do this. You cite Alexander Volcanowski's recent win. It was a great win. As you said, one of the fights of the year.

Who was that win over? Brian Ortega. Who else beat Brian Ortega in a much, much more convention fashion? Max Holloway. Boom. There you go. Max Holloway. Also, in my opinion, I believe at least one other man's opinion, one other man's opinion,

And on this little panel we're doing, he won that second fight against Alexander Volcanowski. And I think right now, if Max Holloway was thrown up against any featherweight in the world, he would beat that featherweight, including the champion Alexander Volcanowski. I feel very strongly that if they fight for a third time, which they probably will, Max is going to win that fight and vindicate the two of us who are still on Max Island. There you go. That's it. I feel strongly in this. I mean, that's okay. It's okay to have wrong opinions.

I from time to time have had them. I just want you to say the words that results do not matter. Because as soon as everyone acknowledges that, I will go off the reservation and all my rankings will be on my fields. And what I think should or could happen and not what the two fight outcomes were. So if you could just say that, I got no beef with anybody. And my December rankings are going to be awesome. What matters is your eyes, Jed. Your eyes.

And my eyes saw Max Holloway win that fight. my eyes can look at Wikipedia right now and tell you that your eyes were wrong. I mean, my eyes can look up MMA decisions and see that most people seem to agree with me. Go ahead, Casey. Oh, please, Casey, get in here. Oh, no, no. You are equally as culpable. Oh, no.

My eyes just see bullshit. The results don't matter. The results are three subjective decisions by three dudes around the cage. Everything in here is subjective. And that's why I think the, yeah, the results of the fight don't have necessarily dictate the ranking. Awesome. I love the results. Don't matter.

I can't wait to have Hans-Ot Shmaev as a top alterweight in December. This is going to be the best. This empty threat that you've been making for several months now. I take great pleasure. Don't tempt him. Don't tempt him. Anyway, wait, Jed, how did you score Holloway Volcanozky 2? We've already done this, though.

I don't feel like we need to do this again. Okay, okay, okay, okay. I think I scored at Holloway on the first watch. You do. Yeah. Okay. On rewatch, I think. And even if, even if I did score it, again, I'm trying to live at least by some code of ethics that results do in fact matter.

But apparently they don't. This is awesome. I got no problems with anybody now. Bring on the hate towards me, guys. I'm ready. I'll defend all my donations. Well, so I'll take the floor now. And for me, I'm turning to two men.

and I hate to do this to you gentlemen because I love you guys but Damon and AK are you really telling me that the man who's about to defend his Bellator Bantamweight title Sergio Pettis here this weekend that he is not one of the best

15 bantam weights in the world because this is insane to me that neither of you have been even on the list Oh no way no not even on the list and dimensioned the man he's fight also I have to add the man he's fighting

you guys have him ranked 14th and 15th respectively Horatucci as barely top 15 bantamweight. This is insane to me. Please just tell me about this. Well, okay, first off, Horaguchi is the real Bellator champion.

Let's just go ahead and put that to the side for a moment because he never lost the title. Result matter. Let's talk about, let's talk about Sergio Pettis, the bantamweight. His impressive wins in Bellator, of course, Juan Archeletta, Ricky Bendehas, great, Alfred Koshakian,

sure. Outside of that, he has a Losterob Fon. Pretty convincing Losterob Fon. His bantamweight record goes beyond just his few wins in Bellator. He was not a convincing bantamweight in the UFC. So we have a bigger body of work for Sergio Pettus than just his three fights in Bellator. And while I think the Archiletto win is definitely a good win. He lost one fight in the UFC as a bantamweight.

But he also only had like three or four fights and none of them were great fights. He had the one fight that was actually against a ranked opponent and Rob Font beat him convincingly. He had three fights in Bellator. Alfred Kashaki, no one's going to tell me that's a win that you're going to put on your records. I can't believe you beat Alfred Kashak. Good job, man. Ricky Bend Dejas is a solid prospect. Again, not a ranked guy, and he's lost to a lot of good competition.

Juan Archiletto is the one good win he has. But again, Archiletto, when you look at his record overall, for all those big wins he had in a row, his biggest most convincing win on there is Patchy Mix. And again, Patchy Mix, great prospect. He's kind on that cusp of that top 15, that top of the list right there. but he beat him then he lost to Sergio. So I'm still not sure where Archiletta fits into this mix because I've never been completely sold on him as this incredible, you know, bantamate prospect.

He's always been a guy who's fought OK talent. And then he had his big win over Patchy, which was great. But Patchy's not that guy quite yet either. Patchy's been a prospect a lot of the way. So while I think if Pettis beats Horaguchi, sure, I'll put him in the rankings because Horaguchi I have at number 14. but just being champion that can't you've got to have more than just a title belt to justify a ranking and when you look at Sergio Pettis I think he's a great I think he's a

good fighter a very good fighter Bantamate is just incredibly deep and he just doesn't have any wins on his resume that tell me that if you put him back in the UFC right now and you match him up against a lot of the guys who are established Banzan weights I wouldn't pick him to win most of those fights and then you base it on resume he doesn't have the resume Okay, what is it? And Sean just to be clear, he also has a very long ago, Bantamweight lost to Alex Caceres

He was a baby back then, but sure. We said he only had one UFC lost Benhampton. Sure, how many things that happened seven years ago, sure. Rob Bot lost the death's green. So thank you, Casey. Rob fought best Bantamate in the world. By December rankings.

Has also like way more like made up for those that lost way more and $5.35. Speaking of that, let me just name a few things that you say that are on Sergio Pettis's resume that you say isn't very good. Sergio Pettis currently has a win. It's a different division, but a win over the current UFC flyweight champion, Brandon Moreno. It's a different division. Okay.

Again, I qualified it with that. He has a win over Joseph Benevita before Joseph Benevita's really started slipping. And he has a win over Juan Archiletta, who I know you mentioned him, but Warner Chaletta is a very, very good fighter. Like, if nothing else, those three wins shouldn't put Sergio Pedes in the top 15. Sergio is a top 10 flyweight. He's not a top 15. He's not a top 15 band-oing.

He's a top 10 flyweight. I agree. Instantly, instantly, I put it back in there if he drops back down. You personally, okay. Here's where we go, Sean. Can I have a question? Can I throw this out there real quick?

You have Sergio, can I tell you? We're going with what we have ranking, right? Because you have Sergio ranked at number eight. You don't have Archiletta ranked. If Archelette is so good, why is he not in your top 15. Well, so I have Sergio at nine. But I did have Archiletta ranked at the time which Sergio fought him. But I'm saying if Archelette is this incredible Bantanweight talent, why is it? Because that's where you qualify. One loss bumps him all the way out of the rankings. That's how, like,

that's how good he is. Sean, can I defend you? Because I have a defense for you. Yeah, jump in. Absolutely. Jump in. One, because as people have been want to say a lot, Bandemweight is a phenomenally deep division. I don't, I don't love either of your rankings, frankly, A.K. Damon. I understand them, but I guess my question is, and it's a genuine question, not trying to be snotty or whatever. How much are you factoring in, like, whether they'd win now? Because you, you, you both have a lot of dudes who accomplished stuff like six years ago. Yes. Who are washed do shit right now. So like

Frankie Edgar, Hafeel Sunceau. If Kyoji Horaguchi fought Frankie Edgar right now, Kioji Horaguchi wins and wash. Yeah, like Marlon Marais, like Pedro Nunoz, isn't washed. Why did you pick Frankie of all people, Sean? How dare you? Because you have him at number 10, AK. Yeah.

He's still up there. I, that's the thing. Like I'm saying, I get your rankings, but it's, I just want to know how much you're factoring in if they fought tomorrow versus resume, because it's purely on, if it's purely on I'm still not sure that your rankings like or like that it feels a little disrespectful. Well, if we're going to be hypothetical, if we're going to be hypothetical, I think I think Frankie Edgar would have done great against a lot of the competition that Kioji beat.

You think I don't favor Frankie Edgar against Daryan Caldwell, Ben Gwyn, Hiramasa. We could like I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. Dary and Carl. I like Darren Caldwell. How is he like a day, like a two to one favor against Frankie.

Because it's not 2014 anymore. He was in the Marlon Vera fight. And he got smoked, but he was in the fight. He's been in every fight. You can't tell me, like, well, not the Cori-San-Han-Han. But I'm not sure. He was in the Marlon Vera fight. I have Vera ranked 14.

My big question is just, obviously you're banking it on resume. And so then I would ask you both, why Al Jermaine's resume isn't better than Peter Yon. Both from an actual nuts and bolts because Sterling has more wins. over currently ranked bantam weights than yon does and including a win over yon again i already explained sterling's going to be out for a long time i explained that last month sterling's going to be out for a long time ike cannot sit on that spot for the next like eight months he just can't i just can't i just can't i can't do it peter yon just convincingly beat the guy who i thought was the actual best bansomweight in the ufc when he just four rounds to one beat cori sanagan that win is more impressive and i understand

i understand aljane has a winner of course sanagan you kidding i understand i understand aljamaan has a winner of But, Corey Sanagan, what he's done in his last couple of fights after that, knocking on Edgar and beating T.J. Dillishaw, which he absolutely beat T.J. Dillishaw, he had a more impressive performance going on. Now, going back to what's most important here, I will justify and say, resume is still most important to me. It's never, while I do rank some guys based on wins along with potential or wins along with performance, things like that, resume still matters most. And at the end of the day, that's my issue with Sergio. He just, he just, just doesn't have now if he beats horaguchi this weekend my opinion will change because horaguchi is more established yes i have horaguchi at 14 horiguchi at 14 for me isn't about he doesn't have quality wins it's just about he's been out for so long and other guys have come along and had better performances since then but you're talking about frankie anger and i don't want to turn this into an anger conversation everyone here has Sergio has uh has uh has a Pedro Munoz ranked around 7 8 9 10 right on there you Edgar beat him two fights ago yes he did

thank you yes he got smoking that was a relatively controversial decision It was close enough? It wasn't a robbery. Also, I do not have Munoz ranked, by the way. Okay, fair enough. So is Max Holloway and Alexander Volcanowski? You're dying on that hill, saying Max won that fight.

That was a close fight. Oh, God, here we go. Okay. Lex is always a free of the room. I'm going to grab hold of the reins in the show right now. We need to move on. We're spending too long on this. I have a quick question, though,

but the archiletta thing is mainly for Damon. You keep saying no quality wins, no quality wins. Is there a such thing as a quality win outside of the UFC. Absolutely there is. Absolutely there is. I said he had one quality winning.

Patchy Mix, but Patchy Mix is another guy who's on that cusp with the top 15. Bellator's Band and Way division is solid. It's not great. They've got good talent in there,

but there's just no established guys. They're starting to build it. Sergio Pettis being there is one. Gioji Hori is another. Patchy Mixes all the potential in the world. But again, you've got to build that resume and right now, have that deep of a resume of quality wins.

Kioji has the biggest resume of anybody, considering what he did in Risen and then whatever did to Dary and Caldwell. But if he goes out and beats Pettus, I'll probably jump him up a few spots because, yes, he's been out for whatever's been now, a year and a half, or however long he's been out. But beating his Sergio Pettus,

along with the rest of his resume, would move him up. But again, Archiletta, I'm not knocking him saying he's a terrible fighter. He's not. I just don't think he's one of the 15 best bantam weights in the world. And when you look at our rankings,

most everybody agrees with that even the guy who's argued with me and Sean Alshadis saying this win by Sergio Bennis is so great yet he doesn't even have archelaide right now. Again, I did at the time they fought, but we spent way too long on this so Damon, the floor is yours. Call someone out. All right. Let's go back to Mr. Casey Layton over here because he's not judging my BTL this week, so I have no problem going after him. I would really like to discuss your welterweight rankings because are we at?

You have Kamara Usma number one. Now that we all agree on that's completely across the board. Oh, this is a good one. You have Yarslof Amasov, the Belvoir Welford champion number two. You have Covington, Covinton, number three. You have Douglas Lima on three straight losses, two at welterweight at number four.

Oh, Lee, but, hold on. And you have Michael Vinn and Payne. who I have gone on record numerous times my issues with his resume, the guy who just beat Douglas Lima at number 15. So let me also throw in before you jump in Casey, that four of us have Douglas Lima off our list entirely. Oh, oh, Lima, oh, that's just a copy and paste typo. That's all that is.

What? Wow. Now we've seen how the sausage is made. You know what? You want to see how the, sometimes it's made sloppily. Sometimes the sausage. See a next. month, everybody.

Are you being serious? I was on vacay when I was on vacate when that fight happened. This is two months in a row of Douglas Lima being four. Is this really a copy of paste thing? But you also have, and I know this is a Bellator thing, and it sounds like I am, yes, I am taking shots of Bellator, but you also have Jason Jackson at 14.

I like Jason Jackson. No, no, no, that's legit. Lima, no, that's legit. Lima, no, I don't know. We can't, D. I want to address that Amosah Lima thing because that's the real meat of this. Can you please explain to Amosoph Lima two and four? Yeah, please. Amosoff and Lima number two and four, please.

Lima we know now. Lima's been too. No, no, I missed the Lima page fight. I was on a beach. Okay. You were single-handedly keeping Douglas Lima in our rankings, I think, with how high you rank. But you're okay. Now, again, kind of like with a feather-way thing.

But after that, after that, I stand by everything. So the Amazon, please. Yeah. Amazon. Yeah, what about it? You think he's the second best, best welterweight in the world? Yes. Based on what?

Yes. Based on how, because he's a dominant, freaking, boring-ass wrestler. And that's what wins in MMA. His dominant split decision winner for Logan Storley, that's dominant. That was the dominant win. Yeah. Over another really strong wrestler. Yeah.

Style-wise, yeah. Logan Storley was a. In Snowball, All-American, like, four times. Out wrestling him is pretty impressive. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it was, I don't know what is it you. Logan Story's 12-1. His only loss is a very close fight to Amazon.

But you said, no. Logan Story-le just doesn't have the resume, unfortunately, that to, for me to give him a higher ranking. But I think Logan Story will be easily a top 15 guy. He's not a fighter I want to watch. But just in terms of how good he is, yeah, he's, really good. He just does have that win. And I have no issue of Amosov. The way Amosov just completely dominated Lima for

five rounds, it was incredibly boring, but incredibly impressive. And yeah, I think Amasov's that good. He's a boring guy. He, that no promotion wants him as a champ. Unfortunately, he's just like that guy. But he's that good. If you're basing it, if you're basing it,

and again, I'm not knocking, I think Logan's story is great. You said dominant. I'm saying he just had a split decision with Logan's story. That's not dominant. But my point is, my point is, though, Tom, it was a great fight. It was a great fight against a great wrestler. And style-wise, that was an incredibly tough fight for Amosov, and he still won. I have Amosov ranked eight.

I could easily move him up to seven. I probably should have flipped him in George Mazadol. That's my mistake because Mazfadol is on more loss. But that's neither here nor there. That's one's position. I wasn't beating anybody worse shit in the division either. But Amosov has, let's say, two quality wins, one being a split decision over Logan's which I actually scored him losing that fight, but that's again, neither here nor there,

very close fight. Douglas Lima is a legit win. I'll give you that. Lima is a good win. But Lima is also... It's incredibly a good win. It is a good win. But outside of that,

what else are we looking at? Eric Silva, at whatever he's at now, 30 and unjust? Like... We're looking at 26 and 0. That's what we're looking at. Every time he shows up, he fights, he fights,

and he wins against quality professional fighters. Where is Jason Reinhart in your rankings, though? Because he was like, 4, you know, at one point. Jason Reinhardt didn't defeat Douglas Lima That's the thing Jason Reinhardt didn't defeat Logan Stewart didn't defeat a insane

A WACA I'm on that I'm on Katie on this one Because I think like wins like Lima I think Edru is pretty good too These are wins that validate the unbeaten Like you're right If it's just an unbeaten record

You're like okay whatever But I'm not saying Amosloff doesn't deserve a top 10 I haven't ranked in top 10 I could argue top 5, 6 but number two You're gonna put him a book Colby Covington, as much as we all may despise the guy,

taking Kamar Usman and splitting Kamar Usman rounds for 10 rounds against the best Welchway, best pound-for-pound fighters in sport. Yes, he lost both fights. We all agree on that. But he's pushed Usman further than anybody else has the UFC by a wide margin. Gilbert Burns actually has... Chelsun and pushed Anderson Silva. So?

And Shell-Sahlew is number two for the middleweight for a long time. Usman-Cuffington are just exciting. as just an exciting match and those guys fight well together I think Gilbert Burns has legit Gilbert Burns has legit wins

good wins over legit welterweights and you have him ranked below Douglas Lima and Amosov I mean Leon Edwards on a nine fight Okay

Okay bump Lima out Just bump Lima out Bump Lima out Lima lost Lima lost the page Yeah yeah okay

My bad bump him out bump him out I'm with Casey I have MSov 4 I have Amazon 4 so I'm kind of a case I think he's really good.

I'm high on Amosov. I'm a little higher. I get I'm high on him. Yeah. Because I take, I think it's so tough to show up consistently every night and not have an off night. And I think that's incredibly, incredibly impressive. And the way he did the Lima and the way he just dominated five rounds and made Lima look at an incredibly boring fire. When I think he's one the most exciting, dangerous fighters in the world, I was just incredibly impressed.

Bored out of my mind, but impressed. I have to say, the Amosov one is much, much, much, much. more defensible to me than the Douglas Lima one. That was the big one to me. And I keep saying, I keep saying the Lima thing was a mistake. That would be corrected. And if nothing knows,

if nothing knows, at least we got that from this. Sean, wasn't that's a great, you know, you're right. This was a great idea. See,

I said a free exchange of grievances and also suggestions, corrections. See, this is a family, this is what a family dinner should be like. You know,

I am looking at my rankings now. I am upset that I do have Masval that high. I think a Mazvada should be lower now. Yeah. Maswell shouldn't be on the board, you users. I'm going to reveal a little bit of insight here, but me and Jed don't even have Mazvedol on our list at this point.

Can I chime in? I haven't spoken at all here. I haven't spoken at all. I was going to demand it, actually. You have him at seven. You have Mazvedol at seven. Yes, and I'm not thrilled with that choice either, but just kind of, I mean, just kind of looking at how rankings work.

That's why he's there. But that's what I'm going to talk about. I'm just glad that three other folks, I believe three other folks, have jumped on board with having Doug, Lehm outside of the top 15 at 170 because I remember getting attacked about that choice slightly attacked not as bad as Damon attacked me on other things but I was I was kind of beat up a little bit I took a few a few jabs but I have a little sense of vindication on this on this Tuesday as we record this I like it I like it that's what we're here for good

Sean do you mind do you mind giving your turn to Mike to let Mike do a call out is that right I believe it was Casey's turn but Casey can okay I'm sorry I'm sorry Casey go ahead I'm sorry I'm I'm sorry. I thought you both got called out. Oh, it's my turn. My turn. Yay. Please, Casey, go ahead. Let's go for this. What I write down real quick. Shaheen.

Okay. I'm going to get... I'm going to be the first to get two. All right. Look at this. Oh, my goodness. It's not really a big whatever, but... Neil Magny, number seven. Okay.

All right. I'm happy to have the Neil Magny conversation. Let me pull this up. Unranked by me. Unranked by A.K. A. K.R. Ranking's trash. They are all rightness. Wait until I get to come at you, buddy.

No respect for Michael Benham Page. The disrespect to Michael Bennett Page needs to stop. The disrespect to Sean Brady. Oh, that's easy to explain. All right. Casey, I'm not going to lie. You called me on the right one because I just pulled up Neil Magnet and his record and I already feel silly because I do have him ranked above Michael Kiesa,

who obviously just beat him earlier. this year. That is a bad one on me. Meet him well. Beat him well, yeah. That is an oversight on me. I have Neil Magny at seven. That's probably too high. He needs to be somewhere around 10, 11. I don't know that that's the craziest one, but that's definitely, I agree with you on that. But I have to say, the disrespect for Neil Magny amongst a lot of people on this regging panel, it blows my mind. This man is one of the most underrated fighters in this division. He has been for a long time. He takes on all comers. He fights everybody and he wins almost all of his fights,

except for a very few of them. How some of you don't see him as a top 15 welterweight after the insane activity and just again, the willingness to fight everybody and win most of these fights? Like how you don't see him as a top 15 welterweight right now blows me away. Agreed.

I have number 12. I don't think Magny. That's around the right spot. Yeah, I think Magnet, I've always said he's kind of that he's like the, I don't know, you know the different level gatekeepers. He's that top 10 gatekeepers. To beat Magnet, you don't necessarily fight for a title,

but if you beat Magna, you're fighting one fight away from the title. He's that type of guy. And that's why I have him right outside the top 10. I'd really like to hear from AK about why he feels like Neil Magni isn't even a top 15 fighter. Again, it has to do with really who's who he's behind. So the thing is, it's where I moved Keesa. Because Keesa beat him. So obviously I had to put him behind Keesa.

Brady beat Kea, so I had put Kea behind him. And Kea says your last place, basically. Well, I dropped, yes. I dropped Brady and Keza down as opposed to just bumping Brady up into Keza's spot. thought we kind of talked about this on the first segment of the show so i won't go over too much but i did feel that brady's win was good uh but not so much that it made him a top 10 fighters so i bumped him behind a lot of a veteran names um guys who i think are more sort of a little more exciting in the division like shemayev uh ray cooper right now uh bala muhammad i don't think

it's anything wrong with putting him behind bala muhammad so oh it's i think i don't think it's simple to explain now. What is, what is, what is, what is, what is, what is Balaal done? You have Michael Vennon Page ranked 10th, A.K., I'm just saying. Because I had Lima in the top 10. He took, he took, he took Lima spot. I like that.

I don't mind that. Yeah, I don't mind. Why does he, why does he only bump one spot? Like, how do you have, how do you have Douglas Lima ranked higher than Sean Brady and Michael KSAK? What is Sean Brady done that Douglas Lima hasn't? I think, uh, one fights.

He's winning fights. But, but your competition, your competition. No, no, I don't, I think Doug Lima is still top 15. I think Lima is still top 15. I think he's still top 15 for sure. And yeah, I, like, I would pick, I could pick Doug's name of, I could say Doug's name of being Sean Brady. I can see Sean Brady. I don't know.

I mean, that's what we're talking about. You know, they're different promotions. They have very few common opponents, so we don't have very much to go on. I would pick Neil Magny to beat Michael Venom Page tomorrow. I would put money on Neil Magny to beat Michael Vennon page tomorrow. I agree with that. I agree with that's fine. But, but I had Lima above him.

I put, I put, I put Lima above. Am I the highest of Gainty? And MVP for me beat Lima. So my math had to work out that way. I think Neil Magne is great. I just think it's unfortunate. Again, yeah, he's, you know, he had the lot of the case

of really screwed things up for him. Obviously, he has a lot of good wins. And just your low opinion of Michael Kiesin. Oh, I thought you're gonna say Neil Magne. No, I think both of it. But let's move on. Wait, I don't get, wait, we want to get one grievance? We're going on.

We're coming back around. This is the first round. Fair enough, fair enough. It's to me, but Mike hasn't gone and I would love to get Mike in here. He's the only one. So Mike, please. Air some grievances.

I mean, I'm just going to go for the low-hanging fruit right now. Like, I gave A.K. some other ideas, but I have to go back to Casey here because how dare you, how dare you rank Sergio Pettis higher than Rob Font? What in the blue hell is the matter with you, Casey?

Defend yourself. Defend yourself, Casey. He is, Rob Fond is not in his top five, which, you know, whatever. But Sergio Pettis ranked above Rob Fon, how dare you? Just for context, Casey has Sergio Pettis at six and Rob Fon at seven.

And that's the lowest anybody has Rob Fon. Okay. Defend yourself. They fought three years ago. Pettis is a much better fighter now, and I feel if they fought tomorrow. What? What did you just say? What does that sound?

Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I spit up my coffee for a second. But I think I miss her what you said. He's a much better fighter now than he was then. not a much better fighter than Rob Fawn. I didn't, I don't think I heard that, did I? They fought three, three years ago, and I feel Peders has made vast improvements.

And Fonts is Fonts doing good. And, yeah, he's, well, I don't know, like, what do you want? Do what? I mean, he took, Fons, Fons, what, who did, Fons be, where he just be, Garbrandt, right? Garbran, who is number three. Marmarized. Ricky Simone, Ricky Simone is a better win than anything Sergio Pettis has, advanced. That's ridiculous.

Come on, man. We're talking about... That's ridiculous. That's what I mean, like the whole archiletta thing. We are putting no value in the incredible win, the five rounds he had over archa letter. And we just put Ricky Simone. We just put Ricky Simone. Damme, you put Ricky Simone over Archiletta.

Like, it was like gospel. Like, of course Ricky Simone's way better at Archiletter, which I find, no. I don't know. And that's what... But Petitin Fondon, they're six and seven. I pretty much take all rankings. has kind of a, you know, like a poll. Like every ranking outside maybe the top fighter has it kind of a plus one or minus one.

A little plus minus range where you, if it's in there, it works. Yeah. And that's what Petters and Fawn are. Like, yeah, it's a very even matchup right now. Like if Fon was in Bellas right now, yeah, he would be fighting Horo Gucci right now for the championship belt. Like they're kind of the same level I put like. So, I mean, now if I had Pettus, you know, if I had Pettus, you know, four or five spots ahead of font, yeah, you can, you know, wag your finger at me. But I think being one spot down is pretty, I think, I don't think it's obscene.

That's all. I think it's egregious, especially with Fawn having a dominant win over him. But I mean, there's other things I could pick up. I mean, yeah, font's got, I mean, I don't know. Let me say good fonts. And let's be fair here. I don't want to take Casey's turn. I don't want to take Casey's turn.

Let's be fair here. Mike does have a New England bias. This is well-known. Mike, you're my best friend. I wouldn't be saying this wasn't true. Calvin Cater, you have him at number six, two spots higher than anyone else. And I'm just saying, these are your boys.

You have a bias. These guys are also your close friends. I believe you often say I am your best friend along with Calvin Cater and Rob Fawkes. I'm sorry. You have catered rake the highest among the whole staff, right? Yes, Cater, two spots higher. I'm just saying, and he also has font.

I'm just saying there is a New England bias. So, you know, let's put it out there. I'm not taking your turn, Casey. Casey, you still get a call out. I'm not taking your turn. But I'm just want to. Sorry, no, it's still mic. I'm sorry.

It's your turn, Casey. It's your turn, technically. After, after. Me having cater in that spot is, there's more validity there than having Sergio Pettis ahead of Rob Vaughn. Just throwing that out there. But go ahead. But like I said, every, every spot, I think there's a plus. I'm a jet sigh over there.

So would everything be exactly the same for you if I had Pettis just font at number six and Pettus at number seven? Just one spot difference. I mean, I could pick almost your entire top 15 apart right here, but that one just really stood up to me. Juan Archeretta ranked higher than Marabda Walsh Willey. Are you crazy? No. Morab de Walsh Willie with 3024 Wanatjoleta tomorrow.

Like how is that? Like how do you justify that? I'm sorry. How do you justify that? What do we basing that? How? Morab's got a better resume than Archiletta does. I mean, come on, man.

Like, you open the door. I didn't want to. Mike sounds like a disappointed father. Come on, man. I don't have issues. I don't have issues. All right. Barishili, he almost got decapitated.

He should have lost. Almost. He didn't. You know, but he didn't. And Archelaide had an incredible win streak. He fought an incredible fight against Patchy Mix. And he lost a competitive fight against Pettis. I think, I think, I think,

he's an exciting, no, grinder fighter. But, you know. Exciting is maybe not what I'd call Devaluille, but... Well, his last fight was damn exciting. Well, according to your Amosoff, it's according to your Amosov description. Rob DeWallish willy should be the number two

ranked Bannamoid in the world right now. But Amosov hasn't taken that sort of beating to even get those Ws. You know, he fought close. Like his Logan Story fight was a close competitive fight, but he didn't take, he didn't have to come back from a 7-10 round to win that card.

Volus Shealy did have to come back from a 7-10 round practically to win his fight against Marias. That's why. It's not just the record as to how he won all those fights. He's won with dominance. That's, and I, like, W's are W's, but W's are even bigger just how dominating you win those fights.

And Amosov has just dominated his way to 26 and 0. All right. I'm jumping in here. I'm jumping in here because this is going to be a two-hour pod. If we keep going. But Casey should get to call someone out now. It should be Casey's turn. I got you, I got you.

Calm down, AK. So that, that's the end of this first round. We have each of us have two of these. That's the first one for everybody. Right now, Mike is chilling. He's the only one on Skate. It must be nice. No, I did.

I called him up for the New England bias. I want that. That's fair. And he admitted to it. I was on record. I absolutely did not, but go ahead. Sean, edit that out of the final. Can you edit that out of the final?

Can you edit that out? I got you. Casey, the floor is now yours. I'm sure we're still all friends here. This callout isn't really, I don't know if it's a callout, but where's the love for Anthony Johnson? Oh. That's all I'm going.

Where is the love for Anthony Johnson? So this is more of a universal callout. Yeah. I think I have Anthony Johnson ranked the highest at number 10. So not only do you have Anthony Johnson ranked at all? So yes, that's where I was going. So not only do you have him ranked the highest, you only three people amongst the whole eight people panel have him ranked.

I have him ranked and one other person has his ranked. I have him at 13, so I'm kind of in the same line as you there, Casey. But you're right. No one else. No one else thinks Rumble Johnson's the top 15 light heavyway. That's an interesting observation. I have no problem. I know everyone's getting, and this is what everyone's going to say, someone we never heard of almost knocked him out.

That's what we're going to hear, right? No, no, no. My thing with Anthony Johnson, is, and it's just that his only win, yes, is over the guy who, you know, wasn't the most convincing win. He was out for five years. That's the biggest thing. Like, he just hasn't done, like, when Misha Tate came back and at least got an established win over, you know, again, now Bantamweight is not nearly as deep. We're saying that about Light Heavyweight because Light Heavyweight's not exactly the deepest division either. But at least she came back at a convincing win over Marion

Renaud, who is still at that point, I think, you know, whatever she was around that top 15 range, and we had a bigger body of work. Anthony Johnson's last. big win. Yes, it was over Glover to share. That's a great win, current UFC chairman, but it was six years ago, so or five years ago. So it's kind of harder, it's harder to justify that one as much because of time. So I absolutely, I'm 100% on the Anthony Rumble Johnson train. I love him. And I think if he goes out there, I think if he's in shape, it looks good. I think he can beat Demkoff. He can beat, he can sing Corey Anderson's head into the fourth row. I'm a big Anthony Rumble Johnson fan.

It's just based on time off, like five years away. And his one win back was over kind of a no-name guy. That's my only. issue. Otherwise, he goes out and beats anyone else. I'll definitely jump him into that, probably the top 10. Is that what everyone's pretty much on board with? I'm pretty much in the same boat. I don't have an issue with you ranking him. I mostly tried to cut it off at like three to four ish years in the past just because it gets really muddled when you're talking about I beat somebody seven years ago. But I don't have an issue with it if you want to. I just opted not to. Okay. All right. Well, let's turn back to where we started, AK.

Do you have a second call out? I actually didn't because I kind of used both. I did have two, but I kind of used the cater one, you know, just getting my best friend on record again, whereas biases was important for me. I will say quickly, and everyone, everyone, be nice. Since we're talking about the light heavy weights, everyone, and I really don't be nice. Casey, I think we've talked about this before, but we do have to talk about Izzy Adesania at number eight.

Oh, yeah. I'd not see that. No one's in Casey please state your case for This placement He fought a very competitive fight against the champ Just like I have Yaya Rhaerwegas ranked in the top five When he wasn't he was unranked before But Yer has a

But Yadier has a resume at 145 Yeah And Izzy and Izzy has a competitive loss Two judges have only losing a fight three Three rounds to two To a giant 205 are in the small cage. And that was Izzy's first time at 205.

And I just think Izzy's that talented. And yeah, and that's why I haven't ranked at number eight. Eventually, once the time, whatever, our 18 months, if he doesn't fight at Light Heavyweight again, I'll move him out of the rankings. But according to our criteria, he's fought, I think he's fought at 205 in the last 18 months. And that's why I haven't ranked there. Wait, so you say, Izzy is going to stay in your light heavyweight rankings for the the next basically year?

Is that, if that's how we do the rankings? I know, but you're not locked in that. No, no, hold on. But you're free to drop him out whenever you want. You don't have to keep him in for 18 months. Like, you're allowed to.

I would, no, I, he's there. I mean, I can take him out. I just, just to hook up, no, I don't know, hook up Paul Craig. But I don't know, but no. I think Phil Davis? You don't think Phil Davis has done more at 205 than Izzy did in that one fight?

or you like okay I think just Izzy's performance and his dominance at 85 carries over to 205 oh yeah

this is where this is where resume I mean and rankings that's what I mean like this is what rankings are we're don't we're this is just very subjective

in that I think David don't talk about resume has to matter when Peter Jan's decision win is somehow better over Corey Sanagan. Oh, God, what's happening right now? Just shorting him in 90 seconds.

Whoa, drive by. Nonsense. Casey, Casey, you keep living your life, buddy. I support any of these choices from you. I mean, I mean, like, so like, well, we have,

you know, we have, yeah, sorry. Yeah, I get it's weird. He's only fought one time at 205, but it's within 18 months. It was for the championship fight and a competitive fight. And yeah,

if, you know, if Yon want to smoke them and just know, you know, whatever, Then, yeah, I was like, okay, Izzy's not even a top 15, you know, 205, or but I just don't think that's true. All right. Jed, let's bring in. What's your next call out? I have two. I want to go with this one, and we'll see if we have time for the second one. Damon, let's talk. And this isn't just Damon. Oh, here we go. This could be Mike or Steven's not on the call. AK even you. What resume matters, as Damon so eloquently just established,

Can somebody explain to me in the heavyweight division what won Ryan Bader has done to merit being ranked 10th or at all because he's fought three, four times in the one over King Mo. Great heavyweight win at Mitrium. Fador. Fadour, not Fadour in 2006, mind you, 2019 Fadour. And no contest with Czech Congo. He has not competed in the division in almost three years. Someone tell me why he's got a heavyweight number. I would love to hear a good answer other than I just copy and paste it because that's an okay answer.

I'll take that one all day. I'll give you the, it's been a long time, but how many times to get hit in any of those fights you just made the heavyweight fights you just mentioned? How many times he get hit? I don't know. I cannot remember that fall back in my memory. It's an easy answer. Zero times. Zero times.

He fought Fador, Maitreon, King Moe, and did not. not get hit once. That's pretty good. What a resume. Yeah. That is a pretty, I agree. That is a pretty impressive resume. I mean, if you want to say a guy fighting three like heavyweights and not getting hit once

is not impressive. Okay. Let's not like King Moe's at heavyweight. The fight with, again, we've already just, we've already. We got, we. Let's get Damon in here. My age is. Damon has Ryan Bader.

Why is Bhaer? Yeah. Well, hold on. Then how. At number 10. Hold on. Hold on. Arjan Boulart.

So Arjun Boulart. Arjun Boulart. Arjun Boulard has done more at Heavyweight, apparently, than Ryan Bader. That's what I'm hearing. Just to provide some context for the listeners, Damon has Ryan Bader number 10 on his heavyweight rankings. That is the highest of anybody at heavyweight or of anyone from Ryan Bader, I should say. Oh.

Yeah. Okay, so a couple of things. I mean, yes, Ryan Bader has, you know, Ryan Bader, his last three fights have been at light heavyweight. Okay, fine. I get that. But overall resume of what he's done, especially the knockout or Fador, Fador just coming back, having a quality win over a good guy and Tim Johnson matters. I'm not going to sit here and lie and say that he's truly the 10th best heavyweight in the

world. The problem is, and Ryan Bader is succeeding because other people aren't. And what I mean by that is there's just not a lot of depth at heavyweight. I mean, I have Alistair Overeig ranked 11. I don't know. Is he really the 11 best heavyweight? Tom Aspinall is probably the guy that has the biggest chance to jump. He's just got to fight a couple more guys with, would,

name value to get in there. Modowski, you know, again, same kind of. I've got Fador ranked 15th. I love Fador. I'm the biggest Fador fan ever. But Fader's really not the 15th best heavyweight. The problem is there's no one else to rank. So that's why.

Ryan Bader is succeeding because others are failing. I totally get that and that's a good answer. My major question is this. And this isn't just to you, Damon, but kind of holistically for all of us. Like, if Bader never goes back up, technically, according to our rules, because he at one point fought at heavyweight and was ranked, we can keep ranking him there in perpetuity if he just fights at light heavyweight. But he hasn't fought at heavyweight in three years. And to the best of my knowledge, he's not planning on doing that anytime soon either. So, like, from a, from a logistics standpoint, we should probably not allow him to be ranked at heavyweight.

But if we are going to Heavyweight champion of Bell at Tor So it's a very weird situation Yeah that's the problem Is that the only reason people are ranking Bader Because he's still I didn't rank him so I can't say But yeah I took him out of the rankings

Simply because of the It's been three years Sure I mean there's clearly the intent The fact that he has the belt Signals the intention that he will fight a heavyweight Now if he doesn't They should strip this on Belator

I don't say and I'm saying You don't have to I do care So you don't have to care I'm not saying any of you have to care But you ask for a reason Why do we think like Oh is there a chance

He'll fight a heavyweight again he's literally is their heavyweight champion. So you can ignore that. That's fine. So I'm not going to go full Casey with like I just left Bader in there like Lima. I'm not going to go full on that. But I am I am going to go Jesse Chesel a little bit. I kind of just left him there because I'm not going to lie.

My heavyweight rankings for this month, 100% truth and honesty, I copied and paste it because nothing really happened in the division this month. Like no one fought in one. So I literally just copied and pasted. And I was like, oh yeah, I have him at 10th. Is he really 10th? Probably not, but I don't know. Is Augusta Sakai is, you know,

Tom Aspinall's one guy I would argue is probably better than I have. You know, I have him at 13, mostly just because he hasn't had a lot of, you know, he's a, I think he's a tremendous prospect. He just hasn't had, like, the biggest wins yet. Yeah, but, yeah, like, I can, I can take the bullet on Ryan Bader because he's probably not the top 10 heavyweight, but I fully admit, I copy it and paces from last month's rankings because nothing happened to heavy weights. I respect the honest.

Damon. There we go. I appreciate it. I love it. Hey, I started to be honest first. Casey did start. Sure. Sure. You honest for being on you. You honesty hipster Casey. Thank you. I was like Mike. I was waiting to honesty before everyone else was. I'll be honest about that. Nothing happened to heavy list. It's just like copy paste. Can I find Mike? Is it my let's let's see. Is it? Is it my turn now? Have you done to already, Damon? No, I have not. All right. This is going to be a short one because I already kind of brought up, but it was with someone else's topic, so I didn't want to steal their thunder. Alexander Cayley, can we go back to you having Michael Venom Page at number 10 in the launchaway brandings? And Douglas Lima at number 11 off three straight losses.

Listen, I've said this numerous times. I don't think Michael Venom Page is a terrible fighter. But his resume is one good win. And if you want to say Paul Daly, okay, I like Paul Daly very much. That was a god-awful fight. It's just a bizarre fight. How is Michael Vennam-Page better than Ray Cooper, who actually has a pretty good resume now when you think about what he just did in the PFL considering the winner of Roy McDonald?

Balaamah, okay, we're going to argue about Balao. What is he really done? Sean Brady and Michael Kiesa. Michael Kiesa, I mean, good Lord, you're going to tell me right now Michael Vennon-Page has a better resume than those guys. really? I like the 20 and one. I like the number.

I like to win over Lima. The one's the thing is, like I said, I stand by Lima being above those guys you mentioned. So if I think MVP is better than him, then I have to put him above Lima. I cannot drop them. The other option would have been to drop them

because MVP beat him and then drop them. But I thought that like, I said, I think MVP is better than people think. It's not his fault. He's had some last minute opponent changes. Yes, he has a super soft schedule. There's no question. But I like the Paul Daley win.

I like the Derek Anderson win. Some of his other names, certainly, whatever, I could do with that. But I have no issue with him. Like, I do think, I put it, I would put it above Ray Cooper right now. And I'm really impressed with Ray Cooper. Ray Cooper is my number 12. So I have them in this cluster. So, I mean, 10 is, it's high.

It's high. It's higher than anyone else has them. But I think it's defensible because you ask how many wins he has. And I'd also ask, like, I'd also say, well, how many losses does he have? How many bad losses? We don't know. He has one, literally one loss on his resume. We don't know if he really,

is like outclass, like if he really would be outclass. Everyone thinks so, but there's just been no evidence of it yet. And real quick, can we stop saying the three straight losses? Because we're talking about divisional rankings. They only has two straight losses in divisional rankings. And even if you lost to Musassi at 185, he lost in Muscat, we're not talking about that. We're not, we're not, you just said, you just said, is he, you're giving Izzy a ranking at light heavyweight because of what he's done at middleweight.

You just said that two seconds ago. You said, well, Izzy's resume at middleweight combined with the close five of Boehovich, if his middleweight wins count towards light heavyweight where he's currently 0 and 1 by the way. You keep saying you keep saying three fight loss. It's like we're not talking

but that's what I'm talking about like we're talking about he's not on three fight losing streak at water weight. That's all. And even the counting of loss is how much you're going to penalize someone for losing to Masasi

and Amasov? Like he gets hurt like he gets trust two championship fights. He plummetes down the rankings because he lost him with Sassi and Amasov like I think that's absurd. Like I'm not I'm not saying

but I'm saying my I'm not I'm not even bringing it. We're going back to Douglas Lehm here. I'm talking about Michael Vinn and Page. His one win is one quality win is over Douglas Lima. The guy does not have a resume much. I mean, good, look at, look at, look at, he's 20 and look. Well, how's he not remember? Lima has only lost championship fight. He lost a top 10, and Donald. He lost to a top, a top, a top, almost off. He lost to a top ranked middleweight. I mean, and like I said, I are, I either have to drop both of them behind some of the guys

you mentioned, which I don't feel I'd need to. I think that Lima still has a strong enough and I think Page showed enough in the in the second fight. It's super boring fight, don't you're wrong, where almost nothing happened. But he won the fight. I agree with the judges and I did win the fight. I think I did score for Page. And I said it was not a robbery. Agreed with the judges or not. And why is Peter Yan behind Algebra in your rankings? Don't say stuff like that if you're going to keep doing that, AK. Hold on. Maybe if you, maybe if you, hold on, Jed, listen. We explain this multiple. We explained this last month.

We explained it on this show. Al Jemaine Sterling is not going to hold the top spot hostage for the next eight months. Exactly. Enough. Aren't you a lawyer? Aren't you in law? Aren't you, aren't you just a good memory? Like, we covered this twice.

We need to move on because I haven't heard Mike's, Mike Hacks's voice. Way too long. I miss hearing his voice. And I need to know. I have a voice for Mike. I need to know what Mike's second call out is. Bring it, Jed. So you give me a reason.

I don't want like any sympathy callout. So give me a reason, Jed. Oh, Lord. Oh, boy. You know, we haven't talked any about the women's rankings. And I'd like us to all turn our attention to the Bannamweights because I think this must just be an oversight. I think that that's the only explanation, which is totally cool.

You're not the only one who did it either. But Rockell Pennington, we all hate her now, apparently, because many people have her ranked just on the edge of the top 10, several spots behind Alina Aldana, who, if we all recall, Pennington has victory over. Now, maybe you don't think it. It was a split decision,

and I'm still not sure whether results matter or not. But Pennington has only lost to Holly Holm, Jermaine, Nunez, the consensus top three fighters in the division. And so, Mike, if you could explain why Pennington is so far behind Aldana,

who even if you think Pennington lost that fight, it was a competitive fight, and feels like she should maybe be getting a little more love than Nike. I mean, listen, I think it's tomato tomato, man. I think you could plus one minus one half of these women at this point. Like even the top five, you could insert.

I'm not talking to plus one. I'm talking to plus five. It's, I mean, listen, it's, listen, it's so interchangeable if we're being honest. Jed, you have Pennington the highest of anybody, just for context for the listeners. You have her at number four. AK also has her at number four. Everyone else kind of has it in that five, six, seven range. she's coming off a competitive victory

over a Panny which is a good which is a nice win she was out for a while so that was a nice thing to come back to I think she jumped up a few spots in my rankings if memory of surgery correctly from before because that fight was in October I believe so yeah she she had the pertinent jump up

after a long time out that was a good win for her against a surging opponent so she jumped up probably five or six spots in my rankings. Aldana came back and got a win too. So I mean, yeah, I mean, I get where you're coming from. I'm not going to, it's definitely not something I'm going to sit here and dig my feet into

the sand and be like, Jed, you're an idiot because you're really not. If you want to rank Raquel Pennington fourth, I got no issue with you. If you want to rank her 11th or 12th, I got no issue with you. Like, I have her kind of right in the middle of those. I have her in the top 10. I have her at number nine. She's fighting Julia Avila. A fight.

I think she probably will win, but could have some. problems, especially out in space, if she can't get a hold of Julia Obila early. So yeah, I think ranking her in the top 10 based on the last three years of her line of work, I think that's a fair ranking. I don't think there's anything truly wrong with that. Do you think it's fair to have Alda Don ahead of her? Do you think it's fair to have Aldon ahead of her? Right now, sure. I mean, yeah, she got bolted by Holly home. I'll give you that. I'll give you that. She got bolted by Holly home. But that's just the state of the division right now. Like at this moment, I just feel like Arena Aldana is a little bit better than Raquel Bennington.

Just right the second. I feel like, again, the last few lines of work, Aldonnas hasn't been incredibly much more active than Raquel Pennington, but she's had some pretty good wins, some pretty good finishes under her belt. She was very close. If she didn't take the Holly home fight, she would have been fighting for the title. Yeah. So I think having her, I don't think there's anything terribly wrong, especially at women's 135 with her being four spots higher than Recount Bettington. It's not like I'd Pennington at 15 and Aldana at 2.

That would be way more egregious. No, I agree with you here, Mike. It feels like at women's bantam weight outside of the top three, which everybody has the exact same top three of Nunez, GDR and then home, outside of that, it's really a nebulous cluster of anything, right? Like, you could go plus minus two on anything. I think four through 10. I think, yeah, I think four through 10 are interchangeable.

I have a much bigger problem. I have a much bigger problem with Mike having Juliana Pena ranked at number four, with her one convincing win of her Sarah McMahon and her two and two record in the division being number four. I have her rank lower than anybody and I still don't understand how anyone has Juliana Pena rank that high.

Because that division sucks, dude. It sucks. That's horrible. I mean, that's literally it. I wish I... I have her at five. So what? It's a weird division.

It doesn't matter. It's a division sucks. It sucks. It sucks. She's two and two in her last four fights. I just don't understand. It's her competition. She's lost against JDR, GDR, sorry, GDR, and Valentina.

I mean, the goat and someone in the top three. She hasn't lost, but there's two out of three thing. Yeah, we can say, yeah, there's two out of three, but it's competition. And I have no issue. It's not like either those losses were, you know, she lost, she got submitted in both fights. It's not like they were split decisions. And Sarah McMahon, I like Sarah McMahon very much, but again, She's not, you know, she's never quite developed into what we all thought maybe she would be.

I'm, again, I don't want to take this conversation away. I just, I have a much bigger problem with Pena being ranked. You have ranked number four, Mike. And, you know, above, again, like Irene Aldana, who I believe has bigger wins in recent years. Yeah, yeah, although you have Sarah McManet number six, which, again, whole other conversation. So yeah, I just have a big issue with your Bantaweight rankings. Mike's taking it from all sides right now. Let's let Mike return fire a little bit.

We have two callouts. We have two callouts left to do. So Mike, go ahead with your second. I support your rankings, Mike. I support you. That's all I'm saying. Oh, Jesus Christ. I'm in big trouble now.

I'm just kidding. No, I'm just kidding. Casey, I love you. You know what? As I told AK, and I'll put this out there, because I didn't really fail. I had some issues. I didn't have a lot of like egregious issues

with a lot of your rankings. I support you and the way you all think and the way you guys apply stuff for the most part. So I just want to know This isn't even a grievance or a callout of some sort But it's going to be a double callout Because two of you have done this And I want to know why

Sean Casey Yuri Perashka The number one light heavy weight in the world I like watching Yuri Perashka fight The dude is a ninja He is must see TV But ranking him above Glover Tashara

Especially And Yuri great win over Dominic Reyes But let's not forget that Dominic Reyes Easily took Yuri down easily mounted him. Yes, Yuri got back up and finished the fight, but you do realize that if Glover-Teshire gets him in any kind of position like that,

he's getting put to sleep, right? Explain yourselves. I'm not mad at it. I love Yuri. If you give me one fighter to watch, Yuri's probably the guy. But the number one 205er on planet Earth, I just have to know why.

Well, so let me jump in. Let me jump in. Because we talked about this last month, so I don't want to relitigate it two months, but I do, right now, light heavyweight is such a weird division right because you look at glover to sherra i think we can all agree as much as we like glover to share and as much as that story is incredible and to me outside of a michael bisbing type of thing that's one of the best stories i've ever seen in this sport is what that guy was

able to do this late in his career that being said i think we can look down the ranks of light heavyweight and all individually pick out at least four to five guys we would favor to beat glover to sherra if they fought tomorrow is that fair yeah okay three at least two or three regardless two or three guys that we could and to me if the way I'm sort of looking at this division now that it's been blown open in this very strange way is who do what I favor to beat any other light heavyweight on the planet at this particular moment and to me that's jiri and maybe that's not the right way to look at it and you know he has he does have a good resume but it is somewhat he is somewhat untested against a lot of these other guys so hey I'll I'm

willing to admit that that's a bad one or maybe maybe not a bad one, but if he won, but to me, I just feel so strongly that when they do fight, Yeri will be the favorite, and I think he's going to win that fight very decisively. And so this is maybe a little bit of a prediction on my end, a little forecast on my end with this ranking. And when we talked about, what would you say? Pajasca got taken down by who? Who you were talking about, Reyes? Dominic Reyes.

Yeah, because they're different fights. That's why. Prowhaska, him get him, he can fight a different style where if he gets taken down by he's confident that he will get up, which is what he did. Now, if he fights someone like Glover, he has to have a much more cautious striking style. So your strategy would change. So he would be, you know, fighting, you know, basically his striking would be probably more limited because, you know, the threat, the takedown. So that's why I don't care if he got taken down because he eventually murdered the man.

Yeah. And took no damage. It took no damage. So it doesn't matter if he got taken down. So what? You're telling me that a guy like Yuri Perashka is going to sit there and have a chess match with Glover Tashira when they actually fight. I don't buy it. No, I think he's going to win extremely decisively.

Like, I think it's going to be somewhat brutal to watch. I buy it. I buy it. That's why I'm ranked number one. He is, what was it? Chaos. Chaos. Did you see the clip?

Chaos. MMA's chess, man. Something, you know, pawns or something. I don't know. So we should expect a Yuri Perashka five-round. unanimous decision chess match win to become the new champion.

Yeah. I got my money on Yuri Prahash goodbye decision. That division is just such a weird case, man. It is. I don't have a problem. Like a huge issue with it,

but I'm curious. And then for me, I will say the Nemcoff win is big two to throw that in there on the resume. And it was a while back. I don't put too much weight in that. It was a close fight.

But like I said, beginning, I believe all these rankings, especially in 205, everything is kind of a plus or minus one, you know, like, yeah, you put Glover at one, you know, it's like, I didn't put Glover at four or five, I put him in number two, you know, so that's all. He's only one down. It's like the font, you know, the font pedesting.

It's like, they're not like on different charts or anything. You're just one apart. That's all. Last one of the day, I feel, I feel very good that we're still a tight-knit family here. This isn't gotten too off the rails. Hopefully nobody feels too bad, feeling too type of way. Are you sure? Well, and I hate to follow that up by saying, I know you just defended me, Casey, but my last one is towards you.

And I just have to know, and you don't have to go into detail about it, really, but is Ryan better, Ryan Bader? We're revisiting the Ryan Bader thing, but is Ryan Bader really the 13th best male fighter in the world on your pound for pound list? What? I think he is, but I think he is, but I think he would lose his neck. I think he's definitely, that prime that he hit in Bellator, at 205 and heavyweight. I think he's past that. I think we're on the back of his career. The 13th best fighter in the world, though.

Oh, wow, we're talking pound for pound. Pound for pound. Like, you have him at 6th at like heavyweight and 13th at pound for pound. That's insane. Well, pound for pound, because I put a lot, I put a lot. Honestly, I don't understand what the hell pound for pound means because to me you have to fight more. That's fair. This is another discussion for sure.

You have to fight multiple weight classes, and I put a lot of weight in multiple weight classes. I put a lot of weight in him holding Matt Matrione down who weighed 90 pounds more. And Matt Metrione, no, talk all the crap you want about him. He's still a tough, durable, mean, strong fighter. And he was able to control him for, what, three rounds or whatever. And, you know, he fought King Mo. Kimmo might not been, no, the, no, the B's knees at the time, but it's still freaking King Mo. You know, he's still beat Fador at a heavier weight class.

That's still in Presta, and that's why I put him in the pound for pound. that's all. Casey has a much more egregious pound for pound failing, by the way. Corey Anderson is his 20th and Corey Anderson is his fifth ranked light heavyweight ahead of Bader though even taking with the Bader multiple. Because Corey has no bad losses and he has a heavyweight. That's all. I put more weighting guys fighting more weight.

Ryan Bader. No, my bigger question is why is Corey Anderson on this at all? And certainly there are, you have. four light heavyweights ahead of him in the light heavyway ranking and you only have Nimcov in your pound for pound ranking like I get it it's 20 who really cares at that point but there's no world in which Cory Anderson is even like the 50th best male fighter in the world much less top 20 that's insane to me I don't think it's insane but also I have no idea what pound for pound means I have no idea what it means I've been working I've been working in

in MMA for 15, 17 years now. I have no idea a pound for pound means. I'm going to go to that out there. I pick a definition and Corey Anderson in the top 20 of it though. Well, but right now, he's a top five light heavyweight.

He beat the crap out of the UFC champ just a few years ago. So, you know. I do have to say, now that I'm looking at this again, I almost think that you having Francis Ngano at number nine when everybody else has him lowest four,

like that might be actually the one I should have called out, but I didn't need that. I was always told pound for pound like you don't mean include heavy weights really pound for pounds are all about the smaller weight classes because I kind of learned it from how boxing does pound for pounds despite boxing doesn't really even really even include heavy weights in their pound for pounds do they? Depends.

I'm sure Jason Furies and rings but I don't know what I haven't looked at ring in a while. All right. Well. That's why I put pound for five. If Nagano weigh 206 pounds, I'll have him higher. He's a solid 250 or something. So I'm literally going. pound for pound. That's, I'm, I'm taking it literally.

Such disrespect for Al Jemaine Sterling. No, look at this. You got Jan. You got, we are a company that hates Al Juergianx all ranked, all on the top 20 pound for pound, but no Aljo. My car company that hates Al Jermaine Sterling, depending. And I get yelled at when I point out that we have nothing but disrespect for the fun, that's it. All right.

Let's close things out here. We're done with the aaron of grievances. is first annual area of grievances, maybe the last one. I'm not sure we'll ever do that again. But let's close our show out here today by bringing it all in together. One big happy family,

one big round temple question just to send us off. End of the year question. Looking forward ahead to 2022. Obviously, the next ranking show we do will be in January 2020. This is the last time you'll hear from us this year. Gentlemen, just one word answer. You don't even need to go into it.

But if you had to pick one fighter right now who's either maybe unranked on your rankings or low on your rankings or anything like that on the peripheral however you want to look at it. Who do you feel like will have made the biggest jump in the rankings once we reconvene here in this space next year?

And let's start with AK. Sean Brady. Ooh. Okay. Jed. Easily for me. I'm going to stick in the Walterweight division Hamza Chimayev. Ooh. Damon?

Going to be the champ. 100% Hamzaa Chimaya for me. Wow. Mike. I'm going to say Armand Sarukian. Whoa. Nice. I like it.

That's a good name. I like that. Casey. Oh, man. Talas Santos. Oh, so good. She might be fighting for a title in her next fight. Talasantos.

We talked about this earlier. For me, I got to agree with, I think, what the majority is here and go with Hamza Ashemaiah. It just feels like that welterweight division, something's about to have. happen. I also want to throw out next year, next year. And I'm not going to say his name because I don't want do the whole Boston thing, because I have trained of the gentleman, but, um, not quite Santos level, but I think Aaron Pico of 2022, that's going to be, this is going to be, is it the time? Is it finally the time? Because I believe AJ will go up to 55 and then, yeah, that's all. I noticed, I noticed you sprinkled in a little vote for him there. You thought we wouldn't catch that

little, a little, you're sprinkled in a little pico vote for the end of the year. You're planting, you're planting the pico seeds for, uh, for next year when they will sprout, it will sprout into a top 10 ranking. I gave Pico a consideration for ranking, but, I mean, 1-70 to 135 is just insane. Only one guy. Only one guy sprinkled. Only one guy sprinkled.

It was E. Kiselaide. All right. I mean, I need one more way for Pico, and then we can talk. Yeah. I get that. I like Eric Pico very much. I like him.

I think he's a beast, and I think he's finally got things figured out. Well, gentlemen, this was a ton of fun. I appreciate you all for hopping on, spending this time together, being willing to do this and be willing to put yourself out here like this. This ranking's experience has been a lot of fun to do with you guys over the last half year and I can't wait to do it even more and dive even further into this in 2022. I hope everyone out there listening, enjoy this. I hope you guys have a wonderful December, a great holiday season. Hope you and yours, everything good happens to all you guys out there. We love you guys. You guys make all this worthwhile. Happy holidays. This has been the M.MA

fighting ranking show. My name is Sean Oshadie. That man is Alexander K. Lee. And for the whole crew, Jed Mishu, Damon Martin, Mike Heck, E. Casey, Layden, and the two gentlemen who couldn't be here today, Guillermo Cruz, and Stephen Morocco, along with the whole rest of the MMA fighting family. We wish you guys, happy holidays. Hope you guys have a great rest of December, and we'll see you soon. I love you guys. I love all, I love all you guys so much. I just want that to be a real message here. For all the ways we said we're going to be mad, actually, you know what, I figured out that I have Ryan Bader drank way too high and I shouldn't copy a paste my ranking.

Thank you.