MMA Fighting - Rankings Show: The Great UFC Belt Debate | Jamahal Hill's LHW Chaos, Moreno vs. DJ, Umar Nurmagomedov, More

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Jamahal Hill is the new UFC champion — but is he really the No. 1 light heavyweight in the world? The MMA Fighting Rankings Show returns to make sense of a wild start to 2023! Co-hosts Shaun Al-Shatti and Alexander K. Lee are joined by Jed Meshew and Damon Martin to sort through the wreckage of UFC 283 and try to make sense of the light heavyweight division. Does Hill's new status as UFC champion mean he should automatically be considered the best 205-pounder in MMA? And does Brandon Moreno's series-clinching win over Deiveson Figueiredo put him over ONE Championship's Demetrious Johnson? That gang hits those topics plus Jailton Almeida's future in two divisions, Jed rocketing Umar Nurmagomedov up the bantamweight ranks, and more. Follow Shaun Al-Shatti @ShaunAlShatti Follow Alexander K. Lee @AlexanderKLee Follow Damon Martin @DamonMartin Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Shop before they're gone. In-store online at Sephora.com. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. What is up, my friends? How is everybody doing? What a day, what a week. I hope you all out there having a wonderful little start to your week. This is the MMA fighting ranking show.

My name is Sean O'Shahti. I am joined by my co-captain on this venture. You know him. He is the Prince of Positivity. He is the King of the North. He is Alexander K. Lee, aka, my man, the fights. They're back. We're back.

First pay-per-view of the year. It's in the books. We've got the whole year ahead. You just love to see it. How are you feeling today, buddy? Look, the fights are back. The rankings are. And the most importantly is the rankings are back.

The discussions are back. We did do a show. It's not technically our first show of the new year. We did do the traditional airing of grievances. All the bad blood has been cleared out, I think. I don't know if we will butt heads over anything, frankly, for the rest of the year. I think that was the last airing of grievances we'll ever need to do. I think we're all getting along now going forward.

And every show going ahead, including today, I'm sure, will be controversy-free. Exactly. We're all one big happy family again. Now let's ruin it a bit, you know? But first, before we get into it, let's bring in the rest of the gang for today. The Brains joining us on this panel this month. First, the legal eagle himself. He is the co-host of No Bet's Bard and, damn, they were good.

Apparently he's the Woody Page of MMA Fighting 2. This is news to me, but I'm here for it. He is your friend in mine, Mr. Jed, Michelle. shoe what's going on jett i'm so excited about this uh i i got some problems with you people not you damon not to bury the lead but some other people on this podcast aren't letting me live my best life and i can't wait to talk about that because they're they're oppressing me listeners they are oppressing me from all the best things so get ready buckle up what a tease What a tease.

And of course, the other half of this podcast, or the panel, I should say, my guy, he is the OG. He is the host of fighter versus writer. And he's probably riding pretty high right now after another big Cincinnati Bengals win. It's Damon. What's going on, man? There's only one true number one on this entire podcast, and that is Joe Burrow. He is number one in the world.

And before I go any further, let me just go ahead and say, who day, who day, who they think I'll beat them Bengals. it wasn't the bills all right i'm done you feeling confident you feeling confident going into kc i am feeling pretty good we're three and o against kansas city and it looks like we're going to be facing a banged up patrick mahomes which to be clear i'd actually rather face a 100% patrick mohomes because that way there's no excuses but yeah i'm feeling pretty good what that's the

what you've said i think you should that seems crazy i have like as people will know and listen i'm wearing the twill i'm wearing the twenty nine raptors uh nbaea championship t-shirt right now as we record uh i want my opposition as banged up as humanly possible i don't care i do not care kevin durant was as injured i don't care clay thompson glad he's back now twenty nineteen got hurt pretty bad i don't care whatever results in my team winning that is the that is what i want okay let me let me be clear for chad hennie told me let me be clear let me be clear i'm taking the high road right now but if sunday comes around and chad hennie starts i will dancing in my living room, trust me.

Yes. Yes. Oh, no, man. Hennie put together a 98-yard or tutty drive. So watch out. Against the Jaguars. Just saying. Henny's like a Michigan guy too, right?

That makes me hate to me more. Oh, that's true. There's like levels to this from Mr. Ohio State over here, too. Yeah. And Michigan's never won a big game in their life, so you should really, really want him to need a quarterback. that failures in that man's blood. Good times.

Good time. See, this is why I like this podcast so much. So we mentioned the cycle. It was pretty busy. I mean, it was three UFC events. You also actually have to throw in the Bellator versus Risen show in there as well. But of course, the big one is the one we just came off of, the one we just finished. UFC 283.

And I would say the biggest story coming out of that, of course, was the light heavyweight division. And what the hell do you do with that? the light heavyweight division, frankly. This started our week off in a really interesting place because, AK, you put out our ranking shakeup piece for the website on Monday, and that is just sort of the one-off, here's this one division, here's where we think things stand.

And you pose the question in the headline. Jamal Hill is a UFC champion. Does that make him MMA's number one light heavyweight? Spoiler, the answer for us was no. Jamal Hill jumped up to from number 10 to number four, But the response to this, people were not happy with you, AK? I was just rifling through some of the comments on Twitter and on the website. There's a lot of vitriol out there.

I mean, you have, here's one. There's a champion, and his name is Jamal Hill. He's the number one light heavyweight. Enkly have showed his true colors against Blackowitz. I don't know what that means, really. You have others saying, obviously, Jamal Hill is the number one. Yes, yes, and most don't like it. but it's true, if not change the title of champion.

If you have the belt, you are obviously at the top of the division. Dudes earned it. All of these things, someone's saying this is the strangest thing I've seen in MMA when it comes to how people react to a champion. Literally someone argued to not call him a champ, what's going on. I'll just start here, fellas, and I'll throw it to anybody. I mean, did we handle this right? Jamal Hill at number four and for context.

Above him are Yuri Prohashka, former champ, Badim Knav, Belator Champ, and Magomed, and Kaliaf, at number 3. Did we handle this right? Yes. This isn't close. Screw those people. If you're one of those people, take a deep look inward. Because we're not calling him not the champ.

He is definitively the champ. He is the man who owns the undisputed is not the right word, but it is the name of the title. That is his. Not one of us are saying he is not the champion. We are saying he is not the number one light heavy way in the world. That shouldn't be controversial. If you believe that he is, that's fine. We're not saying that like, you're a thousand percent wrong.

None of us believe that. And we shouldn't. I had Jamal Hill ranked 14 before beating Glover Tashara. Full credit to that man. He beat the pants off Glover Tashara. That was not a close fight. And showed something. He leveled up.

Good for him. Maybe he is the best light heavy weight in the world. but the proof of concept isn't out there realistically. Yeri won the belt. He will be my number one until he comes back and loses the belt. Vadim Nymkov has delivered exceptional performances against top dudes. Both of those two, well, I guess not Nymkov, but Yeri finished Glover, a younger, probably more durable Glover if we want to go that route.

and Vadim Nymkov just beat Corey Anderson who whipped Glover's ass so there's nothing wrong with putting those dudes in front of him and I've been standing Magamund and Goliath forever he didn't lose to Jan I thought he beat Yon I know it ended in a draw or whatever but if you want to put Hill above either any of those men it's not all the way wrong

I think putting him above Yeri is close to wrong but you're just on some real drinking the UFC Kool-Aid if you're like upset by this? Listen, I think, I think Jamal Hill deserves credit for what he's done lately. You know, his win streak is good, you know, taking out Tiago Santos for whatever is left of Tiago Santos, you know, taken out and just absolutely, again, beating the brakes off of Glover to share, very impressive. But do we forget four fights ago, he got knocked out by Paul Craig in like two minutes?

I mean, that's not saying that he can't come back from that, but we can't, race the fact that it happened. He didn't even get knocked out. He got his arm like snapped in half basically. Yeah. So I mean, you know, he, I mean, listen, I think I ranked him number two and even that I was struggling with because I was like, do I really want to put him above Bank alive? And the only reason I did was because of how dominantly he beat Glover. And that's it. Like, again, I can't put him above Yeri. Yeri's got a better resume. Yeri's on a longer winning streak. Yeri has fought better opposition at the time he fought them. I mean,

when he fought Dominic Reyes, you know, we thought Dominic Reyes was still potentially one of the best guys in the world. Of course, you know, maybe that's different now. He's had so much damage taken. But, yeah, Uri's on a much longer streak. He has a better overall resume. He's number one. And again, I struggle with whether or not I should put Jamal at number two or number three because I have so much respect for Ankolaev. And I think in a lot of ways, Ankelaev, to me, is probably closer to Yeri in terms of talent and competition. But again, he also has a loss to Paul Craig very early in his UFC career and he's rattled off like 12 wins in a row after that. But yeah, I just, I don't understand the argument for number one.

Again, it's what Jed said to back up the great Georgia Bulldog over there. If you're just putting him number one because he's UFC champion, then you're just, you're just a stand for the UFC. You're not a stand for who is actually the best guy in the world because just because you hold a UFC title doesn't necessarily make you the best in the world. Especially because this is such a fake UFC belt. It is. It's potentially the fakeest UFC belt we have had since like Nico Monta.

Yeah, that's not interim, right? Like belts, listen, belts are props. We say this all the time. Belts are props used by promotions for marketing. In the case of the UFC, not just the UFC, a lot of major promotions, they're used to control the fighter. They are, they give you certain, there's clauses in their contract that if you are a champion holding a title, the promotion has some degree of control over you.

We just saw this play out with Francis and Ghanu. and the best case scenario, they serve as the culmination of seeing a great, great fighter climb to the top and win the title and solidify that they are the best their division. We've seen that happen before. It's great when that happens. This is not that.

It is a great performance by Jamal Hill. He's on a good run. We've always talked about him as a future title contender. So it wasn't like shocking to see him, to see UFC gold around his waist. the circumstances under which it has actually happened are less than ideal if we're having a discussion of oh well does this make him the number one light heavy weight in the world it's it's a silly thing um you have to have a body of work i feel you could even go back like connor mcgregor was

connor was the number one lightweight when he beat eddie alvarez this guy did he caught once at lightweight in the ozc that was it right that was it was just the eddie alvarez fight right everything else just the eddie fight everything on the idiot stuff is the one thing connor could claim was he beat the lineal champion at the very least. Connor could say, at least I beat the guy. I beat the guy who beat the guy, who beat the guy. So that's the one thing. If you want to say Connor was literally the number one,

155 back then, you could. So Jamal Hill doesn't even have that. He's not the lineal champion. He wasn't in a title fight as of two months ago. He was supposed to fight Anthony Smith. And then now he gets thrown this opportunity. Again, puts on great five-round performance. No question, no controversy.

Beats one of the top three light heavy weights in the world. But to say it makes him number one is just, is just so bizarre with Yuri. Even Yuri vacating the title was sort of a bizarre thing, given how we know the UFC loves making interim titles. So if Yuri had wanted to squat on that title, he could have. It's only through his, you know, very uncommon decision to vacate that we are calling Jamal the quote unquote undisputed champion.

So it's, and it goes straight, Shaheen, the comments you're reading before, were those from our website or from Twitter? Both. Both. Yeah, I also saw some of those. And it just goes to show you how powerful the UFC marking machine is, how, again, how well it's established this brand and what the belt is supposed to mean. And also, frankly, just how myopic some fans are, that they just see,

Guy has UFC belt. He's number one. He's the best. Even though they know very well, this was the third, this fight, this title fight was the third choice for the UFC. Somehow, just because he has the belt, that makes them number one in the world, that UFC train is very, very strong. And I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm a little surprised and still a little disappointed that fans can't be more open-minded over who is actually MMA's number one light heavyweight.

My thing, I mean, I have a lot of things. I don't want to get too bogged down in this realistically. But maybe the two parties in this example I'm about to give her different, but given the context and the fact that both of these arguments are made by mouth-bring. anything lunatics. I assume that they're overlapping groups, that their Venn diagram is a circle. Do you all remember how much shit Daniel Cormier got for being a paper champion

when they stripped John Jones for like a pretty valid reason to strip a champion? And nobody gave DC credit for being the real champion. But now your third pick to fight for a belt from a champion who fought in July and is going to fight again this summer. and you just took the title from him for whatever reason. Like now this dude is undeniably the best. Come on, people. Like, just don't be those people.

You don't have to be upset by this. You just don't have to be upset by it. I would submit in that circumstance to DC had a far, far better resume than Jamal Hill currently does right now. Like, it's not even comparable. Yeah, probably. And there's a, listen, there is a world where, Jamal Hill could earn that spot because Yeri keeps saying he's going to be better sooner than later.

But if he's out, you know, for a year and, and Jamal goes out there and beats, you know, beats Magamene Goliath or beats, you know, Jan Blahovic or beats another one to you, then he can potentially get there. But right now he just doesn't have the overall resume compared to Yiri. And that's not a knock on Jamal Hill.

It's a compliment to Yuri Perhashka and what he did. And Yeri, Yeri's been out at this point. Yer he's been out for six months. It's not like Yerie's been out for 18 months or two years he's been out for six months yes realistically he may not fight again for another six to eight months but again you can't punish the guy because that's one of my issues with all the interim title talk all the stupid stuff that comes along with that when they start kind of interim champions after six months it's like hold on now how long are you actually give this guy or girl to actually

get ready to come back and fight again it's ridiculous so yury has been out for six months right now or seven months i guess technically says it was june his last fight um and during that time july july Mall Hill picked up a big win, you know. I think Magamad and Kaliav should have won, but it is what it is. These guys all have a chance to fight each other and earn the number one spot. Just nobody's done that yet. Well, so a couple of things, right? To me, going back and looking at this, like, AK, what you said off the top of the

adherence to the UFC structure and the way that sort of this is just ingrained in the culture of MMA, right? Like, the UFC has done an incredible job of branding their. champion as that's the best in the world at this given division. I think that's actually why it's significant to have independent rankings like these rights to sort of be able to cut through that in situations where it's needed because I'll tell you what, next month, if John Jones wins or Cyril Gahn wins, we're going to start hearing people say that Cyril Gons is the number one heavyweight in the world, and we all know

that that's actually not the case. Like that's something that is just in the culture. It permeates throughout MMA, and it's just, it wasn't surprising to see the reaction, but to see the, I guess I expected more of a counterbalance to what Jed said of like, the DC paper champ stuff was everywhere forever. And I expect to see a little bit more of that, I guess, in people backing the year. And it just hasn't been. I haven't seen it to that degree, which is surprising to me a little bit.

I will say, though, to counter this, I went back and watched, rewatched that main event afterwards on Sunday. And I think, you know, in the moment, Jed and I, both you and I were on the post show. and we were sort of reacting in the moment. And I think it was a lot of shock and surprise that's sort of how this all played out and just kind of trying to make sense of it in the moment. I think it's fair to say that all of us,

in particular probably UI and maybe a couple others of us on the panel, significantly like underrated Jamal Hill and his potential. I 1,000% disagree with this. I went back and rewatch it. He just looked so, like, watch any of his other fights and then that one.

He looked so much better. He very much took a leap. He was a little. amazing on Saturday, and I will never take that away. That was as close to perfect as ever. But if you watch the rest of his career, none of that comports to what the hell happened on Saturday. He took a big leap. A hundred percent. And maybe now this is just who he is. And I think that's a potentially valid way for this to go, right? But also, also, though, he was fighting a shop-worn, 43-year-old Glovered Shire who just came off taking incalculable amount of damage against Yuri

Prohasker not too long ago. But whatever. I'm not going to take away anything from this. Dude, we've seen this performance before. Cody Garbrandt took a motherfucking leap when he fought Dominant Cruz. And how did that work out for him afterwards? Like, it could go either way with Jamal Hill. I have no idea. I'm not willing to say he's not.

That's why I have him ranked in the top five. Yeah. I'm just saying, you know, what it is. For transparency's sake, I currently have Jamal Hill at five. I have Corey Anderson above him, Mago Manakalai of Vadim Kov in Yarbraska. However, I will say because I know that there is somebody right now at home listening to this who is screaming at us internally, there is a counter to all of this. So I will just play devil's advocate really quickly because if you look at Yeri Prohaska's UFC resume, and we keep saying, you know, Jamal Hill doesn't have the resume that Yeri does. I don't know that that's actually the case.

I think we all just like Yeri and he's just a very exciting and interesting man and people just generally enjoy him. Because if you look at his UFC resume, it's a knockout over Volcan, O's Demermer, a knockout over Dominic Reyes, and beating Glover. That's it. If you want to look even farther back, you have the Nemcoff win. That was 2015. How much do we have to take that in stock? You look at Jamal Hill's UFC resume.

It's Jimmy Crute, Johnny Walker, Tiago Santos, Glover. Those are actually ridiculously comparable resumes. And so is it fair to, if for that person who's at home, screaming, you guys don't know what you're talking about? Is that a fair counter to all of this? No. I'm just like, my argument is not based that his resume isn't fair. That is tangential to the argument.

If his resume was undeniable, then it's undeniable. His resume is not undeniable because, frankly, nobody at light heavyweights is. And so then you're looking at who got the belt from who in a lineal fashion, who deserves or whatever. And I'm not willing to Doc Yerry because if Glover has. had won, I don't think a soul alive would argue that he was better than Yeri. They fought. We saw what happened. One of the best fights of all time, Glover was going to win, and then he didn't. And results do matter when there are results. That's why even my lunatic ass in the way I rank people, I don't

just go, like, if a fight happens, I respect that it happened, even if I think that it would go differently or whatever. And that, that's the part that's really killed me. If Glover won that, nobody would be on this train of well glover's the number one but because for whatever reason i really don't know because i i don't think jemal hill's like that compelling it certainly didn't seem that way but people are on his on his team right now and good for him if he can turn that into a fan base and become like a star and profitable and he might be able to be erie like if who he was on saturday is who he is forever now he's got a damn good shot against anybody that fights at 205.

But I saw one great performance over one very good dude. And I moved him up accordingly because he beat the guy that I had number four in the rankings or whatever. So that's what he gets. I also just want to say, I think Volcan and Dominic Reyes at the time, at least how he was perceived when Yeri beat him, are better wins than Tiago Santos, Johnny Walker and Jimmy Crew. Not like, not like leagues better. Like, oh, it's not even close. But like that to me is part of what gives Yeri the edge as those wins, I think. think we're perceived as better at the time than,

um, than, Tomal Hills wins. And I, and I would wager not, this is not like taking a shot at any of our panelists, but I think in just through history, like where Jed,

you like to, you, you, you do a bit of feelings in your rankings. Like, you know, you don't necessarily. It's a big feelings guy.

He's a big vibes. I would say, I would say, I would say I'm probably the most results oriented ranker. Is that fair to say? Like I tend to, you know, AK is.

Okay. So I'm behind. I think there's a, there's a hell. You, Morocco and A.K. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So us three, we're very results-based.

Okay, so even in that regard, again, results matter. Four fights ago, he lost to Johnny Walker, or excuse me, to Paul Craig. I mean, that doesn't get, that doesn't get a race just because he had four great. He did. They had four quality wins. The Johnny Walker win looks better now that Johnny Walker is on a two-fight win streak. But again, Tiago Santos, what's that dude got left at this point? I mean, I feel terrible.

He had enough to win a three- round fight. All I'm saying, that was a three round fight. Tiago Santos is the victor. Yeah. So I mean, you know, he beat a, he beat a Tiago Santos who isn't quite the Tiago Santos. So he was a few years ago. You know, he beat Jimmy Crute. Jimmy Crude is a decent prospect. Not really a top 15 guy, though. And again, you know, that's not, I'm not trying to discredit him. I'm just saying when you compare that resume to Yeri Perhoshka, it's just hard to stack them up. And again, I felt, Anna, I felt like, like, really. I felt like should I put him above Ankleyev.

I struggle with that decision. And as we're talking about, I'm like, you know what? I kind of might regret that discussion. We're talking about it right now because that's how close it is. But not number one. Two, three, four, I think those are all valid rankings. Number one, can't go. That's a bridge too far.

Oh, the other thing about Jamal is everyone he beat, those three names you beat, they were all coming off of losses. Not that's like the worst thing in the world, but they were all coming off losses. Jimmy crew was coming off a loss. Johnny Walker was coming off a loss. Tigo Sando was coming off a loss. Lover's coming off loss. I think that's a lot of loss as well.

What was OSP coming off of loss? At least Volcon was coming off a win when he, when Yeri beat him. Is OSP going off a loss? I don't know. And also if we count, if we count pre-UFC fights, which we do, which it does factor in our rankings, I would think, then it's not even, I don't think it's close. I don't think it's very close.

Also, just for transparency sake for the audience, this might be like AK's spiciest ranking I've ever seen him do in like a year and a half do this because like, I'm ready. to talk about it. You go ahead, I'll give the floor to you. Like, you have him at number eight, which was by far the lowest of anybody on the website. So I'll just give you a minute here.

I jumped him up from 14 to 8, so six spots. It's pretty sizable. God, I respect you so much. Maybe not as sizable as you would want for someone who is now holding the, a quote unquote, undisputed title in the number one promotion in the world. First of all, disclaimer, I talked about this on to the next one. Probably, I'm probably saying this about every time I bring up Jamal Hill and have to talk about him. His behavior, it factored into my ranking.

I will fully admit there is now a personal bias. I hated his reaction to the Dana White at the New Year's Eve incident. Dana White slapping his wife. If anyone doesn't know, Jamal Hill went on social media and just vehemently defended a man's right to strike a woman. If a woman strikes them, he's like, oh, it's fair game. And listen, I'm not going to go into a whole political thing about this. I don't know how people, I am staunchly against. Let's just lay that out there.

I think we all are. There's a lot of factors why a man should never hit a woman. Screw all those hypotheticals. People thought, oh, what if a woman's coming to the knife? She's like, someone sent me like, what if a woman's like murdering your dog? Would you punch her that? And I'm like, these are such insane, specific snares you have to come up with to justify this. Just think about that.

Anyway, so Jamal Hill's whole stance on that. Again, none of these tweets deleted. I won't go over people. You can go and see his reaction. Just atrocious, horrible, horrible things to say about the topic of domestic violence. So I admit I'm somewhat compromised when it comes to ranking Jamal. Now, again, I'll say I have him behind at eight. You're right.

Phil Davis, Alexander Rockich, Corey Anderson. Those are the three directee ahead of him. And I still feel comfortable putting them there. We're just talking objectively. I'm being very unfair to Jamal Hill, objectively speaking, because if Glover hadn't retired, at worst, I would have bumped Glover down to maybe five. And then Jamal Hill would have just leapfrogged over him. So the fact that I have the luxury of being able to remove Glover from the rankings because he retired, it doesn't look as funny.

Like, it doesn't look as funny as odd as it would be because I wasn't going to drop Glover below Rock Age. I wasn't going to drop him below. So there's a bunch of circumstances that are going into me putting him at eight. I'll also add in sort of the Jedmishu thing of like, how do I think these fights would go? I like Phil Davis's chances against Jamal Hill. I like Alexander Rockich's chances against Jamal Hill. I like Corey. All three of those guys.

None of those guys, I would say it's like, oh, Jermal Day. Mall Hill clearly beats those guys. So I will defend it in that way as well, but I will fully admit there is a personal bias I have against him. So anyone wants to discredit my ranking of John Hill based on that. That's perfectly fine. I totally accept that. But I also think that I need to see more. I also don't think his resume really is that strong.

This was such a unique circumstance under which he got this title shot and he's got a strong body of work. As I said, he could be number one by the end of the year, depending if he gets a fight with Haschka gets a fight with Blahobis, gets a fight with Ancolaia. Peace any of those guys, shooting right up. All right, because he looked fantastic in the cage on Saturday. That's one of the best challenger performances I've seen in a long time. It was awesome. But again, personal factors, how I think he'd fare against the guys I have ahead of him.

And I just need to see a little bit more of that resume. But he's well on this way. I have no problem with the consensus number four ranking. Just personally for me hasn't done enough to jump all the way from 14 to top five. Not enough for me. But AK, here's a question. What would you do if your wife was bitten by the cordyceps infection and turned into one of the last of us? What would you do then, AK?

What would you do then? And again, in that case, it's fair game. You know what? Jamal Hill was right. Jamal Hill was right. By the way, the last of us is tremendous. I have really enjoyed this so far. Like, I have a big fan of the games and they have nailed it.

Last thing on this, and then we'll move on because we have a lot of other stuff to hit today. Very weird situation. said, okay, I mean, this is maybe the most bizarre division I can remember seen in quite a while. Just one word answer. What's the next step? Who's the next guy you're throwing in for Jamal Hill right now if they're booking, if you're booking this division? Because it does seem like Yuri's probably, even he said today on a Monday on the MMA hour,

like just keep it moving without me. I'll come back when I can. What's the move? You got Anthony Smith, you got Mago Man, Ankalive, you got Jan Bakova. Those seem to be the main three. Where you go? I'd like to see the Ankleya of Lakovich, like, first of all, that get run back first, and then Jamal Hill fight one of them.

Assuming, if Yuri is ready to come back, he's obviously the number one choice. If he needs to take more time, I know he keeps saying he's going to come back as soon as possible, as soon as possible. If that's not possible, I don't know why they haven't already got the gears in motion for Jan and Ankelyev 2, but I say book that. And then whoever wins, there's your number one contender for Jamal Hill. Jamal Hill versus Megamann Ankylaev do it now because if you run back Ankelaev, Belhovic, you're delaying things by another six months. And then by then you're running into the confusion of Yuri coming back.

Just book Ankyov. Most people believe he won. Let him fight Jamal Hill and keep the division moving. And maybe by the time that one's passed, we can get Yuri back in there. Yeah, it's Ankalyev. That's like the reasonable one. I think you just do that. Bohovic can fight Anthony Smith

and for the next, next in line, assuming year he comes back. Because the other part of year, like his timeline is timelines get fucked up. He could re-injure himself at some point. Knock on wood, don't want that to happen. But you can't just bank on him coming back in August. So Ankylov's the dude, put him in there. Unless we want to have some fun with Jailton Almeda.

Straight to the top, baby. Immediate title shot. Thank you, Jen. I would accept Jailton Almeida or frankly, as dumb and ridiculous as this would be, Alex Pereira. Either of those two men, if they booked it tomorrow, you will not hear me say that it's bad. I will say that it's surprising and not deserved in any regard, but that it's awesome. And I can't wait to give them $85 or whatever the cost of pay-per-views is now.

He gave him a look. You guys saw that going around. He zoomed in. The luck he gave Jamal Hill a little look during the post-fight kind of handshakes, team handshakes. He gave you gave me a little look. You can build a whole promo around that one look. Oh, my God. Can you imagine Glover's protege, middleweight champ coming up here?

Alex Pereira be a double champion. Two-division champion. Two years ago, nobody in MMA knew this dude. And like his fifth UFC fight, which would be hilarious. It would rule. In like his seventh MMA fight or something. By the way, if that happened, I'm not putting Alex Praneta in the top five either. I'll tell him away the flight headweight either.

He will get, that's how people will know I'm being fair. If he wins the title from Chivalhill, he'll be like never see. I won't put him in the top five. Come on. What are you doing? That's how people know I'm being fair. Says the guy who just talked for five minutes about how blatantly unfair he's being. Oh, no.

I'm just getting ahead of the, I'm getting ahead of the criticism. That's all. A.K., I'm with you, but Pereira would be my number one pound for pound fighter. So it would be a wonderful dialogue. Just to close this circle, I'm actually going to go a different direction than all y'all. I actually kind of like the Anthony Smith conversation now. That wasn't something I was thinking about on Saturday we were doing the post show. I was hearing the guys on the M.A.R. discuss it.

And I actually kind of don't hate it. Here's the problem. If Smith wins, I'm going to rank him like 10. So then we're going to have this division is. That's what this division is, man. Good. So that's what this division is. The UFC created this monster.

They got to deal with it. Anthony's got, I love Anthony, but he's got to get a win before he gets a title shot. I mean, he just lost to Ankylaev and, yeah, you got to get a win there. Given him Blaovich. I like the idea, but him him in Blohov, Ankolyev, Jamal Hill, and wait for Yuri to come back. What will you guys do if Anthony Smith beats Jamal Hill and Uwell Romero beats Badim? Oh, is that fight still happening? No, that's not happening.

No, that's not happening. No, it's not happening. As Nemcov has a new opponent, aka if Yuel Romero wins a single fight over a ranked person, he's number one in my heart. Oh my gosh. And they're my rankings. Nemcog wasn't ready for February 4th. You know, he just fought like two months ago.

And they just randomly announced this fight as he's standing in the cage after a five-round fight with Cory Anderson. Like, uh, what? I'm fighting, you know, out we're marrying like two months? Awesome. Thanks for asking, guys. Oh, man. Well, let's move on, uh, from one big piece of UFC 283 to the other.

And then we had is, of course, the fly weights. fellas, we finally have some sort of consensus around this flyweight division. We finally have some resolution with this series that has basically taken up in the past year and a half. I guess I mean in the UFC sense, not in a broader sense. But in the OCS sense, there is a consensus champion, this series that has taken up a year and a half, if not longer, is finally over. Brandon Moreno wins it.

2-1-1 is how that series goes with DeVis and Figurato. And actually, we have a new number one. on our website as well. Brandon Moreno taking that top spot from Demetrius Johnson, Mighty Mouse no longer. The way the voting actually played out was split.

You had four piece for each man. But Brandon takes a top spot on points. Jed, is this the right move? That's fine. It's the right move in that we'll have fewer people yelling at us in the comments about having a non-UFC champion be the number one fighter in the world, I guess.

for transparency i have moreno number two i have dj is my number one i know we're split down on that i don't have any issues to put moreno uh for me it's if you're going like overall career resume dj certainly has a better one but if you're talking recent history certainly the way that shakes out marino just has a better one i think i personally believe he has beaten figgy three times now um though i thought he lost the first one so there you uh but yeah i think he's going to hold. I've been on record a lot, so we don't need to dig into this. I think Moreno is the best flyweight in the world that's not Demetius Johnson. He's going to hold this belt for some time and build a real legacy. The talk about him being, you know, the second greatest flyweight ever or whatever,

I think that is wholly unearned at this point, but who's having that conversation? A ton of people. Oh, they were like Figgy Moreno or two and three in the flyweight conversation behind DJ. That was definitely a thing coming into 283. Joseph, that's just a recency bias. Yeah, I know. That's how the UFC forgets anything that hasn't happened within the last three months. Or if you're some people, they forget anything that hasn't happened in the last three weeks. So, you know, moving on.

If you have Moreno number one, that's fine because he'll have the opportunity to continue beating top talent, whereas DJ is going to fight Adrian Ronald Marius again. And then that's really the extent of it. as big a fan as I am Moreno. You guys know my policy, who I think would win in a fight. That's like the main guiding principle. And I feel as confident as ever that

Demetius Johnson would beat Brandon Moreno. As good as Moreno looked on Saturday, I still just feel really good about DJ's chances in that matchup. So Johnson's going to hold the top spot for me, at least for a little while. Here's the thing about this division and any division where a non-USC champion is near the top. The problem they're going to continue,

having his lack of top competition over time. I put Brandon Moreno number one because he beat Devis and Figurato, who I think I had number three or four. That's a big win and that leapfrogged him. Now, I will say if Demetrius Johnson, if we're going to still rank Demetrius Johnson as a flyweight, I won't get on my soapbox about why I don't want him as a flyweight, but that's neither here nor there for now.

If we're going to rank him as a flyweight and he goes out and beats Adriana Marias the second time in May, I'll probably put Demetrius back at number one again. And then he's kind of reached the ceiling because there's not really going to be other matchups for him in one championship that are going to allow him to stay there while Brandon Moreno is potentially fighting Alexander Pintosia or Manel Kopp or Mateus Nicola, guys who are also in the top five, top six range. It's the same problem over a long term that Francis Ngano is going to run into. Francis and Gano is clearly the number one heavyweight in the world. He'll remain that way for a while. But if John Jones goes out there and washes Surreal Gone, which I'm a lot of.

I truly believe is what's going to happen. It is going to get ugly in a hurry. And I don't see that fight making it very far. I would love to take a side bit. I would love to take a side bit. So John Jones. We'll discuss off air. We'll discuss off air, but I won't end on a side note on this.

John Jones beats Cyril gone. That puts him in the conversation because he's already had such a legacy of light heavyweight and he just beat one of the top, you know, top heavyways. But if he goes out there and does that and then does the same thing to Sergey Pavlovich, does the same thing to. you know, one of the other top guys of division. Then, you know, John's going to make that argument. And the problem is Francis beating anti-deleisure,

whoever else he's going to fight outside the UFC, is not going to keep him in that spot. DJ is in the same boat. So right now I have Moreno number one. DJ could jump back into number one of beating Adrian Marias. But then at that point, he's kind of out of options unless, you know, a lot of guys leave the UFC and start fighting over in one championship.

What if Francis goes out and beats Tysfuri in a four-ounce glove steel cage boxing match come on hey when francis knocks out lu crockold i'm going to move him to number one pound for pound and it's going to be magical i also i also notice when dame is running down like potential wins that john jones could have like oh if he beats you know cyril and then beats whoever park reporter uh i notice uh jeltson almeda's oh he's already beaten park reporter i notice uh jelton umeda's name wasn't in there i'm just saying there that's uh that's something to look for number one of heavy weights too i'm just saying that's a different that's a different conversation I think John Jones has a great shot against Jelton Almeida, frankly.

I don't think anyone has a great shot against Jelton on the planet. You know, love it. Yeah, I don't have a lot to say about this. I just, yeah, I like Brandon. I was great. It was great to see him win. I had Figgie number one, I think, before. So it was just, yeah, I matter of well, he, I had them kind of splitting the one and two spot for a while.

I think, I don't know if I ever, did I put DJ number? I don't know if I did. I don't think I ever hopped in the DJ number. number one train. I think I always had them behind Figgie or Moreno because, listen, whoever has the UFC belt is the number one person in the world. I think we established that the top of the show. So, no, you know, no discussion for me. Damon, if you looked at this match of if the UFC signed Demetrius Johnson tomorrow and just threw him in there against Brandon Marino, who are you picking? Who are you favoring in that? I still favorit Demetri Johnson to beat every

flyweight in the world. I still think he is in terms of talent and terms of skill. he's still the best guy in the world. But again, his just. Even at age 36, like he's getting up there, man. He's sneaky old. I still think he's there.

Now again, you know, time, time will catch up to everyone eventually. But right now, I think Demetrius Johnson's still that dude. He just, again,

he's running into a lack of better competition outside the UFC and it will eventually come back to haunt him. But for now, yeah, I still pick him to meet Moreno. And I still think he's, you know, talent-wise,

the number one guy in the world. He just, unfortunately, doesn't have his resume's waning a little bit now because Moreno now has two wins over another top two or three guy on top of all the other wins he has in his career. So yeah, right now, it's a close race, but I'd still pick Johnson to beat him. I'm really confident in DJ. I would be less confident in DJ versus Figgy because Figgy is bringing, like, Figgy's bringing that power, which when we saw Adriano Marais fought great and he has he has a super weapon.

But Moreno super weapon is conditioning and being really, really smart. And guess what? DJ is exceptional, maybe the best that's ever been in both of those categories. Like, if you're going to be DJ, you have to bring a superpower. And I don't think Moreno's line up very well. I'd feel pretty good about DJ in that fight. I think if Johnson came to the UFC, I just don't think, I think you end up what you have with almost with Marino and Figuer where it's like, if you run it back 100 times, no one's going to have a massive advantage of the series. I think you did a hundred fight series with him in Moreno.

It's whatever you think is going to win. It's like 5347, 5248. If you do it with Figgy, same thing. I think those three are pretty far ahead of the pack. We do have some great names coming up. We mentioned Pantoja, cop, guys like that. But right now they're so far ahead of the pack. And I find it hard to separate them.

So I've just gone, for me, I guess the big decider was like the quality of competition, which Damon has touched upon. It's just so, so high in the UFC right now. And one championship's flight roster isn't quite there. What a story. that would be though can you imagine i mean i don't know if people remember but brandon morano's start in the ufc came on the ultimate fighter season where people were competing two-faced timetrius johnson for the title and brandon marino was number 16 in a field of 16 if he if he was able to be that one that flyweight who finally

beat dj in a resounding way not in a suhudo way but like in a real way oh my got it i wish we could see it i really do wish we could see it because i would pick dj as well and that's ultimately why i still haven't met number one, but I would not feel confident at all. Brandon Moreno has so far exceeded every possible expectation I have. His career has been wild. It's unbelievable. And now working with a guy like Saif Sawad, who I have immense, immense respect for, like he looked monstrous out there on Saturday.

I wish we could see that. Do you guys remember his first UFC fight coming off tough when he was like a massive, massive underdog to lose Smoka, who at the time was like hot shit? and he just taps him because he's the number 16 pick and he got ripped through by pants on the show and they're like, oh, this guy sucks. He's just getting a tough contract because that's how tough goes. And then Smolka was like the number of like 10 dude in the world or something.

And he just tapped him. This guy's career has been insane. It doesn't make sense. He was a plus 385 underdog. He just looked it up to Smolka. And then it's like number 60 on the show and then ripped off three wins over like ranked dudes. It was wild.

Again, in 2019, he's not even in the UFC. Like, we've talked about it at length over the years, but it's just, it's wild how quickly this stuff happens. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games

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have run. He was scared of my takes. He didn't want to be privy to these takes coming up. No, I told, I told him that the next part was going to be talking about whether Demetius Johnson was a 125 or a 135 or he immediately ran. He's like, you know, he was like, ooh, you know what? I got a thing. He's like, I'd love to have this conversation for the ninth time on this show slash like on Slack slash in private slash we've discussed it many, many, many, many times and many permutations. And he's like, but I just got to run. I've just got to. Think about how much of our lives has been taken up by that conversation. And most of all, stupid one championship.

Always always ended back at zero. All the times we never made progress. We have meetings. To peel back the curtain, we literally have meetings about this to like resolve this very issue that goes nowhere for hours. Frankly, I am proud and impressed of us for not mentioning it as much as we could have in that last segment. I think we all did a really great job, guys.

We're growing up. Good work. It's growth. Growth in front of your eyes. Well, let's keep going. We have a couple other rapid fires we're going to throw out here, mainly hitting UFC 283, but also just kind of dancing around. But we've already mentioned, first, a bunch of times on this show.

You know I'm loving. And every time we're mentioning it, I feel like this guy's become my new Tony Ferguson, which, by the way, I finally took Tony Ferguson out of the lightweight rankings for you this cycle, jed. Yeah, I didn't. I'm so proud of you. Yeah, I noticed. I noticed, T.K. Didn't move an inch.

You're not alone. You're not alone. Anyone who listen to the airing of grievances, the most heated topic of the airing of grievances, let me tell us something. No change. No change. You know, it boggles my mind that Tony Ferguson still has multiple top 10 votes, but that's the world we live in. So, okay. I look forward to you doing the same with jail towel made in a decade.

Someone outside of the top 10, beat them. That's all I'm going to say. Beat them. I was holding on it. I had him at 14. I had him at 14 for a long time, and I just had to give up the ghost. I couldn't do it anymore.

Yes, but Jailton Almeida, he is my new Tony Ferguson. He is my new thing. I'm so all in on this guy. We've said it a bunch on the post-fight show and just various other shows we do here on MMA fighting. But he took a big leap for us just this month coming off of UFC 283. He jumped from number 13 up to number nine

with his win over Shabmiel and Dover Heimov. And now I think there's a very interesting sort of situation that we are approaching as it becomes very apparent to a lot of people that this is someone who's going to be in a title conversation for a while, like moving forward. Like, this is a real guy. We need to start taking him seriously. We need to start figuring out what exactly is going to happen with him. He wasn't a heavyweight until all of a sudden he just kind of started doing these catch weights

and now he just hasn't lost. And so he is a heavyweight. I argued in my post fight column that I came into this fight uncertain still, as much as high as I am, on him, uncertain about his ability to beat the elite heavyweights who are the giants, the Curtis Blades out there, the Francis and Gano, obviously that doesn't count anymore. But just those type of guys who are pushing 260, 25, how could someone who's 230 beat them in this capacity? And then he comes out and just tosses Shamil like he was tossing a toddler around the cage.

Like that, to me, was very impressive. I still have some of those doubts. I still wonder whether a guy like Curtis Blades is the glass ceiling for Jailton. but those doubts are a lot quieter to me. That proved a lot to me over the weekend. Where are you seeing in Jailton's future? Like, is this a heavyweight? Is this light heavyweight?

Is this both like what is it going to happen with this man? Because it feels like the options are open. He's a heavyweight right now. I tell you, I did question it. I did say, why is he doing this? I think he was supposed to fight at light heavyweight at USC 279. I'm not mistaken before he had, oh, no, he was supposed to fight. Oh, he's supposed to fight Shemiel.

That's right. I forgot. So it was a heavyweight fight. And it's, you know, fighting The Pleasure Man and Tontur Kali. So, you know, it turned out for the better. But yeah, no, that was a question. Listen, as much as I have been binging him up, wins over Danilo Marquez, the illustrious Parker Porter and The Pleasure Man, do not make you a top, you know, top 10 heavyweight.

I understand that. I understand that. And Shemil Diorkeemov is not ranked heavyweight anymore. He was for a bit. He's probably not in his prime. He's getting a bit near the end. But the size thing was a big factor, Shaheen, as you mentioned. It was glaring on way and day.

Shemiel and Derekeemov coming in, 263 pounds, healthy heavyweight. And Almeida coming in 232, 21 pound difference. And you could not tell once they actually stepped into the cage because Almeida picked him up and slammed him within the first minute. It was such a statement move. Will he be able to do that to the Curtis Blades of the division, the Ramon Nobs? I don't know. I don't know, but I could believe it. I think we're at the point.

If he picked up Blades, amazing wrestler. If he did that to Blades, somehow I'd be impressed. I'd be clapping like a CELD. I'm calling him the heavyweight goat right down on the spot. That's ridiculous. I'll tell him right now. So the range we have for Alameda in our rankings was anywhere from 6 to 13. And I bumped him up from where I had him before, but only up to number nine.

So I still am outside. It's just outside the best of the best of the best. I'm almost regretting. I just didn't put him higher. There's a part, because the people I have ahead of him, directly head, Alexander Volkov,

Tom Aspinall, I would very confidently pick I made it to beat both those guys. Derek Lose is there too. I would also pick him to beat him to beat him. Hold on. You would confidently pick him

to beat Tom Aspinol, healthy Tom Aspenol. I don't know if you heard me. Like almost jump out of his chair. I'm willing to say he'd beat him if Tom Aspinol's ACL is still torn. Sure. I wouldn't confidently pick him

if that man has working knees. I am so impressed by Almeida. This guy, again, this guy captures my imagination. I would love to, I've told me, well, he should be on standby for the gone John Jones fight. If that, God forbid, that fight should fall apart, you throw Jalz and Almeida in there. And I am not counting him out against either of those guys. I am that impressed. I really think whatever division he decides to fight in heavyweight or heavyweight at the moment,

he's going to be a UFC champion. He is a force. But I said on Fight Night, I tweeted this, imagine Damon. me and Maya with wrestling in ground and pound. That is what this guy is. And I didn't even mention, and also, like, very high level athleticism. Jed, that's a whole other discussion we sort of had, also regarding Jamal Hill and a number of other fights we had.

But, yeah, you add in some really, really high level athleticism. And this guy, I don't think anyone's going to beat him anytime soon. Okay. Let me be the voice of reasoning. Bring us down. Bring us back. Yeah, yeah. I am stunned that I'm this man.

Please. And because it's right the highest. You are six. I said six to three. Let's know that you can currently do that. I was not to say, as I get into this, I want it to be note, I have him number six heavyweight. I stand by it, feel a lot of that is heavyweight is a top heavy division.

They're like five good dudes in it. And then there are some bodies. You do up, you know, below Tommy Aspinol. You were saying you wouldn't be confident. So you do that him below Aspinall. I would be pretty confident Tommy Aspinall from what we've seen to win that fight. But I have them above Tai Taitoivas and Derek Loo. Louis. It wouldn't shock me if either of those men did beat him, but I think that I've, certainly

Derek Lewis, I feel better than Tai Tui Vasa, but I have some concerns just with how quickly. I don't know. Sergey Pavlovich, Sergey Pavlovich, but Sergey Pavlovich couldn't knock out already old, um, homie at the game. I don't know why it is taking me so long to think of Alistar Overeem's name. And so like, I just have some, I have questions about where Ty is. He's taking a lot of damage in his career, whatever. But I haven't been six just because in general, there are five good heavyweights. And then there's the rest of them. I think Jailton is potentially a sixth good heavyweight, but the hype train on this dude is

unreal. Bring it's back down. Bring us back down. Talk me down. I'm willing to hear it. I'm in the front car. I'm in the front car. He, maybe he is what everyone hopes that he is.

is and that would be awesome. But it is, honestly, it's a little bit like Francis and Ghanu's rise where we actually didn't see shit from Francis by the time he fought Steepay. We saw that he had ungodly power and that was it. Like he just ethered everybody so quickly that we didn't see depth to his game. And then he fought Steepa the first time. I was like, oh, actually he doesn't have any depth to his game. His game was exactly what we saw on the page.

and that was good enough to be the second best dude in this division, but there was a guy with depth who was durable and had a good game plan and that's it. And I have very similar vibes with Jailton. We have seen nothing. We have not seen a breadth of takedowns from it. It is a power double, clean finish, clear the side, go to work. That has a great strategy. At some point the rubber meets the road.

I think that that rubber is where I've cut him off here. at heavyweight specifically. The conversation at light heavyweight gets very, very interesting because they are, I want to believe. I are both nodding our heads so vigorously. I want to believe in my heart that light heavyweight is better than heavyweight because that feels like it should be right. But that division is so bad.

And frankly, ain't none of them a good wrestlers. Like, Glover Tashire, God love him. an underrated technician Gravefighter, a lot of his late career success came from being like a competent wrestler with a great top game and apparently being impossible to knock out despite his advancing

age. Like that's, Jailton can do that. Jailton can be, hey, I'm a competent wrestler with a smothering top game. So that was good enough to get Glover the belt. So like that could very well happen a light heavy weight. I do still have some concerns.

just about having him show anything else, even a single leg entry instead of a double, like something that if somebody can just keep their hips clear on him, okay, I got to go to something else. I think at heavyweight that will manifest itself. Like, I don't think, Tom, he can't do what he has shown to Tommy Aspernel. Now, if there's more parts to his game,

and he can chain wrestle, you know, a failed double, goes to a reshot, to a snatch single, to a knee tap. like, sky's limit, dude, let's buck up. Curtis Blade's the only guy is going to beat him. I just need to see more to feel confident in him. And ultimately, I think what's going to happen with him is he is going to find that level at heavyweight where he can't pull it off anymore. And it probably won't be a, like a big part of it being the size. But he is a, he will be slightly undersized.

And that will be enough to be like, I am ideally. sized for this other weight class and Jan Blahovic sucks ass at stopping a power double so I'm just going to go rinse that dude and that's I think that's what's going to happen he's going to find his level this year sometime like he could be Pavlovich by the way I have Pavlovich above him based on resume alone because if you told me he went and did the same thing he just did to Shemiel to Pavlovich would not shock me in the slightest so but he will have to fight blades he'll have to fight Aspinall. He'll have to fight Ghan or non-Gano, I guess, or John Jones would be an awful fight for him. And once that happens, he gets checked. Yeah, once that happens and he gets checked,

unless he is just the best fight we've ever seen and he just hasn't had to show it yet, which we can't discount. Then he'll be like, all right, time to drop down. And it'll be like when Daniel Cormier dropped. When for years, we had the same thing. We knew D.C. was not a heavy weight. He's a light heavyweight. Like, he wrestled at middleweight. And, And he's a heavyweight, but at some point he's going to drop down. And that was the whole impetus of the John Jones thing was we wanted that fight before it even really became a thing. And then it did happen. It's going to be exactly the same for Jailton, I think.

That to me is the biggest question about all of this, even after UFC 283, because I just keep going back to, is it 2007 anymore? Like, is it 2005 anymore? Can a guy fade or size? Because that's essentially what Jailton is, right? Like Jailton's 230, 235. That's what Fader was. Fader was out there beaten monsters who were 260, 270, 280, whatever.

Steppe was 240ish or whatever. He was, but I would say he was a natural heavyweight. Like, Steepa never, to me, occurred to be a light heavyweight. His build was different, but he wasn't like the heaviest dude. He had someone who is that, who is Fador-sized, succeed against today's level of ultra-talented but also ultra-sized heavyweights because that's really where the heavyweight elite elite elite elite elite elite elite is right now right now. You look at almost

all of the elite heavyweights outside of Steepay. They're pushing 250, 260. That's just where the division's meta is right now. I wrote in my column on Sunday, I basically reached the same conclusion as you that I don't think that he can. I think there is a glass ceiling

here somewhere and I do think it is exactly where you said whether it's like a Curtis Blades type or a John Jones or a Cyril or something like that. And that once jailed in meets that, that will be the impetus for him to move down to 205, and I think he could probably win that belt pretty quickly. I will say this right now.

He has a 0% chance to beat Curtis Blades. That is a nightmare matchup. Zero percent. If they fought 100 times, Blades rinses him 100 times. Disagree. Really? Disagree. Let me tell you something about Jalz.

Give us the case. I love this. Two big differences between him. Well, one big difference between him and, well, first of all, number one. Number one is always, Jiu Jitsu. You know me very well. Number one,

Jiu Jitsu. I knew that was coming. The gentle art, okay, you know that's going. Number two, this is a difference between him and Fador and Steepethe. This dude is fucking diesel.

Like, he is, he's gassed to the gills, brother. Looks good, getting off the bus. I have no, I have no, obviously, I'm joking.

I would never accuse a fighter of PEDs without any sort of evidence. I'm not saying that he is, he is gassed up, but he does have the physique of a 1980s. uh, WWF upper mid Carter.

That's all I'm saying. And, and, and Jed, again, we haven't touched a, we haven't, we need to do our own show. We need to do like a separate show about this.

It's like the, the athleticism question, right? Because athleticism, we keep saying, it takes you so far. Now, I understand that's not an issue with Curse Blades.

Curse Blades is also a really good athlete. So that's, that's definitely a problem. But one, I think one of Alameda strengths and what separates him again from a steepe from a, a, uh, again,

and I'm not saying those guys are, are slobs, but this guy has, as like jump off the page athleticism. Like I think he's of that tier. I don't want to say a plus plus plus, like the absolute best athletes in the MA, but I think he's just a notch below.

And when you combine that with the grappling, when you combine that with like his, just his instincts and the finishing ability of what I've seen so far, I am so convinced I would give him a chance against anybody in the heavyweight division. I'm that soul. See, that's why I don't know.

I think he is a great athlete, but like depressingly is maybe not the right word, shockingly maybe, the top of the heavyweight division is actually populated by superior athletes. It is now. Cereal Gone for sure. Curtis Blas, Blas, no, not there. I am not confident Pavlovich is, Pavlovich is a plus athlete. I am not confident he is a superior athlete. Tom Aspenol is sure looking like he is a superior athlete too. He's a plus athlete as well, correct. Yeah. Blades is a superior athlete. Like, these are dudes that are just, like, that's why I, like, if you told me he's going to weigh heavyweight tomorrow, I'm saying a thousand percent, he is a future

champion. Magum and Ankleiv is the only dude, I think, who I could have any level of confidence could stand up to what he is bringing to bear right now, seeing no more tools in the box from him, just with that. But at heavyweight, there are five dudes. I'm like, maybe he could because maybe he's got depth that we don't know, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't bank on it because they can match his athleticism and they are large. Yeah.

Like it's like it's dope. Jalen Ramsey is a. Sick athlete. I ain't no question. But Jalen Ramsey trying to tackle Derek Henry coming down the blocks at you, one of those men is bigger than the other. It's just how that works. If he knew, if he knew, uh, jiu-jitsu though, I'd give him a really good chance of picking him down. A jujitsu, but I'll say what's fun about this discussion is that like, I think we all agree, we want to see how far he can go, though. Like, you want to see him fight Curtis Blades, right? At this point, you want to see him fight Curtis blades. I would love to see him fight Curtis blades.

I think he'd be the underdog for sure. Well, again, also people hate Curtis plays, though, so maybe not. I don't want to see that fight. I don't want to see him at heavyweight. I genuinely want Almeida, like, heavyweight right now because I want heavyweight to come later. This has been fun because, like, it did. I just wanted to see him smash some dudes. I don't really care what the weight class was.

Now that it's like, okay, there's something here. Very clearly, the weight class where he can make the most hay will be light heavyway. I just want to throw him in there and see. No. If he's all that we think and he can win the belt, then when he moves up, it feels more, it feels more monumental and more prestigious

and more interesting and dynamic to me. No, see, I am so deeply fascinated now to see how this can play out. Like, this is basically a science experiment to me now of just can someone this size

pull this off in 2020? Because the option's still there, right? Just to play out your scenario. Say he meets a current. hurt his blades and it's too much. It's just the size is too much. Goes down to 205 wins the belt. Then the return is much bigger. If he's able to be that guy at 205 for a bit and then it's like, okay, I conquered this. I want to go back to where we started and now I'm a better version. And I'm like, I am all in on whatever that would be. That would be fascinates me. Also, real quick,

as we've been talking, I've just been thinking about what's going to happen next with this guy and I think I have the perfect matchup. Do you want to hear it? Is it, is it Jamal Hill? No, it's not, Jamal. I'm just saying, Jailton, Al-Meda, minus 250 favorite over Jamal Hill. Yeah, and I'll say, I picked Volkov for Al-Meda next. Where did you land, Shane? Oh, no, see, I want to go complete opposite stylistically. I want to go with the man whose jiu-jitsu is entirely,

I'm just going to kind of stand up, and it's going to work every single time. I want Derek Lewis. Yeah. Give you J-L-T versus Derek Lewis, who is like 270, who cuts to get to 265? and who can just kind of stand up at any point in time when he wants to. I want to see if he can do that against Jiu-Jitsu, because it's not what they teach you. Derek Lewis's Jiu-Jitsu is I'm incredibly athletic.

I don't make this bold claim. I don't make this bold claim right now. He will not just stand up if Jelton will be going to get him down. Oh, I think that's not true. I think he very much will just stand up. He will not just stand up. I think Jailton will get the first take down. He'll stand up.

It'll be if Jailton can keep getting them, which he probably can, but Derek Lewis is, man's just going to stand up. Shamil stood up on that dude and Shamil is not sure. He was, he took a bit of punishment before. It wasn't like an easy stand-up.

Exactly. Eventually, Derek Lewis will pop right on him. That's why that's the fight. Win-l loser draw versus feedback. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. When loser draw, you don't care? No one cares about that fight, period.

I'm down. You forgot that fight what's happening. Just admit it right now. And it's happening. is our next event if that fight happens at 3.8, 3.30 in the morning and no one watches it. Did it really happen? Oh, God. Why are they making Derek Lewis fight it like three in the morning?

No, if he loses the Spivak, then why would we watch Jailton? Because Jailton, if Spivak can take you down and tap you. Just for the intrigue of the standing up. I don't, it won't because if he loses the Spivak, it's because Spivak took him down and he couldn't stand up. Do you think Spivak's going to win a boxing match with Derek Lewis? No. It's fair. Okay.

So I'm actually with you, A.K. Assuming Derek Lewis wins. If he uses Volkov. I also just want to throw this out since we're talking about him and I haven't had any place to put it. I think Jailton Almeida is just what we all wanted or hoped Phil Davis would be. And so we're feeling some sense of delayed gratification.

I'm saying no comparison between those two. They both look great getting off the bus and should have been unbelievable grapplers. And one of them has just been a dude and Jailton has captured our imagination. Phil Davis was never trucking people. At no point. In my life, have I ever been like, oh, man, I can't wait for Phil Davis.

That is not a thought in my mind. When Phil Davis was coming to MMA, it was, he was a three-time national champion. That's legit. I get it. We all wanted Bo Nickle to be. Furlingh, Bo Nickle just looks like he's doing the shit. Just to push back against what you're saying, though, I have not once in this entire Jailton saga, I've been like, oh, yeah, this is Phil Davis.

No, I'm saying like this is what Phil Davis should have been. You're on your own on this one. I'm not seeing a stylistic career comparison. I am not seeing it. Speaking of Jed on an island. Okay. That's a great transition. Perfect, perfect.

That's why they pay us the big bucks, you know? I'm bummed right now that Damon's not also here to be able to join us with this because I kind of really wanted to do a big circle point. and just like really, let's all get a jet on this, because this was just really something. Come out, me, bro. So for the listeners, you guys can't see our individual ballots, but you will notice this month that a certain Nirmigna Madoff at Bantamatov at Bantamatov,

Umar Nirmar-Miromadov. I love that you have to say a certain because there are many of them. There are two. You have two on your ballot. I have two on my ballot. You're going to double the Mago Medov these days. Well, when you can go double Nirmagamatov, you got to go double Nirmatomadov. I regret nothing.

But yes, Umar made a big jump up the bantamweight ranks this month. Last month he was 13. Now he's number nine. He got a big win over Honey Barcellos during this ranking cycle. So it makes sense. It could have been a lot more of a jump. But again, to peel the curtain back a bit, there was a brief moment in time where Mr. Michoud here had Marker Nukrami

enough as his number one bantamweight in the entire world. Damn straight. Which I just heard AK almost have a heart attack, even hearing that. I didn't see that. Well, I was not allowed, AK. I nipped it in the blood behind your back. Because that's just ridiculous. You're not allowed to do that.

At some point, we have to rein Jed back for his own sake. And this was the point. We finally reached the point. So, you know, I'm just going to kind of open the floor to you guys. Can you explain yourself, sir? But Jed, before you go, let me just say, if I had known, if I had been part of this meeting, I would have had your back. I would have had you have.

Oh. I cannot believe you. Go first. Go first. Go first. I cannot believe you just turned on me. I will have you back here live, not live, but with people, with everyone listening to this podcast, I will have your back.

So go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. After our Jailton moment that we just shared, you turned on me so quickly. I cannot believe this. Did we share a moment? All I'm saying, that just cut me deep. Cut me deep.

I tried to look through our Slack so I could find the message. I'm fairly confident. I just told. everyone after um or did that to how many bars i was like that's that's the best band way i'm going to put him there i couldn't find the the receipts but i think that was our dms and that was you and me yeah i think i put it to the group i distinctly have the dm of you being like i am 80% sure for the umar mermed off would fuck up outro and i'm like yeah he would because that's it like i i want to be i'm a trendsetter sheen you know i'm

I'm the cutting edge of the rankings debate. And this dude is, he's going to have the belt, man. It is, this is not an if. It is a win. It is coming. Whoever it was that said it, they're making no American metals with hands now. Oh, shit, watch out, world. And like, because that is such a sick knockout.

Look, how many Barcellas is a damn good fighter. He's not a rank dude, but we're talking to top 20, top 25 guy has been. through the ringer with some of the best guys in the division. You know, like he's fought. He beats Syed Nermigamoquadov, who you have ranked. Like, this dude can fight. Chris Gutierrez, this dude can fight. And nobody, nobody has done that to him.

He got ethered, like vintage Liotto Machita knockout style. If you told me that they were making Nirmigamatov's who struck like Liotto, it's ballgame, kids. We're done here. Fighting has been solved. Pack it up. Nobody who's not in Dagestan can fight anymore because it's just a waste of your time.

Ask what's up right now. Umar, for years, for years they have told us, he's the best one. For years, four years, Habib told us,

Islam's coming. For years, he said that. And then get damn, damn straight he's coming. He came. And now he is. He is here.

And for all those years, they have said, Umar is actually the best dude in this room. Habib is the best, but skill, talent, ability. Umar has the most of it. He is the best. And I'm not going to call them a liar anymore because betting against Javier Mendez and the Nirmirmehamehamehameh's and Eagle MMA, that is a fool's errand.

And I am not, I am no man's fool, Shaheen, Alshadhi. He is going to be the Bannonweight champion. It might not be this year because the timeline is tough, though I think he, still could get there. Probably not. Van der Waite has too many guys. It would require a, it would require a Jamal Hill sort of situation. But his next fight is going to be a top 10 dude.

And the fight after that should be a top five dude. If you can find someone who will sign on the line for him, because they ain't nobody trying to fight that dude, because why the hell would you? Like he's, it may take him until the end of next year to get the belt because it is going to be a slog. But he, I love Cheetah Vera. One of my favorite fighters going.

Umar boxes that man up. And I had to feel real good about Umar just, just taking him to school. Sean O'Malley, come, look me in the face and tell me if you, if they booked O'Mali Umar tomorrow, that he, that Umar wouldn't be a minus 300 favorite and you wouldn't all slam money on that dude.

fire yeah like he is gonna bag him up there are some more like peter yon would be a fun fight i'd still i feel like umar's gonna win that one but adrian yanez is is also on the come up but you talking did he's just the next guy and i'm i may be early but i am not wrong is all i'm gonna say I say this as someone who has been, who has had Al Jemaine Sterling as like very strongly feel about him being the number one bantan wait since the first Yon fight. Even that ended in controversy. I had him with you. I was right there with you the whole time. You and me.

You and me were the only ones holding strong for a while. And not just based on that fight, but like he has, Al Jameen has a really, really strong resume at 135. Incredibly strong resume at 135. I think I only briefly put Yon at number one after he won the San Hagan interim title bout because, it just didn't feel fair to not let yawn have that spot because sterling was out and you know just have to wait until they could finally get back in the cage again then sterling beat him in a close fight and obviously he's been number one ever since so i have been like sterling is clearly number one at worst number two best phantom weight in the world no caveats and i don't care about all

the controversy around his fights um but umar would be favored if they were matched up within the next like six months umar would be favored both because people don't have a lot of faith in sterling as you know, again, I mentioned some of the screwy results with fights. And also, Umar's got the most powerful name in MMA at the end there. I'm not. I'm not, not for the long moves. Would probably not be favored. I'm just going to say that right now.

I think he will be favored. He would be favored. So I, I'm someone, I think that he might open as a favorite. I think that that gets, is a pick-um. I think everything you said is true. His name and the general disdain for Sterling, I do. Sterling was the guy when I had Nerman

and I met off rank number one. Sterling was the one dude. I was like, not 100% sure that this is right. But then I was going to do it for the bit because like moving him up from 12 to to two doesn't feel as impactful. It's like that's the next dude. I'm staking my flag right here.

And then Shaheen had a talking to. He was like it was really a, I'm looking at your rankings right now. Are you really doing this? Like yeah, it's like I don't. might have to might not let you do that. I was like, fine, I'll move him to two. He's one in my heart is all I'm saying.

His resume is really strong too. Like I don't think people realize how good his resume. Sirgay Morson of Brian Keller, Nate Mn Sken fight. Ryan Keller can fight his ass off. Sergey Morsov, like, if he hadn't fought, I know he hasn't like dominated the O.C., but if he hadn't fought Umar in his first fight, he'd have like a really nice run right now. He's, he has a winning record in the OC is not like even, that's surface level but if you've seen circuit fight before the UFC and then you saw there

matches up you're like oh this is some high level shit and if you go back and watch that fight it actually was like pretty decent the first round yeah and umar's better ummar again like we're saying here might be the best 135 in the world um and he and if you look at the resume before that a lot of solid names not household names not like superstars but he was beating quality competition before the ufc and now dominating guys in ufc again good names brian kellhert Nate maynus is a good fighter um and now harney bruce else so his resume is like sneaky very very strong and i i i i i I have him at number eight. I would, again, much like

Jelton, I almost regret, like, maybe I should just throw him up there higher because I do that with your vibes. I think he will be the champion soon. Like, he is that damn good. Go with your feels, A.K., go with your feels. I should have, Jed. I should have followed you.

I'm going to corrupt. I'm going to corrupt all of you to serve. I cannot believe what I'm just listening to. Oh, my God. AK, from you? I see, I expect this from Jed. I don't expect this from you. I am genuinely disappointed to hear this coming from you.

Mr. Rules Rule. Mr. Respect the process. Mr. I'm going to keep Jorge Masvedol and Kelvin Gastilum and Conor McGregor in my rankings until the end of time for some reason. You have Tony Ferguson in your top 10 right now because that's the process, right? You have to beat the guy to be able to get the ranking. You're validating this? You're validating putting Omar Mergammermaidov,

whose best win is Honi Bacelos, who is not ranked in our ranking system as the number one bantamweight. Did you watch that win? Go look at that one again because it was sick. Hold on. I'm talking directly to AK. Okay. Okay, listen.

We were talking about resumes earlier. The names I just read off, Morozov, Kelleher, Menis, and Barcelos. Bantamate is so deep. That's as good as like any, that's like right up there with whoever. Is it as good as Jamal Hillby? It is not.

And I don't look like personally. I don't have. What are we talking about? Personally, I don't have him. It's not as good. Good, sneakly Peoriaon's resume. No, I'm saying having that name on your resume. Oh, well.

Like Sterling, like Al Jermaine Sterling does, the champion is division, the number one guy. Technically, Sean O'Malley. I'm just saying, AK, is there not something to be said for respecting the process? Even if you think Umar is the number one guy in the world right now, he has not even come close to proving that. Shaheen, I have questions Jed before in some of his decision. I'm not saying, I'm not going back on these criticisms. I reserved the right to criticize Jedmishu as much as I want. But listen, he was ahead of the game with some of these things like Islam.

No, what is going on? And this upset me. I have rallied against this. It upset me. He never gave Charles Oliver his flowers except for like maybe a few months. That was, I think he had Charles number one for like a few months. No. No, he did.

I literally never had. He literally just pivoted from Justin to Gaji to Islam. Like that was it. And Omar does not have the resume of Islam. But I am with him on the, if they, like, he's good enough to be number one. The resume should matter. This is unbelievable. This is.

And again, again, this is, listen, we don't, him and I don't agree 100%. But by my metric, again, I don't put as much weight in, you know, will this guy beat this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy. That is not the deciding factor for me. But it is consistent with how he does his rankings. If anything, Shaheen, I hate to say it, I would be the one who's disappointed if Jed did not put him higher. because that would go against how he has done his ranking. So I'm not, I don't agree, but he is consistent. This is consistent with how he has ranked for a long time.

Being consistently ridiculous does not vindicate the ridiculous. It's still consistent. It's still consistent. We're talking here about consistency. We were just talking about how AK intentionally bottomed out Jamal Hill for feels. Like, consistency is key, Shaheen. I and I am nothing if not a beacon of consistency. I will never give Leon Edwards his flowers ever at Walter Waite.

Oh my God. Oh, yeah, you have Hobbs that number one. Oh, my God. I did never fight it once or wait again. We don't know. For the listeners, I did when, when Shaheen was giving me a talking to offer to move Leon to number one if I could keep number one. You were bargaining.

You were bargaining. I tried to horse trade. He did not accept it. Oh, my God. A.K. I'm not mad. I'm not mad at you. I'm just disappointed. You should proud of Jed.

You're proud of Jed for standing by his beliefs. That is the farthest thing. What I'm doing right now. Come talk to me in 2024 when this man is undefeated Bannonweight Champion of the world and you're all just going to have to. That will be the appropriate time to put him there. That's all I'm saying. He'll be two division champion by then.

Don't worry about that. All I'm saying is if we're Game of Thrones picking a champion to fight for my life, I feel real good with mine. Good luck with Aljo. Hope you have fun. Just wait until Henry's. Hudo beats this guy in like two minutes or something. So Hudo isn't ranked because Sehudo would in fact, I would have him number one if like I was ranking him because I think he's going to beat Aljo assuming he still has anything.

remotely what he had at the peak, I would feel comfortable having him as the top Bannoy in the world, but he hasn't fought in forever. And so until I see it, I don't believe he's fighting. All right. Anyway, we need to get out here.

That's all we have for us today on the Meriki show. I need to end this show before I throw my computer against the wall. God, Damon. I needed you, Damon. I needed you come back, Damon. Thank you, okay. I love you, Jed.

Don't love you guys right now. Anyway, that's the ranking show. We appreciate you guys, as always, for tuning in. We got a short cycle coming up for this next one. We only have a couple weeks before UFC 284. That's going to be a fun one. Our two top pound-for-pound fighters in the world colliding Islam-Machachev and Alexander Volkanovsky for the right for number one.

Cannot wait for that. In the meantime, keep it locked to the MMA Fighting Podcast Network. Lots of good stuff coming for you over these next coming weeks. Retirement of Fador. that's going to be fun. I think we might have a little something special for that too.

In the meantime. I want you guys to know if Fador wins, he will be my number one heavyweight and you can't stop me. Not only will I not stop you, I will fully support it. I am on board of it.

Hey, that was the ranking show for Jed Mishu, for Damon Martin, for Alexander K. Lee. My name is Sean O'Shahti. We appreciate you guys. As always, keep it locked to MMA fighting,

and we'll talk to you soon. Love you guys. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first? There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. This episode is brought to you by Peloton.

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