MMA Fighting - Rankings Show: The Second Annual Airing Of Grievances! | Beefs, Betrayals, And An Unexpected Tony Ferguson Civil War

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

It's a brand new year! So hey...let's start some fires, shall we? On the first Rankings Show of 2023, co-hosts Shaun Al-Shatti and Alexander K. Lee are joined by four of their fellow MMA Fighting rankings panelists — Damon Martin, Jed Meshew, Mike Heck, and E. Casey Leydon — for the rankings committee’s second annual Airing of Grievances. It’s a festivus for the rest of us, if you will. The crew retakes their seats around the ol’ roundtable and demands answers for the worst calls and most puzzling decisions by their fellow rankers in 2022. Why is this fighter so high on your rankings? Why is this one so low?? How you could possibly leave this person out?!? It’s the return of our own secret Santa gift exchange to close out the holiday season — only instead of gifts, we're handing out another heaping helping of accountability. 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

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

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

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

Available now, only from Audible. Podcast Network. How is everyone? I think I speak for everyone here at the MMA fighting staff when I say that I wish you a very happy. 2023. I hope we're all out there, having a wonderful start to the new year, making those resolutions.

getting things done. Hope you enjoyed the holiday. And woo boy, I am excited today. This is the MMA fighting ranking show. My name is Sean Al-Shadi. I am joined with my co-conspirator, the Prince of positivity, the King of the North. Alexander K. Lee and AK, we are back at it again, my man, 22. It's behind us. New Year is ahead. It's a clean slate. Just what a beautiful time of year. How are you feeling today, buddy? You go to hell Al Shadi. Oh, sorry. I thought we had I thought we had proceeded to the next stage of the podcast. I forgot we're still doing the intro. I mean, you're right.

It's wonderful. It's been a wonderful holiday. We've had some pretty terrible news in the May community, but, you know, we're bouncing back. We're working through. We're looking ahead to hopefully more positive things as 2020 goes along and hopefully a super positive podcast today with the castor characters that we've gathered, Gene. Yeah, hopefully we can bring a little levity. to your lives here today. So of course, maybe you already know by now, but we have a little special

show here for you guys today. Usually we're coming at you after pay-per-views, but today's a little bonus episode of the Reiki Show. And oh yes, it is one of my favorite shows we do on here, a festivus for the rest of us, if you will. Welcome to the second annual airing of grievances. No comus. The tradition of festivist begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people. No, you're going to hear about it. Normally, we like to have a group of four on here today, though. We're making it a party. We got six, count them six out of the eight panelists on here for the website. Damon Martin, Jedmishu, Mike Heck, and the return of Mr. 3024 himself, E. Casey Layden.

And AK, we did this last year. Now we're running it back. Do you want to explain to the people real quickly what we're doing here? Yeah, listen, I'm very proud of the ranking. that we've put together, the only rankings that matter. The NBA fighting global rankings, the MA fighting pound for pound rankings. But, you know, behind the scenes, I mean, maybe not so much behind the scenes. If people listen to the podcast, the rankings podcast regularly. But it gets even uglier behind the scenes sometimes. We have some disagreements.

We have some discrepancies. You know, we're not always on the same page when it comes to ranking certain fighters. And every now and then, Shaheen, I think we all agree. It's good to have a little bit of bloodletting. It's good to kind of let the pressure out. it's good to, you know, just say what's on your mind. Because we're a family. We're family.

We love each other. We love each other. But families, you know, again, don't agree on everything. So once a year around this dispensual time of the season, yes, it is important, I think, to air the grievances and to just to go into the new year with a clean sleep. A little family therapy, right? Like the family that fights together, loves together. I don't know.

I don't know. There's some kind of phrase there, if somebody can land on it. But yes, so basically a little supersized round. table here, our little version of a secret Santa Gifts Exchange only instead of gifts is our chance for air the grievances that have built up over the course of the year. And so what we've done, we've asked all of you guys here to bring one or two names that you have sung singled out, one or two little beefs that have just been simmering that you want to ask somebody about, why is this guy so high on your rankings?

Why is it so low? What are you thinking with this one? We're going to take turns going around the room, little friendly dialogue. Let's please try to keep it simple. Let's try not to hurt anyone's feelings. Let's try not to gang up. And most of all, let's just really try not to get anyone fired. That's kind of the goal of this podcast.

We're all friends here. But quickly, before we start, what's the mood in the room here? Anyone, feel free to chime in. There's six people. So this is, just have at it. What's the mood in the room? How does people feel? It's a, it's the rankings, I'll be honest.

I don't, the airing agreements is I don't have as many problems with you people this year. But I will say the mood, the mood in MMA is a little downtrodden right now. we have not had a couple of good days in mixed martial arts. So I'm actually looking forward to this to hopefully, even though we're airing grievances to bring a little levity to the sport, because things have been real heavy these last couple days. Yeah, this is tough this year. Last year,

we were just free flow and stuff. Now we get six of us on. I thought for sure we're going to have like a two and a half hour podcast at the very least, maybe a two-part or like a WrestleMania four type of airing of grievances. But just actually looking at the rankings, I think this should be pretty easy to do. So, yeah, I have a lot of problems with a lot of people in the M.A. space, but I could say that you five individuals, I only have a few minor problems with, and you'll hear them soon enough. Arian of nitpicks, if you will.

Yes. I'm almost all the way on board with that. But there are two. I have come to two that I have a very major issue with. There are some other ones, some small ones, but mostly we're getting it right. there are still two stand out fraudulent rankings going on here. Oh, boy. We have to say, I know we know.

Yeah, I know we have to say him. I feel that one of them, many people will share with me. Everyone should agree on both, but we'll find out as we get into this. But otherwise, I am likewise surprised because I thought last year I had no shortage of beef with all of you. And you've all seen the light. all made wiser choices come around. Sometimes, you know, wasn't your, wasn't your fault. Islam Mokachev made it undeniable that he was the best lightweight in the world. So I'm just happy. It's a good year. It's going to be a good year, I believe. If you had it written down on your Bingard

card, it was 530 before Jed took called scoreboard on Islam this time around. Five 30 into the bottom. I mean, that's a new record. I mean, that's got to be the longest we waited. I think most people expected that to go off much sooner you know talking minute three could have happened so kese you feeling good i'm feeling great i'm i'm trying to get angry at looking at you guys rankings i'm not i'm not that mad like like you said it's year of the nitpicking um so but you give me let me give it i'll take a deeper dive and i'll definitely find something i can get all riled up about real fight words Real Fighters. And so with that, with that fiery interjection by Casey, let us begin the second annual

MMA Fighting Rankings Committee, airing of grievances, aka the Prince of Positivity, our dear friend. Would you like to start us off? Oh, should I? Okay. It's not super explosive, and it's pretty broad. And let me say, I'm glad our dear friend, E. Casey Line is here because we are on the same side here.

We are on the same side here. People know we talk about a rogue panelist a lot. And Casey is that rogue panelist more often than not. He has a little bit of a different methodology. But on this, Casey, on this, you and I have, I think, pretty much been in agreement for like the past two years on the ranking of this fighter, the evaluation of this fighter. I think everyone owes me an apology for Kayla Harrison being as high as high as she was. I'm calling out, not just you guys. I always say I had to go back and do some research here.

I've never had her higher than I think, like a women's pound for pound. I've never had Kayla Harrison higher than I think like 15, 14 maybe. Meanwhile, you guys are launching her up the top 10. She was as high as two, number two on some people's ranking. The number two pound for pound best was better than the one. It wasn't just huge. You and someone else.

It was you and someone else. It might have been someone else. It might have been like three people. I just said, I thought that was. was crazy. I always thought it was crazy. She's a very talented fighter, great athlete, obviously, but just impossible to evaluate, given that she competes in a weight class that just really doesn't exist. And like beating, sure, beating fighters we've heard of, like Sarah Coppin, right? But we know Sarah Copp is not a 155er. So even when she fought someone with a name,

you know, they were just, it was clearly just a physical mismatch. So a talented person and worthy of being in our pound for pound rankings, which he has been, I think, I think since we started them, I want to say. But when I saw her going up like top 10, number eight, six, five, up to two, I was just like, this is crazy. I'm like, we got to settle down. We got to settle down. So that is my general grievance for everyone. If anyone wants to defend themselves, go ahead. Or just, you know, say, AK, you were right all along. And we all need to kind of, you know, hold our horses a little bit when it comes to these things. I'm ready for it. Look, as one of the people who may or may not have had Kayla Harrison as the number two-pound-for-pound female fighter in the world,

number two is crazy. I'm willing to say that I might not have been correct in that assessment. I'm not sure that I'm willing to apologize to you okay, because I don't think we gave you shit for not having her that high. if I'm wrong, then I will issue an apology. I'm fairly confident that I was never on the corner of. You guys are all insane. This is clearly the, it was just of vibes. I got caught up in the immersion of it all.

And frankly, we might all be wrong because maybe Larissa Pacheco is actually just the second best fighter in the world. Maybe. And none of us are giving her, her appropriate flowers. We all just docked Kayla Harrison for that loss. but I will absolutely say that at this moment in time, my bet, got a little too carried away. There we go. This is why I was wrong. Whoa.

We barely hear. This is why we do this show. Casey, I think you were pretty, I think Casey, I didn't look at all the rankings. I don't think you ever put her higher than eight. I think you reluctantly put her at eight and then eventually she dropped down. And then you did like a shuffling and she dropped all the way, all the way out. But at some point you had her at eight. And I'm like, yeah, for me that, like, for context, I currently have her at 10.

I was going to say, Joe has her in front of the way. I think most people do, right? No, no, they don't. No, we don't. Where'd she go? Everyone else kind of has her around 14 to 18. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sitting with his take.

Can I defend my 10 very quickly? Because I actually feel good about where she's currently ranked. There's like a clear upper echelon of female fighters in the world. Like, Shevchenko, Nunes, Zhang, I inappropriately. had Kayla up there, not, not defending that choice. But once you get past Chris Cyborg, you are really splitting hairs on who goes where between Giuliana Pena, Liz Carmoosh, Ketland Vieira. They only, half of them only fight once a year anyway. It's tough to figure. So I just, I took the Bacheco Harrison duopoly and just shoved them right in that break of clearly

elite fighters versus the rest of them. And I feel okay. To back up to back up what Jed's saying, I will 100% take the L on the old Kayla Harrison being ranked. I think number two or three on my rankings as well. But I will say to Jed's point, I said this on my podcast with Matt Brown the other day, the women's division, especially the upper part of the women's division, the Bantamway Division in particular. Like the talent level has just bottomed out. Like there is like it's a, it's a wasteland in what was once the premier women's division. Like the Bantway Division is a like there's nothing.

So to Jed's point, like I back him up on like, there's like, there's a very like clear kind of line in like the upper echelon of the women's division and then just where it bottoms out. And you can say that, you know, I know this is going to be a controversial thing. You can say that about almost every division in a way. I think flyweight is actually becoming the most stacked division in women's MMA right now because even Strawway, you got a lot of people sticking around who really aren't, you know, you get the same like four fighters who have constantly been fighting for the title for the past like three years. Bantamweight has Amanda Nunes and then a bunch of other people. Like at this point, that's pretty much what you can say at Bantamweight. So while I 100% will take the L on Kayla Harrison being overranked when I had her two or three or whatever it was based upon her actual resume, the problem is, is the women's divisions have not grown, especially Bantamway. And we all know Featherweight is not a real division.

For that matter, neither is lightweight. But again, we still have Chris Seidwork rank because Chris Seidwork has a body of work. the women's divisions in general have just been like outside of flyweight where you got people like Casey O'Neill you know obviously you got some uh Aaron Blanchfield those divisions have not been adding a lot of new talent I just got to be honest about that thanks straw wait's kind of okay when the friends of positivity is like it's kind of okay that's not exactly the most ringing endorsement that's the defense before we move on Casey do you want to join me a little bit in this victory lap you're also a bit of a Kayla doubter not a Kayla hate none of us are haters they're haters

But you were a bit of skeptical. Oh, I think I was the most skeptical in the whole bunch. Would you say I had her in the top? At some of you had her eight, I want to say it was after her last, the last time she won. Not eight. No, no, no, no, no. That's way too. I have to go.

I'm checking the receipts now. I had her at before she lost to Pacheco, I had her at 19. And I still had Pacheco ahead of her in pound for pound rankings. And they actually stayed the same from November, from November till after the fight. It's not a real division. And I think Pacheco pound for pound is actually a better fighter. March 2022, Casey Lee Casey Lyme, Kayla Harrison, number eight behind Carlos Farsa head of Holly Hall. Receipts.

And that was for Kevin. Yeah, that was from Kevin Harrison. Again, to your credit, to your credit, you then did reshuffle. I think either the next month or a month after that, you did, you did like a whole reshuffling of your pound for pound. And you dropped her to like, yeah, you dropped her to like 17 or 18 or something. Remember, on internal chats, I try to get out of this pound for pound ranking because I kind of hate town for pound. Yes. But I didn't put that much thought to it.

So once I had to think about it, yeah, then Harrison went way down on the list. You land in the right spot. I love the air quotes around think about it. All right. Well, I feel like that came to a piece of resolution. That's a great start to all of this, fellas. Let's just go around the horn. I don't know how your setup is on your computer, but Mike, you are the next step on the around the horn on Mason.

Let's go with Mike. I'm glad that AK set the table for an overranking, overranking conversation because my first grievance goes, it was almost a double grievance, but it's like a one and a half grievance. A half point goes to you, Shaheen Al Shadi for this. Oh, all right. But this is a full point for you, my best friend, Alexander Kaylee.

And Shaheen, I understand that emotions get in the way of ranking sometimes. Like, and I think we all know your admiration for one Tony Ferguson. The fact that you have him ranked at 155 is a little bit egregious in my eyes. You did it, Mike! But you at least had the wherewithal to, you know, use your emotions to at least put him at the bottom of the ranking. So he's at number 14 for you. But my best friend, this message goes to you. How do I want to say this?

Oh, my gosh. Hey, I just saw him. We're right with this. This was my number one with a bullet. How dare you? How dare you, AK, ranked Tony Ferguson inside the top. top 10 because I love you man I love you we host on to the next one together and I just have wonderful things to say about you but how do you even look yourself in the mirror after you X

out of that spreadsheet after ranking Tony Ferguson number eight like you can use the level of competition line air quotes once again level of competition for like the first loss or the second loss maybe even the third but after five straight losses most of them were horrifying especially after that Nate Diaz performance and I know it's a world to wait fight, but it doesn't matter. It still should go into the overall just a position of everything.

I don't know. I will still give you a virtual hug after this AK. But if this is a festivist and having problems with people, I got a problem with you, man. This is just bad. This is just really bad. Like, he's not even in the freaking UFC rankings anymore and the UFC rankings aren't even real.

And he's not even in the UFC lightweight rankings anymore. And there he is. Just sitting there at number eight for you. Please defend this so I can hug you. And you're muted, so I can't even hear what you're saying. And even the microphone gods don't even want to hear your response to this. Listen, someone has them higher than me. I just want to say that.

I do not have the highest. Someone has him. You guys, listen, he is not here. He's not here to defend himself. So I will make the case. I will fight for both of us. I will fight for Rizel and this man. Oh, my God.

So I had my second agreement is actually I have to do with the same panelists. So maybe I'll save that one. I will here. So the venom goes to you once again. I will once again advocate for him. I guess I will I'll be this man's proxy. So I'm so ready to get out. I have to do some I've never been prouder of you,

AK. I, I, I, I don't know. Wow. I didn't even know. I have him ahead of, of RDA, who he beat five years of five and a half years ago. Oh, five. Five and a half is not correct.

Five years ago. That's not correct at all. 2016. Oh, six years ago. It's almost a decade ago. 2016. If they fought again, I think Ferguson could still beat him.

No, you don't. You don't like you. No, I do. I do. I do. I do. I think it's a good, I think it's a good match. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Theoretically, is already a deciding in Mexico City again? I have not, I have not put Tony Ferguson. above anyone that has beaten him. I have respected the win-loss record. Okay, Michael Chan was ahead of him.

Viniel Darious ahead of him. Charlie Olives, Justin Gaichi. I mean, listen, Gammrot, I guess you could put ahead of him. But I don't know. Like, I need to see him lose. I need to see him lose the son behind him. I need to see him lose to someone behind him. That is my rationale.

Al. AK, here's my big issue with this. Okay, I have a lot of issues with this. Let me just interject for the people. The looks of horror slash amusement. I'm not looking. Right now on everybody, I wish you guys could see it.

It's fantastic. My, of the many problems I have with this, AK, I'm not even going to most of them because other people can take that low-hanging fruit. I will just ask you to make sure that I'm not all the way wrong here. The number 14, is that Tafik Musayev? It is. The same Tafik Musayev who lost to Roberto to Susa Satoshi last year?

Yes. So you have decided that Tony Ferguson's five losses matter not at all. But this man, whose best win is Patricky Pitbull, is also still worth it. What are you doing it lightweight? is my question. What are you doing? Is beating Sydney Outlaw? Satoshi beat Musayev.

Hold on. In 2021. Oh, no. And then he beat Sydney Outlaw this year. Was this an MMA fight? Yes, it was a rising that he lost with Satoshi. Uh-huh, uh-huh. So unless this is a different Musayev that I don't know,

which still raises a huge question for me over who that. that one is. This is the deepest best weight class in the sport. Uh-huh. You can't replace these two dudes with people who win fights. That's my old, that's my primary issue here. Hold on.

When is the last Tony Ferguson win? Uh, 2019. There's the answer for you. The immortal Donald Seroni. The immortal Donald Soloni. Damn, they were good subject.

Yeah. Donald Serroney. Your own, your own show. You hold him in high. esteem. I guess we shouldn't be surprised because you also were the last possible holdout for Conan McGregor. Who's only relevant win was also Donald Serroney. If you beat Donald Serroney, you're a tough of being fired. You're a top of being fighter. I don't know what you said. You know

who never beat Donald's Tony? Habib. And I've really never did. He never did. And I do, I questions now. So the esteem that we holds Habib in. My point. is not that I'm mad. I'm just disappointed. Listen, as I was also looking at my women's pound for pound, I was also thinking like, we were now two questions in.

I'm already looking at two of my list, and I'm like, should some of these people be where they are? Because I have like Holly Holmes still in like my top 10. Oh, man. We're 20 minutes ago. We got KK rethink in his whole situation, my whole life.

Look, you can't start. I don't know. I don't know. I don't be where they are in the pound rankings. That's too tough. I will say, Listen, I'll make this vow. If Tony Ferguson loses to someone behind him in the rankings,

I will remove him from the rankings completely. Nate Diaz, oh, they have to be in the race. That wasn't a lightweight fight. Come on, get out of here. Okay, so. He loses to a lightweight behind him. Anyone. I will remove it.

He shall be gone. He shall be gone. It's not to say that guys can't move over him. We'll take a win. So what if he had fought, what if he had actually fought Lee Jing Liang? Yes. at UFC 279.

And Lee did what he probably. Then that's a welterway. It would still be the number of lightweight. It has no effect on this lightweight ranking. I, yeah. No events. Okay, I changed my mind. I love this so much.

Thank you. Thank you, Jen. Yeah. Forever. I have a lot of respect. The next 10 years to just stay at number eight. Because no lightweight beats him. If one of these squatters would give some of these guys a chance.

So, you know, I, Maybe they could leap over him. Poor Tony Ferguson is just caught in the middle. It's not his fault. He got to fight all these squatters. Good for him. But, you know, it's not his fault. He won.

He couldn't beat them. And he's getting those fights and other people are. I also, I also just want to point out on the Tafik Moussyev part, you hilariously have Umar number of Kmetov ranked behind him. Just so cool that way, listen, listen, they both beat for chicky pit bull. I don't know how you're saying one is necessarily better than the other. One of them didn't lose to Satoshi. Satoshi, he just lost AJ McKee.

So now I stand by my ranking. My rankings are now fixed. I was picking ahead. I was assuming he was going to lose to AJ McKee. Yes. And obviously. You're pulling a jet. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Exactly. And now it all makes sense. Yeah. And yet AJ McKee will not be ranked. So I don't know. I don't know how to. I'm not sure what to do with that. Oh, boy.

Let me just say that even in the deepest depths of my Tony Ferguson fanboyism, which is, I am very open with, I'm just incredibly proud of you, AK, for standing firm on this hill that even I couldn't get to. I have him at 14, and I felt bad about that. Still in there. He's still in there. Wow. Look at that. All right. Well, that was fun.

Next, let's keep it moving around the horn. Casey, which you got. I think I had this same issue last year. and is really with what do I see in Liz Karmouche that no one else sees? Because I have consistently consistently had her higher rank than everyone in the entire staff. So I guess it's at everybody. But I think while Liz is an incredibly boring fighter and I do not go out of my way to watch Liz Karmouche fights, I think her, it's just she's just undeniably one of the best female fighters and the best now

flyweight, obviously behind Valentina. Valentina is such a high level. But, yeah, I have Karmouche at three, and I feel very, I mean, I almost want to put her at two, but I just can't because of Santos's great performance against Valentina. But it's really, I guess, who has Karmouche the lowest ranked? So the lowest for, you're talking about for women's flyweight, right? Women's flyweight, correct. So me and Mike have her at nine, uh,

You have her at 8, AKA you have her at 4, Jed, you have her at 6. Casey, you do have her at 3, which to me feels like you're putting her above Jessica and Dratch. I am putting her above Jessica and Drach. I'm listening on that. I will say, looking at my rankings,

I should have her at 5. I have Monferro in front of her, and I think as I'm looking at that, that's wrong, Karmu should be. I will just kick this off to respond to you, though, Casey, because to some extent I agree with you based on the fact that what she just said about some of these these rankings here a big part of it was the the first velasquez fight i think i had karmouche much higher than that fight i know she wins

and i don't think it was controversial is not the right word but she really muddled it up until getting that win at the end and that i don't i don't think that highly of velasquez and so that definitely tapered me down somewhat on her now she comes back out in the rematch runs right over her and I bumped her back up, but I didn't give her enough. She should be number five, but I feel very comfortable having her behind Chivchenko and Drogh, Tyler Santos, and my girl, the future champion here in Blanchefield. Okay, that's fair. That's fair.

It's more of a nitpicking. I'm not even like that angry. I'm with you, though. Having her close to 10 feels, feels wrong. Well, I mean, when you look at her record, when you look at her resume, I mean, when you look at her resume, I mean, I mean, I'm with you that I don't rank Juliana Velasca is that high. Her biggest win of Flyweight, honestly, is Jennifer Maya. And that was, you know, that was four years ago.

That was five years ago. That was a better Jennifer Maya than we have now in the U.S. As we know from AK, uh, wins five years ago, totally relevant to your current stand. And she doesn't, let's show some respect. We win seven years ago. And she has a win. And she has a win. And she's a win a band to wait over.

She has a win of Bantamate over Caitlin Chagin from six years ago, or seven years ago. And, and, and Jessica Androj from almost 10 years ago. So let's not, let's not count that one out, all right? And Lauren Murphy, too, for eight years ago. Yeah, I just, true. It's not. Check yourselves. I actually, and I said, here's part of, here's part of why I say this.

And because, like I said, where the women's divisions have not really been growing a lot, flyweight is the one division who actually has been adding talent with men of your, or with Aaron Blanchville with Casey O'Neill. I'm not saying Casey O'Neill should be ranked tire and Liz Carmous. I'm pretty sure I don't have her ring tire. I'm just saying like there's actually been talent building at Flyweight, you know, with actually good credible wins, whereas like Bantway and even Strawway doesn't have that. So I think that's part of the justification.

And also, again, you know, Carmush's resume at Flyweight to me is not all that impressive. I don't think I don't have her, you know, at the bottom of the list, by any stretch of imagination, but I don't have her number three. And I think that's the deal. Flyweight actually has been adding talent. So it's harder for me to put Liz Carmush higher versus, let's say, Bantamway, where there's just no activity. We go months without a bantamweight fight.

And so it's harder to move people up and down, whereas flyweight, there's actually a lot of activity, a lot of quality of Manofior beats Kailen Chukagin. You know, Aaron Blanchfield has been on this great win streak. Things like that happened. And so it's harder to justify Liz Carmouche versus, like, say, a Bantamore beats. where there's just no movement at all. Like, no one's fighting and no one knew is coming in. I just think Liz is getting the kind of the,

the Bellator bump down, essentially, because she, see, I don't, because I think if she was still in the UFC. I love the Belator bump is a downward bump. That's the brilliant thing. Not on Casey's list, but not on Casey's list. That Beltor bump goes up on the Casey Liden list. I just want to point that out. And I'm not saying it's a good thing or bad thing.

I just want to point that. I mean, maybe the Bellator bump is a tiny bit, because me and Mike have him heard the low. Remember, she got released on the UFC after losing a championship fight. That never happens in the UFC. You know? She was number two ranked in the UFC, essentially, when she left. I think maybe the Bellator thing, there's a tiny bit to that.

I don't know that I rated Giuliano Velazquez as highly as some people. But also, I do think it's a lot of what Damon said. We're like, this is genuinely the best women's division in the sport right now for me. And, like, a lot of these up-and-coming talents are just so genuinely exciting, whether it's like an Aaron Blanchfield or a man. Manifior or anything like that. Like I, to me, I, I don't know, it's hard for me to put her up above some of those women. But I think also I will admit this is probably an oversight.

She should be higher than nine, I would imagine for me, especially after the last one. Because the last one was so good, right? I will say too, looking at these flyweight rankings right now, that's not even the one that stands out to me. I'm looking at you, AK ranking Tyler Santos number seven while everyone else has her at two or three. That's crazy to me. This woman almost beat.

Way to rank her up for losing a fight, guys. Good job. I stand with A.K. Yeah, good work. That's not where I have her ranked. I support. I support him. Yeah, I love ranking people who lost, like, in the top five who lost fights.

That's fun. Yeah, you do. You love keeping Colby coming to them. As, like, a top two guy. I love that. If she's, if she's taking Camaro Ouzman, hey, listen, I didn't say top five. I didn't say top five.

I would say that Velatina is the Camaro. I was going to say, okay, can you finish your line of thought where if she takes her to the limit again? He's telling me the number one pound. And you're also telling me that her wins, that Talia Santos's wins are the equivalent of like a Damien Maya or Hafeldos-Sannios. That's what you guys are saying. So that that's the same as Kilby coming his wins. That's what you guys are saying. That those wins against like Joanne Wood and Roxanne Monterbury are the same as RDA and Damien Maya.

Because I don't think so. Honestly, when you put it like that, they are pretty close. Like, yes, Joe and Wood and Roxanne Monof Ferry. were good a decade ago the same time Maya I strongly disagree I strongly disagree I like Aless Santos I think it's great that she's fought away into the top 10 but I don't I don't put I don't put her I don't I don't put her who's what I don't have above her let's let's Lauren Murphy Caitlin Jiggen I I have no problem with that why why should I why should I rank her higher than those two they also said I actually stand with AK on this one I just I think your defensive argument of ranking someone.

someone for losing falls apart. I just, I just mean, I don't need to throw her into the, into the top three. Like, I don't feel compelled. She put on a great fight. But it, let's, if she's so good, let's see how she does against in this, in this Aaron Blanchfield fight. Oh, that's going to be poorly for her. Well, okay, but she's so good.

She's so, she's so good. No, she's top three. She's top three. So she should win that fight. Whoa. Aaron Bratfield might be top one. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, of potential.

Yeah. She's probably top two. And Aaron Blancho is super talented, but I will say, like, as someone who has, as Karmush ahead of her, not using the, you know, if they fought who would be favored. Obviously, I think Aaron Blanche will be favorite if she was booked against this Carbush somehow. I don't think Karmuch's like resume is as bad. Like her flyweight resume is as bad as we were, as people think.

Like I think the kind of Watanabe win and Vanessa Ford wins are both good. I mean, I have Blancheville behind Karmus and Velasquez right now, only because she doesn't have those established, I still rank them higher right now. Now, I think talent-wise, Aaron Blanchfield is vastly higher in that. But, again, unlike certain people on this panel, I won't mention names. I don't always rank on potential. So I rank her right now. It's important that he says he doesn't always do it because as we know, he joined me right there with Jay Anderson.

I sure did on that one. But I'll take deal on that one. But I will say, again, Aaron Blanchfield, potential-wise, yes. But I don't have her that high yet because I think Molly, McCann is basically a can. So I can't put her higher yet. One more, she means, she's Tila Santos. Of course, she's going to be, you know, probably number two.

But yeah. So I mean, McKinacan is a can. What is Luana Carolina? What household appliance or item is Luana Carolina? That's not me, guys. We're airing the grievances with each other, not the fighters. The fighters out of it. Come on.

Let's focus on AK. Let's bring it back to me. That's good. Really looking out of this. I just want to say Casey's not wrong, but I'm still okay ranking Karmouche 9. And I will also say that she might be the toughest fighter to rank out of like everybody. Because going through the flyway rankings,

before I finalize this, I probably had Karmouche's highest five. And I was like, maybe I'll jump this one over and then jump this one over. And then I settle that nine. But I mean, we're kind of splitting hairs with. the six through tens if you will at least in my eyes so yeah you're not wrong in casey and

that's i think that's a pretty fair grievance i'm okay keeping her at nine but you have a compelling case that she should be ranked higher for me and i and i do acknowledge i get it i get it without the because there's so many of her big her big wins came at 35 when there was no 25 division and obviously the bell at there's so many there's so few crossover opponents that they have at flyweight i get it but yeah also i will say i think just to cap this conversation of. And the difference between one and nine at flyweight is like so vastly different than like difference between one and nine at Bantamweight or something, right?

Where like a lot of like the three through nine at flyweight is pretty interchangeable. And then, you know, some other divisions that's very much not the case. All right. Let's keep moving. Damon. What do you got? So my airing of grievance, my first one is going to be with everyone on this panel who ranks either Olivier Aubin Mercier or Brendan Lockman for the PFL.

There's a lot of I. There's a lot of people. Now, there's a lot of folks on this panel who have them. Again, they're not ranked super high, 14,

50 and I don't know. Folks, come on. I know they're filled good stories. Listen, they won already. They won a million dollars. They win at life already.

They don't need to be ranked based on you feeling good about them, no, because neither one of them has any win, anywhere remotely close, especially, Olivier Avon Mercii and arguably the deepest division of sport in Lightweight. And then even in Featherweight, Locknain, his most established win is over Chris Wade, who was not a terrible lightweight, but again, when you look at his Featherweight resume,

like, where in the world have any of these, like Bubba Jenkins is, I like Bubba Jenkins very much, but Bubba Jenkins is essentially a journeyman at this point. He's never, never lived up to the potential everyone thought he was going to have coming out of college. He's always been that guy who wins two and then gets knocked out in the third one or wins three and gets knocked out in the fourth one. Where like in two really good divisions, are we just ranking people because we feel good for them? Like we're happy for them or that they put together an eight fight win streak against. I mean, it's not a knock that I dislike Brendan Lockname. But when you look at Brendan Lockname's record, what's this, I mean, Ego Husick, Ryoji, Kyoto, Kyoto, Tyler Diamond.

these are the wins that get this guy to be a top 15 featherweight really Bubba Jenkins Chris Wade those that's the wins those and he lost to Moveland who again I think Moval is probably the most quality featherweight they have but he just wasn't in the in the tournament but I mean again are we just

because if it's just win streaks and and wins don't matter then fine if we're going to do that then I'm going to go ahead and rank Jason Reinhard because there was the time he put together like a 30 fight win streak okay but it was just but it was a deep

If it was just, but if it's quality of win in two really good divisions, featherweight and lightweight, I don't get it because. Why do you hate to feel good stories? Olivia Aubon Mercery. Alvin Mercery is, we have, we have tape on him in the UFC. He was never remotely close to being a top 15 lightweight when he was in the UFC, ever. He was close. He was close. I don't think he was.

It was definitely close. I don't know if he was actually, come on now. Look at it. Look at who he was fighting in the U.S. And he was never that close. And now because he may have had a number next to the game. Because he beat Stevie Ray, another cast out from the, because he beat him,

that's the measurement, put him in the top 15? I have a question. Hold on, two previous PFL champions, Nathan Schulte and Ahasmanfio, Damon. Excuse me.

I listen. I was going to say, he's got wins over Rocco Martin and Drew Dober. Like, he had solid wins. I'm not here to say he was a, undeniable lightweight but his losses are also he lost to gilber burns and armonserouki and alexander hernandez those are like oh i am i have less of a bit again my bigger issues with locknade

it's not necessarily with oam as much as with lock name is the one i just that's a bridge too far for me here's my question yeah good i just have a really big one for you and it's this i will happily stipulate that some of that certainly for me i won't speak for everybody else for oam and for Locknain is they had a really good year. And I want to reward that, especially their finals performances. If OAM goes out there and he just, you know, lays on Stevie Ray,

he's probably not getting a ranking. My question for you, Damon, is if we look at your rankings, let's look at your Featherway rankings. Be gentle. What's Jonathan Pierce done? That's like so much better than what Brendan Locknain is done. He lost to Joe Lozahn, not that long ago.

Like, for the 15 spot, the 1415, I'm cool with you just kind of throwing somebody out there who you enjoy or whatever, because it's so hard to parse when you get outside of really the top like eight, probably, but certainly in that top 15. So I'm not here to say that like definitively OAM and Lachnain are the 15th best guys. I got no issues with it.

And I don't, I don't think that you should have any issues with it either. I mean, here, since we're going to nitpick on rankings, I mean, Jed, you have Movlid ahead of Brandon.

Lock-Dane and yet both of them head of Bryce Mitchell. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Because Bryce Mitchell sucks. And by the way, I support. You must have.

Jed, you must have the only list in any of the rankings with two PFL fighters. Am I crazy? There can't be any other. Possibly. Most of them don't have one. Yeah. And I support it. Because I was going to say the only, like the strongest argument against any of us putting

Brendan on. I also have him in the 15 spot. is that probably if Movelry hadn't gotten injured, this feel-good story doesn't unfold the way it does. That's why. And that's why arguing with Lock-Name. I've had Movedwood ranked for a while, is the thing. But certainly before Brandon was.

I have less than Inch with Movlin because of what he's done beyond this. But Brendan, I feel like Brandon is being rewarded because everyone still feels like, everyone is still holding a grudge against Dana White for not signing him for the contender series for the dumbest reason ever. And then he goes on and has this career in the BFL and he has this. He had a good run this year. He did four fights, four wins, good for him. But any of those four wins, did any of those four wins beat, let's just say hypothetically,

you consider and say he's not the greatest guy in the world, sure, but like Bryce Mitchell beating Edson Barbosa is better than any win Brendan Locknain has on his resume. Any, there's not a single win on his resume is better than that. And that's where I'm getting at when you look at his, you look at the feel good story of 2022, four wins in a row, good for him. He already won. He doesn't need the ranking to go. with it, though.

This is going to be controversial, and I'm going to regret it as soon as they say it. I think Bubba and Chris Wade are on the level of a Darren Elkins at this point in their careers. Yes. I don't think that's controversial. That's not a fair. Okay. Okay.

So if that's 25-ish 30th guys. Sure. And so if that's John Pierce's biggest win, he's on an awesome streak. I have no problem with John and Pierce being 15. But I think, like, like, Brendan has a strong case. If we're going by like strongest win, it's like, you know, you're going by Derek and Elkins? I think those two wins for Brendan were pretty good.

But I mean, even look at Aaron Pico. Like solid talent, like tons of potentials. No doubt about it. It's there. Like, he beat Justin Gonzalez, who, I mean, that's, that's an okay win. He beat Adley Edwards, Aidan Lee, John DeHasus, solo Hatley Jr., Daniel Carey. Like, those are his wins.

And then he fights Jeremy Kennedy. I know it was an unfortunate ending, but guess what? He was losing that fight until the shoulder injury. He was losing. He lost the first round. He lost the first round. Yeah, because the Lord of Reyes.

He lost. He does have wins over people with Wikipedia pages is what Mike's getting out. Yeah. Right. And like if Jeremy Kennedy being ranked higher than Aaron Pico, like I would not have an issue with that. I would not have an issue with that. I don't really have an issue of anybody's rankings in the 12 to 15 spot.

Yeah. That's sort of where I come from. Like the 12 to 15. Let me be clear. I am nitpicking because like I said, I didn't really see. I was like, I was blown away outside.

of a certain Tony Ferguson ranking. I really didn't see a lot that I was like, this is just egregiously wrong. But I still was like, I just, again, I feel like. I think we can all agree. I think we can all agree that having Olivia Oben Mercier ranked ahead of Tony Ferguson is insane. Right, guys? Come on. We all say, come on.

Shaheen, how dare you put him? One spot, you still have Tony ranked and you put OAM one spot right above them. Just, oh, just just, just, what is. I would say, to be clear, I would probably put OAM ahead of Tony Ferguson right now. So I will say that. No, David, you took the wrong point from what I was saying. Come on. This is a question that isn't, this isn't a grievance,

but I do just have a question which I never thought of until you were just talking, Damon. It's for you, Casey. Casey, as we've mentioned, you're pretty pro-Bellator guy. You've got a lot of, you don't give them the Belator bump down that the rest of us allegedly do. Not seeing a lot of a PFL bump up from you either. Is there a specific reason for that?

Is that just kind of how it, this is just me genuinely asking, not like a, not only, not only. It sounds like an accusation. There's not like a one bump either. There's no, there's no other outside promotion. That's what Chad does. That's a one bumper. All of us give the one, all of us give the one bump, you know. We all love DJ at one.

But yeah, I just hadn't thought about it, but like, is there a reason or is it just sort of how it's worked out for you? PFL is just the number three. I don't know. You already here, folks. PFL, shots fired. Yeah. The cage isn't as smart as they say, they say.

Oh, no. Okay. Hold on. Okay. Okay. Okay. Casey, come back in me. Come back in me.

Leave the smart cage out of this. I'm going to move on before any more violence gets enacted because that's just, we're over the line here. I feel ill right now. We need to take a quick break. I will be right there. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time.

Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Feel the fun! The thing will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 186653300 or visit Comexontera.ca. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to Lux beauty and fragrance sets, our special selection has something for every style and price point. Visit our Holtz holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com. All right, y'all, we're back. Everyone still has their job so far.

So that means this has been a success. There's no one's gotten fired yet. That's all we're asking for. Low bar here. So let's keep it going. I'll take this next one. and I thought I really wanted to kind of come in and do a y'all need to have the Kobe Covington conversation again but I've already done this like three different times so I just

let it be known y'all are continuing that's on my list so I'm with you one of my list is like all of us should be shamed shamed for what's happening not all of us there are some of us that are not but I'll leave that to it I'll for mine though my first one I'll single out someone who I have great respect for Casey you're you're a dude friend. I've worked with you for a very long time. You're the best in the world at what you do, and you could kick my ass, and you have kicked my ass. You have told before, and you have thoroughly demolished me. Like, I get it. I have immense respect for you. But what you're doing at Bantamweight right now is really baffling to me. And I just want to single in on one guy,

although I could take issue with a couple of things. But Cheeto Vera, at number 12, when this man is at most one fight away from a title and definitely like a top five guy at number 12 for chito vera feels crazy to me and i just want to hear you explain how you got here because everybody else on the website has him top six at worst mike has it number two chito to me is a bit of a feel good story but as far as rankings i just the oam of bantam weight as it were yeah i um If O'Malley didn't look so dang good against Peter Yon, I still have, and I have Yon ranked above him,

because I thought Yon won that fight. But, um, yeah, sorry, I'm trying to, I'm looking everyone above Vera and I would still pick, um,

Vera to lose to everyone I have above him. That's pretty much the issue. Even, um, not casting aspersions, even O'Malley. That was, that was I mentioned them,

because O'Malley looked pretty dang good against Peter. John and I thought Amali going to get smoked and that's and that would have been the one oh yeah he would definitely be O'Malley but I don't know anymore about Sean O'Malley actually I was to say that I didn't think O'Malley beat Yon but I wouldn't think Vera would beat Yon either so so so like Horaguchi you know patchy mixed yeah John Linnaker song yadong all these guys you think you think I was a say song technically did win a split decision over again Controversial, but he did win the fight originally. I know it was controversial, and no, everyone's like, oh, it's a featherweight.

But I mean, that was when the, but that was when the band of weights were randomly taking featherweight fights. I mean, I don't consider that. I don't classify that a featherweight fight by like anything other than what's a featherweight fight, Mike. There you go, there you go. I have a much bigger issue that you have, you have Maraub de Wallis-Vili ranked below Kioji Hori. That one is one that I'm still buzzing about. We all have Marab too high. Get him out of the rankings what he did to Joe.

I mean, this is what the Belvoir bump. It seems like we have some hate on Horaguchi. I have no issue of Horouchi being that high. He lost to. The Bellets or bump on your Bantamway rankings is just really interested in me. Because you have your top four as you have C. And then five through eight is patchy mixed dots Horaguchi Nuregoumiro. Yeah.

I don't have any issues with you actually, Casey. I can't. I can't. Yeah. Vera is pretty low, which feels. wrong, but when you explain it, it's not awful. But I mean, Vera's resume too doesn't. I mean, I don't understand it.

I don't agree with it, but I can understand it. And I think I have most of the same people ranked. I have similar Bellator action, you know, different places. But actually, I'm not hugely against what you've got going on. I do think that it's interesting that Corey Sandhagan is above O'Malley, because even if you think O'Malley lost a yon, he's. did not lose by a great margin. It was not a very big margin.

For Sandhagen to exist in between that is interesting, but overall, I'm actually cool with your list. But I mean, like, what about, does Horaguchi go in two and three in his last five bansomate fights not matter at all? Like, does that not? I know he's no Jason Reinhart.

I mean, I like Keogh, obviously, he was winning the Sergio Petas fight. He got knocked out again, is what it is. And I don't think DePachi makes losses particularly bad. but Kai Asakura, like, yes, he avenged that loss, but where would, I mean, Caius occur is nowhere near a top 15 bantam weight. And that was the knockout. I think he is a top.

I think he is near a top 15 bantam weight. I think he's close. I will say, too, amongst your whole bantamweight bellator thing you have going on. You don't even have the champ there. I'm assuming that's because he's injured, right? Oh, he's injured. Yeah. You have no search of pet us, though.

But he beat Horucci, like. I took him out because he's injured. I took him out because he's injured. He's a lot to do that. He's a lot to do that. He's been out for over a year now. Because it means Adrian Yanez gets another vote. And we need more Adrian Yanez in our way.

And I don't want to have a guy at my top five that's going to be there for 18 months who I know he's not going to fight. So yeah, he's out. Yonnas is in. So that would be why. Fair enough. I just love Cheeto Vera. So that one's surprising. That is surprising.

But when you talk it through, I understand. Yeah. And I love Cheeto Ver. And he's kind of like like when I mentioned the Carmuch, I get it. Camus is boring. No one gets excited to watch Karmouche fights. And Vera is the exact opposite. You know, Cheetahe-Vera is incredibly exciting to watch.

And I trust me, I want to put him higher. And I want to see Cheetah Verre fight more often than I want to see, you know, I don't know, whoever's. Actually, I want to see everyone fight. Then the Brock fight, you know. You're an equal opportunist. Casey, if, I mean, we're a month plus away. but if Vera goes out there and decisively beats Corey Sandhagen, where are you going to rank him?

Oh, is he top? Is he top? Is he number three? Yeah, he'll be top. He'll play Sanhagen. He'll be behind Jan, pretty much. Okay. He'll be starting John, Bear.

He just needs that fight. He needs that fight, and that's the next, that's the fight. Yeah. The door is open. The door is open. Absolutely. There we go. Next up, Mr. Michoud.

Oh, man. Well, I may have just found another one, but I'm going to go with, I don't think this. I'm sure we have spoken about this, though I can't remember. We've done a lot of similar things. Casey, I don't want to pick on you, but we have to come back to you. And at this point, I'm accepting of it.

I know that it happens. I'm not accepting of it. I hate it. But I just want to throw it out there for the listeners to understand how the rankings go. It's a point total system. You get points for how you're ranked on each of our scorecard. You add them up. There you go.

And some discerning people may look at the minimum. pound for pound rankings and go. Okonovsky number one, Makachev number two. Okay, it's probably maybe. Some of them might even think that's high for Machchiff. Totally okay.

Leon Edwards, number three, interesting, but they're giving him a big boom. Francis Singhani number four, shocking. But it gets more interesting because if you go, if you are privy to this document with the exact point totals, you can look at the rankings, you can look at the scores.

Francis Ngadon is 129 points. Leon Edwards, 135. Not a big gap. And in fact, that gap is entirely due to Casey not ranking Francis Singami at all in the pound for pound. In fact, if you look at our pound for pound rankings, everybody else, the lowest anybody has him, I think is four, but for Casey who doesn't have him ranked at all. If you just gave him a top five ranking, he is the number two pound for pound fighter in the

world in front of Islam Makachev according to our scoring system and you can't and you don't have him ranked at all and it I understand you're fundamentally against heavyweights but you have Vadim Nimkov ranked in the top 20 Nimkov who has less top 10 wins in his division and if you're looking at women's pound for pound you have both Harrison and Pacheco ranked into in a division that you say isn't real men's heavyweight is shit but it is a real division and this man can't even get a 20 not even a 20 from you Casey what are we doing man what are we doing I've never heard his voice get that high before I've never heard that was scary I did not realize that you were single-handily holding Francis from not being I weirdly got your back on this

not not like literally I will play devil's advocate but obviously you know let's you know give your take on this first. Well, go like to the women's, Pacheco and Harrison are both 45ers who fight at 55. And we, 45 is somewhat of a real-isher division than 55. So that's my only excuse of that. And I don't mind taking them out completely, but I might have gotten some nasty messages like, hey, where's Harrison? All I'm saying is if you even had this man in the top 10, he'd be the number two pound for pound fighter in our rankings. Even in the top 10. If he's in basically the top 20, he's number three in front of Leon Edwards.

I just take pound for pound very literal, I guess. And since he's a guy that cuts to 265, maybe if he was doing all this and weighing 245, but he would make it. I don't know. I just, I don't really believe in. I don't really believe in pound per person. pound rankings. And yeah, so I don't put heavyweights up there.

Maybe if it was a 245 or 240, I would like, oh, okay, you know, he's a more of a pound for pound ranking. Maybe that's why I had like Fador so high because Fador essentially is a fat two of fiver fighting a heavyweight. And you know when Fader was in his prime, of course. And that's pretty much it. You know, why- Franks, it's just too jacked.

He's just too jacked. He's just too jacked. What if he was, what if he was, what if he was fash, If he was not jacked 265, but he was Parker Porter, Parker 4th, he was doing the things he was doing. He would be number one. His wrong. If he was Roy Nelson, if he was Roy Nelson, we would have him higher.

Yeah, he would be higher. Roy Nelson had a muscle belly. Parker Porter is just true. His name is, he sounds like his name. So, you know what? How dare you? Just as an aside, if you, if you told, we should find us sketch artists.

I would just say, Parker Porter, draw what you think this person looks like. And I get you, I bet you they would come within, within like 95% of like, of getting it right. Exactly.

Maybe you'd get like, like, like, like, like, no, no description of his physical appearance. If you just tell him Parker Porter,

he's gonna know he's American. It's not a freaking yes for a student named Parker Pold. It could be Canadian guy. But yes. But yes. You could draw him based on his name, is what we're saying. You could draw a reasonable sketch of Parker Porter based on his name. I'm not sure how this became a roast of Parker Porter.

It's not an insult. He has a distinct look, but he looks great. I would even argue like heavyweight. I know this might be a bit of a controversial take, but I would argue heavyweight, even though heavyweight is not the deepest division, I would still take heavyweight as a better division than light heavyweight. And light heavyweight has a lot of people like, you know, when you look at light heavyweight people like we still have a lot of light heavyweight people ranked in those in the power

for power rankings and light heavyweight is a barren wasteland beyond like the top four or five like i think heavyweight's actually deeper than like everywhere yeah honestly like the the heavyweight top off and even five do you want to throw aspinall because i know we all think highly of them like the heavyweight top ranks is pretty talented right now like the between gone and ganu pavlovich and blades like that's a really solid you guys are you guys are going to be ranking i'm telling you you guys can be ranking pavlovich this way next year that dude's a monster i love pavlovich that's a dude i'm real high on yeah we got

and john jones hopefully will be coming back so he'll probably enter the range oh my first year in mb and and dylan dana's is fighting oh you guys you guys that's all like heavyweight sneaky good and to be the king over that division like johnson alma is coming in a heavyweight that's another guy that's coming up

like heavyweight's not bad it's not as bad It's not as bad as light heavyweight. I'd tell you that much for sure. Heavyweight is certainly better than it used to be. I fully expect Joe Towne Meda to be in my pound-for-pound ranking next year. You also love fighters who actually compete in two divisions, we should say. People can't, we don't post all our individual lists so people don't see cases individual lists for month to month. But it just got on dry as another one who's high on your list.

And you do give credit for literal, like getting to see someone compete pound for pound against other other fighters. And that's not fair exactly because of the performance. promotion they may be with just isn't allowing them to fight multiple promotions. So I understand that's not fair. But yeah, I do put I do put more weight and that. Okay. So let me throw this. We can end on this because I already knew a lot of this.

What if Dana White comes out and is like, we're going to open up a super heavyweight division. And then Inganu obviously wins the title at this fake weight class. Does that do anything for you in the pound for pound for passion? Well, I mean, yeah. I don't know. I don't know how I was going to get my Parker Porter, super heavyweight. But somehow that does happen. The weight cut is the only thing holding Parker Porter back.

Come on. Yeah. Zulu Zino is going to get brought in. Like, that's a whole, I don't even sure that Inganu can't even win that division. Like, come on. Now you, now you're, now you're, I'll give you. I could have, I should have probably put Nagano in that 18, 19, 20 spot. I just want the respect for them.

That's all I'm asking. Just, just give the man his due and proper. All right. All right. Well, let's keep it moving. Start where we'll get back to where we started now with Mr. A.K., the Prince of Positivity. This is almost more of a callout. This is like a, so I, I, I, Jed, I, you've been, listen, you've been, how long, do you know how it was coming?

I'm ready for it. Yeah, no. Do you know, do you know, like, when did you, how, you had Hamzaat the number one. Oh, that just happened with Edwards, right? Edwards one, and then that made Hansat number one, right? That, well, so the way you describe it is not entirely. accurate. But yes, fundamentally. Edwards won, Uzman dropped. So Uzman drops to three and Hamzat number one. Mike, you also dropped Uzman behind Hamzat. I found this incredibly disrespectful on both again. Jet,

Jed I'll say first, like, this is also my, by the way, your Islam victory lap is completely undeserved. So let's get that out of the way first. Completely undeserved. You did everything in your power to not put Charles Oliver at number one for the longest time. So you were wrong. Yeah, because he wasn't the best doing.

That's fine. You had Dustin. You put Dustin Foyrie above him. You were wrong. You had Justin Gage above him. You were wrong. And now you were right one out of the three times. And then it's suddenly like, I called it. I told everyone Charles Oliver was. You were wrong. Way more than you were right. And I'm

and this, I bring this up because I'm saying with Kamsat, you may be jumping the gun again. Now, I have certainly been on the Comsat as a future champion bandwagon, but it, that took a hit for me after the, you know, whatever he did to that last pay-per-view with the egregious weight and miss. I feel like there has to be some sort of penalty. And instead, he has moved to number one in your rankings for a weird 190-pound fight against like Kevin Holland. Like, this is, strange to me. Off of that, now he is your number one. I understand. I'm not even saying you're wrong here. I'm willing to

say that maybe I should have not picked this fight. You couldn't give Leon to. You couldn't let Louan have this. You couldn't let me have it. That's the thing. You couldn't let me be the unanimous unanimous number one thing. That's the truth is what she said. I just couldn't let him have it because

I don't want to live in a world where Leon Edwards is the both false away. And y'all shouldn't want to live there either. That is the CO of the year, undeniably the care of the year. Hell, maybe the CAO of the decade, everything the circumstances. It was moving. It's inspirational. The speech, all of it. It's dramatic and impressive. But this man was getting ragdolled for the first, you know, well, I guess he won the first

five, but then 15 minutes. I don't want to live. If he had come out and delivered that head kick in the first round, Leon Edwards would be my number one. Would have been it. That would have been enough. But him pulling out a win, and I am not, there's no caveat to that. There is no It was a fluke or lucky. He threw the kick. He set it up. He did the damn thing. I'm going to pick him when they rematch.

But the way he did it, I can't. He needed to be bulletproof because he was behind Chameh before that fight. And his performance was not good enough to make me think that if he fought Chimai of, things might go different. It's like, well, I still think Shemaiah will make weight. He missed one time. I know we argued at the point.

A lot of people have different thoughts. I'm willing to give a one-time pass on weight blowing before we start to have the discussion on whether he can do it or not. And if they fought tomorrow, he's going to be a minus 500 favorite. And when they actually fight, we're going to be like, shit, we should have bet a lot more money on that minus 500 because he's minus 1,000. Maybe I'm wrong. You're not wrong. I was incorrect about Dustin Poy and Justin Gaci, though I will defend myself by saying, Both of those fighters dropped him.

He just suddenly is good at taking punches, which he hadn't been for the whole of his career before that. I'm sorry, I mis-evaluated that one. Maybe I've done wrong here. I didn't need to pick this fight. I wanted to. I chose this fight because I don't want to live in a war with Leon Edwards' best welterweight because I talk too much shit about him over my career

to then accept that he's the best. What would that? That would make me wrong. And I'm not going to be wrong in this one. Mike, Mike, do you want to apologize to Kumar Usman at all? No, I don't because I think, look, I get the weight miss, I get the penalty and all that stuff, but this guy's a wrecking ball and all signs seem to be indicating,

and who knows if this actually happens, that they're going to give another shot at 170, maybe against Colby, maybe against somebody else. I don't know, but I'm picking Hamzat against anybody that they throw him in there with. Against Usman, against Leon, like Jed said, that line is going to be off the charts for Hamzaa Shemayev. I'm just a believer in his talent right now. And I think Oosman, I think he kind of has a foot out the door, if you will.

I don't think he's got a lot of legs left. I think he's hit his ceiling. And Shemayev is just climbing a ladder that continues to expand. And it's just got to get taller and taller all by itself. And he's going to continue to climb it at a pretty ferocious pace. So yeah, maybe there's a little bit of, potential bias here, but I stand by the number two spot. I love potential bias.

I live with potential bias. What have you done for us lately, Camaro? What have you done for us lately? He's beaten Colby Covington. That's mostly what he's done lately. And Jorge Mosferol. Not a lot is actually the answer. God.

One year, you're fighting out of the year. The next you're just getting ripped the shreds. The next year, you're getting knocked out of the year. Just. Look, if I'm wrong, I will come on this show. I will come on this show and you can just have at me. But until I am definitively proven incorrect by Hamzaa Chamey of vacating the division or getting knocked out by Leon Edwards, I'm standing on my corner.

All right. On that note, Mike, what you got for us? Okay, so he's really not here to defend himself, but I feel at this point, especially with what we learned about my first callout and my first grievance, I got to call it Stephen Morocco, even though he's not here to defend himself. Because first of all, he actually has Tony Ferguson ranked higher in his rankings than A.K. has in his. And it's lucky for him that he's not here.

I was like, it can't really get much worse. Like, you can't push that, you can't push that ball downhill any faster. And then I looked at his middleweight rankings. And I said to myself, you know what? I'm drop kicking this thing down the hill because Kelvin Gastilem is in his rankings. Mike, did you read my notes beforehand? We've been exact same stuff. How is this possible?

Like, how is this possible? Now, look, this could all be for not in a week and a half because maybe there's a world, and I don't think we're living in it, that Calvin Gasolm beat Nazardine Nemabov. But I would be stunned. I'd probably be just a surprise of Dylan Danis fought in 2023 if Calvin Gasolm be in Naser deenimabov.

I think it's going to be a really horrible night for him. But he's one in five over his last six. This man does not deserve a middleweight ranking. He's three and six over his last nine. And I had to look this up because I had to remember this. The three wins are against Michael Bisbing, who three weeks prior, got finished by George St. Pierre and was retiring anyways.

Then he wins a split decision over Jacare, which most people felt he didn't deserve. Whether you scored it a draw or you scored it the other way, most people did not score that for Kelvin Gasselm. And his other win was against Ian Heinish, who was one in four in his last five. Like that's literally his resume right now. And yes, I think this is the Tom Coughlin syndrome,

where Tom Coughlin beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl. And we're like, this guy could go one in 15 for the next eight seasons and he'll still have a job. But he sucks as a coach. And I feel like that's where we're at where Calvin Gasselb, where we just, we hold the Izzy fight and that performance and him being so competitive in such high regard that we still. And I think that's probably where Stevens coming from here.

But he doesn't even have Jack Hermanson ranked. Like, I don't have Jack Hermanson ranked either. but it's much more less egregious to have Jack Hermanson rank because he at least tapped Gassel him in just over a minute. How this guy is in anybody's top 15 right now is just unbelievable. So Stephen, I love you. You've done a lot from my writing, but this is just bad. Like Tony Ferguson at 7 and then Calvin Gasselm anywhere in a top 15.

And a global ranking system is just bad. So gavel slammed. I'm done. I think that's fair. I think that was all very fair. I did exact same one, Mike. So props. Cheers.

Same list of stuff, apparently. Is you know, is anyone going to jump in to defend Stevens' ranking? I said I would be Stevens advocate. And also, I'm in a position to do this because I think as of two months ago, I also had Gasolam still in there. You were the last holdout among us.

I thought it was last holdout. And then Steven, Stevens in there with me. Yeah, I had Gaslum somewhere like 12, 13. For all the reasons that we mentioned, like, oh, he beat, you know, a former UFC, middleweight champion but like we said under pretty dubious circumstances uh the darren till went uh sorry

he lost darren till which i also had him and darren till in the rankings way too long both them i finally took them both out like the same in the same month um so yeah i i think it's the same thinking behind the same flawless logic behind having uh i don't know we've talked about so many ranks today let's uh tony ferguson number eight for example um you know he hasn't lost you know he i guess he he hasn't lost to people ranked behind him. I think the Hermanson thing being taken out was not a mistake, but I think because Deleizze beat him, he just wanted to put in Deleitze and just bump Hermanson out.

I don't know. So there's a bit of a math problem there. But I think the reasoning is just, yeah, strength of resume. But yeah, his inability to even get into the cage, much less win fights, much less win, excuse me, notable fights. It's that's about as far as I can defend it. It's not great. It's not great.

I wish to even worth here. That would you be an advocate? No, no, because I think the strength of schedule. Like I like that, I had him in there for a long time because of, you know,

whatever, those symbols of wins in the past, like putting him to the top of Dean. And I think as you can see. Let's be honest. It's not the wins in the past. It's the loss to Izzy. That is really.

That is exactly. Right. That's his best performance is the lost is. Sure. He hasn't been a rank guy in five years. Like, I don't think Heinish was ranked and he beat him. I think he was like just outside of the top 15.

He needs to fight Donald Soroni And then the ranking is deserved There you go And Cerroney looks like a midway right now So there you go We can make that happen He might not be him That's my concern

On a side note since you mentioned it Mike Did you know that Ian Heinish went to prison I don't know if you guys knew that or not I just want to tell that out there Oh right No way Okay He did

Wait wait How did Stephen bump up Gasolam from November to December That's a great question, Casey? He went up a spot. He removed. Somebody got dropped.

Hermanson, yeah. He removed her Manson. Yeah. He removed her Manson. That's a tough look. More than any bad thing that said. He's not here.

Yeah, he's not here to defend himself. It has been noted. It has been noted. Sorry. I think he did an, I think he did an admiral job trying to, to take his back,

AK. But yeah. Casey just, yeah, Casey just kind of sling. the door shut and threw the dead bolts on him. So we love you, Stephen. We do.

Casey, you have a second one for us? No, yeah. I'm, no. Like I said, this is peace. Peace, love and harmony. Yeah. It's good. Don't force him.

You're here for the show. I've got, I've got one if you want to go and if you want to, I just, I noticed this. I just, I don't know. I thought it was a mistake. So I was looking at the rankings when you brought up Hamza at Chimaio. And I was like, okay, okay. Yeah, because I got Chimaya of at number four, I probably should have him back. head of Covington, if I'm being honest.

I was looking, I was like, okay, okay, this is, that looked, Jed Mishu, I love you, buddy. You know I do. Even though your Georgia Bulldogs beat the Ohio State University, it was an incredible game. I was just glad Ohio State kept it close and it wasn't like a 30-point blowout. I'm a little upset there, but how, what in God's Green Earth, how do you have Jake Matthews ranked as a top 10 welterway right now?

Oh, that's easy. I have an answer for this one. He just got worked by Matthew Simmel's burger. Where is Symbolsburger in your rankings? No, he did it is the thing because these rankings came out after the paper view before the Simulzberger. A thousand percent, he will be exiting these rankings. Again, I got, I thought you stuck me. I thought you stuck him in there as a joke.

Honestly, I thought it was like, okay, he just did this a joke to see you would notice. But then I looked back, you had him ranked in November. two and listen do i hold a bit of a grudge against jake matthews is one of the only fighters who has to be blocked on twitter for some reason i have no idea why maybe maybe but his best win yeah he has a one for andre fialo that's a good win i'll give you that one that's a quality win but he tricked you yeah okay Diego sanchise emil meek like any and he's and he's three he's four and three in his last seven like or whatever i just i don't know that was one that caught my eye and i was like was Is this a mistake?

Did you mean like somebody else? Did you mean like, you know, another fighter? Jason. Jason. If I can come to the defense of Jed here quickly, look, I think both Jed and I got very excited and wrapped up in this whole Jake Matthews figured it out type of dialogue after the thialo fight. We were both very impressed by that.

I think they were too excited. All right? That's what happened. I didn't say thing. He's still only 25 and I was like, oh, he's done it. he's turned the corner now he just because he's steamrolled fialo who's you know a top 25ish guy and i was all in and then uh the similes burger was just awful so bad like i was gonna return i didn't have him write to tons yes i was gonna return to my old

favorite for the folks who still have michael vennon page ranked but yeah i was i saw i saw jake matthews in there and i was like like was this a mistake like did you mean it stands you mean somebody else he just accidentally put Jake Matthews in the top 10 in the Walterweight division. I was just curious. No, I, when I was looking over, I too looked at this and it was like, Jake Matthews was like,

oh, that's me. Oh, and that's when I went and was like, I didn't keep him in after the loss. That's when I figured out that, oh, we haven't done rankings since that fight.

It was like, okay, I honestly, I swear I thought, even if it's still mad. I thought you were trolling us and like just having fun to see who had noticed. And then I looked in November and he was ranked there too. And I was like,

what is going on here? Why is Jake Matthews? and anyone's top 15 right now. Look, there was a Jake Matthews moment. Maybe there was a moment of it. I'll take Jake Matthews ever, Brendan Lockname, though. I'll give you that one.

Wow. We're all appointed at Jed right now. I'm going to keep the train. Let's go. Point at track right now. I don't know what other ones I have. So I knew those were coming. See, the frustrating thing about this one,

like I'm frustrated ahead of time and I haven't even said it. because I know what you're going to say. I'm so excited. Like I know the exact reasoning that you're going to give me and it's just going to make me, Matt. But look, I understand you have a problem what's going on with what's going on at lightweight generally.

I also have a problem with what's going on at lightweight generally. The old guys are squatting on rankings. It's very unfair. There's a lot of young talent in this division that we all think are probably better than some of these older guys. That does not mean that Dustin Porier is the number seven lightweight in the world.

That is absolutely ridiculous. That's an overcompensation for the narrative that I think both of us are trying to drive. And no one else on this website has him even close to that low except for you. Fight people that aren't Michael Chandler, who sucks. That's it. It's just, I'm not here to tell you that Dustin Poy isn't great. I'm here to tell you that if he fought as Lamakachev or Charles Olivera or Benio Darius,

Matush, Gamrod, or Aramon, Sarukin, or Hafevvaziv, it all beat him. Feel really good about that. That's it. frankly, I might have him too high because I might just not be giving Jaywin Turner the credit he deserves. I haven't quite figured out what I feel about the tarantula right now.

Or Grant Dawson, we got a bunch of hot shit young dudes coming up at 155. Demiris Mughalov may or may not be retiring. Probably beats Dustin Poria if they fought. It's, look, I, Porier is great. I'll always watch him fight. Love watching him fight. He's probably going to get a title fight before

most of the people have ranked above him just because of the name value. But he lost to Charles Oliver, as AK said, we aren't giving people props for their losses. His wins. Connemar Greggar, not super relevant to Conner. Relevant, true, not relevant to rankings. Very relevant writ large, not for the rankings. Don't give a shit about beating Connor McGregor in 2021. Does not matter to me.

Justin Gaichi is his best recent win, probably, unless somebody else has something that I am, you know, they want to make the argument for those other ones. And that was still a long time ago. And I have Gaichi behind him. Look, I get why you have him up there, but I'm done with it. I'm done with the squatters, man.

Fight people that don't fight the same four dudes who are all old. Fight the new guys. And then we can reassess you. Credit to Benile Daryush. This is what happens. Biddi Darius was like 10 in my rankings. Then he's like, I'll fight Gamrod. F it beats Gamrod.

Now he's three. That's how you get rewarded. You fight the guys on the come up. Hold your spot down instead of round robbing it with the same four old men. Can I back up Jed here real quick? Because I actually have Pori ring much higher. But I'm going to back up Jed here for one second because I agree with both of you guys about squatting on the rankings. But here's one thing that I'm about,

Dessaporia is about to plummet in my next rankings. and here's why. He had a chance to basically get a number one contenders fight against Benile Daryoush, and he said, uh, Benil's not really, that doesn't really get me excited, doesn't really,

not really, not really interested in. If you're not interested in, Benny Darius, who's on a freaking run right now, who looked incredible against Matush Garamara, your teammate, by the way, uh,

and you don't find interest in that fight. So what are you interested in? Like what, what is good? So that right there, like that statement in and of itself made me want to drop him to like number 10 in the rankings, because that is ridiculous. Like you're not going to fight Benile Darius because you don't find him interesting enough

He's not a big enough name because if that's what it's all about it's just about big names go fight Connor for an eighth time I'm I have no problem with that make a million dollars big ten million dollars I zero I have zero problem if he just continuously fights Connor McGregor from now until doomsday and they both clearing up on money I'm fine he wants to fight Nate Diaz go clean up make I money you turn down benny der Eriush the guy who's actually on a run who could get you a title shot maybe you just don't want to fight islam Makachev I understand that But Benny Daryyish wants to fight Islam Makachev. He had to fight. He wants that fight. He desperately wants that fight. He may lose, but he's calling for it.

You had a chance to fight him and you didn't? Like, that's going to, I'm seriously. Like, I'm with Jed on this one. I may drop him like five spots in the next rankings. Yes. We told the squaders. This is not the result I want. Here's what I, I'm the Prince of Pository.

But for 2023, I would like to see us factor in spite more into the equation. It's not. It's already too much. Yes. A.K. I'm not saying I will. But Jed, tell me that doesn't, like, and you're, again, I'm not making your argument for you, you, but tell me that does, like, if he had gone and fought Benny Daryush, then you'd have a different

reason to break Porre. But he's basically saying, I'm turning down that fight because it's not a big enough name. Whereas Benny, if he even acted like he wanted to fight. Benil did not, because, like, Bill Nile Darius on a win streak did not have to fight Matush Gamrock. He didn't. Like, that was not a fight that was going to necessarily get him closer to a title. But he took it.

And he won. He looked great in that fight. And Matush Gamrott was on a fight. run he just beat arm and sir ruckie one of the best fights of the year all those kind of things you turn that fight down i'm basically counting that as a loss on your record that's how i'm doing the next rankings you turn it down you say you're not interested you're getting dropped i love that energy i'm not going to count it as a loss but it is it's that you know i understand the business decision and that's fine you make your business decision i'm gonna make my rankings decision

and that's that's just how it's gonna be because you you can fight these other dudes but you that he isn't interested is so damning too because again i understand it but what that tells me is that dust emporia's next fight is not going to be relevant or i mean it'll be it'll be important but he is not going to fight armon surukin or hafail fazev his next fight is going to be connor mcgregor or whatever why am i holding him in the almost same spot that frankly a k has tony ferguson right at when he's not going to fight a dude who's ranked like this i i have made my stand give me the young blood give me the people who are trying to make it happen and you might just be convincing me to just shove jalen turner and grand dawson everybody just zoom them right on up there just out with the old in with the new baby

rda get out of my lightweight rankings yeah you shouldn't be i'm team i'm team i'm team i'm team even though i haven't ranked higher i'm team jett on this one i hate i hate i hate what I've brought into this world. I hate that I've done this. All I'm saying is 13 months ago, you had Dustin Porier as your number one lightweight in the world. He lost one fight to the man who's currently your number two lightweight in the world, and all of a sudden

that causes him to plummet down these rankings because of other people's decision. You're also not factoring in that he looked bad against Michael Chandler who sucks. So again, you are not factoring in enough how much Michael Chandler sucks and the fact that Porreier struggled

to win that fight. All right. I regret that I have only to pass the microphone to you because you're the last one up on our roundtable here for the last group of us. I'm so excited. My last one's not going to be that bad. It's not actually really going at any of us, frankly, because Mike took a lot of mine. Me and Mike were sympathico on many of these. My two big ones we've already discussed, the last thing I have written down, it's I have a huge problem.

with the entire Bannamweight division, the female Bannamweight division. It is a travesty. There's really just no other word for it. I did a little research when I was doing an all-star column for who are the all-stars of 2022 across-the-weight classes. Great column. What a great website. Go check it out.

All of them were very easy for the most part. Some of them were hard because it was like, well, I got so many options to choose from. Women's band and weight was the one division where it was like, I don't have any options to choose from. There are no people who have stood out in this weight class. And there's a reason for it. If you go to Tapology, very great website as well, they have rankings. They're not as good as our rankings, but they're extensive. They do hundreds of people.

Their top 50 women's bandwights combined for 59 fights in 2022. that is not factoring in most of those fights were against each other there is just nothing happening in this weight class nobody is fighting three times a year is a miracle if a women's ban on weight fights that many times most of them are getting one very few get two nothing is happening in this weight division and i'd like to throw out an idea guys to build on our 23, I suggest this. We don't have to have a ban on weight ranking. We can just say, nope, we get rid of the women's ban and weight ranking.

We replace it with women's heavyweight, which is 126 and up. We just rank every female fighter over the flyweight limit. And then we can have a ranking for Larissa Bacheco and Chris Cyborg and, you know, those fighters and we don't have to struggle to find 15 people to put in this thing month over month because right now I have an empty space at 15 that I am tentatively filling in with a woman who has never fought in like a real organization because she at least has a win streak because this division is just and let's not forget we're about to lose another one because Sarah McMahon's going to featherway she's currently she's currently raging the

the top 10 and everybody's Bandaway, she's going to Featherweight. So there's another one gone. Yeah, it's just Lucy Pudilova is holding on to my number 14 spot, which should tell you everything you know. My grievance is not with you,

fine people or the fighters themselves, but the very concept of a women's Bannamweight division because what was once the premier division in female combat sports has fallen so far. Well, I literally just had to Google your number 15 because I had no idea who she was. And it's some random like regional promotion. Melissa,

Melissa Dixon. Melissa Dixon. Aries, fight within the last year, David. Alexis Davis is all in our rankings and I was like, when did she fight? She's like in the UFC anymore.

I was like, and I like Alexis Davis, but I was like, why does that feel like she hasn't fought for like three years? 59 total fights among, the top 50. And that's probably really like 30 because they probably imagine they used to be fighting each other. Most of those

are matchups because I didn't, I should have honestly done the numbers. If you look at just like UFC women's band-and-weight fights and who there are like six of them. It is so so. Yonnik and Skya left had a kid and came back and she's still in like the top seven for everybody. Undeniably in the top seven. Like not even

an argument. The MMA price fighting industry has completely given up on women that weigh 135 pounds. There's just not fights for them. There's just, there are no fights for them. I know. I,

I am personal friends of Sarah Kaufman, who at her worst was to me still a top 10 Bantamweight. And she literally retired because like, I just can't get any fights. I just have to, I'm just done of it. And yeah,

it's just, um, there's just no way to make a living at 20, I'm more intrigued now by featherweight and lightweight in women's than I am in band's way. like Pacheco Harrison 4. I'm actually kind of intrigued by that. Cyborg,

even though, you know, she doesn't really have a lot of competition. Like, interesting, Sarah, man going over there. Okay,

it's something, you know, there's some decent fight. There's, I mean, there's nothing. At least, at least,

that's it. Yeah. It's like, what is the biggest fight you could make at women's 135 right now with, with, not, obviously not,

without bumping Valencia Shurchenko up for the new news. I was about to say, that's not a championship fight. It's not a championship fight. Yeah. It's like a non-A-Manano. But any fight, what's the best fight? No, even if you want to pick Amanda Nunes, it's one half of it,

what's the biggest fight you can make of 135 right now? I have nothing. It is probably Kettlen Vieira versus... Raquel Pennington, the one that's happening January 14th. Yeah. If that happens, we talked about it on a different show. There hasn't been a Bannamway fight in the women's Bannway fighting the U.C. since October.

So if this even happens, we're still talking about almost three full months without one fight in the division. And the problem is like, Bellator doesn't have a 135 division. I don't think one does. The NFL doesn't have one. Literally no. So I guess UFC is the only major promotion right now.

Invicta is still has one. It has one. Yeah, of course, of course. Invicta has runs as well. Yeah. It's, that's why I'm, I'm suggesting for 2023.

Let's, we don't need to be stuck to the, the forces of the UFC and their belt structure. we don't do a featherweight. Let's just combine them. Then I don't have to look through the Aries-F-C band-em-weight fights to determine who is going to get spots 14 and 15. Because I can just throw Cyborg, Borechko Harrison in and feel good about myself.

I don't know who. I don't know who my number 15 is. That's a name I put down, but I don't know who that is, to be honest. I have never seen a fight before. couldn't pick her out of a crowd of two. Here's the thing, though. Here's the thing, though, about this whole conversation. There's no end in sight.

Like, this is the thing that we have been talking about now for probably, like, close to a year. And by the end of this year, we're probably still going to be talking about it because there's no actual, like, who are the Aaron Blanchfields and Man of Filros and, like, Casey O'Neill is coming up at 135? Because every other division has that. Like, there is nothing. There is no future. in this division right now.

Like once all these old guard women sort of fade out, what's even going to be left? I mean, I had to rank Lena Landsberg and Lucy Pudolova at 14 and 15. And I feel really bad about that. Like, I legitimately am like, do I really like, do I have to rank people? I think I messaged you about that at one point. Sheen, I was like, do I really need 15? Like, is that like a requirement to be in the rankings? I have to actually rank 15 fighters because it means I have to rank Lena Landsberg

and Lucy Pudolova as as top 15 fighters. That's just bad. Like, that's just a graciously bad. And Lena's, lean is last three in a row. Like, that's just,

that's how, that's how far down the barrel. That's how far down the barrel I had to dig to find someone for 14 and 15. And even like Chelsea Chandler had a, had a really solid UFC debut because she was supposed to fight at 1.35. And then her opponent fell out. And then Stoli Ranco jumped in. They did a catchweight at 140.

And Chandler just killed her. Just ran her over. And of course, Chandler's like, all right, well, my next fight, I want to do it 145. So that, like, eliminates her from the conversation as well. It's just bad. I think, like, the only other woman that we don't have that is even on a win streak,

and I think at least one of them, if not both, we're at 145 is Jocelyn Edwards. That's, that's where we're at right now. It's tough. Tough sledding. Would you guys like to know how many Bannamweight fights are on the books per, for top 50 fighters per topology right now? three oh no you're low they have eight eight of them are on the books so maybe we can get a little more action in this division but it's still questionable i think there's a legitimate chance like because

there's no one left for her to find like Amanda nunes may just like retire soon like she may just be like you know what i and then then we're really and then we're really in trouble because at least right now at least we have Amanda nunes anchoring the top if she actually does retire like oh my Like I just, you might lose a panelist because I don't know if I could legitimately put myself to where I want to rank someone else as number one. It's, it's bad. And I just wanted to bring that up. No, it's a bad situation. And I think that's a great way to end this whole show.

Is it? A real bummer like that. Is it? On a real, real bummer like that. That's how ending. They're trying to bring some levity to the space and we end like that. I feel better. No.

I feel better. I don't feel better about, I don't feel better about having Tony Ferguson number eight. I need to look inward. I need to look inward. My rankings might look a little different. Yeah, yeah. This is important. It's important.

We had this talk. We've all grown today. We've all learned some things about ourselves, about each other. I think we've all come to understand maybe some, you know, we all make mistakes. I made some mistakes. You guys made some mistakes. In the end, we're still friends, though. I feel like that didn't get too heated.

That was pretty reasonable. Yeah. It was much nice than last. I think it was. But yeah, that has been the second annual airing of grievances. We appreciate all of you for tuning in. We appreciate everyone here for joining in. Jed Michehmishu, A.K. Lee, the undefeated E. Casey Leiden.

Mike Heck and Damon Martin. Also are two panelists that couldn't make is Stephen Morocco and Geremei Cruz. Happy New Year again to everyone. Really looking forward to what we have in store for 2023. Keep it locked to MMA fighting. Thank you again. We love you. We'll see you soon. Love you guys. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats.

Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no, but chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber eats now.

For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ.

Built for breakthroughs, with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence. While Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress.

Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton cross-training treadplus at one peloton.ca.