MMA Fighting - Rankings Show: The Worst Division In UFC History, An Investigation | Plus, Everyone Loves Middleweight!

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

It's time to ask the question: Is women’s bantamweight in 2024 the worst division in UFC history? Podcast pals Mike Heck and Jed Meshew join co-hosts Shaun Al-Shatti and Alexander K. Lee this week to decipher that mystery and unpack everything UFC 297. The gang hits DDP's title win and whether his reign will finally bring stability to an unstable division around (10:05), and whip out their tier lists around (22:45) to debate where middleweight sits among the most fun divisions in MMA. Then, the crew puts on their investigative hats around (48:10) to determine whether it's an exaggeration to officially call this new women's bantamweight class the worst division in UFC history. All that plus the latest moves by Movsar Evloev and Magomed Ankalaev around (1:13:30), plus much more. ***NOTE: This episode was recorded before the UFC announced its signing of Kayla Harrison. While it's an interesting wrinkle, no doubt, we stand by this conversation. At least until Harrison proves she can make 135 pounds safely and consistently.*** Follow Shaun Al-Shatti @ShaunAlShatti Follow Alexander K. Lee @AlexanderKLee Follow Mike Heck @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco 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 reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Why do you save and invest? Is it so you can spend hours every day glued to the stock ticker, worrying about every movement up or down? or is it so that you can live a better, happier, more fulfilling life? Betterman wants to help people invest to live, not live to invest. With features like automated saving, global diversification, and tax smart tools,

Betterment is full of ideas to help you reach your goals without having to babysit your investments. They help their customers invest so that they can go live their lives. Go to betterment.com to learn more. Investing involves risk, performance not guaranteed. What's up y'all? Sean here. Oh, late night, Dana, you strike again. So Tuesday afternoon, we tape, produce, schedule this whole show, everything.

And then bang, middle of the night, the UFC goes and signs Kayla Harrison to fight Holly Home at Bantamweight at UFC 300. So why do I say this? Well, you can probably already tell. We talk quite a bit about women's bantam weight on this one and not particularly in a flattering way. So just wanted to give you all a little context around this conversation. I think this certainly throws an interesting wrinkle into that equation, though I very much have my questions about how this is going to work, whether this is sustainable, whether Kayla can make 135 consistently and safely, or whether we're just looking at another Chris Cyborg situation here. Either way, one signing does not change everything we discussed today. still stands with or without Kayla,

but hey, if you disagree, let us know. We always love some healthy debate here. Anyway, I'll get out of the way. Hope you enjoy the episode. Thanks for listening. Love y'all. What is up, my friends? I hope.

Oh, y'all out there. Just having a wonderful start to your year, crushing life over there. Having a nice little January. This is the M.M.A. fighting ranking show. I'm Sean O'Shawti, and we are back. Oh, yes, we are back. We've got the gang, my co-captain in this expedition, the Prince of Positivity,

the King of the North. Alexander K. Lee, also joined by our old friends, podcast, Pals, Mike Heck, Jedmishu. We got the whole crew winding down from another whirlwind week out there in Toronto, kicking off the year in earnest. How we doing, fellas? Excuse me, Shaheen. We may need to redo this intro. I would like to be announced as the infection going forward.

It's a great nickname. I checked. I don't think any fighters are used. Strangely, no fighters are using it. Not sure why. Doesn't seem to be getting around out there. So if I could be AK, the infection leaf now on, that would be great. I've got a good catchphrase, like what various, you know, social interactions.

Like, bro, you just got infected. What up? And then I go for like a high five or a daft or something. Or I dapped them first. Oh, sorry, you dab first. And then you say you just got infected. And then we all go like, oh, the infection is spreading. It's a lot of, I'm workshopping something, guys.

I'm workshopping something. Okay. I like the infection of spreading. I think the, you got, you just got infected. It would be better if we shortened it just to infected. Oh. Like a DX suck it. Like a real DX suck it on it, you know?

Very, very punchy, very punchy. I like it. It's good, good note. Good note. That's what we're here for. I'm very uncomfortable right now. I don't, I don't, none for me. Thank you.

Yeah. Well, I mean, what else can I say? I can never follow what AK just said, but I'm happy to be here, fellas. I was happy to be here. Uninfected, at least as of right now. So far. It's early. Speak too soon.

I know. It's very early. Jokes aside, it was a really weird week and a really wild week out there in Toronto. A lot of tension, a lot of buzz. I mean, first card of the year, it's always one of those things where like, I feel like the first card of the year almost like sets the tone for the year, right? Like I always think back to Robbie Lawler, Carlos Condit going out there in 2016. And just kind of letting everybody know, like, oh,

This is going to be like a really bad shit year. I don't know what that means about 2024, considering the event we just watched on Saturday. Not the most inspiring. But I do wonder for you, A-K. I mean, you were in the building. Obviously, it's a Canada event. There are a lot of Canadians on this card. Night didn't really go well for Canada.

Oh, man. We spoke about it on the post show, but you do an all anti-Canada parlay. You would have owned seven houses by now. Did we just watch the night Canada MMA died? or at least like this era of it? Well, that was rough. Men's. Yeah, I don't want to rehash all this stuff with Sean Strickland and Dana White and myself

and the great John Pollock. I shout out to John Pollock, I think, asked some great questions Saturday's post-fight press conference. So for sure, the other takeaway from the weekend for me was, man, watching the men's Canadian fighters just go down one by one. And in grueling fashion, too, in grueling fashion. Like heartbreaking fashion. Really rough, really rough. Some of them, I think, were expected.

I saw a lot of people picking Malcolm Gordon to win, like to open the night and a good note and I'm like I'm not sure why I was very sure Jimmy Flick was going to submit him and sure like that was one of my probably would have been one of my locks of the night Jimmy Flick by submission um I think I bet it too sorry I'm up oh no I bet on the flywood unders Jed they're back uh the old I tried a Canadian parlay you know this year baby they're I tried a Canadian parley and I think a city was the second leg it was only four fighter city was second leg so that went out the window right away great fight by the way city and uh from Monteveris but uh right at that point you were you were kind of getting a sense ooh

this is this is getting a bit is getting a bit awkward um not that again the first two guys who fought malcolm gordon johan lanis or surrey city were like massive favorites but you would have thought one of the men would have won both the women and one of the men and then we would have been rolling and just from there it just kept getting worse and worse split decisions just obsessed garrett armfield taking out the ultimate fighter brad catona and the crowd god bless them they were they were doing their best guys if you watch the show the crowd was doing their best in it but they they had to you could feel the energy dropping and dropping and dropping. And it was not the great return to Ontario MMA that we had hoped for.

I had the privilege of talking to Minister Neil Lumsden, who's heading up a new council, which is trying to sort of, again, revitalize MMA in the province, not just with the UFC, but at the grassroots level because we have no amateur scene here anymore. We have no minor league seen nothing. We have nothing in Ontario. So hopefully that'll be starting. but if this night was supposed to spark a new generation of young Canadian men and women, frankly, I mean, God bless John Robertson, Jasmine for pulling all those wins, but it was not the most

inspiring night. But we persevere, my friends. We persevere. AK, I haven't even asked you either personally or professionally. How do we feel about Brad Cotoner's loss? Because on the one hand, this man can't seem to win fights that aren't in the toughhouse. But on the other hand, this loss puts him once. step closer to becoming a three-time alternate fighter champion.

Oh, no. How do we weigh these two competing ideas? First of all, Garrett-Armfield is no schlop. All right. I know Cotono was a pretty decent favorite. Garrett-Armfield was no-slop. Mike called that. Mike called that on the...

He's a good fighter. Garrett-Armfield is a good fighter. This was not like a shocking, shocking upset. Just based on name value, I think Brad was one of the bigger, you know, Canadian favorites. So we're clear. The last time he got cut, he lost to Marab and Hunter Azure. Yeah. Rob, obviously a great fighter and Hunter Asher, is no slub.

So he's halfway to getting cut one more time. Don't say that. Braddle bounce back. Maybe he'll start finishing people. Maybe he'll finish someone. That would be nice. So what a terrible thing to say. As much as I love the ultimate fighter, I don't think any man wants the designation of being the ultimate, ultimate, ultimate fighter.

Actually, that sounds pretty cool. Three ultimates. That does sound pretty cool. I'm back on. Jed, good point. It's funny because we've been talking about this card now, what, four or five minutes? I think, Jed, you mentioned Drickus duplicacy once in passing, and that's about it. And it's weird because that's, like, ultimately, that's the biggest takeaway from all of this, right?

Is we have this new middleweight champion. So let's talk about middleweight. This division has just been a division of utter chaos. And I think that still remains, right? Like, ever since Alex Pereira, Harry Pottered himself into this mix in November 2022. This division has just been totally off the rails, remains that way. nothing has changed and that everything has changed. We are now four straight title fights where the belt switches hands,

and this time that Strickis up there. He is, of course, our number one middleweight on the site right now. Should have had eight first place votes. He didn't end up with eight. One of them went to Johnny Ebblin, so seven out of eight. You can't help everybody. But he's still number one for us. There's also a top 10 pound for pound fighter in the world.

Now he is number 10 to be exact. He rockets up there. He was number 19. So that's a big jump. And we're already here in the chatter. UFC 300 is Radisson. Hamza of Zulumi and Sean Strickland, popular as ever. So I ask you, Mike, I want to go to you first.

This division has just been bad shit for two years now. Is this the man to bring balance to the force? Is this the man to bring stability to what this is? I mean, at this point, after us getting to know Drinkistupasi, I don't think the word stability connects perfectly with a guy like Drinkistuplea, So maybe. I don't know. It's so interesting because I've gone back and watched this fight.

And it is a fascinating rewatch. If you haven't done it, I highly recommend you go back and rewatch Strix Duplacy v. Sean Strickland. Yes, I still scored it for DDP in the rewatch, but this might be the closest fight I've ever watched. Outside of maybe Volcanowski Holloway 2, I think this is the closest fight I've seen since then, where, I mean, there's just inches. And I was talking to Lorisanko earlier this week about this fight. And I brought up what Jed said on the post-fight show, where the biggest takeaway for Jed was,

just punch people really, really hard. And that, to her, was the difference in why he won this fight. So in the court of public opinion, optics, man. Yeah. In the court of a public opinion, Sean Strickland is not only the middleweight champion, he's the greatest fighter in the history of the sport.

I mean, the amount of robbery talk that is going on right now for a fight this close is just, absurd to me. And you mentioned just some of the names coming. Like, I would love to see Sean Stricko running back with Dirk his duplicacy. I think it's a fascinating time in the division and a fascinating rematch. Not right now, but I would like to see it at some point. DDP and Izzy with all the heat, like a fired up Israel Adasani with a huge ship on his shoulder. That's interesting. I don't know where I'm going with that. Like I bet Jed's going to pick DDP very, very confidently, but I don't know, but at the time we get to the fight, like I don't know. And then Hamzaa Chamaif is the biggest

wild card of all and we're not even mentioning some of the other absolute savages on the way up the ikram alas scarops of the world the brennan allen's like all these guys like when they get to the to the peak of their powers are stylistically like really could be tough match of sydricis too pussy so not even mentioning jared canadaer who beat chunds rin like a year ago we're never going to mention jared canonair yeah aka and i were talking about that next one like we never mentioned canonair's name and it makes you feel bad like every like six hours after each thing, but... Don't feel bad.

He had a shot of the title, and he authored one of the most boring fights I've ever seen. Yeah. Never put him in a title fight again. Stability, no. I don't know. Could, I mean, would I be surprised if you ran off like five, six title defenses in a row?

No. I just am not confident enough to say that right now, because stability in the middleweight division just are not, do not go hand in hand right now. Jed, you're a gambler. I've been known to dabble. Man, you're okay. You're teasing at it.

Hits and misses. If I give you 0.5 title defenses successfully for Driggis duplice, what are you putting your life savings on? Oh, I'm taking the over on that. So I wrote about this this week. I think at least he gets one. I wouldn't bet my life savings on that. But like I wrote about it this week. And the way I explained it was at this point in time, I would favor him over everyone at 185.

I wouldn't have him as more than like a minus. is 200 favorite over anyone. Like he, I think he is worthy of being the favorite in any fight that he takes because of what we have seen from him. Even Hamza. Because we've, we have seen him go five hard rounds or whatever.

And he is a physical force. And we have really never seen Hamzat fight another just like brute strength human being. And a lot of Hamzot's game, there's a bunch of technical brilliance, but a lot of it's just haussing people around. if he can't do that, I don't know how it's going to go for him. So I would favor him over Hamza. I'd favor him over anyone, but I wouldn't favor him by a lot over anyone.

It wouldn't shock me if he fights Israel Dyssinia. And the one, the reason I'm excited about that fight is it's going to make Izzy be fun because I think people have a very different idea of who Izzy is as a fighter because he on the come up got to fight some really fun dudes. Once he was a champion, we got to see him fight not fun dudes because he is like, Anderson before him, he is just going to wait to counter. And if you are not going to give him something to counter on, because you won't get knocked out, and that fight's going to be boring.

He's going to stand there. He's going to kick your foot for 25 minutes. And he'll be comfortable doing that and taking these boring ass wins like you did over Jared Canaan, et cetera, et cetera. But if you're going to be like Paulo Costa and get up in his face, then he'll fire back. And Driggis duplice excels at making people fight stupid. Like the entire book on Trump's true. It's a real skill.

It's an incredibly relevant skill. And the entire book on Sean Strickland is, look, he is an extremely measured and patient fighter, and he is going to do what Sean Strickland does every single timeout, and it's going to be the jab. He's going to check those low kicks. He's going to pressure forward. And DDP got Sean Strickland backing up, and he got Sean Strickland taking these wild haymaker, ridiculous swings in there.

There's an image going around. I don't remember who posted it, so I'm sorry about that on Twitter, where DDP ends up headbutting Sean Strickland in the ass because of the way that the two of them are throwing these just insane looping hooks. And you look at that and you look at every other fight Sean Strickson's had and you're like, yeah, Drickus is winning right now by making you do this. He could absolutely make Izzy do that and then like, Izzy hits hard. Maybe Izzy knocks him out. Also, you're willingly engaging in the battle that Drickis was forged in. That is the fire of his life right there. And so I, like I said, pick him over anyone.

I'm super excited to watch however long this title reign goes because I've comped him to this in the post show. He's a little Yoel Romeroe and Yol Romero, I think anyone who's watched or listened to us for years on end knows how much I loved Yol Romero. He is tactically brilliant, not mechanically excellent, but a demon physically. And that combination makes for a really fun fighter. Drikas is that only also will do stuff, whereas Yol won't for a lot of fights. I'm going to pick him to beat Izzy if that fight happens,

but I won't be stunned if it goes the other way. But like I said, I've got to take over half. See, it's so situational for me right now, because I think I would definitely pick him to beat Izzy right now. And also, like, I just kind of like,

middleweight became such a slog at some point during the Izzy reign because it was just a such a repeated series of like very, very draggy, boring title fights. That just doesn't feel like it's possible if Drickis is going to be our champion. in for the exact reasons you said yeah like like who's going to make him boring he's going to make

everybody fun for the most part of me wants this to continue as long as it can just to see how weird and wacky we can get but i just have that sneaky feeling that if hans out gets it which i don't think he will but if humzai gets it just that's that inevitability right he's thanos and we've just been waiting for it aka what do you think over under half yeah i'm taking the over like jed again it's a pretty it's half i think you have to take the over and i'm with you also shaheen and that I just, it's also because I don't think Hamza came in the next shot. Unlike Jed, I would not favor Drickis over Hamza. And I don't think the odds would either.

I think Hamza's name is still so hot. I think Hamzaat would be a betting favorite over anyone in the way class. This is true. I personally would not, but I think the market would set Hamzot as a betting favorite over in 1805. And I'm with the market. I've been a big Hamzaat pusher, if that was a lot of a better term. I think I have him as high as like nine in my pound-for-pound rankings.

I don't know if that's the high. biased amongst the panelists, but that's just every time I see him fight, I just feel like this is the best guy. No one can beat him. But I don't think he's next. So outside of that, I do like DDP against Izzy. I do like DDP in a Strickland rematch. I do like him over Apollo Costa, Paul Costa against a title fight.

So that fight would be so damn fun. It would be a great fight, right? It would be so fun. There's a lot of guys can be here. Brendan Allen, maybe sneaks in there. I've never thought of that fight until right now and now I need it. We have to get that. For the title or not, DDP and.

Paul Acosta has to fight each other something. She's two idiots hitting each other. I'm like, be the best. But yeah, his gift of making people fight his style as dumb as that style is is a mark of many great champions, right?

That's when we talk about champions, their ability to control a fight, control tempo. They make their opponent fight their fight. Usually we mean it in a complimentary way, like Jed, you said, with Izzy or with Anderson, like, oh, they draw them into a counter battle,

a tactical battle that they're not as equipped to win as the guy holding the belt. DDP is, again, the same thing, draws them into a fight. but draws them into this kind of inexplicable back and forth weirdness that he is very good at, that he knows how to win. It almost didn't work out for him on Saturday.

But again, he was facing a very tough opponent, who also, I think, has kind of a tricky style. So I do take the over. And again, I'm just running down the list. You have guys coming up if you want to, you know, go down the bow nickel, Joe Piper, Kyle Bahalio train, but they're not getting the title shot next either. And if they're to beat him, it's going to be further down the road.

So I don't know he's bringing stability. I don't know if anyone can do that just yet. But I think that's what makes this division fun. As I think we see a lot, this time next year, we see a lot of permutations of where he and where these contenders could go. And that's a cool thing. So I'm not quite ready to say that he brings stability. Can I ask you a question that's sort of a tale for all of you, really, just for a topic. Because Hamzot has been sort of lurking over this conversation.

Wouldn't stun me if he managed to get a title shot just without fighting. again but it feels to me like you like homzat shon strickland is a fight that makes a ton of sense that's the i would that's the fight i'm 100% sort of if you're not going to give homzot if you're not going to give homzat the next title shot do a four man tournament with these four guys that feels like and that five makes a 300 and do it at 300 yeah add that to the add that to the swell because if anybody pays john strickland whatever you need to pay him to do that yeah sean strickland is the second fight on the main card sean strickland versus hamzat shimai if into the three title fight come on now.

Like, because I assume they're going to do DDP versus Izzy, fats as 300 as you can get. Like Arben-Seric and Charles Oliverman. That 300 card suddenly looks insane. That 300 card looks absolutely absurd if you throw those two fights on.

I don't actually think you even do that. I still think you, I think you would bump it back because Sean, you got to have somebody that's going to bring some eyeballs to 301 because Leon Belal ain't going to do it. So put Sean on that so people buy that paper fee. Alex Ferrer. I think they can.

just punt it, man. I think they can just punt it. But the point I was trying to get out, would all of you pick Hamza to beat Sean Strickland? Because I am really not sure I'd pick Hamza out to beat Sean Strickland. I think Sean is the hardest matchup for Hamza out in the whole division. I think it's a really tough one. Which is a crazy sentence that I didn't expect to ever say. If this is part of 300 and Sean Strickland is like a ginormous underdog, I'm absolutely placing a bet on Sean Strickland. like without hesitation because I think that fight. Honestly, like whatever the line might be, like if Sean Strickland is plus 200 or above,

like I'm dropping the people's elbow on that number because I feel like that line should be closer because it's just like you said, she had, realistically. Couldn't you just see a visual of like whether that's three rounds or five rounds, just like late rounds, Hamza Shemai have exhausted in Sean Strickland just talking to him marching forward with that one too? Like couldn't you just see that so clearly in your head?

I think three rounds. I'd feel comfortable with Chimaia, five rounds. It gets froggy. It's a little, well, interesting. So I don't know. That's what I thought would happen with DDP. Even though we didn't know if DDP, like, there was, you know, he had had the nasal surgery. So we didn't have to necessarily sell this narrative that like DDP couldn't perform in the later rounds.

But there was doubt for sure, just because he'd never done it. And there's the same doubt comes at. So that's what I thought would happen on Saturday. I did think Strickland would start pulling away in the later rounds. And I didn't see that. Again, credit to a DDP for his wonky style. But I don't know if I'd be confident to say that he could do that. I get a Kamsat or even get there.

So big Hamzat stand here as far as his in cage abilities go. I'd be comfortable picking Shemaya to beat him. Strickland win would not shock me, but I'm comfortably on the Shemaya of, you know, minus 300, 400, 500. I'm down for all that. Interesting. Honestly, it's funny to me because like this goes back to really my main take away from all of this. Because we, as we've sitting here talking about like almost like fantasy

matchmaking over all these different permutations that are now available to us at the top of 185, I've been thinking about this a lot over the past few days because one word all of us have said over the last 20 minutes, which is fun. We just keep saying the word fun when it comes to 185. Mike and AK, I'm so glad that we have both of you here today because this is your beat, guys. Like you established this beat. The middleweighty middleweight title. Not long ago, we would have put middleweight right up there with the worst divisions in the sport. It was a meme. It was a joke.

We were making fun of it consistently on shows. And things looked pretty like bleak for a while. We said it. We go back to the Izzy Tadarin. There was just a lot of not fun stuff happening. I don't know, man. All of this now is just so damn fun. Like all of this chaos, this parody, the characters,

the reality that it seems like anyone can beat anyone on a given night within this top mix. like middleweight's not only alive. It feels like it's thriving right now. So I want you, fellas, this is a little something fun that I want to do because in the spirit of the ranking show, rank this for me. Because I put together my own little tiers list here,

and I was surprised at how high middleweight ranked. Where is men's 185 right now among the best and most fun divisions in the sport? Because I'll tell you, spoiler for me, it's really high. I'll really. I'll go first. The conversation we had,

I will say the top 20, top 25, the contender picture and potential contender picture is maybe better than it's ever been. Again, we just named a bunch of guys. And again, when you have the Joe Pfeiffer's and the Cayao Baha'iots and the Bo Nichols coming up, it really feels like a nice, there's a nice, what a landscape, a nice middleweight landscape that we're looking at right now.

Like you could project this, the top 20, top 25 to be like produced interesting masters for the next 18 months. And that's a lot. That's a lot, especially in today's day and age where there's an event, every friggin weekend. To say a division will thrive for that long, I might be being too bold, to be honest.

I'm sure this will out there going like, that's a lot to ask. That's a lot. I'm really projecting that, you know, these prospect contenders will pan out, that these champions are going to continue to put on interesting fights. I don't know.

It doesn't feel like you're taking a big leap to say, it doesn't feel like you're taking a big leap to say, guys, like a Boe Nickel or a Joe Pfeiffer or Iqram Alaskaroff are going to pan out. Like everything we've seen of these. These dudes look like they're pretty legit. But that middleweighty middle, middleweight elements still stand.

It's the lower tier I'm worried of it, and I'm not including the guys in lower tier, but I'm saying we just saw Chris Curtis and Mark Andre Bejillo, and those are two guys who I think are good middleweights engaged in a pretty middleweighty battle. Not as bad as I think the fan reception, you know, that that was given to it. But it was kind of middleweighty. And I think we had said in the previous show that that was a very distinct possibility. And then you go down. And like, as long as you have guys like.

I'll bet my soul that fight would be a middleweight. weight fight. Yeah, it had the stench of it. And it certainly turned out that way. But as long as we have guys like Armin Petrogyan, what are some of these names of the names I had picked out here? Yeah, but I don't know. I feel like there's the middle class in a lot of these divisions. The middle class in a lot of these divisions is uninspiring, you know? I see, I disagree. I think when you get like, like, like, we say lightweight is best. I know we shouldn't compare it to lightweight. Lightweight like one to 60. You're getting like bangers in their featherweight, one to six one to 40 you know getting bangers in there middle weight still has too many like that middle

chunk is too middleweighted for me to put it anywhere in like the top five i don't know if that's where you landed it so there you go that's why i don't have an exact list so i'll say outside the top five probably outside the top six for me so shen i'd love to hear uh where where you're how high you went with it wow mike is that is an insane take outside the top six yes oh i'm I want to hear Mike attack his best friend. This is number, this is the number three division in the sport right now. In the UFC. Lightweight.

Let's do this. Let's do this. Lightweight, you know what? I'll even say this. You can make a very compelling case right now that it is number two behind lightweight. Lightweight is number one. Anim weight is two. It's deep.

But can you name outside, Sean O'Malley is the champion. And certainly Sean O'Malley can have. headline pay-per-view. But if Sean O'Malley lose that belt, not one of those guys is headlining a pay-per-view when there's about six or seven dudes who in the next year could be headlining UFC pay-per-views at middleweight. Middleweight is going to be the most fascinating division in the UFC

this entire year. And it's not as great as lightweight is. It is not going to be as fascinating as middle-weight because of the star bar because you got Izzy coming back. Shaquine, we have been putting this out into the universe that we are about, we are about to live in this world that we put out there that now DDP is the champion. It's come together.

Israel Adasania is chasing him. Sean Strickland is the freaking Nate Diaz of the middleweight division and of current UFC fighter. Sean Strickland, in my eyes, clearly lost that fight to DDP as close as it was. But he's still won. He may have lost the belt, but he's still won. He's more popular than ever. Everybody loves this guy.

He lost nothing but a title. He's actually gained in superstardom. So he's going to be there. And then you mentioned Paula Costa, who no one's even talking about right now, Robert Woodker. Yes, we're not mentioning Jared Canier, but no offense. It's for pretty good reason. And then you mentioned like some of these other names that are on the come up. I'm telling you, I think right now this is going to be the division that has the most spotlight on it. And I won't have it jump bantam weight just yet. This might even be the biggest money division in the UFC in

2024. And that includes lightweight. It's a super fun division. It is, I always had featherweight is number three for a long time and I still think Featherway is still underrated because of the depth of that division, I think middleweight's better right now and what a difference a year makes. It's crazy. This is.

I love this take. I don't even know. I love the take. I don't agree. Top six. A.K., tell me what's... Hold on. Hold on a second, A.K. And you can jump in those two, Judge,

because I can't wait to hear it because I feel like Sheehanen and I are in the same gosh-darm wavelength right now. Oh, I'm right with you, Mike. Oh, this is repulsive. Okay. I'm guessing you have bantam weight, lightweight. Please name me three other divisions that are better than middleweight and more compelling the middle way right now.

Like quality of fights? I don't care about just star power. I don't care about just star power. The fights have to be good. And depth too. Booneckles is like the 39th ranked middleweight in the world right now. There's more to it. It's depth.

It's the next generation. It's star power. It's storylines. It's narratives. It's just all of it along with fight. quality. And it's like exactly what Mike said. Like who can headline what middleweight's like the division of stars right now. Like that's an actual real real thing to say. No, no, no. I did. I think I got a little cut up in here. This is a little bit of the moment. It's, it's so not.

Lightweight, bantam weight, S tier. That's my tier list. Lightweight, bantam weight, S tier. A tier. Featherweight and then middle weight. Middleweight's number four for me. I love, I still love featherweight. I've still really rocked with featherweight, but like middleweight's the better than everything else outside of those three to me. This is wild. I mean, there are so many bad middleweight fights that we're going to see this year.

I don't know. And again, you say it's not any division. I understand. It's not fair to single out middleweight for that. Every, every fight has stinkers. I mean, we have, what, 900 contender series fights coming up in the next six months. So I respect to all those people.

Some of those fights tend to blend together and not be memorable. And that's across division. I understand. I understand. But I just middleweight stands out so much for its blandness outside of the names you mentioned. And maybe I should focus. Outside of the cool stuff.

Yeah, sure. I just, the average fights are so bad. They're bad. A.K., we made this happen. We introduced the middleweighty, middleweight title. You guys did this. We sparked a revolution. We sparked change within this division.

Are there still going to be guys vying for the middleweighty, middleweight title? Of course. Look at the success Brendan Allen has had since becoming the middleweight, middleweight, middleweight, A title I never gave him. You know that Chris Curtis was thinking about that Saturday night as he was middle-wading his way to a victory over Mark Andre Barrio? I never gave, my best friend, you and I have been at odds on this. I have never gave Brendan Allen that time.

It was almost retired for me essentially with Christoph Jocko, the Mark Andre Barrio after Saturday. I tell you, he may be, even in defeat, has maybe taken the title. Marvin Vittori owns the middle-weighty, middle-weight title. Now that he's no longer in title. It's not true. Now that he's on the downslope so he can just assume the throne there. More than fair.

But Jet, before you go off, because you can definitely punctuate this more probably. I'll say divisions I'd rather watch, like just watch and more and talk about more. And you guys say I'm crazy. But like, I love straw weight. I think straw weight is so good right now. It's one of the most reliable like. It's B tier. It's a solid B tier division.

I just think if we're talking about entertainment value at the top, it's a little shaky. But Tatiana's going to come back. I think she's going to be a great champion. Other than that, I get outside of her, there's not super compelling matches, but I think Tatiana doing her thing, or Zhang Welly, or Zhang beats her, but I need to see that fight. That's one most high-inticipated fights. It maybe doesn't have the depth of name power of middleweight, but the fights have been

so consistently good, and the division moves. It's unfortunate that I don't know why they put Zhang on the shelf, whatever, the last half of frigging 2024, but other than that, the division moves, and I like that. And middleweight has that too, so I get why you guys love it, but for now, I put straw weight above it. I definitely put featherweight above it. Well, too tricky because the top of Welterweight is so like.

I was going to say, we're not going there. I can't even sell it. I'm kicking you off this podcast. Yeah, I can't even sell it. I can't even sell it. All right.

Then kick me off the podcast because here's where I'll hot tag in. I understand your arguments. I think they're defensible. Shaheen and Mike. I also probably a little closer to AK here. I feel lightweight and band and weight are just stone better. I don't have any, any question.

The only not. knock on bantam weight is what the title picture will look like for the next year because Sean Strickland might, not Sean Strickland, sorry, Sean O'Malley, too many Shons now. He might just screw it all up, right? Like he's fighting Cheevera who doesn't really deserve this title shot. And then like that that's a clear downstroke on it. But the rest of it, you go to the top 40 dudes. You're getting a good fight.

I think we're very excited about the star power and of the top of middleweight. but you get outside of the top 10 interesting dudes, and those fights are going to get real bad, real quick. Lightway, Bannonway, absolutely ahead for me. Walterway, I have absolutely, I'm confident placing that as a better division. Yes, it's headline by Leon Edwards, and we're about to get Leon Edwards is Bala Muhammad.

The best boring fight you're ever going to see for a title, like just a terrific matchup that no one cares about, but we've got a bunch of, And the top is maybe a little squatty. I'm not killing Colby Covington. That dude's just gone. We've got a lot of young, exciting dudes coming up. We've got Ian Gary.

We've got Jack Della Madelena. Hanat Fakhratinov is coming in. Like, there are dudes coming up in this. And we're getting the mix of Michael Vindam-Page coming over, which maybe is fun. Maybe he sucks. I just think that's a compelling division. And the fights are much better than middleweight, top to bottom there. Those are the three I am confident in putting ahead of middleweight.

That's crazy to me. I also feel decent about, though I recognize this is certainly more of a hot takey corner in putting Women's 125 above it. Women's fly with it right now is just sick. It's super fun. We've got a ton of young talent coming into it. If you look up and down, like over at straw weight, I see the issues of straw weight that you noted AK and that I would put straw weight beneath

185 for me because there's too many hangers on. there's not enough young talent. I think women's flyweight is sick. And so I feel decent about putting that. I don't have any issue putting middleweight above featherweight right now. I think featherweight is in a bit of a down period, just because all of the names largely are old hat by now. And we just don't have the churn of good young people coming in.

But you guys also forgot the most important counter to middleweight. Flywood unders are back, baby. every fight at 125 is a banger this year. For 2024, it's bangers on bangers on bangers. Like, obviously, if you say I can watch a 185 fight, I don't know who they are, but I get to choose between in the dark watching a middleway fight or a flyway fight. I'm taking 1-25 all day long. And so that means in my rankings, conveniently, I have middleweight, smack dab in the middle

of the 11 weight classes at number six. Because it is the middle. There's only one flyway fight this year. How can you say that? Well, look, we're not counting when they miss weight. We're not counting when they miss weight, okay? Sometimes that happens. But if that fight went two and a half rounds,

I think we probably would have used that as an excuse on Thursday. No, because the bet's already in. We make the bet before the way end day, so the bet's already in. But it's not about that flyway. It's your argument. Let me ask you right now, you do not get to know the names in it. I am just telling you on this fight card,

on the prelims of this fight card, there is a 125 fight or a middleweight fight, and you can only watch one, and you do not know the competitors. Which one are you choosing? Flyweight, but I don't know if that's representative of what we're talking about. Because all the middleweight fights are on the main part.

Middleweight doesn't do the prelims. That's why. Jed, it's too good for it. I like to set of, that's a great point. No, no, no, that's a great point, Mike. If a middleweight fights on the prelims, there's a reason it's on the prelips. Like, you know what you're about to watch.

Jed, I like the setup. I think it's a very good way of framing it. But I think that the broader way of saying it is the floor of middleweight is so much worse. I think that's essentially the way where your question says, the floor is so bad. The core of the earth. And that's, I would hold that against the head. And that's it. The floor.

that conversation, but like women's ban on weight, light, heavyweight, heavyweight. Those are the three basements that you can have for a fight. And the middleweight's right there after them. Jed, don't you host a great gambling podcast called No Bet's Bard? Sure. Get that plug in there. So I should get that plug in there. Yeah.

Okay. That's great. All this year, I'm just going to be saying heavyweight overs and flyweight under's, baby, they're back. Just Shaheen the bald brethren strikes again, my friend. I mean, what can I say? I was kind of fine with most of the things. you were saying, because if you have middleweight six, I have it four, that's not a big distinction.

There's one thing that you said wrong that I just can't fathom. Look at my tier list, right? Here's my tier list. This is the correct tier. S tier, lightweight, bantam weight in that order. A tier, featherweight, middle weight, flyweight, because I agree. Flyweight's great. Flyweight's the most fun it's ever been right now. B tier, straw weight, light, light, light heavyweight, women's fly weight C tier welterweight welterweight. Welterweight is atrocious man. Welterweight like if you guarantee me a welterweight fight on a card and I don't know the names, I'm not picking that at all.

Whoa. That feels like a hot tape to me. I don't know about that. Not, man. Welterweight is not fun right now. It's a bunch of old dudes who are not enjoyable to watch and then like a couple young guys who are like really fun to watch but are just not getting the opportunities yet.

I think that's where we're having our biggest, like, biggest divide here. Yeah. If you look at the top six, that's probably true. Like the two, like middleweights just had so much turnover in the last year that it's much more fun than a division where Gilbert Burns and Colby Covington are still like at the top of it. If you get outside of the top 12, like, give me welterweight any day of the week. Definitely. Compared to middleweight. Yeah.

Hold on. Did you see the social media reaction to Anthony Hernandez now fighting Roman. copulov, people went freaking bananas for that fight announcement. Like, I mean, it's not only because I report, it's not because we reported it. Like, we, you know, we get tagged in like some of these other sites that are like, hey, this is what's reported by Mike and Damon. And just overwhelming positivity to that matchmaking. And those are top 25 guys fighting each other.

Like, we're supposed to get Anthony Hernandez versus Icramalaskaroff, basically like the, the next wave of guys. Like, Hernandez is super fun, super fun. he's not middleweighty middleweight at all. Neither is Roman Coppiloff. So like, I think you're, I think we're downgrading the depth of middleweight. I think it's better than you're giving it credence for.

Stephen Thompson could fight anybody right now. He's like one and four in his last five. If Stephen Thompson beats anybody ranked right now, we're going to be saying he's a win away from a title fight. You're not getting that at middleway with a lot of these guys who are like one and four in their last five, unless maybe it's Izzy. But Stephen Thompson,

just about 41 years of eight, is never out of the title discussion in this division. So that's like the point. We don't really have a lot of that in Middleweight, but Walter Wade's right there. Anybody can get a freaking title shot at Welterweight, as long as you just win one fight. Mike, was you that had to respond to someone saying like Koppelov is,

I don't know if someone retweet or quote tweeted, someone was saying like, Copelov is like the best middleweight out there right now or something. I don't know where I saw this. And then that's how that's how big Koppelov Mane is right now is like, I think he's getting a, I mean, he deserves it, what, three straight knockouts or something? but like I think we're saying I don't think we're saying there's zero

intrigue in the middleweight division there's certainly not in the middle but there's just having welterweight ahead of it is insane having one way ahead of it's insane the top of the last welterweight fight was one of the worst fights I had seen in 2023 in the next multiway fight is going to be atrocious like what are we talking about what was the last one that happened I don't I got you title fight like title fight I meant sorry I was trying not to if we're talking title fights then obviously Walter weights at the very, if we're just like, that's the primary one for us.

That's the standard bearer of the division, right? Like that's the biggest, hold on. It's not like Strickland. Hold on. It's not like Strickland. Trickland DDP was not a good fight. No, no, that was good. That was good. But it's not like Strickland.

It was good. That's a good fight. It's not like Strickland Izzy was a banger. And then we can bring in the Alksfair fights, which are fantastic, no question. But Alpspras not the division anymore. And then you have the Jared Cannonier fights, the second Robert Whitaker.

Like, if we're talking like just, and I guess we want to talk about prospective title fights, that's fine, but until those happen, I feel like we can't give them, like, points for like, oh, this was like an amazing,

we don't know if those are going to be amazing fights. You can certainly project, but like, if we're talking about title fights, it's not like middleweight has been, it's not like Izzy's reign was marked with all-time classic title fights. Hold on to say, but we're not in that anymore.

Jed, I have a question for you, my friend. I have a question for you. Because you went on just an epic, epic rant and and you even swung shaheen in a lot of respects about priscilla catchua how it is important to have a get or get god all star as part of your division and on the roster while middleweight has middleweighty middleweight champions if you look up and down this roster the amount of get or get god all stars in this middleweight division far extends probably any other division in the sport and we start with like the andre petroskies and the

gerald meerscharts we get the iron turtle there's no iron turtle at a hundred and pounds. We got we got guys like Dustin Stoltzvist who is incredible a get or get got Punisoriano gets her get got Brian Barbarina gets her get got Abdul Razak al-Assad

Trashon Gore gets her get got incredibly well. Cody Brundan is slamming people on his head and getting knocked out three weeks earlier. Jamie Pickett is a get-or-get-God all-star. Val Woodburn is going to be a get-or-gat-all-Star forever. And let's not let's not forget some of these other

Cheity and Jokawakwani. So good. that role. There are so many. For every Eric Anders, there's a Hidalpho Vietta and an abus Magamatoff. Like, there's so many of these. Two things. A lot of those guys you named also have and Julian Marquez, who might be the president of the Gettergate God All-Stars. Two things. A lot of those guys you named also have their fair share of just god-awful stinkers. They are not like short-shirt firebangers. Let's not read the history here. A lot of those days you mentioned. You're only remembering. No, no, no. Cody, Brandt is right a bit of bridge too far. I'll give me that.

This is the reason you buy us to talk about, though. This is like me saying, like, Roman Koppelov is like a straight-up killer. It's like, you watch the first two fights. They're horrible and they're horrible for him. But I get it. We have to take the whole picture. And also, how dare you claim Brian Barberina? He is a welterweight or at least has historically been.

If he's a middle-weight going forward, fine. He's a way. You don't get to claim one middle-way right now, baby. How dare you? How dare you? Let me make two final statements sort of on this matter that are somewhat contradictory. The first is, I just think that y'all are not, again, I had a number six, and that was not a, like, it was three of them that I'm very confident above, which I think most people agree in that broadly. But like, I'm, I'm open to moving it a little higher or a little lower on that list.

I think y'all are thinking a lot about the main event and a lot less about the Chris Curtis burial. Those are the two sides of middleweight right there, and one of them is particularly good. But I will say this. You've convinced me somewhat with your arguments, less so that you've convinced me than I went on to tapology. And middleweight and welterweight are pretty much dead ass even, as far as I'm looking at like top 40 guys. Like, yeah, there are a bunch of middle weights and I'm not pumped to watch.

But also, a lot of welterweight's like Phil Roe is a top 40-ish dude. This is what I'm saying. Well, I'm saying, but by the same thing, Am I that stoked about Gerald Mearshard? Not really. He's action, baby. He's action. I'm giving any Gerald Mearshard fight.

Come on, man. Not really. I think Fabian Edwards, like, am I that point? There's, we're talking about pretty similar thing. So I will retract saying that I would confidently put Welterweight above. I'm happy to drop Welterweight into the same tier with middleweight women's 125. There we go. And just say definitively lightweight and band.

weight, I have that 100% are better. And then I would just have those, that kind of group of women's 125, well to weight, middle weight, fly weight, sort of all in the mix together. And however you want to rank them in that tier is fine with me. Yeah. I'll say quick that maybe outside of top six was a little bit much. But I'm with Jed, I think six as high as I can go. For me, it's definitely lightweight, bantam weight, featherweight, and probably strong weight.

And women's fly weight. So, or even men's fly weight, but one of those two. So six to me seems fair, but top three, top three is a bridge. No, no, no, we're talking about UFC divisions. We're talking about UFC. Yeah, but top, but top three is a bridge way too far. That does make it stronger, I will say.

If we're only discussed in the UFC, because the PFL atores 185 is, it's Johnny Evel. We don't have the most fun thing that's happening. I think just said PFL and I'm like, there is no PFL. FFL at LATO. Yeah, FFLTor, that's right, yeah. Either way, I think just to take away from all of this,

Middleweight is so much more fun than it was two years ago. Like, but it leaps and bounds. Sorry, Gene, let me say. I love that. It is, I will say this. It is the best it's ever been. I think it's better than it was in the Anderson's. I think it's better than it was the Anderson Silver era.

It is the best. I firmly disagree with that. I disagree with that and I don't want to get derailed onto that. Because I think the Anderson Chale era was, the Anderson Chale era was unbelievable. and also the post-Anderson era where we had Wyden, Luke Rock, old, Jacques, Ray, Romero, like all of that was really fun as well.

But middleweight is so much better than it's been for a while now, and that's really fun. And we're going to take a quick break because then we're going to say a lot of stuff. All the night stuff. Or we won't. Or we won't say a lot of stuff. We'll just pour one out.

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DarkTrace is the cybersecurity defenders deserve and the one they need to defend beyond. Visit darktrace.com forward slash defenders for more information. All right, y'all, we are back. Kind of just ranking fun divisions right now. We just did a whole segment on Middleweight, but if you listen to the tiers list, there was one in particular that got left out. I had said Welterweight was a C-tier division. was the lowest that I had mentioned.

If I continued down my tier list, there's D, it's completely empty. There's nothing in D tier. And then there's F tier. And F tier is populated by one division. And you know which division I'm talking about, and God, it's so bad. It's, it's so, so bad. The other half of UFC 297's marquee women's bansomweight, we knew things we're going to get dark in this division

and just become worse and worse and worse. but this was the nadir, right? Like we hit the nadir on Saturday. We hit the low point, right? Like Raquel Pennington, perfectly fine fighter, UFC veteran, put in the time, UFC champion from now until the end of time. You can't take that away from her. When you mention her name, she's a UFC champion.

Great. God bless. But also not someone who's ever going to get confused with Justin Gehche. And that's just where we are right now. So I've been thinking about like, how can we even talk about this division? How can we talk about this fight? So screw, we're just going to do this. Women's Bantamweight on January,

24th, 2004. Is this the worst U of C division ever? Yes. Whoa. Wow. I did not see that coming.

Who said that? That's A.K. Who said that? Oh, my God. Who said that? Wow. I thought someone else was going to pipe in the first.

Is this the worst division in UFC history? I think it has to be. And this is someone whose defense, who somewhat half. seriously defends it. Doesn't it have to be?

Am I forgetting something? Listen, I've done some prep before. I've got some names. I've got some eras and divisions to throw out there. But in my research, I don't think I could find a division that's objectively less star power, less consistently entertaining, bottom of the floor. Like if you take, again, we were talking about which division has the lowest bottom. It is, I mean, it's got to be women's fan.

bantamweight by far. I mean, we have seen some. I think the Aldana, Rosa, fight kind of had to have people going like, oh, yeah, maybe this division is so bad. Great fight. That is such the exception that proves the role. And we have had some women's bandtonweight stinkers or worse, like, just completely forgettable. Like, they're not even so bad. They're like, oh, remember that fight how bad it was, but just like, like, I'm going to sound terrible here. I am a terrible person. We know that already. If you ask me to me. I think we're all going to sound terrible on this segment. Yes. We'll try to ask some positive. I'm going to tell better than many, I think.

If you told me to name five women's bandwap bites from 2023 and say, let's say, you know, and like making him harder, non-title, I'm not sure I could right now. I'm not sure I could. I'm not going to try because, again, I'm already admitting failure. Again, non-title, I'm not sure I could. As you're speaking, I'm in my head trying to do it. It's, I'm struggling. Well, in your defense, I will proffer this.

I did a little research as we got into this. And you know that this has been a topic I've enjoyed delving you over the years. There were 19 fights in women's ban on weight in 2023. So if you're asking to name five, you're already looking at a quarter of the fights that occurred on the calendar year. If you're asking name five, not including title fights, then that's getting a little bit more difficult because you could obviously name the Amanda Nunes title fight against

Arrini Aldana. So you've got 18. You had 18 fights. That was the only title fight. It's tough, tough sledding out there. I mean, Aldana Hosa was really good.

So we came now. I know. Alana Horsa. Melissa Dixon Arena Alexiva. I can add to it too because that was one of those compelling asswopens that doesn't leave your memory. My brain of Silva,

Holly home. There you go. No contest. Doesn't count. Fight never happened. Mike, your pick, I think was a,

also this is being incredible. I'm sourced right now. This is not one person thinking of this. I could have named three, and I probably could get two more. But yeah, it's a tough scene, AK. But in your defense, it's a hard question to answer. I'll just jump in with my sort of thoughts on this then. I think if we are not counting women's featherweight as a division,

which that would obviously be the worst division in the history of the UFC, I think by any measure that would be if we are not counting, if we're only talking modern MMA, you know, the 2001 since Zufa took over, there are arguments that it is not the worst. I think it's pretty clearly the worst in context because Zufa takes over, it's 2001. Like the middleweight division is pretty rough going at that time. Not a lot of things that are happy. The heavyweight division for most of. Zufa's ownership, like for the first several years was really, really bad.

Talking about Jeff Munson getting title shots, you know? I was going to say, was that what you would put as the next worst? Yeah, 2000s UFC heavyweight era. I'd probably go middleweight over heavyweight as I dug into it just because like middle weight was really trash for for a hot minute there. Heavyweight like there, people don't respect them to the level that they good, but Tim Sylvia should be a Hall of Famer. Andrei Alavsky will be a Hall of Famer.

Like those two dudes are better than what middleweight really had going on at that time, realistically. There are fights at that point in time, though, I will point out, were God awful. Largely, yeah. God awful. Sometimes it's fun to just watch, like, Androelovsky throw 87 combos on Cabbage Carrera and Blank him. Like, that's, that's more fucking fun than what we got from 135 in the past two years. So I think that there's an argument that women's 135 is not that. Certainly, if you are factoring in entertainment,

it is a powerful argument at the point in time. Because does anyone want to guess how many of the 19 ban on weight fights in 2023 were decisions? 17. 17. 14. So you guys were on the right side of guessing. But 14 of 19 fights were decisions.

one no contest with my boy and Silva and then four subs, zero knockouts occurred. It is zero knockouts. Zero knockouts. Seriously? Zero knockouts, four subs, one no contest, which also was a sub on the evening of it. I wonder if that is the first time that has ever happened, that a division has gone an entire year without a single KOT, K.O. Almost certainly.

There's no other world that could happen because you have to have a low enough number of fights for that to be real. And like women's featherweight was just a man to Nunez or Chris Cyborg in it. So they were getting TCOs, you know, like it's, it's tough. So I think that it's pretty clearly the worst thing. Yeah, I'm going to guess that not only the Aldana host of fight one fight of the night. I don't know if you have actually looked into that, but I am almost certain that that is true. I can safely tell you that yes.

That is right. I have done no research. Because you want to know some more fun facts about bonuses, AK. I'll drop a couple more facts before I exit my time here. I looked this up because I wanted to make sure I was right. Our new champion, Raquel Pennington, who I respect for the length and depth of her career, this is her 11th year in the UFC, 18 fights down after winning the belt. She owns one performance bonus, just one.

When she inevitably fights Giuliana Pena for the title, the two of them will have a combined 22 years in the UFC, 28 fights because Julianna Pena fights once a year for a decade, that's fun, and three performance bonuses between them. It's rough going out there. And the last thing I'll say, and this is the part where I will come off mean, because everything else I've said it's been fact.

And so facts aren't mean, facts are just facts. I think that there is a pretty compelling argument that Rock Al Pennington is the worst fighter to hold a title in UFC history. I would not say that that's definitive. I think Nico Montanio kind of holds that for me. I was going to say that's the name. I also think that that belt is about as fraudulent as possible,

and so maybe we should not consider it. But outside of her, here is the list of fighters that I think could be argued as worst in Rock El Pennington. Julianna Pena, obviously. Great that it's two women's bandam weights here. At least she beat the champ. At least she beat the champ. At least she beat the champ.

She did, but she's not a good fighter. Evan Tanner, who I liked a great deal, but a limited fighter. And Cody Garbrandt, who I think, obviously, Cody Garbrand's peaks are extremely high. The number and breadth of the valleys in his career, I think that you can make a case that he's like, all things considered not a great fighter. I'm shocked you didn't mention Matt Serra,

but I guess just by beating GSP, he's exempt from the list. Matt Sarah had a quite, like, Matt Sarah had a better career than Juliana Pena's career and won a title legitimately. Better than Raquel Pennington? Yeah, sorry, better than Rockal Pennington's career. Like, Matt Sarah was a good fighter who should probably never have won the belt,

but was at least a good fighter. Rockout Pendenton is a good fighter in the context of an awful weight class, and those are two wildly different things. Wow. I don't know if I could add anything on to what Jed said at all. I mean, I guess maybe Walter Wade is worse than women's bandam weight. I'm just going back to a call back to the last segment. It's just really bad, man.

If the big takeaways from this title win are, boy, we need Amanda Nunes. back. We don't even want her to enjoy her life outside of fighting. And on top of that, we want fly weights to move up to this division to save it. Yeah, that's not very good. I mean, I don't even know what else to say. I mean, we've talked about this on the show before we do our rankings and the women's Bannerway page. We all have our own individual messages about it. Like burn it down. Why are we doing this? What are we doing here? It's just bad, man. and like someone called it. The messages have evolved now too, I will say.

Like before it was all burn it down, now it's people questioning their actual existence. I, of all the things I'm proud of in this sport, this thing that no one else can see but us is maybe my favorite. Starting the burn the division to the ground movement is the best. But like here's the thing too. Like people are calling it a heck of a morning and I was like talking about this exact same thing. And they're like, yeah, man, it's so simple. Like we can't have fly weights moving up to band. minimum wage, just scour the earth and bring in bantam weights.

Just put them on the ultimate fighter and bring him in on the contender series. I'm like, every time. You really think it's that freaking simple? You think it's, you think there's like 20 interesting women's bantam weights just plotting around the regional scene across the globe ready for the contender series and the ultimate fighter. Half the fighters that get contracts on the contender series from good divisions aren't UFC ready and now you want to just rip them in on the contender series like get the fuck out of

here it's a bad division it's just really bad there's no depth no one wants to fight in these divisions all the fun divisions for the women are 25 and below that's it you want to make this compelling i've been talking about this for a little while let's make the bamptherweight division 135 and above no higher than 146 just do that and then things get a little more interesting we can bring in the Kayla harrison's there just are no 30-fivers, plenty of 25ers, plenty of 45ers, plenty of 45 and 55ers, but there's like 11 legitimate bantam weights on earth right now. 11 seems high.

And that might even be too high. 11's definitely high. I'd like to suggest an alternative because, you know, Mike, I've called for a women's heavyweight division for many years to solve this problem. I think instead of a ban through, I think it should just be open weight. There's 115, there's 1.25, UFC shirt out of 105. I think they'll probably get around to doing that in the next few years. You have those three, and then it's open weight.

And we don't weigh them. We just let them get rowdy, and it'll be awesome. And whoever wants to fight in an open weight thing can do it, and it'll be sick. That's open weight immediately becomes one of the top three most compelling divisions in the M.A. If they didn't know tomorrow, you'd be so stunned. You'd be like, what the hell is Gabi Garcia coming to the UFC? The hell's about that. I'd be looking forward to every open weight women's, your question of,

If I could choose between not knowing the name is two, women's overweight, or like, experiments over everything. I just wanted to, I have no idea who's going to be in it, what weight class are going. Yeah,

I love it. Let me speak with some optimism for a moment. Hold on, real quick. I have a question for you. I have a question for you. In this hypothetical situation, like,

is there, can you go under the limit too, right? So like, if you're Wally, Wally, can you be like, screw it,

I want to be the open wage champ too. Yes. Yeah, dude's like ADCCC. Who gives a shit what you weigh? It's open way. We're going. I love that idea. Let me speak with a little more realistic optimism.

And also play off what Mike said. Yeah, people asking why don't they just grab phantom weights. And we touched on us for us for, so I don't need to. But for anyone who always asked that, it's like, guys, you have to understand there's an athleticism threshold where once you reach it, you're not going to pursue M.A. as a career. If you're an athletic woman who's in the 135, 145, 155, 160 range, whatever, you're going and you're coordinated and you're athletic, you're going to pursue other better paying sports that don't involve you getting your. face punched in. That's just how it is. That's the reality of it. And until, so it's a, money thing as well, right? It's a money thing as well. Until it's worth a while. And, you know,

and I say this, and the optimistic part is, I hope, I think we're still going to see that generation of young women who were inspired by Rhonda Rousey, Hollyholm. We've seen it already. We've seen some fighters come up who are like, who are like, oh yeah, of course they're inspired Ronda Rousey, but they were still like 10, 11, 12 years older in the early teens. I'm talking about kids who are watching MMA. This sounds like a fan. People who don't exist. But I want to believe that there is the next generation who will follow in those footsteps and become involved in martial arts really early with the eye of getting to MMA. And by the time they get there, that the money will be right and there will be reason for them to do it. It's not a guarantee by any means. We are not trending in

that direction. That's just my hope. So that these divisions aren't hopeless forever. But if you guys are wondering again, where are all the athletes, we're all the talented women athletes? They're doing other sports. They're doing other sports and they're making good money and they're not getting crazy ass fighting injuries. So that's how it is. To that point, there's a reason that the weight classes that are successful are 105, 115 and 125 because if you're super athletic at that, you're pretty limited. It's the same thing for heavyweight.

If you're a large person and have athleticism, you're going to go play football. You're not going to go play football. That's not even factoring in the fact that like, fighting is also very different and you have to sort of be willing to engage in that. And that's, that's a filter. that's going to get a lot of people out to start. So absolutely for that. I hope you're right, AK, but the reinforcements aren't coming right now, guys.

They aren't coming. And that's the thing. That's ultimately what led me to even ask this question is because right now you take a picture, a snapshot of this division, it's really, really, really rough. But then you'll look ahead, right? Two years, three years, five years down the line. What are we working with? Like what, like what's available at that point?

And so when I threw this question out, is this the worst division ever? I don't do that lightly. Like I don't feel like I like being hyperbolic. I don't want to exaggerate in that sense. So like you, Jed, I did a little research. I went down memory lane a little bit, trying to find other bad divisions. I have a couple here. I just want to throw them out.

None of these reached the level of what we're doing with right now, at least in my opinion. I had heavyweight 2006, just like you, Tim Sylvia champion, Jeff Munson, Andreeloski, like boring boring tour's old ass like really the most boring version of Andre Alaski none of the pride guys

it's a total joke all the heavyweights are over in Japan like people earning decisions by Olesio Swayrio Silva Svario Silva oh my God people like this is how people were earning title shots

being decision like decisioning a Serio Silva you have guys from like UFC 12 still in there like a trade telling men and stuff like it was rough Sylvia versus Jeff Munson is one of the funniest visuals for a fight I've ever seen in my life. That was like one of the earlier UFC fights I ever, like sat down at a pay-review party to watch and it was so... It's one of the worst fight that's ever happened.

It's literally ever happened. As I was going through it, felt like that was, that was the low point, heavyweight 2006, but I have a couple other honorable mentions here. Light heavyweight 2018 to 20. That was when it started getting pretty gross in the second Jones reign, right? like DC's left. You have a washed up Alexander Augustus and you have Anthony Smith getting title shots, Corey Anderson's.

It's just not great. Chaco Santos. Yeah. That's pretty bad. That was a bad time. Welterweight, 1998 to 2000, which is maybe like, that's pre-modern era, but that's like Pat Milletage, John Alessio, like, Andre Petaneras who got a title shot off a one and O record in MMA.

Like that was just, it was a rough scene. Flyweight. 2016 to 17 where we have DJ at the top, but then we're also sort of at the point where like nobody knows what to do with this. People get into how shots off the tough. Wilson Hayes, Ray Borg.

I almost had flywood on this, but I didn't even have the DJ point. I was going to go like that year after they got rid of him. When at one point there were literally like 14 flyweight on roster. Yeah. When if you were a flyweight in the UFC, you had a ranking because they did not have any because they were actively trying to kill it.

I was like, Yeah, that's pretty bad. Still not as bad as women's 135. Still not as bad. And then, of course, Women's Featherweight where I feel like that's almost to the side. That's a lifetime achievement award. Yeah.

And that was it. That was the list. Like for the most part, UFC divisions have been decent at best. They have been a C tier at best for most part throughout history. I can't think of another one. I say this with no sense of hyperbole, no sense of exaggeration.

January 24th, 2024. This is the world. division in the UFC in the history of the UFC. 30 years. This is the worst division we've ever seen. And I don't know how to fix it. Congrats to Raquel Pennington. Let's just let's sound.

Congrats to Raquel and Juliana Pena. It's going to be a, I think, I don't know how great the fight cell is going to be. The bill's going to be good. That's going to be a buzzworthy women's band to weight title fight. I think people are we talking about at the very least that they've laid the foundation for that. Okay. Do you know what happens when we get that fight? Julianna Penaeonio becomes champion.

if she doesn't, if Rockout Pinnington wins and she absolutely can win, I might probably will even pick her. She will have fought everyone in the top seven of the class. So she will by definition have to be rematching people. Or no, Aaron Blanchfield will come up, Voughtina could go up. We don't want Aaron Blanchfield. We don't want to sell her with this good way. That's not a thing we want to do.

I'm telling you two things that I have come to think as we have gone through this I've looked at it. One, there is a real world of Rockell Pennington, who, like I said, it's one of the worst fighters to ever hold the UFC belt, could be a long-reigning champion because there's no one coming up to beat her. And two, legitimately, if I'm Rhonda Rousey, I'm just coming back to reclaim the belt because, like, she probably could. And then end her story on a better note.

If there is ever a window, it's right now. Yeah. Raquel beats Ronda. Raquel beats Ronda. I'll say it right now. Raquel beats Ronda. I wouldn't confidently choose that. Dude, Misha Tate's got a title shot this year.

Like, she might even get it like in the first half of the year. Like, depending on this. She needs a win. She needs a win. I don't even think she needs a win. If Pennington beats Giuliana Pena, guess is going to come to her defense. Her good buddy, Julia, uh, or Misha Tate. Like, the storyline's already there.

You beat the player, now you beat the coach of her on the Ultimate Fighter. Like, that is storyline. I don't think Misha needs to fight at all. I think that went over Abilah probably gets her a title shot right now. She beat Misha. She hasn't went over Misha. She beat her forever ago. That was their retirement fight.

There's a storyline here. I don't need to slap a two on this one. I need Melissa Dixon to be good. Go Rakel. Yeah. I think she will be good. I need Melissa Dixon to be good. That this is, then this is therein lies the thing.

In no other division in the history, modern history of the UFC, has there been no present, but also no future. And right now at Bandtwey, there is no present and there is no future. Other divisions have had the mirage of a future or like the reality of a future.

We don't even have the mirage of a future right now. What you just said puts fear in my heart, Mike Heck. If Raquel Peniton beats Juliana Pena, what the fuck is her next title fight? Are we doing like, Kedlin Vieira? Is this Holly home getting back in the mix? Like, what are we doing at that point? I mean, luckily, luckily the UFC doesn't like to go back to the well a third time

because Pettington Holm, the first one wasn't like super awful, but the second one was one of the five worst fights I've ever watched. So I don't think we can go that route again. Even if the UFC really wants to put Holly in that spot, I don't think they would risk it doing it against Rocky again because that second fight was so bad. I mean, just the worst. Also, Melissa Dixon is no longer Melissa Dixon, I just learned.

She's Melissa Mullins now. Oh. Oh, that's worse. That's not. That's worse. You're not to become a champion with that name. She's Melissa Tomlin's in the bad quarterback name. This is the bad quarterback name theory where like no quarterback in NFL history that's

been good has had a bad name. Melissa Mullins does not sound like a champion. She needs a nickname. the front of the name like magic Melissa Mullins like that there was a that's how you transform it yeah maniac Melissa Mullins like you need it's got to be MMM nickname comes first and then maybe we have something token triple M do I said this on something else I'm just going through topology here's how bad what women's 135 is are we still on this oh my god are we still on this Ronda rousey is number 35 in the tapology rankings at women's 135

Are you serious? She has not fought in. Is there like 35 total fighters? No, no. They, you know, they do the thing where if you're a regional, you'll get the thing.

She is number 35. She has not fought in eight years. This way class, this way class morals. We can move on, but just if you, since you have the screen up, I want to dart throw this.

I'm just going to throw a random number and I want you to tell me, well, who's ranked at that number. What's the number 22 women's band to weight in the world? Lina, Elbow Queen Lansberg. Four straight losses, Lena Landsberg has.

God. Hold on the number 22 with an iron fist. Unbelievable. Honestly, that was a perfect person to just It's your beautiful division is just I just want to be before. I was not laughing during that whole.

Everyone else was laughing. I hope my silence was heard. I'm not laughing and disrespect. I'm laughing at the statistics and the history that was just pulled out throughout this whole thing. It's shock. I laugh when I'm shocked. And I'm shocked at a lot.

Yeah, this is a nervous laughter almost. A.K., the winner of Melissa formerly Dixon now Mullins versus Nora Cornoli is your one hope. Is that any book? Is that booked? Yeah. I should have known that, of course. Of course, I knew those. Per topology, it is.

Granted, the future of the division will be 32 and 34 respectively. So, you know. tough future there, but that's the hope for new blood. All right. We should move on before AK starts breaking down. I think we broke in AK. This is the second time in a week I've been personally attacked, I feel. And this one is way worse.

Is this one meaner? Way worse. Way worse. Oh, God. What the hell? All right. Last thing of the day, and then we'll pour some out and get out of here. Just for quickly on this, two other big moves we had.

You can't even move forward. I can't believe what we're dealing with. It's so ridiculous. This was the Division of Stars. As Shaheen was saying, we got some big movers this past months. Dude, like 10 years ago, like 10 years ago, you would have put women's bantam weight at like at S-tier. You would have put it like Esther A tier.

Like it was so good. Ah, God. It was headlight, legitimately headlining and drawing hundreds of thousands of pay-per-view buys. It's the light, heavyweight division of women's MMA. Once upon a time, it was good. Now it's awful. So, Jehane, how about that, Magma, Akalaya, Movstar, Ivoev, and Kajin, Hauru Kyi Hauru Kyi, how about that?

How about that? Yes, yes. Two other big moves we had on the MMA fighting global rankings, just very briefly hitting these. Movisar and Vloev, moving up at Featherer. way, this man, this man has it right now. He is right there within a title shot, moves up from number nine to number five. So Moversar of live now top five featherweight after beating Arnold Allen. And then Magal Med and Kalliev, the man everyone for three years has been predicting to be champion. He slightly moves up. He is now a top three light heavyweight for

us after beating Johnny Walker moves up from number four to number three. I'll just show this around the horn really quickly. Who you most impressed? by and over under 1.5 of these two guys holding a belt before they are done in MMA. Mike, let's go you first. I mean, I think they both will. I mean, at some point in their careers, but as I put in print in M.AFighting.com, it's a tremendous website. And this wasn't a future bet with plus 1,800 odds.

I predicted, like legitimately, that Mobs are of Loyaf will end 2024 as the featherweight champion of the world. And boy, do I feel much better about that pick after this fight with Arnold Allen. Yes, very close fight. Yes, some weirdness in the third round because no one can be consistent on rule sets in MMA. But Mavzar of Vloyev is going to fight for the belt in his next fight. If Alexei, especially if Volkovsky beats Ilya to Poria, and I kind of feel like he's going to just because of the vibes I'm feeling. Like, Vloiv's getting title shot this year. So, and I think he just might be the guy because the Tuporio is going to thumb him up a little bit to the point where like the damage bar, Jedmishu,

is going to start just sort of wavering a little bit more for Volkovsky. And I think of Loiv's just going to get him at the right time. Ankelyev, like skill-wise is, like, if he fought Alex Perr right now, he, I would pick him to win. But the UFC is just kind of like groaning at the just mere thought of Magamette Ankylaiath being their champion right now because it's just, he's just going to have that aura to him. Dana White has already branded him a boring guy who doesn't need to be in main events for us

anymore. So I think his road's going to be a lot longer. And I think, I think they're just going to wait for Jamal Hill to come back for Alex Pereira. So I will say over one and a half, but if we're talking this year, I'll say under. He's, he's branded move star as well. He's Brandon Movesstar is boring as well, which is just ludicrous. I think there's an accidental one though. I would hope so. I would hope so. There's no way. He must have been talking about the middleweighty, middleweight fight. I don't know. It felt like he really had it in for Moussar, or like he's aware of Moucars' decision streak.

It just assumes because a guy hasn't been finishing that he's boring. It's just terrible. I don't know what that's about. And he's the worst fight he's ever seen? Like, didn't he go that far with this? He said it's one of the worst or like nobody enjoyed that or something. He must have been talking about the wrong fight. Yeah, that's where you think he must have been talking with the wrong fight.

But I'll take under one and a half. Just there's too much weirdness. I do think one of them will. I don't know which one. I just think there's too much weirdness, MMA to comfortably predict that two great fighters who should be competing for a teloshot sooner rather than later will actually win it. I don't know. I'm not willing to make that claim.

It's too logical. It's too logical. And you cannot be that logical when you're making these predictions, so I can't do it. I'll take the over. I'm virtually certain. Maguven Ankylaev will get the belt. I think Mobstar has a good shot at getting there. And, you know, if Volk beats Taborio, he's going to get there.

And then that's one more battle for Volk, one more bit of damage. like he's Volk is no longer getting better there's he is not improving he will only get worse every time out from this juncture and so of loyve has a chance to take that or if to pour he gets there i just think of what of loyiv has a good chance in the style matchup uh mike shout out to you just wanted to say uh we talked about this on the preview show of loyov to be champion by the end of the year plus 1,800 i we we talked about this in the pre-fight Q&A suggesting people go bet that because if he wins that number is going to come down plus 800 now it has dropped a thousand points with that one win over Arnold Allen it's very possible so I'm definitely taking the over on both of them I mean I already

have Anglive has my number one light heavyweight so of course I'm taking that I think I take the under just because I believe one of them will get it and I don't I'm not sure who and it's just too much like AK said there's just too much weirdness and wackiness and how some of the stuff plays out that it feels presumptuous to say that both these guys will, but I don't feel comfortable with that. Like I don't feel great about saying the under that that feels incorrect to me. But I do have to just, if we're shout now,

Mike, Mike, we're only like three weeks into 2024, but Mike has it laid out in front of him now to potentially have the greatest run of predicting UFC champions. Wow. You've just cursed him. You've just,

I don't want him to succeed. I don't want him to succeed. Because he's going to crush the rest of us on the website if he does. Good. When he threw out Armand Sauru Kian for lightweight, he was the only person to go away from Islam on the whole website. And that felt crazy to me because it's like, what's the road for Armin to get a title shot?

Now it's there. There's a very clear road for Armin to get a title shot this year. And Moussar, you also threw him out and very few people on the website had him. If you could nail both these, that's the only one. I was the only one on Mowzar as well. So I feel, I feel pretty good about it. I at least have a bet on Moussar. So which I respect.

I didn't listen to No Betzbar, but yeah. It's in print. It's in print. No value at all. Just I'm putting my putting the reputation out there of just terrible takes. Hopefully this turns it around for me. Well, let's get out of here. One last thing.

Big shout to Kioji. You keep reading Kioji. One big shout to Kioji just won the Risen Flyweight title on New Year's Eve. We didn't get a chance. I was just going to do that. He's talking. Well, I'm jumping on. I'm jumping on.

Do you want to do it? All right. A.K. I was going to set up the segment, but I'm not even, I'm not even, I'm so antsy about it. What's the thing we do here is we pour one out for our fallen soldiers, and we also welcome people in when they, uh, join them rankings. So, okay, it's all you. I forgot how the show works. Uh, so, uh, and now I've embarrassed myself and I don't know what to say. Koji Herkuchi beats that Makoto Shinru to win the rise and flyweight title, New Year's Eve show. Uh, he's been back at flyweight for a minute. He beat, uh, Hiramasa Okikubo

as well. And then there was the weirdness and the fact. first fight with Shinru with an eye poke, at end of the fight in 25 seconds. So, like, we hadn't quite, I think we knew he was back, but our panel wasn't quite ready to commit to putting him, ranking him back. It's got gold on his waist. Those are two quality wins,

Hiramasu and Shinru, both really good wins. And I think just also giving him credit for his past record flyweight. I think we're all kind of salivating at the possibility of him going back to the UFC someday and fighting the current crop. I would love to see a dozen of those matchups. Can you imagine Kioji getting just injected into that flyweight division? him right now. He's probably happy in Japan. It's a good chance he never fights again in the UFC and that's fine, but oh, how can you not be? There are a lot of rumors about it. Not everyone

be excited. One of our panelists barely thinks he deserves the ranking. That's, that's a criminal. That is a criminal ranking of Kioji or Gucci. He's back in at flyweight. He is top five and, and that feels right. Absolutely. I won't put this individual on blast publicly. Criminal ranking of Kioji or Gucci. A.K. You took it. Finish the one thing. Who we pulling out for? Yeah, we got to pour it out for a couple of mainstays, two names that have been in our rankings

since the beginning, since we started doing this a few years ago. Tisha Torres and Brian Ortega, now they didn't do anything wrong. They obviously haven't lost fights. They just haven't competed. Brian Ortega's all kinds of injuries have kept them out since the year fight, of course. And yes, Brian is rebooked, and that will happen actually a month from now. So we could see Branoetka right back in the rankings, but it had just been so long we had to remove the one-time title challenger and tisha torres being a mom you know

taking care of that she's got her own thing going on might not see her back in the rankings for a while we do almost sure she's going to fight again she's incredibly determined and in some of the most amazing shape of anyone the UFC roster so uh I think we'll see her fight again but just for now tisha's got to come out but she's been top 10 top 12 forever so we got to pour it out for tisha for now and ortega think he'll be back but I don't know we've had a little discussion on the side of Like if he loses to Ye'year again, do we put him right back in? I don't know. We'll see.

I will not. I won't rank him if he loses. His last win is straight up. Straight up. His last win is 2020 and it's over Korean zombie. Long time ago. That's so weird. It's so weird.

Also, super weird to look because I pulled him up when AK started talking. Like, he does have wins over people currently on roster at least. Like, you know, Julian Pania famously does not. But it's Clay Guida, Cub Swanson. and then Hanato Morcano, which is just so funny to me that that's a good win. It's not a great featherweight win now since also that win was seven years ago. So, you know, yeah, I just know you got a 2024. Again, I've said on many programs.

It's the year of truth, justice, freedom, meritocracy. That's what's coming to MMA. As a result, I intend to bring that to my rankings. And you got to fight to stay in. the rankings. You can't just squat on a ranking because it's something you did 10 years ago. You're going to have to be putting in the work Tommy Aspinall in this business to stay in my rankings. That's just going to be a requirement for me. Or take it kind of like stealth squatted too. Like he's been squatting a long time without really getting called on it. I'm not sure if he

loses this upcoming fight. I'm going to throw him back in there because I still feel like he's a top 15 talent, but I don't know how high I will go with that because you're right. The resume, you look at it. It's not great. It's tough. Tough, tough. All right. Well, this has been today's MMA fighting ranking show. We appreciate you guys, as always, for joining us.

This is a fun time. I hope you guys had a fun time. The train moves on. We got a week off here, but then all of a sudden we're right back at it. So keep it locked to MMA fighting for all of your podcast needs, editorial needs. It's a great website I've heard. I've got to check it out, but I've been meaning to do so. Check it out.

It's a good spot. I've heard. I've heard. That man is Mike Heck. That man is the infection. Alexander K. Lee. I'm Sean O'Shaity. We love you guys. We'll see ya. 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea.

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