MMA Fighting - Rankings Show: Wait, Is Sean O'Malley Really A Top-2 Bantamweight Now? | Plus UFC's Worst Rankings Squatters And More

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Sean O’Malley upset Petr Yan on Saturday at UFC 280, but did he really? When it comes to rankings, what’s the protocol when an unranked fighter sneaks one out from his division’s No. 2 contender with one of the most controversial decisions of the year? That’s right, the MMA Fighting Rankings Show is back after another crazy weekend at UFC 280! Co-hosts Shaun Al-Shatti and Alexander K. Lee are joined this month by Mike Heck and Jed Meshew to debate the fallout of the UFC’s latest trip to Abu Dhabi, O’Malley’s place in the new bantamweight pecking order, Islam Makhachev’s future after ascending as the king of the lightweight division, T.J. Dillashaw’s road following a disappointing showing against Aljamain Sterling, and more. The gang also take a moment to call out the sport’s worst offenders of the rankings squatting epidemic sweeping the UFC. Follow Shaun Al-Shatti @ShaunAlShatti Follow Alexander K. Lee @AlexanderKLee Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Follow Mike Heck @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to the M.BFighting Ranking Show. We appreciate you guys for joining us, as always. I hope you having a wonderful little start to your week here. Having a nice little October. My name is Sean O'Shti, and I'm here with the man, the king in the north. He is the Prince of Positivity. He is Alexander Cayley, A.K.

What's going on, man? How are we doing today? We're feeling really good. I mean, you know, there was a lot of an emotional come down from UFC 280. From an entertainment standpoint, it was a little bit mixed.

I don't know if it was quite the 10 out of 10 that I predicted it would be, but the top of the card left us with no shortage of talking points. And she and most importantly, no shortage of rankings movement. And that's what we're here for. That's why we watch MMA.

We just want to know what effect these fights will have on the MMA fighting global rankings. And for better or for worse, depending on your rooting interests, depending on your gambling interests, it was, we definitely got some notable results. So I know Jed has already had his victory lap. Oh, the victory lap has just begun, I'm sure. I know. That's true. The lap has started. I should say.

I shouldn't call the lap over. It's more like a parade than a lap. Yeah, that's more accurate, I feel. Yeah. All the way. through the thoroughfare up downtown Main Street. It's going to be great. We're going to have a great time.

So there we go. I mean, we already got into it. This is as you guys know, this is our monthly peak behind the curtains of the MMA fighting global rankings. And as AK alluded, it's been six weeks. It's been a hell of a crazy six weeks. We have rankings, media, going on over here,

lots of changes. But first, let's bring in the gang the rest of this month's panel. You already heard from him. The legal eagle himself, the only man with a law degree on MMA fighting, he is the host of No Betts Bard. He is the host of,

damn they were good. And again, he is a man who I just fully expect. We're going to be sick of this victory lap for the next three months. We're going to hear it. Jedmishu. What's going on, man? Three months. What are we expecting something to happen to Islam?

This man's about to hold the belt for like five years. And I'm going to be right there cheerleading the whole way. Shotgun on the Islam Hakachev, you know, fan bus. Let's go, baby. I'm excited. My man, proved me right. Champion. It's all it needs to be said.

Oh, God, I'm already sick of this. He's going to be a long stretch. Also, bringing him in. He is the watch party king himself. He is the host, a pack of a morning, the host of, on to the next one, co-host, I should say, aka he's your best friend in mine. He is Mike Heck. What's going on, man?

How are we doing, guys? Jed, I just have a quick question for you. Is this victory lap bigger for you than the Giuliana Pena victory lap? Because that was stunning and it didn't make me sick at all. And that lap could continue on. But this one, I think, might get to people a little quicker than that one. No, this one will be longer because, again, Makachov is going to have the belt forever.

But it's certainly not as big because nobody was on Pena. And I didn't even really believe it. I just said it and then believed it because I said it. This one, I just knew. Because if you ever watched this man fight, it was very evident that he was better than everybody else in the world. and a lot of people got there with me eventually, and now we're all there. Unanimous top lightweight, ladies and gentlemen,

couldn't be more excited. Yeah, and you've been pushing the Makachev thing longer because I don't know how long you were predicting like Pena could beat. Nunes, I assume that was a fight week thing. Maybe you dabbled with it when the fight was booked. That was a couple of weeks before, right? A couple weeks before on a BTL.

Macachef, we're talking nine, nine months. Literally the moment. The moment Dustin Poirier lost to Charles Olivera, Islam became his number one I win. I was outraged. I was outraged. And by the way, all the flowers in the world to Jedmishu. But let us say, he also predicted Porriere would be Charles Olivera. He also predicted Justin Gage would be Charles Olivera.

So I'm just saying, I'm just saying, he threw enough darts to the board and he eventually hit it. And it was a bullseye. Broke and twice a day, AK. It is. And I will say you were more, I feel like you were more confident about Makachep, again, not just necessarily beating all of it. But like your argument that he is the best guy at lightweight.

It wasn't just about like him beating Charles. You were like, none of this guy is the best guy. Yeah, yeah, because again, you I was, because technically you, yeah, you left to, you put him over all those guys. So yeah. Yeah. I was really confident that Porre would beat Charles too. And I felt good about that for around and a half.

And then then it went bad. I felt good about this one the whole time. And then after the first round, I was like, yeah, this is done. All right, cool. We've, I'm, I, I, I, I, I was. I was a little nervous because that whole fight, everything else I was talking about fight week. I was just, I missed at so many airballs.

Yeah. Let's not gloss over the fact that you had a really poor UFC 280. Really bad UFC 280. And so I was a little shook and I was like, I don't know. Because in my head, Piotrion is still a better fighter than Sean O'Malley. But I was wrong again. Like, maybe this is just what's going to happen. I, like, Islam's going to win for 23 minutes and then Charles going to do a Charles thing.

And then when they actually got in the cage, it was like, oh, I didn't need to be concerned. This is, the fight was not competitive. That fight was not like an absolute ass kicking, but it was not competitive because Zlomachiev doesn't have competitive fights. Well, so that's a great segue. Because gentlemen, let's start here. Usually we start off these ranking shows where we kind of go around the horn. What was the standout story, the standout move for you this month?

But this month, it feels very clear, very obvious. It's the man we've been talking about for the past few minutes now. We have a new number one lightweight in the world. world. The Islam Makachef era is upon us. And as we said, get used to it because it might be here for a while. He just demolished Charles Olivera. It wasn't even close. Jumps from number three, which he was previous, all the way to the unanimous number one, as Jed said. And here's the thing. This is what has sat with me over the days since this fight. Because I know we lionize Habib Numerga Madov. And rightly so, right? One of the greatest careers we've ever seen. Cut short,

but ultimately what he did was so spectacular. But if you take a step back and you look, outside of just this one little blip in 2015, which I think was like Islam's second UFC fight, his run to the belt has basically been every bit as dominant as Abebs ever was, and it's been seven years long, so it's been a very sustained stretch. Jed, you pointed out this stat on Saturday, and it blew me away, and it's all I've been thinking about since.

Charles Oliver did the best of anyone in the UFC over seven years outside of that one knockout against Islam. He landed more significant strife on Macha Chiff than anyone over the past seven years, And that sounds impressive until you realize that it means he just landed 19 strikes. And that was it. It's ridiculous. That is utterly ridiculous.

And it's something that I feel like is flown under the radar because of how weird this road has been. But now, Mike, I mean, we're here. The Islam era is here. People were joking with me because I named my column, welcome to the Islam Makachaf era. And people who kept, oh, the Machita era. It was so long, right? This feels different. This feels like one that's going to be sustainable.

Who could possibly beat this man, Mike? in front of him. I don't know. And I think one of his more interesting tests is going to be his first actual title defense. At least that's what it appears right now against the number one pound for pound guy. And in Alexander Volcanovsky, hopefully that happened sooner rather than later. But like I said, heading into the fight, everything on paper told me that this is Islam

Makachev's fight to lose. Like there's just no way that Charles Oliver can win from a stylistic perspective. I thought a lot of the stats on Oliver, some of the stats, some of the stats, stylistic tendencies people kept throwing out about Oliver were overblown, especially in this matchup. But to me, Charles Oliverer just defied logic the entire time. And the way I looked at it was, it was a complete vibes pick. For me, it was until I see somebody beat this man, I'm just going to pick him every time. And lo and behold, here comes Islam Makachev, had a great first round. And I knew, Jed said he knew after the first round that this fight was kind of a rap. I knew in probably the first

30 seconds it was a wrap. The first exchange, you saw Olivera's emotions just change. She was like, whoa, this guy strikes better than I ever gave him credit for. And he hits harder than I thought he was going to hit. And you could tell right there and then, like, I'm getting in desperation mode right now. Like, I have to. That's the only chance I have to win this fight. And he couldn't even get the chaos clause evoked in this fight at all in any way. The most significant strike he landed in this fight was a freaking upkick off of his back. And if we go back and count those 19 strikes, I would say more than half of them were off of his back, whether their elbows or just crazy up kicks trying to land stuff.

That just shows you just how good this man is. So two things I took away from this. One is what you guys have been saying. Islam Akchev, there's a chance he's going to be in this spot for an awful long time. And I don't know if there's anybody that could beat him. But the second thing to kind of answer your question, I can't wait for like the middle of 2025 when we see the rematch between Islam Makachev and Armand Sarukian for the UFC my weight title because that fight is going to rule because the first fight was great.

And that was Serochian's first UFC fight. Bacchukh, clearly won. But Srucun gave him a handful three years from now and these two guys lockhorns again, it's going to be amazing. It's going to be like my most interesting fight to watch maybe of the entire decade, if we're being honest, because I can't wait to see it. Of course, Sourkeon's got to get there, but I'm confident he will. I just don't know if anybody beats this guy.

And if it happens, it's not going to be anytime soon. I've realized that my kid's probably going to be in middle school by the time Islam Makachchev loses that title. So it's going to be a long rain. It's going to be a fun rain. And by the way, I'm glad we talked about the reaction, Sean, that you were getting on social media.

I was baffled. I'm sitting there on Sunday, sitting next to G.C., watch us of football in New York. And I see this tweet about people coming out and saying Islam Makachev is a boring fighter. What in the blue hell are you talking about? This dude is like looking to finish every single second of these fights.

It's so dumb. It's so dumb. The only B word I have is to you. Bologna. It's Bologna. That's the B word I have for you. But other than that, I mean, give this man his flowers,

give this man his respect. He ain't boring. He's just damn good. And we're going to have to deal with it for a long time. I can make a case for him being boring. It's very simple. No, boring by dominant.

Yeah, boring by proxy, just being so dominant. You know that he's going to win because there's, you can't get hit. You can't hit him. Like it's, how do you beat him if you can't hit him and you can't outgrap him?

What do you do? Dude. What do you do? You lose. It's what you do. I was absolutely stunned because I, you know, you write your post fight column. You put it out there and then whatever you check your mentions a few hours later. And I check my mentions.

It was just full of, oh, now it's going to be so boring. Oh, boring champ. We're talking about a guy who has like five straight finishes in a row who's just out here. Like the Dagestani wrestling is not this lay and prey. And like people would say this with a beat too. Zamba rules. Yeah, man. At no point are we watching like John Fitch out here with Habib or Islam or any of these guys.

Like all this stuff is so silly to me. It just reads as someone who's upset that Charles lost or someone who maybe doesn't like Islam or whatever. But Mike, you did something there. You slipped in a little something, some in the middle of your conversation. 2025, basically projecting outwards that Islam's about to have the longest lightweight rain that we've ever seen. And that ties into what I was about to ask. because I mean, the lightweight division is just notoriously volatile, right? Like, it is one of the deepest divisions in sport, if not the single deepest,

and all of the great lightweight champions we've had. You can go down the list, BJ Penn, RDA, Eddie Alvers, Frankie Edgar, Benson, Henderson, Charles Oliver, Habib, like, no matter who you want to do. No one has ever gotten past three title defenses, because, again, it's just too deep, it's very difficult. If you had to bet one way or another, are you with Mike on this? Is this a 2025, 2026 type of thing? Like, is Islam that guy? Are we about to see the beginning of a historic run?

Because all he needs is for to be the most decorated lightweight champion we've ever seen. Yeah, let me go to our incredibly intelligent readers and fans of Mayfaiting.com first. Part of our shakeup, our shakeup article, which hopefully people read, there's a poll at the bottom. How many successful tele-defense will Islam Makachev have? Zero to one, two to three, breaks the record, but losing. it eventually or like Habib just retires without losing the title. Pretty overwhelmingly, the top two options either breaks the record before losing or retires or losing the title.

They're like 76%. 42% say he'll break the record and eventually lose. I agree. Habib style retires, doesn't lose the title. Actually, maybe I don't agree. I remember being a little surprised when Shaheen, I think you brought it up before. or us on some of the pre-fight stuff, or maybe it was on No Bet's Bar,

you guys brought up as a group, I'm not sure, that the record was three, because when we heard about that for, like, heavyweight, like when Steve A broke it with like three title defenses, we weren't surprised.

Like, we know heavy weight is so volatile. Lightweight, there's a lot of, like fighters review as kind of being these great champions, like BJ Penn, Frankie Edgar, and, yeah,

they only had three defenses. Some of them were for kind of interesting reasons. BJ was kind, you know, he dabbled in welterweight, Maybe he could. It's all the same. It's all sneakly the same reason, A.K., which is, lightweight is too deep.

And by the time you get, like, actually get to the title, you're not getting there like John Jones when he's 23 and still has upside. You get in there when you're 31. You have a small window left before you have post-prime. Yeah. And before the next dude comes. And to bring up that Dillash statistic that I just could not get over that she brought up for 280, like no one under 170 like has ever been an undisputed.

to champion at 36 and over or something like that. Not even like Deveson is the oldest ever right now. Right. At 34. 34. Yeah. So yeah, it's true. Once you get it, you're just, you know, unless you're defending it two or three times

a year, you're just not going to be able to hold on to it for that long. And again, like I was saying, some of them dabbled another weight classes. B.J. went up to welter. Sneakly going about things incredibly smartly, just trying to rattle off as many as you can because you've got a big window, baby. So get them in. But in my opinion, I'm just looking at my ranking.

I don't think anyone in the top 15 right now beats him. I kind of like Benile Daryouche. I just want maybe because I want him to get the title shot, but he'd be a minus after this performance. If he was, if he was immediately next, he'd be like minus 400 at least. 400, right?

I think Beno has a chance right now. Even Volcanowski, it'd be like a minus 200. I think he'll be a serious underdog. Volcanovkovsky is actually a minus 400 already. Oh, already. He opened as a minus 400. A size matters. Or I'm sorry, plus Islam open is a minus 400.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. If we're talking pound for pound, then you can say Volkanowski's better than him all day. But I think when they actually step into the cage together and, you know, we're talking about a practical real thing that's happening. Size matters, man. Size matters.

Volcanowski might be the better, more skilled fighter. I don't know. But Magashe is definitely bigger. So that's, any, that's a whole other thing. Can I derail us very quickly and just. Sure. And then I'll kind of throw out some dirt forces. Yeah.

Yeah. I just want to pull you all. because we talked about it in the post show, and I get the vibe that a lot of people are like, well, Volk's probably one of his better challenges. It doesn't seem like anyone really thinks he's going to win based on the odds and AK's poll. I wouldn't watch the little tape because I was interested. I actually feel really confident that Islam will beat Volk. Like, Volk will not be, you know, totally dominated.

But I think it's going to be a pretty clean win for Islam. And I just kind of want to see how you guys feel about your early thoughts on how that fight might shake out. I think I agree with you ultimately, like in terms of early thoughts. I haven't, I haven't thought too deep into it. But when that 400 line came out of Islam being that far of a favorite, feels like that kind of feels right, right? Like that kind of feels like an accurate line. I would pick Islam pretty easily right now.

And I have focus. Yeah. Here's what I was thinking of. And my mind works in very strange ways. So allow me to take you back in my life about 30 years ago. So when I lived in Boston, we had a house. We would go on vacation in Maine. We'd go like once a year or a couple different times a year.

And once it was like during the fall and it was in Freiburg, Maine, this little farmer town. And they had a big fair there. And it was like one of my lifelong goals to be selected to join this little contest. It happened like once during the week where these little kids would run around and like try to catch these like super fast little baby piglets. Like they would run around like kids would just have to like pick them up and if they got them like they could sell them back to a farmer or whatever. It was a weird thing like in hindsight, maybe not the coolest thing in the world.

Maybe a little animal subjection there. But at the same time I was like, wow, these things are so fast. And these kids would be right on them and they'd have them tracked and they were like big small. It didn't matter. And they would try to grab these pigs and the pig would just maneuver his way out of there, just intelligently defending himself. That's the one thing I think it's interesting about this fight is that,

while Makachev is bigger and Makachov is a great athlete, I think Volkanowski's going to have to play the greased pole, grease lightning game where he just is so shifty in and out, where that Makachchev is going to have a hard time getting a hold of him just because of the quickness in the in and out event. And now let me just tell you this. To say that Makachov is not going to get this man to the ground would be the most moronic statement I ever made into a live microphone.

He is eventually going to get him down. But how long will it take? Will he be able to defend intelligently if Makachov gets hands on him? like but i think for a while i think volkenoffsy's shiftiness could make this fight a little more interesting and if he could score some some actual potent offense on this guy with the leg kicks and just be in and out and just be super fast i think it makes the fight interesting like volk's no idiot he is going to know this man inside and out now will that matter once the cage door locks and we go for 25 minutes potentially probably not i'm still i would pick machochev to win but i think

this is a like i said on the post fight show i think this is a much more competitive competitive and intriguing fight than the Oliver one, but mostly for that reason, because Volkovsky is a very good defensively sound fighter. He's very shifty, and he's very tough to get your hands on, whether it's in a grappling sense or a striking sense, even if you're in his own Machachup. I think he will eventually do so, but I think he might struggle a little bit just to deal with the, with the shiftiness and all that stuff. So I think Volkadovsky, his fight IQ is going to be more, it's going to be more important than this fight than his actual like in K. skill set. I agree. If I set the over under at 2.5 defenses for Islam, so basically like he's going to tie the record if you go over. Are you going over or under? I'm going over. I think he's going to get more than 2.5. What about you, Jed? Yeah, for sure going over. I think he's going to

pretty, I think he's going to come just shy of dominating Volcanovsky. I think Mike laid out the way to go about it. But here's the, I think the thing that Islam doesn't get credit for and not just Islam, I'm like, Habib never got credit for this. And I don't know who is doing it in that camp. I don't know whether it was Javier Mendez or Abdulmanap or it may just be Habib. They are so well scouted. Like, they are so prepared. And, like, the first time it ever struck me was Porier, because Porier tries to hit a switch on Habib.

And Habib is incredibly ready for it and rolls all the way through and ends up and mount off of it. and does it a second time. Like, they clearly have set rules to live by in situations. And, like, you could just see. You could watch it in the Charles fight. Like, they, I agree, Volkinaw, he has great fight IQ. Islam and Habib and Company are maybe the best at it that nobody gives credit for. So, like, I think he's going to win that one.

Theoretically, he's going to fight Benile Dary Eush next. Or, I mean, he'll beat the hell out of the winner of Chandler Poet, if that's what's happening. right. That one should be a walk as far as I'm concerned. And then if he fights Benny Daryush, I think that, I actually think Daryush is the most difficult fight for him. At lightweight. At lightweight.

At lightweight. Yeah. At lightweight in the next year. Honestly, the big, the question of whether he goes beyond, I think he'll get three defenses because they will think that that is an important number. He might not go for four because at that point, then we may see him try and pursue a second belt. Like maybe that's in the cards for him. So if you set the line at three and a half, I have a lot more trepidation just because

that's also a lot of wins. Maybe he abandons the division. Two and a half, I'd feel pretty comfortable hitting that. What about you, A.K.? Let me, I'm going over two and a half for sure. I want to throw out some names. Because like I just said, I agree. I think if Porreier or Chandler fight him next, that's just a resume builder.

It sounds so disrespectful to those guys. But we just kind of know, Forier, I mean, we saw the Habib fight. That's just real. That's just real. And Chandler, I mean, Chandler's, I guess, kind of an X-factor, but I just don't see him being Islam. So outside of that, then we-

I think Chandler, I think Chandler has a better chance of beating Habib than he did Islam. Because Habib, like, think of them as similar fighters, right? But Habib is a better athlete. And as a result, he relied more on that, which created more opportunities for somebody to just get him with a piece of hyperviolence. Islam is a slightly worse athlete, and so is vastly more defensively responsible than Habib was. Like, I don't think Chandler can do anything to that, man. All right.

Let me throw out some names here that we haven't brought up. Again, and now we've got to look ahead. Let's say Makachev does two or three tell defenses, knocks off a lot of the usual suspects, knocks off Wolfkinowski, knocks off Daryush. Then we're really going like, holy hell who they'll compete this guy. So we've got to look it up in covers. I mean, hopefully at that point, we're looking at like Fiziv and stuff like that, right? So that's the first time with that.

Fiziv is also fun. What do you guys? So just give a quick. Give me a quick react. Fiziv. Fadzeev's a really fun fight. Yeah. I still favor Islam ultimately.

I favor Islam pretty heavily because the way he scores takedowns. Like Fiziv didn't stop RDA from engaging with him. Like RDA was still able to touch him. And that is the problem. You cannot let Islam touch you because that's when the series of events turn bad for you. Broadstrokes, I like the fight. 5 and O in the UFC, 24 and 1 pro record. Demir is Magulov.

Give him two years. In two years, I think he is really, really interesting. I think so, too. Very, very great, great game all around. He's got a wicked jab, which I think is an important weapon. If you're going to try and fight Islamakchev, I think Demir has a really good shot in a couple of years. I'll throw it a couple more. If you can get there.

Jalen turns. Yeah, that's the thing is, he's going to have a hell of a pat. He's going to get to him. He's going to have a hell of a pat together. Jalen Turner. Jalen Turner. I think Jailenternary is washed. And I'm a big Jalen Turner guy.

Jalen Turner was the name I was looking at on mine, AK, where he has the most to go. Like, I need to see the most evolution from him. But his sheer sides and length. He's just so long and spindly. Make him interesting. Yeah, that can make him interesting. But I think I'm ultimately with. Ultimately, it can make it interesting, but also it can make a giant target for Islam to get underneath and do his thing.

And then the last one, and this was, I mean, this really was brought up a long time ago, probably when they were first matched. Really, when they were first matched up, Sarukyan rematched somewhere down the road. That's funny. You already know how I feel about that. That's fun. I mean, I'm going to say, yeah, I think, I think that fight's just going to be fantastic. I think at that point, Surukian will be ready to go. He'll be in his prime.

He'll be, the lessons will be learned. I can't wait to watch him fight his Magulov because a lot of the questions I have about him are certainly going to be answered in that fight. I want to say one thing about the Jalen Turner thing. I'm going to take him off the board for this discussion for one reason. Both those guys are not all that active. So it's going to be like when Jed says it's going to be a long road for Jalen to get to a title fight. I mean, it's going to be a long road. If that fight happens and I'm damn here for it when it does, it might not even be at 155.

Like if Islam goes up and wins the second belt, that's going to be a welterway fight because how eventually, and I'm not going to question Jalen making. the weight now, but a couple of years, because he struggles to make 155 even now. He's a giant human being. A couple of years from now, I don't think he's going to be able to make it. He's just not going to. So maybe we see those two guys fight for the welterweight title down the line. And I'm here for that, man. That's just going to be, that's compelling television. No, yeah. I'm with all of you guys. I think ultimately, I wrote this in my column on Sunday. I think this is going to be a record-breaking lightweight run. And I know that feels reactionary.

And like a lot of people do this after every pay-per-view of, oh, this guy's the greatest we've ever seen but like I feel like I'm very measured with that stuff and I don't throw that out willy-nilly but this really just does feel like it's going to be something that we haven't seen before. You are much better about that than say me. Yes. Who's been saying he was going to do this since January. I try to be a little patient. Just quickly, one last thing on the Islam and then we're going to move on.

Turning to the pound for pound aspect of this because Islam shot up out of nowhere. It was Leon Edwards-esque, right? He comes into this fight unranked on our pound-for-pound ranking. he instantly slots in at number three, which is what Charles was before this fight. Charles drops to eight, AK, you and I had Islam at number six, and that was behind Volk, Izzy Francis, Leon. You had Usman in there. I had Sterling in there.

Mike, you have him at four behind Volk, Izzy Francis, and Jed, of course, you had him at one. I feel like you're just proving a point or trying to do something with that. And again, despite the fact that you had Charles at number six going into that fight, but whatever. Talk me through this, fellas, and where we ended up. There's number three in the world right now with basically one signature win. Does that feel right or is that projection based on what we think he's going to do? Like, how do we end up here? A little bit of both.

I'll be honest. Like, when I was first doing this, he wasn't going to be. I immediately said, I think the first thing I typed in our Slack was that's the number one pound fighter in the world. And then I was going to walk it back because it was just like, to me, is there's a little bit, like, has the most accomplished resume of any. in this discussion. But then I saw a rogue panelist also put Machchev at the top and I was like, this is where my corner. You two just emboldened in each other constantly.

Yeah. We can't put these, you can't put the two kids in the class next to each other. You can't, they're fine on their own. They're fine on their own. You seat them next to each other. That's when the trouble begins. That's when the wet willy start and then the throw in the paper at the other kids. And I was originally going to have him at four.

And then I saw a rogue panelist. And I was like, well, how would it look if me, if I, the Islam-Machachachachov guy, was beaten in this regard? So I think it's defensible because I'm just going to throw it out there. And you guys can then come at me for a separate thing if you want to relitigate last ranking show. I think Islam-Machchev would beat Leon Edwards if they fought. So I feel okay, putting him at the top-pound spot right now. Also, I thought I'd get more pushback. I saw some head knots coming from people on this call.

So I put him at one. That is entirely projection. And I kind of feel like him being at three on our total rankings. There's a lot of that energy in there. Yeah, it feels a bit high a little bit, to be honest. But also the same rogue panelists just aggressively disrespects Francis and Gano, who's very clearly one of the top five Bound for Pound Fighters in the world or whatever. So it all kind of levels out in a place that I'm comfortable.

with. I'm totally okay with him being three because it also makes the narrative of their pound for pound fight even more fun. One versus three, that's got to be the best we've had in the UFC, right? Other than John and John. John and Cornet. Yeah, other than John and Cormier.

I'll say this. The road panelists is indefensible 95% of the time. I will say this, though, which is really interesting going back and looking at it. There are only two of us who even had Mockachev in their pound-for-pound rankings before this fight. The rogue panelist had him at number nine. I had him, I had to put him in. I put him in number 20. So

him bumping from nine to one, not the craziest thing he's ever done. Jed didn't even have him on the pound-for-pound list, which is like wild to see. I was kind of a shocking revelation to me, but I have to do points. I threw the points out for this one. I would also say, yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say, I will also say that part of what fact did it and outside of everything I said is Leon Edwards is like very high up and deservedly for the win. But at the same time, that one, like, it feels better to me to just boldly say Makachev's the best fighter in the world than to be like, Leon Edwards is one of the five best fighters in the world or whatever as opposed to he had a great performance, you know. But the thing is, those wins, both Makachev and Edwards kind of in the same boat because. what those wins did was capped off lengthy wind streaks, right? Machachev was, what, 10 straight?

So this was 11, I think 11 straight wins. And also they were both for people who desperately needed signature wins, right? Like that's sort of the crows. Yeah, big finishes, right? Leon was, if you exclude the no contest, it was like nine straight or something like. And if you include the no contest, it was like three straight and then undefeated in the last nine or ten, however you want to add it. So it just felt like a very dramatic course correction. But it doesn't feel that wrong.

It feels like did have strong resumes, but when it comes to pound for pound, we put a lot of emphasis on people who are champions. So we have to have all these champions in our list. Like, I guess that's what? What, 10? How many divisions are in the UFC? 10? Oh, men's, men's a difference. Yeah.

And you have to include, oh, eight. Excuse me, eight. Eight. Math is hard. And you have to include all eight of those guys, plus, you know, some of the number one contenders. So if there's one thing I like about the rogue panelist's list is he's kind of decided that he's favors later. weight classes and that leads to a list again that doesn't necessarily have to have all these champions as such high positions, which is why his Makachev to a number one jump wasn't so

dramatic. Again, it would have looked less strange if we had Makachiev on there somewhere previously. And again, same story with Edwards. So I don't know. I don't know if we're seeing some kind of sea change in the pound for pound rankings. They're very fickle as it is, but I don't think there's anything wrong with having Makachev or Volcanovsky, number one. I'm an Izzy guy. I have easy number one. But if you're going Machachab, if you're going by the pound for pound, sort of the more abstract definition of it, you're saying, you know, heavyweight Makachev would beat heavy weight and Ganu.

Featherweight, Makachev would beat featherweight Wokanovsky. And I think it's hard to argue against that. And so there is a justification for it. Again, I have no problem with it. And again, pound for pound is just such a weird, such a weird thing anyway. Yeah, gentlemen. I mean, we talk about all the time, the fluidity within the sport, how quickly things can If you look this time last year at the pound-for-pound rankings, top five, you're looking at

Kamaro Uzman, Israel, Sanja, Francis Ngano, Dustin, Dostin-Gon-Gon-Oxan-Voski. And then you compare that to today, Volkanovsky, Izzy, Mokachev, Edwards, and Gano. A lot of parody for a top five in the entire sport. That's a pretty significant change just over the course of a year. Dude, and Volcanovsky, I would, I think it's reasonable to argue he will not be in this list this time next year. man, it's 34. It's really hard to stay on top

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where we ended up, let's now move on. Sugar Sean O'Malley and the Bantamway chaos, because right now, 135, 155, two best divisions in the sport. We already knew that, and they both took center stage in this ranking cycle. But, so Sean O'Malley, I wouldn't say that MMA fighting has been disbelievers in Sean, doubters in Sean.

I don't know that anybody particularly has been outward in their approach of Sean doesn't deserve to be sort of among this group at Bantamway. But heading into UFC 280, not only was he unranked. He wasn't even a far-off, as AK likes to say. He wasn't a fighter also receiving votes. He was just not in anybody's top 15 entirely. And I think that speaks obviously to the depth of the class. but also, fellas, it's a dawn of a new day.

It's a new era. And y'all, I think I'm fairly sure. I could be wrong, but Sean might have just made what is the biggest rankings jump in the history of this show. Because he went from unranked all the way to number two after his win over Piotrion at UFC 280. But it's funny the way this works out because there's all this controversy around the decision. A lot of people obviously think Peter won and coincidentally, and it's a total coincidence, Sean O'Malley actually ends up locked in a dead heat points-wise in the way our internal scoring system is

with Peoria on a total tie. So they're both in the number two spot tied, AK, did we end up in the right place? Yeah, we definitely did. I think I'm the only one. I think I have O'Malley the highest because I just couldn't, you know, when someone has a spot like Peotriyana,

he has the number two spot in our rankings, then he loses. Your options are either whoever beat him, you're just given that number two spot, bump him right up there, or you bump both guys down and then you move someone else one person up there, two person up there.

And that way, you know, it's not such a dramatic jump for a guy like O'Malley to suddenly go from unranked to number two. Like, oh, maybe he should be number four, number five. But because of all the guys that Yon have beaten, my MMA math dictates that O'Malley has to go to number two. I'm totally down, by the way, with the dispute over the call.

People can read robbery review. I don't think it's a robbery. However, I scored it for Yon. Everyone had made decisions, scored it for Jan. There's also a lot of comments from people in the media saying it was a close fight. Could have gone another way. I don't want to get to that whole thing. MmaFighton.com, robbery review.

Check it out. But he certainly proved he's a top five guy at worst with the way he brought it to Jan. It was just an incredible performance. So to not have him breakthrough after that would have felt wrong. It almost would have been better for him in the eyes of the public if he had like lost a split decision. and then if anything, we would have had O'Malley haters coming out as going like, oh, he should be higher, you know, if he ended up instead at like four, five or six, if he hadn't gotten the decision, we would have had a lot of people going like,

oh, O'Malley went toe to toe with him. He's a top three guy. Now, I don't know. Now there's probably more people going like, ah, he still doesn't deserve to be ranked. He got gifted a decision. I don't know. The whole discourse around it is unsavory. I'm not a fan of it.

It was an amazing fight. I hope people appreciate that. I hope when we look back on it, that's what we remember. I know that's not how it's going to be. That is not how MMA works. I understand. And Yon was outstanding. It's a shame that he has to take this loss of record and has this weird now like one and three.

Some one and three record is past four, but something like that, which does not tell the story of Peyard or Yon at all. Yeah, I love it. I love it at having O'Malley in the top three tied for two. Can I make a request, Sheen? Yes. Before we proceed with the segment. Can we not mention someone's name?

I certain former Olympian, not Olympian, Not Olympian, an Olympic gold medalist, a, former UFC, two-bit and jamming. I listened to the post-fight show, guys, made Mike HEC almost storm off the set.

I listened to the post-fight show. Why were we going to bring him up? He's not right. I know, you're right. He's not even a fighter. You're the one bringing him up. You are the one more than doing this. I'm not bringing him up to not bring him up,

if that makes sense. All right. So I don't want to, we won't mention it. You are the only one that would have brought him out. Okay. Good. Then I'm glad that.

That's how it is. I'm glad it was just me. Let's, let's move on. I never heard you guys, your voices go higher on the US, the, the, the 80 post fight show. It was scary. It was scary how much we did not want to talk about this person and how much, how badly bungled the top of the, the, uh, the bandit division has been. But I think we can talk about that. Just do the thing. Just do the thing. Just do the thing. Um, yeah. Um, yeah, AK, you mentioned it. You have O'Malley at number two now ahead of Peoria on just behind Algebra and Sterling Jed, just for transparency, for the viewers. You have a minute number four behind Marlon, Vera, Marab, and Aljo.

Mike, you have a number three behind Vera Sterling. I have a number five behind all those guys as well as Corey Sanhagen. How do you deal with this? Because I think everyone in this call scored the fight for Peotrion. It's a weird fight. I was going to move Sean up regardless. If he had lost that fight by split decision, I was probably going to move him into my top ten regardless.

I kind of struggled with this a bit, and ultimately I still put him below Pejorie Yon and a couple other guys in this division who I just feel like have done more. But I mean, how did you guys deal with this? How did you reckon with it? It was, I mean, it was tough, but it's mostly, I think shot O'Malley might be the most divisive fighter in our rankings.

Like, I think he's just one of those guys. And I think there's a reason that he wasn't even a FARB for a while because even though he technically has a win over Piadriyan, and I will give him credit that he would have been probably in my top 10, even if the judges got this right, at least watching it live. Now, I don't think it's a robbery. I scored the first round for Sean O'Malley

and I scored the third for Yon. And I'm still, I'm happy with the first round score because I think O'Malley did more damage. The third round, I want to go back and watch again because a lot of people seem to think that O'Malley won that round. So if I am as confident in the first round as everybody else is in the third round and scoring it for O'Malley,

then to me, O'Malley wins. So I have to go back and watch it again. Having said that, even having O'Malley at three, it's really divisive because when you look at Jan and Sanhagen and DeBalish Willie and other guys like that, you can go up the list and be like, I would pick this guy against this guy. I would pick this guy against this guy. I'd pick Peotriot.

I'd be this dude, this dude, this dude. For Sean O'Malley, I think that, I mean, you can make a compelling case against with just about anybody in these rankings that he could lose to all of them. Even Danny Sabes. Like I get, Danny Sabatella could beat Sean O'Malley in a fight. Like, and I would, I don't know if I would. pick him, but I would, there's a chance I would pick him to win that fight. Like, I think Riki Simone beats Sean O'Malley in a fight. I think Patchy Mix beats him. I think a lot of these guys beat him. Jan, I don't have like that same feeling with. So just seeing him at number three is just so

weird to me right now. But I think he deserves the spot. Like, his performance was incredible. I think he answered a ton of questions in the process. This was, again, this was kind of a house money fight. But if he got the doors blown off him by Peter Yan, it was devastating for him. I thought it was really bad for him, but he went in there. That first round was great. The second round was insane. And then heading into the third round, I'm like, no matter what happens here, Sean O'Malley's stock has risen tremendously. Even if he goes out and gets leg kicked and finish in the third, like he's good.

He has earned his spot as a top 10 Bannamway, in my opinion. But he gets the win. He gave Peerreery on fits. And no matter how you scored it, this guy belongs. He absolutely belongs in this ranking spot. He's earned it. So to me, just giving him the win, I didn't think it was a robbery. I thought Yon won, but I'm not like screaming robbery.

I was happy putting him in number three. I think he deserves the spot. And let's see what he does with it. The divisiveness with this guy over the next year or so is going to be just the best to watch and listen to on this particular program. Yeah, I have some questions about some of y'all's rankings. And I won't. All right. Mainly my big question is just one of process because I don't honestly have any real big issues.

with how you guys treated it, except for the couple of people who were just like, I don't know, Peoria's still going to be above Sean O'Malley rankings. All right, do you think. A.K., I will come to you with this since you have O'Malley too.

Again, I understand the logic to it, but in your explanation, you basically pointed to he beat Yon. And fair, my question is, how is Marlon Vera, who beat O'Malley more convincingly. Much more convincingly. And not that long ago?

Like, how is he not above O'Malley in your rankings? Yeah, there is an MMA math equation that certainly you could put Vera ahead of O'Malley. But that was two years ago. And they've both been pretty active since. I think they both fought five times since, yeah, both fought five times since. Vera has a loss. I mean, it's a loss of Josealdo. No shame in that.

But, I mean, again, It is the distance from that fight. I don't think that fight's controversial either. I think Vera is the one who caused whatever, you know, like foot injury that O'Malley had in that fight. So it's a legit win for Marlon. It's one of the reasons I think also Marlin is ranked so high aside from the other great wins that he has.

But again, they've both done a lot since then. There's enough of body of work to kind of separate both fighters from that fight. And in that case, I think Sean's done enough. His resume, obviously not quite as strong. but that yawn win just puts it over the top split split or not you know however you want to however you want to terminate i i consider it legit and so i kept it simple and i just slotted them in there i'm i'm never going to agree with you but at this point it it is what it is it's fine and it's not unreasonable because you know you win a big fight you should get rewarded it is it's just

such a bizarre case study right because i can't remember a similar one to this degree where like we've had such a diverse set of opinions where some people are, like you said, putting them at number two, I think Jeremy also did, Stephen also did. I have him number six, like, and it feels like anywhere within that spectrum isn't super crazy. Weren't we pretty similar when Payne you upset Nunes? And it was like, what the hell do we do with this woman in the pound for pound conversation? Not divisionally, certainly, but she walked up pound for pound real hard with that one. Sure, but I feel like pound for pound is such a nebulous thing, right?

Like, it's inherent for those type of arguments to sort of come from. But divisions usually are much more solid. So I don't know. It's just such a, it's such a bizarre case study. Again, I will say one other thing before we move on, Jed, I hope you don't mind me revealing this. But this was one other little sidebar at Bantamweight that made me chuckle when I saw it. Affam.

Okay. With that, I don't think you mind me reveal this. So T.J. Dillishaw ends up falling from number three. before this fight to number seven, after a very one side of lost to Al Jemaine Sterling. Obviously, he was injured. That's not a huge surprise to see T.J. fall like that. I think a lot of us dropped him a few spots in his recent resume. I've said this for a while is very lacking, so it makes sense.

But no one played a bigger part in that drop from three to seven than you. He was number three for you before UFC 280. And now he is not number seven, not number 10. He's not number 12. He is number 15. He is the very last spot at Arbantam wait. Can you please explain this? It's about sending a message, Sean.

And he is lucky that he has a number next to his name whatsoever. Because that is, it's just some low-class trash man. And there ain't no other way to get around it or say it. You know what? He couldn't beat me in a fist fight tomorrow because he doesn't have one arm. You can't do that. That's not how you do things. And he knew that going into that fight.

And this isn't even about the Jose Aldo angle that we covered extensively in the post show. Go listen to that on the MMA Fighting Podcast Network. It's a great podcast network. He knew since April. And he decided to do this for entirely selfish reasons. And it resulted in us getting a fake fight. Like that fight was not a real fight. He had a zero percent chance to win.

People wasted money watching that fight. We wasted all our time. Waste their energy. and it's I'm I'm punishing him for him since his he was suspended and two years gone and since then he fake won a fight with Corey Santagin that I don't think anyone on the call thinks he won and he he fake fought Al Jermaine Sterling like that's you don't get good things for you I shouldn't even ranked him I only did because I thought you guys might be mad if I just dropped him entirely so it's like you can have 15 and learn like learn something man make better choices in like

It's not that hard. I think it was Casey on our post-fight show or maybe afterwards when we were just all talking who said like ranking 15 is basically the tipping someone a dollar at the restaurant. It is so much more offensive than not tipping at all. It's the acknowledgement that, yes, I'm supposed to tip you, but you did such a poor job. I'm giving you $1. He deserves. If you start your post-fight interview with I'm sorry and it's not like the, well, I'm

sorry fans i didn't give a better showing but like an actual legitimate yeah my bad guys you're not sorry you knew what you were doing the whole time you had six months to be like i'm not gonna do this because i clearly can't win a fist fight against aljermain friggin sterling with one arm you get get the hell out of here man like i you deserve a 15 ranking you all should have done it yeah these he's he now has two of the most meaningless apologies in that mystery he apologized for cheating It's like, no, you apologize because you got caught. You don't care that you don't get, you didn't apologize. You didn't feel bad about cheating.

You got caught. You got caught. So then you, and then you came out, you got ahead of it for, I guess, good PR purposes. And just like, oh, yeah, I'm relinquishing the belt. Sorry, sorry everyone. Sorry everyone I disappoint that. I'm like, what? Sorry I boned the Bannamweight division two times now.

And now this, yeah. What an ass. I wish, I actually, Jed, I wish I had, you will not be attacked now. You will be supported now. Because I wish I had the hutspot to either not rank him at all or like, or, or Do the $1 tip, the slap in the face. Because if you look at, I mean, again, if people, if you don't think he won that Corey Sanagan fight, now again, for me, people know I'm pretty rigid about sticking to, oh, we just mentioned

with O'Malley, you win a split decision, you're, I counted as a full win, whatever, barring some super egregious robbery, which some people did think, one, the O'Malley one was, and also that the Dillishaw Sanhagan one was. Again, I'm very, I'm very, it takes a lot for me to call some of robbery. So I was fine with putting Dillishaw ahead of Sanhagen. But if you're not, he has not one. want to fight since August 20. He's not convincingly won a fight since August 2018.

And that was in this kind of pointless two-fight series with Cody Garbrandt. I don't know how many points we want to give him for knocking out Cody Garbrand twice. You know, it's unfair to this-age poorly. Really badly. And it's unfair to the sixth that way. I always say you can do that with everyone's resumes if you go back far enough. Cody was obviously the champion. The first time they fought, still a top five, top three, Bantamway when they fought the second time.

So it was a really good win at the time. But this was four years ago. Cody Graham-Ramaran is very far from any rankings at this point. Then there's a loss to Hutto, again, San Hagan, very close fight, and now lost to So no convincing victories in four years. Listen, I like to give people a lot of respect for the past accomplishments, but I don't know how many big wins he has ahead of him. So he's probably going to end.

Right? I don't know. Let's be, that's the other part of this. So we don't need to get into. He is like as a man who has had to have my shoulder reconstructed for the exact same thing. He is looking at a year until he fights again, most likely. At which point, Sean, your previous point of him being 36 in a division where you age like milk, he going to be 37 coming off multiple reconstructive surgeries.

37 going on 38. Yeah. pushing 38 with a shoulder that will never be the same because mine hasn't been either. Like it's he ain't getting big wins. Like maybe he beats Dominic Cruz because that's a. a rematch they can book in a year and a half time or whatever he ain't getting any more big wins this man is only dropping in the rankings from now on and and the division is only getting more like stronger deeper uh and so and so it's funny because i'm probably just going to have to keep sort of dropping him

down as the over the next six eight months as other fighters accomplish things and actually compete in or not out you could just put him at 15 now we should have right now i got to think about it for next month. So it felt right when I saw him that low and actually was accident on one of, I won't name names on one of our panelists. They actually took him off by accident. I thought it was on purpose. I respected the take. And I thought nothing. I did not think it was an accident. When I was totally, when I was totally in this up on Sunday, all the rankings numbers. Yeah. I put that out there on our slack. And I, if that guy would have said, yeah, no, that's on purpose. I would have very much respected the take. I'm, she knows, I'm the first one when

when we double check the numbers and double check everyone's ballots, I'm always quick to go like, oh, Sheen, I'm pretty sure, oh, there's an accident. Like, they left the sky off, you know. When I saw that he wasn't on this one ballot, I was like, I think that's on purpose. And I think that's okay. Like, again, just based on everything we just mentioned, he doesn't have a convincing win in four years. And, man, going in there and just that waste of a title fight, so disturbing to watch.

And as Jed said, knowing he, I don't know who he's going to be in the rankings again in his current condition. So why not just drop them now? I don't know. I chickened out. He is so lucky that that wasn't the main event. Yeah, that's very true. No, that's true.

And I can't put myself in this person's shoes because, I mean, if they were, if I could, the shoes are tremendous. They're fantastic shoes. But yeah, I would, I would guess that that was a mistake and that, but he is, I would guess that this, this panelist that shall not be named has T.J. Dilloshan, very, very, very short leash and expect C.J. Dillashah to take on just an up and coming murderer like a Ricky Simone next who will probably beat him. And then Dillishall probably out

of this person's rankings. But I can't speak for this person. That's just what I think he's thinking right now. You seem to know a lot about what this person, this unnamed person is thinking. I've learned a lot about like human psychology and body language over the last, since Saturday, because I learned a lot about it on Saturday. It's the matcha or the three ensemble Cicot of Cephora of the FACC that I just deniches, who energize o'clock? Mm, it's the ensemble.

The form of standard and mini, regrouped, what abemn? And the embellage, too beau, who is practically to donate? And I know that I'd they'd offer them, but I guard the Summer Fridays

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VIT. Procurring you, Corma Stomororaner and Mini, regrouped for a better quality of price. On link on Cephora.C.A. or in a magazine. Well, let's move on, fellas. One other, the last sort of big result from the cycle, big result of this past weekend. We look towards the welterweights.

And our man, Balaamem. Because on Sunday, I called him the single most disrespected title contender in MMA. And I stand by that. And to illustrate what I mean, this is a stat I threw out on Saturday. I'm going to throw it out again. If you put together a hypothetical,

remember the name Parley, of each of his past three wins. You're looking at Stephen Thompson, Vincent A Lucay, and now Sean Brady. $100, $1,400, almost $1,500. It was what it would have netted you. No one believes in this guy. He's always the underdog.

And to speak to that, he came into this week for us, ranked number six. Goes out scores the biggest win of his career, gets the standing K-O over Sean Brady, topples the undefeated guy. Literally no one in the world who's picking him to beat. I didn't see a single person pick him below. Ends up winning. And then today, what does he get for that? You look at our rankings.

He is still number six. I could not believe this. when I saw the, when I did the math, I could not believe this once it all came together. Mike, you had them at number five in the division, AKA you had them at number six. And Jed, you had them all the way at number seven in the Welterweight division. I had a number four just behind Leon, Usman, Hamzat. Number six for Belah Muhammad. Mike, is this disrespectful or not?

Because to me, this feels like it's starting to become very disrespectful. I don't know if I'd go with disrespectful. I still think it's a significant leap for what this man did in a lot of ways because no leap at all, no movement at all. I mean, I'm just judging by like my rankings because I put him in the top five and he was not in my top five before this. I put him above Gilbert Burns. It was not that way before.

I had Shafkat Rakmanov ranked above him. I had lots of guys ranked above Bala Muhammad. So I can't speak for everybody, but I can speak for myself that that win had a big impact in my eyes. And I even tweeted out on Saturday that with all the storylines that came out of UFC 280, no one needed that performance more than Bilal Muhammad did. I mean, what a, what a showing he had. Not only did he beat Sean Brady, which is huge, but he went out there and finished the man. And the disrespect that this guy probably had heading into this fight, I think his stock rose more than anybody's and that includes Sean O'Malley's. Like,

Sean had a lot of questions, but Balal stock. I mean, it is like heaped with positive praise. This was incredible. This is an incredible performance. And I can't wait to see who they book them with next. Because I think him and Shamiyaf would be really interesting. And every fight he has moving forward is all in. Like he is all in on all of these fights because he has to be,

he has to do what Leon Edwards did better because Leon was just kind of the last man standing. And you just had to give him a title shot. And I think Balal is, it's going to be a long way. away before he's the last man standing in all of this. So him beating a Gilbert or him beating a Shama, like if he beat Shamsat Shama if he's fighting for the title, there's no doubt about it. Like if they booked that fight.

If he beats Gilbert Burns, I still don't know if that's going to be enough. Like I think he needs the Shemaya fight so badly because of what you said. But in my eyes, this guy made, even though O'Malley made the biggest jump numbers wise, Bala Muhammad, at least in my heart, uh,

made the biggest leap in terms of talent and being like, all right, this dude is not just like a really solid fighter. He's really good and he's going to give problems to a lot of these guys in this division. So while the whole community as a whole may not be all in on below, and I'm not all in on this guy, but that dude impressed the hell out of me. And as I was thinking about the card Saturday night before I fell asleep, I just couldn't get it out of my head how good he looked in that fight.

That second round just putting it to Sean Brady. It was amazing. It was an amazing performance from this guy. So can I throw out something? because I've been noticing. This is a conversation that AK brought up, and it's one I very much want to have. Just a blind test.

I just want to throw it out blind. Obviously, we know the sport. It's not going to be blind. You're going to know exactly who I'm talking about when I say it. But just if you didn't know who these people were, these resumes, just over the two different resumes. Over the past two years, one, the first gentleman. I know exactly what you're doing.

The first gentleman has fought six times in the past two years. He is 5 and 0 with won no contest. His best wins over the course of whatever run he's. on right now are Sean Brady, Vicente Lucque, Stephen Thompson. All right. The other person has fought two times in the past two years. He's one in one. His best win for really his whole UFC career is maybe a washed Jorge Masvital, maybe like RDA

four years ago. It's been four years since he beat anyone not on a two-fight losing streak. Why do we give so much credit to the second person and refuse to drop him below anybody who is currently active fighting legitimate people, no matter what happens. Like, no matter what the result is, for anyone else, we refuse to move anybody above Colby Covington. And it is starting to just become very, very odd to me because I was the only one this cycle who put Bilal above Colby.

And for some reason, that is a crazy, crazy place to get to for everybody else. And I just don't understand it. It's not crazy. It sucks. No, it sucks. And I think we'll touch upon this a little bit, Shaheen, later in the show. No. Just don't want to do it. No. Okay. To answer the broader question at the top about Balal, I just couldn't move him up because I need him to beat someone in front of him.

Who has Colby beaten? Well, no, no. And this leads to your question is if he can, if a guy like Colby Covington who's ahead of him is not going to take fights, how can Muhammad take his spot? Like it's almost unfair, right? It creates a super unfair scenario where Muhammad, and Muhammad already fought Edwards. And it was no contest, but it's going to be a while, I think, before that one gets booked again. And let's see, again, because Edwards is the champion now. So Muhammad has to get a tell the shot to get it. That fight just can't just randomly be made now. Usman, I don't think that's a fight going to happen.

And then Shemayev is the one we all think is going to happen. So he has the chance to move up now. But you're right. You're right. Is it fair that he's had to fight all these other people just because until now, it seemed really unlikely that he was going to get one of these top five names. I don't really have a defense for it. I think we give Covington a lot of points for two competitive losses to Kumar Usman.

That's been a real point. of contention for a long time, not just now. I think since, since Covington has been sort of stuck in the top three, I guess he's followed out now, but wasn't the top thing for a long time, is how much credit do you give someone for competitive losses? And I think we were more than happy to do it. Longest time. But now, yes, we have names like Muhammad coming up.

We have names like Shafkaa Rakhmanov coming up. Jeff Neal's fighting Shafka. We'll see if he wins, doesn't he deserve to be ranked above a Colby Cumberton, just based an activity, him along with Muhammad and some of these other names. So, yeah, I understand the frustration. Kind of like what I said with T.J. Dillashah, maybe that my rankings are due for a massive reshuffling just based on activity, based on how long is it going to be till we see Covington and some of these other names that have been inactive fighting again. But I will just say that for now, for now, I want to believe Mohammed will get a top five opponent sooner rather than later. And this discussion will, this whole discussion will be moved.

That was thoroughly unsatisfying. I got to say, as a defense. Too long didn't read was just that he hasn't beaten a guy ranked ahead of him. Neither has Colby. Kobe has literally fought only people on losing streets for years. Those guys were ranked high. Except for the title fights that he lost. No, but Damien Maya was top five, I think, when he beat him, I'm pretty sure.

Artie, I don't know if he was. I'm pretty sure Damian Maya was. For an interim belt. So yes. Right. So he did, those were top five guys when he beat them. I know, but Balal doesn't even have that anywhere. Sean.

Sean, I don't know if you have been listening to AK, but Marlon Vera beating Sean O'Malley two years ago. That's not good enough. But Colby's wins four years ago for Daniel and Maya. They stand the test of time, buddy. I mean, do you guys understand where I'm coming from? I just supported you. And it's also about how busy they've been since that fight happened. The math isn't as clean as you want it to be jet.

I mean, the amount of fights they've had in between the magnitude, the magnitude of the names. magnitude of the names matters. I will say to defend you, Shane, I agree in principle. I consider dropping Colby precipitously. That's the thing for me. Like, if I'm going to drop Colby, he's going to go to like 15 because he's not doing anything. It's going to be one of those, which I think is justified.

But as I've said, a bunch on this show previously, like, the first thing I look at when ranking is head-to-head, like actual ordering of fights that have a occurred. And so that's why Leon's above Kamau-Husman. He actually beat him very, very recently. And the next thing after that is, if they don't have that, who do I think would win? And I still would pick Colby to beat Bilal, but I think it's entirely justified to punish Colby for his inactivity. I chose not to do it this time. But a couple more months of him being like fully on the shelf, I'm very willing to just be like, eh, F this dude, this should be a reflection of what's going on in the world right now.

Okay. Let me come in and try. I'm going to attempt to play devil's advocate if I could. I would love that. Please. Here's the thing. Where Balal is right now and where Bilal has been for the last couple of years, guess who else was there for a long time?

It was Colby Covington. The guy could not get a fight. No one would fight this dude on the way up. No, Leon, I mean, yeah, but Leon just didn't fight. Also was in the same place. Yeah. Leon just didn't fight. Like he had chances to fight for the belt, which a lot of people forget.

He didn't do it. And that's fine. Like he made the choice to not fight for the title. In July, he made choices to not fight certain guys. Yes, he said yes to fighting Hamzaa Chimaeuf. Yes, he fought Nate Diaz. They gave him a lot of these big fights. Colby was in a tough spot, man.

Like he talked a lot about the Dung-Hung Kim fight. Like that was like the only top 15 guy that would fight this guy on the way up. Then he got the Damia fight and he kind of changed his person. personality, got the RDA fight, got the Robbie Lawler fight. But like, it's not like these are just the guys that he got for a long time. Then he fought Uspen and then he really dove into this personality. Like, he should have fought Taryn Woodley for the friggin title before Kamar Uspin did. Like, let's just put that out there.

That fight should have been there before Kamaro got there. And he didn't get that fight because Woodley, I mean, for some reason, Woodley just because of Woodley, because it's out there, they couldn't get this whole thing done for some odd reason. and then he ended up fighting Uspin instead and got absolutely bolted, and we got two really competitive fights with Colby and Camaro in the process, which I'm fine with. Plus the Mazadol fight, a lot of people bring this up like, oh, he's only fighting Mazadol.

Do we all forget that they had two title fights booked on that card, and then they shifted the whole thing to April because of injuries and all this different stuff? So we needed to put a main event in this spot in relatively short notice, and that's the fight they came up with. the biggest possible fight that they could get in like less than two months notice, this was the one. So it's not like Colby's like,

I'm only, I'm not fighting anybody unless it's Jorge Mazdal. They called these dudes up and said, hey, we need you to fight. Like, we need you to get this main event in for us. And that's what happened.

And Colby beat him like most people expected him to. So what's Colby going to do now? He's in the midst of something a little bit crazy right now. We don't know what's going on. This guy hasn't said a word. We don't know what's going on with Colby with this whole situation. It's in writing. You go on like the website.

in Miami-Dade County to see that this attack, alleged attack from Jorge Mazadol has caused brain injuries and stuff like that. And Data White coming out and saying that, oh, I've talked to Colby. He's ready to fight right now. Like, he wants to fight before the end of the air. But how do we know that? Like, we don't know this at all.

So I'm willing to give Colby a little bit of a pass right now. One, because he's been in the same place that Bilal Muhammad is in right now. He's been there and has had to work for it. What he had to do to get to where he's at right now, Balal just didn't make that same decision. and Balal is letting his fists do the talking for him, which I dig. The other thing is, Balal has not done himself any favors on the microphone at all. So that's the thing.

He's crushed himself. He's crushed himself. He'd have great performances. And then everybody on Twitter is like, please, Belal, call out Hamzaa Shamaif. It's right there. It was a week removed from Shemaya v. Burns. And he goes out there at Beets Vizcente, Lucay. We're like, go all in on Hamzaat Shamaif.

And what does he do? He calls for Usman and Covington. What the hell are you doing? Who is advising you to make these callouts? You know what Bilal needs? You know what Bilal has always needed? And it wasn't as bad on Saturday because he went down a terrible road

was able to come back. It still wasn't great. You know what he needs? Habib Naragamadav shouldn't just be the coach. He shouldn't be the guy in his corner. Pro wrestling managers. Yeah. Hand the mic to Habib.

Because guess what? When Habib is doing post-fight interviews, he makes things happen. He's quote-unquote does the thing. He would have done the thing. thing for Bilal Muhammad in that situation as well. So it's a combination of things, whether it's right or whether it's wrong. Colby's been in the same situation. He took a different road than Balal is taken. And maybe Bilal, two years from now, we're having this conversation, he will

benefit from it a lot more than Colby did. But I'm not willing to take a guy out who just fought in March, who just happened to help the UFC out of a bind, because most people forget that they had two title fights on this card, that they had a shift to April because Max Holloway was hurt. and all these other things that were happening along the way. So they shifted both title fights to Jacksonville, which left this pay-per-view at no main event. So they called these two guys to fight. So I don't really put this fight into the conversation right now

between him and Mazol because no one expected it to happen in the first place at that time. Mike, be honest with me. If the UFC called Colby tomorrow and said, hey, we're going to give you Shavkat. Or hey, we're going to give you whoever, whoever one of these younger guys. Do you think he would say yes?

To Shavcott? Probably not. because what's the points? The risk reward is not there. At some point, you have to fight someone relevant, right? I mean, look, Colby, if they called him to fight Hamzaa Chamaev right now,

he would fight him. I'm convinced, and I've been saying this since day one. If they called him and said, fight Hamzat, he would say yes. He would fight Hamzaa Chamaif. If Rachmanov goes in there and kills Jeff Neal,

and then wins like another big fight with somebody in the top 10, maybe he would take it. I don't know. But Shafkat hasn't gotten there yet. Like, this is prize fighting. And Colby, while it took a weird road, he has put himself at a place where he won prize fighting. Like, look at the resume that you just run off.

In a way, he has won the prize fighting game. He's taking on the biggest names for the most amount of money for the fights he's probably going to win. And some of those things have fallen on his lap. And let's not forget, he gave the guy who everyone thought was the best fighter in the world to very, very difficult fights. In fact, a lot of people thought he won. the second fight against Usman. So did they, I think, who are these people? What are we talking about?

What was MMA fighting's official scorecard on that fight, Jed? Was it not an idea? You scored it for, MMA fighting's official stance was for Colby Covington of memory seriously correctly. Oh, that's a bad scorecard. But I'm willing to believe it. I'd score all types of weird things when I'm live blogging.

It's really tough to get the score down. Sheen, I will say this. You've convinced me. If I could go back right now and change my rankings, There we go. And maybe you didn't convince me. It actually may be more was Mike convincing me by saying he's won prize fighting because I agree. But when you play that game, you don't get to live in the rankings game.

You're playing. I'm going to fight a Hori Mosserl. He just fought in March, dude. Yeah, but that's a good business choice. But it's not a good ranking choice. And so I'm, Shaheen, you've convinced me. I'm going to drop him. I'm probably going to throw him down pretty low just because, like,

You're going to be a bear, be a grizzly, and do something about it, man. Like, fight, fight somebody for real, because you just trying to cherry pick the good fights is a good business strategy. I'm not here to argue that. But I'm not, we don't have to support that. That's not our job to make them to improve their lives for being that way. Like, fight the dudes that are cool. And I'm willing to do it.

So you've convinced me, Sheen. That's good. I feel good about that, at least. I feel good about that. I think I'd start calling you the bad. tipper of rankings. That's what we're going to do. That'll be your calling card is the not dropping guys out, but like sending a message. I'm sure you are. I'm just in the rankings. I worked in, I worked in the food service industry for a really long time. I've never tipped less than 20 percent.

But Colby coming to do something that matters. He's about to get a, he's about to find a shiny tuny. He's about a shiny tuny on his on his, on his receipt. Talk about a loony, baby. Let me ask you a question though. What if, because Dana White has has said that if he had his druthers, we're going to do Colby versus Hamzot in England. If Colby signs the line and we see a poster that says this fight's happening, what will your reaction be?

Will you still feel the same way? I'll be happy that he's taking a fight. I'm not, I don't give you credit for signing up for shit. You got to make it to the cage. If he makes him and fights him and gives a good accounting, then we can reconsider. Like, whether win or lose, if he goes out and shows that he still got gas to him, great.

But like, we are, We're also forgetting that he very, very obviously beat Horri Moserol. Mosidol put him on on stunted legs there for a hot minute in the fourth round. And I don't think much of Mosidel has a welterweight. So like, I'm going to believe. I'm going to win the round. Yeah. I mean, I need to see I, Shaheen, you've got me.

I need to see him doing something because honestly like T.J. Dillishaw, he doesn't have a relevant win in a lifetime. And I don't know. He's old. maybe sucks now. Who knows? If he fight Tomza, I'm there for it. I'll watch the hell out of it and he maybe beats him. But show me something. I guess all I say, like I say all of this just out of frustration for guys like Belal. Because if Belal had purple hair or if Belal had a cool Russian accent and cool taglines, he would absolutely be a top three, top four guy in any of these

rankings. And the fact that he doesn't and he's just who he is. And therefore, some people don't like him, you know, maybe doesn't have that person out. You're shaking your head, Mike, but you absolutely know that's true. Because I don't agree. Because I don't agree with you. I don't agree. Yeah, I am like, that's not true. If you don't think if he had a gimmick or he was a little more popular than he would not be ahead of these reggae. He has a gimmick.

It's just a shitty one. That's not, that's not the same. That's not the same. That's not the same is what I'm saying. I agree because he chose the stupid thing. Be better at your job. Not everybody has. Not everybody's that person with that personality. He is though, but he is because after he. Colby isn't that person either.

Colby manifested the stupidest gimmick in the world and it worked. Colby found a niche. Find your own niche. Find your own one. Make an effort, baby. Try or be Leon Edwards is for a whole life. That's on you. If Bala Muhammad got on the microphone in April and said Hamzaa Chamaif, we're fighting, dude.

Like with the live microphone in his face, he probably would have fought Hamzaa Chimayef right now. But instead, he made terrible callouts. And then he goes on the interview. circuit and says, oh, I want to fight Hamzaa Chbaya, but when the moment counted, you didn't call him out. Like, how are we supposed to believe anything you say at that point? Like, when the lights are shine bright upon you, call for the man, and you probably

would have got it. Or, Mike, when he has just got the best win of his career, and Hamzaa Chameyiv is literally cage side and trying to fight other people, including his friends, go for the fight. He can come in the game. Instead, Abu Bakar, I don't even fight him because you won't even call him my name. Tuning in and don't know who the hell you're talking about when you say, I don't know, I'll fight at 179. Cool, the internet dudes know who you're talking about. That's not who matters.

Be better at this, man. Why does that matter for rankings, though? This is the one place where that should not matter. You have to make me care. Make me care. That's how you get the bigger fights. But we're not saying, though. Why does that matter for rankings, though?

Like, ostensibly rankings should be, should not. Okay. Yeah. I will answer that. I will put all that stuff aside, though, that all that stuff was 100% correct. Again, he doesn't have a win over a current top five guy. He just doesn't. He doesn't have a win over a top.

Again, when he beat Damien Maia and we beat RDA, he was in the top five when he beat those guys. That's a fact. That's a fact. Balal has never been a top five guy. You can go back one year, you can go back one year, you can go back as long. You can count the top five in the Walter grade class doesn't fight down. When Colby was coming up, the top five would fight down.

And that sucks. And that sucks. That sucks for Bilal. But that doesn't mean that we can just assume things and put him in the top five. He also, up until before UFC 280, didn't have that like a super exciting, significant performance. Like avenging the low-gate loss was great, dominating Wonderboy's great. All that stuff was great.

These just were not memorable statement, like highlight real statement wins. It sucks. It shouldn't be that way. That should, like that's why Hamzat is above him. He has a better resume than Hamzot. Well, Hamzaa should be above him, too. Sure, sure. But he has a better resonating.

He should be above him. No, because outside. No, Hansz has a Gilbert Burns. He's a denial. That's huge. And he also be good. That's fair. That's why.

That's really why. But plus, he has all these moments we can project so much. Balad just doesn't have those. So I understand why people just don't view him as a top five guy. He's clearly a top 10 guy. He has multiple relevant top 10 wins. Convincing top 10 wins. No question.

He's number six, you said, right? That's where he belongs. That's kind of where he belongs. He needs, it sucks. One of those top five guys should fight him. I think he will finally get one. And that's why, like, again, this discussion will become strictly theoretical. Or sorry, no longer be theoretical.

It'll be a practical discussion if he wins or loses. But until that happens, six is the right place for him. Okay. Well, Sean, not to take your job away from you, but it sounds like you may have Colby in this segment that you've listed on the show notes for what we're supposed to finish with. So that was what I was going to transition to. which is let's now close with this because I don't think this is an isolated incident, right? Like the issue of squatting on rankings is something that we've talked about on post shows, pre-shows, on to the next one, just in general, this has been a conversation that we've had over the past year or two of,

of, you know, a lot of divisions where it's the reason why Islam took seven years to get a shot, right? Guys who do not want to fight downward and essentially squat on their rankings and then just fight sort of one or two above or below. and they just kind of cycle within each other and then the young guys never get their shot. Welterweight's full of them. We've already established it. A.K., when you threw me this segment idea, I thought it was brilliant.

Who are the worst squatters at this point? Who are the worst offenders out there? Because there's a lot of options for you guys. I don't want to go first. The worst squatters. You do or don't? I have two names. One of them extremely on brand.

One of them, I guess, is now on brand, and you guys will call me an asshole for me. So I'm not sure I should lead with mine. I'll give you my first one, though, since nobody else feels is jumping for joy. It is one iron Mike Chandler, who is currently holding down the number six lightweight spot. For one, I have been extremely vocal that lightweights full of people who need to actually fight some people and stop just squire in their rankings. Instead, Michael Chan is going to be fighting Dustin Poirier. That's two offenders.

but I chose Michael Chandler because Dustin Boye deserved his rankings by beating good people whereas Michael Chandler punted washed-ass Tony Ferguson that I want to be extremely clear you all still had ranked highly I did not because he's old and washed

but Michael Chandler punting him to the moon and then knocking out Dan Hooker who's a fine guy but he's Dan Hooker he's not a top top dude and instead he's gotten worked in his two losses. So he is the worst defender by far for me because he shouldn't be this ranked, highly ranked in general.

And he certainly shouldn't be able to sit on this ranking when ballers like Matush, Gamrod, Norman Seruqi, and Jalen Turner and Demir Ischmael Gala. Like those guys coming up for Haville Fazevee even. Like, fuck on that. That's the worst in my book. Well, it's a shame we didn't do this last month instead of this month because, Jed, you would have had a really easy choice for the worst squatter. but unfortunately he passed our threshold our current threshold for inclusion in the rankings because

stepea god bless him more power to him again if you can take time off just be healthy not get well for me yeah yeah and i'm sure you again if we had not removed him so if people don't know stepe amiotritch has not competed in 18 months i don't think he's even had a booking like a rumored or targeted booking clearly in violation of our rules so stupidy amyotich is gone you guys will see that in our rankings when you go check it out on the site. There's no steep A pound for pound. There's no steep A heavyweight. But boy, he was there for a long time.

He's been there since he was holding on to a top five heavyweight spot even after losing the rematch with Nganoo. So that really was the definition of a squatter. And again, I love that Stepe A, you know, can take the time off. He's up there in age. He should only be taking huge money fights now. He shouldn't be taking random like Tai Tui Vasa or like Curtis Blades fights. Like those are big fights, but they're not John Jones.

They're not an Inganic trilogy about that's this kind of stuff he should be targeting. But that is really the definition of squatting. And there has, fortunately, been a lot of movement and heavyweight anyway, even without him fighting. But there could have been another top five spot available if he hadn't been sitting there for a while. I'll transition by asking, we love this guy. But Justin Gaichi is a bit of a squatter, right? He's a squad. Lightweight and job.

The whole lightweight top five is full of guys who. who either want to fight for the title, fight amongst each other, or Chase Connor for the big money fight. And it's what's funny, because it's three of them, right? It's Dustin,

Gaichie, Chandler, all of whom are excellent people, all of whom are extraordinarily exciting fighters. There's a real chance. Oliver becomes that, too, off this loss.

We can't say he is, but like, we can't rule it out. Very, very plausible that that becomes a thing. The funny thing is you look at all three of those guys, the only top 15 currently win between all of them, I believe.

It might be, I might be missing one, but I'm pretty sure the only top 15 win between all of them is Tony Ferguson and that all of their everyone else they've fought and beat in the UFC are like outside of the top 15 now retired in another division or just straight up cut. Yeah. Or themselves. It's a rough scene at 155 right now.

Yeah, I mean it's it's those guys. Holy shit. Whoa. I just saw that we still have Tony Ferguson ranked. Come on people. That's my new answer. What the shit are we doing? But he's, but he's not a.

squatter. He's not squatting on he's holding a number. He hasn't won since the Reagan administration. But he's been fighting. But he's been fighting. He's been getting his ass whooped like a man. He's not been squatting on his spot. He's been taking beatings. That I respect.

You know what, A.K. Fair enough. That's fair. Mike, you were going to say something. Good answer. No, it's, it is lightweight, though. It's, it's those guys. And squatting is, I don't know, it's an interesting term because there are certain cases that, like, I blame the fighter. Like, there's evidence out there that tells me it's the fighters just squatting.

And some of it's just the UFC just can't let these dudes go and, like, put them in these marquee matchups and, like, even, even offer it to them. Now, I know there's, like, rumors that Gaichi and Fiziv were offered to fight each other. I know for a fact that that's not true because, one, Gaichi is not fighting this year. the dude had like really gnarly nose surgery. So he's not fighting to like, if we're lucky the first quarter of 2023. That's where he's at right now.

And he knows he's at the end of his rope right now. Like if they offered him physique for like the London card, I think he would take it. Like I think he would take that fight. But when he does these interviews, like he's very genuine about himself. Like he's like if he offered him for Zeeve, I think you would take it.

But if he has his druthers, if he's like, who do I want to fight? Well, I want to try to get to the title. So if they're leaving it up to me, then I'll take either, at this point, he would fight Charles Oliver again because he said, I want the loser in the main event. When who wouldn't want to see those two guys fight again? Because I would watch the shit out of that if they fought again. And then he said maybe the Darius fight.

Like he would fight Benile Darius or go fight Dustin Poreer and Michael Chandler like in a rematch. Like if he, Chandler beats, the problem is if Dustin Porier beats Michael Chandler, we know where we're going with this. We're doing Dustin Porre versus Justin Gage. So we almost, Jed, and I hate you here, need to, that you have to hear this. We almost need Michael Chandler to beat Dustin Porre in this, in this conversation. Does that really help anything, though? I mean, if Michael Chandler wins, they're going to run his ass in against Islam, against Islam. And that's the thing we need.

Maybe. So what I'm hoping for is that, and we talked about this on Saturday as well, this Volcanovsky thing could, could, and I'm hoping it does breathe a little fresh air into this. Like we have a new face, at least in the conversation. When there's a title fight and there's a poster, it's not Chandler or Connor or Porre or Geci. It's two relatively fresh faces on the poster with Islam Makachev and Alexander Volcanowski. And who knows, maybe this opens the door for some change. Maybe these guys need to take, maybe these guys need to get on a Zoom chat with me.

Max Holloway because Max Holloway is going to be sitting on his ranking for a long time. But Max Holloway will literally, though, but he's actually fighting dudes. Yeah, he's actually fighting dudes and he's going to be fighting everybody now. Like, this is not going to be like, he's not going to be squatting on a ranking to fight for the belt. Like, he just wants to fight dudes. He wants to, he wants tough fights. It's not about the title. It's not about any of that. These guys are just, oh, it's all about the title. And of course, when you get in this sport, that's what it's all about. But Max Holloway has become the anti of all this. Like, he's found ways to be relevant, be a star, and make a bunch of money without having a title attached to him.

I think these guys need to talk to Max and say, hey, how are you doing this? Because Max Holloway is relevant in every single conversation, whether or not his next fight is for the title or not. People just want to watch Max Holloway do things. And I think these guys need to take some lessons from that guy. So I have two more names that haven't been mentioned. I'll throw the first one out because I think it's incredibly defensible based on, based on basically his comments. And it's Jerry Rodriguez. I know that he has fought, but like he has basically said,

I don't want to fight Josh Schmidt. I would like a title fight, please. Which is the, I would say, textbook definition of squatting. And that might work out for him. It actually might. Yeah. Like, I mean, it worked out for Leon,

kind of. It worked out for Tyro and Woodley back in the day. Like, there's a history of the success there. Here's the one that you guys are going to excoriate me for. and I'm not saying it's true right this moment, though you can make the argument it is. It's certainly going to be true over the next six months to a year. Oh, my. It's UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volcanowski who is not going to be defending his belt

because he is pursuing a second title. Also, as I've made mention a million times, he has fought max three times. And the other top, not even a top five guy in our rankings, Brian Ortega is six and then Korean zombie who's number 10. The zombie one, obviously circumstances were a little different for that one. This man is not fighting back, certainly not with the frequency with which when he became champion. He was like, I don't want to fight Max again. I give me fresh contenders.

Let's do it. That went away very quickly. He fought one and a half, we'll call it two fresh contenders, fought Max three times. And now he's like, yeah, I don't want to do this anymore. I'd like to go fight a much lower stakes fight because, for whatever you think, it is an imminently lower stakes fight for him to fight. Is Lamachev? The risk-reward math there is dramatically different than him defending his belt against

Jaire Rodriguez or Josh Emmett or Arnold Allen, if Arnold Allen wins this up like. So maybe you can make the argument right now just because of the things he has said and his directed intent. But it's going to be pretty lame, honestly. if they do this in Perth and he loses and well honestly win or lose if he wins he's not coming back to featherweight so he might just hold the belt to pretend for a year and if he loses then he'll go back but he won't defend the featherway belt for probably a full year like just based on how timelines are going to work out here and that's crappy it's not the best thing the look of disappointment on mike hegg's face when you said Alexander wokonovsky's name it's like you kicked his dog i was watching it's the whole time it was very interesting The champion has a responsibility is to defend the belt. Okay.

Drop your belt and go up to lightweight. He fought twice in three months and had two of the all-time greatest title defenses in the history of the UFC in both of those fights. The past is for cowards. I don't know in the past. You live in the past, you die in the past, Mike Heck. Then he got hurt and now he's given this opportunity to be the backup in the lightweight title. What's he supposed to say no, F you, because Jed will be mad at me that I'm going to be squatting

in my ranking. Now, here's the thing, though. this isn't a thing it's not a me saying he's doing the wrong thing but the choice he is making is is a business great one it's actively a little lame in this regard for everybody else in I don't agree with you though I don't agree with you and this is the issue Volcanovsky has had over the years and he said it a million times and guess what he ain't wrong because with all these situations that Volcanovsky has said I want fresh contenders I want somebody to emerge I want this. Who has? Nobody has. Nobody has emerged. Every time they get put in a situation to emerge,

one of two things happen. They either get the shit kicked out of them, a la Calvin Cater by Max Holloway, or there's a gross split decision that is wrongly scored and that this guy can't even get the flowers to get a title fight because no one thought he won the frigging fight to begin with, or we have someone just saying just horribly dumb things like Yaya Rodriguez, because Because if Yaya Rotterian said, look, I just want to, the quickest path to Volkadovsky is fighting Josh Emmett for an interim title, then if those two dudes just fought, like, ostensibly, we know who Alexander Volkadovsky's next opponent is, because this is a legit number one contender fight.

You want to slap an interim title on it. You have the champion's blessing. Do an interim title. He's telling you to do it. But Yaya is like, nah, I'm going to wait. I'll wait four years for Alexander Volkadovsky. My next fights against this guy. Like, what a stupid thing to say.

Volcanovsky, well, I don't completely disagree with you, Jed. Like, if you want to make this case, like, I am happy to listen to it. But of all champions and all divisions, the one dude that, like, has a case here is Volcanovsky because no one has emerged in this division. And every time we have a fight where somebody can, something bad happens. We're looking at it right now. We're looking at this division right now in the same way. Bryce Mitchell, Mobsar of Lawyer, we're supposed to headline November 5th.

That is a guy, winner of that fight. holy shit. They get a big jump up, maybe a win away. That is going to wet Volcanovsky's whistle watching those two guys fight. If Loyab gets hurt, fight is off. Ilya Tuporia was supposed to fight Edson Barbosa. Iliot Teporia goes out there and does what most of us expected he would do,

and that is just destroy Edson Barbosa. Volkinovsky's like, all right, here we go. And now we have to wait until December because Bryce Mitchell is getting ready to fight Iliot Teporia in December. And also, Calvin Cater's fighting at Arnold Allen. Now, if Arnold Allen goes out there and just bolts Calvin Cater, I mean just runs him over, finishes him impressively,

leaves him in a puddle of his own blood. Volcanovsky is going to have something to say about that because at least Arnold Allen has emerged. But the problem with Arnold Allen is he could emerge, but we also might not see him for another 18 months because this dude is a walking injury, man. So it's just tough for this guy to fight. and make these claims and stick to them because no one has done it.

Now you just, no one has done it. Here's my rebuttal to you, Mike. You said one thing that really, I think, is the crux of it. That's going to wet Volk's whistle. I don't give a shit about your whistle, dude. Defend your belt. Like you, everything you said, I agree with it in a lot of ways.

But the reality here is nobody stepped up and made a claim. Like, it doesn't matter, dude. Just fight somebody. Did everybody Anderson Silva fought was a dime. dynamite title challenger? No. Coming at Volk for that feels very misguided, though. If anybody that's the UFC champion right now,

like Volk's been really active. He has been active this year. But my point, again, my point was not that it was necessarily true at this exact moment because he has fought twice. I understand where you come from. But the idea that it's everybody else's fault, sure. Also, Volt can just choose a challenger because,

Adasanya did that with Jared Cannotier. Jared Cannonier was just like, he was like, I want to fight that dude. And it took a lot of trickery from the UFC to make that fight happen. And then it happened. But that's not what Volk wanted. And again, I'm not saying he should turn down the Islam thing. I'm just saying that when he hasn't defended his belt in over a year, and because here's the outcome that's going to happen,

Arnold Allen goes out and beats Calvin Cater. And we've got of Lovloy of, who Mitchell, is that? that's out he's out Mitchell toporia now is in December. Mitchell toporia. Great fight. These are all great fights. And because Volk's going to be out for a year, we're still not going to have a dude who's made himself.

We're going to have like four dudes when instead he could have just been like, you know what, buck on it. Like he could have come out of that third fight with Max and said, you know what, I'm down to fight. Yeah, year. Great performance last one. Or he could have said, I'm down to fight Josh Emmett. And instead he said, I want to fight for the lightweight belt.

And I do not begrudge him that from a business and career standpoint. but to pretend as if that is not, at least to some degree, an active choice on his part to do a thing other than defend his title, that is, I firmly disagree. Like he is making a choice here not to just say next man up is yeah, yeah, yeah. But when you have the promotion saying, yeah, Alex, I love that idea. We're going to make it happen. That's a whole different ballgame. Volk feels like a wrong guy to come out for this. Yeah, I understand.

I don't agree that. I love what you're forecasting. That's a conversation. A future squad or a future squatter call. Yeah. A future squad or a future squatter call and if Vort gets like injured in prep for Mokachev or because he's 34 just like blows out his knee or breaks his hand and then he's gone for a year after that fight and now suddenly the featherweight division, probably the third best division in

the sport hasn't had a legit title defense in 18 months because we did this. A lot, I'll be clear. A lot of this isn't specific to Volk. it's doing divisional interdivisional title fights is really, really stupid, and I hate it. And that's just like, you have a division, defend it or abandon it and go up. And that's totally cool. But I, let's talk about in 18 months when we still don't have a featherweight belt that's been defended. And everyone's going to kind to be like, yeah, this sort of sucks a little bit.

Man, the guy, he's guys even done anything. He's already getting your rat. Four of all. She's got. He's just, he's like this lovely handsome vagrant walking down the street. He's got his bindle on. He's not stopped yet. He's still moving.

You've got this nice property there that's not being used. And you're already kind of eyeing him and being like, hey, moving along, buddy. No, not here. You're not settling in down here. Moving along. He hasn't even done anything yet. You don't know. He's a friendly hobo.

I agree. He hasn't done anything yet. But the writing on the wall is coming, y'all. Either way, he's not defending it. And if he wins, it's going to be worse because he's going to hold the belt and pretend. He is going to have two belts and do the Connor thing where until the UFC just says, dude, we can't have this fake thing anymore. You're clearly not going back to featherweight.

So we're going to take that title from me. When you said featherweight, when you said featherweight, I thought you were going to say featherweight and bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes. That's where I thought you were going, because I don't know when we're going to see her fight again. And I mean, she's been. Well, if there was a real featherweight division, then maybe that would be a valid complaint. Yeah. I mean, yeah. She's got a weird case.

But it's. Just to put a ball on this because I did not expect this to go on a 10 minute. Can I say something positive? Yes, please. There's something positive to. Shout us to the divisions that do keep things moving. Shout us to my ladies in the women's flyweight division. People can say what they want about Shepchenko being at the top

and if that removes intrigue from the division. But those ladies fight each other. Those women's flyways do not hold on to their spots. They just sign up. They fight each other. They all want to get a shot or another shot at Shavchenko. Jessica And Josh is fighting in two-weight classes. She doesn't care.

She fights back all the time. She fights people who are like five, six, seven, eight, like spots in the rankings behind her. It's incredible. So shout us to my 125ers. by the way, the correct answer if we're talking a champion and I don't care because I love all the fights it's Davis and Figuerado

that's the correct answer that's fair that's probably the best answer that's very reasonable as well I don't have any issues with that one just to circle back around to where we started I think you all know my answer is obviously Kobe Covington

a man who has fought once a year every year since he became Kobe Covington and several of those fights were great twice in three months what wins You're talking about the November. I'm sorry. November tomorrow.

She fought twice in less than four months. Again, that was against Jorge Mazda. Whatever. And let's bring back all the way full circle. Let's bring back all the way full circle. Shattas to Islamakov, who jumped over several squatters. Yes. To take it to shout out.

And now, there you go. Maybe he gets defending against them. Maybe he doesn't. Doesn't matter. We already continue to consider him higher ranked and better than a lot of those guys. So squatting doesn't always pay off, guys. Listen to AK. Listen to AK.

And let's end on that. This has been a, a rollicking edition of the ranking show. We appreciate all of you guys for joining us. We are back next time. In the middle of November, going to be right after UFC 281. Adasania Pereira,

should be a good one, as I'm looking forward to that. In the meantime, please keep it locked to the MMA Fighting Podcast Network. We keep bringing the goods. Hopefully you guys enjoy it. For Mike Heck, for Jedmishu. That man is A.K. Lee.

I am Sean Oshaddy. We see you next month. We love you guys. Thank you so much. expect a 30 minute. Alexander Wolkenowski sucks for him. I'm not going to lie. That sucks.

It sucks. It's, again, it's not Bolkinowski. Don't go after second bell. John Jones has been nothing good in life, but the one big thing you did is because I get back this title. I'll go up that day.