MMA Fighting - Rousey vs. Carano Post Fight Show: Reaction To Ronda Rousey’s Vintage Armbar Win, MVP’s First MMA Event

Episode Date: May 17, 2026

Ronda Rousey got her fairytale ending. On Saturday night, Rousey returned to the cage after a nearly 10-year absence, headlining MVP’s first MMA event, and hoping to rewrite the sad ending to her historic MMA career, and she did just that, submitting Gina Carano with an armbar in just 17 seconds. But what does any of this mean for Rousey, MVP, and the sport of MMA? Following a historic night with MVP MMA 1, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Jed Meshew react to Rousey’s quick win and where MVP MMA might go from here. Additionally, they discuss Mike Perry battering Nate Diaz, Francis Ngannou’s triumphant return, the rest of the Netflix card, plus even UFC Vegas 117 and the main event win for Arnold Allen. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@m_heckjr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@JedKMeshew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Ladies gentlemen, your favorite sound on a Saturday night, or depending on where you're at in the world, if you're where I am at, early. Sunday morning. Those are the Victory Horns and they sound for Rhonda Rousey who turned back the clock so to speak. 17 seconds is all it took.

She took three steps. She tackled Gina Corano. She bounceded her, armbarded her, and tapped her. And that was the end of MVP MMA 1. Victory Horns are so on for Mike Perry. We'll talk about what he did tonight. We'll talk about what Francis and Ghanu did tonight.

We'll talk about what Dana White did. right before the Francis and Ghanu fight. And the victory horns, they also sound. Let us not forget that at the world's most famous apex, meta-Apex, there is a UFC event. And Arnold Allen had a great fight. What a performance against Melchie Costa. Ends the long winning streak of the Dalmatian.

And now Arnold Allen is back and ready to make a move at 145 pounds. But we are here for the Rousey Carrano, UFC Vegas 117, live post-fight show. I am Mike. And joining me once again, I mean, literally we just spoke with this man after the Connor McGregor news dropped. There he is, Jed Mishu. And look at that sign, Jed. And I really think this is the most important thing of all of this, whether your team UFC

or team MVP or just like us, Jed, team mixed martial arts. Or you're not team business because you're an adult. Mike, I did some quick math. But I did. I mean, my handy-dandy calculator. Okay. In case you're wondering, so we have some officially released payouts, right? This was a California event.

So we get to know what people made. I was a little surprised by some of them. Namely, I mean, I know they were the main event. Gina Crona made a million dollars for this fight. Ronda Rousey made two, a little over two. And if you do the math, Ronda Rousey got paid $129,000 a second tonight for all of the competing she did 17 seconds 2.2 million dollars as a healthy that is a healthy hourly wage not what i get i assure you though i'm sure i deserve it oh yeah i think we all do i mean we're doing we're

doing double duty we're doing you if we were watching the ufc we're watching this we did it all uh we dealt with all the pacing issues on both shows the commentary on both shows and there are some good and there's some real bad on both shows, but there's just so much to discuss right now. But Jed, we left the Connor McGregor Max Holloway 2 reaction right as the cage walks are about to begin. And I said,

and I quote, Ronda Rouse is about to beat Gina Carrano in less than two minutes. And you're like, no, she's going to carry her. We might see maybe the end of round one beginning around two. That did not happen, Jed. So your thoughts on how this fight ended because I'm sure you're not surprised Rhonda went out there at one in an arm bar, Gina Carrano.

You seem a little surprised that she did it in 17 seconds, though. Dude, we talked about this little preview show. And I had worked myself into the shoot, I guess, or whatever. But I still stand by it. We're like, I don't, I don't know why we did this. Like, and that is the overwhelming response to. the way it ended. Like we all knew Rhonda was going to win, right?

Like, everybody was aware. And the very most, like, cynically correct people, like, she's going to win in 10 seconds. They were absolutely right. Bravo. You nailed it. But, like, why? She didn't need to do that. And the whole, I was so sure I talked myself into this idea that Ronda was going to see the big picture.

right she was just going to be able to look at this and be like look I can I can win this fight when it instant whenever I want which she did and but go out and I run this girl over in 17 seconds this isn't the UFC where everybody's just like wow you did that in a world championship fight they're like like that that's fine to do that in a real sporting competition this is like and Mike you are the pro wrestling fan

I don't think they have a lot of pro wrestling main events that end in 17 seconds. And this was much closer to a pro wrestling shoot than this was like a real MMA fight. And with Rhonda talking all this like, we're here to change the dynamic of the sport in the future. And I ultimately Netflix is simply going to care about what this did on a number standpoint. And we don't know. We'll find that out in the coming days. I tend to think it did pretty okay based on some of the stuff from earlier in the evening, but maybe not.

We'll find out. But like if you were tuning in and, you know, had some passing interest, you tuned it in and then you just were like, oh, well, that was dumb and over quickly. All right, bye. And then you just moved on. Like, there's nothing left. There's no gravitas there. And it just felt like really bad showmanship from her. And I thought, you know, this woman who fought and competed.

in the WWE. I thought she might at least carry Gina for a little bit and so she wouldn't embarrass this woman for whom she says she has endless amounts of respect for and sure, I'm sure she does, I don't know why you wouldn't take her at face value there and wouldn't reveal

the farce that this was because we all kind of knew it but we were willing to set that aside for the novelty of it. Like oh, they haven't fought in forever. Maybe this can be something fun. We know what will happen, but we can suspend our disbelief for a moment.

And then she simply couldn't help herself and just, and just did it. And it was like, what would have been the harm? What would have been the harm in her spending three minutes with Gina and like having something other than just a total waste of everyone's time? What is that? Some breaking news, Jed. The breaking is the news. According, and it has to go by what you say.

I don't want to get your reaction to this news. Nikisa Badarian is speaking with media backstage following this event. And he said, this is according to a tweet from Oscar Rillis, I know the great Jose Young's there as well. Rhonda Rousey suffered an injury two weeks ago. And a lot of people noticed that at her way in, she was limping around and not moving around very well. Does that change things now knowing that Rhonda was dinged up heading into this fight?

Eh. Again, like, she could have done what she did at any point. time. So just like, at least just circle for like a minute. Just walk around for a minute. You know, like, like let it pretend like nobody had time to do anything. It was just over. And so like if you are purely, then I think that this is where I probably come down or like maybe there is a disconnect because it's possible. I'm not, you know, I'm not saying that what I, this is an opinion for me, not a this is correct. I don't know how many like real Ronda Rousey fans there are out there anymore. there could be a lot.

I genuinely don't have a clue. But like that performance is really only good for Rhonda and like true Ronda Rousey fans who are like all I want like, like when we're just like, please just just put Mike Tyson at some dude he can knock the F out. I just want to see Mike Tyson knock somebody out. I just want to see Ronda Rousey arm bar somebody does not matter who. Then you got what you wanted.

But like is there a big swat? Like there's a huge swath of the fan base that wants that for Connor. In July, there will be millions of people watching who just want to see Connor do the thing one more time. I just don't know that there are that for Rousey. And so it's like, who did this serve? You know, an injury mitigates it to some extent because like good on her. So competing, I think when the show's built around you, you can't really pull out because you got injured. You sort of just have to do it.

That's kind of the nature of fight business. but like she could have let that happen not in 17s so fast dude it was it was so quickly done i didn't care it's just like okay like just do it this is how i expected the night to end like i really did i just don't i didn't really understand what people were expecting here um this i mean from second one of this fight being announced it's like this is she's got a tackleer immediately and Tapper. Like, that's just what's going to happen. And that's what did.

So it is what it is. I will say I thought it might take a little bit of showmanship. I thought we might get to like the two minute mark, but I knew we weren't getting any more than that. When she shot in and tackled her immediately. Oh, immediately. I was like, we're done. Not only was, it was that.

And it was not only that, but my, like, the first thing that popped into this brain of mine was like, oh, she's never fighting again. Like, this is it. did. There's no Holly home fight. There's nothing. Ron DeRousie is never fighting again. Because I think if they were setting up something bigger, they would make it look a little bit more like a struggle. Ron just want to go in there, clean house and get the F out. She wanted to have that fairy tale ending to her career. And honestly, like, good for her, you know? Like, I know a lot of people don't like her. She was an asshole when she was in the UFC, especially in

2015, 2016, the Holly Home fight, how she handled that loss. Amanda Nunes stuff, even the pre-fight, like people were complaining about Rhonda heading into this fight. Boy, oh, boy, did she say some pretty shitty things for this fight. And the way she promoted it was not fantastic either. But to me, this is still way better than 2016. So she's done. Now, like, you know, I'm not. I honestly don't think this is better than 2016.

Really? And like, I don't anticipate this to be a popular opinion. Because of like, again, She revealed that the emperor had no clothes. Yeah, she got the fairy tale ending in such that it was a total fabrication and like built to to assuage her own ego. And like, okay, I guess if you can go to bed at night, I'm not here asking for her to have fought like,

you got to fight one of the best fighters in the world. But like, this feels obviously more fabricated than like the John Jones heavyweight run or whatever of just like we are this is a vanity project and i'm not in for like other people's vanity projects in general like the rest of this course pretty fun the the i did not anticipate a lot from ronda gina but it was just so bad that it really was like why like we just did this purely so you could feel better about yourself like go to therapy to feel better about yourself or like at least fight somebody who can oppose you, you know. So like what I wanted was the Saladin Parnasse fight.

Kenneth Cross got ran over but was a was not a turnstile. He was not a cone like a parking cone. He was a dude who fought him. We didn't get that. And so like I would rather, I mean, she handled it 2016 super bad and it's terrible. But at least that's real. this is fairy dust it's a fiction

and so I think it's like it was just a garbage ass ending to you know I'm probably the only person it feels this way and that's totally fine but like I don't know if you

how bad that was was really off putting to me the rest of the event super fun though yeah I honestly it was fun night this fun night all around this was

this was this was the the farewell tour for both ladies honestly like she ain't fighting again but like would you feel the same way if ronda like if the fight started and ronda like came in and pointed to the mat and then gina just colded her in 17 seconds yes because that would have been an unexpected outcome okay so that i like that would be super

cool um because like that wasn't that wasn't like again ben people people will always do this and i don't i don't want to give them any validity by saying this you know there is a little bit of a that was a rigged fight. It's like, no, that wasn't a rigged fight. Not at all. Like, Gina didn't throw that fight. That was a fight that was built to deliver exactly what it. It did its job, but nobody was in on it.

Nobody took a dive. And, like, you just don't have that much time for those. You've got to be able to provide some offense back. Because, again, like, it just, it felt like the end of the night, the end of the night should have been Nate D as Mike Perry because that was Ripper.

Well, we'll talk about that in a minute. How do you grade MVP MMA one? Pretty good. I do want to throw this comment up that I just saw. Okay. Let me find it.

Where is it? Why can't I find it? I just saw it and I don't see it in here. So it's like, it's like decimating your kids in the game. It's like, yeah. It's just like, it felt like a grown adult, like playing against eight-year-olds in basketball and being

like way too serious about it. And I've rejected you. Like, you killed her in 17 seconds. You couldn't at least pretend to let her fight. Like, it just, it was silly. Overall, though, again, I had fun. I will also say, and I want to be really clear, because I think I had a different experience, maybe than some people in the chat or people we worked with.

So this may not reflect the same as all of y'all. my experience with MVP in May 1 was largely through the lens of working on the UFC card. So I have two screens and they were both up. And it really worked out well where there were early pacing for MVP was pretty good. It was pretty rapid. Later in the show, they were much bigger gaps. There was more time and places. It's a lot of talking by people talking that could have probably talked less.

I wasn't I didn't have to watch most of that because I was just like all right I'll be watching I'll watch the fights until something of substance is going on in the MVP thing so that's a critique of yours I think that that seems like it's totally valid but with another event to watch during I didn't have any issues with that and otherwise you know I didn't like the way it ended I really disliked the JDS rebellist fight just that one was more of I'm really sad why are we doing this kind of thing the rest of it was pretty good The prelims were probably a couple of too many fights. Not sure why all of these people were on this card. A lot of splities early. But still some highlights, some fun things, some shenanigans happened. Solidine Parnas rocks. Mike Perry and A. Diaz was both what we thought it would be and maybe a little bit not what we thought it would be quite fun.

You know, the Francis fight was what we thought it would be. At a good time. Not a great time. I would not give this an A. But like a solid B. you know, probably not a B plus, but a rock solid B is totally fine. I think B's, be solid. I think it's a fair grade.

I think this is like a, this is a good double for MVP. This is not a grand slam by any stretch of the imagination. This is not a failure by any stretch of the imagination. You had a main card that had five finishes. You had the Parnas performance, which was incredible. You did have the ghost of JDS not being smart, but he got, he got got real good.

And, and Gano, nuked a dude, just what you wanted. And Mike Perry and Nate was kind of fun. And then Mike beat the shit out of him. And then we're on to one. Like,

you have five fish. If five, Michael Bisbing would be going on his podcast saying this is the greatest card of all time if this is at the apex tonight. Without a question he would be. Without a question. There's a lot of people in this chat or, giving this a D-minus, that'd be doing the same thing if this is what the apex card looked like

today. And by the way, Jedd and I've said this multiple signs, the apex cars are actually pretty fun. A great time. We're not going to be talking about a single thing that happened on that card come Tuesday. We'll be talking about this event for a couple of weeks now. A lot of it because we were a perfect symbiotic relationship. I agree. MVP was the whale shark and the UFC on Vegas was the Ramora, stuck to the bottom and, like,

filter. It was, they worked beautiful. together if you're watching them both. If you're watching them individually, I suspect you have more criticisms than I do of either, but I didn't. So it worked for me. Yeah.

Look, were there things that I would have changed? Yeah. And a lot of those things we talked about on BTL when we saw with the broadcast team looked like. I feel wildly vindicated. Yeah. I missed a lot of takes on this card. A lot of predictions. Feel real good about my call

that didn't care for any of that. Yeah, the pacing was not great. Honestly, it wasn't good. The pacing was not good. Things lasted way too long. But the UFC's pacing sucks too. It's terrible. Everybody's pacing sucks.

Every single MMA promotions pacing sucks, except for RIF. And sometimes BKFC. It's also not an MMA promotion. Yeah, or combat sports. But like, we're talking combat sports. Boxing's worse. Everybody's worse. The UFC's just as bad.

Just as guilty of it. 320. Did you watch 327? Did you watch 327? The pacing is. of the 327 was a it was an abomination it was horrible it was horrible maybe not as bad as this but it was just it was pretty bad it was pretty pretty bad so pacing across the board is bad they should have paced this a lot better um if we're being honest but look i don't know what people

were i genuinely believe the pacing thing was a result of them trying to maximize their viewership numbers by not going directly head to head with UFC fights. Which seems so silly. I mean, I don't know that the UFC is going to drag too many numbers away, but this is their first foray. They want to get as many possible eyeballs. And so just being like, we'll wait to fire Nate and Perry until the UFC main event is done.

It was fine. And also that worked great for me watching them both. Yeah, and from the perspective we were coming from, we're like, oh, Perry Nate's done. We know the post-fight interviews and stuff. We know we're going to have a good 15 to 20 minutes. We actually had almost 30 minutes to react to the Connor McGregor news because we just knew how we knew how the pacing of this event was. And the pacing was obviously good for prelims. And it was bad for the main card.

But again, every MMA promotion is the exact same. It's the exact same. So all in all, I thought this is a success. you got people talking, whether positively or negatively, but at the end, like, you really cannot say what the success of this event is. And if it was a success until like Tuesday or Wednesday when we get the numbers. Because that number is not $9 million or higher. This was an epic fail. Apparently, Nekisa said, we'll know numbers on Monday.

So. Well, no numbers on Monday then. I guess we'll know numbers on Monday. Try to keep up with what's going on the post presser while we're here. I would like to know if they at least know if they're trending in a good direction. Because normally you could tell if you're trending in a good direction. Something's trending big, you know it. The networks reached out to you and said, hey, we got a fucking smasher on our hands here.

I'm not seeing a lot of that right now and that I'm a little concerned. I'm a little concerned about that. I know a lot of people are touting the YouTube. I feel it's going to do pretty well. Good. I hope it does. I hope this does 20 fucking million. I hope it does a billion.

a billion people watched it really i think i'm going to come in my official guests at over 15 really you think we're going that high i'm going to 15 i know a lot people are touting the youtube views is like a hey but you can i'm not saying MVP like played with the youtube numbers but it is possible to play with youtube numbers like it's very very possible you see the numbers like power slap events we're getting i can assure you ufc bjj they weren't get you're not and those like numbers realistically. It's just not true. There's just no fucking way.

So we'll see what happens come Monday. But again, that is the gauge of all of this. That number needs to be nine million or above. Or this is a fail and we'll never see another one. If it's six million, they're done. They're done.

Three million. They're done. Six million is really bad for them. It's horrible. It's a disaster. It is a disaster of epic proportions. If it is six. so yeah fine event i don't know what everybody expected this is fun this if we had all five fights in

the main card go to like sloggy decisions that's not good that's not good so i had a good time if you watch you had a good time if you didn't i don't know what to tell you i truly do not know what to tell you um and we'll and we'll leave for that we don't have to talk about ronda or gina because we know that they're done about Nate Diaz and Mike Perry though. Were you surprised how that fight went, Jen? Because Mike beat the shit out of him. Like that fight was not competitive.

Nate had some moments where he jabbed a little bit, but most of the story of that fight was Mike Perry beat the brakes off Nate Diaz. The first round was exactly what I thought the first round would be. I just simply thought Mike Perry was going to punch himself out. And after the first round, I was like, oh, he actually is, like he looked quite tired. It was like, oh, he actually is just going to punch himself out beating the shit out of Nate. And then Nate's going to just be super tough and hang in there. Mike shifting to the body, I think was like surprisingly smart.

Worked really well. Obviously, it was ultimately just like the pouring of blood and the cuts that finished the bout. But like, if Nate hadn't been pouring blood, I think Mike was getting him out in the fourth round anyway. because every time he was at one point i saw nate dyes intentionally duck his head into a punch so it would protect him from getting punched in the body by mike perry which is a defensive strategy i've never seen before but that is a thing that happened in that fight uh yeah i just thought mike had not fought m m m and so long and i know nate's old but he's still super durable might could get a little too aggressive, punch himself out, Nate would just sort of Homer Simpson it, and eventually

find a take down. He did hit like a Haragoshi in the first round, but didn't do anything with it. Nate looked quite bad. You know, you can say some of that just Mike made him look bad, but this was, in general, Nate has looked progressively worse year over year, because that's what happens when you get older. You throw a little less, et cetera, et cetera. This was the first time where I was really like, Nate Dia should probably never fight again. I don't think he will never fight again. But, you know, if I were in his corner, they're talking about doing a rematch, I would be talking with Nate more about it's time to think about life outside of fighting.

Yeah, the whole rematch talk, I don't understand where this is coming from. I really don't. You don't have a lot of other options and that was really fun still. It was very fun. but we can find somebody out. Like we could do Mike Perry versus Lorenz Larkin. I'll watch that fight. We do Mike Perry versus Jason Jackson.

I'd watch that fight. There are fights I would watch that involve Mike Perry that aren't Nate Diaz. I just, there's no need for a rematch. There's no controversy. Mike beat the hell out of him. Like he beat the soul out of that man.

Probably beat him into retirement. There's no world we need a rematch there. I just, I don't, outside of Jake Paul, I don't see a single person saying like, yeah, we got to run this shit back. I just don't see it. So I ask you, Jed, what does Mike Perry gain from this? Is it, does MVP just go to this well and just say, here, you could fight Nate again,

but this time you're the main event of MVP2? Like, what do we, what does he gain from this? Is this, does he come out of this looking, maybe, I know a lot of the things Mike wants from this is, hey, talk to the, I already talked to the UFC and like, they'll be watching. Maybe something good comes from that. Maybe they'll bring me back. Don't do that, Mike. That would be very dumb, Mike.

Don't do that. What does he gain from this? What's next for him? A bunch of new fans. He was the guy most, maybe not totally most, but like in very good position. His Nate Diaz is still super famous and super popular. And Mike Perry actually rode like the perfect line of, still being himself and being like a weirdo

while not being like disrespectful to Diaz so the Diaz army will hate him and then he beat the just soul out of Nate for however long and it was like his fight of all the fights this evening the Perry

it was not the best performance but the Perry Diaz one is the one that feels the most like it can break contain because there's just there are the visuals of a guy in a mohawk and a dude pouring buckets of blood everywhere. And so, like, if you are an MMA fan or, you know, you don't watch BKFC, you only loosely watch some MMA events. So, you know, USC stuff, you remember, oh, I kind of remember Mike Perry.

Okay. Wow, he looks really good against the guy I know. Like he, this is the most people who will have ever have watched him fight tonight, whatever that number is, even if that number is six million, you know, not nine. still the most people have ever watched him. So he is continuing to build the brand. And with the very limited options that MVP has for whatever their next event will be, Mike Perry is not a bad one of them.

So maybe he is the main event or the, you know, the co-main event again. And this is basically just a graduated step up from BKFC, right? Like Mike rebuilt himself in BKFC and it is such a symbiotically good relationship for them. But ultimately BKFC is not viewed by like that many people. It's still bare knuckle. So it feels it has less general cachet than, you know, being an MMA star on Netflix. And so this is a absolute career bonus for him. I'm sure he's getting more money than he got at BKFC.

And he can try and he can try and do what he did in BKFC, but be that for MVP for the next however long he can carry this forward. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier,

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So why not you? Try O-DU for free at Odu.com. That's ODO.com. Good night for Mike Perry, man. Good night for Mike Perry. Does he fight in BKFC again? I don't know. I don't know.

He's got some options. MVP should definitely just... put their muscle behind him. And I do not believe he fights for BKFC again in the next three years. Yeah, I think he's done. I think he's done over there. I think you kind of have to build him up as kind of the guy at this point. I mean, if you can build up Saladin Parnasse as the guy,

you should build up Saladin Parnasse as the guy. But Mike Perry, totally good choice, you know, to be in the mix of your building crown jewels. You need a few of them. Mike Perry is pretty solid one. hell yeah uh francano knocked off philipp lins they tried to do the john jones thing john jones showed up it was like i want to get out of the ufc contract

uh that ain't happening no friggin way they dropped the connor bregor adept during that fight so yeah uh john jones continues to be the worst person to hear talk i want to get out my uc contract okay well you're not going to so cool yeah good for you spectacular

so Francis you're going to again just pretend that you're going to fight again because this is now the world we live in Francis is fighting rebellus to Spain

is he not seems really likely it felt like that was their setup for this whole thing and I think that makes sense rebellus

is certainly a you can talk yourself into being a threat perhaps it's getting old so kind of is a threat but Francis probably won't do the JDS thing

he probably will just tip rebellious over and the fight will end very quickly afterwards. Yeah, it's pretty much how it will go down. But yeah, that'll be a hell of a build. All you got to do is just show a bunch of face-offs of those two dudes. They don't even need to do a press conference to show images of them to,

them to just staring each other down and highlights of them knocking people out. You've sold a fight. Battle of the Giants, two. Shout out the real Battle of the Giants. Shout out, PFL, we love you. Yeah. Saladine Part asked,

pun completely intended here. Saladin Partass is the MVP of night for me. That dude rules. This is exactly what you needed to go out there and do. And, you know, they had another fighter that they were trying to position to kind of be the guy that broke out. They could build around.

And I don't think he accomplished that at all. And we'll get to him in a moment. But maybe he might have. I don't think so. Not in the same way. But like. The vibes are low when it comes to that man. Yeah, but, you know, if you're not talented enough,

if you're not talented enough to get to people to get people to like you, Dylan Danes made a career out of getting people to hate his ass. Yeah, but see, the one thing, okay, so one thing he did do is he gave RAF a gift because the only way he's ever fighting Arm and Sarukin is in a wrestling match at RAF, and RIF's got themselves something else. I mean, there are RFs, if they haven't already made several, phone calls, I'll be quite surprised. Yeah.

But other than that, that's what Namo gained tonight was he's probably got a sweet check to go wrestle Armin at an RAF event. So that's that. But Parnass rules. That fight was awesome. Kenny Cross, save what you all about the matchmaking. This is terrific matchmaking. It was perfectly fun.

It was perfect. This is a real opponent. Yeah. And he had a really fun fight and finished him. It was great. And then we saw the death of JDS's MMA career. Jed, I'm sorry he didn't tackle. He almost like sort of almost thought about it.

And then I tweeted something about it and some real brain genius on the old interwebs was like, you tried to tackle. We got thrown off like a child. And I was like, well, yeah. One, who wasn't really a committed take down attempt. And two, you know what the old adage is. It's not. If at first you don't succeed, say F it and get your brain concussed.

It's try again, dumbass. Like, JDS clearly I got, I again, all of my incorrect choices were me working myself into shoots. Every one of them was like, I just said something enough until I believed it. Where I was like, JDS is going to tackle him. And then last night at the final ceremonial things, he was like, I'm excited to punch this dude in the head. I've been looking for a striking matchup and I finally get one. I was like, oh, yeah, this is a deep fake. He's going to come out.

He's going to pull off the old Manny Gamburian fake glove tap into a double leg. And that is not what it all happened because apparently, despite how the last several years of his career was gone, Julius Santos is the only human being alive who thought, I should stand up and strike with this guy. And it did not go very well. and he had this like it was super sad because jds he's always been like such a happy fun you know lovable champion back in the day and seems like a genuinely good guy i've met him once and he seemed like a very nice guy don't have like super deep interactions with him and he had this like look of like he looked when he was you know being roused as he got his brain shoved through the back of his ears he had this look of like confusion

where he's like and it felt like he was like I got no no I was going to beat him on the feet and like oh precious oh honey baby no you were never going to beat him on the feet like why did you think that and so it was very sad one I quite hope that Juno Santos does not fight again

I think we can be done with that phase of his career as well yeah that was the knocko was sad enough but it was the aftermath when he woke up and he was against the cage and he just had blood gushing from it was just he looked like he was on another planet like in another time of his life it was it was very sad

we talked about the nominal fight it was what it was Jake Babyin could have done the funniest thing ever but he just got so tired and I'm getting finished and then Namo and skated a fight he's never going to get it in mixed martial arts and better RIF pays money

yep RF is going to make that one happened and uh good on them we had poohy nakuda that went down that was a weird one and it seems like he got a little screwed we might actually have a uh might actually have an appeal overturned here jed mishu uh with the i don't know i don't know what you're going to but i don't understand it i genuinely i don't know and i am i want to give one stipulation here we are now the sort of nebulous parts of judging and emma officiating that I'm not 100% I know all the rules and so maybe there is something here like I'd so I want to get that out as a preface that maybe there is something I am not aware of or missing that changes how this should

be like analyzed but Bumitakuta did not tap out and as best I can tell on the replay at the time the final horn was like buzzler was going was still grimacing in pain and defense Adriano Marais held the choke for multiple seconds after even when he was getting pulled off and then from Minucca went unconscious at the absolute very least

so he definitely went unconscious I'm not arguing that the question is a matter of when did he go unconscious Was it before or after the buzzer? Because if it's after the buzzer, it doesn't count. The fight is over. That doesn't matter. They came back and won 100%.

I don't believe that this is remotely correct, unless again I'm missing something. They said that retroactively they called the fight off at 459, which is just like, that's, I'm pretty confident in saying that that's not true. Like at that point of the clock, nobody had tapped. And Herb Dean had not called the fight off. off. So I don't know how that could be the case because Herb Dean didn't call the fight off until after the final buzzer and he pulled

Marais his hands off of Nakuda's throat. So I don't know what the shit that was about, but that seems bad. And then at best, you can say that he might have been, like, I don't think you can definitively say that Nakuda was

unconscious prior to the final horn. And so I don't think that that should be a, you should change to something that you're not, you can't be 100% certain of. It's like the NFL, you have to have conclusive proof. I don't even think it was true. But if it is true, I definitely just don't think you can, conclusively, like there's not a camera angle of, oh, that's where the light leaves his eyes.

And then the buzzer comes. I ultimately thought it wasn't going to matter because I had assumed Marias was still going to win on the cards, but it appears that he would have lost. on the cards. So Fumi got super screwed. Even if holistically and in pride rules, he did not get screwed, right? Like, schoolyard rules,

Fumie lost, but that's not the world we live in. I still just don't think they're going to overturn this because you had two officials in the moment spend a lot of time, and this was the ramshackled-ass answer they got to. And so I think this is quite poor officiating. But with the caveat that it is,

there's possibly something I'm missing here that's not, that, helps more to the story. Yeah, that's another thing that MVP could have done better, or at least in collaboration with CSAC, release the fucking scorecards, especially for that fight. Like, that you should absolutely put that scorecard out there to see where things were sitting. You know how much buzz that would have got?

People would have co-tweeted the shit out of that. Like, that was, that's a no-brainer. One thing, like, people love criticizing a scorecard. That's like a terrific activity from, from the fan base. So those scorecards should have been out. for everybody to see. So, but that was fun fight.

I thought Pumi won, but wouldn't have been a robbery if they went Marias. Maybe Marais stole it at the end, but there's a good fight. I just thought they were going to steal it at the end. Yeah, it was a good fight.

I will be really interested to see if they overturn this, and they basically no fights ever get overturned, almost like, they're like two I can think of, I'll stop my head. So I just don't think they will, but like,

it really feels like tech again spiritually phoom he lost you know like he he was unconscious he lost but like technically he didn't and that's that would be a pretty tough pill to swallow i think for yeah i definitely want to see that fight again um especially with pomey having like a full camp as opposed to taking it on a week's notice i'm very curious not saying that like he would dummy marize or anything like that but I think it would be, and you give Marais a full training camp to prepare for Prumi. That's a fun fight.

Like, we can do a best of seven with those two dudes that I'd watch every single one of them. Jason Jackson, quick knockout. That was pretty nasty. And I don't expect a lot of people thought Jeff Creighton would win that fight. But don't think a lot of people expected Jason Jackson to have the fastest knockout of the night. I think the lines on that would have been what? He would have been plus 17,000. that the fastest knockout of the night

would be Jason Jackson. Pretty high, but that's the thing, man, Jason Jackson has always been, like, good. He's never been exceptional, but former Belator champion, a very, you know, at one point, one of the 10 best fighters in the world in this weight class, still a very good fighter, like,

a lot of Lorenz Larkin energy, which is interesting, because obviously he was supposed to fight Lorenz Larkin, and then that fell through. I'd love them to rebook that, quite frankly, for whatever their next event is. But, like, the dude who's, just probably never going to get his flowers in a way that he will ever be satisfied with,

and he probably shouldn't be satisfied with. And that was awesome. Super fun, you know, interesting personality. I already pulled this because we're going to do a report on this fight card thing. This was Peak Morrow. Like, I think this is actually the quintessential Morrow quote, which is Marlono quote, which is Marrow and I was a very divisive figure in MMA spaces.

You either love him or hate him or like me, both. I do, I think that Maro is too much constantly. But he's been too much for 20 years of my life. And so it's kind of like if he wasn't too much, I don't

that's not right either. And when Jason Jackson won, his quote was the Jamaican smokes Creighton like a rasta he just holds it and it's so ludicrous but it kind of works

which is basically the moral Rinala story we're like you can listen to that and you will either hate that or think it's so bad it works for you like and that's it's perfect so uh it was really fun good on Jason Jackson shout out to the ass kicking machine one of the great nicknames in the sport Dave McGowan wins Eileen wins

That was a fight That was a fight that happened Yeah I don't understand why McGoyne was in That was not a like I think he's got some Like he is a legitimate prospect in the sport But like why was he on this MVP is not in the real prospect developing phase

Like they're in the mid level prospect But they're in the Parnasse phase Like here's a guy who's already really good that isn't maybe widely known and we can be the people to deliver him. So that fight was just, it was down. Yeah, I mean,

we're going to just, we got to see a lot of his skills. He tackled him. He did hurt him on the feet once too, but yeah, I got Ronald Rosa Jr. vibes a little bit. We're just like, all right, he's just going to tackle him over and over again

and take the win, and that's fine. He's 21 years old, me. He's just trying to get dubs. Yep. Pereira, Massan Wong was a fight that transpired. Pereira wins a splitie. Can't even begin to tell you anything that happened in that fight, Jed.

Not a single solitary thing. Pereira is not her brother. Probably into the better strikes on the feet. Got taken down a few times. It just was a fight. That was a smoke break. That was the smoker for sure. And Brandon Jenkins wins a split.

against Chris Avila. So that was MVP. Yeah, probably realistically shouldn't have been a sputty, but I was rooting for it. Man, that would have been fun. Did you have a bet? Yeah, we had... Oh, the Lee Harvey Oswald.

The Lee Harvey Oswald parlay. God, that was so close because Gann was so easy. Yeah, but then after Avila lost, it was like, well, you want the Jack Ruby parlay for obvious reasons. If you don't know what we're talking about, Go listen to the previous show, you'll under, or no best part this week. But neither of them worked.

They just split. The people who defeated John Kennedy won and lost. It was terrible. So that's MVPMMA. We'll take some questions at the end. Not a ton because there's so much going on, and we can't be here for two hours. But let's head on over to the world's most mightiest meta-apex for a card like we talked about.

End up being kind of fun. Arnold Allen. dominates Melchie Costa 50-45 on two judges cards 49-46 thought that was pretty good those are the right cards Arnold Allen with the

super cliche now 50-45 was the right card that felt it that felt extremely generous I was fine with 5045 I think you could have scored two rounds for Costa I think 49-46 is the correct score

I didn't have an issue with either of them honestly I really didn't I thought, I, maybe one round I would have given cost, like maybe, but I think you can give him two and four.

I gave him two. Two was the closest round, I thought. I just thought Arnold did not do a lot in two. And he got kicked a lot, and I know Arnold just acted like it didn't matter, but he still got kicked a lot. Dude's good, man.

He's very good. That was a great win. His losses are to the very best. So see what they do with him. Kind of curious. How hard they push him at this point? Oh, I don't think he's getting a push right now. I think he at least for one more is on.

I got a. You're defending position right now. Because he's lost to Evloev and John Silva. So a lot, yeah. Best he can go for his Aljo. But yeah, I'm like, would Aljo want to do that? I mean, that would be great fight for him? but would Aljo be okay with that?

I don't know. No, Aljo should fight John Sylvan, only Johnson. I think Arnold Allen is probably looking at the loser of Diego Lopez, Steve Garcia. That feels like that's the zone he's in. But, you know, if you're right. Yeah, you're the winner. Competes at some point in time. You could do that.

I don't might get the winner. That would actually make. Maybe, but I just kind of feel like if Diego wins, Arnold definitely could get the winner. If Steve is not. They're just, they got, he's going to be number two in the world. They got to let him fight John Silva for a title fight. He's also, he's also not like the most interesting guy in the world.

Yeah, but he's fun. Fun is great. Yeah, fun is great. I don't know. I don't think they will rush him out until like Volka's no longer champion. Because I don't know. We'll see. But good night for Arnold Allen.

Triffing night for around around. Good night for two Ho Choi. Wasn't looking that way for a minute. But that fight rocked. That was a very fun fight. Really fun. Du Ho Cho gets the, the ripper to the body into the ground and pound to get the win.

Juan Diaz dominates and submits Malcolm Wellmaker. And I've seen, like, you know how I am. I'm not a big fan of the old fraud check line. I understand why people say it, but it's not for me. All I've been seeing on the timeline is that Wellmaker has been fraud checked and this and that. I even saw somebody say this is the matchup to make and they put a picture of Malcolm

Wellmaker next to Gina Carrano which is not really fair I did get a slight chuckle out of that but yeah man I know you've been super high on Malcolm no I've been super on him being fun but just not good because he's too old

yeah I said that like for I said that in my contender series review of him I didn't grade him as a top prospect he's 31 or he was 30 or whatever at the time and he had eight fights. It was not like Carlos protest, who I got wrong, but it's just like he's a,

he was a young to the fight game and old and fight years. And the thing I said, and I've kind of kept saying is like, he has to run perfect. If at any point in time, knock on wood, he tears his ACL and loses a year, he's cooked. Then he's 32.

Then he's in the back half of his athletic prime in a good weight class. And instead, what happened is he has, has he clearly has some very good tools. He has a lot of deficiencies that need to be shored up. Those are things that you learn as you are a developing prospect coming up. And he will learn them. And by the time he learns them all,

he will be 36 years old and have no like meaningful wins. We're done. Like he is you, I think you nailed this, Mike. You said in our work slack, maybe you said it publicly. I don't know.

I mean, there's a clear comp for who he can be. And there's nothing wrong with that. He's just going to be Terrence McKinney because that's all he can be, I think, at this stage. Yeah. And I've been saying that since day one. I saw a wellmaker fight live multiple times before he was in the UFC. Fun dude.

If you give him the right matchups, he can look really good. But if you like, like actually look at his resume, he has beat nobody. Like he's got a couple of UFC wins, but like comparatively to his peers, especially in that division, like, wins are not great. Simon, Chris Mutino, and Adam Bromhall Dunkin' Dinner series. Yeah.

We knew what the Mutinio fight was. Like that was, we knew what these were. He can be super fun. Maybe he can, you know, put together some kind of a late run that's decent,

but like he's never going to fight for a belt. He's never going to. Yeah. There were like three prospects in the history of this sport who started competing like at age 30 or later and were great.

And most of them are at heavy, like heavyweight. Yeah. It's like Daniel Cormier. who also had a significantly better earlier pedigree, you know, to like do this with. It just doesn't happen. It's not game doesn't work.

You have to be the outlier of outliers. It's like being how many good NFL quarterbacks are five, nine, you know? Like it just doesn't maybe one or two. Don't bet on it. Yeah, man. But yeah, just be Terrence McKinney, man. Just go out there and just have super fun car crash. fights. Like, there's a lot of value in that in today's MMA. The UFC loves fighters like that.

But yeah, he would have lost to Cody Hadden had that fight happened. He ended up losing to Ethan Ewing. I picked Juan Diaz to win this fight. I didn't think he'd go out there and just like run his ass over the way he did. I thought it'd be a little bit more competitive. I thought it would look a little bit like the Ewing fight where like he had a big moment early and then Diaz would kind of just turn it on at the end and grind out a decision. But This is pillar to posting, man. This is very impressive. Now I'm very intrigued about Juan Diaz.

And, you know, perhaps, perhaps Malcolm Wellmaker is just that guy. Maybe he's the, maybe Malcolm Wellmaker is the Charles Johnson of Bantamway, where it's like, hey, you'd be Charles, you'd be Malcolm Wellmaker. Maybe he got something. Maybe you can go on a little bit of a run. So it's worked so far for Ethan Ewing because he looked fantastic in his second, in his sophomore UFC appearance. Definitely intrigued. I mean, if this is true, then Chris Mutino is about to be one of the year. of the very best band of weights on on earth if he's the charles johnson then chris moutini

buddy you're fighting for a belt soon that's right uh Troy and santo's got fight of the night one d has got a bonus 100% Troy and santo should get fight than that if that rock fight that was awesome uh I'll tell you who didn't get a bonus modestis buccas and christian edwards boy oh boy I got out of that fight just being like how good is big tuna big tuna rules I gotta hate Ballotaur for ruining Big Tuna. I want to give some level of credence to short notice fights are always difficult

on both fighters. Guy coming on short notice probably hasn't been training for a fight. Guy accepting the short notice change was training for somebody else. Maybe a whole different vibe going on there. Man, this is, this was even a catch weight because it was so short notice or whatever. not many people in the history of the UFC have

have lowered their stock more with a win the Modestis Pekoskoskis did. Not that people are super watching his stock, but like nobody is, it is a tough scene to get a win and have everybody being like, that's bad. And that's what he did tonight. Sure did. That was a fight that happened.

Bernardo Sopai, good to have him back. Golly, he's fun. Dude's a firecracker and put away Timmy Cuombo, terrific performance. Chaos Williams, or shall we say Mayos Williams, just continues this run of knockout, wins in May, gets the victory. Who got the other bonus? Oh, oh, we'll get to that. Okay, that now makes sense. It's the most obvious one, yeah.

Maybe the submission of the year front run. running right now. Yvon Erzlan wins against Tuko Tokos. Tommy Gantt. That was impressive, man. I was pretty high on Ardenienev anyways. Shut out Wakefield, Massachusetts. But, dude, Gant ran his ass over.

There is some talent there. I wish he wasn't in his 30s. 33. He's even in his later 30s. If we are going to talk about some of the stuff that happened. Tommy Gann is basically a Garger-Gerlespie. Just like, he's real good. He's not quite as pedigre.

created as Gregor Gillespie, but like good on him because he did at least do the right thing. He fought like 10 times in a year or something insane. Yeah, his entire MMA career up until tonight all took place since like April 2024. Yeah, it's like good on you. If you're coming in late, you better get in and get the reps. But like, yeah, he's 33 at lightweight. He's done. So we can have some fun with them though.

The other thing I will say about this, um, first of all, DC, they're just doing way too much with him. Uh, he should not have been on the, on the horns for this fight. Dude, like when you literally said, I forgot about that when I, when I ran it earlier this week. Dude. This frigging guy. Like I, I, when I saw DC on there anyway, I'm like, oh, the gas fights can be super weird.

But then DC like literally says into a live microphone. This guy lives in my house and we're commentating his fight. Yeah, he's like, that guy lives in my house during training camp. He's like, all around. driving around a golf car around my street that's Tommy Gantz I'm like what are we doing here like come on man I honestly think that actually even worse than that is Felder shortly after that and you know I love Paul Felder good good work or whatever it was like he is laughing at the situation like it's always funny when one of DC's guys is fighting because I can physically see like

he's saying so I can see you reacting to everything I'm like you guys just said that into a hot, like a live microphone that one of the commentators is physically reacting to a fight because he wants it to go one way or another. Just step out of the booth. You can step out of the booth for 15 minutes, man. It is not that hard. Go smoke a cigarette. You can run a two-man booth

for 15 minutes. Yeah. He okay. Take a walk. Make a phone call. Yeah. Smoke a sig. Go stand in the corner and coach him. I don't care. It's fine. And then come back. Go sit in the crowd. It's totally okay. It's totally fine on that.

The other DC thing, I'll get to it in a moment. I really annoyed the shit out of me. And you could tell it annoyed Paul Felder too, but we'll get to that in the second. From the pitch to the stands to communities around the world. The beautiful game is coming to our beautiful country. Uniting fans around a shared passion. Now you have the opportunity to hold this chapter of Canadian soccer history in the palm of your hands. Score the FIFA World Cup

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He was very due. Uh, knocks out on. Petrosky, Luis Garul. That was fun fight with Daniel Barras. That second round was really fun. Caliari stopped Sean Abannon. That was a fight that is on a UFC card in 2026. But how about Elise Arde Leon, Jed Mishu?

That's cool. What it was the official name of this submission? They called it a capsule lock, which I don't know if that's a real thing. We're going. So I tried to look it up and I didn't really get anywhere with it. I thought as I was watching, as we were all watching it live, I had no idea what happened. The fight suddenly ended. And then on the replay, it's like they show you.

And if you haven't seen it, there's a highlight up on him. If I didn't go watch, go watch the website. Vianna has Ardellian in the full guard with the, you know, with the body lock from guard. And Ardelyan simply lets the trailing leg, like the overhooked leg, right, the drop leg. She backs her hips out and then walks them around. So her body is now against the trailing leg and drags and then is pulled across Ardellian's own body and then functionally like does a squat sit into it to put the pressure on. And as I was watching, it's like, oh, that's actually intentional and that's a real thing.

And I think it's a calf slicer. or functionally a calf slicer at which point I hit up Open Note grappling and he said that yes Also Ardalen said it afterwards She said that she learned it on TikTok Which is hilarious

And that she's like I noticed that she likes to use this guard So I was like I'll try it And then she's like and it works for like a calf slicer Where it just torques the crap out of the knee And your calf or whatever As the way it goes and It looked quite painful

never seen it before. Don't know if I'll ever see it again, the UFC, but look, when you do something that's never been done before, you should certainly get a bonus. And depending on how the year shakes out, almost certainly going to at least be in the top five for submissions of the year. Yeah, good for her, man. She's a big favorite heading into this one.

And a lot of people are like, oh, should she be that big of a favorite of a favorite? But it happened. The other moment of DC that, and it's not even just DC, there's somebody else I want to shout out for this uh the Juan Diaz Malcolm Wellmaker fight Diaz hurt Wellmaker real bad and then came in and threw a knee that clearly hit Wellmaker in the shoulder and they stopped the fight with one second left in the round to go replay it and every replay you looked at very clear it was in the shoulder the referee eric mcband who by the way

since all the other like great referees are good or referees referees that you've heard of were they were all in LA for the rousy coronal card they knocked on eric mcman's door and eric was like that was a reckless strike but for it was a very legal strike totally clear uh and then DC was furious that they didn't penalize Juan Diaz for kneeing him in the shoulder because he thought it hit him in the neck and Felder was annoyed listening to DC be like you can't hit him in the neck fellas like learn the rules bro like please read him do something like be prepared on these broadcast he just got i think in this one dc just got he got committed to a take and he wasn't willing to back off it and that's bad but like he he thought it was one thing and then

as evidence mounted that he was incorrect he decided that the only way out was through was like i'm just gonna live on i'm gonna live on this hill and as a take as a takes myself. I understand that feeling. But yeah. Honestly, my grand takeaway is that that's bad officiating, but it's 2026. Grow up and legalize all foot strikes to grounded opponents. It's very stupid that we do this because they're down is like, I'm allowed to kick you in the head if you're standing up. Why can't I kick you in the head if you have a knee on the girl?

It's dumb. It's dumb. So just allow it and we can be done with this. refs suck at this job anyway like nobody disputes it I don't even know that refs really dispute that they all suck at their jobs so give them fewer things to think about

just allow it knees and kicks to the heads of downed opponents are fine it's just this is not hard okay let's go to the peeps and then we'll get out of here got a bunch of super chats shout out to all of you uh remand after seeing our first MVP

mMA event tonight what is your major takeaway from tonight any particular fight or the connor news. Man, I don't really have that many, like, major takeaways. Mostly things are as I thought them to be, right? Like, I came into this thinking that they were, MVP was going to put on a good, not great product, but like a professionally run thing.

I mostly think they did that. You know, most of the people we thought won or were going to win one. I missed a few, but most in general, like big picture. We all knew Connor was happening, even thought that it might be happening today. We were super prepared if it did happen today, and it did. I mean, I guess if I just have to pick one, the answer is going to be like, I think that this is sustainable. Obviously, the numbers will tell us the case, but not at a once a month clip,

but if they do four major events a year for MVPMMA, you know, or just one more this year and try to build two, three or four per year, that would be good for the sport overall, something I'd be interested in and something I'm quite frankly rooting for because one championship's on the way out. God love PFL. Maybe they'll hire me and I'll save them,

but until then, they haven't been doing amazing. We need something and this maybe is something. For those wondering about the return of town hall, we may be having one next week, so be prepared for that. Speaking of PFL. be prepared i've already told the fine folks at pfl that uh they should be prepared as well um

the fan base is prepared to ask hard questions and we're expecting answers to those hard questions so uh be prepared for that more on that as we get more information my biggest takeaway is boy did people want this to fail i'm just kind of like i know like there's a good chunk of people who are like, yeah, like this is good for the sport. Like most people who are in here like, yeah, we want this to do well because rising ties, all that shit. But man, the loudest people in the room are the ones that are like, this sucks, blah, blah, nobody was there.

By the way, there were people there. There were people there. They didn't sell that bitch out, but they were people there. Seen a lot of energy in the comments. It was crazy. It was not sold out. But if everybody who's boots on, like every, outside of just our people there, like everybody was like quite a lot of people in attendance.

Uh, they did not sell it out, but like they apparently moved to a decent number of tickets. So yeah. I was told not early, but also most fight cards don't have prelim actions that fill up. That's, yeah.

Go to a UFC event. That's fairly standard. Into a dome has the, all the seats have lights on them. So it's like super weird. They did not sell. They did not do the UFC numbers, uh,

of UFC 311. I think it was with the Islam. Machchev fight certainly didn't do 18,000 I was told they sold right around 13,000 tickets and I got this information before the event even started so even if there wasn't a button seat and the ticket was sold accounts so there's a quote for Nate Diaz at the post press at his postpressure should have fought the second most violent guy alive instead of the first man Nate a solid one really respect that he had that's the two best of the week right there between that drive safe

and that nailed it good to see him take it in stride Spencer howdy boys enjoyed but glad I didn't make the four and a half hour drive Francis still has it was afraid he didn't Pardass is a stud so impressed who were the top three male fighters outside of the UFC right

now Jesus Christ again I still think I would have gone just because pretty like it's an experience but you know if you're happy you didn't go good good on you Spencer top three male fighters outside of the UFC are Francis Inganu Saladin Parnas. Two of them were on this card.

You might be able to make a case three of them were. Nah, Mahamahev is better than anybody else that was on this card. Maybe. I think that's the three. Okay. It feels like the three to me. Yeah. I was trying to think.

What about Phil de Freeze? How dare you? I mean, look, accomplishment, Phil DeFries, legend. What about Eddie Hall? No. No. How dare you?

The one dude last night impressed me. He was good. I can't think of his name off the top of my head because it's almost 2 a.m. I've been up for a super long time. And I'm going to be banning a dude. Dope. All right. Got that taken care of.

Yeah. I feel I'm at least comfortable with that line of three. Maybe I'm missing somebody. It feels decent. That's good. I mean, Oussman is up there, but I don't know. Yeah, neighborhood. Hey, this guy looks familiar.

Hey, who's that? Dana White's pharmacist. Okay. I've never been more pessimistic on the sport. Monopalization was solidified tonight. My mom didn't have fun watching the card, and she won the golden gloves. Really? Your mom didn't have, like, that's interesting.

I would genuinely like to know more. because again, I had fun watching. It was not all winners. Pacing was a thing. Again, pacing is pretty bad for most MMA cards, whatever. And if you were locked in from Jump Street, man, the early going was a bit tough. You would have liked something a little better to open the gate. But it's, I don't know, maybe I'm just interested that there was nothing like redeeming about the card.

yes, monopolization is going to kill this sport and it is fully in play. But I'm not optimistic about MVP, but I try not to think in that terms anymore. Like I just think that I had fun tonight and I hope we do this again. Yeah. And to me, like, I've already accepted reality that we're going to live in the monopolized world. And guess what? Soon enough, all you boxing enthusiasts out there, you're going to be living in that world too. Like, it's going to happen.

But I actually like truly feel and I've talked to a lot of people in the industry like MVP is like the last hope of like getting something going. Because if this thing again, this thing does five million views. They're they're done. And this is this is it. Like if you're expecting GFL to come over and take the world by storm and give the UFC a run for their money. And again, MVP has said multiple times they ain't going to beat the UFC. The UFC is number one. Jake Paul can say what he wants to say to try to create headlines.

Nikisip Dairn, would no matter what you say about him, dude is very understanding that the UFC is the best organization. They are far and away number one and they're going to be number one forever. But it's okay to have a little competition. It's okay. It's good for the sport. It's good to have some negotiating power.

I'm curious to see how MVP, like, literally went back there and how they're approaching this from a business perspective. Like, could the UFC like literally call Saladin Parnais's people and be like, Yo, come with us. What do you need? What did you get paid tonight? I see it. We'll give you this.

Come fight for us. They can you do that right now if they wanted to. They'd just steal them. They could do that with Mike. They could do that with anybody. They wouldn't do it with Francis, but they could do it with anybody they wanted. Yeah.

The thing is I don't do they care. The question is, does you... They should care about Parnas, dude. They have consistently not. They have consistently not. They have low-balled him and he has rejected them. I believe at least. twice, maybe three times.

Like, and they don't, they don't care because they don't have to. And so the question, for us, the goal for MVP is not to rise up and overthrow. It is, is this enough to simply make them care? Because that's it. Like, there is no hope. I have no hope that this sport is getting saved. It is not happening. We are too far gone.

Things like this do not get fixed. naturally they get fixed by federal legislation, which is not coming. So this is just the reality. The question is, can there be somebody who will at least create enough the hint of a possible thing that will force a reaction from the UFC to say, all right, fine, we will pay somebody some amount of money instead of just like, we don't need Zalding Parnas, who gives a shit about him? He can take 12 and 12 or be done.

And I don't know if it is. I guess we'll find out if Solidine ends up in the UFC soon, then we'll find out. But like, they are just not going to do anything other than out of pure pettiness, which we saw with the Connor announcement targeted for Francis. Dana wants to hit Francis because he doesn't like Francis. But they don't, they do not feel this like an iota of threat. And they shouldn't. There's no reason to feel threatened by MVP whatsoever. And so they aren't going to change how.

they act at all until they at least recognize they're like oh i should nip this in the but bud now and i don't even know if we're there yeah i have a feeling he might be back in ksw because he's making a good chunk to change ksw so but again if you're mvp especially if you can go back in ksw and then fight on the next MVP card and get whatever he's getting there yeah i mean i don't know if he's in or out i don't know what he can do if can go to multiple organizations but if you're going to build something if you're coming back like you got to make you got to make that guy a priority 100%. Spencer, thought Ariel was great

tonight, different timeline could see him as a main desk guy for the UFC. Funny UFC finally gets a little competition and starts trying. I don't. They didn't start trying. When did they start trying? Funny UFC finally gets a little competition and starts trying BTW.

They didn't start trying. Yeah. Maybe they ran out of characters. I don't know. their the increase in their mega in their big card quality is largely result in their summer block is always better they are always trying to do better things international fight week is always a card that is highlighted to do something bigger um you know we all taught 320 it was good but i don't think 320 it would have been fine anyway you know 27 was good talks me in september yeah 326 is back on in september i bet it's not that good 324 is DC card 325 was bad 326 is bad it's awful uh it was awful on paper and awful

in execution 27 was fine what would have been good they lost the title fight 28 was great white house will be white house spectacular and uh i fw will be yeah good good and big and then we'll go from there you'll get you'll get Islam in august and yeah it'll be fine but this is This is what we get every year. And then in between, there'll be a bunch of apex cards and no one cares about. There'll be some pretty bad fight night cards. But the behaviors are the numbered events. That's what matters.

So thank you, Spencer. What should I do with my tough team Rhonda jersey? I mean, that's a finder's keeper right there for sure. Yeah. I iconic. Randy, does the two-man booth work better? I like it more. I think in general I would prefer two men's.

But I think a three men can. You just have to have the issue of the three men booth is always what does the third man do? Because a two man booth, the roles are very clear. You've got a play by play. You've got a color. You add a third person in there and they have to be good at filling in the gaps between the two. And that largely comes with reps and experience with the same. grouping, right? So you know when not to step on people's toes.

Like what you can provide as a color or extra piece into this puzzle, maybe even pick up some play by play duty, you know, if it needs to be done. But I, like, that's, there's an art to it. And it takes a lot of reps and work. Two men's very easy. Like, you can get a functional two man booth from any two broadcasters, even if they've never worked together. And it, it can get a rhythm pretty quickly. It just kind of depends. I think unless you're going to trot the Fitsy Felder Sanko team out there, every apex event should be too bad. It should be play by play, one color guy. I don't have an issue of that. Like that's, that's how it should be. Unless, like I said, unless you're doing that specific trio, it should be too man. And Paul Felder needs to be the second

guy more often than not. He is just buried in the three-man boots and he's the best they got. Like, he's so good. I think he really does not know how to do the third man role. And that's a struggle for him because when DC's in the booth of them, DC is the, DC is the color. And so then Felder is just kind of jumping in, like in spots as opposed to having like, here's where I fill.

He's much, he would be much better as just a straight two, like just a one to a two. A hundred percent agree with that. As a thing, like the third man spot and a three-man booth is tough. It is a tricky place to be. You are the third wheel very much.

And, you know, if you all ever been the third wheel, you're on a date with, you know, you have two friends who are dating and you're just around, you got to, it requires some work.

and they don't have a lot of great ones in the U.C. at that, and it is just tricky in general. Like, I think it would have been a lot better if Felder had just been like pro, whoever the due Tommy Gantfault was, Miner, whatever's name, Arder, whatever. Just been like, all right, if D.C.'s going to be a pro-Ganker, I'm just going to give you straight bias for Arder.

And I would at least be like, here's a clear dynamic that's kind of fun. But, yeah, in general, I would say two men's and less, you've got a really good three men yeah because i mean they felt there's the best at post fight interviews they don't like when he's not working with crews or really just cruise really cruz or sanko like he's he's got to watch dc do them or watch bisming do him it's i don't know i thought dc was fine in the post fights today nothing really bad there yeah he can be hit or miss with that i do think felders the best they have at those but i think dc was fine yeah dc was tough to listen to tonight but he had some some tough spots in the booth for sure you sure did um did you like the morrow

kentie florian booth uh again morrow was just an institution so i'm kind of resigned to it i actually think morrow was a good call morrow's not always for me um i think i probably like him a little more than a lot of like deep insiders in the industry but i think he's exactly the right choice for something like this because his hallmark is that like outlandish enthusiasm and for a debuting event on a big platform you don't want an understated person probably you probably want to go more Gus Johnson um than but you know like Costa like you want somebody to be out there uh Kenny was fine he was non uh there was only the only time I really had an issue with Kenny is he clearly just

had an idea about what was going on in the fucking um foamy thing and just kept talking about the shit that didn't matter where he's like no no he was unconscious like nobody's disputing that he was unconscious Kenny the question is was he unconscious

before the horn sounded because that's what matters no no he's unconscious yes but was he before the horn like again yeah that was tough my whole he was ultimately not a huge problem though like that was the only detracting moment that I felt from him um I will just say like of all the things I got wrong I felt most vindicated by my absolute disdain

for the team they assembled for this uh yeah I didn't wasn't if it was for you terrific super was not for me you know just there there are 8 billion people in the world. You don't have to pick the same seven dudes. You could just just try new dudes. You know, I'm not saying try me. Try a try new people. They should try you. Try us. I don't. I don't like I would try it. I don't know if I'd be good at it, but you just try. Just try. Try new people, not people who aren't like hired to do this job anymore by the biggest piece of the industry that does this job. Like just try somebody. knew. But don't try

Kane because I also don't really understand why we did Kane and that wasn't the worst, but Kane was never a great talker anyway. So why are we talking to Kane? Just I didn't understand a lot of those

those choices. The first show. First show. If they do another one, we'll see. We'll see. Oh, let's start here. Watching M. Mason's 05, I think I'm done now. Hey, I mean, O5 is a long run.

You put 21 years in this thing, man. That is a good. By any standard of definition, that's a good relationship. It's not a failed one. If you are done, totally get it. I think I've said this before. I was pretty much done with MMA right before I got a job working in it. And that sort of reignited me and renewed me.

I can almost guarantee you that if this was not my job, I would at most be a super casual. fan at this point in time. Totally understand. You have seven X'd the average lifespan of an MMA fan. I mean, yeah, dude, that's, your, your MMA fandom can drink. Yep, that's pretty damn good. You did it.

You raised that fandom. Yeah, most M.A. fans, three years, and they're out. And they are very happy with that decision. Back to date as pharmacist who's just throwing money in our direction. We love it. Besides Netflix, what's the difference between MVP and Gamebred? Pettis versus Roy Jones Jr. I bought tickets.

Both are leading to immediate death. I mean, there's definitely a little bit higher end on Netflix, right? Like, Gamebred is fun. For instance, Gano is arguably the best heavyweight in the world. Probably not anymore, but like he is a cachet that is quite different than what is at Gamebred. Saladin Parnasse is one of the best fighters in the world. You're not really getting that at that. So it is, I mean, it is a status thing.

It is the appearance of propriety. And appearances matter. And so, but like in a brass tax way, a lot of it was similar. There was a lot of retirement matchmaking here. I think Caposo was like, if you got, if you weren't fans back in the 2000s, this is basically peak strike force. Ronda Elsie takes somebody's arm out. You got some old people getting murdered. You got a couple of new hot ship prospects.

This is, this is strike force. And strike force was really fun at the time. So like, yeah, it is. This is largely a reincarnation of strike force. And that, and it's being done with a one of, if not the biggest broadcaster in the world right now. So the biggest difference between MVP and Gamebred and I think we're talking about the Gamebred boxing event is that MVP, say what you will about them. They know how to let people know that their event is happening.

When it's happening, how it's happening, where to watch it, how to get tickets to the event. They did that great. GameBread did a horrific job with that. And unfortunately, as much as I- Yeah, and as much as I fucking love their product. I love GameBread MMA, the bare-knuckle shit. I think this could be the thing. This could be the the hardcore fan promotion. They haven't done anything at all to improve on that. And it sucks.

It sucks. Because they should be very, very fun. They should be the hardcore, hardcore fan base type of promotion. They just don't have it, man. They do a lot of the same things that this broadcast team is doing. We're just trot, no names that people might know that may or may not be good at this. And then no one knows that their events are on, which is the difference. Like MVP can put 13,000 people in an arena.

Game bread boxing could not. and gay bread, bear knuckle MMA also cannot. And they shouldn't try to. So that's the biggest difference to me outside of Netflix. But, I mean,

think about that, think about that game bread boxing card. They had the UFC promoting that. Like the UFC was promoting that event and they still couldn't get traction. They put it on UFC fight pass. They did everything for them to try to get something going there.

They couldn't do it. So there's just no need for the product. at that point. Coswell, thank you for all the great coverage this week, fellas. Thank you. Thanks, Cosmo. Pretty excited. We don't have a UFC card this week.

We got something better. Oh, God, we got Fury and... No, Alexander Usick versus Rico Verhoeven. Oh, yes. Would you like to see... Would you like to see the best heavyweight of his generation fight a kickboxer who doesn't really punch? Rico mostly didn't punch.

I'm not sure and it wasn't even like a big hitter. This is like is a plus like this is promotional genius like I will bet everything I own on Usik I don't even know what the odds are

they cannot be high enough it's like he has no way to win I'm actually curious about this she's got to be like minus 2,000 favorite if it's not insane will that be the oh wow let's see come on now

minus 3,000 for Alexander Usik, the comeback are Rico Verhoevid plus 1360 yeah we know we're getting here folks we're getting a massacre he has no way he has no way to win unless he totally cheats and kicks him in the head which would be one of the funniest things to happen this year so I hope it happens

yeah maybe Usik will just step tackle arm bar and we'll be out there in 17 seconds wouldn't hate it doing right in front of the pyramids. It's badass mode with that, baby. Yeah, we get it fuck out of here. AK and I are going to match week for the UFC tomorrow. We'll do our best.

That was actually a fun of it. It was a fun night. It was a fun night. Get a good night's sleep. Positive vibes. We're out of here. Love y'all. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.