MMA Fighting - The A-Side Live Chat | Charles Oliveira’s UFC title win, Tony Ferguson’s Future, Edson Barboza'a KO, Kayla Harrison in the UFC, More

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

For this episode, José Youngs, Alex Savas, & Alexander K. Lee react to some of the biggest stories in MMA. Some topics include: Fall out from UFC 262; Charles Oliveira’s UFC lightweight title win over Michael Chandler; Beneil Dariush’s dominant decision win over Tony Ferguson; Edson Barboza’s violent TKO over Shane Burgos; Kayla Harrison's possibly jumping to the UFC, and more. The three will also look ahead to UFC Vegas 27, headlined by Rob Font vs. Cody Garbrandt, and Bellator 259, headlined by Cris Cyborg vs. Leslie Smith 2. Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs Follow Alex Savas: @alexsavas Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee 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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There's no music today because, as you can see, Casey is off shooting an Anderson Silva workout in Los Angeles, possibly a scrum, we don't know, ahead of Anderson Silva's... It's an exhibition match, correct, AK? Yes, exhibition box. It's an exhibition boxing match against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Who I am not fan of that fight or the fighter.

Anyway, regardless, I don't have the music because Casey is busy. So I am producing slash hosting slash pulling your questions up. So I'm on like quadruple duty today. So if I'm not as engaged as usual, that is why I'm learning on the fly. So joining us this week, it's The Alex Show, or as A.K. Lee refers. What did you refer to it on Twitter as? Well, this is like the third time, I think, in the last year. I think that Alex Savas and I have both done the A-Side Live Chat.

So this is officially the Alex and the Alex Tokyo Drift. Because it's the third time? Is that what you said? This is third time. Yeah, the fourth time, I don't know what I'm going to do because that's when they reset the names, but we'll figure out. What was the fourth one called? Just fast and furious. They removed the the, or the opposite.

They added the, I can't remember. Oh, no, they removed the the, the fifth one was fast five. That's five. I have a fun story about fast five. I'll tell it another time. But it ends with The Rock. The Rock bought my movie tickets to see Fast Five. That was a fun time.

I'm going to finish that story. I'll finish it at the end of the episode. Yes. People stick around. And then, it's one of them. It's a ridiculous, it's not even a ridiculous story. It's just a very odd story and just a lot of, I had to be at the right place with the right time moments.

But anyway, you guys heard A.K. Lee, Alex Savis, How's Life in California? Oh, California. is really testing me, you know. There's a wildfire burning like five miles from my house. And like nobody here bats and I, and then there's little old Midwest me and I'm like, should we be panicking? But I guess not.

I don't know, but it's just not normal. It's just, there's ash everywhere. It smells like smoke, smelled like somebody's like burning a campfire in my living room. It's just the most weird thing. But I'm trying to get used to it, but it's testing. Is this the first wildfire you've experienced in California since you moved there?

That's close enough to me for when, for me, to panic. Have you been in L.A. for more than a year now? Yeah, just over a year. Wow. Wow. So anyway, anyway, you guys know the Joel out, and I guess I should ask how, A.K., how's it at life in Moncton?

Moncton, New Brunswick? Oh, it's glamorous. No, shout us to Moncton. It's Moncton, right? If I get that wrong, I feel so... What are you asking me for? I've never heard of Moncton. I know. I feel so bad for...

You have you had a card there. What do you've never heard of Moncton? You have a card there. was that Anthony Smith so that's so when I first joined to anime fighting

I was kind of made I was assigned pretty much every single fight card to like do the recaps and stuff for every single fight night that's the first one I missed because I had to go to a wedding

so that one is not in my rolodex of knowledge I remember Artem fought Michael Johnson because Michael Johnson missed weight even though Michael Johnson was supposed to be Zubaira because this was the first

car after the 220 and then Arden was like giving his money back yeah I'm giving him his money back yeah I'm giving him First penalty back. Because Zubaira was part of the 229 chaos in Las Vegas.

So he got pulled from that card. And then the man of Van Anthony Smith and Vulcan, right? Ozedamere. Sorry, one second, Jose. I'm having some audio issues. That's on my end. It's on my end. If anyone else is having them, let us know in the comments.

But one second, let me try something here. I'm going to try no headphones for a second. We're going to hear you then. We're going to hear ourselves. You're going to hear everything. No, I'm going to hear. Oh, you're going to hear me. All right.

Don't worry about it. The joys of live, the joys of live television. Like I said, we don't have the truck here today. We don't have the man in the truck, but otherwise, I'm catching most of it. Cool Alix was not here for my many technical difficulties when I first took over the A-side. That was a dark time. Oh, nobody remembers that. I do.

I still wake up and I'm thinking about it. The show's been running, the Jose edition of the A-Sides, been running smoothies since day one. I don't know what you're talking about. We're coming up on a year problem. like two years probably. I hadn't even thought about that. Because when everyone left to ESPN or the athletic, whatever, for a while it was the Jose N.K. Lee Show and I'd be fighting for a bit.

We would take turns to go to bed to stay up and write articles. Anyway, no one cares about that. You guys know the truth. You can ask questions on the site. Questions on the site, get priority because you took your time to go on M.A.fighting.com to leave your comments. I got a bunch of them lined up already. You can leave them with YouTube comments. no promises I will see them this time because I you know I'm doing a thousand things

and once or you can tweet it at one of us or as a few of you have done in the past I don't know if you're watching this time you've text me questions while we're live on air so without further ado what's how do they do that I have you there's these things called telephones and they text you is your no is your is your is your number did you tweet out your number no these are like friends of the show that like or various MMA media personalities like Shout out to Matt Wells, good friend of the show, and one of my main victims on Between the Links has texted me questions. Anyway, you guys know. You didn't introduce me. You didn't introduce me as the reigning interim VTL champion. That's right. You are the interim BTL champion. You're not the real champion until you be Phoenix, though, which is never going to happen.

That's definitely not something else. Let me have this one. That was a fun, what was it, the gauntlet match? I definitely. Oh, that was so fun. See, here's the thing, though. Sean definitely beat me for sure, and I think I'd definitely beat Phoenix. But that's neither here nor there. You guys know the drill. Ask your questions in the Twitters or the comments or whatever. A.K., if you see a question in the YouTube comments, just shout it out.

Maybe I can find it. But while further ado, let's go. First one from MMG 2K20, McTapper. People have accused McGregor of exposing his neck and tapping. every time the going gets tough. However, looking at Tony, who has not been in the same since the gaecchi beating and refuses to tap to deep arm bars and heel hooks. Is McGregor doing the right slash smart thing to avoid punishment? The damage Tony has taken in the last three fights is very worrying. So yes, well set the scene here where if you guys live under a rock and you didn't

watch UFC 262 and it's Wednesday, May 19th and you still haven't watched it, Tony Ferguson was in a very deep heel hook against Benile Dereyush and didn't tap out. You can see him writhing in pain. This is now the second straight fight where he didn't give up. The first one, of course, he was stuck in a very tight. Was it Arm bar correct against Charles Olivera at UFC 256? That was the co-main event as well, three-round fight. Didn't give up on back-to-back deep submissions. I don't know. I've heard this theory that McGregor gives up his neck when the going gets tough. Casey Leiden, I don't, from the truck. I don't know if he's subscribed. to that theory, but we did have this interesting argument where for a while we didn't have this

image of, there was no image of Connor McGregor, like, laying out, like, just toasted. Like, you've seen the photos of Ronda getting knocked out. You've seen the photos of Anderson. You've seen the photos of Steepa now. Like, it's been the thing where you see these dominant champions just out, cold, unconscious, bloody on the canvas. We haven't seen that with Conn McGregor until the Dustin Forrey knockout. It's always been submissions, and then he gets up and he's fine against Habib, against Nate, you know, he just gets caught. Until Dustin, we hadn't seen really him done on the canvas. So A kid, do you subscribe to this theory that McGregor gives up his neck? And if so, is that the smart thing to do? It is a smart thing to do in general,

but I always kind of hated the McTapper nickname. There's a lot of reasons to hate Connor McGregor, but I don't understand. I always felt like he got like extra, it's weird. It's weird. It's like I've never heard someone call like GSP a French Tapper guy or whatever, the tapir because of the he had one of the quickest taps, and I love Chhispy, but he had one of the quickest taps you'll ever see in your life. The first match he'd fight, right?

He literally, that arm bar was, and I don't blame him because I think Hughes actually really could snap that arm in like half a second. So I don't blame people over talking about quickly. And the reggae stuff is just weird because he has, what, two, two, oh, I guess three submission losses, two in the UFC, one before. But it's just weird that he's the only guy that kind of gets that tag.

If you want to say he has like really crappy submission defense, okay, I'm willing to go that way. But the McTapper thing's a bit on. Everybody, you know, a lot of people tap. And if you want to throw that in GSP, then do that. But again, I would prefer you don't throw on either of them. So but to the broader question, yeah, people should definitely be tapping out. And I'm not being critical of Tony Ferguson, by the way.

Tony Ferguson is not human. He knows his pain threshold better than we do. Could something like that heel hook have a deleterious effect? on the rest of his career? Maybe, maybe. But again, we're not doctors. We're not Joe Rogan. We're not able to diagnose injuries as soon as they have been on the UFC broadcast. So really, I'm being a bit soft here. I'm not criticizing either, man. If you tap quickly, more power to you. If you don't tap, I mean, again, it's probably somewhat ill-advised, but Tony's super tough. And there's probably a lot of reasons that he's been in the slump lately besides just the accumulation of damage and his, you know, him being too tough for his own good.

Well, so who's he tapped out to? Nate Diaz, extremely high-level Blackbell. Habib Nirmigamehameh who makes literally, what are his two? All of his wins, almost all of his wins lately. They've been by submission. Like, Taps Connor, taps Gaichi, taps Porre, so don't hang your head on being submitted by Habib Nurekmeh. But, cool, Alex. Do you subscribe to this theory that Connor willingly gets submitted, as this MMG-2K-20 states?

No. The thing is like, yeah, kind of McGregor is going to experience the highest of the highs, but also with that comes the lowest of the lows. So he's going to take as much glory and praise as he is going to take, you know, all that negativity too. The idea that people shouldn't be tapping or that we should even be commenting on when somebody, when the appropriate time to tap is just ridiculous. I mean, like AK said, everybody has their own pain threshold.

I'm sure that adrenaline comes into play that probably, you know, masks a lot of it for some people, maybe not so much for other people. And in your head, you might be thinking, like, look, I don't got this. Why subject myself to potential injury when I could come back in two weeks right now if I tap, get another fight and keep this, you know, keep this train going? So, no.

The fact that, you know, Tony's feel, I don't know if it's just like this mentality that like you're not some sort of tough guy if you're tapping. Like, let's just, we could just end that, you know, now because it's just idiocry. like it's ridiculous. I think the problem with Tony's most recent one is if you get submitted with, you know, an arm, broken arm, that's like a couple weeks. You have to take a couple weeks off anyway. You get submitted with a choke. You can probably get back in the gym in a few days.

You get in a heel hook and you shred your ACL. You're out for a long time, especially at someone that Tony's age, that would be three neuro with a torn ACL. Who knows if you ever comes back after that. So I don't, and a lot of guys you get used to get constant mission, I feel like they just aren't even aware that they're going out. Like, remember when Holly Holm went to sleep against Misha Tate? She was still trying to get out, and then her body just shut down. And then she woke up, and she was like, what happened? Tony was very clearly aware that his ACL was going to pop.

And he was like, eff it, rip my leg off. I think that's a little much. Don't rupture your ACL or your meniscus or whatever or your Achilles just to show yourself. You're tough. Regardless, he survived, and his knee is apparently fine. Benile Dair, you said he heard it pop in there, which is gruesome. But yeah, I don't, but to answer this specific question, I don't think Conrader willingly loses by submission just so we can, quote,

get back in there. But anyway, I digress. That's a good point, though, Jose, because, yeah, you're a knee can be like a year to, like, 18 months, maybe a year and a half. And then that's, like, just talking about getting back to normal. And then, like, actually getting back to normal. And then, yeah, Tony would be, like, almost 40, if he had suffered a severe knee injury again.

We haven't had the, I hope we'll get the medical suspensions in the next couple of days, but, you know, Texas Commission, we don't know. Hopefully that'll come up. I want to, I know, sorry, I don't want to take away from the listener and read your questions, but did you find it odd that the referee, because you can, a referee can call a stoppage with a verbal sort of cry of pain, right? He looked like he, I didn't hear it. I don't know if I heard it, but obviously if you watch, it looks like Tony cries out, right?

like in so he absolutely i was about 10 feet away from him he absolutely yeah you were there so were you surprised the referee didn't step in and for anyone wondering i did that with joe warren chel sonen have done it but you didn't think that was enough i'm like oh no no i think uh if i'm looking it up right now i think mike beltron was the referee for that yes and mike beltron is for those of you who don't know who he is he's the one i'm you guys have all seen him the one of the really long mustache that's like braided going down he's a exceptional referee. And he is high-level fights, and he's one of those

referees that, like Mark Goddard, it is his octagon. So I think Mike Belcheron was right there looking. I bet he had a conversation with Tony in the back where if he goes, if I get caught, let it go longer, and I trust Mike Beltron. So if Mike Belchron didn't end it there, I'm not going to argue it.

Because he's one of those, like, referees that I trust 100% with what's going on on. He's an exceptional referee. I don't, the only thing I don't like about Mike is he's the one, do you remember when AJ Agger's arm and Chris Lensione had that beef, and then they fought, and it was every bad fight. And then Chris Lentioni won, and they were still jawn at each other, and they tried to walk away. And Mike Beltran literally grabbed their wrists and made them fist bump.

And he's like, you will say good fight. I was like, what are we children? Like, they don't like each other. Don't force it on them. Anyway, that's the only weird thing. I don't want to go off on another tangent, but I'm just saying, I'm actually, I actually don't think Mike Beltran is a great referee. Really? I'm in the minority on this.

Maybe not. Maybe not. I just, I've never had an issue with anything. Yeah, but for the reasons you said, for the reasons you said, I think sometimes he's too controlling, but I think that's also a positive in this sport. I think you can be, you need to be assertive as well. So I might be a tasting. I like Dan Merlewley-a-a-lot a lot, but I don't like at all how we handle that Michael Vanne Page situation.

Remember, if he stopped the fight because Michael Venom-Page was like show-boating? Like, I didn't, like, it's a fight, dude. Just let him do what he wants. You know, like, whatever, regardless. Anyway, we can get into the whole show-boating, not-show-boating. But with that question, we're going to go into this. From Daniel Pompele on Twitter, where does Tony Ferguson go from here?

Will they cut him or one more loss, then they cut him, question mark? So, cool Alex Savas. Where does Tony Ferguson go from here? There's his three straight losses. He got his soul taken away by Justin Gagee, and then back to back. I'm going to say he's, what, lost six rounds in a row against the last two fights. I don't remember how the scoring of the Justin Gagey fight,

because that just feels like one long round to me because it was so back and forth. But back-to-back dominant decision losses, 2.30-27s probably so cool. Alex, where does Tony go from here? I don't see him going anywhere yet. He's still a huge draw, and he's still been fighting, like, absolute killers.

So I don't really find that there's a need to cut him. I guess, you know, it probably all comes down to money like everything always does. But I still think he's just too big of a draw. He's got such a huge fan base. I just don't see the UFC getting rid of him yet. Yeah, there's no possible way they cut Tony right now. It was at the press conference 100% Tony Ferguson and anti-everybody else.

Michael Chandler got a lot of cheers because he's, you know, the incoming Texas, USA. He's fighting a Brazilian. But I think Michael Chandler definitely won a lot of people over in Texas also because of his personal political sidings. but carries the American flag around and talks in T-shirt, slogans, and all that stuff. And then they booed B'Neil Darius out of the building, which was so bizarre to me, considering this man, you know, builds orphanages in his spare time,

and Tony Ferguson breaks his students' ribs because, quote, he made him do it. That's the man you're cheering. I like Tony Ferguson just fine. I just think he's kind of an intense dude on Fight Week. I don't think he's a mean-spirited person, but it was 100% Tony Ferguson, And when I sat outside there for the co-main event, I couldn't hear the person right next to me when Tony Ferguson was being introed.

That place was Al-Kukui country. But, hey, K. Lee, where does Tony Ferguson go from here? I just want to touch him on the dairy you're saying, I'm surprised. I know they just probably, maybe they're just not familiar with him, but he's also like a super Christian guy. Yeah. Don't they love, don't you, don't y'all in Texas love to Jesus? He's a Syrian, he's a Syrian fighter born and Iran. A Syrian, yeah.

A Syrian, Yeah, I know, I get it. He's a foreigner, but I mean, you would think they, he's been to the UFC for so long. You would think they know by now. He's like, he's essentially an American guy who loves Jesus. I think it's 100% just they love Tony Ferguson. Yes, yeah, yeah.

That's literally just it. And also the rest, oh, he wrestled his way to a win. So the fans, oh, no, it's too much wrestling. He was, we'll have a bunch of more. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. So, so I've been.

kind of sick with this. I kind of, I kind of want to see Tony try welterweight, not because he can be a contender there. I do not think, if he has issues with wrestlers at 155, wrestlers at 170, you're going to destroy him. But I'd rather he, like, I just want him to close up his career with some fun fights with guys like Robbie Lawler, Carlos Condit. I think, I think, when Mike, Mike, Mike and I were doing our matchmaking show, I think I settled on Matt Brown. I think I want to see Matt Brown and Tony Ferguson fight. Are they buddies or something? Or you just don't want to see that fight?

Matt Brown's linked up already. Oh, but it can still happen. I think Tony's up for a while. Someone said there's one fight to make, Cowboy, Ferguson, two, and then they can retire. I see that. I see that, yeah, because people say, obviously, Steroney wants to stay at 155. Yeah. I also, for the longest time, and this is definitely just sort of the, well, both guys are on losing streaks.

Let's just throw them in there. Ferguson, Woodley. But, again, if Woodley's going to wrestle his way. Woodley's not in the U.S. anymore. He can come back. He's not like, he's not like, it's not like ruled out. His contract is up, but he's not like out. I think he's out. I don't think they're going to run back. You know, he's coming back? No, I think he's going to be. Uh, yeah. But either way, I would, I would like to see Ferguson just screw weight cutting and take some fun fights at 170. Uh, there's a lot of great parts for him still at

155 too. But for me, I've just, it's weird. I just really, you know, I'm like, oh, changed weight classes. It'll fix all kind of problems. But yeah, he will, he's not going to become, he's not going to become a contender again. But I also agree with Alex Savage. He's also not can you see this one can you guys see this comment yeah yeah yeah roe charm Sharma says people like Michael Chandler because he's pretty motivational do you guys find Michael Chandler motivational let me say something about this because I have I have mentioned this a few times Michael Chandler's Instagram is what we call toxic positivity and if you don't know what this is please Google it because it is just as bad as being

negative it's the whole I don't take vacations I don't ever stop if you're stopping you're not 100% focused on your goals. And that is just the worst. I mean, we have, I just, I hate that kind of mentality. People, one, don't tell anybody, if that's what you want to do, you want to take a vacation, hey, go ahead, that's all you. But like, to put that out as like,

you cannot achieve your dreams if you are taking breaks is absolutely insane. You're going to cause people to work themselves to the ground. Toxic positivity. It's not motivational to me. I don't have it. I don't have the air horn noise. or else I...

That's not very alpha of you, Alex Davis. That's not very alpha of you. You heard me. There you go. Found it. Found it. All right. That came...

RIP headphones. That came in super hot. I don't have KC settings. I'm sorry. That was super hot fire, as they say in the club. Alex, yeah, that's not very alpha of you. Clearly, you're not feasting 258 like the rest of us.

Sorry. But toxic, positive. How dare... how dare you say that to the prince of positivity? I don't, I never under, I agree. I do agree with you, Alex, and I've never heard the phrase toxic positivity before, but there is an alarming number of fighters who are like, like, I always joke, like, are you a real UFC fighter if you haven't posted a photo of like a lion and being like,

you know, no days, like, out for, out for blood, can't wait to return. I'm like, come on, dude. The king doesn't rest. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what, Jose, you may not have heard the term, but you're very familiar with it because toxic positivity is very common with sports teams with organizations like, well, someone brought it up recently with AEW, but I would say the UFC, really any fan base, which is just too like, oh, such and such, like this company can do no wrong. This is everything they do is great. That's another kind of example of toxic positivity. Excuse me, toxic positivity.

So it is out there. And we're not talking people to be like cynical or something, but it's like you just, you know, be balanced. You can criticize something and still love it. Like we're super critical of the UFC all the time. Everyone knows. People always call us out in the media and not like, oh, does the media hate the UFC? Well, see, here's the thing too that kind of bothers me. Like, I will, it doesn't bother me.

Like, I just noticed it. I think a lot of people just want to criticize the UFC just because it's the UFC and they don't like certain things. But they do a lot of, like, to their credit, they make a lot of fights that we all want to see. but at the same time they do a lot of things that everyone hates. I think if you're going to... I don't like people that only point out the negativity, and I don't like people that only point out the positivity. Does that make sense?

Just cover both equally. Like, I can tell you exactly... If we get UFC questions, I can tell you exactly who's going to just talk about all that terrible things. And I know exactly if someone brings up the UFC, they're only going to talk about positive things. You've got to cover both sides. End of argument.

Someone... Ooh, here we go. Perfect comment. Lion picture the grind never started right never Yeah, he's got a wolf he's also got up he's doubled enough he's also got a wolverine I'm going to point that's out Jeremiah that's alpha thank you. This man is beast in 258 this man's beast in 258 366 a hundred years of century hundred and I thought core and Cori Anderson's new nickname is overtime isn't it? We're not yeah, but I think he's oh he's his nickname is overtime but I think he's still living that 258

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Next question from Tristan Gordet on the site. Edson Barbosa's chance at being featherweight champion. To MMA fighting, what percentage of a chance do you give Edson Barbosa on becoming the featherweight champion down the road? Do you think he'll have the same problem he did a lightweight due to the depth of contenders in the division? Or do you think the featherweight division isn't as stacked? So, yes, if you weren't aware, again, if you live under Iraq,

Edson Barbosa won. Was it Fight of the Night? Right? Yep. So it was Fight of the Night. It was everyone's picked for Fight of the Night when it came out. If you're genuinely sure you probably said it was a deep cut, dark horse. You know, no one's ever heard of Edson Barbosa, Shane Burgos.

But Edson Barbosa knocked out Shane Burgos in a very bizarre and very violent fashion. It was a delayed reaction. Like he punched him. He had this combo. And then like five seconds later, Shane Burgos fell down. We could talk about the knockout in a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of bit, but A.K. Lee, what percentage of chance do you give Edson Barbosa at becoming champion at 145 pounds? And keep in mind, according to him, he is 3 and 0 at featherweight. Of course,

he's referring to that very controversial decision loss to Danny Gay. Percentage is such a weird thing to calculate here. I mean, for me, it's low. Because if it's a binary question, I just say no. I don't think it's going to happen. Anything can happen in M.A. though, so if we're going percentage, uh, 25%. I do think as the question sort of asks, um, is is featherweight as deep as lightweight. I'm like, yeah, just about it. Featherweight, Fetterweight, bantamate, 155 are so insanely deep. And I'm just looking at the kind of the rankings here.

And there's a lot of guys who like on any given day, you can just get got, like you can't make a mistake. And I mean, you're a worse fighter than this person. But to be able to string together however many wins he'll lead like maybe two, at least two more wins. He's got like a Yaira Yair Rodriguez, Calvin Cater, Josh Emmett, whenever he comes back from injury. And any of those guys, again, could like,

It's, you know, 10 fights, maybe it goes 5 and 5. But if it's not your day, all takes a loss to knock you back. And the same thing happened to him at Lightway. There's just a lot of great lightweights. And I think he's like one of the USC's best lightweights ever. But was he ever that close to a title shot? Maybe no more than one fight away, but yeah, I think it'll be the same 145. I don't think he wins it.

I'd be surprised we got a title shot as well. Cool, Alex. What did you make of Barbosa's performance? And what percentage of chance do you give him? to be featherweight champion? I'm going to go a little bit higher. I'm going to say 45% because I think he's great at interviews.

I know his English was a little broken, but he's such a personable guy. And for me, I think that, like, those sort of factors almost way heavier than somebody's skill set often. And I agree with, like, A.K., like any one of those people that's ranked above him at a featherweight, I mean,

they could all have an off night. He could fall backwards right into a title shot, like you just don't know. and he definitely has like the skill set to get it done if you know if the circumstances were right so it wouldn't be you know crazy or out of the realm of possibility or anything but uh yeah no i i really enjoy listening to his interviews i think he's a he's a fun guy and if people really get to know him i think he stands a pretty good chance you should follow his social medias too because i don't know if he does the whole motivational thing but he's always posting videos of his son on fight week like i don't know if you saw that video clip of uh when he was weighing in at the ceremonial wands

his son, he posted a video of his son watching the broadcast back in Florida, I think, and his son ran up to the TV and gave it a hug and was like, Dad! And his son is a very big baseball fan, apparently, if people weren't. For a long time, Metzen Barbosa was very upset that his son was not a Muay Thai fan. He was a jiu-tai fan. So I followed up and asked if he was still sticking with Jiu-Jitsu, and now he was a baseball fan. I don't even know the rules, but my son likes it, so good enough for me. So great dad, great fighter.

I also agree with Cool Alex. So I give him a little higher chance at Featherweight, mostly because lightweight was so convoluted at the top because people were like, you know, Connor wasn't fighting. There was a lot of beef between fighters, so they were always going to go for those big money fights at 155. Featherweight, once we get past tough, there's a whole line of contenders. I know Max is kind of the linchpin.

There's also not as many wrestlers in that top 15 at Featherweight. And Edson Barbosa, like, loses to Kevin Lee, loses to Habib. There's my, obviously, Chandler and Gatesyear up there. We just saw what Dary Huss did to Tony Ferguson. I think there's more strikers in that top 10 at Featherweight for him to have exciting fights than there is that lightweight. So, like, dude, I'll watch Calvin Cater versus Barbosa, Holloway Barbosa. I haven't asked for Gia Chikaze versus Edson Barbosa ever since Gagoszzi made his UFC debut.

So sign me up for any of those. The Yaira fight is awesome as well. But again, I'm just naming strikers. Like the Josh Hemp's fight, like Josh is out for a while. in a striking heavy division, I am throw a dart at anyone in the top 15

at Featherweight and I'll watch Edson Barbosa fight them. And I will favor that to be fight in the night. And he just, I saw some of the comments of how many fights he has less in his contract. Our own Guillermo Cruz reported last week that he has a new, signed a new deal with UFC,

and he is very happy with the new contract. So at least, I'm going to say at least four to eight, because that's usually how contracts are. So let's, but again, sign me up for any of those names I just said in the comment section. I'm going to go quick to see the YouTube. Jose, can you name, I'm sure you can, any baseball player born in Brazil? Any baseball players?

Born in Brazil. Born, not necessarily Brazilian descent. Born in any, is there any born in Brazil? Oh, man, I have no idea. I honestly don't know. I can't think of any. I would do, yeah. I know Edson, not Edson, Leon, Leandro Barbosa, the basketball player was born in Brazil. Basketball, I can name a ton of basketball.

I can't think of any baseball. Baseball, I don't think. That's what I'm surprised. So where's this kid? What's his kid watching? I believe his son has spent most of his life in America. Oh, okay. He's Floridian.

So like, because he's training ATT. So Florida is obviously a hot bet for baseball. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. You got the Miami Hurricanes baseball team. You got Florida State. And then obviously you have the Marlins. the race world's defending American League champions

you got a ton of like spring training is down there so if you're from Florida you're probably playing football or baseball honestly yeah because you're when you said Edson like doesn't even know the rules I'm like yeah I'm like why would he like I don't think I don't think Major League Baseball gets much play like in Brazil I wouldn't imagine I doubt it I would I would I will ask we I would I'll ask me what his favorite baseball team is I would be I think it'd be safe to say there are more people in America that follow soccer than Brazilians follow baseball yeah oh I have to It has to be.

Anyway, moving on. From Dave Godbout, go-bout, I apologize to him as pronounced your name. I think this is a new commenter because I don't recognize his name. 3027 for Grundy. Remember the Dark Ages and how we used to weigh wrestling on an MMA scorecard? How we finally passed the days where a good performance on defeat came in negated by a single takedown per round. Very interesting question. So we're getting also used to this opportunity to talk about that very bizarre 3027.

Mike Grundy. A.K. Lee is already grown in pneumonia and rolling his eyes about this. So, AK, what did you make of the scorecard? And to answer this question specifically, are we past the quote-unquote dark ages of M.A. Okay. Yeah, you're right. Multiple things to answer. First of all, shout us to Jeremiah in the comments,

who just mentioned Jan Gomes. Jan Gomes was born in Saoosa. Oh, wow. Was born in Sao Paulo. I think he grew up in the U.S., but he was born. He was born in Sao Paulo. So shoutouts. Thank you, Jeremiah. That's, I had not thought about that.

What was it talking about? I'm sorry, yes. So, yeah, the 327 scorecard was an atrocity. But I will say, I will say that was a great fight. That was a great fight, which Lando Vnada clearly won. But Grundy was, I think, landing more than the commentary is maybe giving him credit for. Vanada was actually taking a lot of punches. At the same time, I think Vanada is also one of those guys who can sort of slylyp shots, kind of like Aaron's Silva used to, like in his prime,

like it would look like he's getting hit, but he's slipping it just enough that it's not like doing serious damage. I mean, if it was, he probably would have gotten knocked out. So, yeah, the 3027 is bizarre. I don't know if we're quite out of the way of take down stealing rounds, if only because the commentary is so shaky with this sort of thing. It depends who you have on. Some of them are doing a better job than others.

And also, I guess, and when the judges can be so inconsistent, it kind of goes both ways. I almost don't blame the commentators sometimes for, misinterpreting the scoring criteria because they're kind of just calling what they see. So if they keep seeing bad score cards being put out, that's kind of what they love. So it's weird. They have the comp. So be fair to the commentators, they have both the responsibility to educate and also going to say, well, look, this might be where the judges are going with this. It's not, you know, it's not our fault. We don't do the scoring criteria and we don't do,

you know, we don't do the judge it. But, and so, you know, when one of these weird scores come out, it's like, it's kind of like, you know, they told us, they warn us this might be coming. So yeah, I think we're getting better. I think we're getting a lot better. We had, we scorecards, but we didn't have any outright robberies on Saturday. So that's a good sign. As long as, thankfully, all the right people want, I thought there was one really close call with, what was the one that really could have gone either way.

What am I looking at here? Chiquette and Arrejo, fine. I think you can make a case for Arroy, but I wouldn't call it a robbery either way. That's just a really close fight. So, yeah, overall, I thought it did get better. So, guys, if there's hope for Texas, there's hope for all. us. And I will say, I mentioned this on Twitter, it's kind of weird. The judge who gave that 3027 for Patrick Patlin, he was also the only guy who got the, the last time there in Houston 247, the only

guy who got the Giles Krause fight right. So, you know, I can throw this guy into the bus, but also let's give him a little bit of credit for scoring a fight properly last time they were in Houston if you want to look at it that way. So, but yeah, overall, I'm optimistic, Dave, I'm optimistic that we're getting better with the judging overall. Was Patlin one of the judges in the Andrew Lee Murphy fight? Oh, good question. I'll check right now. I will look that up while you guys.

Because I'm reading right now, before USC 247, Patlin hadn't scored a fight since 2017. Yes. He was one of the... Four years or three years between scoring. Correct. And he had judged four fights ever. And that's in tech.

So basically this judge has scored basically five total fights in his life. And he's judging a... a mile between very highly ranked UFC feather. Yes. He had it for Murphy to him and him and Judge Danny Di Alejandro did. And you know who didn't is a notorious judge. This guy who I think scored it right. He scored it for 29, 28 Lee, Chris Lee, my cousin.

So my cousin, our cousin. So maybe there was some bias there. Chris Lee and I and Andrew. So you know what? Maybe look, you know, you guys can investigate that on your own. But that's what I'm saying. It's like, look, we throw a lot of judges under the bus a lot. But I've become a little more sympathetic.

because sometimes they get it right, and we only call them out when they get it wrong. Except for that one judge. Who's that judge? I think Mark Remondi wrote a long thing about it when he was at MMA fighting. That one judge was like, that's his gimmick where he's just an idiot.

What? Yeah. Like there's a judge that's like known for being controversial. I don't know. I don't remember his name. Is he still working? I don't remember. But I think Mark was telling me, like,

every now and then he'll get an evil. email about him. I don't know. I can't remember. I'll look it up. TBD. If I remember correctly. Anyway, cool Alex. What are your thoughts on judging in MMA because you were in Houston at U.C. 247 for all that chaos. Yeah, but I mean, we don't need to get into what each of us does on fight night, but my eyes are glued to my computer screen. I rarely see what's going on. So I didn't even watch this fight, to be honest with you. So I won't weigh in on this one. Yeah, yeah. Fight nights are different for people who always ask like oh what did you think of this fight in this moment like i was looking on my computer screen my gosh i miss a i completely miss the barbosa burgos

card because i was looking at my computer or the knock i shouldn't even i shouldn't even acknowledge comment there was a comment on a post fight show on that was like you guys seem so like like out of it and like low energy and i'm like i almost wanted to reply i'm like mother effort it's we recorded that at three three 45 in the morning eastern time or something like and and it's It's not like, look, it's not like we're just watching the show all night. We're, like, jazzed up. Like, yeah, I've been watching the show all night. I'm ready to talk about it.

No, we've been working for like nine hours. And then we do the, and look, no excuses. Look, no excuses. Play like a champion. Absolutely. You know, I- Rising Grand, baby, rising-geline. You know.

I'll do better. I'll do better next time. But, dude, like, this guy was like, here, believe they have no energy. I'm like, are you? Are you serious? You know, it's a hard life watching sports for a living. I understand. Oh, I know.

Oh, I know. Oh, I know. Like, someone saw, like, I was like, someone asked me like, oh, you don't really tweet much on Sundays after fights. I'm like, dude, I haven't slept in 36 hours. I'm like, when I was in Jacksonville, I worked all the way up until my plane, like, until I had to be at the airport. So I basically was awake for almost 48 hours working. And I fell asleep at my gate. And the stewardess had to come be like, sir, your plane is boarding.

Like, you're going to miss your flight. Like, she had to wake me up in Jacksonville. I was like, huh? What? I was like drooling because like that's how much that week took out of me. So anyway, five weeks are different if you're working at an event anyway. Moving on. Our union reps are watching this like. Let's see. Let's go through the YouTube comments.

You see anything on the YouTube comments? Oh, no. I was just looking at, I was looking for Brazilian baseball players, so I wasn't. Dean D. D.D. says he thinks Mark was writing about Chris Lee. He's not sure. Maybe. Maybe. Bobichet is a Brazilian American. I should say Boberset. Bo Bichet is Dante Bichet's son. He is one of the brights. Toronto Bluchin. Yeah, he's one of the brightest young, I was about to say fighters. One of the brightest young athletes in baseball right now. It was like, Aaron Rite is. It was like, him, Fernando Tati's Jr., Craig Bigio's son, getting called up, all these guys. Craig Vigio son. He's also on the Blue Jays. He's kind of, he's not.

doing it too great right now. Bobbushet just can't stay healthy but not but you could say that about anyone on the Blue Jays. Ah let's just go back to the comments. All right. Invicta FC returns this Friday with Invicta else Scott McCrott long-time comment on say with Invictuscett on ACTS TV can you give a quick breakdown on both championship bouts and highlight some of the other talented fighters on this card so A K Lee what are your thoughts on a Victor's return on Friday? All right, now, hold on. I think didn't this tie into another Invicta question? Am I crazy? Or maybe we got it on Twitter.

I swear I saw someone also asking, is the Invicta card, maybe it was in the YouTube comments too. Is this Invicta card this Friday being overlooked? And I'm going to tell you something. Until I saw this question and the question in the YouTube comments, I completely forgot that that card was this Friday. Now, one, I'm an idiot. We know that. That's established. That's assumed. Sure. Two, maybe I'm a bad, I'm a fan.

But this is, this Friday has what? Also, Bellator, which, you know, only happens to, and a main event that happens to involve, you know, maybe the greatest women's fighter of all time, one of the three greatest women's fighters of all time. So it's a really, it's a really unfortunate, like, day for Invicted to be having a card, I feel like. I'm just looking at it now.

So we've got our main event, Karina Rodriguez and Diana Torquato, is that right? Oh, and for vacant, vacant flyway time. title. I'm looking at these are good fights. At least Zapitella is such a star. But yeah, but if I'm being honest, if I'm being honest, I actually did forget that this was this Friday. I knew it was coming up. Did not remember it was this Friday. So, Scott, bad on me, man. No, I really can't. I really can't do a good job breaking down both championship rounds. That's just the honest truth. And so I'm really, really making more

commentary on just how stacked this week is. And, oh, LFA. I'm sorry, I was going through topology. Yeah, Bell Tour. And then, of course, Vegas on Saturday. So I mean, look, there's only so much these promotions can do. You can only move your cards around so much. There's so many of my own promotions now. At some point, you're going to overlap with someone. It's just unfortunate that it happens to also overlap with a major Bellator event with a women's title fight. Well, this is also...

My apologies. This is Invicta's first fight on Access TV as well. So they're not... They don't have, quote, the promotional juggernaut of the UFC behind them because, remember, they were on Fight Pass for so long, and then they broke off. So this is their first... I don't... Do any of you guys have Access TV? Like, see, so I don't know.

Access TV is Mark Hubin's Network. That's where inside, was it Inside MMA? Was that where it used to be? AK? Well, I don't know. I didn't have it in, I don't have that in, oh no, we did have in Canada, I think. I can't remember the name of the show, but that was like for a long time. Before ESPN and Fox had their big shows with MMA, that was like the place to be.

They also had the broadcast rights for New Japan for a while. They did. Yeah, like HD fights. a lot of kickboxing. HD net, yeah. They shot a lot of kickbox. It was so good. It was so good.

Yeah, it is a good show. And the headquarters is right. It's right across you from the Staples Center above. I can't remember what it's above, but like if you see the S, like, have any of you watch the Svys before? So you know the right, when they walk through a carpet outside the Staples Center, right above that building they're in front of at this like the second floor, that's AXIS TV.

It's a cool little studio. Our good friend Rick Lee has worked there. Yeah, a lot of my. of our friends in the MMA media have probably got their start there, especially cameraman. Because for a long time, that was the only place you could go if you wanted to like shoot and edit content in MMA. But yeah, this is good card, it's just unfortunate timing, as AK said. From Matt Bradbury on the site, MMA Grand Prix.

If you had to make an eight man or women MMA Grand Prix, regardless of promotion, what division would you pick and what fighters would you choose in each bracket? Interesting question. So we're going to play it like this. I'll start with AK. Cool Alex and I cannot pick the same way class as him. Oh, you guys can have the first pick then. Really?

Unless you want me to go first. I'm ready to go first. I don't know, but Alex, Savis, if you want to fire off first. Cool, Alex, you need time to think of a... I need time. Go ahead. Okay, shoot. Yeah, well, I mean, look, this is...

Well, one, I cheated. I looked at this question before on the sign, obviously. I know. Oh, proper preparation prevents poor performance, is what I always tell people. Oh, so shout-out-uproarry. On to the next one, regular, who always has, like, I know why he's asked this question.

He always has the deepest, like, mask-making cuts. This guy's on top of all the names in M-A for sure. So I'm going to go with Bantam-Wate. I think everyone knows. I friggin' love Bantam-Wates. The only problem with picking that is to eight-person, like taking eight people, so many people will get cut.

So, I mean, you've got to get the champions. Okay, so Sergio Pettis is in there, Kiochuroguchi's in there. The one true champion, I mean, Sterling's in there, obviously. Peodor Yan. And then from, like, I got to get patchy mix in there. So that's, but that's five spots already.

And then, like, think about the UFC Bantamweight Division. Now, let me look who I'm cutting from the U.S. Bantamweight Division here. Jeez, like, Corey Sandhagen's got to be in there. And then you kind of want to have some fun names in there, too. Like, I would love to throw, like, a Dominic Cruiser or Aldo in there kind of like for a veteran spot. but and I'm leaving out like Marab.

I'm leaving out, oh, it's just too hard. If you're going to do Bannamweight, I think if you've held a good way to answer these questions, like obviously choose all the champions, and after that, if you've held a belt. So, Aldo, Cruz, Garbrandt, if you have been a former champ, that is your ticket in. That golden ticket gets you in the tournament. Also, like, what way class, like, Demetrius Johnson fights a 135? in one championship like it's top eight man is top for ban and weight uh by that that thank you for taking uh casey lyden's answer because he of course would have gone ban on bannam weight uh cool

alex which weight class you pick in uh geez i'm confused because i want to pick women's feather weight i don't know if i want to see cyborg and amanda run a bag and then i also want to throw kela harrison in the mix and just like light this shit on fire sorry um But I don't know like what the proper weight class would be for that and where you're gonna, you know, grab the rest of the people for the bracket. So I feel like if, you know, you give people some time and they want to, you know, jump into this. People, people can like hop up a weight class or something. But I don't know. I think that would be interesting, especially if we're talking cross promotional.

Alex, what an open weight, what an open weight? Yeah, there you all 15 to 1.45. Give me, throw some names to like have to be in there. No, dog. You can all, open weight because is all the way up to like 265 pounds. You could throw Gabby Garcia in there And then you could do McKenzie Dern Gabby Garcia too in MMA

because of course McKenzie Dern tapped Gabby Garcia in the grappling thing And that kind of like... No. McKenzie Dern? She never tapped her. She never tapped her. She won. She beat her in a grappling tournament.

She won on point. Did she went on points? She has not... Yeah, yeah, yeah. She has not tapped her. And I believe there was a point deduction in there somewhere. And I'm not taking away from McKenzie Dern's win,

but it's not like she dominated. Then there's your story line. Sure. I love it. Sure. I love it. So in women's featherweight, though, according to ranking MMA.com, the top eight women's featherweights are Amanda Nunes? Wait, this can't be right because Cyborg is a newness ranking. And there's only four people.

This is not incomplete. So Amanda Nunes, police, Spencer, Zarado Santos, Leah Letson, Danielle Wolfe. Oh, it's UFC. That's UFC. That's UFC. That's just UFC. That's very bizarre. Anyway, but obviously you got those cyborg in there.

Kayla Harrison can be thrown in there for Megan Anderson. Yeah, any of those fighters. I would pick, I think the obvious answer is lightweight, so I'm not going to say that, because everyone wants to see a lightweight Grand Prix, because we've been talking about a possible lightweight Grand Prix. Ooh, I would choose probably Welterweight, for sure, and I would just be, I wouldn't even pick the top eight. I would just make fun fights.

Like, I would choose, let me get let me think obviously I would choose Usman because he's the champ I would choose Lima who's the one is there a one welterweight champion Eddie Alvers Christian Lee is kind of is it should be a would be a lightweight I think he's just fighting at 170 right oh I see you're saying okay the actual one step like guys should be yeah yeah like if they were in the UFC or Belator anywhere else they would be welterweight I would choose Mazur doll I would choose Michael Benham Page because I want to see

him fight. I would basically just choose the most violent possible fighters, like Vicente Lucay, Hamza Shamaia, Robbie Lawler, like Robbie Lawler versus Michael Benepage, come on. Give me that fight all day. But I would just choose the most violent fighters at 170 and I just put him in a tournament because Nick Diaz? Nick Diaz, throw him in there? Ooh, Nick Diaz versus. I had to do it. I had to do it. Yeah, Nick Diaz can throw in it and the opening fight is Robbie Lawler and Nick Diaz, too, because I've been asking for that. Because we're going to give that the Rumble-Ramaro treatment

where we're not going to risk it. We're just going to book it right away. That's what's going to happen. But anyway, you guys can tell us in the comment section what you guys want. Let's see. No, I don't think any of us want to talk about Joshua Fabia, so we're not going to talk with Joshua Fabia again.

Let's see. A.K., what fights on the Bellator card, besides the main event I was looking forward to. Well, answer that while I look for questions. Okay, let me refresh my memory here. Well, I'm super excited now about after hearing Danny Sabatelo's interview with Mike, I get it. Like everyone who's debuting with the new promotion is going to say all the right things.

Like, oh, I'm going to dominate the division and all that stuff. But he's got a nice record. He looked good on Contender Series. And by the way, the other half of this fight is Brett Johns, whose debut is excited about anyway. So, yeah, that's kind of a cool map. that they fell into. I actually think it's a more compelling matchup than the original with Mateoos. Matos is like fine. He's a veteran. He was on Ultimate Fighter of Brazil. I like him.

But I thought like that was being set up for Johns just crush him. That might be the case here too. But at least there's an element of like, well, this guy's such late notice. It's a wild card. It's Bellator. Anything can happen. Never bet on Belator fights. So look, I'm obviously still expecting Brett Johns to win. But I've said that about many Bellator fights and been very, very, very wrong in the past. So yeah, I think that's a very cool fight to look out for. I don't know. I assume it's still.

We're going to use this question, and I don't like how it's phrased, but we're going to use this question to talk about Bellator. From Border 13, do you think Valerie Loretta is going to twerk after her fight? Do you guys mind people celebrating while their opponent is K-O'd? Cool, Alex. Would you like to address this question? Valerie Laredo wants to twerk after her fight? Valerie Lareda is going to twerk after her fight.

There you go. I don't mind people celebrating. I think there's a difference between, like, you know, hovering over someone's knocked out body and, like, mocking them versus just, like, being excited for yourself that you've done such a phenomenal job. Yeah, I don't know why you specifically called out Valerie Lareda. I'm not really sure what you meant by that border 13. If you'd like to specify in the comments, that would be great.

They appreciate it. Thank you. Hey, Kaila, you're on record saying Valerie Latt's last celebration was the best dancing we've ever seen. It's all good. It beat out the time. I don't know if you guys remember were Serginio, Sergio Mardais. did this, I think it was like, I think we had to explain to me. It was like a trending dance in Brazil where like you turn upside down onto, like your

shoulder, you turn upside down to your shoulders and you wiggle your ass in the air. That was the number, that was number one. I can't find a clip of it anywhere. I'm sure it's out there. I just haven't looked in a while. That was like by far number one. But now Valerie Lernerner replaced it because the timing was perfect. She just scored a highlight real knockout.

She is very, people can criticize whatever, whatever. You don't like her public cameras. That's fine. I think it's stupid to criticize that. but everyone can say what they want. But like she's very aware of who she is, what she wants her brand to be, how she presents herself.

And you can't say that about a lot of fighters. A lot of fighters will do stuff and like, it come off is very awkward. I thought her dance was awesome. I thought it was, and she nailed it, by the way. I'm not like a dance expert. I mean, I think I am,

but I'm not accredited or anything. I just thought like she, yeah, I thought she hit all the moves. I thought it looked so good. So, yeah, no, look, I agree. I think I was right. We're going to see a twerk. And like as long as you're not, yeah, as long as you're not out and out taunting,

man, go for it. Get down with your bad self. Flip off the cage. Do what you got to do. A.K. Lee, with the heel turn on his, on the late gray Canadian icon, Ryan Jimmo for his epic robot. I didn't say anything bad about that. I mean, it wasn't as good as valid. I think I'm on, I think Ryan Jimmo's was the best because that is one of, anytime, like,

I think that's one of the best robots I've ever seen in general. He also won in seven seconds. so it was a record-setting performance because like we people have, like for whatever reason I've been asking this question a lot in like the last three weeks like what's the best post-fight celebration and I joke that

I treat it the same way as performance bonuses like the higher like the more like the stuff going around it like the level of competition is how I weigh it. If you knock out Derek Brunson in Madison Square Garden as Israel-Iristan did and did this the dance some

dance that's like taking over at Nigeria. That's an awesome one. Ryan Jimmo, record set in performance. That's an awesome one. I can't think of a lot about the dances. Michael Bennett Page, obviously with the pokey ball is very disrespectful, especially because he just shattered someone's eye socket

during that, but I digress. Matt McCollin says, hey, Keeley and Kowl have their own show? I've been saying for years. Well, I've only known him for like a year, but yeah. What would it be called? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Matthew Mullen. Keep kidding. Sheila wants to let me know that the judge I'm referring to is Doug Crosby,

and it was Chuck Metapult, not Mark Remonti, that wrote it. Yes, I remember there was a long form about that, but I just couldn't remember who wrote it. And I can't find the question anymore in the YouTube comments because we got so many, but someone asked if Kayla Harrison versus Amanda Nunes would be a bigger deal than Amanda Nunes-valentina-3. I had not pondered which one would be bigger.

I would love to see both. That's tough, though. That's real tough. That's real, real tough. I think it would depend on A.K., you want to start? Which one do you think would be a bigger deal to the eyes of MMA fans? I think by the time that this fight could potentially happen, I think Harrison, I'll go as far as say, I think Harrison Nunez would be much bigger. Much, much bigger.

I think Harrison is someone who can, with the right marketing, well, I actually think PFL has done a good job with her, you know, as far as much reach as you can have when you're, again, when you're not the UFC and when you're not as established as UFC, I think they've done a good job. They put it front and set as much as they can. I think she's done a lot of media. She's a two-time Olympian.

There are a lot of people who are familiar with here. I know, I know maybe it's not one of the marquee sports of Olympics in the United States, but she certainly, I think, elevated it. Again, the only, the first American to win gold, than the first American to do it twice. And anyway, for anyone doesn't, I'm not saying American woman, the first American to win gold judo, the first American to win gold twice.

So she's already a history maker and really took to sort of culture. For someone who was like very half in, half out, you know, for the longest time, are you going to do your night? She's, I don't know, she's really gone all in on the MMA culture. And I think that's a great man.

She's a fantastic interview too. Like post-fight off-season, like we went to that. Cool, Alex and I were at that second dominance MMA media day. She held court. She would call out male. Like, I asked about Invicta, and she called out all the male fighters for not watching the Invicta fights the night before.

Good. During the press conference, she had this really spirited argument with Henry Sehudo over what was a bigger deal winning a gold medal in wrestling or judo. And Habib said, judo, judo is king. So that was a fun one, too. So, yeah, she's,

she is, she's great. Great, but cool Alex, which one would be a bigger deal to you personally? If it happened right now, it would be Nunes, Jeff Chango. But I agree with AK, if you give it time to promote Kayla to more of like the UFC-centric fans, it would be Nunes Harrison. I agree. I mean, she's just unapologetically Kayla Harrison. And that is just, it's so rare to find somebody who's so confident in themselves

and so confident at what they believe. And like, she just completely just believes that she is going to be the, greatest fighter of all time and that is it's so refreshing to hear someone and it's not even it doesn't come off cocky when she does it it just comes off like this is factual this is what i believe in myself and if you listen to a damon's interview with her she's like i don't like when people tell me not to say things like that she's like but i'm not supposed to believe in myself like i mean that's that's just that is that's the good kind of positivity you should believe in yourself you just don't wake up at 5 a.m. and take cold showers to do it there you go you know what is doesn't the rock have

an app to like wake up at 4 in the morning and like work out. It's called like the rock clock or something like that. You know if I had the rock's portable gym that he brings on like all his movie sets. Iron Paradise? Yeah, I'd be working on at 4 a.m. too because I'd be able to win there and it'd be awesome. Also, if I was the highest paid app person on planet Earth, I would probably work out every single day as well. If I was getting ready to play Black Adam, but I don't want to talk about Black Adam because I'd talk about it for hours. Did you ever read that thing where he eats like eight meals a day? Like eight like full meals a day? You have to. I mean, you have to. To be that big, you have to.

And again, you're right. When you're rich and you have grown personal chef, it's probably a lot easier. But shoot, man, I couldn't eat. Even if I had someone cooking for me, I couldn't eat eight meals a day. There was a side note before I go back to Harrison Nunes talk. There was, I can't remember which website did it, but they tried to eat JJ Watts diet for a week. And they gave up after two days. Because it was all like chicken and rice and it was like dry.

It's too much protein. It's way too much protein. Anyway, the Kayla Harrison, man, and Nunes want to be very interesting because they both train it. ATT, so I don't know how that would work. I think, I want to see both. I would give Kayla Harrison an immediate title shot if she ever jumped to the UFC, especially at 145

because it's like, who else is there? And I don't, I did not, like Dana White's saying, I don't know if she's ready, because we saw, and I don't want to call her out, but, like, the Gina Mizani fight that we just saw, she, like, her body gave out on her, but a lot of people saying, like, there was, like, her second opportunity.

Like, if you're saying Kayla Harrison's not ready, but then Gene is fighting on this high-level card. Like, it's, I don't get it. Also, someone on Twitter had, when I, I think it was in response to either Damon's interview in the comments or whatever, they said Kayla Harrison will never be in the U.S.C. Because then they would have to promote her as the first Olympic gold medalist in Judo in America, because Rhonda only won bronze. And they can't, they can't say Rhonda came in third.

You can't say Rhonda came in third because they always referred to as an Olympic medalist. Never bronze medalist. They don't want to have, they don't want to give her the rub. Oh, the petty wars. The petty wars. And because no one has asked about this, and he is the man of the hour, would you guys all think Charles Alibarez win over Michael Chandler? Who wants to start?

I was cheering through my TV. I was so excited. It gave me such anxiety, though, when they leave the cage and they, like, run through the audience and, like, shake Dana White down. Like, I'm like, oh, my God, please, like, just get out of there, go back to the act again. But no, oh, my gosh, how exciting for him. I mean, it was like emotional.

You just felt that from him and watching him go back to Brazil with the ballage. Just, I don't know. For someone who's worked so hard for so long and didn't get anything handed to him at all and then came up from like a serious illness, like in his interview that he did, I mean, just, what a story. I mean, it's just, I love to see it end with a happy ending. I love that. Yeah, I was very happy for Charles and his team. Michael Chandler has always been very nice to me.

I think he's a good interview and talk, but I get people don't like him. I never really interact with them outside of the octagon or cage or whatever it was. But to his credit, regardless of what you think of him as an individual, he handled his loss like a professional. He went in there and said Charles is the champ. He won fair and square. I'll be back, this and that. So he wasn't sour grapes whatsoever. I think the UFC is very happy with the products.

got in Michael Chandler because he's the guy that you can put on TV. He's well-spoken. He doesn't really do anything to, he adopted a son. His wife was around all time. She was very friendly with the fans as well from what I saw. So the UFC is very clearly happy with what they got in Michael Chandler. And I think moving forward, he's going to have a job with them, at least as a commentator or on the desk for a while. But, A.K., what did you think of Charles Alvarez win over Michael channel. People go read. If you haven't, Guillermo

Cruises feature on Charles Oliver's difficult upbringing. It's great. I think it's still pinned to our front page on M.AFighting.com. So definitely read about that

and how his first training partner was a girl who used to beat him up pretty much every day. And it's a great. So a lot of difficulties he faced. It's a great story. Charles Olivera is the best lightweight in the world right now.

I don't want to hear anything else right now. He's the best lightweight. I'm not saying the UFC title is the Vial-endal decider, but I think he's done enough, plus winning the title, I think that matters. Don't,

don't go out to Mammap Fighting.com and read Jedmishu's UFC 262 Aftermath, whatever, about Khabib, no Magamat. Mammat.com, Jedmishu, UFC 262 aftermath. Don't read that article

because, I don't know. He's so hung about Khabib. Yeah, look, if Kavib is out there and decides to come back, whatever, I'll pick him over anyone at 1-55, but he's not. Someone may have very, very interesting point where I went because the people are confused about Oliver

Chandler and I know we got Bellator Media Day coming up so we'll end quickly but um they didn't want Porie or Gaecchi or anyone like that fighting in the main event because they didn't want Habib hanging over the main event they didn't want someone that Habib had already beaten which I hadn't thought of that which is 100% true as soon as they said that you can Charles Elvera hasn't fought Habib Michael Chandler hasn't fought Habib so you can maintain that illusion as absurd as it is you can maintain that illusion of Well, we don't know if they would have been. We know he can beat poor.

And I know I can see people rolling their eyes in the comments. Like, that makes no sense. And I'm like, that's just a very basic way of presenting it. Fair or not, fair or not. All right. We're going to do really quick hits, and then we're going to wrap it up. Let's see what we got. Let's see, I can find it first.

Oh, I just turned off everything. I don't know what? I'll see if I don't know. What do we got here? No, I found it. I got it. Okay, go for it. Quick hits.

real quick, how come Tony had four points? Dana White privilege? I don't know. Tony Ferguson can do what Tony Ferguson wants. I didn't notice until after the fact I wasn't paying attention. It's just the end of Kevin Aguilar, okay, yes or no. I'm assuming in the UFC, not as in he gets

No, no, yeah, released him. He gets killed. He gets killed. Yeah, he's getting released. He will be released. What makes a point-style fighter? Is Janjaun a point-style fighter? Oh, these are questions from Azan Zaman on the side. Cool, Alex, you want to feel this one?

Are they talking about like points-style karate or like somebody who fights for points only? Probably both. I don't think anyone fights to win on points, as Callagher Kagan said. She just fights and if she sees over and she takes it and if she knocks someone out, she knocks someone out. She just chooses the path that will lead to victory. Yeah. I don't think Janjon is a points out fighter. I just think she's won close decisions and she's just been better than her opponent that night.

Will she do that against Carla? I don't know because I don't know anyone that looks outside of Yohanna that has. looks really good against Carla. Carla's one of those fighters that'll just make you look like you forgot how to fight. She's been a lot of... Except that fight against Lexa Grosso in Mexico was awesome.

I can't remember if that one fight in the night, but that should have won fight of the night if it didn't. And speaking of Lexa Grosso, countercating called out Lexa Grosso, I'm here for it. I love that fight. What's to look forward to at Bellator, 259, besides Edwards v. Austin Vanforge.

Well, I don't know, Chris Seidborg versus Leslie Smith, two, the rematch. What? That's a very weird fight to point out. I guess Austin Vanderford has a page van Zand. It's a good fight. And Fabian Edwards is Leon Edwards' brother, correct? Correct.

P.S. You got my name? Correct. Awesome. I got an in correct. So, quick hits right there. Anyway, you guys know the drill. We got Bellator Media Day coming up. We will not be streaming it, but we will have all the scrums, the selected scrums up. That'll be cool Alex.

We'll be doing that and they'll get clips out. And then, Ed Kay will be writing his articles and giving the Orange Cassidy thumbs up. So, AK, what do you got to say before you ride off into the Moncton sunset? The Alex and the Alex Tokyo Triff, massive success, much like the Tokyo Trift film was in the Fast and Furious franchise. This was just as good, if not better. I've never seen Paso the Furious. Oh, I have to tell my story. I have told my story.

Oh, yeah. So really quick. Is there time? Yeah, there's time. There's time. So I was a freshman in college, and this is one, because I remember vividly when the Rock joined school. He joined Twitter right before he made his return to the WV. And this is right when Fast 5 was coming out.

And he had tweeted he was doing giveaways in select cities, like Phoenix, Dallas, LA, New York, like all the major ones, I was like, I'm not winning that, whatever. I had a flipflown, by the way. So I didn't even have a smartphone yet, because this was like 2009. So if I wanted to use mobile Twitter, I had to literally go on Twitter.com on my flip phone, like, web server. So I'm like, whatever, not winning. So I go to the gym, I come back and shower, and I get out.

come back and shower and I get out and I just happen to look at Twitter and like the second I looked at Twitter it just coincidentally the Rock had tweeted the Rock and if you if you follow the WWE the Rock talks about eating pie a lot he's not actually talking about pie he's talking about something else he's like the Rock is hungry for pie pizza pie go where you think go where you think this is or something like that and I know I'm about a block away from Pizza Rio Bianco which is the number one rated pizza place in in Phoenix so I'm like well it has to be there so I just throw on some I just throw on the gym clothes I had already been wearing so I'm disgusting and I sprint down the street and there's

maybe a hundred people looking for the rock there they're like where's the rock where's the rock obviously the rock wasn't there but someone walked out wearing a fast five shirt and was like you guys found the location when he tweets out the password first person to say it wins and there's like a hundred people here So I'm like on my flip phone just hitting refresh, and I hit refresh, and the rock says, first one to yell, do you smell at the rock is cooking wins. So naturally, I scream it at the top of my lungs, and I win. So then the lady comes up to me and hands me a phone and I go, hello, and it's the rock.

So I talked to the rock for five minutes about college football, wrestling, and the fast and the furious. And then he goes, I also want you to know that if you're going to go see the movie tonight, then Britt's going to give you tickets. And I turn around and Brit is like handing me tickets. It goes, these are on me. It's a movie theater completely bought out. It's only you and four friends are going to go.

So, and then when we went there, oh, I also got a golden ticket that said like your congratulations as being the Rock special guest to see Fast Five. Do you still have it? Of course I still have it. It's like in my, it's like, it's like in a folder like literally like three feet away from me. I just have to go through it. So I won a Twitter contest, spoke to the Rod for five minutes.

and then he bought me and four of my friends tickets to see Fast 5 in a movie theater that was bought out specifically for The Rock in Arizona. How is it not your Twitter bio? How is it not your Twitter bio? That's a good question. I've since met the Rock twice since then, and I've told him both times, and he's naturally, it's the first time he's heard it both times. But my goal is to bring that golden ticket to him next,

because both of them were the backstage U.S.C. fights, so I couldn't really, you know, ask for photos or anything. If I ever see him in the wild and I have that golden ticket, I'm going to ask him to sign it or take a photo with it for me. Yeah. So I won a Twitter contest in Phoenix, and I talked to the Rock for five minutes on the phone. He bought my ticket to see Fast Five. That's my closing promo.

That was worth the wait. Yeah. It's one of my go-to stories in my back pocket. Anyway, you can find this podcast on, you know, YouTube, Spotify, Google Podcast, all the podcast. podcast. We'll be back next week. Hopefully we'll be back in normal time. But that's been Alex. That's been Alex. This has been Alex. Alex and Alex, Tokyo Drift 3, whatever AK called it. Until then, we're out.