MMA Fighting - The A-Side Live Chat | Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Tony Ferguson, Conor McGregor's Return, Gina Carano's Planed UFC Fight, UFC Scheduling, More

Episode Date: November 27, 2019

For this episode of The A-Side Live Chat, José Youngs and Mike Heck react to the UFC finally setting a target date for the lightweight title fight between Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Tony Ferguson, Gina Carano's recent comments on ESPN regarding her previously planned UFC debut, Conor McGregor's supposed return in January and give their take on whether the .UFC is truly holding too many events. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Hello, everyone. Jose Young's here, M.AFighting.com, here with another episode of the A-Side Live chat on our YouTube channel. And as I always say, a million subscribers. So, whoop-whoop. But with me this week, last week was Anthony. Before that, we have Pizzi. Pizzi has had much needed time off after his hectic week at Bellator London.

He was at the Cage Warrior Show. So if you want to see any of his interviews, you can stay on this YouTube channel. Go watch them all. obviously James Gallowher was there. Don't want to miss those interviews. Patty Pimlet, his stuff with Patty Pillar was great. He really got finger on the pulse of that situation with the failed weight cut of Joe Giannetti.

But if you want to watch those, you could go watch them after the AISN live chat. Last week, he had Anthony. He was great. This week we have my very good friend from all the way across the other side of the country. Mike Heck, how you been, man? Been good, man.

How are you? Thank you for having me, by the way. Waiting for that text message to come, and I'm glad it finally came. I always like to even spotlight to my fellow journalists, especially the ones that I've known for so long, and the ones that have actually worked together, and especially the ones that live in my old deck of the woods of the New England area. You're a Patriots fan, correct?

Yes, I know you don't like that, but yes. Well, we can all be winners out there. The Patriots can, though. Eh, well, what do you have? One win, right? One loss? To who? One loss. Ten to who?

Baltimore. Well, how about that? How about that? Anyway, I'm not even a Ravens fan. I just think it's funny. But as you guys all know, this is not our show. This is your show. So if you want to ask us anything, literally anything you want to talk about. I don't know if you've watched the show in the past, Mike. Oh, actually, you definitely have. But we've had questions about androids.

We've had questions about who would win in a fight if all the MA fighting staff got in a fist fight. We'll talk about anything you guys want. You just go into the MAFighting.com. Click on the link that says the A-side is live. leave your question in the comments section, or you can go to Twitter and use hashtag the A side. We've been getting a lot of really good questions on Twitter. Maybe next week we'll start with Twitter and we'll

migrate to the site. But for this week, we're starting on the site. So we're going to kick things off right away. Mike from long time commenter Trumbo. Three years in, opinions on Champ Champ. Hello, boys. And again, I read these questions verbatim, spelling errors, grammar errors,

everything. I include them. So if I sound dumb, because a lot of people only listen to this, podcast. They don't watch it. So I want to preface this because a lot of people get on my case for weird pronunciations and I read them verbatim. So, hello boys. The whole Champchamp experiment has been in my humble opinion at least half a disaster. With the most recent in Sohudo, we basically have a worst case scenario. Champ champ gets injured and holds up two divisions for a substantial length of time even defending each belt once a year would be aggressive and more

than some current UFC champs defend one belt. Having one fighter in the division to get a talent shop per year is awful and really unfair to the top fighters. Three years into it, what's your opinion on UFC following double champs? Pro or against? Aside from Connor, does it even hold enough drawing power to justify the damage it does to the division? Note, exception here is probably Nunez, as Featherway is so shallow and she's basically cleaned out Bantamway. So, yes, Mike, interesting question. We're three years into this whole champ champ trend.

Even Bellator has tried to do it. I'm sure one championship will try and do it. You know one championship has tried to do it too. but as this as trump vote mr trump or miss i don't know has pointed out uh the chance at situation specifically with henry sehuto has really held up two divisions we really thought we had clear number one contenders in both after ufc 238 i believe it was in chicago henry sehudo be small marais i thought for sure alzerman sterling was up next at bantamwait and joseph banevita's next up at flyweight that is not the case joe benavita said he'll wait if henry comes back

and promises he gets the next title shot if he goes up he should vacate now we have jose Dialdo into the mix. Ura Fayor is back. All of a sudden, Frankie Edgar is at Bantamweight, Peter Jan is still doing his thing, Alasemite Sterling has surgery, Corey Sanhagans now then thrown into the wolves with Frankie Edgar.

So with all these Bantamette title fights, the only thing missing is the champion being active. Same with the flight. We have Davidson Figurado is on fire. Joseph Banevitas. I don't know if anyone can argue he's not the number one contender. But what are your thoughts on this champ-champ

situation holding up two divisions? I mean, this particular case is interesting because at first when this idea came up that Henry Sehudo would fight for the Bannon White title, you know, we were all about it because we thought if there's any guy that could drop and do both, you know, Henry Sehudo could do it, especially when we thought he was as healthy as he could be. Turns out he wasn't as healthy as we thought he could be. And now all this is happening. So it's unfortunate because the fighters' heads and their minds are bigger than a lot of different things. Because like, obviously, when you have the opportunity to win two titles, you're going to jump all over it no matter how battered

and how beat up you are. And we don't really take that into account. So unfortunately, Suhudo got bit with the injury bug. That the Conner situation is just a Conner situation. And it still hasn't really been figured out at this point. So I think it depends on the fighter. Obviously, Daniel Cormier had his sight set on going to heavyweight. He won the heavyweight title and just pretty much vacated the light heavyweight title pretty quickly and emphatically. So it's really a tough case. I hate the champ champ thing. I hate the double champ thing. thing when Connor did it for the first time we were like yeah but we also look at the ultimate warrior wrestlingania six wins the world title and then vacates the intercontinental title like i think

if you go up for a different belt you should be your mind should be stated thinking that you're you're probably going to vacate one of those belts like it's cool to have the moment hold up the two belts but eventually you should probably drop one of them yeah uh it's it's it's i like the idea if you can defend both of them a man as trumbo pointed out mandonina seems to be the only one that's really doing that i think the the the She has both belts. She has both new belts, if I'm not mistaken, correct? After beating Holly Holmes, she got the new UFC belt.

I thought she had won. I thought she had won. Well, I can't quite. Oh, yeah, did she get it? Oh, because when she beat Amanda Nune, when she beat Chris Cyborg, she did not get the new one, right? She got, regardless. Yeah, Holmes, she got the new one.

She still had a big one at the press conference at 2424. Right. So Amanda Nunes, I think, is the only one. She won the featherweight championship, drop back down to Bantamweight and then there's really no clear number one contender featherweight so once that situation plays out maybe she goes up if Jermaine Duranemey

who was the inaugural featherweight champion people don't talk about that. Say Jermaine Duranem beats Amanda Nunes why not rematch them at featherweight for the featherweight title so then we would have another champ champ champ at the in the female division but Dana Corme was champ champ champ champ he defended

his light heavyweight championship enough times and then when he beat Steepie Miochich for the heavyweight championships of the world he really held out for that prok Lesnar match, I can blame him for not dropping back down to light heavyweight unless it was for John Jones. If that Brock Lesnar paycheck was there as soon as Brock Lesnar was out of the picture, they rematch. And he did fight Derek Lewis, but that was on short notice, and they really needed someone for that Mattis Square Garden card. And I firmly believe if it was anyone other than Derek Lewis,

I don't think Daniel Corby would have taken that fight. But the Conner situation, I think really left a bad taste in my mouth. I thought it was really, I thought it was very cool to finally see that because we've been wanting that for so long. I think Anderson Silliver versus George St. Pierre would have been amazing if George had gone up or Anderson. I'm not saying Anderson would have made the way if one of them had changed divisions and then we had a champ champ. I think then would have been appropriate because they had cleaned out their divisions. George had been everyone at Welterway, Anderson being everyone in middleweight. I think that was the appropriate time for champ for champ.

The BJ Penn, George, St. Pierre one was cool too. But now I feel like everyone wants to do it. I mean, Tyron Woodley wins, and he's calling out, like, middleweight champs if, when, like, everyone wants to go up, everyone wants to go down, no one wants to defend, which is why fighters like Max Holloway and Habib, who are like, no, I want to dominate my division are so unique. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mike. And to add to that, flyweight is way more interesting than it was a year, year and a half ago. I mean, you got guys like Matt Schnell, who has been really exciting as of late and is really, you know, making a statement and moving up the ladder. You got guys like Jordan Espinoza still there. And you have unsigned flyweight right now who could do a number. Like Brandon Royvel, like what he did at LFA 79, that guy should absolutely get a shot at the flyweight division.

And he's a top 15 guy as soon as the pen hits the paper. You know what I mean? So flyweight is super interesting. There's guys outside that are knocking on the door that should get in. And the division is continuing to move up. So you give all the credit in the world to Suhudo for giving life and rebirth to the flyweight division and saving it and let it. it become what it's going to become but i think the champ champ things if sehudo drops the belt like the division will move forward beforehand a year ago year and a half ago wouldn't have been like that

now we're there so let's let's move on like i couldn't say any better like i think the big like the problem is henry sehuto should if he's not going back to flyweight should vacate the flyweight championship of the world and let joseph anavita as a figurado fight like fight fight fight for it and then henrys sehudo can just stay at 135 the problem here is this triple C gimmick he has is like everything. He can't be a triple C if he gives up the flyweight championship of the world. If Dana White says you have to fight Benavitas next or vacate, and he vacates, he's not triple C anymore.

I mean, technically he never lost and everyone's going to say that. But it's one in one with Joseph. Like Joseph Benavita has already beat him. Let him rematch. If he wins, like they, like, it's, it's there. Like, I don't want to see Henderson. He don't fight anyone other than Joseph Benavita's next. there are fights I like, like I like the Frank Edgar fight, I like the Dominic Cruz fight and the

Joe Ziazza fight and all this, but what about Joe Benavides? I don't like seeing hard work, not pay off, especially when Henderson Hoodle saved the Flyweight Division when he beat T.J. Dillishaw, and now he's not fighting at Flyweight anymore. I get it. Just give up the belt or move on. And again, Roy McDonald also tried to become a champ champ, champ, if I'm not mistaken, right? He went up. Gayard definitely didn't go down. Gaygard did say he wanted to go down to Welterweight though after seeing Douglas Liam he's like yeah I'm like the same size of that guy

I could make welterweight so Bellator and Ryan Bader same thing Ryan Bader I think is going to be one of those guys that defense both belts he fought Shet Congo yes it was a no contest because of that weird eye poke situation he ran through that heavyweight Grand Prix if he goes back to light heavyweight

like he said he did he wanted to go to rise in a fight for like a heavyweight or light heavyweight championship I know KSW wants something to do with Bellator so maybe Bader versus field of freeze, maybe he becomes an actual triple champ with two Bellator champion championships and a KSW champion. But then what happened with Kioji Horaguchi? He wins the Bellator championship, goes back to Risen and then gets knocked out.

So it's like this whole, I'm over it. I'm over it. Mike, you're over it, right? Now we're going to have guys after this conversation try to be quadruple champions. So we're just going down this terrible rabbit hole right now that we need to pull ourselves out of. But yeah, I'm with you on, you know, one title's good. I mean, Bader's a different exception. Maybe I think he could probably handle both, but I don't really see anybody else right now.

Like, MMA fighting is so difficult. Like, it's so hard to stay healthy and be able to defend those titles. Because, like, to make people happy, just like the question said, you have to defend both titles, like, twice a year to make everybody happy. Once a year is not enough. So if you can fulfill that, God bless you. But I haven't seen anybody that can do it. And God bless Israel out of Sanya for basically admitting, like,

I'm going to clean out my division and then I'll go up to light heavyweight. Because that John Jones fight now would be big money. And he's like, nope, I have stuff to do in middleweight and then I'll go up. John Jones wants to fight me now because I'm small. Like didn't Israel out of Sondon way like 183, 184, one of his wayans? Like he's not a, he's a skinny cat. It's not like he's going to have, it's going to be easy for him to just bulk up to like 205 immediately. He's going to take some time.

So 2021, we might have an actual change. champ-fers-champ fight that makes sense after if israel a lot of signing a clean down division and john jones stays the course but enough of this champ-champ talk i'm over it everyone is over well maybe not everyone if you guys are over you can tell me in the comment section but we're going to move right along in the comment section from tyler durden 31 is this a tipping point for the ufc or is it just my my growing lack of interest i used to i used to look forward to cars and rank the Matt just, but it seems the UFC has lost its center. Could the Connor effect be there, be there's little out there that's exciting? Addison, it probably is the guy now. How about

a lightweight tournament to get shit rolling? Interesting question. I've been hearing this a lot from fans. A lot of my fans, friends that don't really watch MMA like we do every single week because it's our job. I'll say, they'll ask me like, oh, what are you doing on Saturday? I'm like, UFC fight. They're like, again, it's like the 12th week in a row. There's a UFC fight. And then when there's no UFC, there's Belator. When there's an. or one championship or Cage Wars. But this is specifically a UFC question. Our MA fighting zone, Alex Cayley, and Mike Giopeta have a great write-up on The Great Divide last week about

is there too many events in the UFC? So if you haven't read that, go check it out. Last week's The Great Divide's. It's a fantastic piece. Esther Lynn did an excellent graphic for the thumbnail where she spliced together like 10 different arenas all from the same angle. It was great. But is this just a case of too many events

like we've been hearing for a long time where if you look at like, I don't know, say 2008, 2007, UFC, there's not that many events and every card seems to be stacked from top to bottom. And now we're getting fights in Busan, which is great, and I'm sure we're going to talk about that main event on this card, on this chat,

but then the other 10 fights don't really do anything for the casual fans. or is this just a lot of fans, which I've also heard, Connor brought them in, and now that Connor's not there, and there's really no star power. Rhonda's gone, Brock Lesnar's gone, he mentioned Israel out of Sanya. Is this just, there's no interesting characters, or is this just burnout from too many fight cards?

Probably the latter on that one. I mean, there's a lot of fight cards. And the locations for some of these places are just unbelievable. Isn't there one coming up in Rio Ranchero, New Mexico? Rio Rancho, yeah. I've never even heard of Rio Rancho until this card was announced. Like, nothing against the area. Like, Albuquerque is a major city in New Mexico.

Rio Rancho, never really heard of it, but expect a lot of local fighters out there. They're trying to get into new markets. And I understand what they're trying to do here. But I'd say it's at least like December 7th, the UFCDC card was looking pretty good on paper. And then we've had some switches and some of the fighters came out. But like next Monday when it's actually Fight Week, we're going to be so excited for that card because we haven't had an event in two weeks. So it's nice to have that break. And then we got three weeks in a row.

And then we're off for like another two or three weeks after that. So we're going to get a little bit of a reprieve. We're going to get a little bit of a break. We're going to be able to miss it a little bit more. And if you're a hardcore MMA fan, there's plenty of them. I mean, look at last weekend. You had LFA. You had CFFC.

You had Bellator. You had Cage Warriors. You had a plethora of different MMA events you could watch. and that we're at your disposal. So there are a lot of events, and it just depends on what kind of a fan you are. If you're a casual fan, you may not care as much. If you're a hardcore fan, you're going to watch every bit of it.

So if you're a storyline guy like myself, I try to find a story in every event, no matter how strong or weak the card is. So I can always find angles to enjoy fight cards and make them a little more interesting. So it just depends what kind of fan you are. You're not going to please everybody, because if you don't have this many events,

you're going to piss off the hardcore fan too. so you just got to pick which side of the fence you're on. I agree. I think there might be, I like, I like the fact that they go to all these weird cities. Like I was super excited to go cover event in Bangor, Maine that one time. Because a lot of fight fans don't get to go to live events. And these really, these like going to Rio Rancho, going to Raleigh, going to Wichita, going to Utica.

Like all these places really gets these fans that maybe never thought they could get it watch a UFC fight live. Like if you're in Utica, New York, uh, and the closest you can get is like Albany or Rochester or Scott like Madison Square garden, there's no way you're making it like what, six hour drive, five hour drive, whatever it is and paying that to New York City. Like people say New York and they immediately think New York City.

But like Utica is like way up, way up there. So they're not, for those type of cities, I love it. They're obviously not going to get big title fights. Like I believe the Utica fight card was Jimmy Rivera and Marlon Marais was on that card. But then you got Gregra. You get those fights. Like the young Greg Gillespie was on that. Like Jessica Aguilar was supposed to be on that. So you get those fun fights. And then the Rochester one was I think Kevin Lee and RDA, if I'm not mistaken. And Wichitaa was JDS and was that Derek Lewis or is that right?

Was it that one? I don't remember. Lewis. Is it Langano? No, that was the Minnesota one. I believe. That was Lewis. You're right. You're right. You're right. So you get these events in these small cities that maybe no one would expect to get them. So I love that. I don't know if they have to go to Las Vegas like three months in a row. But again, those are for the big pay-per-views. And I saw a question about this January pay-per-view supposedly in Las Vegas.

So we'll save that for later. I get it. I get what the UC is doing. I get they have a lot of fighters on the roster. They got to get them all fights. I think a lot of fans, this might be a little burnt out. I'm curious to see how UFC 245 does in terms of buys or in terms of viewership. When we do get this long break, we had 244.

And then I think, what was the one right after 244? Was that the Salpalo card or was that? I don't even remember. It's all a blur to me. We had that Sal Palo card, but we had that Sal Palo card, which had really interesting fights. That fight dragged forever. Like that fight card dragged forever. and it culminated in not the greatest main event.

And now we get this break. And then we have UFC 245, which is just like three title fights, the turn of Jose Aldo making his debut, Uriah Favors on that card. Like that fight card is fantastic. And then we get the Busan fight card, which the main event is the best fight of the year, in Jose's opinion,

because I've been waiting for that fight for five years between the Korean zombie and Brian Ortega. But have you gone back and looked at some of the fight cards from like 2008, 2009. Like when, like, like, those fight cards will have like, Rampage Jackson as like the third fight on the main, or like Militamachita will be like the co-main event. And then like Randy Kutore is also on the card.

Like that, those fight cards were must watch television. Unless it's a big title fight, I don't know if the UFC is having a lot of much watch, must watch television on ESPN these days. Correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, I mean, there's certain cards that that do better than others. And I kind of like what they did with Boston, too. I like how they mix in a Friday card every once in a while.

Like it mixes things up. Like it's one day, it's 24 hours earlier, but still it mixes things up a little bit. It opens up schedules in different ways. So I like, I hope they add, you know, two or three more Friday night cards. Maybe add a Sunday card here and there. Like I don't mind that at all. Not everything has to be so uniformed all the time. It doesn't have to be Saturday, 8 o'clock, every single time.

Like Saturday, 10 p.m. Main card start every single time. Like I like when they mix things up a little bit. and they shuffle the deck. Like, I just put in a random, no, UFC 82. That's the one I, just a random one I put in. Like, you got Andrea Olavski on the prelims, Josh Koschek, Diego Sanchez,

and then you got John Fitch, O'Kami, Libin, Shet Congo, and then Anderson, and then Anderson. Like, that's a good fight card for, like, what year was that? 2008? Yeah. If that, but then... UFC 100, John Jones was on the prelims. I don't even think he was on TV at all that.

Wasn't that like his second or third fight in the UFC? Yeah. Like, uh, God, Jim Miller was on that fight card. I think Jim, and was Jim Miller the only one on UFC 100 and 200? Yeah. Because John Jones was supposed to be, but then that fell apart. But that had, well, Anderson, not Anderson, had Lesnar, that George, that had Mike Bisbing, Dan Henderson.

Wasn't Akiyama's, like, UFC debut on that card? Yeah, if I, Alan Belcher. on that card. Yeah. Oh my God. And he won, right? That was like his only win in the UFC? Yeah, it was a decision win. Mark Coleman fought Stefan Bonner on that card. See, that fight card is, but that's UFC 100. Like, UFC 200 was unbelievable, too, even though they lost the main event.

You still get these really staffed cards. Like, UFC 235 was fantastic. UFC 239. UFC 238, if I'm not mistaken, had the most ranked fighters since the day, since obviously the past ones, there were no rankings, but since the UFC rankings, like, took shape, I believe UFC 238 in Chicago had the most ranked fighters on one single pay-per-view card, or just one card in general. And, like, theoretically, there were three or four number-one contender fights on that card. We had the main event, which obviously the championship fight, and then

the co-main event was the Valentina Shipschenko and Jessica I. But then we also had Caldalen Tuketigan versus Joanne Calderwood, which everyone just kind of assumed was the number one contender. We had Alzumain Sterling versus Pedro Munoz. People just assumed. was the normal contender and I think that like the Peter Yon fight he like he was arguing that he should get the shot and then Tony Ferguson won so he was that was for sure number one contender fight so you have fight you do still have fight cards like that but then you have the fight cards that no one like the Moscow card I had I watched because I A it's my job and B I likes that fight card but I don't know how many eyeballs tuned in especially over here on the west coast when it

started at like four or five in the morning I know you watched because Calvin because your boy Calvin Cater was on that card but There are fight cards that are specifically made for the markets. And I do get that. They're trying to break into the Moscow market. And it was great that as a beat headlined it because now he's a bigger star in that, in that marketplace. But like, can you imagine if they put like Habib in Moscow? Like, come on.

Oh, my God. Or UFC 242. That was the Habib. That was Habib Porier, right? Yep. Outside of that main event, what was, like, outside of that main event. And they're like, they obviously Felder and Barbos. It was good.

The co-made event. Yeah. Like those two fights. And other than that, it was really built for that region of the world. Yeah, 100%. 100%. Andrew Lee versus Calderwo was a good fight. Yeah.

One, because it was a female fight, and that was just huge in putting it on that spot. But yeah, that was one of the more interesting fights on that entire card, in my opinion, was that fight. Obviously, Calderwood got the job done. But, yeah, it was a very Russian, you know, very area-laden card, for sure. Same as, I think, UFC 240. I liked that one. That was Frank Edgar Max Holloway. And then it also had Cyborg versus Philege Spencer.

But like Media Day, like you've covered media days enough in your time, especially for pay-per-views. They didn't bring out nearly anyone for me today. They were like four or five fighters from each corner. It wasn't like 13 fighters, 13 fighters. So like even UFC 240 was obviously stacked with, not stacked, stacks is not the right word. They had a lot of Canadians on that car. And then it was really built around the top two fights. Like Akim Duwado was on the prelims.

which was very shocking to me, considering he was fighting Edmonton, right? And he did get that KO. But I think burnout is for sure a real thing. But we don't want to burn you guys out on this conversation. Transition. So we're going to move right along. From Zaku Kokegi, which I've been told I'm pronouncing that correctly, Gina Carranos, but spelled Gina wrong.

We finally found out what happened with her comeback fight. After hearing how Dana treated the situation, would you guys have walked away from a million-dollar pay day out of principle. Happy and have a happy Thanksgiving. Happy, have a happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Zakukeke. So, Mike, I don't know if you saw. I'm sure you did because if you didn't, you'd be living under rock and not doing your duties

as an MMA journalist. Gina Carano was on Air Hohanai's show on ESPN and she finally pulled back the curtain on the supposed plan for her return fight. Man, I'm sure you remember it. I was at that, remember when Dana would do those scrums after every fight. That kind of became like must watch YouTube. He said, like, I just signed Gina Carano. like we're going to make gina versus ronda ronda could go up in 1 45 to fight it's the only fight

i was there and then that fight never happened and then dana white threw under the bus jena crano now said that dana white prematurely made the announcement after she asked for like six months to find a team that she can trust uh through and then threw under the bus like mistakenly sent her a text message calling her some uh not nice things uh directly to her and that was that she cut off all ties to her so a were you surprised that Dana White prematurely announced a fight through his fighter under the bus

or not even his fight through a potential superstar under the bus offered her a million dollars and that basically are you surprised by the whole situation? No because we're dealing with that situation right now with Habib and Tony Ferguson so not to this extent not

to where Dana sent a text message to Tony Ferguson about Tony Ferguson accidentally to get him to sign the contract. I'm not surprised by any of this stuff, to be honest with you, because that's what Dana does. He, you know, when Dana talks, just like what you said, when he used to do those scrums,

that puts a lot of pressure because everyone in the media is going to write about it. Everyone in the media is going to talk about it and go on Twitter and talk about it. And that puts extra pressure on a fighter like Gina Carrano and a person like Gina Corona who doesn't like the pressure. She's just not a pressure person. In terms of would I have walked away from a million dollar payday out of principle, I will say this. There's a difference between 36-year-old Mike.

Heck with a wife and a son who's making tens of dollars a month covering the sport of mixed martial arts on his own trying to do this full time. And then there's Gina Carrano who was an actress and she built this sort of empire within herself. So she was doing quite fine. And she said multiple times in the interview that she thinks about fighting all the time, but she doesn't need to fight. Like she found her passion in acting. She found her passion in and trying to make something great on the big screen. So she didn't need to fight. This was a great opportunity for her. Yeah, A million dollars, why not? The million dollar fight.

She compared it to the Leila Ali fight. But I'm not surprised she walked away. Would I have walked away in the position I'm in? Probably not for a million dollars. I mean, let's be honest. There's a lot of things I would do for a million dollars. There's obviously a line there, ladies and gentlemen. But a million dollars is a lot of money for somebody like me.

So it's when I fight John Jones for a million dollars, yep, I would take that ass weapon real quick. I'd fight John Jones for like $50,000, honestly. not that well maybe a little more because i'm sure i'd have to pay for my own medical expenses and all that stuff but uh none of this surprised me whatsoever especially dana white throwing uh fighters under the bus um yeah it's it's really Gina Carano is the big one of the big is one of the biggest female stars in the history of mima i it's like i'd put her right below ronda rousey she was the original face of women's mixed martial arts i saw a lot of female after that interview

was done and they put that clip out like Ariel tweeted the clip out a lot of female fighters like like Angela Hill I was like the one that came to mind I was like someone was like I never even saw women fight MMA until her fight with cyborg and Angela Hill was like me neither so like a lot of female fighters were like

quote tweeting that and like respond to it saying like Gina was really the first person that they saw as someone that they like oh like this is a real thing like I could do this so the female fighters obviously had Gina's back I don't I'm curious to see if any of them really speak out with Gina's comments, but Gina Carano is a movie star.

And it's not like she's in these small indie films. Like she's in the Mandalorian. She's in the Deadpool movies. Like she starred in Haywire her own movie. Like she's in these big blockbuster movies. So like you said it, you'd fight John Jones for a million dollars. I think she's doing okay. I think she's doing just okay.

The thing I will say is this really, it felt like Dana wanted to give Gina Carano a million dollars to fight Rhonda, lose, and then basically just build Ronda off of that win. I don't know if Dana ever really cared about signing Gina Carano as much as using Gina Carano to bolster Ronda Rousey's mystique in the eyes of the fans because if Ronda beats Gina Carano, like that's that I don't know, like a year ago when Mark Ramandi and Sean Al Shadi were hosting this, I actually was speaking with Mark about this in New York.

he put together this hypothetical all-female card. It was off the heels of the WB Women's Revolution card that they did the whole female pay-per-view. And he goes, if you had to put together an all-female UFC card, MMA card, like this could be cross-promotion, who would you put? And the main event was Ronda Rousey, Gina Carrano. Like, that was his hypothetical thing. And I couldn't say I disagreed where it was like the face, the two faces of women's

MMA. I'll let you answer this to. I think Amanda Nunes is the great. as female fighter of all time in terms of in ring capability and her accolades. But in terms of who made the biggest mark, it's Rhonda and Gina Carano.

Like, it's 1A, 1B. I'd give Rhonda a slight edge, considering she actually fought in the UFC and did on the cover Sports Illustrated and all that. But when I heard that, I immediately was like, oh, Dana just wanted her to lose and then show her the door. Like, you think Gina Carano's going to stick around for another

fight if she lost to Rhonda Rousey? Probably not. still it was a million dollars should go off and do movies and do just fine. So it's worth an opportunity to, you know, to scratch that preferbial itch and then make a good amount of money, get into a training camp. She loves doing that stuff like she said. But, you know, sometimes we don't get what we want. And sometimes when something we want is right there in front of us, we push a little too hard for it. And that's what Dana White did there. And take it from somebody who sent an accidental text message like that to somebody before. Yeah, there's no coming back from that.

Once you send that text and you realize that you made that mistake and you have to sweat it out waiting for the reply. Yeah. I never did that again. Let's just say that. Someone in the comment section says, I'll fight Jose and Mike for 50 cents. So that'd be a terrible night for you, sir. But we're going to move right along from longtime comments or Rob Holland. Habib versus Tony.

And again, I read these verbatim. After knowing for quit some time that Tony is next, we finally get a date. And it's the effing spring. didn't even actually it's the effing spring they didn't even put a question mark dare i say and hopefully not jinx it this is this just gives both men more time to get injured what are your thoughts on this choice and also the involvement of ali abdelaziz and his games in the negotiations i don't know what games he's playing because i haven't spoken to ali personally about it but i did speak to him at the dominant MMA media day and he said

like justin gait you could skip over tony ferguson i'm like i know like no one should should fight it would be before Tony Ferguson. Even when the lead up to Gatji versus Soroni, both fighters were asked like, who's next after this fight for the title? They're like, Tony Ferguson. Like, are you kidding me? Like, look at he's...

The last time Tony Ferguson lost, women weren't even in the UFC. Like, this is the first time two fighters with two 10 plus fight win streaks are fighting for a champion, or fighting in the UFC. Like, I can't, God, it's gonna I'm gonna tear my hair out if people

If someone comes up to me and goes, I think Justin Gachis to fight Habib before Tony likes, or better yet, I had people saying Tony Ferguson should fight Justin Gachie. I'm like, you're stupid. Like, no. Like, Tony Ferguson has to fight. You should have already fought Habib.

But what do you think about the timing of the fight? And I don't think this fight is ever going to happen. I've been on record many a time on this show saying, I'm not going to believe this fight happens until they're actually in the octagon. And then I bet we get a UFC 240. situation or like seroni ferguson situation where it's like a cut or a blown eye or something like that i think the worst case scenario every single fight i don't know where you stand on this uh but it's the time

finally now for habi versus tony ferguson well if you're going to do it in brooklyn i prefer you do it in april i'd rather not have it in january or february because there could be ice on the ground on the sidewalks and snow on the ground they could slip and fall like i don't want any of that stuff i don't want anything at all to get in the way of this fight. To build off what you said about not believing it until you see it, like to quote the great Michael Scott from the office, fool me one, strike one, full me twice, strike three. Like, so many times we've been bought into this thing.

Bubble wrap them all you want. But again, this fight's not done yet. Like on all accounts, it's not done. Tony Ferguson has not signed that contract yet. So before we get too too excited, we get a way for that to happen. The timing, you can do that fight. anytime, anywhere at this point. And obviously, I believe, I'm not sure if you covered UFC 208 in Brooklyn.

Were you there for that card? I was not there for that card. Okay. So just Brooklyn is the perfect place for Habib if it's not in Russia or Abu Dhabi because they did a Q&A one day during the buildup to UFC 208 in this community in Brooklyn. I mean, it is like Russian Central. And that, like, it was such a mob scene for Habib. Like, Habib just showed up.

It was right before, it was right after the first. The Ferguson fight that year for 209 was announced. So he goes in there, he does this Q&A, and they just mobbed him. I mean, there's such a contingency of Habib fans in that area. So it is the perfect place to host this fight if you're going to do it in the United States. Because Habib's going to have a lot of support, a lot of people coming out for him. The building is going to be absolutely electric. And then Tony Ferguson will thrive off of that.

That's the stuff that he's made up. He's just a wacky guy like that. He wants to be the away team. He wants to be the hated guy. So he'll love that. But again, I'm with you until Bruce Buffer announces them and they have the face off and the referee says, let's go and the first punch is thrown, then I'll actually believe it's happening. It's like Nick Diaz coming back and fighting in the UFC. Until that happened, until like let's go and the first punch is thrown, I don't believe it's ever going to happen.

It will never happen. Habeevers Tony will never happen. I'm going to say that until I'm blue in the face because I believe in reverse psychology. now that I said that I've probably jinxed it but I've been there on the scene for most of their scheduled fights actually all of their scheduled fights and they've all fallen apart

but honestly I had this thought the other day when I was when this whole situation where it's like oh when Habib or Ali put the picture out of Fabi signing it and he's like sign your end big boy or something like that is this all

like the fight gods just playing a game with us because doesn't it seemed like this fight is bigger than ever now? Now we have two guys on the two longest streaks. With the two of them combined, they've basically cleaned out the division like Tony Ferguson has beaten everyone they've put in front of him late like since his loss to Michael Johnson. Habib's being everyone. He's putting in front of him. He's undefeated. Is this just, if they had fought on that, what were they supposed to fight? Like Tampa Bay or Orlando, weren't they on that? That Fox card or something like that, that fell apart.

when like Tony Ferguson was like coughing blood or something. That fight wouldn't have been as big a deal then. And then they were supposed to fight at UFC 209, but I believe it was for the interim title or something like that, and then it fell apart. And then they were supposed to fight in Brooklyn at USC 223. And then the Connor situation really made Habib a bigger star. Did it not?

Oh, 100%. Definitely. So, yeah, continue. Is this now the perfect time? Is this storm of chaos? now granted us the biggest fight we could put together because now this is obviously a bigger deal than it ever was before. Is this all just a ruse by the fight gods to give us the biggest fight in lightweight history? As a parent, I can say this and it's a good comparison. When your kid does something

over and over again, you say like, this is the last chance. This is your last chance, I promise you. And you say that over and over and over again, you still end up giving him what he wants, like, 20 minutes later. This is literally the last chance that people are going to buy into this. Like, you can't do this again. This is it. So it is peaked as much as it can at this point. And if this thing falls apart again, like even if Tony Ferguson says, no, I don't like the deal. I'm not signing it. I'm not signing it. That, like, that's it. The only other idea you can do, and I thought this is brilliant. I think Helwani said this a couple of years ago is that you don't even announce this fights happening. Like you tell both competitors that the fights happening,

and then you build it up, let them train. And then like a day before say, hey, for $15. You can watch Tony Ferguson fight Habib Norega-Madha Madoff tomorrow on UFC Fight Pass. Like, this is how it works. Like, don't tell anybody, don't jinx it. Just announce it the day before and then just let it happen. Like, I'd rather see that happen than build this thing up for another five months.

Like, that's a lot of time to worry about it. And to your friend, Jessica, because I do watch the show, if you're going to send crystals to anybody, send all the crystals to Habib and Tony Ferguson at this point. Like, whatever magic, whatever things we could do with these crystals, like, let's send that power to them to and everybody else around us. Maybe all the MMA fans just to keep us calm through this whole thing. I'm going to have all the crystals around me. I got my crystals right here.

I'm going to be, I'm just going to be people listening can hear that. I'm just rolling my crystals in my hands. And this isn't a situation where it's always one fighter getting hurt. Both fighters are equally at fault here. Like Tony Ferguson was like had like punctured lung or coughing a blood or something. Like Habib blew his knee out or something. and then Habib passed out, miscutting weight the day before.

Tony Ferguson trips on a wire on the Fox lot. This is both men. It's not like one fighter is cursed. We're all cursed, ladies and gentlemen. We're all cursed. And my former colleague, Sean Alashad is very much on

that Tony Ferguson is going to win this fight. I believe me and him are an agreement that whoever wins this fight is the greatest lightweight, whoever lived. I don't think it's really a debate right now. I think the default answer for a long time has been BJ Penn, but that's simply because the lightweight division has been so competitive that there really hasn't been a longstanding champion outside of BJ Penn.

And then Connor McGregor winning and holding up the division for so long, kind of put a damper on that. But this is the biggest, in terms of, I don't even care if there's a crowd. I just want to watch this fight. This is just high-level martial arts at its finest. This is up there with like, there's a lot. there's no comparison. This is the best fight. This is the most highest skilled fight I can think of

that we're going to get in 2021. But it doesn't matter because we're not going to get it. We're never going to get this fight. We're going to stop talking about it real quick because the more we talk about it, the more of a chance they're going to fall apart. No, I don't believe in the secret. I think the secret is the dumbest thing in the whole wide world.

But I believe in putting out negative energy into the world and jinxing the greatest lightweight fight ever. And I'm just going to convince myself that those four failed fights, we're all just building up to this one moment. Everything happens for a reason, Jose. Everything happens for a reason, and I can pray and pray all I want, but it will never happen.

But we're going to move right along because the more we talk about it, the less likely that fight will happen. UFC's lackluster schedule from Robin G87. The only events to look forward to is a stacked UFC 245. Besides that, there are not many events worth of mentioning for a long,

time. One, I believe that's like seven O's. Have you encountered periods like this where you almost, where there are almost no big UFC events for a couple months? Seems like a new thing to me, at least the last couple years. Is this a sign that the U.S. changing its vision of big events? Or is this a one-off? Well, I disagree on fight on no big events coming up. I love that Boussand car, specifically for the main event. I think that whole fight card is worth it for that main event between the Korean zombie, Brian Ortega. Last I saw,

the odds were dead even. It was like minus 145, minus 145 or something like that. That's about as close to fight as you can get. That's just violent martial arts at its finest. And then you got that January fight card. We're supposedly Connors coming up, but looking less likely the closer we get. And then we got Dominic Ray's John Jones in February, Valentinus de Chagin's on that card too. Even that January card, like Macy Barber fights Roxanne Matafari. I believe Anthony Pettis fights Diego Faheda on that card.

So there's good fights coming up. If you're just talking about just the rest of 2019, which this person doesn't say, but I'm just going to assume that's what they're doing because there's some great fights in early 2020. There's only like two UFC events left in 2019. So I don't know what they're complaining about. UFC 245 is absolutely stacked.

Korean zombie Brian Ortega is my favorite fight of all time. It hasn't even happened yet. And then the last few months have been great. But in terms of have you encountered periods like this where there are almost no big UFC events for a couple months, I can't think of any. I'm sure I can. Mike, can you think of any off the top of your head of these long

restrictions of time of lack quote unquote lackluster schedule? I would say that like the one that really sticks out to me was was right before UFC 208. Like, wasn't there like a big event scheduled for January? That got canceled. Something big happened like the month before. So like they almost had to cancel 208. So that's why they put home versus Duranmi and like created a title just to like put something on that card. You know what I mean? So like that, that's probably the time I remember, but

here's something, I had a conversation with a buddy of mine the other day. He's not, he's kind of a casual UFC fan. And he asked me the same question. I'm like, dude, I know this seems like, it seems like so long ago, but UFC 244 was this month. Like it happened this month. The rock. President Trump, the BMF title, all of that stuff was this month. It was just a couple of weeks ago. Like, it's not like we've had, we haven't had any significant, it's not like UFC Boston was the last event we had until DC. Like, we've had some big moments. We had out of Sonia. We had, you know, we had UFC 244, which is just a massive spectacle. Like that event was insanity from start to finish, like whether you're watching on television or whether you're there in

person. So yeah, now we're getting a little bit of a reprieve. I think the DC card gets a little bit of a boost because we have, we get that little bit of a breather. But like you said, 245 is a great card. Busan's going to be actually a good card. It's good hardcore fans card for sure. Matt Schnell's on that card who's one of the most exciting guys at flyweight right now. There's some interesting storylines there. You can find him anywhere. And then we're going to get another little bit of a break to build back up towards the January 18th cards and building into February as we had to Houston in March and hopefully knock on wood, April and Brooklyn with Habib and Tony. So it'll all work out. We're just taking a little walk around the block right now.

We're going to get to our destination soon and everything's going to be fine. couldn't have put it any better myself sir i think the only other year i can think of remember there was that year of all those injuries just like just just crippled the ufc's plans like we're supposed to have like habib versus like donald saroni like john jones not even injuries just like things in general john jones supposed to fight anthony johnson on that same card uh yeah it's like and then because of all that like the new or like we're supposed to have bader versus dc in new orleans and then DC got pulled to fight Rumble and instead Dan Henderson versus like Tim Boch

main event of that and then you get there was that year like Hanukhruz and your eye was supposed to fight UFC 148 but then they got pulled instead your eye favor fought Henan Burrow and like Calgary and that's like historically one of the worst pay-per-views ever so but those are all because I think that was no I think that was like 2013 2014 I can't remember

was a bad year too outside of Connor and Floyd, right? Or is that 20? Yeah, outside of that. I think that was a year like that. Not as extreme, but it was like that. Correct. We had a lot, but like Anthony Johnson fought Daniel Cormey and like, was that Buffalo? And then we had like the two Tyron Woodley.

We had the Tyne Woodley. We had Tyne Woodley versus Damien Myel. Like those are all great, but those are all good cards. Like, I wouldn't say this is a lackluster schedule whatsoever. Again, this might be. is go back to the burnout. Maybe they're just less cards people are interested in, but there are still phenomenal fights. Like that UFC Sao Paulo car, which everyone was complaining about, like Charles Oliva was on that card. That's great. Like Shogun Nahuah, which if you think of MMA royalty,

like Shogunahua is MMA royalty, not just UFC, like martial arts royalty. Whenever Shogunhua fights, it's must watch television. And then the main event maybe left a lot to be desired, but that could have been a number of contender fight if John Blackovich had won. So maybe it's just Robin G-87, maybe it's just less fight cards you're interested in because I wouldn't say any of those fight cards were lackluster. Like U.C. 244 was just a couple of weeks ago.

The Boston car was before that. Like, these are good fights. U.C. 244 was awesome. Like U.S. 243, Israel-A.S. Like people were complaining that that fight card was not as stacked. It kind of had that Abu Dhabi-type feel where like we were supposed to have Holly home on that car

but instead like Dan Hooker and I, Al-Iikinza were elevated to the co-made event after Holly got hurt. fight like the Israel Assange Rod Wittaker fight made that whole fight card worth it and they were like Jorgon de Castro were kind of catapults at himself into the eyes of the fans shout out to Fall River Massachusetts on that one but there were a lot of there were a lot of epic fights on that card again I think it's just but it's all subjective what I consider lackluster Mike might consider lackluster might not consider lacklester but uh we can talk about this all day

one final question on the site before we hop over Twitter should there be an exception from Grin N. Should there be an exception that Conner McGregor will, should there be any expectation that Conradle will return to the Octagon in January? With January just around the corner, it seems strange that an official announcement has not been released. Connor fighting at the start of the new year seems like something the UFC would heavily promote. And now just weeks away, it's been awfully quiet. So we kind of talked about this a little bit earlier. Conner McGregor announced he was fighting. believe it was January 14th, January 18th. He announced that. He's like, I am fighting on this card. Dana White was like, huh? Okay. And then was like scrabbling to put together a fight for him.

Apparently, supposedly he was Donald Serroney. I have a lot of thoughts on that fight. I get it, but I wish he was fighting someone else, but I get it. But now we're getting closer, close to that January 18th date. There's no announcement. There's a card, but there's no announcement. And it's really kind of put a wrench into like when they're announced, to Daniel, what John Jones versus Dominic Reyes,

they didn't say UFC 246 or UFC 247. They just said February event, because there's no number, because if Connor McGregor decides he's fighting January 18th, you know that's going to be UFC 246 in Las Vegas. If he doesn't fight, I doubt they're going to do a pay-per-view card without Connor McGregor. Maybe they cancel it.

Maybe they just make it a fight night like they did with the, was it the Johnny Hendricks? Wonderboy. Wonderboy. That was supposed to be Kane and Verdume. and then when Kane got hurt, they just kept it in the same venue. They just made it a fight night. Maybe this is the same situation.

I'm not sure. Maybe they, I believe this would be, if they do cancel it, this would be the third time in four years. They've canceled the January pay-per-view. If I'm not mistaken, they canceled it, like you said, right before USC 208, which is 2017, right? And then there was nothing in 2018. And then there might, 2016. There was nothing last year, right? that's when they offered

Kamar who offered to fight Colby or Ben Ashkin in January where then it didn't happen so then they had that February fight card so this would be what the third time of four years they'd be no there would be no January pay-per-view that's rough but again

if they're going to take it ended up being a blessing because like USC 235 became that much more stacked that people are complaining about no big pay-per-view cards like this is the situation we run into where I've said this before I love these three championship

fight cards but it throws everything off like we have three champions fighting at USC 245 and now we and then we had a champion fighting at you we had a made up belt U.S.C. 244 and now we have no champions to fight in January

but again Mike your thoughts on this whole Connor McGregor situation because I'm going to get right on the face so I keep thinking about this for those who have been thinking that Connor McGregor is irrelevant right now, this just proves you wrong.

I mean, the power this man has right now, because clearly this is a game going on right now, because if you look at the UFC website alone over the last week to 10 days, it went from fight night, Vegas, fight night, Houston, to Houston being UFC 246, to Houston now being a fight night again.

So now we don't know what the heck's going on because the ball is clearly in Connor McGregor's court right now. So they're trying to figure this up. Connor has all the weight in this situation. Like, he could call the UFC right now, and be like, all right, dude, I'm in. Like, we've agreed to terms. Like, let's make this happen.

That's automatically a pay-per-view. If he doesn't say that, that it just becomes a fight night and they have to scramble to find some other main event at this point. So I wonder what, like, what they have in the back burner right now? Like, what's the backup plan if Connor doesn't take this fight in terms of what can be the main event? Are we thinking maybe you want a Zhang Wei fight? Like, could both of these ladies be ready for January?

Like, that's a belt that could be defending. That's a really fascinating fight right now. Rose Domi Unis is talking about coming back at this point. I don't know when. So, I mean, the clock's ticking. Tick, talk, tick, talk. If Connor's going to be on it, like, there needs to be some sort of a deadline here. And if he passes or passes that deadline, we need to have a backup plan in place.

So like you said, the three title fights are awesome. You know, what have you done for me lately? We gave you three title fights. But now what are you going to do for us in January? So, you know, Connor's showing his prolific power abilities right now. where it ends i don't know but clock's ticking i mean thanksgiving is tomorrow so let's they got to make some sort of decision they got to do it pretty quickly yeah in that situation where i believe it was like the u sc 205 when they had three title fights that was Connor eddie

which again that's technically the featherweight title was kind of put it like held up too because of that fight then you had yawanna and carlain colicicic and then tyrant woodley and stephen thompson and then like before that you had demetius johnson fight on like a tough finale 204, I can't even remember USC 204. Like, was that steepe? I can't even remember. 203 was steeper. Yeah.

Whatever it was. And then UFC 207, or not USC, like UFC 206, they had to make it an interim featherweight title fight between Max Holloway and Anthony Pettis. And then UFC 207 had two title fights, too, between Rhonda and Amanda Nunes and then Garbrandt and Dominic Cruz. and then that's what like five or six champions used in like a two and a half month window and now they have nothing for january i had heard they wanted that to be the anaheim card and have like maybe michael bisman fight joel romero on that card but that obviously didn't

happen uh but i'm looking at two january 18th what is this fight card look right now right now it's a u sqqqq we got andre feely sadique yssef roxan modafari versus macy barber nazarat Hackperas versus Drew Dober Grant Dawson, Chas Kelly, Alexiolinick, Maurice Green, and then Anthony Pettis versus Carlos Diego Faheda. None of those fight cards. None of those fights are headlined on the pay-per-view.

But maybe Rockshend-Modafire versus Macy Barber headlines of Fight Night. Maybe Anthony Petters dropping back down the lightweight. But again, like, are any of these fights bringing a lot of eyeballs? Like right now it's listed if you look up on Google. It's UFC Fight Night 166. Pettis versus Faheda.

Is that the fight you'd pick to headline that card macy's the fight by like of these seven fights that are on here it's macy barber versus roxanne montafarian it's not even close i think the only argument against that is roxan's coming off a loss but so is anthony pedd is so what am i talking about and i would agree it's it's one of those two fights carlos dago ferreth is on like a five-fight win streak he has that big win over uh who did he just beat um ties him off did he beat him in abadabundavi right so i'm not mistaken so it's one of those two, but. And Roxanne, like,

Roxanne's so interesting because everyone thought Anthony Schoenko was just going to steamroll her. Right. And Roxanne goes in it, and has the perform which she had. So, I mean, if you're counting Roxanne Mata Ferry out of a fight like this, probably not the best idea. Like, I'd say the odds are in Bacy Barber's favor, and I would probably pick her

to win that fight, but Roxanne is no joke. She's not a pushover at all. She has seen it all and done it all at this point. So that, I think that's the fight. Roxanne's very marketable, too. like she she can bring in the the casual video game playing comic book reading oh i know yeah you know you know so at these seven fights that's got to be the main event but we get a build upon this i mean raleigh is already booked in its entirety like i think

the entire card is booked up i agreed but like even if you look at nico uh like rakanan modafari's like ufc career like wasn't originally scheduled to fight nico montano that was going to be sajara ubanks before sajara fell out so roxan monafari had a last minute five-round main event for a title comes up short and then beats barbha honchak by tkha tkoh loses to shajara ubens but shajara ubanks misses weight by by 2.2 pounds or 1.2 pounds beats antonio sivchenko i split decision in russia and then fights jennifer who also misses weight by by like four pounds so her two losses her three losses are last minute five round fight and then a fighters who both missed weight so roxan modafar i think is one of the most beloved fighters on the roster uh she's

one of the nice people who'll ever meet in the world huge anime fan huge weeb uh i was actually in line with her to get into the world mama uh world mhms uh world mhmarts uh in july and we literally only talked about dragon ball z the entire time and she's like i have a because every time she weighs in you know she puts on the super saan uh she puts on the super saan wig but it's always the next level up i know you're a big anime fan mike you don't have to tell me but every time you get to the next level your hair changes and every time she weighs in she has the next level she's like next one I'm going silver and I was like damn that's badass and then she won and then she won oh no she lost but it was it was just a bit of a bummer because her opponent had missed weight and macy barb I don't

think he's going to have any problems of making weight at 125 she didn't look that great when she waited when you and I were in Boston she looked terrible when she waited in Denver when I was in that that fight card she had to go she missed and then got to weighing again later on uh but I know our camera and Casey lied and I'll ask you this question this isn't part of the question our Casey Liden is a very big fan of prospect versus vet fights. What say you? I like them. Why not?

I like the prospect versus vet fights. And it depends on what place they're at in their careers as well. And I'm not disrespecting anybody by saying this. But a guy like Diego Sanchez, a fight with a guy like Mickey Gaul makes all the sense in the world. Like Condor versus Mickey Gall made all the sense in the world. Like those fights when you're trying to put over the next star against a name, like we're we just had a discussion about this like you're trying to build stars you're trying to

to build stories you're trying to make people care about these fighters and sometimes that's what you have to do like and that was one of the things we had a problem with with with the old bellator regime like right when cocker came in we were getting all these these freak show fights and but we weren't like but the good news about those we even though we had the da da kimbo situation but guys like michael chanler like guys that were coming up in the organization we're getting opportunities to shine on those cards. So with the UFC, you're kind of having to do the same thing right now. You have to build these guys on the come-up against guys with established names. And unfortunately, we hate to see that. Like, we hated to see BJ Penn fight Jaya-Rodriguez,

but Yair, you know, as brutal as that was, Yair gets over automatically because he was attached to BJ Penn in that fight. So while there's, I agree with Casey with what you're saying, I like the prospect versus veteran fight. I understand why people. people don't like it. And I would prefer that over a prospect over a prospect. I like prospect, prospect fights, but I do, I get it. Like the, the Mickey Gall, Sage North Kept fight, I think was a fun fight, but it didn't really do anything for other men going down the road. It was just like a fun fight that kind of halted one prospects and then one prospect didn't really catapult after that in the Mickey Gall situation. But I agree with you.

It really depends on where they're at in their career. Like, say, like, Gil and Merrill is on like a two-fight losing streak right now you're not going to give a prospect of yola ramiro even though he's on a two-fight loomeroonestring and let's say joel l'amara loses to israel a sanya and he's all of a sudden on a three-fight losing streak you're going to give like edmund shabasy and yoller amaro like just toss him to the wolves right away i so i agree with you i like them when they make sense this fight makes sense because macy barber has been tearing through people and roxadamadari i think is one of those vets that can beat anyone or lose to anyone. She's pretty much the Buffalo Bills of 2019

where they can beat any NFL team or they can lose to any NFL team. But I think this is a fantastic test. She's not the most athletically gifted fighter, though she is like very low-key athletic, like Roxanne Modifari. She's been doing this for so long. But is there anything, like,

is there anything she hasn't seen fighting? How many fights does she have? Like she has more fights probably. How many fights does Macy Barbara have? I can't even think of it. Eight, right? She eight, nine. No?

Is she A. No? Is she A. No? I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure she didn't know. If my computer would load. God. Yeah, she's A&O. Roxanne Mottifari is 23 and 16. Like, Roxanne Mottifari has two times more losses than Macy Barber has total fights.

Almost five times the amount of fights that Macy Bauer is at. Roxanne Mottifari has one, two, three, four, has five UFC fights. And Roxanne Mottifari has eight career fights. eight career fight. So I love this fight. Basically, like, like, uh, I like this fight more than the page vans ant fight for, uh, Macy Barber just because I think this will actually show what, what level of fighter Macy Barber is on. Uh, plus I always like seeing my fellow weeps fight, uh, on the big spotlight. Cause if, hey, man, don't scott. We had it. I had a, like, I all, like, with all this talk about John Jones throwing Shane at us anime fans,

we got, we got to stick together. So, uh, if anyone is in the chat, can back me up. But one final question I'm hopping over to Twitter. Interesting question. Don't really know how to answer this. From Chris Poole at Maple Bacon 88. If the UFC if the USADA deal was never signed, who would be the champion

in each division? Don't know how to answer that. I have no idea how to answer that. Because I think it's very dangerous to assume fighters were taking drugs if they haven't failed drug tests and this and that. You don't know how long they've been taking

I think a lot that people don't talk about. I don't think enough people talk about. This isn't the question, but the IV ban, I think, played a big factor too. Like Johnny Hendricks cuts a lot of weight, and now he can't take an IV. I know Hector Lombard said he went up to 185 because the weight cut took such a toll on his body,

and then he couldn't rehydrate with an IV. So I think that plays a bigger factor than people admit. A lot of people want to point their finger at USADA and this and that, but I think that IV ban played a big factor, initially when it first happened because you take away the ability to rehydrate like that, that's a major weapon that UFC fighters can have after cutting weight. Yeah, I mean, geez, we're going to have to do a whole other podcast on answering that question.

My God. Like, maybe Brock, like, would Brock Lesnar be the heavyweight champion right now? I don't know. I don't want to think of a world where Brock Lezler is the heavyweight champion. I mean, like, what he did before the diverticulius? I mean, that guy was, like, running through everybody. Like, he just was. Like, he crushed Frank Mears who was looking real good at the time.

And then he went back to WWE and he had a deal with all those other things, coming back from diverticulitis and lost to Kane, had that win against Shane Carwin. Like, he was winning fights against, like, really top competition at the time. Then he went back to WBA, he had the Mark Hunt fight and obviously popped. And, you know, he'll probably never fight again at this point, never say never. But, you know, who knows where he could have been? Like, if he didn't test positive, like what other fights could have been in store for him?

And then more time with a freak athlete like that to get. ready like maybe he could have been i don't know but this is this is a super interesting question and this is yeah this is a two-hour podcast a lot of people in the comment section right now on youtube are naming like the usual suspects that i think a lot of fans will say like hennon barrow johnny hendricks chris whidman this and that but none of them failed for none of them failed a test so i don't want to put them in that category the usada thing i know johnny hendricks talked openly about the iv henan burrow hasn't been the same i also think a lot of that has to do with those gym wars he was in in novo and yow i mean i don't know if you've ever seen like footage of

novo nu training they have a really hardcore sparring lifestyle and maybe just those gym wars with him and josialdo or all those other killers they have done there really played a factor uh because if he's in these like 10 minute quote-unquote sparring sessions where they're going 100% hitting each other with everything they got you're not going to be you're going to feel that when you fight inside the inside the octagon i know brandon shop has openly said like when he would spar with Shane Carwin, he would like throw up after from like all the brain damage he had after that. So

those catch up to you. So I don't think I think there's a lot more factors than just you saw it right now. I agree. But that is all the time. I have. We have our make quick peruse over Twitter and Facebook or Twitter in the site. A lot of the questions on Twitter are the same

as the questions on the site. So we'll skip those for now. But thank you so much for joining us, Mike. I know you said you watch the show. So as always, The floor is yours for any promo you want to do anything you want to plug. All right, let's talk about the Gina Carrano interview a little bit more. One of the things that she said that I absolutely agreed with was fans giving fighters crap on social media and talking a bunch of trash to them.

And I could not agree with her more. Like, unless you're a fighter, unless you're in these people's shoes and doing what they do every day and going to the gym two, three times a day, making the money they're making, shut the hell up. Like, stop judging these fighters. And at the same time, and I'm not like, you can say what you want about me. You can call me Dave Doyle 2.0. You can call me, you know, Dana White's younger brother or something like that.

I don't give a shit. But, I mean, there are media members out there that are busting their ass trying to get to this position. And so many people are sitting there just trashing them and giving them a bad name and making negative comments. Like, like, cut the shit, dude. Like, there's so many other things you can be doing in this life. Like, well, let's, I like to broadcast from the soapbox of positivity. I'm not saying you have to be like me and be positive all the time. but let's find some middle ground here.

Like, if a fighter does something that deserves judgment, that's great. But if a fighter goes out there and wins a fight, and because he didn't do a spinning back fist knockout 27 seconds into the fight, don't go out there and say this guy sucks. I don't want to see him fight anymore. Like, cut the shit. And in terms of what you want to follow me on, there's a million different things.

The scrap, you can find me at Miami News.com. You can find me at the BodyLock, M.A. You can find me at BJPen.com, flow combat. And also, because I will get crushed, if I don't mention this, I'm a part of the Loudmouth MMA podcast. network, probably the best debate show in MMA right now. I fully am confident in that. It's called Between the Links. Jose, you've been a guest on that. And what I think is so great about the show is that there are debate shows like this, but journalists come on the show and they know they have to

step their game up. Aaron Bronstetter from TSN came on the show and gave the greatest answer in the history of MMA podcast. I swear to God. So I highly recommend you go back and watch that. It's awesome. Alexander K. Lee, thank you. This closing A-side speech is fire. I appreciate that. God bless. And as Alexander K Lee says, MMA is supposed to be fun. I was about to say that. Like, you're right. You and Alex Daly cut from the same cloth. Well, I'm not even going to try and have a promo this week because I'm not topping that. I should have gone first because Mike, that was beautiful. I could not agree more. I can't even tell you like how like it's okay. People who tweet at fighters and like tag them when the fight is happening, why do you do

what you do. Like I was on Twitter and people were like at yon Blackovich. Why do you suck? I'm like, dude, he's fighting right now. Like the fight is happening. Like why do, well, not even just MMA. Sports in general. People are like at Philip Rivers, stop throwing interceptions. I'm just like, why are you the way you are? Like, why are you like this, sir or man? But anyway, I'm not even going to have a promo because Mike's was awesome and I'm not topping that. But this has been Jose. that is my kick i'm sure he'll be on again because he was fantastic uh you definitely check out as between the link stuff i've been on i ban one and no want to know i will say a a alex kaly i think lost if i'm not mistaken he has a loss he's done pretty well he's

i think he's like two and one oh come on aleck step your game up uh but christie king was on there i can't say enough good things about her uh keith schillen was on there he's a good guy i i always have fun time being on that and uh m a fighting staff if you're on that you better come away the win because we have a reputation to keep. But as always, you can stay on this YouTube channel. You can catch all of Pee's clips from Cage Warriors and Bellator London. I believe Esther and Casey are going to be in D.C. for the Altsorovring, Girozino fight, which is going to be an awesome scrap altogether. There's a lot of fun stuff happening. Also, I don't think we're going to have anyone on the Elboros-Darillo-Tito-Ratis fight, but we have a little fun interview

with Del Rio coming out later. I went to his gym. So stay on this YouTube channel. And when you're done on our YouTube channel, then you can go to Mike's YouTube channels. But next week, usual time, 1 p.m. Eastern, 10 a.m. Pacific. We'll have clips out later. This is Jose. That's Mike. Happy things.