MMA Fighting - The A-Side Live Chat: UFC 263 Fallout, Israel Adesanya, Brandon Moreno, Claressa Shields' MMA Debut, Colby Covington's Recent Comments, Paulo Costa vs. Marvin Vettori, Aaron Pico's Bellator Title Chase, More

Episode Date: June 17, 2021

For this episode, José Youngs, Shaun Al-Shatti, and E. Casey Leydon react to some of the biggest stories in MMA. Some topics include: Fallout from UFC 263; Israel Adesanya’s decision over Marvin Vettori: Brandon Moreno’s submission win over Deiveson Figueiredo; Leon Edwards’ bloody win over Nate Diaz; as well as Claressa Shields successful MMA debut at PFL 4, Aaron Pico's submission win at Bellator 260, and Colby Covington's recent string of interviews and his accusation aimed at Kamaru Usman. Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc Follow Shaheen Al-Shatti: @shaunalshatti Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix Colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-by journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Hey, we're live, pal. Wow, that's really loud. Hey, we're live, pal. welcome everyone to another episode of the A-Side Live chat here on MMAFighton.com. I am, of course, your host, Jose Young's here in scorching hot, Phoenix, Arizona.

When I say hot, I don't think you're going to comprehend. It was about 118 yesterday. So, yeah, don't come to Arizona ever if you want to live in the summer. And joining us, I'm happy to have him back after two years away. The last time you saw him on this program, he was the host. This was his show the last time he was. was on and I was his final guest. I think we did like two and a half hours on his last show, but joining us this week.

Also, I get, we wrote Phoenix, but I don't know technically where he is in Arizona. Sean Al-Shadi, the prodigal son has returned. How's life? My man, it is good to be back. Life is great. I mean, actually life is terrible. You woke me, you got me doing this like an hour after this Chris Paul news. I can't.

I can't handle this. Like, I'm on tilt right now. I'm just putting on a brave face for the world because I'm actually. petrified of what's going on in my neck of the woods. You could be a Clippers fan. You could be a Clippers fan. Just tell yourself that. That would never be a thing.

I don't know. But at least who's a Clippers fan? I don't know. Is our old pal Dave Doyle a Clippers fan? Doyle? Well, Clipper fan. Yeah, who's the Clipper fan? Yeah, I said there is a, they have.

I think Billy Crystal's a fan, so they have two. And they lost Gwai Leonard for the whole, for like until next year. Chris Paul can't come back through that. What that series is two, too. Let's just pray it goes seven games and Chris Paul gets all the time he needs. Uh, and then I hope the Clippers went now. So the sons do have to play Rudy Gobert. And that whole machine that is barreling through the Western Coms. But anyway, Casey, I'll bring on the Clippers. Bring on the Clippers. Bring on the Jazz. Bring on the Jazz, man. I'll take that.

I'll take that all day. Just give me Chris Paul Healthy Beck. That's all I want. Like, this is our year. This is supposed to be the magical year where everything happens. bought like three different Sons and Four gear merch yesterday. Like, we're going all in. We got to go all in. We need Chris Paul back. So now if anyone sees Sean Al Shadi in the wild, you have to yell Sons and Four out because that's his first

name, apparently, as you can see on this lower third that Casey whipped up. I try to put Sean Alshadi and then they kept auto correcting the Sonson 4. It's not my call. There you go. It's not my call. There you go. But it is wonderful to be back here on this program.

Jose, I remember two. It was like yesterday where I brought you on, past you the reins. And now it's all coming full circle, my man. It's good to be back. Back in the day when the host was running pretty much all of the production. And then the pandemic came case who's like, no, we're going to make it pretty. And I was like, please, thank God. Take it out of my heads.

I can't handle all the technical issues. Sean, you missed the, I think it was like two months of chaos. Every single episode that I hosted for two months. something went wrong or something collapsed or something broke. And it was people remember. We don't have to talk about that. I think I'm the only journalist more, I think I'm the only journalist more cursed than Luke Thomas

when it comes to technical issues. But Casey, I noticed you're in America. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm in America. Living in America. Yeah, doing good. Yeah, to be more specific, I'm in Englewood, California,

which is part of America. And we are a good 40 degrees cooler than you, weirdos and living out in the desert in Arizona. So I'm smart. I'm smart. Last week when the rest of our fellow media members were in Arizona, they were marking how hot it was. And I was looking at the week ahead.

And I'd be like, you have, you came at the perfect time. Because it was like 101 last week. And now today is a hot, a cool, bombing high of 117 for two, for three days. That's kind of when I was in, I remember when I was in Abu Dhabi for a B. versus Dustin. And it was like, no, 110.

And we're like, oh, my God. And all the people at the hotel is like, oh, this is a cool week. I'm like, yeah. Dude, I do have to say that Abu Dhabi weather,

because I was there with you, Casey. Oh, yeah, that same event. Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

That, Jose, we live in on the surface of the sun, but my man, I have never experienced heat to the degree that that Abu Dhabi week was. That was the most insane thing I've ever experienced. Guys,

because it was the heat. On top of the humidity. And it just punched you in the face the moment you stepped outside of the taxi. I got in at like midnight the first night and I stepped outside the taxi and I was wearing glasses because I was just coming from the airport. And my glasses instantly fogged up literally a half a second after being outside of the taxi. It was the most ridiculous. Welcome to Abu Dhabi experience. Well, I spent eight weeks in Abu Dhabi in the last 12 months.

So by the seventh week, I was just like sitting outside on my balcony. I was like, this is it so bad. And then I went back to Arizona. I was like, oh, this is what non-humidity. Like my body completely acclimatized Abu Dhabi by week seven. It was not great. It was not great. I think that's called Stockholm syndrome.

Yeah, especially when you can only go from one hotel to another hotel to an arena. And that's literally just a triangle you can do. It was brutal. I remember I missed the bus. And I had to go interview Israel at a son. and the city kickboxing boys at their hotel and I missed the shuttle. So I had all this camera gear and I ran poor decision. Ooh, that adds to bad call.

Yeah, because I had to get there like five minutes. So I ran and I get there and literally asked from him and Gage like, do you want another shirt? And I was like, probably, probably because I was so sweating. Anyway, you got. Before we go on, I have one last weather related factoid. So talking about how hot it was, there was a story on the associate press released about in Arizona in particular. Doctors were warning people. It is so hot outside that people are dying from not from the heat, but they fall down and then they fry themselves on the asphalt.

It happens. That's so freaking hot. Wait, is that real? No, it was real. It was a story. But these doctors are warning. I think it's mostly for like older people. they don't want to have heat strokes going on walks because they'll fall down and they'll and they would die frying themselves on the street because the assholes get so hot.

Oh my God. And so they're warning people. It's terrible. Way to go. But I read that story and on Twitter, you know, and then I left a comment, I go, ooh, griddling yourself to death, that's got to suck. So I wrote that. It was like a little throwaway thing. I was like, oh, that sucks.

And then like five minutes later, I get a notice for. from Twitter. I got, I was putting Twitter jail for 12, for 12 hours because they said I was promoting suicide. I'm not joking. I was promoting suicide. Jesus. So if you haven't seen me on Twitter the last 12 hours, it was because I was in Twitter jail.

That's where you went. That's why I was wondering why my Twitter feeds like got calm down for a minute. Twitter is a, Twitter is a strange place. I've, I've learned. this past weekend, as Sean knows, Twitter is a bizarre place. And there are quarters of it that I did not expect whatsoever. As I open Twitter right now, Diego Sanchez is tweeting about UFOs. Anyway, you had a whole Justin Bieber Civil War going on in your Twitter this weekend.

That was Casey's wild. You were kidding. I was like, I looked through it. If anyone goes and then I quote tweeted, I was like, y'all are nuts. And then I have like a thousand apologies. Like we apologize for the fan base. I was like, you're good guys. you're fine.

Stop tweeting at me. Please stop. I'm tired of the notifications. And everyone's like, oh, your Twitter node, you probably got a bunch of followers. Almost none. Almost none. No one cares.

No one cares about MMA in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, people were going through your history. I saw, like,

10 years ago, like those, yeah. You know, when you're, when you're like a shitty college kid and you're trying to just be kind of clever with your tweets,

so I threw one out there and everyone was digging it up. And then I was like, yeah, bro, That was 10 years ago. I was 20. I have no issue with Justin Bieber.

Like, he's doing this thing, all power to him. And everyone's like, oh, my God, he's one of us. I'm like, no. Don't say that. Don't say that. I just have no issue with him. And it was. And then everyone got on our colleague, Damon Martin, too, because he was kind of like,

he like caught the shrapnel because they took all of their rage and like directed it to him. It was a very bizarre scene. Twitter is a strange place. Well, how weird is it also? that MMA fans were all like, oh, Justin Bieber performed at the Jake Paul.

Triller, Triller, trailer, oh. And then a month later, the UFC, hey, look who's at our event, Justin Bieber. So, that's amazing. I just want to know what Justin Bieber was thinking of

when he was driving through Glendale, Arizona, past all the farms and everything. Anyway, you guys know the drill. We could talk about Justin Bieber. I know Sean can for the next. 60 minutes, but will I answer your questions as they come? You can ask on Twitter. Sean, I don't know if you know, but we're streaming on Twitter and Facebook now.

So this isn't just a YouTube show. Look at this. Look at how this is grown up. Grown up. We're on Periscope and we're on Facebook live. So Casey's Man in the Questions, we have a ton that came in on the site and in the Twitter mentions. I'm sure more will come. I'm already seeing Sons and Four comments in the YouTube comments. As a show.

Sons in four, baby. Let's go. So keep it up. Anyway, Casey, what is our first question? I'm interrupting you. I just have to say I have watched that video about 40 different times at least. At least. A couple of things.

Most impressive part is just the fact that he's holding homeboy while talking to other homeboy and just telling him, I'm messing up your boy. I'm messing up your boy. Gets one more shot and then does the Sons and Four. The execution on that is just flawless. flawless the chain hold like you didn't yank it in a way oh my god i could go i could i could deep dive this video for like an hour and a half but i don't think anybody wants to hear that but excellent just 10 out of 10 like if there's a perfect video on the internet it's that

100% the guy was such a punk he was all trying to play cool play cool and then he came in he thought he was crying sucker put it totally deserved it in the fact that you know that he totally deserved it because afterwards suns and four king is out there doing the gladiator are you not entertained type of type of situation in the arena and none of the nuggets fans are against him they're all kind of for him and like on that side it's like yeah those guys probably deserved it fair play fair play i'll pay to you guy anyway we we're done talking about spraughts ball you know we're talking about real a real sport mixed martial arts can we talk about that let's see what you guys got hit hit us with these damn questions let's see what we got here

it wouldn't be the as if we intend from waves the ways the one Waze coming in our Twitter section. A blue chip. We got a blue check. So shout out to Waves. Great musician. Go check out his music. I think he had a new song come out this month or a new single or they had a new singles. Anyway, his question, can Paulo cost to be a baby face for the first time in his career if he fights Marvin Vittori next?

So, yes, I don't know. We'll use this to set up a few things. Marvin Vintori, of course, came up short in his bid to dethrone UFC Middle Age Jam and Israel and USA 263 this past week. And that was, of course, the second time they fought. I think for a split second he convinced himself he won, especially inside the Octagon,

but if you watch the post-fight interviews backstage, he did it, unfortunately, he didn't get to talk to us backstage at the press conferences, but he gave Israel Asana his props and respect after spending eight rounds in the Octagon with him, and then immediately called out the drunken border genia, aka Paulo Costa. Paulo Costa then tweeted,

I will fight this idiot if he dresses like this, and it was a photo of Marvin Vitory, wearing his shorts backwards. So, Paulo Costa is a weird guy. Marvin Vittori is a weird guy. They're both angry, muskly men and both have losses to Israel, Adisanya. So, Sean, can Palo Costa actually be a baby face against Marvin Vittori? I mean, if he keeps coming up with Twitter responses like that, then it's possible.

I didn't think that was a transition he would be able to make. But that's a 10 out of 10 right there. I like that one. This matchup is pretty great, man. I'm not going to lie. This isn't one that I ever considered. but just the idea of it and what it could be when it comes to the lead-up and how these guys would talk to each other

and how they would kind of just both be saying nonsense that doesn't really make sense, but getting each other more angry with that nonsense. And then there's a language barrier to here. All of it is really kind of very, very interesting to me. I'm here for this. Let's do this. The trash talk, but both in their second being in English,

being their second language, is like, oh, yes, I love it so much. But I think they wouldn't even understand what each other's saying and they would just get more like rage-fueled off each other's rage because they would know that somebody's saying something insulting to them. It's like, I don't know what you said, but I don't appreciate it. We kind of just keep bouncing back and forth. I'm so here for that.

Let's do that. Well, I was on the official way-in show, Mike Heck and AK were like, oh, that was a travesty. of a press conference. And I was like, the most recent one with Marvin and Israel Adisani, I was like, hell no. If you were inside that venue,

I don't know what it's called, now used to be the Comerica Theater. It was just chaos, and I couldn't hear anything they were yelling at each other. I just saw two men screaming. If they do a press, if they do media, I need Paolo and Marvin Hattori

on stage together at some point yelling at each other. I don't want their first interaction to be a stare down. I need them, the same room talking all that greasiness but i'm hundred i also like how paolo i mean marvin lost and already had a name like right away he's like i want to fight paula next i love that i don't want to like oh i'm going to take the time off this is that nope i want paula next let's get back into it i love everything about this fight and i hope it's i hope it's next

and i hope paolo and dana can sort something out so we can see this these two uh middleweights fight next i i absolutely despise the ultimate fighter except if paula costa and Marvin Vittori can be the coaches. And they don't have any need fighters. Just two coaches of no fighters. I don't even care about the other whatever people in the show. So they're just, hold on, hold on. They just have to be roommates.

Just put them in the house together and like, that's all. I have an idea here. This is how you fix the ultimate fighter. This is the brilliant idea right here. Okay. You get Palo Costa, you get Marvin Vittoria. Case you're totally right. No fighters at all.

You just put them, they have to live in the house. They have to live in the ultimate fighter house together. And every day we do coaches challenges. That's it. That is the whole show. It's just coach a challenge. One day we're playing table tennis. One day we're running the hurdles.

One day we're doing shot put, whatever. I just need to see these two in an enclosed environment, bouncing off of each other, talking trash that neither one understands, getting super upset, getting super competitive, and just doing the silliest obstacle courses in pogs or Pokemon cards. Like, whatever. Bring out the weird hobbies. Like, let's just get them in competitions every day against each other.

Episode four, Costa versus. Betori sellers the Catan You know I wish Okay the problem The ultimate fighter is actual fighting

We don't need the fighting part We just need two Angry dudes in a house And then And competing against each other And everything That's it We love you man

I love you I love you Thank you I love you too Casey I love you too We have enough fights We have enough fighting Let's just use the ultimate fighter

As a way to promote People's personalities More and market them more right? And who, tell me who wouldn't watch this? Who's not in on this? Because I'm in on this. I wish Marvin had a weird coach like Paulo Costas, Captain Eric, because then you can add a wild card into that situation,

like two just goofy over-the-top coaches. Because I feel like L.Cardero is pretty even-keeled. Just bring in one second. For Vittory, bring in Sean Strickland. They train together. Oh, my God. That would be a nightmare. I just discovered Sean Strickland's Instagram

and it rules, by the way. I was on the fence by Sean Strickland. I was like, okay, now I'm all in. That guy's crazy. I love him. All right, we're good. Roll the credits. Yeah, it's the show.

We fixed the ultimate fighter. What more can we do here? That's it. That was the ace side. Thanks for coming, everybody. All right. Thank you for the question, waves. Thank you.

Yeah, so that fight rules. Make it happen. And I'm cost to the baby face. All right. Wow, this is a long one. All right. From Tristan Gordette on the MMA fighting site, you think Lauren Murphy will be Valentina's toughest challenge yet.

Lauren thinks she can expose holes in Valentina's game, as she said in her interviews with Mike Heck and believes that Valentina has never fought anyone as tough as her before. I know it's the fight game and anything can happen, but has Lauren even shown any indication during her win streak that makes you believe that she can go out there and present problems against Valentina? many people thought Jessica Androge to be the present would present problems as well, but look how that turned out. So, yes, we'll use this as another way to set up this fight.

Lauren Murphy beat Joanne Calderwood, Jojo Calderwood at UFC 263 in Glendale. I saw a lot of people saying Joanne Calderwood won or it was a controversial decision. I'm not going to lie, I was interviewing some fighters backstage, so I missed two of the three rounds. So I have no, I don't know if it's a bad call or not. I'll let you guys inform me. But that's five or six in a row for Lauren Murphy. She's being pretty much everyone put in front of her. She's the only one in the top five, I believe, that hasn't fought Valentina.

So she should be next. Even Valentina after her win over Jessica Androd said she's going to be watching this fight. But then, of course, Stana White was like, oh, we're not going to make anything official yet. Lauren Murphy herself said immediate day that she needed to go out there and have an impressive performance to get the shot. She can't go out there and stare at Jojo for three rounds, pick up a decision win, and then get the title shot. I don't know if that's how the fight played out because again, I missed two of the three rounds.

I can't remember who was talking about backstage, but I missed the Chung of it. So, Sean, I'll start the last two questions. A, did you score this fight for Lauren Murphy? And B, should she get the next shot at Valentina Sivchenko? Well, it's funny, because I was actually backstage right next to you. So I was also interviewing fighters and doing that sort of thing. But I tried to catch most of it because this was a very important fight for the card.

And I scored it for Lauren. It was obviously very, very close. it felt like you could go either way on this 29, 28, either way. I did give it to Lauren, though. And honestly, man, she deserves it. I think it's very typical Dana that he obviously wouldn't say that on fight night. He's got a lot going on. But there's nobody else in the division.

There isn't really an option at this point. And maybe it's not, you know, the matchup that lights, you know, the division on fire or headlines of pay-per-view. But it's the matchup that needs to happen. And ultimately, sometimes we just need to get through these type of fights. There's no one left. at 1.25, that's going to be anything less than a 15 to one dog or like a 13 to one dog against Valentina Shepchenko. This is kind of the reality that we're dealing with right now,

unless we can get some new blood in this division. And Lauren Murphy has earned it, man. Like, she really has. Like, I am incredibly impressed with what Lauren Murphy has done in this turnaround that she's had over the last couple of years. She's someone who started her UFC career, what, like two and four? Two and five? Two and four, I believe. And ever since then, she's totally turned it around five straight wins. And she's the underdog in almost all of these different wins. And it's just so impressive to see someone this late in their career really gridded out and kind of have this magical late chapter.

I'm just happy if nothing else that she's going to get a big spot and a big payday before she's able to call it quits on her career. I don't know that I would go out and pick her to win this fight, obviously, but I think she's earned it and I think it's a good matchup. Casey, is there any other fight for Lauren Murphy, to take next. I can think of one, and it's a big maybe, but is there any other fight for Lauren Murphy after that, unless it's Valentina? There's no reason she should take another fight. I just, I, the whole kind of premise, I've seen this a lot, this out there, oh, you know,

Lauren Murphy's going to get smashed with Valentina, whatever, blah, blah, blah, she wants to fight Valentina, blah, you know, it's like, I don't care. It's like, it doesn't matter. The champ is, the champ is the best for a reason. That's why they're the champ. Everyone should be an underdog fighting the champ. So that's, I mean, I don't, just because you're going to get your ass kicked by a champ, Lauren Murphy has earned her opportunity to get her ass kicked by Valentina Shepchenko. It is an honor to get your ass kicked by Valentina and Shepchenko. That's what you do in this sport. You work your way up to get eventually beat up by Valentina Shepchinko.

That's how it works. I don't understand that she's not ready. She's a more contender. She has earned this spot. Sorry, what was the actual question? She's, she's, no, you're totally, she's 37. Like she's not ready. She's never ready now than she's ever going to be.

Like is Valentina Shvchenko just not supposed to fight until we find somebody who can potentially maybe beat her? Like this is just how it happens. DJ was out here. This is how DJ racked up the most title defenses in UFC history. Like you just give the next person in line the opportunity and maybe sometimes you'll get a T.J. Dillishaw, head and Borough out of it that you're like, oh my God, we didn't see this coming. Nobody's ready till they are. I don't know.

I don't know to say. Like Chris Wyman wasn't ready for Anderson. Sova, you know, then he won. You know, Holly Home wasn't ready for Ron DeRousy. Then she won. There's, I mean, I can, you can do this over and over forever. But, yeah, I just think it's, at least that premise. But the, um, there's just literally, there literally is no other option. Like here, here is the top five right here. Jessica and Drogh, Caitlin Chukagin, Lauren Murphy, Jennifer Maya, and Valentina Shepchenko, obviously. Like, everybody else has fought. Lauren Murphy is the person. She, there's no one left.

Would, there's no other options? Would anyone. Would anyone, would anyone, would, be surprised if the UFC booked her to welcome Tatiana Suarez to the flyweight division? I would be disappointed I would be disappointed, but I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't because Tatiana's already

said. I get, I want, like Lauren should fight Valentia next. I 100% agree with that. But Tatiana Suarez has said she wants to come back at 125. Everyone kind of assumed it would be against Kalanchukagan because she's been kind of the one to welcome the

straw weights coming up to flyweight. But But if Dana White, for whatever reason, doesn't want Lauren Murphy to fight Valentina next. And he wants Tatiana Suarez to fight her next because he views her as a way it's a more marketable fighter. Give her the no-more contender. And if Lauren Murphy beats Tatiana, then give her Valentina. If Tatana beats Lauren Murphy, then give her Valentina whatever. Don't think it should happen, but I wouldn't be surprised. I'll tell you why it's not going to happen.

It's not going to happen because the UFC needs title fights. And right now, every Valentina title fight is at least a title fight on the card that they can throw up there. They're not going to just sit around with Valentina. Like, she's ready to go. She's ready to go fight. If she wants to get on a card,

they're going to just throw her against two of her the best possible option is. And right now that's Lauren Murphy. They're not going to wait, you know, hey, Valentina, we're going to have a contender for you in five months. Just chill out for a second. Like, that's not how the UFC operates. They're just going to keep the train moving. And the sourcing, I don't think works either

because we have the injury possibility. Tatiana hasn't actually competed. So what, they build up this big fight, and then Tatiana gets injured. You know, her neck goes out again, then you're back to Lauren Murphy again on short notice or something. To me, she ain't ready or whatever. Marvin Vittori wasn't ready for Israel as on you. Yeah, we didn't have an issue with the native inning in Glendell last week.

It was fine. Yeah, Murphy's under a shot. I don't get it. It is what it is. Yeah, it is what it is. She's earned it. And, yeah, I don't. I mean, we can talk to who's going to win, blah, blah, blah, blah, that.

You know, of course, Valentine's going to be the heavy favorite. But you know what? No one's rolled through. People have been. No, Lauren. But no one's rolled through her. No one's rolling through. Lauren Murphy looks her opponents look real bad.

And I think that's a skill in M.M.A. Yeah. And that's the kind of issue of Lauren Murphy is like in her fights, like no one either, no one looks really good or really bad. It just kind of happened. Like, like, Jojo didn't get exposed or didn't get, you know, didn't look great and robbed or anything. It's just, you know, we kind of come out feeling the same about him, essentially.

That's kind of the issue of Lauren Murphy. It's not her fault, but she just hasn't, you know, just, you know, like if she wouldn't have finished Jojo in 45 seconds on the ground and pound or whatever, or does our opinions change at all? It's just we're in the same situation. You know, it's like someone has to fight Valentina. Lauren Murphy got the judge's decision, so she's next. Make it happen. Next question. Thank you for the question, Tristan.

Daniel Pompeo on Twitter. How about Aaron Pico killing it in Bellator? Looks like Coker is not trying to ruin him anymore. When will it be ready for the top five? And what do you think about Claritius' debut at PFL? So two questions. Aaron Pico, of course, emerged victorious. It was Bellator 260, correct?

That was the number on Friday. How many wins in a row is that for Aaron Pico? That is four in a row now. That is four in a row since his most recent was his knockout loss to Borch, right? Borch, who is, in turn, has emerged as one of the best featherweights on planet Earth.

And then before that, it was a knockout loss to Henry Coralus, again, and who's now 1-35, if I remember correctly, hard-hidden guy, and Pico was winning that fight until he got punched in the face really hard. So, Casey, I'll start with you. What do you make of Aaron Pico's chances at a run at the title?

I know the title's kind of up in the air right now with the pit bull and the key fight that still has to happen, but what do you make of Aaron Pico's recent run? on in Bellator? Just listen to Aaron's interviews. He kind of, he lays it out pretty well. When he came to this sport, he was a great wrestler.

He was a great striker, but he did not know how to fight mixed martial arts. That's all. I mean, that's about it. He took his losses. He learned from them. He actually, so after the Corrales loss, which I think was his, wind up being a second loss of his career. Yeah, his first, his first fight in Bellator was his first loss. Yeah.

That was his first 145 loss. I'll go of that. And he changed management. He changed his completely just, he completely moved from Southern California to Albuquerque. He got under the tutelage of Greg Jackson and Brandon Gibson. And it's just a perfect fit for him. And so, yeah, and everything those guys say about him, like they tell me off the record, too, the same exact thing. Like, Aaron's the real deal.

He works his ass off. He's freaking talented. He's a great athlete. And he loves mixed martial arts. And yeah, and right now, and the second part of the question is, Coker not trying to ruin him anymore. This actually goes back to Pico's management, which he did change. Now he's, he had a different manager before.

I'm not sure it was. Now he's under Ali. So I think Ali's handling him better now. And yeah, but Pico wants those challenges. He coughed for Borge. And now he's having an issue with these guys not wanting to fight him. So Aaron Pico is just must-see TV. I don't know if he won the belt.

I think he's talented enough to. But, yeah, he's my CTV. I'm just excited to see him. If he fights anyone, I think everyone just has to see Aaron Pico fight. He's just one of the most exciting feather weights in the world, without doubt. Sean, we were watching this while we were waiting for our COVID results on Friday. What did you make of Aaron Pico's performance at Bellator 260? It's impressive, man.

It really is impressive what this kid has. I hate to say kid too. I sound like Daniel White when I do that. But this guy is turning into, man. I mean, he's only 24. He can call me kid. He's 24 years old, though. That's the thing.

Like, he's been in our lives for, what, like, four or five years at this point? Like, we were hearing about him, like six years ago, five years ago. Articles were being written about he was the greatest prospect of all time. Like, that is a lot of baggage to come into the sport with and try to uphold that as you're navigating your way and this brand new thing you've never done. He's really found himself, man. And like you mentioned, Casey, the team that he's put around him now between his management and what's going on at Jackson Wink, it really feels as if he's sort of found his place in the sport, kind of found what's going to be most helpful for him, his processes, and just the people around him seem to be very much managing it in a way that is more beneficial to a prospect rather than the way we saw it early on. where it's just like, hey, it's his first fight.

Let's throw a man against Zach Freeman on this huge spot. Like, that's not a great idea. Yeah, like, it was, there was a lot of mistakes at the beginning, but at this point, he is a monster man. Like, you, you really, like, when you watch those fights, it feels as if the guy he is fighting is in omnipresent danger at all times of just being really brutally ended in like a ferocious highlight real fashion. I'm here for it.

I'm really excited about what he's turning into. And we're about. to get this AJ McKee pit bull fight up in Bellator, which is one of my most anticipated fights of the year. Like for the Featherweight title like that is everything that you could possibly hope for for Bellator, two homegrown products, really meeting at the perfect moment. But Aaron Pico is very quietly laying in the background right here in this featherweight division.

And if, I don't know if he's ready for that, but I don't think he's very far off either. And the idea of Aaron Pico against either of those dudes is one that I hadn't allowed myself to really start entertaining up until this last. and Jose when we were watching this last fight because it just does feel as if he is starting to be a fully complete fighter, not even approaching his final form, but at least approaching that level where he is starting to be able to take on these actual top level guys in this sport. And it is very exciting to me. Yeah, if AJ beats Pitbull, I would imagine AJ is going

to want to fight for Pitbull's lightweight belt too. So he can become a champ champ. But AJ McKeever's Aaron Pico has a lot of storylines. that would go into that. They used to train together. Pico and AJ were like the golden children of Bellator for a long time coming up in Antonio McKee's gym. Pico left. Pico left.

And Casey, remember when we went to that Bellator Media Day in California, we were asking AJ about all the other feather weights? And he was kind of doing his thing, kind of talking all this greasiness. And then we brought out Pico and he got real serious. He's like, that's my brother. But I'm not going to say anything right now. And you could tell he was holding a little back. Like maybe he seemed upset that Aaron left.

And then we asked Aaron if he wanted to go join the tournament. Because remember, AJ heard his knee. And right before the pandemic and the pandemic let him come back. And at that Domus Media Day, we brought up like, Aaron, do you want to join the tournament? He's like, no, I don't. And then he started to ask specifically about AJ's knee. So there's a lot of storylines in there. But I'm not going to say no to Aaron Pico Pitbull either because that fight rules too.

I personally don't feel Pico and McKee will ever fight. I think McKee will go up to 55. McKee's even insinuated. His body's going to outgrow to 45. He'll go to 55 soon. And as much as I want to see that fight, I kind of don't want to see it because it kind of feels gross in a sense because it kind of feels like brothers fighting. You know, and well, that's like what was, Sean? Who is that?

Remember World Series of fighting? The Phoenix guy. Phoenix Jones. Phoenix Jones fought his brother. That was all kinds of terrible. That was all kinds of terrible. It kind of sound fun in theory, but when you see it, I don't know, for a big bag of money, it just feels weird.

Well, they also had a lot of, like, family issues come to the surface leading up to that fight, which no one needed anyway. The second part of the question, what did you guys make a Clitch Shields debut in PFL? Sean, I'll start with you. I was conflicted because obviously it was super impressive, just the base fact of what she was able to do. I think was incredibly impressive, right? Like, you're going into your MMA debut,

somebody, something you've never done. For some reason, you're facing a brown belt in Jiu-Jitsu, who's primarily a grappler, like a long, rangy person too, who can kind of keep you at bay with front kicks a little bit. It was a very weird matchmaking. And that was, I guess, maybe where I didn't enjoy that aspect of it. Because to me, like, I'm a guy who grew up in pride, right? Like, I grew up watching the pride style of matchmaking.

And if this was pride, you throw her in with, like, an overweight pro wrestler or like this half retired kickboxer and she comes in, destroys the woman, and you have this highlight reel that you can just put on over and over again, and she looks like a monster. And that's the way you do the MMA debut and everybody comes away from it really impressed. That obviously wasn't this. But it was still really impressive to just see her really just grit this out and pull off this come from behind when.

It felt like poor Brittany Elkin was really fading really hard and feeling that. the stress of the moment and the weight of the moment there in that third round. But I was incredibly impressed, man. I mean, Clarissa Shields is still very far off from being any sort of a finished product. And the idea that Dana White was toying with a year or two ago about throwing her in there with the Manan Nudas, I'm actually very glad now that that didn't come to fruition because that would have, that wouldn't have been good for anybody except for Mananunas. But she's impressive, man.

She is really impressive. I don't know that she's going to be able to have time and the dedication. to really make a true, true run of it here in MMA and really become who she would have been if she had committed only to MMA. But I'm really interested to see how far she can take this and how far she wants to take this. Because that was, I mean, you can't knock what she did in her debut.

That was really, really impressive. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the, I don't know if she's going to have time because how long has she been at Jackson's? Like a couple, like a while now, right? Like training M.A.? Lesson six. Not a while, not a long time. Yeah.

Just months. Just months. But she's had a boxing match. during her time at Jackson's, right? Like in the middle of training for MMA. So if she's trying to do both, it's going to be hard for her to... She's doing the Izzy. She's actually doing the Izzy game.

I understand. I understand. Izzy was a high-level kickboxer. I know. I understand. I understand. But Izzy wasn't also all of a sudden thrown into like this prime time spot ESPN for his day.

Yeah. Izzy was able to lay low. Like we're going to be hyper-analizing every step. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Clarissa to her. I like this one of her phrases where she could quit boxing.

She said for like a whole year. She could take a whole year off. I can't remember who she said this too. I saw the clip. She could take a whole year off of just training and still go in there and beat everyone in her division of women's boxing. She said that's how much better she is at boxing. So I think she is going to jump into MMA a little bit more.

But it was a weird fight for me because I think her opponent, who was a brown belt, had like her arm at one point. She had double grips at one point. Like if she just kind of hit the Kumar, she could have probably got that. But weird fight, but we saw a lot from Clear Seals. Casey, what are your thoughts?

I'm going to disagree big time with Shaheen. You said that was a weird matchup. I completely disagree. That was, that was, she was a handpicked opponent on purpose because I've known Greg Jackson for a while. If,

if they would have said picked, oh, let's pick another boxer going into MMA. and say Clarissa shows, knocks her out in 15 seconds, 30 seconds. From Greg's point of view, from the coach's point of view, that means they learn zero from that. That means Clarissa actually gets no experience. She goes, okay, I just did a boxing match with small gloves. By facing this opponent, now she's faced, now she kind of has, she felt the pressure, main event. But an opponent that would give her a hard time, but somehow she would have to fight through and win the fight.

One of Greg's golden rules is what he coaches, be comfortable being uncomfortable. And that's what I saw in Carissa Shields. When she was put in bad positions, she did not freak out. She did not just like hump, try to buck out and use all her energy and just burn her arms out in the first 30 seconds, which, which, you know, essentially every white belt does. She didn't fight like a white belt. She fought like, she fought like an experienced white belt in the sense that she didn't have to take. She got a couple stripes. Two sharp white belt.

And in the sense that she didn't burn herself out, but she also recognized that, okay, I'm in a bad position. It's okay. I'm in a bad position. It's okay. And that's such a giant, such a giant thing for a fighter to learn.

So from the coach's point of view, while, yeah, you didn't get that 10 second highlight knockout, I think you got something so much better for the long term of her career. And also, look back in just in fighters' careers in general, the great fighters, their first fights, I'm probably weren't that impressive. Either they knock him out in 30 seconds, but you don't just learn.

D.C.'s first fight when he, he, he, he, his first fight was televised on Showtime, I think for Strike Force on a show X.C. fight. Oh, yeah. He fought some rando dude, like a three and O heavyweight. And it was an ugly 15 minutes. And I remember watching it was like, all right. And then, but that, but that, but he needed that. So I thought it was a great performance.

I thought it was a great debut. And while it wasn't a big knockout we were hoping for, I think we got something better. That's all. I don't know what you're talking about with D.C. because he fought Gary Frazier and he ended up destroying the dude in like eight minutes. And it was super, it was super ugly.

Okay, maybe he finished it. But yeah. He was super, super ugly because I remember I did this big thing on DC. It was ugly though. You didn't go all the D.C., that's one of the greatest fighters ever. You weren't thinking that. You were like, okay. No.

No. No, it was a very ugly, ugly fight. And I totally understand where you're coming from on this case. And I actually appreciate and agree with a lot of what you're saying. I just think for the debut, like for the second fight, I would, this would have been a perfect second fight to me. Like for the debut, I think you just get somebody out there and you get the highlight and you get the confidence just rolling of like, okay, we're doing this. This is working. And then we can sort of start navigating the problems and the holes and things like that.

I just think for the first fight with everybody tuning in and such a big deal, you took a risk. You took a huge risk. Like if you did this fight 10 times, she might have lost five of them. And that would have been a really, at least if you're PFL, that's a nightmare scenario, right? Like you really went all in on this. But they avoided it. And ultimately, I think everybody comes out of it looking good. So you can't complain about it.

You definitely saw her white belt, as Casey said, on display. I think her opponent got full mount and Clerson was trying to box off of her back a few times. And then, but then, but then like she snapped out of it immediately. Like it was just like instinct. Yeah, it's the instinct of the fighter. And then like, and then she like calms down. And then, but there were like you could definitely tell she's she got a lot to learn. But a win is a win.

And she came back and won. So kudos to her. And coming back from adversity is a big freaking thing in the sport. Coming back from versy. Yeah. So I've always said that. Like, yeah. And we know a fighter can kick someone's ass.

But can once they're, once they're kind of behind, how can how do they do? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's put a very. Clarissa she could have very easily, she could have very easily given up on herself in that third round and been like,

man, this was a terrible idea and I'm looking awful on national television right now, but she didn't. She's a champion. She's a two-time freaking gold medalist. Like she's got it in her that none of us have inside of us. So she had that Brandon Moreno type joy

when she won her debut. And I thought that was just, that just as a fan, that just feels good to watch. That's all. Yeah, it does. Fans in my Twitter mention Let's pump the breaks on Clare Shields versus Kayla Harrison.

That's not happening anytime, too. I'm just talking about people. I tweeted about it. People were tweeting. I'm like, I don't want to see that at any point in the next 12 months. Anyway, thank you for the question. Back-to-back, non-UFC questions from Daniel Paul, Pileo. Do, do, do.

MMA, what's from Azan Zaman on the site? What's next for Chase Super? Every fight looks like a tough fight for him. Jose, tell us an Arizona Mazzagadi story. The Arizona crowd. was horrible. So I'm going to start with the second. I don't think the Arizona crowd was, like they booed.

I was disappointed a few times, but I don't think they were horrible. Okay. I'm not, I'm jumping it. We're both Arizona guys. We both have grown up in Arizona. We can acknowledge when Arizona sucks more so than anybody else. No, I agree.

So I was going to bring up, remember when the UFC card was in Phoenix for Kane Francis? That was a horrible crowd because they were doing the wave, like during the Cynthia Calvio, Courtney Casey, that was a horrible crowd. I like that the wave is your barometer for a horrible crowd. It is. The first thing that popped in your head is they were doing the wave

and you can't do the wave. If you're doing the wave during a fist fight, nothing's happening in the fist fight. And it's just, but I think that crowd was more horrible. I think that the Phoenix trial was more horrible in the Glendell crowd. This was an atrocious crowd.

I could say that because we live here. It was one of the worst crowds. It was the worst crowd we've seen in the post-pandemics sort of comeback that we've been doing here by far. And considering the places they've gone that, I'm ashamed to be able to say that. Let's just say that. Like, how's Florida beating you out, guys? If you're in here booing every single second that somebody's hitting the ground,

you're out here booing Damien Maya in his retirement fight essentially from the UFC for no reason just because he's doing Damien Maya stuff. Like, come on, guys. Come on. You have to be better than that. Everybody is watching you. just be crappy from the first fight on. Like it was, it was instant.

I don't remember which fight it was, but it was one of the early fights where stuff was kind of stalled for like a couple seconds. And it was just like at that point on, the boo birds were out in full force for the rest of the event. It's just like, guys,

groundwork is part of the game. Like, what are we doing? We're not even booing boring groundwork. We're just booing all groundwork at this point. It was terrible. It was terrible in the fact that you can't admit that, Jose, shows me that you're just a little too biased, my friend. Well, here's the thing.

I was going to say at the end of my my ramblings. I went out. I was out in the lower bowl for the first fight because there was no one backstage interview. And then the last three fights. The only, and everything else I was backstage. So if you were out earlier than me,

you definitely got a better sense of the crowd than me because I was out there for Diaz Leon Edwards, which was pretty raucous at times. The Brandon Moreno fight, which I couldn't hear myself after that fight ended. And then the, and then the, and then the,

so I was there for, I was there for the three. big fights. Other than that, I was backstage. So I will defer to you for the crowd thing, but what I saw wasn't as bad. I will say the crowd was incredible for Moreno because they were behind Moreno all week. There's a huge Mexican population here in Arizona. And there was a huge, like the amount of support that was there for Brandon Moreno that night was unreal. There were Mexican flags all over the place. And when he won, we said it on the post-fight show, but that truly felt like a magical moment. Like that's a moment. I am not.

going to ever ever forget like i have been in the arena for a lot of different fights and a lot of different crazy outcomes but there are very few moments you could count them on a couple of hands where it's just like i will remember that for the rest of my life and that was definitely one of them because that was just unreal the emotion in that arena was crazy it was the very first fight of the night between philippe and collier i didn't think that that that was that bad of a fight i thought it was kind of two heavyweights just throwing punches at each other for 15 minutes i was i was entertained pains. And the crowd in the lower bowl was, was very much into it, but there was one fan who was louder than all of the other fans. And the second it got past three minutes, I could tell that

he bet that this fight would end in under three minutes because he yelled boring at the top of his lungs for two and a half rounds. And then a bunch of, and then a bunch of his, of other fans, not with him, all tried to fight him. Because this fight ruled and this guy was yelling boring and a bunch of people went and confronted this rude fan. So I had three epic crowds and then a bunch of fans defending bad heavyweight MMA. So it was a weird scene. But anyway, Sean, do you have any Arizona Mazzagodai stories you want to share? Oh my God, this guy. So we're talking about the ref that did the Hill Craig fight, right? Yeah, so his name is Al Guinea. He's been in, I don't know how many regional shows you used to go

too back in the day, Jose. Like a lot of rage in the cage and stuff. I went to a lot of those shows. Like growing up, I just loved M. M.A. and there was a ton of promotions around, in particular, rage in the cage. So I would always just go to these rage in the case shows.

Al Guinea has been an Arizona referee for a long, long time. And the first time I ever saw him referee a regional show, I can't remember the exact situation. I can't remember the exact fight in circumstance of what happened. So I don't, I'm not going to say something, because I don't want it to be incorrect. but I just remember that he really badly screwed up something to where it was just like you're in the crowd, you're watching, you're like, dude, that's the most obvious thing.

Like, how did you mess that up? And it's a show that eight people are at. No one's paying attention to and everyone's drinking. So it's like it's easy to lose and it leaves your mind. But I can't at this point count the number of times. I've seen that guy just make simple, ridiculous mistakes on these regional shows. It's a lot. It's more than two hands.

I could count it on more than two hands. And yet every single time that a big event or a big promotion comes to Arizona, somehow he finds his way onto these assignments and he gets sometimes some of the biggest assignments. And I was going through my Twitter history because I was like, I'm sure that I've sent this tweet before of like Al Guinea is a local. Because like every time this happens, people turn to like people like me and you, Jose where it's like, it's Arizona. What's going on with this guy?

And I was like, I'm sure that I've sent a tweet out before of like, oh, this is Al Guinea. he's a local, he's not very good. And literally there was like at least one or two different tweets that were basically the exact same tweet that I sent out on Saturday that I had sent out like years ago, like a couple years ago and then a couple years before that. It's just like it's a consistent thing that happens. Every couple of years is the big shows come to this place.

Allgeny gets a fight. Algeti messes up a fight. And then everybody's like, oh, why was that guy out there? I don't understand how this keeps happening. The fact that that one was as bad as it was, I've never seen an arm do that and then the fight just kept going for like another what 10, 15 seconds

after the arms kind of just flopping around like Algeny's supposed to be a black belt I don't really know how you screw that up regardless I wish that the Arizona commission would not put these local referees on these shows that's all I ask like just bring in the big guys like most other commissions do it doesn't make sense that you just decide that hey this is

our chance to give this guy some run. It's not. It's not your chance to give this guy some run. Make us look good for the rest of the world, please. Make us look good by taking sure no one from here is actually responsible for anything going on.

For real, I even remember when we would go to those World Series of Fighting show, Sean, and he would be like part of the World Series of Fighting. You're like, oh, crap, something's, something terrible is about to happen right now. But yeah, Arizona Mazzagati is a funny nickname. Can I defend, what's his name, Ray Guinea?

What's this? Alginney. Ray Jennings. Ray Jennings. Oh, I got to defend Ray Jennings here. I'll say this. It was a weird, weird non-stoppage, but there has to be some responsibility on Jamal Hill, too. It's like, I mean, because the way the rules are set.

So say if Mr. Guinea sees what's going on, but he's, sees that Jamal Hill is still fighting his way out and stuff. The problem is if he stops that fight, go, hey, man, it's something wrong with your arm. And it turns out that it just turns out there's something not wrong with his arm. It just turns out, well, you know, it's just, I'm just swinging crazy. Then the fight's over, though. I'm just saying the fight's over. There's no like, let me check on it.

Okay, continue. That's what I'm saying. Like, so that's, and we would hate that, we would hate that to happen. Then we'd go like, oh, Ray, Reg. Ray, Jenny. He sucks as a ref. I can't believe he stopped that fight on an early stoppage. because we've seen that before, you know,

refs think the guys are, the guys are out and it turns out, no, this is how you, I'm just relaxing because, you know, I'm just in submission, but the choke's not in. I think,

what's his name? Chaskelly was a kind of a classic example of that. So I want to give the ref a little bit of leeway in that sense. And on Austin, Jemahill, if his arm is broken or dislocated, that's on him. He needs it,

he has another arm. He can quit fighting. You know, he can tap out. So I'll just say that. And that's, and that's totally. That is absolutely fair. Everyone makes mistakes. That's an incredibly difficult job. I couldn't do that job. I would never act like I could do that job. But I think it's just more of like a long time. He's at history. Yeah. It's like you had a lot of moments. If this was an isolated incident, Ray Jennings where it's just like, this is the only time that Ray has ever screwed up, then like, okay, like we can, we can just move on with this. But Ray Jennings has consistently screwed up his entire time I've ever.

Like the hit percentage on Ray Jennings' fights that I've watched refereed where he screws up is like 75%. And at that point, it's just like if I'm expecting you to mess up and you and like I can come away from a fight like, oh, wow, I can't believe Ray didn't mess up that fight. Like that's not a place we need to be with the referee. We shouldn't be surprised that you did your job okay. That's all on the next time Algini fights, I mean, refs,

he has a fake mustache on and he's like, I'm Ray Jennings. Reporting for work. Anyway, the first question, Mr. Zaman asked, what's next for Chase Hooper? Casey? That's a good, John. Casey, go for it. Well, he's only on a one fight losing street.

The fight was competitive. He's 21 years old. His opponent missed weight. Your opponent missed weight. You book Chase Hooper against the worst featherweight you have. That's all. He just whatever that whatever number 30 is in the UFC rankings, you have Chase Hooper fight number 35. That's all.

Or you bring somebody in, to be honest. Like you bring somebody else in to who is that guy, right? Who is the number 35? Because I'll tell you what, Jose, yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying. But Jose, you would, I think you would agree with me. Like, I was stunned how much. Oh, my. It was super was getting all week.

It was nuts. Like I thought when he was getting treated like a star, like when he came out for Wayne. I loved him. When he came out for Wayans and I heard the crowd, I had some, in my mind, I'm like, is he from, I know he's not from Arizona. Do you have ties to this place? Because he was treated. He had after Nate and Izzy and Brandon Morano, Chase Hooperer, the biggest pop. And I had to like research why.

And I couldn't figure out why outside of he's just a popular fighter. Yeah, he's just over with the fan base to use. pro wrestling parlance, like at least to a degree that I didn't expect. Like that was, yeah. So normally I would say, you know, you're kind of in a situation where you're just in the UFC, you're stuck. You kind of have to sink or swim here. But he does have some heat behind him.

And he does seem to have a following. So if I'm the UFC, I'm trying to nurture that a little bit. I'm trying to bring in guys that maybe there'll be competitive fights, but Chase can beat him because he is a flawed fighter right now. Of course. He's very, very, very extraordinarily young. He probably shouldn't even be in the U.S. He did an interview of Mike Heck, and he said, he goes, well, I might have to go to 55 once

I get through puberty. The dude's still in puberty. I mean, he's joking around. I know, but I don't know. I'm just, if you're the UFC, you kind of have something here. And so you have to nurture it a little bit. It's going to take time. I don't think we're talking about Chase Hooper being a fully even coming close to a complete

fighter for three years, right? Like in three years, he's going to be Aaron Pico's age. And we're still talking about Aaron Pico, like he's still a work in progress. So it's just, it's going to be a while. I don't know how they're going to have this many guys to give him competitive fights in the meantime. But that's kind of the move you have to do because he does have some genuine popularity. And he didn't follow him behind him that at least surprised me. And Hooper's a tough.

I mean, despite his looks, the dude's a fighter. He takes a beating and he fights through. He goes through adversity. He doesn't get the first shot Oh, can't get the hill hook. Oh, this sucks. I quit. That's not him.

He is a fighter. He is a tough dude. He's 21. And since he's not like a natural athlete, he's not going to, he has to win fights on actual technical skill. And he's only 21. It takes years, years to develop all that technical skill. If you don't just have that natural crazy athleticism.

He just doesn't, you know. I will say, yeah. My biggest worry goes exactly to what you just said. he kind of is winning fights on toughness right now. Which is, and that is not a good, that's not a good quality when you're 30. And that's an even worse quality when you're 21. Like if you're consistently going to just, if every fight's going to kind of follow a rhythm of, I'm going to get the shit kicked out of me until somebody gets tired and then I can kind of

Homer Simpson on the ground. Like, man, that's not what you should be doing when you're 21 and 22. Like that's going to add up fast. Like that's how you get to sort of those. Rory McDonald's Shogun age where you're like 30, but you kind of look like at 39, that type of thing. Like, I don't know, man. I really hope that he can avoid that sort of road and path for his career

because that's not good for anybody. And you brought up Casey that it's only a one-fight win streak. I mean, one-fight losing streak. He was about two minutes away from losing to Peter Barrett before he got that heel hook on because that was the fight. Do you remember Joe Rogan for two rounds, said Chase Hooper doesn't belong in the UFC? And they got that heel hook three minutes into the final round.

And then we brought up to Dana White, and Dana was like, yeah, he's just a tough kid. And I was like, that's tough. This only gets so far. Also, he fought Alex Ceres, who has, what, 30-something fights. Steve Peterson also has 30-something fights. They have more professional fights than Chase Hooper has years on this planet. So maybe don't give him a veteran who has gone a lot of losses, a lot of wins, a lot of losses. Like, as Casey and I have said on the show a lot of times, sometimes that just comes with experience.

Like there's certain moments in a fight. That's just an experience factor right there. So let's not, let's give him someone that's, you know, not a 35 fight. My biggest worry about Chase Hooper is, is if he doesn't get matched up properly, even if he loses fights, that's fine. But Peaches takes horrible beatings in these losses, horrible beatings. By the time he's 23, 23, his mixed martial arts career, professional career may be over. And that just sucks.

So you just got to be very, because it's, it isn't like regular sports. So once you're kind of done, there's very rarely do you come back, you know. There's no founding of you're finding, yeah. Yeah. So just be very careful. Like this is when I wish we had more boxing type matchmaking where I would have Hooper-based bantam weights for the next five fights, you know. But I know UFC just doesn't do that. So that's their thing, whatever.

Who is that, who is that UFC fighter that has the, I think he has the New Mexico flag, Casey? And he's also super young and he had like three UFC fights and. Yeah, I can remember his name. Yeah. And he's 0 and 3 already. Like, yeah, I don't want that to happen. I think of a name I think of right now is Larissa Pacheco or Pachinko, whatever, Pacheco. She fights in PfL right now.

But she used to fight in the UFC at 135. But she signed when she was like 21, 22 years old. And she got like her butt handed to her by like Jermaine Duranderman mean. And I think she lost a couple of fights. So by the time she was 23, her career was done. She fought in Brazil and like four or five years later. Now she's doing pretty well in PFL. Of course, you know, she has to run to Kayla Harrison again, but that's another issue.

But she's a really good fighter who got her. It's just be careful. Be careful, UFC. He's a really good fighter. I don't think he's a champ, but just be careful. It's easy to get caught in the quicksand when you're kind of on this level this early. It was Jerome Rivera, Casey. He entered, he won the contender series, and then he fought Tyson Dam, Francisco Figurato,

who's Davidson Figurato's brother. and then O'Day Osborne in five months. He's 0 and 3. And he's 26 right now, and he has a new fight against on the Pori-McGregor card. So he could go 0 and 4 in less than a year into his UFC debut, rough times. Okay. We're almost at an hour. So this is just kind of talk faster.

I mean, I'll start blabbing. I'll start stop blabbing so much. Dan Harder. This question. Yeah. This isn't a simple one either. Don Harden, it seems, on Twitter. It seems that Colby Chaos Coventon is doing the rounds,

accusing Poy and Usman is some pretty serious things without proof. I'm all for trash talk, but what is the role of an MMA journalist? So, yes, Colby Convinton has been doing a lot of interviews, including with our own Mike Heck. You can go watch that interview after we're done on the A side right here. Sean, I don't know if you watched the interview or saw the clips that are out on Twitter, but he accused, well, he basically brought to light that he's the one that allegedly broke the story of Usman talking around other managers, potentially leaving Ali.

And then he also said that Usman is the quote unquote, and this is Colby Covington's phrase, the quote unquote CEO of EPO, and he's doing all the steroids down in preparation for his camp. But to answer this question specifically, what is the role of an MMA journalist during interviews like this? I haven't seen the actual interview, so it's hard for me to speak in context in that regard. So I guess maybe I can address what Colby's saying? Just like I'm not just. More of it just a generalization. You interview a fighter.

The fighter says, oh, this fighter does this, this, this. And that's like borderline illegal stuff, you know, or, you know, illegal in the sport. And maybe just, uh, well, basically, uh, Kobe accused Dustin of, you know, his, his charity isn't real. It's a tax write off. It's not, it isn't the real guy that charity is BS, you know, that type of stuff. See, it's weird, right? Because I think it's one thing. if I'm interviewing, I don't know, Kelvin Gastilum,

and Kelvin Gastilum starts saying these type of things. I feel like someone like that comes with a certain level of credibility where it's just like, oh, well, that's not really like Kelvin's personality to just make up some stuff. And then I feel like that, then that kind, that's a different level of a conversation, a different kind of approach than if it's just a guy like Colby. Because Colby's just chale.

Like they'll just throw up stuff out there and see what sticks. Like it's really difficult for me to believe anything Colby says because that's just kind of the character and the persona that he's created. Like he's just this guy who's going to come in and he's going to fire wild shots for 20 minutes during the interview. And half the things he's going to say are ridiculous and half are going to be exaggerated. And, you know, like, it's weird with a guy like that where he is obviously playing a character to in terms of policing the interview space. Like someone like that, you kind of just give him the runway and say, hey, go. And then afterwards you can kind of go back and parse through it because there is so much there.

But we draw the line, though. I mean, I've drew the line with. I drew the line with Colby a long time ago. I don't really enjoy much Colby content. I'll be honest. Like, it's not my style of how fight promotion goes, but I know that there are people who enjoy it. So certainly, you know, I'm not going to tell them that they're wrong. It's just a personal preference type of thing.

I think back, you know, the difference seeing him and Chil is like there was always a sense of humor with Chelle. I mean, the whole carrot on the bus. Oh, yeah. It was always that you knew that was fake. it was like a story. It was like a funny, ha-ha story, you know, but you never,

but you didn't go, wait a minute. So exactly, how long was this stick, Chale? How did this work? You know? Oh,

well, Chale was pure pro wrestling. That was all tongue and cheek. Like, you could tell that his tongue was firmly planted in his cheek for all of it. Colby's is much more mean-spirited.

That's what I mean. I'm just going to be as mean as possible. Like, you're attacking, you're attacking the guy's charity, you know, and she's just saying it's not real. I mean,

let's not forget about his ESPN interview, split screen with Usman where he said go back to your tribe with smoke signals and stuff. Like that is just horrendous. That's just horrendous talk right there. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know Mr. Hardin. Because even like the drug stuff, you know, like Izzy accused of Vitoria of taking steroids.

Vitoria accused Izzy of taking steroids. I mean, that's just a pretty common trash talking method. We consider in the MMA world, we consider that just whatever. You don't like, okay, sure, you know. But, yes, it's that line. Well, Victoria was suspended for testing positive for banned substance in the past. I think that's why Izzy was bringing that up. And then remember that case, that case was a lot more complex than the same like he was suspended.

No, like he didn't actually do anything wrong when it comes. We understand that. But I think in the eyes of fans that don't follow. the USADA situation and everything, they just see drug suspension, and they just jump to conclusions, which we all know happens. And then Israel,

Asana, of course, had the weird chest thing, and everyone was pouring, his fellow fighters were saying steroids, and we all know the situation, but I think that was just also two fighters playing up to the eyes of the fans, like throwing accusations out there.

That's the difference in what Colby Cunnington was doing. I will say, I'll throw an addendum onto my answer before, what's the role in an MMA journalist? And I think in this regard, if you're going into an interview with Colby, it's essentially you know that it's, you're kind of, you're doing some sort of performance art, right? You're doing some sort of act for everybody that's kind of like, hey, this is going to be just a fun, depending on whether you enjoy that type of thing, 20 minutes where lots of stuff might just happen. And the role of the journalist, in my opinion, at that point, is after the fact where if you are writing any of that up or you're putting any of it out there, you have to provide proper context of like, hey, a lot of this isn't true or, hey, here's links to this and this and this. Of what he's saying of why this may be, it might not be true, that type of thing.

Like, you have to provide the full scope of context to this guy's wild accusations and claims. You can't just put them out there like, hey, he says this and then maybe it's true. Maybe it's not. Who knows? I want to see someone, especially like at a, like, do you remember in, were you at the June card? The, the, oh, man, which card would the Colby Covington beat Dosanos? I can't remember the exact. Yeah, I know it was Chicago.

I just can't remember the number. But that was when Colby was doing the whole, that was when Colby's whole thing was the Eagles. That was the week the Eagles said no to go into the White House. Nealing for the flag stuff. Yeah, kneeling for the flag stuff. And he kept bringing that up. And then a reporter goes, know they're not kneeling to disrespect the flag they're kneeling for to protest police brutality

and colby covington looked completely caught off guard by someone bringing like pushing back and not going with the stick and not going with the with his stick and then he goes like yeah well it's just disrespectful and then like the the journalist just goes oh he's just he doesn't believe anything he says and he just moved on they just moved on from that conversation so it's uh yeah but what sean said It's not for everyone. It's not for me. So I don't take anything. He says overly seriously.

And this is a good segue. What's up from Daniel Pompeoio. What's up with Adasania, Humping Victoria, humping coffin grabbing Vittori. Can something be done about it? Is there a rule against it or can the UFC intervene? Can't tell me be done about it?

Can something be done about it? Well, well, Daniel. What are you going to, what are you done about it? Well, Daniel. It's, what was it back in the day? What was the Randy Couture fight where Randy did this? When he, when Tito Ortiz got, was threatening with a leg lock and Vittorio was like, I mean, Cotor was like, good try, good try.

And we're just patting him on the butt because it was like a leg lock from the bottom. And he goes, good try, man. And then Tito's corner was like, he's chopping, he's topping. That's the Coutre thing. But Daniel, this is a sport where grown men stripped down to their underwear and a fistful. fight inside of a cage in front of 20,000 people. I think there's worse things happening. And then Israel-A-Sonia kind of having a silly goose time inside the octagon.

Nate Diaz was freaking twerking in the cage. Nate Diaz was Nate Diaz and Leon were throwing the finger at each other. Can you imagine if that Nate Diaz strategy had actually worked, though, where like we have an actual highlight out there where he's like doing that back that ass up bump and then all a sudden lands like his one-two and like actually like that was how we got that crazy last minute was off of something like that like he'd be even more legendary at that point like i don't even know what i was watching derrick lewis tried that against jd s he like doubled down like in pain from a body shot and the junior like runs in and then derrick lewis just like

explodes and catches him off guard so yeah uh but to answer this question specifically i did there's no rule and nothing will be done about it nor should it there be done about it unless someone was really over the top but if the other guy doesn't like it they're in the middle of the They can do something about it. Can something be done about it? Yeah. Don't put yourself in position to get by Israel Adasania in the middle of the octagon on a pay-per-view. After you talking tons of trash for a long, long time in a really deeply personal way.

After your manager said that, what did he say that Israel-A-Sahna had the gay gene and needs to be researched by science? That's what, that's what Paulo Costa's manager said. So yeah. Don't say that. That's worse than what Izzy did. Can there be a rule against it? I love Izzy get stripped. Did he get to yumped, a fighter, done a fight?

Anyway. Anyway. We're going to wrap in fire once because we've gone a little over. Let me go to that. Actually, I got some YouTube comments real quick. There we got. Oops. Oh, that's too small.

Jessica, Crystal Crew, you guys look like cool dudes. the energy. Good job. Jessica. Cool guys. Jessica, send Sean some crystals. He needs to, I got mine right here still. Casey and I know you have yours. Oh, yeah, I got my area.

Everything's right now. Sean has missed this whole crystal era. I missed this whole crystal era. I have no actual concept of what the crystal era was and how magical might have been. The crystal era started when. Oh, my God. Is that a crystal? Yeah.

That's huge. It's huge. The crystal council. heavy. The Crystal Council sent me. Is it just like if you popped that open? It would be like, we don't know.

I have no idea. I don't want to find out. I don't want to break it open. But the Crystal Council sent us all these crystals and sage and everything. It started with, it started during the Pizzi Carol Jose Young's iteration of the A-Sai when it was just us two. And Jared Kennedy had just knocked out Jack Hermanson, I think in Copenhagen. And Jared Canaer was on the ESPN desk,

on ESPN and Tyne Willie goes, what's that around your neck? And Jared Canineer pulled out his pyrite crystal instead of wards off negative energy and this and that on ESPN. And Pizzi was absolutely taken aback and had no idea things like that existed. And then a bunch of people tweeted at us about their crystals, including UFC Bannerway, Brian Kelleher, Jessica right here, Molly McCann tweeted at us and so on and so forth. So then it became a running thing, Jessica and various other people, sent us crystals. We gave Brian

Kelleher a crystal before his fight against Odey Osborne. He asked for one. If you watch the official wands, you can see Brian Keller yell something out to the crowd. He's telling me and Pizzi to give him a crystal. We gave him a tiger's-eyed crystal, which is supposed to bring monetary wealth. So if you watch

the ceremonial wands, he gets on the scale and he holds his tiger's-eye crystal that we gave him. Less than a couple hours after weighing in, Cloudy Gaddaa, Alexa Grasso, gets pulled from the card. Ryan Keller versus Odei Osborne was supposed to be on the fight pass prelims. They get elevated to the main card and Brian Kelleher wins with that guillotine choke and gets $50,000 bonus.

So I'm not saying it was the crystal, but it was 100% the crystal. So now we have various other people calling it. We even interviewed Jared Kahn there and he brought us to his crystal room, which is just pyrite as far as the eye can see. We talked, I chat with him a little bit on Fight Island. He was doing like some ceremony thing inside the octagon on the beach where he would lay all his crystals in the sun and collect their positive energy and this and that. So yeah, there's been a lot of crystal talk. We even gave P.C. Crystal on when we did a preview show and he went all in on it.

So it's been, it's been an interesting 12 months with the crystal crew. And it was, Jared Kaineer was, we called him Captain Crystal for a long time. And then we, and then his Twitter kind of became a little out of control for a bit when he was, you know, tweeting a lot of things about a lot of things. and I think Jessica says Giresino is the new Captain Crystal because he wears the same crystal to every single card that someone gave it to him. And he doesn't know what kind of crystal is

because we, of course, Sean, as you know, Journalism of Integrity, we did research on it and asked him about it. He doesn't know. But he said he would find out. And that is the... What a run. Yeah.

So... What a run for the crystal crew. Jessica, send some crystals to Sean. He needs some. I have a mantle on the back. A couple more comments. we get out of it. Oh, I'm redoing my whole studio. So, yeah, I'll put some Christmas. I got a whole sorts of new things coming. So we, Casey and I both got just, there you go, no man, sons and four.

Sons and four, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Chris Paul, get back, please. Please, I need you. Oh, this is the year. This is the, this, we're never going to have another chance like this, man. Like, this is, everything is breaking our way in the way that it never does in the way that it always does for other people and not for us. We're watching it happen. You can't do this to me, Chris Paul. Come back. Please. Please, believe me. Let's just, let's pray for seven games between jazz and clippers and you get all the time

we need to come back. Shane. What? Okay. You know, all these, like, I get on Doyle, Dave Doyle about this, because he's a big, whatever, Patriots fan. I'm like, oh, it's so easy to be a fan of a winning team. I admire you, sir.

Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold on, Jose. I know what you're going to. No, I just want to defend. I want to defend. I want to defend Doyle for one second for being, because Doyle, when I grew up, and so Doyle's obviously, Dave Doe is obviously much older than me. When I was growing up, the New England Pages were the worst team in football. So you can tell a Patriots term from that era and a page's term of this current era.

No, hold on, hold on. Yes, I understand. Every team sucks at some point. I understand Sean is a Patriots fan in Arizona, but I'm just saying you can really tell a fan, like my dad, he was not, he grew up. The year I was born, the Patriots were 1 and 15. Like they were, they were historically bad until 1999. Yes, they went to a super old, but they got cooked up by Breffar. 21 years ago.

Yeah, and the Patriots had Tom Brady for 20-year. They were bad before Chase Hooper was born. Yeah. Go ahead. I'm going to say is that the sons before all of this happened over the last 11 years were historically great and historically unlucky. We were the fourth winning his franchise in NBA history and we're the only one I think in that whole like top five or top 10 to not win a title. It was and you could and there was a giant list that I won't go through right now of just

like here's the unlucky thing that happened on this season that the reason why we didn't win a title. Here's the unlucky thing that had this happened here. Suspension, injury, all of this stuff. it was nonstop my entire life and then all of a sudden we just became abject trash and not even just like the fun kind of trash it was like the kind of trash where you're not even doing one thing or the other you're kind of in this middle zone where you're not like tanking and drafting these good prospects who are giving you hope for the future but you're also not like you don't have anything to look for in terms of future past anything you're kind of trotting out Isaiah cannon and Tyler eunless and Mike James and all of these redempties ridiculous draft and Markey's Chris and Dragon Bender and Josh Jackson and just like this parade of endless bullshit that wasn't anything. I watched so many seasons where I watched 90% of the games of 19 wins out of 82 games and then all of a sudden we fall four spots in the draft because somebody jumps us and it's just it was the worst type of misery ever where you just feel that this is never going to end and you don't know why you're wasting all your time on this and you have

in no sense of anything when it comes to like what actual basketball looks like at a certain point. Like I don't really watch a lot of other teams. So like for a long time, basketball was just an ugly sport to me because I didn't actually understand what good basketball looked like. And now all of a sudden to have this, to randomly have this coming to our lives really since the bubble last year where all of a sudden we're 8 and 0 in that bubble. And ever since then, we're basically the best team in the whole NBA when it comes to the records. this is the this is genuinely the wildest thing I have ever experienced as an adult man

who likes sports and I never saw it coming I am enjoying every second of it I've been to like five playoff games at this point Jose and I have already started conversations about potentially going to Utah for game one to make assholes out of ourselves if that's the series I'm trying to enjoy this as much as possible

I just bought $300 of Sons in 4 merch yesterday you don't understand. I don't know that I'll ever experience this again in my entire life. And all I ever wanted was just once. I just give me one. Like my whole life. Like just I'll live the rest of my life with none. If you just give me one,

because I don't even understand what one would feel like, this felt like it. Like this feels like the chancement. Everything is breaking our way. Every possible, like I was afraid of Brooklyn. And now maybe Brooklyn's still in it. So like, who knows. But like it just feels like things are breaking our way.

in the way that they never do in sort of like a 2011 Mavericks type of situation. Yeah. And I am so, so trying to not just go, like, get myself too up for it where it's just like I'm just going to have the worst heartbreak of my life. But there is a 90% chance that at some point during this run, maybe after a playoff game, like Phoenix is just going to burn to the ground because the whole state feels like I just did.

Like every, there's a billion people in the state who could just make that exact same rant. and at some point you're just going to see me outside of this arena in the middle of a riot flipping burning cop cars with my shirt off like it's just like this is the inevitable end to this if we win this title i'm gonna be gone off the face of the earth for like two weeks and wake up in some back alley in thailand like i'm not gonna understand what happened two weeks in my life it's gonna be ridiculous and i just want that i just want to feel that once just and as someone who didn't grow up in arizona like sean did um phoenix suns actually had good friends even when they were bad. Like there's no, I've never really met a diehard Diamondbacks fan. You don't meet a lot of diehard Cardinals fans. When you go to those games, it's like 75% for the other team and then like 25% for the home team. Some fans, their credit, have been a very vocal and very, like, you've all seen the video of that, of what's her name at the city council meeting or whatever. Like, Sons have good, have great fans and they stuck with this team when they were trash.

Also, I know a lot of you tweeted at me when the Sons won, when they swept the, when they beat, the Lakers and they swept the Nuggets. Send all that to Sean because as you just heard, he's an actual diehardt Sutz fan. I like the son's my proxy

after living here for 10 years. Send all that positivity to Sean. He needs it. I'm just saying we're going to Utah game one. It's going to happen. All I'm saying is. Oh, no, I'm already, I'm ready to go, man.

Once that series is over, I'm buying tickets. All I'm saying, Sean, it feels better. I admire fans of shitty sports teams because that takes commitment and it feels better when they do win. Being a fan of a winner, it's easy.

Being a fan of a shit team, that's where you go. When my grandmother saw the Boston Red Sox win their first World Series in 2004 after 86 years, I have never seen a happier human being. Because she was like, she missed the last Red Sox World Series, obviously. And then she finally, and then she died a year later. And she even was like, I can die happy now. And I was like, I don't, I have no idea what that feels like because I was 13 when the Red Sok won the World Series. I have never getting to know what.

I have no idea what it's like to be part of a team that didn't win a World Series for 86 years. So yeah, good on you. Dude, when the Astros won the World Series, I feel that moment. I can still remember that moment. So I got. Yeah, man. Like, I can't, last thing on this, I can't tell you the amount of times that I've had conversations with buddies over the last 10, 15 years where we're just, you know, sitting in a garage hanging out at 2 a.m. And it's just like, I am genuinely afraid that I will die in all.

and all of this will have been for nothing. And I got nothing out of this. Like nothing positive came to me for all of this stupid time and energy that I invested in this crappy franchise. And finally, we might have this one shot. I need it. I need it. I need it so bad. Sons and four.

I'm all of the story. Sons and four. Anyway, what a fantastic way to end this. From Garmei Cruz, Brazilian MMA media extraordinaire, this Shaheen guy is a handsome dude. dude. Thank you, Garyman. He's a handsome dude. He's like 6'5 too. Anyway, we'll have to have Gary Me back on the show because he's playing dad now. So he's kind of, you know, he has this handful of the new young one.

But anyway, this has been the Aiside Live chat here on M8Fighton.com. This has been Jose. Sean, do you have anything to say before we close out or did you just go on your full rant? And that's how you want to end it. Nah, man, I mean, I appreciate having you back or having you having you back. you having me back. Thank you. Thanks for having me back.

It was so much fun being back on the ground with you last week. And I'm so excited for the future of M.A. fighting and what we're going to do here. We've got big plans. I can't wait for it. It has been an honor and a pleasure. I'm sure we will do this again. Sons and four, baby.

Sons and four. Casey, anything you want to say from America? Is that a Super Cup shirt? Yeah, it is. I don't know. Just be nice to your fellow neighbors. And I don't know, have fun out there. Don't be an asshole.

Don't be an asshole. What a way to end it. You can find this on Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, IHard Radio, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Parascope, Facebook Live, and of course,

you come back here and watch it on YouTube. And with that, we'll see you next Wednesday. Happy birthday, AK. Oh, boy. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.