MMA Fighting - UFC 249 Post Show

Episode Date: May 10, 2020

Moments after the memorable UFC 249 came to an end, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck, Alexander K. Lee and E. Casey Leydon discuss Justin Gaethje's win over Tony Ferguson to become the interim UFC lightweight champion, Henry Cejudo's defense of his bantamweight title over Dominick Cruz and subsequent retirement, and Francis Ngannou's frightening knockout of Jairzinho Rozenstruik. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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after a buildup for months and months and months, two different dates, two different main events, three different locations. UFC 249 went down tonight in Jacksonville, Florida. Hello, everybody. My name is Mike Keck. Welcome to the MMA fighting UFC 249, live virtual post-fight show.

And before we get into the fights, let me just wish all of the moms out there, a very happy Mother's Day, especially my beautiful wife, Holly, who's sleeping like a baby right now. It's my mom, Kathy, who probably played a round of golf today and is sleeping that off. But there is a lot to discuss coming out of this event, and that would be the understatement of the century. There's just so much more than we could have expected to come out of this event. But let's let's let you guys chime in as well. Let us know in the comments what you thought of the event.

how would you grade it? Essentially, what is on your mind, MMA fans after the return of the UFC? Of course, I could talk all night long, but nobody wants to hear that. So joining me and all of you to recap this crazy event. First, Mr. Alex K. Lee, how are you feeling, sir, after the UFC's return to action tonight? Listen, I know, look, Mike, I don't know how much time we have to waste here. I know everyone wants to get to that split decision fight between Alexiolanic and Fabrice over Doom. I know. So everyone's talking about, right? I swear we will get to it, But I will say overall, man, the card, we'll just say it lived up to it lived up to the hype.

That's for sure. As far as it, you know, I had a time, you know, we all looked in and on paper, we said, this is one of the most stacked cards the UFC's ever put on. I don't know if it's the best ever, you know, Dana White was towning and it's the best ever. But the way it turned out relative to how it looked, boy, pretty on point. I mean, it did not disappoint almost in any area. Absolutely. We also, as you can see, have E. Casey Liden joining us, video extraordinaire, producer extraordinaire.

First off, Casey, this was the first pay-per-view number of numbered event in the U.S. that you hadn't covered in person since UFC 104? Over a decade. Over a decade. The first, not even U.S., the first North American, all the Canadian ones, all the ones in Mexico. I've been in every single pay-per-view. And yeah, this is the first one. I got to sit at home, watch to feel the pain, paste the pain, all that stuff.

You know, I got to experience it. You know, I got to hear all the comments. Terry, wasn't running around backstage, trying to find interviews, trying to get through security, find where's the restroom, you know, things like that. So it was a, it was a, I was just like one of you. Yes. Do you have this like new sense of comfort now covering these events from the privacy of your own home now? It was weird. It was weird. I don't know. But just life is weird right now. the event was weird because there's no, the situation we're all in right now. So, yeah, it was, I felt kind of actually normal because I've been stuck at home for two months now.

So, yeah, nothing changed. So it almost didn't feel real that there were really fights happening for a long time, but they happened. Absolutely. So let's just get right in this thing. Let's start with what we just saw on pay-per-view ESPN Plus. Let's start at the main event, Justin Gaichie, with, in my opinion, one of the most impressive performances you will ever see in a title, fight or any fight against Tony Ferguson and props to Tony Ferguson for absorbing all of that punishment for almost 24 minutes. But man, Justin Gagee was absolutely incredible tonight.

He is the new UFC interim lightweight champion, although he's not going to call himself that. He certainly didn't want the title belt as he got rid of it and said he's going to wait for the real one. So, man, this is impressive. It was impressive. I think the best, I think the best performance of Justin Gage's career. I know he has so many, you know, he's the highlight real.

He has so many big knockouts. But we kind of had this discussion on one of our shows in the last one of I asked, you know, what's more impressive, a first round knockout or five-round decision? And in this case, I don't know if you could have learned more about how good Justin Gathe G is than by watching this fight where he dissected a guy in a 12-fight win streak, one of the toughest lightweights probably in UFC history. And let me add, by the way, I might be the only one out there who predicted Gathe Gatji, oh, I guess I was so close to being right about it.

I predicted Gathe Gat Gie by decision. I was so close. I was maybe two minutes away before, before Erb Dean did the right thing and stepped in to save a very, very, very, very badly rocked Tony Ferguson. So I feel like I was close enough to nailing the prediction. Don't read the rest of our predictions, by the way, people. Don't go back and really just how close it was to nailing the main event. Case, like we just talked about, you've been covering these events live since UFC 104 in terms of pay-per-view events, you know, in North America and even beyond. But, you know, where would you rate Gagey's performance in terms of title three?

fight, you know, acumen and performance and from start to finish. I mean, this, this was unbelievable. Well, he, everything that, everything that has been advertised by Geci, he came through tonight. He was tough, relentless, the leg kicks, the solid, the solid takedown defense. The Tony really even shoot, like, a proper takedown. I don't, I don't think he's done it for a while. I didn't know he did the Eminari roll toward the NF desperation, but, but either way, I was expecting that performance tonight from Gaiji, and he showed up. And yeah, definitely, definitely one of the best performance,

definitely one of the best championship performances I've seen. Alex, you know, what could Habim Amaga made up be thinking right now? Because, you know, everyone thought it was going to be Ferguson. You know, everyone thought Justin Gaichi, you know, if he won, he'd spoil the party and ruin everything. But now I think that's, this fight is so much more fascinating after that performance. What could Habib be thinking right now? Well, I know we did see him issue a couple of tweets, fairly cryptic.

One of them was no comments. Or if people want to hear it, do hear my Habib impression, no comment. The other one was, you know, I think it was just, you know, Justin Grachey, great job. What could he be? I still, you know, I'm not one of those people who's going to say Habib no margamma met him is afraid of anybody. I know that was a proper thing to say when, oh, he flew back to Russia so you could avoid fighting Ferguson. Stop that talk, you know. I mean, I think any rational person is somewhat scared of fighting Justin Gatheji,

but if you're, if you're Habib, I think you've got to look at this opportunity, just build your legacy even more. Because right now, anyone who saw this fight is thinking Justin Gattsch is just a baddest mother effort they've ever seen. And if Habeeb can beat him, that already incredible legacy just goes even higher. So I think they have to work to set that fight up. Speaking of baddest MFers, how about Tony Ferguson? And we got to give him all the props, too, because, and I love Daniel Corman.

me as quote, I think it stuck out a lot in that main event. He said something to the effect of this has to be the record for the most fight ending shots taken by a single person in a fight. And man, this guy deserves so much credit for not only take with the Habib thing right there for him, but, you know, he was actually clear as a bell talking to Joe Rogan after the fight. Like, what? Like this guy is so, so tough. But where does Tony Ferguson go from here? I know one of the commenters said Tony versus Connor makes a lot of sense, but I don't think Tony Ferguson is fighting anytime soon, but who knows, this man could be healed up by tomorrow because he's not human, Alex. He's not human. I think as people can see, I can barely talk now after just watching the fight, much less, you know, as Tony, like you said, Tony Verkson took those shots and then did an eloquent interview with Joe Rogan after. Where does he go now? First of all, let me tell you people something. Tony and Habib is not dead, okay? I know it's, I know people are thinking like, oh, there's no reason for Habib to take that fight now because that mystique of kind of the two.

12-fight win streak, the two unbeatable lightweights is gone. I still think this fight can happen. Of course, it depends how much longer Ferguson wants to fight, how much longer Habib wants to fight. They are up against the clock now, for sure. And you have to think Ferguson is at least one fight away. I don't see them making the fight off of this loss unless, again, for some reason, Gae can't make it and Connor McGregor can't make it, then, hey, they can book guys coming off losses. This has happened before. And again, if everyone still wants to see this fight, I still refuse to believe the fight is dead, but I've also said it wasn't getting canceled for a fifth time. So take my prediction with a grain of salt.

So, yeah, is McGregor next for Ferguson? I mean, I think that'd be a big fight. But like we said, what we want to see for him is honestly, just take the rest of the year off and rest. I know, again, he's up there in age. People don't want to hear that. I'd love to see him take a year off and look at the lightweight landscape next year in 2021 and then figure out where to fight from there. Yeah, props to both guys delivered. fantastic performances. I mean, Gaiti was on fire. Ferguson, just showing that ability to be a zombie.

It was just impressive on both ends, no matter how you slice it. I mean, the timing that Justin Gachi has on those home run swinging punches, just incredible. It was just an unbelievable performance to watch. So congratulations to Justin Gachie, big things ahead of him. Habibim Morgim Mada Madov is in his path. When you were watching that fight at home, like everyone was, except for maybe like 20 people in the arena. Were you like, okay, I started the fight. I was sitting on my couch watching it, but as the rounds went on, I noticed I was actually on my, I was standing on my couch, on my tiptoes almost, just like, and like in every,

all those left hooks, I could like fill them. I felt like I was getting, I was feeling a shave. They were coming so close and like, Tony was just like, whoo. It was just, like, the fact that there was no crowd there, it almost made, I, I swear I felt more tense for that fight. Yeah. It was like, because you were just, because really until the last like five seconds of fight, Tony really never got wobbled.

He never got clean dropped. It was just, it was like I don't, like he said, he is Al Kuku, he is a boogeyman. That is, that's just an unreal toughness. That's something you don't want to show off too much, but yeah, just an incredible performance on both guys. I saw someone say that without, you know, without any extra noise that we normally have, You could feel the fist hitting like skin and bone. Like that was the weird thing.

You could almost feel it bouncing off the bone underneath the flesh, which is not really, even with the technology we have now, not something you normally get, but with no crowd, you just hurt it all. Mike, I want to ask you, do you think that I don't know if Francis and Ghanu could knock Tony Perkins and out clean? What do you think? I don't know, man. I mean, it might take him to like the second or third round to do it.

But, I mean, it's just unbelievable. It really was just unbelievable watching them take those punches. And I think that was the most consistent tweet subject I had throughout that fight is like, how is Tony Ferguson still on his feet? This man is not human. And then the question I had was what was even, what was the most impressive part of that fight? Was it the ability of Tony Ferguson to take punishment or the ability of Justin Gagey to time those just hammers so accurately throughout the fight? I'd love to know the striking percentage of the shots landed by Justin Gagee throughout that fight because those numbers are probably staggering. because he landed so much.

And credit to Gatesy's corner, I think it was Trevor Whitman who was calming him down after the first couple of rounds saying, yo, you're throwing 100% behind everything. You got to calm down. Like he knew he was winning the fight. But I think he'd also seen the two losses that Gagy had. He'd faded a little bit against Alvarez and against Porre. So I think he said, look, you're winning this fight. Settle down.

You don't need to put 100% everything. You know, this guy's tough. And then they read it's how tough he was. So credit to them, they really, really focused him and got him to the win. There were little windows where we saw the World Series of fighting Justin Gachie. I know like that. Just like, I'm just here to, I'm just here to entertain you guys in the crowd. That's what I'm here for.

And there were moments of that. You could tell Justin, like, when he started getting that moment, he was like, no, no, no, got him in the fight. Got him win the fight first. Yeah. And I thought it was also interesting between rounds when Whitman was talking to Gachie. Whitman was like, yeah, you're having fun. But remember the last time you were really comfortable? you know, you got knocked out. He goes twice.

Like, Gachie just like was in the moment and just threw that out there. Like it was nothing. And I thought from there, I'm like, all right, he's going to come out and be the same guy in the fifth round too. So congratulations to Justin Gachi. Big things coming up. But let's talk about some more shocking stuff, the co-main event. This is the fight on the card that fascinated me the most heading in. Henry Sehudo defends his Bannamweight title against Dominic Cruz. And Henry comes out with that great first round. And, you know, Cruz was starting to trying to find his legs.

And then the second round, he's starting to get his rhythm a little bit. And then Suhudo lands that big knee, followed up with around a dozen punches and the referee stops the fight. But we're going to get to the stoppage in a moment because as big of a win as that was for Henry Suhudo, that may have been his last win because after the fight, he announced his retirement. And if you were going to ask me before that fight, who's going to retire after this fight? Henry Suhudo would not be my guess on any day if you asked me 100 different times. This was shocking to me. Didn't expect that.

Maybe I should have, you know, with all the negotiations back and forth between him and the UFC since the Marlon Mariah's fight. But I don't know, man, I was shocked. What do you think, Alex? Were you like blown away by that? Or did you see it coming? I mean, as it was unfolding it, you know, you start doing the math in your head. And it kind of starts to make more sense to you.

But for sure, especially based on, you know, how he's been handling the media. He's been doing a lot of callouts, a lot of, oh, here's who I want to fight next. And I still want to fight Aldo. And, you know, here's what I think of Peter Yan and what I think. think of Al Jemaine Sterling, things like that. So he was doing all the right things, you know, that a champion who's playing to stick around does, kind of setting up his next opponents. But again, like I said, doing the math, if this is really the end for him, I'm very happy

for him because I think he's 33 years old. You know, he's got the Olympic gold medal, two UFC titles, two divisions. He's achieved, really, everything that you would want to achieve. I would hope I made some good money as well. It's possible. It's a negotiating tactic. I know that's a lot of people said right away. I think that tells you about the nature of this business.

That's kind of the conclusion. a lot of us jumped to. And I'm reading now that he said in this post-fight, something to the effect of Dana White knows the number to get me out of retirement. So, again, is this the king of Crens just kind of playing around with us again? Or was it actually negotiating tactic? You know, with Sehudo, we will never know. He's surprised us a lot. And I feel he might not be done surprising us. Casey, I saw you making faces as Alex was talking about the retirement and all this stuff. So, So on a scale 1 to 10, how likely do you think it is that we saw Henry Sohudo in the Octagon for the last time? I think it's 50-50 out of five.

I think right now, I think there'll be a little – I think it'll be between UFC and WW right now. I think I think pro wrestling is right there. I mean, he was in the same hotel with the wrestlers from AEW and the WW performance center is just about three hours down the road. So I think, and, and, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, before he is in my career, he mentioned that he's gone to, um, pro wrestling tryouts and everything. And he's, he's thought about it. He was a big fan growing up. So. Henry Sehudo and the WWE. Wow. I mean, I haven't that even worse. No offense, but he's, uh, he's, he's not the biggest guy. You know what I mean? Like, he's obviously got credentials up the wazoo, but how, how

would that be in WW. That gimmick will be amazing. Amazing. I'm cringing already. I'm cringing already. I don't even know what to say. But overall, I mean, obviously the retirement is a big story. And whatever he decides, obviously, that's up to him.

He's got a family. And he's already achieved so much. And this current streak that he's on, this four-fight run on top of the winning streak, it's just, if you look at it in the annals of UFC history, this is right up there. This is just super impressive. with DJ and Marias and Dilleshah and now Dominic Cruz, just an unbelievable run for him. But let's talk about the performance, Alex.

What did you think of Henry Suhudo's performance? Especially because one of the big questions heading in was, how is he going to deal with the length, the height of Dominic Cruz, and especially the movement that he has. That's always the big story with Dominic Cruz. And Suhudo handled it pretty well, in my opinion. What did you think of Sehudo's perhaps final fight in the UFC? Boy, he was good, wasn't he?

I mean, he was so patient. You know, patience is the key. I think where you're dealing with someone like Dominic Cruz. Fighting him, fighting that style must be so maddening. You know, it's just when your guy likes to hoodo where, you know, you've got some pop. You know that you can land that knockout blow. But if you chase it, man, he's going to make it look silly. You know, he's made a lot of people look silly in his career.

And he also did, you know, the two things that, that, oh, sorry, he did the thing that has really benefited some of Cruz's last two opponents, Garbrandt, who beat him and T. T.J. Dillishaw, who came very close to beating him, he went after those legs right away. You know, he's dealing with a taller guy. And he's dealing with a guy who likes to move a lot. lot. So he was laying in those leg six right away. Cruz was having a lot of difficulty avoiding them. And it affected his movement throughout the fight. And I think it was very much part of the setup for the eventual finishing sequence. So Suhudo couldn't have come in with a better game

plan and he couldn't have executed it better. If this retirement does actually stick Casey, there's a lot of there was a lot of talk heading into this event with Dominic Cruz getting the title shot. There are guys that deserve it way more than him, Piotr Yon and Al Jermaine Sterling and and Corey Sanhagen, you can make arguments for all of those guys. But ultimately, Suhudo is a draw. Cringe or not, people watch Henry Suhudo. They just do. Is this a good thing for the Banimait Division now that it potentially opens things up a little bit?

Or is this a bad thing for the division now that one of the rising stars of the sport may no longer be competing? Ultimately, it's going to be a bad thing. I mean, it's good for Suhudo, most likely. wherever he's going next, he's going to get the biggest paycheck, wherever he's going next to be WWE. I think people were even unclear.

Do we even know his actual contract status in the UFC? Is that unknown right now? Yeah, I'm not sure. Not enough. Other than the championship clause, yeah, he's still a fighter. So I'm not, honestly, don't know enough about his actual financial status and contract status.

But I think in the end, this is going to suck for fighters and it's going to suck for starting. It's going to suck for yon. They're just going to be waiting around a long time. And Sehudo, when he does come back, he will be only coming back to the biggest paycheck. And the biggest paycheck may not be the, well, most likely not be the legit number one contender. It's going to be another, it'll be auto. It'll be maybe cruise again.

You know, like maybe Cruz again. Actually, when UFCs does their metrics, it turns out, no, more people are going to buy a Sehudo cruise rematch than a Sehudo-Aljamein-Sirling. Because, you know, I'm sure once Cruz does some more media, he's going to be, you know, about the stoppage. And I'm sure we can talk about the stoppage later. But, you know, there's that controversial stoppage. Cruz is out for four years. Four years, something like that? Almost four years.

Yeah, almost four years. You know, so there's lots of storylines to sell Cruz again in a rematch. Now, not in a sports-wise, but just in a strictly, like, sell stories to the casual MMA fan. So bad for those guys. Good for Suhudo. Yeah. I mean, you got a couple of big fights coming up. I mean, Marias versus Jan from all indications is still going to be a go for June 13th and a location TBD. Maybe that's the debut of Fight Island, we shall see. And then, you know, I would assume that Sterling and Sandhagen is probably the fight to make, you know, sometime in June, maybe July. So who knows,

if Suhudo does get, is no longer the champion, I don't know which. fight gets favored as a potential title fight to become the new champion or Alex, this might be right up your alley. Do we, do we dare say maybe a four-man tournament here and knock it out that way? Oh, we got to do it. Apparently, Suhudo suggested this as well. Post-fight, at the post-fight press conference, I'll have to watch that later, but I'm seeing that he did mention something like that. I don't know the names involved, but I think it would be pretty obvious, Maurice, Jan, Sanhagen, and Al Jermaine, right? I mean, I think that's the four guys you want. all those still in the mix.

We said, Cruz is, of course, still in the mix. I think, I almost think that in some ways this will be good for the division in the long run.

I personally was not a fan of the King of Cringe, the Triple C persona. Yes, it was good for headlines. It was good for, social media stuff, which is stuff,

you know, again, on our side, we love that. But I think in the long term, this will be better. I think you want to build up guys. Like, I think Al Jermaine is a guy

with a great personality and as someone who's very marketable. I think we don't know enough about Corey Sandhagen yet. He could be a marketable guy, you know, Peter Yan, he could have that Habib appeal. I know sometimes we look at foreign fighters and we think, oh, how much are they going to necessarily have crossover appeal in North America? But some of the biggest stars in the UFC were fighters not from the U.S.

I mean, George St. Pierre, you know, just recently today announced for the UFC Hall of Fame, one of the greatest draws in history. So I think it'll be a good thing. We don't even know, actually, for the UFC, how much of an impact to Huddo's reign. You know, he said he saved the flyweight division. that's, I don't even know what that means. And how much of an impact he had on paper view buys, you know, that kind of information is so difficult to parse now with the ESPN Plus deal. So it's hard to say how much your address to Hudo really was.

Again, he certainly got headlines. He certainly did his best to be a larger-than-life persona. And we don't know if these other guys want to do that or if they're capable of doing that. But I am being optimistic and thinking this will move the, this will end up eventually moving the division forward. Ah, we have our post-fight bonuses. I was wondering where this is going to go. um, Ferguson versus Gachy, fight of the night, performance of the night, Justin Gachie, and

Francis and Ghanu. I think, I think there should have been like a dozen bonuses tonight, uh, at the end of it, so. I'm happy that Justin got the, uh, the double bonus, but I, I, I kind of wish the, um, the fight at the night actually went to a little farther down the line to, um, Lucay versus Price, just because of, yeah, back and fourth nature. I mean, I'll credit to Ferguson for taking, taking his weapon like a man, but as far as competitive, all action, I'll go to Lucke Price, but hey, that's Ferguson. Earn an extra 50K.

Oh, and that's also, I think Esther Lynch just told me in Gachie's seven fights. You know how many bonuses he has in seven fights? It's nine now, right? Nine bonuses in seven fights. That's crazy. That is, he's not the human highlight, world. He's the human

bonus machine. Wow, that is insane. Just sick. That's sick. That's so sick. No one's, no one's, close to that. Like seven fights and seriously not one dud. Not one dud. Yeah. That's a, not even close to a dud. That's just like, I'm sorry. I'm just, I just, it's got to think about

a while. Yeah. It was like, wow. It was crazy because after that second, after that second consecutive loss, you know, there's talks about, you know, I only have like, I'm going to fight on my contract that I'm be done. I only have like three or four fights left and now look at him. He's about to fight Habibn or Magamatov and one of the biggest 155 pound title fights. history after that performance. So good Lord. And I'm, you know, to put a bow. Oh, yeah. Like, just

go back to his two losses. I'm sorry, but like when I was putting together, we put together these timeline videos, which basically, you know, just you know, all of their fights and the UFC. And people kind of forget when he, remember when he, after he lost against Porier, two fight losing street. And they put him against

James Vic in the main event. At that point, James Vic was on like a seven fight win streak. And to think to think if Justin would have lost that fight, which now it kind of seems ridiculous to even think that it was possible, you know, but at the time, it was like, no, he, no, it was, I don't know what, coming into the fight, it was still a toss-up, you know. It's just like you said, like it was so crazy how close Justin Gagchi was one fight away from three-fight losing streak. And I don't know, I'm kind of be kind of honest, I don't think

UFC one kept him around considering his paycheck he wants in a three-fight losing streak. So, pooh, what, what an amazing run. But that's MMA though, right? MMA, you are, you know, it doesn't matter what level you're at. Actually, I should say it becomes more precarious the higher you go, you know. You get to this level and then suddenly you can go from being a contender to, again, like you said, two fights away from being released, depending how your fights go, depending how you lose, depending on what your contract situation is, depending on your relationship with Dana White or the matchmakers, everyone. So that's MMA, you know, but you're right. It is crazy how quickly this turned around.

Just touch upon the bonuses, again, really quickly. I mean, I feel like Calvin Cater should have got one. That step in elbow was nuts, you know? And certainly any other night he would have. I don't know if we need to double up on the bonuses for Gathe. Again, a fight of the night for sure. But I think we could have given Cater the other performance bonus. Henry Suhudo even, I mean, obviously after he retired,

I feel like they weren't in a rush to give him any extra money. But he could have gotten one. And then, boy, we had a lot of great fights on here. Anthony Pettis, Donald Soroni was a great fight. That would have been a fight of the night. any other card. There was just a lot of great actions. So hopefully they do dish out a lot of bonuses

and, you know, that just don't necessarily publicize them. Yeah, like we said at the top of this thing, there's so much to talk about. There's so many different storylines to dive into. To put a bow in the co-main event, you know, the stoppage, I guess was a little questionable. I mean, Cruz certainly didn't like the stoppage. It seemed like Joe Rogan didn't like it at first,

but then he kind of accepted it after. What did you think, Alex? Do you think the stoppage was justified? a little too soon. Two things. I mean, immediately, you know, I was, I was manning the social media today. So definitely immediately I saw almost everyone unanimously saying, oh, it was too early. But I think the replay vindicated, was Keith Peterson?

Yes. The referee? I think the replay vindicated Keith Peterson quite a bit. There was a lot of unanswered shots. And I'm aware that Cruz was trying to stand up. He was still somewhat cognizant of what was going on. But there's that whole defend yourself intelligently thing. And a lot of clean punches were getting through.

It wouldn't have been the worst thing for the first thing for the fight to go on, but I don't think it was a bad stoppage either. And I think it was also affected by the fact that people saw it was in the last 10 seconds. And of course, that immediately makes everyone say, oh, just let them go, let it last. If that had been in the middle of the round, it would have been much less controversial. So I understand the immediate controversy, but I think it was very, very quickly, you know, kind of put down by just kind of reviewing it and just looking it over. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a tough judgment call. You got to, you got to air on the side of caution and made a, made a decision. I don't have a, I don't have a,

Big problem with it. I mean, if you want to say it's, it was an early stoppage, I'm not going to argue with you. But I didn't have a huge problem with it. Casey had the thumbs down. So I assume you thought it was a great stoppage. Thumbs down. Great stoppage. No, I'm not happy of the stoppage.

These guys, they fight at such a high level. This is a championship fight. Cruz had taken no serious damage before. It's not like he was knocked down repeatedly. Like, say when Tony, when they stopped the fight with Tony, he had taken damage. He took so much damage. took so much damage. And he wasn't even like,

he'd even get dropped, and he stopped the fight just because of the continual amount of damage he was taking. I think Cruz earned that right to work his way out. He took two clean shots,

the knee and the follow-up cross that dropped him. But everything has him getting up. They say 11 unanswered shots. A lot of those are side of the head, grazing, a couple of them missed. And like I said,

Cruz was getting up. that is intelligent defending yourself. You were getting up. You were trying to defend yourself and move away from those punches. I just think it was a bad stoppage. But I've seen much worse. I've seen much worse earlier stopages.

And like Dominic said, I shouldn't have got neat in the head. Yeah, that was huge. Yeah, for sure. We mentioned Justin Gichi in his turnaround with his career. Let's talk about Francis and Gano. Oh, sorry, Mike, before we move on,

I just want to say, before we move on from Gage and he completely, the odds to say quickly, let's put out odds for Gichi Nomemadov. Nomegma Lov heavily favored, minus 350. And Gichi in almost three to one underdog. So I'm a little surprised of that after what we saw it tonight because Gacy doesn't look human. But respect to the champ, I suppose. What were the actual odds of Habib Ferguson, the fifth one?

I do. I don't think either guy, it was, I don't think either guy was more than, it was like minus, you know, I think it was maybe minus. 150 or 180 something like that but definitely not two to one yeah that's wild so the guy that just whipped up Ferguson actually is a bigger underdog then all right whatever odds are odds sorry mike it's a fantasy fight right now just it seemed just it seemed okay but i mean he took a lot of punishment that fight too so uh it'll be i mean i don't know if it's happening in july like i guess habib might be targeted in july i just don't see it happening then so maybe we are

i think in september october for that fight but that's one that that i'm going to be be looking forward to. And I'm sure everybody watching this as well, we'll look forward to also. But, uh, you know, we mentioned Justin Gaci, his turn around. What about Francis in Gano? 20 seconds was all it took to deliver that thunderous knockout over Jarzino Rosenstrike. And it's funny because it's on what the heck prior to the April 18th iteration of this event before it all got postponed. He said Jarzini reminded him of himself before he fought steep Amyoches. He had that feeling of confidence like he was untouchable. And then, you know, the fight with Steppe happened and everything kind of turned around in the Derek Lewis fight and just something clicked with him.

And now he's just annihilating everybody. Your reaction, Alex Galey, to Francis Ngano quickly putting his prey away. Let me say, I don't believe in jinxes. I don't believe in superstitions. I don't believe in any of that stuff. Okay, I'm the last person to believe any of that stuff. But I believe I reverse jinx this into happening because if you see my predictions on MMA fighting, I said I thought we're going to get. I had Lewis, Inganu, Lewis, Part D is going to go the distance.

And I had Rosenstrike winning a decision. So obviously, a terrible prediction of retrospect. But obviously, one I made for the fans. I took that bullet for everyone so that we could get this finish. I think it was Mukhi Alexander from Bloody Elbo, who made a good point on social media that as impressive as Inganu has been. And by the way, his last four fights, 45 second knockout, 26 second knockout, 71 second knockout. and now 20-second knockout. Despite all that, we haven't seen,

we don't know if we've seen anything new from him. We might have seen an improved and refined version of what we had before, but he's finishing guys so quickly. I couldn't tell you if he fought Steepie again, would it go differently? Or if he fought Daniel Cormier, how would that fight go?

I actually have no idea because, again, we're kind of seeing just a better version of what he was when he burst into the scene. So he has been frigging awesome. And the way he imposed as well on this fight, I actually think was a little bit different what we seen before, because usually he catches guys rushing at him.

This time he said, I'm just going in. I'm not scared. And 20-second finish, that's what we got. So maybe we saw a little, a little bit of a new look from Francis, a new, absolutely terrifying look from Francis. See, that was a good stoppage. That was a good stoppage. No controversy there.

It was too late, if anything. I think the ref saw some of that heat flying. And I think he was like, I don't want to catch one of those. I'm not like, no, no, Biggie boy, you signed up for this, man. You on your own. I think he still, he still looks okay to me. Just give you a second before I hop in there.

Yeah. Holy cow. I jumped up. I screamed watching that. Like, oh, like, that's why I'm happy.

I'm not impressed row right by the cage. I just, I mean, I didn't have any horse in the race, man, but just seeing that power, that violence and that just high level MMA,

high level heavyweight MMA and just, just, that was, that was, that was, he's such a violent, is it a Ford Escort? What is, what did he, what did Dana call him?

I think it was, I think it was, Ford Escort. Ford Escort, yeah. It was just, good stoppage. Good stoppage, brother. Have you guys ever seen anyone like, I think maybe Anthony Rumble Johnson when he was a welterweight,

but I don't know if there was, I don't know if I've ever seen anyone like this at the UFC level finishing people this quickly and in such a scary way. Over and over again. Yeah, and he's like expressionless about it too. Like he doesn't change his facials at all. Even when he just walks away, he's got that look in his eyes, asked about the title.

He just doesn't even smile. Doesn't even acknowledge the win. We just knew it was going to happen. And now he's on to the next one. And what's interesting is, and Alex sort of brought this up, Casey, is, you know, what should happen with this heavyweight division? Because Stevie Mioch doesn't think he'll be ready to fight until the summertime, or at least it'll after the summer, maybe towards the end of the year.

And now you get in Ghanao. You got Daniel Cormier. he's waiting for his last fight. DC versus Ingano is a very interesting matchup like Alex alluded to, but we know he wants that trilogy fight with Stepei, and you can't blame him for that. But what does the UFC do at the top of this division? Can they really strip Stepe Miotr's of this title?

I mean, I think they can, but should they? I mean, is this really possible? Oh, God, I hope they don't strip him. That's horrible. I mean, that's why we have interim belts. Why there's, he, Stepe Miochich, is doing a very important job right now, a job that's so much of important than fighting in a cage for money.

You know, he is, he's a first responder in Cleveland in a worldwide pandemic. So I, the fact that that's even being discussed at stripping him is just bonkers to me. And it kind of really, it feels weird even to try to try to sell the, you know, like that, no, Steve-Bey's doing real stuff right now. Like that, I know. But interim belt, though, I like the way that sounds. Yeah, I mean, the interim board gets thrown out quite a bit in this sport, maybe too much, but I think makes all the sense of the world right now. Look, in terms, guys, in terms, the new undisputed, all right? Really, what?

The way that they're being booked and the way that they're being thrown out there, I mean, we see interim fights as many. We see undisputed fights, so is there really a difference at this point? So, I mean, I still view CEP as a champion, but I mean, if Gano fights whoever next, I can, Korme, I don't know, for an interim bell and takes him out. Is anyone going to argue against Ngano being like the toughest, like, the baddest heavyweight in the world? I mean, I know Steve A beat him, but again, you know, how many fights ago was that now? It's like, what have you done for me lately, right?

So obviously, I'm being a bit flippant and sarcastic about this. But, yeah, no, really, what's the harm in doing an interim title fight? It's much better than stripping Steepey. I think the optics of that are terrible. The man is a firefighter. The man has been a pretty good company man. I mean, I know he's had some negotiation issues with Dana White and with the promotion, but otherwise, he's exactly what you want in a fighter of representing your

company. So don't strip him of the belt just because you're just, you're impatient. Go interim. I mean, interim's fine. Yeah. Eric Bejewan chiming in, Anthony Rumble Johnson versus Francis and Gano. Not now. Not now, but I would love to see that at some point.

Yeah. If D.C. wants to sit around and wait for Steve-Beg, sure. You're just going to get older, you know? but I would absolutely freaking love DC versus Nagano for the interim Yeah And it's funny

I would actually pick DC I think over Nagano right now But man I just think that's such a I just don't know Like Mukhi said from Bloody Elbow I don't know how much better In the ground game Francis is right now

But I think mentally, though, he is ready for that type of fight now. I would agree. And I think D.C. watch that fight very closely because I think if Jarzino won, yeah, I mean, I just don't know if D.C. would have found the sizzle in that fight. But now that in Ghana won and did it so impressively, there's a lot of sizzles of that steak right now. There's a salt and pepper and A1, everything on that fight. So I'm down. I think D.C. will be down for that one as well.

So if you guys got comments, questions, throw them in the conference. comments right now and we will address those. But a bunch of great performances, Calvin Cater, making it happen. The New England, the New England region needed to win badly after DeCastro and Charles Rose's losses. Cater comes out

and it does it. First round was a little testy for a while. Stevens was landing leg kicks and it was beating him up a little bit, but you can see at the end of that first round that Cater was starting to find his rhythm and man, did he deliver with one of the most vicious standing elbow knock

that you will ever see. And just, we were talking about the empty arena and the sound that those things made. And if you think about the memorable sounds of the night, that elbow landing was one of those sounds for me. Thoughts on Calvin Cater's performance, Casey, because that was, that was impressive. That was one of those wins that he really needed to move up. Maybe he's got a top five fight in him. I think that's where the direction that the UFC should go with him.

Your thoughts on that. Yeah, absolutely. I just think Stevens is that guy. if you want to fight those guys, those number one contender guys, you got to beat Jeremy Stevens. And he did. He did it convincingly tonight. He's a bit of a slow starter, so, you know,

he took a bit of a beating in the first round or so. But, yeah, but once Calvin, once he was going all in, man, that was just a beautiful setup, just that elbow. The way Stevens just came in. I think Stevens was, was Stevens throwing a hook. what Stevens was coming into, a Percrosser, I think. And, man, I just, I just, when I see that elbow land, it's like, that's one of those elbows, you throw in training, you throw in the pads, you throw in your coach, and you just go,

oh, my God, if I actually land this in a real fight, I would kill a man. And he did it tonight. So, Alex, where does Calvin Cater go from here? Because I saw a lot of people on Twitter, and I sort of agree with this, Calvin Cater versus Yaira Rodriguez. That tickles my fancy in a big way. Do you agree with that, or do you see something else for the Boston Finlayer? I mean, I've certainly loved that fight.

I mean, it makes sense. Yeah, you just beat Jeremy Stevens and now, now Cater just beat Jeremy Stevens, so why not put the two together, right? I want to say a little bit about his performance first before I speculate on kind of another matchup is that, you know, he could took, he was getting some criticism on the call about getting off to a slow start. And I actually think he was being smart. I think, yes, he may have been giving up a little bit too much ground to Stevens, but I think he did it in such a way that he was bending without breaking, because the last thing you want

to do is kind of rushing. into a fight with Jeremy Stevens, especially if you know you're a better, and I'm sure him in his team thinks so, that he's a better technical striker, then that you don't want to go into a brawl. That's how you lose those, right? Jeremy Stevens can knock out anybody. At 145, 155, this guy can knock on anybody. So I think Cater was so smart. And Cater, once he starts getting those combinations going, man, he's fun to watch. He's one of the most fun guys to watch. And it's the kind of, when he gets in that rhythm, that's how he sets up that finishing blow, right? and one of the prettiest finishing blows that you can see.

So, Cater, gosh, I like that year of matchup. I'm just going off sort of looking at a list here. I can't remember who's sort of booked. Josh Emmett might be interesting, though. I guess he leapfrog Josh Emmett now with that win. I guess a year makes a lot of sense. What's going on with Zombie? What's going on with Zombie again?

He got booked? I know he had surgery, so he's out until the summer. So, I mean, that could be an interesting one. but I don't know if the zombie takes that fight. Yeah, maybe not. I mean, I think it's fun to match, it's fun to kind of do imaginary matchups right now, but I think it's just the reality is international fighters

versus U.S. fighters just aren't happening probably within next six months. Who knows longer? Being positive, seeing six months. So I think, I think, I year will probably be the most likely option. But, yeah, who knows? But, yeah, but cater. Well, Fight Island, where all of our dreams can come true. All are welcome.

All are welcome on Fight Island. Yeah, I don't know if we have too many answers to Fight Island. Is it really happening, or is it just international fighters? Yeah, who knows right now? Yeah. You know, Greg Hardy is going to be living there, so. But you know, it's nice, though, talking about Fight Island a little bit, because that's the first time we mentioned it, for about, I don't know,

for about four or five hours tonight, I didn't think about the pain. pandemic. Didn't think about, you know, didn't think about, you know, the fact that I'm not even at the, there's a reason I'm not at the event, you know, so, uh, it was just nice. It was different. It was, um, uh, not quite normal, but getting there. I think Cater was the first person to bring it up in a post-fight speech. I could be wrong. I know, I know it was, uh, it wasn't really brought up much. I think it was Cater who, um, you know, sent out a positive message regarding the whole, uh, COVID-19 situation. So, yeah, I mean, I don't think people were actively avoiding it, but it certainly, you're right.

It felt a lot like a normal fight night outside of some of the obvious reasons why it wasn't. But, yeah, as far as the tone of the card and the, you know, the distraction and the enjoyment that we get from watching fighting, a lot of that was still there. And I think it's fair for us to say, because, you know, people are still saying it to this point. They were saying it at the news with Jacques Ray and hopefully he's doing good today. And, you know, he's on the mend and coming out on the other side of this. that the media is being negative. Yeah, and the two-cornerment as well and, you know, everyone around those guys. But, you know, the NBA media is being negative again.

Here we go. All this stuff. But, you know, I'm here to say that, you know, to build on what Casey just said, we forgot about the pandemic. We forgot about the crap going on in the world. And the UFC was a big part of that. So I think, you know, despite all the negativity, despite the doubts and the criticism and all that stuff, and all those questions were justified by us.

And you can say we're being negative all you want. But those questions were all justified. The UFC did a hell of a job this week. Jose talked about it on our little reaction video last night, some of the stuff that they've been doing. But the UFC deserves a lot of credit for pulling this event off. And of course, all the fighters coming through and just putting it all out there for us. So before we get into anything else, I believe that needs to be said and well done to them.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, I'm going to say, positive. I'm going to stay positive. I'm really happy that the card went on tonight. And I was never against, I was never against this card happening. We just wanted to make sure that that not only the fighters are safe, that the fighters camps are safe, the hotel staff is safe, that people of Jacksonville are safe, you know, so that's all, that's, you know, that's all we're just asking, like, what are we doing to keep people safe, you know? So, and yeah, overall, I think the UFC did do a good job, and I was excited to watch fights tonight.

Yeah, before the main card, I think Alex K. Lee has a robbery review between Donald Seroni and Anthony Pettis. Yes. For real. And you might even have two coming out of this card, but that one especially because I honestly didn't see one person score that fight for Anthony Pettis. I didn't see it for Saroni. I just don't see how Anthony Pettis won that fight. I mean, he did. So he gets the win and the winner gets the spoils. But did any of you guys score that fight for Anthony Pettis? Well, I'll say, you know, not only do we have a juicy scoring controversy, there was also an eye-poke controversy, which may have directly led to the final result, because there was the fight near the end, which Pettis caught him with something. And then he said it was a punch.

Certainly said he was poke, but I think he didn't get a break, right? So the fight just kept going. And since the fight was pretty close, that may have affected the final score. So not only is it a question of judging, we may have a question of officiating and how that situation was handled. So this could be a very, very juicy rivalry review. I was also looking at the The spars of Watersons fight just because the scorecards were so crazy

I didn't necessarily disagree with the result But anytime you have cards like that All over the place you're like maybe Maybe something was up I'd have to review it And then Alinic and Verdume was also a weird one Again, I don't have a problem with the winner But it was a split and it was kind of a close call But yeah I think we will be talking about

Petisceroni more It'll be one to enjoy watching it too It was a great fight with respect to the controversy It was a really really good fight And the best possible kind of rematch you can ask for Okay, well, apparently I was incorrect because now we're seeing the media scores from MMA decisions. And it's six for Pettus and seven for Serooney. So there you go.

I guess I didn't look at M.A decisions, but I'm just judging by the wonderful world of Twitter and my own command center here. But that's controversy. That's like split down the middle. I mean, that is controversy. You know what I mean? That's a perfect, that's a perfect Robert's review if I ever saw one. You get the very rare double 3027s on each side. And look, I guess we have to give credit to Stephen A. Smith, because look, I obviously

it was, I said I never bring this guy up, but I just, I had to passively, aggressively mock him now. Look, before the McGregor, the McGregor fight, he performed terribly. Stephen A. Smith suddenly calls him out. It causes this big hullabaloo. Questions of performance. Gets Serrani to admit that he just wasn't there in the McGregor fight. And suddenly, Serroney comes back and has a strong performance. So I'm just saying, you know, cause and effect,

Stephen Smith might be responsible for Donald Serony's turnaround. I'll be working on that story this week. We'll see. But, yes, just to bring up that clown, if he ends up taking credit for this fight, I'm just saying I just people don't say I didn't warn you. There you. Greg Hardy got back in the wind column, defeating Yorgen to Castro.

Of course, Pettis gets the win over Soroni. I want to talk about Bryce Mitchell because I feel like he was someone that got a lot of attention tonight after that performance over Charles Rosa. That was phenomenal. I was grappling 101. Props to Rosa, too. He was kind of like the Tony Ferguson of the submission defense world. You know, it was in compromising positions. The entire fight, it was able to go the distance.

But, man, Bryce Mitchell, making it happen. He goes out in the post-fight scrum and says that he wants to catch the coronavirus so he can learn. how to deal with it. It's going to make his immune system stronger. Yep, those are actual words from a from thug nasty, but this is what we are. But, you know, we're talking about fantasy matchmaking. And I feel like with fantasy matchmaking, I think that that one got fantasy matchmaking the most after Bryce Mitchell's win. Everyone's like, oh, Bryce Mitchell versus Ryan Hall, which I know gets Alexander K. Lee excited. What, guys, I just black, I just blacked up.

He turned the AC on. See the hot in here. He's sweaty. Where are we? I assume we know where you guys are heading. I don't want to, but I don't want to, like, that's a great fight. That's a great fight and that's something for me future-wise. There's a lot of great fights for Mitchell right now. I think Andre Fili is a good step up.

Yeah. I think it's a name. You know, Feeley had a good fight with Sudik Yusuf. And I think like we're, rankings don't mean anything really. But if you look at probably where both of these guys are ranked overall, I think that match makes the most sense. It probably jumps Mitchell up like three or four spots. a win probably gets them into the top 15.

And then we can start talking about the wizardry that would be Bryce Mitchell versus Ryan Hall. That's my thoughts. Where do you guys go? I'll throw another one out there for you, another undefeated guy. And this would be interesting. I think this guy's a good grappler too. And also I'd like to see the culture clash.

How about Arnold Allen? I know Arnold Allen. He's 7 and 0 in the UFC. So he probably should be a little bit further ahead than Bryce Mitchell. But for whatever reason, he can't seem to really get like a big marquee fight. But if he was willing to take that fight, I think that would be such an intriguing, another kind of intriguing grappling matchup

and really a big test for Mitchell. But I was so impressed with how he dominated Rosa. Everyone knows Rosa is a great grappler. And Mitchell was just fantastic. And just going for that arm triangle, that twister, and just getting those positions over and over again, it was sensational. So if Arnold Allen was willing to put his 7-0 UFC record

against Mitchell's 4-0 UFC record, that could be a really good fight. do you agree with that casey another name that was throwing out quite a bit was uh was crone gracie but again you know unless it's on the i you know you can do that fight i'm not usually into grappler versus grappler fights in m m mhm a i just think that's not what mhms for you know um but um but you know i was super impressed because that you know Bryce mitchell's last performance is uh twister submission i kind of i kind of put that well it was a nice submission but his opponent was you know, not the top tier of 45er in the UFC.

Charles Rosa, to me, is a very good 45 or. Maybe not ranked 45er, but I think he's a tough dude. He's a very strong talent. And he freaking dominated him. I think I scored it straight 10-8s. Did everyone score it 10-8 every round pretty much? Yeah. Yeah, I think one judge gave it.

I think there were two 30-25s and one 30-24. And it was just, and not like just, I'm just going to hold you down. tonight like Rosa was fighting for his life for his neck for his arm the entire 15 minutes maybe 14 minutes and 50 seconds of that fight he was defending a submission

I would say and it was just so incredibly impressive the cardio the actually the athleticism that Mitchell had I was just I was actually I didn't expect and you know you go through your fight picks and everything and some you know some picks I'm bragging about I'm like oh I totally

know them I totally knew Gatia she was going to Knockout Ferguson. I got it. Man, the one I was way off on was Bryce Mitchell. I thought, actually, I picked Rosa to win. I thought Rosa would win, like, dominantly. Woo, I'm stupid. So, Bryce Mitchell, yeah, Bryce Mitch versus Haw versus Crom versus Arnold Allen.

I think right now he's, his type of grappling is exciting no matter who he faces. So I think it's wide open for him. And he got his camo shorts. And please just do that. What are we doing? I mean, what are we doing, Reebok? Done. Geez.

Maybe they can't find them. Maybe they can't find them because they're camo. Oh, I see what you did there, Casey. I see what you did there. Even at 2.18 a.m. here at Eastern Standard Time. I get you. I receive what you're throwing at me. Anything else really stick out to you?

Nico Price versus Vicente Lucke. I just want to throw this fight out there because my older brother, Bob, who doesn't really watch MMA that often, and he's more of a WWE guy, sent me a text out of nowhere and said, this fight is awesome. So now the, now casuals are watching, I think that was an important fight to put on the prelims, especially at that time with everyone being in the house because, you know, people who don't necessarily watch sport that off and got to watch it,

and they were like, what the hell is this? This is awesome. Thoughts on Vicente Lucke versus Nico Price, the performance from both guys, especially for Vicente Lucke getting that big win coming off the Wonderboy fight. that was a nice performance from both of those guys. The fight was super exciting, Alex. What do you think? I mean, honestly, you know, if we're talking about like the most competitive fight

of the night and also exciting, that was, I mean, that probably should have been the fight of the night. I agree. I agree. I was watching and, like, I was trying to see, man, are they ever going to leave? You know, there's the mini octagon in the middle of the octagon, you know, the kind of the outline of the octagon. They never, they almost never stepped out of the line.

There was maybe a couple of times when Price was able to push. Lou Kay back and get them out of there. Other than that, they would always reset and just right in front of each other. I'm not even going to make some social distancing gag, you know, whatever. But they were never, honestly, almost there was maybe a few seconds of stretches of the fight where they weren't standing in each other's range and just trading. It was so, so, so good. So for me, that actually might have been the fight of the night.

As exciting, as amazing as Gasey's performance was, it sort of became, it almost became difficult to watch after a while, how much punishment. he was laying down against Ferguson. And Ferguson was doing his best to fireback, but he was soundly getting beaten. That Lucke Price fight, that felt like it was up in the air for a while. Yeah, it was a wild affair. A couple of other news and notes coming out of tonight.

The scorecards have been released for Ferguson versus Gagie, and two of the judges gave Tony Ferguson round two. What do you think of that? You know, I do recall it being better than the one ever first. The one second he wanted that. Yeah, that would have to be it, right? You did drop him, yeah. But I didn't know if that was enough to win the round, though.

I kind of had it four rounds for Gichi. I was going into the... Yeah, I mean, he literally, like, Gatji lost one second of that round. I mean, like, if he gets dropped in the first second of that round, and then he dominates the rest of the round like he did, like, that's, no, that's just, that's... That's Florida. Florida, that's just, I'm just going to go Florida. That's it.

Let me just go Florida. Dana White did his post-fight scrum with the media and announced that Alex Volcanovsky versus Max Holloway, the rematch will be the next featherweight title fight. Alex, you look stunned. Why? What is the – I am definitely not one of the people who – I mean, I saw like maybe a little bit of backlash when Volcanovsky won because it wasn't like this nonstop action fight. you know, it was a full dismantling of the champion, which I think is pretty damn impressive. But I know there wasn't that big moment where he, like,

rocked Max or, like, had him and, like, had him and, like, had him, like, came close to finishing him. And that's fine. If you don't, you know, you don't love watching that fight, that's one thing. But I think he's unquestionably the champion. With respect to Max, who was a good champion, how many defenses did Max have? Three?

Two or two, I think. Maybe two? That, to me, is not like a dominant champion. It felt longer. He had it for a while. There's some injuries or some fights to fail. through, you know. So it felt longer, you know.

But I mean, if you're counting days, that's your way of gaging how like Domina, how the longevity, the quality of a champion's run, that's not how to go about it. Kane Velasquez, I think, has a super long run as heavyweight champion. And again, he definitely didn't defend it as many times during that stretch as we would have liked to have seen. So I love Max, you know, look, he's, he's an honorary Canadian. We love him up here. I definitely honorary Torontonian.

He loves the Raptors. But if I'm speaking objectively, I would love to see someone else get a shot at Okunovsky first. That's a strange one to me. Unless no one else is healthy or ready to take this fight, maybe they know more than we do. But no, just on paper at a glance, do not like that immediate rematch. I find that kind of just boring matchmaking. Yeah, I think TKZ. That would have been fun. A little fight aisle in action, but who knows about it back in time. I'm going to share a quick photo, and this is one of those. So you want to be an effing fighter photos. Oh, here we go. I know. Oh, God. Oh, you are you?

Where do you go? I just had it. All right, here we go. Brace yourselves. Oh, first of all, we should check in the comments and I'll look at them later. Yeah, who do you think, who do you guys think this is? This is an actual human being that is not makeup and that is someone who fought tonight. Oh, my goodness.

Wow. I love to know. I'll check the comments later maybe to see who do people think this is. But, like, send that man, send his family. $50,000, please. Tax free, please give me to them. Do you want to tell people who were, this lovely visage that we're staring at here?

Oh, apparently is a man who jumped in front of a train. He might have been better off. Yeah, he might have been a better off he had, if we're being honest. Man, that is Nico Price. Yes. Good Lord. That is. And somewhere he's smiling in that, in that expression.

I think he's hitting the blue steel, actually, which is even more. So, Nico's looking good. Nichols are good on him he'll probably be on Twitter tomorrow asking to fight on Fight Island next month a couple more things from Dana White's Scrum if you've been watching this a whole time Dana White says a new Bannamweight champion

will be crowned soon he said it'll be Peotor Yan versus somebody and Dana says the matchmakers will figure that out next week so maybe Marlon Marais is uh I don't know if he's getting me I don't know he's still the number one rank guy so if rankings actually mean something then Jan versus Mariah

should be for the title. But I do like the tournament aspect. I think that's the way to go. But at the end of the day, we're still going to get what we want because if they do, well, now we have some, Jan and Marais,

and then you got Sterling and Sanhagen. So, I mean, either way, the two winners are going to match up anyways. So, President Trump, good. The other one, I think a lot of people were talking about, nothing in the works

regarding a trilogy fight between Connor and Nate Diaz, because apparently those two are tuck a trash on Instagram today. And although I think that's the fight to make for Connor, especially after tonight. If Connor wants to get back in there sooner rather than later, I mean, who else is there? I think that's the fight to make. I don't know if they can afford what those guys would ask for a trilogy fight at this point, given some of the financial issues that Endeavor and the EOC might be having.

Those guys would be asking for a lot of money, and rightfully so, because that third fight, I don't care how long it's been since the last one. that's really one of the biggest fights you can make. I would argue to the casual fan, still much bigger than Habib No Megamatov and Connor McGregor, but that's just my take on it. So I hope those people guys get compensated

if that fight does happen. Kind of just to pick on something before you. Hey, look, people want to see Steve a fight again? I guarantee you, you send him the check with the right number on it. Trust me, he'll put aside some of his other responsibilities and get back in that cage. So if you want to know why these fights aren't happening,

listen, that's the main reason. All right, UFC, Dana White, whoever's in charge, whoever signed the checks, you got to take care of these people. Okay, so fans, don't worry about all the trash talk, don't worry about all the politics or whose fault it is that a fight isn't happening. Cut the check, and it doesn't matter. Don't worry.

We won't be talking about who's blaming who. These fights will happen. And the last couple of things, Dana White, May 23rd, still in the works. They're hoping Apex in Las Vegas. I know contracts haven't been signed yet, but Gilbert Burns versus Tyler Woodley is supposedly going to be the main event for that card. And then the last thing I want to bring up is Judge Chris Lee, one of the judges for Ferguson versus Gachie, scored the fifth round 10-7 for Justin Gagee. And the other two scored a 10-8, but the rare 10-7 came out of there.

Yeah, why were there? I saw that. Why were the, why do they do they do that? That's a great question. Do we just go with the same answer of Florida? Florida. I mean, we're just going to go back to that. Yeah.

I could see them like the judges just going like, oh, our job is done. And someone say, oh, guys, you missed the last, you missed the last box. You make sure to fill that in. You just have to. And they're like, okay, sure. Yeah, get back out there and score that card. Yeah, yeah, you guys aren't done. You're finished your job yet.

Yeah, but I mean, I think I, I mean, he finished the fight. So that's like a 10-0-0, really, if you were scoring the fight out, 10-7, 10-7, like, why? 10-7, 10-5? What doesn't matter? There was no, the fight ended. Yeah, that's a strange point. That round was definitely a 10-4. Come on, guys.

It wasn't 10-7. Oh, are you insane? What am I saying? What am I saying? They got a new champ. I'd give it a 10A because of Tony Ferguson. Look at that smile. Oh, good.

He took a picture with the belts. Okay. He's got the belts. All right. For anyone who didn't see after, he did say, like, oh, I want to wait for the real thing. But he appreciates it. He respects a good photo app. So, they can picture with the title.

Yep, now he gets that championship money along with it. So, what a night? I mean, what else can we say at this point? I mean, there's probably a million other things we could talk about. I know we skipped a back. Carlos Spars gets a win, so she's back on track. I have Michelle. I judged it.

I had Michelle winning that fight. I did too. That's another robbery. Yeah. I wonder what I made a decision. One judge had a 3027 for Waderson, so you're certainly not off. One of the judges. I thought it was Michelle's fight.

So I guess that makes up with the Courtney Casey decision. Tusha. But there you have it. You'll see 249 in the books. And then, you know, you think we're going to be off for a while, but no, we're not. Wednesday night, we're back at it again. We do it again. I'm tired.

Anthony Smith versus Globetts Chera. And then a week from tonight, we do it again. Walt Harris versus Alastair over him. Obviously, these cards are a little bit thinner than we saw tonight, but usually that means that the action is going to be fantastic. So, Alex, any parting words on the UFC's return? Hey, man. Thanks to everyone for fun tuning into this show.

Everyone who follows our site, you know, I know it's been a very, very weird time to read about MMA. You know, we've been trying to bring you stories, you know, both. updates on the UFC situation and also, you know, what fighters are doing during just the coronavirus pandemic and how they're preparing, how they're training, and, you know, and whatever other usual odds stories you bring you. So we've been trying to keep the normal coverage. Guys, I know people have been sticking around and I've been reading and we always appreciate it. And I hope everyone enjoyed the fights tonight, you know, however you feel about it, you know,

how safe the event was and how good the UFC was with their safety precautions. Credit to the fighters and staff and everyone were putting it together. And again, also for the fans, again, for sticking with it. and just being passionate as always. You guys are freaking crazy. Casey, parting thoughts. I just, I'm happy things you're going to get back to normal. I'm hoping things you're going to get back to normal.

I'm happy to watch fights. I'm happy to do my job in the full sense, not just to stay busy part of doing the job. And yeah, I'm just a happy fighters got paid. I'm happy, just, you know, things are going good right now. and I'm hoping everyone gets home safe. I hope everyone's tests come out negative. And we still have those things.

And I hope the next two fight cards are awesome. And yeah, I'm just trying to, hoping things stay awesome. And I just, what was that? What was yesterday? Friday. I went down to San Diego. And for the first time in maybe two months, I actually shot a video.

I went to a gym. And we did a little behind the same. scene's training video with Angela Hill who will be fighting the co-main event against Claudia Good Data. And so we did like a big social distance training video at Alliance. And that was very fun. And we should have that out sometime this week. That's awesome.

And then I pretty much am going to jump on the shoulders of both of these gentlemen. Thank you guys all for watching and listening. I know I'm kind of the new kid on the block. And the feedback's been great. So I appreciate that very much. Of course, there's the people who call me Dana White's Long Loss Sun. and whatever that i appreciate that as well uh whatever you guys have to say but that means you're watching and that's great so uh shout out to all the fighters phenomenal night i mean i really enjoyed

it like casey said it kind of made us forget about what's going on in the world and uh i'd be remiss if we didn't shout out our guy jose youngs who's on the ground hoes on the ground in jacksville just doing a fantastic job out there uh jose youngs the a side man uh just doing big things out in jacksville we appreciate everything he's doing we're in the mask and going through and getting swabbed up the nose towards the brain. I'm sure that sucked for him. But, you know, all for you guys. All for you guys.

He's making that happen. So, so that's it. So I think, I think we're doing the A-side on Monday. I think that's the plan. Is that, you know,

we're not quite sure. Everything's so up in the air. Yeah, because USC's doing another virtual media day. We're not sure if it's at the same time right now. Oh, okay. Yeah. We'll find out.

Well, something will be, we'll have something out there. Either be UFC content or we're just blabbing about fights. Yes, all of that will be happening. So thank you all for watching. Again, to all the moms out there, happy Mother's Day. We salute you, you hardworking ladies out there.

Kudos to you. This day is yours. So hopefully, you know, I'm not going to probably even sleep at this point. You know, I've got to get up with my kid in like three hours to make breakfast and do the whole Mother's Day thing. So, and then back at it with Alex Kaley, we got a cool new little feature coming out sometime tomorrow. I think you guys will dig, you know, kind of going back with the matchmaking stuff. So for Alex Klee and Casey Liden, I am Mike Kack, hope you guys enjoyed UFC 249. Thanks for watching.

Have a great rest of your night.