MMA Fighting - UFC 281 Post-Fight Show | Reaction To Alex Pereira's Stunning Finish Of Israel Adesanya

Episode Date: November 13, 2022

Needing a finish heading into the fifth and final round, Alex Pereira landed his most powerful shots when he needed them the most and stunned Israel Adesanya to become the brand new UFC middleweight champion of the world to cap off a memorable UFC 281 event. MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew react to Pereira's comeback win, whether or not the stoppage was too early, and discuss the potential of a massive rematch. Additionally, they talk Zhang Weili stopping Carla Esparza to regain the strawweight title, the chaotic Dustin Poirier vs. Michael Chandler fight — which was won by Poirier via a third-round submission — Frankie Edgar retiring with a devastating knockout from the perfectly timed flying knee of Chris Gutierrez, along with other notable moments from the UFC's return to Madison Square Garden in New York. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian 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-fi 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. 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 Cudullian 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-fi 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 two, ghosts in the machine.

Available now, only from Audible. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. As I said multiple times today, or yesterday, as it may be now, the buzz was real. Throughout the day in New York City, and man, did it carry over? into Madison Square Garden for UFC 281.

We got two new world champions crowns, including a come from behind stunner in the main event as we welcome you to the live UFC 281 post-fight show. Thank you for joining us. Got a lot of coverage, a lot going on. I am Micak joined by Mr. Jedmishu, who is still on with us, still live with us. She's been live for a lot of tonight's festivities,

but I'm so excited to have desk at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Let's go. Let's go, baby. Hell of a night of fights, oh, baby. Hell of a night of fights. What a card this was. We have a new middleweight champion. Yeah, it's definitely up there in the conversation.

I know this is a recency bias thing, but I feel like this one is right up there. We have a new middleweight champion of the world. Alex Pereira heading into the fifth round, needing a finish against Israel at Asana. and he goes in there and gets it done. So two questions, Jed. One, what was your reaction to the way this one unfolded,

especially the conclusion of it? And the other big question that people continuously are asking, and Israel Adasania mentioned it at the press conference. Was the stoppage a good one? Were you okay with it? So we talked about the stoppage on the post-pressure show. I'm fine with it. I don't want to delve too deep into it.

You can go back and watch that if you really want my opinion on it. I am always on the side of I'd rather see one too many shots than one too few so I could have seen one one or two more I didn't think I was not like that's a bad stoppage in real time and certainly when you go back and watch the replay of it Izzy's hands are nowhere near protecting him and his head is staring down at the mat like he is the textbook definition of no longer intelligently defending himself so stoppage is fine could have gone a couple more and I wouldn't hate it but I don't think think this needs to be a story to talk about here. It is what it is. And the reality is, even if the stoppage doesn't happen, him being that close should warrant a 10-8, 10-7 there and probably change nothing about the outcome here. The right guy got his handraise at the end. As for the second, my thoughts were, I'm an extremely online person. I don't know about you, Mike, but I'm on the Twitter machine a whole lot. And while a number of fun things have been happening in the

Twitter world this past week or so. Prior to that, a meme had been expanding very heavily of a lovely gentleman with a graph. And the graph was a line and then two, you know, drawing a square of, you know, the more you're going to find out. And Israel Adasanya effed around. And boy, did he find out. Like, that was my take on it. Like, I have no idea what Izzy's game plan was. It is, I've said it before. I am not him, right? He is obviously much better at the fist fighting of people than I am.

But if you told me coming into this fight that he was going to willingly back up and put himself against the fence and close, fight in a condensed space with this, man, I would have felt really confident that eventually Pahedah is going to get a knockout. And that's sort of what happened because to me his advantage was always in space and movement. You know, in kickboxing, it's a ring. It's easier to cut somebody off. It's easier to put him in a corner.

He can't angle out as simply. It's a big ocean of space and is he so good at moving through it. And we saw at points in this fight him do that. But he also, for just huge amounts of time, was seemingly uncomfortable, letting Peta dictate the pace coming forward, trying to hand fight and look for counters. that is you cannot do that.

You can't do it for as much as he did. And the fact that he got away with it as long as he did is impressive. But he effed around too much and he found out. And like it's hard for me to see this any other way than the same way his other fights have gone. He is the more talented fighter, but it only, it doesn't take much with Beheada. And he keeps giving Bejta chances. And that's what's going to happen if he continues to fight in the same way. Yeah, it was definitely interesting because we obviously were doing the watch party as the fight was going down or watching it.

And Adasania through three because the third round is the one where he almost got the finish, right? That was the third round where or was the fourth? No, well, the first round is where Adasanya almost got the finish at the end of the first round where he buzzed him. Oh, that's right. That's right. That's the first round. The third round is where Adasania gets the take town and is controlling the grass. grappling very, very heavily. The fourth, not a ton happens in the fourth.

Right. And what was interesting about Dana White's post-fight press conference was he pinpointed that fourth round as like a pivotal point as to why Adasani lost that fight. Like he wasn't aggressive enough. He kind of let Pereira get back into it. And he lost the round, but he didn't do a whole lot to really get Pereira to back away from him or do much. I don't. I don't know if I necessarily buy that. I think I'm more on your side where. Yeah. Do you?

I mean, the aggression, sure. But I think it does certainly have a lot to do with him. Just going up against the fence and playing with fire just a little bit too much. Like he was doing okay. He knew he was going to get hit and he did. But Pereira just wasn't landing that big clean 100% shot. And when you play with fire too much, you're just going to get burnt, man. and that's what happened in that fifth round.

It is. And that's, it wasn't. So I actually a little bit of agree with Dana just because the third room was so strong for Izzy. And it looked like Beheada was fading. Like it looked like he, he was tired. And then Izzy didn't really come and put it on him. And I felt the same in the second where he has, he has Beheada hurt at the end of that round. Like in real bad trouble, he said himself at the postpresser, you give me five more seconds in this fight's a wrap.

And yet despite that, he doesn't. doesn't come out and try and try and do it. He doesn't come and put it. Paheta wins the second round because his his strategic choices were baffling. A lot of his tactical choices were brilliant. I loved what he did with the clinch. He was doing great work hand fighting, but his overarching just comfort.

And to some extent almost felt like he was inviting it. Like it was hubris of, I'm going to beat this guy this way. I have no idea what was going on there. it but I tweeted I think in the second round I was like Izzy can win this fight if he keeps doing this he's that good it's possible but it's it's the worst possible way to fight this and it is ultimately where it happened like

DC said it I think immediately afterwards or maybe it was Anick and I wrote about it this week and I've been saying it for a long time it's like yes Izzy is is technically able to do this but giving a man like that 25 minutes is so, so intrinsically dangerous. And it's so much safer to just try and get him out of there. And I think it is he come and just been like, I'm going to set the tone. I think it would have been fine because those punches padela landed would have put most men to sleep. Izzy was still there.

Like he can take a shot. He's got a good damn chin on him. And he needed to do a little more. And at every point in time, he just kind of wasn't. And it's weird to approach it like this because this man was three minutes away from getting this big win. But if they do do the rematch at some point, like, I'm going to take Beheada because I can't trust that Izzy's going to fight to maximize his chances to win this one. They're definitely going to try to go back to this rematch as quickly as possible because it's going to be absolutely gigantic when it happens. I don't know if they're going to do it.

I don't know if they're going to do in the States or somewhere else. but the one thing I thought about in the aftermath of all of this was after Alex Pereira beat Sean Strickland, after 276, we did our ranking show and we talked about Alex Pereira. And we had this discussion on whether or not, like, we don't know if Alex Pereira is the best middleweight in the world or if he's like the 11th best middleweight in the world. And I feel like even after this performance, I'm still not sure. Like I'm still not sure. Like maybe he just says he's number. I don't know. Like did you learn anything new from Alex Pereira?

Like we knew the dangers that this man possesses with his hands. We know how powerful he is. But did you learn anything truly new about him in this fight? I did. My estimation went up a little bit because I'll tell you what I learned. That man has got real, real heart because I thought he was in real trouble at the end of that first round and coming out for the second. one tremendous corner work they told them everything correctly at all points in time to that first round it was you get better like let's let's settle this down you got you got a minute to recover uh heading into

the fifth they told them no uncertain terms you got to knock this two dollars you want to be champion it's now it's now or never do it they also pulled the ice trick get by them a couple extra seconds to charge up in batteries you know savvy work from there and it's i thought they did a great job and he had heart because I thought that after that first round, things were going to be really bad, came out, won that second round. I thought after the third round, things were really bad. He came out and lost that round, but he wasn't done. He was not defeated.

And then he came out in the fifth, and he did. And I think it was Cormier definitely that says he knows he's got the Zit. This is the last five. He's going to dump everything he's got here. And he did. Like, this is, he was prepared for 25 minutes of fighting. He fought in a way to do that. We learned that he's got some real.

clear deficiencies in the grappling department as well. We kind of all assume that, but they're confirmed. But it may not matter because he hits really hard. He's so good on the feet. We're not going to talk about it because of everything else. But like the stuff he was doing on the feet, Izzy was doing better. But when you're going toe to toe with Israel Disseigne and having your moments and winning, his body work, his kicks, like he was doing his checking of kicks.

He was, he's so very good there. that there are a handful of dudes, I think, I'd pick to beat him at this point just because of how deficient he is on the ground. But it would not surprise me at all if he could beat every one of them because he's, he is very talented in one very clear aspect. And so, and now I know that he is not a wilting lowly. He is, maybe he's not all the way ready for MMA yet. Like he still needs some more dev time, but this dude has what it takes when, when it gets down to brass tax. add is a huge, huge feather in his cap. I agree with a lot of you just said,

and this is why I had Pereira ranked higher than anybody else after that fight. I just, I mean, it didn't have like number two or anything, but I think I had him higher than anybody else. I agree with the heart thing. The one other thing that that really stood out to me about Pereira's performance is that this man does not get over emotional at all. Like, he was in some tough spots. And I thought like the big,

I thought the big factor in this fight was that, Izzy was going to do what he did through the first three rounds, and then Pereira was going to get, was going to get frustrated and try to overcompensate and try to make something happen. And he just stayed stoic and calm and cool the entire time.

And that was a really key element to me in this fight. Of course, in the fifth, he needed a finish. So we went out and got a little more aggressive. But even then in the fifth, like, he was very smart about it. He didn't go in there and just try to go bananas and try to drop kick him out of the octagon. He was still very,

calculated with how he handled himself. And I think that makes him such a dangerous guy that, you know, it's not just no emotion at the press conference. Like, he didn't even smile when he won the belt. He was just like, do-do-do-do-do, just very stoic the whole way. But I just thought his ability to stay patient, even when the times got tough, despite not having a ton of experience in MMA was super impressive to me. Oh, yeah, man, absolutely. And that, that was a thing that I never had. I was not really concerned with that aspect of it from him just because he has so much combat sports experience that I never really thought he would get out of his skis in that regard But I didn't know what he would look like if somebody grappled him for a while and he got tired, you know like that's because m m m.a is very it is a very different tire to be grappling tired than it is to be kickboxing tired and he did didn't matter came through like he's he's built for the shit man and I don't know if he's going to have a long rain. I don't know if he's going to lose the belt immediately.

I know he is for real. He is a legitimate top middleweight in the world. And he's fascinating. I'm so excited to see what goes on with him. Because even though he might not be the best guy and he might be like the fifth best guy, he is compelling. And that that's what I'm here for. Yeah, he's kind of got star potential. He may not express a lot of emotion, but he knows where that hard camera is at all times. tremendous performance, tremendous fight. And worst case scenario for Pereira, he's going to get two more, at worst, he's going to get two more cracks at Adasania.

So if Adasania wins the rematch, you know they're going to do a trilogy fight. So, yeah. Worst case at Ario, he fights Adasania two more times. So he's going to get a couple of them. He's got to get one huge bag. He might get two, like on all of this. It's insane. How incredibly funny is it?

If they rematch and he just knocks out of Asani. you again. It's just like, Izzy, you're, you're really good. You just can't ever beat this dude. It sucks to be you. It's just unbelievably bad luck. Because, like, again, I think Paheda will lose pretty soon. Like, he won't put together the run as he did in any regard.

I'd be pretty shocked, given his age and his clear deficiencies. But it's just like, yeah, I didn't need to. I know that I'm better at this guy at the things that he does. And he's not good at the other aspects of MMA to overcome that. so I'm just going to beat him. It would be awesome. And beat him he did in pretty surprising fashion. Just a fun fight, and it just capped off just a very chaotic and fun car.

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but you were on the watch party with us as this fight was happening. Carla had herself a pretty decent first round. She didn't win the first round, but she was much more competitive that I thought she was going to be. You know, she got a take down. She actually held Zhang down for a little while, which, I mean, John eventually got back to her feet, won the round. But still, Carla had her moments. And then second round, John Waley just goes in there and finishes her in the second.

And what we just knew is just a matter of time. But Carla, you know, I got to give it to her. She came out focused, ready to go. She wasn't afraid at all. and she got right after it. She was striking with her. She was landing shots, got a couple of takedowns, one stuck for a little bit longer than the others.

And I thought she had a good accounting of herself. She just got outmatched and outpowered and out-athleted, out-athleted, whatever that word's going to be. But good fight, but John Wei Lee is just, I mean, John Wei Lee is just a different animal. And we've seen what happens when Carla takes on these fighters who were just incredible athletes that are just really strong and really powerful. And John went in there and got the job done.

Yeah. And that's, you really sums it up. Well, it is, I was impressed by Carla, maybe not how she performed, but the way in which she did it,

right? Because she came into that fight believing she could win. And that is not necessarily what I would have thought would have happened, but she came in and struck with Wiley Zhang. And she did fine at it. And it's because some part of strike, is just confidence, right? The willingness to hit and get hit to not be afraid of what's coming back.

And she was clearly not afraid. I changed a little bit after Zhang hit her in the second and you started to see her get a little bit more desperate for those takedowns and then the end came as it did. But that first round, she was not afraid to go in there and say she did not come in there with the mindset of if I do not get takedowns, I am going to get just duck hunted right here. is I got to go in and I'm going to fight her. The takedowns will come, but I'm comfortable striking with her. And it showed. And I don't think, like I said, I was extremely clear. I don't think there was ever a world in which she could have won this fight.

But she went in there to give it her best shot, and she did. And that's commendable. And she, I thought she lost the first round, but she looked better than I anticipated. And, you know, maybe if Zhang doesn't quite get that tie up on the back crucifix, because we saw it happen in the first round she went for the same position and Carla just got a freed her arm turned and had top on her maybe the same thing happens here and she can start building some momentum ultimately that's not what happened and I don't think there was any way else for it to go

but she gave a good accounting of herself and that's as best as you can ask I hope just people gain a little bit of extra respect for her so the next time she fights she's not getting booed out of every building that she's He lasted longer than Jessica and Drozge did. Yeah. A hundred percent. Do you feel like the UFC is going to go back to the Rosewell? Or do you think maybe they give, you think they'll go with Amanda Lamosh?

What do you think they're going to do here? I don't know. I just don't think it's going to be Rose. Maybe they do because they love Rose. But it is, to me, it is impossible to sell her even with the two wins over Zhang, just because the last taste, everyone. has in their mouth is literally the worst fight of all time like the in modern m m m mace rose carla two is the worst fight of all time you know that and that is the last experience people have with her

i'm not saying they can't sell it because they probably still could but you just have rose fight somebody and it's fine do limos limoche can can fight wiley coming off a big win impressive performance over the woman who should have gotten the title shot already so yeah do limoche, that's fine, and Rose can fight somebody else. Not Carla, never put those two women against each other, ever, ever again. But she just picked somebody else. I can't even think off the top of my head who, I mean, you could do Rose Marina. They're both coming off L's.

Like, that's, that's fine. However they want to do it, I just, it's hard for me to envision they give Rose a title shot, given how bad that performance was. We go to the featured bout. And look, Chandlerport. delivered. It was just a wild, crazy fight. I don't think it's going to be like the fight of the year. It'll probably be on the top, on some top five list for sure. But to me, like, if there's a category for the gnarliest fight of the year, this one has to be the gnarliest fight of the year.

We saw, we saw everything. We saw momentum. We saw, I mean, we saw Dustin Porier taste a pint of Michael Chandler's blood in this fight. So much blood. It was the gnarliest fight. And Dustin before he gets gets a freaking submission win in the third round i mean just the gnarliest fight of the year so yeah i think narliest that's a great term for what happened so much blood um a lot of like semi cheating apparently um and also like actually true if you're watching in real time great fight uh we were talking about on the on the watch along it's rare that fights like this live up to the expectation it happens but usually you hype something up and it doesn't deliver and this one, we all thought it was going to,

even knowing that about how fights work. We're like, it really seems like there's no way that this fight doesn't deliver. And then it did. Just two dudes getting out there chucking. Incredibly fun. Great win for Porier. He's going to fight Benny Derrius.

He's going to lose to Benny Derrush. My thought in this fight, my overarching thought outside of, wow, this is cool and everything going on is, yeah, I think both of these guys would not do very well against, like, the young high. that's in this division that hadn't gotten the chance yet, you know, like, I don't, if Dustin Porier fights is a Markachev, that's just a murder.

That's all that's going to happen. And I feel really, really similar for Michael Chandler. It's just they're great guys, great fighters, long, illustrious careers, and I'll support the hell out of it and watch every time they fight until from here to eternity. but I think they're not really like in the top five lightweights anymore. But they can still deliver one of the five best fights of the year. And that matters a lot more. Yeah, Porre is the difference in power between Porre and Chandler was immense.

Like Chandler was landing and he hit Porre had some good shots, but he was just thrown with everything he had. Porre was just landing jabs. Yeah, and Chandler was like a cartoon. It was like Homer Simpson getting in a fight. Like when you get hit with a jab and your face just starts to color up, like you could see just such a clear difference in the power, even the technique too. Because when Poria was landing, like it was, you could see it immediately on Chandler's face. Poria gets a really good flick on the wrist. Poria has always been like sneaky one of the hardest hitters in the division because he doesn't.

He packs a punch without having to put a lot of weight into it. Chandler has power, but his power is all explosion. It's all toes up leaning in punch, you know. It's not the same. We're not working with the same gear. And that still can work. And for a minute there, really look like it might work on Poirier. But we were talking about on the watchalong.

The problem with the way Chandler fights is he maybe doesn't gas out, gas out, but his power bar goes down. Like the power he packs his punches drops because a lot of that is just an energy-based punch. It's not natural heavy-handedness and mechanics. And so Chandler wins the second round with the grappling. But at the end of that first round, after he's really thrown a bunch of huge, huge shots, Porre is just kind of sitting in the pocket, getting the hands going rolling. And then you see him light him up with just snaps, just flicks, nothing big and getting it going. Like, Porreier, dude still has really, really good boxing.

And that's really what carried the dude. day. I know that's not how he won. Obviously, gets a great submission, but he won that fight with his boxing. Yeah, great performance from Destin Pori. Just a super fun fight. If you haven't watched it, definitely go back and watch. I mean, there's a lot of fights you should probably go back and watch. One, you might want to stay away from if you didn't watch the card tonight, was the final appearance for Frankie Edgar. He goes in there with Chris Gutierrez. We talked about it a lot, about how neither of us were really in favor of this matchup. I did not expect this to happen.

I expected maybe Frankie's just going to come out like a house of fire, maybe land a takedown, maybe steal around. Gutierre starts to get cooking in the second, maybe kicks his legs, maybe gets a late TKO or unanimous decision down the stretch. But man, I did not expect Frankie Edgar to be sleeping in the first round

due to a flying knee from Chris Gutierre, especially a guy in Chris Gutierrez who's not typically a very fast starter, but he came out throwing, he came out just the bigger, more physical fighter and you could see it. And the movement, man, the movement of Chris Gutierrez

just gets better and better each fight. While I still don't love the matchmaking, I feel like I didn't think there was a way Gutierrez could get over with this fight. I think he did. It's not huge, but I think he did get over

with the way he did. It was sad, but I think we realize Chris Gutierrez is probably better than we thought. Yeah, I'm with you on that case. And now we're talking during the presser. I don't, I agree. I don't think he got over. And I don't think he got over in the way that makes it worth sending Frankie out in this way. But people know him now.

Like you can't, if you watch this card and maybe before you don't, you can't think of who Chris Gutierrez is off top of your head. Now you're like, oh, he's the dude who E3. Frankie and that is something because he's got some some talent i don't think he's really making a title run he's probably just too old at this point 31 and i know that that sounds ridiculous but for the high-end divisions in this sport like bannam weight lightweight etc it's NFL age groups and timelines you know that's where we're at it's if you're in your 30s you're ancient and so he's probably a little old to make a real title run but uh I'm going to step on your toes, Mike, for the old Otno game here.

Give me him versus Adrian. I'm so compelled to find out what Jed's going to say. He's frozen in time. I'm Jed. Hi. Against who? I, I'm... You're listening to them.

Oh, Jed lost power. Of course he lost power. Unbelievable. AJ Chandler. Like who? He was going to say, John. Broder.

Yeah, yeah. I will not be, I will not be picking, I will not be picking Adrian Yaz in that spot. I mean, if they make it, why the hell not? I will watch the hell out of it.

That will not be my, my on to the next one selection. So, Jed lost power. He is just frozen in time. His whole home news power? What happened? Yeah, I mean,

maybe they're dealing with some wind, some remnants, if you will. But, all right, maybe Jed will come back. But let's move on. Casey, oh, I guess, I guess, no, no, no, I'm here. Hold on, let me. I got to switch out. Oh, sorry.

Oh, now I'm two people. Yeah, two people. There we go. All right. All right, it's me now. There, now it's back to Casey in the pipes. Yeah. Dan Hooker.

Dan Hooker kicks off the main card, takes on Claudio Poyas. This is a very interesting fight because Claudio Poyas had the five-fight win streak. It looks like maybe sneaky Claudio Poyas is going to go in there and wrap up another leg, but Dan Hooker just stayed calm, cool, collected, was able to escape. And then it was almost like watching GC brought up Ryan Hall. It was almost like watching a Ryan Hall fight moving forward. In round one. And after that, too, because just, I mean, it points in round one.

But if you watch a Ryan Hall fight and he goes to the second round, and he doesn't get you out of there in the first. He's just going to keep diving for legs and just hoping for something to happen. And Dan Hooker just pieced him up. It was a poor man. I'll give it a poor man's Ryan Hall. Right. But it was Hall-ask for sure.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I can ask you what you're saying. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And the crowd did not like it. The crowd did not like it. So a lot of people are asking like, where does Dan Hooker go from here?

And I, like, if he lost this fight, where would he go? And I wasn't, I feel like he might already be here. And I mean this with all due respect, because I have a lot of respect for the man I'm about to mention. I feel like Dan Hooker can be the Neil Magni of the lightweight division. Like he's the dude. Like if you have a surging contender who is on the precipice of being a top 15

fighter, you throw him in there with Dan Hooker. If you beat him, you know he's good. And if he can't, Dan Hooker's just going to be that guy who's just going to make life miserable and he's going to and we'll realize that maybe this up and coming lightweight contender just might not be that guy, might not be Armant Surukian or somebody like that.

I feel like that's where he is. And he can make a damn good living doing that. He's going to get some big fights. He's going to win a bunch of them. He's going to lose a couple. But Jed, beating Dan Hooker means something still. And this is a big win for him. There's nothing wrong with being

a Neil Magny type at 155 pounds. Someone's going to do it. And Dan Hooker, I think, is a fine representative for that slot. He's going to do better than Neil Magny just because he's people like him more. He's got more of a personality that's outward and there. And it's not everyone's going to fight for championships. In fact, most fighters aren't going to fight for championships. Even fewer are going to be champions.

That is just how this sport works. But you can be incredibly relevant and make a lot of money and build a brand. You can then leverage into other things. And there's nothing wrong with being one of the 20 best guys in the world or one of the 10 best guys in the world. In any profession, you would take that. You'd be like, I'm one of the 10 best dudes at my job in the whole world. And that's like the way the nature of sport and particularly individual sports like this, it's like, well, he's a bum. I'm like, no, he's just a good fighter who can't beat his Lamagachev because no,

one could beat his Lamakachev and stuff like that. Like, I have no idea how good or not Hooker is. I think he has a ton of potential. I have no idea if that's going to get actualized. But I know that he's not a championship level fighter. But if every, if all the cards broke right, here's where here's where we differ. I think that there's still a world where Dan Hooker could maybe put together a late career Dustin Porier-esque run, gets the right matchups, develops in the next two years.

He's working with a great team. And then suddenly like, oh, now he's in the top five. Because again, he went hammer and tongs with Poria for 25. Like, he has got a high in ceiling. It's just what fighter's going to show up on fight night. And, you know, obviously things are also were very weird during COVID. Everything is a little bit thrown up in the air. And he says that that affected him really badly.

And maybe it did. Who the hell knows? So, but yeah, this is a guy who's going to be in your life for the next five. years, like doing things that are relevant in this sport. And that's good enough. Absolutely. 100%. We'll go to the peeps in a minute because it's 4.15 in the morning. And listen, we don't know. The beauty of this card and at this time, Jed, is that there's a ton of like memorable moments that will stick to our minds when thinking about this card. But there's not a ton of like there's not a ton of like post fight storylines you know what i mean like the the big

storylines we kind of know where they're already heading at this point it's just a great card that delivered and we don't need to dissect it for six funds what he got at least one post fight so i would like to say thank you to the power outage because i didn't have to talk about the execution so that was dope uh that i got to miss that whole portion of this thing uh there is a one big storyline out of this. And you could, I'm willing to argue too, but we don't need to talk about Aaron Blanchfield. She's going to be a champion. That's all we knew.

We probably should have known it before, but now I'm very, very confident. The big storyline is, it's the other sad part of this card. It's old Dom Mareez. Yeah. Yeah, just, it's just tough. That's tough. It's just, I thought that that could happen. It's

I don't want to say cautionary tale because it's not like he did anything wrong and that's why his career derailed but I think his career is done like I don't we've seen

in my memory I can think of one fighter who has come back from four losses in a row and a couple of them like bad COs to have a relevant career and it's Andre Aloh

Olavski he's the only guy I've ever known he's done it three times which is actually just incredible. But like everybody else, when this is the skid you're on and you lose four in a row and three of them are hard losses, like it's just

it's just done. And that's weird. It's super weird to think that with him. This guy should have been the champion of the world. He should have been the guy who beat John Jones and now he's got brutally knocked out in three straight fights and brutally doesn't even really describe. Yeah, that brutally doesn't even describe the last two. Like the Behovedge one was brutal.

Yuri was scary. And then Ryan Spans was terrifying after like if you just keep adding them all on. Really bad. It was very, very, very difficult. And also the other, the other aspect of this, do we think Ryan Spans telling the truth about not training? Because I have a lot more interest in him as a potential contender if he really just hadn't trained at all until right now.

I mean, maybe that's why I missed weight because he didn't train. He just walked into, he just flew to New York and fought Dominic Reyes. The man, the man has the physical tools. So if he like only just now has started really training a lot, like actually putting his time and energy into full fight camps,

pretty young for the division, a lot of tools. Maybe he's going to be really good now. I don't know if I can believe that statement from him. But if it's true, look out. light heavy you guys might have a real problem coming down the pipe that is a powerful man that's so powerful i don't know what they're going to do with him we'll we'll figure it out um

light heavy weights kind of a weird division right now with what's going on with yon and an ankelaif like what's going on and they have thee smith he's hurt and we have all these up-and-comers clale roundtree is is a contender now after beating dusted jacobi there's just so much happening right now and Ryan Span versus pretty much anybody is must watch TV. Ryan Span Cleo Roundtree. Let's do it. Let's go. Somebody is going to sleep.

That's what's happening. Somebody is going to sleep. We didn't talk about it and we don't need to get into it. I just want to throw this out here preemptively. I would just love to watch Alex Behead to fight some of these top light heavyweights man. I think mostly he probably just gets taken down and like tapped, but. If you told me that Yeri wasn't going to grapple him and was just going to do Yeri weird shit, sign me up, baby.

That is lightning in a bottle. Hey, listen, go beat out of Sanya a second time, just drop the belt and call out Yeri. Go fight a 205. That would be the best possible way to handle this. That would be awesome. I don't need to defend against you bums. I'm just beating the guy twice and I'm out of here.

It would rule. Yeah, there was not a stinker on this entire card. Everything was, everything was fun and somewhat compelling at all times. It was just, it was just a fun card. Mike Trisano Sangu Choi, if he told me that we might have an actual round of the year contender coming out of that fight heading in, probably would have laughed at you. But good Lord, that fight was absolute insanity. So I don't want that to be forgotten with everything that happened on this main card.

Sometimes card placement counts. And I know Casey's like a big advocate of that. We were talking about it before we did this, yep. Yeah, and I know he was mad. The Aaron Blanchefield fight was where it was. But I'm actually happy. I actually think that's a good spot for her. I actually think that was a really good spot for her

because the arena was near full for it. They were all into it. Molly got a huge pop. And a lot of eyeballs saw it. Probably more eyeballs saw Aaron Blansfield beat Molly McCann than they would have on the pay-per-view main card. I understand that there's some prestige to that. I think that should have been the pre-lim main event.

Yeah, after seeing, yeah, Brad Riddell, that was, I thought it beforehand, but that really should have been the prelimine event. Yeah, I would have in hindsight for sure. It should have been the prelimate main fan because Aaron Bush is a problem. Yeah, especially with the reaction that Molly got. Like, she's still a star. And I find that's why I felt this matchup. Yeah, the matchmaking was fantastic because if Molly won, I mean, just massive, massive movement.

But if she loses like, it's not the end of the world. It's just still very popular. She lost to the next champion of the division. it's fine. Yeah, she'll go fight in the UK first quarter of 2023 and they'll put her in there with someone that she'll probably destroy and she'll look like a superstar again. It's all, it's, it's all good. Rainbows and sunshine, baby.

Let's go to the peeps. Let's go to the peeps. If you're still up peeps with us at 420 Eastern Time, I love you for your dedication and commitment, especially when there's football tomorrow at 930, you guys, you're the real MVP's. You are the real MVPs. Also, I don't know you make that a little bigger.

Also, go dogs. Because I haven't mentioned on any of the other podcast today, but go dogs. Do they win? We clinched the SEC East. We will be playing LSU in the SEC championship game. There you go.

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I knew. I didn't even know what the bonuses were. I mean, obviously, we knew what the fight of the night's going to be. Alex Pereira and Zhang Wei. Yeah, just the top three guys. All got extra 50K. Yeah.

Poor Maffirvola's. That fight was, that was a great finish from Maffirvola too. And Hennato Moikano, how can we forget about Hanata Mocano? Mekano wants money. Mekano wants money. Well, that's why he begged for money. Two winners missed weights. He can't give them money.

And then two other people begged for money. So you can't you can't pay the people begging for money. That's bad luck. Well, it doesn't help when you drop 87 F bombs on ESPN news. It's the second language. It's a second language. It was still spectacular. His training partners clearly told him,

just say this word between every other word. People will love it. It was awesome. That was a tremendous promo. One of the most unexpected awesome promos I've ever heard. I was rolling on the floor laughing and just, oh, I just loved it so much. And the way it just played out, like, they had so much time to still waste that Rogan just let him go on for five minutes. It was just, it was way to take advantage of the opportunity, man.

My favorite part was Rogan. It was all like, so what did you think of the finish? He's like, can you break down what your expectations in the fight? New York! Money! He just ignored everything Rogan asked. It just started screaming everything. And in between every word, the F-bomb.

And then I'm sure he kissed Rogan a couple times. Oh, it was amazing. I love that guy. He's my favorite fighter ever now. What a moment. He just moved my head. He's the top of my list. Oh, that was fantastic.

All right. What are we got here? Questions. do do do um eh but it's go up's a bummer question right now it should start out for these ones well dominic rayus loses job with four last that or oh no i don't think so i mean they're all against ranked guys or and or john jones so if he wants the job he'll get it i i don't know whether he'll want to keep fighting i don't know dom any but i feel like if i were in his position and I would probably hang him up.

Wow. Was it because of how quickly he lost or was the one that was like how he lost? How? Yeah. The speed is not the thing, but the, as the third. There was something, there was something off. Yeah. And the way he came in and his hand down was just something, it was something just, something like just off.

He looked a little weird, but I don't know. I just. I think I kind of forgot what good. Dom Reyes looks like. Actually, I don't remember. I want to watch... Bouncing fast. Bouncing fast.

I wonder if, yeah, I don't know if I would do it, but I kind of want to rewatch John Jones versus Reyes. I mean, I definitely have Ray is winning the fight, but I'm just kind of curious, like, who was that guy? And what was the difference?

I don't know. Maybe John Jones is a really bad off night. Who knows? I'm certain. that played a part. I also think just like, we don't, I don't think we give enough credit to it, but like, there's a huge difference between true, like, confidence and false confidence. And, like, every fighter has false confidence or they all believe they're the best.

But I also think that most of them deep down know that they are not because it's hard to lie to yourself about being the best if you're some dude who's taken, like, eight L's. but if you get a young guy who's never lost before like dominic gray as like why wouldn't he think he's the best he's never lost he's the best guy in the gym he trains with every day he comes in he he beats john jones and like he just feels like he's the best and then then he has to come to terms with i'm not and i think that that's i think that that really changes you and how you can approach and the level of confidence you can bring into a fight and to some extent it may just be that they're like well i know i'm not the best anymore and that that little piece even if it's

buried under layers and layers of self-belief is still there and it fucks you up. It kind of goes back to what you said about Dan Hooker. Dan Hooker seems okay. Dan Hooker doesn't come out there and say, I want to be Islam. Give me Islamahadjep again. I'm ready this time. He doesn't say anything like that. He just says, hey, I train hard, I fight hard, I'm exciting.

Just put me in big, just give me fights. And maybe that's what Ray is needs in his head. Just, hey, you know what? I'm just a guy making a living at 205. If I keep winning, cool. But I don't know. I don't, I'll hate for him to retire because, you know, these guys put a lot of work into this. I want them a little bit bigger payoff.

But my assumption is he doesn't retire. I just, I would. Because the damage just isn't worth it. And that's always been my thing. It's like they don't get paid enough. And if I was in him, like, I don't, I just, the way he is losing is in such a way that that, he keeps doing that and his later life will be physical compromised

in very serious ways. It's like is that math worth it? Like I know Frankie wanted to go out at the garden. I feel like Frankie in a couple years is going to be like, man, that wasn't, I should have just not done that. There's no point in that. Maybe that's going to be a problem for me later

that I did that and for what? I could have just left earlier. Do you think, do you think Frankie shouldn't have gone out maybe a little bit more like auto did. Not in terms of auto didn't go out in a brutal loss, but Otto just lost a fight, went home, and it just caught it a day without really having a big ceremony and final fight.

I think everybody should, every fighter should do that. We talk about all the time. Nobody retires in the sport well. Habib is the only good one. And his is, his retirement is not a good retirement because of the way it happened. Like, yeah. It just worked from him in this respect.

and like GSP retired on top. Everybody wants to retire on top instead of just retiring in a way. Like this used to be a big talking point for me. It's like until GSP and then Khabibb, Chris Lytle had like a very good argument to having the best MMA retirement because he just fought a dude and left.

He's like, I think it was Dan Hardy. He was like, I'm afraid Dan Hardy even leave. And it's like, oh, some guy who won like a semi-relevant fight and left. And it's like, it's not how you'd, do, they would beat them out of this sport in the worst ways possible. And it's, it's really, really a shame. Yeah, it's nice.

It was actually kind of refreshing the way Luke Rockholder retired too. Yeah, that was perfect. A lot of fighters, a lot of fighters would be like, oh, so close, I can come back and get it. And listen, after that fight with Paul Costa, if Luke wanted to do one more time, I don't think anyone would have complained, but he wasn't. No, it's an ideal exit point for him. Yeah. Ideal.

I agree with that. Same with Jose. We're not going to think about Jose as like this awesome retirement, but it's one of the five best retirements is like, yeah, I'm still got it. I'm still one of top five dudes in this world, but I lost one. I'm not going to challenge for a belt, so I'm done. Speaking of guys, taking lots of damage. It's kind of a loaded question, but yeah.

Mike, how good is Chandler considering his wins haven't aged well? And with all due respect, he drops another one to Porier, whose last win is against Connor McGregor. So this is one thing that I've talked about quite a bit. The fight in a vacuum between Pory and Chandler is awesome. And the fight delivered. But in terms of like stakes for the division, the stakes are too high for this fight. They just were when you have, we talk about it all the time.

It's like at nauseam at this point. 55 is so loaded with talent with guys. Like there's like four or five guys that are outside of like the top eight that could fight for titles in the next two or three years. if they are just given the opportunity to do that. So while we knew this fight would be great, in terms of, like, you should just throw in the minute, like a, these two are going to fight like 170. Just go in there and have a 170 fight.

Like, then there's a part of people, will be like, well, there's still two lightweights fighting at 170, but at least you take a lot of the stakes off the table. The fact that Michael Chandler, if he won this fight, could have, like, jumped Benile Daryush. It would have, there was a very good chance that would have. And it shouldn't. It shouldn't have been that way because he was two and two.

His wins were against Dan Hooker and they were against Tony Ferguson. That win has not aged well at all. They all verified was fun, sure. And Gaichi beat the hell out of him for 15 minutes. Like Chandler had a couple of moments in the early goings of that first round, but Gaichi dominated that fight. That was not all that competitive. It was fun.

Yeah. I was so confused because in my head I was hearing you say Porier. I was like, Mike, I don't want to put you on blast, but Chandler very comfortably won that second round. We were watching it together. I was completely, I know, that was me fucking up.

I was like, what are you talking? Oh, Gaichi, yeah, you're totally right there. I was like, man,

you're stroking. Like, Benial Darius is going to go fight Dustin Porre. And that's cool. But Benal Darius shouldn't have to fight Dustin Poria. He should just be the backup and get the next title shot against the winner of Mokachev at Volkanowski. Like,

at this point, it should just be that way. But now he's going to probably have to fight Dustin Porre, which cool. Like, Benial will be favored to win and we'll have a very good chance to win that fight. But I don't know. It's just, this division just,

it's just strange. I think, and I actually think for the division to move forward, the result was probably the best thing that could have happened because Chandler's going to have to fight one of these hungry lions now. I mean, maybe he gets the Connor fight that isn't out of the realm of possibility. Do it. Do it. Just book that thing. I'm fine with it. I'm fine with it. But if Connor, like, if Connor's going to be out for most of next year, then Chandler's next fights are going to be against like Jalen Turner or somebody like that. Like, that's what's going to happen. He should super not do that. That's true. He should super not take that fight of Alford. But see, but Chandler is, Chandler's still good, but he's just super fun. And every time this guy fights, it's

going to be gnarly and chaotic and crazy. And you might not win a lot of those fights, but they're going to be fun and we're going to be talking about them on fight of the ear lists. That's just who he is now. And even Grappler Chandler in the second round of that fight was still fun, who's kind of gross at times when he was spewing blood all over Porre's face,

but even Grappler Chandler was much more fun than Grappler Chandler was in Bellator tonight. in that second round. I think mostly because his insides were coming out of his nose. But yeah, I understand. Dude, that is the grossest thing I've seen over the long time. That, like, the snot rocket, officially was just like... He did that.

I mean, I understand. There's 100% on purpose. I understand. You're never going to convince me. Like, we've been in gyms. We've trained. We know what we're doing. Like, you don't fish hook on accident.

A finger might get in there a little bit, but you know. know when your opponent is doing that. And when you're blowing your insides out through your nose on your opponent, you know exactly what you're doing. I think the, my view is that the fish hook was a little bit accidental. I don't think he was trying to get in the mouth. I think he was trying to do the pivot on the nose because that is mean.

If you've ever been grappling with somebody, you do the nose pivot and that is the meanest shit in the world. That's one of those things. They never do it in fighting. Yeah. It blows my mind. I'm like, I'm watching dudes. fish like trying to find it.

I was like, I don't know if nobody's just ever ripped your nose off your face, but you should do that because that really opens up the neck a lot. So I think he was trying to do that and the hands got a little ran down. For sure, the snot rocket of blood was intentional. Like, that's not. Yeah. And just say it. I'm not even saying that like to disparage Chandler because do it like that's fine.

Just say it's a fight. It's a fight. Just say that. It's a fight. Is it against. Is it in the. Is it in the rulebook? They didn't tell me that backstage.

I can't do that. I actually don't think that necessarily is in the rule book. You're not allowed to spit on people. That's not spitting. I know it's not spitting. You might be able to extrapolate that as unsportsman like conduct, which is like their catch all on the rules. But I just own it.

The fight's over. Nothing bad is going to happen. You can just say it like, yeah, I needed to get this out of my nose. And I happened to notice that he was right underneath me. And if I did this on him, cool. I just telling that, man.

It's fine. What did he really won the fight that way somehow? I don't know how, but that really turned the time. Incredibly amusing. But yeah, to answer your question, Balashe, no one knows. No one knows how good Michael Chandler is. We just don't.

He's probably top ten-ish, but like I can't, no one can feel confident based on his wins and his losses where he ranks in this lightweight division. Other than that, he's a good fighter, and he's sure as hell fun. That is for you know. All right.

Let's take a couple more. Yeah, we've got a couple more. I'm bringing this up because I think Mr. Hakey talked about this. If Izzy loses, we're going to see a lot of this type of comments. No, Izzy was just overrated. It's like they forgot he lost to Jan and they kept making out like Izzy is undefeated in the UFC. We're going to have to deal a lot with this type of attitude toward Izzy. for the next few months until the rematch.

So Kamara Usman was overrated too because he was winning the fight three rounds to one and got knocked out by Leon Edwards? Is that the same thing? Like, I don't understand. I don't get it. Is he definitely overrated calling him the go before he had done anything special?

He had one amazing fight with Kevin, the rest were... Kelvin. Restor either average or boring. Yeah, the Paul O'Costa fight. was real boring. Yeah, that was a terribly boring fight. These are just, come on.

But by tonight was freaking awesome. It was a really good fight. It was a really good fight. Way better than I thought it was going to be, honestly. I'm not with my compatriots. I think he's had some really boring-ass fights, and it's not wrong to call them that, and I'll stand by it.

But it doesn't be won them, and they're against very relevant good guys. Like, it's, you don't have to like him, and I don't think anyone was calling him the goat. I think the conversation was entirely, he's knocking on the door. He's not there, but a few more wins, and he puts himself in the conversation

because he has clearly established himself as the number two. And that's an arguable. By any rational metric, he's the second best middleweight we've ever seen in the sport. And that's, he's beaten the top six guys, or I guess five of the top six guys because of Pajara in this division.

Nobody else has done that. The only other person who's done that, Valentina Shepchenko. You can't say he's not great He was not one of the five best fighters in the world He just is You don't have to like him I'm not saying you have to love his performances

Because they weren't all winners But you have to respect that he got clear wins Over all the best dudes in the world In his weight class and he lost And that doesn't make him overrated It just means he lost a fight Yeah You know who

Jinkos to go and there are some stinkers on that list Doesn't mean she doesn't mean Yeah Every goat has stinkers. There is not a soul of who has a... DJ's got stingers, yes. GSP's got stinking. John Jones.

Andy Silver's got sinkers. John Jones got stinkers. You know who had a bunch of... You know what a bunch of like not aesthetically pleasing fights through a lot of his UFC run? Was Habib Naramatov. Yep. They were dominant,

but they weren't the most thrilling fights to watch. Now, down the stretch after he won the belt, that was a different dude. He just went out there and just put the boot to people and got them out of there quick. But early on, it was just a lot of take you down, and that was it. You didn't really think very much about the fight afterward. It was just kind of happened, and all right, moving the next fight.

This guy's really good, and I don't know if anybody beats him, but it's, do I want to pay 80 bucks to watch that? And down the stretch, after the Connor fight, after, yeah, from the Connor fight on, yeah, you did want to pay 80 bucks to watch him because he just, you just, got mean. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. I like this question.

Let's see where. I'm interested what you guys think. Is Moikano the next Oliver at 155? Hanato seems to be on the start of a similar path to Charles. I'll let you feel this one, Jen. I could see it. I don't think it is just because he is 33 and that's, it's old to pull this off.

because again, Charles is what, 32 now? So Charles is going to be, we're probably not going to get another Charles just because he was so young when he came into the O.C. He was like 20 or whatever. And a lot of time to develop and then he hit Moikano.

He can have a great run and he can maybe fight his way into a lightweight ranking. I think he's flirted on it before. Maybe he was in it before the RDA fight. He's got a lot of talent. I don't really know how to deal with him though because his wins are solid but not great.

Every, like, good fighter he's faced he's lost to, which feels like, given the history we have, that he is probably a gatekeeper to the top 10 where he might flirt with the 15 ranking or so, but he's not really going to make a run. But the dude has a lot of skills. He looked great tonight. I thought Braderdale was great,

and he's sort of falling off a cliff now. So he's kind of weird. It's, I can't possibly bet on this because lightweight is a meat grinder, man. Like, I'm never going to believe that anybody at lightweight is going to suddenly make a run at lightweight and less they are like 26 and hyper talented because you're like, give them enough time. That's, that's just going to settle out. They have so much talent when you're talking about guys like Surukin and Gamrod's not 26, but Saruki and Jalen Turner, Islam at the time.

Like, it's, I can't. I can't say more comments. is going to do that. But I think he's going to hang around in that 15 to 20 range, you know, maybe get inside of that, but not really ever challenged content. I wouldn't mind it. I'd love to see another Charles Oliver type of resurgence in someone's career.

But, yeah, I just don't think McCona was that guy, but super exciting, underrated fighter. And I picked Rodel in this fight coming into the fight. And wow, I don't know if Rodel was just, I don't know if he's just falling off. falling like you said just really falling off because i was high and redell yeah um but moucona's awesome and one heck of a promo so i'm really i'm really excited to see what's next for him he's achieved a lot more than people thought he might when he first like broke in like solid solid hand

but i think he's i don't know if he's an overachiever but i think there have been some certain performances where we're just like okay like didn't expect that from you and i feel like that's going to be the sort of the story of his career until he starts running off a string of wins against like top 10 guys it's it's just so hard in this division so i forgot there are very few i forgot sorry i totally forgot he beat calvin cater yeah that's the best best one of his resume yeah yeah yeah i'm trying to think of someone who would be at the future olivera guy yeah i'm not i'm trying I'm trying to, yeah, trying to think of it. It's just, it's tough for me to,

I'm not really seeing anybody that's, like, jumping off the page at me. It would probably be, it'd probably be, like, Dan Hooker. Like, that'd probably, like, the closest thing. With, like, the recent, like, 10-fight stretch he's on.

Like, if he just, all of a sudden, if this was just the start of him winning 11 fights in a row, I think he's, he might be the answer. He's not a bad one. I was kind of, kind of flirting around as like Alexander Pontoia

just because he had some setbacks but he's still one of the, like he's a flyweight who's surging, he could run off some. I actually think if we're going like really true to form to what Oliver is, the real answer is probably Mohamed McAyev who hasn't had the setbacks yet but like he's still

so young that and he showed some flaws recently that like could be a developmental issue for him moving forward. So like there's a world when Makayev catches an L in the near future has to move up away class kind of bounces around figuring out the 125-135 thing before finally putting all the pieces together which is basically exactly Chuckie Olive's career path so I guess he would be my bet but I still kind of think he's just

going to make his way to a belt so actually I kind of think we already had a Charles Oliver in a sense of Dustin Poirier Poirier had a very very similar career trajectory in that regard as well it came in young some bad losses look good when you look good, but then lost bad. And we kind of dismissed a bit, you know, especially as their big losses against Connor. And all of a sudden, he's the man. You get a lot of those dudes that lightweight, too, because RDA was sort of the original, original of that dude. Like RDA can make his bad losses. And it's weird that it happens at lightweight, but I think it's just because the division's so good that when you get set back, you get set back really far.

and it takes time to like really coalesce into the perfect blend of your physical peaks and primes and you being the best fighter you can be and that's how you get dudes like that who just go on and run I mean shit and Neil Daryush is like kind of that guy as well right now yeah yeah yeah they're all lightweight I don't know why it's all lightweight yeah the difference of Benile he's he's he's he's remained consistent at lightweight he never kind of try to reinvent his career a different weight class but yeah just kind of a fun thing to think about but um it is something to think about you know what it's time for to go to sleep yeah there you go just to wake up very shortly i get 20 minutes like so do you though buddy i know i got to check out of the hotel and then uh do on to the next one

with a k at 11 a.m eastern so we'll talk about i think this might be the easiest edition of on to the next one that we're ever going to have. Can I put in one? I want to submit not know. I would like to see the great and powerful Chris Gutierrez by Adrian Yannes next. Yes. I'm not picking that, but I

don't hate that idea at all. That's a banger. Here's mine. Here's mine. Because I'm not on the show. Don't do the rematch between Izzy and prayer. Because this is the one chance we're going to have in human history to do this fight. It makes sense. Israel-Hara-A-Sahnair versus Sean Strickland.

Sean Strickland's fighting Jared Cannoneeer. I don't care. Yeah, cancel that fight. So if Jared Canaaner kills Sean Strickland, you still want to do it. Cancel that fight. Sean Strickland is your Adesna. Let's see it. These fight night cards are hurting already with a really good bait-in-bast.

All right, there you go. For Chad, for Casey, I am Mike Heck. What a night it was. Love you guys. Go to sleep. Happy birthday, AK. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.