MMA Fighting - UFC 289 Post-Fight Show | Reaction To Amanda Nunes Retiring On Top, Charles Oliveira's Monster Finish

Episode Date: June 11, 2023

Amanda Nunes dominated Irene Aldana from bell-to-bell to retain her bantamweight championship in the main event of UFC 289 before laying her gloves, and both of her divisional titles in the octagon as she announced her retirement from the sport of mixed martial arts. MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew react to Nunes' masterclass in the final fight of her legendary career, her legacy in the sport, and where the women's 135-pound division goes from here. Additionally, they discuss Charles Oliveira's first-round finish of Beneil Dariush in the highly anticipated co-main event, Dana White declaring Oliveira will likely face Islam Makhachev in a rematch for the lightweight title next, Canadian fighters going 6-0 in the promotion's return to Vancouver — which includes Mike Malott's quick finish of Adam Fugitt, and much more. 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.

The victory horns are sounding following the UFC's latest pay-review offering, and they're sounding for two of the individuals you see in this photo right there. One, Charles Olivera, after a sensational performance in the co-main event. The other, and for the final time, they sound for Amanda Nunes. The now former two-division champion, she announced her retirement following a dominant performance in the main event against Arena al-Dana, and we are here to react to all of what happened at UFC 289 just a few hours ago.

Thank you for joining us for the UFC 289 Post-Fight Show. We're live on the YouTube channel. I am Mike Heck. Joining me as always, Mr. No Gray area off of a pay-per-view event. Mr. Jed Mishu. Hello, Jedd. Did you enjoy UFC 289 tonight? It was fine.

These victory horns are in fire, though, baby. Let's go. They are fire. We turned your last name into a verb. Actually, more a noun on the watch party because... In what way? Well, we were placed, we did a bunch of chat bets. Someone, the chat bet suggested Nate Landware by knockout.

And we decided to put $5 down on that as the chat bet. And we called it a machinit. A 5-1 wager is a machinit. I mean, that is in fact a machinit at this juncture. So I love it. That's fantastic. I mean, it's not going to be for long because you did chat bets. Let me just tell you, the chat GPT bet is.

rolling and just continues to dominate. Well, we're not here for that. We'll talk about that on No BetSpar later this week. We got other stuff to talk about, as opposed to the AIA overlords knowing that Mark Andrebaryl was going to dominate Eric Anders. But, you know, neither here nor think. Incredible.

And Flyweight Under as well, we'll talk about that on No BetSpar, I'm sure, as well. All right, Pete, baby. It was a good run. Good run. It was a good run. And, in fact, it was a tremendous run for Amanda. Nunes, her career is over. She dominated Arrini Aldana.

This was a bell-de-bell, just absolute dominant performance. Arena just didn't really, she couldn't really get going. She looked a little timid early on, and Amanda took advantage of that. We thought maybe there would be a lot more grappling in this fight, but Amanda just kind of used takedowns as a, hey, I could do this to you anytime I want, and then just beat her up on the feet, and then got the two belts, got the gloves cut off, gloves got dropped in the octagon two belts got dropped in the octagon she announced a retirement this is not really a surprise to you jed bishu i would assume right not at all i think i said that i said that i said that i believe that this was

the most likely outcome uh i forget what i was answering it on it was something it was like hey is manning going to retire if she loses and i was like no she's going to retire if she wins if she loses she probably won't she will probably at least feel some sort of compulsion to come back and get the belt but if she went and stephen retires what the hell else she's going to do she's 35 she sort of kind of talked around it for a while and there's no there are no more worlds to conquer so why keep doing it yes you can keep doing it for the money but at some point you just have enough money and i'm not saying mananuna's got paid enough money in her career she should have made more but she is certainly financially well off she was financially set for the remainder of her days

And why not? Like, I don't, this is, this will be a slight tangent. But whenever people are like, what would you do if you won the lotto? Nothing, mother. I would quit everything because I'm set. I don't have to have a job. I don't have to go wake up and train if I don't want to do that. I don't have to do shit.

I can just hang. I can do whatever I want. That's where she's at. She is 35 years old. Can be retired and never work a day in her life again. Like, that's the dream. She gets to live the dream with her family. Of course, she's retiring.

she's no dummy and the rest of you who'd sit here and be like, I would go whoop up on Giuliana Pena or Raquel Pennington again for an extra 800 grand. Your marks, your mark-ass marks. Like, spend time with your loved ones. Do other things. Money is not the only thing out there and she got plenty of it. Congratulations to her. You won the game.

You did it. Like three fighters have ever won the game. A man of Noon is you're one of them. Right off into your sunset, do your dance the whole time. as a man who is the co-host of MMA fighting's flagship gambling show I'm sure you saw a lot of underdog love

for Reney Aldana throughout the week in fact I picked Arrini Aldana and I actually thought like I actually thought my the way I laid it out could have happened the way the fight was progressing because I thought Amanda Nunes is going to win the first three rounds

clearly maybe Aldana would like land a shot in the third and then the fourth like she would get the pepest and the first like she would get the the pep talk and then get rolling and maybe knock her out in the fourth. But Man, Nunes wasn't having any of that. What was, I guess, your biggest takeaway from this fight, whether it's on the Aldata side,

whether it's on the Nunes side, she broke all of her striking records in the fight, most significant strike she's ever landed in a UFC fight. She broke that tonight. She just beat the hell out of Arani Aldana. But what would you say was your biggest takeaway from the actual fight? That's a really good question, Mike. I'm going to cheat and I'm going to give you two because I'm not sure which one is like is bigger but very briefly

the first is Amanda Nunes. She said at the post fight presser and I'm going to paraphrase on the exact quote of man if I stuck around I just run all these women again I'm only getting better and Casey and I were talking about it off air. I think that's true because like I'll be honest I don't think Amanda Nunes is a great fighter

like she's a great fighter because of what she's accomplished and what she can do in a cage but she is not like a technical innovator. She is not somebody who's like, oh, I need to learn from how she approaches the game because she is so far advanced of people. She's not. Julia Pena gave her hell by throwing a dipping jab and she just couldn't figure it out.

She is not this like technical wizard. She is just a physical monster with some technical background and a complete well-roundedness in a division that is still limited. So she can just take Jermaineer end to me down a bunch and beat her that way. She can just throw big power shots on the feet and overwhelm Chris Cyborg, whoever. So she's not like this genius fighter, but you're seeing every time out, she's showing more layers. She is developing continually. Like nobody's going to catch her.

So if she did come back, Rock Al Pennington's not going to do anything to her because at the base of it, she has the trump card of just being the best athlete and the most physical force in women's MMA. and then she is developing. So that's a huge takeaway for me because watching the way she approached this fight, I thought was really, really smart. The other side of that is for as good and as smart as her approach was to this fight of, I'm going to work a straight jab,

knock it out over my skis, you know, strike when I want to, show the takedown, make sure that you are aware of it to kind of offset you. And then as the fight gets later, and as Mike, you know, as you thought, maybe as Irene and Aldana gets a little more desperate, it starts throwing more caution to the wind.

Then I'll just go to the wrestling. I won't burn my gas tank shooting takedowns early. I'll wait until later. And then they're going to come a little easier and they're going to come at much more backbreaking critical moments. And you saw that. Like I thought it was a really good technical idea from her all the way down. As good as that was,

I have no fucking clue what Arena Aldana was doing that fight. And some of it, you know, the commentary booth attributed it to being starstruck. Maybe she just got tagged pretty early in the power coming back at her, really offsetter, but I don't have the stats in front of me. I should pull them up before I can make this point, but the point will come across anyway. She threw like seven punches in the whole fight.

Like the statistical difference between them, when John Anick said, Mennonnas has landed more strikes than Arena Aldana has thrown, that's the ball game right there. You are not winning a fight where that is a reality. And if, yes, some of that can be, and certainly is that Amanda Nunes got you off your game and sort of took away the things you want to do. But at a baseline level, when your coaches are begging you in the corner,

like, hey, you got to do something. Like, I can't give you a technical breakdown of what to do. You just got to go fighter. This is your only chance, and you are not doing anything. Rubber meets the road, you got to do it, man. Like, yes, you have a high likelihood of going out on your shield and just getting wailed on. And that sucks.

But that's your choice. You can either go out and get whaled on on your shield and maybe make something happen. Maybe Giuliana Payne your way into something. Or you can just kind of get torn apart for 25 minutes. And at some level, Irene Altonnick consented to that. She said, you know what? She did not try to force the issue with the level of desperation she needed, certainly down the stretch. And a lot of it is that Amanda Neander took it away from her.

But at some point, at some level of that, you just got to say, no, I'm going to do this. And she never did. And so I don't know what their plan was going into it. If that was it, it was awful. And if it wasn't, her inability to adjust to make a fight of it was also deeply concerning. Yeah, Al-Donna Lina, like one pretty clean counter in the first round. A really good shot. Yeah, and that was really it.

She got credited for 57 total strikes, 41 signatures. strikes. Amanda Nunes outlanded her significantly, according to UFC stats, which are kind of unofficial, but by over 100 significant strikes, almost 150 regular strikes. I mean, this is just straight up dominance. I don't even think Aldana landed nearly as many shots as she's getting credit for, but just a dominant performance from Amanda Nunes. And she rides off into the sunset with statistically one of her more complete wins and just one of her all-around great performances. And I think you're right. I think, technically she's getting better.

She was getting better, I guess, and just adding to her game and doing different things. Like, she had Aldana just on skates all night. The faints were incredible. Like, there were like two or three faints in the fight where Aldana almost fell over, just biting on them. She reacted so much to them. It was bad.

It was wild. So now the question, there's two questions that kind of come out of this one. one we'll just talk about we'll just talk about Amanda Nunes because she deserves a little praise and she's going to get a lot more chatter this week there's no doubt about that is she the greatest women's fighter of all time

and I understand that MMA is a baby and women's MMA especially in the UFC is even more of a baby so we are very early on into this so I understand like that whole piece of well maybe it's too early to determine a goat

like I get that argument that Helwani put on the table but as of right now is Amanda Nunes the greatest woman's fighter we've ever seen. One, that's just an awful argument. God love you, Ariel. Nothing but respect. It's just an absurdly bad argument. Shaheen Al-Shadi in the preview show explained it adequately.

If we invent a sport tomorrow and you're better at it than I am, Mike, you're the goat. Because greatest just means the best. It's not that hard. It doesn't matter if it's been a month or 300 years. Maybe that means that the term is less, significant than the goat in baseball. But it also means it actually should be much easier to establish because greatness is hard to quantify across generations.

You're never going to answer if Michael Jordan or LeBron James is better because it just can't do it. It's too broad a gap. Women's MMA doesn't really have that. I mean, in general, you could argue it doesn't have it. Women's MMA is 15, 20 years old.

I do not think it's a reasonable argument for anyone to say it's not Amanda Nunes. And this is coming from arguably the biggest Valentin Shepchenko fan in the world. I understand what Casey is trying to say and he can come on and defend him and get down this ramp about Chris Cyborg because she's arguably and probably truly a more impactful or significant figure in him historically than Amanda Nunes. is the quality of competition, the level of dominance is not, it's not comparable. There is nobody who has more consistently dominated quality opposition over a longer period of time. Yes, she has the poor start, you know, some of the poor performances early, others don't. It is just sort of an overwhelming argument in favor of Mendenunes at this point.

Lots of other women are worthy to be on that rush more. Cyborg, Ronda Rousey, I know a bunch of people would be like, Rondraussi. She doesn't deserve it. Rondraussi's run was incredible. Yonan Jacek, there are a lot of other good fighters. At some point, you just can't fight the rising of the tide. It is just, there's too much in favor of her. And I'm not saying she'll hold it forever.

Who knows what's going to happen in the next 10, 20 years. Certainly, I would say that there is a huge opportunity for more people to come along in the future and take it from her. Because women's MMA is pretty nascent. It is still developing. arguably we haven't really seen any like truly great fighters in the general term of that as far as you know technical ability mixed with all these other factors but what we have seen to me it is extremely clear that it's a man and newness is the goat i agree i actually i'll be interested when case he comes on i'll be interested to get his thoughts on this because one thing you

said on the people's pre-fight show earlier was if she goes out there and dominates erini aldana he'd think he thought his his stance in this argument in this argument in this this discussion might change a little bit. So I'm interested here what he has to say a little bit later on. She certainly did that. Yeah. And the other question, and the other question that comes out of this is,

we don't have a champion now. And on top of that, we don't really have a division right now. We have fighters there, but we only have like a dozen of them. And then some newcomers who haven't even debuted yet. And then like the bottom three of the top 15 that are currently ranked in the division aren't even bantam weights.

Like Norma Dumas is not a bantamweight. Chelsea Chandler is not a bantamweight. weight. It's just very, very strange. Joseon Noon's. Is it really a panum weight? She's not really of random weight either. So we have obviously Giuliana Pena, who is originally supposed to get this fight, and

we knew the tweet was coming that I'll take it as a compliment. I'll just leave that for what it was. We have Raquel Pennington, who is the backup fighter. Seems pretty clear that that would be the fight to make for the vacant title, but we understand how the UFC feels about Holly Holm. They've given her a million title

shots, and now that Amanda Nune is out of the picture, she's getting ready to fight Myra Buena Silva in about a month's time in a main event. Maybe she finds her way in there. Maybe Silva wins. She finds her way in there. So what do we do now? Do you think it's just automatically

Pena Penington? Or maybe, Jed, and I think I already know how you're going to respond to this. Maybe the UFC can have a little fun with this and do a tournament. We know they're not going to, but what's going to happen? So they actually should just burn this division to the ground. That's what they should.

They're definitely not going to do that. I think it would honestly be a total fitting and acceptable end to be like, Amanda retires as the goat and owns both of these divisions are removed. We can still put on women's fights above 125 pounds, but they're not for anything. And that's fine because it's not like they're for anything now. It just is what it is. They're not going to do that. And they're not going to do the tournament, which I actually think would be the most meritocratic way to solve this.

Instead, they're going to go for option C, which is probably, probably it's fine. Doing Peña, Pennington, makes the most sense in the way that they do business. I would strongly argue about Holly Holmes ranking and potentially should be above Juliana Peña, who isn't very good at fist fighting. But she's not, that's where it is. And they just should do one versus two. That's what you should always do if your champion vacates. If you're not going to do a tournament for it, number one guy fights number two guy. And that guy gets to be the champion and it's just not that hard to make that happen this one is the most obvious and that is going to be i god hope that doesn't headline a pay-per-view because that fight is not

a fight that needs to headline a paper view so but it's totally fine title and the winner of you know holly home my brain of sylva can fight the winner of that and it'll be sort of an ersatz championship uh and that'll work too a tournament sorry not an irsett championship. You know what would be a great spot for that fight? And it all depends on timing when they do the ultimate fighter finale. Like if they do an actual ultimate fighter finale, that would be a great main event. Like do it for the title.

Dana thought like those two would fight in the finale anyways. And it didn't end up happening when they were both on that season of the 135ers to kind of build up that division. And there's a history there where Kel Pennington does not have a lot of kind things to say about Julian. Apena, I would guess Julianna Pena doesn't have a lot of kind things to say about Raquel Pettig. Does anyone have kind things to say about

Giuliana Pena? Is there a single soul in M.MA who's like, great girl, love her. It's not who she is. Yeah, it's just nobody gets booed in Vancouver and she found a way to get booting in Vancouver. So, yeah, that's probably

what I say. Yes. I respect the tweet so much. She's going to get a lot of shit from a lot of people and I understand it, and I'm not telling you you're wrong to feel that way. But you got to live your truth, even if your truth is objectively dumb. And I don't know, I personally believe that Giuliana Pena is not in on the joke because everything I've ever seen from her makes me think that she just honestly believes these things and doesn't get it.

And frankly, I love that even more. I love that she just comes out immediately after the, the goat retires, a woman who put a 50-43 on her ass the last time they fought, I scared you so bad into retirement. Congratulations, but professionally, WTF was that? Like, that is an A-plus tweet. Just total disregard of reality, and I'm so here for it. With MX Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not

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Incredible. Speaking of Incredible. Charles Oliveira, talk about Incredible. Holy smokes. Man can fight, huh? That dude, I mean, the way his striking is evolved, that dude just is so violent on the feet now. That fight with Benal Darius had some interesting scrambles on the ground. we wanted to see what would happen if they got to the ground.

It looked like Benile Darius was going to do some work up top. He was landing some good shots, and Oliver was able to get back up to his feet, and it just seemed like Benil Darius was like, damn it, in a way. And Oliver just took advantage of it. Oliver landed a big shot early. He was landed a big high kick. They were chucking him for a little bit.

Darius got it to where he wanted it. He got it up against the cage, was able to get the takedown. I know you talked a lot about the clinch work, and you thought Darius would have some success there. He did. And then it got back up. Oliver ends up finishing Benile Darius, those hammer fist of the end. You saw Darius's head just bounce up and down off the canvas.

Unbelievable stuff from Charles Oliver. So what's a bigger takeaway for you, Jed? Wow, Charles Oliverer is just incredible or poor Binal Daryush? I'm going positive here. I'm going Charles Oliverer is incredible. I definitely feel the latter. This really sucks for Binal Dereux. That's not my biggest negative takeaway from this fight.

I'll get to that in a minute. But I think if you look in this fight and your first instinct isn't, man, look at Charles Oliva. You're probably doing it wrong because I have never been the world's biggest Charles Olivera guy. Not that I have disliked him ever. I just don't think he's the best lightweight in the world. And I didn't for a long time. And I feel like that's correct.

But he's undeniably one of the most exciting fighters of all time, one of the best and most exciting lightweights ever. And this was a fight that I thought could be tough. for him. Casey and I talked about it a little bit in the post-fight presser. I picked Benile Daryouche. I picked him under the assumption that Charles Olavera was just going to consent to a grappling match because he does it so often. On the feet, I knew he could hurt Binaldairoush, but Bini's proven really durable. Charles also gets hurt on the feet. He knows, hitable there, and Benny does hit hard. And I mostly was just like, at some point, Rover is going to meet the road. And Benny's,

Benny's going to be durable enough on the feet and this fight's going to go to the ground because Oliver will consent to it and he's just going to get run over there and for about three and a half minutes it felt really good because that was largely what was happening Olivera sort of pull guard sort of tripped and fell into it

and Benny just kind of beat him up and Charles did some stuff but none of it was really substantive and Benny just kept winning the thing I didn't factor and the thing we talked about Casey and I talked about is I didn't give Charles Olivera enough credit for recognizing the bad and adjusting. Because you see it so rarely in MMA just in general,

people are just going to do the thing that they think that they're good at and not adjust according to how the fight around them is playing out. We saw it a little bit when Charles Zola fought Islam Makachep. He went to the ground early in that fight, similar situation. It went poorly for him. And the rest of that fight, he avoided the takedowns as best he could. He stopped consenting to the overhook and guard game and started trying to keep up. right against Islam. Now, he got clipped with the left hand, got finished, exactly, you know, that's how that went. But it wasn't, I'm going to keep playing the guard game. We saw that here. But Neil Daryush, after they stood up,

Charles changed it changed momentum, changed motion. He started bringing the fight really to him and very quickly after that, put him down. And I didn't give him enough credit for that, certainly. And I think that that's, one, a great testament to his ability, his skill sort of his understanding of fighting. And two, he's just dope. And so he booped him right in the face. And that was the end of it. And it was really, really cool.

And so my overwhelming takeaway is always going to be, that was really really cool. Charles Oliver is a bad, bad man. So one of the things we talked about during the watch party, and I asked Jahan this, is what's Dana White going to say when he's asked about Olivera, is he going to get a rematch? And Dana pretty much said, let's not play games. This is the fight that should happen.

and gosh darn it, and I'm paraphrasing, I'm excited to see it. So you were very confident Islam Machachev was going to beat Charles Oliver, almost in the exact way that it happened. And as a man who has been the driver of the Islam Makachev train for a long, long time, are you excited to see this rematch? Because it appears that if Oliver can bounce back and make it to October and Abu Dhabi, this seems to be the fight that they're going to make. I'm not, but I'm not upset about it, which is a bit of a change.

So I will say the Oliver Islam fight was one of my better calls in recent years. I had that one nailed all the way. And I don't think anything substantively changed here. Maybe in that fight, Olivera will not even play the guard game at all because the first time he learned that lesson is like, can't do it. I've just got to try and put the pressure on him and hit this dude. all of the same problems still exist. He cannot grapple with Islam. He's going to lose those exchanges.

And on the feet, yes, he hits really hard. Islam is like one of the most effective defensive fighters in the history of mixed martial arts. He simply does not get hit. And as both he and Alexander Volcanozky found out to their detriment, dude's actually an incredibly effective kickboxer. It ain't the prettiest. Not here to tell you he is.

He can go in and fight Super Bowl. shit like that but he's super effective he knows what he's doing on the feet and he has a great feel for it in a way that makes him super dangerous and that's just not going to change uh so i ultimately think that fight's going to play out pretty similarly like it's just not going to ever be that different i think it's a really really bad matchup for charles but i'm more okay with it now because i do think it's going to happen and it's fine one of my main issues with it is i don't want i don't know how many title defenses or title fights we have left with Islam. He strikes me as a guy who, like Habib, is probably not going to hang around for five, six, seven years. And so I'm a little

reticent to just have him running rematches over and over again when you're the lightweight champion in this division kicks so much ass. But Charles Olivares is one of the most exciting fighters of all time. Charles Alivara is one of the best lightweights of all time. And this timeline works out. And there's simply no other options for Islam at this moment in time. I personally have limited interest in the Alexander Volcanovsky rematch. I know many other people don't feel that way, but I just want Volcanovsky to fight at featherweight because he's possibly the best featherweight ever, and I'd like to see him just keep being that. And Poria Geichi, the winner of that makes more sense in a lot of ways.

The timeline doesn't work. Those two dudes are going to beat the souls out of each other. There's no way they're turning around to fight in Abu Dhabi. Charles Oliver is really the only guy other than I know you threw out Michael Chandler and sort of a long shot and I can see that but I think it's just Charles Oliver and so kind of okay with it

I'll just get to watch two of the best like the two best lightweights in the world get after it and who can be upset watching that there's a lot of discussion about what was at stake for Benile Derrush like one of the questions that was posed to me on Heck of a morning that I used to like headline one of the episodes was is this do or do or do

for Benile Darius's title hopes. And look, I feel like it is. Like, is there a world where, like, there's injuries and there's short notice stuff and someone falls out 10 days before a fight? And Benny's like, all right, I'm in and he's the only guy available. Sure, that could happen. But one to 10, one to the chances that B'Neal can get back to this position and find his way in a title fight because he put it all,

to me, he put it all on the line tonight. Like everything was on the line. This was sort of all or nothing. And I respect the hell out of him for taking this fight and putting it all on the line. But this obviously did not go very well for him. That long winning street comes to an end. Where does he go from here? Oh, he's boned.

I won't say it's zero because he's still very good. And he's largely been a company man. So the UFC will, you know, do him something. favors. Not anything huge, but doing some. The problem is lightweight's impossible. It's just simply an impossible division to get a title fight in. You have to do something extraordinary to and be extraordinary for such a long period of time. Look at him. He just put together eight wins over good, good opposition and couldn't get one. And he's not the first dude in lightweight history to have that problem. It is constant in this weight class. Haffel Fiziv put together

There are a number of great wins, and then Justin Gachie had a good night, and that's it. It is simply an impossible task to work through the maze of lightweight and get to the top of the table. And if you are not a star, it limits your opportunities. If you are not a guy who is going to put butts in seats and make the UFC really invested in giving you as many opportunities as possible, you're going to have a longer road back. And in the most generous scenario, Benile Darius has to win two more fights. over like top five dudes and those dudes aren't going to fight him anyway

like Dustin Poir already was like I'm not going to fight that dude and like that sucks for many but that's just the world like this was his one top five guy who was willing to fight him he is going to have to fight back against like Armand Sarukian

or some shit like that and I don't like it's going to be a nightmare I think Benile there is really good I think that and I said this before not to take anything away from him, his run was helpful. He had some matchups that were pretty good with what he can do

and managed to sort of avoid some of the worst trip guys he could face. Namely, dudes who could hit real hard but aren't like mid fighters because, you know, Drakos is a good guy. I'm not here to say he's not a good guy. Choucaro close to top 30 lightweight and hit hard and tagged him in a way that was really dangerous. that is a whole world different than the Charles Olivares,

the Dustin Porey, the Justin Gachy's putting them mitts on you. And Benny never really had to face that guy. That's not Matush Kamrat's game or whatever. So I think a lot of the top five guys at lightweight are also statistical problems for him with what they do stylistically and how they approach the game. So it's very, very unlikely that he gets back there.

I won't put it at zero, but one to two. Yeah, I'm with you on that one. So Oliver Adairius 2 or not Olivera Darius too. Makachev Olivera too looking like it's going to go down in October. Mike Mollat, great finish of Adam Fuggett. He gets a Canadian crowd just ruckus. Nobody was sitting down. It was crazy.

Six and O for Canada. Danny Ege, great win over to Nate Landware, Mark Andre Barrio, hashtag JetGPT bet, beats Eric Anders. We obviously had the unfortunate ending to the Nassadine Imovov, Chris Curtis fight. was looking really good. Curtis was starting to flow a little bit. Jasmine Jazz and Jazz DeVizzi has looked good. Amen, Ariel Hawani, Zahabi with a quick knockout of Orichie Lang, Kyle Nelson with the big upset win, Steve Erseg with an upset win, Deanna Belbita kicked off the card with the decision win against Maria Olivera. What was the biggest takeaway from you outside of the main storyline, Jed? What stood out the most from you? If someone just came

up to you and said outside of the main event and the co-main event, who impressed you the most, What will you take away the most from this card? What would you say? Oh, that's a good question. I think there are two acceptable answers. I'm going to go with the obvious one. Low-hanging fruit, but Mike Malat might be a star, man. I don't know how good he can be because I don't know how good he can be.

He's already 31. He's looked impressive in the UFC, but the level of opposition has not been super high. But they gave him an opportunity tonight. Big prime placement on a Canadian card. and he delivered with his performance, he delivered with his post-fight speech. I was not watching the watch party because I was working, but I suspect that you and Connor very much enjoyed Mike Mollat's work on the mic because it was excellent, you know, getting the crowd all riled up,

really playing the hits for Canada. It was great. Love that he walked out to Sum 41, thought that was very Canadian as well of him. So I think the biggest thing to think about from this fight is the reality. action he got in Vancouver and his performance, if he can back this up against an increasing level of opposition, which I genuinely have no idea if he can or not, then they've got something.

I don't think he's going to fight for a title. I don't think he's probably even going to crack the top 10. But if he can just make his way into the top 15, that's a huge win for him and for the UFC because this kid has got a little bit on him, and it would be lovely to see that continue. Yeah, great performance. Jasmine, Jazz DeVezias.

impressed the hell out of me too. That was a great win against Marina Maverick. She looked fantastic. And I'm just going to go ahead and throw up my aunt in a wild card pick right now. Molly McCann's about to fight Julia Stoli-Ranko. I want to see Jasmine fight Molly McCann. Let's get her over outside of Canada. Like, let's just see what happens there. Molly wins. She'll get a reaction. They're going to get in there and get after it. And that's just a fun fight. That was the fight I wanted to see anyways.

But if Molly goes out there and beats Stoli-Ranko and gets back on track, they'll just chuck those two in there together there's no doubt that's going to be fun do it at MSG it's a great fight just let them get in there and scrap it up so don't do it at MSG Molly McCann should never fight not in England

you just got her and Patty should never not fight in England just always in England it is unbelievable the scenes are unbelievable the same way Steve they should never not fight in Cleveland I mean if they go back again later on this year sure I'm with you on that one But if she goes out there and just melts Stoliarenko,

are you just going to bench her for the rest of the year when she wants to fight? I think they're definitely going back this year. I think they do. I think London is now a two to three times a year rotation for them. Or maybe not London. Maybe they also mix in Birmingham. England is a two to three time rotation, I think, for them now. Yeah, this will be the second trip.

So I don't know if the schedule's filling up. And they're already going back to Brazil. They're going all different places. So maybe they go back in March again, maybe it's just kind of a March, July. thing, but I don't know if you can bench Molly for that long, but we'll see. Either way, I would like to see those two women fight each other next if Molly McCaic get the win. Let's bring in E. Casey live in. It's a great matchup. Can we very briefly,

Casey can certainly be here. The other, the other takeaway that I just want to throw out, because not a single person is going to talk about this, and that's fine. Not, don't necessarily need to. Shouts to Stephen Ersigman. Yeah. Making your UFC debut on short notice against the top 10 guy. We can quibble about David Dvorak and whether he should have been a top, you know, 10 UFC ranked flyweight, but he was. And that's not entirely without merit. And Stephen Ersig came out here and was just like, hey, by the way, I'd like to be one of the top 10 flyweights in the world. And great performance.

We'll get no love. And that's okay. I see you, Stephen Erick. I see you. Hey, you got 50K. So good on him. The rare 50K for just a fight. Didn't get a finish, just a fight.

Yeah. I thought, oh, look, the man went out and won. He looked impressive. Second, third round real good.

I thought you're going to give him a little bit of crap, Jed, for the, uh, for the gilly jump. I mean, look, it was horrible.

It was one of the worst things that happened on this card. But, um, you know, he still got the W. If that had cost him the win, which like it really could have,

uh, then he would be the big loser of this entire fight. it didn't. He ended up getting the W on the cards. Never jump a gilly when you have a dude hurt, because that's real dumb, apparently, unless you're Mike Malat, because he made it work. But if you're not Mike Malat, or I guess Dustin Porre, don't do it. Fair enough. When I got a great deal on a great gift at winners, I started wondering, could I get fabulous gifts for everyone on my list? Like this designer fragrance for my daughter.

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It's the matcha or the three ensemble Cadocephora that I've been to denishé who me energize so much. It's the ensemble. The form of standard and mini-regrouped. Hello, Ben. And the embellage, too beau, who is practically pre to donate. And I know that I'd love them.

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Procurre you see form of standard and mini, regrouped for a better quality of price, online on cifora.ca or in magazine. Casey, real quick, before we get to a few fan questions, is Amanda Nunes number one right now? She makes such a dang good argument.

It's real hard to deny her, man. are. I guess it's because I was there in the arena. I was there. I was literally there cage side for two of her losses. I was there cage side. And this is a while back, obviously. But still, she was a professional fighter fighting, you know, other name fighters. I was there when she lost to Alexis Davis. I was there when she lost to Sarah Diallo. I was at the venue when she lost to Katzangano. So like, I've seen, I just seen Mananunas on her worst nights. And that's kind of why I always just have issues. I mean, that'll affect you.

Were you ever cage side for any of her good wins? Not. Because if not, then I'm totally seeing it. Yeah. I totally get it. If you're only in-person experiences are negatives, that makes a ton of sense. Yeah, when I was there, I mean, of course, I've watched all their fights, but being actually at the video.

And I, okay, I love managing it is, but I was, I was at Invicta when she got wrestle effed by Sarah Diallo and she lost her 3027 and I saw her backstage almost not screaming but very passionately kind of complaining he's like this girl didn't want to fight me you know and I was just like hey you got to got to get up you know but I I'm never I'm not gonna it's not a battle I will fight ever if someone goes she's to go that's basically it I'm just not yeah it's not a battle That's exactly where I am with John Jones at this point. I'm like, I don't in my heart of hearts buy it, but it's just not worth the bandwidth to fight it.

I can't say you're wrong, even though I don't believe it. There's a good case. But you know what? If you want to carve yourself to goat and Manan Nunes, this is how you go out. You go out in a victory like this. You go out in a post-fight press conference where you used to say, oh, by the way, whoever wins that belt next, it's a fake belt forever. I was like, I'm like, wow.

She's going to dunk Giuliana Pena to the center of the earth for the next like 30 years. It's going to be some real Joe Frazier Ali stuff. We're just like, she'll be 60 and someone will talk to her and she'll just be like, man, F that girl. I love it so much. I love her contempt for Giuliana Pena, the person. Yep. She didn't retire out of spite and then she retired kind of out of spite. And it's all great. There's definitely a piece of it. I think there's definitely a piece. If you fought Giuliano, do you retire? No. Heaven's no. I wouldn't let Giuliana Pena be my last fight. Fight somebody else. I want to find a real opponent. Like Arena Adana, that has a real opponent.

Masterclass all around. The best. But that actually goes back to my Nunez not being the goat. Like, she lost Julia Pena. It's like, she lost Julia Pena. That's your best argument. In the Amanda Nunes is not the goat. She lost to Julianna Pena is by far the best argument. She got finished in one of the ugliest redneged chokes I've ever seen.

That was an exhaustion. I know, I know. It's fine. But yeah. But you know what I'm saying. Losing to Julianna Pena is a disqualifying thing in a lot of ways. Yeah. And she redeemed herself with just that one gift I see all the time of Julia,

up paying her running and she gets clocked and does that. But happy trials, man, I knew this, happy trails. That's good. Good exit. Good exit, good exit. A sport that has no good exits. And we've gotten a couple recently. And that's a good one.

Moms, moms. Undefeated. Can't beat them. Cannot beat moms. All right. on one second meet. Two goats defeated only by their mothers. All right.

What we got here? Tell me. At least you don't have to talk about like robberies and bad score. Oh, I saw a lot of Chris Lee judging tonight. So I was really worried. But luckily this outside of this, outside of the stadium falling apart while Mike Malotte was walking out, seems a pretty, uh, uh, uh, drama-free evening.

Everything was pretty set. Did Benel have to put up his title shot because this card sucked? Will the winner of Dusta versus Justin 2 get the title shot? I mean, if we recall, this fight was supposed to happen last month, and Olivera had an injury, so they rebooked it for this card. They just shuffled it. So it made better sense to be on this card. I get it.

But also, yes. Also, yes. Also, yes. Benile didn't need to fight to get a title shot. He was the most deserving guy, but the UFC wanted him to. And in part, they probably wanted him to because they need some extra juice in fights.

So they shot for it. But yeah, it is what it is. Yeah, I mean, if Benile sat out, he wasn't getting a title shot. He was going to have to win another fight. He made that very clear in all of his media that he did. Will the winner of Dustin, Justin, too, get the title shot? They will probably get a title shot.

They'll probably get the winner of, they'll get the winner of Islam versus Solverro. Nailed it. They will get a title shot. It won't be the next one. There's no way they're going to be able to turn around in two and a half months to fight Islam after they fight each other. There's just no way. Unless there's like some super nutty K.O., which seems extremely unlikely given these two men. No.

I think it's more likely that something happens to make that fight fall apart in the next, you know, six weeks or something. And if that happens, I mean, that fight car. is a catastrophe if that fight falls off as far as needing something to main event it. But if something, knock on wood, don't want it to happen, happen to Justin Gagee. I think the UFC could and should be like, hey, Dustin, we would like to give you a title fight against Izumarachev. We'll figure something else out for 291. Is that 291 or 292?

That's the-291. 2-91. We'll figure something else out for the main event there. Instead of fighting for the BMF belt, why don't you fight for the lightweight title? They'll do Bala Muhammad versus Shafkat Rachmana for the interim welterweight title. I'm in for it. I'm down with that. Yeah, I would love that.

That's a serious answer, by the way. Yeah. I have no issue of that. Tristan, why do you think it's so hard for the UFC to find women fighters at 135 in the regional scene to bring in? Is it really that scarce? I mean, yeah, it kind of is. It's just hard to find. The big thing is

there are women now who understand that this division is especially in the Ballotaur doesn't have a women's 135 as of right now. I know Liz Karmush's and others are hoping to get a 135 in there at some point

and maybe that'll happen. I could see them doing it. PFL doesn't have a women's 135 right now if memory serves correctly. There's just one place to have a 135 division and the ones that are bright spots around the globe and regionally are like 3 and 0 or 4 and 0 or 5 in 0. If you see the recent signings that the UFC have made, they're not experienced fighters.

They're 5 and 0, 4 and 0, et cetera. So I think they're around, but they're just green. They're just green. So you have to take risks. Some of them will have to fight on the contender series. Some will get their shot. But you'll see a lot of that talent be international. like Melissa Dixon, for example, she could fight in London, she could fight in Paris.

So, I mean, like, those, Sean Abannon, another one that they signed, she's going to be fighting on that London card, I believe. So there you go. I mean, it's, it is that scarce, but it's getting, it's, they signed Melissa Dixon. Did they sign Melissa Dixon? They did. Oh, I had no idea. I also want to just be clear on that. One, Melissa Dixon started her and a career like a year and a half ago. So it's like, here's the thing.

There really just aren't the bodies. Like, this is not a definitive thing. Go look at the topology for women's band and weights. One, you're going to see a lot of fly weights in the top 50. And as you get down that list, like the top 20 are all in the UFC. And as you get past it, it's like, here's a seven and seven fighter. And that's a good resume for some of these people. The rest of it's like, two and oh, three and oh.

They just aren't. It's not a weight class they built. It's a weight class that probably will not occur super organically because in general, very broad-stroke language here, women are going to be less drawn to combat sports because that's sort of just how that has worked the world over. And so you're going to have to actively try to recruit from places from women collegiate wrestling ranks or women's grappling to do it. And instead, they're not. And God-love Invicta, who was kind of doing stuff like that, they're not offering money that is going to make

somebody say, hey, I have a college degree that I got because I was a women's wrestler. And I can go make four and four and do this thing that is hard and sucks and has such a minimal payoff. And the best I can hope for is to maybe make it to the UFC one day where I'll make 10 and 10. Or I can go be an accountant and not get punched in the fact. face and I can just grapple at my gym on the weekends or whatever. Like that's, you're going to have to lay a groundwork to do this because it is clearly not an organic developing division at this point in time. I have to, yeah, this is a great question because I honestly don't know what happened

worldwide, at least nationwide to 135 pound women. I know. I know. They all went to 125 when that became a real weight class. We all said that. in we're like 125 is going to be dope when they make it because all the the two big fly weights are going to or two big straw weights are going to move up and then like half of the band and weights are going to drop down and then they did it and that's where we're at it's yeah and like yeah and

there's just and there's just and like I think the money part is a very significant part of this equation too how many women at 135 pounds make a living a nice middle class living off their fight purses. 12. Just so. Like 12. Yeah, that might have been high. Yeah.

I was going like maybe five. They honestly make a reliable living just doing that. It's just incredibly hard. At the gym I train that, I mean, I think there's about seven, eight women and all them are 25 and under. One, 21, 25 and under. Like, there's like no 35. That's the big thing, too, on the other end.

of it because look, this is, I am not a scientist, but just anecdotally, all the, all the female athletes I have known in my life. And when I was training at the gym, we didn't have anybody that weighed over like 135 pounds just walking around weight. Like that it, they just, women athletes are not that heavy by and large. Like, it's just not, in some ways, it's probably because the various sports where women frequently compete size is not like a huge advantage in those like outside of volleyball or basketball and then you're playing basketball because that's a better path forward than this fighting people if you're good at it so it's not like it's not like there's a pool of a 180 pound dude to you know couldn't make it in football because they were

180 pounds and that's not good enough at the collegiate ranks so they're going to do something else it's just not there. You're going to have to develop it if you want this to grow. It's not going to happen organically. Yeah. What else we got? If Valentina's career lasts long enough, do you all think Valentina could go

could do maybe I think it's maybe could do a title run at Bantamweight that rivals Rousy, so not great fighters, but solid fighters. No. Yeah. She can't. I love

Valentina Shivchenko. She's very definitively on the downside of her career. believe she has a really good opportunity to win the ban and white belt right now. I would not have any issue picking her to beat any of the women that are soon to be competing for it. But she's been fighting for 20 years. The body simply, I mean, listen to what Amanda Noon is said after that. Like she didn't say it as directly as I'm going to say it, but she's basically like, I'm retiring because there ain't nobody else to beat.

And my body is already unhappy with me. And she has not been fighting for nearly as long as Valentina Shipchenko. You just can't do it forever. Just way too hard. She can't put on an extended run. She can win the belt. And I think she should totally try and do that. Frankly, she should probably not even go fight Alexa Grosso.

She's like, peace. I'm going to 1.35 now, guys. When I saw this, that's exactly what I was thinking. Screw the rematch. Just take the 35 belt. It's right there. Chifchenko versus Payne. Dude.

That's a rematch, right? Didn't they fight? Yeah. Yeah, she tapped her off her back. It was sick. If Shipschenko just called up, Dana right now, was like, hey, you can just let Aaron Blanchfield go get the flyway belt. I'm cool with it.

I just can go to 135. Can I fight Pena for the title? Can we do, or, you know, Pennington for the title? Can we do that? And like, sure, why not? And she would win. She'd definitely do that. It would be way better for her to do that.

It's a great call. Oh, this one's for you, heck. The first round of Anders Burial was not middle. weighty, but the rest of the fight was. I still have Brennan Al as the middleweighty as middleweight. Should Barrio fight him for the title now? Yeah, we were talking about that a lot during the actual fight. About maybe this fight would actually crown the new middleweightiest middleweight champion.

Of all those groin shots, I was like, it's happening. Well, there's only one actual groin shot. The first one I didn't think landed. I only saw one replay, but it looked like it got him on like the upper thigh, but not on the cup. the second one was which makes it even more middleweighted the fact it wasn't a growing shot but we still got a growing shot stoppage yeah jaron jaren valel is the only guy you should be reffing middleweighty middleweight fights for this exact reason

so uh i'm still i still have brennan allen is the middleweightiest middleweight as of right now because it's the title he holds so dearly but if he goes out there and just wins another fight another two fights and he gets up to like the top five maybe he doesn't have the title anymore i don't know it's a it's a the title that's going to shift around all the time. I see, I think that you're mistaken. I believe we have a new middleweight, middleweight, and it's Chris Curtis. Because what is this division but a cursed division?

And what is Chris Curtis but a cursed man? So I think he's taking that title for me. Yeah. Kyle Borale is a really good case to be the middleweightest middleweight champion, though. He just got a finish, though. He did. You can't be getting finishes and be a middleweighty guy.

Who's the dude that Who's the dude that just beat Cheedy? Dariahef. Dariah is a very strong case. Dariah is very middleweighty. I think he needs a couple more to really establish his claim,

but he's very middleweighted dude. I mean, if you turn Cheedy into a middleweighty, you have to be in the top three to five to turn that guy into a middleweighty, middleweight. So the conversation will continue. We didn't talk about this fight at all or this gentleman, but here we go. Can Danny Gay be more than a gatekeeper? The dude seems like he is getting better.

What do you think about this one? Jed, I'll go to you first. Can he be more than a gatekeeper? He cannot. I do think he's getting better. And he's still like young. He's only 31. So that's pretty helpful for him in that regard.

He doesn't have like that many fight years. I guess actually, so here's the question for me to this question. What do we mean by gatekeeper? Because here's the thing. There are a lot of gatekeepers. There's a gatekeeper to the top 25 and there's a gatekeeper to the top 15 and there's a gatekeeper to the stars. He's never going to be a title challenger. If he high-rolled the remainder of his career, I could see him catching the right breaks.

and maybe fighting for a belt in the same way that like Josh Emmett fought for an interim title. And Josh Emmett, I don't think is like a great fighter. Like plenty of some solid but not great dudes have found a way to the belt. Then he could find himself as one of those. But he is always going to be the gatekeeper to something. He is, you know, he can elevate from being the gatekeeper to the top like 10, which is probably where he is right now, to being the gatekeeper to the top. five, but I don't think he's beating

Arnold Allen. I don't think he's beating Max Holloway, you're Rodriguez or Alexander Volcanovsky. He's just a really good fighter, but not an all-time elite fighter. And that's way better than most people in the world

that their jobs. If you told me right now that I was like the 13th best writer in the world, I'd be like sick. That gets all the ass. I won. I am better than everyone but 13 people.

And instead, because this is sports, we're just like, what a bum. What a loser. He's like, no, he's one of the 15 best people in the world at his job. It's amazing. And it's totally, we should celebrate that. So, Dan Ige is 31 years old. He's had 14 fights in the UFC.

He's 9 and 5. Can Dan Igay become the Jim Miller, at Featherweight or the Featherweight Jim Miller? He said how many fights in the UFC? 14. I know that's not Jim. No, he can't. He's going to have to up that volume a lot. Well, in the sense that we don't ever see him fight for a title.

He's going to beat guys like Nate Landwar. Oh, in that sense. Yeah. And that's like he won't. That's what kind of, he'll be around until he's 40. You know, I don't know. Just there's got to be a Jim for every weight class.

So just kind of... Oh, for sure. Give him, you know, he'll be around for a while. Doesn't... Doesn't cost him a lot of money. Doesn't cost UFC a lot of money to pay him. You know, it doesn't really...

Company man. It's not really great in the mic, but, you know, says enough. Dude, he's just... He's like a Volcanozumir guy. He's a better fighter than Volcanozumir, but he's just a dude. If he gets a couple good breaks,

so he can maybe fight for a belt, but more likely, he's just going to hang somewhere between 8 and 12 for the totality of his career, which is incredible achievement. It should be celebrated. Yeah, I think he's like, I mean, obviously this didn't age gracefully. Like over the last couple of years, he did have a win after it.

But he's going to be like the Hafiela Sunsov of this division where he's the not necessarily a gatekeeper. No, that's a great comp. Yeah, a litmus test. He's the litmus test. Like if there's a Nate Lane where or a Damon Jackson is on a nice run and we're like, hmm, maybe he's a top 15 guy. maybe he's a top 10 guy. I'm not really sure.

Let's throw him in there with Danny Gay and find out. That's kind of what he's going to be. I think at this point, after beating Damon Jackson and after beating a Nate Landware, he should probably get some sort of step up against a guy. But I mean, we've seen him fight the Emmits and the caters, and he was competitive with all of them. He just...

He lost decisions, so... Yeah. I will say two things. One, he definitely deserves a step up. He's defended his position. twice, you got to let this man make an attempt to move forward again. The thing in his corner for this is it's not common. It is certainly uncommon, but there is a history of people in his exact circumstance.

Things break and right, they advance, they develop things, something clicks for them. You know, Hafeld Dosanjos prior to his UFC lightweight title run, was this dude. Like, he got ethered by Jeremy Stevens and was just like, yeah, he's just going to be a really good guy that doesn't. and get there. Jan Blyovic, if you had told me in 2018 or whatever, or 2015, that Yombovich was going to be the light heavyweight champion of the world would have laughed in your face. Like, there are guys who have done this.

It's just that for every one of the Jan Blovich or Gowiczh, Cheshireas, the guys who's good but not great, you have a ton of Hafeel Assunzals and, you know, Josh Emmits or whatever, guys who just aren't really going to get there. But it is possible, and he's still young enough in developing. Maybe he can do it. I think Giga Chikaze is the fight. Because then you get to do both things at once. You get to test the new shiny toy, if you will, to see if this guy's really that good.

We tried it with Calvin Cater, didn't really work. Was he able to improve? Can he beat a Dan Igay? And for Igay, it's a step up. It's a top 10 guy. Gets the number eight guy in the division. So I like that idea. I also like the Brian Ortega idea.

like if Brian's going to come back and fight like Danny Ege is a pretty good big step up it's a big step up but there's talks about like Giga Chikazza is out here saying the UFC wants him to fight Brian Ortega like I would rather see Dan Ege get that shot if we're being honest

or just have Ege fight Giga I agree in concept but from the UFC's ranking Giga's 8 and Ortega's 3 whereas they have EG at 13 so 13 to 3 is a major leap in their rankings no i get it yeah so just do the giga fight i think that one makes i think giga i think giga is a nail and that's it

are they both allie fighters no is eke and ali no oh okay no no okay i think he's worked with like ali like like kind of helped him out with some of the management stuff in the past but he's not like he's not managed by ali no okay yeah i remember that all right uh uh why don't you guys suggest the canadian parlay i would have made a lot that that has been a big regretting from Ariel on the watch party. There's a big regard from GC on the watch party. I didn't do it for a very specific reason. This thing's never hit.

I mean, you can, I do think there is generally some favor for hometown fighters because they're more amped up, but like you're asking to go what, four for four, four, five, for five, whatever that number was. And some of them looked like bad matchup. So it's just, it seemed really likely that three of them would hit. and then it would die. It was like, no, I'm not going to do that. That was wrong.

Super wrong. Canada showed out. It'll be a fun. Yeah, it's a fun one, throw five bucks on. Definitely a fun one to just chuck some cash on though. Yeah. Yeah. Good crowd.

Everything about it was just really fun. We'll take one more. Give me one more because 4 a.m. Eastern Air. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I still have a ton to do. You know what? I don't see very much. I got people asking questions about John Jones.

other stuff, but nothing really about tonight's card. I think we're good. We'll save that stuff for like BTL or whatever. Yeah, yeah. We'll have plenty to talk about this week. If you have questions about John Jones, tweet them at me because I need stuff for Monday's hot tweets. So send me any questions you have and I'll answer stuff that doesn't suck on hot tweets on Monday. There you go. By the way, if you guys didn't watch the watch party, Ariel broke some news on the watch party in studio Monday on the Emma hour, the UFC middleweight champion of the world israel ad asania how about that oh wait wait wait wait do it again in studio this monday on the m m m m mary hour israel ad asania the middleweight champion of the world what are we're talking about

prime we're just going to talk about prime being a prime athlete he's supposed to fight in september what's going to happen who's he fighting who's it who's he going to fight who's he going to fight Mike the one guy he's supposed to fight they did a promo for who he's fighting next month i don't know who the hell he's gonna fight maybe he fights jamal hill rick because who the hell is is he mal hill gonna fight yeah i don't know i mean i would i would i would honestly support the hell at that fight let's do that that seems like a good booking all right all right guys i'm hit the music now hit the music boom hit it all right we're done uh ak and i will have it on to the next one tomorrow. We're recording it in like four hours, but it's not going to be live.

We're doing a podcast version. Early flight tomorrow. I don't have a ton of time. So we're going to give you a show. It's just not going to be live. So thank you all very much. Appreciate you. There's still combat sports tomorrow, too. Floyd Mayweather is boxing John Gotti to third. That's happening. Hector Lombard on that card is having a bare knuckle fight. I mean, I guess there's combat sports. things are going to happen, but I don't know. We'll have a lot more to talk about the aftermath of UFC 289 throughout the week.

But thank you for joining us, everybody. For Casey, for Jed. I am Mike Heck. Good night or good morning, depending on where you're at. Love y'all. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.