MMA Fighting - UFC 298 Post-Fight Show | Reaction To Ilia Topuria's Knockout Win, UFC 300 Main Event Announcement

Episode Date: February 18, 2024

Ilia Topuria talked a big game heading into his UFC 298 main event fight against Alexander Volkanovski, and he sure backed it up with a sensational knockout to become the brand new UFC featherweight champion. What is the ceiling on the 27-year-old featherweight title holder? Following Saturday's pay-per-view event, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck, Shaun Al-Shatti, Jed Meshew, and José Youngs react to Topuria's crowning moment, discuss where he goes from here, and what comes next for Volkanovski after his second straight knockout loss. Additionally, they'll discuss Robert Whittaker's hard fought victory over Paulo Costa in the co-main event, takeaways from main card wins from Ian Machado Garry, Merab Dvalishvili, Anthony Hernandez, plus a reaction from Dana White's UFC 300 main event announcement of Alex Pereira vs. Jamahal Hill. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Shaun Al-Shatti: @ShaunAlShatti Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter 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 Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-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 Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever.

Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-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. Hey. Those are the victory horns, ladies and gentlemen. And they sound for the new featherweight champion of the world.

His name is Ilius. DeForea and some cockiness you can even use that word but as long as you deliver in the octagon none of that really matters and Iliate thephoria backed it all up inside that octagon not what Alexander Goldcom welcome you to the UFC 298 show here at enemy fight dot com hey don't know what happened there we'll figure it out hey this works too but thank you for joining us everybody I am Mike heck you see Shaheen al-Shadi you see jeffey jett and shrewd the gang's all here You got a new champion of the world.

Jeanne, this was not UFC 297. There were a lot of questions coming in. We were wondering what the questions and the answers to those questions are going to be coming out. And I think we still have a lot of questions, which we'll discuss all of those. But Ilya Tupori is a new champion.

The man goes in there and does it. The headline for our preview show was, will Iliot Teporia end the reign of Alexander Volcanowski? And boy, did he. What a performance. What a knockout. You cannot make a mistake with that man. And Teporia capitalize on a mistake Volcanovsky made.

And now he's the champion, Shaheen. Your reaction to what we just witnessed about an hour and a half ago. Wow, man. Wow. Right? Like this is one of those moments that we witnessed tonight. I think we will all remember where we were when we watched this. We'll all remember sort of how we were feeling.

And it's going to be one of those moments that I think is going to be dissected in a lot of different ways over the coming days, months, years, however you want to slice it. because we watched the end of an era, right? Like we can get into it. We're going to get into it. Everything that Alexander Volcanovsky was able to pull off over the last, you know, eight years since 2016 when he came into the UFC,

just essentially dominating this division for eight straight years. And yet all of the signs were here, right? Like this is in a way not surprising. Whereas, like, I think a lot of other changing of the guard type of setups, right? Whether it's Anderson-Silvo and Chris Wydenman, whether it's Demetreus Johnson, Henry Sehudo, whether whoever you want to go connor or gregar even with jos aaldo often those are surprising right a dominant until the exact moment that he's not and then you're just left in awe at the fact that oh my

god this is actually over but the signs were there right like we have talked about it ad nauseum at this point over the past weeks months the age thing with wokenowski he was already defying father time in a way that no one had ever done in the history of these lighterweight divisions and also the knockout thing right Like just once you once that chin gets cracked once that that that's a little bit of crack in the armor shows, it usually portends poor things in the future. The end of an era, we just watched it play out with Alexander Volcanowski. One of the greatest UFC champions that we have ever seen in the history, in the 30 year history of this company, by far one of the greatest champions we have ever seen. But y'all, we just watched a superstar emerge tonight in Iliate Taboria. And whatever this Elliott Taboria era is going to be, whether it's going to be one fight, whether it's going to be five.

fights whether there's going to be 10 fights whatever this is going to be it's going to be entertaining and it's going to be crazy and i'm not sure what just happened there hey we're back that was fun yes it's uh it's been an adventure this week there's no doubt about that but yeah i you you nailed a lot of that chaheen uh jed your reaction i ilya tipporia gets it done as you were diving into tape as we're getting closer to this fight you felt more and more confident that old man volk would get it done that all the curse talk, the age stuff heading into these fights under 170 pounds, Volk would be the exception to the rule. And he looked pretty good in the fight.

Like this is a very intriguing matchup as it was playing out. And then Teporia lands the right hand from the depths of hell and knocks Volkovsky out. What's your reaction to what we saw tonight? Yeah, this fight was exactly what I thought until it was not. Right? Like I was pretty confident as this as this week went on. I was like, yeah, Volk's just better than Ilya And if he wins, he's going to have to kind of take a big leap up.

I'm not sure that he did like stylistically or in his skills, right? But he obviously elevated himself in other ways. But for that, I scored the first round for Volcanovsky and it looked like I thought it would be. He was going to kick the legs a bunch. He was going to figure out the timing and get out on angles. And Tupori was just going to miss a lot. And then my biggest question, we talked about this, like, how is DePyreya going to do when he is not just sort of getting the fight he wants?

Because he has largely just gotten the fight he wants. He wasn't. Turns out that you could just be like, Yolo and march forward chucking him. And it's fine because if you hit like a moose, then it's all going to work out. And that's what happened. He was not finding the mark with Alexander Volcanowski as that second round went on. I was live blogging and I was writing. Like he keeps swinging and missing.

Volk is out on. an angle and even though Volk is getting out towards the right hand he is out at an angle and Tuporia cannot find him he's going to have to figure something else out and what he figured out was just like bro whatever and I'm going to come forward with the combination he was talking about it at the post fight he was like yeah our whole strategy was I needed to throw punches and bunches and I wasn't really doing that and he wasn't and then finally did it was like oh got him and that's like the first time you really committed to that, he just killed him. It was, who's going to beat this man?

Like, who the hell is going to beat a dude who would just be like, oh, I can just win this fight now. I'm going to go do that real fast. It was insane. We're in the Tupori era. I don't know if it'll last forever. I would love to watch him fight Max, but we can get into all that. My first and biggest takeaway is, holy shit, that dude's good.

Yeah. it was crazy and here's i think my biggest takeaway was you better fight this man now because he's only going to get better like he's got to get better and that is a scary proposition for pretty much anybody because yes he won yes he was the knockout was nasty and sensational and i have a feeling that year end we're going to be talking about this one this is going to be on the ranking so it's the care of the year yeah it's frig that thing was incredibly nasty I will be astonished for something supplants that for Kio of the year. I know it's February, but when you factor in the aesthetics, the significance, the end of an era, like, what the hell's going to beat that, man?

You know? Yeah. We've had a crazy year if somebody beats it. Yeah, absolutely. And there's so many questions about the futures of both of these guys, Shahim, because again, like, we don't know what the ceiling is on Ilya. like the bar just keeps getting raised higher and higher with each fight because he goes in there from the jai herbert fight where things got kind of weird going up a weight class to bryce mitchell to the josh emett masterpiece he painted in jacksonville to knocking out

alexander volkenovsky becoming the champion at just 27 years of age such a leap from from fighter to fighter that he has been in that octagon with what like what do we do now do we just run this right back, but at the same time, like, Volk's been knocked out badly twice in four months. You have to think this guy's going to take some time off, right? Like, where does he go? Where does this division go? What would you like to see if you had the mighty pencil? First, I got to apologize for it.

It's framing you well. Technical difficulties that we're, we are. I am working on it. I am working on it. The audio is great. I am working on it. So, yeah, apologies. We're working through it.

It's late at night here. Mike, what did you ask me? You asked me, what does this look like moving forward? I think that's a great question, right? Because this is very, it's, I feel dumb almost like referring back to the Connor McGregor thing over and over again. But there was, like, there is an element of the Connor thing that that applies here where it's the, it's the leaps that that man was taking, right? Like, like, you could throw in the Chad Mendez win, if you want, but there were circumstances in that win, right? Chad coming in a short notice. Connor felt so untested by the time he reached Jose Aldo. He felt like such an, unproven product. We didn't really know what to expect. And then we were sort of robbed from whatever

that would be, right? Because he didn't act like a normal champion. He didn't play like the normal champions game of defending the title and over and over. And we learn more about you with each title defense. I am excited with this one, though, that we will, that we're not going to, it's not going to be a Connor McGregor type of situation. We are going to see what Ilya can bring to this division. We're going to see what he can bring as a champion. This is a someone who is going to sit here, by the way, despite what he, whatever he thinks it, right? Like, he may, hey, there we go, we're fixed. He has a lot of illusions right now about playing the Connor McGregor game,

but it's very clear that the UFC is going to just move forward with him now as the champion, same as most champions. And I'm excited to see sort of what the progression of that is because you're right, Mike, the jumps that this man was taking on the road forward were vast, right? Like, this is not someone who had to do a Marab Dwalisvili, where you have to win nine different fights and beat all these different contenders. He had a very expedited road to the top. And in the end, it was ultimately justified because we just saw what he did.

It was an incredibly brutal knockout, as we said, probably the knockout of the air. What this looks like moving forward will be fascinating. Because to me, and I have said this for about two years at this point, this man felt like a champion going in. And it is rare when you see someone go as all in as Ilya did over the past few weeks, months, etc., where I mean everything from the Instagram bio, putting 15 at O out there, UFC Featherweight champion, the way this man talked from the moment he earned his shot, telling all of us, I'm going to do this, I'm going to make this look easy. I know Volcanovsky is a legend, but this is my time.

And this is like the way that he packaged this and presented this, this man was setting himself up for either the ultimate face plant, the ultimate just, wow, that did not work out the way you thought it would. And the internet does not forget in that situation, right? like that he would have not lived that down regardless of you know how good he actually is if he had lost tonight the internet would have been on him for a long long long time unless he eventually did get back to that title but he pulled through he pulled through in such a spectacular way it feels as if the sky is the limit he feels as if he could be a genuine superstar and you already have dana white

out here talking about going to spain right we saw it in the lead up all of the incredible like support that Ilya was getting from these legendary Spanish figures. Although, like, the videos that were coming out of just like the most famous athletes in the history of Spain supporting this man and really putting their necks out for him, this dude has such a following, such a country behind him in a way that we rarely see. If they go to Spain for this first title defense, that is going to be an all-timer of a welcome home, right? That is going to be an all-timer of a scene to make this, to prop this man up and make him feel like

an absolute superstar. Sky is the limit, and I am so excited for what this could be, because, you know, you have Ian Gary out here at the press conference saying, what do you want for me, Jeff Neal is a savage, you go in there and fight him. Ilya is not having performances like Ian Gary had tonight, right? Like Iliate Tuporia, every time out is putting on as exciting of a fight as possible, and it just feels like whatever this is going, whatever this division is about to be with him at the helm, it's going to be really, really fun, regardless of which direction it goes.

What's the ideal situation for you, Jed, if you could lay this all out? Obviously, Spain has to be a part of the plan. But what if for some reason they can't get to Spain for like another nine, 10 months? Do we hold to Boria until that happens just to make sure we tap into that market while he's the champion? Do we put them out there to try to get him over like more so with the U.S. audience and the audience you're, you know, that's been your kind of home target the

whole time? What do we do here? how do you lay this out if you had the chance to do it? I think 10 months is too long. He's a new champion. He's young. He's exciting. Don't.

You can't shelve him for a year, something like that. I think six months is perfect. I think you want to have some space. And Volk was saying, in the post presser, he's a new champion. I don't expect him to want to turn around and fight immediately. You know, it would shock me if the UFC couldn't put together a fight card in six months and have it happen in Spain. that seems extremely doable for them.

You know, maybe it's not at, you know, the Real Madrid Stadium or whatever, but it's also not sure that that would happen anyway. They can get a venue and do this in six months. That gives Volk time to recover. That gives Deporia time to hit the scene, you know, make the rounds, get built up as the new champion and let this sort of simmer. I, you know, my stance I've said it a million times. I don't like immediate rematches in any.

any situation unless it is robbery. And I got to tell you, that's super not a robbery, what just happened. So I would personally prefer that that not happened. It's very clearly not what's going to happen. Volk is going to get the rematch. And it's fine with it. Maybe. Maybe.

Why would he not? I think there's a very real path forward for this outcome from this where we just watched this man get knocked out twice. over the past four months. And whether it's the handlers around him, the team around him, his loved ones, whether it's UFC,

whether it's doctors, whoever, I think it would be greatly irresponsible to throw him back in there to expedite an immediate rematch just because he obviously clearly wants one, right? Like I know we all love Volk,

and I know he's been an exemplary representative of mixed martial arts. He's been an exemplary champion. He's all class through and through, but this is one of those situations where somebody might have to step in and save this man from himself because there's no reason to expedite this. Like you need to give that guy time to heal.

You need to give that guy's brain time to heal. What we saw tonight was incredibly brutal. I know the Islam one maybe wasn't as brutal, but that is also a very large man putting his shin bone on your dome. Like you combine those two within a span of four months. If you're throwing Volk back in there, whether it's four months from now, six months for now, whatever, you are setting that man up for a bad, bad end of career chapter. one of those things that we see on Wikipedia where all of a sudden it's one, two,

three, four, all these red marks dotting the end of the career. You just do not, I don't want to see that happen to him. I don't know that there is a rush. I feel like there is a path here forward. You already have a built-in contender, whether it's a Movstar of Loya, who is right there. He already has history with Ilya Tuporia. They've been booked before. That's a great fight.

That is, you could certainly take that to Spain. Really, it doesn't matter who it is. It's just going to Spain for Ilya alone will be enough of a show. or or you have UFC 300 coming up here. We just saw Al Jermaine Sterling, Calvin Cater is the number one spot on the pay-per-view, right? It's the pay-per-view opener. If Al-Jermaine Sterly goes out there, has a great performance, looks like himself, looks renewed here at 145, cuts a promo. I think you could very easily throw Al-Germaine Sterling in against Iliott-Teporia and have a great

headliner for whatever that first title fight is, that first title defense. And then you can save Volk for the next one. I just do not want to see Volk get rushed into a spot. where it's very clearly just irresponsible to do it. Okay, but that's, yeah, that's just not what's going to happen. Like, I get where you're coming from. And again, I don't want an immediate rematch.

There's just, he's gonna get it. Like, it's, it would be better if he took it. I wouldn't be so sure. I don't even, I don't even think he can take a year off right now. I got, he's 30. He certainly don't think it's, as guaranteed as you do. I think it's, I think his,

handlers might be like, hey, you should not do this. And I think Volk would be like, hey, I'm 35. Is it better that I return in six months or a year and fight that dude who's 27 and getting better? I think I'll take the six months and roll the dice on that because I did it for this. Like I would be very surprised if we don't get this next. I don't want it. Again, been pretty clear of my stance here. But it seems incredibly likely to me on the on the verge of a certainty that that is what will happen next and i think the timelines will work i think it'll take him six months to get something set up and you know it would be better if people didn't fight after suffering concussions but six months is a pretty good chunk of time between then i won't feel i won't feel desperately

bad about volk outside of like i don't think he would win anyway because we just saw what happened when you fight this dude and that's just the name of the game and that's unfortunate but them them's of the breaks when you're playing at the highest level of the sport. So in my perfect world, Bob Star would get it, but no one is going to care about that fight. Actually, in my perfect world, Max Hollow would not be fighting with Justin Hage.

It doesn't matter if anybody cares about it. It's just Ilya in Spain is the attraction. It is, but the U.S. You are not. You or me, and that's still going to be a great event. So yes and no, it will sell out the event.

It will not draw pay-per-view interest to be Ilya Mavsar. And that is still a thing that matters to the UFC outside of doing the Spain event. If they didn't have another choice, it wouldn't matter. But it's not like they lack options here. In my perfect world, it would be Max. Look, I'm pumped about the Holloway-Ga-Ga-Ga-Fight fight. That fight rocks. One of the reasons you don't book it is because if Deporia does this,

Max Deporia is an awesome fight. And that would be like the ideal headliner for Spain in the early fall. It could still happen. Max goes out there beats Justin like, who knows exactly what goes on. But I think the overwhelming likelihood of years, we're going to get Volcanovsky with the rematch. It's going to happen in Spain. It's going to happen in September, October. I think you might be surprised.

Yeah. Could be. I'll tell you what, man. You would all, you know what also would be big in Spain if Yaya Rodriguez puts the boots to Brian Ortega after one what Yair did on the MMA hour and two you do Spain versus Mexico in Spain I mean that would be friggin fantastic that's great pretty good I just I genuinely like I absolutely get what you're saying sheen a hundred percent it is to me a worse idea for him to shelf himself for a year he'll be 36 going on

37 he is not getting younger I I think that Volk is keenly aware of this. I thought that is why the last few years he has been pushing to be as active as he is pushed for because he has felt the specter of father time on his ass and you got to get in while the getting's good. And I mean, it's not this. It's not apples to apples, right? But Henry Suhudo took three years off and look where that got him. Like if he took another year off and came back, it sucks. That's what being old sucks. In all avenues, being old sucks. I think, I think coming back in six months is a much better alternative to shelving for a year. I think it's going to be interesting.

You think so? How do we do it? Yeah. Do we wait to like, I don't know. I think like to me, it's just I understand where both of you are are coming from. Because I'm more like if I had my brother Shaheen and I'm, Jed agrees with you. Like, Volk takes time off. Like if he could just be the same dude, like awesome.

Dude, if he's 26, this wouldn't be a conversation. be like, yeah, take for a hundred percent. Even if he's 32, 30, 33. It's not a conversation. But yeah. Yeah. It's one of those things. Yes.

You don't want to. You don't want Volk's legacy to be. This guy had a really good run for a few years and then just got knocked out a whole bunch of times in a row. Like you don't want him to ride off into the sunset with a bunch of bad knockout loss. That's what it has to be though, Mike. That's how the sport works. And so in 10 years, we can have these same conversations about people who never watched this dude fight and are like, well, actually, Iliu, Tupuri is better because he

knocked him out and he's got three title defenses and durber, dur, and look, Volk lost four of his last six belts or whatever, because all I can do is read a Wikipedia page. So, so can we actually address this? Because I know, I would, I know that this is going to be the thing now, because this is always the thing within this sport. Hell yes, it is. No long term memory whatsoever. And even the short term memory is pretty poor. over the ensuing days, weeks, years, months, whatever frame of time it is, there are going to be plenty of people who are going to start making bad faith arguments trying to poke holes in the legacy of everything we've seen this man do since 2016. Especially, especially if this is now the beginning of the slide that tends to happen for older fading champions, right? We've seen this story so many different times with Jose Aldo, Max Holloway, all these guys have dealt with it.

before. Once you lose once, and then you'll lose again, and then maybe you lose again, and all of a sudden, three years ago, everyone said, you were the consensus greatest of whatever of all time, and now all of a sudden you're a bum. Tony Ferguson, right? Tony Ferguson was one of the best lightweights ever, and now all of a sudden he's a bum. Anderson Silva, if Anderson Silver retires before the Wyman fight, he's the consensus goad of all time, but he didn't, and now he lost a bunch of fights in a row, and now no one ever throws him into that conversation. That's just the way this goes. Over the following, whatever length of time you want to draw, there are going to be people who try to look at the Wikipedia page and tell you, well, actually, Volk wasn't that good.

Well, actually, this or that and just throw out dumb reasons that don't actually provide the proper context. Do not let those people fool you because you and I, everyone out there watching this, watch the truth. We watched what this man did since 2016. Alexander Volcanovsky's reign ends with him being the fifth longest consecutive champion in men's history in the history of the UFC. The four people ahead of him are Max Holloway, Demetrius Johnson, George St. Pierre, and Anderson Silva. Those are four all all-timers, like four of the greatest fighters we've ever seen. Alexander Volcanovsky started his UFC career, 12 and 0, just beating everybody, beating the breaks off of everybody, barely having a lot of those fights being even close.

He beat old guard and new guard. His is whatever he just did spanned multiple generations. And do not let people diminish that. Do not listen to those idiots because that is not the truth. We watched this man be great. He handled himself with class all the way through. He was a perfect representative for this sport. And he accomplished more over this course of time than 99.9% of people

who will ever lace up the gloves or have laced up the gloves over the past 30 years of the UFC. Do not let people diminish with this. man did we all watched it we know it regardless of how this plays out from here he is an all-timer and his legacy is better than almost everybody else who has done it before him yeah he's one of the 10 he's one of the 10 best fighters also just just a minor correction you uh slipped up and said that he was behind max holloway in the consecutive days it's jos a although not max holloway oh yeah jose so my bad it's late but um yeah it's i know just just just just to clarify yeah he's easily one of the 10 best fighters of all time it's not he's absolutely

in that ranking so um he could lose but yeah more fights after all by knockout and none of that will change agree that's why it's the the most difficult thing to do in this sport is defending a belt over and over again stop being impressed by double champs be impressed by even now too because the belt you could put jewels in the belt be impressed by people who fill up one whole thing of the belt with all the jewels because that shit is impossible it doesn't happen like what what she just said focus number five all time and days he has five title defenses this shit doesn't happen people like come on yep i think uh the argument you put it out there jed about this is just getting better and better every single day that that goes by and now

Now, Leon Edwards is the longest reigning champion in the Ups. Isn't that wild? Isn't that wild? It's so crazy to think about. Yeah, Leon Edwards, Dana White's favorite fighter right now. We'll get into what Dana White had to. Also, that was wild too. Didn't see that one coming, but here we are, the year of our Lord, 2024.

What a performance really, it's poor you. And last thing I want to say about this, Vogue was winning that fight until he wasn't. Like until that right hand landed, Volk was winning. He won the first round, all three judges scorecards. In my opinion, he was winning the second round until he got knocked out. Like Volt fought really well.

He just got hit real hard. He made a mistake and he can't make it. He even said it the whole bill. I cannot make a mistake with this guy. Let his guard down for one second. And that was it. So congratulations to Ilya, well deserved.

And very excited to see what his future looks like and how long this new reign of terror it can last at 145 pounds. Saving and investing well is an art and a science. It requires high-level math, an intimate knowledge of economic history and theory, and a healthy dose of psychology. People have spent their whole careers and won Nobel Prizes, trying to figure out the best ways to do it. Betterment believes that you should be able to be a successful and sophisticated investor without having to get a PhD. They've spent over a decade creating and refining a platform that can help people who have, you know, lives invest like experts.

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and find gifts and inspiration to suit your holiday style at Sacks Fifth Avenue. Also a big win for him just psychically. Because the amazing amount of shit he talked in the lead up. If he had gotten there and gotten greased up by Alex, like, it'd have been tough scenes

to him. Just be like, now it's good. Now it's all gravy. It's like, yeah, everything I said, I did. So it's fine. Yep. It's this guy's the man now. What a performance.

Robert Whitaker and Paul Costa just beat six shades of caca out of each other. That was a lot of fun to watch. Bobby Nucks gets it done. Looks like he got hit in the face of the Louisville slugger, about eight. 18 times without trying to defend it once. But that was fun. Paul Costa is officially not a human being because he got hit so hard, so many times,

and barely, like, had a mark on him. It's just like him and Marlon Vera are just, you can't do anything to those guys. It's just crazy. But good win for Robert Whitaker. Very close fight, Jehaden. Anything surprise you with that fight? What did you think of Robert Woodacre

versus Paul Acosta and Whitaker getting the nod? Did anything surprise me? Yeah, I'm surprised Robert Whitaker survived after that first round. That was insane. The other man survived at the end of that round. That's spinning wheel kick, dude. That was ridiculous. Like Robert Whitaker has been through so many wars over the course of his career.

Like the Yowell Romero fights alone, both of them. If you give those to most other human beings, like that's the end of their run right there. That like sucks it out of him. That Justin Gachies, the whatever chin they had left out of them. And yet Robert Whitaker's still out here just taking clean wheel kicks from this like slab of concrete that is palo costa it's absolutely crazy i we've said it over and over again mike heck you and i that middleweight right now is a top four most fun division in the ufc and i stand by this and the fact that robert wittaker is still in here just like actually win in fights that matter

and being in the title picture i love it it's so cool it's a y'all must have got type of moment for him to be able to come back from that awesome awesome awesome performance robert wittaker at this point has such a sneaky great like arsenal of just incredible wars under his belt that you could really rival against most other dudes in this division like if you if you threw out his like top five just like that was a drop like all out drag out more and you just put his top five up you could really rank that against anybody robert whittaker absolute mensch complete savage out there what did you think of that fight jed paul cost it was a darling dog like all week and that fight ruled It was awesome.

Yeah, it was deeply fun. Shame that they didn't get rewarded for their efforts with a bonus. My takeaway from that fight are many of the same ones. Polar Costa, dudes built, dudes made of real star and stuff. Really, that is E.K.O. aging really, really nicely when we've seen what sort of Polokasa has gone through outside of that fight. And on a bit of a downer, I thought that that's the best Polo Costa's ever looked, like strategically tactically.

I thought he was making good choices against the style matchup that I thought was pretty poor for him. I'm pretty sure Robert Whitaker's over the hill now. And he's young, but fight mileage is fight mileage. He's been in some wars, as sheen sort of pointed out. And I think that we sort of saw that catching up to him in there. Still, he's still good enough to hang around to kind of be a super competitive guy around the top of the division.

but I really doubt he ever gets back to the belt. And that's a little sad because, you know, he's, he's been a fun staple of this weight class for a while and could have put up some really impressive numbers, you know, to be up there with Volk in terms of title defenses. But there's this guy named Israel Dyssinia, and he happened to be competing at the same time, and that was really tough for him.

Like with Max, basically. So, but yeah, really fun fight. Should have been five rounds. We deserve four. two more. That would a bit of fun five rounder. No doubt about it. All co-main should just be fives.

Yeah. That's something like that. Right. Yeah. And you have names like that 1,000% to more rounds of that one. It's a co-man on a paper view. Pretty and fun. Yeah.

Fun for just super fun fight. The options for both guys moving forward are really, really fun, sheen. I mean, it's Sean Strickland, Robert Whitaker, right? Like, that's the move. That's the move. That's the fight. That's such a great fight. I'm surprised to hear you say, Jed, that you don't think Robert could get back into the title picture. Because if you look, Sean Strickland versus him and he wins that fight, he is there.

Like, he is in the title picture. He is that guy probably next up. So I love that fight. You throw that fight in Australia. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think he's just, we've seen Sean Strickland in Australia. He's already way over in there. Like, I don't know. That would be a really fun spectacle. I think that fights fight to make really not sure he wins that fight but even if he does I still think he needs one more because we're all operating under the assumption that ddp is fighting israel disdain and i got to tell you i don't care if robert comes out there and flying arm bar shot shickland like there's just not going to be a clamor for him to get another crack at either of those two dudes after how those fights have gone so i think he's still two fights away and given the level of opposition and it seems deeply unlikely to me that he's going to get back there. Like, I would pick Sean Strickland to beat him right now. Interesting.

And also there's a dude named Hamzaa Chamaev, who may or may not be a middleweight. I don't know, but he's in there. I just think what is going to have to be beating tough dudes. And this to, to y'all's point, which I don't quite agree with, middleweight's like fun now. And there are good people coming up. And there's now, there's about to be that generational shift. And I think that he looked pretty physically declined from kind of peak Robert Whitaker. I'll tell you what, the division that kind of stole the show tonight was the middleweight division

because both main car middleweight fights were frigging bangers. Both them were excellent. Anthony Hernandez is super fun. And I'm sure we're going to talk about him in a little bit. And then Whitaker Costa was really good. It's good stuff. Good stuff. Ian Machado, Gary, a lot of people didn't think that.

That was good stuff. I, it was fine. I, I, I don't really necessarily, like, fully blame him for that fight. Jeff Neal did a lot of clinch work against the fence. Ian was, you got to think, too, like, Ian had a lot of pressure out of him. Like, him going in, just kind of taking it in the teeth for the last several months, dealing with everything, like, even like walking in to the arena earlier today, like, fans are yelling at his wife and he's like getting into skirmishes with people like before he's

about to get into the biggest fight of his life like with everything on his mind like i thought he fought a very tactical fight wasn't didn't blow the doors off of us still called though colby still was ian machado gary but like how would you grade at jeanne people pretty hard on him even like one of the reporters asked dana about how bad the fight was and dana was just like all right, ask Ian. He's right back there, which I thought was kind of funny. But what do you grade the win? Like a win, Jeff Neal on the resume is a very good name to have on your resume, especially so early in his professional career. How do I grade it? I think if you beat Jeff Neal, the baseline of that is probably like a B-minus, right? Because I have immense respect for Jeff Neal. He's

pretty much the highest-level gatekeeper that Welterweight has. And Ian Gary beat him. So to me, I can't diminish that just on his face as an accomplishment. So I would give him. it a B-minus. But yeah, I don't think that's the type of fight that's going to inspire someone to say that that's the future of the welterweight division. There is nothing I saw tonight that that tells me that Ian Gary could go out there and, for example, beat Shafkat Raghmanov. Like, Shavkat's the future of this division to me. And Ian Gary maybe can be in that conversation. But I don't know, man. It's interesting to me, like the most interesting part of the Ian Gary thing right now to me is the levels of, I guess not even level, but like

the reaction that he's getting from the MMA space. Let me throw it to you guys. I'm curious for your perspective. The level of heat that he has received over the course of this week, especially tonight, whether it was from the fans, just, you know, online. We see it. We all see it.

Are we talking, is this like Xbox go away heat? Or is this, I want to see you lose heat? Because to me, it's starting to border in the former, which is not really what you want to be, right? Like, I want to see you lose he gets you money that gets you paid that's floyd way mayweather heat right this feels kind of like

i just don't even really want to see you heat which is kind of like puts you in a balahama type of spot that's not really where you want to be in the ufc what do you guys think i it's hard for me to understand where people are at with him because i don't get it i don't have any issues of the and gary uh he can be annoying at times but i feel like the reason people are annoyed at him are all very very dumb like here here's what annoyed me today is his post-fight press conference, where he comes in and he's indignant that someone would dare call.

Again, they didn't even insult the fight. The dude who asked the question was like, hey, Dana, what are your thoughts on Ian Gary kind of having a listless fight and the crowd's reaction? Because the crowd was booing the whole fight long.

And then Dana was like, I'm just going to brr and throw it to Ian Gary. And he's like, why did you think it was listless? Please tell me. What was listless about it? Because they used footworks and angles.

I'm the smartest fighter alive. I'm so smart, smart, smart. It's like, dude, you know that that's bullshit. Because if I were to just ask you, hey, was that fight more, like, would you rather show your friends who don't know shit about MMA? Like, hey, this is what I do. Would you rather show them that fight or the song can on fight? We all know the answer to song can on.

It's okay to not have a banger of a fight every once in a while. And it's okay to be like, yeah, Jeff Neal hits real heart. hard and so I had to take a little softer, but you don't have to be like, actually, that fight was amazing. And I'm, and I'm a genius. Like, just like, okay, you had a turn of a fight. Happens all the time. Israel, this, yeah, half of his title defenses were turns. Like, you won, you were better and you did show some tactical things, but like, we don't have to live in a world where because you won that makes it great. It's just ridiculous. That's what annoys me, not the fact that like, he, his wife wrote a book or whatever like weird shit

people are into about his family or I don't, I don't even care about the shirt stuff. Like, it, it is not to my taste. It is not a choice that I would make to kind of go on that blood loss. I'll talk shit this way. But he owns it and it's a fight game. So he's, he's not walking that back and being like, actually, I was just, oh, now Jeff Neil's being mean to me. It's like, okay, whatever.

Like it's it's fine You want to be that way be that way So it feels like people just hate him But I don't know that MMA has ever really had a person who like We hate that the the audience in general Wants to hate to buy Like Floyd Mayweather is like one of very few people in history Who people paid money to watch lose

I just don't think the sports ever created one of those I think people are going to watch anyway And they will just root against Ian when he's around I love it. I don't know. I feel like I feel like Connor sort of reached that level at various points of like people hating him, especially during the D.S thing of like people would pay to watch him lose, right? Like there was real revelry by that UFC 196. I can buy that. Also, I mean, I think there's probably a couple other examples.

You pull them out. So here's the biggest one though, because this is this has always been my contention. Bobby. Do you think a single person paid to watch Colby coming to lose? Because I do not. I think people paid to watch Kobe Covington fight and people paid to watch UFC because they were going to.

But I do not think a single human being was like, I'm a shell out 80 because today's the day that Colby Covington gets his comeuppets. And like, I just, I think that's really rarefied air, not just an MMA, but boxing. And like,

Connor actually may be one of those. But that's Connor and Ford are the two biggest stars in combat sports in the last 20 years or whatever at Throwin Canelo. That's, that he and gary ain't that you know i don't know i would push back on the colby element of it because i think both of the usman fights and the mazudal fight there were there's probably a large contingent of people because those fights sold so so well i think there's a large contingent of people who bought that to see him get his comeuppance whether they they felt

like they got it or not is is not you know relevant but i feel like that's that's definitely we need to we need a way to poll we need a way to to pull that because i just truly don't think that anyone was like i will spend 80 dollars to watch colby coming to get punched in the mouth that was ancillary to the purchase if it was involved but we're all we're also sidetracking right like going back to the ean thing it does feel like he is reaching this bala muhammad level of like go away heat and i don't know that that's a positive he keeps spitting that as a positive but when you have the entire arena booing you so vociferousy throughout your fight and then during your entire post-fight speech and you're trying to position

yourself as the next guy, the next Connor, the next superstar, that doesn't feel like that matches up. That doesn't feel conducive to your goals. I would agree. Did this win get him a Colby fight? He's just not. Did this win get him a Colby fight? You think? I don't, Mike, you're in Colby's head way better than I ever have been. I would say yes, but I don't know who, like, why does Colby want to fight him? I don't know. Sure. I think if I'm, if I think if I'm Colby watching that performance.

And I didn't, again, I didn't think it was a bad performance at all. Kobe would get to be the hero. Which is interesting. And also almost for the same reasons that we look at Ilya to Poir right now. You better fight this guy now. Like, fight him now because he's young and very athletic. and he's only going to get better. Like he's his skill set is only going to improve.

And he's a genius. If you heard him talk, he's the smartest fighter that's ever been. We don't understand how smart he is. Because he jabbed and refused to engage. I did like, I like the body kicks. I like the step in knee.

I thought that was a incredible weapon today. Just kept me and Jeff. deal right in the baby, like right in the gut over and over again and just did not miss that move all night. I thought it was, it was fine. It was fine. It's hard to look real good against a guy like Jeff Neal, especially when Jeff implemented, which I thought, while not the most aesthetically pleasing, the best chance he had of beating Ian Gary in that fight was to put him up against the fence and just try to grind him out. But Ian got it done. And look. On your worst, on nights where you're not at your A plus,

if you could still go in there and get wins, like especially against a guy like that, still not a horrible night at the office. So it's not. I will say that's real good against Jeff New. Exactly. Shafcott Rockmoff. Shapkat.

That's where I was going to come from to sort of put a bow on the Ian thing. It's like part of I think the stuff that hits him that like just misses for him is, he ostensibly is a pretty self-aware dude except for when he's cutting promos and it's like ah that was like obviously that wasn't a great performance and whether it's fair or not you're judged by your contemporaries

like you are coming up at the same time Shavka and Hamzaat and to lesser extent Jack Dell and some of these other dudes you have a direct comparison to Shavka and you come out just losing it by a mile and so it's tough to be like

I'm going to be a future champion. Like, well, you just edged one out over here. And this other dude got a submission of the year over Jeff Neal last year. So actually, I think he's going to be the future champion, my man. It's tough. In one of the three best fights of 2023. Yeah. And in a sick fight.

And on the same card, Mike, to your point was like, Inge, he did have a lot of pressure. There was a lot of stuff going on. You know, also had a shit ton of pressure on this week. Ilya, how did he deal with the pressure? I would say better than Ian Gary did. Yeah. Marab de Wallace Billy dealt with a lot of pressure too. Yeah.

Just win. Needed it. Needed it badly. And he didn't get moved at all. And the worst performance. Yeah. Marab coming out looking like a freaking hero, talking to Mark Zuckerberg while he's trying to gilly up Henry Sehudo.

I mean, Marob is just over like Rover. This dude was uninteresting heading into this week where like no one has more to lose them, Rob. And now Dana White is going to the press conference saying he's automatic. Like Al Jardin Sterling never got that.

A lot of the guys don't get that. We get a meeting on Tuesday. We don't make fights after the fight. Marab got the, he's fighting whoever wins at UFC 299 treatment from Dana White. If you asked me if that was going to happen two weeks ago, and you told me that was going to happen, I would have been like, no, that's not going to happen, Sheen.

Somehow what Marab did over the past like week, two weeks, might be the most impressive thing on this entire card. On a card earlier to Portia just had one of the great changing of the guards we'd ever seen. Because Rob DeVille, you just said it, is over now, man. Like he is over with this fan base. He is having everybody out there cheer for him, root for him, cheer him on, urging him to get that title shot. That was inconceivable, like a year ago, man.

Like, Maraub was basically below, more or less. Like, he was in that same spot of no one really cares. Because there was a lot of resentment with the Jose Aldo thing of him sort of ending Jose's last little run with a really bad fight that didn't make a lot of sense to book it to begin with. And then just like the weird placement he sort of had in this division with Aljo at the top. But just all of it, like his fights being somewhat boring usually. like he was just not that guy at all and over the course of the past couple months the way he's been

able to put his personality out there it just keep accepting these fights we we set it in the preview show but like marab now has the longest win streak in the history of this division in the oc and stop period he is tied with aljama sterling for the longest win streak in the history of this division and he has not even fought for the title yet half of aljo's wins during that streak were title fights the fact that he was just able to say hey screw it i'm just going to keep taking these fights and it's going to just work out for me dude i didn't i could have never predicted that this man would get as over as he is it's unbelievable and in what we saw tonight was stupid impressive like you're out here making olympic gold medal is like gas himself in 15

minutes more or less like clowning him like by that by the end of that fight marab do iosvili was fight he may as well been fighting my 18 my 18 month old son like he was just doing whatever he wanted to Henry Zahudo picking him up and walking around the cage with him and making funny faces to Mark Zuckerberg and talking to the announcers during all of it. Like it was just insane. He was doing Khabib shit to Henry Suhudo, who's like a legitimately great fighter. And Rob was just kind of doing whatever he wanted and people were eating it up. People were loving it.

Like the transition from this man is so not over to this man is so ridiculously over. might be one of the most impressive things I've seen in the last couple years. Pretty crazy, huh Jed? He went out there and ran over Peyodor Yan over 25 minutes. Like statistically, one of the most ridiculous performances we've seen in a fight night main event. And nobody cared.

No one wanted to see this guy fight for the belt. Like hardcore fans were trying to fight on his behalf. But in the end, we were just like, nah, he ain't going to get it because he's not saying the right stuff. and the UFC had an issue with him not wanting to fight Al Jemaine Sterling. And now all of a sudden, he's the bell of the ball, Jed. This is, this is unbelievable stuff. What a, what a turnaround.

Hand up. I goofed because I watched him beat Peoria on. And I was like, that's the best band of weight in the world. And then I got all excited because Patchy Mix had a kick-ass 2023. And I was like, oh my goodness. look at what patchy mix is doing out here he's knocking fools out one of the best knees you'll ever see he's dummy and bodies on the ground this guy is the man he's the best band of weight in the world and i was wrong because marab jrubhhhhhhhili is the best bandw in the world man like

that fight it's 2928 and it's deserved it so it's the widest 2928 imaginable and it's Like, that should have been five rounds. And it wasn't getting a scotch better for Suhudo. It was just going to roll downhill in the worst ways possible. Like, over 25 minutes of fist fighting, there's just not a dude who's going to beat him. Not right now. There's not, not at that weight class. I, Godspeed, Sean and Malley.

If you managed to beat Cheeto, which I do not think you're going to do, you are going to have to make some real gymnastics. to not fist fight him. I don't know how you're going to get out of it, but you better start working on the excuse because Cheeto will fight him. Cheeto will lose. Cheeto does mind getting in there and losing to some dude. Like, we've seen him do it plenty.

Sean O'Malley's whole thing will come crumbling down if Marob, not if when Marob marabs him. So, dude, he's just unassailable. He is so, he is the best cardio I've ever seen. I am comfortable saying he has the best cardio, the history of MMA. And I don't like to make statements like that while a fighter's still fighting because

I don't know, maybe the next time he goes out, he gassed him one round. But that doesn't seem likely. I've never seen anyone who has the cardio that this man has. It is weaponized cardio is a stupid phrase. He might be the only person alive for whom that phrase is not idiotic. Like, it is unreal to watch him work. Dude, he wasn't even breathing hard. Like at the end of that fight, he was not even remote.

He barely looked like he had gotten into anything. Like he even looked like he'd taking a stroll around the other on the block. And Henry Cahudo, Olympic champion, two division champion is gasping for air like he is being drowned in a puddle. Like it was. Huh. I don't want to fight that dude. Yeah. That'd be bad.

And then you did a nine minute post-fight interview with Joe Rogan. It was like the man just can't stop. He denied Henry Sohudo his retirement speech. He just said. I don't care, man. This is my mic time. I'm just going to keep using it. It was unbelievable. It was A plus all across the board. He, like, Marab genuinely did the impossible over the past week, because I thought there was no way in hell, no matter what he did, that the Oofos he was going to commit to this man as the next title challenger, because A, you heard Dana say it, like, they don't like when you do the, oh, he's my friend. I don't want to fight him type of thing when you guys are both at the top of the division and they tend to punish people who do that. I just thought, you know, there's still some bad feelings from that. And even the way Dana was explained. in it tonight. It felt like there were still some bad feelings from that. But also, B, like, he is just obviously such a nightmare stylistic matchup for this ultra popular popular champion who's

just hitting like a real, like the segment of the fan base that is really into Sean O'Malley is like a segment of the fan base. The UFC really wants to court. So I didn't ever expect that the UFC would just commit to something like this, regardless of if Marab went out there and sparked Henry Suhudo in five seconds. The fact that he was able to get Dana White in the press conference, like, oh, yeah, no, it's Marab. We're going to do Marab. And just, completely take that choice out of Shano Malay's hands. That's crazy. That is incredibly wild. And kudos to you, Morab, because you did it, man. I could have never guessed that he would be able to pull this off. And he did it. This was his Habib, Michael Johnson fight week. Like,

that's what it was. Whole new level, performance, everything about it, the talking to the people in the crowd, talking to Hunter Campbell, talking to Mark Zuckerberg, talking to the, just everything about it was that was what it reminded me of was hubbib against michael johnson just to a bit not exactly oh well 100 million percent i mean that's one of the all-time greats yeah what to fight do you're chicken go listen to the hubib damn they were good and we'll talk a lot we talk a lot about that fight and in the post fights support for this show comes from chase if you're a fan of women's sports always looking for ways to get closer to the action. And your Chase card can get you exactly that.

With a Chase card, you can experience more. That means access to pre-sales, preferred seating, and more savings. For more information about how to step into a world of more with Chase experiences, visit Chase.com slash experiences. Benefits available only to eligible Chase card holders, deposit and credit card products provided by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., member FDIC, terms, conditions, restrictions, and limitations, I'm Nilai Patel, editor-in-chief The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems.

We've talked a lot about generative AI on the show lately, which is a very big idea that is causing quite a few problems. And one thing we keep hearing about over and over again is that generative AI is causing a lot of problems in schools. There are a lot of people out there, including many of the listeners of the show who email us, who are worried about the obvious problem, students using chat GPT to cheat on assignments. But when our team went and poked at the story, they found that the issues in education with AI go a lot deeper to the very philosophy of education itself. If this technology becomes more ubiquitous, we'll have courses created by AI, graded by

AI, with submissions from students, absolutely generated by AI. So it begs the question, what are we even doing here in higher ed? This episode is presented by Salesforce. horse. Anthony Hernandez also showed incredible weaponized. Yeah, Anthony Hernandez weaponized cardio. That guy is a freaking problem at 185 pounds. That dude is just a motor.

And he just kind of drowned Roman Coppuloff and eventually got the choke in and he nodded his head like he was freaking Georgianimo Steele about to rip a turnbuckle apart with his teeth. And then he gets a submission win. Great performance from Anthony Hernandez. And hell of the main card. All in all, pretty damn good main card, delivered in a lot of ways. Not everything was obviously spectacular, but it was a fun watch.

Way more fun than $297. That's for sure. I do want to take some questions. I do want to make sure the peeps come in and ask some questions. It's probably a long list of questions. But if you're like, eh, it's too long of a list. We have the super chat feature. And you can just jump right over everybody else.

I will be prioritizing the super chat. but I will not be answering too many. I'll leave it to you. Okay. It is 4 a.m. Eastern time, so we'll take a few. I love that there's just like a blast of wind when Jose unmukes his mic. He's like the Wizard of Oz just like presiding over all of this. I'm doing my best.

You're doing a great job. Thank you, Weidenhoff. Do you think these current champs or fighters are too hyped? His fans all started watching during COVID. He was the champion. camp, they could attach themselves to new fans, shout on Ilya, where are they now? I'm guessing he's talking about that's Volcanovsky. I assume that.

Too hyped? I mean, no, I don't know. No, I mean, we already established. He has the fifth greatest men's title reign in the history of this company. But at the same time, yes, because he's not the greatest feather way to fall time. Well, yeah. We don't have to rehish this, but like, It's just they are writing Jose Aldo who they've inducted into the Hall of Fame just out in the most insane ways possible.

They do it to everything. It happens to everybody, man. It did. Is he is he with Anderson Silva, Kamara Usman with George St. Pierre. I know. Do you remember all of the George St. Pierre? Kamar Usman is he might be the greatest wealth of weight of all time. I do. Come on now.

The consensus, the consensus is great as well. And the exact thing is the weight of all time. the exact same thing happened. This is, as we talked in the preview, or on BTL, not the preview show, Mike.

This was the fight to me that started the Alexander Volkanovsky Goat campaign. Like, this is it because he beat the old generation, he beat his generation. You can argue that, yeah,

your Rodriguez is the new generation. I would argue that he's actually Volkss generation. But Tupuria, to me, is undeniably the next generation. And that's where it comes. When you are a champion for six,

seven years, you end up fighting three generations of challenges. That's just sort of how the timelines have worked historically. This was the start of it. And he didn't win. And I'm not here to Shinnah, Alexander Volcanovsky, I think is a top 10 fighter of all time. Jose Aldo had nine title defenses over six years, Volks have five. Like, maybe he gets it back. Maybe he makes an assent and a claim. For the love of God, please just don't. Just think about things for like just a minute before we start popping off because it's exciting to be part of the thing that's happening right now.

It's pointless. They're going to do it again. They're going to do it again. They're going to do it again. I know. I'm going to, I wrote when Volk became champ, I wrote our post article and I titled it, Alexander Volcanowski is now the consensus greatest featherweight of all time. I did that to mock them saying that about Max Holloway when Joe Zaldo still existed and

Max had three title defenses or whatever. I might have to do it again for Tupurri at. just because this appears to be the thing that's going to happen forever. Like let wins mean something guys folks folks had more wins than almost anyone. It means a lot. Don't deny him that or other people their accomplishments prior to him existing. Uh, Jude Jacob want to see to pour her versus O'Malley in the future. Maybe that's God, maybe that's way out of the barrage fight, but I don't, I don't know if that's a great.

That's a great. I mean, that's what O'Malley has been pushing. for right he he says he's gonna be chito and he wants to fight to puria do you guys think the ufc would book that because like it's business for sure but it's also a murder i would be surprised i think there's a i think there's a way right i think there's a road that sean o'malley could engineer that if sean goes out there and does something spectacular and gets a first round knockout and cuts a hell of a promo i think he gets a chance of avoiding marab and getting that that opportunity, but that would be the only direct bad.

Dude, Cheeto knocked him out and Cheeto hits real hard. Tuporio will send him into orbit. That's also partly why I'm not in on the Aljo thing. Like, Sean O'Malley got Aljo. Like, I'm pretty confident Tuporia will just obliterate him if they get in there. Like, I want to see the max fight. I really want the max fight now because Max, here's the thing. Max can't be knocked out by God nor man.

You can bring a baseball bat into the cage. You can't knock him out. If Taboria can't lamp Max with the right hand, is he just going to get volumed out like everyone else does? Maybe. I want to see it. Here's the problem. Here's the problem.

All of this might be happening just a touch too late for Max because Max is about to fight Justin Gachy, man. Well, yeah. Now he's going to be done. That's what I'm saying. Like, testing, you're talking about no one can, no one can knock out Max.

His chin is unassailable. Like Justin's the dude that, that, beats those things just as the guy that ends those people that those that's why i think max has a shot at him because if he just can't be knocked out then what's just to do but if justin does what justin does and he is the one to break this chin and then max comes back and it's just like oh dude if you had waited a month or a month or two you could might have had a chance to get it back and then just to ruin it i don't know i'm just saying

that is a very bad scenario for all he is surging up my greatest of all time ranking If he cracks Max Holloway's chin, Max Holloway's top two all-time MMHA. It's unbelievable. Dom Elliott, thank you. In my humble opinion, if you do not score round two,

108 Lemoche, then you don't understand the scoring. That's correct. Dern is awesome, but no way she won. 100%. I completely agree. Tom Elliott,

you're smart and wise person, and I respect you. I got to tell you. When Bruce Buffer said 29 all three judges scored at 29 28 i thought they're going to give it to derr that's oh did you i really did i really did i because the first round was closed it's good i think there is an argument it's not what i scored it but i mean it's not right because it worst it's 28 28 but yeah it could have been a draw uh where to that fight that fight was wanted to we haven't we haven't

really got that fight that fight it was incredibly fun and it was a perfect it was a perfect representation of why Jed and I just can't sell off our property on McKinsey Dern Island yet because like we have been on we have been holding this property forever I've been holding this stock since the beginning of all this I was like one of the earliest people on this bandwagon if she's going to be great she's going to be a champ and fights like tonight are exactly why you I just struggle so hard to get rid of that stock because she has all the tools right like she has not all the tools she has enough tools she has she's the important inhumanly tough she might be the most inhumanly tough person in that history of that division kind of like right like whatever her chin is made out of whatever her will to just continue doing this is made out of it's unbelievable and then of course like it's you don't even mention the ground stuff and just all the technical wizardry she has once things get to the mat it's just the in-betweens and it's the same in-betweens and every single time we're doing the same thing and it's the albert eyewside quote about insanity of just doing the same thing over and over again and yet I can't quit it. I just can't quit it and I can't sell it off

because she could beat or lose to anybody on any given night. We were talking like she and I were just messaging each other because we're like, God damn it. I promised I promised myself that this was the fight. She loses him into Limosch. This is the fight. And she comes out there. She's getting tuned up and I was like, finally. I finally am free of this burden of believing in McKinsey, Dern, despite obviously not supposed to do this at this point. And it's like, it's like the Tony Ferguson stuff. Tony does enough that you're like,

ooh, maybe he's still got some juice left and things can work. And you're like, actually no, it can't because the flaws are so fatal and can't be fixed for whatever reason. But McKinsey Dern, like if you were just to give me a prospect in women's MMA to be like, hey,

are you bet on, who are you betting on? I'd be like, all right, you're giving me a BGA world champion. Who is like, clear not not just on paper is like a functionally vastly superior grappler to everyone in this division every time a fight hits the floor durn is in charge she is controlling what is occurring at

that stage superhumanly tough willing to strike not good at it but is not like cowering away from contact and a plus athlete i was like that's all you need just she used to go to aka for like six months and learn how to chain wrestle and jab. And then she would win the belt and be the most dominant champion in the history of women's mixed martial arts because every second she's on top of somebody, it's like, oh, you have no answers. You're just in prison right now. But she gets on top of people twice a fight.

And the rest of it, she is getting clobbered on the feet. It was all the infuriating part. And she and I texted, we're messaging each other. I'm like, I can't quit her now. she's still only 30. Maybe she'll figure it out one day. I'm still here in this sad, sad island where I keep betting on her to my monetary detriment. It's so crazy.

Not only. Because if Mike Beltran wasn't the, if there's any other referee, I think that fight gets stopped. When McKenzie got hit in the eye and she just like stumbled and collapsed to the ground, like I think most would have left it go. Most would have stopped. Hersard would have let it go because I don't think. think so because we saw her so do that really really expertly in the Danny Barlow thing like Quinlan he gave Quinlan every opportunity out but yes I think that was very good refereing um honestly the

rest did a mostly pretty good job except for um whoever was the Suhudo rough he was pretty bad because Sehudo was just cheating his ass off it did not matter but I don't know the refereing was really good but just real quick to add to what you just said Jed that she ends up just somehow getting on top like twice a fight. The way she ends up getting on top is always the dumbest possible way too. It's not like in some crazy advantageous position. It's like, oh, she's so hurt and then the scramble just ended up where she's on top or something like that. Like it's never just a clean, oh, hey, I got you against the cage. Took you down. Oh, now I'm in mount. Look at this. I got all these advantage. It's always just some dumb scrambling and like trying to

catch up type of position. And then she does it very quickly. We are going to say that McKinsey, if McKinsey Dern can figure out a takedown against the fence, she look out, she's going to be great. We're going to say that for 15 years straight. And I'm never going to learn my lesson. I'm just never going to learn my lesson. Yeah, just never. Well, just six months of sprawl training.

That like, that's it. McKinsey Dern learning to wrestle is the six months of sprawl training of early MMA internet. Just like, yeah, it would be fine. This one would almost meet Janon, who's about to fight for the title. And she just can't, can't put it together. You don't understand.

I bet you guys are losing your minds when Amanda Lamos was just thumping leg kicks. And then McKenzie timed a Lamos punch and shot. I was back. I was back immediately. I was like, oh my God. Did you see that? Me and Jesus, it was like right when the watch party started. I'm like, can you believe what we just saw, G.C.

And then, well, it's back immediately. She moves into Mount. And I was just like, oh, my God. I'm glad I never left the island. I have the biggest best house here. and everyone's coming back in just a moment. Oh, wait, no, she still hasn't learned how to ground a pound. So Limos just survived and got out eventually.

Well, Steve wants to know where to do wonders with this woman. Just get with Habib. Well, where does she go from here? And that's the thing, too, is like, she also has a lot of power in her hands. And we've seen it consistently of like the rare time. She lands something. She like thumps women. Like, they fall.

She did it again tonight. I just, this. What do we do with her now? I don't know. She's fought like everyone this division at this point. She's got to fight back. What's Lupi Godine is doing? That's the one. That's the one.

Is that the why she's fight? That's the fight. That's the fight. I say, I don't know if Lupy has a fight booked or not, but yeah, that seems fine. And look, I'll tell you what's going to happen. Dern is going to have some moments where she's in, like, backpack and winning. and then she's going to lose because Loopy's going to survive and then just outwork her for the next 12 minutes.

Yep. Love that fight. And I will lose money betting on McKinsey Dern yet again because I'll never stop. I can't help myself. I'm dumb. I switched my microphone. Hopefully it's better now. It is much better. Love that. Here is, I just lost it. I had a very, oh, here's an interesting question unrelated to this fight, but it is, relative to other things that have happened in the last few weeks.

For $10, by the way. Thank you, Deep State TV. What's more cringeworthy in your opinions? Pro Bowl flag football, the NBA dunk contest, or a 2024 apex fight card? This is not. Well, I haven't watched the dunk contest in years, but I assume that it's like lame, but still. Did you guys watch last week's card? It wasn't good.

It was very bad. Not the most cringedeworthy. There are people out there defending those. Was it good? I don't recall it being very good. Shout out to the heroes out there defending Apex Cards versus the live audiences of today. You know who you are. Real quick.

Real quick, I think we should address it because we threw it in the headline. Hey, y'all, UFC 300 hasn't a main event now. Yes. Yes. This is. This is the funny shit. Breaking news. Oh, well, let's get the reaction.

So it is, if you're hiding under a rock, the main event for UFC 300 is not Leon versus Belal. It is not DDP versus Israel Adasanya. There's no George St. Pierre, Anderson, Silver, Brock Lesnar, or Ronda Rousey. It is Alex Pereira versus Jamal Hill a month before the UFC is going to Rio for a pay-per-view where the challenge, is coming off of a ruptured Achilles and probably could have used that out of a month. Having said that, I understand why Jamal Hill and Alex Pereira

are pretty giddy about this because they're both going to make a whole bunch of money. That's beside the point. But of all the fights that were on the table and being discussed and even the Hamzaat Shemayev out of left field stuff, Alex Pereira, Jamal Hill, was not even on the radar

with any of the conversations we were having. So, Shehino, beginning. with you. Jamal Hill found out yesterday. This is the UFC 300 main event a month before Rio. How did this land for you? This is so hilarious. Everything about this is so funny. I like first of all, it's fine. It's a fine fight. Like, right, whatever. It's, I'm not going to say it's a bad fight. I think it'll be a fun fight. The fact that this was essentially, at this point, very obviously the edict from the UFC was anybody blah blah blah malmohamaama.

Like anybody but balaah mahomet. We're fine at this point. We have trapped ourselves in such a corner that literally any fight but Balala Muhammad versus Leon Edwards, we're just rolling with it. And this is just like the only thing they had left to roll out is like, hey, Jabal, are you sure you're going to be good? I know you just tore your Achilles. That's a pretty serious injury.

You sure you're going to be good? No. Well, how about we pay you several million dollars? because you get these paper viewpoints on this crazy card. Oh, now you're good? All right. Let's go ahead and do this. Jamal Hill found out yesterday, y'all.

Like, this was, I don't know what the last resort was before we got to Leon Belaw. But I got to think that this was probably like approaching it, if not it, because I don't know what other options there are. It's fine. It's, again, it's going to be a cool card. It's not the greatest card of all time. It's certainly not, you know, some incredible, like, oh, my God. I, this is the most wild thing I've ever seen in my life. It's a great card with the, the fact that we have these three paper views stacked back to

back to back is going to be really fun. It's going to be a really cool stretch. I'm really looking forward to it. The fight itself is very cool. And I like that light heavy weight is getting going again. I like that we're able to get some momentum going again. I thought we were going to have to wait pretty long time to be able to get this division moving again because they seem pretty dead set on waiting for these two.

But yeah, this is, all of this is so stupid. And again, it literally just seemed like whatever we can come up with, that is not Leon Edwards versus Blah Muhammad. We are just going to do that. And then to go ahead and announce it, literally like seconds after, you know, you just had this incredible title changing of the guard,

Ilya, Starmaking moment. You can't even let that marinate. It's just like, no, we got this figured out. We got to get it out. Let's go. News dump.

Late night news dump. That's the key, Shaheen. That's the key to all of this. That was intentional. They did it right after this. event happened because they knew that it would land flat because if if data comes out on Tuesday and it's like hey guys you've seen 300 main event and there's not shit else going on we're going to skewer it like okay like we're going to have that reaction except for it's even

worse i spent all week being like they can't do the umball they can't do it it would just you can't build it up and then that's the fight i think this is worse i think they found the one fight that they could book that is somehow worse than doing leon belawall Would Leon Belal be terrible? Yes. This is worse, not because the fight itself is awful. I think the fight's quite fun. How is Alex Pereira not headlining the Brazil pay-per-view that they announced today?

They confirm today that they're going to pay-per-view for Brazil. And they're like, but we don't need Alex Pereira for that. That's fine. We'll put Leon Belal in Rio because whatever. It's so dumb. They are cutting off their nose to spite Belal Muhammad's face, I guess. I don't know. And they knew it.

They knew it. They were filled with shame and were like, hey, I don't want to have this thing. Let's just bury this because no one's going to talk as much about it because we got too much other shit going on right now. This is just burying the info. If you're going to bury it, just bury Belal Leon. And then that'd be fine too. And then we'd still get Alex Prairie in Brazil.

Instead, we're getting the worst of all worlds. And I don't like this is The main event to this card is Max Is Max Gagee now And then that's just the the post dinner coffee or whatever Yeah So now Alexander Pantoja which great for him

He's probably again of headlining UFC 301 But he's got literally nobody to fight right now Who's I mean who's gonna do it And he doesn't have any of them They're not going to hit with you Mike. No. I'm telling you that that's what's going to happen. That is scary. After the last

year the UFC's had, of course they're going to do that. They've been doing the dumbest shit possible for all of their bookings. Sean O'Malley and Cheeto are fighting in Miami for reasons that still only God and Dana understand instead of them being the 300 main event. You're going to do dumb shit. Here's the kicker, though. There ain't

nobody to fight in Brazil now. With prayer are gone. They got Pantosia Charles Oliver can't fight in Brazil who are the other big Brazilian stars who can come into this card to lift it up who are they I actually hate to even say this but they should just they should move all of air surrog into 3-01 and just do like a freaking interim title fight as the main event of that card honestly I would hate it I love it on 300 but they should absolutely do that in a heartbeat it would honestly be better they don't there's no then if

If you do that, Justin Gates is going to lose his mind. You have lost Justin Gaichie at that point. If you've just taken his title shot to be like, hey, do this thing at UFC 300 because we just need names. And I promise you your spot. And then all of a sudden you pass him up like that. Like you lose him forever. Do an interim BMF title at it. Like I just do something else.

But like who seriously, who are the Brazilian stars that they have that aren't booked? They had two Brazilian champions and they found a way to not put the two Brazilian champions on their first paper view in Brazil in like eight years. What's the hell is this emotion doing? What's Augusto Sagai doing? Let's go. They'd have to move Jailton and Curtis Blades to that far as too. Sure. I mean, but in general, like, it's just I they are so clearly do not have long term planning.

They're just like, I got to solve what's right in front of me right now. And I'm not going to think about tomorrow at all. And it's just not that hard. It's crazy. Let me, let me ask you this. That's right. Co-made a Vic, Kyle Braleo. He's got Paul Craig.

Let me ask you guys this. Dana White, as we mentioned earlier, was talking about 300 and he made it a point to talk about Leon Edwards. This guy had three different opponents said yes to all of them. Shaheen was Ballal Mohammed one of the three opponents. None of them? No, otherwise that's like, right? No chance it's him. Yep, I agree with both of you.

Otherwise, the fight would be happening. Otherwise, the fight would be happening. Below Muhammad is saying yes to any date. They could offer him tomorrow. And he's like, yeah, yeah, let's go. What are we doing? Let's go. Like, he's not holding this up.

Who are the three? then, right? Because it's it's Hamzaat, shop got who's a CDP? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe Islam? I could see it. Before they found out like about the injury or something. Islam. God, that would infuriate me if they did that shit.

If they tried to do that shit here. Oh, no. I don't think so. You think I'm going to guess. I'm going to guess they on. Hey, if we can get GSP, are you down? and he's like, sure. And then that was the extent of it.

Of course he would be down. Yeah. I don't guess it was Belal. And then they were like, they looked at it on the page and they just couldn't do it. They couldn't, they couldn't click yes. They were like, no what? Can't do it. Let's find something else.

Look at the names here. Charles out, Poetan out, Burns out, Figgy out, jilted out, Jessica out, Pereira out. I don't know who it is, man. Dude, they're going to go to Brazil for the first pay-per-view in like six years. years and it's going to be Leon Ballal and a bunch of like American container series dudes put Natty ice in that card that's for damn sure Jose would you say there's pay-per-view win last January it was a paperview in

there was be Glover oh that's right I forgot that but yeah exactly they had Glover there's a real one yeah they had Figgy Moreno on that card as well oh god What a, what a time, guys. I'm incredibly relieved that this, we actually know what it is now. I mean, the amount of people are like, oh, it's going to be a hundred, they're going to introduce a 165 pound division and crown a new champion there. You guys are high. I can't believe you guys thought they were going to do this.

They were going to introduce two new divisions. Are you crazy? Come on. Oh, Shogun's retiring. No, we do for, we try to forget about that. Shogun stopped fighting like 12 years ago as far as I'm concerned yeah this is why exactly that that's my point why man they they went to Australia and they booked all the Aussies like a month before the Australia they also booked all the

Mexicans like a month and a half before Mexican attendance day last year and Jose you made a great point today when they announced that Vandalay Silva was getting inducted into the All the Fame they have two inductions this year it's Frankie Edgar I mean thus for frank yeager and vadele de silva they are going to jersey and rio in the near future and instead they announced them in canada and california for reasons that still don't make any friggin sense they are they just i don't know what they're doing y'all just wait they're going to book the biggest arena in spain and then iliottipore is going to fight in cleveland like a month before that so they're going to be in miami for the next one they're going to put koreans on

zombie in there or something because that would make a ton of sense too like it's just so random how they're doing it now it's wild who can who can tom aspinall defend his interim belt against in rio for reasons that will not that's it almeida jilton if jilton you make that turn around yeah that would work that would actually work okay we found the only fight that works they're going to get jailton killed in rio uh uh i'm so glad we have this freaking main event and apparently there's still one more fight to go so the speculation is not over yet because he's going to announce one more fight right or do they announce that already as well no he said there's one more they're still working on which they don't need it six fine cards cards covered we're good we don't need anymore put that fight on an apex card so one of them are better yeah do we have

anything else it's 430 a m uh we've hit a lot of these pays out is available max wrap there It's just people talking about who people who should fight in Rio. And it's all jokes. Paisal Derek Lewis, too. Let's go. Oh, there you go. Meanwhile, Michael Chandler's just at home. Yeah.

Michael Chandler's just at home watching all of this being like. No, he was in Anaheim. He's in the freaking crowd. I just made like he's watching all of this unfold. And he's just like, wow, I've, I've, really been forgotten in this whole situation this might have been a mistake yep this whole thing is bizarre and the whole conner stuff is bizarre it just gets more bizarre all of it just what if michael chandler was the third name what if they just went to and we're like hey we're sorry you've been sitting out for

so long you want to fight leon in the main event instead of connor you know what don't think that's terribly wrong i would be i would be more surprised i'd actually be more surprised if belal was the third name it's just and it's so wild that i feel that way but i don't know belal needs to get on a a zoom call with marab like real quick and take some notes get a notepad and like a really good pen so you don't run out of bank and you mark down everything marab tells you and then you just go and do that and you might be okay maybe but he's going to have to go win another fight did everything right michael chandler did everything right except for trying to fight a dude who might never want to fight again that's a big mistake don't pick a fight with the with the guy who has

a hundred million dollars and may never compete again dan white just hates belal i mean what did did Bala like do? Which is, I don't know. I don't know. He beat people he was supposed to lose to. That's a thought. That son of a bitch. He got interesting for like a hot minute

after Colby did an interview with me and threatened to go to John Anick's house and like attack him. And then Balaal got like real interesting trying to defend Anik. And then that just fizzled so quickly. Did Dana pretty much confirm Connor's never fighting? again the way he talked about it seemed pretty hopeless not going to lie i don't know do you think this is more of like this connor announced the fight and we're still kind of pissy about that or do you

think like what is this now because i can understand the the dana and the ufc wanted to control the narrative and break all the news stuff like i get it that's kind of where he's at right now but i didn't see that whole yeah i don't know if connor's ever fighting again coming tonight more so than He's got a lot of money. We'll get him in there by the fall. Last difference from a week ago. My default position is always that whatever Dana says is half truth at best. I think in this one, I actually might, I'm coming around to the idea that Connor doesn't actually want to fight.

They're like, he wants to fight in the way that like we all want to do things until we have to go about the process of doing those things. And it's just shitty. They're just like, oh, well, like, I would love to be able to run a sub six minute. mile again. But in order to do that, I would have to do a lot of work that some days I wake up and I'm like, nah, bro, it's cold. I don't want to go run today. Is that? Like, it's coming to where I'm at. It's just like kind of has a lot of money. Yeah, when he gets a few in him, it's like, oh, I'm ready to get back in the cage and fight. And it's like, I have to go to the gym twice a day for the next four months. That sounds way less cool than riding around on my

boat. I might just do the boat thing for a little bit more. What do you think, Shane? I genuinely have no idea at this point. None of this makes any sense. It's either what Jedges said of like Conner's just not actually in this at this point, or the UFC is just playing some really bizarre game with the contract. That would just be so ridiculous to play a game. I just, if Connor cared about fighting Michael Chandler, I think he'd fight Michael Chandler. This is, this is like one of the those things like if they're in if that person is into you you're going to know that they're into you if kind of wanted to fight michael chanieler would have fought michael chandler

i think he doesn't care about fighting michael chandler yeah if it was nate daz he might be more interested he'd probably be back michael chandler eh i'd rather have a few cocktails and enjoy my life i mean it does feel like conner it does seem like connor has a situation where he has X number of fights left and that X is not a big number. And they have been trying to re-sign him to some degree. And I just wonder if he's playing hardbolt, maybe try to wait it out, do a Francis. And they're just not going to let him fight

until that gets resolved. But also at this point, this is just such wild speculation. Yeah. Well, it's late, Mike. We've got to wrap this. It's been 90 minutes, gents. And we still have a thousand people watching. Get the frig out of here. It's been 90 minutes. And we still have over a lot of.

a thousand people watching at 4 30s you guys are stars you're savages oh someone paid two dollars and tell you this mike how am i still awake so many words we're on so many words i have to write tonight yeah i am i have now been awake for 25 straight hours so it's a lot of hours i'm ready i'm ready and i'll be back tomorrow morning too aka and i will have uh on to the next one on this here channel, but six hours from right now. All right. We'll talk some matchmaking, see where all the taste makers go following UFSI 298, which a lot of fun, and then we're on the road to 299, and yes, the road to UFSK 300.

Thank you for sticking with us throughout tonight. Thank you, Jose, for the production for Shaheed, for Jed, I and Mike Keck. Good night, everybody. Yeah, don't cry. Defenders in cybersecurity. are always there when we need them. They should get a parade every time they block a novel threat and have streets, sandwiches, and babies named in their honor.

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