MMA Fighting - UFC 307 Post-Fight Show | Reaction To Alex Pereira's Brutal Knockout Of Blood-Soaked Khalil Rountree

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

Alex Pereira is still the UFC light heavyweight champion after UFC 307, but he was tested by a game Khalil Rountree. In the end, "Poatan" changed the tide of the fight, and in the fourth round, Pereira delivered one of the most brutal finishing sequences in quite some time of the incredibly tough challenger. Following Saturday's pay-per-view event, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew react to Pereira's wild victory, Rountree's stock rising immensely in defeat, and where both could go from here. Additionally, topics include Julianna Pena's controversial split decision win over Raquel Pennington to regain the women's bantamweight title, no-selling Kayla Harrison — who was victorious earlier in the evening against Ketlen Vieira — to call out Amanda Nunes, the judges and referees stealing headlines for questionable decision making, Joaquin Buckley's big night, and much more. Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR 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

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. There they are, ladies and gentlemen, the victory horns. And they sound for Alex Pereira. Still, the light heavyweight champion after just a crazy-ass main event. Almost in a way a lot of people didn't expect. But Alex Pereira gets it done. And also, they sound for the once again women's band-obey champion Julianna Pena, who regains the title via controversial split decision against Raquel Pennington.

A lot to digest from a weird and wacky and oftentimes brutal UFC 307 events in Salt Lake City. And brutal can be used in a couple of different ways if we're being honest. But I am Mike Heck back once again. Hope you're all having a wonderful Sunday morning, depending on where you're at. And joining me, once again, fresh off the watch party, Mr. No Gray area himself, Jed Mishu, back in Savannah, Georgia. How are we doing, sir? I'm good. I'm fuzzy. If you're listening to this, you don't know what I'm talking about, but if you're looking at it, it appears as if I've gone back in time, Mike,

because my parents' house, or more likely, my laptop's camera is old. So I'm a little fuzzy. I myself am not fuzzy. I'm still electrified by the main event we just saw. And then some other fights happened that I don't know if we really need to talk about them frankly, but that main event is pretty freaking sick. It's weird how these cards are structured in the aftermath and the fallout of everything when we look at things via hindsight because sometimes you watch a card and the first prelim to the co-main event are all really fun fights and the main events of dud and it's like, eh, the card wasn't that great even though there were 13 great fights or 13 really good.

fights and the main event stunk. This one had some moments, but it was a little bit of a slog. And then the main event just killed. It was unbelievable. Alex Pereira gets the big finish in comeback fashion and just one of the most brutal finishing sequences we've ever seen. But before we get to that, we're going to talk a lot about that. How would you describe UFC 307? Like what word would you used? If you had a friend who called you and said, give me one word to describe the pay-per-view tonight. What would you use and why? That's a really good question. I was kind of thinking about something because we're doing this new article for post-paper-view events on Mondays. It's just kind of like a review of events, broadly speaking with all of us chipping in. And I was

setting it up and kind of thinking about a question very similar to that. And with the way you couched it, right? If I'm going for one word, I would go adequate. Because I think, think that is what we got here. The talk pre-fight and certainly in our preview show was a very mixed reaction. Some people like myself were, hey, this is a really good fight card. On paper, it looks very good. It might be a little weird. You know, fighting in Utah, there aren't people who like, oh, got to take them to Utah. Some of the matchups were odd. Obviously, Khalil Roundtree didn't deserve this title shot. Frankly, Julianna Payne didn't deserve her title shot. Some weird stuff. But ultimately I was like yeah there's a lot of really compelling fights with stakes to them so I was

pumped a lot of other people were really negative and I think for certainly a lot of the main card the detractors were probably saying hey look I told you not to drop 80 bucks on this this isn't this isn't what you want but then in the end what I said all watch party long and I said in the preview show look at Alex prayer is going to get you your money's worth at the end of the night because even if it's the dragiest, crappiest car in the world, if the main event is good, if the main event delivers, the last taste in your mouth is delicious, then the meal itself was acceptable. And conversely, if that main event sucks, if the dessert at the end of your wonderful meal is just poop, then it puts a damper on the whole thing.

The great strength of Alex Pereira is that he is main event material, and he always delivers something worthwhile. Credit to Clear Roundtree was obviously a critical component to this. But they made this card adequate. The rest of the stuff that happened, we're not going to be stoked about it. Like, let's just be honest. A lot of it is not, it's meaningful. It's significant, right? But it's not like, dude, you got to go back and check out this fight.

It was so sick. But the main event gave us a good enough vibe that I would call this card adequate. I think if you dropped 80, you can't feel that bad on your purchase this week. So adequate feels good. The two, like, there's like one word I use and then there's a phrase that I use because it describes the top two fights, mayhem and missed opportunities because the co-main event was full of missed opportunities. During the fight, Raquel Pennington, I thought she won. It apparently seems like every media member outside of yourself who scored her to draw, scored it for Raquel Pennington.

But let's be honest, Raquel Pennington gave that fight away tonight. She had chances to finish Giuliana Pena. She had Paney in trouble multiple times. And even when things were starting to slip away, she just didn't go. It just didn't happen. And we're all like, we're watching. We're yelling. Like, what are you doing?

It's right there. And she didn't do it. And then Juliana Paney got the microphone with Joe Rogan and the split screen with Kayla Harrison. And we'll talk about that. Just unfrigan real what she accomplished on the microphone today. But Alex, Alex Perrier is a demon, Jedmishu. Cleo Roundtree might be even more of a demon between just the amount of punishment this man took, the amount of blood that soaked not only his eye and himself,

but apparently Dana White, Daniel Cormier's phone, and anybody sitting near or around the cage side area. What a, I don't even, I've watched just our reaction to the finishing sequence about 12 times already. And I can remember each moment that happened in that finishing sequence. as we're just watching you and I reacting to it. It's just so insane. And then to see the judge of scorecards, Cleo Roundtree was up 29, 28 on all three judges scorecards heading into round four and Alex Pereer just finds a way to be brutal

and finds ways to win and become the headline. This man is unbelievable, Jed Mishu. Like you got a chance to drive and reflect and think about it. What do you make of what Alex Pereir did tonight. It was fun. I want to be cautious in how we approach this because I've seen a lot of it already. And, you know, if you, if you want to give Alex Perry his flowers and kind of go all

in, don't let me yuck your young, baby. Have fun. Like, fandom is supposed to be fun. Fighting is supposed to be fun. Enjoy this. But to me, I also want to keep this in the context of, yeah, Alex Perr, that was awesome. What do you comp? Coming back from behind was great, fighting to win the war and not just individual battles,

which I think you could kind of describe how that fight went. All of this is great, and I'm not trying to detract from him in any way. I just, everything that popped after this was so effusive of Pereira in a way that's like, we all also agreed going into this fight that Kalil-Roundtree is not deserving of this, and probably not one of the five best light heavyweights. And so two things can be true. This was awesome. It was a great performance from Pereira.

It was an unbelievable exceeding of expectations from Roundtree, right? But we don't have to be like, he killed Khalil Roundtree. He's the greatest light heavyweight of all time. Like this, in the scheme of things, and when we're outside of this bubble of the immediate awesomeness that this fight was, we'll look back and say, okay, that's more of a Dan Hardy win than it is, a Matt Hughes win, you know?

And so I've just seen a lot of like people being really, what or not. This guy can't be defeated. He's the greatest guy of all time. Like, no, this was a match of you supposed to win. He's a major favorite. And if you were being critical, you could say, actually the fact that he had a very tough time with Roundtree is probably not ideal. But again, I think they're reasonable explanations for that.

I mostly just want to enjoy this as being fun. It doesn't have to be anything grander or bigger. This does not have to be a full reflection. on who Pereira is in amongst the light heavyweight pantheon we got time for that he ain't going nowhere this was just it this was what we wanted it to be when i pitched this fight years ago when a k pitched this fight years ago this is going to be fun and it was fun and that is enough for me right now is to enjoy it for what it was yeah i mean look i think we all were kind of in the same agreement that yes, a win over Khalil Roundtree is capping off a very fun fight what we expected

it to be on paper. Also adds to just this wild 11 months stretch that this man has had. And I think some of the questions we had were real questions that were legitimate concerns. Has he been too active? Has he had enough time to rest and recuperate and reflect? Because it seems like he only takes a week off between fights to get back in the gym. And I guess this one, he took two weeks off between the Yuri Prakashka rematch and then getting ready for this fight, which is insane. But I guess my biggest takeaway was, because you mentioned it all the time, Jed. It doesn't matter if you fight once a year or four times a year. The hardest thing to do is continuously defend your title. And in the case of Alex Pereira, you just fight the dudes that they give you.

Jamal Hill, who was the former champion, the guy who beat Glover Tashira, his mentor. Then it's Yeri again, who many people thought, ah, Yuri's definitely going to learn some lessons. He's going to have a better accounting on himself. And Alex Perich, he did a hell out of that, man. And it was absolutely brutal lessons. And then we go to, from like two number one contenders, essentially, and former champion, et cetera, to Khalil Roundtree, who would have been the lowest ranked fighter to ever win a UFC title in the history of the promotion had he won tonight if you're

Alex Pereira you it's probably a little tough to get up for something like that especially with all the activity you had and how many times you bailed out the promotion but what I learned tonight is even if you don't even this man did not have his fastball tonight until he really needed to dig down deep and throw it and then he found it and he boy did he deliver a three-pitch KO at the at the very end of this thing. He found a way to win. Even on a night that he wasn't at his best. He did it in altitude. He didn't do it quickly. And with the flash knockout, he weathered some adversity, came through, and in the championship rounds, delivered that flurry over about three consecutive minutes. So I was impressed. There were some things I was going to take away. Did I come out of this being

like, oh, he's the greatest light heavy weight of all time? Because we always do that when it comes to these situations when guys go on title runs that are three or four fights. No. People are doing it. The internet is doing it right now. But I learned something tonight from Alex Pereira that he doesn't need to have his A plus game. He can have an off night and still find a way to win. And shout out to freaking Cleo Roundtree to Jedmishu, because he looked real good.

We didn't see the secret move, unfortunately. But everything he did early on until those leg kicks really. started to add up and then Pereira started to find that jab and started landing it over and over again. Once the rhythm of Cleo Roundtree was thrown off, it was sort of the beginning of the end for him. But for a guy who was on the wrong end of one of the biggest beatdowns in a round that maybe I've ever seen, the rise of his stock in defeat, you couldn't really ask for more, right? considering how that fight ended yeah no i mean he did did we talked about on the watch party and we don't want to step too much on future topics but there's some overlap here of that's how people

like you that is how you become popular if you can't be the greatest fighter of all time you know and and a champion along reigning there are some ways to be popular and performances like that they aren't the respect of everyone in the locker room and they are the respect of the fans and him getting up there and doing that post-fight speech with the bloodbigger dropping out of his face from the most disgusting things I've seen this year. It was the gnarliest, grossest. And then shout out to the professionalism

because he's got this just bloody lugy hanging out of his face and he knows it and he can't like clear it. And so he's just blocking with the hand and I'm just going to talk here like this, Joe, because I don't want the camera to see this villainous, awful thing that's hanging from my nostril. professional through and through. And that's how you become a fan favorite of, hey, like, I didn't win, but I put my heart on my sleeve. I fought in a way for you guys. And I,

I didn't play the game to, I did not play, I played fighting. I did not play a points based game to win a scorecard. I came out here to test myself to the best of my abilities. And I didn't, grasping out of nowhere, you know, hold Josie Aldo's leg for 10 minutes when I promised blood and guts. I didn't do that. I came out here and I fought as hard as I could and I came up short, but I tried. And that's why people will remember this night and remember him. And he made fans. He made money tonight in defeat, which somebody like Mario Batista did not do in victory. completely agree with everything you just said because collo roundtree told the truth and when you tell the truth and you deliver that's all if anybody can ask for it's going to be interesting to see where cleo goes from here i assume

he's going to be out for quite some time after that fight i would like to see alex perrera take an extended break as well and we'll see if that happens he's going to yeah he should i mean just kind of here if you haven't seen his post fight scrub go check that out because apparently he went through a lot of a lot of crap to get to this fight and still comes through and gets it done. Please. That's my point, Mike. That's my point. All the stuff he goes through and the talking point I dropped beforehand is like, man, he's

fighting a lot and it's just really hard to win fights. Like, it doesn't matter who you're doing. If you're fighting this often, you are almost certainly coming in injured. Because like every fighter kind of comes into fights with something, some nagging injury, something like that. But if you're fighting four times in 12 months, you're. certainly are fighting with injuries. You've got broken toes or busted ribs or your groin isn't like 100%. And so you're just twisting the dials of likelihood of you losing. And that's how you can come in

and fight a dude like Kalilio Roundtree, who's not a top five guy in the weight class, but pretty much anyone's estimation. And it be more difficult. And so you were right earlier to point out like, this is again, this won't be the first title defense we talk about, but when you can win fights like this, that is the testament of greatness. That is the testament of a champion is being able to perform like these because it is so hard to do what champions who defend their titles over and over again do. Incredible exclamation point on a weird and wacky card, which brings us to the co-main event. Juliana Pena, much to the delight of Damon Martin from M.A.fighting.com great website,

is once again the UFC Women's Banimay champion, and very few people believe she won this fight. I didn't think she won this fight, but again, like I mentioned earlier, Raquel Pennington, to me, didn't deserve to win either. You might be right, Jed. Like, in the end, as I reflect on how this played out, the carmic way that this fight should have been settled was a draw. Because nobody won. Nobody won it. It's crazy. But Giuliana Pena is now the Bannon Way champion once again.

And the UFC did the right thing. The production team nailed it. Got in Rogan's ear. Kayla Harrison won tonight. They did the split screen thing. And what does Giuliana Paney do? No, she doesn't plant seeds. No, she doesn't grab the mic and start building up this big, huge fight.

Because it will be a big fight. fight. A fight that could potentially headline its own pay-per-view. Maybe some people will scoff at that, but I think that that could be a real possibility if both women play their cards right. And then Giuliana Pena calls out Amanda Nunes. I just, I'm still, I'm not surprised by it. I said it almost jokingly that she was going to call out Nunes and Valentina Shufchenko, and then she knows sells Kayla Harrison. So I've seen both sides of this. Was this absolutely, ridiculous? Or was this a brilliant move by Giuliana Pena in your eyes to just no sell kale altogether in hopes of bringing Amanda Nunes back for a fight that I don't think Amanda Nunes is all

that interested in? I think it's obviously ridiculous. And I know that some people with our company were like, oh, that was cool. I do not know what all of the, frankly, new champions of the past like five months they're all just idiots like i i have nothing else to say beyond it and shout out to pain you because this is so ridiculous that i almost respect it um i don't think it's good mind you like i i do not there's no piece of me that respects maraub being like oh you want me to talk about him more i love dana white i'd like to be friends with dana white let's talk about dana white i'm not going to do this at all no part of me respects i think that's very silly and a huge waste of his time. Part of me respects this because this is so brazenly transparent in what

Pena is doing that a little bit of me is like rock on rock on rock star. But ultimately it's just very dumb because read like read the room. The UFC clearly wants this. That's why they're asking you this question pointedly and doing a split screen. This is a fight that is going to happen. the Nunes fight is not going to happen. One, she doesn't, why would she come back and do this? What possible purpose is like, what interest is this to Nunes to come back and do it? She beat the bejesus out of you and that was it. She didn't beat the bejazz out of you, then defend the belt one more time and be like,

it's trilogy time, girl. No, she clubbed you around the cage, like the redheaded stepchild of a rented ass mule. and then she's like, cool, one more and I'm out. She might come back for Harrison. I don't even think that's true at this point, but maybe because that was a fight that was going to happen, but for the Pena upset. She's not going to come back for you,

so you're not going to get it on that end. And you, Julian Pena is not an idiot. She knows this, but more importantly, the UFC wants this fight. They want Kayla Harrison. They have wanted it since the day they signed her. They knew that you know that this is coming. And you're just not doing anything to promote that fight.

And in fact, you are doing things to actively make people dislike you. The idea that cheap heat is good is no. You don't want Xbox Heat, which I now know because I watch wrestling documentaries. I know what XPOT Heat is. Shout out Netflix. You don't want people to hate you because you are annoying. That's just not how you want this to go. Like you didn't have to be like, hey, you didn't have to put her over and go heavy on it.

But I'm clearly trying to shift the narrative to this because I really just don't want to fight this woman. It's so transparent. It's really, really bad. And I think it was awful, especially in a fight that apparently most people think you lost. Let me ask you this. Who looks, just because of what I'm seeing on social media right now, who looks worse right now? Julianna Pena or Jamal Hill. Oh, Jamal Hill will always be the answer of who looks worse.

Jamal, because there are people, they are idiots. I see some of them in the chat right now. And I'm sorry, maybe you're not an idiot, but bless your heart. You just, you're not thinking straight. Maybe it's late where you are and you don't have all your faculties going. You've had a few. That's okay. We all make mistakes.

There are people who will defend this in the same way that there were people who vehemently defended to me. Well, of course, Morhobs trying to rematch Sean. It's the biggest fight in the division, turd to turn, to, yeah, like he could also call out for a fight with Brad Pitt. That'd make more money. It's not going to happen, and it's insane. Like, let's live in the world of rational actors. There will be people who say, well, Pena's, you know, Pena wants to dictate how her career's going to go. So you got to let her do it because she want, the Nunes fights a big fight, and she wants that fight. Cool. This is just never going to have. happen and it's an insane maneuver. Just sleep this one off. Nobody will defend what Jamal Hill is doing.

I'm not even sure at this point, Jamal Hill's family would be like, that's our boy. It's just, oh, it's like, it is sad. The Pena's stuff is annoying because she knows better. And I think, I legitimately think this is her healing. Jamal Hill is just, like, he's just a very sad man in this. And it, it is embarrassing. And I'm really, really cringe worthy in a way that is tough to swallow. I'm sure most of you watching have seen this already. But if you have not seen this, there is a video that is circulating. I believe it was put on the ESPNMMA page first.

Jamal Hill reacting to that fight and that finish with the yawn face thing. And it was just like, come on, man. Like, it's just such a bad look. And look, it's not too late for Jamal Hill. I don't think it is walking buckley he's walking buckley proved that

tonight walking bucks turned it all around in it we can't save him we can't save him he's too far gone look like a knockout win in a good respectful promo after

that doesn't do it if your brain is somehow wired to think after that performance that the crowd was clearly in love with that was very obviously the best thing that happened on this whole card.

Your brain was wired to pretend it was boring. You can't be saved. He's doing his own thing and God bless him. Nothing but the best from all. That's not entirely true, but he can't. Joaquin Buckley, I wouldn't have thought he could put it back on the track, but there's just no saving him if that is how he thinks is the way to go forward with this. He's just unbelievable.

What's Raquel Pennington's path back to a belt? Is there a path back to a belt for her? Does she need? The division's Garbo outside. It's just really, really bad outside of probably the top five fighters. It's not good. It's no secret. What does she need to do to get back?

It's a short path to a belt. Win one fight. She's right back to a title shot legitimately. Kail Harrison's going to be. dunk on Giuliana Pena. I think that fight is just the worst matchup Pena could ever ask for, frankly. Assuming Harrison can make one three five, I have no reason to believe she can't. It may be hard, really, really hard.

I think she can do it, and she'll just kill her. And so Harrison doesn't have anybody a fight. Maybe Nunes comes back. At this point, I legitimately am deeply unsure that that will happen. And once that's the beauty, once you win the bell. Well, you're a champ forever. You get to be called the champ forever. And particularly in a weight class that is thin as this one is,

if they just need someone to fight new champ Harrison, I mean, Pennington's right there. If she goes and gets one win, she fights Macy Chason or whoever it is, and frankly, even if somehow Pena pulled off a miracle upset or Harrison misses weight and can't fight, this fight was so close, it is many people view this as a robbery. I am not one of them,

but many people believe that Raquel Pennington deserves to be the champion as we are speaking. She is right there to fight for a belt next year. It's a very short road. She might even be able to get the like, I just wait around and get a title fight like Giuliana Pena did. Julianna Pena and Raquel Pennington

share one thing in common. They're both not terribly, active fighters. So what do you think is the most likely outcome for Kayla Harrison? Kayla Harrison versus Juliana Pena for the undisputed women's Bannamway title or Juliana Pena versus Raquel Pennington for the interim women's Bannamoy title. Wait, wait, say the second one again for the interim title is Penning. Harrison versus like Pena is just out for a year or whatever. Maybe I said that wrong, But Harrison is a fighting, pending.

Okay, so they would be willing to wait however long it takes. They're fighting. Yeah, they're fighting next. It's just going to happen unless Harrison can't make weight. If Harrison blows weight, you know, then it'll never happen or whatever. But again, I think we should trust that she can cut the additional one pound. But barring some snafu like this, this fight happens next year. Speaking of Kayla Harrison, she got tested tonight.

She got beat up. When that fight was over, she was a mess. And even in the split screen thing, you could still see that she was wearing the effects of that fight with Catlin Vieira because she got hit with some really big elbows and took it like a champion. And at the end, had a great third round, finished the fight strong.

What do we grade Kayla Harrison's sophomore octagon appearance tonight? B, right? Like, she got the win, which is the most important part. She had to battle through some adversity. I thought she showed some pretty solid fight IQ with that. That fight was 1-1 and very much online. Apparently not. The judges, I don't, I feel like when we looked at it, that was not an even fight heading into the last round.

But maybe I'm conflating that with something else to happen. But she got the takedown she needed. She sort of put the pedal down when she needed to. So we talked about the Pennington fight. You know, people thought she deserved to win. You make the comment. she had opportunities and didn't take advantage of them. Kayla did not fall prey to that.

The fight on the line, at least in my eyes, she made it happen for herself. Was this the dominant performance we thought or that might happen? No, it wasn't. But at the same time, Kettle Mierrez's been around the block, extremely tough. She's been finished once in her career. I thought she showed a lot of impressive things against Harrison. And we did learn definitively that Harrison is still very much a work in progress. right? I don't know how many fighters will honestly be able to take advantage of that part of her game at this stage with where the division's at.

But I saw her fight against hard opposition at altitude for 15 minutes, which is pretty significant because she kind of mowed through Hollyholm. That fight was really just not competitive. There was her first weight cut. But this was making a weight cut to 136 competing at altitude. and her gas tank definitely drained. She certainly slowed down, but she did not fall off a cliff like we've seen fighters do. Like Mike Malott just kind of died at the end of his fight.

Sometimes your gas tank just goes, and she at least had enough that against hard opposition, she had 15 minutes in her and won the critical junctures at the end of the fight. So, you know, you're not going to write ballads about this performance, but rock-solid performance, solid sophomore effort. or gets the B, moves on, gets to fight for the belt, and we get to really see what it's like when when push comes to shove. I want to get to the peeps because I know they've been waiting.

It's tough to sit through the press conference and all of that when you just want to get to the reactions and totally understand, depending on who you ask, Mara Batista defeated Joseo, though. If you want to ask about that, we can. Roman Deleet gets a weird win over Kevin Holland. after the scramble abdominal stretch thing that hurt the rib of Kevin Holland. Joaquin Buckley, like we said, got it done, man. He stiffed Stephen Wonderboy Thompson out of nowhere.

I thought Wonder Boy was kind of losing. Yeah. Wonderboy is still looking good in that third round, and Buckley just dunked him. I mean, it was pretty nasty. And then did the thing on the microphone. Didn't call Connor, didn't call it Balal, planted seeds for Balal, respected him, put him over, put Shafkat over. Or Shafka and then called up Kamar Usman. It was friggin awesome.

He did the thing. He's been paying attention. I'm growing up. I'm proud of him. I'm very proud of him too. I'm very proud of him. Did I think I'd be coming on this show? If you asked me this 12 hours ago, I'd be speaking glowingly about Joaquin Buckley.

No, but this is how you do the thing. Can I say that it's the best dichotomy? Because if we had talked about this beforehand, I would have been like, we're going to come on this program, and Buckley's going to have won a boring, awful fight, and he's going to have said something asinine. It's going to be ridiculous.

And Pena is probably going to win some garbage sputty that's ugly, and she is going to transparently duck up Kayla Harrison and instead try and fight Valentina Shepchenko or some shit like that. One of those we were dead on, and the other couldn't have been more wrong about, way to go Joaquin buckley we gave you shit when it was when you deserved it frankly we will give you your flowers because you 100% deserve them no notes perfection yep great job great job telling people this is how you do the thing for a couple years now and that's it yazzo lucindo split decision Alexander Hernandez split decision.

Cesar Almeida wins a unanimous decision when you should have lost 37 points. We had Ryan Span submission. Ryan Span showed up tonight. Submitted Oven St. Peru. Tisha Pennington beats Carlos Sparza in a fight that people think she lost.

And then Court McGee kicks off the main card in front of his home crowd and submits Tim Means. We should probably talk about the other big storyline coming out in this card. Dana White talked about it. The judges and the refereeing tonight. This is just getting worse. I didn't think we could get worse.

We had probably the worst of the worst teen minute fight officiating maybe time on this card during the Saseer Almeida win. We had rotten split decisions up and down the card. It was just it was freaking ridiculous, man. Like it was absolutely insane. How many splities do we end up having? Three, four. One, two. Three, four.

Four splities and a unanimous decision that was, people are still pretty pissed about. It's always good when you've got four splities going on. I am more lenient of judging than most. I disagree with like basically how every judge interprets the rules in the scoring system. but I've just been to enough fights. I've sat caged side enough that if your score was within the realm of reasonable, I'm pretty open to it because it is just different. Like sitting,

I have gone back and watched fights that I was caged side at, and they have been, I've scored them so wildly different that I'll give you a fairly long leash. Tonight, they just kind of rolled some bad numbers, I think. I don't have an issue with the Pena Pendington scorecard. I scored it a draw. I'm like the only person who did. I'm super glad they didn't score to draw.

We've just be getting that fight again. So I'm glad somebody won. I don't really care who. I think either side of it is fine. I personally thought that Carlos Barza won the Tisha Pendington fight, but I'm not married to it. It was a close competitive fight. Jose Aldo, I had no expectation that they would get it right.

And getting it right is maybe not even question. It's a very close fight. and there's room for interpretation. I hate that we reward what Batista did and that the game has become so gamified in some situations that you can do that. But I don't think that those are objectively bad. I just fundamentally disagree with them.

So I think that in the aggregate, they're all kind of okay. Maybe it's not the best day the judges ever had. The reffing is the one that's more concerning because it does feel like refing is getting worse. not just for whoever the rough's name was in the Ihor Potieri fight Carlos Almeida. I went back and watched it because I did not watch it live. Four I pokes and nothing is just so it shouldn't be allowed to stand.

Like at some point, the accumulation of Ipox is giving an advantage to that fighter. And so there's that, you know, the main event, I think we probably needed to stop that a little earlier. It's not awful. It's not egregious. There's just, it feels like overall the quality of refing has dropped off a little bit. Maybe it's just a bad couple of months. You never know. Maybe things will get tighter, but nobody's enforcing the rules. It feels like they're enforcing the rules less than they ever have.

And they're letting fighters get beat half to death more than they ever have before. that they are really just not even doing anything in there. And that's not what I want for my referees. So I have a lot more concerned with how that's going than the judging, which has always been kind of bad, but mostly I think tonight was at least explicable. Yeah. I just pulled his name up.

David Celestad was the referee. And it was his only assignment of the night. And John Enick said that. I didn't even hear because I was doing a million things as I was watching this all play out, getting more frustrated with each foul that wasn't even discussed. And John Aik has made a point to be like, all right, this is his final assignment of the night.

So you don't have to see this dude again. I would honestly just love to talk to him. Like I would love just five minutes and not even being critical. Like just explain to me what you're thinking. Like I want a referee to explain to me. me and any of them will do why points aren't taken because i have heard that we don't want to affect the fight that's a child's answer it is literally an infantile answer i you are because you are affecting a fight through an action like that is affecting the fight in the exact same way and

if you're going to let four i pokes again i think you should penalize every one of them and a kick in the ding ding too into kicking like how are you just not going to do like just well at what point is it eight give me the number tell me the number that we're allowed to have because that's a better system then and don't do it no don't make me enforce the rules like i just want i want because i think if you just if you just critically were like hey you recognize that when you don't take a point you are also affecting the fight just in favor of the other person right i think they would all be like yeah you're kind of right because obviously i am doing exactly that

it kills me that we're still doing this this many years into it. Yeah. And I saw some people kind of giving us a little bit of crap about the main event and us telling it and stuff. Look, when a fighter can no longer have control of his body, when he just can't walk or move or stand, that's kind of where I'm like, all right, cool. Like, dude's got no more control over himself. And Cleo Rountry found a way.

found a way to just keep winging punches. And it made it, it made the moment even crazier. But seeing that knockout, seeing the replays of the rib roasters into that just nasty uppercut and watching this man just crumble to the ground the way that he did, it just, it was tough,

it was tough to watch. I don't think it was that late. I think it was probably like four or five seconds late. And I, I have for a very long time, And still largely, in my perfect world, the refs would rarely make stops because the corners would jump in. If I was in Cleo's corner, I were throwing the towel in. Like, it just, you are there to protect your fighter and no corner in an MMA protects their fighter.

They simply do not. And there are a lot of reasons we've talked about it ad nauseum. I understand that. But like, they were not protecting him. And he took unnecessary punches at the end from one of, if not the hardest pound for bone hitters in the sport. It's not going to end his life tomorrow. Knock on wood. Like, please.

But, like, that is, that's the stuff that you really would like to minimize as best you can. And I think it is, I think he took a couple of shots that were unnecessary. I'm not going to make a huge dealer clutch my pearls. There have been worse late stoppages. But that was 50, 100%. That was functionally 50 unanswered punches. That's a lot of unanswered punches. Yeah.

I'm not saying it was like a terrible stoppage. It just, you know, there are certain points you're just like, okay. Like you could step in now. Like this fight, it's not going to get any better. So we, you know, it's not often that I err on the side of caution, but there are certain moments when, like when Daniel Zellupor ran into the cage after Esteban Riewich hit him a million times. And it turned out Jason Herzog, like, let it go.

And it wasn't in Zell Hu, we got the round of the year because of it. But at the same token, the kid's 25 years old. and just took a ton of damage that could affect the late stages of his career, however long that is. Yeah. Again, you know, I'm not going to clutch my pearls. It's not the worst thing that's ever happened. But around the like fifth volley, because it was like in sequences of Cleo would throw

one punch, miss and then move back. And then Potom will come out of him and pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. It's like the fifth one of those were just doing this dance forever. I was like, he's not. coming back from this. I even if he somehow makes it to the end of the round, I guess that's a moral victory, I could see pretty clearly that he was not fighting a fifth, that I was not going to allow him to fight a fifth. I think you could pop in here. But look, I don't think Khalil's upset. I think everyone's going to ultimately be happy. It's not that big a deal. But I would really like us to start taking long-term

health more seriously in the sport because we super do not do it. We're really, really bad about it. Yep. All right. Let's go to the peeps. Apparently Amanda Nunes tweeted tonight. Some emojis. I don't know what that means. Just a lion face and a winky face.

I don't know if that's just a, hey, I'm still in your brain. Can't get me out of your head kind of thing. She ain't coming back to fight Julianna Paine. She's just not. But hi, hi, Casey. Hey. What are the peeps saying? Hi, two of the peeps.

Man, bad night of judgment. Judging, bad night judging. Bad night of judging. I just say that. All right. Let's start from the top. Got a lot of super chats. Here we go.

Excellent. Harry, Prime Pereira versus Prime Crow Cop at heavyweight, who wins? Prime Cochop. Probably Pereira. Oh, Prime Crocrop. I probably the same size about.

That's the thing. They're about the same side. Honestly, they very much but maybe crow cops got like 10 on him 10 or 15 yeah whatever it would be fun fun i prayer has a better chin than crow cop has for sure that's honestly the the break point for me i think prayer can take damage better than crow cop can uh prayer prayer's not getting hit by heavyweights though Prera ducked his head into a Kaleo Roundtree head kick and was entirely fine. I think he'll be okay.

I could be wrong. Look, anyone other than Marcant, anyone other than Marcant that takes the left kick to the dome, he dead. So, you know, I'm not, I'm by no means saying Crowe Cop couldn't win this. I, 50-50-ish, but I would lean Pereira. Sure. You can also pressure a little more successfully. that would be a sick fight we'll never see it or anything close to it we just never see it yeah yeah you could finish a matchmaking though um but the fact that we've been talking about

perera in that same kind of class as crow cop already it's kind of insane i think i think that's more this more we're at i mean they're honest the parallels between the two of them are actually extremely long and valid um here we go uh uh Jam 25. After watching Alex this year and how he's doing this, what percentage or on a scale of 1 to 10 are the chances of Magamad beating him, in your opinion? I think that that fight is Stonecall 50-50.

I think we will know the answer to it extremely quickly once the fight starts. It is not 50-50 in that if they fought 10 times, they would each win five. They fought 10 times. Whoever is going to be the winner, probably wins like eight of them. and we will know which one of those is going to happen very quickly. Maybe I'll go 60, 40. I still lead Magamad.

Magamad is not a great striker by any means, but he's a better, he is a competent enough striker and better than most people give him credit for. The issue he has is with leg kicks. Pereira is obviously extremely good at that calf kick, but Magamad will take the fight down. And I think Perey is a very good defensive wrestler and a better grappling people give him credit for. cool he's not good enough off his back to beat maga med there so it's can he get up can he defend enough

takedowns i lean to thinking that i favor uncle i've but it's one of my one of the fights i would like most to see in this sport and i hope we get it next year do you think the fans is this is this does the casual fan want to see this fight or do they care they just want to see prayer do they even know Anglive is. I think most casual fans don't know who Angoliath is. Or at least, like, I have a limited knowledge of him. Like, like, it would kind of, it would be like round tree in terms of like, I don't know, maybe a little more.

He did fight for a title at one point in time. And there has been a growing sentiment, certainly on online, which is not the real world, but there's been a growing sentiment of, hey, why is it magma, the guy getting this? Like, he's, he's the dude who deserves this title fight. probably a little bit more than Khalil Rauntree had, frankly, up to this point. But Pereira is the guy drawing the bodies in for that. Without question. Yeah.

I'm just kind of interested in seeing what you guys think. From the UFC's business perspective, no. Like, is he guaranteed this shot? But I don't know who would be next then. But so. I think, I don't think this will happen for, I think reasons that are obvious. at some point the UFC is the powers that be will sit in a room and they will say hey next year our TV rights deal is coming up and every time something like this happens we try and make a big push

to sell the most pay-per-views we can to up our leverage in our negotiations as we you know try and get the most rights and here are the numbers etc etc it's probably why Connor is being bumped out to January or February at this point and someone they're going to sit in a room and They're going to say, some people will hate this. F them. Don't care what they think. They're hardcore fans. They'll be with us anyway.

The biggest non-Connor McGregor fight we can make is Alex Pereira versus John Jones. Let's just make it and everyone else can kick rocks. Because that is the biggest non-Connor McGregor fight they can make. Assuming John does beat Stepe, I wouldn't say it's most likely. It's probably like 30% that that fight happens next year. next summer or whatever they say hey john here's a bunch of money don't leave yet do the prayer thing tom you're great you're the best tom we love you but you know it's a matter of timing in a future lifetime we'll love you as our heavyweight champion go fight uh the winner of volkov

cyril gone to defend the interim belt again it's so funny ever talking about incalive i totally forgot like oh yeah he has to fight ragage and that's a that's a fight he can lose he certainly can't yeah So yeah, we'll get there. It is the biggest non-title must win maybe on the rest of the calendar year for the UFC. And it's more than that. A win is not even enough.

He's got to go. He has to obliterate rackage. He has to obliterate him. Or he's not getting a title fight. Do you have to see? We'll just keep skipping over him. They'll just keep doing it. If he gets a whatever decision, yeah, I could totally see it going to Carlos Oldberg or something.

We'll see. I'm less confident that that's true. But we'll see. Thank you much. Next super chat. Ooh, 1399. Thank you, chat. I was five for six in my parlay, starting with Wonderboy fight going to the main.

The only fight I got wrong was the Aldo fight. Do you agree? I deserve my payout. some extra for emotional damage. Listen, if the answer is yes, I would like to reap those benefits as well because I had Jose Aldo on the MMA fighting fantasy draft. He was like my second to last pick.

I deserve points. Even the rest of the staff is like, yeah, man, you should get like 300 free points for that because it's a bunch of BS. So I say yes. I can't pay you any of this money. but if we're up to me, sure. I mean, I thought Josie Leda won.

It's tough. You know, I don't, it's not really a robbery by like reasonable definitions. This fight is lesser reflection on judging, which again, I don't agree with how the judges scored it. I believe that it is a reasonable scorecard from all judges involved. So I do not believe this is a robbery. I do think that this gets more to a point that I have an issue. with the game is to some extent being solved and being gamified. And this isn't, that's not, that what we saw was not, Mara Mottisa wasn't fighting him.

Like I don't know how else to say it. He was attempting to, to win the game they were playing. And he did. And credit to him. Like he gets both his paychecks. That is a significant thing to him. But he, you know, he promised blood and guts and delivered, I'm going to wall. all he that because that is a 100% the plan that happened and it worked but that no reasonable

definition of that is a fight which is kind of what we are hoping to get to you know right like something that resembles a fight and so i dislike that the rules have been figured out and met it in a way to get to there and i wish we would do something better about that but i think it's a reasonable scorecard to score for batista so you know it just sucks it's tough maria batista gained nothing from this outside of the second half of his paycheck which is great he gained nothing from this his next fight is going to be brutal it's going to be against some surging killer that is probably outside of the top 15 or maybe he gets just kind of like i don't know i don't know what he gets but he ain't getting anything close to a title shot that is for damn sure he ain't getting any of the

big names in this division it's just not going to happen man it's just And Dana roasted him. Dana gave him a bunch of crap at the presser, and that's never good for you either. I didn't know that. It's, I mean, what? It was just never going to happen for you in a way. Like, it seems to the thing. Like, you can think he won and, or you can be contrarian and be like, that was, let's play in the game of rules.

You did what you got to do. Cool. I don't think it is a reasonable argument to contest that more about to in the third round, Batista was trying to do anything other than stall out for time. Pretty clearly, he was, I'm just going to, I do not want to engage. I just want to get this guy to the fence and hold him here as long as I can. And he did that and he was allowed to do that. Honestly, that might be my actual biggest issue with the refing is that Mike Beltran

just let him chew up time fruitlessly. He was clearly not working for anything substantive. And this conversation happened not that long ago. I forget the fight it was about. It was Herb Dean calling for action. It was Marabhaw, I think it was the Marab-Shon fight, actually. Herb Dean calling for action fairly quick. And there was this discussion online of like, well, the refs can't be doing that.

Like, because Joe Rogan says all the time, like, I wish there weren't stand-ups. That's insane. This is a spectator sport. And we, like every other sport, every other combat sport, frankly, incentivizes action. Like, if you watch wrestling, you watch grappling, you watch. boxing it is to make action happen for in perpetuity and we don't for reasons that verge from a little silly to like just antiquated and like if you're not doing anything in a in a clinch get them up like all right right like you got you got you need to be making action happen at all

points in time because that is just a I mean you don't if you want to watch fights like that that's your prerogative you can think the rules are great I personally would like a more exciting sport where action is happening than just a clinch fest because that's what we got in that fight and frankly the same can be said about kela in the viera fight a lot of kala was not doing shit in that fight he's holding the clinch and failing yeah that's why i scored yeah that because i think they scored in of scoring two judges gave kala all three rounds and then one one gave viera the second which I thought was pretty clear Vera one second because she landed like vicious shit

that entire round so yeah judges were nice weird night which I found odd Bartista's bad yeah yeah and that's I feel that was wrong but surprisingly half of the media did score it for Batista the other half scored for auto

but the fan scoring which might be though I don't know but 86% had it for auto so So, yeah. Fans no ball. Man's no ball. Mario Batista landed 10 strikes in round three.

How do he win round three? I just don't get that. Round three is. Rozeo. Yeah, Josie Alder's 17 strikes. Mario Batista's zero of 10 in takedowns, but he had seven minutes of 15 seconds of control against the cage. That's not control.

It's not control. I know. That's not control. I mean, well, actually, I guess it is control, but who gives a shit? Control is a meaningless stat. Yeah. It just doesn't do anything. It's not the ultimate control championships.

Yeah. Freak and dumb. Ah, so many bad decisions tonight. All right. But, uh, okay. Next question. Giovanni, I think Alex's slow start is his way of luring his phone into false sense of security and baiting him into gassing out.

Am I wrong? I think so. I can't be certain of that, but I do think so. Do you remember how the first five seconds of the fight was? Yeah, he didn't start slow. Yeah, he did like a jumping Verdum kick. I'd actually say Alex started pretty quick because he also immediately had range. I think it's just, I think it's fair to say Cleo exceed expectations.

He came out and looked better. Alex took over as the fight went on and he landed more damage. image and won the war, right? Like, we talked about it on the watch party, Mike. By the third round, the momentum had swung entirely. And Khalil was still competing, but he was starting to wear damage and physically break apart because he's fighting a dude who hits unbelievably hard and hit him a bunch. But I don't, I'm more willing to say that Khalil started faster than we thought he would

than to say that this was a grand plan to wear on the gas tank of him. I think Pereira Fault the way he always fights and Cleo was more game than we imagined. Yeah. Yeah, I was, I mean, that's why I kind of respectfully disagreed with you, Mike, we talked about you thought this fight would end fast, you know, like first or second round. I thought both guys would be kind of, like, especially Alex,

he'll finish you quickly if you were Sean Strickland, if you give him a stupid opportunity like Jamal Hill did it or like Hill or Strickland. But I think Roundtree was just too, too much of a season kickboxer that it was going to lasts a little bit and kind of it kind of went as I expected man I did I did pick round tree to win the fight eventually in the fourth round but of course you know it fell apart for him but uh yeah I don't yeah Alex he just he's a season kickboxer he'll go when he sees his opportunity and he'll just take his shots for all of them you know he took I think really only took two hard shots from round tree yeah yeah there were two really really good ones that he that head kick was

really good on that right hook when Alex got spun around and sat him on his ass. Those were two really good. I mean, he ate a fair number of other shots. He mostly rolled a lot of it. It was the last punch in a five-strike combination and at the end of thing because frankly, Roundtree just did not have the tools to get inside effectively. But he landed two very good ones and Prayer ate him. Yeah. But I do think prayer did kind of want or kind of was the game plan to Roundtree to kind of, there was no way for him to be that explosive for 25 minutes.

It just won't happen. And eventually just go down and then. If you can survive the first five minutes, you will have a substantially better chance of beating Clue Roundtree when he is as fast and as strong as he will ever be. All right. Thank you, Mr. Perez. Spencer in Spain stayed up till 730 a.m. for 307 and Alex made it worth it. After 30, I asked if Alex was top 25 to 30 male pound for pound all time and you agreed he probably was.

Is he now top 20 male pound for pound all times? Top 20 in male champ wins now. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe. He's going to be a really neat guy to break down when his career is all sudden done. because it has been so short, but so significant. 20 is a big number, but like, maybe, maybe. That's, yeah, maybe.

Yeah, maybe is the right here. Again, there's a pantheon of six that's unquestionable. I think there's probably another like eight in that next tier of guys like Okinawski and Adasanya and Matt Hughes and Camaro Oussman and Dan Henderson. and got like max holloway guys who have done so much unbelievable stuff over a lifetime that deserves the recognition that perr doesn't quite have at this point but he's certainly making a case like and maybe if he keeps fighting three frigging times a year shit who knows where he ends up he keeps one of well i mean batista did just bump auto out of that top six so there was an open sure didn't sure did not aldo's in that pantheon until someone takes it not for

whoever someone can take it from him yeah yeah ain't done it yet you get nine title defenses and we start talking until then he's in the room uh solar crop uh hello from tijuana bea here hi mike hi jada kisi just one thing brother shama shama shama and aldo is robbed hosay hermano thank you for the coverage on site love you guys love you soul ruck klop thank you love you love all of you I love the watch party reactions boys after Jose lost a fight. He probably won at 2.45. He was given a title shot.

You think the UFC should treat unfair losses like wins more often, thought Aldo won tonight. No. I didn't, I mean, as big of a Jose Aldo fan as I am, I thought it was a bit ridiculous as they did that. I was not going to complain because like it was cool. It worked in my favor. Why would I complain? Even if structurally it's obviously a very bad thing to do. No.

because the UFC does not get to dictate who wins and loses. They already get to dictate too much. They get to dictate the champions and the rankings functionally. So they should not also dictate the wins and losses. They can dictate that in pay. They can say, hey, we're going to give you your win bonus. But we need that separation. And even if we don't agree and hate it, which I hate it,

as part of the game, we have to live with it. Do you, I don't want to get too much into this. So you know how I feel about it. Do you put Batista in front of Aldo in the rankings now? I am officially doing it, but it made me really sad. I did do it, but. I haven't gotten there. I decided to just do the pound for pound rankings, as told,

and I will take my time and go through each division after some sleep. That's how I'm going to handle it. All right. And our last super chat before we hit some other questions. Some people in the chat don't know ball. uh 2011 hair mic and mustacheless casey no yeah that was from uh for you're talking you would have enjoyed the conversation yeah we were talking about the great runs and you know because we were talking about Pereira what he's put together and the john jones run that we talked about on the watch

party was brought up and case he brought up a decade ago and then i was like oh i was like that was before i was a dad i was like that was before i got married and i was like i actually had hair back then when John Jones was on that run. It just seemed like forever ago. But alas, here we are. Okay, so other questions? Is Pereira the second greatest late heavyweight of all time? No.

Like, he might be top five. There's just a lot of people who don't know ball in the chat. And guys, I get it. It's fun. It's fun. It's exciting to be part, to be a fan now when this is happening. And you get to experience it. And so you want the things that you experience.

to be the best. And he can be the second greatest light heavyweight of your heart. He has two title defenses, guys. And one of them came against a dude. He already beat. And the second one came against the dude who was the number eight guy in the weight class. Like, it's just not it. Like, you got to give the respect to the people who came before who did the work.

It just is. If you want to say he's the second best because he would win in a fictional matchup, okay. I can't. I would strongly disagree with that for sure, but no, he's not it. It's John Jones, and then it's either D.C. or Chuck, Frank Shamrock or Frankly Tito. Like, they just did more. And they might not be as good of fighters, but they can't, like, they fought the best dudes they could at the time, and they beat more of them at the period of time.

You have to respect people winning. This is a great run, and he might get there. He could absolutely get there. But he beat one duty already knocked out and he beat the number eight guy in the weight class. Like we're just not there yet. We don't need to rush this conversation. Yeah. All right.

He's yeah. Top five, six, which in this division, considering its history like Jed mentioned, it's pretty frigging good after just four, five ways. Oh, I'm sorry. He beat Jamal Hill who I don't know what to make of that as a title of sense. That is, I straight up, I did forget the Jamal Hill thing. And Jamal Hill is a former champion. also Jamal Hill became the champion as like the number seven guy and then lost immediately.

And so I don't know where to rate that right now. It's not a bad win. None of his wins are bad. Just like it's three of them. Let him get some more. We don't have to rush this. We can litigate this after he's done winning at light heavyweight instead of doing it right now. All right.

I think a couple more Yeah Roundtree is my second favorite fighter at Light Heavyweight I think there's a lot He got a lot of fans, right? Actually, I want to lead into We talked about this on the fan Q&A, Mike You said

If Roundtree loses There's basically no road back from To fight for a title again And I can't disagree depending on how we lose this and I think what's the road back for Roundtree? Is there a road back? Or is this one of those guys? Once you do that title shot, you're never getting it again,

or it'd be so impossibly hard. Roundtree is, roundtree is in that position where none of that shit matters anymore. They just want to see him. He's, he is must see TV with or without a belt. Like a made man almost. He is at worst.

He is the guy in front of the velvet rope when it becomes, what it comes to like being a made guy. You know what I mean? Like, he's close. He's real close. He's in a great position right now. Does he necessarily need to fight for the belt? No, I don't think so. But, yeah, people, the next time Khalil Roundtree fights, it is going to be, it won't just be the hardcore fans.

It won't be the Jeds and the Kaposos and the usas of the world who are excited about it. Even the new generation of fan who is negative about most stuff will be excited to watch him fight again. So he's in a damn good spot. I don't know if he fights for the belt again, and I don't think it really matters. Yeah, fair, fair. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Adrian.

No, no, this quick super chat came in. Stephen Jedd-wise, Fador, and you're six. Not arguing, I just want you to explain. Also, why do you think Aldo re-signed with the UFC, it always seemed weird to me? So the elder part was a little weird. I think he just wanted to fight again. And his contract with the UFC wasn't done. He still had a fight.

They were willing to let him walk to do some boxing stuff. But fighters don't like to retire. And I think that he ultimately decided he had more to give to the sport. and wanted to come back when it was comfortable doing it. And I'm glad to have him back. I'm glad that we get more of him that he is still,

you know, he's not as good as he once was, but still a great fight against a very, very competent phantom weight or great performance. Not a great fight. Let's not split hairs here. As far as Fador,

it's really simple. Fado was the best heavyweight in the world for like 10 years. It might have been nine, but I, we just, Straight up, I think the biggest difference between how I view greatness in the sport and accomplishment and clearly many fans and other people in the industry is I place a huge premium on your championship accomplishment and on your longevity time wise. To me, those are the two hallmarks because 10 years, maybe you don't fight the best guy every time because Fador certainly didn't.

I'm not telling you all his fights are worthwhile. But being at the top that long is incredibly. difficult and especially when you're on there long enough where literal fighters come in training for you. Max Holloway has only ever known, Max Holloway, one of the all-time greatest fighters, has literally only ever known a competitive landscape that had Jose Aldo in it. When he started fighting, Jose Aldo was at the top and his entire career was, I want to fight that dude one day. And he got there and he beat him, beat the brakes off him twice. Because he had a. A lifetime of fighting to prepare to fight that dude.

That when you're doing that and your stuff in people, you're rejecting those kind of guys coming up and you can still do it. And when you're clearly in your post prime, but still getting meaningful, successful wins, all of that factors in. And for 10 years, for 10 years, Fadol was the baddest man on the planet, the baddest heavyweight in the world.

And that's like, that's it. Stepe had a great run and was the baddest dude and it's the greatest UFC heavyweight, no question. Fador did it longer. His wins were as meaningful as they could be at the time. He's in the room. There are six of them in the room. He got one of the chairs.

Yeah. I don't need to sell you guys on Fador. Dude, like half of heavyweight MMA does not exist without Fador. I cannot stress to you how far ahead of everyone else Fador was at the time. It's unbelievable. The same with Jose, the same. with GSP, the same with Anderson, the same with John, DJ. It's just they were so far ahead of their peers.

It took literal almost a decade for people to catch up to them. And they did because that's how time works. But I mean, that's the sixth. They're unbelievable. I would like to also throw in Ronda Rousey in there, as far as fighters, that was just so far ahead of their peers. Yeah. You're doing the, you're doing, if we're opening the room to women,

there are a couple of women that belong in the room as well. What else we got here? I just want to throw this out here real quick. 3027 for T-shu is wildly out of control. Yeah, that must be blind. That's not a very good scorecard. That was real bad. I had a 3027.

I disagree with your score cards, sir. That's a lot. That's okay. Dude, a lot of people had a 3027. A lot of media, I think I got, uh, I was actually kind of surprised. Yeah, me and AK had it 30. I'll be back in one second.

Oh, no worse. Okay. Yeah, so Zane Simon, Sean Sheenan, and someone from Sherdog. So I think 317 was the first score. But granted, that was a close round, but I did have it 3027. But, yeah, I thought, I thought Carlo won the first. I thought Tisha won the second for sure. Third is could have gone either way because Tisha, man, Tisha was.

looking okay in the third but then Carla had like by far the best moment of the fight when she took her down and it turned an elbow in her face and all that like that's terrible sorry cool either way but yeah 30 I didn't like 30 27 I thought carlo won the first for sure so two judges too was Tisha to yeah two judges they give Tisha the first tisha the first so it was close though not not not no no I want to go I want to go watch the fight because I wasn't watching all the way like super locked in and because the scores were around I thought Carla won but I want to go rewatch it I will at some point yeah um uh oh good one nice one more super check has just dropped in so let me throw this up

there and we'll get out of here Fernando round tree showed up more than the champ did he may have lost but was doing the work till he got finished the stock is up more after this fight I agree with every part of that except for this showed up more than the champ did. Yeah. I believe Pereira showed up just fine. But Roundtree, again,

great, man. That was an awesome fight. Like, kudos to him. Okay. Hit the music. How about that? The adrenaline dump like that just hit me is

un-frigan real. I was feeling vibrant. I was good. and then everything just crashed like 40 seconds ago. Hey, celebrate your boy. Think of the fantasy points you got from Alex Pereira. Monster Night. I needed it.

I needed it. Raquel Pennington deserved to win. Although, actually, she didn't deserve to win, but I thought she won. And Josealdo deserved to win. I have Marine Rodriguez winning, too. I forget, though. He did?

Yeah, dude. I was fairly certain she had lost that. But more people, more people score. to four to four arregas yeah i have surprised that she won the first round on several people's score cards but 75% of the fans had oregas winning too you guys are haters there's a close fight now yeah the 3027 is what brought me the wrong the 3027 for uh hubbard too no no 30 27 yeah that was real bad that was real bad there a couple but uh yeah

what a day it's all good or a day you can go back and rewatch the watch party can go back and rewatch jettony's reaction to the main event on youtube and a k and i will do some matchmaking tomorrow at 11 a.m eastern we'll see you then good night everybody you're listening to the vox media podcast