MMA Fighting - UFC 315 Post-Fight Show | Reaction To Jack Della Maddalena Creating Chaos With Title Win Over Belal Muhammad

Episode Date: May 11, 2025

UFC 315 was capped off by Jack Della Maddalena becoming the brand new UFC welterweight champion following a thrilling battle with Belal Muhammad in the main event. Does the result officially lock down a champ vs. champ fight with lightweight king, and No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter Islam Makhachev? Following Saturday's pay-per-view card, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew react to Della Maddalena's title win, what a potential fight with Makhachev could look like, what's next for Muhammad, and who from the outside of UFC 315 lost the most with the result of the main event. Additionally, they'll recap Valentina Shevchenko's decision win over Manon Fiorot to retain her women's flyweight title, Aiemann Zahabi defeating Jose Aldo via controversial decision in, what appears to be, Aldo's final fight, other standout moments, and more. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠@m_heckjr Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠⁠@JedKMeshew⁠⁠ Subscribe:⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. All righty. And now your host, Mike Heck and Jedmishu. It's on Casey. Incredible job talking to the peeps and answering the questions and setting the table for us. As we welcome you to the UFC 315 live post-fight show and reactions special here live from Command Center 4.0. I am Mike Keck.

That is Jed Mishu, the Baron of Boop. And we are coming off a roller coaster ride, if you will, of a pay-per-view event, capped off Jed Mishu. By chaos, absolute chaos. We have a new welterweight champion of the world. His name is Jack Della Madelena, and that, we assume, has flipped things upside down in multiple divisions. Unfortunately, and we'll actually divulge this information in a moment,

but Jed, welcome back. It's been a moment. It's been a long time since you've seen you in so long. So long. So long. It's been so long, Mike. I'm going to be doing several victory laps tonight. One of them will be, hey, remember when all you people were trying to fist fight me and say this card sucked?

Wasn't that bad. It wasn't great, but nobody said it was great. But it was big stakes, meaningful fights. And I had a pretty good time tonight, Mike. I certainly exceeded what my expectations were for coming into this. I thought we were in first log. At times, there were pieces of that 100%. Not saying it was all roses,

but I had a much better time watching tonight's fights, in part because the fights did deliver, but also because they were meaningful. Even in the Grasso-Natalia Silva fight, which I think was probably sort of surprisingly, the least fun fight of the main card. It's not how I would have thought going in. Really?

I would have thought that would have been more fun. That fight was not that fun, realistically. But very impressive, it mattered, and so I was still invested, even if I wasn't that invested in it. And then the main event, that was the other thing to it. The main event had so much story tied to it. Not just who is the best welterweight on Earth,

but all of the downflow effects that come from this. And now even the most chaotic part of it has now happened of Jack Delamadalina, defeating Blah Mohamed, opening the door for Isamakachev to move up, which in turn seems to very likely, create some sort of. We don't know whether it will be an interim or a undisputed lightweight title fight, which is probably going to take place international fight week based on all

the reporting and the stuff being talked about before. So just a whole lot of stuff just happened. And it was pretty fun. Yes. Unfortunately, we are not going to get any decision, the decisive answers because MAFighting.com is a terrific website. Great one. If you want to watch the UFC 315 Post-Fight Press.

conference, don't blame you. Go ahead, check out the winners and losers. Bad news for you, though. If you are going over there looking for Dana White, you're not going to get him. He will not be there from what we understand. So maybe, but who knows? That doesn't mean, that doesn't actually

100% mean we're not going to get announcement. We could get Dana on the phone, doing the Instagram thing, dropping some news. It's very, very possible. But as of right now, as it stands, if we are playing the game of assumptions, and Dana did say at the press conference, but didn't 100% confirm it.

Jackdow Madelana versus Islam Makachev will fight. It's not going to be international fight week. There's no way JDM's bouncing back that quickly. No, they're going to Australia in like the late, early fall, late summer, aren't they? I believe my understanding

was they're going back to Australia and this is... August maybe? Yeah, this is the determining factor between whether they're going back to Australia with a pay-per-view or a fight night card. Because there was talks about maybe going to Chicago as well around that same time frame,

but now JDM's a champ. So you go to Australia. It's honestly, like, it's such... It's a perfect story. Like, it's so perfect of Islam back to Australia. Last time he was the new champ giving a shot to the pound for pound

number one fighter in the weight class below him. This time, he is the pound-for-pound number one fighter going up, getting his title shot against the new champ. And, you know, as JDM said, he wants to get Australian, wants to get that back for Volk. It feels very, very symmetrical in a sick way. And I know people couldn't have been more excited about a possible Islam-Miliah fight. I got to be honest, y'all know I was like that I liked the fight, but wasn't nearly in the same vein. I'm stoked about Islam versus Jack Della.

I think that fight is going to be sick. and I'm also equally, if not more, stoked about Ilya versus Charles Oliver, we're getting two sick fights that I'm very, very pumped about. Hopefully we'll get an announcement sooner rather than later about Ilya versus Charles. Basically everything that I was told was essentially leaning in that direction, that the main event did have stakes. It did have value when it comes to that conversation.

So these people on Iliate's a porias team believe that they will be fighting Charles Oliver so we'll see if that gets officially announced maybe charles olivera plays a little game of cat and mouse if i'm him like you got a negotiation both these guys right now could play a little hard ball if they wanted to so that's something that we could possibly think about maybe some of the things were already worked out in place so for those who who were not watching live with us how did you score this fight was this the right decision i had it four one jack bill and alina i am open to almost any scorecard you want to put out there. I think Jack very clearly won the fifth round.

Just had him hurt a bunch. But even in that round, Ballot had a lot of moments. As we were talking through it in the watch party, every round was competitive. I thought Jack was landing the cleaner, more effective strikes. But Ballal was generally the guy coming forward more. Judges tend to reward that. He was also landing.

I didn't think quite as effectively. but he was having certain moments of success. I don't think, if you scored that 3-2, Ballal, I won't call that a robbery. I won't agree with it. I do, and certainly, of course, pride rules, Jack Dalmatelan, pretty clearly won that fight under Pride Rules, landed by far the biggest shots,

had Balal in by far the most trouble. Blal was busted up after it. I know Balaw looked a little surprised with the loss. He seemed to think that he had done enough to win. I think he goes back and rewatches it. He will have to at least acknowledge that it's reasonable to score that fight for Jack. And as it appears most,

a lot of people on the old interwebs seem to have scored that for Jack. I think the right guy got his hand raised. I reflected on this. Like, I haven't had like a ton of time, obviously. I actually think 48, 47, Balal is a terrible scorecard. I think it's awful. I think it's a really bad card.

In fact, MMA decisions agrees. only one media member. It was Kendrick Johnson who scored it for Bullwall. Everybody else scored it for Jack Delam, Adelana. Two 50-40-5s, a whole bunch of 49-46s. Again, I don't think that's necessarily wrong even. One of them?

From Alexander Cayley. You're your best friend. So it's got to be true. Out of pocket. So it's got to be true. That's a man who just purely wanted to see Jack Delafite Islam. And I think, like, I think as I was watching it, I think I actually scored at 5045. I think it was like a more, I'm not going to say like a friendly give around to Bill all,

because I just didn't feel like, I felt like he fought well enough where he shouldn't have been shut out. So there was a round. I was like, yeah, I guess I'll give it to Belal. But I almost like, I was probably like deep down. If I went with like deep down in my heart, I probably would have given it to JDM. So I don't hate 5045 JDM. I hate 48, 47, Bolaulal. I'm, look, here's my issue with this.

I cannot believe Balaal Mohamed fought the way he fought today. I really can't. It wasn't very smart. And here's what I'll say. For the, hey, I want to make Dana happy. So like when he goes to the press conference, I'd be like, dude, that fight was awesome. Shout out to those guys.

He did exactly what he needs to do in that regard. But his priorities are just in the wrong place. your priorities have to be, I have to do everything I can to leave Montreal with this title wrapped him around my ways. He understands how long it took him to get to that title fight. He understands how hesitant the promotion was to give him this shot. He understands how hesitant they are to have main event cards and all these different things,

like the difficult road he's taken to get to where he's at. It is so imperative for him to not lose that belt. I don't think he ever gets another time. title fight, which is tough to say because skill-wise and where he's ranked worldwide and globally in this division, he should get multiple title shots. Like, he's a very good fighter. I just cannot believe he fought. It was made it more fun.

But to win the fight, he just, he gave JDM the first two rounds. Like, he just gave it away. I know a lazy takedown attempt, a fake, like fake ankle pick attempt. I understand you want to be like, hey, I want to prove myself that I have good hands too. And yeah,

he proved himself tonight. But that means nothing because you're not the champion anymore. I'm still stunned by the way he fought tonight and still competitive and fun. I don't get it. I think he is going to have a ton of regrets in the morning.

I think right now he probably just thinks he won, certainly based on his reaction. And most fighters sort of feel that, even if they'll be like, yeah, just have a sense because I am certain that in the throes of the fight, he just felt himself hit Jack a bunch because he did. And I'm sure he's like, well, I got hit, but I was fine. And so it didn't matter and I hurt him. Because that's, you, like, you talk to enough fighters.

That's a lot of the stories. Like, I felt me hit him. And I knew that when he hit me, I was okay. And so you can get, you can't see the force for the trees. When he watches this fight back at the bare minimum, he will have to acknowledge that he probably, it is reasonable that he lost. I don't know how delusional he'll be. That will be the determining factor.

Because like, you know, Sean O'Malley's out here. I won one, three, and five against Marab or whatever. Like, if he's super delusional, maybe he'll still be like, no, I definitely won. I think if he is honest, he will be like, oh, I lost. But if he, you know, can't quite get there because that's a thing that happens all the time in these situations,

he will have to be like, I didn't optimize my chances of winning. And maybe, you know, I wanted to do this for whatever reason. The imperative was for him more than most fighters is to keep the belt. Because I think it's a long road back for him. Credit to him, he's tried to promote this and sell this fight. He just tried to be a company man and do all the things that you're supposed to do, but the fans have not gravitated towards Bala Muhammad in any way, shape, or form realistically.

It's probably not fair, but there's not a fair world we live in. And just there's so many contenders at 170 right now. Like legitimately, one of my first things is we took our little break here. I was like, what does Pall do? That's a great question. I don't think he will do this and I understand why. And it might not even be the right call. If I were in his corner, I'd be like, hey, man, let's maybe think about just moving up.

Like, let's just, there's too much mess here. And we're at the back of this. maybe we just try and fire in the middleweight and be like, hey, like, I'll pick, I'll fight Kyle Brow. Nobody wants to fight Kyle Brow? I'll do it. Cool. Like, just try and throw yourself right into the mix. And if it doesn't work, you can come back down.

And then you're no worse situation than you would be. Or like, if you go up and fail immediately of middle weight, it's no worse, be like, all right, I'll come back down. You're still a former welterweight champion. Big name, big cash. You'll get big fights. But I don't, I don't know, man, to like go for, I guess maybe you could try and fight Kamar Usman if he loses to

think but if Usher lose on him I mean I think I honestly think that's that's his best better now But he's probably going to retire if he loses to Buckley It's still a big fight man I mean it is do you think Usman will take it? I don't know but honestly dude I understand like I understand this

now that Islam is in the mix that Islam is there because like with Bilal if he had won then Usman thing like could make sense there's a story there he's fighting Buckley a month later there is no like that there was no fight booked for the champion. Champions got a fight booked right now.

So now it becomes like a race to the belt. And I understand that Ousman is a long-reigning former champion. I get that. The man does not want to fight in four years. So even if he beats Joaquin Buckley, as much as the promotion likes him, I still don't think it's better than Shafcott or Gary or any of these guys or Sean Brady or any of these guys in front of him.

So I think win or lose, you do Ousman Ball. Like that is the fight you make. That is a big fight. That is a fight with some heat on it. Podcasts, whatever will drop. Like, that's a big fight. I think you do that win or lose. That's it.

This is entirely off script, but we do have to time out for this. Do you see Buckley either last night or today? Buckley, credit to Buckley, man. This kid, the career turnaround. He came out, tweeted. It was like, hey, man, I want to get on that pound for pound podcast. Loosman and Sohudo. Love that.

That was a great tweet. That was what a dude, the turnaround from Buckley. I love when fighters, like, say they don't listen, but they listen. Dude,

he lit, we're taking full, I'm taking, we're taking full credit for the Buckley, I can't believe. He's done everything. Beautiful. I couldn't be more proud.

You keep going this way. You're going to be, you're going to be my, I don't, my Welter weighty boy. I don't, I don't know what I call you. But,

what a turn around. From the worst callout in the history of the company. And I know some people are like, hey all good press all press is good press no it wasn't no it wasn't he was he had that ex-pac heat that's just not a good place to be but boy he's turned it around everything he has done since since knocking out stephen thompson a plus has been a plus every single move he is made a couple of fighters on this card could have maybe could maybe use some lessons but uh we'll get to them i'm i'm sure uh my my other so we've kind of talked about ballall and like i said i do

think he's going to wake up and regret this? 100%. I'm going to wake up with a regret tomorrow, Mike. And my regret is, I think I had the take of the year. And I just, I didn't say it. I said it, but I didn't say it with my full chest. My belief beforehand that actually I'm going to pick Jack Della because it's, because Habib doesn't believe in the ball. Like, if Habib believed they would have just booked the fight.

And he didn't. And it was like, oh, okay, we'll wait and see. And now that's, that's how. we get to this spot, right? Where it does seem like as Lamachev, we can't know for sure. He tweeted already. They obviously asked Jack

in the cage. Jack said, yep, super in. Let me get one back for Volt. Seems like that is where we're going next. And that is, I'm freaking pumped about that fight. We don't have to spend too much time on it. Mike's not here,

so I'll ask him when he does get back for just briefly, but my kind of take on that fight, especially after tonight, is I'm super fascinated in it. And one of the things I liked about it before the fight ever even got booked is if Jack won, I do think that the Islam fight is really, really interesting. And so I don't think we should, you know, dive too into the hypothetical there, but it's certainly- When the peeps ask questions we can.

Yeah, it certainly seems like we're going to get there. And I got to tell you, I'm really, I think Jack showed a lot tonight and full credit to him. because, like, yes, Ball all fought poorly and stages. I also thought Ball exceeded expectations and others, but I think tactically probably made some mistakes. J.D.M made mistakes, too. Jada made some mistakes. Jack's, Jack made one really bad mistake, and that was it.

He didn't compound bad mistakes like he did against Basel Hafez. Mostly good fight IQ. Great takedown defense was on point. Came in really, like, laser-focused on getting the dub, and now he's a champion of the world. I'm just, again, I can't believe Ballal waited so long to try to take him down. I would like to know, especially because it,

I mean, certainly Ballal also looked gassed as the fight went on, but I've never seen, which I've never seen, which is super weird, but a Jack 100% slowed down and then just kind of gritted it out. You almost finished him. It did, good, but that was clearly just like, I'm tired and I'll push through sort of thing. Would have been interested to see if Ballal had made him work harder.

Maybe that plays out. I don't know. I can't wait to hear from Ball. I'm sure we will this week. If this was the game plan, if he just lost track of things in there, but I definitely think he's going to wake up tomorrow and be like,

it probably wasn't my best effort. For those wondering, some people hit me up. Total strikes, Jack Del Madelaina, 200 to 155, significant strikes, 178 to 132 in favor of Jack Delamadelana, mostly because, of

to Jack up strike him in every round on the live broadcast it said that Belal won rounds three and four in strike count UFC stats

significant strikes JADM outstruck Bilal Muhammad in every single round all five That's the thing Never trust the live stats 2821

3021 34 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 32 33 33 31 and then round 553 to 27 for JDM that's how to close the show in a in a big way by the way, I had them up.

We do a bonuses, Jed. Bonuses. Okay, Fight of the Nights for sure going to the main event. Yes. And we did a fight of the night. That's new. I will assume that Mike Mollat got a performance bonus. No. Wow. Which is insane.

He literally one single-handedly stopped America from invading Canada. And he doesn't even get a bonus for that. That's rude. They shouldn't give it to Binwasandini. but we had fun with that. I bet they did. No. Okay, good.

They shouldn't have given it to be my son-dney. I did have a ton of fun. Jasmine? I didn't even see that, but Jasmine ran over on charge? Yes. Um, I got to look at the list now.

No one knows their main card fight. Uh, I mean, oh, oh, yeah, obviously Mark Andre Barrio. Correct. Yeah, that makes sense.

The man got stretched it out. That tracks. Yes. So there you go. Reasonable. There's your bonuses. Look, this year they've screwed up a lot of bonuses.

They didn't screw it up this time. Yeah. Although Mike Milat probably deserved a bonus if we're being honest. Again, single-handedly kept Canada as a sovereign nation. So give him a day at least. I don't know if Canada, we'll do what you can. Maybe a little backdoor bonus. Look, a little some, some.

Get him a sneaky move. Free Tim Horton's gift card. Something. He needs something. Yeah. But we'll see what I. with blah. I love to hear from. We'll see if he shows up at the press or if he does. We'll let you know.

Maybe watch it after. I don't know. They didn't, he didn't even get the post fight interview, which I kind of thought they might. He's probably pissed. He probably just started out of there. He seemed. He also got it. He seemed distraught, honestly, when they showed him with his thing less like furious than I would have imagined and more just like, shit,

I lost the belt. Yeah. It's got to be tough, man. He had the look of a man. When that fight was over, he had the look of a man who lost. even when they read off the cards like JDM was like yeah man I won and blah was just like

almost like accepting fate and then that's just kind of how I look I viewed again I'm not a psychologist so that's just where we're at right now we're Putin people just for funzies oh was it was Jose Aldouslander no no it was me slander

oh okay all right I didn't know if someone was like Volcanovsky's a clear goat now what we're talking about here Okay, then that's understood. It's just, I, I'm drunk on power. I have the power of the chat and it's, it's way too much fun. It's a beautiful thing.

Apparently Alexander Cayley is very happy. Dave Shaw. Oh, the Shawman. So we're getting somebody. Yeah, and if you've seen a Dave shot press, if you've seen one Dave shot press conference, you've seen them all. It's a sweet slack. I do not, I do not have specifics on this, but, uh, sounds like a fun idea, kind of a thing. You're going to get nothing out of day.

Oh, you're going to get zero outside of. So we're talking about the gate tonight. Oh, man, let me tell you. Biggest game we've ever had, money, money, money, all that stuff. But what about Islam versus JDM? That's not my job. Not my job. Next question.

That's just like a hundred percent. Yeah, I don't make fights. I'm just here. I'm just a guy. Yeah, not really my scene. we'll have to wait till Tuesday for the matchmaking me any next question. It's going to be incredible. So if you want to tune in for non-answers, Dave Shaw has you covered over on the press coppers team.

We can watch them both at the same time. So we talked about the main event. I'm sure we'll talk more about it. Let's talk about Valentina Shepchenko. Grits it out. Starts off the fight with Manon Fioro. She is light. Look like a hundred million dollars.

Man Furo on fire with punches. Looks like she heard her. Heard her badly at times. You had the climb bet over three and a half you were not feeling that first round had me concerned but then valentina then it was stress all the things yeah then it was stress free because valentine was just like you know what the thing that made me so successful in round one i'm just not going to do it again until round five and that's exactly what happened or she did get a knockdown when round four was she got the knockdown around four that's correct

round four so she knocked right at the end basically stole round four yeah that's a one of the fight could have very much won her the fight. Yeah. And then she wins round five. And again, she knew, I mean, it was a very close fight. But Valentina just had that, just like I won. I won the fight. 72 to 71 significant strikes. In her five rounds. And advantage of Valentina Shepchenko, she also has the knockdown. Fioro did have seven minutes of control time versus Val's two minutes functionally. Fioro went one for 12 on takedoms, Shevchenko, two for nine. I, and that, I think that tells like a pretty decent picture of the story.

Very competitive. Very competitive in all rounds. Not thrilling, but tense. Shevchenko just took some rounds off in the middle there, which was weird. Yeah. Like,

Furo made some good adjustments. But again, very much like the main event. If you, I'm, you already said you're less open to it. I'm open. If you want to argue a blow Muhammad's score card.

No argument. And who, wins pride rules in the coming event same way. Like, if you want to argue, Menna score, I'm open to the concept. Pride rules vary, obviously, Valentina Shibchenko wins this fight. Yeah.

Just had the bigger moments, had more success writ large. I thought she was going to blow her out after that first round. The first round was really a welcome to the big league's kid. Despite the fact that Manon has unbelievable wins in her resume,

it was like, she just kept running headlong into the counter-right hook of Shevchenko, nose got bloodied almost immediately. She gets the takedown, gets the control. It was vintage Valentina Shevchenko. And I was like, oh shit, this is just a levels fight.

Credit to Manal. Made some adjustments, battled back, showed her grit in her medal. But it was, you know, one of these women is quite possibly the greatest female fighter of all time, at absolute stone worst number three on that list.

And the other is a very good fighter who's not one of the three greatest fighters who's ever lived. Yep. Yeah, championship experience matters. You could see it early on, but shout out to men on. She hung on. She got hurt in round four, hung on. She got dinged up in round one.

If she had got hurt a little earlier, I would have been interested to see if she had survived. She did not look particularly good when she got drawed there at the end of fourth. There's just a little time that is okay. And then the start around five, Valentina, just like, I'll hang out and not do it. didn't put the wood on. Yeah, it was very bizarre some of the game planning and fight IQ, but it did work out for Valentina,

didn't work out so well for Balaamahmahad, although Balaamie get some more fans coming out of this one, even though he lost the belt. You got to do Valentina versus Zhang Wei Lee, right? Like, Natty Ice deserves the title shot, no doubt about it, but Zhang, we got to do this fight. Now or never. This is one where if I was trying to be hipster jet,

I'd be like, actually, Werner-Jangirobel deserves to fight Zhang Waley, because that is true. true. Yeah. And Natty Ice deserves. Like, both of those are true. This was, this was the outcome.

If Manal wins, I would have said you should just do Natty. Yeah, it would be cool to have Zhang do it. But like, that's not a big fight doing John versus Monce. Okay. Let her beat Verna and then whoever's there. But no, this is the second biggest fight that can be made in women's MMA. This is two of the four greatest fighters of all. all time. Valentina's already fought one of the other three greatest swim in all time. So you got to do it.

Like you just, I, more so than the Islam versus Jack, more so than any other fight, that it's, you got to do this one now. 100%. You want to do Minan versus Jasmine? I'm down with that. I think that fight makes a ton of sense right now. I would like that better. I think they're going to do Manal versus Alexe Grasso. I would do that. I would like it better because you're getting more movements that have, well, now the number two and three women fight. And when they win, they'll be like, I'm number two, I should. But I would like that better. I think I'd be pretty surprised if it's not Monon versus Lexa Grasso next.

That just feels so, such a layup. Yeah. We shall see how that all plays out. Josialdo, we saw his final fight, I guess. I hope so because he's had an exceptional career. And I thought he won that fight. I thought he won. I thought he's won most of his fights

so it's fine but like super fun if that's the way he goes out like if he's I would like him to retire sooner rather than later in general I was happy with his previous retirement I was really happy if he just retired after the Marcheux

that would have been terrific I think that there I mean he said it but this is also he just got you know busted up in that last round he clearly thought he won that fight It's a really heartbreaking. It's the second loss in a row that he definitely does not believe he deserved, whether you agree or not.

That's up to you. But I can understand being frustrated, being like, hey, man, I'm literally one of the greatest fighters who've ever fucking done this. And you guys are booking me like shit. And then I'm not even getting the decisions I deserve against these people. F and I'm out. I think there is a decent likelihood that. a couple of months go by. He has some time to think it over.

UFC says, hey, man, if you want to stay, that's cool. We're going back to Rio. What if we give you retirement fight? You versus Patricio Pitbull, it's the fight everybody's talked about for years. Pitbull's coming off a loss. You can do it at 1.45. You said you wanted to go up there. Just a farewell.

We'll do it to Rio. It'll be the biggest fight in Brazil in a century, the two of you going. and that would be a chef's kiss A plus sendoff. So if he's going to fight, that's the only one I want to want to, I don't want us booking him against Marcus McGee because they suck at this. It's Pitbull, in Rio, farewell, boom. Or nothing. Or nothing.

I saw a man who regretted returning to the UFC that I. That's the thing is I genuinely think he will rethink this because he loves fighting. and to me that felt very much a, man, I'm just, that is, I'm super, that felt like me when I'm on the golf course and I'm having a good round going and then I shank one into the lake and I'm like, I should probably just throw myself into the lake because this is bullshit and it's a stupid game and I hate it. Yep. That was it. Yeah, that's like you going up, be like, I should really hit three wood right now, but I'm going to hit driver and then you're just like, shit, I should have hit the three wood. Man, I was four over at the turn and now suddenly I'm 12 over and I would like to go lay on railroad track. Because I mean that's it I that that was my read I could totally be wrong and if so

farewell to literally one of the greatest fighters to ever do it although after the Martinez win was free and clear of the UFC it didn't Rio massive moment it was incredible what a time to leave and then you could have gone and boxed could have boxed jake Paul could have been on the jay Paul card like could have done all these things and i think like at the end of the day it was just maybe he thought he could get a title shot maybe he thought like hey, I came back and maybe they'll do this right. Because I do feel he should have fought for the belt instead of fucking Marab de Wallis, really.

Of all the matchmaking, that is still the worst. That is worse than Mario Batista. Morab got zero takedowns. Yeah, that is worse than Mario Batista. That's worse of David Zahvi. The Marab booking is still the worst for Josale, though, by far. But legendary career, it's cool to see him back and at least get a win. In my opinion, he's 3 and 0 in his return.

genuinely believed he won all three of the fights. Yeah. You don't believe it. That's also fine. But yeah. It will be, you know, it's not a bad retirement. Mostly just, I was honestly quite impressed by Zahavi. And I said this during the watch party and in the lead up to this fight,

Zahavi is wildly overachieved my expectations for him. I still don't think that he is, like, he's never going to fight for a belt. He's 37 or whatever. And that was part of why I hated this fight because even if he does win, you're not getting him over to anywhere that is meaningful. He's just never going to climb there. But this is a guy who I thought was just going to be like, hang around, be fine, but not do anything.

He has consistently improved. And in this fight, I thought he lost the first two rounds. I thought it was clear. I'm open to being wrong in round two, but I thought it was pretty clear to me that he lost the first two. And in the third round, I thought he was dead. He got knocked down three times. And then he just dogged it out, just dug deep.

And, and like, that's, it was great. It made it a super fun fight. There's a gritty-ass performance from him. I frankly did not know he had that sort of grit to him. Yeah. And so if he was a younger guy, I'd be like, man, this guy's really, he has got a way to win. He finds ways to win.

And that's a really good skill. It's just that he's 37. So there's no future here. But awesome performance from him. Yep. So good for Amen. even if you lost, I think you would have gained some fans and some stock because this is a really fun fight.

Best fight of the night up to that point. We mentioned Natiaz gets the win over Alex de Grasso, Benoit Santini, which kind of runs over Kyle Prepelect. That's what we expected to happen. Screwed me by five seconds. Am I under one and a half? I genuinely think that's the best thing we've done this year on the watch party.

It was so electric of me desperately wanting this fight to clear the half mark can you desperately wanting it under. Five seconds. Like especially because he's in the arm triangle and like, oh, but he's not going to have enough time. And it was just seconds later. Oh, I'm myself. It was theater.

But good to get him back in the wind column. He did call him a Matoosh camera. I said, now we can talk. And it will make that fight happen after Matush fights. I didn't actually hear him say that. That's at the post-fight press. Oh, he said that according to the great hose of Young's. I mean, that's, he should be so lucky to get that fight.

100%. I'm not sure that fight. I'm not sure that fight goes well for him, but that's the fight you, if you're him and you're not going to do, I'd like to get better at fighting and fight somebody back. That seems like a really good fight for him to call for. Yep. Big win from Mike Malott. Big win from Jasmine Jas de Vizzias. Still haven't seen it.

Apparently she slaughtered Jessica and dropped. She sure did. There's one of those fights where you're just like, okay, like I know you want to fight and stay active, but you should never fight a 125 again. I don't know why we're still doing this. This has literally been what's happened since she killed Cermanagh, basically. Like, hey, you killed Cerminara, that was pretty cool. And then every other time, it's just like, oh, you're pretty clearly not a flyweight. Yeah.

And you're getting older and worse. So it's like really bad for you, in fact. Let's go to the peeps. Let's take some questions. I did see some super chats are coming in. So Casey, you're going to throw them up on the screen. And we'll get to as many as we can. It is 2.17 a.m.

so we will do the best to get as many as possible. So let me use my old man vision. The bad guy. Thank you, Casey. I am more excited about Islam JDM than Ilya now. How about that? So this was a take I've been sort of soft launching. I understand people being really excited about Islam versus Ilya,

and it would have been a great fight. And we still may get it. That fight's not off the table now. one of my big issues with it is it felt really unfair to Islam to be like hey what if we just keep if we just throw every featherweight at you eventually one of them will get you or your whole career will you be beating feather weights this feels more just and it is fun and if ilia goes and kills charles olivera the islam fight's still there like if islam beats jack maybe maybe suddenly it's a it's a lightweight champ versus welterweight champ ilia versus islam Ilya gets to fight for his third belt. Like, that's not outside the realm of possibility. Or Islam loses a jack. All right.

Ilya beat Charles. Now we can do it. That fight just isn't right now, and that's always been the thing I have said. I think that's a good fight. I think everybody demanding it right now is short-sighted and probably just, like, not necessary. And I think we will enjoy the ability. Because I do believe I is going to beat Charles, but I think that fight's very good. I think that fight's great.

And so if he beats Charles, suddenly that fight is really something worth savoring in a way that I think we are all going to look back and be like, man, this is way better that it played out this way as opposed to us just getting this right now. In the same way, I'm going to, again, take a victory lap. I was like, hey, guys, I super think this rematch between Volcan Islam's bad and we should maybe do it later. And then you were like, no, do it now. And then it was terrible. and everybody just forgot that. Everybody forgot how pumped they were about that rematch. Like, yeah, no, this rematch is bad and we shouldn't do it.

Like, this is, I think we're all going to appreciate this, because we will ultimately get it. It'll be better. Next. And I am pretty interested in Islam versus JDM, especially after that Jack fight, man. Jack's good. Jack's a good fighter.

That was impressive, man. Like, he used his time wisely. No bad about it. Showed great, great. grappling defense. The striking is he ought to hustle ball in there. I just didn't see that comment.

I really didn't. We're interested in it. Giovanni, Mike Jetty, Casey, thank you for your unwavering, passion, and dedication. Main events like tonight make me so happy when high-level technique still results in an exciting fight,

everyone wins. Yep, great fight. I'm going to re-bett a fight than I thought it was. Yeah, I enjoyed it, especially the last two rounds. I'm going to re-watch it again tomorrow at some point.

Probably while I'm at the airport or maybe even on the plane with just me in the screen and no distractions to really get the full effect of it. But yeah, definitely, definitely a good one, man. It's probably the most – and I don't mean this to be a jerk, but, I mean, it just is what it is. Bilal had to win fights to move up the ladder. That was probably the most fun Bilal Mohammed fights since his UFC debut against Allen. Sean Brady was pretty fun. Yeah, well, the finish, yeah. The finish is really good.

Sean just kept getting stuffed and tuned up. Again, I'm pretty fun. I mean, below style is just to like just mall you and just chip away at you until your soul falls out of your body. That's how he wins fights. He's not typically fight of the night fighter. Tonight he was. And good on him, man. But again, that was probably his downfall was being the fight of the night fighter.

I can't imagine his morning, man. Yeah. Like, because genuinely his rise to the belt is inspiring. It is powerful. It's meaningful of like really did have to overcome a lot of doubt, a lot of hate to get here. And at least when, and Leon did the same thing, but at least Leon got to defend his belt, right? Right. Like he got to hold it for a while.

And Ballal, you know, everyone said, well, Belal's just holding it for Shafcott. And then he didn't even get to fight Shafcott because of circumstance. And now he loses it. And that's just got to be devastating for him. So head up, man. You're hell of a fighter. You're still one of the 20 best pound for pound fighters in the world. Good performance.

Just not what you needed tonight. Yeah. He's going to be a really interesting case study the rest of the way. I'm truly fascinated with what he does next. Yeah. Because again, I don't think he's ever going to fight for the belt again unless he's like. He's going to have to win at least three big fights. Yeah.

And even that, I don't think they put him in there. He's going to have to be like an emergency backup. He's, what, 35, 36? He's not a spring chicken. No. So tough, man. Yeah. And he had to win one beaten 11 fights to get a shot to begin with.

But he got the belt. And that is like forever. He gets to be a chance. And that's always the most important thing. He at least, Vitor Belfort, who's going into the Hall of Fame, truly probably the most fraudulent, like, champion in UFC history. certainly one of them is a UFC champion forever because he held the belt by hooker by crooky held the belt

but all just justifiably held the belt. He is champ forever and that's that is meaningful. Next. Welcome aboard Air Canada. Rocky's vacation here we come. Whoa. Is this economy? Free beer, wine and snacks.

Sweet. Fast free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land. And with live TV, I'm not missing the game. It's kind of like I'm already on vacation. Nice. Air Canada.

Nice travels. Wi-Fi available to aeroplime members on equip flights sponsored by Bell. Conditions apply. See Air Canada.com. Anything. Nothing. That's on you. Oh, okay.

Fair enough. We're going to talk amongst yourselves for a minute. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's all. Oh, okay. We'll talk about ourselves. I don't know. I don't know if you can see any of the questions there that stand out.

I mean, there are tons of Zoom fired, and I'll just look through it. We won't answer that because that's nothing. We'll go rapid fire for like the next like eight to ten minutes. Okay. Is Shafcott the biggest loser tonight? Where's he stand in the Welterway division? That's from our friend Joseph Boza. I saw this question earlier and I think that it is a very good one.

That is a good question. There's a real chance that Chofcott is the biggest loser tonight. I'm not sure, but there is a chance. I actually think, I actually don't think so. I actually don't think so. And here's why. Blal is in a situation where if he won tonight, he was going to want to turn around fast. I don't think Shafka would have been ready.

So I don't think Shafka would have been next anyways. You have been on that drum for some time. I think he and Gary would have got the next shot. I think he would have been the available guy, especially if they're going to Chicago, whether Shafka was ready or not, they were going there with Blahman. So. and if Islam wins the Walthaway title,

Islam versus Shafkat is super interesting. That's a big fight. I'm not 100% sure they would fight. I don't know if they've actually spoken on it. When Shafkot was coming up, he trained a little bit with Abdulmanat. There is a connection there.

To the best of my knowledge, that connection is not current or tight, but that was sort of early in Shavkat's career. I don't remember if they've ever spoken about whether they would fight or not. I will operate under the assumption they will. That would obviously be a monster fight if that. And it would be like end of the year or next year.

That would be the next time they go to Saudi or Abu Dhabi, whatever you do. That would be a mega fight if you can get that set up. And if that fight happens, suddenly everybody will forget that the only fight we could talk about for months was Lillia versus Osama. Like, actually, Islam versus Shafka, fucking rocks. Yeah. I don't know if we'll get there. That would be really cool.

I don't, if I'm Islam, I wouldn't take it. I'd just be like, man, I won the Welderweight, but I'm out. Peace. I think if, I think if JDM, if JDM beats Islam, I think that's bad for Shafka. Because then Jadem gets to call a shot a little bit. And I don't think he's going to, I don't think he's going to be jumping. Not that he's, like, afraid to fight Shafka or any stretch, but like, he can go fight Gary. and that's like a different fun fight.

That might, that I could be on board with where you're putting. Now, I'm not sure. I need to think about it, but yeah. I think there is a world where Shavkat is. I will make the counter argument here, which is there's a world where this just means Shavkat has to fight again because the timeline for when these, when theoretically Islam comes up and fights,

as Shavkat is still out, as big as the Islam Shavkot fight would be, there's just a whole lot of dudes coming up and there was at least a super built-in Islam or Shavkat versus Bilal fight plan twice tried to be booked, twice fell apart. The division might simply pass him by and so he could be a loser.

I think I side more with you on this but I can absolutely see the argument for it. I do think if I'm picking biggest loser, it's mean, it's Bilal just because Bilal is, I think Bilal is in a really tough spot. right now as we've gone over a bunch. So I would say Blal is the biggest loser tonight,

but there's an argument for Shofcott, I believe. Now we've got one. There we go. Spencer, King of Rio is retiring on a three-fight win streak. You think it was the UFC and not WEC for his title win in first two defenses. UFC and fans would give all the more respects to the best featherweight in top four pound for pound ever.

So this is very, like it's very silly, but I 100% believe this is true because there is, I mean, just the way they code everything and put it up as like, oh, Volk has, is one behind the title defense record.

It's like, actually he's not, he's well behind it, but because you're not including the WC ones, which count, like they were the UFC belts at the time. It thinks. Plus, like, if he's a, if Alos of W,

if you count Aldo's WC rain, which again, any reasonable definition you should. He's the youngest UFC champion. Like, you get that stat instead of the John Jones is the youngest UFC champions. Like, actually, no, Aldo was champion like four months younger than John Jones is. He gets these many other parts that are constituent to it to his legacy overall. And that sort of gets washed away unless you are an old school fan who watched WC or just like super in the weeds on this.

Because the rest of it's like, ah, UFC numbers, blah, blah, blah. And so I think more casual fans. would at least be, maybe they would still favor Volk because Volk beat Max three times. People love Max. Volk did beat Jose. You know, like they've also now seen Jose lose a fair amount. They, there are reasons to believe it, even if I disagree firmly with them. I think they would just have to, the same way I never once saw Bill Russell play basketball.

I know he has 11 rings, so he didn't suck. You know, like, well, it's hard for me to be like, yeah, Shaq's better than Bill Russell. like a shock was great maybe he's better one of those guys is 11 rings and so like that's pretty good man sure was so it's just like i think that at a very baseline level there would be a broader more broad respect for jos a alto because i do think there's a big gulf between casual fan respect for josaldo and like literally anybody who like anybody in the media pretty much and any fighters like talk to fighters They talk about Jose Aldo the Wolf Fighters. You just talk about Anderson Silva.

Like, he's one of that tier of, of, like, dimi gods there. And casual fans, I don't think, have any level of respect for him in that way. That's fine. And it is what it is. We'll keep Jose. It's fine. But I do think, I think of Volk fights of Lov and beats him. I think we're ready to have at least a real conversation about it,

if not. It's a hard conversation. The conversation's over. The conversation gets weird. It's definitely not over. It gets weird at that point. It's just weird at that point because, like, at some point, I genuinely don't know how to rate his win over Lopez. Like, I just, he's, like, it's, I, it's easy to do it now because I am giving it the exact same credence.

I gave Jose's win over Frankie Oger the second time. I was like, he's not really the champion. So it's not really part of the story. kind of is, right? It's the same thing. If he beats Mobbzar, that does make it trickier, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Yep. Next. Fun Night Boys had a list of the watch party for the Booper's reaction to the Aldo fight. Malat was very impressive tonight. Are you seeing top 10 welterweight talent? I say yes. No. I like Malad. I think Malat's fun. And I wouldn't like really die on this hill. I like, I wouldn't be like, yeah,

Mike Malat can't do it. Welterweight is just banging right now. Like, yes, we just got a new young champion. That's pretty cool. Michael Morales, probably about to do bad things to go burns in seven days. That's pretty cool. Obviously, Carlos protests has sort of come out of nowhere. Just like a lot of the old guard is getting moved out of the weight class real fast in the next couple of years here. And IMA Chado Gary, Shavcott, like, they're just a bunch of hitters, walking Buckley, like, who,

or new gen slick, cool, fun guys. I don't rape Malat anywhere near them, so I don't think he's... Like, he might crack a number. I wouldn't be shocked if he got himself to a number. I don't think he's ever going to, like, really be in the title conversation.

I know this is like Walter Wade and it's like not the end of the world. Lots of me 34 at the end of the year. That's the other thing. He's not young either. Yeah. Top 10, no. maybe sneaks into the back end of the top 15.

But again, this is a load, this is a division that has gotten real interesting. It got sneaky good, man. It got sneaky good. Yeah, it could. It's going to be tough. I mean, they gave him Neil Magny. They gave him the Magny test.

If he had won that fight, then I, he would have been ranked. Like, he would have been ranked. And he would just be in a much better career spot. But that last 60 seconds killed him. Yep. And now he's, it's going to work on, he's got to work his way back.

And I just, he could just be fun fighting him a lot. It doesn't seem like a guy who's like, I'm going to be the UFC champion. Just like, I'm going to be fun fighting Canada and be a fan favorite. Like, you could make your great career doing that. So, yeah, I don't see.

Maybe. I mean, anything's possible. But if I had a guess, maybe he's like back end of the top 15. Yeah. That's the thing. I wouldn't shock me if you got to rank. Don't think it'll ever be a real challenger. He'll be Michelle Perra.

You know, like Michelle Perra got ranked. Yeah, Michelle Pereira was one of your children for a while. I did abandon him last fight. He put him up for adoption. I had to. He stopped, I mean, me and AK adopted him early, early. We adopted him long before the UFC on the regional. He was a kooky weirdo, and he got away from his roots.

So we wish him the best to Mollador. Next. Angel, thank you for these watch parties. Have kept me entertained for years. What is Belaw's future in the Walterweight Division? if Islam wins the belt? If Islam wins the belt, I don't... I don't think it changes anything, honestly.

It really doesn't. I don't suspect Islam is in for a long, sustained title reign at Walter Wade anyway, and Bilal's too old. So if Islam wins the belt, Balal is just never fighting for it again. He's like, for sure... I don't think he's fighting for it again anyways. I think there's an outside chance, so I wouldn't bet on it. If Islam wins, we're done here.

Get out. I genuinely think you should just go to middle white. he's going to be so undersized up there though I mean he was getting pushed around by JDM yeah he was getting hurt by JDM he's just a free roll man you just got to be like hey

I'll let me go try because if he wins if he goes and gets you know Jared Canaanere and beats Jared Canaaner he's free rolling up there and if he loses

then he comes back he's still a champion yeah but then he's gonna have to he's gonna have to fight Strickland or one of those guys and Strickland's like I want to fight the wall like it's just not God that fight would be probably not great

let's not put that fight in the world yeah sorry about that so just fight Usman man go fight Usman make that money how do you think Islam will do against JDM he has the wrestling and grappling but the stand-up I'm not sure also what do you make a BSD's performance

I think Islam's stand-up is actually fairly well suited to Jacks I don't know where that's coming from I could absolutely see Jack winning don't get me wrong. I do want to just physically see them staying next to each other. I don't object should be bigger.

I don't know how much bigger he will be than Islam. I think, again, like, Jack had plenty of success tonight, obviously, against Balal. Islam is a much better defensive fighter than Balala is, like a worlds apart as far as a striking defense goes. Islam, I suspect, will be the much quicker fighter. though I can't be certain of that, but Jack's never been like that fast.

He's just got good timing. So I think Islam will be fast on the feet. I think his defense will be better than Ballal's. He's got a great jab. He's got enough weapons to present real challenges to Jack. And while Ballal did not have any success with the grappling, they're not the same kind of grapplers. Maybe Islam can mix it in a little more effectively.

I just, I think it's a really competitive fight. And I don't, I don't know. I'm excited to get to think about it more. delve into it, but it's a really, really cool matchup. Yeah, the more I think about it, the more fun. I think it's going to be. It's really fun, man. Jack's fun as hell.

He's such a dog, man. He's such a dog. And Islam, too. Like, I don't understand why he doesn't get credit for being able to go to that second, third gear. He can, man. He absolutely can. He did in the Dustin Porier fight.

Did in the Volk fight. Fifth round didn't go his way. But, I mean. Well, he already knew. he'd won that fight and thanks was fine pretty much so this is reductive and i might not even believe it by the time they do fight assuming they do i have always thought that islam was better than belal and that if they had ever fought i know they weren't going to i always was like i'm pretty sure islam beats belal um and then so bala was competitive even losing some people out here

arguing one i don't think he did i suspect islam will do better than Belal did against Jack. Could be wrong. Genuinely just super fascinated in that fight. I don't think you, I think nobody should underestimate the best fighter in the world. And that's what does the market show is.

Deservedly the best fighter in the world. And I think people were wildly underestimating against Dili Tupuria. Not that Tepuri couldn't win, he certainly could have, but many people are like, he's dug in Tuporias. Like, he is the best fighter on earth. I think you guys might want to consider, consider that. And that's in this fight too. He's the best fighter on the planet.

Islam wants his legacy to be defined by not defending his whiteweight belt against feather weights all the time. And that's who he has fought. And every single title defense, he has not fought the number one guy in the division. Again, not wholly his fault. In fact, pretty much the back end of his non-title run was not his fault because he was booked against the Benile Daryushes of the world. He's tried. And still stayed on the card, still. still fought who was put in front of him. He was booked against the number one ranked lightweight in the world, a guy who I'm still confident to this day will be UFC champion in Armand Sirukian. It's not his fault that Sirukian got hurt and all that happened and he had pulled it the day before the fight. It's not his fault. He ended up finding Hinata Moikano instead.

Like these are just the weird things you do. And he goes out there and he's just running all these dudes over. Like he's just going out there and winning. And if he beats Tuporia, it's like, okay, well, it's just you beat another featherweight. Like that's why like I didn't have a huge problem with him being like, hey, when a fight a lightweight, say you're a lightweight, and then I'll fight you. But it is what it is.

We can still get that fight. Especially if he beats Depore and then DePorea just goes right back down. Then it would have just been useless. And this is a part that I didn't think of until just now, though like, if abstractly considered this, is obviously a massive fight for Islam. It's uniquely special for him in the same way that Daniel, your Kormier's heavyweight belt was because it is outside of the shadow because for better or worse, Islam-Marachev lives in Habib's shadow.

Like you can't escape it. And so he has more title fight wins than Habib. They're mostly featherweights or whatever. Habib did it first. Habib never lost. He can't, he will need multiple more lightweight title defenses to really settle the Islam. And even then people like, Habib's better. He just retired early because of the tragedy.

tragedy. This is something entirely unique. Habib never did this. Habib could have. I always thought Habi would be Kumar Usman if they fought, but they didn't. And so this would be a way for him to truly and purely separate himself from Habib, which I think is something that pretty clearly they wanted, both of them wanted to. Because if Habib said it after the Volkva, is like, I'm going to step back. I'm not, he wasn't in the corner for a while. They wanted him to be his own guy. And it was hard to do and he's done the best he can to separate, but it would be cast such a big shadow in the

sport. 100%. This would be something incredible if he can do it, but he's got to do it and Jack's really hard. It's going to be a great fight. Really love it. It's going to be awesome, man. Fice can be so good. It's going to be good. Next. Obviously, it was great. Oh, also,

just to pause, because while you're talking, there's a world, Mike, where the actual biggest loser tonight was your guy, or I'm in Sarukian. Because now if Charles and Ilya fight, okay, Armand has to fight anyway, he fights. But if Islam now goes and loses, then Islam comes back to fight Ilya.

Now, Charles is, or Armine's still just waiting around to get in for a title fight. I actually don't think so. I think the biggest loser is Justin Gachie tonight. Oh, well, he's. Because now Justin Gage's. He's definitively not in the conversation right now. Justin Gachie now is going to fight Armand Serif.

And the truth is, you're right. I don't consider a loser because he never should have been in the conversation. And Justin Gaci is my small son. And it was unreasonable for us to be like, let's slide Justin in there. Yeah. And don't forget, Max Hawley goes out there and dusts up Dustin Porier. He's now in this conversation as well. He's in the mix.

Whether it's deserved or not. It just, he's a big star and that matter. So Gagy now has to fight Arm and Surrucian next. And, you know, Patty Pimble's going to be right there. somehow relates to waria becomes the undisputed champ it's a big deal stephen where did grasso where did that grasso shutout come from all i can think is islam kills jdm wow so hobbie gets a splitty with two canadian judges quinces so hobby didn't get a splitty yeah correct right yeah yeah yeah it's 29 28 across the board wasn't a splity um so there you go let me make sure that

we're not totally insane no it wasn't splitting just not okay i was like did we forget something no you're right and And yeah, we'll see. Thank you, Stephen. I don't know where the, I mean, I do know, Natalia Silva's quite good, and Alexa Grasso is, I don't know what to make of her. In the watch party, somebody comter to Matt Serra, and I think that might be a really good comparison.

A fighter was very clearly talented, very clearly good. Probably out kicked her coverage one time in a massively meaningful moment. That will live forever. but probably that was the outlier, not the expectation for where we should see. I was going to tell you was really good.

And so she's really good. You've been on her forever. She's fun, man. She's a good fighter. Next. Ryan, this result gives me

Strickland Izzy vibes LFG. That was so beyond the pale. And honestly, the more that that fight also looks better in hindsight. Maybe this one will also look better in hindsight, we'll see.

But the more distance I had, I was just like, oh, I think Strickland, I just don't think is he ever recovered from getting knocked down the first round? That's why that fight looked that way. Because he was winning the round until he got jawed and then he never won a second of the fight again. Yeah. But I mean, certainly like, I said it on the watch party. Very armchair psychologist, very bozo.

analysis here. I did not love the Balaal vibe. Not that it was bad, but he seemed pulled in multiple directions, whereas Jack was very focused. You saw Balaal heading into whatever 304. Is that where he won the belt? 304.

He was laser-focused. This is, I've been trying to get to this spot my whole life, and I'm here and I'm going to do it. I'm going to shut all the doubters up. I'm going to shut up Leon. I'm kick his ass, and he did it. And this week, it's, I'm Canelo-Hands. and Habib and Islam don't need to be worrying about me losing.

I got this. And I'm going to be great. And all like too many disparate things as opposed to like I'm trying to chase down GSP to be the goat as opposed to being like, I'll go whip the shit out that dude and staying focused. And I think honestly, I think part of that is what we saw. He did not look super focused in that fight. Yeah. I mean, I've talked to pretty much every manager in the sport is all on the same page. Like winning the belt is awesome,

but then that's when the real work starts. Like being champ is not easy, man. It's just not easy. It's the hardest thing to do in the sport. Yeah, and not even just in the fights. Outside of it, too. Your obligations change, everything changes. You're the fucking world champion.

Everybody wants to PC. You're the world champion. Yeah. If UFC says, hey, you're the world champion. You're from Chicago. You just got a pope. You just got a pope. You just got a point.

Yeah, you represent. UFC's like, yo, we need you to fly to Australia to be at this pay per view. You say yes. and you get your ass in that plane and go, even though you don't want to. It's not easy to be in the champ. Next. Take a couple more than we get to get out of here.

Boys, thank you, as always, for the excellent coverage. Favorite MMA Media Trio is easily the Mouth from the South, Boston Mike, and the Stash. Thank you, Spencer. You're the man. Thanks, Spence. What else we got?

Boy, we got something in store for you, by the way. Fatty dude, I'm glad three-name Jack 1, but the number of keyboard warriors salivating makes me feel like I'm on the wrong side of history, sort of like enjoying MMA on the whole, oh, well, good fights. Oh, what do you mean? I don't know.

People celebrating B'LL losing. It might. It probably, people really don't like B'L. Yeah. Which, you know, you don't have to like anybody. That's fine.

If people are just happy that Bala lost because they don't like B'Lah, I would suggest maybe do better. Like, I'm pretty pumped Bala Loss, both because I did B'all lost, both because I did pick Jack, and because I just thought that this led us to more fun outcomes, and I think that it did,

and I really like the outcomes we're in. But, yeah, people are just like, man, screw below because we don't like him. It's fine, I guess. It's not great. But, like, there are plenty of reasons to not like people. So, okay. Terrence, I know Zhang has gotten way better, but I think Val does her worse than Rose.

What path to victory does Zhang have in your, opinion. If Valby Jong and Nat, I was like, okay, got it. Nat. If Valby Zhang and Nat, should she go up? If Valby Jong, she's gone anyways. Like, that's, that's it. There's nothing more for her to conquer at 125.

Depending on the time on a billion percent, right? Like, theoretically, I mean, basically all the things she said this week is she, she, this was her eighth title defense, I think. I mean, it's split up now to. It's her 10th UFC. Title fight win. 10th title fight win. So eight defenses, whatever.

But like she has, she's one of, actually, she might legitimately be the only fighter alive who has all the rubies filled in on one of the plates. I think it's, I believe she's the, she definitely has one. She might actually be the only person who has that because other champions with multiple things split belts or didn't have all the things together. And so like she said this week, like, I would like to try and fill in the second plate, which is honestly pretty fucking. badass thing to do.

And so, like, frankly, she looked quite good tonight. I don't think if, you know, she may, in fact, just be like, I'm comfortable to fit my belt. I do think if she beat Zhang, depending on the timeline here, right? Like, if Amanda comes back, if Amanda doesn't, Amanda decides, eh, that pump fake, not going to do it. I believe the UFC would be like, hey, either Peña or Harrison, and they don't have anybody else.

You already beat Pena or like Harrison, let's do that. And so I suspect that after Zhang, she will move up, but she may retain her belt. And that would, you know, plenty of new names coming up at 125. Yeah. My early thought is that Shivchenko beat Shang. But I have not married to that idea. Zhang is obviously still looking unbelievable.

I think she can have a big speed advantage. I think I think I'm picking Zhang. I don't think that's unreasonable. She's going to have a big speed advantage. My concern is that, and it's slightly less because of the Suarez fight, Zhang, the undercurrent that really makes her game work is she is just an absolute hoarse. And like even Tatian Suarez was just like, oh, this woman is a tank. That's unfortunate.

I, my gut says Val can still just haulsar. And if, if you take that out from Zhang, that might be like the bedrock, her foundation is now cooked. But great fight. This is a great fight. Yeah, it's a huge fight. Love it. Anything else?

Yeah. BT Dub, F the Knicks, Go Seas. I called it. I told you all. I had no worries about. about game three today. None. They just beat the living shit out of the Knicks, and they're going to do it again in game four.

I don't think the seller's going to lose another game in the series. I really don't. There's a new pope. He went to Villanova. He was a little busy for game three. I don't know if you know this. He's the new pope. But now he's going to call in some favors with the big guy and watch out.

I'm okay. Is that it? The climb continues. Shout out to the climb. God is the best. 17 down, baby. Genuinely never thought I'd get this far. It was so stressful.

I could have easily just picked and tie silver over Lexa Grasso. That would have been the simplest guy but have ever made. Seltson 7, huh? Okay. Let's go. They're going to win. They're the better team. They're just better.

Sure. Like, they're way better. I believe. But shout out to the Knicks. I'll give them credit. They got the fight in them. They got that dog in them. and Seleks really didn't have it.

Some bad coaching. Shout out Joe Missoula, big MMA fan. Just some bad coaching. Just some bad coaching. Peyton Pritchard being on the bench in those critical spots. Fucking terrible idea. And what did he do? More Peyton Pritchard.

Big win today. 20 plus points for the young man. It was just fun to watch. Just took a lot of stress off the day. And that's it, everybody. Casey hit the music. We're done. Maybe you already did hit the music.

And I will be. back. I think we're doing it at like 10.30 a.m. Eastern time, live edition of onto the next one. We'll do some matchmaking. Quite mad at me. I want you to attack him. He tried to ruin my climb.

Oh, yeah. I'll bring that up. Do you let him know? Yeah. If I listen to him instead of me, I would be furious. I wish I listened to him for the BSD fucking fight. Oh, my God. I still can't believe that that, that, that, that,

didn't hit but that's beside the point you can go back and rewatch that we'll time stamp this video and then uh this post show this reaction will be its own thing as well so stay tuned for that uh on the youtube channel you can go check out the post fight press conference which is wrapped and packed already it's might be a new record is what you bring it Dana Shaw's the closing baby you bring them in there to let's get let's get them out of here ad yeah jdm's a man of like six yeah jdm's not going to say a goddamn thing no one had any questions for him's a hobby I'm sure Shibchenko is not super loquacious and Shaw's just coming and be like,

I don't know, not my job, don't know, ask Dana next week, see you. Speaking of see you, good night, everybody. Love you all. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion

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