MMA Fighting - UFC 323 Post-Fight Show | Reaction To Petr Yan Stunning Merab Dvalishvili To Regain Title, Close PPV Era

Episode Date: December 7, 2025

Petr Yan is now the third fighter in UFC history to become a multiple time undisputed bantamweight champion as "No Mercy" put on one of the best performances of the year to upset Merab Dvalishvili to regain the 135-pound world title. After Dvalishvili's long winning streak, and wild 2025 campaign, the two will almost certainly meet fora third time in 2026. Following the final UFC pay-per-view for, at least, the next seven years, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew react to all of the action in Las Vegas, Yan's incredible win, and where it stacks up against other all-time performances. Additionally, they react to Joshua Van's title win against Alexandre Pantoja after the unfortunate end to the co-main event, Tatsuro Taira staking his claim to get the next flyweight title shot, Henry Cejudo's final career fight, other standout moments, and much 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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Learn more at snapdragon.com slash laptops. Battery life varies significantly based on device, settings, usage, and other factors. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Well, hello there, everybody. Those are the victory drums, and they sound for the brand new UFC champions. Piotr Yan, I guess not new, once again for Piotrion, but also Joshua Van, the brand new flyway champion of the world after defeating alexandra pantosia it was an injury stoppage to pantosia we just got kind of a weird update on the pay-per-view broadcast from megan olivy she was told it was a

that pantosia suffered a separated left shoulder and that the separation popped back into place but it seemed pretty clear in the broadcast that it was a some sort of elbow dislocation of some kind but you know megan obviously we're not blaming her uh As she said multiple times, this is the wording from our chief medical staffer who gave her that information. But Josh Van is the flyweight champion of the world. Piotr Yan is once again the UFC Bannamweight champion. Fun-ass card. Incredible performance from Peter Yon in the main event.

So we'll talk about that and much more. I am Mike Heck. And joining me once again is Mr. Doughraer himself all the way from the ATL, the hot take kid, the one and only. Jed Bishu-Claz. How are we doing, buddy? Ow, my elbow hurts. I don't know what that, like, I'm not a medical doctor,

though you can kind of see my doctor. It's on the wall right behind you. That was an elbow. Maybe his shoulder also got dislocated and popped back in. I suppose that could have happened. But I don't, my eyeball saw his elbow go in and out of socket

so yeah not that it matters an arm dislocation was suffered super weird you know what else is weird peyodian's the the bantamweight champion

of the world and rob devolish really was fun all sorts of things that could not be anticipated like before we went on air we took a little time off from the watch party thanks for joining us

if this is your first time joining us if you join us from the watch party great to have you Um, I was putting together the sort of skeleton for our post-mortem column that we run on the Mondays after, you know, just breaking down the biggest storylines from all of us. And as I was doing that, I honestly, what, it's 1.30. I'm, I've lost track of where I was going with this, Mike. I was trying to get it back and I don't know where I was going. So, uh, oh, oh, no. Yeah, but I was trying to figure out why I was referencing the post-mortem. I'm on some antibiotics. right now so bear with me people um as i was like going through this and trying to set the skeleton of of what this is going to be it was like man what's my break like my blurb review is sort of how we always lead this off and mine is just like nights like tonight or why this board is

still so magical right because tonight was a super fun card like i had a great time watching the card in general bottom to top like it was great but also it's so unpredictable Like, I was absolutely dead certain that we were just going to get a carbon copy of the first fight between Marab and Jan. Obviously not at all what happened. And we can break down maybe why it didn't, you know, what changed. But then the co-main event, like, you can't see stuff like that coming. Like, that's just, it is a crazy sport where you can never be all the way certain something's going to happen. And that's why we keep tuning in.

And that's kind of like my big takeaway from this event is I've had. a little time to digest is like, man, I thought tonight was going to be fun, but then it might not end fun. And instead, it was fun the whole way. The co-made event, which I was the most certain would be fun, ended up letting us down for reasons that aren't anybody's fault. And then the main event was super fun and incredibly impressive. I had a great time tonight, Mike. Where does this rank? And it's always tough after these events to really find the exact correct ranking for this but in terms of like events of the year where does this rank is it because i'm seeing some mixed reviews like and not like i'm not seeing anybody saying that it's bad

like i haven't seen anybody say like oh that card sucked uh which is always a good thing because you always you know when we look at the comments or you're looking twitter after an event you find some way to nitpick not a lot here to really be upset about but i mean just feeling like energy vibes. And you're talking to somebody who was up covering karate combat till 4 a.m. yesterday. Really impressive. This morning. And now I'm back. It's like almost 24 hours later. And just based on like how I'm feeling in my energy levels, like, I'm friggin fired up after what I watched tonight. Not just from the event and some of the moments we had. We had the best 89 seconds in the octagon this year from a prelim kind of fight that most people,

ranked as a throwaway and it wasn't even the fight of the night because the main event ended up being the fight of the night so i get some extra points for the fantasy squad by the way uh so i'm pretty happy about that one but where does is is this the best event of the year is this top three i mean just it's hard to pinpoint probably top three right like uh forgive my congestion i'm sick people who watch the watch party know uh the reason i'm not with mike in person right now is i am ill um so sorry if i'm a little congested um 317 was very good right like i think 317's up there 314 that was very good 314 was pretty good uh i personally still would and i know that people will not agree with this assessment of it and that is fine um i thought

322 was the event of the year on paper and i you know it wasn't all bangers and excitement but it was all incredibly significant it's the event i'll remember the most from this year so i'd still have that above it but probably not the most enjoyable certainly the co-main and main events of that were not the most fun fights have ever happened uh but i mean this is right up there and like i said top to bottom this was a super fun card and we got we got the cherry on top because i always say the most important fights the main event not just because it's the main event because it's the last fight and you can have a five course beautiful exceptional meal and if the dessert is a pile of bugs well you left the evening and you're not very pleased with the the the the beals and that's what

the main event was for some of these events not for tonight i thought it could have been wasn't it was in fact it was it was a really fun fight um you know probably not like the most rewatchable fight from like a back and forth drama standpoint but an exceptional performance from Peter Yan, a lot of action, a lot of blood, a lot of violence. Like, it was a great night, man. I really like this. This is a perfect send-off to ESPN. Yeah.

And I think, I think people look at 3-Eleven in like pretty horrendous views because of how, like, the main event shifted in a day. But man, 3-Eleven was, was a really fun card. Like, that was a really good one. I know the main event wasn't Armin in Islam It was Islam End up being Hadnato Moikano

But look at 311's main card Your boy Rineer to Ritter Taps Kevin Holland in the first round Jayotana Meda beat the soul out of Sergei Spivak Yuri Phrashka Jamal Hill had one of the best fights

of the year Maraduu al-Magh Magh Maghameda had one of the best fights of the year And then Islam did Islam things Great That was a really good card too but this is a lot this is

I think you and I in particular set the expectations for this card pretty high comparatively to most others because I know you got a little bit of backlash for like putting this card over in such a high regard and I got a little bit of that as well I think it succeeded that those expectations by a good chunk

and this is one of the best I would say at worst this is the second best card of the year yeah I mean you know your mileage is going to vary the comment event ending so weird is weird and that takes it down and there was a draw which was fun but people hate draws so you know like it's I had a lot of fun it was incredibly funny it's objectively a deeply funny outcome and you can't be mad and ultimately meaningless because I would have lost anyway but um like there are ways to it's a weird card like it's definitely weird and so I am always charmed by oddities um but I also just think especially if you watch from the first fight on like what was the worst fight of the evening like what is if if you're you're got a

not like maybe the most hardcore friend right but like you've got a friend who likes to watch the UFC they're a UFC fan they're not an MMA fan though they like to watch the UFC and they're like hey I missed it they don't need to see every fight so like but they want to see anything that's good like what is the the fight to be like hey you can skip that one I mean it's probably i think there are two two choices here macy macy barber and uh create a silva although the emotions with that fight like made that better and then obviously the marmitory those are the only two that are like bad they weren't bad and also they're significant because both like that's three ranked fighters of four like that's those are important fights

and they're the only ones that are like eh like whatever if you missed them it's not like the worst thing that never happened. And that is very rare to say that about a fight card where pillar to post and like cool stuff happened or significant stuff or significant and cool stuff happened. Yeah. It was just a

really good card. Like I really enjoyed it. I cannot wait to go back and rewatch the beta event tomorrow because I'm absolutely going to because I want to truly appreciate what we watch from Peoria on. Because I think we saw an all-timer tonight from him against a guy

who just could not be stopped in a lot of regards. Even if he didn't have his A game or his fastball, Maraub always just found ways to just out cardio you, just outwork you, just find ways to make it ugly and nasty and find ways to win. And Pierre Yon had none of that tonight. I scored a 5045 for Yon.

4946 is acceptable. I know there was a 4847. It's not the worst card in the world. It's a meaningless failure, right? Like, I don't think that's a good. good scorecard but it is it's meaningless so whatever this was the performance of the year for me uh in in the ufc and in m m ms where do you this is volkadovsky levels to me what i saw from pietriana especially with everything that and i know like if you want to nitpick some things

oh marab this is fourth title defense this is the fourth weight cut and i get that but marab did it seemed up to the challenge and that version of barb beats most of the guys in this division just not the way yon was was fought tonight the game plan was great and stuck to it the entire time didn't rest in his laurels at all to me this is just this is an a plus plus plus from peyote ryan now the third fighter in ufc history to become a two-time band of mine champion that's a wild stat um it's one of the best performance of the year i am also excited to watch it again tomorrow I want to know how much of it I put down to Jan and how much of it I put down to Marab. Because I did at some points tonight feel that I might disagree with your statement that, you know, that that version of Jan beats most guys. I mean, he beats most guys he's Jan, but like it did at times feel like that wasn't the best Marab we've ever seen. And it's always hard to know to what extent is that because he's compromised or is it because Jan is made? making him that way.

And the answer is usually somewhere in between, like a little bit of A and B there. But I do want to watch it just to kind of at least get a sense of what I think is more true there. Because I do believe it probably isn't helpful that this was, you know, Robert just fought. You made a quick turnaround and fourth weight cut in 11, 12 months or whatever it is. That's not helpful. I'm certain of that. But did that matter? We'll never know because once you agree to fight, you agree to fight.

you agree to fight and you walk into the cage i don't care what injuries you have it's just you you accepted the terms the engagement is valid uh but even you know even if i think that that's a compromise marab when i rewatch it it's still an incredible performance from peyote on i gave him almost no shot to win this fight and he cleanly won it and delivered i mean the best performance of his career bar none and sort of i think it was danio cormier on commentary brought this up and was like this is the Yon everybody thought was coming like when Suhudo who we'll talk

about later Mike when he retired in the post fight press conference Dana was like Peoria Yon's going to fight for the belt against somebody because that that was the horse they were going to hitch the wagon to they're like yeah that guy's going to have the belt because he's he's the future of the weight class and then

the Aljo stuff happened and he sort of just kind of lost his way and tonight at least for one evening he got it back in in a very, very major way. It was incredibly impressive. So one of the performances of the year for sure, I mean, I'd have to just go back and think like what the other ones are, you know, like Fluffy beat the soul out of

RDR is pretty, pretty damn impressive. But like this is an incredible effort from, from Pior de Jan and, uh, entirely unexpected. Yeah, at least with like, I mean, Fluffy, what he did to DeLide's A was some people expected it. i didn't expect it to that degree so that was obviously impressive because i mean roman there's just no way roman deletes i really can come back from what happened that night uh i mean if you want to throw islam jdm in there i think that's a pretty fair one even though it's like not as fun as jean uh but i think a lot of people like expected islop to go out there and do to jdm what he did that's why he's such a pretty big favorite yeah one dude was a plus three

380 underdog and the other was a minus 260 favorite like there's it's a it's a consummate perfect performance yes it's not as impressive yeah so i mean just just spectacular we're we're just running this one back right like i feel like the main and comain with with onto the next one picks pretty easy right like we're just we're just gonna go ahead and i mean i'd like to see both guys i think i think co main has some uh some interest to it because I think there are some other things that can be done depending on how long, uh, you know, Pentosia's out. Um, but main event that there's, there's just no question. You run this back. I think they should not do it immediately because I to, to whether it's valid or not, a, a storyline

from this will be the quick turnaround because there was a story around line before it, um, for, from Rob. And so let's remove that from the circumstance. let's make sure we're getting the best of both guys as can be reasonably expected and you know they fight in we've got events booked out till March right so April April April needs a headliner those two dudes can go in April or May for the trilogy fight and that is yep you can't do anything else other than that yeah completely agree incredible performance incredible part displayed by Barab who was hurt multiple times in that fight by Jan and those body shots there's just if he's just picture perfect game plan i mean shout out to his coaches everybody uh they got yon ready for that because they were ready for everything marab was thrown at them the body work took took some lessons from shan o'malley in the ufc 306 fight just did everything so so well uh in the trilogy fight honestly to me is it's got to be like of the top three top five at work

most anticipated fights i'm super curious what that third fight's going to look like won't be my top three but it's like i mean it's it's up there yeah because like i i'm excited to rewatch this one just to get a better idea because but the the two fights were both very similar and incredibly different um and it's you know the outcomes are so the delta between them was so massive um i i'm still a little bit stunned i just did not see this coming at all and so got to run it back um and like let's then i'll know because right now like i think even after i rewatch this like um i thought about this earlier tonight because you were talking a lot about alexander volkenovsky and stuff and i i distinctly remember

watching volk max two and i think at the time i scored like real time i scored the fight for volk but i could probably even go fine like my my comments my exact reality action was score the fight for vault you can score it for max and that's a totally like there's absolutely no issue with gone at three two max i don't ever need to see these two dudes fight again because volk would win a vast majority of them and i got killed for that especially max people like no what are you talking like i i've i've seen them fight 10 full rounds volk has won most of them volk is the guy who has a better suited skill set and can adjust more he'll just win if they keep fighting max will win some vocal will win most of them not at all the reaction i have i've watched

these two dudes fight for how 50 minutes and i have no concept right now for who would win if they fought again because it's been so so different so yeah we've got to run it back and i want to see what looks like yeah i mean give it to me i'm so i'm so down for it uh fox creative this is advertiser content brought to you by CVS. I'm Dr. Ruth Gibartow Williams, and I'm here to talk about the most underrated product in your skincare routine, sunscreen. Let's start with the basics. SPF stands for sun protection factor.

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And that means everybody who builds an app, a platform, a piece of software, a gizmo that somebody, anything. Everybody is trying to put AI. everywhere. And for two weeks in a series on the Vergecast, we are talking through what that looks like. We're talking to developers about what they're building and how they're building it. And whether AI actually does make sense everywhere or is just going to ruin everything in the process. That's the AI miniseries on the Vergecast wherever you get podcasts. This series is presented by MongoDB. And apparently, you know, Marab get another fight of the night. um marabian got fight of the night for those who are wondering that was the uh the bonus winning fight performances of the night go to iwo baranuski

are you kidding i'm not kidding that's so silly and manuel torres oh come on what are we doing i mean manuel one manuel torres asked for 50 g so he broke the curse good on him uh like i just give evo aslin money because that's just do like three fight of the nights that's fine yeah uh apparently henry suhudo got paid his uh win and show money so uh get to the extra bonus because they had to give henry a couple extra bucks yeah yes so the this is an impoverished company so they definitely couldn't have oh man they are barely keeping the lights on at ufc headquarters they are they didn't just sign a $7.7 billion television streaming rights deal it's more than that that's just for the

UFC they don't know how much they're getting for contender series and tough and the rest of that i'm sure it's i'm sure that's all bungled in there somewhere i wouldn't be shocked to uh more money for that i'd be we haven't even found out the broadcasting rights for for good old power slap yeah wouldn't shock me if that's part of this deal too i'm saying yeah i mean boxing's part of it already that mike they have to keep the lights on how are they going to do it if they pay 50 grand to evo aslin as well it can't be done i mean you make you great point that's why they're they're just rolling in dough i'm good at business they're the scrooge big ducks of of the combat sports world right now uh josh van is the flyway champion and it's

look it's a bummer that we didn't get to see at worst, the fifth best fighter on planet Earth get to compete to his full ability tonight against a guy who is on fire and one of the most talented guys who've seen in this division, but only 24 years old. So we can get to see like the full on fight.

But this is a legitimate win for Josh Van. Like this is not a, there's some, look, it's not ideal. There's a touch of flukiness. But a move happened that Josh initiated and pants tried to hold himself up he didn't it was very yeah it's tough man it sucks like it's not what we wanted but i've been thinking about this i don't know what i'm going to do for rankings i think i might just leave for like not touch flyweight because like yes van

won and like i'm not saying he didn't you know he can carry that belt around as a real I didn't learn who the better fighter was yeah capacity so like I didn't get a question solved about like who's better or whatever it was just like a thing happened it's valid um it's valid but not meaningful how about that right like this is it's a valid win he he's not to blame he did something and and like you said pantosia reacted and in so doing his body betrayed him but whenever something like that happens we all understand that like that's not that's not the point of this that is the letter of the law not the spirit of fighting and so uh i don't know how to handle rankings you know it's it's a bummer because that fight you know it lasted 30

seconds or whatever but it was fun it was exactly what we thought it was going to be and we didn't get the resolution but we'll we'll get it sometime next year too shit maybe depending on how long does just out if he's not out that long they can just rebook these two title fights on the same card again in may for the for ufc 326 or whatever it is donate that yeah may's fine there's always like a weird wacky june event and like newark those seem like newark fights to me i mean if they're going to do double pay-per-view because they'll do white house at the end of june if they do it like a double oh yeah that's right yeah so i i i I don't know, but like, unless Pantoja is going to be out for a while, and we talked about this little on the wash party, neither of us are doctors.

I'm technically I'm a doctor. I'm not a medical doctor. We don't, I don't know how long he'll be out. Like, sometimes you can dislocate a joint and it can be fine. Other times it can have long lasting effects. So like, maybe Pants is back in the gym in a couple months or a few weeks even. And if that's the case, immediate rematch, no issue. Maybe in the dislocation, he tore something, something got jacked up.

Now he needs to have surgery. He's out for, you know, six months and before he can even train again. And in that case, Joshman is young. And there are a lot of dudes at this weight class. Book him against somebody else and pants whenever he's healthy can fight again. So do you think there are options at Flyweight? Abandonweight, none. It's a trilogy fight.

and that's the only thing we're doing i would do you can't do like if if pantosia won keoggi made all the sense in the world because pants already beat like everybody already so like that's there's a story there it's built up like that made perfect sense keoggi beating to girolon beckoff and now fighting josh fan doesn't make like i mean you can do it certainly but it just doesn't seem like a fight you need to make right now. Lazybed pointed out, like, let's do... You could do it as Kioji is representing American

top team with Pantoja on the sidelines. I will defend my brother's honor who fell ignobly in battle. And then Pantosia... Pants could be in the corner. Look, and we could reverse what we tried to... If Kovig was in the corner, this never would have happened,

Mike. Never would have happened. we can reverse it now then they can do the face off if keogu wins they can do the face off of the fate in the cage right there yeah van t i mean i don't mind doing vantira like just throw that thing throw that thing on real quick and then uh pants gets the winner and then we'll do keogu like i said i'm down with keogi versus bereno man like i would love to see those two dudes fight each other like you want to do that cool i'm totally fine with that sure so Especially if, and it certainly seemed like Moreno felt like he was done wrong a little bit by the referee. I don't, wouldn't, wasn't all the way, but he kind of was.

Yeah. So that'd be a pretty damn good fight. I would love to watch Gore Giorchi Marino fight. So, yeah, flyweight's really interesting right now. One thing I want to mention, I want to go to the peeps. Uh, we're not going to be here like super duper long, uh, because one, Jets are feeling good and two, you know, we'll be talking about this card all week. I'm going to not speak all of tomorrow. I'm very excited about it.

Oh, I was going to ask you to on to the next one tomorrow. Never mind. I'm just kidding. We did you do it. We got the performance of the year, at least in my opinion. One of the fights of the year, that main event was great. We had one of the craziest 90-second fights we've ever seen. We had just banana stuff all around.

But I think it is important to shine a light on the best of something that we got this year, Jedmishu. We got the best tweet of 2020. goodness from dominic cruz literally close of the year and i just want to pull this up because that now like i now i can't i truly i can't i cannot scroll more than two spots without seeing somebody quote everywhere uh December 7 2025 the year of our lord uh at 12 18 a m eastern time dominic cruz one of the remember how he said three he

Peeryon became the third fighter in UFC history to become a two-time Bannamweight champion. Dominic Cruz is one of those three. This is what he tweeted. And I quote, I wish that Van versus Pantosia fight was allowed A-L-O-U-D to keep going. It should be up to us as the fighter if we want to continue after that. We put the time in the training camp in that situation. People dislocate their arms and put it back in place and keep fighting all the time.

hashtag UFC 323 I still can't I still can't believe this is a thing I still can't believe we're approaching two hours and crews did not delete this tweet after clearly seeing that this is

just terribly wrong all the way around but your reaction two hours later Jen every part of it's so good that he spells allowed a L OUD instead of A L O W is awesome that he's just like dead wrong in premise

because Pantosia did not wish to fight like Pantosia waved the fight off and that if you genuinely like follow through it's the most insane tape of all time and it's so good because like at the core what he's saying is he wants injury timeouts in fighting where you can just like

oopsie day I got injured. Let me fix that real quick and we can go back to fighting, which is just a hilarious concept. Like, imagine if this was true and T.J. fought Aljo and would be like, oh,

my shoulder fell out. And they would just stop that fight every, every minute and a half because T.J's arm would keep falling out and he'd keep putting it back in and then they'd restart. This is an insane. It's an insane take. I'm so jealous of it. I wish I came up with it.

take like that is unbelievable wow uh al horford petino tweets me love you mike but that was not a legitimate win for van come on brother come on it is a legitimate win he caught the fucking kick and pushed the dude to the ground it's unfortunate how the fight ended no doubt about it but it's not like pantosia slipped and fell and broke his arm that is not a legitimate win it's still would have been a title win but it's not the same thing he at least did something that led to the injury so to me that is at least to some degree a legitimate win is it a little fluky certainly should we be gutted for pantosia absolutely are we a little disappointed we did see these two dudes fight fight it out to the best of their abilities yeah it sucks ass but to say that like this is

not a legitimate win of some kind because josh van doesn't catch that kick that fight goes on that fight continues on but he caught the kick through the dude down Pantosia had to use his weight to try to keep his arm up. It's unfortunate how it ended, but it was due to Van catching that high kick and everything that led to it after that. And that's that, man. We don't have to celebrate it as a glorious victory. It's not.

Of course, but it's not, it's not illegitimate. It would be illegitimate if Josh Mann cheated and, and didn't get called for it. It's not, it is a legitimate win. It's not a glorious win. Yeah. But like, this is just, just what happens in sports

right like this and this isn't unique to MMA like it it is the same in anything like if you are playing Wimbledon finals and your opponent tears his Achilles going for a return and can no longer compete

you win because that like that and it's not you know those sorts of things happen in all sports and they're all the same you don't I don't want to win this way you know, whatever, and it's true, but you didn't do anything wrong, so it's not illegitimate.

It's a legitimate win. It's just a weird one. Yeah. So there you have it. Dana is seeming to be avoiding the press conferences. He afraid of questions about Armand Movies. Probably. I don't know if he's going to be there or not.

If I'm Dana, I'm not going to any of these anymore. Like, I'm just, I'm just not doing it. He has no, there's no need for him to go. There just, there, there isn't. So, uh, rest of the dayna, the main card we had to retire what a performance against brand of moreado we're out there to finish them stupendous just terrific stuff i did not i do think that stoppage was bad but like again not tyra's fault and not like an indefensible stoppage so yeah yeah i mean

it wasn't going to get much better for more than so like at the end of the day i'm like kind of okay with it but no yeah i was very stupid on this card i missed a lot of things i haven't even looked at my picks i'm sure they're awful uh i i've I way whiffed on that one. I was like, Brandon Moreno is really good, and I don't know why Tyra is the favorite. And then I was super wrong. Yeah, great performance from Tyra.

Peyton Talbot, great wit over Henry Suhudo in Suhudo's final fight. He officially retired, called it a career, got the tribute video, all that. Oh, Bernard Fitzgerald playing his song. I thought that was a great song, by the way, from the way-in show yesterday. uh yon bojofich and bogdan guskov fight to a majority draw to kick off the main card at a fight that i i enjoyed i had a great time that was fun uh watching jed's fantasy player just not get it done uh and it ultimately didn't matter really hurt really really really warm my heart it ultimately didn't matter because yon pulled it off and so you would have been the winner anyway i guess actually maybe mathematically i could still

potentially be alive if Bogdan had gotten the finish in the second round, but maybe even not. And so like, yeah, no, that was fun. Bargden Gustav both exceeded expectations and then immediately fell. Like, I didn't think he was going to hurt Jan in the way he did. And like, you know, got a 10-8, a justifiable 10-8. Two of the judges are smart. One's a dumbass. It doesn't matter. The results the same. But one judge is an idiot and two of of them are at least competent and then he just didn't do anything in third yon bohovic despite almost being 43 years old he's a wily gritty tough old you know bastard so good a terrifically fun draw yes and then we mentioned manwell torres knocks out grant dawson kind of ends grant

Dawson's championship hopes probably his top five hopes where all those things yeah i think uh you know one of the questions was what is grant dawson's ceiling at lightweight and we were going to get some answers tonight and you know probably a rank guy for most of the rest of his run but yeah he's just gonna be like a back end top 15 guy which is really good in this division don't get me wrong but yeah he just he just gets hit and it's not not really a great thing so he very talents in a lot of ways but if he fights a guy who has good takedown defense and can hit really hard he's it's got to be rough for him so uh chris duncan grant dawson's teammate the grand dawson thing was very rarely this happens but when it does like i saw that finish in slow motion before it happened yeah we're

we're sitting there watching it and we're on the thing and i'm just like the he got so far turned around that literally like he Manuel Torres was here like he was directly parallel and Grant Austin was just like out here with his arms nowhere and there's a guy

on the direct line of sight to blow him up it's like you know like when you're watching like a football game and you see the receiver drifting in the center of the field and you see the safety coming down you're like oh my god the quarterback's going to throw it and that guy's going to die and before it happens you see i saw all of that i was like oh this is about to be really bad and then pop pop pop pop pop pop i was like oh yep he's dead yep very rarely does that happen to fighting it happened tonight

i was like oh yeah it's tough one chris duncan anacchok win crazy fight with terrence mcitty macy barber great win for her i get sylva terrific performance emotional a lot of emotional things happening on the prelims yeah uh let's give her iran blanchfield let's just settle that rivalry just do it just do it she's not going to call for that fight we already know she's going to call for rose or somebody else uh Alexa grass I believe is another name she said just go fight Aaron Blanchfield like this is the most interested available now though maybe not fighting for a long time she might be out for a little bit uh but dude it'll be the most intrigued anybody has been for an Aaron Blansfield fight since she came to the UFC since the molly mccann fight like let's just do that like i just you want to

try to get her over that's that's a great way to do it so that's the fight to make men on's kind of in a weird spot do i do macy minon that's fine i think that fight goes horribly bad for macy it goes super bad for her but you could do it but you could certainly do it uh for as i am damn this guy's really good coming out coming out performance for me tonight um i've liked him i thought he's good but you know just never like invested in him this was a very good performance against the guy who i respect and i was like oh i should take him more seriously like i've considered yeah i think for us see i'm we were complimentary this fight um on the stuff this week like pre pre show stuff and i was like yeah i think it's really good fight you know like top 30 lightweights is always a

good fight but i wasn't like emotionally invested and i won't you know i'm not gonna be but this was the performance was like i for siam is is a legitimate like player probably he's probably i'm gonna fight for a belt but like that's that's a real dude real dude yeah bruto ferrara beats barvin vittori be interesting to see where marvin vittory goes from there but uh yeah that was a fight it wasn't wasn't terrible i do i think yeah marvin vatory that fight was not as bad as i thought it could have been um question whether mom vatory stays in the ufc they probably won't him and the commentary team even like basically said that that probably wasn't going to happen um but he's lost a lot and like maybe a fresh start just in pfl would be nice for him

you know yeah jalen turner came back from a brief retirement stop said some barboza iwo ebo is just insanity best nice second of the year baby if you missed ewo versus ebo go watch it right now by the time i pull i pull up the first fan question uh you will have watched the entire fight and you will be in such a great mood. Bansur Abdul Malik taps out Antonio Trockily, as John Anick pronounced it on the broadcast in

69 seconds. I didn't notice that, but okay. And then Myron Santos stops Mohamed Naimov in round three. Nice finish there. He did miss weight, so no bonus for him. And there you go.

That's UFC 323. 2025 was a wild year for the tech industry. AI seemed like it took over everyone's brains. It was the only thing anyone wanted to talk about. Invidia became the most valuable company in the world. We had some huge new video games. The Switch 2 launched a lot of people got it. There was just a lot going on.

And on the Vergecast, we are talking about the best, the worst, the most important, the biggest heel turns, all the stuff that happened in 2025. And making maybe a few predictions about what's going to be. going to happen next year. All that and more on the Vergecasts, wherever you get podcasts. This series is presented by Jira by Atlassian. Race the runners. Raise the sails. Raise the sales. Captain, the unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger. Wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution? Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the

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but I need to inform you of this. Per the great Michael Carroll, aka MJC, Flipped de script on Twitter. If you're in the NBA Twitterverse, you probably know whom I don't care is. He does like a lot of stat stuff, and that's always fun. He got fired this one up after the main event. Current UFC champions are now down to a total of two successful title defenses on their current title runs. That's just Valentina Shevchenko, which she did both this year.

everyone else is a new belt holder which aside from being an absolutely categorically insane stat and I guess like also technically that's not true because technically Tom has one title defense of his belt but not also

because he got promoted to the undisputed so it's like a little weird with Tom but this just goes to say a thing that I've been saying you've been saying, but that I really hammer on for years that people don't ever listen to me, the hardest thing to do in the sport is defend your belt a bunch. Morab just tried to do it, and he made it to three. It's really, really, really, really.

Pantosia tried to do it, and he made it to four successful defenses. And then, Mike, what happened? an act of God and he randomly broke his elbow like it's so hard to defend a belt a bunch please give that more respect to everybody

it's the hardest thing to do at this board. Amen. Also, Valentino Shepchenko's the goat. And she might be, she should absolutely get Fighter of the Airboats.

I, she's either my number two or number one. I don't know where I'm settled on it. Just make her number one. I love the comment. number one i just don't think i i i'm not going to be upset when people don't put her there i totally get it all like on paper she beat the number one contender in her weight class

dominantly and then thrashed the number one of the one of the one of the yeah the number one pound of pound fighter and one of the four best women ever in a bout that was billed as like is this the goat women's fight she blanked her ass so like that's as impressive as anything anybody's done this year you don't they weren't fun I'm not here to tell you those are fun fights they have it was as impressive as anything anyone has done this year let's see

before we go to the peeps let's go to the the Dana White thread of fun oh reading Aaron Brown setters tweets White says, everyone crying the loudest about the proposed amendments to the Ali Act are the ones who are the problem with boxing. That is interesting.

A certain you take. White on Tom Aspinall, we have people that are all over him right now, checking up on him. Does he need any help or any specialist? I'm no doctor. I'm just saying what I've heard. I wasn't saying anything negative towards him. I think that things can be taken out of context or that he didn't see what I said. never once did I say anything about him

in a derogatory way I mean that's just objectively not true but I'm sure nobody followed up on that also I don't know if you saw this one Mike here I'm trying to find Dana I don't see Pantosia coming back anytime soon he believes it is likely Van will defend his title before they do the rematch

okay all right also Dana White again said the medical team pop Pantosia's shoulder back backstage. It was not his elbow. I just, I don't believe that.

I just, that's hard for me to believe, but okay. Yeah, we got a bunch of fight announcements too, which is fun. We did get some of those, yeah.

Which is fun, by the way. I think this is just a note to Dana in the UFC. Well, like every once in a while, having Dana pop on to make an announcement is, it can't be like,

every time. It's so much cooler when you're watching a pay-per-view and you get a bunch of cool fights announced. Or you do what you did at the press conference yesterday, where you believe this mystery, Max Holloway, Charles Olivera fight at a press conference that you didn't announce ahead of time. Like, that shit's fun. It's just really, really fun. We get Dan Hooker, BSD, Raphael Fizier, Rufi, just kind of comes out of nowhere. And then we get Fluffy versus Sean Strickland headlining in Houston. Like, it's just good shit, man. It's just good when you when you mix things up like that so all right let's go to some super chats let's get the hell out of here uh ever do you guys think crew should be allowed a l oud to

ref nice well done well done well played uh rs 40 where did you rank this run of 14 straight wins by marab i have him in my top 15 fighters of all time would you do a damn they were good for edson oh for edson for sure um I mean, Edson's, like, kind of sort of the dude that that's, like, built around. I think Edson has, like, a pretty decent argument as, like, one of the greatest resumes of all time. He's the hardest strength of schedule in his job. Like, just a, like, it's incredibly up there, especially for a guy who never held a belt. Because, like, champions always have really good strength of schedules.

But for a guy who never held a belt, like, his strength of schedule is outlandish. This run of 14 wins by Moravisbury, any run of 14. team wins. I don't care if it's over janitors and mailmen. It's impressive for what we just said. It's really hard to win fights. You can suddenly post your arm and apparently your shoulder blows up.

Like anything can happen in a fight. So any run of 14 is good. His is particularly good. This was a very good year before the Yon loss. You know, it's however many champions, four or five champions. Like it's a

really, really good run. I don't I don't know how I'd rank it in comparisonally it's not as good as Islam's current run but like it's a really good run yeah it's very good run a very very probable if not possible the best run in Bantamway history um like that's possibly up there because like because I mean again I've I've said from for months and I feel some level of vindicated today frankly I don't think uh Marab's the band of white coat i have not and i don't even like dom cruz his run was so stop start and so like weird that it's it's hard to judge but like it's a very very good run from rob undeniably certainly uh juicy jake the first fight i watched with my dad live was a volk holloway three had him hooked ever since i mean that's just an all-time great performance right there from from bolkhodovsky it's hard not Marvel and the greatness shown that night yeah that's for sure uh spencer our guy chaos in

Vegas boys was my favorite card of the year except the co-main devastated for pants the sport is brutal who are the flyweight in bantamate champs at the end of 2026 p.s only thing i hated tonight was mark smith yeah he's he's he was not great today I am ban on weight so hard because like it's a coin flip between Marab and Peyodor like Piotr looks so good um

I mean honestly actually like and then Umar's in there because if Piotr beats Marab they're definitely doing Umar I don't know man if Sean O'Malley beats song they're going to do that fight I don't actually know that's strong like if I mean yes so like it's up in the air

Piotr is probably the betting favorite like Pyrrida probably just should be the choice because of the performance he just gave but like I think Umar versus Piotr is a way more difficult fight for Piotr than I think

I don't know I'll go with Piotr I have no confidence in that as far as flyweight uh Mike I don't I, F it. Yolo ball.

Tyra, baby. Let's go. Tyra's been my boy forever. Let's go. I'm Peyodor, bad, and wait. Because I would pick Peartre to be to O'Am I right now as well. And plus, Peter's not the most active fighter. He's probably going to fight twice in 2026.

He might only fight once. I don't know, man. Like, I think. I'm probably twice he's got to take he's got to take a bunch of time off i don't think we see yon until june or july at this point and if i'm marab's team anybody on his team i ain't letting that dude fight till june or july either at this point after the run he just had this year like both those dudes are going to take some time off that was a hellishish fight on both those dudes and i'm sure everything yon did in preparation for that fight probably took a couple years off his life

if we're being honest. So, um, if it just depends on when the first fight happens, but I would pick yon to, to beat both, to be, I would pick Yon to beat Marab in the trilogy. I would pick Yon to be, umar as well, but I just don't think he's going to fight twice unless somehow he sneaks back in there in April. Flyway is interesting without knowing how bad it is for Pantosia. I can't even answer that question because I would pick Pantosia. If like, he goes through the medicals on Monday or Tuesday.

and says like i'm only going to be out for three months i'm ready to go in july of next year i would pick pantosia to be champion but oh no mike what the worst news what per on damon martin dana white total bullshit with regard to rumors of ronda rousey versus katie taylor no that's so terrible oh yeah i mean dana would know right because she's brand is technically still like under contract yeah total bullshit i mean ask they should ask him about ronda versus gina carano maybe um man if pants had a dislocated shoulder he's cooked if that wasn't an elbow which i still don't really understand my eyeball saw elbow um if it was his shoulder that dislocated i someone who's dislocated my shoulder literally hundreds of times

um almost certainly he will need to have surgery which will sideline him for six months at the minimum. So trying to remember how long I couldn't be like a real functional boy when I finally got my shoulder repaired. It was a while. It's like technically you don't have to, but then you become T.J. Dillishaw. And that doesn't work.

So, yeah. He's probably out for six months at least, I would guess. Spencer back with another. So happy for Jalen with the comeback. Nice to see Suhudo get his flowers. also so many impressive prospects that i rank one to three on who has the best ufc career between talbot torres and zam uh that exact order now i'll go uh talbot talbot's a clear one uh zm two torres three same because tors is already kind of old um and zm's accomplished more already so

just go with that and talbot tell they're going to push into the moon they're going to push into the moon he is more talented than them anyway even if he fails they'll give him more chances Talbot all day is Don the Cam Scadabo of MMA Um

No because I think Cam Scadabo is a crazy person And Dom is just a bit of a weirdo Um But it's not the worst Try like who I mean year he's closer to the Cam Scadabo Of him

is not but he's closer I don't know who Dom is that's not an appropriate comp I'll think of one though but that's not it yeah uh Johnny Mike Heck wins the fantasy draft next week picks as is can't pass him

me with 1700 Dame with 1625 Gere Mae with 1475 AK 1350 Jed 1350 KC 1150 and I still have Jillian Robertson next week too so that's just going to pat the stats a little bit she's probably going to go out You can't get to 2000, but you can have a very solid.

It's entirely well the Cortezico Costa, so pay him some money or something. I don't know. Atiba Gautier, what a year he had. I mean, just, I drafted beautifully. Like, I really, I just drafted great. Who knew Peerreot? Oh, my God. Is this true?

What? The super chat chase just put in. I'm now going to try and find the, confirm that this is correct. thoughts on dana also says he's going to look for events in japan for van versus tyrant japan oh cool uh thoughts on dana saying arman needs to work his way back to the title and he doesn't care what number is next to his name this is apparently an accurate assessment for our own damon or damon i mean just tell the truth man i mean kind of is i guess like he's in his own mind but work his way back to the title from what

what did he do he pulled out of one fight and that's look I think it's a little petty but you already punished him you already made him fighting in and he beat the soul out of that dude what are we talking like how long and he waited as a backup he waited as a backup for title fight you were like

one once he waited as a backup your previous iteration is when you wait as the backup you get to fight for the belt or whatever and then you walk that back and then you're like well he's done a lot of like how you can't keep punishing just at least say the better lie at least be like yeah he had

better the dude so he fucked up again and that's at least a better lie you can't keep punishing someone for the same mistake like either tell us the truth or lie better don't just like I hate it when you can't just lie better

because it's like the truth is yeah no we don't care about this and that's not unreasonable The truth is we want Justin Gachie Gachie nailed it at the It's On Presser He was 100% right

And I don't know if he's right because he just sees the board Or if he's right because they told him to his face But the reason he is in that title fight The reason it is Justin Gagy versus Patty Pimbley Has nothing to do with merit Or who's doing whatever Is because Ilya could not fight on that date And because Justin Gachie is

action and frankly patty pimble is too and so this is the first big event of the non-paper view era of paramount plus i have already talked to friends who have been like oh i don't have to pay 80 bucks to watch a UFC maybe i'll check it out now they are trying to court a new fan base and gaiti was like yeah man i'm the most exciting fighter that's ever been in the sport and that dude's also really fun that this is an entertainment business and that's why i'm here that's the answer tell us that answer and i'll be cooler than like armin's got to work his way back it's just nonsense dude uh what is riebevich's next fight miss him uh i don't know what his next fight is esthervon rivich roll rock so yeah that'd be dope who the fuck is arming in a fight that is like

the biggest question i have like who is he going to fight uh just feed him bsd if d beats hooker maybe i don't know i have no idea what you do because they're not going to have him fight he's not going to fight max if gachie loses calls gaiti would be my choice if he loses to patty but he's going to retire more than likely if he loses the patty max and just hope max beats him after max beats charles but like armin can't really fight for the bmf belt so i don't know i don't know honestly got no clue uh if if ruffy beats uh fazeve i i don't know honestly got no what they're doing they're just they're just making it all up that's crazy uh take a couple more uh joseph would erin want to fight macy i remember she told david martin that she won't do it unless

the title is on the line she's still pissed about what happened here's the thing about erin blanchfield she has literally she does not get to call the shots here no she has literally no power in this um if the ufc wants her who's unfortunate it's a justifiable beef with her like if i was her i would not want to fight her either because she didn't pull out the day before It's like, her hands were wrapped. She was ready to make the walk and Macy pulled out. Like, I would also not want to fight that person, but she didn't get to say. Yeah.

And if I'm Macy Barber and I didn't listen, I didn't listen to her scrum or anything, uh, she should have one billion percent called Aaron Blanchold's name. Like, just that's a smart business right there. Even if you don't even like truly want that fight, you should just call, you should call the name. And if Aaron plays the, well, I'm not doing this. I don't trust her at least like you made the call it looks like she's avoiding you and that just bumps up your stock a little bit but Aaron has no choice in the matter she wants to ever fight for the belt she's gonna take whatever fights the UFC

officer and that's just kind of where she's at right now so I think that's the I think that's absolutely the fight to make for both women I think that's the biggest fight to make for both women right now and is the biggest fight Aaron Blancheville can possibly like realistically get right now because she ain't get a title shot right now she's just she's just in a tough spot so but i understand i understand the argument so uh let me see if we got anything else do do do do uh B'u-ha-ha-li-jolly Christmas

Shout out You battled all night too, by the way Thank you Shout out to Al Jermaine Sterling He tweeted out Congrats to Jan and his team They fought well tonight Make great adjustments

Can't wait to watch it back with Marab And playing for the comeback Some things looked a little off But maybe that's what Yon was doing question mark we'll take a look heal up and go again this is the journey of a fighter i hope you all enjoyed the battle until next time this is very classy and quality response from uh one of maraud village philly's team it's really good shout out to morab who in his work like he was like i wanted to be super exciting which is kind of true he like this was objectively one of his

funest like most fun performances uh but he's like I didn't really want to do all the wrestling and take counts because I wanted to be fun. You still shot 30 takeouts there. So let's cool it with the like, yeah, I'm not sure about this. But again, every time I'm critical of Marab, he then at least turns in a fun performance. I'm going to keep criticizing. Because the last time I did it, he tapped O'Malley, which is wild. And then I was like, hmm, I guess I shouldn't be critical of him.

Because maybe he's going to be awesome now. And then there was the Corey performance, which was still, frankly, like, better in general, though he did Marab at the end. And then tonight, it's fun. So good on you, Marab. You're not the band-in-wake-out, but many people think you are. What a night. AK and I back tomorrow, 11 a.m. Eastern matchmaking on to the next one. We love you all.

Have a great rest of your night. Thanks for watching. Oh, Juicy Jake. Congrats, buddy. Parleyed, Pedy, and Van tonight, one big. Thank you, pal. We love you. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated.

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