MMA Fighting - UFC Austin Post-Fight Show | Reaction To Arman Tsarukyan's Quick Destruction Of Beneil Dariush

Episode Date: December 3, 2023

Arman Tsarukyan sent a message to Islam Makahchev, and the rest of the UFC's lightweight division after a devastating knockout of Beneil Dariush in the main event of UFC Austin. Where does the title contender go following the biggest win of his career? MMA Fighting's Mike Heck, Jed Meshew, and Shaheen Al-Shatti react to a chaotic return to Texas for the UFC, Tsarukyan's incredibly impressive performance, the fascination for a rematch between Makhachev and Tsarkyan, and Dariush's title hopes officially coming to an end. Additionally, they discuss Jalin Turner's vicious finish of Bobby Green and referee Kerry Hatley's awful stoppage, Deiveson Figueiredo and Sean Brady's big wins, Miesha Tate's bounce back performance against Julia Avila, multiple slam knockouts on the card, and much more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Shaun Al-Shatti: @ShaunAlShatti Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cadulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever.

Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the audible original blockbuster the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine.

Available now, only from Audible. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Ladies and gentlemen, the victory horns have sounded, and they have sounded, or Aram and Sarukian, and they have also sounded, for the University of Alice. Alabama. Don't you fucking dare. God.

We'll talk more about that later, I'm sure. But welcome, everybody, to the UFC awesome host fight show here on enemy fighting.com. We're kind of bridging the gap between a crazy UFC card, what has already begun to be a crazy BKFC card. We're going to do a little watch party a little bit later on once this wraps up. But just a lot happening right now. I am Mike Heck. and joining me is Mr. Jedmishu. He is not overly thrilled

with how things played out in the SAC championship game today. Oh, look at that. Fire him. Fire him now. Get him off the staff immediately. Oh, Mike, it's been a tough day. Thank goodness for some pretty sick fights because I'd be in a dark place right now

without them because you never have, a nightmare and you think, man, I really hope this doesn't come true. And then you have to live your nightmare. The thing that you were dreading, you know, it's fun when it's like, oh, I was dreading this thing. I shouldn't have been. It wasn't that bad. Nope.

Nope. It's just actually exactly what you thought was going to be and is excruciating to watch it happen in real time. That was my day, Mike. So thank you. I'm on Sauru Kian because without you, I'd have nothing good going on right now. Fire Mike Bobo now. I don't think the show can get much better than that.

Good night, everybody. Thank you for watching. Shaheen Al-Shadi would be joining us in a matter of moments as well. But you mentioned it, Jed Mishu. Armin Saurukian, he's, I mean, he's that guy. He just obliterates Benial Darius. This is wild. I don't know how he did it.

Landing the knee that was partially blocked, but then before his foot even hit the ground, he lands a right hand that puts Darius essentially unconscious. like this was this is a level up that a lot of people are hoping to see and I'm not surprised by it. It just I just this is who I've always thought he was. And I think the road just took a little bit longer because he's just one of those guys that just kind of fights the level of this competition. If he fights a really good dude, he's got to fight really, really well. If he fights a guy that he doesn't deem as good kind of fights the level of his competition,

that's something he needs to fix down the road. But boy, oh boy, did he deliver? tonight after kind of a crazy week in Austin. Yeah. I mean, he, you can't do better than this, right? Like, this is the A plus plus of all performances. Because you're right. Like the concerns coming in for him were like pretty open.

Like he, everyone was still super high on him, you know, but when you're getting to that top, the footing, the higher you climb, the footing gets way trickier. And so it's, we want to see him blowing the doors off people like Wachim Silva, you know, like Joaquim Silva, no disrespect or quality fighter. He struggled like pretty hard with Clay Guida, who has been washed for years. And like, yes, Surukian beat Joachim Silva, but like that fight was a contest. Like that was competitive in spots. It was not a walk in the park.

And so you see this dude with all this talent and you want him to absolutely embarrass the people that shouldn't be in the cage with him. And he kind of hasn't done that. You know, this is, I mean, this is obvious. his best performance by a mile his biggest win and that's what you want to see it's certainly what i wanted to see i think we talked about in the preview show hadn't seen him level up in the way that you had hoped uh and that's not just a him issue like a lot of the kind of next crop of lightweights we all projected to make this this giant leap and it was a much more slow build with jalen turner and hafiel faze even matuch gamrott these dudes tonight i mean warp speed captain sullu armand suruki and jess

launched himself into the top five and we can get into a whole bunch of stuff about this fight but I don't think it's the fight that will happen it's not the fight I would even book next if I had the power of the pin for meritocratic reasons the fight I most want to see

in all of MMA other than John Jones versus Tommy Aspinall which we know won't happen because John Jones is afraid the fight I want most is Islamachachev versus Armand Surki into like that's that is the best fight that can be made in the sport right now as far as I'm concerned

and hopefully if not 20, like not back into 2024, hopefully we can get that in 2025. So Armin went on the post-fight show with Karen Brian and Michael Kiesa who just I mean, just living the Austin dream

with that shirt he was wearing he called out Justin Gagee. Call out Justin Gagee if he cannot he wants the title shot but if he can't get the Islam Mach Jepreemat he wants Justin Gagee. I don't think think he's getting either of those fights, but do you like the gusto here? Because honestly, like, after just washing out, Benial Darius as emphatically as he did tonight, I mean, there's really

no other way to go here. Like, you can't fight Bobby Green now. That doesn't make any sense. It certainly didn't make sense to do it in a hotel that we can with. But like, Dustin Porre is a fellow ATT guy. So, I mean, as cool as that would be, and maybe they would like, maybe they would, like, make it work. I don't think that fight happens. So it's kind of like gachy or you're the backup fighter and he's probably not getting gaichi. So I like the callout just because I don't think he's got really anywhere else to go right now, right? I think your best hope. I think that's probably the sensible call out for the reasons you said, right? Like it seems most likely. To me, what I think should happen and so maybe what he could have done instead is call for

I don't think Charles Oliver should get another shot at his Amachshav. I think it's thought it was dumb when we did it when we were going to do it the first time. I think that we were only going to do it as a matter of convenience. No disrespect to Charles Oliverer. Armand Surukian just absolutely mushed Benny Darius far more impressively than the very impressive than the very impressive Charles Oliverer performance. I think Oliver should have to fight again. If I had the power of the pen, I would just have Gaecchi get his title shot that he deserves.

and I would do Oliver versus Surukin as a full-blown, no doubt about it, title eliminator. I don't think that's going to happen, but I do think that that is a way he could have gone. He could have just gone and been like, hey, Charles Ola, Oliver, you were supposed to get a title shot, but then you backed out. I just beat the dude who got you a title shot more emphatically. Let's go because Justin Gaichi is just simply not going to take that fight. Olavera probably won't either, but there's a world with the UFC makes Olaverer. or do it if it can be compelling. So it would have been another way to go,

but you're right. There's just, there aren't a lot of choices for him at this point in time. I think he's simply just going to have to fight backwards, but you should never call out backwards. It's no reason to do that if you're in his position. Yeah, I mean,

I think you just insert yourself as the backup fighter and for the title fight, whenever that happens, you assume that if you had to take a guess, it's probably going to happen on that Saudi Arabia card. So just put yourself in position. So yeah. Yeah.

Put yourself in a position to be the backup fighter. And because I don't think Gates is going to go over to Saudi Arabia and cut weight for nothing. You could also just like if if what you're trying to do is more just be active than try and sneak into a title shot that you're very unlikely to get, even as impressive as he was, Surukin's still third in line at this point. He could have just gone, gone for the Gamrock call out. Hey, I don't think you like, you didn't beat me. Like we're both top fiveish dudes. I thought that was a garbage decision. I want to get that back.

Let's run it, which I personally think is probably the most likely outcome we get moving forward for Sarukin. But again, I don't have any issues with the call out. It's just weird. It was always going to be a weird situation given sort of the lay of the land at lightweight. This sport is just the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. And this fight was everything that basically personified that. because Arvin Sarukin is about to grab the brass ring at 26 years of age,

27 years of age, and Benil Darius entered the year on an eight-fight win streak, looking to get his title shot that he's been working so hard for, takes a fight with Charles Oliver, gets knocked out. We thought he was out of the title picture then. Somehow they put this fight together, and the way this division is gone, he actually had the chance to get back in.

And now we have to wish happy trails, Jedmishu, to the Benile Darius hopes for ever fighting for the title because it ain't going to happen now. Man, this sport can you just break your heart, can it not? Poor Benile Darius. This is just yikes. Ouch. Yeah, it sucks. What a tough hang.

He joins a long list of lightweights who have found themselves in this position because it's the most competitive weight class in the sport and has been forever that people routinely get eight fight win streaks. in this weight class and don't honestly even get close to fighting for a title. Jim Miller didn't do it. George Sutteropoulos didn't do it. Tony Ferguson put 13 or whatever together and didn't fight for the real undisputed belt. Like, Benny's just sort of in that long lineage of guys who, and I'll be real. I kind of hinted at this a little bit in the preview show, and I've sort of made this position known a little bit through my time is some of Benny's run with smoke and mirrors.

Again, it doesn't matter. Beating eight people in a row is impossible. It doesn't matter if it's beating me and my friends or whatever. Like it's still just exceptionally hard to put together a win streak like that. But you do look at the competition. It's not quite the same level as like, oh, yeah, this guy was just absolutely cleaning out the upper echelon of lightweights. You know, he had moments against Scott Holtsman where you could see that you could attack him, that he was frankly susceptible to getting hit, particularly getting hit early. And he just kind of battled through.

And so certainly that narrative is going to pick up a lot of steam. But mostly it's just, this is just how lightweight goes, man. And I say it all the time, not just in this weight class, but in others. It doesn't matter if you're awesome. Like, you've got to bring something to the table that makes your life easier or you're just not prize fighting. Right. Like, credit to Benel Derry, she's one of the eight best lightweights in the world, right? And that means a lot.

It's an incredible accomplishment. but if what your goal is, your mission statement, the reason to be here is to go fight for a belt, it's going to be a hell of a lot easier if you can be compelling outside of just winning because this is not a meritocracy. You're going to have to, if you approach it with, I'll fight a hundred times,

and that's the only thing you're ever going to say, you're going to have to fight a hundred times to get there. Whereas instead, if you can just get people behind you in a real way, however it is, you have people that like doing your real life, figure out what that is to make it work on a broader scale because that's going to make it easier for you to get there and not have to win 10 fights in a row. And Benny didn't do it. And so he's he's the victim of his own failings in that regard.

And that sucks because you would love this to be a meritocracy. But five wheels, I'd be a wagon, man. And so I think one day, Pineal Day, you're just going to look back on his career and he'll be really happy with what he accomplished because he accomplished a lot. But he will also think, man, I would have loved my day in court. and I probably could have gotten it if I had just tried a little bit harder in some of the ways I was not willing to do. Some people downgrade the importance of the microphone. I think it's super important. Look at Benil Daryush.

Look at Balaamah right now. I mean, he's just waiting, just hoping and praying that Colby Covington does not win the Welterweight title on December 16th because of that happens. He's never fighting for the title. So it's just a weird thing. I think everyone forgets how much Leon Edwards is the love. luckiest man alive because he didn't do it either and they gave everyone else they could a shot over him before there were simply no other options and like one that's just that's really unlikely at welterweight a deep and good weight class he kind of threaded the needle perfectly

from a timing standpoint like that that will never happen at lightweight there will never be a dearth of viable other contenders at this weight class you have got to stand out or be prepared to win 10 or 12 in a row. And I got to tell you, it is way easier to just show some personality on a microphone than it is to string together 12 freaking wins at 155 pounds because that is borderline impossible. Very true. We have some breaking news. You can hit the meeting. We have two pieces of breaking news. One, as you can see on your screen, my bald brother, Shaheen Al-Shadi is here. And she can react to this bit of information. We have bonuses. and we got a lot of them, a lot of bonuses.

Performance of the night, Armin Sarukian, Jalen Turner, Sean Brady, Justin Stoltzvus, Misha Tate, Cody Brundage, Jekar Close, Jared Gooden. Fight of the Night, Alato versus Potaria. By the way, Balato should be getting double bonus right now. If all the performances of the night are for,

or for the for the finishers, Bolato should get a bonus for finishing the duelist the way that he did and should be getting fight of the night. So he should be getting double bonus, but of course that is not what seems to have happened here. So yeah, all the finishes besides Balato get 50K, Blato still gets 50K, but so does the duelist for his performance.

That fight was absolutely insane. That fight was absolutely not so I'm sure we'll get into as well. But Shaheed your reaction to the bonuses and the Armand Syruke and train just going 175 miles an hour right now. How happy are you, Mike, heck. You've been calling this for what? Like two years? I remember you on a ranking show.

Way longer. Maybe two and a half years ago calling this. My God, man, that's what you call a breakout performance. That's what you call making a statement. That was unreal. Like we spoke a lot about this fight just on the preview show on BTL, just amongst ourselves as well. I feel like we had a lot of different outcomes and scenarios for what we thought could happen.

But 64 seconds and in the way that it, the way that that played out, like you look at the real-time replay of it. Like you can barely see the knee. That's how fast that whole thing was. That was obscene, man. That was absolutely obscene. And I'm sorry, I apologize. I don't know so far what you guys have covered.

I'm sure you've already spoken about where Armand sits in this division. But to me, this is one of the rare moments where I bemoan, how incredible. incredibly deep, lightweight is because this man right now, the one we just watched tonight deserves a title shot, and he's not going to get it. He's just not going to get it. But I like what he's already doing. He's already begun to pivot. He was on the UFC post show just like five minutes ago, and he was calling for Justin

Gaichi. And that's the fight, to be real. I know Justin's probably not going to take that fight, but realistically, in a meritocracy world, that is the fight that should be happening. Yeah, it is. Why no? Tell me no. Because the fight that should in a meritocracy world, it's Charles Olivaura versus Armand

Sarukian because Oliver doesn't get a title shot from one win. That's fair. After getting absolutely matched. Gagey gets his title shot. Gagey gets in title shot. Oliverer versus Sarukian, number one contender, no doubt about it. If I had the power of the pen, you weren't here for that. But that's like, if I was in control, that's how I'd book it right there.

That's fair. I'm just disregarding that though because that's not like we already know that the UFC's doing Charles and Islam and that's sort of the plan. So if we're just working with the pieces that are left, like Armand Seruki deserves that fight. What we've watched this guy do, this was like the great leveling up that you were calling for, Mike Haq, because we have seen like this man is a grappling demon. We have seen sort of the all-around feats this man has been able to pull off. You said, you even called it that his striking is underrated. I don't know that that striking is underrated anymore. That was unreal, man. To do that to Benil Darution, 64 seconds.

this man's going to hold UFC gold before the end of his career. And to me, Jed, I want to ask you, because you have been, maybe you've already said this, but you've been so high for a while saying that Justin Gaichi versus Islam is the most compelling version of an Islam fight for you right now, especially if Benile's sort of out of the picture. Would you say that Armand has taken that spot? Or do you still hold true to Justin Geichi? Yeah, I don't, Gagee is not that compelling. I'm pretty confident how that fight goes,

but I just want to see it because Justin Gachie deserves it. And if there is a dude who I think could, you know, give Islam trouble, it would be Gaiji. I don't think people recognize enough like how much Gaiji was troubling Habib in that fight. And obviously a ton of circumstances in there. But like Gachi has a set of tools that can be really problematic for Islam just because it's like this. Like, Gagy either can win or can lose really badly, which might seem less, like, less good than the other versions, which are just lose in increments of slow, right? Like, they don't, I don't think Dustin Porier can ever beat Islamakov.

I think he can lose less definitively than Justin Gage does. I do think Justin Gagey has the ability to randomly pull one out. Like, and that makes that more compelling. But no, you weren't here for it, but I said that the number one fight I want the most in MMA other than Tom Aspinall versus John Jones, which you know John won't take because he's afraid, is Islam Makachev versus Armand Surukin, too. It's not the fight I would book next for meritocratic reasons, but it is the fight that whenever it does get booked, I'm the most interested in the entirety of the sport.

Dude, I, thinking about it now as we sort of have reached this position with Armand, because I didn't, I wasn't sure if we were going to get here so soon, but we certainly have after tonight. His rise and his sort of journey through the UFC is my favorite type of journey to follow. As an observer of the sport, as a fan, as a reporter, someone who writes about this sport. What we have watched, what he said tonight was perfect. I came in here as a 22-year-old kid, and I fought Islam Makachaf, and we all remember that fight.

That fight was surprisingly competitive on short notice, and Aramun's Rukim gave Islam all he could freaking handle at 22 years old. And what have we seen from him since? Basically, nine straight wins, right? Like, we all watched, we all watched, I don't know why I'm blanketed. We all watched the Gameraat fight. Like, he won the Gamera fight. We know he won the Gamera fight.

Maybe he didn't officially win it, but I've watched that fight several times. you've said this before. He won that game rock fight. And to see the slow escalation of this young kid, this kid coming in, 22 years old, getting thrown right into the fire and really showing out in a way that surprised everybody to just going through the paces, going through, climbing up the ladder, that slow escalation, picking up different pieces to his game, evolving as we've seen it, every single different performance you're seeing different elements of his game rising to the challenge. And then this, where you get this sort of crowning moment, this multi-year journey, these are my favorite type of fighters to watch their journeys and their careers in the UFC of all of it like

the flash in the pans the the quick starts are always cool you get a yri pro hashka in here who's already a known commodity and in three fights are announced per era and in a few fights he's already fighting for a title like that's always very interesting and very cool in and of itself but when you can watch the slow maturation of you know really talented raw prospect to just this really incredible ferocious contender all around contender is so freaking cool man is what makes this sport so wonderful and I am just so I'm so

cannot wait to see the conclusion of this journey whether he makes it or not whether he gets the belt and he's the one that beats Islam or not I'm so invested now to see where this goes because this was so impressive man I'm so deeply impressed by what I watched from Armas Thruki tonight

64 seconds guys like I get Benil Daryush maybe is not in his best moment anymore but God damn, that was impressive. Yeah, it really was. And what's also impressive, okay, I just want to make sure the bonuses are correct. We did a preview show yesterday,

and we were talking about how Armand just looked awful, because they released the video and he just looked terrible, and it just shows you that, and it's in every other sport as well, but especially in MMA, winning solves all your problems. Solves them all. No matter what you're going through,

no matter how people feel about you, you go and you show out when those lights are on, especially in a main event and you get a big finish and you're the talking point of the entire card, people forget about the other stuff. They forget it all. And Arm and Surrogate made people forget about everything that freaking happened in that hotel with that performance.

So I expect him to be the backup for whatever title fight ends up happening next. And we'll see what happens. but she's Louise. Is he ending 2023 in a massive way? So big win for Armid Saruki. But unfortunately... Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes.

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And that's not even the story here. I'm so fucking angry about this fight. And it's not because Bobby Green-laws. It's because Kerry Hadley deserves to be fired from all refereeing for the rest of his life. This was a absolute travesty. How you can do this. And you know what's crazy? This is the second worst refereeing job in Texas this year.

If we're including the Fury FC bullshit that we saw earlier this year as well between Gianni Vazquez and Edgar Chiraz. this is the second worst, and this is still probably the most egregious stoppage in the UFC that we have seen in a long time. Carrie Halley, you should be ashamed of yourself. What do you want Bobby Green to pull out a freaking Louisville slugger and bash him over the head? Like, what were you waiting for before you stop this fight?

This is an absolute travesty. He should not be allowed to referee anywhere, Texas, Massachusetts, Idaho. I don't give a shit. That dude should not be allowed to ref anymore. That was horrible. And unfortunately, and I'll get to you, I'll go to you, Shahid on this. It almost ruins the moment for Jalen Turner because of how bad the stoppage was. This dude took this fight on eight days notice.

They announced us on Thanksgiving. Dude, makes weight on the second attempt, this shocking moment. And he goes out and just knocks out Bobby Green. And the whole story is about the referee allowing this fight to continue way too long. It really pissed me off watching it, Cheheme. But I don't want to make it all about this. We should definitely talk about it. we won't learn anything from it and referees won't learn from it if we don't but jail and terran

looked freaking awesome tonight on top of that so shaheen your reaction to all of it sheen i want to jump in here if if i may please because mike i in general would agree with you it's a very bad stoppage i would like to extend a small caveat here and it's that i think kerry hatley should referee one final fight and it's me versus mike it's just like bobo screw mike bobo Let me fight him and Carrie Hadley be the ref. Put it in the PFL smart cage. I will break records on that thing. Now please continue about how awful that stoppage was.

Because honestly, the first thing I thought was, wow, this is like borderline criminal. This is really bad. And the second thing, and I don't relish this part of it because it kind of hurts me to know that I'm a bad person deep down. But the second part of me is like, man, it would be pretty cool if that was Mike Bobo down there right now. Like that would be, I'd be taking a lot of joy from watching. watching Jalen Turner just shave years off his life. So yeah, that's where I stand on that mic. Sorry I had to interject.

Yeah. Shaheen, for a different kind of a take on this, your thoughts. Yes, I don't have very many bike bobo takes. I did not know that man existed until today when I saw Jed tweet about him 4,000 times. Man, that was rough. And you're right. I think the most, there's two things that are unfortunate about this, right? One, the fact that it happens because it was disgusting.

Borderline criminal to me is an understatement. That felt criminal. Like, that felt really gross, really disgusting, really horrific to watch in real time. So that in and of itself, that is a shame. And that's a terrible aspect to this. But then also what you said of like, it makes us overlook the actual performance from Jalen Turner, who came in here on short notice and clearly didn't want to be in this fight, was going through a bit of a rough patch in his career where he's down to over his last two.

And like, they were both split decisions and they both could have gone his way. And he's just, it was kind of this weird inflection point of his career. and the vibes were off with him all week. And yet he comes through in like one of the most spectacular performances of entire UFC career. And all of a sudden he's right back in there in that lightweight pecking order, which lightweight is just so damn good. The fact that that's being overshadowed by this is unfortunate, but we do need to talk about Carrie Hatley because Bobby Green hit the canvas face down at 223 in that round.

223. That fight was not stopped until 211. And Jalen Turner was throwing punches the entire damn time. What is that? I'm bad at math, but I'm pretty sure that's 12 seconds. 12 seconds of just unresponsive punches to the head of this man. And those were not like rabbit punches. Those were really hard, ground and pound punches.

That's, that's, that cannot happen, man. That cannot happen. I am so glad that Bobby Green is okay. I'm so glad that it seems like everything is fine. But that's how fucking people die in this sport, man. Like, that's how if you want a death in the UFC, like that's eventually how one maybe happens. Like that was horrific.

I have not seen the outpouring of outrage and the righteous fury from the chorus of the fighters like I saw tonight in a long time when it comes to a stoppage like that and I understand like I'm usually amongst the people who are saying hey like I'm I'd rather go late than early just because you know

in that kind of type of spot where Bobby Green was more or less like his whole career or what it could be with left over and the UFC was kind of riding on that moment I understand wanting to give him a little bit of a break wanting to give them a little bit more of a leeway but like dude what the fuck were we watching with that that was that was gross

That was absolutely gross. And Kerry Hadley is not some new ref. He is not some just Texas ref. And I know that we often get on Texas and the Texas Commission for this type of thing because it seems like every time we go to Texas, really stupid stuff happens with the commission officials. Carrie Hadley referee is all over the world.

This is not the first time for him. This is not some big spot for him. Like he is just generally in these spots. He has to know better than that. That was egregious. Like you cannot have that, man. You absolutely cannot have that. Anything you want to add to this, Jeff?

besides it not being Mike Bobo? No. I mean, yeah, it was really, really bad. I would love him to comment on this. Like, again, I tweeted immediately afterwards and was like, because it was really true, I'm never the too late stoppage guy because I said on this program and many others many times.

Like, I don't care. Like, let it go late. Like, most fighters would rather fights get stopped late than early. One or two extra shots is not going to like meaningfully really hurt somebody. Like we have enough data points to know that it's the repetitive beating, not a couple of like a couple of shots that that in general do kind of long term health affecting damage. But this wasn't one or two extra shots.

This was like 30 of them. This was I there's just really not like a credible argument for why he didn't stop it. I truly don't know what he was looking at. So yeah, it was really bad. But I don't want to focus on that because my boy is back. Y'all, y'all forgot about Jalen Turner. There were people being like, oh, he didn't want to be here and he didn't. He was very clear about that.

It looked awful on the scales. And, you know, maybe is it smoke of mirrors? Maybe Bobby Green, probably not as good as it the number next to his name was suggest. But Jalen Turner is still a problem. And while we were doing all this, I just collected a name, like a little list here real fast, because I just want to read off a collection of lightweights who are 30 years or like 30 years old or younger. Hafeel Fazeve, Jalen Turner, Armand Sarukin, Ben-Wasan-Den-Wassan-Den-Garant-Deni, Grant Dawson, Usman Narmer Gimedov, Joel Alvarez. We can also throw in Ishmael Bonfim, who's not quite at that level, but, you know, 27.

And if you had him a two Garmat at 32, dude, this division rocks. Think about the next 10 years with that crop of dudes, plus a bunch of other ones coming in. Like, there's always going to be more coming. And I just listed off a list of eight hitters. Like, dudes who are absolute monsters and sick fighters to watch. Like, lightweight rules. And this weekend was a display of why this weight class kicks so much ass. I cannot wait to watch Jalen Turner fight Armand Sourkean at some point down the line

or Binw Sondini to fight both of these dudes or like any of these various matchups because this weight division kicks ass and I'm not going to let Carrie Hatley bring me down because I've already had enough sadness in my life today fellas. I'm going to be here and thinking about how sick the next like seven years of 155 is about to be because it's going to be delivering time and time again for us, for you, everyone. It's going to be great. So let's enjoy. Well said. Well said. Congratulations, Jalen Turner for getting back on track.

Congratulations, Davis to Figaroido looked pretty damn good at 135 against Rob Vaughn. He looked awesome. So a lot of the narratives, a lot of the questions we had, Dave's Figurato answered those. So it's going to be really interesting to see what he gets next. I think the auto pick

is super easy. I think if A.K. and I don't have a friend's forever moment with Figurato and his next fight. I think something's terribly wrong. Maybe we're not best friends after all. Maybe Shaheen and I are just the ones who are best friends because he's absolutely right. If you follow him on Twitter and what the next fight should be for Figgy Smalls. Is it my favorite fight? What's your favorite fight? Oh no. It's not your favorite fight. Come on. Do it for me. Do it's not. Come on. It's not. Hey, listen. Cody's fighting next week. He's probably going to win. It's going to be

great. Time lines are perfect. Just do it. We can still do that. See, all figure you need to do is lose once and that fight is in play. Just one loss and he's in play. Cody, Cody just beats Keller her next week. It's perfect. We're golden. All right. Hey, I don't hate that fight either. Sean Brady, great performance from him. He just dusted Kelvin Gasolm. That fight was not all. Kelvin Gasolm isn't good. He's never been good. You were all confused. I've been trying to tell you for literal years. Yes. You said he was one of the, I don't know if he was the president of the falling upwards club. He and...

It was in fact the title of the group. Him and our boy. Oh, shit. Why am I blanking on his name right now? Darren Till, sorry. He and Darren Till were the co-captons of the Fall Upwards All-Stars. And I think we may have finally... People might finally be catching on to the fact that he's never very good.

Legitimate question. Beans this very seriously. What is Kelvin Gasolm's best one? because I truly believe. No, I mean, yeah, that's a loss. I truly think that his best win. Okay, I mean, that's his best performance, yes. But if his best win, I honestly think is Rick Story in actual decade ago.

Because everybody else he fought was like super old or not good. Like, hey, you beat washed Johnny Hendricks, wash Nate McCor, was Jack Ellenberger, washed Michael Bisping. Wash Jacaree and Ian Heinish. Like, that's it. So he's just not good. And I don't, he tricked everyone by, by hurting Izzy and almost kind of beating him that one time. And we're finally like, I think we're finally going to get to the point.

We're like, oh, yeah, we wanted more from him. And he just never got there. And that's okay. He's had a great career, if nothing else. Yeah, we also had Joachim Silva, B. Clay Guida. We had Dustin Stoltz for the start of the main card, Rear Naked Choke against Puna Soriano. And I want to bring Chehine back in here

because, like, that was just the main car that we're talking about that we just spent 36 minutes on. And it's crazy. She had to step out for a moment. She has step up for more. The main car is crazy. The prethums are even crazier, Jed. We had Misha Tate coming through.

We had Balato and the duelist just dueling in the most fun way possible. We had willing to turn. Herman nearly put Jared Goody out in the first round, but Jared Gooden comes back with basically one eye to stop Wellington Termin. Jekar Close and Joe Selecki is going the way I actually kind of thought the fight was going to go. And then Jacar Close just kind of power bomb Joe Seleki in the side of his head. And then we didn't even have a chance to let that all sink in. We didn't even have a chance to let that all sink in.

And then Cody Brundage delivers his own power bomb finish against Zach. Greece. This is a wild card, Jed. I know we're prisoners at the moment in this sport a lot, but this is a wild freaking card, wasn't it? Car was great, man. We talked about a lot in the pre-show. I gave this to Michoulin Stars. I thought

that this was a very, very good card. One of the better fight night cards on paper. And the thing that was specifically said was the main card is great. The undercard, little underwhelming. There was honestly looking at it on paper, there was a really big opportunity for a lot of these fights to go to

less interesting decisions when you sort of looked at the names fighting and kind of the way they get down. Like, God bless, Dracal Close for what he pulled off there, but the man is not like a finish machine. Most of his wins are by decision. And in fact, AK was hitting me up like during the fights. Like, man, looking at this, there are a lot of these dudes who might just have like super boring fights. And then Jared Gooden, a dude who's not like thrilling, pulls one out. Charkar close the Cody bunge is doing the same thing like there was I mean Misha Tate Julia Avala the over under was two and a half and I think the over was like pretty heavily

juice like there were but all of these fights delivered and were fun and so that's like uh that just juiced this up even more and then the main card lived up to expectations look uh stovitz soriano was probably just sort of it was always odd been on this card in general but the rest of the the main card was sort of exactly what you wanted to see. Rarkeem Silva-Clee, we had a really fun fight. Sean Brady looked amazing. You know, Figgy Smalls looked amazing. And the fight was quite fun with Rob Fon.

Like this was, if you went to this event, you feel great. You definitely feel like you got your money's worth. If this had been a pay-per-view, you would have felt okay about spending 80 bucks on this or whatever, I think. I mean, this was an unmitigated win for the UFC this evening. Yes. It was a hell of a car. We're going to take questions a second. By the way, Dana White did have a press conference because he announced the bonuses and discussed it all.

He was asked about the co-leader, PFL slash Bellator. That's right there. Get it. Here's, yep, go get your hat. You get the reaction. This is what, according to Damon Martin on Twitter, who's watching the press conference. It's effing hilarious. One shitty organization that sells no tickets and no.

nobody watches, buys another shitty organization that sells no tickets and nobody watches. Sounds like an effing winner to me. There's Dana's reaction to the co-leader, PFL, Atore. There you go. Go completely no-sell job as he should. I hate what he's saying about, you know, our company. I mostly hate that he's not wrong. Again, I think the purchase was good.

particularly because they didn't actually spend any money. They spent fake dollars to acquire this. They legitimately paid for it in Monopoly money. So it's fine. It's a free acquisition, basically. And they got better. But the core concept that he is pitching there is correct. Neither of those entities make money.

In fact, they both lose a pretty decent amount based on reporting and our general understanding of how this goes. They know that the PFL is aware of that. They're fine with it. like that's baked into the business model for them. But he's right. And, you know, it, I hate to keep circling back to this particular point. But our buddy Don Davis, again, just sort of looks silly when he says things like,

I know Dana White's losing sleep. Like, you are inviting this scenario to happen. And even if you were correct in this, which you are not, but even if you were correct, it is still probably a bad look for you to have the co-leader with you at MMA dismiss your entire existence and mock you. Like that's probably not ideal publicity. So yeah, it's not wrong and that's kind of lame. But we're going to get there, you know, five years.

Let's go, boys. We'll be co-leading the hell out of this thing. Well, I mean, five years is not as long as you think. think it is so better make some moves and make them quickly because otherwise yowser yeah was there yeah was there well pfl if you want to make some moves get get him a boy me Kyle Bobo me and him in the smart cage baby let's go or just watch BTL and do what we told you I would I would pay so much money to have Mike Bobo come on BTL I would not answer a single question and I would berate him relentlessly for four rounds

I love it fraud let's let's hear from the peeps let's get a few questions from the peeps uh BKFC is just bloody and violent and crazy

as we all sure is what BGFC is always on brand and that's like you gotta love that about them I know nothing about these two guys was on brand a lot because the brand was being crappy and so like they hit their brand in bad ways

BKFC's brand is much more fun and they're always on it. It's basically a 42 year old guy beating up like a 50, it looks like a 51 year old guy. I was just say these two dudes are battered and he loves it. These two dudes are old men. They are old men. Dude doesn't even look anywhere close to what he looked like when he first got there.

Bridger Bursier just got on. Honestly, Bridger Bursier kind of looks like Mike Bobo and he kind of looks like how Mike Bobo would look if I got five minutes in a blacked out room with I just. There's just a preview for the watch party right now. This is a sneak preview what you're seeing, what you're hearing right now. Yes, it's got to be super fun.

It's going to be super fun. All right, we'll take a couple, couple questions, and then, uh, yeah. Should Misha Tate be in line for a title shot? She looked great. Shock does the future period. Come on, Joseph. I mean, so it's not the most insane thing

just because women's ban and weight is a fake weight class. But, I mean, beating Julia Avalow who hasn't fought in, like, actual 30-some-odd months, like actual 30-some-odd months. And who, even in the UFC's rankings is, like, I think 14 or something, like, really not even close to being highly ranked? No, the answer is very, very obvious. And if this isn't on hot no tomorrow, I'd be shocked if neither of you wildcarded this. It's, you run back Holly home. Like, it's long past time. She was sitting in the front row.

She was right there. It's the only fight to be. Long past time, we do that. And then if you want to have the winner of that fight for a title, sure. Like, it would be kind of dumb, but whatever. No. No, no, no, no, no. One of them fights, the winner that gets, has to fight like one more, like, at worst, one more.

I guarantee a lot of the time. I guarantee you the winner of that fight gets a title fight because who else are they going to put in there? I mean, we don't know. We don't know. And MBS are going to fight for it. The painting is going to fight for it. And then it's the wasteland. So, yeah.

But that, just do that fight. That's the fight. Do that fight at 300. I don't care. I mean, are you confident we're going to get two women's bantamweight fights in 2024? You feel like that's possible? Like just bantamweight fights or bant-to-weight title. Title fights.

Yeah, we'll probably get a second one. Because we're going to get the first one so early. There's so much time in 2024, you know. But none of these fighters are all that active. I mean, should there be hope that MBS wins? Because she's kind of, she's probably the most active fighter of all of them. I mean, there should be hope that she wins because she's the only person who's fun in this weight class right now. If I'm lying, prove me wrong.

How high is figgy's ceiling at 1.35, Jed? It's a really good question. I assume it's not that high just because he's 35. You can't be old in lighter weight classes. because we've all seen the stats on sort of how that works. But I will say I was super impressed by this performance. I had a lot of questions. I thought coming in that if he was going to win,

it would basically look like this. This is sort of the way to beat Rob Font. If you hit him real hard, he's insanely durable. But his durability is one where he's not impossible to hurt. He's just impossible to finish. You can hurt him. And then he just fights through the problems,

but he loses rounds. We saw that with Cheeto. We saw it with Josealdo. It's like a pretty recurring thing. and Figuy was able to basically do exactly the same thing. I wondered how he'd manage the size. It looked okay. Like Rob Fon is certainly a big dude.

Maybe not the thickest Bantamway, but he's long. He's rangy. Figgi managed the size very well. The speed was clearly a huge weapon for him and his power carried up. And that's always a big, big question in situations like this. If the power doesn't carry up when your game is built around that particular weapon, like you didn't have to change it entirely. straight up that is why Connor is not a very good lightweight his power does not carry

um figgies did and that's you know faunt is certainly getting older maybe that's some of it um i'd be interested to see him kind of keep working through this but look that dude is a hammer he is going to give anybody a competitive fight i suspect he probably caps out around you know top 10ish somewhere in the mid top 10 area i doubt he's going to really you know beat like a Andrew Suhudo or somebody like that. But it's great. I love to see it. Super happy to see him here.

There are a ton of really fun fights for him. I hope we get them quickly because I don't know how much, like how much time he has left, given his age at a weight class like this. But it was awesome. Great performance. How did you score the first two rounds? Just out of curiosity. I gave the first.

I won the fight, but. I gave the first round of font, but I was not really confident about it. And I give the second to Figgie and then the third didn't. matter. 30. Yeah. I think on rewatch, it's probably one of those rewatches

where I'm like, maybe this should just be 30, 27. I don't think there's any world where Font gets a scorecard, like should get a scorecard. And I don't have any issues at all with the 3027 for Figgie. Yeah, I had a 327 also.

Yeah, I didn't hate it. I scored the first round for Fonda at first glance too, but I wasn't married to that card at all. Mm-hmm. Oh, cool. By the way, it's Fingy versus Piero Yon and no other fight makes sense. I think that's a terrific fight, but no, obviously, Cody Garbera makes sense because I've been winning that fight for quite some time.

Well, he can fight Piotrana a week later. It'll be okay. We know what will happen in that fight. I just want to see it happen. There's a world where it can. It's going to be great. I know, Mike. I honestly think that's the fight that's going to get made, assuming Cody wins next weekend.

Would that be going backwards for Figgy? Yes. He will be ranked in the UFC's rankings, but it is the former champion. Garbrandt, to some extent, defies rankings in that regard, but it'll definitely be going backward from him in most situations. Okay. I know Mike is very big into the callout, and I want to, we got to talk about this callout, which was, might have been the best callout of all of 2023.

Chircar close Chalachar close give that man the easiest fight in the UFC so we can get his win bonus so perhaps I got lost that's a plus stuff right there man also are we at the co-main event

in BKFC it's not the co-made event now we were we're Rivera Stevens isn't the co-main no it's like the fifth to last fight oh okay gotcha

topology is ordered in correctly then no order yeah don't go by the order on Teppanoly. That's not the bad order. Rivera's in the ring. Stevens walking to the ring. Yeah, I think we get the heavyweight fight

and then we have all the title fights still as well. So I thought, here's what I thought Dracar Close is doing. And maybe I just like misheard it. Because even in our Slack channel, I was like, just say his name, dude. I thought he was like, give me the easiest guy in the UFC.

And I thought I was going to like call it Patty. I thought it was a Daniel Cormier call out. What the easiest fight in the division But it turns out that he said So what he said was Yeah just give me the easiest guy I'm here to make money Like that's it

If that's the case that I respected But I thought he was like I thought he was insinuating Like Patty but then didn't say his name And I was like mm You know what I mean I kind of thought through who's going Or it's something planned

But I guess I was like Just give me easy fights and let me make my paycheck I like which Fair A guy knows where he's at in the division. I like it. If he was going that way, he did it so poorly that it worked out seamlessly because it did just feel like he was just calling for easy paychecks.

And buddy, I respect the hell out of that. Like that's more fighters need to do that. Let me be the guy who welcomes contender serious people. I get paid the same and they are trash. I'm going to reach out and try to interview him this week because I need to know. I want to know the answer to this question. But yes, if that's a case, I respect. mean right now, boys.

Is that fight starting right now? No, they're doing the announcements. Okay. It's about to. He's trying to hurt somebody in just a second. So we're going to, so we have a watch party, correct, for this? We're going to do a watch party, yep. All right.

You know. Do we have any more, if we have one more question, we'll take it. If not, we'll be done. One last question. One last question is talk about the actual fights, the main event. Will Dustin give Arm in the shot? He's coming off a loss and has to fight. down Islam as his next two fights line up already.

Dustin and Armored are both ATT guys. So I'm sure they trained together. I'm sure they know each other. I'm not saying that they could never fight. But one, I don't see why Dessa would take that fight anyways. And two, I don't know. Do you think Dustin Porey would fight Armourne-Saurkean? Jen?

Unless he has specifically offered a title shot with the win, then maybe. But even then, I'm not like, he just doesn't. have to fight dudes that he even sort of trains with. So it would have to be such a major incentive for him to do so. And I don't think that's going to happen. I think Dustin just fight at 300 and I think you should do Jim Miller. But you could do any number of things at UFC 300 for Dustin and he can just kind of spin his wheels while he hopes that Nate Diaz comes back or something more opportune opens up.

But I think there's all, I won't say zero, but I'll I'll say 0.1% chance that that fight would ever happen. That's disappointing, but yeah, I get it. Yeah, I mean, if I probably would be sick, but. Yeah. Is Armament at that point? Just not going to fight those dudes, any of them. Is any division like the UFC lightweight division where once you get that top five,

we basically never, you just become a ghost. We just, we just remember your fights. Well, to wait, maybe. Kind of. Every division at various points, or not. every division middleweight probably never had it but like there are several divisions where it kind of had it but or like maybe there's one or two dudes but it just can happen so much at lightweight because you can only pull that off if you are a star you can't be benile der euse and doing that like

they will make you fight someone but light weight has just had so many stars like gaichi is a star michael chanler is a star dustin boy is a star they can just sort of call the shot in that regard and to some extent it all tracks back to Connor and the way he warped this weight class. I'm not saying that negatively in this instance, so I often blame Connor for stuff. But no, it's just what happens when by virtue of getting to the top of that mountain,

people know you because it's impossible to get to the top of the mountain. And so once you're there, why would you fight backwards? Gaci did it once because he had to. And Porier, they haven't made Porier do it. I guess you can count that Dan Hooker at the time was doing it, but that was a while ago at this point. And he's never going to do it again because he should never do it again. Yeah, he doesn't have to.

Yeah. Which is like, again, it is lame because I want to watch Ben Wassondini fight all these dudes. I want to watch Jalen Turner fight all these dudes. We'll never get those. So that's a bit of a bummer. But fortunately, we have eight sick lightweights who are 30 or under. We're going to get plenty of dope things happening. Yeah, buddy.

Lightweight wars guys. It's so, it's so good. I got to say the light weight division is, it's, I'm a bantam weight guy, but the lightweight division, it's, it's, it's, the best. Yeah. I'm not, I, I'm not even going to have the argument about better weight class. I don't need to have that argument. I honestly think like the next like three years of lightweight is going to be the most fun weight

division in the entire world. I think it could be, but they're not going to freaking. fight each other. They're not going to fight them. I think the whole crop of new dudes are going to fight each other. I hope so.

And I, and the reason why I love Bantway division, because it wasn't just great and the UFC was great in other organizations. So I'm hoping PFL a tour.

That is. Their lightweight division because they have a good lightweight division now with all the Bellator guys and, you know, I hope that can become something to. But I'm just fingers crossed.

It can because there's no shortage of sick lightweights out there in the world to pick up and add to the mix. Like, dudes walking around at 180 pounds are all over the place. That's just, that's why the weight class is good. Like a lot more 180 pound dudes than 250 pound dudes, you know. Yeah.

Mr. Heck, I think we're good. I think we're ready for that watch party. All right. We're going to do a BKFC watch party like literally in five minutes. So five minutes. So small. He's doing really good.

Am I? He is. Am I on this watch party or not? Oh, yeah. So basically like Casey and I are just going to roll and then like if people, because I know that people have to do like UFC coverage and stuff. When people like ready to hop in event for BKFC. Yeah.

When people like just want to hop in and they can just hop in and we're just going to have fun. I love it. Free form. Shooting from the head. It's going to be a wide open door. It's going to be an open door. It's going to be a good time. But that's what we're about to do.

So join us. We'll be able to watch the tail end of at least. probably the whole second half of Jimmy Rivera versus Jeremy Stevens. And then we get Mike Perry versus Eddie Alvarez at the end. And Mike Bobo is going to be the offensive coordinator of the year

at the college football year end award. So you know what's sad. He is in fact up for that. And I want to puke. Fire this man. If he wins, if he wins, that may be my new favorite moment of 2023. Someone screenshot this and send it to

Kirby. Oh, man. All right, join us for the watch party for BKFC live next. For Casey, for Shaheen, for Jed, I am Mike Heck. We'll see you in like three minutes. Love y'all.

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first, there, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. Thank you.