MMA Fighting - UFC Austin Post-Fight Show | Was Calvin Kattar Robbed In Main Event vs. Josh Emmett?

Episode Date: June 19, 2022

Following Josh Emmett’s split decision win over Calvin Kattar in the main event of UFC Austin, it seemed pretty clear that calling a close fight such as that “a robbery” would be highly egregious. However, after looking at the judges’ scorecards more in-depth, maybe there is a case to be made. MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck, Jose Youngs, and Alexander K. Lee gave their thoughts on the headline of the UFC’s return to Texas — and judge Chris Lee’s debated fourth-round scoring — and where Emmett goes from the biggest win of his career, Kevin Holland’s sensational performance against Tim Means, Adrian Yanez’s potential breakout moment, the late scratch of Donald Cerrone vs. Joe Lauzon, Joaquin Buckley’s ceiling at 185 after his career best performance, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jose Youngs: @JoseYoungs Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee 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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You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. That is the sound and the song of of what a freaking fight card that was. That's what a recalling the song. What a freaking fight card it was. UFC Austin delivered in spades. We had high expectations for it from the get-go, and it actually exceeded those expectations by a wide margin. And in the end, Josh Emmett picks up the biggest win of his career,

a split decision win over Calvin Cater in the main event. He called for a title shot against the winner of the Alexander Volcanowski-Max Holloway trilogy fight. at UFC 276 coming up in two weeks from tonight. And we'll see if Josh M. will get that spot. But man, what a card this was from start to finish. We're very excited to talk all about it. I am Mike Eck. Thank you for joining us and joining me right now.

AK was supposed to be here. I don't know what the hell he's doing. But we got the man Jose Young's. There's AK and there is Jose. Hopefully, did refreshed from that trip to Singapore but I mean how could you not be after this card this card was electric it probably woke you up a little bit even if you were a little tired right it felt real weird watching a fight on TV this is why I think I did like four or five

straight of UFC fights live so I'm like get over these commercials dog like I just want to be you know I want to hear I want to hear the punches but let's see if I remember how to do these post shows I haven't done one since God knows when. Well, let's start with the most MMA post-show type of question because this is such a recency bias sport. And you have been on the

road covering these cards and you've been there for some pretty big moments, but we've been pretty spoiled thus far in 2022. We've had some big fights. We've had some fun events. UFC London comes to mind. 275 was great this past Saturday. Columbus was good. This was

excellent. And I know it just happened, so maybe we favored a little bit more because you just saw it. But was this the best card of the year start to finish in your eyes? No. I'd probably put a second or third. UFC London, I think, because if you just talk about excitement and all that kind of stuff, like this one had a lot of exciting fishing and everything, but I just think UFC London had a lot more. There was just something different in the air, especially because, like, you know, it was the first time they'd been to Europe since the pandemic. They'd had canceled, like, two planned London trips before. It was like, we always joke about

how a lot, like, there's like a lot of Vegas cards and other fight cards in the U.S., like the prelims, it's pretty dead in the arena, but like the London card was almost packed to the brim for the first second fight of the night. So I would still probably put the London card first, especially because you saw the the Brits win that fight, not that that's going to happen every time, but it was just, I feel like all the pieces, all the pogs fell into the right place and all the marbles rolled the right way. And then the UFC 275, if you want to argue, it's better.

I'm not going to argue against it, mostly because you know that. title fight was pretty epic. Valentina looks human, Joanna retired. I just felt like there was a lot more newsworthy things happening and a lot more high-level fights between high-level individuals. This one was great. If you want to tell me UFC Austin was better than UFC 275,

I'm not going to argue that either. To me, I still stick London, UFC London at the top. Yeah, I mean, the crowd plays such a factor. And the crowd was alive for this one, especially for Adrianianez, for Kevin Holland. It seemed like there's a very pro-Calvin-Cater crowd because Cater's sister lives in Texas, so there's probably a huge contingency.

The Catermania T-shirts are probably running wild. And that's where we'll start, Jose, because there isn't like a big argument on Twitter with how this fight is scored, but it seems like the majority of folks scored it for Calvin Cater, 48-47 across the board, all three judges scorecards, one scored it for Cater,

two scored it for Josh Emmett clearly not a robbery but how did you I had a 3-2 for Josh Hammett but I think me like most everyone else watching that fight had a 2-2 going into the final round and then that fifth round if you want to

like again it's it was so it's like I said this to AK on Twitter it's pretty much just like Felder versus Dan Hooker someone's going to be bothered by the main by the scorecards and it could have gone either way like if you want to tell me Paul Felder beat Den Hooker, so be it.

If you want to tell me Calvin Cater beat Josh Emmett, so be it. I'm not going to argue one way or another. I score for Josh Cemet. I'm pretty sure you score it for Calvin Cater. When you say the majority of people scored for Calvin Cater, what's that, six to four out of 10 people, probably six scored it for Calvin Cater. So it's like one more. So yeah, technically a majority.

That's all you need for a majority. But it's not a robbery if you want to, if you look at the numbers, sure, if you want to go by that. But Calvin Cater punched Josh Semenon a lot, a lot more. and Josh Emmett punched Calvin Cater a lot harder. So it's like, what do you score? How do you want to score that? It was an awesome fight.

I scored for Emmett. You scored for Calvin Cater. And I hope eventually we can see this fight again down the line. What's interesting is like you look at the scorecards and you're thinking the 48-47s, there was one clear round in the fight. One clear round. Round four for Calvin Cater. I mean, there is no doubt about it.

That was the clearest round. round of the fight. One was close. I scored it for Cater. Two was close. I scored a for Cater. Three was an Emmett round to me. And a lot of people scored five for Cater. I have to rewatch the fight because when you're live blogging and trying to live recap, it's so hard to really pay attention. But Chris Lee, I think Chris Lee kind of screwed Calvin Cater because scoring the fourth round for Josh Emmett, I mean, there's just, there's just no way. I'm sorry. Like if you ask me if it's a robbery based on the scorecards they actually put out, then yes, it is a robbery because you can't. You can't formulate a coherent sentence while you're trying to argue that Josh M.A.1 round four.

You just there's no, you just can't. You can't do it. So I think Josh Semen won, but based on the facts in front of me, because that's how I like to deal with these things in MMA, the facts are, these are the three scorecards in front of me. And there's no way, like that is a robbery. giving Josh Demand 4 is a robbery. And if that's what tipped it in favor of Josh Yemen winning, then that's a big problem. I will say early on in the fight,

at least for the first three rounds, I actually thought Cater's game plan was very solid. Like don't be a little cautious, land the jab, start adding in that elbow, what he was doing. And I think that elbow landed a lot more than he was being given credit for on the broadcast, which is why I might have given him some rounds

that maybe others did not. But I felt like the game plan really didn't evolve much. I think it was a little too cautious from Calvin. And I think that kind of cost them. I think if we turned the volume up just a little bit more, especially in that fifth round, maybe it's a different fight. But listen, I'm not in there.

I ain't Tyson chartier. I ain't Rob Font. But that's just like from the outside looking in, I was just like, man, I think they're going to be looking back at this thinking, maybe we should have just turned up the volume a little bit more and just made this a little more clear.

But yeah, man, tough, great fight. I mean, great fight. That was awesome. It was a high-level martial arts competition that delivered for the state of Texas. And I just wish that one scorecard wasn't, I wish we were talking about the fight and not that silly scorecard. Yeah, it was a tremendous fight. Josh Emmett gets on the microphone, Jose, and he just looks at Dana White. DC didn't even ask him a question about what he wanted next.

He just answered everything in one shot. He just wanted to go out and have some beers at the, the Austin breweries, just answered all the questions that he's about to be asked. And he said, hey, Dana, this big fight coming up,

July 2nd, UFC 276, I'm going to be sitting cage side to see who I'm fighting next. Give me my shot. Did this win, give Josh Emmett what he wants, or does he still need to win another fight?

Maybe two at this point. It might, honestly, like, I know a lot of people like to joke and poke fun at Dana White and what he says and how he hands out title shots

and his weird saying of like, timing it means is everything when it came to Zhang Wei Lee versus you want to get in the title shot when Maria Rodriguez was not fighting so it's like that was a little weird but like the timing might just work out for Josh because like Arnold Allen doesn't have a fight and who's the guy that just won was it a couple weeks ago wow I'm gonna forget he won't he went on the Giars

gonna fight hard yes he doesn't have a fight so like there's a lot of other feather weights on the rise that I realistically like say Holloway and Volcanowski were fighting in the Abu Dhabi card in October or on the November card in Madison Square Garden and then Josh Hammett would have to wait a long time I would, I personally

and I'm not trying to give Josh Emmett's team any sort of advice on what he should do because they're the professional fighters and coaches, not me. I would probably get my fighter on the same time so like fight one of those also because of selfishly I just want to see Arnold Allen fight Josh Emmett really badly and all those featherways. But the two weeks, you know, he's pretty banged up. And then I assume based on the first two fights between

Volcanowski and Holloway, it's going to be one of those grueling fights that someone's going to have a lot of bruises on their face. So the timing, honestly, might just line up for a fourth quarter title fight for Josh Emmett. So should he take a second fight before that title fight? Maybe wait to see what happens because like I always say, let's not match to make before the fight happens. because someone could, you know, Joel Ozone weighed in, and then he didn't fight. Dalisorone weighed in in Phoenix, and they didn't fight. So let's wait for the fight to finish before we see who's healthy and whatnot. But timing might just work out for Josh Dem in terms of a title fight.

We'll see what happens with the I-Yeer in Ortega and, oh, hi, K. How are you, buddy? I'm good. I'm doing great. What a fun card. It was a fun card. That's it. That's it, guys. I'll see you later.

That's all I want. See you later, AK. It's a... Just dropped it. That's it. Mike dropped. That's hilarious. What a way to end the show.

AK, is there going to be a robbery review on this fight? I don't think so. I don't think so. As people know, I don't watch fights to score them as closely on actual fight night. You know, usually, usually I'm watching. I'm looking for the big swings. I have the commentary on.

So not always the best indicator of who's winning a fight, but I like to have that on just to get some. vibe what's going because we're working on other stuff. So, but from what I saw, like, it was, one, it is a fight that needs to be watched closely, which is why I don't want to give like a hard verdict on it. But it did look super competitive. It did look like a fight where the stats are going to say one thing. But then if you watch the fight, you know, that's another aspect that really strongly has to be considered because the stats aren't necessarily going to reflect sort of necessarily the power of, you know, Emmett's punches or the power of Keter's punches, for example.

I think like, I think everyone watching the general idea was that, you know, Emmett was hitting harder. Cater was hitting more, and that's fine. That's reflected on the on-screen stats. I haven't looked at the official post-fight stats, which is usually very quickly. I'll pull them up now. But again, it's really hard for us to say. Casey always kind of brings this up.

It can always look like someone's hitting harder, but I mean, those jabs from Cater, excuse me, could have been doing nearly as much damage as Emmett's, those kind of winged bombs he throws. So it was a super close, like, back-and-forth fight. I don't mind people disagreeing with the decision. I saw a lot of a lot of cater scorecards out there. But I think calling it Robert is crazy.

It's just a really competitive fight. And, you know, I think if people, everyone gets a chance to get a second look at it, they won't be too upset. We have the scorecard on the screen there. This is why I ask this question, okay. Round four, round four, 10-9, Chris Lee. Questionable. And it was literally, and again, if he just scored that.

If he had just scored that correctly, Calvin Cater's walking out with a split decision win now. So, yeah, it's, listen, I don't know if people are mad because they bet on the fights, or again, they're Calvin Cater fans, or, again, they're just fans of proper judging. But this is one, I don't, it's hard to call it controversial that one score definitely is. But again, the way the fight was, I don't think anyone can say like Emmett didn't do enough to win. I don't think anyone can say that definitively, but then you could also make this thing, arguing for Cater.

So this is just a close fight. Close fights, not all close fights of robies and things like that. I'm just looking at the official stats now. Again, they're what people would think. Huge round for cater in the fourth, 41, Stimperian strikes to 21. And it's not like a Rob Font, Cheevera situation where, you know, Emmett landed some big bomb in there to change the momentum. But I don't know.

Maybe that's what Chris Lee saw somehow. He's Cade side, we're not. But that looks like a pretty clear caterer round. That looks like a pretty clear Cater round watching and the stats seemed to back that up. I'm waiting to see what the bonuses are. I'm looking on social media. Apparently, some folks know what the bonuses are. I hope the UFC just gives everybody a bonus.

This is one of those cards where all the finishers get bonuses, because, I mean, you have, I mean, it was just such a crazy card. It was such a ridiculous card. Kevin Holland looked pretty damn good tonight. Did he not? AK, good Lord. Dude, storm perfume robberies. Per Helen Yee, who's on side.

Dana White said everyone who got a finish tonight got a bonus. main event was fight of the night. There you go. So, so technically I won, I won the bonus off, right? Because I was correct in my, I think I was, I picked Janice, Holland. Uh-huh. And I'm at Cater fight of the night. So I win, right? Because I was the only one to guess the fight of the night. Producer Casey, do an official ruling on this or, uh, let them have it.

Gotta win something. We lost Joe, you lost, you lost Joe LaZan to, to apparently what was not a serious. serious knee injury and Calvin Cater maybe getting robbed I mean definitely at least again on that one scorecard if it was just done farfully then that's a split nod for

for Calvin Cater so for 30 on Joe Lozahn's UFC Austin fight week maybe just the last couple months of Soroni versus Lozon but they Oh yeah you got to throw in the street taco stuff you got to throw that in too absolutely It's insane it's absolutely insane

Joe Lozon obviously puts his knee putting socks on the rumored taco joint that cowboy got sick from is literally about 10 feet away from my apartment. So you're going to do some investigative reporting and check out these tacos for yourself? I go once a week and I have never gone sick. But I'm also a brown man, so tacos probably a lot easier than, you know, someone from, not from Mexico. Well, Soroni himself also refused to blame the street tacos. He said, there's no way.

He said everyone ate there. I'm the only one that had sex. My kids ate there. My teammate there. He's like, it wasn't that. Let's stop disparaging the great establishment. That is Taco Boys in downtown Phoenix. Shout out Taco Boys.

And I wish. Gang, gang. I wish Donald Soroni would fight for a fighter, you know, better fighter negotiation rights the way he fights for street tacos. Because he was very adamant that he did not want street tacos. Well, I mean, you can only argue for one. And there's clearly a priority for one. He's made his choice.

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was Kevin Holland and made a choice to stop a man who stole some perfume on Friday. And then on Saturday goes out there and just puts it on Tim Means in the first round, almost put Tim away. Tim just showing a lot of grit and heart and determination, hung around. And then Holland just put that dars choken in the second round, gets the second round submission, gets on the mic, and he calls out Sean Brady, AK. What did you think? How would you grade Kevin Hollins night in Austin tonight,

just between the performance, the mic work, everything? What did you think? The more alleged superheroism, apparently, according to his manager, another crime stop. Yeah, it's a great idea. I love the callout. I love the call. I actually, again, I was working on something,

so I didn't see it live until our story went out, and I saw that headline. I was like, okay. I was like, that's a great callout. Now, Sean Brady has been kind of, you know, angling for a bigger fight. So for Sean Brady, that's having to fight a guy behind you. But if you're Sean Brady, it's also a guy who has a, who has a name,

is actually probably has a bigger name than you, if we're being honest. Kevin Hollins has makes headlines again for both his stuff outside the cage and that incredible 2021 campaign. So he might be lower ranked, but he is a bigger name. So I don't know if Colin Kevin Holland is also thinking, uh, like playing some chess here and thinking will Sean like will Sean Brady take this fight, you know, for the reasons that I just mentioned? Because if he did, I mean, it's perfect.

It's perfect. I don't know how close we are to making this happen, but I think Sean Brady, that's the way to go. Go up against a guy of the big name. You take him out, yeah, it's not going to move him, jump him up the rankings the way he's looking to. But it's a very, Kevin Holland be a very, very nice name to have on his resume if he were able to beat him.

And same goes for Kevin Holland. Sean Brady is right now like the Golden Boy prospect at 170, maybe even beyond prostrate at this point. And if Kevin Hall already beat him, look, I've been saying he, I said after tonight, if he beats Tim Means, he's the real deal. I mean, that's two solid veterans, Alex Olivaire and the Dirty Bird. And now if he took out another rising contender, three and O at 170,

then Kevin Holland done it again. Another, like a guy who was top 10 at 185 could be top 10 at 170 soon. So breaking news, a little breaking newsbed, Casey. I know. I mean, it's breaking news. I just heard from Mr. Brady to get his reaction to this call out from Kevin Holland. And he said, and you've probably seen on social media, so I'm not going to name names, but he said he's working on something else right now. The UFC is pushing for this thing that he is hoping to get.

And if for some reason it doesn't happen, he would be thrilled to fight one Kevin Holland. So John Brady's in, but he's got something else apparently that's on the stove, trying to cook that up real nice. And if for some reason the date's expired and it doesn't happen, he has to throw it in the trash, Kevin Holland, he will welcome. into the octagon. So there's Sean Brady's response. A little exclusive here on the UFC Austin post-fight show. But great performance for Kevin Holland. Jose, what do you think of Walter Wright, Kevin Holland, and the guy, you know, took him around, really, to just kind of get his bearings under him with the cowboy Oliveira fight. But since that first round ended, this dude has been like a man possessed in there.

This is the most impressed I've ever been with Kevin Holland. And that's even including like the Jacaree. So it was a knockout and going five and O'Noe in like. like eight months or whatever that is. Because even the Jacqueray fight, jacchari had him down, and I just feel like Jacaray just wasn't taking it seriously. They were literally laughing at each other when he got punched in the face.

And Tim Means took this fight seriously, tried to take him down in Kevin Holland, who has routinely said he's bad at wrestling, had very good takedown defense, and then choked out Tim Means. So, yeah, Kevin Hollins probably should have dropped down to Weltoe a long time ago, but he just kept winning and taking fights on short notice.

Again, he paid a lot of money to do that. I don't think he could take fights on a short notice like that at Walter 8. His weight cuts probably not hard, but it's not the easiest. You know, it's not like he can just walk in and weigh in like he does it middleweight. So I should have done this long time ago. There's a lot of fun fights for him at Walterweight. But yeah, I have never ever been more impressed with Kevin Holland than I have in this fight. He also just looked more focused in there in general.

Like remember when he, who was he fighting Brunson when he was like talking to Habib, like sitting Cade side? The whole fight. Was that that fight? When he was just walking around, walking him. to the crowd, both fights. They just bleed together for me. That was, he lost like 10 rounds, 10 straight rounds of just being wrestled. Yeah, and he, he stunned Derek Brunson a few times, but then he got taken down and was

like talking to Habib and Daniel Cormier in the middle of the fight. He wasn't doing any of that. He was all business in this fight card. So, yeah, he was obviously having fun in there, but he was even telling the crowd to stop booing to me. So, yeah, very impressed with Kevin Holland. And I'm, I want, I don't want to see him fight Sean Brady. I want to see him fight.

Daniel Rodriguez because that's the fight I want to see him fight today when he called him out in his last fight. So just to make the Daniel Rodriguez fight, they can just slap each other for three rounds or five rounds and I'll be a happy boy. That's a great fight. I love that idea as well. Can't really go wrong with this, but I loved Kevin Holland's response because I mean, ever since UFC Boston in October of 2019, Kevin Holland's been talking about going down to 170. He just never did it. And he said, once I do it, it's going to be great for me. because then I'll actually approach this game with a bit more discipline because I have to focus and use discipline to get to 170.

When he's fighting in middleweight, he could just wake up on way in day and just step on the scale, and he's 186 at worst. Everyone in the comment section seems to want him to fight Randy Brown. Like, I've saw that a lot. Or Michelle Pareda. I think Balaal suggested it. I think Bala'll throw Randy Brown's name out there for him.

Is it just because they're both tall and lanky? Is that why? I think they're around the same, like, we would be around the same area in those people's rankings. But, I mean, yeah, that certainly part of it. But, yeah, and Randy Brown responded. I think he said that wouldn't be good for his record or for his prospects at 170 if that happens. So I think a little trash talk there. I like it.

That's a good fight. Yeah, I like what I'm seeing with Kevin Holla, 170. You can't go wrong. And we'll see what happens. But just another piece of this just really exciting card that got over. Joachim Buckley, great win over. Albert Dariah, best Joachim Buckley's looked in his career. I know, yeah, I know he's had some incredible moments.

He's in the Bobo O'Reilly package for the UFC probably multiple times, but this is one of those four-in-the-road kind of fights. Like stuck him in a music video, which is something that is infinitely bigger than anything anyone the UFC will do right now outside of Connemn-Megger. Demir Isma Gulov. Great fight against Guram Kutat-al-Az. They could have gone either way. If you're Guarams team, I think you have a case to say that you were, you were herdeaned in this fight because of the not illegal, illegal knee that was called.

Could have been the difference of the fight, honestly. And in the end, Isba Ghulov wins a, at first, majority decision because we saw, it was read at 2828, which is just, I was actually angry when I heard that, literally angry. But then the Great Burn and Fitzgerald, calm me down. clarified. It was actually a 29-28 Gouram card, thus making a split decision. Gregory Rodriguez doing Gregory Rodriguez things. Mike Beltran probably could have saved Julian Marquez from about 40 extra punches, but Julian actually got

a big shot in and made things interesting, but Rodriguez just beat him up. But I want to talk about Adrianianas, a.K. This guy was a hero in Austin. Biggest pop of the night. People were excited. It was not just the Adrian Yanis show. They weren't just happy to see him fight, but they were happy to see him fight Tony Kelly. Tony Kelly played the villain role to perfection,

flipping off the Austin crowd at Ceremonial Wayans, flipped the way to the octagon. Adrian Yannis goes out there. It just runs them over. The first left-hand Adrian landed, which didn't seem like it had a lot of impact. You could tell right away Tony was like, uh-oh.

Oh, speaking of a-oh. Adrian Yannis is... We lost Mike. There's a big... Uh-oh. Well, anyway, I think Mike wanted us to discuss Adrian Yannis. So, listen, I'll just say, Adrian Yannis has been so smart about leaning into this,

the whole controversy with Tony Kelly. And listen, maybe he even owes Tony Kelly for being a bit of a Dumas and causing this controversy in the first place. Because they were already booked a fight, you know, when the incident in the Andrew Lee Corner happened. So everyone, that's why even all... on that night. People were like, man, I hope Adrianianna's,

is like, you know, beats this guy's ass when they, when they meet up. So, and he was smart to lean into it. Not everyone is comfortable doing that. Like, you know, some people, when there's a narrative that starts surrounding their fight, they kind of want to shy away from it. Jeff Molina, I think is a good example recently, you know, he was very happy to wear sort of the pride shorts, but at the same time, you know, if you listen to his interviews later, he was kind of like, oh, you know, I don't regret doing it at all, but I do kind

of think it's kind of weird that I'm, like, getting all this credit for something. That's just, like, just being a good human being and civil. So he kind of didn't want him to distract from what was a really good win for him in his most recent fight. Adrian Yadhas, in the other hand, it was like, as soon as that Tony Kleta, he's like, my Brazilian fam, don't worry, I got you. I got you. I'm going to, he was totally into it. Every opportunity he got, he would tweet about it, tweet about like, oh, yeah, I'm definitely going to shut this guy up and all that. For the pre-fights stuff, he was into it.

Man, just flipping him off at the end of the fight, reciprocating kind of what Tony Kelly did at the start of the fight. That stuff was awesome. And then in the promo after, like, again, just repeating, repeating why he was so jazzed for this fight, why he felt he had to knock out Tony Kelly. They were talking crap to each other after. Sorry, like before the decision was read, Aaron Bronsider from TSN reported there was because we got on the Canadian broadcast on we got in between round stuff on fight path. Oh, this is not on the main card. But either way, we got some in between rounds stuff. I don't know if it was all on ESPN Plus.

But so there's some trash talk there. And then, yeah, listen, people have really embraced it. He's like an honorary Brazilian. He did this for all his Brazilian homies and homieettes out there. And it couldn't have been a better night from it. It was super exciting knockout. I felt like Carrie Hatley might have allowed a few extra shots in there. So that was kind of ugly.

But a lot of people seem to enjoy that too. I abhor violence, as people know. So I don't approve regardless of how I feel about Tony Kelly's comments and general attitude. But it looked like he got his comeuppance and then some, if that is what people would for. Jose, we see these performances from time to time where fighters are like hardcore fans delights. Their prospects are excited about.

The hardcores, though he is, they all love them, they can't wait to see him. And then you have sort of a performance in a moment where you cross over not just from the hardcore fans delight, but now you reach a different kind of audience. You take that next step. Not quite a superstar, but you take that step from hardcore guy to, you know, a guy more people know on the cusp, the precipice, if you will, of maybe becoming a star, and then you take that next step after that. Do you feel like Yannas took that step from sort of the exciting prospect, the hardcore fans delight into the more the casual fans are familiar with him now?

Was the performance, the reaction after everything that happened? Did that take Yana's up a level in the eyes of fans consistently? No, because casual fans don't watch fight nights often. They usually watch the pay-per-view. So should it? Yes. I'm going to say a big hard no. And that's unfortunate because I think Adriana is a future superstar, future title challenger, and I'm without a doubt one of the more exciting.

I'm going to still call him a prospect. Yeah, mostly because he hasn't fought anyone in the top 15 yet. He's without a doubt the most exciting prospects at Bannonweight, one of the most exciting prospects in all of MMA. I wish he got, you know, some of the promotional push too because we see these these fighters that do cross over to the quarter. unquote casual fans, the UFC gets behind them and I

didn't see a lot of what, like the UFC wasn't pushing this Adrianianas fighting a guy who said racial things because the UFC doesn't want people to know that one of their fighters said racial things to another fighter to hyper up.

They weren't pushing that narrative. So naturally the casual fans didn't know that was the narrative because if they're flipping, hey, it's also on ESPN Plus. This is on UFC on ABC, maybe. If someone is for whatever reason is just surfing ESPN Plus, if that's a thing that people do, and they say, I'm going to turn this on

and they turned on the Adrianianas fight, they probably didn't know that story. They just said, oh, this Hispanic dude from like Southeast Texas just beat this dude with a bunch of goofy tattoos. So awesome performance, but I don't think anyone from the quote unquote casual realm noticed it. And that's super unfortunate.

So I think he needs, like if he fights, if he does that, Sean O'Malley, the answer is obviously yes. If he does someone, that's someone in the top 15, the answer is obviously yes. Just this wasn't the performance that got him there yet.

Like his best performance to date and it should have gotten him all the star power in the world, I just don't think, I don't think the metrics will show it to the casual fans. Yeah, I can definitely see where you're coming from there. But I mean, Tony Kelly just leaning into all of it.

Did he miss weight? He missed weight. And then at the end, During that conversation that Aaron sort of transcribed on Twitter, it was Tony Kelly telling Adrian Yannas that he wasn't out. And Adrian's like, yeah, dude, you were out. And Tony Kelly's response was, no, I wasn't out. You were out.

I'm not. You're dumb. Yeah, very peewey Herman. I know you are, but what am I, infinity from Tony Kelly? And huge win. Great performance from Adrian Yannis. Sent the UFC, Austin, Faithful Home. Happy.

Roman Deleuze kicked things off with. a nasty knee. Not a lot of people saw him going out there and finishing Kyle Doc as the way he did, but he did the damn thing. Phil Haas just put it on Duranwin. I mean, that was about as vicious of a beating as you will see in the middleweight division. Incredible performance from Phil Haas, who is now no longer Megatron. He is no hype. I believe that's what the nickname was, no hype. Stop it. He's ditched. No. He's ditched Megatron. It's over. It's done. Megatron wasn't great, but it's no hype. I believe it's no hype.

According to topology, it is no hype. This is the worst name changes six. Megatron is a bad guy that was trying to, you know, wipe out all of humanity and no hype is also very silly. And it's also a great wide receiver from the Detroit Lions. Fair enough. But this is also as bad, this is almost as bad as Corey Anderson going from 20, Beasts in 258 to overtime. No. Yeah, that's the worst.

The worst one was when Hector Lombard went from. from lightning to show weather. You just literally know a word. Was so confusing. That was a great one. I'm not even mad at that. I'm not even mad at that because that's just confusing. Like maybe it's a great nickname.

Maybe it's a great nickname. Like just none of us ever understood what it meant because I still don't to this day. I don't understand what Hex or Lombard does most of the time. So I just look at him and say, yeah, cool, bro. And I just move on. Yeah. And by the way, props to Phil Haas for coming out to the Rocks, WWF theme song. That was

incredible. That was amazing. Cody Stamen. Great win for him. We're not getting points for getting into it with Cormiere for no reason. And they're friends now. It's okay. Everyone in the comments section wants to see Phil Hawes fight Walking Buckley next. I'm in for that. Let's go. That's a great matchup. I actually think it makes a lot of sense.

See that. I saw a lot. The most muscular middleweight fight in the history of the UFC. I mean, that's not true because Romero fought, Apollo Costa in Anaheim. That's the most of the same. That's the second most muscular middleweight. You are correct. That's an excellent point.

Yeah, great. Cody Staven, great win. First finish of the UFC. He's been waiting for that for all these fights. He finally gets it done. Eddie Weiland had the gloves off. Not sure if he's retired. But I hope, I really hope for his sake, the family's sake.

And I hate being that guy to get on a microphone and say this guy needs to retire. But I'm not going to say that. I just hope that that's a lot. last time we see him take punches inside that octagon because that was a bad loss. That was weirdly handled. That was weirdly handled. That was weirdly handled. It looked like we don't know if we don't know if he's retiring. They mentioned before the fight. He had just signed a four-fight contract, which doesn't mean anything, which doesn't mean anything. If you retire, you retire. But yeah, he clearly had the gloves off as the as the

decision was being read. Not a decision, excuse me, the verdict of the result was being read. And then they just kind of never went back to it. So we never got to see if he. tried to leave the gloves in the ring if he did and then there was no camera on it so just okay we'll pick him back up we got a fight coming up they were running to the fight they're running through the fights pretty quickly on the prelims um which is probably one reason why you know he didn't have an opening to maybe get an interview and announce a retirement but something to keep an eye out on but not official though he did not announce they didn't have the chance to announce a retirement which is crazy because there's like seven finishes on the prelims and they actually went overtime they

didn't let the translator get the final answer out for the woman I want to talk about before he gives the Pete. His name is, his name is Fabiano. Very nice man. Fabiano. Yes, he is a very nice man. Goodwin for Maria Olivera against Glory DePaula. I actually scored it for DePaula, but just fun scrap between two scrappers. Ricardo Hamos, holy cow, what a knockout that was. It's spinning back elbow, beautifully timed. Jeremiah Wells, the Real Deal, Holyfield. Daniel Gracie fighters in the UFC still undefeated between him, Sean Brady, and Pat Sabatini put some respect on Henzo Gracie

Philly's name right now and Daniel Gracie is a coach because that team is on fire. Who's the cat that just won a couple weeks ago? He tapped on Maximoff. Oh, and that's... Petrosky too. He has that.

I forgot. He has a very unfortunate tattoo. He has an unfortunate tattoo, but he's a man when he fights. Yeah. Yeah. Jeremiah Wells looked great. But if we're talking,

we're talking about great performance, but the person stock, who rose more than anybody's on this entire card. And this is not even a conversation. This is not up for debate or discussion. As great as Adrian Yonnas did tonight, Natalia Silva is the winner and it's not even close. Talk about somebody that no one even gave any thought to today.

We just thought Jasmine, Jazz DeVizis is going to go in there and just get on top of newcomer Natalia Silva and just win a 3027 decision. Natalia Silva showed up and showed up. and showed out, A.K. Wow. Talk about a debut. 125.

We were talking about this on the People's Pre-Fight show about how 125 is getting love, but it should be getting more love. Now you throw this woman into there. How fun is she? Because she looked phenomenal tonight. And she's only 25 years old. She's in that young cluster with Case O'Neill and Aaron Blanchfield and Menloffiro, not, you know, not she's not, she's over 30, but it only has, what, 10, 12 pro fights? So feel free to throw Natalia Silva's name in there if you want, if you were that impressed tonight. Because, yeah, she was, one, she was styling on Jazz DeVizius.

She was very entertaining to watch. And, man, it was, jazz de Vesius looked lost probably after like the midway point of round two. You rarely see a fighter like that, like where you can very visibly see on their face that they have no answer for what their opponent is doing. But that's where Jazz DeVizius was. It was kind of scary. It was kind of scary. how lost she was and how much she was getting the business put on her. So, I mean, credit to her, I guess, for making it to the scorecards, not getting finished.

But yeah, Natalia said it looked great. And listen, we got to give her all the credit in the world because we had said on the, I think, the pre-fight Q&A or the preview show, I can't remember. We were just like, we just admitted, we don't know much about her. We don't know much about her. I was picking holes in her record. I was going like, eh, you know, she was like 7 and 0, 8, no, 9 and 0, whatever, or 9 in 5, 10 and 5, something like that.

when she was facing one and no fighters, you know, doing regional fighter stuff. And because I hadn't seen her before, I was thinking like, oh, well, maybe this is why, you know, this is why Chazibu is a favorite. We just don't know a lot about her, her opponent. And, you know, hey, for all you, any Natalia Silva stands out there, I didn't see that many, but if we missed your comment and you guys were big in Natia Silver up and telling us to watch out, credit to you, yeah, she was absolutely, you're right about the stock, Mike, because it's, to go from essentially pennies, pennies on.

the dollar to I mean a lot of people are going to want to want to buy in now yeah you can't do much better than that so and she kind of got a nice again that pre-limb headliner spot because of uh you know the the the lozahn and sroni fight dropping out so maybe there was a few more eyeballs on there than there would have been i don't know maybe it didn't make a difference but yeah great great job and that was that was dominant that was dominant flyweight decision yeah i think she's got sort of Amanda Hebus vibes to her where if she goes out and gets another win another impressive performance, maybe she

catches the eye of Dana White a little bit more and maybe she just kind of gets shot up and do a big fight real fast but I mean it's hard not to be impressed by her what did you think Jose I mean she's just super fun that's high level martial arts at its best tonight yeah she beat the soul out of another woman

on national television and a prime spot and now people know people went from not knowing who she was to people know who she was She had an absolutely delightful post-fight interview. I wish you knew what she said. Fortunately, Fabiano didn't get to say it because she talks so much. Yeah, I think the man of Hebaugh's comparison is pretty spot on. But, you know, maybe two, three years ago, shoot her up the rankings.

But now 125, like a lot of people are saying that, you know, Valentina's cleaned out the division and she doesn't have any fights left and she's going to 135. I still want to see Valentina fight, Misha Tate. I still want to see Valentina fight, you know, Alexa Grasso, who has a big fight coming out. Macy Barber has another fight. She filled in for Casey O'Neill coming up, I'm pretty sure. There's a lot. And Manor Faroe has a big fight at UFC Paris.

There's a lot of fights for Valentina I want to see happen. We can add this newcomer to the mix, but let's pump the brakes on shooting her up the rankings and skipping over a lot of women. I want to see Valentina fight first. Oh, yeah, 100%. She's, as Dana would say, she's in the mix comfortably.

Don't, again, but I'm with you. Don't shoot her up too high. Jazz and Jazz DeVizious. Fine fighter. But no, we're not putting it. We weren't really putting her on the same level as like a Marinna Maverick or a Casey O'Neill or anybody really in that echelon just yet. But, I mean, what a way to show up in your debut. And first fight in over three years, too, which makes it even more impressive.

So good on her. She looked fantastic. With that being said, speaking of fantastic, let's go to the peeps and see what the fantastic peeps have to say. Hopefully, oh, and Casey's here as well. And hopefully people are a little bit nicer in the aftermath of this because AK took to Twitter and apparently somebody sent you a DM just chastising you, blaming you for one of us saying that Albert Dariath, that we picked Albert Dariath to beat Joachian Buckley on the People's Free Fight Show and that he changed his mind. And now we are just dunzo. Like we're just horrible human beings. Why did I get, why did I get blasted for this?

Why? I was, if anything, I was all in on Buckley, if I think I was telling people that Buckley was a logical upset pick and, yeah, some strong language is aimed in my direction by a very kind gentleman or woman with a NFT as a profile picture. So, there you go.

They're just mad because they lost 29% of their profile picture. I was I was going to say Ethereum? I don't know. I don't know what this is. It's all silly magic and fairy dust to me. Yeah. Fagasy. Forgazy. Forgazy. Yeah.

All right. All right. Here we go. Do you know Photoshopped out of feature to export your images and NFTs? It's the most silly thing I'd seen. What? Everyone wants in. Everyone wants in.

So let's keep it on Buckley, actually, because we did talk about this on the fan Q&A. But maybe our opinion has changed. Do you guys think Joaquin Buckley is a top 15 caliber fighter? Jose, let's get your thoughts. He looked great tonight. Is this a top 15 guy? A. Casey sold. Me and Casey were like, this guy's going to be a good fighter.

People are still going to be excited to watch him. But the question I posed was, is he going to be a top 10 guy? I wasn't ready to go that route. But top 15, you think this is a top 15 middleweight? No, not right now. There's a lot more impressive guys. I'd like, if you tell me Driggis de Pleasas is going to fight Walking Buckley, I'm going to pick Driggis de Pleases, who's not even in the top 15 yet.

There are infinitely more interesting names outside of the top 15. Now, is Walking Buckley an exciting fight? If you're asking, actually pound for pound most exciting middle weights, walking Buckley is right there. We were talking about, is he going to crack the top 15 of the UFC by the end of the year? I don't think so.

A lot of the questions I had about Walking Buckley, he actually answered and with flying, like I thought after like the first 30 seconds, he was going to be exhausted in two minutes because he was winging shots in there. Not only was he not tired, he just didn't slow down. So I was like, well, of Walking Buckley,

can clean can you know just have any sort of technique outside of just button matching teck and combos at full speed until he knocks someone out then then he's going to be impressive uh if he does that nonstop for three rounds he's going to be a super exciting fighter i just don't know if he's going to be a top 15 guy i don't know if he can get into the top 15 doing that i don't even know if he's top 25 right like like i don't even know if he's top 25 like if he fights bratt does he be bratt Vars right now because he that Brad Tavares is like the benchmark for the top 15 a lot like Izzy fought him Edmund Chabazzian fought him like if walking Buckley fights Brad Tavares right now I don't think he beats Brad Tavares so maybe a couple more fight so not yet what I'll say about

Buckley though because before the fight I would have said a big no but walking Buckley is improving and that's the most impressive part every fight I think after his after his loss who do he lose to the Italian fighter, right? Italian fighter, not forget. Alessio Di Curico, yeah. I think he learned a lot from that. And I think he's actually just, he's just becoming a better fighter. Maybe he's making

more money. I think he's training full time now. He doesn't have, like, did he work at Walgreens or something when he started in the UFC or something? It was like he was like a manager. He's a pharmacy tech. Yeah, it's pharmacy tech. So, and we don't take it, we has fans and media, we really got a, it's really hard to take that

to account how much these guys are just focused on their their full-time fighting career now. A lot of times when we first meet him, they're part-time fighters, you know. So I'm not, yeah, I think I'm with Jose. I don't see Buckley being a top 15 guy, but at the rate he is improving, who the heck knows? Because I was super impressed by him tonight. And he's just, yeah, he's just a much better fighter. Not reinvented, but just more, it's just better. He just controls himself more.

He still did those kind of crazy kicks and stuff like that. He tried it. He still wants to, you know, that's still in him. But, yeah, I actually, my opinion of Walking Buckley is definitely going up. Yeah, he's impressed the hell out of me. But I don't think he beats, like, who did, who just fond? Like, I don't think he beats Jacob Malcun right now. Jacob Malcun is a really good wrestler and grappler.

And I think he's one of those guys that's going to be like, like, no one's going to want to fight him. Because he's not in the top 15 and his fights are going to be boring. I don't think Walking Buckley even beats him right now. I don't think so, but Buckley isn't proving, so I wouldn't be shocked. Yeah, and that's why I'm still excited about the walking Buckley, I guess. Yeah. You do Buckley Brennan Allen. That's not a bad idea, either.

No, Brennan Allen wants to fight Fluffy Hernandez. He wants to rematch. And I like that fight. I'm all in on Buckley. Buckley Hawes is the, I love that fight. I like that fight too. Yeah, that's great fight. I'm super, I was super high on Phil Hawes.

and I think he's kind of hitting that potential that I saw in him and I think this is a great fight for both those gentlemen. Yeah, I don't know when I'm going to stop pinging against Phil Haas. I feel like if you go back and return Philhar's spot. You're on the other side of the Phil Hawes. And yet after every time he wins, I go like, I think I say, guys, next time I'm done, I go like, guys, I'm done being against Phil Haas. I've definitely said this before at least two other times,

and yet somehow I keep being against him and I don't know why. All right. Phil Haas was so agitated when he fought in New York. York. It just caught me off guard. It was such an agitated individual he was. Listen, he's got a little attitude. Like I said, he was agitated with DC. I mean, he just had a big win. And suddenly his focus was suddenly on starting some weird little beef with, with Corby. Like, you know, but I get that. I mean, he got chip. He got a chip. And I think in the post-fi interview, I think backstage, I think he's, I think from where I read the line,

he was like, sorry, I was just a little hyped up in DC. I thought DC was really good at bringing him down. Oh, yeah. DC understood the situation. He didn't take it personal. Well, he took a little personal, but he was a professional. He's like, hey, man, you know. Well, first he had to kind of meet Forst with Forrest saying like, hey, buddy, relax.

Like, I don't know why you're talking about. I don't know why you're coming out. He doesn't pick fights. I don't pick fights. Yeah. Like, he's like, you didn't beat me. So I don't know what you're coming on. So he kind of, like, confronted Forrest with Forrest first, which like immediately kind of

stopped Phil Haas in his tracks. And then he kind of talked him down. And then the post-fight interview was like just normal. It was like a normal. You couldn't tell because I know you guys didn't get that in ESPN Plus, right? You didn't see that dispute, right? No. Yeah.

And anyone who didn't see it wouldn't have known. They wouldn't have known they were like kind of in each other's faces and arguing like two minutes before the, that it's 30 seconds before the interview took place. DC in general, I will say, I've been so critical at Cormierre. I thought him and Cruz were a really good combination today. Him and Fitzgerald, of course. Fitzgerald did a great job running the show as he always does, but did a really good job with these two. Do Corby and Cruz normally not? Like, is this?

Not rarely. Yeah. We haven't seen this combination a while. I feel like they work really well together. I don't know why. I think there was just a respect there. I like it a lot. It's because we've all interacted with Dominic Cruz.

And Dominic Cruz, when he's in the room, is without a doubt in his mind, the smartest man in the room. But he doesn't have two championships and doesn't have an Olympic wrestling captain. Like, you know,

so I, as much like Slack as I give Dominic Cruz, he understands when there. He fully recognizes. when there's someone with more accolades than him. So I think that's what we saw today. There was one point where Cruz threw to him, like he was Fitzgerald.

Like he threw to him like, he's like, what happened there, D.C.? You want to break that down for us? And I don't know if I've ever seen Cruz do that before. And like I was at, Cruz, like I always say like as a broadcaster isn't great,

but as an analyst is outstanding. And Corme is also a great analyst, but sometimes when he's with his frat boy, you know, brother Joe Rogan, it brings out the worse than him. But somehow they kind of like hit that right balance of like they weren't,

They were still being like, you know, putting on an end-changing broadcast. But they weren't, yeah, but also bringing down. But not trying too hard. Yeah, not trying too hard. You didn't feel like they were just putting on broadcaster voice to, you know, just for the sake of doing it. This was like one of the best broadcasts I've listened to in a while. I mean, it was a great car too, which helps, but it was a very easy listen. It was interesting because I love John Anick, but a lot of what John Anick talks about is like the backstores of these fights.

And like what happens leading up to this fight, you know? Like, he's like this, he's setting the scene. And Mr. Ariel does that. but he doesn't do it nearly as much as Daniel Cormier. And Daniel Cormier clearly doesn't know a lot of these fighters' backstories. And Dominic Cruz doesn't know a lot of these fighters' backstories. And I actually spoke with Laura Sanko. Actually, she did the road to the UFC because it was her and John Gooden that did Road to the UFC.

And they didn't know nothing about any of the backstories from any of the fighters in the road to the UFC. So all they could do was talk about what was happening in front of them. And it was great. And it was the best commentary I heard a long time. And I think that's part of what we heard this week, heard tonight too. Because we don't know nothing about these few people. So we're just going to talk about what we can see in front of us.

Yeah, it was a good combination. Fitz set the table very nicely. DC, yeah, I agree with that. I thought DC actually dug in pretty well to this card. It seemed like the fighter meetings, he probably asked the right questions because he probably had to take lead in a lot of ways. Because Fitz is not really that guy. although Fitz is a tremendous interviewer and things like that. But it was just a great combination because Fitz has like that Massachusetts wits,

but it's always kind of hidden. It's there. And DC's just full of bubble and personality and he's funny. And then Dominic Cruz is just not funny at all. And it just, but he's still very smart and intelligent and it all worked out nicely. Like when Cruz tries to be funny with like sometimes like him and Felder and him and Rogan will just like kind of joke or.

around and it's like felt you never know if cruz is actually like joking or if he's really serious we didn't hear any of that tonight it was just him talking about fights dc talking about fights brenn fitzgerald talking about barbecue is a vegetarian pissing off dc i mean we had some nice moments when there weren't fights going on it was a great broadcast it was it was i saw someone on twitter say that there was so much time they had to kill that they just used all their material on the commercial breaks and then they were just like what do we talk about now so they just had to talk I love the fights. My favorite part of the whole broadcast was after the beginning of the third round and the main event, this is DC being funny.

DC goes, man, some people are saying it's 2-0-M-It. Some people are saying it's 2-0-Cater. And he goes, or it could be 1-1. You know, covering all the bases. That's just good journalism. That's just good journalism. God, that's the best. Wow.

That's true. Facts only. Facts only. Facts only. Get true. Happ of this. Big a surprise regard. I think we just answered it

before we went into the piece. I think it's got to be Natalia Silver, right? She's got to be. But if someone not making their debut, though, what about if someone not making their debut? I'll say mine. The fight I was most off on.

Kevin Holland. I know a lot of people too behind Kevin Holland. I think Kevin Holland's very entertaining fighter. I thought Tim Means was going to beat him up tonight. And I was wrong. But I always say this. I love being wrong. I love being wrong. And Kevin Holland impressed the heck

out of me. You can tell it even Tim Means was impressed with the way he got his ass kick tonight. He was like, wow, that was good job, Mr. Holland. And I really enjoyed that sportsmanship in the cage tonight. And Kevin Holland is a legit dude. He's a

legit top 15 Walterway. How high he'll go up the ladder? I do not know. But he is a very good fighter. And that was my personal biggest surprise on the card. That's one of those great fights in moments so that you show to people who don't watch MMA or have a misconception of what MMA is.

Because you got an exciting fight. You got the mixing of the martial arts. And you also got, like you said, some post-fight class sportsmanship camaraderie that would really surprise people. Yeah, it was nice. Jose, what was your biggest surprise? Or who was your biggest surprise?

I'm going to take it a different way in the sense that I can't believe there's only been I am surprised that there's only in the history of the UFC there's only five spinning back elbow knockouts in Ricardo and Hamas now has two of them so I can't believe it worked again so I'm surprised not only did he do it he did it again so that's what I'm both surprised at there's all because every like I was looking at this middle of a bunch of spinning back back fist like people have gotten hurt but spinning back elbow and It's been who is, it's, it's, it's been Yeri. It's been Ricardo Hamos is two. Yeah, yeah. It's been Molly McCann. Did that count? Yeah, yeah. I don't know what that was.

I'm not sure that's, yeah, I don't know. I don't think they counted is that. Okay, that's one of one. That's one of one. That's one of one. Yeah. And then the, and then the Dongyang came knocked out. Was it John Hathaway back in the day?

Yeah. Like, that's it. There's been five. And Ricardo Hamos is two of them. So I'm, I'm surprised that his opponent wasn't like, well, he did this. once let's not have this happen again and then it happened again it was a beautiful setup too and he did not know he did not know what he didn't see it coming and didn't know what happened after he was so

out of it to the point where he was like early stoppage yeah he said early stop he had no idea me in new york rick were doing the social media on the site and i think the ufc photographers are fantastic gettie was super slow today and they were really good all night except that fight. They did it. All the shots they got were just a full bat like just Hamos's back. Nothing else. They got none of the spinning back. Nothing. I'll show you guys. I'll show you guys after because they don't have them on file. But like me and Eric were like, oh man, if he was like three feet to the right or three feet to the left, we would have gotten it. When you were watching it live, did you even realize what you saw? I thought I couldn't even, because I was kind of watching. No. Like it kind of came out of

nowhere. I was like, did he just, I didn't even know what it was when it initially happened, much like the year knockout of yeah yeah you were just kind of confused at first until the replay I think the photographer photographers were too they did they just

probably just weren't even taking photos that time now they're just whatever now whenever Ricardo Hamo's flights you just could be like the whole time yeah if you're yeah you have to you have to aka who is your biggest surprise oh I've definitely Jeremiah Wells

not that he won I picked him to win oh yeah but that was my not that I gamble but when I did the no bets barred podcast earlier this week with with Jedmush my law. I'm like my un solicited. He didn't even ask for it. I said, let me give you my lock of the week as someone who never gambles. I said, this fight's going to a decision. I'm like,

court McGee fights go to a decision. That's what court McGee does. They go to, he goes decision. Look at that he'd lose. I think Jeremy Wells is really good. But I did not see him taking a one shot bomb right to the jaw, just flattening him. We just don't see that. It's the second time he's ever been knocked out in his career. I mean, this guy gets into like pretty decent like stand-up fights with hard hitters. But Jeremiah Wells is the real deal. This is 3-0 now in the UFC, three finishes. Knocked out Worley Alvese, which at the time was

kind of like, oh, you know, maybe just a short notice fluke type situation. Man, I don't think it is. I think this guy's legit. So that was impressive. Just again, no one cracks Cort McGee like that. This is 20th UFC fight. I'm only the second time he's been knocked out. So that was really shocked me.

I feel bad for court considering he's like the only fighter from Utah, like one of the only players of Utah on the card. And there's no been on there. He's fighting in Utah now. Should have been on there. Bobby Maximus, come on. Yeah.

Virtual high five, AK. I went the exact same route. It's Jeremiah Wells for that exact reason you just said. I picked Jeremiah to win the fight, but I didn't think it was going to go on like that. So good on him. It was a high-level combo, too. It was a one-two, and then he did a switch. And instead of coming with a hook, the hook came from the, it became a rear hook.

And it was just a great shot. And I think I saw someone notice, too. It was one of those shots to, or Cort McGee, you know, they always say like the worst knockouts, the ones you don't even see. Cort McGee saw the punch the whole time coming right at him. He was just like, can't stop this and just out cold. So, yeah, high level technical knockouts tonight. Super, super fun.

All right, we'll take one more. Oh, one more, one more. One more. One more. You're the best one. While Casey looks, let me just say, sorry, well, oh, you know, I just want to say that this may have surpassed my gymnastics score. I don't remember what it was.

I think I said like 8.5 or 8.6, like maximum or something. 8.6, yeah. Yeah, and I was like, it might, no, I think it hit it. I think it hit it. But I will say, though, I mean, if you want to make an argument that it surpassed it and was like a 9, 9.5, close to a 10, I don't blame you because this card on the previous show, I was way off on predicting like, I thought because it was great. Because the matchups on paper were really competitive.

And normally I say, you know, when you have competitive matchups, you don't always get finishes. But this event, I feel like we saw who these fighters really were, like in the most positive way. And I still think the matches on people were really good. It's just that the winners, man, had like performances you just hadn't seen from them before. Cody Stamen got his first UFC finish. Roman Deleite's say that knee was amazing. That knee in the clinch was against the fence was effing awesome.

I've never seen Roman Delete's Toteau anything like that. J.M.R. Wells, knocking out of court McGee, Natalia, coming out of nowhere and just schooling Jasmine Jezavisius. Even Adrian Yanez, like, we all expected a knockout, but for him to deliver so emphatically, it was just, like, amazing. So, yeah, it's rare you see a card that has so many matchups that are, they're clearly not mismatches. I think a lot of them were 50, 50, 60, 40 matchups.

And yet you got this amazing emphatic finish. So, yeah, great job on the matchmakers and especially the fighters, and I'm glad they're all getting bonused up. Let's make that a normal thing. Finishes be worth $50,000 or more. Come on. Normalized finishing bonuses. Yeah.

Yes. and I'm sure the UFC gives a big thank you to the PFL because they kind of set the bar very, very low for the weekend and the UFC just took a rocket ship right past them. I'm sorry, they're going to keep, you're going to keep getting it on this channel until you fix the pacing of these cards because I'm not spending nine hours on a Friday night

watching PFL. I'm not doing it. I'm just not going to do it. So get better with the pacing. We'll have some better things to say. is Lozahn versus Cowboy Curse. Now, if you guys missed this, and I don't know if you have seen this or not, but the fight was off.

Lozan tells the story about how he locked his knee up, putting socks on, and then he said, normally this is something that he could just stretch out, and it pops back into place. It's a normal thing. This happens to him all the time. Day and a half, nothing happens.

He can't walk, can't put any weight on it. He's in a wheelchair, getting wheeled around. He has to jump on his coach's back. to get from place to place, just really bad. So somebody sends him a YouTube video or some sort of video that he watched that was like, hey, I do this and I do these exercises. And when my knee locks up, I do this and it automatically comes back into place. And guess what Joe Lozun does?

Takes this fan's advice. Watches the video. Knee pops back into place. Dude can walk. He can hop up and down on it. He can run. He can move around. round and if that happened the day before, he would have fought tonight against Donald Serroney.

So insane. He just can't believe it. It's actually funny at this point what Joe Lozun is going through. And this is crazy. Dana White said at the press conference that he's not going to rebook the fight. So I don't know. I think they're going to try. But both guys are going to fight again.

So just, I mean, what's the rush? I mean, none of these guys are fighting six times this year. Like just, what's the rush? Like, we're not using, come on. Just poke them again. Who cares? I would like to, I would like to UFC to book it at an agreed catch weight. Let these guys cut like to 160 maybe.

We know they're lightweights, but don't make them give it. There's no reason for them to both cut to 155. Just, they've both done it two times now just for fun. Just, you know, fight again, 165. We'll pretend it's 55 and just move on. So we don't have to worry about any bad tacos or, you know, we're dehydrated and or anything. But I want to put this last very positive comment up before we head out.

This is why I love fight nights from Tyrone Israel. You discover new fighters that have potential to become big fighters in the future. Listen, I feel like we are as positive about these fight night cards as anybody can be, right? We try to find, if there's a bad main event, at least on paper, compared to others, and the card is just with a bunch of newcomers and maybe like one or two fight vets. I think we try to do our best to highlight those fights, try to find the positives in a card that a lot of people

just aren't like rushing out to make sure that they're home for to watch because we have to fill these nights, we have to fill these slots. It's mandated. We got to do it. The UFC sometimes just cobbles these cards together and we get what we get.

And sometimes people think you're negative, by saying this is not the greatest card of all time and things of that nature. And I think it's fair to judge cards from time to time like that. However, when we have a card like this with a crowd, you're out of the damn apex, it's not looking like an episode of WWRWA. It's difference.

The crowd's into it. You have the Adrianianna's moment. You have the Kevin Holland moment. You have all these cool things that happened throughout the card. It's just so much better. And this card delivered all of that. Tyrone's completely right because we had fighters, we had questions about provide answers, and we had fighters we didn't even know about it all come out and become big, like bigger stars

in the end of it. At least their stocks rise tremendously. This was an A to an A plus card for sure for everybody involved, the fighters, the fans, the people watching at home, everybody covering it. Like, we're all into it. We're all juiced up and jazzed up about it. This thing delivered in spades. love this comment Tyrone, aka your final thoughts on this event.

Yeah, it's kind of like what you said. Listen, we've been bigging up this card for a while. I mean, as much as you can in our business when we're covering, you know, cards every week. No, hey, excuse me, and this card, whatever, underperforms, ratings wise, buzz wise, no one's talking about mainstream, whatever. Don't point the finger at us because we were saying this card looks awesome. It looks better than a pay-per-view, or at least the most recent pay-per-view we saw. It has kind of like for the reasons that Taran pointed out in the comments, like you got new names, you had people stepping up in big situations.

I mean, this was UFC London-esque. I mean, U.S.C. London was like the default answer, I think. By the end of the year, we were all saying, what, you know, what was the best fight night card of the year? It felt like, well, nothing's going to top U.S. London. I'm going to have to go back and look at that card and maybe rewatch some of those fights. This was right up there. This didn't have, now, this didn't have that awesome ending you got with Tom Aspinall taking out like a perennial heavyweight contender so that, you know, might put that over the top for some people. and maybe the crowd was a little bit more,

just a little bit more at like louder, I guess, in London. This crowd was pretty darn good too. Maybe they boot some stuff they shouldn't have. Maybe they were, I don't know, maybe they weren't 100% into every fight. But again, this is a 13 fight card. I thought the Texas crowd did a great job being into it.

So yeah, I'm going to have to look at these, stack these two cards up by the end of the year because this was outstanding stuff. And one of those nights where we're just, it was a pleasure, a pleasure to cover. And right now, guys, it's not like two in the morning Eastern time. So it's all good.

It's nothing with positivity. And Jose, I mean, I'll let you wrap, Casey, but Jose, think about this. As a fan of the high-level martial arts competitions, you go from UFC 275 to this card. And then next week, Jose, next week, our worlds will collide a little bit because the man you are so high on is fighting the guy that I am so high on. Matush Gamrod versus Armand Sarukion. I mean, talk about high-level martial arts competition. And then into International Fight Week, Jose, this is like, this is like MMA watching heaven for you right now, is it not? Yeah, it really is because lightweight is the best division in MMA.

Mattas Damrock is so good. And Armored Surukian is so good. And if they were in featherweight or Bannam weight or welterweight, they'd probably be top six. but they're like naughty are they even top 10 like if one of them is top 10 they're like number nine maybe like if you want to tell me arm's ruqa versus mataj gamra is fighting for is a title fight in 2024 i'm gonna be like yeah obviously they just happen to be fighting you know two years early on for five rounds so sign me up for just that fight and i'm in and then obviously international fight week that like Robbie lawler might be like on the early prelim so like

Come on. That just tells you how good that fight card is going to be. So, yeah, a lot of people in the MMA world like to, you know, poke fun at the UFC. And for whatever reason, they try to say certain fights are better in Bellator, K or KSW and all the stuff. But like that's silly most of the times because, you know, the UFC for as weird of main events as they do, for Alexander Volkov versus Jarzino at Rosenstreet, they give us five rounds of Mattage Gamorot versus Armand Syrucian. And if I get that, I will sit through 10 straight. subpar heavyweight main events

if I can get this because then guess what happens later that month we get Brian Ortega versus the IA Rodriguez that fight card is that fight's got to be bananas too so like sign me up for all the bad MMA heavyweight fights in the main event if this is what it leads to at least once or twice a year

love this fight Casey take us home buddy okay no just it's a joy watching fights sometimes tonight and tonight was one of those this afternoon it was one of those days Yeah, just like I said, like I love being wrong. I love being so off on Kevin Holland.

I love seeing the improvements of Joaquin Buckley. I was bummed out about a couple of decisions. You know, there were three actual decisions in this card I did not agree with. But the card was awesome. Great job UFC making this fight making this card happen. And great job giving more money to these fighters, more bonuses. This is awesome. I feel like a lot of the fans and the media have maybe.

be putting more pressure on the UFC. Hopefully that's why they're doing this because the UFC can have done their regular, you know, whatever. You get, you know, four forance bonuses, but they gave up more money. This is a good thing. Fighters deserve more money, especially these fighters. So it's going to be fun. And the next few weeks of our MMA Saturdays are going to be awesome.

Very excited. Yes, we have a very busy week next week because we have PFL. Elitore, BKFC, and BKFC, which is actually a pretty solid card too. Yes. And then UFC Vegas, whatever the hell it's going to be. UFC Awesome is what we're going to call it because it's Gamrod v. Surukion. And that fight is just going to be awesome. I cannot wait for it.

The countdown is on. It's on to UFC Awesome, everybody. A.K., I will see you tomorrow for another episode of On to the next one, which will be available in the NBA fight. podcasting network before noon Eastern time. But until then, my friends, for A.K., for Casey, for Jose,

I am Mike Keck. Thank you for watching. Hope you enjoyed the fights as much as we did. Good night, everybody. Golf sucks. Watch fighting. It's not true, then. Golf does not suck. It's okay. 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.