MMA Fighting - UFC Belgrade post show: Reaction to Uros Medic’s Star-Making Knockout Over Daniel Rodriguez

Episode Date: August 1, 2026

Uros Medic just got made. On Saturday, the UFC made its debut in Serbia with UFC Belgrade, headlined by a top 15 welterweight showdown between Medic and Daniel Rodriguez. And in just 30 seconds, Medic sparked out Rodriguez, sending the crowd into an uproar and announcing himself as a bona fide star. Following Saturday’s big event at Belgrade Arena, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Jed Meshew react to Medic’s star-making performance over Rodriguez. Additionally, Mike and Jed discuss Navajo Stirling’s knockout win over Jan Blachowicz and what it means for the light heavyweight division, chat about the record-breaking number of finishes on the card, dive into PFL New York and the MVP merger, answer viewer questions, and much more. Watch the UFC Belgrade post-fight show above, or an audio-only version of the show can also be streamed below and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your pods. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@m_heckjr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@JedKMeshew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's O-D-O-O-O-O-D-COM. Hello there, everybody. Maybe I should unmute myself like a friggin professional, but here we are, everybody. Those are the victory horns. They sound for Euros Medich. And it kind of sounds for the whole... Belgrade Serbia crowd because they were on fire.

They were awesome. We broke all sorts of finish records tonight. Most first round finishes, I believe it was the most finishes ever on a UFC card. 12 out of 14 fights. And you know what? It was a good time. This is what we said it would be.

There were a whole bunch of squash matches here. And almost every single one of them went exactly the way we thought it was going to go. And yeah. Not a bad way to spend your Saturday morning slash afternoon. But I am Mike Heck. Welcome to the UFC Belgrade post-fight show. And joining me is the one and only Mr. No Gray area himself, Mr. PFL himself, the one and only Jed Mishu.

Jed, how we doing? How we feeling? Good. Mike, don't feel bad about being muted a couple weeks back when I ran solo. I think the week you were at R.F and I had to do a solo show. I was silent for like four minutes before I checked the comments and they were like, I wonder if Jed's ever going to figure out that he's, we can't hear him. And yeah, it's really tough scenes.

So it happens. Good man, it is 345. The fights are over and the fights were fun with these fights super meaningful. Mostly not. But that main event, I think ended up being meaningful. Great. And incredibly fun day at the office. There's really only one bad fight.

We had two decisions on the card. And one of those was like, if they gave that fight of the night, I think like nobody would be upset about that. Right. Like that was a very fun fight. Yep. And then there was one bad moment on the card,

realistically. And everything else was, even if it was a lot of squash matches and we knew them, there were some upsets that happened. You know, like some Matushabeshki was a really big favorite. and lost, or not Rebecca Kline, sorry. Like, these are, this was a really fun event.

I know that they go where they get paid, right? Like, that's what the UFC does. I suspect Serbia, Belgrade, would pay them to come back anyway, but you got to imagine after an event like this, certainly if this were the old days where it wasn't purely who's paying us a site fee, they would be like, we're putting Serbia, maybe not on like a full rotational list like you do Canada and London, etc.

But like, hey, we're definitely going to be back here within the next couple of years. And the crowd was on fire. We got some soccer hooliganism in the stands with flares. Great time. Great, early morning. Great early morning indeed.

I think I'm trying to see. Upset wise, Gilbert Urbina was obviously a big upset. Yeah. Tofiq, besides. I can't believe it. I'm stunned. He was that big of an underdog.

But yeah, great win for Tafik Masek. Rebetsky was a huge favorite. Malosevic was a huge favorite. This was, I mean, look, this was outside of, I'm trying to just look at the betting lines right now.

Janice Gugnan was like close to even money. Valentin Todorovich was close to even money. And everything else was like at least two to one or worse. And most of them were like five to six to one. And this is, it's okay to do this. It is actually like better to do this. We like this every once in a while.

Like Apex cards should all be match made like this. Where it should- Pax cards should for sure all be matched made like this. Yeah, it should all be minus 700 favorites just running over people. Like all these events should have like 10-12 finishes because they're squashy-squash matches. And then you have a main event that matters.

But let's talk about Euros Mettich in particular because we're talking about this, A.K. and I in the preview show, and Lazybed threw out, like, an incredible quote was just like, it's funny that we have to throw out the, but he was in prison clause when talking about this fight, when breaking it down. And obviously, that has to play a factor here because you can't really train. And it's not like you're taking a year off to, like, rehab and recover from injury. You're in a T1 of prison using gallon milk jugs as fodder for heavy bags while Eurosbetich is training at King's MMA with

B'Neil Darius and everybody, like, you're going to have a huge advantage there. But this fight was over the second Medich landed a punch. Like, this thing was over immediately. Medich got the heroes welcome. The fans were singing the song. You could tell he was soaking in the moment. And then

he delivered the goods. And let me tell you my favorite part of the entire card, Jed. It wasn't the crowd. It wasn't certain finishes. It was Medich knocking to rod down and then doing like a Superman soccer kick right to his rib cage before he went for the ground and pound.

But this was a star making performance. This was a plus matchmaking if your plan was to get Eurosmanich over. And it seemed like that's exactly what they were trying to do here. Sealing on this guy, especially after watching this performance. Did you learn a whole bunch here? They didn't learn a whole bunch. But that's not necessarily important, right? Like I this wasn't a learning experience.

It was not the purpose of this fight in general. The purpose was Serbia paid them to come. Erz Medich is you know like it they've got Medich and Rockets are like the two D2 Serbian stalwarts that have been historically top rank guys in their various weight classes. You give them an opportunity at home. They both delivered. But like you know, it's Daniel Rodriguez. We weren't going to learn too much if he beat Danny Rodriguez.

guys if he lost to him, we'd learn in a negative way. But it's not about learning. It's about becoming. And tonight, Eros Medich became something else. Now, I don't know that he became a title challenger, right? Like, I still think he probably won't ever fight for a belt. But he became a star today. And maybe not, you know, not like a Connor McGregor star or whatever, but like Eros Medich,

since coming on Off Contender series has just been a fun action guy. Like that's it. And there's nothing wrong with that. We love guys like that, obviously. You know, never been to the judges, and that's great. And then it's like, he beat Jeff Neal like, oh, I guess he's at least decent because Jeff Neal has historically been a top 15

Walterweight. But then still, it's maybe Jeff Neal's old. I don't know. Nobody has really ever considered Euros Medich as a dark horse in this weight class. because both the performances, while fun and exciting, they just haven't screamed like, that guy's the best in the world or whatever.

And then he just hasn't, he hadn't had the juice. That's not the case anymore. Like tonight on the biggest platform that he's ever had, the biggest moment of his career by far, right, headlining an event in his home country that he hasn't stepped foot in in almost a decade, he pitched a perfect game.

I mean, just he dunked the ball, through the hoop and into the core of the earth. Like, spiked it all the way down. It was a perfect performance, 30 seconds, got the crowd outrageously lit. They're chanting Eros Medich. You know, they're chanting his name, nails his post-fight speech. Like, again, this isn't the type of performance that everyone's going to wake up and know his name. But if you're an MMA fan, you now know who Oros Medich is.

You don't have to be like, is that that guy or whatever? You don't have to be like, oh, I kind of think I know him. Or yeah, he's sort of fun. It's like, oh, no, I know who that guy is. And that is invaluable as he tries to make a run. You know, that's what he said in his post fight. I don't think that that's really what's going to happen here. But crazier things have happened.

And certainly he elevated himself from, you know, fun also ran who hardcore fans will see on a card and be like, yeah man that's going to be tight to casual fans might now know to look out when this guy's throwing down yeah he did he did a lot this week and i know like not everybody cares about like traffic and metrics and things of that nature but uh euros medich's hot takes about daniel rodriguez going to jail and ian machado gary's thoughts about women ruling the world um euros medich if we're talking about like fighters competing this week and this includes dakota ditchva and Usman Ramaga made off more people cared about what Euros Medich had to say than any of the other

fighters this week any of them and I was like kind of eye opened by that I was like oh okay this is kind of interesting and like Drod got a little bit you know based on his story as well but people were all about what Medich had to say he was hot taking galore dude's got a personality he's fun to listen to not not just fun to watch fight and he's very fun to watch fight you got to give him Leon Edwards next like this is you just got to feed this man, you got to feed Leon to him. This is who Leon is. And this is like really the only fight that makes sense.

Like I have no interest in him fighting Michael Venom Page. I have no, I mean, Mike Watts, Mike Lott's fighting walking. Mlott's fighting Buckley, but like this fight does nothing for Mlott. Like I think that it's just sort of burst right past Malat right now in terms of like, oh, okay, this is fun. This is exciting. You got to give him a Leon, right? Or a Balal. But I feel like Leon's perfect.

I feel like he just annihilates Leon and there you go. And then we could just keep cooking with gas. And any time the UFC goes to this area, he's just on the card. Like he is a he's a main eventor now. He's not a pay-per-view main inventor, but he is a fight night made event fighter now after tonight. I think everything you're saying is logically correct. I think that there's almost no wrong way to eat this Reese is, right?

Like he's just super fun and welterweight's hot right now. You know, he threw out the far flung, you know, like it was his reach school. Like, yeah, I applied to Harvard, but I'm not going to get into it. But like, I'd love to fight Carlos Proustice. And I got to tell you, that fight tickles me to think about that. I'm kind of like, okay. Well, like, I think that he is in the band of that we've got four former champions and it should be one of those guys. Right.

like it should be oosman leon ballol jdm like um all of them basically do the same thing for him realistically right like he gets a champion on his name that really gives him a bona fide as like i'm actually a title contender here not just some fun anomaly um leon maybe makes the most sense in general just because like leon's got to fight somebody i would assume at some point uh but like any of those four I would I think would make all the sense in the world and it's eros medich so they will be fun yeah yeah Edwards blal who's been a fighting that dude who's been yeah no chance absolutely no chance I mean JDM's not a bad shout if they go back to like Australia or something like that but yeah this is this is big and Drod watch that dude fight michael morales too hell yeah that i mean

Michael Morales should be fighting Carlos Pratchez, but if that doesn't happen. I mean, I think we know that's not happening. Yeah. Because he'll just have to fight protest to determine which of them gets to fight for the belt. But I'll watch that dude fight anybody. So, yeah, it doesn't really, anybody above him in the rankings, I have honestly, like, don't move him one step up, right? I don't know what he's ranked now or what he will be ranked after this. but like you know he's probably 13 i think now or 14 is what he was tonight uh what is he he was

14 in the meta rankings or meta rankings yeah and drod can't be above him so like he's not going to move in the rankings for the ufc i guess in the meta rankings he'll move because they prioritize finishes and he's 14th and both yeah he'll probably elevate the meta rankings because he got a 30 second finish and the way they do that is apparently to prioritize those sorts of things but like man's not young either so yeah see what you've got with him don't don't put him against you know a guy one step up like let him take a jump into that top seven kind of contender zone and you know if it has to be gabriel bonfim fine okay that's fine that's probably not like as good for his career as any of the former champions but like hell yeah i'll watch the shit

at him fight gabriel bonfeme i want like make let him fight again this year though like get him back in there 30 seconds. Shit, if that man can fight in like two months because he didn't do anything tonight, basically, that would be better. We say it all the time, Mike. The way you build stars is frequency. He's coming off a big, fast, awesome win.

Get him back in there as quick as you can. For instance, I don't know if we want to segue, but I'm going to. Please. Like what happened in the co-main event of the evening, Mike. You took a guy coming off a good win. six weeks, not even six weeks later.

What is it like, is it five weeks later? How many of you? Less than two months later, knocks out a former champion. You sure did. Now we got a real, now we got in a weight class. Just last week we were saying is the worst weight class because it still is. You got a guy with juice now.

He won't fight the champion. So that's a whole separate issue. But you got a guy with juice now. I got to tell you, he, this was, I was feeling real good about him and having an A plus day.

Because I, like, this was the one I was like, all right, Navajo's like, he's really good. Wasn't really sold on him. Thought he had some talent. Obviously, could fight for a belt. But I was just like, all right. And there is a part of tonight where I will say, Jan looked a billion. And John Anik actually uttering the words into a live microphone. Jan Behovic told us during the fighter meeting that he can't lift weights anymore because he gets in too much pain.

I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? He can't lift weights because he gets hurt. Oh, no, that's not good side. I was doing the live blog and I, like, you can go back and check it and I was like, Annick said something about, uh-oh, maybe I misheard. I was like, I must have just missed something where it's like, oh, he, he like tweaked a wrist or something. Not like he's just old and doesn't like lifting weights hurts the old man. And it's, but I was like, I just assumed I had to have misheard it because that's an insane thing to say before

a guy gets in a fist fight. Yeah. And then Navajo just decked him with the right hand, shoved him to the ground, hit him with that elbow across the face. And it was just kind of like one of those. All right, this dude's real good. But then there's the, there's the sad part of things of like, man, Jan should probably just not be doing this anymore.

Like, I know it's hard to look good against them. But 43, 44, like, I think we've gone out there and done that. So I wish he called him Agamahem and Ankelaif. Like, even if you. you don't get that fight. Like that is that is 100% the call. Be like, hey, you put me to sleep last week. I just came in here and saved the division. Just knocked out a four-by champion. A guy you barely, you got a guy you fought to a draw with. I nuked him in a round. Let's see how good you really are. Let's go. Didn't do that. He called a Cleo Roundtree, which is fine. He'll beat Cleo

Roundtree. But, um, and then he called up Paul Costa. He has zero chance of fighting Paula Costa. So don't love this. Don't love this at all. And I want to throw this up there because I wanted to respond to you on Twitter. She loves the gloves. He didn't want to give him the ranks too quickly. He's already up there. He's there.

If the UFC had an option, there are no rankings at 205. Yeah. There are, every fighter is two wins away from challenging for the belt. There is a world. Bad ass weight class. Yes. If the UFC was like, man,

Carl Solberg has to fight next month. we have to offer this fight to either Ancolaev or Navajo Sterling first. Even though their teammates, they're giving the fight to Navajo Sterling right now over Magavad Ancolaev. Like just without question, they're just, they're offering it to giving it to Navajo Sterling. Navajo will say no,

because he's not fighting his teammate, and this will turn into a Mara Abajo thing all over again. But he is in the UFC's eyes, they're probably just going to give, give it to him. So I think Koss is the front runner right now. I think Koss is probably going to be. getting some sort of title shot.

I don't think it's completely fair, obviously, because merit should count for something. But they ain't given Maguette a title shot after his win last week. They might just offer something like that's a Navajo story. So what's Navajo to do? They offered him Navajo Sterling versus Paul O'Costa for an interim title fight. He's going to say no to that? I don't think so.

Probably not. Yeah. So like, but would Sterling say yes to it? I think he should. I think you'd be crazy not to. And then he could just, vacate and be like, I'll go to heavyweight or something, but, dude, there's money there.

It's a title fight. Go get that money. Yeah. I guess. Yeah, we're on the cusp of having the old Vanderlei Shogun issue of like, Shogun's actually probably better than Vandaleigh, but Vandale is a champ and Shogging won't fight him. It's like, yeah, they're like five good fighters at heavyweight, two of them train at CKB. So that's, yeah.

That's pretty tough. I guess the answer is like Ulberg defends the belt against you know and then goes up to heavyweight or whatever but like it is weird that like the only bright spot at light heavy weight right now

is all like has an active like albatross around him like yeah he's kind of fun and he just knocked out a former champion but he's not going to fight the current champions so don't get too excited about him guys it's still light heavyweight we have bonuses

uh Dana white's there and I'm going to guess I didn't see him sitting in the crowd is he doing a post presser he was there for the pre so I just assume he didn't leave before the event

because that would be silly in my mind I mean I guess possible but like I just assume he's there um I'm just going to assume they did the dumbest thing possible because like Mike tonight is a night when you say Dana White comes

grabs the microphone all right pulls out a sheet of paper all right the gate was 80 floppity trillion dollars the biggest event

in the history of this arena Serbian crowd was insane thank you Belgrade this many people 27 million people in attendance blah blah blah and then

post dresser now okay is he yeah and then it's then he just says so bonuses because this was record setting night with the most finishes in the history of you see card we decided eff it everybody you got to finish gets a performance bonus because this is the sort of event that like you dream about having I don't think they did that because I don't

think they want to pay 12 performance bonuses but that's what they should have done Dana is at the presser I will then I'll reveal the bonuses uh Dana said uh he was asked about signing Usman or Magamadoff. His answer was, sure. One word. Just classic Dana. The bonuses are Gilbert Urbina for his upset win, which I actually agree with, because there isn't a soul outside of Gilbert,

and I would say even half of his coaching staff didn't think he was going to win that fight, and he went out there and won. Euros Medich, obviously, gets one. Navajo Sterling gets one. And shout out to team heck member, Nina. Milosevic getting herself 100k getting the squad an extra 50 and she deserved it. Just absolutely wrecking somebody with body shots. And then just not going in for a kill, just being patient and just landing another ripper to the body.

Let's go. Congratulations to Nina Milosevic. No fight of that. I don't think I would have given one to Gilbert Rabina. But perfectly fine stoppage. It's not like a crime to give him one. but uh sepo is not good and like there was just a lot of other cool finishes on the i mean you probably can't give it to like barging grad because of the weirdness that happened there but uh no issues

milosov getting one i think i think i would have done it to messiah because i was like you could have also convinced me that michael leverer would deserve him but no harm no foul good work yes Give everyone a bonus. It's very silly. There are 12 finishes in this card. Give everyone a bonus. Yeah, the most ever. The most ever, the most first round finishes.

Give everyone a bonus. Yes. Alexander Rockich had a fight that actually transpired, but no one will ever watch again. But he defeated Marching Tibera. I was watching that. My eyeballs saw every second of that fight. And my brain registered zero.

seconds of that like i i had this moment where i was sitting there and i was like what just happened last round it was in the is in the second round it was like near the end of the second round and they're talking about um whatever like rackage is maybe fading a little and i was just like what happened in the first round and i've been staring at my laptop watching this fight the whole time I was like, I don't. It was the definite, like in my eyeballs and out my ears and no part of it caught traction in my brain. I get it, man. I absolutely get it.

It wasn't the worst fight of the weekend, but it was tough. It was tough. Yeah. It was very heavy weighty. It was extremely heavy weighty. Yeah, that was very tough. Very tough. Not much more coming from that day in a scrum.

like so. But again, good event. That fight was not fun. TK. Stan, you did not enjoy that fight. You're a liar. Yeah, you're a liar if you said you enjoy that fight. You didn't.

Robert Valentin, just go to Dorovich. Probably a loser leaves town match. And it was Robert Valentin, getting the first round gilly. Nicely done. Giblet Arbino with the big upset. Noah Gugnion, he should probably just get immediately back on the Paris card. Dude, it's real fun.

he's a really fun fighter he's a machine i watched some of his stuff coming in and i was like oh this kid actually seems like he's pretty talented like should be here yeah which is not all like these days if you you're getting signed to the uc is like yeah they signed jovan lecca or whatever was like okay who cares that's whatever but i was like actually milo zionnitch and no guinian like seem like they're pretty fun and okay and then gunnion sort of just wrecked shop so i'm excited to see what that support for this show comes from JustWorks. Small business owners love to roll up their sleeves and get things done. But that doesn't mean you should spend your Saturday night staring at tax and payroll forms,

especially when you should be strategizing your next move. That's why JustWorks handles the stuff you can't afford to get wrong. It's intuitive software plus real people, all working to help keep your eye on the big picture. So instead of stretching yourself thin, you can focus and shoot your small. business shot because you don't have to worry when it just works. Head to justworks.com to learn more. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu, it's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier,

CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, Odu replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odu for free at Odu.com. That's O'DOO.com. Let's see. Tofiw gets the nice finish.

He's looking real good in this division. A couple good finishes. Michael Alvara, I think, is a guy people are going to be paying very close attention to. Boroslav Nikolich, is he in the... family yet or does he is he we're working on the paperwork but like i so i wasn't on the preview show yesterday which i'm very sad about but i went and saw spider-man so i'm not sad about because that movie rocked um but earlier this week when i was doing like my prep for this event i that's when i discovered boroslav nikol which i never watched him fight before um but i went and found some videos

of him and then i was scrolling through his instagram and his nickname zombie zz z o m be and then you find out that he like owns an apiary and is a beekeeper which is a film that is near and dear to my heart and is just like as I was like scrolling through this man's Instagram and then I went and watch some of his like fights at octagon or wherever it was it's not octagon where was he I don't remember um I was like man this guy this guy is my kind of weirdo and I was like but I've really like vlogden in his UFC run has been a bit of my kind of my kind of weirdo and I was like but I've really like vlogged in his UFC run has been a bit of my kind of my kind of. kind of weirdo too just just wants to hit just wants to hit a guy doesn't really care that much about his defense but just tries to hit a man and i was like i think these two dudes i'm going to enjoy this immensely and then i did and uh neckel it's just the paperwork is pending but i i think he's my bantam weight uh family representative because he doesn't he just feel like a bantam weight rdr kind of doesn't it like yeah that's true Pretty good.

You really feel like R. He are a man, I'm white. It seems like he is emotionally in the family. He's a silly, a silly goose. He's a silly goose.

Apologies to TK. Stad. I mean you TK. I meant T. Cope. You were right above each other. The T. And the K sound kind of got me.

T. Cope said, stop being such haters about the rackets fight. You definitely didn't enjoy the fight. I'll be a hater for whatever. I'll be a hater. But let me tell you who else I'll be a hater for. I'm going to be a hater for Michael Bisping.

because in that fight the fight between Nicole and Trinblogden it starts out the sillish stuff you've ever seen Nicole just runs forward with his hands by his waist and it's jawed almost immediately and Biss being in Felder I actually thought they were mostly pretty good tonight on commentary I didn't really have any major issues with them

sometimes I do but like I thought that they were largely fine couple of quibbles they like really seemed to not even know what happened with the Sterling finish, which was weird. Like that whole reaction was odd. But the thing that actually I was like,

man, you guys just don't appreciate bozos is the issue. Because they're just sitting there like, Nicole Lynch needs to do, like, why be so tall if you're not going to use your jab? And like, I'd be throwing knees. It's like, no, don't ruin this. Don't dim this man's sparkle. Let him be a silly goose.

Like, it's way more fun than him pumping a jab. and like just being taller than Mark Vlogden, let him be a bozo. And so shame on both of you for not embracing the silliest aspects of this sport because my boy, Forrestov Nikolich, he does. Yes, that was a very fun fight. And I will agree with the commentary. First of all, when you put Bisbing with Felder and John Anick,

it's almost impossible for you to have a bad night. And I just won't let it happen. He will, he'll tee things up for you. And he let Bisbing shine on things that he needed to shine. Paul Felder was incredible. You can tell that he just puts all the time into stuff. His Michael Olivera breakdown before he stepped into the cage was amazing. I was just listening to him.

I was like, damn, what an incredible read that he had here. And like the way he just beat the shit out of Oban Elliott was exactly the way Paul described his fighting style, which led to my tweet being like, yeah, man, this guy gets it. You could tell he truly cares. He takes the time. He's meticulous in his studying for these cards.

He gives the fighters the respect they deserve. He is just super good at this stuff. But here's the thing. You need, and it just struck me like right then as you were talking. Like, here's what I want. And maybe it's not what they need. But like, when you've got Bispying and Cormier together, or not Biss being in Cormier, sorry,

when you've got Cormier and like Rogan together with Anick, that is a flawed booth because Cormier like, Anac is play by play. And Anick is always played by playing, always very good. Right. Like the problem is never John Anick, right?

But like, Rogan doesn't really know half the people at this stage and it's just sort of the vibes guy. And Cormier has turned into the vibes guy. And you need a guy like a super analytical, I've done all the homework Felder and then a vibes guy like just a guy to be like

yeah they're swinging on him out there and that'd be pretty fun but like this when Sterling floored Jan right like Felder hit in oh my God it's like oh my God Bisping was like in the middle of saying something and just barged through saying whatever he was saying like it was much more important

than I finished my thought than I recognized that Davos Sterling just landed the best punch of his career on a former champion. And Anna seemed caught off guard by what had happened there. And so it led to this like really weird thing. You need one guy to be Felder and you need one like you need, I want to see like put Felder and Rogan together, although Rogan's never the right answer really, but like just a guy who's not going to be telling me about the technical acumen or what they do as a fighter,

but just be like, bet you won't swing, you know? Give me that guy in the booth so we all bases get covered. Yes, well said. What an idea was? We also had Bogdan Grad getting a weird submission over Dennis Bazookja.

Was it a tap? Is it a tap? I don't have an issue with the stoppage. I understand it. I don't believe it was a tap. I actually don't fully believe it was either, but being in a referee's position like that, it looked like a tap.

Like it actually looked more, because I missed it, like, as it was happening live. And as I'm watching the replays, I'm like, okay, like, I get it. And then I watched sort of the live one of it. And I'm just like, oh, that doesn't look like a tap at all. Like, it was just a weird, it was weird how, like,

how I envisioned it. But I understand why the ref jumped in when he did, because it looked. You had to make a split second call. I think it is bad refereeing from Herzog, but it is bad refereeing that I understand. And, you know, I think if you asked Herzog, he would probably even be like, yeah, I kind of wish I could have that one back. Is it my stance on this and, you know, I'm the same person who always wants fighters to just take, like, let it go on a little longer. So we don't have any like there's no ambiguity about this.

But like my stance for. jokes especially as like dude he's not going to die you can let him tap more than like because he he jumped in on the second almost tap i think it was pretty clearly wasn't a tap on replay but in real time it look like it so like i get it but like just let him what harm is going to come if you let him hold that another second for to be certain of this you know as opposed to like i got to jump in there and save him right now i think he just got a little too uh eager and And that's sort of an understandable mistake, but I do think it's probably an error of a refereing. Yeah.

But I'll take that error over some of the other shitty refereeing we've seen this year. That is for certain. Matush Rebekchi gets the win over, I mean, not a real surprise. I think Rebetsky was a minus 1,000 favorite. Nina Milosevic getting a bonus, probably ending the UFC career of Haley Cowan in the process. She's very fun. I don't think she's got like, I don't think Nina is going to like win a title or anything, but she'll at least be very fun

for as long as her UFC career last. Jovin Leka with the nasty body kick to get the finish there. And then Stephanie Luciano getting things started with the quick sub. So 12 finishes on the card out of 14 fights, 13 of the fights were solid. One was bad.

And yeah, all in all, you can't really play. And even the bad one wasn't like the war. It wasn't one of the 10 worst fights of the year. It wasn't the worst part of the week. It was a heavyweight fight. It was just like, okay, that's a bad heavyweight fight. Nobody would care or think honestly would have thought about it whatsoever if it came in a different position.

But the feature bout is like kind of a pivotal swing stage of like a viewing experience, right? Because if you just think of the tempo, the whole prelims were fun. The main card lost a little bit of luster with just the crowd right before. that because Dusko Todorovich had just been cooked. And so the crowd is a little less into it now because their guy just got burnt. And then you get that fight. And the crowd was even still kind of into Rackich. And they did a call in response with Rackich.

And that part was cool. But like the feature bout is when you're supposed to be picking up this momentum heading into the big bouts. And instead, all the momentum that you had just got put behind a wall. and then Navajo Sterling brought it back up and so it was fine. But like, yeah, if that was on a prelim, nobody would care.

But like, yeah, it was a bad fight, whatever. Yeah, well said. All right, let's go to you guys. Erban, thank you, because super chatters get to the front of the line. Where does tonight's card rank is the most exciting of 2026 for the UFC? Top 10, top five, even higher perhaps,

has the record for the most finishes. Will this be on your event of the year list when it's all said? I mean, it's probably like in the mix right now because they broke new ground, right? Like, it's always cool when you go somewhere new, when it's the first event of a kind. And then the first event of a kind

that also becomes a historic event for several records that are broken. Yeah, like, this won't be the event of the year. The event of the year will be the White House card. Like, that's, we could pre-write that. We can write that right now and just hold it until December. You know, like, that's what that will be. but I mean it may well be in that sort of top five mix it's a lovely event given

the context before and after you never know what will happen next weekend but uh that's a tough card Mike I don't know if you've looked at old gamut Saul killed today but I just did throw it's a throwaway I just did because I'm not working that because that's my birthday and the greatest birthday gift to Alexander Kaley ever gave me was honoring my request to not work on my birthday. And so I'm going to miss that one. Maybe I'll miss the best card of the year. It's always possible. You never know. But it's been a, as far as interesting stuff happening, there's been, you know, we're coming off a real down event and this, this lifted the spirit. So yeah, really good. Yeah, I'm just kind of going back and looking. 324 is obviously very good. That'll be on the

list. 325 is awful. 326 ended really. poorly. London was awful. Seattle ruled. That's going to be on the list for sure. That was a great card. Boycato Duncan, like,

was fun, but no one cared because like none of those fights had any significance. 327 was very fun. 328 was pretty fun. I thought Perth was pretty fun. I thought Perth was very fun as well.

That was the Carlos Prochurch. just, you know, star making night. And obviously, like, 329 was a really good card up until the end. So, yeah, it's probably on the list. The end of 329 kills. Yeah, I think it's in the top five. Yeah, top five, six.

Certainly, it'll be on the list. And it's just super helpful because the last two events haven't been particularly good. And this next one isn't. And so this was a nice little lifeline in a stretch of pretty bad. Yeah. Ace, how do you think a fighter reconciles with going from being the hot prospect,

talking Oban to clearly being fed to the wolves. Wonder how that plays with the psyche. I think Obon Elliott is like a really interesting case because he won a fight against a guy like he was supposed to beat and then he had like a really good post-fight interview and he mentioned shit like,

I think he mentioned Shale Sunnan in his post-fight interview. And then he ended up on like the MMA hour and like it was like this. whole thing where he just got super over, just based on that post-fight interview. And they, I don't know, it's just, he became like sort of the hot prospect because he was getting all this attention. And then sort of his fight skill level came back down to earth. And now this is kind of the position he's in. So yeah, kind of an interesting case. It's hard to put ourselves in Obon Elliott's shoes, Jed. But yeah, what a, what a bizarre ride. It is.

been for this ban, which you'd probably have to say it's probably coming to an end after today, right? I would argue greatly that he was a hot prospect because he was never good. Well, perceptually, he was perceived that way, right? He had a gimmick, but he just wasn't good. And I don't think, also to answer, like, to specifically answer the question, I don't believe he is any understanding of what you've offered there like i i assume all fighters are crazy people i assume obanely it doesn't believe he's being fed to the wolves i think he's just like i've i've had a

bad run and lost three in a row but i'm still going to be world champion because that's like that is how they reconcile they just don't fighters live in the most states of denial you've ever seen right like the united states of denial that is a vast land of absolutely shutting the years and going blah, blah, blah, to the overwhelming evidence to like, yeah, you're not a championship caliber fighter or whatever. Then that's, that's not open. That's all fighters. So if you, if a fighter does reconcile with that, like, it happens very occasionally.

And that's when you get somebody who is like a very rare breed of like, yeah, man, I'm just trying to fight. Like, I don't know that, say, Kevin Holland has ever maybe had like a specific conversation internally or externally of like, I'll probably never win a belt. You know, like, I just, that's not, that's not the skill set I have. But I can be beloved and I can fight a lot and I can make money doing this the best way I can. And, you know, like Chris Lytle is like always my first thought of Chris Lytle at the end of like he, at the end of his career after losing tough, which honestly, I actually think he beat Matt Serra, but whatever. Like, he made these like, yeah, I'm never going to fight for a belt.

So I'm just going to go let it all hang out, get as many bonuses as I can, make as much money as I can. And, you know, and cash out my chips when I don't have anything left. And very occasionally you get a fighter who is able to, like, credibly look at that and be like, oh, yeah. But mostly they just would be like, nah, I'm one one away from getting back on a hot streak. it is how fighting works. Yeah. Joseph, UFC 331 is confirmed for LA finally.

Can they predict the main or co-main? I heard of rumors online and James Lynch did two videos. He thinks the main will be Charles Armand 2, five rounds, no title. This to me was the weirdest thing of the entire night because I thought, I haven't announced the event and not announce fights on it. Like, come on, man.

Like, we know some of the fights already. we have no main event. We have no title fight. And when I see the reports, trust me, let me tell you something. Have you seen any of those fights on MMAFighting.com? No, you have not. No, you haven't. That's the rule.

What's the rule? No, you haven't. Because they're not done. They're not done. They're not done. Say it. Either of them. Either of them are done.

Neither of them are done. Which is weird to be. Which is almost why I thought we might did it some sort of announcement and people being like, oh, okay, guess we're doing this. But yeah, I don't know what they're going to do. I truly don't know. And then you have, then you have to prepare for October with two pay-per-views,

although I think we know a couple of the fights that will be on some of those, especially in Abu Dhabi. And then like we go to MSG and then we have December, like, what are we doing here? What are we doing? I don't know. We still don't have a no-cha you made event yet. Like, we can guess based on reports, but like, they haven't even enough.

That's six weeks away. That's six weeks away. We don't have those announced yet. It's crazy, man. It's crazy. I would expect those fights that are being reported to be on the card, but to report those as done deals, signed sealed and delivered, not true. And that's all I can say.

But I would be surprised if those two fights weren't on there, but they're not done. Don't know what the holdup is. Just get the ball over the line. Like this seems to do it. It feels like this has been the case more and more of the last couple of years of like, we're five weeks out. We don't have them like, come on, just do this shit. You know what it is.

Like just finish the contracts. Like whatever the holdup is, just get it over the line. Be done with this. Yeah. It's very silly to me. I don't know what we can, like, maybe, look, maybe there's just some, maybe there's just some smart management out there that's being like, hey, I know we weren't your plan B, like your plan A,

your plan A may have fallen out. Now you want us to plan B, maybe here you want us to do this in six, seven weeks, got to pony up a couple more shackles. Maybe we're getting that here, which I would be thrilled about. I would respect the shit out of it. but I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. I got nothing.

Yeah. I saw some PFL stuff that people wanted to get your take on, Jed, but so much has happened. There you go. Joseph, can Jedd quickly react to PFL New York? Dakota Ditchevo was minus 10,000, and needed the judges. You said Rackett.

It was awful. Yeah, you said Rackage Chabor was not the worst fight of the weekend. Was the worst fight of the weekend from PFL New York? So the fight technically wasn't bad, but yes, it was the worst fight of the weekend. Because, like, it technically wasn't an awful fight, right? Like, stuff happened. Decent level of mixed martial arts. But, like, it's, you know, there are expectations and meeting them and or even getting near them is not.

And, like, it wouldn't have been a failure if Ditchieva had won a fight that was more interesting or more exciting. But it was a, like, it was a, that's an absolute. object total failure. And she tried to spin it in the post-fight presser and seemed to me to be a little testy about it, like just objectively being a trash-ass performance. But like, yeah, that was the crowd, like, Dakota Dichima has never been booed.

And that crowd was booing loudly for that fight. You know, like, it wasn't, that one angle I have goose goop. Don't get me wrong. not in the same ballpark of bad. But like, nobody had fun watching a Dakota Dichiva fight for the first time ever. And Mike, it was so bad they did give her a post-fight interview. Dakota Dichiva, the face of your promotion, who you're trying to set up to have a title fight. They did give her a post-fight interview.

Like, that was bad. So that's the worst fight of the weekend. Usman saved the event, which I color me shocked. If you had told me going into PFL New York, one of these fights is going to have everybody booing and upset. The answer would not have been to go to ditch about him. Like, I bet Oosman's about to just have the most boringest fight you've ever seen. And instead, that man sent everybody home stoked, put a button on the thing and launched his free agency in as big a way as possible. So he saved the evening.

The rest of that card was mostly bad. Ditcheva was the low point and then Usman sort of tied the room together at the end So I watched some of the prelims I watched a little of the main car But then I watched Spider-Man So I had to go back and watch the rest of it

On the back end This was The Usten finish was really good But it was ruined by Jake Paul at the end As was the entire card was ruined by Jake Paul There's way There's too much There's too much of them, but it was just like, I kind of tuned it out.

It was fine. I had a couple friends, like, reach out to me about, like, watching MMA this weekend. I was like, make sure you watch PFL on Friday. They're like, oh, I've never watched it before. I'm like, it's on ESPN and like their two biggest stars are fighting. And they're like, all, we'll check it out because it's kind of earlier on in the night. Both people got back to me and said, I will, and said, I'm never watching them again because of Jake Paul. Jake Paul ruined the night for them.

And these are like, they're like, they're UFC fans, but they're like sort of of casual MMA fans. And they were like, yep, seen enough, never watching him again. Too much Jake. Too much Jake. He ruined the Usen Ramagamadeoff moment. And to me, like, he was an embarrassing. I thought he was kind of an embarrassed man last night.

And I was just like, Jesus Christ, man. This freaking guy. Him in the ring post fight with fighters was bad and they should not have done it. I, it's, I left last night with actually a lot more hope about the potentiality. of this merger with a much bigger concern. It was like I was very tepid on it in general. Now I'm like, I actually see the vision and I think there's a, there's potential here to do something. If, because the problem is, is Jake Paul is the emperor.

And Nikis is never going to tell Jake Paul not to do some shit. No. And Martin's obviously not going to tell Jake Paul not. to do some shit. And so there are no guardrails to prevent him from being that. And like, I don't, I'm not looking forward to having much like more Jake Paul in my life, but it seems like that's what's going to happen. But like, there's a way to use him effectively,

but you have to use him and not give him the keys. And I don't think that anyone's going to have that conversation. and so it's just going to be Jake Paul's M.A. promotion. And to his credit, that has mostly not been a problem for, you know, like his Amanda Serrano promotion.

And I do absolutely... It is. And I honestly, I want to give him genuine credit for some parts of last night because I do think he was too involved, that he was simply present in too many phases when he did not need to be.

But I will also say that he mostly, he was not making it about himself outside of the being there. If he removed himself from it entirely, then it would not be about him at all. But he wasn't like taking the mic to talk about me or thing. It was always like the crowd was booing him because the crowd hated him. And he would be like, this is not about me. This is about the fighter. And if he can channel that energy a little more productively, like he's done.

with Amanda Serrano and his women's boxing, which I think can be done, then this will be positive. But this first experience was very up and down hit or miss. They need to be the opposite of the UFC in every facet, which includes the promoters cannot be the face of the company. They can. Like, Data White is the biggest star in the UFC right now.

He is the face of the organization. John Martin, Jake Paul and Nikisa Baderian, cannot be the thing that pushes this promotion forward. They're trying too hard. we didn't get a Dakota Ditcheva interview because we had to go to John Martin on the broadcast table. Like, what are we doing here? I actually still think it was a right call. Why?

Because you didn't listen to Dakota's post fight. I don't think Dakota's going to say anything. Did you? I don't think she was going to say anything good in that post fight. And you were just going to put her up there to get booed loudly by that crowd. But that's fine. She's going to get an emotional reaction from people. Yeah, I don't.

People stop liking her. and she turns into a heel. Like, that's okay. This isn't pro wrestling that won't happen. Like, this isn't. Yeah, but I think it's a fine call to be like, we're going to move on. Again, like, I think yesterday was too much Jake Paul,

but like, I, the idea that they're not going to be in the face of it is they're obvious. Like, you don't get into business with Jake Paul to have him not be the face of the promotion. He's going to be the face of it. And I think that that can work to some extent, but they're going to have to find a better balance. they have a balance with the women's boxing that I think does work.

They're going to have to find that here. It was not there last night, though. Yeah. I see people being like Mike Chil. No, I want this to be good. I want them to succeed. What they did last night is not going to help them succeed. It's just not.

They probably lost Usen Ramagamata for sure because of that post-fight interview. Unless, again, there's really only two things that can happen. One is he's going to the UFC for far less money. or he stays with MVP if they truly have to overpay the shit out of him. He needs to be paid as the second most paid fighter in MMA in order to keep him. He's not going to make Connor money. They're not going to pay him $30 million a fight. But they probably need to offer him 5 to 10 to keep him.

Like, that's what they have to do. They can't afford to lose him. They have to have him on their roster. But there's also nothing. interesting for him at all. Like, I was not even remotely interested in this Archie Colgan fight. It was just like the first time, like, it was like merit-based matchmaking in a while for Usman, which is like, okay, the number one contender is fighting for the belt. Archie had no chance in this fight. No one gave this bad a chance in this fight.

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Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. This show is supported by Atio, the AICR. Atio is the AI CRM that turns every customer signal into context you can act on. Connect your email, calendar, and product data, and Atio instantly builds your CRM with enriched data and a complete picture of every deal. Then you can ask Atio anything. Spot a deal at risk, draft outreach, uncover new prospects.

So you can spend less time in your CRM and more time building relationships. Ask more from your CRM. Ask Atio. You can go to atio.com slash Vox, and you'll get 15% off your first year. That's A-T-T-I-O.com slash Vox. Yeah, that to me is a bigger issue. I don't know what the money in comes out to. I'm just not in, not in Usman's camp.

I don't know. You know, he had his comments, and I thought his comments at the baseline were smart, if maybe not true. Like, I don't know how true they are, but you're going in. into free agency, you should not be like, I want to go to the UFC. That's obviously just stupid, right? Like, make yourself, give yourself the opportunity to leverage PFL and not just be like, no, I want to go prove him the best in the world.

I'll fight for pennies. But like, I don't know if it's true or not that he would just take a bigger paycheck from PFL than UFC. That's the case, maybe they don't have to overpay him too much because, like, what's what's the UFC really going to offer him? They'll probably offer him good terms. Six figures. They'll probably offer him better than Saladin Parnas.

But I assume they will just because of his connection to, you know, the others. But like, I don't, if PFL is just like, look, they're not going to offer you a million dollars a fight and we will. That might be enough to get him to stay. But the issue is if he stays, like, I agree they probably should do that to keep him. but if he stays, what are they feeding him? Like, there's A.J. McKee is like, should he win the Risen thing? You do, like, but there aren't that many options. So, but that's, we talked about this on BTL.

They're, one of their big challenges moving forward is like they got to find, they have to build stars and the stars they have that are bridge stars need, you know, France and Ghana would be a good bridge star because it doesn't matter who he fights. Just have him blow a man up and that's fine. Usman, it probably matters a little more who he fights, and they don't have that many options. They get nothing. They have absolutely nothing for him.

I'm curious to see how that will shake out, or if this is all just sort of a dog and pony show, and by February, Usman is fighting Dan Hooker, you know, or whoever it is in the UFC. I'm very, I have to see him in the UFC. I really want to know how good he is. I have to know how good he is. you know, there are some, there are some overreaching on social media yesterday with,

uh, Ousman, Usman dust, Sarman. This fight's not competitive. I saw that. I'm like, are you, are you crazy? He's being Archie Colgan, dude. He beat Archie Colgan at 45th rank. Basically, basically the same guy. They're basically the same guy.

Yeah, right. Come on now. Like, like, let's, let's, let's chill out a little bit. Let's chill out just a touch. You know, let's give him a top 10 UFC guy and see how he does before we start talking about, oh, he's running over Armin in the most non-competitive fight in the history of the UFC lightweight division. Like, are you crazy? Like, that's, come on now.

We did this with Patchy Mix. We did this with Patchy Mix. Oh, that's the best band I'm waiting in the world. Oh, is he? Really? To be fair, I think Patchy Mix got inhabited by a demon. because he was good. Like the patchy makes you fall in the UFC.

It's not like, oh, he got fraud checked. It was like, no, he was good. And then he became the worst fighter you've ever seen. And I don't, I honestly don't know what happened. But like, like Will Brooks had also like was good and then fought in the UFC and then was the worst fight you've ever seen. And I don't know. And it's not like, oh, Will Brooks be bummed. be Michael Chandler, who granted

has not been like good in the UFC, but like got significant wins and he couldn't beat anyone. Like I think Patchy makes something happened. He got body snatched or something because he, the moment he signed the UFC contract became the worst fighter

in the world. And I don't know how that happened. I'm not saying he was the best. He should have been better than the worst fighter in the world. Yeah. He, well, he should have lost a Maga and Maga made off and then we wouldn't even have had to deal with any of this. Also, by the time you came to the UFC,

it already lost some shine. Yeah, he already lost that fight. And then, you know, the judge has scored it for him. No one really agreed with that decision. And yeah, and then that was it. And he came over and it was just a very,

like he was everything I thought he was. A very good but not great Bannamweight. Like maybe one of the 15 best, but certainly no, certainly not the best. Usman, I'm curious. I'm curious. I think he's a top, clearly a top seven guy right now.

I'm pretty confident he's a top five guy. I don't know. But again, we'll never know the answer to this question. I've looked at the top five lately, though. It's like Charles and Max from the top five. And I like Charles and Max

and historically much better fighters. They're old. They're just old, man. There's a lot of guys I would pick Usman to beat confidently. that are in the top 15, like Rafa Garcia. Just about everybody in the top 15. Maybe not all of them, like confidently, but I'd pick him.

Top five is where I'm like, I get 50-50 with several of these. Like, I think him versus Armands 50-50. I could see either do. I don't think so. I know you don't. That's, I, nobody watching this broadcast, Mike, was confused about where your position would be. I would, but to be fair, I would say Armands being every single dude that you could potentially.

It doesn't matter what weight class arm it is in. He will be beating that man. We are aware. Like, I would pick him. I'd probably pick Ilya over Uspen, but I wouldn't, not a lot of confidence in it. I'd pick Usman over Charles and Max.

Patty, probably pick Usman, but I get a little, Patty has continued to interest me, right? So like, Gagey, I'd pick Usman because Gachie, I would,

he's just shouldn't be the champion. It's a miracle. He is, and I love that he is, but you shouldn't be the chance. I kind of think he would get him, though. I think how did they get him? I just, the big thing for me is, like,

I want to see all these fights, but he's going to have to fight, like, really good guys. Like, Paul Hughes is a good fighter. Like, he's a very good fighter. Maybe he's probably a top 15 guy, like overall in this division. And he struggled.

Both fights. He struggled. So, like, that's why I'm saying, like, just let's just show. little bit. I'd like to see him in the UFC. Yeah. Obviously. That's where the fun fights are. Him and Fiziv is interesting. I would pick Usman to win that fight,

but like that would be the best win of his career, certainly. Rofi would be the best win. Salcud probably the best win. BSD, like all these guys would be the best wins of his career. And then we could start working our way up. Like, I want to see it happen. I really do. But I also understand

like, I also understand like, hey, I got a family man. Like, what was it? Legacy don't pay the bills or something like that? Legacy don't pay check. Legacy don't pay check. So it's Legacy don't pay check. Yeah, Legacy don't pay check. He's right.

He's right. And here's the thing about why I think it is possible that he stays. I think it is more likely that he goes to the FC. I think he's possible that he stays because he's 28, Mike. So like he can do the Justin Gagee WSOF thing. It's like, I'm going to hang around here for an extra two years. because you're going to pay me a million dollars a fight to beat up mostly

bums or like not bums and people who just aren't good before Justin Gagee became the Justin Gagetje that the world got introduced to it like I watched that dude in WSOF and part of my deep-seated love of him is watching

just the silliest best fights you've ever seen in W like go look at his WSOF like run right like what of the genuine funniest things to me in the history of this sport that we should talk about like once a month just just for posterity and nobody mentions it is they put just in gaichi that dude the lightweight chairman that the most violent man who has ever lived they put him in a fight with a guy with one arm like w sof was doing insanely silly he blew up melvin galard the palomino wars were incredible. And he, you know, don't need to get too inside baseball. He got paid very, very well to just beat guys at WSOF.

Like just, he got paid very well to beat dudes. And then after he did a lot of that, he's like, all right, I'll go to the UFC and then all this game. Usman could do another two years in PFL and get paid handsomely to just beat some dudes and then come over. So I think it's possible, even if I think the the more likely scenario, I'd say 6535 that he's in UFC, but if PFO makes him a real offer and is like, give us another two years. And if they come to him with it too,

I'm like, look, it's two-year contract, we won't hold you past that. You know, we want a couple of fights. Here's X amount of dollars per fight. And they view it as he is a bridge guy to get them to the next step of what they're doing in this MVP thing.

It could work out for all parties and I'd like to see it. I'd love to, I'd prefer to see him fight the best dudes in the world. But from a promotional standpoint, we could have some fun there too. No, I didn't forget about Paul Hughes. I said Paul Hughes is probably a top 15 guy and he struggled against Paul Hughes twice, which is why I want to see him. We do that fight. Yeah, we don't need to see it again. Like, who's been clearly won the second fight. He struggled, but he clearly won the second fight.

First fight was super close and it was a banger. But like, Hughes is the top 15 guy. That's a very, it's his best wins right now. No doubt about it. If he goes to the UFC and beats Fiziv and beats Ruffie and beats BSD and beats these guys like they're better wins. They're just better wins. And that's nothing wrong with that.

There's nothing wrong with that. It's all good, man. It's all good. But let's see what P of L could do with this. They're in, I believe, Charlotte next week. I'm very curious to see what the broadcast looks like. I don't, I think MVP has like a boxing event that same weekend.

Also, that Charlotte card is a week offering. They're not, is Jake Paul's not going to be doing that for yeah i think they'll that fight for brian brine brine battling getting the jake paul treatment yeah MVP i think there's like an mvp w event that same weekend so i would expect them to be there um did you listen to john martin's post post fight presser i did not uh what did you think of it i have all the quotes on it i'm working on a write-up it'll probably go tomorrow because he talked for a long time about it. It gave me some genuine hope that I was like,

well, John Morton is just a smart man, right? Like, we all enjoyed Don, we all enjoyed Don Davis. John Martin is a, is a smarter man than he is. And while I didn't agree with like all of his things and he laid it very thick

when it came to Jake Paul and Nikisa, I do think like he made a lot of good points about sort of the vision here and their goals and aspirations and sort of their, how they view this thing and sort of what's, and you know, he was like, yeah, this,

Nekisa reached out to me, but honestly I was thinking about him because I think we solve a lot of each other's problems. We have the infrastructure, uh, to scale flexibly for however big or small this needs to be, right? Like they,

we have all this prelaid infrastructure in these various places to go global. If, if you know we're we're about to start our contract negotiations for broadcasting rights and how many events we do next year will depend on that right like okay if we get a ESPN resigns with us and they want 25 events that's how many will do if they only want 12 you know that'll structure but we can go as big or small whereas somebody like MVP they don't have the to the team the talent to do that and for them like he was just really honest about like the biggest problem with PFL since I've been here is nobody knows us or cares about us.

Yeah. And say it in those exact words, but it's basically like, yeah, like we, our brand is not, like, the reason we were kicking about a rebrand is our brand had nothing going for it. And, you know, MVP has been able to generate big headlines that people are interested in. And so from that perspective, it actually made a lot of sense. They're sort of goals and ambitions. We'll see if they follow through on them. you know, talked about being a fighter-first organization and what that means to them.

But like it, for the first time and a long time, I was just like, there's an adult in the room here. That's good. Like, PFL's needed just like a professional. And we'll see if this works. But I had some hope after listening that this won't, this won't be a thing that flashes out and dies in two years. It probably dies eventually. But it's, this is not, you know, the next GFL or the last gas. of the PFL.

It's its own thing. My biggest concern, and this kind of goes to the pro wrestling world, is if you watch, especially if you watch the recent dark side of the ring, triple episode about TNA and Jeff Jarrett, there was a time where TNA was in so much trouble. They couldn't get people to watch that they just paid Eric Bischoff

and Holkogen a whole bunch of money to come in. And they just spent all their money on them and made them faces, oh, we know these guys. And then they were done. They just fell off the face of the, the earth in like a year. They kept trying to do things that nobody really wanted and it just fell off the face of the earth because they took their identity and changed into something that they weren't. Now, if they can listen to John and be what, like you said on BTL, Jed, if they

can be strike force, if they can be strike force 2.0, they are 100% going to do well. John Martin's idea of like, hey, we will be it, we could be a very solid number two. Perfect. The problem is on the other side of the coin, you have Jake and Nikisa and their whole thing is, you have to see better sleep with one eye open because we're coming. And that is the wrong attitude to have. You're never, ever getting anywhere close to them. Ever, ever. You have to be completely different.

You have to be your own separate thing. And hopefully John has the power in the room to be like, no. I don't. I don't think he, I, I, I, he definitely doesn't have the power. in the room. It's whether he can convince them. Correct. Because he absolutely doesn't have the power. Yeah. But like, be the alternative. Don't be, don't be the UFC competitor.

Because you're not. Dana just scoffs it off as he should. He's like, I don't care. I wish them the best. Like, they're not our competition. Our competition is the NFL, Major League Baseball. Like, they're our competition. These guys aren't. And he's right.

They're not his competition. So be different. You can still be successful on your own and do. My thing is like be what the UFC wants to buy. Like be at a position where the UFC makes you an offer. Like that you're just fun. I mean, that is obviously the cash out. Yeah.

That's what you should be. Yeah, that's what you should be. It shouldn't be to beat the UFC. You want the UFC to be like, huh, I like you guys. I like what you're doing. You're doing something cool and different. Let me try to buy you. That's, you win if you do that.

But I hope it works, man. I really do. It's an interesting line to walk between. I do think there's some benefit to, antagonizing the big dog in the yard, right? But you don't want to make that your identity, right? Like there's a difference between, you know, being the funny kid who occasionally, you know, dunks on the quarterback of the football team versus like, that's your whole persona.

Then you're just a weirdo. Yeah. And so I think of some of that. The other part of the Martin thing that was like he talked about the ESPN deal. And what you said basically on BTAS, like, yeah, I don't walk back anything that I said. I think ESPN has been a bad partner to us. They have not supported us in a way I would have hoped. Jake Paul and Nekisa have a relationship with them.

Maybe that opens this up again. He was like, just straight up like, you know, we're going to have, he said that they've been reached out to. But like, I think he said five or six various streaming or broadcast partners had at least him up to get meetings. and talk about. That could be a lie. He's saying stuff. But that is, I'm interested. I'm interested to see now. This has more legs than I think I initially gave it credit for. I'm still not sure how to work, but good on them. And last night wasn't the strongest endorsement of what this will look like, but that is also a very, it happened quickly. It still wasn't an MVP event. That's not, the branding won't kick until next year.

Um, so we'll see. I'm more positive than I was, though. All right. Well, it's good. That's good. I hope it works. I really do. I hope I'm less positive because Dakota Dichita is the face of their promotion and she's

probably going to get cooked by Liz Carmuch. Yeah. That was probably my biggest takeaway. I was like, oh. It was really, I was like watching that. I was like. And I thought, I thought she was going to beat her anyways, but after watching that fight, I was like, ooh.

It looks so bad. she was so much bigger than Denise Quoll. She fought an atom wave. Yeah, like she's so much bigger. And then in there, her post-fight presser, when they're like, some guy, everybody's trying to be nice to her, honestly. And some dude's like, you know, like, do you think you were a little cautious because you took a year off?

And she's like, no, I don't fight scared. And then her next statement was like, what I wanted to take my time and be patient. I was like, yeah, man, you did. You said I don't fight like that. And then every subsequent sentence was how I didn't want to be reckless because I might get punched in the face. Like, this is, it was an all-time bad post-presser. Just say, just say, like, look, I got a bad night at the office, man. Yeah.

It's okay to say, I had a bad night at the office. Yes. Just say, look, it was a little nervous. She looked nervous all week. She had nervous energy all to her all week long. It's okay. You say that. that some fighters simply can't be like,

had a bad night out there, you know, because everybody understands that. We've had bad nights at work, Mike. At the start of this show, I told you about two weeks ago when I did five minutes,

muted with no one to tell me. Like, we all have bad nights. Okay to say that. And not, actually, yeah, actually,

Deniseie Kielholz is really good. And I don't care about their booing, but I kind of definitely do care about that booing. Like, you should be like had a bad night man i was off for a year wasn't my best performance that sucks i'm really sorry about that but we'll learn we'll get better and i'm gonna i'm gonna rip somebody's head off next time that's all you know liz i'm coming give me some of that yeah that her no selling the liz carmooch thing is also infuriating it's just like that's the fight that is

the fight so talk about the fight don't be like somebody's point blank aster's like john martin said it's going to be you and liz car moosh do you have a message for it's like nope you know what's funny because I covered the the Sharra card last year and that was when Liz won her tournament she got a sick knockout one of the knockouts of the year and then I have

like she's the complete opposite of Dakota I'm like what do you think you and Dakota she's like yeah UFC wants to go to the White House how about we do me and Dakota at the White House like she went the complete opposite of Dakota just no selling it she's like let's just take it to the next level

when it comes to Liz's government she wants this fight she has wanted this fight for a long time Yeah, man, I think I wonder when this fight's going to happen. I don't know if it happens to sure. John Morden suggested it was happening before the end of the year. I'm not certain that that will be the case, but it's the fight that needs to happen.

Yeah, even if she, like, even if Dakota loses, like, it's okay. And if she goes out there and kills her, then all, no harm, no foul. That's it, yeah. Great honor. Then we go back, yeah, then we can really start having some really interesting conversations about her. A couple of super chats. we get out of here. Ace are winning fights

a condition to join the Jed family. If not, Vlogden should be a family friend. He may not win a single fight at Banimoy, but his boats will always be must-see TV. So, you know, I've known Mark Vlogged in longer than you have,

okay? Don't tell me how to pick my family. So if, yes, if Borslops hanging at home and Mark Vologden comes knocking on the door to ride bikes, you're absolutely sending him.

We're happy to have it. He's definitely a friend. Winning fight. is not a condition of joining the family. In fact, if you win too many fights, I think you actually get kicked out of the family. You can't, because that's sort of anathema to the whole thing,

which is goofy bozos. The family is mostly comprised of pretty unathletic goofy bozos. Some of them are athletic or more athletic than it. Like, here he's super athletic, but he's incredibly goofy bozo. DDP is a deeply unathletic man and is a goofy bozo.

RDR is a deeply unathletic man and is a goofy bozo. Like, Borosov Niggilich is, he's, like I said, he basically just is a Banimway RDR kind of feels like.

And so he's in. Vlogden has a lot of the bozo in him. And so we love him. He needs to, he hasn't, he just never quite, it's a lot of a feel thing. You got to feel it.

And Mark is just like, oh, we appreciate him, but I don't think he's there yet. Still got time, but don't think he's there yet. So I want to throw this up on our Slack channel. We had a Daniel Rodriguez statement that I will read to you right now. Here's what he said via the magic of Instagram stories. F, I loaded up on the jabby, beat me to the punch.

Shit happens, I guess, regardless of what just happened. I still can say I'm proud of myself for overcoming all that I have this past year. I was way out of shape when I got out of prison. We knew the risk coming out here and fighting this dude in his hometown and still took it. I'm going to be in way better shape next time. Fn. hurts my heart losing. I'll be better next time.

That's Daniel Rodriguez. A little bit of dared to be great energy, but it's fine. Yeah, I can I can live with that. Last thing for a roll out of these three potential opponents. I do want to ask you one question before we roll out too. So let's answer that and then I want to go on one final question. Sure. out of these three potential opponents for Usom,

it would make sense for his debut fight if he signs. One, Dan Hooker, two, Hannaata Moikano, or three, Matush, Gamerot. I actually really like the Boikano fight. As I'm thinking about, Moikano's pretty good one.

I actually think that is like, that's the answer to the question. I'd be okay with Gamrod too. If Gamrod beats Saul killed, then, yeah, I'd be in on that too. If he loses the Saul killed, no. But Moikano makes sense. Hooker, no. Hooker's about to get murdered by

by, again, I'm not certain if Parnas is my boy, but we're, we've got feelers out. We're investigating. I got a lot of boys at lightweight already. So it's like, I don't know if I can add a third, like a third member to the family there. But, man, I really enjoy watching that dude fight. So yeah.

Montgomery was a good call. I like that, home. Yeah, I actually think that's the perfect fight. That's the perfect fight. Good stuff. All right. What's your question? I've seen it a little bit.

People had mentioned it in chat. We just didn't really talk about it as far. the co-main event. Sure. Do you think that this is the end of Yonbovich? Do you think he's going to hang it up after this one? I mean, he got lit up. He's 43.

Apparently, he can't lift weights anymore because his body doesn't work. No one wants to go out like this, so maybe not this, but do you think, do you think he goes back and I think he just signed a new contract? Do you think he goes back and is like UFC, if we can do an event in Poland, that can be my retirement fight, but if not. you know, give me a retirement fight sometime next year. I mean, like, I'd like it to be, but I just don't know if it will be. I kind of hope he's done, but I will say, like,

there are a lot of people who, uh, there are a lot of people who thought Janbovich was going to win this fight. I saw he was a very, very popular underdog. If he comes back for another, do we do like a Dominic Redius rematch? I mean, like, that's like it. Honestly, that's not. the worst idea ever. I mean, that's that I wouldn't do any more. Like I'm not I wouldn't give him like

bogged on or I wouldn't even give him like Whitaker or anybody like it's got to be somebody like that who's sort of just super on the back end of things. So I kind of hope he's done but I hope he's done. But I could see I could see him asking for one more. Um, but yeah, I just some people have been talking about. I was like, I don't know. I just don't know if it will be, but I do hope it is. Armand, not served Jed watched Spider-Man yet. What are y'all's thoughts on the movie? I'm hearing some say it's the best Spider-Man movie of all time.

I believe it is the best Spider-Man movie of all time. I said immediately there's the best Marvel movie of all time, and I do want to amend that statement. It's not the best Marvel movie of all time. I do think it's probably the most fun I've had at a Marvel movie. I think it's perfect. I think they nailed it. And I had a little bit of trepidation

because like in general, the fourth movie in any series is where we do. Like, trilogies are natural. Fourth, we're just kind of like doing IP to do IP. I thought reviews have been mixed. Mostly people seem positive,

but like to the extent of how much you like it has seen to be up and down. I think it is, it's my favorite movie of the year. I will probably watch it again this weekend. Certainly next week. It was, I had the, I had a stone cold blast watching it. Same.

You know, it is not as good as others. Like, it's not as good, quote unquote, of a film as The Odyssey, which is trying to accomplish more and I think mostly does. But I, it is not, it is easy to say that this is the best Marvel movie since end game. and I think it is I think it is like this is right up there as one of the greatest Marvel movies ever made I would put it right up there with one of the best superhero movies ever made

and I I know that many many people I have always been a bit incorrect in this opinion that people really put a lot of stock in Spider-Man 2 Toby McGuire Spider-Man 2 the same ramee is like that's the movie I never like that movie as much as other people I think it's a good movie, but I just didn't really like Toby McGrath Spider-Man anyway. I think this is significantly better than any of the other Spider-Man movies, in my opinion. Yeah, I think it's the best of the rest.

I had a great time. Over-exceeded my expectations. My kid friggin loved it. He was been waiting for this for a couple of years now. And the day was finally there. He's very excited and had his little Spider-Man mask on, took a bunch of pictures in front of all the Spider-Man stuff. The one bummer is that they sold out of a lot of a lot of, all the collectible shit.

So you can get like the popcorn bucket or any of that stuff. Do you want one? My theater has plenty of them. I will get one for you. Yeah, get one for me. The Spider-Man head bucket thing. Yeah, when you come for 3.30, I'll pay it. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, do it. Whatever you can find. If you find a bunch of, if you find a few things, get them all. Okay. I'll pay you for all of them. I think I'm going, I'm going to movies this week to see something else. So I'll just take a photo of the display. I'm like, what do you want?

Yes. If it's anything Spider-Man brand new day, get it. Yeah. Two more quick super chats. You guys are not messing around. Cutlass. Haley Cowan, Kyle Preppolek, Dennis Pajuka,

Diskoz, Dorovich, Janbovich, retirement. We shall see. I agree with all of those. I'd be fine with them. Cowan needs to go. She's not good. Yeah. They brought her in.

But shout out to her. Climb. Ten steps up the mountain, baby. One third. I mean, they brought her in to be the sacrificial lamb. Like, that's that's a tough position to be in like it just is it is but she's been that every one of them

yes and michael send rackets to scott cocker's hypothetical promotion hey man i don't think it's hypothetical man scotty coax is uh heading to japan right now to uh to scout out some stuff potentially for this new promotion and good for rackets look that fight was boring okay well the post fight was joyful and delightful and like that's why they just need to do stuff like this more because it was cool. The crowd chanting rackets, he was emotional at, you know, being one of the pillars to get this year. It was cool.

So good on him. Yes. Okay. Well, that is all. AK and I will be back tomorrow. Yes, we will have some matchmaking following this event. All the main card players. But it was a fun card, man.

By the way, rest of the piece, Vincent's a story. I saw that. Tough scenes. If you ever watched Sopranos, you would know him from that. I thought he's been dead for 20 years and was in the lake or the ocean

off the coast of New Jersey. Reincarnated into Billy the Big Mouth Bass talking to a sick and ill Tony Soprano. Yeah. Look, his conscience. Yeah. So RIP to Tell Legend, man. to a good old big

puss. So shout out to him. Shout out to all you guys. You appreciate it. The good and the bad, the happy and the sad. We're here for all of it. And we appreciate you guys. So interesting week coming up, the UFC back in the world's most famous apex this week, PFL in Charlotte, North Carolina,

Rick's Blair country. Boy, what a week. You got from this week, which had like pretty murky stuff to Apex and Brian Battlemate event. Okay. 2016 baby I'll see tomorrow for the next one

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