MMA Fighting - UFC Macau Post-Fight Show: Reaction to Petr Yan's Vintage Win Over Deiveson Figueiredo

Episode Date: November 23, 2024

Petr Yan looks ready to make another bantamweight title run. On Saturday, Yan picked up a unanimous decision win over Deiveson Figueiredo in the main event of UFC Macau, in a vintage performance from the former 135-pound champion. Though Figueiredo was highly competitive throughout, Yan simply out-worked the former flyweight champ to take a clean sweep of the judges' scorecards, 50-45 and put himself back in the thick of the bantamweight title conversation. Following Saturday's early morning card, MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew and Alexander K. Lee react to Yan's terrific performance, Yan Xiaonan's return to the win column in the co-main event, the bevy of sensational knockouts that filed the rest of the card, and more. Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Yeah. 9.53am here on the East Coast. A beautiful, bright, glorious Saturday morning, and UFC Macau is in the books. That is right. Morning MMA has happened,

and the victory horns, they sound for Peotor Jan, the former Bannonweight champion, gets it done in a card, you know, to cap off, I say, a card. One of the sneaky good events of the year, if you woke up at 3 a.m. East Coast time or wherever you were,

I think you probably had a pretty damn good time because USC Macau kind of rocked. Like, certainly ended us on a very high note with Peoriaon's vintage performance. And we're going to talk all about that. We'll talk about the co-main event. We'll talk about anything you guys want to talk about. And, you know, just do our normal post-show thing.

But instead of doing it at three in the morning, it's a wonderful 10 a.m. Hi, guys. I'm Jedd Michoud. You see my name right there. I write for M.Afeind.com. It's a great website. And I am your Sherpa for the U.S.C. Macau Post Show

as we talk about all things, Peordian, and joining me on this wonderful journey, the man who woke up at the wee hours of the evening, frankly. Maybe he didn't even wake up. He might have stayed up because, you know, stay ready. You don't have to get ready. Alexander K. Lee joining me to talk about the fights today. A.K., how sleepy are you?

I'm so fried right now. I was literally just staring at my screen for like a full minute, trying to figure out like, oh, I need to tweet out the, I need to tweet out that the show was on. And I've just, and realizing that you had all tweeted out a link to the show. But I was still like, I was still like, show tweet needs to go out.

How do I word this? So I'm good. I mean, great, great shape to do a lot, a live chat where nothing can possibly go wrong. Oh, it's going to be. Possibly go wrong. Excuse me, possibly go wrong. I like possible.

It's going to be great, A.K., because we don't have to go for three hours, but I, you know, I'm bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. It's early in the morning. The sun is shining. And we had some damn good fights. And before we get into talking about that, of course, as always, joining us on the ones and twos and joining us later to answer your questions at the end of the show. The greatest producer in the game, no sleeves, no mercy, Mr. 3024 himself.

Casey Lottin, though he does have sleeves and mercy this morning. It is 7 a.m. I've been up since 2.30 a.m. I missed the first couple of fights. but I'm excited. I'm not excited. I'm just, we're here. We're doing it.

I'm tired, but I'm wearing a breakfast t-shirt. Ooh, I love the breakfast t-shirt. When this is all done, you can go get yourself a big full brecky and then take a nap. And it'll be terrific. We're all going to have a great time because we just saw not the best fight at card of the year, certainly not, but I would say a very, very good one. Certainly exceeded expectations, I think, for most. if you're going to be up in the wee hours of the morning,

you could do a lot worse than seeing this many finishes. And so I will be transparent. I did not see all of the prelims. I did not wake up at three to cover this. I woke up a little bit later. I have sent backtrack relims, but not all of it. And so, AK, before we dive into the main event, just very quickly, give me the totality.

How do you feel having been up since the ungodly hour of 2 a.m. to watch this? How do you think of this card as a whole? Fonnelly. Fonely, very nice card. We said on paper, like, this could be a really enjoyable show, especially for, I think, the crowd in Macau. You know, if you can please the people that are there live

and also put on a nice, you know, show content for ESPN Plus, that's a bonus. But I think for the most part, anyone who paid their good money to be at Galaxy Arena, they had a good time. They had a lot of memorable moments. Not like every Chinese fighter that was meant to be showcased. necessarily paid off. We'll get to that later,

but there was definitely some, a couple of pretty big upsets on the card. But if they were looking for action, if they're looking for, you know, proof that, that this M.A thing, it has a place among, like, you know, the traditional and martial arts as far as being a form of entertainment over in China.

This was further proof positive. I think this was a really, really enjoyable card. Really, there was, what, 13 fights. I think out of the 13 fights, maybe two or three, maybe two were kind of forgettable. But overall, I was like, if it wasn't a finish, you got some really competitive contests,

you got some really good performances from people who were likely to be players in the division for years to come. Even some of the losers, even some of the losing fighters, I thought actually looked really good. You know, it just wasn't their night. It just came out in the wrong end of the decision. So I'm happy. I stayed up for it, I suppose, I would say.

I would say if you tuned in, you weren't disappointed, especially if you tuned in from the first fight to the end, it was all good. It was all good stuff. So nothing about positive vibes for UFC Macau. Yeah, not the best card of the year. One of the best fight nights, I think, for sure. I think I'm pretty comfortable saying this was one of the five best fight nights of the year.

And there are so many. So that's actually more illustrious in a way than being one of the best pay-per-fews of the year. They're like 30 fight nights in the year. So yes, and I absolutely agree one of the better ones. And maybe I'm seeing some comments in the chat. People less high on this than I have been. And perhaps I am so high on it because, AK, the main event was sensational. We talked about in the buildup.

Piotrion versus Davis and Figurato, this is a fight. Many people were very excited about have wanted for some time, even dating back to when they were both champions of their respective divisions. Now, obviously, Figurato up at Bannamway was 3 and O coming into this. We all know the storylines of the hype about it. And the fight delivered. This was not the best fight of the year, as the border over my shoulder is sort of positing. But I would not be surprised if this is on some lists

for the best fight of the year. This is to steal Jose Young's favorite phrase, high-level mixed martial arts for 25 minutes. And in the end, Pioteon takes unanimous decision win, 50-45 across all five judges' scorecards. And so, A.K., let's start here. Is this one of the five best fights of the year, or am I just a little caught up in the moment?

We've had some good ones, you know? We've had some good ones this year. So I'm with you. I'm in the moment. I'm certainly trying to do a quick compilation in my mind and like, yeah, it feels like it's going to slot in there. But it wouldn't surprise me. It wouldn't surprise me if by the end of the year and we've done a proper accounting of what we saw at the Oxagon this year that it maybe doesn't quite make the top five. But I'm a huge bantamweight mark.

I'm a huge Peyoteurian mark when the man is on. And I love, listen, who doesn't love Davidson figure out either? Both guys have a lot of really good five-round fights under their belt. And again, we saw like the best version of Peyoteer Yon today, which I think we talked about. about it in our preview quite a bit as well that like you know when this guy's on he is still one of the three best bantamates in the world he's just so amazing to watch and yeah he had that little bit of that little slump but just looking at the red on his ledger does not tell the story at all we know that the alzman sterling fight was competitive the omali fight was super competitive and the marab

was the world champion right now um i'd be happy to see them fight again which is what yon called for after and uh and again and shout us to davison as well because he brought the fight to be oder man I think some people are going to see 50, 45 across the board and be like, oh, wow, Jan must have dominated him. Must have been a dull, like five-rounder, just one-sided. Not the case at all. Figgie threatened a lot. Figgie threatened on the feet. Figgie threatened on the ground, turning with chokes, took us back.

It's just that every round, Yon always managed to find a sequence or a moment where he would clearly do enough damage that you could go like, okay, like this could be a yawn round. But there could have been a 48, 47 in there. No one would have had a problem with that. There's even like a case you could have made a case for Figgie. I wouldn't, but you certainly could. Like, that's what a quality fight it was. These are just two of the best guys in the world, mixing the martial arts in an elite way.

You know, I know I always say, hashtag, keep the martial arts apart. That's only for people who suck at it. Like, if you're not a good grappler and you're like a high-love kickboxer, just kickboxing. Like, gosh, what's your kickbox? Like, I don't want to see mixing stuff for no reason. But if you're like these guys and they're like nine,

eight out of ten to ten across the board as far as their skills go, Mix it up, man. Mix up those martial drives because this was just a classy, classy, classy fight. And I'm very happy to see Peirder Yon still in that title contention. Figgi's not out of it. I mean, Figuay has to put together another run, but Yon, he's right back in there, man. I'm going to jump in and save you here because I'm certain people are going to come for the throat when you say that, you know, you can make an argument.

Figgi won the fight because I made that argument and people immediately attacked me on the train machine. I'd want to be extremely clear. I ultimately scored the fight 4-1 for Yan. I'd think 3-2 Yan is an entirely defensible scorecard. And if you did choose to score that fight for Figy, I don't think it is insane. I don't necessarily think it would be good, but I give a lot of leeway to judges.

And that fight was so great, AK, because of the back and force in it. For most of the fight, Jan felt to be in control. But when it seemed like there might be a tipping point, when, okay, Jan might really take over and really put this away, Figgie would battle back and he would rip to the body or land something big. He drops Yan in the fourth round. He has two minutes of sort of back control in the first round.

Like he had these big moments. He had bigger moments individually than Yan did probably. But Yon had so much more of them. I don't have any issue with the 50-45 scorecard for Yon at all. And for Yon, Michael Bissping sort of alluded to it. after the fight and kind of during the fight as well. He has had some issues with the judges in his career. He certainly is not agreed with all the judges' scorecards levied against him.

He was certainly opposed to both the Al Jemite Sterling rematch scorecard and the Sean O'Malley scorecard seemed fine with the Marab because that's pretty unarguable. But it's a dominant yet competitive win over a guy who, you know, Marab de Valshvili, and we were talking about maybe is the next title challenger. And so AK, afterwards, you mentioned it, Jan calls for a rematch with Marab. That seems unlikely to happen. I think we all kind of agree that that's not really doing the thing. But one name has jumped out amongst the MMA Twitter sphere for Jan's next opponent.

And can you guess it? Because who do you think Jan goes to following this big, big win? Oh. Sorry, you were saying you already have a name. mind. Oh, not just me. Almost a consensus is being built in the MMA circle of... I wasn't looking. I wasn't looking at... I wasn't looking at what people were saying on the Sos. Who is next for Mirobe de Valleis Fili? Oh, I mean, I think... Not for Marab. Excuse me not for Rob. I've been up since 3 in the morning. For Prioryon.

It's the... Sorry, it is. It's the Sean O'Malley rematch. It's time to run it back. this is the way to go. I thought their first fight was so amazing. I feel like it got overshadowed by scoring controversy by people like, oh, there's no way O'Malley won that fight. I remember watching that fight live was so exciting because I'm not like the biggest O'Malley guy, but he had a ton of detractors.

And I was like on the fence about it. I'm like, yeah, well, this is why they make this fight. I'm curious. I thought there's a very good chance period of Yon just whoops his ass, bell to bell. But then I'm like, let's find out. This is why we do this. seeing Momality be so competitive and actually knock Yon down.

Not Yon also knocked him down, but that he, you know, that he caught, he caught Yon at some point was so awesome. And I'll never forget during the, during the fight, like, I wish you could have like a Time Castle social media, like people like praising Sean for doing so well. But the fact that he won a controversial decision right after his people got like, oh, it was a robbery. It was, I mean, I'm like, you just can't really have it both ways. You can't really have it.

Like you think he was doing amazingly well in the fight and then say like, oh, he didn't have deserved to win at all. Like, you can say you scored the fight for Yon. I think many did. But anyway, so all that chatter, that's just noise. Let's have them settle it. Let's have them settle. Let's see the rematch.

Five rounds. I want a five-round rematch. That's probably not going to happen. But that's the way I'd like to see. And I think most people would favor Yon in a five-round rematch. But most people just favored them to kill Sean the first time around too. So, yeah, I think that makes a lot sense. It is the only fight to make at this point for me, five rounds 100%.

If it's the co-main to Morab versus Umar, If it's the five-round main event to a fight night, not in the apex somewhere on the road, sure, but these two need to run it back right now. We know that O'Malley is coming off the injury, head surgery. It's probably out until the spring, maybe even the summer. So it gives you on time to recover a little. They go in there. And then the winner of that, if you want to say the winner of that gets a title fight, be it against Omar and Muraab. I ain't got no issues at that point doing that.

So that feels like the way to go for Yan. And frankly, just credit to him. Man had lost three of his past five fights or whatever, was in a bit of a career tumult for a while and has pieced himself back together. Look, a vintage performance in there. Not vintage enough, AK. We do have bonuses.

And unfortunately, fight of the night was not awarded. Did not go to Peoria on and Davis-Figuero, which a little bit insane. But, you know, they gave up. about four performance bonuses. We'll talk about that in the moment. Before we move on from the main event, I do want to touch on Davidson Figuerado,

because Figgy Smalls, this is one of those losses where you lose. I don't know how much you lose. Yes, he is no longer going to fight for a title next. I don't think this loss sets him back from the title picture that much because it was so fun, so competitive. And so the question is,

what does Vigy need to do next? Kind of where does he go to sort of build himself back up, get himself back in position to get a title fight that he was very, very close to getting? I don't know if it's going to happen any time soon. I think he's going to have to face some. Bantamweight is deep, man. Bantam weight is deep. And it's one of those divisions where you're swimming upwards until you hit a wall like this and you can sink so fast. And again, just base his performance, Figgie shouldn't lose much.

It was a very, very, very competitive fight. Like, if by some chance, you know, Peyrean is not available and Umar's not available, all these other challenges aren't available. And like four months from now, they're like, oh, well, Marab wants to fight, he needs a challenger, and all these guys are injured or we're going to throw Davidson in there anyway. I mean, it wouldn't sell a dime, but me, it's still a fight I'd like to see. That's how compatible this guy stills. But how realistically can he get back?

We're just looking at some of these fights. I know something's really important to start our names. Corey Sanhagen, Mario. Bautista, him and Aldo would be kind of fun. Now we're cooking. Yeah. Okay, let me, I would like to be early on this for onto the next one. I know you guys are doing on to the next one, maybe even later this afternoon.

I don't want to put words in your mouth. I know you got to get some sleep at some point. But if they're not going to do Jose Aldo versus Dominant Cruz, which they should, Cruz is lobbying for one final fight. There's no reason not to do that. For some reason we're not, Jose Aldo versus Davis and Figurato is terrific and should be the fight. If they do do Aldo Cruz, then, you know, Corey Santagin seems fine. Give one of these young pups coming up another crack at it at moving advancing.

I don't think there's anything wrong, but Figgy versus Aldo, that is, that's the fight I want. Because it feels like they just don't want to do Dominic Cruz versus Jose Al do. I don't get it, but it feels like that. So great performance from both of them. Also a great performance moving on to the co-main event. Jan Jahn, first fight since losing her strawweight title shot, UFC 300 against Wiley Zhang.

She puts on a clinical performance 3027s across the board against Tabitha Ritchie. Ritchie had brief moments of success in the fight, but really this was Yon, pillar to post, just kind of controlling almost all aspects of this. And getting back in the wing column in a big way. And so, okay, just, you know, what were your thoughts on the co-main event? Do you feel any differently about Jan Jan Arn sort of where she resides in the strawweight picture right now?

You know, she delivered a workman-like performance, or one might say a work yard like performance. Nice. Nice. I mean, no, thank you. Oh, no, I wanted another, no, that's... You could have done that for Piotr-Yon as well. That was more than work, Jan-like, though. That's true. You know, we'll save, I'll save it for...

Thank you. I'll save it for Jan Blanco fits next time, too, if he grinds out a decision. Yonati Blako is a workman like, man. He could, sometimes. Sometimes he is. He's grounded out decision here and there. He does what he has to do when he gets in there. But, yeah, this was, I think a lot of us had this fight scouted.

like Tabitha Ritchie is a fine talent at 115. But her recent, and she's got a bit of a streak, but her decision wins have not been amazingly convincing, I think to put it politely. And I think we all saw Yon as being a little too quick, a little too sharp in the feet. And that's how it played out. I don't think Ritchie had any way

to take this fight outside of Yon's comfort zone. If you want to fault Yon for not pushing the action more, you could. But she was cruising, man. She was cruising. She was not getting clipped by anything hard. clearly outlanding Ritchie Ritchie by the end had that look of like okay I'm just not

in this woman's class yet someday maybe I will be but she looks resigned which is always a kind of a tough tough look to see on a fighter's face she looked resigned like she just knew like yeah I have nothing for her so I don't know I don't know what it does

for Yon standing good for her to be able to do this in Macau I mean again I think the dream would have been to have her and when her and Zhang fought the dream would have been for them to fight in Macau or a situation like that, and obviously we didn't get that opportunity. But yeah, maybe Jan becomes their go-to woman when it comes to them going to Macau or other places in China, I should that happen. So she did what she had to do.

She's going to keep those checks coming in. And she's still, by my estimation, one of the three or four best straw weights in the world. So I don't know where she goes from here. She's not getting Dijon rematch right away. I would not think so. I don't think she gets Tatiana. Then again, I don't know what they're going to do with Tatiana, given her health situation. And I don't really think it's fair to put her in there with that with Virna.

I think Virna either, again, gets a title shot, a title shot of some kind or, I mean, that's really, I think Vierna has to get a title of shot of some kind. I don't think she has to fight again. So, yeah, very unclear what's next for Yon. I'm sure I'll throw something on to the next one. But you guys have to tune in and find out. Yeah, it's not a lot of bad ways to go with this for her. Honestly, it is probably just to stay busy. shout out to Mike Heck

because you know Mike and I talk a lot about doing the thing Jan did not do the thing she called for a rematch with Wiley Zhang granted Wiley was in attendance who sitting in cage side

she got up and made excited you know motions about it deeply unlikely that fight happens I will say and we talked about this on Slack AK obviously Viener Genji Rova deserves to fight for the belt next

if the UFC was going to for some reason do yon versus wiley too which they shouldn't if they were going to do it by just being like hey we're going to make this happen early in 2025 and we will actually put this fight in china as they frankly should have done the first one i wouldn't hate it it wouldn't be the worst thing that's happened it wouldn't be great but it would not be the worst thing that's ever occurred so maybe she could sneak into something like that make that happen uh but seems unlikely She's probably going to get like a mandolimoose or something. I don't know.

Okay, we can go down the rest of the card. I will just give out the bonuses as I have to go find those again. I had them in front of me and I've lost the bonuses. Okay, have the bonuses. Muslim Salikov gets one for his spinning wheel kick of Song Kanaan in the feature fight. Salikov becomes only the first fighter, sorry, in UFC history to score multiple. wheel kick knockout. So interesting bit of trivia

to keep in your brain for the next time you're out at the bar. Gabriela Fernandez, also on the main card. Epic upset of Wong song. A rear naked chokes pop sir with a head kick, hurts song in a fight she was getting thumped up in and the UFC or the commentary team was basically saying this is a foregone conclusion,

but you can't, you know, stay frost. in there and then bam head kick moves to rear naked choke finishes like a plus 800 hundred under or something insane gets one both of those deserved jang ming yang uh for his elbow knockout of ozi diaz or not a k sorry kacey sorry about your boy but he got got in the main card opener and she ming also very deserving of a bonus for head kick knockout of fang zha khan in the uh fly, no, women's straw weight, road to UFC finals. Fangchop Khan gets stretchered out of there, AK, I saw the highlight.

I did not see this live. Seems like that was a pretty scary knockout, though. Yeah, that was crazy, man. And that was one of those moments and fights I hope isn't forgotten about by the end of the year because Michael Bisping and Sanko and John Gunner are doing an amazing job telling Ming-Shi's story. I got to admit, I'm not,

I wasn't super familiar with Ming-Shi. But they were saying she's a doctor. I think she speaks pretty good English, too. So, like, when they got a chance to talk to her before her fight, she was very lively, a lot of personality. They were saying her parents don't even know that she's an MMA fighter, supposedly. They thought she was joking. They're not sure how serious she is.

But she said they don't know. She said they're probably not going to watch the UFC. Like, they're not going to find out that way. I would sincerely doubt that. But I don't know. Maybe it's true. Maybe her parents just don't watch TV and don't keep up with her daughter's career. But frankly, she's got this whole other life that they're not aware.

of and it involves fighting in a cage. And yeah, I don't know if it was guaranteed that she was going to lose a decision. She was having a lot of trouble with Fung because Fong is considerably taller and it was a stand-up battle and Shibing was having trouble with that. What I'm saying she? Ming-shee, excuse me. Ming-shee, Ming-shee? We had this issue before.

Buddy, you are better sure. I know. I'm the one who's supposed to be an expert with these things and now I am reading my head. I read the name sheming as it is written on the Wikipedia. It is she may. It is sheming. Yeah, so I should actually say she instead. Sorry, so the thing was she is, yeah, she was having trouble.

And by the time the third round rolled around, I think on screen they flashed she was plus 1,000. So again, I don't know what the actual. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what the actual score cards were. But based on the live betting, the perception certainly was that she was not going to win a decision. And then she unleashes this head kick. is so clean, it is so on the money. Fong just goes down immediately.

Really, really, really scary stuff. They come back from commercial. The feed I was watching, so I'm watching on UC Fight Pass in Canada, and there was no commercial break, but the commentary cuts off, so they went to a commercial. And the camera is just on, she the whole time. She is just watching. You can tell, she is so concerned. Like she, again, not just because she's a doctor, but like, she's a human being who just

did this to another human being. They come back. the commentary comes back, and they don't go, they don't show, like, they don't show fun yet, because she's down. She's still down so bad. And then they cut, they cut again. They cut to another commercial. So I think they said later she was down for like four straight minutes.

When we finally see her again, they're putting the brace on her because she's being stretched out. It was, it was really scary stuff. We talked about it in Slack. Like, they did a great job living in the evening twice updating, like when she got to the hospital and then preliminary scans, how those went, kind of saying, and that the UFC is going to obviously look after her as long as she has to stay. hospital. But yeah, it was it was more care than more care and more updates and as you see for

this sort of thing. Yes, I think because of the severity of the COO, I also think because I think as most people know, I don't think this is a crazy take that in China like MMA is still sort of working towards acceptability out there. China has again a long history of course of traditional martial arts and it's not everyone is keen to this whole MMA thing guys mixing those martial arts. So when you have a vicious knockout like this, there's a lot of people out there, I think watching who are going to be like, oh, I told you it's too dangerous. It's barbaric, blah, blah. So I don't mean to speak for the whole country because, again, I'm not that in tune with it. But I do feel like the way she was taken care of and the way the updates came was because it was in China. And they want to make this seem as sanitary as possible. But great. I hope this is the way it's going forward. I would love to keep getting updates on Fighter Health throughout the night. It, I mean, it looks nasty. I'm like, I immediately was like, oh, Bryce Mitchell, Josh Emmett, sort of like, ooh, something real bad has happened. The whole body is locked up.

The like deep breathing as you're there is a tough one. So well-deserved bonus. Way to get that 50K, Dr. She, as you did some horrible things to what I believe is a very nice woman in Fang. A couple of other, I just want to run down the sort of other things here that we haven't talked about. Carlos Alberg picks up a unanimous decision over Volcano Ozedemir in a fight that started okay and ended sort of as a stinker. It was light, heavyweight is what it is. Yusuf Young defeats Bayer Zhang Jailisi, a unanimous decision to win the Roe-FC-Bantamweight tournament championship, whatever you want to call it. Don Gets Giro Singh Sahota

Pretty nice little first round knockout to win the flyaway championship for a UFC Carlos Fernandez takes a split decision over Naim Jargo to M. Dunbarol. My guy, Lonnie Kavanaugh, picks up a UD over Jose Ochoa. I did get to go back and watch that fight. Exactly what I thought.

I like Lonnie a lot. Super polished, super ready. And Jose Ochoa is like a legitimate great prospect. So a very fun matchup. Zhao Long defeats Kwongle with a third round knockout. Did not see this at all. I have no idea what happened there.

And to open the evening, Nicholas Motta beats Mahashti. Unanimous decision pulls off another upset for Motta, a.K. Before we get to the peeps, because that is where we are going next. So get your questions in. You know, we've touched on it. We've talked about a lot, and there probably will be some overlap. But who are the three stars of the evening?

outside of the main event. Who are the people you're leaving this event saying, I would like to continue seeing them fist fight? It's got to be the aforementioned sheming. I thought she was, again, super scary. I don't know where she goes as a prospect, to be honest, but good for her to win the road to UFC tournament. I just, I remember you were previewing all this stuff

on No Bet Spard and we were all, you weren't like super excited for any prospects either way. That's why we had the ill-fated high road high road to you and fucking Donghamumon. So she may's got to be up there and she's like great.

I'll go with you man. I'll go, I'll go with Lonnie. Lonnie. Lonnie Kavanaugh. Lonnie Kavanaugh. Yeah, I'll go with him

because I do think he had one of the tougher opponents of the night. I know, I'm sure there's some out there who were like, you know, there's a lot of hype behind him.

Why didn't he get a finish? Because I think, again, Ochoa was one of the better fighters who lost tonight. It was a really, it was a good competitive fight, one that Kavanaugh clearly won.

So I'll certainly put him up there. And I guess, man, we got to go with Zhang Minyang. I mean, he's got a personality to him. He's got a finishing streak. He's in a wasteland of a division. Standing elbow strikes pretty impressive. You can get a finish with one of those. So I love the energy from him.

He brought it last time, too. I think he was a stand at the last time in his UFC debut as well, which he also won a bonus. So Jean Mignon, Xiameng and Lonnie Kavanaugh. Not a bad three outside of the, the main event. Yeah, Jean Rie Young is to me the guy who probably gained the most on this event for me personally. Obviously, the main event was sick, but Zhang, like, that was, he's like 15 fights in a row of ended in the first round. You know, this fight was going to end one of two ways.

Either he was getting knocked out or he was knocking out Ozzy Diaz very early. The under, like, one and a half was minus 300. or something insane. Like we knew what was going, but it's still awesome. And then it gets on the mic. And, you know, even when you can have gravitas, when you could be interesting, even through an interpreter, even through, you know, this is not your language that you even speak. Like, it is, it's impressive.

And so to do it in a way class like that, I think he gained the most for me this week for sure. I am now, like, pretty interested in watching him compete, even if I don't necessarily think he'll be a champion. and I just want to see, I love dudes who get or get caught. You know, it's weird to say this because the nature of the beast, Musum Salikov, if you're the first person to ever do something, that's pretty cool.

And that spinning wheel kick was awesome. Like, the fact that we know he's going to do this, he is, like, that is his thing. The king of kung fu throws spinning stuff. He's got like 10 knockouts on his career with spinning stuff. and to the point that even Song Kanan threw a spinning attack himself during the fight and then Musum Salikov was like, wheel kick, you're dead kid. I don't want to step on Casey's corner too much, but I'll bring Casey here in a moment. Casey has a wonderful idea for who Musum Salikov should fight next, and if it doesn't happen,

I'll be very upset. And then, yeah, she may, just because that is such a nasty KO. And while I have a ton of respect for Lonnie Kavanaugh and still believe, very big, big thing are in store for him and Jose Ochoa. And frankly, that was just a really good fight. I really enjoyed rewatching that fight. You got to give shoemaker flowers. I mean, that was nasty.

So like I said, really good fight card, man. Like really, really impressive, a fun bit of magic. And so Casey, hop on in here because we don't need to really wax poetic too much about the rest of this. We are going to go to the peeps. So get your questions in. As always, super chats have priority. but before we go, Casey,

would you like to tell the world who Muslim Salikov should fight next? Oh, it's obvious. The battle of 40-year-old Walter weights, battle of Kung Fu versus karate, Sotikov versus Wonderboy. Let's make it happen. A plus.

I mean, that's just... Timing's perfect for it. Timing just feels right. A.K. Casey's coming for your job. He's taking everything we have to work for. I will credit it. I'll credit it to if I say this in the show

because the only thing like with Wonderboy is that like he's been obsessed with you know kind of like oh I'm not I'll still have one more run to the title he's been obsessed with that for years so he only wants to fight like people in the top I don't know in the top 15 I guess

but he but he doesn't but he could fight for another like five years if he you know expanded his range of opponents just a little bit and Muslim is like top 30 Muslim Salakab is not like a it's like a huge drop off from some of the guys he's been fighting. He just maybe doesn't have the name,

doesn't have the reputation of, I don't know, Joaquin Buckley right now. That sounds weird to say because Sal Caw has been around longer. But Buckley clearly has a buzz around him. I mean, he's main eventing soon. But that would make so much sense. There's just a lot of closer to mid-tier fighters that would love to see Stephen Thompson fight

if he wants to continue fighting. If he is on that track of like, oh, I only have one or two fights slapped. I need to be very picky with them. Salachaw is probably not going to happen. Well, you got to get a win first, man. You just come back for a big knockout, get that, get your easy win against the Kung Fu guy. And then you can fight and go for a tire run.

Yeah. It's a tale as old as time. Also, his options are going to be either get defenestrated by like Michael Morales or make this fight happen. And I got to tell you, if your choices are, ooh, I'll fight for fucking Carlos Bratis. Buddy, you should fight Muslim solico for that. So, yeah, like, it's silly. It's silly, frankly, that Wonderboy is still like a top 10 welterweight. Not that he doesn't have the talent, but just like, that's not where his career is at right now,

and we should all abandon that and have more fun with him. Musum Salikov, I would very much like this fight to happen next. So Casey, we were talking about that in the green room. Shout out, I think it's an unbelievably good idea, and I'm fully on board with it. And now we can go to the peeps, guys. we've you know we've been going for 30-ish minutes about this car we don't need to go forever but we will go as long as you guys have good and interesting questions so superchats priority fire them in we'll try and answer some non-super chats i want to be a man of the people as well

and you know people are up it's it's early morning people have their coffee and they want to talk fights let's talk fights from hottie al-sawad i hope i got that right hottie uh maybe blind love for yon but i'm very convinced something was wrong with him during the Marab fight. He beats him in a rematch. You could even argue that his only real loss in the UFC is to Marab. I mean, I want to start here because you can argue that his only real loss is to Marab if you believe that he won both of the, or won the Aljo fight and that the DQ was nonsense

and that this, he should have won the O'Malley fight. And that back in the day, Magamad, Magamatov, who won a split over and didn't deserve it, Jan then won their rematch. So like, you can make that argument. I don't particularly think it holds much water. I am interested in y'all's thoughts on whether you think that was not Yon's best performance and he can do better against Marab or if Marab is just Marab and he's a tough out for anybody. Yeah, I think Marab has a habit of making people look like something's wrong with them, right?

I don't know how many times I've watched a Marab fight and feel like, oh, why doesn't this guy just like do this? Or, oh, this guy never, you know, this guy never fights like this, you know, why doesn't he have this country for Marab? ball. It's like, Marab really, it's probably what the UFC doesn't like him, is he really brings out the worst in his opponents sometimes. And that's why he wins fights. You criticize it all you want. The guy wins fights. The guy, he's the champion. He's on a streak. So I can't go there. I have not watched the fight in a while. Like I'm sure, I'm sure it's certainly worth investigating. But it also kind of goes along with the rule of like, no fighter is really 100% when they're in there. So if you want to make excuses for Jan, you certainly can.

I'm sure he did have some sort of nagging injury in the Marab fight, but I'm sure he'll have a nagging injury again when he fights Marab. So you kind of have to view it that they're always going to be fighting at less than 100%. And that's not enough for me to say that to be very confident that Yon would win at rematch. I think he can't just base in his skills, not because I think something was wrong in the first fight. Yeah, I get me, I don't agree that. I'll give all credit to Mara for that fight when he beat Yon. I don't say Jan was off that night or whatever.

But was Jan, from my memory, it was a rather boring. Yon wasn't beat up. He just kind of got hell out of pressed against the cage for most. Or was he actually got, did he actually get Kabibed and actually kind of take a beating too? He didn't get beat up because Marab doesn't beat anybody up. But he got full Marab. I mean, it was a 50, 45 and Marab hung like 200 strikes on him or something. It's Marab.

So he's like nobody has ever left Marab fight looking. bad that's not what he does it was not competitive yeah um yeah well if they did rematch I want mine I mean I still pick Marab but I can believe Yon can make adjustments and

win that fight and um I mean I get it you know he just had a bad night and just could adjust Maraub's cardio and pace and maybe he's just fix some take some holes in his technique and you never know but uh yeah I still pick Maraub though I'm not trying to take anything away from

I think AK said my thoughts pretty clearly of I could believe that Yan can do better and can win the fight but it is not because of anything other than Yon is a very, very skilled fighter and so it wouldn't stun me for him to come in and look different. That being said, you lose a fight that definitively. Again, not competitive. Like far less competitive than the 50-45

that we just saw Yon and Figurato have. I don't think you can blame entire. like that the entirety of that on. He just didn't have his fastball, wasn't in there. He, I think Marab is a uniquely terrible matchup for Yan in the way that they go about competing. And so I would probably pick Marab in any fight. But, you know, it's not 100%. I do think it is the worst style matchup for Yan though.

But maybe we'll see, you know, Jan called for it. I don't think they're going to that immediately. But if Yan beat Shanao Mavis, I think they would absolutely give him another crack at it. So perhaps we will see that in the future. Thanks, Haudi. RS 40 is Peirrera Jan the best boxer in the UFC, AK, obviously a very good boxer.

Do you think he's the best boxer in the UFC? We had a whole ground table. I think it was a great divide. It was once called about this some years ago. I think when Jan was still champion. So you've got to go pretty far back. Jan was obviously mentioned. He might have even been the impetus for the feature being written.

I can't remember. That him, that and probably more crossover boxing talk or something. So we decided to write something about who was actually a good boxer in M.A. I think at the time, I said Janja, Adrian Yanyas. I'm a huge Yanias guy. I know he's lost fights since then, so no one's going to view him as best boxer. But I still love his boxing. I just think it's like it's very consistent, very technical, very credible.

And, you know, whatever. I think he may just run into better boxers. because bantam weight is unbelievable. So is yon number one? I think he has as strong in case as anybody. I really do. I think his boxing is that good. If you want to put yon number one,

I would not blame you. And again, especially when you add in the IQ, you know, it's not just his fundamental. It's not just the raw ability. It's when you add in the adaptability. Like, I don't know if that's a separate skill. But there was one part in today's fight where he just timed a takedown defense perfectly. he saw Figgy come in and just cracked him with an uppercut right on the money

probably would have dropped 99% of the roster but Figy is tough as hell and stuff like that it's like holy crap like when you watch that you're just like this dude is processing action on another level and then again and he has the fundamental boxing to back it all up and do actually execute so I'm very happy to say he's the best boxer I know Ilya is probably making a case you know these days that was long you know we wrote that article as long before ilia was a thing you could certainly put ilia up there but i i think yon makes my top three easy and i he's usually the first person that comes to mind when people ask me like who's a great m a boxer like he's he's up there max hallway be up there as well well when you get

when we categorize best boxer in m m m m m ms are you saying who utilizes their hands the best in m m m m m m m or are we talking like okay i was like are we talking straight if they were doing boxing who would no no i i i just i I think it's a separate thing. Yeah, I try not. Okay. I view it usually as who is, who does, who performs the best boxing competing in the U.S. Okay.

Not who would necessarily transition the best to boxing. And AK, to your point, I pulled up the article we did. It was you and me doing the old Great Divide back in 2021. You picked Adrian Yanias. I picked Max Holloway. I would still argue that Max Holloway is a superior boxer, superior, but it's not by like passive leaps and bounds. At the time I thought Max Hollow had the best boxing.

I would still say he is right up there with having the best best boxing. Notably, Piotr Yan won our poll. 36% of the readers voted Piotrion as the best boxer. But you nailed it. I think that there is an actual pretty clear answer right now, and it is Ilya to Puria. I don't think there are a lot of good arguments that aren't Ilya to Peria now. And that's not to say Peyodor is bad.

Piotr is an exceptional boxer inside the cage. But what Ilya is doing and has done against some of the very best fighters of all time. And it's, yeah, I think he's pretty clearly the best boxer right now. No issues. But man, I love. and just spamming uppercuts all night. That rare uppercat was just awesome to watch on night. I loved it.

The thing about him, I copped him to Volkinovsky like years and years ago because they both have, and AK, you pointed this out, such an unbelievable ability to make midfight adjustments. Like, I love Max Holloway a great deal. Like, everyone does. He is not a great midfight adjuster. He makes good adjustments from fight to fight. His camp scouts, well, they have clear plans. but he's not doing a ton of changing during fights or Volk round to round,

Pejorda Yan round to round can see a tendency and start to exploit it. And the second round or third round, whatever round it was that he was like, okay, Figgi keep, like here's the trigger for Figgi to duck his body down. I am going to start putting an uppercut right into that space. And the first time he does it sits Figgie on his ass. like he is so good at those mid-fight adjustments and then spamming a thing that is working like okay i have found a trigger that is going to work i am now going to deploy it often and from as many angles as i can and it just kept killing him like it just kept dingin figgy's head up so uh like i

said man he is great boxing and he's awesome i love watching pejorie on fight absolutely uh thank you rs 40. A couple more super chats before we hit some other questions. Lobsided, can we track the stats for old versus bad matchups? I mean, you can certainly track the stats. You'd also need to describe what was an old versus bad matchup on this fight card? Are we saying Jan Jaunan versus Tabitha Ritchie's old versus bad? Jan's 35.

That's pretty old. Muslim Salakov versus Song. But like song, you know, song's not bad. Muslim is old. Yeah, I don't know who you would be calling as old versus bad matchups

is my only question on this card. So this isn't a Paul Tyson reference, a Paul Tyson or Jones debate. I thought it was Jones DeVic. Oh, I guess actually could be that, yeah. But in that situation, and Stepe was both old and bad. Yeah.

That wasn't like old and bad. That was like pretty, still pretty damn good versus old and bad. I think John isn't bad. I guess you would, you would say Muslim and Song Khan Khan Khan is not bad.

Yeah, I don't, I don't think someone's bad. We got to think of a good one before we skip. I'm going to. As they noted, like song isn't bad though. Song like was pretty close. upending the whole Ian Machado Gary thing. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Who's old and bad on this? Who's old and who was bald on this? It's Vulcan being considered old? Yeah, he's the normal age. 35, 35 Vulcan. I don't know. If you're still in there, Lopside, it just dropped a little clarification.

Yeah, just quite sure I understand the question. So I'm trying to think of old versus bad that have happened recently. I feel like I was talked about an old versus bad. 309. There were a couple of those. I mean, Charles Olivaira versus Michael Chandler is old versus bad. That was pretty textbook old versus bad. Chuckie Allen is a little old.

Jim Miller, Damon Jackson, but again, Damon Jackson's also old. And wasn't bad. Yeah. I need more clarification because I don't have good answer to you. Oh, man. Sorry. We talked bad about Stepe and Jermaine. the has come out.

Okay. Let me just say this, Jermaine. Normally, I wouldn't even acknowledge this comment, Casey, but I'm so tired right now. Yeah. If you thought Steepa was good on that night, put down the MMA, put down the MMA for like a couple of weeks. And just, just, you know, go do something else. Just chill. Because if you thought Steeb was good in that fight, if you thought he looked good at any point in that fight, I am concerned.

I am concerned for you as a fan. as a, I'm very worried about your observational skills because, you know. We weren't saying Stepe was bad historically. No, no, no. I will say that because I don't care for him. But like, we can all acknowledge Steepa is historically great. Yes. 42-year-old retired Steepay is bad.

Very bad. Yes. And Casey had Ducey Lopsite has added clarification. Oh. Oh, I didn't say where you come in. And it's the best kind of clarification. I was thinking song Solokov, and yes, I'm salty. I've missed every song that I've ever placed.

Yeah, yeah, buddy, let me tell you, I know that feeling. I know that feeling well. And yeah, again, I don't think song's bad. I don't think that he's as good as Salikov, obviously. It's not as good as him even when Salikov's 40 and old. But apparently Salikov is like no signs of slowing down. He's like, yeah, I'm going to keep doing this forever. So maybe Solokov is just getting into his prime right now.

You never know. All right. Thank you, lopsided. One last super chat before I hit some other questions. Welcome aboard Air Canada. Rocky's vacation here we come. Whoa, is this economy? Free beer, wine, and snacks.

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

Wi-Fi available to aeroplane members on equip flights, sponsored by Bell. Conditions apply. See Air Canada.com. You may have heard of the sex cult nexium and the famous actress who went to prison for her involvement, Alison Mack. But she's never told her side of the story until now. People assume that I'm like this pervert. My name is Natalie Robamed.

In a my new podcast, I talked to Allison to try to understand how she went from TV actor to cult member. How do you feel about having been involved in bringing sexual trauma at other people? I don't even know how to answer that question. Allison after Nexium from CBC's Uncover is available now on Spotify. Brian Witkowski, if Islam fought Shavkat at 170, who would you pick? A little bit of a random question, but I've certainly seen people kind of. pitched this out recently. So, AK, Islam versus Shavka, 170 pounds, who do you pick? I have a very clear answer. I mean, I just, we haven't even seen Islam at 170. Can I see someone fight at

170 before I, I match them up with like one of the top three? It's just such a weird. You can't. Brian, Brian Motowski paid $2 to know your answer. This is, this is clearly, me not doing my job, but like I have so little interest in some of these matchups. Anytime I have a friend, I have friends who watch at M.A. I'm just like, man,

do you think this guy would match up with this guy? I'm like, I just, I don't care. I cannot care less. Would I love to see that fight somewhere down the road? Like after Shopcott's won a title, Islam's defended the lightweight title a few times? Of course I would.

That would be insanely high level of M.A. I would love to see it. But what I kind of, what I want to do I, I'm interested in making a pick today. No, I'll go with Shopcott. he's the bigger guy. I just, I just think,

like, I think Islam's freaking amazing, but I do think size matters. And the gap between 155, 170 is pretty sizable.

So, yeah, it's one of the bigger gaps. I don't like, I don't mind the idea of Islam in 170. I know there's plenty of welfare rates he could be,

but we're about to get a pretty good idea of how great shop cut. I mean, we know shopcott's great. We're getting an even better idea of how great he is. And if he runs through Gary, I mean,

it's apples and orange is how Gary has nothing to do with Islam, but I'm just saying, one guy's a real 170 or and possibly the best 170 in the world. And one guy is like, would be in a blown up 155 or. So I'm always going to favor the bigger guy in that situation.

These questions are, I mean, it's like, would, could Toporia be Chris Wyden right now? If Toparia went up and wait. I don't know. This is, this is the,

this is the, could three, could three, could three teachers' chances be one and gone to. Yeah, I would pick shop got guys. And there has been no bigger supporter. of Islam-Achchev than myself. I'm not saying he couldn't, but thus far we have seen Shavkat's struggle

very little. He struggled some, but very little. And he is a much larger individual than Islamakchev is. And that is just a, that's a huge thing to overcome. Not saying it couldn't be done, but, and I do think Islam could present some problems. Islam is a very good defensive fighter. And so Shavkot's brand of all offense is, you know, maybe neuter. a bit there, but no, he's got 15 pounds on him. And that would manifest too. Like, he's a much bigger person just outside of the weight. Like, he would loom over Islam in the cage.

And so I would absolutely favor Shavkat. But, you know, maybe one day we will get it. Maybe Shafkat takes the belt and Islam defends against Armin and then says, F it, I got next. And the UFC says, okay, sure. And so maybe next year, like, it is very possible that that's a fight that gets booked in the latter half of next year. and we can know for sure.

But thank you, Brian. I had a curiosity, do you believe Islam right now if he moved up to Walter White? Is he a top five Walter White? Yes. Okay. I think that's all that really matters. Anyone in the top five can win the belt in any night. I think anybody in the top five could give him a hard fight.

I would pick him against several top five fighters right now. Yeah. I would pick him over this iteration of Camaro. And I like Camaro, but Camaro was old. And so I would pick Islam because Camaro was old. I'd probably pick Leon over Islam, but like, I don't know. I wouldn't feel confident in it. Probably pick Islam over Sean Brady.

You know? Jack Della, I definitely pick Islam over Jack Della. And I like Jack Della. All right. Thank you, Brian. Super chat from Hannah. Hannah, please stop being mean to Stepe. He tried his best.

Sad emoji. I don't think it's being mean to speak the truth. And the truth is he was a great fighter. He was not a great fighter at UFC 309. He was an old retired man who came to fight and tried his best and but looked exactly like what he was. Yeah. And as far as we know, sounds like he got a good paycheck out of it. It sounds like people gave a review point, I don't know, a little extra cash, you know, on this particular contract and got to go out in his own terms.

I mean, this fight, we have said this many times, we don't know who this was for. I know on paper they sold it as the greatest of all time versus the greatest heavyweight of all time. So I'm sure there's plenty of fans out there who were like, oh, yeah, okay, that's cool. Like, that's reason enough to match these guys up. And that's fine. That's fair. That does look cool on paper. I'm glad.

I am glad we got to see John Jones fights deep. Someday when I'm an old man, I'm looking back and like, I'm glad. I'm glad it happened. I wish it had happened a year ago. And I hate that it's happening instead of Tom Aspinall. But in a void, in a void, like, oh, is it cold least who fought? Yeah, it's super cool. But it should have happened a year ago.

It should have happened more than a year ago. Let's say that. We would love to have seen it three years ago. It would have been great. So, but yes, the flight was really for John. It was for Dana White, I guess. It was for a handful of fans. And it was for Steve-Bey.

He's mentioned way before that he didn't want to fight John Jones. So he gets to say that. He gets to retire. He was essentially already retired. So if we're being Not essentially He was Like people keep saying essentially

No like there's a new story Of him becoming a full time firefighter He was retired He's supposed He's a full time firefighter And a full time fighter Who only fight fought once in the last four years That's both full time job

It's okay to say he came out of retirement To fight John Except you don't want to say that Because then that reveals it for what it is Yeah Has no clothes if we say that And we're being mean to old Steve-Bae. It's because Steve-Bey-1, all right, trust me.

Steve-Biuchich does not give two, he doesn't give 20 shits about what I have to say about him, what anyone in the media has to say about him. Oh, you look, do you think he gives him about internet trolls and, oh, you look so bad. And the Johnson, no, he's, he's rich. He may never read comments again. He'll probably come up for the occasional interview just for fun because he's bored. But other than that, he does not care about what people's perception of him was going. into USC through or not. He got what he wanted and left the way he wanted.

And that is awesome. You know, we said the same thing. Do you think he's ever? You wouldn't read the comments again. I got a lot of respect for Steepay in a lot of phases. The fact that I think he is probably the least online fighter, like I can remember.

It makes me respect him. It's like, that dude is not logging on. He's doing other shit with himself. And again, more powerful. Yeah. It's funny. You kind of said the same thing about the forefiders in last week's main events.

Tyson, Paul, Jones, and Steve, he's like, they don't care. They are rolling around in bags of cash right now. They don't care. Well, maybe John cares. John does care. But, yeah, they think I paid a billion dollars. And it's not even about the money. I mean, it's a lot about the money.

But it's a little bit about, sorry, it's a little bit about. the other things like Tyson saying, oh, so my kids got to see me fight for the first time. I'm like, yeah, that's probably pretty, that's probably pretty cool. That's probably pretty cool that, that also the $20 million. That's also pretty cool. Yes, these guys are getting it every which way they want. You know what I mean? They are winning.

These guys are getting these situations. We can be critical and we can be honest with you guys about how we felt about it, but they are objectively are winning. So, there you go. Thank you, Hannah. And now that he's retired, I will stop being mean to Steve. No, you, I don't believe that for... I don't believe that for a single solitary second.

And the UFC doing their... Hey, the UFC even did a tribute video for... They did during this of it, which was so wild. At 4 a.m. You knew he was retiring. Why didn't you just have that video ready for MSG? That was so weird. Did it just really the first time they showed this video today?

No. Yeah. To my knowledge, yes. What else would they have shown it? So much was happening at 309. I just assumed they showed it and I missed it. It never played during. Not that video, no.

That's weird. Yeah, I tried to look it up after. I went to YouTube after and I'm like, oh, they must have posted this like a week ago. We just didn't see it. I'm like, oh, no, it's not like there. There's no. I was just like, okay.

Strange. This is the time. Very strange. Why not roll it out at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning a week after he's been hired. And again, again, I know I keep saying this. Steve doesn't give it. Steve does not. Steve will probably never watch this video.

He does not care. Does not care. You didn't have that Robbie Lauderman when he's looking at the screen. Yeah, of course he's not watching. The only way Steve A would watch it is if he was working at the firehouse tonight. And so he was just up all night because he was going to get yeah, we're getting 18 hour shifts. He's doing his job. That would be great.

Nothing to do. You guys will watch the firehouses. Sure. Just just just over the squat rack. It looks over like, oh. Yeah. Thank you, Hannah. Thanks, Hannah.

Steven. I just saw this. Boys, boys, 2.30 a.m. messaging from the pub toilet. John versus O'Malley, Co-Main or Fight Night Main. Cheeky one, lads, if Kane didn't get injured, give us a trajectory, top five heavies. Hey, AK, Cruise versus Aldo, make it, Dana. Lot. That's how you super chat, my friend.

There's a lot of content in one chat. There's no limit when you're super chat. You're not limited to one question. You crambers more stuff in there as you want. You're in the toilet. Yeah, just tell us everything. You're in the toilet. You got to go into your mind.

Yon-Rosomalley should be a co-main. I don't want to. I mean, fight night. Yeah, listen, if you go to a night, maybe they go to Montana or something. Not an apex. If they go to a road show fight night, I'm fine with that. Yeah, Montana or Phoenix, that would be pretty awesome.

Kane didn't get injured. Curisda's trajectory. Top five heavies number one. Number one. Kane doesn't get injured. This guy is probably going to be the number one heavy rate of all time. I would pick Prime Kane to beat Stepe. I think he'd actually do really well against John Jones.

I would pick him. I think he would beat Fador. I think Kane is just such a sad story. I like that. Prime Kane with the Prime Kane. Prime Kame. Domil is Prime Fadol. Yeah.

Prime Kame slaughter is Prime Fador. And I'd- It's just, I think he... Who's Prime Kane? What fight is Prime Kane real quick? That's a question. Second JDS fight. Okay.

Second or third JDS fight. That period of the two JDS fights were Bigfoot rematch was also there. Like, that's Prime Kane. Okay. I am not really K on the greatest, you know. I think there's a possibility, but like the truth is also somewhere.

I feel like Kane has been mythologized in a level that's a little insane. Honestly, kind of like Mike Tyson got mythologized. Like, so we're really clear. Mike Tyson is probably not a top 10 heavyweight boxer of all time. Like, and the idea that at the Jake Paul stuff, like people are like, he's the greatest ever.

He would have beaten Ali. Like, nobody seriously thinks that Mike Tyson would have defeated Bob Adli. Everyone knows how that fight would have gone. And I feel like Kane got a little bit of that, not to the same extent, but like, Kane's losses weren't anomalies. They happened.

Yes, he had some injuries heading into the JDS first fight, but like he still got caught. He chose, if you choose to fight, then you choose to fight, and he got caught. Like,

he chose to go to Mexico and not prepare for elevation and get tapped by Verduem. Like, those were decisions he made and feel like people really gloss over them because at his peak, I do agree.

The best version of Kane, is probably the best heavyweight I've ever seen. But I also think, like, you know, you can put it aside as injury. I am less likely to do so, I guess. No, I get that. I get that. Which is one of the big question marks for me. And he had a great career.

He had a really good career. And then the stuff that's happened after is just a whole other mess, unfortunately. Kane's legacy is definitely going to be buried pretty deep, unfortunately. I don't think he's going to go down. is the top five heavyweight. He may be holding onto a spot there right now. Yeah. But that's probably,

but I honestly think that is a lot of, like, again, people just be like, well, at his peak, he was so good, versus what he actually accomplished. His career was fairly short,

17 fights, 14 wins, some pretty key losses. Like, Fador, Stepe are one and two. If you want to put Stepe over Fador, I can see the argument. I don't agree,

but I can see the argument. But then you just like, have a lot of other heavyweights who have done like nog is three um you know for or maybe ver doom is three overeem crow cop like a lot of people had long successful heavyweight careers in a way that cane just did not so i don't i don't think he's top five now even yeah no i i agree i agree i think he falls out of the top five because i think that happened but i think his absolutely could have been number one but uh well never i I agree. There's a world where he could have been that.

Like, he could have been the guy we wanted him to be. I am just less certain that it was the injuries that stopped that so much as, dude, there's a reason heavyweight, like, no heavyweight has more than three title defenses. It's, it is the weight class with the most random shit to happen in it because they're big boys. They all hit real hard. But thank you for your question, Stephen. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you for the super chat.

Thank you. And our last comment we would take before we go eat breakfast or whatever. Brunch. It's brunch day. Lazy bed. What does it take as a promotion to get the UFC to bring a paper view to China? I mean. Very good question.

Lazy bed's got to questions, man. Do you see this color? Do you see this color? Wait, am I even pointing to? Oh, you can't see there. Do you see this color, guys? Do you see that? Well, first of all, the greatest.

sporting club in the world. Are you pointing to the black or the green? I'm going to the color green. All right, guys. This is all it takes. This is all it takes to make anything happen in this life. It takes Moola. So the UFC would have to create a situation where the gate plus whatever,

probably a site fee plus if there's some broadcasting rights thing fee that they can set up in China. I don't know how UFC events are normally broadcast. The Beijing Tourism Board. Yeah, yeah. Beijing season. Beijing season. I'm totally ignorant to how the broadcasting works out there. But again, if some, let's say some broadcaster want to make an exclusive to a certain network

and wanted to pay the UFC a fat check for it so they could air it on their channel or streaming, whatever, and then all of that added up to more than what they would make for an average pay-per-view. You got your, you got your China pay-per-view. That's it, guys. I know this sounds so cynical, and it's definitely an oversimplification of how the process would work. But, yeah, they would have to find a way where it would have to add up to more than a paper-view. profits and that's hard to do and also logistically much more difficult. So I feel like you're at least a couple of years away, probably more than a couple years away from seeing that happen.

AK is correct. Broadly speaking, I will just add there's not a huge impetus to do it. I mean, again, this is their first trip to China since I think 2017. And Macau is part of China, right? Like, I know it's a, it's a territory, but it's kind of like Hong Kong, I think. So, like, they have, I don't know the last time they went back to the like mainland China. And Maca is very tourism oriented, correct? Like, yeah, yeah, there's a reason that's my count. A lot of casinos, that sort of thing. It is very much that.

The last time they went to mainland China was 2019. So obviously, COVID was a big piece of why that just happened. I suspect we will see them make like pretty consistent trips there, but there's just not a huge impetus to do a pay-per-view there when they can do fight-night cards like this, particularly because just the last thing to add, the logistics part of it, AK, that you mentioned, is a lot harder to do a pay-per-view

because they can do a fight-night card and just say, yeah, we're doing it at optimal time there. But, you know, Beijing is 13 hours ahead of East Coast, which is the time zone that the UFC primarily operates on. So you are hosting an event that would start at like 6 a.m. or 5 a.m. Beijing time to get to the sort of pay-per-view time zone that the USC prefers to operate in. So it can be done. It will probably require the Chinese Board of Tourism to offer them a lump sum to visit, much like Utah does. So, yeah, unless they're, unless a like huge Chinese star comes along. And Wiley Zhang is a star.

She is not a monstrous driver of stardom in the same way that like Ilya or Connor or Sean O'Malley is that they will feel compelled to do an event there. So shy of that, I doubt they will do a pay-per-view. They would just do a fight night and let Wiley fight on a fight night, maybe. Yeah, I think zero chance is happening with the next. years five years maybe the political landscape changes uh the star power changes but nothing within the next five years zang min yang it's on you the pressure's on you buddy you got that you got that star power he does he does i was chinese alice frera maybe i don't know i might take the under on five

years just because and we answer this in the previous show like the uc is making a concerted effort to push into the chinese market it will take them a long time to do so but you know stuff like road GOC, they are building a market over there. And so it just takes one. It takes one superstar to come along. And if that happens, then the math changes real, real fast. But we don't have it yet. Yeah. I just think there's a little bit more to the political climate more than anything. Yeah, that's true. Soon of China and the U.S. But what are you talking about? Our political climate's great. Yeah. You're right. My bad. America is great again, so I don't know what you're talking about.

I heard. I heard. Lucky you guys. You must be so jealous, A.K. Casey, do you have any more? Is that that the last of them? Because, I mean, we've been going about an hour, a little over an hour, actually. That's good enough for USC Macau.

It is 11 a.m. here on the East Coast. And so that means you have the whole day. If you're just waking up, you know, go to www.com, catch the highlights. Maybe just pop on ESPN, greenwatch, see a minute. if you got nothing else to do. A.K. is going to go to sleep. Am I? I, I'm recording on to the next one today. I'm not going to see.

Oh, well, AK's going to record on to the next one. We're going to have some follow-up content for the rest of this event. And guys, you know what this means? It's on to the PFL championships, baby. That's right. Thanksgiving and PFL a match made in heaven. Couldn't be more excited about a Thanksgiving Thursday in the PFL championships with all 13 championship fights and like 17 fights in the card.

Friday is going to be fun and that is the road we are now on. Keep it locked in and fight.com for all of your content. Leadsman once and A.K., thanks for being such a trooper. A.C., thanks for being the best in the business. And thank you all for tuning in and sticking with us in this early morning post show. We will see you next time. Love y'all. Have you working, A.K.

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