MMA Fighting - UFC Mexico City & PFL vs. Bellator Post-Fight Show: Reaction to Royval, Ortega + The New Era Of PFL

Episode Date: February 25, 2024

It was a double-stuffed weekend of MMA action as UFC Mexico City and PFL vs. Bellator: CHAMPS took place this Saturday. In UFC, Brandon Royval got his revenge against Brandon Moreno, eking out a split decision win in the main event, while Brian Ortega added another impressive comeback win to his resume, choking out Yair Rodriguez in the co-main event. Over in PFL, Renan Ferreira made quick work of Ryan Bader to claim the heavyweight "Super Belt" in the main event, while Johnny Eblen survived a scare from Impa Kasanganay to win the middleweight "Super Belt" in the co-main event. Plus, the rest of the Bellator fighters cleaned up in PFL's debut in Saudi Arabia. Following Saturday's events, MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew, Jose Youngs, Alexander K. Lee, and E. Casey Leydon reacted to the big upsets in UFC and PFL's big event. Additionally, they discussed what PFL could improve upon, whether Brian Ortega and Brandon Royval earned title shots, and whether or not Francis Ngannou will actually compete in the SmartCage. Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original, The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster,

the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now only from Audible. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Victory horns are sounding and they ring for Brandon. Roy Val, that is right.

UFC, Mexico City is in the books. And it's not a new champion, but there is a new king of the Brandon's. Brandon Roybalt takes a split decision whenever Brandon and Marino. And we're here to talk about all of it. We're here to talk about all the UFC, Mexico City. We're here to talk about PFL versus Bellator. We're going to talk about anything you guys want to talk about because it's been a full day of fighting. Hello there.

My name is Jed Mishu. You're probably thinking of yourself, where's the handsome bald man that usually hosts these things? Mike Heck taking a well-deserved break. So tonight you got me. Well, fortunately, we've got some other people to pick up the slack for my starry ass. Of course, I'm talking. We couldn't not happen. We're going to Mexico City.

We've got to get Jose Young's on board. The king of social media, the king of Fight Week, the king of Mexico? I'll take the president. It's usually voted in. We haven't had a king in a long time. There was a big war over it. I mean, but Josealdo is the king of Rio, and I'm pretty sure they have democracy in Rio. Also, in the Battle of the Brandons,

well, our other, the other panelists that I'm sure you'll be about to introduce, we'll remember this. The first time they fought, the stake was loser changes their name to Brendan. That was, I remember that. Now that moniker goes to Brandon Moreno. So from here on forth on all articles he wrote, it will be Brendan Moraine. And Brandon Reveld now claims his name back. Brendan Moreno had a good run.

But now it is Brandon Roy Vaughlin here to join us as well. As you mentioned, just always down to clown, Alexander Kaylee, aka how do you feel about the new Brendan in town? Love it, love it. Guys, the year of the raw dog, maybe it wasn't 23, maybe it wasn't 2022. Maybe it's not just a year. You know, maybe it's only a year in name. And it's actually like this whole Brandon Royval arc from the second Pantoja loss to now.

Sorry, the first Pantosia loss to now. Maybe this is the year of the Rod Agnes entirety. How exciting. A great, great main event. And to see Brandon Royval just get over that hump is pretty compelling stuff. Again, and what we can talk about the decision in a minute, it was an extremely close fight. I think there's like three rounds in there that maybe could have gone out of their way. So I'm excited to talk about it.

It was a joy to watch either way. I don't think either man should be viewed in any lesser light regardless of which side of the outcome they came out on. And I just want to say I put up a poll who was the biggest winner at UFC Mexico City. And just two options right now, Brandon Royval, and we'll talk about him more later at Brian Ortega. So people vote in the poll and let us know who's coming out of who's your first star of UFC in Mexico City. Yes, vote in the poll. Also, if you've been around for the last couple of weeks, super chats at the end. end we're going to do a Q&A session.

Don't have to give us anything, but if you want to make sure your comments get seen, get talked about, fire us in with the super chat. Fortunately, this group does not have anybody like New York, Rick, trying to fleece you out of money. So it can all come from the goodness of your heart. Unless, of course, you want to say something about the best producer in the game is 30-20 for himself. E.K.'s line is also here on the ones and twos with us, and he'll join us for that. And to talk about stuff because we got a lot of. Stuff to talk about, fellas.

Sorry, I've tried not to curse since, you know, YouTube and all of that. Let's start with the main event before we get into the Brian Ortega stuff. And it's a split decision win. Scores all over the place. It's got a 49-46 for Brandon Moreno is the dissenting scorecard. Two judges go 48, 47 for Brandon Royval in a strange fight. I don't think it was quite the barn burner that everybody expected, given who these two dudes are, but it was still a fun fight.

five rounds back and forth action. And let's start with the scoring controversy. And Jose, how did you score this fight? Are you comfortable with the Brandon Royval being the king of the Brandons now? So talk me through where you're at. I don't have a problem that Brandon Royval won because close fights aren't robberies. I thought it was going to be 48, 47 either way. I had it 4847 for Brandon Moreno.

I just, I find it hard. Like, optically, it just seems like Brandon Royville was probably going to win. he was throwing a lot more and you know brandon marino would get takedowns but wouldn't do anything with him but i think brandon roevel missed on like 80% of his strikes so if you're missing 80% of the time if you if you throw if your output is more than your opponent but you're missing at an astronomical rate i just find it it's difficult for me to give you the win but like optically it's clearly looked like he was the more active fighter pushing the pace brandon morano was just making him miss or brandon brawl was just missing it was just a way to look at he was just a way he was just a win

weird fight. Brandon Moreno still apparently doesn't know how to jab a Southpaw. It just seems like every time like Braden Reveld would do anything would just kind of confuse him and then Brennan Reveld would just run forward and throw about 100 punches and miss 80 of them. So I had it for Brandon Moreno, but it's a

close fight. Neither man really did enough to squeak it out. I know Amir al-Bosie tweeted like both men look terrible. I wouldn't say they looked terrible, but they don't look great. They certainly didn't look great and I don't know. It wasn't the barn burner, like you said. I thought Moreno won, but I don't have an issue with the judges giving it to Royval.

Yeah, I also scored it for Brandon Moreno, though kind of when I did, I said, I don't, this could go to Roy Val. I think a couple of those rounds are up in the air. And just a quick look at the statistics here, just numbers don't always tell the story. But Reval does outland Moreno 145 to 112 in significant strikes, but his significant strike percentage is 28%. He threw and missed a whole lot. He put up 510 total strikes. And it's kind of my major takeaway here, A.K., is that I think Moreno edged out the fifth round. I had a tide going in.

I thought he landed the better power strikes in the final frame. But if you are getting doubled up and then some in just attempted output, even if it doesn't always land successfully, it's hard to win a fight that way. So, AK, you're the king of the robbery reviews here. One, are you going to do a robbery review on this four? us and two is this is this a robbery is this the scorecard you had what kind of where are you at yeah i was 48 47 moreno so uh not but not a robbery not a robbery no it's way too close way too many rounds were close uh we should break down the scoring the official scoring a little bit here so all of the judges yeah it was well all three judges agreed on round four which i think

we all think was the clearest roy val round no question there if you scored round four anything but roe val you're crazy round five surprisingly all five gave it to Moreno. I also gave it to Moreno. I saw a lot of people, though, saying that Royval, they thought Royval ended the flight strong, and they gave him round five. But all three judges were unanimous on four for Royval, five for Marino. I like five for Marino, Jed, for the reasons you said. I think his counters are really clean. I think he landed the bigger shots. It's not to discount Royval's volume or, I'd call it like pitter-patter. Like pitter-patter sounds really insulting. But I just think some of the headshots that Marino landed were closer to

impacting the potential end to the fight. But again, if you gave the round to Royval, I don't see how anyone can call you crazy about that. Now, rounds one to three are funny. So round one, two judges for Moreno, round two, two judges for Royval and round three, two judges for Moreno. That's crazy.

So all three of the first three rounds were disputed. All three first rounds were split. And that's how we ended up with the unsurprisingly. and split score at the end. And Junichiro Camillo, yes, going 49, 46 for Moreno, which again, I don't think it's crazy because he got the 10-9 revile on the fourth. I don't think it's crazy. Yeah, I think you can make a case for Moreno every round.

Again, I would go three rounds from Reno, four rounds is not crazy. But again, as I said before, both guys performed really well. Jed, you're right. Moreno's strategy was a little confusing at times. I'm not entirely sure what his goal was with the way he was approaching this fight. Again, I think he did enough to win, but right now we're looking at scorecards to say he didn't. So maybe they are going to have to have something to talk about when he goes back to camp. So I thought round two was the most obvious for Moreno.

So the fact that two jokes is bananas to me. Yes. Mike Bell and Chris Lee for Roy Bell. Yeah. It's so odd. I thought all the rounds were honestly pretty clear to me. I think the first round is the one that most people would do the swing. But I just kind of thought the fight was pretty obvious.

And interesting to note, Casey, if you can pull that scorecard back up, if you look at it, there is a very much a world where Brandon Moreno wins this because he won two of three rounds more than Brandon Royval did. If you're doing judge scoring cumulative per round as opposed to cumulative per judge, he actually ends up getting the scorecard. So a really interesting, really fun, like really funny thing. But I think we're all coming down the same side of things here, which is, yeah, maybe Brandon Moreno technically won. but it's not a robbery. He doesn't really have anyone to blame probably but himself. It's an old adage. It's terrible, but you leave things in the hands of the judges,

and this is a sort of thing that can happen, particularly when you don't kind of establish yourself more. And that was one of the things that was really interesting to me about this fight, is Brandon Moreno looked really confused and tepid for a lot of this fight. And Jose, do you have any idea why? as you kind of mentioned, he still hasn't figured out how to jab a South Paul, but there were just long stretches of this fight where he was looking exclusively to the counter

and just allowing Brandon Royval to touch him a bunch, even if it wasn't that effective. Yeah, I don't know. I have no idea. It just felt like a more... It just felt like Moreno wasn't going and guns blazing again. Maybe he had a conversation with the coach, like, hey, you know, you'd had all those wars and, you know, they were real close,

and that Pentosia fight was... Everyone loved that fight, but if you stuck to the game plan, maybe you would have won. So I honestly have no idea. He's with Safe Sayud, who is an absolutely fantastic coach, and I'm not going to question anything he does in terms of game plan. But Brandon Moreno's game plan seemed to be throw a lot of overhands. That seems like I'm like, if he misses one of those, his arm is about to dislocate immediately because he's whiff and bad.

And then Brett and Royville would follow up about 20 missed shots. It was just, yeah, it was a confusing game plan from both end, but I'm more confused with the Moreno that showed up. because it's not something we're accustomed to seeing. We're accustomed to seeing Brian Royville, this massive output that he has searching for that kill. We're not used to this trepid, like, slow approach from Moreno. So I don't know what the conversation was happening with this coach.

I have no idea. I'm not going to question safe. But odd approach all around. Odd from Moreno, odd from Royville, odd main event. Yeah, I would love to hear them talk afterwards. get Marino in a post fight because, I mean, he looked like Chocodale out there. He was just winging overhands at every point in time and coming up with air so often. But on the other side, I mean, I've got the sign over the shoulder. Is this the year of the radar? I mean, this is your

boy. And I think there are criticisms to make a Brandon Rival's performance. He comes out there. He gets to win the most important part, as Casey likes to say, you know, gets two paychecks. that's the most important thing, is pretty exciting, at least pushing the action. We through 500 strikes at altitude in Mexico City. That's insane. Does this, how do you feel about Brandon Royval coming off this fight, getting a win, getting his, his revenge and sort of being right back in the title picture? So high on him. So high.

I don't want to take away from the Pantosia win over Royval that won in December and say like, oh, well, Royval just wasn't himself. And that's what? Because we got wasn't, we saw Pantosia. faced the rawst of raw dogs when they fought the first time, and Pantoja submitted them. And then the second fight, when it was made into a more methodical tactical battle, Pantosia won that one pretty clearly too.

So I don't want to insult Pandoja, but I feel like this version of Roy Val, if we saw that berserker style in their rematch, it would have been more compelling. Again, I don't know, maybe that least him getting finished by Pantosia again, but I do remember when that flight was over, And I know this was just two months ago, I was like, man, I want to see Roy Val get one more shot at it.

And I want to see him fight his fight. For better or for worse, I want to see Brandon Revell fight his fight in a championship bout against Pantosia, or whoever it is, has a belt, you know, if he get another shot. And right now, it looks like that could happen because we got 301 in Rio. Pantosia seems like the guy who they're going to have to call upon to headline that car. They had him in Mexico City, probably for the purposes of setting up a rematch for the Moreno, I think they would have, that's, again, that fight is at least one more fight away. And that fight was amazing. The Moreno Pentosh fight was one of my favorite fights to 23.

So it's much easier to sell as a trilogy about, or quite, sorry, excuse me, a trilogy. Aetriology. If you count the ultimate fighter, because Pentotia has beaten him three times. But I think. Don't bring that quadrology talk. I know. It's not a thing. It's not a thing.

You almost did it. Damn you, aliens four, or whatever movie that made that happen. I lost my chance at that with the whole Cartagelagel's thing. But no, no, Pantosia Moreno, I think, was the fight that the UFC was clearly angling towards.

Roy Val said this himself in the M.A.R. He was asked point blank by Ariel. You know, do you think that they're lining you up to get a shot? And he's like, I think the plan is if it's Moreno, for sure, but I don't think they're planning to put me in there. But guess what? He got the double of you now. And again, in a great fight,

maybe not the most convincing win, but it was a really good fight. If you want Pentosia to headline, you could do a lot worse than Royval. you want to pick out another flyweight, but for me, in my mind, Roy Vowell's done enough to earn it. And I really just think the December fight was really not the best version of him that we saw. So I'm fine with him getting a shot very soon after.

Has he done enough to earn it, though? Because that is kind of the big next step question for this main event. I mean, look, that's a terrific win. He just lost dominantly to Alejandro Pantosia in December. We're not even talking about a full year. we're talking two and a half months ago, three months ago, he just got run, pillar to post by Pantosia. I know that they pretty clearly were setting up this,

this Moreno fight. Even that felt a little silly given the circumstances. But Jose, are you comfortable? Like, are you fine with them running Royval right back into this? It's by default. Like I talked about this on the preview show with Shaheen and Eric. It's literally just by default because Manel Cop can't make weight. A bear al-Basie can't stay healthy.

And then Kai Kar-Franz still dealing with concussions. Like, it's literally by default. So the fact that Moreno and Pentosian Reve are getting all of these rematches, it's because they're the only ones that can, you know, like you book them, they're going to show up to fight almost every time. They'll take last minute fights as we saw with Brenno Revelle. Brandon will weigh in as a backup in December. Pantosia will do everything he can to fight as much as he can in Brazil.

These are the three most reliable guys in the division, and we're getting guys like Tagir and La Jaya and to Sirahira. They're on the up and up, but they're just not there yet. So it's by defaults that Brandon Royville will probably get the next title shot because Manel didn't make weight. Mateo Sincalow had just lost to Brandon Royvelle and was supposed to fight Manel cop. Amar Obazi was supposed to fight Brandon Marino because if Amir al-Bazi would beat Brandon Marino, no-brainer.

If Brandon Marino had beaten Amir al-Bazi, no-brainer. So it's not for lack of trying. The UFC is trying to get new contenders. They just can't stay healthier. They can't make weight. So Brenner-Royval is reliable. So he's probably going to get the next title shot.

I know a lot of people talk about like, oh, why aren't certain guys headlining? Why aren't certain guys getting opportunities? And I think a factor that a lot of people don't take into account is, yeah, you win, but are you reliable? Have you won a fight, but did you pull out of like five, six in a row? Can we rely on you to make weight? can we rely on you to show up?

You can with Brandon Royval. So I think by default, he gets the shot, and I don't have a problem with it because Brian Roy, like, I'm not, like, sign me up for Brennan Revell versus Pantosha. Because that, that, like, I didn't hate the first fight. It wasn't as good as Pantosia Moreno, but I would love to see that fight again.

So, yeah, sure, why not? By default, Royval gets it. You make a great point. Say it all the time. The best ability, the best ability is availability, and Royval is always available. And to his credit, he tried to sell the fight. He cut a promo at the end, called out Pantosia sitting there.

If you watched, if you looked at the U.S.S. Twitter. He gave up the game. He broke K-Fave and hugged him. I'm like, fool. He gave up the game. It was tough. I did enjoy Pantosia sitting Caged side during the fight and just flashing a 5-0 up there with his hands because he is 5-0 over the two men in this main event collectively.

100 Pantosia's a boss. is the long story short here. And I will say, before we move on from this to other stuff, we do have a fight next weekend that could change us. I think if Moreno wins, he's going to get that out. He would have gotten the opportunity. I think just because Pantoja lost in December, it is so fresh in the mind that.

And he didn't win by submitting Moreno or finishing him. It was a contentious split decision. I think if Mohamed McAyev goes out there and finishes Alex Perez next weekend, I think he might just slot in there. Undefeated prospect. If Perez wins, then he also just lost to Pintosh, so he probably just drawn it back with Royval. But Mikhail's young, got a lot of heat on him.

If he gets a big performance, I think he somehow has slotted himself into this title picture because of the failings of Menel Kopp and Amir al-Bazi, etc., etc. So interesting times at 125 right now. Interesting times if you're a flyweight at ATT. I'm pretty sure they're going on. Also, it's wild that Muhammad Mahatmajave has only fought in London and Abu Dhabi, and he's making his U.S. debut in the apex just above, because it's supposed to be the Saudi,

this is supposed to be the Saudi card. Yeah, this is the Saudi card. Yep. I didn't even think about the ATT thing. That will be very interesting because I don't think Mahiav would say no. Yeah, I don't think Fentosa would say no either. Yeah, so that, you know, this is the problem with ATT when you have a lot of the best fighters in the world. some point they're going to fight each other.

But speaking of the best fighters in the world fighting each other, I have to begrudgingly say this. In your co-mate event, Brian Ortega submits Yaira Rodriguez, comes in off a 18-month layoff, a almost two-year layoff, last fall in 2020, 2022, and has a real tough first round, injures himself before the fight because somehow that's a thing. He is jumping up and down during the announcements and rolls his ankle. Yayre Rodriguez puts the wood to him in the first round, but at the end of it, Ortega builds a little bit of momentum back. And then kind of felt like Rodriguez gassed himself out, but it was pretty much one-way traffic from the second round on.

Ortega started getting the takedowns and very quickly into the third round, almost immediately gets a takedown, moves through positions, locks up an arm triangle choke and submits Yaeer, Rodriguez, the former interim champion. and I don't know what to make of this or what to do with this information. So, A.K., I'm going to throw it to you. Talk to me about Brian Ortega and why he continues to win fights that he is losing for large portions of them. He's really good, man. He's really good. You got to give us the credit chair. The man can scrap.

The man knows how to fight. He's inhumanly tough. He's a great finisher. This is one of the things we sort of talked about when we were like, shalacking Jelton Elmato while back against Derek Lewis, right? Like I was defending the performance, but I think you in New York, Rick and whoever else was on the show, reminded me like, you know, the best way to survive a fight is to win a fight, is to be able to finish the fight. And I know I'm stating the obvious here.

I know this is like, oh, what great hardcore analysis this is. But it's true. For a guy with such a high finishing rate, as long as he's able to do that, he's always going to have a chance. And I was very foolish to count or take out after round one. I said in our Slack channel. I'm like, well, there's no way he's going to be able to last another 20 minutes after Yeir kind of put an on in round one. But he survives.

He gets the grappling going around two. We all know, man, he gets a fight to the ground. Ortega's got a good chance against anyone. And then by the year, by a minute into round three, it's Year who's gas. It's a year who had nothing left in the tank. So I don't know, Jed, your mileage may vary. You're right. Ortega has a lot of weird wins in him.

I think his whole run towards becoming a tender was filled with like, like, like third round finishes in fights that he was either losing or wasn't convincingly winning. But it doesn't matter. That's why fights are 15 minutes, right? It doesn't matter whether you finish the first round or you finish in the 14th minute, you know? If you have that ability, it's always going to give you a chance. Do I think Brider Tegas is like fully back on to being like a world title contender? What I favor him over Ilya or even Alexander Bokonovsky like a rematch?

Probably not. Probably not. but it was a really fun performance to watch. I picked it wrong. Diya You're going to handle them in my predictions. Surprise. I mean, I've got a lot of, I also picked the main event wrong. People are used to this when they read my predictions.

So let's give Ortega credit where it's to, again, I don't know where this is going to put them in the long run, but to come back for such a long layoff and score his first win since 2018, that's pretty damn impressive. I mean, it is definitely impressive. I have a lot of thoughts about Brian Ortega. They can be summed up in one fun statistical fact. He has 12 fights in the UFC. Do you care to guess how many of those opponents he has outstruck?

The answer is two. He has landed more strikes than two. Zombie, obviously. The other one is Tiago Tavares in his second UFC fight. He outlanded him by two significant strikes. The man is a modern-day Nogera. He is getting his ass beat right up. until the moment that he is winning the fight.

It's astonishing. He is exceedingly durable, and that is helpful, and he has no inclination for self-defense whatsoever, and that is why he gets beat up a bunch. But against the area Rodriguez, it worked out. Jose, what are your thoughts on Brian Ortega? Has he reinsert? I mean, he has, by definition, reinserted himself back into the top of the division, back to the title picture.

where do we go with Brian Ortega from here? I don't think he's going to get the title shot. I wouldn't be, I wouldn't complain if he got it because like a Brian Ortega, Mexican-American versus Iliotiporia, a Georgian-Spanier would be big money in the Latin, like the Latin world,

not as big as if I aired one, you know, like a homeland Mexican. But Ortega versus Ilya sells on paper and it sells in terms of skill. Yair will talk all that greasiness to Ilya and Ilya will also talk all that graciness. Brian's not really that guy. Like even at media day, he's just like, oh, you know, we'll see. I just got to get through Yairair first. Meanwhile, the eagle. F bombing. Yeah,

talking about Eagles and stuff. Meanwhile, Yayaer's F bombing. Ilya saying it's on site no matter where they are. So I'm also pretty confident that 90% of the world, including almost everyone on the staff, was already booking Yaya versus Ilya three minutes into the fight. when Yaya is kicking Brian Ortega into the fence. And everyone's like, oh, this would be a great fighting against Sillia. And then Brian Ortega does what Brian Ortega does and just pull something out of his, out of his ass and wins. I think he should still fight a mob czar.

Brian, like, Yair had all this hype around him. You know, as the former interim champion, he was fighting in Mexico. He was, he's an incredibly exciting fighter. I think if he had won, I wouldn't have complained if he got the towel shot because, you know, hype sells and storyline sell. this is basically just professional wrestling at this point. But I do think Alex Volcanowski should get the next shot. I know people in MMA fighting don't like immediate rematches,

but Alex has been the most available champion, one of the most available fighters over the last few years. I know we don't like to use the word deserve, but I do think hard work should pay off at some point in your life in Volkinovsky, I think, has done the work, and I do think he should get the shot. I'm still bummed out. Jose Aldo never got his rematch against Connor.

I think Alex should get his rematch against Ilya. And I think Brian Ortega should fight Movzar in the co-main event and some sort of backup fighter around there. You know, Movzar has talked all that trash to Brian Ortega on social media. Brian Ortega even laughed at it. It said that it's actually pretty funny. The storyline is there. And the winner of Movzar versus Brian Ortega,

especially if it's a five-round co-main event fight, that the winner of that is then a clear number one contender. or we're not having this who deserves him more, who should do it, who's leapfrogging, what. Mavzar, Brian Artega,

Komen, Ilya, Ilya versus Alex Volcanowski, main event, have yourself a nice little fatal four way, or final four, if you would, fatal four is all at the same time,

final four of featherweights, alliteration, beautiful. You're welcome, UFC. Stick it in, stick it in Spain too. Look,

I really like that idea, a whole heck of a lot. I'm not sure that happens, but it does feel like it, Probably not. Okay, I know we're going to do on to the next one in a few hours here, so I won't ask you to give that away. I'm happy to do it.

I can do it. It's not a secret. Yeah, but the question is just, do you even think that this is, that Ortega could get the title shop? Because I'll be honest. I super don't want it to happen. A part of me is quite interested in watching,

for my money, the worst defensive fighter in MMA go up against Ilya, because that's, it's going to lead to something fun to watch if nothing else. So do you think that that's like in play at this point? Oh, it's completely in play. He has a great chance. He has a great chance. It's dependent on if they want to do the Volcanozky rematch,

how long will they have to wait for Volcanowski to come back, which again, could be a while or could be not a while at all. If you're Volcanovsky, the guy doesn't seem to care about taking time off. It's really us in the media and probably some fans who keep going like, oh, wouldn't it be nice if Volk took like six to nine months off and at least try to sort of rejuvenate? And, you know, there's no coming back from the wear and tear and some of the damage he's taken.

But it certainly couldn't hurt him to take like nine months off. But if he did take that long off, then he's kind of out of the Toporia rematch, right? Tepore could wait. I don't know if we want Tepore to do that. Molesar is the other option. And I love Mosec, but Dana White totally crapped on him at UFC 297. If it's up to me, Mowstar is actually my pick. That's actually I would have him over Volkanowski,

only because I expect Volkanowski to take a break. But I don't know if the U.S. is that crazy about that. So Ortega slides right in there. I still think it's going to somehow end up being Mozart, if only because, again, Wokonovsky break. Ortega, he took a lot of damages to fight. Maybe he needs a break, too. Who knows what happened to his ankle?

So I have to say, Mozart. But Ortegis, a very, very rare realistic option. And again, based on logistics, may have leapfrogged over Volkanowski and Evloia just by getting a win. He is winning our poll, by the way, the biggest winner. convincingly, 78% say Brian Ortega is the biggest winner at UFC Mexico 7. I mean, I think that makes sense. He has potentially just set himself up for his third title fight in six fights,

despite also taking two years off and having now at least having a win over someone who is currently like ranked and employed as opposed to previously where all of his wins had since retired for a long stretch. We can talk more about this fight, but we still have a ton of other stuff to talk about. and I'm sure we'll get questions since this is probably the biggest thing that happened this weekend. But first bonuses, I think the co-main event is the fight that will have the most eyes talked about it. First, let's do bonuses for the UFC, then do a brief rundown on the rest of the card, and then we can switch over because we've got a second event that we do at least need to give some love to your bonuses.

Fight of the night, I mean, these are all straightforward. Fight of the night is Daniel Zell Hoover versus Francisco Prado. That ended up being your feature about this evening because Rao Roald, Julius Jr. fell ill, was pulled, like, was in the back training to go out or prep and go out. Hands were wrapped and then they pulled them from the card. I was not watching like super closely, so I don't know the exact timeline, but it's, did they, they pulled them on like the main car. It was like, yeah, we're just not doing this. They were.

I'm pretty sure the Yasmin fight, Yasmine fight ended. And then Brandon Fitzgerald was like, hey, I hate to do this, but Raoul got sick. So we're moving to the Daniel Zell-Huber fight. So just bumping it up. But Zell Hubert Prado had a terrific fight. And then Performance of the Knights, Brian Ortega gets one. And Manuel Torres on the main card opener, submits Chris Duncan in like two minutes with an RNC, a beautiful performance. Pretty straightforward stuff.

You could have maybe given it to some other people. But the rest of the outcomes here, Yasmin Yarragui, defeat Sam Hughes by unanimous decision, Haune Barcellos defeats Christian Kinones by submission in the third round at R&C Jesus Santos Aguilar defeats Mateus Mendocho with a split decision Edgar Chiraz, Daniel Lacerda

in the fight that we all needed to see that had to happen for closure triangle choke in the first two minutes of the fight just like should have had it last time Fris EM beats Cordia Puez by split decision with three or four splities on this card we had a few because Felipe Dos Santos also beats Gertaldon Marano by split decision.

The rare 2730, 29, 28, 29, 28 split. Ronaldo Rodriguez beats Denise Bondar with a submission and opening up the card, Mohamed Naimov beats Eric Silva. A weird TKO leg injury, like before the fight really got started. It's an odd start to the evening, but fellas, aside from the big two fights, kind of what is your big, what's the loki banger? What's the, what's Mike Hex say the low-key all-star? What's the biggest takeaway outside of the top fights?

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Well, right out of the gate, it's Jesus Aguilar, not Jesus. That was very funny. anyway um lokey banger i mean the honey barsela's fight was bananas for as long as the last

I know there's a little bit of weird stuff and christian quinoes was complaining about like an illegal kick or something i didn't think it was illegal but honey barceles proves to just be a maniac that dude will just throw down he's also anyone

he's also oddly enough I really appreciate this as someone who has to do a lot of social media graphics his fights are so photogenic because they're so violence and there's, like he's a guy that closes gaps with long

looping punches and kicks that it just creates such great imagery. Like a lot of these like dirty boxers or grapplers like there's a lot of action happening but they're all, it's all it's like looking at a Rubik's cube of like punches and it's not always the best.

Hunter Barcellus is on my shortlist of most photogenic violent fighters just because it's it's so i would love to see esther shoot shoot his fights because i think she would do pull out some great stuff but yeah i mean that seems to be the no-brainer that dude just fights like a cycle every time i mean he's he's got three five of the nights and it could be like seven he's harrietarine barceles is awesome uh just a get-or-get got all-star just an action fighter par

ex alance uh okay what's what's kind of your big non-major takeaway from the fight card I'm so excited about the lightweight division. Daniel Zell Huber and Manuel Torres are just really compelling prospects and in different ways too. I mean, Zell Huber is only 24 and he's got some real. The fact that he has a function, well, beyond functional, an excellent jab already makes him like more dangerous than, and more technically dangerous than like 80% of the fighters in MMA. He's got a, he's got to jab any 6-1 at lightweight. Yeah, he's huge. That combo is, that's going to win you a lot of fights.

How many, how many oversized fighters have we seen? We're just like, man, imagine this guy had a jab. And they never develop it. And they have like solid careers, but never make it to the next level. And you're always wondering, like, God, if they just had that jab. So I don't know, Sel Huber has a lot to fill out, being wrong, very young guy. He's got good experience already, but there's plenty more to come. But just having that weapon makes him compelling.

He's now won three straight. So good for him. And Manuel Torres. I don't know what his ceiling is. like it feels like the upside is lower than Zellhuber, but God, he's exciting. I mean, he's just going in there to finish everyone he fights or get finished. I think it's, I think it's 10 straight fights now that he has not gone out of the first round. He does not.

I don't know if you guys, I'm sorry, I didn't listen to No Best Bar this week. Jan, I don't know if this guy was a guaranteed under. If you said bet like $5,000 this guy's going under because he has no interest in going past the first round. I'm sure when he gets step up in competition, we might see that change. but both Torres and Zell Huber, I thought, showed up. We're given main card spots. They might not be the biggest names yet, but those spots are not to be well deserved,

and it won't be the last time you see them in the final five fights of a UFC event. Yeah, Zell Huber's mine for sure. And it feels like a cop-out's the feature fight, but he's 24, and this kid's going to be a top 15 lightweight. Like he is developed really well. He came in with some shine. He took that loss to Trey Acton in his debut. But, you know, he was 22. at the time. And that's sort of the kind of thing you expect for fighters making a big leap,

making a big step into a whole new world. But you hear this kid talk. I mean, looks good getting off the bus, handsome dude, fluent in multiple languages. Like, you could put the boosters to this man if he can keep kind of developing on the pace he is. And I love Francisco Prado. He is probably not going to be like great, but he's going to be a dude who can hang around. I mean, he's 21 or 22, something insanely young. He's going to be able to hang around. He's going to be able to hang around. the UFC for 15 years, just having a John McDessie-like career of really fun fights, probably undersized for this weight class, but whatever, he's just out there scrapping, as long as his body can hold up because he got messed up in this fight at one point in his

corner. It's just tough. It's just really, really tough for him. So, yeah, a pretty good fight card overall, unless you're a believer in Flyweight Under's, and it was tough. but a pretty solid return to Mexico City and you know what the best part about it guys it was the second event of the day

we already were warmed up we were ready to imbibe all of these fights because kicking the day off yes there was a KSW event if y'all want to talk about it you could drop a super chat because otherwise we probably won't even though it's pretty fun because it's KSW but we got to talk about the other major event of the year

the co-leader made its 2024 debut with the PFL versus Bellator champs fight card. Champs versus champs ultimately it ended up being like two champs versus champs and then some former champs versus some current champs or maybe they were just let go of a belt. It's kind of a weird situation for some of these fights. Some fights fell through. But in your main event in an outcome no one could have predicted,

Hanan Faheda knocks out Ryan Bader in 21 seconds to claim the Super Belt and the lone victory for PFL in the evening, the rest of the evening was swept by Bellator fighters as Johnny Eblen defeats Impakasangenei in a very contentious split decision. I think we'll talk about that. If you guys have seen the fight, I don't know if you all watched it or not, I did.

Jason Jackson beats Ray Cooper just sort of runs right over him. Lidim Kov makes his heavyweight re-debut. He fought back there and risen, but comes back to heavyweight after years as the light heavyweight champ beats Bruno Capoloza with an arm triangle choke in the second round, an absolute demolition.

My boy, Yo-L. Romero, gets a W over Tiago Santos in a fight that was exactly like we all believed it would be. AJ McKee keeps on winning. He submits Clay Collard. Looked sensational. I am sure Casey will want to comment and talk about AJ McKee. And talk about Aaron Pico, who just ran over Henry Corales, Kerales stepping in on short notice, one of the guys who handed Pico's first career loss.

Pico gets it back. Biazio Ali Walsh makes his pro debut, gets a win in a first. fight that happened. Chris Shields gets a split decision win in a fight that happened and a couple of pre-limb fighters that we don't really need to talk about. So fellas, PFL versus Bellator champs, first off, did y'all watch this? I was unavailable, so I did not. My input will be limited here, though obviously I kept up in the amazing coverage of

www.com. I'm very aware of the results and some of the highlights. and certainly was keeping on people talking about, certainly the buzz around it. It was sort of like an eventful show. I heard some positive things about the pacing. And before we go to Jose, let me just say,

big pat on the back, then a fighting crew. We did amazing with our topology picks. I guess we should give people like some way to look at these, but no worse than I think eight out of, how many fights were there on this on the car? Eight out of eight correct picks.

Over 11 on the PFL. Yeah. No worse than eight correct picks in Mexico City and no worse than nine correct picks for the PFL card. I am embarrassed. My one miss was Tiago Santos. I picked him to be Yo Romero.

And you're right, Jed. If I just used common sense, I could have been celebrating my first, my first perfect set of picks since I think some random UFC card in St. Petersburg or something like that. This is worse than when I picked Sarah McMahon to beat Ronda Rousey,

which also cost me a perfect card once in a lot of time. So that was at least... We don't learn. Was it? Was it? No? Yeah. Was it?

Yeah. Yeah. Was it? In retrospect, a lot of bad choice can be made. But we did really well today. Maybe the PFL card wasn't that hard to pick. I think maybe the fix were pretty obvious. But we did a good job, though.

I think M.A. fighting. Good job. Go us. Jose, did you watch this? Yeah, I tuned in right when, I think, halfway through the first round of the Clarissa Shields fight. And then I did it. Oh, that was a tough time to start watching. I can't say that I was locked in on every single fight, but obviously I was pretty locked in for the Pico, McKee, Nemcov,

and main event fight. And then I watched every fight, but I wasn't hyper-focused on every single fight. I was working it, obviously. Yeah. I will say the production, like the camera and everything, was terrible. Terrible.

Was that the only person that actually watched, like, really, watched the PFL because I have No, I worked it. I watched it. I watched it, but like I would like me and Eric were both working the PFL stuff. So we were taking turn stuff. But like the production is ass though. Casey, I knew you had stuff to say and I was going to rope you in here.

I will say to follow up on Jose's production was really, really tough. That being said, big picture. I think this was a pretty successful endeavor for PFL. This was never going to be a money-made. maker on pay-per-view. I am certain that it was not just because it never could be, but they took some lessons. The pacing on this card was phenomenal. The start was rough. The start was really rough because the first fight didn't happen until like 50 minutes into the broadcast. But once they got the ball rolling, I mean, they were moving along at a good clip. That was a welcome change. The booth,

it is what it is. It was a mix of the PFL and Bellator booths. It's not to everyone. taste, certainly not to mind, but it wasn't awful, and they had everything going pretty well for their first sort of endeavor in 2024 and under the new PFL Bellator schema. I think there are a lot of good takeaways here. And ultimately, I think all the right people for the promotion won. So Casey, do want to bring you, bring you in since you watch this and obviously have some major takeaways as well, before I give you kind of the big thing I'm taking away from the fights here, what, what is yours? What stands out, what performance truly stands out to you as significant other than the co-main event? Because we're going to specifically talk about that. Performance wise, I think

no performance actually kind of blew me away in the sense that all the favorites won. And if you look at, I think every favorite one on the card. Every favorite one. Yeah. So nothing really blew me away, honestly. It was a very easy card to pick. Like I remember on the preview show, like we were all pretty confident that Bellator would sweep if not maybe lose one yeah obviously the biggest shock to me was it was it was a shock because he still won was my my pick for the best middle weight in the world came he could have easily lost that fight if the judges wanted to give it the imp imp imp I wouldn't i've gone you know but uh but umpah i thought just really overperformed and johnny ebblin actually came back from some serious adversity and won the fight.

So I'll give them some credit, but it was a fight you should have won more easily. But being three rounds, I don't know, they're fighting at midnight and outside in the desert. Who knows? Romero and Santos. I thought it was perfect. I can't believe how accurate you were in that fight.

I was like, oh, you guys are, you guys are overselling how bad this fight will be. I was like, no, you guys are underselling it. Congratulations. It was amazing how on point, You guys were the prediction for that. Aaron Pico and AJ McKee looked phenomenal, especially AJ McKee coming against a prepared clay collard. Poor Henry Corallis came off the couch.

It looks like he came off the couch. But Aaron Pico did what he should have done and completely rolled through him. But my biggest takeaway about the card was mainly actually it just didn't. I mean, outside of the big kind of entrance and everything, the car just didn't feel like a big thing. I don't know. There were points in the main event where I swear they were in the apex. And that should I should never even think that.

I don't know. I'm glad that you brought that up, Casey. And that's a very real. And that's a very big issue to me with cars. Because like we watch old Strike Force cards and stuff, even though they were on Showtime. They had big promo packages. I don't know. The crowd was into it.

it. It just felt like a bunch of oil people from Saudi Arabia threw a bunch of money and this was their own private, you know, MMA event for their buddies or something. I don't know. It's just and it was open to the public. It just didn't feel like a big thing. Like, like ranking wise, there were amazing fighters on this card, but it just didn't matter because I don't, something wasn't there and I'm not sure what it is. And as soon as, because you watch any fight on. on that pay the pay pay pay pay pay pay pay pay for the biggest pfell biggest bettimore card ever and then you watch a just a fight night card and the ufc everything just looked better on the ufc card it just did and that's no matter how good the fights are no matter how good the fights are if they don't look

good they don't feel big it just doesn't matter and to me that was the biggest my biggest takeaway from the pfl pay-per-view the lack of the lack of a actual crowd was kind of a bummer. Like you said, it was just a bunch of rich people and celebrities. Yeah. And like really apparent. Yeah. And real quick, too, the pacing, the pacing was great, but I think they actually went too far

the other way in the, and since that the pacing was too fast, and since that there weren't any big promos or like, you know, before the main event, there wasn't a reminder why this fight is so important. Because I don't know who Hennon-Ferrera, Hennon-Ferr really is. I don't keep up PFL. I don't like PFL's product. You know, I watch the results. I go, okay, this guy's good.

But I don't honestly know very much about them. But there weren't any kind of really big promotional package. You know, it's just like a two-minute little thing before they come out. I don't know. And I think they didn't do that to make the show go faster. And I feel like it was we needed those couple minutes. I don't know. But they got rid of the smart.

I don't think they mentioned smart cage. I don't think they talked about how fast. They did, but they didn't mention a lot. They didn't have any of the stats running on it. Okay, so they are listening at some point to us. And, oh, they did. They're moving away from their base is what they're doing. And one thing they did do very well, actually, is the use of John McCarthy with the

little cutaway when there were any sort of judges and issues or that was very smart because we've complained a lot about it. That's how he should have been used for the last six years. Yeah. And they did it perfectly. and that I want them. Those are good things and there are a couple of bad things. But overall, I still think a good day for PFL ator,

but not not a home run. Like a really, a ground roll double maybe. I don't know. I feel like they overproduced in terms of like the production is what I'm trying to say. The production was a little too over the top, awful lighting. Oh God,

the lighting was so bad. Lighting was really bad. It was worse than your lighting right now. Yeah, at least not like they had lighting. They had access to natural light and they chose not to use it. My excuse is it's nighttime and I have no light. Like I have a valid excuse. They're a billion dollars.

They probably have a billion dollars from Saudi. But like it was such a jar in contrast of like all of this over like this fire and pirate techniques and they cut to John McCarthy in like a storage closet with like a podcast microphone. Like I love what my in John McCarthy in that role, But I do like how the NFL and the NBA do it, where they cut to their expert that's in like an actual truck, like a studio truck with like the stuff playing in the background for him to explain. Not just John McCarthy in his podcast chair, but baby steps, baby steps. But the lighting for the actual fights was just God awful.

It made it made BKFC look like an Emmy Award winning production. Yeah. All right. Well, that's my two cents on this. That's my... Can we talk about Hanan Federa? Can we talk about Hanfahed? Yeah.

Can we talk about that... Can we talk about... We can, but it kind of doesn't matter. So Hanan Fahara just ices Ryan Bader in the most Ryan Bader loss that's ever existed. If you've ever seen him fight a dude who hits real hard and is big, you've seen the fight with Hanam Fahedah. It is the Anthony Rumble Johnson fight in Replica. And...

And then it's spread in what... Anyone who didn't see it like me, Francis Ngano then proudly stepped into the cage to defend his PFL territory. I was actually about, I was actually about to say that for all the buildup that was done in the pre-fight of PFL saying explicitly France is going to fight the winner. Francis even kind of intimating something, though maybe saying it less definitive than PFL did. Francis Ngano was sitting cage side and he leaves before the call before the fight is done. Like the fight is done and he sort of exits after the. the announcement. I don't even think he was there for Hanan for his callout because Hanan does get on there through the translator, you know, makes his case, I'm one of the best

heavyweights in the world. Where are you? You got to fight me, et cetera, et cetera. And Francis is already gone. It seems unlikely that Francis and Kanu will be fighting Hanan Fahedda anytime soon. So, well, Hanan gets the belt with the ring in it. And this is the biggest win of his career, I think undeniably as far as quality of opposition goes. even though Ryan Bader is 40 it's still what exactly that means is still up in the other

the co-main event is I think the biggest takeaway from this fight card as well because Johnny Eblen was in serious serious trouble against Imbica Sanghane he got hurt really badly in the second first round was pretty meh on both sides Eblen had a big lead

Impa kind of built his way into it and then Impa comes out like bad at a hell in the second round tags Eblen Eblen is hurt. He's in survival mode for two-ish minutes, gets through it, and EMPA is pretty tired. Seems like he may have shot himself in the foot, fired too many bullets there. And Eblen just starts to take over the third round, still competitive. And if you scored that third round for Impa, it is not necessarily wrong or even the first round, honestly. But Eblen just kind of wills himself to victory with the gas tank as Impa starts to fade. By the end of it, It certainly at least look like Eblund is going to win rounds four and five if they had happened. But survives by the skin of his teeth. And I pitched this internally afterwards. Casey, certainly for you as you know, you have been the biggest Johnny Eblen guy,

is this going to knock him down our rankings come the next rankings update? Because I think we can all respect with him because I'm going to did last year. It's kind of an incredible career turnaround from him. But that was not a very very important. very good performance from ebblin just to be frank despite gutting it out and getting the wind showing some good qualities some really it was a tough night in the office forum and is he going to drop from being the top middleweight in the world for you i seriously thought about it and the end i don't think i am um mostly because i just don't think i just don't think ddp being the best middleweight in

the world it still kind of throws me off a little bit mostly because i just don't think i just don't think ddp being the best middleweight in the world it still kind of throws me off a little bit, mostly because I feel like one through five or one through six on the middle weights. I feel like they all beat each other. Yeah, I think no one, there's not a dominant middleweight in the world right now. There just, there just isn't, I believe, I believe. But I'm just going to give more credit to Impa that he just really is just much better than I thought he was and he is improving as a fighter. I'm just going to give Impa a lot more credit, then I gave him coming into this fight. And no, Johnny Evelyn did not fight his best fight, but even on his worst fight, he

still got the win. And that's enough to keep him in the number one spot. But I understand if people want to, you know, bump him down a little bit or kind of like, ha ha, I told you he wasn't any good. So, yeah, it's just one of those. But yeah, I, I, I want to give more credit to the guy that lost than take away from the guy that won. I think that's a fair reading.

Inpikistan Ghani is clearly a better fighter than the dude who got highlighted by Joaquin Buckley. He has clearly improved a lot over the last couple of years. I will be interested to see sort of if he continues to compete at 185. Obviously, he won the PFL title at 205. He was a welterweight-ish for a little bit of time there. So 185 feels like it's probably the true natural form. And he looked good for stretches of this. Before we go to the peeps, I do just want to say,

a quick rundown of things that don't, we've already mentioned, but don't need to be harped on except for, uh, Vadim Nemcov is actually the dude who should fight Francis and Ghana, who? Best every weight on the card. Yeah,

like best every weight on the card for sure. Um, and I'm Faheda, Francis would at least be fun, but Vadim Kov is probably the fight we want to see. Uh, and Aaron Pico and Aegee are incredible. And top 10 in the world that their weight class,

whatever weight class that actually ends up being for Aegean McKee, uh, They are unbelievable. Imagine a world where we could get like Aaron, if Aaron Pico was in the conversation of like, who should Brian Ortega fight next? Like, imagine. We unbelievable.

If we could have like A.J. McH. Like, should A.J. McKee fight Brian Ortega next? Like, yes, 100%. Like, it's so annoying that they're not all that. And that, we got it. We have to talk about the weird, very bizarre John Jones interview. That's how. I was going to end the PFL thing.

That was so stupid. Like, John Jones looked like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin. And then it was that Sean O'Connell was like, the fuck could happen. But it's not held up on her. I'm like, fuck off. Like, that's so lame. I loved it. I loved it.

Yeah, but it was like 45. And that's like such an old head move. Like, oh, we draw the lot. Like, shut up, dude. You know it's not going to happen. You know it's not going to happen. You're just like posturing up because it's your big day and like it's not going to happen. Like John Jones is the best heavy in the world and he basically has to do the interview.

It's like, shut up. Like shut up. It was so lame. It was just this old man be like, yeah, come challenge me. I'm like, fuck off. Get out of here with that weekend. John Jones accepted a first class flight. Not talking about John McConnell being like the fight could happen.

But it's not because it's not on our end. It's not. I'm like, fuck off. We've had this conversation. It ain't happened. Didn't happen with Strike Force. Didn't happen with Pride. Didn't happen with Belator. Like, you're not like the more you talk about, the less likely it's going to happen. If you know anything about Dana White, the more you push him, the less likely it'll happen. So just to just do you just focus on your own product, bro. That's all I have to say. That was just I just let me can I get through a little inside inside baseball here, Jed, for you go. Um, regarding the sort of the atmosphere of the interview, we had a little we had an internal discussion about a headline that we were working on for the stuff. story, Damon was writing the story. We asked, I think I can say this on the air, it's fine. And one, one headline that was proposed was,

John Jones endures uncomfortable interview as PFL broadcaster blames UFC for Francisc guided flight not happening. And we all agreed like, okay, we can't really frame it that way. It's not like, it's not like, and any time in the headline. It's not, it is true. Yeah, it's hard to like in a headline unless someone says a certain word. You can't really say how they're feeling. That's kind of one of a rule of a headline.

this person felt its way unless they said it or clearly conveyed it through their words. So he didn't say it. But we also all agreed that was clearly an encounter interview. His eyes conveyed it. His eyes conveyed it, AK. The content of the conversation conveyed it. So, yes, we could not say that. But I think as you guys are kind of talk about anyone who watched it.

It was like, uncomfortable. It's a great word to describe what happened here. It was a super odd moment. And it was the culmination of a story. that they had been running the entire evening, basically. From the outset of the broadcast, it was, tonight is the night we're champions between two organizations compete.

This never happens. They repeatedly said that this is the first time that's ever happened. Like, conveniently forgetting that Belator v. Risen is a gimmick that they have been doing for a hot minute. It's why it's so lame. It was so lame. A lot of it is, I'm with you,

I'm with you 95% of the way, and that it is lame to do this in general and then to put John Jones, whose fault it is not for this specific reason, sort of on blast to defend the UFC, but also at the same time, John didn't need to be there for any reason. He just chose to be there.

You kind of play dumb games and win dumb prizes. You gave John Jones, like, this is how stupid this segment was. You gave John Jones a very uncomfortable platform with Francis and Gano like five feet over, just threw Francis Gano on, and said they just kept cutting, to each other, shown Francis

that I'm calling John Jones fat, and then you give John Jones the mic so he can hype up a fight with Steepay and Tom Aspinall who aren't even in your promotion. And Francis isn't even going to fight in MMA ever. So like, fuck off. He said he will.

He said he will, Jose. Cool story, bro. Big if true. Jake Paul said the same thing, and that ain't happened to neither. Answered, Connor McGregor. I loved it. That's all. I loved it.

It's so dumb. It made it be uncomfortable. So that's the rundown on the PFL. And look, it's two in the morning on the East Coast, not all of us there. But I've been watching fights since noon. So I think it's time that we get to the peeps. If you've got questions, drop in the chat. I haven't watched the fight since 1990.

Yeah, we've got some super chat. I've also been doing that. But at some point I had sleep. We've got some compelling But compelling super you know the deal by now You got a question to drop in the chat We'll pull up and answer them

Super chat's going to get priority So drop a little extra scratch And we will talk about the topics you want Be it UFC Mexico City PFL versus Bellator Or even KSW or whatnot Terrence Leverett Thank you for Super Chat and Terrence

Fluke Injury Parley hit boys Winner get that title shot next So I am assuming that the fluke injury probably speaking with of is the Brandon Royval Brian Ortega who obviously in these rematches both ended somewhat controversial controversially uh in their first iteration so i get it uh that's if there's another one that i missed in there um no i don't think so but definitely i hadn't even thought about this but that's really interesting yeah it's uh it's a fun it's funny how that worked out uh Winner's getting title shots next, though.

We kind of touched on this already. Brandon Royval seems like he has a really good shot at it, given just sort of the openness of flyweight. Brian Ortega, I'm on onto the next one with AK. I won't spoil it. I don't think he's getting it next, but it wouldn't be totally shocking if he did because featherweight, a lot of balls are up in the air

at that division right now as well. So you guys agree with that, correct? Yeah. Wouldn't be my first choice, but won't be surprised. Yeah, at least one of them will. I really feel like at least one of them will. I'm leaning toward Ritega. I think the timing might be there.

But, yeah, I think I'll take the under. I will say that neither of them will get it. I won't be shocked if it happens. But if I had to pick what will happen, I think it will be neither will get it. Okay. Casey Carpenter, who sucks more? Ortega or Chandler. So,

Jason, that's for you. Thank you for super chatting. I made some promises about being professional on this broadcast and I'll just say that

Brian Ortega is, I think, the most frustrating fighter in M.A. Michael Chandler is, I just don't really like him, but I understand him. I don't understand how Brian Ortega operates

as a fighter because he has a lot of tools that should make, him a champion. Like he has such a dynamic and exciting offense that is unique to him and that people are not prepared for and he is just insanely durable. I mean, this dude can take a beating. Homer, but Homer Simpson is not a reliable like pattern to be in MMA. Historically, there has never really been like a championship level fighter who simply could not defend themselves, but for having a granite chin.

They also had defense and didn't just run headlong into every bit of offense from their opposition. That's not how Brian Ortega works. And the two times he's fought dudes who haven't sort of folded to the game he offers back on his own offense, he has gotten just bludgeoned. Like Volk and Max absolutely brutalized him in a hard, hard way. But everybody else has sort of fallen into the game.

And I'll never understand it. I will, because he loses every fight until he wins him, and I just can't wrap my head around it. So that's where I'm out with him, boys. Not to put words in your mouth, Jed, but Chandler, then. Yes. Answer the question. Answer the question.

Who will get? Will Brian Ortega fight for the title before Michael Chandler fights Connor McGregor? Yes, because Michael Chandler is never fighting Conner. I'm not, I don't think Connor's fighting again. Well, Hannon-Fair fight Francis Ingano before Michael Chandler fights Conner-O-Gregard. Again, yes, because Michael-Fer what Chet just said. I truly don't think Conner's coming back. Will pigs fly before Chandler fight?

Thank you, Casey. Casey Carpenter or not, Casey Lydden. You think you, too. But thank you also, Casey. This is a trilogy of, of superchats. It's a chain of thought. So we're going to go through kind of fast through for, from Milan Lascica.

Milan Lascica. Can we talk about the fact PFL1 Faheda versus Inganu? Okay. Can you hold on? PFL one is an interesting thought. Pay for Super Chat. They'll ignore you. It's lit.

Sounds like a party. And then? Oh, no, my bad. I didn't know how that works. So I always thought you were ignoring this. We, I'm pretty sure people were doing the same thing at the post show that I had to run. People were like,

I'm giving you a dollar, bring on my question. I'm like, bro, you know how this works. Look, it's a new feature. We're learning as we're here.

Milan, that's okay. Well, we answer Milan's question before Michael Chandler fights. Thank you, Milan. We will. So back to his first,

his first question. The first one is, did PFL win? I mean, they got, they Fahara won and they lost all the rest of them. So, because that was, that was an interesting narrative if you were on MMA Twitter of, they were planting flags at the top of the stage for like who won. And it was just like all Bellator flags going down the line. It was super lame. And it was also like a pretty bad visual for this, except for it's not.

Yeah. We got own Bellator. So it kind of is whatever. But, A.K., I think maybe you said this. Somebody said this. So I'm sorry if it wasn't you. By the rule of last shot wins, they won. Because El Problema won.

So he had the ball last. They win. One pride rule. Nate Diaz beat Leon Edwards. You know, same thing. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

What did when Brad Catona won tough? he was obviously on Michael Chandler's team for like most of the season right, AK. Yeah, he was. No, no, I think I took the first fight or something. He went over. Well, like, regardless, like, yeah, I know you mean.

Everyone, like, pretty much Connor lost every fight. Yes, correct. And he wasn't even on his team, and then Carter tweets like, Team McGregor wins tough. It's official. And then just signs off. I was like, I mean,

you got to rock. Walk off, drop the mic. Here's what I'm. will say about Faheda Inganu. Again, I would way rather it be Vadim Nemcov who looked awesome at heavyweight. Granted, it's Bruno Capulosa, but still.

That squeeze. Oh, my God. Fahena and Gano would last about 90 seconds and it would be really fun and super violent. So if that is what we end up getting, that

still is pretty cool. They got to do Ngano, Nemcov. And then the co-main event, Nemcov's coach, Fadour, can fight Francis' his coach, Mike Tyson. I'm saying Mike Tyson, yeah. Yeah, I'm here for the circus. Mike Tyson's quote, quote about, I just like to watch people fight.

I'll watch anything fight. I'll watch roaches fight. It's like, okay, Mike, good one. This is fun stuff. PFO had a lot of good ones. Did you guys think Shale was very good? Chell's off. I didn't think Shale's a lot of his element.

I thought Chale was bad, but he was better than everyone else in the broadcast booth for them. He also did the thing that Dana used to do a lot where he yelled into a microphone as if the microphone doesn't already amplify his voice. So that was a tough scene. The broadcast was tough in a lot of respects. They were very keen on selling their product in a way that was outputing. It was tough, but. And honestly, it made me appreciate. I know other people have issues of, say, Dominant Cruz or whatever,

but I thought tonight's commentary for the Mexico card was really well done. Was it Fitzgerald? It was just your own. Yeah. Fitzgerald is very good. Yeah, Fitzfelder and Dom. I thought they did a great job tonight. That's all.

So, and I think it, it may. me appreciate them a little more after watching PFL. I'm a fairly big Dominic Cruz hater. I will say that he was mostly good tonight. He had a couple of brain farts when he was on a way, couldn't do the math on Denver being Denver versus Mexico City elevation. And then he also just boldly was out there claiming that Brandon Moreno is the man who built the flyweight division because he forgot that Demetrius Johnson existed.

I'm unclear. He's like, yeah, Brandon Moreno. It's the guy, the reason this division. Chale, yeah. The guy they released because U.S. he released. The thing that bug me with Chale is he would just pick up on these like really obscure things that we just didn't need to talk about. But he just was trying to fill time. He's like, oh, they're complaining about blows to the back of the head.

And then like, they're saying. He goes, ignore what I just said. They're not doing that. Yeah. I will say in his very slight defense. uh shone o'connell is normally the play-by-play dude and he just didn't speak for big portions when like normally a play-by-play guy would be filling air he was just like watching the fight i guess they were like odd empty space it was not a seamless broadcast in that respect i mean you got chale moving into

that booth so it's sort of new but um i hope they iterate on that moving forward i think there's there's to grow and out and i'll get you give UFC a little benefit too for their announcers. They have a lot more reps. They have fights every week. They have so many reps. And that obviously pays evidence. Felder and Fitz are terrific.

And they have a, they have a pattern because they work together all the time. And like you said, thought Dominic Cruz is better than usual this week. I do appreciate that when they thought there was, I forgot what fight it was, but they thought there was a tap. And Dom pointed out,

no, that's the wrong guy or something. What was that? They thought there was, they thought there was, opponent was tapping. He was like, no, that's the guy that actually was putting, I don't know. It was funny. And I suppose, Aim 6-6, one of the comments saying

Grasso and Ponziadivio on the Spanish broadcast, apparently not too bad either. Oh, awesome. I didn't get to hear that, but that's cool. Ponzenegio has been doing it. He's like, he's the best they got in terms of like Cheeto does it, Morano does it, but I think Santiago is so good at the commentary for the Spanish team. Okay, go. All right. We have a few more super chat, so let's power through these. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats.

But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice, yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no, but chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.

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Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Treadplus at OnePeloton.Ca. Steven, love your work, boys from Australia. Stadium events. What's the problem? We do it all the time. Also, Jose, why doesn't your hair move? That's two questions. It's just, I mean, I'm assuming the hair doesn't move because you just have a naturally full head of hair and good genes.

So, I mean, feel free to expound. It's more than that. So I was listening to the preview show today prior to things kicking off. And the talk, somehow we started talking about Elliott Tuporia and started talking about Elliott Tuporia and going with the Ayr to Spain in a stadium. And now that's obviously never going to happen. But I do think that you kind of outlined. certainly my thoughts on the matter were pretty well elucidated by New York Rick in that one.

And I think you guys handed it well. So I'd encourage you go back and listen. But basically, there's not a real good reason why they haven't happened other than you need a particular brand of star to do it. You need somebody who can sell out 40, 50, 70,000 seat arenas like that. And they don't have that many of them. But I also think the UFC is just not interested in doing that for whatever reason. because Connor McGregor has never headlined a stadium show. I am.

Go ahead, Casey. I'm going to suggest something. And Dana kind of, I thought he kind of hinted it this last week. And he was talking about how Connor or fighters don't want to fight when they're rich. I think it goes for the UFC too. The UFC, when you want to put a stadium show on, that takes a lot of effort. It just takes a lot of effort because you have to rearrange the whole stadium, the seating, everything. the lighting, all the extra TVs you need, the TVs monitors you need.

That's why the UFC is at the apex every freaking week because it is easy and they make money. And a stadium show takes effort. And I'm just going to say the UFC is kind of lazy right now as far as that kind of stuff. I think that in the next 18 months we're going to get a stadium show. I'm pretty confident. I think this new TKO era, I think they're going to do it. the WWD just sold like AK what was that they just did the Perth stadium

that was like 80,000 people or something and like the UFC fighters were there and like Ty Tui Vos was on the broadcast and everything doing shooies with Grayson Walt Grayson whatever his name is I think this TKO group is just a totally different era No you make a very good point because these guys do

stadium shows all the freaking time with SummerSlam WrestleMania. Bring that production crew over to the UFC just instead of the ring, put it octagon in there. It's the same thing. So I hope. And you don't need a stage either. Yeah, you don't need a stage. Yeah. You don't need a state. Yeah. Because, like, I appreciate the stage

something with like the WWI. I don't really care for the stage in MMA. I like them entering through the, like, for pride it was different because that was pride and that was just a beautiful era. But like, I don't really care about the Bellator or the PFL. ramps and entrances. But yeah, I agree. I think what we were saying with the UFC

has a great production. WVD blows every single sport out of the water. Yeah. And WVD is getting better too. With the, who is the, they change, who is the guy,

the director that left WV? You know what I'm talking about. But they got kind of a new director and the production has gotten even better. So they're right there. They're across the hall, those guys that can do stadium shows. So I hope I'm I'm excited for the future of big shows for the UFC. I think

Ilya at the at the Bernadale. I mean, it's going to be insane. It's just what a moment that's going to be for the UFC and for MMA. Honestly, if they pull that off, holy. I think that's a great point about the WW thing. I hope so because that would be they're about to do WrestleMania in where the Eagles play. Like it's good. There's going to be like 80 to 90,000 people there. And this is not anything new. Like, WrestleMania thing is allegedly 90,000 people at the Superdome. Obviously, that number was incorrect, but still, the fact that you could say 90,000, look at us and be like, yeah, that looks like 90,000 people.

Like, they've been doing this. Yeah. Cool. That's a great point. Thanks, Stephen. Super chatting with you. Hey, Milan's back. No, but of PFL Hinnon versus Nganoo is better than Ortega versus Ilya. Also, Jed, you're the real BTL champ. I am. I won this past week, so I am really making me pay for 60 or. Would you beat characters? I beat Brian.

Characters. I beat Brian Campbell this week. Yes. So, yeah. Yes. Is Hanan Faheda versus Inganu better than Ortega Ilya? I think the answer has to be no because it's heavyweights. In terms of like interest, but I think it's a, like, people are interested in Francis.

They're not interested in Hanan. Barrera versus like people are going to be hyper especially if Francis beats Anthony Joshua and then in this fictional world he still fights MMA that is massive Francis versus Henry yeah if beats Anthony Joshua and then comes back to the smart page to knock out the non-theta in 43 seconds yeah but yeah and in Ghanu actually fighting for the PFL obviously means more to the PFL than or you know Ilya's next hell defense unless it's at the Burnabodeau this less that's a whole of the story that actually is definitely been way bigger than sorry any any inganu besides besides maybe john jones but yeah hanan and engan unganu huge fight if if we're taking it

it just happens at like a like in las vegas still a huge fight don't get me wrong but pfl really needs to say we signed ingano and we got to fight at least once inside the smart cage because it doesn't happen it's not going to kill them or anything but it's a joke it'll pretty much be a joke and a meme until the end of time and one that they'll never be able to outrun so it's it's really important that happens there regardless of opponent it would be very tough for them it might kill them like it would be pretty tough to them no uh thanks again milan derrick andress did ortega fumble that post fight interview by not calling for a title shot it's an interesting question um aka what are you i mean this is usually where i i i'm strong yeah i know i don't think so he's your best friend stand

in for him yeah i don't think so i'm all for people doing the thing that's what mike would want uh would have wanted Ortega. He should have done the thing. You should have called for a title fight. But I don't know if there's anything that Ortega honestly could have said to hurt or help his chances. I think we laid it out pretty clearly. Volcanovsky is their first choice.

It depends when Volcano's because it's easy to market. They love doing immediate rematches. He deserves one. Volkanowski is their first choice. He probably, and he's probably already ahead of Mosar. If we're being honest of what they think of him and what they think of Mosar, he's probably already ahead of Mosar. So there's nothing, if he calls for it, it doesn't matter.

It just doesn't make a difference. This was his first win in over three years, his first fight in, no case, 18 months. He had a lot going on his mind besides that. Could he have done better business? Sure. I don't think he fumbled on the post-fair interview at all. It's not going to make a difference. If they can't get Volk, it's going to be Volk.

If they can't get Volk, it'll be him. He didn't pull a Daryush and say, I'll fight 15 more times. Yeah. He wanted to know whatever Daryush said one time. Also, he could do it. When Darius said, find Jesus in a stadium filled with the mother. Muslims. Yeah, that was, that was, man.

Ooh, Benny D. That was tough. And it doesn't matter because Brian Ortega defies logic. So he probably, by not calling for a title fight, probably got himself closer. That's just how his real work. Brian's never been. Brian's also never been that guy. Like, he's never cut a mean promo.

Like, his fights are just fun to watch. Yeah. Yeah. It would be out of character. Yeah. And he's got two, he's got two title opportunity. He's got two title opportunities. So he was doing something around me.

He's already five. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. And he was like, he was like, did you guys notice he didn't, he asked Mark, Mark Godder not to raise his hand? Yeah. No one talked about that. That was interesting.

I did not notice that. I thought that was like he's like, like, he's like all about. He's like so, he's all about God. And, you know, he talks about like he hurt his ankle, but he knew. I'm like, hey, man, all power to you. If that's what you want, that's all power to you. So it just, it just seems like a like not a different Brian O'Donutututut but his priorities are now a little bit.

different. Like he still wants to fight a win. Plus he's redefining our entire understanding of ornithology. So, you know, it's great. We now know so much more about Eagles and the magical powers they have of rebirth. Fax Dog. Nice. This is one of the best pre-fighted interviews I've ever seen about it.

Ben, what is PFL supposed to do with Shield? She didn't look great today. All right, let's talk. Let's do the Chris's Shields. I kind of feel like that I would ask the question. I have a pretty clear stance on Clears of Shields and it's this. I tweeted out this fight was very tough to watch. I have an immense amount of respect for Clearst Shields, the athlete.

I have an immense amount of respect for her kind of challenging herself by stepping into MMA. It is very clear to me that she has no real aptitude for this sport. And if she wants to continue doing it because this is a passion of hers, then by all means. but she's not going anywhere significant. And so if the PFL is keeping her around under the hope that something like that will happen, that's just as a bad plan. And we should all, anyone who is expecting her to be like, ooh, her versus Pacheco or her versus

cyborg, like, no, those are, those will never happen. But she's a hell of an athlete. And I'm glad she is doing something that she enjoys. I think transitioning from being a full-time. boxer to MMA is incredibly difficult. Has anyone successfully really done it? No, kickboxers have, but. Holly.

Holly was a kickboxer. Holly was a kickboxer. Holly was a kickboxer. Holly was a kickboxer that did boxing. She was a kickboxing. That's important. Her show shows was never a kickboxer. Yeah.

I just, boxing is just really incredibly difficult to transition to MMA without and skipping the whole kickboxing part because you kind of go, you know, that kind of transition. I hope she continues, but she didn't train with Jackson's this camp, right? I have no idea. I'm pretty confident she didn't because, yeah. And I don't know, this whole cyborg, Chrysler Shields kind of smack talk I'm hearing too. That's weird.

Cyborg's been taking a lot of L's lately. It was odd. She came out immediately and was like mocking Clarissa Shields, which is just bad form. Well, they've been beefing. They've been beefing before that. I don't know, which doesn't make it better. I'm just saying it. It's not out of nowhere.

It's still like weird to mock her like for any of the things you're mocking or for a lot of them. We shook you by and it is not always cyborg. It is more often than not. Very fair. I want to correct myself real quick. Amanda Serrano has actually been successful in MMA and incredibly successful in boxing. Sure. Is it a two and no?

Yeah. She's like two and oh. Yeah. she looked and looked good. She has certainly looked better than Croesus Shields has. Yeah, I'm not saying she's a, you know, she's going to be a world beater, but that's on.

I forgot there is one. What is she, what is, the question is, what does give all those to do with her? Listen, they didn't, it's not like they put her on the main card and pushed her as like one of the, she, the fight kind of flew under the radar. And I know that sounds stupid. Then it's like, well, why even have Chris of Shields in the first place?

But I think they're trying to find that right balance between saying, hey, look, we have Cres of Shields. You know her from the world of boxing. She has some fame there. Watch our card. And then also. So not going all the way late. Because they did have run a main card before, and it didn't necessarily go so great.

So they're okay. We want you to know she's fighting. She fights for us. But we're not telling you she's this huge deal. And she's going to be a one of our champions. So what do you do with her is when she wants to fight an M. You book her an M.A fight. She says, hey, sorry, I'm boxing in 2024, the rest of 2024.

I'm not fighting an M.A this year. You just suck it up. They haven't put like all these eggs in the Crystal Shields basket. They've made a good, they've done good job publicizing that they've signed her, but it's not like if the Quest of Shields experiment fails, it's like, oh, no, what is PFL going to do? It's like, oh, it's okay. They just had her and they gave her a shot, and it did or it didn't work out, right?

She's two and one. She hasn't been amazing in any of her fights, and that's okay. So it's really up to her. It's really not about what most PFL do. It's like, is she available. And she is? Put her on. If she's not, oh, well, she boxes.

So there are two other things to note here. One, it is at least like she's, she is now one half of the first women's fight that's happened in Saudi Arabia. So that's, you know, cool trivia bit for, huzzah. Second, I'm pretty, like, I'm fine with that. It's PFL they get to choose what to do. But Crystal Shields is not free, and they are, I assume, spending a fair amount of money to keep her around with minimal upside of return there.

So it will be interesting to see what they do with her moving forward. I assume that you are right, AK, though, this is kind of what we'll have, for as long as the PFO is solvent, which is anyone's guess how long that will continue. Thanks, fan. Yeah, but the question shows against another boxer trying MMA.

Amanda Serrano, do it. Yeah, just do Manusarano. I know that there's like a fairly large weight descriptor. Considerable, yeah. Amanda Serrano is a better grappler than Gras. I still like Serrano's chances, frankly. I was with just think like Clarissa Shields has said this like She's the gap between her and the second best boxer in her way class is so massive.

So she's like, I could take three years off, only do MMA, go back to boxing and still be number one. And I really, I believe that. Like she, so she should, I would be interested if she just spent like two years just training with Jackson, Greg Jackson and not taking fights. It's just getting better. Cool. All right. Got a couple more. Jason Hagelm, Hagholm?

Sorry, if I got that wrong. A regular, by the way, this is his 10th super chat, guys. Casey, do we have regat on Air Morns or it's on our super chat on YouTube? There we go. Thank you, Jason. Yes. Thanks, Jason. PFL felt like the biggest loser in their own promotion.

Really showed the co-leader is more R.C. Cola instead of Pepsi. Bellator fighters helped PFL a lot. This is, and I was having a lot. conversation with someone the other day. This is inherently the problem and I when I say problem it's not a negative. This is just the issue when you have leagues and tournaments because everyone can have a weird day and the best fighter or the biggest straw doesn't win the tournament. Like the best like Jed who had the most wins in baseball last year? Braves.

Who was the best player in baseball not named Shohai Otani last year? I have no idea. Ronald Ocuna, what 40 and 70. 40-70. Oh, yeah. They couldn't even get out of the first round. They couldn't get out of the first round. Like, it happens.

Like, the best doesn't always make it to the finals. And that is a double-edged sword. The PFL, that's fun in MMA because you actually do get some sort of meritocracy. You can't argue with the tournament. But then at the end, you know, if this was Verdome with the title, like, if he had actually entered the tournament one, then it would be like, oh, Verdume, former UFC champion, has wins over Fador and Big Nog and all these other. And Kane Velasquez.

How could he get one over Francis? Like it just sometimes it doesn't work out. Pan Amara won a tournament and then knocked out Ryan Bader. You can't argue with it. He's just not the biggest name. And also, yeah, not the best heavyweight in PFL. I will say that also this is, we all knew this, right? Like it's, PFL is the co-the joke was being made.

PFL is the co-leader in their own promotion with Bellator. That's a great joke. I'm here for it. But, yeah. I thought everyone knew this. score when PFL high like bought Bellator they weren't buying Belator to put on new big they were buying Bellator because their roster is bad or at least really that it has it had some spots in it but it is really really deficient from the top names um in part because of how they've done their

recruiting and in part because the way that their organization is structured is just very very different Like the league plus tournament thing prioritizes different skill sets than like regular quote unquote MMA does. And also Bellator has for all its failings was a phenomenally successful developmental program. They put a ton of time resources into scouting talent, into developing talent, into acquiring early talent, into bringing in a bunch of wrestlers and kind of feeding them up. And that's how you get guys like AJ McKee and Aaron Pico. they don't fall off trees. That was a concentrated effort from Bellator over years and years. That was the allure to purchasing them.

And like this. So, yeah, it was it was kind of a dumb gimmick to do PFL versus Belator because we all knew how that would go. But it's also a funnish gimmick. And it doesn't matter because PFL owns all the Bellator fighters. So they are all PFL fighters, even if they're wearing different shorts. it's like when Nas and Jay Z were beefing and everyone is like well Nas very clearly

won all of the wrong like the actual rapping but then Jay Z signed him to his record so I was like who actually won who yes and for the record I I don't agree that

Naus unequivably would be but that's a whole other discussion yeah hey hey that's a whole other discussion Big takeover fan. I'm a big takeer. It's just Ether is more fun to say. Ether is an amazing song and also just more fun to say. You can't take over some.

You got to eat overrated. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Oh, no. All right. All right. All right.

All right. Illmatic rocks and he's got some other good songs. But yeah. St. Nas has the biggest gap between excellent and bad songs. Oh, sure. Agreed. Agreed.

Absolutely. That is terrible. That is very true. When he peaks, no one's better, but he has some stinkers. Kind of like Ryan Bader. Like Ryan Bader. When he's good, he's the Ryan Bader of him. God's the Ryan Bader of Mendoza.

When I think of Brian Bader, I do have nods and vice versa. That is very late. I mean, that's, that's a really good cop. Is it tough? It is. It is because when Bader falls flat, man, it is spectacular. The first. punch he got he looked terrified

and the first punch he got hit he just rolled over and was like nope don't want to do this not at all which I don't blame him I want to get hit by head on fair either but still man like it was tough Stephen Dawson what do you think the future is from pfl after this event the audience seemed disinterested quite often seemed a bit lackluster

uh I've been to a bunch of pfl shows at this point in time I will say that the audiences sort of kind of have that vibe just in general I have no idea what the Saudi audience was in person, but it did not translate through the camera at all. And I think kind of what either Jose or Casey, whichever one of you said that, you know,

just felt like some rich dudes with their friends having their own private event, I think there's real possible, like real possibility that that is sort of what happened. And so the audience is tough. I also think PFL doesn't care at all because Saudi paid them a whole lot of money to be there ostensibly. and that's the thing that matters more to them. And so my answer for this would just be they're going to keep moving forward. They already started talking about kind of where they're going next.

They announced an event that I can't remember where it's at, but sort of their international start moving forward. They're talking about Pacheco versus Cyborg to headline their next pay-per-view sometime this summer. They'll just kind of keep doing this stuff. And hopefully we'll get Patricio Pitbull versus Arapico and some stuff like, that but what do you guys think what is the future for pfl uh it's hard because this wasn't this event wasn't what it was supposed to be right conceptually it was great this was we what we were hoping for when they first acquired bell toor right we were like oh cool they definitely have to do a champion

versus champion show and that's going to really like that is going to it's not going to make them the co-leader but it's going to raise their prestige some and it's going to give a lot some a lot of fighters you know so much needs exposure and we just unfortunately didn't get that this event should have had pit bull on it you know and things just didn't work out this event should have had mago met me and mego and karamob i think would have been i would have loved to have on this card didn't work out um it it just wasn't where we're hoping for the concept got muddled too with turning to three-round fights which by the way was a good when they had multiple so many like world title fights i was like okay good because however many like five rounders can just be a dreary to watch so conceptually it was a good

idea and like I it's hard to say what where they're going to go from because it's kind of an incomplete it's kind of they didn't get what they expected if they can get that Hanan and Inganu fight then again I mean the sky's the limit right then the then the future is so so so so bright but I just see a lot of uncertainty right now so I could not tell you what the future is again because this event gets kind of an incomplete grade not and it wasn't a bad event at all just as far as what it means for for the for the merger like I said this event was a rule of double. Not a home run.

Definitely not a home run. Not a strikeout. Just, you know. They got on base. You got on base. Yeah. Got on base. Yeah.

Cody Watson. Watson. Just got here. Herb Dean was infuriating. So I assume he's speaking about the main event where Herb Dean, particularly down the stretch, was extremely quick on the trigger to break up Brandon Marino and Braynor Rival, certainly in that fifth round, made one really quick separation as they are clinching

and kind of almost immediately threatened to do it the next time they clinched. I actually just a little bit on Herb's side this time. Like that felt in a vacuum, it's bad to move it that quickly. It really felt to me in the moment. Like Brandon Marino was absolutely just trying to stall out for time. still didn't give him a ton of time to like really any time to work but I was I was fine herbs had a lot worse failings than that in my opinion

yep yes oh you all agree I was like surely one of you would no I saw a lot of people somewhat complimenting herb for his his officiating if only because again it kind of you know we we didn't want to see a merino trance doll and you know in the last in the the the fight but you know did he do it by the book tonight i don't know did he do a good job uh kind of giving the people what they want yeah maybe maybe that's the thing he may not have fulfilled like the letter of the law but he kind of did the spirit of it in a good way and like we're all human beings and realistically he's going to let he's going to let brandon merino like pretty

blatantly try to stall if it's the third round but in a fight that he has to be aware is really close with the fight on the line just letting one do like just hold without really making efforts to advance is I think he got the spirit of this one right all right uh CJE train thoughts on the split decision for Dos Santos versus Alta Marano real best second bite in the card if you real bad refresh your memory the two flyways yeah it was bad I will not pretend to have watched this fight super closely. This set the table for all the other whack. As soon as this happened, I was like, oh, this is going to be one of those nights and it sure was.

Four splities? Four splities on the card. We don't normally do Twitter reacts for second fight of the night, and yet we did one for this. Oh, did we? Wow. Yeah. Well, that energy. It was real bad decision.

Yeah. Oh. Jason, how does PFL not have a Bannonweight division? Yeah. They just bought one. They do. Patsy Mix should have been on this card somewhere, right? If you're going to do the, he's the best fighter in Bell's.

They want to do the dang Belliger Bledro BFL and there's no PFL and there's no PFL. So they should have had it there. Yeah, I don't know. So it's not a Bantamate opponent from the fight. I don't know. Find someone from Risen. Was there not some Risen bantamweight that could have brought over to fight Patchy? We'll just get someone from Bel.

that Aaron Pico, Henry Corralis. That wasn't the plan, but he fought a Belator, dude. Just get a Belator guy to fight. I will also say that,

uh, this is, it's, it's really dumb, but it's quite infuriating to me because in two years ago, I asked Ray Cepho at a PFL event. I was like, are you guys going to open up weight classes or are you going to open up

band weight, which is widely considered one of the two best divisions in the sport? And he was like, yes, we're looking at it. And it, that was in 2022. And it's now 20,

and we're still, they bought one, but don't have one. It's weird. So annoying, but they're getting more love. I bet if you ask him now, he'll tell you, yeah, I looked at it. Bantamut's pretty great. He's like, I've been looking at the UFC. It's weird looking at it. Because I love Ray Cephyl, I love Ray Cephal, but you're going to get more information

on Scott Coker. Yeah. I remember PFL used to be World Series of Fighting. World Series of Fighting created Marlon Marius, you know, who came this close. to, you know, greatness in the UFC. So I don't know. It's weird. But they kind of do have one now.

They bought one. They just haven't. They haven't bought yet. Deployed it. Yeah. Interesting. We're doing a ton of PFL super chats. Not what I thought the common was going to be about today.

And yeah, we're talking about it not being a home run. It's on the MMA fighting post show. It's a pretty good one. I know. It also did. Grand Rode double. They just stole third. They stole third.

down Thursday. I will say it also did surprisingly well for us from a traffic. Well, it's like what I was talking with Sean about. It's one of those cards that people aren't going to want to pay for, but they're going to hear about that. It is kind of, I don't know if you've looked at it. It's kind of beaten the hell out of the UFC, Mexico City traffic, which I am stuck by.

Yes. Yeah. I am stunned by that, but that is true. All right. It happens. And on mania It's real I mean

We legitimately might have to say this At least a triple Okay I was yes That was wrong yeah Ground Road double And then a balk Gone to third

Stretch stretched To a triple Oh I'm sorry We've got a quick Super chat just came in right now $10 $10

Good one Stephen Hey AK Do you use moisturize. Love it need to know Justin versus Max predictions. If you already said them, I'd like to apologize for my dumb ass, never apologize

to being you, Stephen, AK. What's your opinion on moisturizers? Yeah, of course I do. I have to. I have to. My lovely girlfriend, God bless her, before I met her, I actually didn't use moisturize that much. I'm like, whatever. My dry ass face is fine. But I think if you

look at some of our broadcasts, if you look at now, to compare to your broadcast, whatever, like three years ago, you'd be like, wow, it's like, it's like night and day. I can really see just how ugly this man is now. It was hard to tell before, but now I can tell. No, yeah, I don't know. I'm getting older. I got to moisturize and my skin gets dry.

So I do, and I'm proud of it. I've got some coconut thing on my face tonight. But, yeah, it's in it. I put it on a while ago, though, so you know what? He's probably not even showing. But yeah, there you go. Look, Casey's, you got a moisturized, guys. Good for you.

Yeah, I got to moisturize, guys. I moisturize your face, your hands, you know, your elbows, get those elbows. I moisturized twice a day, mostly because my wonderful wife

makes me, reminds me to, because I shower all the time because I'm all sweating. I got to wipe off all the bacteria and staff off me. And then I moisturize and keep this. Women are smart, man.

It's fresh, yeah, get to stay young. Women are surprised. For skin care tips. Yeah. That's what I say about anyway fighting all the time.

I'm picking Justin. Yeah. Yeah, I... There's two questions in here, guys, two questions. It is. I think I'm picking Justin. I think Max does have a really good shot, but I don't... If Max's chin is still legend, like, God tier, which we have no real reason to think it won't be God tier, though he did kind of get buzzed by zombie for a moment, then he's got a real good chance.

But I'm just going to pick Justin Gachie because the man is, you just break souls. and Max Fowleway is smaller than him. Picking Justin Gachie, man, but if Max can pull it off, it would just, just enter, for him to do that, you know how crazy, exciting this fight will be for Max to pull it off, like in a Max Holloway type way. It would have to be almost like, I feel like a fight of the year for Max to pull this off.

It can't be a boring, you know what I'm trying to say? It's also Justin Gachies in it, so it has a, like, 80% chance of being fight of the year because he has been in fight of the year. Yeah. Like if Justin wins, I feel like it could be one way traffic. But if Max wins, it could be like fight of the year. I don't know if that makes sense.

Yeah. It's going to rule. I wish it wasn't happening now. Give me Max versus Toporia. I got, give me that. Oh, the timing. Yeah, yeah. Timings odd.

But yeah. And for our final question, it's a simple one. It's a simple one. from m m anomaly who were your biggest standout fighters today that's right boys and girls today you got a lot of got a lot of options all right i'll give you who's going who's going first i'll go okay's ready i'll pick three and i won't just go like roy for the the big winner but i got to say i got to say ortega i got to say manual torres and kind of i mean there's a lot of Guys you could pick from the PFL Bell Tor card, but shoutouts to Impa. I mean, really shout us to Impa, because I know the storyline coming out of the Evelyn fight is going to be,

oh, Evelyn was not as good as people thought he was, fine, whatever. Maybe his performance was disappointing. But I think it was disappointing because Impa presents just a stiff challenge. And I know everyone just thinks of the walking Buckley highlight real spin kick of Impa. But guys, like, Impa hasn't been in MMA that long. So, yeah, early in his career, guess what? he's going to end up in the wrong end of a highlight. And I think just making the UFC so quickly inflated their expectations for him,

he's clearly a talented guy. He was very well suited to the PFL format. And yeah, he fell short against Eblen. And yeah, if it was a five-round fight, one, maybe Eblen takes it more seriously. Two, maybe the extra rounds just completely expose him. But I don't know. But within the parameters of this fight, he did great. So even though he didn't win, there's a lot of great winners from the PFL card you could pick,

I think Impla kind of, like, in a weird way, raised his stock the most. Most. You can make the case for Hanon, but again, that's only if you believe that thing, God, if it's happening. Also, Impa's about to go to Harvard, so, you know. Man, what a guy. What a talented guy. Doing big things.

I'll give you mine unless Jose is ready. I'll probably go with Brian, Henan, because anytime you win in 21 seconds, it's impressive. And, I mean, AJ McKeele is pretty unbelievable. believable. Like, I don't think he broke a sweat. So those are probably my big three. And before we go to Jed, I'm going to go, Ryan Ortega, Zell Huber, Honey Barsellos,

because I love that man. I love watching him fight. And A.J. McKee, because he rules. And I want to say A.M. Pico, but it wasn't a... Aaron Pico, too, because he did what he was supposed to do. Henry Crowell. Yeah, it was just a bummer. Henry Crowell basically just got off the couch. Yeah. But Aaron Pico did what he was supposed to do, and they're great.

So I'm going to say those are my standout performers. I'll close shop. Then we'll get out of here, boys. It's three in my time. I refuse to say Brian Ortega. I just don't have. Not going to do it. Never make me.

Zell Huber, because he's 24 years old. And this was, I've been feeling this way, but I left that fight feeling like, oh, he's developing really well. Like, this is not a guy who is an interesting prospect. this is a guy who is going to be a top 15-20 lightweight and maybe going to be like a title challenger one day. Like that's kind of where his ceiling is. So El Hubert from the UFC, PFL Bellator,

AJ McKee and Aaron Pico, AJ McKee, I think he's just had such a weird career. I think we're kind of underrating him collectively, but his one loss is to Pitbull in a competitive fight. And because he's been sort of bouncing around, Like he's been fighting it lightweight but not like the best lightweights. It's easy to sort of just forget that. Oh, actually this dude was probably one of the best fighters just in the world,

regardless of white class. And Aaron Pico, his last two, three performances, he's here. He's the prince who was promised. The guy we all thought he got here. He is a grown-ass man in the cage now. And like could legitimately end up being the best, maybe not the best featherweight, but he's freaking same age as illy to play. Korea. Like they're like that's a thing that is is very out there. So those two and then also because

I just want to give it a shout out. There's a man by the name of Muslim Tashiv over in KSW. They they had a no holds bard fight which basically was in May and he soccer kicked and stomped Conrad Wazinski and it was dope. It was super fun. The highlights up on MAAfighting.com because soccer kicks and stomps rule. The rest of the KSW was fun, but that was the highlight for me. And that's it, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages. We went almost two full hours on this mega weekend event of stuff, which I didn't realize what happened. But, you know, got fun fights. Things happened.

And now we're on to the next one. That's right. Next week, we'll be coming at you same time, same place with Gaziev versus Rosenstrike. What a wonderful apex card. That's Alexander Kaylee. That's Jose Young's. That's E. Casey Leiden. I'm Jim Shue.

Thanks so much. We love you all. Good night, everybody. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.