MMA Fighting - UFC Oklahoma City Post Show: Dricus du Plessis beat up Kamaru Usman, but what did it do for him?

Episode Date: July 19, 2026

Dricus du Plessis got back in the win column, but where he goes from here is anybody’s guess. On Saturday night, the former middleweight champion added a rock-solid win to his resume, winning a wide unanimous decision over Kamaru Usman in the main event of UFC Oklahoma City. But though it was a good win for “DDP,” du Plessis failed to make a statement over the smaller fighter, raising the question of whether that was good enough for him to get another crack at the middleweight belt? Following the UFC Fight Night card, MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew reacts to du Plessis’s win and where it puts him in the 185-pound pecking order. Additionally, Jed talks about where Usman goes from here, the rest of the UFC Oklahoma City Card, Johnny Eblen’s big win at PFL Austin, the marquee RAF results, and more. Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@JedKMeshew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's impressive. So I've been muted this whole time. That rock. Thanks, chat. Man, that was a really long intro that just doesn't count. I kind of just want to restart this whole thing. So, hey guys. What do you hear?

Do you hear that? It's the victory. Horns, everybody. Sorry, man. It's been a late night. I've been covering a lot of things, and I just straight up was not paying attention. So hand up, that's on me.

Those victory horns, they sound for Drickus Duplice, who defeated Kamar Usman, the unanimous decision tonight. They also sound for Johnny Eblen, who won over in PFL. They sound for Colby Covington. who won over an RAF. What a...

That rocks. The point here being, guys, is we're here to chat about it, the UFC OkC post show. Give you a rundown of everything that happened tonight. We'll chat. I'm so sorry about that. This is what I need Mike Heck for.

I'm useless without Mike Heck. around. But the point being, Drickus Duplice has been victorious and kind of kicked the shit out of Kumar Usman. Can we just say that? Yeah. That fight was, it was, I had, I had such a great speech. You guys just don't miss. That fight was not close. It was competitive, but it wasn't super close. Drickus wins 5045 and then 2.49-46s. I'm guessing I haven't seen the score I'm guessing they gave Usman the fifth round. I think that to me that's the only one that would make any level of sense because mostly I thought

Drickis was just kind of, he was the guy doing all the damage in the fight and really just sort of running away with that early. I thought it was at least 4.0. I mean, I thought it was at least 4.0 heading into the final round. I think you could make an argument for one of those rounds being a 10-8. You don't have to. I'm not opposed to it.

Also, the stoppage, I forget who the referee was, so apologize for that. But the eye poke stoppage was pretty poor. That was when Usman was in the most trouble. They got to restart it fairly quickly, but like my big takeaway, had two large takeaways from that fight, the main event. And if you guys have more, get them in there. We'll try and do some back and forth, y'all. my big takeaway is one

Drake's 2 plus C is still good right like he didn't show me anything new or different still super awkward but hits really hard quite physical has a pretty sound tactical approach to what he wants to do on the feet even if it does look super goofy at times but my big takeaway is

man Kamar Usman is just strong like an oak like he he was not close to winning that fight really like he just wasn't but he was every time he got jawed, which was several times. He got hurt. He got wobbled. He'd stanky leg. You know, he would, you'd get a little, little funky chicken leg going on. And he would just sort of compose himself and be like,

bam, we're done. That's it. Like, I'm, I'm back. I'm back in business. It was incredible because he kept getting, he got hurt by like a lot of smaller stuff too. You would see it put a little bit of a stilt in him. And then he just sort of like, no, never mind, I'm okay. At the end, I didn't see all of the comments at the end, but it looks like he put some of it down to the punch that swelled up his left eye. Fair enough, like that was a problem. That was also a legal punch. So it is what it is. But I was impressed by Usman's ability to perform this well, this late into his career against a very difficult opponent, even if, again, at no point was he likely to win that.

You know, a good performance from DuP Plus C, this is not the sort of performance he wanted, right? Like if he's going to come out to make a statement and say, oh, yeah, give me Sean Strickland. I, this is not the one, right? Like, he beat Kamar Usman, but he didn't finish him. So I think, I think the big loser of the evening, and it feels terrible to say this, but it seems like the answer. is the big loser of the evening is not Kamar Usman who I don't think really loses too much stock in his welterweight campaign right now a little certainly but I never thought he deserved to go fight for a title so now he just has to go down and he has to fight Michael Morales or Carlos

Bratiss or one of the guys instead of trying to wait and pick his spots he just got to fight he got to fight one of the dudes you know do that that's your job fight chavkat right like feels like we can do an oosman shavkhovka fight at the end of the year shavkot's back to training so that can happen. And if he beats Shavka, I don't think anybody would be upset if he did find his way into a title fight there. If you lose to Shavkat,

Shavka gets to fight for a belt, it's all good. I think the big loser tonight was Nassarinae and I'mov. Imov deserves to be fighting for the belt. He does. He should be. If I was in charge, he would be fighting for the belt. There seems to be an energy, a momentum towards the Hamzat Shamaia of rematch.

I really hope that doesn't happen, but it just seems like that's where we're going. And that sort of means like the the obvious answer out of this fight is, well, you got two guys who want to fight for the belt, have them fight each other. And so I think what we're going to get from this is Jikers-Du-C-Vos-Ev versus Nesson and Imovov in a no doubt about it, number one contender match sometime back half of the year. But it's tough scenes for Mervov who already deserves to stay in court. I don't think he's going to get it because you can't really do a, I mean, you could try to do. like nobody wants to see Chima of DDP too so that fights off the table so it feels like that's where we're going and that sucks for Nostri Neumov but a good performance good win for trickus duplice nothing to you know

get super excited about but solid up solid overall so shout out to him also shout out to legis lizard thank you for the 99 cents and shout out to Cosmo cramer five months member for five months does ddp get enough credit for his fight IQ cardio uh a little he's a he's a he's started to get more credit for his IQ. His cardio no, because his cardio is weird. Forever, everyone assumed he had bad cardio, but it's a mirage. Like, DDP, he's, nobody has like Marab cardio or whatever. DDP has good cardio. He just looks really tired. And I've always been, it's part of what makes me love him is that like he just, like, in that fight, he visibly looked gas and he never, his work rate never slows. He seems to have this incredible

ability to just decide he's not tired, even when his body is like, we're very tired, which is an incredible force of will because, like, the hallmarks of being tired are your technique goes out the window, you throw less and you throw with less intention, less power. He doesn't have any technique in general, so that doesn't, you can't go out the window, and he doesn't, his volume doesn't drop off. His power does not diminish. Ask Usman, who kept getting drawn over and over again in the, that fight. So he has this very

deceptive level of cardio where he seems to be quite tired and yet what that actually means does not manifest. I do think that he started to get a little more credit for

his tactical awareness, his ability to game plan, his IQ. Again, all of it's masked by the fact, like people just underestimate him or underrate him because he's such a bozo. Like he's so goofy. But you would never teach anybody to fight like him if you're a coach.

Because like half the time he's punching without his feet under him. Like his technique is just completely bonkers. But you know, and all of that stuff does matter. Right. Like these things aren't fake. Like technique is important. There are various reasons why. But like the most important thing in fighting, like the reason we love fighting is that

the truth will out. like the proof is in the pudding. It is effectiveness is what matters most. And despite various flaws, he can still be very effective because the other parts of his game work really well, like his tactical awareness. So I thought it was a really good performance from him. Like he was never in any danger in that fight.

He just couldn't find the finish. So good on him, man. My beautiful medium-sized adult son gets back in the wind column, I'm happy to see him fight. Shout out to Rob Loria, remember for six months. Enjoy those emails, bro. Yes, this is like the most drunken master cardio is actually exactly it.

He is quite possibly the most drunken master fighter in the history of the UFC. And it rocks. It absolutely rules. I have the most, like he's so fun to watch because at any point in time, like it looked like Kamaro could have killed him if he landed one good punch. Because half the time, Drickis is like hands are by his hips or his.

feet are together or he's just sort of turning away weirdly in the middle of the kind like he's he's a real real strange guy one day i want to see him fight rdr it will make me very happy if that happens uh moving down the list on the ufc carda christian leur duncan beats uh jared canoneer takes a decision 230 27 to 29 28 um honestly this felt like a like a discount version of the main event in a lot of ways it's like jade canineer is smaller and older. It's impressive that he's as durable as he is given those two facts and the fact that he did get hit a bunch of times, even a spinning shot from from CLD at various points. It looks like his legs were going to come out from under him. And yet, CLD couldn't put him away. CLD did start

to gas in a more meaningful way down the stretch, but, uh, canaer just doesn't, can you don't have his fastball anymore. It is a testament to how good a fighter he is, that he has aged as gracefully as he has because he does not have a style that I would have inherently been like, that guy's going to do well into his 40s. And yet he's losing, but he's losing very competitively, which really shout out to him. It's quite, like, it's genuinely impressive. CLD did not change my opinion of him. I think he's a good fighter.

I don't think he's a title challenger. But good, like, probably the best, it's got to be the best one on his resume at this point, the biggest name. It will set him up to do other things. in the fill-weight division, so good on him. Chase Hooper submits Mitch Ramirez in the first round. There's just not much to say about this fight. Mitch Ramirez doesn't have great takedown defense.

He has not want to fight in the UFC. This was very clearly set up for Chase Hooper to do this. He did it. Good on him. He stops a losing streak. Missed weight, so that's tough. But he got the outcome the UFC was looking for. I'd like to see him develop a little bit more.

he's still young it can happen but he I think he has a quite clear ceiling because he's just not that durable he's not like super soft chinned but he is not a durable fighter which is always a impediment to long term success in the sport in general and when he first moved up to lightweight

I thought he was making bigger strides I haven't really seen those yet but we'll see how it goes I mean really there are two stories to take away from this fight from this fight card I'm taking this one away. Nobody else will.

But Fatima Klein is the truth. She's here to save Women's M. May her and Carla Judice. They're the future of the UFC, and I love them both. She beat the pants off of Tabitha Ritchie. She was supposed to, so this is not a surprise.

She's a huge favorite. Almost finished at the second, into the second round. If there had been another 20 seconds, almost certainly would have gotten the tap there. But she just was all gas, all night, on fire, beat Ritchie every,

which was. it went at one point suplexed her then like screen screamed and you know show about a little bit then talk shit to i think reachie's corner but maybe it was just some other person like in the corner was just like said something while holding her and then just suplexed her ass it was like it was pretty hard oh shit uh so fatima conn's a truth she didn't really call for anybody specifically just sort of made a statement of intent like yeah

I don't think she gets to fight for a belt next. That might, frankly, just depend on what Janeway Lee's doing because we all assume she's coming back. But if not, you could do a lot worse than Klein fighting the winner of Jillian Robertson McKinsey-Durne. I think she could maybe win that fight too. So credit to Sadie McClain. But the big takeaway of this evening for almost everybody

will be Tommy McMillan, a star-making performance to some extent this evening. How big a star can. be made on a fight night card that most people do not care about. This episode is brought to you by FIFA World Cup, launch edition on Netflix. It's a fast, fluid game where your phone is the controller and your TV is the stadium. You just launch it on your TV, scan the QR code with your phone, and boom, you're shooting and passing in seconds. Plus, it's included in your Netflix membership with zero extra costs.

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I don't have bonuses yet. They'll be coming soon. Yeah, I think Tommy Millen is sort of the bizarreo Sean O'Malley. This fight looked a little bit like when Sean O'Malley beat the just absolute tar out of who was that that I can't think of. Chattel let me know. I can't remember who he hung like, oh, Vindermania or whatever. But he just continued to throw out. Like he his volume was insane

We could have a more nuanced conversation about like how good time it Melon is and like in general if you throw 500 strikes and land like 300 or whatever he landed You should probably get a guy out there before the end of the third round But that's not the question for now the question is like that man Put on a super exciting performance every time you watch him he's really fun He has no defense At some point I think that's going to be a huge impediment to his success but at this level it's not and based on sort of he had a little bit of

a ground swell after this performance i think the ufc is just going to give him the big shove and that means he's not going to fight dudes who can really draw him uh he's going to get some more showcase opportunities and they should like if you've got a guy i straight up i do not like him like does i cannot pretend i have i do not like him but he's a pretty competent fighter he's certainly a super fun exciting fighter. He's the kind of guy who the U.C. will get behind. And I think the next couple of years are going to be really good if you're a Tommy Ellen fan. And maybe by the time he actually does have to face like real opposition who can really take advantage of his many flaws, maybe he'll have fixed those. Like, this is prospect of element. We, we complained for years, rightfully so to some extent,

about how Patty Pimblet was coddled through the UFC for a lot of his career. But it was, worked because, look, Patty's good. Like, Patty's just undeniably good now. And if he had to fight, like, real opposition instead of a bunch of dudes he could beat, maybe he doesn't get there. So they've got something with him. There's a certain star quality to him.

He's certainly incredibly exciting. I think they're going to give him a push. So there we go. Your undercard on this UFC action, Jose Miguel Delgado beats Austin Bashie. Really fun fight. No issues with the winner there. Jean-Paul LeBosniani wins a unanimous decision

over Seokin-Co. I kind of felt like this is robbery. Let me know if you guys agree. I'm a guy who had money on Le Bosniani and I really like as a prospect. I thought Coe did enough to win the third round and thus win the fight. But yeah, you know,

it is. Felipe Franco blew up Lever Rodriguez, sure. Ezra Elliott, Damien Anderson. Damien Innocent is not ready for the UFC. Kind of a fun fight as really. It's okay. Damian Anderson has potential, but he's super raw.

And watching that fight, I was like, this is just a guy who shouldn't be here. You just shouldn't be in the promotion yet. Let him go back to the regional circuit, pick up wins, develop more tools outside of just a very solid jiu-jitsu game. Alden Korea v. Stewart Nichol. This was probably the fight I watched the least of on this whole card because it was doing other work for the site.

So I just don't have much to say other than when I was watching, it didn't look like Creos running away with it, and he's a minus 1,000 betting favorite or whatever. RJ Harris beats Alvin Hines, knocks him out in the first round. Goosey, sadly, I don't think Goosey's that good. Deani Barbosa submits Anna Malesano. Sure, that was the overwhelmingly likely outcome there. So that is the UFC card.

Let me pull up the old PFL card, though, because we're not going to do a full dive into that, but I do just want to note, Johnny Eblen really made a statement against him because Iang and I in their first fight. I think there is a good argument that Kassang and I won it. There's no such argument here. Evelyn finishes him in the third round,

elbow sets up a finish, faceplants him. Kassang and I kept hitting him, was fighting hard, like good performance there in general, but did not have the same effect as punches did last time. He is sort of dropped off. the last couple years anyway.

Edmund worked through it, powered through it, and then talked a whole mess of crap to Stelvon Stenis, who was caged side. Half of it got censored out by PFL. I assume the words were bad. And I'm looking forward to that fight. So good on the PFL main event. The rest of the PFL card, I saw bits and pieces.

He's just Benito. Murdered a dude, that was cool. Kamid Kizriev, I think that's the other big takeaway. He scored a Scottish twister. Not 100% Scottish. It's definitely a modified twister that looked a lot like Scottish, but they were saying something about leg positioning, and I'm not super expert on that. But he taps Villajali Walsh, who for a minute, I genuinely thought Vajali Walsh had his spine

broken. So that was, like, pretty terrifying. It seems that he's okay. Maybe he broke a rib or two. That is possible. But Kisreyev looks like a legitimate prospect. A little bit shocked by the matchmaking, but good on him. Kid looks like he's good.

And then rounding it out before we get to y'all's questions for a little bit. here. Over an R.A.F. The two big things to talk about there. Colby Covington beats Armand Sarukian. Pretty fun little matchup. Sarukian just looked much smaller than Covington, which he is. Also, this was the first time, Sirucan, not actually being a wrestler,

really came back to bite him in the ass. He just made some really poor tactical choices and ended up giving four free points to Colby. Colby didn't score anything offensively. he scored on two pretty bad shots from Armin at the end of rounds, just turning and getting takedown points there. And so a better tactical approach, Armour probably wins,

but he's not a real wrestler, so it's kind of how you sort of how you learn that. So he's the new champion. He called out Hamzad and Bilal and a bunch of other people, good on Colby. And then Ben Ascran had his final dalliance. This was sort of what I thought. It didn't seem like Bilal Mohammed was,

trying to press the issue early. Ascran physically just couldn't wrestle for that long. He ends up losing on points. At the end, he is very, very winded. And as he does his retirement speech, kept his short, was really nice, thoughtful, good for him. He was like, yeah, I gave it, it just really, I'd forgotten it in my head for a minute. Because, like, we all knew that this was going to be what it was. I think nobody was under delusions that asked him to win or whatever. But I'd sort of forgotten how insane the whole thing is because he was like, yeah, I can barely breathe. I have other people's lungs in my body. It was like, oh, yeah. Yeah, you just had a double lung transplant like eight months ago or whatever. Not surprising that you don't really have the

cardio to go six full minutes here. So insane, great accomplishment for him to frankly just make it to the mat. He gets his retirement on his birthday in his hometown in Milwaukee. Shout out. a very, you know, historically important wrestler for the United States of America. He'll still be on all the R.A.F. shows moving forward. We'll all called out Colby at the end, but mostly just put Asker and over. He did his job. So that's RF. That's all the fights, boys. I've still got plenty of work to do. But before I get to that, I just want to hang with you all for a little bit. So we will move to a happy Q&A section of this.

Please don't ask me any questions about why I am incapable of getting my audience. right because that's the past the past is for cowards but you know the deal super chets get priority but I'm still going to do what I can to get as many of you in for the next 10 15 minutes or so and then skedaddle so I can wrap up the rest of our work tonight because my heck still at the aripp presser still doing all the things so you know got to hop on that eventually oh before I get to these questions I do have bonuses fight of the night was the main event I am frankly surprised by that and think that that's kind of garbage.

The performances, one does go to Tommy McMillan, one goes to Felipe Franco. Really surprised that Alberto Montez doesn't get any love for that performance. I also think that fight was probably a little more fun than the main event, which was mostly, in my opinion, one-sided,

but alas, there goes, I would have given performances to McMillan and Klein, straight up. Klein beat just sold out of Tabith Ritchie. She was not competitive in that. But that's me. Super Jets first, Spencer. Thanks, Spencer, man.

Love to have a year. $10. Spencer. Was it Atlanta for the World Cup. Now in Buenos Aires, Argentina for the final. Best thing I could have seen this week was El Bupa himself. Have to stay on the wish of still love you, Jedi. Hey, thanks, man.

Yeah, I got your message, but I was not remotely capable of doing anything this week. So I hope you had fun at the World Cup game, man. It seemed awesome. being in Argentina for the final tomorrow seems super sick, assuming they win. If they don't, it will be terrible. But shout out. Thanks, man.

Appreciate you. Cosmo. $5 from Cosmo. Sanko just said McMillan has the violence of Gaii, volume of Holloway, bona fide superstar. Kesei compared him to Nick Diaz. All of those are kind of true. If you set aside the fact that those are good fighters and he's not,

maybe he'll get there. He's just not one yet, right? Like, Justin Gaiti was doing that sort of thing. to Luis Palomino, who's a really good fighter. Like, I like Alberto Montez. He's not that. He's just not that. And we don't have to, but we live in an age of hyperbole.

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I mean CoshaBank.com slash H-I-S-A to learn more. Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think. Maybe I'll be wrong. It's entirely possible. I think the day McVillain has to fight like a real hitter, like a real featherweight, good featherweight, I think it would be a real problem for him. But in the current sport,

being an all-offence, no-defense fighter with a good enough chin, or like he can get cracked, but he doesn't just collapse under pressure, like that will carry you so far. Like, because if you just don't care and just throw offense, you're going to beat a lot of people with that, especially if they're going to give you favorable matchups.

You can go a long, long way with that. Shout out Nick VCC, Canadian 5. Not saying Usman's chin was cracked before this, but man, is going up a weight class make a difference for resilience. Top example. Yes. I mean, in general, I do think you're cutting less weight.

You just, let's sort of scientifically see. seems to bear out that you are a little bit more able to sustain damage. That being said, it did seem like Usman got like buzzed by a lot of very simple shots in a way he hadn't been. And that could just be old age, could be the, you know, DDP's a thumper. But he kept like catching him right like on the temple, like just short of the temple. It felt like every time he did that, Usman's leg sort of went on him. But yeah, like he did not look, he looked a little small on the DDP, not.

immeasurably smaller than him in there. Usman's two middleweight fights have been losses to the two best guys in the weight class, in my opinion, and competitive losses, right? Like he, I don't think he, you know, had a case to win the Tremaya fight.

If that had been five rounds, maybe he would have won it. But, you know, like competitive, he's an all-time great. Like, this is what all-time great fighters do.

They age well. They can compete against anybody. They're hard to beat. Even if you do beat, them it's maybe not your shiningest performance great fighter man comor wistman shout out main car minute thanks man can confirm not going to read that for the podcast listener but we love to have you buddy thanks for being here luke david sandin ddp thumps doesn't really doesn't knock out he's on it like he is very much like justin gaichi they are ddp is like spiritually justin gaichi because gaichi is

also like actually a really smart tactical fighter for the most part sometimes he's forgets about it, but like there's a lot of similarity. And yes, like listen to any lightweight talk. They all say like, Habib, Habib's whole thing is like, yeah, Justin Gagee hits the hardest. He's, and he doesn't have that many like one punch knockouts.

He just sort of thuds. And that's DDP's thing too. Like, if he really swings and catches you, you will go out. But it's just like his jabs hurt a lot. Like the ability to jab and hurt somebody and not just jab and hurt somebody and not just jab and

somebody is a very, very potent weapon, like as a photon or whatever. Like that's because you can accrue a lot of damage without much effort. And then when you do put in the effort, you can really add up damages. So Gagy finished his fights. So does DDP men. I know that DDP doesn't finish all his fights, but DDP finishes. DDP finished Izzy. DDP broke the hell to Robert Whitaker.

You know, like, it is. Uh, this is sort of how I feel, Rob. Is this what the UFC has come to? The future stars are Josh Hokit and Tommy McMillan. Yeah. Um, and like, there's, I don't like either of them. They're not my cup of tea. If you do, that's totally fine.

I'm not saying I'm right to not like them. I just don't. But I do think that there's a through line, not just in their personalities, which is what I don't care about for them. but look at the two of them and how they fight and they are really at the vanguard of the sort of new age of fighter which is F that defense bro like I am they have

while I don't agree with the Sanko stuff that was said the Sanko and whoever else is on the desk there is some truth to like Tommy Mullen is a little bit of Max Holloway and Nate Diaz and Justin Gaci just like I'm just going to put offense at you and make you deal with it and like let's see if you're like how many how many good defensive fighters are there anyway like that can carry

you so far and for hokey i mean heavyweight's just so bad that there's nobody to really push back on him against that until you get to the very top of it for for my mill and i think you know that line will come sooner but being super all action is like look at all of all of the people with juice right now on the rise in the sport, almost all of them are, you know, offense first, defense, second, if at all fighters.

It's a good place to be in the sport right now, for sure. For the time being, feel like competent feathered it's put me off into the woodchipper. Yeah, man, if you, but like, that's also fine. It's not unreasonable. How old is time?

He's not, he's not like super young if memory serves, but I also don't think he's old, right? I'm going to look him up right now. he's 28, right? Like, he's 28. He's been fighting professionally. Yeah, I'm fighting for seven years.

I don't know. It was quite that long. So, yeah, you know, like, it's okay for him to not be a finished product right now. He'll need to get there sooner rather than later, but you've, as much as I don't like him, you have to acknowledge his pros and he has them. Like, he is, and he has this sort of. tools that the UFC really will value. So we're going to see a lot of time at Millen in the coming years.

I think that's very true. This would go quite poorly from McMillan right now, but like it would be super fun, right? Like that would be an incredibly fun matchup. But yeah, it would be, that would go incredibly poorly for him. DDP has six finishes in 11 U.S.C. fights. Justin has 7 and 16. DDP is statistically better.

Kind of astonished Justin only has 7 and 16. I guess a couple of those are three-rounders. So, yeah, but yeah, it is what it is, man. Keep, this is, like, this is what they should do, and I think they will do with him. You keep giving him guys who aren't really going to beat him, but who won't just die under the assault early. He's, like, Montes dropped him in that first round, right?

Like, you want a guy who can make it drag on so he can really rack up the volume and put on a showcase like this. But, like, if you gave him, like, like Kevin Villiers would do the worst possible things to that man. It would be horrific. Like Diego Lopez would absolutely eat him. But those are also some of the very best guys in the world. He's not there yet.

From Brian, 1,800 tonight on a $4, eight-leg parlay. Brian, dropped the parlay. What hell is that? That's impressive, man. Good for you. I think we had most of these Noche fight announcements. Still don't know what the main event is going to be. I'm Grasso Furo

Sign me up That's a good one right Like Sad to see Where we're at With Brandon Moreno Still may be a fun scrap But he might just be all the way cooked

We'll see This This is the way This is the way I have no idea If there's going to be On to the next one tomorrow I did not ask

But McMillan Land We're That's the fight you book Right now right now. That's all. That's a great idea. So, I mean, it probably is a title eliminator,

but the question is entirely who's for who. If Shivchenko, if Shethenko beats Nantai Silva whenever they booked at, like, do we need, is she even going to be interested in fighting them again? Maybe she goes up to Bannonweight at that point,

tries to fight the theoretical winner of Amanda Kayla if that fight ever happens. And so then that fight becomes a title Eliminator for the winner to take on whoever it is. Maybe Blanchfield gets in the mix, but it's just a really good fight, so I'm pro it. Why is there Tim Elliott discussion in the chat? That's insane. So yeah, you're fighting again?

I don't know, but it seems like Yahir versus Diego would make like all the sense of the world to headline Noce, because that fight has been brewing for years on years, but I haven't heard anything yet. From Cosmo, what's next for Usman? Back to 170. Fight protest Shavkat or Morales. It is back to 170. I think he should just fight Shavkot. If you fight Chavkaat and beats him, he's right there in the mix, man.

Like, that's it. And that's all you can ask for. If he wanted to retire, that would be fine, too. He's done enough. He's done enough, right? But he's not getting a title fight. He didn't deserve it. So I'm glad I didn't get it.

He didn't. didn't want to fight any of the real guys he fought walking buckley who's like the least real guy if he goes back down and fights like mike milot i'm gonna lose my mind she's like man fight fight fight a real dude quit picking and choosing pick a real guy chavcots at this point like almost not even a real guy because he hasn't fought in forever but that fight seems to make the sense to me you do that at the end of the year see what happens i mean yeah i think if he could he should have fought protest forever ago but that's he is he is prize fighting right now he's trying to take the biggest upside lowest downside fight so why he took this one because if he wins it it's obviously

huge upside if he loses he has a built-in yeah it's a middleweight whatever so we'll see buseman did tank some heavy shots too like that's why like he could beat these dudes but he didn't choose to fight them i don't think he's going to uh somebody give me a really good question and we're going to end on that because it is midnight And I have things to do. This isn't a really good question, but Meet Rocket. I think Fatima Klein, and I love McKinsey darn like a daughter, Fatima Klein would chew that woman up.

Like she would chew that woman up. Oh, we'll end on this. I saw The Odyssey on Thursday night. I think it's exceptional. I don't think it's Chris Nolan's best movie. I don't think it's my favorite movie of the year. It'll probably be in the top five by the end of the year. I'm anticipating Dune 3 being my favorite.

favorite movie of the year. But it's very good, right? Like, there's plenty of woke discourse or whatever. All of that's nonsense anyway. But certainly if you watch the movie, like, those criticisms are just completely ludicrous. Now, the themes of the movie, you may or may not like. Like, that's totally fair.

But, like, you don't like that Lupita Niyangos, Holland of Troy is a very silly criticism. It's a very good movie. it's super fun it was you know three and a half hours and at no point was i checking my watch debating on leaving and i just saw on regular i hope to go see it in i max in a couple of weeks so really really good firmly enjoy it uh it's going to win a bunch of oscars certainly it will deserve most of them matt damon is probably going to win best actor i'm not entirely sure his performance is like out of this world but he is the heart of what we'll probably

be the biggest film of the year without him the movie doesn't work and I think he does it pretty well uh strongly encouraged like great oh brother were art thou better than the odyssey oh brother we're out there's great um probably not better than one of the greatest stories ever told but yeah um it's it's a very very good film it like i said it's not my favorite nolan uh but like it's it is this is a master of his craft doing the biggest thing he possibly can and pulling it off super well. Charlize Theron, A plus.

Everybody out, like almost every performance is extremely good in the film. I have very few criticisms of it. They're all very small. So highly recommend. And especially, like,

if you are not a person who goes to see movies, it's kind of one that's worth it. Like, seeing it on a big screen is more valuable than seeing, like,

a random, dramatic piece that you could just watch on streaming if you're not like a big go to the movie. person so highly recommend good film enjoyed it you know what else i enjoyed ladies and gentlemen i enjoyed being here with you all let's be um i'm sorry about the next one's finest moment but a very good showing even in defeat not driggis du plus e's finest moment but good for him good solid win

we move on i like i said i have no idea if there's an on to the next one coming Maybe there is. Maybe they're not. You know what you can do. You can tune in tomorrow and find out. Otherwise, keep it locked in a minute. com for the rest of tonight, tomorrow, the rest of the weekend.

So we will have your follow-up coverage to REF, to PFL, to UFC. And then are we on? Is it, let me look this up. Are we, we just one week away? Are we heading to the abuist of Dobbies? We are Abu Dhabi on Saturday. Magum and Angu Kli, Bogd Muginov. Not a fight I thought we'd get this year, but kind of intriguing.

rest of this card. Some highs, some lows. Not the best thing in the world, but it is where it is. Thank you for joining me tonight and for bearing with me all week. Again, apologies if it wasn't perfect, but it's always perfect when I'm with y'all. Love y'all. Listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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