MMA Fighting - UFC Sacramento Post-Fight Show: Gregory Rodrigues Outlasts Anthony Hernandez

Episode Date: August 23, 2026

Gregory Rodrigues is a legitimate contender at 185 pounds. On Saturday night, “Robocop” picked up the biggest win of his career, outlasting Anthony Hernandez in the main event of UFC Sacramento to win a unanimous decision. The win should vault Rodrigues up the middleweight rankings and put him fully in the title mix at 185 pounds. Meanwhile, “Fluffy” has now lost two in a row, and his future at middleweight seems uncertain. Following UFC Sacramento, MMA Fighting’s Jed Meshew and Alexander K. Lee discuss Robocop’s big win and what it means for the 185-pound division. They also break down some of the other big storylines from the card — including Reinier de Ridder’s successful UFC light heavyweight debut and Carli Judice’s emergence at flyweight — wax poetic on Cris Cyborg’s scare in PFL, answer viewer questions, and more. Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠⁠@JedKMeshew⁠⁠ Follow Alexander K. Lee: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@AlexanderKLee⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Those are victory horns. They're coming a little later than you might hope for them to come, but they come nonetheless. And they come a little earlier than me 1 a.m. start time because boxing finally wraps it up. Hello. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and broke children of always, is my name.

Dead Mishu's eye slowly turn this music down so people in the chat don't yell at me. because it's the post show. UFC Sacramento is in the books, and these horns, these victory horns, they sound for Gregory Rodriguez, they sound for all my family members, they sound for Vitor Petrino, and some other people will talk.

They also sound for Chris Seiborke and the BFL, and they sound for Tiofimo Lopez and boxing and Henry Sohudo in wrestling. I have no idea what having it at Brandreis going to be honest with you. A lot of sounding of horns because a lot of combat sports has taken place today. and here to talk about all of that with me and with you by the way thank you for for bearing with us

the king in the north my friend and yours nicest man in show business etc etc alexander cayley a k how you doing buddy jad my good man um brand risk you say uh i don't know how do you mean you don't know what happened anderson sylva's son knocked out kimball slice's son i did see you hear about that of that happening. What? Apparently that fight was kind of interesting, too, outside of that. I don't know. That is like the best thing Brandreis can be doing.

The rest of that stuff is silly, but like Anderson Silva Kimbo slice his sons. Like that's a put that on an MVP card, you know, so good on them for that. But if Kimbo were alive, he would have boxed Anderson by now. I guarantee you he would have boxed Anderson Silva. Kimbo versus Jake Paul would have been the biggest fight at that time. We talked about this on the Kimbo Post Show. We talked about this so many times. On the Kimbo, damn, they were good.

It was like... We talked about this like last Wednesday. All right, we talked about this all the time. Also, Austin Broome. I'm just reading our headline from Maffling.com great website. Austin McBroom scores terrifying knockout over phase temper. I think that's supposed to have multiple hours, but I'm not going to...

It definitely has like three hours. Whatever. Maybe a couple of these, too. I'm not correcting this. You know what? I'm going to... If I see comments in the morning, people are saying like, oh, you misspelled phase temper.

Pace Tempor is not a name. Okay, I'm sorry. Anything's a name, A.K., we will not. All names are made up, but I will, yeah, all names are made up. I'll not have you go full onk. I know it's 1 a.m. Eastern standard. You can't go full onk right now and be like, oh, these kids and the made of names, blah, blah, blah, can't do it because we got fights to talk about it.

Oh, yeah, could we? Bobo doesn't know who these gibonies are. We're just dudes with internet connections. Who are the real gibronies? The Gibronies are the Gibronies watching the Gibronies. So a philosophical question to reconsider. For the time being, AK, let's consider a more significant philosophical question. Is Gregory Rodriguez good?

Yes. Because he took a unanimousision winner over Anthony Fluffy Hernandez in a fight that at various points in time, I did not get to watch this full bore because I was doing our boxing coverage tonight. So I watched the first couple of rounds, like all of it. and then sort of had a tail off so I was doing more boxing coverage at various points in this fight I was like oh

Greg Cop can't possibly win oh he's about to knock out Fluffy the third like the first round was like Greg's gonna lose really bad the second round was like oh he's actually gonna knock out Fluffy the third row was like oh no we're back to Greg's going to lose really bad as he's gassed out

and apparently he then goes and just cleanly wins the back two rounds cruises way to a comfortable decision A.K. How impressed were you with Gregory Rodriguez's performance against Fluffy Hernandez? First, boat mode wants to clarify they were referring to Fais Temper and

Austin McGrum, A. Al. But I just told them you could have meant us. It still would have made sense. Who are we, Jed? I would not say I'm not a Gibroni. No, I'm definitely a gibroni. Yeah. I was so impressed by Gregor Rodriguez. guys honestly like maybe it's one of those cases where because i had picked anthony hernettas to win

maybe i'd set the bar low for gregor i think i was kind of nitpicking i think when i was doing the preview show i think i was nitpicking his um win streak a little bit you know he beat bruno fajeta who he had lost he before but like probably shouldn't have lost that first fight probably should have done better um romacoplov which is solid and like jack hermanson who is just kind of in limbo so i was kind of going like eh i don't know if he's the real deal so i had set my standards pretty low as to what to expect. And he was great. And as you said, it also looked like in the first round, like, oh, well, this is going

to be an Anthony Hernandez fight. But I thought we saw things from Gregor Rodriguez we had not seen before. I mean, quite literally, had never, I don't think he's ever gone the distance in his career in a five-round fight. He's fought. Yeah, he's fought into the championship rounds. He did that with Jared Kennear. It did not look good for him.

So the thought of him going five rounds of Fluffy was like, well, there's no way he's Like, that's just not how he's going to win it. I think we all assume he's got to finish early. But his striking was so on point. I think we mentioned his grappling defense. His grappling expertise could really service him defensively. Like, we just never see him. We very, very rarely see him use it offensively,

even though we know he's a very strong grappler. And that certainly paid out because I think a lot of fighters would have wasted a lot of energy, just having to battle fluffy against the fence. And, you know, I'm not a grappling expert, but the way that Rob Ruggis was kind of holding his balance and holding his posture and everything. I was like, okay, he's kind of like in control here. It's still exhausting, I'm sure. You've got to be in good shape.

But that was really impressive. So I think it's him going the distance was almost more impressive, right, than him like dusting Anthony Hernandez early because we all thought that could happen. But him surviving, like, that third round was fluffy. And then I think clearly winning the championship rounds, man, pretty good. Pretty good. Like, I really believe he could fight for a title in the middleweight division. And that says as much about how screwed up the middleweight division is at times as it does, like, how good he looked on Saturday. Yeah, honestly, I think that's the correct way to put it.

Because had he ended up getting that knockout in the second round, that's obviously a better highlight. People would feel a little more excited about it. But I think, I mean, my breakdown, many people's breakdowns were it's either Greg in the first two rounds or it's fluffy late. and to sort of survive the fluffy storm and look quite strong even after again a bad third round which is where I was really like this is over so

shout out to Gregory Rodriguez I believe AK he called out Drigas duplice after the fight is that correct yeah he had a very impassioned call out of DDP says let's do it let's make it a number one contender fight and I think that makes a ton of sense I don't know I have to go look back at the what was the DDP fight

Usman, right? Mm-hmm. Was I not covering that card? I don't remember if I did the Otno episode. You might have been off that one. Yeah, I might have been off that one. So for me, DDP is free, and I should tell people who watch Otno. Mike and I will not be recording Sunday.

We'll be recording Monday. So just a day's wait, guys, for your Otno selections. DDP might be a really good choice for Greg Rodriguez. I think it just kind of makes sense of where they are in the rankings right now. Robocop's going to jump into the top 10, maybe the top five, depending how high you had, Anthony Hernandez and DDP is right around that spot right with uh you know like a strickland kind of ahead of him in a weird way obviously he's a champion obviously comes out who beat him that's a good call-up it's a good call-up for Robocop.

I love the call-out. I don't know if he's going to get it, but I think that it's a good one to shoot for DDP's a hot commodity right now you know like Kyle Bahad has been calling for him for a while um you know there are just other dudes who are at least slightly above him in the rankings but coming off this performance, maybe he does get it, right? Like, it's possible he doesn't. But, like, who else are you going to call out? I guess you could try to call out like a Hamza Chamaev, but he will just no-sell you because he's focused on trying to fight for the belt again.

So I'll have the call-out. Wouldn't be upset if he got it. That would be, there'd be a lot of abs in that one-one middle-weight fight. So we will see the other side of the ball here, though. Okay, we talked in the preview show. a loss I thought and still do or so you know not a bail lead would be pretty catastrophic to whoever lost

as far as their title aspirations go when I thought if Fluffy lost it would be he got dinged to the body and fell over and he did get dinged to the legs and body some of this fight and that was a problem but he mostly lost because he couldn't get his game going you know like as in the Fluffy Hernandez rounds he was not able to impose his will as he has done so successfully from much of his UFC career.

Where does this leave Fluffy going from here? Is this, I mean, I think a title fights out the window now. And now I'm wondering about his like long-term prospects just to be relevant at 185 after this sort of really disappointing performance from him. Yeah, should we bring up this super chat right now, Jets, since it's essentially asking this question. Yeah, it literally just popped up. Former dear friend Harmon Sorai, 499, with back-to-back losses for Fluffy is officially over for him as a serious contender at Middleweight.

You see him climbing the mountain again and making a run. Thank you, Harmon. I will say AK, let me put myself back up here. I don't. Somebody asked in the pre-fight preview show, and I'd never really considered, could Fluffy go to Walterweight? It doesn't seem like he cut,

like he has a big frame, but he doesn't seem like, like he cuts that much weight to make this. So maybe that could be sort of a, I mean, Jackermanson made well to write. So like fluffy maybe could do it. But I do think his middleweight title run is over personally. Uh,

just opposed to saying go up to light heavy weight. I don't think that's a good idea. Um, light heavy weight is bad. Uh, I, I don't know if Anthony Hernandez's particular style is going to work there. Um,

because it, It's hard. We don't want to, like, it's so easy to trash, like, fluffy after, like, obviously coming off back-to-back losses where, you know, we saw some weaknesses in his game. But I think what I'm saying is it works better against 185ers who have had to cut weight. Okay, that's probably one way to put it. You know, you're just a little more depleted. Your energy level is a little lower. Going up to light heavy, besides the size factor, he's going up against guys who obviously don't have that same issue.

And again, his ability to push the base would be a problem for some guys, 205, for sure. But I just, he's not a gigantic middleweight. And there's just a lot of guys, I think, even as bad as light heavyweight is, there's probably at least a dozen guys, you know, in the top 20 who just match up really well against him. It'd be interesting to see. Like, I feel like if Robert Whitaker could do it. But Mara Whitaker, I think is much more skilled than fluffy. I don't mind the welterweight talk.

I think that's a good idea. But Jed, I'm not giving up on him at 185. Prince of positivity, baby. Yeah, Prince of positivity. Now, it is a bit hard to look at it because we look at the, you know, the last few guys besides Strickland who've won the title. Like they were just like, you know, serious just runs and didn't falter along the way. Jikas Dublai, just win, win, win, win, win, win.

Hamza, win, win, win, win, win, win. But Strickland kind of gives you hope because when he went to middleweight, he was doing well, but he had losses. He had a loss to Jared Cannoneer. You know, controversial. I thought, I thought Canineer won, but again, it was a close fight. And, of course, he got straight up smoked by Poetton. And I'm pretty sure.

after he got killed by Pareda, no one was saying like, oh, Strickland could probably still be middleweight champion someday. And just remember what a huge underdog he was against Izzy. And we said that was one of the biggest upsets in the NBA history. So I think Strickland kind of broke the middleweight division there anyway when he beat Izzy. And that leaves the door open for guys like Fluffy, who, yes, probably needs to go another run. I mean, he won eight straight fights and just had some bad luck. Like, I think he had fought RDR in Vancouver.

Probably would have gotten a title fight after that. And then he gets Strickland instead. Very tough style matchup. Very good fighter. So I, he has to have to go another run. You think that man with the weak belly could handle my big kneeing boy? I mean, my big doof, my big doofus boy would need him in the tum time. We'll get to your boy.

All right. But the one that showed up that night, yeah, that was not a good night for RDR. I would not have favored him against Anthony Hernandez. So it's a tough road. I'll never rule it out. But it's at least, he's at least like three. wins away unless he can get some really good short notice opportunity where again you know hope maybe things turn around for him like you know he lost his opportunity because he couldn't fight in

maybe somewhere down the road there's an opportunity to fight a top five guy and he steps in but it's a lot dice here but no I would never say never I would never say that that's a wrap for him in middleweight he's only 32 which isn't like super yeah super old excuse me so yeah let's not count him out yet and I actually think he showed a lot in today's fight even though he lost Man, he's just tough as hell. This guy's tough as hell. Don't count him out. He's very tough.

I do think he's a little undersized, the middle weight. We saw just how much, like, if he can't wrestle you, he really struggles to build an offense. He was landing some punches on Greg Gregory Regis. He wasn't really threatening, but he was landing. Correct. He didn't have a most of his landing. But, like, the problem is he is competent but not dangerous. And that's a real problem.

If you can stick a middle weight, maybe more of a strength and, like try and put on some muscle, you know, like 10, 20 pounds or whatever because it feels like that might help. Or maybe consider a weight change. I don't know. Very difficult circumstance for him. Two in a row. Speaking of that, my boy, talked about how two in a row is a really bad thing. Fluffy finds himself in a tough, tough spot now. tune in to on to the next roll on Monday

so you guys can find out who Fluffy should fight next because I don't have any ideas kind of doesn't matter to me. I'll be honest, I might skip that too. I don't know. I don't know what's next. He has options.

He has options. There's a lot of good middle-based room to fight. When Westchap first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion. Inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s,

One thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at Westjet.com slash 30 years. We're not going to skip this, but we ain't going to talk about it too long, A.K., the co-main event, Vitor Petrino, he is a top 10 heavyweight because he takes a clear unanimous decision over Sergei Spivak, aka we entered this fight and I didn't know what it meant and I still don't know what it means other than Sergey Spivak looked atrocious.

I think Vitor Petrino maybe could be like a semi-legitimate heavyweight. I still have pretty huge questions. Spivak looked awful in this fight. My takeaway is more in the negative on Spivak than it is on the positives for Petrino. But come Tuesday, he will be a top 10 ranked heavyweight

and on a 4-0 run in the weight class. So his next fight will probably be a big one, A.K. What do you make of the co-main event? Damn, man. I mean, good for Vito Petrino because making that jump from light heavy weight to heavy weight. Sometimes it feels like almost like desperate. It's just like, oh, you're one, your light heavy weight, you just don't want to cut weight anymore. And two, you feel like heavy is so, you know, oh, it's so much worse than light heavy that like you can, you can have new life there. Or for Vitor, I mean, the proof is in the pudding. It looks pretty good. A lot of people bring in the comments. Like,

remember when he got submitted? by Anthony Smith. Like, that was bad. I think he was favored in that fight. I could be a 100% favorite in the fight. That was supposed to be near the end of the Anthony Smith run. And went out in two minutes. It was super disappointing.

Got knocked up by Jacoby. No shame there. And then says, F it. I don't want to deal with crafty light heavyweight veterans anymore. I want to go up to the heavyweight division, which is full of a lot of, like, shaky, unproven people at the lower part of the ranks. And at the top, I guess, winnable fights. Now, Sergei Spivak, I've got to look at the rankings now.

I believe he was number six. Yeah, six or seven. And that's where, you know, that's where Petrino's going to end up. So ahead of him, you're going to have guys like possibly like Waldo Cortez-A Costa, Hokit, Kuneev. I think some of these guys are booked. I find it hard to believe he's going to get one of these fights. He could get someone in the top 10. He could get someone like Curtis Blades.

And, you know, based on what I saw, with all the respect to have for Curtis Blades, like I know that the Bertrand. Like I know the petrino fight wasn't like fun. He's mixed in the martial arts well. We knew he could grapple like that. We can learn a thing. That would be like a good fight to learn is Bito Petrino legitimate or is he feasting on a moribund weight class? Yeah.

And Curtis blades, Curtis plates. You honestly never. I like him so much, but you just never know. He's lost some winnable fights. He's won some fights. I thought he would get dusted. So maybe you put him in the patrino. I'd just be blow my mind.

Vito Petrino 5 and 0 with wins over top. and heavyweights, Curtis Blades, and Sergey Spivak. I tweeted out, like, we're in a world where he's one good win away from them just saying, yeah, yeah, throw him in the title fight, which sounds crazy. Heavyweight. It is what it is. Let's move to the fight we should talk about. There is also a super chat that functionally runs with this again from our board,

Harmon Sarai, another five dollar. Thank you, Harmon. Thank you, Harmon. On a different note, RDR, after losing two straight matches, looked incredible tonight. really put it on Deleide's what is already our ceiling at light heavy way take it away take it away okay my boy my boy got it done do i need to say anything my boy got it done i am a little disappointed that i didn't climb with him because aka told me not to and i mean color judice was the easiest but this would have been significantly easier than the chris cyborg win i do not know what roman delete

was doing it was very very silly to pull guard immediately and if you had told me that he was going to do that. I would have bet everything I own that RDR is going to win. He looked, it's hard to take too much from this because Roman Deleje gave him the best fight he could get immediately. But I've said for a long time, I think RD.R.D.R. Light, heavy weight is just going to be a better weight class for him. He can, the weight class is worse. He can fight more often without having to cut so much to do it. He's still enormous for this weight class, too. Like, he still has a huge frame. And, weight class is buns. So, uh, AK, I thought this was a good.

I won't, I won't get too high on the performance because DeliJ just handed him the best thing. But this is light heavyweight, AK. Everybody is one good win away from a title fight in this weight class, especially where it's at right now. He picks up this win. His next one's going to be some dude in the rankings. What is the ceiling for the former two division? in one championship and my large adult son,

Ryder DeRourner. I should be more optimistic here because, I mean, I was pretty optimistic with Fluffy. And it's a light heavyweight, which is, I think right now, demonstrably, a worst division than middleweight. So, gosh, the deletes they win does not tell us a lot, unfortunately. I mean, it tells us he can still win fights.

That was great. Because to me, I know you didn't agree. I felt this is a little bit potentially like a washed off. You know, I thought whoever loses this could be cooked or at least looks bad. Like I thought that leads it. I thought this point would be super ugly. Thankfully, DeLise said, no, no, it'll be ugly, but it would be ugly at least in a quick way. So I don't know how much.

What was he doing? He pulled guard. Yes. Which is just like the worst I, if he was going to win that fight, it was like, you might be slightly faster than him on the feet or try and punch him in the head. head, not pull guard. I saw people saying he's a good leg lock guy, right?

Which I couldn't remember, honestly. I know he's a good ground guy. Yeah, I know he's a good ground guy. Going for a leg lock against RDR is just such a silly, silly concept. Like one of the big bozo's moments of the year, quite frankly. But if it had worked, Jed. But if it had worked.

It had been terrific. A.K., you will give your matchup for RDR on Monday. I have to. But what's he? He's two wins at most away from fighting for the belt, right? Yeah, true. Yeah, true. Because, again, he's in the top.

No, Teletze wasn't ranked. No, I will say. Nobody does have a win over Robert Whitaker who's ranked. Yes, and Delitzay was undefeated at light heavyweight, as I've mentioned multiple times, sporadically competing in the division. And three and oh, hey, three and oh. He had that win over Anthony Smith, when Anthony Smith was still ranked, I think.

So it was always weird to me that he went back down to 185. But I think we see now why that maybe was a wise choice for delete say. Hopefully he's okay. Hopefully he makes the right decision of what to do next with his career. Could be a retirement, if it is, good for him. But yeah, RDR. I don't know, Jed, I'm excited to see him again. I'm glad he's back in good graces.

I'm sorry, I told you not to put him in the climb. But this is why you have out of my good graces. You just told me not to put him in the climb. Listen, Lazar Aston says, aka don't consult JET any longer. Please, your cost of Jed money. No, listen, this is why you have a consultant because when a bad decision is made now, he can blame me. Okay? That's part of this.

This is for his mental, you know, strength. I didn't get, I just lost one step. So if I lose on step 29, I'm going to be furious. And you can't lose a step you never had. You know, that's my thing. We don't dwell on the steps we didn't take, Jed, okay? This is part of my climb consulting. This is my number one rules.

The past is for cowards. You live in the past. We live in that. Exactly. Exactly. We move forward. I hope R.D.R. eventually moves forward to fight Yare Pahashko

because that would just make me so proud of two adult sons. But anybody you put them with in this way class, sign me up for. We're going to have a good time. Okay, I do want to run down briefly the remainder of the main event, our main card outcomes. Markell Maderos, really nasty TKON over Mason Jones. It's pretty impressed with that one. Carly Judice just runs. through Yaisal Chavez.

And I thought she was going to win and win comfortably. But she's like a real problem. And I couldn't be happier to have adopted her so early. Because everyone knows that she's mine. Like everyone. No one's like, ah, that guy like colleague. No, I like Colley the first.

And she's going to fight for a boat one day. And she rules. Anthony went, arm triangles, Terrence Chapman. I did not see much of this. Chapman was actually like, I get,

I understand people. them on the scale and we're like well this is an obvious like blowout win for wins and it was and it was and that's how it should be but i will say there's a world where chapman like could have given him problems because chapman actually kind of knows how to strike and anthony wins does not know how to strike at all uh but he is powerful boy that dude has got some power man just straight tackle and go to work uh the prelims jamal emmers uh pretty nice to knock out of larry and douglas upset upset alert upset alert um One of the funniest things you'll see this year as Kennedy and Zuchu is like this year's poster child for F-around and find out.

He's he's shucking and driving. He's got the hands down. He's feeling himself. And then pop goes to weasel. He gets jawed and crashes to the canvas. If you're going to do the hands at your hips slip in style, you got to actually slip the punch and Gadsiev put him down. the funny thing is like he did kind of slip the first right hand he's a couple of them doing it and then he's not that good at it

and he got caught so square and because his hands are down he he kind of does like almost like a rick flare just like flop to the back oh kennedy i hope but work on that a little bit it's it's not easy you know some people make it look easy we can't all be and jillva we can't even all be like bobby green i think they'll see bobby green and think like oh bobby green can do it bar green's not that great bobby green is not that great bobby green is a very good stand-up fighter and you better know what the F you're doing yeah just an incredible incredible incredible

as Eve was robbed of a bonus by your girl Carly and 50 fantasy points not that any of us had him but you're lucky you're lucky you're lucky I didn't even look at who got him I assumed that Carly was as soon as she did I was like that's another 50 dope that's it should have it should have been Jamal and like Shaville I mean can't you just kick that woman in the guts and give up on Chris Chris Padilla scored a submission with one second to go. I actually do agree that Padilla and Gazeve probably should have gotten it. But, and, uh, what got fight of the night?

Uh, main event. Okay, good fight. Like, honestly, I would have done, yeah, I would have done for, uh, performances. There's good fight, but I like, because I like, I thought, several of these performances were really cool. I don't know, but then Dorsonville and Young was it also a really good fight. We had some really good fight. I put three fights in our channel for Fight of the Year.

I don't think they'll all just going to make it, but I think all just going to make it. But I think all just, reserve mention. Also, we just don't put enough fights in there. Yeah, we're not a lot, but when you did it, I was like, you're a little froggy. It was a little frisky. Come on.

As you mentioned, Chris Padilla hits a literal last second finish. A fight he was probably going to win anyway, but arm triangle choke puts Nazareth Hock-Prest out with one second left on the clock. Good for Chris Padilla. Marcio Barbosa.

Super weird knockout of Ryan Coos. Ryan Coos catches one on the temple. Yeah. And is, it's a knockout where I actually think Herzog made a totally right call. It looked weird at the time because Kuse's body was present and nobody was home.

He was like, there and nothing was behind those eyeballs. My mortal enemy, Stanley, Dorsanville, not the anvil. When's a really fun fight against Gage Young. It was a very fun fight in the undercard. Jackson McBay TK body shot knee to the gut over Wesley Schultz Chanel Dyer

there's kind of big sisters Elise Reed in a fight that Reed was not particularly competitive in AK we've already gone down that let me very briefly pivot us to PFL I want to pull up those things

because the most important thing that happened in PFL's Chris Cyborg did get a win picked up a decision but man Had to sweat for it as Kelan Vieira pushed her quite some time, but she gets a decision. Seems like she probably isn't going to retire based on some of her comments, but that happened. Luke Traynor had a pretty fun knockout over at PFL, front kick. That was pretty cool.

Some other good things happen at PFL, quite frankly. A couple of decent fights. So if you guys have any questions about that, but the climb lives on AK, and I was sweating the climb for a hot minute in that main event with Cyborg. Yeah, we should. Yeah, it was your climb bet. It was also, I have, I had like $5 left in my Fanduil account. And like, I'm slowly building it back up. I think I had like a parlay the other day, like a few minutes ago. So I'm like, you know what? I'm putting no, I got it minus 350 or I think even better odds than that on Fanduel. I was like, put it all on cyborg. And I was like, if not, I was done with gambling for the rest of the year. But sure enough, got an extra two or three bucks in my account. Keep, keep building upwards. So, but yes, I was not watching live yet. I know you weren't either, the Greek gear made cruise. I think was sort of... I was, but I was mostly watching the boxing, but I had the second screen up. And every time I look over, I was like,

cyborgs not winning. Like, she's not losing, but she's not winning. Yeah, I had hoped the, you know, Ketland choosing just to not cut weight would not have made as big a difference. But you know what? Clearly made a huge difference. Good strategic choice.

Good strategic choice. I don't, I'll be honest, Jed, I don't know if I believe her story about the supposed, what, she's a kidney issue or something. Yeah, apparently, per the quote she was having some stomach issues

and yes I my initial thought when she stood across her in the cage I was like one cyborg does legitimately look old and like good for her to still gut out this win or whatever but while she was fighting

I was like there is significantly less pop on her punches than you used to get from cyborg her physicality is clearly just nose dived she's been fighting for 20 years she's in her 40s like these are not unheard of things. I was like she has she hasn't been fighting real opposition quite frankly in the last year and

half that probably hasn't helped. I was just like okay this is we're not going to do this again if she somehow survives this but also it was like Vier's was a band was previously a bantam weight and looks gigantic. And my initial thought was like kind of feels like maybe she maybe she was just like what if I don't what if what if it's worth more to me to beat her than the 20, percent of my purse that I'll lose. Or the title. Who cares about the title?

Yeah. She didn't care about the title. Like, I just want to say I could have a win over Chris Cyborg, you know. And Cyborg really seemed to struggle with that sides for a good chunk of this fight. Got it out. Gritty win for her. You know, you could absolutely fairly consider her the women's in a me goat. Many do.

Certainly in the conversation, if not it. An impressive longevity from her to pull this off. Okay. Let's pivot to the peeps here. because it is late and we still have things to do. And we've really hit the main topics. I hope so. We already hit the super chats,

but if you guys have questions, fire them into the comments. We will go for 15, 10 minutes, depending on how many and how good the questions are that you guys give us. And of course, super chats get priority, but you absolutely do not have to.

We are just going to answer questions for a little bit. So fire them in. Harmon, you've given us so many super chats let me throw you one here might be the right time for cyborg to retire i think yes it did not sound based on her comments that she was hanging him up even before this fight she was pretty cage on whether this was actually a retirement fight i think this was just her last fight on her pfl contract but wouldn't shock me at all to see you know now the pfl MVP they need all the star power they can get they can put her in stuff see how it goes

And Cyborg's not that far from losing. Somebody's going to beat her if she keeps doing this much longer. So maybe you can build something around that. So we'll see. But if she did walk away on a truly like unparalleled career in a lot of ways, like really, really good showing. Yes. This is normally the stage.

Like this is normally where someone would be hitting the sad like BJ Penn stage of their careers. Right. I mean, where it's like, oh, wow, cyber's lost three or four straight fights. Oh, wow. I can't believe she lost this person. and she wouldn't have lost this person eight years ago. But she keeps finding away. Like even tonight, again, I'm sorry guys again.

I apologize, I didn't watch the fight, but I'm to understand it was a very, very difficult fight. But I didn't hear a lot of controversy. I don't hear people saying like, oh, Keltl Mvada was robbed. It's just that Keltin Berta gave her a really good fight. She's younger, like you said, bigger on this day for sure. And not, again, really not a bad fighter. Like, I know this was kind of a matchup people were shrugging their shoulders at,

but she was a top 10, really top five phantom weight in the UFC for a long time. Not a deep division, I understand. But, I mean, that has to mean something. She's got some wins over good fighters. And remember, she gave Kayla Harrison all she could handle. She really did. She really did. Yes, I'm sorry, just running back over some of her other recent wins.

Yeah, the Sarah Collins fight was whatever. The Loresa Pichico fight, it is like two years ago now. That's a good one. That fight was awesome. Yeah. That was kind of meaningless. Arlenko, I don't know why that she fought her twice. You know, there's, you could certainly pull holes and cyborgs.

resume. Really, you could have throughout her career. And I had before. I remember for the longest time, I don't know if I was a cyborg hater, but I was kind of like, I was always making cases against her being the goat, just because feather weight is so thin. Yes, I understand she can only beat who she beats, but that's fine. Certain things are out of a fighter's control, and it's not

fair to them, but it also, like, for me, affects their standing in, you know, in sort of the all-time list. But, man, that longevity, the fact that she's had, like, a second half of her career, which is, like, pretty good. for any really especially any fighter in like women's

MMA would kill for just like the second half of her career it's it's quite unbelievable and then you add in the boxing stuff like good for her and I'm pretty convinced she's not going to retire just because there's still money you made there's there's money you made probably a lot of money to you made like you said MVP maybe boxing down the road I know she also she just seems to really enjoy boxing so I hope she doesn't overstay her welcome like I really just wouldn't want Cyborg to do that for her sake for our sake

but I've not feeling at least another two years of Cyborg getting in there with some kind of combat sports And that is very likely Yeah if you take the Amanda Nuno's loss and just be like By for Kate Cyborg's career She had a great career before that She had a great career after that There are, it's not a hole

So there's one hole. The hole is There just aren't that many people of merit to fight She can't control that and it was a good run So if it's over, congratulations. You know, I don't know if the UFC would ever put her in the Hall of Fame. They could. She obviously fought there. They did not end on the best of terms.

They did not start on the best of terms. Feels like they probably wouldn't. But in any normal MMA Hall of Fame, she would be in no doubt about it. First Ballot Hall of Famer. From Lazy Bed. You think Carly should try to get another paycheck for a year in, maybe someone with a number by their name? She basically called for this. She took zero damage.

That's true. Um, she basically called for exactly this, you know, lazy said, give me somebody ranked. I want to be super active. And I think that, yes, the UFC should absolutely be inclined to let her be as active as she can because she's one of very few women's fighters right now that has juice behind her. And in this weight class with Valentina probably on her way out sooner rather than later, you need somebody to maybe be a torch bear moving forward. So yeah, throw on a card. anyone in the top 15 give her anyone in the top 15

I'm just looking right now and I'm just rattling off names guys I don't know I don't know who's like already booked I don't know she trains with some of these people so like Casey O'Neill I don't know she trains with anybody I don't like you you've told her

to train only with wolves in the forest like yeah she trains with like I think she's just in like a random New Orleans gym or whatever JJ Aldrich is in the meta rankings number 12 she could take that Tracy Cortez honestly Wang Tong love my girl

Wang song, I would pick Carly to smoke Wang. That'd be a huge jump up in the media rankings because Wang's like five or something. Oh, really? Well, she's six in the meta. Yeah, she's like really high. Yeah. You could do it. I would, I would have, I don't know what the odds makers would say. I would have Carly. Honestly, I was like a minus 300 favorite. I like the JJ Eldridge. Just get her like the last person in the ranking, somebody's style on. Let it look good. AK, did you happen to see any of R.A.F. tonight? Because quick from

No. B.B. Hulk, quick thought on R.F. Nice to see T. would get a win. Taron, Turum Woodley, seven years without a victory, finally does it. And for a hot minute, it looked like you wouldn't. He was down to E.1 to Joaquin Buckley, scores a mega comeback. Finally, as, I don't know if you saw this, but finally, per the question of the pre-fight press conference, hey, Tyron, you have not beat me ass since releasing the song, I'll beat your ass. He finally. beat some ass, AK. Good for T. Woodie would be it back. Did you catch any of RIF tonight? No, no. Of course, keeping up with the coverage on M.A.fighting.com. Good for Henry Sehudo. I know that was like a heartbreaking loss.

The first fight with Rob. Yeah, yeah. Because we know Suhudo is a better rest than him. And credit to Rob for winning that first fight. Like, I mean, this is like, cardio matters. Being in shape matters. All the technique in the world is like,

it doesn't matter if you're, you know, you're not fully prepared. And I don't know. I don't know. What was off with Suhudo in that first fight? fight but obviously could not hang with Marav for like once the once their match hit a certain point but he is the better wrestler pinning Maraub in 36 seconds is incredible. I'm just laughing at St. Jordan Burroughs to beat Sean Brady, your tech fall. Like, look, I'm not a I'm not a wrestling expert.

But when I saw that on paper, I'm like, that's not going to go well for Sean Brady. Everyone did. One of my favorite parts of the RIF presser was everybody like nobody pretended. And somebody just like Mike asked Sean's like, what if you did? But like, what if you did? And Sean didn't quite dismiss it as even a possibility. He was like, look, I'm going to try to win.

But then he was like, you know, it's not going to happen. And it's like, I'm just, I'm going to come out. Like, we all knew what was going on. And I appreciated that about it. Like nobody pretended this was anything that it wasn't. And that was very fun. And yeah, of course, Jordan Burroughs decked him. Jed, you know more about this world than I do.

How big a deal is it? Is McAnnelly beating Boe-Nickel? Obviously, Bo is like one of the most accomplished amateur wrestlers of like the century, but he's far removed from that world now. I'm sure he still trains wrestling, of course, but you know, he's focused in M-M-A. I don't know a lot about Max McInelly. I assume this, like, he would have been favored in this matchup, but is it like a huge deal that he, that he wanted to see if there actually are rankings around that I could do it.

I would say that he, I mean, he certainly should have been because Mac, Macanelli is like still wrestling. Like what is it? Is he a multiple time NCAA champion as well? He's the current NCAA champion. He recently. He's a younger man. He recently won.

Like he wrestles from Minnesota and is like the current champ or was a, I mean, I guess he's a 2026 champion or whatever. So I guess that's current. I don't know the most recent cycle. I think he's out. I don't know if he's out or not or if he's back for one more. Okay. So it's not like it wasn't a huge upset,

but it is still a big. deal right because i mean bo again his wrestling probably a big deal um bo nickle i've said this before bo nickle most likely would have made an olympic team for america had he chosen to stick with wrestling you never know it's always possible it doesn't he happened to be competing in a very difficult weight class amongst american wrestlers anyway and fell just short in his one and only team trials that he attempted and his whole plan from jump street was i'm going to make one run in an olympic cycle if i don't get it I'm going to MMA. He fell just short and against a guy who went on to,

I think Taylor won that year. I think he won the Olympics that year. I could be wrong. You just had a very difficult weight run to be in. And this has happened with some really high-end MMA fighters before. Speaking of Jordan Burroughs, who was the lightweight dude who just stopped fighting, but was very, very good?

It got head kicked by Kevin Lee that one. time. Oh, Gilbert. Gilbert, what's his name? Oh my God. Guys,

it's too late, guys. No, I'm not going to look this up. I'm not going to look this up, guys. It's not Gilbert, but it's something like that.

And I can't do this. Is his name not Gilbert? People, I'm looking, first person in the comments, I'm going to shout you out. Gregor Gillespie. There you go.

Yeah. Bebbaugh. Bebaugh wins. Bevaugh wins the prize. Gregor Olespe was like a four-time, and very likely he also would have made a team trials, but he happened to wrestle on the way.

class Jordan Burroughs did who's one of the greatest American wrestlers of all time. So it was like, well, I don't get to do this then. Have you got lucky? Have you got lucky that Gregor lost that fight to Kevin Lee because he was, hope he was next. It could have happened. He would have gotten him. Well, like if Beau had sat and done another cycle, I think it's decent and likely he would

have found a way onto an Olympic team, certainly a world team at some point. It's a little lower border clear to get there. But he hasn't been wrestling for several years, like primarily. And so an active NCAA champion who's young. in a very close, you know, three, two thing. It's, I mean, it's great for McNeely, or McNeely, sorry, but yeah. And, you know, Bo should, like, Bo is in a spot in RF where he can do those matches, but also, like, he can just do the, I'll wrestle ball all or whatever matches.

So, um. Hammy, I think it was Hammy. Hammy was saying, could your match with Kennedy Blaze decided to fight in that may? I think the only issue is, is she like a, 165 pounds. Yeah, she's enormous. Huge, right? Like she would, she could maybe,

she would have to make huge changes to make, like, feather weight, right? Like, she's, like, bigger than Kail Harrison, I would think. I don't think she's making feather weight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I think both height-wise and I think build-wise, she's, like, bigger than Kail Harrison. So I think pretty unlikely. Yeah, she's, she wrestles at 76.

It was like 175 pounds. I hope we could at least get a few, like, Freakshy. Rise in, at least, you know, reach out. Like, that's the thing. You could do freaks stuff with her. That would be fun, but like, she wrestles at a hundred and set, like 75 pounds. She's not, she's not doing it. Maybe she could get down. Like, if she really focused and dieted and lost, like, maybe she could make a push for

145, but even that seems like unlikely. Yeah. What did Kayla judo win? Probably 160 something, right? I don't remember what her, uh, judo weight classes where I'm looking it up right now 78 actually for both of hers so I mean I guess if Kayla could find a way to do it maybe Kennedy could then you are generally cutting less weight for like Olympic style sports because you're not trying to lose 50 pounds and then compete the same day but uh I guess maybe maybe she can make a run at it yeah but also she's gonna make she won silver and the last Olympics she's she's gonna keep doing this forever so that would be pretty sick. A.K., the most important question will ever be asked.

Do you think RDR could win the title? Yeah, it's light heavyweight, guys. You think I'm ruling out anyone in, like, the top eight at light heavyweight? I'm not. I'm not going to do that. I didn't think Carl Zillberg. That is the correct answer. Yeah, I didn't think Carl Zolberg was going to win the UFC title.

Two years ago, if you told me, like, oh, he'll be the UFC champion by the end of 2026, by the middle of 2026? I said, probably not. And I like Carlos Oldberg, but come on. And there he is. And he's in a different, you know, a very different path than RDR. But he looked kind of rough his first two fights in the UFC and then just put this windstreet together. Just to see who else.

Jamal Hill won the light heavyweight title for God's sakes. Jamal Hill's a good fighter. But like, what? I didn't think he's going to be a global share that one time. Anyone can win the live ever game. Fala Costa is number four right now. Follow costa is number four in the light heavyweight rankings and the meta rankings. He's like, what are we doing?

Yes, RDR can win the light heavy title, okay? Of course. That's the correct answer. I think Coles Alborg would be a pretty tough fight for him, but anyone can win this belt. So yeah. And A.K., on that magical, magical question, 45 minutes, man, some people are going to be so proud of us

for keeping this one high and tight. A lot going on, A lot happening. It won't be on to the next one. one tomorrow, but there will be one Monday. There will be whatever other post-fight coverage we have from this weekend, rolling out tomorrow and Sunday. And then, I mean, the journey never stops, A.K., we're going to Shanghai, baby. That is right.

You see Shanghai. Umar no Macamatta Meadow versus Song Yadong. I'll be climbing with Umar and think for next week. And, uh, otherwise, you guys have a wonderful week. Thank you for joining us this weekend. Thank you for joining us tonight. It is late. but I do appreciate you.

A.K., thank you for joining me always. No, blah, blah. Guys, we'll see you real soon. Love y'all. To the Vox Media Podcast Network.