MMA Fighting - UFC Saudi Arabia Post-Fight Show: Reaction To Robert Whittaker Destroying Ikram Aliskerov

Episode Date: June 23, 2024

Robert Whittaker reminded fans that he's still one of the best middleweights in the world as he quickly dispatched the very dangerous Ikram Aliskerov in the main event of UFC Saudi Arabia. Was the win good enough to get him the winner of the UFC 305 main event between Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya for the middleweight title, or does Whittaker now have a future with Sean Strickland? Following Saturday's Fight Night event in Riydah, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck, Jed Meshew, and Eric Jackman react to Whittaker's first-round finish of Aliskerov, discuss the future of Aliskerov moving forward, and where Whittaker goes next. Additionally, they discuss Alexander Volkov's co-main event win over Sergei Pavlovich, Kelvin Gastelum ending a horrible week with a win over Daniel Rodriguez, Paige VanZant competing in Power Slap next week, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Eric Jackman: @NewYorkRic Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Robert Whitaker goes out there in the main event, enters the Octagon, looking all sorts of pissed off, and fought as such just obliterates Icram Alaskaroff in under two minutes. We put a cap on the UFC's first ever event. in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And we're here to react to all of the action from a Saturday afternoon. I am Mike Eck and joining me, what a crew we have. First, Mr. No Gray Area, the hot take kid himself from the ATL, Mr. Jed Michoud.

Jed, how are we doing on this Saturday evening? I'm infuriated, Mike. I didn't get to watch most of the UFC because I covered Bellator, which was terrible. My internet's being just real trash. So I hope I stay with us for all of this. And yeah, at least it's six. You know, it's early. I can go have a drink very soon and I'm going to have about eight of them.

So, but yeah, fights happened. Tell me all about the UFC guys. I got to see very sparingly. Well, we'll go back to you in a moment. Also joining us, it's always a treat when this happens. New York Rick joining us for a post-fight reaction program. New York Rick, how are we doing, buddy? Hi, boys. I'm doing great. I got to watch both sets of fights. It was fantastic. My internet's running smoothly and life is good. So I feel bad for Ted, but everything's good over here.

Both sets of fights weren't fantastic. Don't lie. That was great. Well, Jed, you know what? You mentioned it. You are on Bellator duty, as we like to call it, a belly duty. And a card certainly happened in. Dublin. I watched bits and pieces of it. For a Dublin crowd, it seemed kind of not Dublin-esque. It didn't seem like they were ruckus and going crazy. Things happen. We have a new welterweight champion, I believe. Give us the Cliff Notes version of Bellator Dublin. What went down? How was it? Any Michoulin stars in the aftermath? Oh, God, no. It was just a Bellator Dublin card. The crowd was pretty lively, probably a little less so than previous cards, but they were certainly lively also like what exactly is the dublin crowd going to get pumped for in the ramagetto caromagumato

fight versus jason jackson like that fight exists but you know when paul hughes competed when they were lit for shenade cavanile even though she lost you know like they were up for their people um and there was a lot of good bell to our matchmaking and getting irish fighters big wins dominant impressive wins started out really strong bunch of finishes early flagged a bit in the middle there and then the main event was a bit of a snoozer um you know it was just a belt or doubling card not like there weren't any highlights that were like we would talk about the coolest highlight of the evening was a north south choke which kind of speaks to what was happened like the biggest thing that happened is connor mcgregor made an appearance and they interviewed him is like

that's probably the biggest thing that happened um other than i guess jason jackson losing i think he's ranked in our rankings at Walter Wright. So that'll shake that up. But that wasn't even like a fun loss. It was a terrible fight to watch. So yeah, that's Pelotor rundown. The only fight I mean, I watched Nathan Kelly win rather easily with the Ninja Choke. The only fight I watched from start to finish was the Dalton Rasta, Norbert,

Noveni Jr. fight, which was actually at least a fun fight. Yeah, that was the one I was really looking forward to. I actually thought it was a draw. one judge agreed with me I thought Noveni did enough for 10. I mean, when you drop a guy twice and a round and nearly finish, that constitutes enough of a 10-8 for me, but

good fight. Noveni will be back. Dalton Rust gets a big win, and that's what happened in Dublin Ireland. But let's transition. Oh, not all, Mike. Let me tell you about the genius that is Bellator. Not even setting aside, this all being weird or shit. Do you know what happened on the

prelims of this card? Patchy Mix's next opponent got named. It's Cosum Cosumov. I don't know. He's a dude of Beatonis Motus in the prelim main event. For whatever reason, they put that

fight here in Bellator, Dublin, buried it in the prelims of a card that's going head to head with the UFC salary card. And that's the dude who's supposed to fight probably the best guy in their organization. What in the name of shit are we doing over here?

It was so, it was like, all right, this guy's pretty decent. It's a bit rushed to fight patchy mix, but you've got to fight somebody. But like, why is this on the prelims? Like, what are, what is it happening with this, an organization, man? The Bellator Dublin also just had a bunch of Russian fighters.

It was just like, here's Irish dudes and the Eagle FC guys. Like, Eagle FC castoffs and Irish dudes. Like, what the shit is going on here, man? It was super weird. Tell me about South. Saudi. We will tell you about Saudi, Jed. New York Rick. I saw some of it. I had it up. Yeah. I'm sure you're some of some of them. I'm sure you're well aware of what happened. And obviously the big takeaway New York, Rick, Robert Whitaker just bashed up Icramalaskarraf in the main event.

It was a contrast of two different walkouts. I'm Alaskaroff was smiling. He was bubbly. So happy to be there for his first UFC main event. And Robert Whitaker comes out, mean mugging, like never before, just ready to run through a wall. And instead of running through a wall, he ran over Icram Alaskarraf's face, lands a beautiful combination, right hand that puts him on skates and just, just misses the head kick from hell,

and just waited, waited for the opportunity to land the big shot, lands one, and then lands just an absolutely ferocious uppercut that sends Alaskarraf crashing to the canvas. Looks like he was going to try to recover, but Mark Goddard, even though he had some faults tonight, terrific stoppage. It was only going to get worse for Alaskarraf.

But man, Robert Whitaker comes in and a fight where the betting odds when they closed, both guys had minus numbers next to their name. It was pretty much a pickum by the time this thing began. And Robert Whitaker treated Icaroff like he was the 80th ranked fighter in the division. Your thoughts on this performance from Bobby Knuckles. Great performance by Whitaker, but I do want to pump the brakes on like the idea that like Alice Scarav got like exposed in some way that like, Ikram is somehow diminished because of this.

He was supposed to fight a week ago against a guy who we saw a fight on this card that did not look very good, who he would have absolutely ragdolled and run through. And so to step up on a week's notice and step into a fight against what is a top ranked middleweight forever and still clearly a very highly ranked top ranked middleweight it's just a tough task to be able to do that to step into that position and perform is a very tough task and it showed and Robert Whitaker treated it like it should be treated and did exactly what he needed to do but as much credit as I want to give to Whitaker I want to also give grace to Alaskarov like I don't

think that was representative of him or what we will see from him in the future he'll go back to fighting the opponent's, the level of opponent that he was booked against. And I think he'll be fine and ultimately kind of find stride and show that the people that believed in him that reflected that betting line, which I didn't agree with. I thought was a little bit odd. But I understand it, right? Sometimes you're betting based on potential and hype and not necessarily what we've seen in the past.

But yeah, great performance by Whitaker did exactly what he needed to do in a bit of a tough spot, right? We know that we have Israel Adasanya versus Drickus Duplasee. And so both of those guys have wins over Robert Whitaker, Israel having two Duplice, a very dominant win over him. It's going to be hard for him to bust into that title scene. So it feels like we're setting up for the ready-made Sean Strickland fight that's there. But I think Robert Whitaker is somebody who, if he remains ready, might be able to step into another opportunity if one presents itself. So put himself in good position going to be tough to get a title shot as long as DDP and Israel are the ones competing for it, but did exactly what he needed to do to at least enter a conversation.

Yeah. And just I know sort of in the description of everything, I made it seem like Robert Whitaker just kind of beat a wash guy. It's not what I'm trying to say. This is more Whitaker just stepping up and delivering a massive performance. And as I've said, and even if you read the live blog, no matter what happened in that fight, I still believe Icrum Alisgarf is going to fight for a title. I think he is that good. I think the double weight cuts definitely sucked for him, but you had to take this shot, man, especially with where this division is right now. You get the chance to fight Robert Whitaker in a main event fight instead of Antonio Tricoli.

Yeah, it sucks. You got to go across the world and you have to cut weight a second time, but you got to take that opportunity. And obviously the fans, a lot of the betting community believed Alice Gareff could go in there and do it. it, I thought he had a really good chance to do it. I thought if he could go in there and just put the boots to Whitaker in the first seven, seven and a half minutes of the fight, would not have shocked me if Alaskarraf went out there and just ran over Bobby Knuckles in the first round or round and a half. And then as the fight continued on,

Besson, I thought Woodaker would kind of run away with it. But Whitaker getting a first round knockout was not on my bingo card at all, did not see that coming. And Robert Whitaker went out there and did that. But I don't want to take, I'm not, I don't. I just want to make sure I'm very clear here. I am not saying at all that Icram Alaskarraf got exposed or anything like that. This is just Bobby Knuckle showing up and delivering an A plus game. And you have a guy who had to deal with all those circumstances.

Plus, first main event, first show ever in Saudi Arabia, a lot of pressure on Iqa Malascarab's shoulders. So I don't want to take anything away from that in that aspect. But this is Robert Whitaker just delivering a big time performance. I just want to make that clear out the gate. So, Jed, I mean, yeah, please. Not a direct response to you. Like, I'm seeing that sentiment quite a few places. Like, there's an idea like he got exposed.

Not that we should put too much doc, considering the source of some of these things and how ruthless MMA, Twitter, and X and other social media platforms can be. But this is what happens with prospects. They get, quote, unquote, fraud checked. And all of a sudden, they're no good, even though they're in the worst possible circumstances facing a guy as good as Robert Whitaker. So yes, agree with everything you just said. Yeah, there we go.

I'm exposed. There was a comment that it's a top-up. But, yeah, not the case in my, at least in my mind. Look, there's a reality. Like, maybe he isn't that future champion that people have kind of earmarked them for. But I don't think this is the performance where you can kind of make that determination. This was the toughest of circumstances and the biggest jump by far that you can make. For sure.

for sure. Jedd, your reaction. I know you didn't get to, maybe you did watch it a little bit closely, but I watched this one because I was, dude, by this time, we were already deep into the garbage that was Ramazon versus Jason Jackson. And I was like, I'll just keep the volume on and they can tell me if something interesting happens and I'll focus on the fight that's good. Newsflash, nothing interesting happened. Yeah, no, this was, I agree with Rick mostly, right? Like, there's, We can't say that he got exposed. That's frankly just going to be a thing that we'll learn the next couple of times out, right? Like if he Kim's out and it's because the fact of the matter is now we have twice seen

Ikramalaskarov just get obliterated by punches. Terrific punches. But like the man did not have, when his durability has been tested, it hasn't been exceptional. So maybe there's something to check out. But also like he cut weight twice, flew across like changed time zones, flew across the world, fight, I cannot stress to you enough the difference in competition between Robert Whitaker and Antonio Tricoli. The gap there is vast. And so, like, no outcome here would have been entirely surprising. This one is the one that I think we learn, like, the least from, frankly, which is a little

bit disappointing in that regard. But, like, yeah, you should not write off Icromalaskarov for this because there are a lot of explicable reasons for what happened. And by the same token, I'm not here. Like, I know Robert Whitaker came out after the fight. It was like, I'm the great, I'm the best middle weight in the world. I'm the division's boogeyman. Literally less than a year ago, my guy, you got dummied by Drickus. Like, I understand all fighters have to believe themselves.

But come on. Like, let's at least be somewhat rational about things. But the thing to me that, like, my big takeaway from this fight is something I had not honestly considered whatsoever heading into it, which is pretty silly of me, frankly, but like Rob Whitaker's going to come out of this smell and like roses now because

he took the hard fight, the difficult to ask, performed exceptionally well, and now he's going to fight Sean Strickland for a title fight. Like that's where we're going. He no longer has to fight Hamzat. And even though I actually think he was a really, really tough fight for Hamzot

and I was going to pick him to beat Hamzot, Hamzad is the actual boogeyman because you never see him. He might actually not be real, but he is terrifying in the concept that one day he might show up and snatch your children away. Like that's Hamzat's the real boogeyman. And Robert Whitaker has now deftly evaded the boogeyman and gets to fight Sean Strickland, who could beat him, but certainly isn't going to hurt him because we've seen Sean Strickland fight at this point.

So like, he's coming out of this real, real clean. So well done, Bobby Knuckles. This is a great weekend for you. Robert Whitaker obviously got one of the post-fight bonuses. Unlike UFC Vegas 93, we don't have to wait 45 minutes for the bonuses to come. We already have them. I bet I can't play really. One of the others.

Well, I have no idea of one fight of the night, but I'm certainly, I am. There is no fight in the night. There is no fight of the night. So it is very clear who won all the bonuses since there were only four finishes on the side. Oh, perfect. Was there a fight that deserve to win? fight of the night. I thought one of the prelimb fights seemed really fun. Wouldn't

Hot Pross Gordon seem pretty damn fun for like Hawk Prost and Gordon was a scrap. Was definitely. I watched it. I did not watch it. It's super close in the first round. I was doing Beltor stuff, but like that seemed like a good scrap. Yeah, they threw like 300 punches each. That was a scrap. Yeah, that was a good fight too. That was a decent fight.

I would have been that way over like a bonus for the bullet Magamadov, but I, you know, whatever. Does a bullet get a bonus for killing a man who wasn't who was standing there? Like, I'm not, that's not even like me being a ass. I'm just going to do this literally not defending himself. Anyone can knock out a punching bag, I guess. I actually, like, I'm glad you brought that fight up. Because I just want to see what the cards actually read to that point.

Was he down two rounds? I think he won the second. It was, I don't know, he was, it was, yeah, it was 10, it was 1919 on one car and he was up two rounds on the other. So yeah, there you go. So it's not like he needed the finish or anything, but he went in there and did it. No, he was fine. Dude, if he doesn't finish that dude, any, whatever hype behind him dies completely. That did.

It did. It did. It did. Because that one you can put on the hype a little bit. Definitely. It did. Because that one you can put on the hype. highlight real regardless of the quality of it as opposed to whatever we saw for the first couple rounds,

which was not good. It was not great. Vulcan Ozed Amir with the big knockout gets a bonus. And how about Felipe Lima coming in, up a weight class, short notice debut, and gets a big finish against a guy who had not lost in the UFC to this point. Less than a week's notice, actually, gets the phone call Monday to take this fight and goes in there and wins. is exciting as hell, man. And he's going to go back to his natural weight class

in his next fight. Banim weight just got a little bit deeper with the addition of the one of the faces of the Octagon MMA lower weight classes. So hell yeah. Great addition to the roster. Great win for him. Jed looks like you got a lot darker

over in your neck of the woods. But there you have it. Yeah. Now he's lit back up a little bit. It's just one of those days, huh? Just one of those. Just things are happening out here. and say what's going on.

Volkov was robbed and deserved. The haters won't agree. Volkov deserves a performance bonus. That was dope. He's really good to fight. I don't hate that take at all. Like, who's neutered Sergey Pavlovich? No one.

That was in present to hell. That was great performance. He just stayed away and it was like he had a great time doing it. Not a lot of people have a smile on their face for 15 minutes fighting Sergei Pavvich, but he did. He was getting his hair combed, between rounds. The brass ones on you to do that when you're fighting Sergey Pavlovich? Come on.

We watched Stefan Strude's entire career where he couldn't figure out that he was eight feet tall and how to use that. Volkov's out here just kicking and jabbing. What a hero. This is going to be shocking news, but when Volkov fights long and fights big, he's actually very good. It's a surprising revelation, but he's really hard to beat when he fights long. It's shocking, but it's, it's shocking.

but it's true if you look. Man, you got Pavvich, like, real mad to the point where Pavvich shoved him at the end. He goes over and says, hey, good fight, man. And Pavvich freaking shoves him right in the chest and walks away. That's just the classic frustration. But it also seemed like this week, they've got some real heat. Like, I think they both kind of took it personally.

Now, if I'm reading the deal leaves here, like, it just seems like I think the UFC just lied to both of them, like told them, yeah, he said yes, and then told the other one, yeah, he said yes and got them to fight. That seems like the most likely obvious outcome. But both of them seem mad that the other one decided to accept the fight after having been partners and friends. So I get it.

I get the real heat. I wouldn't want him coming over trying to hug me after I just got my asswipped. So yeah, cool. I'm cool with the beef. Keep it going. Saving and investing well is an art and a science. It requires high-level. math, an intimate knowledge of economic history and theory, and a healthy dose of psychology.

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Yes, there was some heat on the featured about two between Kelvin Gaslam and Daniel Rodriguez, which as we all know is supposed to be a welterweight fight, became a middleweight fight. And man, this was an interesting one to watch. Gassel looked good in the first round. I thought Daniel Rodriguez had a great second round. I actually thought he won the second round. Two of the judges did not agree with me. And then Gasselm dug deep and won the third and wins the fight via unanimous decision.

And Michael Bisbing was just on one during this fight. Just ripping Kelvin Gasselm, pretty much fat shaming him the entire fight, talking about his belly, talking about, you know, when they were talking about catchweight in, oh, maybe 180. Oh, Daniel Corbier is like, oh, I don't. Daniel Rodriguez said they want to do a catchweight at 180, but I don't know what happened after that. Michael Bisbin goes, yeah, Gasolm wanted to fight at 205, just like all sorts of digs at Kelvin Gaslam throughout the entirety of this fight. Gaslam gets the win, gets on the mic, apologizes to Dana, apologize to Hunter, thanks them for being incredible employers and says it was one of the biggest fights of his career, one that he really needed. He apologized,

said it was unacceptable, and he promises to do better, even said, I know I promised that before, I really get to do it now. I don't know, man. Kelvin's in a very weird spot, Jedmishu. I don't know how much of the fight you watched. What did you think of just the entire week for Kelvin Gasselm? At least he walks out with the win, that's something. But how would you grade his entire week?

So I watched almost none of this fight. This was when I was watching the Conner stuff happening in Bellator. So I have next to no comment about what actually occurred in the fight. I can surmise what happened because we've seen these two dudes fight a lot and it seemed pretty clear this fight would look like. Calvin Gastel had a real bad week. You kind of mentioned it both publicly and privately a little bit, Mike. He just had like a real, I'm trying to think of words that aren't like really defamatory here.

Hmm. He was real cavalier about what was going on here. with the blowing weight by a full weight class. And then, you know, comes out post-fight speech and says the same stuff he said a million times and just like, deeply unprofessional. And like to a point that it almost seems like he's going for the chale son and wink wink, wink.

I was on more juice and tropicana stuff. But like this isn't a funny, clever, charming thing. It's actually just like real shitty. So really bad week from him. sounds like the fight was nothing to write home about which would have made the medicine go down a little smoother right like if you just come and at least taking the doors off of of D-Rod but doesn't seem like that happened so

I don't know he has had the weirdest career maybe not the weirdest career but just an exceedingly strange career that to me is explained by one thing but then that's like I'm not going to say that because that's just stirring up a bottle of worms I don't want to deal with but But he, think about it, this dude was like the youngest guy. He was like 20 years old. Like, yeah, he's for sure going to fight for a belt.

Never did. At this point, is never going to. Has bounced between weight classes, missed weight a hundred times, does weird shit like this week and just doesn't live up to even like a tenth of what the expectations were for him. Is a super, super weird career and kind of keeps going. I don't think the UFC will cut him. I honestly think he should leave if that's an option. for him. Just go somewhere else. Maybe what you just need is a fresh start, a clean break in a separate organization where

you can find something that's missing from you because this can't, we can't keep doing whatever we're doing with Kelvin. New York, Rick, what do you think? I mean, it is a win. So that happened. We don't know what the penalty was. I'm sure something was worked out in order for this fight to go on to 185 pounds. I'm sure Daniel Rodriguez got a piece of the purse.

I know Dana White is not thrilled about it. I think he's speaking to the media right now, according to Damon Martin on Twitter, who is paying attention to this. Dana White said, quote, I'm not thrilled with Calvin Gasselm right now. It's extremely disappointing.

That's kind of the Cliff Notes version of it all. Yeah. Where do we do? Where does Calvin Gasselm go now? I mean, three and six in his last nine fights, still with the weight issue, still bouncing around.

I have no clue where to go from here. Even AK and I were talking, trying to prepare for onto the next one. We might just not even matchmake for him this week. Yeah. I heard the rest of Dana's comments and he essentially pointed to the multiple times that Kelvin has blown weight in the past and the fact that he's fighting on a card where guys like Ikram stepped up on a week's notice and were professionals and made weight. And meanwhile, Kelvin didn't. So in the doghouse, not in a good spot with the UFC and Dana White is Calvin

Gaston. I said that like Mike Goldberg. And so I don't know. I don't know where. it goes from here. Clearly, like, Kelvin's got some things to reassess. This felt, I think Jed kind of nailed it here. This felt particularly icky just because of how cavalier he was, because of how dismissive of the seriousness of the situation he was all week. If you're D-Rod, you didn't want to fly here to have to be met with this news and then not fight. So you kind of, like, are forced into a situation where now you're fighting a guy with a weight class up because you need the paycheck and you have to fight and you didn't want to come all this way not to. So Kelvin kind of had him in a bad spot and took advantage of that by not giving a shit and not

really caring. It's disrespectful. It's embarrassing. It's everything everybody's already said about it. There's not going to be, I don't think, any further penalty to it. D. Rod got a percentage of his purse and Kelvin lost it and he was fined and we'll all move on with our lives. But Kelvin Gasolam can't be trusted to make weight.

and he didn't take this very seriously. And it's a really like, look, there may be a situation where all of a sudden down the line, two weeks from now, a month from now, Kelvin Gastilum has a real good explanation for why blue weight and some kind of hard up story that people will come around to his side. In this moment,

without that information, it just looks bad. And I don't, is it disrespectful on my part to say I don't really care? Like, I don't really care what's next for Kelvin Gaston. Like I don't know what weight class he's in. I don't know if he's even reliable to make weight next time he shows up.

Like, why should I care? He's not, he's not going to be a title contender because he's not going to make wait for a title fight. So I don't know. I don't really care. Man, it's a tough place to be when this is the kind of reaction you're getting that. Nobody cares at this point. That's like the worst thing you could have.

Dude, in like six years ago, I would have that my life he's fighting for a Walterway belt. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think if he handled it without like the smirks and the laughs and just, you know, the cavalier is like a perfect word how to describe it. I think if you just showed contrition while explaining, didn't have to like reveal exactly what happened. But, you know, bad training camp, a lot of stuff happened behind the scenes.

Like you can say those things and just not laugh about them. You know what I mean? and just not feel like I'm about to, it just seemed like I'm about to get one over on this guy and there's nothing he could do about it because he's in, we're all on freaking Saudi Arabia. It's not like we're in Las Vegas and he could just go home and go sleep in his own bed

and it's no big deal. That was the worst part about all of this. The part that's going unsaid here is that every fighter deals with this, right? Like this is not a unique Kelvin Gasolam situation. Every single fighter deals with this, to some extent or another. And in fact, to Dana White's point,

some on this card, cutting weight twice, coming over to Saudi Arabia after having been contracted to fight somewhere else and make weight. That's the job. That is the job. Every fighter has to deal with this. Every fighter is up against this obstacle. And he just failed. He failed miserably to overcome that obstacle. And it almost feels like there's not enough of a punishment for it. So we'll see ultimately what the punishment ends up being, right? The UFC is not going to take more money from him, but maybe they don't put him in opportunities that he could have previously gotten based on the strength of his name

because to Jets point, many people pegged Kelvin as a future champion or at least this amazing title contender. He had one of the best fights ever against Israel to Sanya. Like the guy clearly is talented. The guy clearly is capable of fighting to a high level, but making weight is the fight that you have to win first. And he loses that fight more often

than you would want from somebody who, as serious talent. So yeah, every fighter is going to go through it. Like, I honestly don't really care what the reason is. Like, it's just a real indictment. It's a stain on his resume. And it's not the first time. If this was the first time, it'd be a different conversation.

It's not the first time. Yeah. Look at Antonio Tricoli. A hundred percent, Mike. Yeah. I was really about to say that. I was really about to say that. Cut wait for Ickram.

Found out about the Sharra bullet fight on three days notice. went to Saudi Arabia, made weight, and fought this guy. It's crazy. That's the job. If 6.5 Antonio Tricoli can make middleweight like with those circumstances, you're telling me Kelvin can't even make 1-8. Like, come on, dude. Just be a professional.

That's all it is. It's just that. It's a discipline thing. It's not anything else. It's discipline. And he's lacking it. Yeah. So tough for D. Rod suffers this now third straight loss,

with this one and that was his first fight in over a year dealing with the whole bunch. Would you guys have preferred if Kelvin Gastilum because he knew he was going to blow that much weight just pulled out of the fight? Would you have more respect if he just said, yeah, I'm not even close to getting to this fight. Let me just pull out.

Yes. Yeah, I think so too. I think I would have found somebody to fight DROD, clearly. Yeah, they would have figured it out. Yeah, I think so too. Or like, the thing is you know, before like fight week like ah i'm just like you're you're gonna have a pretty good idea that i'm not i'm not really gonna make this you just call him like hey i'm not close uh do you are you comfortable doing

185 or we're like there are a hundred other things or you could just do the thing that like we should have done the first place stay a bucket middle weight man like just stay there i know that you don't want to because you're not good enough but that's the choice the choice is i can be better at a weight class i should compete in or i can eat the things i want to eat and competed this weight class world take a bunch more else you got to make that decision you can't do whatever this was yeah i hope they take care of d rod he was using a real bad spot here yep 100% completely agree hopefully he's still in the roster he's helped the company quite a bit multiple situations uh for the jing the on thing this no they can't they absolutely can't absolutely can't

uh sharp bull gets the win i'm sure we'll get questions about him vulcan o's dem here a lot of people saying, ah, the gloves, the gloves, they're a problem. No one's getting knockouts, and Vulcan's like, bet knocks Johnny Walker into another dimension, although that fight probably

should have been stopped a little bit before the actual ending of the fight, but that's neither here nor there. No, no, no. Give us our fun chaos. Give us, let us have the good image, Mike.

We don't need, it's fine. It was a great stoppage. Do you want to talk about the value of a Johnny Walker? on the roster, Jen? I've said it 100 times before. People have come around. You need people who die well.

And Johnny Walker, boy, does he die well. Like, look, it's a town, like losing excitingly is an impressive way to go. Because there are a lot of people who can lose boring as hell. Jason Jackson lost boring as hell today. That has no value to you. You want a guy like Johnny Walker. Get or get got guys are the lifeblood of combat sports. And Johnny Walker, sure he's had a couple weird ones there.

Like he's not 100%, but mostly he's coming in to get you or to get got in return. And when he does get got, it's always spectacular. Volcanozumir has a highlight for the rest of his life now. And Johnny Walker should be employed forever. Indefinitely, I would keep Johnny Walker on my team because he is going to spice up cards when you need them. Who's more valuable on that end? Johnny Walker or Priscilla Kachuaera, Jed. Johnny Walker, because you need all the help light heavyweight can offer.

But Priscilla Casual were, like I said, an exceptional, whatever our last one was, exceptional. Jazz and jazzovius. Yeah, I keep around forever. There you go. Congratulations to Volcanozimir, and I guess congratulations to Johnny Walker for doing that as well as you care. Hey, congratulations to your best friend, Mike, because not so long ago, we wrote off Volcanozumir. All of us except Alexander K. Lee.

who steadfastly stood by no time, and he has been paid all for his belief in the Swiss monster. Yes, well done, AK. Well done, Nazaret Hackparest and Jared Gordon. Great fight. I thought Jared Gordon won, but still a great fight. Both guys delivered. Nazaret Hackbaras just continues to stack up some wins at 155 pounds.

Felipe Alimo, he talked about him. What a freaking debut for him. We're not Fokritinov. Nicholas Dalby had themselves a nice little dog fight. Fokritinov wins the splitie. of people thought Dalby might have won that one. It was a good fight. Wien Gafferoff gets his first UFs.

Was that his first UFC win? Sure was. It was his first UFC win. Okay, so congratulations to him. My man's my enemy forever. Did you bet on Kyeong-Hokang? Sure did. I said it on no best bar this week.

I'm going to bet on Kiongokang. And I said, I was like, I already placed this wager, 100% it's going to lose and I'll hate Muanggafrov forever. I am 0 for 3 in Mu and Mu and Gaffroffrov bets. and Lifetime Enemy. Fair enough.

Magamad Gajalv gets the win over Brenton-Rabra. Things are looking a little dicey. On the Gadzi-Sulov's end early on in that fight, but Magamad gets the win. And Chang-ho-Lee, the now-newest member of the UFC Band-O-Wa-Division, defeats Long Zhao in the Road to UFC Band-of-Wight finale, gets the victory split decision, fun fight. And that's UFC Saudi Arabia.

So let's bring in E. Casey Liden. And let's hear what the peeps have to say about this spectacular card. New fits, new fits. Yeah. What do we got here? Just a new blood incantation hoodie. It's actually esters. But I've shrunk down.

So we can kind of exchange clothes now. We're one of those couples. You save so much money that way. Yeah. She's like, you're wearing my clothes. I'm like, yeah, I know. I don't know if there will be a question about it, but maybe worth just shouting out Paul Hughes made his,

yeah, PF, Lator debut, survived some early trouble. Got dropped. Got dropped. But after that, it was kind of one-way traffic. Like, he really just steamrolled him. So, yeah, shout out to Paul Hughes. Look good. And it was embraced by the crowd.

Okay. Well, good. I didn't know how that. know he won. I didn't know how the fight went, but good to see him face a little diversity. Bobby King's good matchmaking is Bobby King is tough, man. That dude is a tough out. Yep. Bobby King is like the Edson Barbosa Bellator. He just fights. The murderers every time.

All right. Super chat from Stephen. Stephen. Boys, Prime Whitaker versus Prime Rockhold. Love your New York, Rick. It's 8 a.m. And I'm tanked. Good for you, Steve. Just living the dream, buddy. What do you think? Prime Whitaker versus Prime Rockhold. Who wins?

Prime Rockhold. I feel like Prime Rockhold is kind of like this mythical character. Like, in our head, he's been built up as this like grappling savant who also has like incredible strike. I mean, I guess that is what Rockhold really was at his peak. He is. I don't know how long. That prime was like this short.

I don't know exactly how long that prime existed. It might have been less than one fight. So I don't even know what that prime even looks like. I would bet on Bobby Knuckles just because he's, he's, you know that in that fight he's going to show up every single time. Like that is what he does. So I don't know. But if prime Rockhold exists, I guess you have to give him a shout.

No, this is a ridiculous question. It's very clearly prime. Prime Robert Whitaker. And you're talking to a man who's one of the biggest Luke Rockhold stands. But the thing is when people say things like Prime Rockhold, they are just envisioning what Luke Rockhold should be, not what he actually ever was. Because Luke Rockhold, and I maintain this to this day, is the most dominant top position grappler in the history of MMA.

Every second that that man was on top of somebody, it was a cat. had a chalismic. Go watch the Chris Wydenman. Chris Wyman is a good fighter and a good grappler. And the moment Rockhold gets on top of him, it is a catastrophe. He is so fucked that no one has ever been fucked so fucking, fucking much. It is unbelievable what work he put in when he got top position that you get entranced by it. And they're like, and he can throw a body kick and he was real long. It was real cool.

and like his offensive weapons are as good like some of the tools he has are as good as anybody has ever had in the sport he also never learned how to do anything defensively and you don't have a great chin and that's that's just it like everyone who ever threw a left hook knocked his ass out rob order can throw a left hook this fight is formulaic man like i love watching luke rock hole compete this would not be competitive what a question I like that. Casey seems like he's leaning Rockhold here. Casey's about the I think he is. I think he is. I just been with Rockwood for a long time, but for the whole Strike Force run. Like I was with Rocko for the Strike Force challenge when he was Strike Force Challenger.

So I just I've just been there for the whole journey. So I don't know. But I got you. I got you. You know, right? He's a complicated. He's a complicated human and fighter. All right.

Shout out Rockhold Costa. one of the most underrated best fights you'll ever watch. Fights deeply. I love that fight. It's a great one. Support for this show comes from Chase. If you're a fan of women's sports, you're always looking for ways to get closer to the action.

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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 two ghosts in the machine, available now only from Audible. Mason, to put it simply, did UFC Saudi live up to the hype? Do you think the UFC will have to strengthen the card

for the next go-round? So I don't know if you guys watch this. After the event ended, as before the actual post-show began for the UFC, Dana White and Turkey-Ele-Shek spoke with John Anick, and Dana White was all-slash-allishe. smiles yeah we had a great event and turkey basically was like yo this is what we're going to do next this was fine but we need a better card next time we had 12 000 people here we need 30 000 people

next time we need women on the card and i have this director friend and we need to do a ufc movie like all these things dan just sitting there like it was jack knider by the way he was saying zach snider to make a movie about the ufc and dan is like yeah we'll be here next year and Turkey looks the day, he goes, yeah, first quarter will be here next year. And then it was like, yeah, we'll do a power slap event. Turkey's like, no, we're going to do two power slap events. Basically, it's very, he put day on the spot quite a bit. So I guess, I mean, to answer, to answer the question, they're going to Turkey seems like he wants a bigger, better card next time to the UFC.

I think he wants a pay-per-view. Credit. Clearly. Yeah. I think their deal with Profite nights, but I think he clearly wants a pay-per-view. He said to Ariel when he was on the MM-A hour, like, Yeah, when we come back, it's going to be a bigger card. So I think he's, he's angling for an expansion of kind of what they've already got into a real, like, legit pay-per-view territory.

Yeah, they'll get it too. When they do, they do Abu Dhabi pay-per-views. There's no reason not to. Yeah, they're getting a bunch of money. So sure. But what about the first question here, Greg? Did this, did this card live up to the hype? I don't think it had that much hype.

It didn't feel like it was like more hyped than another kind of like UFC fight night from that perspective. Like certainly I think Hamzat falling out definitely killed some of the hype, right? Like as soon as Hamzat falls out, you, it takes a hit, right? It takes a massive hit. I think they did as good as they're going to do in terms of replacing that. But much like with 303, like you don't, you just can't replace once once you've kind of been promised something. I'm not comparing Hamzat to Connor directly. Like, but I'm just saying like comparatively to the levels.

They're both never fighting again. Yeah. Bang bang. Got them. But yeah, it took a bit of a hit. But I didn't feel like the UFC put any like extra muscle behind this card, like in a specific way. It felt like when they go to fight night, Missouri. It felt like when they go to fight night, Kentucky or whatever.

Like, it just felt like another fight night. I don't think they put anything super juicy behind it other than a really strong men event. Like Whitaker versus Hamza felt like a real big kind of time thing. So I don't know if it like had hype that it had to live up to, to be honest. And they also got two top 10 lightweights, two top 10 heavy weights, sorry, fighting on the main car too. And two top 10 light heavyweights too. Yeah.

Oh yeah. You're right. Sorry. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This lineup was certainly better than St. Louis and Louisville. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that this was a little better of a lineup. I agree with Rick. This doesn't have the same hype as it would have with Hamzot. That would have had obviously a ton of hype. And you can't really replicate that. But I mean, I give this six. heading in on the on the fart system like this is everybody sort of agreed that this is a very

good fight night card as far as it goes um and i think it was and it was fine but look anytime you have an event where 73 percent of the fights are decisions it's not it didn't live up to the hype it was not as good a night out as it could have been or maybe projected to be and they're not all going to be winners so you know that happens yeah okay but the new gloves have ruined the sport so So, you know, we should all pare down our expectations. The new gloves are bad. Hey, three knockouts on the main card. What do you want?

More than three. It's it. I see your three knockouts on the main card, and I raise you, Sergei Pavvich did knock somebody out. Case closed. That's true. AG 45, there's been a question we've been seeing. How good is Sharra bullet?

He has looked average. So a lot of hype surrounding this young man coming into the UFC. Yes, he's 2 and 0. Had a tough fight with Bruno Silva. Had a pretty tough fight with Antonio Tricoli until round three started. And Chocolie couldn't even lift his hands up. It was just basically a walking punching bag at that point. But he goes out there and gets a brutal knockout.

Where's the ceiling on this guy, New York, Rick? Where do you put him? Are you like super hyped to see his next fight? Do you want to learn more? or is he just going to be just a kind of a fun dude, a Nico Price type kind of cat where you see him on a poster and you're like, ooh, he's going to fight. But you look at him and think, this guy could be a top 10 guy,

top five guy, he's going to fight for a title. Are we that anywhere near that with him? No, definitely not there. I mean, he looks fluid on his feet. He's dynamic, but he can't stop a takedown. So you just, you know, you should treat him like Bellator. You said treat MVP. Just put him in fights where you know somebody's going to stand and strike with him

and you just do that. and you do it for as long as you can possibly do it. No, I don't have like championship aspirations. Like he just does not, I don't, I don't see the defensive grappling ability there that he's going to require to be a champion because that would be the first thing somebody at the ranked level is going to do to him is put him on his ass.

And unless he gets that quickly and overnight, like, yeah, you just put him in fun striking battles that he can win, which are great. Like, why not? He's very exciting. That could be fun. Is he a top 10 guy? No, no, no, no.

Okay, so yeah, I mean, you're going to championship. So, but to me top 10 is really good, but no, we're not talking about that. I mean, I think the top 10 is going to put him on his butt. Like, it's just guaranteed. Well, not anybody, but middleweight's weird. He can maybe sneak into the top 15. I don't know, but also in general, that's still his deficiency. His deficiency.

His strength. is so clear and his deficiency is so clear, right? You don't, you don't often, like, he's very specific in, in how you have to match him because it's very obvious, like, how he is. Like, for all the talk about, like, Israel to Sanya and Alex Pereira in terms of like, yeah, just like try and take him down or bone nickel, you know, you don't want to grapple with him. So stand on the feet. They have enough skills in these other areas that, like, it's, it's not as simple as that. And they're also so good at what they do. He doesn't seem to be so good at what he does that he can overcome the deficiency that he has in the grappling,

which is very glaring. And yeah, there becomes a ceiling on that. So just striking battles. Fun. Who would you match him up with, Chad? Hell if I know. Do you have a show on this stuff, Mike? This is not.

I have. I never get to match up. I have a bit. Because you only ever invite me on Otno when it's the worst fucking card imaginable. I only get to co-host Otno when it's UFC Vakey biggest 93 and no one cares never for like fighters people talk about uh you got a post pay-per-view show when i don't remember this blacked out uh i don't know who's who's a fun who's a fun striking middleweight let me pull up some lists of people to refresh

gregory rodriguez oh great that's not that's not bad i mean but here's the issue that's actually not a fun striking middle. Robocop will just immediately jit to him. He will immediately like BT Dubbs, world champion BJJ player, you're cooked. So, so no. What's, what's Bruno Everhead of doing? Do you doing anything? Oh, that's fun.

Let's let those two boys bang it out. That's cool. I don't think you're at a lack of guys that you can do that kind of matchmaking with, you know? Like, there's plenty. Like, he'll find fights. It's just... Oh, get Edmund Chabasian a win. Sure.

Wow. I feel like that grappling is coming out if he does that. I feel like he's... Yeah, but I mean, we can... But this is what we need. We need the, like, every three years, hey, maybe it's Shabasian season. Maybe he's figuring it out.

I don't know. What about Roman copy? Like, he's not going to be a real player. But he's got a cool gimmick, and I respect fighters with fun gimmicks. Yeah. I actually have a pick that I don't think people are going to love too much, but we're going to go there.

I think Roman Coppulov could be interesting. Mikhail O'Zechek. That might actually be the correct answer. Oh, that's a great one. That's a great one. Look, when we were talking about fighters who should be employed forever. Yeah. Mikhail O'Xeichick.

I actually think we should just do Michaela Lixacek versus Johnny Walker for funzies. Just do that fight every three years, just for fun. Oh, yeah. Michael is great. He is always down for a scrap. He will stand and throw. Speaking of Sharra Bullitt, Connor says,

Bo Nicol just called out Sharra Bullet Magamadoff on X. Of course, Bo Nichols is going on social media and replying and saying, no, I meant Scho. We know what you meant, bro. Thoughts in the matchup could be very entertaining,

especially with the fence grabs. L.L. Yes. That's one thing we have not mentioned. Shara Bullitt with the fence grab of all fence grabs. And Mark Otter's just like, okay, we'll give you a stern,

warning between rounds. That was the second egregious fence grab of the night. The worst part of that is his opponent lost position for like two like semi looking fence grabs, like not even like really digging your fingers into it, lost position. And then later in the fight, he gets away with the most blatant fence grab we've seen in quite a while to make matters worse. But yeah, not great. Not great. Always cheat. Any interest in bow nickel versus share a bullet? Nope. Not even. even like the tiniest bit, couldn't even muster up one ounce of energy toward this. So Rick's correct.

From a sporting standpoint, I could not care less. I do just want to say shout out Bo Nicol. You and I don't agree on a lot of things philosophically, et cetera. We agree that this is how you play the fight career management game. Oh, that dude, people know that dude. I would wax that dude. Let me fight that dude. Like that is a perfect callout of, hey, people, for whatever reason, people are behind this dude.

And he has a zero percent chance to beat me. I would like to fight him as soon as possible. A plus work, no notes. To further Jed's point on how well Bo Nichols playing the game, he's also on a media tour last week being like, you know, I was in the mountains when they called to fight Robert Whitaker and I missed that call. But I would have gotten right back to him, you know? I would have gotten right back and I would have been fighting Robert Woodhick. He's playing this very well in terms of, yeah, I'm fighting everybody.

He's in a fight with everybody and just calling him out. He's doing very well. But no, no interest in this from a competitive standpoint. Bo Nicol would walk through him with expeditious speed. Like it would happen very, very quickly. I mean, big week. Bo Nickel, terrific week. In the mountains.

Hey, you want to fight Robert Whitaker on a week's notice? I'm in the mountains, bro. I'm in the mountain. I couldn't answer the phone. Damn it. Didn't have any service. Got home 80 messages. I, of course, would have said yes.

Shucks. Unbelievable. The fight was already out. Sean Strickland is the only dude who may be won more this week than Boe Nickel did. I don't want to jump into the talk about Boonecker too much, but is Bo Neckle versus Calvin Gasolm crazy? I mean. No. Does it make sense?

Is it too soon? Or is it good? Is it a reward? or a punishment for gas them. I'm not sure. I don't think it's a punishment for him, so I'm not in on it. Yeah, I'm not sure.

Yeah, it would be a reward to be in a fight of that profile, I think, to a certain degree. Kelvin has to fight some dude from Dagestan that no one's ever heard of. Like that just someone no one has ever heard of who's like 15 and 2 and has a funny hat. And that's who Kelvin has to fight now.

I get what you're saying though, Casey. The booking is in it from the lens of like, we're trying to put this guy over and it would put Kelvin underneath, right? Like you'd put bow over on his back, you know, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, he wins it. Now you've put a, you put a, like, golden parachute on him. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, historically, Kelvin Gastelam has failed upwards for most of his career. So maybe he gets a little bit of a fight. You make Calvin go back to 170 and fight shopcott?

Uh, kill us. Don't agree, Rick. I don't know what you're referring to specifically. Super chat back in. Tell us what you were referring to. Lay out the argument. It's just a blanket disagree. Everything you've said.

If it's everything, I want a like bulleted list at very least so we can take it point by point. So come back. From most degree just to least. Yeah. That's perfect. That's a good call. Mike.

Come back in order and let me address it. Don't agree. Didn't you need that tea. Just don't. Don't. Don't. I don't. AG 45. Bernard has been pushed to the limit in his last two fights.

How far can he go in the welterweight division? I think he can beat most ranked guys. So look, Nichols-Dalby is a problem. Dude is such a dog. And it's not easy to beat that man in a fight. It really isn't. And just when you thought things are going to get real bad for him, dude shows up in the third round.

He digs deep and gets the win. So yes, Renat has been put. to the limit. Yes, he got over big when he knocked out Kevin Lee, but let's be honest, Kevin Lee has not looked good in an MMA fight in a long time, many, many years, but it was obviously a high profile name for or not, but we're not bouncing, still unbeaten in the UFC. He had the draw in his most recent outing before this one and then beats Nicholas Dahlby, which is very tough out. So what do you think, New York, Rick? What's his ceiling right now? do you would you confidently pick him against

Neil Magny right now. No, well, that's a very specific thing, right? Because Neil Magny kind of has the same thing that Nicholas Dalby has, which is like if by the middle of round two you haven't taken him out, like he's going to be there in round three and he's probably going to be the one with more gas left in the tank. So that's that's kind of a stylistic issue. I've been impressed.

I mean, I'm not ready to say that he beats most of the rank guys, but I'm willing to, I'm further along on believing that he can be a guy than not, right? I've seen enough evidence now to make me think like the tools are there. Like I'm on and willing to see. But this is not the fight that I proclaim like, yeah, after he squeaks by Nicholas Dolby, like he's beating most rank guys. I'm not there yet. But I'd buy, if you tell me in a year from now, he's in that conversation, totally by.

it. No. Nah. He's like, I think there's a world where he can get a number next to his name because he has the level of talent requisite to do that. So if he gets a good couple of breaks, maybe he gets the right matchup, he gets snake in there, but he's not going to be a perennial top 15 dude. The cardio, like this fight sold me that the cardio is too big of a problem.

Like it, it, you just can't, fights are 15 minutes. They're not 10 and you really can't. And, like, he still stayed scrapping. It's not like he, he did not fall off the cliff that, uh, Ramazon did over in Belator. Like, Ramoson died after 30 rounds. Yeah. But, like, you can't, like, Neo Magny, you probably could be up two rounds on Neo Magne. He's still coming.

And then, and this only exacerbates if you get a main event and it's five rounds. And he's, hold on. Let me see how old is. I'll see 32. He's 32. He's too old. Yeah. Like, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the cake is mostly baked at this point.

he's just one of those dudes who is a very, very good guy and because he's in a good division, he's probably not going to get, you know, up to the heights of something, but he's one of the guys who make divisions like Bentonweight and Lightweight and Featherweight and Walterweight weight so good because there's a dude like this who on the right night could compete

with just about any welterweight alive, but on the balance is going to be like a top 30 dude. Like that's just why being a well-to-weight. to weight being a lightweight, a bantam weight is so much harder than being a light heavyweight. Like it's all the the talent runs so deep into the 30s and 40s of the weight class. He's one of those guys who's very good, but not not elite. The one I agree with mostly all of that. The one thing I'll say I was I was more encouraged by the gas tank than discouraged us from the perspective that like he wasn't dead, you know, come round three.

Like he was in there with a guy who always by the time, round. on three comes along in Dalby and like wasn't just on fumes getting pieced up. So like that was enough for me to go, okay, I'm willing to reassess this. I'm willing to like give this one more look as opposed to saying like no, no, no. But I don't disagree with anything else you said. Like there's a real world where he's just good but not good enough. Like it's very possible. And to be honest, has looked like that in their performances.

Like most of the guys on the way up, if you're going to crack that top 15, top 10 and be a perennial guy, you kind of win these fights more impressively. Yeah, it was better than the Elizzie Zaleski fight. It was better. It was improved. It was an improvement from the Zalesky third ground. And he actually like didn't at least with the Zalesky one when he gasped, he was just like trying to be kind of silly about it. And you know what I mean?

Like he's making faces and he was like pounding. You're doing the fist pound with Eliza Zalesky like every time Zalesky hit him. It was just kind of just weird body language overall. This one seemed focused and was ready to scrap with the guy who was a scrapping machine. So I was a little bit more encouraged. Yeah. He's still going to fight when he's tired, but his effectiveness drops off precipitously, which is just like that like that's just a huge barrier.

And this is not a knock on Nicholas Dolby. Nicholas Dolby is also a top 25 dude who put him in the right day, the right night. He can beat top 15 opposition. It's just, I got this fight solidified it for me where I was like, okay. And then Rick, what you said kind of just drove at home was like, he's not winning impressively enough. It's like that's like, look at the top 15 at Walter 8. Every dude in there either had nothing but banger finishes on his rise or is Neil Magny slash Jeff Neal. Like that's it.

Like it's all of them they were Vicente Lucke or Gilbert Burns or Jack Deli. Like people who you watch them fire We're like, yep, that dude, no doubt about it. We don't have to have the debate. He go in places. Or they're Jeff Neal and Neil Magny who are very like unique specific ways to go about business. We're not like that.

So it would be, it is against the odds for him to be that level of a competitor. Yeah. Or even like a Kevin Holland who smokes the guys that he's supposed to smoke, right? Yeah. Like he loses the ones he's supposed to lose, but he just obliterates the people he's supposed to. So yeah. I haven't seen that yet, but I'm willing to, I'm willing to wait a little bit, but I totally understand where Judd's coming from.

Yeah. MMA prospecting is so easy. Like, who is doing awesome shit? They're probably the best guys. That's just it. Like, it's not a hard and fast rule, but like who's doing the coolest shit? Probably the best fighters. Yeah. And a hefty media did actually have Dolby winning that fight according to MMA decisions and 66% of fans also had Dolby winning that decision. along with me i had dollby winning the decision too so that's just how it goes though dollby's a fucking savage man i love that guy now i was watching in front of yeah what you think about his i don't care what i i don't know anything about that i don't like it seemed like the broadcast was saying that there's some method to that madness that they had heard of before i'm not like clued into that but it it definitely caught me off guard because i was like who is breathing like that. Yeah, I thought like someone, like one of the corner guys were like leaning on the

mic or something. Same. Same. I'm not like a rocket doctor. That seems to make sense to me though. You're in like a semi-neutral position where opening your mouth and taking deep breaths to increase your oxygen level isn't at risk of you getting knocked the F out. Like that seems like, yeah, okay, I'm stuck here taking a lot more oxygen. Let's go. Yeah. I mean, the broadcast had something to the effect of like that yeah it's a boost to the oxygen level as opposed to like what it appeared to me like hyperventilation right where you're like taking those kind of short breaths and like not getting the right amount of air um but i i'm sure there's a method to the madness and also dollby's a freaking monster man i don't care you know he's fighting i'm watching period all right uh super chat

from a 999 super chat from our wonderful friend, Chase. Let's go. Chase, is anybody fighting punishing Jed by making him cover a PFL card for this horrible John Jones takes? Hashtag chickens Kimby Goats. I also find Chandler very annoying and amused that he will never fight Connor Jed L of M.A. O Casey, remember when Chase put a 999 super chat in on the pre-fight show and we thought it was Jed changing his name to Chase?

I love that. I'm not taking that off the table even with this one. Like, I can see Jed just donating to his own thing, giving himself a bit of a pat on the back live on the program. What a great gimmick, Jed. That's an unbelievable idea. That's a great game. I wish I thought of it.

I feel like you were punished by covering Bellator today, Jed, instead of the UFC. No, because I'm an idiot and I usually volunteer to do these things. Because once you've, like, done one, then you're like, okay, I'll just lean into it. Also, I, like the wonderful Don Davis, was unaware that Bellator was running head-to-head with the UFC today. And so I probably wouldn't have made the same choices had I hadn't known that. Shouts Don, what a tweet that was, buddy.

And it was fine. Like covering Bellator is actually a very light night of work, usually. So there's the benefit to that side of it. But it's less fun when you're doing it and don't get to watch. like Sergey Pavlovich versus Alexander Volkov with full focus. Was the Dublin date, was that our, the Saudi date today, today, that was a new date, right? This was, this was moved right to this event, to this date, right? Yeah, but it was moved like a while ago.

I don't know who booked been used in times first. I'm trying to give Don a maybe a bit of it. Yeah, that's all. All right. I mean, Don, look, you can tell me a story. Tell me a story why it's okay that Bellator booked this date and time. I probably won't agree with it, but I can at least understand it. Don Davis, the functional promoter of both companies being like,

what a great night of fight or what a great weekend. You get PFL Friday, Bellator in the morning, or in the afternoon, and then UFC in the evening. That is not an acceptable. You got to do better, bro. I don't think that, like, I don't think there are many people out there. that are choosing between Bellator and UFC

if both are on at the same time. I don't think even if they're on at different times there are many people who are choosing between UFC and Belator. They're choosing. They're just not choosing Belator. They're always choosing UFC. Yeah, they're always choosing UFC. And so I say that to say like,

I don't think that it's some like egregious error to have them at the same time because I don't think their viewership like really is that strong for Max and matters to a certain degree. That was probably just the best date to get the venue. the three arena in Dublin and their ticket sales matter so much more than the broadcast. And so I'm okay. Like I don't really care that much about like this idea.

Like they they kind of shot themselves in the foot because as long as they pulled in a good gate and the crowd was seemed live like they did what they needed to do. And I don't think that their broadcast is really that important. They had Connor McGregor at their event. Yeah. Did you, you, Rick, I know was a little bit more watching. Yeah, I was watching. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Dude, they had the little bubble of Connor in basically the whole time. Every Irish fighter popped him. Like, every Irish fighter was like, Jason Jackson versus Ramazan Karamagamata. The moment. Connor Gregory cam. Yeah, it was chilling there. From the moment he walked in the building,

there was a dedicated Connor cam. There was not a moment of that broadcast that did not include Connor McGregor from the moment he walked in that building. The best part of the entire show, easily the funniest was after Connor's teammate and friend, Shnade Kavanaugh loses, I mean, gets dummied, drop twice and tapped. I got run over by Arlene Blanco.

Dan Hardy just boldly strolls on in there and is like, Arlene, you hang out over here. I'm going to go talk to Connor, friend of the loser. That is a true thing that happened. Arlene, we're going to get you in a minute. I'm going to go speak to Connor McGregor, teammate of Shnay Kavanaugh. Connor, the last time we were in this building,

you said you were going to take over. What's it feel like to have done everything you've said? That is almost a word for word quote. Unbelievable work from BFL ator. To Conner's credit, he kind of pivoted the question to like the injury and the comeback and we actually got good info out of it. But yes, that was. To Connor credit, he immediately just went to Kavanaugh.

It was like, you know, here to talk about the actual fight that happened. And hey, she's a great opponent. We've been trying to work on this, that. And it was like, yeah, you know, injury, et cetera. and bounce. Like he did not milk this, but it was a real choice that they made. Yeah.

And to be honest, like, I'm okay. Connor, Connor walking in the building is the biggest thing that's going to happen. John Jones and Francis and Ganu like crossing iPads is the biggest thing

that's going to happen. So just like, I'll lean into it. I don't care. You know when they did that though? They didn't do that while the winner of the fight was sitting in the cage. They could have had Dan Hardy go talk to him after

in the between. meantime, I'm like, hey, I've got Connor Greger here while we wait for the co-main event with Paul Hughes. How's it going? Oh, great, Connor. Let's talk about this. And now this Paul Hughes kid, Irish fellow, says you're the greatest far who ever lived. What do you think of him?

Like, it's, there's some professionals doing this, ostensibly people who have done things before. It is, it was wild. Yeah. So I can't. I have no retort for that. Poor Arlene. I'm just, I'm sorry, Arlene, we'll get to you in a moment. moment is an unbelievable thing.

She got the mic at some point and they put her over for a title shot. So, you know, at least, at least we got that. But yeah, that was, that was not great. Against Cyborg who's actively tweeting to watch the UFC today. You know, that's that. But all now is hilarious. This week is a bad week of petty. Oh, the petty.

Incredible. Incredible. Pettyness is the best. Real quick, we should probably mention this. this is obviously some big news that has been rumored about and it was made official on the broadcast today. Paige Van Zant is going to be competing at PowerSlapp 8 on Friday. Like this coming Friday.

She's, there you go, PBS you do a PowerSlapp. Not a lot of a training camp going on here. Yeah, it's just short notice. What do we think? Yeah, no training camp. She's coming in doing the Antonio Chocoli, just jumping in there unless a week's noticed. Before we move on, I miss something.

There was a Haktua music track. Like there was somebody who walked out to this or something? Who did that? I mean, so TikTok has had an infinite number of like dubstep drops of Hocdua. But that's awesome if someone walked out. Is this question saying that it was related to like the fight night in some capacity? Like I missed this part. I mean, it must have.

Must have. And that's awesome if it happened. Anyway. The first dude who walked out. for Bellator did come out to the Lord of the Rings like triumphant music because his nickname is Gimley and then immediately got murdered. I was like, this is awesome. What a weird walkout song?

What do we think about Paige doing Power Slap? I just hate it. I hate it so much because I'm going to watch. Why? I hate it with you. I hate it so much because I'm going to watch and I'm going to analyze it. I know. Why?

I know. I don't know. Explain your, defend your choices. Because it's stupid and I don't want to watch it. But if it's someone I think I feel like I know, then like, all right. Like if my buddy does power something like, oh, I'm going to watch him do something stupid. So I'm just watching. So I get that.

I would absolutely watch my friends get slapped in the face because that's fun. Like not just a person who is famous. Well, that's my, I've been saying that for a while about power slap. Like, if they can get some C-level celebrity to do it, I never think, I never thought they would actually get a professional fighter to do it. But here we are. It's your lucky day, Casey. They've got some C-level celebrities to do it.

Got it all. Got it all. They did it. Justice for Tim Sylvia. That's, that's my thought. Yeah. Like, Tim Sylvia does slap fighting. He doesn't.

Come on. What are we doing? Okay, but here's the question, Casey. This is an important distinction, I think. Because I'm in a similar boat to you where, like, obviously I will see this, right? I will consume this. Are you doing it because you're actually fascinated in watching her slap somebody and get slapped? Or are you doing it from the curiosity slash news perspective, right?

Because my job in social media, I will certainly see this. It will certainly be a news topic. We will have to create content around this. And I will view it through that lens. To be honest, I view a lot of MMA and other things through that lens. But I have no interest in watching her. Like, if I did not work in this, I would not watch it. I would not actually care.

Okay, I would not stay home to watch it, but if I'm at a restaurant and I can sneak and look down at my phone, you'll watch it. I'm just, I'm being honest. I hate, and I hate saying this out of time. I can't, I can't lie. No, it's not fine. I'm here. I won't watch it. Unless like it randomly pops up on my 4U page and I don't.

Oh, it's going to pop up on your 4U page. It's definitely Try not to watch it Try not to watch Try your best I think that will be hard Not watch you can't do it Oh I think I could very easily

Not watch Okay I'm very easily Really? I feel like it's gonna be everywhere I feel like it's gonna be everywhere Yeah I just scroll right past it's fine I scroll past the other stuff

The USC puts out So I don't care Like maybe occasionally I'll see some slaps lane And again I'm not like One of those people Who clutches their pearls And thinks this is the worst thing I just don't give a shit about it

whatsoever It has no bearing, but if you want to go get slapped and slap people for thousands of dollars, do you? I think I don't have to watch this. And it is not something that I will be, that I will not be able to avoid. I don't think I will be able to avoid it in any capacity. I think it will just be omnipresent the moment it kind of happens. I mean, if she gets like virally slept, then yeah, you can't. There's no way we're dodging that.

I just think too many, there's too much, there's too much, the Venn diagram is, is too close, right? Of people who cover MMA and cover combat and like there's, it will just be too much in my, in my world, in my presence in the thing I've curated. But yeah, I just like, I don't care about power slides. Do they go to decisions? I don't know. I don't watch PowerSla. I have no idea. I have no idea.

I think I truly don't know. Like, I just, it has no interest to me. No, I don't think there's a decision, right? It's got to be a sudden death. They just keep slapping until someone dies. Yeah, I think there's probably a sudden death. Yeah. I don't know.

That seems like a way worse way to do it than just like four rounds of slapping and judge's decision. How do you judge? No, there's decisions. There's decisions. There's a decision. Okay. Mike's. It's so bad.

Mike's decision. Mike says the decision. All right. Fair enough. Power slap seven results. Ronald Staten defeats Will Woods by unanimous decision. 2925, 2925, 2925. Did they say who Page is slapping?

Is it another, like, did they say, is it a name that we know, or is it just, like, random? Did they say that? It better be somebody with, like, a superhero, like, viral nickname, like, slaptastic or something. Yeah, they all are names like, it can't be like, Wolverine and like the King of Slap. They always had these, like, funny names. Page's Aunt versus Susan. And then somebody's like, that's my neighbor. Okay, I'm actually in on pageant versus Susan.

I'm not watching. It's like, Susan, I had no idea. We were just mowing our lawns yesterday. And all of a sudden, you're slapping pageantzette. Susan from accounting. She's like, oh, no, Dana just. Okay, no last, Dave. If it's just Susan, then I'm in.

I'm out. I just read our story on this. I'm out. I'm not even in on Susan. I'm going to literally do everything and just piss people off is the most bullshit quote of all time from page Venz-A. We're just doing to make people angry. What, uh,

just. What? Are you doing it for free? You're doing it for free? Get the F out of here. I just, just get a rise at people. It doesn't piss anybody off.

It doesn't piss anybody off. It makes me mad that I'm going to watch. I mean, I guess it does piss me off a bit. I'm mad at myself. full going, I'm going to, I'm going to watch this. Well,

you're not pissed off at Page Van Zand. No, no, there's no, there's no, this does not make anybody pissed at it.

Like she's doing, she's, she's, she's cutting this, this promo like, like, I'm the rebel and I'm here to like, piss everybody off

and me doing all these things. It's like, nobody's pissed that anything Paige Van Zand has done. Rebel. Yeah, nobody's pissed at anything. Real counterculture hero,

page Vans. Yeah. I mean, I think there, I think there, I think there will be a lot of people. for like Casey who will watch out of curiosity. I think it will work.

I think there will be an uptown. Oh, I think it's going to work. I just, I'm ashamed that it's going to work on Casey. But it's not, I can guarantee you, it's not going to make me a fan. Yes, it's not going to go,

I got to check it out next week. You say that. Yeah, but Casey, that's what everyone says. What if Susan wins and you become a fan of Susan? Now you're going to be watching every time she slaps. That's the problem. Hold on Casey. Is Susan the Britain heart of power slap?

Could this happen? Could she cut the feeling? Susan is a feeling. Susan is a feeling, Casey. We're not asking the right philosophical questions here heading into this. No, but this is a brilliant move. This is a brilliant move by the Power Slapper, by this Power Slapp committee to do this. Because like Casey said, the MMA media is going to cover this.

They're going to cover Page's fight. They're just gonna. Page is still a name in this. They call them fights. What do they call them? No, they call them fights. Call them fights, okay. It's not a fight.

Is this actually like, is this the end of the game? Paige Van Zandt versus Dylan Dennis, slap fest. Dylan is actually Susan, dressed up as Susan? We're too far down there. Is this the natural end? Like, is this the natural destination for, influencer boxing because boxing is hard like you have to train to box it's like very difficult but slapping people page is doing it on four days notice or whatever like you just kind of roll out

of bed and be like I get slapped this dude like is this not just where the influencers will start to move to I think there's a legit question there but I actually think it's the inverse I think I saw more of like the Russian like people slapping each other and then the influencers took their cue from that, like, if we get notable people involved in it, we can do, like, boxing. I think it actually, like, evolved. I think it went the other way. I think it started with, like, the lowest possible entry point. And then they got to boxing as opposed to, like, devolving back the other way.

So I think, I think we're beyond it. I think they actually went upward toward boxing. All right. Last question on this note. If you're Connor, would you accept a slap fight to get out of your UFC? contract because like you don't have to train for that again and your your toe doesn't matter there's no movement no i think he still has too much pride somebody and be done no i think he still has too much pride i think he's what if he fights for the lightweight i don't know what weight classes

they're on slap fighting but like you get out another belt to the slapping collection that are you allowed to slap either hand like can he lefty slap people is that an advantage because most people are used to getting slapped on the left side you have to catch it on the right you have to announce the hand you're slapping with before you do it though so he can slap like can be your dominant hand right i think you just have to i think you just have to announce it it's like it's like playing pool if you're doing a bank shot you have to call it yeah but you also can't i know you can't do faintexious yeah you can't fake with the left and throw the right nope that i that is a good question i'm not sure who can handle connor's left hand in slap that left left

Would Michael Chandler fight Connor McGregor and Power Slap? Would like if that's the only option, would he take that? Michael Chandler should. Casey, I don't walk it back because when Mike said that, I'd watch. I'd watch that. That's my line right there. We found it. Mike, you got an opening, bro.

You got an opening. Jump right in there. I don't think Connor would do it. Connor would just go. No, Connor would go fight in BKFC. Chandler, come over here. That's what he would do. He would make him fight in BKFC.

When you think about it, slap fighting is really just Max Holloway at the end of fights, just turning that into a promotion of stand your ground and swing. So it's really the natural evolution of combat sports. We're now a slap fighting podcast. That's the journey we've gone on here, boys. You've really, like, you made a nice little, like, transition here. You've come all the way around.

I like it. I don't know what the hell is happening. Me neither. All right, let's move on. I apologize. Yeah. But to your point, Mike, brilliant signing,

because look how much time we've talked about slap fighting now. It works. Absolutely unbelievable promotional word. And like, I learned. How angry are we though? On a scale of one,

it goes to a scale of one to 10, I'm like, I'm like a one, I'm like a zero angry. I'm not angry at all. I don't know. Page Vanzan, I feel like is off the market.

Yeah. She didn't get me very angry. No, no, it's not anger. I'm just, I'm disappointment, maybe, myself. And Jed is disappointed in you as well. Don't forget. I'm disappointed in you as well, Casey. Until they book Connor versus Chandler, the slap bite at the AX.

That would legitimately be the funniest outcome. We wait three years. And it's like, we can't make it happen. His foot, it won't get better. Slap him. How much would it sell for? How much could they sell up? pay review for honestly the same the same they sell you see pay previews 80 bucks oh man it would do a

million buys it would do a million dollars totally i believe you too god damn it all right we're moving we're totally we're we got a lot of super check spencer new york rick a living breathing legend true greatness new york rick how about that let them know spencer thank you love you brother more from Spencer. Boy, safe to say Sean Strickland, the biggest winner of Hamsat pulling out at this point, do you think Izzy or DDP is a better matchup for him? I thought going into this that Sean Strickland was, I was like, oh, Sean Strickland's going to get the winner of the Perth fight.

Now I think Sean Strickland's going to have to fight Robert Whitaker. If Whitaker lost, Strickland probably could have just set and wait. I think now it's so clear cut to do Whitaker versus Strickland. No doubt about it, number one contender matchup and Bob's your uncle for. there. And I mean, you have to say he's a better matchup for Shirkland because he beat Izzy's ass. So. And Whitaker had to win like this too. It couldn't just be a victory. He had to win like this for, yeah. I agree. Yep. Oscar, any thoughts on Volkov having the longest heavyweight win streak?

It's very quiet one, but he's doing it. I don't know anything about it. What's the number? What are we at? Four. I believe this was four. Yeah, I mean. Tommy Aspenall.

I was going to say, like, I was going to mention Tom because like Tom got hurt against Curtis Blades. Otherwise, that would be long. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. I don't put too much stock into like the stats. I mean, this is a whole. I could get started on this with the NBA. I'm not a big like stats streaks like first two.

Like I just feel like that's overdone. And so, yeah, I don't make much of the specific fact that he is the number one streak right now. But I rate him. And I think he's a great heavyweight. And when he does fight long, like he did tonight, like, he's a real tough out for a lot of guys. So, yeah, I just think more, like, more than like, hey, he's the one on the longest streak. I just think he's a legit heavyweight who's a problem for a lot of these top guys. And I'm interested to see how he gets matched next.

Yeah. I think it's the gone rematch. That's just the only thing you can do with him. He's going to be top three now. Almeida. Almeida really wants that gone fight. It doesn't seem like he's gone's that interesting. I got to tell you,

gone really doesn't want that off. Almeida fight. I got to tell you, he doesn't want that. Almeida would be fun. Do weird. I actually think I might favor. Karl of overall made a?

Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. He's going to be really difficult to match with because he's kind of not the guy you won as champion, right? Like he's not the one that the UFC is going to be like, yeah, we want to push Volkov to a title shot. But he's good enough to fight all these guys and he's good enough to beat most of these guys

and you're in a tough spot where you kind of have to put him in some fights that people that you wanted to push toward the title are going to have to lose to him. This could have been like Sergey Pavlovich is like bouncing. back, right? But it's not. He completely just reversed that. So he's

a tough one that, uh, I don't know where they're going to go with him. But I like, I like his odds in a lot of these fights. Feed him, Waldo Cortez-A Costa. I mean, backwards. Deep punishment for Waldo Cortez-A Costa is appreciated. Shout out

Bellator Highway Champion, Alexander Borkoff. Yes. Garrett, thank you. He's been getting the strikes count. Winneker needed to overtake his record wrong with the graphic in front of him was something. Did that happen? That's interesting. What was this about?

I missed this. What was it? I didn't, I didn't see it. I missed this one. I saw I didn't see it live either, but Twitter was very active about this. So they basically showed a graphic where Rob Whitaker could overtake Michael Visbing with like this amount of significant strikes and then Bisbing got the number wrong while the graphic is right.

Well, he's basically reading the graphic. on the monitor. I heard Annex say something later to the effect of like, yeah, it's not Whitaker who's actually going to catch you. It's Sean Strickland who's going to catch you. Like he's the one who in his next fight will likely surpass you. And Whitaker was like 300 behind or something to that effect.

But like, you know, he will maybe eventually get there. But yeah, I can't speak to this broadcasting moment because I did not see it. Yeah. Yeah. It's a weird. Bisming had a day.

Yeah. It's a weird one. They both did. DC as well. John Anick earned his paycheck today. That is for sure. He did. Yeah. I like Casey's point. When they started just going off John Anick brought him back

his best he could. Yeah. I think I like Casey's point here. Like I only think, and I think I said this in Slack, I only think the most strikes thing works for Max Holloway. I think for everybody else it's kind of like a

detriment. Like you just didn't have the power to kind of get guys out of there. like you should be super proud of that. Max Holloway, he's the only one that I think the like, yeah, I've got 10,000 significant strikes things works for because he's just so far ahead of the field. And also like he doesn't need power because he just dominates you with 400 punches a fight. He's the only one. I feel like the like most strikes thing actually does anything for and works for.

And Max Holloway has the Justin Gagee knockout too. Yeah, and he's got that. That too. So it's like he has the number and knockout. It feels a little bit like just playing favorites because we all like Max, which, you know, is fine. Well, like, I think Max having the Sixthrike thing is the same. Like, it's better because he's so far field of everyone that like whenever you're just that dominant over your contemporary. Yeah.

Anything. It doesn't matter what it is. It's just cool to be like, you do the chart graph and everybody's plotted here and then there's the one dot way up in the corner. Like, that's just dope. But like, also I'm looking at the numbers now. Whittaker, who gives a shit if Whitaker passes Michael Bispying and six strikes? Sean Strickland is like four away from passing him and is clearly going to have far more than Whitaker over the remainder of their careers. This is what I'm saying.

Like the significance is not that important, right? Like it kind of just like is a thing. And also like these are guys who don't have a lot of power. Right? Like this is kind of like. I do think it's important because I think that all counting stats means something. They don't mean nothing because it's dope. And I say this because next.

week the heavyweight goat is competing when on jarolovsky makes his 40 second walk to the octagon I'm saying john jones is not healthy yet so the heavyweight goat 42 fights in the heavyweight division inside the oc never never be never matched yeah i mean the longevity on that guy he he he is the dot in the before yeah i know yeah we've talked about this before i wrote about it today because I'm pumped. He was left for dead like four different times and it's still going. Every week go, baby.

Mr. Signor, Pepe. Jed's being punished for being washed in BTL. Surprise BC beat him this past week. I think it was okay. I think I accept BC beating me. I don't really remember. There are a couple times that's been garbage. It wasn't that bad that he beat me this time, so it's fine.

And our last super chat. Kingmaker, want to end on this. thoughts on the combat sport of Kabadi entering the U.S. market. Kabati is basically wrestling tag with rules of dodgeball. I've only seen it. I think it is. I've only seen

it on social media. It's dope. It looks awesome. Yeah, it looks incredible. But I don't know enough about the sporting aspect of it. I only know visually it's like kick ass. My understanding is that it's basically like, remember when Habib and them

would play Dagestani basketball. That was not basketball like that all. I think it's just like actually that. Yeah. It seems dope like in the clips because like Caposas put it out there at some points and stuff like cool. Also America is currently a cricket country now.

So we can also beat India's ass as something else. Although I think we lost India. It's well, you know, whatever. On a serious note, it's very hard for like niche sports like this to penetrate the U.S. market, even to the point like Jed mentioned cricket, which is globally such an insanely popular sport. But in the U.S., it's like now the U.S. is starting to pay attention to it because we have successful cricket players and things like that. It will take a long time for this to penetrate in any capacity if it even can, which is not a guarantee. Like breaking

into the U.S. market for a sport is extremely difficult. I got to tell you, I'm reading the rules right now, I'm in. Well, you got one. Jed's converted. He's in. I need this to be accessible. I'm not going to search. I was like, yeah, if Kambadi,

if they sign page Vanzan, I'm going to watch. Yeah. The trick for stuff like this is I'm not going to search for it. Like, I'm not going to go find it. But if you may get accessible to me by putting it on max or whatever, I'm in. I will watch people play some combination of,

tag and rugby for sure. I watch videos of the World Tag League. I watch videos that. I like it. Yeah, I've seen that on TikTok before. Dude, Pro Tag is incredible. It's cool. It's cool.

I like it. It's super fun. Yeah. I just love how on the basis of this like one show, Paige Van Zan has become the skeleton key to like unlocking. She opens like the interest in everything. She opens any door. Like if you, hey, I want to.

do this thing. Get Page Van Zandt. Done. That's it. Just call Paige Van Zand. And she just says, unlocked everything. She said it in her reaction to PowerSlap. I want to do it. I want to do everything. I want to try everything. What hasn't she done at this point? No, but honestly, like, honestly, like she did. Yeah, combati. She did wrestling, like pro wrestling.

I guess she hasn't done amateur wrestling. Has she done amateur wrestling? Because, probably not competitively. She might have to do that. Has she done grappling? She probably has done one of those like... Pretty sure she's done grappling. I have to assume she was... Wouldn't she like one of the Chale Sun and ones?

She had to have been on one of those things. She did MMA. She did bare knuckle. She did boxing. She's doing power slot. Like... But she really had to like the collecting the Infinity Stones. That's pretty fun.

Yeah. Yeah. Why be made it one thing and you can be made at all things? She was on chopped. Never forget chopped. The truth... Dancing with the stars? Holy shit.

She has done right. Everything. thing. Has she done mass singer yet? We don't know. That might be one for her. I'm not seeing the MTV. She has to do MTV's the challenge if she wants to be legit.

Page has to do the challenge because that's the greatest, that's the greatest sport that's ever existed. So if she wants to really. How has she not been on Survivor? I feel like. Yeah. Or her and Austin Wanderford to do the amazing race. Come on. She's still got some work cut out.

She still, she's still got a long way to go. She's got things. that she still needs to tech off before it's all set and done. I got to say, Herbie and then challenge has to be super interesting. That would be fun. I'm in. If this is actually Paige's career route,

I think it's, I actually think that's pretty dang cool. I agree. The best career route anyone's ever had. I agree. It would be pretty dang awesome. Yeah. The bottom,

yeah, I can't believe I'm going to watch. Is it this Friday? Saturday? She's doing it? Yep. Friday. Oh,

geez. All right. To lead you right into UFC 303. the appetizer, Casey. It's going to... Oh, my God. Like all the... I forgot it's International Fight Week, too.

It's all the media... It's in Vegas. It's international fight week. Oh, it's not just a random. There's no way Jed is not seeing this. There's no one. 100%. As long as she gets slept,

then it'll happen. Like, you can't avoid that. But nope. She wins. I think I can avoid it pretty easily. I don't know. We'll circle that. We'll circle back from the U.C.

3 post show. The moment. Remember it, Super chat. And I'll be like, still haven't. seen it would have happened the moment somebody does page van zan power slap watch party on friday just for that fight i'm out the moment the moment you do see it because you will inevitably see it you have to like slack on private and just be like yeah i saw it i finally saw that i was wrong rick hand up all right i was wrong all right i accept but i won't because international slap week

Dang it. I hate this. This is such a brilliant move. I know, I know, I know. I was just about to ask earlier, why did they wait so long to announce this? And now I'm thinking, do you think that they had to pull this out of the bag because Connor fell off? They were like, what can we possibly do? They made two calls.

Hey, Alex Pereira, fill in. And then they hung up the phone with Alex. And they were like, page, it's slapsed. time let's go and they were like we solved it 303 just got saved we called up page and we called up Alex honestly not a bad thought the first time I heard this was a thing was like earlier in the week like maybe Monday or Tuesday it lines up so and this is this is post post McGregor craziness maybe I assume this is something that was that had to be in the works for a while but I don't know I actually don't know.

It was funny because we had heard rumblings about it. I had asked somebody in the know, didn't hear back, and then get a phone call from somebody in the know that says, this is unbelievable bullshit, it's not true. And then I get a phone call during BTL on Thursday from the same person. And I texted him, I was like, I'll call you in a little while, called them back. And he was like, yeah, so it wasn't bullshit.

there's something happening here and I was like holy shit it's not done yet but it's close was the original is this bullshit was that bullshit or were were they just no okay it's no it wasn't bullshit it then became real shit once he had a conversation like he had some conversation he was like I actually this isn't bullshit I was like oh okay Connor out but that wasn't like done done yet page in page it they did it greatest international flight week of all time Do you think they're just going to do this for like every pay-per-view now?

Just get some ringer to get slapped on the Friday beforehand or whatever. I mean, I feel like what they bring in now. I was going to say, I feel like we're leading up to like Nina, Nina drama doing it at some point. Like that feels like Hustam made for them just built right there. She just jumps into the thing. I mean, that should be the fight. That should be the match. Can we finally get resolution?

Dana versus Tito. Oh, wow. Oh, that's a great idea. You are going to start watching Power Slap, Jed. This is just... If they listen to me and if we match it up like this? Sure. I'm a genius.

Of course I would. Dana versus Tito. I don't care about Wolverine or Slapula. That's issue. I don't care about the people you have in it. But if you get me... Is Paige going to have to get a new? I'd watch.

Is Page going to have to get a new nickname? Like, is 12 gauge not like suitable for Power Slap? I feel like they're a little more or cartoonish. So maybe maybe a shove. to come up with something new. What would you go with? Any thoughts off the top of your head? No, I didn't think about it.

I just threw it out there. I wanted you guys to think about it. I didn't have any. Okay. If page gets, if page gets slept, would it be the biggest story of 303 that weekend? No.

No, no, it won't. No. It'll be big, though. It'll be big. It'll be big for a very, very short term.

By the time, From the time it happens to like 11 a.m. the next day, it'll be huge. And then people are going to be like, okay, zero three is coming up in a few hours. Yeah. I don't know. Casey might have me convinced actually. I will say that for our traffic purposes, the story of page getting slept would be the biggest not results post from the weekend for us. And Jed is going to have to write it and see it.

That's what's what the devil's bargain is. Jed's going to have to be the Friday. Am I working Friday? Tell me I'm not working Friday. Tell me I'm not working Friday. No Amy, no amy, no amy. Fuck!

Yeah, I probably would have to. You're working like four to midnight? Does that be incredible? Ah, damn. You get the night shift? You get the night shift? No, no. The night shift.

That clip is going to drop in, Jed. Can you jump on this? Yeah. I might be cooked here. Yeah. Dana versus a potato. We just take my money. I think that's smart.

I think that's very smart. I can confidently say that would be the biggest non-Connor pay-per-view of the year for the UFC if they put that together. They're the biggest store they have. These are not on paper view currently, right? No, it's on Rumble. No, but if Dana's slapping somebody's on. No, no. I'm not aware of where it actually is.

I am not signing up a Rumble for this, by the way. I'm not that. They do Luke Rockhold versus Michael. No, legally streamed slap. Yeah. No, the clip will be on social in like five seconds. The clip, you'll get the clip on. No way, I'm going to my phone.

Oh, God. What a post show, boys. This, I mean, this is $2.95 and this, or $2.93 and this are the two weirdest post shows of all time. This was a good one. This was great. I enjoyed this quite a bit. 290.

293 was still the greatest ever after Sean Strickland. title. Giggling. There is no better one than that. Yeah. You still can't believe it. All the weirdest. It's just, this is what the sport brings us.

Next week's post show. I mean, who knows it's going to happen? Page Van Zant will lead us off. Can I be on the Friday reaction show? The page Vam Zat. We should probably. We might have to do that. We might have to do that.

We'll figure something out because I don't think we prepared for this. I don't think we budgeted our time. for this page Van Zant News. But then obviously 303 is Saturday. We're very soon going to be in the middle of International Fight Week, everybody. Alex Brewer, Yuri Brehashka 2, Diego Lopez versus Brian Ortega, watch party, all sorts of fun stuff. So stay tuned to at M.AFighting.com for Casey, for Jed, for New York, Rick. I am Mike Heck.

7.42 p.m. Eastern Time. Get out of the house. Enjoy your weekend, everybody. Good night. Love y'all. Bye. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap.

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