MMA Fighting - UFC Vegas 102 Post-Fight Show | Reaction To Jared Cannonier's Thrilling Comeback Knockout Win

Episode Date: February 16, 2025

Jared Cannonier had a tough start to the UFC Vegas 102 main event, but he ended the fight in an emphatic way against Gregory Rodrigues in the fourth round to get back in the win column. After the big win, and having fought so many guys in the loaded middleweight division, where does Cannonier go from here? Following Saturday's card, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew react to Cannonier's performance and comeback win after overcoming adversity in the first round, and what the best case scenario is for his next opponent. Additionally, they react to Youssef Zalal's win over Calvin Kattar in the co-main event, the negativity being thrown Zalal's way for the way he competed in the third round, accusing Kattar of greasing in the post-fight press conference, the bonus winners from the Fight Night card, and much more. Follow Mike Heck: @m_heckjr Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and knocks out Gregory Rodriguez in round four, gets it done, age ain't nothing but a number. And they also sound for Yusuf Zalal, but not a lot of people were really thrilled by the Moroccan devil's, I guess, closing moments of that fight. We'll talk about that and the rest of the craziness that happened at the world's most famous Apex following UFC Vegas 102. Thank you for joining us for the post-fight show.

I am Mike Hack and joining me is Mr. No Gray area, the hot take kid himself. Jed Michoud, the apple picking card is come and gone, my friend. How are you doing? You look three quarters of the way to Nine Nightland. buddy i was stone right about apple picking uh if you were here with us we'd love to have you i'm so excited to be with you all for however long this post show is thank you for sticking around it is earlier which is nice this would be real real bad if this was you know your standard apex car and we were here in the wee hours of of sunday morning so at least we have that but if you took

my advice from the preview show or even btl and had anything else to do with your time on Saturday night, I don't think you regret that choice. Your family, your loved ones got to, you got to have some great memories with them, and you got to go to MMA fighting to see this card that definitely happened. It sure happened. Jed, paint us a word picture. How would you compare this card to UFC 312? What is UFC 312 compared to UFC Vegas 102?

Oh, honestly, there, there's pretty similar. in a lot of respects, right? Because the main event was sick. And we can be pretty pumped and like I am. I will tell you, I mean, I have a billion thoughts about this card. And none of them are the thoughts you would want to be having right now, right? But it's like heading into the main event, I was like, I desperately need this fight to be sick because the rest of this card has really been a bummer.

And then even though the main event was really good, like it was a really fun. fun, there's swings back and forth, multiple, both fighters got dropped multiple times. Like, by any definition, good time, like a good hang was the main event. Still, I was more just relieved that this event was over. And a lot of that is for the many reasons we talked about this card heading in. Like, the stakes were so minimal in so many ways that, like, it didn't. And so a lot of that, like, 312 was similar. Most of that card was a tough hang.

And then the main event, you know, it was not nearly as good of a fight as this, but it was certainly a more important fight. And it was interesting in the way that Drickus Duplessi had sort of silenced any doubters that could exist. I was so impressed by Genuilis' performance. Like, those things are there. So similar in some ways, just maybe scaled down a bit. Certainly the main event, which I think we will probably spend the most time talking about tonight. you can have no complaints about that. That was exact.

Win-lose-d-draw. Greg Cop, that man is going to deliver you a good time, and he sure did tonight. Yeah. It was a fight. Like, it was a fight that could be real fun. It was real fun. It was almost over in a matter of seconds

because Gregor Rodriguez, I mean, it's not the exact jerkest-du-plus-C playbook, but he takes the DDP playbook and just does it his own way, which there's not a lot of technique and maybe terrific fight IQ, but this dude just throws everything 150 miles an hour. And this is why he will be probably in more main events at the apex moving forward. But Jared Cananeer just eats a bunch of punishment in round one. And then slowly but surely, the damage bar of Gregor Rodriguez continued to go down. Rodriguez swung back a little bit in round three. Canaaner almost gets

I got them out at the end of round three. I thought for a second, Herb Dean might just stop it before you get to round four. And then Cannair just smelled the blood in the water. Comes right out in round four and just dust them up. And seconds into round four, this fight was over. Jared Canaaner gets it done, Jed. Your reaction to what Canneser did overcoming the early onslaught and then battling back to get a fourth round knockout victory.

I was really impressed by Jared Canaan here tonight. I think that there's still a pretty good chance that Jared Cananeer is no longer a top 10 middleweight, right? Maybe, frankly, not even a top 15 because Gregory Rodriguez was not a ranked middleweight coming into this fight. He was getting a big jump up from unranked to number seven. And this was a tough fight for Jared Canineer. He's about to be 41. Time comes for us all. I thought that they're, you know, if you really want to nitpick, you can find a fair bit of fault with what Jared Canaaner did.

but that is nitpicking because of the broad picture like he that was an incredible show of heart of durability he got dropped twice in the first round like was genuinely in trouble i thought he got hurt again in the third round i i thought robocop was well on it like was cruising to win the third round until the elbow in the end at uh at the end of it which then obviously basically ended the fight didn't quite because roger you guys got saved by the bell and then but he was still clearly just screwed up from that elbow and canoneer blood in the water assaulted him finished it in 20 seconds start of the fourth round so in like a really good show of like grit determination good tactical performance from him broadly speaking in that you know they said going in we think gregor rodriguez is probably not going to be built for the long haul here we're going to have to survive an early onslaught and tailored their game around that to some

extent. So overall I you know if we're trying to figure out where a 41 year old Jared Kenanier fits in the middleweight picture I think it's probably not the number seven rank he holds right now but I think we can all be impressed and laud him for fighting

a dude who has beaten a lot of dudes is certainly not a bad middleweight and had him in a big spot of bother for a lot of this fight so awesome for them. This is one of those wins that you hope for for fighters. If you are a fan of them and they're clearly in the back nine of their career, like we all remember watching Anderson Silva just lose 10 in a row or whatever at the end of his UFC run.

These are those performances you hope from somebody to really get a step back and show that maybe I'm not top five, top 10. I'm still top 15, top 20. I'm still better than people way behind you. me right now. I've still got enough juice for that. We saw that tonight. What's the best? Because I know we talked about on BTL, and I know you guys talked about it on the preview show. There's just, Kenner's fought everybody already.

Like, he's fought Izzy, he's fought Whitaker. He's fought everybody that he could realistically fight that's a, he's fought Sean Strickland. That was kind of a super close fight. So maybe the UFC can go back to that well as a rematch. But what's the best, is the best he could hope for that Sean Strickland just wants that one back, so to speak, or do you kind of feel like Jared Kenner? You're like, yeah, great win, fun fight.

Might get a double bonus here. We'll wait and tell you what bonuses are once they come out. But what's the best Canaaner can hope for coming out of this? The best he can hope for is the Sean Strickland rematch, because, you know, controversial-ish result there. Not everybody believed that Kennedy or won that fight. Strickland is now well out of the title picture. If they don't book Strickland versus Izzy or Strickland versus Whitaker, maybe Ken and you can slip into that.

That's the thing he has to hope for. I don't think that that's particularly likely unless they just really need a main event for an APEC show or something and somehow the timing lines up right. Beyond that, like honestly, his best, like his other probable, the more likely thing and the good end of more likely, right? Because I think the most likely is probably, okay, you stop this guy, here's another prospect. Can you beat this other dude?

Like this other guy who's below you and trying to come up. Can you win the bow? Like, do you get the bow nickel lottery and see how that goes? I don't think that would go well for him, but it could go well. I guess we'll see. I think the best he can hope for is try and get Brendan Allen after Fluffy just runs that dude out of the cage here in a few weeks.

Because like Fluffy's gonna slaughter Brendan Allen. It's gonna be hard, hard to watch that one. And so then that's like the highest ranked dude. I think he's likely to have a chance at getting. What about Jared Kennanier versus one of your favorites, henier to hit her? Is that something that would interest you, Jed? Yeah, I mean, I'd want, I think that is also very viable.

But again, that's probably, probably worse for him, right? RDR is not ranked. RDR, you know, some of us love him in particular, but not even a massive name. I think that that's probably the likely outcome is something like that. RDR, honestly, I think there's a real chance.

I know somebody else tonight call out Boe-Nichol. I would not shock me at all if D.C is like, all right, let's see what Bo can do against the guy who's historically not been a great defensive wrestler, certainly on the wrong side of 40. So, like, if I'm guessing, I'll say Bo Nicol is next. But RDR wouldn't be a bad outcome for Canineer. Great win for Cannonier.

I'm sure we'll have some questions about him in a moment. But let's go to what I think is probably the biggest story of this card. Maybe Paul Costa? He hasn't fought Costa yet, has he? No, that's something that could probably happen. I guess maybe you could do that. Because those are two dudes who are just. Got a fight, but I don't know.

I mean, I don't know. I don't know who it could be. But I don't know. Maybe they, if Fluffy runs over Brendan Allen seven days from right now, maybe they do that fight, Hernandez versus Canaan here. I don't know. I mean, that seems. If I'm Hernandez, I would want better. But I guess that could happen.

That would be very bad for Canaan here. Problem is like, this should be a really good time for Jared to get. get a rematch with Izzy, but for the fact that nobody in their right mind would book that fight again after the first one because he was so bad in it. So like, that's why you should fight better kids because your long-term future may depend on it. Like, he could get an Izzy fight right now if their first fight wasn't atrocious. When I got a great deal on a great gift at winners, I started wondering, could I get fabulous gifts for everyone on my list? Like this designer fragrance for my daughter. It's just $39.99. How could I resist?

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Jed. Yusuf Salal remains undefeated in his second run in the UFC. Fights Calvin Cater. This is the biggest step up. The biggest step up. The biggest. fight of his career, wins the first two rounds. He looked great. He's moving great. He's thumping Calvin up. Calvin can't really muster a whole lot of offense. And then round three happens. And everyone in their mother, Calvin knows this. His corner's telling him this. You got to finish this man if you're going to win this fight. Kater comes out, lands a big shot. And Zalal was just on the, he was on the run, the rest of the round. And Kater did his best to try to catch him. And every time cater hit him, Zalalda did not like it one bit.

And Zalald did just enough to hang on. And Zalal gets the win, which is the most important thing. As I'm watching it, I'm just thinking, okay, this man's trying to survive. But seeing the reaction of the MMA community, hearing from people within it, managers, coaches, even a couple of fighters, hitting me up, talking about what Yusuf Zalal did in the third round, people having a real issue with how this happens. I had someone hit me up and say, if this is Risen or won, Yusuf Salaal would have got a yellow card for how he fought in that third round

by just not engaging in anything. So is the M.A. community being fair to Yusuf Sall right now is the question. And how would you grade his performance overall? First, I want to shout out who is it in the comments here. Because he actually named the Tree Branch 2700. Jerry Cannonier should try and fight Michael Vennam Page. I know MVP is like, wants to do the welterweight thing, but coming off the win, if I'm in Jared Kennedy's corner, that's kind of the fight. I would be just sort of trying to book because I think that could happen and there's some juice there for that.

So I think that's a good call tree branch. To your question, though, Mike, is the MMA community being fair to him? Yes, I think they are being fair. Here's the deal. He won that fight, no doubt about it. And that is the most important thing. when you are structuring the priority list of what matters, winning the fight is A1 with a bullet the most important thing.

He gets two paychecks. He will get to take Calvin Cater's ranking. This time on Tuesday, Yusufs will all be a top 10 ranked featherweight in the UFC, and that is far and away the most important thing. He succeeded across the board on that particular issue, failed the fuck out of every other one of them. And there are some people who will not like that.

it is just a true statement because this is not a sport. It is not. We have talked about it in many different terms and reasons. This is not a meritocracy. Winning is what matters because losing is so catastrophic. But the way you do things matters, you can make your life much easier by doing things the way that the community wants or whatever, like by being exciting and fun. And undeniably, that fight was frankly not exciting.

It was not especially interesting. Zala didn't even have the good sense to as he was just kind of leading cater around by the nose. Like he fought very well. I do not want to take away from how he fought. He did. Terrific movement sticking, getting away, giving different looks, different angles, just incredible footwork. Didn't even have the decency to like do the showboat and things. So when he's not engaging, but obviously getting what he wants, he looks better by it.

And by the third round, he actively was not. And the issue with that is that that lays bare the fundamental flaw of this sport. And it is that it is not a real fight and that it can be gamified. And the issue, when fans have issues with fighters, it is almost exclusively a result of them gamifying fighting as opposed to fighting like a man or whatever. the problem people have with Marab is that Marab just like doesn't hurt you but outworks you and wins on points. Yusufzal was clearly ahead after two rounds, understood that as long as he doesn't get knocked out, they never give 10-8s in the sport because they're idiots. As long as he didn't get knocked out, he's going to win.

And so, you know, he did the Felix Trinidad Golden Boy. I'm just going to run around and didn't get screwed by the judges the way Frigin' Oscar did. Like it is, it is true. And so it is fair to criticize that because that's lame. Is it smart? Sure. Things that are smart can be lame as shit. And it's totally fair for us to be like, that sucked.

You should have been cooler. You mentioned a uses of law is going to be a ranked featherweight, which is very good in a very deep division. How does Dana and the matchmakers, the upper echelon, the decision-making, so to speak, just knowing history and knowing how they've reacted to such performances and such things, especially fan reaction, how will they reward Yusuf Salal? Will they reward him with a big fight or is he going to kind of stay where he's at, maybe fight someone slightly behind him, maybe a dangerous name that most in his position wouldn't get? How do you think they, they handle this? I'm going to say they're going to give him a pass because this is not,

a recurring issue. Thing to remember is pretty like if you you screw up once most people can overlook it and sometimes like on this on a big stage and a big moment it can just be a way people think of you frankly Jared

canineers that way for most of his career he's been a relatively fun fighter but like the thing that I think most people certainly the thing that I and frankly we were talking about it off air with a couple of people like at work this week the thing that jumps out about Jared Kennedy is,

oh, he's kind of boring because you just remember how awful the Izzy fight was. A single fight in the right moment with the right stakes, the right spotlight, can sort of really change a narrative. Being the co-made event of an Apex score is probably not going to do that. And 2024 uses a lot as fun as shit, man.

Three fights, three finishes, two bonuses. Like, he does not have a history of being this way. This was pretty against type, which is also like why it was. was frustrating. It was frustrating because we both agreed on the preview show, like, or not, I guess not we both agreed because AK, but like me and AK agree in the preview show, this fight is probably going to win fight of the night.

And instead, it was just a tough watch. I think he'll probably get mostly a pass. I don't think he'll get the bootstrapped to him. He's not going to get a year Rodriguez or something like that next, which if he had been super exciting, if he had Max Hollowated at the end with Calvin Kater and won the fight. would have made some more fans up with the brass and maybe got a little bit more bump. But he's probably going to get somewhere

maybe right behind him, maybe right in front of him in the rankings and just do it that way, you know? Yeah. I think they'll give him like a, like Dana's not going to like shit on him. Like he's not going to show up to this press conference anyways because he has, well, better things to do

than be at UFC Vegas one or two. He's going to have a tough fight. And I know what that fight's going to be. And I'll tell you about it tomorrow and on to the next one. Because there's no doubt of my mind where this is going. And I don't think he's going to like it all that much. But I think fans will be like, oh, shit, this is going to be a good one. So bonuses are trickling in once I get all of them.

We'll play the guessing game and we'll go from there. Another thing about this fight, Jed was obviously the post-fight interview was, listen, I love Calvin Cater. good dude. New England guy has always been great to me. Maybe a Hall of Famer right here in the old ticker. Probably not a UFC Hall of Famer. That was a very nice thing to say. Call it a Brian Ortega, just unrealistic. Here's something interesting, Jed.

Apparently, at the post-fight press conference, Yusuf Zalal didn't say it outright, but essentially accusing Calvin Cater of greasing in this fight, saying that he was extremely slippery and even use the word suspicious with how slippery Calvin Cater was in his eyes and fingertips. You're bad at it. Like, why are you like this is?

That it like just not, he got the win and he is ranked. And again, by far the most important thing. Every other part of this is not successful from him. The post-fight speech was bad. It wasn't like catastrophically walking Buckley bad where it was like inanely stupid. Just everything he said was weird and kind of wrong. Like, ah, Calvin Cater's a Hall of Famer.

He's not. I don't think that there are many people who would agree with that statement. Even in, you know, the New England cartel camp would agree with that statement. That's no disrespect to Calvin Cater, fun hell fighter. He's a damn they were good, Hall of Famer, for sure. He is not going to get into the UFC Hall of Fame. Hey man I heard Brian Ortega

I heard you're going to leave the division We should fight He's gonna leave the division dude What the f like that's the dumbest shit Possible to do And now oh Here's a guy that is uniquely beloved Like people

I just call the Hall of Famer Because people love and respect him And I'm getting it in the teeth Right now from the community For the way I fought What if I say he was greasing Like I don't don't that i somebody's got to talk to him and be like hey man this is not ideal career

management from you you're young featherweights in a bit of a turnover you just got a big win ultimately maybe this all shakes out fine but you're not doing yourself any favors and in a sport like this all the favors you can do yourself the better you are well some good news comes out of this one my fantasy team gets some much needed points uses a law gets a ranked win he'll probably fight again before the turnaround so could end up being a pretty big year uh pretty big half year i guess for for us of so all the other thing count we're i'm finally going to see calvin cater fight at some barboza that fight is going to happen next it's going to be awesome and i will enjoy it i think that's a good one that'll be hell of fun and we will love that we have bonuses jed what do you got what do you think

i would be absolutely stunned if the main event was not fight of the night um um So I'm going to say fight of the night. Give me Shabasian. That was a pretty good K.O. I'm pretty supportive of Shabasian's Kho. So give me that for one of the performance bonuses. And you could convince me that Canaaner is getting double action. But I don't know.

He threw a heel hook on a dude in 60 seconds. Heavyweight sucks. But he is the unsung hero of the card for me because Walter Walker saved us from potentially 15 minutes of hell. So I'm saying Walter Walker got the other one. Rado plus for Walter Walker, but he didn't get a bonus. Sorry. Yeah. The other bonus goes to Gabriel Bonfeme for Chofiompaas Williams almost into death because that was scary.

Buzzar beater slept him. That's fair. I don't have any issue with that getting it over Walter Walker. I actually thought Jose Delgado might get it. Contender series guy gets a quick finish. I just would have been shocked. he's I don't know that that was like the most the performance was not but the fight itself was like the most forgettable fight on the card yeah Shabazian I mean it's perfect batch making for if you're

an Edmund Shabazian fan just throw him the lowest you know he goes on a little bit of Schneide you throw him the lowest rank middleweight they've done this a couple of times with him Casey said in our Slack channel that should but that's how they should book Edmund just throw them in there with the lowest ranked 85er inside the apex and just let the man cook. And cook he did. 95 seconds, gets the big win, gets back on track. Zem Satikoff gets the weird doctor stoppage finish of Ishmael Bonfim.

That fight was really fun for the first five minutes. And then it was over. It was just very strange the way that it ended, you know? Yeah, I just think something got lost in translation for us at home. because it sure appeared like he was saying that he could see, but it seems like he actually, he didn't like fight the stoppage. So it must have been like,

yeah, I just truly can't see. But he was like, yeah. And like shaking his head, yes. Like he was nodding yes, which then means the translator was asking like a weird,

that's a really weird way to be like, are you saying you can't see? As opposed to being like, can you see? Are you saying you can't see? Like, let's really. introduce vagaries in here and make this complicated as we're going through multiple languages.

But Bonfim didn't have any issue with it. So I assume that he couldn't see and that, I mean, he got jacked up by that headkick. So I don't think there's any controversy. It was just odd. It was very odd. Andrei Petroski gets the win over Hidalpha Vieira. Then he calls out Boe Nickel. And then Bo Nickel just absolutely ether's him in response on social media. No chance he gets that fight, but, you know, keep shooting your shot. Maybe you'll get it. We mentioned Jose Delgado gets a first round finish. Angela Hill, history made, wins a splitty.

Dreams can come true, everybody. Angela Hill on the right side of a split decision, Raphael Estevom gets a decision win in a fight that certainly happened. We mentioned Gabriel Von Femes incredible submission, Walter Walker's submission, Jacqueline Cavalcanti, beat Julia Abula and what has turned out to be the Raging Pandas final fight of her career. But Jedd, I want you to wax.

Those two lines fighters. Well, I'm bringing back burn down women's band and weight division. We're drafting all wrong. Our women's bantam weight and our wild card need to be women's bannam weights moving forward. Because the opportunity for missed points here, there's just so many points on the table. if you just choose one of the 18 women's bannam weights on the roster. May, my wild card was a great pick. I went to heavyweights,

which is basically the same core concept of just feast on the garbage divisions. So, but yeah, man, that fight sure was a fist fight. Shout out to Julia Avala. Good quality career there. Wish you well in all your future endeavors. Yeah. go back and watch some of her old fights. She is just a fucking menace in there.

It's just unfortunately like the injuries and the layoffs just added up. We didn't really get to see that. Go watch the Gina Mazzani fight. Like that's the Julia Abula. I will remember and I think Koso remember. She just comes out running and punching as hard as she can. And she's screaming and hollering is she doing it and just doing DDP stuff. She was doing DDP stuff before DDP made it cool.

So shout out to Julia Avila. And here's the issue. Shout out to go look at our rankings. Do I have to physically go find another women's band and weight to rank now? Let me see where my woman's band and weight rankings are. I don't know if I had Aval in there. Because I already have to find one because Mara Buena Silva is now officially a flyweight. Yeah.

Oh, man. That is just, that's, I don't like that. Could we just, okay. Maybe we can just do top top. Anyways, how about Elijah Smith, Jed? You've been very high. Dude, I told you guys. Boy, is that guy fun to watch.

He's only 22. The next eight to 10 years, we're going to have this man in our lives at 135. Dude. Kid is sick. Like, my comp for him was, and it was a bit like low-hanging fruit because he is now the second father-son duo to have competed in the UFC with his father Gilbert behind the coutors. We talked about that on the preview show.

But he's got a lot of AJ McKee in him, super athletic, super talented. super young just needs a lot of time to develop I still don't think he should be in the UFC just because I would like to see him fight like four times this year to just learn how to fist fight frankly but Vince Morales is a dude who is not

like he is not an easy guy to just walk through and Elijah Smith did not had to work real hard Morales was throwing some wonky shit at him that like I don't even it's not really a Peruvian necktides like some weird ass necktie variation that he threw multiple brabos looking for it i thought smith looked great in

his uh grappling defense which i don't think the commentary i don't think that those brabos were like particularly close they were on the path to getting there but i thought smith was doing all the right things to defend and ultimately did work his way out and the commentary team was not giving him credit for that and on the feet kid looked really sharp still has a ton of growth to do but like this is as good as you can hope for a 22-year-old fighter to look, getting thrown right into the mix at one of the premier weight classes in the sport. There's a reason I was so high on him. He, you know, exceeded my expectations with his performance.

I thought that it was very possible he lose this fight because Vince Morales is a veteran. And instead, he worked through some, like, tough spots, didn't really get his own grappling game going, which is, I think, the best part of his game and still found a way to score enough win, busted Morales his nose up with that nasty uppercut. I'm pumped to see this kid grow and develop. Like growth isn't linear in this sport. There are plenty of young fighters who never end up becoming much because they plateau, something happens.

But we can always be hopeful when somebody this young and this talented comes in. And I am because he's got the foundation for success. It's just a question of if he has the mental makeup to kind of continue developing down this road and if he is able to like sometimes it's not you can want it as much and your body just doesn't cooperate in the right way so really excited about him uh it was one of the fights i was most interested in and it was a fun one yeah good scrap vina morales is a freaking dog and yeah there's i i got the agent mckee one easy uh a little bit of kevin lee in there too just like early stage kevin lee even with like the his bike skills uh

Like if Kevin Lee was like slightly humbler, I guess, that's what Elijah Smith is. Like the Kevin Lee personality, but a little more humble. Dude's got it all right now. And can't wait to see this kid develop. And yeah, I wish he kind of got a developmental deal. Like every three, four weeks on FightPass, you get to watch him fight for some regional promotion and just get better and better. But hey, man, Vince Morales is the kind of guy he'd be fighting in like a main event of some of these cards. got in there, got tested, and that was a hell of performance.

By the way, here is the exact quote from Yusuf Salal. Quote, I feel like there was Vaseline all over his legs. It was the most slipperiest guy I've ever seen in my life. That is what Yusuf Salal said about Calvin Cater at the Post-Wy press coffins. The most slipperiest guy I've ever seen in my life. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first...

There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. Welcome aboard Air Canada. Rocky's vacation, here we come. Whoa, is this economy? Free beer, wine, and snacks. Sweet. Fast-free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land.

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Conditions apply. See Air Canada.com. With that said, let's go to the page. That's a choice to go to that well. Maybe he just hasn't read the comments for literally anything and is unaware that people broadly disliked his performance tonight. I'm curious if anybody in the best, at those at that thing had even asked him about the negative reaction I'm curious I'll

have to go back to watch it stay stay offline kids there's no need uh hit some questions yeah let's let's go I mean I don't know how many questions are gonna get here but we got a couple super chats this dude yeah you guys are you guys love super chat love love any chat Bube's Jeb but I don't know what that's in relation to, frankly. But okay, Alan. Thank you, Adam. If you'd like to clarify, we can chat about it more.

I assume that's me, too. Just assume Jeb is me. But I truly don't know what that is in relation to. Hey, they get, that gets Mike half a, half a refill. I don't know. What does that get you? 189 I don't

A couple of munchkins Chase is Alex and John saying They want to fight each other A sign that Tom is in route To being screwed over Even if John gives up the belt Who can he fight

Is this happening again Are we back on the Alex and John train When Alex is like less than a month away From fighting Magam and Angolaev I haven't heard anything I have no idea I mean the parameters are the same it's entirely possible tom get screwed because john doesn't really care

about the belt so he can just leave it and then if what he wants to do is fight allex prairie he can just like yeah i give up the belt tom has it i don't care i want to go fight alix prair and the you're like okay that'll make us seven million dollars per minute of fight time yes we can do that so i think that's the good possible this happens yeah absolutely and then Tom will fight. Assuming Alex beats Magamette, which, you know, very possible. But they're, you know, we got to fight the fights first. But assuming that happens, I would say it's, it is far more likely to me that John fights Alex and he fights Tom.

With you. If Tom and who would Tom fight? Yeah, I don't know. Cyril gone. Not that that performance against. Maybe I'll made up at this point. Maybe. Yeah, maybe.

Just because gone's kind of in the poop house right now. I would be more interested in the Almeida fight, frankly. Firm agree. Okay. Okay. Thanks, Chase. Thank you. All right.

What else we got here? Oh, we talked about this earlier, but what was your opinion on this? It'll never happen. So I'm going to say something. too. What the, like for the, the Canadaer MVP fans,

what do you think that fights will look like? It's going to look very similar. All MVP fights are, look functionally the same. But like, you know, it might be fun.

They throw one fight of, they throw one punch around, MVP jumps in, Canada tries to counter them, they rinse repeat. All right. No. Canada easy,

too, is just never happening. No. No, no, no, no, no, no. Even if Izzy begs for it, it ain't happened. The UFC, you're like, no. I am willing to believe John fights Tom before I'm willing to believe they would re-book this fight. The fight was miserable. It was bad. I was there. I was in the building for that fight. And boy, you could hear a pin drop after people were just in droves storming out of T-Mobile arena. by the end of the second round. There was like six people. There's nobody there.

Real quick, but sorry, Jen, go on. Say, I was just saying, people forget, you know, a lot of fans have piled on rightly, I might add, Sean Strickland for being to the death Dutchman

and then tepidly teeping and jabbing. Izzy had a nice little stretch there where I'm a vampire, I'm going to drink his blood, and then calf kick and circle away from Jared Canaaner for 25 minutes. Like, hey, never looking at that goddamn thing again. Well, yeah.

And that led to a very electric post-fight show because I defended Izzy in that situation. Because if you remember, Jared Cannonier showed up to all the press copperses too, saying, like, I'm going to throw everything as hard as I can. I'm going to bring it to Izzy. I'm going to get in his face. I'm going to hurt that man. And he didn't do anything. He gave Izzy the fight that Izzy was just like, okay, like this is what we're doing? Sure. I can win in second gear.

Sure. Sure. I'll do it and not even waste any of my energy. And that's the exact fight Jared gave him. And when you're the champion and you defend your belt, make that money and it doesn't have to be thrilling. But if the guy's giving you that fight, you take it. And that's winning is the most important thing. It's not the only important thing, but it's by far the most important thing. by far. I mean, and the pace structure, the way the rounds are scored, everything, like,

was set up for fights like that, fights like the co-main event. That's, that's what, that's what we, that's, that's how we got it. Yeah.

All right. Thank you, lazy, also, because I have shat a little bit on, uh, use of law,

frankly, again, justifiably, stand by everything I said. Uh, I don't know what Calvin Cater was doing, but it was bad. I tend to,

think that what he was doing was being washed. And one of the first thing that happens when you get old is you just lose the ability to pull the trigger. He found it because like the third round, it was, it made it easier because the law just had no interest in fighting him. So it made it easier for cater to just brawl. But like, he probably should have just immediately gone to, oh, I'm just going to have to get reckless and hope.

I got to like, not enough people have the Korean zombie in them. where one of the coolest things I've ever seen, honestly, was zombies retirement fight against Holloway, where he's like, oh, I'm losing. I cannot win this fight under these terms. I will go out on my shield or maybe find a miracle. And he went out on his shield and it rocked. Calvin Cater decided to do that five minutes too late. If he tries it five minutes earlier, maybe he gets, you know, sent out of there. But maybe he turns a tide and win.

And so Cater has plenty of blame. But as I say a lot when we get to this conversation, you know, Cater lost. So he, his punishment is much more severe. Yeah. Yeah. And let me just say, and look, I don't fight. I don't have coaches telling me how to fight.

I did not love his corner. I did not like, Garza hobby. He's a very good coach. Stand your, like all he kept saying was like, stand your ground. Just stand your ground. You're not going to beat you Sala'u standing your ground.

You're going to beat you Sinsalal by being a hoss and just getting in his face and being a filthy ass fighter. Like that's how you beat him. You're not going to sit there and have better movement than him. You're not going to stand your ground. I just I kept hearing it. I'm like, that's not how you're going to beat him. You have to go after him. And any time Calvin got aggressive and went after him, he would score.

He would land a little bit. And then he would go back into range. And then he would get kicked in the legs a thousand times. and he would try to kick back and you'd miss by a mile. It was just it was a little frustrating to watch, honestly. Like, you said and you should look good in the first two rounds. The jab looked good, just kept kicking Calvin in the calf over and over and over again. Like I thought you.

I thought. I thought it was a lot of awesome. And I thought about two and a half minutes into that fight, Cater should have thrown away their game plan or whatever they had and fought the way he fought in that fifth round. I mean, sorry, the third round. And the fight's completely different. Who knows what happens? maybe he does get knocked out maybe whatever but we don't have this sour taste for both fighters

I mean it's just a very different fight and so but he's he let that fight happen for 10 minutes like that before he decided to what would it um what was um in the third one for the third round was um for us saying the same thing or I was listening to the corner I have no idea okay that was a commercial but it was pretty much they pretty much told me yeah to go finish and Calvin after him you land. landed the big elbow and Yusuf did not like it at all. And then Calvin landed some big punches when they're in close and Yusuf didn't like that either. When Calvin was hitting him, he was hitting him and Yusuf was feeling it.

You could see the expression change a little bit. The thing about Calvin is, and Jed says this all the time, you can't hurt him. You cannot hurt him. He rugged. Max Holloway beat the fuck out of him for 25 minutes. Use that. Use that. The most lopsided 25 minutes I have ever seen.

in a UFC fight, and he kept coming. He kept fighting. He could not put him away. Yusuf is not going to knock him out. Here's the thing, though. I do not particularly believe for Osabi is a very good coach. I never really have. Setting that aside, I think it is fairly undeniable,

even if you believe for Osabi is a good coach, because he's coached some good fighters. If you look at all the fighters he's coached, he has absolutely either no respectful or no acknowledgement of that aspect of fighting. The way he coaches fighters is not to get rugged and turn a fight into a brawl to change the dynamics. It is to try and win the tactical point battle of things. Like that's just the history of Obamersia and just Amin Zahabi and frankly George St. Pierre. Like when have you ever seen as a hobby product be like, okay, this isn't working?

What if you just get in his face and ugly this fight right the fuck up? And that is honestly like what Calvin Cater is to his core as a fighter. It is a really, I think it's a terrible coaching fighter pair. And it is particularly bad for this one because, yes, he should have just been like, hey, standing your ground ain't doing shit, but getting you tuned up and a kickboxing lesson. So get in his face and see what happens. And that is just not a card in Fras Zahubbi's deck. He does not know how to play that one.

Spot on, spot on. We'll see Farahs next week too, because I'm sure he'll be in Rob Fon's corner against John Mata Hoto. Oh, you're, ooh. All right. Yeah. Man, that might not go well. Well, let's see. Look, to be fair,

Faraz is in Rob's corner for the Kyler Phillips fight, and Rob won that one. And he was just as big of an underdog, if not bigger, in that fight, than Calvin was tonight. Yeah. And Rob is not the same fighter as Calvin. Rob shouldn't be nearly as just like, Calvin is a brawler at heart. And Rob is not really that. I do think the coach pairing there is a little better, but I don't know. I really like to know if you guys, I don't know if you guys saw, good old Robbie Fon,

on the broadcast today. Shout out to that man. Did you see the hairstyle? I did not. Welcome to the club, my man. Welcome to the club, Rob Vaugh. It's terrific. It's terrific.

So proud of him. All right. A couple more super chats. All right. Terence, my man, not this card related, but would prime U.L. Would Prime UL beat DDP?

I know it's Jedd's favorite. middleweight also Thomas promoted will his defense count as a title win so uh jed first question prime yowl against current ddp what is prime you'd be able to watch that fight this is a rude question by the way because yes uh this is like my one of my like honestly ddp may be my favorite current fighter trying to think of any current fighter i like more than ddp and i don't know like if he's not one he's at lowest three, right? Like, that the absolute,

like, because Gaichi, I just have such a long history of, like, I would die for Justin Gaichi. So like, and he's still competing, even if I don't think Justin Gaichi is at his peak anymore.

But like, that's, I mean, DDP is right up there. Prime YOL, Casey, to answer your question, I think is like the, around the two Whitaker fights.

Yeah, yeah, so I'm thinking too. I frankly thought he won both of them. I certainly, certainly think he won the second fight. And so, like, that's probably somewhere in that time frame, maybe slightly before, maybe between the two fights.

I think that's when you're getting your best, Yoel. That fight would be incredible. I can't explain you how great that fight would be. Because Yoel does nothing for a long periods of time. And DDP does so much that, like, either DDP just kind of outworks Yoel forever, but then in the third round, Yowel kills. him because that's what he does or he doesn't kill him

and somehow DDP just kind of outlasts him. I think prime Yowel probably gets it done but I also don't think DDP isn't his prime yet. I think he's pretty close to it but he's only 30. I thought he

this was the best he ever looked and was fighting against Sean Strickland so it's possible he keeps improving, keeps looking better and so that might change but like based on what I know currently of DDP versus the best versions I ever saw of Yowel. 50-50, maybe 55-45-45 in favor of YOL.

I would, God, I would love that fight, though. Fight is, oh, that fight is like the peak middleweight fight that could ever happen. Don't give me Anderson-Silver versus somebody. Give me those two just hosses doing silly, silly things. Also, if Tom is promoted, will his defense count as a title win? Uh, the next one. I think they're meaning

a title defense. Um, oh, you mean the, the blades fight? I don't know. Uh, well,

it won't count as, if he's promoted, I will count as a title defense, not a win the title. I'm trying to go, I'm going back to look at, see how they counted Hennon and Burow's interim title defenses. If they,

like, retroactively count them as real ones or not. Then, is he, is he at this situation where is he, people who weren't counting, is he's intern? interim title fights was he was he only he only had one interim title fight though he never defended

the belt oh okay yeah but easy himself in the interim when he win an interim belt you're not supposed to defend said interim belt you're supposed to fight the champion and you know there's the rare occasion where head in brow and tommy aspin all have to defend the interim belt looking at brow the UFC does not officially recognize his interim defenses as title defenses, despite him being the only active champion. He only has the one official UFC title defense or undisputed title defense. So if Tom is promoted, this will be his first, whoever he fights will be his first title defense. It's a weird thing. Thank you, Terrence.

One last super chat before maybe get out of here. The old, old gloves are back for good. Are we glad? I don't care. I do not believe that, I think it is incredibly silly to believe that we had a viable data set to be like, the new gloves are trash.

We had like 50 fights. That's just not how any statistician would be like, yes, we 50 use cases, we can definitely declare these gloves are unusable and piece of shit. Like, we should have just held the other ones to see if they were better. I don't think that they were any better or worse. Like I, so this is ultimately entirely meaningless to me. Beyond the fact that it was silly to give up on like, ostensibly, you think that these gloves have a problem and the other ones are at least trying to solve it.

You're just going backwards and be like, screw it. The devil you know seems like a poor way to do it, but I just don't care enough. Listen, John Jones doesn't fight a UFC 309. We're still using the new gloves. That's it. Yeah, there you go. I don't think that's true, but I do think that it's incredibly funny. So I'm willing to say it's true.

Yeah, I think I think it's absolutely true. If John fought with those gloves, we'd still be using them. There was no. Steve and I might have won. Yeah. Rematch. You don't put gloves in the feet, though, Jed. There's the feat.

There's the feat. Yeah, but like, Stipe could have maybe made some eye pokes happen. You never know. That's very true. I want to last second super chat from Chase because Chase just wants us to talk about John Jones more. How unsufferable will John B if Tom loses? I need to confess something to many people here.

A growing percentage. of my MMA fandom, like of me rooting for fighters, is not out of any interest in fighters, like the fighters themselves. It is out of making the worst people in the world just shut the fuck up because they'll say something incredibly dumb when something happens. John Jones is one of the worst people in the world. I will root for Tommy Aspinall until the end of my days because I never want to hear him say just the stupidest stuff if Tom loses.

Like I just, I don't need that in my life. So I'm a huge Tom Aspenall fan. I like Tom Aspenall fine if like I think he is very talented and good and seems to be a decent dude. But like I would not naturally gravitate towards him. The people I naturally gravitate to his fan, like you guys probably know my my taste at this point. It's silly people. Like I really like silly, Yeri Perashka, Yoel Romero Triggis. Like those are my people.

Tom is not of that ilk. But I'm rooting for him as much or more than any person because I just don't want dumb shit to happen. Can you imagine if like Dana White publicly comes out and says we're stripping John Jones? He's refusing to get back to us. We keep offering him this fight. And then if Tom fights Jelton and loses, Tom will come out. John will go on social media after the CEO of the company says that John said no to the fight. And then shits on Tom Aspinall.

Like that'd be pretty bad Maybe like one of the worst things Just just don't want the dumb things to happen guys It's just that's like so much And for a lot of them it's not even like the fighter saying dumb things Just like oh their fans will just be the worst Like I would not have hated Connor McGregor Nearly to the extent I ended up as a fighter

Not as a human being as a fighter But just is the worst fans Just the worst fans And so I wanted bad things to happen to them forever and that's it like just that is i need tom to continue winning because i really need john to not get to be a sanctimonious awful human being for one twitter afternoon god i think that's such a fascinating fight too like i just want to see it really i would love to see that fight yeah he's so interesting really you know why i'd like to see it i really want to know how good

john jones is is a heavyweight because i don't have any idea I have no clue how good John Jones is his heavyweight. And if he is and terrific, he's the greatest fighter I've ever seen. If he's not, he may still be the greatest fighter I've ever seen. And he's certainly the greatest light heavyweight I've ever seen. But his heavyweight run has, I just have no concept how to judge that. Yeah, we know he's like top. Yeah, even Francis.

I think he is at least one of the 10 best heavyweight. Yeah, that's about, I think that's about all we know. Yeah, I agree. And like, I know that he's probably one of the five, like beating. Seerogon is not nothing. Seerogon has huge flaws in his game, but heavyweight is garbage and zero gone has been successful long term there. But like, I just don't know where he is in that five.

I would know for certain watching him fight Tom Aspinall. Maybe someday we'll see that fight, but I'm not holding my breath. Anything else? I also didn't watch whatever John's recent thing was. So I can't get people in the comments talking. I can't speak to it. I've no idea. I'm still stuck on John fighting the battle with health care or something.

I'm still. Yeah, I mean, he's been a chance hole. It's the biggest battle you ever have. You know, if he defeats our broken health care system, I support John Jones in that. I'll move him up my rankings if he can get universal health care. If he can do that, if he can bring the cost of insulin prices down. I'm moving up. I'm moving them up.

I think it's going to be really hard, but good luck. Also, some other breaking news and see it. I put out a tweet and I stand by it and I will continue to stand by it. If Connor McGregor fights

in the year of Our Lord 2025 on a UFC pay-per-view, what Gregory Rodriguez wore walking into the apex tonight, I will wear that or something very similar on the watch party that Connor McGregor fights on. I love it. No shirt underneath, just showing off the pectorals, the V, nice and deep down, the chain, all of it.

I will do it. It would have worked better if he won, but yeah. I mean, it was a fit. It was certainly a vibe. It's a fit. It is a fit. And I was just like, all right, I have to do something with this. So there you go.

If Connor McGregor fights, and look, nobody cares at this point if he fights or not. But even people said on Twitter, like, if I can at least create some sort of excitement about a Connor McGregor return, you're welcome. Hit the music. We're out here. Also, I saw some people in the comments who just don't understand who Yoel Romero is. You should go back and watch. Yoel Romero doesn't gas because he doesn't throw punches. It's impossible to get tired when he spends five minutes of doing nothing.

He can't he will spend the first 13 minutes of a fight doing nothing. He doesn't get tired. Go out to Paul Gossip forever. And just and you know what? Yellow Romero understands what would Jed and I have been saying forever? Just cheat. Just always cheat because it's not technically cheating. No one stops you.

Go watch the Tim Kennedy. fight. He'll take the, take an extra 30 seconds on the stool. Take an extra 45. Hand in the glove, just holding Tim Kennedy so can bash him in the head with a handle. Also, that's the best age win of all time. Because if somebody just got boned by cheating, I am damn glad it was Tim Kennedy. It's the best. It makes me so happy that Tim Kennedy's sanctimonious ass got.

thumped up by a cheating ass you old Merrow. Love y'all. Good night, everybody. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you.

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