MMA Fighting - UFC Vegas 23 Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: April 10, 2021

With UFC Vegas 23 in the books, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck, Jose Youngs and E. Casey Leydon react to the top storylines coming out of Saturday afternoon’s event at the APEX, including the results of the middleweight headliner between Marvin Vettori and Kevin Holland. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc 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

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Sing it. Sing it, everybody, yes. We are live, we are back. It is just after 6 p.m. Eastern Time. And UFC Vegas 23 has come to an end. Marvin Vittori with a dominant decision win over Kevin Holland. And we're going to talk all about that.

We're going to talk about Arnold Allen's big win. We'll talk about McKenzie Derns big win and everything that has. happened on this card. Of course, Julian Marquez's big win, his finish, his wacky callout for the second consecutive time, Daniel Rodriguez, and so much more with all of you. So bring your questions, bring your thoughts, your reactions to the card, and we will address all of them right here. I am Mike Hack. We got Jose Young's in the building, and we got E. Casey Liding on the ones and the twos. And he's got that look on his face, and I think I know, uh, I think I know why, Casey.

So we will begin there. We will begin with the main event. I have to say, and, you know, some people on Twitter disagreed me. I thought Kevin Holland had a really good start to this fight. He was using space to his advantage. He was landing the heavier shots. He outstruck Mara Vintori in the first round. I actually thought Kevin Holland won the first round.

But then I thought Vittori stole all the momentum down the stretch in the round, and then he just took over the fight from there. In the end, Vittori gets the win, 50-44 on all. all three judges scorecards, you don't seem overly thrilled with the Italian Dreams performance. Your thoughts on the main event? I mean, it was the W. That's what Marvin needed.

I mean, W is all that matters in the sport, but it's not all that matters, clearly. No, this is main event, national TV. Marvin Vittori was going against a short-notice undersized middleway, and it was a fight. It was a fight. He fought, it looked like he, you know, he out-wrestled a not-so-good welterweight that can't wrestle that well. I don't know.

Nothing in that 25 minutes did I ever cross a mind going, did it ever cross my mind and say, you know what, Marvin should rematch Izzy, definitely. I never crossed my mind. It was actually like, that's so far out of my mind now. now yeah it was it was a victory for marvin congratulations to him and thanks uh kevin holland for saving the main event don't have very much else i'll tell you i thought i thought like in the second round vittoria had a mounted almost had him in an arm triangle you had him in big trouble it was probably i have to go and look at the scorecards but that might have been the 10-8 round on the judge's cards but yeah from there it just kind of turned into a little more

of an aggressive version of what Derek Brunson did a couple of weeks earlier. I mean, the big question came out. Yeah. I mean, early on,

I was like, man, I pretty much nailed this fight exactly how it was going to go. But yeah, it was kind of more Brunson-esque and less Vittori-esque. But listen,

for a middleweight that size, to put that kind of pressure and that kind of pace on is impressive. But if you're looking to get up there with Adasania and get him to say your name and not say Darren Tillson, name probably wasn't the performance he was looking for. He still thinks he deserves the title shot.

But honestly, and I hate to do on to the next one and stuff now, but I think you should fight Derek Brunson. I think that's the fight to make. Yeah. Whatever, whoever Marvin fights next, it's not going to be for the title. That's all. No. It's not going to be the title.

That's me, I even kind of said it. I've never seen someone get a W in a main event and actually kind of, he might even move backwards in the ranking somehow. I don't even know. But, I mean, if the winners tonight were basically Darren Till and Robert Wyrker and Kelvin Gassel, you know, and since that those guys, I think, have a better chance of getting that next opportunity at the bell. I think, yeah, unfortunately for Marvin, yeah, it's a W, and he's going to kind of

just tread water in the rankings wherever he's at right now. Yeah, he says he wants to fight Adasani in October, so I think he's probably enough to take another. I think he's probably going to have to get another win, maybe two, to get in that conversation at this point. The Brunsify makes sense, yeah, total, yeah. Yeah, I'm not trying to like take anything away from Vitori because the guy went in there short notice. He could have easily said no to this fight and people would have been like, I get it, man. You go from Darren Till to Kevin Holland. Like Darren Till, there's a lot more on the line.

There's a lot more at stake. you can gain a lot more from it. Jose leaves. Yeah. The main event was that bad. Jose was like, I'm out. Even after it was done. Yeah.

It beating Kevin Holland, like in the grand scheme of things, people love those numbers and the rankings. It doesn't do a whole lot for him, especially if he gets a decision win. So, Jose, you know, your thoughts on Vittori's performance and just the main event overall. It was a fight and Marvin won, and there's no arguing against it.

But like, you guys pretty much already all said it. He's not going to get it. a title shot. The only way he's going to get a title shot is if he fills in on the last minute. And he's like, you know, like he volunteers. He pulls a Kevin Holland. But that's about it because he didn't take a lot of damage in this fight. But he also cuts a lot of weight. So I don't know if he'd ever even be that fighter. So I like the Brunson fight. I like the Polona Costa fight. I like either one of those fights because I know Brunson is called out Paulo Costa. But if Palos can't fight anytime soon, also Jared Canaaner is still hanging out there. I know he had surgery. He like had surgery.

and he got hurt or shattered his ulna bone or whatever. So he comes back and they want to throw it. Because is Canada still third? Like three in the ranking? So like he's still top five. So yeah, Marvin's not going to get a tell shot, but I would not say no to any of the fights, those fights. Or if they just rebook the Derrentil fight

because there's a lot of heat there too between them. So, yeah, fine or whatever. But yeah, you guys already said everything else. Yeah. I mean, what else can we say? I mean, this is one of those made events. we don't have to spend 15 minutes on because it was what it was. You know what I mean?

And nothing really changed. Well, if anything, I mean, I was actually kind of, I'm disappointed. It's not the right word. But I was surprised at how, what a much more dangerous striker Holland was than Vittoria. I kind of expected the standard to be more even. But, you know, clearly if that bite wouldn't, if Holland was able to stuff to take downs, I mean, that's a big if and a very important if. but if he was able to, he would win that fight.

He would have at least, no, decision, Vittori just based on his striking, but the gap in the wrestling was just so ginormous that, yeah, I mean, that's about it. That's about, that's about it. I was just kind of let down on, in terms of, you know, can Marvin beat is the, should Marvin fight for the title? The fact that he was getting, in my opinion,

pretty pieced up by a tired Kevin Holland. That's not good, you know, in terms of, you know, his title aspirations. I mean, he might get better. Maybe it's just a bad night. Marvin looks like he had better cardio when he fought 25 minutes short notice against Hermanson. Was it? No, was it Hermanson?

Yeah, Hermanson, yeah. I think the only thing I would say to that is Vittoria was slated to fight Jaucre, if I'm not mistaken, before he filled in his Ramon. Now, Hermanson and Jauceret, they're both grappler, grappling-based fighters. So it's not difficult to just, you know, just focus on a different person. Till is a Southpaw counterstriker that you have to kind of bait in. And that is not Kevin Holland at all. He's going to press forward.

So maybe just the last minute, complete stylistic change and stance change of play to factor. Like he just wasn't like his cardio was there. But it was a, like, you know, like when you train for a specific fighter, if you're going to fight Habib, you're going to just get your grappling on point. and you're going to be good there with cardio. So maybe just the cardio wasn't there because that is not what he was training for. But I'm not going to try to make excuses because he won the fight at the end of the day. I'm not trying to make excuses for him.

I'm kind of surprised. I mean, in previous main events, kind of lackluster main events, I'm not sure. Maybe it was Alexander Rackich when DC was kind of going hard on the paint that you need more than the W. You know, you got to show Dan. You got to show the fans, you know, something. and I'm surprised they kind of didn't go, you know, heavy in the paint on that with Marvin tonight because, yeah, that's what these main events are for.

These are showcases, you know, you get, you know, if you, if, no, Marvin can talk all he wants after the fight or before the fight in his interviews, but you still got to show up and, I don't know, something was just not there tonight in that main event. Do we want to play the guess who wins a bonus game? Let's see. Okay, yeah. Okay. Fighters. They're not out yet, so I figure.

Okay. Go ahead. Fight of the night is going to go to, where is, oh, McDessie and, how do you say that guy's name? Ignacio, Ignacio. And since Ignacio didn't make weight, John McDessie should make 100K because that was a freaking fantastic fight. And I hope Ignacio actually goes up to 170 because he looks too big 455. And Dern, performance of the night. And who gets out of the performance? Oh, the heavyweight, dude.

The heavyweight. Maybe or Marcus, because he put a guy to sleep. Ah, no, not. Dono, Dono. That guy knocked out De Castro. That knockout was incredible. Yeah. Gamrock could get it.

If they don't go fight in the night. I hope McGessie gets the full fight of the night bonus. That's my guess. Yeah. I wonder if to, like, throw Impa, I wonder if they'll throw Impa bone. I mean, the dude got, like, posterized. Like, he's going to be in the receiving end of highlight reel knockout for the rest of his life. Like, every UFC, like, promotional package ever will have Impa Kasang and I getting knocked up by Joachim Buckley on it.

And then he goes out there, drops away class. and puts away Sasha Palatnikov early in the second round to kick things off I think you'd just throw them a bone anyways just give him one after that I mean every fighter should be getting some sort of bonus for a finish and but yeah

I thought I'm we'll talk about later but yeah the Dern submission was just just great just super great and uh dude she's she's a problem she's a big problem I yeah we're talking about yeah um and that knockout of de Castro by the uh mountain man man

mountain man mountain what's his name was man mountain man mountain oh my good good lord what a perfect nickname and he sounds like man mountain how would you describe man mountain like oh there you go yeah as soon as he spoke it was like a 90s pro wrestler yeah for wrestling heel like if you named a guy man mountain that's what he would sound like i don't mean that's what he would sound like I don't even know his story He was out for like two years or longer than that or I don't I know nothing about him I was like who is that guy?

Oh, he just murdered a man He's getting paid for it Yeah that was a bad knock of that That was a scary knockout No doubt about it that was his Wow That was his first fight Since UFC fight night 93

In September of 2016 What was the main event on that? Don't tell me Oh, let's play that You want to play this game? Okay, go for it. Fight 993? Fight 993.

If you got this, this will be like ridiculous. This will be ridiculous. Did you look it up, Casey? Yeah, I looked at the crazy part. I was there. Actually, I interviewed these guys. I didn't remember. Yeah, I was at this event.

This is first fight since UFC fight 993 or first win? First fight. That was first fight. MMA fighting covered it. was it it's a very famous it's a very well known by night was it in the u.s no no our loss is our loss of arnett nope yes it was oh am i looking the wrong one oh my do you just say nope and then i'm right you are right what a jet i'm like oh oh you know the draw right above it i'm looking at i'm looking at i'm looking at the one that he lost uh right below it like i've seen them the point is i've seen the man

fight before. It was too foreign. It was too foreign. Yeah. Yeah. I was like that his first UFC fight. Sorry. Alexander Gustafson beat

Jan Bolhovic in the co-main event. Ryan Bader knocked out Alir Latifi. Yeah, because I think UFC Fight Night 100 was Bader and Lil Nog. And I think that was Bader's last UFC fight. Jack Hermanson was on the early prelims. Got a win over Scott Ascom.

Yep. Yep. Yeah. That was an early. morning fight. That was one of those cards that just dragged forever. I was going to say, Man Mountain's first fight was on the Silva Bisbane card in London. Yeah, O2 Arena. Another early morning card. What are the peeps saying right now? I'm sure we're going to talk about all this stuff anyways,

but as we await the bonuses to be announced. All right, let me hold on one moment. Let's see if the peeps have any energy to bring us. What we got here? Arnold Allen and Sudique Yusuf was a great fight. It was like everything I hope for. Good stuff. Arnold Allen's a problem.

Yeah, I did like Arnold. Coming into the fight, I was definitely much higher on Allen than Yusuf. And Allen didn't blow me away, but it was a very good performance. It was a good fight and a good performance from Allen. for sure. Musef's ability to recover is super impressive because he got clipped. Oh, yeah. At least twice real bad.

McKenzie Dern just beat top five competition in Nina Nunes. Do you think she's ready for contenders like Carlos Sparzer and Jan Janown? I will tell you what. I was talking about, I was talking to AK privately on our Slack channel, and I talked to Damon Martin about this as well. I wanted McKenzie Dern to call Yawani and Jacek right in that moment. Like, just be like, you don't have to say that, say, like, you know, you stole everything that I've worked for. I want to fight your ass.

Like, none of that. Just be like, you know what, Yonna's not busy. I'll fight her. That's who I want. Like, all due respect, I want to fight Yona. She probably would get that fight. Like, she'd probably get a fight of that level. But now that she didn't do that, I don't think she's going to get a fight that high.

I think she'll get a good one. I think she's going to get a really tough test. but I think if she said somebody's name, she probably would have got it after a performance like that. But what do you think? I don't think it even mattered. I think Dern is such a high priority for the matchmakers and matchmaking her correctly to get her a legitimate title shot

sometime soon. I think she's fine. Did she call anyone out or was it one of those? Oh, whatever Joe Silva says. She said I'll fight anybody in the top 10, but I would prefer, hopefully in the top five. Now she's going to fight Marina Rodriguez.

You don't want to do that. I mean, that fight rules, but it's not going to have. It's a good fight. You don't want to do that? You don't think so? Why? Because they love... They just match Rodriguez up with Amanda Heivas. Why would they not put her up with Dern? It was not a short notice fight, though.

Like, that wasn't the original matchmaking they had. Well, he was supposed to fight Asparza. Then it was just going to fight Waterson. And Waterson guy was like four, it was probably like a month. It wasn't like to slide it in a week. I don't think they, I just don't think they wanted what he boss to fight Marina. It just kind of fell into their lap because it was the last minute kind of thing.

And so like they did they wanted Amanda to beat Carla for sure. I think if by doing by if the UFC books Dern versus Yohanna, um, that that will without a doubt, you know, give Dern a legitimate, you know, contenders,

contendership at the, for the title next. If I mean, heck, I mean, just by rankings, by, if you go by the UFC rankings, what Dern did tonight, she's justifiably, can get a title shot. So, who knows? I don't think, I don't think they will. I don't think Dern should do that. But if she's willing to fight on a certain date for a certain amount of money and, you know, Yonna or whoever else, you know, isn't ready, then I don't see why not. Man, but Dern, like, freaking amazing.

What, it's just, just great matchmaking. Just great matchmaking by the UFC to have Dern face someone that's been out of the cage for two years. Oh, let me freeze. Oh. Now, we're back. Okay. We have bonuses. Not only out for two years, pushed a human being out of her body.

Yeah. Like, come on. All right. What are the bonuses? Hit me. All right. Performance of the night. McKenzie Dern.

Mm-hmm. Mateuch Gamrot. camera that's it fight of the night there's only two performance bonuses yeah it's always been two yeah there's two performance bonuses

fight of the night Sam Alvey versus Julian Marquez what okay what god dang it

what the heck dude that was like one of the best striking oh god damn god Yeah. That would, listen. It was a fight? Sure.

Jed Mishu just tweeted, look at your boy, call it. Yep. Fawkins. Nailed it. That was a, I mean, that was a scrap.

But yeah, I thought McDessie Bahamandes is better. Yeah. And, ugh, man. I know. Just a disappointing night.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll go up that one. Wow. Gammott, though. There you go. And hot.

Pulling the Marlon Marets out and just getting this violent win to rebound. Yeah. He looked good. He looks great. His striking is getting so much better. Gamrott? Yeah, he's awesome. Yeah, I can't wait for, I can't wait for him to get like these high level,

lightwe because when he was in KSW I wanted him like they should have signed him way earlier than they did I was like fantasy match making him in the UFC for too long

and now we can finally get some of these fights what's one of them I really wanted him to fight when Gillespie was on the rise and he was on the rise I was like make that happen

I really wanted Gammrod to find Kevin Lee for a bit just because that would just be a screen scrap. Olivera was won for a long. Obviously he's not going to get Oliver. Felder would be awesome.

That's not going to happen. There's a million fights. I remember when, because I wanted, when Gaichi, because for a while, it was like, when Gaichi joins the lightweight division, and then Gamrod joins, and then Chandler joins, they had literally taken the three lightweight champions that I was like, I need these three to just fight each other.

But obviously, Gamrod was on a such smaller level in terms of eyeballs and like rankings, but I still want to see those fights down the road for sure. Yeah, he looked good. Very exciting. I'll see. What was that question, Casey? What is next for Arnold Allen? Personally, I think he should face Josh Emmett or the loser of zombie Ege.

I will cross Josh Emmett off this list because I spoke with Josh maybe about a month ago, three weeks ago, and his recovery is taking a lot longer than he. he had hoped he's had some setback so he said basically perfect world he fights in December so just judging by just history and how he sounded and how he was explaining things I'll be surprised if he fights in 2021 so I would say Emmett is is out of this conversation zombie egay perhaps who knows but uh what would you like to see next for arnold allen Jose uh I do like the loser of or the winner, I don't care, of the zombie Ege fight,

because, like, that's a fun fight. The only problem, like, the pro, like, it sucks that Allen kind of got stuck during this pandemic, like, he wasn't able to fight because he was stuck in the UK, and a lot of his fights fell out. So it's not his fault he was inactive, but they just said it. He has the longest win streak in the division. Like, throw him against the beat. Like, if the beat just wants to come back, why not make that fight happen?

Like, it doesn't make sense, ranking-wise, no, but I think Aral Allen deserves a massive name at this point. So either of those three E. Gay zombies to beat Cater. I'm not going to say no to Arnold Allen and Calvin Cater if Calvin Cater wants to return because I think Calvin's the lowest ranked fighter that is closest

to Arnold in the ranking-wise. So like they might be right there. So wouldn't hate that either. And yeah, any of those. Like lightweight rules obviously or featherweight rules, obviously. So fill in the blank against Arnold Allen in the top 15 and I'll watch it. So you only

there's any chance Alan fights anyone behind him. Like his next fight has to be someone in front of him. He might have to. But like Calvin is in front of him. And if Calvin wants to return, can return anytime soon and he's healthy, that fight makes sense because Calvin probably wants to come back and get a guy on a hot streak too. He doesn't want to just get fight someone so lower than him. So.

But he might like, I wouldn't say no to Arnold Allen and Edson Barbosa. And Edson Barbosa is going to be ranked lower than him. But who's Barbosa fighting next? Burgos. Burgos. So like the winner of that too, like I don't care. He might have to fight someone ranks lower than him. That's just unfortunate, but it is what it is.

What's going on on, Bryce Mitchell? Didn't he have cert? Wasn't he hurt or had surgery or something? I know he like, he hurt his hand or his arm or something in the feel he fight. Okay. Trying to prove. I find someone a little behind him. Yeah, but I think I think getting a win over a guy like Yusuf puts him ahead of Bryce

Smith, like, I mean, he's not way ahead of Bryce. I'd say he's like two, he's like two wins ahead of Bryce Mitchell right now, in my opinion. I agree. And a division this tight. Like, I think, though, I think he would take the, if Barbosa beats Burgos, I think he'd be happy to take Barbosa. He would fight Barboza. But would be happy to take Allen, though. That's the thing.

I think he would. Hell yeah, he would, because he would be ranked hard. He would be ranked higher than Barbosa. So Barbosa would be fighting up. All right. Exactly. I also selfishly have been calling for ever since they fought on the same card. I want Barbosa to fight Giga-Chiccazzi really bad.

So I don't want that fight taken away from me. That fight is my new zombie Brian Ortega fight. I'm going to speak that into existence. I'm going to get it four years late. I'm just going to say we'll get in 2025. So mark that. Mark your calendars. Mark your calendars.

But Arnold Allen is in a good position. I'm with you, Jose. give him Zabit. Zabit's been gone for a while. We're slowly getting to two years now. I think that's a good test. You know, give him. Zabit makes the most sense.

Zabit makes the most sense with him being out for so long. That's the one that makes the most sense. But we'll see what happens. Who knows? Yeah, he played that. I was going to call somebody in the top five out, but I didn't feel like my performance was good enough for. Like, just say it.

Just say it. There's a beat. Let's go. See, Arnold Allen needs that confidence that Marvin Vittori has. Marvin Vittori just fought 25 minutes on national TV in a fight that, you know, for the last 15 minutes, we were all looking down on our phone looking up, looking down, you know. And he still comes down like, where are you at, is he? I'm like, I admire that man's confidence. So that's what Arnold Allen needs.

he walked out like he walked out and Dominic Cruz like no this guy he legitimately thinks he's the champion like he legitimately thinks he's the middleweight champion right now he could see it in his eyes you can't teach that kind of confidence you just can't you either have it or you don't he's he's got it

I like Martin Vittory he wasn't that angry he was angry after once he got kicked in the in the ding ding I thought he was going to turn green and start ponder I thought he was going to start tearing the cage apart, but are you composed in there? So can we throw away the myth or whatever that Kevin Holland had a mental breakdown during Brunson now that he was talking? I mean, I didn't believe that crap anyway, but I mean, he didn't talk almost at all.

I was like, I was like, come on, Kevin. Like when you're losing the fight, that is the best time to talk crap. I love that. It's like, but he kind of, you know, kept himself for the most part. And I was like, eh, come on, Kevin. He picked his spots in the fight. He picked his spots. Like when they were grappling against the cage, like Holland was talking about talking them a little bit.

It came out at different points, but I don't know. What would happen? Oh, the window. We just opened the window. Oh, uh-oh. There we go. Kind of. Oh, man.

Oh, man. Sorry, my layers got all messed up. There we go. All right. No way, wait. I have a random, what is that random bar right here? What is going on? Technology.

Technology. Technology. Oh, okay, I see what's going on. Yeah, oops. Hey. Dunna-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-a-na-all right. Between the Lings, team. All right, what else we got?

But hopefully, hopefully the answer to Arnold Allen's question is very soon. Like Arnold Down versus whoever very soon. Not another, you know, not another 14 months. Yeah. Lots of John questions here. Yeah. He jumps in first. He jumps in first.

man. I prefer some folks saying like, come on. Let's let's space that a little bit. But Daniel Rodriguez looked great. He sure did. What is next for him? Do you think he's ready to challenge top 15 competition? Personally, I'm down for Rodriguez to face Carlos Condit or Robbie Lawler next. What do you think about that idea, Jose Young's? Ooh, I hadn't even thought about a Robbie Lawler fight. I don't hate it, considering Mike Perry was booked to fight Robbie Lawler at one point. And then Rodriguez is just being. beat him. I wouldn't hate him against Tim Means either. That would be a scrap too. 305. That's true. Yeah, that was our biggest is a big kind of coming out party.

You're right. Jeff Neal wouldn't be a bad fight either. Neil and Neal is booked up too. Neal on Neal. I don't know then. Like, I like the lollar fight. F it. Yeah. That's a good one. What's Nico Price doing?

That might be the answer right there, my friend. Why don't we do a big clash of styles, Danny Rodriguez versus Sean Brady? I mean, Brady's ranked. He wants to be fired. Loser gets the tattoo of the other's choice. Yeah. Other stuff.

I mean, but like Robbie Lawler or Carl, I don't know where Carl, I thought Carlos is booked. No? No, okay. You know what, but both those fights mentioned, I don't know if Conda or Loller or T, takes those fights just because maybe, I don't know. Let's talk about that fight.

The Rodriguez looked good or did Mike Perry look bad? I think because... I think, Dan, what really impressed me with Rodriguez is his jab was on point the whole time. Like, he's kind of messed up his nose with his jab. And when Perry would get, like, wobbled, Rodriguez would not just unload. Like, he just kept the pressure, but it wasn't like, I'm going to blow my gun. gas tank trying to finish this guy. Like he was very patient in there.

So I don't think he looked bad. He looked good, but he showed me a lot that he answered questions that I had, if that makes sense. I don't think it was like a star making performance, but it definitely answered questions. What's Miguel Baezza doing? Does he have a fight? That'd be fun. I don't think they make that fight.

That's fun fight too. I don't think they make that. What do we think of Mike Perry, though? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. He needs. Was that two in a row?

The only one he's beat is this last one over Mickey Hall. Yeah, I looked at the streak earlier. It was not good. That's rough. I had a friend over here watching the fights with me. And she plays this game. She doesn't really follow the sport, but she pays attention. And she says every time the commentators start mentioning how tough someone is,

she knows that person's absolutely getting their butt kicked. Yeah. And so by the first round, they were talking about how, that's all dumb, the commenters were talking about how tough Mike Perry is. It's like, ooh,

you are getting your butt kick because we're not talking about how tough Danny Rarig is this. What's, so Mike Perry has won three out of, Mike Perry has won three out of his last 10 fights. Oh. But it's not even that. He just looked flat tonight. Like the whole,

even when Mike Perry loses, is still exciting. Tonight was one of those weird fights where even in his, even in a loss, it was just like, okay, that was just weird. I just saw a guy get beat up 15 minutes,

kind of. And then, yeah. And then, yeah, he fights again? Do you think we see him again? At least one more.

At least one more. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Because the lot, he looked really bad before, and he had stuff going on in his life that was probably enough to lose your job and Dana White still kept him around.

Yeah, I mean, the Mains fight wasn't bad. The Neal fight was, I mean, the Lukee fight was phenomenal. And yes, he just, would you have fights like that? Sometimes you come back better. Sometimes you're never the same. And I think that Lukee fight might have, you know, kind of taken a little bit away from him. That's good observation.

Yeah, these, you know, these one-sided, these wars, but they're really just one-sided just beatings on Mike Perry's face. I mean, he's still a human being. He's still a person. So his body, I hate throwing washed or shot out there because I don't know, Phil's just kind of mean to say that. But I feel like the best Mike Perry that we saw in the UFC that's long gone. And now we just, a bit of a shell now.

What's Mike Perry's best win? Felder, I think. well my matter of fact I know I think it was his most prominent win I know it probably yeah I'm missing cowboy olivera that was a good fight

I think it might have been that one because he took that one like he filled in like super quick for that one didn't he didn't he take it that fight in like a week's notice the cowboy olivera fight I don't wasn't that that one he stepped in on short notice

I don't remember I don't think so I don't think so because that was on the that was on the Florida card, right? Yeah, he was supposed to fight Li Jing Lang, and then Perry stepped in instead. Okay, okay. Yeah, I knew he stepped in, yeah,

I knew he stepped in short notice. Because I remember reacting to that fight and being like, wow. So maybe that one? Maybe, yeah. The Felder fight, Felder, like, shattered his arm in the first round. So he basically fought Mike Perry with one hand.

And it was super competitive too From what I remember, yeah And that's just because who is fellow supposed to fight on that card? I thought Feltre was filling in for someone Because he came with the 170 No, I think they both lost their opponents And they were like, F it, let's fight each other Oh, one of those, okay

So it was, yep, that's exactly what happened Yeah, that was Yeah, that was a Yeah, I feel like It was supposed to be, it was supposed to be Yancey Medeiros and Mike Perry split with Luke A might have been his best achievement in the UFC. That fight was so ridiculous. That was a bad fight.

What a wild fight that was. That was nuts. I feel like, I don't know how to like, I feel like Mike Perry is trying to be like too technical in there. You know what I mean? Like I, we're missing the Mike Perry that like came into the UFC that just like his sole goal was

to just like annihilate people like street fight style. fight style. Go in there and just throw bombs. And I feel like we don't, that that guy just, and I get it. Like as you, as you get older and as these is your battle tested and you have these, all these different fights and these wars, you lose some of that and you're trying to like kind of avoid getting those crazy scraps. So that was what Mike Perry was at his best. He first came to the UFC just throwing hams of people, talking about his story and just like,

Mike Perry just kind of reminds you of a guy. Like, if you saw him on the street, like, I don't want to go near this guy. He's crazy. I feel like the guy who's seen the last three fights, it's not really that guy anymore. I don't know. Maybe it's just the war with Luke A just took that out of him, like we talked about earlier.

Who knows? Yeah. We'll see what happens. I think you'll get one more fight. Least, yeah, who knows, though? Wafoo. Okay. Do, do, do, do. It'd be like another, let's get another welterweight over.

Yeah, pretty much like that, yeah. Okay, I knew you were going to pull this question up at some point, Casey. Did you see the best of the world, Adelaide Bird, give that beautiful 30 to 27 to Joe Selecki over Jim Miller? I didn't have as big a problem with that scorecard as a lot of other people do. Me neither. Me neither. I'm on your side, Mike. I gave it to Miller, but coming out of that round, I could go either way.

look at the numbers look at the numbers selectie outstruck him and select he pulled guard didn't he you know exactly he pulled guard so he's actually controlling the position he's he's bringing Jim Miller into his guard

it wasn't Jim Miller taking him down and putting him putting Slake in a place he didn't want to be Slecky chose to be there on his back and that is and I think we get the idea just because we got just because in your back doesn't mean you're losing the round. I think just by default we assume that, but it doesn't mean that. And actually, I kind of

respect Ms. Bird for giving it to Slecky because I thought Slecky was winning the round up till he pulled guard. And then once he pulled guard, it was kind of a stalemate. And no real submissions were thrown, no real significant damage from either guy was done. So I would have given the round Slecki, to be honest. Now that I kind of rethink it. But yeah, it wasn't a crazy score. I was surprised people were kind of all worked up about it. That wasn't even close to being the worst scorecard of the night. Not even close. There were some bad scorecards.

There are some splits that like should not have been splits. I saw a 10,000. Trying to go back or remember. So remind me. The McDessie one was one of them. I had 3027 for McDessie. Yeah, I remember two.

How the other guy got two rounds is kind of crazy. But it was all competitive 3027. Wasn't a blow. out rounds but yeah yeah that that one for sure oh it's about george i know i know we're talking about i think we had i got a question on this later yeah i got to find it here we are oh yeah this is this is this is another one jordan griffin lost to louis south out to be one was adelaide bird a judge was she the judge for that fight i don't know if she's i can look real quick i don't know if she was the judge um i i i had i had i had a brigand but i didn't watch it super

close so you know where are we at oh a lady bird was a judge on that fight and she did give it to Saadana yeah who gave it

yeah all three judges not a Rob I thought I thought I thought if they said it for Griff I think I scored it for Saladana but was like if Griffin wins like I have no problem with it it was it was a close

fight MMMA decisions the only two journalists to give it to is to give it to Saddana are Sean Sheenan and Matthew Wells, both enemies of this brand of the other. They're both friends. I can tell you from going through doing Twitter reactions for the site that the vast majority of fellow fighters

thought Griffin won. Okay. I thought Griffith won too. I think Ben Griffin thought you wanted to. There was no this big like, oh, that's our rage. They were like, well, I guess, like, good thing. I'm not a judge type. Hate to be a judge.

Yeah. Hashtag Jared Gordon. Yeah. Guess I'm a shitty judge because I thought Jordan won that fight. All right. It's good scrap, though. Here's the one thing that will be remembered in the future, the history books will remember about this card is the debut.

Yes. I got to tell you, like after looking at the photos and like us talking about it on different shows, but actually like seeing them in the octagon tonight, I dug them. I thought they looked pretty damn good. I liked the different look, the different design. Like it wasn't like exactly like Reebok.

It had like some different flair to them. I liked him. And I don't know who gave Julian Marquez his shorts, but geez Louise, dude. Like those things were like, those were super short. I mean, we're like, we're borderline like 80s pro wrestling here.

We're getting to that level. But yeah, I thought they looked pretty cool. My big issue. Okay. Okay, I'm not even going to how this is just fight uniforms and fight sports. It's just stupid. But we got uniforms. I'm just going to go with that.

Yeah, the fangs are cool. But man, are we going to have fangs for the next, what, five years, six years? Every short is going to just, everything's just fangs. And I think on some fights, is they work but a guy's like Jim Miller it's like come on Jim Miller should be wearing like cargo shorts or something I don't know that just those those like stylish no fangs and stuff just like weird on Jim Miller I just didn't get it you know I just I just wish they had more more variations I get no oh it's clean stuff but yeah I don't know but change it up you know just

have some different versions of it just everything is that that's all everything is no fangs venom venom but yeah oh boy boy will say this um for the the the i'll need well i would need a female fighter but it appeared for the female fighters that the venom outfits did look much better they they fit better and um they like you watch in the previous uh rebark outfit like all the women are always you know kind of readjusting their sports braws and stuff and it seemed it seemed like in this fight um it seemed fine so uh good Jose on between the links Thursday you gave a very passionate speech about the venom gear and you said

I could care less I don't care pay the fighters more money I don't care now that you see them you probably still don't care but do you like them better than Reebok did did they stick out to you at all they were they wore shorts they didn't fall off they were functional that's the most important thing like I

they were they were more functional and like I think that was like I said that when they first announced it like Venom has been making fight kits and gear for a long time. Like they had one of the cases. You remember the old fan expos? They had one of the biggest booths there. Like they were selling gear.

Yeah. They were like, they were like Josayaldo and Shogun and all those Brazilians who wear them. So when they announced this, I'm like, oh, at least it's like Nike and Under Armour are big names. But Venom has actually been making gear that is functional for an MMA fight for a long time. So that is a big positive act. So they know what they're doing. In terms of the design, I fully, I didn't really, again, don't care. But I fully expect things to change.

Like we saw the Reebok was the same thing for about a year. And then there were slight, slight variations moving forward. Like they added subtle designs. It wasn't anything groundbreaking to write home about, but it is what it is. Again, I don't, whatever, just give the fighters more money. that's all I would honestly care about but they looked better than the Reebok's debut. I'll say that.

So like when Reebok came out, so Reebok's first fight card and Venom's first fight card, Reebok blew them out of the water. But I don't really, I'm not buying any of them. So it's a bother me. Casey, you should start tweeting about the Venom gear

like all throughout the next card might actually get on the broadcast. All the Venom tweets got on the broadcast. All the positive ones. All the positive ones. All the positive ones. Oh, man. We got that question. Oh, yeah, sorry.

I'll answer that one. Sorry by that. Two, two, two. Oh, here we go. Ooh. This is an interesting question. Who had the best fight card this week? One Bellator or the UFC.

Storyline-wise, it's one, right? I'm not saying better, but like what we're talking about, about like days later, it's one, right? Like it has to be. Flowing into, yeah, storyline-wise, definitely won. Even though that was probably the most disastrous event in terms of, you know, marketing, but story-wise, yeah, which is very weird to say, a disaster event. Their disastrous event turned out to be the best event, storyline-wise.

I thought all three cards had a lot of potential. and none of the three cards hit that potential. So 9-9 round for everyone. I give one nine and a half. Nine and a half, nine-nine. I don't know. I'll go with that. Bellator was fine.

It was fine. It was just too many decisions. It's just decision to decision. Even though they weren't bad fights, it was just another decision, you know, the decision. I think it just talked to. Forge Kennedy was a lot of fun. Yeah, I thought, yeah.

I thought the two featherweight fights were really excited for coming this weekend. I thought both those fights, while they didn't, like, you know, go fight of the year type fights, they both met my expectations as far as just two top-level featherweights punching each other. And, yeah, and I thought Allen and Bortch both proved to be the better fighters those nights. And, yeah, I thought both of them, they will. I'll say in terms of social numbers, because I'm running the Instagram and Twitters and everything. One had by far generated the most engagement in terms of conversation.

It's like the most comments and replies and, you know, like actual fan interaction and like contributing to the conversation. Kazingano's win did the biggest between, in terms of likes, in terms of one UFC and. and Bellator. But so she had about like, I'll say like 12,000 combined likes and across all the media for like her announcing her win. But McKenzie Dern has almost hit the same number in like the three hours since she's won. So she should by the end of the day, McKenzie should be the most engaged winner of the three cards.

But in terms of all three cards, in terms of fan interaction, it is one. and then UFC and Belator are like way underneath them. Wow. But it's just because there was so much talking points coming out of one. Yeah, yeah. That's why. And it's also a lot of, like, I posted, like, I kind of threw together, like, a couple graphics on Twitter reacts before Eddie's and Demetrius's losses.

And, like, for example, Kazingott, like Ryan Bader's win had 90 comments. total on Instagram Demetrius Johnson's loss had 1,400 comments on it so like that tells you and like Eddie Alvers

had almost 800 and then PFL had 20 comments on Rory McDowell and Curtis Millinder being announced so that tells you where that's sitting right there

yeah and then Marvin and Tori has almost 200 comments right now but it's all like Darren Till would have won that's all the comments. Literally all of them.

I love MMA fans. They're just the best. It's ridiculous. Just the best. In terms of views, too, like Eddie Alvarez's reacting to the loss almost has 60,000 views on just Instagram. And like that blew everything else out of the water. And like even McKenzie's like interviews with you did well for a fight night,

but they weren't even close. close to the reaction that one championship had. Yeah. So one, one, did one one one win? One win? One one. People are going to, people are now going to tune it. Also, it's, I would say that a big winner because they made their debut on a major network in the United States.

I think that's like a huge win for the promotion, business-wise. Sure. The ratings weren't that great, but who cares? You got to start somewhere. They got to put it in front of AEW. They got to put it before. I know it's hard being in Asia. It's hard to time it.

They've got to put it before AW. They've been talking about having a North American show for a while, right? I think they, I had been hearing they were going to open like an LA office for a long time. But then I assume the pandemic kind of threw a wrench in a lot of things. Because remember we interviewed, what's his name, the president of KSW in Las Vegas, Casey? And he had, I don't know if you've seen this video yet, Mike. I don't think you had joined the site. but he had been talking with Bellator to put a co-promoted event in Chicago.

And they wanted, like, Phil DeFries and Ryan Bader to fight. And I was like, oh, my God, give me that fight. Because Chicago has such a huge, has such a big Polish population in the United States. And that's what they wanted to test. But he goes, of course, the only difference is money and which champions fight which champions. And it obviously didn't happen. Yeah. Martin Levinowski, that's his name.

Yep. All right. And I asked him, if you watched it, I asked him about Gamrod. I'm like, where is Gamron? Why is he not fighting? Oh, I remember now. Okay, yeah. You were talking about a fight I never heard of me.

I mean, I didn't hear about the case. Now, okay. Nah, now everything's coming back now. I was like, where is he? Why is he not on my television? Dude, I've been hearing his name Gamrod for so long from you. And I saw his first fight, and it was a good fight. But, yeah, he showed up tonight against a very good competitor.

I was surprised after the preview show when I kind of said that there are a lot of people thought Gamrod beat Guam, but I didn't think it was a robbery. And a lot of people agreed. I didn't think there were that many people that thought Gamrod had won that fight. I don't know to fight too close to you. It was so close. Well, Guam just kicked him to hell for like, because like Guam walked in limping from all the kicks he threw. Yeah. And then he wanted to fight Islam on five days.

And I was like, I was like, that. That guy. They should have given him the Hamza treatment. Yeah. I mean, you come on and say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I lost. I didn't even win. Matush, you should have won. I'll fight Islam next week. Yeah, let's throw you right in there.

That's true. We need to see him again, though. We're excited to see him back whenever that happens. I know he was injured, so. He just pulled out of him, right? Yeah, I forget against who is a good one. Oh, my God. It was a match?

Was it? It was Matt. Yeah, that fight was a scrap and then they both came out, right? Oh, I hope so. I think they're trying to rebook it for July from what I hear. I haven't confirmed both sides, but I think maybe I, maybe someone already reported that. Better arm bar, Zingano or Dern. It's got to be Dern. I'm going to go of Dern just of level competition.

Yeah, that's sure. I agree. I go of Dern. And Dern's arm bar was technically very, very pretty too. Zingano's was great too. Belly down arm bars scared the crap out of me. Because they go on so tight.

But yeah, Dern, level competition at Dern and just, not want to say the ease that Dern did it with, but just, just precision, I don't know, just be technically perfect. Yeah, just great. Man, Dern, I remember watching her fight

was it LFA or RFA at the time or whatever, Legacy maybe? and LFA LFA And I was just thinking like Dude she's not very good I mean yeah she's a good Jiu-Jitsu

But holy moly Her going Yeah her working With Perillo at Ruka Down the Ruka Gym Down in Southern California Man she is

She's much better And she looks so Her arms are so Jacked I mean Yeah It's not even an issue Of her making

115 anymore That was like the big storyline You can't know She's coming in at flyweight To fight straw weights You know if Dern continues this progression

she I mean it's she is a contender I can't I can it's just it's too far a leap to say she's going to beat Rosenom Yunus or she's going to wipe the floor of Wei Lee or Yonna or anything but that's why I love the Dern Yonafai's like

all right let's do it man we're ready I'll do it if they book it I'm in it's fair to say that for the podcast listeners. Can you read it? I think even the podcast listeners know what the expression is. It is in regards to Julian Marquez's callout.

And if there's one thing, if this one thing we've learned about Julian Marquez is that you never know what's going to happen. Like you never know it's going to come out of his mouth. That's what it is. And that's why I don't hate the call out because what do we talk about before Casey? what do we like at a post what do we like in post-fight interviews casey just be yourself be yourself man embrace your inner ninja do whatever you want do a power rangers pose and then call off to play pickleball against the chiefs now everyone now guess what guess what happens the next time he has a post-fight press conference we're all going to be like what's he going to say what's he going to say and now his post-fight

interviews are must-watch television love it keep making it weird never be don't f F the people that say that was a wasted call out. Forget that, man. Now, what if he goes to play his pickleball against Patrick Mahomes? Is anyone in the UFC not in Connor Greger a bigger deal than the United States than Patrick Mahomes? No. Patrick Mahomes is an NFL MVP Super Bowl champion. And Julian Marquez, a middling, middleweight Michael played pickleball with him?

Come on. I'll just say this. Good job, Julian Marquez. I love it. Yeah, I can only name one football player And it's actually Patrick Mahomes I can't boom Maybe Tom Brady I can name like two players

That's all I can name but I know Patrick Mahomes is There you go Good job Julie Marquez Don't everyone that said We need to wait the call out Don't listen to him And I didn't hate the call out Because I shared a photo

Of me playing badminton After this And it was my most liked tweet of the night A picture of me playing badminton because I love Batman. Badman rules. I love it. What was the biggest story in terms of not outside of title fights?

What was the biggest post-fight interview of the last few months, Mike? That generated the most numbers. Marquez? Nope, Dominic Cruz. And who did he call out? Did he call out an actual fighter? Nope. No.

No. Hans Malencamp to the point where people on this site made me ask, about Hans Boland came two weeks after the fact. Good job, Julian Marquez. Keep doing your thing. See, yeah, anyone can call out a fighter. Yeah. That's easy.

Come on, Mike. Can you just call out a random dude on the street and get people talking? What if, like, now you can call out whoever he wants? He called him Miley Sires interacting with him. Packer Mahomes interacted. All three responded to him on Twitter. Oh, Mahomes? Mahomes responded?

Mahomes is like, let's do it. And Kelsey? What? Kelsey was like, Kelsey was like, we can settle this up. And then Tyree Kill was like, I mean Tyree Kill.

All three. He tagged himself in. Miley Cyrus responded to you and three Super Bowl champions responded to you. Do your thing, man. F the haters. Embrace your inner ninja and keep doing Power Rangers poses.

That's very impressive. Start picking people off in every sport. What's next? Boom. Cringe sales. Cray. Rory Macon. Hey, Rory McElroy, let's play some frisbee golf or some disc golf.

Roy McElroy, I will, I will go, I will beat you in Pictionary. Let's do it. Oh, I love Pictionary. I am in. Oh, Sean White, what do you have an Olympics to train for? Me, you, charades. Foursquare, let's go. I would F these guys up in categories.

Four square would be a bang. It was a category. Yeah, come on, man. Julian Mark, and we'll. We're talking about it. Yeah, we're talking about. We're not talking about him getting 50. We're not talking about him winning extra 50K or getting a great knockout.

He put a human being to sleep. And that's not even important. Like, whatever. Let's talk pickleball. I love it. I love it. Julie Marcus, do your thing. That was not a waste of call out.

You know what? You know what? You know what, Jose? I take back my side. I take my side. side back. Reverse side. There you go.

It's back in. That's funny. Yeah, dude. I want Julie Marcus to be in like everything. Like, just call on everyone. Get him on EW. He's a personality.

I'm going to work on getting him. I'm going to work on getting him for what the heck sooner rather than later. Oh, yeah. Just because it's an important question to ask, but I don't want to go back to John Dingin, dingon again, but here we go. John D.

John D. I don't know. I'm not even, I can't even answer that question. Because Kevin Holland could fight in three weeks. Who the hell knows? What if you're eye hog gets her? And they're like, hey, Chris Wyman,

do you want to fight Kevin Holland? He's like, okay. under the assumption it's not another short-notice fight full camp you know and let's call it you know four and a half months from now whatever i mean i mean i mean a lot of people oh he's going get out-rustled by 170 years it's like well yeah but he's getting out-restled by 85ers who aren't known to be wrestlers you know so um i hope it's a welter way um i really want to see his full potential in there um and if he can cut i mean he he weighed in again under what 183 or something again

Yeah, I mean, that's In what Marvin looked Probably a solid 200 in there That's, you know, at least Yeah, I won't see Holland as full. I've seen enough of this, you know, Walter Waughlin fighting middleweights, you know, I think we've kind of done that

And that's a short notice fight Yeah, I'd like to see it too I mean Some fun scraps at 70, yeah Yeah. Hamzat. That's the fight. Or you can do Holland, but you can still do Holland Perry, and it would be all right.

Yeah, either one. I'm in for either of those. I just want, I think the Hamzat fight would be the most interesting because, like Perry is what? Like, as you said, he's lost a bunch. And Hamzat and Holland have that very, I don't know how true that story is, but it's like a dangerous ground and walk. to like just there's some racial competitions in there so they could break some brick in there and Kevin Holland will sell that fight you heard you guys were you guys know the story I'm talking about right he called oh the lobby thing yeah he called Kevin the help yeah and told him again

I remember told them like get him a coffee or something like that and I was like oh no but like that was Kevin's point I don't know if if it was like lost in translation or something but it was not great that Tom's that Sounds great. Has he updated anyone on his health recently? He's been calling people out and he's saying June, July, but the UFC hasn't said anything. Yeah, I don't believe that.

So it's not up to the U. It's not up to Hamza right now. Yeah. All right, a couple more. Yeah, he was calling on Neal Magni a bunch. Yeah, and Magnus seems like in, but yeah, now it's Neil and Neal because Neil Magnus said he wants to fight, but he's not going to put his fightker on hold waiting.

Yeah, which is fair, more than fair. How much of that hype train is still? here. It will be back when he comes back, for sure. I think so? I agree. Yeah, because we're talking about him now. And he doesn't have a fight.

Yeah, but we're talking about facing a guy coming, whatever. Yeah. That'd be interesting. It hasn't even been a year since he made his UFC debut, which is even crazier to think about. What the hell? All right. A couple more questions before we call it.

Mr. Heck? I'm sorry. No problem. Did you get any notification too? No, I got the, do you want to talk to Julian Marquez this week? Oh, okay. There you go. How many more fights is Jack Shore and Joe Selecki need to get,

need to win to get a top 15 opponent in their respective divisions? I would say the road. It's going to be a bit for Seleki because lightweight is deep. I think it's. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Dana, here's the thing, Dana White basically said, because he did the, you know, if you don't know, now you know thing. And he chose this fight and they said, he basically said like. Selecky Miller?

Selecky Miller. He's Selecky. See, he picks Selecky Miller. And he said essentially like, we think Joe Selecky's the real deal. If he can, we're throwing him in there with this gym, with Jim Miller just to see if he's ready for top 15 competition. So in Dana's eyes, this was kind of a fight to like maybe get him to that point. So I don't know. I would say they're probably in similar spots right now. Yeah. Considering like the divisions are in. Bannon way it's real hard right now too.

Jack Shore definitely has a longer way to go, I feel. But Joe Selecky. Oh, sorry. Here's the thing I think that like in terms of what makes obviously watching fights and like how wins and losses matter, I think what Jack Shore has going for him is he has the Cage Warrior Championship and he is a big deal in the UK. So he could get big fights for the UK audience, like when eventually the world opens up.

And all of a sudden, he could like Arnold Allen has eight wins in a row. He has the longest win streak in the division, but he's not high ranks because he just hasn't had those big opportunities. And then we're about like Hamzat almost got to fight freaking the number three wealth away in the world just because he was popular right there. So I think Jack Shore might his road might be shorter just in terms of he's popular. and the UFC might want to get the marketing machine behind him sooner, if that makes sense. Yeah, it's possible. But again, you don't, I mean, you gave him a stiff test tonight. Yeah.

Really close fight with Hunter. Fun fight. It's just, it's not going to, yeah, it's not going to get any easier at 35 right now. Like, if you threw him in there with Montel Jackson next, I mean, that's just a ridiculous fight. Mm-hmm. That's crazy fight. Yeah. And the Cage Warriors' champs have not done great.

lately in the UFC, and Jack Shore has proven that wrong. He's like the only one. Yeah, sure's, sure look good, man. The striking's getting much better. Are we not, is beating, beating Jim Miller not the same anymore? Is it just not mean very much? No, we all decided, remember we had this conversation on when Neil Magny lost, who, or not Neil Magny, uh, Derek Brunson, the Derek Brunson-Hollin fight,

one of the questions was, is Derek Brunson the best gatekeeper? UFC history and we all agreed it was Jim Miller. So like this, beating Jim Miller is what gets you. Yeah. To that next level. So I think it was, it was a perfect,

perfect one. Oh, it was. And I think coming into it, I thought my prediction, I was kind of with Dana. I thought Slecki and Miller was going to be a fight of the night. I thought there was going to be,

I think even Cruz was saying the same thing. Like, oh, we kind of were hoping for those crazy grapple fest. And we got grappling just not the fest part. But, uh, yeah.

I thought Joe Selecki was going to win, and I couldn't really take too much out of it. You know, I don't, yeah. Just another fight. Like, maybe Joe Seleke versus Vince Pichel. You know, two guys who just beat up Jim Miller. I don't know. Where's Vince Bichelle?

I'm in. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of fights for them. Vince Pichel is making stupid United States jokes at British people on national television. Yeah, okay. All right, all right. Let's take one, two more questions.

Oops. Oh, great. So lucky Galaspe would be fun. On an unrelated MMA note, J.D. Martinez just as a positive for COVID. Oh, no. Who? Oh, is that? Oh.

We talk about COVID-related. I'll. We're talking real sports. Oh, that's brutal. He's been raking, too. And Casey, I know you all. And Casey, I know you all like this for, I, basing that off of nothing. Alex Rodriguez is buying the Timberwolves.

Cool. Yeah, right? I have, I'm basing that on nothing. That's like, random Millionaire Hall of Famer buys random basketball team. Cool. It's like, I like going to, I like going to random sporting. Like, we went to a Nets Nuggets game. Side out.

We went to a Nets Nuggets game, Mike with Casey. It was like me, Casey Esther, a couple of our media members. and Casey's like, I don't know any of these players. And it was obviously like Yochick and DeAngel Russell and Jamal Murraywell playing. He goes, I don't know what any of these people are. And he's like, whoever comes in next, whoever checks in next is my favorite basketball player for the rest of my life. And he's like, I'm like, that's dangerous. And naturally, Jared Dudley checked in.

So, Casey, he's the, I'm just screaming, Dudley, Donnie, Dunn. And immediately got two fouls in like three minutes. I'm pretty sure Boston College's own He heard me Rutan for him though He felt he felt I remember he was so bad

I was like I was like I was looking at Esther I was like can I play in the NBA Is like Am I good enough? Oh that was a fun night That was a debit I remember that

Oh man All right I think I think we've Yeah we're good I think we've accomplished What we need to accomplish here Now we're going to start Going down a whole different topic

in a whole different rabbit hole that I don't know people are just are quite ready for but listen that made me cry a little bit Jose thinking about that I remember now I'm actually a little teary okay so if you're looking for something to give Casey when it's his birthday get him a Jared Dudley jersey and you'll get to go hey more importantly hold on before we sign off more importantly because we didn't do a preview show for it former bellator fighter Bobby Leslie defends his title today and stiller and new at WrestleMania who's he facing Drew MacIntyre the Scottish psychopath wait who's the champ which one Bobby Lashley oh oh and still yeah

yeah Drew's winning Drew's winning no true's winning true's got this Bobby's got this Drew Maccitar wins done deal and new mania mania night one going down Shane McMahon's in a steel cage match you know he's flying off of something that should be shana basiler also will be doing the thing probably tomorrow I think so another former USC fighter yeah another former USC fighter doing the damn

thing uh I'm probably gonna watch it now I wasn't gonna watch night one but I'm probably gonna watch night one now you don't want to watch Sautja and beyond it's gonna be a scrap and oh more is takeover tonight no it was yesterday

no it's all I missed it over geez more importantly former a side co-host Big E puts his intercontinental championship on the line against. And you know what country's been tearing up the MMA scene right now, Casey? That's right, Nigeria. Yeah.

So who's he putting his title on the line against? Nigeria's own Apollo Cruz tomorrow. I think he's got this. He was on the east side. That's tough, man. That's true. I love the WWE because Apollo Cruz is like just a normal, jacked, huge athletic guy.

And three weeks later, he's Nigerian prince. I still want to know what the Nigerian drum. matches. I'm very, very intrigued by what that whole thing is. So I'm looking forward to it. A side up for Biggie. R.K.O. to nowhere. Yes. There we go. All right. We're getting out of here. Godspeed. Paying the outro music again. This is the real one. No more oncores for Jose, for Casey. I am Mike Eckack. AK and I back tomorrow for on to the next one doing some matchmaking.

Until then, we'll see you. Have a good night, everybody. Enjoy WrestleMania. That's your cup of tea. We'll see you. Enjoy your evenings, fight fans, an evening. Yes. Read a book.

Watch, Bronsum Russell. My ass, when I want to get fucking like a monkey with American dream, dust the roads. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.