MMA Fighting - UFC Vegas 24, Paul vs. Askren Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: April 18, 2021

MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck, Jose Youngs, Alexander K. Lee and Jed Meshew react to the top storylines coming out of UFC Vegas 24 and Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren events. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee 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

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Ladies and gentlemen, this isn't just the opening theme song to our post-fight show. It's also a lullaby after this weekend of mixed martial arts action. And I feel like we've been watching like 14 hours of MMA. It's just wild. But we're going to talk about everything that happened tonight between UFC Vegas 24, Robert Whitaker, masterful performance over 25 minutes over Kevin Gasselam. and then Triller Fight Club, Jake Paul does it.

Minute 59 seconds, TKO is Ben Ascgren, gets it done, and Jedmishu gets his wish. We might be perhaps one step closer to Paul versus McGregor in the squared circle. I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, but at least we're getting closer to that. There we go. I am Mike Eck. Thank you all for joining us.

I am in wedding mode, still dressed up, but it's a big night. So there we go. Being joined by Jose Youngs. Hello, sir. Here with Alex K. Lee, Prince Positivity. Hello, sir. There we go.

And our boots on the ground in Atlanta GA sat 100 yards away from the boxing festivities. Dead, what did you do tonight? I watched a very interesting, diverse concert, and then some fights happened in the middle of it too, which was a lot. Yeah, but what did you do? Because I was trying to escape

because I've been covering so many UFC fights. I'm like, what would it be like to cover this event? And I'm like, we got to, we finished the co-made event. I'm like, what is Jed done? Like, I'm not saying it's a knock on you, but what if they, what actors did they give you? I ended up just doing like our play-by-play because there was just, there was no access.

And even the play-by-play was weird because there were no fights. So, like, you, I encourage you to go check the website. Most of it is me talking about musical acts that I've never heard of or that haven't been relevant in two decades. So it was It was super weird, man

Like, it was easily the weirdest night Of my journalistic career A lot of it was good and a lot of it was fun But I It's going to take me a while to even fully digest What the hell just happened? What was the rest of the media turn out like? So I can't speak entirely

for it because there were I think there was a bit of segregation in the media and by that I mean there were there were some people that had floor access um so like ESPN I think most people by now have seen the like up close camera angle of the knockout like that's an ESPN camera angle a couple of other things but everywhere else like I was just sitting up in the press box with like ring magazine and sort of all the other access things there wasn't a ton of media and ultimately that was probably the right call because access was super limited

like you couldn't do anything which was super weird like they were it was the most militant I've ever seen anybody about like taking video like that was just a hard no for them I guess because the whole NFT thing I'm not really sure super fun thing happened when I walked in I'm walking in I have my bag that has a camera with it and they're like hey you need to cover your phone and they gave me a sticker to put over the cameras on my phone so I wouldn't take pictures despite holding a camera and pointing this fact out to them and like three hours into the show one of the like triller guys comes up and I'm on my phone's like what the hell is that it was like

your people made me do this. Like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It's like, I agree. But they said I had to. So there was a lot of weird stuff going on. And like all of the video is theirs. Like nobody has a separate camera in the interviews. It's all the trailer Zoom.

So really, I just got to soak in the ambiance. And boy, was their ambiance. Yes, Casey on the ones and twos is here as well. I don't want the concert to end. Just keep the party going. I know. We're going to go right back. You got such a better show than I did because half of that was pre-recorded.

Like half of the things that you saw this broadcast did not have to be live again. Who was live in, Black Keys and who else? Bieber? Black Keys and Bieber were live. So they bookended live. Diplo was the outro DJ and was live as well. None of the Mount Westmore stuff, all of that was not live. That was pre-recorded the day before in the arena, just closed set.

Are there too many these damn acts? I don't remember who all was. Doja Cat, second. Sweetie. Sweetie? Sweetie. Sweetie was definitely live, but I think everyone is pretty. aware that Sweetie was not actually singing live that looked extremely poorly lip-sunk.

So it was, but like the rest of it was all bits that were played video. And so, I don't know, I didn't watch the pay-per-view, but I feel like it might be a little more palatable, but there weren't a ton of people at this thing that they didn't sell tickets to it. Like it was a closed event. So that was to be expected. but like it would have been way different with fans. I think the energy would have been super great and super hot.

There's gunshots out of the window. That's fun. It's just a good night in Atlanta. That's what it is. Jed, can you also, there's one thing I remember I saw you mentioned on Twitter that the announcer is a commentary. That was just being broadcast throughout the arena the whole time. So how strange was that? Especially considering some of the people they had on there, Austin, El-Hoy.

just losing is just completely wasted. It was the best. Yeah, what else? How about, yeah. It was, it was great because I've never seen that at any other event I've ever been to. We're like, oh, I'm just getting, I got the broadcast just from my chair, not from up there. And it had to be super weird, too, because I kept thinking about it for like, I know there were only two fights, like three fights that actually happened that any of us saw. but it had to be really weird because remember when like the the COVID first happened and fighters were like it's weird at the apex with nobody around because I can hear what the commentary team saying this was that only if the commentary team had literally the stadium speakers to amplify what the hell they were saying and so when you get to the the progress situation where red catch just like probably took a dive like I don't even

know, I can't say confidently that he didn't like his own elbow didn't hit him in the ads or whatever. And like, that's why it seems really suspicious that he wasn't trying to milk a DQ out of that. And the commentary team is just roasting him. And that is on that is on the stadium surround sound while he's laying, getting stretched out. And they're like, dude, why are you getting stretched out? This is ball. Oh, no. If he wasn't faking that, like, can you imagine how upset that dude would justifiably be?

Like, Mario Lopez is just like, I think this dude's a liar. A.C. Slater is calling me a professional fighter a liar. This is bullshit. It was so overtaking this. That's the greatest event of the year. Oh, it's so good. Man, that was, that seemed fun. So it was, and I don't, because I don't want to, like, make anybody think Triller was bad.

It, at the beginning, it really had a lot going for it. And I said this on Twitter. I would be really, really interested to go to another one of these when they have a crowd. Because I, I think they did, we could get, if we guys want to, we can get super into a lot of our thoughts on it. They clearly were too heavy into the music thing. There was just too much of that. But there was like a little bit of an atmosphere going there and that would have been like popping off with a bunch of people there. They just were only like 200 fans and then 600 people working the show because you had a bunch of really famous people and a lot going on.

So I think if they had a fan base there, it would have been awesome. It was still really fun. It was just it dragged on. and they could work on pacing and probably a lot of other things, but ultimately pretty good time, and they're probably very happy with the outcome. All right. Well, listen, Jed, you were not far away from the big knockout.

Jake Paul gets it done. First round, just under two minutes. What was it like being right there watching that all play out? So I went down and sat with the fans for the main event, left press row and just went down. to the thing. One, I am going to knock trailer on this because I think they did many things that were good or interesting or fun.

Apparently, after talking to some of their people, like all the fans in attendance won some fashion of a contest. I do not know the terms or how this was done. But, I mean, they had like VIP fans, like you saw Vanderholyfield and Chuck Lidale, like the fans and the actual just regular issue stands, they all won some kind of a trailer contest and if I was them I would feel a little bit like I got jipped because the one uh the food situation was not tremendous because it's not like chick flay was open the the stadium is closed functionally so we had boxed lunches that were not great um I'm not sure that drinks were

available granted it didn't really matter because the crowd that was this group were largely teenagers and sometimes they're parent chaperones so maybe the drink thing didn't matter but all of them are sitting like they were sitting 100 to 150 yards away from the ring because they were sitting in the stands and the ring was in the middle of the stadium with all of the thing going on

and then literally directly in the center like blocking out most of the ring was Trillers camera scaffolding set. So like, you couldn't really see the ring unless you got all the way to the left or all the way to the right side of the select seating. And mostly you were just watching two big screen televisions and it was kind of booty. So I'm going to knock Triller for that. But I went down. I sat with all the fans or whatever for the main event. That's something I usually do for these sorts of things. And people were into it. Like they

it felt a little bit more like Ben Ascran was the favorite like the favorite amongst the fans to some extent none of them really cared ultimately like nobody cared at all what happened they just wanted to see somebody get got and they did a couple of times like easily the biggest pop of the night

other than the Ascran thing was the slap fight replay easily that was the biggest pop of the night it's like oh so but I mean it was pretty cool I actually got a pretty good angle from where I was sitting to watch it, like, clean. So even 100 yards away, I mean, it was still pretty obvious.

And I would like to just, some people have been saying really dumb things on Twitter. That was not a work. It was not rigged. Ben Asking didn't take a dive. Ben Ashton got frigging lamped. And he was saved by the ref because if the ref lets him go forward, he's just going to get lamped again harder. That was done. as probably you could have let them take one more because we know I'm always going to say yes to watching

Benasker and get got but yeah good stoppage and I mean that's the outcome everybody wanted at least from Triller's side certainly well there you go so we'll move on to the UFC momentarily because I know a lot of people want to talk about that that long marathon of a card I can't believe I made it back where any of those fights a little alone two of the fights but I don't know who else watching it. I was live vlogging the main event of the UFC, so I didn't get to see any of it. I saw it on Twitter, but there's the rigged, all of that stuff that's going on. But can we confidently say at this point, and Jed, maybe you could attest to this because you were sitting right there. We saw the physique and everything. Ben was talking a bunch of trash. Like, he sold the fight

great. But can we, is it fair to say that Ben didn't take this thing seriously at all? Like, this is a payday and nothing more? Like, Is that fair to say at this point? I don't know, man, because, like, I think it's more likely than not that that's the case. But people talking about Ben's physique, when was Ben ever in Adonis? Like, he's a little softer than normal. And the commentary team said, you know, Ben weighs 20 pounds more. He didn't cut any weight.

Like, I am not confident that he looked really anything majorly different than he would have if he were coming in for a welterweight fight. Like maybe he would have been a little fitter. I don't think that would have made a difference in the outcome. Maybe he didn't take his training that seriously. I think that's very in play because he did seem super confident. But also, I just, he could have taken it seriously. It doesn't matter. He's really bad at boxing.

If you read the article me and AK wrote this week yesterday or today is when it dropped before this. All that I said in there was he's old. He had functionally a hip replacement surgery, and he's not, he was bad at MMA boxing, which was largely just used to set up takedowns, which makes him, like, exponentially worse at actual boxing, which can't set up takedowns. Like, he's just not good at this, and so it's not a surprising outcome. I was a little surprised that he got knocked. I was surprised he got knocked out early because he has shown to have a really good chin,

but he took a really clean punch and I think what we can safely say is Jake Paul at least hits hard he's still not good at boxing but he does hit hard and he's good at celebrity boxing and he's going to make millions of millions of dollars because of that. Yes, he will.

I'm actually watching the ESPN angle right now and yeah, LAMP's probably a perfect world. Are people saying is it what? You didn't really get hit? That was a knockout. They're saying Ben took a dive. Which is nonsense. No, you don't take a dive when you're the guy who's going to get his ass kit.

That's not how to dive. That's not how a dive works. That's called losing the fight. It's also not, he's the best actor in the world of it happened. Like, if you watch that angle, the ref tries to give him an extra like six seconds by doing that, hey, Jake, go back to you. No, Jake, go back to your corner. And he's like, Ben walk forward and Ben stumbles forward because he got lamped. Like, he's, it's nonsense.

I was really surprised that, like, people started saying that, but I guess it's not that surprising. It was a two-minute knockout. A lot of people really thought that MMA is as good as boxing when it comes to boxing, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, and Frank Meir fought tonight, too, and went the distance. Frank Muir was good. Yeah, yeah. That fight was not good because it was like the exact opposite of what,

wanted to happen because it was boring. But Frank, like props to Frank Meir and Andrei Alovsky, because apparently he did the damn thing too. Way to go old heavyweights. You guys. Former UFC champions. Yeah. Former UFC heavyweight champions just out here grinding.

And Jed, you could hear Oscar's commentary. I mean, if you ask Oscar, I mean, Mir was at some points was murdering Steve Cunningham. Oscar was, he was killed the whole USSR. according to uh to commentary in my house two miles away right now i i'm deadly i mean this a hundred percent seriously obviously the speakers i just told you about this i could legitimately hear what oscar tooya i could hear his voice from where i was sitting in press row like 300 yards away thank you he was loud oh man so that is triller boxing i'm sure we're going to talk more about that this week.

I'm sure Jed's going to come back on between the links because everyone wants a rematch between him and Drake, but let us talk about... How did my boy do? How did my big boys do? Oh, the two warresses? Oh, it was the greatest fight ever. It was a very dead ending.

It was a very good ending. Oh, he would have loved it. Oh, do you know how I ended Jed? I saw that it was a nutshot there or a DQ or was a DQ or was a DQ or no contest. A nutshot to go to the judges. Oh, They went to a tech decision. They went to the scorecards.

Yeah. Brilliant. So we had two technical decisions. A split decision. A tech split decision for Romanov. That is the most appropriate ending. Oh, man. Wild.

But in the main event, over at the, go ahead. I'm not going to have a lot of USC thoughts either. I was on a lot of last cover. So before we change it, I just want to say, I see a lot of, I see a lot of people in our comments saying how much they hated the show. Which show? Which one? I'm sorry, the Paul Ascran show, the trailer, hashtag trailer fight club.

And I mean, Jess pretty much recap to everything. But I want to say watching it from home, it was pretty enjoyable. It was pretty enjoyable. I'm not going to like, like, like is it, mileage may vary depending on the acts that you enjoy. Like if you're a casual fan, you like, you know, you like Justin Bieber or your casual fan, you like the Black Keys. Are you like, who's the second, who's the second performer again? Sweetie? Sweetie.

I don't even know who some of these people are like. So, sorry, so we needy. Sorry, so weedy, excuse me. But again, for, I know a lot of our commenters, you guys are the real fans, the real Harri Corre of May fan, so I love you guys. But you got to remember, this Paul Ascran fiasco, whatever you want to call it, was not for people who were thinking, oh, maybe I'm going to, I prefer to watch Robert Whiter at a Calvin Gasolm show tonight.

It wasn't for you got. It wasn't for the audience, this whole other segment. And at that sense, I think it delivered. I think Judd's right, though, they could trim some of the facts, maybe one or two less musical acts, maybe the way they spaced the fights apart. Because it was one fight. It was just the Ornier-Racon fight from 9 o'clock,

from when the main card started, to 11. One fight. And that fight was 6. That was a bit much. Yeah, unless you're a huge fan of those. And it was, so we. and who went right after Suiti? Because they did like,

they did like musical acts back to back, right? They have like three of them right there. Was Suiti then Mount Westmore? Then they did the Mount Westmore. Doja Cat performed. That was after the second. That was after the second.

I think there was a fight in between that. But either way, I'm just saying, I get why some of our more, you know, dedicated hardcore May fans are like annoyed but what they might have seen for the show, whether they watched legally or through nefarious means. but I just love the idea and the concept of the show and how they try to appeal again to this wider audience.

I think there's something to it, and like we said, it's not perfect. I will be shocked if this does. I see some people saying, oh, there's no way this did more than a million. I'll be shocked if it doesn't do a million. It's gauche to talk about traffic and clicks and all that crap. If a fraction of the amount of people that check the stories out on our sites, If a fraction of them purchase this, it clears a million easily, easily. I think this beats the Tyson.

They need to. Yeah. Oh, they definitely have to. This needs to sell five million pay-per-views to make money. Like, there's just no way. I mean, they're all, you know, they have other revenue streams coming in. I don't know how techniques they spent on this thing. Yes.

It looks very expensive. It looks very expensive. expensive. But I mean, again, I think there's advertising. I think there's other revenue streams, but you're right. It does seem like they're bare, no matter what, NFTs, yeah, they're barely going to come out ahead. But yeah, overall, again, maybe we're just, again, we do work in the industry. We speak for myself. And, you know, we cover a lot of shows. But so maybe I'm just, I like anything that's different. But I don't know, man, thumbs up for me on the, on the ask, the Paul Asker and stuff. I can say it.

is this why is that like a shame to say I thought the show ruled I'm just I'm just looking at our comments I know how I'm just you know massaging my comments for a lot of our more dedicated viewers someone just said David Sandine a regular commenter said shaking my head that I watched this and would hear gas look guy I I we we have assignments all right but let me tell you something this is an assignment that I enjoy it and would do again I would have chosen this one In fact, I did choose this one instead. This is not a thing I would want every day.

But honestly, it was pretty, like, a lot of it was really cool. Like, I don't have any love in my heart for Bieber, but he put on a good show for his, like, three songs. It's like, oh, like, that was, that was something worth watching in a live setting. Maybe it's just that I'm starved for, like, live music and being outside around people. That could even be some of it, too. but a lot of it was cool. They just need to turn the dials back some. Yeah, turn it up.

More, more. More. It wasn't enough. Turn it to 11. Okay, just final dog. There's a dog behind you. Jed, yes, there is a dog. Jed, I know you were tired.

You did a hell of a job out there, whatever it is that you did. I did not. And any final words before you let you off to Betty by. Why are you kicking me off? This is bogus. You don't want me to hang out with you, Mike? I'm trying to do. You can hang out?

You didn't watch the UFC at all. You said you're in the OSCE. You didn't watch UFC. Nobody hasn't said anything in a while. I'm just going to pull at him. I'm just going to alert quietly. You want to lurk quietly? That's fine.

things that I was correct about, I will jump in and be like, I told you. I didn't get to see it, but I told you. All right. Fair enough. Well, we could talk about the UFC. We should talk about Robert Whitaker's performance tonight because that was something. 50-45 sweeps the scorecards. Calvin Gaslam, to quote the great Jim Ross, tougher than a $2 steak.

I mean, Whitaker was landing everything on him. And Gaslum just kept coming forward. He kept getting countered and kept getting kicked in the head into legs and the body. But Gasselm's tough. Whitaker looked fantastic tonight. There's no doubt he should be fighting out of Sanya next after that performance. So I'll go to whoever actually watched the fight to get his thoughts. Jose, Jose, come on in, my friend.

Your thoughts on the Reaper's point. Watch the fight. Bobby Knuckles in my eyes earned himself a title shot tonight. Well, he's going to get. fight Israel out of signing next. Dana Way has already said that's the fight that makes sense. Robert Whitaker responded to Marva Vittory said he needs to calm down. He can, like Robert

Whitaker actually honestly seemed to open to fight Marvittory after he says he beats Izzy, which if he beats Izzy that trilogy fight is going to happen for sure because that's going to be, that would be another epic banger of a fight, but Robert Whitaker said like I ran the gaunt, I fought all the contenders and Dana White

himself has said that fight makes sense. Izzy versus Whitaker too. Robert Whitaker, I think he's exact phrasing was that's the only fight that makes sense. Isra Adasanya tweeted, well done, my son. So yeah, I think that fight is 100% going to happen next, and I am all here for it. That fight ruled Robert Whitaker's high kick was on point today, and my God, he looked unbelievable.

Well-deserved fight of the night, I think from what I saw, a lot of fights I had to tune out to watch some of the boxing matches, but yeah, not the best counter-programming the UFC could have put together. I watched most of the UFC fights, but there were some decent scraps, the heavyweight scrap that everyone keeps talking about on the prelims. That fight was fantastic in the first round. And then it kind of slowed down on the second, and then it kind of ended goofy. Tracy Cortez, I think won the fight easily. I don't think that was a split decision.

Bummer for Anthony Burrchak, one of the OG Arizona MMA fighters. He got stopped right out of the gate. And then, of course, the Jekar Close fell out. a weird night for Arizona, MMA, but not the missed counter program for the UFC, but good on Andre Arlowski. And then after the Arlofsky fight, I just felt like there was something missing with this card. I'm like, oh, yeah, Jeremy Stevens, which a car close would have been a banger of a fight, and we could have had time between the main events, so we wouldn't have to watch them simultaneously.

So, yeah, something was missing, and it was a banger of a lightweight fight in the co-made event. But unfortunate programming for the UFC for all these fights played out. And then Violent Bob Ross, of course, looked fine. I guess a good take-down defense That's about it To be real, we didn't have to watch them simultaneously either Jake got been out of there real quick

Made it easy for everyone That's true That's true I was like I didn't even know what happened And then like between rounds I looked on Twitter and I think whoever's doing the Like the live play by play of like Jake Paul's speech

I pretty much saw like I can't believe how I feel right now It's like a dream and I was like The fight's over already. Are you kidding me? Wow. And here we are. I see a question came in from that dude whose name I don't remember. And I've seen this a lot. When did the UFC card start? Because everyone seems to feel like it lasted forever. 4.30. Well, 430.

Holy sure. So, wait, no, no. So that'll be 7. 7.30. Eastern. Oh, okay. It was a long, it was a long card. It was only 10 fights. That's not great. Yeah. So the fight of the night, as Jose stated, was Whitaker versus Gastlam, 50-45s, all three judges' scorecards, but it was still a good fight despite the scorecards. Performance of the night bonus, Tony Gravely, and Jed's favorite fighter, Gerald Mearschart, with an extra $50,000. Good for Gerald. First round submission. I mean, that's a good way to get to rebound after talking all that crap and getting got in 20 seconds. I think Gerald Lism now has the most submissions by UFC middleweight.

Yeah, that's pretty good. That's not bad. There's a lot of good names that come through middleweight, a lot of good submission guys. So good for Gerald. A. can you say that? And then when you attach Gerald Mearshaart's name to it, it makes me immediately think that, oh, that is a meaningless stat. No, Damien Maya.

Damien Maya? Damien Maya. Antonio Carlos Jr.? Shoface? Damn, my answer, most of his creativity. Why are you pooping on this? Why are you pooping on this?

Why are you pooping on Gerald's achievement? Why are you doing this? Don't be that guy. Because Gerald, because Gerald can grow a beard and Jed still can't. Okay, hold on, no.

I wasn't fishing for that. I wasn't fishing for that, Jose. What's fishing? That's not fishing. You guys were getting along so well. You were getting along so well. Is this round six? What is going on?

Either way, it's a fact. I think it's a fact. Yeah, that's not being offensive. Six UFC submissions the most in UFC middleweight history. That's a fact. However you want to, however you want to frame it, just a fact. Yeah. Facts are facts.

He has a lot of submission. Jack can't girl beard. Ben Affin got knocked dead. Life goes on. He didn't get knocked dead. He almost got knocked dead. He was saved from being knocked dead. I still can't.

How many people think that was rigged? Like, you got in the head hard. People that think it was rigged are people that try to come up with fan theories or TV shows. They want things to work out the way they want things to work out. And when they don't get what they want, they throw a tantrum in their mind and try to make sense of reality. Yeah, it's so weird. It's so weird because I remember when the fight was first announced, the immediate reaction was, oh, this young guy was going to knock Ben Ascran out. Ben Ascran's not a boxer.

That was the immediate reaction. And then now that we're here and it happened. If you were like, oh, it's fixed. I'm like, but everyone, that's what it's. It's like when, when McGregor knocked out Soroni. Everyone's like, oh, Soroni is getting set up for this fight for a payday. He's going to take a dive. Oh, no, sorry.

At first, like, McGregor's going to knock him out. And then after he's like, oh, Sorony took a dive. I'm like, you predicted a knockout. So why, why is this outcome so unbelievable now? It's so weird. I don't understand. The first maybe two punches, Jake Paul threw, I'm like, this is not going to go well for Ben Ascran at all.

He was, like, he whipped those in. And he was missing by, like, I'm like he touches Ben Asking, he's going he's going on his ass even if he doesn't get knocked out. He's a 22 year old kid who's like cuts down to 190.

Of course he's going to hit harder than Ben Asker. Also Ben Asker has no defense. He's like, who's a dude who got tuned up by K1 Dayou If anyone watches, I don't know if any of you guys

have watched it, but if you watch the Frank Mirre Postway Press conference, he talks a lot about the difficulties in the box like he like we've all interviewed frank me before so you know how well he is or like breaking down technically breaking down mhmap fights and striking everything he does a very excellent job of breaking down why it's so frustrating going from mma to boxing like it's the leg placements and how like

if you shoulder roll in mba you can throw a leg kick or you can go for the over like the underhooks and he just couldn't do that and it's why he's like steve cunningham just piece me up because my i just and I struggle with the head movement of boxing and like the foot movement of boxing. I think after this, go watch Frank Mir's breakdown of boxing versus MMA. It's very interesting take. He's always been really important about that.

He's very good. Yeah. By the way, some of the comments, some of the comments trying to correct me, he says, Maya has 11 subs in the UFC fact. Yes, between welterweight and middleweight. I said this is a UFC middleweight record. Come on, people.

Gosh, get it together. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, guys. I'm just getting cheese. But, yes, I'm sorry. What were we talking about, Ben Astrid? Yeah, he got knocked. He lost.

It's legit. It was legit. I don't know. We're talking about Frank Meir and the way he breaks down. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I'm sorry. Totally. I wasn't listening.

I mean, he was on the same card, so you're like, you're in the ballpark at least. Yeah, but was he on the same card? Because those fights happened, it felt like a lifetime. It was a big gap. It was a fever. Yeah. So to kind of address the other question of like the pacing of the UFC So I DJed a wedding about an hour and 15 minutes away from where I live

And it was supposed to end at 930 Eastern and they kept me on for another hour And apparently I was supposed to like live blog the main event between Whitaker and Gasolm And I was like I was so I get in the car an hour later drove an extra hour and 15 minutes back home and still made it back for the co-main event. That's how slowly paced this card was. So, yes, it was poorly paced. It really was. And especially, what was it?

I got home in time for, like, the decision being read for the third fight, and then we got an entire interview with Volcanowski and Ortech about the ultimate fighter. That lasts like 10 minutes. Let me jump. I don't think the pacing was that. I don't think it was the pacing.

It was the fights. Because how many fights? There were 10 fights. and nine of them were decisions. And a bunch of them were split decisions. So, like, that's why it felt like it was for, like, eight of them, whatever. It was, like, yeah, I guess one of them was, like, a technical submission or whatever. I mean, like, it was, and even, like, the Romanov one was the technical decision that, that fight.

Like, Romanoff got the low blow. Yeah, it was, it happened in, like, a minute into the third round. And then he took, like, five minutes to recover. So that was six minutes. That was a six minute round that it took. And then they had, and then they still had to figure out the whole doctor situation. So that added to that. So a bunch of split decisions.

Like the first fight of the night was a TKO and then Joe Mershaw got like the submission two fights later. And then it was like split decision, split decision, split decision, low blow. So it's not like we're seeing wars. We're just like, oh my God, this is unbelievable right now. So yes, I don't think it was the pacing. It was just the amount of split decisions that were going on. It was no dominant wins like we were expected. I had an aneurysm going from listening to the commentary for Trillard.

and then flipping back and turning the volume up for the UFC. Like, it was just so incredibly like just polar opposites. Like, it was, it was wild. I couldn't, I don't know. I mean, Triller had, they were doing a thing, you know, it's something different. But, man, just going back and forth, it was just like, man, it was wild. Like, like, right here, after the Gerald Marshall's submission one, we had a split decision for Pena, a technical, split decision for Romanov, split decision for Luis Pena, split decision for Tracy Cortez,

and then three straight unanimous decisions, one of them being a five-round decision for Robert Whitaker. That's why that card felt like it took forever. I think four split decisions ties a record for split decisions on a card, which is a weird piece of fact that I heard of know. Which is a fine, a fine record to have. Even the, I mean, and look, we all, I think even some of the fights they set up that they were kind of hoping. would produce a big, like, like Al-Hassan and Malcun, I think people thought, okay, well, this

is going to end in someone getting finished. And congratulations for Mawr- he lost. He lost Malmoun, showed off really great wrestling and just controlled the fight with it. And that's why, again, the last and worst thing that they thought was going to happen. So that didn't work out.

That Arlosti-Sherman fight, again, I'm just kind of watching two things at once. It was fine. Every time I kept checking back, I couldn't believe how long, but that fight felt longer than there was a growing, shots in there. Boy, I kept looking back and I'm like, this is still going.

I can't believe. I'm like Justin Bieber's done. Oh, the fight's still going. There was like a point where Chase Sherman tried to do like the Max Holloway or where you like pointed at the ground. No. No. And Andreowski was like, no.

Oh. No. That was a highlight. I forgot. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me that. That was so good. No.

I love that fight so much because I've seen no fights in this card and I won a hundred percent know exactly how the Arlowski-Sherman fight looked. Like, I just know exactly what that fight looked like. Even though it was, it was unanimous for Arlofsky, I think a lot of, like, Chase Sherman was like, yeah, I won that fight. I was like, yeah.

It was a fight, ugly. Yeah, muddy and ugly. Arlowski probably did a lot of clinching to just suck time away. He's the best. No. No, wasn't it? I mean, yeah, they fought the whole time. In the first round, Chase Sherman had Arlowski hurt.

badly. Yeah. And then Sherman, like, Sherman landed a knee to the midsection, and Arlovsky tried to, like, play it off like he got low bloat. He tried, a wily veteran move. But Keith Peterson, no nonsense. It was like, mm-mm. No, no, no, no.

You keep going. That would have been the pro move. Arlowski comes back and throws, like, a spinning back fist. The Romanov fight, when he got low-blode, it was like, it wasn't even a hard one. I think he got, like, a dead leg on the end. inside of his thigh. He couldn't extend it. He was like, I can't extend it.

But it was like the language barriers. So it's like bringing his coach. And then his coach was talking to him. And then this coach would tell the rep. And the ref would be like, no, tell the doctor. And it was like this whole lost in translation thing. He was like, I can't move my leg. And then Espino's like, I would have keep fighting?

And then all of a sudden they're reading the scorecards. He's like, what's happening right now? And then he lost and he's like, what the hell is going on right now? I thought I was about to win this fight. So Jedd pick the right fight. It was some fantastic grappling in that first round, though. Like Romanov took, Romanov took him down, and then they climbed back up. And then Espino just like a hip tossed him to the canvas.

And it was just like, it, I could feel the canvas shaking through my. It was just like hip toss. Like the camera just shook about the amount of meat that was just bouncing around in there. It was fantastic. 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10. That would have won fight in the night

if it didn't end like that. It sure got fine. Okay. We got to talk about actually the most important, the craziest event of the whole day, to be honest.

Dude. Oh, thoughts on Jeremy Stevens knocking out Dr. Carr Close. Jeez Louise, let me, let me hop on this one.

The car close. Let me jump on the gun first because, so, you know, we're, we, We, every, you know, it's typical fight night before we do the way-ins.

We do a stare-down post, that kind of stuff. And sometimes the stair-downs are pretty uneventful. And that's why on our site you guys will just see, you guys just see US-8-23-down. This one, I'm like, oh, this is kind of eventful. We had the show. But I didn't think much of it. We made a video just for the show. Sorry, post just for the show.

And we're like, oh, okay, whatever. You know, that story's over. It's nothing. It's a cool, cool thing to watch. Never what I have thought that Jeremy Stevens, as powerful as he is, as much of a K. artist as he is, would shove a man so hard that he would kill him before the fight started. So it's pretty if everything that Dracar Close is claiming is true, he

says he immediately felt numbness in his neck and in his hand. So, you know, it sounds like there was some sort of nerve issue, some sort of blash, possibly, from the unexpected shoving. If all of this is true, man, that was a super effed up thing for Jeremy Stevens' dude. We've talked about this before the show that, you know, he's, Jeremy Stevens likes to get hyped up. He likes to get hyped up. He likes to get himself in the mood to smash his opponents.

But maybe he went a little too far this time. I almost feel like there could be legal ramifications. I don't know. It's very rare that you see fighters, sue other fighters in these kind of situations. So you know, from Durkos said it was a cervical sprain of the neck. And actually, he was actually diagnosed of a concussion. Yeah.

Because, yeah. You got to remember, too, this is right after the way ends, too. So he is. He is dehydrate, so that brain is bouncing around a little more, too. And I don't know, take a hard shove when you're not expecting it. And right into the chest like that, that's going to mess you up. His hands were behind his back. Like, he was staying there with his hands behind his back when he got shoved.

So it's not like you could even embrace himself. Yeah. I mean, I get it. Yeah. It's weird, but I totally get it. It was the perfect storm for a shove to, like, really hurt someone. And I'm appalled by a lot of the commenters on our, who were like almost almost i would say nine out of ten uh not not condemning jeremy for the shove

but for going like man close what's wrong like either what's wrong with this guy how soft you have to be to be taken up by a shove or he's faking it he must have he must have had some other issue and he he did he want to get out of the fight i'm like i say i've joked this before but like man are some of our readers or some of these uh fans on on social media who say this stuff these must be the smartest most perceptive people in the world if they can figure these things out based on this little information. I am impressed. I am impressed by how they can

these online detectives. These guys are geniuses. And I just, my mind doesn't work no way. All right, all right. I just hope. Yeah.

I just hope Dr. Gercard gets a show and win money. Yeah. I've watched that face off and I was just like, what inspired the push? Like,

what did your car say? Like, was there anything? It's Jeremy Stevens. That's literally Jeremy Stevens has done a million times. That's all I can come up with. No,

Jeremy Stevens. He posted on Instagram before Dr. Carclose was out of the fight. So I think last night he just said, you get in front of me, that like that, that's disrespect. You know, that's all I want. Yeah, Jeremy Stevens. You get in front of me. It's a face off. Yeah.

It's a face off. You're, you're, you're, you're. What are you supposed to do? Yeah. How dare you look at me, sir. Were you going to say, Jed? Yeah, how dare you face me? Well, one, it's really dumb.

it's pretty obvious you should just not fighter should not be allowed to touch each other at the way ends I mean outside of a UFC rule like literally

the actual technical legal definition what Jeremy Stevens did there is battery he touched him there was no waiver for that to be applied that was unwanted touching

and it resulted in injury yes there could be legal ramifications there won't be Dakar Klaus is not going to sue during the Stevens. Close. Close.

But yeah, pretty obviously they should just not allow fighters to touch each other at ways. But I'm not nearly as concerned about this because we all know how that's going to end. I do want to know Dakota Bush has an interesting nickname. and did Bruce Buffer say that interesting nickname on ESPN Plus? I had the same question. Jose? I watched a lot of the fights in the mute, so I don't know. I'm pretty confident he didn't.

Yeah. Oh. Well, you know what? On the graphics UFC has, no, they'll put their nickname on the graphics, and he had him as no nickname. It'd be tough for them to put that. as the graphic, but I could see Buffer maybe sneaking it in there.

This would be a little harder, I feel like if you're just watching, like, it might not register. You might be like, did I miss you that? Hey, hey, take that dirty, those dirty nicknames to Triller, okay? That's, that's, that's, that's, yeah, exactly. This is, Ben Ascrens, this is not family friends. Fights, family entertainment. Nicknames for that are for sports where we lose the fights to

shove in a stair down. This is a civilized sport. Oh, boy. Sport of kings. You could even put it before the first name. It's still funny, but it's just not as, his nickname should be W. That'd be funny.

That's interesting. Decoded. For anyone asking what is the nickname? Let me put it this way. Jed and I had to write about this guy for Miss once, and the name could not make it, did not make it pass our editor above us. And so the only way we wrote about it was,

his name is Dakota Bush. His nickname is exactly what you think it would be. There you go. That's how we'll leave it front of it. It's the opposite of what's on my head. There we're perfect. If you would describe my head, it would be the opposite of how you would describe my head.

It is the comment. If you were watching Triller, think about what the commentary team would think is the Are we still talking about this, my God? Yeah. What are we talking about this for weeks? Our comments. Oh, the comments are off to the chart.

All right. Do we have any questions? No, none. Do we want to talk more about Dakota Bush's career? Just weekend. Do we have, do we have it? Well, I have, actually, I have a lot to, I have things to say about the trailer card, but as far as the UFC card, it was cool.

Yeah, people fought. Guys won, guys lost. Can we talk about, can we talk about, uh, uh, just one Jessica Penny? Can go on one Jessica Penny congrats on a win, her first win in 50 hundred days. But Lupi Godineas looked pretty good too. And she hit, uh, she hit a jackknife power bomb. She did. She did.

That's like the sickest thing I've ever seen. It was, uh, how would she? Go ahead. You probably want to buy a little close than I did. She was working from. the bottom for submission and her opponent was like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna turn into Kevin Nash, WCW just like slam you on the glass. It was absolutely fantastic. And then they showed like the slow-mo replay of like Penny's face like going to rule like in the ground. It was so great.

That was awesome. The fight. How do you win is that like isn't there just a win? You automatically have you seen Kevin Nash wrestle? It doesn't always work out for him, my guy. A lot of Lupo only got a two count You live in Atlanta my man You live in the city He made a name for himself Yeah

It was a great near fall Yeah That would have been the finish for me Casey If I was booked That would have been the finish I thought they went a little bit overboard I thought they kind of That the heat peaked there

And they should have gone for the finish But you know whatever I'm not a you know Oh yeah it was a close It was a really close It could have gone the other way It was a super close I hope they put that

that move and the the Baba Riley you know special they put before the paper views yes oh that was so good thank you for bringing that back up I had so many bad memories tonight but that was a good one yeah there was some I was again I wasn't watching this tonight super close but there was some good stuff going on in the

EofC card like I said just in in comparison to the spectacle of of Triller Fight Club it was such a contrast of all the cars that could have happened opposite the Triller Fight Club card it's such a if you were watching both, it really was this contrast of like, of course, great competitive fights on the,

you know, on the UFC, but there was just not that spark. It felt a little mundane. And then, of course, on the other side, just complete chaos.

Jose, in the main event, like, I saw nothing, obviously. Was it just that Whitaker was that on point? Or did Gasolum look flat?

Like, no, it was... Whitaker on point? No. Whitaker, like, it was, Kelvin Gasoline was not, flat whatsoever. Like Kelvin

Gasselan beats every, that Kelvin Gassel meets every middleweight not named Robert Whitaker and Israel as Sonia. Robert, Robert Whitaker was just that good. Yeah. Like everything Kelvin Gasselm came with, Robert Whitaker just had a kind of that first round. They were just, I thought someone was going to bed by round two. They were just, it was such high level striking back and forth for about 10 minutes. It was so, it was such an awesome fight. Whitaker landed like in the first round

Whitaker landed this like super clean left hook and like before Gasolm could even like react to it he came up the right side with a kick right in his face Yeah he does it like It was like Robert Whitaker's head kick High kick was he was firing on all cylinders Like he could throw that whatever he wanted And find a home phone it was like a jab dude

It was like a jab tonight it was crazy Okay so so So then the next question, which now I'm just taking over hosting duties, I got this. Sure. I got this. So, I mean, we know what's going to happen, right? We know, obviously, Dana White apparently said that that's the fight to make. But are you now more interested in watching? Yes, 100%.

100%. Yes. I think I said after their first fight, I still think Robert Whitaker and Israel, and Zara are the two best middleweights in the world. And if they fought 10 times, I bet it's like 60, six to four is he i'm not sure i don't think anyone beats those two a middleweight have you heard of a man named yole romeiro he's light heavyweighted oh he's lay heavyweight in bel he did it he did it

oh can we talk bellator we should i guess a little bit dude the biggest story the weekend phil davis had an exciting fight his show of exciting by i i'm pretty confident when i say phil davis is probably not even the top five storylines of this weekend. That's crazy. I know, I know. Extremely. Regardless of how much Casey sells.

Phil Davis fought an exciting fight. It was unreal. Well, hold on. I don't know if I'll go as far as exciting. What? But it was a very, it was a very good fight.

It was a very, very good. That was a great. It was just super high level. It was good as the main event tonight in the, yeah, UFC. Yeah, yeah. I'll agree with that.

Really, really, really good fighters. Yeah. I think a fight can be good without being exciting. I didn't think it was a super exciting point. But it was a really good. Like, if you just want to see too high level, Nemcov's striking, it's so enjoyable to watch. It was much more exciting than Jan and Israelada Assam.

Sure. Of the last two heavyweight title fights, Nemcoff Davis was much more exciting. I don't think it was more exciting than Whitaker Gasol, though. I think it was, really? Oh, okay. I think it was. But you watch, Casey, you watch Bellator with rose-colored glasses.

So let's get, let's start with that. I'm, I'm a big, I should have a better than anyone. It was a good fight. It just wasn't, I don't think it was exciting as the main event. What, what's the, okay, I'm sorry. It's the second most exciting fight of the weekend. Okay, I'm sorry. Well, I think we can say the Belator main card was better than the UFC.

A third. 100%. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I've had a doubt. Dude, Hamas. Daily, Hamasi. One of the best fights of the year.

One of the best fights of the year. Amazing. That fight was great. Amazing. I'm not even a Hamasi fan by any means as a human being or a fighter. I know you mean. But that was a great fight. It was.

Sure. And get Corey Anderson's in credit too because, oh, and Vita already had the Yanis. It was not a bad fight either. Let me, I just want to say Stolen. I've heard very low rumors. And these are like low, so I don't know how truthful they are. It should be fine. That we might get Bader and Corey Anderson.

They're looking at Arizona with crap. Like I am so excited if Arizona gets some the last time Bellator was here I'm pretty sure was Belator 100 and I that was like the Bjorn Rebney days and he's like we were like is this going to be a big deal he's like no we're going to make it not a big deal because we all of our fights are a big deal and I was like you're don't stop it you know what I'm pretty sure Ben Saunders and Douglas Lima headline that card that was the main event that was that was a crazy Oh, it was a crazy knockout too, right? I'm pretty sure.

Saunders got knocked out. Big, yeah, by Lima. Bubba Jenkins lost to Larue Burley on that card, if I remember correctly. Oh, that was a big upset. That was a huge upset. Right, but we were like, oh, remember UFC 100 at Brock Lezor and George St. Pierre on that card? And Jordan Revenue was like, no, all of our events are big deal.

This isn't any different. I'm like, stupid. He put it in like the fifth biggest, he picked, put it in like the fifth biggest arena in Arizona, too. So, I mean, let's be real. The, uh, the, the Beltor Light Heavyweight Grand Prix did not get off to the most exciting start last week with Bader and Machita. The fight was a little, a little depressing if you're a fan of Machita. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't, not particularly enjoyable to watch.

Uh, congrats to Bader. How do you expect it? It went as you expected it, yeah. But Corey Anderson, I let, I'd actually re-liked the Corey Anderson, uh, Dolitz-Zan Yagshi-Moradov match. Uh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't think I nailed it, but, uh, but I think the, because I think the

Corey Andrew, you gotta say it, right, you gotta fake it. I think the Cory Anderson of the Pats, even two years ago, might not win that fight. Because he usually getting hit a lot. He was actually eating like, yeah, Gnard, I was like really impressive. Great, great counterstriker. He knew exactly what he wanted to. He just trying to time an uppercut. Of course, he knows Anderson is going to try to shoot in on him.

But Anderson was really patient. He got caught with the upper cut a few times. He changed his, he kind of changed his timing. And then eventually, you know, he was patient. He did not try and force the takedowns. And then when he finally got at the end of round two, that's when you kind of knew that it was over for for Yaksa Miroadov and then took over in round three

so I was actually really impressed by Corey Anderson and Yaxi Mordov looked great too but really impressed by Corey Anderson very mature like that that's what you want to see from a guy like him at this stage of his career you want to see that he's learned these things so yeah really looking forward to the next round and of course Yorwell Romero and Anthony Rumble Johnson on May 7th yes that's a great main card too

it lost some sizzle Let's not talk about that until it actually happens. Of course, of course. That's a long time. That's a long time. This guy. Yes. I'm looking forward to that card.

I think I might actually be there for that one. So I'm looking forward to heading to beautiful scenic, Uncassville, Connecticut once again. I've missed that beautiful scenic area. I'm jealous. All right. Do we have anything else we would like to discuss? I don't see any questions.

I don't see any questions. The ultimate fighter. The ultimate fighter rosters are out. So there we go. June 1st, I think. Vince Murdoch, welcome back to the fold, as it were. Hopefully he's healthy. Apparently, there's a media day on Monday, but I won't be there because I'll be on a plane.

Good to see some New England. Yeah, buddy. Who's there from New England, Mike? Go ahead. Ed. Cameron Lecinoff is the middleweight from Springfield Mass. And one of the best prospects in the sports, in my opinion, going to be part of the band weight, 5-0 Mitroposo.

Really looking forward to that. That kid is legit. He's more of a flyweight, but he's had to kind of fight most of his run at 35 because, like, opponents fell out, like, the day of fights, like three or four different times. But he's a, he's a little. legit prospect noted about it. So glad to see both those guys get their opportunity.

Of course, Volkinovsky and Ortega did their best to try to sell that season and sell their fight. And I just, man, okay. Tough never die. Yeah. Tough never die, boys. They tried. They tried. It should be fun.

Toughs back. When is that happening? June. June 1st. June 1st. I believe is the first episode. And then you get probably 10 weeks, 10 weeks of episodes. And then, uh, and then, uh, and then,

so I have got like six weeks to catch up on all the previous seasons of tough. Yeah, just binge it. Just hit that binge. Don't forget the China season, which is not called the ultimate fighter. So you got to be careful. It's called, it's called something like the perfect warrior or something. So you're going to have to, and I don't think it's on fight pass. You're going to have to stream that.

It's such a better name. The perfect. It's something like that. It's something like that. That season was hilarious. I watched every episode of that You watched every episode? I've only seen it.

I watched that whole season on purpose because of how hilarious it was. The first episode, they put them through the ringer like an MMA camp and one of the guys just can't handle it because he's not even a fighter. He's a yoga teacher and he's using the ultimate fighter.

He's like, I want to use this to become famous. Like he openly says it. Like he's like, I don't want to be a fighter. I'm just here for the fame. And he's just like, I can't do this. And then after episode four, the coach, all of the side of one of the coaches leaves.

And they bring in Kung Lee and his team, Kungley's the Dana White of the season. Kungley just brings his team to coach. And then Kungley eventually did an interview on MMA fighting where he's like, that coach didn't know how to train MMA. So we had to get rid of him. Oops.

And don't forget, also, Tough the Smash is, which was one of the best seasons. That's the UK versus tough. No, it's the Smashes. No, is it just Smashes? It's the Ultimate Fighter Smashes, not the Ultimate Fighter, the Smashes.

You K.K.U. I think, AK, you knew, you know, you casual. No, no, no. No, I believe the episode series was called The Smashes. It's Tough Smashes. I'm looking at IMDB right now. It is called The Smashes. That might not be accurate.

You want to see the theme of these shows? I say something that is 100% factual. No one believes me. And then it turns out to be a fact. No, it's wrong. No, I just told you you're wrong. It's called the Smashes. I just told you it is.

I looked it up. You are, you are. No, I know why. I'm A.K. And it's called Smashes. You're correct, Jose. Come on. Thank you.

Thanks. I like my headphones. It's been a great show, guys. I'm okay. See, here's the thing. If you go by Wikipedia, it's the smashes. If you go by UNAZ.com, it's just smashes. But it's the smash.

You're right. Yes. It's a play of a 130-year-old cricket rivalry that we all know. Yeah, it's cricket. I'm sorry, not rugby. Yes, of course, of course. But that's a great season. Very under, really, really good season.

All right. When did you all stop watching stuff? Never. Season five. Never. It's five. They're playing. They're playing us off.

When they stopped making them, that's when I stopped. I think we're done. Kelvin Gasselham versus Jared Cannonier, make it happen. Of course, matchmaking will be discussed tomorrow. On onto the next one, my stuff on AK will try to decipher all things that happen. I don't think we're going to touch that one. Oh, come on. You've got to get Jake Paul upon it.

They tried to send one. not a bad box in regard we got some we got some reader we got some listener suggestions for Jake Paul

so there you go so that's covered that is covered don't worry about that all right well we'll discuss he'll get Dylananas and more with him he'll get

deleterated yes he would like the woodly idea is interesting I don't I don't need that I love the idea of becoming a millionaire by beating up

jiu-tizu guys this is great in the ring what an absolute All right, we're out of here. Good night, everybody, you crazy animals. Happy birthday, AK. Nope.

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