MMA Fighting - UFC Vegas 56 Post-Fight Show | Was Herb Dean Too Quick Stopping Alexander Volkov's Win Over Jairzinho Rozenstruik?

Episode Date: June 5, 2022

Alexander Volkov put Jairzinho Rozenstruik away in just over two minutes in the heavyweight main event of UFC Vegas 56, but Herb Dean once again found himself in the center of controversy in the MMA community for the stoppage. Was the veteran referee correct in his decision, or was it too soon? That question is discussed with MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee following the UFC's first June event. Other topics include the ceiling of rising prospect Movsar Evloev following his impressive win over Dan Ige, referees not taking away points enough, Felice Herrig announcing her retirement following an emotional submission loss to Karolina Kowalkiewicz, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Shop now at IKEA.ca.ca. Black Friday. IKEA. Bring home to life. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. We have seen Vegas 56 post show live. It starts now. Yes! And we're so excited because,

it's 6.48 p.m. Eastern time. And a UFC fight card is, it's done. It's over. It is wrapped. And it was capped off by a first round TKO win for Alexander Volkov against Jarzino Rosenstrike. He gets it done, ends it quickly, just over two minutes. We had a tremendous performance from Mobzar Evloev in the co-main event. All in all, pretty fun day.

Pretty fun card. in. I like the fact that it started at 1 p.m. Eastern. We have all this energy. It's before 7 p.m. Eastern. And we're here to talk about it with all of you. So thank you for joining us. I am Mike ack, joined by my best friend. Once again, the Prince of Positivity, Mr. Alexander Kaylee. Hi, A.K. Uh, my best friend, hello. Yeah, let's be honest with people. Sometimes, listen, we love doing this show. We always love doing the show. Okay. That's never, that's never in debt. Why am I so, Why don't they so dim? Why don't say, I need help my lighting over?

Anyway, we always love doing post-fight shows and being here for you, the listeners, and the viewers. But sometimes it's 3 a.m., you know, on the East Coast. And we're dragging our asses a little bit. Okay, I'll be honest. We're dragging our asses a little bit. But today, there shall be no ass dragging. There shall be no dragging of the asses.

And you guys are getting, like, 100% quality Mike, Casey and myself. Yes, Casey is here on the ones and twos as well. But, AK, let's start with this main event, my best friend. Alexander Volkov stops Jarzidi-Dio Rosenstrike in the first round, just over two minutes. If you said that this fight was going to be stopped in just over two minutes of the first round, you probably weren't going with Alexander Volkov to have that number next to his name. You would have thought maybe Jarzini Rosenstrike would have that number next to his name. Volkov gets it done.

And once again, AK, our good book. Herb Dean finds himself in the middle of potential referee and controversy because Volkov lands a big right hand. I thought Jarzino was in big, big trouble. Fight is stopped. Jarzino protests and a lot of other people seem to protest it as well. And I was doing the live blog while I was trying to look at the computer screen, look at the TV screen, kind of go back and forth to try to recap this fight as it was happening. Didn't have an issue with the stoppage looking at the replay.

I guess I could see why there's an argument here, but I still ultimately don't have a giant issue with the stoppage. Your thoughts on the stoppage, was it too early? Did you have an issue with it? That's fine. It was early, but not bad. Not all early stoppers are bad. He certainly could have given in Jarzino a little more time to work out of that situation.

But I mean, man, when you see that mouthpiece go flying and the punches, those hard punches is coming in, your first instance is to step in. The other, the, a more than fair criticism is that, man, like, you know, the problem with Irvis, he's just so hesitant. Like, he's got to be definitive. He's really got to step in there and make it clear because I think that's part of the frustration for Jarizio is like he wasn't, it wasn't clear to him to the fight of him and

stop. So he's like, what the hell's going on? Maybe he was also daged from the punches, so that contributed to it. So the execution of the stoppage, again, has to be better. I don't mind the timing. Again, once I saw that meltpiece flat, I was like, oh, man, like, Jerry's, Rezigno is in serious trouble. That doesn't mean he's, you know, he's completely out of it.

But I think it was only going to get worse from there. So early, yes, everyone calling it early, I think completely accurate. But not bad. It was early and it stopped a fighter from probably getting knocked out anyway and just getting really badly hurt. So, yeah, I mean, you know, Jarzino has every right to be frustrated. And I'm sure he's not going to look back on even after he reviews the footage. He's still going to see like, man, I really could have come back. I really wish Herb hadn't stepped in there.

But he got put in a really bad position, and I think we should give a lot of praise, mostly to Mr. Volkov for coming out of the gates hot, something he has no, he's done. This is his first, first round finish in six years. He's certainly had some impressive knockouts since then, but never this quickly. It does not usually put people out in the opening round, but he did this time. So all the props to him, I understand the Herbdenian criticism. I'm okay with it. I think he did fine, but it was early, just not early in a bad way, in my opinion.

but it's certainly not clear cut. Yep. I have no issue with the actual stoppage itself. I'm completely with you that I have an issue with him being like, oh, oh, oh, he's on like wobbly legs almost. He's like, he's so unsure of himself. It annoys me about Herb and these stoppages. It's not, I didn't think it was an early stoppage.

It's just him being so unsure about it. Like, Jarzini was probably looking at him. He's thinking about it and then he's not thinking about it. He's doing the freaking hokey pokey and turning it all around. And then finally stops. the damn fight. I can understand the frustration from that aspect. But the turning point, for me in the fight, and let me see if you agree with this is, you know, Volkov comes out, he's landing the leg kicks, he's landing the jab, the leg kicks were clearly adding up.

Jarzino was starting the fight. I was like, oh boy, this is just going to be 25 minutes of this. Jarzino doesn't look like he's doing anything. But then he explodes a little bit, puts Volkov on the back foot slightly, and then he lands this insane right hand. just launches it at him, hits him with everything he has, and then Volkov's like, okay, and then he actually smiled at Jarzino and not like the,

I'm hurt really badly, but I'm going to smile at you to make you think that I'm not hurt. This was a, all right, you just gave me your best shot, and I took it, and now you're done, look. And then from there, Volkov lands the right hand and the fight is over there after.

Did you notice that as well, that Jarzino just landed the big shot, Volkov didn't go down, and you just felt like, oh, boy, this is not going to be a good night for Biggie Boy. Yeah, because I think anyone who watched our preview show, we were kind of like, man, we want to see that aggressive Jarzino come out. I said first round knockout. I picked that for fun. I think you said second or third.

That's the second. You said second. I think Jed said third. So we're all kind of hoping to see an explosive knockout. And, hey, Jarzino, came out. Like you said, it came out good. Landed a clean shot. Landed a clean shot that we'll put down the, the Allen.

and crowders of the world. Not enough to put down the Volkov, of worstly. Very good chin. I mean, normally a guy's been around that long. You'd say, you know, you'd think there'd be some wear and tear there, and he's certainly been knocked out before,

but he's got good defense too. And, yeah, I'm sure he's not feeling great. I'm sure his jaws and he tore his hell later. But he took it. And, yeah, that's when we all kind of knew, like, oh, man, maybe this isn't going to go the way it could go for Jarzino. And, hey, you know,

And maybe if he had had time to recover and gone to the later rounds, still could have found that knockout. But for sure, Volkov, showing that resilience, showing that chin, and shown he still has plenty. He has a lot of knockouts in his career. And he can still get it done. So yeah, we're a weird, you know, there was some, remember we were asking the Q&A, Mike,

was there some disrespect for Volkov? Yeah, for sure. I think so for sure. Definitely as far as, you know, saying who could finish you. Most of us were like Volkov by decision, Jarzino by knockouts. So, hey, props to Volkov for turning that around and all of us. That's great. Yes, I agree.

Big win. It kind of puts Volkov in the same position he's in. And Jarzina Roseny's in a pretty awful position because he's probably going to have to fight like Alexander Romanov now. And that is not fun for anybody. But good win for Volkov. The big question coming out of it is just how damn powerful is Derek Lewis? Because he just needed one, really, to knock Volkov out.

and Jarzino hit him with one that looked just as good, but didn't do any damage to the man whatsoever. So good win for Volkov. I get where you're coming from where some people thought there was some disrespect. I think most people expected Volkov to win this fight, and he was the more skilled fighter, but he was kind of the, I don't know, boring was the right word, but some people was kind of like,

he's kind of the boring choice. He'll probably win a 25-minute decision while if this fight gets finished, it's going to come from Jarzino. So I get where you're coming from there, okay. Is it possible to get Biggie Boy on kind of the TIE Tuvasa rehabilitation track? Now, Ty, you know, after his first sort of run in the UFC, like going 3 and O, his initial, I'm sorry to say his start to the UFC didn't climb as high as Jarzino. Jarzino is in the top 10. I don't think Tuivasa, at least according to the UFC rankings, not they matter, ever made it past 1312?

I don't think he was ever ranked the top 10 where Jarzino is now. So I wish Jarzini could get pulled back to kind of that range that Tuivasa got pulled into. because Tewavasa before the Lewis win here's who he fought he went to three fight losing streak then he fought Stefan Struv a good fighter but kind of on his way out Harry Hunsucker

the infamous Greg Hardy and Augusto Sakai so you know Sakai and Struv certainly quality names but very winnable fights for Tui Vasa I'm sure there's winnable fights for Rodenstrike in the top 10 but it would be cool if again for a guy

who is still pretty inexperienced in MMA they could kind of scale down the match just a touch just kind of pull him back a little bit. Like, I know it's the UFC, they don't, they won't necessarily do that, and they don't care. And I'm sure Rosenstrake only wants to fight top 10 guys, but it would be cool if we could get him some less,

tough, less difficult competition. Okay, we don't have bonuses yet as we are alive right now. I think we do. I think we do. I think we do. Yeah, so I can't guess. I've seen them. Oh, go ahead, guys.

Yeah. Okay. All right. O'Day Osborne gets himself 50 Gs. Karine Silva gets 50 Gs for her finish of Pollyano Patelio and not really a big surprise for fight of the night. Mike Trezano and Lucas Almeida,

those two tore the damn house down. They tore the roofop to join Ake as a great fight. Do you agree with the bonus selections here? Oh, so you just saw them. That wasn't your guesses. I saw them. Oh, I thought you were guessing. I was like, amazing.

I was like, amazing. Mike, four for four, right on. point fantastic no uh yeah i nailed it i nailed it yeah those are all good uh obviously they weren't going to give it to volkov um because there was just you know the slight it wasn't the most satisfying finish and that wasn't going to happen uh you had to give a fight of the night so i mean and almeda and chazano was wild and super fun so uh well deserved for them osborne's finish was fantastic i don't think you take away from man they're really good finishes like i would love if we could give a bonus to mosar of loev you know just for having such a well i know we'll talk about him more

in a bit, but having such a strong performance against like such a tough, like top 10 gatekeeper and Danny Gaye. But when you have this many finishes to choose from, you're not going to go with the guy who won by decision. I understand that. Yeah, I don't have a problem with it. Alonzo Medafield would have been funny.

That would have been awesome. Are you kidding me? That would have funny, but I don't think you can reward a guy. Well, they should have rewarded him for for finishing a man who tried to make a fool out of the UFC in Ascar, Mosarov and Tony Gravely would have been nice too. I think maybe that just confused.

There's so many ways you could have gone. This is one of those nights where you wish is everyone who got to finish or put on a good performance, got an extra 50 Gs. So again, hopefully it did carry these guys backstage or the next time contract negotiations to come around because Aaron Glantzrell had a really good finish to. Carolina Kolvakovic is just so emotional. So a lot of good moments. But I don't think, yeah, I can't fault the four, the two performance bonuses they picked in

the fight of the night. It's pretty solid. I just would have gone, I don't think I would replace either of, maybe Tony Gravely instead of, instead of Crini Silva. Yeah, but Crina Silva was really good. So, yeah, can't complain. It was really good. I would have given it to Colvich over Karine, if we're being honest.

I thought I just snapping that long losing streak. She dominated Felice Herrig. That finish was really good. Just like we're going to remember Carolina's finish a lot more than Karine Silva's finish. what we're thinking about. If we ever talk about this card again, we're going to be thinking about Carolina's finish way more.

So congratulations to the bonus winners. They got it done. Interesting night of fight, interesting day of fights. Let's talk about Mobsar of Loiav, AK, because Dan Ige, first few minutes of that fight was looking pretty sharp.

He was landing some shots. He was looking good. And then the flying knee from hell from Mobsar of Loiav, which would have knocked out pretty much anybody else in this division, except for Dan Igay and maybe Cali and maybe Calvin Cater. I could probably put Max Holloway on that list. But that was such a vicious and beautifully time flying knee.

Cuts open Dan Igay is a bloody mess. Ige, of course, tough as anything, survives it, continues to fight on. And if Loeff goes on to sweep the judge's scorecards, gets it done. And Ige had his moments and was a gamer as expected, as no one's surprised by that. But man, how good is Mobsar of Loeff?

Is this guy for real, for real? A.K. Are you higher on him now than you were heading into this fight? Or is this kind of what you expected? I mean, and again, in our sort of prospect rankings, we did earlier this week on the ranking show podcast, I kind of put him just behind Ilya, but yeah, with all the question marks about Toporia, is he, you know, is he going to be sticking around a featherway, is light wind his future? Man, you might want to jump Mosar above him because it, yeah, it was, first of all, great piece of matchmaking today. I think we all thought when this matchups together, perfect matchup for Vloyev.

You want to gauge how good this guy is. You give him a guy like Danigay. Danigay never gets finished. Really good all-around fighter. He's got knockout power. He's got great Jiu-Jitsu. So you want to test someone coming up. You want to test how real their undefeated record is.

This is the guy you put him up against. And we were all pretty accurate with our predictions as well. If people can go back to the preview show, we all kind of said the same thing. It'll be a convincing and impressive win for Vloev, but not just because. Because like, oh, Ike isn't on his level. The fact is Ege is a really good fighter. And to see Evalho performed the way he did tonight,

that's what makes it so impressive is that he made, at times, made Ege look like, you know, a guy who was on his level. So I'm not surprised he didn't get the finish. I think he got one 30, 26 on the scorecards. Well deserved. You probably, you know, I don't think it was overwhelmingly around that need to be a 10-8, but I'm certainly glad he got one. I think it does reflect like how, like, the quality of his performance.

So yeah, super high on them. I mean, I mean, when you've got that strong of a wrestling base, plus, man, some legitimately, like, some legitimately, like, some legitimately exciting stand-up skills. I mean, you have got yourself a guy who, and the right call-outs after two. Arnold Allen, people say, Bryce Mitchell, same fight, Bryce Mitchell. I mean, he's got some really, really good opportunities ahead of him. So it's just, it's just really exciting.

Calls out Arnold Allen, said, let's go in UK, basically said that Alan has ducked him and turned him down and that he won't answer the phone when it comes to fighting of Loyap. Do you like that? Was that the right call-out for you? Do you like that one? Arnold Allen was a great call-out.

Like I said, I think there's a lot of good options out there. But yeah, if he can get that fight, that is the one. And if you're Arnold Allen, I think you should want that fight too, because for a lot of us, our biggest critique,

our two biggest critiques for Arnold Allen is, he just can't, he's just not active enough. You know, he just hasn't been able to get in there. And there's been some questions is about his level of competition. I mean, he has good names. Gilbert Melendez was a nice win.

I mean, even when it happened, I know Melendez, you know, was far from his prime, but on paper, a nice win. Dan Hooker, a nice win on paper, not a guy who's really a featherweight contender, but well-liked by the fans, was ranked at lightweight.

But there's all these caveats with the guys that Alan's beaten. If he fights Evloev and puts on a good performance, win or lose, it'll tell us a lot about where Arnold Allen is because some people think that guy's already a top five talent, Jedmishu, for example.

And some people think, again, he hasn't quite got the names on his resume to make him a surefire, like someone who really belongs to be in that top five or even top six, top seven, top eight. And I think Abloyov has very firmly put himself in that discussion with that performance today. So if you're Alan, I think you would happily take that, especially if you can get it in a home date, or at least somewhere closer to home. And if you have Lov, yeah, very smart. and very quality Habib like promo, by the way.

I tweeted that I think Habib has been more influential on the UFC promo game than even Connor McGregor because how many people copy Habib's kind of style his phrases and how much does that stick with fans? I think it's really effective. So maybe a little derivative, but I think people are definitely going to remember everything of Loyup did tonight.

It's kind of torn on the middle on Twitter on how people viewed the callout. Some people thought it was a great call out and they want to see the fight, and other people, most notably Arnold Allen fans are like, oh, come on, the guy's 9 and 0 in the UFC. Why would he take such a big step back against this guy in of Loew? And that is not a step back. And I'm going to say this right now.

I would favor of Loewv, like minus 200, right out the gate against Arnold Allen. And I like Arnold a lot. I think of Loewev is just such a big problem at 145. And here's the thing. I kind of agree with you, A.K., that if you're going to do this fight, now, the time. Like if you're going to do it, do it in England, do it on your home turf and fight this guy before he gets as good as he's going to get. Because guess what? He's only going to get better. It's scarier and more complete. That was a great performance. He's only going to get better.

So if you're going to do it, you got to get him now. It's kind of like the Shamiyev thing. Like if you're going to fight Shemai, like if you're, and you've been calling for like Usman to fight Shemayev, like if you're going to fight this guy, fight him now, that's kind of how. view of life right now at 145. If you're going to fight this dude, now's the time to do it, because if you wait a year or wait 18 months, he's going to be a completely different guy.

And that's frightening. I'm trying to think. Like I think he'd be favored, like you said, favored over Allen, certainly favored over Korean zombie, definitely favored over Chikaze. Depending how the how the Kater Emmett fight goes, he can be favored over one of those guys.

Same with, I'd even go as far as say Ortega Rodriguez. I think it's going to be an awesome fight. Man, I wonder if he'd be favored against one of them. Probably not. That's probably where we have to draw the line. I think either Yaiyir or Ortega would be favored or Vallev, but boy, it wouldn't be by a lot. I think at most, like, minus 150, minus 160. So that's pretty crazy when you consider what they've accomplished in their UFC careers and how, like, how fresh his still is. Very impressive.

Love the Almeida Charzano fight. Good stuff. Karine Silva. Great, Darsh choke. That was nasty. Got it done with, I think, five seconds left in the round. O'Day Osborne, great performance. Lonzo Metafield gets it done against Asco and Mazaroff.

The fight that I was looking forward to the most, the fight I took a flyer on Mozaroff because MMA is just chaotic and I try to choose chaos when I think things are kind of fishy and weird. And there was a moment where Metafield landed a right hand like two seconds into it. And I thought the fight was going to be over like right there. And then he gets the takedown and Mozarov gets back up to his feet.

I'm like, oh my God, he's going to do it. He's going to do it. He lands him shot. and then Menafield takes them down and just slaughters them on the ground and that crucifix. Such a crazy fight. With Instacard, you get groceries that over-deliver so you can over-share your preferences. Want russet potatoes with no brown spots? You got it.

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And yeah, good on her. Joe Selecki. That's a weird one. Okay, let's go to this one, okay? Let's go to Joe Selecki and Alex DeSilva because this is a weird fight. And this is just a weird night in general because remember what we've talked about every time it's the judge's scorecards

and open scoring and all the blah blah blah who gives a crap about any of that stuff. The big issue that we are seeing right now are these referees, okay? You talk about Herb Dean not having the, as Mick Foley has so eloquently put it over the years, the testicular fortitude to say, hey, this fight is over.

This is unbelievable. Mark Smith, Chris Tione, shame on both of you, For how many warnings did you two issue combined tonight? 75? And we took one points? One points? Can we at least praise Chris Tione for doing it?

When he finally took a point for doing it in the right way, he did not. He should not. Five points, okay. But, you know, at least when he did it, he kind of displayed the textbook way to do it, which is he didn't stop the fight. You know, the, he let So lecki keep his advantageous position. And he kind of signaled to the scores like, oh, one, you know,

keep in mind one point after the round. and then De Silva was super confused when it was happening after when he was kind of doing the point at the end of the round. But at least that was the right way to do it. He should have done it more. All the referees should have addressed that issue more,

certainly. But I at least liked the way it was handled. Yeah, I mean, listen, I saw people like on Twitter praising Chris Tioti, great refereeing, Chris. Are you kidding me? Are you joking? He gave a dozen warnings in like 90 seconds.

And he finally. takes one point away. 10-7 round, that should have been like a 10-4 round. How many times you're going to let this guy grab the cage, put his toes inside the links there? Are you kidding me?

And then what was the other fight? Andreas Mikhailaitis and, fuck, read it off? How many times did Michelitis? How many times did Micketius grab the cage in the first round? Seven?

No penalty. It's just warning, warning, warning, warning, warning, warning, stirring. And then the, The horn sounds after the first round, Andreas, buddy, pal, if you do it again,

I might take a point. Like, come on, we got to start taking points more. That's why, like, people gave us so much crap about the Tim Elliott and the cheating things. You got cheat. If no one's going to call anything,

why aren't you taking these advantages? Referring is hard. Here's, we got to, we got to make this, we got, let's know, let's know, the refereeing is hard. We got to make this easy for them. Just make grabbing the facts. fence legal. Just make grabbing the fence.

There you go. Everyone's doing it anyway. Everyone's doing it. Just make it legal. There you go. Take the guesswork out of it. Take the hesitation. Take, you know, take the hesitation out of it. Let people grab the fence. I tweeted. I tweeted. Grab the gloves. Grab the gloves. Grab the gloves. That happened all night too. Imagine if Dustin Fourier and Justin Aitit and all the guys that Habib beat up had been able to do some fence grabbing. What a check? We wouldn't even be talking about Habib was the goat.

Habib wouldn't even be in the top 10 because he'd be doing some beautiful wrestling and people would just be having their hands clinging. for dear life against the fence. There you go. Make it legal, and then we never have to worry about it again. I don't know. Because if you're not going to call it,

if you're not going to call it, then why even happen in the rules? It happens. You're completely right. It happened 25 times tonight. 25 times. Pose our fingers. We're in the cage.

It is such a game-changing infraction, too. Because what we all know, guys, we all know one takedown can change the entire complexion of a fight. Now, I think the good thing is none of the fights tonight, all the people who were fence grabbing lost, right? Yes, but the Seleki De Silva fight was really interesting

because Seleki, you can make the argument Selecki would have submitted that De Silva had those infractions not happened. Now, eventually the point got taken away. Selecki got the win, and that was kind of weird because a lot of people, most people felt DeCeva won the first and the third round. The only question on people's minds was, was Selecki's round a 10-8? because if it was, that's actually a 10-7. And even if Seleki lost the round, he wins the fight.

And that was like the big discussion on Twitter after the second round. Was it a 10-8, now a 10-7, or was it a 10-9 because there wasn't enough, quote-unquote, damage? Turns out, one judge scored at a 10-7. And then good old Sal DeAmato gave Joe Seleki the third round to give him to win, which is kind of crazy. So did you agree with the decision that Seleki won that fight? or is this drosity? I mean, I wasn't scoring the fight closely. I'll be honest, you know, as people know on fight night,

we're usually covering a bunch of other things. I was aware, of course, when the penalty got called, and I was keeping on the second round, but I don't know how dominant it was. I don't know if it was a 10-8. I saw a lot of proclamation for that. I also saw some people saying De Silva won the fight after. Terrence McKinney was on there saying De Silva won.

I don't think that's possible given the penalty. But again, he's probably like me. He's watching the fight, but not necessarily actively scoring. So, yeah, I'm fine with the way, played out. I'd have to watch it like clearly to get an exact score for it, but it feels like justice was served. It feels like just like he was rewarded for his efforts. A draw might have been more fair in the end. Again, I'd have to watch it. But yeah, certainly the one thing we could not have tonight was a De Silva win. So in that sense, I guess justice was partially served.

Yes. What else was kind of great? Damon Jackson. Daniel Argetta made things interesting for the biggest favorite on the card. Benoit Santini

gets his first finish of his UFC career. Good for him. Someone asked this, Mike, before. Remember, why aren't people talking about him more? And I said, because

half the story was him coming back after that horrible fight where both his team and the referee let him down. Eleus Zaleski, right?

Eleus Zaleski was just putting an all-time beating on him and it should have been stopped way, way earlier. Somehow I ended up going to the scorecard. It's just horrible. So the first part is great to see him back, but the second part was how would he perform and he was just excellent wrestling against Nicholas Stolz saying gets a submission.

So yeah, you know what? I said he should be one of the most talked about fighters after. And you're right, let's give Ben Walsson and any of his flowers because that was great, good for him. Yes. Tony Gravely, nasty knockout, Renot, Regnardinoff. this dude's a monster real good Andreas McHaleitis drops to 170 but fuck redid off was

was really good really nasty a lot of fence grabs that fight you could have make you could make an argument it could have been over in the first round had there not been Tom Fulery and fence grabbing and glove grabbing Aaron Blanchfield what an interesting fight that was we watched it live together AK

losing seven minutes and 30 seconds of that fight and then lands the knee J.J. Aldrich falls down Blanchefield grabs the neck. Nasty guillotine, fights over. So good learning experience for him. Blanchfield, she's going to grow from that.

The other fight that there's a conversation about the judging, Jeff Molina versus Zalgis Zuma Gulov. And I think the big moment was when they're reading off the cards, one judge scores it for Molina, one judge scores it for Zuma Gulov. And then Joe Martinez reads it 3027 for your winner by split decision. Molina is getting ready to run back to Kansas City in disappointment, and he yells Jeff Molina.

And Jeff's like, whoa, me? Like, he just got picked to go down a contestant's row on the price is right. It was unbelievable to see the reaction there. So now you see the media cards. I know we don't like to throw out the R word, the robbery word out too often. This is a close fight and close competitive fight. Did Mr. Zuma Gulaf get the short end of the stick? Oh, Jeff Molina.

Come on down. Yeah, good for him. I mean, good for him. We think Jeff Molina those bright things ahead for him. So certainly good for him to get a win over a guy like Zalgas, who has just kind of, again, well, had hard luck on the cards. I think UFC gives him another chance.

I think he's one in three now in the UFC, I want to say. But the thing with flyweight is, like, there's just no easy fights in that division right now. And he came to the O.C. with a pretty decent record. So you come in and then you're facing Menel Kopp. Jeff Molina. I mean, it's tough. It's tough.

So I hope they keep him around. Was he done wrong? Again, sorry, guys. I keep saying I'm usually not actually scoring the fights that aggressively. Especially on the prelims. We're covering a bunch of other stuff. So the 3027 did seem bizarre, though. I can say that with as much as I watched.

But I would also say, Mike, you're right. The reactions kind of what made it so much worse or made it so much more notable and why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone can now point to that and say, well, if Jeff Malina didn't think he won the How can any of the judges think he won the fight? Which is fair. But it also speaks to what we always say, which is it's really kind of hard for fighters to judge how they're doing unless they're completely dominating in a close fight, very,

very hard for a fighter to figure things out. This is why our own EKC Lyon and others advocate for open scoring because they would just make things a little bit, you know, it would make things a bit clear for them and Jeff Malina wouldn't have that reaction. He might be confused why he's up 2018 and one of the judges' scorecards going to the third, but he wouldn't have a lot of it. have that weird emotional feeling of dejection at the end that we saw very strange you just don't see that that often um but yeah it's hard it's hard for the for the fighters even the coaches as well to

really figure out what's being scored this is a pretty competitive contest too uh like i said i'd have to watch it again closely so i don't know how dominant people think zalgis was or if they thought that he just did enough to edge out two out of three or three out of three rounds as some of the some of the media scores said but i saw but for the most i didn't i don't know if i saw anything that was like, you know, Malina completely being handled. But again, you guys probably paid a little more close attention than I do. So I did, excuse me, for that particular fight. So I'm not calling anyone out who says a robbery.

I'd have to watch it myself. Mike, I don't know. I don't know. Do you think our word? It was really close. The 3027 was a little ridiculous. I've seen way worse scorecards in 3027 Malina. I guess if you like go back and rewatch it, maybe there's a case.

because those, I mean, those are three very close rounds. That's what I thought. From what I saw, like I said, I wasn't watching closely, but I thought it. I didn't see how to guy pulling away. My biggest issue with this fight, and I hate to just continue to drive this train today, Her Dean, stopping the action in the second round because of a small hanging piece of tape. Like, this is, that was, what a dumb stoppage. And, like, Maline is coming on.

You see Zalguz getting a little tired. Malina's starting to get some momentum. And then he's, he's, he's like, look at this tape. Oh my God. Herb Dean stops it.

It took like three minutes to get the damn tape off. Like James Crouts was not happy. James Cross was not happy. James Cross was not happy. That was that. He shouted, right? He actually shouted out during the fight, right?

Like something like, yeah, give him a break or something. Right? Yeah. And I get completely agreed to them in that moment. Like what a, what a silly stoppage right there. Come on.

But yeah. So that's the card. Let's go to the keeps. For you, For you stat junkies out there, and again, I would always tell people stats do not tell the story of a fight, but they tell, they can tell an aspect of the fight. They certainly do not tell the story of a fight. Jeff Molina won the significant strike battle, 56, 37, 13 to 7 in round 2, 29, 16 in round 3. So if someone wants to be a stat nerd and say that. But again, I think, yeah, as people are telling me, you know, if you actually pay attention to the fight, there's a very strong case you made for Zogas. But the stats, again, as inconsequential as they can be, are in Molina's favor. So if anyone wants to defend the Molina, go for it, that way go for it. But yeah, I'll definitely take a closer look at the fight. And see, I don't know, I don't know if it's worthy of an official robbery review.

People seem pretty upset about it. So we'll see if justice was served again. It looked like a close fight to me, so we may never be able to say for sure. It was very close, very close. One fighter had something to say about Movzar of Lovlov's performance. Hello, Casey. His name is Ilya. I don't know if you saw this, AK.

I didn't. It's Poirer on Twitter. at Mazzar UFC, you fight shamefully. Another decision, another decision without any attempt to finish it. On top of that,

you don't know how to speak. You don't have the balls to call me out. Now everyone can really see how you run away shamefully. And then many, many emojis. I mean, many emojis.

I mean, many emojis. I thought it was going to be 155. You see? No, apparently, and I've since kind of confirmed this, but nothing is done yet. There's discussions about Tuporia Edson Barbosa as a possible fight, but apparently maybe talks have hit a little bit of a snag. I thought for sure we'd already be talking about this fight on the books, but apparently it's not done. Tuporia earlier this week said, come on, I said, are we doing this, sign the contract, to answer the phone or whatever. But I still kind of want to see this fight if it happens.

At first, I was like, it's too soon, but then you actually put it on the books and then he took it away. And now, if we can get it again, I'm down. I'm down for Bobzar versus anybody or Ilya versus anybody. Those two guys, those two guys are going to be in the title hunt for a long time. That would be a pretty big step backward, drinking wise for Mossar. Mofsar. I mean, technically, yes. But again, depending on you ask, like Teporia has, you know, is a guy who should be facing top ten.

opponents right now. But you're right. I mean, if we go by, if we go by the MA fighting rankings, which is the only ones that matter. Yes,

I think next month, Ovaluev will be in the top 10. Toporia, I think, uh, is in there, right? He is currently,

he's not. Not ours. No way. Hmm. No way. Hmm. Well, let's see.

It's going to be interesting come July, because there's going to be some, there's going to be some changes at 45. If Lov's, I think, is going to take a big step, up for sure.

So I'm excited to see what it looks like. What are the peeps saying, Casey? What are the peeps saying? To the peeps. All right, all right. Boom. Who could stop if Loeb's wrestling? Oh.

Apparently the dog. Apparently the dog can stop if Loiv's wrestling in 145. Ha, Shiloh. I don't know if anyone can stop it, but I'll tell you, like, Bryce Mitchell would have, would there would be some super fun scrambles there. You know, I don't know if he's like, I don't know if he's just like stuffing a Bloyev take down. But, I mean, you want to see a guy who can turn a single leg or a double leg defend it and then turn that into like an advantageous position of his own.

I think certainly he can do it. Again, I would favor of Loyab over him. But I'd love to see that matchup too. I mean, you can, again, look, you can go to the top of the division. I mean, obviously the champ. The champ is so well-rounded. I don't think anyone dominates him in any area. So, I mean, Volcano.

I assume you mean non-volkovsky opponents because, again, he's so smart and such a such a well-rounded champion. I'd pick him to kind of be able to counter any sort of style. I feel like I'm forgetting an obvious name here. Sorry, guys. Mike, anyone jumping out for you right away? I mean, Bryce would be interesting. Just because I want to see somebody test Bryce, someone actually pushed the wrestling pace on him

to see how he would, because he's usually the one that's so offensive with his wrestling, so aggressive with it. That's why I like it, too. I'm interested to see what it looks like with him on the defense. So I do like that. Josh Emmett would actually. be interesting. Like if Josh Emmett loses to Calvin Cater, that's, I mean, that's a fine fight for

of Lovloy of as well, because Josh has known by, especially some of the newer fans, is this guy who just lands vicious power and knocks people up. But Josh, Josh Emmett has a really wrestling pedigree. Good defensive wrestler, good offensive wrestler. He just doesn't really use it that often because he just hits so freaking hard. So that would actually be an interesting test. If Cater beat Josh Emmett. The of Loy of Emmett fight, as long as there's not a lot of long-term damage to Eminet, something that could bounce back later on this year. I'm fine with that. I think of Loy of the loser that fight makes a lot of sense, if we're being honest. Boy, boy, God, I cannot say his name. He's like Mub'sar. Movis, far. He's one of those fighters. When I was watching the

fight, I'm going, I was thinking, okay, for the next, I don't know, let's call it five, six years. This guy is going to be a perennial top 10. I need to freaking memorize his name and learn to say it way better because it's one of those names we're going to be saying it like it's like when Yawanna and J-Jek started winning a lot. I think all the media writers are like, oh, I got a, I can't, I got to learn to spell that name. I'm going to be writing that name a lot.

You got to break it down. You just got to break it down. Ev. Ev. Ev. Ev. Yeah. Ev lo.

Yeah. Ev lo, yeah. Evlo, yeah. Evlo, yeah. I mean, it's not perfect, but it's like, you know, I think we're close enough. I like actually as much as I want to see the Mitchell fight but he has some injury issues right now I love prospect versus veteran

I don't know if if Evol, oh my God My mind just won't My mind can't do it Mosfar, Mosfar, I love to see him versus zombie I want to seem zombie I think No one's really held zombie down

And he kind of controlled him for three rounds 25 minutes maybe depending where they put him. But, you know, I like that. Kind of changing the guard. So, but, but right now. Everybody wants zombie. Everybody wants zombie right now.

All those guys. He looks weak right now. Arnold. He looks weak. He looks weak. They smell blood. Yeah, he smell blood. They're the real zombies.

Wow. I told you guys. I'm told you guys. It's not, those are, those are, those are vampires. Those are, those are vampires. Those are, yeah. All right. This is primetime material you're getting now, all right?

Primetime material. All right. Just a comment from Joseph Boza. Joseph Boza. Well, a fighter always be nervous to get Herb Dean as a ref. The guy's either too early or too late with the stoppage. Now, if you watched the MMA hour on Wednesday, Jorge Mazvedal was on the program and continued his verbal onslaught of Herb Dean

and says if it was up to him, Herb Dean would never referee another one of his fights. feels like, I believe he used the bias word that Herb could be a little bias if he doesn't like you. I don't know if I would go that far. But yeah, I think, I mean, we're getting to the point, AK, where if you see Herb Dean on the call sheet as your referee, you're like, it's like an umpire in baseball that you feel is a little too loosey-gucy, if you will. It's like, it's like, I better just swing because I don't know what the strike zone is going to look. I better just go up there and take three swings because I don't know what's going to be. strike. I don't know what's going to be a ball. Yeah, it's, it's unfortunate that he keeps getting

these high-profile assignments. I understand seniority means a lot. Certainly, you know, in his best days, Herb Dean made a lot of great calls, a lot of great calls. People always point to the Tim Sylvia, Frank Mear, you know, and that's great. He can hang his hat on that forever all time, you know, wonderful stoppage. But definitely from from week to week, card to card, boy, he has really fallen off in quality. It's not that he always messed up. I mean, I've gone out of my way to like, praise him, when he does well to praise him, but I also find myself much easier, much more easily finding ways to criticize him because that just happens so much more often. Yeah, and the stoppage thing has been happening for a long time.

And we are talking about since, I mean, everyone remembers Yer Fabor, Hennon Burrow, a terrible stoppage. That was the one of the worst. And that was a long time of guys. I mean, that was at least like 10 years ago, I think, right? I don't know how in May years, maybe it's garbled in my mind. So this is not a recent thing. He's had some issues with stoppage.

and it's just been more frequent lately. And as we've said, even when he gets it right, the hesitation, the hovering, the uncertainty for the fighters involved, it sucks for them, not just because if you're the guy on the losing end of it, but also it's unsafe. It's unsafe.

People can get hurt. When the referee isn't clear where the stopper, because people can get really hurt. So he's done a lot of good work, but boy, he is nowhere near one of the best referees these days, and I hope people recognize that. You know why this was a quote-unquote bad stoppage? Because the fact that,

we're not even considering Volkov as a performance of the night winner. He knocked out, he knocked out Biggie Boy in like two minutes. Knocked him out technically, but we don't count it that way because we go, Ah, Herbden kind of screwed up then.

He kind of screwed it up. And it sucks for Volkov. It just, it's kind of sucks for Volkov. If Volkov wanted to, I don't know, if it would have been the clean stoppage from Herbden, we're talking very differently about the main event. Right now it was like, like you, we did Twitter reacts. No one was really talking about.

They were like, ah, it was just a fight. There's two top 10 heavyweights. We should be more excited about that, but for some reason, we aren't. And I'm not sure why. I don't know how much of that stoppage had to do with it either. I personally didn't like it, but I get why it was stopped. But from Herb Dean's perspective, dude, just like when you see Biggie Boy taking those shots, that's when you go, fight back, fight back, fight back.

We see it all the time. He didn't say, he's just like, okay, now it's over. It's just like, I'm just kind of repeating what Mike said, but yeah. I didn't like the stoppage, but if you are going to stop it, make it definitive, you know. And it costs Volkov $50,000, I think, too. Yeah, I mean, if you didn't actually watch the fight and you just looked at the UFC's little gif that they put out of the stoppage,

you would think like Jarzino won because he's just standing there like alone with his hands on his hips. And Herve Dean is like two hands on Volkov against the fence. Like you would never even think that Volkov actually won. you would have thought he lost because you don't see the actual sequence before that, which is crazy. But yeah, Herb Dean, hokey perk, hokey, pokey herb just can't make a decision.

We got to get a little better than that. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. Where's Jason Herzog? Where is he tonight? He's the new gold standard in my eyes. How did, how did her, was it a Dana White thing, but how did Herb Dean become the gold standard?

Do you remember that transition how that? So obviously it was big. John for years, but then, you know, he had a falling out to the UFC. But how did, like, was there, was there a particular moment in a fight in a famous pay-per-view that I'm just not thinking of there where we, that's the, that's the, that's the ref, we want in the big fights. It was the Frank Muir one and it's the Frank mirror when he broke him, Sylvia's arm. I mean, Dana White pointed to that so many times whenever talking about her, a lot of fans did. And again, it was a great arm broke. The rep, hey, arms broke. That guy's a good rep. I don't get it still.

That blew Dana White away. All right. Dana White was like, girl. How did he know his arm was like? Shouldn't go that way. A lot of them would let him tear Tim Silvia's arm off. And that whole thing. And then Tim Seva kind of waving his arm out. He said, I'm fine, I'm fine. But his arm was like flopping around.

Like the whole scene was really played out well for Herdeen. And I think for a while, like he was getting, you know, a lot of main events and fight. You know, he was part of a lot of memorable moments and moments that were without controversy. But we just see his face and we associated. Herb Dean with a lot of big fights, and then we say, oh, Herb Dean must be doing a great job. And that's the way it was for years. Now, we still see them in a lot of big fights, but a lot of these fights end in controversy. And I would think it's going the other way.

But I mean, whenever there's these kind of like online voting things, who's the best referee, a lot of people still say Herb Dean. So does he win every year? Like at the Fighters Only Award? Yes, the Fighters Only Award. He has been dominant. He's had a dynasty. He's the Erro-Hawani of reps.

Listen, people just know him, I guess, right? That thing is your name, at some point, reputation foresees you. His actual reputation has not landed, has not apparently established with people. But, you know, again, I think people are starting to learn that he's just not, he's not the ref he once was. Yeah. And before I move on, I just want to say, Herb Dean, he's a super nice guy.

I've known, I've talked to him, met him plenty of times. He's a human being. That's all. That's all. He's just a human being and they make mistakes. And I just think you have to give other refs, like Jason Herzog, bigger opportunities to cover two ref these big fights. And that's all.

I'm not, I'm really not trying to trash Herb Gene at all. It is a super tough job that sucks, actually. And yeah, he's not a bad person. Or like Mazreda says, like he's biased or something. No, that's just, he's a human. He was still, he was still the third worst referee on the card. Like, there were still too worse than him. Tione and Mark Smith were both worse than her being.

We're talking about him because he was in the main event, and he wasn't as aggressive on the stoppage. And that's been his issue. There's just that you've got to be in definitive. This is not the first time. This is not even the second time we're having this conversation. But still, he was not the worst of the night. So, yes, he's human.

Hopefully he can get over that hump. This main event needed the guy who did Benoit Santinese last fight. I'm telling you, uh, kiss a lev. We need a kiss a lev in there. You wouldn't have had an early stoppage then. You might not have had a stoppage at all. These two guys could have been beating each other into a living death and you wouldn't have had a stop.

Oh, nice. Nice Tito reference. Yeah, yeah, good. Yeah, nice. Who is the, who is the Phoenix referee? Who is that awful Phoenix referee? Fort five. Really, really, really bad.

I'm trying to remember. If Shaheen's watching right now, I'm sure. Was it a local Arizona ref, one of those? Like, we only seen in Arizona. It sure was. It sure was. It was, I can't remember what it was. It was really terrible.

I'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Continue on with the peeps. All right. This one's for AK, so I want him to say it. Oh, pure evil.

I may, O day, oh day, oh day, oh day, oh day. I hated that he had to try and start to get that going in the apex. Like, I know the people in the apex now, but even if you get everyone going

in the apex, it's not going to have that same effect as what he was, because if he had had this an arena, like 15,000, 20,000 seat arena, God, how much fun would that?

been. You know what I mean? Even if they don't, Combat sports fans, in case, you know, I'm not going to see pro wrestling fans, but Combat sports fans in general, love chanting things, love to. They might not have heard a single word of the rest of his promo, which was pretty solid promo overall. They might not have heard a single word. Once he's charted the O'Day chant, people would have jumped in.

It would have been a great clip for the UFC to put out there. I don't know if they still did, but it didn't have quite the same effect. So hopefully O'DA Osborne next time he fights is in the arena or a stadium, and he gets a win and gets to do this again. because that was a very, that was a very good bit of marketing there. It was good. Yeah, it was, it needed more than 15 people. Yes.

Al-Al-Gyney is the referee. Remember the Paul Craig Jamal Hill fight with the, John Hill's arm was broken for about 13 and a half minutes? And he just let the fight continue to go on. That was bad. That was really awful. A name even sounds like a bad ref. Yeah, like,

I'm just going to. That's not the American. Gladiators guy. Was that not the American Gladiators? No, who was the American Gladiators? There was a referee for American Gladiators. The Republican Gladiators had a referee. Oh, yeah, you're right.

They did. You're right. Yeah. Who's going to keep story? Wow. I'm thinking of the new version. I'll get, it was Al something. I apologize.

It was out of the other. Get out of here. Okay, great performance. I think they got something with this guy. I felt like they've had something to this guy for a while. I think he's great at 125. And he is, he could be a problem at 1.20. I like him as an up-and-comer in this division for sure.

All right. Al Kaplan. Al Kaplan. Al Kaplan. Shout us to Al Kaplan. I remember that name. I do remember that name. The 2008 version of Gladiators, starring, of course, Gina Karano.

Gina Karano. Oh, yes. The mandarin or mandolin? Is it the mandolin? The mandolian. The mandolian. Captain Corelli's mandolin. They turned Captain Carly's mandolin and

a 10-part Disney Plus series. It's pretty great. Oh, my gosh. All right, what else we got? What else we got? Okay. We're going off the rails. Yell the dogs.

Remember you got kicked off the mandolin? You got kicked off the mandolin. I mean, gosh. All right. Who had the best call-outs tonight? This afternoon, rather. Any good ones that stuck out? Any bad ones?

Any misses? You know what? I'm actually going to go. I'm going to go with Jeff Molina on this one on Twitter because Odey Osborne like literally like three seconds after he knocked out Zerouk Adishev, he went to Twitter and said I'll fight O'Day or something to that effect.

Like within seconds. Before I even saw the finish, Jeff Malina was already tweeting out he wants to fight O'Day Osborne. So good on him. I'll go with that. But Mav Zara Vloyav was good as well. Yeah, there we go. I like, I like, it was, what did, what did, um, what did he's called, um,

Arnold Allen? He said, he said something like he's, he's ducking him or was there, was there, was there some sort of Twitter beef there? Or was he just calling a name higher on the, on the, on the apparent, I mean, he was saying, um, I think he was saying that there were potential offers for that fight and Ireland turned down. One of those things, yeah. I, who the hell knows? Only, only, only a couple people know the actual story there. You know, uh, you know what, you know what callout kind of flew under the radar was Aaron Blanchfield. She actually had a couple of names early on.

She wasn't very, like, she wasn't very emphatic about it because she was sort of mixed it in with talking about like, oh, here, so I got the finish. But then she mentioned Macy Barber, Jessica I, upcoming flight, and he said one of those, she said one of those, that is perfect. And she goes, and I will finish them. And I will finish them.

And I wouldn't doubt it. Finish them too. I liked it. She's got some serious skills. Let's talk about, let's talk a little bit about Aaron Blanchfield. To me, I thought Aaron Blanchfield, JJ Aldrich should have been fight of the night. It was a great fight, but JJ fought the perfect fight until Aaron won.

I mean, it was good. It was a good competitive fight. You can't put that over Almeida, Trasano. Trasano, how about three total knockdowns? Like one knockdown at each round the other way? That's just, I mean, you got to reward that. It was a good fight. But it's just, and Aaron Blanchfeld in general,

what did you guys think of the performance when you saw it live? Went almost exactly like I think we'd all said. Well, I think I thought it would go to decision. Mike, I don't know if you'd said, decision as well? I did. Yeah, I would, because Jay George is a tough out. She's tough to put away. Macy Barber did. But it did, two things. It kind of turned out the way we expected. We all said JJ Aldrich was a much tougher opponent than Aaron Blanchell has faced so far. And then people were giving JJ Eldridge credit for her. She's been in the U.C. for a long time. She's fought a lot of

competition. She's a good striker. And she's the better striker than Aaron Blanchfield, frankly. And she showed that. She showed enough for the majority of the fight. But that Aaron Blanchfield has, I think a little bit of athleticism advantage, a great killer instinct that you cannot teach. I was so amazed when she got that kind of tripped her up that need of the body. And then just went in. So I'm going in.

It just made up her mind. I am going in. I have had a lot of trouble getting takedowns. This is my chance to grapple. It's not ideal, but this is my chance to grapple. Gets in there, shows off her amazing grappling, gets that guillotine and gets the finish. And unfortunately for JJ, again,

this is very similar to the Macy Barber fight, where she actually looked pretty good in the first round. And again, I don't know if it's an athleticism gap or defensive lapses. But for some reason, once the other person kind of starts putting it on her, everything kind of breaks down. So she is tough. Again, she's got seven wins in the UFC guys, seven out of 11.

That's pretty damn good. But, yeah, these young prospects just seem having a little bit extra, another level that maybe she isn't quite at. And we saw that with Aaron Blanchfield. But again, this doesn't take anything from JJ Aldrich. She fought a great fight. Just Aaron Blanchfield is super legit. I was super impressed.

I feel if this fight was higher in the card, we'll be talking about in terms of, I can't believe she didn't get the performance of the night, because I thought that was a super high-level guillotine. Just like you said, her killer instincts when it comes to those submissions are just top-notch. And the way that that little, I can't remember, I think was it a knee or a kick or something?

She kind of tripped JJ and then got her back and just perfect shoulder pressure, snuck that arm in, elbow up. I was like, oh, it was just spicy. It was just, I can't, I just want to see more in Blancheville, I love to call out. And, oh, Aaron Blanchford, if Macy Barber does win, that would be pretty awesome. I think, I think it's just a super cool fight.

Big, big, big, big, big, what are you thinking? What are you thinking, Mr. Heck? I didn't love, I actually, like, I mean, I was fine. I was fine with the call. I didn't, like, not like the callout. I thought you should have just called out Tracy Cortez and just said, hey, I'm surging, you're surging. I won that first fight.

You know I got robbed in that first fight. So let's just run it back. we'll make some more money. Let's show the world like what actually happened the first time we fought. I think that's a great fight. I actually, that's the perfect step up right now because Cortez is undefeated in the UFC. Blanchefield's undefeated in the UFC.

Cortez is back down to 125 coming up the win over Melissa Gatto. She got a lot of credit for that win. Yeah. I mean, I kind of like that fight. I think that's a better one. I just, I feel like Aaron,

I feel like Aaron, you could just slowly, build up, like just a step at a time. There's no need to rush her right now. There's no need to rush her. The Just Guy fights, the Joanne Wood fights, the Macy Barbara fights, those fights will be there. And the next 18 months or so, you'll have the chance to fight all of these women. But let's just slow our role a little bit.

Just step by step by step. You'll get there. She's super young. She's talented as hell. She'll fight for a title. She'll be fighting for a championship by 2025. There's no doubt about it. but I'd rather see her take the slow burn.

But, I mean, I don't mind the call-out. I don't dislike it, but I don't know if she gets that fight. I do like what you're saying, Mr. Heck. If I'm Tracy Cortez, I just cover my ears and don't check my email. Because that is not a good fight for Ms. Cortez. Yeah, if you, yeah, if anyone goes back on maybe it's on, I don't know where you would find that final pie pass or whatever. But watch the first fight and, yeah. And they were both super green too.

and I think Aaron has just leveled up her game a bit more than Ms. Cortez. But yeah. Do, too, oh. Yes, happy retirement to Felice Herrig. That was a fun fight. Carolina, Carolina looked real good. But listen, Felice looked good too. They went in there and scrapped.

They scrapped in that first round. Carolina got cooking and kind of just ran her over at the end. But Felice was game and she fought like, that was going to be her last fight. And she walked away at the right time, dropped the mitts in the middle of the cage, nice speech at the end. I think we sang her praises yesterday

in the preview show, and rightfully so. She's a pioneer in a lot of ways for fighters, especially women fighters, finding extra ways to promote themselves and make money outside of the Octagon. She's done a tremendous job of that, and I think she'll be fine.

And I can't believe she's 37. Good for her. Yeah. And I just want to, obviously, yeah, happy trails, Ms. Herrick. But also applause to the UFC production crew and Paul Felder for giving Felice that opportunity to say that in the mic. I thought it was nice. I thought it fit well in the show. And I just, I like when the UFC gives time to these fighters, especially off a loss.

You know, it's like, and it's easy just to go, okay, later, leave her gloves here, you know, and they'll leave a little Instagram post, but it's nice that they have time in the cage to do that for everyone. So, and great job, great job by Feltter, kind of handling. And that's one of those things, I think being a fighter, like Paul Feltter,

over, say, someone like a Rogan, I think Feltor is much more sympathetic to Herg. And I was kind of surprised they went to her, honestly. And, but I'm glad they did. Yeah, whoever it is. All night. All night. Oh, yeah.

Paul is, Paul Felders absolutely one of the best. but whoever it is making these decisions, whether it's Dana White or some other official or just maybe some staff has a saying, it's doing a great job because they also did a video for Marlon McIse. I remember when he retired, it was really surprising.

I was just like, because these are people who, Marlon McIce, I mean, he's fought for a title, but was never a champion in the UFC. Felice Herrick never fought for a title. But I think they're respecting their contributions and, you know, that you don't have divisions

without, you don't have strong divisions without fighters like this. and Marlon was a strong Bantamanteau for a long time. Felice Herrick, I think of people kind of look back on her story. I always tell people like, man, she is the rare fighter that was really making a name for herself outside the UFC. Before there was a women's flyweight division

when they were still kind of establishing women as draws in the UFC. Felice Herrick was outside of it, fighting for Bellator, made an appearance for Invicta, and just fighting for other motions, just branding herself. And it wasn't always easy back then. Let me tell you, when she started fighting 09, and really started to rise in Fremontz, 2011, 2012, 10 years ago, 10 years ago, the MA scene was very different for women.

So she, you know what, she made the most of her charisma, of her looks, whatever it is that she had to offer, and good for her, and she was still winning fights. And when she finally made the UFC, she did all right. She won four straight at one point, and, you know, and has a lot to be proud of. So good for her. It sounds like she's got other revenue streams coming in, and she got to go out her own way because she said, look, had two knee injuries, easily could have retired without fighting again, but she got to go in there at least one more time.

So a nice, I think a nice ending to your career. Cool, cool. Agreed. Let me see what we got. Ooh, just throw a low. It's like one. You are. A.K. is on another one today.

Again, this is when it's not, this is when it's not three in the morning. Not three in the morning. We've got a little more gas in the tank, all of us, I think. I love the, I love, I just saw the tweet of Gianni, the Greek gambler from the UFC. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He put out his parlay and all five legs lost. Well, it was a five leg underdog parlay too. Like, like all five legs lost. It was all underdogs. I was like, dude, I mean, was that was maybe was that was like just throw five bucks and you might might, might win $10,000 type of parlay. It's a $50 to win. $4,000 almost. $4,000 almost. Yeah. It just that's never going to look great when

you lose every leg of it, yeah. It's so irresponsible too because he's on, this is a guy, he's out, you're on TV. There are people who are actually going to kind of follow your bets. Like, I don't know $50 is in the end of the world. You know, $50 is a lot for, for people. It's a lot. There's a lot of money.

It's like two gallons of gas. Yeah. So, so Gianni, listen, I know you've been in this, you know, parlaying odds making business a lot longer than I have, but let's go easy, look easy on these crazy all underdog parlayes. Come on now. And if you took. And if you took my advice for the three lock palais, you would have won.

And people were giving me crap for it. I picked Renot. I picked Damon Jackson. That wasn't a far stretch. And who was the other one? There's one other one that I was very confident in. Vloyal. Those are the three legs.

Those are the three legs. Those are guaranteed. Oh, what were my locks? I said Menafield. I said Blanchfield. I said Molfsar. Okay. Yeah.

I mean, I didn't, I didn't exactly pick, I picked probably three of the biggest favorites in the card. Hey, that's why they're locks. But my actual, like, biggest lock that I turned into was, uh, Kovic-Herig goes the distance. And that didn't happen. So hopefully it was there. But I don't think I was crazy for throwing that one out there. Anything else? Uh, we didn't get any questions about it.

But I just want to say, I'm happy to see Dan the determined Argueta, in the UFC. I think it's Argetta. Orgetta. Argetta. I've spent a lot of time at Jackson Winkdown, Albuquerque. And he was kind of one of those guys like Landovinata, like what's the guy who's the crazy kicks, the Beverly Hills Ninja. What's his name?

Jordan Wright. Jordan Wright. He's just always one of those guys I always saw in the gym. And I always go, who's that? Who's that? And they were super nice. And they're like, oh, he'll see him soon. You'll see him soon.

So it sucks that he had to take a fight clearly. at a weight class he's not at. But I think he's going to be a nice addition to the Banton weight division. And it looks like a good tonight, too. He looked good tonight. He didn't even some problems. If you look at those two guys, yeah, if you look at those two guys at the end of the fight, who do you think, who do, who would you say of one if you didn't watch it?

You know what? I was going to say, I didn't, I didn't watch it super closely. I think I tuned out maybe the third round because it's something else going on. But I think that first round, I had it, I had it for Dan because I thought he was doing way more damage, just punching Damon. Jackson in the face. I said he had his eyes freaking swollen up. It's like, we judge it by damage and there were no like serious submissions.

He was just kind of locked in that body lock. But overall, Damien Jackson did win the fight, I felt. But yeah, he looked good. Next fight. We'll see his full potential. And for our last question, let's talk about the other feel good story. What is next for Carolina? There was, there was a part of me that thought we were going to get a dual retirement

tonight. I actually did think that if Felice won, I thought Felice Herrick was retiring for sure, win or lose. And then I thought if Kellyner Colvich lost, obviously, she might consider retirement as well. Maybe not leave the gloves in the cage, but I can see within the next two weeks, some sort of, you know, public statement social media posts saying that she's walking away. Now that she's won, she probably wants to hang around. Again, she looked good. It is a bit weird to say that she broke her losing streak by beating the last person she beat. Felice Herrick was I was four years ago. So, I mean, good.

Listen, hey, you beat who you can beat. So good for her for getting this opponent again, a winnable fight again. Yeah, I see, yeah, I see some of the comments in there. A lot of people calling for Angela Hill. I think that makes a lot of sense. That's a, that's not bad. That makes sense, too, yeah. It's a competitive fight.

It's both fighters with, I think, like, records that don't reflect how talented they are and the competition they face. They both face just nothing but top competition, pretty much. This is coming to the UFC. So, yeah, they have, you know, sub-500 UFC records. but I mean, who have they fought, right? Like Claudica, Adelia, Yoannia, J. Chick, Michelle Waterson, just throw everyone out there.

Some great, great, great names. So, yeah, I think that's probably the perfect matchup. We only do main card fighters on onto the next one, but I think if Carolina was on there, we probably both would have landed on Angela Hill. That makes a lot of sense. Tisha Torres, not a bad choice. Or if you're going to do the prospect route,

I think Lupy Godinez would be an interesting challenge. I don't like it for Carolina. I don't like it for Carolina very much. I said, feel good story. Why are you trying to do this to Carolina? But I mean, that's, she still has a name. She's a former title challenger. And yeah, I mean,

heard Angela Hill's fine. Yeah. I am not better than Carolina. Oh, wait, wait. This means, you can't do math that way. I mean, I agree. Yeah, no, I agree with the premise. But, guys, math doesn't work.

You don't do the. I like Angela Hila. Angela also inaccurate But yeah Of course I bow down to both these ladies They're both great great performers And no really happy is a Carolina gonna win Yeah, it felt good, it felt good

And no mention of the fact that Biggie Boy Is now lost two straight fights Oh, Moe, my main storyline going into the card How did I bring it up? That's right, guys, you went of everything that happened tonight, you witness history We saw history Jerry was in your Rosenstrike

The first time ever He has lost two straight fights It was either going to be Volkov losing two straight fights in the UFC for the first time, or Jarazino losing two straight fights in his career for the first time. My goodness, we've finally seen some cracks in the invincible aura of Jarazzozo. So, yeah, thank you, Casey, for bringing that up. Everyone was talking about it before. Yeah, I mean, I had all these comments, and it was just like, yeah, my inbox is overflowing right now.

And I got to ask AK about the two losses. Well, there you go. History was made, and it's, just about 8 p.m. Eastern and we're done. Is this still sunlight on these guys? It is. It is. I'm about to go walk the dog for a minute. And I mean, it wouldn't be.

We're all here. Okay. All right. We're done. A.K., I'll see you tomorrow morning for on to the next one. For A.K. For Casey on the ones of twos, I am Mike Eck. For my kid and his puppets and the damn dog.

Good night, everybody. Happy birthday, AK. On my birthday. I'm a puppet. It's your birthday. It felt like it today with the early part. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap.

You're almost at the finish line. But first, there, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.