MMA Fighting - UFC Vegas 61 Post-Fight Show | Reaction to Yan Xiaonan's Survival Skills To Defeat Mackenzie Dern

Episode Date: October 2, 2022

Yan Xiaonan picked up the biggest win of her career, and had to survive some tough spots against Mackenzie Dern in the main event of UFCVegas61. MMA Fighting's Mike Heck, Jed Meshew, and Shaheen Al-Shatti react to Yan's majority decision win and the judges' scorecards as a whole, along with Dern's performance overall from a viewer's perspective. Additionally, the panel discusses Randy Brown's win over Francisco Trinaldo in the co-main event, Mark Zuckerberg taking in the event at the UFC APEX, the bonus winners, the card not being very memorable as a whole, Chelsea Chandler and Daniel Santos picking up their first octagon wins, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Shaun Al-Shatti: @ShaunAlShatti 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

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original, The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cadulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever.

Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now only from Audible. The Vox Media Podcast Network. All right, everybody, we are live here on the UFC Vegas 61 post-fight show.

That card is in the books. Jan Jonan picks up the biggest win of her career against VIII. Mackenzie Dern in the made event, but I have a feeling there'll be a lot of discussion about that fight, the scoring of the fight, et cetera. And I'm here with a man who has a lot on his mind right now, a lot going on, including his Georgia Bulldogs, apparently playing not like... It's horrific, Mike. It's so bad. And I'm also supposed to be working this BKFC card, which is horrific in a very different kind of way. And all my technology is failing. I'm having a rough night, bud, having a rough night.

But let's talk about McKinsey, Dern, one of the most interesting fighters in M.M.A. So this is an interesting fight. I mean, I don't know if it was a good fight. I don't really know. It was definitely not that. It was an interesting fight. I don't know if there were any good fights on this card, man. Yeah.

I mean, well, there are a couple. But it was an interesting fight. Jan Jona was clearly winning on the feet and anything that. didn't involve being in a guard position or being mounted or anything like that. But there are two big rounds from McKenzie Dern. Round two, round five was huge. She was like this close to get in that arm for an arm bar with like 10 seconds left in the fight. Jan gets free, lands a couple of shots, the horn sounds.

Now, M.A. fighting's official score, the stance 4747, a draw, a 10-8 fifth round for McKenzie Dern. And for those who follow you on social media, you throw it a different kind of a score card. How did you score this fight for those who didn't see it? I scored it 4746 Dern. I think kind of looking back on it, I think I actually should have scored it 46-46 for a draw.

I'll rewatch it tomorrow at some point and decide if I changed my opinion. But I, and I know I said it on my Twitter when I posted it, I knew I was going to catch heat for it. And that's fine. Like, I gave Dern two 10-8 rounds. I think what I didn't do, and I maybe should have done, was I should have given Yon a 10-8 for that third round,

where she really had Dern on skates with that one big left hook. But because Jan didn't really follow up that shot at all and just stayed to her game plan, I just gave her a 10-9. But by the letter of the law, it's fine not to give Dern 10-8s for rounds two. in rounds five, I really think that you should give Dern 10-8s for rounds two and five. If MMA scoring is to mean anything, it feels a lot like those rounds deserve 10-8s for me.

Just because, and for the people who I'm sure, the comments are already going wild about this. The very brief rundown of 10-8s is that if a fighter has damage, duration, and dominance, you have to give one. If they have two of the three, you may give one. Dern very clearly had two of the three in both of those rounds. And I would, by definition, then give her the 10-8s that I think she rightly deserves there. So I don't have an issue with her not winning the fight because holistically, it was awful. Like the fight as in totality, really bad. But I did score it for her, and I think that's a defensible scorecard.

Yeah, I don't hate that one. I mean, it's, it's tough to, like, live blog and then watch. It's incredibly difficult. Very, very difficult. So as I'm trying to multitask and watch the fight and then type without misspelling every word, I scored, I scored the second 10-9 for Dern. I have to go back and watch it. The fifth, I definitely scored 10-8 because I think she had,

I actually think she had all three of those Ds in the third round. She landed a bunch of ones in that fight. And I think actually- punches in the second too, but I agree with you. But a ton more in the fifth. And honestly, if she kept throwing punches in that fifth, she might have got her out of there. But

again, Jan's been, Jan was very tricky on the ground. And yeah, it was a, it was a fight. And as our good friend, Alexander K. Lee, likes to say that was, that was a card. That was a card. Yeah, I, Dern did

a lot of things that are awful in that whole fight. And I am loath to critique her work on the ground because she is obviously much better there than I am. But she did fall into the trap that a lot of high-level jiu-jitsu players fall into, which is they value the submission over just beating the shit out of somebody. And, like, Jan was clearly ready for to defend in the ways that it was happening. Like, she was doing the thing. She was trying to give up the backpack to the backward during camping.

hit her as effectively where she's on her back and Dern's back is to the mat. And instead, like you said, if she had just stuck with the, all right, I'm going to gift wrap you, flatten you out, and then just punch you in the side of the head 57 times. That's probably a much more effective way to do it. Because to my earlier point on the 10-8 round, she did it in round two as well. She hit her a bunch and then she would stop and fish her submissions. And my theory on this has always been they're uncomfortable when you're hitting them. when you fish for the submission,

that's when they have time to get their wits about them and play defense again. Like, it's very an all or nothing proposition. If you don't get the submission, you haven't affected the fight in a way that you would have. If you had just stuck with pop, pop, pop, pop. More specifically, would have loved to see some elbows from Dern.

It's not a thing that she ever does. She just went for the hammer fist, which are fine. But, like, you get that sort of dominant position. It doesn't take too many elbows. to really make somebody change their whole worldview about what the hell's going on. So like I said, I scored it for Dern, but if you want to score it for Rion, I understand where you're coming from. I don't agree, but in a big picture, I thought Dern did about a hundred things that I really thought were bad. So I'm okay with punishing somebody for not fighting very well.

What's very strange is that two or three fights prior, and I know Joseph Bosa just put this on, and I'll get to why your hands are in your face in a second. All we're doing is going to fail goals, Mike. It's freaking Missouri. If you want to spend an hour talking about the many failings of Kirby Smart and Stetson been at the fourth right now, I would love to go into it because we have one really good player and we're just not throwing him the ball.

Like I know Brock Bowers is an All-American. F it. Let's throw it to our bad wide receivers. It's killing me, man. What I was going to say is that in the Hione-Barcellus Trevin-Jones fight, there's a 30-25 scorecard there. Someone gave Hione-Barsellos two 10-8 rounds, and there was only one 10-8 in the main event,

which I found kind of interesting, considering that 10-8s were kind of just thrown out a little bit, a little bit more loosely on this card. But Janjan gets the majority decision win. She snaps a two-fights skid. She didn't have a call-out. She didn't call for a title shot, which is very smart.

It's not kind of fighter that she is. But A.K. and I will talk about this a little more tomorrow. But where does she go from here? Like how big of a win is this for her? Obviously, it's huge because you don't want to lose three in a row in the UFC, especially when you're a top 10 ranked fighter in your division. But what do we do now? Does she get like a big step up?

Is she in a number one contender fight? Like, or is she just, you know, is this like a turtle race right now? I mean, I think she's just screwed, right? because like I want to make sure I'm not effing this up no yeah this is what's going to have to happen she's just going to have to fight Jessica Drozsch next

and she's killed just going to absolutely obliterate this woman and so congrats on the win to be fair McKenzie Dern would have been the exact same boat and she would have also gotten wrecked but like that's that's a tough prize for winning arguably the best one of your career

is you are the cannon fodder to Jessica and Drudge. But, you know, sometimes that's the way the cookie crumbles, I guess. Now, normally a UFC event, the big talking point is the main event and the stakes involved in the main event. But I actually think we've already discussed the main event about as much of the story we're going to get out of this card. I would love to talk. Let me tell you one more thing about the main event. Go ahead. I have a big thought about McKinsey Dern.

I want to talk to Jason Prillo because I have no idea what they're doing like her game doesn't make sense because she has one skill that is better than everybody else in the world like legitimately in the whole wide world and her game is not built to maximize this skill and it's I think very highly of Jason Prillo

and so my assumption is that he has tried to do stuff and she just, it just doesn't click for her. But like, you can see that she is a better striker than when she started. She is still probably the worst striker in the entire UFC. Like, she is just horrible at it. She's just really, really bad at it. She has no sense or feel for it. She knows how to throw a punch, one single punch, and then she is willing.

She does not get cowed or back off. She will step in and sling. but there is no defensive responsibility at all. She mostly ducks her head in the same fashion coming forward. And that also translates to her wrestling, which isn't wrestling. She just bends over at the waist and closes in, but she doesn't back it up with any footwork or any explosion. So Jan looked like a heroic defensive wrestler because she just pushed and pivoted.

Like it wasn't, she didn't make it hard. And then Dern even at the, in the later round, where I thought Dern was going to have more success because Jan clearly was tired after the second round of getting her ass beat. Like Dern couldn't corral her. And when she would get in tight to where they could exchange and tie up arms, then Dern would start swinging some punches too.

Like I don't, like, Habib is the guy that you should take your cues from. You're never going to be Habib as a wrestler. But the part of Habib's game, like, Habib was great because of three things. one, he was the best athlete maybe in the whole sport. He was an unbelievable athlete, nobody ever talked about it. Two, he had unbelievable wrestling and top control grappling. Those are that.

And the third thing was that the rest of his game was built to maximize that. And that is what the top, top fighters do. If they have an A-plus skill, the entire game is built around it. Connor McGregor won two belts with a left hand. And every tool he had was set up, a different trap, a different way to engage that hand. because he knew what he had and you go to the thing. If you have an A plus plus skill, if you have a star player,

you don't run screen passes for freaking awful players on your football team. You get the ball to Brock Bowers. And like, McKinsey Dern's game is not set up to maximize or grappling. It is, if I can, get guard pulls or weird tie-ups. Like, what the hell are we doing? Give this woman a jab. No other punches. a jab, maybe an

uppercut, and teach her how to shoot a takedown. And even against Jan, she didn't need to shoot. All of her success was not coming at, shooting at the legs, shooting at the legs, because Jan was stuffing the head and was clearly prepared for that. All that came when she was like, I'm actually also a physical monster, and when I get a real tie-up around your upper body,

I could just hauss you down. Like, her game has not been developed to maximize her good skill. And so when she can get her good skill, going, it's great. And we saw it tonight. She still had that. But why the, whatever they are doing is wrong. Like, it is categorically wrong. Because this woman is never going to be good at striking. She's been doing it for a long time and she can't. Some people just don't adapt to that well. And there's nothing wrong with it. But spend every waking minute of her training life getting to the positions that win you fight. Like, I just, I really have no idea what they're doing

because I think Perillo is a great coach. And he knows so much more than me. But it feels like They are not seeing the problem here. And that's why we had what happened today. Like, I don't, I have, she should be a world champion. She's probably never going to be one. But she should be. There is no reason if you have this level of skill, that she should not be able to at least challenge for a world championship belt.

I have real, I don't know that she ever will now. There you go. Still waiting for bonuses. We don't have those yet. By the way, Mike Bell, the only judge to score 10-8. He scored 10-8 and the fifth. He was the one that scored at a draw, 47-47.

He scored it the exact way I scored it. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. What? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy.

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not Jan Jonan. Big story was not any of the fighters who competed on the card, Jed. The big story was why were the fans not allowed in the building? Why were the media not allowed to cover this event inside the UFC Apex? We heard the rumor and innuendo about Mark Zuckerberg. Dana White said it was BS that he didn't rent it out. And who knows? Maybe he didn't rent it out. Maybe he was an invited guest and the only way that the Zuckman would show up is if it could just be him and his wife and maybe like his security team or whatever.

But it was very weird. It made the, his presence made this a very weird card. It just made it very weird. Every time you looked in his direction and you saw him by himself and then. then like the second to last fight, I think Dana started joining them. And you just saw Zuck and the UFC's just promoting all of this. It was just, it was just bizarre, man. What, what did you think?

I know it wasn't a stunning revelation when you saw Zuckerberg in there, but it was just, it was just so weird. It just didn't make sense. You know, it was just weird. I just, whatever, like I just never, I never cared about this aspect of the thing or whatever. It's billionaires do stuff. It remains weird to me. I had thought that it must have, maybe they were doing something specific because why in God's name would you pick this fight card to be the one you buy out? When on paper, it looked bad. In actuality, it wasn't very good either.

But, you know, billionaires are eccentric weirdos. And Mark Zuckerberg, certainly one of those. So it's it influenced me in no way because it's not like there's a crowd at the apex that you can hear or care. It's always stupid when a fighter says, make some noise at the apex because there's nobody there anyway. The only part of this that I think about at all is that it's really pretty shitty to not allow the family of the fighters into the arena. Like that's, I don't care about the fans coming to this apex card. Zuckerberg did you a favor. He fell on a grenade for you not having to go watch this shit. But I do feel bad that the families of the fighters or whatever,

like couldn't be in the crowd cheering for their sons and daughters and brothers, sisters, etc. So the rest was like, whatever. Cool. There's a weirdo by the cage. All right. There's Shaheen Alshadhi joining us live. Sean, we're talking about the presence of the Zuckman. Mark Zuckerberg comes in.

I mean, talk about the king of impeccable timing. The card is off to a start. We're getting a bunch of first round finishes. Then we get a second round finish. And then Zuckerberg's like, you know what? We have to make sure we time this so that we sit down in that front row seat for the fight for the people's main event. Alexio Lennox versus Alir Latifie. And boy, did those two guys deliver for Mark Zuckerberg?

But like I was saying to Jed, he didn't really care too much. about it. But once you saw him there, it was just hard to ignore. And it was like, it was like a canker sore. You don't want to play with it. It hurts like hell, but you can't help it. And I just couldn't help seeing Zuckerberg on my screen. And it kind of like, it was just weird. It was just a very strange aspect of the card. What did you think about Zuckerberg's appearance? I know it wasn't a stunning revelation because Dana White said it wasn't true and then it turned out being true, which isn't shocking at all. But what?

I know, right? But I mean, crazy talk. Are you kidding me? That guy lied to us. That's incredible. What did you think about all this? First of all this.

First of all, thank you, fellas. I'm glad to be here. Sorry to join a little late. I'm really enjoying this just watching Jed obviously react to Georgia. Like right now, like the Georgia football game that's going on? It's really, I'm having a bad night.

man. I can tell. I'm sort of living vicariously through you right now and I'm pulling for you. Talk about the king of bad timing. This is like the last thing I actually wanted to talk about coming into the show. I mean, I don't know, man. The whole thing felt gross kind of, right? Like, I don't really care about Mark Zuckerberg. The dude has objectively done very harmful things to our society and like is just generally impacting our country in a very negative way. So like this lionization of him and this whole night spent like seeing his face and oh look at this zuck's just like one of us he enjoys the fights just like one of us like yeah that guy's not like one of us at all and never at any point in his adult life has he been like one of us like i don't

look just because we care about democracy doesn't mean zuck isn't like us okay it's fine the whole thing felt super gross and kind of again just like these the image of basically fighter on the undercard begging for pennies and scraps while, you know, one of the richest men in the world and also other million and billionaires were just sitting in the room, basically having their own private fight show. Like this was a James Bond movie or something was just very hard to sort of get over, I guess. But yeah, I mean, whatever. I've seen Zuck's name too much this week. I've seen Zuck's name face too much tonight. Like I have no other Zuck opinions. Okay, fair enough. I mean, I only bring it up because at the end,

of this card, he's the biggest story coming out of it. I mean, the card wasn't great. It wasn't great. It was a fine start. It didn't end spectacularly in the biggest storyline of this entire card. The biggest storyline of this post show is Jed, live in a dying on Georgia. You were lucky I muted my mic there.

No, but we finally didn't look like a bad J-V high school team on an offensive series. I know I come in in super late, so I'm sorry to retread. But just going back to the main event, how did you fellow score it? I'm sure you've already talked about this, but I'm just curious. Did you score it to draw or did you? I scored it 4740 or yeah, 4746 Dern. I gave two 108 rounds to her for two and five.

I think upon rewatch, I will probably score it a 46, 46 draw and also give Jan a 108 round for the third for the time when she almost took darn's head off yes my my score along with mhm a fighting's official score was 47 47 a draw okay what did say you shan yeah i think i sort of landed in that same place too round five was weird though right like it's that's about as close to a borderline between a 108 and a 10 9 is it feels like you can get because i don't know that mackenzie was ever like in super omnipresent danger of finishing that fight but just the striking totals and like how dominant what she was for pretty much like four minutes of the five minute round kind of pushes me towards a 10-8 as well it felt like this fight ultimately like leaving it

if you're just going pride style like this feels like a draw and so i scored a draw too just ultimately but you can't hate on it one way or another i i jed that's an interesting scorecard i can't hate it on either it's one of those it's one of those weird fights where it feels like any outcome you can sort of make a good case for it right like you can make a case for yon winning obviously draw you can make a very good case for it and ultimately ultimately, like, I can't hate on what you're putting out there, Joe. Yeah, I, like I said earlier, if you scored it for Jan, I do disagree. I think that you really should not giving her, not giving Dern a 10-8 for either round feels bad to me.

But I am also, like I told Mike, in the grand scheme of things, totally okay with Yon winning because Dern mostly fought like an idiot and terribly. and so I don't like rewarding people who fight bad. So I'm like fine with it in that regard. I will say though, like at this point, it feels like McKinsey Dern is one of the most frustrating fighters just in general to watch in the UFC. And like her general evolution through MMA,

because like I was sort of in the ground floor here in Arizona, like I went to a lot of her pre-UFC shows and sort of was around when everyone was propping her up as sort of this next big thing who's going to hit MMA and obviously justified, right? like she's one of the greatest female rappers of all time. The evolution is just not there in a way that's so ridiculously frustrating because we were talking about this in our private, just Slack Channel among the team of just like,

if you give, I've been saying this for a couple years now and it's not like some crazy take or some, you know, I'm not breaking the atom here. But like if you give her just two, just two go-to takedowns, like even takedowns against the fence, something a la Damien Maya. And just give her two takedowns that can run. liably work.

I know, right, though? The pod listers are going to have no idea why we keep laughing, but Jedd's the best. If you just give her two takedowns that consistently, not even like all the time will hit, but even like 50% of the time will hit. That woman is a world champion. Like that woman is a world champion probably pretty quickly. Like I, it's, it's just so frustrating because she might be the worst wrestler in the entire division. And like, her striking is it, has it hasn't really evolved as well.

well and it's just like i don't know i know i know that stuff doesn't come easy for some people like it may not just be natural for her to be arrested but just there's got to be ways for her to get the fight on the ground other than pulling guard because it feels like that a lot of the time that's what it sort ultimately reverts to is just her having a pull guard uh to get this where it wants because once she's down there like there is nothing else at 115 more spectacular than watching mackenzie just drown people right like like just that that process i go watch that for 20 minutes straight of someone just desperately getting like fending this off and getting tortured essentially still no bonuses yet i love that sean agrees with everything i said by the way uh because yeah she

just needs to stop trying to strike because she clearly can't do it i'll be back in three seconds i'm going to watch this fourth down play i kind of just want to watch it watch it watch this for all right so what happened we now first we now have first in goal goal, but we tried a jet sweep that almost got blown up in the backfield because our wide receivers, again, I can't stress this enough, are bad. And did it, he just refused to get north-south. Fortunately, we got it. And now it's first in goal.

And hopefully we won't screw the pooch any harder than we already are. And then we can maybe have a game. But please continue. All right. This is fitting for a post-show of this type of card because this was a very bad card. Yeah, I'm surprised we're doing the post-show now because like Bellator's happening. Well, I mean, we're going to, we're going to do like a Twitter spaces thing with Bellator. Oh, yeah. Okay. We'll give them. Is it a little watch along. Yeah, we'll do a little watch along.

I know from what I understand why Art Gillette is is whooping on Enrique Barzola right now in the first fight. But Randy Brown gets a win over Francisco Trinaldo. Jad, I want to turn this over to you. How about them dogs? I mean, we saw Randy Brown just straight grab the fence. Oh, yeah. It was right. And the way. Always cheat. Always cheat. And the way that. And the way that the fight played out, that fence grab could have been the witch for Randy. It was gigantic. It was gigantic. And again, so I just do what I always do.

I tweet out, always cheat. Always cheat. Oh, you should. And I had multiple coaches. I had multiple coaches text me right after the go. And he goes, always cheat, right? I said, yep, always cheat. Because they're not going to call it.

Even Dominic Cruz, John Anick had the call of the year on that. He goes, or you can just pull out your damn testicle. and take a point. And again, I'm not saying that a fence grab should be a point, but a fence grab should be, hey, cut the shit, down on your back. It's a take down. We're calling it a takedown. We're stopping the action.

We're changing the position. You are on your back. This hulking 40, 43-year-old individual is going to be on top of you. And you're going to have to deal with that. But again, Randy Brown wins. Doesn't matter because you can cheat all you want. And he now has four wins in a row. Were you impressed with Randy Brown?

round Jed Mishu. Real quick. That's how you know it's egregious. Like that's how you know it's real egregious when John says something. Because I love John. John's the man. He's the best commentator we have. But like he normally does not take a side.

He carries a lot of water. Yeah, he doesn't take a side in like that type of way. And for him to do that immediately, that's when you know something was a greedy. Yeah, it's just crazy. It's just nuts. Like Dominic Cruz is saying already.

He goes, hey, he goes, just keep cheating because the referees aren't going to do anything. They're not going to call it. So you should. should just do it. And then John said what he had to say. But with the cheating, Jed, Randy Brown gets the victory. Were you impressed?

He's got four wins in a row. Francisco Trinaldo just continues to be a very tough guy to fight. Look, I don't know how many more times we can say it or any number of times that you can see the benefits of cheating in any athletic competition. It's just out there, especially because one, it's not cheating if you don't get caught. And in MMA, it's just not. cheating in general because there's no such thing is getting caught because nothing happened. So why wouldn't you, it's just being savvy is all it is.

Yeah, my main thought about this fight outside of the way to go, Randy Brown, I'm proud of you, you did the right thing, is, man, those two dudes are not in the same way class. The whole time I was watching it was like, well, one of these men does not look like the other one. So it's a bit of a shame that it took egregious cheating and a colossal size advantage. But good for you, Randy Brown. Four in a row, you're like a legitimately interesting guy in this weight division. So, uh, yeah. Francisco Trinaldo is still out here having competitive fights with like legitimately great. Tough. Legitimately like good fighters in fighters and Trinolo's like 44 and he's still like,

the last week has been phenomenal for, for your elder. respect your elders, kid. Guido Canetti comes out and makes dude Costa look like an absolute amateur. Yo Romero doing old things. Everybody's doing great lately. It wasn't a Linux night, though.

Wasn't a Linux night. You can't strangle me. The biggest underdog in the card. Was he really? No, Don Shane. I was just say. I thought Shane is. Outside of the, yeah, outside of that.

Yeah, Costa was like a minus 290 or something like that. He was a big favor. the Randy Parley. He ruined the Randy Parley. Sean, before we go to the peeps, what's your biggest takeaway from this card? What's when your child, when he's ready to walk and talk and he says, dad, dad, I want to go back and watch all the great fights of the year I was born. Before I turn on, UFC Vegas 61, what should I watch first? What are you going to tell your young child? I would tell him he should probably

find other interests. Don't go back and watch this. This is, that would be very silly. No, I don't know. I mean, the undercard was, was very fun for the most part. Like, basically, funny enough, everything until Zuck got there was like pretty entertaining for the most part, right? Like, it was regional MMA type of card in which like, you know, very quick finishes and kind of overmatched matchmaking in some regards.

So in that type of way, you go to regional card. You see lots of finishes. It's a lot of fun. That was cool. Calm down, Jed. It'll be okay. It'll be okay, man. But ultimately, I think really my biggest takeaway is just, again, the frustration when it comes to McKinsey Dern's evolution.

Because it feels like she is so close to just becoming just this ultra elite straw weight in this division. She's figured out the weight for a long time. The weight was the problem. It's just those takedowns, man, if she could just find one or two, I'm not going to rehash it. But that ultimately is my big takeaway. But also, I got to say, give some credit to Sadiq Yusuf out here, who dealt with a very difficult situation. Like this guy has been grinding for a while trying to get a top rank fight. finally gets something in that regard against Giga and then that falls out he ends up having to

fight this guy on very short notice and he treats him like a 10 to one favorite should or whatever he ended up being right like 30 seconds at this point seven and one under the Zuffa sort of umbrella if you count contender series and that one is just a loss to Arnold Allen which I don't you don't take that away from anybody like Arnold Allen's one of the best stand fighters in this whole 145 division I really want like Sadegh used to get this opportunity now to fight a contender like a real contender and make his way up the rankings because he has sort of been stuck in this 12 to 15 range for a long time. I know Giga was going to be that guy. If he can get the Korean zombie one, anything, really. Like I just, I have high, I believe in Cididic. Let me say it that way.

Like I feel like there's more there that we're not getting. And he's just sort of brining away in this, in this bottom zone without getting this opportunity. So ultimately, good on him for getting it done in 30 seconds. Again, treating it like he should have as such a big favorite. But I hope can get a big fight that's a meaningful fight because he deserves it. Yeah, it would be, it would be ill if that happened. But I think he's going to get Ilya. And that's going to be a tough night at the office for him probably. But I think that's probably what's going to happen because Ili's going to fight October 29th.

Still better than being on. Yeah, that's true. Still better than being on. Yeah, that's true. But yeah, good win for Sadiq. He did what he had to do. My biggest takeaway, it was nice to see. Mike Davis back of the Octagon.

This guy has had horrific luck. I mean, just awful luck. And I always reference the interview that never saw the light of day on M.A. Fighting.com. I interviewed Mike Davis right after the Mason Jones win. And there was just so much happening at the time that it just never got released. But it was the most fascinating interview with Mike Davis, you probably ever heard. And him just running through the litany of things he went through just to get to the Mason Jones fight,

including getting run over by a car. Yes, he's riding his bike and he got hit by a car, which knocked him out of action for almost another year. And now he's gone. The Mason Jones fight, he was so hurt and so banged up heading into that fight. He probably should have pulled out of it, but just hid all the injuries that he had, fought an absolute insane fight, won it,

and then he's been gone for 20 months. He comes back against a pretty tough dude in Slava Claus, who was a replacement opponent for his original opponent. And he went out there and wrestled his ass off. Had a great performance. And then he cuts a 30 second promo for his sponsor. Was a skinny? Skinny Betts cuts a 30 second radio ad in the cage for Skinny Betts.

And then gets his social media following. He's probably going to get another 50,000 followers in the next couple of days. A plus post-fight interview Mike Davis. I have an unbelievable matchup for him on onto the next one. It's the one. if you know what I'm talking about on to the next one fans, we've finally have,

we've got the one. We've got the one we've been fighting for and looking for for quite some time. But that was my biggest takeaway. Jed, what's your biggest takeaway from this card? I mean, and let me find another one,

because my actual answer to this is McKinsey Dern. Like, it's, and that feels disrespect for the Janjanjan, right? Because she won the fight, even if I didn't score it for her technically. Like,

she looked good and did the thing she wanted to do really well. showed even a little more power than I thought I'd given her credit for. But my big takeaway is going to be the Dern thing. So if I'm not doing Dern, because I don't want to do it. Oh, it's Brendan Allen. Brinand Allen, yeah, maybe it wouldn't be, but you guys have already taken other good choices. So Brinand Allen's performance against Jocko,

it's what I thought he was going to do and what I thought he was capable of doing. But we're seeing the talent coalesce here. Brennan Allen has always been very talented, and he's got some good wins over like legitimately still good guys. But every time he has stepped up to a top 15-ish level opponent, he's, he's been set back. Like, he hasn't been able to get over that hump. But he's got a ton of experience. And he's still young. He's still in his mid-20s.

So his performance, maybe we didn't see anything particularly new. A lot of what we saw stuff that I knew he could do and was good at. but him doing it on a against an opponent who I think the UFC does have ranked I'm not 100% certain on that but I know he's a he's a far for us he is a fighter also receiving votes as far as jaco goes and I think Brendan Allen is we're going to see more from him coming up right like he he is really talented and he's just going to be hitting the prime of his athletic peaks and his career really and I'm excited to see what he can do at middleweight we have bonuses

And I was wrong. I was wrong about the biggest takeaway. And I will bring that up in a second. Yeah, I have something to add on that as well. Yeah, I think we're going to probably go to the same place. I'll turn it up to you.

Fight of the night, clearly was John Cassidate, or Daniel Santos versus John Cassidate. What a crazy comeback win from Daniel the Robo Santos. Four performance bonuses. Maybe the Zuck Man kicked in a couple of bucks. Guido Canetti, Chelsea Chandler,

the now 16th ranked middleweight Brendan Allen because the stakes were very high in that fight is for number 16 and Joachim Silva first win in the first four years the first four fights of the card got bonuses all the pre-zuck fights all the pre-zuck fights

shot what was the other big takeaway because there's one that I just I saw a comment I'm like oh how the hell did I forget this go ahead yeah I think I saw the same comment as you my man over here Jay G, yeah, you brought it up. Yeah,

I totally forgot about it. That he fought with a staff infection. How, what? What? I think that happens a lot, but they usually just don't tell people. They don't say it on the mic. There's a reason, like,

like you can't go to the gym with a staff infection. Those things are incredibly contagious. Especially on mats on canvas. Like, what? What? Like, I don't have, like, what? How is this a thing that we're doing?

Who's fighting? How are we allowing people to fight with staff infections in the UFC in 2022? Are you kidding me? I would be. So nonchalant about it. I just got a staff infection a couple days ago. And then he gave like, I thought it. Then we thought he was going to retire.

And then he was like, no, he's not going to retire. And then he thought he was going to retire. And then he took it back. And I'm like, all right, just retire. Like, are you going to retire or not retire? But it was the weirdest post-fight interview of, of the night, no doubt. Jed? I just don't understand.

I don't understand because, like, lots of people fought after him on the same canvas. Also, he's just probably been in the apex and all the training rooms in whatever hotel, in Vegas, et cetera. Like, other people have been using the same mats as him all week long. Like, what? How is someone who's a more trained on medical expertise, please, please explain to me how this is possible without everybody on this card getting sick. Someone said Doc probably cleared it, but like,

how can you clear staff infection that you found two days ago? I just, I don't know. It's not optimal. No. Like, if I'm, if I'm Jan Chow Nan and I end up with staff on my face from when McKinsey Dern was literally rubbing my face in the mat, like, I would be, I would be so, so angry because it just shouldn't have happened. Like, it's just, it seems dumb.

And that fight was right before the prelim main event. or the last fight for the prelim and they went right into that thing because it was 25 minutes before the top of the hour I don't think anybody was in there zamboninging the octagon floor it was just like

all right well we'll just spray it down and give it a little wipey wipe and come on John and Daniel let's get out there and do the damn thing and both guys are on the mat both guys are dropped yeah there you go so just a real

banner night just a real banner night I mean this was yeah this was uh as a case cover a real sport We cover a real support, y'all. Yeah, as AK says so eloquently, it was a card. It was a card.

All right. Let's, uh, if you guys got questions, we're going to take like three or four. And then we're going to get out of here because Bellator is going on right now. We want to make sure that's, uh, give it. And BKFC is going on right now. We are about to get to Big Ben Rothwell. He is next in line. How many fights?

This is what Big Ben should have been doing his whole life, too. He was made for this. Oh, yeah. I'm very excited. He was like three. He was like two, nine. right on the way in? It should be illegal to allow that man to fight

bare knuckle other humans. Like he's going to be fighting. It's going to be dope. I'm excited about it. Let's say a couple speaking of Brennan Allen. What did we think of Brendan Allen calling out Andre Muniz for UFC 283? So the now number 16th ranked middleweight on the planet says let's go to Rio and let's take on to do that nobody's calling out.

Jed, what did you think of Brennan calling out Andre Meuse for? for Brazil and January. I love the ambition because nobody is calling him out and nobody's calling him to go to Brazil and fight him. And strictly because it's so ambitious, he has a chance at it. Because otherwise, I don't think he does because Monez is going to be trying to fight forward.

Alan, I don't think, is ranked in the UFC. I don't know if he'll get one with this win. So I love the ambition. I'm not sure that it's, I mean, it's an awful style call out for him. Like, Alan will lose that fight if it happens. but respect the man for taking his shot, you know. I got no issues with it.

John? Yeah, no, I mean, major respect. No one's out here calling Andre Mnuz out. I think that's the first one I've ever heard, at least in his UFC run, right? Like, I don't know about you guys, but I feel like we've talked about this before of. Dogs on top, baby.

Dogs on top. I don't know what out of the screenshot that face that you just made. That was great. That's the best, please. I don't even remember. You guys should have seen me during the national championship game. My friends have videos. It was tough.

It was tough hang. Hey, man. We've all been there. We've all been there. What was I even saying? Oh, like during this UFC run, like no one's calling out under Moody's. I feel like we've all talked about this, but like he's going to fight for a title probably later rather than sooner because I don't know that the UFC is going to give him a quick route

there. But like once he gets there, he might be champion. So, yeah, good on you, Brennan out, trying to call that guy out. You're not going to get it. and you know you probably shouldn't get it like jed said that's a terrible stylistic matchup for him but you got to love the balls on it absolutely uh thoughts on hyoni barcelos's performance against trevin jones sean coming back from the victor henry lost earlier this year look pretty damn good he dominated the fight yeah i mean anytime you're getting at 3025 right it's not a bad night in the

office good night uh see if we get any more here a lot of judging talk but i I think we've covered the judging pretty extensively on this thing. We'll pull up this one. What's, we'll call like under the radar. Chelsea Chandler just beat the hell out of Julia Stoli-Ranko tonight. That was impressive. Julia had good position early on, got the takedown. She tried to secure maybe an arm bar.

And she did the dumb thing, Mike. Like I was talking about with McKinsey Dern. When you get, when someone gifts you a mount, just stay. there. Like you don't, going from mount to arm bar is, I have always thought this like the worst thing you could do. I'm taking away this dominant, the most dominant position for a finishing opportunity. Like, I'll just sit, I'll just sit right here. I'll punch you in the face. I'll just do this all day. And like, she might have won the fight. Had she not gone for that arm bar and then, because as soon as she did, it was like, oh, we're done here. She can't do anything else. It's very bad.

you know who did get in the mount and did did the punching thing Chelsea Chandler did that and yeah super effective I don't know if you guys have ever heard the phrase of just punch people in the face it's really good at winning fights that's jiu jitsu is wonderful and I love jihitsu it's awesome you can also just use it to hold position and beat the hell out of somebody yeah that was an impressive performance Daniel Santos really impressed me low key because that dude is a freaking zombie he took a big shot john cascadeta was like was flowing out

there hitting him with everything drop santos i was like this fight's dunzo and then santos just gets up like nothing happened it was like cassidata knocked him out and then brought him back to life like six different times and then by the time he just sat on the stool it was like the stool just gave him like extra superpowers because cassata kept lighting him up in the second round and santos like didn't even budge. He just kept going forward and then landed just a disgusting knee. And the one thing that actually made the non-crowd, the one moment that made the non-crowd sort of stand out was that knee that Santos landed because it was a different sound than anything we heard throughout the night, Sean. Yeah, absolutely. That was a wild fight. Hell of a comeback. But also I can really appreciate

the shootbox commitment and loyalty and dedication to all sort of looking like Charles Olivero with the bleach hair and stuff like that's and the getting your ass kicked until you suddenly keep somebody's ass just replicating in this man's style i am here for that like props to you guys that's loyalty too it was awesome uh yeah i i bet santos uh live during after the first round so it's like i think castanay is breaking he he i know he almost killed him twice but he didn't and it really looks like he is tired and doesn't want to be there anymore and santo just stayed on him. That man, who

tough, tougher than a $2 steak, baby. Yeah, you could see the frustration in his eyes at the end of the first round. He actually looked up at the clock with about 15 seconds left in the first round and that was a great live bet,

Jed, very smart on your part, very smart, you know, I missed a few of them. I'm not telling you about, I'm not telling you about the high bets I made that didn't work.

Oh, I didn't know about those. Oh, I did a couple of those. But that was a good one. You should host a gambling podcast on, in MMAfighting.com.

I'll look into it. Okay, cool. All right, I think we're done. I think we have given this card. Just in time for Big Ben, baby. 25 minutes more than we probably should have. But Bellator going on right now. So in a matter of moments,

we are going to, once I get this all situated and up on the website, we're going to go on to the MMA fighting Twitter spaces. We're going to watch whatever's left of the Bellator main card together. We'll have some fun. We'll bring some people in and we'll do the darn thing. So for Sean, for Jed, I am Mike Heck. Thank you for joining us. Hope you enjoyed the card.

And enjoy the Bellator card as well. I'll see you guys later. Love you guys. Go dogs. Love you guys. The Vox Media Podcast Network.