MMA Fighting - UFC Vegas 75, Bellator 297 & PFL 5 Reaction | Who Won the Weekend?

Episode Date: June 18, 2023

Following the UFC Vegas 75 main event between Jared Cannonier and Marvin Vettori, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck, Jed Meshew, and José Youngs react to the five-round middleweight battle, the big moments from Saturday's card at the UFC APEX, the best of the weekend in MMA, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs 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 Cudulian 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. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Being joined by Jammin Jed Michoud, who was Boots on the ground in the ATL yesterday at the PFL event, and boy, did a lot happen at that card. The fights were okay, but it was outside of the cage.

made the headlines. Mike, let me just start this by saying I'm so excited because I thought we were getting on here to talk about the UFC and then I noticed our graphic we're talking about the whole weekend. That's great because I have about three total things to say from that UFC fight card

and most of them is me just disparaging Alexander Cayley, the great Alexander Cayley. So I love that we're going to get to talk about all the other stuff because way more interesting things happened outside of what we just witnessed. So I think I'm going to start with like a general question that kind of set the table for all of this. Then I think we'll sort of recap what just happened at the UFC card.

And then we could just fire off a bunch of questions about everything that happened this weekend. But let's start with the general question, Jed, because you were boots on the ground for the PFL card. You were there for the face off between France and Ghanu and John Jones. We had a Bellator card last night That Sergio Pettus looked incredible Badim Nemcoff dominated Y'all Romero

We had Phil Davis, Corey Anderson have a fight And then we had Daniel James and Golkan Saracom have a fight Some good prelims as well And then the UFC card this week was It was pretty good It felt like I was watching fights for 19 hours But there were some good moments The main event was friggin awesome

And we'll get into that in a moment But some highlights for sure Who won the weekend, Jed? Who won the weekend between the three promotions? Come on. We all know the answer to this one, and y'all are going to, you know, some people will be mad,

and they can just be mad. PFO won the weekend, man. That's just how it goes. And it wasn't always like that, right? We were talking about this and some of the pre-stuff of BTL that on paper, Bellator had the better car, and it did. Like, that still played out. I haven't seen all of the Bellator stuff

because I was working PFL last night, so I didn't get to watch all the fights live, et cetera, but they still, I mean, they came away with the good event and fun, good,

useful things happened, but the story people will be talking about from this weekend forever is the John Jones rancin on it face off. Like, that's the story.

And credit to PFL, they knew that. Like, they're no dummies. There's a reason Maurice Greed was fighting their champion in the main event of that card.

Like, they didn't have to look at that way. way, there's a reason Francis came to this event. They're not idiots. They knew exactly what they were doing and it paid off for them. They are the talk of this combat sports weekend undeniably. They won the weekend

even if it has nothing to do with the fights they put on. I would agree with you because I actually posted this question on Twitter yesterday before both fights started. I said, which card will have the most post-fight buzz or post-event buzz will be the bellator card or the PFL card.

And most people were just like, oh, this is a stupid question it's going to be bellator by far i'm like are you sure about that john jones and france in the same building like they're going to take advantage of this and i think you're right i think as far as headlines go and things we're going to be talking about this week it's pfl by a mile by literally any by any metric other than the angry people in the comments who uh sniff their own farts because they're real hardcore fans pfl won the like by literally any actual tangible metric other than their fights weren't as good. I'm not here to say they had the worst of the three fights,

easily the worst of the three fight cards by every metric, social interaction, anything you want. They will come away by far the biggest winners this weekend for something that had nothing to do with their fights realistically. But that's how promotion works. Like they won the weekend, man. It just be mad about all you want, guys. That just is what it is.

So headlining wise PFL UFC Bellator Fight card wise Fair to say UFC You think you have C beat You think UFC beat Belator headlining wise I'm not sure that that's true

I don't know I mean look we're early on here Did a lot come out of the Belator card headline he was Well I will say that UFC actually you're probably right Mike Because you see had so much weird shit happened tonight, then it's probably going to get more traction as a result of it, as opposed to the hardcore fans who would be like, wow, it's pretty dope what Sergio Pettus did. That was incredible. And then forget about Bellator immediately. So take it back. You're right. PFL, UFC, Belator, fight wise. Again, I haven't seen the full Bellator card. So I, you know, I'm a little bit in the

dark here. Based on the stuff I saw, I'm going to say PFL, just because the Pettis Pettis pit bull just doing a lot of heavy lifting there. But if you argued with me that the totality of the UFC card is better, I can't, I can't say you're wrong. But maybe PFL's like eight rungs down the ladder as far as actual fight-wise. Well, it's an interesting topic. I'm sure we'll talk more about this. But let's talk about this UFC card. Let's talk about the main event because Jared Cadenier and Martin Burtory beat the hell out of each other.

This is a war. I don't think a lot of people are expecting this to be a war. If you listen to the People's Pre-Fight Show, I said that this is going to be the fight of the night, that this would end up being a war. And Vittori hurts Jared Cannon Air early. Looks like he might get him out of there, but Cannon Air recovers.

Second round, Cannon Air had Vittori as hurt as we have ever seen him inside the Octagon, and he just kept pouring it on. And Vittori, that dude is just so tough, man. It's like impossible to get him out of there. He was just battered and bloodied. He was dropped.

He was hurt. And the dude just kept, coming forward. He is officially a man who you cannot finish. It is maybe that durability is starting to wither after this performance, but holy crap, Jed, the toughest of Martin Vittory we knew it was there. But Jared Cannonier, record-breaking performance, shattered the significant strike record for a middleweight fight by a lot.

I think it was 186 heading into the fight, and Cannoneer landed 249 significant strikes, and Marvin Vittory wore every single one. of those strikes what's your biggest takeaway from this fight how frigging good did jared canineer look tonight i think the biggest takeaway has got to be jared canineer right because look i'm i'm a straight shooter mike i'm gonna tell you when i'm wrong about some shit and uh i couldn't have been more wrong about this main event like just every facet of it i was dead wrong on how this fight would look i mean martin vittori comes out and almost gets like hurts him in the first round which i would

of bet my house would not be a thing. And I, like, very brief, was like, oh, my God, what the hell's going on here? And then for the remaining 20 minutes of that fight, Jared Canoneer is the one who is constantly advancing, who is just sort of willingly engaging in rough, roughhouse tactics at certain points in time. Like, don't even remember, doing a ton of really excellent technical stuff, cutting angles, slipping to his sides and getting his shots in. But there was also just a lot of it where Jared Kennedy was simply like, I don't really care if you hit me. I'm going to be the one to dictate and take this space.

And Marvin Vittori backed up. And that was not the dynamic I pictured because we've seen Jared Cannotier be overly passive and look for countershots. And Marvin Vittori's whole thing is he is going to get in your face and whip kicks at you and just pressure, pressure, pressure. I thought it was brilliant game planning as the fight went on from Canadiere. I thought the commentary team were largely bad for a lot of the night.

which we can talk about later. I had some pretty keen insights, at least from what I saw in that fight. Canineer came in with the idea of going Southball and then sort of just gave up on it because it was pretty bad. And when he made the adjustment, he looks sensational. It's the best Jared Canineer has ever looked at 39 years old. At a stage of his career where he could just be kind of fading away.

You know, he had a shot at the title. You'll often see dudes who come up short. They're on the back nine, just kind of start falling off. and he is absolutely getting better. And I'm not here to say that I care to see him rematch Israel-Dissio, but he's not far off from deserving that opportunity. So great for Jared Kennedy. You've got to be the biggest takeaway.

Yeah, the UFC News account said they put out an official number, 241 significant strikes landed by Jared Kahnier. So that's still pretty, that's still pretty damn impressive. So I thought Jared's post-fight interview, I was like, he's going to sit there and call for a title shot. But I actually think he veered in the right direction because he said, I want the damn title. That's what we're here to do, right?

And I'm like, all right, you can try to keep going, but you're not going to get it. I mean, Israel Adasani's only reaction to the fight was bro, which was probably like a good bro. Like, that was fun friggin' fight to watch. But the way Canaanar approached it, I thought he did a good job. He said, look, something happens. I know they're going to try to book something for Izzy later on.

Didn't mention Izzy by name. But if something happens, he knows there's a lot. Jam at 185. He knows that Drickus Duplice and Robert Whitaker are going to fight. And the chances of one of those guys, whoever comes out of it, turning around and fighting Izzy two months later, might be tough. Jared said, look, if you need a guy, something happens, I'm ready to go. Give me a call.

I'll be there. I thought he approached us pretty well. Unlikely he gets a title shot, but the way he approached it, I think it was the right way to go. Yeah, I have no issues with it. It's just a tough, tough needle to throw. because there's not an obvious person for him to call out here, really, because you know that the Rob DDP fight is ostensibly a number one contenders bout,

and there are no real guys above him other than that. I mean, Vittori was, but you just beat Vittori, so I think that he's now the top-ranked middleweight, according to the UFC, other than that. Except for, I guess, Alex Pereira, they probably still have him ranked, but he's a 205 or now. So there's not a logical opponent, and he just sort of stayed at the plane.

like you said. So no issues with the call-out. And I think it makes sense, at least in his mind. I don't think he's going to get any of the things he asked for. But I do think that that's probably the sort of right way to approach it. Yeah, I agree. Candidare just looks so good. Everything he landed, everything he threw landed. The footwork was unbelievable. Like he had Vittori kind of, Votori's usually just march forward and go. And he had Votori guessing a lot. Like, was he going to shoot a Take down. I thought even though AK is going to hate this, Jared Canier mixed the martial arts very well, but just battered Martin Bator. What a great performance. I would assume that this is going to be the fight of the night. We're waiting for the bonuses to come out. I'm sure Manuel Torres is going to get a bonus for that performance. The other one, we had some other finishes that's kind of up in the air. So we'll see. And we'll go from there. Jed, you mentioned the commentary. We'll get to Armin Saruki in a minute, but you are not a fan of the commentary throughout most of this card. Explain why. This was awful, man. Like, Dominant Cruz is a really bad commentator,

and they're going to be some people who are really upset with me about that. And I'm sorry, it's just the truth. Dominic Cruz is a very good analyst. He needs to be sitting on the desk. But the role of a commentator is not to sit there and make snide shit-talking quips about the referee while something is going down. Or state unequivocally things that are wrong

or at least extremely up for negotiation. Like that's that's my job. That's a talking head at a desk analyst booth who can just sort of say shit and it's fine because you're just getting off takes. He's doing that while we're trying to figure out what the hell is going to happen in a real fight. And that's just as Bush League. Like it's not the same role. And it, it sort of derails things. And then you get the rest of the commentary team being like, yeah, I don't know, man. That's a slam. And I'm not here to tell you that the, the, the, Hernandez-Bondar thing. I cannot say unequivocally that that slam isn't what knocked him out. I also can't say unequivocally that it wasn't a headbutt. And Dominic Cruz is just like, well, that's it. You know, it's nonsense. You got to take it.

It's like you can't just say that and then be mad at the ref when you have no real understanding or knowledge of it. Like, yes, it's a thing that happens, but it also can happen because his head hit him, which is illegal. And like, he was on one tonight saying some shit out there. And it was really distracting to watch the fights. Like,

it's just that, that's analyst booth stuff. Just put him at the desk and he can, he can pop off for every once. And then it works a lot better as opposed to him shit talking Keith Peterson in the middle of a fight. Whether Keith Peterson deserved it or not, that's still just not something you do.

Yeah, I think Cruz was a little out of line. I agree with you. I think Cruz would be tremendous at the desk. He would be wonderful at the desk. He's literally perfect for it. And my issue, I've not liked Cruz for a while because I've always just thought he's a better analyst

than a commentator. He's in the commentary booth, he is largely given things entirely, like entirely subjectively, entirely from his point of view of, I used to see it certainly early on where he would just be like, this fighter's doing something dumb

because they are not fighting the way I would fight. He's gotten a little bit better about that, but it's just stuff that is just better as an analyst. Be like, hey, man, like, we can go to him afterwards while we're in the commercial break and be like, Dom, talk us through what you think of that Hernandez. Well, I think that's a slam. You see it in wrestling rooms all the time.

Sometimes the heads are going to clash, but you can't take it away. And that's just a much better viewing experience than him being like, this is nonsense. That guy needs to be fired. Refs suck. It's like that, that's like essentially what he was saying

for half of the things happening. tonight and it's it's a lot of people like it because a lot of people like yeah but it's just not like that's not his should not be what he is doing ringside it's just an entirely different role yeah it was a very weird card at certain times and the commentary was a part of that if we're being honest let's go to armin seruki and jed because he was by far the biggest favorite on this card i think he closed a minus 1050 close to a minus 1100 depending on which book you're looking at great first round, classic Armin first round where he just takes you down, suffocate you, wears you out a little bit. And then usually in round two, that's when he's like, all right,

I got you withered. I'm going to come in here and explode and try to get you out of there. He tried. He definitely tried. Wachim Silva, just his chin held up a lot better than a lot of people thought it would. And he cracked Armin Saruki. And he had Sarukin on wobbly legs. He was doing the stanky leg and it looked like arm and sirrukien was in big trouble but he recovered landed a takedown ended the round on top we go into round three it's 19 19 judge's scorecards all saw it the same way and sirukia was just like i'm done with this like i'm done playing around took him down gets back up slams him on his head and then just lands like a barrage of elbows gets in full mountain just starts wailing on him keith peterson probably could have stopped that fight 15 seconds

earlier but serukian wanted to go in there and get a finish he did it had a scary moment overcame it got it done how do you grade his performance look he can't give him an a right because of the the second round and you could dock him even tactically for like engaging in that sort of battle but it's i mean give him like a a b plus and one that like spiritually i want to call an a because yes the bad thing happened and he almost like almost is close maybe maybe he wasn't as close as it appeared. But he had a spot of bother. But you could take a lot of really good things from that from him.

Like great learning experience. We got to see that Armand Sarukian is not a wilting lily. Like he got hit. Like he got clipped. You can see his eyes sort of roll off and he doesn't really know where he's at. But he responded really well. I mean, he immediately looked for a safe zone, got to it, wrote out the round and then came out in that third round.

It was like, all right, well, no more games. Time to do the thing. So I think you can take a lot of positives from it. You know, ultimately you would rather that not happen, but it went about as smooth as a speed bump can go. So B plus, and I still think if he's not the lightweight champion and within four years, I will be astonished. Yeah.

I mean, I don't need to talk about my thoughts on Arm and Zurukeen as a fighter in his future at all. I've said it enough. He's going to win the belt at some point. these are the types of fights he's just going to grow from there's no doubt about it uh he went in there and got the job done called up benel derrush kind of but said that he had heard heard that benile isn't going to be ready to fight till december and he's like i can't wait that long and then he turns his attention to your favorite fighter michael chandler and says look man this fight with connor ain't happening it's not going to happen so you're going to fight somebody else so you're

going to have to fight me and I'm going to kill you. Like that's pretty much word for word we said, I'm going to kill him if I fight him. So did you like the direction here? Because I mean, he's going to have a hard time. He's just going to have a tough time finding fights. A lot of these lightweets are already booked up. They already have things going on. Looks like Fiziv and Gamrodder kind of circling each other right now, Pori and Gachia are fighting in July. They're going to just beat the shit out of each other. So it's going to be a while before one of those guys come back. And then Mokachev's maybe probably fighting Olivera. It's getting a ranked guy or getting a top five guys.

It's going to be very difficult. Does he want to wait till December and fight Darius? Or was this the right way to go? Daryush in December. I can't wait that long. But Chandler, you ain't fighting Connor. So I'm going to get in there and kill you. No, not the right way to go.

I know that he wants to fight. I get it. It's just not, it's not realistic for where he's at in his career right now. And that sucks. But his two options are, If he wants to fight that much, he's got to fight Joaquim Silva. He is going to simply have to take fights against people who are willing to fight him

because it's going to be a small group of fighters in general. And if he wants to fight on those timelines, for as good as we think he is, as much potential as he is, he is one of the least stars in the division of this moment. He does not get to dictate these things. He is on Michael Chandler's time if he wants to fight Michael Chandler. He's probably on Benile Daryush's time, if he wants to fight Michael Chandler. Daryush's time if he wants to fight Binal Daryoush. And realistically for him, he's not getting Chandler.

I, look, I think it is extremely possible that Michael Chandler does not fight Connor McGregor, what with the allegations, what with Conner McGregor, just being Connor McGregor and still no set timeline in his actual return. I think that is very much possible. But Michael Chandler is going to hold out the dream that he is fighting Connor McGregor until it is pride from his cold, dead hands. So Michael Chandler, I don't give him a lot of credit, he's not a total moron. And it would take a total moron to throw away a potential Connor McGregor fight to fight Armand's

Rukian. I cannot think of a worse business decision that would have been made in the history of this sport than Michael Chandler having the Connor McGregor fight and being like, no, I'm good. Armand, let's go. that would be the dumbest thing of all time. I think the best bet Armand had is Baneo Darius. Benny coming off the loss, he is ranked above him. That's the fight for him if he wants to get a fight.

I'm not sure he can get it, but he should have gone full steam ahead saying, hey, you want to wait until December? Okay, I'll wait too. But just so you know, Benny, I'm still 26. The longer you wait, the better I'm going to be. You might want to make this happen right now. Because otherwise, he's going to have to fight back. They're just going to make him fight somebody back if he wants to fight on that timeline because there's nobody who's going to.

Dustin Porriade, Justin, they're not going to be like, yeah, I want to fight Armin in September. It's just not going to happen. It's unrealistic. So he should have gone all in on Benny because that's the only one that maybe could happen for him. Yeah. I mean, spoiler. That's going to be my on to the next one pick. It's got to be Benile Der Ush, no doubt about it.

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We do a bonuses finally. Fight of the night, no surprise. Vittori versus Cannoneer. Performance of the night, Manuel Torres, no surprise there. And Alessandro Costa gets himself a bonus for his finish of Jimmy Flick. Some nasty ground and pound gets it done. So nice three check nights. For Costa?

What were they other than Costa? I missed the first two. Fighting Night was the main event. And Manwell Torres was definitely getting a bonus after that freaking elbow from hell. Makes sense. Okay. Yep. Pat Sabatini had a nice performance.

We got a 15-minute armed Petrosian fight that he won against Christian Leroy, Duncan. I think that was a pretty solid performance. Gets the win. Nicholas Dalby beats Muslim Salikoff. We mentioned Alexander Costa. Kyeongho Kang, Mr. Perfect, getting it done, submitting Christian Kenyones in the first round, the Christian Parley,

just didn't work out for you. Both legs lost, but it's okay. The double D parlay at PFL hit, so we're golden. Oh, wonderful. Carlos Hernandez, Dennis Bondar, we talked about that. Big slam, nasty elbows.

Jaron Villal just let poor Dennis Bonder almost die in there. I mean, that was just brutal. Called a text. They went to the cards. There was a technical decision win for Carl Shenandez. Trissa Bleda gets a win. Ronnie Lawrence, Danielle Getta, ends in a no contest because there's a rear naked choke.

And Ronnie Lawrence doesn't actually tap. And Keith Peterson stopped the fight. They did the right thing. Went to the replay. It is a no contest. Can't restart it. It's not in the rules. That's what you got to do.

And that was just a weird way to end it. And then Modestis Picoscus, 2 and 0 on the comeback trail. A lot of people didn't agree with that decision against Zach Pauuga, but Modestis gets it done. I don't think it was an egregious. 3027 is a pretty awful scorecard, but you can make a case that Modestis won the first and third rounds, I guess. So there you go. That's UFC Vegas 75, right there. Yeah.

You've succinctly nailed it. That was a fight card. We've done it. All right. So Jose is the producer extraordinaire. Casey is off doing other things, probably improving his amateur record to 2 and 0 somewhere that we just don't about so there he is look at Jose Young's so fire up those questions they could be about the UFC card they could be about Bellator they could be about PFL whatever

you want let's go let's see hopefully everyone can hear me because the last sure can this the people couldn't um all right there were all right let's start let's talk with this because you guys talked about the main event and everything all right the refs are off today Jarvinel is not a good referee anyways. Keith Peterson's hit or miss. And there were a few questions about the referee or a few comments about the referees and everything like this, but this was the first one that popped up.

Yeah. Given it. Jaronville is not a good ref, I agree. I don't really think Keith Peterson is either. I will defend both of them slightly. I'm not sure that Jaron Vell did anything wrong other than allow the man to eat. a thousand elbows after he was unconscious. I'm not honestly sure that that shouldn't have been a tech decision.

I can see an argument either side. Probably, like, this isn't really how this should work, but I'm happier with it being a tech decision just because it ultimately means nobody was really harmed in this because Hernandez still wins the tech decision. Whereas, like, there is a world where if that is. is an illegal action that then, you know, Bondar gets kind of screwed there. But that's, it's mincing. Spliting hairs. Uh, look, Keith Peterson effed up in a bad and stupid way. I'm glad that he didn't hold to it. You can see people be real dumb and, you know, double down on their

idiocy. And yeah, no excusing his actions, but credit to them for being like, hey, we messed up. we can't fix it, but this is the best we can do and we can rebook this. And sometimes it happens, man, they're putting on a thousand fights a year. There are going to be some slip-ups here and there.

It's, that's just the law of numbers. Bondar looked really bad tonight. Yeah. There's a lot of comments about his performance. Oh, he was awful. He was awful.

So, yeah, in our Slack channel, I had made a comment about, I'm like, yeah, Bondar, I'll say it this way.

Bondar, not looking good, hasn't looked good and then like two seconds later that's when the finish happened and some expletives came out and it was fun. Jed's back from the PFL tour.

Yes he is. I'm even wearing a PFL shirt right now. I mean two different weight classes but Canaaner may beat Nemcoff. Well, but probably not but it wouldn't be impossible. Oh, that's a big question.

You got the idea. Yeah, could Bellator make us believe a trilogy between Vadim and Corey? Yeah. You think they're going to go? They're going to have to do that. Like, what else is there? Yeah, I mean, they're going to have to because there aren't. The only thing, if any of you guys watched, well, I know Jed has it bookmarked for prime times during when he's done with the show.

Vadim Nemcoff's post-fight scrum, that's about seven minutes long. He said that he was toying with the idea of going to heavyweight because he's tired. of facing the same people over and over again. I mean, why not? Brian Bader did it. Because his reasoning was he goes, all right, I fight Corey Anderson, and he wins, and then Phil Davis is probably going to beat the guy that he fights next, and then the next guy up is going to be Phil Davis, and I beat him twice.

So he's like, who do I fight? Like, let's go to heavyweight, so that's about. And I think, yeah, that's right. I think Grant Neal is the number four ranked light, light heavyweight. He sure is Alex Polizzi's number five. And he lost last night. Yeah.

Lizzie lost last night. And look, Demkoffs already get a knockout win over Ryan Bader. So that's get some story there. What did that win? Oh, good. Well,

so it's just one of the primary issues with Bellator as a promotion is that they have a very small roster of the same like 20 dudes. Yeah. And so sometimes that can be fun because you, ultimately over the course, of a couple years, you get all of the fights. They will all, you're never going to have the, oh, those two somehow never fought. Like, they're all going to fight, but you're going to get it like eight times.

However, if PFL buys them, Rob Wilkins, Rob Wilkinson, you know, coming off, coming off this alleged juice using. I don't know when he gets to come back, but, I mean, that's, sign me up for Rob Wilkinson, gear or no gear versus Vedeem Koff. I mean, that's always kind of been the knock with Bellator, right? How many times did, like, Pat Curran fight, like, was it, Daniel Strauss? Then they fight, like, and pit bull. Yeah, that's always been the problem with, like, even, because, well, I guess that was an issue,

especially back when they do the seasons, like the tournaments, because the same guys would always win or face off in the thing. But I digress. Yeah, if you have, like, 20 fighters, but, like, five of them are just clearly better than the other 15. Those five are just going to fight each other a bunch. Yeah, the heavier weight classes, they're hurting. They're not really hurting in a lot of other divisions. Like, they got guys coming up. Like middle weight's pretty solid.

170's pretty solid. 55's great. 45's great. 35's great. Yeah. Hopefully flyweight can build up. But yeah, they got to get some bodies at 205 and heavyweight. Rob.

I'll bring up this because there's a lot of comments about what's next for Jared. What did that win do for Jared's title hopes? I mean, I'm sure you agree with this, Jed. I'm sure Jared is whoever is he ends up fighting. Jared Canadiere is 1,000% rooting for that person. Unless it maybe Rob Whitaker because we saw that fight, but it was still like a fun fight and Canaanair gave... He broke his hand in the first kick.

Yeah, so there's something there. But if like DDP somehow beats Israel out of Sanya, I'm sure Jared Cannonair will be. be right there. So like what does this win do? Like who does he fight next? You know, like where does he go? This is the problem with like he should be like Robert Whitaker should be fighting Paulo Costa and Jared Canaaner should be fighting someone like I don't know. Like Kelvin, like he already beat Kelvin Gasl. Shoot. I have the answer but you can continue. I have the correct answer and I thought about this earlier. What's the answer? I actually thought about the stakes for this

fight. What's the answer? The stakes are and Jared Candarry probably ain't going to like this too much but if he wants to get a title shot this is the fight he's going to have to take and he's going to have to win he's going to fight Hamzaa Chamaif and Abu Dhabi that's the place. I think that I think these two were fighting for the Hamzad fight

I didn't think about it in those terms but what I was like yeah I think I think this helped him in general like one is better than losing there is a world where he slots in to face Izzy in Australia I wouldn't

say it's high likelihood, but the other timelines are tough. Like, they're tougher cells. You're either going to have to have DDP or Bobby Knuckles turning around pretty quickly to fight Izzy in Australia and certainly coming off a fight. Like, there's a world where the winner of that fight is busted up and can't do it. So he has, like, five percent chance to maybe slot into that. And outside of it, there's just, he fights Homsup for a title shot. And that's, you know, good or bad depending on how.

good Hamzaa is at him in a middle weight i guess we'll find out Jose and jed you can chime in on this after as well what are the chances that like they're not going to make any decisions still after two 90 right let's just say ddp and wittaker go in there and they just beat the breaks off of each other and like sean strickland loses to abis maga made off or it's like not a compelling win or anything like that and there's just nobody else like jared canaer is like the only guy that can do it. What are the chances that the UFC will just pivot and

say, you know what? Let's just do Izzy versus Jamal Hill and move them, let's have him fight for the 205 pound title because right now Jamal Hill doesn't have anybody to fight. There's guys there we have to wait for Yomboovic and Alex Pereira to fight. We don't know what the hell is going out of Yuri Barashka. Jamal Hill has not fought since he won the belt.

I mean, it's not like it's been two years or anything like that, but he won the belt in January. People want to see him fight. They want to see if they could build the momentum of this win. Is there a chance they pivot in that direction if Cannonair is like the lone dude left? Yeah, I'm sure they could. Especially I think the UFC would salivate it. Izzy Alex three at light heavyweight.

Like that would be the only like again, like just the two baddest dudes fighting in another weight class. But I mean, UFC 2991 is not even that far away. Like it's what a month and a half away? So I wouldn't mind winning. Yeah. Because, like, Jared, like, Jamal Hill's already done an interview. It was either with Helen Ye or the Schmo, maybe both of them, where he said that Alex versus Jan is the number one contender.

He's like, I'm going to fight the winner of that. When that happens, I don't know, because I would imagine Islam's going to be the main event in Abu Dhabi. They're not going to put the light heavyweight title above him. I guess it could be New York, though. If the welterweight titles, you know, Colby has fought in New York a bunch, the welterweight title could be there. we could be waiting until December to see Jamal Hill fight,

which is annoying because he won the title in January. But also, let's not forget, Tim Simpson was just on the MMA hour, he said, year he's good to go. Like, that was like, I don't think that was talked about enough.

He just kind of, like, breezed over it. And I was like, hey, timeout. Like, the best light heavy way in the world is ready to go.

Why is he not fighting? What are we doing? Like, what are we doing here? Let's put this fight on the books. Let's do it. Yes. Yes.

Put that in Sydney for crying out loud. Yes. You think even AK would admit Marvin has that talking? That's a great question. I think he has to now. Hold on. All right. Question for,

question for Jedd is you were in attendance. It gives PFL some shine. Oh. Pacheco, the best women's fighter, 135 plus. Yeah. Right now? I don't think that's even con. I don't even think that's a con.

contest. With Amanda retired? With Amanda retired, I don't think that's really credibly up for debate. Better than Cyborg? Yeah, I think Cyborg's fault. Like, Cybor's been doing this for 20 years. She's just older. I'd pick Pacheco to win it, but that's a, like, that's the fight, right?

You know, like, that fight would be dope. But, I mean, Pacheco is awesome. I've now seen her fight like two or three times in person, and every time it's... She gets better. She gets better every time. And every time she has that exact same like, Amanda, like prime peak Amanda or of just like,

I am going to ether this woman across the cage from me. And then she does it. Like, Librock genuinely should not have been in the general vicinity of that cage. I'll tell you. The sheer disdain. I'll tell you what. So like,

that kicked. When I do a lot of the, is she better than Kayla Harrison? I know she won, but Kayla has a lot of wins over her. I think they're very evenly matched. Yeah. Because Pacheco's just improved a lot.

I want to see what Harrison looks when she gets better because you generally get better from losses. I think that that matchup at this point is pretty close to 50-50. Still probably favorite Kayla maybe, but it's pretty close. Yep, and the next time she fights, she better be in the main event because that was silly. Well, no, I get it out at the end of it. I was saying, she would have been in the main event, but PFL was setting the face off up.

Like, that was their whole goal today. All right, Bellator. More Bellator questions. How do you see Patchy Mix versus Sergio Pettus going? This fight's going to rule. Yeah. That's going to be awesome, man. So for as wrong as I was about the UFC main event.

I was dead on for Petty's Pitbull. This was exactly what I thought would happen because it's really tough to drop down weight classes, particularly when you're getting older, and it's your first fight there. Like, no disrespect to Patricio Pitbull. Josaldo is a better fighter than him historically, and his first fight, cutting to Bannon Weight,

was his worst performance to Bannum Weight because it's a whole new weight class. You have to get used to a whole new set of things going on. And in general, when you go weight class, like go down weight classes, they're just a lot faster. And you're used to, if you're the kind of fighter who could drop weight, you're used to having a speed advantage that is pretty meaningful. And I think we saw that.

I thought a lot of Pettus, like Pettus did a ton of great things, but like at a real baseline level, he was way faster than Pipple. And Pipple didn't seem to have the power to like really, really hurt him. And it was just a really bad recipe for him. So that was, I think, the best surgery of Pettus has ever looked. I'm still going to pick patchy mix because I think there's a very credible world where patchy mix is just the best Bannam weight alive. But I'm so excited to see what that fight looks like. Mix minus 400, no way.

It's not going to be minus 400. It's not going to be the line, no way. No chance. I thought Sirger could have mixed is the favorite. I would agree. Like minus 150 maybe, a little higher maybe or a little low. Yeah, that's probably right about right. 150 feels about right

staying on the Bellator train Belator May was not technical did you see Romero I mean he was technically in there he was Ramirez he was technically Romero that's how Romero literally danced inside the inside the cage I loved it

and he had his best round in the third round he's the fucking best guys I don't no one is ever going to appreciate this man enough because he's not the best middleweight or light heavyweight in the world. And there was only like a very brief window where he probably was that.

Oh, perfect, perfect segue. That's easy. Joel Romero, I have no idea what's next for him. I don't care. I just want us to stand and appreciate that nobody in the history of combat sports other than, fuck, why can't I think of the dude who beat him in the Olympic Games? because I'll think of it in a minute

has made him look like an idiot everybody you can beat Yo-O-Romero and a lot of people have done it in recent years you always look awful doing it and it makes me so happy because this man is such an enigma that the best fighters in the world can't figure out at one point in time like after the Izzy loss

if you went and looked at Izzy's stats pre and post the Yoel fight. It's like here are all these incredible stats about number of strikes and his percentages. And then there's Yoel where he landed like 20% of his strikes and threw like half the volume. And then

it's just back to being elite. You can't look good against this man. It's an incredible skill that no one appreciates as much as I do, I think. What's next for YOL Amaro was one of the questions. It's Gaggar Musassi at 205. That's the fight. I'm not sure. Lose or lose time.

Yeah, Musassi maybe has one, maybe two left. That fight is going to be the worst fight we've ever seen. I haven't been impressed with Gagarin Rusasi in years. Like, when he hopped over to Belator, I was frustrated because we didn't get, like, I feel like we were already on the back nine of his career, maybe back whatever. I freaking hate golf so much. I don't know terminology, but, you know. How dare you?

I will pat the the set the seven things stretch had already passed for Gaygarten Rassi's career we are so we already heard sweet Caroline and I was like well there are fights I would rather see in the UFC before he retires yeah and then now we're seeing him lose to you know you know anyway I've never I've never been overly impressed by Gaygar Rousassi last fews anyway moving on that fight is going to be a 15 minute staring con test. But it's going to be it. No, actually it'll be, dude, that is a, that is going to be a headliner. So I mean, yeah, it's going to be great, but it's going to be awful.

But we, third round, Yola Romero could get the job done. Oh, man. Hold on. I'm going to come back. I'm going to come back to this question that I just posted, but there's, for some reason,

this scenario has been brought up a lot in the chat while we're talking about this. Oh, what about? Yoel versus Anderson Silva in Japan both fighters will have their last fight there now maybe i mean yowl's under contract so maybe they could do it on a bellator versus rison type thing perhaps that's not a bad idea sure i support it i think i just i think that fight will also any yole fight i'm going to turn up for because i'm charmed by his idiosyncratic way of fist fighting. But it's going to

be a bad hang. Him versus Anderson is going to be 15 to 25 minutes of them just looking at each other and dancing. That's how that fight will be. But I'll watch it because it will be charming in the worst, stupidest ways. Charming.

I'll take a couple more. There's a lot of things that need be written out. Apparently Jared Kennear said at the press conference that he's down. That's who beat him. He's down. Yeah, Jared Kenner seems to be down. for the Hamza-Chima fight. So let's go.

Easy. Book it. We should announce this by Tuesday. He should have called him out. Now, like, I didn't think of that. Whoever said it first was a genius. But if he had called that out, that fight would just be made immediately. And it's the fight that makes the most sense by far.

Yep. After that main event, I'm convinced you could shoot Marmitory in the face and he'd keep marching forward. Oh, yeah. Was this news to people? Like, I had, I would have been the most shocked if Jared Kennedy had stopped him. And, like, at points, he looked somewhat close. But Marvin Vittori, we talked about it in, like, the slack.

If it's going to go. And when it goes, it's going to be a really bad fall for Marvin Vittory. As all fighters who have legendary chins, things get bad on the downslope. But I mean, this dude has an all-timer of a chin. Just one of the most insanely durable guys who's ever stepped in the octagon. Beva, I was surprised the corner didn't stop that Vittori fight. He demonstrated heart, but those kind of prolonged beatings just shortened careers. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't really happen.

Again, it's the wind show, all that stuff. I don't even, they shouldn't have stopped it. I agree. I'm very aggressive on the like corners need to throw in the towel more. I don't think they should stop that one. Like he, I mean, he did win the fourth round on one judge's score card and it's not,

like it's not an awful score. It's probably not a good one. But like he, if, if rounds two, three and five had happened back to back, then I would have said, yeah,

you should probably stop this fighting if those were the first three rounds. But he kept showing stuff in there. Like he won round one, round four round like he just looked better at various points so i don't think they should stop the fight i agree all right one more question outside of bellator versus horizon two will the two month break hurt bellator they're back for two ninety eight on august 11th with logan storeley versus brennan ward yes that is happening in south dakota oh it's tough well one it's a weird thing to say

other than the Bellator v. Risen like that's a marquee event for them so it's not really a two-month break they're coming back in five weeks or whatever with that but the bigger issue is less the time off and more that when they do return not with a rising card it's with Logan Storley versus Brendan Ward that's a much bigger problem in South Dakota

right yeah sure sure I don't know honestly I mean, Logan, Logan gets the hometown, gets the home rub. Oh. We think that rub's going to be a lot? Is he going to be like Steepa, Cleveland?

I mean, look, this is another problem with Bellator, the matchmaking. let's just keep getting, trotting this dude out there and like get wins. And if he just gets a top five guy and like with a serviceable style that can make Brennan Ward shine and he gets a win, what a story would be if he goes and fights for the title? Like he's going to lose, probably going to lose to Yarislaff Amosop, but at least he gets to the title. If he loses to Logan Story, like he's back to square one and it's just so silly. Like why this fight should not be happening? This is Big Tuna all over again. First of all my God.

Don't get me started with Big Tuna booking. Good Lord. It's a classic belly flop, but that's okay. That's what we love about them. Yep. One more comment because this has nothing to do with fighting. This is a learning lesson on proper use of grammar for everyone in the comment section because the lack of grammar drastically changes.

sentence. Jed, please shave my brother. Commas are important. Commas are so important. That's pretty funny. Anywho, that's about it. Yeah, I think we're good. Now we're getting questions about slap fighting, so that usually means it's time to go. Hit the fucking music.

Honestly, I think we should appreciate slap fighting a little bit more as a great demarcator of when we're done with shows. Oh, Slav Fighting, now we're done. We didn't have that automatic hitting of the music. Thank you all. Hope you guys enjoyed all the mixed martial arts action. Of course, very importantly, this doesn't have to do with fighting either, but happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. It's a big day. All the dads out there doing the damn thing. Enjoy the day. Play some golf. Hang out with the kids. Cook on the grill. Whatever Whatever makes you happy. Watch the U.S. Open, baby.

What are you going to do for you on Father's Day? Or your child, Mike. We played in a golf tournament today. It was a lot of fun. We did a father-son golf tournament. We teamed up with another father-son duo, shot three-under. Had a good time.

Those are words that I have literally. Three-under. Did you get way better at golf since that one time we played, Mike? So we had a par five, and we hit a drive into. to the left rough about 190 away, pull out a six iron and put it, stuck it to 12 feet. We missed the eagle putt, but it was a great shot. It was tracking. Wow.

All right. It was also 800 degrees, but. I don't want to hear it, buddy. It's 110 today. Yeah, you live in the hottest place on Earth. And you choose to live, and you choose to live in the South on purpose.