MMA Fighting - UFC Vegas 79 Post-Fight Show | Reaction To Rafael Fiziev’s Ugly Injury, Bryce Mitchell’s Win, More

Episode Date: September 24, 2023

Mateusz Gamrot wins again, but at what cost? With opponent Rafael Fiziev suffering an unfortunate injury in the UFC Vegas 79 main event, we were given an unsatisfying end to an otherwise entertaining night of action. Other than the disappointing finish to the card, what stood out most from Saturday’s action? Following the UFC's return to the APEX, MMA Fighting's Alexander K. Lee, José Youngs, and E. Casey Leydon react to Fiziev’s injury, Bryce Mitchell putting on a gritty performance against Dan Ige to bounce back from his first pro loss, and Marina Rodriguez doing her best impression of a buzzsaw against fan favorite Michelle Waterson-Gomez. Additionally, the crew debates what to think of Mitchell’s post-fight speech, how to judge damage vs. control, the responsibility of the referee and the corner to stop a fight, a surprising first for veteran Tim Means, and much more. Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 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 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 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 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. Hey, y'all.

Welcome to the show. Welcome to the UFC Vegas 79 Post Fight Show, brought to you by M.A.fighting.com. This is Alexander K. Lee. welcoming you all to this fine post-fight program. UFC Vegas 7-9, literally just wrapped months ago. We're here to break down all the action. We being myself, Alexander K. Lee, the lovely Jose Youngs. Apology accepted.

And the lovely and also talented, B.K. Sele. And also, he doesn't speak. I'm muted. I'm muted. Yes, he does not speak. He's beyond words. He's more than words, like extreme. Yeah. which I'm sure we all remember.

Kind of a bummer. Kind of a bummer. So I thought, what I thought was a pretty solid card. It took a bit of time to get going, if we're talking about, you know, going from the very first fight to the end. But I think we had some very solid action. Someone asked me on Twitter,

it was one of the worst cards of the year. I don't think so at all. That was a fine fight night. That was very solid. Some very good back-and-forth fights, some good finishes. But the final fight of the night definitely did not have a good finish,

not satisfying. We just saw Rafael Fizib go down with what looks like a leg injury. Don't want to speculate what kind, but it appeared to kind of be non-contact. He throws a kick. The kick is blocked. His posting leg is the one that appeared to get injured, not the kicking leg.

So, you know, in other sports, that is usually a bad sign. But we don't know. Hopefully it's something harmless. We can see Rafael Paziv back in there, but hopes, you know, thoughts and prayers to him. A lot of fighters online giving their thoughts and prayers as well. But Mateoos Gamm brought officially the winner. this was a pretty highly anticipated lightweight fight. I think we were all very excited to see it.

After one round, it was looking awesome. We were seeing good striking. We were seeing good scrambling. It was really exciting scramble right at the end of the round. And, you know, I think we were all thinking, oh, yeah, this is, we were having up this fight real big. And this is paying off. But injuries happen in every sport. They definitely happen in M.A., and they can happen in main events too.

So, Jose, how you feel on after this card in general? but of course that unfortunate incident we just saw. It was kind of a bummer of a card, not in terms of Matt's quality, but like how things played out and things that were said. Like there were a lot of one-sided fights that I'm like, oh, this is a little sad to watch. There was some, there was a disqualification. There was talks of secret lasers.

There was an injury in the main event. It just a little bit of a bummer of a card, but all in all, like in terms of action, And it was very, it was a decent, like, it started off not great. Like the first, what, two, three fights weren't great. And then, like, the Miles John fight was really fun. Charles Dardin obviously did this thing. Apparently, the only Canadian on the USC roster, according to whoever said that on air.

But yeah, a little bit of a bummer in terms of how things played out a bit. But action-wise, not bad. Not the worst card. Not the worst card. Definitely not the worst card. Is there anything we can take away from the best? main event. I thought we did a great job of breaking it down, the stakes for both guys, how good they look going into this fight, you know, their recent form, does this move either guy towards

the top five, towards a contender, what fights could be next? We get this abrupt ending. Is there anything you can take away from what we saw Jose? That lightweight division is still the best division in MMA and the top of the division is a little stagnant and it's a lot of people that not like not as bad as welterweight but like montauch gamrott beat raphael faze he gets in the top five he should be fighting someone in the top five i just don't know if any of those guys are willing to take that fight and that's the difficult part because if montauch gamor had just like or rafalizov like we said had like dominated or or like submitted or wheel kicked or like something super impressive like like justa geese versus justin pori or something like that then we could

be talking about all these fun matchups but there it there was a defeat definitive ending, but it wasn't the ending that we wanted. And I'm not saying it was an accident by any mean, because like Gamrod said in his post-fight interview, like he had been practicing that defense quite a bit. But no one wants to see an injury, especially after that awesome first round. I don't know where Camrock goes from here because he should be fighting someone like a Dustin Porre, but they're not going to give him that because Dustin Porre is probably not going to take that fight. So they also train together.

So that's like a whole other thing because a bunch of whitewigs trying to ATT. Michael Chandler's there too Benile Darius is there too But I always hear Armin is going to fight Bineal and Gamrod already fought Armin And I guess there's the main event next week But that still seems a little low for Gamerat

So murky waters at the top of the lightweight division That's for sure Did he call out Charles Oliver after? Yeah that was okay He did that too And I'm like well He's like my dream fight is Islam But that obviously can't happen

So I want to fight Charles I'm like, come on, guy. Like, know your division. I mean, honestly, if he fought, if Charles loses, I wouldn't hate that fight. That fight would kind of make sense. But if, if Charles wins, you'd assume they're going to do the rematch of the that that's where I think Gamron was going. I think he assumes that Charles is going to lose the rematch or lose to Islam a second time

and that he would get that fight. But he kind of got ahead of himself. But he is also doing an interview not in his native language. So, you know, maybe he could quite articulate what he meant by. Casey, what did you think of his post-fight speech and that particular callout? Oh, I didn't listen to post-fight speech. Okay, he called for Charles. I was setting up this beautiful post-show.

Yes. Yes. He called for Charles. He called with Charles Oliver. Again, and it's not going to happen. These guys don't keep up with the fight. I mean, they're too worried about their own thing. They're like, I don't know.

Dude, I don't care about callouts. I don't care. Like, when you're at the top, either Gamrodot fight someone right above him or slightly right behind. behind him. That's about it. I just want to see Gamrod fight again, and I want to see Mr. Fiziv get healthy, and I want to see him back in the cage, and hopefully in the future we'll get a rematch. It's super tough because, like, just going off of the UFC rankings, which is what they're going to use when they try to make these fights, not the MMA fighter ones. Like,

Fiziv's probably going to, I mean, Gamron's probably going to jump up to six. They're probably going to swap places. Michael Chandler's right above him. He's going to fight Connor. He already fought and lost to Benile. Is he? Dustin's not going to fight him. Justin's not going to fight him. Charles already has a fight. So if he wants to, if Mattaj Gamon wants another fight

like relatively soon, he has to basically go to outside the top 10 or fight like a Jalen Turner, Moycano, Prevola type guy. Those are like the only guys. He has to go way outside the top 10. And this opponent is so dangerous too. Yeah.

Like he just fought Jalen Turner to sort of, I guess, hold on to. I would have ranked him ahead of jail. And somebody would hold on to his spot. I don't know how high they had jail. And that was a super tough fight. I mean, you saw how dangerous that fight was. He did take that one on short notice, but still. I'm thinking of this.

Yeah, yes, yes. Tap your mic. Yes. Tap your mic. What's going on? Uh-huh. It just sounds echo. Is it not coming to?

Again, I've got a lot of mic problems. I've got some production problems on my side. I am not proud of it. I'm not proud of it. Mike Heck, the microphone. This is where we are right now. Let me, I'll just make sure I'm using the correct mic. But yeah, apparently, I apologize.

I apologize to get a new mic. It's in the system. All right. Apology accepted. Thank you. Well, that's what you said it ahead of time. Oh, real quick, though, on the post-fight thing, though. Gamrod was confused, though, because.

he thinks, and I don't blame him because, like, people were asking, oh, what's this celebration kind of odd? Because I think he thought he broke, and initially I think we all thought, with the block, he had elbow blocked. Right. And maybe broke his foot or broke his shin with his elbow block, which is a legit block. But upon a further reaction, for, yeah, further review of Fizib's reaction, it seems like it was the posting leg that Fizizzi, his knee got messed up on, which blew out.

So kind of basically the end. injury was a complete fluke. I understand Gamrock trying to, oh, yeah, block that, which is fine. I'm not, I get it, you know, but it looked like it was completely just a posting leg and a complete fluke injury. And so that, that, that, that, that, that's the only thing to take note of that, that, that's, that, that's, that's, that's. Yeah. Yeah, again, it all happened so quickly, right?

I mean, he even, we even didn't even know the fight was over, right? He saw because he went down and he went in for some ground and pound, because that's what he's supposed to do. That's his job. That's all instinct. Yeah. Yeah. So he didn't know.

He had no idea what happened. And he just thought, I think, as Fafzif fell back. And then it ended pretty quickly, thankfully. So not too much extra damage for Fizier. But, yeah, again, Gamrod not doing an interview in his native language, a very confusing situation. You probably still feeling somewhat the high of a victory, but not really being able to celebrate it and also kind of, right, like do a callout that you would normally do when you had

a big win. I think we're all more concerned for Fizizade in that moment. I don't think the Chandler fight is unreasonable. I know. I apologize to all the tough hang viewers out there. I know I was beating that drum saying, Michael Chandler is going to get that Connor fight. Don't give up, my friends.

Don't give up. I am starting to lose faith. I'm starting to lose faith. I have to be objective. Casey, don't be disappointed in me. I have to be objective. And just looking at the facts, there's a possible that fight does not happen.

And if Gamron wants a big name and not go outside the top 10, because as Jose pointed out, it does feel like that's what's going to happen never going to happen never going to happen chandler's probably his best shot right never going to happen no james just going to wait years and years and years and years for connor i think i don't think michael chandler is going to say all right i'm done waiting for connor mcgregor to fight matowsh gamrott i just he fight exactly who is he there's literally no one right now that there when i say there's literally no one i don't mean there's not literally anyone he should like he should fight matows scamratt

I'm assuming that Michael Chandler is at the point of his life, just like Dustin Porre, where Dustin Porre literally said, you can go watch it on an MA Fighting's YouTube channel. I don't want to fight these up-and-coming guys. I want to fight, you know, bigger names. That's what he said, and I feel like Michael Chandler's on that same boat. So unless they're shining the corpse of Eddie Alvers away from BKFC, I don't think there's anyone that Chandler's right now is going to be like,

unless it's like Gachier-Pore rematches. I don't think there's anyone. Yeah, it's a huge drop off. I mean, but I don't know how much of a choices guys are going to have eventually if they, if they need to fight, if they need to get a paycheck, if they need to stay relevant and not be, you know, not fall out of the rankings. I don't know if this is too much of a change of subject, but whose fault is this? Is this the UFC's fault or is this is a fighter's fault? For what? This, this, this, Chandler.

Kind of we have. Who's fault is this the UFC, she's not paying enough money. I mean, it's not. I don't think it. The lightweight division is not, wasn't as bad this past year because, like, we had the, the Turner. Gamrots. We had the Armin versus whoever he fought. We had like, we had like Gajy Pore rematched when they did like they were there in the rankings. We had like Gaeci fought Fiziv when Fiziv was a super dangerous opponent that wasn't very popular.

But Neil Darius was on that long win streak and still fought Charles Oliver who had just lost. I don't think lightweight is as bad as Welterweight. I think right now there's a little bit of a logjam over the last like month and a half. Walter weight was bad Lightway's not as bad Yeah But I think case you point We always say it comes down to dollars and cents

And sorry there's other reasons There's political reasons There's career timing reasons But at the end of the day If you told Michael Chandler He's getting to get X amount of dollars You know maybe not Connor money But like a big fat check to fight Mattish Gamron

Yeah I don't think he would either Which is a tougher fight than Connor I don't think he would He'll get paid way less and make Any cover opponent Yeah I don't think he would like

Because again great website you go to ma fighting.com's YouTube channel great website and at the USC 292 post guest fighters scrum we were backstage Jose youngs was backstage and Michael Chandler literally said I don't need the money

I want to fight Connor I don't think it's going to be a dollars and cents thing when he says that that is the biggest lie ever here's the thing I don't lie he wasn't like Connor for the martial arts honor and not the paycheck no I think he wants to fight Connor because if you beat Connor, then you become very famous.

That's literally it. I don't think it's money. I don't think it's money for Michael Chandler. But as a great man once said, as a great man once, maybe the greatest man once said, every man has a price. Ha ha ha ha ha. So you have to add in the laugh. It's part of the quote.

So I do think, not just talking about Chandler specifically, but as Casey pointed out, these guys want, yes, they want fame, prestige, but they want the money that comes with those things as well. and I think if the money was right, you can make any fight you want to happen. But, yeah, absolutely. This is a whole other, again, this is a whole other discussion. Yeah. In case you maybe you're getting a little too in the weeds here.

Very disappointing end to the fight. I'm not sure what else we can say. I don't want to. Oh, I'll say people in the comments throw out who you think should be next for Gamrod, but I will give my own pick on onto the next one tomorrow. And I will gladly steal your answers if you guys start one in there and not give you any credit. So please feel free to leave something in the comments there. because we certainly had plenty to talk about in the co-main events.

Did we not? Very good fight. Very good fight. I think a very enjoyable three-rounder. Jose, you were saying, I have not seen the post-fight bonuses yet. You've been saying earlier this week, we need to normalize rewarding fights that are grappling contests as fight of the nights. And I thought this was a wonderfully entertaining grappling contest. I'm not a jiu-jitsu by any means.

you guys both know grappling better than I do. So even as a dirty grappling casual, I was mesmerized by some of these exchanges. Like it's not just big scrabbles, it's like the way these moments were developing because Dan Egey is so, so good on the ground. But, you know, when you have that relentlessness of Bryce Mitchell, it's hard to deal with.

That's how you win fights. But defensively, Dan Yegate, I thought was fantastic, did everything he could. And I thought Bryce Mitchell did enough to win. But it was a really good fight. So just your thoughts on that one, Jose. Yeah, it was like watching a human ruby, cube in there. Like they would just like constantly shift around one another. Like Bryce Mitchell would

attempt a transition or a takedown and Dan Ige would defend takedowns beautifully. And then Bryce Mitchell would kind of have what's the word? Like counters isn't the word, but I'm just going to use it. Counters for like Dan Igay's defenses. Like when Dan, when Ege tried to sit down against the fence, Bryce Mitchell adjusted and secure the takedown, Dan Ike had the whizzer and then Bryce Mitchell like in the third round when he got that, when he got the back from that super awkward position, I thought that was a lot of fun. Um, Yeah, it was a very, very fun grappling MMA fight, obviously

in a real jih Tijuana competition. It was not the highest of levels. But when you add punches and kicks in ground and pound, it was a very enjoyable fight to watch if you like high action grappling. And Dandigay was obviously getting the better on the feet. Bryce Mitchell remains, continues to show he is very average at striking when you're looking at the rest of the rest.

of the top 10 of featherweight. He's much better striker than anyone on this panel. I will admit that. But if we're talking the top 10 of the featherweight division, probably not the best, but, like, I would favor him against, like, Giga. I would favor, like, the Brian Ortega fight would be fun. Like, the Iyer-Rodriguez fight would be fun. Like, if Bryce Mitchell can get you down, have fun with that,

because it seems like a difficult guy to get off you. I think Mitchell versus anyone is actually entertaining. I absolutely love you. I'm not, he's not a lead blanket, as they say. He's like an high action. Yeah, very. Yeah, very. Unfortunately, you got to kind of, you have to separate Bryce Mitchell versus

Bryce Mitchell, the in-cage fighter. Oh, we'll talk about that. Sometimes you can't. I know. I'm very focused on his actual fighting style. I actually, if I score this fight round by round, I actually scored it, but I actually gave the fight to Ege, but prior. Rules, Mitchell won the fight. I think the right guy won the fight.

For sure. So I have no issue with the score. But just talking about Bryce Mitchell in general, I just think it's amazing. He is a legitimate top 10 featherweight in the UFC in a very tough division with really, I don't want to say zero striking, but he's not really a threat striking at all. And yet, even with this non-threat in 50% of mixed martial arts, he can still be. beat a lot, a lot, a lot of guys. And he beat a very quality, high-level, high-high-level gatekeeper, Dan Ege. And he won tonight. And I was actually thoroughly impressed of Bryce Mitchell. And I don't think a healthy Bryce Mitchell beats Ilya Tepora. But I do believe that we did see a weekend version of Bryce Mitchell.

Compromised. A compromised. A diminished version of Bryce Mitchell when he fought Tupora. I don't think that. I don't think he beats Tupori, but I think that is a more competitive fight, much more akin to what we saw tonight, but obviously, you know, a little different. But, no, Bryce Mitchell is awesome. I love watching a fight.

I love his grappling style. And I think it's pretty amazing. You know, Danny Gay comes from an amazing camp, amazing coaches. Bryce Mitchell comes from a small MMA school in Arkansas with no other notable other fighters or training partners or coaches. and yet somehow he finds something there which makes him a really, really good,

entertaining mixed martial artist. And I'm always impressed by his fighting style. Yeah. I like that you put some Arkansas on the Arkansas. I like that case.

I like that. Yeah, I scored it for Mitchell, super close fight. He's just another guy who's an example. If you have an A-level skill, I think his wrestling, I'd go as far as to say A-level. Maybe not A-level.

plus. Maybe I wouldn't put him above the elite at the elite elite of grapplers, but very strong skill. And you have great cardio and you're tough as hell. It takes you pretty far in this industry. We've seen, we've seen a lot of fighters have great careers with it. And Mitchell might be in that area. Yeah, maybe he's not a top five guy. We don't know. But firmly in the top 10, and I think would give a good fight to a lot of the guys near the top of the division. I'm seeing a lot of comments about the judging. I will say as someone who has been pushing very hard for people to recognize, like, yes, damage should be prioritized 100%. I don't have a problem with people scoring the fight for Igay.

But, but I don't think, and I should say, we need to remember in the rules. It is not damage. The phrasing in the rules is not damage. It is impact. Impact is the word they use. The impact that has the greatest effect on potentially ending the fight. So it's a little specific and it's certainly open to interpretation, which I think is why we have a lot of problems.

And this is where, you know, people are saying, how could Mitchell win that second round? Ege, you know, opened him up, opened him up with that punch. And I agree. I scored the second round for Ege, but I kind of understand the 3027 Bryce. Not my favorite score card, but I don't think it's like a terrible card. I think Bryce controlled a lot of that round and was doing, was effectively attacking on the ground and trying to do things to end the fight on the ground. We can't just say because someone gets cut that they automatically win a round because you guys know. cuts can happen just from the seam of the glove.

Seam of the glove. Someone's toenail, cut someone open. It doesn't mean they landed a super damaging strike. I thought Ige was doing good stuff in the feet, but for me, the cut is not an automatic 10-9 for I-Gey. If you want to say because in general, he did more damage with the striking in that round, totally understand, but I thought Bryce's grappling was really good.

So I would have given round two to I had a 29-28 Mitchell. I understand 29-28 Yige as well. It's a close fight. It was a close fight, great fight. But let's not confuse damage for an automatic round. to win. And if you're interested, I find this really interesting. According to fans, fan scoring, MMA decisions. Oh, 70% of fans gave Ege round one. 76% of fans gave Ege round two. And I understand that. With, so in total, 64% gave Ege the fight. How's the, how's the

media? How was the so-called MMA media? This is actually interesting. Media did not score like the fans. There are, I would say about two thirds of the media had it for Bryce Mitchell with a third of those fans giving all three rounds to Bryce Mitchell, which I kind of highly disagree with. But, but like I said, I feel the right guy won, even though by rounds, I think I gave one. But if that makes sense. Right. I don't want to say, I don't want to say pride scoring.

I don't want to say pride scoring, but the, I don't want to say that word. but the gap that Mitchell won round three was so much bigger than the gap that EA might have won the first two rounds, in my opinion. Right. This comes down to our issues in general with the sort of the 10-9 scoring system and how weird it is that some of 10-9s are so different. I'm really interested in how much the discussion changes, too, if those first two rounds, because essentially rounds one and round two were kind of the same. the first three minutes were Igay dominating the stand-up, then he gets taken down, and basically is him working off his back or getting out of submission for the last two minutes. And so it seems a lot of people gave the rounds to Mitchell because of that.

If you switch those around and put the first two minutes of Igay working off his back and then the last three minutes of him getting, Mitchell getting beat up, I think we have more of a different discussion here. And maybe it changes the perception of it. Yeah, for sure. for sure. This is why judging is difficult. I am someone who has not been as hard on judges as people. I know people are quick to every time there's a controversial card. Oh my God, judges suck. Get rid of all the judges. Overhaul the, I'm like, it's not, they're not as bad as you think. It's the, it's a scoring system that is pretty difficult to wrap your head around. And that I'm fine with constantly nitpicking and criticizing. The judges, there are some bad ones. Don't get wrong. There are some bad. But do people think like every judge is bad. I'm like, that's just not the case. I want to go. We'll talk about the speech in a second. I do want to go to a comment from Alex L here.

another Alex L, who I think sums up the damage thing best. Damage would be a rough criteria anyway. Some people show damage more than others. You can fart in Nate Diaz's face and it blows his skin apart, but it won't end him in a fight. So that's how I think I'm going to explain it from now on when people ask, what's the difference between damage and impact and why shouldn't we rely on damage? Because, you know, you can fart in someone's face and blow their skin apart. It doesn't mean that they're close to losing the fight.

Jose, I do want to go to you because I don't want to talk about the post-fight speech too much. I'll give a quick summary for people who maybe didn't see it. Frice Mitchell, very pious, came to the ring with a Bible, tells Dan Ege, I'm donating $5,000 to you because Dan Ege is from Hawaii. This is for, you know, to help victims of the Maui wildfires. And we need to show that Satan, you know, cannot do anything in the face of the power of Christ. So, you know, got religious with it, not the worst thing. And then had to repeat this conspiracy theory. He said before that it's an unfounded conspiracy theory, by the way, that the fire is.

man made him. Anyway, he went off a little bit, but didn't go full Bryce. So, Jose, before I move on, your quick thoughts on Bryce Mitchell's post-fight speech. Well, people's religions, I don't particularly like, do you know, like you can believe whatever you want, as long as you're not harming another person. I have no patience for government conspiracy theories. I just don't because they're just unfounded theories. And you can say whatever you want doesn't mean you're right. And a lot of people don't believe that and I just have zero I have zero patience for it I have zero patience for space laser theories I have zero patience for 9-11 was an inside job I have no patience for I have no patience for any of that because like what's I just don't have patience for it

like when someone brings it up I'd tune out I'm like you I I have nothing else say on it you're tuning out right now just just talking about it can see your brain It's so silly. It's so silly and so stupid. And people are like, oh, Germans are trying to use Uber to take over America. I'm like, for what reason? For what reason? And they're like, they're just doing it.

I'm like, okay, great. Good to know. I'm going to go use Uber now. I was a little, I was kind of waiting for Mike Bisping to like pull the microphone away. But I guess it kind of, that part came out of nowhere, I guess the conspiracy part. He was kind of borderline like, all right, we're talking about the wildfire's good. He's donating money. He's donating $5,000. That's good. Sure. Lead, you know, have, have, Ege looked a little uncomfortable. I think he, I think he handled it as well as he could. He just kind of was nodding along.

And then they did a bit of a post-fight prayer. I don't know what Ege's belief system is. I don't know if he's just humoring Bryce Mitchell or if he was super into it. I couldn't tell. But he did look a little like, let's get through this. Let's not make a big deal out of this. Let's get to this. I just lost a fight. I just lost a fight. I just lost half my paycheck. You know, this. You know, thanks for the Maui check. Yeah, I appreciate it. It's a tough fight too. He probably just wants to go back and like, you know, be with his friends, his team, patched himself up, drink some water, rehydrate. Like, yeah, it was a tough fight. That's a hard, hard fight. That was a hard 15 minutes. But, but you mentioned should have Bisbing like, was you thinking about pulling the mic. I'm glad he didn't because if all the crazy stuff, Bryce Mitchell says, in a weird way, I still kind of appreciate it because that.

That's what makes this sport so fun and dumb and exciting because we have guys like freaking Bryce Mitchell, who would just say the craziest crap, and who can fight the highest levels. And then we have guys like Dan Nige who are equally good, and they're cool dudes. You know, it's just, hey, you know, I just want to get back to my family, you know, see my baby. And I just think it's, I always, I always just find that aspect of the sport so interesting. So, and all the craziness of it, I'm still like, it's still better to have the craziness

than be boring. It takes all kinds to move the world, as they say, or in Bryce's case, I guess, flip the world over, tilt the world. I don't know how you guys want to phrase it, but it takes all kinds, as they say. Support for this show comes from Volkswagen. As the U.S. gets ready to host soccer's biggest moment on a worldwide stage, Volkswagen is helping people discover new turfs and new ways to play the beautiful game

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a second, but let us talk about probably what was going to be the most talked about fight of the night before Gammonaut Fiziv kind of ended so unceremoniously. the, a bit of a strange booking, Marina Rodriguez, Michelle Waterson Gomez rematch, rematch of a very good five-round fight, but just, you know, the timing seems been odd. Marina dominated this fight, incredibly vicious first-round effort,

just a Muay clinic slicing up the karate-hadi and definitely leading to some online calls for people to say, oh, they just stopped the fight, and the same maybe the corner should stop the fight. Jose, I'll go to you. Do you think we should have seen a stoppers there from either a referee, Carrie Hatley, or do you think her corner,

maybe you should have not let her come out for round two? Difficult to say. I didn't really have an opinion on it, and then when they put the camera on her between rounds, and she was like, I think it was Winklejohn was trying to give her instructions, and Michelle was just like trying to catch her breath and just spitting out blood. I'm like, well, she's clearly not listening to what you're saying. And then she just goes, I'm overreaching.

And then Wink was like, yeah, you're overreaching. I'm like, okay. So she understands what she's doing. So I don't know. I don't know what the right answer is. I think if they had stopped the fight, I wouldn't have complained. And the fact that they stopped it when they did, I'm also not going to complain. I don't know the right answer.

I'm not in her corner. I wasn't, I'm not the ref. I wouldn't have complained if they stopped the fight, though. But I'm also very much on the, if a fighter is continuing to fight back, then. you should probably give him an opportunity to fight back. Yeah, I don't know if anyone would have complained, except for maybe Dominic Cruz in the call, who probably would have said,

I tell you, I know a thing or two of early stoppages, because, you know, he rarely mentions the Keith Peterson incident, right? So he probably would have commented it in some way. I think he, what was his, what was his verdict?

I think he said it was, he kind of approved, right, of letting her. Yeah, you, he handled it well. I think he handled it well. Who is the ref? Who was the ref? I'm sorry.

This is Carrie Hatley. Carrie Hadley, uh, I feel it was known for having some very late stoppages. So, okay. Um, but- This is the least consistent. It was consistent. And Casey, I want to go to you specifically because we have talked about this before. This isn't a secret.

We do sometimes feel there are such things as girl stoppages in MMA where, you know, for referee sees a woman fighter taking like a lot of damage, especially where it's visible, you know, like it's not just like a flurry, but like in this exact situation where one fighter is bloodied, bruised, getting battered. we have sometimes, you and I would agree, we have sometimes seen stoppage as that maybe if it was a man, they would have let go on. So I think that's why in this situation,

I was kind of okay with how everything played out. And like Jose said, I don't even necessarily blame her corner because they have a better idea of what's going on in her head and they're right up there, they're right in her face. But I don't know, where did you stand? Are you glad it wasn't stopped?

Or did you want, were you calling for that one to be called off? It was one, I was glad it wasn't stopped. I thought actually the, I thought Carrie Hatley did a good. job. I thought the corner did, Michelle's corner did a decent job of making sure that her head was still in the fight. And I feel like she was. I feel like she still wanted to fight. I feel like she still had that will to win. But I would have been okay if there was a stoppage in the first round. I actually scored that first round a 10-7. And basically, if you throw a 10-7 out there.

Agreed, agreed. Yeah, 10-7 is kind of mean to me that you could have stopped that fight. It'd have been fine. But like I said, Michelle Watterson is an experienced veteran fighter. These are two top 10 fighters in their weight class. They deserve that respect of basically earning that chance to get their ass kicked to get that win. And I don't have any inches of it. It was a very one-sided fight. I mean, I picked Marina Rodriguez to win, but I was shocked at the dominance that Maria Rodriguez had in that fight. So I don't know. I guess we can talk about the futures next, but no issues. Good job, Mr. Hatley.

And actually, good job of Dominic Cruz, I felt. And basically saying, hey, this is what we signed up for. This is it. And honestly, there wasn't a lot of head trauma in the sense that the head wasn't bouncing back or swiveling around. It were cuts. But obviously are super, not super cool. Obviously, obviously, I grant it does look bad.

And I am happy we did not get the quote unquote girl stoppage. Casey, do we see the karate-hadi retire within the next year, whether this is her last fight, which I would doubt, or do we think that she, do we think her and her teams start angling for that one last fight within the next 12 months? What do you think? That is up to her. If she is okay, it's kind of that Korean zombie thing where you have to accept I'm not a championship level fighter anymore. And that's Michelle Watterson just simply isn't. She's a borderline top 15 straw weight, I think, at this point. Could be worse.

I'm not sure, honestly. So she needs to decide for herself. Does she want to be brought in to build up these upcoming straw weights? Or just, you know, lay it in the line go, hey, this is my retirement fight. Let's have a big celebration. Give me a proper opponent. And that proper opponent, I think, should be Jessica Penny, who I think is kind of retired. But you can pull her out retirement and do Michelle Waterson versus Jessica Penny, too.

And it can be in a kind of official double retirement fight for her. both those ladies and can be a rematch of their legendary Invicta Adamweight championship fight. So that's my two cents. I should have given a little more context here before I throw to Jose. Waterson Gomez now 6 and 8 in the UFC, her fourth straight loss, six of seven. And she's been fighting to seven to the seven to the Angela Hill fight. And she has been fighting professionally since 2007. So she is, if she fights until next February, it will be 17 years in the game.

And again, when you look at how much, how long she's been fighting a high level competition, it's a hard hard 16 17 years so same question to you Jose with do we see uh karate haiti consider a retirement fight in the next 12 months yeah probably that's I mean again I'm with Casey like I'm never gonna I'm not jet I'm not gonna tell a fighter to retire but I like the Jessica Penny fight I think it makes sense for both of them because she's not in the top fish I would imagine she falls out of the top 15 and I don't want to you know feed her to someone that'll do like you know i just don't i want to see both like jessica and michel is giving so much to the sport i think it's a good fight for both of them to go out it's

it's very reminiscent of like the jim miller cowboy fight where obviously jim miller didn't retire but like that fight just made sense for the end of their like and then they tried to book the loz on fight for a while with cowboy i like those fights just two vets that should just throw down aside an octagon yeah i'm all for the penny fight uh we have bonuses i'll get to those second first i'll just recap the rest of the main card we had uh we had brian battles submitting a j fletcher poor a j fletcher i don't know it's like a third straight guy uh the third straight like six foot plus welterweight they put in his way i don't know what a jillcher did poor guy he's getting in there with uh with uh with giants uh get submitted and charles jordan was a very impressive rest of mission win

over ricardo homos now we have our bonuses here uh charles jordan got one of them and marina hadriguez the other and then fight of the night goes to a prelim welterweight battle between Tim Means and Andre Fialio. Did they get it right, guys? Mm. Um, I enjoyed watching, I enjoyed watching the Miles John Dan Argetta fight more than the Tim Means fight. Great fight. But I get it because that was a little more back.

The Tim Means had a little more drama because they both got hurt at times. But in terms of just a fight that I was, I watched that entire fight and like halfway through the second round, I was between Johns and Argueta, I was like, this is a fun fight. I am having a blast watching this. Maybe that's the only other one I can think of, but I guess. Yeah, great, I love watching Miles Johns go. Casey, would you want to change any of those? For a fight of the night?

Or performance bonuses? Or did you think someone else? Performances are fine. I would like to see a performance bonus. I would give it to Mitchell, Ege. Honestly, for fighting. I thought it was just a higher level fight. But I also can't speak about Means Fialo

because I was watching another channel at the same time the best middle weight in the world defend his belt so i can't john the the time the tim means andre fialo fight just confirmed everything that i had been saying for a long time under fialo no andre fialo is a very good boxer and that's it that's about it that dude had the he cut he he has good boxing angles and he has really fast hands tim means adjusted and fiala had nothing for it yeah he's just like i'm just gonna yeah tim means did the silly thing of mixing the martial arts and And And Andre Fiala was like, what is happening? And then like, man, Pialo loses, he loses big.

He got to respect that. He does. And he's 50 G's richer. He's 50 G's richer. He's 50 G's richer. Yeah. That dude just walks forward. Tim Means was throwing those elbows and then Fialo adjust.

Fialo did, he didn't adjust, but he just wasn't hesitant in the second round. Like he came out hot and then Tim Means was like, oh shit. And then like got clipped a few times. And then Tim Means basically he did this thing. where he was very hurt and backed into the fence and Fiala did this very stupid thing that we always say like, oh, that's what separates veterans and like these newcomers.

He just ran in and tried to finish him. And Tim Means clenched up, caught his breath, and then just started elbowing him a bunch in the head. Like just walks right into his trap. Fialio, I wonder if this will save his job. That is for Forestry, lost for him. Fight of the night used to be pretty good for job security. I don't know if it is anymore.

I'd have to look recently. I think there's been fighters who have won to fight now and still either not got their contract renewed or cut. Tim Means, this was his 50th pro fight. And by the way, this may surprise you, his first ever UFC Fight in the Night bonus. He's always in good points. He's always in good fights.

He has performances. Yeah, he's performance, but it was never an actual straight fight. All right. So happy fight number 50 to Tim Means. And fight number 50, extra 50 grand, how appropriate. And Andrevalio, maybe be hanging on. And congrats as well to Marine Hardriguez. and Charles O'Dane for those bonuses.

Casey, what do we got as far as questions go? Oh, questions? We can go right to the questions. I know, well, I heard we got, you're busy, man. I heard you got to go to the club later. Oh, hey, hey, hey, hey. Oh, sorry. Well, I didn't say which club?

Okay, all right, all right. There's only one club to go to in L.A. I don't even know what that means. I don't even get that joke. I'm not, I can't live in America, bro. I don't live in. I'm so far away from you guys. Wait, wait.

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not UFC fighting. There were some other important fights. Can we talk about those briefly? Sure. We had 20 important fights. I don't know about 20 important ones. There were a few of them. They're all important.

What was your favorite Belator prelimbite, Casey? Oh, I watched the prelims. Oh, come on. Oh, but I did see a little bit of J.J. Walser. Every fight is important here, according to M.A.fightings.com. I saw some J.J. Wilson. I'm a J.J. Wilson fan, so it was nice to see him coming back, moving up to 55, and he had a nice comeback victory.

But that's when I tuned in. So I missed the first 10 or so locals fighting, but then I did see the job. Did you watch the debacle with the debacle of the Peter Quigley fight? Toe in the eye. Yeah, what a bummer. It was a little bit of a soccer kick. Was that what? I just saw.

Yeah, he soccer kicked him. That was like, all right, that was stupid. And then that was like, that was the wrap. We saw one of the best knockouts of the year. Mr. I don't I'm saying, Levin. Levin Shokkeli. Chukle.

There you go. The front kick to Sabah Masi. Talk about a guy who's always an exciting fight. Sabahomasi. Talk about a guy. Get or get got. He got bad. Oh, man.

And happy trails to Daniel Weishel. He retired tonight for a long time. Yeah, retired tonight after 50, what, 60. He said 7,000 MMA fights. Yeah, 7,000. He said approximately 7,000. Yeah, give or take. Aaron Pico, big win in the Coleman events, highly real knockouts.

Dude, Aaron Pico, this was the Aaron Pico. This is one, like, unreal, unreal. I, I'm going to Albuquerque. in a few weeks. So hopefully I'll get some mat time of Aaron Pico. And hopefully he won't put me on a stretcher in 37. So he's dangerous. And he's not even in his physical prime yet.

You got to remember he's 26 years old. He's, he's in amazing shape. I mean, his, his pre prime is better than most human beings physical prime. Dude, Aaron Pico, this is like daddy Pico now, now that he's a, uh, yeah, now he's all about that baby. And like, it's like his baby and his horse. And that's what he, like, he, now he has even. more motivation.

Like, yeah, he's, I think, I think the, the Aaron Pico experiment at Jackson's is finally going to, it's finally kind of coming together. And I'm very excited to see what you, Bellator, if, or Bellator slash PFL or whatever, whoever, actually have no idea what happens next with Aaron Pico. I don't know if it happens with the contracts. It's going to be wild. I don't know if they're free agents. Who knows?

It's going to be kind of a crazy time of all these. this Bellator sale and stuff because Aaron Pico and Johnny Eblen are top of the top of the top of the yeah the rankings in the Johnny Eblins your number one ranks middleweight in the world battle to some adversity already battle through some adversity against I think a very good middleweight Fabian Edwards I hate people saying like oh this was just some random title Fabian Edwards is really good he's number 14 in our in our rankings and our goal yeah I don't know why people are dogging to pay me Edwards I'm not sure he wouldn't make it in the UFC's like why wouldn't Fabian Edwards make it the middleweight is not like this insane shark tank of division. I think Fabian would be a top 10 middleweight in the UFC. He's very good. And Johnny Ablin definitely would be top five, if not. Again, number one, he's looked excellent.

Someone asked me how many title defenses, is this guy going to put together? I said, as many as he wants, if he stays in Bellator, frankly, because I think he's super deadly. They have good competition there, but I just think he's a notch above. So yeah, a huge win for him. A really good night, really good day for Beltor, frankly. I think people, if you're not in the Eblen bandwagon now, I don't know what you're waiting for because he's beating good guys.

He beat Busasi. If you're only comparing him to UFC guys, that's just so silly, then you don't know what you're watching. Then you don't know what you're watching when you see Johnny Epplin fight because he would clearly be a strong competition, if not favored against many of the fighters in the UFC's top 10 right now. So I don't know. Maybe we're overhyping. I don't know. Maybe we're overhyping. All right.

I think we can go to questions down. Let's go to some questions. Casey, what do we got here? Yeah. AL, again, not me. Hypothetical for A. K. Lee. Price Mitchell has you in a bear hug telling you to lead the nation in prayer. What do you do? Well, guys, as a non-practicing Catholic, I have been in many situations where I have had to go along with prayer.

Not to say that I am not a spiritual person. I'm a spiritual cat as much as anybody. But I would not call myself the most spiritual person. So I do know how to play along. That's a nice way to put it. So, Bryce Mitchell, if you want to wrap on that, Bible for five minutes and have me next to you. Not Dungeons and Dragons.

I'm sure I can handle it. Jose, what are you, what are you, what's, what are you chuckling about? When you say play along, it just, oh, that's, I don't know. It's not like, it's not like we're playing a tabletop game or something. I'm just saying if anyone's ever, if everyone's, anyone's ever been to some sort of service where they're not quite like, you know, jive in, you know, biving what's going on. You kind of have to fake it until you make it. And, uh, phrase B, I have, I have done.

before but yeah i'd be alright i don't know for you how you guys would react in the situation all right um some more comments um potential gamrott's next fight al again saying gamrod versus a board holloway on a side quack i don't know no you're shaking your head yeah it's not jumping i never happened i think max hollyway would jump up to fight justin gaugie for the championship i don't see anyone or like i don't think that's happening just yeah max holloway is in that same boat as gaigi Porre, Chandler, whether it's like, we've done it. Like, I get it.

I just want to fight these massive names. Yeah. And because they're not getting paid, they're not getting paid more or less or whatever to fight these no names like Gamrock. No names. Let me see what we got here. What else we got here? Can we talk about Chris Levin? Oh.

I've got J. Ray B.O.2 here. I'll just grab this one. It says, isn't it? And I saw other people ask about Chris Lieben. Chris Leibon judged the very first fight of the night between Tamiris Fidal and Monser Rendon and also the Tim Means-Andre Fialo fight, which didn't really require scorecards, but all the fighters, all the judges had it 2018 for Tim Means going to third round. So no, nothing to talk about there.

I'll reach those to pose this. Thoughts on the media asking Monster Rendon what her thoughts were on Chris Leben, being the only judge not award her the W versus Tamiris Vidal. I also have J-R-B-O-2 in the comments calling it a doo-do car. card. Full disclosure, I probably was not watching the fight super closely, so I do not know how Do Do this card was. From what I could see, I didn't get the sense that either Friday was dominating. I know Rendell was giving Vidal a lot of problems with the grappling, but I think this is where we get into the control versus damage discussion. But again, I almost don't feel qualified to talk about it. Did you guys have a better view of? I think the dissenting round was round

two. No media member scored it for Vidal. Yeah. Every media member had a for Rendon at 2928. I'm assuming it was round, let me see what the dissenting round was. Yes, round two. So I'm assuming it was round two. I don't actually remember round two.

I was kind of watching loosely. Women's phantom weights, guys. Women's phantom weights. We owe both these women an apology for not paying. It's the hottest division in the sport, and we really should be paying more attention to it. Congrats on Mr. Rendon for remaining. It's Jeddon's favorite division.

I think, oh my gosh, all the time. They just DM me randomly. Can we talk about women's Vantam matchups today? They don't even, they don't even DM me. They just tweet about it. Check their Twitter feed. It's nothing. Also, this question is asking what we think about the media asking.

Don't care. Yeah, what was that? Go for it. Oh, you are the media. You are the guy who asked. No, I'm like, but like, I don't care what my fellow media people ask when it comes to this. Like, I would have asked it if I was theirs. I don't think it's

this is a nothing burger. whether they asked or didn't ask. I think the interesting thing is, you know, so this just kind of just for the take of argument, Chris Lieben had a bad scorecard. This isn't a good scorecard. So all those fighters make the best judges. That's not true.

Paying attention and knowing what you're looking for makes the best judges. So I'm not saying Chris Lieben at a, he's a bad judge or anything, but I'm just saying the whole fighters being a judge's, being a better option isn't true. just paying attention and being good at your job is what's most important. Yeah, yeah.

And again, I'm sure Chris Leiban did his best. This is his first time ever doing UFC card and he's worked his way up to this level. Everyone turns in the back. And I've seen Chris Leban do plenty of, I think he's ruffed. He rests down in California all the time. So I see him all the time. So I'm happy that he's now getting a travel, a travel stipend. So he can go to Vegas and do all that fun stuff there.

I think we'll see him again. I think we'll see him again. I don't think this was an egregious. Again, maybe the card is bad. Again, I don't know. Fortunately, it was on a fight that was pretty low stakes, and I didn't hear too many people talking about it. I will be the story moving forward is if, like,

you can't, he can't judge certain fights because he has relationships with coaches and fight it. That's more of the, you know, like, if tomorrow, all of a sudden there's a story that, like, Vidal, like, like she trained at the same gym as Chris Leibon or they had the same coach or whatever, then that would be a story. But right now, I don't think it's the biggest deal in the world. Yes, the Diego Sanchez, Ross Pearson situation. Of course, of course.

Oh, gosh, never forget. Casey, what else we got? You run the show. You let me know how many. Are you guys doing it on to the next tomorrow? We are. And I have not even thought about matchups. All right.

I'm not going to bring to many matchup questions. I just want to say with this background, aka, you look like Jesus Christ. Someone asks why I'm glowing. And let me just say this particular poster, the face-to-face, all I think about when I see these face-to-face posters are the classic cover of Hall Notes' H-2O album. You guys have never seen it. Google it. I don't know why they do these face-to-face posters because that's the only thing I think of.

All these guys, one of these guys missing is a wispy mustache to complete the look. Notably, my dad's least favorite. musical act ever. Oh, that's saying a lot. Wow. I'm just saying. That's literally when I hear Hall and Oates, that's the first thing I think of. I don't think they're that bad.

Whenever growing up, I'm never like, God, I hate HoloNose. He just changed that radio station. He also hates that band America, you know, the, the, yeah, yeah, yeah. The desert, on horse, whatever that. Did they say that? Yeah, my dad's like, that song is, he's like, that song sucks. Wait, so Hollin' notes says,

Hollywood's big song was private eyes, right? Private eyes, you make my dreams come true. Man-eater. A lot of good times. Private eyes. Watching you. We're done. We're done.

Great way to close out the show. Thanks to everyone for joining us. I thought Vegas 79 was a pretty good card. It's always going to seem that much worse when we don't. Perfectly fun. I wish the main event had happened a little bit more. Very unsatisfying. Yeah.

Overall good card. That was poopy. But here we are. Props to all the fire. as usual. Props to all the staff who puts this stuff together. Props to Jose Young's. Props to E.K. Celad. Props to me. Props to, you know, you gotta love yourself, guy.

Hey, props to Jared. Gerletto. Shone up for U.S.P. Apex car. Front row, baby. Jerr Leto. He's legit. Props to Jared Lito, I guess. And props to everyone, of course, for tuning in again. I cannot thank you guys enough. Thanks for letting us do this. Lenny us coming to your homes. So, peace out for now.

Bye. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Okay. Only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first? There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.