MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC 324 Results: Justin Gaethje Takes Care of Paddy Pimblett | Evaluating First Paramount Card

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Luke Thomas and Jed Meshew are ready to recap the wild weekend in combat sports, starting with the return of the UFC after a six-week hiatus, on Paramount. Limited Time Offer – Get Huel’s full High-Protein Starter Kit with my exclusive offer of 20% OFF online with my code KOMBAT20 at huel.com/KOMBAT20. New Customers Only. Code only valid for the bundle. Thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting our show!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Revely, revely, d'allis. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. I'm Luke Thomas. This is Morning Combat.

Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome inside, everyone. Hello, how are you? It is cold where I am. It is cold for about 200 million Americans, if I can be honest. But it is warm right here next to the MK Fire. My name is Luke Thomas. Thank you so much for joining me on this 26th day of 2000, 26.

We have a lot to get to a huge focus today on UFC 324. Let me first bring in my co-host for the day. Now, you might be like, wow, Chuck Mendenhall has really altered his appearance in short order. Way more handsome. Old Charles got stuck in the winter storm. He's okay, everyone, don't worry. But we couldn't actually make it for him to do the show with us today as a consequence. So we called in reinforcements from MMAfighting.com.

It's our friend in yours, Jed Mishu. Hi, Jed, how are you? I'm cold, but, you know, much better hair than Chuck Mendenhall. Yeah, well, by virtue of just having some, yeah. Yeah, I don't have as good of a hat as he does. But, you know, happy to step in. I was not anticipating this until yesterday. Yes, but it's good.

It's a good bookend. Yeah, neither are we. And then he was like, this ain't going to work. And we're like, all right, we've got to figure out what we're going to do here. So Chuck, we'll be back. I guess you might be back Friday, but I suspect we'll be back next Monday. And all as well, that ends well.

Well, how cold is it in Atlanta, Georgia? It is currently 24. That's cold for Atlanta. I was talking about this with Long Island Luke before we went live. I think this is the coldest I've ever felt Atlanta because it was 18 when I woke up and the wind chill had it feeling like five. And I don't know that that's ever, I've experienced that in my, 15 years here.

But it hasn't iced much. There's not much precipitation, which we anticipated. So when I got the call yesterday, I was like, I hope I can do it. But they're telling us powers not going to work and everything shut down. Knock on wood, it is a lovely day other than the temperature. Yeah. I can count. I mean, I lived in Georgia for how many years?

I don't know from fifth grade to essentially. Yeah. So like not quite 10 years. and I mean a little more if you count like time away from college, but I can I can count on my hands the number of times it reached below 30. You know what I mean? Like that's just an incredibly rare occurrence. Dude, even when it snows here, it's not like 15. It's like, oh, it's snowed and it is 30 or it's 25, but it's, we got it, we had freezing rain all day yesterday. We got about six inches of snow. So it wasn't too, too bad, but but like it's, it's, I can't stand it when it freezes and then the sun comes out and then it melts and then just refreezes everything, which is, really quite annoying. But our producer got nearly two feet up there in central New Jersey, so it could always be worth. But we have a lot to get to. Yeah, we have a lot to get to today. UFC 324, so many different elements of this story to talk about from the event itself to the

individual fights, really what it means for MMA as well as this new partnership. We're going to get to every element of that. Thumbs up if you're watching, of course, on YouTube. If you're listening on an audio device or an audio podcast, consider giving us a nice review. You can see our socials are here for Morning Combat, me as well as Jedmishu, who's available on X and IG. Not to forget, we also still have merch, morningcombat.shop. Yes, the posters are sold out. We're going to get those to you in short order, but of course, we still have some of these two shirts for the Stranger Danger Design, exclusive until January 31st, 1159 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Before we get going to our topics, it's bringing the third member of the show. It's Long Island,

Luke. Now Long Island, what did you get out there? About a foot of snow up there in the area? Up there in the Long Island parts? Yeah, we got it about a foot of snow, not bad. Shoveled it out last night. Good to go today, you know. Let me ask a question, because I'm not a snow shoveling aficionado by a stretch the imagination. What is the rule? Do you pre-treat the concrete before you shovel or do you just wait till it's done and then you go shovel it? I mean, A, I have a gravel driveway, so there ain't no pre-treating anything. But I just fucking shovel it, dude. The hardest part is, you just fucking shovel it. part is the gravel. You know, half the time I'm picking up rocks with the snow. So I kind of just

put it near the side of the driveway. And then as it melts, you know, in the spring, I'm constantly picking out rocks out of my lawn and just throwing them back in the driveway. It is what it is. You got to do what you got to do. Fights this weekend, though, pretty hyped. Also, we're not going to preview it today. We're going to preview it on Friday. But we got another pay-per-view this weekend in Australia, looking forward to that. Yeah, that's right. Is your dad going to watch now that there's no pay, there's no paywall? He doesn't have Paramount. I could give him my log. I'm going to say no. Unless it was on like Netflix, probably not. Yeah, no.

Yeah, fair enough. Before we get started, Jed, one quick question, one of the things that we often do, and I'm sure you've done it as well, is kind of use how many people in your non-MMA orbit, all of a sudden random. Yes, all of a sudden randomly you get a text being like, hey, what's up with the fight this weekend?

This happens, unfortunately, but it is true. This happens quite repeatedly when Jake Paul fights. I get a lot of text messages from folks who ordinarily never contact me about this stuff. How many did you either get to before, during or after 324. Before, I mean, it was a bunch before. And so like me and my cat, I don't know if I didn't have the scale of the mom test. We're like, if my mom is texting me, that's when I know something has reached a criticality, right?

Because my mom doesn't give a shit about this. But like my friends have a lower bar and they'll pop in occasionally for the biggest fights. And basically all of them were, were hitting me up about it because it was on paramount. They had been watching football. There were ads for it. And the biggest factor, which maybe I knew intrinsically, but I didn't really totally understand until this past weekend is they all knew Patty. Every one of them was texting about Patty.

It was not, oh, the UFC's on Paramount. It's like, oh, Patty Pimble. And almost exclusively it was, yeah, I thought he was, he's the barstool guy. They knew him from Barstool. And many of them were like, doesn't he suck? Like, how is he fighting? for a title. I thought he was at Barstall, but not very good. And then I had to explain to them like, well, he's kind of okay and whatever. But basically all of my friends and my various friend groups

at least reached out and were like, hey, what's going on? When does, I got a lot on fight day. When is the main event? Because they didn't want to watch the rest of that shit, but they're like, when is Patty walking? Yeah, I mean, I definitely had a, not a whole bunch, not as much as a Jake Paul fight, but I definitely had a few friends reach out who ordinarily never ask and not, and is kind of always the spidey sense that you get about 324. Something's big. With that in mind, let's kick things off. Topic number one.

So let's start with the main event. Now, we're going to get to, as I mentioned, how we feel about all the ads on the broadcast and some other factors that you saw related to just what was watching the event like. Let's put a pen in that. We'll come back to it. Let's actually start with the fights themselves. Justin Gehche becomes a two-time interim UFC lightweight champion in what I would call a pretty one-sided.

You can make an argument for Patty, certainly to win round three. Maybe you could put in there round five as well. He definitely showed some durability. We're going to get to that as well. But let's focus on Justin Gagey if we can here, Jed. My first question to you would be he wins by unanimous decision, 4946 on two of the judge's scorecards, 4847 on just one. The bout was largely entertaining.

However, I do think you'd be fair to say a little sloppy. Certainly folks were vocalizing some concerns in that direction. Nevertheless, most people felt it was pretty entertaining me, included. Your biggest takeaway, though, from the five-round battle is what? Oh, I've got two. I'm trying to figure out what is the actual biggest, because that's how words work. I'm going to go with my biggest takeaway is that they did it. The U.S. got what they wanted, right? Like, this is out of all the hullabaloo, all the talk, all the handring and pearl clutching, and Armin Sarukian deserves to be fighting here. And this one actually

blah blah blah. None of that's wrong. But Justin Gachey laid it out at the first presser. It's like, the reason I'm in this position is I am the most exciting fighter who's ever lived. That dude's pretty exciting too. And this is the first pay-per-view on Paramount. They want to put their best foot forward. And I am that best foot. And yeah, man, they did. Like, it was, that was, that's a safe bet, but it's still paid off because we'll talk about the rest of the car, as you said, kind of sucked. And if the main event had been something different, if the main event had been Kayla Harrison versus Amanda Nunes and that fight hadn't fallen apart,

that fight can be boring. That fight could have looked like some of the other high level, not that entertaining fights because Patty and Pimlet, or Patty Pimbleau and Justin Gachie was the main event, even if the rest of that card sucked. And like I said, a lot of my friends didn't tune in for the rest. They tuned in for the main event. Your first experience on Paramount Plus, the biggest thing, the thing you take away the most is that rocked.

That just, that ripped the shit, man. And you've got Israel Adasanya coming out and saying that that is, you know, this generation's Bonner Griffin. I think that's probably not true. But there's some, there's a kernel of truth there. The UFC wanted this. They bet on it and they got paid off because even if the rest of this card was weak, made of it slapped. There's no denying.

I largely agree with that. I think the one setback, and because the UFC is playing with House money, because they control both fighters, right? Again, it's not rival promoters coming together to make a card. So in some sense, they win either way. It does probably, it's not great, honestly, for the UFC's future prospects that Patty didn't deliver here.

Now they can't make him do that. And I understand what everyone's going to say is like, they gave him every opportunity to be ready for this moment. no question about it. I'm not suggesting otherwise. I'm simply saying, would it be better for their long-term prospects for a guy at 31 to do well versus a guy at 37, kind of almost going to be 38 on his way out the door? The answer is obviously to that point, though, this is where I totally agree with your analysis here, which is that this was event when it was over that you were like, okay, so clearly more than normal,

they were making a play for the casual fan. Casual fans always going to be a dominant factor in both matchmaking and event location and every other factor that goes into how they make money. But it was dialed up here, it seems to me, a little bit more because we're going to talk about this. You could make a case that you watch the fifth and the sixth best guy and lightweight, and best case scenario, best case on Saturday. However, the fight delivered, I think, not so much for the hardcore fan because of the nature of the sloppiness, but the nature of the back and forth.

was bloody. I got people were there were Gachy was able to affect change. Patty had a couple of rallies on that third and again kind of in that fifth as well. Like if what you care about is drama in a fight and action in a fight and you're not too concerned about whether this guy is number one versus number two just are they good enough and is this fight entertaining enough and are you appealing to crowds where that's really just the dominant factor. I don't know how this didn't deliver. I don't know how it didn't deliver. And anecdotally it appears that it did. Now the question though is, related to this. How do you feel like the UFC is feeling about Gachie,

about what useful, what utility is there now that they have to do something with this interim championship? They're feeling great. Look, if you were a hardcore fan and didn't care about that fight, I don't, maybe this is you, Luke. I hope you'll invite me back after I see this. I want to be clear. It was funny.

enjoyed the fight. I mean, again, I thought it was sloppy in parts. I think we all do. It is. And then but I got off YouTube and then I get on Twitter and everyone was fucking killing it on my timeline. And I'm like, I didn't hate that. Allow joy. Allow joy into your lives. You pretentious douchebats. So not me. I actually kind of enjoyed it. I really did. It was super fun. Like that's if, if all, if you watch that fight and your takeaway is these aren't the best lie weights in the world. This is lame. Like no shit. Nobody thought they were coming into this. Like allow things to be fun. Embrace it because we've got like maybe three Justin Gachie fights left.

That's the key's the most exciting fighter ever. That was fun as hell. And I think the UFC doesn't care. Right. Like we talked in the pregame preview that this is not a win win, right? They, they would have preferred that Pimbled got over here. But I think this ended up just fine for them because Pimblett did kind of get over. He lost to Gachie.

But everybody, nobody left that fight being like, Like, well, not nobody. Ilya and Armand Sarukin are haters all the way through. But most people left that were like, man, Patty Pimbley's tough as shit. Like, that's good on him. And so he got elevated a little bit. But the reality is like, if he beat Gachy, it is not like Patty Pimbley is the future lightweight champion because Ilya Tupori would spark his ass too.

So it's just like they would have preferred it, but it's totally fine for Ilya to get to fight Gachi and have the most exciting fighter alive, fight maybe the best fighter alive, and kill him. You know, there are some downstream effects of like, when is Ilya Tepere going to fight a dude in the prime of his career?

That would be nice. But that doesn't matter for them. I think mostly they're a okay with this because Justin Gae is very popular in general. He's not as popular as Patty. And they can absolutely put this on the White House with an American champion if they'd like to. So maybe you don't want to see

the lone American champion gets sparked because that seems pretty likely to be what happens when they do face off. Let's talk about the fight. All right. So I thought I am too willing to bury the unks, which affected my pick on Friday because I was like, I thought that Gaichi was going to land on him, which he sure did. And I thought that what it was going to happen was what you got in the first round, that Patty was going to get his shit rocked and then maybe start to rally.

And then when he rallied a little bit in the third, I was like, all right, well, maybe something's going to happen here and then Gage, close that fucking door pretty quickly in the fourth. But I have to say, what did you make of Patty's game plan? Because I want to tell you what I feel. I see a lot of people saying, oh, why didn't he go for more takedowns? And if you look at the number, Jed, it's a five in total he attempted. He got none of them. One in the first he attempted, one in the fourth, and then three in the fifth.

And they all whiffed, obviously. Here's the problem for me, though. If you actually look at the number of takedowns, Patty in UFC overall, now I'm including this bout is four for 18 lifetime in UFC takedown attempts. Four for 18. The guy is McKinsey Dern numbers right there. Those are McKenzie Dern numbers. And in fact, if you look at the four takedowns he has,

one of them is real slick. It's a Harajoshi, he got to think of the Jordan Levitt fight. But most of them come from someone else establishing contact and then him hitting a switch or finding some kind of backtake to, you know, a mat return, which will count as a takedown. You know, typically that's where it comes from. It doesn't come from being far away shooting and then getting a take down. So I'm not going to say he couldn't have done it more.

Here's my takeaway from this bout, Jed. I'd love to know if you agree. What it was interesting to me about this is both on the feet and on the ground, at least in so much as the wrestling is concerned, not the actual, you know, he had mount or something. What's interesting to me is Gaichi actually had to face Patty's best stuff. Patty gave him basically everything he had, and it wasn't even close to enough. On the feet, he was landing his best weapons, the uppercut hook that he likes, a lot of those front leg attacks, whether he's going to the leg, to the body, or to the head,

the jumping switch knees that he tries, the switch stance blitzes off of the back, and all of them to one degree or another jet, they all kind of landed. I just mentioned the takedown component. Could there have been a little bit more sure? But in the fifth round, he had double underhooks, tried for two takedowns on an outside trip as well as against the fence, and Gachie had a better idea about how to defend. it than Chandler ever did. To me, the story of the fight is Patty showed every card he had and he still got wiped out.

There is something to be said about Gachie's resilience with all the damage he's had that made that possible. Yeah, man, I got a lot of thoughts here. Okay. I gave you my biggest thought. My second biggest thought right under the one I gave you that first section was I think people just are doomed to underestimate Justin Gachie, the fighter. right like everyone kind of agrees or most people agrees the most exciting fighter alive and probably ever but like that underrates how good of a fighter he is what he has accomplished over his career the fact that he has been able to go through multiple different generations of fighters and still be near the top of the

game the fact that he basically did like a hard style switch midway through his career which is very rare and very difficult thing to do and the fact that i do agree in the fact that i do in large part with what you said, like that he came in very prepared. He faced most of Patty's best shit, and it was fine. I do think there is a little bit also to some criticism of Patty here because I thought Patty had good tactics and some bad strategy, frankly.

And we talked about it in the pregame preview where there are a lot of things that Patty can do. And he did all those things. He did the uppercut. He was kicking at range, had a lot of stepping knees and a lot of just like attacks down the middle. which is pretty good against Gachy, who in general ducks his head a lot and is kind of there to be hit on those. The biggest issue I think Patty had, he should have shot more takedowns, but I'm with you that largely wouldn't have worked.

The problem is he just kept backing up. And if he needed to be putting Gagy on the back foot, like you go watch how Justin Gagy loses. It's he's getting backed up, right? And instead, Patty was against the fence the whole time. And I don't know how much of that was just because he got jawed pretty, early and that sort of sent him into fight or flight mode. But when he, every time he had success,

he was the one advancing. And most of the fight, he just simply wasn't doing that. And if you told me he was going to be on the back foot all fight, I would have been like, it's going to look exactly like that, except I would have thought Gachie would have gotten him out of there. But yeah,

man, Justin Gage is just, he's so much better of a fighter than people recognize. Because he's got a little bozo. to him and people underrate the bozos and its efficacy. But like, dude, that crackdown that he was rocking with, the front headlock series thing, like that was, that just completely neutered Patty's ability to get in transition.

Because you're right, Patty gets his takedowns in scrambles. And Justin was just like, all right, I'll hold this. You can't do anything from here until I decide we're done. He had a lot of good, like a lot of good little tactical things. And he's just a better fight than. Patty Pimblep, man. He's a significantly better fighter. I'm so glad you brought that up because if you look at the takedown that Patty got on Chandler, he goes for a single leg and then Chandler tries to turn and bail and get away. And then allows Patty to hold the leg and then follow and get the

body lock, which he then hit a mat return on. And then he took the back. Right. So the beginning of the end was set up from that moment, whereas Gagchi was like, no, down blocking, underhooking, hard sprawling, right? Not even going to let you. You're going to let you. You're set up. You're you get, I'm not even going to let you get close to wrapping me up in any capacity. And to the extent we are wrapped up, it's going to be on my terms, not yours. I totally agree. On the backing up part, dude, the tape has been clear on this. And I did not, this part was not surprising.

I was like, I knew he was going to get backed up by Gagie in part because, A, Gachey had said, you know, this is about champions moving forward. And also, Patty's got a little Tyron Woodley in him where the fight starts and he, he just backs up right away. And then sometimes he makes it work. And sometimes he, in this case, doesn't. But I was like, all right, well, what weapons is he going to use to? keep Gaichi at range.

And, you know, some of that work, but not nearly enough, obviously. What's interesting to me is, do he landed on Gaichi a lot. And it didn't really do shit. Statistically landed more strikes than Gaichi did. He did. And I forget, too. Like, it's like, it's like, bro, he, you gave Gaichi, not just all the weapons, like the different kinds of weapons, but like, it wasn't like,

Gachi had to like, yeah, some of them were blocked. Much of that landed clean. And it didn't do fuck all to him. And it's like, do we have to have a conversation about whether Paddy's obviously got some stoppage wins via strikes as UFC debut, for example, came that way. And he was beating the shit out of Michael Chandler. I'm not saying he can't hurt people. But there, and the Gichi is still pretty tough. There is a question about what kind of pop he has, right?

I mean, he obviously does not have like natural power. That is not part of him. But like the mechanics on some of those punches. They're awful. He was trying to stab him with overhand stab. You're never going to get like. if you don't naturally have power and your mechanics are bad, it's going to be super.

Like this is all working against you. But like also, yeah, when he beat the shit of Michael Chandler, he can hit like he has some. He's a big dude. He's strong enough. The difference is he's beating the shit of their Michael Chandler

from a dominant position where he has leverage. And I never thought if he is strictly backing up, it's just way harder to hit somebody hard when your back is against the fence, when the space is taken away from you. And Justin Gachie also, maybe he hurt Justin at points. I do think one of the fascinating parts of Justin Gachie's like Uvra in general, it's really hard for me to know when he's hurt because he's so wobbly. Like in general, he's sort of constantly, he's got a little bit of that DDP

we're like, okay, he's breathing heavy, but that doesn't mean he's tired. He just, that's just how he works in life. And so maybe he heard him at a few points in time. But like, yeah, he, he has to either get better at striking, which seems like boxing, not striking, because he's added good kicks, which seems like a tall, tall order at 31 years old. The cake sort of feels baked. Or he needs to shift up, like, thematically how he's going about it,

because he's never going to hurt people like that. Let's take a look at this picture of Patty's face. This is what he looked like at the end of the fight. I tell you what. I did learn this. Patty's got a fucking chin, bro. I mean, whatever else you want to say about him, Gaichi was landing on this fool. And he, you know, I was amazed at how well he was able to take the punches,

relatively speaking. Dude, it is not just that he's landing on this fool. Shout out to Jack Slack, who pointed this out on his post podcast or whatever. Justin Gaichi was landing shots against like, and Justin Gaichi, one of the harder hitters of this wake class like ever, right? Just as pure power. Maybe he's a little older.

Maybe he had staff. Like maybe he didn't have as much pop. But he was not just hitting Patty clean. He was hitting Patty clean when Patty's like on one foot and like not in a good position to take the strikes. And he is just like wearing it. And yeah, Patty got dropped. Patty. They credited Gaichi with two knockdowns, which I think is ludicrous.

Like I think he dropped him like five times. Yeah. But like the fact that he was able to just work through like getting jawed in the most awkward positions. Hell of a chin, man. Like you cannot question, cannot question the man's durability and heart. Last thing on Patty for just a moment. Do you, to me, I'm not in any way saying it's the same as the five round beating basically, basically that Gagchi put on Tony Ferguson. I'm not saying it's the same.

It's not. The damage was not as much. That was a especially brutal beating. However, do you worry about the amount of damage Patty took in this fight in terms of his chances? Maybe not all the way for his long term, but for his next fight. No, I will say, because I have the stats up, I've been kind of looking at him this morning. Gaichi landed one more significant strike per UFC stats against Patty than he did against Tony. Of course, he didn't get any knockdowns against Tony.

So statistically, it was a worst beating, but I'm with you. he ended Tony Ferguson's career, which was pretty tough. I'm not that concerned about Patty because Patty, I think is still young enough where you can take a beating. But historically, fighting Justin Gachie has been bad for your long-term health in this sport. And so it is something to look at moving forward. I'm not sure, though, that we'll know, right, because of the unique Patty Pimbledness

of this all. because if he goes out and he fights, let's say Charles Oliver loses to Max Holloway, Patty fights Charles. And Charles beats him. We're not going to be like, oh, his chin is cracked. He can't. Like, yeah, Patty's not very good.

It will be, I think, the dominant storyline. But it is something to watch out for because, like, you don't have that many of those in you, man. Like, there's just not that many people can take that sort of a beating that many times. That's really the first one that I can, I'm clocking for Patty, but he took a lot of damage, bro. What does it mean that Gagy is a two-time interim champion?

I think it's awesome, frankly. It doesn't mean, like, it doesn't mean nothing. It doesn't mean the world. But like, he is the, in my estimation, the most accomplished UFC fighter of all time to never win an undisputed belt. because he's a two-time interim champion, even if this one is way more suspect than the first one was, right?

BMF champion. And like there's an argument that, not that he would be the best lightweight in the world, but that Ilya should not currently have a belt right now. And so like it could be an undisputed title. It would be, he wouldn't be the best lightweight in the world, but he could have it.

And so it's, I think it feels very appropriate for a fighter like Justin Gagie, who's maybe never been the best guy in the world, but he has been right there for a very long time to add another, you know, trophy to the case. I have struggled with this one.

I'm not sure what it means. Pardon me. Again, in part because Justin faced both Max and Charles Levera and got smoked by both of them, you know, and it's like now he's holding an interim title. What does it mean to be a two-time interim? champion. I'm not really sure because it's not really a number one. I mean, it ends up being a number one contender fight as a consequence, but it, but like, you know, it's not really a number one

contenders fight. So I have a little bit of difficulty with it, but it did remind me, and I said this on Saturday night, and again, people poo-poo in this performance. Justin didn't look to me like, of course, prime Justin. I don't, I, I, you could definitely see that there was a little bit of a slowing down. At the same time, people were like, oh, he's washed. I don't think he's actually fully washed. I don't really believe that. And more to the point, the fact that a guy like this, after all the miles, he's been put on him, after all the, I mean, even in fights where he's won, he's had his fucking brain rattled, you know, and then to still be out here and then dunk in on what the best 31-year-old that basically the division has to offer, just kind of

speaks to this generation of lightweights, him, the Poiriers, the Habibs, the Connors for a moment anyway, and the RDAs and the Tony Ferguson's, like that class. I honestly I I really as good as there are some other lightweights out there I really think that this class is not going to be replaced anytime soon if ever it was very very special and you're looking at one of the last kind of horsemen of that movement still doing some to me pretty interesting and and really capable stuff dude I remember when you first pitched that whatever was like look look at these fucking old war horses still just turning back and I was like three years. years later. It's like, yeah, Gachie B. Raphael Fazeve, who's supposed to be the future. Hey, just be Patty, who's supposed to be the future. Like, it's just like, okay, it's incredible, like what this little class of badasses is done. Uh, and I'm really happy to have like, not just lived through it, but like this has been the prime of my fandom and a lot of ways. Yeah. To have been fully not like, oh, this happened when I was just learning about MMA. It's like,

oh, I know this. And it rocks, man. Let's get to the people who we've been kind of dancing around this whole time, which is who I think are the two best lightweights in the world. Let's start with, you know what? Let's start with the champion himself. Here's a tweet from I'm guessing to Patty, obviously, quote, hey, little sausage. The only thing you had to do was beat a 38-year-old guy.

By the way, you can just, if you say that in Teporia's voice, all you had to do was just beat a 38, like, Any like he's like you're comparing him to like any guy off the street who happens to be 38 like the disdain with which he is treating. Gachi is remarkable. He says you just lost the biggest paycheck of your life. You were going to get rich if you won. Justin, all I can say is congratulations. And I'd like to tell you to get ready, but you're screwed no matter what.

I got to tell you, Ilya to pouria from the top rope. I love this message. I'm a. Okay. I have a lot of issues with basically everything Ilya has said over the last two years. not this one. Like this is exactly right. Like you got beef with that dude and you can dunk on on that dude.

Like that is a okay thing to do. You know, I do think he also lost the biggest payday of his life. I think it would it's better for his career if he beats Patty than Gaci. But like it is I totally understand dunking on him right now. And yeah, I mean, the most likely outcome is that he blows the doors off just to Gage. I think he I think to pour you well okay let's be clear about this

and I said this a long time ago when people were like oh what about Patty versus Ilya and I was like brother I mean if you wanted to end Patty's career you set him up with Ilya I would turn him into ash you know what I mean I mean just absolutely Medusa him turn him into fucking stone

with with what he would do I think Gathe would be a little more competitive and certainly put up more of a fight but I don't think his chances are great either which then brings us to a more interesting consideration. Namely, what about Armand Sarukian, the kind of odd men out here who, one way or the other probably should have been in this bout. He had something to say as well. Here's his sweet quote, that's what happens when you're gifted opportunities and pushed

up the rankings artificially, a completely undeserved title shot for Patty. Congratulations to Justin. He showed real heart, and unlike others, he'll step up and take the fight with me and respect. So what do you make of this? It is obvious that these two guys are the best lightweights in the world. But in terms of how you feel like their stock or their appearance or their value shakes out, sort it for me. Dude, uh,

I just put it in our private chat. Um, one of my favorite photos of the evening. It is Armin Surukean immediately after the main event. Yeah. Look at, look at how mad fucking dude. Like I don't know if I've ever seen a dude more bitter about what just has like,

you can see the thought in his head of like i would fucking kill these dudes i would put them both back to back and i would i would finish them inside of five he's furious about what is going on here uh and it sucks for him man i think he's the best lightweight on earth um he's certainly the lightweight on earth who has done the most right like he has consistently been beating top opposition ilia has one sensational win but he's got one win at lightweight and yeah under any normal circumstances. He would have gone in there. He would have fought.

He would have, I would bet almost anything in the world that he would have beaten neither man. And now he like, hopefully, best case scenario gets to fight for the title at the end of this year. But long on loop, maybe you can confirm this or either of you,

if you remember. I think I recall Dana saying Armand's going to have to fight again at the post presser, which like he'll beat whoever he fights. But bro, that sucks. Like it's just, he's done more than enough to get his day in court. And I think he's the best light word on earth.

And he might not get to prove that until next year. And he may never get to fight Ilya, because I do not think Ilya Tupori is trying to fight this man at all. And so he even when, even if he does, it, there will be people who will be like, well, you're the best of the rest because Ilya is not here. DK early odds. Our friends here at Draft King, Toporia minus 455, Gachie plus 350. In Gajie's defense, he was the underdog from a betting standpoint, heading into this one. So I know some folks made some good money with this one.

This one, however, I mean, I love, again, I cannot respect what Gachie has done, that generation of lightweights have done. But, dude, Teporia is going to fucking smash him. How would a Gachie versus, I will tell you, a Gachie Armand fight is interesting to me, because Gachie would at least put up some resistance on the take. take down, right? I mean, I think eventually Armand would get it, but the question is what kind of tax

he's going to have to pay before that happens. To me, Seporia versus Gachi is less interesting because I think eventually Tepore is just going to electrocute him. But the Armin won to me, he's going to have to work for it. And for that reason, I kind of like that scrap a little bit more. I mean, by the smallest

of margins, do I think it's more competitive? Really? Yeah, like, I, Armin will just Habib Gachi, and like, he will just make Gachi, walk backwards constantly and try and circle and eventually he'll get it. And like once we were all confident that if Patty got Gachy down, it was curtains.

I'm like this is the difference between Armin and Patty is significant. And Armin can wrestle his ass off. Go ask Lance Palmer. Yeah, but he's got no subs. Okay. Let me back. He doesn't need subs. He'll get on time to beat their shit.

I know he's sub Dan Hooker. Okay. Armand did. But in general, I'm not convinced that like, oh, he gets the back. He's some kind of threat from there. I'm less convinced by that.

I'm pretty convinced that he would dummy, that he would dummy Gaichi once he got to the floor. I do think Gaichu will make it harder to get to the floor. But like, I, maybe it is the homer in me. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely believe that Alitipuria, like logically, it's going to beat Justin Gaichie. I was incredibly confident that Hafeel Faziv

would just be a better striker than Justin Gaichie, and they have fought for 30 minutes, and mostly Gaichie's tuned him up. up. Gachie has tools on the feet and the gap there I think is the athleticism, the age is certainly enough. But like, I'm, I at least have some level of interest in seeing how that shakes out because Gachi has historically proven me wrong specifically with fights. And, you know, this is a million years old and you shouldn't put too much stock into it. But if Gai Herbert can buzz you. I strongly suspect Justin Gachie at least has the potential to do that. So I don't think

either fight is competitive realistically, like logical brain Jed, but Lizard Jed thinks that Gatje has a better chance against the poorer than it does against Sarmann. With that in mind, let's now move to the co-main event. Topic number two. So he had to work for it here a little bit, but he got it done. Sean O'Malley wins a unanimous decision defeating Song Yadong. Now he started out with a decent first round. Song Yadong, look like he might have been. mounting what was going to be a winning performance by the end of that second. But to me, the interesting factor here is the way in which O'Malley rescued himself in the third. With that in mind is the story of the fight, Jed, that O'Malley did rally in that third and had the best

round of the three of any of the rounds that either of them had in an impressive showing, or did the fact that he had to rally in the third show that he's declined? I don't think Sean O'Malley has declined. don't really think the story is either like, oh, look, Sean rallied so much as my big takeaway in this fight was, oh, Sean didn't, he was slow to start. Maybe that's because he's been doing five rounders so much. Because once he got up to speed, like, once he got going, it's like, oh, that's exactly the Sean Amali I anticipated. It just, he didn't get going for a while. And I think the most logical explanation is like, okay, he just, he came in a little cold. because he's not used to like he just hasn't done this in a while and to some extent also

song yadong came out hot like he he knew he needed to set a tone early he tried he doesn't have that many tools so that's pretty tough for song but like he he made it a fight early and then sean finally just you know sometimes it takes a little while to to get the engine going loop you know once he did now but see here's why no okay but the thing is if i hadn't seen tim welch be like apoplectic in the fucking corner between the second and third. And he wasn't like shouting him down, but he was like, yo, like,

you got to go. This is the moment. You know, fast. You got to be long. You got to be quick. You got to be first. Best five minutes. Let's go. Like, he was really trying to, I'm not putting it on par with between the fourth and fifth round of the Kamar Usman Leon Edwards rematch.

Like, you know, you got to go kid. But I am saying that like they were trying to jolt this dude back to being awake. And I can buy that the three three rounds, you know, clearly can be an adjustment for him. But I don't know, man. I'm a little bit of the belief that like two losses in a row, he's been kind of talking, I'm not saying in a non-committal way about his career, but it's not,

we talked about the big opportunity, but he's been a little bit like lost in the sauce about what this all kind of means. I think he was feeling a little bit. I think it took him a while to like, to not just get going, obviously, but to kind of recognize, like he even said, for example, right? He even said, I thought he was going to be way, way faster. I think he had built up in his mind the difficulty of the moment to a little bit and was a little bit feeling it. And it was only after he kind of calmed down that he was able to let, you know, and then he got a coach in his ear to kind of get going.

I'm not to me like the five to three round three, I absolutely think is a factor. But I'm not sure if it's the dominant one. Yeah. I mean, and that could totally be it because this was, he probably had the most pressure of any fighter on him. Just because like with the win, and we'll talk about them in the second, maybe he's fighting for a belt. with the loss. His career is in full-blown free fall at that point in time. And so maybe that's it.

Maybe he just felt a little bit of the pressure. But he's never been like a super fast starter anyway. The second round, the first round, you know, kind of made sense. The second round was when I was like, oh, Sean O'Malley might be losing. And then he just fought normally in the third round. And he tuned him up. So I don't know what, it's hard for me to draw like major conclusions about anything. other than like, Sean Amali is still one of the five best dudes in this weight class.

And Song Yadong is, seems to have hit, like, seems to have a very clearly defined ceiling. Let's talk about Song Adong for a second. We'll circle back to Sean O'Malley, but you brought it up and I really wanted to get to it. Here's a guy who you keep, they keep calling him up to the majors and then he can't, he can't close the show on the hill. You know what I mean? They bring him up to fight San Hagan, doesn't go his way. I know he does have a win over Sohudo, but we all know the different.

is obviously a fair amount of controversy related to how that one ended and they call him up here and there's been some other ones too. He does have the winner of Remarland Vera but that was from a long time ago. He obviously is good. He is still young. As you indicated in that first round, the power and like the thudding nature of what he was throwing

he was trying to set a physical tone. He can do stuff. But Jed, why can't he seem to graduate to the next level? Dude, I don't I think the answer is he doesn't have that many tools. right like he he just has done there's not a depth to his game correct me if you think i'm wrong here

but like he's mostly doing the same stuff and he's very athletic his hands are quite fast and you know he can do a little bit of everything but he doesn't have any superpower to rely on you know he doesn't have a weapon or two to build a game around and so he just kind of can't get it because it's not just that he has been given steps up to the majors he is three times been called up to the big leagues on the best terms possible, guys on big losing streaks. And he has not pulled it off in any of them. He's still only 28. So like, hard to say he's never going to get there.

But like how many bites at the apple do you get before it's just like, this is who you are? And there's nothing wrong with that. But you're a top 10 guy. You're not a top five guy. I unfortunately agree. Like if you just compare him to like again and you could say, oh, well, this is the best guy in the division. fine, but that's a good benchmark. What does it look like when you're really good?

Take something like Piotr Yon. Think about all the things that fucking guy can do. The takedowns, the scrambling. He doesn't have the most significant submission threat, but I bet that's better than we think too. And then on the feet, the number of tools and how he blends it all together. And then you look at Song Yadong and it's like, obviously

he can do stuff, but it's just a very diet version of that. Like, even if he had won this fight, they were like really hyped behind getting a Chinese guy in a title fight, which again, as part of matchmaking if you would be able to surf that opportunity. Dude, Jan would fucking wash this guy. He would, I mean, he can do vastly more.

He can take the fight to places that that song has simply no way to follow. And so it's like, I want for him to turn that corner. And I don't, I'm not ready to rule it out. But unless he skill builds in some kind of way more than just like defensively, I don't know what to say. This is a sport, man. We're going to talk about some other fighters on this car, but it's going to be relevant.

everyone knows offense is more important than defense, but in MMA, it's like, dude, it's a lot more important. I mean, if you don't have good defense, you also won't win a title, but you need to make sure you can do a bunch of stuff. And have an ace in the hole, too. It's a tough business, but I just don't feel like,

what song's calling car? He's got a huge punch, he's athletic, he's got pretty good take down the fence for the most part. I don't, this is going to be mean, and I'm okay with that. If I was a fighter of talent and means, If I, and I'm not, if you can't look at this and understand that that's not correct, I don't know what to tell you. If I was somebody still young with a future in this sport, I don't know what would get me there, but it, I just would never go to Team Alpha male.

I, who, who is strong. I mean, they are better than not many gyms, but if you're trying to ascend, like what, who's, who's the fighter that is like, Cody Garbran is the, best fighter team alpha male has produced not dwayne ludwig right like and do you do you want to be where cody's current career is like it's i know i don't think he trains there anymore but like how is he going to get those tools when nobody at team alpha male has like like superior tools the one trick they had is guillotine and that doesn't seem to be like happening anymore like he if i was in yodong's corner i'm sure they are nice and they are a professional team But like, man, you got to go somewhere else to get something going because this just isn't working.

He's he's not developing. He's the same dude and that dude is good. It's a top 10 dude. But if you have title aspirations, I don't think that's the place you're going to get him over the hump. So thinking about what's next for Sean O'Malley, what do you think the UFC is going to do? There have been basically two different directions that have been proposed. One is you could at this point give him a title shot. Again, I didn't think the fight was bad by any stretch.

I enjoyed it. It wasn't a scintillating performance until the end of the third, but otherwise a competent one and certainly a deserving one for advancement. Could you go the title shot route? You could. That's one direction. The other one that I keep seeing pop up is about versus him versus Corey Sandhagen.

Could be on the White House. Could be somewhere else. For Jed, if you get to play matchmaker for a day, how do you sort the top of this division? Marabsin waiting in the wings. We'll talk about Umar a little bit later. And now you've got Sean O'Malley. What do you do? dude if I get to sort we're going to have the most fun um I don't think this is what will happen but like looking at that fight I think Sean O'Malley did a miracle on Saturday which is he was 95

to fight for the Bannonway title and I think that performance was the 5% oh actually never mind we're just going to do more of him and beholder again uh he's going to have the fight again I think they'll go sandhagen but if I'm in charge this is the easy thing in the world. Hey, when Marab and Peodorian fight for the belt on whatever card that's going to be, the feature bout or the five-round co-main, five rounds for sure, Sean O'Malley versus Umarna Magamatov, Stone Cold, Title Eliminator, no questions asked. Do it. It is our, you know, it is off-brand, great value discount version of Conor Habib and the winner, like, honestly, coming off that fight, Sean can maybe even feel like he can beat

Umar not his fight coming off umar's fight and if umar gets it then umar's fighting again like that seems like the obvious answer that they will not in any way do long island luke has a theory on this what what is your theory about which way they'll go well like jed just said they're not going to put Sean against umar even though that's merit marocratically whatever the fucking word is what yeah what you should do i think they're going to do omali yon too i'm even thinking possibly at the white house and then i think just on a random fight night you do Marab Umar two winner of that is the rightful number one pro. Are they really gonna do that to Mara? Dude you can't do that it would be fucked up and you know

I love Maraub I'm not saying I don't want this to happen I'm just I feel like that's how the UFC is gonna go just my theory I don't know I do not I can't believe they would make Mara fight umar I mean I don't hate the fight that's such but he you know I'm not one of these guys who's like oh if you lose convincingly you should get a rematch but I'll make an exception in this case given what Marav has done. I make I think our immediate rematches are awful and should never happen. The loan the two caveats being stone cold robbery and like it has to be stone called. It can't be competitive.

And the other is trilogy fight. They split the two 100%. You should run that a third time. There's no no doubt in my mind. That's what should happen. I do think that is likely to happen now. And if that's going to happen like why have Sean fight Corey? And then if Corey wins, then I guess you're just defaulting it to Umar.

And if Sean wins, he gets it. And then Umar's just in for in arm in limbo, like just have those two dudes fight. Sean can beat him. I don't think he will, but he can beat him. Have him fight him. Nobody thought he beat Peoria and he did. Yeah. I will say this though, just getting back to Sean Romali as we wrap up on this topic here.

To me, what was interesting was I definitely, there was a nice crowd pop for Sean O'Malley. I think he did enough of a job as. we talked about for advancement. He did what he was supposed to do. I do think, though, that the Paramount story, as well as the particulars of the main event, have definitely drowned out a little bit. It's not like he's made a huge impact with the Song Yadong win.

Would you agree with that? Like most of the focus is just main event, and then UFC Paramount as a storyline itself. Yeah. He was, you know, he wasn't supposed to be in the co-main event anyway. and it does feel like it's just being treated as the feature bout, which is what it was originally, because the performance wasn't great.

You know, like it was perfectly fine, professional. Some people scored that fight for song. I didn't, but I think it's, it's not like the biggest robbery to give song one and two there. And so,

like, that's just one of those fights that happens and that we don't talk about or care that much about moving forward. And maybe that's better for Sean O'Malley because he can just, you know, he said afterwards, I'll just wait.

I'll wait for the title shot. And historically, that's kind of a bad idea. But lately it's not. And especially if you're a guy that they like and want to give opportunities to, maybe if everyone just forgets about this and you sit out for a while, you get it. And certainly, 100% I think,

I think we could both agree on this loop. If something happens, if Marab gets injured, then Sean's just in. And there's no question to ask about it. Yes. If Marab is, if Marab retired today,

this would be a much more easy, easy conversation to parse. I will say this. I had my notes up here, and I wanted to make a point, and I forgot what I was going to say. Oh, no, let me remind you, for me, we talk about some of the best fights that can be made in MMA within a weight class. So like who Islam would fight at 70, a natural 70, or, or as we've talked about, a 55, Tuporia and Sauriukin, one of the more interesting,

I'm not saying it's the best fight at 35 necessarily. What I am saying is it will be a crime if San Hagan and O'Malley don't fight in like relatively soon like them fighting past their primes is not as interesting to me them fighting now i got to tell you that would be one of my more anticipated fights this year i think that would be fucking electric huge stakes because o'malley is obviously sitting in something of a very advantageous position cori could steal that or certainly even now put himself even further back in the title return that he i think still envisions for himself there's just a lot of going on to say nothing of the particulars of the striking battle itself that we would get count me in as all in favor

of omali versus sandhagen as a fight that i really really want to see in 2026 that's just my personal opinion i think that fight's awesome i've wanted like that's been a great fight forever and i love that corey called for because that's how you get it and that seems like that seems like what will happen because sean can also get a title fight by beating corey And it is probably easier to beat Corey than it is to beat Umar. And yeah, dude, that fight rocks. So it's ban on weight, man. It's really hard to make a bad fight with top guys at Bannamweight.

Like it's pretty difficult to do that here. I know. And speaking, getting back to Song you're dong, it's like, dude, is Sanhagen the best guy in the division? I think he's one of the best, but obviously I don't think he's the best guy. But look how skillful this fucking guy is. Sean O'Malley, look how skillful, yon, skillful, yon, skillful, Marab, I mean, not as skillful, but obviously he has a few things working for him. that make that all work look at umar he's got problems but fucking skillful and then song y dong

it's like dude what is your path to beating guys who can do this many things i just don't know he has no weapon that is critical like there is no nothing no one single thing and not even like a preponderance of offense that is like ah he doesn't have anything he needs i've said my piece on it yeah he needs to go somewhere else all right with that in mind let's talk now by our friends at Huell. You guys might have heard about them. We talked about them previously on the show, and I want to start with a very basic question, which is, how do you do your macros? How do you make sure you get enough protein? And not just like the BS kind of protein, but high quality protein, and the kind that can be delivered, not so much with just some kind of, you know, gross bulking

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What a weird ass, I don't even know. What do you even, I don't know how to talk about Waldo Cortizocococos. and Derek Lewis except to say, is the story, Jed, that Waldo Cortez Ocosta is actually pretty good? Or is the story now that Derek Lewis at 40 years of age is just kind of bad? The story is Derek Lewis needs some fuel in his life.

I don't know what the fuck is going on there. Maybe Cuero is actually what he eats. I don't know. That was weird. I don't, I've watched it a lot. I still don't. I don't know that this is true, and I don't want to cast dispersions on Derek Lewis,

who is a very fun man. That looked like a little bit of one of my favorite fights of all time. Not the fight as a whole, but the ending. It looked a little like Kimbo Dada. I'm just tired. Like it was just a I'm a tired knockout. Because like, it's not like he jawed him. It was like the babyest of shots.

and Derek just sort of tumped over like Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall and then once he was on the ground it was over because Waldo can just get on and then he hit the shit out of

once he was on the ground but like do Derek Lewis look like an almost 42 year old man that's that's my big like he's he has been a fun fighter he's had a significantly better career

than I think anyone could imagine for him he's 42 he does have a superpower but he is limited in the rest of his his game broadly, though he has, his game works really well. I was respected that about him.

And like, he's just past it, man. Like, it, it was a little smoke and mirrors that he was on a two-fight winning streak because he won them in the way he can win fights and those dudes gave him fights he could win. But if you are a competent heavyweight who at least has some, like a, a gin, not even a like a dialed in sense, a general sense of strategy and tactics, you're probably going to defeat Derek Klu. at this stage of his career. Slight correction, according to our friends at Wikipedia,

Derek Lewis is 40. Now, he's going to be 41. Was he about to be 41 in February? Yeah, February 7. So about two weeks or less, actually. I thought he was already 41. My bet. So he's going to be 41 here.

But to your point, I mean, you basically get the right idea. I'll say this. You know what it reminded me of? That sequence where Lewis goes heavy on a hook and then heavy on another hook and then Cortizocosius. Oh, I know exactly what you're saying. It's like Silva. versus Griffin.

Forrest Griffin Silva? Yes. In real time I was like, oh my God, he got him. I also I saw some folks say this to me. It looked to them like Izzy versus Gastilum a little bit as well where Gasolam's flailing. Izzy just kind of pulls and then pops, you know, there's a little bit of that too. But I was like

except for Gasolam, you know, didn't fall over and just quit. Yeah. This is much more to Forrest Griffin where I was like, he wasn't knocked out, he was defeated. I want to point out something. It wasn't just that he just kind of laid down off the punch. Cortez Acosta just does like the most basic Toriano pass,

but he doesn't even really do a pass. He just grabs his knees or his like his shins and just moves them to the side and then just goes right to knee on belly. And I was like, dude, you just let this motherfucker. Like you didn't even roll to the side to frame out. Just lets him go right around. I was like, dude, what the fuck is that? That was a weird part too.

But to me, it's like, dude, if you're a bad heavyweight, so you overcommit positionally or you are not, athletic enough to retreat quickly. Yeah, Lewis, I think still actually might hurt you because he's going to chase you down. He'll swing wide. He does that jumping switch kick, that kind of a thing. You know what I mean? So Cortez-A-Costa, it's a meat and potatoes game, Jed. But if you're athletic, if you have room to move to retreat and you have, obviously because of your athleticism and whatnot, you have decent timing and you've got a jab, brother, you can win a title at heavyweight. Cyril gone is that times a million.

Why does he win? Because he's got, you know, when he's not getting choked up by John Jones, but like on the feet, he's got a good jab. He moves pretty well. He's pretty athletic and getting out of the way. And that is enough to beat these people. Dude, Waldorf-Cotezocsta, I don't necessarily look at him and think, oh, future champion. But I can't rule it out at heavyweight, just given the state of things. You can't rule anything out at heavyweight. But like, yeah, dude, he's, he's competent. This is, Waldo Cortezzo Costa is what used to be. a bottom 15 heavyweight. Like the bottom, like the bottom end of a top 15 heavyweight. That's right. Like a guy who's like a Heath Haring, you know,

like kind of talented, a little bit athletic, competent. And because heavyweight has just died, like just this withering awful death. He's a top five, top six dude. And yeah,

like he's got a good chin, which is also sort of the baseline for success in heavy way you just have to be durable so he's durable he can jab he's got enough talent to clear the bar and the rest of this weight class is just buns it's so bad because this isn't lightweight right luke where it's like oh my god it's so impressive that justin gaecchi and dustin porier and charles olivares still got the juice at 37 it's like man derrick lewis is 40 and still a top 15 guy because this division is in shambles.

Waldor Cortez Acosta wants Blades next. We have a graphic to this effect. Last thing for me, you called out Curtis Blades. Stylistically, he might seem to be your most difficult matchup in the weight class. Do you believe he would be the most difficult opponent for you this far? And you're called for you? In terms of the style, maybe one of the play that most difficult,

is one of the rest of the division. Something about that? No, no, no, no, no, no, no is very difficult, not a real problem, that, that, that, you know, I've passed a other retos more grand and that have passed in the last three the last few years.

And I want because it's a little bit about di Parata in what you in the social media and the people that also don't like that I want to and I want to run to the head.

Listen, I don't think it's going to be a tough challenge. I do believe I've had harder challenges, especially in my last three fights. And I don't think it's going to be that much. And listen, I won Kurtus

plays because he's been saying some things social media and people who talk crap I don't like them so I don't want to rip his head off although just one quick one the Mexico card is getting built like very quickly it already has a main event would you rather fight in Mexico on the undercard or your headline a card against Curtis Blades? I don't know if you know because the category of Mexico is that's getting peasanters.

I mean, lot of statins. Or so, yeah, you're more, to play there in Mexico in in any question of this cartelera or in Mexico in any question of this cartelera or or,

I don't care of another city. I mean, no me I don't know what of the way of

in Mexico, I want to get to get to the head in Mexico. I don't care where they

put me in there. I want to fight in Mexico and I want to rip Curtis Blades

head off in Mexico. His chances to defeat Curtis Blades or what? Ooh. That's a

really good question, Luke. I think he's, I think that's a great call out because, like, the only other

dude you kind of call out at that point if you're WCA is I mean maybe you try to moonshot Cyril gone because Tom might be out for a while but like the other guy's Alexander Volkov and that seems like that's just a low upside fight but he has been very good defensively as a wrestler and fought a lot of like great wrestlers mind you but like WCA has a very good statistically speaking takedown defense and Curtis Blades you know but he can compete on the feet, but if he can stuff a bunch of Curtis Blades takedowns, I wouldn't shock me if WCA just sort of jabbed his way to a victory. And then if he beats Curtis Blades, like, yeah, put him in a title fight. So I like the call out and I'd favor Blades, but 60, 40.

Yeah, I'm kind of there. It's like he lost to Pavlovich. So I do think we've seen some of the limits of what Cortez-Costa can be. But the Blades one is, again, he's earned a fight like that. And Honestly, blades could use some momentum that Cortez-A-Costa has built for himself. I actually like the call-out. I like the fight. Put it to Mexico. Put it wherever they want. I don't know.

But I definitely like what he's thinking. All right. Which takes us to Jesus. I God, fuck me. We're going to Jesus. Here's how bad this fight was. I talked to Brian Campbell all day yesterday via text. We're just sharing a bunch of thoughts.

Who's that? Huh? Who's that? I don't know that name. He's this guy who, he watches straw weights, puts his pants around his ankles and then masturbates at the bus stop. But putting that aside. Good day for him yesterday then.

Yeah, a little chilly. I was just going to say, here's how, Brian did not shit on this. I want to be clear. But the fact that he didn't even bring this fight up to me, he had nothing to say about it. I think tells you, dude, this fight was bad. This Rosemannamah Unis, Natalia Silva fight, it was bad. I kind of thought Rose maybe deserved to win it. I do recognize Silva probably won the third.

I guess the second round was a bit of a swing round. I don't know. I don't know where the hell Rose is. I don't know what's happening with where she's coming or going in terms of her space in this division. She still beats people, but then she loses fights where she doesn't seem to have the kind of urgency that she would need Jed. And more to the point, Silva was dancing like she was doing,

you know that Dak Prescott warm up where he does the hip twist everywhere like that, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. She was doing the deck Prescott. Her front work was doing the deck Prescott. Now again, she warmed up eventually. She had that nice throw, Silva did, from the double overhooks.

She does the deck Prescott in the middle of the fight constantly, just like she's salcing her against it's so weird. It drives me crazy. But she did have the nice throw, that sidekick to the face on Rose was nice. But just, just what has happened to Rose, your reaction to this bout, and then we'll talk about what happens next after. I wrote about this today for my friend.

com so you go check it i think it's up on the site by now um we do like a put an after action report for the thing and my like rose i'm a unis i feel when i watch her fight and when i watch her fight the last several fights since she's moved up to fly away i can i think of the lewis carroll mad hatter quote you used to be much more muchier you've lost your muchness like rose was always a mercurial fighter, right? Like she had super eye eyes and the Carlos Spars a fight is like an atrocity. But since coming up to 125, she doesn't have like there's no juice. There's no muchness to her. She's not losing by a lot. She's maybe raised that floor a little bit from some of her worst performances. But there's just, there's nothing going on. Even when she's saying the Lord's

prayer and talking to herself, it's no longer like, oh, she's going to put a foot up. upside some person's head. She's like, she's going to edge out Miranda Maverick. Like, this was an imminently winnable fight for her. And she, she never got there. And so I don't, I don't know. She is one of the more fascinating figures in the history of the sport to me just because of, like, how good she could be, but could never consistently get there. But wasn't like a flash on the pan like a Cody Garbrandt like she had she's had longevity but yeah she's lost her muchness man and i don't know how you get that back maybe it just won't like maybe we're just just too far gone but this kind this was kind of a bummer of a fight to watch even if maybe you expect like outside

of it sucking maybe even if you expected it like this this fight crystallized to me like oh rose isn't we're never we're never getting back what we had yeah she might still win again but i you know whatever the magic was that I don't know what happened to it also I was so bummed out by the fight again it wasn't the worst fight I've ever seen or something but just the accumulative weight or the cumulative weight I should say of how poorly women's MMA has just become and turned I put out a thread yesterday and be like hey what are the best women's fights of all time and obviously not in boxing but in MMA and there was a lot of great responses but then one thing I noticed was I can't remember any of them being within the last few years. you know what I mean like all the ones that they're picking happened you know 20 20 or or or much earlier than that including into the strike force days I don't know what has happened to the game there's probably a few factors to say it but Jesus bro it is I don't want to be this way where the first two cards in the paramount era jed there's one fight on the card from Saturday and there are fucking none on the next one but it's like dude I don't know what people want the UFC to do at this

point, game's gone, brother. It's just not the same anymore. And I'm not getting the same amount of enjoyment. It really is quite depressing. I have to be honest. Game has in fact done changed. I don't, dude, I don't know how to save it. It's so it is dire straight out there, man. To be like our era of MMA was better. But dude, what is this era's equivalent to, to, for example, Misha Tate versus Katzengano? Like, what's the equivalent of that? It's not a boomer to it's objectively true. I know that it's objectively true because all the same women's fighters who were good are still in the top of the rankings now.

Misha Tate is a ranked Bannon way. I know that's not the vision we're talking about, but like this has been these same, not dude, same women for 10 years. And it's not like they got better because they got 10 years older. Like it's,

it is there. And they're so limited like growth. Like who, who's coming? along like who are the like natalia silver is the the new the leader vanguard of the new generation and it's like okay if she beat like if she beats valentina shiuchchenko that's not that she's that good it's that valentina shivchenko's pushing 40 and she's been fighting professionally for 20 years and at some point you just can't do it forever yeah it is it is tough scenes right now

your level of excitement for natalia silver versus shipchenko oh incredibly limited. And I want to be very clear about this. I am an enormous Valentina Shvchenko stand. I've been standing her for literal years. That is not because she, it's the exact opposite reasons that I stand, Justin Gachi and Yuri Prasca. She is not the most fun person to watch.

When she competes, I am watching, in my estimation, the greatest female fighter of all time. And so I will have polite, like, respect. full of applause like golf clap this you know that that fight is me sitting in the opera box watching opera and being like very good very good despite not really being moved by it all right elsewhere on this card and this was a fun one for me a little bit heartbreaking based on the way that it went but not not so much jonsilva looked i think i'd say much more patient this time and it went over arnold allan how much did this restore your faith that jane silva could contend for a title five

following that loss to Diego Lopez, but now with this great win over Arnold Allen. Dude, I, this was the fight I was the most curious about because I said after Jean Silva lost to Diego Lopez, and I think I even said in the pregame preview that we did. I was like, I wonder if that loss will be a Justin Gaichi moment. Because remember when Gaichi came in from WSOF and he's like, I'm just trying to get into car crashes and then he got knocked out. He like finally found his equal and went back. to the lab and retooled his game in a very effective way. I was like, maybe that's just what

Jean-Silva needed. He, not to, don't turn off the bozo. Just, you got to be able to modulate the bozo mid-fight. And he did, like, he 100% did that against Arne Allen. Like, he still had it. He surfed a dude. I've never seen a guy surf a guy in the fight, Luke, but he surfed a man. So, like, he still got the bozo in him. And at times he would, he would unleash it, but it was much more controlled and he like he just constantly beat on it allan who i think is a very very good not great fighter and so like i left this being like oh yeah he's going to win the belt i like i believed two years ago jean sylvo's going to win the belt and now i'm like he's definitely going to win the bell maybe not like next but in the next two years you know what he that reminded me of

when he was like surfing like that people were saying oh it was like d as against silver when he just kind of laid down you know but to me it's like dude jan silver brings regional MMA energy to a high level about. You know, where he's just doing shit you would never expect that is crazy. That makes no sense. It's kind of fun, kind of weird,

kind of crazy. And it just works, you know. Dude, he's Michelle Pereira. If Michelle Paheta was good. Like, that's just it.

Like he's, he's Michelle Bada of, and I love DeBolador. Like I, he was so fun regionally as a complete psycho. And then when he retooled this game, he got, boring and then he just got bad

John Silver's just way better Also I've been on this corner But I want to get this takeout John Silva is the best of the fighting nerds I've been saying it I think he is the most talented Best fighter of the nerds You think he's better than Kyle? I do

Would it Kyle be two I think Kyle is two because I And protest is three And I think Roughie's four But like that's Is there anybody else there that's like Because I know they got I mean, the Oleg Shea-Chic, you kind of counts, you know, whatever.

If counting them, they're below those four anyway. But, like, I thought for a while Jean-Silva was the best bet for the fighting nerds to get a belt. Still feel that way. Arnold Allen, you knew that the same thing was going to plague him in this fight. You didn't know if it was going to be a losing factor or not, but that it would be something you had to overcome. He kind of starts a little bit late. I did think he opened up on him a little bit in that second round with some better energy.

But he had even lower output in the third than he did, I think, in any of the other two previous rounds. And, you know, for me, Jed, in a sport where, again, do I appreciate how defensively sound Arnold Allen is? Sure, man. You rarely see him get hit super clean or get fucked up. Like, he leaves fights looking okay. But he leaves his fights kind of losing against some of these better guys because it's just not,

the offense is much more important than defense in the sport. And I don't feel like his game is as good as it is. And it is good. And he's still young. I just don't think his orientation. for how he prioritizes it is enough to beat the very best guys, even if they are more defensively limited than him. Yeah, he's, I love Arnallon.

I think Arnallon seems like one of the very few fighters who I would genuinely just like to hang out with, like would just be a good time. And he's very good. He is like kind of the worst of the, the TriStar team to me, not like as a fighter, but like he is my issues with TriStar is that it is. It's like a much more defensively focused gym.

And he doesn't have any of the things that he needs to really, really excel at the top other than he didn't get beat up that bad. But also when you are perpetually injured, not getting beat up is it's not really that big of an advantage. Because it's not like, oh, I'm healthy. I can turn around and fight in three weeks. That's just not ever been how it's worked for him. So I think he's probably never fighting for a belt, which is weird. Because if you'd ask me a few years ago, it'd have been like 100%. There's just not a question in my mind.

And he's going to be, it's going to be like a Martin Campman, you know, like real heads who live through the time will respect him. But he's, that's just sort of where he's at in his career, I think. Let's move now to topic number four, which is the preliminary card itself. So there was,

well, there's a lot to go over here. Let's start with the, what they call the main event of the prelims, Umar Numer Kamadov, kind of easily, for the most part, beats Devinson Figurado,

but the reality is Jed, by the end of the bout, and other periods before, but certainly by the end of the bout, Umar was getting booed by the crowd. Now, I'm not here to validate the booze as such, but it just seems to kind of signify something to me. Number one,

Umar and Usman and Urgumeghmer are obviously very good, but they're not Habib. Like, they're a step down from that pretty clearly to me. They can do a lot of things. Speaking of people that have a lot of tools, but they don't have necessarily a ton of danger to their game. It's just a lot of heavy control or heavy maintenance. of range, right? So that's one problem. But the other problem is in a world where, you know,

you're very, very good, but you're kind of like the bantamweight John Fitch of the modern era. I just don't know what gifts that's going to get you. To me, Jed, it's interesting that you had a Nirmigameh of on this card. And any time there's a Nirmigamatov in the PFL, whether there's attending or on the card itself, they blow it up like it's the biggest deal. UFC kind of downplayed it this time, to be honest with you. They put the guy on the fucking prelims for crying out loud. How do you read this performance and how the UFC perceives umar number gamut up following saturday's win dude luke has has any fighter of the past year like the past 12 months had a worse year that didn't lose a bunch right like you know somebody losing five fights or whatever sure but like

umar stock this time last year i mean i guess this time 12 and a half months ago right i you everybody We did a pregame preview. I was like, Umar is going to beat Marab because he's the best band of weight on the world. Like everyone, the broad thought was that Umar was the dude to maybe take the goat title in this weight class. And then his stock is not like plummeted, but it has just been a steady decline of like,

okay, you're good, but you're Mavsar Evlua, why the hell do we care about you? If your last name, if his last name was not Numergumetov, he would be in the, the mob star of you are screwed zone.

And it's tough as he is very good, but I think you nailed it. What, what, where's the offense? Where is the danger in fighting Umarna Margumadov? Because there isn't any key. The danger is you lose like a nip-tuck decision because he's very good everywhere. But Habib was a fucking demon. Like Luke, do you remember watching Habib beat the souls out of people when he got them down? not saying everybody can be that, but there was, that element was to his game.

Islam, when he gets you down, he is a, like a genuine submission hunter. And he is actually like a real threat on the feet as well. Umar is just kind of good. He's just good at everything. Same as Usman. Like, they're good. But if you don't have, if you're not going to scare somebody, it's, it's tougher to be a dominant force that people aren't afraid to fight you.

Bro, Habib was mean. people forget this like his style was you know you'd feel bad for people if they spent a lot of time underneath him

you're like dude this is fucking hard to watch a little bit because they can't do shit and they're getting beat up and then he's setting up submissions eventually towards the end and again

for folks you may remember recall he could have ended the gate you fight earlier he took fucking pity on him because he didn't want to break his arm so he ended up changing a submission to a different one see he's not that mean

he took pity on him but then he goes out the door on on that call but like in general like you know talking to michael johnson like you have to give up now this is going to go bad for you and he's beaten the shit out of him he had a gear he had and like he had a level of like i'm going i am better than you and i'm going to hurt you the same that islam has like they and maybe that's just natural right because like if you think about it that kind of makes sense to me of like okay habib and islam outside of being training partners for life they were both sort of into they were the the vanguards of this camp they they sort of led the way

and then the the trickle down the next generation are just people who learned in their mold like how do you teach somebody to be a hard-nosed son of a bitch like that's a it's tough to instill that into people yeah and like they just naturally had it because they had to do this and so like if you told me that umar was going to get nasty i'd be like he'll be a real problem but now I'm like, I still think he's going to beat most people, but it's not going to be this dominant force. It's going to be winning on the margins. I'll be really curious to see what they do with him this year,

given that like people are starting to get like exactly how good he is or how limited he is. I think this year is going to be real. How they treat Umar will tell you a lot about how they treat the kind of fighter that Umar is. I'll be looking forward to that. All right. I'll tell you, what I do like from Umar is he, he seems to recognize what's going on that he is not, he had not a good year, basically. Because he's coming out and be like,

I'll fight anybody, dude. I don't care. He's not trying to negotiate his way into a title fight as he previously, like, was really doing. He's just like, dude, it doesn't matter. If I got to fight somebody, line him up, I'll knock him down. And I think that's how he got to be, right? Because he's not, he has not blown the doors off people. He has not shook the world up. So you've got to just be like, I'll fight anybody. Don't care. Give me him. That brings us now to, Atebo-Gotier. Now, he did win, and he did brutalize his opponent, but his opponent, Pulea, turned out to be tougher than a, uh, uh, what is it, a two or three dollar steak, whatever the, the saying is. I got to tell you, I don't think that that matters. If you're

paying two or three dollars, you're probably getting the same quality of steak, Luke. Fair enough. Anyway, whatever the saying is, he got, he got worked, but he survived and in fact fought back a little bit. And what it kind of showed was Goteer clearly, Jed, a, physical force and still young enough where he can do some stuff. But a little green, a little offensively limited. He had an opponent circling out to his weak side and he kept throwing the right as opposed to the hook. And I'm watching this being like, dude, greet him body.

I was like, dude, greet him with the hook. What are you doing? It was, it's one of those things like, obviously a table goatee, much better fighter than I am. Like, I'm not saying that. But I was just like, dude, at what point? at what point does your brain be like, man, every time I'm trying to throw this right hand,

he's even further over. And so I'm just like punching nothing. What if I try the hand that's closer to him? It was nuts. Hey, Long Island Luke, can you do me a favor? Perhaps. My daughter is acting up here for just a second.

Can I have just a minute to go fix what she, with devastation she has laid ways to. Oh, God. What do you do? I'll put Jed full and, All right. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. I'll promise. Oh, dude. I'm the captain now, boys. Yeah. The chat is going to hate this. The chat is going to be furious that I'm the captain.

They'll be all right with it. Chad, let's talk to the prelims. I mean, I want to say one more thing about Goteer because as Luke sort of teed it out, I was like, dude, he's still 23. So that's totally fine. But I then I pulled it up because Long Island, he's been fighting now for four years. So yeah, he is green. But he's 23. and the fact that he could win against a limited opponent. I'm certainly not here to say that Puli is some world beater. The fact that he won, he wasn't really in danger of losing. This is one of those I think that's just a good win for him, right? Like it's not that exciting. I lost money on it. That was a bummer.

But he didn't climb with it though, right? I did. But because it was the first leg dead, I just reclined with the next two and cashed. It's fine. But like, this is one of those where it's like, yeah. sometimes you have to learn where your limitations are and now he'll go back and I think Luke Barnett's his coach and they'll be like okay we need to give you a left hook

and we need to teach you a little bit more about footwork because he doesn't have a ton of that and you know progress isn't linear but at 23 I still expect very big things for Tabibok OTA this is just one of those that you get because that's how fighting works not everything's going to be your best day ever all right I'm back

I'm back. Hold on one second. Oh, the fucking thing fell off. Hang on. Did Tuki break that too? I can't hear anything. I've got to switch earplugs. Tuki has been absolutely devastating. Sorry about that. My daughter, she came in the house and I heard it. And then I heard her come screaming down the hallway, which meant that in Arctic temperatures, she had left the door open, which she did. That's good. And there was all this shit in the house as a consequence. So I had to go fix that. Okay. Sorry about that. Don't forgive you. All right, very good.

Let's get to the rest of what we saw here. Alex Perez scoring a first round stoppage over Charles Johnson. Charles Johnson's got a weird career here, right, Jed? He's got a win over Josh Van, but he has losses like this and some other ones as well. He is, I don't know. How surprised should we be by this win? We shouldn't be surprised because Charles Johnson defies expectation, constantly.

It just seems like he's going to win the fights. He's going to be supposed to lose and lose the fights he's supposed to win. He didn't like the stoppage. I think that's fine. The thing I am most surprised about, frankly, is not Charles Johnson. The end of it is like, I thought Alex Perez was

were washed and I guess he's still got some juice in him, right? Like he, you know, he won the fight. This is his first win. He's the only won like two, fights now is last seven or eight. But like that's good on Alex Prez and Charles Johnson remains an enigma to me. He's got a weird career. He's got he has the loss to Makayev because of UFC debut.

Fine, fair enough. Totally explicable. You know, and he's got the loss to Odey Osborne, which was split. And that was a few years ago. All right. Cody Durdon can wrestle. Okay. And then he goes on a bit of a four fight win streak, which you put Van and Sumadairjee.

And he, of course, he knocks out van in round three. and then he's just kind of been up and down since then. He has the win over Loner Kavanaugh, but then, dude, I didn't see it coming. I thought Perez was kind of a forgotten figure in this division, or to bear minimum that Johnson was resurgent, but I guess not. Kind of an interesting surprise there. Super weird.

All right. And then there's this one, which is Josh Hokit at heavyweight is clearly pretty good. He is athletic, he can wrestle, he moves forward, you know, he's got good, reaction time. He's got a bit of a mean streak. Like these are all things that are going to take you pretty far as a fighter. However, he appears to be completely unbearable. Before you react, Dana has a conversation.

Oh, sorry, I have a different one. Never, we'll come to that one separately. Ignore that one. Getting back to this one, what is your reaction to, what, how should we feel about Josh Hokit? He's a good fighter. He's not like a great fighter, but he's also fairly young. especially at heavyweight.

I mean, the truth is, if looking at Josh Hokit, my dominant thought is, if I were a semi-decent but not exceptional light heavyweight, I'd move up to heavyweight. Because Josh Hogan is just beating heavyweights because he has a gas tank that is not, you know,

held down by 50 extra pounds of fat. So it's just like, but that's not to say he's not a good fighter. He obviously is, right? He comes from a wrestling background. He has the mean streak that, we talked about guys like umar would be really nice to have uh and you know he's got to put together game it all kind of works together he doesn't have a superpower at least not that i've seen yet but

he can he can do this to many if not most heavyweights because of the state of the division if he ever dropped a 205 i mean that's also a bad division but like i think he could have plenty of success there as well. And whether you can't stand him or not, like he is at the bare minimum, Luke, I do not ascribe to the idea that all publicity is good publicity. I think that there is a lot of truth to it insofar as breaking through the just ever-present noise of this sport and the UFC's consistent attempts to sort of make everything monochrome. He at least is breaking through, even if maybe it's not an

way I would choose to do it. Yeah, he's unbearable, but the problem is he's good and that's going to take him pretty far. And just reusing old pro wrestling stuff will take you far in this sport because because nobody else is doing anything at all. The bar is on the floor for being like interesting. And at the minimum, he's doing that. So let's go to point number five. Oh, sorry, before we do, before we do. We do have Dana talking about, so there was this Michael Johnson, Alexander Hernandez,

that was on the card. But the betting lines were kind of crazy. Some places had limited betting before the fight. And then Dana, or the UFC, I should say, ended up pulling the bout altogether. In the wake of the Isaac Dolgarian scandal, we were like, okay, did a betting integrity firm tell them to pull it? Turns out that they did. Here's Dana.

Lastly for me, we did have a fight cancellation today. Not a lot of details on the information of what happened there. There's speculation that maybe this was a wage. ring flag what can you else that's what it is happened again you know we got uh called from uh you know the gaming integrity service and i said i'm not doing this shit again so we pulled the fight canceled fight from today like what happens now is there an investigation like do yeah i mean the the FBI's already you know deep into all this stuff anyway so i'm sure this one will we'll be next right so like are those guys out of action until something

concludes or is it just one side of the fight that i don't know your reaction dude this fucking rocked uh dude i wish i was in i just want to be in one paramount meeting this week and be like god damn we got the full ufc experience for our first one a we had a major fight fall off the card we had a guy almost diet way we had a gambling scandal and we had a dude get on the mic and just issue casual bigotry. Like, they got the whole enchilada as far as what you can expect from a UFC fight card and a banger of a fight in the main event. So good on Paramount to get it all in.

This gambling thing, uh, I saw it like I was in transit when I saw the first tweets about line movement happening. And I was like, oh, that's unfortunate because I had money on Alexander Hernandez. And then it got pulled and it's very obvious why I got pulled. I don't know that anybody has confirmed anything, but like, to me, Luke, this is, this is just sort of the nature of the sport in its current incarnation because pure speculation. I don't have any inside information. My strong guess is that Alexander Hernandez needed to fight because fighters live paycheck to paycheck. And he came in with an injury and was just going to fight with the injury regardless and hope for the best.

because we see fighters do this all the time. Maybe you can get the W. It's not like he was going to come in and throw the fight necessarily. But then somebody was like, oh, Alex has a broken whatever. Let's just put some money on Michael Johnson. Because that's when fighters, when you don't pay people enough money, they're going to fight for you because they need the money. It doesn't really matter the circumstances of their condition.

Yeah. And as long on Luke points out, which I had seen before, again, it may utterly be coincidental. I have no idea the causal relationship such that there is even any. However, this is yet another Jason House fighter from Eridium and then another

factory X fighter as well. I also want to point out, I brought this up on Friday's show. I said, oh, the lines have actually moved a lot. A lot of money has come in on Michael Johnson. I didn't think it was anything worth flagging at that moment, but they continued to come down. It's just interesting that we were talking about.

I have to guess that that that is. circumstance because you'd have to be either the ballsyest or the stupidest motherfucker alive to be to be like in the crosshairs right now and be like i'm gonna do it again this is this is not the fucking town i'm gonna put a move on them and we're still gonna throw a fight like in the jason house defense too though he does have like 60% of the roster you know what i mean like the odds of it being just mathematically it's more the factory x thing is a little more in factory The factor X thing is the one that's interesting. It's like, I think it just has to be coincidence, but man, you get enough coincidences and that starts to become a problem.

Yeah, it's certainly an interesting fact. All right. But last but not least, let's just talk about the overall event and the presentation and the broadcast and everything else they're in. Jed, it's a simple question. UFC 324 broadcast debut on Paramount. Some changes. Some folks thought not enough. Some folks thought just right.

They added a bunch of new elements. we had the war pigs run down and the sizzle reel, then we had the normal sizzle reel, then we had the Travis Barker sizzle reel. We'll talk about all the ads in just a moment, but as a general idea for you, like a sort of a way to understand it, what worked about this broadcast and what didn't?

And overall, what kind of grade would you give? Again, not so much the fight card, but the broadcast, the way it was shown. The broadcast, if I'm not considering the fight card. I mean, they're all kind of related, but, you know. Yeah, well, but like, Like overall, I would give this card a B minus because I think a lot of it was misses, but you ended on a high note.

And that's the most important thing. If I'm just talking about the broadcast of production elements, I'll give it a C plus, like a little bit of a docked point there. Because I do want to be open to the idea that I forget who said it from the UFC, but came out and was like, we're trying some new stuff. Bear with us. Most of the new stuff they tried didn't really work for me. but and the earlier start time like it ended up mattering but not as much as I had hoped because it's they it was so bloated we took so long to do so much shit there the pacing was pretty poor um and there were a lot of ads but also I don't know if this is a hot take loop I just don't give a

shit about the ads thing you know why because I'm not paying $80 so it's fine to put some more ads. The only thing I will say in that regard that I really disliked, and I think my biggest criticism of the whole production, is that they don't show walkouts anymore. And somebody reported this, that that's just part of the Paramount deal. They are like the deal structurally. They're only going to show like a few. And that sucks because it's one of the few times you get to see the energy of a fighter. They have even an opportunity to stand out from the faceless mass that is the UFC and they're just not even showing that anymore so I can get commercials, which is kind of lame. But other than that, it was a UFC production. It felt very much the

same. They just added a couple of things this time around. So let's talk about the ads too. I mean, I guess as a general perspective, I've worked with Kate Scott, Kate Abdo. I think she's great. I think the shows she's on with CBS Sports Galaza with Jamie Carragher, Big Meeks and Terry Henri is fucking first rate. I absolutely love it. I don't know that there a lot was necessarily added to the broadcast in this particular way, nor did I expect it to be. It's just a little hard to stand out, but they were trying to give it the CBS rub. Fair enough. Shouts to all of them, they did certainly the job that they were tasked with doing. The pacing sucked. Dude, the Travis Barker thing, I was like, dude, what the fuck is the connection between this bullshit? I've interviewed Travis

Barker a number of times. He is legitimately a huge MMA fan. When I was on Sirius XM and I would do their pre-fight shows, he would call in every single time that we didn't pay the guy. Like, he just wanted to talk fights. It was crazy. so respect to him as an MMA fan, he's a real MMA fan and that's legit, but like I don't need to see that shit especially after you do the Warpigs thing. Here's what I will say though.

And I think you'll probably agree with this, Jed. They, one of the key things that they had to do this time was make it feel big. And they did. And they did it with fucking Patty Pimbleau and Justin Gachie as your main event. With all the different lights in the crowd and then the curtains dropping

on that thing and then there's Bruce ready to announce. Yeah. And then, again, those little lights that everyone had in the audience, they made it feel fucking big. And that worked for me, whether or not every part of the fight card delivered for you or anyone else out there watching, fair enough, maybe it was just the main event or whatever your perspective. Did the UFC lean into this to make it feel like a much larger event than normal and special and that it should stand out in your mind? I think that they did. And I think if that's really the most important consideration, including that main event, as you indicated, that it was a bit of a success. but I do want to talk about the ads because here's my view on this.

It is absolutely fucking naive to think. I don't even know if it's honestly mathematically possible for the Paramount Plus service to make money on this deal just doing subscription as their play. We're just going to make money from how many people sign up. I don't know if folks have seen their numbers. Paramount Plus has some interesting numbers around 60 to 70 million worldwide, which is pretty big. It's a fraction of what Netflix is, but it's still pretty big.

It's about double or triple, depending on how you want to measure at ESPN Plus. But at the same time, they would have to triple the amount of subscriptions they have with no churn to probably break even on this deal. It's just not possible. So the ads are going to be there. But here's my thing, okay, on this Jed. Do we have the same thing? I do have one major criticism. I pay for YouTube premium.

I pay for it. I don't ever see ads. And as someone on YouTube, I recognize that ads is how I make a lot of money, but I pay into the premium one so that my experience using the service is uninterrupted. And I would pay for a tier where I could watch walkouts and I would not have to see.

They probably couldn't get rid of all the ad integrations because they were doing it like on lower thirds and on the sides of screens like during intros. You probably can't get rid of those. But if they would make a special tier where I could get rid of those, other kinds of ads between rounds and walkouts, I would pay for that. It's just they don't have that available.

And so I don't know what else to say. This is just what it's going to be. So that is my criticism because I don't care about the ads. I'll even say I actually, and this maybe is just because we shifted over. And so it is different. I got a diversity of ads, right? That ESPN, when it was working and wasn't freezing, which credit to Paramount, some other people had problems.

I didn't have any issues of the streams. So good on them for that. I at least got different ads. I got the same three ads of ESPN over and over. And by the end of the night, I don't want to blow my brains out. So that was nice. The thing that is a criticism, and I think a valid one, I signed up for the yearly Paramount thing.

I was previously on month to month, but now this is part of my job. I'm on the yearly thing. When I signed up for the yearly one, I chose the lesser of two, because they do have two tiers. And as it explains in it, the lower tier comes with ads.

And I said, okay. And the higher tier, they say still comes with some ads for premium stuff, but has fewer ads. And I was like, and based on everything I have heard, if you paid for the more expensive tier, there was no difference.

You still got the same ads. And to me, that is shitty. Like, that's like why, why even have the, why pay $50 a year extra if it's not substantively different,

especially if I am coming to Paramount for the UFC. Because if I was like a random fan and I'd never had Paramount Plus and I was like, oh, I'll pay the premium. I won't get ads. And I'm getting the same ads. I'd be pretty upset about that right now. I'll also say this. I don't think this is good and I wouldn't want it this way.

But one of the things that shocked me one time was that I watched just let me go through this. I watched a, the Colombian national team soccer team play. I forget who they were playing. But they were playing. And I was in. Columbia at the time. So I was watching the game on like national television there. Dude, during the fucking games, listen to this. During the fucking games, they'll play an ad on the screen. It won't

block up the entire screen, but it takes up a lot of real estate. And then the audio goes over the top and they kill the audio of the broadcast itself. So you just have to hear the commercial play through. And it doesn't matter what action is happening on the field. So they usually play it when the ball is like at midfield or something. They kind of strategically wait. But I've seen it where they're like, they're in scoring drives and they're getting close and then they're trying to attack. And you're hearing like ads for fucking, you know,

Coca-Cola or whatever over the top. And I'm like, dude, I hope this is not our future. To me, it was an enormous amount. They didn't do something like that. They didn't interrupt like the integrity of the actual fight broadcast during the fights themselves. But it got close to it. And I've seen worse,

but I'm just hoping that. that's not a roadmap for the future. I'll just say that. It's not going to be a roadmap because of the difference of the sport, right? But like I've always thought that that's sort of how they should do ads anyway, right? Especially for live sports is like, give me a constant feed of the game. And you can go back like picture and picture. Here's the ad with the audio.

They do it on Red Zone. And they pick like the boring time of Red Zone where nothing's happening now that Redzone has ads, which is bullshit or whatever. And they pull it up. here's the ad, but you never lose feed. I don't know why they can't do that for the UFC. It's like here. Here's the cage or whatever's happening, like the broadcast that would be without ads.

We just have this Charmin ad running with audio for 15 seconds. And that would be fine. But like, if you're, I would at least be better. And it won't happen as you were putting it for that because the unique dynamic of soccer is, it is 45 uninterrupted minutes and then another 45 uninterrupted minutes. if you're going to put ads you've got to go over action you don't have to do that for the fights you can pretty easily parcel it away yeah fair fair point uh let's talk about well actually you know what dana was asked about the amount of ads here's what he had to say obviously we are no longer on pay per view so whereas a bit of a different viewing experience tonight there's a lot of ads during the broadcast sometimes over the walks and sometimes over the corner work is that something fans are going to have to get used to or is that a work in progress that you'll haven't seen it yet and all this is a work in progress it's 899 You're not paying fucking, you know, however much more. These guys got to make some money too.

So, yeah. Would that be something that they decide or would you watch it back and maybe think, okay, the co-main event, we should still hear the corner work? Or are you just like, listen, Paramount paid for it? They get to decide. Well, that is a fact. Let's start there. But these guys are incredible to work with already.

So we'll figure it out. I mean, again, I understand if people aren't used to it. I don't disagree with data. Like, bro, if the shit is cheap, it would you, this is the question, right? Ultimately, would you rather be back on the ESPN deal and then have to pay for pay per views or do you want ads and it's a much cheaper price? And I honestly think that most people are going to be like, I'll just live with the ads. Yeah.

And I think that's fine, man. Again, I, I'm surprised they went this heavy this early because usually your first encounter, especially one that was very openly. about, you know, new, new fan acquisition. Like, this was an acquiring event for them, for them to not just like, we're not even going to have any ads, just because this is all front-loaded to draw you in,

and then we in shitify later. But that's not what they did. And I think that's fine, right? Like, because, yeah, I don't, I want to be able to see the corners for the biggest fights, so that's annoying. But if you want to do this, I'm with Dana.

And I don't ever say that. But like, yeah, they got to find a way to make money and this is this is the price you get. There ain't nothing free in life, Lou. The money's got to come from somewhere. It's going to come from this. Economics 101. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Let's talk a little bit about the discretionary bonuses.

They got rid of them, right? So these like back room bonuses of whatever, they ended up being $3,000 in terms of what they show. But I'm sure they go higher than that, of course, and they have gone higher. So instead, what they're doing is they're going to change the bonus structure. So anytime, here's what it says, our friends. the Air Bronsetter has the tweet. It goes like this. Performance of the night bonuses are going to be raised from 50 grand to 100 grand. Additionally, any fighter who scores a K-O or submission win just automatically earns a $25,000 bonus if they were not selected as the $100,000 bonus winner. Now,

not included in this tweet is another reality, which is Alex Perez, for example, scored a submission win, but he missed weight, so therefore he was not eligible for either a performance bonus or that $25,000 automatic finish bonus. Now, I've seen some back-of-the-envalove math done by folks like John Nash and others. And basically this adds about eight and a half million total give or take to the year, the total outlays in this in this bonus program, which, you know, I mean, they were giving out $75,000 bonuses in almost 15 years ago, which if you do the math on inflation is about $110,000 today. I don't want to come out here and say, oh, it's no big deal that they're doubling bonuses or whatnot. Yes, you do. That's what you want to say, Lou. I just want to say this. I just

want to say this. It's nice that the bonuses are bigger. And it's nice that if you get a finish, you automatically get a bonus. I'm not saying that on their face, they're bad. What I'm asking people to do is stop looking at the sticker price and then just do some arithmetic. And what you're notice is this is this is a total outlay of less than the gate that they got at this one event. I just hope everyone understands. We're talking about chump change in a $7.7 billion deal. Dude, Luke. This is not true for the MK fans who are smart, educated, brilliant people. I'm in the comments I know.

Of which many of them are more, yes. All of them, really. They're all the best people. Fair point. This fan base thinks that Josh Hokit is a genius and a vanguard. Like you're expecting them to do the math on inflation? Come on. I'm not, I just don't care enough.

I'm having too good a day to be like, yes, this is more, but it's not at all what they're worth. It's dope. This was like unambiguously the best thing to happen surrounding the new Paramount deal is this. Because one, shifting to a finished bonus, for years I have been like, what they should do is stop giving performance bonuses and give finish bonuses. That's the best way to incentivize this sport to be more exciting. because I was limited and was like, there's just no way they're going to add more money and then still do performance bonuses too.

And shows, well, I know this new deal. They were like, fine, we can do it. Unambiguously good. I think it's weird that 25 is the finish bonus because that's like, especially at the high end level of the sport, like when you are the championship level fighters, that's a pretty insignificant amount to like pursue a finish, right? Like nobody, nobody in a championship,

fight is going to try harder for 25 grand. The finishes will be incidental. And theoretically, this is an incentive bonus. And so I don't know why that wouldn't at least be 50. But dude, like, Ty Miller got a performance bonus, got a hundred grand. That's legitimately life-changing money for him, right? He can't retire forever. But that's, you know, Ty Miller, I assume was on a 10-10, 12-12 contract.

And he got paid his show and win money. and now he got a hundred grand taxes and fees come out. But he can, maybe that's the difference between him being a professional fighter and a fighter who still goes and works at the post office or whatever. So unambiguous win for them. I think this is, it's long overdue and it should be for more,

but I'm happy about it. Long Island is saying it's not for submission. My understanding is it's any finish. No, sorry, Luke, you misspoke earlier. You said Alex Perez got a submission win and he got. Oh, my best. I was selling you. Yes.

No, of course you did not. Yes. I apologize. Indeed. Not much to say on this. Dominic Cruz entering the UFC Hall of Fame. Again, I don't know. I'm not sure what there is to say other than an easy, easy call about a guy who clearly

were the higher achievers in the sport. No, no issue there, I'm sure. I have, I have one thought because I, on a easy. This is, there's nobody could argue with it. I do kind of wish the UFC would have, maybe not like, Like a, you know, the NFL, it's like a five year waiting period. I do think it might be better if there was a little bit of a waiting period as opposed to. He retired last year.

Let's put him in the hall. He was one, you also get fighters unretiring. I don't think that's going to happen with Dom. Dom's pretty done. Like you could, it might be nicer. Like last year when Mark Kerr got inducted, it was like, oh, shit, man. Mark Kerr. Like it was this kind of fun thing.

Like, oh, I hadn't thought about his career. And the smashing machine was happening and stuff. but it felt more celebratory because it had been some time as opposed to, oh, you're obviously going in and you're retired. Let's just, let's wash you through. Fair enough. I'd be okay with a bit of a waiting time as well, which is again, how traditional Hall of Fame do it. But he was going to go in sooner or later. Again, it's a nitpick.

It's a totally reasonable. And then last but not least, here's kind of interesting. People are complaining about the pacing at UFC 324, which fair. even the UFC's own Craig Borsari, I think was tweeting being like, okay, this is a little bit of a special example. It won't necessarily be this way going forward. But what was interesting was if you watch Zupa Boxing, the pacing was immediate. I mean, their pacing was fantastic.

Now, it was nothing but decisions. It was the only good thing about that broadcast. Yes. How do you feel about Zufa Boxing 1? What did you take away from that? This is not a bit. I fell asleep. I was on my couch and I put it on to see.

and my immediate reaction was this is these are apex boxing matches because that's what it was like it just it felt like you put a UFC patina over club level boxing bouts and I fell asleep and I woke up to Kalamolch getting knocked down and winning and so like it's fine but if you are not a boxing fan like if you are a UFC fan or a fight fan I don't know that this has major appeal at least that has nothing for you people were checking MMA fans were checking it out. They're not going to last. They're not. And I like, here's how you know it's bad. Dana was critical. Like of the first one.

He was just like, I won our best stuff. It was like, yeah. And maybe it'll get better. Boxing is certainly boxing as we know it is much more star driven than the UFC has become in year like over the years. And,

you know, it looks like they got Gio Obita. I don't know if that's true or not. But, you know, there's big names. So that'll be more interesting. But like,

this was sort of the worst possible of like oh here are all the things that might be bad if the UFC gets involved here it's just more of the same and it it very much felt like that to say nothing of uh max kellerman who hey man i will sell out for the right price to good lord that was embarrassing that's insane i've been waiting for this moment all my life luke zufa boxing has not been an idea for more than like five years what are we talking about max the part to me that just drives me nuts about him and we can move on i'm not going to i've i've said he used to be awesome at this point but it's like the thing that drives me nuts is he wants to always talk about how it's better to have like a governing central not body per se but a promoter who occupies a central role as like you know

with the nf a rough equivalent of what the NFL means for football or you know NBA for basketball and it's like fine i'm not even willing to i'm not even opposed to the idea that there can be a way which that can be a good system, although also not a guarantee, but what I, what he never, ever, ever addresses, of course, are the fact that the system that they're trying to import from MMA leads to a downstream system of, you know, what you want to call an exploitation abuse in the workplace or is in terms of wages and how, how money is distributed. And this has yielded class action lawsuits and, you know, generational consternation. And he just utterly ignores it.

And it just constantly harps on the one part that, yes, there could. Again, not even a guarantee there could be some benefit from it. It just drives me nuts, but I've said enough on him. So whatever, you know, I guess he's got bills to pay. I don't know. Hey, I'm not knocking that. I'm sure that that check is good. But my biggest thought was like, man, that check must be real good.

He's just laying it on. He is laying it on thick. He just won't stop. All right. That is our top five. But now it is time for all of you to ask us questions. It's time for DMs from dogs. and the donkey has ejaculated.

All right, so this is how it works on Sundays. We ask you guys on IG for your questions. You can do that at morning, I think it's morning combat on Instagram. Let's go first to our friend at put it up on the screen here. I want to read it this way from MMA fan Belfast. I would love to go to Belfast. First, Jose Aldo and now Justin Gae.

How or why do such unbelievable leg kickers turn into headhunters? For me, Jed, he wanted. to be in boxing range more. And I know he can kick at close range, but to me, this was purposeful about being inside of punching range and then denying the kind of space where Patty can also do that kind of a work. More broadly is a different conversation, but in this particular fight, I understand it actually. Yeah, this like people on fight night were very into this. And I was like, yeah, that makes sense to me that he wouldn't do this. One, like, I know that kicking is a very good weapon and we start you start he started to do that in the later rounds a little bit but mainly it was

patty can kick with me and i don't want to do that also if i kick him the likelihood of me getting taken down is it goes up and that's how i'm going to lose this fight so this was a strategic thing of not going to as the fight wore on it became very evident patty wasn't getting him down he started to open up the kicks a little more maybe not as much you want but also like i don't know about the whole headhunting thing i would much prefer to see him throw to the body a lot more because I've always thought she just doesn't do that nearly enough, especially how the rest of his game works. It'd be huge,

but it's not like he was headhunting and missing. He kept head hunting and killing him. So keep doing it. But then you go back and look at the stats, like against Fiziv, he didn't throw that many. Against Max, he threw like 40 or something. Like, he's, this isn't, this is not a Jose Aldo full blown. One of my best weapons is just something I no longer use, which was. always a little weird for Aldo.

I think this was just a strategic decision for this matchup. From Brandtendo 64, he says, is the last generation of the lightweight division the most stubborn old guard in UFC history? That's a good question. I feel like they've only lost to each other or potential goats. John Jones decimated 205,

and it's never been the same sense. Heavyweight, they kind of aged out. I'm trying to think, who was stubborn on their way out the door. This is one of the biggest examples of them. So I agree with the premise, the heart of this question, because yes, like, they're good. But again, look at the women's Bannamweight top 15. It's been the same for 15 years.

Like that old guard is hanging around, but that's more a reflection of how bad the division is. Lightweight still rips. These guys are just incredible all-timers. from Fitman Eats. Thoughts on the canceled bout due to the investigation. We kind of covered this one. I'll just say this. I didn't say this during when we were talking about it.

I'm not saying that the U.S. you couldn't have been more proactive about early in the week kind of flagging that this might have been an issue and they had probably had some indication that there was an injury. However, what I'm going to say is if a betting firm goes to them and says,

we have suspicious betting, and then they pull the fight, that is a good thing. And that is the correct decision. and they made the correct decision. Yeah, 100%. This is like, this is how it should work optimally because I don't know how much they knew

that an injury was possible, right? Like they do medicals, but fighters lie on medicals all the time. Michael Biss being famously pretended he had working eyeballs and would still fly through. So like maybe they just straight up didn't know. But I, you know, in a very purely hypothetical scenario, I am interested in like the downstream effects of the UFC just canceling bouts based on hearsay and or, you know, line movement because like, what does that look like?

Luke, let me ask you this. It's easy and correct to pull this fight. 100% agree. What if that line movement was in the main event? Would they have done the same thing for the marquee bout as opposed to random prelimate? them about. I don't know. The answer is probably not.

However, to their, I don't know, credit it's the wrong word. And it's not even a benefit per se, but the way in which whoever's getting these fighters to throw fights, and again, people can use their imagination, they're picking on a certain class of fighter. You know what I mean? That's been the case. That's been the history of throwing fights. But like, I wish somebody had asked Dana when he said this because like, like we said,

fully agree with the choice, but I wonder where the line is on which fights they would do and not do. If Sean Amalley-Song-I-Dong had it, that's not the main event. Maybe they would have pulled it if suddenly, you know, the line moved 200 points there. It is, I think that this is broadly the correct decision. I'm interested in basically what it means that betting patterns can dictate whether a fight happens or not now. All right. Let's move to the next one from flannels and jits. After seeing the first show, what are your expectations for what the Paramount era will be for the UFC? I wouldn't read too much into the first event, to be honest with you. Not yet anyway.

I think a pattern has to emerge before everyone can just be ready for what it all means. I think I learned nothing from this that I didn't already know. It's going to be the same. The UFC has not grown to what they are because they are an amorphous shifting entity. They have staked their claim. They are what they are. they brought much of their production team over to CBS. There might be some new things, some a bell and whistle here or there.

But this is going to be the same UFC you've been watching just at a different price point in America. Last but not least from MJ Silverfang, will you guys make Jed actually shower and brush his teeth for the next pregame preview, Jed? I did shower. I'm showered right now. Do you brush those fangs? Look, we don't need to talk about my dental hygiene. but I did shower. I showered last time.

I have brushed my teeth, but I have not showered. So I look. You look like that. I look fantastic. At Long Island Luke, I'm sorry to do this. I need one more time. There are children running in and out of my house, and I need to go see if I need to call the cops very quickly.

Is that okay? You added another children? For folks who don't know, it's a fucking snow day. And I have neighborhood kids everywhere. And then I can just, I have a, you guys have one of those things when the door opens, there's like,

I don't know. alarm, but it's like, you know, front door open. Yeah, yeah. And all I hear, when you guys are, when Jed's talking, all I hear is front door open, front door open, back door open, back door open. I'm like, back door open. All right. All right. Go check on it. I'll put Jet pull. Love it when the back door's open. Yeah. Long Island, Luke, what's going on, man? Nothing. We do have one more segment, Jed. I know. I can't put his both on screen right now, which is unfortunate because LT's pulling this on me. But either way, it is higher or lower, guys. we did do it last what Friday

with Oscar or two two Fridays ago. Yeah you did two Fridays we did last Friday I was there Yeah so half of them are silly Half of them are combat sports related Most of them are combat sports related All of them dare I say are combat sports related But either way should be fun

LT looks like he's back all right I'm back All right, of course Does your back door open? Both of them Fucking both of them It's five degrees in my living room right now This is amazing I mean sounds comfortable All right.

Very inviting. What a very inviting home you have. Come on in. LT, we're playing higher or lower again. Okay. Here it is. Higher or low. All right, LT, you're up first.

But obviously, Jed, feel free to chime in as well. Shona O'Malley obviously might be next for Peotre Jan, but he said he's willing to wait for the Jan Marab trilogy to play out. So, higher lower than one and a half, the amount of fights Sean O'Malley will have for the remainder of 2026. I'll take the under one. Yeah, he's going to have one. And who's it going to be against?

I'm saying Umar because I believe, look, I didn't really in my heart think Justin Gaethe was going to beat Patty Pimlet, but I just kept saying he would do it. I'm very in on the secret and speaking truth to power. So let's go for Umar. Let's make it happen. All right. But see, I feel like if he fights Umar, win or lose, he's probably going to fight again in 2026.

No, because he's not going to fight Umar until like the summer and then he'll just be out for a while because then he'll be either waiting for a title fight or contemplating his career future. All right. Jed, this one's for you. We obviously know you're a big fan of the Georgia Bulldogs. We know everyone, you bark when you're a Georgia Bulldogs.

Oh, oh, you know, go dogs. Yeah. We also know John Silva's a big fan of barking. So higher or lower than three and a half, the amount of times you barked along with John Silva during fight week. Zero. I love Jean Silva a whole lot,

except for his gimmicks are. The gimmick of surfing on a dude, A plus. We love that the most. That he communicates exclusively through barking is, it's a bit tedious at this point in time. He's got, why are his nipples the size of pencil erasers?

I mean, they're very, very tilting to me. I got to tell you, I have not spent a lot of time dissecting the nipples of Jean Silva. You and I, watch fights in a different way, my friend. Yeah, well, I got a big

ass screen right in front of me and my man's out there cutting glass with those things and I was like, it's a lot. I don't need to see all that. Does Min's featherweight, Luke's, straw weight? Is that what's going on here? Yeah, he's like, oh, they have the best nipples in that division. Those are some pretty sick ariolas on John Silver. Okay, I didn't say that. I just know those things stuck out and it was annoying. All right, let's be, let's calm, calm call call call your tits. How about that? Do that.

L.T. Dana obviously admitted, we talked about it, that the Johnson Hernandez fight was canceled after receiving a call from the Gaming Integrity Service. We know that they also reached out for the Delgarian Del Valle fight last year, but that was really the first time we've ever heard of them being in the spotlight,

reaching out to the UFC. It makes me think of how many times they've reached out and the UFC just brushed it under their rug. So my question to you is higher or lower than four and a half, the amount of calls Dana has gotten from the gaming integrity service in the last 10 years. Take the over on that one. Yeah, okay.

Take the over on that one hard. All right, so what are you thinking? What would have been a better, higher, lower? Like, what should I sign up? Ten. Double that. Yes. At least once a year.

In the last 10 years, at least once a year, yes. Yeah, yeah. Jed, you're in agreement? Or at least on average. I mean, because obviously, you know, game or, you know, but daily fantasy and then turning that into, you know, more recreational gambling is relatively new. But on average,

you have to be higher than that. All right. Jed, this one's for you. Derek Lewis, obviously didn't look great on Saturday, but heavyweight is so bad that I still think at 40 years old. He is a viable resource. So my question to you, you can pull up the rankings if you need to. Hire lower than

seven and a half, the amount of top 15 heavyweights you would favor Derek Lewis to win over. I mean, a top 15, So basically can he beat more than half of the current ranked heavyweights? I'm going to reflexively say I would favor him fewer, but let's go through it real fast. I assume we're counting Tom Aspen as a champion, no. Cyrilgan, no, Volkov, no, Pavlovich, no, Blades, no, WCA, no, Almeida, no.

I mean, he has lost to all of these two. Yeah, just at this point. So that's seven right there, seven straight nose. Yeah, but look at this back half. his backhand. I mean, he can't count himself. Spivak, no. Delia, I mean, no, not off that last performance. Tibera, no.

Looking at this, Bribura, no. I wouldn't, that's the thing, he could beat them. Like, once we get past Spivak, it's like he could beat these people. I still wouldn't favor him against Delia, Tibera, Gadsiev. I know he lost

to tie to Ivasa, but like, they kind of should just fight again because they're both in Chambles. Yeah. Big part, like I, under by a mile. All right.

I would have thought that was a good line. I would favor him against Talison Tshara because he'd just beat him. Yeah. LT. we know you didn't want to see

Debt and Co. at the sphere with B.C. But I would rather get fucked to death by an eight-decked Walrus. Yeah. Okay. But you did that.

So that means you, you want to get fucked. That's a very specific. No, that's not what that means. That means that given the choice, I had to, I had a debt to pay.

Remember, I lost a bet. I had to go do it. All right. Well, either way, I'm going to assume when you go see a band you actually like that you probably have some gummies in your tummy. So my question to you was at the sphere specifically, higher or lower than 99 and a half milligrams, the amount of Delta 8s you ate before Dead & Co at the sphere. Oh, brother. I mean, you ever seen those cartoons when they're at the fair and they take the hammer and then they hit the thing and then it shoots up and it dings at the top? Yeah. But you could do that a hundred times in a row. Take the motherfucker.

over on this one. What are we talking? How many hundreds? I mean, I think I started at a hundred before we even got there. All right. Well, that's what I meant like before you got there. No, no, but like, so the way it worked was we got there early and, um, we had tickets for us because one of the, obviously, BC was friends with one of the guys who was in the band. And then we hung up with them, kind of not backstage, but like in a private area. And then there was even more to indulge at that point. So by the time the fight started, or the fights, I'm sorry, the concert started, I was, I mean, suited. How were, how were dead in company's nipples? Do you have any? See, it was John Mayer and some old guys and they were mercifully, they were clothed.

What I will tell you is, bro, I, I've ever been to like, so you're from Georgia, you've been to like a widespread panic concert? Yes. Okay. I'm not, not happy about that, but yes. It's like, it's like, what do white guys who are in middle age, who are not into gospel but like to just sway

when they stand when they're listening to music. What do they do? They go to shows like this one. The sway is a good move. Like you're just, you're rocking along. It was,

it looked like people, people were like putting their hands up like this. You know, it looked like gospel, just no religion whatsoever. It was, it was interesting. Everyone has their own different kinds of religion.

And I was like, where are you pussy going to mosh, but get the fuck out my way. You know what I'm saying? And then they start, started rowing. Judd. I want to see

fucking Luke Thomas pushing 50 moshing still. No, I'm too old for that shit. But I've told the story before. This is not a joke.

The last time I saw Cannibal Corpse, this is really true. I saw them at the Fillmore in Silver Spring, Maryland. And there was a girl

down there in the middle of this mosh pit and a dude, I'm straight up, just knuckling up with everyone. I'm not talking, you know,

flailing. No, bawling up the fist. and just socking dudes in the face with it. And then I saw her get swallowed by the pit and then I never saw her the rest of the time we were there. So I don't know what kind of rules of the jungle that they allow at these shows,

but it was a little concerning. They sacrificed her later that night. They probably did. Jed, this one's for you. John Silva probably has a legit argument for getting the next title shot, right? Especially if they book Murphy of Loy of, which is rumored to be happening in March,

nothing official. But without that fight taking place, they may still give it to him either way because it's John Silva, he's marketable, whatever. So my question to you, higher or lower than 0.5, the amount of fights John Silva will need to take before getting a title shot.

This is a good line. I'm taking the over. I think depending on how Volk Lopez goes, what Volk does with his career after that, and injury situation, John Silva could get there. I think it is unlikely. I think it's more likely

he has to fight one more time and he'll do it and then he'll fight for the bolt after that. So I'm taking the over. LT. I'll take the over. I'll take the over because especially if Volk loses and there's any kind of controversy about it, I don't think they're just going to slot in Silva, no. All right. But I feel like, all right, you guys might be right.

I was going to say win or lose, I feel like they're just going to give John Silva the title shot. I just, I can see it. I mean, again, I do think that is definitely a thing that you, need to consider. It is definitely in play of Volk B. Lopez. Yes. Next week.

The line of your setting is the right one. I'll put it that way. There's also a timing issue because if they do do, do I said do do. And I said do do. I get it. If they do end up going with Mavsar versus Murphy, the winner of that is very clearly going to be the next guy unless the timing does not work out at all. But, you know, that fight won't be in six weeks or whatever.

It's not like that timing is that bad. So true. LT, back to you. Ilya said recently that he's willing to come back in April, though obviously nothing is official. And with Justin winning the interim belt, maybe that increases the likelihood of that fight being at the White House,

considering Justin is an American. So my question to you is higher or lower than five and a half, the amount of months before we see Ilya versus Justin Gagee. This would put us at like mid-June. All right, no, I guess it would put us... Yeah, it would, mid-June, because it's basically six months, a little less than six months.

but it's also basically oh yeah yeah mid-June I mean it's I'll take the over maybe barely maybe barely but I'll take the over I think that

You don't think it's happening at the White House Well I think it is happening at the White House So how do I answer this question? Well let's just say under for the White House Because that's like Okay So the line is the White House card

Yeah Yeah you should have put in five or something You know whatever I mean Is it happening on the White House Or after the White House? My view is it happens at the White House Yes Okay

Jed I'll take the over. I think I'm probably wrong, but I don't know. It's just, I'm not entirely confident I'm going to come back as quickly as he's maybe talked about.

He's got some stuff going on in his life. And he might just wait a little bit. I'm with you. I think that Ilya's taking longer than we're going to realize right now and this fight isn't happening anytime soon. But, you know, Jed, a lot of fans were unhappy

with the amount of ads. Obviously, we talked about it. Dana replying by saying it's only $899, what do you expect? So whether it's from annoyed fans wanting less ads or from Dana himself or the company themselves deciding they need more money per customer, a price increase is obviously inevitable. So hire lower than 89 and a half days, the amount of days before the next price increase on Paramount Plus. Hi. I mean, they just knocked up their prices like at the start of this year. year. It'll, one will come. It'll just come at the start of next year.

Yeah, they'll do the annual. Oh, we're going to be going to bump this up to blah, blah, blah, you know. Did ESPN, I feel like they do midyear bumps all the time. Do they not? They did. They did. But remember, they started at $4.99. Like, we're already at $8.99 and then $13.99. Right. But we're at $1.99 for free pay-per-views. So I feel like it. The difference is ESPN's bumps. To my recollection, their bumps were always pay-per-view price point bumps, as opposed to like our sub fee bump. That's a good point. And it's like Netflix, like Netflix does it.

I pay, I used to pay $8 or whatever. And I pay 26 or whatever it is. Yeah, yeah. But it usually comes as an annual email, like the one I got from Paramount being like, your price is going up. True. And so I assume that it will happen.

It will happen in December. All right. LT. During your live chat on Thursday and during MK on Friday, you showed everyone you were drinking sugar-free A&W root beer. Yes. Obviously, you must have got a 12 pack of it recently or something.

So my question to you is, higher or lower than five and a half, the amount of sugar-free A&W root beers you've drank in the last three days. Take the five. I mean, I might have had all 12 in the last three days. All right. This is what I was curious. Do you drink multiple in a day?

Because you just kept pulling up. Typically one a day, but like when fights get closer, it's two and sometimes three. Yeah. Damn. All right. Jed,

you a soda guy at all? I like soda. I don't like sugarless, flavorless, motherfuckers. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Bro. Non-nutrient sweeteners are so much better than they used to be. I can confidently say I have never tried it.

So it is possible that... Have you had the Mountain Dew Zero Sugar? No. I haven't... I got to tell you, I don't know the last time I had a Mountain Dew in general. Mountain Dew Zero Sugar is tremendous. I used to drink Mountain Dew because it had high caffeine. And then everyone just started making fucking energy drinks.

So I don't need that anymore. Do you know Mountain Dew, I think, is banned in the UK. No, it's not banned, but it's labeled as an energy drink in the UK. K because of it's caffeine content. Yeah, that tracks. It's, that shit was like surge only, only still around. So a big jolt guy. Oh, man, fucking Joe.

I haven't thought of jolt in years. I couldn't believe this. I found this out. Columbia's got a soda called Roman Cola with a K. It predates Coca-Cola. It was, it was founded earlier than them, which I was shocked to hear. Delizze on the bottle, Roman Cola. Roman.

I don't know. Not that I'm aware of. How do we think that pairs with rum? I mean, it's good? Oh, it's true. A rum and rum and cola? It's pretty good. It's pretty good.

I'll say that. All right. Jed, Gachie has said one more K.O. loss and he's done. Trevor Whitman has said one more loss and he's done. Ilya fight obviously should be next, but there is a world. Justin wins. There's also a world. Ilya stays on the sidelines for however long and Justin fights someone else.

And there's also a world that even with a loss, Justin continues fighting. So my question to you is, higher or lower than one and a half, the amount of fights Justin Gachie will have for the remainder of his career. Over. I think he's talked about it.

I don't think we have that many. Assuming he loses to Ilya, I think he'll think about it and then he'll want a couple of things because he's spoken pretty open. He wants another crack at Max on the BMF belt. And we hadn't talked about it at all today, but I don't know if you guys

saw this last night. Old Dustin Porreier out here commenting, posting, saying I'd come back to fight Justin Gathe one more time. And so like, that kind of feels,

that feels like the perfect end of his career, right? He loses to Ilya, he fights Max one more, however that goes, and then ends his career with the trilogy about with Porier. Sign me up for that shit. I think, I think if Teporea's next and Teporia is his him,

like puts him out cold, I think that might be the end. I mean, good over under. I understand. I do think it's a good over under. I understand your point. Luke, I'll just say,

this is MMA, who actually retires in this sport. True. And Justin, like, you know, he got the face plant, K.O.

against Max and acts like that never, he's like, if I got knocked out bad, you know, I'm done. It's like, you've already been knocked out bad, you know?

To his defense, his original thesis was always, I've got, five wars left in me. And he's now had three of them. So he's still got two left in the chamber, two wars and or bad losses. LT, this one's for you.

You once said you watched Volcanowski Holloway 2 49 times. Yes, famously. And while the other two fights weren't nearly as controversial. You guys are dumb. I want you both to know that. The other two fights, Luke,

weren't nearly as controversial. But you often neglect to mention how many times you've watched them. So higher or lower than nine and a half, the amount of times combined that you've watched Wokinovsky Holloway one and three. No, it would be the over because I watched the first one a lot and I know I watched the third one because of how one sided it was at least six or seven times. So between those two, it's got to be over 10. If you're not doing tape study, how often do you rewatch a fight? like what's an average your everyday uh let's say like john sylva arnold allen how many times

you're gonna watch that back only for i mean only for tapes that many purposes at this all right so yeah okay like if there's i mean i'll rewatch classic bouts or fun bouts or you know i'll go down memory lane but it's just it's just it's just it's not really um it's just a question of how much time i have and because my time is like dude i've got kids running through my goddamn living room leaving the fridge door open you know what i mean like it's like I don't have time to be like, oh, what fun little adventure am I going to go down today? It's like, okay, I've got to do tape study for X, Y, and Z. I'm going to focus on that, you know.

I did do the math on you watching Volcanovsky Holloway 2, 49 times. And it came out to roughly 23 hours, I believe. So it's not quite. So I mean, that's not explained. No, no, no. As I explained at the time, it's not totally right. I counted each time I fired up another like, like, tape session. So I may not have watched in a,

tape session the entire five rounds. I may have watched rounds two and three or I may have watched just the championship rounds. You know what I mean? So it's a, it's an amalgamation of shorter stints than that. All right. Jed, last one for you. John Silva, obviously he rode the back of Arnold Allen.

We all thought it was funny like he was a damn surfboard in the waiting seconds of their bout on Saturday. It got me thinking has Jed ever surfed before? So, higher, lower than three and a half. The amount of time in seconds you could smurf a smurf a small wave i couldn't smurf shit uh a small wave i couldn't i can get up i mean i i grew

up on the coast you there's not like a lot of great surfing in savannah um but like i grew up on the coast uh i did a lot of bodyboarding much my bogeyboarding because the waves are just not big enough we're not counting that though we're talking yeah but like i i i have and am capable i mean i haven't done it in years i assume i am still have the baseline level of coordination to surf a small wave for more than three and a half seconds. But I'm not like dropping in a pipe. Yeah, I mean, I didn't think so. That's why I put the over under three and a half.

You can put my big ass on the under. Trust that. I figured you were uncoordinated like that. No offense. But anyways, guys, that was higher. I could serve for human far less, though. Like, I couldn't do what John Silva did, which was cool. Dude, I put on my Instagram story,

someone made like an AI thing where he starts riding Arnold Allen it turns into a skateboard. He's out of the skate park. I saw. So good. So fucking good. But that was higher or lower, guys. Hope you enjoyed it.

Yes, I did. All right. Very good. Which now, I think that's it. That brings us to the end of the show. Well done. Jed,

I saw your article. It is up on m.mafiting.com. Why don't you plug your work? dope. Yeah. M. Fighting. com.

It's a great website. We have a after action report for E.C. 324. You can get more thoughts on mine there and or other people at the thing. I don't know if you guys know this. There's a pay-per-view this weekend. Are you guys sending anybody?

No. We, because it's in Australia, we made the decision not to, which also super worked out because normally it'd be Jose. Jose, like Chuck, stranded right now. So he, maybe it would actually be fine because maybe he'd just fly directly to Australia

instead of trying to fly back. But no, no one going to be boots on the ground for this one, but we're going to do the same stuff. We will have between the links on Thursday. At some point, me and Chuck Mendenhall got to get it on on prop quiz, Long Island, since Luke Thomas is a coward and refuses to face me. Yes. I'm indeed a coward.

LT, you're coming around. As soon as we sign off, I'm convincing you. We're doing it this. If you start opening up the topics to things that, you know, I've studied in great detail, then yes. Deal. Done. That's it.

We're done. We're doing it. so if all of the topics are just the Max Holloway Volk 2 we're good no so I did the very first episode and it was things like it was like there was a little like a bit of a DC trivia or history trivia and I smoked all that it was then it was like ah what was the 17th significant strike thrown by Ode Osborne and his contender series round three perform out how the fuck should I know I don't pay attention to that level of it's come a long way Luke we're 25 this will be the 25th episode you know I've gotten a lot better.

It may be good for you. So, yeah, thank you. All right, very good. So go to m.m.afighting.com. As a reminder, morningcombat. dot shop, morningcombat. dot shop. Got about a week left on these boys and girls.

The posters are sold out. I apologize for that. But the shirts are still available. The stranger danger shirts. And you can get those until January 31st at 1159 p.m. East Coast time. We are available on socials. I think you saw them a minute ago.

We'll put them up one more time for Morning Kombat, as well as me and Jed Mishu. And that's it. So Chuck sends his regards that he couldn't make it, but I think he'll be back. Well, he's still not home. I don't know when he's going to get home, but hopefully he'll be home soon, and we'll get him on air either this Friday or the following Monday. But, Jed, thank you so much for filling in. We really appreciate it. Great job today. And yeah, stay tuned to MMAfighting.com for more of Jedd's work. Thank you guys so much for tuning in today. We really appreciate it. So for Long Island, Luke, Luke, that's Jed Mishu. I'm Luke Thomas. We'll see you next time.

And until then, may all of your gains be loyal. This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.