MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - UFC Vegas 58: Fiziev Stops Dos Anjos | Big Fight News | Vargas def. Magsayo | Ep 321

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

On Episode 321 of Morning Kombat Luke is joined by the esteemed Chuck Mindenhall to recap a great weekend of combat sports. The guys react to UFC Vegas 58, as Rafael Fiziev stopped Rafael dos Anjos in the 5th rounds and Caio Borralho controlled Armen Petrosyan in the co-main. Plus, Rey Vargas scored a decision win over Mark Magsayo in boxing. (11:25) - Fiziev Stops Dos Anjos (29:15) - Rafael Dos Anjos' Future (46:50) - Caio Borralho (52:20) - BIG Fight Announcements (72:15) - Vargas Defeats Magsayo (85:00) - Dm's from Donks Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

it is Monday the 11th of July 2022 and it is it is time, diggity donks, for Morning Combat, the best way to start your combat sports week. Hi there. I am merely one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas. I join you from the capital of Estados Unidos right here in Washington, D.C., and we usually pitch it over to the very loudly dressed Viceroy of Connecticut. We don't have him today.

He's a little bit busy. But Connecticut is still in the house with the Iceman and the man in the hat himself. It's Chuck Mendenhall. What's up, Charles? I'm glad we're sticking with Connecticut, Luke. You know what I mean? I'm glad we're staying right here in Connecticut. This works for me.

What's the best thing about Connecticut that BC has never told me? This will be a very short conversation. The best thing about Connecticut is its proximity to such cities as Boston and New York City. That's what the best part of it is, man. That's about it. I don't know what part of Connecticut you're in, and I always bring this up. People from Connecticut tell me Connecticut's divided basically in two. In one half, they're all Boston fans, and the other half is all New York fans.

Which side of that are you on? I'm on the west side of Connecticut, and I would say it's right down the middle where I live. I would say there are probably more Red Sox fans on hole, but not by a lot, man. It is pretty much down the middle right where I'm at. Very strange, man. You can imagine the kind of hell I live through. I don't like neither of these teams, just like you.

I was going to say, which of these teams just like you I was gonna say which of these fan bases is more deplorable dude I I would have sworn before I moved to the east coast that the Yankees were the worst but now that I live out in New England I gotta say Boston and that goes across the board all Boston sports man those guys suck they shed I went to a I went to a Broncos game when Tebow got him into the playoffs. Back in that one year where he was playing quarterback for the Broncos, they busted out my back window. They saw I got out in some...

I didn't even have big Broncos. I'm not an idiot. I wore a Broncos hat only or something and they busted out my back window. I had to drive back two and a half hours or whatever it was. Very ice cold. No back window. Fun times. The window. Oh, that is the worst. Yeah. You know that fan base.

Yes, yes. I mean, that's entirely, you know, in par with what I'm accustomed to dealing with them in that sense. But good to have you on the show today. I appreciate you being here. For folks who are joining us, if you're watching on YouTube, thumbs up on the video. Please hit subscribe. Of course, if you're listening to your favorite podcast platform, give us a nice review there as well.

You can see on the bottom of the screen, if you're watching live, all of the various social channels. You can give us a follow there as well. We're going to get to, let's see, we have UFC Vegas 58 from the weekend. A few things we'll get into there. Some big fight announcements we'll talk about. We'll get into a little bit of Showtime Championship Boxing at the end, plus everyone's questions.

We'll do a little odds and ends together. But before we do all that, Chuck, I haven't seen you since last, well, not last Friday, but two Fridays ago, I guess, at this point, because I didn't see you. It was the infamous Beer House Show. How are you? What was your impression of that when you rolled up, other than I was out of my mind? Well, I thought there was big big time enthusiasm from your fan base. That was awesome.

I was like, because I could hear the first thing I heard. I walked out of the casino and I could hear Brian Campbell chanting something about evil, evil eye. He was chanting evil. And I was like, whoa, this is like, you know, portendous, you know. So I walked into the place and they saw me and they threw me a microphone and I jumped up there with you and the next thing i know this is all within about two minutes i had a margarita in front of me and uh then that thing was uh carrying a load in it so i was drinking that it was a lot of fun man i mean it was very difficult to hear it was very hot in there but uh i love catching you in rare form man i was like i haven't i think maybe i've had drinks with you

once on the road uh not like uh really having drinks though just like a quick drink and uh it was kind of fun to see you in rare form man i gotta admit i enjoyed it i think we did an mma beat i think it was like you me sean and ramundi we were in a hotel and we drank proper well was it proper 12 is that what they call it i forgot about that you're right yes i remember that yes um but you're very restrained this time you were very like you you were letting go see that was the difference i liked that version yeah yeah well not to everyone's delight it so turned out but some people loved it and i'm glad you got this chance to stop by we will do that again we're thinking about maybe trying one in New York City,

and if we do, you've got to come out. I promise not to have as many skinny margs next time. That's not what you're drinking. They were very good, whatever that was. Yeah, it was all right. But you're right, though. Everyone was killing me for it, but I'm like, these drinks are a little bit heavy, but okay, neither here nor there.

Did you have a good weekend? Good Mendenhall, sir. It was a fun one, man. I guess I'm thankful that I didn't come back with COVID. I know that some people did you, you among them, that sucks. But I mean, dude, I mean, it's the first time I've really been in a situation where you're, you're interacting with fans again, you're seeing all the fellow media, you're doing all that stuff.

So it was just good, man. It felt like it had been forever. And it really had been like two and a half, three years since I'd really been to an event like that. So just saying hi to everybody. There was tons of fans, man. I just thought it was awesome. Nate Diaz came out to an event and talked to us for like two hours, which was kind of a ridiculous highlight. And you know who was who was at yours? Did you say hi to Steven Seiler? Did you see he was there? I did not see he was there and also Joaquin Buckley was there and I didn't see him either yeah you know listen I was focused I was focusing on those

margaritas well your focus was on the right place but I did uh just for fun I saw Stephen Seiler and I took a photo with him because I was like dude I you know I haven't thought about Stephen Seiler in a long ass time so that was that was kind of cool I mean it was just shit like that you kept running into people that you're like wow man how you been um and it was it was like that pretty much all weekend very quickly before we transition to the topics here on today's show you did have a conversation with Nate or I guess Nate had hung around and everyone was having a conversation with him how was the uh how is Nate like what did you get from that experience I've never seen so I haven't had a ton of interaction with Nate over the years.

I've definitely interviewed him, but not in situations where you're just kind of shooting the shit with him, you know what I mean? So he was very cool, man. He just kind of sat there and held court. It was at the Aria, or is it Aria? I never know how to pronounce it. Aria, yeah. Aria, yeah. We were at the Sportsbook, which was already closed down. So kind of, like you're in this big empty space, and there's like 20 people with his entourage and a few people that we're with. And he just

kind of held court, man. He's telling stories what I was. I kind of can't emphasize enough is how much he pays attention to everything that's going on around him. He's he's very, very bright when it comes to this stuff. You wouldn't really know that from his from the how he projects himself a lot of times in the public. But he was a big MMA beat fan. He mentioned you. We talked a lot about that, actually. He has it on the phone, like old episodes that he likes to look at, I guess. But it was just fun, man.

And I realized he kind of pays attention. He was referencing columns from way back in the day. I mean, just stuff like that. I was like, who would have known that? Who would have known that Nate actually pays attention on that granular level like that it was pretty cool man was it uh talk soft or walk softly carry a big sack i can't remember the phrase my brain doesn't work but he was the one wanting photos and i thought it was awesome because he's like you know let's jump in a photo let's do this let's do this um you know and i think you saw the the helwani one where he's

kind of boxing him or you know whatever you want to whatever you want to call that you know i think you saw the the helwani one where he's kind of boxing him or you know whatever you want to whatever you want to call that you know yes uh but i mean he was just he was in he was in a good mood and i guess just talking to his manager like you know sometimes you catch nate on these types of days and you can be around him all day because he's just uh you know he's in the mood to talk and hang out so we caught him on one of those days man it was a lot of fun cool that sounded well sounded, well, it sounds amazing. And I'm glad he got a chance to go out there and make sure the whole thing was a big success. So, um, but we do have business to attend to today.

So I want to remind everyone, of course, if you want to watch Showtime championship boxing, if you want to watch BC when he does show box or Bellator or anything that Showtime has to offer, boy, do we have a deal for you? Showtime.com 30 day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. It's up to you. Of course, you can get some stellar merch.

Do that at morningcombat.store. I believe all the new merch is out. I didn't talk to RJ... Let me make up something. RJ Dunkle Donut. I didn't talk to him today. But I believe we do have so much new stuff coming out here

either today or pretty soon this week as well. And then, of course, if you want to reach the show for Wednesday's Fan Subs, Friday's Dead Wrong, or just to reach out to the producers, morningcombat at gmail.com. Don't be like Dear Luke and Brian when you write morningcombat at gmail.com. I don't have the

password for that, and I wouldn't read them anyway, so address them to the producers. Those are the ones who get them, okay? I blew it, man. I blew it. I should have been wearing some of my gear. Courtney hooked it up. She sent me some stuff and I didn't even think about it when I got dressed, so sorry about that, man.

I should have been promoting. Some judge of the court you are. By the way, that was a fun one, man. Your team over there, very good, very good. They make some magic they make magic yeah they do we're lucky to have them all right with that in mind let's talk about the weekend's fights you ready to go yes let's do it man let's do it topic number one this is where we will start of course UFC Vegas 58 the main event Rafael Fazeev defeating Rafael Dos

Anjos in a pretty reasonably contested fight up until the beginning of the fifth round, at which point Fazeev drops him and then finishes him off with a shot on the ground. There was a little bit of controversy, I think, at first about whether the stoppage was early, but alternate angles show that it was not. It was a clear and clean stoppage. And on top of it, you had both men talking about it on social media, and the loser in this case, Dos Anjos, that it was a a clean win in that sense okay but not the

controversy i don't care about that a whole lot chuck so let me start this with you when you think about this win and you think about rafael fazeev what is your biggest takeaway from saturday night well i thought that going into this fight, he would have to answer a few questions. One being it's a five round fight, right? Like how does he handle himself? It's a step up in competition. He's going against a guy. I mean, this guy's the original OG. I still think that Dos Anjos has the best pound for pound resume of anybody. Now, whether you won or lost, but he stood in there against the very best at the peaks of their careers, just constantly. So Fizyev was just kind of the next guy in his willingness to stand in against these guys. But knowing that and being a gamer and also

the fact that I really believed RDA, he's just a smart guy too. He knows how to beat certain talent and I thought that he might try to drag this to the ground and make it that kind of that kind of fight he certainly tried and i think that fizzy i've answered some questions in that regard just kind of keeping it standing i think in the fourth round right was the only time that uh rda was kind of able to successfully maneuver that whole thing but i just in general man just composure just the way he uh he handled himself i i was really impressed when he fought brad riddell um previously just a stand-up i knew you know a lot of people know that he has that stand-up Just the way he handled himself. I was really impressed when he fought Brad Riddell previously. Just the stand-up. I knew, you know, a lot of people know that he has that stand-up.

And just his footwork, you know, switching stances. All the stuff he does so well. I thought that was all pretty much in evidence. He just looked really good, man. And I think when you fight a guy like RDA and you're able to put it together over the course of a fight. And especially to get it done in the championship rounds in the fifth round like that, where it kind of feels like there's not a finish coming. Just really impressive stuff, man.

I thought he kind of checked all the boxes of, is he ready to jump up into that top five contention space? I think he answered those questions. Yeah, I share your estimate, or your assessment, I should say. The takedown defense for Fazeev was 95% coming in. What is it now? Let's see. How much did this fight change it?

It's now at 92%, so a slight dent in it, but still about 90%, which is really remarkable. And to that point, even when you had, there was one time, I think, there was a clear one-time pickup takedown in that fourth, right? And then there was another one where he was able to kick out the post leg. But even then, Fazeev just didn't allow him to do really anything with it so like the takedown defense wasn't perfect but it was pretty close that finishing combination where he switched stance through combination throws the body kick throws the left hook and then throws excuse me throws the right hook and then uh then throws the left over the top and then caught him

cleaned rda didn't see it dude that's just super money it's not even like power carrying late more than it's just his athleticism carrying late and then obviously his creativity is still there it didn't it didn't fall off i gotta tell you though my biggest takeaway and this is a bit of a broader conversation we'll talk about rda in just a second it's that the guys in that top five who we associate as like the kings of lightweight your chandler's poiriers fergusons to an extent mcgregor he's down i think i think in the teens The guys in that top five who we associate as like the kings of lightweight, your Chandlers, Poiriers, Fergusons, to an extent McGregor. He's down, I think, in the teens at this point in terms of ranking. But, you know, we kind of hold him a little bit in that space.

And why he's still there, I don't know. Right, exactly. I got to say, we can't declare that their day is done. Poirier and Chandler might fight. Anybody who has to fight Poirier has a difficult fight on their hands anybody has to fight Chandler has a difficult day on their hands but dude the wave of replacements they're not just like coming over the hills they're here they're here the march to get the march to replace the existing sort of firmament of 155 guys obviously Islam has already been there and Charles is sort of re reborn,

but the rest of that crew, your gamrots, your Saryukians. Now you can add Fazeev, the Ismogulovs. Dude, do you get the same feeling that I do? It's like the,

it's not a matter of if they're going to take over. It is merely looking at your clock and seeing how much longer the sand and the hourglass has to go. And even like Jalen Turner, right? It was like showing up. I agree with you 100%, man. I don't think I've ever seen it quite like this.

Now, generally speaking, when there are guys who are staples at the top of the division, we saw it in light heavyweight forever, where there were just some relics from earlier eras that were holding down the top, you know, five to two, and then there would be Jon Jones or whatever. It's tough to break in there. And there's almost never a moment where there's an equal amount of guys who just look like they're going to hostile takeover once they get there once they're able to break into that space you just feel like these guys are going to um they'll author a whole new rankings right because I feel like most

of these guys are dog-eared to basically there's a few of them that i'm like they could be champions they'll definitely be contenders they'll definitely challenge for a title at some point and to have like five guys five six guys coming up like that i agree with it i think you worded it perfectly it's like they are at the gates and they're coming up and and we're getting it now where guys like gamrot who fought a couple of weeks ago um you know is calling out justin gaethje because i think gaethje is the one dude who you can kind of poke ago, you know, is calling out Justin Gaethje because I think Gaethje is the one dude who you can kind of poke at a little bit and be like, hey, let's, if we're trying to get the olive branch to get up into that space, maybe he's the right guy to challenge.

And if Iziev did the exact same thing, I love it, man. At some point, and then very soon, probably by the second half of this year, as we get into it, that's going to be the case. All these guys we're talking about are going to be right there in that contention. So I love it, man. It's a happening division. It's like what's going on in that division, it just activates the imagination because most of these guys have not fought each other. So it just kind of opens everything wide open there. When you saw Saturday's main event did you see okay I definitely see title

contender in Fazeev's future no denying that I just find it seems very difficult to believe that a guy who's done what he's done which now includes finishing Rafael Dos Santos won't contend for a title do you see him winning one now because Now, because of the talent we just were talking about, man, it might be tough for him to do it. I could see it, but I feel like there are guys who will know how to fight him. You know, he's still green. You get guys like this who kind of make very, I don't know about quick, man, because he's been there. He's been doing it for a little while, and he's been looking good. But it's a fairly rapid ascension into the space you just feel like a couple of these guys are very

bright fighters they're very solid fighters all over wherever the fight goes they might be able to game plan for him a little bit and i feel like he hasn't really faced that during this run where he's got a guy who just knows and what is his plan b what is his plan c uh in those situations i could definitely see him getting it though man because i just feel like his stand-up is his plan c uh in those situations i could definitely see him getting it though man because i just feel like his stand-up is that good i feel like you mentioned his 92 percent takedown defense i think that that's pretty remarkable um he just does things really well in there man and to finish rda who hadn't been finished i think was eddie alvarez right but way back in 2016 to finish rda that's a statement man that's a statement, man. That tells me that he can hang with these guys,

but that's a lot of experience toward the top there that he's going to have to get through. Yeah, if I recall correctly, I mean, I can list off some of the losses that RDA has where he didn't get finished. So, for example, he lost to Kiesa and Edwards, didn't get finished. How about Kumbaru and Colby Covington at 170? Didn't get finished. So, for example, he lost to Chiesa and Edwards, didn't get finished. How about Kumbaru and Colby Covington at 170? Didn't finish him. That's crazy. Tony Ferguson didn't.

You're right about Eddie. Eddie did. Now, that was also coming off of the, you know, he had a really bad weight cut at that time. He wasn't making 155 very cleverly. Habib couldn't finish him. Gleason Tebow couldn't finish him. Let's see.

Clay Guida got the submission from the jaw injury. Tyson Griffin couldn't finish him. Gleason Tebow couldn't finish him. Let's see. Clay Guida got the submission from the jaw injury. Tyson Griffin couldn't finish him. And then Jeremy Stevens in his literal UFC debut. That's it. Did you ever mention Leon? Leon Edwards? That's crazy, too. Yes, Leon Edwards.

But that was just a decision. That was the Chiesa and Edwards fight were next together. Right, right. That's it. So to put away a guy like that in the fifth round, and to your point, he had just had a really good fourth round, at least relatively speaking anyway, good fourth round. I thought for sure Fazeev was kind of fading there. The commentators were talking about it. And then he comes right out in the fifth and blitzed him.

Yeah, and it's funny because I thought the exact same thing. I actually got up, went in the kitchen for something. I came back and I see him celebrating. I'm like, what the hell did I miss? So I had to catch it all on replay. But yeah, man, to come out like that, and that's tough, dude. After you fought 20 minutes, a guy like RDA, to come out there and still have that in your tank to go do that

and to land that effectively, that combination. Really beautiful stuff, man. What do you make of Fazeev as a possible celebrated figure? Because he does speak English. It's still pretty broken, but it's usable. And more to the point, he had that back and forth with Conor on Twitter. One thing I'm wondering is when you get these guys coming up the ranks, your Saryukians, your Ismagulovs, and so forth,

the question is not are they talented enough to be in this place. I mean, they're taking over the water. Do these guys all from Eastern Europe or parts of Asia, depending on how the map looks? Yeah. Dude, they're invasive species. You know what I mean? That's so true.

Once they start setting up in the pond, all the other wildlife goes away. That's kind of how I feel about them. However, there is a question about to what extent these guys can actually be turned into stars and it's not just a language thing because you and I both know Habib's English was was good but never great far from it but it didn't matter he had a style you know he had a certain swag he had a certain like a smash and all that kind of stuff can these guys not be Habib but do you wonder whatever their talent level is there going to be any corresponding issue and and I want you like to focus on Fazeev in particular maybe elevating them to enough to be a pay-per-view attraction hmm that's really that is a toughie man I I haven't seen it like I feel

like if Fazeev has something about him that's a little more charismatic than some of the other guys like um I feel like he wants to play the game that's a little more charismatic than some of the other guys. I feel like he wants to play the game. That's one thing. He's not forcing it. I think he's staying within his natural promotion, how he wants to be on camera and all that stuff. So I feel like he's kind of doing okay. I have to wait and see how that plays out.

But some of the other guys, it's going to be tough, man. I mean, I think that you're right. It's, it does feel like an invasive species because you're used to a certain thing going on. And now all these, all these cats, man, with OVs and their name and Gamrot,

I mean, Polish, right? Like, it's like they, they all have, uh, they're all more action than words right now.

And, but they all have that feel to them that like, they're going to do something, uh, remarkable in the sport i don't know after the izzy criticism for instance he's one of the great promoters in the game but it sort of backfires in another way when i maybe you don't live up to whatever the expectations you're putting down are um sometimes i'm like in our new age in the way

that we're going at the espn the new audience do they care more about the action in the end? Like, I don't know. I feel like there's a little bit of that because people get more technical. They watch it. They kind of understand. I'd like to think this anyway, that they like to understand what they're watching a little better, especially with betting boom. The betting boom makes people pay attention to technique way more. Like you understand guys weaknesses if you're betting on him and you see him getting carved up in some way. It's a very interesting dynamic, but I think that most of the guys you're mentioning, if they're pay-per-view attractions, it'll probably be because they're so dominant or they're just that good like Habib in the end.

But I don't really see any of them where you're like, he's a cult star because of what he's saying or acting or calling guys out. None of the names you mentioned has that kind of thing going on for them. I will say, one of the bad things about – it's interesting you make one of the points that's good about betting, namely that people are paying more attention, which I think is on some level true, at least for the degenerates. However, on the other hand, how many times on social have you seen

some fighter who just lost on twitter or instagram or something come on be like hey you know it didn't go my way and thanks for the support and then they get lit up in the comments by the degenerates being like hey you ruined my parlay i'll explain something stupid yeah if you send a losing fighter a complaint because they busted your parlay just know there's no level below that that is uh where loserdom exists like that's it that's loserdom personified right there and we're seeing it more than ever now with all of the all of the gambling sites and making it legal i just feel like i see that so much now man and i hear people talk about it all the time oh Oh, I was, I had a four teamer and

he blew it for me or whatever. And it also puts all the, you know, the, the judges on blast, right? Like, so the, the judging becomes more of a big deal in the sport in terms of that sort of thing. But you're right. I can't stand it. It's just such a, like, it's the game wasn't invented for that kind of very personal status on how you're viewing it. You know, like I'm like, if you lost sorry about that but uh i don't want to hear it man i don't want to hear that i do think though seriously i've talked to a lot of guys who just got into betting fights but they immediately start to understand what the guy's strengths and weaknesses are by seeing it rather than being told you know what

i mean like they see it in real action and so they have legit questions now that are actually kind of um logical questions reasonable um doubts about whatever is going on with the matchup style which is kind of remarkable that's the phenomena of today i feel like people are actually learning the sport through betting which is bizarre man which is sad it's like how did you learn math uh through gambling actually that's how i learned math and math. And math. Yes. I bet my mortgage on blackjack. All right.

Come on, House. There is another question related to Fazeev, which is who he called out. And he called out Justin Gaethje. And the reason why that's interesting is because Justin Gaethje did just have, I think, or was about to have no surgery. But it's also the guy who the previous winner in a lightweight main event on Fight Night called out in Mateus Gamrot. So Gamrot and Fazeev have both called out Justin Gaethje. If you were matchmaker, which direction would you go? That's so tough, man.

I think I would ultimately go Fazeev. I think that's the right answer. Yeah. I think that where the right answer. bonuses, however you want to take that. I think that that just makes for a very good fight. And I think if you're trying to clear a hurdle into that top space, obviously a guy like Gaethje leaves you transformed a lot of times. You come out a different person than you went into a fight. But I think that if you're a very good striker like Fazeev, you might see something in what you could do with a Gaethje fight and say and say like you know that's my money fight so from both perspectives i like it i really do like that fight yeah it's hard to go wrong in either direction i just feel like with gamrot

okay again you could make a case for either and neither fight would be bad just as a general blanket statement i have a feeling gamrot might wrestle him a lot and that would be good for Gamrot obviously and he could certainly win that way. In fact, I might favor both of those guys to be Gaethje to be honest with you. However, I think the way Fazeev will fight him which is standing, not directly in front of him

but standing with him and having to deal with some of that punishment as he dishes it back out is just going to be A, a little bit better for the fans, and B, we were talking about can these guys be stars. Fazeev's already got a little bit of that cooking, a little bit of it. Beating Gaethje, should he be able to do that, in the way in which he would fight him, would go a lot further in my mind.

I agree with that. If you're trying to clear a hurdle into, I guess, more of the mainstream or whatever you want to say, like into broader consciousness in the fight game, I think that going through Gaethje, because people pay attention to his fights, his style, all that stuff, a lot of people too just think he's a berserker that's, if he gets solved, it's usually, if he gets solved, it's usually after he puts you into trouble like with uh with charles olivera and all this stuff so it's there's a little bit of a test um and with your chin and all that stuff i think that all of that would come into play but man i would love to see it i know

that like for you as a as a an analytical mind in the game who likes the technique i bet you this would be a very fun breakdown afterwards because i think that they're probably the tables would probably turn three times in it and there would be turning points and plot twists and everything. I'd love to see it. I really would, man. Actually, in prospect, when you think about certain fights, you get that sense of what they would be able to deliver. And I think that my immediate thing when he's talking about it and I was thinking about Fiziev,

Fiziev, I keep saying Fiziev, but like Fiziev when he said that. Someone told us at the awards, that's how you pronounce it. Well, however, I, everybody's keeps pronouncing it differently, but you know, just, just contemplating, just contemplating that fight gets me excited. So I love fights like that, man. If that's the one that happens, I'd be very, I'd be pretty happy about that. Okay. So let's go to topic number two, cause we've been discussing Fazeev, but now it's time to discuss the guy who really has been the much longer mainstay in this division and

beating him tells you a lot. It's RDA. So now RDA did have two wins coming into this fight and in fact he looked pretty good in both. However, both of those opponents were coming in on very last minute notice and here he takes on Fazeev and certainly did not look bad you could say maybe one around and kind of gave a good competition throughout it up until the fifth but at 37 years of age it's not exactly clear what the path back to a title would be i saw some folks being like all he has to do is win one and get back there i don't really believe that's a fair representation of the hurdles that he faces so chuck, Chuck, at 37, certainly not washed, but you can see the rest of the pack beginning to move up. What is a good next move for RDA?

He has fought such a who's who at so many, like at the highest points of so many of these guys' careers. Even when he beat Cerrone back in Orlando back in the day, I felt like Cerrone was the best he'd ever been, it seemed like a danger thing RDA beats him um I feel like he's just stood in there against the best of the best for so long I would love to be honest for him to take take a step back if I'm guessing he wants to stay at lightweight take a step back fight one of the guys because honestly that top 15 in lightweight right now is just full of monsters man Jalener's barely breaking in there you know what i mean like it's just it's full of monsters i would like to see him basically fight a guy who's below that top 15 and see where he's at

because honestly man like when a guy like um fazeev has to get through rda what is the definition that's sort of the gatekeeper role right like you're starting to be cast in that role i don't know because he'll be 38 years old I think he's got an October he'll be 38 the next time he fights and I don't I don't know I just you've been a champion you fought everybody I think your legacy is now based on all of the thing all of those things I don't really think that you're going to make another run at the title so if you want to hang around take a guy that you should beat you know you'd be a favorite against somebody lower in the rankings and just kind of get a sense of where you're at but uh i just don't want to see him going against one of those one of the monsters in the top 15 at this point yeah or lower level top 15 like uh 11 to 15 or something like that i mean they're all

monsters even there man jesus but you know the truth yeah it's true but you know what it's interesting that we had these conversations because I was thinking about Max Holloway being a bit of a crossroads. Now, he's only 30, but he's obviously got 10 years of UFC fighting, which is a significant amount. But in thinking about RDA,

listen, at the end of the day, it's really a function of what he wants. And so if he wants to keep going, he certainly has the fighting ability to beat good fighters. And it seems like, for potentially a little while. So this is not me saying he can't win fights. He can 100% win fights and probably several of them, depending on how the matchmaking goes. But to the point that you

raised, this guy has fought everybody across two weight classes for a very long time. He reached the championship level. He has not gotten necessarily he got fairly close at lightweight but he's not really all that close depending on when you look at who not only is ahead but some of the bigger matchups that can be made and so while I have to say the answer is well whatever he wants to do I will tell you it wouldn't

it would break my heart in the sense that something spectacular had come to a close but he has to ask himself what is really attainable, right? What is actually achievable? What is going to be the cost to get there? Even if you can do it. And is it all worth it?

I don't think that considering retirement is the worst thing in the world. And everyone makes retirement out to be pejorative. Oh, like, Oh, you can't do this anymore. No, let me be very clear. He very much can win fights. I firmly, firmly believe that he is still a, not just a UFC level fighter, let me be very clear. He very much can win fights. I firmly, firmly believe that. He is still not just a UFC-level fighter, but a high-level one.

He did not look bad in this fight at all, at all. No, no. But if the goal is the title, and you have to think about what you have to do to get there at age 38 at 155 pounds, even if that's achievable, Chuck, the grind to do that, the difficulty of it, is it going to be worth it, especially for the money?

I have questions about that. I really do. Do you? 100%, man. And I mean, I suppose he could, if they gave him another guy in that top space, I can't imagine the UFC would actually do this at this point. But I mean, who knows? You never know if something falls through and he jumps back

in there and he scores a win. I suppose you could be like, well, he's back in the mix, even though, or he's back in the relative mix with all these guys based on that. But I do feel like when you see a fight like this, he was very competitive. But again, he wasn't going to win the fight, I didn't feel like. I didn't really feel like there was a big threat for him to win this fight as it was rolling. So at that point, you're kind of just seeing that he's on the tail end of his career. So the extension of that is you don't really need to see him going for the top prize anymore because you know those other guys are passing him by. Like you mentioned, it's like the blood-dimmed tide dim tide man those guys that are coming up are insanely good insanely

good and i think i would favor all of them all the guys we were talking about earlier over rda so i just if he wants to keep it going maybe you you know you you go out on a good note i wouldn't mind if he basically called it a career right now he's one of those guys too where you have some big what ifs he was supposed to fight conor mregor, he never got that one, you almost wonder the trajectory of his career, if he had fought, been able to stay in that fight, and had got it, he was supposed to fight Islam, that probably wouldn't have gone too well for him, but I mean, again, it's just, it's a testament to him wanting to fight the very best, and not saying no to guys who, everybody else is like, nah, I'd rather not fight that guy.

You know what I mean? I think his legacy is that. And he's done that. I don't think he's going to change too much if he's going to keep going. But at the same time, I think he's who he is, right? Like he's done what he's going to do in the sport. I don't need to really be thinking about him in the title picture anymore. And I know there's going to be fans hearing this being like, oh, these two guys are out

of their minds suggesting that retirement is the... Because people in their mind associate retirement with, oh, washed, decrepit, can't do it anymore, infirm, and he's none of those things. But what they don't think about is, dude, I have seen generations of fighters come and go, and I have talked to them five, sometimes ten years after they've retired a lot

of them don't look and sound the same you know it's not necessarily a huge drop off but you know this as well there is no one wants to talk about the quality of life after stuff and dude we're not talking about a guy who like kind of pitter-pattered around this dude fought every hammer along the way that he could across two weight classes. And by the way, I think no one ever talks about this. I think he changed Anthony Pettis after that win and took the belt from him. Like he whooped him in that process. And so we're talking about a guy who's done incredible things and can still do

very, very high level things, but what's attainable. What's the cost to get there? How doable is it for what he's going to be getting paid? These are not paper viewpoints he's getting. what he's going to be getting paid these are not paper viewpoints he's getting there are some questions to be asked there by the way i'll pitch this back to you real quickly you mentioned conor mcgregor i wonder if that might be an

interesting fight to come back to you do you think because they would be not too far apart in the rankings they do have history together that's a fairly winnable fight you might imagine in either direction right what do you think about that well let's put it this way that would be like um a career achievement fight for him right like you'd be like all right cool here's your award at the end you get conor mcgregor it's a big payday all those good things um i wouldn't mind seeing that but i i always wonder because we know how conor mcgregor plays the game once a guy kind of like once we're having a conversation like this about a guy um you know that his druthers are not really into that i know people could point to the donald cerrone one where they brought him back and donald was on the clear tail end of his career when connor caught him but i'd like to think that connor is like they're going to listen to him and

i'd be a little surprised because as a b-side, Dos Anjos isn't exactly like the guy who's going to, you know, rival you and go at you in a press conference and all that stuff. I would be surprised if Conor was really cool with that. But if I'm being honest, man, I mean, they're kind of in the same boat in a weird way. I wouldn't mind seeing that fight. And you're right. I think that they have that history. They've went back and forth before i think that it just kind of if you like clean resolution or having some kind of resolution to a situation even if it's years later uh you i don't know why you wouldn't like that fight at

this point of their careers would you favor rda to win i think i would at this point i think i would man and it's really just because i i just don't know with Connor anymore. I just don't feel like he's going to be the same him. And I think he would beat him the way he'd need to beat him. You know what I mean? Like, play it smart. So, yeah, I would probably favor RDA going into that. Yeah, I guess I would too. And, you know, we'll have to see what happens. He could get another fight and put together another two, three-fight win streak.

I guess the point I'm trying to just really drive home to the audience is, and I'm a huge believer in RDA. Like, I really think he's done incredible things for a very long time, but it's, the window to make a count of it is short in this fight game. It doesn't come usually at 38, 39, at 155 pounds. It's very, very rare.

So, if not, altogether unheard of. By the way, sort of a sidebar here on this. This is, where are you at on Jon Jones? Because this is sort of my view. We're talking about Conor. It's like, dude, Jon did not look great at the end of his light heavyweight run. I thought he lost the Dominic Reyes fight. I mean, obviously some folks think he lost the Gustafson fight.

I disagree. I thought he won that one. But between the Santos, the Smith, and then the Reyes fight, he didn't look great. He's taking a ton of time off. I realize he trains with a great team and he's got now Henry Cejudo around him and Stan Efferdeen and a lot of different guys. But I got to tell you,

I'm not declaring that I think he can't beat Stipe or that he won't win when he comes back. I don't know what will happen. But this idea that he'll just pick up where he left off, I am very skeptical of that. Where are you on that whole equation? I was thinking about this recently and I think I am very skeptical of that. Where are you on that whole equation? I was thinking about this recently, and I think I'm very skeptical as well.

It's just really the passage of time. Like you mentioned this, that's a long time. And I agree with you. So if you were trying to defend Jon Jones, going back to those last ones, you could say that he was bored. You know, like these were woodwork contender types. They weren't like the sexy matchups. They weren't guys like where he's trying to make history they were just the meritocracy fighters coming up um who broke through so they wanted to win i think he

did just enough to to bat them back i kind of agree with you though man i've watched that uh the race fight a couple of times i thought he lost that fight so it's just he's coming out of a situation where he didn't look his best i think I remember talking to Sean El Shadi about this he was he thinks it fairly clearly that there was a decline going on already that's very possible but to go into a situation where now you're going to heavyweight I thought that the biggest motivator would be like hey everybody's going to doubt me I'm finally on the other end of the doubt uh going into a fight I think that Miocic would be the favorite. I'm not sure what the odds would be,

but I feel like he'd be the favorite going into that fight. That puts Jon Jones in a whole new situation. I thought being motivated that way might actually bring out whatever we're waiting to see from Jon Jones again, what's in there for him to do. But, dude, the passage of time. I just, it's so much time, and keeps going by and I just I don't know I don't I don't know I think it's just combined with the way he has looked and then the passage of time

and just I don't know where I don't know where his head is at I think that the biggest intrigue would be that right like going into this heavyweight like what does Jon Jones look like what is he gonna that what you know what's in? What is his, does he want to conquer the division? I don't even know, man, to be honest. But yeah, skeptical is the right word. I'm skeptical as well. All right, before we move on from this particular fight night, last question. The opening bout on the main card was Michael Johnson taking on this malarkey guy out of,

by the way, if you're Australian, this won't mean anything to you, but our current president, he's old. I mean, he's very old. He says malarkey all the time. Every time I hear this guy's name, I'm always thinking of old-ass Joe Biden. I'm like, that's malarkey.

Does it say bullcorn, too? Bullcorn. I don't know. My dad has all these old phrases that you don't even hear anymore like my dad my dad told me this one he was like no one tells it's a he wasn't talking about like his grandmother or more or my grandmother he goes no one tells grandma how to suck eggs i'm like dad what the fuck does that even mean what kind of man like people call me boomer i'm which fine i'm old but like there's levels to a there's levels to washing this and let me tell you my dad's at the king of that hill um all right i love it but there was that opened the main uh the main card

controversial scoring again all all the busted parlay folks are just you know slamming their fingers on the keys what did you think i heard think? I heard some on this one particularly. I heard about this fight from degenerate buddies who are pointing this out. But yes, you asking how I scored it? Yeah. I thought that Johnson got a very clean, and for just a minute, a very clean knockdown, and it looked for just a minute like the fight might be over. It looked like a danger.

If you're playing the game, it was like went into the red um at that very moment now i know he also got caught toward the end of the round yes but i didn't i didn't think that um i didn't think that was enough johnson had outstruck him i believe even officially on the you know it looked that way in the real time. I think the stats backed it up. It just looked like his round. And I think when you score a knockdown like that, where it looks like it's almost over, it was hard for me to kind of give it the other way to Malarkey because I don't know how you do that. I know he was hurt at the end, but I scored it 10-9.

So I gave him the first and the third because the third was fairly clear, just like the second was the other way. So I had it 2-1, giving one and three to johnson on that fight or by the way i think i called him john malarkey it's jamie malarkey so i apologize jamie yes sir yeah but um i scored it for johnson as well i thought johnson had won the first and the third round two pretty clearly malarkey round if you look at the numbers 45 to 18 now again these are numerical totals not qualitative totals in round one by the way it was pretty even uh 20 for malarkey johnson 18 everyone's like oh well malarkey had two more but like what does that mean that is that that's but that's basically the same but this is my whole point it's like listen if you lost money on a bet i understand being upset about it. I really do. But this was close.

This was close. It was. The split decision was almost inevitable. Clear round three for Johnson, clear round two for Malarkey. Round one was clearly headed towards Johnson until he ate a fairly decent shot. I still thought, to your point,

Johnson did the great work. But dude, every time we get one of these, it's like the judges are incompetent and my parlay got busted and i'm like don't bet on mma motherfucker this is what this is this is mma fighting this is this is the experience over time of what you're going to get do not be surprised 100 man and if it like let's say it went out of sequence if everything had stood the same yet um it was johnson who basically got the last you know that that last combination off and kind of hurt malarkey you know and it's just the reverse i think johnson wins the round i think it's just that you saw the guy hurt at the very end of that round that swayed it you know what i mean it's just one

of those situations it's so weird man i mean mma uh judging is just uh it's obviously like we could you could go on about you could do a podcast about judging after every single card right because there's always something but this particular one if you reverse the order i bet johnson wins that on the scorecard it's hard to say for sure but but I'm like, I think it was just, you know what I mean? I think that you just, it's like that. The last guy you see wobbled and all that stuff is kind of what you go with. And also, this

one, it's like, people are like, that result was unfair. And I'm like, maybe. Unfair results happen all the time. You know what I mean? What do you want me to say? And again, first of all, all was close so like to the extent it's unfair it's not very unfair i mean the results are dramatic because you lose half your check all that kind of shit like yes that part really really sucks and i get and again you and i both thought johnson was the

guy who had done a little bit more but at the same time it's like dude are you under the impression that the best guy always wins or that the judges always get it right if you want to bet you are betting on a sport where the judges may not have a great look they may not be very dialed in maybe they're going through a divorce maybe that you know who knows this is what you're dealing with make better bets is what i would tell folks different sport different sport yeah different bet on basketball. Yeah, exactly. Last thing on this card, and then we'll move along to something else here. Co-main event from UFC Vegas 58. I'm going to try to pronounce this guy's name.

I'm sure I'm fucking it up badly. But Caio Bojalio basically controlled Armin Petrosian in the co-main event for UFC Vegas 58. And he's got a bunch of interesting tattoos. Now, he does speak a level of english that he could let's say really leverage for better media opportunities in ways that you know jose aldo never has been so let me ask you controlled this guy has looked very good in the ufc um seems ready for more and i will say something as i pitch this question to you i i have a feeling that the ufc is trying to get as many young 185ers moving up the chains

as fast as they can, because either Izzy or Pereira is going to sit on this for a while or whatever. I think Izzy probably will sit on this for a while. They need some fresh blood up there. So I do think he's getting a bit of a push by virtue of that. So let me ask you, what's your level of upside for Bojalioio i think it's there like what you're mentioning with the lightweight guys i feel like uh you know it's it's hard to distinguish some of them in terms of their personality and charisma but when you're talking about a guy like this who has what the fighting nerds um you know anti-bullying thing going on i feel like people are paying attention to him as a person which always increases the rooting interest because they care about the guy.

They want to see how he does. So this was a unique situation. I thought that, if anything, the way he beat him was impressive, but at the same time, not impressive because, you know, he goes in there, he controls the fight. I think that he saw a one-dimensional fighter in Petrosian. He knew what to do. He knew how to get it done, but I didn't really feel like he put him in enough bad spots, you know, like, especially when you're saying, hey, he's a kickboxer. I'm a jujitsu grappler guy. I'll take him down. And you're not able to finish him when you're saying that he's deficient on the ground. It can go both ways. It would have been nicer. I think that the UFC would have liked it if he got through that fight a little cleaner, like maybe a little more emphatically but ultimately man he's a smart player like he mentioned it and i i love guys

who go ahead and he's like i'm not a dumb fighter man i'm gonna fight the way that i need to fight to win and uh why not i mean we just watched izzy the guy at the top of the food chain right who basically did the same thing on a different level so i'm like however you got to get it done because you want to keep that trajectory going north um you do it. I do think that he has a personality and a story that translates very well. And I agree with you about 185, man. They need to have new guys getting up there. So he's got a, he can be expedited into this conversation if he keeps it up. I think he could be a player in the division at some point here yeah so I mean he's got four fights under Zufa two with the contender series and then in his

second UFC fight he's in a co-main event granted on a fight night where that was not a very big fight night but still um he got one but he's decisioned both of the fights he had in UFC and then the initial one in contender series was as well I mean here's the point I think he's decisioned both of the fights he had in UFC and then the initial one in Contender Series was as well. I mean, here's the point. I think he's obviously UFC level and he's an interesting prospect. But to me, it's like, dude, he's super green. Super green. Like, they're pushing this.

They're trying to get the bananas out of the, you know, you go to the produce section and the groceries. And it's like all the bananas are green. It's like, let's just get those now. It's like, that might eventually be a tasty banana but right now right it's it's not necessarily all that can't even peel it can't even peel it can't even and you peel it and it's like all hard and stuck you know it's like that's kind of where i feel like we're at it's like they they really want to pump some fresh blood in there and i get it and he looked good like there's no i don't really have much to say about it i guess you could say about the performance that it wasn't a lot of striking going on kyle behalio landing a total of

12 significant strikes in the entire fight four in round one two in round two and six in round three that's not enough to beat very good guys like really elite guys that's not even close so they're crazy about that the very beginning of that fight he comes out and obviously he's he's setting things up for himself like he knows what he wants to do but he he struck with him and i think his hardest shots were landed in the first exchanges he actually looked like he was going to be on par and obviously it would be stupid to just stand there uh and trade with a guy who's a kickboxer like that but he actually looked decent maybe he needs to trust his hands a little more you know

what i mean is what i'm trying to say like i didn't really feel like he looked bad in the moments you saw of him standing and trading there no he didn't again i don't have much to say in the way of like oh this is terrible and this will always hold him back but rather he had a guy pretty outmatched on the ground i mean petrosian was not his equal on the ground at all and you know controlled him for long stretches four and a half minutes two point two and two minutes 47 seconds in the second and then nearly three minutes in the third i mean this is a lot of control time and control time from a dominant position yeah but uh this is not the kind of thing that screams title contender right now nor nor should it he is two ufc fights in it's just i want to be very clear i i like the guy i think he's very good i can't wait to see

what he does again but i saw some folks being like oh he's a future star i'm like you don't know that you don't know that it could be true no it's way too i don't know it either but i can't declare it to be true is what i'm saying he's definitely got a good personality i think that he's he's he's just a guy you watch right like you're gonna watch him to see how he does it. But yes, to declare that he's going to be, you know, um, the next big thing, there's a lot to be seen there still. I mean, he needs to go against some guys who are like, um, that are no names, you know what I mean? Like guys who are going to test him in other ways. So yeah, jury's still out on that one. All right. Let's talk about some of the big fights that were announced here in topic number four, as we continue the show. So there's, there were many that were announced here in topic number four as we continue the show so there's there were many that were announced but there were three that i kind of wanted to pay attention to

i'm going to go a bit out of order in the way i put them here i believe it's the abu upcoming abu dhabi card sean brady it looks like i think espn had reported this is going to take on balal muhammad now sean brady of course coming off that big win over michael kiesa and then you had balal muhammad beating Vicente Luque and a bunch of other folks recently as well. Bilal Muhammad, a guy I have slept on but has really proven me wrong, proven to be a force at 170 pounds. Brady, I've been high on for a very long time.

Chuck, your sense of this matchup and what is at stake? It's a great fight, actually actually i think that sometimes when with with balal especially i know he wanted that fight with uh with hamzat right like you want to kind of punch up you want to go up um towards where you're wanting to go but i actually think this fight kind of makes some sense from both sides um i like the idea of sean brady getting like he's getting the guy that he wanted uh but he's i think where he's stationed at five and this is one of those old school matchmaking things because you have a guy who's uh five and then you see against the guys one seven in a row it's momentum against momentum um i don't really know who is a better name for

ball all to actually face that would be available i and i actually think that sean brady has some good juice right now. Because of where he's at, he's looked very good in his last couple of fights. That Jake Matthews one, I mean, the way he dominated that one before, I was like, that was an eye-opener. So I think that he's got some good juice in that sense. I don't think Ball loses anything. It's not a crab-wise motion to beat a guy like Sean Brady.

I think it actually makes a very big declaration that you are the guy who wants that title shot or should get that title shot next. Awesome fight, man. I think Sean Brady, I'm sure. Have you done one of the breakdowns for him? Have you watched him critically in terms of that sort of thing? Because I feel like he's got like— together yeah yeah i haven't put together a presentation on it but yes i've watched okay and talked with him privately about it yeah i mean i i find him

fascinating i think he's good everywhere i know they call him brick house like he just looks like he can go for days i feel like he's super strong i don't know if it's conveyed um in his fights but i just feel like if you were actually sparring against a guy like that, I think you'd be like, Jesus, it just looks like that guy. So I feel like I want to see more of what he's capable of, because I feel like he will go on a big run, and who better, honestly, than to take a guy like Bilal, who's that tough, who's on a good streak. I feel like this is a test, man. And so when they made this fight, I knew it was going to happen. I thought it was a really good piece of matchmaking. Well, I you uh we we had michael kiesa we have a room service diaries coming out with michael kiesa which by the way fans are gonna love because

he drank beer the whole time and it was a whole thing i mean love that dude yeah yeah it was awesome and you know michael kiesa at 170 is a big strong dude like you see him in person you're like damn my man's been in the weight room. And we asked him, what was so hard about fighting Sean Brady? Because, dude, Michael Chiesa had success on the feet in that fight, but couldn't do shit in the grappling. And he was like, dude, he couldn't believe how strong Sean Brady was. Couldn't believe.

And so think about that for a second like remember this is the guy in Chiesa that hit the one-arm Kimura on Carlos Condit like with his huge back and everything and Brady was like so strong to him that it was it was overwhelming like Brady must be crazy strong you know yes but dude I'll say this about Bilal Muhammad he always comes in shape and he knows how to win rounds. He knows exactly how to apply his game. He knows exactly what his assignment is from moment to moment, from sequence to sequence.

He has been there with very top guys in a way that Brady has not yet. So I'll tell you this. I think Brady is the guy to win this, and it does more for Brady than it does for Bilal, so I give credit to Bilal for taking the fight. but uh it's a tough one it's a close one this is a real big test of exactly how far Brady excuse me Sean Brady can go yeah with this skill set I think if you can go and dominate let's say Bilal Muhammad it does make you think wow maybe he could beat Colby maybe he could beat or give Kamaru a tough fight or something like that.

I think you're right. I'm anxious to see that kiss thing because, honestly, when I watched that fight, you kind of got that sense. And then with the Jake Matthews fight before, I felt like there was that existential moment where you're like, dude, I don't know. I'm not sure how to get in on that. I don't know how to beat this guy. You could kind of see when it was like he was just like, I don't know what to do with this guy like how do you get out of this this situation what can i hit him with like it just and we and i think matthew's really good so the bottom line is yes i agree with you i think that uh balal is just he's a dog man he's uh he's

going to bring it pressure wise all that stuff but you wonder if he kind of breaks in that fight, what that does say for Sean Brady. I think this, it's like perfect for Sean Brady, right? Because I don't know the rankings. I don't have them in front of me, but I believe if you want to look at the rankings and believe in it, the ball is like five or four. So like you're leapfrogging right in there. And I think that that's the perfect situation

for Sean Brady. And it's a great thing for the division because you got now a guy who, you know, the new blood, right? The new blood coming up to kind of challenge those guys who've been up there a while. Yeah, you're right. So Bilal is currently, this could of course change

because I don't know if they've updated the rankings just yet, but he currently sits at five and Brady at nine. Although Brady had complained to me that he was, I think after his win over Chiesa, he was something like 6 or 7. And then just due to inactivity, he kind of kept getting bumped down. But he wasn't trying to be inactive.

No one would take fights with him. So this is what I mean. Bilal Muhammad is risking a lot here. Now, it's a huge win for him if he gets it, obviously. But he is risking more than what I think Brady is. And so you have to really give the guy respect for that. Dude, Muhammad has never had, like, this fucker has nothing but tough assignments. I know,

dude. In his welterweight run. I know. It really is commendable. I hope they're greasing his palms under the table, like, hey man, just take the fight, please. You know what I'm saying? I totally know what you're saying. Okay, another fight that was announced. This will be for September 17th. It'll be the UFC main event, I believe, on a fight

night card. Corey Sandhagen returns and takes on Song Yedong. This was reported first by MMA reporter Marcel Dorf. Obviously, Sandhagen is a guy I'm sure you and I have pegged as someone who could be a title holder. I have a tremendous respect

for his abilities. But old Song Yedong out there has really, really turned into something special. this is a hell of a fight give me your sense of what you expect so you know how I was talking about the momentums of the last fight right five five or no versus seven and over the last bunch of fights this is a weird one in the new match making sense because Song Yedong I think is just coming into his own 24 years old looking very good um and now getting an assignment where

i think you know this is again one of those leapfrog moments for a guy who if you're going to showcase if you're going to style on somebody and you're able to do that against a guy like sandhagen it puts you right in there man but at 24 years old he's a phenom if he does this as well i think that people would really be paying attention to him obviously as a true contender and sandhagen is in that situation where he's lost a couple but they're you know he's going against the very best of the best so as a bounce back fight this is a very dangerous take right like he's he's going against a guy who could uh you know put him on a spiral where now he's lost three in a row and a guy that we had I think the same as you I kind, I circled him to be a champion at some point in this division would then have to be in

a huge hole trying to get out of it. It's a very tough assignment. But I actually, I love it in another sense because I think Sanhagen is a guy who's very resilient mentally. And I think that, you know, some guys get affected by losing straight and stuff like that. I feel like he's one of those guys who would pack it into his motivation. He's going to show up in the best you know the best form he can show up

so another i mean i love it like some of these some of these fights that are coming out the matchmaking is awesome and i think that this one is right up there with him man to me this is a great fight for either guy because we start with san hagen right so san hagen if he wins obviously you get into the w column. That's nice to have. But the bigger issue is that, you know, he needs a tough opponent and a respectable opponent. But it was pretty clear that because he fought Jan and he fought Sterling and he fought TJ.

And I thought he won the TJ fight, but it was very close. And again, this is MMA. Like close fights happen. Decisions don't always go the way you expect them or believe them that it should have gone. And so he has those three losses. And it's pretty clear's pretty clear it's like okay you can give the championship guy i mean the sterling fight didn't go very well but you know he gave yon and he gave delish on particular very very tough fights uh at least for certain stretches of it

and but he was he was he was left wanting it was there was a level above him that i think was pretty clear at that point so now he needs to retool and you don't want to go too far back. You still want a very difficult fight, but you want someone respectable. This is exactly that. This is the kind of win where if you beat this guy, you can and should be very proud. It's a significant win in that division, and it gets you back on the path to really reclaiming a possible title future. So it really threads that needle in just the right way. On the other hand, if you're Song Yedong, Corey represents something that's a little bit difficult for him.

Like Corey's movement and his stance switching and his angles and his in and out sort of style of attack. That is something I think Song Yedong is going to have a hard time fighting. However, if he can beat a guy like that a guy who is i would argue a much more modern and movement-based technician obviously he has the power but it would represent not just beating a very good fighter it would represent a kind of fighter that you would might like for example if he didn't have the sandhagen fight and he was taking other fights on the way up you wouldn't really get this question answered all that much like what does he do with a guy who can set angles and traps on him in the way that sand hagen does you beat a guy like that and you answer

a ton of questions and as i mentioned with san hagen like you song you dong if nothing else and he can do a lot more but he can thump too he's a big powerful guy so you get to answer and set right a lot of different things in motion depending who you are here yeah man by the way like is your eye favor uh like he's an agent now too isn't he like that dude is still wearing a ton of hats he's agent he's still like uh still team alpha male right is he coaching like it seems like he's he's up to a million things still yes we asked him about song you dong and you can imagine how brian introduced the question i won't spoil it for you but you know Brian asked Uriah Faber

about Song Yedong and I can only tell you that it was, depending on your view of Brian's humor, either very hilarious or very cringe. I feel like it's real split down the middle, man. It's real split down the middle. I love it. To your point, Song Yedong has put together

great wins. He, dude, to your point, Song Yedong has put together great wins. He has put together, he's really, really turned the corner. He's still super young. This is, I mean, not just a quality opponent if he gets the win. This would be evidence of real possible title future if you beat Corey Sanhagen. Oh, yeah, man. And 24 years old. I mean, come on.

He gets into that conversation at a very young age. And I think that we don't see that as often as I think we did at one point like I felt like you know guys in their mid-20s sometimes would uh show up in these uh in big spots I don't see it as much it seems like most guys are near 30 now when they finally break through because it's just so difficult to do it you know what I mean so uh it would be he'd be one of the younger guys to be in that position for sure yeah I mean we all take I don, I don't take it for granted, but you really lose sight of how insane it was that Jon Jones was tossing people around. You know, 21, 22, it's like, that's insane.

But he did. And then last but not least, this one's interesting for women's flyweight. Mackenzie Dern is going to be taking on Yan Xiaonan. This will be October 1st. By the way, the Belal and Brady fight will be UFC 281 in October. This will also be on a fight night card. It'll be headlining. And Mackenzie Dern takes on Jan Schaunan.

This was first reported by ESPN. Obviously, Schaunan is coming in off back-to-back losses. But I gotta tell you, old Dern out there has looked up and down depending on how you want to look at it with the hadrigas and the torres fight because she had great moments in either but then yeah she you know what's amazing to me is this far in she is still beating good fighters

but her game is still wildly lopsided what is your sense about this fight i mean it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a fight set up for mckenzie i think in the sense of if she's able to um do what she does and get through it like you could make the case then that she's right there i the marina i don't even know what's going on with marina hudfigg is at this point um but she's got victories over both of these women um so she should be probably next i don't really know like what's going on with uh with Carla Esparza at this point but in terms of this matchmaking I feel like the eyes are still on Dern right like I feel like she's one of those people who um you know she was a decorated jiu-jitsu player and I think that we're waiting to see how far she can take this thing in the UFC. And she's been kind of a marvel in a

weird way because she was having all that issue, all those issues, making weight, but then she has a baby and now she doesn't have those issues. It's just kind of like, it's not been a usual career, but I feel like she's going to put herself into a big spot here. This is already a big fight, but I think that she wins this. I think she's,'s you know she's probably as close as she's ever been to getting that uh that title shot and i'm always interested to see how she's kind of evolving in the sense but i agree with you like so far it's really just an extension of what she's been doing she looks a little more polished right like she's able to get um get things to her domain a little better um her entry points and all that stuff for uh grappling and jiu-jitsu but like i i still feel like she's relying heavily on her one big strength which

she's a throwback in that sense to the earlier fighters who only needed the one element right so this would be a good one because i think that uh you know yawn is uh is well-rounded and i think she'll test her in a lot of different ways in this fight. Yeah, so, by the way, to dead wrong myself, I said women's flyweight. It's not. It's strawweight, obviously. Dern sitting at four in the rankings. Jan Chowdhury sitting at five. So that's probably the biggest reason why they got paired. And it's like, dude, if Dern can't...

She can do some stuff on the feet, for sure, but if I told you she would never get a takedown and never even threaten on the ground, would you be like, oh, she could still win? Probably not. You'd be like, oh, Sean Nahn's going to win that one. You were asking about Rodriguez. The issue is, Jean Wiley got that win

in her last contest over Ioana, so then the winner of that was promised a title shot. I mean, Rodriguez, to me, is the... I mean, you know, what's rightful anymore? It doesn't really matter. Rodriguez has the better winning streak or something up to this point, if you want to say that. But Jean Wiley got the favored situation by not just beating Ioana,

but beating her handily. And then Carla is out or taking a break or whatever to get healthy. So this is like... It's not number one contender, but it's like one space behind that. But the thing is, I can totally see Dern winning. But I have a really hard time looking at her overall game development and saying not that she couldn't persevere here, persevere here, persevere here. But if I told you what the game was and you hadn't seen it,

and I'm like, it's super lopsided. It's like, is that person going to be the best out of arguably the most competitive women's division in MMA? It's like, maybe, but I don't know. I'm just sort of skeptical about the whole thing. But she still finds ways to keep doing it, I guess. It's pretty amazing. It's true. I wonder, I mean, this fight, maybe it tells you something more.

The bottom line is, I am too. She's taken it pretty far. And I do feel like she kind of has the ufc seal of approval i think the ufc would love to get her uh up there and into a title shot i mean at least that's the way i felt like she was kind of groomed early it was like uh um she was getting more promo material than some of the other people in her position and i still feel like that's in play like people kind of know who she is um but yeah man I feel like this would be this you may see it you may see it come out like where she's put into spots she hasn't been in I mean that's always the the thing here and um yeah I think it's a good one though I if Dern's able to do it I think that it gets that much more intriguing it's funny that you mentioned Carlos Esparza though is it is it a nose issue and now

that you're bringing this up like she has a broken nose or something like that um forgot all her injuries yeah all right well whatever that's kind of a mess at the top of the division but obviously like one of these people will uh will jump into that conversation i guess i gotta tell you too like i all we always kind of pegged fairly or unfairly Dern as like not the second coming of Rousey or that the UFC wanted exactly the same things out of her I don't think that's true but I do think they wanted something like that right they wanted something where they had you know a someone who's reasonably attractive who's got this amazing grappling skill set who's young and vibrant and blah, blah, blah, and all this kind of stuff.

She checks a lot of the boxes that Rousey checked. And I hate to sort of comment on women's appearance in this way in a professional context, but the reality is what the reality is. It is. There's a reason that some of these women end up on the ABC showcases and things like that. You know what I'm saying? But it's so weird when I have to explain this to other people.

I don't talk about my job outside of work unless I have to, but my neighbors are sort of picking up on what I do, and so when they see me, they ask me, and then it sort of turns into things. And they're like, oh, what about so-and-so fighter in this one? And I'm like, well, it depends to an extent on how good they are, and also does the fan base find them attractive like i mean i just you know you have to it it's just it's a really unfortunate but relevant consideration anyway not the most

dominant one per se in this conversation i'm just saying there were some parallels let's put it that way made between rousey's career and let's say Dern's potential and some of those are still very possible to be clear the Jan Schaunan one isn't the ultimate test but if she beats that dude there's a lot of ways even though she lost to Rodriguez honestly let's say this if she goes in there

and let's say demolishes Jan Schaunan does she leapfrog Rodriguez that is very possible I think that that's entirely possible because we know that it's not based on does she leapfrog Rodriguez? That is very possible. I think that that's entirely possible because we know that it's not based on the merit. You know what I mean?

And that fight was close, right? It was a split decision when they fought. I believe it was a very close fight. I haven't went back and watched it again, but it wasn't that definitive. So yeah, I could see a situation 100% where Dern leapfrogs that. out bro you know how awkward it is to go to like the park with my daughter which i can't because we all have covet in the

house which is super wonderful but when i when i normally go and someone will walk up behind me a dad and his crocs will walk up behind me and be like yo i love the show today with you and bc i'd be like what the fuck oh man i get it i'm sure i get it enough where um i know what you're talking about but i'm sure you get it a lot more you're very uh you know you're very tall man and very distinguished looking so i feel like uh you know you stick out a little more than i do but uh but yes that is very weird and it's like you just don't want to turn on and talk about i agree with you 100 it's like the last thing you want to do is have casual conversations with everybody who recognize you about mma i know it's like do you think i want to talk about takedowns at 5 30 p.m like i do know about that shit fun time all right

uh last but not least there was a bit of boxing over the weekend i know that you're not the biggest boxing fan per se but we'll talk about here very quickly ray vargas sort of moving up a weight class now becoming a two-weight champion, beating Mark Maxaio for the WC featherweight belt. Now he gets it done via split decision. Chuck, any thoughts about this one at all? If not, I'm going to do the heavy lifting here. Well, you can do the heavy lifting because this is your domain,

but I was able to catch it. I thought that Vargas was... I don't get a watch enough box that's the problem i love it when i watch it and i love this type of fight the smaller guys because the exchanges are just so ridiculous and um everything that was going on i thought vargas was controlling the fight honestly into that ninth round before um you know it gets dropped yeah it gets dropped and then it becomes a different kind of fight but i ultimately agreed with the decision um but it was fun and this is why you guys keep me honest.

You have me checking in on boxing from time to time, and I need to do that more, and this was a fun one for me. I know. I wish more MMA fans liked it, because I've got to tell you, I actually have a point I want to make here in just a second, but boxing is great. It's especially great right now. It's obviously very different than MMA, totally different sensibilities, but for this particular fight, just for the folks who are the boxing heads out there, I thought that...

I agreed with Steve Farhood's scorecard. I gave the first couple rounds probably to Max Ayo, and then after that, I thought Vargas took over. He was doing his bit. Do you remember, actually, the Michael Johnson-Dustin Poirier fight, where Poirier threw an uppercut way outside and then got hit with... They tell you never to lead with an uppercut for that reason because if you just sort of stand there and then throw the uppercut your defenses are probably

going to be down on that same side obviously right because the hand is out in front of you and you haven't done anything else to bring their hands up so you can just get tagged with whatever the punch is and he got drilled with one in the ninth round sent to his knees and then mark moxio didn't do anything to really jump on him in the 10th, and the commentators were like, dude, you're hurting this guy. What are you doing? He didn't. He wasn't, and Vargas was on unsteady. I didn't feel like he had his bearings until the next round.

So, like, yeah. But here's the thing. Max Ayo got to this point where I think this was a mandatory, although obviously it would turn Vargas into a two-weight world champion, but what was interesting about the bout was Max Ayo in the previous contest fought Gary Russell Jr., who is a Washington, D.C. product, who is very, very skilled, but he broke his hand, his jab hand, or no, sorry, what am I saying?

He messed up his shoulder. So I'm left-handed, so he messed up, Gary Russell Jr. did, his right shoulder, which is obviously leading into your jab. So Gary Russell Jr. couldn't jab for like 10 rounds, barely ever threw it. And Max Ayo still didn't turn on the gas. This dude, Max Ayo, when he throws and he was intercepting, he can bomb on Bama. He can throw.

But there's a little bit of a question about the decision making going on or some fight IQ issues. I hate to put it those ways, but it's a little bit true. And this was a split decision. You wonder, it's like if he had turned it on just a little bit more at the end there, A, could have gotten a stoppage because his power is legit, and B, maybe gotten the decision nod. So it tells you he's at that championship level,

but hasn't quite fully turned that corner, if that makes sense. Those types of losses, or he won the first one against Russell but like that type of performance has got to stick with you too when you know that especially in this last fight um and if you're a protege right and like that's kind of that's kind of why people are paying attention to Filipino protege of Pac-Man and you're getting that rub god you just want to see him capitalize in the moments they should you know what I mean like uh he should be I felt like you like he should be a bigger name, and I know it's kind of difficult to get some of these guys over to the broader public, and especially the combat public in general,

but he should be a bigger name, man. Just watching his fights previously, I know how good he is. So I wish he could... I'm with you. I know what you're saying. It feels like he's a little withheld when he shouldn't be. Folks don't even know how fight crazy the Philippines are in general. Obviously, they have more than just, you know, they have Casimiro and a lot of other good boxers from the Philippines and have had a good long history for a long time.

But introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only. At participating McDonald's in Canada. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments?

Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game. Rise to it with the BMO eclipse rise visa card the credit card that rewards your good financial habits earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month level up from bill payer to reward slayer terms and conditions apply just on the mma side of things let me explain something to you folks out there when pacquiao was like not even like pre-floyd like around hatton or de la jolla you know this too uh chuck on mma fighting we would put up some results posts like you know uh pacquiao versus whoever the fuck and we would watch the traffic pour in but i want to explain where it came from yes a lot for the united states and all the places where people are boxing fans he was a worldwide name for obviously in his peak

but dude we would you can see the location of where we would come in, and there would be these old-school forum pages, all based in the Philippines. Someone in the Philippines would link an MMA fighting post or whatever, and the traffic would pour in like zombies running over the hills. You couldn't believe how much traffic was coming from these places do the philippines obviously pacquiao is a very special case but the level of enthusiasm there for their fighters is extraordinarily high yeah it's kind of crazy

because i think that we equate uh you know, really enthusiastic fandom to like Ireland or the UK, right? Like places where you can, they get a guy or they get several fighters and you can see it. But I feel like that's true. And Pacquiao obviously is a big reason for that in the Philippines. My brother was stationed over there for a long time when he was in the military. And he'd mentioned this, you know, that they were kind of, like, whatever national heroes they get, you know, who have come up and do things, they really get behind, and their level of fandom is kind of unmatched, so it's not surprising,

to be honest, man, but I guess that's why you would have liked to, I kind of, I don't want to see a guy who's that good not be as good as he can because I always think that that's healthy for the fight game in general um when you get guys who basically represent a country like that you know what I mean like when they represent a country and you can feel that enthusiasm coming out of that country that is always a win-win for combat sports do you remember when UFC wanted to go to the Philippines with Brandon Vera? Yeah. Remember that?

Yes. Yeah, yeah. I remember that. And they did briefly, not with him, I don't think, but they went with, I think it was Edgar and Faber fought in Manila, if memory serves. That's right. Yes. Yeah. I believe you're right. And I think one championship, obviously Brandon Vera has been with him for a long time, was the heavyweight champion.

And I think they went. But you're asking about UK and Ireland. The US, the sport is still Western-ric in terms of where the money is and obviously the philippines is you know by comparison a poor country but it would be nice to be able to see like we never got to see pacquiao fight in manila or whatever which you know there's obviously good reasons for that but it is it a quietly, very powerfully enthusiastic combat sports hub. I didn't realize it was that enthusiastic. I didn't realize the traffic on those. I love that you know that stuff because you used to monitor it.

I never really monitored it, but that's really interesting. Our old boss and I would just look at it and be like, what the fuck? Damn, man. at it and be like what the fuck damn man like well thousands per like tens of thousands per like second just wow just tidal waves because you always see these mma fans complain like why are you all covering this pacquiao fight fuck y'all and we'd be like well because we can sell a month's worth of ad inventory in one fucking night when he fights that's why it's it was that simple you know now i did want to Now, I did want to mention something. I did want to mention something.

Also on this card, I don't know if you saw it. If you didn't, it's okay. But Brandon Figueroa, who previously lost to Stephen Fulton Jr. in a Fight of the Year contest, he moved up one weight class and then this was his return fight.

And I noticed something with him. I guess I had seen it not as much in the Fulton fight. Here he is taking on his opponent, Castro. Carlos Castro. And I had seen it not as much in the Fulton fight. Here he is taking on his opponent, Carlos Castro. And I tweeted about it. I couldn't record my screen. I'm going to put up something about it. Let me tell you something I noticed, Chuck.

I don't know if you have any thoughts about it. Probably not because it just occurred to me. So we always talk about how stance switching and these sort of funky things where... At MMA, you know this as well as I do. People and the trainers are always tinkering with stuff. What's a little twist we can do on this technique or this grip or this step or whatever? And so you get a lot of crazy development. Some of it works, some of it doesn't.

But one thing I've noticed is you're getting a lot more boxing sensibility. Guys like Adrian Yanez who come out and openly tell you that they study boxers and then sort of bring that stuff into the MMA game and it's happening. Now, I don't know, in fact, it probably is not the case at all

that MMA is influencing boxing. But one thing I can say that I have seen fairly regularly at this point is, number one, I am watching a lot more stance switching in boxing than I have ever seen. Now, it's been happening for a long time famously Hagler did it lots of guys have done it but it's usually in the way like Dustin Poirier might do it where it's very shortened windowed it's got a real specific purpose usually distance

closing you know that kind of a thing so I'm seeing a lot more of it in boxing and I'm seeing it very very heavily concentrated among boxers in their 20s which I don't mean to suggest they do it out of naivete far from it I have a feeling that this next wave of boxers coming up are going to be doing stance switching significantly more than their predecessors ever did now I could be totally wrong about that but I tweeted about it and a lot of the boxing heads said I was kind of on to something if i am right let's assume for the second that i am right what do you make of that i think it's interesting now you tell me because i know that you uh you you've you've talked to a lot of trainers and stuff like that but i do feel like

there are a lot more boxing trainers who train mma guys right like Like more than there used to be. Way more. Yeah, so it's like I do feel like there's a crossover, and it would just be natural at some point when you're discussing, you know, best tactics in terms of like getting off your offense on the feet, like right for it to translate into boxing if they see the success, right, in MMA. So I wouldn't be surprised. And it's almost like what MMA has done

where for the longest time you had that singular discipline or maybe you had something you were very good at and you kind of stuck to that. But then there was this age where certain guys were like, no, no, no, I got into jujitsu and Muay Thai at the same time. I learned all of it at the exact same time. You almost wonder if it starts to happen like a little bit of an evolution

where you see somebody doing it. Maybe it is mma fluence maybe it's not but the the you know switching stances and stuff like that proves effective and then pretty soon it just becomes part of the norm for a 20 year old who's learning right like you just start to see it as part of what you're supposed to do um i do think that these two things intersect more than we realize you know and a lot of it is because the trainers, you know, they work in both fields. You know what I mean? They see what's effective. They break down a lot of tape. There's so many guys in the gym now who coach both things. So I could see that for sure, man,

especially with the guys who are the impressionable guys coming up and they're trying to find new advantages. You know what I mean? So that would make sense. There's a guy out of Philly, by the way. He's boys with Sean Brady. I don't know if you've ever heard of him. Jerron Ennis. He's a boxer.

He's the mandatory for Errol Spence. Obviously, they're probably going to do Spence Crawford. But in terms of one of Spence's titles, he's the mandatory. He's the best up-and-coming boxer, I think, on the planet, independent of weight class. So, number one, Trenton Sean number one I didn't know he was boys with uh I didn't know he was boys with Brady that's crazy man yeah now wild like go look on their comments they always comment on each other on their all their Instagram posts and we talked about it like they um for like a couple of camps ago Jerron Ennis was holding pads for Sean Brady

into getting his boxing working like dude they're pretty closely associated. And he might be not only just the best up-and-coming boxer, independent of weight class, he's also an incredible stance switcher. I don't know what the explanation is, but to me it is very interesting and unusual that all these guys in their 20s, not exclusively, but predominantly in their 20s, are doing not just the occasional stance switch, but making a big habit and show of it in a way that their predes are doing not just the occasional stance switch but making a big habit and show of it in a way that their predecessors are not could also just be like the digital era where you can just see so many crazy things and people are wanting to try it and it's working and then that's a good point to your point everyone's a copycat i don't know what the answer is

but i want folks out there to pay attention if you see two guys in their 20s pay attention to something like that god i just i would encourage everybody i told brian this too when we were talking some boxing the last time i filled in for you i think like pay attention to the boxing i think that at this point like you can appreciate it and it's at the best i think it's at the most healthy uh mark it's been in for a long long time man with all the names all the all the brilliant champions and good challenges that are coming up i just feel like it's in a very healthy space and it feels like it has a resurgence and there's a little bit of a boom a boom period you know what i mean so um pay attention to it man it's fun all right well it's no longer time for you and us to be asking each other questions all

right probably keep doing it it's time for the viewers to ask us. It's time for DMs and dogs. Hee-haw. All that good stuff. I might drag all my vape. I love this. Put some vape on top of my coke. Yeah. All right.

Now, for the producers watching, because we didn't get to this question during the RDA segment, we're going to do the six questions today. So very quickly, I guess we'll start with point number five. This is from Nateate the great lux so to the point that we had raised previously chuck if he ends his career today let's say he has a press conference and calls it a day does rda go into the hall of fame and i want to point this out before you answer it i've had a not a debate because i i kind of dismissed it offhand

at first and then when bc went through it it made a lot of sense BC argues that um RDA's case for getting into the hall of fame is greater than Michael Bisping's and I I don't have an issue with Bisping getting in such as it is but if he's going to be in BC's point is RDA is a shoo-in what do you think that's a great way to look at it because I feel like what Bisping's they have a very similar thing other than Bisping winning it in the twilight of his career and obviously having a crazy story with his eye I don't even know how all that factors in um to the to the general hall of fame thing but I you know we've we've had this discussion before too but that is the closest closest example if you're asking for a guy like Dos Anjos to get in because he's fought the who's who he's did it for a long time he actually spent time as a champion and him winning that champion let's put it this way man the ass whooping he put on anthony pettis at ufc 185 was one of the most

memorable things from years because it was just something i'd never seen you just never seen anthony pettis work that way he had the one defense against Cerrone um and then you know and then and I think that was the Eddie Alvarez fight so like you get like you could look at his run is pretty pretty short but you just look at the guys he's faced and if you're building on merit like the merit of just facing every guy scoring victory some good victories um you lose a few but you're standing in there against all of them i suppose you could make the case but now are we talking like you're talking about the actual ufc hall of fame right is that what we're talking about because i'm like correct now i say this

is kind of like a like if it was a independent hall of fame like like where you know those types of things would matter from the ufc's perspective I'm not sure how they'd see it but I think that that Bisping reference you made if you're going to put Bisping in there honestly man if you're gonna do that there's really no reason a guy like uh RDA he would not be a slam dunk I think that there are so many other guys um and there's really no like timetable like you don't have to have a time lapse of four years or whatever it is in this sport. But there are so many other guys who are kind of recently leaving the game and all that stuff that might get in before him.

But I would think that he would have a pretty strong case. I mean, dude, after he lost to Tebow, which was all the way back in 2011, he beat Kamal Chalarus, Anthony Njikawane, Mark Bocek, Evan Dunham, Donald Cerrone, then lost to Habib, which whatever, he lost to Habib. Then goes to and beats Habib, which whatever, he lost to Habib. Then goes to and beats Jason High, Benson Henderson,

Nate Diaz, Anthony Pettis, and Donald Cerrone. So really the only blemish there would be the Habib fight. Dude, I can't overstate this. You put it out there. Dude, the beating he put on Pettis was extraordinary in every phase of the game, and it was a brutal one on top of it. And I don't know if a lot of folks...

I remember, this was, correct me if I'm wrong, this was right after they gave pettis the wheaties box right it was something like yes 100 it was and then dos angeles went in there and roughed him up like i have a tremendous respect for that guy they put they put pettis on the wheaties box in december i was at that event i remember them unveiling it in vegas i think this fight happened in March. So it was like, you know, it was literally the next event. But yes, I think that Pettis was at it. Like, again, he faced a lot of guys who I think were at the very top of their game when he faced them. And that Pettis one, I just remember the, dude, I should go back and watch it sometime. But the way he just kind of like that pressure, it it was relentless you know what i

mean it was just straight relentlessness it was it was one of those times where you're like dude pettis is trapped in there with him he's trapped in there with him yeah uh and by the way i'll i bring this up too so he lost the alvarez fight you know eddie eddie had his moment in the sun and i don't take that away from him at all and then then, of course, RDA followed that with a Ferguson loss. But I bring this up, too. That was like peak Ferguson. That was in Mexico City, five rounds above 7,000 feet elevation. And Ferguson at that point was nearly impossible to beat at that weight.

So the guy never shied away from a tough challenge. All right. So you think he should be in? To the UFC Hall of Fame? Yeah. So, you know, the guy never shied away from a tough challenge. All right. So you think he should be in? To the UFC Hall of Fame? Yeah. Yeah, I do. Okay. Yeah, I do.

All right. To Punch Drunk Pete, on last week's show, Luke praised Donald Cerrone as one of the very best fighters to have never captured UFC gold. In your opinion, I'll pitch this to you, Chuck, they asked for top five. You don't have to give me five, but you can do like three. Give me three people in UFC history that never became a champion that was the very

best you could think of. I had Cerrone as one of those. What else would you say? I always mentioned Dan Henderson. His thing was a little weird because he came over later in his career, but he had the opportunities. I just thought that he would be a shoe-in to to win gold at some point he just never he just never

got it done i suppose you could throw like joseph benavidez in there because i mean i felt like they created the flyweight division for him to rule and it just never happened it became demetrius johnson show and he was just like this man without a country because he'd already lost in bantamweight but he seemed like a shoe-in at some point. I thought he was the best, but there was always one guy who was just better in the division. So I would probably put his name in there too. I'll throw in, because they put Undisputed. So I'll throw in Poirier in that list as well.

Ooh, that's a good one, man. Now, he is not out of the running for a title. He's obviously not so far away from it. But in terms of where we're speaking right now, that would be a name you would want to put in there as well. Now, do we consider Tony Ferguson having 1-1? I mean, it was such a bizarre... No, because it was interim.

So you could put Tony. I'd probably put him in. I mean, that run was ridiculous in that division. So I'd probably throw him in there too. My daughter is turning back into a pumpkin, which means it's nap time. All right. You might hear her. I'm just pointing it out.

From David underscore Areola1. If Yair wins versus Ortega, which is this coming weekend on ABC, do you think Volk will stick around at featherweight to take on a new challenger, or will he still go to lightweight what do you think oh oh man that's a great one um i think i'm gonna answer that one yes okay quickly chuck i'll say yes and the reason why is because we still we don't really have a champion at 155 pounds they kind of have to sort that a little bit yes if yair wins it's new you can sell it it's exciting and it gives him just enough time to set that in motion and then go to 155 depending on the result there

that's true and even I mean Josh Emmett's still there right like you still got I don't know I feel like going to 155 is premature honestly because there are guys who uh that could face him um I I think that you're right though i think the bigger issue is they need to sort out now you know that that lightweight division it's crazy that one half what is it half a pound whatever has like thrown such a uh a monkey wrench into so many guys careers that want to do these like all these things but but it's just like i think that they got to sort that out too like I don't know what the rush would be, to be honest. All right.

From Cole underscore Brown 858. If you could go back and watch any MMA slash boxing event live, I guess they mean in person. Okay. Which one would it be? This guy goes 205 or UFC 287. Has UFC 287 happened yet? No, it hasn't. He's projecting.

Oh, 187. 187. I will tell you this. If I could go back and watch anything live, it hasn't. He's projecting. 187. I will tell you this. If I could go back and watch anything live, it sure as fuck wouldn't be MMA. I would go back to the Rumble in the Jungle or something like that. Oh, God. Some Ali fight. Well, those fights particularly, they've transcended into lore. Everybody compares anything that comes up to Frazier versus Ali and all these things. So, yes, to see one of those types of fights or the Foreman one, like you mentioned, just given like for me, man, like the types of writers who were there, like, you know, Norman Mailer and George Plimpton and all the people who went over to Africa to see that to be among that, you know, that atmosphere and just the whole thing.

That would be pretty crazy. I'd probably go back to the Dempsey Carpenter, first million dollar gate like to like 1920s you know like see what that was like because first of all you're seeing what life was like in the 1920s but you'd be then watching boxing in its most formative moment you know what i mean like where you're seeing like one of the biggest events that had ever happened at that moment so it would but it would definitely be an old boxing event it would not be an mma there's just too much history to boxing yeah also it's like I've lived through most of MMA's history I that's true a lot of people missed it I did you know I suppose and it's funny like the one that I regret not going in terms of MMA is UFC one because I actually

lived in Denver in 1993 I remember seeing the signs but you just didn't pay any attention to it. You know what I mean? I was like, I just ignored it. But if I could go back, I'd obviously hit that one because that would have been cool to have seen. All right, from, I don't know how to pronounce this.

It's either Slimmy Limmy or Slimy Limey. I have a feeling I know which one it is. But if you could ask three questions to Dana that he would have to answer truthfully, like he was Jim Carrey and liar, liar, what would those be? Give me one from you,

Chuck. Oh man. So you've given him a truth serum and he has to tell the truth. Holy shit. Can you imagine? Oh, there's, well,

I think that I would ask him just because we've dealt with him. I don't know when you started, I've dealt with him for 14, 15 years in some, some capacity capacity i would ask him point blank what he believes the role of media is in the sport i would just like to know what his answer is to this like i would like to know what he really believes and if he couldn't lie about it i would just like to know what he really believes media should be in the sport

it's interesting and the role of media has changed since we got in yeah you know there's a lot more people doing it the way i was doing it before which was kind of on the periphery it used to be like you had to go to the events you had to be part of the action exactly there was considered the most prestigious thing and now certainly there is prestige associated with that but there's all different ways in fact to skin this cat um and i think a lot of it is the policies that they've put in play they've kind of forced media to be a little bit like yeah i'm not going to go to the event versus before it was like if you got your credentials taken that was the end now it's like yeah true not that it's

great to have your credentials taken anything like that but by the way a ufc doesn't really do that hardly i haven't seen hardly at all anymore but i know that they still have many blocks on the books but um but uh now i don't think i don't think dana cares anymore enough for that sort of thing so i also think i also have a i don't know this for a fact i have a feeling disney is like you can do what you want with a lot of things there's some things you can't do yeah um so i think there's some of that that's one question i would ask i'd ask another one oh man there's a there's some i can't they're not even suitable for air. Um, those are the best kind of loop.

Yeah, I know. It's like, that's the one that gets you fired. Um, what's one that I would ask? Um, I would,

it'd be around fighter pay, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, probably something along the lines of, um, do you, uh, you know, here's the question.

Does he genuinely believe that what they pay is a suitable rate? Because the way he kind of talked about it, like the boxers, it was like, oh, they're all overpaid. It'd be one thing to be like, oh, they're underpaid and I disagree. It'd be another one to be like, he just genuinely believes that 20 percent or actually less than that 17 to 18 percent that that's a fair market rate um i don't know how you get him to tell a truthful question that way yeah um but probably along those lines i would if he can't lie i mean you could straight up just ask him hey what's the biggest the biggest fleece job you ever did which card was it that like you fleeced everybody the most well you know i mean any of the numbers would be fascinating if he can't lie i mean it

would just be like and here's the thing you know there's plenty of questions to ask about dana but every promoter lies like you just can't be a promoter in boxing or you got to be a good to be a good promoter you know you got to you got. So I would ask him, what's the lie that you got away with the most? Like, what's the one that the public just bought that you knew was like, wow, they accept Jesus. Okay, great. Well, you know there's something like that

that they go behind closed doors and they laugh about. You know what I mean? Like, you know there's some... That would be fascinating to have that answer. All right. Last but not least, from 4pawsrun, which

I'm guessing is some kind of dog org. Most important question of all. They ask you for Luke and BC, but it'll be for Chuck. Chuck, what's your favorite breed of dog? Ooh, God. Stop sitting on your aeroplane points

and get big savings so you can be somewhere you actually want to be, like on a beach. Right now, you can save up to 25% in Aeroplan points when you book a trip to one of 180-plus Air Canada destinations worldwide. So stop sitting on your next trip and start saving on one. Don't miss out. Your chance to save in points ends February 23rd. Book at aircanada.com. Conditions apply. Well, I have never, I've always had like mutts and I have a pit bull like mix right now. Like, uh, so I, I, I mean, I like, I like, uh, rescues, you know, I like to

go get it. But if you're asking me what, like, I've always liked Boston Terriers. Like when I see them, I can't, I always have to go, you know, pet them and talk to them. I was trying to think. My father had boxer dogs, which were really cool. So they'd probably be up there, have an affinity towards them. How about you? I'll say this. Growing up, I liked hounds a lot, bloodhounds.

Southern men. Yeah, Weimaranersimer reiners pointers that kind of a thing yeah but then i i you know obviously i have a soft spot for uh mastiffs i think they're fucking awesome but the reality is this dude there's no such thing as a dog breed i mean there are in the sense that we have we have made it that way but they are not naturally occurring. All those breeds, they're just inbred. And I know sometimes folks reject that or that's news to them. No, no, no. I'm not making it up.

They're all inbred. That's why all these breeds have, for example, bulldogs can't even have live natural birth. They all have to be C-sectioned because the head is too large. They all get cancers and hip dysplasias and everything you want to get a mutt you want to get a mutt you should go to your local pound and your shelter and go get one they're the best dogs they need a little bit of help you know sometimes they come a little up you know but uh nothing that you can't fix with some with some diligent training and you're not going to get an inbred dog i have two months out's 16. Going strong, dude. And most bulldogs don't see past eight or nine, for crying out loud.

That's true. That is true. The rescue's the way to go, man. All right. Before we call it a day here, this is something we haven't done in a while, because BC and I have gotten a little lazy about it. But we don't have Have You Seen This Shit, which is a BC special. Folks are like, why don't you do that?

I'm like, because I don't have time to go over hoagie farts. Yeah, I feel like he spends this whole Sunday finding those clips, man. You know what I mean? That's a BC specialty. And people fill up his inbox and his DMs with dong pics and shit like that. I mean, that's a BC thing. And you guys wonder the way he is. Come on.

What we will do is we'll do a little bit of odds and ends to wrap the show here. So, Chuck, I'll let you go first. What's a story or some kind of note you want to have that we haven't talked about yet on today's show? Well, today is July 11th. And in 2009, that was UFC 100. Can you believe that it's been 13 years? I cannot. Since UFC 100, we're talking about the passage of time on these things.

And that kind of blows me away, man. To me, that was still such a big event in my mind. As it was coming up, I know everybody treated it that way. They were doing, I think the Fox deal had just started or something. Because they were doing like, maybe not, maybe not. But there were some problems. No, Fox deal was like 2010 or 2011. But I just remember the promos heading into it.

And it was like, wow, 100 pay-per-views. They had Brock Lesnar on that card. And his rematch with Frank Mir. They had GSP was fighting Tiago Alves. They had the Dan Henderson, Michael Bisping. 100 pay-per-views they had brock lesnar on that card um in his rematch with frank mirror they had a gsp was fighting tiago alves they had the dan henderson michael bisping it was like this very stacked card only three of those fighters from that are still active to my to my mind and i could be wrong about this but i was looking this back up i think sexy yama had a fight fairly recently yeah so he is still he's still going on in some capacity probably fight at ufc 300 you know and do all of the all the benchmarks and then you have

john jones who we were mentioning earlier but that's pretty crazy isn't it like there's still three of them left um but i was only i was thinking of it just because of the way that mma was in that day. The one thing I remember the most, tell me if you remember this, Dana said if it sold over a million pay-per-views that he would jump off the top or he'd do a base jump off the top of Mandalay Bay, and he was serious about it, but he never actually did that. Thirteen years later, he still has not jumped off.

Yeah, well, he didn't even jump off the rock into the water that one time. I don't know if you saw BC. But, dude, I will tell you, UFC 100 was like, dude, i don't know if you saw bc but dude i i will tell you ufc 100 was like dude i don't know how you felt and i was still more in the fan mode of my existence at that time but same that was a fun time that was a fun time it was man remember brock he's all frothing out of the mouth and he's like when you get on my wife i always say this like dude brock jolted the electricity into that sport and nothing was doing poorly i don't mean that but like he ratcheted it up a level or two and that was you know a frightening performance that he had there against frank meir and then

the horseshoe up his ass and then he had to apologize for saying i'm gonna get a coors light and all that's right yes oh god these were talking points for like weeks after that i remember uh well i have less uh pleasant news unfortunately for me i want to talk very quickly if we can about bigfoot or aka and well actually his name is antonio so we call him bigfoot he's 42 years of age, and shit is going badly for him. He did have a win over Sola Pilele at UFC 190 in August of 2015, but prior to that had basically four losses in a row. Well, three, and then a no contest. Then he lost to Mark Hunt TKO, Stefan Struve KO, Roy Nelson KO, Ivan Shcherkov decision, but it was a loss.

Then he lost to Vitaly Minnikov. Then he lost to some dude named Quentin Domingos. Then he lost to some dude recently called Oleg Popov, and he also has two bare-knuckle losses. One also happened. This was a bare-knuckle loss that, or I guess they called it bare-knuckle, but it's boxing or whatever the fuck it is. Here on July 8th, he lost to uh datsik who's actually

has a win over orlovsky from long ago as one as well as one to gabriel gonzaga and he's got a kickboxing uh loss that happened a ko loss that was a 2017 he's got another one coming up in boxing i think in two weeks three weeks um jesus dude someone out there needs to give him a job because it's not just about not him fighting anymore he like this is not the point to stop fighting the point to stop fighting was years ago oh yeah and his i'm telling you he's probably got and i don't say this lightly or gleefully or with joy or with any medical certainty, but with probably a fair amount of suspicion, he's probably got severe CTE, and he is going to have a rough go of it from here on out.

And anybody who cares about him, who's in a position to do something, desperately needs to. Oh, man, it's brutal. It is brutal to kind of see a guy like that going, especially because he fights in a heavyweight division, and some of those knockouts are so vicious, man. and he's strung together so many of them i can remember the second time cain velasquez beat him already having these thoughts about like dude if he you know how how much of that do you want to take because he just was so obliterated and that

was years and years ago man he's been knocked out so many times since then um there needs to be an intervention man and people are asking like how's he getting these licenses well he couldn't get a license in north america anywhere he's going to places where he doesn't necessarily need one that's how he's getting around and that won't last forever either like this train will come to a stop eventually at some point too question is how much more damage will be accrued before something actually happens. And I don't say this like, oh, it's so easy to solve this problem. I don't.

But as a rule of combat sports, you have to be against this. This is abuse. Whether it's self-inflicted or not is not really the issue per se, although it certainly changes it to some degree if it is self-imposed. But it's abuse. He's taking abuse. And you cannot allow this to continue so um i don't know what's going to happen but i have a very very very bad feeling about the way this is all going to turn out and i worry greatly and i really really really hope somebody

can do something to help him because he's going to need it pretty badly and i mean he's 40 42 years old what's the yeah it's easy for me to say but come on man it's like what are you trying to do at this point and also like dude i remember bigfoot when he was a force to be reckoned with too i was there the night he beat fedor i remember him yes and then passing to mount and then just bombing on him i remember i got dude he lost to verdum um a little bit before that but he rocked verdum super badly in that fight like Like, dude, it was, and do you remember the win over Overeem, when Overeem was, like, coming in hot, and I think I talked a bunch of shit about him,

and then Hurt, you had to get in the way, and there's that picture of him menacing Overeem, you know? Yes. Yes, I remember. I mean, the glorious moments of his career, I, you know, I was there for most of them. I mean, like you're saying, you say, back in that day when you're just kind of getting rolling, you're at all the events and all that stuff. It was he had his moment, but it's just, dude, I mean, like you said, he should have been out of the game five, six years ago.

I don't know. It's just it is abuse at this point, man. It's hard to watch. And there is a familial thing. So the guys that you grew up with and you watch and you've been around them, you know, man, you care for these people. I've talked to him before. Like, you know, the people that he's been around, you know, like over the years, you just don't want to see this, man. You don't want to see him. I don't know.

I think you're right. Like, I don't want to see where he's going to end up, you know what I mean, at this point. Without significant help. Yeah. Without significant help. Yeah. Without significant help. Well, that's it for today's show, Chuck. You did a great job, my friend.

Anything you want to plug on today's program before we get out of here? Not really. No, I'm just kidding. You can catch us on the Ringer MMA show, which is on Spotify Live. We do that usually Thursdays and Saturday after big events. I know we go head-to-head with you, Luke, so I'm sorry about that. So, yeah, we do that and that's about it, man.

That's what I'm up to. Well, you're doing a great job. We appreciate it. I want to remind everyone, if you want Showtime, showtime.com. Get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. You can go to morningcombat.store. We don't sell any hats that are like chucks but we should and then just steal your gimmick oh yes uh they're asking me to vote hold

on i can't see on this thing because there we go uh yes want everyone to vote we are up for the people's choice awards i think best male hosted podcast and then i think best overall podcast as well. More awards. What's that? I'm asking the production team. Do we have a graphic for it? I don't think we do. Oh yeah, and best sports. No, we don't have a graphic yet. We'll put up one. Best male hosted and best sports podcast.

So be on the lookout for that. I'll tweet a link at LThomasNews afterwards where you guys can go and vote. Yeah, dude, we don't you know, we win awards. It's go and vote. Yeah, dude, we, we don't, you know, we're, we win awards. It's kind of funny. There's a lot of things we don't do very well, but we do that.

That's awesome, man. Like when you got, when you got the MMA, uh, whatever it is, the world, world MMA award, I said,

I at least deserve like, uh, you know, the foot, the foot of that, because that was a small part of it. You know what I mean? That's fair.

We can, we can, thanks man. Uh can talk about it. Thanks, man. But all right, so that's it for us. I want to thank Molka. I want to thank Showtime. I want to thank CBS Sports.

BC will be back on Wednesday, so he's not going to be gone too long. He sends his regards. He had to do something with his kids today, so that's what it's all about. But he'll be back on Wednesday. And Chuck, we will see you when we see you, but we'll have you back in studio, I'm sure, in no time. I appreciate you stopping by today. A lot of fun, brother. Thank you, man. There he is.

So for Chuck Mendenhall, Brian Campbell, and the rest of the crew, I'm Luke Thomas. We'll see you all next time. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal.