My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 47 - UFC 247 RECAP/MAILBAG!

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

Robbie recaps UFC 247 (and the controversial decision that ended the card, which granted Jon Jones a successful title defense over challenger Dominick Reyes), the AMAZING night for the #BongHive at the Oscars, and questions from the mailbag are answered.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. I'll begin the show by talking about UFC 247 because that was obviously a massive talking point this weekend. Jon Jones successfully defended his championship against Dominic Reyes, but a lot of people didn't feel that he did. And by the way, I am a little sick. You might be able to hear it in my voice. I'm a little stuffy. I'm a little kind of cold, whatever it is. I've got it. It's probably because fucking the judges gave this decision to Jon Jones.

But we can start there. We can start with UFC 247. Jon Jones, like I said, defended his title against Dominic Reyes via unanimous decision. The decisions among fans, media members, everyone else in the world were not unanimous. They were very much split, split right down the middle. Half the world thought Jon Jones won this fight. Half the world thought Dominic Reyes won this fight. Personally, I had the fight scored for Reyes.

I had him winning one, two, and three. I thought he definitely did enough in the first two. Round three was definitely close, but I still think after re-watching the fight that Reyes probably edged that one out. And then Jones finished the fight strong when Reyes, his gas tank started to, you know, fade out in the fourth and fifth. I think one and two are unquestionably Reyes. I don't think you can make an argument for Jones in either. I did see some people saying you can make an argument for Jones in round two. Some people that I respect, like John Anik, said he could see how someone could make that argument. So I guess I understand that.

The 4-1 scorecard, you're never going to convince me, is passable, is arguable. That's egregious. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, one of the judges in this fight had a 4-1 scorecard for Jones giving Dominic Reyes only the first round. Makes no sense whatsoever. And that's a Texas commission issue. That's pretty much a fighting outside of Vegas issue. But like I said, Jones won the fight. He got the decision, winning three out of the necessary five rounds to defend the title. People were livid about this. A lot of people thought, I mean, in the arena, they were cheering for Jones to win the whole fight. And then when the decision was read, they were booing. A lot of media members want an immediate rematch for

Dominic Reyes. Joe Rogan wants an immediate rematch. Ariel Helwani wants an immediate rematch for Dominic Reyes. Joe Rogan wants an immediate rematch. Ariel Hawane wants an immediate rematch. For me, I wasn't as upset by Jones winning, and I know I should be as the number one Jones hater around. But when the scorecard was read, I feel like it's arguable. I don't think it was a robbery by any means. I don't think Dominic Reyes got robbed. Maybe by the judge that gave him only the first round, that could be a robbery. But in the end, that didn't really play much of an effect, right? Because the judges had Jones winning anyway, whatever. I think round three was close enough that it's justifiable to give that one to Jones. If you do give round three to Jones, you pretty much give him the fight in my mind. I think one and two and four and five were both very decisive rounds. I think three right in the middle there. It was a little back and forth. There wasn't as much activity even as one, two, four, and five. Maybe not statistically.

That's what it felt like in real time. I don't think it was a robbery. And I also feel like if this is how Jon Jones' legendary nine-year title reign ended, and I know it's ended and began and ended and began because the guy fucking cannot stop failing drug tests. He's the biggest cheat the sport's ever seen, the biggest black guy that will ever be cast over mixed martial arts. I know I pissed a lot of people off by saying that, but it makes me happy that you guys are upset about that. So I'm going to continue to say things just as horrible about Jon Jones because he does deserve that. But getting back to it, if that's how his legendary title reign ended, if that's how his legendary undefeated streak other than that Matt Hamill loss ended, I think I would be upset by that. I'd be like, oh, damn, what a kind of meh blip of a way to end it pains me to say but even connor's reign ending with nate diaz and it wasn't his title reign ending it was more his undefeated in the ufc reign ending um when he got choked out that was such a moment when anderson silva got knocked out that was such a moment when ronda rousey got knocked out that was such a

moment when matt serra knocked out george, that was such a moment. When Matt Serra knocked out George St. Pierre, such a moment. These are decisive finishes that we still talk about to this day that went down in MMA history immediately. Sure, if, you know, Dominic Reyes did get the decision, did get the nod, and became the UFC middleweight champion on Saturday night, it would probably become MMA history. We'd probably be talking about it for years to come. But is it as big a moment as the ones I just mentioned? No way. It definitely isn't. When Jones eventually gets dethroned, I want to see him get knocked out or him get submitted or him tap out. I want it to be a moment that we could play over and over and over again,

put it down in the history books, all of that kind of stuff. So I'm not super bummed. Like I said, I had the fight scored for Reyes. I had Dominic Reyes winning one, two, and three. Had Jon Jones winning four and five. I don't think it was a robbery. I think round three was close enough that you can justify it, but I don't think it was a robbery. And that was the main point I saw coming out of UFC 247, obviously in the co-main event. Valentina Shevchenko was who we thought she was. She's very good. She's very dominant.

She beat our friend, Kaitlyn Chukagian, who was on the show just last week, talking about this fight. I felt horrible. Always watching one of your friends fight and watching it go poorly for him in the cage. It's like there's nothing I could do, obviously, even if I was there, even if I jumped in the cage and tried to two-on-one Valentina. I think she's putting our lights both out, but it's tough to watch. It's tough to watch. Valentina was who we thought she was.

So it's like Caitlyn put on a fine performance Valentina just I think she's got that thing where right now she's levels above the rest of the game I think Caitlyn will get back to title contention there's no doubt in my mind she'll get back there but obviously not the way she wanted her night to go in Houston Texas Derek Lewis kicked off the pay-per-view, threw about 100 flying knees at Alir Latifi. None of them really worked. I mean, he won the fight. He said, fight week, I'm going to win this fight via controversial decision. He sort of did. The decision wasn't super controversial, but I saw people calling for Alir Latifi to have this one.

I think even Dominic Cruz said the judges weren't watching the fight. The issue with that is the judges were watching this fight. They scored this one under the correct criteria. Dominic Cruz was calling for Latifi's takedowns to mean something. Latifi didn't do anything with those takedowns, which under the new scoring system, the new scoring criteria, doesn't mean anything. It's just a change in position. If you don't advance that position, if you don't do damage after you've scored the takedown, the takedown doesn't matter. And I think that's how it should be as well. That way you don't have fighters point fighting and just trying to get a quick takedown like Jones was doing in the fourth and fifth rounds, the fifth particularly.

Another thing that shocked me about Dominic Reyes, not to go back to this one, but his takedown defense, his wrestling ability. We heard all about the athleticism. We heard all about, you know, the struggles he'll put up for Jones. I didn't believe any of them. I was like an idiot. I was like, whatever. This will be like the Anthony Smith fight. Jones isn't really going to exert himself.

They're going to do the five-round decision. It's going to be a boring thing. He's going to win the title. He'll move on to heavyweight or something next. No. Dominic Reyes could not be taken down until he was gassed in the fifth round. His takedown defense shocked me. It was amazing. But Derek Lewis did win his fight. Afterwards, he said he had been smoking weed all week in Houston, loving it, living it up. He was going

to his after party. He said he'll let everyone buy him five shots, but he wasn't buying anyone anything. He's a legend. Every time he fights, we wait for those post-fight interviews, and he never disappoints. So those were the highlights of UFC 247, at least. The Oscars were also last night. Parasite cleaned up. The Bong Hive went wild. Another guy that, in his speeches, very much treated them almost like post-fight interviews and said he was getting drunk, drinking a zillion beers. Shout out Dana B. They were a good show. I didn't love all the musical performances. I don't know what it is about them. I feel like in years past, we at least have one or two standouts.

Last night, we didn't really have any. I thought Billie Eilish did a really good job with her Yesterday cover for the In Memoriam, but that was barely even a performance. It was more the In Memoriam presentation. You know, the camera was barely on her throughout the night. It was a good show. I was very happy for Parasite. I thought 1917 would win Best Picture.

I saw all of the Best Picture nominees this year except for Ford versus Ferrari and Little Women. I thought 1917 would win based on the odds, based on the Academy loving old Tommy War pictures and the one shot thing that Roger Deakins thing, all of that. I am very happy Parasite won. I thought Parasite was the deserving winner. I think in five years, 10 years, we'll look back at 2019. And when you think of the movies that came out that year, Parasite will definitely come to mind before 1917. And that's kind of the way I quantify the best picture Award. Who are you giving Best Picture to? The movie that we talk about years from now. The movie that we're still talking about so, so far down the line. So I'm glad that Parasite will now join the echelon of

movies that won Best Picture. And if you haven't seen Parasite, I talked about it on this podcast in maybe August or September. It is a must-see movie. I recommend it to every single person listening to this podcast. It's a Korean film. The entire movie's subtitles. You've got to read subtitles. It's in a different language. But I promise you it's worth it.

You'll get past it if you're not a subtitle person. Watch the movie for five minutes. I bet five minutes in, you'll forget you're even reading subtitles. You'll just be in the movie. So now let's go through some of the mailbag questions I got this week. As always, I don't pre-read these questions. I don't pre-screen them. So let's do it. Alex Bove wants to know, what's next for Jon Jones? Interesting question, and I don't have the answer to it, but if it were up to me,

I would have Jon Jones move up to heavyweight. I would have him challenge the winner of Francis Ngannou versus Jared Izzo, whatever, I don't know his first name, Rosenstreich, Rosenstreich versus Ngannou. I think that is going down either at the end of this month or in March. It's coming up very soon. If Jones takes the winner of that fight, you make the Stipe Miocic versus Daniel Cormier three fight, and then you take the winners of those two fights and mash them up. We do a little mini four-man heavyweight tournament, four-fight heavyweight tournament. That's what I would like to see. People are calling for an immediate rematch with Dominic Reyes. I don't know if Dana White would love that. I don't know if Jon Jones would love that. It's one of those things where if he beats him, great, he proved his point. If he

doesn't, he loses the title and he never had to take the fight in the first place. It's kind of a lose-lose. I could see that happening, but I don't think it will. I think John Jones moves up to heavyweight next. That's my prediction. Up next, we have Steeler Trout saying, do you base movie success on box office, awards, or impact? If you had to do a five or six star film like Knives Out, casting some of the top names in Hollywood, who would you cast together? Well, that's a long question. I don't know who I would cast together. And knowing myself, just being very self-aware, I would probably just take like the cast of Star Wars and put them in a different movie that appears to be Star Wars but isn't. Do I base a movie's success on box office awards or impact though?

If I were looking at the three of those, I would say impact. And box office – they all kind of blend in together or at least box office and impact do. I look at a movie like – geez, I don't even know. A movie, a cult classic, Mallrats is the first one that comes to mind for me. Mallrats was a box office bomb. It made like $3 million on, or it made even maybe less than that on a $3 million budget. I forget what the deal with Mallrats, the Kevin Smith movie was. But since it's developed this massive cult following, and people love Mallrats, and people my age don't even realize that Mallrats was a bomb at the box office. So the impact of that one

has definitely succeeded its box office success. And I would say at that point, at this point, that's what matters more. Because we're living in the world now where the box office only matters for a few months. It only matters for a movie success immediately and then the possibility of sequels or franchising coming forward afterwards in the immediate aftermath. But going down the line 20, 30 years after a movie's out, impact. That's all you gotta base that on. Jake Patterson says, how much in his Prime Yoda do you want from High Republic era stuff that's coming soon? The High Republic era is 400 years before the Skywalker saga. It is the rumored setting

of the next, I don't know, era of the Star Wars saga. Next era of the Star Wars franchise. I want to see in his his prime yoda stuff i do but i'm not super into yoda flipping around like a pinball with a lightsaber and i know i've said that on the podcast before and people disagree i actually just showed trent the star wars prequels for the very first time last weekend and when yoda comes out in episode two and he fights Count Dooku, Trent was going wild, just as everyone in the movie theaters did back in 2002.

But I just don't like it. Everything about Yoda to me, I like Yoda as that Grand Wizard character where he's sort of just the Grand Wizard. Wait, is that that's not the KKK thing, is it? I'm going to have to look this up. Grand... If that's the KKK thing, I take it back on Yoda. What do they call their leader? They call it something fucking so stupid. Reminds me of that Arrested Development, like we demand to be taken seriously. Oh, fuck, it is. It is.

It is the Grand Wizard, isn't it? Horrible. All right, I don't want to see any Grand Wizard shit out of Yoda. Definitely not. Oh, my God. Imagine fucking that little green guy with a little pointy white hat on. No. I just want to see that, I don't know, Grand Master Wizard stuff.

No. Even that's too close. I want to see Yoda be the fucking greatest force user of all time. I don't want to see him with his little lightsaber flipping around. I don't like that. It does nothing for me. I think it looks silly. I want to see him do crazy things like when Rey grabbed that transport out of the sky in The Rise of Skywalker. The entire theater, every time I saw it in theaters, would go, oh, it was a shocking moment. I want to see stuff like that. I want to see stuff like, remember in the Force Unleashed, the video game,

Starkiller took that Star Destroyer out of the sky. I want to see shit like that from Yoda. So if we get that in his Prime Yoda stuff, that's what I want to see. Otherwise, not really into that. I'd be down for Yoda on the Jedi Council making decisions, making cool-ass decisions. Maybe he could be the Tyrion Lannister of the High Republic era. A little short guy making great decisions, great monologues. Imagine Yoda dropping a monologue like that and I wish I poisoned the water. God, it would be great.

Cody Larkin, two part question. What are you looking forward to the most in the future of the MCU? And when do you think we to the most in the future of the MCU? And when do you think we will get another Tom Holland Spider-Man movie? Think Tom Holland Spider-Man movie 2022, 2023. I don't have any information on that. That's just a guess. And what am I looking forward to the most in the future of the MCU? As of right now, it's the Disney Plus shows.

I know that might sound crazy. Or, fuck. It's actually, I have two answers. It's the Disney Plus shows. I know that might sound crazy or fuck. It's actually, I have two answers. It's the Disney Plus shows because The Mandalorian was so good. And I have so much faith in Kevin Feige putting together these amazing hour long MCU movies, basically, that are going to come out weekly for a while in Falcon and Winter Soldier, Loki and WandaVision, the three that we got little teasers for. At the same time, I just started reading Jason Aaron's run on Thor, which is rumored to be what Thor Love and Thunder takes some of its inspiration from, because the villain in it, Gore, Gore the Butcher, Gore the God Butcher, is the rumored casting for Christian Bale. If this is the case.

Even if it's not. Because it's fucking Taika Waititi. Which by the way congrats on his Oscar. Taika Waititi first ever last night. First ever indigenous person to win an Oscar as well. If it's based on this. That's what I'm most excited for. If it's not.

It still sort of is. But it's further away than the Disney Plus shows. So it's easier to get excited for those ones. But holy shit, this Jason Aaron run on Thor, it's good stuff, guys. It's really good stuff, and it makes me very excited for the next one. All right, put it in reverse, Terry. I don't know what this guy's handle is. It's Aparadisus. It said, will we ever see Robert Fox bless someone's chin inside the rough and rowdy ring? I've answered this before. I don't think so. I don't think I would ever fight in rough and

rowdy. I got it made right now where I get to go to every rough and rowdy. I get to be part of the broadcast with Dave and big cat at the end of the night. I do not have a headache from getting hit in the face. I also have that fucking crazy anxiety where I don't know if I'd be able to make the walk. And that's just me being transparent here. I don't know if I'd be able to make the walk. And that's just me being transparent here. I don't know if I'd be able to do something like that, where I'm signing up to get into a fight with millions of people watching. And the difference between me fighting and someone else in the office fighting, I do think there is a massive difference in that. If someone from the office fights and gets knocked out, trying to think like, nobody's ever really got knocked out

here. But if someone loses a fight, they come back and, oh, it is what it is. You lost a fight. You're not a boxer. Whatever. If I fought and I lost, I think I would very much get a large contingency of MMA fans and combat sports fans and boxing fans being like, you've officially lost all credibility because you can't fight. Meanwhile, they can't fight themselves.

And I don't even want to put up with that. MMA Twitter, you might have seen. I've been lighting people on fire on Twitter recently. MMA Twitter is the dirt worst. The worst Twitter there is. And I know it's my own people. So it's, you know, I'm doing a little savagery here. But I just got to hold them accountable.

The worst sports fan base I think that exists would be MMA. Hockey's tough, I know. Golf is tough. I think golf and MMA are the two most similar, too, because I think the purists are just the fucking worst. Every golf fan, every MMA fan, you're a casual, bro. You're a casual. Not even just towards me, towards people in my replies that are just trying to learn the sport. People that are trying to get into the sport are being turned away by hardcore MMA fans. And that's the complete opposite

of what I'm trying to do here at Barstool. And it's the complete opposite of what I've been trying to do for three years here at Barstool. My main thing is I want to take the UFC, bring it to the casual fan and make that casual fan a hardcore fan. I want to make that casual fan realize that the UFC can be one of the big four sports and make it the big five, whatever. It can be as big as the big four sports. If you start watching it, if you put the same research into it that you put into whatever sport you're watching, fantasy football, that you're playing fantasy football, take that time, just read the r slash MMA Reddit page twice a day, and you'll have the same amount of knowledge as most of the top fans have.

So, yeah, that's just a little tangent on how much I hate MMA Twitter. But what else do we got? Ryan Januski. I think I've mispronounced that guy's last name in the past as well. Bob, what are the odds we see Shevchenko versus Nunez three this year? I feel like Valentina has improved drastically. I would agree with that. The size difference is still there. And I think a lot of people want to see her continue to clean up at flyweight, but there's not many flyweights

left to clean up. I think Lauren Murphy has the, I saw someone post, she is the longest winning streak in the flyweight division right now, other than Valentina and her win streak is two so there's no real deserving contenders anymore maybe we see Shevchenko versus Nunez three maybe we see Wiley Zhang versus Shevchenko I would love to see that as well if she gets past Ioana moving on to the next question we got Charles Peter who writes in and says what's a better move WWE selling off its pay-per-view rights to a different streaming service or the UFC developing Fight Pass to be more like the WWE Network and selling their pay-per-views in-house? Financially, business-wise, I'm not really sure. I would imagine it's probably WWE selling off its pay-per-view rights to a different streaming service because they would get way more money from that. I would hope they wouldn't do that because it would be taking away something that they've

been giving us for what since 2014 for $10 a month, $9.99. I would hate if they did that, but it's definitely rumored. I could see it happening. WWE is struggling right now in attendance and ratings and revenue and everything. Vince just fired the two co-presidents of the company. They're struggling. I think that might happen. But if the UFC developed Fight Pass into the WWE Network,

into what the WWE Network is now, and they put their pay-per-views on that thing for $10 a month, that would fucking blow my mind. And if you're saying, which one do you prefer? It's definitely that one. That's what I want to happen. I would be over moon I'd be what is it the cow over the moon cow jumps over the moon hickory dickory clock I don't remember the rest of it I remember I know uh I know the dice clay bit but what if there's kids listening to this podcast I don't want to I don't

want to scar their ears for life but speaking of cows Joaquin Phoenix at the Oscars last night. What a fucking speech. And not in the good way. In the bad way. Dude went out there and started talking about how we feel we have the right to artificially inseminate cows to drink their milk. Listen, Joker. Take your Oscar. Get up there.

Say thank you. Thanks to the Academy. You could say a little nice thing for whatever cause you want to have us look into. Taika Waititi did a good job talking about indigenous peoples. And years ago, I remember, who was it? The guy that won, J.K. Simmons, who won for Whiplash, said, call your parents. You could have causes that you get up there and talk about. Leonardo DiCaprio went up there, talked about global warming.

Don't talk about artificially inseminating cows. That's fucking gross. Nobody wants to listen to artificial insemination. What else do we got here? Bart Harley Jarvis writes in and says, should all title fights be in Vegas? Obviously looking at the Jones fight, the Jones decision, the controversy that surrounded it. I don't know if all fights should be in Vegas because it seems like at that point, we're just giving into the bad commissions and we're saying you'll never get better. But

for right now, it's not a horrible thing to look into. The next time I sit down with Dana White, which I'm hoping is at the end of this month, it's definitely something that I want to talk to him about and ask about. What is being done right now to improve the Texas Commission? What's being done to make the Texas Commission and the judges that are hired and the referees that are hired as well, it's not only the judges, the refereeing wasn't great either. What can be done in between this pay-per-view and the next stop that the UFC has in Houston or San Antonio or wherever in Texas that can improve that? Are they watching more fights? Are they refereeing and judging more regional bouts? I don't know what the answer is, but I'm going to get the answer out of Dana White. Finally,

Kronkledor writes in and wants to know who my favorite side character is and why it's Plo Kloon, the correct answer. So I guess he's asking my favorite Star Wars side character, why is it Plo Kloon? And by side character, if you mean background character, I'm going to go with a pretty obscure pick from The Force Awakens, episode seven. And he's an X-Wing pilot by the name of Elo Atzi. I think I've talked about him on the podcast before, but J.J. Abrams named him after the Beastie Boys album, Hello Nasty. And that is why it's very similar. Hello Nastyasty. Hello, Atzi. He's an X-Wing pilot. I believe he dies in The Force Awakens, but I know there's an X-Wing pilot of the same species in The Rise of Skywalker, so I should look into it and see if maybe he survived. Maybe he made it to The Force Awakens. Maybe he got hit with that Emperor. Whatever. If I just blew your eardrums out, I'm sorry, but the Emperor blew my eardrums out in the movie theater. So it's what has

to be done sometimes. I think that's about it for the mailbag episode though. I know it's a shorter episode. I know it's a little late. I'm sorry. I'm a little sick, a little stuffed up. We will be back next week. I couldn't even talk there. We will be back next week with a few guests, possibly a little from the top rope talk. Send in your questions for that. Send in your cream of the crops for that. But that's about it for me. Thank you very much for tuning in to my mom's basement. As always, please leave us a rating, a review. And if you're not subscribed already, hit that subscribe button. It does help us out a lot. I will talk to you next Monday.