The Ariel Helwani Show - The 12th Annual Helwani Nose Awards: 2024 Edition

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

Ariel Helwani and The Boys In The Back celebrate the year that was with the long-awaited, never-duplicated 12th Annual Helwani Nose Awards. The gangs hands a monster list of 25 MMA awards for 2024, including Fighter of the Year, Knockout, Submission, Fight, Upset and much, much more.

Hello, everyone. Welcome back. And happy new year as well. I think today is actually the last day that you could say happy new year to someone. So happy 2025 to you and yours. I've missed you. We've all missed you.

It's been quite the long two-week stretch, but we come back in full force on this beautiful and snowy Monday, January the 6th, 2020-25. Yes, as you can see, we're all dressed up. We're all grown stuff. What a year it has been for us. And as we always have done for the past 12 years, our first show back after the break is our Helwani Knows Awards.

Yes, in my opinion, the most prestigious, the most comprehensive, the most robust award show in all of sports. This, our 12th annual edition, 12 years in a row. We've done it each and every time throughout all the stops from Vox, actually from AOL to Vox to ESPN, back to Vox, and now here at our new uncrowned home. We've got so much to discuss. We have so much to recap. So many pieces of hardware to hand out, 25 categories total.

Yes, everything from the usuals, fight of the year, round of the year, fighter of the year, both male and female, submission, knockout, you know those ones, but then there's the real fun ones, the ones that separate us from the rest.

Poster of the year, photo of the year, feel-good moment of the year, rivalry of the year. And one of my favorites, promo of the year. We'll go through it all, not just myself, but of course the boys as well. Sit back, relax, strap on your seatbelt because the 12th Annual Helwani Knows Awards are live. Live from the Uncrowned Studios in New York, New York, we proudly welcome you to the 12th Annual Helwani Knows Awards. The 2024 edition of the show will celebrate the greatest achievements and moments in the sport of mixed martial arts. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the 25 categories that define the year in MMA.

Now, here's your host, Ariel Helwani Nose Awards are back in your life. Yes, on this snowy, look at that outside. It's actually snowing, Frankie. This snowy Monday, January 6th, 2000. And 25, first time I say that. Ah, it is so great to put on this tux again. Still fits, Still fits. Still fits.

Not for my wedding day. First time I bought this tux and wore it was 2018 as we were heading in. We were ushering in the UFC on ESPN Air. Myself and New York Rick, that's the first time I bought it. We have it here some six years later. Feeling great. And God, I got to tell you, it is so good to be back in this chair. I've missed it.

It's only been two weeks, holiday season. We had some nice holiday-themed content for all of you. We had a nice little preview of 2025. You all loved the classic interview show. Definitely going to be doing more of that. Thank you so much for the positive feedback on that. PT was working hard with his boys looking back at the year that was in european mma and also looking ahead to 2025 and yes some

people say you know what it's january 6th it's time to uh to put 2024 in the rear view mirror and to a degree i agree but as i've said time and again you can't have a proper award show in the midst of a year. You can't do it. You have to wait until 1231. This is our first show back. And so here we are, the most comprehensive, the most thorough, the most robust, and in my opinion, the most prestigious award show, not only in combat sports, but in all of sports. I mean, look at this, 25 categories total. Male, female fighter

of the year, fight of the year, round of the year, knockout of the year, submission, breakout fighter, most improved, comeback fighter, and comeback of the year, upset of the year, betting underdog, rivalry, coach, event, crowd, walkout, promo, poster, photo, story, feel good, social media user, most profitable fighter, lock of the year. That's 25 total. I love it. We've been doing this for 12 years. This is our 12th edition.

And like I said, we haven't missed a year over the past 12 years throughout all the stops. Yeah, maybe you had a different name here and there, but it's all the same. And shout out to GC, who once again has really outdone himself. Look at the set. I mean, look at this. This is amazing. You got the nice little graphic over there. You got the balloons. You got all the tchotchkes over here. And you may have noticed, by the way, a new addition to the set. Welcome back to our good friends over at Celsius. Thank you so much to them for joining the team, for us My favorite drink, and I'll be having it One of these by my side

Sparkling watermelon Just to quench my thirst Throughout this beast of a show I can't wait to sit back And recap the year And the most fun part about this all Myself, GC, Rick Pizzi, even Frank None of us know each other's picks.

So it's all going to be live. It's all going to be reactionary. There's no kayfabe, break the fourth wall type stuff. We're all reacting in real time. So happy to be back. So happy for this show. This is one of my favorite shows of the entire year. No guests, just us recapping, handing out hardware, and tipping our cap to the best that was in the past year for mixed martial arts. Let me say hello to everyone. Guys, I missed you so much. Frank, welcome back. Happy New Year.

Yeah. Missed you too. You look fantastic as always. GC looking tremendous with the glasses. Gold bow tie too. Gold bow tie. That's a first, by the way, right? No, I wore it last year.

You wore gold last year? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for remembering, man. No, no, no, I appreciate it. There's a lot of different variations to your Tucks game. You had one a couple months ago that you were rocking. I'm sure this is a different one. Of course, New York Rick rocking the patented Tucks T-shirt.

He's got the glasses. I love the fact that everyone's, you know, really, you know, they're into it. Yeah, you're into it. You're dressed up. You're doing your thing. And, you know, I said I wasn't going to break any fourth walls. Well, this was weighing on me over the weekend.

I was like, yeah, PC's the new kid on the block. Like, did anyone tell him? Who the fuck is we was like, yeah, PC's the new kid on the block. Like, did anyone tell him? Who the fuck is we? Anyone like give him the heads up? I mean, surely he's, you know,

surely he's seen the show over the years. Um, yeah, sure. His texts, you know, throughout this process, asking me questions, clearly indicated that either he was just winding me up or has actually never watched the show,

which is fine. You know, he's all about himself. The guy, yeah, great. Um, but surely he's like seen a clip or two of us all dressed, you know, in our fancy suits.

And so I just checked in with him some 20 minutes ago if he had, you know, some kind of tux. Doesn't have to be an actual tux. Doesn't have to be a traditional black tux. Could be a navy one like mine. Could be a t-shirt tux like Rick's. And I just wanted to make sure that it was already pressed ready to go and he informed me that uh in fact he was unaware that we wore

tuxes on this shirt to show show so so so so so you look great pt welcome thanks for what are you wearing it was from my defense my defense um i contacted new york rick three hours ago just in case i was like potentially there may be some things i forgot bullshit contacted him contacted him and i said you know rick is there anything i'm forgetting here mate like do i need to have anything prepared he said no peasy this is a piece of piss mate just show up we're all gonna have a great time in that time frame i would have had enough time to secure a tux. You expect me to buy a tux? How much does a tux cost? By the way, you think

you could rent a tux in three hours? You waited three hours before the show started to hit him up. We haven't done a show in like two and a half weeks. So your question was actually false. You were like, is there anything I could do? Don't even have to leave the house. I trudged through the snow uphill to get here.

Yeah. Wearing this tuxedo the entire way. That's right. And you couldn't be bothered to even maybe put on a tie or something like that. A tie? I just love how everybody said everything that I had to say, but I don't even have to say it. It's great. You just got a jumper on.

It's tremendous. You just got a jumper on. Yeah, like actually on a random Tuesday, you're dressed up more than you are today. It's an Irish tux. No, this is my usual attire. You could have even given us the tracksuit with the chicken fillet, something, you know? You know, I've got a lot of wear over the

Christmas, I can allude to you. But listen, I have a confession to make. I'm actually more than you boys, of course. Wow! Oh my god! Incredible! Holy shit! Wow!

Of course I do. Oh my... All right, all right, Ariel, you really have to break the fourth wall now. You really have to break the fourth wall on what you texted Pete Z before the show. I literally wrote to him, tux, and he wrote, oh shit, and I'm sitting there eating with you guys.

Oh my God. What a legend. Wow. That is fucking incredible What a legend. Wow. That is fucking incredible. Holy shit. Hey, yo, I've even got a little cocktail going here. Wow. And you got the freaking.

Oh my God. What a reveal. Wow. I was actually wondering about the neck. I was like, the neck isn't going all the way up. Do we just have a short neck here? What's going on? You're padded by the tuxedo though.

I'm actually pissing sweat in here. I've been sitting in here for a half an hour wearing four layers. What's going on? You're padded by the tuxedo, though. I'm actually pissing and sweating here. I've been sitting in here for half an hour wearing four layers. It's gotten pretty wild. I feel like I'm going to my debutant ball here. I know Jordan worked very hard on all the assets and things for this, but I might have to change my comeback of the year. That might be my comeback of the year.

Did anyone know? I had no clue. He was even playing enough when you couldn't hear him. He was complaining about, they told me 20 minutes before it was bullshit. I was like, I was legit a little bit bothered. I was like, Jesus, this is what we show up in? A Nike pullover? A Nike pullover to the award show?

This is amazing. That was fantastic. By the way, rental owned? CT2 Blanchardstown Village today. Thank you very much. So you really did rent that shit today 20 minutes ago legend that what are we sipping on pizza a little what is that a negroni it's a negroni yes from lapos uh you're our good friend john beer sent these over and let me just tell you oh they're bottled up and you just pour it in over it is just musical did you put a celsius

floater on it as well yeah of course of course you know it spritz it open a bit of celsius fabulous holy shit um this is this is this is incredible actually i think we had a poll going before all of this saying uh do we believe pizzi sure he's an honest bloke 57 percent not he's yesing us and 42 said that so this was I mean I kind of Want to go home

But not in the way That they thought Yeah yeah Fantastic Well done I set up the whole thing I was telling Ariel Listen man

I deserve a lot of abuse For this Make sure you Get on me Oh wow Oh my god And then I told him Don't put anything on

We'll give you the abuse Gladly And look at you Wow That was like a fiddle That was unreal Wow I need a break After that Can we take a 10 second break Okay so We'll give you the abuse, gladly. And look at you. That was like a fiddle. That was unreal. Wow.

I need a break after that. Blow an au pair. Can we take a 10-second break? Okay, so you all look fantastic. Thank you for joining us. You know the drill by now. What's fun about this particular award show is that it's not just, oh, my picks, and then we talk about them.

I'll have, is everything okay back there? Yeah, I'm just trying to saw it on myself. There's sweat everywhere. I'm not going to saw myself. There's sweat everywhere. I thought it was you, Pete. I give my pick for a particular category a winner. And then Rick goes and then GC goes. And what's fun about this year, of course, is that our good friend Pete is involved as well.

Now, a wrinkle that we've introduced over the last couple years are the people's picks. I put this up on my sub stack over the break. Big shout out to Alex Weber and moderator Lewis Emeritus, who helped compile all those for us. So at the end of each category, at the end of each discussion, I'll tell you who the people voted for and some interesting ones as well. Also, historically, because we've been off for two weeks, our last show here in the studio was, of course, that 1221 Fury Usyk show. The boys did great. The post show was great. Shout out to Keith Eideck for joining. I really enjoyed

the coverage and the discussion. Historically, there's a litany of news that happens over the span of two weeks. We all remember what happened a couple of years ago. That was obviously a big one that we had to talk about. There's usually fight announcements and pay-per-view lineups that are revealed. I got to be honest, it was so damn quiet over the last couple of weeks. Like, oh, this morning you find out about PFL instituting elbows for every event. Yahoo, welcome to 2025. That's big.

You know, Raw debuting on Netflix tonight. We'll talk about that tomorrow, of course. But really not that much news unless I'm missing something. After Fury Usyk came and went, MMA very quiet. Ryzen had their show on 1231. Not much in the world of boxing. Not a ton going on in the world of pro wrestling leading up to today's show on Netflix.

So we don't have a lot of news and notes. I have no song. I have no recap for all of you. We're going to get right into it. And there's a ton of big events coming up over the next couple of weeks, of course. The massive UFC 311, a little less than two weeks away at this point.

But as far as a catch-up, not much going on. And if you need one, go to uncrowned.com. The coverage over there, the stuff, the content over the past two plus weeks led by our fearless leader, Shaheen, has been stellar. Everyone, everyone contributing has been amazing, but really, really great stuff to get us over this hump into the new year and ready to go. So what a year it was in the world of mixed martial arts. What a time it was. We had our, you know, we started this year in a different home. We're now here

at this incredible place known as Uncrowned HQ and a lot of events, a lot of new champions, I believe seven new UFC champions. There was a gap that was widened between the UFC and the competition and so much to get into. And I can't wait to see how everyone weighs in. Let us start with a very fun one. One of the most prestigious categories, if you ask me. And the reason why I started with this one is because, let's be honest, I think there are some that we'll all agree on.

I don't think we'll all agree on this one. Might be wrong. Again, I don't know. I don't know we'll all agree on this one. Might be wrong. Again, I don't know. I don't know who the others picked, but I have a feeling that there'll be some dissension here. And so we'll start with the big one, fight of the year. Ah, yes. Fight of the year, which for me was a tough one. Was a tough one, guys. Fight of the year was a tough one because I felt like there were different categories, different criteria, different levels, different discussion points, all that and more. Is everyone ready back there?

Everyone's good to go? Yeah, man. Okay. Everyone's born ready. Yes. All right. Canadian flag waving. Canadian flag waving.

American flag waving. Everyone's happy. Joy to the world. Joy to the world. Peace on earth. Now, let's go. Fight of the year. All right. Shall I go first? I shall go happy. Joy to the world. Joy to the world. Peace on earth. Now, let's go. Fight of the year. All right.

Shall I go first? I shall go first. I'll go first. Fight of the year. Guys, there were a lot that I had to... This one was really tough for me. I'll be honest. Because at the very top...

Can I see everyone? I feel like I'm just talking to myself here. I want to... Yeah, let i see everyone i feel like i'm just talking to myself here i want to yeah at the very top i i started to see a lot of people over the year from april i started to see a lot of people say that it was max holloway versus justin gaethje and this annoyed me i think we've talked about it on this show i I kept saying, this wasn't an amazing fight in the sense that when you think of fight of the year, you think of a back and forth war, you think of ups and downs, you think of big stakes attached. Okay. It may have had some of

that, but back and forth, it did not have, it was a fairly one-sided fight. It was a fairly one-sided beat down. It was very dominant, which ended in the great knockout of Justin Gaethje by one max hallway. And I would see in May, in June, in July, August, et cetera, people would say, oh yeah, easy, fight of the year is Max Holloway versus Justin Gaethje. I saw some big outlets say that Max Holloway versus Justin Gaethje was the fight of the year. That's what I knew for sure. I knew for sure that it was not Max Holloway versus Justin Gaethje.

I think people remember the amazing 10 seconds. They remember how fun it was, but that's not fight of the year. Fight of the year has to be close. It has to be riveting. There has to be big stakes. There has to be something attached to it. So I knew for sure that it wasn't Max Holloway

versus Justin Gaethje. And then it leads me to the next point. I feel like the great fights of the year in the past, there have to be big stakes. Sure, there's great back and forth battles. There's wars. It's a war of attrition. It's a chess match. But if there's nothing really attached to it, when I'm watching it emotionally, it's hard for me in retrospect to say that was my fight of the year. And so, and I'll get to mine in a moment. That's why ultimately it came down to two and why I ultimately did not go with the fight back at UFC 306,

Daniel Zellhuber versus Esteban Rebovitz, because I didn't feel as great as that fight was, as incredible as that fight was, as mind-numbing as that fight was, I didn't feel like it had that emotion that I was searching for. I don't remember sitting on the edge of my seat saying, holy shit, up, down, rollercoaster, feeling some sort of way, emotion, all that stuff. And so in the end, for my 2024 fight of the year,

I went with the main event of UFC 302 in Newark, New Jersey at the Prudential Center, Dustin Poirier versus Issa Makhachev. Because I don't remember over the past year feeling that emotional about a particular fight. There was so much at stake here, of course, for Dustin Poirier. He had his moments. There were ups, there were downs. And in the end, it ended in heartbreaking fashion for Poirier, but in incredible fashion with an incredible finish by Issa Makhachev, showing once again that he's the best lightweight in the world and maybe the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. I remember that day. I remember that week. I remember the buildup. I remember everything attached to it. And I felt like the fight delivered. It wasn't the one-sided beatdown that some people were predicting. It was Dustin going for broke, knowing that he had one last chance, having his moments,

and then in the end, succumbing via submission to Issam Khachev. That to me was one of my favorite fights of the year, not only because of the emotion, because of the ups and downs, and because I felt it over-delivered. And so in the end, I went with Dustin Poirier versus Issam Khachap, UFC 302. A long answer to a short question, if you will, but I felt like I had to explain how I got there. Rick, you go next. I had that fight as my number two. I agree with everything you said about it. I have little notes here for each one. That was my number two. Highest stakes, real drama, fantastic finish. It had everything you want. But for me, there is just a disagreement that we have to have.

And that is that I don't believe that it has to be a back and forth affair. I don't believe that the way you get to fight of the year has to be a close fight or has to be a fight that was traded. I had Max Holloway versus Justin Gaethjeethje and i'll tell you exactly why the expectations for this fight to save ufc 300 were here and the expectations were met if not exceeded by the magic that we got out of it i do not i have in the past and i and i don't remember what year it was i believe i picked henan burrow um tj dillashaw's went over henan burrow uh one year because it was the fight it was the moment it was the magic of that um that was the best fight of the year the best feeling the best come down uh after that magical moment and for me nothing topped you we we left uh that fight going on to some great magic after that in ufc 300

but that was the that was the apex that was the pinnacle that was the peak of that card that was the peak of the year it was the best moment in in mma this year and so for me regardless by the way you know the scorecards weren't favorable to dustin porey and that in that fight as it was heading into the final round. It wasn't as back and forth like Islam was up three rounds on two cards. It had enough drama for me that I felt like Justin Gaethje was still in that fight from start to finish. And then the finish came and put it completely over the top. It met the lofty expectations and potentially exceeded them and gave us something that I'm sure will be winning some additional hardware later in the show.

So Max Holloway versus Justin Gaethje. Just pushing back on one thing. Chris Lee did have a 2-2. That was one. Yeah, I'm just saying. It wasn't exactly. I'm not pushing back to anything. He did say two of the judges had a 3-1.

Yeah, Sal D'Amato. Okay, great. Thanks for stopping by. That's a good justification. That's a good justification. My point is it wasn't exactly up for grabs. For me it was. For round five.

Seeing Islam falter a little bit and seeing him look a little bit human was tremendous drama. Anyway, we'll get everyone's pick and then we can weigh in, feel very strongly that yours doesn't qualify. But that's why I love this because it's yours. I love this. GC, you go ahead. Yeah, I actually disagree with both of you. I don't need the stakes. I just need a fantastic fight.

And you mentioned it earlier. Esteban Rivavix versus Daniel Zellhuber is the one that got mine. We actually all watched this together. Yes. In the beautiful Las Vegas hotel room that we watched the Sphere card in. Just a back and forth war. Went all 15 minutes. And by the end of it, there was only 15 seconds of control time.

There was knockdowns. Both dudes bloodied in the end. A super razor close split decision. Just a fight that delivered in all senses of the word if you're a fight fan. It was an incredible fight. Incredible fight. There wasn't a ton of attention on that fight going into that card. And they kind of stole the show.

That's what I love. There's another fight we'll talk about a little bit later on but it's those those ones that you just are kind of just sitting there watching and then by the by the end of the first round you're like wow this fight's pretty great and then by the end of the second round you're just like this fight is incredible and then the third round that they delivered i mean both dudes threw over 300 significant strikes in the fight it was it was a tremendous war i ultimately to me it was down to those two. It was down to the Islam and DP fight in this one. And ultimately,

I went with the emotion that was brought out when I was watching the 302 main event. But this was one of the hardest ones for me because I kept going back and forth.

I had yours as my pick and then I deleted it and I went back. A very, very tough one and that's part of the reason why I wanted to start with it. Pizzi. I believe this will be

the very first protest vote on the awards show. And I'm happy to be that guy. I can assure you it's not, by the way, Pizzi. Okay. Thank you. As you know, I don't watch the show. But anyway, all great considerations. Even Eric, I would be more on Ariel's side of things when it comes to fight of the year for

Holloway Viggetti, but an excellent justification from New York Rick, I'd like to add before I move on. My fight of the year happened in Glasgow in September and none of you had the ability to watch it. It is Lewis McGillin v. Dean Garnett, a true passing of the guard

matchup between a Mancunian McGillin, a Liverpool native, and Garnett. This fight was poetry. I mean, the thing about this fight is I appreciate that everything that you guys have said about stakes, everything like that, that is important, and usually that would factor in. But the beauty of this fight is

you could sit someone down, not explain anything to them about either of these guys, and somewhere among the 17 knockouts that happen over the 12 minutes of this fight they will fall in love with MMA it's a truly brilliant fight Lewis McGrillin who came up short in the final of PFL Europe next uh last year gets through to the final with this performance eventually wins the tournament the reason why it's a protest is because I'm putting this out there I'm trying to showcase this for all of the US fans who missed it

Lewis McGrillin is a star he's a continuation of what PFL have done with the likes of Dakota, Brendan, Locknane, and none of you guys can see it. I see a lot of criticism for PFL in terms of where they go about their business, particularly with US people. If they saw this stuff, that might help them kind of endear themselves to a broader audience. They are putting building blocks in place in Europe. And I think Lewis McGrillin is one of them. And this fight for me is the most adrenaline inducing three rounds of fighting you could have gotten 2024. It's up on their YouTube page right now for all to see.

So I highly suggest anyone who hasn't seen it. I did watch it after the fact. I believe I even tweeted it after the fact. So I have seen it and you're right. It is an incredible fight. And I love the fact that the first time that we ever have

four voters for, you know, in the history of the award show that we all disagree with each other. We all had four different picks. It does say

what the strength of how good some of the MMA fights this year were because I've got some honorable mentions. Like, it is deep. There's a ton.

Yeah, well, let me hit you with some. Yeah. And then you add as well. Yuri Prokhaska versus Alexander Rakic was a great fight. Dustin Poirier versus Benoit Saint-Denis, as short as it was, was incredible theater. Dan Hooker, Mateus Gamrot.

I got to be honest with you. One that I was considering for a moment was Alex Pereira versus Khalil Rountree. I freaking loved that fight. I thought it was amazing and for the first couple rounds, it looked like, holy shit, is Khalil Rountree going to do this? Peter Yan versus Davidson Figueiredo,

Brandon Royville versus Tetsuro Taira, Mofsar Evloev versus Aljamain Sterling, Cub Swanson versus Billy Quarantillo, and Armin Tsurukian versus Charles Olvera. Just a few. You want to throw out some other ones, Ray? The only one I had that you didn't have on your list was Rebecki versus Oralby, which was insane.

It was a two-horse race for me between Rebecki Oralby and Zell Heber Rebic. A ton. And by the way, I want to give a special, special shout-out who I should have mentioned at the very top of this. For me personally, a huge asset when doing this show especially with my old age and now i'm forgetting things a little bit as we witnessed in our classic interview show uh is our good friend caposa this whole freaking this whole freaking award show uh

should be in honor of him because he is a true encyclopedia of knowledge and so thank you very much to him for all the help behind the scenes on this particular show. Uh, yeah. Am I missing any, or do you guys feel like we, uh, we addressed all of them? I still, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe I deserve, uh, you know, maybe I should sit down and watch Holloway Gaethje.

Yeah. My feeling on that fight is it was rather one sided. It was incredible. It was fun. It ended in the most amazing way possible, but it never truly felt like Gaethje had a chance to win that fight.

I was compelled to look it up and wouldn't you believe it? One judge had it 2-2 heading into the fifth and the other had it 3-1. Who was that judge? Was it Salto Amato as well? No, it was Hunichiro Kamijo.

So it was actually the exact same scorecard as... Exact same scorecards, but also remember that Gaethje was a sizable favorite going into that fight. So it was kind of impressive what Max Holloway was doing, and it sort of felt like Gaethje was just going to start opening it up at any point. Max Holloway was as big as a plus 210 going into that one. Everyone thought that he was going to get steamrolled,

so it just made what Max Holloway was doing that much more impressive. For you, for you, GC, where do you have it? Do you have Islam Poirier above Max Gaethje, or... I did, yes. I did.

Oh, all right. But like I said, to me, it was Zell Huber-Riviks and Oral Byerbecky. Those two just stood out to me. They were just such good scraps. Did anyone consider Pereira-Rountree? No, but that was...

I considered it, but it wasn't going to be one. I had it good scraps. Did anyone consider Pereira round tree? No, but that was, I considered it, but it wasn't going to be one. I had it number four. I love that fight. I love that fight. I love that finish as well. Um, all right. So one of the books, let's keep this rolling.

Um, so, so always with fight of the year and congratulations, by the way, to all the winners, uh, with fight of the year, I like to pair round of the year and, and more often than not, by the way, the round of the year winner isn't involved in With fight of the year, I like to pair round of the year. And more often than not, by the way, the round of the year winner isn't involved in the fight of the year package, if you will. And so I'm curious to see

if that's the case this time around, or perhaps it is involved, if you get what I'm saying, a round within the fights that we just mentioned. PT, why don't you go first? I had Rebovix v. zellhuber round three and i would have i would have potentially put in um mcgrillan and garnett round one but i just didn't feel like i can put them both in there um reba vix v zellhuber was one of those fights where that that

would have probably been the one i went for had i not gone for mcgrillan and garnett so i felt the third round of that fight was absolutely electrifying and you have to remember gc made the point area that we were all watching together we did not as i was somewhere over the atlantic at the stage of this fight was going on trying to use a dodgy link uh coming in and out of service as the fights were on which uh only added to the excitement here absolutely fantastic those photos are great as well. That's a tremendous pick. By the way, I failed to mention that the people agreed with Rick

for Fight of the Year. They had Holloway Gaethje as well. So a nice little shout out to both you and the people. Rick, why don't you go next? Round of the Year. Surely it's round five.

Holloway Gaethje. Nothing more to say. It was round three. Ah, that just proves my point. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. He's not letting us go. The tee up earlier where you said they're not often

from the same and then you're trying to... I'm about to own myself. I'm about to own myself. Just following Pizzi. Couldn't have been any other thing for me. I had other honorable mentions, but this was above them by leaps and bounds.

GC? Yeah, I'm actually going to go away from y'all on this one i've just been talking about it the uh rebecca oral by round three me and rick were watching that together it was on the prelims of uh 30308 i think it was i mean this one was just unbelievable rebecca comes out it looks like he's about to finish oral by like it looks like he is dead to rights and then he expends the entire gas tank. And then Oral-Bai comes back just digging deep, showing incredible heart. Looks like he might finish Rebecki. Looks like he might steal the round, steal the fight.

But then Rebecki ends up getting it. This was just an all-out war. You got the eye of Oral-Bai, the giant cut on Rebecki. Just a classic, classic fight. And round three was the highlight of it. That reenactment, that reenactment play-by-play of the round was tremendous. I mean, me and Rick were in here. Like, I sort of got out.

Like, it was at a watch party, but obviously it was the prelim, so we hadn't started yet. And we were just, like, going nuts. I was like, man, I wish we were live right now. This is just fantastic. This is as good as it gets as a fight fan. That was on my list. That was in my top three. Some other ones,

Mateusz Gamerod versus Dan Hooker, round one. McGrillin Evans versus Dean Garnett, round one. Joshua Vann against Edgar Charez, round two. What about Charles Olvera versus Michael Chandler,

round number five. But in the end, I went with Esteban Rebovitz versus Daniel Zellhuber round three for everything that PT said and and it was incredible I remember watching it with you guys and being like holy shit this is nuts that was a lot of fun watching it all together back and forth they went they stole the show and some stats from that particular round courtesy of of UFCstats.com. As far as significant strikes, Rebovitz landed 92 of 191,

Zellhuber 43 of 116, 167 head strikes thrown by Esteban, landed 73, Zellhuber 37 of 103, body shots 14 of 19 for Esteban Rebovitz. Just an amazing back and forth bloody end to that tremendous fight at the sphere. So congratulations

to them, the people in case you're wondering, they had it Holloway Gaethje round five. I can see a pattern emerging. It's funny that one

wasn't even on my list for, for round. Same. I had the ones you met. Olivera and Chandler was two for me, and then Van versus Chires was three. What's crazy is Van versus Chires was on the same sphere card

as Zellhuber and Rebovich, and it seemed like a foregone conclusion that that was going to be the fight of the night, the round of the year, and then it got topped later in the card it was it was pretty nuts man no love for uh or by rebecca i thought we really shared a moment there man but uh the the that one was a better fight than an individual round because they traded you know what like one guy was on the verge of killing the other then the next round the other

guy was on the verge and then the third round you got the both the both yeah it was good it's all good it's all it was like four i journaled about it you know i thought we shared a moment but incredible well uh some dissension in the uh the first two picks and so uh perhaps a fight that we've been talking about will uh be discussed here in our next category always a very fun one whether you're doing boxing awards or mma awards of course the prestigious knockout of the year award this one might be unanimous let's see rick you go first easy call for me i mean if you saw if you saw what my fight was you could probably guess that uh max holloway knocking out justin gaethje was the ko of the year for me um there were some strong contenders it would have been um potentially hard to move me off this. There were, there were definitely some, uh, some ones that were in the running, but the,

as I said, the magic of the, of that moment and the come down after that moment, it was going to be nearly impossible to top from there. And by the way, shout out to that, uh, Clarissa Shields. Yeah. That you have up there. Uh, yes. How was the movie? Haven't seen it yet, but I'm looking quote. Yes. How was the movie, man? How was the movie?

Haven't seen it yet, but I'm looking forward to it. How dare you? You haven't seen our movie? That's so crazy. No, but critically acclaimed. I'm seeing all the reviews coming in. Bro went and saw Nosferatu

over the Calypso Shields. I had to. That's his quote. And it is being critically acclaimed. That is crazy. Crazy, bro. It's next up.

It's next up. Promise. Shout out to the quote. Shout out to's next up promise all right shout out to the other one as well shout out to the guy thank you yes uh gc yeah i mean stop like if you have anything else uh you're just wrong you're just wrong as soon as this one happened i knew it was going to be knockout of the year there's there's nothing that could pass it up you're on ufc 300 this incredible fight between max holloway and justin gaethje two of the biggest stars in the sport and for it to end like that, the moment they like, fighters have tried to recreate this moment five dozen

times since it happened. It's now been coined the Max Holloway. When you point to the center, no one has been able to even come close to recreating it. And the fact that they are just swinging it out in the middle and then the knockout happens with one second left as the timer hits zero, it's Justin Gaethje completely face down. Whole crowd's going crazy. Max Holloway is going absolutely nuts. And I feel like everyone as a collective was going nuts as well. Just one of the greatest moments I've ever experienced in MMA.

Hard to top that one. So, yeah, knockout of the year. If this isn't unanimous, I don't know what to tell you. Might be the knockout of the year. Might be the moment of the year as well. All of that. Those last 10 seconds on the biggest stage of the year might be the moment of the year as well. Uh, all of that, those last 10 seconds on the biggest stage of the year, PT. Well, again, I'm going to take you back to Glasgow and say, no, Joe.

Oh, geez. PT, I was about to say. Holloway boys, relax, relax, relax. It's Holloway. It's Holloway. I mean, the most electrifying moment in the history of the UFC, perhaps just unbelievable, pure adrenaline.

I love it. Yeah, it was, it was incredible was incredible and and worth noting I don't know I surely don't remember the award show from 70 years ago but has anyone ever been the winner of the knockout of the year award but also was knocked out and that was a contender for Knockout of the Year as well. My pick, of course, is Max Holloway's knockout of Justin Gaethje.

Knockout of the Year, Moment of the Year. I mean, so many things you could say about this. It was incredible. Just like you said, GC, a moment that will be talked about for years and years to come, and the fact that it was imitated multiple times since then, already in the ensuing weeks and months, says it all. You know, they do that Bob O'Reilly video

before the UFC main card start within the arena. This is like tailor-made for one of those video montages. But Max Holloway was also knocked out in pretty shocking fashion by ilia taporia and so that's what i mean by that i don't know if if anything comes to mind for you guys but someone winning the knockout of the award and also getting knocked out in spectacular fashion in the same particular year is uh is pretty is pretty unique i would say some others that could be

considered alex perera knocking out jamal Hill on that same UFC 300 card. Ilya Teporia's knockout of Alexander Volkanovsky. Dustin Poirier knocking out Benoit Saint-Denis at UFC 299. Pereira knocking out Yuri Prokhaska at UFC 303. Vinicius Oliveira against Bernardo Sopaj at the Fight Night event. Perez Ziam against Matt Frivola. Pereira, Khalil Roundtree, Shara Magomedov against

Armin Petrosian. On and on we could go. Muslim Salikhov against Song Keenan. Any others that come to mind from you guys? No, but I just want to give a special love to

that Loke Dog flying knee. I was going to say, the bullet, double spinning back fist, and the Loke Dog flying knee were the only two that i even thought of obviously no brainer what the winner was but those were my that was my top three was this the easiest award in awards history ever it was pretty the moment it happened i went so nuts when it happened and like by the time i sat back down 10 minutes after it i was just like

let's knock out of the year let's knock out out of the decade. Like, it's just, it's written in stone. In any other context, in any other year, Pereira's knockout of Hill is like lauded, is vaunted. And it's just like so far below. It's so far below. It's crazy. Like, Max, what he did that night was special.

I have like a Google Doc with all the categories and i don't usually go in order but i usually just try to put in the easiest ones first that was the first one i put in yeah right off the bat by the way to answer your question i had to look back at this uh the izzy and alex trading knockouts was was a calendar year but wasn't in the same year so like izzy knocked out alex at the uh sorry alex knocked out izzy at the end of 2022 and then yeah uh izzy knocked out alex at the beginning of 2023 but in the same calendar i i don't know you get what i'm saying though right i'm not throwing shade it's just crazy that yeah he he delivered an incredible knockout and then got knocked out uh in the next and and you know

teporia knocking him out i mean for the first time in his career, to me, it was... It was knocked out to anything other than the 300-1, but that was on the short list of honorable mentions. For sure. No, the highs and the lows.

But isn't that kind of like why we love Max Holloway, right? He's going to stand there with Ilya, and he might get knocked out, and he's going to stand there with Gaethje, and he might get knocked out,

or he might deliver the best KO that we've seen in history. Like, Max is a gangster. That's just who he is. And we love him for it. The people, by the way, agree with all of us. Holloway, not Gaethje.

Didn't they just pick something else? Is their pick as well. All right. So we go from knockout of the year to something that is unique to mixed martial arts and that's submission of the year. Had a little bit more trouble with this one. But I do wonder if we're all on the same page. Let us go to, who is up next? GC, did you start that last one?

I believe it was Rick. I'm happy to start this one off if you want. I struggled a little bit, but it was still fairly easy for me. It was Hamza Chamayev submitting Robert Whitaker, the face crank that broke his jaw. He did it in just about 90 seconds, too. The efficiency with which he got the takedown straight into the submission. And to do that to Robert Whitaker,

hand him his first loss by submission in his UFC career, it was just scary. To be totally honest, it was just scary the way that he did it. So for me, to do that to Robert Whitaker with that efficiency, the broken jaw, the x-ray afterward, that one went submission of the year for me. That was my pick as well. Just chime in. There were others that I considered, and we could talk about those in a moment, not to steal anyone's thunder, but the power, the force to do that, someone like Robert, and then the aftermath

was pretty shocking. And maybe it wasn't like the most technical clean one, but it was just like pure brute force to make someone like that quit, to make someone like that tap. Supremely impressive stuff. So Hamza Chamayev and his face crank against Robert Whitaker at UFC 308 back in October in Abu Dhabi is my pick. Rick? Just look at the x-ray. That's all you need to do. For me, it's Chamayev on Whitaker. Yeah. There it is. Or not the x-ray the uh the photos yes yes yes insane uh pt yeah same again and really the context of this one as well we had seen you know his armor tainted really by gilbert borns and usman two guys in a similar

situation you'd say to robert whitaker perennial title contenders all of the talk was he's not going to be able to do it at the whittaker within 15 seconds he was on his back and it was really it was more akin to something you'd see on discovery channel than you'd see on espn it was like an apex predator going after his prey and to do that against robert whittaker absolutely insane i actually watched the fight again today and it still impresses me. And that's how, you know, it's the one when you're still watching it and you cannot believe, even though you know the result, you know, the outcome and you still can't believe it's happening. It's also the way Whittaker taps. And of course we understand why now because of what happened

to his jaw, but to watch in real time, it appeared as though the crank had just been applied and you had this quick tap from Robert Whittaker, one of the most durable and brilliant fighters the middleweight weight class has ever seen. So that's all the reasons I gave it to Shemya for. Love the way you just described that apex predator going after someone or it's, you know, it's prey. That's very, very apropos, especially when you

consider the wolf and how ferocious he is. Some others that come to mind, Islam Khachev's Dars Choke against Dustin Poirier at UFC 302, Brian Ortega and his modified arm triangle against Yair Rodriguez, Patty Pimblitt and his submission win over King Green

back in July, AJ McKee against Clay Collard back in February, and shout out to our good friend Virna Janjiroba, with her submission win over Amanda Lemos. DDP against Israel Adesanya back in August comes to mind as well. There are several others.

I'll give also a shout out to Anthony Hernandez against Roman Kopilov. Anyone else have an honorable mention? That was pretty comprehensive. I had one more. And shout out to Shaheen Alshadi, for the uncrowned.com awards, put together like a little document that had some on there.

I didn't clock this one at the time, but I went back and saw Seika Izawa's ninja choke from Deep Jewels. Man, it was gnarly. It was truly gnarly. So shout out to the Adam Waite who had that. And shout out to Shaheen for putting it on the radar. But it was a great choke. Who might be coming to the UFC.

That seems to be a strong rumor that they're going to be bringing over the Adam Waites. No intel on that one. I'm just saying this seems to be the talk. And she is at the top of that division. Okay. Submission of the year. By the way, the people, they agree with us. Shemaev, Whitaker,

congratulations to Hamzat Shemaev. I had a lot of trouble with breakout fighter of the year, guys, and we'll move along to that one. Not because there weren't any good choices, because I felt like there were so many good choices. I had a lot of freaking trouble

with this one, and so I'll start this off. There were a lot of people that I was considering. It actually like really, this one really tied me. There were a couple that, you know, last few hours we had a deadline where we had to submit these. I didn't go his direction. I strongly considered Kayla Harrison, who I know was very successful in PFL and came over to the UFC with a lot of hype and a lot of buzz, but did great things at 135 pounds,

but I didn't go in her direction. I strongly considered the Welsh gangster, Oban Elliott, who burst onto the scene in the year 2024. Can I be honest with you guys? And you might give me shit for this. I strongly considered Ilya Teporia because I felt like Ilya Teporia fought in June of 2023, got the title shot and just leveled up. Like he wasn't, he wasn't being feted at the Bernabeu prior to his uh you know his fight against alexander volkanovsky or after his win against josh emmet yeah i know that sergio ramos

is there but it felt like everything changed for him and so that felt like a breakout moment but in the end i went with a man who went 3-0 in the year 2024 who was featured on two of the biggest cards of the year ufc 300 303 and dare i say the three biggest cards of the year, UFC 300, 303, and dare I say, the three biggest cards of the year, 306 as well, and won every single one of those in very impressive fashion. A TKO win over Sadiq Youssef, a decision win over Dan Ige, you know, on two hours notice, and then, of course, a big-time decision win over Brian Ortega, where he seemingly knocked out Ortega in the first 30 seconds and then woke him up on the way down. Of course, I'm talking about the number one contender right now at 145 pounds, the man who will probably face the winner

of Ilya Teporia versus Alexander Volkanovsky, the great Diego Lopez. And I know some people might say like he was already a thing. He wasn't really already a thing. He was two and one in 2023. He was coming off a win over Pat Sabatini, a submission win over Gavin Tucker. Incredible, but he wasn't in the title picture talk. He wasn't being featured on 300 just yet. He wasn't being featured on the Conor McGregor card. Of course, it didn't end up being the Conor McGregor card, but that was the plan. 303 or Noche UFC card.

He won all those fights. He took a massive step. And now he's next in line. And now he's being discussed as potential Volkanovski opponents if in fact toporia moves up that wasn't the case 365 days ago and so to me that makes him the breakout fighter of the year diego lopez pt i have the nightmare mr pratt as you mentioned him earlier he had not fought in the ufc before 2004 he was on the contender series four fights four performance bonuses absolutely injected himself into the title conversation a guy that we we didn't see coming right you you

listen to us talking at the start of 2024 when we're talking about welterweight prospects it's gary it's shavkat it's jdm it's sean bray to a lesser extent He's right among them all now based on his performance in 2024. His, uh, his character is very interesting. His fighting style is very attractive. I think it was a sensational year for him. And, uh, yeah, I thought Diego, Diego was right up there for me in my, uh, in my pick as well. Rick.

I had the man you mentioned, the aforementioned Ilya Teporia. Wow. I thought you guys were going to kill me if I went this route. Well, I mean, I'm not going to lie. This is actually right up Rick's alley because this is very Hamza 2020. This is Hamza. That's why I thought you were coming.

Yes, but Ariel, welcome. Welcome to – Very next up. And I have a retort. I have a retort. Go ahead. Go ahead. Welcome to the understanding of what this actually means.

Yeah. Ilya Teporia, from where he, as you said it perfectly when you teed it up, from where he was then to where he is now, nobody ascended higher. Like he is, Alex Pereira last year had a year where he became the man. This year was a continuation of that. He continued to be the man and just continued to be the one that the the ufc put on top of the posters uh top of the billboard ilia taporia was not that yet but over the course of of 2024 he became that and he will be the one that carries

the flag for them moving forward uh to me nobody came a further distance in where their their q rating and where their profile is now at the end of 2024 than Ilya Teporia. Other names you mentioned were on my list, but Ilya Teporia was my pick. It's an amazing shout, and I was struggling mightily with this one. I really thought you guys were going to kill me

because of the Hamzat thing. I think it's completely different because Hamzat has been a known commodity and a superstar for five years. We're just waiting for the formality to play itself out. Teporia wasn't that guy, so that's why I feel like it's different. It's a great shout. I have no qualms

with it. I don't have an issue with the Carlos Paredes one as well, but Teporia really feels like he's on a different stratosphere now. What about you, GC? I was actually ready to kill you on it, but you just kept moving forward, and now that Rick took the Iliad Teporia, I mean, it's very Rick-esque. I mean, it's very like the Hamzat for myutch for my pick my pick actually uh i'm going to agree with pizzi here i mean came in relative unknown i mean he made his ufc debut uh this year and goes

four and oh uh doesn't get a loss yes or knockout victories four for performances. Oh, yes. Yes. A great year for one Carlos Prates out of the Fighting Nerds. Goes in, we barely even know who he is, and now he's a ranked welterweight by the end of the year. Four massive performances, four knockouts. Carlos Prates, my breakout fighter of the year. You want to talk about breakout, the influence of this guy. I picked up cigarettes as a habit. $20 a pack here in New York City.

All because of Carlos Prates. I'm that big of a fan now. I mean, it's just crazy. How could you not be a breakout fighter? And also, just want to shout out Nightmare. Shout out Full Violence. Sit those fat boys over for us. That's a nice one. Shout out to Carlos Prates. My 2024 breakout fighter of the year.

Can I just say, there's something about the tux and the way you're just like Making love to that Brother if we weren't inside You never rip a tuxedo on I'm dying to get out in that snow To rip this tuxedo right now I feel like you've been here before

Should I just go Should I just go make my next pick From outside like Carlos Proches Getting one of his End of the year Or end of the card fight bonuses I just feel like this is all very familiar You know your way around that thing.

Killian Murphy inspired. Watched a lot of Peaky Blinders. Never smoked one of these before. First time ever holding one, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will say, you're doing it well. It's a true gift. Like the actor.

Watch a lot of Mad Men, John Hammond. Yes, yes, yes. This right here. Like I would have no idea. His facility's going to come get me. Careful, careful. His facility's going. I would have no idea.

That's tremendous. There's like seven of them. Okay. The People, by the way. The People, they went with Carlos Prates. Prates. How do you say it? You say it so well.

Prates. Prates. By the way, in case you're wondering, the people are Frank. Because I know some people have been asking What are Frank's picks, these are all your picks, right Frank? Exactly Signed, sealed, stamped It feels very reminiscent

Of the past two and a half weeks on the group chat I mean Frank, when I saw him today I was like Thank God you're alive Because I thought you were dead We don't care It was just like nothing He must have enjoyed his break Because I saw him too

I was just like Frankie I honestly forgot you worked here man Yeah You were going to come in 2025 Oh you guys didn't get the Frank phone call? I didn't get it Oh god

Oh I got a Frank phone call Christmas day Wow I give him a Merry Christmas Happy Holidays I hope you're enjoying the time With the family texts Left on read

Wow Frank what do you have to say for yourself? Frank FaceTimed my whole family on Christmas Day. Wow. I guess it's just me, Frank. It's a thing. Okay. December 30th.

Phone call from Frank Lenz. I mean, I just, you know, tell us where we are, you know? And did you pick it up? Oh, yeah. Wow. It was a nice little chat. It was incredible. Well, I'm still happy to see you.

Do we need to talk offline? Do we need to? I think, you know, just check your email. Hey little chat. It was incredible. Well, I'm still happy to see you. Do we need to talk offline? Do we need to? I think, yeah, just check your email. Hey, man. Just wanted to make sure we were. It's just been sitting in your inbox for three weeks, and you're like, hey, Frank, everything all right? I'm like, just waiting on your reply to that email that I sent.

Is that true? Now you're like. How'd that desk shit go you had to deal with on the last day? Oh, man. The guy was 20 minutes late Oh yes Do you know about this story PT? We all had a thing, unfortunately you couldn't be a part of it

We decided We've literally been talking about this for A month and a half That we were going to go out and have our own Christmas party It was a Yahoo Christmas party It was a Yahoo Christmas party But we were like, you know what Let's do our own uncrowned Christmas party.

And so we went to the dumpling place across the street over here. Dim Sum place. Dim Sum, yes. The dumpling. And we were all very excited about it. And we taped two shows on that particular Thursday. It was the Thursday before the break. One was the classic interview show.

And as I'm walking back to go to the control room, leaving the studio here, Frank is like power walking towards me. Hey, man, I forgot that I have to pick up a desk. And I don't know if I can make it. I have to stay 30 minutes, this and that. And it's like we changed days. We talked about this for a month. He's like, I'm hyperventilating. I'm nervous.

What are you nervous about? If you can't make it, you can't I'm hyperventilating I'm nervous What are you nervous about? This is what I'm nervous about Pick up a desk Pick up a desk is Frankanese for He's got a game of magic the gathering Yeah come on Frank We had such a great time It actually explains something

I didn't have to be there when the check showed up I was going to say you bailed on the bill. Do you remember I got a picture? You all sent me a lovely picture for a meal. And what was the first thing I said in that group chat when I got that picture? I was like, Jesus, Frank looks pretty pissed off. All makes sense now.

They treated me like a child. They were like, no, you have to come. At least spend 10 minutes. Eat a dumpling. And I'm like, I really got to do this thing. I mean, you made a commitment for weeks. You were like, I'm not going to come. At least spend 10 minutes. Eat a dumpling. And I'm like, I really got to do this thing. I mean, you made a commitment for weeks. You were like, I'm not going to go to the company Christmas party, but I'll be at the uncrowned Christmas dinner. Yes.

This is mysterious. It's very happy. He said that. Yep. Yeah. You sent Frank looks pissed, and it was a big topic of conversation, whether you're remaining pissed as in drunk or pissed as in angry. Can't ever tell.

No, I was doing the American piss. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm with you guys. I love it. You're full of it, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which you guys, yeah. I love it. You're full of it. Anyway, Frank, we missed you. We missed you. And right back at you.

We all, you know, talked behind your back. Oh, my ears were constantly ringing, which is bad for an audio engineer. Just constant tinnitus. I'm like, these bastards can't get me out of their mouth for one second. True or false, though, you really just, like, wanted to leave and didn't have anywhere to go, right? I really somewhere to be yeah all right all right um all right uh let's continue

shall we uh so by the way like i said breakout fighter the uh the people went with carlos as well let's go now to another tough one for me a really tough one uh most improved fighter because it's very hard to gauge most improved right it's like you can't really like look at the stats necessarily it's kind of a feel award, if you will. Like, okay, who made giant leaps in your mind? Who's in a different place? And there are some similarities to break out in some respects. But usually, historically, most improved goes to someone who's been around for a minute and all of a sudden took a big leap, improved.

PT, why don't you go first? Well, you know, my guy hasn't been around a long time i would say but he did arrive i think it was either 2022 or 23 and in the year 2023 he lost every fight that he had in 2024 he was like a phoenix arising from the ashes it is mr energy charles johnson he beats uh hadley van and suma jerry i can't remember the first guy he beat but i thought he was absolutely exceptional in nearly every single one of these fights and the undefeated fighter he fought in the first fight of 2024 i'm forgetting the name of well the deal was like 15 and 0 and i was like oh they're serving him up

because he had this bad 2023 and from from there, he was just magic. Really, really excited to see what he can do this year. But I think as far as most improved, it doesn't get much better than three fights in 2023, lose every one of them, four fights in 2024, win every one of them. Charles Johnson. What just happened there with that picture?

Why was it on that black thing for that long? That was so weird. It's waiting for the reveal. He said Charles Johnson at the beginning. There's a lot going on back there. I was like, is something happening? Have a little patience, okay? 25 categories.

He said Charles Johnson. We're all going to be on air today, so this is a two-man operation. All right, all right. I was just saying. Big Jordan and Andy. Give him a bit of grace. All right, all right. I wasn't sure if it stalled

I was like We know it's Charles You gave a hand motion I was like Okay yes yes Charles Charles We're working through the kinks

We're working through the kinks We're showing the new studio We're working through the kinks All right By the way PT Azat Maxim Azat Maxim

That was the first name But Incredible Great Incredible year for Charles It's a great shot It's a great shot And that

That right there Is a great It's a great shot And that right there is a great It's a great shot of you Rick why don't you go next This was difficult for me because I felt like there were Quite a few Who it could have been and I had Charles Johnson On my short list he was my number three But for me it had to be

Yousef Zalal Love that one You know Pete you were talking about Charles Johnson's rough year and then the complete turnaround. Yusuf Zalal was on a similar losing streak in the UFC. Cut, lost, gone. Indistinguishable fighter in his

second UFC run since coming back. Undefeated in 2024. 3-0, 3 subs. The guy just completely changed his game. And if you listen to any of his teammates talk, they talk about kind of what he was able to do and how he's able to transform his career.

And when he spoke to Ariel on the Ariel Helwani show, he talked about that transformation and what he was able to do to lock in and become a viable UFC fighter who's now riding a three- winning streak, a three fight UFC winning streak. Yusuf Zalal, crazy how different he is from the fighter that we saw the first UFC run. Could be most improved, could be comeback fighter of the year as well for the reasons that you just mentioned. Yeah, there were a lot to choose from here. He was great on the show when we had him a

couple of months ago as well. GC? Yeah, I actually have to agree with Rick. I'm going to go with Yusuf Salal. He got cut from the UFC after 0-3-1 skid. Yeah, he got a few wins on the regional scene and everything, but the comeback into the UFC and like Rick said, man, he looks like a completely different fighter at this point. 3-0 in 2024 and now he's got to fight

next month. A top 10 matchup against Calvin Cater. We could really see him spring into the rankings in this division. The turnaround has been unreal. I considered Joaquin Buckley for a while just because of his incredible 2024, but 2023, he was already a welterweight. He went 2-0 in 2023, so

it's almost like he was just continuing his ascension. So for me, most improved, Yusuf Salah, night and day, from what we saw during his last stint in the UFC. Agree. I was also considering him for comeback fighter as well. That will come up later in the show. I do want to give a shout out to the people. The people picked Joaquin Buckley.

Joaquin Buckley, like you said, Rick, a great year. I think you mentioned him, right? Did you not mention him? GC. GC mentioned him. I had him though. Yeah, yeah.

Joaquin Buckley, again, a guy who you can have for, honestly, you could have him for, uh, most improved. You can have him for breakout. You can make a case for male fighter of the year. He won four fights in, uh, in 2024. And I had him on my short list as well for most improved. Uh, to me, it came down to two people. It came down to Buckley and, uh, my eventual winner who, uh, none of you mentioned, which is a little bit surprising to me. And, you know, it's interesting because, um, my, my winner, uh, did not fight in the year 2023. He had one fight scheduled. It didn't come to fruition. Uh, he had a solid end to 2022, then was pretty much out of the picture in 2023, and then came back

with vengeance in 2024. A decision win back in February for Drew Dober, a massive second round TKO win over Jalen Turner at UFC 300, and then ended the year on a very high note against Ben in enemy territory. We're talking about Money Moicano. What a journey this man has been on. Not only improved in the ring, but on the microphone as well. As a character, this is a guy who's been in the UFC for quite some time.

He has been around the block. And to see him now in this spot is pretty remarkable. He made his debut in 2014. Who would have thought that he'd be maybe one or two away from title contention? He's fighting Benil Dariush in less than two weeks. He has come a very long, long way.

Some ups and downs. And I don't think a lot of people had him looking this good this late in his UFC run. Manny Moicano, my most improved fighter of the year. You like that one, Pizzi? Yeah, I thought that was great. Really enjoyed that.

Really, really good. It's a good shout. Honestly, it kind of sends me through a loop thinking about he didn't fight at all in 2023 and that

crazy promo he got was all the way back in 2022. 2022, yeah. Another contender for comeback fighter of the year in some

respects. So yes, Manny Moicano, what a run. What a run that he was on and what a run that Joaquin Buckley was on as

well and all the shouts. But again, most improved comeback, breakout, they're all kind of What a run that he was on. And what a run that Joaquin Buckley was on as well. And all the shouts. But again, most improved, comeback, breakout, they're all kind of intertwined. So it's fun to, you know, to figure it all out. And so without further ado, let us go to Comeback Fighter of the Year. Our particular award show, we have Comeback Fighter and Comeback Fight. The difference is this is about a fighter who's come back after some layoff trial tribulation something like that and then comeback fight it's you know the ups and downs of a fight someone who's getting dominated and then finishes strong uh with the victory at

the very end so that's the difference right there uh rick why don't you go ahead yeah it was difficult to not pick my second pick but when the moment moment happened, I had to pick my first pick, and that's Francis Ngannou. Ooh. The Joshua KO. Now, I've gotten in trouble before for picking somebody that got knocked out and is a comeback fighter. This is interesting what's happening.

But to come back to MMA and to face the personal tragedy that he faced with his son. For me, it could be nobody other than Francis Ngannou. To even step in the cage, and again, results matter, I suppose, but to even step in the cage as courageously as he did, having taken that time off from MMA, suffering that brutal knockout that he did at the hands of Anthony Joshua, he's a champion in every regard and so the the things that he overcame this year to me it had to be Francis Ngannou and and everybody

else felt more more contained to the the fight specific aspects of it but not only in the fight game but also in his personal life to overcome what he did um it had to be Francis Ngannou for me yeah I mean it is an interesting one because he did lose it had to be francis and got him for me yeah i mean it is an interesting one because he did lose but if you if you take that that slice out and then look at coming back from the loss to anthony joshua in march and everything leave the slice in that's that's that's part of the journey yeah this is what i've always said this is this is how this go like what what he faced in this year and and how he ended it it's it's it's titanic it is uh both in in the ring in the cage and out of the cage so uh hard to disagree with that one gc why don't you weigh in next uh yeah this one was a little bit difficult for me as well

but ultimately i had to go with the man who was entering this year on a three-fight losing streak only one win uh since july of 2020 for the man and now we exited on a two-fight winning streak that is one peter yan back against the wall against song and dong i mean if you lose four straight you're completely out of the title picture and now after facing a surging davidson figuerado picking up two massive wins he is once again knocking on the door of the title one away uh in my opinion, to go from where we started at the year of like, this dude needs a win bad, to now, one more and we're fighting for the belt.

Incredible turnaround from Piotr Jan, and happy to see him back at the top of the division. PT? Well, you know, Rick referenced a pick he made several years ago that has, you know, lived with him ever since. But I want to let you know, Rick, that pick he made several years ago that has, you know, lived with him ever since. But I want to let you know, Rick, that the Ronda pick walked so this one could run. Let's do it, baby. My comeback fire of the year is Jon Jones for 2024.

Not as bad. And the reason why he is, is because he is the subject of the biggest conversation in the sport ever since he's come back. He has injected energy into this heavyweight division that we didn't see coming. And honestly, he is the name on everyone's lips in 2024. 2025, should I say. What will Jon Jones do next?

It's all I can think about. I get a question about it at least every week from the most random people asking me do they think the fight will happen? I don't think he would have expected his comeback and his next move would be news in the way that it is and um i don't think you can ask for more than that a guy who wasn't there who then came back had a fight like and the fight we knew he's gonna win right every dog on the street knew that john jones is gonna beat Steve Bamiotis in Madison Square Garden. But it's what he's brought to the table

because of coming back is why I've selected him. I understand why you mentioned the Ronda Rousey pick, but I don't think it's as bad. Because she lost. I admire what you do. I'm with you, Pizzi.

It's the comeback, not the result. I love you, Pizzi. He lost, so he just gave her an award. It's the comeback, not the result. I love you, Pizzi. That's right. I give her an award for just showing up. Man, this was a tough one for me. Some other ones that I strongly considered as well, Charles Johnson, as we talked about, Yusuf Zalal, as we talked about,

Duhu Choi, as we talked about. But he was one that I strongly considered. Piotr Jan. What about Dominic Reyes, guys? Dominic Reyes had a huge comeback. I'm shocked that you're not picking Reyes because then that means none of us picked them.

And he was my number two that I was like, oh, I really want to pick Reyes. I'm shocked. For me, it came down to Reyes. Shout out to Dan Hooker as well. He had a big comeback after a bad injury. It came down to two people. It came down to Dominic Reyes and then my eventual winner.

And my eventual winner is someone that I feel very, very strongly about because I'm all about loyalty. I'm all about sticking by one of our own. I'm a foxhole kind of guy. I'm the kind of person that if you're on my team, I will literally go to the depths of hell to have your back. And I feel like that's the relationship that I have with this individual. Now, I don't pick them because of this relationship, but I just want to highlight that because I'm so proud of the steps that they had to endure in order to get back to where they ended up by the end of 2024. It's one of the most inspirational, it's one of the best stories in recent MMAma history to not fight for two plus years and then come all the way back and become champion not only become champion regain

your throne is not only comeback of of the year type stuff it's it's really inspirational it's movie type stuff and so i'll give it to one of our own she's one of our own. The Venezuelan vixen is one of our own. Juliana Pena, my 2024 comeback fight of the year. Shame on all of you for not picking her, for not having her back, to come all the way back and to win in dominant and decisive fashion the UFC Women's Bantamweight title back in October in Utah. It's one of the great stories of this past year. One of the great stories of my career.

I mean, look at this. Look at this attack. And, of course, setting up that massive fight. Fight, by the way, that I said I was really looking forward to come 2025, the showdown against Kayla Harrison. Juliana, we love you. We are proud of you. We support you.

And we congratulate you on an incredible 2024. I don't like that, man. No, it is because PC's talking and all this stuff. Some kind of piss. Dominant and decisive. Didn't you tweet that? 48-47 Pennington? You know yourself.

We were hacked on that Saturday night. That was unbelievable stuff from Juliana Pena. I mean, what do you guys have to say for yourself? The Parley boys in particular not picking Juliana Pena is a bit of a shock. Juliana Pena knows where the Parlay Boys stand, okay? Comeback fighter. Both of us picked her to be the champ at the end of 2025. This just feels like a comeback for you saying that Kayla Harrison's going to

Yeah, you know, you called out the boys, but I just want to say in the 2025 prediction show, I was the only one who wasn't saying anything about uh old juliana pain losing her title you know i was the one who picked the valentina female fighter of the year and all these things i didn't have anything about uh about that fight i'm very surprised i got faith in our girl very very surprised it was me it was me who picked kayla it was me who was speaking that real shit it wasn't a comeback because she was always the chance she just didn't have her belt two years out of action to come i mean it might be the greatest just came on back to the octagon to fight but she did not come back in her career

she was already even though we're even though we are like doing a thing like what yeah like it's an impressive it's an impressive story like the fact that the the and she talks about it every time like the injuries that she deals with the things that that are preventing her from being more active are serious injuries and to come back and win the belt after that time away like it's legit like shout out to juliana it's it's a true accomplishment and as you said it now sets up potentially the biggest female fight in in mma that can be that can actually be made so So yeah, huge, huge for her. The people, by the way,

went with Dominic Reyes and Dan Hooker. There was a tie. I'm shocked that none of us did, but none of these answers were, like, I get every answer, so. The people know. The people know. Dominic Reyes was one that I was strongly considering.

Yeah. But all, I mean, Doohu Choi coming back was impressive. You guys mentioned Zalal and Jan and Charles Johnson. I had Moikano here as opposed to most improved because I feel like the,

the skills are most of the same, but I did feel like he had an incredible, much like Juliana, right? Like off and then back. That, that's how I viewed that. So I had Moikano here as well. But only one of those fighters

won gold in 2024 after a long layoff. And of course, that's my pick. John defended gold. And Francis won the Bellator versus Super. Super defended gold. But she won gold. She won. It's different than

defending. And we don't count that PFL super fight. All right. Let us go to comeback fight. So again, that's fighter. Now it's a comeback within a fight. GC, why don't you go ahead? Mic issue there.

Yeah, happy to. I'm actually going to go to my man from down under, Jack Della Maddalena against Gilbert Burns. When I was watching this fight, I was doing it during a watch party, and I literally said on the watch party, I'm like slouched over all sad because I'm a big JDM supporter, and I'm like, this is over. This one is over. I called it. I called that it was over, and then 45 seconds later, I'm standing up screaming because JDM is getting a finish. It looked like he was about to lose. Well on his

way to a 29-28 decision loss. Gilbert Burns had him on the ground and was controlling him on top. JDM's able to get out of it, land a huge knee, and score a finish because he was going to lose the round regardless. So fights his way back, comes back, gets the victory. The definition of a comeback fight. So I will give it to Jack Della Maddalena defeating Gilbert Burns. Okay. Very, very nice one.

When I was saying comeback fight, I heard PT sayena defeating Gilbert Burns. Very, very nice one. When I was saying comeback fight, I heard Pizzi say like, oh gosh, something like that. Was this a tough one for you? I went for the same one. I just thought I'd be the only one, so thank you very much for that, GC. No ball.

There was obviously another big comeback on the same card that I was sure that would... I was trying to be a hipster here. So I've been double bluffed by the great GC. Same one for me. Fantastic, fantastic outcome. I actually told a friend of mine. He was like, oh, he's a degenerate gambler.

And he was like, oh, what should I bet on in this point? I was like, I wouldn't touch that fight, man. He's like, no, but if you had to bet on this fight, what would you bet? And I was like, ah, I don't know, man. I don't know. In the end he kind of pulls out of me um that jack delamay lane is going to win by ko but obviously as gc explained the fight was going in a completely different direction and i'm getting these texts

throughout the thing then that happens he obviously explodes fantastic fantastic stuff from delamay lane and let's not forget that he had two very underwhelming wins before this. And there was, there started to be this kind of conversation about, is he among this new class at 170? Is he like Shavkat? Is he like Ian Gary? This blew, blew everything out of the water. He is right back in that conversation now,

and he should be headed for total contention in 2025. Love it. And hopefully we see him back in March, maybe against one Leon Edwards. We shall see. Rick, you go ahead. Was that breaking news?

There he is. I didn't call for it. I didn't call for it. No, no, no. You can't aggregate me. Don't aggregate me. Oh, you're aggregating. You have been aggregating.

Oh, yeah. He's sealed aggregation. That's confirmed, Ariel, yeah? All right, let's get it back on track. Neil Magny over Mike Millat. Just thoroughly dominated for 13 and a half minutes and then somehow found it in the way that Neil Magny does sometimes against the top prospect in the way that Neil Magny does sometimes against the top prospect

in the sport. So yeah, Neil Magny, like, this is what he does, but thoroughly controlled and beaten for 13 and a half minutes before he summoned it and pulled off one of the best comebacks of the year. We finally agree, New York Rick and I.

That was it for me. I've compared that one to the Rory McDonald-Carlos Condit fight back in the day, and there are some similarities with the Canadian losing in the dying seconds of the fight. But, yeah, this was devastating stuff for Mike Millat because it was back home in Ontario, in Toronto to be exact, and he was winning throughout the entire fight. It was last January. It feels like 10 years ago. He ended up losing at 445 of the third round, 15 seconds left in a fight that he was very much going to win via decision. And it was a major setback for him. Of course, he came

back in November at that Edmonton card and beat Trevon Giles. But this to me was, I mean, this thing was, was done. There was no path to victory for the veteran Neil Magny and he was able to turn around and win the fight. So my pick for comeback fight of the year, same as yours, Rick. Neil Magny versus Mike Malott. Magny's win over Mike Malott.

Number two, by the way, Issam Akhachev's win over Dustin Poirier. Just because it was being there. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But I'm really shocked that one fight. I was sure that Poirier v.

Saint-Denis was going to be in this. I thought everybody was going to be in this. That was a good one. It was a great one. That's an honorable mention for me. That one, Pereira round tree. Some people had Pereira down two rounds before he was able to turn things around

Some other ones Brian Ortega versus Yair Rodriguez Christian Rodriguez Against Isaac Delgarian Carlos Diego Ferreira versus Mateus Rebecki Moicano versus Jalen Turner I'm surprised no one said that

He literally had him essentially out And just walked away from it And then Moicano comes back And finishes him around too It was incredible On there Prochaska against Rakic For sure

Shabazian against Dobson Those are a few Mirshart-Shabazian That was my number two Like That's Gerald Mirshart's M.O. To just get And in fact

Everybody leading into that fight Was like Edmund's gonna nuke him early or meertschratt's gonna survive and beat him late and that's exactly what he did so yeah that one was number two i wanted to give it to him but um i ended up with magni because just how thoroughly he was outclassed for the first 13 minutes uh the people by the way they went with ortega rodriguez yeah i mean he was getting dogged out until he got the finish. Yeah. Let's go with the upset of the year next. GC, take it away.

Yeah. I actually really struggled with this one. I went through all the title fights, all like the big stake fights. And there wasn't one that like really stuck out to me as like, man, I cannot believe that happened. So what I did, I went to the odds to assist me uh and i actually forgot about this one because my upset of the year uh came in the friendly confines out in the desert in the ufc apex on uh buried on the prelims of the legendary rosen strike versus god see a card uh and it is your man yes uh the one the only amen zahabi taking out Javid Basharat, handing him his first loss of his entire career, winning that fight as a plus 5

75 underdog, sets himself up with Destiny, a date with Destiny against Pedro Munoz in Edmonton AB, gets a win there, and now could potentially earn himself, or to win, got the win, earned himself a spot

in the Bantam White rankings. So, sparked it all with this huge upset over Javid Basharat. We agree. Let's go. My pick as well. I actually thought I was going to be the only one that took this one. No, that was my pick. And, you know, after kind of going through, there's a couple other ones that I'll mention once the boys weigh in, but there you have it. Javid Basharat

minus 900. Zahabi Plus 575 In retrospect Maybe a little bit off But of course That's why they I mean definitely A little bit off He won the fight

Well I mean That freaking big Jeez Louise And what a year For our boy Zahabi And also what a run That he's been on

He's won his last five in a row 2-0 in 2024 Won one fight in 2023 And so yeah Good on him And then he picks up The huge win over Pedro Munoz. That's my pick for upset of the year. Upset, by the way, based on the odds,

of course, we all thought that he would dominate, but you got to go with what the odds makers thought, and he completely nuked that. So shout out to Montreal's own Eamon Zahabi. Rick? Yeah, you talk about the odds, plus 600 Gabriela Fernandez Over Wang Kong

Like just One of those that it felt like we were building to the Alex Pereira Israel Adesanya thing With her and Valentina Shevchenko And then it just died On arrival When she got choked out Nasty stuff huge spot for

Somebody who would have been easy to crumble. Wang Kong's got that swag. She's trying to do the intimidation thing and it just blew up in her face and plus 600. It doesn't get bigger than that. Shout out to Fernandez for that. That was my runner up. It was between those two and sometimes with the women's

MMA odds, it's just hard to really gauge if they're able to nail them. I still feel like they have some issues with those. What do you think, Pete C? I'm the same with Rick. I was fully behind the Wang Kong train as well.

I was like, ah, I love everything that's going on here. And to just, to watch online as every parlay in mixed martial arts busted, I'm like, I think it was the first fight of the night was very, funny as well because the odds were crazy um as well as this like what what what rick mentioned about the the perera treatment that's exactly what was happening here the ufc had a grand vision of pushing this uh this girl in against valentina and valentina had been asked about her and she seemed pissed off about it and And she was like, she has a lot to prove

and the proof is in the pudding, as they say. Yes. Um, that, that, like I said, that was a great one. Ultimately went with, uh, Amon Zahabi. The, uh, the people, by the way, you might be surprised to hear went with Bilal

Muhammad over Leon Edwards. Yeah. I was thinking people might do that. Uh, but there were, there were definitely believers in Bilal. I thought Poirier. Like a plus 200. Yeah. Poirier over Leon Edwards. Yeah, I was thinking people might do that, but there were definitely believers in Bilal. I thought Poirier. Like a plus 200. Yeah, Poirier over BSD, I felt like might have been more credible.

Yeah, like going through the title fights and like the really big fights of the year, there wasn't like a shocking upset. Like Strickland on Asani last year was just such a no-brainer. So yeah, this year, this was a difficult one. Rugg Rugg over Anton Malkin. You know what?

I have to admit, I forgot that one. Yeah. That might've been my pick if I remember it. That's a great shot. Yeah. That's, that's, yeah, that might be, I might have to revise. I mean, Malkin, he looked like unbeatable.

Yeah. That's, that's a great job. Um, Anthony Smith over Vitor Petrino. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. The ghillie. Uh, Neil Magny for Mike Malott was,

uh, was a bit of an upset as well. Um, damn, rug rug, shout out rug rug. I can't believe that.

I forgot that one. Damn. Uh, OSP over Kennedy and Zetchiku. Yeah. Uh, another one too.

Yeah, I know to me it was, it was the rug rug. It was the Wang Kong and then it was the hobby and, um, yeah, I went with this. I don't even know what the rug rug odds was the Wang Kong And then it was the hobby And Yeah I went with this I don't even know

What the rug rug odds were I just remember it being like Holy shit Yeah That's a holy shit For sure I don't even know Did they even do odds for one

I guess someone I'm sure It's like every once in a while They do I'm actually That guy's life is a movie as well The rug rug Yeah

Oh he's unbelievable Alright well shout out to All those great Insp inspiring victors. Uh, now we'll continue with that somewhat betting theme. And this is where GC drives the train. Uh, the, uh, the next three are, are, are his particular awards that he has owned. We'll start first with the betting underdog of the year. And, and explain if you can gc to the people

perhaps what distinguishes this from maybe what we were just talking about yeah so we said upset of the year kind of the one that no one had any faith in it happening the the people chose below muhammad over leon edwards despite you know below muhammad was only like a plus 180 there like it wasn't the actual to the odds the biggest upset of the year in mixed martial arts in Las Vegas. So this is the actual betting underdog of the year, the biggest price tag you get on a winner throughout the year. I am actually looking at it right now. Roug Roug was a plus 500, so smaller than Zahavi and Fernandez,

even though it was an incredible performance. The betting underdog of the year, though, PFL purchased Bellator, but Bellator never dies baby home of massive massive favorites losing in very sound fashion looking like they never even should have been a favorite in the first place uh and that is where we head pfl won san antonio unanimous decision victory for one dimitri ivy over lucas over Lucas Brennan. Lucas Brennan entered the fight minus 1,600. Hope you did not anchor your parlays with him. Dimitri Ivey gets it done as a plus 850 underdog on that fateful night in San Antonio.

That's incredible. That is incredible. Did you have any action? No, no, no, no, no. I'm scarred. There was a moment in time where the Bellator intro hit and it was just like war memories.

PTSD was hitting from all the giant favorites that I have watched. That was crazy. I have watched. Did you bet on any Bellator fights this year? Paul Hughes,

but that was, was that PFL? PFL card. I don't even know. I don't know. I try to stay away from the Bellator. Yeah, it's a weird one. That's obviously going to be one of the stories to watch in 2024.

Or excuse me, in 2025. What the hell becomes a Bellator? They have this show that's not even being branded a Bellator show. And even when Don Davis laid out the events for the year, there was no mention of Bellator. As of right now, we don't know where those fights are going to air. The Dubai Champion Series card that's coming up on the 25th, which is solid. I mean, it's all about the Usman and Marga Madoff versus Paul Hughes fight. And the build has been

good. And by the way, it sounds like Paul's going to get that sponsorship that he's looking for. I'll let him break that news, but the build has been great. I just don't know what to make of the brand. So I say this all to say that, you know, those, those memories might just be a distant memory and you won't have to worry about betting on Bellator fights anymore. Maybe it's all just PFL.

So betting underdog, we didn't ask the people for these particular ones because these are more database. Who, me? Unless, unless you have one Frank No I just thought you were Raising your hand

What about lock of the year GC So lock of the year is the guy or girl That you can depend on throughout the course of the year They're going to fight multiple times You know you can just throw them in the parlay Empty the clip on them You know they're going to get it done with authority too you're not going to have to sweat it much you can just trust

this person you know either just bending them straight or putting them in a parlay I actually have a male and a female lock of the year this year the male we go right back to the pack baby it is one Carlos Proches 4-0 all wins by knockout in round

1 or 2 I understand that Trevin Giles' debut, yes, it looked a little bit dicey maybe early on, but he ends up getting the finish, and then from there, it was easy. He was always in that minus 200 range, other than the last fight of the year, when he fought Neil Magny, obviously, was a massive favorite in that one. But, I mean, Carlos Prachez, you were getting your money back if you placed a wager on him. And on the female side We actually go to PFL Oh

Dakota De Chava Oh Same exact thing as Carlos Prachez 4-0 All wins by knockout In either round One or two They left no doubt

Each time they entered The Octagon Or the Smart Cage My locks of the year Carlos Prachez Dakota De Chava Can I Um

Suggest that you just Always do the show With a cigarette I mean it just looks so of the year, Carlos Brachis, Dakota Digival. Can I suggest that you just always do the show with a cigarette? I mean, it just looks so... It's not... Don't just look cool right-handed, left-handed. I just love it. It's so hard to breathe back here. You switch it up between the

thumb and the index as you pull it out. How do you do it so effortlessly? He was doing smoke rings earlier. I'm telling you, just it it might be worth the price of admission to just for how cool i look yeah it's like yeah maybe maybe i passed earlier maybe maybe it doesn't go well but it's like man do you need a drink there it looks fucking cool as here you gotta you got a negroni for me uh let's see if i had an earlier horse one into means he had his back up on the wall he was standing out He had one foot on the wall And we were calling for him

And Andy was like can you sit down And he was like give me a second It was so like This is just him and his true element And as much as you love him You gotta look like you're suffering through a bit of anguish Yes yes yes Oh you do it so well

I've seen P.T. rip a few And I don't know If he does it as well as you Pizzi does it way cooler than me Because he hand rolls Right before he does it He's over there I'm a fucking cowboy

Pizzi blows it right in your face He's like You want to smoke? It's like Pizzi I guess I don't need Pizzi also Really just barking up the tree

When we were at the sports book In Vegas Because obviously You can smoke indoors And we're over there Betting on the Bills game And I look over And Pizzi's up.

He's like, you want a Sigmate? I'm just like, yeah. And every 20 seconds he's like, you can really smoke anywhere, huh?

My parents are watching this right now mortified. This segment brought to you by the National Tobacco Association. Brought to you by Carlos Prate's favorite, Arvo Red.

Love it. I love it. You can't not get Sigs in Vegas. Nine out of ten doctors Recommend Pizzi by the way Why do you roll yours? Because it's fucking cool

Because it looks Fucking looks cool It just seems like It seems like more work You pay the work To look cool Alright Roll one up

What is it You told me Pizzi You were like Filters or Weak sauce Or something You were like I want filterless.

I want to warm myself. I want to fuel the tar. I want to feel the death creeping into my lungs. That's what I want to feel. I need to set up a meeting with an exec here. Make it a smoking office again. We need to bring those back in 20 years. Smoking indoors, there's nothing like the freedom.

I'm telling you, listen, personally, I kind of do hate cigarettes, but you put four walls And a roof around me And something starts Talking in my ear So nice Nothing like six and five You were on fire

Nothing like six and five That was the big shock When I was in Paris For some Like everyone's smoking indoors As opposed to yours And a lot of cool people In Paris am I wrong

A lot of fucking cool people In Paris man I'm telling you Speaking of cool people Most profitable I love the fact It actually looks like you're smoking right now uh yes let's continue the most profitable fighter of the year

this one was tough this one was actually tough there was a lot of uh of good competition here obviously you know amon's a hobby he got the massive upset so i don't i don't really love to include that just because like you don't want to anchor it on the one i i look more like consistently throughout the year hanato moicano based on $100 bets, he finished up $510. If you just blindly threw $100 on Renato Moicano each fight of the year, you'd be up $510. But ultimately, I had to go with a man who's already been mentioned throughout this show. One, Charles Johnson, 4-0 this year, cashing as an underdog three separate times. If you bet $100 on Charles Johnson every time he entered the octagon, you'd be up $539, plus $190 against Azat Maxim, plus $110 against Jake Hadley, plus $195 versus Joshua Vannum,

minus $225 against Sue Maderji. All of these odds via topology. Obviously, sometimes you get them at different odds, higher or lower, and all of this based on $100 bets. So shout out to Charles Johnson, man. Incredible turnaround year and incredible performance. And if you're putting money on him, you're earning a lot. And I actually do have to say,

I don't know if I messed this up or if you messed this up. No, no, no. We're good. We're good. We're good. You know what I'm going to say? Yes, yes, yes. We're totally good. Man, what a year for Charles Johnson, who, by the way, might end up being... If you... Charles Johnson could be a breakout fighter for 2025. There's a very good chance he gets a title shot.

I don't think the UFC is interested in Muhammad Makaev. It sounds like there's been some talks and nothing really going on there. You know, take that for what it is. They're sticking to their guns, which they're known to do, by the way. They can hold a grudge. I don't know if if you guys know this but they can certainly hold a grudge um and so you know maybe charles johnson fights back into the year for the belt it's very possible so remember that name uh what about bad beat of the year yes bad beat of the year this is my favorite category i think a lot of people really enjoy this one this is a bad beat is when you essentially have money in your pocket and the sport vegas whoever just comes in and takes it

out at the last moment you cannot believe it it's when a winner becomes a loser and you just cannot believe how that happened and uh you know in previous years it's been over unders or or something like this this year we have to go to the judges' scorecards, and we go out to Abu Dhabi where Carlos Leal was, in my opinion, robbed blind against Renat Fakhreddina. But we're going to go a step further. If you bet Leal Moneyline, you made a fantastic bet. I mean, there's no arguing about it.

But if you had Carlos Leal plus 3.5 points, which is where you add up all three judges' scorecards at the end and then you get the differential you made a winning bet that was taken away from you this this judge who scored at 30 27 hadi muhammad ali somehow scored this 30 27 you had money taken out of your hand because it was 29 28 it was 29 28 and you're like all right if we get another 29 28 we still win the plus three and a half. 30-27 by one Hadi Muhammad Ali. There was outrage around it. I mean, if you look back, all 16 media members

on MMA Decisions had it for Liao, including 11 that had it 30-27 for Liao. The verdict fan voting, you can see there, they had it 29.09 to 27.96. I mean, I had it 30-27 to 27.96 i mean i had it 30 27 leo i was convinced he won um and then robbed in a unanimous decision and then if you had the plus three and a half it's even that much worse so bad beat of the year carlos leo plus three and a half points and carlos leo money line uh i know that one hurt love it love it uh love those specific ones and so we'll keep it

uh rolling and we'll keep it rolling and we'll go with another specific one, which in the past has been somewhat controversial. We remind you that when we introduced this, when did we introduce this, Rick? We introduced this when you left the show and you went to work full-time in social media over at ESPN, yes? I think that's it. Yeah. And the first, so Rick wasn't a part of the show. We leave to go to ESPN. It's now, what was it?

It was, we left in 2018. So we're doing the 2018 awards at the very end. It was December 31st. And, or maybe we did it the following year. I think it wasn't that first year. It must've been 2019. Because I went solo

and we were very tight, like two hour show on ESPN2. It was a really big deal for the- Interviews, a whole big deal. Oh, yeah. The studio wasn't working. I mean, we all remember. Anyway, the following year, now you're like fully entrenched in the world of ESPN.

Yes. I mean, I hardly speak to you. You're hardly in my life. Oh, stop. I mean, it's like totally different. I mean, I'm speaking to on-air Jordan more than you, for goodness sakes. And we decided a way to get you back in was to introduce social media user of the year and correct me if i'm wrong you announced the award and then within like minutes you regretted your pick yeah it was it was a good pick at the

time but it aged like very poorly like in the immediate seconds after like as soon as it was announced who was it again it was henry it was henry sahuda you gave it to henry yeah and who did you want to give it to it was like paulo there was like 10 different people that it was just a better choice like because henry went like a little too everybody had been over the cringe by that point it it it reflected well on the year that had passed but man like as soon as the clock turned as soon as the calendar page flipped it wasn't so hot yeah hot So there you have it It's a rich and storied history Last year we got back on track

Who was last year? Dylan Dennis But by the way, we've had several There have been a few You chose Dylan Dennis last year In a year that he was sued For his social media activity i mean what better endorsement for the award um let me just say i want to say again every year

i consult what the man himself the caposa who this award is named after by the way the proper name for this award is the caposa social media user of the year award that's right because nobody is more prolific on social media you've even shouted him out at the beginning of the year award. That's right. Because nobody is more prolific on social media. You've even shouted him out at the beginning of the show. He is the wealth of knowledge about all things MMA, all things that are happening on social media, all things that are happening in the MMA sphere. I always consult with him because if it has his name on it, I think the least I can do is kind of talk. Sure. And by the way, I just want to tell you, he's actually not watching right now because he's live blogging Dubai Fight Night 47. It's just getting underway.

You joke, but without him, then you don't get the KO of the year number three on your list. That is from Dubai Fight Night 64. 1,000%. Shout out to him. He's an absolute legend. I always consult him. This year, I wasn't sure which way to go. I thought there was

like a clear choice i i pitched it to him and he felt like there were some other choices as well it wasn't as like super obvious but ultimately where we landed alex perera just just a tremendous year for him on on all social media we've got even like a little um a little uh video package here remember this from earlier in the year where he's changing the guy's tires on the side of the road um then we transition we've got uh after this coming up wait he's greeting the man uh whose tire he changed by the way that they captured all for his youtube channel and for social media um that was on the way to the airport right for 303 yeah i mean did that in the middle of yes the craziest year of his life now he's here training with sensei seagal himself

learning the deadliest moves in combat um from the master um and and this is just like a small selection because everything he does goes mega viral here is him dancing in korea like the man has just taken over all of our platforms if you go a day without seeing some great alex perera content on social um you're probably not following the right people so shout out to alex who i think elevated his game took it to a new level the youtube channel was flourishing he was everywhere um he's given the guy in south korea the same the same guy the leg kicks and the body shot. Everything he did just went viral. Fitting, I picked him for my Fighter of the Year.

Also, the social media, the Kaposa Award. Wow, way to reveal your Fighter of the Year Award. Jesus, did you forget? For God's sake. Maybe he's working us right now. Point is, you're 100% right.

He's got a beautiful smile. He's got a beautiful smile. He's got a great spirit. He came into the UFC as this somewhat mute, stoic character who doesn't say much or doesn't have any— The Stonehenge. He was that. He's this guy right here. He doesn't have much reaction to things. And then, I mean, look at him now.

He's beloved. He is absolutely beloved. What a year for him in the cage, out of the cage. It's a tough one to argue against uh gc very very in touch with who the kids are following on social media do you have um you know do you have a an issue with this pick or do you like this pick none at all uh the the engagement rate uh the willing to to be playful and fun while also promoting his fights and everything like that. I like this choice. And also YouTube channels blowing up.

Who else comes to mind? I feel like there's some others. So we had other, again, I consulted with Kaposa. Yeah. One that I also thought that was in second place for me was Tom, right? I think Tom Aspinall had a great year. Oh, I was just about to say that. Showing up everywhere.

And his YouTube was great. Creating the content. His YouTube's been fantastic. I think Alex was a little more elevated. Alex was a little bit better alex was a little bit better tom was second for me the one that we kind of that we kind of talked about was like you know who's more terminally online than john jones like is uh it's just is any is anybody more online and willing to go to battle over the the it's actually little list point yeah twitter comment or x comment than Jon Jones himself.

But ultimately, I felt like Alex just from the start to the finish kind of carried the year on social. Tom would be a good breakout social. Breakout social. I feel like he really came into his own. But yeah, I'm looking through Alex Pereira's IG right now. I mean, he got into the skits.

I mean, he was getting on after DDP beat Izzy and he's just like, maybe one more trip Down to 185 Like he incites Stuff on On social media I mean

We had to change the topic Of the show The other week Because he tweeted About Magomed on Kalaev Like The more I think about it This is

This is an excellent selection No it's It's a great one And he's really showing A lot of range I will say Bit surprised No No mention of Marab. I thought Marab really...

Marab would also be a great one. He dedicated his life to the sketches this year. Too much? He started last year, and I feel like there's... When you're comparing and contrasting the two, there's the effortlessness of Alex, and then there's the little bit of, you see the sausage being made with Marab, and it just feels like i just feel like they say they say he never misses that that is

the definition of alex alex is not 100 but i felt like with marab he he was a perfect example of someone who used social media to his advantage he got whether it was more popular people hated him as a result he just did it in a way where people felt some sort of way it's a completely fair point this was my cejudo pick of the of the initial uh i don't feel like that was i feel like the level that alex went to this year is higher than the level that marab that's fair i feel like marab had started this um already but again not a bad pick to your point like both of those guys are a great example of somebody who doesn't necessarily have the ability like on the fly to kind of be that like magnanimous like off the off the cuff um kind of person who riffs but if you give them enough time they can

show their personality and uh they did it well this year can i throw out a great word it's a great word can i throw out an honorable mention? Yes. Now, this person can't necessarily win because they're not active, although they had a somewhat, you know, newsworthy 2024.

I want to give a shout out to our good friend Demetrius Mighty Mouse Johnson because what he has done with his YouTube channel in particular and his social media alongside

the prolific Michael Onceover, nothing short of amazing. He is more respected and more beloved to the point where his announcement where he retired was such a huge story and he hadn't fought in a year. You know, 10 years ago, people are saying like, oh no, DJ, we don't care. Oh, and we're trying to explain, like, appreciate this guy, you know, while he's still around,

what he's done with his mighty cast, with his YouTube, with his podcast, with his, with his, with his social media, pretty damn pretty damn amazing and and not everyone could pull it off because they don't have his personality they don't have his energy they don't have his his aura as the kids say uh but he has translated this this fight career into this amazing media career and uh has done it on his own right he's not on espn he's not on any other network he's not on any other network. He's not on any other major platform. All on his own. Pretty damn impressive. I like it. He's like an MMA Carl Frotch, you might say. I mean, let's

not get crazy. He believes that the earth is... No, actually... A circle? Yes. Carl Frotch is actually doing great on YouTube. And I mentioned this on the show before all this nonsense. I'm not trying to take you down this road.

Stop, stop, stop. Oh, wait, there's another one. I thought it was the... What's the... Who gives a flying fuck about Carl Froch? Is anybody really interested? I shouldn't have done this. I'm sorry. Let's move it on.

Yeah, sorry. Apologies. I heard Carl didn Let's move it on. We're trying. Yeah, sorry. Apologies. I heard Carl didn't watch the Golden Globes last night. Oh, never mind. Oh, the Golden Globes got one. Got it, got it, got it, got it. I don't think he believes in them, actually. Did you guys watch the Golden Globes?

Yeah, I watched the Golden Globes. My wife is really into it. You wouldn't, Petey. You wouldn't. I mean, it's happening at like two in the morning. I stay for everything else that's happening in America. You know what I mean? I mean, it was on the same time as Vikings-Lions.

I know you were up for that. And that was a great game. That's what I was doing. Can someone in a nutshell explain to me the difference between the Golden Globes and the Oscars? So the Oscar is like a guy. It's like diet Oscars. The statue is a guy, and the Golden Globe is like an actual globe.

No, seriously. One is purely film. One is TV and film, and it's a tier below the Oscar. Just different voting bodies as well, right? There's a group of people who voted one. Which Irish actor won this year? No one has ever gotten slapped in the Golden Globe. They're calling it a tier below. You're 0 for 2

on this, Frank. Wow. I'm actually genuinely curious as to what the difference is, and I haven't cared enough. It feels to me like the Golden Globes, and by the way, hello to the Empire State Building, it feels to me like the Golden Globes are more of like an insider trade award. Whoa. No, no?

It's just a different award show, and they cover different categories, and they also do TV, and like Rick said, it's a different voting body. All right. I saw Adam Sandler made a brief cameo on that. Yeah, sure. Fantastic. The Oscars are made up of an actual academy. You have to be voted in. What is this academy that you speak of?

It's the same thing with the Grammys. You have to get vouched for by other members. You have to do your dues during the year and then they ask you to vote. It's just a different voting pool. But you would be right in that the Oscars is they ask you to vote. So like, it's just a different voting pool, but you would be right in that the Oscars is a little bit more exclusive. Okay, and also no,

are there fans in attendance at the Oscars? Because it's a very small room, the Golden Globes usually. What are we eating, Frankie? Yeah, what are you eating, Frank? I'm smoking a cigarette. Okay. Back off. Do have some breaking news. Don't mean to interrupt your lunch, Frank. Quick pause in the action here.

This just threw the wire. Saudi Arabia to host the 2026 Royal Rumble. This is the first time that the Royal Rumble will be held outside of the United States. So next year's Royal Rumble. Remember, this time last year, we were talking about our stories to watch in 2025, the continued importance and dominance of Saudi Arabia in combat sports. We've seen it in boxing, of course, wrestling, and now more and more in MMA. February 1st, there's that Adesanya card against Ima Vov, a fight night card. Not yet a big UFC pay-per-view, but some big PFL

events. This is a massive deal. They've had PLEs in Saudi Arabia But never before one of the big four Royal Rumble, probably the second most popular one Behind WrestleMania Coming over to Saudi Arabia in 2026 Here's a quote from the great Turkey, Al-Sheikh Saudi Arabia's hosting of the Royal Rumble For the first time outside of North America Reflects the General Entertainment Authority's

Ongoing commitment to bringing the world's largest and most important entertainment events to the kingdom. Through its partnership with WWE, we aim to enhance the entertainment sector and deliver a transformative experience that attracts a wide audience. He added, we are excited

to see this historic event as part of Riyadh Season's activities and look forward to providing an exceptional experience for wrestling fans around the world whom we welcome to all events hosted in Saudi Arabia. WWE is a global enterprise and it only made sense to expand our relationship with the kingdom by

bringing one of our biggest annual events to Riyadh in January of 2026, said Nick Khan, WWE president. How about that? Pretty interesting, right? How about that? Pretty interesting, right? How about that? You watching Netflix tonight? I actually wanted to issue

all of you some homework. Is to watch it. I would like everyone on the program to watch it. Trust me, it is going to be one of the biggest Raws of all time. Rumors abound of people showing up John Cena scheduled

The Rock scheduled Sosa Koa against Roman Reigns Liv Morgan against Rhea Ripley Jey Uso against Drew McIntyre But this

This to me is going to Level up WWE And it's going to make them I mean you go on Netflix now And it's like It's all there It's like right in your face

Oh yeah It's in a different Stratosphere now It's going to be huge They just posted before The show The cold open It's like right in your face. Oh yeah. It's, it's in a different stratosphere now. It's going to be huge. They just posted before the show, the cold open. It's incredible. Um, yeah. And, and, and correct me if I'm wrong.

I didn't, I didn't partake because I believe Christmas day is for the NBA, but no issues with Netflix on, on, uh, on Christmas, right. With the NFL. Mm-mm. No, it was great. It was absolutely stunning. So it seems like all of that concern is gone.

Um, obviously I don't think this will do as well as Paul Tyson As far as like 100 million people watching at the same time But it's a major A major, major, major milestone If PT's watching, I'm watching So I would like for all of us I don't love wrestling I'm not like a diehard wrestling fan

But I love diving in every once in a while I'm looking forward to tonight Dive in and I'd like for all of us... No, I have to fucking watch. Oh, it's homework. You're watching, Pete. What time's the finisher? This isn't like... Oh, it's like Elaine. There's no more than

no football tonight, babe. I'll go asleep at a respectable hour. And she's like, yes! Thank God! Finally! All of a sudden, Pete's worried about sleep. This guy is staying up till 5am to watch the Buccaneers against the Browns on a Thursday yes. Thank God, finally. All of a sudden, Pete's worried about sleep. This guy is staying up until 5 a.m. to watch the Buccaneers against the Browns

on a Thursday night. And look at the fruit that that yielded for me. The Buccaneers out of nowhere into the playoffs. I mean, magical, magical story.

Rest in peace to Mike Hopkins. Shout out Becker Mayfield. Incredible season. Mike Evans getting his bonus yesterday. Truly heartwarming stuff. Yeah, didn't translate into a fantasy win that you guaranteed.

Came third, first time ever against NFL podcasts. I mean, I was just celebrating. Celebrated all around Blanchardstown, around Europe. They had an award ceremony, and they were like the greatest mind in European NFL. And then the NFL actually tried to poach me from you guys. And I said, I'm not even going to have the conversation.

All right. I don't even want to have the conversation lads. So you should really be thanking me. No, it was a great shout. It was a great shout. Uh, you,

you really, you really represent both of you. Thank you GC. GC. I wouldn't have been able to do it without you. I'm just, I'm a mere assistant coach in this one. The draft process was stressful.

It was strenuous and you guided me uh so well and look at look at the team at the end of it there i mean the spine of that team is still there thank you josh allen thank you james cook thank you b john robinson uh nothing but success to all of you in the future thank you yeah this little uh on air jordan says you're either first or your last pt so and he'd know about that being a jets fan yeah oh my lord i think we need a pizza by the way the moves are incredible i think we need some kind of pizza award i mean that was nuts uh perhaps next year uh it's uh It's a great point about the Jets. And I do want to mention that I think that the presumptive 2024 NFL MVP,

Mr. Josh Allen, was really a key part of your success over the past season. Was he not? Until it came to crunch time and he cost us the the semifinal there yeah yeah uh these things happen um in any event i don't know how we got down this path but uh congratulations to both you and gc on a great fantasy showing and are you back next year are you gonna make this announcement now are you gonna do it again next year um i'm gonna take my talents wherever the best offer is those fighting words

so you know we're going to have to see I think after my display this year I think it would be you know it would be tarnished to NFL to not have me involved next year as far as I'm concerned I'm not going to make a commitment one way or the other but I'll leave you with that

Chuck and I are fighting this week by the way In case you're wondering And it's a great game So we're in a bit of a tiff If you will He's going to be on on Friday to talk about this as well So watch what you say He'll be able to fire back

Next week I'm worried This week This is called You know A warm up act If you will Alright Let us move along

You know I had a I had a really tough time Speaking of Tiffs Speaking of Beefs Speaking of Rivalries I had a tough time With this one guys I didn't feel

If I'm being honest with you I didn't feel like There were any true blue Like in the past There have been I mean DC Jones Easy Aldo McGregor, easy. And then sometimes you go off the grid and you say like, oh, Jake Paul versus Dana White. It doesn't have to necessarily lead to a fight,

but I had a tough time with rivalry of the year because I didn't feel like there were any big ones that either came to fruition or that felt like they were like boiling over and so i'll say there was a moment where i consider tom aspinall versus john jones i was thinking okay like that that's a thing because when i think of rivalry of the year i think of all right what did we talk about for the vast majority of the year? What matchup, what fight, what two people did we talk about from the beginning to the end? And I felt like that was one that was, you know, ever since Tom Aspinall, you know, won the interim belt.

And then, of course, Jon Jones fights in November. It felt like something we talked about. But I feel like this year might be that year. And then, honestly, I thought of Ilya Teporia versus Max Holloway because once Ilya beat Volkanovski, I felt like, okay, we all wanted to see the Holloway fight. Holloway takes the Gaethje fight. He beats Gaethje in tremendous fashion,

and then it just kind of amplified the fight. But I don't know. It didn't quite feel like it was there. And then I went a little bit. I took a left turn, and I thought of the video that dropped on December 31st when Conor McGregor announced his return. He announced that he was coming back in June. You'll remember that was on New Year's Eve.

And how many times did we talk about Conor McGregor versus Michael Chandler leading up to June? And how many times did we talk about it after June? And of course the year ended in a fashion that not very many of us could have predicted. A, Conor talking about a fight against Logan Paul, some talk of a Jake Paul fight, and then of course the civil trial going against them. And so it didn't quite end with this being a topic of discussion. And now I feel like it's nowhere near a topic of discussion. But if you go back to January, February, March, and then, of course, the explosion around June and then it falling through and then are they going to salvage it?

It felt like that was the rivalry that we talked about for the vast majority of the year. So in the end, after not really finding one that I was enamored with and love with. I went with McGregor versus Chandler. Pete C? I went with Jones v. Asimov, but I think that's a great pick in fairness. Like, I mean, it was a roller coaster all year. Like week to week, it changed so much. In December, I think a lot of people were like, this is going to happen. Then when Dana White reacted to McGregor's New Year's Eve tweets,

I think that put water on it. But it was just constantly like that all year. So I completely understand that pick. Aspen will be Jones. Dominated conversation in the same way. To the point where Steve Amy Oujic walked away from the sport with the greatest heavyweight champion of all time in the UFC. And it was a subplot to the whole thing.

So yeah, I understand your pick, but Aspinall V Jones is mine. Rick? Aspinall V Jones. Same, same logic, nothing more to add. Like it was, it was the, the topic of conversation and the one that I felt like had the most heat throughout the year. The other reason, by the way, that I went with, um, McGregor Chandler is because it did lead to a massive gate. It just, the fight never came to fruition. So there was, there was, you know, economics attached to it as well, but don't hate the Jones Aspinall one, of course,

as well. What about you GC? Yeah, good shot. I'm actually going to go with one that we saw a fight take place. They entered the octagon. I'm going to go with Alex Pereira versus Jamal Hill uh the lead up to the fight at ufc 300 the bloodied easter island head the breaking of the arrow everything like that and then the knockout by alex perera you get the cabi lame and then uh jamal hill going on his youtube channel he's upset with how it ended the referee everything like that then you know alex perera gets asked at a post fight presser you know why why was he yawning and he's like he must have just been waking up from ufc 300 they've kind of been going back and forth at each other on social media

on YouTube channels all year long and then at the end of the year you get the video in the apex Alex Pereira says put the gloves on man let's fight right now they're going at it that leads to more content on how much they hate each other uh they feel like they're despite a one-sided affair in the first fight it feels like they're circling each other and this is a rematch that we could see happen again and it genuinely feels like these guys uh don't really like each other i love that that's a great shout and and again you tend to want to go with a fight that actually or a rivalry that leads to a fight hasn't always been that case um i think last year my pick was Nganou versus Dana White. So it hasn't always been that case,

but that is a great shout. That is an amazing one. The people, in case you are wondering. Aspinall Jones has got to be right. Went with Aspinall Jones. There's two that did

lead to fights that I had on my short list as well. They feel a little bit dated now. They feel like we moved on so quickly from them,

but I do feel like at the time that they happened they were they were significant muhammad mccoy of and manel cop like brawling in hotel rooms and like chirping back and forth like that felt like it had some heat i think the the one that cooled that one off was the performance in the fight both of them just didn't want it it seemed like neither of them wanted to even fight um so it was an unfortunate kind of like culmination it had like rashad versus rampage vibes for me where i was like oh yeah these two hate each other and then it was a boring uh affair and then this one has really lost some steam but in the build-up to it drichus versus israel at asanya was blood feud was territorial rivalry to to the point that it was extremely emotional on both sides uh but then because they were so cordial with each other after the fact i think that one

really like lost that steam it kind of got put to bed um but those two in the moment felt the biggest that did culminate to me um as rivalries so am i wrong in saying that izzy ddp felt a lot like jones rashad back in the day where it was like nuclear hot and then by the time we actually got to the fight i didn't feel the same type of heat attached to it for whatever reason yeah i think you're right you had the press conference it was fine i don't know what it was it just and maybe it was izzy not fighting for a long time or i don't know but by the time we got to that August fight, I didn't feel like the world was foaming at the mouth to see these two guys. And I don't think I would have said that after their confrontation, that head-to-head in the cage in July of 2023. It just felt like it kind of, it sort of like crawled to the finish line.

You know what I mean? I think much like those two fights that you pointed to, Jones and Evans and Adesanya and Drikas, they started much hotter and then kind of lost steam. They started like supernova bright because of the stories and then kind of lost steam. I think the participants tried to cool it a little bit. I don't think Israel and Drikas made it as messy and as nasty as it started. And then as that they kind of set the tone for that. They set the temperature. But even when it did arrive, I did feel like those two felt like

big time rivals and it felt like it was going to be bad blood. And then afterwards it was a little more cordial than expected. So I think it lost steam. And I think both that fight that you compared it to also kind of felt that way. Yeah. Alright, well the people agree with both you and PT.

Rivalry of the Year, Aspinall Jones. All right. Let's continue now and go with Coach of the Year. You know, back in the day, guys, we used to also have Gym of the Year, Team of the Year. I feel like we're kind of moving away from that where there used to be like four or five big ones. There was ATT, there was TriStar, there was Jackson Wink.

You know, you had the days of the Blackzillions, SBG Ireland, like you had your big ones, but now it feels like things are becoming a little bit more like boxing. And so we narrow it down to just coach of the year. PT, why don't you go first well it's funny you should say that because uh i picked fighting nerds as my big wow that is weird pablo uh sukupira i believe his name is and i probably didn't pronounce that right is the head coach of that gym but i just you know you named some gyms there and it does feel like a real throwback it feels like you hear

about these guys and you want to see it you want to be in that room to see what where all this magic is coming from uh rufy john silva carol bello uh bruno brazil there's loads of people in that gym at carlos practice of course um so yeah it just has one of those feelings to me this year where they were the happening gym. You know, it felt like a lot of people had really positive feelings towards them. We saw Jon Jones even wearing the glasses that those guys rock. So that's what I went for this year. Seems like they're all just having a great time.

Yeah. Like you just want to feel good. Yeah. Thing. Yeah. And the gym looks damn cool too. The mural with the Ali and uh Their Bruce Lee And all that Love it

Love it Absolutely love it Um alright That's an interesting one I wasn't expecting you to go there What about you Rick? Pablo Sucapira Wow

There it is Fighting nerds It's just undeniable this year Um What's their record? Do you know what their UFC record is? Oh boy I don't GC had it at some point

Most fun Yeah they went undefeated Between John Kyle Huffy, and Pratchett. I want to say Bruno Brazil

may have lost a couple times, but it was... She did, she lost, yeah. Yeah, it was something like 10-2 or like 11-2. They had a really impressive year.

Love it. All right, GC? I actually thought about going with Pablo. I love the fighting nerds, thought about showing them some more love, but there was one MVP

this year in the UFC and that was that was alex perera saved uh 300 303 307 didn't matter short notice you know call him he's there and who was by his side throughout the entirety of it who was there uh the man in his corner the man sitting next to him on the plane stuff together one. One, Plinio Cruz. Coach of the year for 2024 for me. A very, very incredible year for both of them. Plinio Cruz, not only coach of the year, perhaps interpreter of the year as well.

I mean, he does it all. He does it all. Fabiano is the GOAT. Honestly, when they post those videos of them in the car, them on the plane, and it's just like, just got the call, it's time to go save the UFC again. I imagine Plinio's also just brokering the deal as well. He just does everything for them. He's the man. He's the freaking go save the UFC again. I imagine Plinio's also just brokering the deal as well. He just does everything for him.

He's the man. He's the freaking man. It was his birthday recently as well, so happy birthday to him. A great, great coach. A great mind. Believe it or not, gentlemen, I disagree with all of you. How about that? A bit surprising. Yeah, so this was a tough one

once again. It's a little bit different. The times have changed. But you're right. You're right. There was an MVP this year, GC, and you're right. He's someone who we've talked about throughout the program. We may talk about him towards the back end of the show as well. You see that MVP for 2024 is in fact, Mr. Alex Poitin Pereira. But here's where I differ because I cannot just give the coach of the year award to one individual. We go back several years ago when we gave the coach of the year award, the prestigious Helwani knows coach of the year award to both Mark Henry and Ricardo Almeida for the year that they had. I think it was back in 2017 or so.

And so I draw from that. It's shades of Grant Hill and Jason Kidd winning the rookie of the year way back in, I think, 1995. Co-winners, my coach of the year, co-winners, Plinio Cruz. And we cannot forget about Glover Teixeira, who I don't think gets enough credit for the evolution of one uh alex prayer they are both by side it feels like it's a a committee over there and uh yeah prayer has had an incredible year and what they've done with him in particular and now you're starting to see people come from

all over the likes of sean strickland obviously the great dylan dennis action bronson training over there little known fact uh those two are my coaches of the year. It's a great call, man. Why didn't you give love to Glover? Yeah, I don't know. I feel like Plinio is always just on the forefront of everything. He's the one down in the trenches every single training session, everything like that.

So, yeah, I just wanted to do one coach of the year. I'm sure there's many other people helping out out at Fighting Nerds Both of them went with Just the Pablo Yeah Getting the love so I love the Glover man I mean I know he is He is very important

In this whole process as well Alright So there you have it We'll keep Oh by the way Sorry I forgot about the people The people said Oh I screwed up here

The Oh I screwed up again Oh I got off track When I started to read that Saudi Arabia, I screwed up again. I got off track when I started to read that Saudi Arabia thing. Wait, wait, please. And again, thank you so much to A-Dub.

Come on, man. And moderate. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm just trying to buy some time. Plinio Cruz, Coach of the Year, according to the people. So they agree with you. I feel, you know, I love Plinio.

I love him more than most. I mean, he's an incredible guy, but I want to give Glover that love as well. And I love the bond that they all share. Let's go to event of the year, gentlemen. And so this is just the best card. You know, the one that had it all, the one that delivered,

the one that was just great fun, the one that we had high expectations that perhaps over-delivered, perhaps exceeded said expectations. Rick, why don't you go first? One of the easier ones for me, UFC 300, top to bottom, the best of what the UFC can do and met the expectation and delivered. I mean, we got some of the best knockouts of the year,

the best moments of the year, top to bottom stacked. What more could you ask for? Easy call for me. GC. I agree with Rick. This was one of the easier ones. I mean, I know there was a lot of anticipation. There was a lot of hope about what could come from it.

Some people may have been disappointed, but when push came to shove and it was time to actually have the fights, this one delivered. I mean, take away the name UFC 300. Take away all the expectations that were there. I mean, you had Figge choking out Cody Garbrandt in the Curtain Jerker. You had that incredible comeback from Hanato Moikano. You get the iconic knockout from Max Holloway, the iconic knockout from Alex Pereira. Kayla Harrison making her UFC debut and getting a finish there.

Diego Lopez getting a 90-second finish against Sadiq Yusuf. Armin sarukian charles olivera and a potential title eliminator uh bo nickel the yuri prahashka come back the al germain sterling making his debut at 145 i mean the list goes on and on and on it was an incredible night for mixed martial arts an incredible card i just don't know how you could choose anything else topping it this year great rundown pt agree perfect time and i don't know how you can pick anything else i've picked ufc 306 at the sphere at the sphere wow brother what well well well this has to just be for the sphere i speak while you were speaking let him speak let him speak did

i speak while you were speaking okay thank you sorry don't like to lose my composure like this especially when i'm dressed like this sorry gc after no no it's okay it's okay man i know you have four negros right it's okay it's all right it's all right man i understand it'll be heated there sorry um but this needs to be commended what they did here um you're you're right about usc 300 and it was the fact that everyone in the lead up to usc 300 specifically a few people in this group were quite critical of that main event everything delivered that's fantastic but but but 306 um this undertaking that they were going to do something special and the fact that they did that, everything so cookie cutter all the time in the UFC, to see them go out and try to do something bigger

and achieve something bigger as they did, I think that needs to be commended. It was different. We've never seen anything like it before. So that's why I picked UFC 306. That was my be commended. It was different. We've never seen anything like it before. So that's why I picked UFC 306. That was my runner up. And because we talked about it for so long and because as an event, it was must see, right? How many times in MMA these days are you like, I need to be sitting down for the first fight.

I need to be sitting down just because I want to see what it's like, right? A lot of the events look very cookie cutter and look, you know, no matter if they're in Saudi or London or Rio or Edmonton or New York or Vegas, they all look the same. And so this felt like an event. Oh my God, we have to be there. We have to see it. We have to experience it. There was so much talk.

How would it look? And all that stuff. But ultimately, I don't feel like the fights lived up. Like afterwards, the talk was a lot about the production and not necessarily the fights. And so that's why I went with UFC 300 because look, UFC 300 was maligned. And there were times where it felt like

we were getting there. It's like, what is going to headline this? And Lord knows that was one of the stories of the year. I think it was in fact, my story of the year. What is going to, you know, or actually I said the Saudi thing, but it was up there what is what is going to headline and there are all kinds of you know rumors and and all kinds of drama attached to it but it was just like boom boom boom they all delivered um and then some and so it felt like everyone was watching it felt like a massive

moment for the ufc and by the way uh shout out to the ufc they made it feel special remember the old graphics that they did and and just some of that stuff that historically they don't do that I'd love to see them do more of, you know, a tip of the cap to the past. I really enjoyed the production and then the fights delivered. And so with 306, I enjoyed the production, but the fights weren't anything like to really write home about. One of the fights of the year on the about. One of the fights of the year on the card. One of the fights of the year. Sure, sure.

And the other fight of the year in some people's eyes was on 300. Not yours though. No, not mine. That's why it's my runner up. Some others worth mentioning, Teporia Holloway, UFC 308 in October,

UFC 299. And I'm going to mention a few here courtesy of our friend Kaposa, just to show how much of an encyclopedia and what kind of a sicko he is. Dog Fight Wild Tournament Second Impact. KSW 90, LFA 178, Super Horizon 3, Horizon Decade, which just came and went.

Who could forget Dog Fight, honestly? And I love he he wrote this to me i love riad season presents noche ufc 306 uh because who could forget that it was noche ufc 306 presented by riad season um forget don't fuck what i love uh the people by the way, they went with UFC 300. UFC 300 for the win. All right. We now, you know, I like to have a theme here. So let's go to crowd of the year.

One of my favorites, by the way, and it was tough during the pandemic, you know, to have crowd of the year. Those were some lean years, if you will. But we're all the way back. Dana White said we're all the way back. And so shout crowd of the year. Those were some lean years, if you will. But we're all the way back. Dana White said we're all the way back. And so shout out to the crowds. GC, why don't you go first? Man of the people picking the best crowd, if you will. Yeah, I'm actually going to go with a fight night.

You got a packed arena, 16,000 people in there. You got a lot of hometown fighters on it. I'm going to go with UFC St. Louis back in May. You got Joaquin Buckley. You got Sean Woodson. You got Charles Johnson going on it. I'm going to go with UFC St. Louis back in May. You got Joaquin Buckley, you got Sean Woodson, you got Charles Johnson going on there. And to me, this is like the epitome of what a fight night should be. You know, St. Louis is probably not getting a pay-per-view anytime soon. They're starved to see the UFC come to town. And when they do, the fans go hard and they did it perfectly by putting hometown guys that really

rep the area on the card. So when they were able to come out victorious, the crowd just got that much more into it. UFC St. Louis was impressed with how raucous the crowd was there. I do hate to interrupt very briefly here, but our beloved Nottingham Forest have just scored one nil. Who scored? Second, second.

I don't know if you know this But we're second in the Who scored? That would be Morgan Gibbs-White MGW Oh my god MGW MGW I put Chris Wood in my

Fancy football team He can't score for me MGW You know we're second In the Prem right now You guys realize this We're second Technically third

No, no, no We're second If we win today We are tied for second With Arsenal Okay But they win the Gold differential Ah, fuck the gold, we're second If we win today, we are tied for second with Arsenal Okay But they're winning the gold differential Ah, fuck the gold differential, we're fucking second

Alright, we're fucking second They said we're going to jump off the bandwagon Do you know what, February's going to be a great month as well Because you don't have European football You're going to have a great February I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry It's a great shout, PT, why don't you go next Mine is PFL Europe 1 In Gaypury sorry i'm sorry uh it's a great shout pt when you go next uh mine is um pfl europe one in gay

perry um at the diversity arena as you know so well i will um oh yeah i was there you know i was there back in 2014 lots of people say they were as you know because you were there too but it's a rare rare situation when you feel like you're in the belly of the beast. You are, you know, you you're in the hotbed of MMA. And that was so clear to me that night in the foyer of this place, they had the paparazzi set up to take pictures of the celebrities who are coming in to watch Cedric Dume, baby Baki, two guys that the rest of the world, you know, they don't care even an iota about as much as the french people do um there was amateur good there was a guy he was one and oh uh a belgian kid as he was coming out i'd never heard of the kid in my life everyone in the arena it was as if conor mcgregor walked

out in ireland um just an unbelievable crowd and obviously there was all these celebrities there like jabril sisay the football player uh vincent cassell a very famous french actor and it was just the whole place was spinning and what like the crowd is different to the media usually but i would include the media in the crowd in this sense because when cedric dune bay walked out they were climbing on each of their shoulders like a rugby scrum to try and get a better image of him like the the media complete fanfare on press row as this guy came out what added to this whole thing of me remembering this crowd was the fact that it ended in such controversial fashion you'll remember mark goddard waved this fight off

as cedric dume bay complained about a splinter in his foot mark goddard in that moment becomes a pantomime villain it is it's no longer a fight this is you're you're on broadway this is a theater people are nothing short of throwing fruit at the man as he makes a decision i completely understand to this day even outside afterwards we're walking down rue de bercy and people are devastated you can see them talking to each other how did this happen how did this happen meanwhile a small pocket of backy fans are running around shouting in their faces it's it was just amazing to be in a place like that where people are feeling like that about the sport again and that's why i've picked pfl europe

one in paris france man you you've painted a brilliant picture uh by the way as an aside has doombe not recovered i know i know he he came back but i don't feel the same type of momentum has he not recovered since then? Or is that not accurate? No, I think he has to some degree. I think if they did that Baki rematch, which he said they would in that finale, that PFL finale, the European one that you just couldn't watch,

he mentioned it, that he would rematch Baki, who was supposedly meant to sign for the UFC, as far as I could recall, after that fight with Doombay. He said he's going to rematch him. I think that fight, you know, being there that night and you could have cut the tension with a knife.

I think if they do that again, it will put him back right back to where he was, provided he can get the win. Yeah. Um, shout out to Paris. And by the way, uh, an incredible showing at the Olympics. I know as an aside, but what a time in, in

French sport, the, uh, the fans were just unbelievable during that stretch. And they but what a time in in french sport the uh the fans were just unbelievable during that stretch and they have been a revelation in both mma and pro wrestling not necessarily in boxing nothing really going on over there in boxing but certainly in mma and pro wrestling uh pretty remarkable what about you rick this one was a lock for me um the the manchester crowd at ufc 304 those crazy bastards that stayed for that they deserve something uh because they were put through hell as the fighters so if i can do nothing else i'm giving you this i appreciate you people of manchester who stayed up for that

absolute uh middle of the night um card and so uh congratulations you're my crowd of the night card. Congratulations. You're my crowd of the year. That's a great show. It was either one or the other for me as well, Rick. I like that one, yeah. I went with the Moicano Saint-Denis Paris crowd. I thought they were loud. They were raucous.

Remember that Brian Battle promo. It sounded like bees swarming. They were so loud and they were so vociferous. They have always been incredible. And I feel like they get better and better each and every time out. I don't know how we distinguish

between the PFL crowd and the UFC. It was because of the refrain, though. Baki! Seymour! That was, come on. And actually, last year year I gave it to the PFL Paris crowd. Yeah, yeah. For that initial Dumbé fight.

But I thought that they were incredible. I love how they sing Le Marseillaise during the main event. I love that routine. And so, yeah, ultimately I went with the UFC Paris crowd back in September and the people agreed with me in case you were wondering. Casuals. Yeah.

You know. By the way, were you at that event? That March event? PT? No. You weren't there. Which one? The Dune Bay one?

Yeah, yeah. Which one? Yeah, I was at that one, yeah. That one. Have you been to both? Or was that the first time? I haven't been to it. No, I haven't been to a UFC event there.

No, no, no. Did you go to the first PFL Paris one? His debut? The one with Mbappe? No, no, it wasn't that one. Okay, you've just been to that one. Yeah, but the first one was like, it was in a much smaller venue. So I'd say that was wild.

That was the reason why I was like, if he fights in Paris again, I've got to go. And honestly, lads, you're in Europe, you're in the UK, wherever you are. It's a very cheap flight. It's a great night. You got to go over because it's very rare that you'll be in an atmosphere like that. I couldn't, I was the only English speaking guy there. So I was just by myself completely immersed in this experience. And it was, it was fantastic.

I mean, honestly, crowd of the year just has to be the French fans. If we're being honest. That's right. That's fair. We could split it, you know, via the, uh, the event route, but to me. They're amazing. They are unbelievable.

There was a WWE event in Lyon in May and I couldn't believe it. The chance they're up the entire time. And then what I love in particular about the, the, the, the about the PFL Paris shows is that there's these local guys and these regional guys

that they treat like superheroes. They have chance for them. They know their backstory. Like, they are fully immersed. And I love seeing, I love seeing, you know,

French MMA and combat media outlets starting to come up. We've mentioned La Shoah. By the way, shout out to the great Netflix series, Le Cage. Oh. Or is it is it la cage i believe there's a guy i mean it's not a bad little binge worthy show if you ask me a real nice a real nice look at the world of mma through the lens

yeah it's it's quite nice it's quite nice just want to shout them out as well uh it's just an explosion it's an explosion over there so uh shout out to the but it won't last forever that's another thing i thought we had light in a bottle here and fair play to bellator for dragging the arse out of for years after and um you know getting big crowds into the three arena and all that stuff it is rare that these things happen it's going to be another country soon it'll probably be Spain. And the French guys will be like, oh, I can't believe it was only yesterday when all this stuff happened. Um,

it's very, very rare. So get there as quickly as you can. You mentioned Leon in December, lazy King fought there ago. You might not be very well known across 10,000 tickets. So it's incredible. Dun,

dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, incredible sing it with me now and then you

by the way Frank that's not the Beatles song oh damn it I think I went for the Brazilian National Anthem there when you went quiet straight into it speaking of music, let's

transition now to walkout of the year. Always a favorite. And this is one where you can go all over the place, right? Like you can go some of the lesser known shows overseas. In Asia in particular, you can go with the UFC one. You can go, if you want,

with a PFL one or a one championship one. Who knows knows who knows what direction will go in gc why don't you go first yeah uh i'm actually gonna go overseas and i'm going to head to ksw 94 none other than uh our man arthur spilka wow uh with maybe one of the most creative walkouts most uh most effort put into a walkout that I've ever seen. He comes out in the Friso chamber. I don't know if this is Goku-esque or something, but, I mean, it looks like he's just regenerating in there. He's just getting ready for war.

Has the whole crew wheel him out. I mean, then he gets up on the big screen. That is unbelievable. This is production at a level we rarely see in MMA walkouts. I mean, look, he up on the big screen i mean this is unbelievable this is production at a level we rarely see in mma walkouts i mean look at he's on the big screen there he is rising up uh from the stage wow well i mean you know i thought about doing maybe dustin poirier he got the he got the incredible you know music to walk out to but this is just this doesn't get topped there it is that's rips off all the all the monitors and everything.

He's ready for war. He's fully regenerated back up, and it's time for Mr. Arthur Spilka to head to the ring. Unfortunately, knocked out in the first round. Listen. But the walkout was great, man. The knockout was great. Shout out to Pudge.

Oh, no, this is a highlight of his. This is a highlight of his. He looks great. Yeah, here are the highlights. Let's show the highlights. Yeah, no, this is a highlight of his. He looks great. Here are the highlights. Let's show the highlights. Behind the back, back of the head. The walkout is great. We're here to celebrate walkouts. We're not here to celebrate

performances. The results are just like cryogenically frozen. Yeah, cryogenically frozen. You know, everything like that. It was 14 seconds actually after that walkout. After all that. Knocked out. It was 14 seconds, actually. Wow. After that walkout.

After all that. You have to rejuvenate. Maybe throw it on the rejuvenator just a couple more minutes. Either way, incredible walkout. That is an incredible walkout. Shout out to Arthur Stilson. Shout out to KSW. One of my favorite promotions.

Absolutely. Production value. They keep it a buck over there, don't they? What about you pt it's fucking cedric dume and france but i mean i'm not seeing that was it with the with the which one was it backy okay that one yeah not because there was the one afterwards where he had like the the swiffer thing you know yeah it wasn't there man i can't tell you much about that wow this one ended in uh splinter tko correct yeah

so yeah and look it you know some say maybe the fight ended during this walk i'm not allowed to get into that but um yeah someone brought their plank to the arena and a splinter fell on the uh walk up gotta wear the shoes next time gotta do nothing wrong gotta wear the shoes next time rick what about you for me it was alex per and jam about you? For me, it was Alex Perrera and Jamal Hill. Combination of the two. It was Alex Perrera's walkout. That's a good one. It was Alex. Obviously,

Alex's walkouts could be in here any year. We could talk about the intensity and the seriousness and the vibe of Alex Perrera's walkouts in general. But in this particular situation, it was the collaboration between Alex and Jamal. When Alex gets the bow and arrow ready and fires that arrow,

and then Jamal Hill actually catches it and then snaps it over his leg. Oh, God. To me, this is the moment. This is the moment in a walkout that got me excited, got me amped in a way that none of the others did. You're 100% right. That's a great job. Honestly, all three of you, amazing shots. I love this

category because it invokes what makes it all so special, right? The emotion, like you get, there's nothing like before a big fight or, you know, let's say a lesser known fight, you're like, holy shit, look at the time and effort that went into this. It only makes you more excited. It only makes you more invested. It only makes you more into it. So I love a good walkout. I'm a sucker for, I love this particular section of the award show, the walkout and the promo and the posters, because this is what makes the fight game so fun. This is why you remember the legendary fights and why I love these posters and whatnot. So in the end, love them all. I didn't go in the same direction as all of you. I love the emotion. I love the theater. And while my particular winner wasn't necessarily one that

had a lot of glitz and glamour, again again I Go back to how I felt in the moment And when Dustin Poirier came out To shine bright like a diamond Shine bright I just remember that day I get goosebumps Just thinking about it and just how he Looked and that walk out there and how They shot it and he came out

To that song at the beginning and then it transitioned To his Regular walk out it just It was big it felt to that song at the beginning and then it transitioned to his regular walkout. It was big. Look at that. That shot right there. Love that. It was special stuff. We can't play the music here because we don't want to get demonetized, but you all remember it, right?

There was that young man at the beginning and everyone was like, are you going to play it? Are you going to play it? And it was all dark and they played it. It was great. They comboed it. Yeah. Joe Rogan does the Q James Brown. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. He said that. I went to play it and it was all dark and they they played it it was great he comboed it yeah joe rogan does the q james brown yeah yeah that's right that's right he said that uh i went back and relived it uh so great shout there uh from all of us really let's give us uh let's give us all a great uh pat on the back uh by the way the the uh the people uh agreed with me man i think that's

just because they don't they don't know the game well enough. Yeah, they don't know ball. Arthur Spilska, I mean, is the one. They're not going to know shit about that. I love KSW 94. I was in the trenches for that one. That was amazing, GC. Pre-limb to post-limb, KSW 94, I was locked in. Again, this is one where you have to lean on someone like GC or Kaposa.

Yaman at Super Horizon 3. moeen ahmadi at the um he he had a he had a great one at uh fcr 21 the trump assassination attempt slash many men combo do you guys remember that um anyway uh uh alex schlomenko uh in DeLorean at RCC19. Max Holzer with the Buzz Lightyear, You Got a Friend in Me vibe at Octagon52. Of course, who could forget Max Holzer with the Batman look. Moeen Ahmadi with the Dictator look at FCR19. And can I be honest with you guys?

I actually really did consider Esteban Rebovitz for the, uh, the Roy Jones Jr. Walkout. Do you remember that one? Yeah. When he walks out because of the scene and then Roy is sitting in the front row.

Rapid to his own song. I still don't know if that was just by chance. Cause remember the night before at our live show, Roy told us that he was going there as opposed to the Canelo fight. And we're like, wow, Roy Jones is going he was going there as opposed to the Canelo fight. And we're like, wow, Roy Jones is going to the UFC event as opposed to the big boxing card. And then there he is. Like, was that all coordinated?

We'll never know. I don't know. I don't know if Espron Rebootics has got the pull to coordinate all that. Or did they, like, did someone tell? I don't know. Or did they know that eventually Roy Jones Jr. was going to have his own song played as a walkout? and they were like, maybe you should just sit right here. Yes. Yeah, that could have been it. Yeah. We don't want to know who the sauce just made, Ariel. We don't want to know. We don't want to know.

This is our little stream. You're 100% right. Olajuwon Dream points out it could have been Mike Tyson's ass, which if you think about it, it wasn't the official walkout, but it became the talk of this fight's about to happen. That could have been a feel-good moment of the year that one was god that was so good that was like the only part of the stream that worked for me i'm not messing just came on just you got

the buffer right as it showed mike tyson's ass it just didn't go oh yeah yeah that's a good one uh so he was he tripped on his way down uh by the way speaking of our good friend Kaposa, he did weigh in on social media about the Dogfight Wild Tournament. He writes, Dogfight Wild Tournament second impacted more for MMA in Spain

than Deporia winning the title. They built an actual blood sport platform and the three versus one main event was a historic feat of the human spirit.

So. No, I actually think I do remember Dogfight. I'm not actually joking. It was on YouTube. No, it's just. And it was. And it was like very well produced. And it had like a very small area that they fought. And there was like people, like a big table watching over it.

If I'm remembering correctly, actually, I'm not kidding. All right, let's go to promo of the year. One of my favorites, promo of the year. Rick, why don't you go first? Easy one for me. Man, you know what? I felt like I had like real good good vision on a lot of these. For me, it took some uncovering.

It took some digging. But it had to be this. I felt very good about it. It's the whole Old Man Volk thing. It's the whole Old Man Volk. Wow. Go back to the promos from February, I want to say. I think it was February.

When I want to get the outlet correct. And I think we have the video of it. Actually, why don't we just play the video and then I'll talk on the back end. Volkanovski too old. Don't make a headline out of anything these days, huh? It's ridiculous. All this talk about the over 35 curse. It's nonsense.

So I've let the sports bet crew in. Shoes off, shoes off. To prove I'm just as youthful as these whippersnappers. Click's nonsense. So I've let the sports bet crew in. Ah, shoes off, shoes off. To prove I'm just as youthful as these whippersnappers. Like a quick wish? Nah, I'm good. Usually a hit. Every time I think of hanging up the gloves, this damn phone rings.

It's always, Dana, we want you to headline this next main card. This'll be him now. That's fucking great, watch. Dana. Who? Taxation office. My credit card details are 9036... It's a scam, it's a scam. Hang on, hang on.

What, that's the thing? This fight coming up sounds like your toughest. Yeah, this one's going to be huge. I really don't like them. So we've already got a date set for next week at the council court. Here, let me show you something. My neighbour's fence, at least 10 mil in my yard. It's ridiculous.

What'd you say, little fighter boy? Nothing, Beverly. Yeah, I'll see you in court, baby. I'm talking about my lady goddess. You're dead. Sorry, man. You gotta be right. Run back to your son, little hexagon.

So good. Shout out to sportsbet.com.au who came up with this promo series. And then Volkanovski for carrying it through to the press conferences with Ilya showing up in the gear, doing the sleeping in the backstage. It was A++ for me from Volk and from sportsbet.com.au. The acting from Volk, too, is unbelievable. Every one of these that he does, they did the one where it was in Abu Dhabi and he was acting like,

he was like, yeah, this is my first time here, guys. Didn't you fight here? He's like, first time here. His acting is always just on point. So good. The production, the script, the acting, phenomenal. And I kind of failed to mention this when I set it up. What's fun about Promo of the Year

is you can go in a million different directions here. You can go with something like that. You can go with a fight promo, one of the greatest of all time as far as I'm concerned, DC Jones 2, UFC 217, I think it was, or was it 214. In any event, that was amazing with the three and a half or so minute promo that they aired for that. You could go with a promo on the mic. You could go with an interview. It's up to you. You can slice this pie in a thousand different ways and so you go with an ad like that you want to call it an ad i think it's an ad right um traditionally that's a sort of

campaign uh leading up to a big fight phenomenal and then really what tops it off is to your point him showing up in the gear at the presser uh the fight didn't turn out the way he wanted it to, but he really owned it, as they say in the business. So that's an amazing pick. What about you, GC? Yeah, I actually went with the cutting of the promo in a post-fight interview. And for me, it was a no-brainer. It was Brian Battle at UFC Paris. The way that the crowd reacts to it, the quotability of it, the,

I know you didn't think the butcher was going to lose to a French dude in a fistfight. Uh, I've watched it probably 10,000 times. It puts me on a high when I watch it. It truly is incredible. Uh, and I think we actually have it to run so I can just watch it one more time. Let's go. Mike, I gotta say something right quick. Yeah, keep booing me, baby. I'm sorry. Keep booing me. I love it. I love it. Listen. Listen. People have been booing me and doubting me since I started training.

I love it. The more you boo me, the stronger I get, baby. I'm used to this. Y'all can't stop me. Keep it up, baby. Keep it up. Y'all can't stop me. Continue it up, Eddie. Keep it up. Y'all can't stop me. So good.

They translate everything to the French people on him talking shit to him. It's amazing. I love Battle nodding as if he knows what he's saying there. I love it. I get him on after knocking out their own countrymen. Trying to take him down in the first round. He's an expert at judo. And then in round two, you go to the hands,

and then you get the stoppage. Listen, that was incredible work. This is when they show the B-roll and they cover it up with this. Inside it. Inside it. What's up? Oh, that's pretty. Hey, USA in this s***, baby. Yeah, let me hear it.

Hey, hey, I know y'all didn't think the butcher was going to lose in a fist fight to a French dude. gotta repeat it again fucking phenomenal i'll just piggyback and say that's my pick as well it's so good fucking phenomenal i love it yeah i love it i love it i love it it's so great and again this is why you need a crowd because you don't get that moment if it's in an apex or if it's in a shitty crowd like he's he's reacting to the crowd they're reacting to him he's playing to the crowd i said it in the moment when i was watching it it felt like 1984 madison square garden nikolai volkov you know saying like you know russia number one and then the iron cheek know, USA, and spitting on the ground. That's what it was. It was old school pro wrestling. And then we find out later, as he joined us on the program, a couple of months later

that he's an old school pro wrestling fan. You can't not be a pro wrestling fan and deliver something like that. You have to have that in your back pocket. And he fucking nailed it. That was, that was beautiful. It It was It was incredible So shout out to Brian Battle By the way To me It actually came down To Brian Battle

Or Hinata Moikano On that same card Where he You know He went off on the French government And what not But the I love it

And you know I know that The French dude's Not gonna be Like all that stuff Was just I think the butcher Was gonna lose

In a fist fight To a French dude Just And then just Reiterates it Yes Just perfect that ain't never gonna happen i actually thought originally like they should have let him walk off after the initial answer but then we would have never gotten the you know i know you didn't think the butcher was going to lose to a french dude in a fist fight just brilliant absolutely brilliant unfortunately

he didn't end the year on the best note with missing the weight and the somewhat controversial win, but certainly a great character that emerged you could say in 2024. What about you, Pizzi? Mine is very different to all of your guys' pick, and all of your guys' picks are great, but mine was

Francis Ngannou's dedicating his win to his late son Kobe after his pfl return very different mood i will admit to uh what we've seen here but incredibly emotional and like this guy you know if you were cast in a movie for the the baddest man on the planet it would be francis and ganu every day of the week and him kind of bearing his soul to the to the watching world in this moment that uh was so important to him like you know rick talked about it earlier in terms of him and being the comeback for the year so much expectation on his shoulders with pfl

coming off that joshua loss and obviously the loss of his son as well which we can only imagine the pain and suffering that his family went through during that period. I just found it to be incredibly emotional for everyone watching at home and it really, really sealed the deal in terms of explaining

to the watching world how much this meant to him and how difficult the process it was. Did you want to, are we playing it or no? I thought you were teeing up for it.

No, we're not playing it. I don't know. I can't just think about anything than my son Kobe, you know. I only take this fight because of him. I wanted to fight for him. And I'm done. So I don't know.

I hope, I hope they can remember his name because without Kobe, we wouldn't be here tonight. I wouldn't have fight. Shout out to Francis. Yeah, you're 100% right. Again, you can skin the cat in many different ways when it comes to promo,

and I appreciate your interpretation of it as well. Very different, obviously, than me, GC, and Rick's. We went for the more comedic route, but an incredible moment. One of the moments of the year, really, and especially when you consider that he was also coming off of the first knockout of his career, which pales in comparison to the pain that he was dealing with in that moment. I'll never forget, he wins the fight and then immediately breaks down in tears. Like he was holding it all in. He wins the fight and it just comes all rushing out. So much love to Francis. And hopefully we see him back in there in 2025. The People, by the way, went with

Brian Battle's promo after his win over Kevin Doucette at UFC Paris. Lots to choose from. We move along now to one that, another one where I'll say like, was my top five toughest to pick from. I really had a hard time with this one and it's poster of the year. A category that is near and dear to my heart because I feel very strongly about the poster

and I get very upset when promotions just sort of wing it when they don't put enough TLC into the poster. And I get very upset when promotions just sort of wing it when they don't put enough TLC into the poster. The poster is very important. It's how you remember the event. And I don't love this era that we're in where it's just like rinse repeat. Oh, let's just take this and this. And this is a nice little photo shoot that we did here. We'll Photoshop this and we'll put the same logo there. And it's the exact same every time. And it says nothing about the place that they're in or the venue that they're in or anything about the history between the two fighters or the rivalry. Nothing. It's just rinse and repeat cookie cutter crap.

And it drives me nuts. And so that's why, and have always gone to the international promotions, usually to the RISENs of the world, usually to the Japanese promotions because they do it right. And I'll be honest, sometimes it's events that I didn't even really watch. There's like a Deep Jewels here or a random promotion there or a RISEN or a KSW because they put some thought, they put some panache, they put some stuff into it. In fact, I do want to go through some off the grid ones that I particularly like that I feel like there's a chance the boys didn't go with. Can I show some here? Let's go through some of them before I give you my pick because there was just so many to choose from. And again, I want to give a big shout out to our good friend Kaposa for helping me with this one, because I always seem to forget, and he's, again, an incredible mind when it comes to this stuff. Do we have, do we have, yeah, here we go, look at this, Ryzen 46,

I mean, look at this, look how beautiful this is, April 29th, look at that, you got the, I mean, you got the butterfly, and it's dripping, is that like paint? What is that? 29th look at that you got the i mean you got the the butterfly and it's dripping is that like paint what is that what do you think that is frank is that paint what is that paint yeah it's freaking paint beautiful look at that look at look at look at look at the creativity look at the thought look at the it's just unique it's different again to me the test is will you put it on your wall would Would you want to frame that, put it on your wall? What about this, Ryzen 47? Look at that. It's cool. It jumps at you. It's different. It's unique. It's creative. It's dramatic. Ryzen 48. Look at that. There's a storm

brewing. Oh, look at all the faces. Look at the colors. And yes, a lot of this is Photoshop, but you got a little bit of the Coliseum stuff at the bottom, the pillars. Beautiful. What about Super Ryzen 3? Yeah, look at the color. You're telling me you don't want that on your wall? You're not framing that? What about Ryzen 49 look at that i mean that is something decade all the great moments over the past 10 years for ryzen again these are just these are just photos but it's the way you present it's different it's fun it's it's it's memorable there was a secondary ryzen one excuse me i'm getting emotional here. I mean, look at that one. Look at that. Saitama Super Arena. And then look at that.

You see what that is? That's the Coliseum there. You see that? Look at the symmetry. Look at the imagery. Look at the symbolism. Such a great composition. Ah, it's beautiful.

Look at the colors, right? Ah, it's a new day. They're rising. They're like a phoenix coming out of the ashes. What about Deep Jewels 44? I mean, look at that. Nice. That's a nice one. Thank you, PT. Appreciate it. What about Deep Jewels 47?

Oh, look at this. Alright, that one's pretty sick. Yeah, the comic strip. Love that. Beautiful. What about KSW 100? Historic. Shout out KSW. I mean, look at these faces.

Yeah, that's what I like about this one is not the traditional fighter faces. They're doing something different. Yeah, look at Big Phil DeFreeze, man. DeFreeze, Kalidov. Look at Ahmed. Look at Ahmed, legend, yeah. And okay, this is fun.

And this is one of my favorites of the year and one of my favorite promotions What about Black Combat 12 Black Combat knows what they're doing Oh my god Black Combat is I mean this should be the Black Combat Award Look at this the bosses of Belgrade This is actually FNC 17

Yeah that too I got a Black Combat one that I like I'll get to it I screwed up because I didn't put a space No there's more Yeah there we go What about that one Black Combat 12 Return of the Kings

Shout out This was my number 2 I mean this is beautiful What about Black Combat 13 Nice and simple. You know what that says? I could have done some more research on this. Yeah. What about Black Combat

13 alternate? Yep. What about Black Combat 10? Oh, look at that. Oh, that's a good one. What's yours going to be? UFC Apex 68? How did you guess? Rosenstreich, Godziev, face, face

Blue filter No, I didn't know we could just text Kaposa and get him to do all of our awards I asked him I asked him If I was on par And I say all of this And thank you again to Kaposa By the way This show is a love you again to compose and by the way this show is a

love letter to caposa and by the way i say all of this extra set of dms next december baby i say all of this to reveal this for for the first time ever. We just did all that and you're talking to the UFC poster. I say all this to reveal as you're slagging me off

with a UFC poster because I thought what they did for Noche UFC was fantastic. And again, just like the coaches, there has to be

two winners here. And I feel very strongly about the artist series not being a part of it. But the combo of the regular poster, being a part of it. But the combo of the regular poster, let's see it right here, the regular poster

and the artist series together is nothing short, like the regular one is a contender in its own right. I mean, look at that. It's playing up to the sphere. It's playing up to the noche.

I love the way the big faces of Sean and Marab loom large. And then it's Valentina and Alexa. And then you couple it with this classic, you know, artist series poster, which shout out to Yahoo Sports president, Ryan Spoon. He bought it at the event, came here, asked me for whatever reason to sign it. And that was the first time I actually saw it.

I mean, look at that. They played this up perfectly. And again, you might be saying to might be saying to yourself like golly like why did they do a love letter to mexico at the sphere sponsored by ria season unimportant details the point is that combination right there was peak and i would love to see you know they love to do this thing where it's the little box and it's it says right there um you know it says like ufc 303 and it's the same thing even for the the the the official one they didn't do it they put they put the box with the date they put that they didn't even put the they put that on top there actually isn't even a mention of 306 you see it there's no mention. It's just Noche UFC.

And then you couple it with that. I was really impressed. And so for the first time ever, I do believe I have to go back into the archives. I think this is the first time I ever give it to the UFC. So what do you have to say for yourself now, PT? What do you have to say? I have to say it's a great choice. If it was up to me, it would be UFC

every year. I love you, Dana. But what we're going to go with this time is the PFL Seize the Throne poster, which I thought was fabulous. If we can have a look at that there. Look at this thing. I mean, my God, where are they? In the bells of hell? Maybe.

Here they are pointing at a very sought-after throne, it would seem. And both of them, as you can see and as the picture depicts want to seize that throne so that for me was both uh beautiful and uh poignant so that's why in your head canon they were fighting for the throne of hell when they didn't have the throne in the cage okay i was pretty pissed off. I got all hyped up on the poster and I was like, oh, wait a lane. They're about to bring the throne out. And then they just had a fight, which I thought was disappointing.

Purely on a poster, it's a winner for me. Nice one. That's Clay Collard and AJ McKee in there, right? Big fight. Yeah, that was big. Was that an official poster or was that like an alternate? I mean, did you not just have like, here's the collector's item picture? Big fight. Yeah, that was dumb. That was big. Attempting to seize the throne. Was that an official poster

or was that like an alternate? I mean, did you not just have like, here's the collector's item? No, no, no. I just, no, but I've always said artist, but I said the two, like I would have gone, you know what's also weird about that one?

It's funny, it's my pick though. Do you know what I mean? Like it's funny that you would have gone for something when. No, what's weird about it also is that like. What did you pick? Was that the champion versus champion one, but actually one of the few fights

on the main card that didn't involve champion versus champion? That's why I liked it. I was going to say, what throne are they at? Yeah, what throne? As you can see,

it's a very decorative one and, you know, I'd say it costs a few quid. to be honest. Well, heavy lies the crown. It looks like once you get there, too, there's not much to do other than just sit there.

I love how P pt is now defending the artistic choices of this poster as if he created himself you are right that it's your pick but it represents all of us yeah yeah the nuances will be lost on a lot of you um i'm a very creative and artistic person uh so i understand uh your your no to ufc when they're ariel and look it's great but for me just isn't as profound as the seize the throne poster which is hanging up on my wall i'll tell you that much oh you want to show us and then the louvre this sort of feels like you know like when you're a teacher i've never been a teacher and and someone hands in their essay and you know they just spent like five minutes and went to AI to get the answer, you know,

chat GPT or whatever. Could I have went to AI? Because I would have done that if I could for this particular. That was a good chance. You could have slid in with like, Kaposa did your homework. What are you giving him, ammunition here?

I picked a UFC one. DM Kaposa. Trust me, man. DM Kaposa is like, show me the best poster. Yeah, and I went with a UFC one. So what do you have to say for yourself? GC, go ahead. I actually agreed with you um though I feel like I I break the no sorry not you PT uh the AI the AI PFL one did not make my uh short list um I do I feel like

I go against you every single year you're like no artist series no artist series and I just continue to go artist series. And I went with the No J UFC artist series by one Jorge R Gutierrez. You can follow him on Instagram at Mexopolis. Unbelievable stuff. It's just, it's so unique. It's so well done. It's got the fighters on it.

It's got all these beautiful colors. It shows homage to the theme of the evening. And like you said, this is one that, if you're at that event, you purchase this, you frame it, and it's a great keepsake. Love it. All-time stuff here from Jorge Gutierrez. Of all the artist series ones, which, you know, sometimes you

guys see them, and I'm like, this isn't even that good. They're just always better than the UFC. That's the thing. They're just always better than the UFC. Who's those?. They're just always better than the UFC. This one is just great on its own. It's so good, man. Loved it. Absolutely loved it. Great shot there. What about you, Rick?

I always go artist series every year lately these days. UFC 300. Shout out to the homie, friend of the show, Gian Gallon. Absolute homie. Look at this thing. It hits everything. How they use the real UFC 300 poster over this makes me

sick. That's the other part. The gap between what dog shit they actually used and this is like a chasm that you can't even fathom. This is absolute beauty and they've got the UFC 300 logo font. It's just baffling.

Actually, really shout out to Jian Galang. I always have this hanging. This is like that poster, but it's in like a different format. It's shiny. I mean, look at this. Do you think it's like a payment thing? Yes, I do. Like if they just use it, like they have.

I do. So pay them. You guys make so much money. Or is it like a licensing thing? I wonder what the reason is. If they mass marketed it and made it the official poster, I imagine that there's different tiering of how they would have to do that. Because those posters are now going to appear on websites. Those posters are now going to appear in bars.

They have all that marketing that they have to do for it. I imagine the compensation package is different. But man, you got to figure it out. These posters are just so much better. So much better. Yeah, I had that one second. Yeah, after Seize the Throne. Yeah.

Sure you did. Just couldn't overtake. Couldn't take the throne from the Seize the Throne. I actually have never seen the Seize the Throne one. Why was it Clay Collard, AJ McHugh? Come back to me in a week. Come back to me in a week. The subtleties there.

I mean, it's layered. Every time you look at it, you're like, oh my god, there's another secret. What did you type in? MMA posters? MMA poster equivalent of Sistine Chapel. And that's what they brought me to.

Oh, look at it again. Did you see that? I didn't even see that before. PT is going to get an email from PFL's creative that actually did come up with this concept. Just thanking him profusely for. Oh, I thought you were going to say. I see you, brother. I see you. To be honest, it was shit.

Also, this is definitely a PFL artist here. This is a PFL artist here. It's got to be. I don't think this is what the official poster was. Why would they have not had any of the championship fights on it? It's too risky. It's too risky. You know what I mean?

That's what it is. It's too risky. It's like the Playboy. We're going to find out that Pete Z has been moonlighting as a designer, and he actually did make this poster. That's what we're about to find out. That could be the only answer for this. What's amazing about it is,

it's a beautiful piece of work. My favorite part about this particular pick is that it was one of the few fights that wasn't for any type of title. But that's what, it's a message inside the picture. Why do we always focus on these big fights? Who's on your one? Sean O'Malley,

Murab Debalashvili. Oh, well done. Who's on my one? You're going to have to look again because I'm not sure myself. Blake Collard. The worst part is that the actual designer is probably watching this and like, Debalashvili. Oh, well done. He was on my one. You're going to have to look again because I'm not sure myself. Like color day. The worst part is that the actual designer

is probably watching this and like, oh, fuck these guys. Little did they know that Paul Hughes was actually hiding behind the throne. Is it really even that? Pizzi's putting this over

in a way that it never would have been. So it's actually the best of the worst. Also, it might be the first time that you see the fighters' backs and not their faces, right? Again, it's a different approach. And I it's very avant-garde yeah exactly you know go outside

the box you don't have to live in the box like these guys outside of it that's where i live i agree i agree they just they just signed pizzi to a pfl poster design contract for the future uh by the way the people uh disagreed with all of us and went with UFC 300, but not artist series, just the actual one. That's a joke. They probably Googled UFC 300 poster, found that one, and then

Do you guys remember what that was? It was just the logo. And they obviously hadn't seen Seize the Throne until I brought it to their attention. The waving flag. You know what they're voting for now, Elwani. I'll tell you that much. Let's go with the photo of the year.

And this is one that we introduced a few years back because I feel like we use these photos all the time and we don't give credit to the photographers who take them. And a big part of the fight game are these indelible images that we go back to. And there's been some incredible ones over the years. Always a tough one. Always a tough one because there's just so many to choose from.

And I had a hard time with this one as well. Rick, why don't you go first? For me, it was the combination of the moment itself in addition to the photo. It was very tough for me. I'm not going to reveal what my second place one was because I imagine that somebody else might take it

or it might be an honorable mention. But for me, it was Alex Pereira's KO over Jamal Hill and the pose and the Khabib-Lame pose where he knocked Jamal Hill out in one of the most impressive ways you possibly can

with the whole Herb Dean thing, shooing him out of the way, knocking him out, brutal knockout, and then has the wherewithal to pose, almost seemingly looking directly at the camera as if this was, it reminds me, it conjures visions of the way Israel Adesanya posed over him when he knocked him out. And it was just this picture perfect moment to me this was picture perfect the knockout itself plus the actual picture uh was perfect and and the pose and the memeing and everything uh it it narrowly edged my next one but this was the one for me i'll piggyback that was my pick as well um because i feel like we've gone back to it we use the gif uh it's shot perfectly it sums up the whole thing. I didn't even know about the, what did you say, copy?

Yeah, he's, wait, do you still not know? No, no, at the time. Okay. I just thought he was just like, here it is. Here's my masterpiece. And then you go back and you learn that he's like, he's paying homage to some sort of like internet meme. Yeah.

In that moment, you're thinking of that like you're reacting that way incredible oh my god so yeah uh jeff botari who does incredible work for uh getty and zufa uh he took that photo and uh he was my pick as well what about you gc yeah i am actually going to go to ufc 302 islam makachev versus dustin poirier and luke hailes uh captured just one of the best pictures I've ever seen. Just full embodiment of the warrior spirit. It's Dustin Poirier, uh, with the, the blood gushing out of his nose.

Um, it's just like, it's just such a good shot, you know, legend of the game, true BMF throwing down with the pound for pound. Number one, uh, wearing the heart on the sleeve. He's got the blood leaking out of the nose. This is just it right here. This is so good. So freaking good. Remember that one vividly. What about you, PT?

It's Tom Osborne, what appears to be a state of arousal, looking at John Jones at UFC 309. He doesn't like this one, but I quite like it because you can see this being used all year round. He doesn't like the face, but I quite like it because, you know, you can see this being used all year round. He doesn't like the face he's pulling in this one because he looked a bit cooler, I think, in the Pereira one. But I really, really like it.

You know, he's left outside of the situation that's occurring in there. It's, again, my creative mind, you know, I might lose you here, but he's been excluded from the fight that he should be in. And there he is outside the cage, staring at the man that he desires to fight. Fantastic. No, that was on my short list. There is also another one where he's looking at Pereira. I know that I referenced that. You must have listened to me.

That one is, I love the Jones one, but because the Pereira one is so cool looking, it's not the superior one. It's because it's cool looking. It doesn't speak to what is actually happening. You're not understanding the messaging outside of what you're looking at, boys. I can understand why he likes... The same as Seize the Trone.

Same as Seize the Trone. I can understand why he likes the way he looks in the Pereira one better than that one. He's kind of like mid... Trust me, as someone who, you know, the boys like to take pictures of me when I'm like this and use it as the thumbnail. I get it.

I get it, Tom. No, no, no. Actually, you posed for pictures like that. I didn't. Yes. And then get upset when we use them. You're going to use this one right here, that face you just made?

We like taking pictures. What pictures do we have? Three grams is a constant argument. I sat here. Someone took photos. I didn't tell them to send every single one that they took. They sent all 300 of them. And then you guys pick.

There has to be some sort of editing process. You need to get the Throne guy in to take the pictures, and we won't have this. What do you want us to do? Change the entire picture? Just the face, man. You made the face. I'm in blink, as was Tom. As was Tom. The people, by the way, man. You made the face. I'm mid-blink. As was Tom.

As was Tom. The people, by the way, went with Max Holloway's walk-off. That's the one I didn't mention because I thought somebody else would pick it. I'm actually shocked you didn't pick that one because you had it in back of you for like two months. Yeah, it was my number two. Oh.

That Poirier one is just too good. A little inside baseball, a little story. We had Dustin Poirier one is just too good A little Inside baseball a little story We had Dustin Poirier On the show At MMA fighting on the MMA hour And on one of the Graphics that we created around that That show

And that episode we did a quote We utilized some of those pictures including That one that GC used Dustin DMed the account and was like Yo where the hell is this photo send this to me a quote oh we utilized some of those pictures including that one that gc used dustin dm the account the account and was like yo where the hell is this photo send this to me and we sent him the the photos to utilize which one the one with the blood yeah wow he wanted that one wow that's amazing um you know it's another one that i loved to pour you after he beat holloway drinking the tea so actually they're like yeah unless i'm mistaken there wasn't like a really good photo

of that it was just a screenshot from from the broadcast pretty good was it yeah really i never saw like a great photo because i looked that one up maybe i just and also was it was it espresso was it like what was it i think it was espresso yeah just take a nice or maybe like a nice little like arabian tea you know i think it Espresso or something. Any other ones? I was with y'all. Alex and Max were my top three. My top three were Dustin, Alex, and Max. Yeah, there was...

Actually, on the PFL Bellator supercard, there was a prelim fight that had an amazing photo. PC non-plus. I didn't realize. I chewed it out About two minutes ago I'm sorry I'm thinking about The throne again

And he's like Oh that throne PC Chris Wood by the way Has scored Does that help your fantasy Or did it have to be first It does

Yes it fucking does actually Yes 2-0 for Forrest Sean O'Malley With the knee on Chido Vera That's a great one Oh yeah Oh my gosh

Yeah that was an incredible one So yes A lot to choose from And quite frankly, there's some that may have Slipped our minds The people, as I said, went with Mark J. Rebulas's photo of

Max Holloway, the walk-off After the Justin Gaethje Knockout at UFC 300 Alright, we're in the Final stretch here My friends Final stretch four categories left Story of the year

Tough right it's tough There have been so many stories over the past year What do you go with Was that real or was that a draw The world will never know What was your story of the year For the year or was that a draw? The world will never know. The world will never know. What was your story of the year for the year 2000 and 2024? GC, you go first.

All right, so for 2024, I actually had a tough time with this. There wasn't one that just like really stuck out to me. But in the end, I ended up going with will the biggest star in the sport, one Conor McGregor,

ever enter the octagon again? Obviously, start the year, him and Chandler. Is it going to happen? Will they? Won't they? Then we get the fight announcement, and it's going to happen at UFC 303, and we have a presser scheduled in Dublin, and then doesn't show up to the presser. What's going on? Is he going to make it? Is he going to make it? Ends up falling out. Isn't going to fight. Then we hear all these rumors of, well, it's going to be later this year. Now it might not be Chandler, and he's still going to get into is he going to make it ends up falling out isn't going to fight then then we hear all these rumors of well it's going to be later this year now it might not be chandler and uh

you know he's still going to get into the octagon before 2024 is out and i actually firmly believed it um and then it ends up not happening and then we have the civil trial and everything like that and now going into 2025 i i feel like it's more up in the air than it's ever been in his entire career whether or not he's going to enter the octagon again. So for 2024, my story of the year was, will we ever see the sport's biggest star ever fight again? Yeah. That's kind of what I was thinking with rivalry of the year, right?

The ups, the downs. You have to try to find something that's a constant thread from January all the way until December. Sure. And that is a great pick. What about you, PT? Yeah, it's a civil trial. Very different here than it was over there,

but this whole country was talking about this trial every day of it, dissected on the news every single day. The reputation of McGregor completely tarnished, it seems, in the reputation of mcgregor completely tarnished it seems in the aftermath of it um so it might be a geographically biased pick in some ways as i've talked to on this show before like the reaction in the united states is very different to the reaction in uh the uk and orland less or so in the uk but just just a massive, massive story over here. The biggest, it was actually voted the biggest news story of the year in Ireland, um, in

December. So yeah, I couldn't look past that. Um, yeah, the civil case, him losing the civil case in the key to hand. Rick. Yeah. I had, uh, something tangentially related to that, but basically mine was summarized as the UFC is like unstoppable business. Like if you think about the year for the UFC without Conor McGregor, right? We would

have expected them to have a Conor McGregor fight, but they did not get a Conor McGregor fight. The UFC had one of its best years ever. It's setting up for a massive television deal next year. UFC 300, domestic gate records every single time they host an event, settling the antitrust lawsuit, Dana White's influence and proximity to power, like involved in Donald Trump's election. Their business is bulletproof right now. And if ever there was a time that the UFC could have been down, it would have been, ah, John Jones is just coming back and we don't know what his future looks like. Conor McGregor's future is uncertain. The UFC is seemingly stronger business-wise than ever. And that was the story of the year for me.

Like the UFC cannot miss at this point. Yeah, I mean, they are on fire at the gates, all that stuff, 100%. And primed for a massive year. We talked about this on the preview show with the rights coming up here in America with the ESPN deal coming up. You see WWE, their TKO cousin, debuting on Netflix today. And Netflix is, and I should have mentioned this on the preview show, Netflix is about to get into sports in a very big way. They've already dipped their toe here with the Jake Paul fight and then the NFL games and now Raw. It's a total game changer if they're involved. So couldn't agree more with you. The people, by the way, agreed with Pizzi. They went with

the Conor McGregor saga. A little Pizzi, a little GC as well. I went with Alex Pereira saving the UFC three times. He saved them at UFC 300. He saved them at 303. He saved them the Salt Lake City card, UFC 307. 300, they were searching for a main event. Remember, it was right after 299 that Dana White made the announcement that it's going to be Jamal Hill versus,

like we were essentially like a month away at that point or a little bit more. And he announces, oh, it's going to be Jamal Hill versus Al Caprella. And people are like, oh shit, wow, okay. And he saves their ass with an incredible fight, with an incredible win, with an incredible knockout. Then the Conor McGregor card falls through 303.

Remember that saga? He's in Australia. He's on a pr tour he's got broken toes saves them wins the fight great finish he's the man and then because of islam getting hurt and islam was supposed to be in abu dhabi and teporia holloway was supposed to be in in in salt lake city and salt lake city is paying the ufc a lot of money these days in site fees to hold the events there and then they moved moved to Poria Holloway to Abu Dhabi, and now they need a main event because they weren't going to do Peña versus Pennington as

the main event for Salt Lake City with this arena paying so much money to have a UFC event there, they call upon old faithful Alex Pereira to fight the relatively unheralded Khalil Rountree, which turned out to be an incredible fight, ultimately won by Alex Pereira. That's why I called him the MVP of the UFC. He kept stepping up for the UFC and saving them, and not just saving them because he showed up to fight, he delivered every time as well. They were incredible fights,

and you always feel like you're getting your money's worth when the guy is involved. It's just an amazing story. And yeah, I felt like him doing that three times. And by the way, the span of six months, right? He did that in April with 300, June 303, and then October 307. Remarkable. What a year.

Like I said, the people went with Conor McGregor's saga of a year. Let us move along now to feel good. You could go feel good story. You could go feel good moment. Kind of one of the same. And you know what? I'll go first on this one.

My feel good story of the year is a story that stretches from February all the way until November and I remember a lot of people telling me about the Welsh gangster Oban Elliot and telling me about his love of Chael Sonnen and what a great character he was and he finally gets into the UFC And I wanted to have him on before his debut in February in Anaheim. And I remember having him on and I remember him making me cry. And I remember just kind of like falling in love with the guy

because he is just so passionate. He speaks from the heart. He wears his emotion on his sleeve and he has an incredible story. And I use the word incredible He wears his emotion on his sleeve and he has an incredible story. And I use the word incredible, not to say that it's a great story in that it's all great things. No, he's had to overcome unimaginable, unspeakable tragedy, his father's passing, and he's defied all the odds and has been able to overcome that and make it all the way into the UFC. And so him doing that and showing up after, you know, the appearance on Contender Series and then his interview on the show

and then just our subsequent interviews leading up to his fight here in New York just kind of stole my heart. And to me, I just, every time I'm around the guy and I love his history and his love of history history of UFC history and MMA history. Like you could tell this is a person who was really watching 10, 15 years ago and you could see how much him being in the UFC, how much it means to him. It just, you can't help but feel happy for the guy. And so a quick reminder back in February, this is what he said to us right before his UFC debut. Notice on your arm you have the tattoo 2005.

What does that signify? That's the year my dad died. Shoot, fucking hell. Yeah, that's the year my dad died. And I had these shorts made, right? Which were like my dad's, fuck's sake. It's always going on. I had these shorts made, right?

It's like my dad's boxing shorts when I was a kid. No, when he was boxing. I had them made the same. There was these dethroned shorts, which looked like my dad's boxing shorts so i got these shorts made right but then when i got to the ufc what i got the contenders here is i thought well i'm gonna go in the ufc now i can't wear these fucking shorts i've got to have something in that cage on me wow so that's where i got that and i always said like i promised to myself like

that ufc belt right when i was a kid you know you think i get the ufc ufc belt no problem obviously there's a long road from here you know still to that title but me taking that belt and putting that by his grave kind of thing that was my that was the only way in my head as a young kid where i feel like i could obviously not feel that void, but try and feel it. That's the only thing that's kind of got me through that from a young age. And here I am. in February. He ended up winning his UFC debut at the Pond, got to meet CM Punk, who he's now become BFF with. He went to Raw on that Monday afterwards. Remember, Michael Chandler is cutting a promo on Conor McGregor, and he's in the background having the time of his life. And

it's just, it's so infectious. You see him at that Berlin card. He's out there like, you know, hitting rock bottoms and RKOs on people um he wins in manchester and then of course uh he gets the big opportunity to fight in new york and i said this to the crew uh at our at our uh christmas dinner our holiday dinner which i think frank was gone i think he was already in bed by the time i said this yeah uh. I said one of my favorite underrated moments of the year, and I actually said this to Oban as well. I sent him a voice note. Was when he came, you know, he came on the show twice that week,

once before the fight and the Monday after. And the second time he came on, after the win, after the incredible knockout win of Basil Hafez, he comes in wearing the puffy coat, holding, you know, the case of beer. And it reminded me, I've never really experienced something like this. You know, I don't drink much and all that stuff, but it felt like a scene out of the movies where two friends meet up at the pub after a long day and it's the holiday season and they've got their big coats on and they say we're gonna have a you know a nice cold one together and he came in excited to celebrate and

then i showed up with my own beer as well and he was so excited by that and it just felt like okay no you go first oh you go first and it was just I don't know if I'm verbalizing it correctly but it just seemed like a scene out of a movie two buds meeting up after a long day's work toasting one to each other this is the moment that I'm talking about

right here because it just there was a look on his face that is something that I don't know it just touched me and it felt like a scene out of a movie

take a look you're buzzing please have a seat have a seat let me rip this seat okay look at you yeah and hey we're gonna double dip i told you i was bringing some canadian beer as well we're double dipping we're double yeah right well you have one of them yeah yeah yeah yeah we're gonna get oh you use this thing we're doing it are we doing here? Let's do it. This one first or yours?

I want to go with yours. All right. Canadian beer. Yeah. Try not to get the thing wet. Cheers. You know, we're sorting it out. It just feels like one of those scenes.

Pete, you know what I'm talking about? Do you get what I'm trying to say here? Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think it's great that you've all got to sit down and have a meal and discuss why you're picking these awards without me. That's great. Also, what's funny about this is Ariel actually said this directly to me while I was sitting next to him. Listen.

So the fact that you're like, would you even hear? Because you're trying to make a moment about Oban Elliot. You're trying to make a moment. I didn't know you were turning it into a bit. No, it was great. It's a great moment, and it's a great story. Like I said, he could have been in a few categories here um i don't know what it is about those guys um they're some of the most infectious people i've ever met they're genuine right oh just just really great people like you

know they'd never turn you give you a wrong turn and he's exactly like the lads out at that gym and we we know we love them shaky shore jack shore we retired this year um opens a great continuation of that gym in the ufc and you feel like you always want them there so i'm very grateful for him being here and as you said an amazing story the stuff about his dad so emotional um it's great to have them as a as a lasting presence in the promotion i think they will be as well um under the guidance of shaky and jack and And, um, I do want to note, uh, that, uh, according to his, his Instagram Oban posting yesterday that it was 20 years ago yesterday, January 5th, 2005, that his, uh, father passed away.

I'm sure, uh, wherever he may be, he is very, he is very proud of his son. So, uh, that story throughout the year for me was, was just a feel good story and, and, and very happy for his success and, and his success and what he's been able to do over the past year in the UFC. PT, why don't you go next? A feel-good moment of the year for me was, it's not as pointed as yours, but it was, Rick's already talked about this, Volk at the press conference before Ilya Tepurya,

because there was so much talk of you know um this is a bad time for for Volkanovsky to take this fight and Ilya is this surging prospect who you know everything he touches is turned to gold but in that moment and I know that he lost the fight but in that moment it was like he completely rattled to pour you by going the opposite way of what he wanted if you remember to pour he's pretty outlandish at that press conference like he's wild people kind of turned on him they were kind of saying oh this guy's just a a fake mcgregor all this kind of stuff and it was all because volkanovsky went up there and just kind of took the piss out of the series in the situation obviously didn't win the fight it's a bit like gc's uh ksw pick earlier but i felt everyone was united in loving volk and you often

say ariel it came too late for volk he should have been getting the adoration he had um you know during the the run-up to the first islam fight that should have been there for a lot longer time i felt in that moment that everybody was singing off the same hymn sheet and we were all just adoring Volkanovski and how he approached that press conference. Oh, great. Yeah, it's great. How about that? Old man Volk. I mean, it didn't end up well for him, but he is a lovable character. Looking forward to his return. Maybe April?

Maybe May? Let's see. What about you, Rick? Yeah, for me, I kind of alluded to this earlier. The rivalry between DDP and Israel Adesanya started in a real kind of like nasty place. And it seemed to have a kind of it started a bad blood feud that I wasn't at the time like super comfortable with, which then kind of ended as they left the cage we can see here in the cage um israel uh holding up ddp's uh hand showing respect to him but it was actually to me a moment that came after that was not initially meant for cameras um and that was in the after the press conference uh israel and ddp had an embrace backstage where um there's a jacket that ddp and israel exchange and so uh you see them

embracing here and you see that you know they're they're settling the differences and showing respect but even more importantly following this moment so that the uh israel's here you see raises ddp's hand but following this moment you see ddp embracing israel to sonja's family and to me, this, like, when I saw this on social, I was like, oh, shit. Shout out to Oscar Willis of the Mac Life who captured this. To me, this was like, oh, man. Like, it really touched me. And one of the previous years, I used Israel Adesanya and Jon Jones squashing their beef. That one never really had, I don't think, the tension that this one quite had.

And so to me, this is even a level beyond this. I was super happy to see how respectful and how much respect they had for each other. And not only that, but DDP embracing Israel to Sonia's family. To me, this was like a real feel-good moment for me. I was very happy to see the rivalry end in this way. Even though this is not the continued bad blood and they'll never be friends. And it helps propel the MMA storyline. In terms terms of life this is what it's all about and um it was it was it really made me feel good about where we are love that i actually never saw that second video with the family yeah that's incredible stuff yeah that is great stuff uh what

about you what about you gc yeah this is perfect you guys have teed me up uh you know a lot of depth a lot of respect love between each other uh much much more simplistic uh i'm actually gonna head to game bread bare knuckle uh and after big frank tate uh got a 60 second knockout of uh alex nicholson he brings his dog in the cage and we get this viral moment right here look at this dog dapping him up dapping up hops after the big win. Wow. Look at that damn dog. That is incredible.

Dap me up, bro. What the hell? Shout out. How did you find this? Hey, shout out, man. They take back my nomination. I got to be honest. You talk about all the depth and stuff ours had.

Sometimes it's as simple as a dog giving somebody a high five. Wow. If that one hit me too. If I had a dog that could dap me up like that, that would be the number one party trick. I'd be the coolest kid on the block Imagine me smoking a cigarette and then I'd dap my dog They'd be like this is the coolest fucking guy

I've ever seen in my life What's the dog's name? I actually didn't get that far Reminds me of Matilda back in the day With Davey Boy Smith That is amazing Wow how about that The people by the way They went with Mark Coleman Being able to attend UFC 300 That is amazing. That is amazing. Wow. That's a great one. How about that? I love that one.

The people, by the way, they went with Mark Coleman being able to attend UFC 300. Oh, man. That's a great one. That's a great one, man. I forgot about Mark Coleman, dude. I thought you were going to. You had the moment with the BMF belt. Yeah, I really screwed that one up. Are you upset?

I remember feeling great about your dog pic as of 10 seconds ago. I actually thought I had the pic of the show so far With that one And I just completely fumbled it I completely fumbled it Shout out to Mark Coleman A couple other ones In addition to Coleman's

Appearance at 300 And the whole story of what happened to him And his family I can't believe we all missed that I had a year, I had a year, but anyway, uh,

Merab Dwalishvili's homecoming after winning the belt. Remember that? He's out there on the free get, and there's the dude in the, the horse and buggy. Horse and buggy. Um, by the way,

Ilya Teporya's moment at the Bernabeu, I thought was pretty incredible. I feel like that was pretty incredible. And what about DJ? Just, uh, you know, holding the tears, you know, holding the tears

You know, the retirement ceremony That was also good Just a lot of good pics there There was that time the Bulldog dabbed him up On Game Bread Bear Knuckle That was good Remember the dog? Yeah, the dog And of course, highest of honorable mentions

To one of our own Julian Apena winning the belt After, I mean, that was just highest of honorable mentions to one of our own, Juliana Pena, winning the belt after, I mean, that was just. For sure. I thought you were going to have that number one. No, I didn't want to make it

too obvious. You know, I don't want to be called biased. So there you have it. There you have it. All right, friends. We always leave these two for the very end.

We have to do it. It's arguably the two biggest. Is there anything bigger than fighter of the year? Male and female fighter of the year. Is there anything more prestigious than the 2024 Helwani knows male and female fighter of the year? I don't know. You tell me. Guys, anyone? Frank?

This is what the discussion is all about. This is the debate. Who's going to win it? This is big. This is massive. I can't wait to hear what you guys have to say i think there will be my prediction is that i think there will be there will be a consensus it will be unanimous female but not male that's my prediction and of course this has been a big debate i mean we don't have to We don't have to beat around the bushes as far as Male is concerned it seems like everyone agrees It was down to two people

It was down to Ilya Teporia and Alex Pereira female was a little bit Tougher really due to A lack of activity from the UFC Champions if I'm being honest it usually is A UFC champion thing Due to the lack of activity It felt like, okay,

this was an opportunity to go off the grid, so to speak. And so I'll start first with female fighter of the year. And my pick is Dakota Decheva. You can make a case for her being a breakout fighter,

a most improved fighter. You can make a lot of cases for her, but the year that she had going from the PFL Europe scene, then coming over to the big stage, if you will, running through the tournament and then eventually winning it all. When everyone thought, oh, she would get exposed. She'd get find out. She's not ready.

She's just, you know, a striker. She's just a pretty face. Whatever they were saying, she, I mean, she annihilated all of that. It was impressive showing after impressive showing and then topping it off with just completely annihilating tyler santos in late november um that's four wins in a very short amount of time after an incredible 2023 campaign dakota decheva my female fighter of the year congratulations to her pizzi plus one for dakota decheva absolutely brilliant year i consider it a golden girl of the sport and you have a lofty prediction of course that you made for 2025 uh based on dakota's success um and look it's kind of what

i spoke to earlier pfl have a conveyor belt of talent here and you guys cannot see that because they don't have a way to broadcast these pfl europe fights but like dakota comes to this european setup now she's obviously in the global setup she's top of the world but you have lewis mcgrillan behind her as well who i referenced earlier in his fight with dean garnett um it's a success story for pfl as well as one for dakota and um i just don't think you can top that four four fights four finishes she's she's absolutely spectacular to watch and um i think she has brought some massive brand awareness to the pfl and particularly in europe and particularly in

the uk and ireland well said not much more to add gc yeah three for three so far uh going with dakota dichova as well uh four and oh Four wins via finish. Wins a million-dollar check, becomes a champion, and is now the fastest rising sport. Fastest rising woman in the sport. Can't wait to see what she's got for 2025. By the way, shout-out to Honor Jordan. He's done the reveal three times now. Always different pictures.

Could have reused them. Could have reused them. That's production right there. That's production. That's why he is the man. All right, do we go four for four Oh come on This is some kind of bullshit right here

This is some kind of bullshit right here You know I thought about it I thought about Dakota She was my number two but If it's Ronda Rousey We riot Well done

Well played No it's a serious answer And I'll be honest I think it's Ronda Rousey, we riot. Well done. Well played. No, it's a serious answer. And I'll be honest, I think it's completely justified. I recognize what Dakota did this year. Incredible. Incredible accomplishment. Again, this to me comes down to how you kind of think about these awards. And is it the volume or is it the quality?

Is it the context and the circumstances surrounding it? To me, the complete package for the year was one Kayla Harrison. Yeah. The two wins were bigger wins. Let's just, you know, acknowledge that right off bat, right? Like beating Holly Holm and beating Ketlin Vieira is more significant than the wins that Dakota picked up. I put high stock into the Tyler Santos win, but the others I don't.

Let's, you know, I think we have to acknowledge the level of competition here. To come into the UFC, to have the expectations that were set upon her, to deliver in those moments, to make weight at 135 multiple times, to me, this year, belonged to Kayla Harrison,

with all due respect to Dakota, who I had number two, and it was razor close to me, this year, belonged to Kayla Harrison, with all due respect to Dakota, who I had number two, and it was razor close for me, but I gave the slight edge to Kayla Harrison. She was my number two as well. I mean, I want to give you shit, but I really can't, because it's a classic, like,

okay, do the two mean more than the four? And then the weight-cut cutting thing was gigantic as well. The UFC jitters, she comes in there. You know, she was tested in that second fight in Utah. And then she came back and looked fantastic. So she was my runner up. The hand? The hand, yeah.

She had surgery. Good call, Frank. And it's interesting. The two probably, mean like i didn't see anyone pick someone other than dakota or kayla both of them not ufc champions and that's very rare it's usually a bantamweight champion a flyweight champion a strawweight champion of the ufc that's usually how it's been over the last few years obviously back in the day there was strike force and all that uh so i think that's very interesting as well.

Hey, can we give a shout out to Jasmine? She had a great year. She had a great year. Obviously not, you know, female fighter of the year levels as well. She's not fighting the higher echelon, but she had a great 2024. Anyone else that you guys wanted to give a shout out to? I felt like there was a clear separation between these two and the rest, right? Dakota and Kayla and the rest. But I did have Natalia Silva had some massive wins. Verna Janjiroba had some massive wins. And Jillian Robertson had some massive wins. There was a lot of really, really solid

performances. The unfortunate thing is the volume of fights is just not there. Somebody like Dakota outside the UFC actually benefits by being in this tournament. You are going to get those fights guaranteed. Whereas in the UFC, the women's fights are just not as frequent. And so it's hard. But Jillian Robertson was able to get three wins undefeated. Pretty good year for her. Jasmine too?

Yeah. So there was some real competition for me in any other year. But to me, these two were head and 1-0. So they had great years, but not as much activity as maybe some of the champions in the past. We hopefully will get Zhang Weili back in action in early February in what is one of the best fights of the first quarter of 2025.

Zhang Weili against Tatiana Suarez. Hopefully we get that one in early February in Australia. By the way, the people, they agreed with you, Rick.la harrison how about that well surprised i'm very surprised it was oh really i feel like it was a conflict between those two yeah it was a conflict between those two and uh both both uh and by the way shout out to pfl you know one's a pfl product the other one's a current pfl yeah champion so uh it's not you know i know people love to give them shit but it's not all bad um and when it comes to women's mma they're doing something right clearly all right last one is there any type of

music is there any type of this is it this you you could we could probably do a one hour show on just this and and there was a part of me actually that was so looking forward to the discussion. I thought about starting with this one because it's, I keep looking at everyone else's awards and I see it and I read it and it's come down to two people, like I said, right? It's come down to Alex Pereira and Ilya Teporya. In case you forgot, Alex Pereira went 3-0 in 2024. And of course, we're talking about male fighter of the year. Went 3-0, he won at UFC 300, he won at UFC 303, he won at UFC 307. And then it's Ilya Teporya. Ilya Teporya beating arguably the best featherweight champion of all time, Alex Volkanovsky, and then beating arguably the best featherweight champion of all time in Max Holloway. There's three right now in the best featherweight of all time category. It's Alex Volkanovski, it's Max Holloway, it's Jose Aldo. Not in that order, but you get the point. Someday Ilya is going to be in that mix as well. And so he beat both of them,

two out of the three in 2024 in the span of eight months and stopped both of them. And oh, by the way, was the first man to stop Max Holloway and did it in emphatic fashion. Incredible year. And so do you value the two wins over the legends? Do you value the three wins over, you know, maybe lesser competition? One, by the way, is a rematch. The other against a not highly ranked guy,

Khalil Roundtree. The other against someone who was out with an Achilles tear for, you know, almost a year. Shorter amount of time, three versus two. It's a fascinating debate. It's a fascinating debate and I can't wait to see which direction we go in. Should I go

first on this one or should I go last? I'm kind of like internally debating it. I'll go first. Why not? I'll go first on this one. My 2024, thank you for that, Frank, my 2024 Male Fighter of the Year award goes to, and historically, this isn't a very tough one. We've had a

couple times, Masvidal, Adesanya year back in the day, but historically, it's not very tough. I wanted that to keep going. Was the drop done? Was it just a 10-second drop? You could replay it. In any event, it was a tough one, man. I was struggling. I was struggling over this one because I don't want to take anything away, and I actually

thought of going with a co-winner. I thought about doing... Yes, I thought about that, but I felt like it was a cop-out. You can't sit on the fence. I already did it with the poster, and so in the end, I went with Paul Etan. I had to stick with him because of the fact that he saved the UFC three times in the span

of six months, the three stoppages, the three emphatic wins, stepping up 300, stepping up 303, stepping up 306, 307, excuse me. And I don't know what the right answer is. Ultimately, I'm going to hear someone here. I bet they're going to say to Poria and you make a strong case. But to me, it came down to three over two short notice, emphatic wins. Alex Pereira, not only the MVP of the UFC, in my opinion, in 2024,

but also the 2024 Helwani Nose Male Fighter of the Year. Congratulations. Parabéns. Poitin. Rick, you go next. I'm with you, man. I had Alex Pereira. go next i'm with you man i had uh i had alex perera i just think when you look at when you look at the moments that were the biggest of the year and you look at the biggest events of the year and you look at when the ufc needed somebody to save their cards he was the name on everybody's lips he was the one who stepped up and in those moments when the stakes were the highest,

when he was the one coming in to save the day, he finished the job every single time and did save the day. It was always a knockout. It was always impressive. He created the biggest moments of the year. To me, it was difficult, but it wasn't like... I didn't struggle.

I didn't struggle. I thought Ilya had a great year, but I thought Alex had the better year. And that is hard to say when you look at the resume of what Ilya put together, but for me, it was Alex. GC? Yeah. I mean, if you go back to the week of 308, I mean, this has been a topic of discussion since then. And I said, if Ilya Teporia knocks out Max Holloway, if he becomes the first one to do that you're gonna have to put him in the conversation with alex perera in a category that felt like it was already written in stone that alex perera was going to be the fighter of the year and ilia taporia did exactly what he said

he was going to do and he went in there and knocked out max holloway the first one to do it and therefore my male fighter of the year is el matador ilia taporia the two wins that he put together this year becoming champion by knocking out alexander volkanovsky the first person to ever defeat him at featherweight and then to go in and take out max holloway by knockout growing into one of the biggest stars in the sport i mean it's one of the it's one of the greatest two wins back-to-back we've ever seen in the sports history For that reason My male fighter of the year, Ilya Teporya It's crazy because any other year

If there's no prayer doing what he did This is a no brainer And any other year if there's no Teporya doing what he did, it's a no brainer as well We're blessed to be in this situation There is no wrong answer here Yeah, tough one And I feel horrible, honestly,

because Teporia deserves all the love in the world, but there's got to be one winner when it comes to fighter of the year. And it sounds like two of us have gone with Pereira, one with Teporia. Pizzi, whose side are you on? To speak to how close these two guys were, I've changed my mind.

I was saying one thing all year and I went back and I watched them all just so I'd get a feel of it. I couldn't go against Ilya Tepuria. That's my favorite of the year. It's Ilya Tepuria. For all the reasons GC just said and for the fact that he is opening up a new market,

they would not be able to go to Spain without this guy. The relationship between La Liga and the UFC, it makes it just an open goal for them to go there. Where else have we talked about? Would we do a stadium here with this guy? Not many places. That is the conversation they're having about Ilya Tepurya. Whether they do it or not,

I don't think it will happen personally, the Bernabeu. I would love if it would happen. But for me, I think we're about to step in to Spain for the first time with the UFC. And that is going to be so exciting. All of the things I said about France earlier, I think we're knocking on the door of that in Spain. And that's thanks to Ilya Tepuria. I understand Perereira i can understand how much he meant the promotion this year he stood up when the great superstar mcgregor

let them down essentially um he's been magic all year he is he is the face of the the promotion as far as i can see it but fighter of the year is about fighting and to take out two of the greatest 45ers of all time. You become a champion. And again, as I say, have all this ahead of you now, notions of stadiums, et cetera. That's why I'm going with Teporia. Fighter of the Year 2024. Wow.

How about that? Two for Pereira, two for Teporia. Perhaps we turn to the people to break this tie. And they went with Alex Perra. Of course, who could forget that great scene in Newark on May 31st at the NJPAC. How about that? Remember that? When he came up on stage and we did it together? By the way, I do want to let you know that we have never before released those interviews from our live show on May 31st. And starting this Saturday, we'll be releasing them one a week, every interview. Armin Terukian, Alex Pereira, Daniel Cormier, Kayla Harrison, Ally Quinta, Aljamain Sterling, members only, never before seen other than those 400 or so in attendance. And so if you're a member, you'll get them every

Saturday for the next five or so weeks. That's an aside. I just thought of it because of this. Alex Pereira, Ilya Teporia, what a race. What a freaking race. Probably the closest. Remember Izzy and Jorge Masvidal a few years back? That was a really tough one. Yeah, this was a really, really, really, really tough one. and ultimately, maybe that one wasn't as tough, because Izzy won the belt, Masvidal did, and both these guys, champions, both of them legends, incredible, incredible years, both prime for big 2025 campaigns, of course, Alex Pereira, a lot older than Teporia, and maybe in the running for that John Jones fight If Jones doesn't go in the direction Of Tom Aspinall we shall see other

Fighters male fighters Who had strong years DDP winning the belt by the way It is kind of crazy that DDP doesn't get mentioned Right he beat Sean Strickland who was the champion And then Israel Adesanya he doesn't get Talked about in this discussion I've got him third Yeah two wins but it's

It was really a two-horse race, right? Because maybe those guys... I mean, he beat Adesanya in a great fight, but doesn't... He beat the last two middleweight champs. I've got him third. I think he deserves that. Alex Pantoja went 2-0. Steve Erseg and

Kai Sakura. Any other year, by the way, Amirabh Diwali-Shvili gets mentioned, right? he went two and oh as well so hudo omali uh but it feels like it just was about those uh those two alex perera and ilia taporia uh i did mention joaquin buckley who went four and oh carlos how is it how is it gc roches yeah four and oh as well charles john, 4-0. Renato Moicano, 3-0. Diego Lopez, 3-0. Nasuldin Imavov, 3-0. Jean Silva, 3-0.

Umar Namagomedov, 2-0. Yusuf Zalal, 3-0. Shara Magomedov, 3-0. Ludovic Klein, 3-0. Oban Elliott, Andre Lima, Paul Hughes, and Sean Woodson all went 3-0 as well. So, yeah, shout out to them. We had some other guys, obviously, in the PFL tournament all went 3-0 as well. Yeah, shout out to them.

We had some other guys, obviously, in the PFL tournament who went 4-0. But in the end, it was down to those two. And I'm not really sure. Do we have a poll up here? I wonder what the people are saying. Yeah, they're watching it live. 66% in favor of Alex Pereira.

32% in favor of Vili Taporia. How about that, gentlemen? I think that's definitive. I think it's Alex. Thanks to everybody who helped us break that tie. No ties in the Forest Wolves match, currently 2-0 as we enter the 80th minute,

so that is very exciting. I mean, it's all coming up. It's all coming up, us guys. Another award show in the books. How do we feel feel always a bit of a load off right to get it out of the way oh yeah for sure yeah i think we got to give a an acknowledgement to to uh on air on air jordan here yes andy frank um this thing's legends and uh they they made magic other than a few drops and some music what did frank do wow um wow man frank he doesn't he's

not speaking for us frank no i i know yeah we all are why don't you hang around the holiday party i'm like i have no idea yeah worked oh wow i have no idea wow uh no incredible job incredible job by everyone in the back it's a small tight-knit team we have here. But, man, do we churn out good stuff. You're doing okay there, PT. You took a big, like – He's not used to going to the trenches with us like this. Three and a half hours? How's the tux feeling?

Just doing it for a piss, mate, to be honest with you. You got another look at that seize the throne poster. Maybe you shouldn't have gunned that Necroni down so quickly. I'm getting a seize the throne fucking T-shirt. Connor taught me you got to smoke while you're doing it so it keeps you keeps you alert it's a foyer alarm

a couple of news items you could run to the loo if you want now thanks man I actually need to go can I actually go? you can meet yourself first

I mean come back if you can some breaking news Frank Dana White has joined the If you can. Some breaking news, Frank. And CEO of Meta said, Dana, John, and Charlie will add a depth of expertise and perspective that will help us tackle the massive opportunities ahead with AI, wearables, and the future of human connection. Here's a quote from Dana White himself. I've never been interested in joining a board of directors until I got the offer to join Meta's board. I'm a huge believer that social media and AI are the future. I am very

excited to join this incredible team and learn more about this business from the inside. There is nothing I love more than building brands and I look forward to helping take Meta to the next level. So that's from the president and CEO of the UFC, Dana White.

How about that? Dana, spreading his wings. Yeah. Yeah, shout out to Metta. My dad, we were on vacation, and he actually just busted out the Ray-Ban Metta glasses. Oh, wow. It's quite the time.

Shout out to Metta, man. Our upstairs neighbors. Maybe we'll see Dana around the office. Oh, that'd be incredible. They're welcome to come anytime. Yes, we love our D.W. Ah, that'd be incredible. They're welcome to come anytime. Yes, we love our good friends. A DW? Oh, it'd be amazing.

Mag lunch? Break bread? On me, man. You wear the glasses and you say like, hey Metta, can you take me to XYZ? And it talks to you. Or you say like, play Elton John. And you hear it crystal clear,

but people standing around you don't hear it. I don't know how it happens. I don't need it. Too futuristic. It's incredible. I'm stepping back. By 2026, I'm hoping to have a flip phone. Yeah, no.

I mean... Home phone. Why 2027? Why 26? You know, you got to phase out of these things. Right. How many devices are you wearing right now, Connor? A watch and an uncharged whoop.

Actually, it hasn't been charged in a long time What's on your belt? Oh yeah Shout out We're off to a great start this year What's the belt? Practically a freaking cyborg today I mean this is no internet connection or anything

This is a pedometer $6.89 What are those steps? Yeah my gut's kind of Hanging over my belt So I must I must have reset this bad boy I mean I was at like 6,000 689

689 for the day? That's That obviously got reset At some point Wow 689 It takes me 689 To get out of my

Get out of my devil heart It takes me 689 To get to my pisser in the morning Come on It's 689 in the day Do you not trust The one on the phone? This is to avoid Carrying my phone everywhere Do you not trust the one on the phone? This is to avoid carrying

my phone everywhere. Do you have your phone with you right now? I mean, yeah, I'm at work. But when I'm going out to dinner, when I'm going walking, when I'm doing anything. 2025 is your throne to seize. I'm just looking forward to it. I actually don't listen to music at the gym. I go, no

phone. Nothing? Nothing. Yeah, so then when i have to have like a hard workout they're like i get the health app and they're just like you haven't done shit today man i'm like so what do you just weren't with me so what do you do you just take in the sights and sounds yeah taking the sights and sound my time to think get away you don't even record your stuff for tiktok no no are you on tiktok? I feel like you're not a big podcast guy. I do listen to some podcasts, but not when I'm working out. He's got Conor Burks, Between the Weights.

You know what I like doing? I like bringing my iPad on the treadmill and playing some chess. Run some chess up. Gosh. You've become so, you're not the same guy that we met four years ago. You're a lot more sophisticated, dare I say. I'm not going to lie. I'm ass at chess.

My five-year-old nephew, he's the one that got me back into it recently. Yeah, we were having some battles at Christmas. Five years old. We were going to war, man. Could have pulled up on Wemby. Oh, what a great scene. That was a great scene. Love that.

Love that young man. Well, speaking of, and good luck. Good luck with that journey that you're on. Speaking of sophistication, also breaking news. It's going down in 2025 in Albuquerque. It's Rampage Jackson versus Rashad Evans. Just announced that ICS Mania won the big boxing showdown in New Mexico. Yes, deep in the heart. Now, no date attached.

And, of course, we remember the Rampage Jackson boxing match that was talked about for Qatar in May, June of this past year, which did not come to fruition. But this is obviously one that has a lot of history attached to it. There it is. Rampage and Rashad. Sponsored by the GFL? No, I don't know.

It's boxing Anyone? Is this still on? That's the GFL man Hey hey hey Expensive piece of equipment I just wanted to know if anyone was still there We're digesting the news It's gonna be great

Can't wait Oh hey Petey How are you? What's up? Great piss. You missed Dana White joining the Meta Board of Directors, and Rampage and Rashad are going to be boxing. Also, Forrest is still up. This will be our sixth win in a row. We are going to Europe.

I don't know if you know about that, but we're kind of a big team. Oh, shouldn't have said it. Shouldn't have said it. Nah, we're going. Take me on a trip. I want to go somewhere. January transfer window could really upset you the way people have been talking about the likes of Murillo,

Chris Wood. I ain't just saying that. Super Calum Hudson. Raw on Netflix tonight. Party? You guys want to do a watch-along? What are we doing? Not watching.

I'm not watching. I'll be there in some state. I don't know what state that will be. I was going to say it's in California, but you meant your own personal state. Yeah, I'll be in a state to get through it and I don't know anything about the current crop of wrestlers. The last time I believe

you got me into it was Sammy Zane, who was taking on the Tribal Chief. Oh yeah. What time does it start tonight? 8pm. 1am. Yes, that's right. And one of the interesting things about it is it's kind of open-ended. They don't have to end

at exactly a certain time anymore. I think they should. It could be two hours, three hours. I can't wait. I can't wait personally. They're pulling out all the stops. By the way. No commercials? There are commercials. Shout out to me. Did you guys know I've been wearing these all day? I really didn't have to wear them. You literally go

shoeless during the show and now you wear a nice pair of loafers. Well, it's part of the tux. I didn't want to look. I got just some plain white Nikes on. I've been wearing like I went. I was cramping up. Yeah, I went like full on. All right. I'm not wearing anything below the waist.

And I do want to let everyone know, if you love this particular award show, if you love this award show, we have another one coming your way tomorrow. Myself and Adeola Depot handing out our boxing awards. 15 total, so a little less.

We don't have like those betting ones and all that stuff, but it's going to be great. And that is tomorrow on the DAZN Boxing YouTube channel. Yes, the very first Ariel and Ade Boxing Awards show tomorrow at 5 p.m. Eastern. Of course, we'll have a program at 1 p.m. Eastern tomorrow on the show. Kevin Lee is back. Kevin Lee and I didn't really get a chance to really talk

when he returned with Anthony Pettis, if you recall, a couple of weeks back. We have some things to discuss, so I'm looking forward to that. Cain Velasquez is going to join us tomorrow on the show and others as well. What's that, PT? Big one, man. Cain.

Cannot wait for that. Yeah. That was a great interview. Obviously a legend, and we recently found out that he is going to be a part of the GFL crew as well. So stay tuned for that. 1 p.m. Eastern,

that's when the show airs, as usual, back full swing. We've got A8 show, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Boys in the Back on Thursday. Of course, The Crack on Friday, next week. And we've got AH Show Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Boys in the Back on Thursday. Of course, The Crack on Friday next week. And we've got a big stretch coming up with UFC 311. You've got the big Darren Till-Anthony Taylor fight.

Oh, yeah, Anthony Taylor making his return to the program tomorrow. Anthony Taylor's been on before, right? Maybe not. I think he has. Am I wrong? Maybe not. I think he has. Yeah.

Anyway, he'll be on the show to talk to us about the Darren Till fight. He replaced Tommy Fury. That was one of the notable things that happened during the break. And much more fun to come as well. I want to ask everyone, if you're enjoying the program, give us a thumbs up. Hit the notification. Hit the subscribe as well. A lot of big things planned for 2025 here. As now we're just like the plane has taken off and we're going,

and it's a very exciting time. It's a very exciting time for all of us, but I feel like we've talked about it all. We've said it all. We've done it all. A nice three-hour and 48-minute program. In a bit of a tricky spot here with the Ariel ariana award show tomorrow what do we do with the decoration you know that's a good call one show in the interim that's a great set design

team has been stressing about it when did you come to this realization just now oh no i've been having the realization oh yeah yeah it's a good because it can't get redecorated it was a timely process yeah well we'll talk offline i thought you were saying what are you going to do about the next four minutes because the the forest game is about to end so are you just going to like talk us through it or i that's where my head was at but no it's a great point it's a great point i mean can we just talk could we honestly just talk about the fact that we picked this random team yeah as they got promoted everyone made fun of us for that then said we would jump off the bandwagon.

We stuck through thick and thin. We even said on DAZN last year, I said to Kate Abdo that they would be in Champions League in 2020. I predicted this. They need to pull out the clip. I said in 2025, you're going to be talking about Forrest in Champions League. She laughed. Haha, cute, cute

American guy talking about soccer. And now here we are. We're about to end the week. Second place. I mean, come on. You talk about Blanchard-Damas. Give me something. Third take. Time for second. No, no, no. Gold differential makes us third. Half a year to play, Ariel. Let's just

not do the victory lap yet, mate. I like it, PT. I like it, PT. It ain't over till it's over. It is not over till it's over. I got a Forest jersey. I forgot't over until it's over. It is not over until it's over. I got a Forest jersey. I forgot about European sizes being much smaller. Sleeve's way too short. Shout out to Luke Whitler.

Oh, and shout out to Luke Whitler. Tomorrow we're going to talk about the darts. Don't worry about that, Frank. I appreciate that at the final second. Congratulations to all the winner. Back on Tuesday. Same time and place. Peace.

We're out of here.