The Ariel Helwani Show - The MMA Beat: Who's next for Islam Makhachev? UFC White House dream main event, rankings controversy, more

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

Ariel Helwani is joined by Uncrowned's Ben Fowlkes, Shaheen Al-Shatti, and NewYorkRic for another dissection of MMA media stories.Topics include: Media's role in stories centered around fighter rights and pay (02:22), whether media should participate in a promotion's rankings panel (24:17), who Islam Makhachev should fight next (33:29), coverage of the UFC White House card (42:37), and more.

Ladies and welcome to the... Welcome back to a brand new edition of the MMA beat. It is the first week of February, 2026. Hello again everyone, I'm Mario Hawani inside our New York City studio. You may remember just a few months ago, we resurrected the beat, but I said back then it wasn't going to be a weekly thing like it was in the past, and perhaps we will get to that point. in the future, it was going to be sort of a quarterly thing. And so here we are, once again,

for our second episode of this brand new edition of the MMA beat, certainly a lot to discuss. And we have called upon a new trio of pundits to talk about all things mixed martial arts and this very fascinating time for the sport as we kick off this new era for the UFC in particular. Okay, let's say hello to our first panelist. He is the man from Missoula, where the skies are always blue. He's a big part of what we're doing here at Uncrown, one of the greatest writers in the history of mixed martial arts. The one and only Ben folks is here. Hello, Ben. How are you? I'm doing great. I appreciate that that introduction is a bit much. I don't know if I'm up for that, but I'm going to do what I can. Well, it is from the heart, and I will keep it

going and say hello to our fearless leader, the editor-in-chief of Uncrown.com, the man who makes all of this sing, making us the number one unbiased platform. combat sports is a reason for that, and it's because of the pride of Arizona, the one and only Shaheen Al-Shadi is here. Hello, Shaheen. How are you? What's up, fellas? I'm doing well. It's good to be here. It's great to have you here. And of course, there was a time way back when, when a young buck from New York was called upon to fill in on the MMAP beat. He was sort of a deer in headlights. But now he owns the moment. Unlike any others, he is the man who they call New York Rick, or to some just Eric Jackman. There he is. Our old pal.

Hello, Eric, how are you? Hello, hello, Ariel and everybody. Yes, deer in headlights. I feel like I've matured since then. Glad to be back. Thank you for giving me another invitation. Okay, so here we go, guys. There's a lot to discuss.

There's a lot going on. And I actually want to start with this. This is where we get into, like, you know, the nitty-gritty fun media topics as it pertains to our beloved sport of mixed martial arts. And Ben, I actually want to start with you because I was thinking about this over the last few days. You know, a few days ago, A manager who is relatively new to the scene, won't say his name, not important, was talking to me about the Paramount deal and fighter pay and when will they figure it out the fighters that is and all that stuff. And he's like, we need to come together.

We need to come together. We need to figure this out. And I was like, hey man, I don't know about we, but I don't have to do anything. That's not my job. My job, our job, in my opinion, and this is where I want to get your thoughts, is to talk about these things, to shine a light on these things, the good, the bad, the other. ugly, all that stuff and more. And ultimately, it's not my job or your job or the media's job to advocate, to campaign, to, you know, bring change. This is not for us. It's for the fighters. It's for the promoters. It's all that stuff and more. A couple of days later, I saw on a thread

where, and it's sort of linked, Connor Ben was in studio last week, and he asked me about TKO trying to change the Ali Act. And he asked me what I thought about it. And I said it, you know, essentially obviously there are issues, but from a media perspective, what a fascinating story to cover. There's a lot of angles here. It makes covering boxing, you know, very, very interesting right now because there's this whole revolution going on. And then I saw some people saying, like, yo man, like, you don't care about the fighters. It's not about what's an interesting story to cover. You should be trying to change this. And so I ask you this question off the bat. Is it our job to change these things that we may not believe in, that we may have issues with,

to advocate against them for or against them? Is it our job? job to do this as media members in these ever-evolving times? And at times, like, you know, somewhat, you know, sticky times when it comes to, you know, these topics in combat sports, or is it our job to shine a light to cover them, to talk about them, and ultimately let the decision makers make the decision? Yeah, it's interesting. I think first and foremost, we have to acknowledge that our job is to make sure everybody knows and understands what's happening. It's that sort of like distillation of information and the distribution of that information, which is tough. In today's media ecosystem, it's just tough to be able to cut through a lot of people saying a lot of different things and say, here's what this change is actually going to mean.

Here's what it's going to do. Here's who's for it. Who's against it, that kind of stuff. Now, we can certainly offer an opinion. The same way, you know, in this sport, we offer opinions about everything. If you can have an opinion about walkout songs, then you can have an opinion about legislation that is potentially going to be a major impact on this work. I also, though, think that there are times, fighter pay has been an issue. There have been other various topics over the years where people want the media to fill an advocacy kind of role.

And I get it. I get where that comes from, especially with the fighter pay issue that we've seen in the UBC over the years, where we got to a point where it kind of felt like, are we the ones who care the most about this? Fans a lot of times are telling us that they don't care that much or don't care enough to want to hear about it all the time. The fighters, the people who it impacts directly, they care some of the time,

but not all the time and not to the point where it has ever gotten them to really do much about it. And so it ends up you feeling like, why are we out here constantly beating the drum if nobody wants to hear it and it's not changing anything. I mean, I still think that part of our role is to say, here's what's actually happening. We don't have a stake in this the same way. The promoters want to tell you, it's not as bad as you think, you know, managers might have

their own agenda. We are the people who we should be able to use our position to say, we looked at this, here's what we think is happening. Here's the reality of the situation. Here's who's going to be affected. And then we can offer an opinion about whether that is a good thing. thing or a bad thing. I do think, I think maybe sometimes when people hear somebody in the media business say that this is an interesting story, they, I can see how they take that as being a

positive note. We say, hey, something's happening. Something fun to talk about. And I think that, you know, for people who have been in this job, you kind of realize, like, yeah, when something new happens and it has the potential to be huge in one way or another, that is interesting. That gives us something to talk about. It's a new territory to kind of explore. That doesn't necessarily mean that all change is good or all big stories are good. I think our role is to just be honest about actually what it is, who it's going to impact and how get that information out. And then the people who are impacted are the ones ultimately who have to make the decisions about it. Shaheen, what's your take on this? Yeah, I think Ben had a lot of interesting points there. And for me,

like, I, it's so funny because, you know, you be in this long enough, it is so circular, right? Like, I remember a decade ago in 2016 being in, I think it was like the hotel lobby room of the MGM grand, and Jeff Boris is presenting the Professional Fighters Association to a group of media. And the PFA, the short-lived PFA, just like all of these other unionization efforts that never really come to pass. And I feel like at that point in time with where the sport was, with where we were as a media core, there was an element back then where we probably did slip into advocacy to some degree, right? Like, hey, man, we're hearing constant stories of fighters getting screwed over of

X, Y, Z. This is just a bad environment. Like, we're trying to help you guys get this forward. We're trying to help this whole situation be a little better for everybody in the space. And even back then, man, fans didn't want to hear it. Fans were not, fans were uninterested. Fighters were frankly uninterested. And I think Ben hit the nail on the head where it reached a certain point. I don't know when exactly I could pinpoint that was, but it felt like one by one, everyone who had sort of dipped into that level of just like, hey, guys, this is what's best for you. Like, please listen to us. Eventually just got so sick of hearing that no one cared, that it's one of those things. We can't care more than the people actually involved who

actually like get impacted by it, right? And so it's, it's, I feel like at some point there, us as a media core were that level of advocacy. But I agree with Ben, man. At this point, like, it is what it is. Our job is to inform. Our job is to tell you exactly what's happening, give you the facts, and then we can give our opinion, but at a certain degree, like, this is not our fight. This is not, like, we cannot be more invested in this than the actual main players who livelihood will get affected by it. And it just, it feels like one of those things where, again, we see this every couple of years of, hey, man, this is threatening, you know, whatever, this is threatening. This is going to threaten something five years down

the line 10 years down the line. And it's, it's not our fight. It's just not our fight. I think there's a level of exhaustion that comes with that. Rick, let me ask you, because your position is a little bit different. You know, Shaheen and Ben spent a lot of time on the dot-com writing side of things. You're on the air at least four times a week hosting your own show on Thursdays, and you have to figure out the best way to keep people entertained. And I hear often, people say, like, the MMA media is too negative. Like, we don't want to hear about this stuff. We want to hear about the fight. Tell us about UFC 325. Tell us about this fight, that fight. Get me excited because for me, this is my escape. I've got my 9 to 5. I've got my family. I've got stuff. I've got

bills. This is my Saturday. This is my light at the end of the tunnel. Stop talking about this stuff. I don't care about the business side of things. How do you decide, okay, what tone, what angle, what to cover when there's a lot of people, let's be honest, who don't care about this stuff that we feel so strongly about and just want the fun stuff. Yeah, it's a it's a thing that we balance and have to struggle with every single day as people in this industry. Because to the point that you asked about in the question to Ben and Shaheen about the responsibility, I think there is a responsibility to cover, right? I don't necessarily think that there's a responsibility to weigh in on either side of the fence. Now you can, as Ben said, granting opinion is part of it. But I don't

think you're required by nature to kind of do that. I do think there is a responsibility to cover it because it is such an impactful part of this story and because it's going to impact this industry, it would be negligent to pretend that it's not existing and to just preview the fights and not talk about any of this stuff that's happening. As Ben said, the role is to inform. I also think there's a little bit of a, the premise is inherently flawed, right, in the sense that when you say, hey, I think this is an interesting story and the reaction is, well, don't you care about the fighters? It presupposes that this is bad for the fighters, right? Now, there are a lot of people who would have that opinion. There are a lot of people who would state that. There are a lot of people in the media that

might state that. But we don't know that to be true, right? That is not factual information. That is something that is formed by an opinion. And so it's a very dicey territory to then go out and have to balance, okay, do I say that I am in favor of this? Do I say I'm not in favor of this? Do I cover this objectively and not grant my opinion? And then you fold in the idea that you're talking about of, okay, now we have to also entertain in addition to inform. It's more complicated than ever, but I do think because of the variety of different media outlets there are now and the different platforms and how different media coverage can look from one outlet, one person, one influencer maybe to another, you can get what you're looking for from somebody else. Not everybody has to serve

everybody, right? Like our show, the program that I work on, the other programs that I produce, doesn't have to fill every single lane for every single person because there are people out there who can. So it's a complicated dance to have, but I do think once you're able to do, to find what your balance is, that's the way forward. Ben, I'm curious about this. You've been doing this for a long time, like I, I think maybe even a little bit longer than I have. And I wonder if you've ever felt this, because I have, I'll be honest, I have, once you start to, you know, see how the sausage is truly made, and you get to no fighters from beginning, middle, end, and then post-fighting, have you ever found yourself feeling like, what is my role in all of this? Do I like this as much?

I'm here, they're not. How do we keep this interesting? How do I keep myself interested in it? Like, you know, we've now, we've been through like full career cycles for multiple, you know, for at least like maybe two generations of fighters now. Have you ever had these moments? I always remember a story that I read on Howard CoSell, who by the end of his time was, you know, the biggest advocate for all things non-boxing. Like he couldn't have been more anti-boxing because he saw what it did to some of the people that he loved so dearly. of course, the chief one being Muhammad Ali.

And I've always wondered if that would happen to me. It hasn't happened to me just yet, but sometimes it rears its ugly head. Have you ever experienced this? And if so, how do you deal with this as a reporter? Yeah, I think one of the things that is tricky about it is, as you said, when you, the fighters live such a mayfly existence that they're, they pack so much living, so much of an arc of a career that can happen in just a few years, really. And you, as a result, it feels like you are seeing different people go through the same things.

And you see it over and over and over again. And it gets a little bit depressing how much it doesn't change where you see that arc and you could see somebody and go, okay, he's on his way up. He really wants to be in good with the promoter. He doesn't want to speak out. He's telling himself, I'll get the belt, I'll become a star. Then I can push for change in the sport and push for fighters to be paid better or treated better. then maybe he gets there or doesn't. Either way, he gets to a point and he thinks,

I don't want to jeopardize this peak earning potential time of my career by getting into some fight with a promoter. So I'll play nice. I'll shut up and I'll go along. Then he gets to the backside of it and he starts to feel a little bit upset, a little bit bitter about realizing how he's been kind of exploited and underpaid. And then he's done. And then especially when there's no more fights,

no more paychecks coming in, a lot of guys do get really bitter, really upset at that time. And then when they voiced those criticisms, instead of people saying, listen to this guy, he knows what he's talking about, he lived through it. They say, you're just a broke down old fighter who's mad because the show moved on without you. And I've seen that happen to so many guys. And that's one of the things that I think has made a lot of us feel like we need to shine a light on the pay issue more than anything.

It's just because we've seen them when they disappear from view. We've watched them painfully walk across a hotel lobby in their mid 30s and go, that guy, he ought to have some sort of ongoing health care. There ought to be a pension. They're still making money showing old fights of his. They're showing old clips of his and he's cut out of it entirely. We see what the sport can do to people. And so we want it to at least be worth it. We want that sacrifice to be worth it.

And so I think that's why the fighter pay issue has remained such a thing for us, even if a lot of fans tell us that they don't care. And I don't know if it makes it so that it burns me out or that I feel like I've turned against the sport. I still think this sport, when it's good, there's nothing really like it. There's nothing better than a big fight night, big title fight, all that anticipation that builds up to it. And you know Saturday night, we're going to find out one way or another. Like no other sport really gives you that quite like fight sports do. And the personal drama, the stories you see unfold, the vulnerability of the fighters that's right at the surface. You get to have this front seat to the best and worst of humanity in a lot of

ways. And there's nothing else that that can replace that. I do think it's also though, when you see it over and over again, you see the same things happening and you see the rich getting monstrously richer and the fighters are just losing ground, if anything, over the years. It gets hard not to feel like that is a futile effort, that that fight is just going nowhere. and that almost like, you know, you should give it up. I can't. I'm still going to keep talking about it because it just, I think that's some of it is just how my brain is made.

If I see doing something I think is wrong with somebody, I'm not going to be able to shut up about it, even if I should. But it does make it to where you get to a point and you kind of go, what's the point? You know, why, why do I keep bringing it up? And I guess the answer is just because the point still stands. It's still a point that has to be made. By the way, Shaheen, no greater example of this evolution. then you see Ally Quinta show some DMs of conversations that he had with Justin Gaiti like 10 years ago.

And he's like, hey, let's work together. And Justin's like, yeah, man, you worry about yourself. I'll worry about myself. And there, you know, here he is 10 years later. And he's like, wait a second, I don't have much to show for all these great fights and bonuses and whatnot. And then he's told after like, please don't speak about this. And he's like, hey, guys, I'm not here to talk about this. It was all taken out of context.

So you saw that a couple of weeks ago, just kind of play out over the course of 20 to 40 hours. 24 to 48 hours, excuse me. I wanted to ask you, you have a very unique position in all of this, because you're sitting there as one of the very few people in all of media who is, is forced to look at the world of combat sports, not just one sort of angle of combat, MMA, but primarily MMA boxing and pro wrestling, in which there is one company that is dominant in two and the upstart in one, and they're about to make a hell of a lot of noise in that last one, boxing, of course. What do you make of the sort of TKO takeover of combat sports? Because it seems like a lot of the wrestling fans now are starting to have the same kinds of issues

that the MMA fans have had and soon to come boxing. And so you're looking at this and you're like, man, these dudes, like I can't escape these guys, right? It's a lot of the same stuff. Some same stuff. Does that make your job easier to cover because there's this like one dominant thread? Does that make it tiresome? How do you deal with this? Because it's very unique.

This has never happened before. That's a really interesting question. So I don't know if it makes my job easier, right? It makes my job more. I'll say this. It's very fascinating to me as someone who's existed within this TKO space, right? Like UFC space for as long as I have to now see it sort of creeping into these other tentacles that we also cover within our sphere here at Uncrown.

For example, Zepha boxing one goes off in January. and it's this brand new experience for a lot of boxing people. And I have all these boxing writers and boxing people within that space come to me during this event and say like, hey, this apex kind of sucks. Like, is this what you guys have just been dealing with? Have you guys been just like watching this kind of stuff for years at this point? Like now I think I finally understand why you guys have been complaining. Like just the little, same with the Dana Press conferences and all of this.

Like the insidious nature of how TKO has just sort of completely taken over combat sports or at least is like two-thirds of the way there and is certainly working towards the other third as well. It's fascinating to see the other groups sort of realize and recognize like the nuance of what this actually, what the space actually is. Because even on the wrestling side, right? Like, you look at wrestling forums right now. I don't know that TK.A.O. is particularly popular among wrestling fans. It feels as if there is a wistfulness for a time that's never coming back for wrestling. And I don't think that's anything to do with Vince McMahon or anything like that, but it's just there's a level of corporate

corporatization and like commercialization that comes inherent with the TKO brand and just how they treat this, all of this stuff of just sportifying everything. We're going to sell as many ads as possible. If there's a table, it's going to be the slim gym table. You're going to get the prime hydration station outside of the ring. Like if you can slap an advertisement on anything,

they're going to do it at this point. And same with Zavabh, boxing where, hey, man, you have hundreds of years of pageantry and history within boxing. Screw that, man. You're going to get some black shorts. You're going to get some white shorts. And the gloves are just going to say Zuffaboxing on it.

And the ring's just going to say Zuffabboxing on it. And it's going to have some of our sponsors. And this is what this is going to look like. And it's just like it's so, it feels so antithetical to what the rich tapestry of all of this is. It's, again, it's fascinating to watch new people sort of discover this and see their reactions to it. That being said, man, I think there's the same, going back to like what you asked Ben, right?

Like, I think there's, it's hard not to be. burnt out sometimes. It's hard not to be jaded sometimes. But I think also the two, though, man, we are so freaking lucky. Like, like, all of this aside of how all of this is working, like, I still consider myself so freaking lucky to that this is like the lane that my life has wound in, right? Like, we sit here and we watch fights and we talk about fights. And so, like, I can't complain about that ultimately. It is, I think the future feels very, like, it feels as if we know where this, all of this is headed. And, like, the, like, this, that this is just the TKOization, the McDonald's vacation of the fight game, it feels as if this is

what a lot of this is just going to end up being and we're going to end up wistful for a time that doesn't exist anymore. But again, I feel like we're just so lucky, man, at a certain point, like, just got to be grateful. I do agree with that. And I also agree with the sentiment that it's, it's all happening and it's happening quite fast. And so let me ask you, Rick, you know, you like all the forms of combat, you watch all of this stuff. You continue to hear Dana White say, like just just wait until you see what we're going to do in boxing. He said it as recently as Sunday once again after the second Zufa boxing show. And so I am of the belief that this is all going to happen very, very fast.

We talk about it all the time. Top rank, no TV deal. Golden Boy, no TV deal. The state of American boxing is, I mean, it's like right there for the taking. Right now you can make a strong case that it's Zufa and MVP as the only sort of promoters that are putting on consistent events. And Zufa obviously has, you know, billions and billions of dollars behind it. I feel like this is going to happen very, very fast.

And the boxing sort of establishment that goes for, you know, everyone from the sanctioning bodies to the media to the fighters aren't going to know what hit them. We know these people, right? We know the UFC people. They're the ones leading the charge plus the WWE people. I feel like it's going to happen quicker than they all expect. What do you think? Yeah, I agree with you. And I think the reason is quite simple.

They have this formula dialed in and they've got the resources, right? What would be the thing that would be able to prevent them from taking this thing over? Some of the potential options would be if the people who were the established older guard had done enough to get further ahead, then they wouldn't be able to catch up so quick. I don't think that that's a possibility. Another alternative is if we presuppose or if people are operating under the assumption that because Zufa has so much power over the sport of MMA with the UFC that they would ruin that and then they will ruin something else, I think we've seen the opposite, right? They have taken the sport to higher levels through their perseverance and what they've been able to do in it. Now, granted, I believe that competition would be good and it would push them to do things that would push them further.

But we've seen what they were able to do in the sport of MMA. They now own the biggest wrestling promotion, the one that is the clear leader, and the competition hasn't really been able to catch up there. I don't see any barriers. I don't see a reason why they wouldn't be able to just replicate this. and we see the Ali Revival Act passing through Congress, and they have the opportunity to create the league format that they have with the UFC. So unless I'm missing something, unless I'm overlooking some big barrier to their success

or some rival that's going to have the resources and the lead to prevent them from catching up, I think they're going to catch up quick, and I think they're going to pass them quickly. There really isn't anything I see as an obstacle at this moment. Let's switch gears here, Ben, and I want to talk about something else that pertains, to media, but it's on a totally different spectrum.

It's the media's involvement in rankings, because recently we saw the PFL come out with their rankings, and I think we all had some questions about it. A, what's this combat registry? Some say they've heard of it. I have not heard of it, but fine, they seem to be a credible outlet. They have not told us who's a part of this ranking committee, and they don't seem to be willing to tell us, because you wrote about this. You asked them yourself.

And so I'm just wondering, you know, I remember back in 2013 when the UFC had that deal with Fox and they came out with the rankings. And they said, look, it's a lot easier to sell on Fox that number six is fighting number five. And we all kind of got it. And at first, some of us were interested in it. But then I think we all kind of felt like, yeah, we don't want to be used in negotiations. And quite frankly, these rankings don't really seem to be respected. So what's the point?

And now PFL is trying to do it. And I get why they're trying to do it. My feeling is just do it yourself. Just let us know who you think is ranked where and who makes sense. And then use that to justify your fights as opposed to doing this charade of like, like, hey, we have journalists, and I've yet to see one raise their hand and say, I'm a part of this committee, who have ranked these fighters and this is what they say. How do you feel about, A, these rankings, and B, asking media, if they are in fact asking media to be a part of them,

to rank their fighters, and then they ultimately decide who fights who? Yeah, I think that the thing you have to ask yourself as a media member is, why do they want this? Why do they want us to be a part of it? And the answer really is because they want to give these rankings some outside authority. And really what they want is to borrow whatever authority we might have with a fan base and use it for their own ends. And I understand it from their perspective. I understand why PFL would decide rankings are a good thing now. It helps, for one thing, the big problem of letting people know who you have, where they stand in the division,

why this fight that they've got coming up is a big one for them. the rankings are a really simple, easy way to do that that everybody understands. The problem is for media people is we're essentially then creating a form of content for the promoter and we're handing it over to the promoter and letting them decide what they want to do with it at that point. And it's different. One of the arguments we made with the UFC when they instituted the media rankings thing was, hey, all of our websites have rankings of some kind on them.

You know, like everybody was doing rankings at this point. if you want to, you know, tabulate media rankings and come to some sort of like average them out and say, all right, this person is sort of a consensus number three number four or whatever. Just go to our websites, look at our rankings, tell people who's,

which websites you went to and how you use their rankings. Nothing we will do to stop you from doing that. But when you ask us to do it, especially when these rankings come up for fighters in contract negotiations or in fight negotiations, then we end up playing a role in that that we didn't necessarily want to or agree to. You know, we've heard from so many managers and fighters to say, I go in there and talk with the UFC. Sometimes the rankings matter when it works for the argument that they want to make.

Sometimes if we try to make an argument based on the rankings, they say rankings doesn't matter. Who cares? And I just don't think that that's a place where as media members we want to be is being a part of that, especially because as we saw with the UFC's, and even that you see right now with PFLs, it's if I'm going to participate in the PFL rankings, and I tell you, Francis is your number one ranked heavyweight.

And they say, no, we're not really on great terms for Francis right now. We're not putting them in there. Well, then what am I doing? You know, it's,

you are telling me who is eligible to be ranked based on like business negotiations that are going on with you guys behind the scenes. At that point, you know, there's kind of no point in this being involved. And I, I think that it's a thing that, media members are better to just kind of stay clear of.

And especially with the PFL, you know, when I asked them about it and they were like, PFL doesn't want to disclose the rankings because they don't want people to be criticized or take a bunch of flack for participating in the rankings or for what their rankings are, which I get in a way, but also it's still, you want the authority of being able to say, these are independent media rankings. We didn't just come up with them ourselves. But then you don't want to tell us anything about how you came up with it or who. And it just seems like you're just trying to use media.

and like the words independent and things like that as cover to do what you want. I agree. They if you want to do rankings, just do them yourself, you know, and that way when we see one day we show up and the guy that you want to give a title shot to went from, you know, six to two. We'll understand why and we'll know why you did it. But at this point, it just kind of feels like we're in a weird like k-fabe territory with some of these rankings.

And you'd be better off just make the numbers what you want them to be and go from there. Yeah. I agree with Ben that media should not participate in the rankings because I don't think rankings are useful and should exist anymore. Oh. They have outlived their usefulness to Ben's point, right? Hey, let's just make them what we want them to be so that we all know what's going on. Why even do that academically? Why even go through the exercise?

Get rid of them all together and just give the title shot to who you want to give the title shot to, right? We shouldn't have a mechanism for feeling bad that Diego Lopez, an exciting fighter, is fighting for the title and go, well, Mavsar and Laron, let's eliminate that any guilt altogether and just get rid of rankings. When I want to see Anderson Silva fight for us Griffin, it's because I want to see Anderson Silva fight for us Griffin. I don't give a shit about the rankings. I don't think any fans really care about the rankings other than to have arguments about the rankings. This is like the first take of vacation of sports where the debate about the rankings is the only useful part of the rankings now. And the rankings themselves aren't actually instructive to anything because fighters who aren't at the top of the rankings get a title shot. Now, I think boxing, there's an argument to be made that rankings are still useful there.

For MMA, I don't think any promotion should have rankings. They're not useful. Handout title shots as you please. And let's just move on and not feel guilty about enjoying fights. Shaheen, your reaction to that. I mean, people would be still upset about this Diego Lopez thing regardless of the rankings. Would you? Did you want to see Mavsar-Laureen over Diego Lopez?

In a fight? I wanted to see Lerone. In a fight? Ron Murphy. God bless you guys. God bless you guys. you guys. If anything we learned from Saturday night, it's that we didn't need to run this one back.

That's fine. But if you're giving me two objective options on what's going to be a more exciting fight, I know which one I'm picking every single time. See, that's ridiculous. LaRone Murphy literally won knockout of the year for us last year. Like, the man is out there doing things. He got shot in the freaking face and drove him. And now we're going to different territory.

He's got a great story. He's a very compelling character. I absolutely would have wanted to see that over running back this. same thing that we just saw in April. Like, like, that, that regardless of that whole side road, like, you know, we would still feel bad with or without rankings. I think for PFL, like, there is one element with PFL that I understand of doing this of like, could you really tell me the number 10 welterweight in PFL?

How about like the number eight bantam weight in PFL? Like, I feel like most fans probably couldn't. I probably couldn't as well if you really sat me down to it. So there is a level of like informing of just like, hey, guys, this is who's actually on a roster and who's good and you should probably pay attention to. But just the, you know, it's what Ben said of like, this is so much more inherently interesting. If you were just telling me, this is what we think of these guys. This is how we sort of view these guys in our war room rather than this is what some amorphous, like, you know, group of people that we're not going to tell you think about our fighters.

That is just so uninteresting to me. Can I, I agree with that part. But do we not know how they feel about everybody already? Like, Lerone Murphy is fighting Mopsar Evloev. We know how they feel. We know that those guys are not getting the title opportunity. We don't need a spreadsheet with numbers on it to tell us what they feel. You're either going to get these opportunities or not.

You're either going to fight a guy who's relatively of your caliber or not. I just feel like it's academic. I feel like the numbers themselves have taken on this meaning where it's just about the conversation about the numbers themselves, as opposed to what we're looking at in front of us, right? They're booked to fight, not fighting Alexander Volcanowski next. That tells me, I already know. I know exactly how the UFC feels about both of those guys. I get what you're saying.

I get what you're saying, Rick, especially at the top of the rankings. I would argue that it's nice to know who's 9, 10, because those seem to be respected a little bit more, but you're 100% right. You get to the very top, and it's whatever they want. You know, it's who do they think. Like, the reason Diego Lopez got that title shut is because he checks a lot of boxes. He's a fun fighter.

He's an exciting fighter. He's a likable fighter. He's a popular fighter. He represents the Mexican community, the Brazilian community, like there was just more there. Lorone and Mossar weren't wowing the bosses. They weren't all that excited. We find out on Monday that they are going to fight each other,

hopefully to determine who's the number one contender, but they'll probably not say it. By the way, this is probably the easiest number one contender fight of all time, and they still probably won't slap that title, that label on it for whatever reason. And I think that reason is, by the way, they don't want to get backed into a corner and have to actually live up to their promise, which is a crazy thing. They used to do that.

they don't do it anymore. So we found out about that. Shaheen, let me go back to you and ask you about 170, because we all, you know, like you look at the rankings right now, by the way, and at 170, the champion, of course, is Samhachev. The number one guy is Jack Della. He's not getting a crack. Number two is Shavkat, and we found out over the weekend. He's injured his knee again. Surgery, out nine to ten months. That's what his manager, Danny Rubensi told me, who knows, you know, when he comes back? And so who's the guy? Let's talk about the fun stuff here. Who is the guy? Who's the guy? Who's the guy that should be fighting Islam next? Man, that's a tough one right now, right?

I feel like it's an easy one. Is it not an easy one? I feel like it's Ian Gary, right? Like that's the obvious answer. I just feel so bad for Shabok. It has been so long at this point. That man was an instant title contender, instant future champion. The moment he stepped foot in this organization,

it felt like his time should have come so long ago. And then we just keep getting it pushed back and push back to Ken and get and pushed down the road. Yeah, it's Ian Gary, man. Like, who else would it really be? I guess Michael Morales has like an actual case. But between the two, I think the UFC will just go with the more compelling figure, which is Ian Gary.

You say that, but there's a guy named Kamar Usman who's trying his damnedest to get at that. No, no, come on. Okay, Ben, I know we all feel the same. But that's not a crazy thought in this day and age, right? We saw Stipe fight John Jones. No one was asking for that fight. This is the same thing all over again. Yeah, okay.

but when we make those comparisons and we go, hey, this these bad ideas have happened before and they turned out to be bad ideas. Yes, they do. That's where I think that we're, but are you putting it past them to do it again? Oh no.

No, I wouldn't put it past them, but it does seem like, it's like if you skip down like from guys who seem like they are of the moment in the division now and say, well, this guy won a fight, like let's, and we remember him fondly and we seem to have like this

allegiance to him let's go ahead and throw him in there. It just doesn't feel like a very interesting fight in terms of the division itself, but also in terms of like when in time we are. If you throw Kamar Usman in there against somebody else, he looks great and he says, hey, I'm not done yet.

There's still time left on the clock, still some bullets left in the gun. Then I say, all right, you know, do it the old fashioned way by winning some fights and making your case. But so far, it's been mainly, it feels like a narrative that's been pushed by Kamara Usman, his manager, and occasionally

some voices from within the UFC ecosystem. I don't hear this from fans. I don't hear people being like, we got to get Kamara Usman in there for a title shot in the year 2026. I'm not saying you couldn't get there with a big win, big showing, but it doesn't seem like we're there now. What I hear from people is, you know, ideally a Shavkat, but also like Ian Gary has sort of like captured a little bit of a moment. And people are interested in seeing where that goes.

I don't necessarily know if that's going to be a super competitive fight. But it does seem like you got to deal with the division as it is and not try to like shape this narrative that like, all right, hey, this guy really wants it. The UFC, remember when they used to go all out, Dana White talking about how he thought Kumar Usman was the greatest welterweight of all time. And at the time it felt like, all right, you're saying that because you can't make any more money off the George St. Pierre. You're saying that because it's like this seems like the only thing that you can monetize. But right now, it just seems to me like we do this sometimes where we go, hey, the UFC has done crazier things. Therefore, they could do this crazy thing. But let's look at how those things turned out because the John Jones steep fight, it still seems like we wasted such an opportunity there with John Jones.

We had John Jones there as the heavyweight champion. Maybe you couldn't get him to do absolutely anything else. He was so dead set on Steepay. But that fight showed us nothing. That fight did not need to happen. We learned nothing from doing that fight. All we saw was that you can get Stepe out of his semi-retirement for the right amount of money. He'll show up.

He will show you why Father Time is undefeated. John Jones can nail that pelt to the wall, can add it to his resume and say, look, I beat Stepe. I beat the great of another weight class. But it doesn't really mean those things that people want to act like it means. and it didn't make for an interesting or compelling fight at all. So that to me, we love to make those arguments that appeal to the past kind of thing just because, like, we've done bad ideas before.

We can do bad ideas again, but we don't have to. We could try some new better ideas. I just want to say bad idea with an asterisk because it made them a lot of money, right? It was a bad idea from a competitive perspective, but it was a successful event for them. What? Yeah, but did it? Hold on. Did it make more money?

Did it make a lot of money? have? Yeah. Right. Like, that was going to make money regardless. Yeah. So why waste options? You can do it with the lesser version. Bracken old way of Scipae Miochich off the firehouse couch is really like added a single dollar to that card. Like if that was Tom... No, it didn't add. It would have been infinitely bigger. It lost money by being with Steve A, it feels like. I'd push back on that. Michael Morales. That's crazy. Wait, Michael Morales, that's even crazier. What are you talking about? What? Michael Morales. He's got one, like top 10 win.

Right. How is it? I want to see the best fight, Michael Moray. Okay. So, okay, so now, so what you're saying is, truly meritocracy, be damned. Just go for the fun fights. Not only fun, but I think the guy with the biggest

opportunity to upset this on Machetre. You don't think he and Gary, who's beaten. No. What? He beat Carlos Prachas. He beat, I mean, you're doing his resume. I'm talking about who's going to beat Islamakachev. Yeah, but there has to be, what's the point?

By the way, what's the point in all of this if it's not like, you beat that guy, you beat that guy, you beat that guy. now you get to that guy. What's the point? We can't just pluck people out of the back of the line. I mean, yes. We do it all the time. But don't you want some sort of semblance of sport here? There is a semblance. If that's the number four.

The Oklahoma City Thunder would have been playing in the NBA finals in November. That's different. And look how this is turning out. There's a, it's a different. Seating is rankings. You know what a win is worth. It's worth one point in the rankings and then a loss is minus one. It's more straightforward than that.

I want to see the one who has the best chance to upset Islamakachev, and that should be the goal, right? The goal should be that we want the most competitive, the best fights, the ones that we want to see actually unseat the champions, the hardest challenges. To me, I think Michael Morales represents that. I'm totally fine with Ian Garry getting an opportunity. Camaro Usman's not even on my list.

He's as far down as it could possibly go. But I think Michael Morales has nearly as good a case as anybody else and has the better opportunity to actually unseat Islam, which is what I'm after. I want to see him tested. I think if both those fights are booked, Islamabas, both those guys, I think that Ian Gary is a smaller underdog than Michael Morales would be. Because of his style, because of who he's beaten. Why? How?

I think the style, like we have just seen, he's so technically proficient, his get-ups and his takedown defense is getting better. And I think ultimately, like, he's just, it feels as if he's a more established product and he's more ready for a moment like that rather than Michael Morales, who has, you know, he's great, but he has, like, one legitimately great win. in which he separated Sean Brady from this earth. Whereas Gary has not done that in quite a bit. Completely different stylistic approach in stylistic match. I would be talking about Islam. Now Rick is saying style points and popularity count more than just quality as they always have. Yeah, no, I mean, look, we're trying to keep some sort of semblance of sport here.

No, toss that out. By the way, he's number four. Let's not act like I'm picking. No, I know. This is not Camaro Oussie. He's number four. He's right behind Ian Gary. The current rankings, Ian Machado Gary 3, Michael Morales, 4. This is not like a deep pull. This is... It just feels like Ian has done way more in the UFC. That's great. The resume is fantastic.

I would be very happy with the Ian Gary title shot. I think Michael Morales is a much more interesting puzzle to solve for Islam Mockachachup. Also the guy who took shot out of that is that he's 26 and so they think, all right, there's time. There's time for Michael Morales. Like, why just play every card in the deck all at one? especially when you're looking at Islam as your welterweight champion and you're like, we might be here a while, you guys. We might be trying to find fresh challengers to bring to this champion for a little while. So let's everybody form an orderly line and you can all take your turns getting beat up by Islam.

It feels to me more like a Francis Ngano versus Steep A1. Let's take a shot. Let's see if this guy's the real deal. And if he's not, he can come back. And Francis Ingan, did. I'm all in. I'd be okay with that if Ian wasn't. right there and the guy who just took Shuff got the distance, you know, he claims to have injured

his knee. I don't know about all of that. And obviously Shuff got re-injured his knee. You know, it's interesting, guys. I do want to ask you this as we round third here. I was just at Madison Square Garden twice this past weekend. Big wins over the Blazers and Lakers on Sunday. It was tremendous. And I swear, the number one question that I got, at least 10 times, I swear, was who's headlining the White House? Who's fighting at the White House? This is on everyone's mind. And I have said myself, like, I can't wait for June 15th the day after this card so when we can kind of move on from this because it's going to be our UFC 300. But it's what's on everyone's mind. And I think we're finally at a point where we could kind of look at things and say, okay, this makes the most sense.

This is going to happen X, Y, and Z. Ben, I'll start with you. Don't go too long here with me. Just give me a main event. Just give me a main event. Right now, who do you want as the main event? Who do you think will be the main event? I mean, my ideal main event is John Jones and Tom Aspinall for the heavyweight title.

Oh God. It seems like for a couple different reasons you're not going to get that. Honestly, I'm amazed at how what we've got from Dana White so much is just telling us who's not on it. Just shooting down ideas left and right. And leaving very little up there. I mean, like Alex Pereira being available to fight somebody just and you could do a whole lot of different things with Alex Pereira, put him on there. somebody like an action fighter or somebody like that. I still think the lesson to learn, though,

is if you're trying to get that big, broad interest crowd, they already are going to be curious at UFC White House event. Give them a heavyweight title fight. Give them a heavyweight title. People understand what that means. You tell them heavyweight championship of the world, up for grabs, go. They get it, and they'll show up for that.

Jeanne? Yeah, I don't want to just copy Ben's answer, but Tom Aspinall versus John Jones would be the correct answer. because that's the one. But there's no chance. We all know there's no chance. There's no chance.

Let's talk realistic here. Not, Batman versus Superman. Yeah, but not like from eight months ago. We know the landscape now. So let's talk realism. Britain versus USA. Sure, sure.

It would be great. Yeah. Considering like what we have in front of us, I think Ilya is the biggest star you have in the sport right now. Ilya has to be involved unless you're like purely just going for a thing where an American has to win. Otherwise, it has to be Ilya. And I guess at this point,

the fight would be. Justin Gaci, which I mean, no one's going to complain about Iliate's for it versus Justin Gagey, right? Like, that's just an all-action fight. You know that's going to deliver. But Armistmore game would be nice in there. Ooh, that would be interesting. Okay, Rick, Rick. Alex Pereira, John Jones.

Yeah, that seems like the most realistic. Like, I could see a scenario where they don't get a deal done with Connor McGregor. They realize there's no gate, there's no pay-per-view. There's going to be minimal ads. And they say, hey, Connor, we have a show in July, maybe in Las Vegas, maybe International Fight Week. Let's do that one at Team Mobile. have a $20 million gate and you'll be very, very happy. And oh, by the way, John, you've just been saying for the past year you'll do anything to be on this card. And oh, by the way, Alex,

you've just been saying for the past year, you'll do anything to fight this guy on this card, here you go, enjoy America. I feel like we're kind of trending in that direction, to be honest. That's the one. Yeah. And the odds that you get an American with his hand raised, which I'm sure they want, even if Dana White's saying it's not going to be America versus the world. But I think Stylistically, that's a fight for John Jones that I think he has a good chance, even this version of John Jones to go out there, take Alex Pereira down and feed him a bunch of elbows and then everybody, you know, play the Star Spangled Banner and let's go home. All right. Well, that would be quite the scene. We could play the Star Spangled Banner here and go home, but we don't have that. Do we have that music? No, I don't think we've licensed that. This was a lot of fun. Dare I say too short, but we do have to call it a day. The second edition of the new MMA beat. Is that it? Feels weird to say that, but it has come and gone.

Appreciate everyone for checking us out. And the feedback for the last one we did was tremendous. We're going to do these more, I promise. We're going to do these more, and I'd like to do them for boxing and pro wrestling as well, because that's what we cover here at Uncrown. Uncrown.com, the number one unbiased home of combat sports. The last of a dying breed. The last of a dying breed when it comes to combat media.

Very proud of what we're doing over there. Do check it out. We had a tremendous Uncrown Saturday. this past Saturday, shout out to the whole team on the dot-com side, led by Shaheen. It was a great weekend, and we're looking forward to many more of those. So thank you very much for watching. Appreciate you all very, very much for Ben, for Shaheen, for New York, Rick.

I'm Ariel. We'll see you next time. Take care.