The Ariel Helwani Show - UFC 314 Post-Fight Show: Alex Volkanovski is back! Reaction to main event, Paddy Pimblett's dominant win, more

Episode Date: April 13, 2025

3PAC — Ariel Helwani, Chuck Mindenhall, and Petesy Carroll — are back for the UFC 314 Post-Fight Show.They begin with reaction to Alex Volkanovski reclaiming UFC featherweight gold (06:03), including who's next for the champ and where he stacks up against Jose Aldo in the featherweight GOAT convo (13:52).Ariel gives the scoop on Islam Makhachev and Ilia Topuria (17:47), as well as what's looking likely for the main event of International Fight Week.Ignited by Paddy Pimblett's star-making performance against Michael Chandler (23:14), the boys wonder whether Charles Oliveira, Justin Gaethje or even Conor McGregor might be in Pimblett's future (28:27).Next, they discuss Patricio Pitbull coming up short in his UFC debut (37:15) and whether Yair Rodriguez vs. Diego Lopes is now the fight to make (41:09).Finally, they recap Jean Silva's electric win over Bryce Mitchell (42:49), Dominck Reyes being all the way back (52:58), and the rest of the action from the prelims (57:30).File with TurboTax before the tax deadline, April 15th! https://intuit.me/3GbvNM2

Back in your life on this Sunday April 13th 2025. Hello again everyone. I sure hope you're doing well. Welcome to the Uncrowned UFC 314 post show. It is nice to be here as the sun sets on what was called the best card on paper of the year so far and I think delivered. As you just heard moments ago, Alexander Volkanovsky is once again the UFC featherweight champion. He did it. He beat Diego Lopez in what was a very entertaining affair. He wins for

unanimous decision 48-47 according to one judge 49-46 and 49-46. There were some dicey moments for Volk. There was a lot for him to answer tonight. There was the 35 and older curse as he put it There was the two-fight losing streak and you know, it's very interesting I I said I remember saying this when he lost to Ilya Tuporiya I remember saying that the loss to Ilya Tuporiya would be the referendum on whether or not Taking the fight against Islam a Mahatchev in October of 2023 was ultimately the right call for his career.

I said in that moment in February of 2024 that we could only fully write the story on the decision to take the short notice fight against Issam Mahatchev after the Tuporiya fight. And as the Tuporiya fight came and went and he loses via knockout, I think we can confidently say taking that Issam fight was a mistake. Now I feel like a full year later, we can fully decide whether or not this man is done. We can fully close the book on that discussion and say, look, those were two tough losses. Those were two, you know, bad performances. Those were two fights against two of the you know bad performances those were two fights

against two of the very best at 155 and 145 but this man is not done and i think we can move that two fight losing streak to the side we can move the 35 and up curse to the side the man is still as of right now the best featherweight in the world because Iliya Toporia is as of right now no longer a featherweight i have some information on his situation that we'll get to later in the show But he is once again the king that was his seventh title victory one away from Jose Aldo We talked always about goat goat this goat that goat this goat that well finally We have a guy who is actually in the discussion for surpassing a goat and Could very well be on his way to being the most decorated featherweight champion of all time.

So I'm Ariel Hawani. We've heard you. We're working through the kinks. You said you wanted the old school three-pock post shows. You said you wanted the old school ringer MMA post shows. You didn't just want me up here waxing poetic. So you said it. We listen.

We bring back the crew. First we go to Connecticut. The mayor of the Nipmuc state is standing by, the man in the hat. I do believe he is back home. Is he back? Okay, he is back home because I think he had a pit stop in the 305, but he is back with us. Chuck, how are you? I am well, man. And I got to say it's, this is fun, first of all, to be back on with you, but also isn't it cool when one of these delivers? I feel like sometimes when we get one of these cards

that are very sexy on paper, they don't often deliver, but I really felt like this one did. Like this looked like it was going to be can't miss, and it actually was a can't miss card. Yes, it lost a highly anticipated main card fight, Carlos Pratchett versus Jeff Neal, but every single fight on the main card delivered from top to bottom and some great undercard fights as well There's so there's good news for everyone right Chuck everyone's happy that we're back

There may be one person who is not as happy because it is currently 625 a.m. Over in ERA we go to the patron saint of the Emerald Dove, the host of the Critic Acclaim podcast, the crack. Look at that spot. I don't know if it's painted on. Is that the sun beaming through the window over there? What's happening? You look fantastic. You look tremendous. You're the best looking guy on the team. Hello Pizzi, how are you? What is the crack? The crack is it's very late. I'm not used to this anymore. I know we did a little trial run with UFC London.

This is significantly later. This is in fact six hours later than when we did the UFC London one. But I still got it though, right? I'm still here. I'm glowing in the middle of the night. I think the card greatly helped that. I think a lot of people have been critical of the UFC pay-per-views this year. But when you look at this card and you're looking at folks performance, you think about Patti Pimlet, Jair Rodriguez, all these fantastic performances, Sean Silva, you know, you're trying to work out which one of them stole the show. And I think that's a fantastic way to look at the card and know that it was a brilliant night when you have so many guys stepping up and having brilliant performances.

Very well said. This was just what the doctor ordered. Both of you have have alluded to that for the UFC that is Alexander Volkonovsky defeats Diego Lopez for unanimous decision, Patty Pimlet with without a doubt the best performance of his entire career. And that would, that would even date back to his cage warriors run as well. He defeats Michael Chandler via third round KO. I mean, it was just an absolute mauling, if you will. Yehier Rodriguez with a unanimous decision win

over the debutante, Pertusio Pipple. Gian Silva on Passover night one defeats Bryce Mitchell via ninja choke. As Aunt Evans was on fire, he said Jesus didn't tap, but Bryce Mitchell did. I'm just stealing his tweet. I'm just dealing his tweet just killing his tweet dominic reyes

with the uh... massive win over and he took a lot of winning now three in a row since his uh... since his time off incredible comeback for dominic reyes who's also close about five years ago to becoming the u of c lead heavyweight champion so we'll go through all those results and some of the undercard results as well but let's go back to to the main event. Just, just to be a hundred percent clear, uh, Chuck Mendenhall, were you okay with the scorecard? You know, it was a little bit, there was the knock down

at the end of the second round. Did he steal the round? There was the cut. There was this and that. Were you okay ultimately with who won the fight? Yes. I thought that it was either going to be four to one or three to two, depending on the second round. And obviously like getting knocked down in that second round made you have to think about it. Happened it toward the end of the round. So you're like, okay, what, what will the judges score this as?

I still thought Volkanovsky probably still won the round. Um, the fight was one way traffic really up until that point. So in the end though, I thought that that was the only one that might be debatable. Um, all the rest of the rounds were easy to score, uh, in terms of the rounds that went to Volkonovsky. So I think they got it right, man. And dude, what a performance, you know what I mean? What a performance for a guy who, I think he talked about the doubts of everything that went into a fight like this people were pointing out you know him being 36 years old we've we

keep talking now in 2025 about guys over 35 in the lighter weight divisions who you know can't reclaim or you know can't regain whatever you want to say like their their original form they can't get back to that. He was not fighting a guy that probably he was supposed to be. I know that in the end, he was a favorite, but like, I think this was a younger guy that they thought, you know, we might be entering a new era. There were a lot, there was just a lot of things going against him, but to put on that kind of performance, man, with, with all that going against him and to showcase it from, from the beginning, you know, just kind of going in there and, and showing up in that vintage form.

He reminded me of the Volkonovsky we saw in Holloway three, where he just kind of pieced him up and overloaded his opponent with information to the point where he didn't know what to do for the first, you know, eight, nine minutes of that fight, just a beautiful performance, man. PT, earlier in the week, we were talking about how good he looked, how shredded he looked and all that is well and good, but you wanted to see how he looked in the fight and to me, it was all about, okay, first, second round. How would he look?

And I thought in the first five minutes, he looked spectacular. And I thought in the second round, he looked spectacular. I was worried how they would score it for him. You know, um, in, in, in, you know, if you're looking at it from his vantage point, because that, that knockdown at the very end of the second round could have stole the round, although I didn't give it to Diego Lopez. What were you seeing from Vogue that was perhaps different from the last two fights? Well, I think the one thing that Diego struggled to deal with immediately was the intensity that he brings into a fight. As you said, over the first five minutes, he kind of set out with stall,

and you can see that Diego really struggled with that kind the intensity that he brings into a fight. As you said, over the first five minutes, he kind of set out a stall and you can see that Diego really struggled with that kind of intensity. Like this guy is coming at me from the first battle. He was tagging him liberally and not for nothing. I really wonder things that I was really impressed with was seeing him overcome moments that Diego had and he did have his moments in the fight. You got to remember that we were talking about look what happened against Ilya look what happened against Islam these are two big KOs and as we know when you start to see lads go down it can happen a lot more in the next fight in the next fight

after that you kind of start going oh no how is this chin going to react i think it's a massive sign that Volkonovsky's future is still in the cage when he's overcoming moments, especially like that one at the end of the second, you saw him going down they did a slow-mo at the end of that round and he was completely with it throughout it, he didn't get overwhelmed and many moments in that fight Lopez is bearing down on him, he's throwing the kitchen sink at him and Volk seemed completely equal to it. I thought that was one of the most promising things for me to see him come through adversity and still have his hand raised. Yeah, I was thoroughly impressed. I mean, there were moments where he was in the pocket.

He was trading and I was like, golly, I don't know if you have to take these kinds of risks. Uh, he was wrestling with a guy who's tremendous on the ground as well. Like he was, he wasn't just coasting. And there was a moment there at the end where I think with just about 30 seconds left, Diego Lopez was like, like all right I need to do something emphatic here and he tried to do the old Max Holloway and and and at that point Voke was like nah I'm good I'm good bro I'm not gonna engage in that

which he shouldn't have. Slide IQ was always on point you know what that's a hundred percent that's always been one of his greatest traits and really not talked about enough. You know, how could you, how could you not be happy for the guy? He has been through a lot. He's very open about his, his struggles, but really on the flip side, Diego, it was in a situation where if Ilya Tuporiya remained champion tonight, we would have gotten Ilya Tuporiya versus Alex Fokonovsky.

So here he is benefactor of a situation where the champ moves up and vacates the title. And I think he proved he can, he can hang with the elite. He could go five rounds against one of the greatest featherweight champions of all time. We say this quite often in these moments, Chuck, but I don't think his stock went down. In fact, I think you can make a very strong case that his stock went up, that he is, he is respected now. He's a player and he probably is one or two away from being right back in this situation.

Yeah. And I think this, you hear this all the time, that guys learn more in defeat, obviously than they do in their victories. This was his first five round main event where you could see him almost trying to process, okay, how should I approach this? Maybe it was just kind of drilled into him like, like don't go in there and head hunt and and try to take the guys head off right away. Pace yourself a little bit, look for those openings and get there. But what it ended up being was it looked tentative. It almost looked like he was being

holstered and maybe being too patient to the point where Volk starts rolling, he gets dialed in, he gets into his rhythm and pretty soon he's now mixing some level changes in there and he's dictating the fight on every level. That seemed like a nightmare scenario for a guy like Diego Lopez who we know is a big puncher and you're expecting him at any point to show that in a fight like this, it didn't come out. So I think he can look at this from every angle and you, you know, obviously you can pick and choose, but I think one of the things he's going to realize upon watching that is the first eight minutes of the fight, nine minutes of the fight, however long it took before he landed that big shot in the second round. He wasn't really bringing the fight like he normally does. The commentators were making a big deal of it, but it was kind of like you didn't, I think everybody's consensus was you probably don't want to go into rounds three, four and five with a guy like Volkanovsky who gets better and makes the, who adapts to what's happening. You don't want to be down on the scorecards to a guy like

that because he will be relentless the rest of the way. And that was the scenario he put himself in. So there's, there's going to be a lot of stuff for him to learn from this. Yeah, he didn't he didn't become a passenger at any point, did he? Ariel, you know, like he wasn't ever you were never kind of going, well, this is completely away from as you were saying, like you were watching Volkonovsky in those exchanges in the in the final on the fourth round. And even though he was he was winning, they say the fifth round, I think I gave Diego the fourth.

Yeah, I think that's the only one I get. And but you could see like a kind of like you're worried from in those situations. That's because Diego didn't give up on himself. You see a lot of guys in these situations, especially after that initial nine minutes where whatever it was, eight minutes up until he got that big shot in at the end of the second. But it was kind of looking like, you know, what can this guy do with this version of all? Volk has him completely figured out here. He looks like he's a bit hopeless, but he didn't give up.

He found his spots and I think he'd be very encouraged by that. I just want to read you guys the UFC featherweight title victories on Jose Aldo's resume. I'm not going to include WC. Is that unfair to not include WC? Yeah, because he was the champion of featherweight title victories on Jose Aldo's resume. I'm not going to include WC. Is that unfair to not include WC? Yeah, cause he was the champion of featherweight. There was no other featherweight division. I think you should.

Okay. So then, well then the, the stat that they put up at the end of the broadcast is inaccurate cause they just put UFC title victories. But if you want to include a WC title victories, which is totally fine. Jose Aldo beat Mike Brown, Uriah Faber, Manny Gamburian in WC. And now these are the UFC victories in title fights. Hominik, Mark Hominik, Kenny Florian, Chad Mendes, Frankie Edgar,

Chan Sung Jung, Ricardo Llamas, Chad Mendes, and then he lost to Conor McGregor. So, okay, so those are the names. Now these are the names on Volkanovsky's resume, Max Holm, and then he lost to Conor McGregor. So okay, so those are the names. Now these are the names on Volkanovsky's resume, Max Holloway, Max Holloway, Brian Ortega, Chan Sung Jung, Max Holloway, Yehru Rodriguez, and then he lost to Ilya Tuporiya, and then he wins it back against Diego Lopez.

If we're just looking at the UFC resume, you can make a very strong case that that, and this is not revisionist history, like we're talking about guys, those two wins against Max are huge, we're talking about guys in their prime, you can start to, I think, finally make that case if you were uncomfortable with making that case, that he is the greatest featherweight champion of all time. Regardless of that, even more impressive is the fact that he got knocked out twice, took a year off and beat a guy who was very much in his prime, who is very talented, who has been on some kind of role and he looked like that against him. If I can offer one critique, it's that,

and he wasn't given the softball I wanted him to mention someone in the post fight because there's a lot of ambiguity regarding Ilya Tupori's situation there's there's some talk about Movstar being ex- I wanted I wanted some sort of like movement in the division and maybe it's not on the champion to call someone out maybe it's not his place but I wanted something to advance the story and we didn't get that am I nitpicking here perhaps but you guys know what I mean like I felt like he could at least be given the question okay so what are you gonna do next because remember when I

spoke to him right after the fight was announced he said I want to win and I want to come back very quickly and I want to defend it against Mozart that's what he told me after the Sydney card, um, after going five rounds, maybe the plans have changed. I don't know. This was a featherweight showcase. Sorry, go ahead. No, I was just saying this was a big featherweight showcase. So like there was three featherweight fights on this one card and the other guys, you know, Gian Silva, like he gets kind of thrust into a, you know, he's not going to get next, but he's kind of now into that mix.

But you had Yair basically laying it out like, hey, I want to be fighting in Mexico in September against the winner of this fight. So given that sort of context, yes, I would have loved to have heard Alexander say something more about like what he would like to do in that situation. Yeah. And look, it's it's great for Yair and everything like that. But we, you know, he's on a one fight win streak right now. Right. And he, he's already lost. Well, it's gotta be Mosar, right?

Yeah. Well, that's what I mean. Um, it absolutely has to be him. And look for, for, for what it's worth, I'd still watch Diego V. Yair in Guadalajara. I think that would be absolutely electric. Like if they wanted to do something like that. No, actually, I think that fight makes even more sense now. If Diego Lopez would have won the title tonight

and they would have done Diego Lopez versus Yair for the belt as opposed to Diego Lopez versus Mosar who has a win over Diego, I think it would have made less sense. Now it actually makes a ton of sense. To your point, Yair is just on a one fight winning streak now It's like the fight to make it's the perfect maybe co-main event for that pay-per-view because that is a pay-per-view It's not a fight night that fight would be a perfect co-main event in my opinion

Yeah, absolutely And did you not say at the start of this show that you had a little gift for us regarding? Ilya to Bury or something along those lines. Did you not, did you not say he had some information to throw out there? Said he had some info. Yes. I was going to say he's kind of skipping over it, you know, you're kind of Well, no, I was going to say for later. So we give, we give everyone their flowers on, uh, you know, this, this, this

great night, but no, no, look, I said earlier in the week, I said, by the time these two guys fight, I wanted some sort of clarity on Ilya's situation. Well, the night was rolling along and we were not getting clarity. I thought there would be maybe an announcement, there'd be a fight. I mean, we still don't even know who's headlining international fight week, right?

And my understanding is it's a long shot at this point that he is fighting on international fight week. And, and the reason for that is they are going to wait and see what happens in Montreal and that is going to dictate what Islamahatshah does. And so the general understanding is if Bilal Mohammed beats Jack Della Maddalena, Islam stays and defends the 155 pound title.

If Bilal Mohammed loses to Jack Della, Islam moves up and fights for the 170 pound title. Now would he vacate the title at 155 if he does that? Remains to be seen, but then if they did that, you would have Ilya fight probably Charles for either the interim or vacant title. Again, I have a hard time believing that Ilya is fighting for the interim title after vacating an undisputed title. My sense is that they would just make it for the vacant title because they just made Ilya vacate his own title, but it sounds like basically they're going to wait for Montreal and as a result of that you can't wait till you know May 10th, May 11th, May 12th to see how this plays out to announce your pay-per-view on June 28th.

I guess maybe you can because the UFC is so hot, but it doesn't seem like International Fight Week is in the works. That would be so disappointing. You can tell me, lads. Maybe I'm getting emotional, it's late, as you know, Chuck, so maybe maybe I'm getting emotional. But if you're if you're telling me, right, that Jack Delamadelina goes in, he gets a massive win over Bilal, that people would be as happy to see Islam v. Jack as they would be to see Islam v. Ilya. I don't believe that for a second. That that's what's disappointing. I'm just speaking like as a as a fan of the sport.

I think you got it. You got to make it in Islam right now. I know we say it all the time, but you just cannot play with these things when it comes to this sport. It's, it's too, you know, it's too unpredictable. You never know what's going to happen when you have something like that. You gotta do it. You can't lift it. Nobody can't look a gift horse in the mouth as they say, and nobody's been sitting around wondering

what would happen if Islam fought Jack El Manel. You know what I mean? Nobody's been doing that. It would be very interesting to see like if it's introduced into a being, but at the same time, we've already been contemplating like Ilia and just given where he's at, you know?

And I always point to like, just look at everybody's kind of pound for pound rankings in the mid, you have like, this is one of those rare moments where we have two of the top guys in your pound for pound rankings that could go at each other, um, at the, at the absolute height of their career, one guy who is, you know, Habib 2.0 invincible, and the other guy who might be the hottest property going,

you know, representing a new country, everything else is going on for him. And I just don't think it can get bigger than that. So you're right, Pizzi. I don't, that would be a bit of a buzzkill if that's, if, if all of a sudden you're able to get that fight and then we're like, nah, but we're going to go this other direction. Honestly, I would love to see Volk versus Toporia too.

I would have loved to see that tonight, a year off to see if Volk is able to right the wrong, but it doesn't sound like we're going to see that. Not because Toporia doesn't want to fight Volk, it just seems like the weight cut is too much for him. We could have plenty of time in the future to talk about the state of 155 and Toporia's next move, but let's stick to 314 gents. It was just announced that the gate, 11.5 million, which is tremendous, but actually, interestingly enough, according to our friend Jedi Goodman, is actually less than the last two events in Miami. Last year, UFC 299 in March of 2024, 14.1, and then two

years ago, Alex Prager gets Izzy 211.9. So just below that, out to Prerogates, Izzy, 211.9. So just below that, but I thought, you know. That's because they gave out all the front seats to the Republican party there, man. It's like, you can pull those three seats up. That's right. That's never happened before, right? Like, I thought I was going mad.

Like, I've never seen that, like. Ted Cruz up there? They're all there. Dancing? Well, I don't know who they are, but I've never seen like a whole assembly of politicians introduced like that, back to back. Interesting. Well, I don't know who they are, but I've never seen like a whole assembly of politicians introduced like that back to back interest. Oh, it's tremendous.

Also, Diego Lopez and Alex Volkonovsky winning the Fight of the Night Award. So congratulations to them. Mostar Evloev has commented on the victory. Congratulations on an excellent performance. You're a true champion. Now, let's see what your word is worth. Alex Volkanovsky. So he's referring to the fact that Volkanovsky did say that if he won, he was going to turn around rather quickly and defend the title against Movstar. He specifically said Movstar. So let's see. Let's see how quickly he turns around. There is some talk about a potential event

later this summer in Australia. Maybe that would make a lot of sense for Volkanovsky. Let's see how it all shakes out. Let's move along though, guys. I wanna talk about the co-main event. PT, I gotta go to you. You've been watching Patti Pimlett for a long time. He looked, first of all, he looked gigantic in there.

He looked ripped, he looked buff, he looked strong. And once again, he looked like, he looked like and once again he looked like a superstar. He had that if factor and you know I take a little umbrage and I'm sure you will as well with people being like you know oh he's proven himself. I think a lot of people have always thought that he was a really good fighter. You know did we know what the ceiling was? No but there's a lot of people who've been watching him for a long time, who didn't think that he was just some kind of, you know, character, some kind of creation. Like we've always known that he's been really good.

Has he, has he had some, you know, some, some near falls? Has he lost? Yes. But, uh, this felt like the perfect fight to allow him to take that next step. And he has taken that next step with an incredible win, a dominant, a vicious win over Michael Chandler. And honestly, Pizzi, you know, we talk about them looking for a superstar. He's right there in front of them. I think he's one win away from fighting for the belt as a result of tonight.

What do you think? Absolutely. And, you know, it's crazy to me, like, you know, you're talking with the people who have doubted him, there was plenty. And look, his body was at a stage where when he lost to Soren back all those years ago in Cage Warriors, where he was genuinely contemplating whether he could continue in the sport. Like, I think his his hand was in such a bad way that they just didn't know whatever recovered to the point where he

would be striking comfortably in a fight, any kind of fight. And now to see him go in against Chandler and have this really good striking display, right? Because obviously, for the most part of his career, it's always been about his stellar ground game, and his ground game is absolutely unbelievable. But to see him so composed, to see him using this this leg kick that really seemed to mess up Chandler and not afraid to exchange with him showed no kind of gun showing us whatsoever. And we know what the kind of power Chandler has. I thought he completely dominated him. And, you know, there was some early moments when Chandler was getting top position on the ground. And, you know, he was kind of looking

like he won those exchanges. But towards the end, when when Paddy was taking his back, he was all over him. It was absolutely brilliant. And I think he is setting himself into an absolutely brilliant position as well. You know, he's obviously calling out Armin. He is everything compared to Armin. A guy who was right on the verge of a title and just pulled from it. He is the complete opposite. This is a guy where the UFC are looking at him every time he comes out there. He looks like a superstar.

As you said, he's going to have massive opportunities put in front of him soon. And not for nothing, I really like him calling out Charles Olivera because he knows that they're going to have to be an odd man out in this, in these title stakes, regardless of what happens at 315 and what Islam is going to do. One of those lads is not going to fight for a title. And if I'm Patty Pimblot, I want to be the guy who fights the odd one out. And I think he's done a great job of putting his foot in that door tonight. What do you think Chuck?

It reminded me and I hate, I hate these comparisons at this point, but when Conor McGregor was doing it, there was always this doubt, I guess of what would happen if you faced this certain guy? What happens when he goes against a guy who's, you know, done this or this and Connor kept clearing those hurdles. And even when he, like, I think you posted this, he's at the, like the Miami heat, like he's on their court and he shoots a shot and makes it. And it's the same kind of like, what is going on, man? Like, you know, and I don't know, maybe he shot a bunch of shots and they just captured the one

that he hit, but there's something about when you see little clips like that, that you're like, there's something about when you see little clips like that, that you're like, there's something more to them. And I always feel like this comes from like a self-belief that they belong in these situations. And so they keep meeting the moment. And I thought that this would tell us that, like, is he ready to do this? Because Michael Chandler's been swimming with the sharks the whole time in the UFC. And honestly, it looked like if you had no context, if you're just watching this fight, without knowing either guy, you would think that Patti Pimlet was the guy with all the experience

in this fight, that he was the bully, that he was the guy that Chandler was overmatched against. And that's how it looked. I mean, just when he does that thing where he gets a guy hurt and he's basically sprinting towards them, trying to kick them and, uh, and put them away. It's there's something very electrifying about those moments. Um, so like when you mentioned the it factor, it's all these weird things that kind of come together for him. And it'd be very interesting, man, to see if the UFC can catch lightning in a bottle. If he wants one of those top guys like Armin, like who are you going to give arm?

Like you just, that would, that would be the biggest fight of arm's career. Wouldn't it? I mean, he was about to have that fight, the title fight before it fell through, but this one would have so many eyes on it, so much scrutiny on it that, um, it might even feel bigger to be honest. So it's like, he's in a, he's in a great spot. He's answered the bill, but the way he got through Michael Chandler tonight, I mean, this was the tell for me, man. I was like, you know, you beat King Green,

you beat a guy like that. Okay. A lot of guys have done that, but to go through Chandler like that, man, um, at a moment, I think when people were, you know, his doubt, like whoever the doubters were, if you didn't believe in them, you do now. Right. So I felt like he really shined when he had to and big things, man, he looks like he's on top of it now. He was number 12 going into this fight. Chandler number seven.

He's probably going to be in the top five, six, Poirier's five, hooker's six. It sounds like they're moving towards Dustin Poirier versus Max Holloway. Max Holloway is four. Listen, if they do Charles Oliveira against Iliya Toporia, if, do, if they do Charles Olivaera against Ilya Tuporiya, if I'm just saying, there's a lot of ifs here. I know if, if, if, if, uh, if Islam moves up to 170, all I'm trying to say is take that Justin Gaethje fight. This version of Patty Pimlet beats Justin Gaethje.

I know. Does, does anyone disagree? Take that Gaethje fight and stamp your ticket to a title shot. The Armin fight is a lot tougher. I'm not saying he can't Take that Gaiji fight and stamp your ticket to a title shot. The Armin fight is a lot tougher. I'm not saying he can't win that fight, but Armin right now is way tougher in my opinion

than just a Gaiji and they showed Gaiji. Look, the call out was perfect. He listed everyone and then he picked the one he wanted most and he picked the one that's the biggest star who's still very much a player, who's very good on the ground, who's well-rounded. Like it was the perfect, he didn't shy away from Armin. He literally mentioned everyone except Ilya, which by the way, is the one that's been in the works for what years now. Um, but everything from the week, the walkout to the way in which he fought,

to, to the post fight interview, uh, I just saw an ESPN MMA. There was a, uh, a bit of was a bit of a back and forth, if you will, between him and Colby Cummington in the back. Did you guys lose me? Am I still here? No, you're still there. Okay. There was a back and forth between him and Colby Cummington, which felt like, did I lose you guys?

Now we don't. Just as we say, everything is all good. He goes, my God, but very impressed with Paddy Pembley, I must say as well. Did you guys lose me? There he is. Sorry, oh yeah, Paddy again, go on. Anyway, I just saw a video of him and Colby getting into it,

and it felt very much like Colby just trying to attach himself to the man at the moment. Like why in the world would Patty even entertain this? Patty was doing the post fight interviews in the back and Colby and him are going back and forth. Like what, first of all he's 170, but one guy is moving along in his career and the other guy is, you know.

Perrening out of control. You said it. You said it. You know, careening out of control. You know, he's something. But so what would you guys do? Who would you book him against? Ilia. Yeah, you do. You do title fight right now.

They would do. I don't know. It's my thing. Sean O'Malley. OK, right. They say I'm saying that like, so let's let's presume the other thing, right, like that, um, that, that, uh, that Islam stays and he goes against Charles.

In that case, I would entertain that fight. I just, I mean, why not? I, I, if you're, if you're Ilya, you're probably thinking, well, this would be my light work, right? Like still, cause you're Ilya Tupori. Like why wouldn't you entertain doing that fight? You can take a guy's juice and still be right there. But man, it's just when you build bad blood and you put the guys in position to actually

do it, I'd like to see it. But, um, that feels like a long shot, but you're asking which one I'd like to see. So I'm just throwing it out there. Yeah. If you like that one, the problem is if you like that one, you're sacrificing the idea of Islam v. Ilya, which we all agree is the best way you can make it to the division. These are all such what ifs though. It's like, you know, it's like if this happens. That's what these shows are for. I know. This is what we do with these shows. We just go, oh, imagine this guy fights this guy. It's the beauty of them. But I think he's in a in a great situation.

Just sit and wait and see how it plays out. Honestly, I really like, as I said before, whoever's the odd man out here, if it's Charles, you'll get Charles. I just can't see them making Islam V Charles and leaving Ilia as the odd one out. Again, if Ilia is fighting Islam, if he wins, that could potentially be his first title defense and people would lose their shit, but it would be a massive, massive fight, I think. So I think he's in a completely privileged situation here where everyone's going to want to fight him.

Like the comparisons with McGregor, that's the biggest one. People are going to know that outside of a title fight, the most amount of eyeballs I can get right now was fighting Paddy Pimla and that is a beautiful situation. And they're still going to see him the most beat of eyeballs I can get right now was fighting Paddy Pimla and that is a beautiful situation. And they're still gonna see him the most beatable right like most these guys whose styles is to like just dictate the action and yeah like they're still gonna see him as the most beatable of the the high contender you know of that lot they would see him as the guy. Is the of all the permutations out there of all the people of all the matchups is the absolute biggest fight that the UFC can make right now.

Connor versus Patty Pimblitt. Is it bigger than Tom V John do you think still? God, I think, I think so. They probably just because of the, just because of the celebrity. Um, but it not on tweets tonight. Because he put out the thing where he's going to bet on Chandler and I'd called it a few weeks back that if Patti wins, I think he'd shift his focus to him. And I think the lads do get on with each other.

I know Patti was in the black forge there a couple of years ago, but I think like, like if you're Patti, do you take that fight over all of this? Because it's just such a... It's not a thing right now, so it's no point of even going down that road. I was just... You brought it up! Listen, I brought it up. But no, because I'm reminded...

Remember when he stood outside the 02 with the Patti Power thing? And then he was in the cage... He was in Cage Warriors, right? And it was something about like the odds. Yes, 2021. He'll beat Conor McGregor before 2020. A certain time. Yeah, something about like the odds. Yes. Jogged my memory. About. He beat Conor McGregor before 2020. A certain time. Yeah.

Something crazy like that. And so here we are five years later and he's, he's there. I mean, he's, he's, he's one win away in my opinion. He's one fight away and, and, and a few things could break where he's fighting for the title next. That's how big he is and that's how good he looked tonight. Obviously there are people ahead of him, but there's things that need to happen. Um, it's, it's not crazy to say that. Yes. Can I ask you something before we move on from that? Like, and it's a little wet,

but have you, I was talking to, I think it was Ben, we were talking about this or it might've been you Pizzi before, but have we ever seen a situation where it's like, okay, we're going to let one champion wait to see what happens in a fight that's, you know, coming up in a month or two, whatever it is before any movement is made through all these divisions. I cannot recall, um, a situation like this, like the thing that Islam has going on right now, can you recall something like this? Not really. When Connor won the 145 title.

Yeah. They just, you know, they, they, no, it wasn't like this. It wasn't laid out like this because he was supposed to fight RDA and he held onto the belt and then he fought Nate and he still held onto the belt. No, and, and it's kind of a double whammy because it's not just, Hey, we're going to wait and see, it's kind of like a triple whammy really we're gonna wait and see what's going on with this fight on May 10th that affects a gigantic star who's moving up from 145 and oh by the way it kind of puts our International Fight Week plans on hold

now I don't think that this is a potential solution for the International Fight Week. It sounds like maybe DDP versus Hamzat is in the mix as well. Even Dana was asked about it today and he smiled. And so that's not a bad plan B. But it felt to me like when we found out that Ilya was moving up, it felt like the perfect International Fight Week fight. And so, long way to answer your question. No, I can't recall. Does that mean it's never happened before? But nothing to the top. perfect international fight week fight. And so long way to answer your question.

No, I can't recall it. Does that mean it's ever happened before? But nothing to the top. Nothing comes to mind. Um, at this hour, it's unique. It's like, it's like the power that Jack Della Maddalena then holds in his hands from nowhere is bizarre. Isn't it?

Like you dictate everything that happens over three, three weight classes. It's just nuts, man. It's also, it's also super weird because the Ilya fight is infinitely bigger. Now I know he wants, you know, he wants, he wants to make his own kind of history. He's had to fight a featherweight champion a couple of times technically. Um, but you know, it's, it's just gigantic. It's just gigantic. So anyway, let's see what happens with Patty a tough spot for Michael Chandler

I don't think this is the end of him. He left the cage afterwards. He was all cut up They said his his face was messed up. We didn't really get a chance to see him. He has always been game it was it was You know, I I think it was a tough matchup for him I mean the size difference was very noticeable. The reach was very noticeable. Paddy had a great game plan, attacking the legs as well, and then was vicious on the ground.

And so we had Michael Chandler and the co-main event guys, and then we had Patricia Pitbull, his running mate, for many years in Bell Tour in the third to last fight. And, you know, there was a bit of a, there was a bit of a conversation throughout the broadcast where it's like, oh, there's levels. I don't think, I don't think Patricia Pitbull losing to Yair Rodriguez, who looked fantastic in his own right, exposed that Pitbull wasn't ready for the UFC or that he wasn't UFC caliber, all this stuff.

We kind of forget, Patricia Pitbull is a UFC rookie, but he's also 37. He's coming to the UFC quite late and he's also, you know, coming off a year where he did not fight and he's fighting a guy who was bigger than him and longer than him and who's really good as a former interim champion. I don't think that exposed anything about Patricia Pippel. I don't think that told us that he wasn't UFC ready, but he's a little different than some of these other guys who have come over from other organizations. He has a lot of, you know, he's a little different than some of these other guys who have come over from other

organizations. He has a lot of, you know, he has a lot of miles on those tires. That was his 44th pro fight, but as you wrote so brilliantly in your piece, Chuck, he probably has, you know, a thousand or so fights that are unaccounted for. So there's a lot of miles there, right? Not to mention, I mean, he's just like such a picture of perseverance in a weird way. Almost if he didn't have like a little adversity to start something in his career, it's almost like, you know, he wouldn't be who he is because I tried to point this out in the piece too. Like he had so many, you know, in Bellator when it

first started, not many people were paying attention to him But he was he would get to the you know The championship part of that and he would lose then he'd go back to it again And he finally won it and he's lost it and he's had all these different setbacks But he comes to the UFC and you know, it's his first fight. I know he's 37, but it is his first fight It's gonna be tough for him, you know to turn it around But I thought he I don't know how you guys thought a house saw it, but I thought he looked pretty good.

There was moments where I'm like, okay, I think we're going to get the, the, the version that's his best version. It's just going against a really, really good guy in his first fight. If he got a lesser guy, I think that version of pit bull probably wins it. You know what I mean? Like he probably is successful on it. Um, so I'm not ready to, to, I'm not ready to throw it in on him yet if he came to the UFC at 37 and he was contemplating retiring if you didn't come to the OC it means that he

still has one goal left and that dude is proven if nothing else man he's proven over the course of time that when he goes for something he usually gets it I don't know if he'll get this but I think he's still going to have his moments in the UFC coming up here. I think that idea and I, I don't, it's unfortunate that I'm saying this, but because of his age in this division, I think if he had a real genuine hope of winning that title, he had to come in and win that fight tonight. And credit to Yair Rodriguez, because I think a lot of people were disappointed with his showing against

Brian Ortega specifically. You know, we had the Ilya fight on the other side of that that was Lumen and everybody was really excited like what that could do for the Spanish speaking market, Ilya V. Yair and he looked so good in the first round of that fight and then just completely disappeared and Ortega got the win. For Pitbull, I think that's about the worst matchup you could have put him in. Like as soon as we were kind of looking at these two guys and the way they fight, if Yair is on song, he's incredibly hard to get near and when you're Patricio, you're not one of the bigger guys in the division.

You are relying on getting in the pocket and getting to Yeris Trinh which is a hard thing to do You know I know Volk did it and he did it well But it's still a very difficult thing to do so I think I think it was a very tough fight to look good in And I think he was there throughout the whole thing, but he still lost 30-27 I think on most people's cards and I think if he wanted to win a UFC totally had to get off to a woman and start against Rodriguez. First fight in over a year for a year. Uh, he was coming off a, a submission loss to Brian Ortega in February of 2024.

Prior to that coming off the title loss to Volkonovsky in the summer of 2023. So he really needed a win to, you know, reassert himself, get back on track. They've got that show in September in Guadalajara. They've got the Noche UFC card. He asked for a title shot and shoot your shot for sure. But again, as we spoke about earlier, you know, Movstar is right there. It makes all the sense. They're probably going back to Australia. And not for nothing, unfortunately for a year, he and Diego Lopez did such a tremendous job of selling a future fight at the press conference on Thursday.

How do you, you know, how do you shy away from that? And this, you know, sometimes people like to bring up the, oh, you can't match the guy coming off a loss with a guy coming off a win. You come off a title loss to Alex Volkonovsky, it's a little bit different than your typical loss. So it makes all the sense in the world. Co-main event, put it in there. And Pitbull's going to get another crack for sure. But to your point, PT probably has to take a bit of a step back.

And maybe the story is going to be that he came to the UFC just a little too late in his career. And that's unfortunate. He wanted to be that he came to the UFC just a little too late in his career and that's unfortunate He wanted to be in the UFC. He said that very clearly probably, you know lost a few dollars in negotiation as You know when you tell the world that you want to go somewhere you're you're kind of losing some leverage there But this is what he wanted. I'm sure he has no regrets, but I do wonder if at some point he's gonna think Maybe it was a little too late, unfortunately. Yeah. Let's talk about the next fight.

And that was John Silva against Bryce Mitchell. And those two did a great job in their own right of selling this fight. There was a lot there. John Silva has turned into one of the most entertaining characters in the UFC. He, he's got a great look. He's got a great gimmick. He's got great glasses. He barks. He barks a big game. He talks the talk and he walks the walk. And we had just seen him back in February in Seattle pick up a big win. And this was in the midst of the whole Bryce Mitchell

arc insanity podcast. I'm not even sure. Did they make it to episode two? I'm not sure. I have to, I have to check on that. Um, forgot to subscribe that time. Like subscribe comment, but he called out Bryce Mitchell and they actually obliged and they made the fight and back and forth. The first press conference was great. John is barking at him. He's saying all these things. Bryce is reciting Bible verses.

I mean, it was straight out of WWE. It was incredible stuff. And then this week it was more of the same. And then John went in there and, uh, and thoroughly beat up Bryce Mitchell. Uh, he won via second round ninja choke, uh, almost had him in a, in a guillotine in the first round, was incredible on his feet as well. This was a coming out party for John Silva. I was thoroughly impressed because there was a part of me that you look at the resume, you look at who he fought. Bryce Mitchell is a really, really good fighter. He's only been submitted once before in his career and that was against Ilya Teporia,

15-1 going into this fight, excuse me, 17-2 going into this fight. This is a really good fighter who has been in the UFC for quite some time and so I wondered if maybe they were pushing John too fast, he had just fought, fighting off a little more than he can chew, but Chuck, blown away, blown away by the performance and I think you got to spend some time with him, right? Earlier this week? Well, I'd like to say that I didn't see this coming,

but with these glasses they gave me, I was able to see this coming. I knew what was gonna happen. Jean Silva gave me these. Aren't these cool? Those are legit. These are legit, man. He gave me these things

while I was out in Florida earlier this week. So. Man, I'm so jealous. I got two pair. I'll pass one on to you. But you know, the truth of the matter is I had the same concerns that you did. You see him, it's almost like sometimes guys get punished

when you see them buying into their own hype a little bit and that was my fear, not just because this is when the Fighting Nerds are finally getting like a lot of attention, right? They were gonna have two guys on this card, one of them got moved off, but there was still a lot of attention, right? They were going to have two guys on this card. Um, one of them got moved off, but there was still a lot of, um, concentration on that camp and what they've been able to do. And you could even see him on his walkout, you know, he's coming in there,

um, hamming it up and he's just, he's doing all this stuff. And even in the fight, as it's starting, you see him kind of like doing weird things and you're like, man, if you get beaten this fight, it's going to be all for nothing. But once he started to kind of throw, because it took him a little while, it seemed like he was, he was measuring things out. But once he started to kind of throw and show, um, just how good he is, like in general, and you know, once it was kind of in the scrambles and everything like that, didn't have any doubt there was just some point where like it's just you knew that he was better than Bryce Mitchell I mean

whatever a question I had about it kind of went away and for the way that he ended up winning that fight was really really impressive man you know what I mean so I feel like that whole camp is on fire but that guy particularly in a very good division we're sitting here talking about all the featherweights that are coming up. And you've got this guy putting on this kind of performance tonight, which is a great problem for the UFC to have right now. Yeah, he's such a fun guy to have into that, you know, near enough. Like, I know, obviously, Bryce is tortain, but like Patty,

as we discussed earlier, this guy is really giving the UFC bang for their book, right? Like he's coming out here, he's doing the like a dog with a bone, you might say, you know, he's he's barking. He has people in a refrain of barks with him. You know, he's going down very well. And I can imagine that if he got one big win, he could find himself in and around that total conversation. We're talking about, you know, we're only a week off talking about, you know,

who are we going to match Laurent Murphy with? I wonder if it could be someone like that. Obviously, Pitbull's there now as well. Another name to be matched up with these guys who are trying to break into the fray. So it's just making Fedoway a lot more fun having guys like they're like like this in it. I did think that Mitchell would be able to test them somehow in the grappling exchanges. And I think that's what I'm most impressed by in terms of Silva, like to submit Mitchell, who's, you know, a fantastic grappler, a guy when he gets

top control, just completely suffocates guys. Usually I think that's so impressive and it's a big federals crap as far as I'm concerned. It's somewhat meteoric rise for John Silva. He only entered the UFC in January of 2024. And I mean, he's been an incredible story and he's so entertaining. He does really remind me of a smaller version of Prime Van der Lees Silva. Like he actually looks like him and the head tattoos.

And then he like the guy is just, I don't know what that move is that he does where he like hangs onto the cage afterwards. That sort of, what is that? Is that Spider-Man? What is he doing? It's crazy. The guy is just a, look at that guy. Look at that guy. He is freaking, he's electric.

He's something else. And he's like this. You've talked to him, right, Ariel? Like he's like, he's just, he's like this. He comes in, I have a piece He's like, he's just like, he's like this. He comes in, I have a piece that I'm going to be writing. I won't give it away too much, but his energy level is just like this, man. He comes into a room that I was sitting in,

everybody's kind of middle of the day, not really, kind of low energy after lunch. And he comes in and he just immediate energy and kind of yelling and talking and just, you know, revving things up. And I'm like, you're the guy who supposedly could trying to make weight you know in this situation and dieting and can't eat everything and yet you're the guy who's the life of the party so that's what you're seeing in there is really who he is man that's exactly 100% who that guy is and

apparently he wants Dana White to pay for a musician to be at his wedding. And he wants Dana White to be his best man. And Dana was asked about this and he said he needs to find out more info, but he's open to it. Uh, it's, it's a whole weird vibe with John Silva, but, uh, I dig it. And I'm really curious. I'm really, really curious to see who they match him up with next. Because, you know, this guy, I mean, again, you mentioned earlier, Chuck,

there's some interesting fights at 145 on this card. He went into this card. Damn, he's not even ranked. Holy crap. Um, well, that's going to change very soon. And, uh, where's Bryce? Oh, Bryce is 13. You know, Yusuf Salal, Giga Chikadze, Josh Emmett?

Nah, just coming. Lerone Murphy? Probably Lerone wants a bigger name than that. Arnold Allen? Too big of a jump? Ortega? No, Ortega's moving up. Who knows, but he's very fun.

He's very fun. Were you guys surprised, by the way? Were you guys surprised? I was a little surprised at the pop for Bryce Mitchell or am I? Am I? No, he was like a total baby face out there. Were you surprised? I mean John was getting true to what? Gathering momentum all week. Yeah Cuz right cuz the fight was made it was gonna be like some type of public hazing for this guy

Yes, that's what he was seeing us. No, no, I think it flipped. I think it flipped around, you know, his putting down dogs comments. I think it really reverberated with the people. Most people are like that. They just want to maybe just comes down to America versus the world. You cheer for the American. I don't know. I was surprised.

I heard the USA chant in that fight, and I was like, man, if all fights to like break out that chant, that seemed a little weird. That was me, I called you at the time, Chucky. That was me shouting on the phone, cheering on your boys. Great win for him. And yeah, we'll see where Bryce goes from here. But clearly according to the crowd of Miami, still very much a fan favorite.

So, God bless. God bless America. What a sport. By the way, when, the whole thing is, By the way, when Trump was making, I'm trying so hard to bite my tongue. Right now you're out there.

Yes. He's making his way out in the crowd, you know, he's shaking hands and high-fiving and he's making his way down and he hits Dave Portnoy, you know, the dude from Barstool and you can see them have a small chat. I had to give my props to What's the kids name? Blinking on his name, you know the kid who writes who's MMA for oh Robbie Fox like was sitting there and Totally knows didn't stand up didn't shake hands didn't do anything. He just sat there as Trump was standing right there

I thought that was that was pretty balls. Yeah. I could dig that. You think he did it on purpose? Yeah. Yeah. He was just sitting there like, I mean, Trump was right there. He stopped actually and talked for just a second with Portnoy and you could just see Robbie Fox who was with him, just remaining seated. Everybody else is standing, you know what I mean? Around him and he just remained seating and not even looking up at him, just looking at his phone. So, principles, you know? P.T.

Yeah? You were gonna say something. I was just gonna ask, is there any significance to the yellow tie? He was just saying we're in a red one. And I was wondering if there was any significance to the yellow. No, I'm not sure about that.

Maybe, maybe Jordan can look that up for us. Let us know. I don't know. Is it April, spring? Sorry for being curious about your culture. Okay, guys. I'm just being, you know, you know what? Okay, he's working on it.

He's right to ask that question, Chuck. Because if you ever spend time in in Ireland With pizza and ask him any question you ask him why that door is yellow. He'll tell you why the door is yellow. So He's expecting the same type of treatment Yes, when it comes to when it comes to our culture Guys, Dominic Reyes is all the way back. In fact Chuck both you and I tweeted the exact same thing We both tweeted he's all the way back. Yeah, I swear, both you and I tweeted the exact same thing. We both tweeted, he's all the way back. I swear I didn't see your tweet.

I just, I just can't. No, I think you beat me to it. I think I saw it after. And I was like, oh wow, I hope he doesn't accuse me of plagiarism here. That was a big win for him over Nikita Krilla. First round, a counter left. At one point, the finishing sequence,

Nikita just like comes rushing in, like just his whole chin exposed. There's Dominic Reyes, he just kind of like, you know, he just kind of faints back and boom, it was, what was it? It was kind of, it was Shades of Aldo McGregor, wasn't it? I mean, it was just like. Yeah, it was. That's a good call.

No, seriously, it was kind of, it did, because the way he fell was almost the exact same. Good for him, seriously. It was kind of, it's because the way he fell was almost the exact same. Yeah. Kind of from him. And caught boom. Yeah. Good for him. Uh, he had a, he had a nightmare stretch there.

Um, and took a, took some time off, came back last year, won two fights. It could have easily won, come back fighter of the year. And then, uh, his first fight of 2025, he went to another big one. And he said, and you know what? I appreciate it. He said, give me one more and then I'm going to ask for the belt. He didn't call for the belt right away, which, uh, probably would have been a little bit too soon.

There's some other things that need to happen. Uh, what a great story. Good for Dominic Reyes. Very good. I think a lot of people are happy to see that. Very unlikely. Isn't it? I mean, I, I was trying to think of guys who, you know,

they get knocked out so brutally in consecutive fights that you're just like, man, this guy is done. He can't, and you hate to do that, but you're like, you've seen it too much in the fight game. You're staying it long enough, you see this happen where they just can't take a punch anymore. And I really believed he was at that point. Now I'm not saying he's gotten clobbered

in any of the last three fights, but just like Andre Arlovski did back, I don't know, 12, 14 years ago, whenever he lost four in a row and a couple of those were big knockouts, he kind of altered the way he approached it. He might've made himself a little more boring, I think, but at the same time he started winning fights again., Dominic is in that vein in terms of like, I don't know how you guys felt, but I thought he was gone, you know?

And for him to be in this spot in 2025 is remarkable, man. You don't see this too often, especially with these bigger guys who, you know, where it translates so much bigger, how devastating it is to get knocked out. But for him to be in a situation where he could be talking about a title shot at any point in the near future is crazy to me. Yeah, he did great. It was a brilliant performance and Kroloff really, really underrated guy. I think so dangerous and he and kind of like Valky just emerged in this fight, like looking like he had never looked before. You're like Jesus Christ, Kroelof has suddenly started doing strength and conditioning. This is going to be quite a problem. Absolutely beautiful KO and he's looked a different guy.

I'm with you Chuck, I thought he was gone. I thought it was actually a really, really tragic situation where this fight that a lot of people thought he won against John Jones sent him into this spiral, but he's emerged from it now. And look, we need life in the the the contender shift up there. I know, obviously, I'm going to have a new champion and that does a lot for it. But there is a lot of guys hanging around the title stakes there. And I think he can jump in and just, just be a very interesting story.

As he said, it's completely unprecedented that a guy can come back in this way. And you think he was probably maybe, maybe one foot away from being in those conversations as a title contender. Yeah. He lost to John Jones in February of 2020 and then lost three in a row after that. Yann Bakhovich, Yerba Houska, Ryan Spann, and was getting knocked out bad. I mean, some of those knockouts were, were, were vicious, were scary.

That rematch, that rematch would be nice. I think that's a good fight. No, there's a lot of good fights. And, uh, then did not fight for quite some time, uh, for about two years or so. And then Dustin Jacoby, Anthony Smith, Nikita Krilov, working his way back in there good for Dominic Reyes We'll talk about the right taking this this year like you know, we're talking about. Yeah. Oh, yeah

I mean taking a year off after the knockout you talk about Dominic Reyes Maybe maybe there's a little bit of a testament here to like guys give yourself a little break here And restore yourself before yeah year. Yeah year. Yeah. Yeah Him as well. Uh, took the break and, uh, came back looking great. Um, we'll, we'll run through some of the prelim notables. I thought the stoppage in the Danny Gashon Woodson fight was awful. Does anyone disagree?

This happened in the third round, uh, the referee Aaron Glenn. It's like how, what? It just made no sense. What was going on? A bunch of shots, no doubt, but I don't think he was out. It didn't seem like his body went limp. It didn't seem like, I don't know, that was a weird one. Just very quick, just felt very quick.

Now here's the thing. It happened at 112 of the third round, and then when the scorecards came out, Dan was up two rounds to none, but still one should have nothing to do with the, the other, it was not a great stoppage in my opinion. But shout out to Dan Ege, uh, Virenijan Giroba picks up the unanimous decision win over Jan Schouw-Nan, Chase Hooper had to work for his win over Jim Miller. Jim Miller put him through it, uh, with that old man strength, but, uh, he got it

done. He picked up the decision win over, uh, Jim Miller put him through it with that old man strength, but he got it done. He picked up the decision win over the unanimous decision win over Jim Miller. And I believe that's now five in a row for Chase Hooper. So good on him climbing up the ranks as well. Julian Arosa with the beautiful win over Darren Elkins. That was a vicious one as well. A first round stoppage over Elkins, the veteran.

That one was late. Like they kind of waited on that one. Yeah, that was the thing. That one was super late. And then the freaking, the freaking Danny gave one was super early. Now, can you guys clear something up for me? Cause I kind of miss this.

Is Michal Oleshechuk, Chuck, you would know better than anyone. Is he part of the fighting nerds? Well, I did not hear about this. And I actually talked to a Barahal while I was out there. So I didn't even, as far as I knew, he was only out there for, you know, for a Gion. So I didn't even, I knew nothing about this,

to be honest, man. That was kind of surprising. Yeah. They're recruiting, they're recruiting from Poland. Apparently a great way for him. Yeah, he looked great over Cedric Dumas, Uh, they're recruiting from Poland. Apparently a great way. Yeah. He looked great over Cedric Dumas, a beautiful first round victory for him. Sumiderji, uh, picked up a bit of a controversial, uh, split decision

win over Mitch Raposo Marco Tulio with a beautiful win over Trey Sean Gore, what a freaking, was that a right? Was that a straight right or was it a left? Now I don't remember, but it was a vicious punch. I remember being very impressed. Yeah. Yeah, that was a long time ago. He was kind of moving backwards and I think it was a right now that I think of it.

Anyway, he looked tremendous. A great win for him. And Nora Cornel beat Haley Cowan via second round submission. No, no. She's French. Any takeaways, PT, go ahead. Sorry about the last question. No, no, no. Konol. Any takeaways, PT? Go ahead, any takeaways?

Go ahead. This is, by the way, for anyone new to the experience, this is what you get from PT. It's 722 AF. Yep. Any takeaways, PT? Okay, Chuck, you think on that for a moment. You chew on it.

Chuck, any takeaways from the prelims? I thought that, you know, I thought that Chase Hooper actually looked pretty, that was pretty impressive, I thought, because early in that fight, it almost looked like Jim Miller was going to do, he was plus 1800 to get a submission, and it almost seemed like he was hell bent

on trying to get one, didn't it? Like, it seemed like he was like, let me get this guy who's known for his grappling as his younger version, 16 years difference. I'm going to try to put them away. But he weathered that storm and really took that fight by the end of the, by the end, by the end of the second round and into the third, Jim Miller looked like he'd fought like five rounds already, man.

So, um, good on chase super. I thought that was a really good showing for him. Also, there was a great video of, why are you still laughing, PT? There's a great video of Chase walking out of the cage and he's just exhausted. He's just absolutely exhausted. 15 minutes probably felt like 25 for him.

Can you imagine how that feels, all right? Yeah, yeah. No, I, oh, there it is. By the way, I do wanna give a shout out to this man who, AM, quite fitting his name, saying let PT sleep. But also Jake, we are back boys, Focus champ, shout out Bay Township, Ohio. Okay, I guess that's where he's from.

One thing that we always like to do, what's that? Yeah, 100, apparently. And that looks like USD. Yeah, send that straight to PT. Chuck, any final thoughts? You better give us what we want. You better give us what we want. I just want to say that this is,

I'm so happy that we're doing this again. I don't care about Pizzi's time thing, but I just, for selfish, I like to just kind of get together and do these things. I'm kidding, of course, Pizzi, but, but hey, this is right when the NBA playoffs are about to start Ariel. How are you feeling about your Knicks going into this?

No, no, no, no. Both you and I, we can commiserate together for opposite reasons. It's not looking good for the both of us, Chuck. I have to say. Can I just say one thing? See, I have to do the optimism thing though. Okay, I have to do it too, but they're just so fucking soft.

They're so soft. Can we get a little fight? Can we get a little grit? Can we fucking soft. They're so soft Can we get a little fight can get a little grit? We get a little umph we get a little John Silva. We get a little You are happy with the Cavs performance. I really yeah. Oh my god. You saw that. I mean you're up 23 There's nothing for them to play for at home, and you just let them walk all over you Come on. Yeah. Yeah, I mean at least we don't fire our coach I see maybe we should. We should fire your coach or the GM.

Maybe we should. And like, I love, my favorite thing, by the way, I know this is boring in the audience, but my favorite thing is that everybody now, all the media, once this happened, they're like, yeah, it's fairly known fact that there's been a rift in that locker room with the GM and the coaches guys and all this, and I'm like, nobody ever reported that,

that I ever read. That's a bunch of BS, but everybody's going to everybody knew about it though. Everybody knew about it. Hasn't Yoke could set a record for like most triple doubles in a season or something this year, something like that. Or am I crazy? No, I don't think he set a record, but he's going to average a triple double, which is the third person in history to do that. It's pretty amazing. I tried Oscar Robertson, Russell Westbrook. Yeah, that's right. No, it's been a tough go. It's been a tough guy who's going to sink the Denver Nuggets this year as the other guy who did it.

Russell, although didn't you say that you loved them like the couple? Or was it? No, you did. Oh, it was a tough day for me. I'm down here. He just flipped the table. He's like, oh, I fucking talk about the Knicks. The Cavs, what the fuck?

There you go. Oh shit, he's back. Oh, did I freeze? My former flames beat my new flame, Everton beating Forrest. It's just been a tough day for me overall. That's what you were talking about. The 14th is something I was looking at. That's about time you fucking lost the game.

You know what I mean? 14th? I don't even know, man. Don't even get into it. Oh yeah, I was talking shit to people. Did people catch? I mean, they were talking about? The 14th? That's about time you lost the game. 14th? I don't even know man. Don't even get into it. Oh yeah, I was talking shit to people. Did people catch? I mean they were talking shit to me so I had to respond. You know? You come with the king and you just don't miss. Yeah, they were on 14th, we're on 3rd. NBD. Guys, it's been a great time.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck with us. The boys did a great job on the watch party and we take the baton here. Please continue to support what we're doing thumbs up to the chat thumbs up to the chat like sub comment all those things and more nice glasses Chuck prescriptions I can't tell do they have lenses music music music boys it's getting you rolling, man. You're ready for breakfast now. This is how fright gets down at 2 26 AM Eastern.

Thank you very much for watching. We appreciate you all very much. We will be back. Hey, by the way, special star time on Monday, 12 PM Eastern for the area. How many shows? So put your clocks back or just join us at 12 an hour early. We'll have much to discuss with many different people, including the boys in the back. But for now, we shall say good night.

Congratulations, Alex Volkonovsky. Congratulations, Patty Pimlet. Congratulations, El Pantera. Congrats to all the big winners tonight. Thank you so much for watching. For Chuck, for Pizzi, for the whole crew in New York City. Good night and we'll see you on Monday.