The Ariel Helwani Show - UFC 328 Post-Fight Show: Sean Strickland shocks the world again by beating Khamzat Chimaev

Episode Date: May 10, 2026

Petesy Carroll, Chuck Mindenhall, and Ben Fowlkes reunite for the UFC 328 post-fight show, reacting first to Sean Strickland shocking the world again by dethroning Khamzat Chimaev (00:37). After discussing Nassourdine Imavov calling next (21:50), they address Strickland's apologetic post-fight speech (26:33). Next, they revel in the show-stealing co-main event between Joshua Van and Tatsuro Taira (31:51), including the stoppage (37:27), and Van's callout of Alexandre Pantoja (40:48). Finally, they recap the rest of the card, including the scoring of Alexander Volkov vs. Waldo Cortes-Acosta (49:36), Sean Brady's win over Joaquin Buckley (56:46), including the drastic betting line movement, and more (59:35).  

What a night in New Jersey, ladies and gentlemen. I cannot believe it. Sean Strickland has done it again. He has shocked the world. He has defeated the immovable object that is Hamzaa Shemaya. Oh, and we might have had the fight of the year in the Comain event, as predicted by a man who's about to join me. Chuck Mendenhall and Ben folks are here today to talk about one of the most amazing cards of the year.

Let's be honest. These top two fights are absolutely insane. Chuck, before we get into the flowers for the conference, home main event, which you absolutely will get. All three of us, lads, we were on the crack on Friday, and we were saying, what would have to happen for Sean Strickland to win this fight? A lot of shit happened, and we're about to get into it right now,

but, I mean, what an event, Chuck. Oh, I'm not sure we could have predicted it was going to go quite like that, right? I mean, we were saying, like, well, we know inevitably Strickland's going to be taken down. I saw Ben tweet out, like, he was, it took 15 seconds, he thought it would take 10. I was with him. I'm like, this is exactly how you think it's going to go.

The first round plays out, I think, how most people predicted how it should go. But you get that second round, third round, especially when there was no takedown attempts and it starts to become a, you know,

a bizarre world. You're like, what am I watching? You know what, you guys tell me, too, like the strange thing that happened in that third round was you start to dupe yourself

into believing that, okay, this fight is standing, this means that Strickland is fighting his fight without and then you kind of lose track of like wait a minute Shemayev actually might be winning the exchanges in this fight it was very much like the Evel of Lorone Murphy fight in that sense where all of a sudden the optics are all skewed and you're dealing with your preconceived notions really more than you are the actual fight itself but and then to kind of see it how it played out in the end there and there was a very strong feeling at the end I know that you guys probably saw the same thing strickland you're like at the area you're like

Did he just win this fight? And it turns out he did, man. It was a very close fight. I want to hear you guys, the score cards. I had it three to two for Shemaya, but I was in that third round. Obviously, that's the big swing round.

And that's the one I was like, I guess I'm going to skew it towards to Shemayev there. And I'm thinking that that must have been the swing round for the judges here. That's what I thought. I mean, and that third round, I think it is close. That's the one where you kind of look at it.

you're like, that could really go either way. And I scored it for Tremayev, but I could understand what people might be thinking if they give that one to Strickland. But I also think this is a concept that came up when I was at the combat of sports official summit in Las Vegas where they're like, don't give sympathy rounds, meaning where one guy was doing really well and then the other guy comes back, but he's not necessarily winning, but you just starts to saying, hey, he's doing better. And so you give him that round.

or a guy comes out and he's doing better than you expected, either because of these preconceived notions you had going into the fight or what you saw earlier in the fight, and you give him that round. And I kind of feel like maybe that's what was happening a little bit, just because everybody who knows what they're looking at is watching that third round and thinking, if we're standing up the entire time,

we're doing what Sean Strickland wants to do, right? We're not doing what Shemaiah wants to do. And yet he was, I felt like, landing the bigger shot. Again, I felt like this is in some ways, once it turned into a stand-up battle, it was a typical Sean Strickland fight in that you're watching him and you're going, why don't you just do a little bit more? Why don't you throw something behind that jab a little more often? You know, because he's just, it's just so much jab. Jab, jab, jab, jab, back up, circle away, jab, jab, jab. And you're just like, just a little more, man, just a little bit more. because when I was watching him, I was just like,

you're doing much better against Hamasat Shmiya than anybody expected, but I don't know if you can jab your way to a world title. You know, I think you need, especially because Hamza, he's landing some of those right hands. You know, he's smashed on Strickland's those. He seemed to be landing the more impactful blows, even when it was a striking fight. And so that, I wonder how much that played into it for the judges

is them just being like, hey, the fact that we're even standing here trading punches means that Sean Strickland is having his way when in fact he's backing up a lot. He's the one sort of just like throwing out that jab at times, as if he's just telling Chamaev like, get off me, leave me alone. And it didn't really seem to be hurting Shemaya very often. It's the same way as Eric Cullen and Salih Mado had it. So that is Shemayev wins the first. 10, 9, Strickland wins the second and the third.

Shemoyev wins the fourth and Strickland wins the fifth. I'm perfectly fine with people having Shemay F and the third. Like I get it. It's bigger blows against volume. I think they put up a stat at one stage and I think it was like 30 strikes to 51 or something. Yeah, in Strickland's favour. But as Ben said, I think Shemoyos were a lot more impactful. It's amazing that he was even in this situation though.

And the second. round was massively what happened in the second round what happened to i don't know i've in the second round because what you're looking at it you're like because i think we all kind of had this concept of jemaya right where you're like hey he exerts a lot of energy with his wrestling if he can't get you out of there early on if he can't submit you early on then he will start to fade but nobody's not he's going to fade in the second round right he's dominating pulling garret pulling garret yeah well and and especially like not only pulling guard but just like that that that body language of I'm shooting in, and I'm not necessarily shooting it on a good shot or like a well-set-up shot.

I'm shooting in on a shot where I went, I really need this to work. Like, not that I've made it work. Like, I just, I really hope it does. And then when it doesn't, him falling to his back is just kind of like a, ah, shit. Like, I don't have a plan from here. And that was really stunning to me. I mean, he came back. He found his second win after that, but I was watching that.

Like what is happening with you right now? And you could see the frenzy in the corner at the end of the second. You're saying things to him that you're saying to a defeated fighter. A guy where you're like, I hope he hits back about the stool now. They were saying, you're fine, mate. Like, everything's okay. Yeah, it was kind of like, don't panic was the, uh, yeah, was the tenor of the conversation. Like, well, everyone is screaming.

You know, everyone's like, ah, calm down in the corner. You're like, oh, shit, man, this is not good. What is, like, it's crazy. that it's come out like this because the whole feeling the event obviously was about this blood robbery. Dana White's saying beforehand this is the most heated blood rivalry we've had since Abe v. Connor

and the language that we used, the head of it certainly spoke to that. Inside the ring when the boys get there there is uniforms everywhere. There is the head guy of the security team that is telling everybody as these two guys are fakes off, he's speaking to the security team saying

stay focused. It's this dude here with the chain. He's talking to security guards and he's telling them to stay focused as these two dudes are suddenly high-fiving each other, okay, at the start of fight. And this is, that looks like the crying Michael Jordan meme telling him to stay focused. I know. That looked like Michael Jordan, the one dude. He was around the jeans and everything. But these guys, these guys had such a fierce rivalry.

And inside the ring, it didn't really give us that. And then at the end of the fight, we have Sean kind of, you know, hat in hand saying, listen, I hand this up. I went too far out my language. All this kind of stuff. I mean, it's pretty unbelievable. We talked about this, by the way. We were like, you know, remember we're talking about the props? We're like, something happened afterwards.

And we're like, I don't know. And we're basically pointing out like, Sean Strickland's a different guy at the end of the fight. He's always is. He's always kind of more like, ha, guys, I appreciate you bearing with me through that whole thing. And, you know, it's just a ruse. Thank you for coming out, you know. This is his therapy, right? Like, fighting is his therapy.

It is. Therapy is not going to be his therapy. So fighting and sitting in the front seat of his car talking to people on Instagram, those are his forms of therapy. And so it's like I think that he by the end of a fight, he's kind of like worked through some stuff. He's he's sort of like the out of control kid who just like needs to get it out of his system. And then he can calm down and be normal a little bit. I wondered as I was watching this fight and I started to think about, okay, these are guys who have sparred together in the gym before. and it feels like we've fallen into a sparring match at some point in the fight.

Like it just had that, like the rhythm and the intensity of that felt sparring-ish. I couldn't tell how much of that is. Especially. Yeah. I was wondering, I was like, some of that might be that that's what Sean Strickland likes to do. Like that, when things are going well for Sean Strickland, it often feels like he's just sort of sparring. And I couldn't tell if it was just because there's a familiarity there. like Hamzot just very friendly.

We went from just like the menacing glare across the cage to start the fight as usual to just like, hey, yeah. Pat Barry against Crow Cop. You know, they're hugging each other. Yeah, it's just I love you, man. We're all happy to be here, like that kind of a thing. And yeah, that, that I thought was very strange. That was not exactly what I expected, especially as you said, where you bring out the entire security apparatus of the state of New Jersey to prevent. all hell from breaking loose and instead of sparring match breaks loose.

Did it, did it affect you guys, I guess, that they were that friendly? Because honestly, the fight, the way it played out was dramatic enough. I mean, you didn't really need the bad blood in the end. But it was weird. I think it was living off the fumes of the bad blood. I think the fight was living off the fumes of the bad blood, even though we had this kind of reconciliation before the fight actually happened. Like, we had this kind of cool of touch.

I still think it was off the fumes of that because the fight wasn't that eventful, really. not really not in the sense the only thing that was strange about it was I mean there were a couple of factors but like the big one was obviously the second round the takedowns are stuff by the third round there are no takedown attempts and that I mean that was

that's surreal when you've watched the you've watched Shamaa of this amount of time you're like wait a minute what is going on so that whole round played out in a sense of pending like you're like okay well what are we doing very much like the envelope right wasn't it it's like you're waiting for him to get busy

with Laron Murphy and to do something, even though he's kind of winning the fight the way he's fighting. But it's like, you're waiting for something else that you're used to seeing to happen. That third round was very bizarre that way. And I'm sure if Shemayev goes back and watches the tape

and, you know, thinks about it, that's going to be the thing that'll bother him the most, is that third round. You know, the thing that was very telling for me on the third and the fourth round was that Chameh was getting what he wanted in terms of we're standing up, we're striking, but you're backing Strickland up.

He's backing up toward the fence. At times his back would touch the fence every once in a while, but he's like, he's backing up past that warning track, that black little line that fighters often call the warning track. That's where you want him if you're Hamza. And that was something that Sean Strickland's corner was warning him about like, hey, you get past that line. You get, if he backs you up toward the fence, that's when he's going to shoot. And he wasn't shooting then.

And I thought that was very telling. that told me, Tremayava is still worried about his cardio. Even though he seemed to kind of get a second wind after that second round, the fact that he wasn't going for takedowns then told me he's concerned about how much he has left in the gas tank. And then he did it late in the fourth and then he did it in the fifth, especially it seemed like he was doing it in the fifth because he knew, okay, fights almost over one way or another. I don't have to worry about, you know, saving something for the swim back. I can go ahead and empty the tank now. But by then, you know, he wasn't he wasn't dominating. Strickland the way he was in that first round, you know, like that, that to me just said, like, he's worried about his own cardio. He doesn't feel like he has that ability to just go after this guy.

Right. And, you know, honestly, probably felt like, hey, maybe I'm doing better in the stand-up game. Like, I don't need to. Like, this is going okay for me. And it's not like Sean Strickland's really hurting him with too much. But it is just like it's, it's, I think that it's in people's heads if we're standing here and we're trading punches that it's we must be doing Sean Strickland's game. And Strickland, too, has got to be just one of the hardest guys to deal with in terms of you ever like, you see those like lanky dogs and like when they get joyful, like they go in different directions. They're more muscular than you understand. They're harder to kind of like corral. He strikes me that way because you'll see, you'll see guys like it looks like they're

trying to do what they would normally do. But for whatever reason, this guy is coming. like strength in different directions. Even on those early in the first round, and the takedowns when he was going up against the fence, he's kind of butt scooting over there and he's like doing this stuff. You can just tell it's like this, some kind of like, you know, it's just, you know, unruly energy or something

that's coming out of him and like strength because it just wasn't easy. And I feel like we keep seeing this with Strickland as maybe something I got to stop underestimating when I make the, you know, when you think about these fights, we know he's a hard out. I knew he could get up and say he didn't do it in the first round, but he clearly,

wore down Shemai of a little bit, you know, just by just fighting off, fending off the submission attempts and everything else. But he just must be a lot to deal with. You know, like you watch him, it's just awkward and you see guys kind of change

their mind on what they want to do midway through the fights. It's just weird, isn't it? Like, I don't recall a guy like this. Yeah. You know, I have to give him credit. Like, the calmness, the composure he had in the first round was pretty incredible. You know, when that dude is all over your neck and he is just floating.

Every time you think you're back up, oh, he's suddenly on my back again. Oh, I'm on the ground again. Oh, he's trying to choke me again. The stoicness of Strickland in that moment, like attacking two on one, really by the book defense every time. Like, I just need to control this choking arm.

I know I'm in an awkward position. I need to just sit this out. It was incredible to see. But I just can't believe that was it. You know, I was like, well, this is going to be three rounds of this. You're about to get three rounds of this. It is an amazing thing that Strickland has done this again, as he did against the Izzy. But I can't help but think what happens through our perception of Shemoyev because of this?

What happens to... He's not the machine, like the unbeatable machine that everybody thought, right? Sean Strickland showed you that if you can just make it through that first round and not get choked, which, again, just be clear, that is all Sean Strickland did in that first round. Right. not get choked. He did not do a single offensive thing in that first round. He just avoided submissions. I'm happy for that being, though, Ben, are you? Because the lack of damage. Because there's no damage there. Yeah. I agree with that. But I also think that that same damage-heavy

scoring criteria is what works against John Strickland and some of these other rounds. That's why I score it for Tremaya. Yeah, and the third is just because, you know, Sean Strickland is throwing out a lot of jabs. you know, he's just not there, he's touching them. There's not a whole lot of clean shots that he's, you know, like, Chimai of is blocking a lot of those. And when Chamaev is, like, Chimai of lands a right hand here or there, and it does seem like more impactful.

He seems like he's doing more damage in those moments to me. But I do think everybody before was looking at Chameh, where he's just like, he's a machine who just doesn't stop coming after you. Everybody can say, hey, if you can make it through that early going, then maybe it gets easier. But nobody had really. proving it that much. Sean Strickland was able to go out there and prove it.

The thing I was thinking is, if I'm Drickus Duplice and I'm watching this one at home, and I see that, I'm praying to hear and new, you know, when they put that belt on Sean Strickland and you're like, so you're telling me I'm back in it, right? That's true. That's a good point. I didn't have anything for Hamzot, couldn't have been the wrestling, but we saw the way I took apart Sean Strickland, right? Like, do we want to do that again?

You know, I'm thinking the UFC probably does not want to just like get in that rinse cycle and, uh, and do it again. But it is interesting, especially because I think that there's probably a lot of people out there, a lot of other middleweights who are like, this is a, a world I would rather live in. The one where Sean Strickland is the champ, I have to go out there and beat rather than Hamza. Petey.

Funny you mentioned that. Let me ask you something. Yes, please. There's the weight cut. Like it looked like a hard weight cut, right? For Shemayev, let's that factor into this. You were mentioning this, right? Like, you look like death on a scale.

There's a million people out there that would tell you didn't make way for this fight. There is a million people that will point to the scales, all this stuff I saw DC countering those arguments. But I did see footage of Shemoyev looking, and this is not completely uncommon. We need to stress that, but looking like death warmed up after that. way in and just like taking that B line straight to the car and honestly that grappling heavy style is very reliant on an engine and I know if you trained your whole life there's a certain amount of muscle memory you're going to have and your body will work a certain way but at the highest level after like I saw I saw clips of Iron and Serucke in this week saying that

Shemoyev had to cut 21 kilos that's about 50 pounds like that's 40 out pounds anyway it's crazy I can't do the exact it's it's between 45 and 50 How big is Strickland then? Because didn't Strickland look bigger in there? Like, he just looked. It didn't look like there was a huge size disparity. And also, I got to think, like, if you have to cut that much on Fight Week, then either you are, you've gotten too used to huge weight cuts and you take it for granted.

Or you mess something up. You know, you came into heavy and left yourself. Or you're injured. That's usually the other way it works. Is that, like, you... That's what I'm wondering if we're going to hear. What you need to do. I imagine we will

Yeah But I mean I would expect I think that like If if it was really that You left your best stuff in the sauna Essentially you know You weight cut took it out of you

And you didn't have it He got a second wind After he looked terrible in that second round But then he came out there And he was in it the rest of the way So he was in it But he wasn't he wasn't Shemoeff He didn't

He didn't look like the guy that we imagine. I don't know. I mean, if you look at some of his past performances, even in the record's fight, as dominant as he was, he faded. You know, he got less and less dominant as a grappler as the rounds went on. You look at what he had against Kamarer Ushman, you know, like even there, like against a smaller guy where you're just like, that is a known thing with him, that he comes out, he starts fast, comes out hot,

but if you can get through that, he will slow down a little bit. So I don't know It's hard for me to look at that and just immediately go You know he had nothing left on fight night Because he still had plenty left He he could very easily make a case that he won that fight I think It is such a perception skewing thing now because you're like Sean Strickland you know you kind of

Leave him for dead and I mean you know in the contender sense right like or as a champion or becoming a champion again It's just you leave him for dead because there wasn't a path back. His coach was sounding like he left. I know. His coach was saying like, I don't know. I know.

Remember this? You know? Yeah. It's crazy that suddenly, I'm this quickly, we're talking to, he's wearing the belt again. We're talking about him.

And then the Shemaya thing, I mean, you know, he was, every time we get into this discussion about like, should he move up to 205 pounds before he's even defended the title yet?

You know, we're like, should he move up and, you know, you talk about these things. We see this sometimes, right? And then you're, then it becomes like,

okay, now what for this guy? Because the sheen of invincibility or whatever you want to call it, that boogie man thing that he had going on was his biggest attribute. But once you see something where you're like, okay, wait a minute, the formulas, you start to see the formula, it becomes it becomes something else, right?

And so now he's got something to prove well beyond what he's done. So the perception of where he's at, what he's going to do next is going to be a big deal. And then for Strickland, it's even harder because to put him back into a space like, okay, he's the champion and like, what does that mean?

Going forward is this is wild because I think, I never even imagine that we'd be here. I just never imagine that we'd get back to a Strickland era. I wasn't even sure he could get back to a that he could get back to a title shot just because I felt like the UFC was like, okay, we've heard enough of him on the mic

we don't want him anywhere near the belt, but here he is. It's just, it's a crazy turn of events, man. Do you, you mentioned like what, what were the going to do with Strickland. Chuck, is there any any interest, immediate interest and immediate rematch here for Shemayef?

Do you think if you're the UFC? Because we have Nasardine Immov out here saying, I'm going to show your lights out, Sean Strickland. That's what he's saying. Oh, did you hear that? I felt like I heard the call of a mighty raven from up there on the rafters.

Oh, God, I wish that was. It's Imabov time. Damn. If I'm in a avatar was a raven, you know? It's like, oh, you think it is? I mean, see, I will say this. Did you, what did you guys think?

People who have no idea the context of the raven here. I know. For your information, Ben has said that Imovov, if he had a gimmick where he had a raven and that flew up into the rafters, boyly fought, and then flew back down onto his shoulder afterwards, people would be a lot more interesting. And talk to him a little.

Yeah, they need to have a mystical kind of connection, him in the raven. If he had that, he'd have been in this title fine but I think he'd have already been here I don't think you can turn right around and do an instant rematch because especially you sold people

blood feud for the ages right right didn't quite get that everybody is very friendly about they hopefully before yeah and people aren't going to go for it again people are like you know they might go for it later on you know but you can't turn right around

and sell them that same thing when they just saw that it didn't deliver that. So I do think you got to do something different. And I think that, you know, what better time for Imovov to get in there and get a shot now? Because right now, it's just like, like you said, we didn't think we were going to be back seeing another Sean Strickland title run.

And so let's do something different. You know, let's see if him and Imov can run it back and something different will happen in this time. The thing that I think was to the extent that Chomai was exposed I think what it exposed about him was that as dominant a wrestler as he is, as dominant a grappler as

he is, his ground game is a little too I don't say one dimensional but he's just focused on submissions. You saw it in that at Drickus Duplase fight where he's getting you into the good positions and he's just thinking about finding the choke. He's

doing that kind of just like classic submission grappling thing where he doesn't mind being on the bottom as long as he's on your back and he's not looking for dominant position that he can punish you from because especially against these guys you're going up against the best of the world i think you got to soften you got to give him something else to worry about all sean strickland had to worry about in that first round was hand fighting just fight the hands make sure that at all times you got like a two-on-one-one grip on at least one of his hands make sure he doesn't have both hands free to choke you with

When you make it, especially for guys who are very, you know, Sean Strickland, it might be a striking first guy, but he's a, is he very competent grappler? You're not going to go. Grateful to mental that guy. Yeah, like, when he all he has to think about is hand fighting and stopping you from getting that choke all the way in, it's a lot easier on it. If you give him two things to worry about, the choke and you elbowing him in the face from the top position, then it gets a lot harder. You know, like that's, it's kind of like what you would see guys like GSP do, where it was just like, he is take downs, hop control, and ground and pound and then opportunistic when it comes to submissions. And Chbayaev is taking you down and immediately hunting for that submission, trying to latch onto your neck. And it just makes it a lot easier for people to defend against when they know I'm only defending against that.

He's not throwing a bunch of different stuff at you. He's just trying to do one thing and you know what that one thing is. did you guys get a big fight feel when they were when they got in the cage this was one of the rare times and it's you know i admit you get jaded you watch this sport so much you see so many many events sometimes you're just completely immune to it but this is one of those moments man when these guys got in there i was and especially with all the security and everything i was like wow this is like it used to feel like i was like this is crazy what's gonna happen in here i guess we find out it's time to find out that was fun you know it's like it's fun to kind of get into that situation again um you You were asking about the rematch. It's only in that sense, right, that you got, like, sort of a big fight field that kind of got through even the toughest, you know,

machines or whatever. Like, you, you, you get through that and you have this collective moment. People are texting me. I don't know if you guys were getting that. I was getting a lot of correspondence from people you don't usually talk to, but they're all watching this fight.

That's why, if they did an automatic rematch, it's just because they've, they tapped into that. I think, I'm with you, Ben, like, you know,

Sean didn't have to go so hard to the apology well and be like, guys, I'm sorry, you know, because if he had played that a little bit differently,

never tell people it was just to hype the fight. Exactly. Ever. You don't want to, yeah, exactly right. Never.

I mean, honestly, if you're looking at, like, this was a good fight, right? Like, it had a lot of dimension to it.

There was a lot to think about probably a lot of regrets. I don't know if you could point to all of that stuff in the first Emov-V-Streklin fight. I know that fight was at 205 pounds. most people don't even remember that that fight existed. That's the problem and that's why we need a Raven. You know, it's because you're just not going to remember an email ball fight.

But you can't just have him there, right, and show him on the Jumbotron and all this and then just be like, no, you don't factor into this at all. Yeah. Sorry, I was just getting some messages from Jordan there, boys. Oh, sure. Say something interesting there because I do have something interesting to say. I was. Okay, go ahead.

We have the bonuses, ladies and gentlemen. Okay. Fight of the night is Van Tira, which we will be speaking. speaking about very shortly. Performance of the night go to Jim Miller and Yaroslav Anasov. And so there you go. You're right. What a card. Jesus. There's some crazy performances tonight. Before we get on to that though, Ben, I got to ask both of you guys. But Ben, how do UFC feel about having Strickland as champion right now? Because out watching this fight, in the third round, I'm hearing choruses of USA, I think it was Fokshamay or something to that effect that was. going over. Like this guy, he is an anti-hero. I know a lot of people do not like what this guy

has to say, particularly in the buildup to fights, but it is reverberating with a big slice of the UFC core, I would say. I'm going to wrong. I think there's like a weird disconnect sometimes where some of us in the media are like, oh, well, Paramount's not going to love having this guy once he starts espousing his various views about how women shouldn't vote or whatever. And then, but the reality, I think is that the UFC is like, we're into it. We're totally into it, man. The UFC has shown us that you kind of can't go too far in that direction for them. You know, they kicked Josh Hokka off the press conference stage this week,

but that seemed to be more for being unknowing than for being too far. Like, they don't, too far doesn't exist. They told us that with Bryce Mitchell and the Hitler stuff, man. Like when you don't do anything about that, when you just say, hey, that's the way it is. you're telling us like, no, we're not stepping in here, at least when it comes to like, you know, right wing views.

So Sean Strickland's whole thing, I think they're just like, we're fine with it, man. We're into it. It resonates with a certain set of the fan base. The fans who don't like it, we've already worked hard to alienate those people in a million other ways.

So I don't know what they're concerned about at all. I think they probably think like, yeah, I mean, if anything that they, worry about with Sean Strickland being champ and I don't think they they worry too much these days when you're not selling paper views. I don't think they I think exactly right. They may. If anything, they probably just feel like he's sort of too much of a point fighter for people to get really excited about him inside the cage. He's he talks a lot about bathing in the blood of his enemies, but he does not really do that very often and people will catch on to that eventually. But at the same time, I mean, the, the, entire career of Chelsonen taught us that if you can just sell the sizzle, you don't have to deliver so much knockout steak at the end. You know, like, so I think that they're very much fine with having John Stricklandish champ.

But I also don't think that they love it so much that they feel like, let's find them the easiest opponent we can next to try to keep this going. And the wildest thing is he keeps winning the title. So it's like even though he's not doing the thing you're saying where he's not knocking guys eyes, he keeps beating the guys who, you know, we thought Shimaa was going to be there for a long time. now he's out. Is he at the time we thought was going to kill? I mean, both times he's a huge underdog. This is the thing that Chale could never pull off.

He got close with the Silva UFC 117, but it is, it's the other level of it is that even if he's not doing it in some big splashy way, if he's just fighting his fight, he's somehow getting it done. That's the thing that, I mean, both times he's won the championship,

we're having these conversations, we're like, what just happened? How'd this work? You know, like, it's just, that's the difference.

He keeps winning and people are going to latch on to that. I'm very interested to see now if he became, you mentioned him being an anti-hero. I want to see how much love he gets now from the community now that he's wearing the belt again. Well, and can he do as well when he's not in an underdog role? He excels true. That's one of the things we talked about beforehand that he's very comfortable there.

He seems to fight much better when everybody is saying, we think that you're in over your head here and you're going to get killed. And then you go into some of those fights against Drickus Duplasee, where you're like, man, your style should work against Drickus and Duplica. It shouldn't work against Hamzot. You know, and like that was one where he was just sort of, especially that rematch with DDP where he was real deer in the headlights.

You know, like that's the thing is like, put him in some of those fights and let's see if he can win those and see if he can go out there and defend a title. We better talk about the common event. And I will preface this by saying, on Friday's show, Chuck Men and all, the marvelous mind that he has under that hat there. and he said that this event gave him the same kind of feels as a Robbie Lawler v. Rory MacDonald,

which was the co-main event to Connor McGregor v. Chad Mendez. Now, Chad Mendez and McGregor were all over the headlines that week. It was McGregor's big coming out moment. They had the big entrances and all of that stuff. But it was, in fact, Rory McDonald and his nose and Robbie Lawler's lip and this bloodlust that happened in there, like a religious experience for most people that are at it, that people talk about to this day, like as being one of the greatest fights ever. I think we had Chuck being very right, because that for me is four of the year so far. What an unbelievable fight between

Joshua Van and Tatsura Tora. I mean, first round couldn't have gone any worse for Van really. He gets taken down twice. He does get up twice, though, which is very important. Then a complete flip of the script in the second round. He's dropping Taira. Tauri nearly looks out. out there at one point, Van pours on again, the third. And then suddenly, Tyra arrives back in the foreground. Like, oh, yeah, we're back in the first round now, bitch. Here we're on the ground. I'm holding you down.

You're in hell again. Then Van knocks him out in the final round. Some people are finally stoppage. Oh, jeez. Oh, my dear. But, lads, I think this fight was absolutely incredible. Chucky called it. You may as well.

Get your flowers, sir. Well, thank you, Pizzi. It did have that feeling, and part of it was just the youth, right? they mentioned that they're both born in the 21st century, 50 combined years. You just kind of knew that they were going to go out there and put on the show, but I didn't think it would kind of go like, I didn't think it'd go like this. After that Serro took him down in that first round, it felt like we'd already established. Again, both of these, both of the, the Co-Main and the Main had this element where you're like,

okay, here we go. This is what it's going to be. And neither fight ended up being that way. Yeah. This one to me, man, like from a, from a right-release standpoint, Like, you think about it, and you're like, it was this close to being one of the biggest lessons for Van. Do you see, like, he basically goes for, he just has to land a couple more punches. What was it in the third round?

He just a couple more punches. The fight is over there. The referee's leaning in, and he goes for the submission. He's like, I want to prove a point, which I appreciate. Which I appreciate. I knew exactly what he was doing. You're like, okay, this is an awesome moment. But man, when he, in that next round, when he found himself, or was it later in that round when he's back on his, you know, he's on.

his back again. He goes third and fourth. Yeah. And you're like, I was like, he's going to have the biggest regrets when he goes back and watches this. But it worked out for him and he ended up doing the thing that I guess a rising budding star does, which is get the knockout anyway. So it had everything, man. I mean, that fight kind of had everything. Both guys, what we thought they were very good at showed that they're very good at those things. Both guys showed a lot of heart. I mean, what else do you want in a fight like that? I mean, this is something you talked about on the crack on Friday, Chuck, about how Van had that youthful ignorance and exuberance where you don't know yet what life can beat you down with.

You don't know yet what this sport will do to you. And there was some of that, I thought, that was on display for both of these guys. Because for one thing, like, you know, you had Van getting dominated on the mat early on, But then you also, you're looking at his face during those moments and you're like, he doesn't seem concerned. He seems like he would rather be doing something else right now. But he doesn't seem like he's freaking out or being like, oh, shit, I'm in trouble. He just thinks like, all right, I got to get through this part. And then I'm going to be winning.

It's no problem again. And then when he did go for that choke, like, I wondered, I don't know if that was so much him trying to prove a point or if it was just sort of, you know, automatic when you feel yourself gaining that advantage. because he locked in that choke at one point. You know, he kept going for it where he's thrown on the choke and he's throwing that hand on the top of Tyra's head rather than behind his head. And like you just couldn't quite get it behind his head. And it's like, you put it on the top of this head,

you make it too easy for the guy to reach down, peel it off, and set up his defense. But then he had it under the chin, man, and going palm to palm with it. And Tyra, by that point, was just able to get his back to the mat and take the pressure off that way. and force him to admit like, okay, you lost it and then get into a scramble there.

But it was just like he, I think just felt like it's there. Your muscle memory or your body is just telling you like, that's what you do when you have that opportunity to finish a guy there. And to me, it was amazing that Tyra getting beat up the way he was. Not only just like getting your brain rattled, getting your equilibrium messed up, but getting your nose smash, getting your face is swelling up at that point. To still be able to come back and do your stuff, you know, to keep your composure. That's crazy to me. Like to not only not quit, you know, not do what we've seen so many other guys do where

you're just covering up and waiting for the referee to save you because you've just been so battered, but to still be able to do what you do, even when, you know, you can't breathe and your face is turning into a balloon. That's crazy to me. That was, it was just an amazing display from both those guys. Especially like to have Van putting it on Tyra like he was at the end. And the thing Tyra is mad about is that you stopped him from having the chance to absorb more of that punishment. He was heated about it.

He would still be fighting right now, Ben. He was never going to give up with that fight. That's the thing. Like we've all seen this, right? Where it's like there's the complaints about a stoppage that are kind of performative where you need to, like, for ego reasons, you're being like, no, come on. I'm still in it. And, but that, that rage, that bitter rage, you could tell he very much wanted to continue that fight, no matter how badly he was being beat up in that moment. So how do you feel about it then, the stoppage? Because I see a lot of people getting upset about it.

I think, I think it's a, I mean, you could have let it go a little more, especially like what he had already endured to that point. But I understand, too, like the body language is not great. Straight down. He goes, poof. Yeah, the way he went down. I mean, he turned his back, but I mean, that, that, you know, he's turning away and he's like sort of like collapsing. And he barely stopped himself on face forest into the canvas. Yeah. Right. And the thing that people have to understand about these stoppages is it's like the referee has to make the choice based on what he's seeing right then to jump in there.

And when he jumps in there, the punches stop, the damage stops. And then the guy can turn and face you and look like he's okay. But that's that's only happening after the stoppage. the referee is making that decision based on what he saw two seconds earlier. So, like, I can understand why you make the decision. I think you could have let it go a little more. But at the same time, I can't get mad about that stoppage. It was a little bit like the, what was that, Mutino versus Sean O'Malley?

Matina takes all that damage throughout this fight. Just keeps taking damage, but doing just enough to kind of hang around. And I think the referee stops it inside of, like, a minute to go. And you're like, you couldn't let him live to see the score cards, give him that one little, give him that one little, silver lining victory there, but I had no problem with it because if you watch it in just its

normal speed, the way he turns his back, like you said, PT, it looked like he just kind of throws his hand down prevents him from going face first in the mat. I mean, that's what the referee saw. So it's like, if you can understand the vantage point he was seeing it from and why he stopped it, there should be no

problem with it. My question to you, Chuck, is we had a discussion on the round table this week before this fight, and we talked about Van Stott. about what a win here would mean for him in terms of coming off the fight with Pantosia where they didn't really fight for that belt of strange hands. Pantosia was injured. We later find out that if the UFC just wanted to wait for a month,

they probably could have done the rematch between Pantosia and Van. They decided not that they went with Tira. We had one of the fights here, no complaints here. My question to you is, after seeing that performance, after how highly you were in Tira before this, do you now see Van as the man in that division? vision or is that not going to resolve itself until he fights Pantosia. Still got to fight Pantosia though, right?

I mean, he's still got to, I have a ton of respect. I have no problem looking at him as a champion, but I'm just for me to fully be like, you're the best flyweight out there. You've got to beat him. And yeah, but if that's the fight of the area, Pantosia fights this way too, right? Like he fights with disregard for his, you know, for protecting his belt or any of that stuff, or at least he did. I feel like you've got another candidate to just kind of.

do this again. I don't know how many these wars van can do, but that fight has that kind of potential too. I mean, that's Pan Soja. And you sit in there, did you see his expression as they kind of flash to him. He did the Obama face. He did when he said, he said, hey, you know, get your shit

together and we can run it back if you want. And when he heard that if you want, he went, what? If I want? What are you talking about, bro? What are you even saying right now? Like that was, it was so perfect, especially because it's like, He's not like jumping up down in his seat being like, you motherfucker, I'm coming to.

He was just like, what? What is this kid's hand right now? I know, exactly. I loved it. It was so perfect. I got to make it, man. But I could totally agree with you, Chuck. Like stylistically, especially after you saw what Van and Tyro were able to do together,

it just makes you think, man, we can get through without any weirdness, uh, injuring somebody between Pantosia and Van. That one looks like stylistically very similar. Like it could be just an absolute banger of a fight. and made me go once again for maybe the thousandth time, can you believe there was ever a time when the UFC was like, maybe we should get rid of flyweight. I was thinking that.

You should just do away with this weight class. What the hell were you thinking? I don't know, man. One of the best things you have going consistently. The same way I know when I see some heavy weights on the undercard, and I'm like, well, this could be absolute trash that you're serving me up. I see fly weights on the card somewhere I'm like, here we're going to see some of the highest level technical MMA

that will go criminally underappreciated. And yet again, yet again, they do it. Man, Vann's boxing is just fucking beautiful, isn't it? It is so good.

I can't believe he's landing someone. He shots in such a short cap of time. I'm like, oh my God, there's another. Everything down the middle was straight and right into, boom. You could see his hair like flash.

I was like, dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could see that that, That jab stings, and when he throws that right hand, man, he is just ripping it. And, but I did, you know, the commentators made a good point about it.

You could see it. Like, Tyra was able to find some success calf kick in that lead leg because he's fighting in that boxing stance. He's leaning forward on that leg. It's there, you know, it's there to be chopped away at. Like, if you can do some, if you can do it enough times to make a difference before he knocks your head off, I guess, then maybe it could work. But that is something where if I were game planning for him for like a future opponent, you'd be like, there's an opportunity at least, you know? Pantoja, right?

Like, I mean, he is looking at that. Like, he is going, holy shit. And this is a very durable guy, a guy who is no stranger to being in a dust up. I don't think his hands are as quick as vans. I probably don't think he's as sophisticated with just his hands, but he can strike, man. And he likes picking away that leave. And he knows he can. So that's why when Ben was saying, like, in that first.

round when he's kind of, you know, in the other guy's domain. And you're like, you see him sort of like, all right, play this out. We'll get back to square. And then when I do that, I'm going to beat his ass. It was almost like watching like Kobe Bryant or somebody like that where the team's going on a little 80 run. And you see him like, all right, get the side of your system. And then I'm going to systematically tear you apart, you know.

That's what it looked like to me. And he did. And he still had to overcome more of that, too. But that kind of poise and that kind of confidence and you put it all together. It makes for that kind of event, right? it makes for that kind of fight where it just you're just going to get wild outcomes. I mean, I was last

year, I think I voted for the Royville van fight as fight at the year. For him to do it another one that could be considered a fight of the year. I mean, this guy's a godsend to the UFC, isn't he? I mean, it's just such a good time for Floyd. The youth in that division, all

up towards the top of division as well, Toro Pontosia, Kavana there as well. And you've got the looks at Haraguchi and Pantosia and all different guys, man. It's such a fucking great division. You're dead right, Ben. Amen, brother.

I tell you what, though. I was watching, though, the first part of this fight and thinking, are we finally, are we going to get a Japanese UFC champion here in the year 2026? It was looking like we were going to do it. I know, man. And it was just, and, oh, this is heartbreaking. They keep getting, because there's, there's this, the old school MMA fan of me wants to see a real. Japanese MMA revival

wants to see something that the people can get excited about it, we can bring a UFC event to Saitama Super Arena and get 80,000 people in there again or whatever, you know, man, that's got to be heartbreaking for Tyra. But at the same time, he's just like, it is one of those fights where

I know that it's got to be a bitter loss for him, but I feel like nobody really lost that one, because it was just such an incredible display from both those guys, and you can't come away from that, not feeling like Tyra got that dog

all up in him, man. And he's still, young guy, still going to happen. At least he's 26. If he was 36 and this happened, you'd be like, that might have been his shot, man. That's it.

That was it. You'll be back. Especially at flyweight. Yeah. I'm going to give you guys a quick rundown of what's being said at the press conferences because Aaron Brown's Seder,

the fantastic money is, does a lovely thread. Well, the. Yeah. Let's hear it. Do you want me to hit with it? Of the press conference thread, yeah. We talked in the lead up to this event on the crack on Friday,

and Ben told us that King Green, formerly Bobby, Bobby Green, had lost a lot of jewelry up to the $300,000 worth of jewelry is what he said. That's a lot of Cuban links, as we said. A lot of kibble and a lot of Cuban links. He made a big appeal for a bonus after his first round finish of Jeremy Stevens, who did not make weight. Don't worry, guys. Even though he didn't get a bonus,

wait till you hear what Dan is going to do for him. Quoting Aaron Bronsetter now, Hoyt says that King Green will get his own custom shorts in lieu of earning a bonus. He says the King Green deserves a ton of credit for facing Stevens despite a missing weight. When they were determining the bonus, they took into account the quality of opponent.

So how do you think? Got a nice shining nickel for you. This is like, You know, when you're working at a job and they're just like, hey, we know the conditions have been tough lately. Everybody's been working really hard. Pizza party, guys. Pizza in the break room. You all get 50 minutes.

Much pizza as you can. They get your ass back to work. Custom shorts. I mean, but there is a part of me that when you were setting it up, I was like, don't give this man more money to buy more jewelry. He needs to learn a lesson from this. This is not the sob story that I think, like, it's Jim Miller's out here being like, I'm buying my own health insurance and then my son has a rare form of cancer and I've been at this for, like, Jim Miller should be a multimillionaire for how long he's been in the UFC. If the UFC is really like the NBA of mixed martial arts, King Green has made some poor choices. He messed up.

He was financially irresponsible. You don't leave people in your house like that. If you don't trust him while you go off to train, you got $300,000 worth of jewelry, if you give that man a $100,000 check because you're just like, hey, we feel really bad about all the jewelry you lost. Go buy some more. That's not, we're not helping him at that point. We are enabling him at that point. So it's not exactly like.

That you said was wearing the fake. Which guy did you say that? It was Chad Ochosenko, who would talk, where he would say, like, hey, people see I'm a pro athlete. They assume these are real diamond earrings. They're from Clairs. Somebody you take King Green down to Clare. I was going to say.

I'm telling you, man, I got two daughters. You think I haven't been up with the Clairs? They always are running some kind of deal where it's just like buy seven, get 15. They won't even let you go in there and buy just one thing. There's always something like that. Take King Green down there, man. And just we can get this sorted out. We don't need to be doing all of this.

Well, maybe with the custom shorts a trip to Clay. That would be pretty good, you know, as a package deal. It is. You roll up in there in Clairs on the barter system and you're like, here's these custom shorts. What can you do for you? You know? White says that he had the main event scored even heading into the final round and scored round five for Strickland.

Great minds down. I mean D-dubs there. White says, and we will get to this because there was some contention about the scorecards on Volkov and Waldo Cortez. says he thought that Waldo Gwatra has a cost of won the fight, but the matchmakers had it for Volkov, he says that the first round was particularly close. White, on the

Freedom 250 press conference, said he doesn't want to see anyone get hurt as a result of two guys beefing that aren't going to fight each other, like Hogan and Tuporea. We got a lot of freedom. Let me see what else we got. He doesn't want to talk about Rosie Carano eclipsing the Freedom 250 numbers

because he loves both of the women who are contesting that fight. And so anybody asked, are you ever going to do Charlemagne the God's radio show ever again in your life? He is never doing that show again. They would say no there. I've seen so many clips of that. There was just two clips at the start. I've seen like 18 clips, man.

Those boys went home. He did not know what he was walking into. He was too used to sparring with the puppies on these podcasts. He was not ready for that. Interestingly, there was some reports that we would get a McGregor announcement. over this weekend. White says to the people there, there is no deal with Connor.

He is still confident that McGregor is going to fight this year, more confident that he was. Wait, is he extremely confident? Just down to confident now. All right. It's not a great sign. He had gone up from very confident last year to extremely confident. Now he's just down to confident.

Lucy's holding that football telling Charlie Brown to go kick it. It's a worrying development. Certainly a worrying development. I want to see McGregor fighting. So Dana also said that he would be promoting the Fury Joshua fight. I believe it was in the stream with Nina Drama. He says at the press conference,

White on whether he will be promoting Fury Joshua. Let's see what happens. Hmm. What? All right. Fair enough. You're walking these ones back pretty quickly. Saying stuff.

I don't know. I guess, You know, you get out there in the nightclub with the cigars and everything. And maybe you just, yeah, you start to feel optimistic about the future. And you're just, we're making big promises. And then in the harsh light of Newark, you know, it's like 2 o'clock in the morning or whatever there. And you're just being like, I don't know, you guys actually, now that I think about it. Let's just see.

We'll see what happens. You see that he arrived at by helicopter onto the roof. the of the arena. Do we have the video? I believe we have the video for the beautiful people in case they haven't seen it, Jordan. Do you have the video of the helipad?

Look at this. Look at this. That's living, baby. Probably just swacking a cigar and a whiskey into him there before he gets down. Goes to the fights. That's living, guys.

Look at that. Is it just, is the traffic just too bad or what? No, just flexing, bro. Just flexing. I mean, I happen to know that you're really, that arena is really close

to Newark Penn Station. The train runs right through there. Yeah, it is. Come on. Would that make for a good Instagram post? Would it? No. Yeah, I would definitely, if you told me like that,

it doesn't matter me, okay? Rolling up on public transit? I'd be like, yeah, let's see that. Let's see what that looks like. One more tip bit before we go back to the fights. White says tonight was the last vote in Jim Miller's contract, and he just signed a five-fight extension. If he fights out that extension,

he will have 51 fights in the UFC. And he'd make it to, the, no, he probably, where are we at? USC 328. I mean, 400's a ways off, fellas. I don't know about that one. To me, the most insane stat I heard was that how he hadn't fought in

15 months or whatever it was because of his, was it 15 months, something like that, like just a little over a year because of dealing with his son's cancer and that was the longest layoff of his career. And that was a man who had Lyme disease. I know. And still, he was fighting two or three

times a year when he had like undiagnosed Lyme disease. It was only like an extremely rare form of cancer where his son was fighting for his life. And even that could only keep him out for like a little over a year, all of which is to say, Connor McGregor, you ought to be ashamed to yourself. You can't get in this cage. We go from extremely confident down to confident. Meanwhile, Jim Miller is out here just clocking in. Jim Miller should get that fight. He's earned it, you know. if you go for you get the mcgrina volkoff v wallow car

because of cost i had no problem with volkov in the fight and a lot of people seem to be upset with the 3027 uh chuk do you have did you see this well the 3027 was you was the I was I thought that waldo won because of that right

because that third round was it not definitive for waldo I mean I was like I was watching I was like okay wait if it's 3027 this has to be for for waldo but like the first two rounds, the way I scored it was for Volkov, even though the first round was, you know, it was kind of it was close, but I felt

like Volkov was doing more, like he was just landing shots, kind of piecing him up a little bit. That's the only reason, but like, honestly, man, if you forgot about this fight, you know, you'd be forgiven, right? That third round, though, I have no idea.

I have no idea how you could give that to Volkov. Did you see it that way, Ben? Like, what did you see there? Here's my hypothesis. Here's my hypothesis, and I want you guys to tell me if you think I'm way off base. This is the kind of, it is almost midnight here in the one true time zone, and so this is the kind of thing I'm going to say when my brain starts to get a little

fried for being up past my bed time off my usual sleep schedule. It's nearly 7.m. here, Ben, just for the record. Nearly 7 a. I know. I hate, no one, no one can complain when you're around Pee about this stuff. I hate it.

Is Alexander Volkov the best heavyweight who also kind of sucks? It's a big field we're talking about there, though. I know. But he's like, of the heavyweights where you're just like, you kind of suck. Like, I can't, I kind of hate having to watch you. But you're the best of those.

And I think of Nelson Algren had a line of one of his like boxing short stories where a guy, like a manager tells a guy where he's like, you're an agony fighter. You won't fight and you won't let anybody else fight. You know? You won't go in there and do anything that'll get the fans excited and make any money, and you won't let anybody else do it either. And that's kind of how Volkov feels to me sometimes from just like, you are the anti-fun out here. And it's frustrating to watch, but you're also still, like, good in a way.

And I just, it's like every time some fireworks would start up a little bit, like, well, do come in there, slam a couple. He would leg kick him and be like, don't come in here, you know. Go away. That was effective enough, you know. But that was it. That was kind of how he'd end the sequence. That's how I was scoring those first three rounds, by the way.

I was like, leg kicks along and I guess, you know, that'll do. That's what I was doing. Brady and Joaquin Buckley, right? Crazy because the bookies were in fits. Like, I was out at this wrestling thing today, and all I was seeing was these messes about the line move and all this stuff. Yeah, what was that about? I didn't understand that.

I just think it was like the way Dana's saying it anyway, he just thinks it was that close of a line that if a big amount of money went on one of them was going to flip in a certain way, he thought it could flip like that. And in the end, it kind of seemed harmless because Brady absolutely destroyed Buckley.

Yeah, he became the best value bet of the year. Plus whatever he was. I saw this being posted on Twitter where it was like videos from Joaquin Buckley's like training camper. He was like, we're just boxing.

We're not wrestling or doing jiu-jitsu or anything. We're out here boxing. And you're just like, well, maybe that's, That was a mistake. I mean, I do think, hopefully we can get to a place now after something like this where just because we see huge line movement, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's something up. Because we've sort of gotten programmed because we've had a few instances where it seems like some shit is definitely going on. But I think that what it's easy to forget for people is that especially for undercard fights or fights that are not being super heavily better.

on, like the handle, like the betting handle on those fights is not massive. So it probably doesn't take that much to really start to move it, you know? And whoever the idiot was that bet big on Buckley is having a rough night. Right. And see, that's the thing is like we, you know, like they say in poker, uh, don't assume intelligence. Like, just because we see something happening, you see people throwing a whole bunch of money on Buckley, don't assume that it's because they know something. They might just be dumb. They might be. like degenerate gamblers who are ruining their lives and we shouldn't like, you know, stain fighters professional reputations just because someone out there is, is being like,

hey, I'm going to throw the mortgage down on Joaquin Buckley. Because maybe people are just idiots. 3025. They could, yeah, it was nasty. They could be degenerate gamblers having the time of their lives as well, okay? That's also a possibility here, Ben. All right? They don't have to be ruined in their lives.

The rush you get from losing 30 grand on Joaquin Buckley on a Saturday night, I'm sure there's nothing that match that. Imagine losing a big sum. You see him taking down that first time and it'd be like, oh my God, what have I done? Oh, my God. At that point, you're crusty the clown betting on the generals against the Harlem Globetrotters. You know, you're just, you did it to yourself. Yeah. What happened there, we mentioned that.

Sorry, I had a bit of an explosion there. King Green, we talked about, got some of his money back for the old jewelry getting sold. Atiba Gutier goes to the second room, Ozzie Diaz, put him down. Ozzie didn't like the stoppage, obviously. He was having one of those moments. I'd say it was more towards the end of, you know, protesting. You know, I did get dropped there. I kind of woke up, though, when you were over me, and I got to make a meal of it now.

Atiba, obviously, an absolute savage calls for a stilebender afterwards. if you know chuk if i'm still banders manager or coach and if i'm barram in here i'm saying absolutely fucking not that's what i'm saying no he shouldn't he should not take on the guy coming up the wrongs that fast i mean what you want to see from i'd rather see izzie take to him off

i don't want to see him go against that guy yeah it's a weird call out isn't it how many is he lost in real like four or five fights i mean that's that doesn't seem like a a realistic option. I know our producer Jordan was probably very excited to see the Tate brothers congratulating

Atiba afterwards. I can only imagine Ben was also very excited about that. Did you see Andrew Tait shaking hands on him afterwards? No. The Tate brothers are in there. They're in there. They're welcome to come to these events, huh? There they are. The lads.

Amasoff, beautiful. If you haven't seen this submission going for it. It's like, it's kind of like Mighty Whizbar, as he wanted to call it, terrible name. Yaroslav Amosov kind of took Joel Alvarez down and immediately had him in an arm triangle. It was absolutely fucking beautiful. He was looking for that arm triangle the entire time, you know, which I respect it. I love the arm triangle for that exact reason because it's just like you can, you can

isolate it even when the guy sees that you're going for it, you can still get it. And it's the move that you can get without really risking position, without burning out your arms or anything. like it's it works great for MMA and for like no Giu-Jitsu and stuff so I like it. You know, here's the thing I wanted to bring up is there was a, that Grant Dawson victory

where then his corner, the America top team guys, you know, Mike Brown and, uh, and, and, and, and Diego Alves and everybody, and they're, they're hugging him. And I can't remember which one of them was where he was, you could hear him on the mic being like, I'm so proud of you for waiting that fight. And it was such like a touching moment, you know, especially because it's, it's, it's, gritty fight. He really had to dig deep to get that one. Here's the thing. I understand

fighters who are, who are big religious guys and they want to get on the mic, they want to shout out their Lord and Savior, they want to do their religious stuff. Maybe you could like do that without focusing so much on kind of like, this is the one true religion and all the rest of you are going to hell and nothing can save you. Like he didn't say hell exactly, but he was like nothing can save you except it. And it's just like, it's getting a little fire and brimstone, man. Like, it was a feel good moment up until you were, you came out there. Yeah, it was like tears and everything.

There is one cross and God. We'll say all the rest of you are fucking up by not worshiping him. Let's just, right, just walk up back here a little bit because Austin did explain his emotional speech afterwards. And it is quite an ordeal he's been through. My wife and I were expecting our first baby. and on Monday we found it we lost the baby. It's being a rough week. I can imagine the guy,

I know he didn't know what I'd be in. I was just trying to get in there. I can imagine it is a time. I'd say that's more where the corner are coming from. But yeah, it's an emotional. If we're pitching a religion, first of all, you can be like,

I'm excited about my religion and everything without having to tell everybody else that they're headed for like a fire. But like also like, let's focus on the positives of that. rather than like more like we're at one point where it was just like your works will not save you and I was just like man how did we get here how did we get here so quickly in this post fight interview and you could see yeah about the cross thing being like okay about the fight though yeah we get back to talking about that and Jim Miller as we said earlier unbelievable win for him another big underdog win for Roman coppel off against Marco Tullio at pat a bit yeah to win over William what was that sorry joke

the copulov thing I mean it's like he's again you got a guy all you can do is land another punch or two and then he's like I'm gonna tie you up and like I was like what is he doing this drives me nuts when guys do this and he did it twice in this fight I just couldn't understand what he was doing

doesn't he want the $25,000 guaranteed like whatever finished bonus I mean then he goes to the decision he could have easily had that money what's going on there's true it's true I do agree with you I was starting to watch for sure Pat Sabatini and you really enjoyed that one.

Shuck I saw a tweet you put up there my God during that fight. Yeah, I was driving, I was driving for that one and I had it on a little phone there and watching it, wasn't looking at the road, and that was,

that was bad. That was a bad time. Don't do that. Do you guys enjoy that? Did you like Sabatini? Don't, don't do that. Sasakoyev got a win over Santa, Jose Ochoa,

got a win over Clayton Carpenter to open the cart. Also, a lot of action going down in the UK at the co-op, live. Duboisie Wardley was an unbelievable fight. Still got to watch that. I missed it earlier. Fucking unbelievable.

Yeah. Du Bois was down twice, once in the first, then again in the third, comes back and finishes Wardley in the 11th and Wardley, his face is like a fucking butcher's block, man. It was an insane fight. Massive underdog lost on the undercard there as well. Dave Morrell,

who's only previously lost to David Benavides lost. He was something like I'm not, no joke, like I think he was like one to 18. Like, that much of the favor. And he got knocked out in the final 30 seconds of the last round by Zach Shelley. Absolutely insane. Really just fucking crazy, crazy fight.

Before we move on, lads, I did want to say we had some inductions into the Hall of Fame, or we will, they were announced that there will be some inductions to the Hall of Fame. One of them is Tom Gerbasi. We spoke about him a lot on the show around the time of his death. Chuck, how good is it see Tom being recognized by the UFC? a company gave so much to in his position as editor for so many years, decades, really. Yeah, you know, I really wondered if they might do something like this. But it still caught me off guard.

I don't know how you guys felt about it. When they flashed him up there, you're just not used to seeing him in a spotlight. He was one of those guys who did the work behind the scenes, and he did it for so long and so prolifically that he just became ubiquitous, right? Like every time, I don't know how many things. times, man. In the past, this guy came to my rescue for different reasons. Like, you just needed a number or you needed some information. He was always right there. He'd get right back to you. But he just was the guy who kind of told the UFC's history, you know, in his own way for a long, long time. And, you know,

multiple books and everything else he's done. I thought it was a very good gesture for the UFC to include him there. And that's, I think that's where he belongs, man. You know what I mean? I think he gave a lot to that company. So that's where he belongs. yeah he is and also chris whiteman was inducted into the modern wing that we saw today as well that was announced on this card so um there it is lads uh jordan you know this is ariel's job usually am i foken up to i am i forgetting something here um or my super chats is there super chats jordan no super chats so lads UFC 3 to 8 we're missing one note you forgot what Dana white said that comes out told him he's going to move up to lightweight or wants to move up to lightweight. Light heavyweight. Sorry. Oh, wow. Hmm.

You know, I would advise against that, honestly. Yeah. After what we saw. I don't know about that idea. The appetites can't be there for that now, right? Like, that can't be the... That can't be the move. Yeah.

I don't know. You have to think about that one. My God. Well, it's been an... action-packed evening, ladies and gentlemen, USC 32A is in the books. Thank you for joining me and my lovely friends, Ben, folks, Chuck Menon Hall. You know, if you go back to Friday's episode of the crack, we predicted pretty much this whole thing apart from the main event.

All right, don't. Like, we did give ways it could happen, and I suppose in a roundabout way. Yeah. I was closest to being right. Ben, how do you explain this again? What do we say? Right even when we're wrong, you know? Yes, thank you.

That is exactly it. In the spirit of Ben, folks. Have a wonderful Sunday. Enjoy. Watch these fights again. They were that good. The top two? Unbelievable. Fantastic note of fights at the brew. We love you very much. See you on Monday. I'm on Pizza Carol. They've been Chuck Brandon Hall. And Ben, folks. Lots of love. M-hmah.