The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Daniel Cormier TV - Daniel Cormier & Ben Askren on Merab Dvalishvili BEATING Umar, Alex Pereira vs. Magomed Ankalaev

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Ben Askren IS BACK with Daniel Cormier for a BRAND NEW EPISODE of Funky and the Champ! Askren and DC give their takes on UFC 311, including Islam Makhachev's first-round submission of Renato Moicano, Merab Dvalishvili smothering Umar Nurmagomedov in the win, and why Merab is now the GOAT of the bantamweight division. Cormier brings up Henry Cejudo's comments on Dvalishvili, and why he's RIGHT to call him the bantamweight GOAT. And don't miss Cormier and Askren react to the Alex Pereira vs. Magomed Ankalaev announcement for UFC 313, and why Pereira is entering UFC GOAT status if he defeats Ankalaev. Plus, are you with Ben saying that Sean O'Malley vs. Umar is the fight to make?! #Volume #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This week on Crimless, Rory and I welcome a very special guest. When I did podcasts, I wear my sleep masks. I like where this is going. So if you guys will indulge me. That's right, the incredibly talented and hilarious Will Ferrell on an episode dedicated to crimes committed by people named Will Ferrell. You're good for 300 crimes? Yeah. We got two.

I'm ready to go. right up to present day. Listen to Crimless on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The volume. All right, guys. Welcome to a brand new episode of Funkin, the champ. I'm Daniel Cormier.

That is the funky man, Ben Ascreen. What's up, Ben? I saw you a couple weeks ago in Colorado, man. That was nice. P&O was a great event. I thought my kids wrestled tough. We got a lot of second places, and a lot of those second places were you.

It didn't piss me off. I kept seeing you across the map for me. I think we just got lucky and we just had some good guys. B.S. As you were at or something. You had some good kids. You had some good kids. Russell my kids, man.

It was very good, important for them. But as I told my kids, guess where they're going? You're apparently going to see me. Where are they spending the weekend? You said you're coming to see me. The Ascran Wrestling Academy. Hey, bro, I'm taking advantage of these founding clubs. I'm sending them to Valiant.

I'm sending them to Ascran. I'm sitting them to all you guys for a week. Might as well take advantage of it. I like it. We should do that. more. We should do more cross-training with each other to help our kids kind of grow. Yeah. It'll be a good thing. All right, Ben, we're here to talk MMA. Okay. Last weekend was UFC 311. And obviously when the fight ended or the night ended, it was all

about Islamahev because he defended his belt in tremendous fashion. But as you and I were getting ready to talk on his show, your take was, I want to talk Marab. Like, yeah, I think it's all I want to speak Marab. How impressed were you by his performance in a fight where he was a three-to-one underdog? It was plus like 225, and he went out there and he fought a beautiful fight. See, here's my wonderful watch. Just brought me some coffee. I told you how wonderful she is.

Amy, Amy. She doesn't want to say hi. Amy, if only you knew, Amy, he was crapping on you again. He was crapping on you again, Amy. I swear. She's gone. She's gone. No, hey, Marab, I made a video that morning saying,

I have no idea how in the hell you idiots are betting Marab to a three to one underdog because you know, betting lines work, betting lines work means everyone's betting for Umar. But it's like, okay, we've seen Umar fight one really good guy in Corey Sanhagan, but no one else. And I always think, you know, if we haven't actually seen it, I don't really believe it. I want to see it for real. Like it gets, and then you look at Marab's resume, this dude fought.

I mean, because you're looking like, who's he going to be? to fight next and then you look at him like oh my god he's already fought fought everybody john o'malley and peter yod and and and numegermegamato and sehuto like he's he all do and he's he's literally fought everyone except for cori san hegan except for kori san hagen's coming off a loss he can't really he's going to fight sean o'malley next again which is which we'll get into yeah but ben i thought okay so i was i was of a different belief than you for me it wasn't i have to see it with umar because i knew how good he was I just, I believed that the only reason he fought one guy in the top five

was because it was the only one that was willing to fight him. And that's a lot of times how it goes with those Russian guys because they think you're just taking them down. I was having a little bit of trouble with the betting line because I don't know that you can bet anyone up to a three-to-one favorite against Marab because of the way he fights. And it seems like the only way to beat him is by completely shutting out the line. lights because as long as he's up and walking, yes, as long as he's up and walking,

he's going to continue to press you and try to chase you down to get you. So I was surprised. That kind of pace is so special. I even think about like, I don't wrestling is a seven minute match, but it is, it's a little harder per minute because you hands on almost the whole time, you know. Yes. But people who have a pace like Marabre are really special, like whether it's wrestling or fighting.

There's not a lot of them. No. Very, very few. And, you know, you fought 25 minutes. I fought 25 minutes. I had good cardio. He is freaking hard to go that hard for 25 minutes. We have, we had good cardio for wrestlers because we were the one setting the pace.

Yes. What he does, though, is every second of the fight, he is just attacking your will. Yes. He just attacks your will. And he attacks your will. And he attacks your will till eventually he start going, man, do I really have what I have to have? Yeah, for real. And you know, great example, Daniel is Umar.

Because, you know, I started seeing, because my thing in wrestling was guessing people out. So I, I am aware the very faintest signs of them starting to get tired. And at the beginning of third round, I said, Umar's getting tired. Everyone else watching by the end of the second. When he walked back to the stew, I was like, oh, my God, I think he's tired. Yes. And everyone else said like, nah, I don't think so or not quite. And by the end of the third round, they're all like, oh, I see what's talking about.

Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. It's crazy how it changes, right? You go from, like, it's like the door gets opened on a guy being fatigued, right? Like, I remember fighting, and you're in there with a guy, right? Like, who did I? I went 25 minutes with Alexander Gustafson.

Yeah. And the first round, it's like, good. I'm cruising, but he's dangerous, right? He's fast, he's strong. And then the second round, I'm like, oh, he took me down a couple times. But I can start to sense him getting a little fatigued. And by the third round, I'm just chasing him. And then by the fourth and fifth, now he's almost in survival mode, and he's just kind of running.

You know what I think sometimes about in the fifth round, it actually just happened with Umar. So when when they're in the third round, there's like, there's 15 minutes left. How are the hell am I going to go another 15 minutes? Exactly. But by the time they get to like two minutes left, they're like, eff it. I can do two minutes. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's way less of a task.

At the end of the fifth round. Because you get to that point where there's only two minutes you left and you're like, I can do two more minutes. When you say there's 15 minutes left, you're like, oh, my God. How am I to do 50 more minutes? You look at that damn clock. But when you're in there and you look up and you're like, holy shit, there's a minute 45 seconds left in this round. It's crazy.

Then you go run to the clinch. But for me it's this. It's like watching this dude, fight a guy who's expected to win. So here's how betting works, Ben. Yeah. What they do is, and you know, what they do is we set a line or the odds maker set a line. They set a line hoping that you get two-way action, right? They make it appealing to one side

And then they make it appealing to the other side So with Islam When they announced the fight with Honato Moikano They made a minus 600 I said that's gonna balloon by tomorrow morning Because at minus 600 if you know Islam And you know Hanato

Huh? It seems like it's free money Yeah 15 minutes later It was minus 900 It was not minus 9 that's how many people I bet on Islam Ahachev Because they wanted it at that price. So what they started that line at from a Rob and Umar and Luis, you could throw that in the

chat for me, just like the opening odds line from a Rob versus Umar, I bet it was relatively close. Yeah. Maybe Umar was a slight favorite. And then fans are people would go and bet him up to that number. But at the end of the day, those people don't really know. And honestly, I didn't think Umar fought bad. I thought he fought a great first two rounds.

Clearly he broke his hand very bad. He fought a really good first two rounds, but I just don't know who can keep Marab off of them, dude. Like he just kept on attacking. He shot, man, he shot 27 times. I know. And you know what? In Umar's defense,

as a compliment, his wrestling defense was really good at certain times, but Marab was just so persistent. He's, I mean, you had a really good one of these, but there's not a lot of people who are really good, where they do that little head outside,

and then a quick dump, you know, and they give a ball. like, man, he is so effective there. And, you know, Umar was doing good things, but he was still getting the takedowns. Well, you know what he does really well, Ben? He shoots with no intent to finish. Yeah.

He'll shoot, grab your leg, you got to defend, right? Yeah. And he comes out, he throws the overhand right, then he shoots, and you got to defend again. Yes. So you're never doing this. Like, I'm a punch and throw. You're constantly doing this. Dropping your hands.

Dropping your hands. dropping your hands and defending this man off of you. But I mean, he was very impressive. And when you start to think about something you said a little bit earlier, who's next? It's like, well, he's kind of fought everybody. And dude, you know what's crazy? Henry's a hoodo.

And you and I are teammates, Olympic teammates of Henry. Henry doesn't really throw out compliments much. Henry called him the band-of-weight goat. I mean, he won't accept that. He won't accept that because he believes it's Al Jermaine Sterling. because he loves Aljo. But Henry Sehudo said he's having a hard time not considering Al Jemaine Sterling, the band-of-weight greatest of all time.

What do you think? Wait, I think that Henry thinks that Marab is. Marab, sorry. Henry Dix Mar-Rab is the great-this-what-Sah-Hoodo said. He said, Jan O'Malley, Sehudo. When Sehudo considers overall resumes, Cutham would reach the conclusion.

Mar-Rob is the greatest band-weight of all time. Jan O'Malley, Sehudo, Umar, Maris, Aldo, he's fought everybody, Sohudo said on his podcast with Kamar Usman, Paoopo. He beat everybody's division. You could say in their prime. You just can, man.

Marab is the Bannamway goat, at least in my eyes, and he only has one title defense. Yeah. No, well, it's because Dan, and that was why I think he was so pissed about Umar getting a title shot so fast because he fought freaking everybody before they gave him

a stupid title shot. But Aljo was there, I understand. Yes. But then even, once Aljo cleared when he lost O'Malley, they gave Cheeto the shot over Mara. That was odd. That would have pissed me off if I was Mara.

That was preposterous. Because Maraub was the guy that should have got that title fight. For sure. So yeah, I mean, you know, one thing we talked about on the show a bunch times is so many of these champions want to change weights

and do these super fights right away. And I always say, clean out your damn division, then go fight someone else. So if Marab wanted to do a super fight, I'd say, well, you clean out your division.

It's too small. But there's no obvious. He beat everyone else up. There's no obvious challengers. If you thought to pour you, you would be too much for it. But we think Toporio is really, really good. And he already said he's not going to make the weight.

So like what about like Marab versus Bolkinovsky or something? That sounds fun. Yeah, but for what though, right? Just for a fun fight? Maraub ain't going on. Okay. So now you hate you hate super fights now? No, I'm just saying unless it's for a title.

I don't think it's a superfight if not a title fight. Hey, uh, listen. So Maraub is going to fight Sean O'Malley next according to Dana White. Interested or do you think it's going to be You know who I was actually thinking would be a fun one here, but then, yes, I don't know who Marab gets, and I know Marab wants to stay active because Marab is beating everybody. I think, I sure thought Sean versus Umar would be a lot of fun. Umar broke his hand. I think, and it was a bad hand break.

I think he's going to be out for a while. But didn't Sean say he want, didn't Sean have like labrum surgery or something? Yeah, he was hurt too. They all get, they all get hurt. Did you see Omar's hand? Yeah, it was, it was big and soon. Oh, damn. I spilled my coffee, Daniel.

Son of a gun. Where'd you drop it at? On your desk? Yeah, give me 10 seconds. No, you can't go nowhere. You can't do this. This is live television, Ben Astrid. Hey, don't pause, Luis.

Don't pause, Luis. He's a dunce. But, guys, listen, I think unless Sean O'Malley makes some wholesale changes to his wrestling, to his grappling, to his defensive ability, off of his back.

All right. I'm a real professional. It's going to be very, very difficult. You can't come back and just jump in right when I'm in the middle. I'm ready. I'm ready. I didn't pause it. I just said that unless Sean makes wholesale changes. Yeah. I don't know how he's going to. Hey, let me ask you this. Do you believe, and this is like, I think it needs to be to this degree. Yeah. Do you believe that Sean O'Malley if he is to fight Marab de Wallis Willie needs to be in a place like maybe your account. or My Academy or at like Valiant prep.

Like instead of being in an MMA gym wrestling, he needs to be wrestling with these kids in a wrestling stance. I mean, Valiant is in Arizona. He can train there. It needs to be doing it almost full time, right? To defend Marabal little bit, right? I don't want to make us out hopeless. But like, I complimented Umar's wrestling.

His wrestling was pretty damn good. But your point- Did Sean O'Hallie do what Umar did? Even if he does, Does he still lose? I mean, Umar, because Umar is a really good striker too, you know, and that's where it's like, you know, and this one of those things where maybe at this point, because we've seen Marab have really impressive performances lately, maybe we're putting

him even higher than he actually is. But this, I mean, you said, you said that, you know, some of those times he's not even really pursuing the takedown. He just does it to throw his opponent off. Yeah. Put them down and made him get back up. And it's like, okay, he fought 25 minutes with Sean and he fought 25 minutes with Umar 50 minutes of fighting he didn't get clipped one time no he's got well because again dude he's going forward

you know so hard to hit him yeah it's hard to hit him and he's going forward the whole time and the whole time you're just reacting and responding but my like like i said yeah i think for the next year right Sean O'Malley needs to be in a wrestling gym yes to try to learn how to defend because if he can defend takedowns at the rate that umar did he'd have a better chanceable saying that O'Malley has bigger It's powered and Umar to Mega Metal? Yeah, but I kind of, I told you, I kind of want to see Umar versus Sean now. I think, I kind of think that's a really fun fight. Yeah, I don't know that.

I don't know that. I don't know that. I don't know that. You know that you fight Omar. Why? Whenever you, they said that you're going to give you a title. Yeah, yeah. So, okay, I understand.

I understand. You know what I'm saying? Like, why? When they say they're going to give you a title fight, but that would be a fun one. I mean, I would love to watch it. So if Sean loses the Morab again, then then where do you put him? You're screwed. He's kind of in that same.

position as Yuri. Yuri. Bro, Yuri was like talking about how good, you know, he's ready to fight Pereira again. And I'm like, I don't think I've seen many changes. Did you see many changes in this game? I mean, his head movement did look better. He was very evasive. Jamal had a hard time.

At times he had a hard time hitting him. There was other times where I obviously, Jamal connected and Jamal doesn't hit with the same amount of power that Alex does. So if Alex hit you in certain instances, you're probably going to fall over. But yeah, no, I thought he was good and I think it's fun. But no, I don't really want to be. I see a third fight there, which is the problem. When you lose to a champion twice and there's still the champion,

there's kind of nowhere to go. If you lose to the champion twice, there's no to the champion. There's nowhere to go. If you get finished by the champion twice, that's a real problem. That's too, yeah. I mean, I think they fought twice and the fights have lasted maybe four rounds total. Yeah. They were scheduled for 10 rounds of fighting.

They haven't made it to half. So, Uri has proven, though, he's a man. So the conference championships are upon us. And once again, I'm parted up with the Draft King's Sportsbook to give all new customers a fantastic offer. Bet $5 or more and get $200 in bonus bets instantly when you sign up using my promo code, DCTV. Guys, only four teams are left.

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We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts. We're starting a trend. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, Jonas, guys?

I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. And, well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast.

But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with

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And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Hey, um, talking about Alex Pereira. He's got his next fight. bro, he's finally fighting Michael Ma'amah. I mean, finally,

right? Ancolaev has got to be breathing a sigh of relief. Like, thank God. I'm finally getting this title fight. Seriously, I can't remember last time we were talking, they were going to give it to someone else,

weren't they? Well, because, remember Alex was like, it's still not going to be Ancalaeuf. He was just kind of messing with it. Yeah, that's what it was. Okay, okay.

Good. So, I'm glad. Unclelyev said yesterday. Alex, he said he's not, They said he's not, I'm MMA fighting.

He's not wasting any time letting anyone know that he means business. He went to X and he said, you just sign your debt certificate. I'm going to punish you for ducking me. And I'm going to make you look like a guy who works in a tire shop, not a professional fighter. Huh. You know, that's funny. And actually, the discussion came up, the discussion came up at my house when me and my buddy was watching my fight. It's like Alex is so fun.

It's so funny to me because on the one hand, I'm like, he should be in goat conversation, right? Like as the double goal. No, but the other hand, I'm like, I kind of think his wrestling still sucks and if he fights someone who's a good

wrestler, he's going to get torched. So it's like, it's like such a weird balance. Like I don't know which way I actually feel. You know, it's like if he gets torched by Ankalayaev, do we say it was really a mirage the whole time? I mean,

obviously his stand-up is about as good as it gets. and he hits about as hard as you can hit. But it is a weird, it's weird to try to hold both those positions at once because it doesn't feel like they make sense because generally nobody gets to the top of Mixed Martial Arts with fighting someone in every skill set. So this Luke Thomas made a point the other day

and I got this sent to me on submission radio. He said this, listen, can you hear me? I can hear you. Okay, hold on. Well, Luis will point. put it. But he goes, Luke Thomas goes, people get mad when I say this and I don't really care because I know I'm right. If you looked at this 2025

and I made it 24, but he put it 10 years ago when the UFC's lead heavyweight, light heavyweight division, had Bader, Phil Davis, Leona Machita, Glover, yeah, Daniel Corrie and John Jones. I have terrible news for you. Alex Pereira is not a champion in that era. not being Anthony Johnson and if he does I do for sure shit doesn't think he beats DC

and I even say if he beats DC 2014 John Jones you can go fuck yourself he says that was Luke Thomas on submission radio he said he doesn't feel that and the only reason he feels so strongly and that and he's that convicted

is that we all had wrestling and it feels like because we all had wrestling there would be problems for Poiton. Yet, with all that being said, Anc Goliath said he's not wrestling him, Ben. If he does that, he's a moron. And I don't know him, so hopefully he's not a moron. He said he's not wrestling him.

But he also said he goes to all the UFC fights to get free alcohol and camera time. On the other hand, I've been training so hard. March 8th, the alcohol will not help you. This is what Uncleahev is saying to Pereira. But if he stands, with them. I mean, why would

you stand with him? I have no idea. I don't know. He's just bullshit and there's no way he's not. He's going to just take him down. Would that be crazy? We just keep shooting on him. Why wouldn't you? He didn't take. Why wouldn't you? The last guy he fought, I swear to God, if I was fighting out, I would shoot on him from the

moment the fight started. Yeah, for real. I would go forward, press, throw like a left hand or an overhand, right, and just diving on his legs as much as I could. Just to try to see how his take down the fence will hold up. And here's my thought. though. He's got to have gotten better, right? He's been training with Glover all these years in the wrestling. Yeah, but the only instances of wrestling we've seen in his UFC career has been not all that great. He got taken on held down by Adasanya, who no one thinks has good wrestling. And he got taken

down by Blahowitz and was down a whole round. And, you know, like I said, he really hasn't fought any wrestlers because no one would say, oh, yeah, those two have really high level wrestling. So he has, you know, and this is why it's weird. It's like, on the one hand, he's like kind of the go. He's amazing. On the other hand, you're like, yeah, but if he fights a good wrestler, you know, he's going to get killed. But there are no good wrestlers at 2 of 5 currently. There's hardly any good wrestlers at all in the heavier weight classes in the UFC right now. Yeah, it's actually very surprising, right, like that there aren't good wrestlers anymore. There was always good wrestlers in the higher weights in fighting. Yeah. I mean,

I think, you know, my take is that a lot of the American wrestlers have, now they can get paid enough to where they actually want to stay in wrestling. so there have been very few of the elite ones who have crossed over, whereas during our era, say, you know, starting in, we'll say five through 12 or whatever, a lot of them, you know, even, you know, like the step down below the Olympic level where it's, you know, Phil Davis was a very, very good wrestler, Ryan Bader. And you can kind of go through a list of like guys who were maybe not elite enough to make an little big team, but they were like really, really good.

And for whatever reason now, I think with all these RTCs, the good wrestlers aren't really making the transition to MMA as often. they're making good money in wrestling right now. So what do you think? Do you think Alcalaev beats Pereira? Or do you think Pereira beats him? If Pereira beats him? Yeah.

I mean, then it's over. Who's going to beat him? Like, who's going to beat him? Yeah. He fought number eight Kalil Roundtree last time because there was nobody else to fight. Yeah. How has he cleaned out that division when he's only been fighting for three years? He's been the champion two times in two-way classes.

Yeah. He has defended the belt in multiple divisions. and he's only been fighting for like four years. I don't know who he fought. When you're looking at the list of the rank, guys, I don't know who he fights. Like if he beats him, if he beats him,

Rangian. It's Ancolaev, Phraska, Bolaowitz, Hill, Rockick, Uberg, Roundtray.

Where is it? Rockich, and then who? Ullberg and then roundtree. Ollberg. I think Ollberg has a big fight coming up and he's new and young, but again,

he's a striker. And if he's a striker, how do you think that he's going to, to beat Alex Pereira. I think I think Uncle I'm going to have to try to wrestle him. I think that's kind of the thought that he's posturing

saying he's going to stand with him, trade with him, because him and Rockich had a good fight. But it was relatively competitive and he just stood with Rockich the whole time. Right? So it's like I don't know if standing the whole fight with Alex Pereira is the greatest idea. Uberg

fight Blahowitz on March 22nd. Yeah, so if Yon wins, That actually could make sense because they had a competitive fight their first time. Well, it was two rounds to one. Yeah. And then Yombovish just got exhausted in Salt Lake City. Remember? Dude, they're coming early.

He didn't get used to the altitude and gas. She was crazy. That's funny. But, I mean, there were people arguing that, that, uh, Behoevich actually won that fight. So I, that, you know, that's a compelling one to make. It was a competitive fight. I guess you could do that. But hey, Ben, before we go, my kids had never.

experienced altitude before. Dude, they were so tired. Their faces were white when they were on the mat. like what is happening? They never felt it before. I was expecting my kids to gas a little harder, but actually, it wasn't that bad. No, my kids were gassing bad, but they were like,

coach, one of them walked off the mat. Hey, yo, Ben, this dude, this dude was a four to zero in the third period. The kid got to his leg. He gets, he, the whole first. period they ended in his position. I thought he got taken down at the end of period, but he did because he scrambled out. He was

in a tree top. He was in an arena. Dude, third period, same position. This guy gets in on Mattel's legs. Mattel goes to grab the far foot. Ben, he's so tired. He looks at me like this. And then he just bales and goes

flat on his stomach with 30 seconds left now. He's up five to three. And this dude gets taken down again. He was exhausted. And he walks somebody goes, coach, I don't want to wrestle no more. I was like, dude, it's just car. I was like, it's just altitude. He was dying.

But I saw it. You didn't give him a John Smith speech at that moment? Bro, I saw it happen to King of Lasca's Mexican. We're all wrestling in the same air. Stop being a wimp. Yeah, that's exactly what John would have told you. Hey, I saw it happen to Cade and Velasquez in Mexico City. If it could happen to Cade Velasquez, it can happen to anybody, bro.

It just doesn't happen. All right, Ben. Well, I'll let you go, man. I know you got shit to do today. And, guys, thank you for always watching, Ben and I. We appreciate your support. Until next time, like, subscribe, and tell your friends about my YouTube channel. And don't miss any episodes of Funkin' The Champ.

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