. Well, hello there everybody. We are live welcome to a special brand new edition of on to the next one the matchmaking hats are back on following a I’m going with chaotic a chaotic UFC 293 events and ladies and gentlemen it is real we’re not joking MMA is supposedly a real thing Sean Strickland is the UFC middleweight champion after dominating Israel Adesanya over five rounds, winning four of the five rounds. Sean Strickland gets it done. One of the craziest results that we could ever think of and golly man, Sean Strickland is the middleweight champion of the world and we are here to discuss what this all means from a matchmaking perspective. I am Mike Heck and joining me, as you can see to my right, The co-host, the co-matchmaker, the Prince of Positivity. He’s my best friend and he’s probably on his little sleep, maybe even less than I am right now, but we’re here to battle through this all. He is the legend, Alexander Kaley. AK, good morning. What is going on? He did the damn thing. I mean, he did the damn thing, you know. I think we had braced ourselves appropriately, Mike. I know it was gonna come as a shock no matter what, But if anyone just glances at MAfighting.com headlines from the last seven, eight, nine days, every headline of involving the story was something they have to have, can Sean Strickland do this? If Sean Strickland does this, how crazy will that be? Where will this rank? We were already proofing our brains, I think, to the possibility of a Sean Strickland win. None of us, I think, predicted it would go down this way. Even if you thought he would win decision, because I had said in my predictions, there’s two ways this could go. like if by some chance he lands that lucky shot because he’s not known for having knockout power. So I didn’t even think that was super likely. So I didn’t see it that way, but again, it’s a fight. These guys hit hard. It could always happen. We almost saw it in the first round. And my other thought was, well, if he does like a constant pressure, maybe like Juliana Pena thing and breaks Izzy down, but he just outstruck him. Lucky just outstruck him. You can say Izzy wasn’t at his best, fine. It probably wasn’t. It probably was not the best version of Izzy, but that doesn’t matter. This might not have been the best version of Shawn Strickland we’ve seen either, frankly. He he might not have had to be this best. He was he was as good as he needed to be. He outstruck him four or five rounds. This was not a again, it was not a Pena Nunes like I’m just going to outpace you and, you know, break down your cardio and hope you have an off night. He outstruck him. None of us predicted that. None of us thought he would win the fight that way. So a huge victory for Shawn Strickland. I’ve said in the past how I feel about the man personally. I’m not a fan. I’ll probably keep saying it throughout the show and saying it every time the man’s name comes up in the future But there’s no question in my mind if we’re if we’re giving you know Could have really to that title that he’s the number one 185 pound fighter in the world right now So as the preview show is going on Friday I was beginning to feel a little bit vibey about it and if you watch the watch party last night I was feeling the vibes more and more more. That’s something very bizarre and chaotic and strange is going to happen. And I don’t know, it was weird. I called somehow I called for an Ezekiel choke in the co main events and it happened. And then somehow, I kind of put this all out into the universe. And Sean came out with this focus, just a different look on his face. For the first time, it’s like he almost like felt the pressure and he’s ready to turn into the diamonds. It’s just a different look from him. And then from there I was like oh my god like this could really happen and then the first round is playing out and not much is happening Izzy’s just kind of cruising along he’s Sean’s not really throwing much he’s defending pretty well Izzy’s landing shots here and there and then AK when everything started to become real let me play this clip from last night let’s play this clip from last night final minute of the first round we’re talking about how Sean is like all right he’s not getting the doors blown off him he’s hanging in there he’s not making any real mistakes is he doesn’t even New Yorker saying is he doesn’t really respect Sean’s power right now he’s just is he’s just kind of dancing around Sean no no respect for the man no fear and then all of a sudden this happened doors blown off oh no no this is insane ten seconds to go on the round. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. He’s right. Holy cow. Holy wow. Whoa. Sean Strickland knocks down Israel Adesanya almost gets him out of there. Izzy bounces back in round two and kind of evens things up. Sean clearly wins round three. Round four was probably a Strickland round. Like I haven’t gone back and rewatch it but watching it live was it was pretty close. I think I even scored it for Izzy just because not much happened. But I think the right call was Strickland winning the fourth round. And then the fifth round, you could just tell that Sean Strickland, not just without striking him, he broke Israel out of Sonia. Like he broke the man. That man who is maybe one of the most confident strikers we have ever seen in the sport was broken. Sean just demoralized him. And even in the end, like the last 20 seconds of the fight, He’s screaming at Izzy, come on man, come on, let’s go. He’s yelling obscenities at him. He’s trying to get Izzy to fight back and Izzy just wouldn’t do it. This is incredible, AK. This is incredible. Sean Strickland just goes out there and beats him. And now, from a matchmaking perspective, look, here’s what we’re gonna do, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, pull that up. Was it gonna be the most shocking outcome for the, just for the, yeah, it was. That doesn’t mean like, just because I said it was shocking doesn’t mean like the vibes weren’t there. You know what I mean? I even said on the previous show, I’m like, can you imagine if Sean Strickland goes out there and Cody Garbrandt some and just styles on him and he did. This is incredible. Nobody saw this coming. If you did, you’re full of shit. You’re full of shit if you predicted this. I’m sorry. By the way. Yeah, if you bet on Sean Strickland, like that’s one thing, but that’s a value thing. That’s not because you were totally confident that that was gonna happen last night and you know it. Which by the way, I did. As a hedge, as a hedge, I had, I wanna go to a comment on YouTube. Joe Doe says that Izzy was going to seal a six-leg parley for me. I was going to hedge with a small Benistrick in both the fight and said, eh, Izzy will win, why bother, LOL. I almost had that same thought, but as a rookie gambler, I do listen to my mentor slash devil on my shoulder, Jed Mishu, who says, always hedge. My bet was, again, you know, a small wager, small wager. My bet was hack per-assed, Pedro, top cop, and then Izzy. So pretty confident about all those. I think the only one I was sweating a little was, oh, a cop, the cop fight, we’ll talk about that in a bit. But then when it got to that main event, I really, I did kind of get that weird feeling, Mike. And also the value on Strickland at that point was still almost like plus 500. So I was like, whatever, you know what, let’s be smart. Let’s cover it up. If I win my parlay, okay, I shave a few dollars off it, whatever, but yeah, it worked out. So always hedge people. And in a sense, I did bet on Sean Strickland But again, only for practical purposes, I had no confidence that he was gonna win that fight at all. Not me. And then to top it off, like a lot of the betting sites, like DraftKings ended up boosting Izzy to plus 100 up to a \$25 bet. So like anyone who put any money on Izzy on DraftKings was like, okay, I’ll just go ahead and take that too. Wow, this is all insane. So now things get real interesting because a lot of the questions heading into the fight was, Well, what’s gonna happen if Israel wins? Cause he was a, that was the likely outcome in everybody’s mind. He was the massive betting favorite. Stylistically, this favorite is he in a lot of different ways. Sean just showed up and stuck to a game plan, which he just never has done really. He just went in there and listened to everything for 25 minutes and just did a fantastic job. So. He did say after that their plan was to wrestle. He did say after like, he said at the post-fight press conference that they wanted to wrestle more. They worked on wrestling a lot. But he said, once he got in there, he was like, we just, I think he, and I think also after the first round, I think they called an audible. They’re like, yeah. Oh, that’s just after you’ve rocked him. You know, they’re like, yeah, stay on the feet. Don’t bother. Cause he did say that they had discussed a lot about possibly wrestling, but I think it was the right move not to. I mean, I think, I don’t need to say, I think we just saw what happened. He beat Izzy over five rounds. He’s the middleweight champion in the world. Yeah. He didn’t get too aggressive. Like usually Sean comes in and just, just throws a million punches and he didn’t. He didn’t. He let Izzy try to be the offensive guy and Izzy wasn’t ready for it. Everything was just brilliant about it. It was just a brilliant performance, brilliant coaching. Eric Nixic got me all fired up when he was shouting instructions in the corner of Sean Strickland, like everything was just, it was just unbelievable. So now the questions change. It’s not what’s next for Izzy and we’ll get there as well. Sean Strickland, the middleweight champion, the questions heading in about Izzy was, is it going to be Drikus Duplassi? Is it going to be Hamza Chamayev if he beats Paul Acosta? But now, everything has changed, AK. Shawn Strickland’s on the champion. All of a sudden, DDP’s in play. Hamza Chamayev’s in play. Israel Adesani’s in play. Paulo Costa’s in play. And even Robert Whitaker is back in play with this title change. I mean, he’s not gonna get it, but he’s back in the mix. So this is all just absolutely insane. Dana White said at the post-fight press conference, I wanna do the rematch, Izzy looked slow, wasn’t himself, all of that stuff. What do we do now? Sean Strickland, middleweight champion, are we running this back? Are we going a different direction? If you had a guess here, and this is what the show’s all about, who’s Sean Strickland fighting in his first middleweight title defense? I’m going trick or stuplicy. I just could not be less interested in an Izzy Strickland rematch right now. We didn’t want this fight in the first place. We didn’t want this fight in the first place. Yes, Strickland pulling off the upset makes it slightly more intriguing, but this wasn’t a fluke. This wasn’t a fluke win. He beat him. He beat him fair and square. I might not like it, but he beat him fair and square. Who can dispute this? Can you make a case? Is he had an off night? Yeah, we’ll probably be saying this for a while. Coach Eugene said that while of course giving Strickland, he said Adesanya had an off night because Strickland made him have an off night. So he kind of, you know, he kind of gave, you know, protected his fighter a little bit while also still giving props to the new champion. So and I feel the same way. I feel the same way. Maybe it wasn’t off night for Izzy, but that was, you know, that wasn’t entirely because of him. It’s because the guy who was in his face punching him. So I don’t really want to see it again. If it happens, it happens. But everything about this fight was except for the result, which again was certainly headline worthy. I didn’t think the pre fight hype was that exciting. I didn’t think their beefing was that interesting. I don’t know if people enjoyed the trash talk. I didn’t even think it was a bad and a so bad as funny way. I just thought it was boring. I thought both guys were really boring in the way they approach the fight. Maybe that’s just me. If you want more of whatever that was, the press conference, then have at it. But DDP is the clear cut number one contender. I don’t know what else he has to do to earn a shot. Really, that should have been his fight anyway, except that the scheduling didn’t work out as he wanted to fight in Australia. And so it had to go down that way. But I think denying DDP a title shot would be incredibly dumb. So I think that’s the way we have to go. I like the matchup with him and Strickland. I think Strickland, I don’t know how long he holds on to the title, it’s going to be the underdog in pretty much every matchup, including this one. But I don’t think, after seeing what happened on Saturday, I don’t think that we can just comfortably say DDP rolls over Strickland at all. So I get where you’re coming from, but Sean Strickland and everything that comes from Sean Strickland winning the title is pure and utter chaos. So honestly, I think besides Zidrela Adesanya, I think the guy who probably lost out the most on this is Drikus Duplisi because he’s kind of fallen off the radar and everything going on. Jared Candanier has a win over Sean Strickland. He wins the backup. certainly not picking Jared Cannon here to get this title shot. However, there is the big fight coming up at UFC 294 between Hamza Chamayev and Paul Acosta. Whoever wins that fight is going to be Shawn Strickland’s next opponent. That is what’s going to happen, in my personal opinion. Either Paul Acosta is going to slay the dragon, the unbeatable Hamza Chamayev, or Hamza Chamayev is just going to absolutely run over Paul Acosta. And there’s just no way in a sport like this, where it’s always, what have you done for me lately? The most recent moment is the most important moment. There’s no way Dana White’s not going to that press conference and not saying that whoever wins that fight is going to be next in line. And it just creates all these different opportunities. Now, DDP not taking this fight, whether or not it was a quick turnaround or not, Dana even said it. You know how I feel about people not taking fights and taking these opportunities when they come. So I kind of feel like DDP, one, just because of that, and two, just not even being in Sydney. I thought that was a huge misstep on his part not being there. He’s kind of out of the he’s kind of out of the picture So I kind of feel like they’re just gonna chuck them in there with Jared can in the air Which is unfortunate for DDP because he really doesn’t need to do this But again, we say this all the time, especially for the newer fans. This isn’t a meritocracy this is about putting the weirdest craziest fights together and strickland against Shamaev or strictly its costa is a way bigger fight than strickland versus DDP right now and And honestly, I feel like that’s what’s going to happen. And Sean Circo is not gonna be one of those guys that’s gonna play a political game. He’s gonna be like, all right, you want me to fight that dude? I’ll fight that dude. You want me to fight both these guys at the same time? Okay, I’ll fight both these guys at the same time. So man, Paul Acosta is in a much better position now. Hamza Chamayev is in a great position right now. And I feel like DDP just kind of takes a step back in all of this, whether it’s fair or not. So that’s where I’m going with this. And now, the more interesting question, AK, what’s next for Israel Adesanya? Because if we’re going with the Shamayev Costa winner, and look, there is a very conceivable real world where the UFC just says, I don’t care what any of you say, we’re just going with the winner of this fight, like we’re just gonna run it back. What’s next for Adesanya? Does he just, do we just throw him in there at DDP as kind of like the number one contender for it? Because you could certainly do that. Like if you need a pay-per-view headliner, if you’re going back to, if you’re going to Africa, or if you’re going to South Africa, or even if you’re going back to Australia, you could throw that in there, going to New Zealand, you could throw that in there as a main event for pay-per-view and people are gonna watch it. Where do we go with Israel outside? Because neither of us are picking the rematch here. No, neither of us picking the rematch, that’s correct. You kind of mentioned, this isn’t my pick, but I do have, I wanna ask you a couple of questions. One being, firstly, before we completely move on to Edison, you mentioned Jared Cannoneer, it’s weird because he kind of does deserve a shot at Strickland, right? Based on him weighing in, which according to Dana White, immediately makes you the number one contender, according to the Colby Covington rule. And two, he beat Sean Strickland not long ago. We’re talking last December, like this is still within 12 months. And it was a close fight. The UFC can always pass over Jared for that reason, saying, well, you know, we look back at that footage, could have gone either way. It wasn’t like you can dominate him. But I thought that was a, you know, that’s a win. That’s a win in the books for Jared. Again, and not too long ago for Jared, just two fights ago for Sean, I guess it’s now three fights ago, three or four fights ago, he’s so active. So that was a smart thing, restricting the dude, it kind of puts Jared in the rear of your mirror. But is there any chance you think he gets the is there any chance you think he gets to tell a shot? Yeah. The only way I see this happening is if we’re booking the schedule for the rest of the year and every plan they had for December falls through. Yeah, yeah. And it’s like, all right, well, Sean will just fight and Hamza is not going to be ready or Paul is not going to be ready. Izzy is not going to be ready. Jared, are you ready? Maybe you could do that. But other than that, I just I don’t see it. I don’t see it. Canon airs doesn’t seem super high on their priority list. Like he got that main event win over Marvin Vittori kind of beat the hell out of Marvin Vittori. And that was he fought Marvin Vittori, right? Can you Yeah, just yeah, that’s I’m just trying to remember. I’m just in the days right now. And there are talks about maybe doing Canon air versus Homs on instead. So I mean, the way Canon air has said it is like, either I’m fighting for the belt or I’m in a number one contender fight. So to me Cannon air fighting DDP or fighting anybody is fine with him as long as it’s written somewhere At least he’s told via handshake and verbal agreement that he’s next in line, which doesn’t really mean much in the sport. So Yeah outside of like we need something fast to fill a spot. I don’t think that’s fine. I don’t think it happens And then regarding a Disney and DDP, are you interested in that as like the co-main event on a pay-per-view somewhere because there’s still a lot of heat there. It was never about the title really. We wouldn’t get five rounds, which would suck because I do think that’s a fight that could be an entertaining five rounder. And you also lose that title entry. But if Izzy, I don’t know the next time he’s getting a title shot or if he can even win it back. even win it back. That’s a huge, you know, then you then you can’t just shelve that fight forever. So did you like, again, you sort of mentioned it, but is that one do you think that that they should do him and just just do him and DDP? Just book it as soon as you can. So, I mean, I might as well just kind of go into what I’m thinking here. So because we talked about this in the post fight show, like what are we going to do with Israel Adesanya now and Eugene Barrowman is like, oh, we’ll fight him next weekend and beat him. And Jed said no he should just take some time move to 205 and Shaheen was like oh no we could do this. My whole thing is it’s such a weird contrast in MMA because to become a star you have to be active and in the limelight and fight as often as possible but once you get to a certain point you become the champion it’s like Izzy has just been go go go go go go go go go go go for the last three or so years. Like this dude’s fighting like every three, four months, like clockwork. And we talk about it in pro wrestling, and we talk about it in MMA here. Sometimes you just got to leave for a little while so that people can remember who you are. Like even a guy like Colby Covington, who you either love the man or you hate him, but even the people who don’t like Colby, when he showed up after a year of just having his head in in the sand after everything that happened with Masada. Dude just shows up in London and weighs in and it created like such a buzz. Like Colby didn’t even have to say a word. He just showed up and they’re like, oh shit, it’s Colby Covington. And at least for a little while until he started doing interviews and then some people had that feeling about Colby again. It was like, man, we can’t miss you unless you leave. And I kind of feel in this situation, like Izzy just needs to take some time, man. Like go get your head right. If you wanna go to 205, go to 205. And what would be super interesting is if during this hiatus between now and let’s just say, like Izzy comes back in July or whatever, what if DDP is the champion? Like what if DDP gets his title shot and wins the belt? All of a sudden Izzy’s comeback fight could be against Strikas Duplassi, chasing the title against him. Like that is just a whole interesting ball game in that sense as well. So creates a very interesting storyline there. And then DDP all of a sudden has like a little bit leverage, you can be like, no, you weren’t you weren’t gonna give me a title shot. Maybe I won’t give you a title shot. And then we have a play a political game with Izzy being the chaser. So like, that creates a different thing. But honestly, to me, I don’t even have an official pick for Israel Adesanya. I don’t even have a pick. My pick is take a break till like, the summer of next year, like maybe is these comeback fight is like the main event of International Fight Week in 2024. Whoever the champion is at the time is he comes back and fights them. Like I think I think that’s fair. I I think that’s fair, but I don’t want to see him. Like, I think for him in his career, he needs to take a little breather because they built this card around Izzy. Like, this was the, oh, Izzy’s gonna headline this big event in Australia. He was getting booed, man. He was getting booed. People are kind of getting tired of the man. So, not that it’s fair, but people are getting kind of tired. Like, they need a little breather from Izzy right now. to mention and I don’t want to agree with anything Sean Strickland ever says but he made a decent point you know that there’s that meme the worst person in the world made a good point uh he made a decent point at the post fight about uh listen his whole thing calling uh is he the china man or whatever was stupid but it conceptually it wasn’t horrible as maybe just the execution was bad but post fight his whole thing was like why are you fighting at home or close to home you know New Zealand Australia not the same thing but you know fighting close to home a place where you you have fought, where you have trained. Yeah, again, there’s a lot of New Zealand fans in the building. Why are you doing that and then doing everything in your power to look like you’re representing another country? And again, it doesn’t do with China. It could have been like he could have been wearing USA shorts and I would have been like, why is Izzy wearing USA shorts? So I know what Izzy was going for. He’s going for like, I’m a world champion. I’m a man of many nations. You know, I’ve lived in China. I’ve trained there as well. I fought there. So I’m a man of New Zealand, a man of Nigeria, a man of Australia, a man of China. I get it. I’m a true world champion. MMA fans are not that nuanced, really. So I think in that sense, Strickland was right. Like, he may have not made fans, not lost fans, but definitely confused them a little bit with like, okay, so he’s wearing red shorts, he’s representing China, but he made this whole hall blue about fighting in Sydney. The branding was strange. On this, I feel like Strickland’s correct. The branding was strange. I didn’t make people turn on Izzy, but maybe the performance, maybe the loss, maybe just fatigue, some Izzy fatigue might all contribute to this being a really a pretty flat and stock-down week for Israel at Disney. Yeah. I mean, ultimately they’re going to try to do a rematch, but I think for his image, the branding, all of it, I think you just, there’s nothing wrong with taking a break, man. No one’s saying like, like take three years off, but take like nine months off. Like that’d be like the longest stretch between an Israel and a Sonia fight in a long ass time, man. Like he lost the belt to Pereira and then like just five months. He just took five months off and everyone was like, why is he getting back here after getting knocked out? He’s just, he’s 34. So like he’s still got time, but he has mileage on him. He’s got a lot of fights, a lot of fight weeks, a lot of build, like he’s gotta be mentally drained, man. Like he’s just gotta be. It was almost like there was a sigh of relief there. When he showed up, the press guy was like, not the way I expected him. I’m gonna hand it off to Eugene. I’m gonna go hang out with my family. He’s posted videos, dancing to Diana King’s Shy Guy on the bus, like all this stuff going on. I think there’s maybe a part of it that’s just like, all right, let’s just get out of here for a little while. And there’s nothing wrong with that. And I think when he comes back, there’s gonna be like a little different excitement for him. So I think it’s pivotal for him right now. I think too, I’m with you that he should take time off. However, I don’t know if I want him to take that much time off as far as next summer, though that would be what’s best for him. And I do have an opponent in mind, like my best friend, someone who doesn’t fight very often either, and someone who is another rematch for him that we’ve all wanted to see for a long time, but again, we’ve wanted to see it, I guess, for the title again, but that’s all out the window now. We don’t know when or if Izzy fights for that title again. So give me Calvin Gaslim too, whenever he’s ready to fight. Ooh, what do you mean? Oh, you’re saying don’t make the move to 170. you’re saying don’t move to welterweight kelvin gaslum stay here wait did he ever he hasn’t officially made the move right he was supposed to drop down to 170 did he fight at 170 again well he’s he’s booked he was booked against shopcott and then he got injured and i still kind of feel like they’re gonna go back to that he didn’t but he didn’t actually he didn’t squeeze in a fight before that at 170 he hasn’t actually made the drop back down yet no he hasn’t made the drop back down yet no i think no i think it’s maybe he does maybe he does maybe he does and he fights Shotka maybe and loses. If we’re talking about Izzy taking time off, maybe the time will work out that whenever Izzy’s ready to fight again, Calvin’s like, hey, I’m available. It wouldn’t be a five-rounder. If they did sign it, I’d love it to be a five-round co-main, but it’s a hard sell for the fighters if they don’t get paid more. It’s a hard sell for the UFC who just doesn’t like to book non-title, non-main event five-round fights. And I don’t think this would be, I don’t think Izzy’s fighting in the Apex or anything like that. So unless they can make it the main event on you know a fight night card that’s outside of Las Vegas then maybe it could happen but otherwise it would have to be a co-main so you’re only getting three rounds but I think it’s possible and I really struggled Mike I think you’re right him just waiting for a big opportunity is probably best but I want to have a name out there so if I have to pick one let’s do let’s do Gastlum too I just I really want to see it before their careers are over yeah I mean look this is Jed like says no wrong way to to eat these Reese’s all this is super interesting and in compelling stuff. So, man, that’s the fall of the main event. Let’s go to the Cole main event. Alexander Volkov did what kind of a lot of people expected him to do against Tye Tuvasa. I know Tye Tuvasa was the darling dog. I had a bet for Tye Tuvasa by knockout. And we kind of realized with the great Paca Porter on the watch party, probably about two minutes into the fight, we kind of knew where this was going. Tye just couldn’t get to him. Volkov was landing. Tye was getting busted up. And then the fight ends up getting to the ground. Gets an Ezekiel choke. I believe he’s the second fighter in modern UFC history. Like there’s the third overall, but as Jed said on the post-fight show, the first one was because there was a guillain, so it’s like a little bit of a different feel. But man, Bulkoff gets the Ezekiel choke. He’s in a weird position though, man. Like heavyweight, we got John Jones and we got Stipe getting ready to fight. We got Sergey Pavlovich, Mr. Backup Fighter himself, who’s going to be the backup for 295. Zero Gone’s coming off a nice win. Tommy Aspinall’s in play. Jelton Almay is getting ready to fight Curtis Blades. And Volkov’s fought and lost to a handful of the guys that we’ve just mentioned here. Where does he go after this? Like, what did this win do for him overall right now? It can’t do a lot. He just kind of holds his spot. I actually, I did move him up one spot. I had, I think, two bosses, seven and Volkov eight, or at least that’s what it was in our consensus, NBA fighting global rankings. So when we update those, either after Noche UFC or after UFC 294, you will see Volkov move ahead of Tuibasa. But other than that, it can’t move him that much farther in the actual contenders line for reasons you mentioned. Guys are booked, guys are ranked ahead of him, he’s fought everybody. So there’s some rematch potential in there. But Mike, I think we, and I’m wondering if you went the same way, I think we just go the obvious route here and and book him against another guy who fought in the card and won, right? We just go Justin Taffa. I guess that’s the way to go. I don’t know if that’s not a great matchup for Taffa or if Taffa hasn’t earned a top ten fight yet, but it’s heavyweight. It’s heavyweight. It doesn’t take a lot to get up there. Taffas look pretty good so far. Going from Austin Lane to Alexander Volkov would be a considerable step up in competition to be kind to Austin Lane. It would be a considerable step up in competition, but I really had no other way to go with it. And I think they would want to see what they have with him and they would kind of throw him to the wolves with Volkov. And if you look with Volkov’s record, like he has had to take some weird fights. There was the Greg Hardy fights. I couldn’t remember. The other football player turned enemy player. That was, I mean, not the original opponent, but still they will put Volkov in there with some weirdos. And Justin Taffa is a talented weirdo. I think he can get that fight. And again, just based on the lack of options for Volkoff right now, that’s where I’m gonna go. I’ll go just on top of Volkoff. So this is kind of a weird one. So, again, this is one of those things where we have to wait a couple of months to see what my pick is actually gonna be. So my first choice is if Curtis Blades meets Jelton Almeida, we do Volkoff versus Jelton Almeida. Like, there are way worse heavyweight main events you have to see this put together. If Jeltsin Almeida does win, then we do Sergey Spivak. It’s just kind of there. To go from Tai to Ivas in the co-main event spot and landing an Ezekiel choke to getting an essential unranked opponent is tough, man. That’s tough. So yeah, that’s kind of where I’m at here. He’s just in a weird spot. Like now if Tai had won this fight and like knocked him out, Tai is in that because of how popular he is and how beloved he is, He’s in that conversation with all those other guys, with the Aspinalls and all that, because it’s just one of those stories that UFC could get behind, getting tied to Ibas in a title fight. Like, even if he just gets in there and loses, like, at least he got to the dance, man. But Volkov just used his size, used his length very well, and he’s just in kind of a weird place right now. So let’s see what happens. Any interest in the Blades rematch? We could do that. Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. Louis rematch, Derrick, like, the newly resigned Derrick Lewis, we could do that. I mean, there’s, there’s options we can do here, but I kind of feel like Volkov is, I’m not going to say gatekeeper, I don’t know if that’s the right word, but he’s probably like a top five litmus test for the future of this division for the foreseeable future until things just really break apart. Like if Jones and CPE both retire and we get like Pavlovich’s champion, then we can mix things up a little bit and do some different things. But yeah, until we get through the fall and through November and the the heavyweight title fight and Almeida Blades, it’s really hard to say like where Volkov’s gonna go. So with an Almeida win, it’s speed back. With an Almeida loss, we do Volkov Almeida and we just go from there. Do we, like, I don’t even think we need to queue the band for Menel Cop. Menel Cop’s fighting Kai Garfraz, right? Like that’s it, that’s the fight. Nothing else makes sense. A lot of heat there, imagine if we all want to see. Can I tell people beforehand, I almost didn’t want to do Menel Cop. I would message you, you know, we had an update I said, do we have to do this guy? Because I think like a lot of people, or maybe not a lot of people judging by, you know, if you’re judging by Twitter trolls, um, you know, Menell cops post by speech, him and Charlie Radke, they used a homophobic slur and it was completely unnecessary. Uh, I was glad to see Radke apologized, Radke and his, and his team probably apologized. That’s fine. That’s, that’s good to see. Um, but yeah, it was, it was a really terrible way to cap off a couple of like good moments. You know, Charlie Radke, his UFC debut, not the best fight I mean it wasn’t a great fight but good for him for getting a win is his debut hopefully the last we see of Blood Diamond nothing personal against Blood Diamond I just don’t think he’s a UOC level fighter and then Charlie you know was fired up about the crowd booing him probably gave me some crap all week and use that slur Manel Cop was a little was even worse because he won a great fight the hit fight with Felipe dos Santos awesome fight I think it won fight of the night right Mike they got they got the 50 G’s they did get they They did, okay. So, you know, well-deserved, well-deserved for their efforts in the cage. But then he caps it off with a, using that word again, using the homophobic slur again. And he really loaded it up too. I can buy a rad key like, you know, and this is not excused at all, but like a heat of the moment thing. Again, that’s not any excuse to use those words. If you’re using those words in the heat of the moment, guess what, you suck. But Kaat really loaded it up. And I think he did apologize at the post-flight presser. He did, he did. But we really gotta do something. I mean, you know, the culture of it is so bad. And I won’t go off on a full rant. It’s bad, I don’t know what else needs to be said. If you agree, obviously you’re a logical human being. If you disagree, I mean, you’re an idiot and you’re a piece of trash. But you gotta say these words still have power. And not just from like, oh, well they have power because people are offended by it. No, they have power because historically they’ve been used to oppress and harm people and to completely denigrate a whole segment of society. A large segment of society. This isn’t a small group of people. This is a large segment of society. These are people you probably know, and people think they might be out, they might not be out. They’re probably people you know. And if you’re okay with people talking about, you know, gay people like that, then that’s messed up. It is not the same as saying, oh, idiot, or a dummy, or like, it’s not just a generic insult. It is historically couched in, you know, because those people perceived a certain way, you know, gay people perceived a certain way that, oh, well, that means it’s negative. So it immediately creates this negative association people. It’s terrible. It’s a terrible word. Shouldn’t be used under any context and ending your putting in your post by speech is just absolutely ridiculous. So I’m glad both guys apologize. I hope they’re sincere. And yeah, I mean, matchmaking for cop just made sense because we want to see that car car France fight. So just keep it in the cage. Just talk about in case stuff. Great matchup and the winner of that probably gets a title shot. Yeah, I mean, they did apologize. Dana said the same thing. And there you go. It was just it was just kind of piercing with cop just like he was like everything was like the fight was awesome. By the way, Felipe dos Santos deserves just a ton of credit. That kid is so game. What a friggin performance from that guy looking forward to seeing what’s next for him. And I’ll hit that dude with everything in his power. And he got dropped in the first minute but that dude just came to fight. So super, super, super excited to see what his future is. Oh, he’s only 22 so a lot of excitement there. What did you know about him before Felipe dos Santos before the fight? He’s just a fun, like I knew he was, I knew he was like a fun, exciting dude that wasn’t going to be overtaken by the moment. He’s a shoot the box guy so those guys have just been coming in making debuts and being super like playing spoiler or at least making things really interesting. So As I said, even heading in, I felt like Cop and his power, and you saw it mostly throughout the fight, even in the first bit of the fight. Dos Santos was having moments and he was landing shots, but when Cop hit him, you could definitely see a change in progression, and you could see Dos Santos really reacting negatively towards it, but it didn’t stop him from moving forward. So I just felt like Cop’s power is just going to be too much for him. But as I said, pretty much all week, and as I said on the watch party, that fight is going to be super fun and competitive until Cop lands the finishing blow. And he never did it. He never did it. So it was kind of the fight I expected, but I just expected Cop to land a knockout shot to end the fight and he didn’t. So credit to Dos Santos. He gets an extra 50 Gs and Manel Cop’s going to go fight Kaikar France, maybe in a five round main event. And it’s a big fight now. I’m very interested in that one. Flyweights, AK. Flyweights. Flyweights are fantastic. The fight was so good. Nothing I saw in the tape that I saw of Felipe Dos Santos told me he’d be ready for Manel Cop. Like I said, fun guy, fun fighter, but the level of competition he was fighting was, you know, okay, not great compared to Menel Cop. And I guess I have to remind myself, and I did mention this in my prediction, he is only 22 years old. And at this stage of a 22 year old fighter’s career, the version you see in a fight from three months ago could be incredibly different from now, right? So I was looking at whatever his last LFA fight, which was also a really good fight, by the way, but I was like, no, like, you know, he’s a short short nose replacement, he gets smoked. I say he gets smoked. But even though he lost a pretty clear decision, he was never out of the fight. He was given out a lot of problems. He was given my five leg parlay a lot of problems. So big featurehead Felipe dos Santos. I don’t know if we’re going to see the results right away. It depends who they match him up with. Like if they give him another top 20 guy, probably have another hard time with it. But it could be a Larrisa Pacheco case where maybe he doesn’t do great in his first round with the UFC. He goes back, builds himself up again, and then becomes just a contender. the talent is clearly there, just vintage shoot the box fighter. Oh, yeah, he’s he ain’t going anywhere. He’s going to be in the UFC for like the next six to seven years. Just getting better and better. So, yeah, great performance. The best part of the whole thing is when the fight was over, like everyone knew Menell Cop won, but Dos Santos gets on the cage and sits on top of it and everyone just cheers and goes bananas. Woohoo! And then Menell gets up on the cage and they just boo the shit out of them. And they chatted bullshit at him after they announced the decision and just all of a man like, just a weird. He won the fight. He won the fight. This was a case of like, of the newcomer doing better than people expected, I think. We see this in MMA all the time. It was the Diego Lopez moment. Yeah, and it’s great. And people get behind them. That’s great. That’s great. You know, one guy goes over, the other guy gets over, right? Pro wrestling parlance, so that’s what happened here, but I get why cap I might have been a little frustrated by the reaction that he got and shout out to landing quinones as well Just going in as a massive underdog made some people sweat out that Nazareth hack press minus 500 man ultimate fighter 31 Good performance fighter 31 never die. I didn’t give him much of a chance either. He looked all right, man. He looked all right He was he was Nazareth leg is gonna be iced for probably the next next, uh, the rest of the week. That was, uh, so Landon looks all right. So good for him. Hopefully he’s definitely getting another shot. He stepped in not on short notice necessarily, but kind of like did the, you know, see a favor because I think now is where I want to fight in this card. And so they said, yep, Landon come on down. So he’ll, he’ll get another shot. We’ll get to your picks wild card round in a little bit. Let’s get through the rest of the main card. You already picked a fight for Justin Taffa. I’m going Justin Taffa versus Waldo Cortez Acosta, both guys with some nasty KOs over the last few weeks. So let’s just match those dudes up. And now Tyson Pedro kicks off the main card, sent the crowd into a frenzy, nasty knockout, some cold ass stuff right there. I went with Vitor Petrino, AK, for one Tyson Pedro. Oh, interesting. It’s a dart, bro, man, at this point. What do you got? First of all, salute to the pleasure man. Mike, I think this great nickname, great gimmick. Oh, you gotta keep them. You gotta keep them. No, no, I was gonna say, I don’t know if they do have to, Mike. You have to. I don’t know if you have to. And I love the Pleasure Man. I’m the number one advocate for the Pleasure Man. But this might be the last time that we see. For now, he can come back. As long, no, no, no, no, no. As long as Carlos Ulberg is still in the UFC, we have to do the normal match-make. We have to do Lady’s Night into the Pleasure Man until the end of time. I don’t think, I think Carlos Ulberg F’s Anton Tercali off. Oh no, they’re not gonna fight each other. I’ll just be on the same car. Yeah, Ulberg fights the fight before the Pleasure Man. That’s just, that’s it. I don’t know, my guy, Connor Brooks, I think got hurt by the Pleasure Man Lady’s Night parlay and I don’t wanna see that happen again. Cause as long as it’s there, it’s gonna tempt a lot of people into doing that. And Tercali, it seems like a cool dude. Again, great nickname. He might not be a UFC level fighter right now. He’s only 27. There’s certainly still time, but light heavyweight’s not a great division. His first fight was a weird cast weight belt with Jelton Almeida. We shouldn’t even count it, I understand. But it’s not like he looked amazing in either fight. Like the last, the fight with Petrino was fun and he had his moments, but he didn’t look amazing. It was a pretty clear win for Petrino and Pedro just knocked him out in under three minutes. So I love Anton Di Cali. If they keep him around for another fight, fantastic. Mike, this might be it for the pleasure, man. It pains me to say it, so. For Tyson Pedro, I want to know, has there been a fighter, Mike, whose quality of competition has gotten like lower and lower, like, I actually mean just the quality of his wins, has gotten lower and lower as he’s got along, or hit like a weird, his wins are, his UFC debut first round submission, Khalil Rowntree, has aged very well, fantastic win, so that’s already starting pretty high. I know round two wasn’t like a top 20 guy at the time, but you know now we look at it now pretty high. Next win, first round TKL Paul Craig, big win at the time, big win, really good win. Lose to Ilya Latifi, and then he gets a weird fight with Sapharbek Safarov. Now this was just so he could fight in Australia, I guess, he wins that one again in the first round. Two more veteran names, OSP, Shogun, lose to both of them. And then Eike Villanueva no longer in the the promotion, Harry Hunsucker no longer in the promotion, takes both of them out in the first round, and now loses to Pukoskas, and then now he fights, he beats the Pleasure Man, who, it gives me no pleasure to say it, Mike, might be the worst light heavyweight on the roster right now. So, it’s a weird, he started off so high, and now all his wins have gone lower in value. So, I’m gonna go all the way back, Mike. I’m taking it back to the Paul Craig Kaleo Roundtree range. Alonzo Menafield? Ooh, okay, I thought about that. I thought about that. That’s like borderline top 15. He might be UFC’s top 15. I gotta look at their rankings. He might be in there. Metafield coming off of a finish win over Jimmy Crute. Let me see here. Light heavyweight Alonzo Metafield is number 14. So I am going from someone who I would rank as like the number 40 light heavyweight to the number 14. But it’s a wacky division. It depends where the fight is. It depends when Pedro’s ready. It depends if Metafield can get another opponent. I’m sure he wouldn’t. I’m sure he would see Pedro’s step back. But I think it’s a possibility. Let’s do the Pleasure Man versus Alexa Kamer. We can headline a Contender Series event and just like loser leaves town. Let’s give the man one more shot. Let’s give the man one more shot. Let’s do it. I wanna see it. Having said that, let’s go to the wild card round. We’ll select one fighter we have not match made for yet. It will match make for them right now. And then we will get to your picks. You just throw them up on the screen. after we do our wild card picks, we’ll pull them off. We’ll react to them for the next 15 or 20 minutes or so until I have to check out of this hotel and get to the airport and go home so I can get some sleep. So AK, who is your wild card pick for UFC 293? Yeah, let me go first. Cause I didn’t have a lot to feel like I had a lot to work with here. I think you probably have a way better pick than I did. I just went with Jay Malarkey and as with Hawk Brass, I think they’re both at similar stages of their career. I think it’d be a banger of a fight. And you know, they’re on the same card, time works out. I didn’t really have a great option. I was impressed with a lot of the performances I saw, but some of you guys have so little UFC experience that it’s essentially, as you kind of mentioned before, I’d like a dart throw as to who could be next. So malarkey hack press for me. Mike, tell me you got something spicier than that. So my first choice was, I was gonna give Carlos Ulberg his wish, because I did like the call out of Dominic Reyes. Didn’t you have a better Dominic Reyes pick, or am I thinking of something? It’s Dominic Reyes, Anthony Smith. Yeah, yeah. And I love that. So I’m not gonna lie. Yeah, you can’t do that. Good call. good. I feel is a good color, but I will tell people I am a fan of what I like to call vulture call outs where you are, you’re clearly strictly calling someone out based on their previous accomplishments and name value, not on like, Oh, this is, this fight will prove that, you know, someone’s Carlos Olberg is a top 15 contender. That doesn’t prove that he beats Dominic Reyes, but it’s a good name. And clearly at this stage for both men, a very winnable fight. So I love the color. I completely understand if people rolled their eyes and were like, Why the hell is he calling out Dominic Reyes? I understand. I like vulture call-outs. Mike, sorry. So you didn’t, no, no, no Ulberg Reyes for you. Did not go that route. I went with the guy who had a really good performance and literally no one’s talking about it and no one is going to talk about it because of what happened. Shout out to Treppe Mariscal, man. Yeah. Dude is two, dude’s two in on the UFC. Jack Jenkins and him had a sick first round. Mariscal started to turn it on in round two. He throws that, delivers that incredible throw. bad circumstances. Jack Jenkins, I don’t know what the actual injury was, but it looked very nasty and looks scary. But as a clean cut win, man, Chepay Mariscal is a fun ass fighter. He’s getting better and better. There’s talks about maybe him going down to 135. I don’t think he’s ready for that just yet. And if you want to go to 135, that’s fine. But before you do that, Chepay, please, please fight David Onama. Go fight David O’Nama. Whoa. Just go fight David O’Nama. And then you can do whatever you want. You go beat David O’Nama. You want to go to 135, go to 135. You want to go to 145, go to 145. Stay at 145. I don’t care. But go fight David O’Nama before you do anything else. Thank you very much. How high are you and I use this term loosely with Chepay on him as a prospect because he’s been fighting for quite a while actually. He’s a UFC prospect if people want to break it down like that. But he’s been fighting for a long time. We’re almost done, I think, nine years, nine years, I think he’s been a pro. And a lot of experience. This is his 20. This was 21st pro fight. How high are you in him as far as upside goes? He’s 30. He’s 30. And he’s in a one of the lighter weight classes where age is not your friend. So do you see him as someone who could be a top 20 top 15 guy? Yeah, I think so. Really? Because I’m very high on Onama. I think we’re both high on Onama. Right? I think Onama is a guy who I won’t be surprised. I would. Onama is a guy I will be disappointed if he does not have a number next to his name at some point is your secret. I’m not saying this like top 10, but I could see onama like working his way into the top 15. I don’t know. I don’t know if I did. Uh, Chepay is a fun fight guy, but I love that matchup. I love that match. I’m just curious if you see both guys like possibly turning a win into something like real. Yeah, I could see Chepay being kind of like in the JSP sort of conversation where he just just goes on quietly goes on a run and then gets a a big win against a sizable name and then ends up getting matched up with like a top 15 guy and getting a chance. So I understand why people are probably a little bit higher on David Onama, but I think Chepay is just kind of, he’s peaking right now. Like I think he’s in his prime. I think his confidence is up. I think he’s learned a lot of valuable lessons along the way. And yeah, let’s just see what he can do, man. Like, I mean, that fight with David Onama is gonna tell us a lot. That would tell us a lot about both guys and where they’re at and both of them. And look, you can make a great career being a fun, competitive fighter. You don’t have to be a ranked guy. David Onama and Chepay Mariscal could be like top 30 guys forever and do very, very well. No one’s going to complain when either of those guys matched up against anybody at 145 pounds, but yeah, let’s just see what they got. I like the matchup. I think it’s super fun. It could be a great like fight nighty main card opener. Let’s go. I love that idea. Chepay Nate Landwer, Chepay Nate Landwer somewhere down the road. That’s the next one. If you beat Sabre Nozomi, it gets Nate the Train next. The only reason we, I think neither of us picked that is because we’ve, I think we’ve picked like 10 fights for Nate this year. So if, if going by, like if we were able to make turn every auto no fight into reality, uh, Nate Lander would have fought like 12 times this year against like a, a list of killers. So I only wish it was possible for Nate Lander to fight everyone if by the way it’s not. So yeah, we got to find something else for, for Chippy. All right. Well, wild card round for the peeps. Let’s go. What do you got? Let’s go crazy. Throw in a matchup for Sean Strickland. Let me tell people. Matchups for Izzy. Whatever you got. We can list them off. We’ll react. We got like 10 minutes. We’re just going to go. Nothing but your picks. We’re going to pull them up on the screen and we’ll get after them. So let’s wait and see what we got here. Let me give a quick, let me give a quick shout out first to Zoe in Australia. You know, I got Gotta give a shout out to the Aussies. She says, for an event posed on paper as a C at best, B plus in terms of storylines? Yeah, I’d agree with that. B plus for sure in terms of storylines. Very 50-50 for the Aussie Kiwi contingency. We’re totally okay with that. And I’ll just read out a couple of these picks here. Strickland, Zoe thinks that would be a rematch, but she does want to see Costa Hamza winner. Tui Vasa, Derek Lewis too, cause who doesn’t want to see that again? Yeah, it could happen. Cop, I really effing hate this guy, but it has to be KKF now. And there were some other picks, Mike. But what do we got? What do we got from the YouTubes? Also Taito Iwasa versus Marcus Sherry to Lima is a great fight to make. Oh yeah. Throw that out there. Let’s go to Tristan. We got Justapapa, Waldo Cortez, Acosta. There you go, sure. Miranda, Jung Young Lee. Oh, fire. That’s fire. Alessandro, come on, just Acosta. I want to make a matchup for Miranda, but like I said, it’s just kind of all over the place. So I leave it to the viewers and listeners. And that is such a good matchup, Miranda and Jung. Ulberg-Merzikonov is interesting, but I wouldn’t do that this early. Right. I think Merzikonov’s a big-ass problem. Not saying that Ulberg isn’t, but I would probably wait a little bit on that. Hackpress bomb theme, that one makes a lot of sense. Mike versus Mike, loser, retired forever. Mike Jackson’s actually fighting Pat Miletich. It’s true, that’s a real thing, folks. That’s super, the real thing. Gerard Izzy versus the Shamayev-Costa winner. I believe that’s where we’re gonna go here as well. Let’s see. Manel, Cobb, Charles Radke and Blood Diamond versus UFC roster watch, Jesus Christ. Yeah, I think roster watch is a minus. Well, Cobb and Radke I think will be okay. Blood Diamond, ironically Blood Diamond, the least problematic of them is probably done. I’d give roster watch minus 800 in that matchup. Sorry Blood Diamond if you’re out there, but no, it doesn’t go your way sometimes. Yeah, Taffa versus I would even go for that idea. I mean, again, let me let me get not mix up my Australia and New Zealand. So both. Okay. So this would be Australia versus Australia versus New Zealand matchup. There’s a lot of fun. I’m assuming there’s no friendship there. I wonder if maybe they’ve trained together at some point, but I think that’s a great matchup. I think you are seeing two guys slug it out. but that has to happen in New Zealand or Australia, right? You can’t throw that in the apex. No, go ahead, no. You can’t throw that. Those two boys, Swang and Meat Hammers, has to be in front of an audience, and really preferably in New Zealand or Australia, so I don’t know how early they go back there next year. I’m sure they will go back, and by there I just mean the whole region. I feel we have to apologize for that a lot this week, my conflating New Zealand and Australia, but it has to happen in front of a rowdy crowd. Yes, they’re gonna throw that fight in like Sioux Falls, South Dakota. of all places. Oh, fantastic. Jake Hadley was no cop. God, no. No, not yet. Hadley’s not a terrible fighter. But now he’s coming off. He’s coming off of a loss. He got run over by Cody Durden. I mean, it’s a fun fight, not run over. But the last two rounds was all Cody. So, yeah. Cops, cops fighting Kikar France. He’s he’s getting a top five, dude, for sure. Paul Craig and Whitaker didn’t even fight for shut. No, Paul Craig is his main eventing against Brendan Allen in November 18th. I believe that fight is, I’m not sure. But man, that Shawn Strickland, Brennan Allen win has aged pretty well, has it not? Shawn, a lot of Shawn Strickland’s wins have actually aged pretty well. So again, I’ll never question the meritocracy of him getting a title fight, only because of this. Mike, we say all the time about, we always say we’ll just get a fight or a title shot and then often we’ll go like, no, but it puts them on the short list. This is the importance of being on that shortlist, is when all the other options fall out, guess what? The UFC checks, checks, checks, guess who was there? The next on the list, Sean Strickland, gets the title shot and now he’s the UFC champion. So getting on the shortlist matters. It’s not a sexy place to be, but that’s how people get title shots sometimes, and in this case, how they become UFC champions, heaven help us. Now, out of sunny cannon air too, I don’t know if anyone’s in Russia. Please no, never again. I don’t know if anyone’s in Russia. Never again. Let me read, Mike, let me read one quick from Twitter, just because it’s the first time. Right. Shout out to Helios, who is, I’ve mentioned the show before during a ask us anything but and I just like one of their picks here I think I don’t know if we mentioned it all Berg all Berg at roundtree. Is it time to do that? They’re both streaking. They’re both. No, you don’t want to keep them away too soon away from each other Yeah, I like what they’re doing. I like what they’re doing with all Berg right now step by step Step by step. I mean if they book it sure But roundtree wants like a veteran name in a main event spot and I think he kind of deserves it So let’s just give it to him another all Berg versus Menafield. What’s up charge biog and what’s up? Okay, no regular Gerard Biagin. Izzy versus Rackage. It’s like a potential move to 205. We didn’t talk about this. Yeah, sorry, we didn’t talk about this. I got a couple of people who still sent in picks, even though we warned them. Maybe don’t send in picks, because we’re doing it live, not going to read everything. But you talk about him taking time off, Mike. Should be the time off B to bulk up and make a proper move to 205. If he wants. Like I get where Jed’s coming from. Like you’ve already conquered 185. what else could you do besides get the rematch? Because then if he like fights DDP and loses, what are we gonna do? Another immediate rematch? And he tries to avenge that loss too? Like, we’re almost to a point where like, there’s not much more he could do. Yeah. And if by some chance next year, even next summer, Alex Panetta is the light heavyweight champion. That is a fight he walks right into. They’re one and one. He knocked him out in the most recent fight. That’s the one. So that should have been our crystal ball pick as Panetta beats Yuri maybe defends the title once and then fights Izzy one more time. I hope that happens. MMA, give us something straightforward and predictable for once please. Tuvasa Taibora. Did they not? That’s in my head a fight that like I don’t think they fought. In my head I feel like that happened but I’m pretty sure it has not happened. No it’s not. Well caught versus feedback. So I saw a bunch of this even with like the messages that I got. Strickland like Kamaru moves up to 185 and avenges his buddy’s loss. That’s a deep cut. That’s a deep cut. I was going to say, have they fought? And I’m like, right, Strickland was a welterweight once upon a time. And that fight is a thing that happened. So, hey, Kamaru, guess what? You can say you have a win over a middleweight champion. How about that? I don’t think that happens, but I like, I like where the head is at though. Izzy versus Rob 3, main event New Zealand, fight night or pay-per-view doesn’t matter. What do you think about doing the trilogy here? I like it a lot. We know Rob has really wanted it. I don’t think Izzy would be against it. And like I said with the Castlemry match, now that the title is out of the picture, it probably makes it more possible. So yeah, doable, doable fight for sure. There’s options for Izzy, even though he’s coming off this pretty disappointing loss. Whittaker takes that fight without hesitation. Of course, he wants another shot. Without hesitation. He wants another shot. Louis too. Yeah, it could happen sometime. Yeah. Thoughts on Shricklin? Is he rematch possible adjustments? I don’t know. I like maybe they will rematch but that’s that is now like a back pocket fight. Like even if Shricklin loses the title, you could still go back to that at some point. And it’s fine. But I don’t know, man. I don’t know if I would pick Izzy in that fight. No matter like how much I mean not saying that he can’t come back and win because stylistically is a good fight and if Izzy is he on his best day probably wins I don’t know how many times it’s not like Strickland would beat him ten out of ten times but he broke the man like I I actually don’t even want to see it I have no desire to see that rematch right now I don’t it was one of the worst possible ways for Izzy to lose that fight yeah for sure yeah because if you didn’t know who was who if this was your first time seeing Izzy fight and your first time stricken seeing Strickland fight, you would have just said, oh, well, Strickland’s the way better fighter, right? You would have no idea that one guy is in the running for, or was, hopefully not in the competition anymore for now, middleweight, at least the second best middleweight ever, and one guy was not expected to fight for the title at all. It looked completely the opposite. Chepe versus Malarkey, since we all know Jamie lost last night. Yeah, GC had a Malarkey bet. He sweated that one out, and he was like, whew, I’ll take that, but Chepe, I mean, yes, he did fight Trevor Pica 155, but he’s not a lightweight. He’s a featherweight. No, he’s not gonna, yeah. that was short notice that was just yeah yeah so i mean chepay’s talked about moving to bantamweight so that was one of things like um maybe we’ll get a nutritionist that’s why because he wants to go to 135 alberg versus bucascus there’s alberg like yeah it makes sense but i just think it’s not a sexy matchup for well i really i didn’t fight with alberg it’s a sexy matchup but i mean it’s not uh you know sexy metaphorically speaking so um it could happen but it’s not my my favorite let’s see anything else Carla another Carlos versus Khalil maybe maybe that’s where we go it’s just they’re both street I think they’re both for fight win streaks right they both have a very appealing stand-up style rankings wise they shouldn’t be too far apart I think Khalil might be a little bit ahead but neither guy for me is in my top 15 so this would be the fight to sort of edge one guy closer to it what I do what I do with all burger now wait What are you saying again dog the value hunter? I don’t know if you saw this coming yet Miranda versus Ryan Hall Grappler’s Delight I mean RIP Gabrielle Miranda in that case, but I understand the appeal of it I do want to see more Gabrielle Miranda. He I think we all I want to see the entire staff predicted Miranda by submission and He showed up. I I want to say a briefing for Shane Young. It’s like he might need to take a break Who’s his teammate who is he’s teammates with Brad Riddell, right? Yeah city kickbox and stuff, right? I don’t know. He’s smart. I’m glad Browardell is taking a break. Maybe Shane Young needs to as well. Four straight losses. Missed weight so badly. And it wasn’t like a weight miss where I think… It’s one of those really bad misses where you’re like, this looks like a miss because of lack of focus. Not because he was trying to like game the system. So I had very little hope for him to pull this one out. And he didn’t last a minute in there. So Shane Young, assuming he doesn’t get released, back to the shop. Take some time off and hopefully we see a better version Alberg vs. Jacobi, I know I that’s that’s a good one. I think you had a good matchup for Jacobi last week I think you would if we’re going by ought no didn’t you match it? I think you had something good for Jacobi or might be thinking of someone else We have matched up Jacobi a few times or the listeners have anyway. Yeah, I think Who won at 205 in Singapore? I don’t think I match it. I think a lot of people said Anthony Smith No, they their teammates so they won’t fight I’ll tell you what, Alberg versus Ryan Spann. I would do that. I would do that. Yeah, I like that. Lucas C, I just wanna read this comment. I’m still shocked by what happened last night, trying to decide which subset is the biggest. Leon Usman, O’Malley, Aljoe, Izzy Strickland. This is definitely bigger than both of those. Leon was on a 10 fight, unbeaten streak. It’s more how that fight went that makes it so shocking. He was dominating the first fight and then got that Hail Mary knockout. But odds-wise, he wasn’t that shocking. He was on a crazy win streak. O’Malley versus Aljo. I mean, we all knew O’Malley had that puncher’s chance and it played out exactly as you would expect an O’Malley win to play out. Izzy Strickland’s the shocker, is a huge upset. And for me, Mike, a top five upset all time. Not sure where it lands for you, but yes, my top five. Yeah, for me personally, yes, that’s where it is. And again, a lot of people were like, you’re not giving Strickland any respect. No, dude stepped in on short notice and saved the day and took the fight and won the belt. So you can’t take anything away from the man. But yeah, man, just so crazy. For me, the betting odds are one thing, and then you just kind of look at all the different paths to victory. Nothing will beat GSP Matsera. That’s etched in stone forever. But even like Peña beating Nunes, like, man, maybe the timing’s not good here. Maybe Peña just need to weather a storm. Nunes just isn’t taking her seriously like there were things out there you’re like okay maybe Luke Rockhold Michael Bisbing crazy ass upset out of nowhere but like the way Luke Rockhold just just kind of cast Bisbing off to the side like he was nothing like you just kind of felt like maybe he’s just maybe he’s too cocky right now maybe the ego is a little too much and like even even Sean O’Malley like you just felt like okay there’s there’s a way he can win and but this one, it just, it just was just really shocking. This is the most chaotic thing. This whole division, like the rankings are broken, pound for pound is never going to be the same. In terms of rankings, because of this result, like it’s just absolutely wild. It’s absolutely wild. So I see someone saying David’s L saying GSP Sarah was a one punch fluke. Yeah, it was a one punch fluke. That’s what’s so crazy about it is if they ran that fight back, that’s why it’s the biggest upset if they ran that back 100 times. GSP probably wins 99 times. We saw the one time that Sarah would win that fight and it happens. That’s, that’s what’s great about MMA. That makes me so crazy, man. Yeah. All right. I think we’re good here. Yeah, I get a pack up and get the hell out of here. So AK, thank you very much. I appreciate you jumping on a little bit earlier. I appreciate all of you for watching a little bit earlier. Normally, we’re like just getting the show started now but schedules and timeframes are different. We’ll be back live on this program. We a little bit of a breather now. Me and GC were talking about this yesterday throughout the pre-build for the watch party like I’m kind of happy we’re getting a little bit of a break because it’s like every three weeks like clockwork, hopping on a plane in New York for one day, hopping on a plane in New York for one day and now we get like a five-week breather and then it’s like right back to it because we’re gonna have 294, 295 like right behind it and then 296 will be be, you know, four weeks after that, and then we’re just going to be all crazy. But the next one, afternoon MMA for the next pay-per-view, because they’re in Abu Dhabi. So I believe that it’s a 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. Eastern main card start time, which is incredible. I love that so much. I love that so much. But you guys are the best. show next week. We will be discussing the fallout of Noche UFC and then we get the September 23rd card headlined by Raphael Faziv versus Matush Gamrant. Let me pull up next week’s card real quick. Do the quick rundown before we get out of here. Do it. Noche UFC. We have 11 fights. Alexa Grasso, Valentina Shevchenko, two for the flyway title. We got Kevin Holland versus Jack Delamadalena. Okay, weird. Big time, big coming event for 170 for the future of this division. Raul Rosas Jr. coming back after his first loss against Terrence Mitchell. Main card, boy, they’re not giving up on this kid, eh? And they shouldn’t, and they shouldn’t, they shouldn’t, they shouldn’t. Daniel Zellhuber, who is just a super impressive cat, taking on Christos Gyagos, Fernando Padilla, Kyle Nelson. I think so. Lupi Godinez versus Elise Reed. We got Roman Kopilov versus Josh Fremt. We got Edgar Chires versus Daniel Lacerda. fun fight at 125. Tracy Cortez versus Jazzman, Jazz DeVisius. We got Charlie Campbell, CFFC champ, making his debut on short notice against Alex Reyes who returns to the octagon for the first time in like five or six years. Long layoff for Alex Reyes, but he is back. So maybe we’ll hear a little bit from Dominic Reyes next week in Las Vegas. Maybe he’ll do some interviews and we’ll get some because they are brothers after all and uh Josephine Knutson taking on Marnic Mann. Marnic Mann? A Blinded by the Light fan? That’s Manford Man. Oh I see I see I knew I can see DJ DJ Mike I knew I could sneak that I knew I couldn’t sneak that fast you I was like can I get on with this? Here we go, next week apparently, so that’s no GFC, so thank you all very much, have a great rest of your weekend, enjoy week one of the NFL season everybody, or aka I am Mike Hecht, always remember don’t take this stuff too seriously, MMA is supposed to be fun, we’ll have more fun next week right here and on to the next one of the podcast, see you later everybody. you

Ladies and gentlemen I’m thinking to myself how I want to begin this live post-fight show calling UFC 29. The champion has a name! Say it Mike Hick! Say it! Accept it! I’m laughing, I’m thinking, there’s so many emotions going on, but ladies and gentlemen, the victory horns are sounding. The belt is not where it is on this photo. The belt actually belongs to the man to Israel Adesani is right because folks, mark this date, Sean F-ing Strickland is the middleweight champion of the world and this was no flash knockdown this was no banana peel this was no luck this was no fluke Sean Strickland dominates Israel Adesanya 49 46 on all three judges scorecards he thumps Israel Adesanya he knocks him down almost finishes him loses the second round it’s 1-1 heading into round three and then Shawn Strickland wins the next three rounds he’s yelling at Israel Adesanya at the end of the fight and we realized with like two minutes left in the fifth round nothing Israel Adesanya is gonna do on this day on this night in that building is gonna be enough to stop the momentum the train of one Shawn Strickland who is the middleweight champion of the world. Wow. Welcome to the program. Everybody. I am Mike heck. I knew something weird was going to happen. I felt it. If you watch the watch party and now we are living in this world, time to react to it. And who better to join me in this reaction than my bald brother and the wise words, wordsmith Shaheen, all shoddy. Hello Shaheen. I’m just in your cackle. I tried so hard to not not step over your intro. That’s dude, we’re we’re we’ve entered idiocracy. Like this is this is crazy. This is this is beautiful. Like MMA is the stupidest sport in the world and I love it so much. I love it so very much. I have no idea what’s going on. And the man that was he’s been wanting to live in this world. He was hoping he was trying to will it into existence. Almost even got around to saying and predicting and betting on Sean Strickland winning the title. You just couldn’t do it. But sometimes gambling and winning bets, it just is not the same feeling as you get when you watch Sean Strickland become the middleweight champion. Is it Jed Mishu? I mean, can you even put a price tag on how you’re feeling right now? No, I want to be sure. This is a joyous day. This is the funniest thing that’s ever happened in the sport of mixed martial arts and when he said it coming in, I was like, you know, this has been, 2023 has been just a hilarious year. All of the funniest outcomes keep happening. I was like, what if, what if we’d really be living in the upside down if Sean Strickland won? But like, wouldn’t it be, I think I wrote in a round table this week of, Wouldn’t it be the most MMA thing in the world for the UFC, who finally got like a true contender for Israel, you had the Alex Brera rivalry and that’s now over and somehow you risk it all. You put DDP in there against Robert Whitaker in a bout that everybody said, except for me, was dumb and risky. And then he wins and he’s number one with a bullet. And then they’re like, What if what if we just this safe is so safe is Izzy could never lose this and we can still have this wonderful matchup afterwards and then it’s the most MMA thing in the world for Izzy to just fall into an ass whooping. Oh guys it’s just incredible. Guys what is going on? I am torn. I’m torn between loving so much of this and knowing that when the high of this wears off off. The new greatest regret in my life. It won’t be something I said a girlfriend I broke up with. The fact that I had a rat tail for way too much of my youth. The greatest regret I will have in my life is that I did not choose to believe in Sean Strickland on this night because I would live forever if I had just picked Sean Strickland to win this fight. My consolation prize. We still live here, guys. We still have this nonsense. It’s the best. How long did you have a rat tail? A long time. We don’t know. That’s going to derail us. And we need to keep our eyes. For no, no, no. Over under over under five years over over whatever your number is going to say. The answer is going to be over. Over under 10 years. I had it into high school, Sean. Wow. This isn’t even news. I dropped this on morning combat the other week of my life. This is just hilarious. What are you? What are they? What a stretch for Sean, Sean O’Malley, Sean Strickland. My guy over here, Sean O’Malley, it’s just that the balls, the Sean’s were all crushing it. Do you have to change how you spell Sean now? Do you? There’s one true Sean. I mean, my name is not actually Sean, so I guess I can just like alter it. I think you can just do it. Yes. Yeah. I think I got out of respect now. Yeah. It’s not a respect for the guys. Shaheen, it is 221 AM Eastern Time on Sunday morning, and we are living in a world where not only is Sean Strickland, the middleweight champion, he is barring something absolutely insane. This man is going to be the consensus fighter of the year. Like all of this just happened tonight. So I guess we saw the knockdown the first round. We saw Izzy come back in round two. Holy shit, I didn’t think of that mic! Oh my god, I didn’t even think of that! He’s the clear frontrunner! He, like, it’s him in a big gap! Whoa, he’s it! He’s it, there’s nothing… You can… There will be people who make the case for John… If John beats Deepay, but no, he’s it! You’re absolutely right, this is incredible! It’s him and it’s just a big gap, he’s 3-0, like this is… That’s the world we’re living in! I mean, he has three, you know, but one of those three is Abus Magomedov. So like. Still, dude, it doesn’t matter. Oh, he did. Dude, he’s the dude. I didn’t even think of that. Oh, my God. One of us is going to have to write about Sean Strickland, the freaking 2023 fighter. It’ll probably be me. I usually do the fighter of the year ones. It’s the best. Oh In the same year that is he’s gonna win knockout of the year for the Pereira like Exercised his demons all is right with the world and friggin six months later. He gets freaking bagged up by Shawn Strickler Sport is not real she he’d when did you what when did you? start to accept the fact that Shawn Strickland was gonna be the middleweight champion because Shawn gets the big knockdown in round one, all three judges gave Izzy round two and we’re even heading into the third round and we’re thinking, all right, this is when the tides are gonna turn, like Izzy didn’t really respect Shawn’s power, now he respects it, wins the second round, didn’t do a whole hell of a lot in that second round and we’re just wondering when he’s gonna wake up. And then round three happens and then round four happens and at worst heading into round five, even though it was pretty doubtful, at worst, it was 2-2. But it was most likely 3-1 on most people’s eyes. But when, do you remember the moment when you thought to yourself, dude, this is happening. Like, Sean Strickland’s gonna win the belt. He’s got it tonight. When did you realize it? I don’t know, even when the fight ended, it felt to me like they were gonna mess up the decision or something, right, like it felt like we just weren’t gonna live in a world where this was the actual outcome And then it would have just been the biggest robbery of all time. And we would have just been going on and on about that is he would have tried to move on the whole dude. I, what the, what the hell’s going on? This is crazy, man. This is crazy, right? Like, so let’s try to put this into context because I mean, we’ve been, we’ve talked a lot throughout this week. And I mean, we weren’t the only ones who were very dismissive of an outcome like this, right? Like we, there’s plenty of receipts right now on the internet for us, for everyone else who works within the space, It’s probably for every fan who tweets about this or Instagrams about this or anything. Anybody who puts content into the world, telling your thoughts about MMA, there’s probably some receipts of you being wrong right now. It’s just, it’s a very bizarre scene. And earlier this week we were at, we did a round table and the question was essentially like, would this be the biggest upset of all time? And as I was sitting there thinking about it, I came around to the idea that, you know, like it would be a big upset, maybe top 10 upsets in UFC history, but it wouldn’t be top three. To me, top three at that moment in time was Michael Bisbing over Rockhold, number three, Peña over Nunes at number two, and then obviously Sarah GSP at number one. And all of those conversations, the context of the upset was like, well, something like that almost happened at the end of round one, right, like a Sean Strickland goes out there, knocks out Israel Adesanya with some crazy just shot, is just this big, almost like something, that one-off thing that you could call a fluke, that people would be calling a fluke, a Matt Sarah-esque type of performance. That’s not what this was though, right? Like that’s not what this was whatsoever. And now as I sit here and I think about this all over again of like, how does this rank within the history of UFC Upsets? Whereas how do we put this in context within the history of this sport? I feel like I’m really coming around to, I was wrong initially because I just didn’t fathom the actual reality in front of us of Sean Strickland going out there and dominating Israel Adesanya in a thorough one-sided beat down in a fight that featured zero wrestling whatsoever, zero takedown attempts, and was contested solely on the feet for 25 straight minutes, and Sean Strickland just straight up outstruck is Radha Sanya. He confused him, he out-pressured him, he out-landed him, and he by far landed the more meaningful shots, and just frankly won in every aspect you could win in the fight. That hadn’t occurred to me as a possibility that could happen, Mike. So as we’re sitting here, I don’t know, man, it feels like it’s certainly a top five upset of all time. If I can’t give me a few more days to think it over, I might end up displacing something in that top three and putting it in top three because this is just frankly ridiculous in only the way that MMA can be. We have now a couple of years stretch of just a continued amount of really crazy, unexpected results that we have seen over and over and over again. And it should teach you that, you should never be too sure about these types of things. But then we continually get surprised over and over like we are right now. And it’s just, I mean, man, I don’t know. For a long time, the two best middleweights in the world were Israel Adesanya and Robert Whitaker, and then a giant gap. And then you could go tell whoever you wanted for three, four, five. Right now, I think there’s a very legitimate case that the two best middleweights in the world, at least in terms of wins and resume currently, are Sean Strickland and Drikus Duplessis, which is just a bizarre thing that came out of my mouth that is real. So, you know, take for that what you will. What a night, man. What a night. Yeah, it is, you know, it’s fun and it’s, I guess funny as this all is. One of the things that especially led me to feeling so confident in Izzy was not just the stylistic matchup, but it’s the fact that, look, Shodden’s just one speed. He’s gonna push forward. He’s gonna throw up a million punches. And that’s just who he is. This fight, the pressure was there. He was in Izzy’s face the entire time, but he was very patient. I think Izzy was expecting him to be a lot more aggressive and then the game plan they came up with was brilliant and Sean actually played it out to a T. Like he was very patient. When 90 seconds left in each round went, you could hear Eric Nixxick start screaming, all right, go, go, go, go, go. And that’s why we saw the big knockdown in the first round. We saw him have the big moments at the end of the rounds. So that was a huge thing for me. Sean’s gonna have, they’re gonna have a good game plan. Eric Nixik, especially with this win, is on the Mount Rushmore of head coaches and MMA in my opinion. There’s no argument anymore after this. But what was your biggest takeaway from Sean’s performance overall? Because the pressure was there, but the patience, his ability to just let Izzy try to come to him somehow and then counter off of Izzy, it’s pretty wild, man. It was super impressive. Yeah, I mean, there’s just so much to talk about in this fight. The biggest takeaway from the fight outside of just how fucking funny it is, man. Look, we’re going to have to circle back to this in a bit. I think this is the top three funniest fight I’ve ever watched in my life. But the biggest takeaway I had as I’m watching Sean Strickland teach Israel dissing you how to box. And there are many takeaways. I think the biggest one will be positive. This is a positive takeaway because I got some negative ones here as well. The positive one is this. Sean Strickland fought to the game plan, which even heading in, he and his coach were like, yeah, not necessarily always something Sean’s going to do in there. And mostly that he was exceptional defensively. Defense doesn’t win championships in MMA, but Hampshire won this one. You heard Izzy say it to his corner between the fourth and the fifth round, like, hey, I can’t find my jab. I can’t hit him. And Izzy’s game is a lot of getting low kicks going, getting the jabs going, setting those as rhythm based weapons to get into the quote unquote flow state or whatever. And he just couldn’t do it. There was none of that working for him and Strickland wasn’t just launching himself onto counter shots like Whittaker did in their first fight. So he, I cannot believe this, but going into this fight, it was like, I, I think a direct quote that I repeated in several programs was I do not see how Sean Strickland can consistently generate offense. And in fact, the exact inverse is true, Izzy couldn’t consistently generate offense. Strickland just never let him get going in any way and then when Izzy would get frustrated because he wasn’t getting things to happen or would try and swing a little harder, find a counter shot, Strickland would counter the counters. He was just miles ahead of him the whole way through. I don’t know, man. No one knows anything. This is the best and we have a million other things to talk about in this fight. So we don’t need to talk about Sean Strickland’s defense, but it was really, really damn good. And I, that’s it. I don’t know what else to say, man. This is nuts. I just really quickly, I wanna add on what you just said there, Mike. We need to give all the credit in the world to Eric Nixik. Because I know like, we don’t talk about coaches a lot when it comes to these types of conversations. This man has been one of the best coaches in MMA for a while now. But this, like tonight, to be able to pull off they pulled off like this is his master class right like this is a master stroke like this is this is Mona Lisa yeah man like this is incredible man to be able to pull this off like you call you say he’s on the mountain rush more of MMA coaches I wholeheartedly agree with you man like he is one of the best coaches in the entire space and to consistently be able to pull off the type of results he does if this like you know we’re living in crazy land at this point we’re living in fairy tale land who knows what even happens and i’m pretty sure this is simulation at this point If Francis Nganu goes out there next month, Eric Nixon can just I want to be clear. I’m picking it right now. Eric Nixon is just really Zeus. Like, that’s all he is. He’s just throwing up thunderbolts and doing whatever he wants. Like, he’s the second coming of Zeus. And I’m never going to doubt him again, because what the fuck were we even doing? Nothing makes sense to think about the difference in those two champions, right? Like, I’m a moron and I’m pretty confident that I could coach Francis and Ghanu to win the heavyweight title. Like you just roll them out there. You know, it’s, it’s like John Wooden. You don’t need to coach them. You just, Hey, Kareem, just go score a hundred points. We’re going to be okay. Like you could do that with Francis. I don’t, there are two people alive. Maybe who could have turned Sean Strickland into UFC champion. What the hell is going on Shaheen when you said at the way, you know back I don’t you’re getting talked into this is the second biggest upset of all time I know that there are gonna be a lot of people who are in on you just paying you or whatever No, it’s Sarah GSP and it’s this right here because this dude was a minus 220 favorite over a bus maga man off and now he is the champion the world against probably the second greatest middleweight of all time. I just, I can’t get there yet. I can’t get there yet because ultimately, and we’ll talk about this soon because I’d imagine we’re talking about what comes next, but like Israel Adesanya, however you want to frame it, I agree. Second greatest middleweight of all time. He’s still someone who has lost two out of his last three. So I can’t get there to the second biggest upset of all time, but it’s God damn, it’s Shaheen again, I’m so I gave him I didn’t give him enough credit. I guess I want to be clear he when I say that he was a minus 250 favorite he’s actually a minus 150 favorite over Abis Magomedov and checking the watch that was six weeks ago six weeks ago he was a minus 150 favorite over a random body and he just beat Issy! It’s the biggest upset I’ve ever seen that’s not St. Pierre and Sarah. So I’m gonna frame this a little bit differently Shaheen because the title of our preview show was is Sean Strickland upsetting Israel Adesanya the most chaotic result in UFC history? Now that you’ve seen it and now we see what this division could look like and we’ll talk about the what’s next and where this could all go but with like the winners, the losers, the contenders that were coming up, the contenders that are still coming up, is this the most chaotic result that you can remember in UFC history following a pay-per-view? That’s a tough question. I would say no just because people forget Matt Serra won a title shot against Rue St. Pierre off a reality show. Like that was chaos. That’s chaos incarnate, what Matt Serra did way back when. It’s a different, it’s a different landscape though, right? Like this, you’re certainly like, this is a much more mainstream version of it. This, this division felt like it was set up to actually start getting really crazy after this fight, right? Like on the, on the previous show, I called this a bridge fight because it felt like all the best stuff was about to happen. We were about to get the DDP fight. We were about to get the Hamsat Shamiah fight. When it comes to chaos, I mean, this is right up there. I think Bizbing also just randomly grading the greatest ending to a career of all time ever out of nowhere is probably up there as well. And then fighting Dan Henderson was like ranked number 14th or 11th or whatever afterwards. Stop three. It’s top three for sure when it comes to chaos. I mean, what the hell are we just talking about? We said it all. I just we said it 1000 times is Sean Strickland is the UFC heavyweight middleweight champion like I don’t I’m confused how to speak about this. So Jed Dana White shows up at the press conference and he reacts to it says is he looked really slow he looked dry look dried up just didn’t have it. And he because of this he wants the rematch. I feel like the rematch isn’t necessary here like DC even said it like we shouldn’t run it back like I get it like is he’s second greatest middleweight or whatever. But we got guys coming up we got hums at your mic getting ready to fight we got trickiest who’s right there, who, by the way, you can make a strong argument that outside of Zeralla Asana, Drix Duplisi might have been the biggest loser tonight out of all of this. He still may get the Izzy fight, but it won’t be for the belt. What, like this, I, this is all just absolutely insane, but we can’t do the rematch. I mean, you shouldn’t do the rematch. The rematch, right, Jed? Like the rematch is a bad idea. Mike, you know my feelings on this. I’ve been extremely clear for my entire life. You just never do an immediate rematch because unless there are two exceptions to this one legitimate controversy a robbery has occurred or like the premature stop it like an actual premature stoppage or whatever something like that I accept an immediate rematches and two I accept even though I’m still not like all the way an immediate rematch in a trilogy bout like you guys split them run it right back otherwise don’t lose because winning and losing fights matters and And if you are a guy like Sean Strickland and you just beat, uh, whether it’s a new or a long reigning champion, you shouldn’t have to do it twice. There’s no reason the rest of the sport does not dictate or demand multiple attempts to do something to prove it’s worth won the fights. You shouldn’t do this back. I’m going to divert us because we got to talk about this guys. It’s part of this whole thing. And um, it’s part of why I think it ties in here as part of why I would strongly say there’s there’s no need for a rematch. Casey and I were talking about this in the post pressure presser while we were waiting for him to show up. He broke Izzy. He didn’t just beat him. Like we’re talking about Atlanta when Izzy fought Kelvin Gaslam and Shaheen, you and I were both there, Casey was there, watched it and this difference between that fight and this is stark. Heading into that fifth round, Izzy is standing there saying, I’m willing to die to himself to go get into battle. And at the end of this fight, after losing three of the four rounds and most of the fifth round, with 30 seconds left, Sean Strickland, who he is apparently very mad at for things that were said about his dog or whatever, is shouting at him and backing him on, screaming obscenities in his face. And Izzy is backing away. He didn’t want no part of that business at the end of that fight Like he wasn’t I got 30 seconds to keep my belt and this dude’s hands are down. I should try he’s just backing up and looking like he just lost which he did I I didn’t see Kelvin Gaston to do that and somehow Sean Strickland did if you break a motherfucker You shouldn’t have to fight him again. That dude needs to prove to me He deserves another fight because that’s not how that goes, man Yeah, I have no interest in seeing it. I have no interest in seeing it at this point, man. I mean, I’ll watch it, but it’s just Israel has lost two of his last three championship bouts, right? Like, and this wasn’t UFC 281. Like this wasn’t some Hail Mary fifth round comeback. This isn’t some long running story between him and Alex. And Alex was this weird anomaly who hadn’t really fought a lot in MMA. Like this is the farthest thing from that. Sean dominated, is he? This This is a pillar to post, like even Sean Strickland in his wildest dreams, and he even sort of admitted it of like how much he doubted himself. Like he couldn’t have dreamed up how thorough and just disgustingly convincing this was in terms of just being a one-sided fight. Like there is, I have no interest in seeing this again. This middleweight division is really good right now. Hamzat Shamiah, Pellacosta is about to happen. The winner of that’s probably gonna be up there. DDP is up there, like, I don’t know, man. I’m sure they’re gonna run it back because Izzy’s a popular champion. He’s one of the big, he’s one of the faces of the company. but to me like I would move on from this, right? Like how many shots to the belt you give a guy who’s again, one and two in his last three. Here’s the thing Sheen, cause I think you just said it. I won’t say cooler heads are gonna prevail, but look if Hamzat runs through Paulo Costa, Dana is gonna come into that post fight like, I know I don’t book fights, but I think we just gotta give him a title shot. And that’s because Hamzat is also a dude they can get behind in a major way. So I think if Hamsa beats Paolo, then he will certainly jump in front of Izzy and sucks to be you DDP. You might be the best middleweight in the world, but we’re probably never going to find out at this rate. Dude, if Paolo beats Hamsa, he’s getting a title shot. Like he’s going to say the same thing because it’s going to be absolutely insane. And you know what else is kind of crazy about the Shaheen? Because we are on the rankings panel. We talk about how things can happen, DDP might have suffered from this, but you know who didn’t, you know, who somehow just found himself in another win win situation. Alex Pereira, because of all of this, because if Alex Pereira goes and fights Yuri and loses at light heavyweight, he could still go back down to 185 and fight Sean Strickland because he already bolted him. So he still found a way to win tonight. They’re, they’re homies now, buddy. Pereira taught him how to win. You don’t think they would fight each other for the belt? They would fight. Actually, I actually don’t think prayer would anymore one really I just don’t know that he can make that weight anymore No, also, I’m I’m looking this up. I feel like he tweeted something about that Let me confirm that I didn’t just he said he said he wouldn’t fight him Seems like my plans to go down one more time to middleweight ran out Like that’s right after thing because he’s homies with with dude now Right, but if he goes out and loses to Yuri and they say hey Alex shot wants to fight you to try to avenge the loss. What do you think he’s going to say now? I think Sean wants to fight him to try and avenge his loss. I think Sean would definitely take that fight just to prove that he could stand and strike with him because that’s just the kind of guy Sean Strickland is. Here’s the thing. Sean Strickland is a little dumb, but he’s not a moron. I think he remembers how that fight went and I’m not confident that fight goes. I’m very confident that fight goes exactly the same in perpetuity. So they’re never going to fight. Pereira is fine. Pereira doesn’t need it. He’s about to be the free and light heavyweight champion. Shane, I think we’ve learned something else as well tonight. Something that newer fans need to kind of learn lessons from something that long time fans need to learn lessons from, because when we have these types of situations, we had it with Kamara Usman. Now we have with Israel Adesanya, there’s lessons that need to be learned. And Jed talks about this all the time when it comes to how impressive it is to continuously defend your title. So I’m going to back away and just let you do your thing right now. What is the biggest lesson that MMA fans can learn from what happened tonight when it comes to the history of the sport and the greats that have come before this generation of champions? Look, Mike, I know what you’re trying to do here and so I will oblige you because I don’t ask for much. I really don’t. I love you guys out there. I love you guys who support us and watch us on this podcast network, this video network who support MMA fighting, who have for so long. My baby boy just had his first birthday like a few weeks ago. It was great. We celebrated. He ate a bunch of cake. He was all shickered up. It was just a great time. None of you guys got me anything for it and you don’t need to. That’s fine. anything for it. What you can get me. Call it an early Christmas gift. Why would I get you something for your son’s birthday? Hold on, Jed. Let me get there. You didn’t get him anything either. And he was very offended. He talked to me about it. You can get me for a late gift for him, early Christmas gift for me, whatever you want to do. Can this night, can just whatever we just saw, whatever the hell just happened today, I still am not quite sure what just happened today. Can this This be the coffin nail forever and ever and ever on this do this stupid, stupid thing that we have seemingly done over the last five years, where every time a single champion defenses belt twice or three times or four times or maybe even five times, there is this rush to anoint him as the greatest human being who has ever laced up four ounce gloves and fought in that division. It happens every single time. I’m old enough to remember when Tyron Woodley was the welterweight goat. Remember when Kamaru Usman was the welter egg goat? That happened too. Where’s all that now? Like this is just something we tend to do in this space recently. I don’t know why it is only a symptom of the last like five years ish it seems. And now we was happening with Israel Adesanya after the Alex Pereira win where like he lost to this guy. Then he came back and got revenge and great for him. That’s awesome. And all of a sudden he was the greatest middleweight of all time. To call someone the goat in a division where Anderson freaking Silva existed and went 16 and O to start his UFC career and carved out one of the most incredible combat sports legacies we’ve ever seen. It’s just disrespectful, not only to history, but it’s disrespectful to the athletes who are currently still doing things. Cause it puts weird, like undue tribute upon their laps that inevitably gets taken away very quickly when they do lose a fight like this, when they don’t show up in the way that they need to. And we get a result like this. We seemingly do it every single time. All I ask is that maybe this is the moment where we can all look at each other and be like, hey, maybe this is a dumb thing that we keep doing and we should stop doing. We don’t know how these stories are going to end when we’re in the middle of them. And this is a great example of this. And Jed, I mean, we’ve talked about this a lot on different dams of like, there were moments in time during a lot of people’s careers where if they have just walked away at that moment in time, we would consider them far differently than how we do now. Jose Aldo, Fado, or whatever. They don’t need, yeah. Again, Izzy’s great, man. Izzy is probably the second best middleweight. He’s at least the second most decorated middleweight to ever do it. That’s awesome. He’s like 13 and three in the UFC. That’s tremendous. He’s more accomplished than like 99.9% of fighters who will ever lace up gloves to do this. That’s cool. That’s great. That’s awesome. We don’t need to try to make it more than it is. That’s all. That’s all that I ask. Just again, early Christmas gift, late first birthday gift for my baby boy. Can we just take some time? Put some stuff in context and wait for things to play out before we rush to judgment Well said very well said Real quick before we kind of transition to the rest of this car because other things that happen on this card I mean we get to we can just go to the apes do Where does Izzy go from here Jed? Like where does he go from here? like I feel like the MCs gonna try to push this rematch but like like where does he go from here? Like can he come back from this? Like he came back from the Pereira loss, right? But can he come back from this two losses in 10 months? Like dude’s had a, he’s got a lot of mileage on him. He’s had a lot of fights and he’s still very good. Like he could, if they ran it back, like Izzy could beat Sean Strickland. Like it’s, there’s, it’s definitely there. I mean, we all are so confident about it the first time. So where does he go from here? If you were advising Israel Adesanya, what would you tell him? 205. That’s what I would tell him. He’s gonna come back and fight for a title and maybe he wins it. I think the single biggest thing I missed coming into this fight, and again, a lot of speculation I’m about to make here, but feel okay about it, at least on that watch, and maybe I’ll be proven wrong. I think I really just did not pay any amount of respect to the mileage on Izzy, he’s not that old like 34 or whatever but he’s got 15 years of fight years on him and I’ve talked with AK Lee about this uh the last like this last couple of months for a reason if you start to get to 12 years like that’s when you start to see mileage accrue on on fighters if they’ve fought 12 years and Izzy’s got 15 combined with kickboxing and hard years like he’s got a lot of fights under his belt across multiple disciplines and all that training. And it just adds up. And Casey and I were talking about this on the, on the post-pressor again, too early to say definitively, but the big telltale sign for me, whenever you see it, like, Oh, I can tell a fighter is starting to get old. It’s happened with all the great says they can’t pull the trigger. You know, they still have the skills and the ability and the power, but they can’t pull the trigger as much. And I mean that I would quantify the single biggest issue that Izzy had tonight was pulling the trigger on offense and granted a lot of that is Sean Strickland taking those opportunities away but when Father Time is beating you it’s because things are going down just a little bit and your split second reactions are a little bit lesser and so you see the opening and you can’t find the jab to steal a quote directly from Izzy in that fight so I would say that there is an extremely high likelihood uh, that Israel Disneya is now over the hill, um, and that for the remainder of his career will not be the best. He could still win this fight. They rematched it in the post fight, uh, uh, Eugene Barman was like, I’d fight him next week and we think we could win it. Um, maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s not, but he can’t ever, he’s never going to put together like a sustained run. And the biggest thing about this fight, the biggest takeaway, I think in a week or two weeks or a year when we look back on this fight to speaking a bit to Shaheen’s point about sort of this premature you know inauguration I guess of these fighters as the goats or whatever is uh Izzy can’t overcome this this is a forever black spot on his resume you can uh tell yourself a story about Alex Pereira well guy already had two wins over him in kickboxing he’s just sort of of his nemesis but is he won the rematch and so we’re there losing to Sean Strickland a guy who you were a massive favorite over and um genuinely nobody thought could possibly beat you and losing in that manner and getting broken by him that that one doesn’t come off the resume forever and so at the end of it it will historically stick with him and so for me he can’t ever be the the greatest middle weight of all time. Can’t do it. That’s gone. There’s no window of opportunity for that. Go up to light heavyweight. See if you can etch your name in history in a different way. If you can win another belt. You do have a knockout win over a dude who’s about to fight for a title. Maybe you can make that happen and add a second chapter to where your career is at. If I were to tell him that, I’d be like, dude, you fought everybody of middle weight, just going up. Wait a second. I’m surprised to hear you say 205, because I mean this is just historically someone who doesn’t, is not even like coming in heavy for middle weight, right? Like he’s always coming in like 184, we saw when he waited until five, he was like 203 maybe, something like that. Like he’s a tall guy. I don’t think he’s like 170. Sure, but he’s a tall guy, but he’s also just so lanky and skinny with his frame, right? doesn’t have the frame that Alex Pereira has where we saw Alex go up and it made sense immediately when you saw it of like, oh yeah, this dude clearly is like a 205 pounder who miraculously could make 185. Izzy doesn’t have that vibe to me. And even when he fought up there, he just didn’t seem to be nearly as comfortable up there with the size that those guys had. Like you see, you put Izzy up against like a supersize Europe or husk. I don’t think that goes well for Izzy. Yeah. But that’s the thing is he always said when he was like, you know, after the, after the on fires, like, well, you know, I’m going to do a couple more things here and then I’m going to take the time, build up, put on weight and go up. Do that. Like actually go up instead of just take a vacation up there and not cut weight. Like go, go up, make the move forever and see what happens. I don’t think he wins the belt, but like, I just, if he goes back and reclaims the middleweight title, why, for what? Like what’s, what do you mean? I mean, There’s well to get vengeance to be become a champion again to get the big paydays again like there’s a lot more nuance in this than just like us sort of wanting to see something new play that string out for him as a fighter he gets vengeance i’m with you on that cool um then he’s gonna fight ddp and if he loses that then is he gonna do a rematch again like you do another rematch there um because straight up he the israel disney who’s fighting tonight gets whopped by DDP. Like gets whopped by him. So like what, like what you’re just playing in a sandbox that you’ve done most of the things in. He’s 90% at the level. I guess he can stick around and try and, you know, 400% it, but there’s a whole new level he can go to. He doesn’t need to get all the coins. He can go try this new one while he still has time to do it. And while there’s still some energy, cause he gets whopped up by DDP at middle weight, then there ain’t nothing for him to go to like every way to over I disagree I think you’re playing this out too far in the future because ultimately if you’re Izzy and you’re like the way the question was framed right was if you’re his manager or his coach what would you advise him to do you advise him to take the clearest path back to the belt back to the giant paydays which would be fighting Sean Strickland again right like I don’t want to see it but if you does anyone think that if they fought 10 times that Izzy’s losing all 10 like obviously that is the cleanest path back to the belt for him. We’re having a good time here. But like, here’s the thing, if you just got knocked out, I would say he wins. He got fricking just gunned up for 25. I get it. And this goes back to why we all, you in particular, you and I always say the hardest thing to do in this sport is not to become a two division champion. It’s to defend this belt over and over and over again, because sometimes you’re going to have bad nights. And if you’re able to win on the bad nights, that’s the mark of a true all time great. I don’t know. It seemed like Izzy probably had a bad night. It also seemed like Sean Strickland had the night of his life and came in with a killer game plan and had a style that genuinely frustrated and confused Izzy. All of those things can be true. That doesn’t mean if they fight again that all those things will be true all over again, right? Like if you’re Izzy and I’m advising you, or I’m sorry, if I’m advising Izzy, like I’d much rather have him go fight Sean Strickland for the belt than go fight a giant like Yuri Prohaska for the belt. I just think one is more likely chance for success than the other. But again, I don’t know. I mean, I do think there is something to be said that is he’s probably in the tail end of all of this, right? He’s probably in the tail end of the prime earning years window wise for all of this. So to maximize that if you’re able to beat Sean, and get the belt back, I’m sure the UFC will do the Pereira thing and just move on and be like, I won one week guy we wanted one, let’s move on and then you can, you know, lose the DDP or homes out of whoever and then we figure it out from there. But to me, I don’t know, but I just don’t see 205 being like a really good place for him in the way that it is seemingly for Pereira. Yeah, I don’t, again, I don’t think that he’d win the title, but one, if I was actually advising him, I’d tell him retire, just, you made money. Yeah, but that’s dumb too. So you’re long-term health, like no one’s gonna do that. That’s really dumb, because he’s the second highest earner in the UFC right now behind Conor McGregor who doesn’t fight. I don’t think that’s dumb at all. You can’t put a price on your long-term physical health. Yeah, but it is the prize fighting game and he’s certainly made money, but he could make a lot more money and you work your entire career to get to this point where you are making this much money that he is making. That’s not realistic to ask him to retire. Oh, I think it’s not realistic. I’m just saying if I was actually advising him, that would 100% be a good advice. I do feel like a break is needed though. The dude has fought every three months for a long ass time. DC like lay out a graphic of like all the events he’s headlined over the last like four years and it’s a long list you actually have to click on the image to see all of them and here’s it like what’s crazy about it is like sometimes in this sport and it’s like this in pro wrestling too and we look even we saw this with Colby right Colby fights Maz et al everything happens in Miami and and then Colby just disappears for a year. And then he comes back and it’s like, oh, Colby’s back, woohoo. And maybe that didn’t last long for everybody. But still, we can’t miss you if you don’t leave. So if Izzy just like takes nine months off and just kind of does his own thing and like gets his mind right and then returns for like international fight week in July or August or like next September or something, and then like fights whoever the champion is or fight Shawn Strickland in some fight whether Sean’s the champion or not. Maybe that’s what he needs. I think just getting up, the thing that concerned me the most from what Eugene said was, and I get where he’s coming from, you’re the coach, you wanna put your guy over, but him saying, oh, we’ll fight him next weekend. We’re ready. No, I know, that’s the wrong thing to say. We’re gonna go home, we’re gonna chill out, we’re gonna get our mind right, we’re gonna rewatch the fight, we’re gonna figure everything out, we’re gonna take a break from MMA for a little while, And then we’re gonna come back in 2024, and then we’re gonna be a snowball that just goes downhill. You thought Izzy was great three years ago, you thought Izzy was great at UFC 287, wait till you see this guy when he has nine months of rest, when he just disappears from the sport for a little while. And then he comes back and like, some of the bad jujus worn off and like, people just genuinely kind of miss him, you know what I mean? Like we just, we haven’t really gotten that chance with Izzy like we’ve had with a lot of other fighters in the sport. So that’d be my suggestion. And then like, if he wants to do 205 on that break, if he wants to go back and do 185 on that break, cool. But in the meantime, there’s fun things to happen to this division. DDP can get his title shot. Hamzat or Costa can get their title shot. Sean Strickland winning is chaotic because it opens the door for so many different things. And it’s insane. All of this- Robert Whitaker is suddenly back in the picture. Robert Whitaker is now back in the title picture because of- I will say, from an observer’s standpoint, from our standpoint, is what is the most interesting to me, Shaheen Alshadi, that what you laid out is the most interesting scenario of everything, which is just Izzy taking nine months off, taking a year off and letting this figure itself out, right? Because I think there’s a world that doesn’t feel too far-fetched where Sean Strickland moves forward. He fights DDP, DDP seems very good, hitting his peak right now, DDP wins. And then maybe Izzy comes back and we have Izzy DDP for the title in a way that we never actually thought it would come together, right? And the dynamic has completely shifted Izzy is the hunter chasing the hunted in Africa. And you could do a whole different setup with similar sort of storyline, vibes, narrative, all of it, but it is different entirely. So like that, that to me feels so much more interesting than just trying to wash away this stink just like we did with Nunes and Peña, right? Where it’s just like, ah, did that really happen? Didn’t really happen, did it? And we’re just going to move on. Like I always hate the, hey, you got to beat this champion twice to be able to move on with your career type of thing. The same thing we’re doing with Alexa Grasso right now. Alexa Grasso beat Valentina very decisively. She submitted her. She made Valentina choose to exit that fight. She shouldn’t have to do it twice just because we think of Valentina in some way. That division shouldn’t move on and then if that fight comes up again, we’ll have some time to let it marinate rather than if Valentina just wins next week, because then like what, does any of it matter? Did it matter that Alexa won? Like that whole thing is so dumb to me. Oh, so that, I agree with you, Mike. I think that’s the, at least in my opinion, as an observer, that is by far the most interesting outcome. Shaheen, I’m gonna do something I rarely do on air. I was wrong. You’re gonna admit you’re wrong? Yeah. Hand up. Yeah. I disagreed with a lot and I still think that a lot of what I said was true, but ultimately you laid out the correct and only good path, which is a world where DDP wins the belt and he defends his belt against Izzy in Africa, like next fall. Like how fun is that, right? Like that’s way better. That’s the new funniest outcome that could, we just had the funniest outcome. That’s the world we just never visualized. And now that’s the new funniest outcome, is we get UFC Africa, it’s DDP who makes it happen and defends against Izzy. And DDP tries to talk. So whatever gets us to that. And then DDP is like, nah, I’m not gonna fight him. He talks his way out of fighting Izzy instead of Izzy, like no selling DDP. I mean, just the world we could be living in 10 months from now, if DDP wins the belt, it’s just fascinating stuff. But golly, man, Sean Strickland’s a bit away, but go ahead, Shane. But it’s a potential outcome that we also haven’t even considered. Paulo Costa is one of the most entertaining men in the entire sport right now. If he just goes out there in colds, out Shamayev and like around and just knocks out this dude that we’ve been proclaiming as a two division champion and then Paolo Costa goes in there and beat Sean Strickland and suddenly Paolo Costa is the the UFC middleweight champion. New York Ricks personal barber Paolo Costa is out here with the belt. That’s a great like that’s super fun. There are so many opportunities now for this division to have so much fun. I’m just here for it. We can’t miss you if you don’t leave. hit the refresh button. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m sure there’s a million questions and a million talking points from the people. I have a million questions. Let’s slightly pivot and then we’ll go to the piece. I’m sure we’re going to talk about all the other lingering things. I’ll add the NHL, Jen. Michelle, I’ll start with you. Clearly, Sean Strickland is the top guy here. If we do the three-star scale, like the end of the of a hockey game bring out the top three stars Sean Strickland’s number one who’s two and three from this card for you I guess you got to go Volkov just because being the second man to ever pull off an Ezekiel that’s right I said second don’t bring me your rimco part don’t no rimco isn’t a gi it’s not it takes away the the fun of calling it an Ezekiel choke if If there’s a gi there, it’s easy. Like I can choke anyone with the gi. It’s not hard. He’s doing it just with, with the feeling and the strength of his arms. Like that’s so second man ever behind Alexa leading to score in Ezekiel. Uh, so I’ll give them that one. And then, I mean, I feel like the answer probably has to be Justin Taffa, even though no one cares, no one cares. No, because I don’t give a shit about the rest of the things that happened on this card, but Justin Taffa landed some of the meanest freaking coffin nails of all time. So I’m not doing the one you want. I refuse because I don’t care about any of the rest of these people. So give me Justin Taffa because those coffin nails were nasty. Shane, who’s two and three? I mean, I agree with two. It’s obviously Volkov, right? Like that’s the most meaningful result on on this card outside of the main event. But give me Tyson Pedro, that knockout and then that celebration was cold, man. That was super, like, that was sick. I rewatched that thing like four or five times. The knockout was just nice in and of itself, but then the celebration was just, mwah, like that was perfection. I don’t know if he practiced that or whatever, but I dug that a lot, give me that. You would do that to AK? you would disrespect AK by picking the man who beat his boy. Look, I know that this is a great moment of sadness for all of us and that we so badly wanted the Pleasure Man to be a good fighter so that every three or four months, we could just unload all of the Pleasure Man innuendos and double entendres that we have stacked up here, just on Twitter and Instagram and have a great time and it would be the whole thing. But yeah, I’m sorry, that’s just not the world we live in. that man got deaded in a real crazy way. I think you probably think the combination of names you both threw out there are probably the correct answer, but shout out to Carl Solberg too, like a complete performance. Gets a rare, oh, we think we’re getting a unanimous decision, but then we get a replay submission win with like less than 10 seconds left in the fight. Shouts to Herb and Mark. That’s, those are the, you’re the ones. That was great. That was great. Honestly, it was incredibly well done. It’s perfect. Dude. We are so quick. We have no bad refereeing. I’m so glad you mentioned that, Mike, because we are so quick, all of us, everyone, everyone watching this, all three of us, Casey as well. We’re so quick to jump on these people, these officials when they mess up, because it’s just fun for us, right? How could this incompetent person mess up so well? We don’t do this enough when actually good officiating happens to give credit and kudos to it. So that’s a great call. Audit and her team because that was perfect. Like the way they handled that was excellent. That was a great example to now moving forward that you can show people like how replay that replay review can be used in a moment like in a flash in a very correct way. Also honorable mention she probably deserves to be on this list too. Laura Sanko tremendous job tonight. Tremendous job. Even certain points like schooling DC on scoring which I thought was great. I thought the trio was really good tonight. And DC and Sanko did a great job, did a great job. So good job. DC was the best he’s been in a long time. Completely great. He didn’t have a… He wasn’t getting sidetracked. Yeah, to do not fighting stuff. Just get down, get down a rabbit hole of bad. So yeah, good work all around. Yep. Casey, come on in. Because boy, oh boy. Casey, before we get to the questions, I got at least one that I need to fire out here. I’ve been sitting on this for a hot minute, boys. Yes or no, if world gets crazy, Sean Strickland defends his UFC middleweight title against Islam Makachev. Who are you taking to win that fight? What? I know where you’re going with this because we had this debate with Habib and Izzy. Do you think Isla Mogatjian could win the middleweight title from Sean Strickland? Because I would confidently say Leon Edwards can. I would pick Sean Strickland in that fight because size matters at elite levels. I think he’s a little too much size, I think he’s a little too much size, it’ll be competitive. How about that? Prime Habib? I would probably pick him to beat Sean Strickland. Yeah, I mean, I want to pick the beam to be a lot of though and I said it at the time so Yeah, okay, I just wanted to I wanted to gauge if I was getting too excited about the people who can beat Sean Strickland because Here’s why middle weights a great way Casey you were you were you were slacking us about how it’s like the worst class like historically and whatever Maybe it’s the best weight class because there have been several different champions where the list of people who could beat them is extensive I remember I used to have a lot of power on the way belt with no MMA experience this one the belt with one eye and old I remember Dan Henderson almost won the belt from bisming with even more old exactly I remember bisming was champion I was like I think I can put together a list of 25 fighters the middleweight to welterweight who I would pick pretty comfortably to be Michael Miss Megan, I’m gonna have a lot of fun doing something similar to Sean Strickland in the coming months. Oh my god. What a weight class. Wow. What a world. I got a question. Okay, go ahead. Right here. Right here. Since we’re talking about who’s going to be Sean Strickland really quick. Oh, oh, no, no, I like this. Go forward and then I’ll go mine. If Bo nickel were to fight Sean Strickland next, what would the odds be Jed? Minus three 50. I think coming off this win, uh, people, yeah, for bow. Yeah. I think coming off this, there’s going to be a lot more trepidation about, um, setting Sean as this big and underdog, even in fights like Pereira might be a massive favorite, but I don’t think anyone’s going to be a huge one against him moving forward. My question might guess as the creator and purveyor and really overlord of the middle weightiest middleweight gambit title, whatever you want to call it. Does this result tonight change what it means to be a middleweight middleweight? Sheesh. This is a platonic ideal. Right? Like I feel like this is this is fully full circling moment type of thing for whatever this is. But Sean did knock Izzy down and like beat him up. That’s typically not middle weighty middle weights. Typically, it’s like we go up against the fence and we just kind of knee each other in the body for 15 minutes. That’s middle weighty middle weight. Brendan Allen has graduated from that. Kristoff Jotko is the goat middle weighty middle weight. I don’t know. We have to really go deep into Sean has six decisions in his last eight wins, though. Sean, look, Sean was repping middle weightiness for a long time. I feel like Marvin Vittori just might be the middle weightiest middleweight for the whole time. Marvin Vittori has been the middle weightiest middleweight forever. Yeah. I think he might just be the end boss. But now Sean might be the end boss. I don’t know, it’s a great conversation right now. Sean, he might have won a second title tonight. You might be a two division champ or a double division champ. Incredible. A far more imagine John Strickland versus Yuri Prahashka. No, no, I cannot. I cannot imagine. I don’t know if it’s a champ. Maybe let’s go. Oh, my gosh. Oh, sorry. My head. I love look. I love it. I love nights like this so much. I love it so much. This is the dumbest, greatest sport in the world. We all, we all spend so many hours a year talking and writing and thinking and watching this stupid, stupid sport and it amounts to nothing because all of us know nothing. It’s tremendous. No, it amounts to everything though, Shaheen, because this is the night when it all comes together and makes sense. Like the other end of it, you could have like a really great night, like 290 or whatever. I’m like, yeah, this is why I follow the sport. This is the other half of it when I’m like deep in the weeds of actually this car was a perfect example. We got two homophobic slurs for literally no reason. Just out and into the ether and it’s like, oh, this is what I’ve chosen to do with my life. So unnecessary. It was so close. The cop almost nailed that promo. I was like, oh man, cop did it. Just at the end, just as a little turd bomb at the end to be like, what have I ruined all of this? Like right here on this wall, there’s a law degree. And I sometimes look at it and I’m like, I could be doing that with my life instead of covering people dropping the F-bomb, whatever. But then this happens and I’m like, I wouldn’t trade this for the fucking world. This is, I can’t get this anywhere else. I fucking love this sport, man. There’s no equipment to it. We could end the year, ladies and gentlemen. We could end the year. It is a possibility where Sean O’Malley, Sean Strickland and Colby Covington are undisputed UFC champions. That could very well happen before the end of 2023. It’s just, there’s no parallel, man. There’s no, they don’t play the entire NBA season. And then, you know, we’re going into nuggets heat and then randomly they’re like, yeah, you know what? Actually Denver’s not gonna be in this one. Minnesota, come on, Minnesota, you’re in the finals now. I don’t know why, but Minnesota, come on. And then all of a sudden, Carl Anthony Towns is holding the trophy loft as the champion. Like, there’s just there’s no parallel. I love it so much. We play one game for all the marbles. Yolo. It’s it’s the best. Oh, God. I’m so excited to keep thinking about this fight. Dude, I almost want to have an a second post fight show like four days from now where for no reason where we’re close between. It’s called between the links. You can you can come on this week. Yeah, I think I think we might have to have just do that and do a whole show about like the digestible version of all this because I Would assume that a lot of the parties involved are gonna be on the MMA are so we’ll get to react to like their reactions to all of this and Yeah, it’s gonna be fun It’s gonna be fun. I Can’t do we have questions despite? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I love that. We’re just sitting here trying to bask in it It’s so good. Yeah, I’m just, I’m just, dude, this is some of the most, this is maybe the most fun I’ve had all year. And this was like objectively the worst pay-per-view on paper all year. Yeah. Like it’s making a smile like this. Like, you know, I feel like I’m going to have like the most, it’s going to be the most peaceful sleep I’ve had post pay-per-view maybe all year. And it’s just like a weird feeling. I didn’t think I would feel this way, but it’s just going to be like, okay, this is just the world we live in. And it’s the funniest year if if if that fight gets stopped in the first round just say One more shot like a legitimate stoppage. Not nearly as fun. Not near the conversations. Oh, no, it’s still really fun It’s not as fun, but it’s funny. That’s fun It’s like but then we’re having though is he got caught he got lazy But we’re not saying that now because he lost for 25 minutes or whatever And and to your point Jed and Casey, I don’t look broken at the end of it Dude, that’s a real thing that we watched. That’s what gets me. That one kind of shook me a bit. The way Izzy just said, nah, I lost. I’m not going to just, those last things, I’m not just going to swing my arms around and do anything crazy. He did it. He just… He was done. Didn’t want it. That is… Such a stark contrast because I have never seen a man look more confident than him walking to the cage. This is the most confident I’ve ever seen a human being look. And on the other side of that, Sean did not look confident, right? Like maybe he has projection, but I was watching his walk out like, Oh dude, like it looks like dude, did you read in my live blog, uh, for it, I, I made paraphrasing slightly. So I’m in front of like, yeah, I’ve had that look before. It was when I was walking to get my ass beat, um, and you’re, you’re resolved to do it, Yeah. You don’t know why you, this is where your life is. That’s why I was like, yeah, you know, he’s about to get his ass beat, but here it goes. And then 20, what, nine minutes later and knew. Yeah. There was a look in Sean’s eyes too. When he walked out there, I was like, this is not the Sean Strickland that walked out to fight Nasser Dean or a boost or even Pereira. This is a focus like feeling the weight of the world on his shoulder. or Sean Strickland turning pressure into diamonds. There’s just a different look. Made the vibes even stronger. I have a really important question for you, Jed. Something that just occurred to me. And it might be the most important question I ask all year, frankly. Hell yeah. So lately we’ve been hearing a lot of talk about the critically acclaimed Michelin star system. I feel like it’s been received very well. I think everyone’s really enjoying it. It’s really well put together. I’m looking forward to seeing how this evolves moving forward, you gave this card, deservedly so, zero Mushulin stars ahead of this fight. And you said if you weren’t in Sydney, you would not even go to this fight. That is essentially what the zero stars means. Is it possible to amend that retroactively or is that not how this works? No, no, yeah, you have to. I mean, look, the Mushulin star system, obviously based on the Michelin Guide star system, you know, they go to a restaurant, they go to a restaurant a couple of times then they give it a grade and stars get added and get taken away, is that improved? With the benefit of hindsight, I wouldn’t say three stars, I wouldn’t catch a flight to be there for this funny, funny outcome, but certainly at least one star with the benefit of hindsight of being like, because look, the rest of this, I simply couldn’t care less about. And I think it speaks to the fact that we’ve barely talked about it, is not just the fact that the main event was monumental, it’s that none of the rest of this matters. Maybe Alexander Fulkoff beating Taito Iwasa matters, like to some extent, and Manel Kopp beat a dude he’s supposed to beat, and hey, Felipe De Santos looks like a legit prospect, cool. The rest of this is whatever. And so that was the thought going in. It’s still a thought going out. I would have had to spend the whole evening watching a lot of stuff that is meaningless, but the main event really, really would make it at least worth one star, just to have physically been there because this is a top five funniest fight I’ve ever watched. I’m going to watch this fight so many times. Like, look, the undisputed funniest fight of all time, as far as I’m concerned, and maybe this is Macabre, don’t care. It’s Kimbo versus Dada. I have genuinely never had more fun watching a fight. It is an actual like top five fight for enjoyment that I’ve ever had. I have never had more fun watching a fight. I have had the same level of fun, never more. Funniest fight I’ve ever seen. Number two, I think also unequivocally is Rhonda Holly because if for nothing else, the Mike Goldberg takes a lot of energy being a rock star is an A plus quote in MMA history. Those are the, the A and B for funniest fights of all time. This is right up there. I just, I’m live blogging this thing. And after the second round, when it’s like, Oh, is he, he’s getting safe. This is the rest of this fight. He’s going to have a boring kick you from real far away decision. And, and, you know, that sucks, but Hey, you almost got finished. I respect it. And then suddenly in the third round, uh, after, you know, Eric Nixxik was like, dude, what the fuck are you doing? Like, you can’t just let him off the hook like this. You gotta go out there and fight this guy, get after him. And Sean’s like yelling in his corner, I know, I know! And then goes and he just starts beating his ass. I am cackling laughing, watching Izzy just be befuddled by a dude who’s not eating every jab and his kids double jabbing in his face. It’s fucking funny. This fight is so funny, man. It’s so funny. Oh, man. All right. Let’s take a few questions. This is the best night. I’m still in shock at the fight. Honestly, it’s what three hours ago and I’m still just kind of the best. I still have a whole post fight call on the right and I’m just going to be sitting there with a smile on my face riding it like three in the morning. I love my job. my jobs to like to to 90 and this in the same year. What a fucking year, man. should she could have shanko losing your rematch next week? That next week? Two weeks? That’s next week, right? Oh, my goodness. That’s next week. Oh, jeez. Okay. steep it steep a me out. It just might be John Jones at this point. Like that might just happen. Dude, God, can you imagine? I got bankrupted this year and I don’t even care because funny. Interesting question here. What is Sean Strickland’s legacy now? I mean, it’s a legitimate. He’s a legitimate world champion, man. That’s the Bisming thing. You can’t take it away from him forever. That dude is a champion. Michael Bisming won the title in a very legitimate fashion against a very legitimate champion. And we forever look at him differently. That’s Sean Strickland now. Like, regardless of whether you like him or hate him, like, that’s the reality. Dude is a champ and he beat the real champ in a very legitimate, like very decisive way. Is he a future UFC Hall of Famer? If he can string together two title defenses, I think they are, right? This probably gets him in. I don’t think this gets him in the Hall of Fame. No, this is the no, we’re not talking about like the Hall of Fame of mixed martial arts. We’re talking about the Hall of Fame of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. I don’t think the guy who says yes to every opportunity and fights a million times. I do not think the USP is in a rush to one defense. I think he’s, he may not be there yet, but he’s, he’s in the, he’s already in the conversation. If they run this back. So here, I’ll paint this out for you. If they run this back and then he beats Izzy again in a very decisive way again, and then say he loses the DDP and whatever kind of fashion he would lose the DDP. And then he, for the rest of his career, he’s just the guy who that he was before where he’s taking the short notice fights. He’s beaten who he should be and he’s losing to who he should lose, then I think he will be a Hall of Famer. But he’s got to win the rematch, he has to win the rematch. There are three appropriate answers to this question, they’re not different, they all tie into the same. The first one is Shaheen, you expertly laid this out answering a different thing. Dude, he’s 32, we don’t have a fucking clue what his legacy is right now. He has so much of his career left. So like it’s way too premature. The second one is, as you pointed out, he’s a champion. Here’s a list of just some of the middleweights who never got to be UFC champion. You’re a man. Chakrae Souza, Gagard Musasi, Chael Sonnen, Damian Maia. John Strickland is now quote unquote, better or more accomplished than those men. I would pick to beat John Strickland on their best day. I would still pick all those gentlemen. You just you just said Yeah, it’s it’s insane. I mean like I mean an opportunity, baby And I the other thing uh is loosely tied to this I guess but um, shawn strickland and this was brought up by somebody the post fight presser Now that he’s a champion that man is never fighting at the apex again. Shawn strickland is strictly a pay-per-view and and road show fight night main event guy for here on after, which really, we got to think about the UFC because they’re losing out on the dude. You think he’s fighting at the Apex again? I would bet so much money that he fights again at the Apex and headlines an Apex event before his career is over, absolutely. Oh, I don’t know. I mean, maybe just cause he always fights at the Apex. Yeah, he’s just going to accept some short notice stuff that just like he does. I don’t know that this will change him in that respect. I’m not a champion, I’m talking about like a post-ring. I’m talking about like a post-championship. I think he’d even do it now with Sean Strickland if they’re like, hey man, somebody fell off of MSG, can you turn around and defend your belt against random body? Like, you’d probably do it, it’s Sean. I cannot wait, and I mean, in a bad way, I don’t even know actually when I say this, when Sean Strickland goes on the press tour and just does what the morning shows. Is that gonna happen or is UFC just gonna hide him, do you think? They should get him out there. I don’t know that it’ll happen. I mean, he’s gonna have to be buttoned down. Sean’s gonna be a guest judge on American Idol, like all sorts of different fun things we could do with him. He’ll be on Celebrity Family Feud, all these different things we could throw him on. I mean, the sky’s the limit. I think there are certain places you can put him that will make sense. I think they’ll pick and choose the spots They send him like they’re not sending him to the today show or something. Yeah It’s not very hard to find to find his old Tweets and old images, you know, and they’re gonna go Yeah, I just I’m really I’m really I’m really curious serious. Oh dude, as long as he’s not doing a 30 minute interview, he’s going to be fine. If you give him five minutes, he’s, I always thought that line was like that part of this was overblown. Like he’s, if you give him time to get down into the well of dumb things, but even just five minutes, he’ll just say that he’ll, he’ll go to the old standbys of I’m just a white dress piece of shit. And like, look at me now. And you know, that’s stuff. Get on Jimmy Kimmel champion UFC. Yeah, you’re again, I work as if it’s a level of esteem. This is true. This is true. This is true. I do apologize for that. Don’t act like you wouldn’t watch him on the view. Give him like 10 minutes. Oh my god. I want to be explaining how women shouldn’t vote to them. Oh, well, that’s going to be wherever that interview goes. That’s going to be fun. Shaheen, I want to use the dollars to watch that. I would love to use that. I hope we’re going to do it. Yeah, we will do a live react to that. We’ll do a watch party for Sean Strickland’s media rounds. I would love it. Shaheen, I’m sure you didn’t see this Cause we’re doing this Kaposa tweeted at you and at MMA fighting, I believe with a question, but since we haven’t really answered questions per Kaposa, the wonderful Krabaka underscore hitman on Twitter, follow him. And if, honestly, if you’re watching this, if you’re watching the show and don’t already follow him, I, I’m assuming I don’t, I don’t understand how that happened. Uh, Shaheen directly for you answer me. How does Sean Strickland do against Robert Whitaker? Sir, Robert Knuckles versus Seanathan Strickland. I mean, I’d probably pick Robert Whitaker, right? I don’t know. Probably like be pretty confident picking Rob, but maybe Rob’s wash. Maybe Sean’s better than I think. I don’t, I, I’m picking Rob, but I don’t think great about it. I don’t think any of us have given this credence for obvious reasons. What if Sean Strickland is actually the best middleweight in the world? Like what if he, what if he runs off? What if he actually just like runs off like three or four title defenses a year? He’s the guy. He’s the new Anderson Silver. Like we he ends up being better than Anderson by the end of it. I mean, look, he’s lost twice. He’s lost twice in the weight class, right? Dude, he lost twice in the past, like, 18 months. One of them, I think there’s a very clear argument that you could make if you wanted to, that he beat Jared Cannon here. It was a close fight, whatever, you know. The other one was Alex Pereira, who will. Can’t really argue with most people. I think it’s in the planet. Yeah, I don’t know. Sean Strickland, new middleweight goat. I go against what I said. Dude, shouts to Sean Strickland. You just said, so I started a middleweight goat after that hole. That’s I love it. We do, Casey, that’s what we do in America. We’re back here. We’re basically make calls and make the call. Sean Strickland is now responsible for like two of the funniest 10 things that have ever happened inside a cage. This fight and getting booped by Pereira. I still watch that clip just when I’m sad sometimes. And like, that’s what’d be funny. Look at this man walk into a right like a frigging left hook. That’s the best. I will say just because like, I know we’re laughing a bunch and we’re making we’re having a good time tonight. It takes like incredible humility for a human being to get colded in such a crazy, like memorable way that Sean Strickland got called in by Alex Pereira, like the way that we will see that replay forever for the rest of our lives. And then go to Alex Pereira and be like, hey bro, like that was pretty bad. Do you want to train together? Cause I’d really love to train with you. Like that takes an incredible level of humility to do that. Yeah, for sure. We just watched arguably the, like the best kickboxer that’s ever set foot in MMA, get beat up by a dude who exclusively threw a jab in the right hand. He didn’t throw like a bunch of hooks. There’s no uppercuts. There was a bunch of front kicks as like distance setters. Yeah. But not one level change, I don’t think. Just Oh my God. I see the comment. You’re excited about you guys. Guys. Let’s go. Let’s go. So this is coming from Kaz Marius over here in the comment section. I think we have a new front runner for funniest possible outcome that can come out of this. All right. Let’s let’s see it. Casey, could you pull this up or should I? Hold on. This one. There it is. There it is. The actual funniest next fight is if they let Anderson Silva come back and and Anderson Silva somehow gets his belt back in a proper retirement fight. Who are you picking? Sean Strickland or Anderson Silva? I’m picking Sean Strickland. Yeah, I mean, I’m picking Sean too, but you know, weirder things have happened, Mike Heck. I mean, look, nothing’s out of the realm of possibility. Nothing’s impossible anymore. And I think that’s like one of the big takeaways is that, you know, when you’re feeling down and you feel like maybe there’s other people better than you out there, Just look to Sean Strickland. Just tap into Sean Strickland. Just figure it out. Because Sean can do it, you can do it too. And what I’ve learned as someone who tries to predict MMA is when it comes to pay-per-views and actually wagering on things, I’m taking the George Costanza approach and just doing the opposite of everything I thought was right. That’s it. Mike, for a while I tried to get a Costanza gimmick bet going and it did not work out well. So you have to pick your spots. You have to pick your spots. Picking those spots is tough. I’m just saying, be forewarned. I tried the Costanza gimmick. Didn’t get very far. I’m taking a future shot on steep a like tomorrow at this place. Because I am. I’m going to a thousand percent bet Francis to be. It won’t happen. But like, but like, what if? At this point, I think Eric Nixik is possible of anything. Like, I’m not putting anything past that, man. He’s going to beat Tyson Fury with just, like, a jab. Can you imagine? He doesn’t even knock them out. He just kind of, like, game. He just weirdly outboxes him for, like, 10 or 12 rounds or however long this is. Nothing is impossible anymore. It’s true. Nothing is impossible anymore. In a world where Sean Strickland, can you imagine? I mean, it’s ridiculous to say, because if you asked me this a month ago, I would have laughed at you. Can you imagine telling, like going to yourself right after the poet on loss and being like, that dude’s going to be champ. Oh, the guy who just knocked out Sean Strickland. Actually, yes, him too. But no, the guy he knocked out, that’s going to be your undisputed middleweight champ within not only not 14 months, 14 months later, that happened less like barely less than a year ago. Going into 2023, Sean Strickland had lost two in a row and one of them was the Pereira loss. Like that was what he was entering the year off of a two fight losing streak. Dude. If you see a mountain you’ve always wanted to climb, go climb it tomorrow. Like just do it. Go run a marathon. Mountain climbing is actually dangerous and I don’t want your death on my conscience. I mean like trail mountain climbing. Not like cliffs. Not cliffs but just like, I don’t want to walk up this hill for seven hours. Just go walk it. Hell, run it. You can do it. You can do it. You can do anything you put your mind to. Kevin Garnett. Anything is possible. Oh, this is a good question. Yeah, we’ll end with this. Which Sean’s reign is shorter, Sean O’Malley’s or Sean Strickland’s Shaheen? I mean, if okay, so in this world, I’m just assuming because this is sort of what we’ve been fed that Sean O’Malley’s next opponent is Marlon Vera and Sean Strickland’s next opponent is Israel Adesanya. In that world, I think Sean Strickland has a better chance to beat Izzy again than Sean O’Malley does to beat Marlon Vera again, because I think Marlon Vera is a really tough matchup for O’Malley, and we’ve already seen that. But I don’t know, man. This is a tough question. I’ll go with Strickland, but I don’t feel great about it. I’m saying O’Malley. First, If Joe Selva was still in charge a thousand percent these two Sean’s would be fighting on the next card together They would do the double Sean pay-per-view event. Yep They still may but that’s Joe Selva was in charge a hundred percent. That’s happening. I will say O’Malley Because I think Strickland Based on that fight so it’s got a really good chance of beating Izzy again Because he just beat that ass for 20 of the 25 minutes they fought So I think you got to give him the credit of that win. I think O’Malley It is going to get it Be fairly badly by Cheeto Vera. I don’t think Cheeto Vera is the best bandway in the world I think he is a uniquely poor matchup for for Sean O’Malley and that’s Awkward for him I’m gonna say Strickland solely because he’s gonna fight like six times before O’Malley fights twice So there’s just more, I’m playing the law of averages, the more Sean fights, he’s going to fight way more than Sean O’Malley is. Like if Sean beats Cheeto, we probably won’t see him for like another year. Okay. That’s fair. Because I do think there’s a very real possibility we see Sean in either December or January range. Yeah. Dude, you can’t find him. Sean Strickland. Oh, O’Malley. Okay. Yeah. Sean Strickland. You got fighter of the year locked up, dude. Don’t fight him. No, no, no. Yeah, Strickland is going to headline back to back pay reviews at some point, because he’s just like, all right, I’ll fight. Sure, I’ll do it. That’s just the kind of guy he is. And Sean O’Malley is just like, nah, I need to find somebody who’s going to make me a trillion dollars. Because they’re just in two different worlds, two different businesses. If Sean Strickland does not fight again, in 2023, is there any other fighter on the schedule with fights scheduled who could steal fighter of the year from him with any result? John Jones Grosso Grosso wins now I would give it to Strickland Strickland still getting my vote what about Sean O’Malley twice beating the goat beating the goat twice I don’t I don’t ever do it beat more than what the same person I hated the year we gave it to max DJ yeah because he beat Aldo twice like no it’s the same dude it’s not the same fight technically but there’s too much overlap i think john jones is the only person i think even john jones goes out there and destroys a very old stepe i’m still getting evidence so it’s strictly oh no it’s strictly no matter what it’s it’s i agree i will but everyone immediately got onto the john jones train as soon as he came back and beat serial gone who may or may not be good so he beat stepe and now he’s you know cementing himself as the greatest fighter of all time people there’s a really good narrative there for John I think O’Malley’s got the best maybe especially hearing you guys say like you don’t you don’t think he’s gonna be Cheeto if he beats Aljo and Cheeto in a four-month span wins the belt and defends it I think I think he’s on the list yeah I think that that’s your three your three-man list and if Grasso wins bride defaults you probably will be in well to beaten Charles twice would be so here’s the thing uh Islam will actually be the one who deserves it if he beats Volkanovsky and then Charles this year. Like that’s, he will actually deserve it. That’s true. I forgot about the whole, those two wins are much better than any wins the other people have. But I don’t just the way this thing works. It’s, it’s a lot of narrative and I don’t think it’ll be, I would probably actually would vote for Islam just for that. But because again, Sean’s three and O and one of the greatest upsets of all time. Oh, that’s true. One of those wins is is ABUS and the other is Nasser Deen Imavav. It’s like at two or five. Yeah. It’s like, I mean, yeah, sure. But you can sell me that zero gone and steeping are more meaningful wins, you know, and certainly Volkanovsky and all the fair. But at this point, if I’m Islam, dude, be on notice cause wonky shit’s happening in 2023, man. Yep. Golly, I got a lot of concerns about my belief that Islam should just beat the brakes off of Charles over there, given everything that’s happened the last like four months. Oh, my gosh. Wow, gentlemen. Yeah, I mean, I’m never going to be good again, Casey. realistically, we could do this for another two hours and we would just sit here. Yeah, it’s the same exact stuff. Listen five in about five hours and 20 minutes from right now We’re gonna be but me and AK are gonna be on this year Network matchmaking after this crazy card So 9 a.m. Eastern on to the next one As we leave I want to put this out there. Just think about this in the future Sean Strickland and his infinite cardio versus nose job DDP What will that fight look like in the third round? golly I hope we get to see it I hope you get to see it too I hope we get to see it too what a world I think we’ve talked a lot of things out I think we’ve no we haven’t made sense of a lot I’m confused yeah I think we need a few days to decipher all this and then we’ll have an educated response to it, and maybe we never will. But just remember this day, people. This is not a dream. This is real. John Strickland is the middle way champion of the world. And with that, for Jed, for Casey, for Shaheen, I am Mike Heck. Good night, everybody. Get some sleep. I love you all so much. You’re in charge of the people at home and the people on this broadcast with me. Believe in yourself. you

Oh, buddy. Oh, buddy. What a show. What a show I have today. How about it, ladies and gentlemen? Welcome. It is 1237 in the morning here on the 10th of September 2023. This is official morning combat UFC 293 post fight show instant reaction whatever you’d like to call it so UFC 293 is in the books surprisingly pretty good card in terms of fun fights at least the main card prelim card a little less so but the main card certainly delivered in terms of good action and the main event just ended and there’s a lot to get to there a lot to get to okay so if you’re watching first of all thank you so much i really appreciate it number two give the video a thumbs up if you’d be so kind. That’d be awesome. And then on top of it, what else can we say here? Hit that subscribe button, right? It’s free. Doesn’t cost you a thing. Would help us out a lot here. All right. So all the results, all the analysis, all the spoilers, I have a tweet up right now where you can leave questions. We’ll get to it. Well, obviously we’ll start with the main event and then work everything there backwards, but we got a lot to get to. So without further ado let’s get this party started shall we let’s go let’s see here oh for crying out loud here we go all right so let’s get to it Um, where do we go with this one? So let’s just read the results and then we will go from there. Um, pretty amazing night, pretty amazing night. You know, I love three, the result and we’ll get to it here. Okay. So in the main event, Sean Strickland defeats Israel, Adesanya, Adesanya, whatever over the course of five rounds. He did it on all three judges scorecards, 49, 46. I had it 48-47 for Strickland, but I thought he was the winner. Ladies and gentlemen, you know, listen, a couple of things. I got to put cards on the table right away. You know, I’ve been a long time supporter of the career and the fighting ability of Izzy and that’s one and number two, I thought he was going to win. And, and then three, you know, when asked like, what could Strickland do to win? I didn’t really, I didn’t have a good answer. I, in fact, I couldn’t come up with one. I didn’t think that a guy with the style that he has, which we’ll get into in a minute, could win. And it’s like, dude, none of that. This was this was the best Sean Strickland I’d ever seen by far by far Okay, but I’ve got to say something about Sean Strickland Number one, this was the performance of his lifetime not in terms of like Overwhelming force although he did rock and drop is he and nearly closed the show in the first round But that’s not it to me, you know, like when Rhonda got beat up by Holly She got overwhelmed and she got finished and was this amazing thing like when when rock hold over committed Bissping caught him and it was this amazing thing although obviously Rockhold had already fought him before so there are some meaningful differences But I have to tell you man. This was you know, not that there was any like flukiness about the win over with Rhonda and Holly But I just want to make this point. This was 25 minutes went the full distance, right? The judges didn’t turn in any bullshit scoring cards like is a 4-1 card for Sean Strickland justified Yep, sure is. Very justified. Easy to see that one. You may have it slightly different or whatever but that’s not an unfair scorecard. Again, all three of them had it. So the judges didn’t mess it up. Okay, so we went the full distance. Judges didn’t mess it up. There was no, you know, crazy refing that either it was a bad stoppage or otherwise intervened and changed the course of everything. Nope. didn’t get any of that right so no 25 minutes not one single auto I haven’t looked at the fight metric data but from what I know not a single takedown attempt ladies and gentlemen whatever your preference is as a fan watching and we’ve all got them in one direction or the other the only thing I think I have my true north star in the fight game is just one thing it’s like the right guy should win on fight night the sport is too dangerous, a lot of these guys are underpaid, circumstances of getting a title fight or any kind of opportunity are hard to come by. You just want the right guy to win. Ladies and gentlemen, there can just be no debate about it. The right guy won. The right guy won, period. No question. did it with like maximum time on the scoreboard but the clock right didn’t didn’t get some like oh it was a short turnaround three round fight like you know no there’s nothing there was no fluky circumstance took the final relatively short notice anyway like this was by far to me the not just because he beat Izzy but more than that just actually what he showed was super impressive from Shawn Strickland and he earned this one fair and square. No two ways about it. You have to credit him. You have to give it up for him as a competitor and what he turned in tonight and I certainly have every intention of doing that. Dude he earned it. He earned it. That’s all you could ever ask is did the guy who really deserve to win and by the way remember you know Izzy wasn’t the hometown guy in the sense that he’s Kiwi and this was in Australia but you Could the judges have had some hometown cooking or be influenced by this and the other? Nope, none of that. The right guy won. You have to give him his credit. Whatever you think about him as a person and as a person, I get that a lot of the fans love him. He’s not for me. But as a fighter, what did he turn in tonight? He turned in a championship winning performance over the, at worst, the second best middle weight of all time and did it in that guy’s best domain. I mean you can’t say shit about that. You can’t say shit about that He earned that one completely and like I said dropping him in the first round I was I wasn’t sure that if I was gonna make it out of the first I Was I was watching that one like what what are we MMA? Dude, this is what I’m trying to tell you man. Like, you know certain things will shock me time to time You know, this was certainly a surprise. I wouldn’t call the shocking although So, sort of on that, maybe on that one, it’s close. Not quite shocking, but very surprising. Maybe slightly below shocking, but surprising. But like, dude, this is MMA. Crazy shit happens all the time. And for guys like Izzy, I tell you what this, I think this win symbolizes for me a little bit. The idea that Izzy has been like completely figured out, I don’t think is true. But I do think that Eric Nixik has had some trial an error at this and got this one right. Now, of course, Sean deserves 99.9% of the credit, but I’m saying those two have been together for a long time and really worked it out. Man, man, there’s a lot to say. All right, let me get a swig of this water here because that was crazy. What was different about Sean this time? What was different? A couple of things, one, one of the big takeaways for me from this fight was the cage cutting. If you watch the parede fight, he follows him, right, he follows him. So wherever parede is going, Sean’s just kind of circling and following him in whatever direction that is. That’s not the same as cage cutting, where I’m trying to keep your back pinned or close to, not pinned is a strong word, but keep you very close to the cage and you can’t kind get out in the exit, get back to the center, get back into the open. He was cage cutting this time. Man, that made a big difference. But the real thing was the pressure game. Izzy usually is able to command more distance between himself and his opponent as a way to, you know, with the feints, with shot selection, whatever. And so guys are much more hesitant to kind of walk into him. Sean wasn’t. And it was, I can’t claim that I saw this coming. I certainly did not. But like, having now reviewed the fight, I’m trying to see what he did differently. The cage cutting made a big difference because when you follow, it’s much easier to walk into stuff. When you cage cut, they have to be much more defensively aware of their footwork and where they are. And again, the end of the first round notwithstanding, Izzy had… I mean, he got hit more in this fight than he did in other ones, but I wouldn’t call what he had poor defense. I mean, there was a lot of movement but the point being was he could never get anything going right it’s sort of like how do you fight a kicker like edson barboza this is not quite the same but the point being is you kind of just pressure into him now cage cutting is a little bit different but you really kind of pressure into him so he can’t set and if you can’t set he can’t throw the way that he wants you got a lot of that as well so one the cage cutting really made izzy much more defensively um back footed like he just had to spend more time doing it, you know, changing directions, changing stances, throwing and then getting out. The other thing that was kind of amazing was Sean’s style of like throwing up, like he throws up like a crossing guard at times, not like this kind of crossing guard but more like an X, and then kind of catching and rolling away from it. Izzy really had no answer for it. There’s a lot of the kind of stuff that Izzy does where like he’ll from, even from from South Barbara Orthodox, he’ll throw like a left hand and then try and come over with the right and Sean read it all the time or was able to roll and get out of the way. But then not so far out of the way where Izzy was off the hook, he could then get right back on him and then pressure him. So he was able to connect with some of the leg kicks. I think the second round was maybe Izzy’s best round. The rhythm disruption leg kicks where he’s kind of adding up, he backs a guy up with something else and as soon as they move into him, he tags him with a leg kick. You saw a lot of that. But dude, I will tell you what, Izzy was throwing a lot of looping shots, man. A lot of looping shots. He wasn’t throwing stuff down the middle. You know who was throwing stuff down the middle? Sean Strickland. Sean Strickland was happy to throw stuff, linear shots, right down the middle, and dude, that was connecting. His jab was one of his best punches. Dude, the two best punches, this is true. Now, that right hand, okay, the right hand at the end of the first was good for Sean Strickland, but I’m talking over the full 25 minutes. What were the two best punches, the two type of punches that were the best for Shawn Strickland. His jab, let me move this, his jab and his left hook, right? And the left hook is able to land in part because Izzy wasn’t moving out of the way but also because there’s this linear punch coming around and now Izzy’s kind of confused about what look he’s getting from this shoulder about what Shawn’s doing. So dude, it’s like, it was incredible to watch that this guy was using much more of a basic style of striking, but patient, cornering this guy. Now he was giving away, earlier in the fight anyway, he was giving away longer stretches of the fight, which is why Nixik was kind of on him with that 90 second like let’s go, let’s do something with this. But at the same time, he was hurrying Izzy. Izzy couldn’t set, Izzy couldn’t get anything going. And I will tell you what, man, it looked to me like he just was out of ideas. He couldn’t find Sean. Sean also, how about this about Sean Strickland, dude? So Sean Strickland was the one landing the linear shots up the middle and then the left hook when Izzy wouldn’t move his head and all kinds of stuff like that at the end. But the other part too was how good was Sean at kind of rolling and catching and kind of blocking shots and then Izzy couldn’t really find him. That was the other part. It wasn’t like it was a back and forth battle where both guys were like landing heavy shots and it was this war of attrition. I mean, they were throwing a lot and a lot of it, by the way that Sean Threw didn’t land on Izzy either. But as the fight wore on, I thought he had, by the third round on, he had kind of taken it. Maybe you could say Izzy took the fourth, depending on your scorecard. Again, the judges didn’t see it that way. But the point I’m trying to make is, dude, his ability to roll, catch, not so much slip, but kind of just absorb out of the way, catching, blocking, moving out of the way, and Izzy had absolutely no answer for it whatsoever. And then he would throw the looping shots and you would see Sean kind of get out of the way and catch it and roll with it. Dude, he was just better. He was just matter-of-factly better. And you had Izzy going in as, what did they say on the broadcast, a minus 675 favorite? A minus 675 favorite? I mean, just bonkers, you know? So, I mean, he was better basically everywhere. everywhere I mean he didn’t wrestle so we didn’t get like the full sense of the game but you know whatever irrelevant on the feet is he has this kind of thing where he backs people up he hits him with the leg kick you know he gets them one thing that is he got that Sean just or usually gets that Sean just would not give him is is he gets guys to be deferential to him right oh I don’t want to get too close I don’t want to make a mistake blah blah blah I’m gonna stay out here and I might eat a leg kick or not kind of like what Joel Romero would do you know Rob Whitaker not so much because Rob comes charging in a little bit on that jab but yeah he gets him deferential. Sean was just not deferential and wouldn’t he would kind of bite on the feints a little bit but then Izzy was fainting more than he was throwing and so by the time he was throwing he was predictable and then Sean could see it coming block and get out of the way They’re looping shots. They’re not straight to the target dude. He He gave it to him. He beat him. I mean he beat him fair and Absolutely square make no mistake about it. Nothing not a damn thing fluky about it Izzy was out of ideas He was out of space and by the time the fight was over He was out of time and and honestly if that fight had I mean you see Sean at the end of the fight It was like going bananas because he knew he knew he had him beat and in between rounds standing not sitting Look at the look at the energy in the corner of of Izzy and Eugene bareman. It was kind of like Little bit more blah blah blah and in the corner of Nick sick and Sean it was like let’s go you could do this blah blah blah There was just this complete difference between them like I’m not gonna say maybe you believe it is it’s hard to ever ever know who wanted it more but Sean wanted it badly badly and dude he even admitted walking into the cage or I’m sorry he even said after the fight that you know all fight week and kind of walking to the ground he was kind of doubting himself look at the face-offs they weren’t he wouldn’t even make eye contact with Izzy barely barely and then kind of like deflecting with jokes he admitted he was a little bit shook you know but then that first round cracks him with a right hand and what was Izzy doing when he got hit with the right hand? Coming with a wide shot, right? Coming with a wide shot, trying to come around and Sean was just like nope bop bop, one two, hit him right down the middle, crushed him, crushed him, absolutely crushed him with it. I will say remarkable, you got to give him credit for where the credit is due, remarkable resilience by Izzy to stand up and then even tell Mark Goddard, you can back and hear it that he was fine and then you know to make it out of the round because Sean was unloading on him in that moment. I want to get some of these fight metric numbers up because man people are asking like you know where does that rank among upsets? That’s a huge fucking upset, huge fucking upset but like I said if you’re a Sean Strickland fan or you’re whoever there’s just no denying dude he I mean he’s like you know I mean he was he was better he was just matter of factly better all right let’s take a look at some of these numbers because this is to me what’s gonna tell the story here a little bit all right I mean dude listen look at this shit look at this I don’t know I can’t throw it to you listen to this scoring line this is crazy if I told you that that that one fighter was gonna have a knockdown in this fight before it was over. Would you have said it was gonna be only Shawn Strickland? Shawn Strickland credited with a knockdown. Izzy not. Izzy landed 94 significant strikes. Shawn Strickland 137. Dude let’s look at the other five round fights this guy has been in. Okay Izzy in five round fights Izzy in five round fights okay so he He landed 94 significant strikes after 25 minutes against Pereira, which did not go the full five. He was at 86, but of course Pereira was at 91. But for ones that went the distance, so Cannoneer went the distance, Izzy was at 116. Whitaker went the distance. Only 79. Whitaker was just at 59. Jesus, that was not a lot. Marvin Vittori, 96. But I’ve never seen numbers like this. I’ve never seen someone have 137 and Izzy at 94. Matter of factly, qualitatively outstruck, numerically outstruck. Okay, let’s look at some of the other numbers. Sean Strickland’s significant strikes of his total strike percentage, 52, for Izzy, just 34. Holy shit, holy shit. And then total strikes attempted, actually Izzy attempted more, 271 to Sean’s 259, but look at how totally inefficient he was. Let’s look at the targeting percentage. This one makes a lot more sense. This one’s not super surprising. Head strikes, and this is gonna be, I mean, this is gonna be a big reason why it won. Izzy, he targeted the head 23% of the time. Sean Strickland, 62, 62, more than double. Body was not too different, 40% for Izzy, 32 for Sean Strickland, and then 36 to the leg, 5%. Let’s talk about the leg kicks. The leg kicks are often, for Izzy, the difference maker. was the difference maker, for example, in the Yoel Romero fight. Even if you can’t quite get the hands going, usually the kicks do a lot. They land so they add up, so like whatever total offense is in the round. A lot of times he’s usually landing with impunity or very frequently, so they add up for a lot. And then they usually deter guys or they make them switch things up or whatever. Dude, they didn’t do shit to Shawn Strickland. They didn’t do shit. Did he ever slow down once with his cage cutting? Did he ever slow down with his cornering footwork? There were times he might have been backed up. You know, again, it’s a fist fight. Guys are gonna, you know, each side’s gonna give and take even if it’s semi, in this particular case, kind of one-sided. I mean, it was, every round was close, but kind of one-sided, except for the first round. First round could have been a 10-8 too, by the way. First round could have been a 10-8. Yeah, in fact, was it 49-46 on all three? Or was it 49-47? Let me go back to my, because then it was a 10-8, hold on, let me see here. 49-46, so no, there was no 10-8s, I apologize. Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is those leg kicks are huge for Izzy, huge. But here, against Sean, Sean kind of lifting, kind of walking but not walking too far, right? When you’re going against Pereira and you’re just pushing into him, pushing into him, pushing into him, he’s jabbing to the body, jabbing to the body, he’s leg kicking, turning and you’re following you’re just walking into shit he didn’t walk into shit this time he walked right up to it and then no further and then when Izzy’s doing all of his stuff and then coming wide he’s going right up the middle dude he just walked him down patient with range didn’t rush anything waited for the guy to throw you know typically there was a couple times he was you know he was biting and moving or whatever but not not not in not enough for the champ to or the former champ anyway to land and so then he comes around and pops him he just he just was just was on he just was on beat his ass i mean i mean it is what it is you can like these facts or you can hate these facts but they’re facts they’re facts i just just didn’t see it coming. Just didn’t see it coming. Can’t sit here and pretend that I did. Can’t sit here and pretend for two seconds that I thought over the course of five, I mean maybe for a round or two or something like that that I thought he could do it but not for five. Not for five rounds. He was basically better except for the second round. You know it was a good rally round for Izzy and then that’s about it. Let me take a look at those second round numbers. Yeah. Dude listen to these fourth, no Izzy didn’t win in the fourth, what am I even saying? Fourth round, listen to these numbers, 38 for Strickland, just 20 for Izzy, most of those being leg kicks anyway. Right, how many leg kicks did he land in the fourth? Yeah, he attempted six. Fifth round, 36 to 21. And then the first round, 27 to 12, bare minimum, bare minimum, the lowest score card you could come up with is 48-47. That’s the lowest for Sean Strickland. There is no case for Izzy. There is no, well, what about 48-47? What about that? No, it doesn’t exist. There’s no, there is, you cannot find three rounds for him. You can find one round and you could maybe squint and find two. That’s it. You cannot find three. And again, Again, you could also argue, it would be hard to argue a 10-8 round one but you get my point. The dominance was just basically all in one direction. Sean Strickland had the performance of a lifetime and I got a little bit of pushback. I think on, what was it, Friday show when I said that Eric Nixik is one of the greatest coaches in MMA history, I don’t know why that’s controversial to some people. You’re like, oh well it’s premature. Well let’s see what he did. He’s got two champions that have come through his tutelage. One guy Sean Strickland has been with for a long time, Francis, left MMA Factory, came to him and became a UFC champion as well. I seriously doubt this is the last champion that he ever has. And for folks who don’t realize, what happened before Nixxik got there, Extreme Couture was in dire straits. They had a big roar of popularity when Randy first established it and blah, blah, blah. But then the gym kind of fell on hard times, a lot of fighters left, they weren’t really known for having anybody big, and under, it’s not just Nixik, of course, but under his leadership and his time and effort, that gym has come fucking roaring, roaring back, roaring back. And is he, you know, to the point of what Strickland himself said, has beaten a few of his friends and, you know, was kind of in his head, but look at what they were able to turn in tonight. This is a team that they don’t win championships by accident. They don’t luck their way into belts. You know what I mean? They don’t get gifted this shit. It doesn’t just fall in their lap. They go out there and grind their way into getting it and they have a consistent level of excellence throughout it. Again, I know there’s other coaches and there’s lots of other guys there. It’s not just him and on some level anyone who works with them, they all deserve credit. like you know the number of coaches in MMA that ever even get to a UFC title fight you can count very few and however many has champions however many have multiple champions now I know there was a time when aka had three champions at once I mean that’s gonna be tough to beat but okay no one’s taking away Javier Mendez’s place you know if you can take a program that was like failing basically as a gym program turn it into one of the best gyms in the world and create two UFC champions and and several other highly ranked fighters some of Some of which are homegrown, some of which are recruited, but nevertheless a consistent level of excellence. Dude, you’re doing something that a handful of coaches in MMA history have ever done. Put some fucking respect on Eric Nixik’s name if that statement to you was in any way controversial because it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be. He’s a fantastic coach. Whatever my … I’m not part of the Sean Strickland fan club, but whatever my reservation’s there, I’ve always heaped praise on Eric Nixik. Dude, I know Eric Nixik well. I talk to him all the time, I’ve been able to pick his brain, you’re just dealing with a different level of operator there. You’re dealing with a very different level of operator there. What was the record tonight for CKB? Was it like two and four? Or three and three? I think it was like two and four for who won tonight. Let’s see, let’s go through this here very quickly. Kevin Giuseppe won, so that’s one. Shane Young lost, that’s one and one. Blood Diamond lost, one and two. Let’s see, Jack Jenkins lost, so that’d be one and three. Olberg won, so that’d be two and three. Or no, I don’t think Jack Jenkins is, but then Tyson Pedro, no, Tyson Pedro, is he? I think he is. So maybe they’re, yeah, so wait, so. Or is Kevin Giuseppe, is he with City Kidby? I know he’s like adopted Kiwi. No, yeah, he’s City Kickboxing, yeah. So maybe three and three, I’m not sure. Nevertheless, you know, tough night. Tough night at the office for them, especially with their biggest star losing there in that way. Everyone’s end comes and sometimes the only part I got right was the general disclaimer that in title fights, the guy I couldn’t think of, I did a live chat last week, I couldn’t remember his name. It was Tim Elliott. Now Tim Elliott did not beat Demetrius Johnson and it was a bit of a weight bully issue there. Nevertheless, you’re like, oh, what’s Tim Elliott going to do to Demetrius Johnson? Dude, he gave him a tough fight. He gave him a very tough fight. People always think that there’s this destined contender who’s going to rise up and wins, and sometimes that’s true, right? I remember when St. Pierre made his … fought Matt Hughes and lost the first time, but he had already beaten Caro, and I think he beat after that, or even around that time he beat Jay Huron and like Dave Strasser and all this shit and he’s rising. Yeah and then when he beat Frank Trigg you’re like oh Matt Hughes might be in trouble now. Like you could see that coming but a lot of times that’s not the way it goes. It’s the same kind of situation with Shevchenko. Dude there’s a lot of tape on Izzy at this point and a lot of his fainting game it hasn’t not that it hasn’t changed obviously it slightly alters over time but guys have picked up on a lot of the different stuff that he does to get you off to change angles the the shot selection that comes with it, the question mark kicks and all this stuff. The setups for this, a lot of it is much more readable than it once was. And Nyxtec having a couple of goes at this got much better at reading it. Sean Strickland, much better at prepping for it and practicing for it. And it worked. It worked. It worked beautifully. It all worked. So this idea, well, could Izzy get a rematch? We’ll talk about that in a second. Could he go to 205? One issue I think he’s facing is that the unpredictability of what his striking game used to represent has plummeted. It’s not what it once was. And you know, when guys go after him, like Pereira or Brunson or Gastelum, they’re more hittable. They’re way more, or Costa, like they’re more hittable. But when you’re reserved and you’re backing a guy up and you’re not throwing and you’re putting pressure on him and you’re making a move and he can’t settle and he can’t throw and then some of his reads and some of his options are much more diagnosable. Brand new ball game, brand new ball game. And Sean cleaning up the stuff that got him into trouble previously. Remember there’s like kind of two guys he can be. He can kind of be like the backwards guy and he’s not very offensively potent and he can be the come forward guy. He was able to be the come forward guy and more offensively potent but he threaded a needle by not making some of those previous mistakes of not cage cutting, of walking into range at times, right? Like bullying guys in that way. Couple more aspects about this. The Submission Radio boys asked me if there are any advantages that Sean had had, and one thing that they had said that Eugene Bearman had pointed out was like, you know, this guy fought recently. That Abus-Magomedov fight, and I did say this on the MK-293 pregame special, special. Dude, that was a tune-up fight. That was a tune-up fight. Spence Crawford, Tank Garcia. In both cases, the guys who won, respectively Spence and Tank, the one difference was many, but one of the big differences between them and their opponents was you had the Avadicean fight as a tune-up fight for Crawford, and then you had the Hector Garcia fight that he had here in DC before taking on Ryan Garcia. They got tune-up fights and they were much fresher and they were much more ready. Dude, look at what he got. Everyone was clowning that fight because they go, oh, should this be a UFC main event? No, it shouldn’t be a UFC main event, you know, and Sean fighting in the apex forever, like okay, all that stuff. But that’s not what we’re talking about in this context. What purpose did that fight serve for Sean? He was able to take a UFC fight, had to weather an early storm against that guy, got to walk him down, and it was a guy that was relative to Shawn’s skill level, very beatable. Dude, that’s a tune-up fight. He got a tune-up fight. I mean, that’s not what they called it. That’s not what it was designed to be. You don’t really get tune-up fights in the UFC by matchmaking design, but he got one. Look what good it did. It made this guy so much readier than maybe he would have otherwise been. Certainly, he looked very ready to me. So you know, people can laugh like, oh, what was the value of that win? That guy shouldn’t have been in the main event. Not that anyone was like clowning Sean for, but like, oh, the win didn’t mean anything. Bullshit. That win was super valuable. Super valuable. All the sparring that goes with it, then getting ready, getting to get a little bit of the test, but it’s very beatable, and you get to work it all out. Now, no, Mega Man Off doesn’t fight like Izzy, so you have to make some of those changes there, but staying fresh, staying ready, making the walk the whole nine yards and getting a relatively unbeatable guy, dude, you just don’t get opportunities like that. You don’t get opportunities like that. You really don’t. So pretty impressive. Pretty goddamn impressive. Now, the folks that asked me on my live chat, is there going to be a rematch? I don’t know. I will tell you candidly, even as someone like me who’s been an Izzy fan of his game for a long time, I don’t think he’s entitled to one. I don’t. He got beat fair and square. And you know, this is what, two losses in the last three fights? Like no, I don’t think he’s entitled to one. That of course does not mean he won’t get one. That in no way means that. absolutely might do that because you know Izzy versus Drikus is gonna be you know a lot bigger than Sean Strickland versus Drikus it just is you know I mean there I don’t think I have to tell you all that you know that win that Izzy had over Pareta the the the redemptive one I was like all that sentiment to a new atmosphere and you know the Drikus one was gonna be the one you thought was gonna like make all the sense it just wouldn’t be as big you know Sean Strickland so I have a feeling that they’re going to maybe run this one back I don’t know I don’t unless Izzy goes to 205 right away or something I don’t know I don’t know how that’s gonna go but the rematch or no rematch will be interesting here also it will be I think the UFC might I think there’s gonna be Sean Strickland fans who are very happy obviously but then there’s a question of should they have done the Drikus fight? Like if you were gonna have Izzy lose, did you wanna lose in like a bigger fight that you could have made this like all African storyline or whatever? Your mileage may vary on that one, but this is certainly one of the biggest upsets in UFC history. So no matter one’s other preference, it feels like the Drikus-Izzy fight, like you could still do it, but it probably went up in smoke. Because I suspect, even though I do not, I think if you lose two title fights in three goes, you’re not entitled to a rematch. That’s just my personal opinion, but I think they probably are gonna run this one back unless he’s going to 205, or unless he’s got other designs, but man, man, man, what a win for Sean Strickland tonight. God damn, took away the leg kicks, caught, rolled, blocked the vast majority of what he threw, Dropped him in the first, nearly finished him, and outstruck him in the final three. Fuckin’ A, fuckin’ A, dude. What are you gonna say? What are you gonna say? He did it, he did it. Absolutely, absolutely fairly, absolutely squarely, absolutely deserving to hoist the belt tonight. No doubt about it. How old is Sean Strickland? I think he’s older than Izzy, if I’m not mistaken, right? So he’s, no, he’s much younger. What am I saying? 32. Um, so yeah, man, he had losses last year to Jared Kenaneer. He got knocked out by Pereira and, you know, he’s got a stoppage loss. These are the losses that he’s got. He’s got a loss to Santiago Ponsonibio, um, Sean Strickland does. He’s got a loss to Kamaru Usman. I was there for that one, right? I think I was there for that. No, not for that one. Uh, Eliza Zalesky Dos Santos stopped him. Um, and then he beat Jack Hermanson via split, Pineda knocked him out and then Cannonier beat him. It’s like, you know, I guess Pineda has the win over Izzy, but then Izzy knocked him out. And the rest of those guys are all welterweights, you know, sometimes it’s the one you see coming and sometimes it isn’t, man. It’s just that MMA, these guys, you know, at 30, I, I think I misunderstood. I thought Sean was much older than that at 32. that’s when you’re sort of really becoming and moving into your own that way, you know, you’re really beginning to everything’s beginning to gel. And for a guy who spars a lot of rounds for a guy who, you know, tries to stay reasonably active. Everything worked for just about everything worked for him tonight. Let me look at his defensive performance. I want to see some of that for Sean Strickland. Oh man, yeah dude, Izzy couldn’t land shit on him man. Unbelievable. Shawn Strickland, 11 of 14 strikes in the clinch. Just 7 of 11 leg kicks, 34 for Izzy, 34 total leg kicks. But listen to this difference, 22 punches or strikes landed to the head. Most of those are gonna be punches for Izzy, 85 for Shawn Strickland. 85. 85. I just thought Izzy looked like he was out of ideas. All of the tricks he uses, all of the shoulder feints and hip feints and everything, most of those, not most of those, many of those he couldn’t really get going because he was under pressure to move. So that was part of it. And like I said man, he’s been around a long time. Look how many times I’ve broken down his game. Look how many times other people have broken down his game. You don’t think those guys over extreme couture haven’t done that? They’ve done that and there’s a lot of tape on him and that shit doesn’t work like it used to man and that is the nature of the fight game there’s nothing ignoble about that it happens for everyone if Sean ends up winning and defending this time you want it but I’m saying he ends up defending the title many times that day will come for him too and it will come for the one who replaces him and replaces him and replaces him and replaces him this is the inevitable cycle of the fight game the question is only when will it catch up to someone will it catch up to them at what year and what fight and blah blah blah that’s the only really part that you have a difficulty kind of deciphering you know but it happened here tonight in Australia. It happened to Izzy like he just he didn’t look to me like he wasn’t ready. He didn’t look to me like he wasn’t focused. Uh maybe he’s got some injury that we don’t know about or something. I don’t know. You know, I don’t know but um you gotta give Sean his flowers as a competitor. You don’t have to give him his flowers as a person if you don’t want to or you know whatever your choice. Uh I’m not making any commentary about that because I feel like it’d be a distraction I’m not making that but I’m just trying to say as a fighter as a fighter as a competitor you simply have to give him his flowers tonight you have to he has there can just be it’s not ambiguous there’s nothing like how do we feel about all of this like there’s no he did it he did it in dramatic and important and frankly historic fashion boy what is it about Australia forcing huge UFC upsets, Ronda and Holly, and now this one. Different kinds of upsets, but upsets dramatic, just the same. Australia, the land where the golden children go to die, right? If you are a UFC star and you want to defend your title in Australia, boy, you do so at your own peril. I think the the Rousey fight was in Melbourne. Maybe I don’t think it was Sydney. Was it in Sydney? It might have been Sydney No, I need to look hold on. Let’s see Just to double check i’m sure you guys know that off the top of your head very quickly And then we’ll move on to some other details here Uh, yeah that lost to holly home ufc 193 was in the etihad stadium in Melbourne, yeah melbourne Doesn’t matter where you are in australia It’s where the golden children get, they get slaughtered. They get slaughtered there. Pretty remarkable. People have asked, is it the biggest upset in UFC history? By the odds, it would not be, certainly. That one would be bigger, this other one. There’s been some other ones that I think that might be bigger as well. But this is, I mean, to go into a fight where you’re a plus 400 underdog, your competitor is nearly minus 700, you traveled all the way across the earth on short notice against a guy your own coach had failed against any previous time that one of his fighters had gone up against him and uh you even admitted that you were doubting yourself and your chances about this um to then go and then outperform that guy uh and against all those circumstances without shooting a single takedown we went over this 25 minutes blah blah blah that’s That’s just one of the most impressive exchanging of the titles that I’ve ever seen. Not in terms of like, oh my God, he went in there and just beat the shit out of him and like showed how superior he was and it was this passing of the torch. But given all of that uphill climbing he had to do, including right here, including right here in his head, for the people who will listen to this on the audio podcast platform later through all of that and he still was better in four or five rounds you just if you watch MMA long enough dude you see so much competitive injustice right people not getting opportunities or they get opportunities and someone else fucks them or you know whatever the how many time how much fuckery is there the fight game where just things are just they don’t go someone’s way and they’re not destined for greatness and they’re never this that and the other you know um and then to competitively you know win all of this uh the way that he did up against it even though yes I know that the the Aussies had kind of treated him like the hometown favorite I understand that so that what the wind was at his back in certain ways but for all the other parts of this all the competitive task that he and his team had was extraordinary and they passed it a plus or at the worst a minus you know. He earned it. Sean Strickland is your UFC middleweight champion and one of the most historic upsets in UFC history and there’s not a damn thing fluky about it and that’s just the the reality. Pretty amazing. Now I’ve asked for questions on Twitter, so we’ll get to those here in just a minute. Let me do this very quickly. Alright, so then let’s switch here just a second. Let’s do, if we can, not that one, sorry boys and girls, let’s do this one. Quickly let’s talk about the co-main because I want to get to your questions, but Let’s get to these results here, if we can, at UFC 293. Your co-main event, Alexander Volkov defeating Taito Iwasa, he does so at 437 of round two via Ezekiel choke. All right, so here is the difference, as far as I could tell. Volkov’s, again, linear punches. Volkov’s jab was dynamite. his flurrying as the round war arm was even better. His lead leg is so crafty, where he’s able to like inside cut kick, then go high inside, outside leg kick, go to the body. Like he’s just, you know, constant disruption, constant landing, keeping you at range, keeping you defensively transferring, like all kinds of stuff. Very, very gifted with that. And he was, I knew he was gonna be technically superior to Ty, but the question was could Ty keep up long enough to have superior speed and power and explosivity to maybe close that gap a little bit, and the answer was pretty clearly no. Now, I was pretty impressed with Ty’s leg kicks. Those were damaging, and you could see that Volkov was wearing it for a little while, but I will tell you that the big thing to me is look how much Tuivasa got his timing split. Right, so you’re moving on a, you guys know I do this all the time, you’re moving like this, right? You’re constantly doing this, and then someone catches you in between. So you would see Tuivasa try and set this up and then come leaping in and then bop. You know, you’d see Volkov just hit him. Hit him with a shot coming in and it would stop it or impact it or just nullify it or whatever. And then sometimes it would drop him. In fact, I think the final time he did get dropped was from that. It’s because he was predictable, he could be red. And Volkov just was like, waiting, waiting, waiting, go. Right? So to me, it was like the devil was in the details on the setups. The distance closing of Tuivasa was way too readable. And then even with it, he just wasn’t employing defense. If you’re gonna leg kick, you gotta like really get off and like get your head off the center line. He wasn’t really doing a lot of that, you know? So he was kinda eating punishment even when he was delivering. He was, I mean, don’t get me wrong, Tuivasa was delivering with those leg kicks some good punishment, especially at the early parts of round two. Like you could tell Volkov was hurting a little bit. He was kind of trying to shake it out and ollie shuffle a little bit. So there was those moments. But the technical details of distance closing, of finding that range, which is not easy against a 6’7 guy with a long reach, I’m not making it to be like some simple task, but what we were looking for out of this fight, what we were looking for was an opportunity to see if Tuivasa could progress. Now the good news was, I did think that this was much more like the gone fight for him than it was the Pavlovich fight. Now the Pavlovich fight didn’t last very long, obviously, but you could see Ty had a game plan. He was trying to stick to it. He was trying to maintain composure. He was trying to do what they had set up to do. The issue is, as aforementioned, he’s just technically overmatched by a guy like Volkov. Volkov has slow feet. He doesn’t move a lot and move very quickly, but he’s very technical. He has good reads. He has good timing, timing beat speed, and and it was too much for Tuivasa. Nearly got finished at the end of the first and he got dropped at the second and Volkov got on first, did a very good job to maintain mount. There was a couple times where you saw Tuivasa kind of rolling side to side and nearly got out on his left hip and then Volkov kind of slid his knee over. I mean, you know, for a dude that big to be on top of you, it’s gotta be a fucking nightmare to get them off of you. It can be the case, depending on who they are, that if they have long legs, that if they go wide, they can leave space between the thigh and the floor. But he had a nice sort of like constrained knee forward mount, which kept him, and he could grapevine the legs. And because he’s so big, he can grapevine and then still get some distance down. Typically, if you’re gonna grapevine someone, you’re gonna attach your hips to them and flatten them. It kind of flattens your ability to, you know, create distance to pop. But he’s so big, he was kind of actually able to do it a little bit, which was very impressive. So people were like, oh, well, Volkov can’t wrestle. Well, he might have defensive wrestling issues, that could be true, but his offensive grappling against Taito Iwasa, once he moves into a dominant position, it’s gonna be very tough to get a guy like that out and off of you. So I thought that Taito did, you know, not, I don’t really fault him too much, but again, technically overmatched. And then he finished him with the Ezekiel Choke. The Ezekiel Choke is much easier to do in the gi. I should have had a long-sleeved shirt. But the basic idea, let me see myself here so I can do this a little bit more correctly. The basic idea would be as follows. You go like this. So if this is the person’s neck, the stem of this microphone holder, you come around the back of it, and then with a gi you would grab the inside of your sleeve and then you roll this over the top. and then you kind of like exit out a little bit, right? And so that’s the way you do it. With Nogi, they end up making like a fist into one side, and then they kind of catch the top of the arm on the other, like kind of like this. That’s sort of the way they do it, but it takes practice. Now, shouts to Joe Gilpin over at Flow Grappling, he had pointed out, if you actually look at it, partly it was the Ezekiel choke, partly he was kind of covering Tuivasa’s mouth, It was almost like a suffocation mixed with a choke scenario, which is, you know, devastating, fucking devastating, hard to deal with. It’s just if you’ve got a big, strong guy like that on top of you and you’re that technically outmatched, like, dude, once someone gets to mount, it’s like, DC’s like, you got to push on the hips and stuff, dude, that guy’s, you know, what did he weigh in at? Probably close to 265. He’s got good balance. He’s got a heavy base. Yes, of course. You can put your hands on their hips and everyone knows the basic shrimp escapes to get it back. You’re going to just get fucking pounded doing that. You could see one thing that Tuivasa was trying to do was step over with his outside leg to collect the ankle of Volkov, then bring that in and then come out the other side. He was trying that, but he couldn’t even get that going. That’s when Volkov would grapevine and kind of hold him there. So Volkov’s jab was on point, lead-like attacks were on point, timing was great, ground to pound was good, top control was good, maintaining mount was good. Tai-Chu Iwasa was simply technically overwhelmed. He was technically overwhelmed and of course that led to him being physically overwhelmed. I still think that at 28 or however old I think Tai is right around, I think he’s right around that. just to be very sure. 30, I’m not so young anymore. Still, 30 at heavyweight is young. I still think that there’s a lot of room for improvement but they have to dial back the level of competition, right? They need to dial that back. It’s pretty clear it’s time to, okay, he’s got some ability, he’s got some ability but we can’t be giving him this guy top five guys right now. He’s not really ready for top five guys. So let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water and declare that the Taito Iwasa experiment has failed far from it but the Taito Iwasa fighting top five guys and even like top seven where I’m not sure where Volkov is ranked but he needs someone I would say outside the top 10 that’s really who he needs you’re like oh that’s kind of a waste of time I don’t think it is first would be a get right win which he kind of needs at this point and then on top of it it would be um work another opportunity to work out his game, develop it. So that’s pretty important. As for Volkov, I’m not really sure what it does. Let me pull up the rankings, which I do not contribute to. The heavyweight rankings have, let’s see, they’ve got Volkov at 7. Yeah, he should be fighting, Ty should be fighting the marching tiburas and rosentrucks, or strucks of the world. Not the Aspinal and You know, but you’ve got Volkov sitting at seven Ty was sitting at six. I don’t think that’s fair anymore I’m not sure which direction they’re gonna go But five is Curtis blades for his Aspen all and then I’ll see it’s it’s me Oh chitcha Pavlovich and gone from there I don’t really know what this will do for him because you’ve got Gone and Pavlovich and Aspen all kind of waiting in the wings to see what happens Could they run another one back with Curtis blades? He’s got the gelatin. I’ll made a fight coming up I guess the winner of that. Maybe you could do if Almeda wins you could do Almeda versus Volkov I don’t know. It’s a little hard to say but it’s a good win for him. It’s a solid win I think it puts him probably not inside the top five But just outside of it and he has 47 fights in dude. He’s still getting better Remarkable that’s that’s not easy to do a lot of guys kind of get stuck in their ways and they sort of live by the Sword die by the sword mentality. He’s had a much better one the whole way through, you know Okay Manel cop defeats Felipe dos Santos three rounds 15 minutes the scores were Let me see here the scores were For fuck’s sake do I have them here Pulled them up. I think it was 29 28. I mean there was maybe one 30 27 something like that I’ll get them here in just a second. I I apologize the service I’m using didn’t have the scorecards listed Okay. Yeah, so he wins this one at UFC 293 3027 that’s right. And then 229 28 said dude Felipe dos Santos kept taking this fight Basically on short notice after Kai car France fell out. I thought he performed super ably He he could not deal with some of the counter striking. He could not deal with the speed He could not deal again with the linear punches another nyxic trained fighter and Manel cop He could not really deal with that very well, but his mental composure was a phenomenal He was landing in those sometimes those back-and-forth exchanges. He was landing great work. He rattled cop in the second round He bloodied him. I think he swore up one of his eyes. He Performed for given the circumstances very ably very ably. Manel Kopp showing you what makes him special as a fighter. Hand speed, angles, combination punching, accuracy, fantastic. His timing was good. The chin on Dos Santos, I mean he was getting lit up by Kopp. Kopp dropping him in the first round. He’s knocked down at Flyway. He’s knocked down his last four opponents. I was shocked that one went to a decision. I couldn’t believe that that one had gone all the way to a decision. I thought for sure he was going get stopped but no and he even took a round in the process as well doesn’t really change the flyweight landscape it’s a big even through a loss it’s a big boost for dos Santos for cop I think that the rivalry now between him and kikara France has reached a fever pitch like people really want to see it cop the night that Sean Strickland wins of course he and who was the other gentleman who did this uh Charlie Radke uh the fight being over and then dropping the old uh anti gay slur the old uh six letter f word i’m not gonna go on about it because i know this community thinks that you know that that’s 1993 and that’s totally cool uh you know it’s like only the most unenlightened people think that that’s okay but all right neither here nor there uh so i you know not not a great look in that sense but great look as a fighter He looked tremendous as a talent. And I don’t see any other way that they go to any other place other than Cop versus Kikar France, which by the way, like that rivalry building up and Kikar France was in attendance tonight and they were still like, F you, F you. And Kikar France doing a thing like, you know. Like it was, I mean, they’ve done a good, even Kikar France not even like having a microphone, just being in attendance with everything and then Cop like going crazy about it. They’ve done a good job building up that fight. Like, they’ve done a good job building up that fight. I can’t wait to see that one. So, tremendous flyweight action, tremendous flyweight contest, marred by the very stupid post-fight comments, but other than that, a lot of good work. Justin Taffa, fucking demolishing, in the words of Laura Senko, bodying Austin Lane at 122 of round number one. I mean, holy fuck, dude. Dropped him with a, I think he hit him with the right hand. Again, splitting his timing, moving himself to center line, then catching him, but then coming a little bit low, hitting him up high, dropping him, and then hitting him with vicious, almost looked like it was personal ground and pound thereafter. Taffa getting poked in the eye one more time, luckily it didn’t have much of an impact this time, but I’m like, fuck dude, are you shitting me? Another eye poke, really, word? But okay, he wins, amazing, amazing performance by Ham. Some of the best tattoos I’ve seen in the UFC were some of these Simone guys, right? So that’s a great job he did. And then Tyson Pedro sent the Pleasure Man packing, defeating Anton Tercali via KO at 2-12 of round number one. I think it was his right hand that couldn’t miss a series of right hands, and then finally he went left hand, a right hook, so a left straight right hook, and that dropped him, and then he hit him with one of these fucking coffin nail hammer fists that closed the show. Dramatic, dramatic finish. Phenomenal win for Tyson Pedro, phenomenal win. So, there was your main card. Quickly, about Laura Senko. I’ve been saying she’s the best color commentator that they’ve got, and I don’t know how you could disagree listening tonight. I mean, everyone’s gonna have their, I like this person, I like that person, fine. But just as an example, during the fight, she was talking about how Shawn Strickland kind of uses, so Shawn Strickland’s right-handed. So he’ll keep this hand up here and he’ll kind of put, let me see so I can see myself. He’ll keep this hand up, and I should have changed the lower third, god damn it. Hold on. She’ll put her, excuse me, Shawn Strickland will put his hand up here and then he’ll kind of have this hand here a little bit. And what she was talking about was he’ll kind of shoulder roll a little bit, kind of filly shell it. But if you’re filly shell, in the words of Laura Senko, you’re typically bladed, right? So you’re presenting, what’s the difference between being square and being bladed? If you’re bladed, it’s a much smaller target. So when Floyd uses this guard right here, you know, you’re catching stuff off the shoulder, right behind the shoulder, right? And you’re presenting a much smaller target. What makes Sean a little bit weird is he kind of rolls with it, Yeah, like this. He kind of rolls with it, but he’s almost much more square. Guys, guys, you can say whatever you want. Oh, that’s not that big of a deal. She’s the only one who’s gonna point something like that out, a trenchant, helpful observation to the audience like that. You know, Joe Rogan’s a legend. I think we all know that. He doesn’t deliver analysis like that. I’m sorry, he just doesn’t. He doesn’t. It’s not an insult. He brings other things to the broadcast. Many people like him for any other reasons. This is not an argument about whether or not you should like Joe Rogan as a commentator or not, right? That’s not my argument. My argument is the level of detail and precision and thoughtfulness that Senko puts into the broadcast is in my judgment a level above all the rest of them. All the rest of them. And again, I know that there are just some absolute mouth breathing cavemen who are like, no she ain’t that good you’re in denial you’re in denial she is that good she’s probably gonna be here for a long time doing this so you might as well just get comfortable with it she’s better than the other men on that panel and in certain cases by a considerable distance so I thought her debut went swimmingly to be quite honest with you yeah all right let’s see here let’s take some of your questions god damn all right let’s take some of the let’s take some of those questions finally all right here we go how is the UFC PR machine going to correct for Shaw Strickland’s new age masculinity I don’t know I don’t know I they’ve got their hands full and yeah Yeah, you know, this is the world they’ve created, like, you know, they don’t want to do anything. I mean, they’re independent contractors, so there’s a debate about whether they can meaningfully, you know, in the workplace, direct forms of speech, but they choose not to. So welcome to the world you’ve created. Can you remember a time when you’ve seen the basics use this effectively? Shit dude, that’s a great question. Not like this. To travel this far, be the guy that good, win a world title? No, not like this. What’s next for Izzy? Probably time off. Again, I think he’s probably going to get a rematch. I don’t think he deserves one, candidly. I don’t say that as a hater. I’m just saying you lose two title fights out of three. No, it’s time to not get one, but he probably will. This person writes, Izzy’s behavior was so weird, didn’t take a step forward for five rounds, raised Sean’s hand and said how great he was, ran out of the cage to dap people in the crowd up and left. Something feels off. Maybe? First title defense for Strickland, probably going to be Izzy. Okay, I mean just another idiot here. What kind of PR push do you anticipate the UFC putting behind Strickland? He writes, there’s definitely a market that they should try to exploit but it’s going to be tricky. could put him on Kimmel or Fallon. There’s a whole independent podcast circuit that he can and probably will do probably along political lines but not necessarily just that that I suspect will boost his profile. Not so much the Colby Covington route per se but something like that. This person’s asking how do you think Laura did tonight? I thought she did like she did miss a beat, did miss a beat. With that win did Sean Strickland just have one of the biggest babyface turns in in MMA history he was already having one during the week right it wasn’t even just the win like even if he had lost tonight I thought he had had one so the win only sends that one into overdrive does this feel like turnover for the division with both Izzy and Rob losing dominantly it gives the fee it gives the feeling things are moving in new direction yep their time is you can tell kind of passing them by the lack of body punching was horrific game planning and a really bad sign for Izzy’s ability to make reads he was doing a little bit of But yeah, in the last 15 months, we’ve seen two fighters beat Shawn through the body jabs So for him and his team to not pick it up as bad. He was doing some of it He just couldn’t quite get it going Also, this Shawn was different the body jab that parede had to use was a guy who was marching into him constantly Even as he circled away that guy would circle so it’s much more direct like stumbling into shit This was a much more strategic pressure Has Izzy’s extensive fight history cut up with him? Yes. Do you think Shawn’s first? Will you be doing a breakdown of what Sean did to disarm Izzy? 100%. 100%. For as important as the overhand right is in MMA, why doesn’t Izzy ever try to throw it? He did. He couldn’t find it. He didn’t throw it a lot, but even then he couldn’t get it going. Shocking upset of all time? No. Could it be that we simply didn’t see how favorable stylistic magic this could have been and was for Strickland? Well, we definitely, I certainly missed a shit ton, I can say that. A stand up fighter, Izzy, I’m more than willing to be backed up and not much explosive punching power to discourage her from playing this game. Yeah, it’s more than that though. This was the right pressure game. As I mentioned, taking the leg kicks away, like kind of walking in and lifting, not letting Izzy settle, making his offense limited and therefore by being limited more readable and more hasty and kind of like forced. just he just he took off you know he put him on a shot clock is really what he did he put Izzy on a shot clock and a fast one too not 35 seconds or whatever or 30 seconds but whatever the fucking shot clock is these days but he had him on an MMA shot clock and he it hurried up the game and he had a hard time with it let’s see Izzy’s demeanor in that occasion skipping on the press he skipped the presser oh that’s interesting do you think there’s something going on with that spurred this dead of a fight from him. Maybe. Again, I haven’t talked to him since the first MMA parede fight, so I don’t know. For a team who is so good at game planning, luckily they had nothing for Strickland. Yeah, they had nothing for him. That’s very true. What do you make of both corners during the fight? Nick’s corner is very understandable. the Behrman Corner and the Izzy Corner, I’d have to go back and listen more closely. I’d be kind of making up that I heard it very clearly. I really didn’t. But clearly not enough. Who do you think of Strickland’s MMA version of the Philly Shell working on one of the scariest… What do you think? Shocking. Is it a testament to the Philly Shell or boxing? necessarily. It’s the right guy using it, it’s the right thing, you know. Where does this put Eric Nixic among all active coaches in the game today? If not at the top, right near it. Do you feel like there’s value in the corner’s honesty early in the match? Seems like a lot of perspective was left out in Izzy’s corner that Sean’s corner didn’t hold back. Yes, but also like closely dissecting a corner like that when you don’t know their interpersonal relationship in that way it can be you can get in front of your skis in that one over out in front of your skis do you how do you think this impacts Izzy in the middleweight goat conversation he is guys you you know how much I like Izzy’s game you know he can’t he doesn’t it’s still Anderson Silva it’s still Anderson Silva is Sean Strickland the best boxer ever made no didn’t you say that Sean couldn’t win tonight couldn’t win no highly unlikely that it wouldn’t win, yes. Anybody can win. Let’s see. Did Sean just break the Izzy code, didn’t bite on a single faint Harley? He did bite, but he didn’t bite. He bit at a safe distance and it really felt like without those Izzy was neutered. Yes. Yes. It seems like his strike, but it’s not just that. It’s that you got to pressure him so that everything becomes more readable, becomes hastier, becomes less set up, becomes less confident, less powerful, all that stuff. It’s all working together there. Is he still in the Goat Conversation? No. I mean, dude, he’s still second best. I mean, he’s second best with a bullet, you know? Like, the distance between Izzy and the other middleweights vying for number two is pretty far. But, you know, do I put him in the, like, above what Anderson Silva did? I watched Anderson Silva’s reign. No, it’s not the same. Is the six-letter F word back? It is on UFC broadcasts apparently. At 34, are we witnessing Izzy on the decline? Maybe. Maybe. Not so much physically, not so much physically, but maybe the competitive advantage that he enjoyed early in his UFC run, the difference is clear now that the rest of the, and I guess I guess it has been for some time. You know, Cannonier got kind of close and other guys got kind of close. The competitive distance between himself and his peers, that distance has collapsed dramatically. Why didn’t Izzy push more in the final round? I don’t know. Was Izzy overconfident coming in? Probably a little bit, a little bit. Not much. I still think he had focus. But he was like, you know, I’m going to go kill your king and stuff like that on social media. But I mean, like, you know, a fighter being confident that they’re going to win is like, they’re kind of supposed to be like psychotically confident, but okay. Does this put the whole MMA science in question means analysis still have a lot to discover? Yes, of course. But also, analysts are always working with incomplete information, you know. We are working with what they have showed, not what they can show the next time. And as a result, there’s going to be a gap between that, you know. And this was a big one. Is that the best defensive performance you can remember? That’s a pretty god damn good one. It’s a pretty god damn good one. Will 2023 be known as the year of the Shawns? Hey man, the Shawns and MMA are having a great year. Wow. Is this bigger than Sarah beating GSP? I don’t think by odds it is. I don’t think it is. Let’s see. Do you think Sean won every round but the second? Probably. Probably. Would you say that Izzy’s striking has not evolved enough at this level or is it just a competition catching up? Definitely competition catching up. Definitely. 100%. 100%. Someone wrote, obligatory question, did Strickland win or did Izzy lose? as Izzy’s number one media cheerleader, Sean Strickland won. Sean Strickland won. Sean Strickland won. Izzy didn’t lose in the way you’re framing it. Sean Strickland won. You have to acknowledge it. You have to. You have to. You cannot take that away from him. He fucking earned that thing fair and square. No two ways about it. No two ways about it. Okay, most of these are the same kind of questions. Does Johnny Eblen have a serious claim to be the best middleweight in the world? Yes. not going to want to say that because he fights for Bellator but yes yes he does did Drake lose two oh Drake Drake put it on him 220 000 all right here we go do I think is he properly prepared yes All right. That’s it. Hey, I’m gonna do extra credit here in just a minute. So that’s that. Was it a weird performance from Izzy in the sense that all week there was like a weird media environment and everything? I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of him leaving. I don’t know what to make of any of that stuff. I guess we’re gonna have to wait and see what the information will be. But tonight belongs to Sean Strickland. No doubt about it. Tonight belongs to Shawn Strickland, belongs to a lesser degree, but also to Eric Nixic and Extreme Couture and guys who flew all the way to fucking Australia and got the goddamn job done in the most, if not the most, one of the most improbable circumstances that any of us have ever seen. But the night belongs to Shawn Strickland and there are simply no two ways about it. So I want to thank you folks for watching here tonight. I really appreciate it. Thumbs up on the video, hit subscribe and uh boy we got a lot to talk about on monday’s morning combat do we not so join us on monday monday monday monday live at 11 a.m me and bc shawn strickland wins a fucking one-sided affair basically over izzy and is the new ufc middleweight champion welcome to the shawn strickland era didn’t think i’d be saying that tonight but you you got to call balls and strikes and that was that was the that was the pitching performance of a lifetime congratulations to him I’m out of here y’all peace thank you so much for watching